House Full of Boys!

Lately we have had a lot of name calling and fighting in our house. I know 'boys will be boys', but I have had enough. Today alone, Aidan received a new bruise to his nose (courtesy of a remote control from Adley) and many bites, and Aidan did his fair share of lying. So tonight for Family Home Evening I decided to focus on doing better in this area. I searched the internet and came to sugardoodle.net , a website that I use frequently and found a lesson titled 'Brotherly Love' - Perfect!!!! It talked about the difference between treasure chests and trash cans. The print outs that go with the lesson are here . I filled in the message circles with things good and bad that my children say and do. We went through each one and had the kids take turns deciding whether it was a good thing or a bad thing and placing it on the appropriate picture. The kids had a good time and definitely know right from wrong. We crumbled up the trash can picture with all of the bads th...

We finally arrived home from our vacation last night and I am still exhausted!!! We have been in Tennessee for about 6 days. We arrived on Friday afternoon and checked into our cabin which is on the Pigeon River. Saturday we stayed at the cabin and let the kids play in the river. Sunday we went to church - I am sure we gave the Primary President a scare as she saw 10 extra children in Sacrament mtg - lucky for her we only stayed for the first hr of church. We then drove to Clingman's Dome and hiked up hill 1/2 mile to see the view and then hiked back down, total of 1 mile. The kids did so good. Monday we took our kids to Dollywood and surprisingly they did very well. We arrived and made a plan for the day. We had packed swimsuits for the water rides and Dreamland Forest water play place. The kids hardly complained the whole day. We had such a great time that we decided to get Jared and Aidan season passes (I already had mine from a previous visit, and the little boys were...

1) Adley : 'I'm Indy Indy Jones' or as the rest of us say 'Indiana Jones' 2) Adley : "I'm mad with you' 3) The other day Adley was putting on his sandals and they were on the wrong feet, Jared told him to change his sandals but Adley didn't want to now, he wanted to do it later. Jared told him to change them now and he helped him do it, Adley's response "You never follow my rules, I'm mad with you." 4) We went to the post office yesterday and there was a long line, I had all 3 boys with me and they were being pretty good - one man started talking to the boys. Man : "How old are you?" (talking to Adley) Adley : "I am 3" - holding up 3 fingers Man : "You are 3?" Aidan : "Yeah, you know the number that follows 2 ; 1, 2, 3" Man : "Wow - why aren't you in school" Aidan : "Because its summer break!" **I couldn't help but to laugh - but boy do I have a smart alec child....

As many of you know I love to quilt. Last weekend (23rd/24th) I went with my mother/sister-in-laws to Tennessee for a girls weekend. For Christmas my mother-in-law gave each of us girls some money for fabric and said we would go on a girls weekend trip to Tennessee to look at some of the shops there. We left Friday afternoon, had a wonderful dinner and played cards in our hotel until 1am. Then next day we went to 2 quilt shops. One of which was in Jonesborough, TN, called Tennessee Quilts. This was an amazing store and had a huge variety of fabrics and patterns. We ate a great lunch at The Bistro. We are thinking that we must do this at least once a year. We had such a great time. We arrived home around dinner time. The drive to/from Tennessee was gorgeous. My husband survived yet another weekend with the boys. This is the 3rd time in 2 months that he has given me a kids free night. He has always been very willing and such a good sport about it. Since we both watch the ...

This morning Eli was running around with my water bottle. The lid was on and he kept trying to drink from it. Everytime I tried to get a picture of him he would take the bottle out of his mouth and smile really big at the camera. Here are a few shots! Finally I got a picture of him trying to shove the whole bottle in his mouth!

Last Friday Aidan had preschool graduation!!! We were a little worried at first that Aidan wouldn't participate. It all depends on his mood for the day, for example the preschool christmas program that he decided he didn't want to be in, so he sat with us instead. Anyway, the morning started out awful - Aidan crying for at least an hour saying he didn't want go. We finally calmed him down and with the help of a little bribe (Lego set) he agreed to be in the program. He did such a great job - here are a couple of pictures. Walking down the aisle Aidan with his grandma and Uncle Ehren The Graduate Miss Linda, Aidan and Miss Wilma (his teachers) Singing 'Happy Trails' for their final song Here is a video of the kids singing and dancing, sorry it gets shaky in the middle, I had to pass the camera off to Jared. Aidan is right in the middle. I can't believe he starts kindergarten in a couple of months!!!!

Sometimes, well a lot of the time I wonder what is going on in my childrens heads, especially when I leave the kitchen for 3 minutes during dinner and come back to find this . . . I guess maybe they thought the dinosaurs were hungry. Two mischievous little boys!!! On a side note, Eli had his 12 month check up today. He is actually almost 15mos but since the flu was so bad in Feb we decided to wait for it to die down. Eli now weighs in at 24lbs 8oz, he is 30.5 inches tall (2 feet, 6.5 in), and his head is 19 1/8 in. He got 3 shots today and had to be poked in his finger to check his hemoglobin. He did not like it one bit and sure let the nurse know. Since then he has cheered up, here he is after dinner, still with his Clifford sticker on from the doctor.