Joseph is almost five!

Joseph turned four on June 24th. And as if he isn't growing up fast enough when he woke up that morning he asked "Is it my birthday?" and when we told him yes, he immediately said "Then I'm almost five!" This little boy of ours...oh, excuse me, not little! Joseph hates being called little, and everything is all about being big or bigger.

It's been an interesting year for him. He keeps us on our toes, always doing something. Like when he cut his own hair. After putting the scissors back, he stayed very quiet, always a bad sign. As if I wouldn't notice this!:

But that's our Joseph, always exploring, figuring out, sillifying things, defying death. Nicki and I figure he's got about 20 guardian angels, and they are kept very busy. We've almost caught glimpses of them every now and again.

But he always makes us laugh, and we know we need more of that every day!

He makes us smile. And we need more of that every day, too!

He reminds us that even messes can be fun if we just laugh with him.

Oh Joseph, we're so glad your here with us to make all of us, even neighbors, people in the grocery store and anyone who catches your mischievous grin, enjoy life a little more. Happy Birthday, silly boy!

Catch-up...and a little confession

Sooooo...June is gone already??? And with all July has in store, I feel like I'm already under the water and swimmin' with no time to take a break, whew! But June was a good month, filled with lots of good things. An update on our crafts: Kind of petered out. Maybe it was the red paint everywhere, but for some reason I haven't gotten to the next craft. We are hopefully going to make bug cookies (in the shape of bugs, not with bugs) today as a cooking craft, but I don't know if that will get us back on track or not.
For the Forth, we went camping up near Huntsville, where my Dad grew up. This year we went to a new camping site (no more Outhouse Flats for us!) There were lots of beautiful trees, wild flowers, butterflies, relatives, and even a moose! Farris and I took the kids up on Thursday after a morning of furiously packing (I hate that! I always forget something. We did manage to get all four kids, so that's good) we went to the North Park Campground, up above Eden and Liberty. It's a huge campground with enough trees that you can't see the other campers. AND it has flushing toilets so it doesn't smell yucky. We didn't even see Farris' brothers family, we found out on Sunday they were up there, too and had been trying to get a hold of us to see where we were. Oops. Do we need a cell phone? On Friday we hiked up to a waterfall. Caleb has decided he wants to be a mountaineer. So at least we've gotten him out of Antarctica (he's wanted to be a scientist in Antarctica for about 6 months. For a little kid, that's really sticking to it). After a quick lunch and changing campsites we waited for our family to get there. We were pretty patient, except for Felicity who could not wait another minute for Rylee, Taylor and Lindsey! By the middle of Saturday we had my whole family and Aunt Ellen's whole family. We used to be able to fit the two family's into mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving, but that's not happening anymore (I also remember my cousin Amy and I being able to fit onto the bench seat on the balcony together. That's not happening any more, either.) . It was a little crazy with kids all over the place, we had about 60 people and three dogs. Saturday was Huntsville's Independence Day celebration, so we had breakfast at the park, and then watched the parade with Dad's sister DaNece and some of her family. The kids got lots of candy and popsicles and otter pops. Very successful morning. After lunch at the campsite we all relaxed and talked like only families can and some of us hiked back up to the waterfall. Joseph led our group. Not because we wanted him to, but because he was faster than the rest of us. "Come on, Mom! There's no time to lose!" I mostly took up the rear and let my younger and in much better shape nephews chase him. Thanks boys! After a yummy dinner (my younger brother has graduated from only cooking in the microwave to grilling pork loins. Wow.), Farris and I took the kids to Nicki's apartment to get cleaned up and get some sleep before going to the blessing of little baby Charley the next morning. It's beautiful to watch the priesthood in Farris' family surround a little baby. Happy day! And if we think about the little party/luncheon after church we had, Charley's wedding is going to be a party. After chatting for awhile we finally headed back home for SLEEP! Good weekend.
Oh, and as for confessions...You know how I've been blaming Joseph for breaking the computer speakers? Well, we found out that the real problem wasn't the speakers (yes, he had shoved about ten of those marble thingies into the hole in the front of the speaker, so it rattled), but that someone had gone into the start menu, gone into the speaker menu, and turned the main volume down so low we couldn't hear it. Oh. The speakers may have been broke anyway (especially after I extracted the marbles)but now they're gone in the trash so we don't know. It could have been Joseph turning the volume down because he does like to push lots of buttons on the computer. I just can't figure out how he navigated through all those menus and managed to click on the one spot that would do all that. Crazy kids. So let that be a lesson to you all. Don't just assume that marbles rolling around in electrical equipment will break them. Check other ways kids can undo things. 'Cause they're smarter than you think, and maybe smarter than we are.

