Filling up our summer days

In a major way.

Mommy doesn't sit still. She likes to fill each day up to the brim! We took a quick trip up north because well...why not?!

Mommy taught at 5:30 am and then we headed up. This meant Mommy just laid around at Aunt Rachel's house. She was tired! We kind of enjoyed the chance to just chill!

Awww. Sisters!

We of course took a multiple trips to the zoo now that the full African Savannah was open with the train! Daddy and Iva got photo bombed by the giraffes!

We also went down to City Creek to visit Temple Square and just play around while the Preslars had other obligations.

Our Mozzy hit a milestone on the way home.

Can Mommy just take a minute and say she was mildly disappointed that no Seven Peaks trip happened because it dropped to below 70 degrees for a high on Saturday that weekend in SLC? Madness.

Don't worry she spent the next week making up for it in St. George!

Uncle Eric decided he wanted to try and surf with one of the little girls and I was the obvious choice since clearly I'm brave enough. Actually...I was terrified during the first try. You can see that I'm gripping his legs so tightly that I kept moving his swim suit.

We went down and then I begged to do it again. I kind of figured it out and thought it was fun so Uncle Eric threw in the rope!

Good times.

And THIS is how our little Miss Iva spends a lot of her time. In the bear crawl position. She doesn't move forward yet. Just backward and side ward in a pivot maneuver.

And finally yesterday we decided to go check out Aunt Becca and Uncle Phil's house in Las Vegas. Mom, Dad and Aunt Becca took us out for an afternoon on the strip. It was hot but we loved all the sights!

We went to the Rainforest Cafe and had a terrible experience. We waited over an hour for our food. It was awful, but so did everyone else in the restaurant! Boo!

And then to make it worse, turns out the MGM no longer has a lion display. It's been gone for TWO YEARS, but Mom and Dad didn't know that. They tried to appease us with the dragon head outside of the KA theater. We were only mildly impressed.

But look...the Statue of Liberty!

And a giant chocolate bar!

I just had to sit on this hand chair.

We finished it off with a quick evening swim at Aunt Becca's pool. Iva loved it! She kept splashing Daddy when Mommy would pull out the camera!

Seven months old

This last month FLEW. It feels like Iva just turned six months old. She's been doing very much the same things just getting better at them. 

She is brimming with personality. It's not hard to figure out what she's thinking or what she wants. (Seems to be a family trait!) She is very curious. Mom loves that she can put her down on the floor with a bucket of toys and she (mostly) stays happy and interested.

She watches TV (sorry!) and seems to really like the Signing Time videos already. She loves to people watch. She is on the VERGE, ON THE VERGE of crawling. In fact, Mom is pretty sure that she crawls when no one is watching and when Iva herself isn't aware. She can get up from her belly to the sitting position and she can get on all fours but she just won't move forward!

Mom left her by the toys and yet somehow she is over by that printer...

Serious Summer Sun

We are honestly getting comments everywhere we go about how tan we all are. We are consistently asked if we just got back from vacation? Nope! Mom just won't let us in the house! Although even she admits that it is funny that Iva has tan lines in her fat rolls.

Speaking of Iva, look at that face and those rolls! This little stinker came down with croup last Sunday.

And finally TODAY she woke up not sounding like a smoker. She got the steroid and a breathing treatment and they barely helped. She was happy and pleasant despite it all though, but sitting next to her was cause for alarm. Grandpa was very helpful, but Mommy has not appreciated having a winter time disease in the summer.

But don't worry. We PLAYED plenty. Like our post title says, we enjoyed some serious summer sun.

A quick trip up to Veyo pool. Cara loved the warm water fall. Actually she really only liked being in the pool about 15 minutes before we had to pack up and go home. Goof.

We played at the Main Street splash pad after a quick stop in the library. Iva was really trying hard to get Cara's apple!

I've been going to a fun Fit Kid class at our gym every morning. I love burpees or so I say!

We invited all the cousins over for a little play time in our kiddie pools. Colt and Carter did make an appearance, but all Mom took pictures of were these two! Iva's first time in the kiddie pool!

We followed that up by Iva's first time at the lake and on the boat! She was a fan!

I got out and did kneeboarding and even started trying to get up on my knees instead of just lying on my belly!

Iva really was a big fan!

Mommy tried wake surfing again! She kept wrecking, but oh well.

We do enjoy things indoors too. We played our Disney Hedbanz game!

And yesterday we did Millie's Princess Run for our friend Taleah who has leukemia. I ran the whole 5k AND my kid race! Daddy hung back with me and pushed the stroller with Iva and Cara in it, but we had a great time! Mommy ran with her friend.

Afterwards we enjoyed the festival. We got Princess hair do's and then got our faces painted. We were able to meet Aurora and Elsa and Cinderella. It was awesome!

Summer Lovin'

Wahoo! It's June! It's summer! School is out! Mommy has been counting down! The last day of school for all the big kids was on the 22nd and so our neighborhood had a little "Welcome to Summer" water fight! At any given moment there were probably two kids crying, but it was still a lot of fun!

And then we promptly left town again! We headed up to SLC to celebrate Aunt Rachel's birthday, Memorial Day, and the opening of Seven Peaks water park for the season! Oh AND the LIONS are back at Hogle Zoo!!!

Unfortunately, that Saturday was kind of cold and rainy. We still managed to play at the zoo for almost three hours though!

Poor Iva didn't see many animals, she had to stay all hidden in her stroller!

Oh wait...she did get to see the lions. Na na na nya na you can't get me!

The Preslars loved hanging out with Miss Iva. I'm pretty sure Aunt Rachel has even more delightful pictures on her camera.

Sunday afternoon (Aunt Rachel's birthday) was quite pleasant.

We went back to the zoo Monday morning and then had a picnic at Aunt Margaret's followed by play time at Seven Peaks. We were exhausted by the time we hit the car to drive home!

We have continued playing since we got home to St. George. We started swim lessons with Shayli and we are already quite good. I am diving down to the bottom of the pool and Cara is starting to swim across the whole pool doing the front crawl. We have been in swim suits EVERY DAY.

Daily life around here involves lots of morning snuggles and trying to entertain a baby in the bathroom!

We even had our first visit to the city pool! Iva's first time ever! We stayed for over three hours!

Cara was a little fish. Swimming everywhere.

I did the hydro tube all alone with a life jacket AND without. I basically could go anywhere because I was good enough at swimming!

We did go see the movie Maleficent with Daddy, but then decided to GO BACK to the pool for the last hour it was open. Just Mommy and us big girls. It was awesome. We got in at least 15 more slides down the tube.