early June

We started summer vacay from school on June 5th with a foosball Home Depot project.

We had to rush back to our neighborhood for a primary activity.  It was a service carnival!  I helped out at the cotton candy machine (excessively hot and sticky job, by the way) while the kiddos went around to the different stations.  They had to perform however many acts of service that they could for the two weeks prior.  I checked off a list what each child accomplished, then they got that number of carnival tickets.  My kids beelined for the facepainting very first.  Christian got not only a Spiderman symbol,

but Batman, too.

Some cute Young Women and their leader ran this booth.

Faith opted for a bunny.

They had the most inovative homemade dunk tank (or more correctly, dump tank) and the kids absolutely loved it.  It was a medium sized plastic garbage can with the bottom cut out and a spaghetti strainer rigged on.  Inside it had a bucket that hooked up to the hose, and had some sort of float system which let the bucket fil up, but not overfill.  This whole system was held up by the net of the basketball hoop.  A pop bottle full of beans attached to a cord sat on the little ladder.  Whoever wanted to get wet just sat on the chair and let the other kids throw bean bags at the pop bottle.  When it got knocked off, it pulled the cord, tipping the bucket inside, and dumped all the water, aerated by the strainer, on their head.  Genius!

They also had throwing games, fishing pond, rubber ducks, and some others I forgot.  There were hot dogs, cans of soda, popcorn from a theater style popper, and cotton candy.  Our primary presidency put so much work into this carnival and it was such an awesome activity!  There was a great turnout, too.

We've been very careful to take good care of our garden.  We'd gotten several tomatoes by this point!

On the 5th the kids and I met up with Joy & girls, mom, and dad at the South Ogden splash pad.  It wasn't too hot, but the kids still had a lot of fun and loved that their grandparents treated us all to Micky D's afterward.

On the 14th we headed up to Park City to stay at the condo and swim.  Tony came up on the evening of the 16th for just a quick sleepover with us (darn work schedule!).  Some of the highlights were:  the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday's (how can croutons be sooooo amazing?), the kids' treks to 7-eleven with grampa, the farmer's market and especially the fresh peas and rustic bread we got there (Faith picked out the spinach and artichoke loaf! It was delicious), the shopping, and, of course, the POOL!  Here are Sierra and Lily,

and a rare moment that Buddy left the steps and ventured out with Faith (the Kiddie pool was closed for repairs).

Instead of heading straight home on the 17th, Joy treated the kids and I to the zoo.  The weather was absolutely perfect, which accounted for the completely full parking lot!  We loved watching the baby elephant, Zuri, and the kids posed on the statue that sprays people.

We got to see them feed the penguins!  Every time we see them at the zoo they are all just sitting under the shaded area, so it was nice to see them walking around and swimming.  They didn't act too enthused about the entrée, though.  They only ate the fish that didn't hit the bottom of their pool.  Maybe they'll go back for the rest as their evening snack.

We tried to get all the kids measuring their arms with the gorilla's span at the same time, but Christian wanted to do it by himself and started to throw a fit.

Finally got him happied up, and the girls had gotten too bored with it.  Oh, well!  Lily was the main one throwing fits that day, but it was still a ton of fun!

We had a little bird make a nest in our satellite dish bracket last year, but this year it was a pair of bigger birds with yellow tummies.  They spent two weeks building up the old nest and packing the top full of feathers, cottonwood fluff, and dryer lint.  We were so excited when the female laid these three darling eggs!  She got mad at us every time we went outside, she even chewed us out when we were in the garden which is on the other corner of our large yard.    

Unfortunately, this tale has a very sad end. One day we went to see if the eggs had hatched yet and found the entire top of the nest on the ground and the egg shells. Two were in pieces, but one was still whole but looked like it had been pecked in and the insides eaten out. We were devastated, but Faith (who, more often than not, is the voice of reason around here) commented that maybe the bird who ate the eggs had babies at home herself and really needed the food. I saved the nest top and little egg shell, but later that day I found that Christian had pulverized the shell to dust! To make me feel better, Faith made paper eggs and birds which she glued to toothpicks and arranged in the nest.     .  

