I promise!!!!

I really DO promise I love all my kids the same.

And I don't think I've showed favoritism...........

However, the below evidence is NOT helping my case.

Here are ALL the kids' pinatas for their 4 year old birthday parties.....

Bronson-2007 (Manny, the mammoth from Ice Age) 

Camden-2008, rhino

 Emerson-2010  "Kevin" the bird, from the movie "Up"

Aleeya-2011   A Minnie purse, of course

And here is poor Iris' pinata waiting to dry for tomorrow............

I. AM. SO. DEAD.

I don't remember her asking for a smooshed up, droopy and flattening by the minute pinata......

Bug

You wouldn't BELIEVE how excited my kids were to have Tio Bug come to visit us on his way moving cross-country!!!! RIGHT when the boys got home from school they headed out to the golf course w/ Bug and Brooks. I'm pretty sure it won't surprise you to know that they're pretty competitive. 

So with Brooks winning by 5 strokes after the first 9 holes to go to losing by 2 strokes, it was a pretty monumental win for Tio Bug. Here is the congratulatory handshake after the win.

(I just love brothers.......)

But we really had some SUPER horrible weather. It was raining almost the whole time and kinda chilly. Kinda ruined our BIGTIME plans w/ Bug of more golfing, baseball practices, more frog-catching (I don't think Bug would've liked that anyway, but the kids wanted to show him. We sure know how to HOST, don't we? ;) ) and outdoor play.

We DID get a sorta-game in of baseball w/ the whole fam before it started raining again though..........which Bug's team won.

Aleeya wanted to crack ALL the eggs for breakfast so Tio Bug could know she could cook.

After baseball Brooks and Bug (his real name is Bronson, but to not confuse anyone, I'll just stick with "Bug") played a little one-on-one. Thankfully Brooks managed to pull out a win.

And also a win in the following dunk-over-my-brother display. It took him 3 times but he managed to do it.....and let me just say, he looked SUPER hot doing it too!!!!

Then Bug tried and landed on the driveway-dropoff part and rolled his ankle.

Let's just say "Dr.Smith" wasn't too sympathetic because he kept giggling when he was checking it out.

(the girls made up for it later during scripture reading though scratching Bug's leg and rubbing his ankle)

While the boys were outside playing basketball I went inside to check on the younger ones (when you don't know where they are and they're playing quietly, it's best to check on them). I found them like this.

They made a swing out of Aleeya's blanket for Royce and the two girls were "tied up". But they really weren't tied with anything, they just held their hands behind there and wouldn't move.......for like 20 minutes. I'm thinking I really like this game. We may have to play it more often.......like a LOT more often.

We went to StevieB's for their pizza buffet for dinner.....for their "last supper" before Fast Sunday.

 Kellyn LOVES pizza crust!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut apparently not the garlic flavoring on this crust.

It's a REAL big shocker Iris wasn't sitting by Bug (she wouldn't leave him alone), but here she is.......by me, with her BIG ol' pile of ranch dressing to dip her pizza and cheese sticks in. (I sheepishly take full credit for passing on that addiction)

Don't you LOVE our seating arrangements? I do too. Here is Royce sandwiched against the wall so he can't escape. We put Bronson on the end 1) because he has never-ending patience with Royce and 2) because he was so glued on that sports channel on the TV he wasn't going to move and therefore, either was Royce.

Brooks gave them all coins to go play in the arcade. The older boys conned Iris and Royce out of their coins......which turns out fine because they sat on these cars forever and "played" them with the "Insert a Coin" blinking on their screen the whole time.

But don't dis these cars because playing them can be pretty intense. 

We really take it seriously around here.

Bug with his little twin.......who couldn't be serious in a picture to save his life.

Tio Bug just won best-uncle status around here. He gave BOTH of the girls a whole STINKIN bag of suckers (I can't wait to return the favor one day and give his daughter one....or two....or three bags of suckers)

We were really and truly sad when he left the next day. 2 nights was just too short. Iris woke up the next morning to find Tio Bug gone and she almost lost it.............

until she remembered her sucker bag.

Not a total loss

After a double-header baseball game on Monday night the kids asked if we could go on the Nature Trails behind all the baseball fields. They've been begging for a while, so we decided to say yes.

Tons of trails, rivers, bridges, mud, swamp......you get the idea.

This is ALSO where I lost my phone.

We were crossing a bridge where we stopped and Brooks gave a lesson on Premortal Life, Mortal Life and Eternal Life using the bridge as the object lesson. Then after he dropped a big ol' pile of rocks in front of the kids and said, "Who can throw the farthest?" 

