{Our Style Fishing}

So sometimes fishing with poles just isn't so fun for little boys. I mean you have to have patience and skill. Skill not to tangle your lines together or get them caught in a tree or on a bush or a rock.

So K has decided a net is the way to go.

Saturday morning K, E and C went out to another area to fish. There were four little ponds with the wild horses come close to the water and the ponds were full of fish. So the boys got on their swimsuits, swim shirts and swim shows. They got thier nets and chased the fish. K was successful and got one fish and 5 rocks. E is still hoping for his first catch next fishing trip.

{Happ Day to C}

When K was little instead of saying "happy birthday" he would say "Happy Day" and since then that's what I have always remembered and used.

So C's big day was an ordinary work day for him with a birthday dinner (his choice), birthday presents, and streamers to decorate the house.

We love him and without him I woudl be lost!
I love you forever!!

{Fishing}

As the weather warms up C and the boys begin making plans for outdoor adventures. They always talk about camping but as one of them doesn't enjoy it as much as the other two they try out smaller outdoor activities first.

So this Saturday was a fishing trip that turned into a horseshoe playing teip.

They went to the local park to fish and had a great morning. No fish caught but lots of horseshoe playing.

{Legos}

So one of the treasures in our home is the buckets and buckets of Legos we have. We have C's childhood legos that his mom saved for him that started off the collection. Then our boys love legos and have buckets of thier own. So we have more than enough legos for everyone!

Each General Conference weekend the whole entire collection of Legos comes out into the front room and gets dumped on blankets all over the room.

This Conference weekend E decided it was time to build another Nerf Gun....so they began Sunday morning and finished sometimes Sunday night.

And here is the finished product......

{Notice anything?}

So over spring break we finally got some work done around here.....can you tell?

How about in this picture?

Yep....we painted....after living here for 7 years we gave in and it feels so cozy and adds a lot. What a difference a few cans of paint can make.

{49 Days}

E is all about summer break....he has been asking since Christmas break when it was coming around. And now since we are finished with Spring Break we thought it was time to make a countdown chain to summer!!

He wanted to count all the days not just school days until summer so we are at 7 weeks which is 49 days. (For me I like to think about the number of actual school days which brings us down to a reasonable 27!!)

This is one long chain!!

{Conference}

And this Sunday also happened to be Conference. The boys love it....I mean watching church on TV? It is one of the greatest weekends of our year every year. Pjs, comfort food, comfortable seating, what isn't to like?

And years ago a great friend made us this............

And every conference time the boys remind us to buy candy and they listen intently to hear the squares on the board b/c when there is a bingo they get to eat the candy.  Great idea!!

{Easter}

We aren't big into the Bunny and Eggs and talking about all of that at easter but we do a little egg hunt for the boys each year.

This year the baskets were cute towels rolled up tight with goodies tucked into them. A great idea from the bunny if i do say some myself.. Then the one and only picture I took before they got taken apart is horribly blurry so there is no proof of thier cute-ness.

But the bunny did leave water guns.....yes it is the year of the gun at our house. I don't know why I have given in but I have and I think about it all the time!

{Beach Break}

I think we have started a new "rule"/tradition in our house. Spring break will always have to come with a Beach Break at the beginning.

Last week was our Spring Break....10 days with no school committments and no one telling us what time we had to be anywhere. I made sure to not committ to anything for anyone else except for the four of us! It was great!

We started the week with a much needed trip to Coronado California....right on the beach. I found a cheap hotel for us and we drove down on Sunday and came home Monday night realllllly late.

We spent an hour on the beach walking around on sunday night after the sunset. The boys and I were in heaven....the smell of the salt water, the waves crashing, the sand in between our toes. It was great. We picked out where we should go the next day and went to the hotel to bed.

The next morning we were at the beach by 930 and having a great time. It was about 80 degrees out with a wonderful cool breeze. We were able to see two battleships in the water, a naval hospital ship come in and lots of other military planes. That was happiness for C as he doesn't have the fondness for the beach like the other 3 of us do. We left the bach aroung 5 for our trip home and we were all tired and happy!

The tide ended up going out....really far and the tide pools were uncovered so E, K and I went and found hermit crabs, crabs, sponges, seaweed, muscles and all kinds of stuff.

K is our collector so he came home with a few shells of course. He was also the brave one to get into the cold water and boogie board. E really wanted to but the water was very cold!!

