First day of school

The boys have been gone for 3 hours now. I think they were both excited to go and I'm excited for them to come home and tell me all about their day. I think Nathan is excited to eat lunch at school. He'd better eat it all...it's $1.50 this year!

I only have 3 kids at home now. Four years ago, 3 kids seemed overwhelming. Now I'm glad it's ONLY 3? Ah, perspective!

Leah is just about killing me with her whining for a snack, but other than that, we're getting along marvelously.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDPA (MICHAEL)!

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Good-bye SUMMER!

School starts tomorrow. Hallelujah! I am looking forward to a little peace and harmony around here. I hope I still have a chance to get some. At least the number one antagonist will be gone for 8 hours, as well as the number one negative complainer. No one will be hitting us as they walk by and we can eat our lunch in peace without hearing someone say they don't want that.

Their school bags are packed. I wrote names/initials/identifying marks on 16 glue sticks, 1 bottle of glue, 4 large erasers, 72 crayons, 29 pencils, one pencil sharpener, 3 notebooks, 1 folder, 2 rulers, 2 file boxes, 2 pairs of scissors, 12 colored pencils, 1 set of watercolors, 12 markers, and 2 pencil boxes. (There may be something else, but I'm remembering off the top of my head here.) Also included, but not marked, are 2 containers of disinfectant wipes and 3 large boxes of tissues.

We made the boys get up early this morning - the same time they need to get up for school. They both wore a new pair of shoes in honor of the "practice". Nathan said they came from SPU and Daniel disagreed, saying they came from FeeDex. At least I don't shop online so often that they actually know what those delivery companies are really called!

We've been having fun with skunks lately. We actually caught one in our trap. That one is buried now, but it's relative got revenge on us and stunk up our yard and house pretty good Sunday night. One of the cats sure smelled like skunk today. Lovely little critters.

Here are some scrapbook pages I've done recently.

Credits

Credits

Credits

Credits

Credits

Credits

Credits

Credits:

"Relax" by Summer Driggs

Credits

Credits

Why don't we go to Yellowstone?

We realized Friday that we hadn't been to Yellowstone in three years (two weeks before Rebekah was born). So we decide to make a day trip of it on Saturday.

We had a little delay as Chad took the kids (all 5) down to the corner of the property to turn off the irrigation water and backed the end of the truck into the canal. We finally got it out with the tractor we've been borrowing since June and headed out of town at 10:30 AM.

We stopped in Jackson, WY for lunch and gas and potty and continued on to the park. We arrived at the Old Faithful geyser 10 minutes before the estimated eruption time and 30 minutes before the actual eruption. By the time it did erupt, I was back at the lodge with the 3 youngest in the shade and Chad was with the boys up in the crowd. About the time we decided to give up on the old girl, she showed her stuff and we took the kids on a walk around the area to see some things. While kneeling over the edge of the walkway to feel the run off from the geyser, Leah got a huge splinter in her knee. You may have heard her screaming. It would have been about 5:15 MST.

We stopped a few other places and got some pictures. I was so worked up about the kids getting in other peoples' way or falling off into the hot pools, that I finally decided it was better to walk in front of them and not watch. Then there was the time I was far enough back that the wind and steam took care of the problem for me.

There was a storm threatening and we got to see some BEAUTIFUL clouds. I LOVE storms and rainy season was my favorite season on my mission. I don't exactly love to be rained on, though. I would probably feel differently if I lived in an area that suffered from violent storms. Eastern Idaho doesn't get enough action for the novelty to wear off. :)

We saw quite a lot of elk, a chipmunk, a squirrel and a coyote. (Maybe it was a wolf, but I think it was a coyote.) No bison or moose on this trip.

We got home about 10:45 that night and fell into bed.

Leah recently earned a fingernail paint job. But she still had some fingernail polish on her fingers and I didn't want to work that hard, so we painted her toes. She loved it and the boys were quite intrigued. Then they slipped into brother mode and started teasing and poking her - thereby making it harder for me to paint. (Sorry for the sideways picture. This is not an award-winning blog. You get what you pay for!)

