Watermelon

I am addicted to watermelon lately. I eat it almost everyday. LOVE IT!! I love the texture and the flavor...it's so yummy. My kids are making fun of me, along with Aaron. I told Zack that we should grow some of our own next year and he told me we'd have to grow a whole field of them for me to get my fill. I guess watermelon is taking the place of chocolate in my diet. I miss chocolate, but watermelon is a good substitute. I, of coarse, have a funny story about watermelon. Years ago when Josh was a baby my friend Alison and I were shopping with our little ones (her Kyle is 5 weeks younger than Josh). We were getting some things at the grocery store and while at the check out one, or both of our boys were crying hysterically and when we looked at the man behind us he was holding a watermelon in his arms and frantically rocking it and patting it...I suppose he was a dad and hearing our babies crying put him into auto mode with his watermelon...ha ha..it was quite funny. Maybe they ought to give those teenagers watermelons to lug around instead of eggs for pretend babies......hmmmm

High Adventure

Zack just got home last night from the High Adventure trip with scouts. He went to Colorado on the Arkansas River. He got to go white water rafting (his favorite part) and did an 8 mile hike up a mountain and back down. Zack is not in the best physical shape...he was telling me that they camped at the bottom of the mountain they were to climb. The morning of the climb he took one look at the steep mountain, sat down on a rock and said "I'll meet you guys when you come back down here". His leaders talked him into going. There were several times when he was sure he wouldn't make it. When they got 4 miles up to the saddle of the mountain he layed down and told them to wake him up when it was time to go. They wanted him to go to the peak, which was another mile up...he told them "no, this was my goal, now I'm taking a nap". So, he and some other boys napped while the go getters hiked up to the peak. When Zack told me this story I just laughed and laughed. He then told me the rest of the story....I guess they all ate 2-3 Fiber One bars on the way up and many boys (and leaders) had nature calling them on the way down, they made frequent stops in the bushes.... The vehicle was a bit stinky all the way back to the camp ground. What a gross boy story!! LOL Maybe you should eat your fiber when you are close to a bathroom...hee hee...

Kung Fu Joe

Today Joe, Hannah, Megan and I went to see Kung Fu Panda.....perhaps this was a mistake. Joe was kung fuing all the way out of the theater and down the street to the van. He is still kung fuing all over the house. Joe has more energy in his small pinky toe than I have in my whole body. There are so many times when I'm just sure everyone wonders why I don't "control" my child. There are certainly times when I wonder that myself. I think of the times when he first started to go to primary and the leaders would bring him to me because they could not keep him dressed..he would disrobe right there in the primary room. I remember walking past the primary room and seeing him running around the podium as the leaders tried to catch him, or the time he was holding a chair up over his head to show everyone how strong he is. My biggest nightmare is the call on the phone "Sister Schafer, will you substitute in Joe's class on Sunday?"......I would much rather eat dirt, thank you. Class is spent with Joe rolling on the floor, or standing on the tower of chairs in the corner...as the rest of the class watches in awe. I have six children...you would think I'd know what to do in these instances.....I've tried being nice, I've tried being mean, I've tried time outs, spanks, bribes, civil talkings to, the look, the snap, etc...etc... A gal in our ward taught us a class on parenting and I got some wonderful ideas from her...I need to validate, validate, validate. Sister Yarrington is sooo good at this! I tried it just like she showed us...Joe was upset..I looked at him and said "you are mad! Mad, mad, mad!" Joe's response to this? He stopped throwing his fit, looked at me with vulture eyes and said in a very deep, low, growl..."DON'T DO THAT". Then a friend reminded me that I need to validate in my own way and in my own language. I'm practicing. My first reaction is to get mad with him...that doesn't work, though. I tell you...there are some days when I feel so tired...then Joe will come up to me and give me a kiss and say "I love you mom." and go on his merry way. I love you too Joe! You bring so much to me and to our family...can't imagine it without you! Oh, and can I just say....it's gotta be the red hair! Those redheads are gonna be the death of me!

