lds themed cards

These cards are total freaking awesomeness (or maybe they're even the new nerdy slang phrase I just learned: "the bomb dot com")!! To get them, go to Line upon Line. (click on them to see a larger version)

First, I have to comment on the unusual amount of rain we've gotten around here lately. What's up with all of it? I actually like rain, but this spring it's made it hard to work and play outside, especially on the weekends! I think my poster here sums it up pretty well . . .

Back on the 17th, the kids mashed the strawberries, measured the sugar and help mix strawberry freezer jam.

(Sorry for the stock photos, I forgot to get my camera out.) If you've never had freezer jam, you really need to try it. But don't try it on a toasted english muffin with lots of butter melting into it, trust me on this--it's as addictive as heroin.
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I was putting something on top of the entertainment center, looked up, and found someone spying on me.

There he is up in one of his favorite napping spots (next to the plant).

Christian loves to play with his aunt Tam on Sundays. Here he's made her a gigantic pop-bead necklace.






By the 26th, all of our caterpillars had made their chrysalises so it was time to move them to the mesh pop up cage (sorry mom, I mean "butterfly pavillion").

Here's a close up look at five of the little guys.

And here's their new home.
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On May 25th Joy called and asked if we wanted to go with her to the Aerospace Museum because she was having "A" week at their house (she's working on teaching Sierra the letters). We were all for it, but she called later from the ER because Sierra had climbed the shelves of her linen closet and had gotten a hold of the Imodium A-D and was unwrapping the pills and putting them in play teacups of water! Joy didn't think they had eaten any, but since she wasn't sure the poison control center had strongly encouraged her to take them to the hospital. Luckily, they hadn't eaten any and were fine except for the huge blow to Joy's wallet.

On the 27th, we decided to try again. It's just in Roy and it's free, but I had never been there before.

Joy was nice enough to wait until just after four so that Faith could go, but what we didn't know is that it closes at 4:30 and they like to lock up a few minutes early. Still, we raced through and saw lots of planes and these cool antique flying duds.

After they kicked us out, we looked at the huge planes outside and the kids even touched some.

I don't know what this face is, but it sure is cute!

After walking a ways out there, we noticed a sign that said that even the outside grounds close at 4:30 and they lock the gates and tow cars after that, so we hoofed it back to the parking lot! Even though it was a short visit, it was fun and fit the little ones' attention spans quite well. We did make a trip to the dollar store afterward, so that rounded out our fun afternoon. We'll definately be heading back there later on this summer.

I just had to take a picture of Faith when she got ready for school the next day. She had on a new purple shirt (courtesy of her grandma Peterson), purple shoes (courtesy of being $3 clearance priced at WalMart), and

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a purple glittery hair streak! Faith picked up a set of them at the dollar store :D

On the 29th we had a water party playdate at Ann's and on the way home I picked up some fresh asparagus from Day Farm. Yummy!

I hope that Crumpet isn't getting her feelings hurt that Dusty has been getting so many pics in the blog lately. He's just the baby of the family and somewhat of a camera magnet. And he's always looking so crazy!

Saturday the 30th was a busy day. Tony went to the gym that morning while I took the kids to the Safe Kids Fair in Kaysville. They had a bunch of booths with free stuff for the kids. I'm not sure what business had this pirate, but it sure was cool!

Then we had to be to Faith's last soccer game at noon. Buddy's just chillin'.

Here's Faith getting to do a corner kick. She's so sad that soccer is over and can't wait to start up again in the fall.

We hadn't gotten to all the booths and activities at the fair, so we headed back after the game.

Faith did the inflatable slide, but Buddy chickened out at the last minute after waiting in line. We got free snow cones, balloons, backpack bags, balls, magnets, crayons, cookies, temporary tatoos, candy, drinks, and a whole bunch of other stuff in addition to getting the kids fingerprinted and watching a really neat poice dog demonstration. At the end as we were leaving, we got to see the news chopper take off.

At home, Christian colored some of his coloring pages and was so proud of it. Great job, little guy! You can't quite see in this picture the skull and crossbones tatoo that he got that said something about the danger of abandoned mines. He loved that thing!

When we got home from church on the 31st, we saw that two of our butterflies had emerged!

Here is a close up of one of them.

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The neatest thing was that a few minutes later, Faith grabbed me and said that another one was coming out, and I got it on video!

(click on the triangle below to play)

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Dusty kept knocking the cage off the stereo in the living room, so we moved it to hang on a fan blade in the family room. Look at that stinker watch them fly around, he wants one for a tasty treat!

Later that afternoon at Braegger's I got these cute shots of the kids,

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and Faith got this hilarious one of Christian,

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and Buddy took these. He likes to be right in his subjects' faces!

Silly Musical Graphs

some videos

First up we have Christian just after he started singing the alphabet song by himself. This was taken on the evening of May 6th, in the car as we were coming home with our three free KFC meals that Oprah.com had the coupon for (Tony was still on his way home from work & picked up his own). It's a little hard to hear at first because the windows were down, but then the sound quality gets a bit better. Buddy only misses letters E, M, N & O. Great job Christian! And great job to Faith for taking this video!

And this one's from May 16th at Sam's Club. As we pass a big screen TV display, Christian gets the idea that Faith should dance with him during the closing credits to the end of Madagascar 2.

Yep, that's just how I remember it . . .

If you've given birth, you have to read this "Dooce" entry. It definately brought back (not so happy) memories for me!

My Mother's Day Gifts

First, Christian's offering which, you're not going to believe this ;) , he made entirely by himself. I think it's supposed to be a card since it's colored on cardstock. I love his cutting job! (And the other 80% of the paper, which Buddy threw away as cutting scrap, had really cute drawings on it as well.)





Faith made me this darling card at school. It's so sweet that it has her school picture in it!

At home, Faith made me this neclace with Pixos, which are little round plastic beads that stick together after you spray them with water. Christian has a play-doh fettish as of late, and smeared some metalic silver clay into it. I guess he just wanted to not be left out of contributing to this gift.

Faith also drew this cute ballerina which is two-sided and has cardstock in the middle.

This wasn't a gift for me, but Faith made it a few weeks ago and I wanted to share. It's a robe for her Webkinz! She thought up the pattern, cut it, and hot glued the belt loops all on her own! I didn't even know what she was doing until she showed me the finished project. I tell ya, this girl is very independant and self-motivated when it comes to things she wants to do. And I'm only a little freaked out that my 7 year old got out, plugged in, used, unplugged, cooled & put away a hot glue gun without my knowledge.

Pioneer Woman had pictures of baby calves (sorry, a bit of redundancy there) on her blog yesterday and now I'm dying to pet/hug/nuzzle/snuggle one!! Here's what she had to say about this particular pic:

Did you ever used to blow spit bubbles when you were young?

No?

Oh. I didn’t either. Never blew spit bubbles in church, never blew spit bubbles at piano recitals, never had to be told by my mom to stop blowing spit bubbles. I just wanted to see if any of YOU did. And now I know you didn’t.

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And that’s great, because I didn’t either!