Super Star

Tom's had a GREAT week so far this week. When he went back to school on Tuesday we got a call before he came home letting us know that during school he'd earned the "Wahoo for you" award. He had earned it because he was such a good helper cleaning the room and picking up books. I was so proud of him for being a great kid!
The next day, Brian and I were at a function for my work and I got a call on my cell phone from Tom's school. I always get worried when the school calls, so I answered and the vice principal told me that Tom had been chosen to pick a key and try it to win a bike. It is with the reading program they've had for the year. The principal told me that even if he didn't win the bike Tom would win a great prize.
We showed up at the school for the assembly a 2:00pm and we were able to case out the prizes.
This is the bike that we were trying to win. Tom was a little nervous that it only had 2 wheels, but I told him it would be okay and if he won it, we'd take care of that.

They had so many prizes that he could choose from if he didn't get the bike.

This is really dark, but shows how many surprises they could get.

When the K-3 boys went up, Tom didn't even need to try his key because the first boy got the bike. Tom had to pick a different prize instead. He hadn't really prepared himself for this, so he just picked the SpongeBob Sorry game. He was excited about it.He wasn't the only one excited about the game. Charlie was ready to play too. We came home and immediately opened up the game and played a couple of games.

We're so proud of Tom for his time reading. I hope that he continues to love to read so he can have another chance to win the bike next year.

Ninth Grade Advancement

Last night was Brianna's Advancement night. They recognized the students for their accomplishments. Brianna could have easily gotten those awards, but with moving to Utah and only being there for 9th grade, I don't think the teachers really knew her potential.
They had the advancement ceremonies in the gym and it was packed. It was fund to celebrate Brianna and her hard work over the years!

Way to go Brianna! I think she's ready for High School.

Memorial Day Traditions

On our way up to Ogden to begin our Memorial Day Celebration. This has potential to be the best picture, but someone always has to pull that face. See if you can spot it somewhere else.

Our first stop is the best part of the Memorial Day tradition--Farr Better Ice Cream. Everyone got to pick out their favorite ice cream flavor and get a scoop. This little shop is still in its '50s glory it looks so cool. Some of the best flavors that we liked were: chocolate peanut butter (Brian and Brianna), Brownies on the Moon (Rachel), Root Beer (Tom), and a not so favorite Play dough (Chuck--story to follow.)

Here's Tom eating his Root Beer ice cream cone. It tasted like a root beer float that was all mixed together. You can tell he really liked it.

Here's Charlie eating his play dough ice cream. I know my son, and I knew that there was no way that he would eat the entire ice cream cone. I tried to convince him to pick a different flavor because I knew I, or someone else, would have to help eat some of it. Notice in the above picture Sam's ice cream cone size in comparison to Charlie's ice cream size.

Now in this picture, look at the ice cream flavor--Charlie's Play dough. Poor Spencer got stuck with Chuck's left over cone. He said that it wasn't good.

Here are the kid's sitting at the window. There isn't a picture of Brian, Brianna, or me eating our ice cream cones, because we don't mess around. We just eat our ice cream and get on with it. By this time Charles was "done" with his ice cream, Tom was still working on his, and Mary had completely forgotten about the candies that she had chosen rather than an ice cream.

This is Emily, Brianna, and Dan waiting on Dan to finish his treat. Everyone else was outside trying to keep the children under control.

After our ice cream trip, we went to the cemetery to see Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Cawley. This is Tom looking a little special needs, but he's definitely not. We were waiting for my cousins to show up, while playing with the pine cones, taking a walk, and of course hearing how we are related to the other people's headstones by our families'.

We ended our day with a barbecue at my Mom's house. I love our Memorial Day traditions.

Baseball Practice

The other night Brian called me outside to check out Charlie's baseball stance. Mind you, this bat is not even 12 inches long, but the boys love to play baseball. Chuck came up with this one all on his own.
I love how his elbow is all up high, and his face is really great too.

This an up close view of his funny face and the bat up so high. He loved it, and has a really good swing too.

Of course we had to get a picture of Tom. This one is him talking smack to his brother. I don't think he knew I was taking this picture, but I love it!

Garden Update

This was from last week. The garden is doing well or maybe I should say it's well done. I think the watering it's working, we should plan something else.

Here's a full view. With the sprinklers makes it feel like it's getting watered.
This is our 15 or so tomato plants. We will have so many tomatoes if they end up growing I don't even want to think about what we're going to do with the extra. I wish we could ship them to you in Ohio.

This part is where the pumpkins will be. I just hope they sprout soon.

