It's What We Do: Round Up and Catch Up

This is probably the only cowboy hat you'll ever see on Lance's head. That's him in the back starting up his bike to thrill the crowd during the Grand Parade of Lehi's Round Up days, but more on that in a minute.

Mia and Chloe have been having lots of fun sleepovers at their cousin's house. Their cousin isn't very good at making it all night here, so they mostly go to her house. A lot of the time Mia doesn't make it and a few times Chloe has come home around 12:30 am, but they usually have a lot of fun. Staying up late and having all of that fun leads to some tired girls. This was the scene at my house after one sleepover.

Tyler didn't have a sleepover, but it seems he was overtaken by all of the quiet in the house and succumbed to sleep. Isaac was even asleep at the same time, but I didn't risk waking him up to take a picture. It was a little slice of heaven for a few minutes at my house.

The next day it was only supposed to be 80 degrees so we ventured out to a new park in the morning. It's called Neptune Park and it was a lot of fun. There's lots of things to climb and spin on so everyone was occupied for almost 2 hours.

Chloe is sitting on a merry-go-round of sorts.

Brady, Max and Mia enjoyed checking out the toddler side of the playground.

Here's Tyler climbing the huge pyramid. At one point he got stuck and was a little upset, but he figured out how to get down with the help of his siblings.

Mia and Colin had fun climbing too.

Tyler came over to the toddler area for a while to check out all of the fun things.

Isaac was pretty attached to my lap most of the time unless someone took him by the hand and brought him over to play on something. He's quite timid in new and unfamiliar situations.

He warmed up a little eventually and had fun rocking in the fire engine.

On the way to Neptune Park, Tyler said, "I can see Disneyland from here!" Brady's friend, Max, asked, "You can?" I told Max Tyler has really good vision. Later I had to drive down to Payson to pick up some parts for Lance's shop. On the way back, Mia said, "I can see Disneyland from here!" Colin responded, "No you can't!" In her very matter of fact, I know everything voice, Mia responded, "Yes I can. I have camouflage." Colin called her on that and said, "Camo is green and brown." Of course Mia didn't care what Colin said and just replied, "Well, I have camouflage. I can see Disneyland."

Later that day some cousins came over to play. Here's a short part of a conversation Brady, Max and Jenna had. Jenna- "Spit up is gross." Brady- "Kind of, but not really. It's just regurgitated breast milk." Max- "Yeah exactly."

All of our little kids have cups of water when they go to bed at night. Isaac figured out a few months ago he wanted one too, so we usually put one in the corner of his crib. One day after I changed his diaper in his room he saw his cup and wanted a drink. He tried to get it out of the crib, but couldn't. So he gave up and just held onto it and drank it through the crib bars. Such a smart boy.

Isaac loves balls, probably more so than our other kids. When he finds a ball, he usually wants it to go into a hoop. He even says, "hoop." One day we were outside in the front yard. He had a ball in his hand and realized the tomato cage works really well for a hoop. Once he started putting the regular size basketball in, I had to intervene for the sake of the plant.

Every night Mia and Chloe say prayers with me. Chloe is always very thoughtful. She really wants the baby to be named Skyler so she prays for that every night, even though we've told her that would be too close to Tyler. (She had a friend in her class named Skyler who moved away. She really misses him.) She still prays for it every night! It's pretty cute. One night she said, "Please bless we'll name the baby Skyler. Please bless Mommy won't feel any pain when the baby comes out. (Another of her regular request.) Please bless it won't be too hot on Friday and Saturday. Please bless Mia will be nice."

When Mia prays, she's not quite as thoughtful. Immediately after Chloe's prayer, Mia's prayer was, "Please bless we won't name the baby Skyler. Please bless it will be hot Friday and Saturday." It's amazing how two little girls can be so different.

The last week in June was Lehi Roundup days. Lehi usually has three parades. This year they also had a "cattle drive." Since we're only a few blocks from Main Street we walk up to all of them. Since Lance works a lot, that usually means I walk with chairs and six kids with me (counting my nephew.) When it's 100 degrees and I'm pregnant, that means I may be a little less than chipper as much as I try to be.

Anyway, we went up to the cattle drive. I got Isaac some new sunglasses. He wore them for about a day. If you look closely, you can see his nose and lip are all scraped up. He had a little fall the Saturday before. We went to a reception that had a bunch of large rocks on the side of a grass hill. Isaac wanted to go down it after watching Brady and Tyler play on it. Lance put Brady in charge of Isaac. He did a good job, but Isaac didn't like him holding onto him so much. Lance told Brady to let go of Isaac when he really meant just hold his hand, and Isaac took off down the hill. We all watched what we knew would end up in tears. He started going too fast and his little legs couldn't keep up. When he fell, he landed face first in the rocks. It was pretty sad.

Here's some more kids waiting for the cows.

And here comes the cows. There was about 50 longhorn cows surrounded by men on horseback.

You had to look quick or you couldn't even see the cows.

The whole "cattle drive" only lasted about 10 minutes, and that included the band and a few other things. I'm pretty sure it took longer to set out and pack up all of the chairs.

