Sharing a Snack

Spreading the Love

Lydia was five years old when we brought her for the first time to see the house (this house) that we were planning to buy. With a yard that's approximately the size of a football field, there is plenty of room for the kids to play. (After our last house, which had a yard approximately the size of a handkerchief, it was a wonderful change!) When we asked her what she liked the best about our new house, she flung out her arms and spun around The Sound of Music style and sang "ALL THE DANDELIONS!"

Justice seems to agree, and since we apparently still don't have enough:Justice has been having a ball whapping the dandelions and watching the seeds fly!

It's too bad I didn't have Amy handy. I couldn't seem to capture it right. Oh Well!

Yesterday I took my kids to the library. As we were pulling up, there were about four 16-17ish year old boys riding slowly by on their bikes. No sooner did I have the van in park than Ross (the 9 year old) flung open the door, jumped out and chased them down the street, hollering nonsense and waving his arms all over the place. I laughed a lot. Kooky boy!

Odd Bits

I got to go on the third grade field trip last Friday (and I'm going on the first grade field trip this Friday). I love field trips! I love how the kids are so happy to see a parent at school. Ross had a good time playing with the camera:
and he had a good time showing the entire class this nugget:

We went to the court house and they held a "bubble gum trial."

Then that night Ross and Mark's school had their Spring Festival. Then by a crazy coincidence, all three of my older children had separate sleepovers to go to.

Fast forward to Sunday. Ross found a smiley face that someone had drawn under the cushion on our downstairs couch. No one admitted to having drawn it, so all three kids played "detectives" to try to solve the mystery. They still didn't figure it out, so they decided to hold a trial. Unfortunately, it was time to get ready for church, so they put it off until that evening. We had Bruce's parents over for dinner, and they stayed for the trial. It was a crack-up. You'd have had to be there. Ross & Mark both were lawyers, and defendants. Bruce's dad was the judge, and the rest of us were the jury. The boys presented evidence (which was struck by reason of jury tampering. Earlier, the kids had asked everyone in the house to draw smiley faces in a notebook, so they could compare them and see who's was closest to the one on the couch. I purposely drew mine exactly like the one on the couch, then I had said "Oh no! I did it!") We had our court all official and everything. It was pretty fun. We never did come to a conclusion about who drew the face on the couch (hung jury), but I really don't care. It was on the inside part, you know the part that gets covered in crumbs & junk. No big deal.

Here's Clayton earning his 3rd bath of the day:

Much Ado About Nothing

I was outside pulling weeds earlier today, and Clayton got into some potting soil. Plant food is poisonous isn't it? That's what I thought anyway. I don't know. The soil had those white balls of stuff in it. Anyhow, I was a bit concerned, so I went inside and called Poison Control. The lady there said that potting soil isn't poisonous, so there was no worry. About 20 minutes later, Clayton laid down on the floor and fell asleep (he missed his nap earlier, so he was extra tired). Ross came in and had a minor flip out. He had heard me call Poison Control, so he thought there was something majorly wrong with Clayton.

"MOM, MOM, is Clayton dead?!"

"No, he's just asleep."

"Are you sure. Is he poisoned?"

"No, he's just asleep. Check to see if he's breathing, if you're worried."

"Okay. He's breathing. Whew!"

Justice kept asking me, "Mom, why is Clayton dead? Is Clayton dead?"

Justice, Stop Getting Into The Baby's Jumpy Horse!

Two different days

Giggle

Justice has a yellow toothbrush. Everytime he goes to brush his teeth, he says "I'm going to brush my yellow teeth."

More Fun

Since the weather has turned nice, Mark has been bugging me about walking home from school together. As Ross and Mark's school is about 2.5 miles away, it's not something that they can just do by themselves. So yesterday I met the kids at their school (Lydia rode the courtesy bus from her school to Ross and Mark's) with Justice and Clayton in the double stroller and two large dogs (our lab -Chloe, and Hank- Bruce's aunt's German Shepard mix, who we are currently dog-sitting.) We stopped at three different parks and played on the way home. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get home! It was enjoyable though. The dogs were a big hit with all of the kids' friends who we saw at school and at the park that's across the street from the boys' and girls' club, where a lot of their friends go after school. The highlight of the trip might have been when Justice (the 3 yr old) pulled down his pants and peed on the ground right in front of everyone -completely no shame! (On our camp-out last week, Bruce showed him how to pee on the ground outside. Justice thought it was totally cool!) Oh well, at least he didn't go in his pants. I think the potty training is finally starting to sink in. (If only we could get past the poop-on-the-potty thing, I think we'd be there. He seems to have a Ross like aversion. Drat!)

After we got home, I decided to oblige Lydia who'd been bugging me all week long about taking her and a friend to see Hannah Montana again. Since the kids all had movie gift-certs from Christmas, I decided: "What the heck!" I met my friend Crystal and her 3 kids there. (Bruce missed this fun - he was gone for the evening.) I brought along a couple of Lydia's school friends too. Between us there were 10 children in all -how insane is that! I took the boys to see Monsters -vs- Aliens, and Crystal went with the girls to Hannah Montana. The kids were all pretty well behaved, and I think a good time was had by all. Thanks Crystal!

