I AM

Blake has been going through a funny phase where he feels the need to emphatically respond to any and every instruction, direction, or suggestion that he IS doing it.

"Clean up Blake" "I AM cleaning"

"Be quiet Blake"  "I AM being quiet" (which, generally uttered in sacrament meeting or other similar situation, inevitably is not said in a quiet tone)

Picking the kids up from school we are usually running late, "Hurry up Blake"   "I AM"  as he slowly walks up the side walk.

Flower Gleam and Glow

Matt was outside early in the morning working on the yard when Julia found this random flower (or weed) in the backyard and started singing the Tangled song to it.  

We had her reenact for a video.

Career Day

Matt:
Being at the tail end of the school year with school work far from the minds of the students, the Friday morning before the Memorial Day weekend at Bob Lewis Elementary was designated career day.  I had volunteered and was assigned to the second graders.  I set up in one class and had three classes rotate through.  One of the classes was Brayden's.  I made some jokes as I went over a model of the eye and had the kids do some goofy eye tricks.  It was fun.  At the end I handed out the disposable wrap around sunglasses that we give to people when their eyes are dilated.  It was fun and I am looking forward to doing it again next year.

Kristel:

As I picked up the kids from school there were dozens of very cool looking second graders strutting home sporting their sweet new shades.  I went to school the next week to do some PTA stuff and I got compliments from the teachers and office staff about the job that Matt did.  They said that he was very interactive with the students.  Brayden said that most of the kids in his class liked Matt's presentation the best.

All three classes that Matt spoke to wrote thank you notes.  Here are some excerpts:
*thank you. Now I'm starting to want to be an eye docter.  Braden is rilly lucky to have you.  And he is lucky if he gets pink eye to.  thank you for the gift.  You were my favoret.

*Thank you for the glasses and protecting my eyes and the pupel.

*Thank you four coming to lewis.  I found your presentation realy interesting.  I learned a lot of new things about the eyes! But the best part is that the left part of our brain sees the right side.

*You have a cool job. Thank you

*Thank you for helping us and the army and the air fors and the u.s.a. without you we would of lost every war.

*Thank you for teaching us the eyesball.  I like it when you lat us see ingsid the eyesball.  It whes cool.

*What I liked best about your speech is learning about the eyes.  The jelly in the eye is cool.  I didn't know we had muscles in our eyes.

*Thank you for your presentation. Your job looks so fun.  I think I will be a eye doctor.  P.S.  I need an eye doctor.

*thank you for teathing us about the eye.  It seems like a very strange job.  I you have a good life.

*Thank you for telling us and teaching us the you are an expert at the eyes.  Thank you.

*Thank you for showing us eyetricks and showing us eye-tricking pictures and telling us what is inside the eye.  Than you so mutch.

There was one that I am a little concerned about:

Umbrella Dance recital

Julia loves to dance.  She looks forward to going to practice every week.  We were lucky we were able to carpool with Jenna so it made things a little easier since dance practice was during dinner time.  

In Julia's dance recital they danced with cute polka dotted umbrellas.  Julia ended up in the back row and with umbrellas it blocked our view from seeing her dance.  She did great with what we could see.

Julia's dance class

All the different classes

race track bidding war

On May 14th Boy Scout Troop 660 held a spaghetti dinner and silent auction in the church gymnasium.  There was quite a variety of items on the auction list including yard work, baked goods, photo sessions, some knitted things, and a night at a ward member's lake house.  Kristel and I walked around perusing the goods when we came across a big taped up box covered with faded images of a toy race track and cars that looked like it had been enjoyed before.  I wondered who, if anybody, would bid on it.

We ate our spaghetti dinners and enjoyed the festivities when Brayden found me and excitedly dragged me over to see the treasure he had found.  Barely able to contain his excitement, he implored me to let him bid on the race track.

