Our New Sandbox

I chose the sandbox picture for the start of our family's blog because it was such a fun day. The boys (which refers to all 5 of the boys in our family) and I enjoyed building the sandbox and shoveling sand from the trailer to the little trailer behind the lawnmower. As soon as it was complete the boys were busy burying each other. It was a fun Saturday project.

Happy Halloween

I love that Brandon is a good sport to be a Hippie with me. I knew he was fun when I married him. I loved Jacob's mustache! Jackson was Jessie James (yes mom I sewed the vest, she made us cool costumes as kids), Joshua as we were walking out the door decided he wanted to be a bank robber like his big brother. Jeremy was a mummy. That was a hard one to do and required a ton of safety pins.

Happy "Crazy Hair Day"

Today is Crazy Hair Day at school for red ribbon week. Everyone had fun with the paint this morning, even teddy got orange hair. Jackson's grade is doing "book reports" and gets to dress up as a famous American, so he chose Jessie James. Halloween is outlawed in our school, and I'm not really against it, if the schools are going to err, I would like it to be on the side of keeping too much evil out of the schools. I will give up halloween at school to keep the moment of silence to pray or meditate that they get each morning.

I am a Child of God

This Sunday was our Primary program. I thought I would post the boys singing for the Grandparents. They did a great job on Sunday and were a lot more reverent at the front of the chapel than they were for me at 8:00 at night in the dining room.

498

How is it that after a rough day, winning a game of Scrabble seems to make everything right?

This board was Brandon's 498. I had the record at 335 until he killed it one night.

October Pictures

Joshua wanted a picture before he had to put all of his hard work away. Jeremy in front of the capitol. We toured it as a family and it is BEAUTIFUL! Jacob's dominoes.

Jackson at pack meeting.

Dog Pile!

One night my friend called me right as the boys were wrestling before bed. I could hardly hear what she was saying and as I hung up and looked at my boys making a racket...it was just one of those moments when I remember how much I love my 4 boys. I love all their noise, energy and fun.

A House Divided

Brandon and Jackson went to the Kansas/Oklahoma game. Brandon wore a OU shirt, and Jackson wore his KU hat. More than once I have heard my kids chant go KU boo OU, go KU boo OU.

At the pre-game Jackson got signatures from three Heisman winners.

Jason White '03, Billy Sims '78, and Steve Owens '69. All 3 played for Oklahoma.

(Jackson wore his OU hat for the pre-game with his KU hat underneath)

They had a lot of fun, Jackson won a deck of cards from catching money in the phone booth and had a great time at the football game with dad.

A Day off of School

We had a day off of school the same day as our old school, so we went for a day trip. It was so nice to see friends and enjoy the perfect 70 degree day. The park has a new swing the boys loved. Later the little ones made a tent, and the older boys got to play a little Wii and basketball. What a fun way to spend the day with friends!!

Jacob Playing Fesitval in Aragon

I videoed Jacob this morning while he was practicing, he does such a good job on this song. It about killed Joshua to not be the center of attention. Jacob was nice enough to let him be in the picture. In the video Joshua is trying to see the screen on the camera so it's not the steadiest video I ever shot. Click the link to see the video, blogger video upload is too slow.

http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a791d4ba1618e42e

A Weekend Trip Home

I got to see my family! This is a picture of my niece and nephew. Baylee's Baptism! Some High School friends got together for lunch. It was fun to see old friends, although I felt a little lost surrounded by children without mine. Our cousins had a girls party. We remembered to take a picture at about 2 AM and most had left but it was a lot of fun. I am glad I could make it this year! It snowed while I was in town! The trees were beautiful. I did miss my boys while I was gone. They went to another soccer game. Jackson is getting really good and is a lot of fun to watch. It was a girls weekend so we of course did some shopping. I bought some decorations and was telling Jacob that the store was out of the candy corn decor that I wanted. A little later I noticed Jacob had made a dozen little candy corn and put them up all around the house for me. He is so sweet. Thanks for the candy corn Jacob I love it more than anything sold at a store :)

We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet

I love conference weekend to be able to learn from a living Prophet and his 12 Apostles. There were so many good talks, but I am of course partial to President Monson. I loved his talk about Change. Life is definitely always changing and I love his optimism and Joy in life. Here are a couple of notes I took...enjoy.

Change is Constant

There is no tomorrow to remember if we don't do something today.

If you pile up enough tomorrows you'll have a lot of empty yesterdays. (from The Music Man)

They do not love, who do not show their love. - Shakespeare

Find Joy in the Journey!

