Big Boy Bed

We finally moved Caleb out of his crib.  Yes, he's 3.5 and still slept in his "crib".  I put crib in quotes because we put the side down a loooong time ago so he could get out whenever he wanted.  He was more than ready to move, and I was too actually.  It wasn't a case of me not wanting him to grow up.  We were just waiting till I found Nathan a bed so Caleb could have the bed that matches Michael's (since they share a room).  The plan was to have Michael and Caleb use the bunk beds as single twin beds.  Once we got them in there, we found out they didn't fit.  (Grrr!)  So now we have to bunk them.  Michael was adamant that he didn't want to sleep on the top bunk.  And Caleb was happy to sleep there.  I'm still a bit skeptical, but it has a fairly tall railing around it and he seems fine.  I think I had a much harder time adjusting than Caleb did.  Caleb has slept great ever since!

Caleb helped daddy and Michael take apart his crib.  He was in heaven!

  Michael was mad that he had to help, since we interrupted his movie.  Poor Michael.  (Notice my lack of sympathy.)

 Blake is happier than anyone in the house.  No more cribs and no more babies!  (That's his paint shirt he's wearing because we were getting ready to paint right after we took apart the crib.)

Trying out his new bed... 

 He likes it!

The Translucent Bad Guys

This is something I never thought I'd be playing.  Caleb made up a game today called, "Good Guy Destroyer".  I left some rocks and a flag out from Nathan's Eagle Court of Honor last night.  Caleb was bored and didn't want to play with his toys, so of course rocks and a flag make perfect toys, right?  (Actually I don't think they're rocks, they're more like marble type things.  But my kids call them rocks, so for the purpose of this post we'll call them rocks.)  He was showing me how some of the rocks were clear and how you could see through them and how some were solid.  We had a fun, impromptu lesson about transparent, translucent and opaque and he caught on quickly.  Caleb told me, "I LOVE the translucent ones!  Let's play a game.  I'll be the evil flag with translucent minions.  We'll call them The Tranlucents" You be the transparent and opaque guys together and you'll be the good guys."  I don't know how to play battle.  I have tried to learn this all my life, but I just don't know what to do.  So I suggested we just be friends.  He didn't like that.  He cracks me up!

Field Day and Patriotic Hair

Today was field day at school.  I remember this as a kid as being a dreadfully hot day where they wouldn't let us drink enough water.  Luckily my kids' school lets them bring water bottles.  My kids have different opinions than I do and they LOVE field day.  They were supposed to wear red, white and blue.  Anna decided to take it further and wanted to dye her hair red and blue.  So of course, Lydia and Elizabeth had to follow.  I really don't like hair dye, but I let them have fun anyway.

Nathan's an Eagle Scout!

Nathan got his Eagle Scout Award last night!!!! I'm so proud of him!  He worked so hard on it. There was one point where his progress was really slow and we were wondering if he'd actually finish. But he got motivated and did it! 

For his Eagle project, Nathan collected food for a place called the Blue Valley Multi-Service Center. They help people with food, hygiene products, utilities, birthday presents, etc. (Isn't it cool that they have a "birthday" section?! You know me and birthdays!  Parents can come pick out a birthday gift for their kid if they're having a difficult time financially.) And the cool thing is that they help people right here in our own school district. So it was neat that he could help people that could possibly be in our neighborhood or friends at school. 

Congratulations Nathan!  We're so proud of you!!

They wouldn't let us take pictures during the award ceremony.  Here are a few taken after.  One of the scout leaders hand carved all those sticks as a gift!

Caleb watched all of this intently.  He found Nathan's sash and said, "I'm going to be an Eagle Scout".  What a good example Nathan is and now Caleb's determined to be an Eagle Scout.

Katie in the temple celebration

One of my friends found this link to more pics of this awesome event.  Maybe it's one of those "you had to be there" things, but just seeing these pics brought tears of joy to my eyes yet again.   (Click on the picture to see it better.)

Here's my girl!

Yes Toto, I think we're in Kansas!

Our exciting weekend didn't end with the temple events.  On Sunday evening we had a huge storm roll in that produced a couple tornadoes.  We spent 30 minutes in the basement.  It was pretty exciting.  We learned that a tornado touched down about 4 miles from our house.  It was small and didn't cause much damage thank goodness.  Blake and Michael were watching out the basement window and thought they saw cloud rotation over our house.  It turns out that they were right!  I was talking to my neighbor the next day and she sent me this picture that her husband took. This is right over our backyard!  Pretty exciting!!  (Click on it to see it bigger.)

Once we knew it was safe, we came out of the basement and watched the beautiful thunderstorm.  We all love wrapping up in a blanket and watching the rain and lightning from our front door.  Kansas is a good place to live if you like storms (which we do)!

