Coming up with names for posts is sometimes difficult and this one is pretty boring.
The strawberries have started ripening. YEAH! It’s always a treat to see a bright red berry peeking out at you. The kids are always so good to share and make sure everyone gets a taste. Neil thinks we shouldn’t waste time taking a picture….we should just eat.
Here’s another “cute” sad face. Neil is learning how to voice his opinion -- which is usually a loud scream, then when everyone notices he adds a few more for good measure. He is a pretty happy guy unless you need to take something from him that he shouldn’t have or it’s time for sleeping. Every day seems to be a different sleeping adventure …some a piece of cake and some drag out for hours is seems. Although I have noticed that if we can get him to sleep earlier rather than later he tends to sleep in longer in the morning. Weird huh.
The last few days Rachel and the kids have been on a Carcassonne kick. Mark is way more into the strategy of this game and it drives Rachel and Jessie CRAZY when he’s creative enough with his pieces to join up roads and cities with them.
The boys have gone to two Fathers and Sons outings. One with our ward and one with Ken’s dad’s ward. They were both good experiences with lots of stinky clothes to wash when they’ve returned :-). During our ward’s the girls and I went to a friend’s house and ate brownies and talked while the girls made clay beads. And this last time we joined Ramona at the Café Rio that just opened up down town. The tables and chairs at the restaurant have colorful paint splatters all over them and while we were eating a happy older lady and her husband came to sit at a table close to ours and turned and asked my girls if they had helped paint the tables. My girls were quite surprised at the question and Jessie finally answered, “I wish.” “Well you did a fabulous job,” was the happy reply. They both smiled and started giggling.
We came back and played A to Z. Abbie and Grandma won.
Then we played Monopoly Deal. I think Rachel won. But playing with the cards afterwards ended up being more entertaining than the game. Rachel also made us her secret recipe lemonade and it was a fabulous treat.
Neil’s hair was starting to remind me of one of the Three Stooges all long and in his face and I have bad school memories of having to watch those pathetic movies so I’ve been eagerly looking for a chance to trim it. He’s all ready.… 
Ken held his hands while he whimpered and whined. He was fine while I was combing, it was just when I held the hair out to cut that he wiggled it out of my hands.
Then we got smart….he got to hold the phone (which rarely happens) while he sat on dad’s lap…and Rachel combed his hair on one side of his head continuously while I combed and cut the other side.
On Sunday we had the bishop and his wife over for dinner and she brought me this beautiful table runner she had made. It was so sweet and she is so talented! Dinner was tasty and we had a great time telling and listening to stories.
Jessie started nibbling her sandwich before we had said the prayer for lunch. When someone reminded her we hadn’t prayed yet found other ways to busy herself while we finished getting lunch on the table for the rest of us.
Our snapdragons and zinnias have started blooming….YEAH!!! I love pretty flowers. Although our bleeding hearts are about done for the season and I’m not sure what to put in their place yet.
This summer I was trying to think of what fun thing to do with the kids… in years past we’ve decorated mail boxes to write notes to each other and last year I made each of them a summer book for everyone to write in. Well this year Ken came up with our idea to make poster for each person and hang them up so we can “write on each other’s wall.” Short of it taking almost the first month of summer just to get the butcher paper, it has been fun. I can’t wait until the end of the summer. I just hope they are crammed full of little notes and signatures. So if you stop by don’t forget to sign our walls. The markers are on the piano.
A few more face paintings. Jessie wanted to try some full face masks. Here’s our cheetah and tiger.
And Spencer wore his mask down to Neil’s 1 year check up and all the nurses and doctors loved it. I was glad it made so many people happy. I was really thinking Neil had grown a lot but at least he’s up from the 3rd percentile to the 10th percentile in his height and weight at 28.5 inches long and 20 pounds. Although his head is up at the 50th percentile….I wonder where he got that from! (I’ll give you a hint… it’s not me because Abbie and I have the same size of head :-).)
While we were outside the sprinklers in the flower beds turned on and Neil discovered them. Can you say happy! He was drenched.
For pack night we had a Cub-opolis. Mark had procrastinated his car decorating despite numerous reminders from his mother….until about 1 1/2 hours before the race. Oops! But we worked together and came up with something and Abbie helped him glue on the numbers and decorations.
Ready to race. We usually have a great turn out for pack meeting, but this time there were only four boys there! Despite the lack of participants everyone had a blast.
The first pit stop was a windshield wash. Jessie was especially excited to spray Mark in the face. They are on the far left in this picture.
The second stop was to change a tire….removing both shoes, turning your socks inside out and putting socks and shoes back on. Right before we left home I had Mark change into clean socks, but it was still a job to get that all done. And it didn’t really help that Jessie was still enjoying the squirt bottle from the first pit stop. But I’m not sure Mark even noticed her he was trying to be so fast.
The final stop was a gas up…drinking a 7 oz. cup of water. After the boys raced siblings joined in the fun. Abbie’s here in the top picture and Spencer is in the yellow shirt in the bottom pictures.
Mark and Jessie ended up having their own water fight and we finished off the night with popsicles. But with only a few families there everyone got about three popsicles a piece…none of the kids complained about that!
The last of the news until I download more pictures from the camera is our new baby chicks. Our Barred Rock chicken has been broody for over a month…that means no eggs from her and the other chickens have a hard time laying in the nesting box because she’s sitting in it which means we end up with eggs in the hardest to reach corners of the coop on the ground:-(. Anywho, one of our neighbors was incubating a clutch of eggs and when she heard we had a broody hen she brought us some eggs over for the chicken to sit on. It was kind of exciting…5 days later they hatched…all three of them! Having only gotten baby chicks from the store and caring for them in our kitchen it is so weird to watch the babies out there with a mom. But boy is she protective. You’d probably be surprised at how big she can puff up her feathers up and chickens are already good at scowling. This is a friend’s little boy petting one with Neil’s hand reaching out to pet it too.
It was kind of silly the night before they hatched I had the weirdest dream that there were six eggs and the chicken hatched out 2 baby chicks, a pelican, a duck and a Tasmanian devil. The little taz was pretty cute and cuddly in my dream, but I was SO VERY confused. So when I got out of bed checking on the chicks was my first priority. Two of the eggs had hatched that night and the last one had a piece chipped out of it. When we got back from the morning walk and last baby had hatched. It was a fun day.
