Saturday

This day was suppose to be spent doing laundry and cleaning the garage but that idea got tossed- and thank goodness it did!

Our first outing was to Staples. Sounds lame but it was actually really fun. I had 5 coupons for $3 off any thing in the store that expired today. But it was limited to 1 coupon per person per day. So what did we do to get around this? We found a loop hole. 5 people in our family who are old enough to hold money without eating it= 5 coupons that could be redeemed= 5 items that we walked away with for super cheap. A great benefit to having a big family.

 Each kid had a few bucks to pay the remaining balance and tax. Hailey and Mason felt like such grown ups when it was there turn to check out and it was really funny watching Lily trying to hold her receipt and the paper towels. But we got $40 worth of items for $10. So it was completely worth it.

Second outing was to Layton Duck Park. It's the best place to go- It's shaded, quiet, and there's always tons of ducks everywhere.

Here's everyone getting ready to throw bread to the ducks.

And here's Cati taking a bite of  her bread before throwing it to the ducks. She's got her "Oops-I'm busted look" on her face. I love it!

Ever wonder what ducks really love to eat?...........Cereal!

 Birds and ducks passed our bread pieces when they sighted cereal. It's our secret weapon to having a great duck pond experience.

 Cati-she really enjoyed herself until one duck wanted the cereal from her hand. She wasn't give it up to him so the duck bit and grabbed onto her overall shorts. It pulled her shorts so hard that the button snaps on the botton came undone. I grabbed her to calm her down and to check her over and I was amazed that through her tears she still didn't let go of that handful of cereal. She's one tough cookie!


 Hailey found 2 duck eggs in a bush that most likely were abandoned and empty inside.  But she was so happy thinking that there were baby ducks inside that I just kept that bit of unhappy info to myself.

Mason-he started to misbehaved. So he had to sit for a time out which lasts so long since he's 9. 9 years old=9 minutes. Which was pretty much the rest of our outing. So he was done for this outing.

 Lily-she was having so much fun doing this...

that when we said it was time to go she did this.....

Such a sad face but too bad we were wanting to go do some more fun family stuff. After stopping off at home for a quick lunch we headed to SLC to see Mike's sister, Chrissy. He's talked to her frequently on the phone but he hasn't seen her in 5 years. And with her moving back to Utah he was so excited to see her and her family.

Our kids were excited too.....they have 2 more cousins to play with, Alex and Roni, which after a few minutes of getting to know each other and talking about teeth (the things kids talk about) they warmed up to each other and played for hours. Some backyard bowling, soccer,

 playing with Chrissy's family dog

 and hide-n-go-seek tag. Ducati hid by covering her eyes so no one could see her. Man- I love that girl!

With our kids playing and Mike catching up with his sister we lost track of time and soon we started to hear "I'm hungry". So we all headed  to McDonald's.

Here's Mason and Hailey with Alex. She is such a sweet and respectful girl. Our kids just love her. They can't wait to visit her again.

 Mom thought: I'm beginning to think that the #1 rule for kids from their parents is eat first then you can go play. Because I've never seen our kids eat so fast....ever!

But all good things must come to an end. Mike and our family and Chrissy with her family had to part ways......for now.....since our 2 tots missed nap time and we were dealing with those horrible effects.

I think that this day was much more well spent doing family activities than laundry.