Water

So you probably already know that I have a thing about water. The crazy person inside me can hardly drink it from a cup with out a straw. I hold my breath without thinking about it if I see an underwater shot on TV. I have to drive as far away from the side of a bridge over water as possible (i.e. left lane) in order to lower the chances of driving off the edge. I have strange/scary dreams about too much water and flooding, and I am paranoid about taking my kids swimming.

AHHHHHH! Wed. night we went with Alicia to an activity where she was swimming. To make a long story short, she didn't get out when everyone else did. I turned back to check if she was getting out and saw Mahala trying to help her out. Alicia was getting tired and beginning to bob up and down and gasp for air. I did the nano second calculation of how far away the floaty thing was, how long it would take for me to get it, and factor in that Alicia couldn't even grab it if I had it now, which equals, mom jumped in the pool. Fortunately I did not have Lily in the sling. Unfortunately, I had all my clothes on and my cell phone in my pocket. But most fortunately, Alicia was ok. It was really scary for her because she didn't know if she would be alright or not.

She was really sweet and said the closing prayer and asked for my phone to be ok. I really didn't think it would work again, because it got really hot, and I took out the battery. When we got home an hour or two later, I was shaking water out of it. I took the hair dryer to it, and within a few minutes, it was working again. I'm grateful for the way we are blessed even when it is something small compared to someones life. Heavenly Father blesses us in so many ways, big and small.

The Drive Home

Ok... So this is dull and boring, but somehow I was compelled to post pictures of the drive home from Walmart.

Procrastinator Extraordinaire

Ok... I'm not so good at keeping up with this as I'd like. Procrastinating posting helps me to get other stuff done though. (see http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/)


Ah... let's see, Mahala has lost 2 teeth.

Lily LOVES Oreos. Just ask Daddy.
Grandma & Grandpa Amon had their 60th Anniversary celebration at Spring Creek Barbeque. It was fun to get together. I let Alicia take pictures... this one has Grandma in it in the background. Maybe I should have given her some directions. :D Eli had to go in for a big boy test. He has an IV in underneath that thing on his arm. He was so brave. When I asked him about it, he said "I was only a little bit not brave when I had to go potty." We'll find out the results on July 5.
Silly little Parker is a mountain climber in training. I heard him calling me in the kitchen. He was mad that I stopped to take this picture before helping him down, but I couldn't resist. It's not the first time he's gotten himself stuck like this.

Harry Potter Stuff

So... This is just cool.

Yeah, I know, I'm addicted.

Library, Library, Library. Circus?

Well, I have to admit, taking the kids to the library does sometimes feel like a circus. This week we visited libraries 3 times. Saginaw Library had the Ringling Bros. Clowns Slappy and Monday come for a visit. It was a wonderful performance that we all loved! The kids will get free circus tickets when they read 5 books. They will also get lots of fun prizes for reading by the hour. Alicia has read a boat load of hours already. We challenged her to read the first 5 Harry Potter books by the time the movie comes out so that she'll be allowed to see it. Apparently, that was high motivation because she read the first book in less than 1 week.

Yesterday we visited the River Oaks library and the kids got to learn a lot about Cherokee heritage from a woman in our community. Then we headed out for playgroup in White Settlement. It was water day and the kids got completely soaked. I can't imagine them having more fun!

Today we went back to the Saginaw Library and saw a performance of the Tortise and the Hare. The kids had a front row seat and loved it. All the kids got to "help" make a salad for the Tortise using their imaginations. Eli was picked to put dressing on the salad. It was so cute.

We have been enjoying having Daddy at home with us and homework free for a few weeks now. Today he started his new job delivering pizza for Dominos and we really miss him! But we are also happy that he has a job he will like. Here he's getting ready to read to the kids before bed.

Road Trip!

Well, I don't have many great pics for this one, but yesterday, I went on a road trip with April, Lily, and Ian to pick up Kelvin in Kansas. Lily slept a lot, and cried even more. I forgot what that was like. She was so funny when we got home. She was crawling around all over the place just happy as a clam! We left a little after 7 and got home about 9. We enjoyed the best things in OK and pretty well hated the rest. They have the best beef jerky in the world, and the coolest red dirt. The roads made us think we had a flat tire on the freeway, and the exits were confusing! We were so glad when we made it to Kansas where the roads are almost normal. Texas was a site for sore eyes. Inspite of our little difficulties and road wear, we had lots of fun enjoying each other's company and we are excited to have Kelvin home with his family for the summer!

Eli's 5 ! (June 1)

So, This is how the Birthday Cake turned out. I was so pleased because I bought a cake leveler. It was the first layer cake I've made that didn't slide around while I was frosting it. Eli likes soccer, so we put soccer balls on the cake.

This is Eli eating his favorite dinner. He apparently loves corndogs. We had corndogs the night before too, and I couldn't convince him to pick anything else. So, everyone else ate chicken!

Notice the ketchup bottle right next to his plate... If you look closely, you might be able to see the smiley face he proudly painted on the corndog.

Eli had lots of fun opening presents.
He got a pirate dress up kit with a telescope and a hook, lots of cool Spiderman stuff, some water toys, and a basketball hoop!

After the party, Andrew arrived late from work and got to join us for some water play (and almost got hit by a "fly ball" water balloon as he was leaving :D ). Dad fixed up some water balloons and everyone got squirted with Eli's water blaster and new sprinkler. The kids had lots of fun dropping little balls down the spiral green thingy and watching them shoot up in the air.

Scary Birthday Cake

I'll post more later about Eli's birthday, but I had to post this picture of the way his cake looked when I took it out of the oven.

Bwahahahaha!