Calaway Park

Last week we dropped Alan and Conner off at my parents house for them to spend a little time with their grandparents. They did a lot of fun things like going swimming, going to the movies, watching a parade, riding bikes, ect. It was a nice break for me. It was so quiet just having Micah around. It reminded me of when Alan was a baby and it was just he and I. It is so much easier to get out the door and run errands with only one child in tow. Having said that though I did miss them and their fun loving spirits. We met them up there on Wednesday night. We didn't get up there until late because I went to the Y.W. activity (I was called as the Young Women president about a month ago and I felt like I needed to be there). The next day we all headed to Calaway Park. Alan and Conner loved the rides and the adults had fun too.

Conner giving me a thumbs up

Alan the train engineer

Our favorite ride was the log ride. Reed took Alan and Conner down it and I wasn't quite sure how they would do. I almost missed them going down so this was the only picture I got of them:

Alan sat behind Reed so he didn't get too wet but Conner and Reed were pretty wet. They all said it was fun. Then I wanted to go and to my surprise, so did Conner. He couldn't stop talking about the "waterfall" and how he yelled "aaahhhh!". He stood in the long line with us and went again.

Us going down the big slide

We paid for a close up picture of us going down the slide and I love it. It was taken at the same second as the above picture but I can't figure out how to scan it and add it. I love Conner's face - he looks absolutely terrified but when we got to the bottom he was all smiles.

Soaking wet and happy
Crash! Conner had a hard time figuring out the controls - he stayed in basically the same spot the whole time although he did turn in circles.

Alan enjoyed driving the bumper cars and crashing into people

On the carousel

After our fun packed day we headed home and soon all the kids were fast asleep. While we were up there we got to go pick strawberries, go to the farmer's market and I got to catch up with my friend Heather.

Our family in front of Cameron falls in Waterton. When we dropped the boys off we spent half the day in Waterton. We did a little hiking, a little sight seeing and a little bit of ice cream eating.

Baby versus cement stairs

The stairs win

Micah decided to try to go head first down our 2 cement stairs in the backyard - ouch. I took this picture after a couple of days so the swelling had gone down.

Cabin Camping

At the beginning of August my parents and Drew came down to meet us and we all went to stay in a cabin for a few days. We stayed in the King Hill's pass cabin. It had electricity which was nice as well as two rooms: one for sleeping and one for everything else. The only bad part of the trip was when my parents and brother got sick with the stomach flu. Before that we got to have a lot of fun. We went for a short hike to see some falls. On the way back we caught some glimpses of the wildlife:

This particular specimen was in a bad mood so we gave him a lot of space

More wildlife, also in a bad mood.

Finally: cheerful one.

We had fun just relaxing by the cabin, playing games and eating good food.

Conner just relaxing by the fire with a juice box

One evening we sent the boys on a dessert hunt. We gave them a clue and they walked along the road until they found a box of graham crackers. Then they followed another clue until they found some chocolate bars. Then they followed the last clue, which brought them back to camp where they found the marshmallows and everything else you need to make smores.

Going on a dessert hunt

Alan and Conner found the marshmallows hanging on the ax, close to the fire pit.

It was a fun time. I was glad we were in a cabin - it rained one day and one of the nights Micah decided he was ready to get up when the rest of us were going to bed so we stayed up with him in the other room for quite a while. We would definitely do that again.

Housekeeping reminder

A random picture for a random post: pirate Conner and Astronaut Alan playing in their nook

Last week Reed and I watched the musical Les Miserables on t.v. Several of the songs are quite catchy so we found ourselves singing some of them the next day. As we were sitting at the table Reed sang "I know a place were no one sweeps" and Alan looked up and brightly said, "Yeah, me too, the kitchen!" Reed and I started laughing so hard. Apparently I need to sweep the kitchen more often.

Time flies when you're having fun!

It has been a while since I have done an update. My excuse is that I have been too busy having fun to write about having fun. Since I am quite behind (and because I have been working on this blog in 5 minute increments for a week, and I have had to redo large parts of it due to Micah unplugging the computer) I will do a condensed version. Here goes:

In July Reed had some time off so he took Alan and Conner on a father/son camp out. They had a lot of fun and as soon as they got back we unpacked the van and then repacked it so that we could go and watch our oldest nephew, Hudson, be baptized. It was really fun to see everyone - we had dinner at Russ and Kristie's and then we all went back to our hotel and went swimming. The next day we went to church in Belgrade and it was neat to see people that we knew when we lived there years ago. That afternoon we got to watch Hudson be baptized - way to go Hudson! I took our camera with us but I forgot to get it out so this is the only picture I got from the entire trip:

Micah and Bentlie

The next weekend we packed up again and went to stay at Grandpa and Grandma Bassett's house. We got to see Brenda and her kids while we were there and Reed and I went to see Harry Potter and I got to go to a baby shower for my sister in law, Mindy. When we weren't busy doing any of those things we helped build a tree house. Mom and dad had already prepped a site that was relatively close to the house (at least you could see it from the kitchen window). We all enjoyed working on this project:

James and Conner helping Grandpa and Aunt Brenda

When the kids weren't in the tree house they were climbing and sliding down the hill right next to it:

Or swinging on the rope swings - Kyla showing Alan how to hold on and swing:

Micah was the official straw boss - he sat on a blanket and tried to steal snacks or sneak off the blanket into the thistles

We decided to add railings to the sides and back. The front was only 4 feet off the ground but the back was 7 or 8 feet off the ground. If you look off to the left side you can see part of the swing that Dad and Brenda built.

