Bottling, Crazy Hair, Museum Visit, Frightmares, Raingutter Regatta, Sriracha Challenge

Wow it's been busy, but here's our comings and goings for the last 10 days.  Mornings are pretty crazy around here.  I try to get everyone dressed, lunches packed, teeth brushed, hair combed and homework gathered hopefully all before they are late for school.  We have done pretty well so far this school year, but it isn't without problems.  The other morning it was raining so on our walk to school Daniel decided to put his hood on.  Unfortunately, it really messed up his hair that had already been combed.  Oh well, he didn't seem to care he had crazy hair so I guess I shouldn't let it bother me as well, right?!  Just trust me it was combed nicely earlier that morning.

Josh has been taking some scouting merit badge classes.  One of them was a swimming one.  To finish that he had to swim 400 meters which is 8 laps without stopping and had to swim freestyle the whole time.  He did it which is awesome.  I don't know if I could do that!  He only has a few more classes left until he will finish his swimming merit badge, life saving merit badge and two more that I can't quite remember what they are right now.  Don't judge me too harshly--haha!

Now that I have some mornings free Aaron and I are able to meet up and play some racquetball up on base.  Aaron gets three hours of fitness leave time during the work week so we like to play some racquetball together.  It's been pretty fun.  I also started volunteering in Sarah and Noah's classes last week as well.  It is fun to see them during the day.

Two Sundays ago we celebrated my Mom's or Grandma T's birthday.  It was nice to actually go to her new house instead of her apartment.  While we were there we took a group photo for Taylor's birthday.  Taylor is my nephew who is serving a mission in Brazil.  His birthday is in December and Jennifer, my sister, wanted all of us to pose with a Happy Birthday Taylor sign to send to him for his birthday.  We had to do a serious one first:

 Then a crazy one:

 It was nice to visit and have the cousins play together.

Our garden is producing, however, we have a critter who seems to be eating our produce so we aren't getting as much out of the garden this year.  I don't know what it is, but it seems to like tomatoes.  I am thinking a raccoon, but I don't know for sure.  Aaron has set out a live trap so we hope to catch it and take it far away from my tomatoes!  I do have another critter who keeps us from getting any strawberries because he sneaks out every day and eats all of the pink/red ones before I can even pick any.  Noah is a ravenous strawberry monster!!

We had run out of jam so I went and picked up a half bushel of peaches to make some more.  Noah was my big helper in peeling the peaches to get them ready for the jam.

 

We got quite a bit of jam.  I am hoping it will last through the year, though.  I also picked all the jalapenos from the garden.  The critter doesn't seem to like those so we have gotten quite a few that I was able to pickle for Aaron.  Aaron loves pickled jalapenos so it was good we were able to get 5 pints of pickled peppers which sounds like a tongue twister--haha!

Two Saturdays ago we went and tried out Frightmares at Lagoon for the first time.  I had never been to Frightmares ever before in the 20 years they have been doing it so it was fun to check it out.  Of course the kids had to stop at every photo op there was.

 We got to see some witches.  For some reason the little girl standing next to Sarah just heard, "Let's take a picture" and came and jumped right in our picture.  I don't know who she is, but we now have a picture of her which is kind of funny.

 Daniel and Aaron loved reading the epitaphs on all the fake headstones.  I must say there were some pretty funny ones.

 The three younger kids begged to go on the Candy walk.  Daniel was a little big for it, but he didn't care since they were handing out candy.  Josh and Matthew waited for us at the end.

 We did discover there was a locomotive museum that we hadn't seen before.  Matthew was overjoyed to go and check it out.

 The other night I made some Firecracker chicken which is like a sweet and sour chicken only with some spice to make them hot.  Last time I made them I used a Buffalo wing sauce, but this time I decided to try something else.  I found a bottle of Sriracha sauce at the grocery store and decided to try that out.  Let me tell you it was hot, but it was still good.  Daniel and Josh thought the chicken wasn't very hot so they decided to try a Sriracha challenge where they poured the Sriracha sauce right on to their tongues.  They both decided that was pretty hot then.

 Daniel had his Raingutter Regatta in scouts this week.  Aaron and Daniel got his boat made and then me and Daniel painted his boat to get it completely ready.  It was a lot of fun.  They had to blow through a straw into their sails to get their boats to go.  Daniel did pretty well considering he had had an asthma flare up earlier that week and was wheezy boy.  They didn't do places, but Daniel won all of his races except one where he tied his opponent.  Wahoo!

