Knit Cables

 One of my goals this year was to learn how to knit cables. I was really intimidated about making cables, I think it is because of the whole extra needle situation. I had been telling myself for years that I need to go to a cabling class. For some reason, the extra step of going to a class meant that I never scheduled it and thus it never happened. But awhile ago I was at the fabric store and saw a video about teaching 5 different stitches. I watched it and it was actually so easy to figure out! I decided the easiest thing, as always, to make up quick were some baby hats. Good thing I know so many people having babies! So here they are, my cable knit baby hats!

Outdoor Movie Night

We have the coolest friends. They plan lots of fun things and then invite us! My awesome friend Lindsey hosted everyone for this delightful outdoor movie night. They have this amazing yard and she had made all these great movie treats...like Pinterest great. She is so cute and talented. 

Here is the whole gang hanging out waiting for it to get dark.

All the kids had a great time running around and playing. At one point they all piled into this swimming pool and were pretending it was a space ship. 

Olive liked the fancy drinks and the chocolate popcorn.

Of course we had to get a picture with our cousins!

Then it was movie time! We watched Finding Nemo and Olive loved laying on the blanket with her pillows and friends. 

It was so fun and charming. I took some pictures when it was darker but all you really see is the movie and pitch black. It was so much fun! We had a blast!

Days of 47 Children's Parade

A week ago we had the opportunity to have Olive be in the Days of 47 Children parade. I was in it once when I was little. Our stake decided not to make a float and instead bring our Stake President's motorized train. Our theme was we "Choo choo choose the right." It was pretty cute. 

Here is Olive and her friend McCoy in front of our train.

  

Because Olive is Olive, she is excited about most things. Since we had just watched the 4th of July parade, she was pretty excited about being in this parade. We got there early and got our train conductor bandanna and hat.

  

Then we had lots of time to hang out. Thankfully, our cousins live in our stake and so we got to play with them. Don't they all look so cute?

 

And also thanks to our cousins, Olive has lots of friends in our stake so we got to play with them too. This is Olive and her friend Bo and they are darling little friends.

 

Then we got bored from all the waiting and playing so we decided to draw pictures with yet more friends. 

 

Then, because we are 4, we eventually got bored of that too and decided to go walk around and look at all the floats. I am really glad we did. We were the second to last group and we wouldn't have been able to see any of the floats in the parade unless we walked around to them. There were some very impressive ones with tons of details. I also thought that a lot of them did a fabulous job at interpreting the theme. When you consider that these are all made by volunteers for a little parade it makes them look even better. I kept thinking about how I wouldn't have the first clue about what to do to build a float. This float was super impressive, but not sure about how it was about pioneers. Oh well, Olive was so excited to see the Madagascar characters since we had just seen that movie!

 

We happened to be right at the front when the parade was starting. We got to see the officers on their motorcycles and the giant flag for the national anthem, and even my high school marching band to play it.

 

Then there was this group of people dressed like pioneers and we all thought that was really impressive. It was the first time really that I told Olive about how they got here and pulling the hand carts. 

 

But  when it was finally time for our group to walk in the parade it had been 2 hours and Olive was kinda over it. She might have had a mini tantraum.

 

Thank heavens Tanya was there. That girl can solve any of Olive's woos.

 

My one and only goal of walking in this parade was to get on tv. With this cute girl by my side I thought we'd be a sure bet. We went right past the camera's and waved and smiled and were just adorable. I thought we had made it on for sure. Then I called my husband and he said we weren't anywhere in sight. Turns out our stake is extremely small in numbers. By the time they talked to one of the kids walking, they were in a rush to film the next group and we were basically cut out. Blasted tiny primary!

 

The parade was a short 5 blocks and when it was over the real fun began. They had a whole carnival set up at the end. Scott brought Milo and met us at the parade. The best thing about it was that it was all free! Here they are bouncing on one of the probably 10 bounce houses they went on. 

 

Then it was off to face painting.

 

Olive chose a butterfly eye and was so happy with how it turned out, especially because it had sparkles.

 

Then daddy helped her build a bird house.

 

Then she got to rope a sheep.

 

Pretty good right? Maybe I should get her to join the rodeo.

And then I got tired of taking pictures but we also listened (very intently) to a Storyteller, danced like crazy at the free DJ, ate pizza, won prizes, did a whole lot more bouncing, and got very worn out. It was a really fun day and thankfully it waited to rain as we were driving home!

Avett Brothers

We are calling this the summer of concerts. For first time since college probably, for sure since we have had kids, we have tickets to 4 concerts this summer. The extra cool thing is that they are all bands that we have really been wanting to see. The first was the Avett Brothers. If you don't listen to them you should because they are amazing. It is just two brothers who make all the music. Oh, I just love them. And you should definitely go to their concert if you can because they put on an amazing live show. 

 

We started off the night by riding Trax down to City Creek for dinner.

  

Then we walked down to the Gallivon Center for the concert. I really like shows there, outdoors but still in the middle of all these big down town buildings. We got there just in time to miss the crappy opening band and still get a good spot for the show.

 

There they are. Everyone was really into it which always makes it fun. (Except for the drunk kids right in front of us that were really too into it and kept dancing on us)

 

This is where they did 3 or so songs completely acoustic and it all was their voices. It was awesome. But I was surprised athow hard they rocked out!

 

And this is just a funny picture of Scott making a crazy face and me poking out behind him. It was a blast and I can't wait for the rest of our concerts this summer! Yay!

Swim Lessons

 So far this summer Olive has taken almost 4 weeks of swim lessons and we just signed up for another session. It has been a big commitment because it is four days a week in the mornings. But she has made so much progress that I want to keep it up. I am really proud of how comfortable she is in the water. She also knows her limits pretty well.

 

She is does very well at floating on her tummy...

 

and flipping to her back.

 

But she also likes to be silly. At her last class I heard her teacher ask her to pinky promise to be good that day.

 

Her class is small, but they give their teacher a run for her money.

 

She has already passed off one level this summer. Although it is tempting to play during lessons Olive has learned a lot and the sacrifice of every morning is paying off!

Olive and the Belle party

 

A few weeks ago Olive was invited to a birthday party from a friend at preschool. They went all out with this party and Olive was literally jumping around when Belle came. Olive kept giving her hugs and asking her questions. They all got Belle skirts so that they could match her.

 

Belle taught them how to dance

 

Then she gave them all crowns, rings, and other jewlery. Olive left with so much loot you would have thought it was her actual birhtday.

 

Each girl got a picture with Belle that she autographed for them. Olive put it in a special place in her room.

 

Then Belle told them story time, did more dancing, and gave more hugs and sang songs. It might have been the highlight of Olive's summer. 

The Drive In is Summer Tradition

We have done the drive in every summer since we have had Olive. This is the first summer though where she actually cares about going. Oh, how I love the drive in! 

Here are the kids all loaded up and ready to go. We take chairs and blankets and treats galore, how could they not be excited?

 

But they both fell asleep on the way there. We woke Olive up to watch the movie and just let Milo keep sleeping which was perfect. 

 

We like to go nice and close in the front row so that no cars are in front of us and we can spread out

 

Movie time!

 

Look at those cute boys!

 

We had so much fun that we went a few weeks later with some friends. What can beat the drive in with friends? I can't think of anything!

 

The whole gang. We're excited because we are going again tonight?!