When Girls Attack

Jack got beat up by a girl. It looks more like he got in a cat fight, though. Nursery can be a dangerous place. You never know when a moody girl is going to go on a wild rampage and scratch the whole class up.

I came to pick him up and he was snuggled up to one of the nursery workers obviously recovering from a pretty good cry (you know that frantic hiccuppy type breathing?) I asked what was wrong then saw the battle wounds on his face.

Apparently, a handful of kids walked away from nursery yesterday with some injuries. It doesn't look too bad today, but yesterday it was pretty red. He's got a couple scratches by his eyes and a few on his nose and upper lip. He's pretty tough though, cause when I asked him how nursery was he said, "nursery fun!"

Hey there, this is what we've been doing lately.

For some reason I'm finding it difficult lately to blog in any fashion other than photo dumping. I often find myself with fun photos to share but no real direction or focus other than, "Hey there, this is what we've been doing lately." And that's a lame direction. But I guess for lack of desire to do anything about the lameness, I'll just go with it. So.... here's what we've been up to!

In Midvale Jack discovered the very boyish trait that is ingrained in all small males: which is the need to build towers and break them. He's been good at the break thing for a while now, but the building takes a bit more coordination. My mom has these awesome buckets of Legos/Duplos that would keep Jack busy forever while we were visiting. He just simply loved to put them together and pull them apart over and over again. So by the time we got home, he had honed his building skills. Adam was super impressed with this train shaped creation that Jack made all by himself and had to get pics.

Next up on the lately list: watching TV in the baby boat. For Jack and I our morning routine goes as such: We eat breakfast, then he watches an episode of Word World downstairs while I get ready upstairs. One morning I came down to find this cuteness.

We had been swimming the night before and left his "baby boat" out. So he thought it looked like a great place to watch Word World. If you were wondering Jack coined the term "baby boat" and now that floatation device is not referred to by any other name.

Along the same lines, Jack found another spot to get comfy in while watching Adam grill.

You can tell he's really comfy cause of the hands behind his head.

Then, last Saturday Rainbow took all their employees and spouses to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Tuachan. As we walked in they asked if we wanted to participate in the play. So Adam got to be in the spelling bee. He got called up to spell four times and was told to just spell the word to the best of his ability. He ended up being the last one of the audience participants. He spelled Jihad, apoop, caterjunes, and got out on xerophthomology, which isn't even a real word. When he got caterjunes correct they got him come right back up and gave him xeropthomology so that he would be eliminated before intermission. In addition to his great spelling, he did a little dancing and got a long long hug from an Asian gangster guy. Then the whole cast followed him down to his seat and serenaded him with a goodbye song.

And finally, we celebrated Adam's birthday. And while I have no pictures of the birthday boy or the awesome cake I made him, I do have evidence of the cake's awesomeness. The day after Adam's birthday when Jack was eating some leftover cake, I caught him licking his plate clean. If that's not an indicator then I don't know what is. Adam and I also licked our plates clean, but it's not as cute when we do it. 

Good food can get a bit messy. 

You gotta try this finger-licking, plate-licking good cake. It's definitely a special occasion kind of dessert cause it's a bit labor intensive. You make your own pudding and frosting and batter. But boy oh boy... Worth It! Promise.

So tune in next time for another marathon, mile long, uncoordinated blog post by yours truly. At least there are always good Jack pics for Grandmas and Aunties, right?

Family Safari-ing

Today we went on an African safari. What else is a little family in St. George supposed to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon? We made binoculars from paper towel rolls and decorated them with stickers.

Then we went on a hunt to find all the wild animals. There were gorillas,

 and dinosaurs

 and puppies

 and lots more.

There were fascinating creatures everywhere we looked.

 A wild, ravenous creature must have eaten his right slipper. One of the hazards of safari-ing I guess.

So that's what we did with our Sunday afternoon. What did you do?

Vocal Stylings of Jack Jones

The last week or two Jack has started to sing along with different songs we sing. He sings Let it Be, Under the Sea, You've Got a Friend in Me, I Love to See the Temple, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, and I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. I got a couple videos of him singing some of his favorites. Some of the songs he just started singing on his own and I had no idea that he knew them at all.

So I posted a couple videos here and here of his songs.

Impromptu Visit to Midvale

As you may or may not have heard, my dad had a mild heart attack about a week and a half ago. No worries, all is fine now. But when we got the call last Friday afternoon that he had been life flighted from Youth Conference in Ephraim, UT; we threw our things together, made arrangements for work and church obligations, and hit the road. We were able to visit with him in the ICU Friday evening and even smuggled Jack in to see if per the patient's request. Then Saturday morning he had a stent put in to clear the blockage and Sunday afternoon he came home. It was a scary phone call to get, but we were very very blessed that he didn't receive hardly any damage to his heart. We're glad to have him up and moving around and even going back to work.

On Saturday while my mom was at the hospital all day with Dad, we decided to take Jack to our old stomping grounds from last summer: Wheeler Farm. He had a great time and it made it even better that aunties came along too.

 Leading the orchestra?

 Casting a spell? Who knows.

 This year he was big enough to climb up into the little tree house.

 And peek out to see us.

They were watching the cow eat. 

 Not the cutest face for Jack, but at least Mel looks cute.

 Now there's the classic Jack face...

 We loved this pretty horsy. Someday I aim to own a horse of my own. Until then I'll settle for petting them through fences.

We packed a lunch to eat and this guy was cock-a-doodle-dooing at us the whole time. We liked it.

That night we met the whole family (minus Dad, the invalid, of course) at Noodles and Co. All the cousins argued about who got to sit by Jack and he was absolutely loving all the attention. 

He took a particular liking to Syd. This is them sitting together outside the restaurant.

I had been wanting to find a time to stay up in Midvale for a longer visit, so we decided this would be a good opportunity. Adam drove home Sunday night so that he could be to work on Monday morning, but not before we were able to go to Temple Square with Matt, Alexa, and Ethan. They had been in Rexburg and were able to come down and see us. I didn't get any pictures, though because Jack spent most of the time with no pants on since he peed through them and we didn't have a spare...Oops. Bad mom and dad. Another memorable thing was when our kid, who had no pants on at the time, threw a plastic baseball into the Jerusalem display at the Visitor's Center. Embarrassing, yes. But I'm writing about it so that we can have a good chuckle about it on a later date.

Monday night we decided to take a drive out to see Carson and Parker (and Lisa too, I guess). They had a ball together riding bikes.

 These two together is just the cutest thing.

 Jack even got to put a helmet on and try out Parker's big boy bike.

When we were grocery shopping on Monday, Grandpa found some popsicle molds and had to have them. So we brought them home and made Mio Pops, which sound better than they actually taste. It was pretty fun all eating popsicles together, though.

And then on to Independence Day... We had a yummy BBQ with the family. Then a Pop-Its war ensued on the front lawn. Jack and I got out relatively unscathed, but others took some pretty big hits. Jack was a little too focused on just getting the things to actually pop. So he didn't noticed the Pop-Its flying in all directions.

 I was able to capture this great picture of a nine-year-old making a twenty-something-year-old flinch. Good work Braden!

 Fun with sparklers. After the fact, I noticed that the box says they're not intended for kids under age 12. I believe all the kids at our party were under 12. Oops. But it's not the Fourth of July if you don't hand your young kids a stick of fire.

Later on in the evening, Jack thought the middle of the road would be a nice place to chill for awhile.

 And then he came right up to Syd and snuggled up with her. He sure loves his only girl cousin.

We had a really fun holiday and week of vacation. Jack loved all the cousin time and talks about them all day long. And, of course, we were both pretty excited to see Daddy again.