Ring Toss!

This is one of my most favorite games! I love it, it makes me laugh every time!
What you need for this game....

Kids, 2-6.









A balcony, stairs with a small landing, or even a very large second story window.









Hula hoops.









Whenever my kids are outside and they ask for the hula hoops, they know this is what is going to happen. They all stand out on the lawn and I toss the hoops over their heads.
We almost always end up doubled over in laughter by the end (by end I mean after they run the hula hoops back up and we do it two or three times).

WARNING: Kids may end up in tears after being hit in the nose by a hula hoop (but no worries, if it hit their nose it probably went over their head 15 points for you!).So here's a really loose tie in, but it's my blog, so there.
Ring Toss is a game often seen at Carnivals or other street festivals right? Well, here are some pictures of my gorgeous girls after they got their faces painted at the Ogden Arts Festival. Sorry about the lighting on these, but don't they look pretty?

When Make Believe Meets Reality

My kids play the strangest games, especially during the summer. Hollee asked me to come into her room on Friday afternoon. I walked back to find this.....

Hollee had wrapped all the kids up in "bandages" in her own little "triage" room. It was pretty cute. Broken knee and wrist.

Broken ankle, wrist, and arm. Missing ear and punctures on the head.

Broken arm and leg.

They all listed their ailments (which were many with all the added injuries before they were done playing), but I only remember how a few of the injuries happened. Eli got bit by an American Alligator on his head, and Smeigel bit his thumb off. Notice here that the doctor isn't the only one missing from these pictures, we're also missing Jack. He didn't want to be a patient on Friday. He was saving that for Monday.
Jack was standing on a chair trying to reach candy on the table. Somehow he slipped and fell, smacking his chin on the chair on the way down. I took him to the clinic and he got 5 stitches.

He likes showing off his bandaid beard. (and messy face)

Poor baby.

The youngest of five and the first to get stitches. We always knew it would be him.

My Alison

Alison....Alison is probably the quietest kid you will ever meet. She just doesn't like to talk. It makes her uncomfortable. If you try to get her to talk, she becomes even more quiet. Talking just doesn't happen.

So, you won't believe what she did yesterday. We were all out shopping and I decided to get all the kids a new shirt. Hollee, Eli, Andrew and Jack all picked shirts that were very typical of what they wear and Alison picked this.....

(I GOT AN A+ IN TALKING)

She held it up and I just laughed! I didn't know how much I should laugh so I held back a bit. Then she said, "I think it's funny, because I don't talk very much". I lost it at that point. So funny! Nice to know Alison has such a great sense of humor.

MY HEAD IS BEEPING!

My cute, cute boy.
(I am writing this in the knowledge that he will be reading this so keep up.)
When Eli was three years old we lived in Oregon.
His most favorite thing in the world to do was to go to Grandma's house. Unfortunately, some odd things happened over at Grandma's. I mean really odd things, like his head would beep. Really high pitched kind of shrill beeping. Kind of like some type of alarm. We all heard the beeping. It usually happened when it was smoky in the kitchen, like if we burned something or the wood stove was smoking. The beeping would start and then he would exclaim to us, "My head is beeping!" Then, he would plug his nose to make it stop. The nose plug seemed to magically work.
It was all very inexplicable.
How cute is that to have a kid with a beeping head?

Well Eli is now seven years old.
I had all but forgotten about his beeping head until the other day when he came home from school.
Eli: "Mommy? Remember when my head would beep when we were at Grandmas?"
Mommy: (suppressing a smile) "Yes, I remember."
Eli: " It happened again today at school."
Mommy: (getting harder not to smile at this point) "It did? Weird!"
Eli: " I know, huh."
Eli leaves the room like this is all no big deal and Mommy quickly calls Daddy while giggling.

Again I have to say...
...My cute, cute boy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting......

CRACKERS BIGPANTS!

Do you recognize this clown? This is Andrew doing what he does. Notice how the pants are too small? Those are the little touches he makes, and yes, he named himself.


Crackers here has made a few public appearances. The grocery store, Target and general errands around town. Last Wednesday was his first party. Crackers was the entertainment at our Relief Society birthday social.


He was the hit of the party, if I do say so myself. He was adorable. He passed out balloons, he took pictures...