School starts in 8 days. But who's counting?

I have to give up my computer for a day or so. I hope to be back soon!

Crawling

A sitting baby is a happy baby. A crawling baby is a happy baby. A crawling baby with a diaper leaking orange goo, who stops to sit occasionally, is a disaster. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "Follow the yellow brick road."

Where's my disinfectant?

A Ca-WHAT?

We picked up a Vocal Point cd at the library this morning. (For those of you that are not True Blue, Vocal Point is an all male a cappella group at BYU.) I was trying to explain to the kids that all the songs were sung without any musical instruments...just their voices and maybe some clapping. The song playing was "Istanbul." During one high, whiney attempt to imitate a musical instrument, Leah asks, "Is that a chicken singing?"

I laughed out loud and told her it was just people singing. Daniel pipes up, "It was a cat." (I think he was joking.) At the end of the song and another high, whiney wail, Nathan turns to Daniel and asks, "What did the cat say?"

Oh my heck. They just don't get it!

Time to baby proof (again)

Joseph has finally entered the crawling stage! He figured it out just this week. I got this video of him yesterday afternoon and he is so cute! A couple of days ago he actually left me at the computer and went down the hallway. He is usually not willing to be so far away.


So now I will have to be a better housekeeper and hopefully pass some of the vigilance down to the kids. We have a live vacuum! He already stands up to the coffee table and is working on the couches. I don't think he'll be content to simply crawl for very long!

School registration is this morning. As soon as the power company's tree trimmers are done mutilating our 5 trees out front, we're heading to the school to get all the paperwork taken care of! Then I think we'll hit the library because they have air conditioning. It's going to be a hot one today...I can already tell.

Cock-a-doodle-who?

Remember our chicks we got in May? They're getting pretty big now. I don't have any pictures of ours, but here are some of the same breed. Chad bought 15 females since all we really wanted was eggs...not necessarily chicks. One died and 14 survived.

Two mornings ago I was dreaming one of my regularly incoherent dreams (something about following a brick, winding pathway with some kids through some kind of temple grounds to visit the prophet and seeing a sunbather up ahead - and thinking that is really inappropriate!) when I heard a strange noise. It took a couple or 3 times to realize that I really was hearing it. I stumbled from bed, glanced at the clock (which was just shy of 6 AM) and went to the window.

Each time I heard it I was trying to eliminate what animals might be making the sound. I first suspected the calves and then decided it wasn't them. Maybe the lambs? No. Is it...could it be the chickens? By the time I'd decided it was coming from their pen and now I need to hear it to figure out what they were doing, it stopped! I was thinking...Dumb hens; someone thinks she's a rooster! And a sad sounding rooster at that. It sounded like a wounded and dieing lamb. (I never did get back to sleep.)

So I went out to the chicken coop later that day. No, we didn't have a rooster. Rather, we have 2 roosters! I had been thinking that some of them were growing faster than others, but what once looked like an early bloomer a few weeks ago now looks decidedly like a rooster. Twice.

Apparently, they are just getting old enough to crow. I hope they figure it out soon. A day-break wake up call is bad enough - the dieing lamb sound is pathetic!

Equality

On the last day of swimming lessons over two weeks ago, Leah sliced two of her fingers on the edge of the slide (she was holding on tight because she didn't want to go down!). One finger healed; the other didn't.

I took her to the doctor today to get some help for her and she was given an antibiotic (she has a skin infection). When I gave her the medicine tonight, Rebekah wanted some too.

She said, "I cut my finger on the slide at swimming lessons. I goed to the doctor."

Well, she was unsuccessful at convincing me that she should get some medicine so she went to plan B. Leah has some first aid ointment (think Neosporin) on her finger and a band aid. Rebekah helped herself to some first aid ointment. I'm not sure where she got any on herself, but I'm sure that the counter, floor and several handles in the bathroom will be protected from infection.