"School" Field Trip

As a consolation for Moses not being able to go to school with the other kids, we told him that we would take him to the Dinosaur Museum. This distracted him a little bit so he could actually ENJOY himself for a little while. When the kids first went back to school he spent the entire day naming every child he could think of in the neighborhood and they were all either in school or not home during the day. There is one little boy that he wants to play with frequently, but I'm afraid he might get a little sick of Moses wanting to play with him everyday.Nate was off work this day and we had such a great time with just the two kids. We brought lunch and had a picnic. It was kind of weird only having the two kids there with us. It reminded me of when we had just the two kids. How easy that was! I didn't think so at the time, but I didn't have to go around counting 5 heads all the time. There were two of us adults and two kids. Moses had a really good time and he has been playing really good with Ella recently which has made life even better for me!

I loved this picture of Ella. I remembered thinking how great it would be if something so simple such as swinging could provide me with such happiness and fun for a long time. Ella probably could have done this for hours and she was enjoying every minute of it!

The park had a new area that was partially shaded where you could uncover the dinosaur bones. Ella was having a hard time having fun because she stomped in a water puddle on the way over to the sand and so when she got in the sand it stuck to her feet. After I wiped off as much as I could she just followed Moses and Dad around and did whatever they did. She is learning so much each day and she is getting so grown up!

First Day of School

Wow! A whole year has gone by since I started this blog. Time has just flown by. I think that my very first post was the first day of school last year. Here we are again! The kids are always very excited for school to start. This year Miles has Mrs. Velez. He doesn't have any of his friends in his class, but he is really good at making new friends. Grace has Mrs. Reidford. This was the teacher that she wanted really bad. She is fortunate to have a few friends in her class. Isaiah is a big boy now. The fifth grade moved over to the Junior High building to expand the Elementary school. He has his very own locker already. He is growing up too fast! He has Mrs. Carlson and has a good friend in his class too. It should be a great year! Here they are all ready to go. I am lucky to have Nate taking them to school in our carpool everyday. The other family picks up from school and so I never have to leave the house! Except to volunteer in the classroom once a week.

Poor Moses REALLY wanted to go to school with the kids. No matter how many times we explained to him that he started school 2-1/2 weeks later he thought he was going with the other kids that day. He even set out clothes the night before. He tried to pick out clothes that looked like uniform clothes. He also wore a belt and tucked in his shirt like everyone else. It was so sad when the kids left and he couldn't go. He even attempted to make his own lunch to take with him. He cried every morning for the first week when the kids left for school.

LAKE POWELL

We are blessed to have our Grandma and Grandpa Anderson who have a timeshare on a houseboat on Lake Powell for 2 weeks every summer. We would love to go and hang out with family for the both of the weeks, but in order to spread ourselves around to both of our families and friends we only get to make it for one of the weeks. Not to mention that Nate does have to work during the summer, he can't just take the whole summer off for fun! Here is our home for the week we are at the Lake. We enjoy the time we get to spend on the houseboat. Nate gets to sleep up on top with the older kids every night and I slept with mostly just Ella inside. We have a blast just hanging out with family that we don't get to see very often. We had Spencer, Kelli, and their kids, Darren, Teresa, and their kids, Grandma Clawson, Sean, Scott, Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, and Uncle Gordon. Lots of fun, with lots of family!

I always have too many pictures to share on a vacay like this! Here is a little collage of the fun we had around the boat. Moses LOVED going on the speed boat. He loves feeling the wind on his face. You'll also notice that his body was blue most of the week from the die in his life jacket rubbing off on him. Ella loved everything too. I was paranoid that she would just jump in the water. She loved being in the water and the boat. Isaiah spent the week hanging out with his cousin Colby. One of their favorite things was to play king-of-the-mountain on the tubes. Miles is our thoughtful swimmer. He decided that he would like to jump into the water someday, so to start he would climb in, then slip in, and then jump in. I think he got to jump in off of the back of the boat that was level with the water. He thinks that in a couple of years he'll gradually be able to jump off of cliffs like his sister. Miles also took "swimming lessons" from several uncles. He likes to know all of the technicals. Grace just loved spending time with her girl cousins. She is "boy trapped" a lot in our home and having girls around was paradise. There was never a moment when she wasn't in the water. She loved it all. Grace and her cousins were making future city plans for Lake Powell. They want to live there when they are older on a houseboat, but they want all of our modern conveniences close by. Good Luck with that one!

We had a lot of success in the water this year. Nate actually did stuff besides tubing. He got up on the knee board, and the surf board. After much trial he also got up on the wake board. I'm so proud of him. I was way excited and he could really care less. Isaiah got crazy on the inter tube, going for speed and bumps. Grace inter tubed and knee boarded. Miles tubed and knee boarded too, with much reservation! Moses went inter tubing and loved it. Ella enjoyed being in the boat too. She loved the speed and the music! I took it easy because I had sprained my ankle last summer wake boarding and I also jammed my finger the night before we left for Lake Powell. Thanks to Uncle Darren for taking us out so much. He must have made 3-4 runs a day! All of this action was very exciting to me because I usually can't get anyone in my family to do anything behind a boat. Before this summer all of the kids and Nate would only go on the tube. Yeah for progress!

This was the cliff that we all jumped by our houseboat. Poor Isaiah really didn't want to jump, but everyone was constantly encouraging him. Since Grace jumped many times off of this cliff, it made his attempts even harder for him. He never did actually jump, but he spent many hours in this position trying to get the courage to. I don't blame him. I am usually all over cliff jumping and when I went up to jump I couldn't get my footing and it freaked me out. I don't usually get uncomfortable jumping off cliffs even higher than this, but when you can't stand on your two feet to jump, it makes it pretty scary. Nate, Grace, and I all jumped this one though.

