Fun in the Sun

I have truly been loving the warm weather we are having. I love days in the sun and just seeing my girls play outside is wonderful. 

This water table has been one of the best purchases for McCall. Every time she goes in the backyard she plays with it and loves playing in the water.

One day I had to get some things done in the kitchen so I got out this bean sensory bag I have. I added some big buttons and other things and just let her play. It kept her enterained way longer than most things do which was awesome. If I do it again, I will have to be a little more watchful since I look over and she had two beans stuck up each nostril of her nose! Then later I had cleaned it up and she found a stray one on the floor and tried to stick it in her ear. We don't want to have to go to the doctor to get beans out of her nose and ears! :)

McCall and I often go on walks or go over to Lake Meridian Park, but on this day we decided to go see dad at work and went on a walk and played at the playground at Covington Community Park. I had to bring the camera since she looked so cute in her little overalls!

McCall is into making all sorts of faces right now and it's the funniest and cutest thing.

This past week we had 80 degree weather so of course that meant some sprinkler fun.

Oh my goodness! These girls with their sunglasses! 

I also got my garden all planted this past week! We will have rapsberries, potatoes, green peppers, jalapenos, carrots, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, and romaine lettuce.

Friday was a wonderful evening. The girls spent a couple of hours at the neighbors trying out their new slip 'n slide and then they came over to our house for smores (we even tried roasting the invidually wrapped rice krispy treats!) and charadedes. 

Saturday we got some fried chicken from Safeway and had dinner with Nona and Pops at Flaming Geyser and then of course we had to walk to the bubbling geyser and go down to the river. It was an absolutely wonderful evening! 

Then Sunday for Mother's Day I wanted some time at the beach with my family. So we spent a couple of hours at Dash Point State Park making sand castles, running away from waves, catching little jellyfish, and time together in the sun.

I'm so excited for more days in the sun with my sweet family!

Tacoma Nature Center

I truly love little day adventures with my family. Whenever there is warm weather, I am itching to go out and explore this beautiful place that we call home. We had 70 degree weather last weekend and it was so wonderful and got me excited for summer. On Friday, the girls didn't have school so as soon as Nate got home from work, we went on a little adventure to Tacoma Nature Center. We have been here before but it has been awhile and I knew the girls would love it.

We first did the walk along the trail.

We made it to the bridge and even found some turtles.

We got lucky and saw a deer right after we crossed the bridge but didn't get a good picture of it. Baylor spotted it first and ran back to us and said, "I thought I saw a wolf, then I thought it was a dog, and then realized it was a deer!"

Picture on the left was McCall's face when she saw a bug. For some reason, this girls is terrified of all bugs. During this walk she would be doing just fine walking and then see all the ants underfoot and would immediately want picked up and refused to be put down. 

Oh how I love these sweet girls of mine and their cute cheesy grins!

Then we made a stop in the nature center to check out the fun things they had in there.

Always looking to get a laugh out of me. :)

Then we had a picnic and then played on their awesome nature inspired playground before heading home.

What a wonderful little outing and I look forward to many more day adventures to come!

YW & Activity Day Olympics

Last year we had a combined young women and activity day girls activity and we loved it so much that we decided we need to do it every year. As a leader I love these connection points that these younger girls and the young women have during this time. The primary aged girls look up to the young women in our ward and it also gets them excited for the young women program. It also gives the young women a chance to serve the primary girls by having fun with them and bringing some joy and light to their day.

This year we had an Olympics themed activity. I saved the decorations I made from the tri-ward Olympics we had at the beginning of the year and we came up with some fun events that the girls got to do.

Our focus for the evening was bringing light to others and that you can do this by having fun together, spending time with each other, and really simple daily things.

We paired each activity day girl with a young women which ended up being perfect. It made them mix together and not hang out as groups and it allowed the young women to focus and have fun with the activity day girl they were paired with. There were 6 events with 3 rotations so each rotation had 2 events and they got 10 minutes at each rotation.

First event was track and field: long jump, shot put, and javelin. Long jump I put painters tape on the ground in 1 foot increments just to see how far they could jump. Javelin we had some toy arrows that they were trying to throw into a bowl. Shot put we used the bean bag toss that I have and I just made it a little more Olympics themed.

Next was gymnastics. I had a deck of simple yoga positions and they would attempt to do the yoga position on the balance beam.

Then there was golf. This one was really fun to create. I used all recycled materials and whatever I had on hand to create 3 mini golf courses: one forest inspired, one Lego inspired, and the last was unicorn/fantasy inspired. 

Next was tennis and we had some fabric across two chairs for a net, paper plates with a large popsicle sticks taped to it for paddles, and balloons for the balls. 

Then there was basketball. I used our little basketball hoop and put a few X's on the ground to see how many different spots they could make baskets from.

And last was target practice. We had nerf guns and my counselor made these cool targets that spun when they got hit.

We ended with us gathering together and sharing about light. Each young women shared how they saw light in their activity day girl that night and then gave them a gold medal. This was super sweet to watch and see the activity day girls beaming. Then to end our night we hade desserts from around the world!

What a wonderful evening with a wonderful group of young ladies!