Mom, look! Kids do silly things!

Kids! You never really know what they are thinking when they do the things they do! Carson comes to me in tears of pain with this wiffle ball on his finger. It is all the way down his pinky finger and stuck really good! He had tried soap to help remove it before he came to me. I tried just moving it to see if we could just wiggle it off with no luck. I told him he had to wait for his Dad to help him. I knew it would be a process to get off and Steve is good at those kinds of processes! While waiting for his Dad to get home, Carson wrapped his hand and ball in toilet paper. I am not sure why, but it kept him happy until his Dad got home.
The family gathered around the kitchen counter as Steve took a miniature hacksaw and starts to work on the removal. The slide show shows the process it took to get that ball off of his hand! It is really kind of funny the silly things kids do! Carson didn't think it was funny at the time as the hacksaw got closer and closer to his finger. Of course, I saw this as a blog/photo op!

LDS Gems

I subscribe to LDS Gems from the LDS.org website. I get emails daily with quotes about/for family and another one on just general gospel topics. I love the quick little reminders of what is or should be important in my life. After spending 3 or 4 hours at school, going from a meeting for one child to the classroom of another child, meeting with teachers in the hall about yet another child, I come away wondering how I am really going to help my children be successful in school. There are so many challenging needs. I open my email to this reminder, and it is just what I needed. I can just hear President Monson's voice as he counsels.
Gems on the Family
The Home Is the Most Significant Classroom

"Perhaps most significant of all classrooms is the classroom of the
home. It is in the home that we form our attitudes, our deeply held
beliefs. It is in the home that hope is fostered or destroyed. Our homes
are the laboratories of our lives. What we do there determines the course
of our lives when we leave home. Dr. Stuart E. Rosenberg wrote in his book
The Road to Confidence, 'Despite all new inventions and modern designs,
fads and fetishes, no one has yet invented, or will ever invent, a
satisfying substitute for one's own family.' "

(Thomas S. Monson, "Precious Children--A Gift from God," Ensign, Nov. 1991, 68)

"Oh, I love making cookies!"

While I was cooking dinner Katie comes bounding into the kitchen declaring that she will make dessert, anything that I want! Who could resist that offer?
We have a cookie making monster at our house! Katie loves to make cookies! As she begins to mix she says to herself (outloud so I could hear) "Oh, I love making cookies!"
This is about the 3rd time she has made cookies and so far she has done quite well with the pre-packaged mixes for cookies. There are always a few reminders along the way to READ the package/recipe. The cookies never last long after they come out of the oven, so she's getting the hang of it. Next, it is on to the real recipies! Oh what dessert should she learn next? The ultimate brownie??

Parade in Nampa

Saturday morning we packed up the chairs, water bottles,forgot sunblock, and went to the parade in Nampa. We found a great parking spot right on the parade route, without any shade! The kids love parades not so much for what they will see but for what they will eat! The parade candy!!!! It was quite warm at 11am and we forgot the sunblock so Steve and his Dad got some nice sunburns on their faces and necks! The rest of us just tan!

After the parade we decided to go out to Murphy, ID since we are all Murphys! Well little did we know how small the town is! It was fun anyway! We went to the museum and kids found some trinkets on their garage/table/yardsale they had inside the museum to raise money for the museum. We stopped by the Murphy General Store to see about some lunch but decided against the big $$ for unknown quality of food! So onto Golden Corral! The kids are in heaven! All the dessert they can eat or allowed to eat anywhere, anytime except at the buffets!

Logan's Class Field Trip

Logan's 5th grade class went on a field trip last week and I got to follow along. We have lived in Boise for 14 years now and I had never been to any of the places we visited on this field trip. There are art displays around Boise that you miss when driving around. I am so glad I packed Emily into the stroller and went along with the class.
The students started at the Idaho Historical Museum. It was fun. I had a group of 6 students and they had to find 6 items to build a scavenger hunt. Then the papers were traded with another group of students and we had to find what they put on their scavenger hunt! It was a great way to engage the students in a museum. I think they learned something! After a lunch in the park they boarded the bus to the Basque museum area and stared the Boise Art Walk. They had 10 different stops around downtown Boise that we walked to and answered questions regarding the different pieces of art displayed around Boise. There are huge postcards on the side of buildings, sculptures, paintings, artwork in the sidewalk. If you look closely at the photo of the bear heads, you will see the students fingers doing their own exploring! I thought it was a cool photo and only saw what they were doing after I loaded the photos onto my computer! The last stop before returning to school was the Basque Museum. Their culture, language, and way of life was interesting to learn about. Whaling was a big part of their culture. Their homelands cover area in Spain and France. It is their language that makes them unique.

In my spare time...

In my spare time, in my alternate reality, I will get to read every one of these books on my nightstand! I love to read! I just need another 24 hours added to my day!

Beep, Beep!!!!

I set Emily down in her stroller for just a moment while I put something away and she was so excited! She accidentally hit the horn button on her steering wheel and it made noise! She was so happy! She just got more and more excited! It was cute to see her play and the sheer joy she gets from it!

Socks....I wish they were disposable!!!!

When doing laundry it seems there are always the lone sock(s)! I would think that when one sock goes into the laundry the mate should be with it!!!
As I walk around my house, garage, yard, or clean out the car I find socks! Often times only one sock! Who goes around with just one sock on? When I am doing laundry and I come across the lone sock, I put it into the sock basket hoping it will be reunited with its mate within a load or two.
The kids don't seem to care about matching their own socks. They just dig to find a close approximation. Some don't even care how close the approximation, just that they have one for each foot! One girl sock and one of Dad's socks and you are ready to go!
My socks go into the wash together and magically they come out of the wash together!

They say the funniest things!!

Katie brings me this pretty glass paperweight from the garage and asks about who it belongs to, and where it came from. I told her I wasn't sure where it had come from. After I told her to put it on the bookshelf she walked away and told me, "Dad probably gave it to you when you were young!"







Logan comes to tell me that he is writing a story about me and wants to know what age I want to be in the story. I told him my real age is fine! "No mom, it is a tall tale! How about 35?" (I just turned 41!)

Kids sure can be hard on things!

Kids sure can be hard on things! We noticed a problem in the kids' bathroom when the ceiling directly below this bathroom was sagging a bit and the tile around the toilet was discoloring! The combination of shower curtains not being shut and toilet overflows forced us to pull up the toilet and floor down to the floor joists. We have a some good friends that helped us with this seemingly impossible project! Karl and Carol you are awesome!

The other night Steve and I got the tiles measured and cut. And then tonight got the tile set and tomorrow the grouting! Hooray, maybe the kids can use their own bathroom by Sunday morning!

I am so ready to invest in a port-a-potty!