I think we'll be back again this summer. 3 of us love the beach and the one who doesn't, well he loves us enough to take us there again and again!

{Sock Hop}

Every Spring our school has a Sock Hop. In our 5 years at the school this was our first year going. We went mainly becuase E wanted to be in the Hula Hoop competition (at the back to school bbq he beat out the 4th graders so he was anxious to do that again).

We had the girls that night so they went with us and danced the night away. My boys are definatly boys standing on the edge being wallflowers, while the girls weren't shy at all and got right in there and danced away. One of my first graders took them in the middle with her and they all danced together as long as they wanted too. She was great and would bring them to me or C when they were done dancing. It was a fun night!

And E got first place in the hula hoop contest for 1st Grade!! Go E!!!

{A Bear}

This month in pack meeting K was awarded his Bear...which he earned in Decemebr but it has been so busy with everything this is the first pack meeting we have made it to since then....he was happy to get it and had his face painted as part of the ceremony.

{No Leprachaun's Caught}

So we continued with the second attempt to catch a leprachaun this year. And again they got away leaving a mess behind them....I really believe the cleaning fairies should come the day after the leprachaun's so that when you get home from work all is returned to it's proper place.

They made a big mess this year....all the kitchen cupboards were open, furniture was moved, cushions blocked the hallways, all the boys clothes were out of the closet and toliet paper was all over the bathroom alond with leprachaun dust all over everything. My favorite was the collection of random green items they found around the house and gathered on the kitchen table......

{Science Projects}

Well Friday was a big day at school. As a school we participate in Science Day. Every class moves from station to station doing science experiements all day long. It was something I always helped with as a parent and now as a teacher I get to enjoy with the scholars.

At the end of the day the winners of the science fair are announced. They are by grade level then for the top three of the entire school...

And here's our K.

2ND PLACE FOR 4TH GRADE

And then K again.......2ND PLACE IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL!!!!

We are so proud of him and all the hard work he put into this project...it was his hardest project yet!

{Here we come!!!}

We got our Disneyland vouchers via email on Wednesday! We weren't expectig to get them for me too but the two boys and I all got them!! Now just C has to get his service done this next week and we are ready for a free day at Disney!!

{Springs Preserve}

We were able to spend a few hours at the Springs Preserve here in Vegas last Saturday (Thanks to our bank for giving us a free day to visit). K had been there with school when it first opened and E went with his preschool about 2 years ago but doesn't remember it at all.

It is so much fun. It is a hands on museum that is inside and out. It is built in the area where the springs used to be. There are a lot of things for the kids to interact with. It teaches about the people who used to live in Vegas, water conservation, desert life and animals. And has trails and gardens. We spent a good 3 hours there and could have been there longer.

{Service???}

So have you seen the commercials for a free ticket to disneyland if you do a day of service?

Well I did....A LOT....and ignored them. Then someone at school was talking to me about what thier kids were doing to earn their ticket, then another friend the next day told me what thier kids were doing and I thought "I really need to look into this"  I mean really we live 5 hours from Disneyland, our boys have NEVER been and an almost free vacation is better than NO vacation.

So I looked up the service we could give on the site and there was NOTHING for kids to do in Vegas, but it did show some to do in St George. So we signed them up.

All they had to do was collect 100 cans each and smash them and turn them in.....after two phone calls they had more than enough cans.

So when thier uncle and aunt showed up for the weekend they went in the backyard and got to smashing. I think this is the easiest service they could have given and it was a success. E decided he couldn't smach them with his foot so out came a hammer.....

Disneyland here we come sometime this summer!!

{That Time of Year}

It has now become one of the months I dread getting to each year.

March.....Science Fair Month......2 boys with big projects due the same day....working and trying to get it all done about does us in but somehow it always gets done.

This year we are a bit behind since I don't want to work on more school stuff when we get home in addition to the normal homework so we will be working on K's stuff this weekend so he can turn it in Tuesday morning. He has finsihed the experiement part, the research paper and the final paper. Now we just have his boards to make and his presentation to work on.

E turned his in today and it was great to have one done and finished.

A few pictures to add to the excitement of the Science Fair Month!

{What I Hear}

I'm "working" on the computer.....C is giving E a math lesson....K is supposed to be getting stuff ready for the morning. You can hear some smacking the wall noise coming from the room K is in (thier bedroom).

C: "K what are you doing?"

