Field Trip with Brandon

Got to go on a field trip with this cute boy.

And he clung to my arm like this the whole ride there. Made the stinky bumpy bus ride more than worth it. 

The play was performed by the theaters "homeschool group" so it wasn't stellar acting or anything, and the play was quite weird, but it was free and the kids thought it was hilarious so it was all good.

Afterward we went to the park for lunch and then the kids got to run around and play for a bit. It was a good day with my little bud!

Brandon and his best school bud Tomi. He's a cute kid and he's smart and it motivates Brandon to do his best in school. SO I'm all over this friendship. Haha…

Brandon Turned 7

This cute boy turned 7 on Wednesday and this is how he woke up! Excited and ready for the day. Which if you know him AT ALL, you know that this is NOT how he usually wakes up each morning, which is grouchy and uncooperative. So you know he was happy for his birthday. 

And rightfully so, because his morning started with donuts.

 And included a nasty lunchable for his lunch box, which I never buy. He later told me they weren't as good as he thought they would be. LOL

 And ended with a Spaghetti dinner with, by his request, a white cake with white icing and no decorations. Okay…whatever, made life easier for me. Especially since I had already made cupcakes for his class earlier that day. 

The candle blowing procession. This cutie was SO excited all day. The large amount of sugar he had consumed probably played into that, but oh well.

Then it was time for presents to which he said, "you got me presents?" As if I don't usually or something. I don't know. He's funny. I was like…of course we got you presents. We always do. 

His sisters were so cute. They made a point to have me take them to the store to pick out toys for Brandon and then spent quite a bit of time in Leah's room together wrapping up their little gifts and writing sweet Birthday cards to Brandon. I think it's so great that they recognize each other's special day.

 He was a "bit" excited for his football.

And for his Pokemon art studio game cartridge for his DSi. Unfortunately it does not work on his DS. It's for a 3DS and I was wrongly told that the two were compatible. Ugh…And it's not returnable. 

The four cute kiddos.

A shot with the boys!

I had to sneak in a shot with the birthday boy too. To prove I was actually there.

Here are the girls cards. I thought they were hilarious!

 Brandon never asked for a party, so I figured why kill myself throwing him one when he didn't care. He did however want more than anything to go play lazer tag with his Dad. So on Saturday they headed out for a couple of rounds of Lazer Tag, followed by some McDonald's for lunch (Brandon's choice) and then a stop at Game Stop to pick out a game to replace the one that didn't work. He was able to pick out two for the same amount I spent on the Pokemon Art Studio, so he was still a happy boy. Now to figure out how to get my money back on the first one.

Happy 7th Birthday to my sweet little Brandon. We sure love him….burps and farts and all! 

Here's some of his favorite things right now.

Favorite color: black, blue and white

Favorite food: Tacos, Spaghetti, pizza, chicken nuggets & french fries

Favorite Dessert: White cake with vanilla ice cream

Favorite TV Show: Phineas and Ferb

Favorite Movie: Home

Favorite hobby: Drawing pictures and playing legos

Favorite sport: Tennis

How much do you weigh? 53 pounds

What's your shoe size? 13

Who's your best friend(s)? Elijah and Tomi

What's your favorite thing about church? Primary

What do you want to be when you grow up? An Artist

Random's things this week

I planted a garden. Kind of on a whim. But I had to go to Lowe's to buy a new Kitchen faucet (more on  that later) and while I was there I thought….what the heck! I want a garden this year. It's small and not very impressive, but I'm really hoping it will grow. I'm nervous with this drought about wasting too much water keeping the ground moist enough for anything to grow, so we will see. 

I have decided that hot chocolate in a huge mug with whipped cream and hershey's syrup is definitely the way to go. It's also awesome for helping get through a 2 1/2 hour long Relief Society meeting. Not complaining. There's always lots to talk about and discuss. Hot chocolate just makes it more fun.

Ashlyn's 6th Grade Promotion pictures. Which I might have actually bought if she didn't have a weird smile. Even she was like, "Why am I smiling like that?" lol. This girl hates school pictures. They always put her in the most awkward positions. Oh well!

This boy officially has a jigsaw puzzle mouth. I love this toothless stage. So hilarious.

Ashlyn had a STEAM presentation at Mitchel Elementary. She got to show off her Maglav train that her and her buddy got to levitate. There's a big push with technology in Common Core. She wasn't thrilled to have to be here, but she did it. I'm sure proud of her.

Ok back to the sink. This is officially the 3rd kitchen faucet we have had in this house in the last 6 years of owning this home. In comparison, I think we had the same kitchen faucet my entire life growing up in FL. So I don't know what the heck is wrong with ours that it thinks it needs to be replaced every couple of years. It's irritating. I think it's probably due to the extremely hard water we have in this town. It's breaking all the tubing with the nasty corrosion and build up. Probably the same reason our water line to the ice maker in the freezer is busted too. I'm telling ya….if you are looking into owning your own home, make sure you have some extra money put aside each year for home repairs. Sheesh!

Anyway, we didn't want to have to call a plumber, so even though Paul pretty much hates doing home repairs, he got on YouTube and taught himself how to replace the faucet. And the good news is that it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. So big props to him for going outside his comfort zone and saving us on labor costs! I love ya honey!

