Sleepy Tales

I was awakened at 4:15 this morning by the sound of a little baby crying. It didn't sound right, so I jumped out of bed and headed to Clayton's room thinking that he was strangling in his bed somehow. On the way, I passed the TV that Bruce had fallen asleep in front of. Then I realized it was just a baby on TV crying. Funny how I slept right through the TV being on without even noticing until they broadcast the sound of a baby crying. Unfortunately my brain was activated, and I never was able to go back to sleep.

A couple of my cousins are in town for a few days, so my mom had them, their kids and us over for lunch and swimming. Between the five of us, there were 19 kids (Becky's oldest stayed at home.) It was really nice to visit with them! After everyone but my crew had left, my Mom and I were cleaning up some toys in the spare room. Clayton had dumped out the 2000 Apples to Apples cards, and it took Mom, Justice and I about 20 minutes to clean them up. After we were done, I swiped my hand under the bed looking for stray toys. Much to my surprise, I came across a foot instead. Mark was asleep under the bed.

Playlist Fun

I am having fun messing with Ross and Mark. They are "cleaning their room" and listening to their playlist. I am inserting lots of little additions to their playlist, such as "Don't make me destroy you!" ~ Darth Vader, and "Death awaits you all with big, nasty, pointy teeth!" ~ Monty Python. -He he!

Silly Things

Ross started band camp yesterday. He's a proud percussionist. On the door of the band room is a picture of a gerbil with a french horn. I told Ross that the teacher turns all kids who misbehave into gerbils. We had a laugh over that.

Mark and Justice have reinvented the game of "got your nose" to "got your soul" or "got your ghost." Yesterday Justice whined and cried at me for about 15 minutes telling me to make Mark give his ghost back. I thought that it was some kind of toy and told Mark he'd better give it back right away, or else. Silly.

Awesome Family Night

1. Family bike ride
2. Lesson prepared by Mark
3. S'mores and stories around a little fire in the driveway

During the lesson which was on repentance, Ross was asked how you would repent if you had "picked on someone." His response was: "Give them their buger back."

It was a great time. We didn't get the kids to bed until after 11:00.

There Are Some Borrowed Things That You Just Don't Want Back

I had a plate of mini bagels that I was eating for breakfast. I also had a piece of gum that I had taken out of my mouth and stuck to my plate. (Yeah it's gross, whatever.) Clayton walked up and stuck his gum onto my plate.

"Das Mom's! Das Mine!" He says as he picks up each piece of gum in turn. Then he takes my piece of gum for a test ride, all the while stealing one of my mini bagels. Then he puts my gum back on my plate and takes his own gum back saying "Das mine." He does this several more times, and walks off with my gum in his mouth.

After I was done with my breakfast he hands me my gum which is now covered in bagel crumbs and has a few dog hairs stuck to it. "Das Mom's." he insists as I take it back with a hesitant

"Thank you?"

Then he gets all offended because I won't chew it. "Das Mom's uum!" he's getting more insistent. I smile at him, sneak off and throw it in the trash.

A minute later he sees me not chewing gum and he looks offended, putting his hands up and shrugs asking "uuuummmm?"

I half expected him to dig it out of the trash and bring it to me. Luckily, he didn't.

Biking Teeth

The tooth fairy has been busy at our house. (No, the missing teeth have nothing to do with biking.) Mark, Justice and I are all recently missing teeth. Mark's was due to natural causes, but Justice and I both had to have teeth pulled. You can't see mine in the picture. It was a wisdom tooth.

Justice has just about mastered riding a bike. This is a nice brother moment.

Last night we were out practicing in the street in front of our house. Mark was riding circles around us. Clayton was out playing, and the dogs (we are dog sitting) and the cat kept following us back and forth down the street.

Mah Feet Hurt

My day started at 4:30 when I got up and ran eight miles with my running buddies. Next did some minor house work and got Lydia off to girls' camp. It's her first year there. Dang that girl is growing up on me! I'm sure she's having a blast! I love that kiddo!

On the way back Clayton and I stopped off at the store to get some provisions for the day. I was tired already by then. However there was no time to sit. I did some laundry and quick threw a picnic together and got all my boys ready for a day of fun with Grandma Sever, Aunt Ashley and their cousins Jonni 7 and Erik 4.

