The Ringling Bros & Barnum Baileys Circus comes to town

Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Smith for taking us out to the circus. This was our first trip and we had a great time. The kids had so much fun and couldn't take their eyes off the show.

Utah State Fair 2010

Last September, Neil thought it would be fun for the kids to enter the Agriculture Kids Contest in the State Fair. Teegan picked a cucumber and the Twins each picked a lemon cucumber out of our garden. The only rule - no help from your parents.

Teegan wants to take the story from here: "It was a bright, sunny day and we went to the fair. And then we walked into the building that had all the things kids made and we found our's and found out that Ryton and Jaida had won third place for their age division (under 5 years) and we found out that I had won first place along with the "Merit Award" for my age division (6-10 years). Can you believe my brain is smarter than a 10 year olds?"

Ryton and Jaida were given third place ribbons with a cash prize of $1 each. Teegan was given a first place ribbon and his Merit Award with a cash prize of $3.

We had a so much fun that day at the fair riding the rides and playing some games. The kids were so proud of themselves and so were their mom and dad. What an accomplishment for our first entry into the State Fair!!

Teegan's 1st game of the Fall Season!

Thoughts from Teegan: "Soccer is so exciting because my daddy is my coach. He is such a good coach. I like soccer. I like all my soccer friends. Because we are a team against other soccer teams we are so good at playing soccer. Our team name is called Mountain Lions and we are going to kick butt this season."

The Twins turned 3 on August 25th

In celebrating the Twins birthday I took the day off of work and let the two of them pick what they wanted to spend the day doing. It was pretty surprising that they agreed. I guess I should say, Ryton agreed when Jaida said she wanted to go to a petting zoo. So we rode our bikes to Petting Buddies at Garnder Village by taking the Jordan River Parkway.

In preparing for Ryton and Jaida's birthday party - Ryton decided he wanted to have a pirate party while Jaida decided she wanted to have a fairy party. And they wanted their big brother to play the part of Peter Pan. All of the little pirates picked out their own eye patch and pirate bandana's while the little fairies picked out their magical wands and some wings. The pirates and fairies then decorated swords and tiara's. And then the pirates and the fairies played around the backyard while Teegan pretended to be Peter Pan. We ended the party with pirate cupcakes for the boys and Tinker Bell cupcakes for the girls.

First Day of 1st Grade

Teegan turned 6 on August 12th!

In preparation for Teegan's 6th birthday party we asked him what he wanted to do for a party and his response was, "A Transformer Party". We came up with the idea of making Autobot and Deception stickers that the kids could stick to the front and back of them to identify what team they were on. The first game we played was "Energon Freeze Tag". Teegan had to educate mom on what "Energon" was - and it is the oil that Transformers use to obtain energy. The Energon was actual Gatorades (Red for the Autobots and Purple for the Deceptions). The next game was tug-a-war. The way we decided to recognize the winning teams was to allow them to bomb the losing team with water balloons. The kids loved it. The Deceptions won at Freeze Tag and the Autobots won at tug-a-war. And anyone who really knows Neil will notice in the slide show that he just can't stay out of it. He was a part of the water fight and then all of the kids tackled him (except for Teegan who was pretty upset about it). The next thing on the agenda was the Transformer pinata. We then had cake and opened the presents. We ended the party with the teams having to hunt for their goodie bags. The goodie bags were hidden in an Allspark, which is something that helps to repair Transformers.

The party was great fun and a total hit with the kids.

We spent the official day of Teegan's birthday as a family and he wanted to spend it at the bowling alley. Also - a lot of fun!!

Happy Birthday Teegan.

Abrakadoodle Art Camp

Summers coming to an end so I've got to get up to date on my family blog by getting the last summer camp posted. To summarize -- Teegan attended a drama camp in June (posted earlier in the blog), then he attended a soccer camp (with his cousin Anna) in July, and he ended the summer with an art camp last month - in August. The Art Camp was done by "Abradadoodle" and he went every day for the entire week. He worked on several projects and of course (proud mom), they are all of our house on display. The last day of camp there was an open house "Art Show".

Here is a list of what he did and you can also see them in the picture:

• Glass Plate with his design of a dragon


• Hand Prints painted with water colors (hanging in mom & dad's bedroom)


• Drawing of a robot (hanging in the kitchen on his art board)


• Another painting of a robot heading to space


• A clay monster

Teegan is so creative!!

Antelope Island

This summer we had the pleasure of seeing Great Grandma Smith and Kenny from Michigan. They stayed for a month and Neil and the kids had some kind of an adventure with them weekly. One of the places they went was Antelope Island. Since I was not there, here is Teegan's story - "It all started with a long, long drive. Finally we arrived to Antelope Island and we drove and drove and then we found this big beach full of bugs. When you would run through the bugs they would make a wave of bugs because there were so many of them. And I swiped a couple of them with my hand. And then we decided that the bugs were pests so we went back to the van. We found a picnic bench so we took a break and got all of the sand and bugs out of our shoes while Dad went into the store to get us some drinks. I had a Gatorade! And then we walked back to the car with our drinks and we drove on another long drive and we found a big building. We went inside and there was a lot of spiders inside and outside. There was a spider hanging from the front of the building. Anyway, we went inside and that is when my brother and sister and me noticed a big statue of a buffalo. There was a lot of drawings of buffalo and one little map of the island. And there was a TV with a buffalo show. And then we went outside to discover a lot of cool rocks and some trails. Then we headed back to the van. As we were leaving a big buffalo was right next to the van. We took a few pictures and then go the heck out of there. The End!"

