Mario Kart

We pretty much spent the whole week of spring break outside playing.

The kids rode bikes in front of our house for hours. Cody got out some wood and made "Mario Kart" obstacles for them.

The bridge was short lived

The girl had to get a turn on the jump.

The boys like to wear Cody's "Summer Penguin" work gloves on their feet and pretend they are penguins. Turns out Elliot is a fan too.

"It wasn't me!"

:)

Post-storm

Yesterday was windy. So windy it started blowing up some shingles on our roof. 

By the time we were done w our second trip to home depot even more shingles had blown off, and there was a flash flood, severe storm, tornado warning for the next 30 minutes. We totally felt like Heavenly Father held off the storm. As soon as Cody finished caulking the shingles down it started to rain. It was a little scary with the wind for a minute. The 30 minutes he was up there saving our house, the temperature dropped like 15 or 20 degrees. It was crazy/ exciting. Thank you Cody for your bravery. And Thank you Heavenly father for our dry house.

Our neighbor Casey, who was mostly reffering to the hot & humid once jokingly said,"This weather is necessary. It weeds out all the riff raff." 

The storms are usually exciting though :)

Ezra actually did good with all the lightning and thunder, maybe because it wasn't totally dark outside yet. I did miss him snuggling me a little bit, but Cody was a nice trade.

Elliot was squealing and giggling and yelling at the pouring rain when we took her to our doorstep to check it out. and she kept making her "oooo" face for the thunder and lighting.

And Rowdy kept picking her up and putting her in the rain. She would just scurry back and stand at the edge of our porch again and check it out.

So today we went to go check out the creek and enjoy the after storm clouds

  

Yeah..the creek was pretty full. We had gone to a spot earlier on our trek and thrown some rocks and Cody noticed a big fat water moccasin eating a fish, right in front of us!

 

Dads are so fun

 

So are mud puddles

 The kids rode through this one for a half and hour

 

This is our neighbor J.R.

 

 (she found Elmo)

 

We went to check out the creek under the bridge by Lynda's house. The sunset took up the whole sky 

There wasn't much water there but Cody thought he saw some fish so he took the bigger kids down.  

They were crawdads! We were both surprised how fearless Rowdy was

 

The post storm sky was amazing

 

It's Montana whose nickname is Big Sky Country, but I find myself thinking that about Texas. There is nothing to impede the sunsets so they just blanket the sky & reflect off whatever they can. 

I think it is so beautiful

Was this pre-meditated?

I had to put myself in check a few days ago because I was raising my voice way way to often at my kids. I don't like it. I don't feel like I ever had this problem pre-children.  I know it happens, but I didn't feel like I could even control it. I was feeling like my kids were waking me up and I immediately had to be on the defensive because things were already happening and I had no time to give my self a head start. Plus lets be honest, I have control issues.

So myself and I had a good talk, and it is cracking me up today as I mentally go over some events. Seems like the self evaluation was just in time. I am really happy with the way today went, even after Rowdy :)...
• Chewed a whole pack of gum (at least he shared it with Ezra)
• Turned the stove on, and luckily only burned a hot pad (in his defense I had asked him to turn on the oven for cookies)
• Locked the bathroom door, told Ezra to get in the sink shoes and all, squirted hand soap all over him and then turned the water on
• Rolled down the window on the 156 (a busy highway) and stuck his new hat out the window, of course having it blow away.

It was like Rowdy was just waiting for me to mellow out. Maybe all of these things were amusing to me, or just out of the blue for Rowdy to do. Anyway the timing is ironic so I am going to pat myself on the back regardless. Then when a not so cute/ out of the blue situation arises I will know I can handle it without the volume or the stress.

and on a last note of awesomeness Rowdy and I snuck off mid-day to meet Karin and Bryan's new baby boy Luke Walter. It was a nice date w Rowdy. and always so neat to meet new little people. Congratulations Brownies
....maybe that's why today went so smoothly.

randoma

I woke up with this image of llamas in my head. I know weird. 

This one is for you Mon Bon. 

Sorry for the text. It really takes away from the cutie llamas. I should've just left it but the space was just so....I should've just left it. Once again overdone

Finally made this bracelet...(hot pink and gray pearlies)(the light is weird) I have had the stuff for a while. Thank you Cody for the motivation. Cody is making one too, with smaller pearlies it is so pretty and petite.

