Balloon Drop

Jeremy had a balloon drop for his elementary school kids last week to celebrate a terrific year.  His Aunt has a cool balloon twisting business (seriously, she can make anything - no kidding - anything.  It is amazing).  She kindly came up and helped him get this set up and the kids LOVED it!!  I was standing by the door as they all walked into the gym and I was wishing I could have been recording their reactions as they walked into the gym and saw the ceiling full of balloons.  It was fun!  Here are a couple of lame pictures that I took with my phone while we were there.

Looks like fun huh?  But it doesn't truly capture the moment.  Luckily Brenda (Jeremy's Aunt) captured it much better and put a fun video together.  I have to share it here. It is short, so take a couple of minutes to watch it.  Just click on the link and put a little smile on your face.

Taylor Elementary Balloon Drop

Checking In

Just checking in with a few random pictures . . .

Drake finished his preschool year with a sendoff in a space shuttle.  His amazing teacher always goes all out for this day with space suits for the kids and everything.  All of my boys have loved this.

Here he is inside, ready for blast-off into space!  We are so grateful for his teacher and the amazing job she has done teaching all of our boys.  We wish Drake could have another year in her school, but we are so happy for her that she is finally able to go on the mission she has been working toward for so many years.
We just hope she picks the preschool back up when she returns home so that Tad can have a year at her school before he starts kindergarten.

I just had to include this picture of the tub after my little boys got done with their bath a a couple of nights ago.  Apparently they got pretty creative with their choice of tub toys when I wasn't looking.  How they got their little naked behinds past me with these toys from three rooms away is a mystery.

I also have to post this sweet Mothers Day Card that Jack brought home from kindergarten for me.  The biggest reason I am posting this is because I am amazed at how far he has come in a year.  I was sooooo worried about sending Jack to kindergarten because after two years of preschool he only knew the names of three letters and he did not know any of their sounds.  He couldn't count past five.  I didn't think there was any way that he would be able to succeed in kindergarten and I was seriously considering keeping him out another year.  Jeremy convinced me to send him and told me that if he wasn't able to learn what he needed to, then we would have him repeat kindergarten.  So, off to kindergarten he went.  Thanks to a great teacher and a fabulous reading specialist Jack was able to flourish in kindergarten and was even exited out of the reading room by Christmas, because he was no longer considered at risk.  This note that he wrote to me was done completely on his own with no help from his teacher and I only had to ask for his help reading one of the lines.  His teacher has told me that she has no reservations about sending him to first grade and the principal (Jeremy) agrees.  I am so proud of Jack and his hard work, and I am so thankful for the teachers at his school who are so competent and who care so much about the kids there.

Well that is all the randomness I have for today.   I am sure I will have an equally random post to share soon. : )

Sunday Morning Waffles

I wouldn't exactly call waffles a Sunday morning tradition at our house, but my boys love them, and so I make them quite often for breakfast on Sunday.  I usually make the whole wheat waffles that my mom made when I was growing up.  The boys and I love them (seriously they are soooo delicious), but Jeremy isn't a fan, so sometimes I make a white recipe that I developed a couple of years ago, just for him.  So-- this is how a typical Sunday Morning with waffles goes at our house.

Tad - up on the counter helping me mix up the batter. He loves to help me crack eggs and dump ingredients into the bowl.  Jeremy hates that I let him get up on the counter to help me, but I am too much of a softy with my boys - - especially when they are two and cute as a button.

Fluffy waffle batter. If you want perfect waffles, it has to look like this folks!! :)

Batter in the waffle iron.  Almost there!!  My mom gave me this waffle iron for my last birthday.  We had been without one for about a year and my boys were soooooo excited when I opened this baby up.  Thanks mom!!

Dallin prefers to eat his waffles like toast, with just a little bit of butter and no syrup.  

Notice the syrup dribbling down Thomas's chin?  I hate to say it, but Thomas has always been my messiest eater.  I remember when he was a baby, I had all these clothes that Dallin had worn that practically still looked new.  After Thomas ate in them once they were completely destroyed, and yes, he was wearing a bib.  Oxi-Clean and Biz and I became very well acquainted due to this kid.  I am still keeping my fingers crossed that he will grow out of it, because he is definitely too big for a bib.

Jack and Drake didn't make it to the kitchen in time for the photos.  I probably had to go pull them away from the Legos or the Kindle.

Another Random Post

This is just another random picture dump of some of the little things we have done around here lately.  As you can tell our everyday lives are pretty exciting!  ;)

We took a short drive out to Pinedale the other day for a little picnic.  We saw this street sign and had to get a picture of Thomas in front of it.

