Lemon Park

Today brought another adventure. This time to Lemon Park to play in the water. Mindi Stout is always so good at planning fun group events for us to do together! So the word was spread and we had a good turnout. (For those who know them, this dog pile consists of Adam H. on the bottom, with Gabe S. on top of him, followed by Aubrielle and Benson to top things off.)

We had little Kaden fort he day. Jayden and Kelsey were so excited about having him with us for this trip to the park. It was great because they were so overjoyed he was there and he adores my kids, so they took care of him while I snapped a ton of photos of the day.

Kelsey did an amazing job taking care of Kaden. Even though all of Kelsey's best friends were at the park, she wanted to stick to Kaden and help him have a fun day. I kept trying to take over for her thinking she would be feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility, but she would not have it. Little does he know, but Kaden is helping to mold my little girl into a great babysitter. Just a year and a half till she is officially old enough to babysit. I know she will be a great one, so those of you with little ones, keep her in mind for the future.

Jayden stuck with Kaden for most of the day as well. He loves to feel like a "big brother" type to Kaden. It has amazed me how stricken he is by the little boy. He gets more excited about Kaden coming over than when I tell him friends are coming. He seems to thrive on feeling helpful and that he can do things for Kaden that the little guy can't do for himself. He is egar to take over caring for him when he can. What a sweet, responsible guy Jayden is becoming. I so love that about him!

We were also excited that we were able to talk Tami into bringing her kids to the park with us! (I don't know Tami, Gage may have dominated the yellow squirt gun, but did you see the little squirt under him with his hands on the gun as well. Kaden may have one upped him on squirt gun control. Gage was a good sport about sharing the gun with Kaden.)

Another fun event at Lemon Park was that Todd and Natalie brought their pet pig, Oreo to socialize. It was a great break from chasing kids through the park. Kaden stayed put for a while to pet the pig. Over all, we had a great day at the park. Good weather, great friends, and one little adorable blond cousin made for a great day!

Another reason that it was a good day, Allen finally came home from his rock climbing adventure. Allen had volunteered for boy scout camp as a rock climbing advisor. He had a great time and learned a ton about anchoring and climbing in general. The only bad part of being on the rock climbing wall, was that he didn't get to see Jordan the whole week. Jordan was at the camp, but was not part of the rock climbing portion. Allen had to stay about an hour away from Jordan, so no father/son bonding this time! He was only able to get periodic updates from the older boys that were coming to climb.

We kept so busy this week that it wasn't too hard that Allen was gone. It helped that I didn't have to get to tae kwon do class and we could just hang at home with friends this week. Kelsey has had our neighbors, Danielle and Amanda over every day playing some sort of store game. They would keep the game going for hours (all day in some cases) and then want to play it again the next. (Ah, the joy of being a kid in the summer. )

To make it fun for the kids, I decided we should have a week long sleepover in our guest room. We have two full size beds in that room, so I took 0ne and Jayden and Kelsey took the other. I hope this will be a fun memory for my kids. If nothing else, I felt very secure having my kids in the room with me in case we ended up with a night time emergency. (Especially because we had just had a 5.4 earthquake last week.) I am glad we were able to have a fun time together while dad and Jordan were at camp. Until tomorrow when another adventure awaits.......