Grayson's Birthday Party

We're blasting off to space!  We had Grayson's birthday party Saturday, and it was a space party.  He had a bunch of friends come over, and we had an interstellar time in the backyard.  Thank you everyone who came and made it such a fun afternoon.

Time for a rewind.  Earlier on in the week we find all the kids over at the Ellers doing some archery in their backyard.  There was a primary day activity after the father and sons camp out, and they brought some archery equipment for it.  It hadn't been returned yet, so they set it up, and it seems like the kids were having a good time.  I believe at least one arrow went over the fence, but fortunately it's not another backyard over there.

Grayson helped cut vegetables for dinner this week.  He loved it, and I enjoyed my thick cut vegetables at dinner. :)

Here's Grayson at preschool this week.  Looking pretty fly in that jacket.

A lizard got in the house, and Jelly found it.  Fortunately, I was there to save the lizard, though Jelly was very persistent.  It took teamwork, I grabbed Jelly and Monica got the lizard out.  However, the lizard dropped it's tail in the encounter in an attempt to get away.

Here's Grayson helping get everything ready for his party.  He was so excited!

This was in the first picture, but we had a photo stand up for the kids.  We're blasting off into space!!!

We had a pinata, and the kids loved it.  Everyone got a few turns to take their whacks at it, but it was still holding strong, which meant it was time to recruit a dad.  Connor stepped up to the plate, and on his first swing I yanked the pinata up, the bat came out of his hands, and hit a window!  Nothing broke, no one got hurt, and I had a real good laugh!  I wish there was a video.

We sang happy birthday to Grayson, but it was pretty windy, so I couldn't keep the candles lit.  I think in the end Grayson blew out the match, and if I was lucky I got one candle lit.

Sunday was stake conference, and I stayed home with the kids to watch the broadcast.  In the morning after we got ready, Grayson was looking for something to do, and I taught him a favorite game of mine from when I was a kid.  Throwing a ball up the stairs.  It usually bounces it's way back down to you.  Grayson really enjoyed it and played for quite a while, I guess he get's that from me.

Brooke and Grayson were pretty good during conference.  Brooke was able to find quiet things to do the whole time and was hopefully listening.  Grayson also did well at being quiet, and he wandered a bit more, but was still well behaved.  Winry had a rough go of it right from the onset though.  The second we sat down she was too bored to handle life, and came and snuggled up next to me.  For a while I thought we'd make it all the way through like that, but with about a half hour remaining she couldn't take it any longer, and then we spent the rest of conference sitting in a different room with her crying sitting on my lap.

Sunday afternoon Jelly was begging to go in the backyard.  She wandered around everywhere before returning to rest in the strawberry plants.  She really likes laying over here.

And that's a wrap on our week!
 

Father and Sons Campout

Oh yeah! Camping trip!  Grayson and I headed off to camp on Friday night.  It was on a member of the stake's land.  He had a big field that we set up tents, and had a fire, and all that goodness.  We ended up having a great time, and both slept well, which is the key to said enjoyment. :) Here's a picture of Grayson heading to the bathroom with the lantern before bed.

Rolling back to Monday I took Jelly to the vet.  She hasn't been eating much lately, and we wanted to make sure she was okay.  She would eat wet food whenever we gave it to her, so we thought maybe it was something with her teeth.  The checkout looked good, but they said some of her back teeth are pretty dirty.  She's now scheduled for a teeth cleaning, and they said they'd be able to take a closer look during the cleaning and see if any of them needed to come out.  So in the meantime we're giving Jelly wet food daily, and hoping she'll feel better after the cleaning.  Oh, they had these cat things on the wall, and I put Jelly on them.  She would climb down almost instantly each time, but I wanted her to try to enjoy it some...

I don't have any context for this, but here's Grayson with a big ol' giraffe.  Maybe Monica will say something here. (It was at the dentist! Love, Monica)

Zoom zoom, back to the campout!  Grayson and I headed up on Friday evening, and we roasted hot dogs for dinner.

We hung out with the Weeks while we were there.  They actually brought the hot dogs for us, and we brought the chips.  Pretty big win for us I'd say!  We had a ton of fun hanging out, and playing on the swing, and roasting hot dogs and s'mores.  Great time!

There was also a pond there with a fountain.  Grayson really wanted to go see it, and Connor grabbed this picture of us over at the pond while they were on their way over.  We spent some time walking circles around the pond before running back to the fire for s'mores.

By the time we were done setting up the tent, cooking dinner, and exploring, the sun was starting to set, so we headed to the tent and got ready for bed.  I listened to a book until Grayson fell asleep, and then finished getting ready for bed.  I was waiting for Parker to fall asleep, but he hung on until about 10:30 when Connor put their weather cover on the tent to dim the moon light.  I fell asleep sometime around 11 once it finally started to feel cool.

Saturday morning we cleaned up and had breakfast before heading back home.  We didn't make it back in time for Winry's basketball game, but Monica and Brooke went.  Winry had a fun time, so that's great!

