Caleb "Painting" and my run in with the BBQ grill on a stormy night

Caleb with his new "pablo" 

Samuel covered his face in sunscreen at the zoo

Malachi's first time at the zoo

I got bored while giving the baby a bath, and wrote his name on his back with the bath toys,
while he was playing in the bath

Joseph eating a hot dog, in between two graham crackers, during our campfire cookout in the backyard

Samuel riding a Llama

It has been a crazy week, Travis' Dad, his wife, and their traveling companion, John, arrived at 5am last Sunday morning.  I think between the three of them, they eat more than my family combined.  I have had to go to the store every couple of days (with all children) to buy more groceries.  They usually sleep until noon or 1pm, and their friend who is traveling with them, is handy, and has completed a few repairs around the house for me.  On Monday they were able to paint the stairs and hallway, but unfortunately the paint was left out, and Caleb went upstairs and decided that the doors needed painted too, so when I came upstairs a few minutes later, he had painted all the door in the upstairs white.  Most of the paint came off, and the doors weren't that pretty to begin with, so it all turned out all right.  We also went to the zoo on Monday and had a great time, looking at the animals.  Samuel was pretty funny putting on his sunscreen, I put sunscreen in his hand, and told him to put it on, and he just shut his eyes, and rubbed his hands quickly all over his face, leaving his face completely white, I have a picture above of him a few minutes later, with still white on his face.  Austin has been staying in Caleb's room with him, and had brought all her stuff in there, and Caleb found her tube of toothpaste, and "painted" all over the room with it, Austin was sweet and helped clean up the mess.  The next morning I made peanut butter cake for breakfast and left it on the table, for our house-guests after the kids and I had eaten it, and I went upstairs to shower.  Caleb used the butter as paint, and painted the floor and chairs with it, then threw the remaining peanut butter cake all over it.  While cleaning that mess up, poor little Malachi kept slipping all over the buttery floor, he could not figure out how to stay up, poor little guy.  I decided that every morning we needed to start with exercise, every day we have been going on a 2 mile run dropping Joseph off at school.  I run, with Malachi in the jogger stroller, and the rest of the kids ride their scooters.  A couple of days we have also gone to Lowes, since it is across the street from the middle school, and just put the scooters in the shopping cart, buy our stuff, and then ride/jog home.  Caleb is awesome, he can go the whole two miles, and keep up and even be faster then some of the kids, on his little scooter.  One morning, when we were almost home, Betsy fell down the final hill to go home, and scraped up her arms, and knees, and hurt her wrist a little bit.  We put ice on it, and cleaned her up, and her wrist hurt her for a while, but by the end of the day, she was feeling much better.  Samuel loves these morning runs, so when friday morning I woke up and said I was too sore to go, Samuel insisted we had to go, and finally said we could ride bikes instead, so I got all the bikes out, and tires pumped, and the trailer hooked onto my bike, and we went on our first family bike ride of the summer.  Travis was off work, so I had him ride my bike, with both Malachi and Caleb in it, and the other kids all rode behind him, and I brought up the rear, so no one would get left behind.  I'm sure we were quite the sight riding down the road, but we sure had fun.    The week before we had gone to IT'Z and Caleb had brought along his "pablo" stuffed animal that Grandma gave him for his 2nd birthday.  He loves that stuffed animal, but in the excitement of IT'Z left it behind.  He realized after we had gotten home, that he left Pablo at IT'Z, so I called them, and they had found him, and said they would put a note on him, and put him in the office, for us to come and get.  I wasn't able to get back to IT'Z until this Saturday, so we stopped by, and discovered that the manager had cleaned out the office, and didn't see a note, and threw Pablo away.  Poor Caleb was so sad, he started crying, and telling the manager how his Grandma gave him that pablo, and he loved it, and so on.  The poor manager felt so bad, she told Caleb she would take him to the prize room, and he could pick out whatever stuffed animal he wanted.  So we took him in there, and at first he wanted a little car and skateboard, but when the manager asked him if he wanted a new stuffed animal, he started getting upset again about Pablo, but then he picked out a big blue dinosaur, and asked me if he could name it "pablo", and was happy (the manager also gave him the toy car and skateboard, and 4 free passes to come to IT'Z again).  Caleb is still a little sad that he lost his old "pablo", but likes his new one.  That little boy sure knows how to pull at your heartstrings.  I was about ready to use my phone, and go onto amazon and buy him a new pablo stuffed animal.  Thankfully he was satisfied with the new toys.  Friday we went and picked up our 2 new egg laying hens from our friend's farm, and the kids had fun playing with their friends, the chickens, and Samuel got to ride a Llama.  Caleb ended our visit early, when he stepped into a bucket of motor oil, and fell.  I stripped him naked, and threw his clothes and shoes in the garbage, and put him in the car, and got everyone else, and we went home, and put Caleb in the bath.  That little boy sure knows how to make a mess.  We let all our chickens play in the backyard for a while, and discovered that the adult chickens are much harder to catch then our little ones.  It took us about a half an hour to catch them, with all of us working together.  I am ready for our house-guests to leave.  I am tired of smelling smoke in the house, they do go outside to smoke, but it still brings the smell into the house.  They don't hold the baby much, but when they do, I have to go bathe and change him, because he smells like smoke, and babies should definitely not smell like smoke.  They also spilled coffee all over my bottom stair, and left it there, so scrubbed that for a while, but I need to work on it again, because I can still see the stain.  Travis has enjoyed having them hear though, and the kids enjoy the stories he tells.  They are supposed to be leaving this friday, and I will enjoy having the house to ourselves again.  Saturday night a learned a new lesson about storms and gas grills.  Apparently when there is thunder and lightening you shouldn't be lighting a gas grill.  I was trying to hurry and get the grill going before the rain hit, and did it the same way I've done many times before, and lit a match to light the grill.  As soon as my match got close, the whole thing blew up in my face.  I jumped back as quickly as I could, but it still burnt the front part of my hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows, and burnt my right hand.  I pulled out clumps of hair, and then ran to put my hand in cold water, when I realized it had been burned.  Thankfully between doterra oils and cold water, my hand was feeling a little better by bedtime, and I could sleep.  Today, it only hurts if it touches hot water.  My hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes aren't too bad, you probably wouldn't notice unless you looked at me closely.  I think I am going to invest in some really long matches for the next time I use the grill.  I dropped off Joseph this morning for a 3 day long backpacking trip with the scouts, I hope he has a good time.