While I'm on here...

I'm going to take a minute and catch up on other things now, too. I made a couple goals for the summer. Hah. So the first one was that we'd be up, fed, dressed (and showered), teeth and hair brushed, and ready to go by 10:00 every morning. Hah. I think we've done it once, and that was just 'cause we were going to a hot air balloon festival (very fun, by the way). And actually, we didn't even do it then, I had to eat breakfast on the way and none of the boys hair was combed. But they're boys, it's ok. So getting over that completely naive goal, and on to the next one. Felicity and Caleb wanted to be in an art class this summer, but we decided swim lessons was enough of an official activity, so I decided to do an art project with the kids each week. And we've actually done it! The first week we made craft aprons for them (so that I wouldn't freak out too much...hah. that flew out the window when Joseph finger painted his legs.) I wanted it to be as easy and cheap as possible, but I wanted them to have sleeves and to tie in the back so we wouldn't have to pull them over the kids heads, thus distributing paint, chalk, etc. into their hair. So I took an old t-shirt of Farris', one for each of them, slit up the back and cut off two strips to use for ties. I folded up the bottom about six inches to make simple pockets. I did hem along the back where I cut, but since it's an old t-shirt, it's not going to fray so you really don't need to do that. After they were all ready I had the kids decorate them with some fabric paint I had. First I spread out newspaper, which was good, now we only have a small spot of green on one of the chairs and a very small spot of purple on the table. Don't tell Farris, he worked really hard refinishing the table. And it's really not that noticeable. The next week we made yarn octopuses: http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/yarn-octopus-674047/
(does anyone know the plural to Octopus? Honestly, I feel really stupid when I say octopuses, it just doesn't sound right) for the library. They are decorating the children's section with underwater creatures and each family can bring something. We used cotton balls for the heads instead of the tennis balls.
We've also made chalk. http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/craftsupplies/ht/SidewalkChalk.htm
(We found a couple web sites that used the regular liquid tempera paints, and since Robert's was out of the powered kind, we used the liquid). Julie told us about it last summer, and I thought "how fun is that!" So I was all gung ho about it. One word of warning: we made our first batch too runny and the toilet paper tubes dissolved and left a nice little pile of chalk stuck to the sidewalk. The next batch wasn't runny at all and we had to stuff it into the tubes, which was harder than pouring it in and left big holes through the chalk. I think next time we'll try paper/Styrofoam cups, as they will not dissolve. The tubes were also hard to clean off the dry chalk. So that was a little more than one word of warning, and here's more: Watch all the kids all the time. Hah. While I was helping Felicity pour hers, Joseph was adding lots of paint to his. Then while I was helping Caleb, Joseph tried to pour his into his tube by himself and was unsuccessful (!!!). Then when I was trying to figure out why our tubes were dissolving, he put a bunch more paint into his bowl. Then when I was mixing in the plaster of Paris so we could use his paint that he put in his bowl illegally, he rubbed paint all over his hands and arms so he could paint his legs with his fingers. Matchy, matchy. While this was going on, Seth was dumping out Felicity's not dry chalk all over the sidewalk and Caleb's back (At this point I realized that the aprons didn't cover enough of their bodies). So, as you can see, to successfully do this project, it needs to be when half the children are asleep or tied up or you need a couple more adults. Or just older kids. Like 18 year olds (no, I'm not bitter). Oh, and good news, the chalk mixture does wash out of clothes. And hats. And shoes. And the sidewalk.
We're having fun (besides a few tense moments) doing these projects but I'm always on the lookout for other projects. Any ideas? For you guys, I did find this blog that is showing a child's craft every day during June:
http://www.skiptomylou.org/craft-camp/

Happy Summer!

PS Our grass is growing! The Owl scared away the silly birds, and Farris actually mowed it on Saturday! I think this is the point were Farris realized that he now had twice as much lawn to mow. Oops. Maybe we'll dig up the front and just have a field of flowers....hmmm, lets see what next summer brings.