Buddy still loves playing in the water and finds every handwashing an opportunity to make a sink full of bubbles to play in!

end of May and end of school

May 26th was Faith's dance recital.  I forgot to write in my last post about missing her tumbling review the Saturday before--we had tons of things going on that day (ward 5K and breakfast, soccer game, Lowe's project, Safe Kids Fair, and Ella's birthday party in ADDITION to the review), but Faith woke up with a fever and feeling sick to her stomach so we missed out on all them :(   Anyway, we were super excited to see her dance.  Since I didn't buy the pictures, I took a picture of their class picture which was on display there!  Almost as good as the real thing, except for the glare and blurriness (and possible copyright infringement).

The recital was held at the Egyptian Theater in Ogden.  I took a few pics before the performance,

and some after with her beautiful bouquet from aunt Tam.

(Faith doesn't look amused that her brother tends to be a bit of a camera hog, jumping in to most every shot)

She danced beautifully and it was a fun night!  We celebrated with a Zeppe's Italian Water Ice on the way home.

.

The next day I helped out with Faith's class' spelling carnival.  The game I hosted consisted of the kids building a paper airplane, correctly spelling a word, then trying to fly the plane through this window thing.  (It overlooks a carpeted stage area with big riser steps in front which is seperate from the main stage of the elementary which is in the gym. They use this and the mirror image one on the other side of the school for little class programs and such).  If they made it through, they won some candy!  I gave them lots of chances so they all could win and I tried to match spelling word difficulty to the child's ability.  There were lots of other carnival games in this commons area where the kids did lots of spelling and won lots of prizes.  What a fun day at school, huh?  (You can tell by the picture that my game was a bigger hit with boys than girls, but I think all the kids in the class competed at least once there.)

On the 28th we had our first ripe tomato.  The plants were not yet planted in the garden, but residing in the wagon which was either on our front walk or in the garage depending on outside temperature.  The kids picked the cherry tomato together,

then I washed it, cut it in half, and let them enjoy!

The sunset was cool that night, but my favorite view was to the east where the pretty pink/purple light reflected on the mountains, still capped with snow. 

You can also see our new fence in this picture. The land developer sold the rest of the lots in our subdivision and, because of whatever deal they had with Kaysville city, had to put a fence around it before finalizing. Because our back yard is on the border, we got a free fence!! Someday we want to put fence on the south of our lot (our two north neighbors already put fence up on that side), but maybe by next year we will be able to at least afford the little bit of fence from the sides to our house. Then we will share a giant fenced in yard with the Durtschi's!  You can also see our little tree that we'd just put in.  That one's a peach tree, but we also planted a Granny Smith apple, and an apricot along the back there.  In addition, we planted bare root red seedless grape vine, raspberry bush, and blueberry bush; but the raspberry never came to life and Tony accidentally mowed the blueberry.  We're trying here, people!!

On the 29th my mom bought us an awesome picture at the Tai Pan tent sale, I'll be posting a picture when I finally get it hung up (so far I'm the one hung up on getting it done).  Around eleven, the kids and I were passing close by there again while running errands and we stopped by for free hot dogs and drinks.  Who says there's no free lunch?

That afternoon Tony and I took the kids to Boondocks for a few arcade games.  Christian always insists on playing ski ball but can almost never get the ball over that initial hump!

That evening we finally got our garden planted! 

We finished up just in time for me to go out to dinner with girlfriends and then watch a video. The movie was Valentines Day--I don't recommend it. In fact, it sucked so bad, the acting was so terrible, and it was so boring that I told Tony that his mom and Tammy would probably enjoy it. The next day I told them exactly that (my middle name isn't "tact" for nothing!) and they informed me that they had already seen the flick and LOVED it! I must be psychic or something (emphasis on the something).