The Kirkman Sacrament Meeting (I forgot to hit the publish button, I wrote this on Sunday the 18th)

When the 1st counselor asked our whole family to give talks in sacrament meeting about the temple, and to have our family sing "I love to see the temple"  I thought it would be great.  Our children would be perfectly well behaved, give great testimonies and talks, the singing would be wonderful, and Travis and I would give inspirational messages that would leave the congregation with the desire to do better, and maybe even cry a little.  Well, let's just say, today did not go the way I thought it would.  I'm still not sure what I needed to learn from our experience today, or maybe I just needed to be humbled a little.  So our little adventure started before church at choir practice.  We meet in the chapel before our ward starts, and I play the piano for choir and Travis sings in it, so our older children hang out in a classroom while the younger two stay with us during the practice.  For me this meant, opening snacks for Caleb while still playing the piano, and trying to keep him from playing too many of the keys on the piano.  About half way through choir practice Samuel came into the chapel screaming his head off, and wailing like he was dying.  He ran over to me at the piano, and threw himself into me (practically knocking me off the bench) and continued wailing for several more minutes before I could finally calm him down (obviously I had to stop playing the piano for this one, so the choir had to wait for me to calm Samuel down)  I guess his siblings were being mean to him.  So I told Samuel to stay with me, and started playing for the choir again, while singing the next song, Samuel and Caleb started fighting over getting closest to me, and even started trying to push and hit each other to get the other one out of the way.  All the while I'm trying my best to keep at least one hand playing some part of the song for the choir, having to leave huge sections to accapella while  trying to deal with my rascals.  Choir practice finally ended, and I set all our stuff on the back bench of the stand, since our whole family was doing the sacrament meeting, we were all going to be where everyone could see us, the whole time.  Then I quickly went over to the organ and started playing prelude, where of course Caleb followed me and sat in his little spot right next to the buttons and stops of the organ, and proceeded to push buttons and flip stops. (this is what he does every sunday while I'm playing the organ, at least I keep him away from the actual keys for the most part).  I've noticed that on the sunday's I play the organ more people tend to sit on the side of the chapel where they can see me (Caleb and I are very entertaining).  After the opening song, the counselor called up a seminary graduate, and right after he commented on how she woke up at 5:30 every morning,Caleb jumped or slipped, not sure which, onto the lower pedals, which created a really loud, low chorus of notes, to which every one started laughing.  We made it to the sacrament song, where Caleb climbed onto my lap while I was playing, and started pushing and laying on my arms and hands, making it extremely difficult to play, and somehow my efforts to keep my hands and arms in the right position made us slide off the bench, so every few measures I had to push us back onto the bench, because we would slide off.  I just prayed the whole time I was playing that everyone in the congregation would be looking at their hymn books and not up at the stand or towards me, because I'm sure we looked quite ridiculous.    I barely made it through the hymn and quickly slid off the Organ  bench with Caleb and over to the bench for the rest of the sacrament. After the sacrament the counselor announced our family as the program for the day, except the choir singing during mine and Travis' talks.  Samuel got up and went to bear his testimony and after speaking too loud at first, managed to start again and gave a nice testimony of the temple, and so did Betsy and Austin.  Joseph gave a great five minute talk about some spiritual experiences he has had doing baptisms for the dead.  Then it was my turn.  I had been holding Malachi who was not happy, he really wanted to be breastfed, but I hadn't had any time to feed him at all since the morning, so as soon as I handed him back to Travis he just started crying like crazy.  I started my talk, and Travis finally had to take the baby out, since he wouldn't stop crying.  As I'm talking I realized that Caleb had followed me up to the podium and was standing next the podium on a little step stool, and facing the audience and pretending to give a talk too, just like me.  (he is even copying my hand gestures).  I couldn't believe it, the 1st counselor took away the stool that Caleb was standing on, so he got upset and wanted me to pick him up.  I picked him up, and of course he grabbed the microphone, and started making noises in it, so I put him down.  He didn't like that so he climbed up the podium to the little spot on the side, and sat on it, once again facing the congregation, and started giving a talk, just like me again.  I get him down, and he starts crying and wants me to pick him up again, I try to keep him away from the microphone, but he managed to get it again and talk into it.  Anyway it went on for a few minutes like this, until finally the bishop's wife (also Caleb's nursery teacher) came up and managed to get Caleb away from me, and took him out for the rest of my talk.  Meanwhile my children are sitting on the pew up on the stand, and not being very reverant, so needless to say I had no idea what I said in my talk, I was so distracted by my children.  I finished my talk and then played the piano for the choir performance, which Travis was singing in, and then Travis gave his talk, and at the end of it, he called everyone up, and they sang while I played "I love to see the Temple".  Then I walked over to the Organ, Caleb followed me, and played the closing song, and postlude.  I finally got to feed my starving baby, and relax for a moment, then Travis taught Sunday School, and then I played the piano for primary.  Very busy, crazy, entertaining Sunday, I don't think we will be asked to talk again anytime soon.  : ).

