Utah

We had a great trip to Utah last week.  We are grateful for family.  We really missed Tay and Shawn and their family, but we were happy to see everyone else.

We even got to see Josh's parents (although I'm kicking myself because I did not take a single picture of them...ugh).  They just finished their mission in Chicago and are moving to Salt Lake!  

One happy Marmie:)

Cale is so tall!

Papa took the kids fishing at Mirror Lake as promised!  It was such a fun day.

Isaac loved River.

I'm so happy we could hike Bald Mountain.  It brought back so many memories.  I was also happy that the altitude didn't kill me:)

Hooray for spending time with Tice and Shelby

Beautiful views!

Chillin by the lake.

It was especially sweet to see River in the hospital.  Kaitie is a rock star 3rd time mom!

Marmie has the best toys.

Walking to church!

Some of my beautiful nieces!

So grateful for cousin time.

The cutest thing at the Treehouse museum was how excited Bastian was to be in a play.  He paid close attention so he knew what do to and loudly spoke his lines.  He even quickly helped Gideon with his part, too.

Uncle Caleb is the best!  I really appreciate how good he is with all the nieces and nephews .

4th of July Parade cheering Caleb on!

After the hike up Bald Mountain we still had time on the lake.  Hannah and I took the 4 youngest grandkids out.

I loves this picture.  Notice Isaac's little head and hand in the picture, too.  My kids loved their new cousin.

Rainbow Week

Our theme weeks are still going strong.  This week was Rainbow Week and it may have been the least effort most fun week so far!  We took activities that we do anyway and connected them to colors.  For example, the whole family coordinated our clothes each day (Monday = red, Tuesday = yellow, Wednesday = orange, etc).  As it turns out not a one of us has a yellow shirt...the other days we did pretty well.

I went shopping on Monday morning with the kids and we had a great time in the produce section choosing all different colors of fruits and vegetables.  It was undoubtedly the happiest grocery trip we've had in awhile.  The kids were really into it. We also bought otter pops and lucky charms!

We made new playdough and mixed colors!

Orange day - if you couldn't tell:)

We also did really cool color science experiments (twice since it was so fun).  Blend up red cabbage leaves and water.  Strain the mixture and put the purple liquid in several "test tubes."  Experiment adding different ingredients.  If you add an acid (lemon juice, apple juice, soda, or vinegar) the liquid turns hot pink!  If you add a base (baking soda or dish soap) the liquid turns blue!  It is really fun.  And, you can even turn the liquid from pink to blue back to pink.  If you add baking soda to a test tube with vinegar you get a colorful volcano.  You should try it if you haven't.

Blue day.  Not the best picture, but Piper is so helpful with Isaac.

Today is purple day.  Piper sporting her purple with an otter pop and her flower that bloomed this week. 

Next week is ninja week.  Originally I wondered what we were going to do for ninja week but Piper has come up with some fun ideas.