Our ENTIRE Summer

Rachel helping with the dishes, one of the girls' favorite new hobbies.

Aunt Jennifer helping the girls plant their Easter presents.

Spring Break snow!

Getting a shed from Costco for all our bikes.

Freak windstorm knocked down a side panel on our shed.

The Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point with Grandma Thatcher!

Feeding the coy.

She wishes!

Fun bouncy toys we finally unpacked that were from Grandpa Thatcher.

Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur museum. We love going right before it closes when no one is there!

Sarah looooves dinosaurs!

Local hike for Earth Day with Aunt Jennifer.

Anne took all these rocks out of the stream and lined them all up.

Another Home Depot trip.

Homemade sushi night, mmm.

Thanksgiving Point Farm Country.

Rachel's mountain ecosystem project.

Rachel is the butterfly whisperer.

Zac tilling up our garden.

Anne and Shizzie.

I learned that you can cook an entire chicken in the crock pot and then just tear off all this meat. So easy.

And made this, white chicken chili, mmm.

Daddy and his helper finishing building our bike shed.

We did a lot of biking this summer. Zac was preparing for his high adventure with the scouts. I just love the trail that overlooks the valley near our house. One Saturday we went all the way from Pleasant Grove to Provo and back, about 20 something miles. It was great :)

Since this bike ride was really long the older girls got to play with the ipad in the trailer.

Snuggle time with Daddy. I don't know what my girls would do without it.

Family cookout int the backyard with Uncle Loren, Aunt Jennifer, and Grandpa Russell.

Another favorite hobby this summer for the girls was playing with rollie pollie bugs and worms and collecting them in jars. So cute.

I can't remember what she did, but she bonked hard.

We love our new neighbors, the Bellows! They have kids our kids' ages and they are so kind. The girls love that they have a trampoline that they invite them to play on.

Grandma's (and now ours, but I still think of her when I see them) Iris bed. There were some really unique and gorgeous combinations of colors in there.

Riding to the dumb in Uncle Loren's truck, so exciting!

Another favorite hobby.

Date night at the movies :) I sure love this guy.

Grandma Thatcher came to visit! So we took her to the BYU science expo and made rockets and visited the Planetarium.

And to the Payson temple open house. So beautiful. The girls were so excited to be able to go into a temple!

This was one of my favorite color iris's.

We also took Grandma to Thanksgiving Point for the Tulip Festival. Sarah is such a ham.

I am so blessed with such kind in-laws and the girls love their Grandma! The other day Anne asked if we could go see Grandma Thatcher. I told her she lived in California and it was a long drive to get there. She just said "That's ok, we'll take a nap while you drive."

A really neat art exhibit at Thanksgiving Point centered on the life of Christ.

Playing in our wood shavings.

So proud of our big Anne this year. She transitioned schools better that we even hoped. She loved her teachers and her friends at school. She is getting the help she needs and improves so much all the time. Her resource teacher, Mrs. Austin held an awards assembly where everyone got an award for something. Anne's was for her "Happy Attitude" that she had every day in class. This was the second time she had won this award, once at her last school and once here. And knowing all her struggles, this is a big deal. I'm so proud of our Anne. Keep it up big 1st grader!

We had a big bbq in our backyard and invited all our friends friends from years past. It was kind of a Provo 4th ward reunion :) It was so nice to see everybody and catch up.

Carrying on the Grandpa Hebbert tradition, we had our own paddy wagon rides that the kids loved!

Lots of trips to the lake.

Visiting Grandpa Hebbert's grave for Memorial Day. So grateful for all the blessings I am able to receive every day because of his service in World War II and his lifelong service in the Church.

"Doo Doo Doo Lookin out my backdoor."

Beautiful sunset on my way home from a run one night.

Anne's last day of kindergarten!

Headed to the lake!

Testing out the four-wheelers on the other side of the lake before our big Coral Pink Sand Dunes trip.

Starting their summer school work.We did about 30-60 minutes usually about 4 days a week to help Anne catch up and Rachel keep going in the common core language arts and math curriculum. Sarah had fun coloring, playing learning games on the ipad, and playing playdough.

At the Springville splash pad with friends. I couldn't find Sarah's swim suit so my friend Sarah let me borrow her little girls'.

Sarah and her little buddy Katelyn. They are getting so big!

Family night at Daddy's work.

