The Croslands: June 2014

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Friday, June 27, 2014

One Year Down

We've almost been here One Year (on the 4th of July to be exact)

and the best part is that we're not moving!

School is finally out and break is just 8 short weeks.

We plan to live it up!

Tuesday we went to a pool party

and Wednesday we went to ward beach day.

Cody finished first grade this week!

Every day after class before he would leave he would run and give his teacher Mrs. Portnoff a hug.

She was awesome. Cody has grown leaps and bounds.

End of the year

Beginning of the year

The fifth graders, as they're leaving elementary for good, get a school wide "clap out!"

Cody had a patriotic concert a few weeks ago I'll sneak in here.

A couple random phone dump pics...

This is the Lake Powell hair. And it is awesome and never has to be done for at least 10 days. Maybe longer!

Cody's Best Friend, Clayton, his cousin.

Macey finished preschool!

She was grumpy the whole morning on the morning of "graduation." I finally realized it was because she was sad, so I asked her if she was sad preschool was ending.

She started sobbing.

I told her she would still see her friends and one of them would go to the same school as her.

The siblings are just getting started:)

Macey also finished a year of dance.

Considering she doesn't love dance, she did awesome and really loved going to class to see her friends.

We weren't supposed to take pictures at the recital, but I snuck some in:)

they're crappy ones, but they count.

Macey and Mrs. Jenielle after the recital.

Her maskara is a little runny since she took a pretty good fall in the hallway:)

She did So good at the recital and I love that she smiled so cute during the performance:)

Right next to our garden is a butterfly garden with Tons of caterpillars

Today was the first day we saw a chrysallis.

And This....

This is why I wanted a garden.

My first bowl of fresh salsa.

Life is good.

This picture maybe looks staged but it was all just sitting there all sanitary like begging to be photographed-these Kale and Chia Wild Chips are my favorite chips in the whole world.

My last thing if you are growing zucchini.

I made some Zucchini Apple Crisp (click) for my family and didn't tell them that the apples aren't really apples at all. They devoured it and loved it and it's all Zucchini!

This is the coolest "hidden vegetable" dessert I've ever made. If I didn't make it myself I would swear the zucchini ARE apples. It looks just like apple crisp!

As for our living it up summer!...today we're doing nothing and it's exactly what I wanted to do:)

Monday, June 23, 2014

St. George Stopover with Grandparents

The drive to Lake Powell takes us through St. George.

And on our way back, we got to stop and see our other favorite people!

My aunt and uncle opened their beautiful home up to us for the weekend.

We watched the Belmont Stakes to see if California Chrome won, then went to a trampoline park and over to some batting cages for Cody to show off his skill.

We got to see my brother Eric also

and went out to eat at Golden Corral, the child's food paradise.

My parents are awesome to drive all that way

to see us for the weekend.

Our drive back was on Sunday so we decided to stop at the St. George Temple and visitors center.

I'm so glad we went there

but it proved to delay us even more.

Once we hit Vegas it was painfully slow going the rest of the way home. Arg Vegas!

We watched A Pioneer Miracle at the visitors center.

What an awesome movie!

It teaches a wonderful lesson about obedience.

The next night we talked about the movie and obedience.

We chatted about how our friend who is not a member of our church asked Cody why he was going on a mission and

he said, "Because I'm supposed to."

Our prophet has said that every 18 year old boy in our church should go on a mission.

It's one of the golden fhe lessons that really hit home for Cody.

I want a copy of the Pioneer Miracle so I looked for it

on Amazon you can buy it for $75.00 through Amazon Prime

and Deseret Book it's $7.00.

Is it just me or is Amazon ridiculous these days?

I was surprised to see these pictures pop up when I downloaded them onto here.

They have the same image number as the previous four.

Then we realized they're randomly from Lake Powell in 09 when Macey was a baby.

Those cheeks are so cute and squishy!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Lake Powell with Macey

Favorites: Tubing and Fishing

"Sometimes when we went swimming we would throw rocks in the lake."

Where did you sleep? "At the very top of the boat."

Tell me other things you liked. "Playing with Blake and Lucy."

Tell me a story about it: "So remember that time that me and Blake were on the tube. We were sitting and then the waves were so big I went out of criss cross and went boom boom on my chin. It was so fun."

"Guess what? I caught like 2or 3 catfish and 3 carp. Carp fish. I caught the biggest one in the world. It was like this fat. and then one that was this skinny."