The Baby Soup

Hannah has a fascination with her bathing suit. When she finds it she immediately takes off all her clothes and puts it on. Last night she insisted she must sleep with her "baby soup" on. There are worse things and I really did not feel like a fight with her...so I let her. After a couple of days of wearing it, I have to bribe her to take it off so I can wash it. Then I try to hide it...but she always finds it when I have my guard down. If she even sees a little piece of it showing in the pile of clean clothes she'll say "I need my soup on". I can only hope she will soon outgrow this and want to wear her "princess" outfits again. A princess outfit is any kind of dress. She is definitely her own person and isn't afraid to let us know what she wants when she wants it.....

Scary!

Can I just say how strange it is to live here in tornado country. I was at Josh's baseball game last night and it was HOT when we got there...I mean I was sweating and I was just sitting there. About an hour into the game a storm front came in very fast! I mean at one moment the sky was clear on one side and we could see gray clouds coming from the north. Then suddenly the temperature dropped dramatically and the wind started to blow and every one was running for cover...we could see a funnel cloud right above the field. The dirt was flying everywhere and it was scary!! Five minutes later it passed leaving the air a crisp 53 degrees!! The temperature before that was 80. I had dirt in my hair, dirt in my ears, dirt on my lips and dirt in my mouth! I was so glad we were all okay. We're not in Utah anymore.....

Dairy Free

After reading some things I decided to try going dairy free (except for egg whites). I also cut out red meat from my diet. I was at an all time high in my weight and just not feeling good at all. I thought, I'm just going to try this for two weeks and see how it goes. Well after two weeks I found that I really didn't even miss dairy and I was feeling better, more in charge of what was going into my mouth, so then I tried taking sugar out of my diet (refined sugar). Now there is my hard thing!! I love sweets!! I have been doing okay, definitely much better than I was doing. I also started running again. So far I've lost 16 lbs. I started this change about 4 weeks ago. I'm finding that I don't crave the sweets so much and it feels good to eat so many veggies, (they are not my favorite, but I'm starting to actually look forward to eating salads). I'm not making the kids eat without dairy....this is my choice, but they have liked some of things I've made...like sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. I started to really worry about being around for Hannah and Joe if I continued eating so unhealthy. I'm going to be 39 in August and Hannah and Joe haven't even started kindergarten....I have to stay healthy so I can be around for a long time for them and be an active part of their lives. I'm trying to make changes I can stick with and just make it part of my life. So far so good...I'm looking forward to fitting into my "skinny" jeans again!

On the Road Again (day five)

As I mentioned we spent the night at Travis and Kristy's home. They are so brave to have 8 people come invade their home. They are truly some of the most kind and loving people we've ever met...thanks Travis and Kristy!
Hannah loved their dog, Sire (hope I spelled that right).

Doggie hugs are the best!

Brycen and Joe...funny story about Brycen, a couple months ago Travis brought his family up when he came to the Lincoln store and when Brycen saw Aaron he said "people shouldn't be bald". You gotta love kids!

Brycen, Eeston, and Matthew playing in Brycen's room.

Joe was so over stimulate by this time in the trip....this is him throwing a tantrum.

Eeston and Matthew

Kristy and Aaron

Zack, Travis and Sire

We ended up stopping at Wilson's Creek Battlefield on our way home. It was a civil war battlefield. The kids were so ready to go home so we didn't stay long and I think Aaron and I enjoyed it more than they did..we'll have to go again when we're all a little fresher. It 's interesting to be in a place where so much history happened.

On our way home we approached a huge storm. It was strange because it just came upon us so fast...first it was beautiful and then black skies. We stopped at a Waffle House for dinner and by the time we were ready to go there was a beautiful sunset. It was nice to come home after our trip but we sure had a good time!

Silver Dollar City (day four)

Day four was spent at Silver Dollar City (an amusement park), with Aaron's boss, Travis and his family...Kristy, Eeston and Brycen. We had so much fun even though it was quite hot and humid. They have a cave there, it's the largest cave in North America. We were told that they brought in three hot air balloons and were able to fly them. It took us an hour to walk down into the cave and back out. It was really cool. Josh and Zack loved being able to go out on their own, so we didn't see them most of the day. Megan got her hair done with a princess hairdo. Joe never rode in the stroller and he just was running all day! He was tall enough to go on a couple of the big roller coasters and after one of them he told me "I stopped breathing and I was almost dead." We spent the night at Travis and Kristy's house. They are just the nicest people, we really enjoyed our visit with them.

