Ben's swimming lessons

Ben started swimming lessons yesterday. When we got to the pool, he said he was a little nervous. It didn't take him long to get over that though. He had fun for the short half hour lesson, grabbing toys (or treasures, as the instructor called them) off the bottom of the pool, holding onto the stairs and kicking, and doing lots of spinning and jumping in the water. There were 4 girls and one other boy in his class. One of the girls and the one boy were both pretty timid and would just sit on the top step. He said his teacher was very nice and he was very excited and ready for his second lesson to start today. He's kind of funny though and didn't want me to tell his dad about the lessons. I'm not sure why.




Today he got to float on his back, swim with the noodle, dive for more "treasures" - this time he was doing all the way under, and jump to his teacher from the edge of the pool. His brothers all came with us today and Alex is very excited for when his lessons start in 2 weeks.

Daniel's 12 month check-up

Daniel had his 12 month check-up this morning. It's amazing how nice it is to take him to the doctor when he's not sick.

As usual, they measured and weighed him before the doctor came in to do the exam. He's 29 inches long and weighs 20 pounds, 15 1/2 ounces. Why they didn't just round it up to say he was 21 pounds, I'll never know. Guess that half an ounce is important. He's in proportion though. Right at about 25% for height, weight, and head size.

The doctor came in as I was playing peek-a-boo with Daniel in the mirror they had in the room. He asked about Daniel's milestones, the things he can do, and I told him how he climbs our stairs and walks along the furniture, is starting to copy what we do, says a few words, etc.

The doctor then looked over his past history with the visits to him, mostly to see how his ears had been, since he's had 2 ear infections since February and often had fluid in his ears still when he didn't have the infections. Today Daniel's ears were clear, his lungs sounded good, he was healthy. I know I said it before, but it's really nice to take him to the doctor when he's healthy.

Daniel got 3 shots today. He would have had 4, but apparently there's a nation-wide shortage on the HIB shot, so they're deferring that booster. They're not sure when they'll start doing it again, so I'm supposed to try to remember to ask about it at the next appointments. The look he gave the nurse after she gave him the shots was pretty funny. I don't think I've ever seen him glare at someone like that.

After the shots, I set up his next appointment, which is at 15 months. I also set up Ben's 6 year appointment and Chris's 3 year appointment. It's nice to know that part is taken care of.

Daniel's first birthday

Today was Daniel's first birthday. Since we brought him home from the hospital on Father's Day last year, it was kind of fun to celebrate his birthday on Father's Day this year. We don't have a lot of family around here, so we just kept it a simple immediate family thing today.

Because it was Father's Day, we let Bryce take a long nap after church, so we didn't start anything for Daniel until after that. Daniel's older brothers were all getting a bit impatient. They wanted to give Daniel his presents and really wanted to eat cake (yes, I just realized that I forgot the ice cream we had).

When we were all ready, we all gathered together and let Daniel have his present. I cheated a little and just used the birthday bag that his grandma and grandpa gave him their present in. Daniel thought it was pretty cool to look in the bag and see a bunch of toys. His favorite was the ball. He loves to sit with it and bang on it. He also seemed to like the cars and superheroes he got, although I think his brothers like those more than he does. They wanted to keep playing with them.






After the presents, we got Daniel's clothes off him and got him in the high chair for his cake. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to him and his brothers blew out the candle, then we handed him the cake. He had his own 8 inch round cake, since the local grocery store gives a free one when you order a cake for a first birthday. Pretty cool, I think.



Daniel likes cake.

He went after the cake more than any of his brothers did on their first birthdays. He was grabbing it before Bryce even set it down in front of him. He really liked the frosting and kept grabbing for more, so Bryce broke off a tiny piece of the cake for him so he could start on that. He would shove handfuls of cake into his mouth (probably mostly on his face) and a couple of times would just lean over to the cake to take bites directly off it. His brothers thought it was hilarious. Especially when Daniel started getting a little full and decided to start throwing a couple pieces of the cake, or when he tried wiping off his face with his messy hand and arms, only to make it worse.







I finally took the ramainder of the cake away from him and tried to wipe him off a bit before taking him upstairs for a bath. The cake actually came off him better than I thought it would. I thought I'd be washing off bits of cake I had missed for a few baths more. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Especially since he has his 12 month well-baby check-up tomorrow morning.