More than just a waste of money, I didn't want the thing in our house.  But he was so excited about it I said he could use his own money.  He found a pen and wrote his name on the auction sheet.  He soon learned, however, that his buddy Hyrum also had his eye on the track and wasn't going to let go so easily.  The bid quickly shot up as the sheet bounced back and forth between each of them.  They decided they couldn't do that for too long so they resorted to stalling and hovering over the bid sheet.

When it got up to $35 Brayden was torn about whether he should keep going.  Eventually the end of bidding was announced and  he was pretty sad as he watched Hyrum collect his prize.

The next day Hyrum's dad let me know that when they got the box home and cracked it open it didn't even have the cars any more.

Poison Apples

Julia enjoys acting out her princess movies.  In some cases she will even go through a series of wardrobe changes as she goes through the scenes.  For a while now I have noticed that every time Julia eats an apple she gets faint and slowly falls to the ground as if eating the poison apple from Snow White.  She will persist in this death-like state for several minutes before coming to.  I am sure it makes eating apples difficult.   

By the way, these pictures are not staged.  This is Julia after a poisonous bite.  

Piano recital

Waiting for the recital to start

Kylee and Brayden had their piano recital May 14th.  They did a great job with the two pieces they each had to memorize.  Kylee and Brayden were the only two students to get a medal for practicing 75+ hours for the past year.  There were two students that received trophies for 100+ hours.  That is some serious dedication.  If we could have included all the hours of whining and torment that Brayden spent writhing on the piano bench before practicing, he would have exceeded the 100 hours.  Almost every time Brayden practiced I would have to add time to his timer because he would stall, sometimes going limp and even falling off the bench.  Despite the agony, he has done very well.

Kylee had an interest in piano and Brayden said he wanted to learn how to play also, so we finally made the big purchase of a used piano and the kids started lessons in October.  

We sent Kylee to the first piano recital by herself with another family.  Brayden was sick and Matt had a meeting to go to.  We sent our camera with another family so they could tape her.  She ended up messing up on the record button and did not record her performance.  We were happy there was another performance only a few months later.  

Pampered on Mother's Day

My Mothers' Day bouquet.

I woke up at 8:30 to my favorite breakfast of strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry crepes.  They added chocolate covered strawberries and blueberries.  It was so yummy. 

I am so lucky to have these beautiful children be a part of my life.  

Matt kept me busy on Mother's Day and had me help put together these paper cakes filled with chocolate for the mother's in our ward.  

We finished off the day talking to a couple of grandmothers.  Here are the kids and Matt talking to GraMindy on Face Time.  

Blake's birthday

Blake started his day with a teenage attitude.  He did not want to wake up.  He came in my bed early and fell back to sleep.  When it was time to wake him up to have cinnamon rolls, he did not want to get up. I told him it was his birthday and that we were going to have cinnamon rolls.  He responded that he was cold and tired. He said he wanted to sleep and pulled the covers back over himself.  I tried to get him up several times and he refused.  I picked him up and brought him downstairs and he was grouchy.  As soon as I put him down he ran back upstairs and got back in bed.  I had to grab him and hold him while we sang Happy Birthday with the cinnamon rolls.  As soon as we were done singing he got up and started heading upstairs.  He ended up staying on the stairs and then changed his attitude and came back and ate his cinnamon roll.  This was unusual for Blake as he is a light sleeper and when someone wakes him up he is up and never tries to go back to sleep.

After the rough start Blake was excited to have his birthday.  Matt made him a froggy cake because one of his buddies that he sleeps with is a frog and he uses a froggy towel and has a froggy blanket.

He saw me wrapping his presents and wanted to sneak a look.  He got excited after an attempted peek even though he didn't really see anything.  He was so excited to open up the presents and enjoyed all of them.   

A few notes about Blake:
*he loves his milk
*he loves to give hugs and kisses
*when he goes to bed he has to name everything that is around him including animals, robots (stickers on the wall), legos, blanket, pillow, etc.