On Sunday I was heading to the primary room to hear Winry's talk after kicking off Elder's Quorum, but was already too late... But there was a crying baby in the hall that needed my help!  It was another Weeks!  We were around them all weekend long!  Once I got him calm we had a great time, mostly trying to eat his foot.

And that's all I've got for now.  I'm so glad I went to the campout with Grayson.  I was worried it would be rough, but in the end it was just a fun night with Grayson.  All in all we had a good week, and I hope you did too!
 

Potions Class in the Dungeon

Why hello!  Halloween is fast approaching, and we're getting our decorating on.  The hot thing this week was to make potions.  All the kids made their own with a little help.  They had a ton of fun, and now we've got them all on display.  I don't have a picture of our media center with all our decorations out, but things aren't done quite yet either.  Hopefully I remember to get a picture of the final project once we are done.

The girls got coupons for free snow cones at Bahama Bucks, and they expired Monday night, so as soon as we finished dinner we headed out.  Monica stayed home with Grayson.  We had a fun time, and the treats were delicious!

Here's the obligatory picture of Grayson at preschool!  It looks like he was learning how to draw on his fingers last week!

My oh my did Jelly have a good time this week.  She had a lot of friends stop by during the work day.  She kindly greeted them all, and gave them her undivided attention until they finished their business and moved out of sight.  She scared me just a little before this picture because she jumped up at the lizard and the blinds were down, so it made a bunch of noise.  And, a little after this, the lizard continued up the wall, and Jelly jumped up onto the top of the window, and was standing up there by were the lock is, waving goodbye.  What a caring host.

We had dinner outside one evening and Jelly joined us.  She enjoyed wandering the back yard, and eventually found her way into the garden where she plopped down and laid in the shade for a while.  While she was back in here, the neighbors dog came out and was running around their backyard for a while.  She was keeping a keen eye on the fence, and the dog could probably smell something, because it kept coming back and sniffing at the fence, but never barked or anything.  In the end I think Jelly had a good time.

I took the kids out Sunday morning to burn off a little energy before conference.  They did pretty well on Saturday, but it's just a lot of sitting and listening to ask from little kids.  Grayson wanted to give this trike a try, and Winry helped him ride it up and down the sidewalk.  It's a bit hard to pedal, or so it seems to me, I don't fit, so from my perspective it's impossible to pedal.  Anyway, it's a little tricky and Grayson will get caught in positions he can't get the pedals to go in, but Winry was there to give him a little push and get going again.

Sunday evening, our friends the Weeks invited us over to watch the afternoon session and have dinner.  They invited a few families, and everyone had a really good time.  The Ellers offered to bring dessert, and brought a cotton candy maker with them to every child's delight.

And that wraps up the week. Conference was really great, but like usual, it shot by like a blur.  It's definitely good to come back and revisit the talks through the next months, because I know I liked a lot of stuff, but don't remember what a bunch of it was.  It was great to hear from the prophet, and I really liked the story about the person who stole the Book of Mormon from a lady, read it, and then sent her an apology letter!  Really great stuff!

Brooke got her Ears Pierced!

Well looky here!  Brooke got her ears pierced on Saturday!  She was wanting to for her birthday, however, she is supposed to wear earrings for company, and if we waited till her birthday she might not have been able to switch her earrings at that point.  She's been doing a really good job taking care of her ears since, and loves her little butterfly earrings she's wearing right now.

On Monday the rest of the family found themselves on a plane.  They came back so I didn't have to keep talking to the kids stuffed animals.  Probably a good choice.

We keep getting pictures from preschool each week.  Here's Grayson with all the watering cans!

I'm putting both pictures in this week because I really liked them both.  Here he is doing some color matching.  Good times at school.

On Thursday at the end of the school day there was a teddy bear picnic.  Grayson doesn't have school on Thursdays, but they invited all the kinds to attend.  They also have a pumpkin patch right now, and Grayson really wanted to get some.  He picked out a kinda blue one, and a bumpy one, and a few others.  He was very interested in different looking pumpkins.

I took Winry to basketball practice on Thursday evening.  She did great listening to the coach, and worked on her shooting.  She made some good progress.

On Friday night I had an excellent date night idea.  I ordered a Tech Deck that came with some skate park features, and Monica and I made a skateboarding video.  I thought it turned out pretty well!

Saturday morning I took Winry in early for pictures before her basketball game.  There were only 4 kids there in time for pictures.

That said, there were only 6 kids there on time for the basketball game, and 9 eventually came in total.  The games were actually pretty long.  4 8-minute quarters, and they subbed every 4 minutes of game time.  It was a lot of fun to watch, and I recorded 3 of the times Winy was in, if you wanna watch one.

Winry and Grayson were playing... sit on Winry... I guess.  I dunno, but they were happy the whole time, so it was a win.  The girls sure like to encourage Grayson to do things like this, but probably 70% of the time they get sad/mad when he does it, because it comes without warning...

All of Grayson's love of marble run finally clicked in my brain, and I got down Fireball Island to play with the kids.  As we've tried playing it, it turns out the rules are actually really simple, and everyone loves to play it.  Grayson needs a little help because he can't read, but helping him know what and when he could use his cards, he actually won by a fair bit when we all played together.