Kansas City Temple Cultural Celebration

We had an AMAZING (and incredibly busy) weekend.  Our church just built a new temple in our area.  Before this temple, the closest temple to us was 3.5 hours away (Winter Quarters) and we were actually assigned to the St. Louis temple district so we were supposed to go there (5 hours away).  So we're SUPER EXCITED to have a temple so close - it's now less than an hour away!    

In honor of the temple being built, there was a huge celebration.  The youth from 126 different wards from KS and MO got to participate.  Nathan and Katie wanted to be in it.  Michael said he didn't like dancing and that's not a battle we want to fight so we didn't make him.  He's required to go to church, but he's not required to dance.  Our prophet, President Monson, was there in person to watch the event which was really neat for the youth (and the parents as well).  The youth from our ward have been practicing for the last 2 months and the youth from all over the states practiced on their own as well.  Then on Friday and Saturday, all 3100 youth (crazy!) got together in Kansas City to put it all together.  Blake was wonderful and went with Katie to help her.  They were there from 5pm -10pm on Friday.  Then they went back at 5:30am the next day and were there till it started at 6:pm.  It was a looooong, loud, crazy day for them.  Blake texted me at about 4:30 and said he didn't think they would be able to pull it off and that he thought they bit off more than they could chew.  (I guess I should mention it was all run by volunteers - a lot of them who have never done anything like this before.)  But it turned out WONDERFUL!!!  Not only did they pull it off, but they did an outstanding job!  It was such a good experience for all the youth and all those who came to watch too. The kids went wild when President Monson came out.  And they were on a total high at the end (I have a link to a video below).

Nathan was in 4 singing numbers and 5 dance numbers.  And Katie was in 3 dance/singing numbers.  They had 2 handcarts for one number and Katie got to pull one of them!  It was really hard for Blake to find Katie in the crowd and to get her off the floor on time and not have her get run over by so many kids.  So having her pull the handcart worked great.  Plus it was easy to see her.  Nathan was in the "Mormon Battalion"  march and got to keep his wooden gun.  I didn't know we were allowed to take pics so I have absolutely no pictures.  :(  Blake took this during the practice:

Here's an article and lots of pictures to show how amazing it was.  Check out the picture with a bunch of kids playing fiddles by the hand cart.  The kid that you can barely see (cut off of the picture) is Katie.  

Article

And  this 1.5 minute video is awesome and shows how cool and involved the whole production was!  And one more video - Nathan and Katie were in these 2 songs.  The popcorn song was my favorite with all the fun colored shirts and I liked Cotton-eyed Joe too.  It was all so fun.

Here in the "aftermath video" you can see how much fun the kids had and how hyped they were after performing for the prophet.  They were on such a high and had so much fun.  We'll all remember this forever.

And then we had the temple dedication on Sunday which is what the celebration was really all about.  It was a wonderful, memorable weekend.  And like I said, we are thrilled to have a temple near us!

Lydia the Poet

I posted this on FB, but I had to add it here too. Lydia brought home a poetry book she made in school. I just had to share a few of her poems. The first one is her couplet poem. It made me laugh a whole lot. I still laugh whenever I read it. 

Broccoli

Broccoli, broccoli you're so yucky.

I'd rather eat my rubber ducky.

Broccoli, why do you even exist?

Now I will smash you with my fist.

Broccoli, you're never yummy,

 

Here are a few more poems I didn't post on FB.

Lydia's Haiku:

The Sun

I can't look at it.

You blow up a rocket ship.

You give the world life.

Lydia's Shape Poem:

This is a poem about a volcano, in the shape of a volcano.  It's so Lydia.

Boom!  Goes a volcano

unexpectedly.  You never

know when it's about to erupt.

I am a volcano

who erupts whenever 

I want to.  Yeah.

I'm just grand like

that.  Even Yellowstone

National Park has me.

Scientists love to get

close up, but it usually turns

out fatal because of me

hehehe.  Rumbling.  Rumble,

rumble, rumble.   I'm about

to erupt!  Here I... crack...

BOOM!  Whoo!  Now that 

was hot.  I hope I do not...

Achool! Just a bit more lava

was left.  Now this town is

 destroyed.  FYI you should know that

really old volcanoes don't erupt.

More pics from the art museum

I completely forgot that Blake took a bunch of (really good!) pictures at the art museum.  So here are some more pictures.  I absolutely love these!

The girls loved this statue.

 This is a two thousand year old mummy.  

Lydia was half freaked, half enthralled by the fact that "Eew, it's a dead guy!"
Click on this picture to see her face better.