Fun in the Sun

I have had math meetings the past few days, so Brian and the kids have been having fun outings without me. Yesterday, Brian told me he got some good pictures of the boys. Little did I know they were all sleeping pictures.
Brian had taken the three kids to the pool at noon, when it opens, and then they swam for a couple of hours and headed home. After the boys got changed out of their suits, this is what Brian and Brianna found.
They were completely tuckered out after playing in the pool for 2.5 hours. They had gotten a little sun too.

Here is a change in position.

And that arouses Tom a bit, but...

Soon they are right back at it. They slept like this for a while.

And when I got home the resting had ended. I always miss out on the fun stuff.

There were other things that didn't get a picture like Brian's sun burn on the tops of his feet and the farmer tan area, or Brianna's new swim wear...see what happens when I'm not in charge of the camera. We'll have to take those pictures next time.

Transformers Movie

The little boys have been waiting for the day that the new Transformers movie was coming out. They would talk about it with everyone and Tom knew the date that it would open. Our conversation went as follows.
Mom: Tom, what happens tomorrow, the 24th?
Tom: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Charlie hadn't heard my original question as so he chimes in.
Chuck: On June 24, 2009.
I wasn't quite sure that they should watch it the very first day. I thought that Brian and I should go see it before they did. Well, that didn't happen. We ended up taking them on Wednesday afternoon. I told the boys that we just had to go to the mall to get a new pair of shoes and so they were a little unhappy about that, but we walked right to the theater and when we walked in they knew that we would be watching the movie.
They loved it. I was so happy watching their little faces light up when the robots showed up. Tom even turned to me a couple of times and said things like "take that Megatron," or "not this time, Megatron."
It's so funny that it's the little things that make us so happy.

Putt-Putt-Putter

Brian had a great idea to take the boys to play miniture golf on Monday. Brianna went with her friend to the library and then run around town, so the four of us headded up to Kaysville to a place called Cherry Hill to play a round. (The boys really got into watching golf with Brian on TV with past weekend, so they were really excited.)Charlie had a hard time hitting the ball with the flat side of the club, but wanted to use it like a hammer. Since they were watching the pros play over the weekend, they thought they really needed to wack the ball good to get it where they wanted it. It was really funny to watch.On the first hole, I was getting so excited to keep score and see how we all did, but after the boys hit the ball almost 100 times on the first hole--we decided we shouldn't keep score, but just play.
Thomas didn't like waiting for the people in front of us, or for anyone in his own family.
Brian and Charlie are waiting for us to hit our balls toward the hole.

Tom's taking a swing. I think they had a fun time. They keep asking if we can go back.

My three putt-putt stars. We did a really good job on our 18 holes, but I told Brian that if we wanted the competition we would have to come by ourselves.

Guess What's...

hiding under here?

It's this!!! He's a funny boy.

This might be the best birthday gift Tom ever got.

Happy Father's Day

We love the dad in our house. He is the BEST dad in our world. The kids (all 5) would follow him anywhere.
For our celebration this year we couldn't wait until Sunday to give him our gifts. The boys got him a new pair of slippers since the strap on his old pair completely fell off.

He also got a couple new pair of shorts because some of his have worn holes in them.

Brianna made him the cutest card. She told him how much she appreciates him.

I picked out this shirt for him. It says, "not right now, I'm watching the game." I liked it because there are times that he feels like this when I'm telling him a story. You'll probably never see him wear it because he's not a fan of sayings on shirts, but the price was right and the message was funny.

We all love Brian/Dad so much. He makes us so happy and would do anything for any of us. Thanks for being the best dad!

A Different Type of Brain Freeze

This is a story about Charlie's humor. I didn't want to forget, but read at your own risk.

Friday, my mom took the boys to the toy store to pick out some fun things (that's another post.) After she took them to Wendy's for lunch. In Utah, the kid's meals at Wendy's come with a kiddy size frosty. The boys really love that part.
Charlie was eating his frosty in giant bites. Here's the conversation that followed.
Gram: Charlie, you should eat smaller bites so you don't get a brain freeze.
Charlie: What's a brain freeze?
-A discussion about what a brain freeze was. Charlie took another HUGE bite and then started holding himself.
Gram: Charlie, do you need to go to the bathroom?
Charlie: No, I think I just got a nut freeze.
Who knew that could happen by eating a frosty? He's a crazy boy.

