Rainy day at Lagoon

My father in law had a few free tickets to Lagoon with his works "Lagoon day". No one else wanted to use them, so we took advantage of the savings. It rained around lunch pretty hard, so we hung out under a pavillion and ate & talked. That was about the worst of it. It wasn't crowded and the kids had fun, so that's all that matters. Here are some of my favorite pics from the day.

Kelsey was too tall for the bumper cars! She is almost as tall (or short!) as me.

Conner & Mal got right on both these rides, no one was in line. It was drizzling pretty good about this time, but as you can see from their faces, they were still having fun!



Hmmm, they don't look too happy here. I think their little bums got wet getting into a wet seat!

They are such good friends....most of the time!

Oh, looks can be so deceiving. Going on the train! One of the few rides I went on.

Playing a water gun game by Rattlesnake Rapids. I think Emma won everytime!

Kelsey & Emma taking Conner & Mallory on some kiddie rides. Mallory was actually kind of scared of this one after she got on. She started crying "Mommy". I laughed and tried to get a picture.

We actually had to wait in line for this one, but not long. A new ride this year called "Jumping Dragon". We were all able to go on. It's like Music Express, which is down by Colossus, but more fun. You are in your own seat, so you don't smash each other, and it also goes backwards!

Ashton didn't really want to do this one, but of course he loved it afterwards. This is "Rocket-Re-Entry". Kelsey & Emma were on the other side.

Kelsey, Emma & Ashton waiting for Conner & Mal to get off the boats!

Conner is really good at posing for pictures.

While Jared took the 3 older kids to do the roller coasters, I took Conner & Mal to the kiddie rides. Here's another ride I got to go on! Conner picked a horse, and Mallory picked a cat. I strapped them both on & Mallory made sure to tell me NOT to hold her. Miss Independent!

Kelsey's YA Award & Mallory's B-day pics

Here are two pictures of Kelsey & her hard earned Young American Award. It was the last day of school, and the Principal forgot to do this particular award during the "academic" part of the too long assembly. The 5th grade teachers reminded him at the very end. Conner & Mal had had enough & were ready to leave. Only she & two others did it in the whole 5th grade. My "Update" entry lists exactly what she had to do to receive it.

Way to go Kelsey!

Poor Mallory was so sick on her birthday. She looks sunburned in some of these pics, but it was a "strep rash". We didn't have anyone over since she & I were both sick, so we just did presents and had Disney princess cake and ice cream. She loved her gifts!

Here she is with her Aurora dress up. She also got a Cinderella dress. I love her face in the above pic.

Her brothers & sisters loved helping her open her gifts and we all loved watching her happy reaction. She had been so sick, it was nice to see her forget about it for a little while.

Rock Gate, June 13th 2009

Oh....boys.
We had our friends, the Dallas family, over for dinner tonight. They have 2 boys our boys same age, and a girl Mallory's age. They play really well together. The kids were just outside our dining room window playing. We adults were sitting at the table, talking. We had the window open and were keeping an eye on them. We didn't notice, however, that Conner & Ryan were in front of the twin home that my in-laws are building next door, and were throwing rocks in the street. Well, some guy who lives up the street turned onto 8175 South, headed east, and saw them. He stopped, put his window down, and told them they shouldn't throw rocks. I guess that wasn't enough for him. He pulled over, walked to the back of the twin home to where he could see us and told us that..."Your boys are throwing rocks. They could have hit a car. They're lucky they didn't hit my Range Rover, it's a $75,000 car." (Yeah, maybe 5 years ago...get over yourself buddy!) Jared apologized and we told Ryan & Conner to come in the house, they were in TROUBLE. Jared went with the older kids to get the rocks out of the street. They guy had already left. BUT, he came back. He wanted to talk to Jared & Tyler. He pointed out a dent on the hood of the car (passenger side) that he claimed came from a rock they threw. I'm telling you, there is no way either of those boys can throw a rock that far. Plus it was too large a dent, and paint had already chipped around it, it looked pretty weathered. It got ugly after that....the guy called Sandy police, filed a report, and is probably going to sue us. Poor Conner, when he saw the police, thought they were coming to take him away and just started crying. That right there was probably punishment enough. The officer was very nice, he talked to both Ryan & Conner, got everyone's story. Conner relaxed after that and thought the officers belt was pretty cool. Not because of the gun though. He kept saying, "Mom, the police has a flashlight!" The officer said there wasn't anything he could do about the situation. He actually called us later tonight to get some additional information because this "Range Rover" guy had called the police department to complain about how the officer had handled it. Give me a break! I'm sure there will be more to come, as the officer kept telling us, "That guy is on a witch hunt."

I've been hacked!

For those of you who don't know, my msn email account was hacked yesterday. He/she sent out an email to my contacts list, as me, saying I was in London and had lost my wallet and needed money. C'mon, a wallet? London? I wish I could say I've been there. And if I really needed help, like I would send out an email. There's a thing called a phone...works much faster. It took up a lot of time yesterday, but I think I have everything straightened out and hopefully the worst is over. I updated my email address on every account I could think of. So make sure you delete my old msn email, and my new one is jlsmart27@gmail.com. And if you get any emails in the future from that msn account, it is NOT me. The password and the secret question used to get the password have been changed, so I can't get into it anymore.

Update

Summer is almost here! The kids are enjoying the fun "end of year" activites at school. Conner has his preschool graduation/swim party this Thursday, so that will be it for him until September, when both he and Mallory will be in preschool. Mal on Tues. & Thurs., and Conner M, W, F.

Speaking of preschool for Mallory, my goal this summer is to get her potty trained. We FINALLY took the binky away yesterday. She is so terribly attached to it, it breaks my heart. But she's 3, and too old for it. She cried at bedtime, but slept all night. She asked for it all morning today, and wanted it at nap time. Guess it may take a few days.

