Sunday, October 10, 2010

June 2010


The biggest event of june at our house was Kindergarten graduation. For their final project they had to dress up as two different animals from two different animal classes. Tyse chose to be a jelly whale (a jellyfish-whale) combo, despite Kent's desperate pleas for him to dress up as Octo-mom. That would have been a hit in Kindergarten. As usual, I put it off much too late and I had a grand vision- that didn't come to fruition. But he has his own ideas on how to do it so I let him say how he wanted to put it together. As you can see, he had a bunch of "jellyfish tentacles" tied around his waist from ribbons he thought would work best. He also wanted to be a breaching whale, so that necessitated some blue waves around his shoulders. and then he needed no hair, and I wasn't about to completely shave it (though kent did a pretty close job), and the head needed to be gray. Therefore, the swim cap with a round foam for a blowhole and water shooting out of it (pipe cleaners). This boy is very creative and doesn't want any help! This is him with his best buddy, GianLuca, who was a dragon-something? They sure loved kindergarten, but they were ready to move on to 1st grade!

We also did the annual ladybug release, although it wasn't nearly as cool as in years past, darn it! The boys had a great time until Tyse got a sliver about 2 inches in length and was pretty hysterical. That ended the evening very quickly. Of course Kent was out of town, so I was on my own to keep him calm AND perform the removal surgery. It took forever and there were a lot of tears shed, but we survived! I even had to keep the sliver for Kent to see when he got home. It may as well been a 2x4.

Tyse finished his 2nd year of soccer and had another successful season. His team was sure cute but they didn't share the competitive edge Tyse did, so we moved on for this season to a group a little more his speed. The rest of the team was staying together for this year as well, and so the coach said, "We'll see everyone back next year except Tyse." He totally panicked and thought he was never going to play soccer again- it was a really sad moment for him! Not to worry- there was plenty of soccer to play!About a week later he played in a 3v3 soccer tournament with some boys that share his passion for soccer and they did pretty well. They played 4 games in one day- the first 95 degree day of the year- and they were the youngest team there. They ended up in 3rd place out of 5 teams after losing in a shootout to an 8 year old girls team.

The coach had Tyse kick one of the shootout goals and he missed. He was really sad! But- he didn't even know what a shootout was or what exactly he was suppposed to be doing. Now he knows really well and has vowed never to miss a shootout goal again...

On a sidenote, he LOVES those yellow socks from that jersey. He wants to wear them to every practice! It makes me laugh, but it also makes him easy to spot in the sea of 6 year olds!

This is the month Soccer began dominating our lives. He has been playing a developmental league all summer long and then joined with some of the boys from that league to form a team this fall. They chose to play a year up and have totally dominated some teams, but have also been beaten pretty badly as well. He is learning so much about ball control and teamwork and how to space and position himself on the field. He also got his first opportunity to play goalie yesterday. He thought it was great.

May 2010

May brought a lot more fun to our house. We started with Mother's day. The boys did a great job making my day special. I got a flower pot, some new shampoo and conditioner, some shoes, a great little book that Tyse made at school, and a cute card that Emitt made at playgroup. After church we headed down to Grandma's for dinner. I made her a cute wreath...

and the kids enjoyed spending time with grandmas and things. I love this picture of Grandma Ruth and Ollie...This month we were also able to keep Mallory for a few days while her mom attended a conference. She and Ollie had a great time together.Our last snowstorm of the year came at the end of may and it was so awesome! The boys were ecstatic to build a snowman and I love that my boys were still totally happy for snow- even in may!The boys and our neighbor built a one armed snowman. It was very cool. Ha ha.


Our new neighbors invited us to the grand opening of a new kids amusement type place called "Incredible Pizza." Their parents are the owners so we got to go and have dinner and then we were each given a $10 card to use on the amusement activities- we did bumper cars, inflatables, race car driving, glow in the dark mini golf, mini bowling, laser tag, and a ton of arcade games. They also got their faces painted and looked very intimidating. Except sweet June.Check out those sweet buzz cuts!
We started (and eventually finished) our patio. Hooray to have it finished- minus the plants. The boys were great slave labor and had a great time being pushed around in the wheelbarrow. We were also able to go to Discovery Gateway with our good friends, The Keenan's and the Maggiora's. Unfortunately both families have since moved away. Miss you guys! I am just going to add a bunch of pics from that trip with no extra commentary from me.



