Final days at the Claytons

Our final creative projects.  By the way, all of the fun projects we did can be found on one website.  It is http://aplus.com/a/asia-crito-fun-at-home-with-kids. This website was GREAT!  Check it out for yourselves. For the record, some of the biggest hits were The Shaving Cream Paint, The Rainbow Foam Dough, the Magic Foaming Dough Snowmen (seen below), and the Polka dot slime. All worth doing. And none of them were hard to do.

Aren't our snowmen cute? They are made mostly out of baking soda.

Now the fun part...melting them...

Don't judge me by their hairdo's. It was still early in the morning... maybe...

This Foam dough was really fun! I really enjoyed playing with it myself. 

I didn't get a picture of us really playing with it because at that point my hands were way too messy for picture taking. Sorry. But soooo fun!

Final project was the polka-dot slime...it was quite entertaining as well.

Taycee has the funny faces here.

The kids also spent many fun hours on the Claytons' Alligator Slide, which I didn't get a picture of, but it's a great big blow up toy with a pool at the bottom.  Very fun. And our favorite activity before going to bed was playing the game of "Mau".  We played several nights and always kept the new rules from the nights before. It was getting really hard to remember all the rules, but Kaden and Taycee were amazing at picking up on it all!!

So....after 9 days of playing at the Claytons, Hunter and I were more than ready to return to our normal boring lives.  But we hope we made some lasting memories, and that the kids will remember all the fun we had. They're great kids. We LOOOVE YOU!!!

More Fun with Grandma and Hunter

Saturday we made Magic Puffing Snow. It started out more like clay...

Then we added the secret foaming ingredient...

That night we played games with glow sticks. We played glow stick tag, and I will pass this "glow" from me to you to you. We also played Boula Boula. 

I'd have to say that the glow sticks were a bigger hit than the puffing snow.  Longer play time value as well.

On Sunday I heard a loud boom, and the power went out for a couple of hours. (The kids wanted to make sure I mentioned that. :))  Then when we got in the car to go to church, the battery was dead. (Noooooo!  I don't get my two hours of kid-free relaxation and meditation?) After getting help from two nice gentlemen, we got it started, and only missed half of sacrament meeting.  Hunter was kind enough to stay home with Brielle who napped nearly the whole time we were gone.  Kaden and Taycee loved introducing me to their teachers. After church and dinner, we went to the park and took a walk and played on the toys. Orange Juliuses were a big hit after our walk. (What??? You've never had an orange julius??)

 Kaden says to say that... "Today we had a yummy breakfast and it was French toast." The kids said french toast was a new breakfast item for them. 

Today we colored our salt castles. Aren't they beautiful?

 

Completed works of art... Hmmm... The salt didn't set up as well as we would have liked.

Jill said the kids love to go to the library and can spend lots of time there.  So off we went today to return an armful of books and check others out, and enjoy the small kid-friendly toys there - without bothering anyone (being quiet) - and trying hard to keep up with the two younger ones who like to repeatedly pull out books- look at them for 5 seconds-- and then reshelve them in random places, or not at all... or they want to take what the stranger kid is playing with... and dump out bins of small items and play for another 5 seconds (you get the picture) - Hunter and I were ready to restrain them in the car after just a few minutes. But here's a picture from the library that I quite like.

I wish I had a picture of Brielle. After the library we went to McDonalds and then to the park to eat our food and play on the toys.  Somehow Brielle was just about black from head to toe after playing on the toys and drinking and eating. I had to not look as her black hands came back and forth for more food. Jill probably already knows this secret, but the tub is an excellent place for Bri. It keeps her from destroying the house, while giving her a place to play and stay clean at the same time. I'm thinking maybe five baths a day would be a good idea? (We only had two today.)

Thursday and Friday at the Claytons

Grandma and Hunter have survived two more days. Yea!! We decided to go to the park first thing today while it was still cooler. Luckily we also enjoyed mostly cloud cover. Kids had a great time.

Then in the afternoon we had lots of fun with Play dough.

Hunter's creation.

Addison cranking out the dough-hair. Very fun.

And built a new puzzle.

Yesterday we had fun excavating our rainbow towers.

Kaden's face just cracks me up here.

Kaden is all but done.  Taycee is taking the slower approach...

Fun At the Clayton's with Grandma and Hunter

Day one we made some Magic Foam...

Day two we painted with shaving cream paint...

Can you find Taycee?

And had some water balloon fun.

I love Taycee's face here.

And for the sake of nostalgia, this video for your viewing pleasure...

Webres in Logan

Had tons of fun when the Webres came to visit us in Logan on Saturday :) I gotta say... We Webres sure do make some cute kids.





Ayla ADORES baby Tessa :)



Lots more pics on the DeLong Family Blog... click HERE.

We Started The Fire

Here are a few pics from March, when we lived with Mom & Dad :)

Willard Peak

I almost forgot to post our pictures from Willard Peak. It has been six years since I have been there and it was beautiful!! Heather has more pictures (you could add those to this post). What an amazing world we live in.

Las Vegas 2015

This week we went to Las Vegas for a credit union convention. We took Hunter and tried to shield his delicate mind from all the Vegas garbage. We did a pretty good job of it, and had a good time. We stayed at Caesars Palace.

Ceasar's Palace Forum

The Volcano going off at the Mirage across the street - as seen from The Outback where we ate our first and best meal. Loved the salmon!

The Canal Shoppes in the Venetian - one of my very favorite places to walk around - reminiscent of Venice. They also have a St. Mark's square with the blue sky overhead and lanterns. Love it.

I love the "fake" blue skies inside of Ceasars, The Venetian, and Planet Hollywood.

Aquarium inside the Mirage

Enjoying an Icee (purchased at the nearby Walgreen's) inside the Mirage

Just outside the mirage - beautiful fountains

We enjoyed the pools at Ceasar's - Played a game of Phase 10 right here.

Then we spent a day at Circus Circus - caught some free circus acts which run every hour or so, and spent most of our time inside the Adventure Dome. For future reference - tickets ran $31 apiece (but I found a $4-off coupon).  Pretty fun.

El Loco was the fastest roller coaster, and we liked it the best, but there was also the Canyon Blaster.

Inside Adventure Dome

Hunter wanted his face sculptured, so he spent a chunk of change and got this. What a cutie! He loves it.

 The rest of the pictures were taken at the Bellagio - their indoor conservatory and botanical gardens. Very unique and interesting.  The World's largest chocolate fountain is also there - not that impressive.

World's largest chocolate fountain

We also enjoyed the Variety Show that was playing at Planet Hollywood.  It featured 8 different acts - magic, contortionist, comedy, drummers, etc.

Notes for our future reference - The "half-off same-day show booths" on the strip are actually a pretty good deal. Also, if you can find a good deal on-line, the show booth may honor it (they did for the V show).  Bus tickets to ride all day on the strip are $8. The buffets are now extremely expensive.  We enjoyed our meals at the Outback, and Cheesecake factory (inside Ceasars).  Water costs an arm and a leg even at "Subway". A good idea is to take an empty water bottle to fill in the hotel and walk around with.  McDonalds inside Circus Circus was very reasonable.  We also enjoyed Subway - close to the Outback (across from the Mirage).  Check-out time was a BAD time to catch a taxi, as the taxi line was a 30-minute wait. Walking around in the morning is much more pleasant - not much cooler, but not so much riff-raff out on the streets.  Vegas was 107 degrees with week we were there, and it doesn't cool down at night.  But, despite that, you could still get where you needed to without dying.