(here he is giving one of the Young Women bunny ears)

even played a few jokes...


(he's whacking his primary teacher)

I didn't get a picture of it, but when the bishop came in to say "hi" he took his giant fly swatter and went over to the bishop and started whacking him. He whacked him over and over and said, "Am I bugging you?". The bishop replied, "yes". Crackers said, "Oh, I thought so" and kept right on whacking. The bishop knows Crackers only too well and laughed when he saw him and said, "His life's ambition right?" Yes, yes it is.




By the way, here is the cute birthday cake I made for the party.

Hollee vs. Jordan

Now you may have noticed that most of these posts have been about Andrew, with a few guest appearances from Jack. The reason for this is just, Andrew is home with me all day, every day and he is 5, just a silly age. So I decided to put up a few of my favorite stories of all my kids.
Now I asked my sister if i could put up this story because it kind of makes Jordan sound like a bully, but he totally isn't. He's one of the sweetest boys ever! The keyword in that sentence is "boy" though, he's always been a boy through and through......

There were some key differences between Hollee and Jordan when they were babies. Hollee a girl, Jordan a boy. Hollee a first child that was by herself most of the time, Jordan a second child. Not just any second child either, his older sister was the first grandchild on both sides of their family so she was spoiled as all get out! Hollee was quiet and quite frankly, a lazy baby, Jordan was a ball of energy. The kid didn't know how to walk, only run, run, run. Also, Jordan may have been 5 months younger, but he was bigger.
Sorry I couldn't put up a younger picture of Hollee, I really need to scan in some of her tiny baby pictures.

Hollee and Jordan got along for the most part, they crawled together for a little while, they saw each other all the time. One day Jordan discovered that he was bigger than Hollee and he liked it. She would come over to his house to be dragged around by his older sister (which I am sure was a welcome break for him) and he decided he wanted in on the action too. So he started pushing and hitting Hollee any time he had the chance. Hollee would just whimper. Seriously, she was too lazy to even cry. All of us parents watched this change come and wondered what to do. This continued for a couple of weeks until this fateful day.....
Hollee was sitting on the floor of Jordan's living room. She was (lazily) playing with a toy similar to this...

(Do you remember it now Gabrielle?)
She would hit the balls, slowly lean over to get them, put them back in and hit them again. Hollee had not yet seen Jordan and was having lots of fun. Jordan walked in the living room. He was in a good mood and he had no intentions of picking on his cousin at the moment. Hollee looked up at Jordan and something close to panic came into her eyes. She looked down and saw two little plastic balls. She picked them up, walked right over to Jordan and with one ball in each hand bashed him on either side of the head with the balls. Jordan was shocked! He started to cry and she walked away looking a little bit too satisfied. I didn't know what to do, I was more shocked than Jordan. Then Dave (Jordan's dad) busted up laughing and so did I. Later that day Hollee watched Jordan bite his older sister then proceeded to bite him twice, both times unprovoked. We quickly got that nipped in the bud and from that day forward they never fought again. Really, they NEVER fought again.



p.s. Did you notice my new background? kind of remind you of clown cars? Stay tuned...

Interfering With Babies

I babysit my niece Sam a couple times a week.

If I'm lucky I get a few precious moments of being her most favorite person in the whole world in the morning. Today I got a whole hour of being her favorite person. It was adorable. She wanted me to chase her, she giggled, she smiled, she even came up to me while I was sitting and moved my hand out of her way so she could climb on my lap and just cuddle. When this baby cuddles it's the sweetest thing ever. She puts her cheek right against mine and coos while she plays with my hair. ADORABLE!!

Well, things change when Jack wakes up. I now come in a very far away second.

Jack walked in the room and she started giggling like she always does. Lucky for me Jack can't start his day until he has given me a good cuddle. So he smiled at Samantha and walked over to me and climbed on my lap. This ticked Sam off. She threw a full blown fit. She screamed, she kicked and the tears immediately started (she's really good at that). So I picked her up and put her next to Jack on my lap. The fit automatically turned off. She smiled, threw her arms around Jack's neck and was again the happiest little girl you have ever seen. They are now sitting on the floor eating her dry cereal. He leans over and eats it like a puppy dog (noises included) and she laughs her butt of every time.

I think I like coming in second.