AND I love my new faucet that has a higher head with a pull out nozzle that points down. So hopefully if it starts leaking again, the water will go down into the sink instead of all over the bottom floor underneath the sink! Ugh….talk about mildew. I tried to spray it down with bleach, but I'm afraid our cabinets are just too old. 

It's finally finished

Paul and I are not much by way of handy people. So when we have a project around the house it usually takes a long time. A VERY long time. And usually other people (aka our family) come in and do it for us. Probably because they are tired of seeing an unfinished job when they come to visit us. No…it's because they love us and feel sorry for our pathetic selves. Either way, the kids bathroom was probably the yuckiest bathroom when we moved in. It was half painted with a nasty sliding shower door unit. It had stuck on painters tape everywhere. The cupboard doors had been taken off and were gunked up with some seriously thick paint. I'm not sure what the last owners were trying to do, but I'm kind of convinced they were trying to ruin the bathroom. So when we moved in, Tyler completely demo'd this bathroom. New tub, new toilet, new tile, new fixtures, new mirrors, new paint on the walls, new doorknobs, etc. Even some drywall repair. Pretty much everything. I sanded down the cupboards with the intention of painting them. Well, Tyler finished his part and I never did mine. So fast forward say….6 years and my Step Dad finally came in and painted the cupboards and fixed a few parts that had gotten messed up over the years (eh hem…Leah…who thought the shower curtain was something she could hang on and ripped the hanger out of the wall). My step dad had to leave for home before being able to put the doors on. So when my inlaws were here over Spring Break, my FIL helped us out and put the doors on. I got a new shower curtain (goodbye babyish fish curtain) and a few decor items and voila…it's FINALLY finished. And I love it. So thank you to my amazing family for coming in and picking up our slack. We couldn't have done any of this without you. 

Field trip with Ashlyn

Sixth graders go on lots of field trips. Like one every month. Sometimes two. I haven't gotten to go on too many with Ashlyn and the end of the school year is coming soon so when this field trip slip came home, I knew I better find a sitter for Carter and make this happen. I am SO glad I picked this one to go on. It was so much fun and I found myself wondering HOW I have never come here before. Then I realized…oh…it's because I've had little little kids for the past 11 years and this is a museum. Not too interesting for them, which makes it not too fun for me. I still think the boys might be a bit young for a lot of the things here, but Ashlyn loved it and I think Leah would enjoy it too. It was so cool to be here. We had a great tour guide who taught us some cool things about the President and his life. This was one great President. He had an amazing love for the country and for God. His quotes posted around the library made me think of Mitt Romney and how he has that same optimistic perspective and hope in our country and in the goodness of its people. I had to mourn (once again) his defeat in 2012. I wish I remember Reagan's presidency more, but being that he finished in 1989, I don't remember too much about him. But I loved learning more about him today and feeling his patriotism and love of freedom.

We got to tour Air Force One and the Presidential Helicopter. There was a car show going on which had the batmobile (SO cool), Herbie, and the car from Grease Lightening. How lucky to get to see those too.

This was our little group I helped watch over. I was the "sweeper" that walked in the back and "swept" the kids up when they lagged behind. This was a good group of kids though. All very respectful and polite. I was really impressed. Only one boy in our group and he held every door for all of us. 

This picture is made out of jelly belly jelly beans! Seriously! It was cool.

The Presidential State Seal. Fifty stars for the fifty states. Thirteen clouds, thirteen little stars, thirteen arrows, thirteen stripes, thirteen olives and thirteen olive branches (all representative of the thirteen original colonies) but only nine tail feathers on the Eagle. Why? Because Eagles only have 9 tail feathers. LOL. This seal has gone virtually unaltered since it's creation except for the addition of two stars when Alaska and Hawaii became part of our country and then one other time when President Hoover (I think…I can't remember) had the Eagles head changed from pointing the other direction because he said we were a country of peace, not war. I liked that!

A gift to President Reagan. A piece of the Berlin Wall that came down just months after his Presidency ended. So cool. I remember when it came down. My Dad brought me home a piece of it. MUCH MUCH MUCH smaller than this piece, but still cool. And I still have it after all of these years. And I don't have many things from that long ago.

President Reagan's resting place. I love the quote on the back wall. 

Picture of the President and First Lady with Dalia and Ashlyn.

Ashlyn's campaign for President speech. Haha…just kidding. 

A replica of the Oval Office with many original artifacts inside.

President Reagan is the only president to have kept a journal during his entire presidency. They have them all bound and on display and you can literally click on a day you want to see and it will come up on a screen to read.

Presidents receive literally thousands of gifts during their presidency. None of them belong to them when their term ends though. They remain property of the United States and if they want to purchase them, they can. Funny huh. But all presidents are required to build a library with private funds after their presidency and most gifts are put on display there. This is a portrait of the President given to him as a gift. It's made from butterfly wings. Isn't that incredible? 

At the end of the tour we watched a short video clip from his funeral where his daughter spoke about the end of his life. He suffered from Alzheimer's. She talked about how terrible it was that he lost so much of his memory, but that on his last day he opened his eyes (after having them closed for many days) looked up at his wife and still knew her as his true love. That just made me cry. So sweet and such a tribute to their love and marriage! 

So grateful I got to go and learn more about this man today. I need to go back with Paul soon and later with the rest of the kids when they can appreciate it and enjoy it a little more.