Lawn flooding fun!

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house because they flooded their lawn again. There wasn't as many of us as there had been the last time but the kids had a blast. Chris, Mir and their kids and the Paynes came over and with their help the kids started making all sorts of concoctions. Sydney and her group made a leaf, weed, worm soup of some kind and Madison and her group made mud balls, all very lovely.

Spencer had a blast! He loves to play with Grandpa and all the fun things he has in his pockets. He got to ride in Grandpa's truck too and help him do a couple of things. He also helped Grandma hose off the patio but I'm not sure it really was a help but they're always so kind. I think the thing that made his day even more was spending it with his Dad.

After everyone had left we stayed for a little while longer. Steve and the kids started finding all sorts of things. First of all they found little minnow fish, some were dead so they were added to Syd's soup and the ones that were alive they put into another bucket of water. I think the kids were most excited about finding a water snake. They followed it around for a while and then Steve caught it on a stick.

The girls were picking up worms from all over the place, Spencer tried once but wasn't really into that, he dropped it straight away telling us that it tickled. He wouldn't' touch another one after that. Maddie tried to catch a fish but ended up dropping it back in the water. I'm glad my kids aren't afraid of bugs and things, I can't say that for myself though, I hate worms, I made them stay far away from me with them.

All in all it was a wonderful day and the kids had so much fun. I know I always say this but it really is so great to have family that live close by. It's so nice to watch the kids playing there and having such a fun time. Grandma and Grandpa are always so kind to our kids and they just love them. How blessed we are to have the families that we have. It would be so nice to have my family live close by too, we're getting so excited for some of them to be here in a few weeks though, it's going to be GREAT!

Sleep Over Fun

Last night Whitney stayed over, the girls were all really excited. I thought that we were going to watch camp rock so the girls were even more excited because none of them had seen it yet. Then when we got home I checked and I had got the wrong night so the girls were sad but the fun didn't end there!!!

I ordered pizza for dinner because we didn't have very much food in the house, then Steve went down stairs with the girls to help them pick a movie. By the time I got down stairs they had already started their movie, "Princess Bride." Steve told me the girls had picked it out but I wasn't too sure about that.
After the movie is when the fun really began. We had a bed party in our room but this was no normal bed party. Our bed party involved pliers, nail clippers and lots of turning away! Any guesses??? Steve was pulling his toe nail off and the kids thought it was so fascinating. They all crowded around while he slowly pulled it off, it was pretty disgusting but they thought it was great. Spencer was sticking his finger in the gap, Sydney got a bit concerned and the Whitney and Maddie just thought it was super cool.

It was pretty funny really. Who ever thought that we'd have a sleepover and the main event would be Steve pulling off his toe nail! Oh well, as long as the kids had fun that's all that matters right?

Messing around with the camera

So this morning Steve got the camera out and was taking crazy pictures. I made him delete a few but I thought I'd add a few on here, (the ones that I approved of).
Spencer got in our shower today and then played in the bath afterwards. He's so cute, I know I'm bias, well actually I didn't think it was too cute yesterday when he had the runs and pooped on the kitchen floor.
Steve is pretty proud of his falling off toe nails. He took this picture of the worst one of the two. Spencer calls it Daddies blue toe!
Steve said I should get some pics of my pregnant belly so here are some of the wonderful pictures they took. Steve took the first one and Maddie took the other two.

Playing at Gma and Gpa Johnson's

Today was the first time this year that Grandma and Grandpa Johnson flooded their lawn. We were all so excited because the kids love going there to splash around in the water. It was a lovely day too so even though the water was quite chilly the kids had a fantastic time because it was finally warm! Spencer was loving playing with his friends, him and Cole are so cute together.

The girls were a bit cold at the beginning but they soon got warmed up. They drug Whitney's trampoline to Grandma's, it took them a while but they got it there.

We invited a few of our friends from the neighbourhood to come along which made the afternoon even more fun. All the kids had a blast and all the Mom's were so glad that the kids were finally out of the house. We all enjoyed chatting together and trying to get a bit of sun.

Spencer was exercising for a minute, he's such a cheeser. He then decided to go pee in between getting changed, he was so funny resting against the tree while he went. It was a wonderful day and we all had a great time. How lucky we are to have such amazing Grandparents who let us come and play at their house. It's so great to live so close to them and spend time with them. Thank you for the great day, we had a BLAST!

