Austin's Birthday

We celebrated Austin's birthday on Sunday July 24th since there was a big swim meet on the 27th.  Austin really wanted a Tron birthday cake and unfortunately for me Tron party decorations, particularly cake toppers, are no longer available.  If it were Cars 2 it would have been easy.  So this is my effort at making a Tron cake for Austin's birthday using frosting (because I have no idea how to work with fondant), a little fruit roll up, and one of Austin's Tron motorcycles.

I overheard Austin telling his buddy the other day that he had the best birthday cake ever.  He told his friend that I made him a Tron cake and that I'm an artist and it was Awesome!  That made me so happy.

Austin had a lot of fun with his cousin Alex at the reunion and wanted to invite him to his party since it was his year to have a family party.  We invited my mom and my sister Jacque and her family over for dinner and a little party.

Evelyn's started doing this really cheesy smile where she closes her eyes and breathes really fast through her nose.  It's so cute but hard to get a picture of.

Austin has always been a man of many facial expressions.

Evelyn learned to wave "hi" during Austin's party!

She also got to play with her cousin Ian.  Ian is about 9 months older.  They had a lot of fun putting a ball in this red cup.

City Swim Meet

This was our only outdoor swim meet this year.  I love outdoor meets!  You get much better pictures.

Eden got to be on the team with her best friend Sareya.  They had so much fun together!

This is Eden and Sareya getting ready for backstroke.  Since it's only 25 meters I waited at the start to help the girls get ready and Kelly waited at the finish, with the camera.

Eden and Sareya are neck and neck.

Sometimes it's so hard to get a good swim picture.  This is Cameron doing butterfly for the 100 IM.

GREAT Camp

The week of July 18th Dallin attended a GREAT Camp at the U of U.  GREAT stands for Graphics and Robotics Exploration with Amazing Technology.  I called it a Nerd camp.  :)

Every day for that week Ryan drove him up to the U and then I drove up in the afternoon to pick him up but it was totally worth the sacrifice because he loved it.  For the first half of the week they worked on Alice, a graphics and animation program.  They designed a small cartoon and a brief video game.  Then the last half of the week they got to work with Lego Mindstorm robots.  These pictures are from the last day.  They had a competition to see who designed the most destructive robot.  Dallin's robot had a good concept but didn't quite perform as he had hoped.  It was pretty cool to watch, though.

Just a side note.  We were a little nervous about dropping Dallin off in Salt Lake all by himself so the Saturday before the camp we bought him a cell phone.  We had been discussing it all summer.  I wanted him to have one for Jr. High.  Ryan was on the fence until he thought about dropping Dallin off at this camp in Salt Lake and not having any other way to get a hold of him.  I must say it was a huge relief for me.  I got some pretty cute texts from him during the week.  My favorite was when he told me he won a small competition and got a treat.  I like having a way to chat with him during the day.  He may be growing up but he's my first and I'm a wimp.

Clones

When I held Evelyn in my arms for the first time I thought, "oh yeah, she's one of mine."  I guess after a while they all start to look the same.  But when I came across this picture of Dallin and Eden in a little baby book I was really surprised.  Eden and Evelyn really all could be clones.  So I took another picture of Dallin and Evelyn just so we could compare.

My mom swears they look nothing alike.  What do you think?

Are You Sleeping

Evelyn was a great sleeper.  For the first six months of life she slept through the night and only woke up around 5 am to nurse and then went right back to sleep.  Then something happened in July and all of the sudden she's waking up at 1 am and 4 am and 6 am and all sorts of crazy am's.  It's been a disaster since we've also been taking Cameron to swim team at 6 am and with all the summer fun we've been going to bed later and later.

I'm sure part of Evelyn's sleep problems are due to the fact that she has no schedule.  She naps in the car or the stroller or occasionally in bed if we happen to be home.  But those naps are usually cut short because we've arrived at our destination, I've come home from jogging, or the kids are a little too loud.  It's so unfair to this poor little girl and her tired parents.  Maybe when school starts things will get better.

Summer Swim Team

Every summer my kids participate on the city swim team.  This was Dallin's first summer not doing swim team because he would have missed 4 weeks out of the 8 due to vacation, 2 scout camps, and a camp at the U.

Cameron was a diehard though and got up 4 mornings a week at 5:30 am to swim from 6-7:30!  I am so proud of her for her committment.  One night just after Ryan and I went to bed but were still awake talking Cameron came in dressed in her swimsuit and sweats, all ready for me to braid her hair and put her cap on!  I told her it was only 10:30 pm and she had only been in bed for an hour and she needed to go back to bed.  She looked at me with so much confusion and slowly made her way back to bed.

This was Eden's first year to participate on the swim team.  She really did great.  I have to hand it to Juleen Whitney, though, because she does a great job teaching kids how to swim.  She got Eden ready for the swim team in just two months.  Eden swam in the 6 and under category, which is a pretty small group of kids, but from the start she won just about every race she swam.  I was so impressed and had no idea she was so athletic.

This is Cameron diving in for her relay.  These pictures were taken at the Provo swim meet.  Provo has an indoor pool so it's really hard to get a good picture.  I should have taken more pictures throughout the summer but I was too busy watching the girls' exciting races.

The kids have to get up pretty early to be at the Saturday swim meets so I think they all enjoyed a relaxing afternoon on July 9th.

Summer Fun

Usually I spend a lot of summer afternoons at one city pool or another but this year has been a bit more challenging with the baby so I picked up this fun little pool for the kids to at least cool off in during the hot afternoons.

In order to appreciate this picture you have to understand how much our cat avoids Austin.  Usually when he sees Austin coming he heads in the opposite direction.  Probably because he knows that if he's caught he will be dragged around and forced to succumb to Austin's will.  So when I saw Austin sitting next to the cat and gently petting him one morning (and the cat not running away) I just had to get a picture.

Eden hasn't had as much time to play with her friends this summer as she normally does.  Everyone's been so busy (including us) that it's hard to find a day when friends are home and we are home.  This was a very rare day.  She had all her favorite friends over at the same time and it wasn't even planned.  Her cousin Katy (also considered a best friend) and her best friend Haydn, and her best friend Sareya.