The Grossest Thing Ever!!

Warning! This post is not for the weak of stomach!
(If you are still reading this, and you get severely grossed out, it's your fault. You were warned.)

I've seen many a gross and disgusting thing in my 11+ years of mothering, but this takes the cake! Justice (who is still not cottoning to pooping on the potty -argh!) pooped in his underwear. It was rather loose, and it gooed down his leg in a major way (of all places in my house with next to no carpet, why did he have to do it on a rug?!) My first inclination that anything was wrong was when Justice informed me that Clayton was eating his poo. Indeed, there was my nine month old with his brother's poop smeared on his clothes, hands and mouth. Oh the horror!

After I had the kids and the mess all cleaned up, Bruce was holding the baby, and Clayton spit up all down Bruce's shirt. "Eww, what's Clayton been eating that's orange?" asked Bruce.

To which I replied "Poop."

We have now coined the phrase "poop-barf." Could anything be nastier than poop-barf?

A Bit Too Much of a Weekend

It all started on Thursday. We were planning a surprise camping trip to Nauvoo for the next day, since Bruce and the kids were all off of work/school. I flew around like a crazed person all day trying to get ready to go. I went grocery shopping, did laundry, packed, and cooked all kinds of things in an effort to save money by not having to eat out on our trip. I was also baking for the Easter dinner / birthday party (for Mark and cousin Erin) on Sunday. I baked 4 loaves of pumpkin bread, made 3 cakes worth of cake balls (one at a time, since I only have one 9 x 13 pan), browned 2 lbs of hamburger (for the crock pot dinner that I made on our camping trip and we ended up not eating until Monday - we decided that we'd rather just have sandwiches instead in the interest of time), made 4 cans worth of tuna salad, and boiled and decorated two dozen Easter eggs.

Friday it was rush rush rush, then off for a 3 1/2 hour drive to our camp site. We played around for about an hour once we got there.
Then we surprised the kids (mostly for Lydia's sake) and took them to see the new Hannah Montana movie at the theater.


Here's a lovely bit of expert photography! I got skills!

After the movie we headed back to our cabins, sang some songs, told funny stories, and went to bed. I slept like total rot! I never can sleep good on camp outs! In the morning, I got up and went for a six mile run around town. Then we played at the camp ground for a bit, packed everything up (I had WAY over packed for a short one night stay!!!), and went into town to visit the temple grounds, and the fudge factory.


Then we packed everyone into the van and drove back home (3 1/2 hours), dropped the kids off at the in-laws, and drove another 45 minutes to the stake center for the adult session of stake conference in which Bruce and I were part of a quadruple quartet, which was very good, if I do say so myself. I just LOVE to sing in a good choir!! Then it was back to the in-laws to pick up the kids (after a quick, but enjoyable visit at my BFF's house), and home to unpack the insanely many things that we had packed in our van for that short short camping trip. We got to bed around 2 am. I was completely exhausted!!!!

Next day was stake conference, Easter, and Mark & Erin's birthday party. I was so tired I was ready to crack. I actually screamed at Justice inside the church. (I was so embarrassed). Well, I wasn't totally inside the church. Justice had made a break for it, out the front doors, and was running full tilt toward the busy highway. I screamed "STOP JUSTICE!!!!!" about as loud as I could, and it wasn't a nice sounding scream either, it was about the fourth time that he'd gotten away and run out of that door, and I was ticked off. My voice gave plenty of witness to my ticked-offed-too-tired-to-carry-on-ness. My favorite member of the stake presidency (someone who I was especially embarrassed to see me in such a rage) ran out an caught the little scamp for me and brought him back . Wasn't that nice of him! So embarrassed! Oh well!
Here's the group in their new Easter duds (courtesy of Grammy) -all except Clayton who was taking a nap.Here is everyone rushing out for the Easter egg hunt.

Here's Clayton after his nap, and still a tad grumpy.
Here he is fed and happy again with his Pa.It was almost a fun weekend. The beginning was good, but it was just a bit too much fun for me. I was dog tired, and totally dead by the end!

Clayton's First Work of Art

Here we go again? Clayton found a pencil on the ground and he figured out how to use it. I thought that showed a bit of smarts, for a nine month old.

Dumbness

I went outside and cleaned up around the trampoline , and I found eight pairs of socks. Not eight socks, eight pairs of socks flung around the trampoline. This does not count the socks, shirt, and two jackets that Mark brought in before me. I 'm going to have to knock some heads together if my kids don't start bringing their stuff inside.


Also how queer is this toy. I don't know where my kids got it from, McDonald's or something like that. It's supposed to wind up and march. However, it's way too top heavy, and it can hardly stand up at all, much less march. If you do get it to stand after you've wound it up, it's too heavy to be able to actually march. It just stops. Brilliant engineering!