Frownie Brownie, Museum, Water Park, Garden, Braces

The other day I was preparing my primary lesson which happened to be on families.  As I was looking for pictures of my family I came across these gems:

 There is proof that my dad had dark hair at one point--even though I don't remember it ;). 

His nickname at work was the Silver Fox for good reason as you can see in the next pic:

You can tell both of those were taken a LONG time ago.  The last one was before Aaron and I had kids so I can't even remember that far back hahaha :).  Was there life before having kids?!

We finally got our first tomatoes from our garden.  Now Sarah and Noah LOVE tomatoes.  Aaron didn't have any trouble getting a taste tester volunteer.

 Yup, it passed the Bubba test.

Noah has decided sleeping in a bed is for chumps.  Every night after I tuck him in his bed, when I come back to check on him a few hours later he is always on the floor.  This is what I found the other night:

 I guess the trucks and cars take priority over Noah.  All the cars and trucks were all tucked in nicely in his bed while Noah was huddled up asleep on the floor.  What a crazy kid. I do put him back in bed again every night, but it is his choice whether he wants to stay there or not.  He will surely be ready for those boy scout camp outs on the hard ground...

Matthew got his braces on last week.  Here's the before shot:

 He is so funny.  He knew he was going to see the orthodontist so he dug around until he found his orthodontic t-shirt that he could wear to the office.  He did that completely on his own without any suggestions.  He can be a little OCD that way, but he was excited to wear it nonetheless.

The hardest part of getting his braces on was not being able to talk.  Not that he didn't try again and again and again.  The assistant was pretty patient even though she had to remind him to STOP talking about a bazillion times.  Matthew just has A LOT to say all the time.

 Here's the after:

 He was so excited that he had to show them off to EVERYONE at Kids in the Park and even to all the parents who were dropping their kids, too.  We have been pretty nervous to see how he'd tolerate them, but so far so good.  Hopefully it will stay that way for the whole time he has to wear them.

We decided to make the most of Aaron's furlough time since he has extra time off.  He now gets off at 2:30 every day and gets every Friday off.  This is one positive thing that came from the furlough--however, it doesn't quite offset the 20% pay cut, though.  In trying to stay positive at least Aaron still has a job so I will stop complaining.    I do have to add that we have been blessed.  Aaron called up AT&T and said that he had been furloughed and they actually gave us a free month.  We also had to take Aaron's car in to get tires.  His two front tires were bulging ready to blow out.  Doh!!  I HATE spending money on tires!!  Anyway, we were just going to replace the two front tires because the two back tires were not the best, but still drivable.  After seeing all the tires the Discount Tire guy recommended we replace all of them.  Aaron explained why we were only replacing two which was because of the furlough and the Discount Tire guy bent over backwards to help.  He said that the owner of the Discount Tire was very supportive of the military and wanted to help out.  We ended up getting all four tires replaced with nice tires at almost the same price as the two cheap tires we had originally picked out.  We are truly counting our blessings! 

Anyway, Thursday afternoon since Aaron got off early enough 2:30 pm we headed down to Trafalga to take advantage of our Pass of all Passes which got us in for free.  The kids rode a lot of the rides.  Here is Noah (on the end) looking quite scared, Josh and Matthew riding the Frog Hopper.

 Here they are waiting for their turn to ride the mini Tidal Wave:

 Notice how everyone is wet?  We went on the bumper boats beforehand.  We all had fun except at the end it turned into everyone gang up on mom and Noah to see how wet you could get us.  Good thing it was a very HOT day so I wasn't complaining about being soaked.  All the kids (including Aaron) thought it was hilarious to corner mom (me) and get her as wet as possible.  I don't think boys every grow up they just get bigger....:).

Another ride:

 The hydraulic gizmo that runs the ride made a loud sound so that's why Sarah is covering her ears.

The go karts were fun, but Daniel was too little to drive one himself.  He was sad about it, but Aaron came up with a solution.  Aaron worked the pedals while he let Daniel steer.  Aaron feared for his life, but Daniel thought it was great.  Aaron is a brave soul!!

 We tried mini golf, but after the first hole it turned into a free for all.  By the end we were missing three golf balls and a few kids.  We ended up finding the kids, but the golf balls are lost never to be heard from or seen again.  I have no idea where they ended up.

