S'mores

In an attempt to clean the back yard up a little, Daniel gathered all of these little brick like things that we had left over from pouring concrete and stacked them up like a fire pit.  It is not at all stable and if leaned on will fall over, but Emma was still pretty excited.  After a week of telling her that we would roast marshmallows, we finally did it.  It was very brief, but the kids had a fun time, and Emma was especially glad to finally get to eat some s'mores

Our makeshift fire pit!

Bugsy was not at all excited about the s'mores.  He ate each part separately, but he did enjoy the fire.

Emma liked the s'mores a lot and had 2 of them!  The red on her nose is not a bruise.  She likes to pretend she is Rudolph the red nose reindeer and so of course she needs a red nose.  That is lipstick left over from her playing "Santa" with daddy earlier that day.

Emma's First Day of Kindergarten!

Emma was pretty excited for her first day of kindergarten today.  We put her to bed at 8:15 last night and she didn't fall asleep until 10:30.  Then she woke up at 7:00 this morning, so I'm betting she will be tired tonight. :)  She had a hard time concentrating this morning.  I think I told her to eat her breakfast about 30 times today and she still wasn't done after 25 minutes and ended up taking her grapes in the car with her.  Thus, we were a little late for her first day today.  Fortunately, Daniel is awesome.  He went out this morning before he left for work and put gas in the van.  I totally forgot it was almost empty and would have been really late if he hadn't done that.  I was very grateful!

I thought we had to finish Emma's paper doll project this morning and that made us a little bit later.  Then I realized after the fact that it wasn't actually due today.  Oh well, at least it is done.  We rushed out the door and drove to the school.  Then I practically dragged the kids along with me as we rushed in.  We didn't take a picture in front of the school at that point because we were so late, but we did take one after school, so at least we got one. 

Emma was excited and a little nervous.  She was a little shy when we first got there, and took a picture with Mrs. Willis.  It is helpful though that Mrs. Willis is Annika's aunt so she kind of knows her.  Also, Annika is in her class, so that was good as well.  Anyway, here are some pics:

They invited parents to stay for the flag raising ceremony, so Matthew and I stuck around for that.  Unfortunately, despite the fact that Matthew went to bed early last night, he slept in today and I had to wake him up to get Emma to school.  Thus, he didn't get any breakfast and was pretty bugged by the time they got around to starting the flag raising ceremony.  Oh well, he did alright.

Emma was so cute, trying to sing 'The Star Spangled Banner"and say the pledge of allegiance.  They had these cute little boy scouts doing the flag.  Then, after they sang and said the pledge of allegiance, they shot of a great big old time cannon.  It was fun.  Then we got a picture of Emma's kindergarten class in front of the cannon with the guy in his army uniform.  She was so darling!  Here's some more pics:

She said that she had a fun time at her first day.  She told me she couldn't remember what they did at first, but after a while she told me a cookie came in the class.  I was picturing a chocolate chip cookie walking in and was a little confused until she explained that they read a story about a ginger bread man.  Then the ginger bread man came into the class room.  There was a giant cookie and they all got a piece of it.  She told me a lot about the story and animals chasing the ginger bread man, but that is about all I've been able to get her to tell me.  At least she had fun.  We are so excited for her to be starting kindergarten.  And, I didn't even cry, probably because we were late and in such a hurry!  :)

Aprons and Cookies

Emma found the apron that Granmda Sperry made for her for Christmas 2 years ago.  She decided she wanted to wear it and asked if we could make some cookies.  In unusual fashion for me, I agreed.  When I put the apron on Emma, Matthew decided that he needed one too.  Fortunately, Grandma Sperry had also made one for Daniel and I as well, and I was able to make one of them fit on Matthew.  They both looked darling, and you can't even tell in the picture that Matthew has no pants on.  :)  We had fun making cookies and they turned out tasting pretty good too!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Pretty well!  It's getting pretty large.  This was our garden on August 5th.

Here is Emma in front of the tomatoes, squash, and pumpkin plants.  I didn't know that tomatoes got so big!

And here she is in front of our giant pumpkins and corn.

This is a zucchini that I didn't see and it grew pretty enormous.  I gave some to Jenn and it still took several days of smoothies to get through the rest of it.

Unfortunately on August 4th we had this...

which led to this, (yes that is hail in Utah in August)...

which led to this!

Many of the leaves on our larger plants were shredded by the hail storm.  However, the garden has done alright despite the hail and some bugs that killed most of our smaller pumpkins.  We have had corn a couple of times and it is delicious.  We have a couple of bags of veggies in our fridge right now that need to be used and more growing in the garden.  Now I just need to learn to like veggies.  It has been a good trial year though.  I think it will take us a couple of tries to figure out how to get larger yields, and less leafage.  However, it has gone well for our first try.

Summer Field Trips 2010

We've been going on our Summer field trips again this year and we've been having a wonderful time!

First we went to Temple Square in Salt Lake.  In the collage below you can see the kids watching some movies (top and middle pictures)  There is a new area in the north visitors center basement with all kinds of new exhibits.  It is really cool.

The bottom right picture is of the girls touching the temple.  Matthew of course did not want to.  Two of the top pictures are from the top of the Administration building where Jen works.  We went there for lunch and then went to the top to see the view.

We also went to Moyle Park again this year.  The kids loved it just as much this year as they did last year.  Emma was very good at washing clothes and the lady there said that would have been her job if she had been a pioneer girl.  Matthew was not as excited about washing the clothes.  You can see in the picture where he is supposed to rinse them, he barely has a hold of it because he didn't want to get his fingers wet.

They also made candles and helped churn butter again this year.  This year they put a little sugar on top of the butter with the bread.  The kids liked that.

They also got to go inside the fort this year which they didn't get to do last year.  The bottom two right pictures are showing a little toy that helped the pioneer kids learn how to milk a cow correctly.  If you pulled the strings the right way then the little doll figure would go to the tops of the rope.   Emma got it and Matthew almost got it.

We went to Tracy Aviary again as well.  Daddy got to come on this one with us and we were so excited about that.

We were all so excited to feed the birds again, but for some reason there was a role reversal this year.  Emma was pretty scared, but Matthew wasn't scared at all.  Emma did finally let a bird sit on her arm, but not till the very end.  I love the top right picture of Matthew trying to feed the birds on the branch.  He wasn't holding the apple high enough, so the birds would go right to the end of the branch to try and get the apple, then they would fall off and fly away. 

We also let Emma ride some rides at the little fairgrounds they had right by the aviary.  She loved it!

We have had a lot of fun on these field trips.  Thanks for setting them up Melis!

My Little 5 Year Old

Emma is 5 already!  How the time flies!  She turned 5 last Tuesday, and yes I am just getting to the post now on Sunday night.  Here goes:

Emma wanted the big castle slide again this year.  She asks frequently if we can bring it home, but it is so much work that we only do it for her birthday, so she was pretty excited about it this year.  Since it won't fit in our backyard, my parents were kind enough to let us use their backyard.  Thus, we decided to just to a cousin party this year.  It was pretty low key.  We just had the slide and then we brought the snow cone machine from the rental center as well.  That was a big hit and all the kids were running around with blue lips!  Emma had a GREAT time and that was the best part.  Thanks to everyone who came!  Here are some pics:

The kids had a lot of fun on the slide and surprisingly did not seem to get board with it.

I made a birthday present cake this year as it was easier than the castle slide that I made last year.  Fortunately Emma liked the cake this year, even though it wasn't as exciting as last year's cake.  The other kids seemed to enjoy it too, but they were most excited about the snow cones.  Notice Emma's blue lips in the middle picture.

Emma was really excited about opening her presents this year, probably because she had been to her cousins party the week before and got excited there.  She was really excited about the presents she got.  Thanks again for bringing them.

Emma had a great time and it was fun to see her having fun!  She is such a sweet little princess.  She is getting so helpful lately.  She is so excited to have a little sister, and I know that she will be a big help with this next little one.  We love her sweetness and her gentleness.  She is such a good little girl and we are so grateful she is ours!

So Sweet!

A little background for this story. I ran out of my Thyroid medication. "No worries," I thought, "It doesn't really do anything for me anyway." So, I kept forgetting to pick it up since I didn't think it made a big difference. Boy was I wrong. By the time I finally got it, I had gone without it for about 7 days, and I can tell you I was seriously grouchy. My poor little kidlets had to deal with monster mom for several days until it started kicking in again. That is when the following event took place.

It is still difficult to get Bugsy to eat. I don't know if I've posted it before, but he is a lot like Jenn. When he doesn't eat, he gets REALLY fussy. I don't know if he has low blood sugar or what, but there is no reasoning with him when he hasn't eaten.

Anyway, it had been a long day and I was grumpy because of lack of medication (at least that is what I am blaming it on.) AFter checking my email, I ventured into the kitchen to shovel some food into my little boys mouth before he started freaking out from lack of nutrition. I found him "fixing" our banister with the pliers. Unfortunately that consisted of getting them as far around a dowel as he could and then closing them together creating a large scratch each time. He had done it about 10 times before I found him. In my oh so calm and unmedicated mood, I got just a little upset and tried to take the pliers away before he could cause any more damage. Unfortunately, little Bugsy has quite a grip and didn't like the fact that I wouldn't let him "fix" any more. This led to a pretty bad pinch of my hand since I was on the working end of the pliers. It made me just a little more upset ... okay, maybe a lot. I took the pliers and tossed them on the counter as Bugsy screamed in dismay. So much for getting him fed before he freaked out.

As I began getting my screaming 2 year old some food, Emma asked in about 6 different ways what was wrong with me. I finally told her (not very calmly I might add) that I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to get mad at her. However, it was a little too late for that, but at least I hadn't yelled at her yet. I then proceeded to feed Bugsy, which was only possible by threatening to put him in his room if he didn't eat. Not very good for teaching good eating habits, but I don't have a whole lot of options at this point.

Emma watched my attempt at stuffing food into a toddlers mouth for a minute. She then quietly got up and went into the office. The next thing I heard were some piano notes playing, not a tune exactly, but with a lot of love and the words, "Emma loves mommy, yes she does..." She said some other things in her song, but I'm not sure what they were because I was in the kitchen crying. She soon came back and asked if I had liked her song. I assured her that I loved it and she told me it was so that I would feel better. What a sweet little girl she is. I've got to remember to take my thyroid medication so I don't forget so easily how much I am blessed by these precious little ones!