Camping with at home convenience

Max has been saying "tent" for the last few days.  We decided to set up the tent in the living room and have a little party in the living room.  

You can wear just a diaper when you camp at home.

You can make microwave popcorn when you camp at home.

You can sleep in your bed when you camp at home.

You can watch movies when you camp at home.

You can still go to church in the morning when you camp at home.

You still get a night bath when you camp at home.

You can blog when you camp at home.

The boys are LOVING it.

Max is signing tent in the top picture.

LOST

We have LOST our keys.  Really.
We have spent the whole day going over our house.  Curtis discovered our issue today when he needed to take a check to the bank and couldn't find the JEEP keys.
We searched the whole house before we called a locksmith.  Turns out they are not inside the jeep either.  We still don't know where they are.  We have literally searched through the trash twice.  I guess the good news is they are in the house somewhere.  Who knew we could lose them in such a small place.
Good news:  The dealership can remake a key based on it's VIN
Bad news:  The key will cost $200 and they need the car there to program the key. We would have to tow the car there.
WHERE ARE YOU KEY?

GO!

Kendall is talking!
Claire has been in town this weekend.  We ate dinner with her at my parents house tonight.  She was playing  a running game with Max ... Max surprised us with a "get you" towards Claire.  2 word sentences are a big deal.
Back to Kendall... To start the running game she would say, "ready, set"  and Kendall would say "GO!"
Big milestone.

4th of July

Every 4th of July our neighbors get together for a bbq and fireworks.  It has been named the Culdesac of fire.  Last year the whole ward showed  up for the fireworks.  Everyone brought a few fireworks and it lasted for a few hours.
This year Curtis invited his family over for a bbq in our back yard so we didn't join everyone else until it was time to do fire works.
Curtis did a few hamburgers and hot dogs.  Christie brought a bunch of chips and watermelon.  Angie made some wonderful cookies.  The kids ran around the back yard.  Max loves to play with his cousins.
Everyone had work in the morning so they didn't stay for the fireworks.
We set up on the corner of our lawn.  Curtis gets a big bowl of candy put together for everyone to share.  This gets our neighbors and friends to come to us.  We had a big set up: Curtis and I had chairs.  Max had a blanket and a chair.  Kendall was in the port-a-crib.
The fire works where a lot of fun...until...One firework fell over and was shooting fireworks out at everyone. A few people left after that.  A few minutes later they let off another one like the one that fell over the first time.  This one did  the same thing.  I grabed Kendall out of his crib at one shot past us and blew up by our tree.  At that point we took the kids inside and pulled up the blinds for them to watch from safety.  The group outside was getting smaller.  Those setting off the fire works started using bricks to pin the fireworks upright.  This worked for a while but then one exploded...not like it should.  It didn't go in the air but it did cover about a 10 feet radius.  Then they started using a bucket.
I'm not sure if they ran out of fireworks or if they decided it was not safe.  My neighbor told me we are thinking of changing the name from the Culdesac of fire to The Culdesac on fire.
Hope you all had a safe 4th of July.

Cedar City

Monday afternoon we loaded up in the car and headed for Cedar City.  We were headed down to celebrate Tyler's birthday.  Bailey, Kennedy and Tucker are going to be with their Grandma Ray on Tyler's real birthday so we wanted to celebrate early.  We arrived Just before 8.  Tyler had the outdoor screen up and his projector and speakers ready.  They watched Wall-e for Max.  Kendall was ready for bed and was getting really wild so we headed back to Claire's to get set up for the night.
When Claire got home both boys were sleeping and Curtis was ready for bed too.  I stayed up with Claire.  We were both really tiered so everything was really funny and we were both willing to make our selves look ridiculousness.  We laughed about when we were younger and Claire wanted her name to be Claire Annette and she thought I should have been Cha-collette.  Tyler wanted to know what he should be...all we could come up with was Ty-my-shoe.
We some how got on the subject of dimples.  I showed Claire the dimple in my chin that can only be seen in if I make a weird face.  She tried making the face to see if she had a dimple too.  No such luck.  Then she had me make the face a few more times.
The next morning Kendall and Max got up at 6:30.  Rude.
We made gluten-fee waffles.  Claire tries to eat gluten and dairy free.  I wish our family ate better than we do.
Claire bought a Thomas the train DVD for max when he comes to visit.  I think he watched it twice while we did breakfast and got ready for the day.
At 10:30 we all got back to Tyler's house to get ready for a day at the beach.  We made a picnic...Grandma and Lindsey made it; they are amazing women.
At the beach Max showed off his aquatic side and Tyler acted as life guard for the kids.  After about an hour of good water play, Max fell asleep on Claire.  Grandma took care of Kendall for me so I got to hang our with Lindsey and Tyler.  I love talking with them.  Lindsey is one of the best friends a person could have.  She has this way of knowing just what to say and the exact service to give.  She has always been a great example to me.
We were ready to load up by about 2:30.  The rest of the crew went to Tyler and Lindsey's house while We took the kids back to Claire's for Kendall's nap. Max tried to watch Thomas again but Curtis and I had already had enough of Thomas.  Max went over Claire's cartoons a few times then decided to move on to other movies.  Suddenly he got really excited and yelled, "Annie! Annie!".  This is our babysitters name.  He had found Annie the musical.  We put it on for him and he watched the opening number then went off to find toys.
We were back to Tyler and Lindsey's by 5.  Tyler fired up the grill and made us some great hamburgers and hot dogs.  Lindsey had made dipped strawberry's and this awesome looking jello treat.  After dinner we all gathered to have a wii tournament.  Max won the bowling.  He even got a turkey.
Jared skyped with us on my dad's ipad.  so half the group was talking to him while the other half played the wii.
Tyler and Lindsey's dog had puppies.  Kendall was really interested in the puppies and wanted to squeeze them so we had to keep an eye out for him.  He kept climbing in the box with them.
Curtis picked out a puppy so I guess we'll be headed back down that way to pick up a pup.
We headed back to Claire's to sleep, but Claire and I stayed up again.
The next morning the boys let me sleep until about 7:30.
We ended up leaving about 10:30.  Curtis lets me read out loud when we have a long trip ahead of us.  We finished the third hunger games book this time.  Well... We only had a few more pages when we got home so we just finished it at home.
We started reading the books at the end of March when the first movie came out.  I read all the books as quick as I could and have just been reading them to Curtis on our drives.  We need to find a new book for our next drive.  We are taking suggestions.
Thanks to: Tyler, Lindsey, Bailey, Kennedy, Tucker, Claire, Mom and Dad; for such a fun trip!
We missed Jared, Julie, Livi, Rex, Lucy and Jack.  Can't wait for the next time we all get to be together again!

sponsored

Friday night I was saying night prayers with Max.  I had just said Amen and Max said, "Brought to you by pbskids.org".

I guess Max's prayers are sponsored.
It was really funny.

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