Cade got to start gymnastics!

After watching his sister for the past year and a half Cade knew exactly what to do when we finally let him join the gymnastics class with Aleah!  He loved it.  We forgot our camera so we used Brad's phone.  Sorry that the pictures are blurry, he doesn't hold still for a second!

Aleah still likes to hold my hand when she walks on the beam, even though she can do it by herself.  Cade made me let go right after this picture was taken so that he could do it by himself.

I love this picture.  I was trying to help him up the ladder and he was having none of it!  He was determined to do everything by himself.

Aleah loved having her brother in class with her.

I love the look on his face, it really shows how much fun he was having!

Boating, finally!

It is finally warm enough to go boating!  Our first boating trip of the season ended up being pretty eventful.  We planned on meeting my parents at Utah Lake around 9 am.  That did not happen!  Of course we were late getting out of the house with our two amazingly cute kids.  Meanwhile my parents were struggling to get the boat going.  You know how it goes, the battery is dead, the freeze plugs won't go in...

So once we got out on the lake we thought we were doing good!  We got out of the harbor and Brad gunned it and we barley moved.  Hummm, what's going on?  So my Dad took over, revved it a bit and then gunned it and off we went.  My mom said, "Maybe we just needed to get the winterizing gunk out."  As we were zooming along I noticed that there was water spraying out of one of the sides of the back of the boat.  So I asked, "Did we leave the ladder down or something?  Why is there water spraying out of that side of the boat?"  Brad said, "No, the ladder is not down."  And we continued on.

We found a good place to start wakeboarding so my Dad stopped the boat.  Then we knew that something was really wrong and we didn't just need to get the winterizing gunk out!  There was smoke and steam coming out of the back of the boat.  It was so bad we were all coughing.  I grabbed the kids and ran to the bow.  When my Dad opened the cover to the engine more smoke came out.  Yeah, we are very lucky that the boat didn't burn down!  Most of our lifejackets were in the back by the engine.  So we would have been holding on to Cade and Aleah, the only ones wearing their lifejackets, until someone came to save us!

My Dad forgot to hook a hose on that brings water to cool the engine.  It was very eventful and we are thankful that he stopped when he did and that it wasn't worse than it was.  We are also thankful that Brad and my Dad are handymen and know how to fix things!  After we got that adventure taken care of we did some good wakeboarding and the kids had fun swimming.

Aleah and Cade loved blowing bubbles in the water and splashing!

On the ride back to the harbor we wanted Cade to stay awake so that he could take his nap in the car or hopefully make it home.  We gave him his first red vine.  He loved it, but as you can see it wasn't really keeping him awake.

I had to resort to tickling him to keep him awake.  He was a sticky mess, but he stayed awake until we got home and took a good nap :)

Fun with family for the 4th!

I love our tradition to go to the cabin for the 4th of July!  Get out of the heat, sit around the fire, visit with wonderful family... it really is the best!  Brad only worked a half day on Friday so that we could drive down to the cabin during the kids' naps.  Ummm naps, yeah right!  If I am driving home around nap time Cade will almost always fall asleep.  I can tickle him and he laughs with his eyes closed!  An hour into the trip and they are both still awake.  Cade finally dosed off a bit latter.  Cade had been asleep for about 5 minutes when Aleah started screaming that she wanted to lay down.  After getting her to calm down Cade was still awake.  Aleah slept for about 30 minutes and then Cade started crying.  My plan really didn't work, but for the most part they did really well on the drive down.  We got to the cabin and had dinner and got the kids in bed and then some of our family got there.

Saturday and Sunday we did a lot of relaxing, some hiking and exploring, playing, eating, and visiting.  When we are at home Cade loves to sweep.  If he notices that there are crumbs on the floor after a meal he will go to the closet and get out the broom.  If I start sweeping, he will always get a broom and help me.  At the cabin his favorite thing to do was push the vacuum.  He always had the vacuum with him.  He would even bring it out on the deck when we all went outside.  I started thinking that it would be nice if it worked.  I might have to buy one of those push vacuums and see if he likes it.

Cade's best friend was Bullet.  Cade is such a dog lover!  The first thing he would do in the morning was find Bullet and get some kisses.  He would hug Bullet and kiss him all the time.  When we went to the Arts Fair we had to stop and pet, hug, and love every dog there.  There were a lot of dogs there!

 One of the favorite activities at the cabin is to build cool paper airplanes or helicopters and watch them fly.  Cade liked throwing the paper helicopter.  Aleah had fun throwing an airplane over the railing with her cousins.

Here we are in our 4th of July attire.  I think next year I need to add more red in the mix!

 Monday morning we went down to Parowan for the parade and the party in the park.  I really don't know what it is but it is fun so we will just call it a party!  Aleah's cousin painted her face for her.  She thought that it was so much fun to have three stars on her cheek.

 The high school dancers preformed right in front of us. As soon as the music started Cade ran out into the road and started dancing and jumping! He danced until he couldn't hear the music any more, the dancers were long gone. It was the cutest thing ever!

Aleah had fun getting the candy that they would throw and she waved to everyone.

I love this girl!!!

I love this boy!!!

At the party in the park Aleah and Cade got to run in a race.  Cade wanted to go over to the other side with Brad.  When they said GO! Cade started running toward me as all the other kids started running toward him.  When they met in the middle he turned around and ran to Brad with Aleah.  They really enjoyed the popsicles they won!

We had lunch and then we headed home.  The kids did really good on the way home.  We must have worn them out because they slept almost the entire drive!  As soon as we got home I started making dinner.  Brad's brother and his family and Brad's sister and her family came over.  We had a super yummy dinner, I can't wait to have leftovers tomorrow, we visited and the kids played, then we put Aleah and Cade to bed, had some delicious homemade ice cream with lots of fun mix-ins, and then watched all the fireworks that we could see from our deck, plus the Lehi City and Thanksgiving Point fireworks.  Wow, there were a lot of fireworks!  It was fun.