Dan, Amanda's husband, says that it doesn't look like much is growing, but it doesn't look like it's dying either. I'd rather have them grow instead.

Little League

Yesterday was the last game of the season, so I wanted to put up some pictures of Tom's team this spring. Tom's team was the Dodgers, which he was really excited about. He loved that he had a cool uniform just like the big leagues.

Before the game playing catch with Brian, Pete, and David.

More catch. I love this one 'cause it has all of them in it.

Charlie didn't want to play catch, so he was running the bases. David wanted in on that action and they had a race. Here's David holding Charlie back.

But this time Charlie won.

Here Tom's on first.

He had the best swing and could field the ball the best. He must get that ball talent from someone.

We had a good time this year. I won't complain about the cheaters that had their three year-olds play in the 5-6 T-ball league, but I had to get over that, because Tom had a super fun time playing with the boys. Next year is machine pitch.

What a Night!

I haven't forgotten about you, though I'm sure you think I must have.

On Tuesday night I had a great experience. It was our ward's turn to clean the temple. We passed around the sign-up sheet in Relief Society once and had all six spots filled. (I think that's a little victory for me, because any other assignment takes the whole month.) I decided to call the sisters that had signed up to remind them, and in doing so I found that only 3 of the six would be coming. I felt like I should go to fill the place of the missing sisters in my ward. As the day progressed, more sisters called an canceled and I was stressed about filling this assignment. So, I ended up calling my mom and sisters as back up. When we showed up we waited in a little waiting room. I think we were waiting for all of the attendees to finish up getting dressed and be on their way home. Then we went down to the baptistery to change into white jumpsuits and get an specific cleaning assignment.

We all changed and when we met in the chapel, the head housekeeper told us that usually they have 15-18 volunteers, but we had 25 show up. I was so amazed! She also said that they have a regular housekeeping staff from Monday to Friday and then have volunteers come in Tuesday to Friday to help with the cleaning. Our specific assignments were to vacuum, upstairs volunteers, men's locker room and waiting room area, women's locker room, baptistery, and kitchen.

My assignment was the women's locker room. I got to clean all the mirrors, counter tops, and locker tops. I was also given the job of refilling the toilet paper holders (this was my favorite part.) Emily, was working with me for the most part. Amanda cleaned all the glass and stainless steel in the baptistery, and my mom got to mop the kitchen.

I thought it was one of the coolest nights. We showed up at 9:30pm and they sent us home around 11:45pm. The time really went by fast and I think that cleaning the temple is easier than cleaning my own home.

The Beekeeper Field Trip

Yesterday I went with Tom's kindergarten class on a walking field trip to the beekeeper's house. There's a girl in Tom's class whose dad is a beekeeper. His class was lucky enough to go on a field trip to her house to learn about the bees and see them.
We started out the day at school and looking at the map to walk to Brinkley's house. When we had the directions right, we walked up the hill, down the block, across the street, and three house down to the beekeeper's house. We went into the backyard and sat on the blankets that were ready for us.
The beekeeper then talked to us about bees and the neat things that they do. The kids loved to hear about the amazing abilities of the honeybee.

They learned that bees go to the flowers to collect nectar and pollen. The nectar is what they store to make honey and the pollen they spread to nearby flowers to make them bloom and help the garden produce food.

He even pulled out a form from his beehive to show us how the bees store their honey. Then he showed us how they harvest their honey. It was really cool information.

When the beekeeper was finished telling us about the bees and his hives, Brinkley's mom had made homemade rolls for the kids to have warm rolls with bread, butter, and honey. Of course Tom didn't want any honey, but just a roll with butter--strange boy.

P.S. These aren't the pictures from the field trip, but ones I found on the Internet. I wish I would have remembered my camera, because those pictures would have been a lot more fun.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

So at the end of last week, I saw a funny spot in Tom's hair. I though he'd slept on it funny. I tried to mess with it so it'd lay better and then didn't give it a second thought.

The next morning it was the same thing. I thought, "man, how does he lay on his head to were he still has the same spot." I eventually asked him if he cut is own hair and he admitted right to it.

He had found Pete's little trimmers and thought they were cool, so he turned them on and decided to take them to his own hair. It looks funny, but he doesn't mind.

One GREAT Day!

