Sickness, Geocaching, Bike Riding, Personal Cheerleader, The Goon, Rocket Launch

 Noah really loves my camera and plays with it whenever he gets a hold of my phone.  The other day he was sitting next to me when he decided we needed to do some silly selfies.  Not my finest picture, but Noah thought it was pretty funny so that's all that matters, right?! 

A funny thing that happened this week.  Sarah was looking for me so she opened up my bedroom door and heard the shower running.  Since she heard the shower running she assumed I was in the shower even though the door was closed.  She then opened the bathroom door and walked right in expecting to see me in the shower.  However, it was Aaron in the shower.  She immediately walked out of our bedroom and said quite dramatically, "Wow, I did not need to see that."  It was pretty funny although Aaron didn't think it was quite as funny. It still makes me chuckle.

Noah has been doing an online preschool in addition to his regular two day a week preschool.  The online preschool was something I signed up for and was able to get in to for free.  I was in the right place at the right time--wahoo!  He actually has learned quite a bit from it which was a pleasant surprise!  Here's what he was reading today by himself:

 Hopefully he will still be able to be on this level when summer is over...

Speaking of preschool Noah got his preschool pictures back this week.  They turned out pretty cute--but I may be a bit biased ;)--

 Here's his class photo:

Grandma T has been sick and missed her reading day with Sarah's class.  When Sarah's teacher found out she had been sick, she had the class all make her some really sweet get well cards.  Sarah and I were able to drop them off to her last week.  Good thing she passed her kidney stones and is feeling a lot better now. 

 Sarah and Noah used to go to bed so well.  I don't know what has changed, but now when we put them to bed they sneak out of their rooms and play with each other until it gets late.  Then they end up crawling in the same bed and falling asleep which means neither one of them sleep very well during the night and wake each other up really early the next morning.  This is all fun and games until the next day when both of them are 'Chuckles'.  Wow, they are ornery.  However, it is sweet to see them being such good friends even if the rest of us have to pay the price the next day with their crustiness.  We try to get them to stop, but their bedrooms are right next to each other.  Oh well, what can you do?  They look so sweet when they are asleep that I don't have to heart to move one of them to the other bed--the stinkers!

Holy cow Josh got these balloons for his birthday 2 1/2 weeks ago and they are still afloat. 

That is crazy.  There is also another one that has lost it's string that is just floating along the ceiling.

We are taking bets on when it will fall to the ground.  Who knows?!

The STEM program had their rocket launch Tuesday afternoon.  Josh has been working on his rocket for the past month to get it ready for the launch.  Here he is waiting for his turn to launch his rocket:

Unfortunately, Josh's rocket had some technical difficulties.  He tried three different times to repair his rocket after each failed launch, but it didn't work.  Thankfully a friend lent Josh his rocket so Josh was able to launch a rocket off even if it wasn't the one he built.  Here's Josh's launch with his friends rocket:

I got myself in trouble this week.  Since the weather has been so warm our lawn needed to be mowed.  Luckily, Josh is officially our lawn mower boy.  However, we got our 2014 blog book printed out and received it in the mail a few weeks ago. 

Josh has been reading in it and found the post I made about him being a cheap lawn mower boy--DOH!!  So when we asked him to mow the lawn this first time he demanded a raise.  He wanted to go from $5 a job to $15.  I think we finally compromised at $6 for now, but if he can start mowing the whole lawn without missing patches we could discuss a bigger raise later on--Dang blog book!!

The weather has been so nice the last few days.  Yesterday Daniel, Noah and I went for a bike ride.  We rode to the nearby park only to find the city had removed all the playground equipment--DOH!!  So instead Daniel and I did some geocaching instead.  We found the first cache, but the second cache remained elusive.  Oh well we have all summer to find it along with all the new ones that have been put out.  It will be fun.  Here's Daniel leading the way:

Noah rode in the bike trailer and insisted on wearing a helmet even though I tried to tell him he didn't need one.  He wanted to be safe.  However, while I was pedaling I looked back to find him standing up in the trailer.  So much for being safe--hey at least his head was protected.

Sarah was supposed to wear her stud earrings for another week before she was supposed to take them out to change earrings for the first time.  However, while Aaron was getting her ready for bed last night he jumped the gun and took them out so she could change them.  She was so excited to try out some heart earrings for a change.  She wanted me to pull her hair back today for school so everyone could see her new earrings--funny girl:

This morning I had so much to do, but when Noah came up to me with his pillow and blanket and asked if he could get lubs, what could I say?!  I ended up getting Bubba lubs for about an hour despite my horribly messy house.  However, I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Aunt Jill introduced us to a new game called Munchkin.  It is quite a complex game, but it's fun.  Josh and Daniel love playing it with Aaron and me.  We are still learning all the ins and outs of the game, but it is a fun game.

I have been a stay at home mom for the last 8 years and am really grateful I have been able to be at home.  However, I do occasionally feel like my brain has gone to mush and that I don't think I can do much more than take care of kids.  So when I got called to be the Personal Progress person in this ward and am responsible for planning combined activities for all the girls once a month I was nervous to put my mushy  brain to work.  I am grateful for a supportive husband who is my personal cheerleader.  As I was leaving for my activity Wednesday night he sent me this text which made my night:

I am still trying to teach this old dog some new tricks and am glad Aaron can cheer me on!

Saturday we spent a few hours at Lagoon or 'The Goon' as Noah calls it.  It was such a beautiful day!  Matthew is not an adventuresome type kiddo.  Now our rule is you have to try every ride at least once before you make a judgement about it.  Matthew rode the Jet Star roller coaster once and decided to sit the second ride out and I stayed with him while Josh and Daniel rode the coaster again.  Here we are waiting for Josh and Daniel to ride.

 Josh and Daniel are sitting in the very front of the car:

Since Noah is about two inches too short to ride all the adult rides Aaron and I had to divide and conquer for part of the day.  We took turns between riding the kiddie rides with Noah and riding the big rides with the bigger kids.  Daniel and I were on the roller coaster waiting for it to start.  Josh and Sarah were going to ride after us so here they are waiting at the gate as Daniel and I rode off on the coaster:

 Here's my roller coaster buddy:

 One of the favorites was the Wicked roller coaster.  Here's Josh and Daniel taking off:

 Meanwhile Aaron was doing the kiddie rides with Sarah and Noah.  Sarah would switch off from the kiddie rides and adult rides just because she could.  She's at that in between stage where she still likes all the rides--adult and kiddie.  She liked being Noah's riding partner, though:

 Aaron went on some of the kiddie rides with them, too:

 That night after putting the kids to bed Aaron was craving some tamales.  He went to the store and picked up some locally made tamales, came home and warmed one up.  I am not a fan of tamales, but Aaron asked me to try a corner of it which I did.  Unfortunately I still don't like tamales.  Aaron ended up eating the rest of it.  About four hours later both of us were hating life.  I don't know what was wrong with that tamale, but it made Aaron and I pretty sick.  Aaron didn't dare walk around without his handheld garbage can with him just in case.  I wasn't as sick as Aaron thank goodness, however, it was rough having well children and two sick parents.  The kids all got away with murder all day Sunday.  They were even lucky enough to have cereal for dinner since I don't think Aaron and I could have handled the smell of anything being cooked.  Luckily, that stomach bug passed pretty quickly and both of us were feeling a lot better the next morning.  Wow, I didn't really like tamales before, but now I don't think I will ever like them EVER.  The jury is still out for Aaron, though.