 Here's all the scouts that participated:

 Last Thursday Matthew had a special needs western dance at the high school.  I think three different Jr. High special ed students attended.  He was excited to get dressed up and this is what he wore:

 He said he had fun and danced so I guess it was a success.  Matthew and Daniel had been sick earlier in the week and trying to keep Matthew home from school was a nightmare.  He LOVES going to school, but there is a medically fragile girl in his special ed class who gets sick really easily so they don't want us sending sick kids to school if we can help it.  I tried explaining this to Matthew, but he was still quite upset to stay home two days from school.  Those were some really long two days, too.  Glad he is feeling better now!

Friday morning Josh had a check up with the Neurologist.  It was actually a really pleasant visit.  The doctor spent quite a bit of time with us and it wasn't from me asking a bunch of questions.  I had a few questions about Josh and driving etc. but the doctor also discussed some other things, too.  I love living in Utah because the doctor even brought up what to expect when Josh serves a mission if he is still needing neurology services.  It was very comforting to hear that as long as his seizures are controlled he will be able to serve a mission and could even go foreign as long as they have Western medicine.  As for driving we will have to wait and see about that.  Legally Josh has to be seizure free for 3 months so hopefully we can get him that way.  The appointment down at Primary's took a bit longer than expected which meant Josh was not going to have time to eat lunch at school so we stopped at the hospital cafeteria and had a quick meal.  He was a fun brunch date:

 Josh is growing like a weed.  In the last six months he has gained 10 pounds and grown enough to pass me by which is crazy as you can see:

 Saturday was the Smithsonian free museum day.  Different museums around the country were allowing free passes that day.  I was excited to find out that The Leonardo museum in Salt Lake was going to offer free admission.  I had been wanting to visit this museum for awhile, but admission was too much for all seven of us so I was excited to be able to see it for free.  They had a lot of hands on exhibits, too.  All the kids got to try out the Hand Crank Generator:

 There was a machine I think it was called a Theremin where you could play it with just waving your hands around the machine.

Josh went all out when trying to play with it:

There was another static electricity machine you could get to make a spark.  Here's Daniel playing with that:

 They had a green screen you could play with as well.  Josh and Daniel loved this one:

They also had a stop motion camera where you could make your own cartoon.  Daniel did the most boy thing he could possibly do.  He spelled out the word FART and made it into a comic.  Sigh.  This is so much like our day to day living at our house with so many boys.  Poor Sarah won't even have a chance because she thought this was as funny as all her brothers did.

  We visited the painting station:

They also had a part where you could get all the birds to fly with the movement of your hands.  Matthew liked playing with that:

 The concave mirror was fun to play with:

 They had a light section where you could mix different colored lights together to see what color it would make:

 Noah decided it was a nice bench to take a rest on after a few minutes.  What a stinker!

 There was a static electricity station where you could draw a figure on tissue paper and get it to stick on a balloon with static electricity.  It was a spooky theme since Halloween is coming up.  Some people did ghosts or jack o lanterns.

 Sarah made a zombie:

 After visiting the museum we decided to try out Frightmares again.  This time we went in the evening when all the scary things opened up.  We took the kids through the Fun House of Fear.  It was kind of intense for little kids.  It was a bunch of creepy clowns dressed up that would scare you as you went from room to room.  What made it even more crazy is they let you wear 3 D glasses which made things even more realistic.  Sarah, Matthew and Daniel didn't like it, but Noah just laughed his way through it.  What a crazy kid.  Josh loved it.

 Of course another photo op the kids couldn't pass up:

Later on Aaron and I split up. Aaron took Sarah, Noah and Matthew on rides while Josh, Daniel and I tried out another haunted house.  Daniel was not wanting to try it out because he is a tender heart and doesn't like scary things.  I finally coaxed him in to trying it.  The Haunted House was called 20 Years of Terror and on the spider rating it was a four which meant it was too scary for little kids.  The wait to get in was over an hour and the whole time Daniel was getting more nervous about going.  I kept talking him into trying it out.  When  we finally were able to go through it was actually pretty intense.  Daniel was scared out of his mind and by the time we made it all the way through he was pretty upset.  I felt awful.  Had I known it was going to be that intense I wouldn't have talked him into it--poor guy.  We had to try out a ride or two afterward just to get him to calm down.  I told him he didn't have to try anymore haunted houses which he was glad for.  Josh on the other hand wanted to try the 5 spider rated ones which are considered super scary and not for any children. I am willing to try it, but we will have to wait for another time without Daniel.

