This last weekend we took the whole family to the BYU football game.....Yes, you heard me, the whole crew.. And it was a blast!!
Derek and I are pretty "die hard" BYU fans, and so it was fun to share and hopefully instill in the kids a love for BYU football.
What a great, fun day we had together
For Kali's 9th birthday we she had a late night with her 3 BFF's. They had a fabulous time dancing, laughing, eating, and then watching a flick.. I can hardly believe that she is 9.....Where does the time go??
They had a week of practices with the Orem High cheerleaders,( Which my girls think are just amazing) But them they performed at the high school football game at half time. 
The girls have both decided that they are going to be cheerleaders when they grow up!!
Super Fun night!!
Happy birthday Little Buddies!! You have been such a joy in our lives. We love you!!
We had a fantastic experience with the kiddos a few weekends ago. we decided to hike the Y together as a family. Now those who have done it before know this is not an easy hike. what a great experience for our family. For the first about 20 minutes it was fun and everyone was going and enjoying themselves, then slowly the kids starting getting tired. We had heard a talk in Sunday the week where a sister Missionary had said that in her family their motto was "Strattons can do hard things." well we adopted this in our family. Derek had a little talk with the kids explaining that even though things can be hard we can still do them. It was awesome!! Throughout the rest of the hike when we could see one of the kids starting to get sluggish we would say "Downey's can do hard things" It was so great to see how much this would motivate the kids to keep going and keep going cheerfully. It was so amazing when we finally reached the top and sat on the Y and the kids all felt such a sense of accomplishment. They were so proud of themselves and one another. This was such a bonding experience as a family. we helped one another and pushed one another and made it to the top Even though we had two skinned knees we look at this experience with so much gratitude.
This is now going to become a Downey tradition our summer hike to the Y.
So those who know me well know I am a huge shave ice person in the summer. And this summer I found the worlds best shave ice around. It is called "Snowasis" and It is up in Highland. I discovered this just last week and honestly every single day I just want to drive up there and get another shave ice. I am actually kind of glad that it is at least a 20 minute drive which makes it not real easy to get to. So all you that live close by, go check out snowasis.....AMazing!!!
I haven't been the best blogger this summer, and this is because we have been so busy having a ton of fun. Here are some things we have been up to.. Fun at the splash pad in American Fork. ( Such a fun place to take the kiddos)
No bed time. The girls have loved all the nights they get to stay up late together. First time trip to the Dentist. ( Total of 10 cavities :( ) Girls Taking over and dressing up their little brothers ( Dads favorite). Lounging in the Swimming pool in the backyard.
Feeding the ducks at the park with cousins.
Macey's fun carnival.(Face painting, races, snow cones, bounce houses, cotton candy, music, rock climbing wall...Great day)
Orem Summerfest, motorcycle rides, Boys sleeping in our room ( And of course our Dog Bodie thinking he is one of the kids. ) We have been so busy playing and having fun together. I can't lie it has been a little nice to have the kids a little older this summer, we haven't had to worry about nap times, or having to have a baby on my hip. we have been able to just go, go, go. Sort of Love it!!!!
Usually I do a fathers day post and this year for some reason it slipped my mind, so here is a late little fathers day post to all the amazing dads that I have in my life. We have been so blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support, and we have felt it throughout the years. Our kids have 2 of the most amazing Grandpa's in the whole world. They are both so loving and caring and have shown our 4 children so much love. They have always loved going to Grandpas!! Thankyou Thankyou Grandpa Downey and Chalmers for being such wonderful Dads and Grandpas. You are both such amazing examples to our family.
We had a great 4th of July this year. We spent it having a BBQ, playing Michael Jackson on the wii, roasting marshmallows, doing fireworks, and just lounging around all day. It was such a fun day with family.
I have kind of caught a sewing bug this summer. I have always loved to sew and I told myself when I was expecting the twins that I needed to put my sewing machine in the closet for a few years since my life would be a little too crazy to be able to find time to sew. Well I pulled it out and I am kind of obsessed right now. First off my mom gave me a ton of fabric that she had laying around so I have just been using what I was given to make all sorts of fun stuff. Here are the two latest....The owl pillows I made for the girls room. I found these cute owls and pattern on makeit-loveit.com (This is my new favorite website)
I also got enough material from my mom to make the kids each 4 pairs of pajamas. So here are the girls in a pair I made.
