Smart Boy (Said with Sarcasm)

Jason:  Ow!  I can't get this fing off my feener!

Me:  Oh, here...(taking the clamp off his little finger).  Why did you put it on there?

Jason: I thought it was cute, but then it snapped on my feener and I am just too little to get it off!  It's dangerous! Have to be careful!

Me: (watching him squeeze the clamp and poke his finger in it again)  What are you doing boy?  Remember how it got stuck on you and hurt you?

Jason: (snap goes the clamp...) It goes ouchy!

Me:  I know, why did you do it again?

Jason:  Because it's so funny!  Ouchy...can you kiss it?

I had my camera close by and took a few pictures of him clamping his finger...again and again...because "it's so funny!"

School Stuff

I'm pretty late in posting this.

Jake was in a Utah program where they sang songs about the state and recited facts about Utah History.  It was pretty fun to watch them.  Jake had a speaking part "because the people were industrious, Utah soon became the agricultural and manufacturing center in the West."  I was so nervous for him, but I didn't need to be...he did a great job.  He spoke loud and clear and didn't make any mistakes.  What a good boy.

I got a picture of him with his teacher Mr. Simpson.  He was an awesome teacher for Jake.  Jake loved him and I was really grateful that he liked my boy and thought he was a good kid.  It's always nice to know your kid has someone on their side who thinks they are awesome.  He understood Jake's personality and helped him out when he was having a hard time.  I am so grateful for good teachers.  We'll miss Mr. Simpson for sure.

Jake also got to rock the halls one last time for the year.  He ended the year with around 550 AR points and got a 5 dollar gift card for Walmart for it.  He was 3rd in the whole fourth grade.  I am so glad this boy likes to read!  He really liked the Percy Jackson books this school  year and read all of them.  He's reading the Land of Stories right now and likes them too.

Nate has been a good side kick to go to all the rock the halls events.  Jason is usually home sleeping (with Mike working in the office), so we go together.

While we were there for Jake, I took a picture of Allie in her classroom.

Allie loved Miss Hellstern and is sad to leave her.  She was also a great teacher for my girl and made her year as good as it could be.

They started writing an opera during the school year and made all their own scenery and costumes.  Allie was a beach surfer and sang up there with a smile on her face.

We heard all about the opera for many months and it was fun to see their cute little opera after all that hard work.

Allie ended the year with almost 200 AR points and got second place in the second grade, so she got a 5 dollar gift card too.  She still loves A to Z Mysteries and reads them over and over.  I'm always telling her to read something new because you can only take tests on things once, so she reads way more than she can test on, but she likes to re-visit the books she knows.  Sometimes the unknown endings of a book scare her and make her want to stick with the safe and known stories.  I get that.  I love that the stories are so real to her that it can be intense sometimes.  She did read the Ramona books this summer and liked all of those.  She's listening to Harry Potter again too at night in her room.  Yay for audiobooks!

The kids ended the school year with their brains full of new stuff and smiles on their faces.  I am proud of them and their accomplishments.  They are good kids.

Need for Speed

Jason has the best sister ever.  She makes his life pretty fun.  He calls her "my Ayee" and he calls her friend "my Wili".  I am just grateful that they will play with him and bring him some excitement.

 Allie has always liked to ride her ripstick on her bum with shoes on her hands to slow her progress.  They were out doing it one day and she got the idea to take Jason with her in his dump truck.

It's a pretty fun ride down and he even gets a ride back up the hill.  Wouldn't that be fun?

Nate rides along the side on his bike.  He is pretty good at the bike riding thing and I think we'll try it without training wheels soon.  For as crazy as he is, he is pretty timid with the bike.  He is determined though because he knows that he needs to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels before he can learn how to ride a motorcycle.  One day soon...

Sleep

Some interesting sleep facts about our family...

Mike loves to sleep.  He can nap for hours in the day and then still fall asleep for an early bed time.  He doesn't really like to stay up late and always falls asleep watching tv on the couch and then drags himself up to bed after getting a sore neck from the position he was in.  He wakes up super early, ready to face the day.

I like to sleep as well, but I prefer to stay up late and sleep in.  I can't get myself settled in to sleep easily, and if I have a good book, I can read until dawn without even realizing that I'm tired.  I love having a quiet house to work in, so I have to force myself to go to sleep rather than putter around all night.

Jake loves to sleep.  He has a hard time keeping his eyes open after 10 when there's something fun going on, and would fall asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow any time after 7.  He also gets up early and is ready to face the day without complaint.

Allie is like me and can't get her brain to shut off before midnight.  I am constantly getting after her to "just go to sleep!"  Just this summer, she has started to sleep in in the mornings.  She has always been slow to get going in the morning and not too happy about being out of bed.

Nate is just like Jake, and Jason is just like Allie.  The reason for this whole post is that I find it interesting that in terms of physical attributes, Jake and Nate take after Mike a whole lot.  Allie and Jason take after me.  Isn't it interesting that the similarities aren't in looks alone?

This is what my bed looks like after Mike leaves early in the morning.  Nate and Jason fight for space next to me and kick Mike right out.  People always tell us that we'll miss these things and maybe we will.  I have always loved a snuggle buddy in bed.  I don't love getting woken a million times a night by children who are fighting over who gets to lay on Mom's head and who gets to kick her in the kidneys.  Dang cuties!

Sleep

Mike has been complaining about having kids in the bed since Jake was a baby.  I usually try to put them back in their own beds once or twice, but then I give up and just sleep.  They don't really bother me.  So when I saw this, I totally smiled.  Each one of my kids can lay claim to me if they want.  I love them, even if they interrupt my sleep.

A First for the Family...

