St. George Trip, 2011

Thursday; July 28, 2011

I told you about Tory's fake birthday on Thursday the 28th...We enojed the Jell-O Cheesecake for breakfast and then headed to St. George. We decided to take the trailer this time instead of staying in a hotel, so we hauled that down there with us. Usually we light the gas pilot to cool off the fridge before we go, but we couldn't get it to light, so we had to wait until we plugged it in for it to START getting cold...And when it's 100 degrees outside, you really get wishing you had a nice cold beverage!

We went to the local WalMart and stocked up on the food stuffs. When we came back to the RV park, Lee decided to take of and go on a bike ride while the resot of us did some swimming. Spencer ran over and jumped in...in the deep end! He scared himself so bad (he thought it was the shallow end!) that he forgot he can swim and started panicking...but as I turned to jump in to him, Tory jumped, swam to him, and just sort of pushed him to the side of the pool where he could hold on. Yep...Tory's first water rescue! Sweet. The pool felt great, and we enjoyed the chance to swim with Grandma and Grandpa, who also brought their trailer down and were camping next to us.

Lee got back from his ride and joined us at the pool...He rode 6.6 miles...but in that heat, he swears it felt like 12! The pool felt REALLY good after that ride...!

First Day of School - 2011!!

Finally back to school! As previously disclosed, I cruelly forced all my darlings to go to Providence Hall, a great charter school in our area. Not only does that put all of them on the same schedule for the upcoming year, it also meant we didn't start school until almost SEPTEMBER! WOW...What a great, long summer we've had! (We tried hard not to dwell on the fact that once they go back, they're back. No 3-week "off track" breaks for any of them!)

The down sides: Really there are just two. (1) Leaving friends and (2) Uniforms!

Here they were this morning, uniforms on, lunches packed, and smiles on. We got one picture with Megan looking off into the distance, and one with Sydney's eyes closed. But here they are! (Should have taken it outside...the lighting would have been better!) I don't know about you, but I kinda LIKE the uniforms. I think they look great.

Sydney was SO nervous this morning! She kept telling me how scared she was to go to jr. high today. I'll have to let you all know how Day 1 went! (I asked the other kids if they were nervous...Spencer said, "Excited AND nervous!" and Tory said with a shrug, "Nah. S-just school." Megan just shook her head and grinned...Totally in her element: Making new best friends! She's great at it!)

Michael's first day of Kindergarten is next Tuesday. This week, he's just enjoying his last few days of "Stay-Home-Buddy" time.

I kinda miss them already...

Tory's 10th Birthday, Part One:

Tory's birthday is on July 31st. That means this year it fell on Sunday. The problem: We left 3 days before his birthday for our trip to St. George/Kamas. Normally, we'd have just packed up his stuff and celebrated his birthday ON his birthday, where ever we were. But this year, he wanted a new bike. Yep...That's hard to hide! It was give it early, or late...And late stinks! :D

So before we left for St. George, we celebrated Tory's Happy Pretend Birthday!

We opened his presents...

Sang "Happy Fake Birthday"...

And blew out candles on his Jello Cheesecake, which we all ate for breakfast!

Then we went outside and told all the kids to grab their bikes so we could put them in the trailer before we headed out. There, waiting in our bike rack, was Tory's last present:

Happy Birthday, Tory!

Not-So-Motivational Art:

I was walking through a cute crafty store today when this caught my eye:

Not super motivational, but funny none the less.

Friday Fun!

Shawn and Rhoda were so great to take my kids for a sleepover on Monday night so we decided to have theirs over last night! (Can't let them have all the fun!) :D

We started the fun by meeting at the Herriman Rec Center to swim. I forgot my camera (Seriously? Is it possible maybe to have one implanted somewhere so I can't forget it?) so I took these few fabulous shots with my phone...There were cute ones of everyone, but some of them didn't transfer over too well. sigh.

(Here are Megan and Rusty, enjoying the little kids section! They have slides, and some fun "squirt the grown-ups" stuff...Very cool!)

(And, to our surprise and delight, we discovered that Rhoda and I share twins! We've always laughed at Spencer and Wesley, our two little fair-skinned, fair-haired boys that look similar, so we thought it was funny that they even had the same swimsuit!)

(In addition to the really great kids area, they have the lily pads. All the kids loved it...the line was long, but it must have been worth the wait...They all got right back in line when they were done! The older kids tried to run across them, and would generally fall "Wipe Out!" style (so, fun for the grown-ups, too!) but the little ones hopped across, like Michael is here!)

