Camping at topaz mtn.

Well, super slow again, but thats just me! A little over a month ago we took our annual Snyder family camping trip with anyone that can make it from Daves family. This year we decided to go to topaz mtn. We had so much fun! the kids had a blast digging in the dirt, finding the "diamond rocks" riding the 4 wheelers and the gator and just being outside all they wanted. We were told of some hot springs kindof by topaz so mid way thru the week we thought that sounded like a great idea to wash some of the layers of dirt off the kids. So, heres the spring.. It looks a little rough but I really think it was the funnest part of the whole trip for our kids. it had hot rivers on the side of the concrete pots, then a pipe with cold water coming in. So you could control the temp of the pot depending on how much cold water you let come in. There were 3 different pots.. all different temps. One just right for the kids, then one a little hotter, then the last one being pretty hot.

All 3 concrete pots with the hot rivers on the side and the cold water pipe coming in.

The kidos swimming with grandma keeping an eye on them. I think she only had to go in after aspen once :)
The bottoms were super slippery with all the moss growing.. YUMMMMM

Happy as can be!!

Around here, you just cant have a camping trip without shooting some guns.. Right? Our kids love it anyway. Aspen shooting.. I actually think she hit the target... I'm sure with a little bit of dads help

Pumping the gun.. MORE POWER!!

Kaylee shooting.. She was too big for dad to help her aim. She said she could do it all her self!

And of course... They all need lesson by Hunter Safety Dave :)

Caden pounding for topaz in the mountain.

Aspen looking for topaz

Cadens happy as long as he could go for rides in the Gator!!

One day we went to the geod beds in Dougway. We didnt really know what we were doing or where to even look for the geods, but there were lots of big random holes that other people had dug looking for them, so the kids had a blast just climbing in and out of them and digging looking for some. We never did find any.

Kaylee in a big hole looking for geods

Looking for more geods

The kids caught 2 Horned Toads... this is about as close as Caden would get. He loved them from afar, but wasnt too interested in petting or holding it.

Kaylee on the other hand LOVED it! Infact we had to bring them home with us and keep them as pets for a bit. She would go out each day up in the field behind our house and dig a big pile of red ants to feed them.

Kaylee and Aspen hiking SO sweet and peacefull when sleeping!!

His model pose :) Looking for Topaz.. Nice smile bud!

More model poses

Well, I think thats all for now but watch for more to come.. I have some serious catching up to do!!

Growing right up!!

A little behind... but better late then never. Right? Kaylee finished Kindergarten on the 28th of May. Here are some recaps of her last week of school...

Kristas family has some homing pigeons so on the last day of school they released some. Kole and Kale let Kaylee come release one. She was pretty excited.

Heading down to the bus on the last day.

This is at her Kindergarten Graduation party. They are eating ice cream they made in class earlier that day. Next to her is her best bud Arlee

Singing us a song... "A grand ol Flag"

This is at the dance festival. She did a great job. I was so glad to see her dance. I did have to bribe her with a Frazil (slushie) to help her come out of her little shell, but she did it :)

Walking out to dance.. they were doing a dance from the 70's I dont know the name of it but it said "ABC its easy as 123.." Or something like that!

I cant beleive she is done with kindergarten. I am excited to spend some time with her during the summer! Its going to be so weird having her gone all day when school starts back up in the fall. She is such a great helper!! The thing she is most excited for 1st grade is eating lunch in the lunch room.

Will this day end?

