Family Blog 2: Funeral, Carnival, Baseball, Physical, Story Time

Matthew had a field trip a few weeks ago to Baby Animal Days up in Wellsville by Logan with the special education classes. He loved it. We got a picture from his teacher yesterday showing Matthew holding a baby goat. It's a pretty cute picture even if I can't get it from being sideways :/. I am so grateful for these fun opportunities for him. He really loves them!

Daniel and Noah have started baseball season. Aaron didn't sign up to coach this season for the first time and is enjoying just sitting back and watching. Noah's practice started out ok. He participated for a little while.

He even listened to the coach for a bit.

However, as the practice went on he decided he needed a break and started daydreaming instead of taking care of second base. It must have been a good day dream since he was like that for a while!

Unfortunately my Grandma Gee (my Mom's mom) passed away recently. Her health had been declining, but it was still sad to see her go. My poor Grandpa Gee won't know what to do with himself since he has been with her for 67 years.

Here's her obituary:

Verna NaDean Gee
1927~2015
Verna NaDean Gee passed away peacefully on the evening of May 2, 2015 at the age of 87. She was born in Payson Utah on December 7, 1927, to Hyrum Ray Roberts and Mary Ann Crump. NaDean was the 5th child in her family. She was raised in Provo Utah and graduated from Provo High School.
She met Lawrence M. Gee after he came home from World War II. They married August 15, 1947. Their marriage was later solemnized in the Provo Temple. They raised their family in Springville living there for 59 years. NaDean and Lawrence were married for 67 years. They raised 3 daughters together, Karren, Kristine and Denise.
NaDean was a hard worker and worked outside the home for over 40 years in the private sector. She loved to crochet and visit with her family. She enjoyed boating and camping with her husband and going to the temple together with family.
NaDean was preceded in death by a grandson, Brice Boman, her parents, 2 brothers, Max Hansen, Blaine Roberts, 2 sisters, Mae Read and Larae Brown. She is survived by her loving husband, Lawrence, daughters Karren (Russell) Terry, Kristine (Jed) Hunter, and Denise (Richard) Johnson, 11 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren.
A special thanks goes to Hearthstone Manor and Tender Hearts Hospice for their kindness and care of our Mother.

Matthew is still figuring out this funeral thing. When we told him we would be spending Thursday day at the funeral with family he was excited. He kept asking us if we were excited for the funeral. We tried to explain to him that funerals weren't generally an exciting, fun thing, but he didn't quite understand. When we got to the funeral home he burst in the room and in his happy and loud voice asked everyone with a smile on his face, "How is everyone doing?" Later on during the funeral service, however, he leaned over to me and said, "This is sad!" So maybe he understands a bit better now....who knows, though?!

My mom was able to speak during the graveside service. She did a great job of capturing what my Grandma was like during her life. After she spoke Noah needed some lubs just from Grandma T--hopefully she didnt' mind too much.

After the service we had a family luncheon. As soon as we walked in Sarah gave Grandpa Gee a huge hug whether he wanted one or not.

Matthew came over and started chatting it up with Grandpa Gee. He made a statement about Grandpa Gee passing away. Whoops! Grandpa Gee gently corrected Matthew and said it was Great Grandma Gee that had passed away and that he was still very much alive. Glad he could be good natured about Matthew's innocent mistake.

It was a nice service. My sister, Jennifer, who lives in Ohio was even able to make it which was nice. It is crazy that we have lost 3 of my 4 grandparents in the last 3 years. It makes me thankful for Eternal Families!

That afternoon Aaron wanted to practice some baseball with Noah. They did pretty well for a few minutes when Noah started day dreaming again. He chose the wrong time to daydream because Noah zoned out right was Aaron was tossing him the ball which hit Noah right in the forehead. Noah was not happy about it. Oh well maybe it will teach him the hard way that he needs to pay attention all the time during baseball ;).