After his bath, Daniel got to play with his toys a bit more. He saw the rest of the cake we had for his birthday and really wanted to try some of that one, but we didn't let him.

I think he rather enjoyed his birthday.

Slip 'n Slide

After a spell of cold weather, we finally had a warm day today. Not that I'm complaining about the cooler weather; I actually enjoy it and would like it to stay a bit longer before it gets too hot.

This morning I mowed our back yard. Yes, it took me over an hour and a half to mow and I had to fill up the gas tank in the middle of mowing. It had been a few weeks since I had previously mowed because I had put down seed and wanted it to get a chance to grow before I mowed.

Since we had a nicely mowed lawn and it was warm out today, I set up the slip 'n slide for the boys that Grandma and Grandpa bought them. They were having a really good time sliding down it and drinking the water from the fountains. Makes it finally feel like summer when we can get that out and play in the water outside.

Anyway, here are some pictures from playing today:



Ben is trying to drink from the fountain things here:


Sliding!


Chris is happy to play:


This one is Kyle and Alex diving for the flag at the far end, Ben at the close end:

Going to the lake

Yesterday afternoon I took the three older boys and we went to play in the lake. It was the first time I had been to this particular lake. In fact, I didn't even know this lake existed until we moved to this house two years ago. Yesterday ended up being a good day to do it. Bryce had stayed home sick, so while Daniel was taking his nap, I took the other 3. It was a nice, warm day and will be cooler for the next few days until the weekend.



Anyway, after driving around for a bit to actually get to the lake (I didn't look up the directions first and had just been going by a sign I had seen before, then the road was closed...), we finally arrived. The boys were very excited when they saw the lake and wanted me to drive faster so they could go play in it with the water shooters Grandma and Grandpa had given them.

We pulled in the gate (and found out that it's free, even to launch a boat on the lake, so bonus) and parked kind of near the restrooms because Alex decided he needed to go. Of course, it was at this point where I found out that Ben and Alex had left their shoes home when they changed into their swimming suits. So Alex had to go into the bathroom, which was an outhouse and didn't have flushing toilets, in his bare feet.

We went back to the van after the bathroom break and got out our towels and things. It was then that I realized that I had not brought my camera like I had planned. I had put it in the diaper bag, only to decide after that I really didn't need to bring two bags and had forgotten to switch the camera to that bag. So now I don't have pictures of them playing in the lake.

Of course, not having shoes proved to be a bit of a problem getting from the car to the water. There were weeds all through the dirt down to the water, some of which were puncture vines, so they had to walk very carefully and still managed to get a couple of thorns in their feet. I carried them through parts of it. When we finally got down to the water, they pulled off their shirts and started playing with the squirters. It wasn't long until they were wading in it, actually going out pretty far as it was fairly shallow for a ways out. They would walk out until the water was at their necks and shoot each other with the water. They had a really good time and didn't want to leave when I said it was time. The whole way back to the van, they were talking about the next time we go to the lake and wanted to call their grandmas and grandpas and their cousins to tell them to come up and play in the lake with them. It made me almost wish we had a boat. :)

A few minutes after we got home, it started raining and rained through most of the evening. So we really went at just the right time.

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

As many of you probably already know, Bryce's parents came up to visit us for a few days. They got here late Saturday night and left this afternoon. We really enjoyed their visit, even despite yesterday's craziness. Hopefully they enjoyed the visit as well.

Here's a recap of their visit:

They arrived on Saturday night after the boys were in bed. We talked for a bit, then everyone went to bed.

On Sunday, we got up and went to church. Bryce was subsituting for Alex's primary class (and ended up with another class joining his), so he was off on his own while the rest of the adults came to my Gospel Doctrine class. And just in case you were wondering, yes, I do get more nervous teaching when I have more family there. I don't necessarily care (well, I do, but I can either ignore or pretend to ignore others) what other people think of me, but I would like family to have a good opinion of me. Daniel wasn't particularly happy having his grandma holding him during the class - he wanted his mom, not this lady he didn't really know - so she got to walk the halls with a crying baby during that time. After church, we had lunch, then choir practice at our house with Grandpa joining in for the day. After choir, Ben got to open his birthday presents from Grandma and Grandpa, since they won't be here for his birthday next month. He was pretty excited about his presents and still plays with them every day. Then Grandma and Grandpa went to visit Jarom and Katie and kids for a bit. When they came back, we had a dinner of grilled teriyaki beef and fried rice and salad and grilled corn. It was pretty tasty, but unfortunately, the sodium content or something made Grandma's legs ache (usually MSG does that, but there was no MSG in the food).

