Summer so far

So we've enjoyed a few weeks of summer so far. Some days are horrendously long, while others are fun and time flies by.

My sister sent me a link to Summer Merit Badges, found here. I loved this idea and so I came up with 8 "merit badges" for the boys to earn (I had originally planned on doing some for Emmy, but I haven't gotten there yet. And she doesn't seem to mind in the least. . .). The eight are: biking, hiking, cooking, literature, health and exercise, fishing, gardening, and nature. Then under each one are 3-6 check-offs before they earn the badge. So far each boy has gotten his "biking" badge. They each had to learn/help with changing a flat tire, go on a 1/2 hour bike ride (they've been on several 45 minute rides this past week), and learn the traffic signals. It's fun to have some goals to work on - fun for them and me, and Ben too I think.

The boys have been attending "Camp Creativity" held at Grace Community Church. Miles got to choose what he wanted to do: painting, crafts, singing, dancing, acting. And what did he choose. . . crafts, of course! He's loved every minute of it - I haven't seen any of the crafts he's made, but tomorrow is the "showcase." (It's M-Th, this week only, 9-12). Jonas, after the first day, didn't want to go back again. Not because he had a bad time, just because. Probably he's a little on the shy side. But he did go back on Tuesday and today and has had fun. He's in the preschool group and I feel like he feels it's a little too young for him.

They do some definite bible-story teaching and stuff. They have been focusing on the story of Moses, I think. Jonas made some pretty cool craft of the parting of the Red Sea. Fun. Jonas also told me of the game they played one day: Duck, Duck, Goose. Though you said, "Jesus, Loves, You." If you got "You" it was akin to "goose." Awesome.

I was reminded of what the critical thinker Miles really is. He told me that today "they" (the camp people) talked how nothing is impossible to God. Then Miles asked/told me, "Isn't it kind of impossible of God to force people to do things?" Wow, I was impressed. (Now maybe it's not impossible of God to do that, but of course God never would. I still thought it showed some great thinking on Miles' part.)

We've done some crafts. Played with the hose in the sandbox (but I got super mad after finding out Miles had turned on the water FULL-BLAST after I had told him to turn it on to "medium." He knew full well what that meant and what he did instead. Now he has extra chores to do to "pay" for the extra water he wasted. Awesome, huh?). We go on morning walks at least 3 times a week - a little "experiment" to see if fatso Wilson will lose weight. We go to the story-time at the library, and its other programs, too. We meet up with friends at parks. Etc.

Miles got his tadpole last week in the mail. It died today. So sad. I felt so bad for the kiddo - he told everyone about it, even calling his Grandparents to tell them. He handled it much better than I thought he would. I don't think the tadpole was ever too vibrant - I think going thru the mail is too much of a strain. We went to the pet store today to enjoy some AC - I mean, to let the kids see some animals. Miles really wanted to see some frogs and I thought it would be okay. Now he wants a frog, of course. It's like $20. So he's trying to think of ways to earn money. His dumbest plan yet: sell a quarter for $25! Ha. Tonite he made up a couple of jokes (that he thinks are great). He wrote out the joke, drew a picture to go with it - and now has decided to make copies of it and sell his jokes.

Anyways, this has gotten much longer than I thought. But I feel like I've left out Emmy and Lucy. Emmy had a fun week this week going over to her friend's house twice, once with me and once without. Plus Emmy and I had some fun "alone time" today as the boys were gone and Lucy was napping. We did her "school" stuff - worksheets. I definitely have hope in this girl. :) She can count to 10, if you don't mind the 4 not being there. Lucy loves to be in the sand box. The boys made a huge "pond" in it the other day with the hose and Lucy loved sitting in it afterwards.

So, so far summer has been pretty good to us.

p.s. our camera is broken - we can't download any pictures to our computer. :( the connection piece in the camera is broken. i'm so sad. so no pictures of the kids with their merit badges. boohoo.

Curly Emmy

And here is the after-curler shots:

Taking them out!

Look how tight they were in the back! Wowzers. All but one stayed in all nite - I was pretty impressed.

I can't tell you how many times Ben or I said, "She's so cute!" or "She's so pretty!" We were pretty smitten by her. :) The curls were real tight ringlets during church, but by later afternoon they had softened into lovely loose curls. Both looks were adorable. She loved her curls.

