It has almost been two weeks since I have last posted so I need to get my act in gear and do some serious catch up!! Daniel had his last T-ball game two weeks ago. Luckily G &G M were in town to see him play. While he has playing I had my hands full with the other four kids and Noah was screaming his head off. It was a circus! Thankfully Aaron took Noah to help him be the first base coach so I could try to wrangle the other three which were still quite a handful. Here's Daniel on first base being coached by Dad and Noah:
One of the kids on Aaron and Daniel's team came up after the game and handed Aaron something. Upon closer inspection it was thank you gift card to Lowes for being his coach. That was a really nice gesture and even more nice when we saw it was for $20. Wow. I now feel lame because I have never given any of my other kids coaches anything. It was awesome, though!
The next morning we finally decided to use our free Children's Treehouse Museum passes with G&G M. The kids got to do all kinds of fun things. Here is Daniel and Sarah dressing up at the Firetruck:
Checking out the fish and the big kid toy.
There was a climbing ladder thing to get to the second floor. All the kids were going on it so Noah thought he'd give it a try. However, he was just on the little too short side and couldn't quite climb the levels. He started screaming because he couldn't make it. I didn't want to climb in there to help him out so I sent Daniel to help him up. I just figured Daniel would help pull him up, but Daniel decided to be Noah's 'human stepping stool' instead. Daniel had to do that with each level and there were about 4-5 levels. What a nice brother to let Noah crawl all over his back not only once but 4-5 times!
When you got up to the second floor there was a parachute display and a big target painted on the floor below. Aaron and the boys tried their skills at throwing the parachute down and trying to make it on the target. That kept them busy for a while.
Next we tried out the cowboy station. Everyone got to dress up in cowboy wear and ride their own horse. Matthew was nice enough to share his horse with Sarah. Daniel is wearing an Indian costume that closely resembles a skirt. Hmmmm methinks I might have a good blackmail picture for the future hahahaha.
We got to attend a class on how an old printing press worked. Each kid got a turn at making their own copy of the Declaration of Independence. Here's Matthew's turn at using the press:
Upstairs they had a big chess set. Daniel got up there and knocked all the pieces over. He had just watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a few days before so I think he thinks that is how you really play chess--by knocking down all the pieces. What a cheeseball!
They had a throne set up. Matthew and Sarah sat down to be the king and queen. Noah ran over and I guess he was trying to be the court jester.
Next Josh talked Sarah in to dressing up with him to be the real king and queen. Since Sarah can be talked into just about anything by her brothers she was game.
After that, we went over to attend the play they were putting on in the theater. Of course they asked for volunteers and Josh about leaped out of his seat while raising his hand to participate. He got picked to be the main character and, of course, it went to his head. He hammed up his part of Davy Crockett pretty well. He even added quite a few of his own lines that weren't in the script. It was fun times.
Matthew got another part in the play as a tree. He was excited to participate and to cover Josh's face with his leaves.
After a long hard day at play at the Museum the two youngest crashed on the way home within seconds of driving.
While G&G M were here all the kids got a turn at wallering Grandpa M. I don't think he minded, though.
That night we had our Sidewalk of Fire Show. However, I had bought very cheap fireworks and it was somewhat of a let down. To make things a little more exciting we ended up lighting up about five fireworks at a time. Unfortunately that didn't seem to make it much more exciting. Oh well. You can see Daniel's on the edge of his blanket with anticipation:
After all the fireworks were over we brought out the sparklers and everyone except Matthew loved them. When Matthew saw the sparklers he decided it was time for him to go to bed. Even Noah turned into a pyromaniac!
After the fireworks and sparklers we put the kids to bed and the next morning I found Noah like this:
The poor kid seems to have something against sleeping in his bed and almost always ends up sleeping on the floor. I guess he will do well in Boy Scouts when the time comes since he is used to sleeping on the floor every night. G&G M left to go back home Monday morning and the kids were sad.