K: "Smacking the wall with a sticky frog."

(now I'm trying not to laugh too loudly)

C: "Thanks for being honest, but stop!"

30 seconds later

C: (to me) "The laughing isn't helping."


I mean really....first of all he knows he is smacking the wall....secondly I hate those sticky things you throw at the walls b/c either they get permentaly stuck on the ceiling until someone gets a ladder to tear it done (usually my brother from utah when he comes to visit) or they leave marks on the wall.

But really I love the things we have to say as parents and the straight honesty of children.

I mean really what else would you do with a sticky frog?

{Valetine's Weekend}

It was great how Valentine's also happened to be on a "long weekend" so my brother and his wife came to visit.

We decided to have Family Dinner on Sunday with us and my other brothers' family who live here in town too.

Our usual "pile on uncle time"

Outside the bowling alley where we always go with out uncle and auntie. Picture taken by K.

Since it was Valentines Day I did a chocolate fondue for dessert. It is so easy and so sun and VERY YUMMY!  Everyone seemed to love it!!

{............................}

Really, honestly, truthfully.....I just can't keep up.

Every weekend I tell myself "this is the weekend. I will sit down and blog and get our lives caught up in this makeshift blog family journal thing here".....and then it is Monday and school is the next day and I still haven't gotten to the blog.

So you'll have to keep waiting....to see what exciting things have been happening over here...or if anything exciting at all has really happened. 

So keep watching and one day I will surprise you all and the blog will be back in all it's glory!

{nothing to do with us}

But I think this is fun and it has been around awhile so if you have seen it...enjoy it again...



The dancer inside of me couldn't resist putting this here for all to see.

{The way we welcome in a new year}

So New Year's Eve came and went. We had late night taco bell with K on New Year's Eve and then watched a movie while the boys slept. Nothing too excting.

But I think that everyday since Christmas brought more inventions of how to shot nerf darts at one another.

Then I went to work to "catch up" on everything I didn't do before Christmas and C sent me this picture after I text him asking how things were going.....

Happy New Year to All 12 days late!

{The Big Black Thing}

So every Christmas we unpack all our holiday stuff--decorations, pictures, albums everything. This everything includes Christmas movies and books. I think that if we hide them away they are more special and loved even more when they are around. So when the movies come out we have some oldies but goodies that are of the VHS variety.

This year the boys pull it all out stick the movies in the handy Christmas basket and the books under the trees and on we go.

Until one day E comes in, with nothing in his hands while I am wrting lesson plans to ask "What do you we do the the big black thing?"

Me: "What?"

E: "In the movie bucket, the big black thing?"

Me: (i still have no clue what he is talking about and am just straing at him)

E: "You know it goes in the big black box but it isn't doing anything"

Me: (Still confused and having no clue)

E: "It was in with the movies so we can watch Home Alone 3"

Me: (finally I got it...the VHS tape of Home Alone 3 and the VCR!) and I start laughing and explain how it works and what to do.

My 7 year old has no clue what a VCR is or that at one time it was all we had to watch movies

Then tonight....

the 9 year old comes in and yes I was working on lesson plans again

K: "you know that V thing?"

Me: (looking at him wierd I am sure)

K: "We want to watch Home Alone 3" (followed by an eye roll by him)

Me: " the VCR you mean?"

K: "Yeah. How do we get it to go?"

Me: "You push play like I showed you before."

K: "but it is at the end and we need to get it to the start."

My child did not know how to rewind a movie or even thought that was a possibility that he would have to do that.....what have dvd players done to our thinking???

So we talk about how to rewind the movie and he goes to do it.....

From the other room I hear this conversation:

E:"Are we going to watch the movie?"

K: "We have to get it to the start first. Mom said to re---wind, re--wond, reee....to push that button."

E: "But the numbers are going backward."

K: "Well they must go forward when we watch so this is how it works....just wait Mom said it would work."

My poor babies....can't remember that it is called rewind and have no patience to see what will happen...I wonder if I should show them fast forward to get through the previews??

Maybe next year we should find all those old movies on dvd so they don't have to have this convsersation again next year.

{Christmas in Pictures}

{A Nerf Gun Christmas}

This year was all about the Nerf Gun. All boys, including C, got a gun for Christmas. Our house is constantly covered in the nerf darts and people are running shooting hiding and sneak attacking each other.

The only rule...no shooting in the kitchen when food is cooking and no shooting the mom.