4th of July

Every 4th of July we go to Sandy City's celebration. There are booths, food and fun activities for the kids to help pass the time. The weather was perfect this year, a little hot at first, but it cooled down pretty quick and there was a nice breeze. The fireworks display seems to get better and better every year! It's one thing we all look forward to when school lets out for summer.

Kelsey & Emma were helpful big sisters, making sure Mallory could get through tough spots on all the slides and obstacle courses.

My red, white and blue family

Thanksgiving Point pictures

Jared took several photos of the kids while we were there. He has found a deep love for photography! I knew he was going to take photos, but I didn't think about coordinating outfits or something, which may have looked a bit more professional. I think they are cute anyway!

Summer Fun

We've been doing some fun stuff with the kids so far this summer, but I never remember my camera! I only took it on our zoo trip.

For two years now we have purchased Hogle Zoo membership passes. We only have to go 3 times in the year to get our money's worth, and we love all the fun holiday activities they have. Last week Jamie and I took the kids up, got there early (beat the heat!) and stayed until lunch, then we took the kids to a McD's to play. I don't know how they had any energy left, but they did. This was my kids 2nd trip to the zoo this summer. They love it!

On the train! Kelsey looks a little upset, this is because Ashton & Lexi got to sit at the very back of the train & Ashton wouldn't shut up about it. I guess it's the best seat.

Waiting for the bird show to start. It didn't really hold these two little girl's attention!

Who would think that a 6th grader and a 2nd grader could be such good friends!? Kelsey, Emma, Lexi and Rylee get along great and love to be with each other.

Lucky for these two there were taller siblings handy to help them up.

This week Jamie and I took our kids up to Cottonwood Heights. This is a great place to take my kids, because I don't have to get in. They have a "beach" like area, very shallow, where Conner & Mallory can play, with a little slide and different spouts spraying water . They have also added 2 water slides (they've been there for a few years). My 3 older kids are good enough swimmers they don't need me with them, just a watchful eye. We got to the pool around 2 and ended up staying until close at 8:00. Jared was out of town, and Jason ended up joining us and bringing pizza. The kids had SO much fun! They are little fish!

We took the kids down to Gateway to go to the children's museum, Discovery Gateway. After seeing the video of Neil & Amy's boys playing there, I really wanted to take the kids. Unfortunately, we got there at 5:30 and they close at 6. We decided to spend the extra money and get a year pass, so now we can go whenever we want. I can't wait to take the kids!

I took the kids on Wednesday to see the new Ice Age movie. They loved it! It even kept Mallory's attention. We went to the first showing, and they ate so much popcorn they weren't hungry for lunch until 2.

Yesterday we took the kids to Thanksgiving Point. Jared took a lot of pictures, but I'll have to post them later cause they are still on his camera. We decided to take the kids to the dinosaur museum. I would recommend the museum part, there is lots of "hands on" stuff and dirt to dig in, but the movie costs extra and it was a waste of time and money. After that we walked around the grounds. The kids loved running around, and the grounds are so pretty. We were starting to get eaten alive though! Kelsey mostly, she got 6 bug bites. I said, "Your blood just tastes good", and then funny Emma said, with a serious "Edward" look on her face...."It's like a drug to them." We laughed so hard.....any of you "Twilight" fans out there should get that.

Tomorrow we will do the usual Smart tradition of Sandy City's fireworks. It's always SO much fun, even Jared & I get excited for the 4th! I'll remember my camera.....maybe.

Rainy day at Lagoon

My father in law had a few free tickets to Lagoon with his works "Lagoon day". No one else wanted to use them, so we took advantage of the savings. It rained around lunch pretty hard, so we hung out under a pavillion and ate & talked. That was about the worst of it. It wasn't crowded and the kids had fun, so that's all that matters. Here are some of my favorite pics from the day.

Kelsey was too tall for the bumper cars! She is almost as tall (or short!) as me.

Conner & Mal got right on both these rides, no one was in line. It was drizzling pretty good about this time, but as you can see from their faces, they were still having fun!



Hmmm, they don't look too happy here. I think their little bums got wet getting into a wet seat!

They are such good friends....most of the time!

Oh, looks can be so deceiving. Going on the train! One of the few rides I went on.

Playing a water gun game by Rattlesnake Rapids. I think Emma won everytime!