P.S. Today was cupcake day in our family. It started back in 2007. Today I invented rhubarb cupcakes. Okay, I really didn't invent them. Grandma Dee gave us a recipe for rhubarb cake last year - so I decided to use that recipe for cupcakes instead. Then I topped them off with cream-cheese frosting. Pretty yum.

Increased Maintenance. . .

. . . in a cute, fun way.

We got an exciting little package in the mail: Emmy's first set of sponge curlers from Grandma Dee!

We'll see what she looks like tomorrow morning (yes, I made her sleep in them. Because I did as a girl and it just adds to the whole experience :)

Happy Friday

We employed this box (filled with random stuff like plastic easter eggs, a barbie/princess doll head, etc.) during dinner time for some good peace and quiet (well not really quiet with my 4 total kids, but quieter i guess).

It was working splendidly until last nite. . . when Lucy decided to pull herself to standing. Now Lucy's happy box is not so safe. Darn it.

Tinytown and Littleton

We went to Ben's parent's home for this past weekend. It was so grand. We got a few pictures, but of course none of the reason we were there: to see family. Lame-o. I'm no good at getting pictures of our kids with their grandparents. They also got to see Great-Grandma Dee and Ben's aunt Gail this trip. It was all delightful.

On Sunday afternoon we went and walked the Temple grounds. Of course, as you can tell from the above photo, my kids were completely reverent, walked with arms folded, spoke only in soft whispers, and did not want to jump in to the fountain in the front.

On Saturday was visited a little place called Tinytown. There are 2 real-live steam locomotives there (miniature, of course) and little replicas of Denver homes, stores, buildings, etc. to walk around and peek in at. There are a few buildings, like the above fire-station, that the kids can actually get in to. The others are cutely "decorated - think larger-scale dollhouses.

Just so cute.

Peeking in at the library.

Lucy enjoyed her swing ride there at the park.

The 3 kids all rode in the caboose. So cool.

We actually saw the coal get shoveled in. Pretty neat. Diana came with us and so that was a treat. She knew/recognized a lot of the buildings.

The kids loved playing in their grandparents' backyard. Jonas loved climbing the tree. Emmy loved doing whatever. Miles loved pestering. And, true to Miles' form, he came home with a treasure from his grandparents' place: a cactus (each kid got to take one).

We loved Tinytown, parks in Littleton, the Temple - and mostly and lastly, Family!

A LOT more Mish-Mash

Here are some more random pictures of what our family has been up to lately:

We started a little 1'x6' garden for the kids using the square-foot gardening method. They each get 2 one-foot sections. Here is Jonas huffing and puffing as he carries over the watering can to water.

Cute little Emmy - I help her decide what to wear in the morning. An hour later she's gone through oodles of other "outfits." This was a pretty great one. She loves her "klip-klop" shoes (I bought them as "Sunday shoes." She wants to wear them all. the. time. They are already pretty scuffed.)

Lucy seemed entertained enough as we worked in the garden. She tasted all sorts of grass and dirt.

Jonas planting his peas, I think.

This gal can't be of my blood! What, holding a chicken! What?! She even chases it and grabs it since they run away and are now big and fast. But look how big Princess Nora is! Yikes. Despite my dislike and/or fear of birds, I'm pretty nice to our chickens. I feed them a gourmet salad most days - and a couple times a day, sometimes, too. Gourmet salad for chickens is what, you ask? Dandelion greens - oh they love them so! Also, as I was out back this afternoon I noticed that the chickens were excessively chirpy. It didn't sound right; I knew something was wrong. Yep, turned out their water container was completely dry. I was proud of myself for understanding "bird talk." (In fact I have told Miles, waaaaay before today's incident, that I can tell when his bird is chirping b/c he needs fresh water and food. Just call me Mrs. Doolittle please.) (Wanna know something funny, though? I was pretty petrified of putting the water container back in their coop with them all inside. I did not want them stampeding towards me to get to their water! So I kept banging and banging on the coop until they all went outside to their chicken run. Then I quickly opened the latched, plopped the water down, and closed the latch up again!)

Emmy - the princess-pirate. At least that is what she looks likes to me. This is her "smile like a princess" pose. Why does she think princesses are so sad looking?

