My Stripling Warriors

This week for FHE, we learned about the 2,000 Stripling Warriors from the Book of Mormon. Again. This is one of Emma's favorite scripture stories, and as it was her turn to teach the lesson, we were blessed with yet another recital of the tale, along with some cool crafts.

Frank was in charge of the snack, & chose "naked cookies" (aka sugar cookies) because "the warriors are naked" in the pictures in the scriptures. What a little goober.

(Is anyone else having trouble with loading pictures with Blogger? They look fine on my computer, but when they upload they look terrible!)

The Almost Free Vacation

Andy only gets 1 scheduled week of vacation each year. So even if it's only a month into the school year, we get to pull Emma out & hit the road. This year we decided to take it easy with a nice, relaxed vacation in Pinetop.

Bonus: Andy's parents have a time-share condo & their points were due to expire in September, so we got to stay there for free! We cleaned all of the groceries out of our fridge, took them with us, & we were set! I counted, and in the 6 days that we stayed there, we only left the resort 3 times.

.
Once to fish:

Once to take a hike at the local lake/park:

And once to visit friends & go out to eat. It was awesome!

.

The rest of the time, our vacation looked something like this:

.

Eat breakfast on the balcony:

Swim. Eat lunch on the balcony, take nap, eat dinner on the balcony, swim. Go to bed.

.

Eat breakfast on the balcony, swim:

Etc, etc.

.

We did take some time out to play some video games in the clubhouse:

And we also spent plenty of time on the playground & in the sandbox.

Jack couldn't swim for the first couple of days because of his surgery the week before, but the lounge chairs were super interesting to him & he was perfectly content to hang out while the big kids swam like little fish. Once he could get in the water though, there was no stoppin' this kid. He LOVES to swim!

And we ALL loved watching the red-headed woodpeckers play with the mean 'ol blue jay that liked our balcony. The squirrels & chipmunks were hilarious, & we also got to see this:
I know, bad picture. But, we got to sit on the side of the road for 30 minutes & watch about 40 elk come down off the mountain & into a horse pasture. It was amazing to watch the mommas & babies together & hear them calling each other. The kids had fun pretending to be elk:
and even more fun pretending to shoot them. Ugh!

.

All in all, it was a very relaxing & rejuvinating week. Add in the fact that it cost us next to nothing, & out vacation was a complete success.

Until next year.......Sigh......It's hot in Tucson......Sigh.......I miss Pinetop.....Sigh....

We Have Tubes!!!

So this is my little Jack yesterday after being starved for almost 9 hours, with no naps all day long & being confined to the waiting and pre-op rooms of a surgery center for over an hour. He looks super cranky, huh?I think the other patients thought I was a little cuckoo, because I was having an impromptu photo shoot & giggling with the baby while everyone else was nervous & even crying before their surgeries.

Sorry, various sad-looking pre-op patients! He just looked so freakin' cute!

.

Anyways, he did awesome before & after the surgery.

One of his ears was, of course, super infected & filled with awful goop, which is now leaking out of the ear & down the side of his face (sorry, squeamish friends). But hey, it's not in the ear now, so I'm thrilled with it. Jack is already back to his happy, drooly self, & even wore the hearing aids already today. I thought they'd bother him, but he did just fine. Wish us luck with having no more ear infections!

.

And bonus, we get to see soon how this is going to affect his hearing. The Dr seems to think it's going to make a huge difference. Our audiologist, not so much. (I'm reserving judgement at this point.) Only time & testing will tell who's right, I guess.....

What a Busy Little Boy!

In the past 2 weeks, Jack has gone from Army-crawling to crawling.

From crawling to pulling himself up on things.

And from pulling himself up on things to standing for long periods of time & trying to walk along the couch, ottoman, etc.

And bonus, he's also gotten his first tooth, with the 2nd to follow either today or tomorrow, I think. Sorry it's not the best picture- it's the best I could do while wrestling an active 10 month old & trying to keep the 3 year old out of the picture. The tooth is on the left, by the way.My little wonder-man has also learned to wave Bye-Bye (you can see it at the end of the pulling-up video) & how to clap his pudgy little hands.

.

He's also gained a whole pound in the last month or so.

.

Grandma & Grandpa have been gone on a trip to Alaska for the past 3 weeks & I fear they won't even recognize Jack when they get home!
.

I'm really starting to be sad! With all of the hearing aid trials, the ear infections, & constant worry & testing, I feel like I kind of missed Jack's baby months. And now all of a sudden he's a big kid. What am I going to do?

.

EARS UPDATE:

We saw the ENT on Monday & he agreed with us that Jack definitely needs tubes. So, sometime in the next few weeks we'll get that done, hopefully before another ear infection strikes.

.

Also, his exact words in relation to Jack's latest testing were "This looks absolutely fabulous!"

Apparently, in some areas Jack has pretty much no hearing loss at all.

Yea!

Livin' the Life

We have been SOOOO busy lately.

.

I like boy playdates better than the girly ones. I'm much better at Army man shoot-em-up & building tents than frilly princess dress-up.

Frank & Rowley are just like Frank & Rusten. They get into all sorts of predicaments together that they just don't get into when they're by themselves. We've been keeping up on the yard work.....
so that we can enjoy the nice evenings outside.

Do you like our lawnmower? We've been looking for a cheap one just like this for weeks, & Andy found someone at work with this one in the back of their truck. They were taking it to the dump! A few minutes of work to un-stick one of the wheels & it's perfect. Man, I love being cheap!
.
And we're doing our best to preserve all of our garden's summery goodness. Pickles & pickled okra were on the to-do list today. We've also been dehydrating like crazy & making jams, jellies, & syrups, not to mention the peach barbeque sauce we made from the Apple Annie's peaches we got. Yum!

Jack also tries to help us diminish the pile of vegetables that continually occupies the corner of my kitchen. (Seriously, each one of the plastic bags in this picture is filled with veggies.) He especially enjoys the dried blossoms from the ends of zucchini & yellow squash. Teachin' him young to like the good stuff!

For Emma

We are VERY proud of Emma. We're 3 1/2 weeks into school now & she's doing amazing.

In fact, I just watched her write E-M-M-A M-E-R-R-I-M-A-N all by herself. Wow!

Her class has started sight words, & she comes home lecturing me about title pages, commas, & periods. Homework is a trip, too.

.

She's become somewhat of a celebrity on the kindergarten playground. Every morning when we get there, the moms & teachers come over to scope out what 'do we've done that day. I'm thinking of making cards with the hair blogs' addresses on them to hand out.

.

This is her new favorite 'do.

When I do it again, I'll do it a little different, & allow more time to wrap the hair. I finished the top in about 5 minutes as we rushed to make it out the door. Can't be late for the carpool! (How old & responsible am I?)

By the way, this is the outfit I bought specifically for the first day of school. Blue cuteness was overruled in favor of the pink superhero shirt, though. Boo. Emma is also becoming quite the photographer. Sometimes she chops off our heads, but for the most part she does a great job of getting the pictures that Mommy can't take.

I am so happy that Emma is doing well in school. Not that I doubted, but I am glad that she WANTS to learn & we're not forcing her to absorb it all. Let's hope that this attitude lasts!

Love you, Emma!

(Emma chose the color for the font for this post. A nice change, huh?)