I posted earlier how this year I was handing out coupons this summer for the girls as they finish their chores for the week. So this week they received an "arts and crafts day" We painted bird houses, decorated picture frames, ribbon flip flops, bracelets, and paper towel butterflies. 
The girls really had fun and I did it really inexpensively. I got almost all the crafts at the dollar store.
This year my mom celebrated her 60th birthday. This was a much more special birthday than most to our family. For those who don't know 8 years ago my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It really was a very hard time for our family, since my mom is the life and glue that holds our family together. It was a hard year full of a lot of heart felt prayers that mom would make it. I learned and grew so much during that time and came to appreciate how lucky I had been to have been able to have such an amazing mother!! There was a time that we thought she wouldn't make it to see 55. So this year on her 60th birthday my mom decided to throw a celebration of life birthday party. She had an open house all day long where she invited all her friends and family to come and share a piece of cake with her and celebrate life. It turned out to be such a fabulous day as our house was full of those who were special to us. What a beautiful day. We also did a little family get together the night before at the park with just our family for her birthday. We sang together, had cupcakes together, and the grand kids all pitched in their own money to buy her this beautiful "willow tree" statue called "the quilt" it represents her so well!!
This year I decided to have the kids join the reading club through the Orem Library. I thought it would be a great way to keep up on their reading through the summer while also having some fun with it through the library. The reading program there is awesome!! Every Tuesday they do a fun presentation about countries all over the world. The separate the kids out into ages and then provide great activities for the kids to do to help encourage reading. The best part is the give out fun little coupons every week for a free ice cream, or pizza. Well this last week they handed out free tickets to the dinosaur museum. I was all over that!!!
The kids had a lot of fun!! Kali decided not to come since her school class just went the last week of school, so Lexi brought her friend Carsen. It is such an amazing place for kids!! We spent 3 hours there and I swear we could have been there 2 hours longer. What a great day.....and the best part was we went for free!!!
Sorry, I have fallen a bit behind on my blog so bear with me on quite a few posts in a row. I will start with flag day. This is a holiday I have never before celebrated much with the kids, but this year I felt like they were old enough to have a little lesson and fun together. So we all got dressed up in our flag t-shirts. Then I talked to the kids about what the flag stands for and how we should always show respect when we see the flag. I also found a couple great little kids stories online about the importance of the flag and how it came to be. Then we colored little pictures of flags to hang in their rooms. We just kept it simple but I think they liked it.
Every summer I like to come up with some way for the kids to be rewarded for their chores, which I think makes them a little happier about doing them, and then they feel like they have earned something through work. So this summer this is what I came up with. 
The ultimate prize for chores this summer is a Lagoon trip. So eveyday they finish their chores they will put a sticker on a day towards going to Lagoon. There are a little over 50 week days this summer. Then at the end of the summer when they fill the Lagoon chart we will take them to Lagoon as their reward for doing chores through the summer.
This year we signed Kali up for a great program that teaches kids how to act and be involved in plays. Her favorite thing is to perform. She loves to stand up in front of people and sing and dance and be the center of attention, so we knew she would love this. The play that they did this year was "Alice in Wonderland". She was Jesse from Toy story, a flower, the ground hog and a jaberwokie. She was so cute up there and she did amazing!!
The best part for her was after the performance all the kids got their first Grammy award. It was so cute and she has loved showing it to everyone. What a great night!!
I got to attend today a special moms day program put on by the kindergarten. It was the cutest thing ever. Little Lexi was so cute as she sung her songs said her poems. It is so hard to not tear up during these kinds of things. I love being a mom, it brings me more happiness than anything else. 
Thanks Little Lu for making me feel special today and get to spend the day with you!! I love you!!
This is Lexi's kindergarten teacher Mrs. Jones. She is the greatest lady ever, both of my girls have had her and absolutely loved her.
