More Magic Fun

Don't worry these are not the same pictures---like I said before there is so much to see at the Magic House. It's even more fun when you get to go with friends:) It's awesome to get to spend time with great people who move away and you think you'll never get to see them again. We've added a few kids but that only adds to the fun right:)haha

Jordan and Lauren figuring out the clues to solve the detective mystery.

Jake and Megan in the "bubble"

Addie loving herself:)haha
Jordan using the pully system
How may I help you?
Have I ever told you how much I hate sand?
Jordan the newsreporter
The next Picasa

It always ends too soon ~ thanks for the great weekend!

One of those days...

Life has been pretty "normal" (whatever that means) around here. Today was Haley's kindergarten celebration at 2:15 so I dropped her off at 12 and headed to a primary meeting. I knew I had to leave by 2. At about 1:15 I hear Megan' crying. She was a victim of a flying object:) and had a gash on her head above the eye. One of the mom's that was there is a nurse so we decided that although it wasn't huge, it needed some attn. My doctor's office doesn't do that and told me to go to urgent care. Now, I can't explain well enough with words Megan's trauma with bandaids but let's just say that was like one of the first things out of her mouth "I don't need a bandaid." There was blood all over my shirt (and believe it or not I brought an extra shirt in case something happened so I could change and look somewhat nice for the kindergarten thing). Poor Megan just cried and cried and she just wanted to go home. The lady at the counter tried to offer her stickers and she wanted nothing to do with that (all the while Addie is crying, standing up trying to get out of her stroller). They asked me how far apart they were:) and I know we were not looking so hot. I realized I had yogo's in the car and go those and they temporarily (like 2 min) stopped the crying. I had both of them on my lap crying in the waiting room. Our name was called and it was just not going so well. Then they got the velcro thing to strap her down. Meanwhile Addie is trying to escape the stroller and I'm feeding her yogo's silently pleading for a miracle. Then the doctor asked the one nurse to go get another person (yes, it was that crazy) and the words "daddy is here" and in walks Dave--HOORAY! Believe it or not, we finished right after 2 so we're trying to make it to kindergarten...a downpour like no other...my van downshifted for some reason so I had to pull off and once we got to the school it was still just pouring down. We walked in and literally my pants were totally soaked through. Dave put a blanket over Meg to keep her head dry but the rest of us were all wet. Of course the shirt I had brought was white. ahhh.. The office people got us towels to help us dry off. We, unfortunately missed some of the "show" part :( but Haley showed us around her room as Addison played monster pulling things out, dumping someone's juice all over her, etc. The teacher had put together a dvd of their year and it was so cute. On the way home I was thinking "I'm so glad I put chicken in the crockpot, especially the way things worked out today." When I listened to the phone message when I got in, it was the missionaries---I totally signed up to feed them dinner and forgot!!!!:) and no, there was not enough in the crockpot, but it worked out fine....ah...another day in the "real" life:)
Then end of Haley's class presentation
Receiving her certificate
Ms. Schueler(an answer to prayer) and Haley
Megan's boo boo.

School Stuff

The kids have been doing a couple fun things at school I thought I'd jot down. They had a career day and got to dress up. Haley picked her chef outfit, although she wants to be a vet but didn't have that costume;) Jordan didn't have a costume either because he wants to be a marine biologist.

Then Jordan's 4th grade had a marble race---different than what you might think--the goal is to be the slowest!! and Jordan came in 2nd in the 4th grade at 43 seconds!!!

Jordans 's lego Creation #1

Jordan received a Lego motor set for his birthday. He has been having fun creating different motorized inventions.

The Livingroom--Before & After

I keep thinking of things that still need to be finished in here (like curtains, different couch, different piano top (looking for a vase with ? any suggestions:)? But I've decided it's an ongoing process that probably will keep going so I'll just show you what we have done so far. It isn't an extreme difference like the kitchen will be but it's nice to have one room "done" (well --kind of you know)
Before:



There weren't any lights in the livingroom. We had plugged in a lamp in a certain place to make it work with the switch. Now we have 3 lights, a fan, a dimmer and it's really nice:)


You can also see how Dave took off all the trim (including the window) and painted it all white.

This is a wall decor I found and decided I wanted to try. I think I will keep looking for maybe a couple different paper designs, but like I said, for now it will do.


