Golf Tournament

Both Boy's did Jr. Golf this year and part of the program was free entry into a couple of tournaments. I dropped the boys off this morning in nice clean white T-shirts (they were supposed to wear their Jr. Golf shirts). I picked the boys up two hours later looking like this - Ethan has a huge mustard stain on the front of his shirt and his mouth is stained red from some kind of punch. Miles has punch all over his shirt as well. They had a great time though and Miles even managed to come out with a 3rd place medal in the boys 10 and under division. The highlight of the tournament though was the barbeque at the end - Miles ate 4 hotdogs (and this was at 10:00 in the morning AND I promise I fed him breakfast), Ethan also enjoyed a hotdog, chips and a couple of doughnuts.

The tradition lives on

Growing up, it was not uncommon for our Family Home Evening "activity" to be weeding a garden or a flower bed (in fact, if you talk to Caleb, he would tell you it was more uncommon to not have weeding part of FHE). I have decided that it is time that tradition continues in my family (anyone who has seen our yard lately would definately agree). We started off with a lesson on service and then proceeded out to the back yard for our first "service project" (can you call it a "service project" if the kids are serving their mom?). Here are a couple of the "before" photo's - it was pretty bad!

Ethan and his "prize" weed - those roots were deep!!!

Miles is shaping up to be a pretty good little worker - he also mowed the lawn for me today. He even started the mower all by himself - I had told him to go outside and wait for me to come get him started, but when I finally made it outside he had half the lawn already done.

We found plenty of "crawly" things in the weeds. I was the only one who ended up with red ant bites though (I made the kids put on shoes and socks and wear gloves - I just didn't want to take the time to do that myself though and I am now paying for that decision.). There were some area's of the weeds that I need to spray before we can get the weeds without ending up with insects all over us. Here are some regular ants we found - I am itching just looking at the picture.

I wanted the "after" picture to look dramatically different - so I am a bit disappointed - but we all worked hard for a solid hour and this is what we accomplished. We actually filled up the entire garbage can and the pile in the middle of the path here is all garbage too - we just need to load it up and take it up to one of the garbage's at my parents rentals. We just might have the yard looking nice after a few more Family Home Evening's.

"For Dad"

The kids drew Father's Day cards for their dad - and of course, they have not been mailed yet, so I wanted to post them here so Frank can see that they are remembering him especially today. Here is Miles (notice the Oregon Duck attire - I wouldn't let him wear his Duck jersey in the picture so he drew both him and Frank in Oregon jersey's) with his card.
Ethan likes to play tennis with his dad!

Abby loves to color - she is only allowed to use colored pencils at the present however.

Now for the REAL present - the boys spent a whole day writing their dad this song - Miles was in charge of the lyrics and Ethan composed the music. The boys even came up with a name for their song - "For Dad" - I know, very original. They tried to teach it to Abby (oh, and I am sorry about her hair, hadn't quite got it done yet when we shot the video) - she liked to sing the chorus. It is quite hard to get 5 kids to cooperate at the same time - so here is the best video we could get (ignore the little pause in the middle of the song) - Happy Father's Day Frank - the kids sure love you!

Here is a copy of the music - we will send it to you with the pictures as well.

Piper is walking

Today the twins are 11 months old - crazy how fast this past year has gone. Piper has been attempting to walk for the last couple of weeks - I caught a couple of these attempts on the camera. Paige is right behind her - she is a little more cautious than her sister - where Piper just lunges and then tries to keep up with her legs, Paige tries to get perfect balance before she moves her legs. Here are the video's - in the second video it looks like Piper is trying to choke on one of the kids dental floss tubes - she didn't though. I just had to give her something to hold to distract her so I could get back to take the video - and of course anything that is in her hands goes straight into the mouth. Enjoy!!!

Lemonade time again

The boys have been begging my mom to let them have another lemonade stand at her house. She finally told them that they could do it when it was summer games soccer time - that was this past week. This might be the last lemonade stand we have however. We (meaning mainly Miles) had a hard time splitting the money equally - the kids all thought that they were doing most of the work and thus meant that they needed most of the money. They really had a great time though - until the end. Here are the cute kids with their cousins - (Katie and Abby didn't really help with the lemonade - they just helped eat the cookies)

Fishing

My dad took the boys fishing Thursday - I got a picture of them as they were leaving. Miles got a new fishing pole for his birthday and was excited to try it out. They each caught 2-3 fish (pretty good for only a couple hours at the lake). As soon as they got home, Ethan went up to Grandpa's to clean the fish - YUCK!!! He also proudly helped grandpa cook the fish later that night and came in very excited to tell me that fish eyes turn completely white when they are cooked (my dad did a "pre-cook" of the fish before he took the bones out - we did NOT eat fish with their heads still attached). I took a picture of Ethan and the fish he cooked, but it somehow got deleted - I am sad. Here are some other pictures though - Ethan got out his "fishing hat" that morning to wear, but it was too tight. He tried it on a baby though and it fit just right - it was so cute that I had to get a few pictures with hats and the twins. I could not get a picture of both of the twins in hats - I promise it is harder than it looks.

Here is Paige

and Piper

"My kids will never..."

We went to the park yesterday - at 10:00 in the morning. By that time I had already practiced the piano with two boys, taken one to swim team (and picked him up), got breakfast for all 5 kids, bathed two babies, watered the lawn and put a load of clothes in to wash. As I pulled up to the park, I noticed what I had NOT done - get Abby ready for the day. I was not about to go back home however - so yes, she went out in public looking like this.
To my credit, the dress is clean, although it is a couple sizes too small (she is going through as stage right now where she will only wear dresses). Her hair is still half braided from the swimming pool visit the day before and her legs are showing off her artistic work from that morning. Now for the shoes - for some reason, Abby opts to wear two different shoes even when she can find matching shoes, so it is not too uncommon to see a style like this on her (in fact, I was lucky this day that the shoes were on the right feet). A few years ago I would have sworn that my kids would never go out in public looking like this - I guess I will have to eat those words:)

Caleb's home!!!

Caleb came home Tuesday - we were all excited to have him back. The kids and I decorated my parents lawn with a few signs - as I was staking them in the ground Miles noticed that it read "COME HOME CALEB". The kids thought it was funny and so we took a few pictures, however, I forgot to take a picture when we finished the signs - it really read - "WELCOME HOME CALEB".
We met him at the airport that night - Paige is missing from this picture (I don't wake up sleeping babies even to see Uncle Caleb's airplane land). Caleb was an incredible missionary - he is a great example to all of us. We love you "Uncle Caleb" and are glad you are home (especially Abby - she asks to go play with "Aunt Caleb" at least once a day - I will correct her soon on the gender differences between aunts and uncles - but it is too fun to laugh at right now).