Lastly, my favorite pics of the month.

I love the wrestling shot- that is what my boys seem to do most days.I loved walking into the room and seeing this- Ollie is buttoning dad's sunday shirt while dad buttons Ollie's. This is Ollie to a T- much older than his 2 years give him.

The Rest of April 2010



The trip to AZ was our monthly highlight, but we did a few more fun things in the month.I turned 31! I had picked the cake I wanted about a month prior, so part of my present was being given the time to bake it! I discovered the cookbook section of the library one day and I have been wanting to learn to make artisan breads. Unfortunately I didn't find any cookbooks that only had breads in it- but I did find the Martha Stewart cookbook that I call "The Baking Bible." I borrowed it because it had a chapter on breads- but it also had a chapter on about every other pastry and bakery item. Somehow I never got around to making any bread, but I sure tried a lot of cookies, pies, tarts, and cakes....hmmm. Anyway, I made this mint chocolate ganache cake for my birthday. I ran out of time when making my ganache so it ended up a bit runny, but it sure tasted good! We also got to go to Zupa's for dinner (my family friendly fave) and spend the evening together.


This is one of my favorite pictures from the month. Tyse has started to like to read to Ollie. They have such a great time together! They are very similar to eachother and sometimes they struggle, but I think for the most part they are understanding kindred spirits. Not many would understand their drive and need for achievement. Certainly not Emitt.

Emitt entered an extra mischevious stage this month. There are many troublesome things he has discovered in the last 6 months, but this was one of the most problemesque-

he learned how to open nailpolish. It was unfortunate day- for his fingers, his clothes, the carpet, and the couch. Luckily it was just the underside.

Arizona Trip

April was a lot of fun at our house! We went to visit Grandma Paula and Grandpa Ted in Arizona for Easter weekend. What do you do in Winslow, AZ? Well, I guess you ride a lot of these. The boys had a great time riding ATV's with the Powell cousins and hanging out with G&G.
Kent had spent the previous week in Houston so he flew into Phoenix to spend the weekend and then help me drive back to UT. It worked out great because then we could visit Grandma Great. Tyse is the only one of our kids that had ever met her- and I think he was not 2 yet the last time we saw her. We visited for a bit on friday evening and they were brave enough to invite us back on Saturday morning. We watched conference with she and Bert and she treated us to a spectacular breakfast that may go down in Kent's "Best Breakfast Ever" list- Biscuits and Gravy with prickly pear jam. Then we went out in their backyard and picked grapefruits from their tree. I never realized how beautiful grapefruit tree leaves are! I need one just for garnishing purposes. We brought a bunch home with us, but I never got around to making the grapefruit jelly I was hoping to get done. We ended up giving the grapefruit to Aunt Andrea.
We were afraid we would wear those two out, so we headed down to the Phoenix zoo with Uncle Ron and Aunt Ginny. That is such a cool zoo! We took a bus tour around to see the large picture, then got to wander around a bit and see some different exhibits. They had a really cool open air monkey exhibit where we could walk into the exhibit and the monkeys ran around and swung on all these ropes right next to us and over our heads and what not.
They also had this great carousel, a ray petting exhibit, and it was a gorgeous day so the boys had a great time playing in the water. We were able to also meet EK and Tammy and their family there for the afternoon. It is so great to let the kids hang out with their extended family! We love that we all know eachother and are so happy to continue the relationships through the generations. For dinner we went with Ron and Ginny to a really great BBQ place and met Brad and Hillary and their kids. We had a great day in Phoenix.

We spent easter morning back in Winslow with G&G. We watched conference and enjoyed the surprises brought by the easter bunny- all of Santa's forgotten leftovers. Tyse got a golf set and Emitt a scooter. Once we finished the morning session, we loaded up and headed back home. It takes a good 8-ish hours to get home, so we stopped a couple times to rest.
Our first stop was at Navajo Bridge. This place is so cool!
The boys had a great time running across the bridge and a couple California Condors came out and were flying just about 15 feet over our heads as we hung out. Those birds are HUGE-and UGLY! There were a couple hispanic grandmas on the bridge that kept begging me to carry Ollie because they thought the birds were going to come swoop him off the bridge and eat him. The boys also loved climbing on the rocks and figuring out what they looked like. This one they called Dino skull...
We stopped again in Cedar City for dinner. We hung out with the cousins for a while and had a nice break from the car before loading back up and finishing the drive home. We had a great time!