2010 Week #20: Tea Time & a Dragons Game

The truth is that I never know what I come home to when Travis is in charge. Just for the record, it is always creative and fun...and something I never have the energy to do!
I took Trouble to the dentist for his regular 6 month cleaning. He did an excellect job! The hygenist did a 180 degree x-ray of his mouth. We could see the majority of his adult teeth waiting to come in.
We come home to this: A TEA PARTY!! Travis even taught them to drink with their pinkies up :-) The tea party consisted of Kraft Handi snacks, crackers, chopped canned peaches and juice. Totally adroable!!It was a farily busy week. I had a teeth cleaning on Wednesday, too. But I also needed some filling redone so Thrusday I went first thing to have that done, then that night we fed a family that was moving soon. They have 9 kids, so it was quite the crowd at our house that night. Then after they left I hosted book club. We have a chocolate fountain, it was a hit!

On Friday, Trouble graduated from pre-school! (seperate post)

On Saturday we were invited to a Star Wars Birthday for the Stahl's oldest son. Dynomite showed up with Princess Leia hair:

We were there from 10am to almost 1pm. The kids had so much fun wiping out Darth Vader with silly string, combating bubbles with foam light sabers, and destroying the Death Star with a bat. Plus lots of food and cupcakes.

Travis was off cleaning the church. When he came home we went to a Dayton Dragons game. Dr. Cobb, one the guys Travis works with, has season passes to the Dragons games. One of the games was rained out and scheduled for May 22nd, a day he couldn't go. He gave Travis the tickets along with a VIP parking pass. We sat in section 113, row 5, seat 20, just to the left of the Dragon's dugout. In other words, they were awesome seats! We only had two tickets, so we had to buy them a child tickets to get in and sit on the grass. However, no one was sitting next to us so the kids had their own seats anyway by us.

We arrived right at the end of the 5th inning. If you know baseball and the attention span of little kids, then you know that that was perfect timing!

We're watching the pitcher, the pitcher is watching the Bowling Green Hot Rods runner:

We've always been impressed with way a pitcher throws:

Trouble was excited to there. The kids' first baseball game.

Dynomite was busy looking cute for all the people sitting around us paying attention to her.

And you can never have too many pictures of this cute face...

The Dragon mascots did a little dance.

A strike against the Dragons.

Showing the scoreboard:

Nope, they didn't win. We were there just to enjoy, which we did. So all was not lost.

The kids were fascinated with the giant baseballs and bats. They climbed on top and Travis snapped a million pictures!

When we got home I had a package waiting for me. There is something called Macaroni Kid. On this blog a lady list lists the kids friendly community events around town. There is a national blog, plus a local blog for different places. She posts alot of great information. She ran a contest for people to find 5 subscribers. I found 5 for her and she sent me a basket with summer supplies!

This night we were suppose to go to the Ward Talent show, but were all very exhausted and Travis sent me to my room :-) Instead, for sanity's sake, we all went to bed early!

2010 Week #19: Rockets!

Travis found a rocket kit at a thrift store. So for FHE the kids built rockets and launched them. Dynomite with her rocket: Trouble with his:

Travis helping Trouble to prepare it for take off:

Trouble about to push the button:

Show Time:

Trouble's got caught in the wind, so it didn't travel too high. The Stahls joined us to watch the launching. They thought it was great!

Dynomite is excited to watch hers launch.

Helping Daddy:

Ready for take off!

Dynomite's launch! Hers went pretty far!!

At the end Bro. Stahl said, "You guys have cool FHE. All we did was talk about manners!" We thought that was funny!

It was a fairly busy week. We had MOPS on Tuesday. Trouble had to bring a sack lunch for school to picnic at the park. It rained all day, but he enjoyed eating inside at school. Thursday night I went to a food storage meeting. We learned to can chicken. It was impressive and something I'd like to do one of these days. The more I learn about food storage, the less scary and overwhelming it is.

On Friday, Travis took Trouble and the Stahl's son on the ward's Father-Son camping trip. I packed all morning for them and they left shortly before dinnertime. When they first left Backpack cried and Dynomite was sad that she didn't get to go. Finally I got them settled down and Travis called to tell me he needed to come home for something. NO WAY, I didn't want to deal with the crying and whining all over again. So he went to Wal-mart.

They had an awesome time! The boys got to play together and the men had some social time together. Travis was proud of his campfire (that he had to talk the other guys into having). Plus Trouble got some good one-on-one time with Dad.

I took the kiddos to Chick-fil-a and let them play. We came home and watched a movie. Then I settled in for a long night of Facebook...I mean...doing meaningful work :-)

Dynomite is still waiting for her girl camp trip.

Saturday we hung out at home. Later that night was our date night swap. Travis and I went to Dayton's 37th Annual A World A'Fair Festival. The theme for this year was a Musical Journey Around the World. It is a place to learn and experience many diverse cultures, many of which are found in and around Dayton. There were 27 countries represented. Each country had a booth with information and native food. We were most impressed with the entertainment.

We watched performances from Ireland (dancers), Egypt (belly dances), Kenya (acrobats), Zivio, Lithuania, and Turkey. Travis liked the belly dancers :-) The Kenyan acrobats were amazing. Unfortunately, I only had my little point and shoot camera, so the long distance shots weren't that great.