We went several places including the Lock and Dam (I spelled it right this time!) Museum where the kids played inside for a good long while, then they splashed in the fake river thing outside. It was a LOT of fun!

Next it was off to the park by the river for a picnic and then to play in the really cool big fountain. Again the kids had a great time. I couldn't convince Ross that we weren't having a fun day to celebrate that Lydia was gone. Goofy Boy!

We were gone for a total of four hours. My feet were killing me so bad by the time I got home, but I couldn't sit yet. I had to finish some laundry so that Ross could have a clean uniform for his game, then I medicated and fed the dog and made dinner. Now I am thankfully sitting, and my feet are once again happy.

Poor Ross and Bruce are at the game. Ross was so tired, he absolutely did NOT want to play baseball tonight. Poor Bruce never gets a break between work and baseball. I'll be glad when this season is over!

In other news, I went to the music store yesterday and picked up a percussion set for Ross. He's all excited about starting band this year. I hope he likes it and continues with it!

The other day we were at my Mom's house and the kids were painting in the kitchen. Ross, Mark and Jonni were doing splatter paint. Ross asked me "Mom, didn't Michelangelo or Davinci or one of those guys get famous doing splatter painting?"

To which I replied "I don't know. You should ask Grandma. She knows a lot more about those guys than I do."

Ross got all excited and he said "Really!? Did she know those guys? She is pretty old after all!" Luckily Grandma laughed as hard as I did.

Shoot!

My apologies people! I just had someone point out to me that "dam" is the word for blocking water and "damn" is the one short for damnation. I didn't know they were spelled differently. I thought I was just being funny, but it turns out I was not funny. I was putting a curse word out there for no good reason. I'm a moron. Sorry if I offended anyone!

Dam Kids

Instead of riding bikes today, we played in the rain.

The kids created dams in the drainage ditch with their bodies so they could watch the gush when they stood up.

Well, it's not the ditch, just a puddle, but everybody else was doing it.

Also used were rocks, sticks and mud.

Exercise in Futility

Earlier I was thinking that it would be good for the kids and I to go to the trails and ride bikes together. This proposition is fraught with problems, however I decided to see if I could make it work.

1. Do we all have working bikes?
2. Do I have a working carriage for the two little kids?
3. How do I fit all of the bikes and the carriage and the people into my van?
4. Do the little people have helmets?

Out I went to the garage armed with an air-pump, some wrenches, and some WD-40. Ross and Mark have not been riding their bikes lately so I didn't know if their bikes worked or if they had grown out of them. After some inspection, I determined that both bikes would work after some airing and lubing up. Mark's bike is pretty small. What I really need is a new bike for Ross and to give Ross' old bike to Mark. Well that isn't happening today, so I decided to tackle raising the seat and handle bars on Mark's bike to see if we could make do. Raising the seat was easy. Raising the handle bars was not. The bolt was rusty and stripped, and after much time and perspiration, I determined that I could not raise the bars. I called Mark out to give it a test spin. He looks a little silly on that small bike, but it will do for now. I gave both Ross and Mark's bikes a good airing and lubing and moved on to Lydia's.

She's been riding her bike a lot, so that was not a real problem. Bruce had just bought her some new tires, but they weren't on yet. I don't even know how to do that, so I just reattached her back wheel, which Bruce had taken off to get the proper fit for her new tires. Somewhere in the process, her back brakes had gotten all discombobulated, as in the wiring had come undone. Hence, I had to figure out how to fix that. I'm proud to say that I did figure out how to put them back together.

About the carriage for the two little ones, I knew that my running stroller did convert to a bike stroller, but I'd never done it. I wasn't even sure we still had the right parts or how to use them if we did. After some poking around in the garage, I found the parts and after some more figuring, I managed to take the front wheel off the stroller and attach the gismo properly. How to attach it to my bike took some figuring too, but I managed.

I didn't want to risk my good bike, so I had to air and lube up our older bike. Plus I aired and lubed up the stroller for good measure. There we all have bikes that will do the job. That only took me about two hours.

Now to see about helmets for everyone. I knew that the three older kids and I had helmets, and after some digging I found extras for the little guys. Getting them all to fit properly will be another thing.