I loved seeing what flowers and fruit blossomed throughout the summer. This was one of my favorites. A mock orange bush right outside our front door that smelled beautiful and strong!

Pool time.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes 2015! We are so grateful that Loren and our cousins, the Herzogs, invited us to come crash their annual event. It had been so much fun, whether riding or just at camp. This year we got to bring one of my best buddies, Carrie Uffelman from Virginia! I think it's safe to say this is now a yearly tradition :)

Grandpa always making sure everything is tidy and neat. I have discovered that most of my siblings inherited this trait.....I'm working on it.

One of the favorite campsite pastimes, playing scum :)

Anne is sound asleep...in that position.

Rachel made buddies (of course) with our cousins' kids a campsite up from us.

And the girls all made friends with Grandpa Russel cause he gave them treats :)

This turned out pretty good. Dutch oven cobbler.

Carrie got her workout pulling those guys around in the wagon.

The BEST part of camping. So many stories ;)

Our most exciting news this summer, we're expecting! This was from the first doctor's visit so the baby looks like a little peanut, haha. The baby is due January 17th, but I'll probably end up being induced the 11th. Things have been going well healthwise, everything looks good. But this has been, no exaggerating, a ten times harder pregnancy than all the others. The entire first trimester I felt sick all day and night and my energy was through the floor. I even passed out once running up the stairs for the phone. Needless to say I am very excited to be exiting that phase and am feeling much better this trimester :) Our ultrasound is next month on Sept. 8th.

Grandpa brought out a little writing desk that we Russell kids all played with when we were little.

Now for Zac's phone pics.

Heading out for the sand dunes. We got to drive Uncle Loren's truck while the boys drove Grandpa's new truck which pulled the trailer with the four wheelers on it.

Breakfast stop in Nephi at this amazing diner. Best bacon I have ever eaten, no joke. The kids loved the trains going around the ceiling.

Setting up camp.

Helping her mechanic uncle.

More Thanksgiving Point horse rides.

Yet again, "Grandma's" rose garden.

On the last night Granpa was here he bought the kids ice cream sundaes with allll the fixings.

They were happy :)

Jennifer and I took the girls to see "Cinderella" at the dollar theater. The best line of the night was Anne when Cinderella came out in her wedding dress, (an audible gasp) "Look at her shoes! They are SO sparkly! Wow!" That girl :)

I get to work with the cubscouts as my Church calling and it's awesome. They are so much fun and crazy! It helps that I have such an awesome co-leader, Kristi Beckett!

More lake.

This time we got to go out on kayaks and a paddle board that Jen's friends brought.

4th of July Kids' bike and scooter parade kicked off our festivities for Strawberry Days in Pleasant Grove! It must have cracked 100 this day.

Out to eat at a local Mexican food place. I don't know where our pictures went of the carnival, but we did that after we ate here. The kids rode their first mini roller-coaster, all three of them, all by themselves! And loved it! They have no fear when it comes to stuff like that.

All of us at the rodeo the next night. After this Rachel is now convinced she wants to be a barrel racer. Don't we all :)

Strawberries and cream, so good.

Anne and Zac got to walk in PG's Strawberry Days parade as part of celebrating her school district's 100th birthday! Anne had so much fun throwing out candy and walking with Dad.

We enjoyed the shade and receiving all the candy :)

Father's Day. I know I've said this before. But I don't know where all of us would be without Zac as the Dad in our family. He is such a good example of kindness, patience, silliness, and love. My girls are truly blessed to grow up with him as their father.

I made him his favorite, peanut butter cup pie.

Storytime.

Hiking around Tibble Fork Reservoir with Aunt Jennifer.

American Fork canyon is so beautiful.

Anne had fallen early on in the hike so she was very cautious of the loose terrain. So she preferred to slide down the mountain instead.

Playing in the reservoir. That water was freezing!

More fun time with the boats thanks to Jen's nice friends.

Playing crazy with Uncle Loren. We love having Aunts and Uncles close by now if you can't  tell :)

Sarah is all potty trained which was crazy for the first couple days then she got the hang of it pretty quick. But there were some battles which wore her out.

We had to figure out our weed problem in our garden. So we weed-whacked, then sprayed with weed killer all around our plants. That seemed to do the trick. Dang weeds. Due to our late start, figuring out watering and weed issues, our garden got a late start, but it's picking up now.