On July 11th we all went and got our free Slurpees from 7-11. Wahoo! I was a mean mom and made them eat their Slurpees outside since I didn't want a huge mess inside the car. Only Josh got a little 'slurped' when he turned on the slurpee machine a little too fast. I had a stifle a laugh because he didn't think it was too funny.
After our slurpees we headed over to the splash pad up on base. It took a little bit of convincing for Noah to get wet, but he finally did. This is what he spent the majority of time doing:
No wonder his diaper was so wet when we got home--it was from all the water he guzzled. Sarah was not wearing a swimming suit, but since it was spur of the moment I didn't want to drive home to get hers on. The boys had had water day at Kids in the Park that morning so they all had their swimming suits on. Sarah wanted to be like her brothers so she did the best she could and took her shirt off and there was no convincing her to put it back on either. So glad my little girl is modest--sigh. At least I could pick her out at all times as she was the only girl with no shirt and a skirt on.
Thursday was field trip day at Kids in the Park. They all went to Fat Cats up in Ogden for the big portion of the day. Since I only had two kids to wrangle instead of five I met up with Aaron for lunch at Cafe Rio. Sarah and Noah LOVE Cafe Rio. They will patiently wait for Aaron and I to finish squeezing our limes on our tostada salads when they pick them up to squeeze on their kids quesadillas. Also Noah waits until we are done with our dressing and grab for it. Here he got a hold of the lid and licked it clean. All I can say is Yup Cafe Rio is
that good! YUM!
Through Aaron's work they have an office that is just for families with special needs kids. They keep us updated on different activities for kids with special needs. I was excited to find out they offered a scholarship program for the equestrian program at Camp Kostopulos in Salt Lake which is a camp just for special needs kids. We signed Matthew up and his first class was supposed to be Friday. However, they called up and cancelled on us a few hours before it was supposed to start. Unfortunately Aaron had already taken a few hours off to watch the kids so I could go to the class. Since Aaron was home and now we didn't have anywhere we needed to be since the class got cancelled I decided to take us down to hike to Timpanogos Cave in American Fork Canyon. I hadn't been there for years, but it was a neat place to go. I did remember the trail being steep, but I had forgotten how steep it really was. Holy cow can we say it was like the StairMaster from Hades!!!! The trail up is 1.5 miles, but it has an elevation gain of 1100 feet so it is steep!!! Aaron was a gentleman and hoisted Noah in the baby back pack on his back. I tried to walk with Sarah, but after the first few steep switchbacks she wanted to be carried. I tried to just have her walk, but she threw the world's biggest tantrum and would not stop crying.
I carried her for a bit, but she wouldn't let me put her down. It seemed she was getting heavier the longer I had to carry her. Finally Aaron traded me kids--I got Noah in the backpack and he carried Sarah. However, Sarah only had him carry her for a little bit before she got down and started walking by herself. I struggled up the majority of the trail with Noah on my back and he, too, was getting pretty heavy. Finally Aaron took over Noah carrying duties when we were close to the top, but by then I was about worn out. Here's a picture of all of us overlooking a steep cliff. After the picture was taken I about peed my pants when I saw how close Sarah and Josh were sitting to the edge and just on the other side of the edge is a huge drop off.
It was a really pretty view at the top of the
StairMaster from Hades, though. Daniel started really complaining towards the end about how tired he was. He kept telling me he never wanted to see the stupid cave anyway.
Inside the cave it was really neat, but it was cold. The three older boys did great, but Noah and Sarah were not liking it. A few minutes into the tour Sarah wouldn't stop crying unless she was being carried. Noah was the same.
Aaron and I spelled each other off since Sarah is a little heavier than Noah, but by the end of the 1/2 mile tour with lots of stairs our arms were tired to put it mildly.
At the end of the tour Daniel was mad. I asked him what his problem was and he told me, "I'm mad because you have never taken me here before." Huh, go figure?! That's not what he was saying on the way up--the stinker!