I still don't know if I can fit all of it into the van or not. I can strap the stroller to the top, and if I take out all of the seats (except the ones in the front) and put the bench seat where the back bucket seats go, the bikes might fit. I'd have to have a couple of kids lap sit for the ride to the trail, but it's not far.

I walked out of the garage intending to give it a try, when the sound of thunder greeted my ears. Oh well, maybe another day. Time to make lunch and for Clayton's nap anyhow. Looks like I disassembled my running stroller for nothing. But on the bright side, if I want to go biking in the future, I will be a lot closer. Plus Ross and Mark's bikes are rolling again.

Darn, it's raining and I left Ross and Mark's bikes outside. I guess I'd better go and move them before they rust all up again.

Vocal Point Weekend

Vocal Point and director James Stevens

My older kids and ...

Mike Lemon - AMAZING voice!!

Robert Seely - BASS

Tanner Nilsson singer plus beatboxer

Grant Zabriskie - Holy Cow, cool "percussion" section!

Paul Bodily- Okay they are ALL really good, so I'm just putting their names from hence.

Keith Evans - okay I lied, his Thriller was really neat.

McKay Crockett

Tyler Sterling

Doug Clark

Part 1
We Geek Out

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across BYU's Vocal Point on the internet. If you haven't heard them, you don't know what you are missing! They are a completely a cappella group, and they are AWESOME! I HIGHLY recommend their latest CD Nonstop. We've been listening to it A LOT. I also bought their CD Grand Slam, from several years back (since it's a college group, the members change periodically), and it was okay, but not nearly as good as the newer one. Anyway I just happened to have a pamphlet of Nauvoo's summer events that I picked up while Bruce and I were there a month ago. Something was tickling the back of my brain like I'd seen Vocal Point's name before, so I pulled out my pamphlet and low and behold: "Vocal Point is performing in Nauvoo this weekend!" Well we had to go! Unfortunately Bruce had too much going on at work to be able to come, so my parents and I took my kids for a camping trip to Nauvoo. It was a good time, but it wore me OUT! More about that later. My three oldest kids (yeah me too) are all geeking out over this group! Lydia, Ross and Mark were so excited about getting their autographs and taking pictures with everyone in the group and even the director that they were literally bouncing the whole time. Here's a first, my kids actually asked if they could NOT watch a movie in the van for the 3.5 hour drive so that they could listen to VP's CD. And we did listen to it for 3.5 hours. Ha ha! Lydia said "I think that Hannah Montana and Vocal Point should trade places. I don't even think the Jonas Brothers compare to Vocal Point." Now coming from a 12 year old girl, if that isn't high praise then I don't know what is!

Anyway enough about that. (I told you we were geeking out.)

Part 2
What I Love About Being Home

1. There is Bruce. I love my guy! And I love having someone else to help with the herding process. My parents helped it's true, but it's not the same level of responsibility. If my kids are being squirrely, as one of them always was, it was me who had to miss out on the fun and do the herding. No kidding, I bet I didn't sit down for more than 10 minutes at a stretch the entire weekend. That is except for the horse carriage ride. I knew it was a mistake after we'd been on the thing for about two minutes. Clayton was tired from being up till 11:30 the night before, and he did NOT care to sit on my lap for the hour long drive. He cried and wiggled and screamed and thrashed. The poor lady doing the narrating had to practically shout over him. I'm sure the rest of the people on the ride were wishing I would fall into a well. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get them to stop the ride to let us off and then how I was going to walk back with a screaming and kicking baby. Then some angel woman gave Clayton a magic sucker which made him be quiet and sit on my lap for the rest of the ride. THANK-YOU SUCKER LADY!!
   
2. There are walls! Until you go camping with a four year old and a two year old, you just don't appreciate how nice a good set of barricades are. I lost Justice about a million times this weekend. -aside: I really am going to get a t-shirt that says "Looking for Justice" across the front. Plus I think I need one that says something like "I bring Justice where-ever I go."
3. A place to put my keys and my cell phone beside in my back pocket.

Clayton is glad to be home too. He went up to his room and pointed at his bed and exclaimed "Das Mine! Das Mine!" Then he picked up his ball and said "Das Mine! Das Mine!" It was pretty cute.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, but I'm glad it's over.