ghetto pool

Friday night while we were still in the valley we took a trip down to good ol' Florence for a party at the town pool with Heidi's ward. I had flashbacks to Arrowhead pool in Chandler, as a kid I remember having stake activities at Arrowhead pool. No slides, no zero entry, no diving board, just lots of 3 feet water. Needless to say, my boys didn't know any different since we have yet to go to a pool of any sort here in Flag. Fletcher showed up in his wranglers as did a couple of other men in their small town ward. I guess they didn't know that jeans can cause a lot of drag when you are swimming. Heidi didn't wear a swim suit either. She figured Dakota and Cy are old enough to take care of themselves in the water and wouldn't need to keep an eye on them. And who are we kidding, she doesn't really keep an eye on Josie also. Luckily, I brought Tana and Taryn with me just to supervise the younger kiddos. Reed loves the water! He does fairly well swimming under water and wishes he could swim like Taryn(she has lovely lines and can do all of the strokes). He was so cute wearing goggles:

Blue fell asleep on the drive down to Florence and when we got to the pool he was content sitting on the sidelines with Fletcher. He slowly worked his way closer to the water. First testing the waters by splashing with his hands.

When he decided that he wanted to get into the water, he started to strip down to his birthday suit in front of all the ward members who were eating dinner. I caught him just in time, and wrapped a towel around him while he finished putting on his swimsuit. Once in the water, he didn't want to go under he just clung tightly to whoever's neck he could get.

Beau spent most of his time tossing rings into the pool. Tossing isn't the right word, more like throwing some heat into the water. He nailed just a couple of people in the head.

Josie had no fear of the water and had a little modesty problem.


Heidi made it the entire night with only one attempt made to push her into the water. Which, unfortunately for her, was successful. It didn't take much for me to convince Fletcher to push her in. In fact, his one word response to my request was, "Gladly".

I'm melting, I'm melting

This weekend I decided to take a trip down to the valley. Yep, you read it right. I drove from the beautiful weather of Flag to the sweltering sticky scorching heat of Queen Creek. I must be going crazy. Anyway, I was a little worried about how my boys would handle the heat. I must say, as long as there was some sort of water activity they were just fine. Tana was so kind as to buy a few slip'n'slides for the boys to play on. It took a few practice runs for Reed to get the hang of it:

First he went on his knees.

Then, he tried it out on his backside.

Finally, he got the hang of it.

Blue was more of a RUN, STOP, and DROP kinda a guy:



All Beau wanted to do was try to drink the water:

Notice his tongue hanging out even while he is running.

fresh fruit

I love fresh fruit in the summer! I can remember going to pick peaches with my mom. I would search for the perfect peach, pick it, and then turn it over and find that a bird had already feasted on the other half. Argggh, it was so frustrating! Now, I like to keep fresh fruit on hand for my boys to eat. But I'm not sure that it was such a great idea to keep the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table...

Just like a bird, Beau has taken a bite out of every piece of fruit in the bowl! Arggh, now that's frustrating!

crawdads, and cousins, and bears, oh my

This past weekend was the Busby Family Reunion/camping trip. A good time was had by all! Reed and Blue enjoyed catching crawdads with their cousin Trey.

A lot of the older kids were getting in the water fully clothed and Beau followed suit.

Once he fell in, we stripped him of his clothes and he was in heaven playing in the lake!

This year my mom, aka Grammy, set up shop for the kids with candy and toys. It was a huge hit! Blue, Reed, and Trey got matching mini light sabers(at least that is what they thought they were).

Blue would not let his out of his sight.
It was fun to catch up with some of my cousins I don't see that often, reminiscing about when we were kids at this reunion. I loved hanging out with my brothers and sisters and sister in law, definitely alot of sarcasm in the air all weekend long.

I especially loved the extra help with my boys.

Thanks to Casey, Pierce, and my nieces and nephews for all your help!
And we had celebrities such as Bob Ross and Gladys perform in our skit!

The only downside to the trip was the two bears roaming the campsite. But this downside has an upside: The first night we were there one of the bears was caught in a trap set out near the garbage dumpster!

Can you see him?

Happy Birthday Jackie

Yesterday was Jackie's birthday. Reed made a sign for her. He put it on the front door so when she came home from work she would see it.

I thought he did a great job with all the bright colors, the balloons, and the presents. Way to go Reed! We also made a cake for her. I saw the other day that Fry's grocery store sells the whipped topping that they put on their cakes. So I decided to give it a shot. Then I used a cake recipe from Bakerella. Check it out! It was to die for! My boys decorated the cake with mini M&M's (just blue and green since those are Jackie's favorite colors). Even though we only put one candle on the cake, Jackie had plenty of help blowing it out from my boys!

We are so glad she came to stay with us for the summer. Every morning, night, and even at mealtime, in their prayers, my boys mention how grateful they are that she is having a sleepover for the summer.

orange creamsicles

Who else would be able to make eating popsicles into a photo shoot? Thanks Chea!

good food & good company= good times

Our fourth of July weekend was full of good food and good company. Chea and Wayne came up at the last minute. They brought Pierce and Taryn. The rest of their girls were at girls camp. While we did not participate in any of the festivities for the fourth(the parade or the fireworks/laser show-it was all sold out), the boys still had a blast! They love it when Taryn comes to play. They play school, store, and whatever else Taryn can organize (she loves to organize and clean- so unlike her mother, I know). Playing on the trampoline with Pierce was definitely a highlight for my boys also.

We ate to our hearts content all weekend long. Steak and chicken from the grill and nothing is better the "hand-shucked" corn.

Then there was a lot of rest & relaxation:

pre-fourth festivities

Last Thursday Colby took Reed and Blue to a Diamondbacks game in Phoenix. He had an extra ticket so he also invited Papa. My boys were so excited! They have never been to a professional baseball game before. A good time was had by all- apparently it was a pretty memorable game for the players also. It was so good that my dad got a little teary-eyed. He can't help it, baseball is his passion even still.

Blue enjoyed it so much that he slept through the entire game until the seventh inning (no surprise there since he is my snoozer). Reed said his favorite part of the game was the "kiss camera"- when the big screen spotlights two people sitting next to each other and they must kiss in front of the entire crowd.


I was pretty excited also because I only had one kid for a day! Oh the things I was going to do! NOT! Beau wanted me to play with him and he wouldn't leave my side all day! Three kids is way easier than one! I had hopes of reading Stephanie Meyer's The Host. While I did get about halfway through, I was hoping to finish it while they were gone. I did finish it the next day ( I was a terrible host to Chea and Wayne in the morning, sorry guys!). I did not love it. It took me the first 200 pages just to get interested. The plot was so familiar to her Twilight series. However, I was glad that it had an ending, I'm not sure I would have read another book if it turned out to be a series. If you have read it, what did you think?

home improvements

Today Beau decided to touch up the exterior of the house. Since it was raining, this task was very simple... smear mud all over the siding.

It has been cloudy and thundering for the past few days but today it finally rained. Beau absolutely loved it! He would run all the way out and let it pour down on him.
Then he would hold his hands out and let the drainage from the roof fill his little (I guess not so little, according to Jackie and Heidi) hands. I decided to let him play outside for awhile by himself. This is where it all went wrong. I checked on him a few minutes later and discovered that he had moved from the falling rain and on to the squishy mud. When I tried to catch him, he just took off around the corner of the house. He must have known I wouldn't chase him in the mud because I wasn't wearing any shoes. When I finally caught him, he was not only soggy, his hands and feet and hair(I'm not sure how that happened) were covered in mud. I didn't mind cleaning him up because it was fun to watch him enjoy one of life's little pleasures...rain.