Saturday morning bright and early Aaron and Josh got to run their Sherman Wayment 5k Fun Run that they have been preparing for. In preparation Josh would go out running in the mornings before it would get really hot. One morning it was actually cold outside. When Josh came back inside from running around the neighborhood, he was complaining that his toes were freezing. I asked him why his toes were freezing because that was an odd thing. That's when he told me it was because he ran in his flip flops. Flip Flops really?! That's when I told him he needed to start running in his shoes because for one thing it is a lot easier, and for another thing it will keep his toes warm. What a weirdo!!
The race was bright and early Saturday morning. Aaron and Josh had to check in by 6 am and the race started at 6:30am. Now I wanted to surprise them at the end of the race by being there and cheering for them. As soon as they walked out the front door and drove away I stopped feigning sleeping and jumped out of bed and woke everyone else up. It took awhile to get everyone breakfasted, dressed and ready for the day. Luckily we made it about 20 minutes after the race had started. While I was getting everyone ready Daniel made a sign:
It says, "Go Josh and Go Dad". When we got there Daniel was too embarrassed to hold it so he gave it to Matthew to hold. While we were waiting for Josh and Aaron to finish we got to see a lot of other runners finish. Matthew was caught up in the excitement and cheered all of them on. I had to keep pulling him back out of the road to get out of their way. He would yell with his most serious expression and voice, "Good job young lady!!" whether it was to a 19 year old girl or to an 80 year old woman. He would also yell, "Good job young man!" to a young or old guy, too. Everyone around us thought he was pretty funny. He absolutely went crazy when he saw Aaron and Josh run in.
Here's the happy couple after the race:
Aaron was really proud of Josh because he ran the whole way without stopping. Josh was just excited for the free hot chocolate at the end.
After the race we joined up with some friends to watch the parade. The kids were excited about all the candy that was thrown. We even managed to get 5 free children's meal coupons for Famous Dave's BBQ restaurant. Our friends got 3 free kids meals coupons, too so guess what we had for lunch? It was awesome. We only had to pay for four meals total and we got 8 children's meals for free. We split the bill and my family's whole total for all 7 of us was only $15. It was great!
After the parade we went and visited the booths in the city center where we ran into Matthew's old bus driver. She was so excited to see him and raved about how he was one of her favorite students. She also said she never passes a train without thinking of him. It was fun to see her. After that we came home to clean up our disaster area called a house. After we cleaned up our friends came over for dinner. Noah and Emma sat on the couch together and Noah was putting the moves on her and smooching her. Watch out ladies--we seem to be raising a lady killer!
We ate dinner and stayed up playing games pretty late. We were going to watch the city fireworks, but the skies were questionable with rain and both Noah and Emma had fallen asleep. We decided to stay in instead. It was lots of fun.
The next morning with 9 am church was not quite as fun. All the kids were little ornery bums the next morning. During sacrament meeting Noah kept running away from us and down the aisles thinking he was pretty funny. By the end of church we were really ready to put the kids all in quiet time for a nap. However, Noah somehow snuck in a black crayon and went to town on the walls in his bedroom. I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids...I got a few tips on how to remove it so I will give them a try. Sigh....
One bright spot on our Sunday was we got our very first tomato from our garden. Even though it was only about a golf ball size, I picked it, cut it up and enjoyed it on my hamburger for dinner. Hopefully the other tomato plants will start getting some soon!
While I was typing this Sarah came down to play register with me. I had to sigh when I saw that she had raided the Monopoly game, Scrabble game, Connect Four game and the chess game to get all of her 'play' money. I guess I need to reorganize the game closet and put all the game pieces back in the right game boxes. I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids....
Today at Kids in the Park they made window hangers. They were all pretty excited to show me what they had made. They were pretty proud of their work, too. While I was making lunch they got the tape and plastered them on my window so everyone can see them. Awesome.
Kids say the funniest things. The other day we were having some guacamole. Josh wanted some more and said, "Can I have some whac a moly?" It took awhile for us to figure out what he wanted and then it took some more time to stop laughing to get him some. Josh also was talking about using a port-o-potty only he kept calling it a portal potty. It may seem like it is a portal to another place, but we explained to Josh that it's real name is a port-o-potty. What a funny guy!
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