Quiet week - very nice

Dr. Carter had to give his Dad a shot to wake him up. Poor Kyle was very tired yesterday. Evel Knievel Daze is a long long weekend for him. He worked 4p to 4a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. Carter has been taking good care of us. The other day he checked my eyeballs after I got sick in the morning. He told me my eye "smelled like blood and had some barf at the top". He kills me!
Carter and Avery love to go on bike rides with Poppa. Carter looks so cute in this picture, and my little turkey would not look at me. She just wanted to go!

The hot summer days in Butte are wonderful, but they make a girl super tired. I love when she sleeps with her arms behind her head like that.
We went to Clark's Park on Saturday for lots of outdoor fun. As usual we ended up over on the hills for part of the time. There were some people there watching Ave run that could not stop laughing at her. She has to be just like the boys!
The horsey swings are always a favorite too. Carter had to switch over to the blue ones after awhile because blue is his favorite color (for Leonardo)!

Jordan won't like this picture, but she and Ave were buddies on the swings. I like their matching pink flip-flops too!

The opened a "Splash Pad" at Clark's Park last week. I thought it was pretty awesome. It was a great day for it too - it was hot! Jordan came with us and enjoyed gettting splashed by the big yellow bucket. It fills up every couple minutes and dumps out a lot of water as you can see! Jocko is that pink spot on the far right!

Carterman was the only kid that really enjoyed the splash pad. Lando wanted nothing to do with it. Ave would touch the water, but she didn't really want to get wet. Carter had a blast though. I wish I could have got one of his face, but he was always moving!

Carter especially liked to run under the bucket with Jordan. You could hear him laughing and laughing. They were just soaked!

As you can see, Ave looked a bit timid. She was so cute though. She liked to chill with me while we watched Carter and Jordan.

This was about two seconds after we got there. Carter was ready to cool off. He's been running through the sprinkler at Mom and Dad's when they have it on too...usually fully clothed. He's a crazy man!

There's the big giant bucket. It was cool. I though the Splash Pad was pretty neat. When we were leaving the life guard was laughing at Avery because she was waving to the bucket and saying, "Bye bucket. See ya later!".

This is not a good picture, but my girl was looking very girly Saturday morning. She finally realized she has her own slippers and doesn't have to wear Carter's old Lightning McQueen ones! She still steals Carter's Spiderman ones when she can.

Ave loves her puppy dog - especially when Laney is rolling around and being crazy. Her face in this makes me laugh everytime I look at it!

This is a blurry, blurry picture but it's so funny! Carter snuck up behind Dad the other night with a watergun and got him pretty good. I just love how you can see Dad's back all contorted and Carter's warrior stance. Too funny! Dad turned around and sprayed him with the hose of course. My son is soaking wet every night.

Sometimes these boys are so cute together. Most of the time actually - they're either best friends or worst enemies!

This is Avery's summer look right here: really cute clothes (love this outfit from Erica and Kelsie), crazy sunscreened hair, and dirty face (I believe she dripped some slushie down her chest here)! She's such a good girl though.

Really huge giant massive post

Sorry everyone for the delay. I'm going to blame it on being sick - which I really was. All good now though. Here is a huge post for the last two weeks including the folk festival (awesome) and our trip to Yellowstone (amazing). Here's my girl yesterday. I'm so glad they fix her hair at daycare! She was having a good time watering the plants with a giant watering can.
This was our last stop of our Yellowstone trip - Gardiner, MT (my posts are always backwards). It was very cute. We stopped, got the kids in pajamas, and had some ice cream. We got back about 11:15 Sunday night thanks to some great driving by Grandpa.

Carter took this picture with my little camera while we were driving by this buffalo. The boy's got talent! I did delete about thirty other ones he took of course.

These two pelicans were pretty cool. I told Carter and Avery they were like Nigel on Nemo. Carter kept saying "Hey 2 Nigels, look over here!". He was killing me.

Here's a half sunny, half shady family picture. We had a great time - thanks Mom and Dad!

I think the kids favorite stop of the trip was Yellowstone lake. We saw a little rock trail that went out into the lake, and we decided to stop there. There is nothing more fun than throwing rocks in the water or pretending Daddy is going to throw you in the lake!

