Rent-a-Puppy July 2014

Kyle came home from work really excited about a surprise he had planned for the family the next day. Kyle loves planning surprises, but doesn't usually like the waiting involved in actually surprising anyone, so he quickly broke down and told me that he had heard from a coworker about a company that lets you rent puppies by the hour, and will drop off and pick up the puppy for you at any local location you choose.

What.

No, seriously! 

Perfect for a young apartment dwelling family with parents-who-refuse-to-own-a-dog-almost-ever like us. 

So we picked a favorite park for a breakfast picnic, Kyle browsed the puppy selection and put in an hour reservation for Clint, a lab puppy for the very next morning!

The kids had no idea, we were just sitting and eating our breakfast when a woman came walking up with a puppy and handed it off to Kyle, and we told them that we get to play with this puppy for the next hour. They were so excited!

It took a few minutes for our typically dog-phobic (at least at first) children to warm up to the idea of petting and playing with Clint the puppy. He was so calm and good-natured, though, that it really didn't take long for all of them to fall in love with him.

This puppy sure did tire easily! He probably spent at least half of the time we had with him trying to take a nap! At least it was cooler for us to hang out in the shade and it made for easy petting:

We seriously had so much fun getting to play with a puppy for the morning. We are definitely thinking that this is something we just might make a family tradition every couple of months from now on! What a sweet and fun idea Kyle had!

Cow appreciation Day July 2014

Friday, July 11th was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a, and who doesn't love free food for their family of 6?? I decided to make a craft day out of it, and the girls and I spent the afternoon making our cow headbands and spots, I added a little face paint before we left, and less than a fifteen minute wait later we had over $60 in free Chick-fil-a!

Our partially cooperating cow family:

Minnette was a happy cow:

Jovi was our confused cow:

Aurelle was our sad cow (she said she was scared because she didn't know any of the other people):

And Waits was our baby cow that takes a thumb:

Daddy doing his best cow impersonation:

Aurelle wanted to take pictures of Mom and Dad:

Does this costume look familiar? Jovi wore it for Halloween almost two years ago! It sure was nice to have a reason to reuse it- I knew there was a reason for hanging onto it all this time. :)

It being July 11th (7-11) it was also free slurpee day at 7-Eleven. and we headed straight from dinner to get our free slurpees. We had to wait probably around 20 minutes in line, but we got 5 free drinks (Waits shared everyone else's drinks- though, really, we all did!), and didn't realize until we left that the deal ended at 7 pm and without knowing it, we had gotten there with less than 10 minutes to spare! Free dinner and dessert and a fun family date- win, win, win!

Bridal Veil Falls July 2014

Kyle had an afternoon free (yay for no class!), so we decided to get a little relief from the heat and head up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls to feed some fish and play in the water (which ended up being barely cooler- so at least the water was cold!).

Mommy and Waits getting ready to get in the water:

Minnette and Aurelle had a lot of fun hiking up the waterfall. Since Mommy and Daddy had on either flip flops or were barefoot (Kyle's shoes were sooo not waterproof), and were not able to accompany them, they only made it about a fourth of the way up.

They loved collecting sticks and throwing rocks around the bottom of the waterfall. They played like this for almost an hour!

Mommy helped Waits find rocks to pick up and throw (and pick up and throw, and pick up and throw...):

He sat and played with rocks the entire time:

We will be heading back, for sure, though much better prepared for a hike higher up the waterfall!

4th of July 2014

This being one of the first summers that we were actually in Provo for the fourth of July- and quite possibly the last- I made sure we got our fill of the fourth of July activities that Provo has to offer.

Many of the events lasted for four days running from Thursday through Saturday, and we were able to space them out, which worked quite well for our young family.

Kyle had school on the third, so I headed with the kids to the Colonial Fest in Orem, which ended up being super fascinating for me, but not so much for the kids. We got to see live demonstrations of newspaper printing, calligraphy (each girl got to get a card with their name calligraphied [is that a word?] on it!), black smithing, military drills, and we got to talk with some who were reenacting explorers camping out and Native Americans who were generals in the British army (one whose father's name was Locklan!). The whole while my girls had their eye on the playground that was nearby, and we ended our relatively short trip there.

The morning of the fourth, we got our crew up and going early so that we could get good seats for the Grand Parade, little did we know, everyone else had the same idea- only they did it the day before. It was pretty packed by the time we got there, though we were able to snag a little patch of grass that was partially shaded about 20 feet away from the street. It was a hot and muggy morning... perfect for heading out to get ic cream cones afterward!

