Swim Lessons

Andrew, Matthew, and David loved swim lessons this summer. I was worried that swimming everyday (rather than 2 times a week in the winter)  would be too much, but they loved it.

Andrew now knows all the stokes and swims laps.

Matthew can too, but he prefers cannon balls…

Everyone loves the last day when they get to dive off the diving boards and go down the water slides.

Austin begged me to take lessons and he looked forward to them everyday. He loved when he was allowed to splash his teacher and dump water on his head, but he refused to put his head in the water.

Kool Aid, anyone?

David always begs to do a Kool-Aid stand. I tell him to wait for a hot day (he asks even in the winter when its raining). So, he watched for a hot day on the Wii weather channel.

His brother was his first customer, but he did sell 7 other glasses.

The not so quiet, Quiet Time

Everyday we have a 1 hour quiet time after lunch. Everyone goes to their room and reads (supposedly) while my youngest sleeps and I have some alone time too. This time I heard loud sounds coming from Austin’s room. I had to go join the fun (and tell him to be a little quieter since Steven sleeps in the room next to him).

He had all his knights lined up on his window sill. He made a different voice for each one of them as they battled.  I love watching this little boy play!

Marshmallow Shooting

I cut a PVC pipe for each of them (and a friend) and  Andrew designed targets in Photoshop.  They put mini marshmallows in the PVC pipe and blew them at the targets. They kept track of their bullseyes by putting the marshmallow on the fence.  Steven decided to just eat his marshmallows. Then they found a new target…Those hit my forehead. That one hit and stuck to my camera lens.

Amazing!

Andrew, Matthew and I went to the Portland Mormon Choir and Orchestra concert last night- it was A-maz-ing!

Rob formed and directed the choir 5 1/2 years ago and now he is the board chairman and singing in the choir. I’m glad Andrew and Matthew enjoy going so I have someone to sit with :)

This was my favorite concert yet! Jenny Oaks Baker came and she was stunning and played flawlessly. The concert was captivating.

The concert included some theme songs from movies. Andrew and Matthew were especially excited to attend this concert because they actually sang 2 songs from Star Wars- I didn’t even realize Star Wars had any songs with singing! I barely grabbed this picture- it was so unexpected and funny! A Jedi came out and handed the orchestra director a baton- but it was a light saber- LOL! They actually turned the lights down and had sound effects like a light saber for a minute before they started the song.

 

The choir got silly and sang a medley from the movie Enchanted. They pulled it off and it was funny.

 

I’m looking forward to their Christmas concert- that’s always been my favorite (until now!)

David’s Harry Potter Birthday

We had David’s Birthday party last week. He has been reading the Harry Potter series with Rob for the last several months and he spends a lot of time listening and re-listening to Book 1 audio CD’s, so he requested a Harry Potter party. (Please forgive any of my HP spelling mistakes, etc as I am not a HP fan)

I got most of the ideas from online.

Our invitation:

You’re invited to a Magical day!

We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to Hogwart's School for special mid-term classes in honor of
David’s 7th birthday. Your class will run from 3:30 until 5:00pm on Friday, Feb 5th. Please take the Hogwarts Express train to (Our address).
Respond ASAP by OWL to (my email)or Muggle telephone system (my phone number) with a yes or no response. We look forward to your arrival at Hogwarts.

We played “Harry, Harry. Voldemort” (Duck, Duck, Goose) and “Harry and the Snitch” (You sit in a circle, and pass 2 balloons around. First pass the snitch balloon, then the Harry balloon. You try to pass the Harry balloon fast enough to catch the snitch.)

Then everyone went to the Wand shop to get their wand. Rob had them swish and flick different wands until they found the “right” one. We used our wands at the table for Potions class. I mixed 6 different kinds of Kool-Aid and labeled them with different potions. The kids could mix them how ever they wanted. Plastic Goblets from Party City would’ve made it even cooler. The magic was when they cast a spell and put a spoonful of Pop Rocks candy in. The drink sizzled and popped.

Then we dipped gummy frogs in melted chocolate and tasted Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (they were actually just different flavored Jelly Bellies- nothing gross, but we still got some good reactions as they tried to guess the flavor!)

Then we played part of Quiddich in the garage. We hung up hula hoops and Rob tried to guard them as the kids threw the quaffle in.

We had a treasure hunt to find the Sorcerer's Stone- the birthday cupcakes that had red Ring Pops in the center.

Then David opened his presents- he always is so expressive!

Just before going home, the kids used a spell “Wingarium Leviosa” to make their party bag levitate. (Matthew stood upstairs with a broom stick. We tied clear fishing line and a clip to it. Matthew pulled the bags up whenever the child said the spell).

Happy Birthday David!!

Baby Shower

It’s been awhile since I blogged! I’ve thought of lots of things to post, so it’s hard to know where to start. I decided to take one of my scrapbooking approaches and start with what’s current and work backwards if I want to.

Last night, I hosted a Baby Shower for my friend, Maggen. She is expecting a little girl in less than 2 weeks. It was so fun to decorate and make foods in PINK!

  

Kristi made the delicious PB balls and the recipe for them and for the Cheesecake filled strawberries can be found here.

We played the Memory/Candy Bar game. It’s my favorite shower game. You play memory with words related to pregnancy and childbirth. When you find a match, you win a candy bar. Example: When you match the word Nursing, you win a Milky Way.

Maggen received so many super cute girly outfits and we all had a lot of fun.

Congrats Maggen!!