The video is online now http://www.lds.org/conference/languages/0,6353,310-1,00.html I didn't see the text up yet.

Daily Scripture Study

This tip is for friends and family that use the computer daily.

I have always tried to read the scriptures daily, but some days I would completely forget, or remember late at night when I am exhausted. I didn't have a routine that was working. I recently decided that I wouldn't get on the computer until I had read my scriptures for the day. What do you know, I rarely skip a day, because every day I check my email, or need a map to somewhere, or I want to order something, or work on the Searle book, check on the economy or whatever. The computer right in the front room has become way to convienient. Some days when I need something off the computer I just read the online scriptures http://scriptures.lds.org/ before I pull up the site I need. I am sure there are other good habits for reading the scriptures daily, but right now for me this link to the computer has been perfect. Hopefully the idea will work for someone else too!

You Should Live in Kansas

You Should Live in Kansas

If you don't want to live in Kansas, you might also consider: North Carolina Virginia Delaware Maryland Oklahoma

What State Should You Live In?

I thought this six question quiz was fun. My kids tell everyone they are from Kansas, and we really loved living in Kansas. Oklahoma is a lot like Kansas too.

Jackson Playing Minuet in G on the Violin

I couldn't get the video to upload to blogger so click on the link below to see the video. http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a79edbb11e19e62e

Brandon, King of the Hammer

We stopped to play a game of pool late last night, and by the table was the King of the Hammer game. Brandon tried it and beat the high score his first try. Later as we were playing pool a group of high school boys came over and poured a good ammount of quarters into the machine trying to beat Brandon's score. It was hard to concentrate on the pool game while laughing at the pride of these boys. Finally they beat it (only because every time you put another quarter in it the high score drops by two points) and left. After playing pool Brandon played it one more time and now stands as "THE KING OF THE HAMMER" (I should have taken a video because the voice that crowns you king of the hammer is great!)

His score is 918, so I invite any of his friends to stop by 33rd and Boulevard to see if they can beat it. I'm sure all good blogging wives will take a picture so we can all see who is King of the Hammer. I wanted him to turn around so you could see his shirt:)

Root Root Root for the Home Team?

Last week we took the boys to a Redhawks game. When we got there we found out it was a championship game and the Redhawks weren't even playing. We just picked a team that started with an R to root for and I don't think the kids even noticed. The boys had fun playing with the noise makers/make shift light sabers. Jacob loved the free comic book. Luckily I got him to look up long enough from it to smile for the picture. I guess for the kids it wasn't really about the baseball, but more about the event and the excitement surrounding the game.

Ike vs. 8 year old soccer

We had just started Jackson's soccer game Saturday when we all froze and everyone on the field and sidelines looked at the cars behind us. We were perfectly dry and the rain was coming down so hard and loud on the cars 10 feet behind us that it was scary. Everyone scrambled to put up unberellas and to carry the little ones to the car, but we were all soaked.

There wasn't any lightening so the ref gave the kids the option to keep on playing or to postpone. They all yelled "keep playing." It was a fun game to watch. The kids were SOAKED and the rain was still coming down.

Jackson had a great game and smiled the whole time :)

Jackson turning the ball around.

Jackson's favorite position is fullback.

Jackson is on the left in the black pants with the stripes on the side.

This was the view from the car.

Jackson at Scouts

Jackson got a "big hand" for earning 5 beltloops at Pack Meeting. He also led the flag ceremony. Way to go Jackson!

September 11th

I don't know why these pictures are rotated. Does anyone know how to fix it? They were taken in 2001 we made the flag with residents of our building and within a few days there were flags chalked on all of the buildings. I just wanted to take a second to remember that day and the increase in pride in America that was a result of that day. I am proud to be an American.

Jeremy Sunday Morning

This morning before 6:30 Jeremy was up, had showered, and was fully dressed in his church clothes ready to go. I love this guy. He is so cute, and such a pleaser. I have been pouring out the praise on the boy that is ready for church first. Jeremy has been first for the last month, but this morning takes the cake. When I asked him why he was ready so early (after congratulating him on being the first ready) he said that his brain kept waking him up telling him it was Sunday morning and he needed to get ready for church. He said he told his brain that he didn't want to get up, but he knew it was Sunday and he needed to get ready. It was a cute conversation that he had inside his head. Don't we all have these conversations, I know I should but I don't want to right now. Jeremy was a great example of happy obedience this morning. I love being a mom I constantly learn from my children. As a footnote, Yes, next week I will set an alarm in his room and tell him to sleep in until it is morning.