We've been pretty lucky and injury free in our family.  There are the occasional scrapes and cuts and bonks on the head that are all healed quickly with a kiss and a band aid.  Once, Jake had a cut on his forehead that I glued together with super glue, but it wasn't all that big.  I am knocking on wood all over the place as I write this post because I certainly don't want any injuries to be more serious than the ones we've had.  I'm just saying that some families spend a lot of time in the ER.  We spend a lot of time searching for lost children, and calling poison control...to each their own.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Nate was messing around in the tv room and he tripped and slid into the pole by our front door.  It made a pretty loud noise, so I rushed into the room to see what had happened.  He cried a bit and came to me for comfort.  I ran my hand over his head and felt for a lump...didn't find one and kissed him on his way.  

I didn't hear anything more about it for hours.

I had just gotten Jason to sleep and Nate was out playing with Allie and Lily.  He came in to get a popsicle and I gave him one.  Then, as a side note, he said "my hair hurts right here.  There's something sticky on it and it makes my hair hurt when I try to get it un-stuck".  I took a look at it and found that his hair was clotted and matted with blood.  Yuck!  I started cleaning it up so I could get a closer look and found that he had a little inch and a half spot on his head where it was just split open. (Yes, I totally got out the ruler and measured it because I was on the phone with the nurse trying to decide if I should take him in)  It wasn't bleeding much, so I cleaned it up and took him down to Mike for a second opinion.  I was thinking that we could just leave it alone, or maybe glue it together because it wasn't bleeding and didn't seem to be a problem.  Mike wanted me to take him into the doc, so I called to make an appointment.  I wanted our neighbor who is a nurse to look at it though because I was afraid we'd get to the doctor and they'd tell me that it wasn't deep enough to worry about.  The nurse told me if it was her kid, she'd just save the money and let it heal on its own.  We consulted any of the neighbors who were out and they all agreed that we could just let it heal.  I came home with him and got out the super glue to glue it shut and as I looked at it again, I realized that it had come open as wide as it was long.  Yuck.  I knew I wanted the doctor to take a look at it now that it was so wide, so we went in.  He ended up needing two staples to pull it closed.  The doctor said when they get wide like that, it's best to just staple them up.  Nate was totally brave and only cried for a second when the staples went in.  They didn't have to shave his head or anything and he was all set with two suckers in no time at all.

                                                   

Have I mentioned that Nate has a hard time looking straight at me for a picture?  I get a whole lot that look like this.

Here's the cut...it's not all that bad and the two staples took care of it easy peasy.

He went back in a week later to get the staples out.  He was a little nervous about going in and each night as I'd tuck him into bed, he'd tell me that he didn't mind leaving the staples in until he was a little older.  He said that 5 year olds can go in and get them out, so he'd wait till then.  The day finally came and he had to get brave and "old enough" really quick because it was happening whether he wanted it or not.  Allie came in with him to hold his hand and it was over just like that (snapping fingers).  He got another pair of suckers and we were out the door to the fish aquarium.  Pretty great story for the books!  I've got a tough kid on my hands and I'll be surprised if it's the last scar he gets.

Monster Concert

I am pretty far behind in talking about all the things that have gone on since May.  The kids had their monster concert for piano in June.  They play with 5 other kids and two other pianos, so they really have to know their pieces well and make sure they are counting.  

 Allie got to sit next to Lily for both her pieces.  They did great and it sounded cool to have all the pianos together.

Jake's group is getting a little more complex and they sounded great too.

It was fun to hear the pieces of the older piano students and dream of the day when these two will be playing anything they want.  Keep it up guys!

Hats

We were loading up the motorhome for a camping trip and Nate told me he'd go get his hat.  I told him he didn't need a hat and he reminded me that I have made him wear a hat before so his face didn't get sunburned.  Rather than argue with him over it, I said for him to go get his hat.  He and Jason were rummaging around in the room for quite a while, so I was just happy that they were out of my hair.  Then, they came out like this...

Maybe the trick to not getting sunburned is more hats!

Grandma's House

The week after school got out, we went down to Grandma's house.  She was out of town for a long time and had just gotten back.  I promised her a day of slave labor for Mother's Day, so it was time to pay up.  It was also the anniversary of my dad's death, so we went to his favorite steak restaurant and ate a steak for him.    

 I took a picture of the kids sleeping area.  You can tell they were not in any mood to sleep.  They just wanted to be crazy monkeys.

 Allie and I went to Grandma's mother/daughter night at her ward.  She got to get a fancy hair do and we made some cute necklaces.  It was fun to see the ladies that I grew up with as leaders and teachers in church.  I got told over and over again that my little Allie girl looks just like me when I was little.  

 Jason had fun playing with Grandma's toys.

We did some yard work and the kids all found a snail to torment for the day.
This one is Nate's snail named Sticky.

 There were some really big ones that are just beyond gross.

They all had a great time playing with cousins.  I didn't take any pictures of the things that they did, but they made up a cute club house in the gazebo and had signs drawn up and everything.  It was fun to see them all getting along so well.

It was really fun to go down.  I usually feel like I am just bringing my chaos to my mom's house and that I am never any help to her.  She comes to my house and is Cinderella for the day and all I do in return is bring children who pee on her carpet and break her tea set from China.  This time, I did get some work done and even though Nate spilled a 44 ounce drink on her Persian rug, I feel like we might have balanced things out enough.

A Happy Tree

A while ago, Jason was asleep and the house was completely quiet.  I went in search of Nate and found him glued to the tv.  I totally cracked up laughing because I remember zoning out to the paintings of Bob Ross when I was younger.  It's funny, I wanted to make sure of his name just now, so I typed "happy tree artist" into the browser and he came right up.  The show sucked Nate right in, as it has thousands before him.