A Wedding on Friday

 My brother got married on Friday, he is the closest to my age.
It was really nice to be able to attend and be there on his special day. 

(Below) Family who were able to attend. I wasn't in the picture because I was taking it :)

 Three little flower girls (cutest ever!) 

 Exchanging Vows

 Rob and John Paul

Of course the drinking fountain is the most entertaining thing for kids in a court house.

And!!! We saw a stroller there even bigger than ours!!! 

This one is a six seater whereas ours is only a four seater. 

Oscanyan Family Outing to City Creek

 Splashpad - the kids loved it!

 City Creek has beautiful fountains. 

 As a landscape design I loved seeing the landscape, fountains, water features, plant materials and general layout. I had heard that the creek that runs through City Creek was the original city creek that the pioneers settled along. But I found out that its not. (according to the Deseret News http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765564345/Now-about-that-creek-running-through-City-Creek.html)

Love this man! We have the best of times together!

Had a lot of people ask if all the kids were quads. Hehe nope, just triplets. 

 Girls "Accessorizing"

I loved these, but there was only one pair available. 

We got all the kids new Sunglasses. I learned there are a lot of benefits of wearing sunglasses to both adults and children and in even doctors are encouraging children to wear sunglasses even at an early age. (See http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20120517/more-people-even-kids-need-to-wear-sunglasses)

 The Disney Store was an obvious hit with the kids complete with a castle and an animated mirror. 

4th of July

I love this time of year! The BBQ's, the parades, the fireworks the drives up the canyon. Its a great time to be alive and celebrate our freedoms and this great country America. This year we had a wonderful 4th of July. It was much better than the last few years because now our kids are old enough to get excited about all the fun events as well.

Rob sharing his snow cone with all the kids while we waited for fireworks to start. Probably shouldn't have gotten tigers blood flavor as it wasn't the best choice for cleaning out of their clothes. 

We brought blankets and pillows and watched the fireworks in comfort!

 Back at our house we had a little get together to watch our own fireworks. 

Three little lady's watching fireworks. 

Lovin' Sparklers

 These two had no fear, the other one on the other hand stayed as far away from the sparklers as possible.

Ridin' with uncle

Enjoying the Small Things

The craziness and stress of life seems to somehow hide the small things. What I mean is that the small treasures of life I feel I forget to enjoy because I'm so caught up in laundry, writing a talk for Sunday, remodeling a basement, preparing another meal or calling electricans, plumbers etc to keep things running smooth. I haven't stopped to write down the cute things my kids say or take pictures of the precious moments of them playing together. It seems like an eternal quest to get caught up. I'm learning to face the reality that we don't ever really get caught up, there will always be something else new to tackle. For example I just feel like once my basement is finished being remodeled I can relax and enjoy my kids and life in general - but only after that's done. I truly hope that is the case but based on life experience I already know that won't happen. So instead of hoping to get over that next hill I am training myself to accept that life IS busy and I need take time and enjoy it. Today I took time to put fragrance in the burner, I stopped to watch my children sing "The Wheels on the Bus", I let myself enjoy the help my children offered when I was folding laundry, even though they unfolded more than I like to think about and made the process take twice as long I enjoyed how excited they were when I expressed my appreciation for their help. Today was a really good day because I took the time to enjoy it.

Caution: Witch Crossing

Happy Halloween!

What Not to Do When Potty Training Triplets

DO NOT set three little 18 month old girls all on their potty chairs at the same time. The problem: Once their all set down you never know when they will get up and run all over the house naked, and since they aren't potty trained accidents can happen. I learned this the hard way, I set them all four down to go potty and after 10 minutes or so one decided she was done and ran off, I went after her to get a diaper back on before an accident happened. While I was diapering her the other two hop up and run around naked as well. Frantically I run after them, first I tried herding them into the kitchen so that if an accident did happen at least it would be on tile. As I finally caught one and proceeded to diaper her I saw it happen, yep a little accident, was it on the kitchen floor? Nope, it was just barely off the tile. Oh well! So I learned.

View From my House

I'm so spoiled. I look out over this view everyday.

Time for Children

Quote of the day: “The best thing to spend on your children is your time” (Arnold Glasow, in Richard Evans’ Quote Book, p. 18). A couple weeks ago I was sick so I spent hours laying on our couch, one of our little girls was sick as well. So I laid her down with me for a couple hours. It was so enjoyable! Although I generally hate being sick, the experience was a wonderful reminder to me that time with our children matters. I've been thinking about ways to make more time for my children and here are some of the ideas I came up with:

Three easy ways to make time for your children

Simplify - don't spread yourself too thin. Recognize the things you can "let go of", for me when I had my triplets it was landscape design work, I had to be much more careful of work that I accepted - if any. I enjoy politics very much and I had to let go of that.

Schedule it - give yourself several hours to get the house chores done that you need to and then stop at a certain time and sit down and play with your children. I've found if I do this its amazing how much I'm still able to get done knowing that I have a deadline in which to accomplish my goals. Set aside at least 15 minutes a day to be with your children one on one.

Sacrifice - Take note of the things that you do daily that ties up your time. For me this was surfing the internet and especially facebook. I decided to make a conscious effort to only get on facebook once every two days and I was amazed at how much more time I found myself enjoying, and I was surprise to see how little I actually missed my internet time. Children need our time. Parents play a key role in helping a child develop a healthy level self esteem. Children need our love and the best way to show our love for them is through time. I love my kids and I'm so grateful for them.

4th of July Celebrating

The 4th of July is such a wonderful holiday! Pool parties, BBQ's, Parades, fireworks make it one of my favorite holidays. I love spirit of Patriotism that fills the air.

On the morning of the 4th I woke up to the sound of a torch and flame of a hot air balloon, I jumped up to look out the window to see a big hot air just coming up over the hill, it was so close we could see and hear the large flame. I quickly changed out of my PJ's and ran with my husband and three year old boy outside to see and wave to the people in the hot air balloon.

Every year the Provo Freedom Festival hosts a hot air balloon festival, they get at least 20 or 30 hot air balloons that launch off at the same time from the field by the hospital.

This balloon almost landed on University parkway, it was literally right on the shoulder of the road, but they pulled it over into Carterville park where they would rolled it away.