Rak Attack

Baby Zoe's Rollin'!!! Zoe officially rolled over last night! And she did it more than once too :) WAHOO!

I've been trying (more like somewhat trying) to go walking everyday to balance out my eating habits. A group of us moms load up the kids and walk about 2 miles in the morning. Sydney tends to like the walks because she'll get to eat crackers and snacks I usually wouldn't let her eat before 10am. After the walk we go to the park and let the kids play on the playground while the moms stretch. I never noticed Sydney paying attention to us stretching, but apparently she was.

Yesterday, she was sitting on the floor grabbing her ankle, saying "Mommy, My schatching!" I responded with "Oh? Did you get an owie? Does it itch?" "No! My SCHATCHING!" and again she reached for her ankle while groaning. Then it dawned on me. She was STRETCHING. So I ran and grabbed the camera and asked her to do all the stretches that Mommy does. I've posted both Sydney's stretching poses and some images of the correct stretch she is trying to imitate. FYI, I don't groan while I stretch. She must have picked that part up from one of the other moms ;) ENJOY!

Saturday after breakfast we went and saddled up a couple horses, Stormy and Meg. Sydney just loved riding the horses. She truly is a 'Cowgirl' at heart. While we were riding Sydney sang over and over, "I love horsey; she loves me. I love other horsey, yes sirree; He loves us, and so you see... we are a happy family." It was just so cute. She would also tell Stormy "Good Tormys" and lean over and pat her on the neck.

Here are some more photos of the trip:

This last weekend we headed to our family cabin. And man did we have a blast! We got there Thursday night in time for Sydney to play with her cousins for a little while and then straight to bed, so the adults could play some games without the little ones getting in the way :)

Here's my brother Eric and me rockin' out on Guitar Hero! Check out how focused we are. FYI... I've advanced to the medium level, WAHOO! I know that's not all that good but I'm very excited.

Then some of us played horse shoes on this awesome horse shoe pit the guys in my family built a few years ago.

We then headed to a park in Oakley for the kids to play at. The giant slide at this park wasn't designed very well. We sent two of the kids down, both of which face planted it at the end. The problem with the slide was at the bottom there was an abrupt turn and the kids would flip over head first and land on their heads at the end of the slide. OUCH! Sydney wouldn't go near the slide after that. We also had some races on the grass, which were a lot of fun. Afterwards, we all ate a refreshing popsicle from Oakley's little convenient store. Here's some photos of the fun...

That's enough for now. I'll post more about our trip soon.

The weekend of July 24th we went on our annual camping trip to Mill Hollow with Nick's extended family. On our way up we stopped at the"Train" restaurant in Heber with Grandma Janet, Aunt Jen and her kids, and Nick's Uncle Dee and Aunt Betty. Sydney loved the train that was going around the rooms in the restarant and also loved the cool train outside that you can sit on. I had to bribe her with hot tamales to get her to down and get in the car. She's a sucker for hot tamales, aka "Hot stuff" :)

Only about 1/2 of the family was able to make it to Mill Hollow this year, so we didn't have the intense dodge ball games that we've had in the past :( But we did have a good time talking, hanging out by the fire and playing horse shoes. Sydney mostly loved following around Roger and Andrea's dog, Mack.

Above is Sydney and her second cousin Aiden giving hugs to Mack. The poor dog had Sydney hanging on him all weekend long.

Okay, so it really wasn't "camping"... We stayed in a cabin and had a cafateria for our meals, but we did have a camp fire. Below is Nick and Sydney on one of the bunk-beds in the cabin.

Here we have the whole group. Starting at the top left on the stairs: Betty, Calum, Dee, Grandma Janet, and Ed. Going down the stairs is: Coral, Mckenzie, Shona, Andrea, and Aiden. Then Gavin, Jen, Sydney, Maggie, Conner, Julienne, and Emma on the very bottom of the steps. To the left of the steps is Rob w/ the football, Nick's brother Jason, and Roger with his dog Mack. And of course on the right is Nick, Zoe and me.

I had to post the goofy picture we did. Usually I think these kinds of pictures turn out dorky, but this one made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd share it with all of you :)

July 23rd was my sister Michelle's Birthday and we continued the tradition of celebrating it at the Hogle Zoo! This is a tradition I look forward to every year. As many of us that can skip out on work and household responsibilities and all head to the Zoo for the day.

Here is Michelle with the kids next to her ginormous tomato plants to the right.

All the cousins were able to make it and even their second cousin Luke and his mom Emily were there, along with Grandma Wilkinson, Aunt Emily and Uncle Brad. We had such a good time and only wished we could have spent more time there and had the rest of the family with us. Some of Sydney's favorite animals this year were the white alligator/crocodile (I can never remember which one has the rounder snout), the "big" owl, the elephant, the "little" bear, the giraffe, and the "sad" monkey. I'm sure she loved all the animals, because Sydney's just that way, but those are the ones she continues to talk about.

I couldn't believe the bird show. It was so-o cool! The birds would fly right over our heads and I don't just mean above our heads. I mean if you sat up as straight as you possible could, right as the bird few by, the bird would have hit you. It really was amazing. Some of the birds at the front of the little theater were so cute. One would dance to the music and then they would hand it a water bottle and it acted like it was drinking from it. Very fun! At the end of the show we all went to the front and had each of the kids hand one of the birds a dollar bill. Who would then walk over to the donation box and drop the dollar in. What a great way to get people to donate! They got $6 out of us, and had we had more dollar bills they would have gotten even more :) I recommend taking the time to watch this show the next time you're at Hogle Zoo. It was fun.

My girls are so lucky to have an Aunt like my sister Michelle. She's always planning some fun adventure for the nieces and nephews, and they just love it. Sydney loves Michelle so much she calls her "Mommy Michelle" and is always by Michelle's side whenever we're with her. Thanks Michelle for such a great Birthday Celebration, and thanks Grandma for paying for the fun rides. We had a wonderful time!