This week Cody had to teach his class for BYU-I...in TX. His professor even admitted that this was probably the lamest of topics to teach on for 40 minutes....Research. So to liven it up Cody took a chocolate cake and had someone cut it up...
while he wrote this quote on the board.

 

Of course the cake is really a cereal box covered in frosting...make sure you research things with real substance people. To make up for the cruel trick he really did later provide dirt cups, gummi worms and all..don't be afraid to dig. I'm sure he did great, but what do people ever say when you ask them? "I'm just glad its over."

and can I just say for the longest time I have just been making frosting with no recipe but these past couple of times I have had a recipe and wow! I can't even handle the goodness.

Speaking of recipes: Thanks to friend Sharon, who makes grubalicious tortilla soup, rolling off a few ingredients to me, I also made some grubalicious tortilla soup for my first time! Which is funny to me because I have been obsessed with it for over a year now. But all the recipes seem bombarding with so many crazy ingredients. That just shuts my brain down and is unappetizing to me.

but mmmmm The soup was goood, and totally do-able. Thank goodness there was a bunch. mmmm I love the lime juice too. mmmm

Here were some less appetizing but noteworthy meals this week. 

Our snack time turned into Mom and Dad trying to outdo each other and then turned into us being too full for dinner...There is some shamrock pudding

Rowdy is becoming super independent, especially in the kitchen, which isn't always my favorite but I am trying to loosen up. He took care of everyone this morning, scavenging for food in Cody's lunch box. I am sure it was one of the littles who poured out the pretzels, but it worked out good with the already eaten granola bars. Notice I am also on the floor "cleaning up." We just called it a breakfast.

 Also, I had activity days for the first time this week. That was fun, and it was nice working and visiting with Cami and Stacey. But it was a little weird being right next to mutual but not it there. I feel sort of like I just got off my mission.. the transition. But the activity day girls were super cute and full of spunk so that is helping my weirdness.
I also got to take the kiddles to see one of my activity days girls be baptized. It was really nice. Ezra was pretty stoked about the whole baptism thing.
And Last thing. It has been raining all day today, so on our trip to the thrift store we taught the kids, "If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops.." Elliot would wait and totally sing open mouthed the "ah ah ah ah ah" part. It was so cute... She is So Cute.
Have a good week yerselves

Redirected

This past Monday morning we were about to go meet the Carmacks, who were coming South from Oklahoma City, at Turner Falls, while Cody stayed home and finished up some homework. The kids were all in the car when I went to double check directions and Cody discovered the park was closed because of flooding! Thank goodness for the internet.

Well, you just can't waste preparations like that. So we had a mellow Monday at Grapevine Lake. The weather was amazing. I wanted to hang a hammock in between those trees... Even though I was feeling internally guilty about it being a Monday and thinking of all the responsible things I should be doing.

 but a week later I can't remember any of those things. 

Glad we stole this moment

We met a nice old lady with a big yellow dog who thought he was racing the boats. He would soar past us, then realize the boat waaay out on the lake was waay behind in the race so he would go back down the shore and start again. The kids looved watching him. They were all screaming with delight "Go Dog Go!" It was great.

Rediscovering the Radio Flyer Magic

Our backyard weeds make it look so quaint don't they?

Ezra and Elliot seriously loved this thing for the better part of a day. 

...Then I realized Elliot was strapped in :)

Truffula Trees

Cody is so cute all the time, but its so hot when he is in crafty mode.

 We took the boys to see the Lorax on Friday. 

Rowdy used to have almost the whole story memorized, I think he just liked it because it had more color than the other Dr. Seuss books :) anyway the movie was cute.

Then On Sautrday Cody helped the boys make the Truffula trees.

 mmmm. They were good too.

and... if he wasn't already great enough...we then got a babysitter and he took me to the temple.

Urban Noodling

Forgot to put the lint trap back in.

 

 Its so frieky not seeing or knowing what you are about to touch.

I don't know how those catfish people do it.

Thanks Dani for helping me fix the dryer, and realize my inner girl power.

Can't resist

Give oh Give

The many hats of Elliot B

Backyardigan

 

Gatherer

 

Explorer

Water Baby

Lady

Runaway

 

Lady of Leisure, always only briefly

and her favorite... D.L.G.

you can tell by the lashes...

and the shoes