Sundays and timelines

Here's Papa chilling before church... and Alex decided to join in. Aren't they adorable! It's so nice to have Sundays to chill with the family! But unfortunately Todd had to get ready to leave at 5AM the next morning for a meeting up in Richland, so we're missing him today, but he should be home late tomorrow night. Thought I'd post a couple of pictures for him while he's gone, so he can see our new timeline!
First off, though, someone gave us some 3-D puzzles. They are harder than they look! But they were a great peaceful activity that we all enjoyed on Sunday!

And here's our infamous timeline! We started the bulletin board project about 6 months ago??? maybe longer??? can't remember, it's been so long! And today, we finally put the final touches on... added the tape and the dates, and put up our review cards. It was a great review for the boys! We talked about Ancient Egypt, and the tale of why the Nile floods every year. Osiris's brother, Set, wanted to become king, so he tricked Osiris into a coffin, and floated him down the Nile. Osiris's wife, Isis, and all of Egypt were so sad that they wept, and the Nile wept so much, that it dried out. Then Isis went down the Nile in search for Osiris. She found him, and started to wrap his body, when he awoke... she was so happy, and the Nile was so overjoyed with happiness, that its banks overflowed with water! The Nile floods every year in remembrance! Anyway, when I was asking Glenn how Set tricked Osiris, he said that Set tricked him into getting into the 'cough'. I said, ' you mean, coffin?' He replies... "yeah, that's it... coffin!"
These are the boys African masks that they made. James calls his mask the "Animal Kingdom" and Glenn called his "Animal Forest". They both have painted stripes like a tiger with foam animals all over them. Anyway, they look cuter in person! You can't see them very well on here.... oh well!

Enjoy everyone. And we miss you, Todd! Love you!

Star Wars....

James has found the Star Wars books at the library! I've placed them on hold before, for Todd to read with the kids, but now James found them, and he devours them! We have to go the library quite frequently for him to get more! He gets 3 to read himself at least, and 1 to read to Glenn, and 1 for Todd to read to them both! Thankfully they have lots! It's a great little series, though, and my only complaint is that sometimes we'll find him reading QUITE LATE into the night, reading by the stairwell light! I wish he had an off button, but he takes after his Papa too much!
We have this great little Chemistry kit, and yesterday we learned about indicators, and had a great time changing a litmus solution from read to blue back to red, back to blue, back to red, back to blue.... etc, etc, etc! They LOVED it! We tested soap to see if it was acidic or alkali, and the only bar of soap that I had was a bar that I carved into a train a while ago when I was a den leader! Well, Alex, LOVED this, and carried around my little 'choo choo train' the whole rest of the day! That's the last picture, there.
And here's little Ellie in her swing. She loves to just hang out in there, and the boys love to help push the swing, or just make faces at her as they walk by.... what fun!
Hope all is well with everyone! My parents are coming out here in 1 week, and we are so excited! The kids are about ready to jump out of their skin! They're driving out, though, so we can't go up to the Airport for a Jamba Juice :-( I guess we'll just have to make an excuse when my parents come!

Take care!

We LOVE Alex!

Alex was a hoot yesterday! So, this is an ode to Alex today...





I have been blessed with children who have not been too picky of eaters. You place food in front of them, and they come running, no matter what it is! James' only exception is beans. He doesn't care for kidney, black, white, whatever! But, we make him eat them anyways, but only a little, because he literally will gag on them.



Alex has no exception to this rule! Put food in front of him, and he will SCARF it down! He gets as big of a fistfull as he can grab, and starts shovin' it in! Here's a picture of him with a sandwich in his mouth... a quarter of a sandwich to be exact! Oh, just wait till they are teenagers :-)



Alex has learned how to cross his fingers! I'm actually quite thrilled, because he learned how to do it on his finger sucking hand... so he now sucks his fingers less, because he's busy trying to cross his fingers!

Alex was hilarious yesterday... he has a fetish for shoes. And yesterday, he was in full force. Every 5 minutes, he changed shoes, and only once did he get his OWN shoes on, and when he did, they were on the wrong feet! Oh, it was adorable. Next, I'll need to get a picture of Alex with his Spiderman jacket on... it lights up when he moves, and man, oh, man does he LOVE that thing. Grandma D sent it to him for his birthday I believe?? and it's now cold enough to wear it (yes, it's only 70, and we're wearing coats!)... so now he wears it inside and outside of the house. Yesterday he was wearing his Spiderman shirt... no he's never seen Spiderman, but he sure does know all about it!

