Nature's StairMaster

How was you memorial day?

Did you do anything fun?

We had a blast.

We met our family at Mr Bird's mom's grave in the morning. We also visited Mr Bird's grandparents graves and had fun listening to his dad tell fun stories about his parents.

For lunch we all came back to our house for a potluck lunch.

We played in the sunshine with cousins for hours.

Look at our baby chicks. They are not quite babies anymore. I guess now they are considered pullets (hens under a year old). have you ever seen a chicken sit so happily in a cup holder before?

My little niece, marina was fascinated with the little birds.

Of course grandpa could not let our horse, Shadow, sit in the corral all by herself.
He so graciously offered to hold onto her so she could join the party too. She did a wonderful job of mowing our lawn which, by the way, is shamefully long right now.
But hey, who has time to mow when there is so much fun to be had?

My niece Jordana's philosophy is that life is a photo shoot. She is always posing for a photo. I think we finally caught her off guard with the chicken on her shoulder.

What's the matter Jo, afraid she'll poo on your cute outfit?
Michael was determined to get her to fly.
She was perfectly happy to roost right where she was.

Baby Cakes was so funny with the birds. He'd barely touch them them giggle and hide his face.

How about a chicken hat?



Doodle had so much fun with her cousins. Moriah loves horses almost as much as Doodle.


After we were done eating and playing we all loaded in the car and headed for my favorite hiking trail.

Waterfall canyon is gorgeous this time of year.

Most of the trail goes right past the river. At the very top is a beautiful waterfall.

We call this section nature's StairMaster, although this is much steeper than most stair cases around. Talk about a good bum work out.

My kids love their aunt Lisa. She has the most beautiful smile. We were looking back at pictures from about 4 years ago, when Doodle was just little. Lisa was holding her but had sunglasses on. I asked Doodle who was holding her. She looked for a while then finally said,

"LISA! I can always tell it's her by her pretty smile!"

This really is a tough hike, but as you can see we stopped often to take pictures.

The kids did awesome.

They had so much fun with their cousins and climbed those rocks like little troopers.

At last, the falls. The spray from the waterfall was so nice and cool on our hot tired bodies.

This is the biggest I've ever seen these falls. I think it's the earliest in the season we've ever gone and all the spring run off is still coming down fast.

The view down the canyon of the Ogden valley was also breathtaking. This photo does it no justice.

We had a few bumps and scrapes along the way. Here are my little troopers showing off their battle wounds.

Kid quote of the day:

Beano: Johnny got two mosquito bites today.

Dubs:Two?!? Well I got 51 mosquito bites today.

Beano: Dubs (insert his real name), if you had 51 mosquito bites you would be a mosquito bite!

This One's a Keeper

I love, love, love Homeschooling my kids, most of the time. Sure we have days when I don't want to do anything and the kids fight all day long, but for the most part I really love it. It has been a year since we officially started on this crazy journey, although I feel I've been doing it since Doodle was born. That was when we started learning together and it has not stopped. There has not been a day when we have not learned something new together. All the kids are like big sponges. They just soak up every drop of information that comes their way. Beano is especially porous. He has question after question. The thing about Beano is he really retains what you tell him and can tell daddy almost word for word what he has learned.

When the public schools got out for summer vacation I did a big sigh of relief and thought "Yes, summer vacation, I need a break!" I was fully prepared to take the whole summer off from "school" and just play and have fun all day everyday. Three days later I changed my mind. The kids were going down hill fast. You see, we had all gotten used to our morning school routine. It gave us a reason to get going in the morning. We had to eat breakfast and get our selves dressed. It gave us something to do after breakfast, something we all enjoyed. So when that structure was gone it was not pretty. All summer long we have done a very watered down version of school. Some days it did not happen, but I did not stress about it. Some days school lasted 1/2 hour, which I was also fine with. But we love the structure of a day with school.

A few weeks ago at our weekly trip to the library we found one of the coolest books ever. It is called

A Drop of Water by Walter Wick

. It has the coolest pictures of water doing different things. It explains surface tension, evaporation, condensation, how snow flakes are formed compared to sleet, how water reflects versus refracts light. I learned so much, not to mention the kids. We made our own rainbows using water. It seems like every other page we would put the book down to go play with water and try the "experiments" the book was explaining. We made water condensate on a cold cup, we saw how the water molecules move faster in hot water than cold, we saw how water expands when it gets colder and freezes, we played with surface tension, we made thing float and sink. I really loved this book. There are some books we find at the library that I just have to end up buying, this one is definitely a keeper.

The great thing about this book is that you do not have to be a homeschooler to enjoy it. The pages read fast and the experiments require no prep time. Even if your kids are too little to understand the concepts I can guarantee they will love the pictures and they will love playing with water and watching all the cool things it can do. If your kids are older they can do the experiments themselves, they are super easy and fun to do.

