The Dentist's party

Our dentist had a customer appreciation party on Thursday and the kids had a blast! There was a huge Shark slide, hot dogs, Rainbow the clown--making baloon animals, and sno-kones! The slide and the sno-kones were the kid's favorite part!

Tumbling Performance!

After the baby contest, we had to run next door to Matthew and Kaylee's tumbling performance, or "show-off" as Matthew calls it. They both did great, and we took a video of the whole thing, but here are a few shots we got afterwards. Matthew is in the Level 1-2 class which has a range of 6-15 year-olds, he is close to doing his round-off/back-handspring, but he doesn't like to practice at home, so it will come when he is ready! Kaylee and I were in the Mom and Tot class and have lots of fun with forward rolls, cartwheels, kangaroo jumps, and back rolls! I think Kaylee will move up to the 3-5 year class come fall and I won't have to go with her, which will be more fun for me I think!

The Baby Contest

Farr West has an annual baby contest as part of their 4th of July festivities, so I thought it would be fun to enter Ashley. They had a pirate theme, thus all the pirate stuff. To be truthful, there was only 9 babies in the 0-6 month category, and she is technically 7 months, but there was a time conflict with tumbling and the 7-12 month category that the nice lady in charge said that we could enter the 0-6 since it was only two weeks ago that she turned 7 months. They have all the babies judged in only their diapers, I am sure this is just to be fair and also they need to have a good view for the "most chubby" category!

Here is Ashley with her friend Autumn Beutler, they are 2 weeks different in age and her mom and I teach Sunday School together!

So, she won for least hair, lightest hair, most happy,bluest eyes and overall cutest in her group!

It was really fun. We get to ride in the July4th parade and we got a trophy and neat certificate.

The Craziest Sunday Ever!!

Okay Corinne, I just have to say that Carter has NOTHING on Daniel this time!

Let me take you back to Sunday morning about 9 am.....Vince leaves for morning meetings as usual and I start the kids' baths. (We don't have church until 1pm) At about 10am I hear some trickling water, but dismiss it thinking 'It is just Kaylee playing in the bathtub' so I go on my merry way, but all the while hearing the mysterious trickle. At 11am I need to go downstairs for something and to my horror, I find water seeping into our computer area from the main living room sink. (We have a kitchenette in our basement living room) I walk in to the living room to see the water running on full, the sink plugged and the water spilling over the counter, down the cabinets and all over our carpet! It had spread to about half of the living room, half of the computer area and started going into the stair landing. Needless to say, while I was treading in about an inch of water, I turned off the faucet, called Vince in the middle of one of his meetings and made him come home. While Vince was coming home, I asked the boys if they were playing in the water that morning and Daniel said "Kind of, but not really!" Of course Matthew was more than happy to tell me that Daniel had turned the water on and was playing in it, but forgot to turn it off!

I guess I can be greatful for Vince's Sunday morning meetings because the bishop knew he had to go and why, so about 10 minutes after Vince got home 7 men came over with 4 shop vacs and they were all helping clean up our little flood. And so, by 12:30--1 1/2 hours later--the water was sucked up, the carpets that needed to be pulled were pulled and we were able to get the rest of our things ready for church, but not before two of the men doubled back with a couple of box fans from their homes. We got there a few minutes early so I could tune my violin for the musical number Vince and I had been asked to perform that day!

The violin/piano duet went well, we survived church without a complete diaper bag--I realized this when the nursery leader came to me and said that Kaylee went to the bathroom during nursery, but put her diaper in the toilet when she was done! After church we followed one of the guys to an old neighbor's home to borrow an industrial fan to dry out the ripped up carpet. With the two box fans in the window and the carpet elevated on various objects, (we were told to dry the carpet from underneath) we were able to dry out the carpet in 1 1/2 days!

Here are some pictures of the aftermath, while the carpets were being dried. It is actually the current state of the living room, but Vince worked some extra hours this past week and will be taking it off this week so we can fix everything back to normal--hopefully!

Everything too heavy to move to antoher room was put on the dry part of the carpet.

You can see the culprit sink in the back, the dishwasher removed, carpet elevated and being dried--the industrial fan was a huge help, its the blue thing sticking out by the cabinets.

Here is our stair landing into our basement, this was actually the only part that had padding! I am not quite sure why the piece of duct tape is there.

Here is the computer area, which we were lucky to have only a rug in at the time, but some things from the other room as well as the futon in the connecting hallway that you can't see!

