Michael

I have a photographer in the making in my house. This little guy has sneaked up to my bedroom more than once in the past month, quietly taken my camera, and documented the things he finds of great importance...most often my messy house! Here he is getting a self-portrait to capture his one-of-a-kind sense of style! Don't you just love the look of satisfaction on his face?!

I Call My Sugar Candy...

My sis-in-law, Jen, mother of 4 (soon to be five...like any minute!) is a kick-butt homeschooler. She often takes her kids on field trips to cool places and even gets a discount because they count as a school group. Since I HATE cleaning my house and LOVE getting out with the boys, I am ALWAYS a willing tag-a-long on such adventures. So when she mentioned a Sweets Candy Factory tour, I was all about it.

On the appionted morning the boys acted like it was Christmas. I have never seen them get ready so fast or be so kind to each other. We got there in record speed. Of course I was prodded the whole way, "Mommy, go faster...Are we almost there?... Do you think they will still have candy when we get there?"


If you ask me, the factory is pretty brave to let masses of kids walk through their very sterile building, passing out gooey melty samples along the way. As we started the tour, they handed everyone a hair net (which the boys thought was extra cool) and told us very sternly (from experience I'm sure) that if anyone crossed the forbidden yellow line and touched the candy, that whole tray would have to go in the trash. I have to admit, that was a little intimidating. The only thing separating my candy loving children from thousands of dollars of chocolate was a painted yellow line and a threat? I could picture Zach touching a tray just to see if they really would throw the whole thing out! To made it worse our tour guide was a boy barely out of high school who didn't seem too excited to be dragging 10 pairs of grubby little hands around for an hour.

Thankfully, I underestimated their willing obedience to a teenager with a microphone and we made it through the tour without any drama. I had promised the boys that they could each bring a dollar of allowance to buy a treat at the end of the tour. Do you know how much candy $1 can buy at the factory?! (No cameras allowed on the tour so this is the best you get...)

They ate and ate and ate... (I envisioned candy corn puke all over my carpets) and they ate some more. Their tummies hurt too much for dinner, but nobody threw up, I call that a good day!

August Rush

August was a crazy month full of all kinds of fun and family. Zach turned 4, the New Hampshire crew came for a visit, Michael started Kindergarden, and more. I have a bunch of posts to catch up on, so hopefully in the next week I can get them all up. Here is the first installment...

4 Years Old

A birthday is a huge deal for a little boy who feels like everyday should be celebrated with a party! Weeks before the big day, Zach wanted to begin the countdown. A package came 2 days early from Grandma Goostrey, and it was all he could do to keep his little fingers away for 2 WHOLE days. Couldn't he just tear open a corner and peek? What about giving them a good shake? With a very serious face he told me they smelled very important!

Finally August 7th arrived. As soon as the sun peeked out Zack came tearing down the stairs. "Where is my cake? Where are all the presents? When is the party?...." He didn't even pause long enough for an answer before bounding over to the table and insisting that his "Birthday breakfast HAS to be oatmeal!" That night the cousins came over and we played superhero games and opened presents.

Bad guys beware! I wouldn't want to run into this crowd in a dark alley!

Labor Day in pictures...Enjoy!

THE END.

The Prophet's Hippo

Michael recieved a new (well, used, really) set of scriptures from a friend of ours, Bro. Northey. He is such a sweet man, I wish I had a picture. Bro. Northey has become almost a fill in grandpa to our boys and when He got a large print set (because he said he was getting too old and blind for the regular size one) he passed his old ones down to Michael.

Michael spent the whole afternoon today flipping through the pages. He came to me after an hour or so and said, wide-eyed, "Mom, did you know the prophets had hippos?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. You never know what will come out of that kid's mouth!

"Well, they lived in Hippos." I was only getting more confused.

"LOOK," he said, shoving the map section of his heavy quad in my face..."Hippos."

I squinted down, and sure enough...there are hippos in the Bible...shows how biblically uneducated I am!

Get comfy...

Sit back and kick up your feet 'cause this one's gonna be a long one.

We finally took the boys camping last weekend. I was a little skeptical that it would actually happen after our failed attempt last August.

flashback...
We had loaded up the van with ALL the gear (it takes a lot more stuff than one might think to rough it with toddlers!) and headed for the hills, only to find after a couple hours of driving on trecherous roads, that every camping site in the state of Utah was occupied with people who were going to have a better weekend than us! It was hard to try to explain to 2 little boys, covered in bug spray and tightly gripping thier Lightning Mcqueen fishing poles, that the trip was a no-go (tears were involved...it wasn't pretty). But this time, dispite the fact that we didn't think ahead enough to reserve a spot, we found one. The boys were practically shaking with anticipation... guess who was the most excited... While Drew and I set up camp the boys wrestled and did what boys do best...got really dirty.

Once we were settled and our bellies were filled with bagels we set out on a nature walk. All through the trees were hidden these nasty little weeds...

I called the crew close and showed them the dangerous little needles. Daniel walked on completely oblivious, Michael tip-toed around each plant like it was an explosive, and Zach predictably had to touch every spike to make sure it was sharp! "Ouch, Mommy, that one REALLY hurt!" I heard that line like 20 times on our walk!

They were nice enough to pose for me a couple of times before we made it back to camp.

I won't lie, I'm not a very skilled outdoorsman. I grew up camping with my family, and there were plenty of Girl's camp experiences, but unfortunately, I gleened very little information out of all of that. We can all thank YouTube that I was able to start a fire that evening! Smores were a big hit (try them with Reeses Peanutbutter Cups, YUM!)

A couple of things we learned out in the "wilderness"

Boys will use the scary outhouse-style bathroom over and over if it means they can wash thier hands here:

Don't bring shoes with laces for boys who don't yet know how to tie them! Poor Drew, he was on his knees all day doing this:

Boys are like moths when it comes to fire.

Again, We can thank cyber-space for this next one... Muffins in the fire. We scooped all the guts out of 6 oranges, filled them full of muffin mix, wrapped them in tin-foil, "baked" for 10-15 min...

and we had orange-blueberry muffins. They were actually really good! It looks like it didn't cook all the way, but that is because the tin-foil pulled the top off all our muffins. Next time I will bring along some cooking spray.

Daniel spent most of his time digging in the dirt...notice the hands!

Luckily we camped near a creek, so we could wash some of the grime off. We didn't pack swimming suits, but a quick run to the nearest WalMart supplied us with some oversized clearance shorts...hee hee...

sidenote...did you see the cup in Zach's hand...what could be in there? Water? hot chocolate?

He was in heaven with his nose to the ground all weekend.

Anyway, back to the creek...

Everyone had a good time. We came home tired, sunburned, and happy!