Our Mailbox

 On Sunday night, we got a knock on our door.  Someone had knocked over our brick mailbox by backing up into it with their car.   The whole thing just toppled over.  It was also full of water that gushed out when the mailbox fell over.  So weird.  You would think that that big old monstrosity of  a mailbox would be indestructible.

The poor girl  is just 15 years old and has her learner's permit.  She never got out of the car (her mom talked to us), but when her dad got to our house, he was sure mad.  He didn't even talk to us.  He looked at the mailbox and the back of their Suburban and then went over to talk to his daughter.  She was crying and crying.  I felt so bad for her. Luckily, no one was hurt.  I guess we get to build a new mailbox.  The mailman told me he won't deliver mail to my house until it's fixed.  Nice.

Grace Helping

Grace is such a "good" helper lately.  Since we were feeding the missionaries on Saturday, I had Jack wiping down the dishwasher, fridge and stove.  Grace wanted to help as well so I gave her the bottle of windex and told her to clean the glass in the doors.  She was very happy to do this job.  Next thing I know I look over at Grace who was now in the dining room.  She was windexing all the plates I had set out for dinner.  We had to hurry and wash them all before the missionaries arrived.  Of course my kids had to tell the missionaries that story.  Just what they want to hear as they are about to sit down to eat.

Since Jack's birthday was this week, we hadn't had time to have his birthday dinner so we were having it on Saturday.  Grace really wanted to help Jack blow out his candles on his ice cream cake.  She was very eager to help.  We all watched as she drooled / spit / blew out the candles.  Yuck!  That was our dessert.  I told the missionaries they didn't have to eat it.  I served from the other side of the pan, but still - disgusting.  They all ate a piece - shockingly.  I don't think I would have.  I guess that is the true test of a good missionary - being polite.  The missionaries must cringe when they see they are signed up to come to our house for dinner.  Last time the house reeked. This time it was spit upon dessert.  Those poor missionaries.  Life is never dull in our house.

Cooking with Kade

Last weekend Kade decided to cook a corn dog for himself and his friend.  He put them in the microwave and turned it on.  After awhile I could start to smell the corn dog so I asked him how long he put it in for.  I thought he said three minutes.  I told him to go check them.  He went into the kitchen but he didn't really check the corn dogs because he was engrossed in his video game.  I walk into the kitchen a few minutes later to smoke billowing out of the microwave and Kade standing in the middle of the kitchen playing his game - totally oblivious.  The whole house was smoky (none of my smoke alarms went off.  Makes you feel real safe if there ever was a real fire).  There was still twenty minutes left on the timer.  I asked him again how long he had set the timer for.  He said thirty minutes.  Thirty minutes!  Holy cow.  Those corn dogs had been cooking for ten minutes.  I opened all the windows in the house and the doors to air it out.  My house has smelled awful for a week.  I've done everything I could find online to get rid of the horrendous smell.  It is now just a faint burnt popcorn smell.  The corn dogs were petrified.  Kade tried pulling the corn dog off the plate and the stick just snapped off.  We had to wait awhile for the plates to cool down enough to remove the corn dogs.  I'm surprised these babies didn't explode in the microwave. We fed the missionaries the next day.  I'm sure they were dying.

1st Day of School

I can't believe that school has begun already.  Seems like we were just starting out our summer.  I had a long to-do list that is still almost as long.  I guess it's now my fall list.  Not sure if the kids were all that excited to be getting up early and being on a schedule again, but I'm ready for more structure.

Lots of firsts this year.  Jack is a freshman so new school.  He also started early morning seminary.  Tom drops him off and then I pick up.  All the kids have to be ready and out the door at seven a.m. to pick up Jack so it's an early morning for everyone.  Josh is going into 6th grade.  Junior high.  He got the science teacher who is a member of our ward.  He was excited about that.  Kade is in 4th grade.  He was pretty upset that none of his friends are in his class this year.  I told him that he would make new friends and he could still play with his old friends on the playground.  He didn't care for my advice.  He met his new teacher with a big old pouty face and tears just under the surface.

 After watching her brothers go to school all these years, it's now Grace's turn.  She is now officially in preschool.  She is very excited to be going to school.  It was hard to find a part-time program here but I finally found one.  She gets to go twice a week.  She asks everyday if it is her day for school.  She goes into class without a backwards glance.  When I picked her up on the first day the first comment she made to me when I asked her how it went was to tell me that they made her go to bed.  She hasn't napped in years so I think it's funny she has to nap at school.  She loves her backpack and her lunch.  She is definitely independent.  No weeping and wailing and clutching to my leg for this child.

Kade's Birthday

We had Kade's birthday party this summer.  I am now two parties for two kids.  My goal this year was to have a party for each of my kids.  Two more to go.  We'll see if I make it.  

We combined Kade's party with his friend whose birthday is just two days before Kade.  His friend, Ethan, is really into Angry Birds so they had an angry birds party.  Here are their cakes. My friend, Mary, made them.  They are so cute.  She gave them each slingshots to knock over their cakes.  It was fun for the boys.

 Ethan wanted a chocolate bar as well.  Yummy.

 They played outside on the trampoline and in the water.  They loved the water balloons.  We had a water balloon launcher.  They woould stand at one end of the yard and fling the balloons.  They would go over our fence and into the neighbor's yard.  Pretty cool.  When the balloons were all gone, they started launching watermelon slices until I noticed and made them stop.

 Here is Kade knocking down his cake.

 We also had a pinata.  I missed Kade taking a swing at here but here is Grace.

It was such a fun party.  It was also so easy when your friend plans everything.  I wish they were all so easy.

The Girls

Just some random shots of the girls.  Here we are at Jack's baseball tournament.  

