The things HE says volume 8

Abe turned five yesterday!  I love this sweet, loving, entertaining, very cheerful little boy:

We all do.  His birthday was simple, as it was Sunday and all, but he was delighted with it!.  He has a grateful, generous little heart.

For months now, he has been fascinated by some cars at the grocery store, and has to play with them for awhile every time we go.  I have been telling him that I would let him pick one out on his birthday, so Saturday I told him we'd better go pick one out early!  He asked, "Mom, can I get two?"  I said that I supposed so.  He said, "Good, because I wanted Nolan to get to pick one out, too!"  He never backed out of that, and he and Nolan have had a great time with their cars together.

His only real request on his birthday was that he wanted a "Python birthday cake with a fruit roll-up tongue".  I took a cake decorating class when Caden was a baby so that I could create master piece birthday cakes for my children.  Kami and Caden got some pretty cool cakes when they were tots.  HOWEVER, it has become a family tradition, somewhere along the line, for my kids to decorate their cake WITH me.  We haven't had a fancy-looking cake since. I found a really easy-peasy Python-looking cake on-line and Abe was excited to decorate it with me....until he opened his presents first and got too interested in playing with his new toys:)  I stuck with the easy plan and decorated it speedy quick - even added some Hershey's Kisses because I knew his cousins would be excited about that.  Then we headed off to visit grandparents and cousins like we do every Sunday with his "Python" cake:

Isabelle says it looks more like a green worm to her:) I didn't want to ruin anyone's appetite, but I'd say more like a slug!

I have been saving up a lot of things that Abe says so that someday when he is old and mature, I can read about what he was like and the way that he talked when he was four!

Abe: "Mom, I'm into really cool things now.  Like coloring, and transformers, the Book of Mormon, cool fighting, and playing with toy "guys", and cars, and playing the guitar (Ukulele), and playing with Pace, and I'm into Halloween, and Christmas and November." That pretty much sums up his interests right now:)

Abe: "When I'm five I'll be able to get more trophies.  Because I'll be able to wrestle...Do ALL the sports...except Olympics".

Shawn recently downloaded Photoshop onto our computer for his job.  Abe heard us talking about it and confused me by asking about his dad's other new job.  Upon further questioning he said, "No! Dad's other new job.  He's getting the photo shop!"

After telling Abe to keep track of his school library books one day, he said, "I'm the kind of boy that looks everywhere for things that I need!" So I guess there is no need to keep track of them?

I bought some "go-gurts" for school lunches, and Abe sampled one one day.  He then proclaimed, loudly and with great surprise, "This tastes like lion fur!!!" I said, "Gross!  Let's take them back to the store!!" He took another small bite and then said, "Well, the first bite tasted that way, but this one didn't.  I think they should make this yummier!"

I should say so!

Abram likes to comb his hair in exciting ways, every chance he gets.  One day as he was combing it, he said, "I want to get it all lionishy and stuff...there...Now it's all perched up!"

We've had to make many, many things off-limits to Pace, much to his frustration.  As Pace cried one day about not being able to get into a cupboard, I heard Abe say in a conciliatory tone, "Pace, this is just life!!" He claims to have heard this on PBS:)

Abe found Pace sucking on a wet cloth and said, "Pace, you are disqualified from thirst."

At the gym, a little boy pushed Pace down the stairs.  Abram was telling me about it, and said, "Mom, if that kid pushes Pace down the stairs again, I'll chew him up.  Then I'll say, "That's what you get for hurting my baby!!"

Last week when it snowed, Abram was thrilled.   He oohed and ahhhed about the snow in the front yard for quite some time. Then, while I was putting school lunches together, I heard him yell, "YOU GUYS!  IT SNOWED IN THE BACK YARD TOO!!!!!!!"

Abe was singing one of his preschool songs about the mother duck that keeps quacking for her ducklings to come back, but one at a time they keep disappearing...until the daddy duck quacks.  Then ALL of them come back.  Hoping for some insight on how to get kids to immediately obey, I asked Abe why he thought they obeyed the daddy duck?  He said, "Because he was a wilder quacker!!" I'll have to try that...

Caden's giant camera obscura - (whatever that is)

Caden always has some sort of interesting project going on, or something interesting that he is learning about.  This was something that he did for a few days in his room this summer:

He covered everything that was putting any light into the room, and then he cut a little hole about an inch in diameter - but he says the size of the hole depends on the size of the room- (you can see the hole in the black paper to the right above).

Then, because everything has light reflecting off of it outside, part of the light will all funnel into the hole. Somehow the hole lets all of the light through, but turns it backwards and flips it upside down and the image was projected onto the other side of his room:

This was pretty cool - see the upside-down tree on his wall?  That is the tree at the end of our driveway, on the opposite side of the wall than it should be, and upside-down!

The picture on his wall changed as the day went by:

Happy 17th!

Today our oldest is 17!!!!! I can hardly believe it.

I love her.

She has been super busy with her school play the last couple of weeks, and we haven't seen much of her around here.  We miss her. Today she has to leave at  4:00 to get ready for the play, so we are having as much fun as we can early on.  THEN we are all going to go watch her play!

