First Month of Summer... Otherwise known as June

When going through the photos, I saw this one and knew I had to put it on the blog. There once was a day in the not to distant past, when all these vehicles were cars and not vans! Now everyone is Anthony's family drives a van! Even his parents! Totally makes me laugh!

Peter has loved doing scouts! 

This is a bike rodeo that they did! He had a lot of fun!

One night we escaped to the park! I took photos and we let the kids run!

Our first official hot dog roast in our new pit! 

We planted three boxes this year. This is the middle box. It has cherry tomatoes and red pepper plants and carrots. The other two boxes were filled with zucchini and pumpkins. We also had two round containers with more carrots and some peas! 

This little kitten adopted our family for a few days. We ended up dropping her off at some neighbors who later adopted her. 

We headed up to the college gardens one Saturday afternoon and let the kids run and explore!

Some of us girls at Father's Day!

Not sure what this picture is... but thought it was fun!

At the end of June I had signed up to do my first 5K with a friend! I ended up hurting me foot or knee or something and had to walk it. Anthony was a good sport and it did it with me! Love that man!

And Julia hit 30 pounds! Yeah for no more 5 point harness!

Matthew Turns 4 and Swimming Lessons

Matthew turned 4 in June! He was so excited! He was so excited to get his birthday doughnuts and to have his cake! Matthew brings so much laughter and excitement into our home! He is always willing to take on a dare or do something that he thinks will make anyone laugh! He also likes to think of himself as big like his brothers. 

He bought the watch at the DI after Peter got one for his birthday! He wore it every where! He doesn't know how to tell time but he liked feeling big like Peter!

The Cake!

He wanted a dinosaur cake... one that looked like a T-Rex but this momma just doesn't have that talent. This is what he got instead and he loved it! It's actually a pan of Zucchini Brownies with frosting. I never put frosting one so it was super special!

We also had swimming lessons in June and the all the kids but Andrew did it! Andrew decided that swimming wasn't his thing so Julia got to take over his lessons. They all loved it! Especially Matthew and Julia! 

Matthew is a born swimmer! He was always out front of his class and had to be told often to slow down and to stay where his teacher could see him. 

Julia loved putting her face in the water and especially loved her teacher, who happened to be a bride that I did photos for! One day after getting in the van, Julia said, " Me teacher loves me! Me loves my teacher!"

May = school out, mayhem, outdoors, and Mother's Day

My husband knows me so well and suggested after coming home and seeing me little stressed about life, that we venture down to the nearby campground and take some photos. He knows how it relaxes me and makes me feel human again! 

This has become Julia's new smile...insert shaking of head here!

Anthony is such a good dad and always takes time to explain things to all the kids. 

He also takes them on all kind of adventures! The kids love it! 

Matthew has definitely developed a wacky sense of humor this year. He'll do about anything to get a laugh and usually has all of us in laughing in no time!

Peter with his marching stick!

Andrew's model prose! 

Not really...I'm just not sure what he was doing at this moment!

We then went up for a drive near the temple! Always a peaceful view!

Julia and her awesome smile!

The last day of school this happened! Matthew found a small hole in one of the bean bag chairs. He commenced to make it bigger and then dumped the contents on the floor. When we discovered the mess, all four kids were rolling in it and had then clinging all over the clothes. The kids then preceded to run through the house, dropping them everywhere! Was not one of my finer mommy moments!

 Anthony sent pictures to his family and the video and one sister-in-law commented on how well we handled it and that we didn't even yell. I quickly corrected her and let her know that there was yelling! It took a solid hour to clean up all the balls. We had to suck them up with the hose and then dump into a garbage sack. But they was so much static that the ones in the sack would cling to the ones being poured out. We finally crunched up tin foil and put it in the bag and it helped. Anthony got the shop vac that we had just recently invested in and tried sucking some up but forgot to do a step and so it shredded the balls and plastered them on the wall behind him! It was awesome!! We can laugh now and were in a couple of days! What a way to start summer!

Loves being a little monkey!

This was our memorial day project! We built a firepit!! 

It has been the best thing ever! It took all day because we were making it up as we went! Our first marshmallow roast was a success. 

In primary, the leaders had the kids fill these out about their moms. This one is Matthew's! 

I love the 3rd, 4th, and last question!! 

The Rest of April

We spent the first two session of conference at our house and then went to Firth the next day to do an egg hunt and watch the other sessions. One of the activities we did was make bead necklaces and Peter and Andrew made key chains from craft lace! That was bar far the favorite! 

Apparently Julia and I were exhausted one day after church! 

We attempted to grow our own lettuce! It didn't work so well! One of those not so good pinterst ideas! 

She must have been really tired! She only does this if she is completely exhausted! 

Peter's Baptism

Peter was baptized on April 13, 2013! It was a cold and miserable day but inside the warmth of the Spirit warmed us all! (Oh that was soooo cheesy!)

Peter's cousin Jilysa is two weeks older then him and so they got baptized on the same day! 

Grandma and Grandpa Tietjen got home from their mission just in time! 

This is Peter's other cousin Jarsden! Peter really looks up to him! 

Alex (Jarsden's bro), Peter, and Jarsden

We didn't get any pictures with my family because they were being awesome and went to my house to finish all the prep work for the luncheon we had afterwards!