On Sunday Grayson was having a really hard time at church, and we ended up outside for part of Sacrament meeting.  We started playing kitties and it was just cool enough that I wasn't super hot out there.  Phew!

And that's it for the week.  We had to set up Fireball Island before church so that it'd be ready for us when we got home, so it's a pretty hot commodity right now.  Good thing I've been having fun playing it!
 

Tale of Two Weeks

A little pre story before we get into the split weeks.  One night when Brooke was going to bed, she called Monica up because her finger was kind of numb.  Random places on her hand were kind of numb feeling, and there wasn't really a reason why so we told her to let us know if it got worse and keep trying to go to sleep.  In the morning she told us her hand was feeling worse, and it looked swollen, so I took a look, and under her scrunchy she had like... 7 hair bands that were just TOO tight to be on her wrist.  If you zoom in you could count and see if I got the number right.  So we won't be wearing those anymore, and may be we'll buy some bigger ones, cause I know Brooke loves to have one on for just in case.

The week split on Wednesday, when Monica and the kids left me for Utah.  Looks like the pilots needed help taking off, so good thing we've trained our children for moments like these.

After landing, they stopped to get dinner at Noodles & Co. on their way to Gram and Pop's house, and got in in time for bedtime.  The next day they went to BYU, or as Brooke calls it "my future school."  They had a lot of fun at the book store on the slide, and of course shopped for some new BYU drip.

After, they went to the MOA for lunch, and this seemed the best picture to bring up the fact that Melanie was visiting from India!  That's the real reason why Monica went out on this otherwise random week.  Also, I think the kids have Monday off school, so a 3 day weekend is also a good reason too.

While on campus, they reached out to the most recent Harding cougar, Emilee!  I don't know what all they did together, but I know they walked the pedestrian bridges up by the Marriott Center, and it looks like they were all excited to see each other.

Friday they headed to the aquarium up in Salt Lake City.  It's apparently a super awesome aquarium.  I haven't been to it since it moved several years ago.  The kids all had a lot of fun.  We talked on the phone that night, and they told me all about the animals.  There was a tube you could walk through at the bottom of the shark tank, and a UV light with some jelly fish, and all kinds of other things I'm not remembering.  There was also this cool rope bridge that at least some of the kids crossed.  I asked Winry if she felt like she was in a Magic Tree House story.  She said no...

There was also a Komodo dragon with a sculpture.  There were several animal sculptures, all of which were climbable. 

Turns out that Friday was also Gram's birthday.  This was a pretty good weekend to go out, eh?  Everyone had mint brownies and sang happy birthday!

On Saturday everyone went out for a hike.  Grayson found a very good walking stick, which came in handy mostly to hold in the air from step to step.  Definitely made his hike easier.

They found this nice clearing, and it looks like some of the trees were even changing colors.  Monica said the weather was perfect for the hike as well, so that's lucky, because I was having second summer here in Texas.

They came upon this tree that was bridging the creek.  It took some convincing from Monica that it would be safe, but everyone, including Grayson, crossed it.  Grayson crawled across with Winry.  Once they did it once it was fun, not scary, and they were all VERY excited to tell me about crossing this log. Everyone wished they could stay there all day long.

Saturday night Monica, all the kids, and many others went to the BYU volleyball game.  They were worried beforehand about Grayson getting bored and causing problems, but everyone had an amazing time!  Volleyball is a pretty good one for younger kids, because there's a lot of stops in the action and they play music all the time.  The kids loved getting up and dancing.

Here's Brooke and Audrey watching the game.

And here's Grayson and Winry.  The good thing about sitting up high is that there was free space for running around.  Also, usually the volleyball games are packed, but there was a football game shortly after the volleyball game, so I think that kept the attendance lower at the volleyball game. After the game, Brooke was very excited to walk through the Richards Building, home of the dance department. She hopes to spend a lot of time there someday!

Oh, and does this tree look familiar?  Yup, this is the tree "house" at the church building from when we were all out a few weeks ago.  Looks like Grayson shared the secret with Jett.  Who knows if they ever made it into church...

So after that action packed week, I'm sure you're all dying to know the amazing adventures I went on back at home.  I spent the first few days eating leftovers to try to not let anything go bad, and Friday night I finally had to cook for the first time.  I kinda made pasta in a pot, except I made it in a pan.  It was great!!

On Saturday I had a few things to do on my computer, like get caught up writing blog posts, and work on my lesson for church, etc.  Jelly likes to join me in the office, and a lizard came by too!  I think that's really why Jelly likes to come in here, she usually sits on the windowsill looking out at the bush.

Saturday night was the BYU football game, and since I had the house to myself I got some buddies together to tailgate and watch the game together.  Literal party going on right here.

And here we are at game time.  It was a late night kick off, so we turned the lights off, and there's no way anyone fell asleep before the game ended...  I was awake long enough to see that we were going to win at least, and it was a pleasant surprise in the morning to see we didn't lose our lead!

And now that you've seen what I've been up to, I'm sure you're all grateful that my family is coming back to me tomorrow.  I am too!