The Rest of June

We did have some more fun times in June that I haven't reported on yet.  Good thing we have phone pics to document these fun times!

We spent an evening at the golf course as a family.  Kaden is a really good baby and he is happy when he is outside observing everything.  Even when it's a little windy and chilly.

The kids have been in golf lessons this summer.  Dylan and Sadie in the younger group at 8am, which has been kind of miserable having to drag Sadie out of bed early.  There were even a few times I had to wake up Dylan at 7:30, which kills me because if he actually sleeps in it's because he needs the sleep!  But they enjoy it.  Kylee was at 9 and she was in the older group with Hailee and Justin.  They did three weeks in June and three in July.

We did a lemonade stand with friends and sold the popcorn and licorice we had leftover from an Activity Day's night.  The kids love it.

They wanted to do another lemonade stand a couple weeks ago and Ryan told them to go do it on their own.  So Dylan mixed up the lemonade, they gathered cups and ice and put everything in the new cooler with wheels and wheeled it down to the busy road.  Kylee wrote the sign.  They only ended up earning a little more than $6 which barely pays for the lemonade cans.  I told them they drank too much and didn't make much of a profit.  Now if I start making them pay me for the cans, they might try harder next time... ;)

I put Sadie and Dylan in swimming lessons.  I couldn't bring myself to do the swim team this year.  I just wanted a less busy summer (somehow it is still busy, even though Kylee left the gymnastic team).  Kylee doesn't need lessons but Sadie and Dylan do.  They did really well!  We took from a lady who lives by Brooke and has a pool in her backyard.  

She has quite the lessons operation going on there.  A lot of people take lessons from her.  And she has quite a few different coaches working for her.  I thought they did a great job with the kids.  Even Dylan seemed to be listening and trying to do what they instructed.  He still has a ways to go before I'm really comfortable with him in the water, but he feels confident.  Which is not always a good thing, like at the lake.  We had to hang out there for an hour because they obviously aren't in the same level.  And it was 90 degrees most of the time.  I about melted the first week trying to find shade and keep Kaden happy.  The second week I just stayed in the air conditioned car and let Kaden sleep.  That was much better.

We have spent some time at the lake too, of course.  We love the lake!  We could stay there for hours.  Even Kaden likes the lake.  He just sits there and watches everyone.  I keep him in the shade for the most part.  I bought a big shade tent at the end of last year and it has been really nice to have!  The first time I went, I took Kaden out into the water while I carried him waist-deep.  The water is chilly, but he splashed around and loved it.  It was shallow enough that I could walk out to the slide with Sadie and hold Kaden.  The other times I've gone he has been pretty tired and so I've had to put him to sleep and lay him down and we never really get time to take him into the water.  Also the water is deeper now so I can't walk out to the slide anymore.  But Sadie's little life-jacket wing thing keeps her floating great.  Kylee and Hailee took her out and supervised while she went down.  Her face is the best!  She does not love fast/scary.  But she does like the slide for some reason.

I think I only brought my camera once.  So the other pictures are just from my phone.  But the ones from my camera are pretty fun.

It's so nice that Kaden will take a little 20+ minute nap at the lake.  It makes it so we can last for awhile.  We love the lake!!

For a little while there, Kaden was actually on a schedule at night.  He was always waking between 4-6 to eat and then would sleep again until 8 or 9.  So I was able to go run or ride my bike at 6:30 most mornings.  It was wonderful.  Of course he would be handed right back to me the minute I walked in the door...

But that's okay.  He doesn't mind that I'm sweaty.  He's been off schedule a bit lately but I'm hoping to figure it out again because I LOVE the early morning air.

I think that pretty much covers June.  Now to catch up on July!

Dylan's 7th Birthday

There are a couple of things I forgot to mention about Dylan when I did his update before.  The biggest one is that he has somehow kicked the habit of walking on his toes!  Throughout the year, he just got better at not doing it.  And by the end of the school year Ryan and I mentioned to each other that he doesn’t do it hardly at all anymore.  He hasn’t worn his braces in months.  I don’t know what changed, and I’m sure it’s a nervous habit that will come back at times, but we are sure glad he is finally doing better.  Unfortunately, his feet still have large open wounds due to dry, hard skin.  Apparently it wasn’t walking on the toes that tore up his feet.  I think it’s just eczema to be honest.