It's Like an Ohio Storm

On our way home from a Salt Lake lunch with my mom and the Cawley cousins, we got caught in an Ohio-like storm. It was crazy--huge raindrops, loud thunder, and even some hail. Here are some pictures of the storm.
This is one from out our back window. It looks like a waterfall from from here, but it was a ton of rain really fast.

These two are to show the amount of hail that we got during the storm. It was crazy. When we went from the car to the house under the carport it was so loud that I couldn't hear Brian when he was yelling at us.
Here's some with the rain falling, soon the large tree branch in the background was carried away by the rain and ended up under the blue truck on the left.

This is the rain pouring out of the downspout that doesn't ever seem to work in a storm.

Because that spout doesn't work, the grassy area is completely flooded. You can still see the pouring rain too.

Here's a closer look at the flood.

This video is really poor quality, and doesn't show the rain as well as I had hoped, but you can check it out if you want.

A Polynesian Graduation Party

Cousin Bot's graduation party was this past weekend. Brian told the boys that we were going to party with lots of boys for them to play with and they could run around. They were excited the whole day. The older boys had come in to town for a quick weekend so that added to the fun as well.

The time for the party came and we went out to the Hampton Inn conference center that was by the Salt Lake airport. They had a huge area for the party, but as soon as we walked in the boys didn't see any area for them to run. They were pretty disappointed.

We went into the main room with the tables and music and waited for the fun to start. The little boys decided to humor us by trying on Pete's super cool glasses. Of course Tom had to try to out do Charlie.

The music was so loud and like all great Polynesian sounds had a great beat. Tom and Charlie can't sit still when they hear music, so as we were waiting to get our food we also had a dance show. Tom was banging on the table and using the table cloth as part of the routine too. It was so fun to see them moving and getting into the party.

I think that just like the boys were excited to play with the other Kaufusi children, Brian was excited for some good Tongan food. Here he is eating a shrimp concoction made with coconut milk and maybe some sweetened condensed milk. He liked it.

He wasn't the only one that was loving the food. Tom CLEANED this chicken to the bone and then wanted more. You can see his greasy face from the fried chicken. He had a piece and a half of chicken and at least 20 different dessert items.

We had a really good time. Eventually the boys found the other cousins and ran around and wrestled to their hearts content.

Water Guns

Tom got to go to his little friends house for a end of school party. James' mom gave each of the boys a cool water gun that had a super hero on it. Considering that Tom thinks he is a super hero and spends the majority of his day planning his super hero moves, he couldn't put the gun down.
When Tom gets a cool toy--water gun--we can't just have one of them in our house we have to have one for Charlie too. So Brian and I went to the dollar store and got these same super hero water guns in a larger size. We didn't just get one for Charlie, but because they were bigger and better, we had to get one for Thomas. Then Brian and I had to have one so we could join in the water fights too.

The boys love these guns and play outside with them all the time. I worried when one of the older Relief Society ladies came over that Charles would spray her with his new gun, but luckily he does know when enough is enough. She stayed dry.

These are my favorite smiles that Charlie does.

And of course we had to get one of them together. Notice the backpack--Thomas couldn't wait until after school for a water fight.

The 9th Grade Dance

I really was excited about Brianna's 9th grade dance. It took a little convincing to get her as excited as I was. We went shopping for a new dress and found this gorgeous one and she loved it. She looks beautiful. I tried to get one with just her, but Charlie thinks that each time we take out the camera it's for him.
She curled her hair and looked so great. I think that she had a good time. The dance went from 4 until 6 and she didn't come home until closer to 7pm.

Boys beware--I don't think that her dad is ready for her to start dating.

Our Trip Home

We had a great opportunity to go visit Ohio. Here are the two reasons we went:

It was fun that these two are still there too so we could see them.Here are the other people we were lucky to see while we were there. (We're waiting for all the graduates to enter.)

Here's the after party. We love a celebration and what better than Roni's graduation.

These are my favorite kinds of pictures. I love all these Rolf children. (At Roni's party)

And these ones... (at the Gateway mall in Salt Lake with their Dad)
and these ones... (at David's Notre Dame game)
and this one... (at Brianna's 9th grade advancement)
I wish we could have all been there. We really miss Ohio.