Ukulele, Piano Rockstar, Busy Sunday, Aquarium, Broken Shower

We have had a pretty low key week.  I do have to say that Noah seems to play hard at recess.  Every day he comes home with both shoes full of sand.  Wow, I am surprised there is any sand left in the playground after all the sand he brings home in his shoes!  Most of the time I catch him before he takes off his shoes inside the house, but then again, there are a few sand piles around because sometimes I don't catch him in time.  He is getting better and when he remembers he tries to take off his shoes and empty them outside.  Here's all the sand after just one day:

 Noah is getting bigger so the rare times he falls asleep on the couch are becoming few and far between so I had to take a picture.  I love how little kids can just pass out wherever they are if they are tired enough.

Friday night we had the Einzingers over for dinner and games.  Last minute before they came Aaron decided to take a shower.  I told him he didn't have time, but he assured me he would be fast. Hmmm famous last words....Unfortunately, when he was done showering as he was turning off the shower the shower knob stopped working.  You could spin it around, but you couldn't get it to turn off the shower.  Well Aaron tried to fix it, but nothing was working and we couldn't get the shower to stop flowing.  Good thing we were able to call Grandpa T to come take a look.  All the while the Einzingers came.  It was crazy because everyone was hungry, but we had to fix the shower.  Luckily, Blaine was able to find a Youtube video to show how to fix it (YAY for YOUTUBE!!).  With Grandpa T's help and the Youtube video they were able to fix it.  Come to find out Sarah and Noah had been hanging on the handle during their showers and bent the handle to the point it finally broke on Aaron--the stinkers!  All the while Erin and I had to run and pick up the pizza for dinner.  What a crazy beginning to the night, but after fixing the shower everything else went smoothly and everyone had fun.  It is nice having adult conversations and having all the kids play together.

The next morning everyone was a bit grouchy since most everyone didn't go to bed until after midnight and no kids in my house can sleep past 7 am no matter what time they go to bed.  We had plans for a family day that Saturday, but everyone was such 'Chuckles' we decided we better just have a chillaxing day at home.  Matthew was quite upset with that idea, but everyone else was fine with it.  In the afternoon I did take Matthew out to run a few errands with me and that seemed to placate him--thank goodness!!  That kid loves to be on the go all the time.That evening we put everyone to bed early which was nice.  We were going crazy listening to all the kids fight all day long because everyone was 'Chuckles'.  Aaron got to watch the BYU football game on tv with a friend while I was able to take a bath.  It was a nice change of pace to have a relaxing Saturday because they don't happen all that often.

In other happenings Matthew is progressing with the piano.  He has been wanting to play the piano for priesthood and has been practicing playing the hymns.  He finally got that chance this past Sunday.  He played the prelude music and did great.  Then when it came time for everyone to sing he started playing and got really nervous and played Nearer My God to Thee really fast.  Oh well, I do the same thing, too which is why I don't play the piano for church.  Anyway, he was so excited to be able to play which probably another reason why he played it so fast. Our bishop who is a joking kind of guy came over to Aaron afterward and jokingly said, "Wow, That's the closest version to a rock song that I have ever heard Nearer My God to Thee!" (because it went so fast).  Aaron just smiled and was glad Matthew was able to play despite his nervousness. Matthew didn't care he was just excited to be able to play--way to go Matthew!

Sunday Josh also got the opportunity to teach the Deacon's Quorum lesson on Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.  He prepared a lesson mostly on his own and did pretty well.  After church Aaron asked the Deacon's Quorum advisor how Josh did and the advisor said he did great except he got a bit nervous and went through his lesson pretty fast.  Good thing the advisor was able to stop Josh at different parts to ask questions to stretch the lesson out so they didn't end after just 10 minutes.  It was a great experience for Josh.  I can't believe my kids are growing up to the point they can do such things so independently.  It is crazy!  Even this morning I was talking to Josh and he now is right at eye to eye level with me.  He is growing so fast!

Sunday was a busy day for our family!  During Sunday school Aaron realized his Elder's Quorum teacher wasn't there as well as his second counselor who was in charge of the teachers for that month.  Doh!!  That meant he had to prepare the lesson for Elder's Quorum during Sunday School. He was even more nervous when he found out the lesson was on the Law of Chastity.  Double DOH!!  I am glad that it was him and not me that had to deal with that.  I don't do well with last minute things like that.  I think the lesson went ok--any one you can walk away from is a good one, right?!  I will say he was relieved when Elder's Quorum was over, though.  Thank goodness for all the church teaching resources!