Kelsey & Emma taking Conner & Mallory on some kiddie rides. Mallory was actually kind of scared of this one after she got on. She started crying "Mommy". I laughed and tried to get a picture.

We actually had to wait in line for this one, but not long. A new ride this year called "Jumping Dragon". We were all able to go on. It's like Music Express, which is down by Colossus, but more fun. You are in your own seat, so you don't smash each other, and it also goes backwards!

Ashton didn't really want to do this one, but of course he loved it afterwards. This is "Rocket-Re-Entry". Kelsey & Emma were on the other side.

Kelsey, Emma & Ashton waiting for Conner & Mal to get off the boats!

Conner is really good at posing for pictures.

While Jared took the 3 older kids to do the roller coasters, I took Conner & Mal to the kiddie rides. Here's another ride I got to go on! Conner picked a horse, and Mallory picked a cat. I strapped them both on & Mallory made sure to tell me NOT to hold her. Miss Independent!

Kelsey's YA Award & Mallory's B-day pics

Here are two pictures of Kelsey & her hard earned Young American Award. It was the last day of school, and the Principal forgot to do this particular award during the "academic" part of the too long assembly. The 5th grade teachers reminded him at the very end. Conner & Mal had had enough & were ready to leave. Only she & two others did it in the whole 5th grade. My "Update" entry lists exactly what she had to do to receive it.

Way to go Kelsey!

Poor Mallory was so sick on her birthday. She looks sunburned in some of these pics, but it was a "strep rash". We didn't have anyone over since she & I were both sick, so we just did presents and had Disney princess cake and ice cream. She loved her gifts!

Here she is with her Aurora dress up. She also got a Cinderella dress. I love her face in the above pic.

Her brothers & sisters loved helping her open her gifts and we all loved watching her happy reaction. She had been so sick, it was nice to see her forget about it for a little while.

Rock Gate, June 13th 2009

Oh....boys.
We had our friends, the Dallas family, over for dinner tonight. They have 2 boys our boys same age, and a girl Mallory's age. They play really well together. The kids were just outside our dining room window playing. We adults were sitting at the table, talking. We had the window open and were keeping an eye on them. We didn't notice, however, that Conner & Ryan were in front of the twin home that my in-laws are building next door, and were throwing rocks in the street. Well, some guy who lives up the street turned onto 8175 South, headed east, and saw them. He stopped, put his window down, and told them they shouldn't throw rocks. I guess that wasn't enough for him. He pulled over, walked to the back of the twin home to where he could see us and told us that..."Your boys are throwing rocks. They could have hit a car. They're lucky they didn't hit my Range Rover, it's a $75,000 car." (Yeah, maybe 5 years ago...get over yourself buddy!) Jared apologized and we told Ryan & Conner to come in the house, they were in TROUBLE. Jared went with the older kids to get the rocks out of the street. They guy had already left. BUT, he came back. He wanted to talk to Jared & Tyler. He pointed out a dent on the hood of the car (passenger side) that he claimed came from a rock they threw. I'm telling you, there is no way either of those boys can throw a rock that far. Plus it was too large a dent, and paint had already chipped around it, it looked pretty weathered. It got ugly after that....the guy called Sandy police, filed a report, and is probably going to sue us. Poor Conner, when he saw the police, thought they were coming to take him away and just started crying. That right there was probably punishment enough. The officer was very nice, he talked to both Ryan & Conner, got everyone's story. Conner relaxed after that and thought the officers belt was pretty cool. Not because of the gun though. He kept saying, "Mom, the police has a flashlight!" The officer said there wasn't anything he could do about the situation. He actually called us later tonight to get some additional information because this "Range Rover" guy had called the police department to complain about how the officer had handled it. Give me a break! I'm sure there will be more to come, as the officer kept telling us, "That guy is on a witch hunt."

I've been hacked!

For those of you who don't know, my msn email account was hacked yesterday. He/she sent out an email to my contacts list, as me, saying I was in London and had lost my wallet and needed money. C'mon, a wallet? London? I wish I could say I've been there. And if I really needed help, like I would send out an email. There's a thing called a phone...works much faster. It took up a lot of time yesterday, but I think I have everything straightened out and hopefully the worst is over. I updated my email address on every account I could think of. So make sure you delete my old msn email, and my new one is jlsmart27@gmail.com. And if you get any emails in the future from that msn account, it is NOT me. The password and the secret question used to get the password have been changed, so I can't get into it anymore.