Which brings me to my next topic.  We gave up on the whole dairy-free thing a few months ago.  Maybe it was because I got lazy.  I got lazy and let him have dairy more than normal and when we didn’t notice any problems we decided it would be okay.  But the main reason is that he started hating the dairy-free stuff like yogurt and cheese.  With the cheese, I had been putting it in his lunches and making quesadillas with it.  It might have something to do with the organic whole wheat tortillas I use now, but he has decided he can’t stand tortillas and hates quesadillas.  I was like, “it’s full of yummy cheese!”  That’s when he told me how he was sick of his dairy-free cheese and he didn’t want it anymore.  I said, “I’ve been putting it in your lunch a lot.”  And he said, “yeah, and I’ve been throwing it away!”  *gasp*!  That cheese isn’t exactly cheap.  Why wouldn’t he just tell me not to give it to him anymore?  Kids are so weird.  So that was the end of that cheese.  And I just got sick of not using cheese and creams in my cooking.  We really like cheesy, creamy stuff.  Especially pasta.  We’ve enjoyed some really yummy pastas.  Life is much easier when you can eat dairy.  We still try and steer clear of the food dyes without making a big deal about it.  He’s allowed to eat it when it’s offered away from home and it would be cruel to deny him.  But at home we don’t eat it and I trade him treats to get rid of the brightly colored stuff.

Ok, moving on!  Dylan turned 7!

His birthday was pretty low-key.  Everything leading up to it, what he asked for his presents, the activities he chose.  A few months ago he came and asked if he could get an ipod for his birthday since Kylee got hers when she was 7.  I tried to downplay it so he wouldn’t get his hopes up, but it seemed fair.  Plus, I don’t like wasting my money on toys he won’t use and I know an ipod is a gift he will get really excited about.  So I talked to Ryan about it.  But instead of buying a new ipod, we decided to just give him one of our old iphones.  It doesn’t have cell service so it’s essentially the same as an ipod.  But Kylee was quick to point out that it is a PHONE and it has SIRI! He actually didn't mention the ipod again and whenever I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he didn't have many ideas.  So I think he was pretty surprised when he opened this.

He was pretty excited.  And even though he lost electronic privileges for June, I let him play with it on his birthday.  It was a good day.

Besides the phone, he had picked out this pencil box with a lock so he knew he was getting that and he was so excited about it.  It’s funny the things they really want.  I think he would’ve been pretty happy if he had just gotten that pencil box and a lego set.

He got two lego sets.  The Kaos crystal (for Skylanders, the last thing I will buy for Skylanders!) And some craft paper and some clothes.  And a new Wii game- Super Smash Bros.  He had asked for this awhile back too, but he forgot.

We had let him open the iphone earlier in the day so he could play it.  Then he opened the rest of his presents just before we went to dinner.  We took the kids to Fuji and sat at the hibachi grill along with Grandma and Grandpa.  Our chef was really fun to Dylan since it was his birthday.  He threw a fake egg at him, he squirted him with the little spray bottle (that was a little man that sprayed when you pulled his pants down, as if he was peeing).  It was fun and the kids really liked it.  Plus the food is delicious!

After dinner we picked up his friend Krew and headed to the sand dunes.  These two are funny.  They have been talking about going to the sand dunes together for months.  They planned it all out at school.  So when I told Dylan he could choose an activity and a friend to take, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

After they played, we went to Cold Stone to get some ice cream.  Krew and Dylan got oreo cream filling flavored ice cream with oreos as the add-in.  And they scarfed it down.  Funny boys.

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty fun day for him.  We waited a few days to have cake and ice cream.  We invited the cousins over and Grandma and Grandpa.  I had asked him if he wanted me to make him a lego cake (that I would’ve dyed green using spinach, though he didn’t know that) or a cake that tastes yummy.  He chose taste, and the flavor he chose was strawberry filled.  So I did some Pinterest searching and came up with this one.  It was really good!  ESPECIALLY the frosting.  It was cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and strawberry jam.  It tasted like strawberry cheesecake ice cream.  It was really dangerous!

Everyone enjoyed the cake.  I bought trick candles because I thought Dylan would be a fun one to play that trick on since none of my kids have seen them before.  But I think Grandma tipped him off ahead of time.  And there were only two out of seven candles that flicked back after he blew them out.  I guess he’s just really good at blowing them out!

Dylan talked about saving some of his birthday money from Grandpa Goodsell and buying a metal detector with it.  He’s all about searching for treasures (aka garbage).  But then he decided to save it and maybe just ask Santa for a metal detector :)

He's growing up fast!  Literally, he won't stop growing :)  Love you Dylan!