Parker's Catch

Parker caught two fish at Riverview yesterday. This big catfish and a small blue gill that they tossed back. Dallin thought that he had caught one too, until they discovered his line was snagged on McKay!

A Happy Halloween

Parker was so proud that he carved his own pumpkin this year. He did everything himself, with a little help to get the gooey stuff off the inside.



He made sure that I got a picture of the tarantula on the back of his costume. I love how he carved his name in the back of the pumpkin. Just so we wouldn't get it confused with all our other jack-o-lanterns!


Parker is showing off his blue teeth and lips in this picture.



Enough picture taking, let's go trick-or-treating!

Bobbing for Doughnuts

We got together for family home evening at my Aunt Susie's the Monday before Halloween. She had a fun game of bobbing for doughnuts set up for us. The kids did great, except for McKay. He was mad that his doughnut had chocolate frosting and refused to eat it.




Dallin gave up on following the rules and just pulled his doughnut off the string. Unlike McKay, this kid LOVES chocolate.


And here are the adults having a go at it. My brother Ryan (on the far left) was the winner. He's had a lot of eating (or should I say inhaling?) practice!

Singin' in the Sun

A couple weeks ago at family home evening, Parker discovered that he can now read the words (most of them) in the Hymn book and Children's Songbook. He spent the next few days carrying around one of the books, singing each song, page by page. Most of the tunes he made up since he didn't know them, but it was so sweet to see him carrying those books around, engrossed in the words that were opened up to him. In this picture he had gone outside to watch our little chicks as they walked around the yard and took the Children's Songbook along to practice his singing.

The novelty of the books has worn off now and Parker is no longer carrying them around singing, but he asked if he could participate in the Stake Children's Choir tonight and we cheerfully answered yes. I hope he'll always have a love for our inspired music.

Switcheroo

Aaron's dad gave us a standing freezer a little while ago and I wanted to switch it with our second refrigerator. It's been so nice to have the second refrigerator but I was looking forward to more freezer space. The refrigerator was in our laundry room where a sink had previously been (it just barely fit). So when you walked into the laundry room there was about two feet between the fridge on the right and washing machine on the left. Luckily the fridge was a double door and we could get things in and out of it fairly easily. I took the measurements for the freezer and realized that with the full door it would only open about half way before hitting the washing machine and didn't think that would work too well. I decided that if we removed a cabinet next to the fridge that the freezer would fit facing the other direction. So, out came the refrigerator, the tools, and the cabinet and in went the freezer. Sometimes I'm really glad to live in an older home where I don't feel too guilty about taking out thirty year old cabinets!


Aaron had to remove the doors from the refrigerator to get it out because the doorway wasn't wide enough.



Ta-da! The freezer fit just as I had planned. Now when we walk into the laundry room it feels so different, not having to squeeze by the fridge. Luckily, I was able to find new homes for all the things that were in the cabinet (half of them are going to DI!). And all I have left to do is paint the walls where the cabinet stood.


Daddy's little "helpers". Dallin and McKay took every piece out of the ratchet set so that Aaron could have practice putting them back.


After finishing the freezer project I asked Aaron (half jokingly) if he could fix the pocket door that closes off the laundry room. It hasn't worked since we moved here. He looked at it for a few minutes and decided to go for it. By removing the trim inside the laundry room he was able to get to the wheels and track and fix a few things and now it works! We just have to buy a new handle because that had broken. I am so thankful for a handy husband!

Dye and Dough Weekend

Earlier this year Parker asked if he could tie-dye a shirt (he has a knack for thinking of messy craft projects). I actually went ahead and bought the dye and a bag of rubber bands (we already had some white undershirts) at the beginning of the summer, but didn't tell him in hopes that he'd forget and think of a less messy project we could do. It didn't work. He brought it up several more times before I decided to be brave and try it about two weekends ago. Here he is holding the prepped shirts and we're getting ready to make the dye baths.


The boys all helped soak the first batch of shirts.


Here's what the shirts looked like after being soaked.


Then we cut the rubberbands and rinsed them until the water ran clear.


They were thrilled with how the shirts turned out and each boy had a different favorite. I'm also glad to report that there were no major spills or dye incidents!

