My 'All or Nothing' man!

We are on vacation right now in Colorado(more to come on that..), but I just had to post this (mostly for me so I won't forget the story)! :)
The kids and I have been out here for 9 days already, and Brian got here 2 days ago. While we were gone and he was home alone last week, he decided to "save some money" by shutting off the electricity in the house. He kept the circuit breaker on for the fridge, but everything else was shut off. He said that Sat. morning while he was packing he finally gave in and turned on the AC because he was so hot! Well, we had talked, and he was so excited to shut it all off for the next two weeks while he joins us out here, except for the fridge and sump pump of course. So, on Sat. night when I picked him up we were talking about it, and he realized that he only left the electricity on for the fridge, not the sump pump! So, I have been teasing him , that in his hast to "save some money" on electricity, we will spend it on the flood damage in the basement when we get back! Luckily, my sister (who has been here in Colorado with us) flies back to Maryland today to check the basement for us, and turn the electricity back on! I just hope there hasn't been any big rains out there in the past 2 days! Crazy Brian-it's always ALL or Nothing with him!

First week of Summer

This past week has been our official 'First week of summer", as it was the first week the kids were out of school! It has been a week, with lots of outside fun! I mentioned in my last post about the turtle the kids found in the backyard. Well, we kept the poor thing for the day, and then walked him over the the lake when Brian got home to release him. We are less than a block from the lake, but he had to cross a major road to get to our place, and I am amazed that he did it. Well, the next day, the kids found this little frog out back, who had the pleasure of being their pet for the day:
There is some open space right behind our property that has wild raspberry and blackberry bushes growing, and we did some berry picking last night. The kids each had a bowl with them to gather them up in, but they went in their mouths so quickly, that I'm not sure why we brought the bowls! Here's what Ronan looked like after the berry picking:
We enjoyed going to the pool this week, playing with friends, a visit to the Temple Visitor Center, and some good old backyard fun with the hose! We also signed up for the Summer Reading Program at the library, and the kids have been so motivated, that they have almost completed the whole thing in the first week! Hayden of course is done, being the crazy reader that he is! He's read something like 4-400 page novels, and a dozen 100 page chapter books in less than a week! Brian couldn't believe that he was actually reading the WHOLE novel in a day, and was quizzing him on them, but he really was!

Ashlyn discovered a new game today! The toilet paper game! It's so much fun!

You'll notice the paint coming off the wall by her hand thanks to my bored boys while sitting on the pot! Fun times!

So, it's been a fun week, and today we are packing for our trip to Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska-the kids and I leave tomorrow, Brian will follow in a week.

A new backyard pet!

This afternoon the kids were playing in the backyard, and a turtle came strutting across the grass. They were SO excited! We love all the wildlife that comes into our own backyard!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the coolest dad around! How do we know he's the coolest dad you might say? Well, according to the kids it's because he's so fast that he can catch a fly by holding down it's leg! Here's one of the two he caught yesterday:
Morgan has apparently inherited his fly catching skills, and can catch them in her hand, and then let them go outside (this saves them from mom and the fly swatter).
Of course there are soooo many other reasons for why we love are dad in this house. One of them is that we all went out to breakfast yesterday morning to celebrate Father's day (a day early) in our pajama's! The kids thought it was so cool to do this, and so did Brian. I have to admit that I was the party pooper, and I didn't have PJ's I felt comfortable in public in. But it was a fun time! This morning the kids went to town with paper hearts and paintings for daddy! Our bedroom wall is covered in their wonderful art!
Happy Father's day daddy!!!

School's Out!!!!

Today was the kids last day of school!!!! Everyone is so excited for summer. Although Hayden was lamenting on the way home that school was out, and how he's going to miss it and all! The school does a great "Farewell" on the last day of the year. They have all the buses lines up, and the 'car rider' kids lined up, then the entire school staff comes out to the grass in the middle of the 'circle' and they blow bubbles and wave as the buses honk their horns and pull away. Then the car rider kids get in, and they wave and blow bubbles at us as we drive past as well-the kids LOVE it! It's such a fun tradition!
This is Morgan and her teacher Mrs. Bae

Below is Morgan during the Kindergarten graduation: The first grade did a great celebration performance, but my camera wasn't working! I was so mad! When I got home I realized that it was just that the memory card had some lint on it, and I blew it off, and it worked! AHH-wish I would of done that at the school! Oh well, the kids did a very good job, even through the muggy heat. The air conditioning wasn't on, and it was hotter than hot! Ashlyn's hair was wet and curly due to her own sweat! Definitely a hot night!

Well, this morning I decided to take Duncan and Ashlyn to the petting zoo while the kids had their last day of school. It was fun, we brought a picnic, and just stayed there until we picked the kids up at 12:20pm.

Duncan was so happy to feed this little goat, all the bigger ones kept pushing him aside, and Duncan felt to bad for him.

