Oh yea! 4th of July!!

How could I forget? I forgot to post pics of our fourth of July! Haha. Unfortunately, we were missing our Jaxon, because while he was visiting cousins earlier that week, he caught the swine flu. DARN! SO, I had to leave him up in Salt Lake with his cousins until he wasn't contagious any more. We sure missed him!

Summer pics!

We've had such a great time this summer! We've spent a lot of days lounging, but have had a lot of fun and we have the pictures below to prove it! Mia's dance recital was in May and she LOVES her trophy. :) She carries it around the house a lot! The first part of June, Dallin and Kirt participated in Lieto's Young Musician Choir Camp. They performed together in an AWESOME concert! After that, we had the Washington 11th Ward annual "Bike Parade". Mia thought she wanted to ride her own bike this year so we decorated it, but she ended up riding in the basket of Grandpa's tricycle (driven by Daddy) with Luke! We've spent a lot of days at the pool and LOVE that the rec center is right here by our house. It's definitely our choice for beating the St. George heat! Happy Summer!

Summertime...and the livin' is easy!

Tickets for Technology!

OK, it's honestly been SO long since I posted that I'm totally embarrassed and have NO idea where to start. We're having a FABULOUS summer! The weather has been wonderful for St. George in June.

Since my kids are TOTALLY into playing the computer, the Wii, and addicted to watching TV and movies, I decided I needed to make them "earn" their playing/watching time this summer. Every morning they each have 4-5 chores. In order to earn their tickets for the day, they have to complete their chores. They earn one ticket for every chore they complete, BUT they can't have their tickets unless they complete ALL their chores that day. Each ticket is worth 30 minutes of technology time. So basically, they get 2 1/2 hours a day, but when they're out of tickets, they have to earn more (by doing more chores) before they can play or watch any more. :) I also made the rule that if they are watching someone play the computer or Wii, it counts as one of their tickets!! They can go outside play with friends or sit and read a book for no tickets at all. (And there have been a couple of days a few of them have done that!) I am really loving this because a lot of days the boys do their chores, use up their time and want MORE time, so they pick chores off a master list that I created. I'm getting a lot of things done around my house and I must say, that it's the best idea I've had in a long time!

I taped Mia's reaction on this rollercoaster at Disneyland.

I hope you can hear her above my laughing! :)