I love Mother's Day! It's a day that we get to celebrate the wonderful women in our lives, and I am blessed to have so many--my mother, Brian's mother, our sisters, friends, and wonderful women in our wards and neighborhoods. I love it.
This is how my family celebrated me. Tom made this card in class on Friday. He colored it and cut it out and wrote the message inside for me. Then attached to the card was some chocolate candies. What a good way to start Mother's Day weekend!
My favorite thing with the card is that when you open it up is says WOW MOM! So cool--Tom thought so too. He wrote "I love you" on the inside. He's such a sweet boy.

Brian picked out these gifts for me. This cookbook that I thought looked really yummy and these DVD's to watch. We already watched one of them last night. One of the many things that I love about Brian is that he gets so excited about giving gifts, he can rarely wait until the gifting event to give them. He couldn't wait for me to open them, so he gave the movies last night and the cookbook this morning. (He did the same thing with Pete's birthday. When we figured out what to get Pete, Brian was going to call him on the phone to tell him about it.) He always is trying to make us happy! He's amazing!

Lastly, Charlie made me this fabulous Fruit Loop necklace in Primary. He smiled for the picture which always makes me happy. When I put the necklace on, I had it on backwards and you couldn't see his face. I said, "Oh, no! I put it on backwards." He responded, "No, Charlie is supposed to be on your heart." What a sweet reply. I'm sure he doesn't know how much he is and all five of my children are always on my heart. I love them all and feel so lucky that I have them in my life.

The best gift was that all five of my children were with me at church today. I love that. I hope that's how forever feels.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Pool Secret...

Goggles!!!

These goggles is what it took for Charlie to be the star swimming student. He loved wearing these while swimming. He really was the best swimmer in his class. He even loved wearing them to the rec. center. They're funny boys.

Happily Ever After...

I got a message from an Ohio friend the other day that was very disturbing, but has made me think quite a bit. A couple of days ago a message came from Ohio--wondering how we were doing, asking for a phone number, and checking on a rumor. The rumor mill in Piqua, OH is hard at work, because the new one in town is that Brian and I are divorced. [gasp] I was a tad offended at that comment and knew that it had to have been started by someone that doesn't know Brian and I at all.
First of all we are very happily married--completely happy! We love spending time with each other. We say the same things at the same time, like we have since we met. We love each other so much.
As I was thinking about potentially not being with him, I couldn't even imagine a day without him. He makes me so happy. When we are apart from each other, I can't wait to see him and spend time with him. He makes me laugh and he thinks I'm funny (which I'm not.) He also treats me like a princess all the time. He thinks about what would make me happy and always puts my feelings first.
I am so lucky to have him and am glad that I don't have to spend a day without him. So let the rumors be squashed--we are living happily ever after!

Kindergarten Day at the Zoo

Today was Tom's Kindergarten field trip to the Zoo. He was so excited to go, he was dressed and upstairs before Brian was out of the shower. Just he and mom got to go on the field trip, Charlie got to spend the day with Gram and that's an entirely separate post.
Here we are riding on the school bus, one of the first fun things of the day. We got to school and they had it all ready for us to put our lunch in a cooler, get a name tag, and separate into groups that we would walk with around the zoo.
One of the first things that we saw was the giraffe. Tom wasn't as excited about them because we had seen them be so active about a month ago, but he stood in front of them to have his picture taken.

After the giraffes we went to see the Asian Highland animals, but first we had to climb all over the rocks and wood. Here are the boys of our group standing in the "highlands."

One thing the kids in our group wanted to do was to play at the park area. They have a cool empty turtle shell that each of the students had their picture taken in. This is the giant spider web at the playground. Tom thought he was very Peter Parker here.

Still playing at the park. Tom rocked at the monkey bars. He did so much better then I ever would. After playing at the playground, we went to the pavilion to eat our sack lunch. The lunches I made were awesome. We had peanut butter sandwiches, Cheetos, grapes, carrots, cookies, and juice boxes--yummy!

Once lunch was over, we headed out to see more animals. The first ones we saw were the huge rhinos. So cool, you can see them in the background in this picture.

We walked past the rhinos and looked at the bears that were out, and then the zebras. Next we stopped by the penguins. Right behind the penguins were the llamas. They were staying in the shade of their shed, but we did watch them roll on their backs with their feet in the air like dogs. They were really funny.

After we saw all these animals, we only had the great apes left. Here's Tom and I looking out at the silver back ape playing outside.

What's a trip without trying to measure up?

Here's the boys on the bus ride home. We had so much fun and saw so many cool animals. I think that more were out this time then they were when we went last time.

After the zoo, the kids stayed at school until the rest of the school got out. I'm a little worried about how Tom will do when he starts going to school for a whole day. This is what happened when we came home.

It was a great day. We wore ourselves out.