Next time you're at the Library do me a favor and check it out,

You'll be glad you did!

To see what others are talking about this fabulous Tuesday Visit

The Lazy Organizer

Help Me Rhonda, Help, Help Me Rhonda!

Before I begin I just have to say I LOVE this picture. I love it for many different reasons. The thing that struck me just now is the fact that Dubs's shirt is all wet. See how his sleeve is wet all the way up to his armpit? The ordinary person may or may not have picked up on this fact, but to me it sticks out like a sore thumb. That boy is always playing in the water. ALWAYS! In fact I think I hear water running upstairs right now.

Hold on a sec!

Yup, that turkey doused the bathroom AGAIN! I'm beginning to think he will never grow out of this stage. He's been doing it for almost a year now. How do I make him stop? You just can't reason with a three year old. He looks up at me with those big blue eyes and tells me, "I won't do it any more, mommy" with all the seriousness in the world. Then he tells me, "Sorry, mommy" and gives me that bashful, side of the mouth grin. Then he wraps his scrawny little arms around my neck and gives me a big bear hug. And for a second I believe him. But just for a second cuz then I realize we have done this song and dance about 100 times in the last week. I just can't figure out what happens in that little 3 year old brain from the moment he's hugging me close and begging my forgiveness to when he's caught red handed in the sink AGAIN!

I digress. That is not what this post is about. This post is about this fact that Mr Bird is getting on a plane tomorrow morning and he's never coming back. I didn't have the heart to tell my family and friends in person that we are separating, for good. I wanted to blog it here first to soften the blow to you all. I must say I'm not handling it very well. HELP!

Just kidding. He is getting on a plane tomorrow but it's not forever, I just wanted to mess with you. I know, I'm so mean. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Oh, good, you're listening.

He is going out of town for work until Thursday. That makes 4 miserable days without him. See, I was good at math in school, see how I counted those days super fast. I was in the top of my class you know. Again, I digress. What I meant to say is that I hate it when he goes out of town, especially on an airplane! I always have visions of his flight being high jacked by terrorists or the pilot being drunk or the auto pilot failing and they crash into another plane head on or any other bad thing that has ever made an airplane crash. All these scenarios run through my mind faster than I can count to 4, over and over again. I start to imagine me turning on the news and finding out there was a plane crash, then I imagine the phone ringing and it being the airlines telling me they had a problem. Then I imagine my life without him. Then I cry, a lot. I think I'm a little obsessive. I'm OK once I know his plane is safe on the ground. Then when he goes to his hotel for the night I'm worried he's lonely and bored with out 4 children to entertain him. I worry he does not have a cute wife to talk to him and rub his poor tired feet. Oh, wait, I don't do that when he's here either, TeeHee. I think I worry most about the fact that he is actually enjoying the quiet. He might enjoy not putting Beano in the corner for hitting Dubs a little too much. He might sleep really well in his perfectly quiet, perfectly air conditioned, perfectly childless room without me, a little too much. I worry he might enjoy being without us a little too much.

Sad *cry*

I hate not making dinner for him every night.

I hate not making sure the house is picked up before daddy comes home.

I hate that the sink might start leaking at any moment and he will not be here to fix it.

I hate having family prayers without him.

I hate that I will not have a grown up to talk to on the couch after the kids go to bed.

I hate locking the doors for the night in a quiet, dark, lonely house.

I hate sleeping alone.

I hate putting the garbage cans out on the street for the garbage man.

And plus I'm sick. I have to handle 4 kids for 4 days all by my poor sickly self.

HELP ME RHONDA!

How will I ever survive?

Dishwasher in Training

Our 3 year old, Dubs is absolutely obsessed with playing in the water. It does not matter where the water comes from.

The sink, a water fountain, the hose, the sprinklers, the tub and yes even the toilet.

If he is quiet too long I can always find him playing in the water somewhere. When he was about a year old I left him at my sisters house for some reason or another. I forgot to warn her of his water obsession.

She found him IN her toilet playing like it was the best invention ever. He actually climbed all the way in with the help of a stool like a baby swimming pool.

He never forgot how handy stools can be and now finds something to climb up on any chance he can get.

When we were at the Library last week I ran over to the grown up section to find a book *gasp* for me. I know, what was I thinking? When I came back there was Dubs on the stool playing in the water fountain.

He found out that if you put your finger in the spout while you turn it on it will spray EVERYWHERE. I was gone at most 2 minutes and he had water all over himself, the floor, the walls and the little girl he was teaching his naughty habits to. I was so embarrassed.

So we decided to put his bad habits to good use.

We have him brain washed into thinking doing the dishes is fun because he can play in the water without getting in trouble. He thinks it is the coolest thing ever. We had to get it on video so we can show it to him when he's a teenager. We can say

"See, you LOVE doing dishes, you must have just forgotten."

He is quite a cute little dish washer!