End of Summer Fun

As a system for behavior management at our house we started giving the kids "Woodbury Wahoos" when they do something good, helpful, kind, etc.  The Wahoo is a raffle ticket that gets put into a jar and then after a while we do a drawing and the winner gets to go on a date with mom or dad.  Eliza won the end of July and decided to go to Wendy's.  I just loved how she had to get all dressed up for our date.  She was so happy!  It was a lot of fun to have a little one on one time with my baby girl.

The next day (I think) Ethan and I took the big boys down to a rock climbing gym in Napa.  I got a good deal from Amazon Local.  We had so much fun!  Even wrestling in the care.

Bryant, not surprisingly, was a total natural.  He went up every rope he could, multiple times.

He would go up and then come back down and ask me to time him as he went up again.

Jonas was really good, too.  He's got a bit more to pull up on those rocks and he proved he's got the strength to do it.

Levi had so much fun!  He just kept wanting to try harder and harder climbs.  He definitely wants to keep up with Bryant.  He did great on the rocks!

Ethan and I got to climb too.  I was ok at getting up but getting back down was super scary!  I finally managed to relax a bit and trust the ropes to hold me as I rappelled down, but not without a little stress first.

Ethan was so impressive, to all of us.  He is awesome.  I'm so glad the boys have a fun dad to look up to.

We had so much fun!  I think we will have to do something like this again!  I've heard we even have a climbing wall on base, but we haven't been there yet.  I guess we should check it out.

The first week of August,  the base offered tennis camp and Levi and Eliza were signed up for it.  Bryant and Jonas were signed up for basketball camp earlier in the summer but it was postponed until that week, so all four big kids were busy for a few hours each morning while Bolton, Abe, and I would hang out (getting us geared up for once school started).

After their camps were done each day they would beg me to let them play at the skate park across the street from the youth center.  We even brought our bikes and blades one day.  We had a lot of fun! 

This half pipe is super slick, the kids would get up to the top (one way or another) and then slide down it super fast.  They had so much fun.

Jonas made this jump and almost landed it on his feet!  It was pretty awesome... got it on video and Jonas has watched it too many times to count.  Love him.

One day Eliza asked me to take her picture because she had "a really good face {she} wanted to try."  Sure love this girl.

Ethan and I went to the Temple.  It was beautiful, like usual.  We got home and I couldn't find my wallet anywhere.  I called the Temple in the morning and thankfully knew which locker I had used.  They were able to find it for me.  So the kids and I (and the dog!) took a road trip to Sacramento.  Once we got there, the kids played out in the beautiful park area.  I went in to the recommend desk and asked someone to get my wallet for me.  It was so weird to not be able to go beyond that desk.  Something I hope to not experience again! 

Eliza has really started to LOVE reading.  She reads everything!  I'm so happy for her.  Reading is such a gift!

We had a lot of random fun the last few weeks before school started.  I wasn't the least bit ready to send the kids back to school.

Art Camp

 The base offered some awesome summer camps for the kids this year and my kids were lucky enough to get signed up for some of them.  The first camp up was Art Camp.  Jonas and Levi were eager to go and it was such an awesome experience for them!  Two weeks (m-f) for 3 hours each day, 2 shirts, all the art supplies, plus awesome teachers with awesome projects all for only $10 each... how could we refuse?    The last day they had an art show.  I was so excited to see what they had been working on and they were excited to show it off!

They each made a mixed media mask and a graffiti name.

Animal art.

Jonas' name.

They painted rocks.  Jonas painted the bear with the mouth full of teeth.

I love these aspens paintings they made.

They even made portraits!  Jonas drew the man with the mustache.  

I think Levi's is a self-portrait.

They did a couple collages.

And they designed a T-shirt with pastel chalks.  Levi's is the top middle, its a dog.

Jonas did the bottom right swirly design.

The boys had so much fun and they did such a great job!!!  I'm so proud of my little artists!

Random Last Weeks of July

July was over before we knew it, but we sure had a good time!  A few pictures from my phone that don't really merit their own post follow:

The kids have loved having a dog!  Murphy is a perfect fit for this crazy family of ours!  He takes a lot of abuse from the baby,  but he seems to love us anyway.

We took him to the park on a long walk and he and Bolton were both pretty tired after our long, hot walk.