Today I woke up feeling a little tired.. but happy. Then the day even got better when Kaylee reminded me it was crazy hair day. Awesome.. I didnt need to even brush her hair. I just put a few crazy bows in her hair and called it good. Then proceded to go get breakfast going. In the middle of the huslte of getting her ready to head out my little sweety Caden comes walking up saying "eweeee." So I glanced down and he had somehow taken his one piece jamies off and decided to change his own poopy diaper. Well he got one side of teh diaper undone but just jerked off the other side, therefore flinging poo all over- him, the floor, and anything else around. AWESOME!! Ok, keep my cool. Get it all cleaned up (put Caden in levis because I know he cant get those off by himself to take his diaper off) get Kaylee off to school. Went for a little walk which was nice. Went back to my moms for a bit. Caden and Aspen want to go outside so I say ok.. just stay in the back fence. They did but somewhere Caden found a can of gas and decided to dump it all over him. Made her whole downstairs smell like gas. Bring him home, get cleaned up, new levis on. Not 5 mins later Im changing laundry and he starts crying in the kitchen so I go check on him. He was standing in the fridge with the entire big dish of soup leftovers spilled over his head, all down the front of him, all over every shelf in the fridge - including the door and all over the floor, and under the frindge. AWESOME!! So I wipe it from his eyes and face, take his clothes off and start cleaning the mess (which was BIG). I was almost done when he came saying "ewweee" So I look and sure enough.. He had taken his diaper off and crapped all over the kitchen floor- while walking of course! It was everywhere! AWESOME!! so I flip and grab him to go put him in the bath.. but he wasnt done, therefore leaving a trail all the way to the tub. AWESOME!! So, he is in the tub, Im sure making a mess with the water.... and to think its only 11 AM!! And to think we have another one one the way..?? What to do with this boy???? If only he wasnt so stinkin cute.....

Crazy Busy!

Man, the last few weeks have seemed to be so busy. We keep waiting for it to slow down, but it hasnt yet. I'm behind on my blog so bear with me as this is pretty much my journal so I want these pictures for me. Sorry such a long one!

Kaylee had her R.A.D. Kids graduation... she had to poke this guy in the eyes and escape the padded officer who was trying to kid nap her. She was she and embarassed, but she did good. She kicked the officer pretty hard in the shins to free her, then ran to safety.

All padded up

A week or so ago we took a little family vacation to the big sin city.... Las Vegas. We had fun just chillin as a family. Probably not my favorite place to go.. actually I dont really care if I ever go there again. Atleast with kids :) We just hope our kids were still too young to understand the billboards and advertisements :) We Would go walk the main strip during the day, then head back to the hotel to swim. Thats all the kids wanted to do anyway. Here are the girls at Ceasars Palace

When we got there they didnt have any non smoking rooms so they upgraded us to a suite, and man it was huge... probably as big as our house. The kids were in heaven. If only we could have stayed there. But they moved us to a normal room the next night.

Overlooking the strip

swimming

We did escape the craziness of the strip and head up to visit the temple. It was so pretty. We just walked around the grounds and let the kids play on the grass.

oops... I didnt realize I already did this one.

On our way home we stopped in St. George for a few hours and hiked around. There is a super fun place to hike that kinda sits up on the hill overlooking the town and it is way fun to hike around on and rock climb as you can see dave still thinking hes young... oh wait he is!

And dont worry... Hes teaching Caden :)

Arent they cute?

When we came to this same place a few yrs ago, I got a picture of the girls in this same hole.. They fit a lot better back then.

The Determination of the little feller!! He would almost keep right up with his sisters.

A Little help would be nice.... But dont worry he did it all himself.

Professional splunker in the making..

The best of pals!

Kaylee had her birthday on Saturday.. she turned 6 yrs old. She was lucky enough to have 3 parties. One at grandma snyders and she wanted a garden cake. So we made her a garden cake. They her birthday was a crazy day, but we did squeze in a four wheeler ride and open her presents on the ride. Thats all she wanted to do. Then had a little BBQ that night anhe got lots of Super cute clothes and a slip n slide and some water toys and her new pink scooter. She wont take it outside because it gets the wheels dirty then she has to wash them :) she had a fun day. Then on sunday we had a little get together at Grandma Smiths and she wanted a bee cake.. so dave and her made a super cute bee cake. For the BBQ on her b day my mom made some yummy cupcakes with oreos and worms coming out.. which fits her perfectly!

So, the reason we were so busy on her B day is because we had to go to SLC to get some honey bees... Yes, we now have a bee hive in our back yard. Call us crazy, I know!! We went in on some with my sister Krista and her husband and then Dave loved them so much the next week he went to work finding bees and builing this little house to disquise them :) We got the house done just in time (Thanks to those who helped)

Here we all are building our courage to put the bees in the hive..

