Chillaxing

Ah, summer. I don't like the heat, but I do like having a husband around and seeing these happy faces in the morning when I wake up!

$7 at Walmart=a whole summer of fun for my two water babies!

Making cakeballs with Karina...an obsession has begun! (Thanks a lot Teresa! hee hee!)

This picture says it all! All I can say is making cakeballs leads to many, many, many jokes....what?! It's funny!

In the week that Karina was here Dylan-a mere 2 yr old, mind you- figured out how to use Karina's iPhone! It was pretty impressive!

Excited beyond belief about roasting his mallow;)

Philly Fun!

We love Philly. We love wandering around the city and just looking at everything but we especially enjoy all the good food Mmmmm mmmm! We had a great time eating lunch at Reading Terminal Market, Dessert at Rita's Water Ice, & strolling LOVE park whilst dipping our tired hot feet in the fountain. We also browsed a clothing store called H&M and drooled over everything!

Ahh summer:)

Dylan with his frozen vanilla custard & me with my mango gelati soooo goooood!

Claira has already devoured her frozen custard & Karina is workin' on her chocolate water ice/custard blendini (so fancy!)

Turkey dinner in July! Heck YES!

Boneless beef rib sandwiches made for us by the amish (man, they know how to cook!)

Pizza!

This boy LOVES pizza!

Ok, So We LOVE the Zoo!

Check out this brave girl! She loved feeding the birds nectar from her cup!

Come to me jungle friends!

Do you love my "man bag"? Ha ha Ben was sweet enough to carry my purse around all day because of my sunburn (see previous post) Such a sweet manly man! He looks tough while he holds his stuff!

Oh, how I disdain you little bird

This makes me die!!! Her bird flew away right over my head as I was taking the picture. I'm loving this face!

Riding the LARGE caterpillar

The girls! Loving my white legs! I need to borrow some of that tanning lotion Reen! ha ha!

How cute is this little guy?! look at those little sun kissed cheeks

Chattin' it up with a silverback gorilla

I love how entertained Dylan is by Claira's sweet gorilla moves

Down the Shore

Yes we are 'down the shore', not to be mistaken with 'at the beach'. Welcome to the east coast. That's how they roll out here:) So oh man, we were blown away by how gorgeous this beach was er shore er uh now I'm totally confused! You get the idea:) We had no idea the east could rival our Cali beaches, but this one is up there. The water was warm, and the weather was really warm with a nice breeze. It was pretty sweet. Karina flew in the night before, so what better way to start the vacation than to relax in the sun all day?! We met up with some friends from Philly as well and had a blast. We ended the day with dinner at The Pop Shop in NJ (as seen on the Food Network on Throwdown with Bobby Flay!) It did not disappoint! We all ordered different types of gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and I have no doubt that we will be going back! Yummy!

All tuckered out!

Friends for Everyone!

We hung out with some of our Philly friends recently, the Green family! We have so much fun with these guys! We ventured across the Delaware river to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ (which was awesome!) and right in front of the Aquarium you get a great view of Philly! Do you see it?! Pretty cool.We had a great time and are so grateful for the wonderful friends we have made out here. Everyone in our ward has been so friendly and we've been loving every minute of it! It makes all the difference when Ben is so busy in school. So here's a few pics of us with our friends!

Dylan & Skyler (Which one is Dylan?) We get these two mixed up all the time!

So CUTE! Claira & Jayda (Claira has officially perfected her short people hug...you know what I'm talkin' bout Teresa! lol! You too Karina!)

Just adorable!

Me & Teresa

Lies, Deceit, & Mystery Meat

Let's start out by saying that my kids have become extremely picky eaters as of late. It's very frustrating always needing a "backup" dinner in case they hate what I cook. Hard times call for extreme measures. I ran out of dinner ideas last night as well as chicken & beef...so we were left with seafood (which I LOVE) and my kids aren't fans at all. I got out my Jumbo bag of large Scallops and my evil mind started concocting all kinds of mischief! Muhahhahaha! I tossed those babies in some bread crumbs and fried them in olive oil and BAM guess what they looked like after that? Deliciously round chicken nuggets! Oh yes I did. I put them on the table and Claira warily looked at them, picked one up, examined it, then took the tiniest bite out of it and said "Is this fish?" I looked at her (feeling ridden with guilt inside) and asked innocently "does it taste like fish?" she said "yes" and I said "That's funny! They're chicken nuggets, silly!" she then starts cracking up and to my amazement she said " Well, this is the best chicken you've ever made!" HA! She then proceeds to tell me she is going to eat 10 "nuggets", and of course after Claira's approval Dylan predictably followed suit. She then asked Ben "What kind of chicken is this?" He slyly replied, "Just regular chicken." "Oh, it seems like I've had this kind of chicken before." "You have," Ben said with a grin (she had tried scallops before and refused to eat them). All I gotta say is RASCALS! I never revealed my little secret and I don't plan to...We got 2 more bags of scallops in the freezer! I love my kids so much, they rock my socks off! Here's to lies, deceit and mystery meat!

BBQ Time!

So I have decided to attempt to teach myself how to BBQ this year. So far it's been a lot of fun and surprisingly delicious. We've tried burgers, steak & potato kabobs, hot dogs (can't really screw those up haha) and most deliciously s'mores! The kids get so excited when we fire that baby up, they are mesmerized by the flames and most importantly they love eating the goods (Especially s'mores! Mmmm!) Nothing like a bbq to kick off the summer! YUM!

In Dylan's words "It's Bob-Q time!"

My professional kabob baster hard at work!

Steak & Potatoes...mmmmmm!