This is a cute little covered bridge in Pinedale.  Every time we see it Jeremy has to remind me about how we drove an hour on our honeymoon to see one just like it, and I have to remind him that the entire hour was spent enjoying beautiful scenery along the Oregon Coast.  I'd like to take that drive again.  Someday!!

Tad got a giant carpet burn on his head while I was babysitting other peoples boys at cub scouts.  Poor kid!

Drake and Tad at the SHS baseball game yesterday.  I have been to quite a few little league games, but I haven't been to a game like this in years.  It was fun, and brought back a lot of memories of when I used to watch my brothers play.

Jack had his patriotic program at the school this morning.  It was well done. Don't the kids look cute in those hats?  Sorry about the picture quality on these.  I forgot to bring my good camera, so I had to take these pictures with my phone, which has a very sub-par camera.

My little patriotic superstar!!

Pinewood Derby

Last week Dallin and Thomas had their Pinewood Derby.  Both of their cars looked pretty sharp, so I decided I had better post them here on the blog.

Thomas has known for a year that he wanted to make a Bumblebee Car.  He and Jeremy worked hard on it.  It looked great and easily took first place in show.  He gets to compete at Districts next month.

Dallin's car had a bit of a rough time.  We joke about how his car made all the other boys feel better about themselves, but it looked really good doing it.  Luckily, Dallin is about the best sport I know.

This is a better look at Thomas' Bumblebee.  Pretty sweet!! :)

Another close up with the trophy.

A close up of Dallin's car.  It looked pretty great too.

Three cars down.  Only 12 to go.  (I can't think about that too much or my stomach starts to hurt.)

A "just to post" post

I haven't posted in awhile and even though I don't really have anything to say, I thought I had better get something up here, so the people that check on us via the blog will know we are still around.

Last week was our spring break, we didn't do much for fun other than taking a little day trip to Flagstaff. We are saving up to take the boys to Disneyland this fall.  So, the rest of our week was spent getting some stuff done around the house.

We painted the master bedroom.  I was happy to see that brown go.  We painted the room that color over eight years ago - - before Thomas was born, so it was definitely time.  You can't really tell in this picture, but we painted it a blue-gray color.  I had originally picked it out for our great room, but when we started painting it in there, I decided it was too blue, and it would be best to save it for our bedroom and find a more true gray for the great room.  That is a story in and of itself - it turns out that picking out the perfect gray is tougher than it sounds, but I am happy to say that we did finally end up with a great gray for the great room and I am happy with this blue-gray in the bedroom.

Here are some pictures of the completed paint project.  It really brightens up the room.

We decided that it would be easiest to remove all the furniture and paint it empty, but the computer armoire (our home office) and the gun safe were too heavy, so they just got bumped away from the wall to paint and then replaced.  Can you tell our house is a little too small - our poor master bedroom has to serve as the bedroom, home office, gun room, library, and storage room in our house.  I am working on doing a bit of redecorating in here, so I will try to remember to share some of it after everything is done.  So glad to have the painting out of the way.

Okay, since I can't have a blog post without my kids I will share a few pictures that I snapped a few weeks ago on a typical school night around here.

Tad and Drake playing on the Ipad in the family room.

Dallin working on homework.

Thomas reading a Magic Treehouse book.  He loves, loves, loves this series.

Jack doing a little Kindergarten level reading.  If he wasn't doing this, he would probably be building with his Legos, or fighting with the little boys over the Ipad.

And finally, I have to share a little bit of our Spring with you.

This year I finally got to enjoy the flowers on my flowering plum tree.  The wind is usually so bad here in the spring that they are blown away as soon as the little petals emerge.  It was so nice to enjoy them in all their cuteness this year.

The Forsythia at our house is in full bloom.  I love it, but it really makes me want to take a trip to Kentucky.

A Few Things. . .

I just wanted to quickly share a few random things.

First, and most importantly, Thomas earned his Bobcat award.  He is so excited to be part of cub scouts.  I am glad he is too.  If I have to work in cub scouts, at least one of my boys is in my group.

Second, this is one of many, many, many pictures I have taken of Jack's Lego creations lately.  He got a huge set of Lego Duplos for Christmas and he is constantly creating with them and then insists that I take a picture before he takes them apart.

Finally, I used up almost all of my pink fabric on a "hugs and kisses" quilt.  It is our lone Valentine's day decoration around here.

 It was a fun quilt to make and if a valentine quilt isn't a good excuse for a pink quilt at this house, I don't think I will ever have one.  Plus, I was tired of all the pink fabric in my stash that was never being used, so it is nice to have that space freed up.

I was a little worried that they boys wouldn't touch this, since it is soooo pink, but they love it just like all the others.