After church the next day, we made use of our Lagoon passes.  For all those judging us: in our defense (and heaven knows we need one ;) we didn't spend any money, and nothing makes you pray harder than riding "Wicked".  Case closed.  We had a lot of fun and the kids rode this "Odysea" ride over, and over, and over . . .

That evening, after dinner at my mom & dad's, Christian finally got to blast off the rocket that he got as an accolade for potty training.

My mom, dad and brother Eric joined us for the fun.

It was so cool!  Check out the rocket blast off and return to earth:

Since Tony was off for Memorial Day on the 31st, we headed back to Lagoon.  This trip we rode the train, the kids did a bunch of kiddie rides, and we spent a lot of time in Pioneer Village after it started getting busy.

That night we had a little barbeque and ate hamburgers, potato salad, pasta salad and watermelon.  We wanted to stoke up our fire pit and make s'mores for dessert, but it was too windy :( 

June 2nd found us back at school for yet another fun day.  This time it was "Little House on the Prairie Day" and I was in charge of the "deserted Indian camp" activity.  Ahead of time Christian and I scattered hundreds of little pony beads over a grassy area behind the school.  Then we went in and interupted Faith's class (who were watching the Little House pilot) to say that we heard drumming and Indian songs, but when we found where the Indians had been camped, they had moved on to another site.  I gave each child a baggie and took them out to see.  When we got there I told them that I thought some beads were left behind (like in the book) and they could collect them to make an Indian necklace.  The kids loved this!  I made it easy for them to string the beads later on by including a cord with a bead tied on one end and tape on the other in their baggies.

Earlier in the day they had done lots of "Little House" activities with the other second grade classes like: tin punching mason jar lids, building with lincoln logs, making pioneer paper dolls, milking a pretend cow with rubber glove udder, churning butter, and learning some square dancing.  After the bead hunting (and computer center), the kids gathered 'round the campfire (which is the one I made for primary several years ago) in the classroom and Mrs. Bertram sang some old west songs and played her guitar while the kids munched on corn muffins (with the homemade butter), sugar cookies and dried apples.

For the final event, the kids each got a slice of watermelon and had a seed spitting contest!

I wish I would have gotten a better shot of Faith's gettup--jeans, jean jacket, the arrowhead neclace she made at the American West Heritage Center, her black boots, and a coiled up piece of old rope (the white circle necklace is the star tin-punch craft she made earlier).  She came up with this outfit all by herself and then asked me to braid her hair!  I think it's funny that she's so girly a lot of the time, but is one of the few girls in her class who dressed like a cowgirl instead of a pioneer girl in a ruffly dress.  Maybe we have more in common than previously thought! 

Then again, maybe not.  This is later that night at our fire bowl--she's obviously making up for lost girly-girl time.  She's got the pink, tulle, velvet, sparkles, and even maribu going on here.

We all ate our fill of s'mores, but the patio got more than its fair share of blackened marshmallows, supplied by Buddy.

Somehow I forgot to get a picture of Faith on June 4th which was the last day of school, but here is the picture she drew of herself and her teacher.  We did the transparency of artwork in hand sanitizer and soap again for her teacher's gift (so original).  Click for a larger version, I think that drawing is sooooo adorable!

What we were up to in May

Here's how we celebrated Cinco de Mayo: chicken enchiladas (the totally mormonized version with cream of chicken soup--should probably not even count as a Mexican dish), seven layer dip, fruit salad and Guarana soda (which is Brazilian, does it get points for being from South America???  By the way, it's pronounced "gwah-rah-'nah", but we say it "gwah-rah-'nar-ah" in our family, mostly to make fun of my mom's mispronunciations.)  We even tuned our satelite to the salsa music channel! 

On May 6th Faith's fantastic teacher had a Mother's Tea where the kids performed, showed us the powerpoint they made for us, and served us cookies and punch.  It was so adorable!!

Here's one of my favorite numbers: The Insect Rap

Here are the lyrics so you can watch it again and join in!