Afterwards we walked around and had apple strudel. It was all very impressive!!

Mother's Day

It was a good Mother's Day. We went to church as usual. The ward gave out carnations. Backpack came home with his hand print and another carnation from nursery. Trouble had a card from Pre-school that he finger painted. Inside he printed his name.

Also at pre-school they had the kids answer questions about their Mom and draw a picture. The teachers then posted the answers covered up. Every few days they revealed another clue. We had to guess what picture and mystery clues when with each Mom.

Here are the questions and answers:

Q: What does mommy like to watch?

A: She watches Mommy and Daddy movies.

Q: What does she like to eat?

A: She likes chicken pot pie.

Q:What does she do for work?

A: She works on the computer a lot.

Q: What does she do for fun?

A: For fun she stays up late with Daddy.

Q: What does she drive?

A: She drives a van she likes.

Travis did some Home Teaching that night and I got to talk with my family. My big gift was the chair, but Travis did buy me the Uglies book series and some chocolate. Perfect relaxing material :-)

All in all, a great Mother's Day.

2010 Week #18: Its Finally May!

Of course Sunday was a completely insane day. It was the first time I taught in YW and there just seemed to be so much going on. I also had to go to Ward council before church and have a meeting with the Laurels after church. There is always the craziness with getting ready for camp. Luckily the Ward Camp Director and her assistant have done ALL the work, so I just have to make sure everyone goes to her for information and not me :-) In this calling I feel like for every step I take forward, I'm taking two steps back. I can't go 10 feet in church without being stopped by someone. I can't complain too much because there are other callings much, much more demanding than mine. I'm also lucky to have some great counselors and a secretary to depend on. I do enjoy being the president. The girls are simply amazing!

Anyway, Monday we went to dance as usual with Cynthia and her little lady. That night was their official dance recital. A post about that will come later.

Tuesday I had a MOPS steering team meeting. This is another group of ladies that I feel blessed to work with. I'm the hospitality leader. I'm in charge of the decorations, set-up, clean-up, games, birthdays and making sure people feel welcomed. Its an easy job! Its nice that everyone does their part so we're not all stressed.

On Wednesday Cynthia had the kiddos so I could attend Trouble's "Snack with Mom" for an early Mother's Day celebration. The kids made butterflies with their foot prints with a poem:

A Butterfly in the Wind

A Child is a butterfly in the wind:

some fly higher than others:

But each one flies the best that it can.

Why compare one against the other?

Each on is different.

Each one is special.

Each one is beautiful.

They also potted some plants. While we ate snack one of the other student's Dad came and sang us a song called, "That's my Mom". Dale Oakley is a country singer that actually has a few songs on the radio.

Dale Oakley:

We had a good time. Its always nice to have a little one-on-one with my guy :-)

This picture was after Dynomite's dance recital. (out of order!) We stopped by K-mart to pick up a new gliding rocking chair for me for Mother's day. This one is (fake) leather that glides and reclines. It also sits up higher than the previous one (easier to get out of). Speaking of the previous one.... Travis and I were conversing about getting a new glider because the old one was missing some pieces and had been used with all three kiddos so it was getting beat up. But we're cheap people, so weren't REALLY going to replace it. One night as Travis was rocking the boys, the chair simple fell apart. The next day was a K-mart ad for a glider that was just like what I wanted. Go figure!

Um, the noses will be explained later. But I just wanted to post a picture with Travis wearing a clown nose :-) He's still cute...

That night was a wicked storm. Travis couldn't resist taking pictures of the sky.

This week I hit 5 months pregnant. I'm just getting bigger, but no uncomfortable.

On Friday I got to volunteer in Trouble's class again. Travis called me because he couldn't find his keys. After I lectured him on if-you'd-keep-better-track-of-your-stuff I looked in my purse and found them. I sped home to deliver the wayward keys all the while thinking of how this could possibly be his fault. It worked out great because I had forgot it was show and tell at school, so I was able to grab something for Trouble to share. He shared his red brick from Nauvoo. He also shared the ultra sound pictures.

On Saturday the kids sang at a retirement home for a primary activity. Travis was going run an errand while I took the kids then meet up with us to go to a book swap. However, when I pulled up to the retirement home I get a phone call, "Do you have my keys?". Yes, yes I do...sigh. So I dropped the kids off, rushed home, told Travis to get into the van and drove back just in time for the primary to finish. We then drove out to Kettering for a book swap. Earlier in the week I dropped of 92 books. Theses were books we didn't want from our purging a few weeks ago. You're allowed to leave with as many books as you dropped off. We left with 57. We thought that was pretty good, considering that we're trying to downsize!

Later that night we chaperoned at a bi-ward dance for the youth. It was a lot fun! As we watched we were grateful that we were safely out of that period of our lives. We picked out who we would've been. Travis found a frizzy haired, glasses wearing, bushy eye browed, out of style, dorky girl that would've been me. I found him an acne ridden, blond, lanky, akward, out of style guy that would've been him. We're so nice to each other! We laughed secretly knowing we weren't too far from the truth :-) (and no, they weren't kids from our ward!)

To end the week are some picture of Dynomite yet again in the bathroom. This time playing with bubble. I'm starting to notice a trend with her...are you?

Love the face, Trouble!!