Kids Say

A story by Logan:
"Once upon a time there was an old fashioned lady.  Her husband had died when she had her first baby.  Heavenly Father resurrected him.  When her husband was resurrected she died.  She was resurrected at the same time as the dinosaurs.  She no longer died.  A tornado came by and wrecked their whole house.  The whole city was wrecked.  It (the tornado) came off of water.  They had no place to stay.  All they could do is sit in a little cardboard box.  That's it!  No food...nothing!  They had to stay in that little cardboard box until all the cities were put back together.  They had to build the heaviest buildings that were not wrecked.  When they were finished they could come out and go into one of the buildings.  Another tornado came by.  It did not wreck the buildings.  When it hit all the buildings, it died out and went away and fell off.  For the whole day tornadoes came by.  The last one was in March.  It's January which is the day they were first born but they were already born a long time.  It was the day after their first Thanksgiving when they were old.  But March was the last one and that was the last Thanksgiving and they died."  The End

Logan after putting away an adventure book, "We should read that again.  I like it.  It's cute."

Logan, "Mom will we have shadows when we're resurrected?"

Logan, "Mom guess what?  Joseph Smith will be alive when the dinosaurs are and we'll get to see him in General Conference!"

Annie, "Heavenly Father loves me, but Jesus loves me better.  I usually love Him a lot.  I sent Him on earth."  Logan, "You didn't send Him on the earth!"  Annie, "Yes I did.  There is a song about it!"  When questioned we found out she was referring to 'I Am A Child of God' where the words go, "I am a child of God and He has sent me here."

Logan, "The propellor on my plane goes so fast!  You can't even see it.  It goes as fast as the world spins.  That is why you can't see it."

Annie's little friend (who is also three) in all seriousness came up to me and said, "I'm almost ten."

A bee was following us one day so I ran to get away from it.  Logan asked, "Where is that bee?"  and Annie responded totally seriously, "It's in my pants."

Logan, "Mom, I have prayer acorns."

Logan, "I saw a cow horse!"

Jim, "Am I old?"  Logan, "No, you won't be old until I am a grownup."  Jim, "Oh."  Logan, "And Mom is definitely not old."

Annie, "There are brownies in heaven right?  Cause I love brownies!"

Logan, "Your tummy looks like it is sticking out.  You look like you're pregnant."  (What a self esteem booster!)

Logan, "You are Dad's ideal wife and I am his ideal son and Annie is his ideal daughter and Alex is his ideal son.  Our pictures are ideal.  Even the ones we draw!"

Camera Fun

I often look at my children and fall in love with their sweet little faces.  Sometimes I get out the camera and go crazy trying to capture them.  Here we go:

She makes this expression all the time.

What a handsome kid! 

I was trying to catch some long eyelashes here.

I love this girl's big blue eyes!

When we looked at this picture Logan asked what that hangy thing was.  Ha ha!

There's that hangy thing again...hehe.

My supermen...

My good looking brood after church.

When I look at this picture I can understand why so many people ask if these two are twins.

A library day.  It's wonderful how they can't wait to unload the books when we get home!

I forget why she was so exhausted, but it was funny.

It was even funnier when I discovered she'd moved several feet a few minutes later.

Alex has officially decided he's a big boy.  No more booster seat (unless forced)!  He will either sit on the table...

...or on a chair...

...and he uses his napkin!

Sarah's Visit

And I thought I was all caught up...ha!  I totally forgot about these other summertime pictures.  At least they all go together and are in order. 
My sister, Sarah, was kind enough to drive home with us in our un-airconditioned car on a very hot day for 15 hours.  (At least I think that's how long it took.)  She took all of these pictures.

In the car.  We were sweaty and the weather just got stickier the further east we traveled!  HOT HOT HOT!

Home at last.  Apparently she was taking pictures while I was in the shower or something one day because I know I wasn't around for these.

We went to a place we have here that is kind of like a McDonald's playland on steroids.  It's three stories high, the tunnels are wider, and they encourage parents to play too.  We had a great time.

There were a lot of slides in this thing, and this particular one was very fast.  It reminded me of one of those speed slides at the water parks.  I only went down it twice; that was enough for me.

He did not just go down that slide or he wouldn't look so calm.  I sent him down it once before I realized how fast it was and he did NOT like it.

The big ball pit is very fun.

Another day Sarah and I went to visit some historic German colonies near here.  Jim and Alex stayed home which was fortunate because we ended up being rained on the whole time.  Notice how dry our clothes are in this picture?  This was our five minutes of dry weather.  We'd decided to walk around and it started pouring as soon as she took this photo.

It was raining buckets, but we bravely ran through it from shop to shop.  Everyone commented on our poor wet kids.  We weren't complaining, though.  It was fun to get wet, and it was also the first day we weren't miserably hot.

The kids did eventually get a little cold, so I walked back to the car and picked everyone up.  We ate our picnic in the car and got it nice and steamy.  They thought it was fun to draw in the steam.

After lunch, we visited the rocker museum.  It was actually our favorite place even though it was small and out of the way.  Here is Iowa's largest walnut rocker. 

They had a store with all sorts of wood made items and lots of neat wooden toys.  The kids played in there for an hour and didn't want to leave!

We went around the building to use the restroom, and Sarah discovered Fabio in the outhouse.

We also discovered a big bug while waiting on one of the kids to use the actual restroom.  I believe it's a cicada.

Then because the rain had let up, we checked out the 'display' in front of the rocker museum.  Here we are with Windmill Willie. 

There was a sign on these saying something like: Don't climb on the horses, they buck.

Annie's tractor got a little stuck.

We got into the car after our last stop to discover that the key wouldn't turn in the ignition.  Since we were 30 min. from Jim we had a bit of a wait.  Another reason why it was fortunate he wasn't with us.

Sarah only stayed for a couple of days and then our summer vacation was officially over.  On to fall!