(Here he is after completing his leapfrogging! This fella sure loves the water!)

I took a lot of pictures...A fun one of Megan and Mily going around in the lazy river; one of Josh and Tory playing in the diving pool side of the pool after diving...but they didn't turn out. Blah.

I did, however, get a couple of Sydney in full flirt mode! :D (She's going to be kind of ticked at me for posting this...but hey, I'm the mom...It's my job to tease her, right?)

The twins from across the street came to the pool with us, but then Beau went home (his older brother came and picked him up...I guess he didn't really want to come after all?) leaving just Clay and my kids. Then another boy from our ward, who was there with his sister, joined Sydney and Clay. Here they are at one of the "squirt the grown-ups" features they have in the little kids area...See the "Nemo" slide? Cute, right?

After swimming, we couldn't seem to rid ourselves of this "pesky" neighbor. Good thing he's a nice kid! Really...I was finishing mowing while the kids played, and he came up and offered to finish it for me so I could go do something else. I like to give him a bad time, though...Again, that's my job, right? (These are pictures Clay took of himself and Sydney with her phone in our driveway later that evening.)

(There was another one of him with a pretty white flower in his hair...!)

(I sure think this girl is cute...It's no wonder all the boys she knows have crushes on her!)

After it started to get dark, they played some night games. Lee and I sat in the back of our Yukon with the door open and watched the fun...while munching some popcorn...It was so fun to see everyone running around and enjoying themselves. We even were treated to some fireworks by somebody a few streets over. They played "No Bears Are Out Tonight" and "Ghost in the Graveyard", and ate some popsicles. Then it was off to bed!

Thanks, Shawn and Rhoda, for letting us borrow your kids! We had a blast!

Beatboxing, by Tory M.

"Beatboxing is so great

I can do it while I debait.

Beatboxing is just so fun,

I can even do it while I run.

All you have to do is spit and make noises

I got to get there before the place closes.

And now you know how to do this

Now go sho this to your friends...

Wikiwikiwiki...Werd!"

Courtesy of my almost 10-year-old, Tory. The next Eminem...Werd.

Michael the Brave...

My son is growing shark teeth. No really. Instead of pushing the baby teeth out and coming up in their place, Michael's teeth have just decided to co-exist, with the adult teeth pushing through right behind the baby teeth.

However, I became concerned that although the baby teeth were beginning to get a little wiggly, they weren't getting loose enough to completely dislodge themselves from the gums. Enter: The Dentist.

(I should add by way of disclaimer that all five of my kids think the Dentist is awesome. It may be due in part to the fact that Grandma works there, and nothing truly scary can happen while you are with Grandma, right? They've had teeth cleaned, cavities filled, teeth pulled...and still when I mention the Dentist they are delighted and happy to go. (Oh...and did I mention that Grandma ALWAYS has a treat? A Capri Sun, or a sucker, or a granola bar...But surely THAT has nothing to do with it...!))

Anyway...As I was saying: The Dentist. He and I headed up there, and the only way I could tell Michael was nervous was that he kept asking if he was going to get sleepy medicine. Grandma told him HE wouldn't get sleepy medicine, but his TEETH would. The assistant plays a really cute game with the kids called the blinking game. She holds the kids hands in hers, then she tells the kiddos to blink as fast as they can, and she'll try to count them as fast as they blink. Then, stealthily, while the child is frantically blinking, they sneak in the "sleepy medicine" and no one is the wiser. They are totally focused on the blinking and the squeezing of hands they have no idea the is even a shot involved. Brilliant. And it works...So far on 3 of my kids!

A few minutes of wiggling later, and this is what Michael's mouth looks like now:

(I know, I know...A good mom would have documented the "before" when there were actually shark teeth in rows...But at least I remembered to take a picture of the holes, right?)

He was great! His biggest complaint was waiting for his lip to "stop being so fat". He didn't like the numb feeling! But the best news of all? The dentist put his two little teeth inside a larger, plastic tooth on a necklace...which he placed under his pillow...And in the morning???

A $5 bill! (Tooth Fairy must feel extra generous with teeth that have to be pulled out by dentists...!)

I asked what he was going to do with his money. He just looked at me, grinned, and said, "Claw Machine!"...His grocery store favorite!