Lately

 I've fallen so behind again!  It's time to play catchup.  We've been so busy lately that I always forget to update this blog until I see the kids looking at our printed blog books and then I'm motivated to keep up with it so we can continue having our family scrapbook.

 Natalie's in activity days now and loving it.  She has the best leaders and friends there and they do the funnest things!  She pulls out her special binder and bag often and looks through it.  :)

 I went to a special breakfast at Natalie's classroom the second to last day of school.  Her teacher gave each of the kids a creative, unique award.  We really liked Ms. Ortiz.

 We go to the park a lot, but it's summertime, so why not?

 Jane always has hair in her face.  I pull it up every day and she always takes it out.  She doesn't seem to mind that she can't ever see.  :)  Now when I tell her that I need to do her hair, she pushes her hair out of the way and says, "See, mom, you can see my pretty face!" meaning that I don't need to do her hair.  :)  I always tell her that I do her hair so I can see her pretty face.

 We signed up for the Kids Bowl Free program again this summer, so we've been doing that a lot too.  Jane always picks the purple ball. :)

 Rob earned man of the year award and cooked our dinner in the rain storm one night.  What a guy!

 The kids love having their friends over and playing in the pool.

 We met up with some friends at the splash pad one day.  The water was cold, but it didn't seem to phase the kids.

 We hiked to our favorite place one weekend...the rock house.

 What a sweetie!  I just love her little face.  She was a trooper on the hike!

 Jane always has to ham it up for the camera.

 The hike was doable, yet harder than I thought since I haven't been able to exercise like I normally do during this pregnancy.  I'm so looking forward to being in shape again!

 We met up with some friends at the Tinkertown Museum one weekend.  It's really eclectic and lots of fun to see.  Jane was newly potty trained when we went, so about halfway through, I told her we needed to go to the bathroom.  There were no real restrooms there, so we walked out to the porta-potties.  I opened the door, she took one look in and said very bluntly, "Eeewwww, no!"  and turned and walked away.  :)

I thought she would have an accident, but she held it until we got to the restaurant for lunch.  She's been my easiest by far to train.  It's been a huge blessing, since this pregnancy has been tougher than the others.

Natalie's becoming quite the good big sister, since I've been enlisting her help a lot more this pregnancy.  She's become lots more responsible and helpful, and it's been amazing.

I can tell my kids don't get to see animals very often, because when we were walking toward the horses' pen, the kids said, "Eewww! It stinks!"  Ha!

 We hit up the botanical gardens as a family one weekend and got to see the butterfly house.

 I don't think my kids know how to make a normal face for the camera.

 Oh how these kids love their daddy!  Jane always says, "Daddy, I like you!"  and the others always can't wait for him to get home every day so they can play with him.

 Grandpa Bell and Rob's brother, Scott came out to visit for a quick weekend.  They kayaked with Rob on Saturday and then played with the kids on Sunday.

  Uncle Scott is so fun!

 Jane always says, "Mom! Take a picture of me!" and then she proceeds to make a funny face.

 These cute kiddos put out their favorite stuffed animals and then wanted a picture with them one day.  :)

 I put the kids in private swimming lessons this year and they have been improving so much!  This was while Natalie was having her lesson.

 Rob's birthday landed on Father's Day this year, so we celebrated early on his Friday off by going miniature golfing.  I got him a new Kindle for his birthday.

 I just adore and love my husband.  He's the best daddy to our kids!  This was on Father's Day.  We got him a new pair of nice jeans and the kids drew him some cute cards.

 Again at the gardens.

 We headed up to Utah to visit my family the end of June and stayed for a week.  Jane got to help Grandpa Hales mow the lawn and thought that was pretty cool.

 Then Blake took his turn.

 I'd been talking up the slippin' slide to my kids since we don't have grass here and they've never done it.  My dream was always to have grass for a slippin' slide, and now it's coming true!  :)  I'll explain below.

 Grandpa Hales and Thomas set up the teepee in Great Grandpa Hales' yard one night and the kids got to sleep in it.  They were thrilled!

 My brother Matthew's girlfriend, Shelby, is SO sweet with the kids.  They just love her.  She just got a mission call to Spokane, WA and will be leaving August 12th!  Matthew got his mission call earlier to Kenya, but wont' be leaving until the end of September.  They'll both be amazing missionaries.

 Jane loves Grandma Hales.  She kept bringing her books the whole time, and now that we're home she always says, "I miss my grandma.  I like her."

 Natalie and her aunt Alice playing the piano.

 We had to get a sister (and mom) pic one morning.  I love these pretty ladies!  We're missing Priscilla, who's on a mission in Costa Rica and will be returning in about a month.