It ended up being btw Brooks, Bronson and me. Brooks obviously won. Then Bronson threw his super far. I was planning in beating him (duh!), but when I threw the rock I just threw my WHOLE body into it (so I could win) and my phone in my hoodie pocket just bounced right out, off the bridge and way down into the river.

Not only did I lose my phone, but I lost to Bronson in the rock throwing competition. 

Not sure which one I was more devastated about......

But I WILL tell you that Royce and Aleeya were TRAUMATIZED by it. 

Aleeya must think one can't LIVE without a phone.

Royce (who still can't talk, mind you), throughout the WHOLE walk kept saying to Brooks, 

"Wa-gua?" (agua/water). Then he'd put his hand up to his ear acting like he was talking on a phone and say, 

"A-loh?" "A-loh?" (he says it with a Spanish accent, it's pretty funny).

We're talking those 2 words repeated through the WHOLE walk. I was glad I was up in front w/ the older ones while Brooks stayed back with the broken record, Royce.

But like I said, it wasn't a TOTAL loss because Camden caught a little orange frog. See?

Kellyn just could NOT catch it.

I have so many pictures of my older brothers handing me frogs as a young toddler or girl and I just love that my girls get that too.

So obviously LAST night since we didn't have any practices or games (MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!!!), the older 4 wanted me to take them back to the trails to see if they can catch anything. 

I love it that they would prefer nature trails/outside over a jump house/playcenter/McDonalds ANYDAY!

 One of my FAVORITE pictures.

 I found a lizard that Camden (of course) caught. It started out green.

 I love the look of complete LOVE on Camden's face watching the lizard's mouth open.

 Then he started turning black (now he's all black)

 We re-visited the darn bridge my phone fell off of.

 Obviously they couldn't see it anymore.....

 We walked for a whole hour and found the one lizard, a wild turkey they couldn't get to in time to catch and Aleeya found a bunch of "clams".

 Oh, and a big juicy earthworm thing, that I was fine leaving there.

Then all of a sudden the sun started going down and we started finding frogs.

 3 frogs and 1 lizard  (and a pocket full of "clam" shells). Aren't their colors so cool?

 Aleeya actually caught a frog all by herself!!!! She is OBVIOUSLY so proud of herself.

THAT'S MY GIRL!!!!

Here are Camden's hands now holding 5. Yes, he can have 4 in his hands and STILL catch another one.

Within 20 minutes we had ourselves 12 frogs and 1 lizard. Trust me, all of our hands were full, so I was glad when I found a bag in the car for the way home. Not sure how safe I would be driving and holding frogs......

They made a make-shift "home" for them right when they got home. 13 total frogs.

Of course after they showered this morning and came down the eat the FIRST thing they wanted to do was check on their frogs. Emerson went out and found "Jefe" (the big one), with another frog on his back. He kept trying to pull the one on top off saying, "I can't get this one of Jefe's back!"

I told him to leave them alone and that they were probably mating. Of COURSE with the prospect of frog eggs Emerson made SURE no one disturbed those two. Then Camden kept talking about Jefe being squished on the bottom and the girl not leaving him alone on top and I told him, "Camden, I think Jefe might actually BE a girl and the one on top might be a boy." 

"Oh"

Phew, glad I got THAT "talk" over with. Guess my parenting responsibilities are finished here.....

You can imagine how much entertainment these frogs are around here.

 Iris finding "brothers"

Then she tried playing match-maker by sticking some on each other's backs.

This frog is my favorite for some reason. His name is "Wart" because he has the biggest bumps on his back.

But the orange/red ones are pretty cool too.

I've actually enjoyed 2 days w/o a phone. No one bothers me, I don't "HAVE" to make any phone calls to companies/bills/call-backs.........but yes, I'll have to go get a new one soon I guess.

With the loss of the phone though, I still think we came out on top w/ 13 frogs, one lizard, "clam" shells and free entertainment to last for HOURS ON END!!!!!!!!!

RPD

What is "RPD" you ask?

Well, I guess that's just short of "Random Photo Dump". So here goes.....

I took this picture of our grill the last part of March. Pollen count was INSANE here. 

Poor Bronson seems to be the only person struggling from it. And for 2 parents that had allergies REALLY bad growing up, that says a lot that I haven't taken any pills and Brooks just randomly.