Kelsey is working hard to earn the Young American Award. It's a nationwide award 5th graders can get by doing all of these things: Passing a test of "100 Questions all Americans should know", memorizing the Presidents in order and their years in office, memorizing state's capitals and their abbreviations, memorizing the Gettysburg Address, the Bill of Rights, both verses of the National anthem, and the Pledge of Allegiance. I think that's all of it. She's passed off everything but the Presidents, so we're working on that.

Emma had to get an ingrown toenail cut out. She gets them a lot, and the podiatrist said it's hereditary. I didn't know that, and both Jared and I have had them before. The doctor was SO great with her, I really, really liked him. She had to get 3 shots to numb her toe, then he dug it out. Generally, when it comes to needles and blood, I try to avoid looking. Once I watched myself get a deprovera shot, and I almost passed out. But that was when Kelsey was a baby. So I kind of watched what he was doing. Pretty quick, I started to not feel good, the room got really hot, and I could feel myself slipping away. I couldn't believe it! The doctor helped me into another exam room and had me lie down, his nurse got me a drink of water and a cold rag. Luckily Jared was there.

I'm nearing the end of the first trimester of this surprise pregnancy. Everyday I still can't believe it, I was done! We are excited and I'm looking forward to not being sick to my stomach all day long.

Ashton is loving soccer. My 3 oldest are playing, but I think Ashton enjoys it the most. It's so funny how different boy games are than girl games. For 7 and 8 year olds, they are intense! It's all about winning to them, no matter how much you focus on the fun. There have been a few games this season where the ref gave free kicks for tripping and pushing, not because of Ashton, luckily.

We had a fun trip to Yellowstone with my side of the family, minus the Indy clan. It would be so much fun for all of us to be able to go. Maybe someday. The weather was great, and we all had a lot of fun. Mallory was sick for part of the trip, she had a fever, cough and runny nose. I didn't have a thermometer, which started to drive me crazy as medicine and baths didn't seem to make her feel any cooler. She was miserable, and she was so hot to the touch, I just couldn't relax or sleep, I was really worried about her. Jared & my dad gave her a blessing on Saturday night, and she woke up that next morning feeling better. Her fever was gone after that, she still has the cough, though, and shared it with me.

Conner's Sensitive Stomach

Yesterday Kelsey came screaming in the door from school. She had fallen off her scooter in the street and hurt her arm & leg. She didn't break anything, just some painful scrapes on her elbow & hand. She was hardly even bleeding. But it was enough to set off Conner! I was in the kitchen helping Kelsey when Jared called me to the office, Conner was as white as a ghost! His lips started to look purple. I've had kids faint on me before and I don't like it at all, it freaks me out. So I grabbed him and brought him in the kitchen. I got him to take some deep breaths, but it didn't seem to help much. His eyes were kind of rolling, and he said, "I want to lay in my bed" and then he threw up on my kitchen floor. He had just had a nice big glass of Nesquick chocolate milk. (Sorry for the visual that might give you!) That kid CANNOT handle blood, but neither can both of his grandfathers and some of his uncles on both sides. I had him lay down on the couch for a bit, and after about 30 mins, he was right as rain and asking for some chocolate milk. Who wants to eat the same food that they just threw up? Sick!

Good Times

Spring break was pretty boring for my kids. Jared left on a business trip early Wednesday, so it was just me & the kids. I was busy getting some things done around the house. We aren't like a lot of married couples in that Jared cooks almost all the meals and cleans it up, and the fact that "honey-do" lists are meant for me. Besides doing the regular cleaning and laundry, I needed to tighten some door handles, fix our loose toilet paper holders (both bathrooms), change the furnace filter, touch up some paint and put two porch rocking chairs together. The chairs I never got to, and I started to touch up our ceiling paint, then realized it was the wrong color. My biggest feat was the file room. It is FINALLY clean! I had piles & piles of '09 payables to organize. Jared had a secretary for a short while that made an absolute mess of the '08 payable copies. I got those organized a while ago, but I just kept stacking the '09 copies. Lucky for me I have a ton of counter space, so I brought it all out in the kitchen & got it all organized, finally got the folders put together, and all filed away. I started Friday night after the kids were down, then finally finished & went to sleep at 5am Saturday morning. I knew I was in trouble when I heard some birds chirping. The kids were up early, somehow I got up at 7:30 and actually functioned.

To help the kids feel like spring break wasn't totally boring, Jared told them that I would take them to a movie & he would keep Mallory with him. We decided to see the 3:00 3D Monsters vs. Aliens. Something came up at the last minute for Jared, so we had to take Mallory.....with no nap. I was a little concerned, but they were all great. It was a good movie! The funniest thing happened on the way to the movie, Mallory noticed a ladybug on her window & started freaking out! She was so scared, trying to move away from the window but strapped into her car seat....hilarious! I was laughing so hard. It was on the outside, but she was not happy.

Today I was on my way to take Conner & my niece Libbie to preschool when Emma called & said she threw up. So after I dropped them off Mal & I went to the school to check Emma out. I had to go get Jared's mail, and Emma thought she'd be OK for a little drive. So we got to the post office, I ran in & got it, and we were almost to my parents house when Emma said she was going to throw up. Now, no mother wants that in her car. I grabbed the diaper bag, lucky for me there was a large Ziploc bag with M&M's from the movie yesterday, so I just dumped them out and gave her the bag just in time. I'd rather clean up M&M's than vomit any day. Oh, the smell! It was awful! I put the windows down, it was cold & raining, but I didn't care. Then Mallory started telling me to put the window up cause she was cold. Obviously she wasn't as bothered by the smell as I was....gross, gross, gross!