He came up to me yesterday with one of the boys' Star Wars toys, and told me "Millennium Falcon" As Todd said... this boy has no hope! We sure do love him! Oh, and one more thing... his other FAVORITE thing is Blues Clues... he calls them "two's two's" very cute!

Have a good one!

Funny stories....

Once again, I forgot to change the pictures to the right! Oh well. I hope everyone is doing well today! Today I just realized how blessed we all have been to be so healthy lately! We've just been able to enjoy life, and enjoy each other as a family without anyone puking on anyone else :-) It's been nice! So, if you look closely at Alex's face, you'll see tiny bits of cereal all over his face, including up into his hair! He thought it would be funny to take a bite of cereal, and then blow raspberries.... yeah, not such a great idea! My school paper that I keep track of all our schoolwork had tiny droplets of milk and cereal all over it.... it was a good 4 feet away from his mouth! Oh yeah, Alex was THOROUGHLY enjoying his cereal that morning, and James and Glenn were thoroughly enjoying the entertainment, which of course made Alex gloat in his spotlight even more! But as I reflect on Alex, I do have to admit that he has come a long way! At the beginning of our trip back home, he was at his peak of terrible 2's! And no, he was not even 2 yet! Which scared the living daylights out of both Todd and me! Well, whether it was our trip and the one-on-one time, or whether he just started outgrowing his stage, we no longer are afraid that Alex will never make it to his next birthday because of his parents going insane, and needing to just tie him up by his toenails and leave him for a little while! He is still more independent than the rest of my children, but will now cuddle with us, hold our hand in parking lots, and listen at times! And he and Ellie are going to be great buddies I think... he does dote after her... sometimes too much and wakes her up from her naps! When Todd's watching Ellie, he does not appreciate that! But when he's just trying to cuddle with her, it's hard to get upset at him!

This picture, is of the boys working hard to do some extra schoolwork. I finally decided that the boys needed to get rewarded for doing extra work. It pushes them to do more, and it really makes it fun, and when they accomplish their goal, they are rewarded. So, we have always done rocks in the jar for good behavior, but now we do this system for extra schoolwork. We were ALMOST done with the rocks... had only 2 left. So, Glenn was doing an extra page of math, and James was copying extra letters. Yeah! They finished, and the reward was to go to Jamba Juice! My mother-in-law started this tradition, in the sense that whenever we met her at the airport, we always met at the Jamba Juice place, and in turn we'd always get a Jamba Juice.... yeah, well, we became hooked. So now before AND after ANYONE comes to the airport, we stop at Jamba Juice! So, as we were getting shoes on and ready to head out the door, James says, "So, we're going to the airport to get the Jamba Juice, and then we're heading to the library?" No, James, we now have one in Corvallis, so we can head there. James thought that was fantastic! I thought it was pretty funny that he thought we'd go 3 hours in the car for a Jamba Juice!

Since we've been learning about China, we've been learning some Chinese... counting to 10, months of the year, days of the week, and such. Well, we were learning the months of the year... January in Chinese translates to 'one month' and February is 'two month'... so we were saying the months, when James stopped as said, so the Chinese don't have a word for September? Well, actually, no, they just say 9 month, which I was trying to explain in a way is more efficient so they don't have to remember that September is month 9... Well, after I finished, he calmly stated, "Well, I like September."
And here's an adorable picture of our little Miss Ellie. She is such a happy baby, except when we don't dote on her! If we leave her in her saucer or on the floor or in the swing for too long with no one to pay attention to her, she'll start letting you know! But she is so quick to smile when we stop to just look at her! And she just giggles away now when we play with her. The boys LOVE that, and try as hard as they can to make her laugh whenever they have the chance!

Anyway, that's all for this week so far! Take care everyone!