A couple of days later, I was enjoying the quiet in the house while Isaac napped and the kids were outside playing. Then I realized it was a little too quiet. I went out to check on a few little boys and this is what I found.

They had a great time creating a big mud puddle then throwing it all over the house. They were covered in mud too, but I hosed them off before I took their picture.

Later that night was the Stock Parade. I'm not sure why it's not just the Horse Parade since the only other animal was a couple of goats, but I'm not in charge of naming the parades. Anyway, Mia wanted to wear her cowgirl attire so she dressed up in her Jessie costume from Halloween. She was quite proud when one of the riders noticed her and said, "Hey cowgirl!" This time we sat on the shady side of the street to save myself from a melt down. There were still tears shed by some since there was very little candy thrown. I can't really blame them. It's hardly a parade without candy.

That night Lance had the wonderful opportunity to take the four oldest children to the Rodeo while I stayed home with Isaac. Every time we drive past the Rodeo grounds, which is a lot, they asked when they were going to the rodeo so I made sure they got to go this year. Surprisingly, they spent quite a bit of time going to and from the bathroom/porta-potty. I love it when Lance gets to enjoy such wonderful quality time with them. Chloe and Tyler got bored pretty quick but they stayed for the whole thing. At the halfway point, they had some motocross guys doing freestyle tricks on their bikes. That was probably the favorite part for most of them. Lance says he's never taking them again. I'll just let him think that until next year. :)

The next day was the Miniature Parade. This parade only has small floats that are pulled by the participants a couple of the local bands and cheerleading groups. I probably should have taken a few pictures of some of those floats. There was some pretty amazing ones. Tyler had to go pee twice during this parade. It might have had something to do with the bottle of Powerade he downed in about 5 minutes. Luckily, Lance "found" a bathroom behind a fence he was able to use. Bathroom breaks are a little more convenient with little boys.

Again, very little candy, and a few tears. Colin was happy since he managed to get a few pieces.

Isaac was happy too. He really liked all of the parades, especially the horse parade.

Tyler insisted on being as close to this police car as possible.

That night Mia, Chloe and Tyler had a sleepover at my brother's house. When my girls go to a sleepover they pack half their room. It's a little hard to tell, but Chloe's bag goes to her knees and is overflowing up by the top of her head. It was hillarious watching her carry it.

They all stayed the whole night and it was fabulous. I got up in the morning to just one kid, (Lance took Brady with him to be in the parade.) I walked up to the parade and saved a spot for us and Isaac just sat there quietly watching everything. He's an amazing child.

The final parade is the Grand Parade with all of the big floats and bands and candy. The kids ended up with plenty of candy. Once Tyler had a few pieces in his bag, he kind of lost interest in picking up any more. He really enjoyed flinging his gum around though. He kept wrapping it around his fingers. The other thing he enjoyed was the bands. Every time they went by, he would pretend to be playing the drums on his chest. It was so cute. I have some video of it, but no pictures. At the beginning of the parade, some "mountain men" come through and do a shoot-out with guns with blanks. It's loud and obnoxious and I really dislike it. Anyway, Tyler was a little surprised by it and said, "That scared the crabs out of me!"

After a couple of hours in the sun, Isaac got a little flushed. He has sunscreen on, so he didn't burn, he was just sweaty and hot. His nose also looks a lot better too.

At almost the very end of the parade, we finally got to see Lance and his parade entry. The theme of the whole Round Up days was 75 years of cowboys, kids and fun. So Lance found a few cowboy hats to wear for the parade. For his slogan on his signs it says, "Ride 'Em Cowboy." Just so you know, that was my idea. I'm so clever.

On the 3rd, we braved the water park. My little sister had the day off, so I begged her to come with us. She did and it was great. She took the kids down the slides and I stayed with Isaac who was very unsure of everything. He kicked in the water for a little bit and I thought he was getting into it a little so I took him down a little slide. Once he hit the water, he was not happy and cried quite a bit from then on unless we got out and just sat and watched. The other kids had a good time though. We only stayed for a couple of hours since it gets really packed in the afternoon.

Later that night we went over to Lance's mom's house to watch the fireworks his sister bought. About a month ago I found these led foam glow lights. They were only about $2 a piece with shipping so I got a few for the 4th and 24th (Pioneer Day in Utah. We celebrate the pioneers entering the Salt Lake valley with more fireworks) as an alternative to sparklers. I really dislike sparklers. It seems quite ridiculous to hand a sparking wand burning at 1500 degrees to a small child. That may just be me though. The foam sticks were quite fun in the dark.

Brady wanted this to look like it was going through is mouth, in case you can't tell. They're battery operated so you can use them for more than one night.

Today we got to take care of my friend's twins. Mia and Chloe thought it was great that they each got a baby to feed.

Even Tyler got a chance to feed one.

Isaac wasn't really even jealous. I thought he would freak a little, but he didn't. He was happy as can be, throwing his blanket at me while I tried to take his picture.

Here he is ready to throw it again.

We also got some rain today! Yay. It rained for a couple of hours too. Everyone decided to go play in it. Brady figured out if he hit the shade thing over the deck, it pours down a bunch of water.