The next morning Josh had cub scout day camp.  He was so excited he made sure he had all his stuff laid out the night before.  They were leaving at 6:45 am the next morning, but Josh got up at 5 am to shower and get dressed.  He was so excited to go.  Needless to say he wasn't late in showing up.  He did have to wait around for about an hour until I would let him wander over to the cub scout leader's house, though.

While Josh was gone we took the rest of the kids and used our family pass to the Union Station Museums.  Here's the kids checking out the luggage scale:

 Looking at the model trains:

 When we got home from the train museum we met up with Josh who had a ton of fun at day camp.  He did have one accident where he got a nice gash on his elbow and knees from tripping over a rock and falling down a hill, but other than that he had fun. 

We had a quick dinner, met up with G&G T and headed over to the Pioneer Days Rodeo in Ogden.  A few weeks ago a radio station was giving out free tickets to the rodeo and we went and picked some up.  We got enough for our family and for G&G T as well.  They came up and met us and we headed over to the rodeo together.  It was sure hot, but fun watching the rodeo.  However, I had fed Daniel some leftover homemade chili for lunch.  I quickly realized that was a very bad idea since I was sitting down wind of him during the rodeo.  Down-winders certainly got a new meaning for me--whew!!!  There were a few times I had to ask him if he had turned his whitey tighties into some frownie-brownies :(.  It was bad, but Grandpa and I survived it.  We should have gotten hazard pay though!!  It was hot, but the rodeo sponsors handed out fans at the gate which was awesome!!  Here  are most of us on the bench waiting for the rodeo to begin. Noah was climbing up the stands and Aaron was chasing after him.  Noah was probably trying to get away from Daniel and his post chili smell.  I don't blame the poor guy!!

We got home really late from the rodeo so the next day everyone was tired, but we headed out for more adventure.  That morning we went and used our Passes and got into the water park where we spent a chunk of the day.  Why does swimming make you so tired?!  By the time we were heading home everyone was 'Chuckles' or EXTREMELY ornery.  I have never heard so much fighting and whining!!  However, the longer we drove the quieter it got.  Here you can see why:

 Poor Josh!  All the craziness from the previous two days caught up to him and he was passed out cold in the car.  The rest of the kids did, too, but they woke up when we stopped at the store to pick something up really fast.  Josh slept through all of it.  He was TIRED!!

 Anyway, we have almost recovered from our crazy weekend.  It was business as usual yesterday.  The older three boys had their Kids in the Park field trip to Fat Cats in Ogden.  When they got home I was feeling brave and tried to go out grocery shopping with everyone.  That was a big mistake.  Whenever I feel like I have this parenting thing down it only takes one trip to five stores with five kids alone to remind me that I don't and will not ever have this parenting thing down!!  I think that trip wore me out more than our weekend did!!  By the time Aaron got home from work I put myself in time out and took a nice long hot bath.

Noah loves riding the wiggle cars.  He will sneak out every chance he gets (usually while I am in the bathroom or showering) to ride them.  However, he uses his toes as the brakes.  The whole summer his big toes have been bloody.  You think he would stop dragging his toes as his brakes, but nope, he keeps doing it.  I finally took a picture yesterday of his poor toes.  This isn't even that bad.  Usually they look a LOT worse.  What a crazy kid!!  I think he may have a high pain tolerance--what do you think?!

Occasionally I will treat myself to a Sonic drink just for a coping mechanism :).  Hey it's cheaper than therapy!!  Anyway, the boys used to get paid piano bucks according to how much they practiced.  Well this morning Sarah found an old piano buck and was so excited to get some money.  She excitedly yelled down the stairs, "Mom I got some monies!!"  She then said in the same breath, "I can get a Sonic drink now!!"  Maybe she needs some 'therapy', too.  Face palm moment--what am I teaching my kids?!?

 Speaking of Sarah, she was telling Aaron about primary on Sunday.  She said, "Dad I was so reverent in primary today.  I didn't even fart!"  Poor girl--you can definitely tell she has four brothers!!

Josh broke his new prescription glasses.  Good thing he still has another pair.  I am just hoping this pair will last longer than two months like the first pair did.  Good thing we only spent $10 on them!!