Friday, June 27, 2008

"Become as little children"

Bill had another week long business trip last week so I held down the fort while he was gone. I thought it was so cute how the kids all helped with Family Home Evening. We always have an introduction with dad speaking Italian. The kids have heard it so many times that even Britton chimed in with "Buen Venuti tuti a questa serata familia ata" then Bill says a bunch of other Italian words which finally lead up to" but we are going to speak in English and then he points to the kids and they all scream in unison, " so mom can understand"! They did pretty good even though the leader of the pack wasn't here.

Here is Maegan leading the music with her pop-sickle stick.


I was especially impressed with Branson. He has never volunteered to give the lesson until he was thumbing through the "Friend" magazine and found a great lesson.
He had everyone cutting out paper figurines and taping them to pop-sickle sticks-even little
Emma helped.














Then as I read the story of Nephi getting the plates they all performed a little puppet show.

Branson's ingenious way of getting the puppets
to stand up.




























The great thing about letting kids teach is they actually retain the lesson a little better!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A great time was had by all!

Well, we figured it was about time for a visit to Grandpa and Grandma's house and Bill had to take a day off or he would lose it so there was no better time than now. It was just so nice and relaxing! I love getting away from the same routine sometimes. We kind of just sat around and chatted, ate and chatted some more- two of my favorite things! The kids had fun playing with "Sumo" and having Uncle Reuben take them on motorcycle rides.
Saturday night we went to the lake with
some of mom & dad's friends, roasted hot dogs and s'mores and let the kids play in the disgusting water. ( We definitely get pickier as we get older.) But it was a lot of fun.







Sunday we went to church and then had a delicious dinner with fresh asparagus, Orange chicken and mom's fabulous baked beans...





And we all just enjoyed each other's company.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Just call us the Griswolds!

Is that Bill...or cousin Eddy?

I'm laughing my head off taking the pictures and now I am laughing my head off looking at these pictures. I mean seriously, if you have seen Lampoon's Christmas vacation there is one scene where "Sparky" is watching cousin Eddy standing out in the yard emptying his r.v.'s waste products into the storm drain because the (clear your throat)... toilet was full. I showed this to Bill and we both had a laugh.
Complete with the cruddy lawn mower inherited from a neighbor..(but hey we're grateful! One less thing we have to buy) and our patch of grass -really we do have a front lawn-but it looks like this is all we own...Bill looks like he is mowing down the vacant lot ...and the kids' little "hut" they made, one could mistake us for the Griswolds!

Did I mention the Sombrero and goggles to boot? Just a classic day of mowing the lawn.
Bill has to keep his mouth shut and goggles on because the grass flies up and he gets a face full of turf.
I just keep telling myself...These are the good ol' days