She is an extra in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and, although she thinks the play would have been more fun had she had a bigger part, she has made some new friends in her spare time there at the play practices.  She sent me these pictures yesterday of her with her friend Ruth:

I'm not really sure who the middle girl is...

Kami is such a great child to have at the beginning of our family.  One of my favorite qualities about her is that she is such a patient person.  She is patient with situations, and time frames and patient with people; their inadequacies and short-comings and even their rudeness.  She never has anything mean to say about anyone, and just seems to figure that everyone is doing the best that they can, and accepts them for where they are in their development in life.  That's been an especially great gift to me, as her mother, in all my imperfections.  Maybe, because of her good example, I will learn to be as patient as she is eventually!

Shawn and I enjoy her so much, and she is one of my best friends.  She is also so good to her younger siblings - a great friend to the older ones, and a fun big sister to the younger ones.

Happy birthday dear Kami!!!

Nolan's big program

We woke up to snow this morning that was deep enough to cover the grass, so Nolan had two reasons to be excited:  the snow AND the long-awaited, much anticipated 2nd grade Veteran's Day program!! He has been religiously singing the songs.  One day he had a friend from his class over to play and I saw them outside practicing their songs together:)

He was hoping to be one of the uniform - wearers, and the teacher evidently told the kids that she would be picking someone that sang really well.  I'm sure that he was singing great, and he was disappointed that he wasn't picked for that part.

It was so cute watching him sing his little heart out! The school does a really great job with this program, and I am so glad that they do it.  I think it really gets these kids feeling grateful for those who fight for our country and feeling patriotic themselves.  I know it does me!

Nolan was really wishing that his Grandpa Kerns could have been there since he served in the Navy and they were honoring those who had served in any branch of the military. I would have liked it if he could have been there, too!

Things I'm enjoying today

It's a pretty relaxed day around here, which I am enjoying most of all!  But here are a few other things:

1. I'm glad that I don't have to buy silly toys like this (which I really can't see kids playing with UNLESS it were attached to something else they had created):

Because Nolan and Abram are really into building "forts" all over the place like this:

Then Abram really wants me to try them out, but darn it- this one was too squishy for me to fit into;)

2. I've LOVED these books that I found at the dollar store - I may have to go grab some more:

This makes such a great scripture time with Abram - they include so many great illustrated Bible stories (I usually have to go into more detail about the stories) and after the story there are questions about the story, and then questions that help them apply the story to their own life, like "In the Bible (I say scriptures), God tells us what to do.  We hear Him when we read the scriptures.  Tell about a time when you listened to Heavenly Father."

I write all of Abram's answers down to all the questions, because I know I'll like to read them later:)  His answer to the one above: "I apologized when I was mean."

There are also fun activities and stickers in the books, and yesterday at Stake Conference, they kept Isabelle, Nolan and Abram happy pretty much the whole time.

Moms, you may want to go check and see if your dollar store has any!

3. I drove Abram to preschool today, only to discover upon arrival that it was cancelled. Note to self: Check his papers before school, not while he is AT school!!

But I enjoyed seeing these cows on the way there and on the way home. Cows always look so peaceful:

4. We got home and found this blog book waiting in the mail, and have been reading it!

I can't wait for the kids to get home and see it!  (Was I really still that much taller than most of my kids just two years ago?!?!) Watching their excitement about these books keeps me motivated to blog!

5. Discovering pictures on my phone taken from my little boy's perspective.  I liked this one because it is such a typical Sunday afternoon/evening (around 5:00 or 5:30.)  I am finishing up dinner - making a pie in fact, which is not a very frequent endeavor - while Shawn, who just arrived home, is talking to me. Doesn't he look handsome?:

6. Pace is into EVERYTHING!!! I can't say I am enjoying that, but I AM enjoying seeing how his little mind works.  I hope he survives himself! This was at the doctor's office last week:

Instead of immediately rescuing him, I took a picture:) - at first his head was all the way in, but he was recovering his balance when I snapped this. (As a side: Abram was the one seeing the doctor, and was the first confirmed case of the flu in our county. We feel so special!! We did the flu last week.)

Just for an example of Pace's antics, this morning as I was making school lunches, he scooted a chair over to the counter and climbed from it to the counter top.  I moved the chair into the laundry room and closed the door, so he then found a bucket and scooted it to the counter. He climbed on top of it, but when he tried to get onto the counter top it scooted out from under him.  I can't believe how often he falls in one day!

With my other children, I would often remind myself to redirect their attention, and that generally worked.  Not so with Pace.  He decides on something that he is interested in or wants to do, and NOTHING ELSE will distract him. He is a very determined little fellow.  I hope the goldfish that Isabelle won at the Halloween carnival don't experience a suffering horrible death...

7. This may be the main reason that I'm enjoying everything so much today:



Dinner was ready at 12:00! No, that is not my dinner, but you get the idea:) I love it when I remember to think ahead!

Tragedy

This morning, out across the pond were two moose:

...And Shawn left for work, but was quickly back again to tell me that the moose had completely knocked down BOTH of our beehives!

This was after we had mostly put them back together, but hadn't yet lifted it back onto the cinder blocks.

There were a lot of casualties, but not as many as we had expected. We're going to have to put something up to keep the moose away from the hives, but weren't able to tonight, as Shawn got home from work after dark.  Hopefully they don't get knocked over again tonight:(