Sarah Finished The Book of Mormon

Last Tuesday, Sarah finished her first read through The Book of Mormon. We started sometime when she was two or so and we would read about 5 verses a day and then summarize them in terms she could understand and hopefully give some kind of brief application of whatever principle was discussed. We took some pics but none of them turned out all that great. She got to stay up that night and called Oma and Opa to tell them the news and then she got to have ice-cream before bed. We're pretty proud of her. She probably didn't get that much out of the daily "study" (other than the ritualistic back-scratching that accompanies the reading), but it is definitely something that is a routine for her and that she remembers we need to do each night. Maybe that's the point. Great Job Sarah!

GROSS!

So while I was helping Sarah tonight for her bedtime routine, she informed me that the soap dispenser in the bathroom was out of soap. So I got her a little soap squeezed out of the dispenser and proceeded to fill it up with soap. Just as I finished that Sarah needed help getting toothpaste on her toothbrush, which I proceeded to also do. I then noticed I got some on my finger and licked it off. At about the same moment my touch touched the substance on my finger I realized in my head that it was soap not kids toothepaste (which is pretty yummy). My tastebuds registered the distaste shortly thereafter and Sarah was real curious why I was spitting in the sink. She was even more curious after my explanation, stating "Daddy, why did you eat the soap, that's icky?" Thanks for the support kiddo!

I think I had forgotten (repressed, maybe?) that I may have had my mouth washed out with soap at one point in my childhood. I'll have to consult my mom or dad to confirm that though. Anyway, it was gross, but fortunately it wasn't very much (this time I mean), so the tast left quickly.

Smoothieeeeeeees!

As my sis recently blogged about, smoothies are in full-season this summer. We've never made that many, but this summer Mary's really gotten into making them. Here are some pics of a recent one she made:

Looks like banana's, nectarine, grapes, frozen strawberries, ice, orange sherbet and some juice came in after the picture. After 20 seconds of blending (if you have a Vita-Mix) you got:

cold fruity goodness!

Baby Babysitting

"Train up a child in the way you want her to go and when she is older she will hopefully do it" or something like that. Anyway, we are really getting excited about Jane babysitting in the future, so we wanted to get her started young. I imagine her going rate will by the time she is old enough to do the real thing will be a little steep. This time all she earned were lot's of smiles and laughs from those watching. Sarah and Nathan were thrilled at Jane holding Sarah's little baby doll.

Please just take the picture of the cute baby(ies). Don't let this ugly mug detract.

Landscaping Piggy

One of our small landscaping projects last weekend was fixing an ugly area that had become weed-filled (the weeds here are terribly rampant, much more worse than in W. WA). It is a little area in the corner of our front yard next to our driveway that has the mailbox post in it. So Mary cleaned up the weeds and took out the old bark and had laid down some weed-barrier stuff and we wanted to put some rock in there. Jenny had picked some decorative rock up from a garage sale while she was here for free but there wasn't very much of it. I suggested that we take out some of the random landscapring rocks that we had in the backyard and combine them to go there and it worked great. Mary later had the idea to paint a little pig on one of the rocks so we did that on Sunday afternoon. The kids enjoyed "helping". Here are the results:

Sarah getting ready to help out Mary.

Nathan trying to get into the act with Sarah looking on and Mary doing the actual work.

Here's the finished product, it looks pretty cute... hopefully it doesn't wash-off with rain.

4th of July Fun!

We spent most of the 4th doing yard work, which I am beginning to enjoy more. Hopefully the work that we are doing will pay off and reduce the amount that we'll have to do in later years (thanks to weed barriers!). We stopped in the middle of our day and went out for a late lunch. Before we left we got a picture of me and Nathan matching (where's my cool sunglasses?):

There was actually a better picture of me and Nathan than this one, but this is pretty good, and I just love the total Stevie Wonder smile and head-tilt that Nathan has going on. I love his "cheese"!
While we were killing time during a long day after dinner and awaiting the time to go to the fireworks display locally, Sarah and Nathan watched a movie. It was really cute because I came out and they were laying on the couch like this, totally cuddling with each other while they watched the movie together, even though Nathan had to lift his head up at times. Good pals!
For the firework show we went to the local golf course and watched the display. They always start so much later than you would like, but the kids had fun eating popcorn and drinking rootbeer. They loved the firework display, but were certainly tired toward the end. I think it's a pretty good show and it's nice not to have to have a huge traffic jam to get home! The kiddos both got to bed close to 11, but slept in 'til 8 and took good afternoon naps while we continued the yardwork stuff. It was a fun 4th, and it's great to live in such a patriotic town. We are truly blessed to live in this nation and enjoy so many freedoms. I appreciate so much more those men and women who honorably serve our country and preserve those liberties!

