Anchors Away

Today we are spending the day at home. I should be doing chores but I went looking for a craft for me and Caleb to do instead. I found this porthole craft on www.kaboose.com . Ours is a little different since I didn't have all of the supplies they asked for and we wanted our fish to be different colors. I refused to go to the store, so we just used what I could find lying around. It turned out cute and we'll be finding a display spot for it soon for the remainder of the summer.


I wish it would have taken us longer to make. Now I don't have another excuse not to do chores.

Splash Park

I was alerted to this little piece of fun on a friend's blog and had to take the boys to check it out. This is a little Splash Park in Herriman for the kids to play in. And the best part was that it's just a city park so it's totally free fun. We got to meet some friends there so Caleb had some other boys to run around with. Caleb was in heaven. I think he would have played all day if he could have. He was pretty bummed when we all started getting ready to go.

Much to my surprise the babies loved it for a while too. The kept crawling around the edge barely getting their legs wet for a bit but before long they were crawling right out in the middle of it all. They were a little scared when the sprinklers would kick on but they would just crawl through them and get away without screaming. It was so cool.

Fun, fun day and I hope to take the boys back at least one more time this summer. Thanks for the tip Sarah and we loved playing together again today. Lets do it again soon.

Ouren Updates

Today was the twins' 15 month appt. I thought this would be a good time to update everyone about the boys' progress.

Zaric is still super smiley. He weighed in at 20 pounds 9 oz and was 29 inches long. He has 12 teeth now. He says Mom, Dad, no, bah, dog, brother and we once got a kitty out of him. He's a regular jabber box that talks and talks and yells at things. He told off a matchbox car for a good 5 minutes tonight. He is getting a little better at the walking thing every day and just today he mastered the art of sticking out his tongue on cue. He has been loving Popsicles this summer and riding their spring horse. He loves to climb things and get up as high as possible. He also thinks he's a very big helper to mom by pulling food out of the cupboards and taking stuff out of the dishwasher and climbing on the dishwasher door when mom is putting away dishes. Here's some candids to share of him the last couple of weeks.

Zaden is such a clown. He's always doing things to make us laugh lately. He loves to stick out his tongue and make funny noises and pull faces. He weighed in at 21 lbs 6 oz and was 30 inches long. He also has a total of 12 teeth. He says Mom, Dad, brother, no no and dog. He loves to point at things and has to point at and touch my cross stitched picture that my grandmother made of a kitten every morning in the hallway on our way downstairs. He likes anything dexterous so he loves touch and feel books and things with texture. He has also been loving Popsicles this summer and splashing in water whether it be in the pool or from the sprinklers. He is starting to be more interested in walking and will take 3 or 4 steps now. He is still the cuddle bug and loves to rock with Dad every night at bedtime. And here's a few candids of him as well.

Caleb, Caleb, Caleb. He is such a curious boy.He always wants to know everything about anything. He asks tons of questions ,which is good but drives his parents crazy. He is excited for Kindergarten to start but even more excited to get to go to Braska soon to visit everyone. He is signed up to play soccer in the fall and we have already been instructed by him to bring the video camera so the Braska family can see it on the blog. He's a good big brother for the most part, but like any big brother he also likes picking on the babies. His loves are still cars and dinosaurs. He also likes reading and is still working on reading a few words on his own (Mom and Dad need to work harder with him on this). He has one adult tooth that came in replacing his bottom tooth he lost and is telling us that he has more teeth loose. So we might be hearing from the tooth fairy again soon. He has already planned out his #6 birthday for November (you can tell he is truly mine) and even asked me to start making his invitations for it over the weekend when I had my cricut out. It will be a dinosaur themed event (of course). He's starting to think Christmas already and has given me a list of 3 things so far: A motorcycle, a basketball hoop and a sister. hmmm......

Well that's it in a nutshell. Stay tuned for more updates and exciting adventures from the Ouren household.

Fun on the 4th!

Our 4th of July celebration started in the morning when Mom let the babies have a cupcake for breakfast. We had to make a run to Walmart the night before and they looked delicious. Plus, I am convinced that EVERY holiday is better with cake so a pack of them slipped into the cart. They loved them (of course) and had the faces to prove it.

After that we were able to meet our friends for a quick lunch at TGIFridays. Yum. After some relaxing back at home we were finally off to the main event another Bees Game! Mike and I had started the tradition of doing this many years ago but had missed the last couple of years for various reasons. I am so glad we got back to it this year.

Caleb was a total garbage gut. Wanting popcorn, a soda, a hot dog, a snow cone and some cotton candy. Here he is enjoying the candy.