These two munchkins have entered a fighting stage which I am hoping they will grow out of soon. I hear lots of "Rach!!!" and "Anne!!!" screamed all around the house, alllll day. But they are also the best of buds and love playing together. Sometimes they are so sweet to each other.  I hope this part sticks for the rest of their lives.

We got a quick visit from Uncle Kenric's family on their way down Arizona. So fun to see everyone, especially our new niece Penny!

Like I said, sometimes these guys get along great. I cherish these moments.

So Zac gave me a coupon for Mother's Day for a "day off". After a week of potty training Sarah, I redeemed this and Zac took off work and watched the kids for entire day while I did my own thing. It was refreshing physically, spiritually, and mentally. I highly recommend it for all Moms. We just have a stressful, never stopping job, and sometimes it's nice to take a break.

One of my stops was my favorite fast food Hawaiin place, Rumbi grill. They have the best pinapple, teriyaki, chicken sandwhich.

I then went to the Draper temple up in Salt Lake cause I've always wanted to go there since it opened a couple years ago.

I really wanted to go hiking by myself, it's one of my favorite hobbies. But I started this trail by reading a huge sign that said "Mountain Lions live here, here's what you do when you see one:....." After I heard some rustling in the bushes I decided to go to a more populated trail.

View from Traverse mountain overlooking the Salt Lake valley.

So then I went on this trail down near my house in PG.

I loved hearing the water rushing down the creak and just standing on the trail as the wind gushed down the canyon and feeling it blow against me.

Rachel caught a catfish in her net at the lake.

A new local fast food place called Culvers. Soooooo good.

4th of July! We put on our own little mini firework show.

In their cute 4th of July outfits.

We drove down to Provo to watch the parade. Sooooo very grateful we were not living at our old place on the night before this. Instead we had a peaceful, QUIET night in PG :)

One of the best parade entries. Darth vader carrying the flag followed by storm troopers carrying all the state flags. Just awesome.

An incredibly kind older man with his grand-daughter sat next to us and chatted away with Zac. During the parade he bought the girls cotton candy. There are so many kind people in this world.

Then we went over to the festival and watched a bird and reptile show.

Picnic before going to see the fireworks.

We watched the fireworks at the Junion high near our house and it was fantastic. We were so close it felt like we were sitting directly beneath them.

Summer hair cut time with Aunt Jennifer. I love the girls' long hair, but it's such a pain to manage. And Rachel has begged me all summer to cut her hair short so it wouldn't have any more tangles. We just had to convince Dad.

Anne just got a trim. She loves her long "Tangled" hair.

Rachel however....

got a chop! Doesn't she look so cute! It fits her.

These girls love helping me clean.

I love the wildlife that surrounds us. One day we saw this random chicken in our backyard. We waited a couple minutes for Daddy to get home and catch it.

We walked around to all our neighbors that have chickens (which is everybody) and it didn't belong to anyone, so we just gave it to one of them that wanted it.

They wanted me to take their picture in their poofy skirts.

My favorite crop this year is our potatos. We've never grown potatoes or onions before, but they are fantastic! Easy to grow and so much fun to dig out.

Anne got invited to one of her friends from school's birthday party. It was so fun, a Frozen theme so here they are wrapping the birthday girl up in toilet paper and decorating her like Olaf.

Sarah made a friend.

Then we headed down to Provo for another of our friends' birthday parties, Josh and Maggie!

Sarah is just starting to join in on the dressing up game.

Ignore the mess. I took this because they are all praying. I overheard them each taking turns saying very thoughtful prayers together. Melted me heart.

My HUGE tummy. :)

Building wooden motorcycles that Jen brought home from work for the girls for FHE.

Finally went to the "Curiosity" Kids Museum at Thanksgiving Point. That place is incredible!

It was neat to sit back and watch Sarah play with other kids. She is incredibly kind and unconfrontational, which is not how she always plays with her sisters and home.

I finally unpacked the ten boxes of toys that were in the girls' closets and organized their rooms so they would have places to put everything. It makes me happy seeing their nice clean rooms. They are now in charge of cleaning their rooms themselves. Yay!

Anne's dance festival performance.

Daddy and Uncle Loren testing out the Paddy Wagon before the bbq the next day.

Every day I got to experience this picking up Anne from school. This was even way tuned down compared to usual.

A song for my brother on his birthday.