Two more birthdays

To celebrate Brian’s birthday we had a family BBQ and FHE.  For the lesson we did one that Brian did with us after he got home from his mission.  It was one of the spiritual thoughts he did with families as a missionary where he would ask the kids in a family to go find different things around the house that would represent the different parts of the armor of God.  For FHE Jessie did “loins girt about with truth.”  She made our girdle and told us about how truth protects us.  Neil brought his backpack for our Breastplate of Righteousness.  He and I had talked about what this means and he memorized “The breastplate of righteousness can save us from Satan if we are obedient and follow Heavenly Father.”  Then we had a lid Shield of Faith, a BYU Dining Service Hat for our Helmet of Salvation, and a sword of truth.

Then of course, everyone wanted a turn at being armed….

We also sang songs including Give Said the Little Stream and a song Grandpa made up when Ken and Scott were little called… “I don’t wanna go to bed.”  This lead us into an hour of telling stories about when Scott and Ken were little and all the trouble those two got into together.  It was a great family evening!

Neil loves to share his bed with Emma especially when that let's him stay up later .

We were calling everyone to come in for dinner when I spotted Isaac chillin’ in the banana chair enjoying a homemade popsicle.  So cute.  I’m pretty sure he was humming or singing to himself. Isaac turns 2.  We had everyone over for lunch- Mulligatawny Soup and crescent rolls.  I made a chocolate pear cake decorated with Cookie Monster because the “C is for Cookies” book is one of his favorite.  He even read it to Emma once.   Rachel brought these fun balloons for him. And she helped hold Neil so that Isaac could blow out his own candles. :-)! Neil helped Isaac open his cards.  I love this picture of Neil “reading” Isaacs letter from Grandpa Fry.  Then the first present he opened were some mini kitchen appliances like a toaster that has little pieces of bread to go in it, a blender that turns and some beaters.  That was really all that he needed because he was done with presents and ready to play. Neil on the other hand was dying to get on with the rest of the gifts and opened some of them for him.  It was just funny.  He also got a new Cookie Monster Pillowcase from Ken’s parents, a crab Frisbee from Heather’s family and a book “Clip Clop” from us.  We also got him a whale figure that you put on your faucet to turn it into a water fountain and that has been a lot of fun ( aka… lots of wet kids).  Don’t you love David’s face in this one? 

Jessie spotted the snake that lives in a hole under our front water spigot.  She’s named him Squirmy. I hope he’s eating the mice that keep getting into our food storage area :-(.

Wanna a little laugh.  Neil found a hat for one of Jessie’s stuffed animals and tried it on.

Neil and I were tied on the next to last yellow then I got the cookie and he got the gumdrop!!

Sweet sleeper.

Trying to motivate the kids to get their chores and homework done without Mom nagging at them I made some “afterschool organizers” and if you get everything done on them you can turn them in for prizes.  Abbie is our super diligent one and got the first prize for getting 15 done.  Dry erase crayons.  She was SO excited!

Jessie took some pictures with “side lighting” for Photography.  This is a quilled flower she made. Mark also got 15 organizers done for a Rubik’s Cube.  (Actually he only got 14 done and then it was spring break so he would have to wait a whole week to get another one done and he REALLY wanted that Rubik's Cube so he begged and pleaded and promised he’d earn his last one on the first day back at school.)