Quick Joseph story

I just had an interesting conversation with Joseph, and I have to share.
Me: (turning off my loud blow dryer that has been on for a few minutes)
Joseph: (walking in the door) Did you just hear a noise?
Me: No, was there one?
Joseph: You didn't hear a noise?
Me: No...
Joseph: I'm going now, mom.
Me: Uhhh, where are you going?
Joseph: I'm just going.
Me: Where are you going?
Joseph: (doing his best I'm-so-innocent voice) Oh, I'm just going into the kitchen to see if there's a mess.

Don't you love how he never quite answers a question? Very Calvin and Hobbes-ish.

(epilogue: As bad as it sounded, I followed him into the kitchen to see if there was a mess, too. It was just a bunch of alphabet magnets that had been thrown on the floor, and he quickly cleaned them up. I'm wondering how this conversation would have gone if the mess was worse.)

Not much time to post, but have to show these!

Our lovely friend, Christy, took baptism pictures of Felicity. Felicity loves being the center of attention and has this "whole head cocked to the side, hip stuck out, fake princess smile" that makes me laugh whenever a camera is pointed at her. But Christy got her to relax and got some adorable shots. Then she worked her phototshop magic and did all the B&W, sepia, color added, washed out, and framed beautiful pictures that I could ever want. She even made some baptism invites that are so...FELICITY! So here's a link to the pictures:

http://cheapshotsllc.blogspot.com/2010/08/spanish-fork-photography-baptism.html

and everybody in this area seriously needs to call Cheapshots! for their family pictures and every other picture taking thing you need (yes, she does weddings), because I need to pay her back in babysitting, so she has to go somewhere. OH, and because, of course, she does a fantastic job.

my new favorite

{This link is having a problem, and I haven't figured it out. It works and then doesn't. Blah! So if it's not working, try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9KMgg7T_sg

Everything I need to know I learned at Girl's Camp

--Scaring girls who were chasing deer is fun, but catching it on video is priceless -- Chasing deer is fun, but tellicommunicating with them isn't really believable. Sorry, Pocahontas -- Being a Responsible Leader does not include building a mattress ramp down the stairs and then sliding down it on sleeping bags. (Ahem) Moving on. -- While mice can in fact open starburst wrappers, bats are not scared of the said starbursts. Or of shoes. Or of toilet paper rolls. (Does anyone know what bats are scared of? That might come in handy for next year) -- Portable confessionals are the wave of the future -- Your cabin isn't pretty enough? Try glitter! All over the deck--Phase Ten really isn't very fun. It REALLY isn't (sorry, bitter here) -- Beehives get blamed for everything, but only do about half of it. The YCL's do the rest (hee-hee) -- The leaders aren't a bunch of old ladies. And Brandee will prove it -- Snipes really aren't attracted to toothpaste (and don't get it in your eyes) -- Back to the starburts, they are super good roasted. If you need help with the wrapper...well, don't tell Tami what you did -- Camping is so much better with a cook. Named Kathy. And her paparazzi errr Bishop Husband. And lots of camping gizmos. Can we all say Sunday Dinner? --

But seriously:

There is nothing like a mountain for showing you God's handiwork -- We can all do it, because He will help us all -- Tearing someone else down only hurts you, but how wonderful it is to build them up! -- Every girl is your sister, treat them like one (i.e. Love Them!) -- Life is hard, but it helps to share and cry with each other -- "For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee" (and, yeah, that's Isaiah 41:13) -- The youth today are amazing -- Live like you believe!

And finally:

Peanut Butter and Jelly is great for your skin. Oh wait, this isn't Girl's Camp, I better go catch a kid...




One more for the girls...
{This one is having problems, too; Try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5G8pnLETaM

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.