The Boogie Trap

Scene: Phinn's bedroom, which is also the playroom, everyone is playing and giggling.

Action: Phinn runs to the door, opens it and starts to run out of the room, with Enoch quickly following.
E: "Mom, don't worry, it's boogie trapped."
Me: "Really?" (I already knew Phinn couldn't get out because I had closed the baby gate)
E: "Yeah, he was caught in the boogie trap - the gate's closed!"

And coming soon, a boogie video - starring Hilde and Enoch. We can't stop watching it around here long enough to get it posted. It is short, but very sweet.

Happy Kids = Happy Parents

Summer is quickly on its way out around here. Lots of gray skies, clouds, rain, and the wind is really kicking up. But, the kids are full of giggles around here. And although sometimes exhausting, happy kids make it a WHOLE lot easier to be happy parents. I love these smiles!

Birthday Festivities

Hilde picked a trip to Sandcastle Water Park in Blackpool for her birthday activity. It was an indoor waterpark with a small wavepool, slides, water spouts, etc. The kids loved it.
On the actual big day, we had a ward party to go to, but it didn't start until a little later, so we killed time at the bowling alley ------------STRIKE. Enoch loves the bowling alley, he had been begging to go for a long time, so we it was a big hit.
Do you see Phinn's bowling shoes? So cool.
Enoch used the ramp (you can see it in the background), Hilde didn't. She used a light ball, but she tossed it down the lane herself.
E: - "Mom, this is the sign for rock and roll!"
Future PBA champion in the making!

7 and Loving it

This is our girl, isn't she beautiful? She is beautiful on the inside too. Happy 7th birthday sweetheart! Hilde is old enough now to crack jokes, catch us in verbal or logical errors, read anything put in front of her, and in general - impress with just about everything she tries. She is also old enough to get embarassed when her parents rock out to their favorite songs, or sing "embarassing" songs (anything sung in an operatic style). She is old enough to truly want to do the right things, and help others do the right things. I often look at her and wish I could keep her this way forever, my girl, funny, sensitive and loving. On Hilde's birthday we had a Dutch Baby Pancake for breakfast - her favorite. We spent most of the day at a summer picnic for my work, so we did her birthday activity the week before. That was a trip to sandcastle water park - the kids loved it.
Hilde was very specific about her cake, it had to be vanilla with vanilla frosting with these particular decorations. In fact, she put the decorations on herself and only reluctantly let Enoch do some sprinkles - I bet you can't guess where he put them?



Happy birthday sunshine!

Pinocchio

The Missoula Children's Theatre came to our town and help the kids put on a show. They provide the costumes, set, and everything. Hilde was a baby doll in the production of Pinnochio. The show was a huge highlight of Hilde's summer. It was basically a week of theater camp, and she loved every minute of it. A huge improvement from the first year we were here and she backed out of the play the moment before it started because she was too shy. She only had a few lines, but she was in some musical numbers, and she was great. We were extremely proud of our inspiring actress. Here are a few pictures:


By far the scene stealer of the show though, was Enoch, who was in the audience watching with us. There was a part where Pinocchio hides from the evil guy (I can't remember his name right now) and the evil guy asks the audience where Pinocchio is. Enoch jumped right up, shouted and pointed "he's hiding under the table!!!". The whole audience busted up laughing. Enoch is such a sweetie - always trying to help - even the bad guys!

Guess Who's 1!!!

Happy Birthday to the cutest 1 year-old boy in the entire world. On 20 July Phinn turned one. He is such a great baby. He is very serious, much more so than our other kids. He makes you work for smiles and giggles - but they are definitely worth it. He loves his mommy, our first real mommy's baby. We recently discovered his love of sweets - too bad for him we completely control his diet or else he would eat nothing but sweets I think. He walks all over the place, but doesn't have any real words yet, we are looking forward to that. He claps when he loves something and dances back and forth when he hears a song he likes. He has chubby feet that are hard to fit into shoes and chubby thighs I love to squeeze. At his one year appointment (which was about 3 weeks late) he was 24 pounds and 8 ounces (75th percentile), 30" long (50th percentile) and his head circumference is 18 and a half inches (50th percentile). He does not care for shots, in case you were wondering. I love this kid. Here are some pics from his big day.
He loved opening up presents, when his brother and sister would give him the chance.
This card was from his classmates at daycare. The picture on front was him at Halloween.

Who loves cake? Phinn loves cake.

Phinn is starting to show a preference for balls and cars, we'll see if that continues.

The Great Yorkshire Show

The Great Yorkshire Show, something we couldn't leave Yorkshire without visiting, and this was our last chance. So we got dressed, put on our wellies (the weather forecast was calling for rain) and left work early. Once there, we were shocked to see that many people all in one place in North Yorkshire. It turns out that this is the biggest fair of its kind in all of England. And I have to admit, it was quite the show. For my family, think Puyallup Fair, only people dressed up in tweed and riding gear, or fancy dresses. We saw many people dressed up in their finest, and lots in Wellies like us too. It was so crowded that we had to be careful to never separate for fear that we wouldn't find each other again. Here are a few highlights:

Hilde's favorite - the Fashion Show. She was fascinated with the show, and was an excellent critic, somebody should put her on their staff. Honestly, I don't know where she gets it from, it sure isn't me.

This was Phinn at the Fashion Show, flashing his perfect blue eyes at the crowd, and really, stealing the show from the models.
The big arena had events all day long. Horse jumping, cattle shows, you name it. When we were there they had some horse drawn carriage event going on, we didn't stick around to watch it.
We loved this sign. Just where should we wash our horses?

They had many, many, many , MANY cows, sheep, horses, and pigs. I loved catching a few minutes of the sheep shearing contest. They had 5 guys in a row and each had a sheep. The bell rang and they started shearing. They each had the whole sheep sheared in about 1 minute, but it wasn't just one sheep, they each had to shear about 8 sheep or so. It was pretty impressive.

In all, we had a great time. The kids saw lots of animals, we got some yummy food, and the rain held off. Perfect.

Happy Birthday E!

On July 11th, our little guy turned 5. Enoch is the sweetest, most loving, most contagiously happy kid you could ever meet. He has become such a good reader this year that he shocks us when he sounds out long words during family scripture reading, or on signs as we drive down the road. He picks up chapter books and reads books aloud to Phinn. And he has grown several inches this year, all of his pants got shorter overnight. He is more sensitive than our other kids, and craves our hugs, snuggles, and company. It is endearing. I truly wish I could keep him this age forever, we love him so much. And we contintue the tradition of having a shark on his cake. Something that we started when he turned 2 and was old enough to show a love of sharks, which still exists now.
For his birthday he got too many great presents to go into detail, but armor was a huge hit as always. We'll be testing this out at some castles in the area shortly.

Blowing out the birthday candles. We told him that if we only put a 4 on the cake he would stay 4 forever, but he didn't fall for it.

Here is Phinn enjoying the festivities.
This was the only picture I have of Hilde on the day, you'll see more soon. She is more gorgeous everyday, I am starting to get a little worried.