Bye, Bye Blue Hair

May  7, 2012

When we scheduled a time for Erika and Bret to get their wedding announcement pictures taken Erika decided she was done with blue hair.

The blue would not let go they had to strip it twice and color it twice.  After four hours she had the color she wanted.  Or close to it.  Because of stripping it there was an orange hue to the whole thing but Erika liked the strawberry blond look that it gave her.

So Pretty!
(The pout face was for an "I miss Bret" picture)

The Vegetable Thief

My vegetables are constantly running low.  I can leave the refrigerator stocked with two containers of cherry tomatoes and the next time I return there is only one container left, if I'm lucky.  I can slice up two cucumber for dinner and before we can all sit down to the table half of them are missing.  Baby carrots disappear at an alarming rate. I can't say that I mind having this problem.

The thief:

I have caught him sitting in front of the TV munching away on baby carrots and tomatoes.  He will hide in the pantry eating his stolen vegetables.  This time I found him sitting outside on the swing enjoying a moment to himself enjoying a cool breeze along with the vegetables.

As we planned our garden this year we let the kids decide what they would plant.  Nathan did not even hesitate.  He wanted an apple tree and a tomato tree.  The apple trees are yet to be planted but we did get his tomato "tree".  I knew that the chance of me eating any tomatoes off of Nathan's plant was extremely slim so I picked up a second one.  Hyrum has claimed it as his.  I still might not get any tomatoes this summer.

Nathan was so excited to pick and eat his first tomatoes!  He checks several times a day to see if there are any that have changed to the perfect red.

The wind has knocked the plants over a couple of times and while I was standing them back up and showing the boys how to water them I caught myself talking to the plants.  Nathan and Hyrum giggled and asked me why I was talking to a plant and I explained that plants grow better if they have sunshine, water, and love; that it has been proven in experiments that plants who have good music played for them grow better than plants that have hard, bad music played for them.  Later that afternoon Hyrum informed me that he sang two nice songs to his tomato plant and he didn't even say "guns" in his songs.  Nathan always remembers his watering days and he also talks to his plant, especially the little green tomatoes, encouraging them to grow so he can eat them.

This is not a new thing with Nathan.  He has been eating fruits and vegetables from the time he was 4 months old.  His first fruit was a plum that my dad gave him at a family reunion and at 5 months he started gnawing on carrot and celery sticks to comfort his teething gums.  When he was 16 months old he walked to the back of our half acre lot and plucked a zucchini from the garden, dragged it back up to the house, and proceeded to eat a vegetable that was nearly as tall as he was.

The Sock Box

was overflowing!

The match makers sounded like they were in a serious game of Socky Go Fish.  Do you have a Keds L with a blue toe? No, do you have a solid white calf length.  Yes!  Do you have a grey toe, grey heal?  (In unison)  WE ALL HAVE THOSE!  

Haircut?

Yes, Please!

Hyrum insists that he do his own hair and he likes the messy look. I even caught him trying to use Erika's hairspray because he didn't want it "to move".  And another time he used hand soap because he couldn't find the gel.  He can spend quite a bit of time in front of that mirror.

The Four Wheeler

When we moved into the country we didn't realize that having a form of snow removal besides the good old shovel was nearly mandatory.  We have been rescued by our neighbors for three winters.  They have used their own four wheelers to clear our drive way, remove the snow plow mountains across the front of the driveway and plowed out our employees vehicles after the winds blowing up the edge of the ditch bank had buried them.  We have awesome neighbors!

This year, LeRoy was determined to be legitimate country folk.  He traded almost two months worth of evenings doing electrical work for a gently used four wheeler.  The only problem with our plan was that winter never showed up this year.  The boys put on the snow blade when a brief storm actually covered the drive way.  They quickly cleared the new snow and stood back proud of their accomplishment.  Within a couple of hours the snow was gone and they realized they didn't really need to use the four wheeler to do what the sun had done everywhere else.  After another week they just took the snow blade off and it's been sitting by it's lonesome self in the shed ever since. 

The kids were so excited when it was dropped off to us!  They rode it around the subdivision and through the empty field until their faces were frozen from the cold November air and the gas tank was empty.

The younger boys love it when the older boys give them rides! It's fun to watch them hang out together and take turns.  They really started to enjoy it when the weather finally turned a little sunny and warm so they could ride even longer and not freeze.  Nathan and Hyrum like it best when Levi takes them because he lets them "drive".  Really, their hands are just on the handles but they feel so big and in control.

One of the ICES rules is that exchange students cannot drive any form of vehicle.  Vivien may or may not have driven once around the block.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

I try to feed my kids nutritious meals and my little boys are generally very good about eating vegetables and fruits.  It's fun to surprise them with theme plates for lunch.  They get so caught up in how cute their food is that before they realize they are eating something new (like the chive sprigs on the lady bugs) it is gone and they are asking for more.