Here we are all ready with our candy bandit sign, and turns out, they don't throw any candy at this parade! Who ever heard of a parade that doesn't have any candy?? 

If you ask Minnette and Aurelle what their favorite part about going to a parade is- well, I give you one guess what their answer is. I think we were all a little devastated at this revelation.

Kyle took pictures of some of the parade highlights (meaning the parts that the kids liked best)

Firetruck and a hummer filled with paper mache animals 

Wells Fargo stagecoach (they also had a mini stagecoach being pulled by miniature ponies which was our girls absolute favorite) and Kyle's favorite: a unimog

Of course no Fourth of July parade would be complete without a giant patriotic squirrel balloon:

And we thought this was really neat: only in Utah would the MTC missionaries be featured in the Fourth of July parade, and get the loudest cheers:

That afternoon we headed down to the softball field for a family bbq, any summer holiday must. And after the kids were in bed, Kyle and I ventured across the street to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks show. We had great seats and could even hear Carrie Underwood singing her finale since we were so close to the stadium.

The next morning was another early one as we headed to the Balloon Fest, where we got to watch a field full of hot air balloons fill up and take off (we made it at the end, so we actually only saw a few), got donuts and headed to a local park for a picnic breakfast, and later attempted the Freedom Days in downtown Provo, which proved to be a bunch of local businesses trying to sell you their stuff and acting irritated when you tried their 'free' samples but didn't buy anything. Another hot and muggy morning, so at least it was nice that one of the vendors was handing out otter pops!

That evening we broke Wymount rules and let the girls have fun with sparklers out in the softball field. 

Overall, it was a really fun few days packed with activities with our family. We are so very grateful to live in this country, and to be able to have the freedom to do all of the things that we get to do on a daily basis.

Murphy Family Pictures- June 2014

While in Phoenix, the Murphy side of the family was able to get together again for family pictures. This is a tradition that I really love. If it weren't for my parents planning this for the whole family, I don't know that we would have any professional pictures of our family (other than our engagement and wedding pictures!). I am so grateful to them for doing this every time our family gets together!

On our way to meet the rest of the family:

Too darn precious and sweet to not document! I sure love these girls!

Here is the whole Murphy family. Now that my sister, Gina, and her husband have (just last month!) had the amazing opportunity to adopt two sweet {at least I think they are sweet- I am sure they are- but I only got to meet them this once! I am so excited for them to be a part of our family!} boys, the family that falls under the Murphy Umbrella is currently 21 members strong. Add that Gina and I are both expecting, given 6 months, there will be 23 members in our extended family!

A very happy Grandma and Grandpa with their (currently) 13 grandchildren. Two more will be added soon! Why is there always someone crying in these pictures? Poor Waits :(

As opposed to last year (or a year and a half ago), our girls were much more emotionally prepared, and much better rested, and much less cold... which means that pictures were a much more pleasant experience for all of us. And we were able to see quite a few super cute smiles from them:

Now, this is a pretty accurate representation of how Waits was feeling during our entire 10 day trip in Phoenix and Flagstaff this year:

In case you missed it in our last post, Waits came down with croup, which for him involved a barking cough, a very high fever, a super runny nose and absolutely zero appetite for the duration of our vacation. This is exactly how he looked basically every hour of the day. So sad, but also kinda funny, right? (Not that he was sick... just initially looking at these pictures.) That poor, sweet little boy of ours!

Our little (though, not really so little anymore!) family. I think its funny that I was pregnant and almost due with Waits last time we had family pictures taken, and this time around I am pregnant again and almost due with the next member of our family. The difference 18 months can make!

The Willman family founders. Going on over 6 1/2 years!

The original Murphy family:

Sisters!!! I seriously love this picture!

Love these sisters of mine!

This was the same location where Kyle and I had our engagement pictures taken (with the same photographer, too!) almost 7 years ago. We thought it would be neat to reenact one of our pictures to show the difference {almost} seven years can make!

September 2007 (just over two months before getting married):

Almost seven years later, plus a few:

Makes for a slightly different picture, doesn't it? We sure do love- and are so grateful for- each new member of this growing family of ours, and we absolutely wouldn't have it any other way!

Thanks so much, Mom and Dad, for providing this opportunity for our family to be documented. I sure do love how all of the pictures turned out!