Proof that Bigger is Better

I didn't know they made tools this big:

 But I guess when you have a big project, only a big tool will work:

Check out those wrenches on the ground.  Where does he find this stuff?

Blueberry Picking

Girls Camp

In addition to having cub scout camp last week, we also had girls camp.  This would not be an issue for our family, but I got the call to be the girls camp director in February, so I got to go spend Wednesday through Saturday at camp.  It was a lot of fun, surprisingly.  We went to a boy scout camp that was about an hour away, in hill country.  They had a pool with slides, an air conditioned mess hall where they fed us all our food, and a pond for canoing.  It was still really, really hot.

 We have in our ward some great girls.  I had heard that a lot before I went to camp, but I didn't really know the girls other than occasionally having them babysit, and so I couldn't say for sure if it was true.  I really got to know them at camp and I can say that they are great girls.  If I asked them to do something, I didn't get any attitude, and they would jump up and do it.  I was worried about a couple of girls that didn't naturally fit in with the other girls, and I mentioned it to one girl and she went out of her way to make sure that they were included.  The girls didn't complain (much) about the heat and the miserable conditions. 

The other nice thing about camp in our stake is that the stake planned everything.  We just had to show up with our camping supplies and participate.  There were a few times when we as leaders had to fill in free time, but I had great leaders who helped me to fill the time.  The girls seemed to enjoy the games that we played in the extra time.  In the next three pictures you can see we are trying the human knot game.

Somehow we messed it up, and we ran out of time so we just posed at the end as if we had done it.

 We had flag ceremony every day.

 The girls got to ride in canoes, shoot sling shots, archery and bbguns.  We also had swimming time during the hottest part of the day everyday.  That really helped to beat the heat.

 A couple of the nights we had firesides down near the pond.  One night we got to star gaze and a brother brought his telescope.  While we were waiting to look in it, we were given glow bracelets and we had fun making interesting pictures with them.

Here are the three leaders we had the whole time.  I was so lucky to have such great leaders there with us.

 Another night at the fireside, there was a beautiful sunset.

Luckily, my mom came down to stay with my kids, so I could spend the whole time there without worrying about what was happening back at home.  It was really hot, so we all had to not think about it, and just get used to being sweaty. It was also really nice to not have to worry about eating.  The food was pretty good, all things considered, and we could just walk into the mess hall at the designated time and get served food.  We got fed so well that I never ate the snacks I brought with me to camp because I never was hungry for them. Beyond that, though there were several spiritual classes that were nice and it was nice to get away from the kids for a few days.  It helped me to remember what it was like when I was younger and to see how important it is to make the gospel part of our lives. A couple of girls asked if I was coming again next year, but unless I have the calling again, I won't be.  We'll have to see what the next year brings.

Cub Scout Day Camp

Last week, the boys got to go to Cub Scout Day Camp.  Day Camp here runs from 8 am to 1:30 pm, but it is a half hour drive, so they meet up at 7 am.  It is swelteringly hot at camp and very humid.  This is our whole group:

 Parents are supposed to go to camp one day per each child sent to camp.  I was set to go to camp two days, one for Adam, one for Michael, but turned out they didn't need me, so I only went one day and got to hang out with Adam.  They did a lot of fun activities, they played sports, did archery and bb gun shooting, made crafts and learned a little about various topics required to advance in cub scouts.  This year the theme was Jungle Adventure and Adam was a giraffe, hence the black giraffe bandana;)

 Michael was a jaguar.

We love several things about day camp:  seeing friends, passing things off, and the end of day camp.

Ellie's Cheer Camp

Since the boys get to do all sorts of fun things, and Ellie is often left behind, we let her go to a day of "pee-wee cheer camp."  It is a workshop put on by the cheerleaders at the local high school and they teach little girls cheers, a dance or two and other cheer moves. At the end, they have a show that we can watch them at.  Ellie had a great time. She even wrote on one of her papers before the end of school that when she grows up, she would like to be a cheerleader.  Good luck with that, Ellie!

They taught them some stunts, like standing on other girls hands!

A cheer:

 A dance:

 She was assigned to a specific cheerleader.  I left her for a few hours, when I came back, she was sitting close to her cheerleader, and holding her hand and acting like her best friend.

It was a fun day for Ellie.

Not to forget about Michael

With all the posts about the other three kids, I wouldn't want to forget our Michael.  Michael just finished 2nd grade.  At our school they have a program where if the kids are caught be extra good they get a star.  When they get 10 stars, they get to be in the Hall of Fame.  They get a t-shirt and to parade around the school.  Michael finally got into the hall of fame this last quarter.  When they were parading, Michael was walking around doing this: 

 Oh to be an 8 year old boy. We also had the end of year awards.  Michael got straight A's, perfect attendance (that surprised me), and perfect citizenship. 

 Here's his teacher, Mrs. Nesbit.  He learned a lot this year, they reviewed a ton of math skills- addition and subtraction, but they also got to move on to multiplication and a little division.  He also improved a lot on his writing.  Michael HATES to write, but somehow he did fine.  He has a funny sense of humor and it shows up in his writing, so it is nice when he bothers to write to see the funny things that go through his head.  When he writes though, it is only the minimum length needed to satisfy the requirement.

 At our last cub scout pack meeting, he earned his wolf badge!  He earned it a couple of months ago, but they didn't have awards at the last meeting and he was very sad that he couldn't get the patch for a couple of months. He is very proud of himself when he earns the patches. 

We recently had pictures taken of Michael.  The pictures that I paid for that came home from school were AWFUL.  I had them redone and they were still AWFUL.  I wish I was a school photographer, so I could get paid an obnoxious amount of money to do a mediocre job.  I don't understand, they have to have a digital camera- can't they look at the picture to see if your kid's eyes are open or even visible in the picture?