Pictures

Looks like the pictures are in the center.... I was hoping they would be off to the right! Oh well.... Here are a few pictures of what I am calling "The Race of Irony." I love the picture here of Todd. It shows how dusty it was during the Pain on the Peak race! This picture of me, unfortunately doesn't show the skis that I wore, but just imagine these size 12 shoes on women's size 8 feet! And this picture will also give you an idea of what cross is like. You ride your bike mostly, but get off and pick up your bike to run over barriers, or as in this case, up a really huge hill! It actually is fun, though!
This last weekend we went to Hood River, and James got to ride in the kids race. It was fantastic. They actually went over two barriers, and James did a great job picking up his bike over them, from what I'm told. I unfortunately was trying to frantically look at the course before it was my turn! These races do such a good job with the kids race, though. And they gave him a waterbottle with a bunch of bike stickers and a ribbon inside. James was glowing from ear to ear! All the kids win, so it really is fantastic!
This picture is of the kids sucking their fingers! With Alex's bad habit of sucking his 2 fingers, I almost flipped out when I saw Ellie sucking on her middle 2 fingers! They were extracted right away. She has refused the pacifier, but hopefully we can prevent the finger sucking... we'll see!
This is Glenn, happy as can be! What a joy he adds to our family!
I can' think of any funny stories off the top of my head... oh, Todd did get his picture taken during my race, and after his race, and I hope we can get a copy of it. This guy was taking pictures for some new website, and took about 10 pictures of Todd... imagine this... James riding his bike around Todd, Glenn running circles around Todd, Alex holding onto Todd's top tube of his bike, Todd holding with one hand on his bike, the other carrying Ellie (who is crying, of course), and Todd's wrist is dripping blood. Classic picture, and the guy wanted to title it "dedication"

Anyway, we're all having a great time, and are really enjoying our time together as a family to and from these races! Reading lots of books and just talking... it's been great!

Well, that's all for now!

True IRONY at work....

All of these pictures are from my camera phone. So, they are not of the best quality, and for some reason my program wasn't letting me adjust the color/contrast... so here they are in their raw form!

Yesterday we went up to Portland to do a cyclocross bike race, and then go the temple afterwards. Cyclocross is where you bike and also jump off at times and run over barriers, or up hills with your bike. Well, the name of the race was Pain on the Peak... and it should have been Dust on the Peak. Gorgeous views of the coastal mountains!!!!!! Just beautiful!!!!! But we haven't had rain forever, so it was PURE dust. As you can see from the picture above, the kids LOVED it! James went once around the course, and crashed into the dust... no dirt, just dust... at least 6 inches of it in spots... and got covered! But he loved every second of it! And as you can see from our 3rd child that we nicknamed Pigpen from Charlie Brown on our last trip, he held true to his name. When the boys and I were following James around a little while he was riding the course, and Todd was putting bikes on the cars, both Alex and Glenn were shuffling their feet in the dust trying to create as much dust as possible. Glenn said he was trying to look like he was biking. The whole course was literally just a haze of dust that just was worse when riders were riding the course!

The funny story of the day, though, and the ironical one! As we were heading to the race, I asked Todd if he grabbed my helmet. He looked at me with this panicked look... no, did you grab your shoes?.... no... I had it in my mind that I was to take care of the kids and lunch, food, etc. He was taking care of bikes. So, my helmet and shoes were at home, and we did NOT have time to go back to get them. We were already running late for James' kids race as it was. Of course we pre-registered because I was afraid that if Todd didn't sign me up, I would wimp out. Well, here was the perfect opportunity to wimp out! But the more I thought of it, the more I just thought I'd have some fun, and I needed the practice, anyway. Who cared if I didn't do well. Todd, said, "Well, I'll change James' pedals out, and you can d vo in your shoes." Well, I only had my sandals, no running shoes. "What?" Todd asks? There goes idea number two. We got to the race, and I cinched down my Chaco's as tight as I could. James' pedals wouldn't fit on my bike.... well, really, there goes idea number 2. Clipless pedals are much smaller than regular pedals, and with sandals, I'd be sliding off constantly. So, when Todd finished his race, I had 5 minutes before my own race. I didn't know what I was going to do. Todd slipped off his shoes and socks, and stuffed his socks in the toes of his shoes. I put them on. The socks didn't work in front, but they worked ok by my heal. Note that I wear a women's size 8, and he wears a men's size 11! So, with 1 minute before the start of the race, and no warm up whatsoever, other than running around with kids to get numbers, and such, off I went. Well, I felt like I did pretty good, but it was hard to tell because they let the Women's A and B class leave about a minute ahead of my women's beginner class. So, I completely lost track of everyone, and had no idea really where I placed. I just knew I finished right by one women's B rider. I only lost a sock once on lap 3, so had to do the rest of the race with one sock in, one off.. it was crazy! I did manage to pick the sock up on the 4th lap and stuff it in my back jersey pocket... I lost it on a hill that was so huge, I was basically walking up it with my bike on my shoulder. So, I had plenty of time to bend down to pick up that sock... whew... Well, we looked at the board, and I had won 1st place in women's beginner.... so here's the kicker.... what did I win for 1st place???.... a new pair of shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is that hilarious, or what! Now it would have been more funny if it was a new pair of bike shoes, but it's a new pair of Keen shoes. Either way, we got a GREAT laugh out of that! Needless to say, I don't think I'll ever forget my bike shoes again!
One more story... after one of the men finished in the Men's A category (the fastest), he looked at James, and said, I wish I was you, and wouldn't have to worry about getting dirt on my front teeth! This man's front teeth literally were COVERED in dirt stuck to his teeth, so in a way he looked like James... no front teeth... if you didn't stop to look a little closer to see that it was caked mud!
We all cleaned up with LOTS of baby wipes, and got dressed and headed over to the temple. It was wonderful! Great way to end the day. Todd went inside to do a session, and the kids and I just hung around and played, and enjoyed being together. It was a beautiful day, mid 80's and the flowers at the temple were gorgeous, as always! Then afterwards we went to Sweet Tomatoes (one of our favorites!) and off we went home. We got home about 11:15, and it was a long day, but so worth it! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the ironic story!