Wow, what a great get-up! I have an adorable video of Jonas (down below) but it is sideways! So mad! But I posted it so you can still hear Jonas' adorable giggles. I thought the camera was on "picture mode" and so I was going to do a vertical shot. Turns out I still had it on "video mode" and you can't take vertical videos. Lame.

This is Jonas' new friend/toy: Buzzy-bee. How nice of Jonas to feed him some Cheerios, huh?

The Jonas Brother.

And this is pretty long and monotonous. But it's my Miles. So I love it.

Mish-mash (including a graphic Quote of the Week)

This is Miles yesterday afternoon (sidenote: one of our "elderly" friends in the area got the kids some PJs. the kids all adore them and put them on as soon as we got home from church!). Miles made some cookies - all. by. himself. He asked me yesterday morning if I wanted some "quiet time to take a nap." Uh, yeah! He then proceeded to tell me that he wanted to do a surprise. Make something. On his own. We reviewed some rules: like follow the recipe exactly (we had caught a glimpse of the recipe, found in the Friend, while he was perusing it during Sacrament meeting). Miles had told me he only had to microwave it, but Ben saw that there was no heating/cooking involved. So we tried to slyly tell him that if it said not to cook it, don't cook, or if to cook it on the stove, cook it on the stove, etc. After several *tryng* minutes, I felt that he was actually going to follow the recipe. Towards the end he came to me (I was in the office talking to my sis) explaining that the cookies were just too sticky and he just haaaaaad to cook them. I told him that that probably wouldn't make things better. Then he came back all delighted b/c he realized that if you put them in the fridge, they hardened up! He was very excited and proud of his cookies. The whole family enjoyed them as well.

Jonas went around one morning taking pictures of Emmy. This one is pretty great.

And for the *graphic* quote of the week. It's a little embarrassing - on mine and Ben's part. Mainly because we hadn't told our boys the correct anatomical name of their boy parts (ha, there I go again, skirting the use of its real name. But I don't like the word.) We've just called it a "pee-pee" for as long as I can remember. But, suddenly, one evening during bath-time I told Ben that I thought we should tell the kids its real name. He readily agreed. So after telling them it was called a "penis," Jonas goes and pats his backside and, in all seriousness, exclaims,

"And this is my pooh-nis."

Pee-nis. Pooh-nis. Classic. Teehee.

Lucy at 9 months +

Lucy was 9 months on Monday (these pictures were taken on Tuesday). She remains pretty much awesome. She finally sleeps through the night. I put her down sometime between 7-7:30 and she doesn't wake up to feed until 4-5am ish. Lovely. She'll then go back down until 6:30-7, when the whole upstairs starts rumbling with siblings.

She's also become mobile. Eeeeek. It's great, though, and not-so-great, too. Now I have to scour a much larger area for small objects, etc. She's not crawling, but scooting around everywhere. Each day she improves in her abilities. She thinks it's great - the whole being mobile thing. It's wonderful.

She loves books. She adores looking at baby books - i.e., books with baby pictures in it. She gets so happy when I get one down from the bookshelf. She also loves, loves, loves turning book pages. Loves it. It's definitely one of her favorite pastimes. She loves flipping through the hymnal at church too. If she gets the chance, she also loves to eat the pages up.

Speaking of eating. . . she's eating cheese, bread, cracker crumbs, cheerios, and yogurt. Apparently, as I discovered yesterday, she strongly dislikes avocado. She liked it at one point, but man she did not like it yesterday. In fact, that is something that I should for sure get on video. If I remember, you just might see her reaction to avocados.

Lucy is pretty much the pride and joy of our family - we all just adore her to pieces.

Phyllis Whicker, Mom, Grandma, Jelly-Bean Grandma

Phyllis Works Whicker 1918 ~ 2011 Phyllis Works Whicker, 93, passed away at home on May 12, 2011, in Murray, Utah.

Phyllis was born February 27, 1918, in Salt Lake City to James Earnest and Hazel (Huff) Works. She spent her early years in Delta, Richfield, Sugarhouse, Holladay, and Oasis, Utah. She graduated from Hinckley High School in Hinckley, Utah. She attended Utah State University and ultimately graduated from the Woodberry Business College in Los Angeles, California.

