The Nine Highlights of Turning Nine (All in "F". Don't know why.)

Fishsticks and Fry sauce

Frosting

Frodo and the Fellowship

Failed mission (not so fun).

Friends, Family, Fun

Happy Birthday, Linc! We think you're FANTASTIC!!! Love...The Fam.

Passing time.

Now that American Idol is over, I've been looking for things to fill the enormous void.

First on my list:

Fix the yard. I love/hate this job. I stink at it, but flowers make me happy. I wish I had more pictures of all the work I did yesterday, but the truth is: None of the work I did turned out all that well. Here 's a picture of the view out our basement window. I love potted plants. Any idiot can successfully pull off a reasonably lovely potted plant (as I, myself, have demonstrated).

Second on my list: Read this book.

Third on my list: Turn off the television and avoid all reality television shows (until next season's American Idol, of course, but that is many, many months away).

Another BIG thing on my list: Try and find the marriage record of my great, great aunt who died at age 105. No one ever knew she was married because she kept it a secret. Apparently back in those days (WW2), she would not have been able to keep her job as a teacher if she was a married woman. She confided to only one person (that person--her niece--is now 90 years old), but my aunt never revealed the actual name of her husband. She was very tight lipped and secretive. Now the task falls to me to find proof. Ideas, anyone?

Other random May happenings in our house:

Lincoln enjoyed a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich dipped in ranch dressing. And yes, he really did enjoy it. Both he and Laura are fans.

I found this rather cute picture of Noelle taken by a mystery photographer, whom I suspect also took the picture after this one.

An upside-down Isaac mouth.

A bird fell out of its nest in our backyard. (Those are Laura's hands. The girl was born to be a wildlife conservationist.)

Steve preparing a lesson. (Audio clip of the snoring, not provided.)

A Picture of My Cutie Pie

And Noelle's looking pretty cute too. :)

Quote of the day

Lincoln: "I think I heard someone in the basement. Quick! Grab some shoes to fling!"

Someday I'll have nothing to do...

Isaac did this for Mother's Day. Check out #2:
My life's creed: The kids should do the jobs.

Today I found one more thing the kids can do that I don't want to do. Cookies. I HATE baking, but the kids want cookies and my kids are skinny, so sometimes I have to suck it up and make cookies. However, today I discovered that Laura actually LIKES to roll the dough into balls. Awesome. I'll never roll another dough ball again.

All I had to do was make the dough (someday soon I'll get out of that one, too) and take the cookies out of the oven every ten minutes. She did the rest.

Snickerdoodles by Laura.

My favorite picture of all time:

Little-boy Steve.

Laura's Trip to Vegas

For the first time ever, we put our ten-year-old on a plane and sent her to stay with her grandparents for two weeks.

Here's a picture of Laura in the guest room. It was the start of her two weeks of pampering. She could eat whatever she wanted, watch TV whenever she wanted, stay up as late as she wanted.

Laura hit up the Strip to see the sights. Okay, just kidding. She only saw one sight on the Strip: The Shark Exhibit at the Mandalay Bay. (Photos courtesy of Flickr, due to one destroyed archaic roll of film. The good new is that it was the last remaining roll of film left on the earth, so now that it is gone we can begin to move forward, right Talbots? One word for you: digital.)

Things Laura probably saw: Sharks, komodo dragons (her fav.), and jelly fish.

My brother Jordan and his wife Karinne joined Laura and my parents at Zions National Park.









Laura had a blast! Thanks guys, for providing her with wonderful memories!

PS. I swear I packed more for Laura to wear than just that green shirt!

PPS. Dad, nice face. (I can't remember the last time my dad looked serious for the camera.)

Noelle's Favorite. (For Grandma.)

Cheeseburger Concert

Dear Creators of "Veggie Tales",

We think your "Silly Songs by Larry" soundtrack is da bomb!

Sincerely,

The Parents.

(Isaac had no idea I was recording him until the end.)

The Penmanship Police

Isaac (with a look of disgust): "Dad's writing is horrible. It looks like cursive, but it's really not!"

Smelly People

It's officially been one year since we first started blogging, and the coolest part is that we are able to go back through all the old posts and see the goofy and/or mundane things our family has done in the past year. Soooo, in keeping with that tradition...

Our water heater broke and we were without hot water for six whole days. One thing I learned, doing this...

...works fine for the kids. But apparently I am a shower-glutton. So is Steve. Truthfully, he can get smelly FAST and a three-inch bath just won't cut it.

Steve proposed the following solution: Use the shower in the resident "call room" at the hospital. What? Crazy! What if someone sees me lugging in my bag of toiletries and towels? What will they think of my wet hair?

But by Day 6, we were desperate:

While I showered (and Steve was somewhere else, getting some paperwork done), the kids did this:

My "before" picture (I don't know why I keep posting unflattering pictures of myself on this blog):

On the back of the bathroom door, staring at me. Why is it there? I don't know. Does this make you worry about the quality of your healthcare? Some kooky doctor out there likes to put eyeball stickers on the back of bathroom doors:

After (clean and happy, though still not photogenic):

And for all of you out there who have been concerned and offered us the use of your showers: Thank you! We now have hot water...I am not smelly anymore.