Little Grass Hut

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, 'God! How could you do this to me?' Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! 'How did you know I was here?' asked the weary man of his rescuers. 'We saw your smoke signal,' they replied.

The Moral of This Story:
It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

(I think my Hut is burning, just waiting on the miracle!)

Dry Cheeky

My sweet handsome prince sometimes wakes up in the mornings or from a nap with really super red dry cheeks. It is mostly only on his left cheek but can be on both, although the left is always worse. Sometimes the red dry patches make their way all over his body and it looks almost like chicken pox but bigger patches. The Dr. has told us it is excema and we need to put cortisone on it to keep him from scratching it and making it worse and keep lotion on it at all times. He has scratched it before until it bled and left terrible claw marks all down his cheek! So we have cortisone all over the house, in all the bathrooms, our room, the boys room, in my purse, the diaper bag, wherever because you never know when he is going to flare up.

Sometimes Lewy takes it upon himself to apply the ointment himself. He has skills!!! He can use a whole tube in one sitting. Once he even used a whole tube of A&D ointment he found on his changing table, yeah, that stuff comes out of clothes and carpet real easy!!! So if he is over at your house, lock up your lotions and potions and beware of long periods of silence.

Stolen Bikes

We have had 2 bikes stolen from our garage. It's a sad day. Brad noticed Helen's bike was missing last week and we have been searching for it and have our neighbors on the look out for it. She is so upset. We can't figure out when it was taken out of our garage.

Then on Friday, Brad was getting ready for the Daddy Daughter Camp out and was going to take his and Mary's bikes and let the girls share when he noticed his bike was missing too! His was hanging on the wall and I guess we just didn't notice it was gone when we noticed Helen's was gone. The thing is, we never leave our garage up unless we are home and going in and out. I am really vigilant about it not being up when I am home alone with the kids and they come in through the garage after school but immediately close it behind them. I just can't figure out when someone could have grabbed the bikes. Helen's was down on the ground but they had to wade through some bags of dirt and fertilizer and Brad's golf clubs and other debris to get to Brad's bike on the wall. And Mary's bike which is exactly the same as Helen's only yellow not silver wasn't touched and neither was my bike and Griffin's bike. It's a mystery!

Brad is especially bummed because his bike was from when we first got married and were rich and he could afford a $2,000 bike. Now we are kid poor and if we had $2,000 we would get the girls braces not Brad a bike. So, it is a day of mourning at our house but we will live see another day and hopefully be able to replace Helen's bike when Brad gets a job! Keep your fingers crossed!!!

Nerd Day

It's nerd day, I didn't have any white shoes with black socks for the girls like when they were in kindergarten but I think I did ok. Griffin, well, boys are a little harder for me to nerd up. I think we look nerdy enough to pass!

Notice anything different about Griffin? He is "Almost Bald" so he won't get so hot walking home from school. He He He

Crazy Hair Day

It's spirit week at school and day 1 was Crazy Hair Day. I got the idea's for the girl's hair here and boy were they excited to try them out. I think they turned out pretty good and trying to stick Griffin's hair up made me realize how much he needs a haircut! Enjoy the crazyness!

Bus Suspension Lesson

This week Griffin is suspended from the bus. He has problems staying in his seat, hitting other kids with his backpack as he gets in and out and listening to what the bus driver tells him to do. His latest offense was the last straw and we are without bus service for a week. So, time to pull out the stops and make him realize it's a privilege to ride the bus and he needs to shape up.

How do we teach him this lesson?

We walk home from school in 97 degree heat for 2.3 miles. That's 36.1 degrees Celsius and 3.7 km for you metric folks!

It's teach Griffin a lesson/torture mommy time. (Why didn't he get suspended last week when it was in the 80's?!?) It took us about an hour with lots of crying and moaning and complaining, some threatening to never go to school again and finally repeating the mantra, "I will sit in my seat on the bus and I will listen to the bus driver." We were hot and sweaty and took cold showers to cool off and drank a bottle of Gatorade each after our walk.

Today when I drove him to school he begged me to bring the car to pick him up. I have to go get the girls after school so I have to drive today but we might be walking again on Wed, Th and Fri. (We will just have to see if I can survive the torture!)

Griffin after walking home.

I really hope it's worth it. Sometimes kids don't realize the punishment is worse for the parents than it is for the kids! Really, who wants to have a grounded kid around the house whining and complaining, or have them miss out on something fun when you were going to have some free time to do something fun yourself?! Oh, the joys of parenting.