Daniel has been busy at school.  His class is learning how to play the Ukulele this year.  I tried ordering one online, but when it came it, it was broken.  DOH!!  Since I didn't have time to send it back and get a new one before they needed it I had to rent one from the school for the year. I was just glad to be able to have that option.  Daniel is having fun with it so far.  I must say it does get pretty crazy when Daniel and Josh are practicing at the same time, though.  Let's just say the Ukulele and the trumpet don't mix very well with each other--haha!

Yesterday I got to go on a field trip to the Aquarium with Daniel.  Wow, that was a long bus ride.  Yes, it was only 60 minutes down to the Aquarium, but that 60 minutes was full of 3rd and 4th graders talking, shouting, and playing games.  Whew, I was glad when we finally made it to the aquarium.  Here we are on the bus ride down:

I had a group of three boys that I was chaperoning.  One of the boys is a fellow Epi penner like Daniel so he and Daniel will always be in the same field trip group and I am the official Epi pen carrier--lucky me ;). Anyway, I love the Aquarium.  There are so many neat things to see there.  Here's a few of the things we saw.  This station we learned about water conservation:

 We liked watching the otters and penguins swimming.

 In the Amazon Jungle section there was a rope bridge you could cross:

 There were lots of fish to see:

 We got to pet some sting rays:

 One of the favorites was the shark tunnel.  You got to go through a tunnel of water and see all the fish/animals from underneath.  We got a close up view of many sharks and this turtle:

 Here's a few of the sharks:

 Here's the size of Megalodon jaws:

 We also got to see a large octopus which is attached to the wall in the top right of the picture:

We had a fun day at the Aquarium and I was glad I was able to go with Daniel.  I was also grateful G&G T were able to pick up Noah from kindergarten that day.  Noah LOVES having G&G T pick him up from school.  G&G T have only picked up Noah twice from school so far this year, but every day Noah is disappointed to see me instead of G&G T when it is time for pick up from kindergarten.  When I am there picking him up he will ask me where G&G T are and then is disappointed to hear they aren't coming.  What a stinker!!  Glad to know I am chopped liver--haha!

Lagoon, Field Trip, Peppers, Packages, Seltzer

Here's a few of the things that have happened in the last 10 days.  Two weekends ago we took everyone to Lagoon for a fun Saturday.  An amazing thing happened....Aaron managed to get Sarah to go on Cannibal.  I have tried all summer long to get her to go on that ride, but she outright refused me every single time.  I don't know what Aaron did, but he somehow coaxed her to go on that ride.  After she got strapped in she started crying because she was so scared.  However, after the ride finished she was all smiles.  Aaron even got her to go on it a second time.  It must be that Daddy charm because she wouldn't even consider riding the ride when I asked all summer long!  Here they are in line again:

 It was a really hot day so a few of us got a bit wet in the fountain just to cool off.  Here Josh, Daniel, Noah and me are playing together:

 One of the rides we rode was the Sky Tram.  Unfortunately, Sarah had some issues getting on the ride so they had to stop the whole ride to help her out.  As I looked back to see why the ride had stopped Josh quickly pointed to Sarah to let me know it wasn't him that caused the back up--haha!

 Daniel and I both have a fear of heights so we were riding buddies together:

 Aaron, Noah and Matthew went first because Noah doesn't like waiting at all.

The first few weeks of school have been going great.  It is nice to be on a schedule again.  Now that Noah is in kindergarten I have a few mornings a week free which is weird.  It is nice, though, because Aaron gets three hours of fitness time off from work every week.  One morning a week we meet up and play racquetball.  It has been fun to be able to do that.  The other mornings last week I got to prepare my lesson for Sunday.  I got to teach the Sunday lesson for the combined Young Women.  I have taught primary for so long it was weird to try and gear the lesson for teenagers instead of four year olds--haha!  Things seemed to go ok Sunday, but I am glad that I don't have to teach again for a while!

