Lockdown

Lock all the doors! Bar all the windows! The baby has escaped! Nothing is safe now that the baby can open the screen doors by herself. (And what's with the big 'ol boy shoes?)

The Brittens are coming!

Michael, Thomas, Caroline, Aunt Laura, and Leah

Grad. pictures

My Gramma Grell, my Mom, my Aunt Connie, my Aunt Eunice and of course, my Dad!

Congrats, Caleb!

Caleb is graduating and off to the Air Force in July. My how the years have flown.

Alexis took this picture of me, Caleb and Emily. Good job, Lex!

All 4 of my children in one place

Doesn't happen very often. We were at my nephew Caleb's graduation on Sunday in Iowa City. It's so hard to get pictures of them together because someone is always floating off somewhere else. But here they are. All the padawans. Together. They are even mostly happy. Exept for Leah, who smiled for the first three pictures when Trey had his head through the chains. (Sigh)

Secret Reading Club

Alexis has read all the Magic Treehouse Books that are out (35 I think). Now she is reading them to Trey. This morning she was reading #5 to him in his bed.

Yesterday, I found this note taped to the wall by her bed.

1. Get up in the middle of the night

2. Wake Trey up

3. Get the books

4. Get the fashlight

5. Get number four

6. Read it to Trey for a little wilele

7. Then go back to bed

Which may explain why, last weekend when I slept on the couch due to heartburn, I heard this at 4:30 in the morning.

"Trey....TREY!" (lots of rustling around)

Me: Alexis, what are you doing in there?

(nothing)

Foiled again!

Some days they are best friends...

...some days they are not. But every day they are so imaginative together. A couple years ago, they started playing baby and mom. Or baby and dad. Depending on what kind of mood Lexi was in. Then they started playing Dave and Leisha.

Lexi: You be Dave and I'll be Leisha okay? You call me honey and when you walk in the door say Honey, I'm home!

Trey:OK!

(Trey never got the funniest part that his name really is David)

Then they moved on. Lexi was the mom and Trey was Grandma and Grandpa.

I cracked up when they started playing Harry and Char. Trey didn't have the foggiest idea who that was (grandpa and grandma) but he played right along.

Then it was Garrett and Ande. (Friends of ours)

Yesterday, Lexi was the queen and Trey was the knight. She told Trey to follow her around and do everything she said. Of course, he complied. I heard her in the kitchen saying Trey, let's have crackers for snack. He was like No I want something else. But she really wanted the crackers so Trey said, Well, okay, you are the queen.

Today, it was King and Queen. I saw her in the yard with a blanket around her neck like a robe and she was telling Trey to take her by the arm and lead her slowly around the house like they were in a royal procession. They did. For a long time. Just walked around and around very slowly. In fact they walked the entire way to the library with me, connected like that. I walked on the opposite side of the street, pretending they were someone else's children.

The Devil Came Down to Walcott

Zach and his teachers played this song for his orchestra concert tonight. We are so proud of him. (Click the triangle to play the video)

Visitor

Our friend, Ande Glasgow dropped by to say hi yesterday. She is home from Drake for the summer now and we were happy to see her for awhile. She walked down to school with us to get Lexi and then played a little carpetball and pushed Leah in the swing. (Leah is a mystery, by the way. She latched right on to Ande and wouldn't let her put her down. She doesn't do that. Although all of our children have reacted like this to Ande:) It was a fun visit.

School Lunch

Alexis has been asking me to visit her school and have lunch with her for a LONG time... So today was the day! Trey was at his last day of school so Leah and I had fun eating with the kids.

Impromptu Popcorn Party

Last night after Lexi's game, our neighbors (Aaron, Brie, and Amariss) stopped over and had popcorn with us. It was a spontaneous treat for all.

What starts with T?

Trey: Trey starts with T and tray starts with T and train starts with T. And so does Thomas!
Me: Yes and you have an Aunt that starts with T. Actually 2 can you name them?
Trey: No I don't know.
Me: One is my sister and one is Daddy's sister.
Trey: (getting agitated) I don't know!
Me: Aunt Rhonda, Aunt Kris, Aunt Laura...
Trey: Aunt Tunis!
Me: (laughing) No, it's Aunt Tracy. And Aunt Trish.
Trey: Oh Yes! I forgot completely about the Ficks and the Hewletts!

