8 is Great

Ethan turned 8 in July and he had a fun Lego themed friend party.  When the boys first got there, they built with Lego shaped candy and Lego shaped chocolate pieces and put it all together with frosting.  Then we played Lego Bingo with a fun Lego Bingo sheet I found online.  Next I gave each of them an individual Lego car package and they each built their own cars.  Then they took the cars and had races down a race track I'd built.  After that, Ethan opened his presents (lots of Legos!).  And last of all, we ate some delicious Lego cupcakes.  We had about 20 minutes before the party was supposed to end, so they watched the Lego movie we have and built whatever they wanted from our huge bin of Legos.

I was a little hesitant to do a friends party because when I threw one for Ethan when he turned 6, it was absolute chaos.  A house full of little boys for 2 hours was insane.  But this year, the boys were sooooooo well behaved.  Yes, they were very loud.  But they sat and happily did everything I told them.  So fun! 

 

 

These cute bags were so easy to make!

I searched tons of stores before I found that Lego candy.  And my wonderful mom spent hours making those chocolate Lego pieces.

Little Heroes Basketball Camp

Ethan participated in the Travis Hansen Little Heroes Basketball camp this summer.  Travis played for BYU and later for the Atlanta Hawks, but now lives nearby in Orem.  They announced on the first day of the camp that each of the coaches there would pick only one kid each to receive a trophy on the last day of camp.  You didn't earn the trophy for being the best player; you won it for going above and beyond what's asked, for good sportsmanship and being kind.  All Ethan could talk about all week was wanting a trophy.  I knew it was a pretty slim chance to be one of ten kids to win a trophy out of over 100 kids!  We were very excited on the last day when they called his name and gave him a trophy.  His coach from the first day came up to us afterwards and said, "Ethan, I gave you this award because you never gave up.  When you had trouble making baskets, you kept trying and trying, no matter how hard it was."  I was such a proud mom. :)

They also had a free-throw shooting contest on the last day.  They picked a few kids at random to come shoot a free-throw.  If they made it, they won a basketball.  Ethan was lucky enough to get picked, and he made it!!

They had some players from BYU come help out at the camp.  Here's Ethan with our favorite and good family friend, Brandon Davies.

Ethan's cousin Nick did the camp too

Here's Ethan shooting his winning free throw!

Travis Hansen speaking to the kids

So proud of his trophy and basketball!

Fourth of July

Our neighborhood has a parade and celebration every 4th of July.  The kids love decorating their bikes and racing around the block for the parade.  Afterwards, everyone meets at the neighborhood pavillion for a flag ceremony, some musical performances, a big dinner, and games and prizes for the kids.  I love our neighborhood!!!

 

 

 

Boys are ready for the parade!

I opted for the wagon with Kylee- she is waaaayyyyy too slow on her tricycle

Showing off their patriotic tattoos!

Playing at Grandma and Papa Winn's house that night

All the grandkids

We love Daddy!

 

I found a super cute Father's Day idea on Pinterest (gotta love Pinterest!) for a simple but cute Father's Day present. I bought a frame with 3 open spots and took the kids to the nature trail in our neighborhood for a little photo session. I got some super cute pictures, and the end product was super cute.

 

End of the Schoolyear Party!

When we bought our house, there was nothing in our neighborhood but a of couple half-built model homes, surrounded by mud, dirt, and weeds for miles and miles.  We just had a good feeling about the neighborhood, despite it's sketchy beginnings when we bought our house.  Almost 7 years have passed and now it's obvious that those good feelings we had were right.  Our neighborhood is beautiful, huge, and has the most fun, friendly people.  Some of our friends started a tradition last year on the last day of school to have a big block party.  We did it again this year, and it was so fun.  We got a bunch of pizzas, the kids ate popsicles, and there was a water balloon fight.  One of our neighbors set up her huge blow-up water slide, and we organized some races with bikes and plasma scooters.  And us moms sat and chatted while our kids had tons of fun.  Perfect!

Big brother helping sister on the slide

Warming up after being in the cold water

She was obsessed with this scooter.  I don't know who it belonged to, but they were nice enough to let her ride it the whole two hours we were there.

Lining up for the races!

Dance Festival

I love Ethan's school's dance festival every year. They teach the kids such cute dances, and I am always impressed with how well everyone knows the dance. This year the second grade did "A Friend Like Me" from Aladdin. They all wore blue with red sashes like the Genie. Very cute!

Preschool graduation

Little Austin graduated from preschool last month, and boy is he excited for kindergarten.  He thought he was going to get to start kindergarten the day after preschool graduation and was so disappointed to find out he had to wait til September.  This year I decided to send him to a preschool that our neighbor down the street was running.  His teachers were so great and I am so glad I did it.  It was sooooo nice to be able to literally open the front door, hug him, and let him walk down there by himself.  And lots of the kids in the class also live in our neighborhood, so it allowed him to make more friends in the neighborhood (which is great for him, because he is soooo shy).  And he learned a lot! 
At the ceremony, each kid had a line to say that they'd memorized and they sang a bunch of songs they've been learning all year.  The songs all had actions, and the kids were soooo cute doing them.  I'm so proud of my smart little Austin, he is going to do amazing in kindergarten next year!

This girl LOVES to dance and was imitating all the actions the preschoolers were doing

He got a case of the giggles in the middle of the vampire song.

Miss Lizzie and Miss Mindy