Going on the speed boat.

"We played lizards when we were in the front of the boat. For pretends, Lucy's lizard wasn't my friend, but Blake's was. Then Lucy's lizard was my friend."

"When I just got into the houseboat I chatted with Grandma about baby Logan. Grandma said I could have a laffy taffy for no reason even though they are Kevin's."

What did you get at the auction? "At the auction I got cotton candy! I used...I forgot how much I got, cotton candy. Cody got glow in the dark bracelets and a fishing pole, another one."

"Me and Lucy were sitting next to each other once and we got copycat drinks and copycat watermelon. One dinner we had the same little brown sticks, they're just food. They were really good. I don't know what they're called."

"I didn't ski but I can talk about everybody else skiing. Guess what? Lucy skied, did you see her? She skied more than everybody did. And then Blake skied almost as much, so here's Lucy's challenge and here's Blake. They both crashed right here. Lucy went over the waves and then she fell. Here Blake went, started way back at the houseboat and went pssh. Here's Cody, here's the houseboat. Pssh."

Do you think you'll ever ski? "Maybe when I'm like 7."

Powell Top Ten

Lake Powell in June is nice because there aren't the frying August temps

but sometimes the water is cold.

This year, the temperature was perfectly warm

and so was the WATER!

Some personal favorite memories:

1. Paddleboarding in the Moonlight

2. Ben spear fishing a huge fish. It happened. With or without a picture:)

3. Tubing

4. Watching the kids

5. Bean Boozled

6. Sleeping under the stars

7. Early morning and daytime wakeboarding and skiing runs

8. Fishing

9. Beaver

10. Lake Powell Peace Talks

Paddleboards

were new this year

I liked how you could see the water better.

My favorite night was a full moon

Ben and I put the kids to bed and snuck out to paddle in the moonlight.

The water was perfect and the moon was light a giant flashlight in the sky.

Paddling into it was actually really hard to see, but at our backs, it was beautiful.

Which brings me to number 2

Paddleboards definitely helped seeing the fish for Luke and Ben's new obsession with

Spearfishing

This was clearly one of Ben's favorite things at Lake Powell because it has the word "fish" in it.

Tubing

We had a tame "royal rumble" this year

the grandkids had a blast tubing

But my favorite part was Callie

peacefully drifting to sleep every time they went

(can you see her?)

The perfect way to get a nap in.

Once the tube went under water with Cody and Blake and Mackayla.

Tyler jumped in to get them and as soon as we could see the kids

we saw Blake holding Mackayla telling her she would be just fine.

Blake had been really nervous about falling off the tube two years ago, so this was huge.

Mackayla still talks about how Blake saved her...and how much fun tubing was!

This leads to #4

Watching Kids

Of course I loved watching all the kids.

I loved watching them play together

I love watching all the things they get to try.

This was the first year for waterskiing for all of them.

Lucy did awesome, and cried the entire time she was up. She didn't know how to get down so she would just cry and beg to get down.

Just as I was thinking she would never get over this trauma, she asked to do it again!

Cody was so fun.

He hopped in the kayaks and kayaked all around.

This is the first year he has gone by himself and was a champ.

He came on a hike with me one day.

And went off the slide even though the time before he had face planted it;)

Logan had a fever half the trip, but you would never know it

he hardly cried considering.

Once he felt better he was the most angelic baby ever.

Let's not forget about these kids:

They spent a decent amount of time perfecting this game of catch-in-motion

Macey was in heaven when at our auction she won cotton candy.

Life is perfect.

Although she shared and ate it slowly in Macey style.

I talked her into the Lake Powell hair by telling her I would never have to touch her hair for a week if we did it. I didn't have to! She's already asked me to do it again:)

Cute Clara has some serious spunk and a bright future in acting should she so choose.

Mackayla loved the "speedy boat"

and loved tubing.

At our talent show, Callie sang a beautiful song

she made up on the spot

about a monster and a bunch of random things she saw.

Awesome talent.

This brings me to numero cinco

Bean Boozled

This game is so fun. Spin the wheel and choose a bean color you spun. It will either be delicious or disgusting and you don't know until you bite into it.

The winner chews five times and swallows successfully every time.

This should be played by everyone

including my husband

who didn't play this last time.

he will. hehehe

Callie was the only kid who actually played

and she got all the disgusting ones, even skunk

and every time it was her turn her mom would say she didn't have to go, but she would. She's barely 3.

Hil.ar.ious.