 This was our attempt at taking a picture on the sunny side of the temple. Haha!  It was bright!

 I took the kids to walk around the grounds of the new, beautiful Payson temple.  They were in awe, and especially loved the fountains.  : ) Rob's family was staying in Park City, so he spent most of the week with them.  I took the kids up to Heber one night and met Rob and his brother Brian and his family so we could go on the Heber Creeper.  Heber is beautiful, but it was sweltering hot on the train.

Rob's family met me down at the Payson temple one day and we all got to go through a session there.  It was such a neat experience.  What a gorgeous, holy place.

 Here's Jane on the teeter totter with her adorable cousin Ollie, my sister Melissa's little boy.

 Jane had fun with my sister Catherine's cute girls, Claire and Cora.  I really wish we could all live closer!

 We went and visited my Grandma Heelis one morning.  We had to sneak in a four generation picture.  My aunt Julie came and gave us all her yummy zucchini bread and ice cream while there too.

 We visited my Grandpa and Grandma Hales, who live next door to my parents.  My Grandpa has alzheimer's and is deteriorating quickly.  It's amazing how fast some things change.  It broke my heart.  Our visit with him was night and day different from our last.  My sweet grandma made all the girls adorable skirts.

 The kids wanted a picture on the four wheeler.  My brother Luke was a sweet uncle and took them for rides on it.

 The kids all love uncle Thomas!  He's their favorite.  :)

 I caught these kids downstairs happily crafting one day.  Too cute!

 We went up to Park City for the last day or so of our trip to be with Grandpa and Grandma Bell.

 We had a wonderful 4th of July with them, going to Kneader's for breakfast, then swimming at the community pool, having a yummy barbecue, then heading to Heber for fireworks since Deer Valley didn't allow them.  The sparklers were a huge hit!

 Someone's happy.

 My cute Natalie.  She had a sad accident only minutes after we got to the park.  She hit her mouth on a monkey bar and was bleeding.  It ended up being a happy accident, though, because it loosened a tooth that the dentist said is needing to come out very soon.  :)

 My adorable kids.  Love them to pieces!

 Aunt Chelsea, Rob's sister, will be leaving for Siberia on a mission in just a few months!  We will miss her!

 Thomas let Jane and Natalie take a quick ride on the horse while we were there.  It was more like just a quick photo opp.  :)

 We got extended family photos one evening.  Here's grandma and grandpa Hales with their adorable grandkids (and kids Abby, Alice, and Emmy).

 Another shot of the cute grandkids, plus aunts Abby, Alice, and Emmy.  We had such a good time in Utah visiting family.

My mom made her wonderful strawberry pies one day and we all ate in complete silence because we didn't want to waste breath while enjoying something so delicious.  :)

I got to shop with my mom and sisters and we got ice cream at The Barn one night.  It's always hard saying goodbye.

 This is back at home.  These kids are so sweet together.  Jane was asked one day who her best friend was and she said, "Blake".  They have become such great buddies.  I don't know what she's going to do when he goes to kindergarten in August.

Jane is too cute with her tea parties.  She always has me sit in the room and she brings me "food".

 We took the kids to see Minions in theaters this past weekend.  It was a funny show.  Jane still has a hard time holding still for that long, but that's totally understandable.

 Once again, Jane always has to ham it up. :)

I did a fun craft with the older kids.  We headed up the mountains and picked some flowers and they painted frames to put them in.

We put our house on the market in June.  It was really unexpected.  We knew this wouldn't be our permanent home and that we always wanted more land, but Rob just happened to be looking on zillow.com one day and we went to see a place, and ended up putting an offer down on it.  There were two offers, so we really had to fight to get it, but we did!  

Our house sold in three weeks, thankfully.  It was such a stressful time trying to keep the house perfectly clean all the time with three messy kiddos! 

 Every time we went anywhere, we had to hurry and clean up, just in case someone called to come see it while we were out.  Talk about exhausting!  We will miss this place so much.  It's our first home and we have loved it.  We've made so many memories in this place and it will be so sad to say goodbye to it, but we are so excited about our new place.  It has over 2 acres of land, a tennis court, and more space inside.  It was originally built in the 1950's and then renovated in 1989.  It is very well built and was well taken care of, but I'm so excited to make updates to it and make it our own.  I have lots of plans and projects for it!

 There was one week when our house was on the market that we had five showings in one week.  One day there were three showings, so we basically spent the day at the park.  Jane decided that she was going to conquer this part of the playground.  Those things move a lot when you grab them and are far apart, so she started out a little scared, of course, but soon told me to go away and not help her.  She caught on really quickly.  I was so proud of her!  Jane is very independent.

That was probably the longest post ever!  I need to stay more on top of this!