She married Henry Ford Whicker on October 15, 1938, in Murray, Utah, and, after Ford's death in 1984, was later sealed to him in the South Jordan Temple. Phyllis worked for the First National Bank of Murray for many years. That bank eventually became Walker Bank & Trust, then First Interstate, and finally Wells Fargo. She retired in 1980. Phyllis truly enjoyed serving in various women's organizations: She served as president of the Murray Junior Women's Club and the Salt Lake County Firemen's Auxiliary. She was also a captain of the Hillcrest Camp of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Although Phyllis survived her husband by 27 years and endured the challenges of macular degeneration, she was the ultimate example to all who knew her, never complaining and always eager to live an active life.

She is survived by two daughters, Karen (George) Ellis of Los Angeles, California, and Dixie (Jim) Galbraith of Midway, Utah. She is also survived by three grandchildren, Derek Galbraith, Erin (Chuck) Huband, and Emily (Ben) Maxwell, as well as five great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by an infant son, Raymond Ford Whicker, and a grandson, Brian Ford Galbraith. Funeral services will be at the Jenkins-Soffe Mortuary (4760 South State Street in Murray) on Monday, May 16th at 11:00 a.m. There will be a viewing at the mortuary on Sunday, May 15th from 5:00-7:00 p.m., and preceding the funeral from 10:00-10:45 a.m. Interment will be in the Larkin Sunset Gardens in Sandy, Utah, immediately following the funeral.

As you can see, my beautiful Grandma passed away last week. It was rather sudden and completely surprising - but, being that my Grandma was 93, it was not completely unexpected. She died in her home. The home she had been able to live at for the last 61 years. It is a wonderful, wonderful home - built by her father and her husband, Grandpa Ford. What a blessing it was for her to live in her home and, yes, to die in it. My grandmother was legally blind and could only see peripherally (and that was probably pretty blurry as well). But she knew every nook and cranny of her home and went about living there with no difficulties. It would have been tragic for her to end up living the last few days, weeks, or months (or even years) in a nursing home or other facility - she would not have been able to do a single thing on her own since she wouldn't have been able to see or know what to expect. So I think we all found great comfort that she lived the past 6 + decades of her life in her sweet home.

My Grandma was such a beautiful lady - inside and out. She always looked elegant. Even when pulling weeds, or picking tomatoes in her garden, she was dressed nice, hair done, and make-up on. I had never, not once, heard a single negative comment from her - or even a complaint. She was always optimistic and up-beat. She didn't let blindness get in the way of her living life. She continued to go to movies, plays, out to dinner, etc. She was always great to be around due to her positive attitude.

My kids know her as "Jelly-bean Grandma." Grandma had a little jelly-bean machine (exactly like those small gumball machines) and whenever we'd visit, the kids would get a couple of turns on the machine for jelly-beans. When she'd visit us with my parents, she'd bring a baggie for each of the kids. Even when my parents came without her, a baggie was prepared for each of the kids. Such a thoughtful little treat that my kids adored.

So we'll all miss her. And will forever love her. . .

Here are a few recent pictures. Some I've posted already, but I enjoy them.

Grandma Whicker's Burial

The pall-bearers. I don't really know the first two men (neighbors, I think), but there is my father, my brother, Derek, and George (married to my Aunt Karen).

I wanted the kids to have a little part and I think one of them earlier had mentioned sending off balloons to Grandma (we have an "older" friend here in town that takes us with her to send off balloons to her mother on important dates such as Mothers' Day, her mothers' birthday, etc.). So we got a balloon in honor of each great-grandchild (5) and had the kids send them up to her.

Up, up, and away to grandma. . .

They did so great the entire weekend. They were so good at the viewing - they were so interested in seeing Grandma, had many questions - many, many questions. It was awesome. At the funeral they did great too and remained mostly quiet for all of it. Miles and Jonas even listened.

She was perfectly delightful.

There we were. Karen (my aunt) and George were there, too. But out of respect to my lovely mother (knowing she would not be pleased with herself in the picture!), I won't show the one picture I got of them. But it was great to see them again - they are wonderful people. At the luncheon afterwards someone came up to my aunt and told her how much she looked like Phyllis. My aunt replied, "Thank you. I take that as a compliment." So true - my Grandma was such a beautiful lady and Karen does look so much like her!