This photo here was taken inside the 'petting pen', where you can go in with the baby goats, ducks, chickens, ect. and walk around with them and pet them. I wish I had someone else with me to get a photo of Ashlyn with the goats, because she loved them! I really tried to snap a shot, but it was too difficult to hold her up to the goat, and take a photo of them so close, with the goat trying to eat the strap on my camera! Ashlyn loved to pet them, and even grabbed the poor guys little horns a few times! She was doing the whole convulsive 'I'm so excited" kicking thing-it was great!

BLACKOUT!

I feel so bad for what happened with my babysitter last night! We had gone to the adult session of Stake Conference at church, and then out for pie with some friends afterwards, which we usually do. So, after talking and such, we didn't get home until around 10:15pm. And as we are driving into the neighborhood I'm noticing how DARK it is! Well, apparently there had been a lightening storm while we were in the conference, and our neighborhood lost power at about 8:00pm. And since the only phones I have are cordless, the sitter couldn't call to let us know! When we came home the kids were all up and wound up due to being jittery at every sound. I felt SO bad that here I had left her in an abandoned state with no way to get a hold of us! Tomorrow I am going to buy a land line phone so that this won't happen again! I talked with the sitter's mom at church today, and she said "It was good for her, now she knows she can handle things even in the dark." I still feel so bad about it!

Time with Daddy

Today was our stake's "All day in the temple", and Brian took off work so I could go during the day, and then he went at night. Ashlyn will go down for a nap without being nursed, but NOT for the night! So, while I was at the temple, and the three older kids were at school, Brian took Duncan and Ashlyn to the National Zoo in D.C. He said it was a little disappointing, as there weren't many animals out, but the kids still had fun on their special trip with dad.
Duncan and the Komodo (sp?) Dragon
Ashlyn is just happy to be anywhere!
Duncan found a great way to cool off on the hot day at the zoo!
So what do you get when you send your indecisive husband to the store for a carton of ice cream?

Six cartons of ice cream! Apparently he couldn't decide what the kids would like best, and since they were on sale for $1.88 each, he figured he'd get the lot! The kids thought this was great! Never have they had such choices when mom gets ice cream!

While Brian was at the temple tonight, I took the kids to their school carnival! Not sure that was such a smart idea to do alone, but we all came home alive! It was SO crowed, never have I seen so many people at a school event! I had told the kids we would only stay an hour, but after 45 min. we had only bounced in the bouncy castle, and bought cotton candy, because the lines were so long! Morgan waited in line for 45 minutes to get this flower painted on her face!
I was so impressed with how patient she was. I kept telling her I would paint something on her face for her at home, and she could go do something else, but she wanted her art teacher to do it! I have to admit there were times when I didn't know where all of my children were, and was just praying that they would find me, which they did. Ronan's highlight was watching his teacher get soaked in the water tank. It is a fun way to end the year!

What would you do with more sleep?

Apparently when given more sleep, I paint! This past week Ashlyn has been sleeping through the night (5 days thus far), and it has been great! She was a wonderful sleeper as a newborn, then got ear infections, teething, and started getting up in the night. Well, I got in the habit of nursing her back to sleep, and she got in the habit of being nursed back to sleep, and it was a vicious cycle. Finally I decided we WERE going to break the habit! So, last Friday night I had Morgan sleep in with the boys (so that Ashlyn's crying wouldn't wake her up-I was anticipating that there would be some crying). She did wake up 3 times that night, and cried a bit, but not as bad as I had thought. The first 2 times she fussed for a few minutes, then went back to sleep, and the third time Brian got up to sooth her. She got REAL mad when she saw HIM come in the room and not me! But, he calmed her down, and she was back asleep. And that was it! From then on she has slept! Yay!!!! Why didn't we do this sooner?! Anyway, with my new found energy, I decided to switch rooms around, and PAINT! Here's what I've done:
This is the old playroom in the basement.
Now it is our new Rec Room. Brian loves this! He and I have gone down to play pool together after the kids have gone to bed-lots of fun!

For the past year Hayden has had his own room (below). But, had developed an 'attitude' about it. Like "NO one is allowed in MY room" and such. Well, he and Ronan were having a particularly hard time getting along the other day, and I said maybe they needed to share a room again and learn how to get along! They yelled out "YES! We miss being together! Can we switch back?" That wasn't the response I thought I would get, but I was happy none the less. So, Hayden moved back in with Ronan, and now Duncan has his own room again.

This is the first time EVER I have let one of the kids have a 'character' bed set. I've just never like them, but Duncan REALLY wanted it, and was needing some incentive to move back into the room, so there you have it! This is the room before:

And after I painted:

I think I want to re-paint the living room, but will wait until the fall. The humidity is here, and I'm not a fan of painting in such heat. So, I will put the rest of my painting projects on hold until the fall!

The luckiest house on the block!

A while ago I showed my kids a photo on my friend Jeri's blog of a four leaf clover her son had found one morning. They thought it was SO COOL that he had actually found a four leaf clover, and have been keeping their eyes out for one ever since. Well, in the past 2 days Hayden and Ronan found 6 in our yard! They declared that we must have the luckiest house on the block! And Hayden is sure that he will get A's on all end of year exams because of this! Here is there findings: