Happy Birthday Ethan (and me)

My oldest baby has just turned eight. I can not believe I have a child this old. He is such a neat kid. His mind is so unique and he thinks of the neatest stories and all the wonderful inventions that someday he'll make. A friend of mine found a quote that suits him perfectly, "Those who can see the invisible can do the impossible". Ethan and I share our birthday which at first wasn't that big of deal because babies don't care, then the last couple of years my birthday was kind of blah, but this year he was really concerned that we celebrate the day for me as much for him. I love this kid!

Ethan's first birthday

His 2nd birthday

3rd birthday

I couldn't find his 4th birthday picture so I had to skip to his 5th birthday picture

6th birthday

7th birthday

And finally his 8th birthday

I know he looks a little angry in this picture but he ended up getting very sick that day. He got a camera for his birthday and has been taking all sorts of wonderful pictures like action figures doing really cool things, pictures of the TV and so on. I just realized that he has the same jammies on for his 7th and 8th birthday picture, maybe we should have got him some pajamas instead.

Happy Birthday Joshua

My little wild man is 3! Joshy has by far surpassed all his siblings in the "naughty" stage. He started as soon as he could crawl and has never quite grown out of it. He is so darn cute which has saved his life several times :) Happy birthday Joshy we love you!
3 Months old

Joshua's first birthday

Just hanging out in the oven drawer, what is that weird?

Camping, Joshy LOVES animals

We always do a big birthday breakfast for the kids, Ethan helped make the Mickey Mouse pancakes for Joshy

His birthday cake

Joshua loves whatever the big kids love, and they are really into Pokemon right now. FYI if your kids have never seen Pokemon please never let them watch it. It has to be the lamest thing I've ever seen. Anyway, he got Crowgonk a Pikachu movie and some Pokemon action figures. (I'm sure I'm spelling those wrong for any die hard Pokemon lovers out there sorry)

Cooking 101

Lately Porter has been helping me make lunch while I finish with Ethan during school. He is a pro at making top ramen and can do it completely by himself. Well yesterday I had been canning peaches and had left stuff on the oven, I told Porter to just use another burner, which is apparently a lot harder than I thought. Shortly there after I smelled smoke and Porter was crying, I looked over the balcony and saw an apron that was singed. I told him to just throw it into the garage. Then he started crying again and I could smell wax in with the smoke so I ran downstairs and removed the melting plastic off of the oven. All was well and we finished up school ate a great healthy lunch of top ramen then we all got packed up to go visit Johnny at his office. Porter opened the door to the garage screaming FIRE! FIRE! This is what we found.

Apparently when something is still slightly burning you need to put it ALL the way out. Johnny is really happy that it burned the steps, but in my defense I wasn't the one who started it on fire :)

First Day of School

I figured since everyone else posted their first day of school pictures I needed to do one as well. I had my kids pick their favorite part of the school room to get their picture taken. Porter and Bella both picked our devotional area, this is where we do the calendar, say the pledge, sing songs and all that good stuff. Ethan picked our maps. Joshua is sitting at the babies table where I had dreams of him and Tess sitting there and coloring so nicely and being quiet. I don't know what I was thinking, so far during school Joshua has ran away SEVERAL times. I found him one time stark naked covered with mud, oh the life with a 2 year old.

Farmers Market

My kids really want to make some money so they can buy every toy they've ever laid eyes on; and because my garden looks like this...

(I know it's awesome)

I suggested they have a vegetable stand. They thought it was great and ended up going door to door with our gigantic zucchini and yellow squash trying to sale some. They did alright and they had a really good time. They can't wait to go buy all their toys now.

Happy Birthday Bella

My little girl turned 5 last Saturday. She is such a delight when she's not being a diva :) We went out as a family for her birthday and saw "Aliens in the Attic" then went out to eat. She got a CD player and some CD's for her birthday and absolutely loves them. She falls asleep to Kid's Bop every night.




I know she's picking her nose in this picture but this one sums up Bella; completely adorable, doing something she shouldn't (stuffing a kitten down the couch is frowned upon at our house), and then acting like a little boy (picking her nose) and to top it off she's in a dance outfit (she wasn't in dance she just loves to wear a leotard or a swimsuit everyday)

Birthday morning, what's better than to blow out your candles in bacon and eggs?

Ethan's Play

Ethan was in his very first play last week. He did an amazing job and really got into his character. It was an American History play and he was Mr. Snowden. Way to go Ethan!!

24th of July!!

Happy Pioneer Day!! What a fun weekend we have had. Friday morning we had a kids fun run in the neighborhood. My friend Julie had organized the whole thing and had it seperated by ages and they all had different distances. Bella took 3rd place, Porter took 1st wahoo!! and Ethan was doing alright but stopped to pee and then pick some flowers. At first we thought Ethan was trying to cheat and cut through the fields, so luckily he's not a cheater but will probably get busted for public urination later in life. After all the runners they had a bike race. Bella learned to ride a bike the day before but doesn't have a bike yet so she was bummed to not be apart of the ride. The boys got to ride and had fun.



Right after the race we headed camping down to Fairview with my family. We had so much fun. We weren't sure what to do with Tess, so we decided to set up a truck tent right next to our tent so we could put her to bed when she needed to and then when we went to bed we wouldn't wake her. Great in theory, but the little stinker ended up screaming most of the night. We brought her in with us but she has never slept with us, she really hates it. I'm not a great night time mom and I get so tired I can't function, Johnny kept saying lets put her in the truck in her carseat and she'll go right to sleep. I kept saying no, that's too mean. Finally at about 6:30-7:00am Johnny just does it and she instantly fell asleep. I've been informed I'm not allowed to make any decisions while I'm tired.

We had four wheelers down there and just got to sit around and relax. We even got to go swimming in the leech infested waters. After about the 8th leech we decided to go back to camp. Johnny and I headed home Saturday night and tried as best as we could to get all the dirt off the kids before bed.

9 years!!

I can't believe it has already been 9 years!! What an adventure it has been, thank you Johnny for always being there for me and for our 5 five great kids, I love you!!

Clowns

Ethan really loves clowns and making people laugh, so last week at the library we got a book on how to be a clown and it had fun suggestions of how to paint your face. We had a ton of fun, and then it got a little out of control and neighbors got painted and unfortunately kittens.

Why I Love Homeschool

This is how Porter did his math today, it must have worked because he got 100%.

I'm such a sucker

Last week my neighbor got two kittens, then my sister got two kittens, so of course we HAD to get two kittens. Ethan named his Cheepy and Porter named his Snowflake. The boys have been pretty responsible in taking care of them and making sure they have enough food and water. The kittens have so far survived jumping off our deck and the dog carrying it around, but can they survive the kids...??

Strawberry Days!

Oh how I LOVE Strawberry Days! We had such a blast this year. We had hoped to start with the carnival on Wednesday but we didn't realize that it didn't start until 6pm that night, the kids were bummed but they got over it. That night we headed to the rodeo. Bella did the Mutton Bustin this year. She was all excited until she found out the sheep run. She was thrown on a sheep and was shoved out the gate and immediately ate dirt. She was very mad about it for a few days but now she loves to tell everyone she rode a sheep. Some of her cousins rode too.
Here is Hadlee and Bella.

All the cousins that rode.

I just love the look of pure terror on her face in this one.

Then on Friday we went to Huck Finn Days. We had one sister for each line so the kids could hop from line to line.
There was a fish pond.

Face painting.

Horse rides.

Then Saturday morning was the Grand Parade. It rained but we were prepared, so it wasn't too bad.