 

My dryer started making  really weird noise... like scary weird... so Ethan took it apart to try to figure out what was wrong with it... I ended up here.

Some of the boys best friends got orders to move (and they moved so fast once the orders were in place!).  We had to make sure we fit in as much time in as we could before they left us for the other side of the country.  We miss them a lot!

They fit in so perfectly with this wild crew.

 We spent lots of time hanging out at home, swimming in the backyard, reading books, working on projects... it was a perfect time to just enjoy being together.  I love my kids.  Silly as they may be.

Eliza's 6th Birthday!

Hard to believe my baby girl is 6!  She is growing into such a wonderful little lady.  We were blessed to have my parents still here to celebrate with us.  And we invited our neighbor/family friends too for cake and ice cream.  She initially said she wanted to have a lemon cake, but 3 lemon cakes in July (plus the lemon and lime cakes we had for Ethan's and my birthdays) I did my best to talk her into something else.  She decided on banana and it was SUCH a good choice!  I used the Banana Cake VI recipe from all recipes and it was a strange baking method, but super delicious!

The cake was decorated in an embarassingly bad way, between the lack of time, poor use of supplies and the essential cream cheese frosting (I have to have cream cheese frosting with banana cake, its required) it looked pretty ridiculous, but the attempt was to make two different castles, one an ice castle, the other a lovely spring in Arendale.  I even made a marshmallow man to guard the ice castle.    The original plan was to have an Anna and Elsa on the cake but I couldn't find an Elsa doll at any of the three stores I went to searching.  So I clipped out a picture of them and stuck that in the middle.  Luckily, she's six and still liked it and luckily the cake tasted much better than it looked.

Then it was present time!  She got a new outfit with an adorable jacket from Grandma and Grandpa Woody.

Six is the long awaited birthday of the box.  My dad builds each of the kids their very own box with their name on top.  My mom paints it to look just how they want it.  She was excited and they were happy they could be here to witness her opening such a special gift.

She got the movie Frozen!  She sings those songs non-stop so it was only right that she get her own copy.

And she ended with a little Anna doll!  This Anna would have topped the cake...but she was just as fun as a gift to open!

Overall she was a happy camper and that is what matters!  We love our little Eliza more than we can say.  She is so full of love for everyone.  Her little heart just amazes me with all that she feels.  Compassion is definitely a trait that she has been blessed with.  When people say that girls are natural nurturers I sometimes wonder, but not with Eliza.  She is the sweetest.  We have been truly blessed to have her in our family.  

I like to look for rainbows...

We had to come home from Utah when we did so we could return in time for Levi's baptism on July 12.  

We came home to cold water (our water heater broke down before we left for Utah and we tried to get it fixed and were told that they needed to order a part... so we waited to hear from them... and waited and waited... until finally I gave up waiting and called them again hoping to be abel to come home to hot water... well, they neglected to inform us that WE needed to order the part, not them, so cold water it was until we got the part and they could fit us into their schedule to fix it).  The day we got hot water back was a glorious day, indeed.  I had to share a picture of my joy on instagram.  Its a good thing we got it fixed when we did, we had company coming to town!

July 12 came, along with Grandma and Grandpa Hoss and Grandpa and Grandma Woody.  The morning of the 12th we decided that the time had come for our family to add one more member to our ranks... so we adopted Murphy.

The baptism was at 5 pm.  There were two kids from the stake scheduled to be baptized this day but a new family just moved in and their son got to join the baptismal service as well.  He and Levi are in the same class at church!  

I love the pre-baptism, all dressed in white picture.  He's so excited!  Levi got to choose: someone to give a talk about the Holy Ghose, someone to say the closing prayer, and the closing song.  He also got to choose the music leader.  

Grandpa Hoss gave the talk, Grandma Jane gave the prayer, Grandma Hoss lead the music (even the musical bouquet while we waited for kids and dad's to get dressed-which proved a somewhat funny experience), and the closing song was A Child's Prayer.

We're so happy that Levi chose to be baptized.  We know that it was the right choice to get him on the pathway back to our loving Heavenly Father.

After the baptism we tried to get a good family photo... Jane's hand showed up in most of our camera shots, but that's ok, she is part of the family, after all!

Levi is such a sweet heart.  He has so much love to share.  Expect great things from this boy, they're coming.

We got to enjoy visiting with the grandparents for a couple days after the baptism as well.  We are so blessed!