Happy Birthday Luke!!

It's hard for me to believe but my baby just turned 6 on Tuesday the 22nd. I thought this birthday would not be to exciting for Luke this year because my three older girls were gone at girls camp all week and my husband, Clay in Denver all week for business. Luke had a big friends birthday party last year and I only let the kids have a friends birthday party every other year. So it was going to be a very small birthday for poor Luke. But when my sister Libby heard that almost my entire family would be gone this week, she called and said she was coming up to stay with us and that she would be here for Luke's birthday. Luke was so excited because he loves being around Libby's oldest son Jack.
My other sister Melinda said that she would come and hang out with us for Luke's birthday as well. We decided to take all the kids to Liberty Land for his birthday. This place is like Boondocks, but for little kids. It was so hot but thankfully they had some shade and fans blowing with misters, which we sat infront of almost the entire time.

Luke and Cameron on the go-carts
Their first accident!

All the kids on the rollercoaster
Luke, Cameron, Olivia, and Jack on the bumper boats
Jack, Luke, Cody and Cameron

Luke, Cameron and Cody racing the cars
Luke blowing out his candles My mom, Clay's mother Susan, Libby and the kids
One of the many guns Luke received on his birthday
Aunt Chelsey is always there to help out with everything!
More guns!

This is when the fun really began. We had to untwist all of those aweful twisty ties they put on all the toys now! Who in the world came up with those things! What a pain!

By the end of the day we were completely wiped out from all the party festivities, the heat and all the kids! Thanks to my family for coming and helping Luke have a great birthday!

Hughes Family Tradition lives on!

We have this tradition on the Hughes side of the family of making chocolate chip cookies. Now these arn't the usual chocolate chip cookies, they are really, really good chookies with a secret ingredient that we use when making them. This tradition started actually with my brother Tom when he was in high school. Tom made the best cookies around and we had neighbors always asking him to make them some. I learned Tom's secret and starting making them in college. This was a good things because there was nothing the guys liked more than some good old home baked cookies. I scored many dates with these cookies.
I started teaching my girls how to make these cookies a few months ago. They usually make them on Sunday after church (another tradition of my families). Some batches we had to just throw out, like the time they used to much salt, and another time they added to much vanilla. But after much practice, they have mastered the technique and today made some really good cookies. I'm really proud of my girls. They love to cook (something they got from me, well, really the only thing they got from me) and I know someday their spouses will thank me for teaching them how to cook!


The boys love when their sisters bake cookies for them!

Cody's guitar lesson

Cody has been asking me since he was about three years old if he could get his own guitar and take lessons. I told him when he was old enough he could start. He started taking piano about a year ago and has done really well with it, so for Christmas last year we surprised him with a guitar and informed him he was signed up to start lessons in January. I have never been to any of his guitar lesson so last week I decided to sit in on one. I couldn't resist video taping him during it because I was so pleased with his progress. Ok, so maybe he is no Keith Urban yet (for those of you who don't know who he is, he is a country singer who plays the piano, guitar and sings. If you want to hear his best song download "who wouldn't want to be me"!) but someday he will be just as good, maybe even better. I told Clay that he was in charge of developing his talent in sports and I would develop his musical talents. Together, there won't be a girl alive that will be able to resist him! Plus he is just dang good looking! Of course he wont be interested in girls until he gets home from his mission, so no worries for a while!

Fourth of July

This year we just stuck around the house and did things that were close by. That morning I took the boys to the Dinouser Museum, the girls thought this would be boring so they didn't come along with us.

This place is really fun. There are so many different things to do. Here the boys are making sand homes for the dinasaurs and then you let the water bury the dinosaurs. It's supposed to teach them about erosion.
Then the boys got to make dino prints out of plaster. (yes, Luke thinks it's funny to make a strange face in every picture)!

This one is really fun, you make a dinosaur any way you want too! The boys gave him six legs! After the dino museum we took the kids to their favorite place to eat, it's called JCW's. For anyone who lives in Utah if you haven't eaten here, you really need to try it!

After that we played at the house for a while. This is the kids favortie thing to do with Clay. Every day when Clay comes home from work Luke is asking him if he could go outside and bounce him. It's really cute, but very annoying at the same time. Poor Clay doesn't have time to relax when he gets home, he eats dinner really fast and then is outside jummping with the kids.

After a fun afternoon we headed to SLC and went to the Bee's baseball game. Clay's work has a suite at the stadium that they let us use that night. It's great because when you get hot you just head inside and watch the game from there! Plus they stock it full of food! My kind of game! Afterwards they had a big fireworks show that was incredible!

This was the funniest part of the night. In between the innings they would play music and Luke would pretend his bat was a guitar and jam to the music. Tyler, I knew this would make you proud!

If your wondering why Jessica isn't in any of these pictures that is because she spent the weekend with her best friend in Deer Valley at their cabin. That is the life of having teenagers!

Fun weekend, well except for the black eye!

It was a fun but hot weekend for us. We took the kids swimming because it was just so darn hot you couldn't do anything else.

Because most people don't have their own pools the only options you have is to swim in the city's pool. American Fork has a great pool with a lazy river and water slides, but as you can see from the picture every family in Utah comes here to swim! This truely was the "pool of insanity". It's like playing "Where's Waldo" just trying to find your kids in the pool! It was two hours of complete stress for me making sure I knew where all four kids were all the time!!

That night Clay and I went out to celebrate his new promotion at work. He was made acting CFO at Kennecott. This means while the real CFO is off doing a different job overseas for the next four to six months, Clay will be CFO. He is so excited and now he has the chance to prove that he can do the job and hopefully get the position after the CFO leaves in a few years. So we went to this incrediable steak house named Flemmings at the Gateway Mall. It was amazing! And then afterwards went and saw Jerry Seinfield perform. He was so funny, it was a very fun night! Sorry about the blurry picture. Your not supposed to take pictures, but I snuck my camera in a got this one! Poor Luke! The kids were playing baseball in the back yard last night and Cody hit the ball and Luke caught it with his eye! It's actually a lot worse in real life, the camera's flash kind of washed it out in the picture. But the funny part is he really likes having it and loves all the extra attention everyone gives him because of it!