Peter and The Wolf

This is one of our favorite pics of Lincoln His imagination goes wild! Today he was Peter and the Wolf. In the pic you can see that he very planned out his adventure very carefully. He has his seat, that he bought himself from a garage sale for $1. He is holding his own toy gun, ready for the wolf. Under his chair you will see a backpack that he brought everything outside with. It's placed under his chair until he's finished. The pumpkin in front was holding his gun and is now ready to put the wolf in after he shoots him. The chair next to him is simply there to hold his snack, a well-balanced diet of cheerios in a cup! His hat is obviously to shade his face. It was so low over his eyes that I requested him pull it up for the picture! Thank you, Lincoln! Now, if anyone came outside he would yell, "Sorry, can't come out here! I'm busy hunting." That was it. And he kept facing forward. We had a great time watching him through the window. Did he catch a wolf, you ask? You'll have to ask him the next time you see him!

Samuel's Birthday-7

Samuel loves his birthday in the summer since we can swim every family party. Since his birthday landed on Sunday this year we decided to make him a cake. Well, as you can see, my kids don't care what it looks like. This football cake was made and the frosting was so runny! He had fun decorating it himself, though, and best of all eating it! His cousin, Daniel, is also in the picture. We love having him over to play a lot with the boys. They live so close, so we were able to invite them over last minute for cake and ice cream when we sang to Samuel.

Hyrum the Lego Man

Hyrum LOVES legos! He has been receiving lego magazines for about a year now and found a contest he wanted to enter. We don't know the results yet, but he's spent a lot of time and thought to creating this space ship!

Our July Blessing

So, as Greg is the Scoutmaster in our area he volunteered to attend Geronimo. Boy, was he in for a lot of work which I'm sure paid off. He left for the week and I was faced with my own fears of being alone. Yes, even though I have six kids I depend so much on Greg that this was good for me. I found myself on my knees quite often pleading for strength to get through the next moment and I can testify that the Lord is always there! I felt His strength. As I reflect on the week I think of Peter. I, like Peter, was "walking on water" the first few days and everything went smoothly. When my doubts set in, however, and the following 3 days were shaky. Prayer, strength from good friends, and trying to exercise more faith is what carried me through. Yes, he'll be going on future week-long adventures, so I'm excited to see what it will bring.

Now, the funny part of all this (I can laugh now) is what surprise Orson brought to the week. As you can tell by his shirt he really means no harm. If you can't see it, it says "it seemed like a good idea at the time." He is full of curiosity. It's expensive to have a curious son around, though. Midweek, of Geronimo, he was going about tapping windows, wall, and finally the TV with a door handle that had been broken off the back sliding door. The wall and windows survived. The 50 inch HDTV did not! Boy, my heart sank knowing the price of this and how fun it was to surprise Greg with the purchase when we first moved in.

So, the rest of the story? Well, we kept it up for a week. I informed Greg over the phone when he called to say hello. I think he was missing us enough, for his response was, "I love my son more than the TV. Oh well." My fears subsided! I never thought I'd ever say this, but it has been the biggest blessing! A week after Greg was home we carried the TV down from off the entertainment center, turned it so the screen was against the wall, and asked the boys if they would like to help take it apart. Boy, oh boy! They were as excited as if we were going to Disneyland. For the next hour Greg and his 4 sons had screw drivers, the power drill, and wire cutters and had a blast taking this apart. They each kept a piece of it for a remembrance, which I think have all been thrown away by now. Yes, this was recorded as part of school!

A blessing, you say? Yes, and here's how. When there's no HDTV the stations are limited! What's on the basic stations? Nothing we want in our home, so it has been quite peaceful. Since we can't replace the TV for a while, we've brought a smaller tube one from upstairs to put on the entertainment center for the weekends when we want to turn a movie on for the family.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Yes, this will be a remembrance!