Pictures from Steve's marathon

Steve's 1st marathon

Today was Steve's marathon (the Teton Dam one). They had to leave super early this morning, I think around 4.30am. Once they got up to Rexburg they had to get a bus that took them up to the dam to begin the race. They started running at 6.30am, way to early for me so you'll never find me doing anything like this.

Anyway we all got ready here and set off at around 9.45am thinking we would get there in time to see Steve cross the finish line. There was road construction on the way there but we still thought we would make it from when Steve told us he thought he would finish. Anyway we finally got there and found a parking spot and started walking towards the finish line. At one point we thought we had heard Rod's name but it wasn't. Then we got closer and I could see someone that looked like Steve so I went towards the middle of the road and sure enough it was Steve! They called out his name and he was done!

We quickly got over there to find someone helping him over to the ambulance to sit down. I guess he almost passed out from when I saw him cross the finish line, to getting to him but I didn't see that. We were so sad we weren't right there at the finish line when he came in but we were happy that we saw him make it across. Grandma and Grandpa Pettingill were there though so that was nice.

He did FANTASTIC! His goal was to finish in 4 hours and 2o minutes but he ended up finishing in 3 hours 56 minutes, 24 minutes faster. That's why we ended up not getting there in time, he just did too well. He was pretty wrecked at the end though, I was so impressed with him. He sat there for a minute at the ambulance, the kids couldn't wait to see him, Maddie was so proud. We went and looked at the results at the end and Steve had come in 3rd in his age bracket which was the 25-29 year olds, how great is that! He came in 31st overall, he was so happy and he even got a medal, Maddie was impressed by that too.

I only got 2 pictures and then my camera died so as soon as I get copies from Steve's Mom and our friend I'll add some more pictures. Anyway I'm so proud of him. He trained so hard and did amazingly. He's pretty sore and tired now and he thinks he's going to lose a couple of toe nails but he's so glad he did it. YEAH for Steve/Daddy, you did FANTASTIC!!!

Our family garden

Today we finally were able to go over to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house to plant our family garden. The weather has been so bad it's been hard to get over there but we finally got it done today. Grandpa has been working so hard getting everything ready, he got drip hose, put down black cloth so we don't have to weed, it's GREAT!

It's a pretty huge garden but we got so much done today. The kids were in heaven being able to play outside, it was a little breezy but we didn't mind that. Some of the garden is going to be for everyone but then we all have our pieces we can plant on. Grandpa came up with this idea of how to make the holes for the corn, we couldn't believe it when we saw it. He had Keagan driving the truck while he was laying in the back with the blow torch making the holes, we thought he was nuts. Not that we didn't think it would work, we just couldn't believe he was laying in there like that. He's such an amazing man and went to so much work to get this garden ready for all of us.

I feel so blessed to have such an amazing family here. It's hard to be so far away from my family but I feel so lucky to have such an amazing family here that are so great and loving to me and my little family. I love living by them all and it's especially great in the summer when we're able to do so many things together. Thanks everyone for being so wonderful and thanks for the great day, as we said, this is something we'll always remember!

We have a wall!

Yesterday Steve's Dad came over with all the wood to frame the basement. That in itself was exciting. Last night Steve, his Dad and brother Rod all got to work on framing the basement. They got one of the walls done, they took a small one that wasn't done well down and started to get ready to put another wall up. I'm so excited, it's going to be so nice to have the bedrooms and office finished down there, I CAN'T WAIT! Thank you Brad, Steve and Rod for getting started, I'm so happy!!!

Funny Sydney

Last night Sydney woke up crying which she doesn't do very often unless she hasn't gone to the bathroom before bed. Anyway this time it was something different. We had been watching animal planet before she went to bed and it was all about crocodiles growing up and what they eat. She has crazy dreams a lot but this time she had a dream about me getting eaten by tigers so she was scared and wanted to check I was okay. I told her I was okay and that tigers can't get me because they're all locked in zoo's.

Then today we went to the doctors for my 28 week appointment and the doctor was asking the kids about what they thought the baby would be, a girl or a boy. Maddie thinks we're having a boy and Syd is quite determined we're having a girl so she was getting mad at Maddie for saying it was a boy. Then Maddie kept going on and I was trying to tell her to stop because it really does make Syd quite angry. Anyway Syd had, had enough and said, "I told you, I don't THINK it's a girl, I KNOW it's a girl".

She really is so funny, she makes me laugh all the time. She has such a unique personality which can be nuts at times but it keeps us on our toes. I guess we'll see what happens is we end up having boy, she might not be too happy!