Riding on the tram from the parking lot.

Formations in the cave.

Joe and Brycen on the frog ride

Hannah and Megan on the frog ride.

Megan's princess hairdo

everyone enjoying some lunch.

Island Fire

Our third night was so much fun. We went to our one and only show...there are tons and tons of shows in Branson. We went to Island Fire. It was a group of Polynesian dancers from Samoa. It was an awesome show and we found out that most of the dancers were LDS. Megan, Josh, Zack and Joe were picked to go up on stage to learn how to dance....Joe stood there with a scowl on his face the whole time. All the kids really enjoyed it and so did the adults.....That was the most still Joe sat during the trip.

Titanic Adventure (day three continued)

After we returned from our Little House excursion we went to the Titanic Museum. It was cool...we each had a passport with the name of one of the real passengers who was on the actual Titanic. As we went through the museum we learned many facts and were able to see some of the actual artifacts from the ship. At the end we discovered if the person we had on our passport survived. Aaron, Zack, Matthew, Josh and Megan's did not survive. Joseph, Hannah and I survived. Below is a link to our picture...we could not take our own pictures inside. By the time we were close to the end Joe had a melt down and Aaron took him out. I guess he spent 15 minutes crying and saying "daddy, don't spank me"...Aaron was so embarrassed. The funny thing is that I'm the spanker in the family, not Aaron.

View Friend's Photo

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Home (day three of our trip)

My favorite part of our trip was our visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder home. When their daughter was 8 years old Laura and Almonzo moved to Mansfield, Missouri. They would not let us take pictures in the home but we could take pictures outside. It was so beautiful there and seeing all of the things in the house and in the museum was so interesting. The kids complained about going but I think they ended up having a better time that they thought they would.

I was trying to take a picture of the sign and Megan was being silly.

A view of the front of the house.

All of us on the back porch.

A view from the back porch..it was so peaceful and pretty!

Some of the kids were trying to pose like an old time photo.


I insisted that we get Hannah a bonnet...doesn't she look darling?


Down the road less than a mile there is another house that the Wilders lived in for 8 years. Their daughter paid 10,000 for it in 1928.

Megan being silly again.

This is the home where Laura began writing the Little House books...she wrote four in this home and four in the farm house.


This little video clip was taken at a little store where we stopped to go potty. (The trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder home was about an hour and a half from Branson.) This little store was so cute...we wrote our names on the floor! When we were rounding everyone up to get back on the road this is where I found Joe and Hannah....or should I call them "horse man" and "pony girl".

Where are my ruby slippers?

So, I'm not liking this whole tornado warning business....the sirens went off about 5 times tonight....we'd go down to the basement then go back up just to have them go off again....We made it through the warning with a lot of rain and thunder and lightening, but no tornado..thank Heavens!!

Day Two in Branson

We got a really good deal on our hotel room, but part of that deal was that Aaron and I had to sit through a time share presentation. We had no problem saying no and we got our hotel for three nights (it was a suite) for 219.00. We also got free tickets to one of the attractions...we picked the Hollywood Wax Museum and a voucher to a nice restaurant...we went for dessert only (the voucher was only for 30.00). It was such a nice restaurant and we threatened the children if they didn't behave accordingly....you'll see in the pictures that they had fun acting sophisticated...

We had three beds in the hotel suite so Matthew slept on the floor in a sleeping bag and we put two chairs together to make a bed for Hannah....she fell asleep holding her brush.

Joe and Hannah were wearing their napkins like capes. I guess that's not very sophisticated......

Aaron and the kids in front of Lake Toneycomo
Joe refused to stay still for the picture, he was off running around.

We took a long drive around and stopped to get a couple pictures of Branson and Lake Toneycomo

Branson...here we come!

We took a trip to Branson, Missouri. On our way down we passed Bolivar, Missouri, which is where my grandma grew up. I had to take some pictures...because, I'm me!

Branson is a 7 hour drive!
Just Look how excited the kids were!!

The first night we went to a restaurant called The Hard Luck Diner. The waiters and waitresses there sing. It was fun. The kids got a kick out of it. Aaron did not particularly enjoy being sang to...hee hee...

All the kids in the big rocking chair, right outside the restaurant.