 Megan and Grace both liked the sunglasses.

 Megan loves to climb into anything these days.  She even tries squeezing herself into Grace's little potty in the bathroom.  She can only ever get one foot in but that doesn't stop her from trying.  I had the laundry basket out the other day so of course she got right in.  Kade was giving her rides across the wood floors.  Not so good for floors but lots of fun for Megan.

Cub Scout Day Camp

Kade attended cub scout day camp again this year and had a blast.  They had bebe guns, archery, slingshots, fishing, wood crafts, games...  

 Here is Kade with two other boys from our ward.

 Scout Camp

This was Josh's first year at scout camp.  He loved it as well.  Jack had football that week so he didn't think he would be able to go but he ended up not having football practice on Thursday or Friday so Tom drove home and picked him up Wednesday afternoon so that Jack could go to camp for a few days.  It was several hours of driving each way.  What a good dad.

 Josh and Tom did the mile swim. A few of Josh's buddies started out the week doing the mile swim but each day the laps increase so by the last day, only Tom and Josh were swimming the mile.  There were lots of other water activities.

 Josh did water safety or survival ( I can't remember what it's called).  He got to go in the water in his clothes and use his jeans as a flotation device.  No pics of that.

 Swamping canoes is always fun.   I know he also took astronomy.

 Here is Jack climbing the rock wall.  Josh did it earlier in the week in the dark.  Tom didn't have the camera for that one.

 Here are the cute boys from our ward.  Not a huge group, but they all had fun.  The boy standing to the right of Jack while looking at the picture is Jack's friend, Ben.  They are only a month apart in age.  Jack is like a head taller than him.  Josh is on the end.  Jack and Josh used to be a lot closer in size.  I'm sure Josh's growth spurt will happen in about another year.  My guess is that he will be taller than Jack. We'll see.

Jack also went on a 50 mile canoe trip on the Buffalo River but I don't have pictures of that.  Our summer has been so busy.  We had football practice every morning, swim team practice, swim lessons for Grace at a different time, and baseball in the evenings.  I spent my whole summer in my car.  I am glad that school has started and we will have a little more relaxed schedule.

Our Garden

 Last year our garden was a complete flop.  We planted it then I had a baby.  I left the boys in charge of the garden and it didn't go so well.  We had really pretty zucchini and squash until we had a squash bug infestation.  When I finally made my way out to the garden and saw all those thousands (yes, thousands) of bugs, I asked the boys about them.  They told me they were killing them.  When asked how, they said they were drowning them.  Well, they obviously don't drown.  Nothing did well.  We didn't even get a single tomato.  We tried a garden again this year.  Here is Megan eating our first tomato.  She loved it.

Our garden is just mediocre this year.  We have tomatoes this year.  We planted watermelons that were doing great and then they just stopped.  We have a cantaloupe plant that just sprung up.  We ate a cantaloupe from our garden last night.  It was yummy.  That is about the extent of our garden.  Maybe next year will be better.

Grace's haircut

Grace has a real addiction to scissors lately.  She just loves cutting.  She kept giving her My Little Ponies haircuts.  I kept telling  her that it wouldn't grow back but she insisted that they needed haircuts. She finally lost her scissor privileges. 

 So, a couple weeks ago (the same week that I lost Grace at the ortho's office), she decided that it was time for haircuts again.  I had to run one of the kids somewhere and when I got back she came and sat on my lap for a second and I thought her hair looked funny (obviously I wasn't looking very closely to her) but didn't really think much of it.  I got up and went into the kitchen.  There was her Rapunzel doll on the counter with the trash can out and lots of hair on top.  Rapunzel and Grace both have new haircuts.

The picture above is the worst side.  She just chopped away at her hair.  She looked like a bad 1980s haircut.  Yikes.   She cut on all sides and the back.

 Look how happy she is with herself.

 This is after the hairdresser tried to fix her hair.  This one below is of the better side.  The side not showing is still really choppy.  I just make sure the big bows are on the other side.

 I wish she would have waited until after I took her 4 year old pictures.  Oh well.  When she asks me later why I gave her such a bad haircut, I'll just tell her that was all her own doing.

She asked me today if she could cut with scissors today.  No.  I don't know if she should use them for a long, long time.

Megan's Birthday

I can't believe it's already been a whole year.  This year has just flown by (well, except for maybe the first two months of nonstop crying).  Megan is a funny girl.  She talks a lot - you just can't understand a word she's saying.  No mama or dada for her.  It's funny when she gets upset and frustrated and she has this intense look on her face while she's telling you all about it.  She also yells a lot when she's frustrated.  I'm sure she will be so happy when we can finally understand her. 

 Megan weighs 19 pounds 14 oz and is 29 inches tall.  She and Kade are my small babies.  She has been coming in at the 25th percentile the whole time.  She is not walking yet but she has incredible balance.  She stands up without the use of her hands wherever she is to play.  She cruises along the furniture but prefers to stand or crawl.  She crawls with one leg while the other leg is sort-of walking or she'll bear crawl.  Jack says she's just getting ready for football.  Megan loves her bottles.  She's a pretty good eater as well especially if it is from the floor.  She puts everything in her mouth.  I caught her eating bugs from outside a few times.  She loves little polly pocket clothes.  She also really enjoys chalk.  She gets it out of the garage and eats it.  Disgusting.

 She had her birthday while we were on vacation.  We bought her some cupcakes.

 She isn't a very messy cake eater.

 Valerie and Grace had so much fun together.

 We celebrated Megan's birthday at home as well.

 Here is her second cake.  She just wiped the yellow flower on the top to eat the frosting.

 Yummy.  Happy birthday, big girl.