Happy Birthday Brandon

These are the last two pictures I have taken of Brandon. They both remind me how much I love being his wife. The first was fishing with the family, and he gets extra brownie points for putting the worms on my hook for me. The second is with the scouts after a Redhawks game. I love that he works hard and plays hard. It's always a lot of fun to be with him. Happy Birthday Brandon!!!

School Mornings

There is nothing more beautiful than a perfectly orchestrated school morning. We just happened to have one so I thought I would celebrate. What happens in an average morning?...

1- Get 3 kids up by 6:30 and showering (making sure to ask if they washed their hair, this is the only way that I hear that the shampoo is empty because otherwise I don't think they would ever tell me)

2- Feed them all a healthy breakfast (Ok, usually it's not sugar cereal, but today we had a treat, froot loops)

3- Make sure they brush their teeth (if I don't peek in they can brush in a record 10 seconds, but this morning their mean mom made them use the 2 minute timers their dentist gave them)

4- Have them pick up their room (and say for the 100th time that if they would put their clothes in the hamper they wouldn't have to pick up their room)

5- Practice instruments for 30 minutes (if I wander off to brush my teeth I will hear them picking out the music to Wall-E, which they are pretty good at, or star wars, when I need to remind them that practice involves actually playing the pieces their teachers have assigned)

6- Pack 4 lunches (making sure no one has "accidentally" packed 2 desserts and forgotten a fruit)

7- Remind 2 boys they need to take an afternoon snack

8- Check homework folders (which this morning meant making an apple with Jeremy)

9- Sign Jackson's agenda

10- Remind the boys to empty their dishwasher

11- Peek in their backpacks to find a DS or gameboy (this is critical for a happy bus ride home)

12 - Look at the cereal bowls on the table they forgot to put in the dishwasher, sigh, and decide enough is enough. It still was a successful morning.

I wish all mornings could be so successful. Yesterday one boy missed the bus, and I was glad to take him so I could deliver the two lunches still sitting on the counter.

Labor Day/Geocaching

This labor day Brandon was on call so we couldn't leave the city or really plan anything. It turned out to be a fun weekend though. We went to the pool (although these pictures are from a couple of weeks ago), fishing (yes Jeremy caught the most fish), geocaching, and raced rc boats, and the kids rode on some ramps a neighbor was throwing out. They also got a skateboarding rail with the ramps, but so far they've just kind of looked at it and commented about what they have seen on X games.

Geocaching 101

A friend of mine was asking what geocaching is, so if you haven't ever been geocaching keep reading. Joshua calls it treasure hunting. You can go to geocaching.com and find the GPS coordinates of a spot someone has left a cache (treasure), you can print out a map of where to drive to and then from there use a handheld GPS or a new cell phone with GPS to locate the cache. Our kids like to find the traditional caches where they can trade small trinkets like matchbox cars and fake teeth for something in the container. We accidentally went to a micro cache today where all you find is a mini notebook and a pencil to sign that we were there. They didn't think that was worth the hunt. When looking online for your first cache you want one with one star for easy find, one star for easy terrain, and most importantly a size that is traditional or larger. The small and micro finds usually don't have trades. The other fun thing about geocaching is finding and moving travel bugs. They are little bug coins that are numbered so you can track their progress online. The boy scout magazine had an article about a travel bug that went all over the world. For our family it is a fun reason to be outside and together, also the boys can walk for an hour without realizing it (although usually it doesn't take that long). The boys also love to trade. It is just as much fun as going to the store, and it's free. Oh, my last thought, before you go hunting look to see on the comments the last time that it was found and if there were a lot of people that reported not finding it. We went to one today that was not there. It looked like it was probably mowed over at one point. Our next step is to start a cache of our own. If we do we'll post it so the locals can go and find it.

Jeremy Playing the Violin

Jeremy's teacher this year asked him to play his violin, after hearing how cute he was in kindergarten when he played twinkle twinkle little star. He loved it and so did his teacher, class, mom, and Joshua .

Joshua at Gymnastics

The first picture is of Joshua doing a tuck. His knees weren't quite coming up like they should. I thought it was cute he was pulling them up by his shorts.

The second picture he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to be that high up, but when he saw me with the camera he smiled, and when he got home he told dad how much fun he had.

He has been having fun, and he mostly loves that there is something that is only for him. He keeps asking how many days it is until his class.