Big Helper

Spencer loves to help his dad build fires. He is great at crumbling the paper up, and putting it in the fire place. Sometimes, he gets carried away and thinks that we need paper in it when the fire is going. Good thing we are watching!





I have been blessed with the greatest kids. When there is work to be done, most of the time, they pitch in without asking. Occasionally I have to ask, but they are busy kids who love a challenge. I am grateful for all their help!

Ouch!

This is the bump between his eyes. No bruising around the eyes yet.

This is the bruising starting to change to a yellow brown color. You will also notice the black on the inside part of his eye. This is just the start of the black eye.

Here is a picture of the black part of his eye and how big it is. The lighting in the picture makes it hard to see. Hopefully, this gives you an idea on his terrible fall.

Spencer was with me at Sports Authority on Friday when he fell big and now has two black eyes! We were by the weight machines display when Spencer slipped on a round stick that was pulled out by one of my children and fell straight onto the metal corner of the machine. He had a HUGE goose egg instantly! It looked like he was an two eyed cyclops with a huge bump separating his eyes. He cried hysterically and was hitting me and squeezing me. When you are in so much pain, do you ever remember hitting something? I remember hitting the ground, pillows, and walls. Anyway, I knew his pain was tremendous. Now, the bruising has gone into the corner of his eyes on both sides. He has double black eyes.

The other neat thing is that Spencer learned how to say "ouwee." He wore shorts and skinned his knee for the first time. He points at his knee and says ouwee. When we asked him where his ouwee was last night, he pointed to his goose egg on his head. What a smart kid!

Swimming Lessons

I have had my two boys in swimming lessons again this spring. I decided to do two back to back sessions to hopefully improve their skills because summer is coming. They both entered level 3 and did awesome. Braden moved on and can now swim a 25 front crawl and backstroke. He is slow, but improving every day we are at the pool. Karson was scared to float, and had a problem with the front crawl. He is working on them and doing awesome. I am proud of my boys for working so hard to learn to swim. I feel that it is worth every penny spent so that my children know how to swim. After all, it is a life saving skill.
Getting instructions
Karson getting help from his teacher.
Braden swimming

Braden's Opera

Braden had a really neat Opera in his first grade class on Thursday April 17, 2008. It was written by the kids with a little help from the directors of the Opera Festival at USU. The kids also did the painting of the background with a little help from a parent. In fact, most everything they could do, they had to do. They did a fabulous job!

The Opera is called Read, Read, Read. There are villagers who can't read and they really want to learn how. They ask the animals, but they only eat. They ask the knights, but they only know how to fight. Braden was a knight. Then the king and queen, and princess and prince help the villagers read. They all are happy and boogie in the end. Thanks Gma Jan for coming so far for such a short program.

Braden is a knight, Mason is an animal.
Braden with Tianna who is the princess.

Homework???

Tyler had a final speech in communications to give. He chose to give it on ATV jumping. Of course, this was his way of telling me that we had to go to the Knolls again. Homework can be fun! I had no problem with that, and my kids were not going to turn down the trip. Tyler completed his speech and all went well. The take off
The hang time
The landing

Braden enjoying his time with the girls. Brynn and McKenzie decided running all over the place was fun, but when they were really hungry, Braden gave them a ride back.
Karson loves to ride. Especially this red Polaris.

These commercial canopies are our latest purchase. We needed shade while we play in the sun. These are awesome!! I must suggest, that if you are serious about canopies and depending upon your use, commercial canopies are the best.

Bike Ramp

Tonight after Tyler got home from work he had the kids help him with a special project. Tyler and I wanted so badly to get the kids a bike ramp for Easter. But, we couldn't swallow $80 for a descent one. So, this one was built by all the kids and Tyler. The lumber was real cheap--FREE--from Tyler's work. Can't beat that. They were going to throw the wood away, and Tyler snagged some. Anyway, it is fun and awesome. As you can see by the pictures, the kids had fun, learned, and the best part was the bonding time.


Happy Builders!

Brynn can only go down the ramp on her scooter. The wheels are too small and she will go flat on her face if she tries to go up with speed. It won't be long before she's on a bike. She is doing great at balancing on her scooter. Almost time for the bike.

Trip to the Young's

We went up to the Boise area for Hallie's Blessing. She is beautiful, just as her sisters are. We enjoyed our short stay and want to thank Heather for all she did. Hopefully it won't be too long before the kids get to see each other again.

The kids really enjoyed the fire station. It has been a while since we went--over two years. Anyway, these are fun pictures of the kids enjoying being junior fireman.



Spencer loved Hallie. He is soooo much bigger than she is. He would give great hugs that would suffocate Hallie if we let him. Brynn thought it was fun to hold a real baby also.

Brynn and Braelyn vacuuming. Brynn was in heaven with all the girl stuff. She would love to have them closer. Spencer trying to fall asleep in the bouncer.
The kids! Karson was missing.
Hide and seek!

Painting the nails. Gma loves to doll up the girls. Hannah Montana even came! FYI: My children have no clue who Hannah Montana even is. We don't have cable. But, Brynn pretended she knew what she was doing.

Card Games


If you look closely, Spencer has an earring on, and he has one in his hand. He doesn't like jewelry, but the girls sure do, and tried to get him all prettied up. He didn't agree and pulled off all the stuff! That's my boy.

Thanks for the Fun!!!