 Anyway, Michael is our easiest child.  He never has big needs or big mood swings. He is generally happy, although he does get "bored" a lot.  He loves to read and has read a ton of books this year: the Harry Potter series, the Gregor the Overlander series, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Series, the Percy Jackson series, and a few more books in between when we didn't have the next book ready. He also loves to play on the computer, the Wii, or his DS.  This year he learned how to make a website, use powerpoint and e-mail.  Pretty soon he will know more about computers than I do.  That's fine as long as he fixes mine when it is broke.

 Halfway through this year he started writing "Mike" on all his papers at school.  If you asked him why he did that, he would shrug and say, "I don't know."  I think it was because he doesn't like to write and so it was easier to write "Mike" as opposed to "Michael."  We asked him if he would prefer to be called "Mike" now but he wouldn't commit- just saying, "I don't know."  Recently, I have started calling him Mike and he responds to it.  I am about 50%, but if you want to call him Mike he isn't opposed to it anymore.

 He still plays the piano well.  He will complain and complain until he is comfortable with the song, then he plays it a few times and memorizes it.  Then we hear the song over and over and over and over again.  Usually, it gets faster the more times he plays it.

 He is the peacemaker in our family (the child right after him is definitely NOT).  Everyone likes Mike and we can often send him up to intercede in an argument and get good results.  He is also good and waking up Nate, which is often a tricky thing.  He and Adam get along great- the only thing that doesn't always work out for them is sharing friends, but we are starting to work on that too.

We are really lucky to have this sweet soul in our family.

The end of the Elementary Era for Adam

Adam just finished his 4th grade year.  In our school district, they have K-4 in the elementary school, and then they move up to an intermediate school that has 5-6 grades.  So Adam is officially done with elementary school.  It also means that he will not be in the same school as Michael again until he is a senior in high school, unless they change the current schools to get rid of their 9th grade center.

At the end of the school year, they had an awards ceremony.  Adam got awards for straight A's all year, perfect citizenship grades and perfect attendance (who knew).  He also got an award for being on the student council and another certificate since he helped the teachers out in the morning with the safety patrol.

 To celebrate the end of the year, the 4th grade had an outdoor water party.  It lasted about 3 hours.  They had a lot of stations- the ones that I was there to enjoy with them were the bubble station:

 ...and the water slide station.  Nate really enjoyed them too.

One more thing, in scouts, Adam has been working really hard and he recently earned his Webelos badge.  He is really close to earning his Arrow of Light award, hopefully he can finish that sometime this summer.

This year was a great year for Adam at school.  He had a fantastic teacher who really allowed the kids to enjoy learning and spend time doing projects and working on things other than worksheets in the classroom.  Instead of dreading going to school, he has really enjoyed going, in fact, if I took him out even 30 minutes early, he would get very grumpy with me and be sad he couldn't still be in class.  He has learned to study on his own and take more responsibility for his own work.  

We sure love our Adam.

Nate turns 4

It's hard to believe, but our little Nate is 4 now!  We started the day by opening presents.  He was so excited to open presents, and loved all the presents that he got.

 A little later on in the day, however, he assured me that I got the wrong things and that he wanted more Legos-in fact, ALL of the police legos he saw on the pamphlet that came with the Legos he got.

 We went and got him balloons- 4, one for each year.  He was pretty good about not letting them go to the ceiling, but later on that evening he released the one that will last a while and it is currently in our entryway where it is two stories high.

 I had several ideas for a party for him-to go fishing with Daddy on the big boat, but "No," he didn't want to go on the big boat.  Then I thought I could throw him a small friend party during the day.  No, he didn't want to have a friend party, just his family.  He specified- Mom, Dad, Adam and Michael, ( I figured Ellie would be coming too).  Two days before his birthday he changed his mind and said he wanted a friend party, but with all of the end of school events I decided that just wasn't going to happen.  He got to pick his dinner: bacon and eggs-fried not scrambled. 

 We made treats for the "party"- tractor lollipops:

 Cookie pops:

 He blew out his candles:

 And enjoyed eating them:

While I am on the subject, here are Nate's 4 year pictures.  He really has grown up a bunch in the last year.

He has very strong opinions about things.  If he doesn't want something or like something, he has no qualms with not doing it.  He takes his role as baby very seriously, telling me all the time that he is too small to do what I am asking him.  When I explain that, "no, he is a big boy," he emphatically tells me that he is not big, he's little. 

 I have started working on teaching him the basics for reading.  (I started with the other three by this point).  I know that Nate is a very bright boy, but he learns entirely different than Ellie and Michael, so it has been a challenge for me to think of creative ways to get him to learn things.  As soon as I figure out how to do it, he learns it quickly, but if I am not doing it his way, he pays no attention. 

 His favorite color is still orange.  He always picks the orange candy or popsicle and prefers to wear his shirts that have orange in them. He loves to play with Legos.  Everyday I give him an hour to an hour and a half of quiet time, and quite often he goes upstairs and builds "ships"  that he gives to Adam and Michael when they come home from school.  His favorite show is Superwhy, but he also likes Team Oomie Zoomie and Dora.  He HATES Sesame Street.  He is quite an independent child, if he decides he wants to do something, he will go off and do it.  It never occurs to him to get permission to do whatever it is.

 He loves to be around his daddy.  He also likes to be around me.  So much that sometimes he doesn't like to go to preschool because I am going to leave him for 3 hours.  Apparently he gets over it fairly quickly.

 He still is the siblings favorite- how can he not be with that twinkle in his eyes?

We sure love him and are happy he is part of our family!