Bryce and Grandpa after church (taken by Ben):


On Monday, we sent Ben to school on the bus, then went to shop at a couple stores before we went to Ben's Kindergarten graduation. Earlier in the day, Grandma and Grandpa got out some water squirters and a slip 'n slide they had gotten the boys. When we all got home after the graduation, the 3 boys went out in the back and had a really good time getting each other soaked with the squirters. It was a little chilly for that in the high 60's, so they were pretty cold by the time they came in. After Bryce and Jarom got home from work, we all went to McD's for dinner so the kids could play on the playset while we ate. They had a pretty good time, despite Chris filling up his mouth too full and making himself throw up all over himself.

This is Ben and Chris playing with the squirters:



Tuesday was a very rainy day, so I'm sure the rain had something to do with the way the boys were that day. It was probably coupled with the fact that Ben was pretty excited for his last day of school before summer vacation and with the excitement still of having Grandma and Grandpa there. It started early, too. When the boys got up, I had them get in the bathtub for their baths. Alex refused to get in the bath and instead decided to throw a couple of towels into the bathtub and then take them out, getting water all over the bathroom floor. He had to clean the water up and was then grounded from the Wii for the day. Then Ben was mad because one of the towels Alex threw in the tub was his towel and he refused to use a different towel. And Chris decided that since he hadn't gotten enough sleep, he was going to be whiney and cry a lot. They were better through breakfast, but Ben and Alex were both talking back a lot and still fighting a lot. It was nice getting Ben on the bus (Alex was in time-out on his bed, so he had to stay home and couldn't come to the bus stop with us ... and yes, Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with him) just to have one less cranky kid in the house. It didn't really get a lot better though. Alex decided to be mean to Chris, so I was holding him for a minute and he just got more and more upset. He'd yell at me to let him go and I'd calmly reply that I would let him go as soon as he calmed down. So after another 15, 20 minutes more of him yelling, kicking, pinching, hitting, calling names, saying that he hated me and that I wasn't his mom, I put him in his bed. He fell asleep fairly quickly. But yes, he is grounded for the rest of the week from the Wii. I was actually impressed that I stayed calm the whole time and really thought about just letting him go at a point or two, but decided that if I let him go, he'd just learn that all he would have to do is throw a bigger fit and then he'd get away with it, so I kept holding on. I did try to tickle him into submission a few times. He would laugh as he'd get tickled, then go right back to yelling and scowling, etc. They were fairly good through the afternoon, even after Ben got home, although they did have a couple typical fights and there was still a bit of the backtalking. We made spaghetti for dinner and a little after dinner, we had the boys go up to get in pajamas. Chris was good and as soon as he got into pajamas, he went downstairs. Ben and Alex decided to play around for a bit before getting into pajamas (they were mostly undressed, just didn't get back into the pj's). Jarom and Katie had come over to visit and play too. I knew it was bad news when I heard Alex from upstairs telling Ben, "Pee in the bucket." I yelled up to not pee in the bucket. A couple of minutes later, I decided I really should go up and see what they were doing. They had gotten an old Tigger Halloween bucket we have and had peed in it, put water and hair conditioner in it, put it on the floor, then would roll a truck at it as hard as they could, spilling the contents all over the floor. When I saw them, I told them to get in bed. Yes, it was about an hour early, but they really, really needed to go to bed at that point. I went downstairs and filled some cleaner up in the tank to our carpet cleaner and asked Bryce to carry it upstairs for me. When he found out what they did, he took it up and made sure the boys were still in bed (they weren't). I cleaned the carpet, then took it downstairs. Later I checked on them and Alex was asleep, but Ben, stubborn as ever, was still awake. After I took Chris up to bed, Ben decided he needed to come downstairs to use the bathroom and took a bit to go back up. Then Chris decided he needed to go to the bathroom, and kept insisting he still needed to, even after he had already gone. And did I mention that he pooped in his pants twice and peed in them another time? When I finally got him in bed, I decided to go for a jog outside instead of on the treadmill. I was impressed with myself that I actually ran the whole time. I went about the same distance I do on the treadmill, but on the treadmill, I run for 20 minutes and walk for 10. I'm sure I wasn't running at a constant speed, but I managed to finish the run about 5 minutes faster than I do it on the treadmill. It was nice to get out. :)

