Cow Appreciation Day 2012

Free chicken?  Yes, please.

This is becoming a favorite tradition.  For the third year we've dressed like cows and headed to Chick Fil A for free food and entertainment.

I talked my friend Becka into meeting us with her four kids.

Paisley was a spotted 'Jersey' cow.

Declan

McKinley slept the whole time.  He made it so easy for his momma.

This trip would have been incomplete without the cow.

I also talked my friend Emmaly into joining us.  She brought her three kids, plus a friend.

Eliza

Grace

Erin

Isaac

My herd

Becka's herd

Emmaly's herd

The whole herd.

This was even more fun this year because there were lots of people dressed up.  Last year we were the ONLY ones in the restaurant dressed up and I felt very conspicuous.  Still fun, but not as much as this year or our very first year.

They had a free bounce house and a good natured clown making balloon creations.

Annie wanted a flower.

Logan wanted a mystery hat.  The clown told us the mystery was that no hat was the same.

Alex had a purple dog, and enjoyed Logan's hat while the other two jumped in the bounce house.

Eliza also had a mystery hat.

I was so glad our friends joined us.  Thanks for the fun lunch!

Handsome Logan

Just a couple of pictures that I thought were fun.

Logan appeared one morning in this outfit right before we had to go somewhere.  He really thought he matched.  Wow.

He was super sweaty when I was giving him his haircut last week and we both thought it was funny how his hair stood straight up from the clippers.

T-Ball

Logan has been telling me for a long time that he wants to play baseball, so we finally signed him up this summer.  Since the t-ball league is for 4 and 5 year olds, we also signed Annie up.  I love being able to sign them up for things together.

They have been so fun to watch.  I really think I've enjoyed it as much as they have.  The kids are hilarious at this age.  I love watching Annie get distracted and then run for the ball when it's way too late.  I love seeing how hard and crazy Logan throws the ball every time he gets it.  I especially love how hard they both try out there.

Alex has enjoyed this too.  He likes to lounge in his chair and have me all to himself. 

Today he even retrieved a ball that had escaped the field.  He threw it back to the coach and was SO pleased with himself.  I wish I could have captured it; he was just so cute.

I decided that I didn't want to pay the exorbitant prices for their pictures, so I took a couple of my own after one of their games.

This last picture really is related.  Annie always wants to wear short socks with her sneakers, but she had only one pair.  This resulted in Annie-stress every morning before t-ball.  Last week we had to run an errand at the Dollar Tree, and I noticed they had lots of 3-pack ankle socks on sale.  Since Annie and I both needed socks, we each got two identical packs (all different colors/designs).  So now she has short socks for t-ball, and (even better) she can match Mommy. 

Home Repairs

We've been doing some little home repairs during the last month in order to get our house ready to sell (LONG story and not what we'd planned).  Most of what we did isn't picture worthy and wouldn't even bear notice unless you were looking critically.  The upstairs bathroom, however, has been bugging me for as long as we've lived here.  So we finally made an improvement.

This is before.  I've always thought the wallpaper was ugly, so we decided to remove it and paint.  The tile could stand to go as well, but that is too big of a project for now.  This wallpaper came off EASY.  Each piece came off completely intact without any soaking.

However, we discovered another layer of wallpaper which was basically cemented to the wall.  Thankfully, it only covered a small portion of the bathroom.  Jim had bought some heavy duty spray that was supposed to help remove wallpaper and we were very glad to have it at this point.  This stuff was no easy task.

What a mess!

Finished.  I'd still love to get rid of the tile, but that just isn't a possibility right now. 

Visitors

We had fun company last weekend.  My dad was meeting my sister to bring her kids back to Colorado for a month, and I talked them into meeting up at my house.  Sometimes it's nice living in the middle.  :)

My dad arrived a day ahead of everyone else, so we started having our fun right away.  The kids were so happy to see their Papa.  I really had been missing him too.

The day that Danielle was here we went to the beach.

The kids had fun swimming.

Jim and I joined them in the water.

After several hours on the beach we came home good and tired. 

I love these pictures of my dad with most of his grandkids.

This one is my favorite.

Aubrey

Bryce

Mariah

That night we played a fun game of Cranium.  This is how much fun Bryce was having.  (Actually he was quite tired.)

It was a quick visit, but so fun to see everyone!

Outdoor Happenings

Despite the lack of rain, most of our garden is growing well.  I'm loving it!

We currently have a construction project in front of our house.  The city is putting in a sidewalk and they've been working on it for about a week now.  The kids were having fun watching one day (and making silly faces when they saw me with the camera).  The sidewalk is complete up to next door.  I predict they'll be digging up my yard tomorrow.

Fun Pictures

Alex has stopped throwing noisy tantrums recently.  Now he makes a dramatic face and quietly lays face down whenever and wherever he's upset.  I thought this one was funny.

The kids called this a 'tickle pickle sandwich'. 

Logan asked me one day if he could pretend to baptize Annie's doll.  I told him I thought that was okay as long as he didn't pretend to do the Priesthood prayer.  Then I forgot about it.  A while later I went downstairs and discovered this.  The box is the font, and he made sure he and the doll were all in white (he's wearing garbage bags).

My kids don't close the door when they are in the bathroom.  One evening recently, I heard the kids in there so I went to see what was going on.  Logan needed to go (obviously), so Alex decided to be like Logan.  He stripped off his own diaper and sat there saying, "Poop.  Poop," until I decided he'd had long enough pretending to be a big boy.  (We aren't potty training yet.  I'm not convinced he understands enough yet, but he's allowed to sit on it when he wants.) 

Birthday Party In a Box

My little sister, Sarah, sent me the best birthday present this year.  She's so creative, and she really put her skill to work with this one.  She warned me ahead of time that I couldn't open her package until we had a free evening as a family.  So when the big box arrived, we had to set it aside for a couple of days. 

After a rough day (for me), we found ourselves with a free evening, so we decided to see what this box was all about it.  It was the perfect thing for me that day.  The box was filled with numbered balloons.  We had to pop each balloon in order, and follow the instructions in each balloon. 

The first balloon instructed us to use the enclosed Pizza Hut gift card to order dinner.  That was a real treat for us, especially since we've never justified ordering pizza in our entire marriage (we get the cheap $5 ones from Little Caesar's if we ever decide to have pizza) AND Pizza Hut is our favorite.  The kids were thrilled that a pizza man was coming to our house, and we thoroughly enjoyed stuffing ourselves.

The other balloons had various goofy activities in them.  I only took a few pictures, but there were 30 balloons. 

One balloon told us to race to put on someone else's shoes.  Logan and I put on Jim's shoes, and everyone else put on mine.  Jim thought he got the hard end of the deal since everyone else had bigger shoes to put on.  :)

Another one was to draw a picture of the birthday girl.

Halfway through I thought to take a picture of the contents of the box.  I'm sure the balloons filled it when Sarah packed it, but they came down to a MUCH lower elevation and shrank in a big way.  These were hilarious to use when we had to do the balloon stomp activity.  :)

Another activity was to get a jacket, extra pair of pants, boots, and hat.  Each person had to race to put them on.

I really enjoyed this gift/party that Sarah sent me.  Thanks again Sarah!

Kids Say

Annie showing me her arm, "All that red is hurtness!"

Annie, "Aunt Sarah is almost a grown up."

A little background on this one:  When our kids have questioned the difficulties of others (i.e. a disability or illness) we've often answered them that those are challenges from Heavenly Father.  Logan always pulls his pants up to his chest and Jim is constantly trying to convince him to put them lower.  So one day Logan put these two together.  He told Jim, "Pulling my pants up high is a challenge from Heavenly Father."

Annie, "Mom your teeth doesn't look good!  They're dirty!  They're brown!"

Logan, "Is a cow as fat as a balloon?"  Me, "Maybe a really big balloon."  Logan, "How fat are you?"

Alex is still a man of few words, but he can say just about any word he wants now.  Lately he's been making me laugh whenever he sees a picture of water or we are near any water.  Today as we drove over the river he saw some water skiiers and he yelled, "OH NO!  WA-ER!"  He'll be looking at a book just as quiet as can be and then he'll suddenly yell, "WHOA!  WA-ER!"  He does it over and over and over.  He is so hilarious.

Annie, "Mom, your skin is whitish peach."

Annie to me, "Is your head squishy?"

Logan, "Annie did you know that we live on an island?  It's one of the biggest islands.  It's called America.  And on this island people live...cars can drive...trains are on tracks...there is electricity..."

Logan, "We're hungry hungry sharks!  We slept for the whole winter, we migrated!"

I asked Logan when he got so big.  His answer was, "Yesterday."

Logan, "Mom, when I die will you put petals of flowers all over?"  Then after I told him I'd probably die first, "If you die on Mother's Day I'll put flowers all over the house and on the picture frames and on you.  Then we'll bury you.  And when we bury you I'll put flowers on your front and your back.  And then we'll dig the hole back up and bury you with dirt.  And then I'll put some more flower petals down and then we'll put down the stone.  And I'll plant so many flowers around your stone to let you know I love you.  What if I do that when you die?"   
Logan continuing the conversation, "I'll bury Dad and put all sorts of stuff that he likes all around his stone and then I'll dig some holes and bury that stuff and then I'll fill it hand by hand and when he's resurrected he'll find out that I still love him.  And I might be standing there when he's resurrected."  "Death is a very great and happy thing.  Nobody should worry about death."

Logan to Jim, "If I built a car it would have 255,000 floors.  The bottom floor would have all the living stuff, including a swimming pool under a folding floor.  On one floor there would be dancers.  It wouldn't cost any money.  There would be two cameras to watch where you are going.  The next floor would have a hall with 3 bedrooms.  In the bedrooms the floors would fold and bunkbeds would shoot out of the floor.  Then I would make a lot of copies and sell them for a penny each, but I would keep one for our family....Dad, are you texting that to my posterior?"

Logan told me the next day that he was planning to start building his car in the middle of the night and walk to Walmart in the middle of the night to buy himself a flashlight to do so.

Logan, "I'm hungry enough I could eat a whole oak tree."

Annie, "...really soon ago..."

Logan to me, "Do memories get shorter every year?  YOURS does!"