The most wonderful time of the year….

Soccer Season!!!  I love soccer games!  I love sitting on the grass and visiting with friends.  I love cheering and yelling at the games.  I love doing Kallie’s “soccer hair do”.  I love that my kids have no idea how to play the game and will actually run slow so they don’t encounter the ball.  I love chasing Andrew around the field in the middle of the game (not really…but when Chris has to do it, it’s funny).  I love riding our bikes to practice and games.  I LOVE SOCCER SEASON!!!!

Ben is #1

Look!  Look!  He is kicking the ball!!!

How he spent the rest of the game.

He loves to be the goalie.  Playing in the net is so much fun!  Oops…was I supposed to stop that ball from going in?  Oh well! 

Pictures of Kallie’s games/practice to come!

Funny Kids

Kallie has been playing a lot with "J" from down the street lately, which has been a little weird because last year she couldn't stand him. Tonight when it was time to come inside she told me, "I'm going to play with him again tomorrow, he's my best friend!" "But I thought 'G' was your best friend," I said. "He was, but 'J' rides a bike with only 2 wheels and he's younger!" The whole no-training-wheels-thing has been real milestone in Kallie's mind and she's going for the man with the skills I guess.

Tonight I was laying next to Andrew in his bed. He reached over, opened my mouth, and said, "Where'd my monster go?" I felt like humoring him so I said, "I ate him."

"Why?"

"I was hungry."

"The monster is dead?"

"Yep"

"But he was my monster."

"I'll buy you another one tomorrow."

"NO! Monster's go 'RAWR'!" (puts his hand out like a claw) "Don't buy another one OK?"

"OK"

Later on Ben started snoring and Andrew started asking about that. He did his best impression of a cartoon "snoring sound" and then to clarify that it was keeping him awake pointed to his ear and said, "I can hear it in HERE!"

I know you want to see it….

My picture with Jimmer!!!!!!  Ok Ok!  Stop twisting my arm!  Here it is :)

Had I known he was going to be there I would have worn my #32 shirt Chris bought me!  Oh well :(  The guy at the Bean Museum was so sweet he even took Jimmer off the table behind me so I could get a better picture…well pictures.  Here’s my favorite.  I even made it bigger so you can see it better :)  You’re welcome :)

Mr. Fix-it

The other day I ran down the stairs after hearing a very loud, painful sounding crash that made my stomach drop.  I knew it had to be Andrew and I was just bracing myself for what I found when I turned the corner.  I found Andrew.  At the top of the stairs looking down at his “mermaid” car …. the little ride on toy Kallie got for her first birthday….she is turning 6 this year….rode it all over the place and never once broke it.  We brought it in from the shed last week.  Now it’s broken.  Kallie made it almost 6 years without breaking this little car…Andrew?  Not even 6 days!  He has been toting this thing all over the place and wanted to bring it downstairs from the upstairs.  His solution?  Just throw it!  So it broke the steering wheel in half.  I told Andrew that he broke it.  He said , “It’s ok…I just need a screwdriver.”  In a very matter of fact way, he walked over to the kitchen drawer we keep such things in, grabbed the screwdriver and got to work.

I think it goes about here….

 

This thing keeps rolling away from me!  I can’t get the screw driver to find a screw!

I’ll sit on it and try again….

It’s not working.  That’s ok….Dad will fix it!

It was so cute to see the little wheels in his brain working.  Chris was really proud.  Not that he had broken this little car (which really is still drivable…it just looks like a beat up toy now…so it fits right in with all our other toys!) but that he thought about a solution and set out to fix it.  It’s kind of like when he took our $50.00 ear thermometer and dunked it into milk to find out the temperature of the milk.  He got all the inside components wet and ruined our thermometer that we have had for 6 years and 2 other kids.  His solution?  He took off the back and took out the battery and said “Dad will fix it!” then “it just needs new batteries”.  I’m hiding all the power drills…..