Austin hiding from Caleb during hide n go seek

Caleb chasing a ping pong ball around the kitchen for about an hour

Caleb and Malachi playing in a big box

Caleb wanted to bury the ping pong paddles, so he used the oats to bury them

My kitchen is finished!!!!

Travis installed the backsplash tile

Austin Graduated from 5th grade

Samuel's artwork of a Leprechaun was selected to be in the district wide art show

Samuel got a motorcycle balloon hat at Huhot (Mongolian grill) kid's night

Caleb got a red motorcycle balloon

Betsy got a golden pavilion with a ghost in it (the balloon man, said that was the first time he had heard that request before)

Austin got an octopus

Joseph got a shotgun

Malachi laughing at Samuel jumping on his pogo stick

Caleb hid in my shower to eat Graham Crackers

Caleb wanted to bake, so he got out a bunch of ingredients and poured them on the floor and started mixing them up.  Unfortunately one of the ingredients was my gluten free flour, and he dumped it all out on the floor.   

Samuel made a bucket list for the summer

Chickens enjoying being outside

Here is the chicken coop we made for the chickens in the shed

Malachi loves his swings

Samuel was helping me make dinner, and thought he was getting flour out, but it was powdered sugar.  He spilled it all over the floor

The kitchen is finished!  

Malachi playing under the air hockey table

The best present ever, is having my kitchen finished in time for Mother's Day.  Travis finished the backsplash tile, and painting this week, and the electrical and appliances were installed, and a lady came and cleaned everything when they were finished too.  The contractor even bought our family dinner at IT'Z saturday night, for the kids being good during the construction process.  Now we need to bring everything upstairs to the new kitchen and get it all set up.  It was a busy week this week.  The kids had lots of activities at school this week since it was their last week of school.  Austin had 5th grade graduation, and all the kids had plays, parties, and track and field day.  We also are getting 5 adults chickens from some friends who are moving on post and needed to get rid of their chickens, so we needed to build our chicken run.  We also needed to get our garden planted, so the kids and I have been working on that, while Travis has painted.  I was also stressing about Travis' Dad and his wife coming to visit, they were supposed to get here Sunday or Monday this last week.  But, their car broke down and they got stuck, so they haven't arrived yet.  But now that the kids are out of school, the kitchen is done, and some other projects are completed, I feel much better about having company.  Caleb has started spitting at people this week, and throwing more tantrums, so lots to work on with him.  Samuel told me on Saturday that he wanted to go to school, and that he misses his teacher.  I told Samuel that he just barely had his last day of school, and he already wants to go back?  He said "yes".  This is going to be a long summer.  Of course just a few days ago we had 80 degree weather, and today we are having a snowstorm, so it doesn't feel like summer right now.  For mother's day the kids said they would make me breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Samuel and Betsy were in charge of breakfast, and they brought me cold fish sticks, and cold toast for breakfast on a tray.  I asked why it was cold, and they said they had gotten up at 4am and made it for me, but were waiting for me to wake up before giving it to me.  I told Samuel I liked breakfast foods for breakfast, and to save the fish sticks for later, and to please cut up an apple for me.  Then for lunch, Joseph started making muffins for me at 2pm when we got home, but didn't finish making them until 5pm, and only because I finally came and helped him.  Travis had pity on me, and made me a salad at 4pm, so I didn't starve.  Austin made me peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses on them for dinner, and they were yummy, but I asked her to make me something healthy too, and she cooked me a salmon patty, and I cooked some corn to go with it.  The kids all gave me things they had made, and tried to make it a nice day for me.