Zoo Pictures

Here are some pictures from the last week's zoo trip.

Kid train in the monkey slide.


All 11 cousins on an African safari.


All 11 cousins on a komodo dragon statue.


Caden in a tortoise shell.


Grace in the monkey slide.


What do you think? Does this shirt make me look fat?

Family, Family The Center of God's Plan

It's feast or famine around here as far as family goes. This week was a feast!
We kicked off the week with Easter dinner at Aunt Shelly's house.
Then Uncle Brad and Aunt Aston came to visit and spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with us. The kids loved it! Caden is still talking about playing ball with Uncle Brad. It was nice to get to visit with my new sister-in-law for a bit. They need to come back and stay for a lot longer though. We didn't get in nearly enough visiting with all the competition for attention.
Friday Grandpa, Uncle Darron, and Uncle James all had meetings in Boise so we got the spend the day with all the cousins.
We spent most of the day at the zoo checking out the new Africa exhibit. It is turning out really cool.
We headed back to our house to grill hamburgers for dinner. We pretty much never get to have that many Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins at our house at the same time - it was great fun! Uncle Darron taught Caden to play baseball. Caden has been practicing throwing the ball in the mitt today. It is very cute. He sure likes to play ball with his Uncles.
After dinner, we all went to the hotel they were staying at to go swimming.
This morning, Grandma and Grandpa came back to pick up Murfy dog and Grandpa took us to buy popsicles. Grandpa told Grace that she needed to work hard at eating all the popsicles so he could buy her more next time he comes. She has taken her work very seriously. That is one job that she is happy go the extra mile.
Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Shannon stopped by this afternoon for a visit. Shannon made friends with Caden by reading him all the millions of books he kept bringing her. This is very good as I am putting Jeremy and Shannon at the top of the list for who to call when this baby is ready to come.
It is so nice to have lots of family. I wish we could all get together more often. You are all welcome to come back for visits anytime. Those family members who missed all the partying - you are welcome to come for your share anytime too. We always love to have family visit.

Morse Code

As the mother of gifted and highly motivated homeschoolers, I never know what project I will find the kids doing next. This is just one example of the scenes I often encounter.



I went upstairs to put Caden to bed and upon my return I discovered Colin learning Morse Code. He used his new circuit set to build a light with a switch and then he got out all the encyclopedias to find out what each letter was in Morse Code. His method worked just fine but things got a lot tidier when I showed him that the "M" encyclopedia has a chart with ALL the letters in it.

Duck Update

In five short weeks the ducks have gone from these adorable little things that were cute enough to be allowed to follow Robyn around the kitchen to...



these gigantic things that are still very amusing but no longer cute enough to live in the kitchen.



They are almost fully feathered with their juvenile feathers. One of them quacked at me yesterday (as opposed to the usual baby peeping) so I am really hoping that means she is a girl.

It is fun to watch them, they each have very different personalities.

Declaration of Independence

I have been working on memorizing the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence this month. I wrote up those two paragraphs on two huge pieces of paper. Colin thought we should make it look more authentic (old) by burning the edges of the paper. So we did and then I hung them on the wall by the dining room table so I could read it every time we sat down to eat. It's coming...slowly. If we work together, Colin and I can almost recite both paragraphs using just the first letter of each word as clues.

Tonight after family night, Grace sat on the table and read the entire thing! Of course she needed lots of help, but she stuck with it and wouldn't quit until she'd finished. She can now read words like "government" and "usurpations". I tell you what - it is really fun to hear your four year old read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." Pretty darn impressive.
The whole "Inspire, not Require" thing does work.

Gospel Hour

The kids were in their Gospel Hour fiddle show this past weekend. They did great! It was so fun to be their mommy!
My pictures didn't turn out so great. There are better pictures at http://www.pricelessmemoriesstudios.com/. Currently, Colin and Robyn are in the picture that comes up with the site. They are on the bottom left. If you want to see more, enter the site and click on Gallery. The pictures are in Gospel Hour. Most of the good pictures of my kids are on page 2 and 3. Picture DSC_19031 is a good one of Robyn (there are a lot of good ones of Robyn). DSC_19131 is a good one of Colin. He and Robyn are at the mic for that part. Colin gets on the second row usually and it is hard to get good pictures of him. The pictures of Grace are DSC_1917, 19181, 19211, 1927, 1940. She is in a few others too.

Words Caden Can Say

Colin captured some of Caden's words for me. I have no idea how he got it on this blog, but I am thrilled he did it. This is just a small sampling of the words Caden can say because he doesn't exactly like to talk on demand and into a microphone.
The words are apple, duck, Elmo, Momma, no, and Uh, Uh.

Movies

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not usually much of a movie watcher. I have not been living up to that reputation this week, I have watched 3 movies!

The first movie was Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It was very good stuff. I recommend that you all watch it.

The second movie was Amazing Grace. I LOVED IT! If anyone wants to buy me a gift for my birthday or Christmas, or, Hey, St. Patrick's Day is coming up... I recommend that you all watch this movie again and again and again. Its Wonderful! Did I mention that I liked this movie? I liked it.

The third movie was because of a fabulous idea that our library recently had. All the movies I watch come from the library, because I am way to cheap to pay to rent them (I might save my money to buy Amazing Grace though - It's that good).
Anyway, they put together some bags called "Read Together Totes." Each bag has 6 copies of the same book, a copy of the book on CD and a movie based on the book. We checked out the one on Because of Winn Dixie this month and it was so fun! Colin, Robyn, and I each read the book, Grace listened to the book on CD, and Randy uploaded the CD to his IPOD so he could listen as he drove to work and back. We talked about the book at meal times. This worked fabulously. It was much easier than trying to get everyone together at the same time to read. When we all finished the book, we had a movie night and watched the movie.
We all decided that we liked the book better than the movie - they left too much out of the movie.
We are going to go get a new bag today.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is Randy and my 10th anniversary. Crazy how fast it has gone. I can't believe it. It's been a fun adventure. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring.
Unfortunately there will be no big fun celebration today - he's working in Minnesota this week. Bummer!
(The picture is of us at Brad and Ashton's wedding luncheon, I cropped out the kids so I could pretend we had a romantic dinner with just us. Maybe someday. Surely by our 20th we will get to try that.)



This is a picture of my parents with the grand kids (missing Jenna Kate) at Brad and Ashton's wedding. Ten years ago the only grand kid was Luke. Family parties are much bigger these days. Fun stuff.

New Babies

Okay, so they are not THE new baby, but they are pretty cute. We got them on Tuesday and already they have grown quite a bit.
They are Indian Runner ducklings. We won't know if we got boys or girls until they feather out. Cross your fingers for girls!