Dave litterally dumping about 7,500 bees in the hive. I think hes actually smiling :)

Kaylee holing one. She loves them!

This is the queen bee. she comes in this little cage and we plug the hole with the marshmallow and put her in with the rest of the bees. Then she starts eating from the inside and the other bees from the outside to free her. That gives them time to get to know eachother so they dont kill her. Pretty interesting!

On Sunday my mom pulled up the the house and couldnt help but laugh when she looked in the back yard and saw dave sitting in our little bench with it turned backward to the yard facing the little outhouse with his feet kicked up reading his scriptures. He could sit out there all day and watch them. They are pretty amazing! Other people driving by would probably think he was in trouble and in time out or something :) Well, Kaylee was out there with him and she was holding them walking around and of course she was bare foot and happened to step on one and we had our first bee sting. She cried for a minute, but then was fine and thought that was pretty cool. She still loves them and likes to hold them on her finger. Crazy Girl!

Then on monday, Caden came in kind of whining pointing at his finger so I looked and there was a stinger in there. His problem is he loves them and isnt old enough to be afaid of them and well he likes to squish them between his fingers... Which leads to a bee sting. Really, thats the only time they sting is when you smash them. The other day I had 7 kids over playing in the backyard all day, and not a single sting.. So hopefully we will stay that lucky!!! Wish us luck with our new adventure!!!

Easter camping (thats what the kids call it)

Weve kinda started a tradition to go camping over conference weekend. We love to just be outside and listen to it while the kids can just play, and we make a fun weekend of it. This year was extra fun being Easter also. We headed out friday night knowing the weather would probably be bad, but hoping for the best. We did have a super fun time, and even everyone from my family was there at some point. We had 5 camp trailers out there, all filled with kids which always makes things fun!
Here are pictures of the festivities. (Prepare for lots of pictures)

Painting eggs saturday in the trailer while it was cold

Kaylees cousin Cody got a new motorcycle a few weeks ago, and ever since she heard about it shes been wanting to try to ride it. I thought she was way too young! Well on Saturday she kept begging and begging me. I thought Dave should be the one to teach her so I went to get him and he was sound asleep in the trailer-not feeling good and I just couldnt bring my self to wake him, so I guess it was up to me. I kinda talked to through it.. she had to start it and shift all by herself with NO help (shes very independant and stubborn like her dad-not always a bad thing :) and off we went.. she just took off like she has been riding a motorcycle her whole life. Good thing because this fat pregnant mom can only run along side of her for so long :) and that was it. She rode that thing around for about an hour. She loved to start it, so she would ride for a bit, then stop and turn it off just to restart it and start all over. She kept riding past the trailer to see if her dad was watching so I finally had to wake him up so he could see. They were both very proud. Shes been saving her money for a ping .22 gun she saw at walmart but now she said shes definetly saving for a motorcycle. "Just keep saving" we tell her!

All of camp..
Another milestone.. Aspen wanted to ride Kaylees 4 wheeler all by herself so I decided to let her.. Its a pretty open field. She did great. And she loved it. She too is hoping Kaylee will buy a mororcycle so she can ride the 4 wheeler more often!

The kidos on easter morning after finding the easter baskets.. The bunny didnt do a really good job at hiding. There are only so many hiding spots in a trailer

This is the snow we woke up to Easter morning

Caden is pretty proud of the one egg he found. Then he was done.

This is a picture of the water tower my crazy brother Riley and his friend slept on top of. He said he has always wanted to so he did. If you look close you can see someone on the top of it looking off. I think that is his friend. Riley is still sleeping. Crazy boys!!!!!

And finally.. Caden coloring his egg. sorry its out of order.

And last but not least, I had my ultrasound a few days and the baby looks great.. measured 9 days early which is always good. We got some great pictures of it... and Its going to be another BOY!!!

We are pretty excited for Caden to have a little buddy. Maybe it will help mellow him down a bit... lets hope:)