This of course, is my favorite:)


This is my other favorite (the picture on the wall)--remember me talking about how I couldn't get one good picture out of 200 at the temple last fall? Well, I guess I lied--depending on what you were looking for. You can't see their faces but I truly love this so I guess it was worth it after all! This fit perfect with this idea my friend had on her wall and I have been wanting to do it ever since I saw it. Thanks for letting me copy Sarah. The saying is "Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me":) which comes from a beautiful primary song "I am a child of God".

Church History MO Tour

Since our friends are moving to Boston we are taking every opportunity we can to spend as much time with them as possible. So last Saturday we loaded everybody up and drove to the eastern side of the state to see as much church history sites as possible. I have to admit I was feeling a little anxious about the kids in the car but they were terrific and it just added one more happy adventure with the Fenberg family.



W.W. Phelps Printing Press and the courageous sisters who saved some of the papers. We also learned why letters are calle Upper and Lower case.

Another bonus was that we got to see our cousins, aunts, and uncle. Thanks for swinging by and sorry the visit was so short. Grandma this was for you so you can see the amazing difference!!! Haley said it was because Clara's 7 but I reminded her "not yet":)



What a ride that would be!!


Liberty Jail

Far West--- can you read their faces?

Adam-ondi-Ahman

Road trippin' fun

I have to say that although it was hard going home to "real life" the trip back was a LOT better than the way down. So I thought I tell you a couple of the ideas we used that turned out to be fun for everyone. First, before I left I printed online Mad Libs---remember those? Well I just described what an adjective, noun was to Haley and Megan and we had a lot of laughs with the stories we came up with! My mom had a book for each kid and Jordan's had games in it. I would suggest using these as my kids now are still using the games even though we are only traveling short distances. One game is called "the animals escaped from the zoo". You assign objects to be animals (for example a mile marker is a zebra, a grey van is an elephant, etc). Then on "go" everyone tries to rescue the # of animals you've decided on. Of course if someone calls out before you, you have to find a different mile marker (for example). Megan has been talking about zebras on our way to school now;)
This game is where you are given 5 lives. You have to duck under overpasses and lift your legs when crossing bridges. If you don't, you lose a life.
It was hilarious because even after awhile Addie started copying us with her legs up!

Now it's back to the grind----3/4 of an acre to mow so we needed a mower. Then the mower we purchased didn't fit in the shed. That sounds like a "funny problem" huh? It isn't really a "problem" at all, it just means we were blessed to be able to get a nice mower and I'm so grateful because we will be on it a lot this summer! So besides just trying to get back to things (obviously it has taken me a week to get everything posted!) we also spent a lot of time extending the doors on the old shed so we could put the new mower in.;) I can't believe summer is almost here. When I picked up Haley this week from school she told me "only 19 more days of school" wow--it's just around the corner, isn't it?

Flower power

My mom has a greenhouse so before we left Haley and Megan painted her a couple pots to use. So Haley helped her plant her flowers before we had to say "see ya later".
Addie's trying to snatch the first ripe tomato:)


Addie loved the sprinkler and even though it would catch her breath and she was getting soaked, she just kept on going back for more. We had to change her because she got so wet. But she loved every minute of it!
This is such a sweet picture I think.

Beekeeper

My dad has had bees lots of different times. This new batch came from a swarm at the railroad. He just scooped it into a box and brought it home. Well they stayed and went to work making their own honeycomb. However, you want them to use these so that you can get the honey out more easily. So the kids got to learn how to make them and then Jordan got all suited up and helped switch over the boxes. He showed us how to see their flight path and their "dance" and even one of them had a position of "warning" with his booty in the air toward us.:)







I don't know if you can see it that well but the comb actually is different colors and that shows where new bees are starting and the new comb they are building. It's really cool. We learned a lot!

The Alligator Farm

Yes, we were in LA and that is what kind of farm we got to see--alligators! Waching them "feed" was quite an experience. I didn't know they could jump out of the water so high!
They're coming..

Dave was camera man and didn't quite get it but it really was crazy.
Then we got to hold a real baby alligator


It felt a lot different than I thought--they're actually really soft
It was obvioulsy a good thing they had the mouth taped shut. Like the ducks, Addie loved it and was trying to poke its' eye out:)

They also had a petting zoo with other animals the kids got to feed themselves.




Doesn't this guy remind you of that cartoon that had the hair in front of his eyes?



I liked this picture of my parents and thought "oh maybe we could get a nice family picture too"

I give up:)