Becky, Alan, Kyla, Breven and Conner having a picnic in the tree house

The 5 year old club (also known as the stick wielding club)
Breven, Alan and James

By the time we were done I thought it looked great. It was so fun to build and to watch the kids play on it. Right before we left we had a birthday party for Baer:
And then we headed home to unpack completely and begin the Herculean task of catching up on laundry. Hopefully I will get a couple more posts up this week and then be caught up!

Check out my ride

Here is Micah's ride:

Here is Conner's ride:

Here is Alan's ride:

Notice that there are no training wheels on his bike:

On Thursday, July 14th, I decided to take the boys to the church parking lot and see if I could help Alan learn to ride his bike without training wheels. I read in Janae's blog about how she taught her girls to ride by letting them ride their little brother's bike so I tried the same thing with Alan. I took the training wheels off Conner's bike. Then Alan got on and I ran beside him and held him for about 10 feet and then I let go and away he went. I jogged beside him and when he realized he was doing it by himself he got very wide eyes and said "stop me, stop me, stop me". He eventually got stopped. We practiced for about a half an hour and by then he could ride the length of the parking lot but he would just drag his feet to stop himself. That night when Reed came home we told him about our adventure and then we all went back to the church parking lot. This time I took the training wheels off of Alan's bike and had him practice on that. He mastered the braking part and then he practiced and practiced and got so that he could start himself without us giving him a push. Hooray! He learned so fast, it was a lot of fun to watch. While he was doing that Conner was practicing on his little bike. He got so that he could ride at a brisk walking pace (before it was a very slow walking pace, with many pauses). Micah was pretty patient with just sitting in his stroller watching everyone.

Destructo mode

Now that it has been over two weeks since the incident I can't laugh about it yet but I think I can write calmly about it.

Lately it seems that my kids internal programming has been switched to Destruction Mode. An example: Conner smeared sunscreen all over our back porch, my flowers and zucchini plants (apparently plants don't appreciate being protected from the sun because the leaves died that had sunscreen on them died), then he smeared sunscreen all over our living room (toys, carpet, couch), he used a hanger to enlarge a hole in the wall (which Alan had conveniently started for him), he dumped buckets of dirt on my zucchini and then stepped on it (the zucchini is still alive, believe it or not), Alan pulled our coat hooks off the wall while trying to pull his coat down, ect.....

So, a couple of weeks ago we watched two boys overnight while their mom went to the hospital to have her baby. My boys loved having a sleep over (they stayed awake very late and woke up very early and that probably contributed to the problems we had during the day) and playing with them that morning. After the friends left Alan and Conner were very hyper. They were constantly fighting and bugging each other so I decided we needed to get out of the house. I told them to put their shoes on while I used the bathroom and then we would go to the library and get new books. While I am in the bathroom I can hear loud banging noises coming from our living room and then I heard glass shatter. Uh-oh. I rushed out to find this:
The door was closed and Conner was sitting on one side of it, surrounded by glass and laughing hysterically. Alan was sitting on the other side with a shocked/horrified expression on his face. Micah was right beside Alan, making a beeline for the jagged hole in the door. I lost my temper. I was so mad I couldn't even form coherent sentences for a minute. I asked what had happened and Alan told me he and Conner were play fighting, and Conner was laughing at him, so he kicked the door (with his bare foot). I sent Alan to his room, I put Conner on the couch and told him if he got off he was in big trouble and I moved Micah way back (luckily he was a very slow crawler then). I then swept up all the glass, and vacuumed and mopped. Alan came and showed me a miniscule cut on his ankle so we put a bandaid on it and I sent him back to his room. Amazingly, that was the only injury sustained. Thankfully Reed called home at the beginning of this escapade. He said he just felt like he needed to call and I ranted and raved for a little while and that helped me calm down quite a bit. Reed came home for lunch early and we both talked to Alan and Conner. We told Alan he was going to have to give us all the money he had saved to buy fireworks, plus he was going to do a lot of extra chores to pay us back. We took the door off its hinges and to a glass place and $40 later it was fixed. Grrrr. What really made me mad was that this isn't the first glass thing Alan has broken. He threw a ball a few months ago and knocked the glass covering to his bedroom light off. After that he did a few extra chores and we discussed how glass is very breakable, and how we need to be careful with it. Apparently the lesson didn't sink in. So now he is doing A LOT of extra chores including weeding the garden, cleaning the bathroom, helping with laundry and washing the walls (Conner helps sometimes):
The whole day was just a wreck: Alan woke Micah up from his nap, Conner threw tantrum after tantrum, as we were trying to decide what to order for dinner (Reed had a $20 certificate that needed used that day) Conner peed his pants on the carpet while laughing, then after I cleaned that up he pooped in his pants, the kids seemed to be fighting and screaming all the time, we didn't end up ordering any food because by that time I was in tears so I think I made PB and J sandwiches. And of course it happened on the day that Reed had to work late.

That night as I got ready for bed I decided that it had been a day for the record book so I wrote about it in my journal. After I was done I felt like I needed to think about the good things that had happened and here was my list:
- Conner said "nake you Mom" a lot.
- Alan passed his swim lessons.
- Alan offered to give me a back massage and make me dinner (as long as he didn't have to cook it, he said).
- Alan picked me a bouquet of flowers from the backyard:
So, even though it was a really rough day it wasn't all bad. I figure now I can look back on this post and think "Oh, yeah, today wasn't really that bad at all."
Anyone know how to turn the Destruction button off on little boys?