Having survived the tie-dye craft on Saturday, I felt like the boys and I could take on another craft Sunday afternoon. We went looking for a Halloween project on the Family Fun website and found lots of fun ideas, but they each took a lot of supplies. It took awhile to find something that we already had all the materials for. We ended up making salt dough ghosts and pumpkins. All it took was one cup of flour, one cup of salt, and a little more than half a cup of water. We mixed the dough to the consistency of play-doh and started shaping. Once the dough was shaped how the boys liked it, we put each item in the microwave for about a minute and a half, checking them about every thirty seconds to see if they were hard. After letting them cool, the boys used markers to decorate their creations.





The boys were happy that they were able to help make some Halloween decorations. I was happy that this project was quick and easy!

The Greatest Show on Earth

The weather has been so nice in the evenings lately and the boys have loved playing in the backyard after dinner. The other night they decided to put on a show for us. Parker was the emcee and McKay and Dallin followed his lead. They did all their best acrobatic moves for us on the swings.


Having all the swings the same height was getting a little boring for Parker so he raised the one on the left. Dallin thought he was so great because he could get up on the high swing and balance on one foot. McKay took to the ground in a superhero fighting routine.


The boys are all at such different levels physically right now, it's interesting to see the different things they can do. (Although they think they can do everything Parker can do.)


This was one of Parker's many swing tricks. He is quite flexible!



If Parker ever puts on a show for you, don't forget to clap. We did and he didn't speak to us for the rest of the night. We though cheering throughout the performance would count, but I guess not. Great show boys!

Growing a Garden

Aaron decided that he wanted to try planting a garden this fall. He knew that my parents had tried a method called Square Foot Gardening and decided to look into that method. It turns out that the creator of the Square Foot garden, Mel Bartholomew, had just rewritten his entire book that dated back to 1985. Instead of gardening in your backyard soil, you build boxes, mix together some soil that goes into the boxes, and then plant. So far it seems to be going well. We were able to start quickly and already have shoots coming up.


We made our boxes out of 2 x 6 lumber from Home Depot. We know it won't last for very long, but we're just starting out and didn't want to spend too much money. We put down weed cloth to slow down the weeds, but it hasn't stopped the Bermuda grass from coming up to get some water.


Here's Parker mixing the soil that goes into the box. It's made of peat moss, coarse grade vermiculite, and different types of compost. He was such a good helper.


Aaron really enjoys working with his hands and getting dirty. The garden is a stepping stone for him on the path to self reliance. He also informed me last week that pot belly pigs are allowed in our neighborhood as "pets". I'm pretty sure that won't be happening.


Here's Dallin helping in his own way!



After filling the box with soil, we made our squares with thin strips of wood. A different type of seed goes into each square. The number of seeds in each square depends on what's planted there. In the carrot square, we planted 16 pinches of seeds. But in the lettuce square we only planted one pinch of seeds.


The boys were eager to get started planting.





This is the first little plant that popped up, only about three days after we planted. We now have some green in almost all of the squares. If we can produce just one or two items on our first try, we'll consider it a success!

McKay's Got the Cooties

The other day McKay asked me to open the game closet so he could play a game. He picked Cooties. (Not one of my favorites because it has a bazillion pieces, but I chose to go with the game over a fit.) So we sat down to all of our pieces and he chose the green head and body and I chose a pink body and blue head. He wouldn't have it. The body had to match the head and they both had to be pink. Then I picked out my eyes, mouth and the antennae. I picked wrong again. McKay told me that I had to have the girl eyes (how did he know they were girl eyes?), the lips, and the hair bow. I did get to pick out my own legs. When our bugs were finished they kissed a couple times (per McKay's instructions of course)and he was off to play with something else. This kid cracks me up!

Bead Mania

I bought Parker and Dallin each a Halloween Perler bead kit from Michael's. They were so excited to put them together and even Dallin was able to follow the pattern by himself. A few days later I was at Wal-mart and saw a bucket of 8500 beads and patterns for pets. The boys have gone crazy over these things. They have made a couple dozen different shapes and keep going back to the website for more patterns. It's been so nice for them to have an activity to keep busy with that doesn't include the TV, video games, or computer and isn't too messy!