Another Goner

Allie had her big first day today.  All through the week, I envisioned her walking hand in hand with Jake.  I thought for sure he would take care of his little sister.  Little did I know, she didn't need any help.  She had two of her best friends with her.  They all hopped on and shared a seat.  She didn't cry, and surprisingly, I didn't cry.  It was time for her to be off.  Besides, I knew she'd be home for lunch.



When she left, I went shopping.  The car ride was awfully quiet.  No questions from the back seat.  Then, at the store, I wrangled Nate all by myself.  I knew it before, but it was obvious how much easier she makes things.
We got back and waited for the bus to come.  As the bus turned the corner, she was yelling out to me from the back.  It was good to see her cute face.

 I got a big hug and she immediately went to Nate.  He was glad to see her home.

We both were.

One of the first things she said to me was "Mom, we didn't learn how to read.  I thought we'd be learning how to read in kindergarten." 

Such a cutie.  That will all come in time.

She's a good kid.  We'll miss her in the mornings.  The neighborhood is quiet.  It's okay though.  It's about time for her to go off and learn how to read.

Love you Allie!

Books on the floor

You might wonder, as I did, why there always seemed to be books on the floor after Nate's nap when he had been trapped in his crib the whole time and not wandering through his room.

It didn't take me long to see that the books were always cleared off one side of the book shelf.  Adding that fact to the mysterious thumps that came from his room every few minutes, and I had my answer...



Gone

Jake is off to school today.  I went to back to school night last night and met his teacher.  She seems really nice.  I'm sure he'll really enjoy his time with her.  I packed him a nice lunch today and put a little note in there...I'll miss him.  I'll miss having lunch with him and Allie and reading the Friend.  I won't miss the slamming doors that wake up Nate.  I guess there are trade offs. 
Any way you look at it, he is gone...

 Yep...that's Allie and her "soft blankie" waiting for the bus to come.  She doesn't get to start till next week.

See you when you get home Jake!  Hope it's a great first day of school!

Conversation at bed time...

Allie:  Mom, do you think that baby in there is drinking any water?  (as she is laying by me waiting for the baby to kick hard enough for her to feel).
Me:  Sure. 
Allie:  What do you think it tastes like?
Me: I just don't know (ewww...I don't want to think about it).  What do you think?
Allie:  I know that it pees in there and then drinks it again.  If it's a boy, it will pee out of its wiener and if it's a girl, out of it's stomach.
Me:  Stomach?
Allie: Yeah.
Me:  Allie, do you know what girl parts are called?
Allie: No.  What are they called?
Me:...um...don't worry about it.

How immature am I that I can't teach my kids proper anatomy?

The hottest days of summer

During the hottest days of this summer, these kids were still out playing.  They found creative things to do.  Allie and Lily were often found on top of the car coloring...since it's so much more fun than coloring at a table.

Carson and Jake tried their hand at a Kool-aid stand.  Believe it or not, they didn't make a dime.  Even their most unsuccessful rock selling days made more than that!

 Anyway, one day, Heidi took pity on them and took them across the street to the "big river".  Ours is dried up, and this one is really low, but it still had enough water to entertain them.

 These boys can while away hours building rock dams.

 Then, they got the idea to float through the tunnel under the road. 

 You can't tell me these kids don't have a great life...

Play time

Sometimes Nate surprises me with good behavior at night and I let him stay up later.  This night, he started to play with this tractor and stroller as I was doing the dishes. 

 He had a motorcycle that he put in the cab of the tractor, then he put that tractor in the stroller.  He was getting so mad when the tractor would fall out.  He'd say "uh oh!" and put it all back together again.  Over and over.

 He finally ditched the stroller and was much happier with the tractor.

I love this kid!

Conversation at bedtime

Me:  Allie, you made Jake pretty sad today.  You were pretty mean to him.  He didn't know that you'd get so mad when he touched your blanket. 
Allie:  I know.  I just got so mad!
Me:  I reminded him that you are just barely 6 and you are still learning to control your emotions.  I told him that he just had to be patient and that you'd work on it.  Can you work on it?
Allie: I could get one of those leashes that controls you.  It's not a leash, but it zaps you when you go outside the yard, like Sage's dog has.
Me: (thinking she was sidetracked from the conversation, as she often is).  Okay, so can you just work on it?
Allie:  It wouldn't be nice to have someone else control you.  When you do something wrong it just zaps you.  I could stay in the house without the leash, but if I had to have it, I would have to always have someone come with me when I play and control me.  I wouldn't have a leash, just a collar, and I would get zapped and controlled when I am about to be mean.
Me: What are you talking about?
Allie:  If I couldn't control myself, you could get me one of those things for dogs that just zaps them (acting out getting zapped), but then you'd always have to come with me to play and you wouldn't want to do that.
Me: ...uh...
Allie: It wouldn't be fun to have someone control you, and get zapped all the time.  Did you know there are people in other states that don't have stores, so they have to make everything at home?  Mostly just poor people.  Old people are sometimes poor.  The only people who aren't poor are the rich people and they just go to the stores instead of making their food at home.
Me: ...uh...just work on being nice to Jake okay?
Allie: Okay.  Did you know that...
Me: Goodnight!  Love you!