Here are the girls on our way from the houseboat to our car at Bullfrog Marina. They didn't want to part. I think they would all live together if they could. We had such a great time and look forward to going again next year!

THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD

I thought that this was such a cute moment between father and daughter. Nate asked Grace if she wanted her fingernails painted and of course she wouldn't say no to that! Some of you may think that Nate does this frequently because he is a painter and artist, but he's never really done this before. I think that he did paint my toenails for me once when I was pregnant and couldn't reach my toes! I have to say he did a fabulous job!

My Little Baby is Growing Up!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm kind of sad that Ella is getting so big. Usually I look forward to the time that my kids can do more for themselves and rely less on me. Just today Ella has started talking to me for minutes at a time. I can't understand a word, but she'll just babble at me like she is having a conversation. She'll come tell me things and she'll just babble and babble. So sweet. Then, the past couple of days, whenever she has messed in her pants she'll bring me the baby wipes. None of my other kids ever did that! Is this a sign that she is going to be a potty training genius? I could use one of those about now! On a side note, Grace said something really funny yesterday. Moses was spinning around and around in a circle and started to fall over and his foot hit Grace right in the crotch area. Grace immediately fell to the ground and exclaimed, "Moses kicked me in my stuff!" She isn't raised with all boys or anything! I tried to explain to her that she doesn't really have "stuff," but she didn't really get it. Do I sense a talk in the near future?

My No Good Terrible Day

So, do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you're the worst mother ever! Today is that day for me. My children have decided that they rule the world! It all started last night which was Sunday night. We decided to make treats and take them to some people in our neighborhood. So, we ventured out and handed out treats and talked to some neighbors. Throughout the 15 minute conversation I am interrupted multiple times by multiple children that say that they are bored, and that they are thirsty, and that they want to go home. They kept saying really loud that we were taking way too long visiting. HOW RUDE! I am mortified by their behavior. Here we are, trying to do some service and they are just thinking about the fact that they haven't had a drink in 15 minutes!

It just continued on today. We had some friends over for most of the day. I'm visiting with the mom, while our children are playing. One of my children had a total dramatic breakdown and started yelling at the top of their lungs at their sibling. I was horrified. This poor mother probably thinks we all have anger issues in our family or something. After calming down this same child kept telling me "NO" when I asked them repeatedly to do things and they made very rude disrespectful comments to me all day in front of this sweet mother and her kids. I think she might think twice before she lets her sweet children come to my house again.

Then a little later after our friends left, Nate comes home from work to see Moses running around naked in our backyard. Moses thought this was really funny and was cracking up about it. Once again, we were mortified. I guess it was good that he wasn't in the front yard.

Then it was time to make dinner. I started getting things ready and Nate said he was taking Miles to pick some apricots at a neighbor's house. He walked out the front door and Moses and Ella acted like they wanted to go with him, so I told him to leave the door open and I would go out and keep and eye on the kids. It wasn't one minute later that I went outside to see Ella riding her bike. I figured that Moses had decided to go with Nate since I didn't see him around. Nate comes home about 15-20 minutes later with just Miles and we start searching the house for Moses. I went in the garage and noticed that his bike was gone, so Nate told us to start eating and he would drive around and look for him. Just as I sat down in my chair the phone rings. It is an old neighbor that moved a while ago and she told me that Moses was at the Maverik convenience store down the road with a policeman. Oh great! So, I left the other kids eating and hopped in the other car to drive down to the store. Once I got there I noticed that nobody was there anymore so I headed back home to find Nate. When I pulled in the driveway a police car was sitting there. "Oh no!" I thought, "I'm now going to get into trouble for leaving the rest of my kids home alone!" I get to the door and the policeman is standing at my door and the door is open, but nobody is there talking to him. He immediately asks if I'm Moses' mom and I told him yes and he leads me to his car. He lets me open the door to get Moses out of the back seat of his vehicle. Moses is holding a Milky Way candy bar. I asked the policeman where he got the candy bar and he said that someone bought it for him at the store. We are still unsure if he stole the candy bar, or if someone did really buy it for him. What parent would buy a kid a candy bar when he is trying to steal it? Anyway, the policeman opened the trunk to pull out Moses' bike and just then Nate pulls up. We get a mini lecture on how Moses is a little young to be riding his bike in his bare feet, without a helmet, down a busy street, crossing a busy street to go into a convenience store to get a candy bar that he doesn't have any money to buy. He takes down our names, phone numbers, and birth dates. I feel like I'm going to go on the record as a negligent parent.

Finally we sit down to eat dinner and I ask the kids who answered the door for the policeman. Come to find out, Miles answered the door and got scared about seeing a policeman there so he just leaves the door open and runs back to sit at the table. The poor policeman must think that we don't teach our children manners either. He is just standing at the door with nobody to talk to. Later on, I find out from the neighbor that called me to tell me that Moses was at the store that Moses wouldn't even talk to anyone or answer any one's questions. It was a good thing she was there, or we would have never found him!

I failed to mention that this morning Nate asks me if I am feeling like we should start trying to have another baby soon. I told him I wasn't having any feelings about that, but I would let him know when I did. As we were settling down for the night we were wondering if we should have had the five children that we do have, not to mention anymore. Nate said he wouldn't ask me that question again for at least a year, and I just replied, "Thank you very much!" Nate and I split the Milky Way hoping that it would make us feel better. It didn't! I haven't had chocolate in a long while and it gave me a stomach ache!