I am an iiiiinsect.

I have a head, a thorax and an ab-do-men.

I have six legs to crawl on the ground,

(high voice) I have two antennae to feel around.

I started as an egg, so tiny and small

And a larva, where I eat and crawl

Inside my pupa, where I rearrange

Into an adult, in the final stage.

I am an iiiiinsect.

I have a head, a thorax and an ab-do-men.

On the 8th Faith and I picked up our Bountiful Basket that Joy had so sweetly ordered for us.  It was awesome!  You pay $15 and get a "grab bag" of assorted fruit and veg.  We ended up with a watermelon (we had already eaten most of it before I thought to take a picture), apples, tangerines, mangoes, green peppers, tomatoes, broccoflower, romaine lettuce, spinach and corn.

Here Christian is celebrating the sprouting of our seeds.  Unfortunately, they just got stringy and gangly after that and only two survived after being planted in our garden.  Right now they don't look like they'll last another week :(  Little premature there, mister "Mission Accomplished".

I took Buddy for a throat culture after this Mother's Day Lowe's project because Joy had just come down with strep and Christian said his throat hurt.  Luckily it was just a virus and went away after a few days.

That day Tony started clearing the weeds out of the corner of our yard reserved for our garden.  VERY LARGE TASK.

Here is my version of Faith's tumbling picture taken just before her class photo on the 12th.  What a cutie!

On the 13th & 14th I was at PTA conference in Provo while my wonderful mom watched my kids.  Other than the president-elect's son breaking his arm on the first night necessitating her leaving with our ride to meet up with him at Primary Children's (he got surgery and is now doing great), every thing went well!  I got some helpful instruction, but the best part was the presentation by Michael Ballam (seated at the piano behind the announcer lady in this photo).  He was such a great speaker and performer!  I had a fun night away with the ladies, but was glad to be back with my sweeties.

Here's Buddy's favorite activity at Faith's soccer games:  playing in the dirt.

Faith learned the very helpful skill of lawn mowing!

Christian's skills=not as helpful.

Tony spent the 15th hauling three pickup truck beds full of compost from the landfil to our back yard where we unloaded them into the garden.  It was very low so it needed that much to reach the bottom of the fence.  Looking good at this point!  We still had to wait for the nights to warm up till we dared to plant.

At one point Christian's shirt got muddy and he took it off.  He took one look at his neon white, skinny torso and said, "I wook wike Edward!"

Keeping in mind that he'd recently seen new moon, I totally understood how this (see photo below) could haunt a person's thoughts :)  But don't worry Buddy, you definately don't look this scary. 

Faith was taking some drawings down from her bedroom walls and I wanted to get a pic of this great owl that she'd drawn in school a few months ago.  Check out that detail!

The kids started having "sleepovers" (or as Christian calls them "weepovers") in the family room in their sleeping bags on the weekends.  Something about this picture tells me they get a little less sleep this way. 

Buddy has been playing a bit more Wii and XBox (Lego Batman) than board games lately, but he still likes to kick it old school on a regular basis.  Here is his victory dance after winning a round of Littlest Pet Shop:

When we were getting in our car at the library, the scent of these lilacs drew us out and across the parking lot to sniff them.  Buddy looks a bit wary because he'd just seen a giant bumblebee enjoying them as well.

My favorite sandwich is this: a piece of toasted bread topped with mayo, alfalfa sprouts, avacado, deli turkey and sliced mozarella broiled to melt the cheese.  It's similar to the "foul play" sandwich at the Greenery restaurant in Rainbow Gardens at the mouth of Ogden Canyon.  Christian, however, prefers to graze the sprouts.

Here is our front yard on the 23rd after planting our flower beds.  Pretty!  (Notice that I finally got smart and moved the tomato plants to our wagon to make the daily treks easier.)  Spoiler alert: (highlight the following lines with mouse to read) Those two beautiful pots of flowers on our porch no longer look so lush.  Or even alive. RIP.