2 more funny stories I almost forgot. Alex was sitting on the toilet, and listing all the things he loved.... Mama, Papa, James, Glenn, Ellie, Costco trucks, and Rushmore. I couldn't believe he remembered Mt. Rushmore! That was cool.

Then as we were leaving Sweet Tomatoes, Glenn is coming out with the rest of us, and asks me, why people can't steam in there? "What's that Glenn?" "Why can't people steam in there?" "What?" James says, "I know what he's saying, mama, he wants to know why people can't smoke in there." Thought that was cute. Thanks for the help James!

Ancient Chinese Warriors

See the last paragraph for the description of the above picture :-) Sorry, out of order, but don't know how to fix that!

The boys, as always, have taken what we learn in history into our home. We've been learning about Ancient China, and a few of the dynasties, and many of their inventions. And silk has me amazed! Did you know that when they make real silk, they unravel the silk thread from a silkworm cocoon, and it's made of one continuous strand which is approximately 1 mile long! Then they gather the strands together to make a thicker thread, and then weave it into cloth and dye it beautiful colors. So, James wanted to be a Chinese warrior... and he promptly made Glenn the emperor with the beautiful silk robe! Glenn, the emperor fought just as hard as the warrior!
James was SO excited about doing calligraphy yesterday, that the first thing he did when he got up was walk out to the backyard to gather a few blackberries. Then he got my potato masher, and mashed up his ink.. all completely on his own. A few years ago, we were doing school with a friend of mine who taught him this trick... he was ready to go, whether I was or not!! James pulled out a feather and started dipping away to make his constitution (no, not related to ancient china, just wanted to try out the ink!) ... he wrote all of our family names on a piece of paper. Then Glenn wanted a turn, and he scribbled a bunch of lines on a piece of paper as you can see.... he said it was his treaty for their war. I was not to hang it up, because he was going to use it to play war with James.... where does he get these things???!!!!

This is James writing his Chinese characters with the blackberry ink. We got this great book from the library which teaches basic strokes. We use lines when we write, the Chinese use strokes. It really is beautiful writing!

I could NOT pass this picture up. Isn't she just adorable! Ellie is enjoying school as well... we spend our transition time between subjects cooing and playing with her!
The boys have THOROUGHLY gotten into ancient china, and found these robes. The one James is wearing, my mom JUST sent home with us when we came back, and James accessorized it with his yellow belt from karate. Glenn is wearing James' old robe that Papa brought back from Japan when he was there, and Alex, as you can see, is just trying to keep up with his brothers! I teach them the history, but then they always take it beyond, and re-live what they are learning about to the 'T'. Last night, they even got the neighborhood kids to get their robes out, and start their Ancient Chinese warrior fighting. It really is hilarious! I'll try to add the neighborhood picture, but it'll probably end up at the top.... so look back at the top for that!

Other than that, still enjoying the mid 80 degree weather! FANTASTIC! And I made another batch of zucchini brownies last night... Todd said, again?? I assured him that summer is almost over, and the zucchini plant will eventually die... but until then! :-) My friend just hopes that I don't try to keep their seeds, cause this plant is a maniac!

Take care everyone! And hope all is well!

First Day of School and stuff...