Sarah Swimming Lessons

Sarah took her first swimming lessons this summer. It was a two week course that met for 1/2 hour each weeknight (except Fridays). She really enjoyed it, though I don't think that she learned very much from the course, except some confidence and excitement toward going to the pool, which I'm totally thrilled with (though I think that her cousin Ruby will help her with both of those in a few weeks in McCall [fingers crossed]). She gave her teacher hugs after class and loved standing in the shower after the lesson. One game they played was a "Shark" game where one of the kids would be out in the water and the other kids would say "Mr[s]. Shark what time is it?" and the "shark" was supposed to say something like 4:00 and the kids would take four overhand strokes toward the shark. Eventually the shark would say "dinner time" and try to catch one of the kids. Sarah loved this game and one time after she had complied with the norms of the game, she said "60 o'clock"... pretty cute! The kids all looked a little confused, but Sarah was beaming! Next year it will be both Nathan and Sarah. Here are some pictures:

Here we are before we left for her first swimming lesson, nothing but excitement!


Oh yeah, and they introduced the kids to lifejackets, which Sarah enjoyed. We bought her one recently so whenever she's in our little backyard pool, she wears it, you can never be too safe!

Jenny's Visit

Mary's sister came to visit us (okay mostly to see Jane and Mary and to help out). It was so fun having her. She flew in on Thursday night and left last Tuesday evening. She came with no kids. We love her kids, but it was a unique and very rare opportunity to have her to ourselves for 5 days! Sarah and Nathan loved having her around and it was cute to see how excited Nathan was to see her each morning or when he woke up from a nap. Even though I don't think he had much of an awareness of who she was before she arrived, he took to her pretty quick. We enjoyed playing games in the evening or just talking and had some adventures while she was here as well. Here are some pictures of her visit:

We got some good pool-time in while Jenny was here and the weather did not disappoint, reaching 100 on one of the days. Sarah and Nathan loved playing with Aunt Jenny in the pool!

The kids wanted Jenny to do a lot of the bed-time stuff and we appreciated it as well. It's funny though, when you're doing it sometimes you're tired and you just want it to be over so they can go to bed. But when someone else is doing it, you love being a "fly on the wall" watching your kids. They loved having her read to them, this was definitely a regular thing, not just at bedtime.
By the end of the day, I think Jenny was pretty worn-out. Sarah was "reading" her books at this time and Jenny did exactly what I do when Sarah reads to me - fall asleep! When she left us we were sad to see her go, but I know she was excited to see her boys! To see more pics of her visit go see Jenny's blog

Okay, so after finding pics to post, I realized that we have a serious problem. When family comes to visit to help, we usually don't get a picture of them with Jane (this is now the case with both Jenny and my mom.... arrgh, sorry!).

Jeff's Work BBQ & Puppies!

I had a party for the "Clinical Team" from work last week to celebrate one of my co-workers getting married. It was supposed to be at a park in Kuna, ID but due to some unexpected windy, thundery, lightningy, and sprinkly weather, we moved to Matt's house about 5 minutes away. It was a fun time as we had never gotten together with our families before and we are all LDS and generally have young kiddos. Here are some pics from the event.

Here is our Clinical Team on Matt's cool airplane teeter totter that seats 6-7, clockwise from the bottom left: David R., John S. (the big guy, our "Chief Administrator" but he was the Clinical Director when I was hired), Sam R., Matt H. (Clinical Director), Jeremy C., Me H., and Rob W. (front middle). Rob is the only other clinician who lives in Mt Home, which is craziness to me that all those other guys make the commute every day (the company has a vehicle they use for the commute, but still, it's like an hour at least!)

Matt's german short-hair had puppies like 6 weeks ago or something, so the kids just loved being able to play with them. Sarah was really taken by them and it was hard to pry her away. She was so cute with them, she tried to take one and put it down the little slide they had, luckily we stopped her in time.
Nathan was sure interested in the puppies. I think he was happy to have a "kid-sized" version. This is a pretty cute picture of him giving one a kiss. While we were out there with him he didn't want to hold them, but then after we had finished dinner and were sitting around chatting we saw Nathan lugging one around, headed for the slide (just like big sis!). I think we stopped him in time, but the survival of the dog was a little iffy there for a bit.

