Tuesday April 30

Port was so excited to set the table for dinner tonight.

He got out the 'special' plates.

And he wrapped each fork with a napkin.

Very nicely, I might add :)

This grumpy face was because of me taking pictures....

I am sure one day he will be happy I take so many pictures :)

Poor kid still has a kinked neck today.

And  little sty on his left eye.

But he has been a pretty good boy anyway.

 

 

Monday April 29

 

It was a good day today.

I planned for it to be a really productive day....

But it didn't really turn out as productive as I wanted...but I did get a lot done.

I did workout, and then Port had speech while I helped in Elsie's class.

Then home and lunch and Port's nap.

Port just didn't take a very long nap and Elsie was VERY whiny today.

And all they did was fight.

And not much gets done when they fight.

So I had to try to keep them apart.

Even putting on a movie for them didn't help me out.

I picked the big girls up from Tennis and Track around 5ish and they were helpful to get things done.

They played with the little ones while I made dinner.

Then after dinner they helped me get stuff cleaned up.

The little ones got a bath and into bed at a good time.

Now the big girls need to get to sleep.....so I can get to sleep :)

Glad that Dad will be home tomorrow.

It's always better when he's here.
*****
Dad had a busy day.
Diving all day long.
And they got some pictures.
It's fun when we get to see the stuff he gets to do :)

 

Getting stuff set up.

Getting ready to go in....

45 feet under water
(he is somewhere under that life jacket)

This one is for me :)
His buddy thought it would be funny to get a shot of him changing out of his wet suit.
 



Sunday April 28

It was a beautiful day today again.

Church didn't go super smoothly.

It never really does without Dad.

I blame myself for the mornings not going smooth, and then that just feeds into Sacrament meeting.

I will do better next week. :)

Madi had a camp meeting after church today.

I am excited for her to go.

I think she doesn't know what to expect....but I think she is excited too.

She isn't actually in Young Womans yet....so she isn't close with any of the girls.

I hope someone nice takes her under their wing.

She does have a friend who's sister is a year older than Madi.

And Madi runs track with her...and she is so nice.

All the girls are nice...I just worry about kids already having friends and not pulling her in.

That was always my fear as a kid.

But I don;t think it is a fear of Madi's.....so I should just chill.

It will all be great and so much fun for her.

*****

The kids played outside together today.

Cassi was outside for most of the afternoon.

She is an outdoors kind of girl for sure.

And she kept Elsie busy with her much of the day.

Port had a good nap, but poor kid woke up with a kinked neck.

Madi played 'Inventor' with him for a while.

Then he headed outside too.

Elsie found herself another sagebrush friend....

And Cassi and Porter found some nature friends too :)

Silly kiddos.

Later one, Porter came up from his room with 5 shirts on.

Only one was on the right direction and not inside out :)

It made me laugh.

He makes me laugh.

 

Saturday April 27

Lots of hard work today!!!

After a nice hard workout at the gym together....(Dad and I)

Then we got home and got to work.

Started with spraying weeds....

Pulling nails and screws out of old fences to use for fun future projects.....but mainly to cover the back of the barn.

Still need to finish that.

Then we got working on digging fence post holes.

Dad put me on the tractor.

I only almost backed over him once.

No big deal......

No, really.

He says he was never in any danger....and he made me stay on the tractor.

So I guess he felt I was safe on there.

We got all the holes dug.

Some of them were pretty tricky.

But we got 'em.

The big girls were awesome helpers all day.

Cassi played with the little ones the whole time.

And things went really good.

And Madi stuck with us....she is a hard worker for sure!

So we got all the holes dug....all the posts in....all the posts set.

Wal-la!

Beautiful!

Still lots more work to do.....but it feels good to get this far along!

*****

I had a photo session tonight.

Dad came with me and when I finished up...the plan was to go to PF Changs.

BUT....

While taking pictures, I noticed the MASSIVE amounts of high school kids getting dance pictures taken.

Brent called PF Changs and found out the wait was until 9:30....

SOOO....we changed plans.

We went to Fusion.

We love that place and need to go there more often.

It is a cute little family owned place and we really like the food.

It was an exhausting day....

But so much fun too :)

 

 

 

 



Friday April 26

Second track meet today.

It was a warm one.

But it wasn't too bad with a little wind.

She did good and improved in all her areas.

Except for the 4x100....

They couldn't run it cause one of their runners wasn't there...had a soccer game.

Too bad.

She didn't change up her hurdle jump for the meet.

Maybe we can work on it more this week and get her to swing that foot out instead of in.

But she still got second place in her heat.

So that was awesome.

Elsie wore herself out on the stairs again.

Up and down.....up and down.

And we were up against 'Lewis and Clark' and 'Meridian' schools...

Lewis and Clark cheers for their school by saying "Go L.C."

Yep....sounds like Elsie.

She thought it was pretty awesome that they were all cheering for her!

(We noticed this during cross country too :)

So after hurdles...she had her 100 meter dash.

And then the shot-put.

She did a great job.

It was about a quarter after 6 when she got finished up and we could leave....

The plan was to go out with the Youngs....but it got too late to go out to dinner with them.

And we were all exhausted.

So maybe we can go out tomorrow guys????

:)

We came home and ate leftovers and watched a movie as a family.

That was fun too.

 

 



Thursday April 25

 So I went out to help dad outside with a few things and when I came back in....this is what I found.

