BeyBlade Party

Late in the summer, we applied to host a BeyBlade House Party. If you haven't heard of Houseparty.com, you should check it out. We were chosen as one of a few hundred families around the country to host a party. They sent us a box with five BeyBlades, a BeyBlade Battle Stadium, 15 posters, 15 cds and 15 coupons. We just had to invite a bunch of friends, host a great party, and post some pictures and responses on their site!
The boys were super excited and invited about 25 kids from the neighborhood. (We're a little heavy on boys on our street!) We had about 22 kids show up! Abby and Manda came early and helped us decorate. The boys helped make cookies so the kids could decorate their own treat, and we cooked up a bunch of frozen pizzas.
We played with the BeyBlades and then jumped into a tournament. The boys had a blast!

Thanks House Party!!

Grandma & Grandpa's Visit

Grandma & Grandpa Louisiana came to visit in September for Baby Grant's Blessing. It was a quick visit - they arrived on Friday the 17th and left on Tuesday the 21st. We went to the Gateway, to Tucano's, and to a neighborhood garage sale, but the only pictures I took the whole weekend were while we were in the canyon.

We started with a photo scavenger hunt. One thing on the list was that everyone on your team had to touch a tree. The goofy faces were just their attempt at the extra mile.

After the hunt, we wandered up the path a little to this great spot with a log crossing the river. The older kids played on it for quite a while before anyone fell in the water. Sadly, it was Kate (4) that fell in and resurfaced with a look of horror on her face. Jake acted fast and pulled her up out of the water.

This is a shot I got of Jake. He looks so old. Where the heck in the world have I been?

We tried for a few pictures of all the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. Between Lib and I we took a bazillion (almost) pictures of this group. I'm hoping hers caught the magic mine seem to have missed.

One last goof before time to go home. Isn't it funny how boys always find the sick of their dreams in the canyon?

Here's the rest of the pictures for G&G:

Two funnies

Jared recently put the shelves in the entertainment center that we've been working on for, umm, a while. I'm trying to break the boys of their habit of tossing their junk on the bottom shelf. Now that there are other shelves and decorations, it's no longer meant for storage. So, here's how it went tonight:
Me : Boys! Why is there so much of your crap thrown on the bottome shelf?
Cam : Because we couldn't reach the higher shelves!

I give up!

Forget the shelf, let's just read scriptures. Sam throws his foot in my lap while the boys laugh about Jake reading from Jacob...again.
Sam : Mom! Pop my toes-es.
Me : OK.
Sam : Do my baby toe first.
Me : OK
Sam : Do my brother toes next.

"Brother toes" are the three toes between your baby toe and your big toe. Now you know!

But mo-uummm...

Every week on the way home from church, the boys try to break me. In their sweetest voices, they ask,
"Can we play computer when we get home?"
No!
"Can we watch a Kung Fu Panda?"
No!
"Can we beat each other senseless all in the name of fun?"
No!
(Well, maybe they don't actually ask that last one, but it does seem to happen every Sunday afternoon! )
Anyways, after our usual begging-rejection-whining routine on the way home this week, Cam asked, "But mo-uummm, what are we going to do that's fun?"

I suggested they build me scenes and stories from the Book of Mormon with their legos.
They took me seriously!
It was actually peaceful for a while!
They worked together!
And, they came up with some good stuff!

Noah's Ark

King Benjamin on the Tower

Joshua marching around the city of Jericho

Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail

Samuel the Lamanite on the Wall & really long arrows

Diamond Fork Hot Springs

For Labor Day, Jared wanted to take us all to see the Hot Springs in Diamond Fork Canyon in Springville. Jared told the kids and I that it was about a one mile hike and there were pools to play in at the end. Meiners' family - do you remember the last hike Jared took us on while we were at Fish Lake? Anyways, for those that haven't noticed, Jared is tall and he has long legs. I think this skews his foot-travel measurements. One mile to 'daddy long legs' is about 3 miles to the rest of us! In our trusting innocence, we packed our lunches, our suits, and our a towels and we were on our way!

Sidenote : I had heard of this hike and springs while at BYU, but I was always warned about the 'old, naked guys' that were there. Hence, one experience I didn't experience. Jared assured me that the old, naked guys don't go in the middle of the day, so I agreed that we would go. (Of course, on the day of, three of the people I tell we're going to the Springs ask me if that's where the naked guys hang out!) Luckily, we didn't see any naked guys *Whew!* but the kids caught wind of my fears along the way and decided to count all the naked guys on the trail - not wearing your shirt
constitutes 'naked'. It was funny that they were quietly keeping count until Josh points and yells out "NAKED GUY!!" as one guy passed by us. Um, yeah, game over!

Anyways, it's a beautiful hike. Tons of green and shade and almost all of it runs by the stream/river. It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there and we overheard someone at the pools say it was really a 2.2 mile hike. The boys had a lot of fun in the pools once we reached the end. They traveled in and out of pools and slid down mossy rocks. Me, I don't care for rotten eggs so much, so I didn't care to swim in water that smelled like them! Just kidding. Honestly, the sulphur smell wasn't too bad. My real reason for not swimming is that I just don't like hot water.

