Wednesday, June 24, 2009

May Flowers...

May is always a busy month for us. Our calendar is full with school programs, piano recitals, field trips, Memorial Day and the beginning of fun summer activities!

Ben's 4th Grade program was "Utah! This is the Place!" He's holding the "DUCHESNE" county sign. They studied our state this year so their program was all about Utah. They put a cool slide show together with pictures of the kids having fun at different places in Utah. Ben choose a picture of us snowshoeing. They worked really hard and it was a lot of fun to see them perform!

Sara's 1st Grade program was all about different jobs that they could grow up to do. Those 1st graders are so dang cute! She was SO excited about it and I of course had to go to all 4 performances. Her class sang "I Want to be a Baker".

Caleb's Preschool had a Spring Sing and he was excited about his program, too! It's so fun to hear those little kids sing the songs they've been learning. Caleb's favorite song was "I'm bringing home my baby bumblebee". He cracks me up!!

I got to go with Sara on her field trip. We started at the Planetarium and watched Under The Sea in 3-D. It was AWESOME!! Then it was over the the Children's Museum. Her favorite part was the pretend store they have at the museum. She didn't want to do anything else!Ben's class hiked to Timp Cave. I was really sad that I didn't get to go with him. Maybe next year!
I felt like Caleb was being left out of all the fun field trips...so we had our own field trip to the Zoo. We had so much fun together and saw lots of fun animals. He really couldn't have cared less though, all he wanted to see was the scorpion which was at the other end of the Zoo! They have so many fun new things there...an elephant show, a bird show, a carousal...he didn't want to see any of it...we had to find the scorpion first! We finally found it and he was more impressed the dead one that was in an insect exhibit than with the live one in the cage...oh, well!

April Showers...


I am SO far behind and more than a little discouraged about how long it's going to take to catch back up!! Troy has been threatening to do another big update so I figured it was time to just buckle down and get it done! The last few months have been filled with lots of fun adventures for us and I don't want to forget any of our experiences together...I love looking back through my old posts and remembering what we spend our days doing! Here goes April...


Way more Easter Eggs than I know what to do with, but the kids love to color them....sure wish they would eat them!!

At our house the Easter Bunny always hides the kids baskets after he fills them. The kids love running through the house looking for their baskets and usually always start looking where they found it the year before. This year Ben had a hard time finding his. He searched everywhere his basket has ever been hidden...I'm not quite sure how he remembers all the different spots but he does! He finally found it and boy was he disappointed. An overly safety conscious Easter Bunny brought Ben a very badly needed new bike helmet...apparently this is NOT what Ben had envisioned for Easter morning! After a LOT of convincing he finally accepted that it wasn't that the Easter Bunny had it in for him this year but just that the Easter Bunny thought he maybe could use a cool new helmet like all his friends have and gave us this enthusiastic smile.
Thank You Easter Bunny!!

We took a really short weekend trip to Moab with Mom & Dad and had so much fun! We spent Saturday in Arches and hiked to Delicate and Landscape Arches. Caleb hiked almost all of the way, he is such an awesome hiker…not one complaint out of him. The wind was really blowing that day and Caleb was really worried about losing his hat. He didn’t want to let go of it and having his hand on top of his head really slowed him down, so finally Troy told him “Just let go of your hat…it’ll be fine.” As soon as Caleb let go a big gust of wind came and off came his hat! Spinning across the slick rock! Caleb looked up at Troy and very sadly said “See Dad, I was right and you were wrong.” (I went running after it and caught it so he did get it back.)

Later that night the kids wanted to roast marshmallows but with all the wind we decided that we’d better try to set up the fire with the trailer blocking some of the wind. We had to move the rocks that made up the little fire pit, so put the kids to work bringing them to Troy. Pretty soon we hear Ben yelling “Scorpion! Scorpion!” (Here we are in the middle of the desert…at dusk…having our kids pick up rocks. Boy are we the parents of the year!) I’m really glad that Ben saw it first and knew not to touch it…Caleb would have picked it up and brought it to show us! In true Nanny and Poppy style, Dad went for the shovel and Mom went for her little bug holder. They put it in the container and it became our little desert pet for the next couple of days. Troy threatened a couple of times to pack up and head home…he was worried about that little critter ending up in his bed! Before we left Dad and Ben and Troy took it way out and let it go find a new rock to crawl under. It was definitely a camping first for us!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

April Fools!

Every April Fool's Day Troy talks about the pranks that his mom used to play. This year I decided to try a little prank of my own! So I set the table with a big plate of cupcakes! The kids looked a little confused when I asked what color cupcake they each wanted. When they asked what else we were having I told them hamburgers...but those are for dessert! Caleb got pretty frustrated with his drink (jello)...he said "Hey, what's wrong with my drink! It's not a real drink!" The kids had a good laugh!
My not so sweet cupcakes...(mini meatloaves topped with potatoes)

And hamburger dessert!
(sugar cookie buns, rice crispy treat patties, green coconut lettuce & frosting ketchup & mustard)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ben's Last Race

Last night was Ben's third and final Pinewood Derby. I think Troy is going to miss the Pinewood Derby more than Ben!! He and Troy worked really hard on his car and it turned out to be a good one! Each year Ben sketches out several different cars and then chooses his favorite. This year he made the St. Louis Ram's Stephen Jackson #39 car complete with fins in the back and painted in Ram's colors...blue, gold and white.

A thick coat of graphite had to be applied after each and every trip down the track. The boys...and the church...were all covered in the silvery dust by the end of the night!Caleb watching one of Ben's races...his car is in the middle.




A Day Out with Mr. Moose

Ben's 4th grade class has a traveling "pet". They each get a turn to take Mr. Moose home for a weekend. He comes home in a rather large hatbox that contains little treasures that he's collected on his different adventures. There's also a journal that the kids can put pictures in and document their time with Mr. Moose. I flipped through the journal and knew right away that Mr. Moose was going to have a pretty boring weekend with the Taylor family!! There were entries and pictures from someone's Christmas morning, a trip to Disneyland and even Hawaii!! To save Ben the horror of having to journal what we really do on the weekends, which would start something like this, "Today Mr. Moose watched as my family did Saturday chores...", we decided to try to find some kind of fun adventure. Luckily for Mr. Moose it happened to be a very warm weekend, so we ventured out of the Arctic Tundra to a park in Provo to play. Then we went to the Bean Museum at BYU. It certainly wasn't a trip to Hawaii...but we had fun!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Full Contact Basketball


Ben loves all competitive sports but his favorite by far is football. He passes the long months between football seasons participating in anything else he can. Even though it may not be football he still plays like it's football. He is physical and aggressive and hates to lose. Basketball to him is nothing more than football in a gym with a ball that you bounce! I'd like to apologize in advance to others mothers whose children are tackled by my 4' linebacker while playing "non-contact" sports...please know it's done with love!


Thursday, March 12, 2009

Coconut Nuttiness



Our kids are completely fascinated with Coconuts! They beg for one every time we are at the store and I usually say "Umm, not today". Well, I finally brought one home for them and their excitement was uncontrollable! After a few hours of the kids shaking it every time they went past it and Caleb saying "There's something in there mom! Hear it?!?" Troy cracked it open...I'm sure there was never so much joy over an opened coconut! After another few hours of trying to get the meat out of the shell (we are NOT professional coconut openers!) not one of them would eat any of it! I guess it wasn't anything like what they had thought it would be! Maybe after another few years of hearing "Umm, not today" they'll want to try it again!