Summer Time

This summer we kept busy with our regular daily summer adventures as well as fun family outings. Here's the basis of our summer captured in 17 pics . . .

Goodbye lazy summer mornings, sunshine, swimming and humidity -- hello school, cooler weather and pumpkin flavored everything.

Fancy Fourth

I not only don't have anymore babies, but I officially don't even have a toddler.
How can it be possible that my youngest is four now? It's mind boggling, really!

Her birthday also marked the last day of summer vacation, so what better way to celebrate a little girl and the summer than swimming?!

For dinner, Jilli was adamant about going to McDonald's and when we realized that her mind couldn't be swayed a different way, it was off to McD's for kids meals all around and some playland fun, followed up by a shopping trip to Target to round out the night.

The next day we had a Fancy Fourth birthday party for Miss J.

I found much joy in the party prep and honestly I may have been more excited about the party than the honoree herself.

Here she is, all fancied up!

Mac, Beck and Jax agreed to be the party's butlers.  This consisted of Mac greeting the guests at the door and saying, "Greetings, princess __________." And then with a wave of his arms he would say, "Your party awaits."  At that point Beck would take the guest's gift and Jax would lead them in by saying, "Right this way."
Now if that's not love, I don't know what is!

Our Fancy Fourth consisted of making fancy necklaces, painting fancy fingernails,

having a fancy photo booth,

and eating fancy finger foods.

And what party would be complete without a fancy cake (and ice cream)?

Here's to seven of the fanciest little friends I've ever seen!

Speaking of fancy . . .

she wears fancy well, don't you agree?

Love that girl to the moon and back!

(For recording purposes, at 4 years old Jilli weighs in at 36 lbs (58%) and is 41 in. tall (70%).  Interestingly enough, the doctor is predicting that she won't quite get to my max height of 5 ft. 8 3/4 in. and instead he's guessing she'll max out around 5 ft. 7 in.)

VaCaTiOnS!

Now that we have two days left of summer vacation, I think it's safe to say that our travels are over for the season. In June we took an impromptu trip to the mountains and had a great time. We took in all the sights that Grandfather Mountain had to offer, including crossing the Mile-high bridge, which was incredibly scary to cross. Even though it is now made of metal, it still sways in the wind and makes a whistling noise that adds to the eery idea of you being a mile above ground level.

(And while it may appear that Mac is peeing off the edge of the mountain in one of the above pictures, I can assure you that he was not.)

Unlike other years where we've gone home to Utah for a good portion of the summer, all of Nate's family decided to make the trek east to see us this year. All five of his siblings, their families and his mom joined us at Sunset Beach for a week of sunny, sandy bliss! We're definitely thinking that we should make a tradition out of this and I'm hoping to get all of my family out here at the same time very soon.

(These girls have found that having a cousin your age is one of the best things ever!)

(Thanks to Kim for making the shirts for these 14 kiddos, but getting them to all cooperate for a picture was near to impossible.)

The last of Nate's family left our home on a Tuesday and that Thursday we headed to Ohio to spend a weekend out there for our nephew, Porter's, baptism. While we were there, we also hit up King's Island, which was a big hit!

It's always sad when events are over that you've been looking forward to for so long. It seems like you wait forever for them to come and then they pass so quickly. I can't believe that summer is basically over and that the kids will be back in school for another year.
Time flies when you're having fun . . .