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake with our Schwab cousins and had a great time.  The weather was great (a little windy, but that's good for a pregnant lady who hates the heat).  The kids love playing with their cousins and water is always fun.
Nate was relatively safe in the shallow water and had fun splashing around.

 Allie is pretty low on girl cousins with this side of the family.  She likes to get together with these guys when we can.

 That's the pile of Schwab cousins.  There are 3 others, but they are much older than all of these guys.  I feel like we are pretty lucky to be able to see all these kids pretty often.  They will grow up making fun memories together. 
It was a great day at the lake!

Conversation at lunch

This summer has flown by.  The kids have played outside every single day.  Somedays it seems like I only see them when they come in for the occasional Popsicle and at lunch.  My friend Heidi told me that she reads the kids The Friend (the church magazine) as they eat lunch, and I thought that sounded like a great idea.  We started that up at the beginning of the summer. 
Just the other day, we started the August issue and the first story comes from President Thomas S. Monson's childhood.  The story tells of an elderly man from England who lived on the same street as the Monsons.  As the story states, "His name was Robert Dicks, but most of the neighbors just called him "Old Bob".  He was widowed and poor."
So, that's the preface for you...here's the conversation...

Me: (reading the story) "the small adobe house where he lived was going to be torn down.  He had no family, no money, and nowhere to go."
Allie: Poor guy!  And he doesn't even have a good name.
Me: what do you mean by that?
Allie:  That's not very nice to call him "Old Bob".  Poor guy.  That's what you name frogs and caterpillars and stuff.

Green shirts

Remember how my family has numbered shirts for our family reunions?  The original members of the family have red shirts, the grandkids are blue, and the great grandkids have green. 
Well, here are my little green shirts...

 I feel like I need to include Sam's shirt in the group, but I have to admit that it's hard seeing that little empty shirt.

How did this kid turn into such a big boy?  You can almost hear him say "cheese". 

This next babe will be number 62.  I think my grandma and grandpa look down on these events and are proud of the legacy they started.  I'm grateful to be numbered among them all.

The Belnap reunion

We went to the reunion last week and had a wonderful time.  My mom was in charge this year, so we went down to Orem rather than Idaho.  She chose a really fun park and set up a carnival for the kids.  We got to see a magician that night and had so much fun playing with cousins.  My cousins all have kids of their own now and my kids have fun getting to know each of them and finding that their big family is pretty cool.
I spent a lot of time chasing Nate.  When I wasn't chasing him, Mike was.  There was a river close by and he was drawn to it.  He went through 3 changes of clothes and would have required more if we would have had them.  The worst part was when he snuck away to the river and then fell in.  I was 20 feet behind him and running as fast as I could go, but he slipped on the bank and went in.  By the time I got there, he was laying on the bottom just looking up at me with wide eyes waiting for me to pull him out.  That's FEAR...
It's a good thing it was shallow and slow moving.  I can't think about it otherwise.
Anyway, back to the fun stuff...
Allie loved playing with all the girl cousins and getting her face painted.  She also got to go to a bridal shower for another cousin.  She thought that was pretty neat.
Jake played football with the big kids and even made a touchdown.

 Uncle Stan was in the kissing booth.  No one wanted to go near him till word got out that you got a Hershey kiss.  Then there were girls lining up :)

 Uncle Paul was a scary pirate story teller.  My kids come home talking about him every reunion.  This particular pirate likes to eat toes.  Nate wasn't fond of him at all...

Here's Allie after she visited the Tattoo parlor.


     Aunt Irene told fortunes in her booth.  I heard her tell Jake he's going to have 8 kids.  We'll see what his future wife has to say about that :)

 These things were a big hit.  I got some fun pictures of cousins getting air after bouncing off each other.  This was Jake getting beat by his new little friend.

 The toilet paper toss cracked me up every time I walked by.  I don't know why, but it just struck me as so funny.

 

 There were several other booths.  I wish I had pictures on my camera of the photo booth.  They handed us mustaches or big red smiles to hold up over our mouths and got pictures.  I know there's a funny one of Nate in there with a big mustache.

I think my mom did a wonderful job of hosting the reunion.  It wasn't too hot and there were games for cousins of all ages to play.  We are getting to be a big group now (almost 100), so I think it's quite an accomplishment for us all to go away happy.  Good job mom!  Way to go Belnaps!

Butterflies again

We let Bob the Schwab go last week. 

The other butterflies we've had drink the sugar water we put in the net.  These monarchs never did.  So we didn't want to hang onto them very long after they became butterflies.

I have to include some pictures of Nate feeding the butterfly...

 One for you...and one for me!

As fun as Bob was to look at, I was afraid we were starving him to death, so we let him go.  He stuck around a little longer than Creepy Crawler, so we were able to take some pictures of him.

 When you think of this being a caterpillar a few weeks ago, it is amazing.  Isn't Bob beautiful?!

We wonder now if every monarch butterfly we see is Bob.  We hope he is enjoying his life out there in the big world.  I'm just glad we didn't kill him.