Happy 24th of July!

Our neighborhood does a fun kids parade on the 24th of July and this year our kids all agreed to decorate Teegans motorized truck and ride together. The parade starts off with a fire truck leading the way. After the parade we all have breakfast in the street and the fire truck hooks up to the fire hydrant and sprays all of the kids (or at least the kids who want to get sprayed). It is always a good time!
Later in the day we drove up to Oakley and had our first sleepover at the Cabin.

British Challenger Soccer Camp

Teegan and his cousin Anna participated in a Soccer Camp in July. It was sponsored by Challenger British Soccer. Hundreds of coaches come from Europe and hold camps throughout the United States and Canada throughout the entire summer. The camp is 4 days long, 6 hours a day. The camp ran during the WorldCup and each team (by age group) where named a country. Teegan was little Scotland and Anna was big Scotland. The last day of camp they had a WorldCup tournament and little Scotland lost to Japan. It was a huge disappointment to all parents as little Scotland should have won. :)

Teegan's coach was from Scotland and her name was Lucy - and here is what she had to say about Teegan: "Well done this week Teegan! Your dribbling skills are coming along great, and you are brilliant at changing direction with your soccer ball whilst keeping control, good job! Keep practicing! But remember to always listen to coach when they are speaking! Hope to see you next summer!" Coach Lucy

What goes on in our Garden...

This has been one of the best summers for taking advantage of every bit of space we have in our garden. Within the garden you can find three types of lettuce, 4 rows of peas, peppers, 20+ tomato plants, 2 cucumber (and 50+ volunteer cucumbers), 4 watermelon plants, 20 pumpkin plants, and 2 rows of corn. There may be more and my numbers may be off since Neil and Teegan are our gardners. In addition to all of this we have a 2 lane dirt bike track that runs around the garden. And a smaller water run for monster trucks.

The kids love the garden and so do we!!

MY Cool Kids (and they are the coolest)!

Mountair Mile 2010

The kids participated in the Mountair Mile again this year. The Mountair Mile is a kids race where all entry fee's and donations are for the Sharing Place. The Sharing Place is a non-profit organization for grieving children who have lost loved ones.

The race is one mile. The first 3/4 of the mile is on bikes and the last 1/4 of the mile is a run. Teegan took second place in his age bracket. He was passing other kids like they were standing still. GREAT RACE TEEGAN!

In past years I have ran with the twins in the jogging stroller. This was the first year that Ryton wanted to ride his bike. I was a little worried about him making it the full mile, but he made it the entire way. He rode his bike the full mile and did not want to run the last 1/4.

And then there is Jaida, who wanted to ride in the stroller with mom.

The entire race pulled in about $3600 for the Sharing Place and it the entire race was organized by a friend and neighbor - Ben Lowry. Neil is also a volunteer and assisted with passing out flyers and also collecting money from companies.

Twins: Summer 2010

Last Day of KINDERGARTEN

Teegan is no longer a Kindergartener.
His last day was June 8th and he is now officially a 1st Grader!

I'm so proud of him and all of the accomplishments and friends he made during the school year.

It is absolutely impressive how much he has learned.

Now here comes Teegan, ready for SUMMER BREAK!
Is dad ready for summer break?

"OUR GARDEN"

As many of you know, our neighbor from across the street who use to garden in our garden pasted away several months ago. When we first moved into our house 5 years ago, we were introduced to Lee and came to find out that he had been gardening in our backyard for 60+ years. His backyard did not provide the space he needed for as much as he wanted to plant and garden. Lee loved to garden and he loved to share his gardening expertise. We woke up many mornings with Lee weeding the garden, watering the garden or with a porch full of garden vegetables. Each summer Neil began to do more and more in the garden (side by side with Lee) -- and know with Lee gone -- this is the first summer on our own. We greatly miss Lee. Teegan has dedicated one of our larger rocks in the front yard as a Lee rock. Teegan will go out and sit on this rock - and if you ask him what he is doing he will tell you that he is thinking about Lee. This garden is for you Lee!

Thomas the Train

The last four years we have spent our Memorial Weekend in Heber City with Grandpa and Grandma Smith (and Antonia). Thomas the Train comes to Heber City for about 4 days. So, we get a hotel room in Heber City and enjoy the weekend. This tradition started when Teegan was almost 2 years old. Teegan was crazy about trains and most definitely crazy about Thomas the Train, so we took him and we have gone every year since. This year we were unsure about going, but thought it was the last year before we have to pay for the twins -- so we better go (and it was the best year yet). The kids had an absolute blast.

Will we see Thomas the Train next year? I'm not sure. But if we go, we will definitely need to start saving our money now.

Teegan and Vanessa

Trip to Ogden UT

In early May (I know I'm late on posting again) my family headed off to Ogden for some fun!!

Our Agenda

Friday Night: Swimming at the hotel
Saturday Morning: Treehouse Musuem
Saturday Afternoon: Dinosaur Park
Sunday Morning: Movie

It was a great time and the kids had a blast.

Here are some pictures of our adventure:

Pirate Island

During Teegan's School Spring Break we headed to Orem to have lunch at Pirate Island. We went to the stage where a pirate read us a pirate story. After story time we watched a man sketch a picture of a pirate. We did a skeleton puzzle and the Pirate came around and let the kids take 3 gold coins (tokens). Then the kids got some stuff from the craft table and we headed back to our table for lunch. After lunch the kids had a great time spending their gold coins (tokens) in the arcade. The Twins spent most of their time on the pirate ship going down the slide while Teegan played games.