This is us at the beginning of our hike. Clean, free of blood, still smelling like Tide.

The whole trail was gorgeous. We were really surprised by the size of some of the boulders that were in the stream. In some spots, you could still see the regrowth in the path that the boulder took down the mountain.

Sam hitched a ride with Jared most of the way, but we had a rule that he had to hold hands if he walked. He was adamant that he hold only Joshie's hand. I thought they were so cute walking together.

At first site, this looked like shedded snake skin and it was HUGE! But, then we remembered we were in Utah and not the Amazon so it turned out to be just a really awesome tree branch.

Just a few more minutes - we could smell it by this point and the boys were getting a little tired of walking.

We made it! This was the first pool they all hopped into - it was pretty warm and I was surprised they stayed i nit for as long as they did.


At the top of the pools was a little waterfall. Cam went behind the falls and is peeking through a hole in the rock.



This area was built up with rocks like a hot tub. I'm not sure if the adults liked Cameron splashing around but he really needed to sit under the hose and pretend it was a shower!

Sam and Josh hung out with me for a minute until they realized this was as far as I was going in. They soon ditched me for their more adventurous dad.

Sam and Jared in one of the pools that was 'cold right here and warm right there'. That doesn't really make me have happy thoughts about being in that water!The milky color was pretty, though.

This is one of the spots that you could sit and slide right down the mossy rocks. If you look back at the picture above, Jared is sitting right at the top of the slide and Jake is at the bottom of it here.

I'm not sure what he was doing here, but Cameron explored every inch of this place!

It's just a phase

I seem to go in spurts with hobbies. The last ten years I've been so obsessed with scrapbooking that I only dust off the sewing machine for Halloween costumes and the occasional baby gift or mending. Enter Craft blogs. Given, most of the stuff I want to make is girl stuff (which doesn't fly too well around the Meiners' House), I'm loving my sewing phase. I don't think the boys are as jealous as they pretend to be - I think it's more a concern over the fact that the kitchen table is covered in fabric rather than food!

I saw this cute top on a blog and since my boys refused to wear it, I made it for Grace. Now that I know how to do the shirring with an elastic thread bobbin, I want to shir everything!

See? More shirring! I just lengthened the shirt tutorial to make Kate a maxi dress. Her mom says she's crooked, not the dress, but I think I'll check it out myself next time I there. Who wants to wear a crooked dress?

The boys were a little upset that I was making "everything" for their cousins and nothing for them, so I let Josh run around the house in one of the aprons I made for Preschool. I'm thinking I might need to hem those up a little...

Last but not least, Jared's mom brought us a ton of apricots from her tree. We (I) made tons of fruit leather and syrup. Jake was a good sport and let me take a picture of him eating some pre-shower.

Jake's Arrow of Light & Pinewood Derby

Jake was awarded his Arrow of Light tonight at Pack Meeting. He was so excited to get his Eagle Feather and is looking forward to getting an arrow to put up on the wall in his room. The Boy Scout leaders came in and welcomed him to Scouts after wards and told him about the meetings on Wednesday nights. What?!? Wednesday nights? That's like mutual or something! Anyways, I guess we're all about merit badges now!

Abby filmed the ceremony for us - hang on a minute, they'll move the flag!

My boys and their cars. Jake made up his own design, Cam wanted a truck, and Josh's is a copy of a Hot Wheels car he loves.

When are school pictures?

So, I guess my celebratory events were not enough for Josh. He decided to slip-n-slide down our street this afternoon! The neighbor saw him nosedive off his scooter and brought him to me with a bloody nose and this awesome bump on his forehead. He also has a bit of road rash on his chest and stomach. I think I like my way of celebrating better!

After three long years....

Josh started kindergarten today!

This kid has watched his two big brothers go off to school for the last three years and asked me why he couldn't go, too. He's been through three years of mom's preschool - that's three years of three year old class and three years of four old class. (Does that make six years of preschool???) Then, last week, brothers left for school again, without him. He was angry at me for days.

It finally happened!!
Today was the Day!

And, I think these might just be Spirit Hands!

Josh, Dad, and Sam in front of the Big School. I was told after school that it's called Fox Hollow now because he goes to school there. It's not the 'Big School' anymore! And, there's the spirit hands again!

Foxy the Fox was out on the playground to welcome the kindergartners. Josh couldn't wait to get his picture with Foxy.

Josh and Cabe found each other on the playground before lining up this morning. They're not in the same class, but the first thing Josh told me after school was that he got to play with Cabe at recess. They grabbed each other's hands and jumped up and down - they were both so excited to be there. We have ten kids (I think) from our neighborhood in kindergarten this year!

When I asked him what he did today, he said:

• I played with Cabe at recess
• I made a new friend named Hunter
• We read a book about Ms. Barton in Kindergarten
• We played "Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar" and I got a turn!
• I played with math cubes and made a gun (I'm waiting on a call from the teacher!)
• There's lots of girls in my class
• I learned that we don't throw the wood chips out of the playground or walk up the slides

(He didn't say anything about me crying so I think I'm safe! Whew!)

After school, we celebrated with lunch at Carl's Jr.
Since it was a celebration, I even let him make his own mixed drink at the soda machine.