Chats with Children 6

BEN

Ben has gotten to the age where, while he might not realize exactly how smart he is, he immediately notices and is really bothered when other kids his age are not as intelligent. Unfortunately, there are times when he is not as intelligent as he thinks he is and he's too stubborn to consider that thought. This is the source of most standoffs between us and him. Getting him to start thinking about how he "knows" certain things is quite an exercise. His favorite argument lately is that he should get the "privileges" his 3 year old brother has because we "didn't do that for him when he was that age". Yeah, right. In reality, we provide less for Andrew in some senses than we did for him since he was the first. I'm sure this is not our first encounter with selective memory. He is really excited to start Spring sports and is always playing basketball, soccer, or baseball on the front lawn. Tonight Uncle Dan taught him a new game on the basketball court that he just loved and according to him, he won. Who knows, maybe the next Jimmer?

KALLIE

Kallie knows that it is important to look your best and it creates dilemmas for her sometimes. This morning we were going to deliver some food to a lady in our ward who was sick today, but our home teaching appointment was first. Our discussion went a little overtime and we were crunched to deliver the food and get ready for church. Kallie REALLY wanted to go, but her hair wasn't done yet. The anguish on her face was palpable. On one hand she could help perform a service, but it meant going to church with "bedhead". Reluctantly, she followed our instruction to stay and get ready for church. Yesterday, we told the kids if they got their chores done we had a surprise for them. The surprise was a trip to the Bean Life Science Museum on campus. This was not a treat for Kallie: "But it's full of DEAD ANIMALS!!" was her response. Later on the phone she was telling grandma how we took her to see a bunch of dead animals. Great. Next time we'll go to the zoo I guess. Then we can listen to her mom say, "But the poor live animals..." Man, the animals just can't catch a break I guess. It's okay, I won't stop eating them.

ANDREW

This kid's destructive energy seems to be growing each day. He calmed down for a minute this morning while I was dressing him for church. I was buttoning his shirt and he looked at me and said, "I'm not a stinker anymore, Dad." "You're not?!" "Nope, not anymore." "Why?" "I don't know." Then he thought for a minute and said, "Everett's still a stinker!" He's a crazy kid. He also performed his first real dump in a real toilet this week. I was just please it made it into the potty and not anywhere else on the way there given that he was naked and suddenly yelled, "I POOP!" This was followed by him immediately reaching back to verify things with his hand... Nothing like a double check.

  KATIE

Katie met her favorite celebrity this week. Of all places the Bean Life Science Museum had a life size cutout of Jimmer Fredette. Katie literally squealed when she got to take a picture with it.

 CHRIS

Walking back from choir this morning I found a dead baby bird on the walk behind the house. Some birds have built nests up under an eave and this little one had rolled out. It happened while I was in choir I think, since I noticed it on my way back. For some reason I have always been affected by little baby birds. When I was a kid in Arizona, birds would build nests in the curves of the terra cota roof tiles and babies would fall out onto the lawn all the time. We had a power mower built in the old rotating cylinder style where you could see the blades pick up the grass like a water wheel. This also meant you could watch the blades chop up everything including dead baby birds and deposit the pieces in the bin. When I was growing up in Connecticut I would constantly terrorize the Canadian geese with my BB gun. This led me to think I didn't have a very powerful gun until I shot a baby songbird with it one day. It was such a traumatic experience that I have never been able to talk about it descriptively either in writing or speech. For some reason these experiences have caused baby birds to embody the fragility of life and symbolize God's love and mercy to me. Finding a baby bird on the sidewalk is an annual Spring occurrence that is never just a passing experience.

Kallie the Peacemaker

Andrew only watches one movie lately: Marmaduke. I have to believe that Andrew would have loved Apollo if we had been able to keep him. This, however, creates a problem when the other two want to watch a different movie. The other night Ben and Kallie decided to watch "Diary of a Wimpy Kid". Andrew wandered up while it was starting. "Marmaduke?" he asked. "Yes," said Kallie, "But it's a different kind. It's called 'Diary of a Marmaduke'." Andrew sat right down.