Caleb's birthday! (just a little, er, a lot late)

I haven't taken the time to catch up on my blog for awhile. The only excuse I have is that Summer Is Crazy!!! But more on that later. Right now I need to catch up on our cute oldest boy, Caleb.
He turned six on May 29th. And I can't quite believe it, even as I was typing this I started to type Five instead of Six. When did this happen? This last year has been a big change for Caleb. He had his first day of school, and all the things that it brings throughout the year: class trips, class parties, learning to read (and it's one of the most exciting things to listen to them stumble through those first books. OK, maybe I'm a dork, but it makes tears well up when I hear it), meeting so many new friends, finding the joys of recess, and then kindergarten graduation with all the slide shows (ok, another thought, why do they always play the song "Let Them Be Little" during the slide show?? Don't they know that all the moms are going to be sobbing??? Honestly.) and fun songs (we've been singing "Going to the Zoo," and "Bazooka Bubble gum" constantly now) and then the cute diploma's they get, with an individual award for each kid. Caleb got the Sweetest Smile award, which I have to brag is totally true. He really can light up a room with it.

It was actually the same award Felicity got in kindergarten, but we're wondering what kind of award Joseph is going to get... After his birthday last year he learned how to ride his bike without training wheels and he zips around on Rock-it so fast it makes me a little (a lot) nervous. He seems to be growing taller every minute and I think it's a minor miracle that Felicity is still the taller of the two. But only by about an inch, he may have caught up with her by his next birthday. He loves being with friends, drawing, building things (he got K-nex for this birthday and was enthralled), digging in the dirt (and we won't talk about that one. grumble, grumble), riding his bike, and playing pretend. He's on the top of his new bunk bed and I think he enjoys that.

We love you, you silly, goofy, fun, sweet, lovable, not-so-little-anymore guy.

Almost done with school and related spring things

I was trying to remember what we've been up to in the last three weeks (whoops, I really lapsed this time). So I looked at our calendar and looked through the pictures on the camera to help me remember. Like my sister-in-law just said, "the days kind of blend together, don't they?" The things that didn't show up on the calendar were important, too, SO this is going to be a long post. Sorry, but this is kind of my journal, too. Here's a short list: Caleb's class end of the year stuff (Zoo trip, kindergarten store, walk to the park, and graduation), also Caleb's birthday party, lots of Caleb things this month. We went to the Train museum and Desi's birthday dinner. Seth learning new words (no, it isn't swear words!) Joseph being Joseph as only he can, and Felicity really enjoying school spirit week. Now for more details. Unless you don't want to hear them, then just go merrily on your way and I'll do a shorter post next time!
The flu or something like it made it's very slow way through our family, Seth was the only one who didn't get it. It wasn't fun, but it's done now, hurrah, and it could have been much worse. We're ready for warm weather and less sickness now, please.
Caleb's last couple weeks of school were very busy, he got to eat school lunch for the first time, very exciting for those kindergartners. The next big thing was the Zoo Trip. Oh, those kids were so excited. For weeks. Bouncing, jumping, hollering excited. His teacher, looking at the chaos in her room a couple days before Z-time, said that she was going to start telling the kids about it only the day before they went. I got to go this year, and it was fun, but...a little exhausting, crazy, lots of laughs and a few heart races. The moms (and a couple dads) carpooled together so we didn't have to, errrr, get to listen to them singing the zoo song fifty times. We had a nice relaxing drive before being thrown to the lions. Just kidding, the first animal we saw was the tiger. Me and another mom were in charge of ten kids. Yup, no typo. Two of the kids were the naturally hyper ones, two were the naturally wandering/not really paying attention kind, and the other six were somewhere in the middle. We were so worried about one of the hyper ones (he was the one I saw standing on his head in the classroom earlier in the year) that we were always checking on him. Unfortunately, that left less time for one of the Wandering Ones, and we lost her. Twice. But we found her both times. Her mom was watching Seth and Joseph back home so I had to bring her back. Overall, I love the zoo. But I saw a lot less of the animals than usual. And I counted to ten a lot (not to control my temper, just numbering the kids) more than usual.
