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