My kids have kept me entertained these last few weeks.  Josh has been excited about trying out some different clubs at school.  The one he was most excited about was called the Lumberjack club.  It is a club that meets once a week in the morning in the cafeteria.  This club is all about all you can eat pancakes.  Josh was all over that.  The club didn't meet until 7 am, but Josh was so excited he set his alarm for 5 am.  So after he got up and turned on all the lights and made as much noise as he could waking everyone else up in the house I wasn't too happy.  He didn't need to get up two hours early!  Hopefully, he won't be as eager this week and will be able to sleep for a bit longer because getting everyone up that early was not a pretty sight because by the end of the day everyone was 'Chuckles' or super ornery.  I am not a fan of unexpected really early mornings for everyone!  Although Josh really did enjoy his pancakes that morning!

I really love ordering stuff online and getting packages delivered!  I love this meme because it sums up why I love ordering online:

Anyway, sometimes when I order from Amazon they pack the small item in a really big box.  Last week I ordered something that was the size of a deck of cards, but it came in a really big box.  Matthew saw the UPS guy drive up and set the package by the door.  After he rang the doorbell Matthew ran out to pick up the package.  Seeing as it was a small item in a really big box it felt like nothing was inside the box when Matthew picked it up even though there was.  This really concerned Matthew so he ran after the driver yelling at him that there was nothing in the box.  I had heard what had happened so I had to immediately stop what I was doing and chase after Matthew to stop him from chasing the poor driver who had no idea what Matthew's problem was.  Sigh.  Luckily, I was able to stop Matthew before he stopped the driver.  I think I got a weeks worth of cardio in in those few minutes!  You've got to be fast with Matthew around.  At least I got my chuckle in for the day.  Good thing I love Matthew!

Our poor garden has gotten a bit neglected the last few weeks.  Aaron went out to pick a few things and ended up coming back with a ton of peppers.  Wow.  We gave quite a few away, but were left with quite a few, too.  I got pretty creative in incorporating them into many recipes.  If you grind them up small enough no one notices--at least my kids didn't which was the most important part.

Someone from Aaron's mission in Canada even came by to pick some up.  She currently lives in Bountiful so she didn't come all the way from Canada, but it was fun to meet her.  She was in Aaron's first area and always took care of the missionaries.  Aaron had fun catching up with her.

 Since Noah only has school in the mornings, he is my errand helper in the afternoons.  One afternoon I had quite a few errands to run and he was really well behaved for me most of the time.  I felt like that deserved an ice cream cone--Noah agreed whole heartedly.  I am not a fan of the cone so Noah was more than happy to eat it for me.

 I had a dentist appointment last week.  Noah had to come along with me, but as long as he got to play on my phone he was a happy camper.  However, I was left with my camera full of pictures of these from the Hair Salon game ap:

 Let's just say I hope Noah doesn't ever become a hair stylist!!  Good news is that I am cavity free.  Wahoo!!  Aaron's appointment is today so let's hope he can say the same!  The bad thing was that he deleted a few of my pictures from my phone that I actually needed.  At back to school night I signed up to volunteer in the kids classes.  Instead of writing down the information I took a picture of it because it was just easier that way.  Unfortunately, Noah deleted those pictures while he was playing on my phone during my appointment.  I had to go and talk to the teachers this morning to see what times I had signed up for.  I was a bit embarrassed, but what can you do?

Last week Daniel's class had a field trip to Antelope Island that I got to volunteer for.  They got to ride the bus out there and learn about the ecosystems around the area.  The kids were split into groups of four.  I got four boys, but we had fun together.  Here they are building a mock watershed out of natural supplies they found laying around:

 It was so windy that I stole Daniel's hat to cover my hair with so it wouldn't be in my face the whole day.  Good thing he didn't mind.  It was a fun trip and I am glad I was able to go.

 While I was grocery shopping the other day I ran across these Seltzers.  I hadn't seen these since I was a little kid.  I LOVED these so I bought two so my kids could have a taste.  Come to find out Aaron loved these, too, when he was a little kid.  It was fun to drink again and to let the kids try them, too.

 Yesterday, Labor Day, we spent the day at Lagoon as a family.  It was a beautiful day that wasn't too hot or too cold.  It was busy, but we still had fun.  One of Matthew's favorite rides is the Terror Ride, but Sarah absolutely HATES it.  Since we are learning about compromise Sarah rode the ride, but spent the whole time with her eyes and ears covered so she wouldn't be scared.

 Matthew spent the whole time trying to talk to everyone in line and the  Lagoon employees.  Holy cow that kid can talk!!

 Throughout the day we would split up because Noah isn't tall enough to ride all the rides.  While Sarah and Noah were riding a ride I got to see Aaron, Josh, Matthew and Daniel ride the Colossus.