Happy Mom

Paige has been sleeping through the night (most of the time) for a couple months now, but Piper still liked to wake up every 2-3 hours. Out of self-preservation I finally had to change that a few nights ago. I was the mean mom and let her cry herself back to sleep when she woke up during the night (and cry she did - Piper really fits her name - she does have "pipes"). The first night, she cried for literally 1 1/2 hours (I did go in every 15 minutes, but just hugged her and laid her back down), but she is a quick learner though and the second night she must have realized that I was not going to get her up and she only cried for 10 minutes. Last night - I slept through the night!!!!! Sleep is amazing - I think I forgot how nice it was. It has made me a happier mom as well (my poor kids - I have not been extremely patient with them lately). I now look forward to going to bed because I get to wake up rested - so I am going to sign off the computer and SLEEP!!!

Prince Naveen

The Family Fest is happening right now in Cedar and we joined them this morning for a 3 mile Family Walk. Along the way there were prize stations (instead of aid stations) - one of the prizes Abby got was a cheap plastic ring. It was so fun watching her look at her ring - her smile was so big. About 5 minutes after she got the ring I overheard her say to Ethan "I'm getting married to Prince Naveen - see my ring he gave me". I had to ask Miles who Prince Naveen was (he is from the Princess and the Frog) when I stopped laughing. So anyway I guess Abby is already taken. Her is the famous ring.
Speaking of overhearing conversations - I was washing dishes yesterday while the boys were playing Wii and this is what I heard

Miles: Your guy looks like a hobo.
Ethan: What is a hobo?
Miles: Someone who doesn't have a job and can't afford cable.

I was laughing so hard that I couldn't bring myself to go in and correct him, but I will - maybe.

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.