The Walmart Revelation

I was checking out of Walmart tonight and had this conversation with the clerk:

Clerk: So you live in Walcott?
Me: Yes
C: I do too.
Me: Oh, okay
C: But I live in the trailer park. It's quieter out there.
Me: Yeah, but I live on a dead end so it's pretty quiet too.

It wasn't until I was walking out of the store that I realized it's our children that make the neighborhood noisy!

First place?? No way!

We did an adventure race yesterday. It was supposed to be 8-10 hours long and we finished in 6 hours and crossed the finish line first! Of course we didn't get two of the checkpoints so we didn't win. Dave said he has never been so happy to finish without getting all the checkpoints. They were canoeing checkpoints. We were on a big lake, it was windy and the water was VERY choppy. We were with a few other teams who also didn't brave 2 of the 3 checkpoints on the water. The first one was okay because we were somewhat sheilded from the wind by an island. But we went around the corner and say a team paddling forward but moving backward! It was my first time paddling so that pretty much scared the crap out me. I also almost lost Todd's paddle. The canoe was being blown to the left so Dave tod me to dig my paddle in on the left. But the canoe moved over the paddle and I lost it. But then I reached in on the right side and got it again. That was close. That was all at the end of the race so we were happy to be done.

During the first hour, when we were hiking in the woods up and down hills, I learned a lesson the hard way. Never forget to look up. I ran smack into a fallen tree and hit so hard that I fell back onto my rear end and my glasses fell off. Not my most shining moment, to say the least.

All in all, it was fun and a great experience for my first race. I'll decide later if I want to do another one or not. It's best to let these things soak in for awhile.

Little Miss Copycat

Lexi figured out one day that she can do a tripod (with very little effort, I might add). She's always doing them and going up into headstands. Leah is quick to try to copy!

PowWow

Sometimes a family meeting needs to be called. This was one of those days. The kids were crazy and Dave decided to sit them all down for a little bit of a chat (the finger is for effect:) Everyone except for Leah, of course. But she saw them all sitting there and decided she would be included too. Of course they were all laughing by the time I got the camera out and it helped to lighten the mood a bit.

The Bad Mom Day

I had one of those feel-like-a-failure-as-a-mother days yesterday. I was walking through WalMart with #3 and #4 and the whole time I was wondering why I couldn't control my children. #3 esp. He was touching the baby and picking on the baby and making the baby cry. When I made him walk beside the cart, he was still picking on the baby, jumping on and off the cart (getting run over by the cart), running around and hiding inside the clothing racks, and yelling boo to the baby (really loudly) to make her laugh. All the while he was whining about wanting to be done and go home and are we done yet? Because I'm so tired. All I could think was that we still had to get to Hy-Vee and walk through that store too. The baby wasn't any better. She wouldn't sit in the cart and I ended up trying to carry her while pushing the cart. She finally found a fun activity by taking all the yogurts out of their cardboard and organizing them back and forth in rows. Which made it worse when I was trying to get all my items into shopping bags at the self checkout. (Which was a joke in and of itself. I thought going to the self checkout would be easier but bagging my own groceries while holding a baby and telling the five-year-old repeatedly to stop running around proved to be more than I could handle. I finally gave him my green bags and told him to put 2 gallons of milk in each one. Which he did for one bags worth but then he decided to sit on the bagging area, so now I'm hearing "unexpected item in bagging area". Well heck yeah! I didn't expect that either!)
At this point I feel like I should go to great lengths to explain that we really don't have children who act like this in public. We work really hard to train our kids and this was just a bad day. But yesterday, there was not a person in that store who would believe me so why do I think anyone else would?
There was a moment of peace however. I was carrying the baby out of the store and all of the sudden, I could smell something fruity. I looked down and she had punctured the yogurt lid with her teeth and was busy sucking it out. I thought to myself, now she should be able to sit! So we walked all the way to the car with a quiet baby and a five-year-old dutifully holding onto the cart like he was supposed to. Sweet relief.

Garden Groupies

This happy bunch is putting up the fence for the garden.

The Iowa Who?

Just so we're all clear, this is Trey's Iowa HotGuys shirt!

Happy Haircut

All the boys got haircuts but none were as dramatic as this one! Contrary to the look on his face, he really does like his haircut (just not the camera in his face). Dave and I were both floored that he asked for it to be this short and loves it. He said he was excited to not have to do gel everyday. Go figure.

Multitasker

Leah sat here for over an hour and never made a peep! She loves to be outside!

May Day

My neighbor put these beautiful flowers on my doorstep today. Thank you, Brie! And Happy May Day to you too!