Walking Encyclopedia

Connor seriously amazes me every day. His brain is a sponge for knowledge. He loves a kid website called "Pebble Go." We get to it through our school's website. It teaches them all kinds of facts about space, animals, etc. All earth science stuff.

Connor just came in and said this to me:

Connor: "Which are the moons by Jupiter? The four large moons of Jupiter are Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. Io is a colorful moon with many volcanoes. Europa is far from Jupiter"

Lauree: "What about Callisto?"

Connor: "No, it doesn't has any volcanoes."

Lauree: "Why do you like to learn all this stuff?"

Connor: "Because I love outer space! Mercury moves fast."

He is seriously a walking encyclopedia.

(Yes, I had to look up the spellings of these moons because I had never heard of them.)

Cub Scout Day Camp Part 1

Cub Scout Day Camp is this week, for four days. Yesterday was the first day and I got to be with Jacob's group for the whole day. I'll go with Zach's group on Friday. Thanks to my awesome friend Betsy who watched the kids all day yesterday. That's the third year in a row she'd watched them for this.

It was very, very hot. It got over 100 degrees. But the boys still had a blast. The theme is "How to Train a Knight" and they have lots of activities around knights and castles. Here is some of what Jacob did yesterday. And he still has 3 days left.

Rock Wall

At first Jacob would only go up about 6 feet, but then he went about halfway up after he saw me go all the way up.

Yep, that's me. I couldn't resist.

They had lots of water activities to help keep them cool.

The sun dried him off in less than an hour.

Soccer

Swords

Engineering...he built a catapult

Leather working

BB guns...this was the favorite of both Jacob & Zach. Brother McCulloch helped Jacob get the hang of it again. I was amazed at the facts Jacob remembered about BB guns from previous years.

Towards the end of the day I saw Zach coming towards me and whipped out my camera. He was proudly leading his group.

I followed them to the rock wall for a few minutes and watched Zach go up part way a couple of times.

We came home exhausted and all slept great. The boys were excited to go again this morning, and I was happy to come home to air conditioning...until Friday.

Cruising

Landon can't pull himself all the way up yet, but if you help him up he'll inch along the couch.It's also his favorite teething toy.
This is Landon's favorite spot to come when the kids are practicing piano...

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I ordered a bread machine with gifts from our parents and went fridge shopping on Saturday. It will be delivered on Dallin's birthday. Happy Birthday to me, huh. We'll make sure Dallin feels special too. He got me these beautiful flowers and yummy cheesecake too.

A good beginning to summer...

Yesterday morning I came out to find Connor reading his snake book to Jacob, just the two of them in the quiet house. And Jacob listened very intently and paid attention to him for at least a half an hour, instead of reading his own book. Jacob is such a good brother. Connor is loving having the kids home every day.Then later Connor needed help with his puzzle and Zach jumped right up to help him. I love these kids!

(Disclaimer: I don't want you to think that everything is always this happy and lovely around here. We definitely have our share of fights and whining. But these are some good kids, and I try to record the good stuff here since this is their journals.)

And for being so well-behaved and doing their piano lessons today we took a trip to the pool. This was Landon's first time ever in the pool...and he LOVED it of course. He loves baths, so I knew he would be in heaven.

He just chilled in his crab and chewed on his little duck. He's cut 2 teeth this week.

Savannah actually let me take off her floaties and practice swimming for a little while. She has always been very freaked out any time I try to take them off. But we had some friends with us and she saw their 3-year-old practicing swimming and did not want to be out-done. She did a great job!

Memorial Day weekend in Odessa

We drove to my brother Steven's house in Odessa, TX on Saturday morning. We had a nice, relaxing weekend hanging out with Sarah & Max. Steven had to work all day Saturday & Sunday (he's a police officer), but we got to spend some time with him in the evenings and Monday morning. Thanks for letting us invade your house!
The boys loved playing some old video games like Pac-Man on Steven's Play Station 2.
Connor got to sleep in the closet of the guest bedroom the first night. All the kids were so jealous that he got his own "room." We let Savannah sleep in there the second night.

Max giving Landon a "kiss."

Saturday evening we filled up the ice chest with water and let the kids have a water fight.

The kids all loved Max's sand table and were covered in sand when we were finished. You'd think we'd been to the beach.

Max loved sitting in the "pool."

Savannah kept squirting water into Max's mouth. He would just open up and take it!

Max kept trying to mess with Landon's walker, so we finally gave up and made him a fort out of it. He thought it was great.

On Monday morning we went to the park. Dallin stayed back with a teething Landon. The kids LOVED this park. It had some really new, cool toys along with some really old toys you don't see in parks anymore.

Max & Zach

Connor by the octopus

Jacob spent almost the whole time with these digger things...

Savannah & Jacob on the spiderweb. There was a huge fake spider next to it.

Connor and Max on the ship

Zach steering the ship

We left Monday after lunch and had an uneventful drive home. It was nice to get away for a few days!

Last Day of School & Piano Recital

Friday, May 27 was the last day of school. We went to the kids' class parties at the end of the day and then left school early. They had a fun day!When we got to Zach's class he quickly finished his food and said "Let's go!" He loved his teacher, but couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Savannah of course wanted to stay as long as possible. She will miss all of her school friends this summer, but is excited to see cousins even more.

Friday night we had a very casual piano recital at the Mabey's house. Savannah was excited because it was her first "recital." She played "Old MacDonald" and did great.

Zach played "The Donkey"

Jacob played "Get Away"

Betsy and Jamee are my good friends who also teach their own kids piano at home. We take turns doing a theory day once a month and a couple of recitals a year. It's been great for the kids to have something to work towards. Here they are jamming away after the kids were done.

And the best part of the night...ice cream sundaes and playing with friends.