The day after the zoo trip we got our back lawn hydroseeded, I'm so very excited, glad, relieved. The boys thought the truck was really cool, and were impressed that Grandpa Newey does the same thing. It's been going good, we're starting to see tiny little blades poking up now. But we've been having these beautiful (small sparrow like, but with blue heads. Anybody know what they are?) horrible little birds eating the seeds! I remembered how the garden store I worked at sold fake owls to scare birds away from gardens and fruit trees, so we decided to give it a shot. Farris rigged one up to hang right over the yard from a string between the porch and the fence (sorry, Grunanders, if the fence falls over. It's kind of old and falling apart anyway). We'll be able to move it every few days to keep the birds confused. It has worked so far, I'm hoping they hadn't eaten most of it before Mr. Owl came.
Later that day we went to the train museum in Ogden with my sister Nicki. It was actually pretty cool and there was a lot for the kids to do. Lots of trains to climb all over. The kids liked exploring and we got lots of fun pictures. Then we went to Desi's birthday party for yummy food and watching Joseph find out that there was still water in the garden hose! He got more than a couple people wet that night.
On the 18th, Caleb had his Kindergarten store. All the Kindergartners make 10 simple crafts and bring fifty pennies. Then they buy/sell everything for five cents each, so they come home with fifty new pennies and ten different crafts from the other kids. It's lots of fun. Caleb decided to make super hero masks. We bought different colored felt and cut out the shapes then hot glued a little elastic around the back. He came home excited with magnets, book marks, fuzzy pets and painted rocks, very proud of his new toys. A couple days later it was time for the annual Kindergarten Walk to the Park. Me and another mom decided to walk with them, I laughed half the time, five and six year olds are hilarious. At the park we played, eat ice cream, played, ate granola bars and played some more. When we got back to the school and the kids saw their parents waiting for them, one gasped and said "It's time to go home? But we didn't get to go to recess!" Which is, of course, the most important part of the day.
The next day was graduation. They put on a cute little program with singing and book reading and a slide show and each kid gets an award. Caleb was the Sweetest Smile, of course! It's beginning to be a family tradition, Felicity got that one, too. I wonder if Joseph will get it, too, or if he'll get something else...
Later that day was Farris' cousins wedding reception. This had to be the most different (in a good way) and funnest reception I've ever been to. They had a ice cream bar instead of the traditional mints and nuts (blah) and when it was time for the dancing at the end (they did have a really sweet first dance first) they brought out the Wii on a huge screen and we had a dance contest. Seriously funny.
Yesterday was Caleb's birthday party. He finally settled on a Super Why birthday party (it's a show on PBS, Super Why is a super hero who saves the day by reading and changing the stories), and as much as I tried to get him to change it, that's what he wanted. So we had to think up letter games and we made Why Writers (it's sort of like a super hero wand that he uses to change the words). Caleb had so much fun and there was lots of giggling going on.
That's the big things that happened the last little while, if you combine this with all our every day things like: Seth saying so many more words and learning so many new things. Oh, like where the hot chocolate mix is stored and how to wait until mom has left the room before scooping copious amounts into his mouth and everywhere else. He also is learning how to tease, which isn't that great. Felicity got to dress up for school spirit week, there was hippy day (we don't have anything in the house that is tie dyed...hmmm), clash day, crazy hair day (we pointed her hair straight up on her head with a pencil) and Disney day. It makes me laugh to see all the things kids come up with. Farris' ankle is healing but he sometimes pushes a little too hard and then it gets sore again. But he hasn't attempted basketball or running yet, much to the dismay of the guys he plays ball with. I'm getting ready for girls camp, for which I am grateful that I'm not in charge! We've also been walking as much as we can for a challenge through BYU, we have to walk at least 8000 steps a day, but we're trying to get more than anyone else on our team (hence the pushing Farris does). Add in all the normal things (cooking, cleaning, kissing owies, settling tantrums and fights, etc) and it's been a little busy around here. But we're grateful for busy full lives, we have many blessings keeping us busy!