However, waffles with ice cream and chocolate syrup do occasionally make it to the dinner table.  At least the strawberries are healthy.

I will admit that fried chimichangas are a biweekly regular around here. The satisfied tummies and praise that I get for fixing their favorite meal make my post-frying headache worth it.

At every meal it seems that I have someone complaining but I also have someone who is quite happy with it. Nathan was just as happy with his cucumbers as Derek was with his waffle.

Tae Kwan Do

also called karate at our house.

LeRoy is living out his dreams through Nathan.  He has always wanted his kids to be sports players and even though they have tried they just really don't get into it.  I was just about to start Nathan in gymnastics because Justin had been teaching him some basics at home but LeRoy jumped on the chance to put him in a local Tae Kwan Do class.  He had done some electrical work for the instructor and set up a trade for Nathan to try two months to see how he would like it. 

The two months passed and he is still continuing.  I thought it was just teaching kids how to yell and kick and punch but after going to a couple of his classes I realize that it has helped Nathan to grow in many more ways than that.  He is required to live the Tae Kwan Do rules at home as well as in class which include respect for your body, respect for others, a clean atmosphere and hard work. Can't say that I mind any of that being taught to my kids. In order to receive the five different colored stripes on his belt he has to maintain certain standards and learn certain skills.  One of the hardest things for him is how to say it correctly.  He says it Tae KWAN Do instead of Tae Kwan DO and most of us call it Tae Kwan DoDo (from Ice Age). 

During Nathan's second class I sat and observed.  During the warm up they were doing push ups and many of the kids were doing a lazy job of it.  The instructor had Nathan show the rest of the class (which is about 10 students, all older than Nathan) how to do it properly.  Justin taught him that!  (Or maybe Jillian and I did?)

So far he has his black, red, blue, and yellow stripes and is working on his green stripe preparing to have a belt/rank advancement.  LeRoy is one proud papa.

And for now Justin is still teaching him gymnastics at home.  He has Nathan doing a three second hand stand, a bridge, a proper cartwheel and landing a front flip on the trampoline. 

Hyrum's 4th Birthday

March 23, 2012

I took several of Hyrum's favorites and put them all together for a birthday party.  He LOVES fruit, fruit snacks, spaghetti, gold fish, juice boxes, and most of all, colors.

We did all the decorations down low so that he could see it all without standing up to the island to see it.  It was so fun to have so much color around that we left the decorations up for nearly a week.

While the spaghetti noodles boiled and I put the finishing touches on the meal the kids made balloon animals.

The animals bounced around the kitchen for almost 2 weeks until they looks completely starved of air and finally made their way to the garbage graveyard.

Hyrum had a hard time deciding what to eat first; he was so excited for all of it.  The picture with him eating spaghetti isn't because his eyes were closed but because he is savoring that bite with verbal approval.

Bret and Erika had a pasty mess making a pinata for the party.  Nathan and Hyrum had a great time beating it up to get to the treats inside.  They were more excited for the toys that scattered on the ground than the candy.

Doing the rainbow cake was easier than I thought it would be and turned out much brighter and better than I expected.

"I love my rainbow cake, Momma".  That makes every bit of it worth it!

Happy Birthday, Hyrum!

St. Patrick's Day 2012

I was a little bummed that I had meetings all day on St. Patrick's Day but it only made me stretch a little to still celebrate it for/with the kids.  I was leaving at 6:30 in the morning so I set the table with a green breakfast for them before I left.  I had also left our traditional leprechaun kisses on Nathan and Hyrum (shamrock stickers) and some gold coins in Nathan's leprechaun trap.

During lunch and the down times of my day I finished the "I'm Lucky To Have You" packets that I was doing for each person.  I didn't think it would be too difficult to come up with 10 admiration/love notes for each person (LeRoy, Bret, Levi, Erika, Vivien, Derek, Justin, Nathan, Hyrum) but when that number turned to 90 and I didn't want them to be generic or duplicates it took more thought than I expected.  It was a really great exercise for me to point out what I love about each one of them.

As soon as I got home we all pitched in and got our green dinner ready.  After dinner the kids had fun chasing down their clues to the treasure and eating their licorice rainbows that I had made for their place settings.

With all the sugary spoiling that I do for my kids I found it quite funny that LeRoy snapped a picture of me dishing up my broccoli.

 

February 2012

The ducks at the nature park are over-fed during the summer but winter is a different story.  They get pretty grabby with boys their height walking around with bread in their hands.

The boys wanted to take a Sunday drive so Derek, Justin, Nathan, Hyrum and Vivien took a package of crusty forgotten hot dog buns from the back of the pantry and went to feed the ducks.  Vivien played photographer while the boys did their best to not get eaten.