Easter Chicks

We have a friend who got herself 6 colorful chicks for Easter (see here.) Apparently they insert different color dye's at a certain stage of development so they turn out these awesome bright colors! She was kind enough to let us chick-sit one day and we kept them overnight. My kids were beyond thrilled! They couldn't get enough of the chicks. We had so much fun. All the neighbor kids came over to torture/play with the chicks. It was hard to get them in the grass because they had to be held at all times!!! Sadly there are no pictures of Helen because she took half of these pictures. She is getting really good with her camera!

Mary with Sunshine and Jellybean

Lewy and Sunshine (pic by Helen)

Lew and Blastoid

Grif and Jello

Daisy was a dog obsessed. She didn't move from this spot all night. I had to force her into my room to sleep and she was up at the crack of dawn whimpering to go downstairs to see if they were still there.

Even Crush got in on the action. He was a nice place of refuge from the kids holding the chicks. I was surprised at how long they would stay on him. The green one, Lucky, cruised the yard with him for a good 5 minutes before getting off!

Leaving Spring for Summer

Here in the valley of the sun we have 5 seasons. We have Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer and HELL. Sadly, our lovely Spring season is over and we are heading into Summer. In 2 months HELL will arrive and we will once again wonder why on earth anyone would choose to live on the surface of the sun. But our temps for next week will be nice and warm for those lucky children in swim lessons getting ready for swim team! And Heavenly Father knows our ward Daddy Daughter Campout is Friday and Saturday so he sent two cooler days for their benifit, Thank You Very Much, so the daddys won't have too many melting, complaining princesses to deal with.What a difference a day makes!

I spoke too soon! Updated forecast now in 90's for the Daddy Daughter Party! Bummer!

Easter

We had a fun Easter with friends. We were invited to our friends Kristin & Shelby's house for dinner and an egg hunt. It was delish dinner with ham, prime rib, chicken and lots of side dishes. I can't even describe how great the prime rib was cooked, it just melted in your mouth, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Dessert was a bunny cake, apple pie and lemon cheese cake...yummy!!! The Easter egg hunt was a big score since some of the eggs had cold hard cash in them! Mary scored 18 bucks, Griffin got 8, Helen got 2 and Lewy was only interested in CANDY. We had a great time and it was fun to spend the day with friends.

The girls got new Easter dresses (thank you Grammy) and the boys got to wear their regular old church clothes and all of them looked lovely. The sun was a little bright for the pictures, hence the scrunched up faces so please just imagine their eyes open and no shadows on their faces OK?

This chicky sings and dances. Lewis was in heaven he kept dancing with it all day long. Somehow it now resides at our house, that Shelby is sneaky!

Cold Hard Cash!!

Shelby's cousin was trying to play with his daughter (in the flower pink dress) and all 4 of my children descended upon him! What a great sport he was to have them all attacking him.

Umbrella destruction

Ok, these pictures are really bad--too dark because of the bright outside--but it was so hilarious I had to post it anyway! Lewis got one of our big umbrellas we had in the back yard from the rainy party and brought it inside. Helen kindly opened it for him and then he decided to go back outside to play with it. Problem? Just a little one, the door wasn't as big as the umbrella. Luckily our Handsome Prince is one determined kid! What an accomplishment!

Brad thinks I should have stopped the destruction instead of taking pictures but it was so funny and that umbrella was on it's last leg anyway.

Superman Lego Starwars Party

Griffin couldn't decide on a theme so we went with all his favorites--Superman, Star Wars and Lego's, what could be better? All the bases were covered. His actual birthday was just family. We opened presents and played and went to lunch and the movie; Monsters vs. Aliens. Not too shabby for a birthday.The next Saturday, Grammy brought down her bouncy house for his friends party. It was a big hit and the pouring rain even let up for the party with just a few sprinkles. We had the bouncy house, a Darth Vader pinata, bubbles, hot dogs and cake and lots of friends. This made for one great party. Griffin had lots of fun and scored big with all his gifts. This is one happy 6 year old birthday boy! Happy Birthday my big boy!

This pinata was so ugly but exactly what Griffin wanted. We lined up all the kids and had Griffin go first at whacking the pinata. Brad said "you only get one hit" and that's all it took! One hit from Griffin and BAM candy everywhere! So beware of decapitated head pinatas, they aren't that sturdy! Last years Superman took all the kids taking their turn twice with multiple blows before he gave up his candy!

Oh, the red stuff on Griffin's cheek is "fire" We had a church Easter party before Griffin's party and there was face painting involved and somehow Griffin got fire. Sweet!

What a great reminder for the real reason for this Easter season: the Atonement and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

Spring School Pictures

Here they are. Not my favorite pose or background at all but at least the kids are cute!