Nice.

But they weren't fighting.

So that's good.

But it was a mess.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they had dumped a full thing of brand new raisins.

Great.

So I made them clean up the raisins and then I put Port down for a nap.

And Elsie helped me clean up the rest of the mess.
Then I went back out to help Dad with more stuff.
Lots to do :)
We planted two more trees.....just some aspen ones that we have had potted.
And Brent planted our 2012 Christmas tree last week too.
We are planting them out by the 'tree of life'...making kind of a forest area.
Well, it will be in a few years anyway :)
 

 

After the kids all got home, and after Cassi had guitar we had a pizza picnic outside.

Then Madi did some shot-put and hurdle practicing.

She was dead tired already from track....but we never get to see her practice :)

So she did for us.

She has improved a lot.

She jumps funny on hurdles...and we are trying to fix it, but she is having a hard time because it is kind of a habit now.

I am mad that the coaches didn't ever do any 'this is how you do it' kind of thing.

They just let them have at it.

Seems dumb to me.

Oh well.

She is having fun and that's what matters :)

Then little ones had fun going for walks and playing with the animals.

Porter collected me a beautiful bunch of flowers....so sweet.

And Elsie found a new tumbleweed pet.

She was very excited about it, but not very happy she couldn't bring it inside for night time.

Silly girl!

 



Wednesday April 24

Got to go to the gym today with Dad.

It's been a good three days since I worked out....It was good to get it done!

Even though it killed me :)

*****

Port watched Frankenwienee today.

After his nap he got to work 'inventing' stuff.

He kept quite busy for a very long time.

Not sure what he invented....but he was pretty proud :)

The big girls and I had Activity days today and when we got home Elsie and Porter were down in his room 'inventing' together.

They played very well together while 'inventing'.

But they did make a HUGE mess!

Oh well....the no fighting time is good enough for me :)

We can clean it up tomorrow.

 

Tuesday April 23

We spent the morning with Dr. Lee in her office.

Elsie and Madi had eye appointments.

But Madi had some Idaho State testing that she didn't want to miss.

I had an appointment scheduled for Cassi next month...they wouldn't do 3 at the same time....

Anyway, it worked out for me to switch Cassi for Madi's appointment.

So we headed off.

I wasn't too sure how the morning would go.

Elsie was up at 5:00.

But it takes months to get in...so I had to stick with the appointment.

Anyway....we got in and Cassi went first.

Elsie told me she was nervous and wanted Dad.

So we sent him a picture of her signing 'I love you' and she felt better.

Cass finished up and then he put eye drops in her eyes.

Then it was Elsie's turn.

She was being brave and acting good.

But then she burst into tears.

She tried so hard to let it in.

He didn't know what to do.

He actually seemed pretty flustered with it all and tried to keep pushing to get her to do it.

Which doesn't work for Elsie.....at all!

He suggested he get to female worker to come in.

Which was a great idea.

She is who Elsie usually has.

Elsie knows her face.

And she is so nice.

She was awesome.

She kind of 'wasted time' by making sure everything had been entered in the computer right, all the time talking very calmly and quietly.

It did the trick.

Soon Elsie was telling her about her loose teeth and about the baby Buffalo's.

I talked to her at the end of the appointment and she said when she walked in and saw the eye drops on the counter, she knew that was what triggered Elsie's break down.

And she is SO RIGHT!!!!

I thought about it...but thought maybe there would be enough time before she had to do the drops that she would forget.

Anyway.

I was so happy she came and took care of it all.

She was wonderful!

Elsie was not happy again to have the eye drops put in....but we did it then went out to play while they dilated.

Then they got checked.....

Cassi was great.

20/20.

That's good.

And Elsie has improved!

Yay!

So we need to get her in for some new lenses.

She has been looking over her glasses for a while now, trying to focus better on things....and now we know why.

I sure wish we had her new lenses for the testing they are doing this week in school :(

So they were all pretty good.

Porter wasn't too bad either.

Except he was curious about all the expensive equipment around.....and there was some rolling around on the floor too.

When we left, it was lunchtime, so we stopped at McDonald's and got some happy meals for them.

I dropped Cassi back off at school and then Elsie Porter and I went to the park.

We had made plans with a couple kids in Elsie's class to go to the park for a picnic today.

So we played for a while and when we got home, Port was exhausted and ready for his nap.

Then I got some more house chores done.

Nothing super fun today.

The kids were really helpful this afternoon.

We got some stuff done that I have been meaning to do.

Elsie and Porters rooms needed cleaning.

And I needed to go through Elsie's clothes.

Good to have that stuff done :)

 

 

 

Monday April 22

Today was a long day.

I am glad to get into bed really soon :)

I wish I was more productive.

I am much more productive when Dad is home.

I did help in Elsie's class today.

So that's something.

The girls got home from track and tennis and everyone was on edge and tired.

So I blasted the radio while we did a quick 20 minute cleanup.

It worked well.

I need to do it more often.

I also bribed them with chocolate covered strawberries for getting it cleaned up in the allotted time.

Worked great :)

Then we watched a little bit of Looney Tunes before the little ones headed off to bed..

I have found a calmness that comes over Porter when we watch Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry.

Kind of funny.

Maybe cause there isn't much talking and you have to pay attention to what is going on.

Maybe.

I don't know.

He does always tell me how bad he feels for Tom.

Kinda makes me laugh.