Trying to be a big boy!

So Spencer is still learning to go potty, he does really well at church because he thinks it's fun to go out of sacrament meeting or nursery. He also loves to pee outside so he does well then too. I'm not too worried about him totally getting it straight away but this morning we had a lovely experience.

Last night Steve had told me that Spencer had peed standing up (inside the house this time). I didn't think too much of it but this morning I told him to go potty and off he went. Next thing I know he's coming back into the living room walking funny and then I see why. He had poop all over his legs so I quickly took him back to the bathroom.

He had decided to pee standing up again but at the same time decided to go poop so there was a nice pile of poop on the floor. Not the nicest thing you want to hear about but it was pretty funny. I couldn't really get mad at him because he was trying and just wanted to pee like a big boy. I just told him he had to sit on the potty when he went poop.

I guess this is just another prime example of how different boys are to girls. I would normally get a bit frustrated about finding poop on the floor but it was so funny, it's funny how your kids doing naughty things really do make you laugh. I love being a Mom, it's the BEST! I might get stressed with my kids sometimes but they always find ways of making me laugh, who ever thought poop on the floor would make you laugh though?

What is with this weather?

Okay I'm getting a bit sick of this weather now! I know Idaho is windy but it's almost the middle of June and it's still cold, mostly due to all the wind. I shouldn't really complain just because I know when it gets really hot I'll be wishing it was cooler but at least then my kids could play outside and we could do some fun activities and not be stuck inside all the time.

We've had 2 park days now and both times the wind has been crazy so there hasn't been the best turn outs. Tomorrow we're meant to have a BBQ for enrichment but I think we'll be moving that to the church. I was talking to the kids today about the wind and Maddie was asking me why Jesus was making it so windy, then Sydney said that Jesus was just blowing really hard, that's why it was so windy, it was so cute! Oh well, hopefully next week will be better and we can really start our summer holidays and activities, that would be nice!

Maddies last soccer game

Today was our last trip to the soccer field for the year. Every game we've had so far the weather has been really nice but today is was pretty cold. There is meant to be 10 kids on the team but one of the kids has never been so we've played with 9 kids all season. Today we started with only 6 kids so that was fun? They actually did really well but we were all glad when Jason showed up, he was the teams super star this season!

We ended up losing 2-1 which really wasn't bad for only having 6 players for abit and then none of the kids got to sit out so they were all pretty tired. Maddie was so good the first quarter, running around like a mad women, that wore her out pretty good.

All in all their season was really good. They lost twice, tied once and won the rest, I think that was about 5 games so that was good. Maddie did so much better this season, she really loved it and it was so nice because she had a lot of her friends on her team. We're going to pass on fall soccer this year, we liked spring way better because it was so much warmer. For now we'll focus on t-ball, then swimming and then I think we'll have a break because we'll be adding another child to the madness we already have and that will be busy enough for a while!

Free fishing day

Today was free fishing day so Steve was all excited to take the kids. I was too until I caught Maddie's flu bug and threw up last night, then I wasn't feeling too well this morning. I still got up and got ready because I knew that Steve would need help with the kids.

So we set off and got there at around 9.30am. There was already tons of people there, a lady gave Spencer a fish that they had caught because they didn't want it so he was all happy about that. There wasn't much room but Steve found a spot and was in deep concentration trying to catch a fish. The weather wasn't very nice either, this summer has been crazy so far when it comes to weather, windy and rain, not very much fun!

I was trying to keep the kids next to us, Spencer just wanted to run around so I had to keep grabbing him all the time. Steve wasn't having too much luck and the kids were getting restless but Steve finally got a bite and tried to call us over so the kids could help him real the fish in. By the time we got over there he had lost the fish so that was sad.

We stayed for a little while longer but Syd had been needing the toilet for ages and was about to pee herself so we needed to go. Spencer needed the potty too but he wasn't shy and went right there where we were, he loves going outside now!

Needless to say we didn't catch another fish but at least someone gave Spencer a fish so we took that home and gutted it, Syd and Spencer thought that was pretty cool. We would have stayed there longer but Maddie had a soccer game at 11am so we had to rush off for that. I really don't think I could be a fisher, I don't have the patience for it, maybe most of that was because I didn't just stand there and relax, I was feeling rough and trying to stop kids from falling in the water, ah who am I kidding, I still wouldn't be patient enough!