Cheater blog post

I know I'm behind, but this week I'm just going to copy an email I'm sending to my brother's family. So sorry to my family who's getting a repeat.

Hi! Sorry I didn't write last week, I guess I could blame it on being exhausted from getting our yard ready to plant. We spent Saturday shoveling, hauling, smoothing, and a couple parties too. Plus, Nicki babysat for us while we went to the adult meeting for stake conference. I like the adult meeting because I never have to tell Farris to be reverent and he never asks for snacks or crayons. He doesn't throw fits either, I think I married the right man. Saturday morning I went yard saleing with Seth (he found a toy lawn mower and was happy) When I got back there was a huge pile of topsoil in our driveway and the boys were bubbling over with happiness. How much fun is a big dump truck coming to our house and leaving a gigantic pile of dirt to play in? They were very, very dirty the rest of the day. Felicity went to a birthday party and we started hauling the dirt to the back yard. The kids even helped filling their wagons and dumping it sort of where it was supposed to go. When Felicity got back from her party we enlisted her help too, and she was SO TIRED by the end of the day. WHY DID I HAVE TO WORK SO HARD??? Seth was a happy camper, he looked like he had a black eye with so much dirt on his face and he had dirt from his head to his diaper. And then some. After thinking we were going to get sod, then seed, then sod again, we've finally decided on hydroseed, which we'll hopefully get in this week. If it stops snowing anyway. The other big thing that's been going on happened on Wednesday. Farris plays basketball every Wednesday night from 9:00 to about 11:00 or 12:00. This time he came back about 10:00, limping. He knew it was pretty bad so on Thursday we took him into a foot doctor. He did a very bad ankle sprain, cracked one of his heel bones (it's a bone that is mostly cartilage, though, so he doesn't need a cast) and it's got some ugly bruises. He's got a huge boot to wear around for the next 6-8 weeks. He calls it his "bum kicker" and the kids run giggling away from him all the time. It's been hard to keep them from climbing up his leg, they're so used to their personal jungle gum. On Saturday he was going to take it easy, and then I woke up sick, sick, sick. I'm feeling better now after sleeping all day yesterday. So we didn't do much yesterday. Seth was actually in his pajamas all day long and he didn't mind a bit. Felicity had another busy day yesterday, her best friend Emmalee was baptized and then another friend had a birthday party at a Karate clinic. She thought it was great and is now trying to decide between karate and dance. I have to admit, I'm pulling for dance. I don't think I want to see Felicity break a board with her hand. Or head. For one thing I can see her crying after or even trying to break something else, such as a brothers head. She has been reading like crazy, it's getting hard to keep up with her. I'm afraid this summer we'll have to go to the library twice a week. Caleb is so excited that Kindergarten is almost done, he only has a few more weeks. He'll graduate on the 21st. Felicity will have one more week of school and then summer, yea!

So that's our two weeks in a nutshell. I'm planning on working at getting my camera to upload onto the computer again, maybe I"ll be able to post pictures of our freshly hydroseeded lawn this week! Or maybe just some more spring snowstorms =(

funny/cool/scary/SPRING!

Just a couple things that have happened lately that, as a mom, I thought were pretty funny/cool/scary:
Yesterday morning when I got up I walked into the boys' room, and there was Joseph laying on the bed. He smiles and the first thing he says to me is:"I'm not going to drive a car when I'm a kid." I had two thoughts: "That must have been some dream." and "That's one worry to cross off the list."

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Felicity has been mulling over my motherish need to know where she is at all times. Then her little thinking cap came up with a solution. I hope I can describe it to you so you can understand. First she wrote out a list of possible places and hung it on her bedroom door. It says:

Felicity is in here.

Felicity is at Idaho. (in case she got there without us knowing?)

Felicity is at church.

Felicity is at school.

Felicity is outside.

Felicity is in the house.

Felicity is at her friend's house.

Felicity is with Christy and Kendrick. (there's some love, Christy =)

Then next to it she made a little contraption. She took an old tin pencil case and stuck in the wider half of a plastic Easter egg, so the rounded top was sticking out. She pinched the edges of the pencil case in a little so it grips the egg to keep it from falling out, but it can still move up and down along the length of the case. On top of the egg she drew an arrow, pointing to her list. After she taped the case onto her door, she can move the egg inside the case so it points to where ever she is at that moment. How's that for 2nd grade ingenuity? And the list of all her possibilities makes me laugh.

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Seth is loving the warm weather. He cries whenever we bring him in the house. And, the little guy has figured out how to get out the door and down the steps all by himself. From there it's a short jaunt into the street. I might not make it out of his first two years without any gray hairs. Last night I gave him a bath, dressed him in his pjs. First he made it outside and into the street without us knowing. Then I had Caleb and Joseph in the bathtub while I was running about getting things ready for bed. I kept the bathroom in hearing distance, thankfully, because I heard Caleb laughing and saying "No Seth!" I started for the door, Seth likes to reach into the tub and splash and I didn't want to have to change his pajamas. Then I heard a splash and ran in. He was headfirst in the water. My heart about stopped, but I got him out and he was soaked but fine. Scared us silly. Yup, here come the gray hairs.

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We put together a bunkbed set for Caleb and Joseph on Saturday. I'm a little nervous...but we layed down some ground rules. I'll probably have to add some (like no throwing your brother off the top), but for now they're doing fine. Caleb is so excited about his birthday. It's not until the end of May, but he's been trying to decide what kind of party/cake he wants. He's stuck with an outer space theme the last few days, that might be what it ends up being. Any ideas?

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It's finally spring time and it's been gorgeous outside the last few days. I've heard some people saying they have their gardens all planted, but I'm not that brave yet, I've lived in Utah long enough to see those snowstorms come after two weeks of warm weather! But my tulips are out, trees are blossoming, and we're taking steps to plant grass in the backyard. Hallelujah, I've been waiting seven years for a grassy backyard. We'll have a big party when it's all in. But I might not let anyone step on it for awhile. Just look. =) Happy spring everyone!