This is What Happens When the Kids gets the Camera

I went to download the pictures from my camera, and found these pictures, and a whole lot of video, that weren't taken by me. I thought I'd share some.






The wig was a purchase by Kaitlin for spirit week. She has been having a ball dressing up this week. The wig was for dress like a famous person day. She had to try it on everyone who would let her. Luke and Parker refused, and Tanner thought this:



I also thought I'd share what some of the kids have been up to this last little bit. Kaitlin was dressing up for spirit week, and she was Shadow Girl for villan day.



Also, the little boys love to ride their bikes in the driveway. The love even more to try and ride on the sidewalk, which I've tried to forbid them to do. It's close to the road, and if you give a kid an inch, they'll ride out into the road and get hit by a car, or ride the incline down the road to the bottom. I'm sure that's not far away, but I'm trying to keep them as safe as I can. You can see Parker riding on the sidewalk, where he shouldn't be. His favorite thing is to start driving toward the sidewalk, stop every few feet, and say, "Bye!" as he waves. He's just waiting for you to stop him, because as soon as I see he's leaving the driveway, and I tell him to come back, he smiles and runs back to where he should be.

Tanner has also learned to flip on the trampoline. Here are a couple of videos taken less than a week apart.

They're Here!!

We have an announcement to make. We are now the proud parents of a new washer and dryer. Our anniversary present to each other was a new front-loading set of a washer and dryer. Our old set was on it's last legs, being 13 years old, and doing laundry for 7 people was an ordeal. Several times I have had to manually get the agitator spinning, and it doesn't spin as fast, so there was more water in the clothes and drying took twice as long as it used to. We agonized about buying the set, not wanting to spend more money, but knew the time had come. Here they are:


They were too big to fit into the laundry room, so Shane came home from work to take part of the frame off the doorway so that they could come through. The delivery guys could have forced it through, but something would have gotten scratched and they weren't willing to incur the wrath of Casey if it was my new machines. I had so much fun looking at them, that I wasn't willing to do a load of laundry by the time Shane got home at 8:00 because it would make them dirty. Lame, I know, but they are so cool! Anyway, Shane had been home about an hour before he looked at me and said, "You really need to do a load so that you can see how they work." So I had to give in and break them in. They are so quiet, and they have lots of lights, so in the dark of my laundry room they looked a little like a Christmas tree. I'm thinking that laundry might be kind of fun, for a while anyway, until the novelty wears off. I'm just hoping that they live up to their specs and decrease my loads of laundry to do a week.

Dr. Seuss is Evil

Tonight is Shane's turn to tuck the older boys in. We take turns each night when he's home. At the moment he is reading the bedtime story. Josh went in to pick his book, and came out with the mischievious look on his face. "I'm evil!" he says, as he hands Shane "Fox in Socks." For those of you who have not been introduced to Dr. Seuss and this particular book, his books are often tongue twisters. This one is the ultimate in twisting. Shane really hates this book, because it really tests your reading/speaking skills. Josh loves Dr. Seuss, and laughs his head off whenever Shane reads it because he knows that Shane hates it. How much does Dad love his boy to read it even when he hates it?

Anyway, as I sit here listening to Shane read, the boys are laughing and laughing because the words that are coming out aren't quite what Dr. Seuss had written. I ask Shane to repeat what he just read, because it didn't make sense, and he just grunts, "You heard me." The boys bust out laughing even harder at this point. Shane has now finished the book, and is tucking the boys in, and they are rattling phrases from the book out at him. He shut the door several minutes ago, and they are still talking to each other in Dr. Seuss phrases. What a dad, even though he is even more convinced that Dr. Seuss is evil.

Update to Yorkfest

Well, the parade for Yorkfest was last Saturday, and it started at 10:00 a.m., which I thought was a great time. I read something in the paper this morning, and had to chuckle. And I quote, "Having a parade on a fall Saturday, he said, will always assure conflict with Husker football. .... Do we keep doing it in competition with NU football, and hope for the best, or do we move it to ......." The article was about Yorkfest and whether to continue the tradition. The conflict with football was only one of the concerns, but I thought that it was quite an interesting concern to get specific mention in the paper.



For those of you who don't follow college football, we are in "Husker" land. The University of Nebraska Huskers are our college team (we have the "Huskers" and Shane makes fun of the Diggers? =>), and several people here have Husker banners, flags, trucks, boats, shirts, rocks with the Husker logo in their yard, etc.... It's kind of crazy if you're not a sports fan. Well, college football started a couple of weeks ago, and the "Big Red Rush" is on. (Red is the team color.) Saturdays are the day for college football, and the town empties during the game. Either people are at the stadium or at home, watching the game, and everything else gets planned around the game. I think the games start around 11 or 11:30, so now I see why people were worried about the start time, or end time, of the parade conflicting with start time of the game. I did notice that people beat a beeline after the game for somewhere. It must have been to get to the game. How funny! Maybe if Shane and I stay here long enough, we'll join the Big Red Rush and worry about planning things around the game, too.

Yorkfest and Baby Hyde

We experienced our first Nebraska small-town parade last weekend, and it was pretty good. They had over 100 entries, I believe, and they threw candy, so the kids were in heaven with their candy sacks filling up. Shane and I met with a friend of mine and her children, so that explains the extras you see in the pictures. There were several marching bands, which is pretty big here, and if Kaitlin endures with the trumpet, she will get to participate in the parade next year. I have included some of the most interesting pictures of entries in the parade. The one of the accordian-playing girl is the Czech-Slovak Queen of Nebraska. They have some big ethnic groups here, such as Czechs, Dutch, Swiss, etc... and the people are very involved in them.

































This one is for Cody and Tiff.




This was one of my favorites, as you might guess. The boys kept saying I was famous.




This was one of Shane's favorites. We have about 10 pictures of tractors, all about this size, most of the others very John Deere green.






This last pictures was taken after Mom and Dad had the audacity to tell Tanner that he couldn't eat any more candy until after we went home and had some lunch. You would have thought that we'd asked him to rip an arm off and throw it across the street. He was very sad, and this was his tantrum, which was relatively mild compared to what his brother has been pulling lately.

Which brings us to Baby Hyde. Parker now has an evil twin, nicknamed Baby Hyde, that makes an appearance every now and then with more and more frequency. Baby Hyde likes to yell "NO!!" in his most angry voice, which is pretty angry sounding. He stiffens his body and sometimes even makes little fists of fury. He also likes to hit, in the face, if possible, and give you a very crusty face. I'm not sure where my sweet Parker goes to when Baby Hyde makes his appearances, but we are trying to adopt out the evil twin. Any takers?

Killing the Moose - aka - Kaitlin's New Instrument

Shane and I are trying to figure out who to blame, but we really both know who's fault this is. Shane insisted that Kaitlin didn't need study hall for a class, she was too smart to need it, and that she should take band instead. My take was she was already taking piano lessons, and she didn't play another instrument, so why would she take band. Well, after a small "tiff" as Shane called it, Kaitlin's schedule was set and she was enrolled in band.

We had a meeting last night, for all band parents and their students, to pick and rent an instrument. Kaitlin decided that she would really like to play the trumpet, so we rented one so that we could see how long that desire would last. She brought it home last night, and woke the boys with it this morning. Parker was scared to death for a moment, and the boys were less than thrilled to be woken up in that manner. As I heard the "lovely" sounds this morning, I kept asking myself, "What animal is dying?" I now know what it is - a moose, or maybe a goose. I'm sure that she will get better, she's only been playing for a day, and we'll have a great "before and after" moment to see how far she's come. But for now, when she plays, a moose is dying. At least she can laugh with me. =>

What a Beautiful Day!!

The weather over here has been a tricky thing for me to get used to, but this morning I'm feeling great. It rained yesterday morning, which was great because I don't have to pay to water my lawn for a while now. It also cooled the day down, so that I could open my windows and let the coolness in. Most mornings it may be cooler, like high 50s-low 60's, but the humidity is 80%-90% or more, and opening the windows only makes things worse in the house. Last night we left the windows open for the first time in months, and the house was cooled down to 68 when we woke up. It felt lovely, and not as humid as normal. There is a breeze blowing outside, and it's feeling fallish. I love this time of year. I'm sure the hot weather will return, it's only the beginning of September, but the forecast for the week is days in the very low 70's, which is heavenly.

The rain also got me out of riding my bike for my 10 mile stint with my friend yesterday. I like to do it, but I really needed that hour to get some things done at home, so that was great. Tanner was very disappointed, because our ritual is that I get to ride my bike, with him and Parker in the trailer, and then they get to ride bikes in the driveway when I get back. He was so sad to see the rain because he couldn't ride his bike in the rain. It stopped raining while he was napping, so he was excited to see that he could ride his bike after his nap. He wanted to go out "right now!" and he meant it. I'm including a video and pictures of their bike ride from yesterday afternoon and this morning. Tanner was glad to get back on schedule, and had to have his picture taken to make the experience complete.































Also, had to share a funny Luke saying from church on Sunday. One of the speakers was talking about money and used the term "filthy lucre." Luke turned to me, his eyes all lit up, and said, "I'm famous!!" Every once in a while, when he is really dirty, I call him "filthy lucre." He thought she was talking about him to everyone in church. It was hilarious!

I've Been Chastised

Thanks to a brother-in-law, who shall remain nameless to protect his good name, I was reminded that I was slacking in my duty on my blog. I know that I haven't been as good as I've wanted to be about it lately. I thought kids going back to school would free up some time to do everything I wanted to do. Yeah, right! I should have known better. Life is still just as crazy as when they weren't in school, it's just a little quieter crazy. Anyway, here goes.

Shane had a great birthday, at least he tells me he did! => He got to go to dinner, sleep in, had breakfast in bed, got to take a nap, got birthday coupons galore from his wife and kids, including a membership in a dessert of the month club. Unfortunately for him, it was his wife's club, so I'll be searching for yummy delicious treats to make at least once a month for the next year. I've been told that Megan's fruit pizza is the first request, so Megan, if you read this, I'll need your recipe if you have it handy. => Kaitlin had been soliliquizing (is that a word?), making videos on my camera and the battery was dead, so we have no pictures to post at this time. She took pictures with her camera, so hopefully we can rescue some.

Shane also took the boys (Josh and Luke) for a branch-sponsored father/son campout. I tried to remind him that he had two other boys as well, but he wanted to stay sane, so I kept the youngest 2 home. That turned out to be a good thing, because the campout wasn't as well planned as it probably should have been, and things were very spotty for a while. The second day was better, and I found out it was a good thing the campout was father/son, not family. Someone found a snake, and Luke thought it was great fun to hold it. Had I been there, I would have beat them home on foot. They got to fish, tour an Indian museum and old school, as well as a museum on the pioneers and the Mormon trail. Thanks again, honey, for being patient enough to take them. Just remember, I think Tanner will be old enough to go with you next year. =>

I'm not sure if you can tell, but this is the picture of Luke holding the snake, although Shane told me at one point he had the whole thing wrapped around his hand. UGH!!!
Again, I'm not sure who the girl is in the 2-piece. I'll have to ask Shane about that one, but Josh is waving from the water.
We were so excited to have Shane home for Labor Day, that we decided to make it a special weekend. We still haven't found a camping place that we really want to go to yet, so we pitched the tent in the back yard for the weekend. We cooked dutch oven tin foil dinners, smore's and popcorn (in the microwave) and ate outside and watched movies til late in the tent. The 4 oldest slept out in the tent, and Shane and I took Parker in the house to sleep. I know, what fuddy-duddies, but those silly kids stayed up til 11 or 12! I'm getting too old for that. If I stay up late I'm all cranky the next day, and that's never any fun. So, the kids camped out all weekend, and Tanner absolutely loved it. In fact, we tried to keep him inside Sunday night, because he was so tired, and he collapsed on the floor in the saddest tears I've ever seen. I couldn't help it, I caved and let him sleep out. He was really good and fell asleep before the other kids, so it turned out OK.

Saturday we went exploring to a place we've wanted to go for a while now. Aurora - a town about 25 miles away where we attend church, has a kids "explorit" center right next to a pioneer/settlers of the area museum. We took the kids to the explorit center first, where they got a chance to do a lot of hands on stuff. They had a seismograph, where the kids could jump on the floor and see the vibrations. They had a place to spin tops, that Parker really loved. Don't I look excited? I really wanted to check out the other stations, too, but Parker kept running away back to this one. He tried to climb up onto the stool himself, so I needed to be nearby.


They had a green screen where you could play games and see your self on the TV.


They had a huge "Operation" game that Tanner liked - it made small sparks when you hit the edge of the openings.


They had a life size kaliedescope that you could stand inside.

They had a bubble-blowing center that you could make giant bubbles in.



They had a water-rocket station, where Kaitlin built a rocket that went over the building. This is her second attempt. On her first attempt, it went up so fast that all of the decorations and the parachute that she attached blew right off the rocket.




We really had a great time. We went to the museum next, but had to hurry the kids through because Tanner and Parker were ready to fall asleep standing up. In fact, Shane was holding Tanner's hand, and couldn't figure out why he kept dragging on the floor. Shane thought he was goofing off, but he was so tired he could barely keep walking. Poor little guy.


Anyway, what we did see of the musuem was really neat, and it's something we both thought my parents would enjoy, especially my dad. So, Dad, when you get to come next, we'll have at least one neat place to show you. That afternoon, we decided to take it easy and play together as a family. We played Sorry, and kid and cat wrestled. I was so excited that we were able to be together as a family, and we really enjoyed being with each other. Let's hope we can do it again really soon.



Is that better, Brock?! =>