Happy Birthday Grandpa

Today is Grandpa-on-the-Island’s Birthday. He is called ‘Grandpa-on-the-Island’ because he is our Grandpa and he lives on an Island! How ‘bout that?! We don’t get the chance to see Grandpa that much, but when the kids are with him, it’s as if no time has passed, they all love him and want to be the one to sit by him. We sure miss you Grandpa, and hope we will get to see you soon. This morning Emeron said, “let’s surprise Grandpa and take him a cake for his birthday!” How I wish we could all hop on a plane, then a car, and then a ferry to come see you (and bring you a cake) today. We look forward to time we can spend with you soon. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



Here are six of your grandkids; Farrell is trying to be taller than his sister so that is why he has that stretched-neck look. But David and Jacob are looking in the camera and smiling so it’s a winner! We love you!

Spring Snow

We have been enjoying beautiful spring weather here. We have stashed the winter coats and the kids have pulled out their shorts. Just last week when we were working in the yard Anna and Emeron ran outside with their swimsuits on ready to run through the sprinklers! Temperatures in the 60s remind us of warmer sunshine-ier days and I guess they just couldn’t resist. But today, we woke to this…..



Aaah, spring! ;) The good news is that the snow was gone by mid-day. Now we get to enjoy the mud.

Dumpster Dive

Another of Geoff’s “finds”! He brought home this little motorcycle, because it’s “fun for the kids.” :) Geoff and Farrell fixed it and now it runs like a (loud, smoking, choking) charm! Jacob calls it his ‘mo-cycle’ and just about everyday asks dad for a ride. Ems and Anna also love rides. Abby and Farrell can handle it themselves and Geoff rides it with his knees on his chest.

Happy Face

Snake

Spring springs slithery snakes in our back yard – something the boys think is pretty cool! The girls, not so much cool – unless it is at a distance. :)

Plant Your Rows Straight and Long

We tilled up the garden and got it ready for planting last Monday. Geoff has taught our kids all about planting and caring for a garden.
We’re startin’ ‘em young!!



We have planted the peas so far. It sure can be hard work – here are our ‘sweet peas’ all tuckered out!
I think they are already dreaming of eating the peas.

Fuselage

Does it look like my kids are playing in a piece of junk? Oh no! Not junk, but an old broken up fuselage from an airplane – yes, the kids have their own real ‘airplane’ in their backyard that will take them anywhere they can imagine….. The possibilities are endless. And, I suppose with all the fun they have with the airplane, I could start to see it as ‘fun for the kids’ instead of a huge ‘eye-sore’. :)

Cousins

Both Geoff and I love the memories we have of playing with our cousins when we were young. We always looked forward to get-togethers. Our children are the same. There is a special bond between cousins and it is fun to see friendships develop…. When we get together, these two are inseparable.
Seth and Ems.

Surprise Egg

We went to our City Egg Hunt at 9:00 am ‘sharp’ last Saturday morning. We always go telling the kids not to worry if they get only one egg because it’s always so packed with kids – that way there is no disappointment. They each ended up with a couple of handfuls and had a fun time in the 6.5 seconds it took to clear the lawn. The City had candy and local business freebee coupons in the eggs. The kids were all enjoying their loot when Abby noticed a sad little girl who didn’t even get one egg. Touched by the spirit of compassion, Abby went up to the girl and gave her one of her prizes from her basket. Then she came back and was looking through her stuff again and found an egg she hadn’t noticed before. The prize inside this one was a gift certificate for $25 to open a savings account at a nearby credit union. (As it turns out there were only 2 of the mentioned gift certificates given at this egg hunt, and our Abs got one of them.) We attribute her good fortune to her genuine kindness to others!!

Lucky Me

We love traditions. One of which is to make the biggest deal out of every holiday we possibly can. St. Patrick’s Day is in the running, for the kids, of one of their favorites (one of the 12 favorites, that is.) We eat green food, we wear green clothes, we seek out those not wearing green and pinch them, we relish in green-ness, we spend green, we go green, we get gold coins, we feel lucky, we enjoy another holiday tradition.



Anna came home from school today and said, “They won’t let us pinch anyone at school anymore. It’s not fair! Other schools get to pinch and we don’t. My teacher had green paper shamrocks for anyone who wasn’t wearing green to wear so they wouldn’t get pinched.” Can you imagine - I’m guessing that St. Patrick’s Day is not on the list of favorites for school teachers….. :) I know that it is not on Geoff’s favorite list either, “do we have any mashed potatoes that aren’t green?” and “no thank you, I’ll pass on the green milk.” It’s all in good fun, right?

Anna Lost a Tooth

Annalyn lost her first tooth this past weekend. She loved having a loose tooth, but when it came to actually loosing the loose tooth, well, the drama came out in full force. But she is okay with it now and it has become a conversation piece with everyone she talks to. “I lotht a tooth!” She sure looks cute with that missing tooth!



Just a little side note: I added pictures of the kids to the left on this blog and the first four kids are easy to take pictures of, but when it came to Jacob and David…. (especially Jakes) I think I took 20 times as many pictures and those were the best that I could come up with. I guess they do show a little of their personality - Jacob loves to eat and David is a juicy drooler! I'll keep working on it. :)

Fiddler on the Laundry Basket

The girls find various ways to keep their violin practice interesting and on occasion, when the weather is nice they may practice outside sending their lovely music throughout the neighborhood. Today, however, Anna found that the laundry basket full of clothes made a perfectly comfortable spot to sit for a moment while practicing her violin. Daddy walked in from work and said, “Hey, it’s the Fiddler on the Laundry Basket!” I wondered if this would become a ‘tradition’ for her. I also wondered if when she finished, she might do a little ‘match-making’ with the socks in that very laundry basket!

Lesson Learned

The other night we went to Temple Square, Joseph Smith Memorial, and the Church Museum. We got an early start and rode Trax for the kids (mainly Jacob, who absolutely loves trains.) We had a great time, the older kids really enjoyed the Joseph Smith movie and the younger kids loved all the hands-on stuff at the I Am A Child of God exhibit in the Museum.

As we walked around there were a number of people who made casual comments like, “Boy, you sure have your hands full!” or “You must be really busy!!” and “Are those all yours?” and my favorite, “what well-behaved children!” ;) And all the while I couldn’t help but agree with them as my heart would near burst with gratitude for every one of the little spirits that keep my ‘hands full’ and keep me ‘really busy’ every day!

At about dinner time however, we proposed a choice to the kids; “would you rather eat at The Garden Restaurant now or go to the museum and then get fast food later?” They ended up choosing the museum first and fast food later so by the time we finally got to our car to go eat it was about 8:30 pm – 3.5 hours after the kids’ usual dinner time. So, let’s see, all of our 'well-behaved' cuties melted as soon as we got to our car at the end of the night and we had.… 1 crying baby + 1 crying toddler + 2 whining four and six year olds + 2 grouchy eight and ten year olds = never give kids an option of their dinner time. Lesson learned. :)