Friday Matthew had his physical from the pediatrician to make sure he was healthy enough to go to Camp Kostopolus again in a few weeks. Thankfully, they didn't need to do a hernia check--phew! Matthew is doing awesome. He is 5 feet and 5 1/2 inches tall and weighs 108 pounds. He is so excited to go to Camp K he tells everyone about it. All the young men and young men leaders in our ward know all about when Matthew is going because he has told them so many times. Matthew wants to make sure they all know so they don't do anything fun without him.

Friday afternoon was the elementary schools carnival. It happened to fall right at the time Matthew comes home from his after school program so I stayed back with Noah to wait for Matthew to get home. Aaron had fun taking the kids. The outside inflatable toys were the funnest to go on. They had an obstacle course they all had fun trying out:

Sarah was just happy to be there:

More inflatables:

Josh had to go early since the student council was helping out. Josh ran a carnival game booth. Aaron had to stop by to check it out. Josh's booth partner helped Sarah play her game, but she didn't know Sarah was Josh's sister. Sarah won her game and wanted to pick out a prize. Josh's partner tried showing her the bracelets and necklaces, but Sarah was not interested in those. She wanted a huge slimy, sticky frog instead. You can definitely tell she has four brothers!!

Ahh the joy of sticky toys...They sticky toys didn't last very long until they were all stuck up on my ceiling--even Sarah's huge frog. This one is still stuck on the ceiling and it was been quite a few days since the carnival! DOH!!

Two Sundays ago during Aaron's early Sunday morning meetings he got tasked with getting all the Mother's Day presents. Everyone decided that chocolate to women is like duct tape to men--it fixes everything. Aaron got up early Monday morning and cleared the grocery store shelves of all their King Size Candy bars. Aaron got King Size because by having 5 kids himself he knows that all those moms are going to have to share their chocolate with their puppy dog eyed kids. Boy was he right about that ;)! He picked up 150 candy bars which filled the cart and ended up being about 60 pounds of chocolate!

As our kids are getting a bit older and each have their different various activities, there are many nights Aaron and I have to divide and conquer. The other night Matthew, Josh and me had a combined Young Men/Young Women activity to attend. It was at the same time as Daniel's baseball practice which Aaron had to take Sarah and Noah along with him to see. Good thing Sarah and Noah can entertain themselves pretty well even if it involves climbing on the backstop fence:

Or climbing trees:

The other day Aaron and I had lunch together. Noah loves coming along with us to lunch, but he insists he gets his own salad. I didn't think he could eat a whole salad so we tricked him. While he was getting his own drink I split my salad and half and put it in his own bowl. That was great until he ate the whole thing and was asking for more. I gave him some more of my salad and after he ate that, too, Aaron shared some of his salad, too. Wow that kid can eat!! He was so excited to pour on his own dressing, too. He's a funny kid!

The other day our neighbors dog got out and was playing in our yard. I scooped him up and let the kids play with him inside--it was an inside dog anyway. They had so much fun. They were sad when the neighbor came to pick up his dog a little while later--I was sad, too. Luckily, Josh wasn't here while the dog was here so we avoided a huge allergic snot and sneezing fest by him--phew! None of the other kids are allergic to animals like Josh is. It's crazy!

Saturday morning Aaron took Matthew out to run errands--which Matthew loves. They stopped by the butcher shop where Aaron's friend works. As he was putting together the meat he made a 'Matthew sized' hamburger patty. That's about the right size, too, since he will usually put down about 4 hamburgers at a time. It was pretty funny!

Here's a candid shot of Daniel's baseball team:

Yesterday I took Noah to story time at the library. It was really nice because there were only about 6 other kids there so we got some extra reading time. Noah loved it:

Afterward we had to check out the new playground they finally finished. They have been building this playground by the library for a long time so it was fun to see how it turned out. There were lots of things to play on.

They had a percussion corner with a lot of xylophones set up you could play on:

IT was a fun afternoon with Noah.

Last night Daniel had baseball practice. I was able to go to this one with Aaron which was nice. Sarah and Noah had fun playing in the 'snow'. There are a bunch of Cottonwood trees in the park that are dropping their cotton right now. It is fun because it looks like snow. Noah had fun catching the 'snowflakes'.