The babies were unruly this time wanting to climb and go everywhere and not happy about being so confined. But we managed (Mike's crabbiness and all :) ). It was such a good game! The score was tied 5 to 5 and it went a full 12 innings before the other team finally got ahead (drats!). And there was a terrible call that started all sorts of excitement in the 10th inning. The other team's coach and a player ended up getting ejected. We ended up losing 7-5. All 3 boys fell asleep towards the end since it was getting sooo late. I kept telling Caleb that we could go home if he was too tired and miss the fireworks, but he was a die-hard and kept opting to stay.

Once the fireworks started the babies woke up and were mesmerized by them. They watched and watched I love this pic with Zaric's big eyes watching them. After a while he even started pointing at them and jabbering about them. Zaden had enough after a bit and fell back asleep.

Caleb loved watching them but said that it hurt his ears that they were so loud so watched most of them like this.

Here's Zaden zonked out during the fireworks.

And a few pics of the fireworks to share. It was such a good show (like always).

It was midnight by the time they ended and nearly 1 am by the time we got home and situated. The latest I think Caleb had EVER stayed up. But he loved it so it was worth it. Here's to another great 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day! I am so grateful for this day and everything we celebrate and hold dear as American's. I finally got my tile made (better late than never). The writing is in gold so it's kind of hard to read but it says "From Bravery Comes Freedom." I think that just about sums it up.
Take some time to remember what this day is all about.
Be safe celebrating, but most of all have fun with it!

FIRE!

We had a semi-themed day today. The theme of the day was FIRE! We set out in the morning for a drive to the Utah Fire fighter's Museum in Grantsville. We made it a surprise for Caleb and didn't tell him where we were until we were in the parking lot. There we got to see all sorts of fire engines and firefighter gear from many decades. It was a quiet little place and we were the only ones there so we got to take our time and spend some time with the guy running it. He let us climb up on one of the engines for some pics and even put one of the suits on me (see slide show). It was a special one for airports that can handle the heat of jet-fuel. I only had it on for 30 seconds and was already sweating. Those firemen are tough! Caleb got a little fireman hat to wear and bring home and they had painted an old shopping cart red and put a steering wheel in it so he drove it (mom pushed it) all over the museum. I think he was in heaven.

After we got back to town we stopped at a Black Cat tent (or bumble bee tent as Caleb called it) to get us some fireworks. We got a little assortment then headed home to rest some and let the kids swim in the zebra pool again.

We got back on the Fire-theme tonight when we lit off the fireworks we bought. Caleb loved it again and wore his new fireman hat just in case there was a problem with fire :). After we were done we turned on the hose and like a good little fireman, he went right to work putting them out.

Such a cute day. I love spending times like these with my boys. Tomorrow will be more 4th of July fun.

Another Day at the Zoo

This is Zaden tuckered out at the zoo today. I got the honor of meeting an old friend from High School and his girlfriend at the zoo today. I momentarily "lost" Caleb near the elephants luckily a nice woman led him back our way. He had run off backwards to see the rhino's again without telling me (we have since had a talk about that) and Zaden choked on a fruit snack and then vomited all over me several times getting it up. But if those are the worst things that went wrong, I am still calling it a successful trip.

This is Wes measuring up. I hate that the Gorilla was missing one hand. I hope they fix that up soon.
And more pics of Caleb enjoying the zoo. Right now the babies still stay in the stroller for the majority of the time so it's kinda boring to take pics of them. But that will be changing soon enough.

What a good time. I am loving getting our money's worth out of our membership this year and am going to try to go a few more times before it expires in Sept. So if anyone is up for a zoo-date with me and the boys, just let us know.

Success!

Hooray! Last night Zaric started walking. Like really walking. He's still wobbly and falls down a lot but we kept getting him to go from one room to the next and he walked all the way from the dining room to the front door. Where he then banged on the door to go outside and walk. Mom thought it was cute so, of course, she took him he walked around a bit then biffed it and now has a nice goose-egg on his head to show for it. :(

The video isn't the best. Forgive the mess in the background and the pj's. We hadn't done out nightly pickup yet. But you can see him walking and see Zaden taking a few steps here and there. He's not far behind for sure. We will keep trying to get better video's as they progress a little more.

Water Jump

When I was younger, I used to love doing this on our trampoline in the summertime. So I taught Caleb the trick of turning on the sprinkler under the trampoline a couple days ago. He loved it and got soaked. Hooray for summertime!

Summer Tile

I finally got around to making a summer tile last night. I like the way it turned out overall. I am in need of the right color of blue vinyl to do my 4th of July tile. So stay tuned for that one. I will have to get it done this week as I am running out of time.