It has been said that you should always turn bad things into good things, or at least learn from your experiences so here is what I have learned:

1. The Lord really does bless those who are trying--now some of you may think 'how is this a blessing?' But really--what a blessing that the only carpet that had padding was about 1 foot square, and that Vince was in the middle of a meeting with so many people who were willing and able to help in a crisis, and that our day was not effected except I couldn't check my friends blogs! Plus, no one was hurt, and it could have been in one of the upstairs sinks and therefore damaged walls, etc. We won't even have to call the insurance company!

2. I need to reinforce the rule about turning the water off when your done with it.

3. Always get ready for church way early because you never know what is going to happen!

Quote in honor of Father's Day...

I was telling Kaylee that we can't watch TV because it was Sunday and besides it doesn't work right now anyway (Daddy unplugged it)...

Kaylee: "Well why can't daddy fix it? He can fix it 'cause he's a boy!"

Happy Fathers Day!

Well, we had a fun weekend. On Saturday we all helped Vince do some yard work (even my sister Naomi) in the morning, then went to my parents house to help my Dad do some of his yard work and then had a yummy hamburger dinner. Sunday, we were pretty lazy all morning with no meetings, went to church then to my parents again for an official Father's Day dinner. Vince got to choose so we had spaghetti alfredo with shrimp and scallops! Like Naomi said, it was a very original dinner and not one we all would have had any other day, but very yummy!

I guess I should have gotten a picture of Vince with the kids, but I am not that on top of things, so these are some retro pictures of him being a dad!

Matthew's missing teeth

Matthew has lost 3 teeth on the bottom, and is already growing back two of them! We thought it would be fun to include the pjs and bed-head too!

Spider-man party

Daniel wanted only black spiderman because he has seen advertisements/toys from Spider-man 3, but I didn't want to make an all black cake (black is very hard to color correctly) so I showed him the trailer for the movie and he decided it would be cool to have both, just like the movie!

Ashley enjoyed one of the toys from the "goody" bag--a rubber sticky lizard. It's not really sticky because it was cheap, so it was perfect for her! Rubber is the texture of choice these days!

Daniel and his friend, Michael, pose with some of his presents. Notice the spider-man hat too!

We have a little bit of everyone here--Dano opening the present, Kaylee wishing it were her, Matthew doing all he can to be the craziest in the background with his own rubber lizard, and mom's leg.

Quote of the day on Daniel's 5th birthday--

We had just eaten breakfast, sitting in the living room and Daniel asks:

"Mom, am I 5 now?"

"Yes, you are!"

"Well, I still look 4!"

After Matthew and I unsuccessfully tried to tell him that you don't change in one day, he said

"I will just have to wait until Kaylee wakes up and then see if I am bigger by her!"

P.S. Picture of Daniel--age 2

Dano and the toilet water...

This one's for Corinne--just so you know you aren't the only one. :)

I was sitting at the computer, actually looking at Rob's blog, when I hear the toilet flush and Daniel yells from upstairs, "Gross!". I try to ignore it, but then he comes to the top of the stairs with his pants down at his ankles and some water splashes on his legs and shirt and says "I have toilet water on all over me!" So I ask how he got it on himself. "Well, I did something...that I'm sorry!" I ask what did you do? "Well, I am sorry!" I ask again, What did you do? "I tried to flush the Dixie cup, but it didn't go down so I tried to get it out with the white thing (toilet brush) and then it splashed water all over and now I'm all wet!"

Needless to say, boys will be boys. I can't say it was a huge mess, but the fact that he tried to flush a paper cup down the toilet????? Come on! I guess we can be thankful they are eager to learn!

Daniel's birthday dinner.....

I asked Daniel what he wanted for his birthday dinner (to make sure I had everything) and he couldn't come up with anything, so I made suggestions:

Mom: "Spaghetti, Mac and cheese, Pizza, Hamburgers....You don't want any of these?"

Daniel: "No"

Mom: "Chicken nuggets, cereal?"

Daniel: "YEAH! I was hoping you were going to say that. I was waiting until you said something you don't have to cook because I don't want to wait!"

So I guess we are having cereal on Tues.! Anyone want to come over? I think we will have enough!

Our house

I had a request for a picture of the house, and I can't let down my loyal bloggers! Vince would have preferred me to wait until the lawn was mowed and weeded, so ignore the awful state of the work-in-progress lawn and flowerbeds! You may also notice a couple bonuses in the background (1)Kaylee on her trike-she hasn't figured out how to steer and pedal at the same time so she has to stand up and adjust the bike every time she wants to turn. (2) Vince's "other" vehicle--the 1986 Nissan Maxima which he proudly endures to own his pride and joy which we actually keep in the garage!

P.S. If you click on the picture you can get a better look at the bonus details!

A Princess in training

I had to find some toys for her and these were what we had nearby, but she played with them so long I have decided that children are definitely born with gender traits!!