Well, it's a new school year, and the kids are stoked! On Labor Day, we had a neighborhood girl over, and she was asking James if he was ready for school. He said, 'yeah, it starts tomorrow!' She asked him if he went to Mountain View. He said, 'no, I go to school at home.' She said, "At home? You should go to Mountain View, it's lots of fun." At this point, my ears were perked... I was quite interested to see what James would say. He said "Well, you should come to school here. We have lots of fun, too." Then the little girl responded, "I don't know if my mom will let me." It was a very cute interchange. And I was happy to hear that James has lots of fun at our school too :-)
The first day was all fun and games. We got out some new learning games, and just played together all day. Whatever they wanted to play, we did. We just enjoyed time together with nothing else going on. And the highlight for the kids, was the Lunchables lunch! All the neighborhood kids have had these, and they come with these Star Wars flip cards... do I need to say more! Todd and I talked about it, and since we were never allowed to have these type of things growing up (no offense mom or Grandma D... we obviously turned out fine... well, I guess that's to be debated!) we wanted to give our kids this splurge for their first day of school. So, I had to deal with the kids asking if it was lunch yet, about every 10 minutes! But when it was FINALLY lunch time, they ate outside in the beautiful weather, and kicked their feet up to relax... ahhh. the life :-) Flip... flip... flip... flip went the star wars cards... over and over again :-) Then after a little bit of play time outside, we continued with our game playing... outside... it was just too beautiful to stay inside!

So, this year is more Ancient History, which the kids LOVE, and Chemistry, which again the kids LOVE. So, we're excited for another fun year! James is happy to do his math, but would MUCH rather learn history. Glenn is happy doing history, but would MUCH rather do his math. It is so funny to see their personalities come out, and will be so interesting to see how they progress!

Above is a picture of Alex in nursery. He's taken his shoe off, and declared his foot 'itchy'. Well, he doesn't want to itch it. He sits down, takes his shoe off, walks over to you, and grabs your hand and puts it to his foot and says, "itchy." Then wants you to scratch it! Ever since we've gotten back from the great midwest where mosquitoes have been known to walk off with people, Alex insists he still has "squito bite" all over his body, and insists you itch them!
And this picture is not of one in our family! This is my friends little girl. And I just had to include it, because this is why I love teaching nursery at church! That is a face of pure delight! Oh, to watch children thoroughly enjoy something, I think, is the best way I would like to spend my time! I love it!

I think that's about all. It's more about Ancient China tomorrow... you could easily spend a month on them! Fascinating! And with 80 plus degree weather all week (hint, hint, Grandma/pa D), we'll be spending as much as we can outside!

Take care!

Sarah

A Hodge Podge of things....

Here's a bunch of pictures that I wish I could change the order of, so they made sense, but I can't! Or at least I don't know how... so I'll do my best. And if anyone has any tips on how to change things around... ahhh... I wouldn't mind learning. Our ward is teaching a blogging class, and I hope that I can go to learn more about this stuff! It's lots of fun keeping tabs on things, and sending out pictures, but I do hope I can learn to do a better job! Anyway... as for picture number 1...

Above, is Alex waiving around a orange glow stick. We had our ward campout this weekend, and the kids had a BLAST with the glow sticks. My friend's husband got in the fun, and was making shapes, silly faces, and flowers, etc with all the kids. They LOVED it. And Alex just loved waving around the glow sticks! In order to see the sticks, I had to increase the exposure on the camera and take the flash off. And I thought Alex's glow stick made a cool effect.

I can't figure out why this picture came out sideways, but it did. It's right side up wherever else I look... go figure... James lost his other top tooth at the campout! How memorable! Well, a friend of mine heard of a storm between here and Hawaii that may have prevented the tooth fairy from coming to the campout. Well, the tooth fairy didn't make it that night, but thankfully she found us the next night at home, and all was well! It sure if funny to see our boy with a toothless grin! But I'd probably take the toothless grin over his hillbilly look when his teeth were insanely loose... quite hilarious!
Here are the boys happy as can be by a rope swing. They had a great time, and we were the last ones gone from the campsite, because they were so happy just swinging away. Even little Alex held on tight with a HUGE smile on his face!

Here's a picture of some of our neighborhood kids. One of James' friends brought over these alien and monster dress-up clothes (his friend is the rhino between James and Glenn), and the boys started scheming. They were going to dress up, and then scare the girls. The two girls they were trying to scare are in this picture, although you can only see one. Well, when the girls came inside to see where the boys were, I asked them if the boys were playing nicely with them. They said, "yes. The boys are trying to scare us, but we like it. It's fun." Ok, then. I was worried the boys weren't including the girls in their play... but I guess the girls liked it. Kids sure are funny, aren't they!

This is a picture of James, Sofia, Rachel, and their father Jim with the glow stick faces! James is in the middle.

Here's another picture of James with all the glow sticks. He jumped out in front of a group of girls and scared them.... he LOVED it! Notice his Dracula teeth with his missing front teeth!

Well, I guess that's about all for now. We started school today, and the kids were SOOOO excited! It's been a low key day full of lots of games about things we're going to be studying this year. Let the fun begin! Enjoy!