Yes, today was better. I did have to make Ben and Alex sit on their beds for a while this morning when they started fighting, but they were better than yesterday. This was partly because they knew if they were like they were yesterday, they wouldn't be going to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa. It was just a little sad that on Ben's first day of summer vacation, he needed to wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a coat to the zoo. It was still fun though, and less windy at the zoo than at our house. Chris was very excited to go to the zoo so he could look at their new frog exhibit. So he liked finding the frogs scattered throughout the zoo.

Here are a few pictures from the zoo:

Alex is climbing the wall at the penguin pool here

Chris and Alex are trying to find the frog

Chris and Daniel in the stroller

Chris looking at a frog

Chris and Daniel being pushed by Grandpa

The boys looking at the toads

Looking at the African Crowned Cranes

Looking at the Condor


After the zoo, we came home and had lunch, and finished watching a movie. After the movie, Grandma and Grandpa packed up and left for home. The kids all said that it didn't make them sad that they left, but they would have liked them to have stayed longer, and they hope they can come back and visit soon. I don't think Grandma and Grandpa were very sad to go home though. :)

And now we get to adjust to life during summer vacation.

Ben's Kindergarten Graduation

Today Ben had his kindergarten graduation. Yes, I agree with many of you who think that having graduations for kindergarten are just a bit silly. He was pretty excited about it though, and it was kind of fun to see.

There were the two afternoon classes doing the graduation, and they all sat on the risers. The principal got up and said a few words and introduced the teachers, then turned the time over to the music teacher. The kids (and those of us in the audience) stood up and said the Pledge of Allegiance. The kids did it in english and then in spanish. They all did pretty well on the spanish part. I was impressed. Then they sang a few patriotic songs. Ben didn't really do any of the hand movements because as he told me later, he didn't want me to see him doing them.

Ms. Matthew's class then got up on the stage and Ms. Matthews introduced each of her students and gave them each their certificate of graduation. They all then sat back on the risers and the kids all sang a few more songs. Then it was Mrs. Rounds' class and Ben's turn to go up. He walked a bit shyly and slowly up to get his certificate when she said his name and hurried back when he got it.

After all the kids got their certificates, they sat back on the risers and did a few more songs and the program was over. They had punch and cookies back in the classroom and were able to come home when they were done with the refreshments. They were sent home with their report cards too.

Ben got mostly Y's (the equivalent of A's) on his card. A couple of Y-'s and one or two A's (stands for Almost, and is basically like a B) and A+'s. His teacher wrote on there that he continues to exceed the kindergarten requirements and will do great in the first grade.

And yes, Ben has school tomorrow, but then he's done for the summer. Here are a couple (they were dark and got edited, so they're a bit blurry, sorry) pictures from the graduation. I did more with video, so I didn't get all the still pictures I would have liked.

All I Want For Christmas...

Last night, with some help from his dad, Ben got his two front teeth out. They've both been loose for quite a long time, so Bryce decided that it was time to pull them out. He was only going to do the one that was looser and let Ben work a bit more on loosening the one that wasn't quite as loose, but Ben panicked a little bit (okay, a lot) when it came down to doing it and wouldn't sit still, so Bryce ended up taking out the one that wasn't quite as loose first.

After the first tooth was out, Bryce got the second one mostly out and was letting Ben try to get it himself. Ben mostly just played with it, turning it all the way around in his mouth, saying, "Look, I have a pterodactyl tooth!" and generally just playing and not taking it out. So Bryce had to help him finish that one too.

Ben panicked for a minute with that one, then later said as he was going to bed, "I'm the luckiest kid in our family." He was pretty excited to not have just one tooth for the tooth fairy, but two. And he's already had 3 others.

So here are a couple pictures of Ben with his newly toothless mouth. (Although the new teeth are already coming through, so I'm not sure you can say toothless.)



This one is Ben's self-portrait without his teeth, taken today: