Boo hoo...

It looks like someone was feeling left out of my blog as other "prominent" bloggers paid tribute to their spouses and significant others. I guess I am not in the running for wife of the year award! I wonder what I will get?... housekeeper, I do keep a clean house, oh right, this is not about me...

Ryan is a great man and wonderful husband. I think he might want me to go into detail here and tell about all the great things he does for me and the kids, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Sure, he works hard all day everyday for us, then comes home only to help take care of the kids and do dinner dishes, then there is the baths and bedtime routine that he is so great at. He forgoes golf and a lot of sports and hobbies for family time and school performances. Not to mention the sleep he misses so he can work late while we are all sleeping so as to spend as much time as possible with us. But we should all ask ourselves why he does this so faithfully, and I will defend that it is because we make home so great for him! Who wouldn't want to live with me and three little boys that never sit still? Now who is the one who needs the kudos? Where does it all come back to? Oh well, thankless job...

All joking aside, I love my guy and all he does for our family, he is pretty amazing and it's not even his birthday, father's day or our anniversary. But with a little prodding I too can be sentimental.

Comings and Goings

Well, the past few weeks have been full of ... nothing really! We have actually been pretty busy just having some summer fun. Connor is still in school, but done by 11:18 each day, random time I know, not sure why it isn't 11:20 or something nice and round. We have been to birthday parties, the gym, pool, splash park, (thanks to spending the extra $25 for the waterproof cast, who wouldn't in June and July?), and even a few rides at the South Jordan City days, have carnival rides always been so expensive and dumb? Oh well, the boys loved it, until the end when Gage got kicked off the slide by some bully, he had a beauty of a goose egg and bruise, which he hit again the next day to make it even better.

Gage still insists on taking off his clothing if at all possible, but don't worry he remembered to wear his water wings, on his head! He cracks me up all the time. Well maybe not so much this week as he reigned hell and terror around the house, including, but not limited to, breaking jars of jam in the basement, escaping the house without me knowing it, climbing on top of the counters to get into the medicine (kept at the very top of the cupboard, in a lock box!), tormenting his older brothers, spilling syrup all over the floor, the list goes on but I have tried to forget!

Tate had a great week and is quite enjoying being the "big" brother while Connor has a broken arm, his highlight is definately sleeping on the top bunk. His big question of the week is, "How did Satan die?" Hmmmm, he never really did.... how do you explain that to a four year old?

We also celebrated Dave's birthday today, he passed away four years ago so it is hard for the kids to remember him. But each year the kids all get to send a balloon "up" to him. Tate and Connor spent all morning trying to devise a way to get attached to all the balloons so they could also go along and say hello. But decided in the end that Mom and Dad would miss them too much so they thought they should stay. Very nice of them I think.

Connor, well... let's just all shake our heads and smile. Connor informed me today that the ten commandments were given to Moses on the mountain by Heavenly Father, only Heavenly Father had a laser beam finger so he could carve them into the rock! Did I miss something from my interpretation of Mount Sinai? It's good to have him around.

Ammon and His Victim

Our stake had a great primary activity today where all the kids came dressed up as their favorite Book of Mormon character and then were able to act out skits and sing some great primary songs. Tate really wanted to go as Ammon so we got him all dressed up and Connor could not think of what to be. So I made him into one of the robbers who Ammon defeated when they tried to steal the kings sheep. I think the sling was a great touch and since he had to wear it anyway.....

Maybe next time he can go as a righteous guy, I don't want to have him thinking he has to be bad.

Monkey School?

Well, here is Connor after playing at recess yesterday. He and his friend Grahm have started a "Monkey School" where they play on the monkey bars each day at recess and after doing certain tricks or stunts they graduate to the next level. Well, Connor graduated to Monkey High School and made it up to Monkey #1 (apparently that is good?). But yesterday as he tried to skip a bar he slipped and fell, which he does most days. But this fall was not so good. He fell on his arm and had to be taken to the ER. That's right, pretty exciting for kindergarten. Of course the school was unable to get ahold of me so they called Ryan and he had to leave work. I got home a few minutes later and wondered why the school had called me and Ryan, but no one left any messages. So I quickly called Ryan and found out where they were.
Connor had broken two bones in his arm and was looking like he had to get pins put in so we had to take him up to Primary Children's. They debated on what to do and decided to try to put it back in first. So they put him out and got it back in, hopefully to stay. We will have to see next week.
But Connor was a trooper through the whole thing and he was hilarious. He was very happy that his younger brothers were not hurt because "they were to little to handle that." Once the drugs got into him he was pretty funny. He demoted himself to Monkey #0 and does not plan on returning to Monkey School in the future.
When he got home he had a phone call from his best friend and cousin, Coleson. Coleson had been a little sad that Connor got hurt and told him that he cried a little bit for him and said a prayer. Well, that got Connor going and he really started crying, I asked him why he was so sad and he told me, "I'm not sad Mom, I'm really happy that I have Coleson for my best friend and I think I feel the Holy Ghost right now." The kid has a soft heart.
Tate was struggling with all the attention Connor was getting but Grandma saved the day by taking him out for a few hours just him. When he got home he was ready to help out with everything and spent all day doting on his brother saying all along, "I'll serve you Connor." Gage could really care less, he is just bummed Connor won't play on the bikes and scooters with him right now.
So we are in for a fun summer, no swimming, biking, scooters, etc. I think we will go visit the library tomorrow.

A Boy & His Boots

You can take the boy out of the country but, you can't take the country out of the boy. I'll admit it, Gage is an exhibitionist. He gets completely naked almost each day and runs around for as long as he can get away with it. But you can always count on him having one thing on, his red mud boots. The boy loves those boots, if only I had gotten him the complete wet suit outfit to go with them. You may all think this is not so bad, but he is not always at home when he decides to let everyone see his stuff.

Recently we were at the gym and I had dropped him off at the childcare center. About 15 minutes later I got called out of my class to come to the day care. I grabbed diaper and wipes because that is usually why you get called out, but I was quickly informed that would not be necessary. I found my little streaker confined to the bathroom completely naked, his clothes were hidden somewhere in the jungle gym and one of the instructors was crawling in there trying to find them. YIKES! How do you explain that one? I tried the, he sees his dad doing it at home and thinks it is funny, but I wasn't sure they believed me. I have since moved back to dressing him in onesies to avoid the naked truth.

Archaelogical Finds and More

Well, I thought you all should know this as it will help confirm your testimonies of the Bible and maybe even give us an idea where the children of Israel ended up. We had the boys helping us weed the garden over at Grandma and Grandpa's house the other day and Connor came running up to us with an exciting discovery. He found Moses "stick" (staff), just laying in a pile of weeds. Can you believe it? Try as he might though he was unable to turn it into a snake, but this did not deter him at all, he quickly concluded that it was so old that it just didn't work right anymore. So there you have it, Moses was once in my in-laws backyard. Good to know.

Then Tate was telling me about the apples at Grandma's house, they are the best apples in the whole world he said. Actually, I bought them and put them in the fridge for a snack for the boys, but I wasn't going to take the glory from Grandma. Connor quickly interceded with his thoughts on the apples, "they are so delicious it is like they take you to heaven and back with every bite." What? Not sure where he got that from. Probably from his dad who thinks living with me feels like that everyday.

If this wasn't enough fun for one post, I'll add some more. My sister-in-law, Jessica, just graduated yesterday, congratulations! Ryan was out of town so I took the kids over to graduation, which was held at UVSC in Orem. The boys were pretty well behaved, even for my standards, considering it was a 3 hour event! Behind us was a very proud parent who videotaped the entire ceremony, he must have very good arm strength to hold the camera that long. About 2 hours into it Gage climbed up on the chair in front of this "parent of the year" and looked right in the camera and said, "you can see me now". We had such a great laugh and some high school senior will now have a good reason to watch their three hour graduation.