March 2010 part 1

At first I didn't think too much had happened in March, but looking through pictures there were a lot of things we did! So, this is in two parts.



One thing I don't have pictures of is our Spring Break adventure. Some people in our ward have gone for the past few years to an indoor water park during spring break. So this year we went too. There are no pictures, as I was keeping track of little boys, but it was fun. Ian went down one big slide with me, and John had him in the wave pool most of the time. Levi and Caleb had to stay in the kiddie pool, it had slides too and was very shallow (up to their knees). They had a lot of fun and I had to keep taking them out to warm up because they were shivering.



The local college track team puts on a track and field camp for elementary students each year, free of charge, for about 2 hours. The kids were put into groups with a track member as the leader, Ian's group named themselves "Team Cheese," and they went around to different events. At each station track members taught them skills and they got to practice. Not many pictures turned out because I was too far away, but here is the hurdles. They also did shot put, throwing a ball for accuracy, high jump, sprinting, long jump, triple jump, and conditioning, where they made it into a game. He had fun, and got another free t-shirt! He's up to three free t-shirts this year so far, he's going to be outfitted for a while now!

Levi, Caleb, and Daddy watching the track events.

This is how excited Caleb was about watching it a few minutes in......

And, since we hardly got any snow, we decided to put the snow shovels to good use - cleaning up the bark I don't want in the flowerbeds! They did a pretty good job of scooping it into the trash can. We mostly got the front yard cleaned up, I don't think I have a picture, but we took out three trees, a huge prickly bush, and some smaller bushes, plus got rid of all the bark and dead plants.

Ian entered the school district's science fair. He and Daddy did the project, "what makes pancakes fluffy?" They made pancakes, leaving out one ingredient at a time, checked for air pockets, measured them, made charts, took notes. It was pretty fun for them. They then displayed the final project at the science fair later in the month. Only 6th graders were judged for prizes, but a lady came and asked Ian questions about his project. He was pretty proud of it.

The tool men, ready to work.

They helped me put together some shelves in the garage. There is a lot of building that goes on around here, pouring concrete, building, demolishing. Levi asked one day if our old house was demolished since we didn't live in it anymore :)

February 2010

Caleb being a star.

Bob the Builder has become a definite favorite around here! They're usually "'struction guys" these days. Caleb has his tool belt on and they're off to build a house.

We had a fun visit from "Flat Matthew" this month (he came from Matthew, Ian's first grade cousin, based on the book Flat Stanley). Ian got to spend the day showing Flat Matthew around our town, wrote back a letter of his adventures, and took pictures to document the day. It was a fun project!

We took Flat Matthew to the Science Center where they sent each other telegraphs.

And he had fun riding a motorcycle, which obviously needed a backhoe for some power. Or perhaps it was being towed?

The weather has been wonderful around here! Hardly winter at all. There is snow on the ground in this picture, but only because that's where it was piled from shoveling. We cut down a tree - or two or three - and some bushes in our front yard, with lots of helpers to haul off the wood.

Warm enough for the park, wearing sweatshirts!

Caleb was using his telescope (tp roll) to watch for cars.

These are out of order, but we painted Ian's room - he helped some, too. I was ready to have the room brighter and turn it into Ian's room, rather than a room painted for another little boy that Ian was just living in.

This is the purple octopus on the wall before we painted. There was also a whale on another wall. Caleb takes naps in Ian's room and sometimes talks about the "purple monster." I'm not sure I'd want to sleep next to him, myself!

There were fish sponge painted all over too, that wouldn't cover up with primer! Thankfully, oil based primer worked wonders (after two coats of regular primer first)!

The finished product! I painted different patterns of stars on each wall, and then Ian got glow-in-the-dark stars and planets for his birthday to hang on the ceiling. It's amazing what white paint, a new, brighter light fixture, and re-arranging the furniture did to lighten up his formerly dark room! It doesn't feel like you're going into a cave anymore.

Ian

Ian is 7! He was so excited to have a birthday, but the only thing I could get out of him as to why he was excited to be 7 was because he was excited to be in 2nd grade. Too bad he has another 6 months to wait for that! He brought moon shaped cookies to his class for his birthday.

He is really interested in outer space and planets, he wanted a Saturn cake.

Ian has wanted a watch since he was about 4, and he finally got one. We got an update of what time it was about every minute while we ate cake and ice cream :)

I don't think I've posted much about Ian's younger days, since I didn't have this blog then. So here are some pictures of his younger years - I also don't have many good baby pictures, since I didn't have a digital camera then. This is when he was one year old.

Two years with Daddy's hat on

Three years

Four years

Five years, first day of kindergarten!

His sixth birthday, #6 pancakes for dinner.

We are so glad to have Ian in our family, he is a wonderful big brother, is happy, and fun. He loves to read, he reads picture books and also chapter books. He loves school, loves to write, loves numbers. He's a great helper around the house and is able to do so much! He likes to play outside and be a spy or a detective, and use ropes and branches to build things. He likes to build with blocks and legos, but mostly when he's home from school he plays with his brothers, he loves his role as the oldest when he can tell his brothers what to play :)

January 2010

Better late than never, right? Here are some highlights from January.....

Ian keeping up during his Christmas vacation from school - it took me a while to figure out what he'd done while folding laundry - he wrote out "11 x 13 = 143" with the socks. Is it obvious that he got a calculator? :)


Still playing "Santa" for most of the month - or two santas, as the case may be, with two nice reindeer. It's amazing how fireman coats look a lot like santa coats, too! Santas with the nice pumpkin in the background - that also finally got cooked!

Caleb started reading the paper. He's very intent. The front page article? The building of a new store, and there was a huge picture of the excavators digging :)

The kitchen got painted! It's nice and bright green, we like it much better than the dark brown that it was.

It snowed enough on a Saturday to go sledding! It was a lot of fun.

Then, it was warm enough for yard work. John took out two trees in the front.

And the next morning, it looked like this again! It's crazy, either snowy or warm. It's better than the 7.5 feet of snow they got here last winter, for sure.

We had a wonderful visit with the grandparents who hadn't yet been to our house, it was fun showing them around and playing with them. Grandpa and John got in a basketball game for their alma mater, we went to the Discovery Center, and mostly just had fun with them.

One of Ian's Recipes

Ian likes to create recipes lately, I'm not sure why. Somehow we haven't tried any yet - broccoli cheese tomato soup, potato pie. Who knows, in a few years he may be creating new and wonderful recipes!

Olive Caseroll

1 can olives
1 can green beans
grade wite chese


2 tsp sugar
1 tsp flour
3 tsp cinumian
1/2 c sortnen
4 eggs
1/4 c milk


mix the ingedements, roll the doe place in circle pie pan. Add Olives and green beans, spread chese on top, place top doe on top. Set in oven 25 minuts, 435 degrees F.