I never posted a picture of Camden's poison ivy face. The is the 2nd worst day, so it got a tad more blotchy, but that was it. I let him stay home from school for 2 days. The 1st day because I had no idea what was on his face and the 2nd day because he said it looked "too ugly". I almost made him suck it up, but when his eyes started watering I started thinking, "I don't blame him"

Good thing I showed him mercy because no one seemed to question when I didn't feel like going out and running errands w/ my face bubbled up a few days later. Even as I was being BEYOND creative (read: lame and nasty) with the dinners and trying to throw anything together that was already in the house, they never complained. Pretty sure they just didn't want to see me leave the house. :)

Speaking of poison ivy, the last picture I took was on Tuesday morning. Then I took the meds. 

THIS is Wednesday morning. Still doesn't look much like me, but HOLY COW in one day it went down a TON and I could find my eyes to put in my contacts!

Then by Friday my face was back to normal (not the rest of my body.......still isn't, but I'll take it since I'm not itching THAT much anymore). I never really took a picture because, well, I think you've seen enough of my mug lately, but here's proof from Saturday on a random picture the kids take when I leave my camera too low............ (LIKE ALWAYS!!!!)

(cleaning Royce's face.......I'm ALWAYS cleaning his face so we can go places!!!!!)

Some things that I love looking through is the kids' homework. Emerson had to interview someone about their career, so the obvious choice was to interview a "Diver". Infact he wanted to dress UP like one for Career Day...............but since we didn't know any, he ended up interviewing Brooks instead. :)

(poor Emerson.... Aleeya added extra letters to his assignment and drew extra stick figures, but I erased them before he turned it in)

I love the "seing people gite detter" 

(WHY is it so hard to remember that the "b" goes one way and the "d" goes the other?!?!)

The pictures on the bottom is Brooks delivering a baby (he's on OB now), giving a little kid medicine and him walking into a patient's room asking "Are you okay". So cute.

And SPEAKING of cute............by boys in their suits for Stake Conference/Church yesterday. Oh man, oh man. They couldn't get the whole wait-for-the-second-flash thing (and then they wanted to be silly) but they are STILL WAY too guapo in those suits.

As I was standing singing one of the hymns during church yesterday and looked down my row of 8 others, my eyes just immediately started tearing up. My heart was going to burst with love and gratitude for my family. It's not always easy, but moments like that just fill my heart to overflowing!

7

Emerson turned 7. 

Crazy because it seems like we've had him longer then that. He's always been such a happy, energetic and sociable kid. 

and SPEAKING of "sociable" he has SO many friends that sometimes he just gets the idea to just ask random kids in his class to come (after I had already planned the party) and he passed out his phone number to have their moms call. 

ANYWAY.....Saturday morning OF his birthday party I get a phone call from a mom. Of course, I said her boy could come and gave her the address. She didn't know me, I didn't know her, so I wanted to quickly warn her on the phone of my face so I didn't scare her off and have her wonder what type of monster fiesta she was leaving her boy at.

Here is Emerson on the morning of his party painting his "Baseball Mitt" pinata that he wanted so badly.

Yes, I said the "morning of". I felt like the whole week I was either itching, showering, laundering clothes/sheets to make sure everything was clear of poison ivy oil, running to baseball games and practices and itching at all times in between. 

It  kinda wasn't what I envisioned but all I had was a few long balloons and a milk jug, so we made it work. Emerson thinks it's actually the BEST, so that made me feel good.

He wanted "A300" written on in because "those are the best mitts". But I didn't know it was supposed to be written on the BACK of the mitt as Bronson, Brooks, Camden AND Emerson all pointed out. Whoops!

Mom PHOTOBOMB!!!!! 

So all the boys show up and immediately start wrestling, even though 2 of them don't know the other 2. I just love boys.

While they were wrestling I was chatting with the moms. The one I didn't know walked up and I introduced myself and once again apologized for my face that was suffering the effects of poison ivy.

Then she pulled up her sleeve and showed me a patch of red bumps the size of a quarter and said,

"Oh, don't worry, I have poison ivy too"

*pause* 

It took EVERYTHING in me not to just deck her right there on my front porch...okay, okay, maybe I'm not THAT mean, but I at least could've said, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you with my puffy ears, would you mind repeating that to my SWOLLEN FACE?!?!!?"

But I smiled (as much as my cheeks would let me) and then waved her off to start the party.

 And when its your birthday party you don't have to wear a shirt, I guess.

Making ice cream sundaes.

Playing Beyblades

Emerson had a GREAT idea to THROW baseballs at the mitt pinata instead of using a bat. 

It made it last a LOT longer and was more fun for the kids I think.

Maybe not so fun for Brooks who had to keep hopping the fence to go get the baseballs of the kids who couldn't aim.

Before the party ended I volunteered myself to run Camden to his baseball practice so Brooks had to face the moms again and partly so I could sit in the car w/ ice packs on my cheeks.

Happy Birthday little man!