We sure loved how much he loved those puppies!

Even Jane got into the act!

Thanks Jenny for taking such great pictures! It was funny because my Clinical Director's family lived in the ward that Jenny and Aaron live in right now so they had a lot to talk about and Aaron is serving in the same calling (Young Men's President) that Matt was serving in when he was there. Small world!

Smiles and Coo's

We've never had video on here and during Jenny's (Mary's older sis) recent visit we enjoyed some of her high-tech stuff. She took a bunch of video's, some others of which we may post later, but this one is definitely one of the cutest. Jane's in her swing, where she sleeps, and enjoys visits from Sarah and Nathan (briefly). After like two minutes it goes to me reading the Book of Mormon to the kids (notice Sarah doing her "scripture ears"), and other bed-time routine stuff. This part is mostly boring, but you're welcome to watch it if you want. Sorry it's so long, I just don't want to take the time to edit it down. We hope you enjoy it! Jane is so much cuter in person ;*)

Whodathunkit?

According to the Mountain Home News, we will be hosting the Idaho State Chili Championships on July 26th! Pretty cool... the article goes on to state that there are some prominent local members of the International Chili Society (ICS) here in Mtn Home. In fact, Barbara May and her husband are both "Grand Masters" in the ICS and Barbara is the current ICS World Salsa Champion (Salsa is one of the categories in the ICS cookoffs). Anyway, it made the news here so it must be a big deal! Book your reservations now!

First Day of Summer

One of our funnest family traditions is to have a waterballoon fight on the first day of summer, which was yesterday. This gets more fun each year as the kids get older. But it is a lot of fun to pelt your kids and your wife with balloons. We filled about 20-25 balloons were done in about 5-7 minutes. The overall frustration for everyone was that the balloons wouldn't break on body-impact, so there were some complaints of people-who-will-remain-unnamed throwing the balloons too hard. There were also some dissappointed kiddos that they "couldn't do it right". I think I got Mary good once and someone got me good once, but no one got too wet. I resorted to throwing them at the ground to splash up and get people since they were consistently hitting off the target and popping on the ground. Go figure! Here are some pics

Here's the kiddos before the barrages begin
Here's the multi-colored ammo.
Nathan was really excited about throwing the balloons in the pool in the backyard.
Sarah was really dissappointed that she didn't get to throw the last balloon. We took the pic and went inside. She opted to stay outside crying and carrying-on for about 10 solid minutes... prompting a neighbor to ask her what was wrong. She recovered eventually.

OUCHIES!!!

Words could not do justice....

*Mary's disclaimer is that this apparently looks worse because there is Aloe Vera on their backs and makes the image look more shiny*

Blog List

You'll notice that I added the "Blog List" on the right hand column of the screen to replace the previous list that was there of family blogs and friends blogs. This does two things, at least. First, all I have to do is check my own blog to see if there are other blogs that I need to check... this will obviously save me from the endless back and forth clicking required to check everyones blog.
Second, this feature also ranks your importance in my life on a daily basis (which I know is of profound importance to you!). If you haven't updated your blog in a while (or have never written on the blog that you created: Laurie Farmer!), then you'll be at the bottom of the list in your respective category (family or friend) and, of much greater importance, you'll be at the bottom of the list in importance in my life ;*P . My apologies to those of you who don't have whatever is needed to provide the info to blogger regarding your updates (this includes blogspot pals that require you to login to access their blog).

I will just mention for those of you that are interested in doing something like this (see link above, or check it out on your Dashboard, they have a Youtube tutorial and everything!): it's kind of a pain! You can't just take your existing list of links to blogs and make it a "blog list", you have to start from scratch and enter the links one by one and then go back and rename them to the name that you want to use on your blog for that person (Otherwise I'd have to remember who the heck "Something Completely Different" is, which I don't want to have to do). So, it does take a while, but I think it will be worth it. Let me know what you think!

My thanks in general to Blogger for creating this option!

Funny Random Anecdote from Mary!

Tonight, as I was sitting here at the computer beginning a blogging session, Mary was sitting behind me rocking Jane to sleep and studying for her lesson on Sunday (always the multi-tasker!). She had just asked me what I was going to blog about and I wasn't sure where I would begin so I said "I don't know". Then, a couple seconds later, out of nowhere, comes this statement: "You know, it really is amazing how much Jane's poopy diapers smell like the really buttery movie theatre popcorn."

Nice!