Da boiz

Since Rachel posted about recent boys' antics, I thought I'd post this picture that we took on Sunday when they were both dressed up after the annual primary program (when all the kids under 12 have little speaking parts and sing children's hymns for the entire main service).


Here they are in their normal mode, cruising in Sam's "big" birthday present. They've been honing their skills on the neighbor's John Deere tractor, and Rachel found this killer deal on Craigslist for $90. They bumped it that low because the battery was shot, but we got one shipped to us from ebay for $35! (and4-yr olds just don't care as long as it works!)

My Boys

Two stories, one about Sam, one about Jonah.

Sam-
Today was a normal day. I was getting bills paid and organized and he was watching tv. I put the bills, all ready to be mailed out, by the door (like I always do). I told Sam I was going up to take a shower. After my shower I heard him yell up to me "Mom, I opened all the mail!". Yeah, he opened all the bills, and NOT carefully! Ripped open! At least, by some miracle, he didn't rip any checks.

Jonah-
I got a letter from school on Friday that Jonah was out of money in his lunch account. How could this be I wondered since I budget out 2 meals a week from school and he brings his lunch the other days. I checked online to see the meal history, what he had bought with the money (which I didn't know about before this incident). He has been buying breakfast at school, 10 days of breakfast were on there! And yes, he does eat breakfast at home before he goes to school!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Some things Sam likes;

• Spider-man-loves to wear his spider man shirt (sometimes two Spider-man shirts at the same time)
• corn dogs (he says "hot dog corn")
• riding bikes
• juice, any kind, he has a two cup a day limit that he fights every day
• digging and crashing cars and trains (in the winter we fill a tray with cornmeal and he crashes things in that)
• Scooby Doo (and Shaggy too!)
• trying new foods, he always has to try what I'm having even if he finds out he doesn't like it, not a bad quality
• playing outside with Jonah and our neighbor friends
• Watching a movie with Bekah, and eating popcorn
• Playing with boats in the kitchen sink, this never gets old
• Loves to help make cookies (and then wants to crash things in the flour and sugar)
• Did I mentions he likes to crash things?!

Our New Cats

Kittens actually. Four months old. Brother and sister. We noticed that when they get ready to pounce on something, they both shake their little booties so cute so we decided to name the boy Tango (the one with stripes) and the girl ChaCha (the black one).

I've never had cats before since I was allergic all my life. I've just realized that I'm not anymore. Bekah really wanted kittens so they are kind of mostly for her. The cats have been really sweet so far. Not quite as destructive as puppies! Still getting used to the litter box thing though, not a huge fan of that!

Sam's Cast

Sam broke his arm three weeks ago. Now it is time to get the cast off. We went to the Doctor yesterday to get it removed. Sam was not too thrilled with the saw that they used. It was pretty scary! After they got it off, they took another x-ray and it is healing well. He has to wear a wrist brace for 2 weeks and then they will x-ray it again.

Branson Vacation

A couple of weeks ago we went on a little family vacation to Branson, MO. We kind of took some back roads since it was the most direct route our GPS guided us to the Talking Rocks Cavern on the west side of Branson. We happened across a happy accident in southwest Missouri on a bathroom stop in part of the Mark Twain national forest.

There's a state park called Roaring River, there was a bathroom we could see from the road and there was a nice, big playground on the other side of the parking lot...perfect after 3 1/2 hours in the car. As we walked to the playground we noticed a guy walk down an embankment and we heard some distant noise of water. There was this pretty, little, spring-fed mountain river that was very shallow, totally clear and moving very slowly (in that part). This turned out to be our favorite part of the trip and made sure to stop there on the way home. We'll put up another post with some pictures from the other days.

The kids liked Talking Rocks Cavern. It's the first cave they've been in. There were some pretty formations. I've never heard of "cave bacon" before, but you can see why, and this cave is famous for it's bacon!

Yes, that fish was alive...though just barely. It was floating belly-up, but I could see it was still breathing. I think someone upstream must have had it on a stringer for a while and weeded it out before they headed home. The kids enjoyed touching and holding it (and it makes a pretty cool mountain man photo!).

The Terrible Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day

Today;

• Woke up with a headache


• Alan's car wouldn't start, still is having trouble


• I had to go to the dentist


• Left the kids home alone for the first time with Bekah


• Need fillings


• Had a flat tire on the way home


• The flat tire was brand new


• Had to wait an hour for the insurance company guy to come fix my flat tire


• Was worried about the kids


• Left my phone at home and couldn't call anyone


• Sam broke his arm falling at the park


• Alan had to go to three urgent cares before finding one that accepted our insurance

The blessings;

• My headache went away quickly


• We are getting dental insurance soon


• My neighbor rescued Bekah from babysitting her brothers and they all had a good time


• I noticed the flat tire as I drove slowly through the bank and was able to stop there and take care of it safely


• I was able to use the phone at the bank


• Sam had a ton of fun on his new bike before he broke his arm on the playground


• we just got our new health insurance cards in the mail Saturday


• There was no line at the urgent care, they got right in

After the flat tire and the dentist I said to the kids, "All we need is for someone to break their arm today!" I'll never say that again!!