Ave liked to throw with both hands and yell "double"! They were all so so good on the trip.

The waterfalls there were so beautiful. Erica and I had never been to Yellowstone before so we were just as interested as the kids. It was nice to have Mom and Dad to show us around too.

This was in the gift shop after the Grizzy/Wolf Discovery Center. He looks good in a cowboy hat!

They were absolute nuts in the gift shop. It was about nap time and their collective attention span was down to about three seconds. As you can see, I couldn't get them to look at me.

Oh no! The boys are in a bear trap. They loved this thing!

They also liked the teepee too. Carter told me it was from Peter Pan. That boy retains so much info from movies!

Landon got a little tired while we were waiting for two new bears to come out. He decided to lay down in the shade - Avery had to join him because she loves to copy what Lando is doing!

Avers liked the feel of this "bear coat" as Carter called it.

They saw a giant sand pile on one side by the wolf enclosure. These kids cannot pass up climbing up a sand pile.

Lando was getting a better view of the bears here.

The bears were so cool. The wolves were all passed out. It was too hot for them, but the bears were so fun to watch. They were splashing in the water, chasing away birds, digging for food - just very entertaining.

There's my Boo Boo watching a Grizzly behavior informational video. She just liked that the border of the movie was purple!

We went and saw Old Faithful on Saturday afternoon. It was really cool. It's kind of scary to think you are just hanging out walking around on a volcano though!

We found a nice place to watch from the side away from the huge crowd. I thought the view was just fine. Here's my little monkeys waiting for the eruption with their Poppa.

These little geyser pools were our first stop in Yellowstone. I thought they were really cool and so pretty. My kids were just happy to be out of the car...even though they don't look like it in this picture!

It's odd how something so pretty can be so smelly. That's probably what they say about Avery at daycare sometimes! Landon did not like these stinky things. Carter just wanted to run through the stink smell. "C'mon Mom, we gotta run!".

We saw some elk just relaxing on a little grassy island in the river right when we drove in the park. It was a nice sight to get us started on our little excursion. We saw a Mama bear with three cubs as we were leaving the park too. We had some good wildlife sightings!

We left Saturday morning from Butte at about 10 and made it to Virginia City just in time for lunch. I haven't been to Virginia City since eighth grade. I forgot how cool it is. Kyle loved it - homemade ice cream and a great candy shop! Carter ate a very fancy truffle for a treat.

Landon enjoyed his strawberry ice cream very much. Ave just wandered around and had bites from everybody! What a fun vacation!

We went up to the Folk Festival Saturday and Sunday. The kids came with us on Sunday and had a good time. They were dancing and enjoying some snow cones. They really did have fun even if it doesn't look like it in this picture!

They had some really cool stuff for little kids up there at the Family stage. You could pan for gold, decorate your own hard hats, and go through this cool mining tunnel. At the end of the tunnel you could pick up these fake rocks and throw them in the top (with some help from Daddy).

Jordan was a big help as always up there. She helped Ave decorate her hat. It said Avery on the back in lovely red glitter.
After we went home for nap time, Ave woke up as silly as always. She absolutely loves to wear her brothers swim trunks. It's probably her favorite outfit!
Diane, Art, Terri, Erica, and I went up for awhile on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. We saw an awesome salsa band, and I swear half the city was up there dancing. They estimated 150,000 were here for the Festival. I don't doubt that at all - it kind of blew my mind!

Jocko had to use up the extra fireworks from the 4th. She did some lovely work with smokebombs - Ave is checking out her name here.

And there's my Carterman with his name. My kids really enjoyed the fireworks - my dog did not the poor thing.

My girl loves to chat on the phone. She especially loves to talk to Terri. "Hi Tewwi" is what she usually is saying!
She has been very into dressing herself and layering lately. She went over to Terri's house last week for awhile when I wasn't feeling good. Terri and Jordan found this skirt that I bought for Abbey when she was about 5 - I loved it. Then she came home and put on this cute outfit from Grandma Bonnie. So she had on two shirts, two skirts, a pair of pants, and a hat. Looking good!