Don't be too impressed!

The Twelve Things This Summer That Happened To Us Bates

(to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas...sort of!)

 The FIRST thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

A Barbeque in our Backyard!

*(Not part of the song!) The first of many!  Clearly Hannah enjoyed her hot dog!

The SECOND thing that happened this summer to us Bates.

Building me some shelves!

*One of my summer projects for Mark was to build shelves in our shed for all of our camping equipment and what not.  So before Uncle Mikey moved to Indiana Mark enlisted his help for one last project.  The girls joined in the fun too!

The THIRD thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

A beard made of stickers!

*One of the girls got the bright idea to put stickers all over their faces so they could look like daddy!

The FOURTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Purchasing a Van!

*Yep, I am truly one of those mom's now!  But you know what, dang it, I LOVE IT!!!

The FIFTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Wa-shing the Van!

*Funny story about this one.  On one particular occasion the front of the van was super buggy.  So I assigned the girls that part of the van.  I thought it would keep them busy for awhile.  Well after a few minutes, I guess Hannah got tired of scrubbing the bugs and began to whack Abby with the rag.  I said "Hannah, Abby is not a bug, so why are you trying to wash her?"  (The girls thought this was hilarious and laughed about it all aftenoon.)  They then began to run around trying to "clean" each other.  Needless to say my little bug scrubbers got distracted and left me with all the dirty work.

Here is where you can see Hannah with the wind up!

The SIXTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Bread for some Fishies

*While my Aunt was visiting from Canada, with my cousin and her daughter, we took a day trip up to West Yellowstone to the Playmill theater.  On the way we stopped at Warm River to feed the fishies.

The SEVENTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Family photo at the falls.

*On the previously mentioned day trip, we also stopped at Mesa Falls.

The EIGHTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Abby gets a haircut!

*This was a "long" time coming.

Before

During - She did so good!

And After - We absolutely LOVE her new "do".

 The NINTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Wa-tching Old Faithful

*On a different trip to West Yellowstone, part of my family had the opportunity to speak at the sacrament meeting for the Old Faithful Branch.  I decided to go last minute so I didn't have to speak, haha!  So we packed a picnic and took the afternoon (church wasn't until 7 pm) to drive through the park.  Old faithful was actually the second branch my family had to speak at, So I decided to sacrifice a little (I couldn't take sitting on another hard bench) and take the girls and my niece Embree to watch Old Faithful.  I got lots of wierd looks by people wondering if all the girls were mine, especially with be pregnant too!  It made me laugh inside. 

 After the crowd left, the girls had fun walking on the benches.

The TENTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

One more trip to Utah!

*My nephew "Baby Broc" (as the girls like to call him") was blessed over labor day weekend, so the girls and I decided to go down to Utah with my family.  It was so great to see the little guy again.  I just love to kiss those chunky cheeks.

The night before his blessing we got pizza (from the Brick Oven...absolute HEAVEN!) and headed to a park.  This let the girls release some energy and we got to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Hannah mastered the "rock climbing wall" immediately.

Favorite Aunt Heidi with her very cute nieces.

Cody and Anne attend a married student ward with mostly babies and little to no Primary.  So after baby Broc's blessing, the girls and I decided to ditch the rest of church and walk around the Provo temple.  (This seems to be the go to killing-time activity for us). 

The ELEVENTH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Abigail's 4th Birthday

*Our sweet little (okay not so little) Abby turned four.  And all she wanted was a princess party and just about princess everything.  (This was something I was none to thrilled about - but am learning to accept, especially if we keep having girls).  So with lots of pink and princess things in tow, we celebrated her birthday.  She says it was the best birthday EVER!  I guess it was worth it!

The TWELVETH thing this summer that happened to us Bates.

Hannah Lynn got glasses!