The Neighborhood "Amazing Race"

Team Kenison!!! Those are some really HOT and SWEATY boys! They should be after withstanding 85 degree weather and high humidity, running from "country to country" and competing in challenges that were not for the faint of heart!

Patterned after the TV show, The Amazing Race, our neighborhood hosted a family event which involved teams with one parent and 2-4 children racing around the 'hood for an afternoon of challenge and SWEAT! (While Reese took a much needed and LENGTHY nap at home....) Mark and the boys ran the race, which was almost an 1 1/2 hours long, and sprinted to the finish line... above...but were a few shy of the medals podium. Those darn clues were a little challenging!!! Interesting though... the winning family happen to be the family whose Mom WROTE the clues... Hmmmm... Cheating perhaps? We would not accuse them of that... well maybe we would! The kids had to compete in mummy wrapping in Egypt... animal hunting in Africa... disgusting noodle eating in China... and many other feats! Our family stayed out of the real competitive group - those who made their children eat the noodles until the puked or yelled at their kids to "DIG DIG DIG... YOU'RE ALMOST THERE... DON"T MAKE US LOOSE... to a child that I thought was going to pass out from heat exhaustion! Let's say that it did not bring out the best side of some really really competitive Dads! For the most part...it was a fun time had by all and then was topped off with a down home pancake breakfast at the pavilion too. We had to skirt out early because it was on to the Middle School Talent Show where Tanner the Magnificent was riding his UNICYCLE... See next post! Everyone slept very well at our house that night!

Brock's Pirate Party!!!

To start things off.. we headed to the sand box for a little treasure hunting... gold coins, real coins, and watch out for the canyon balls - aka bouncy balls!
The Loot!!!
The pinata that we never did because we ran out of time and forgot.. and the cake, etc.
Cannonball Blast at the bad pirates! We had black water balloons and all the kids had to try and hit Tanner and Brennan with them... load of fun and certainly much needed relief from the heat.
As Brock opened each present, we had the guest sit on a chair next to him and then they had to give me their best pirate face for the picture - this was one of my favorite of Brock's faces! AARRRGGHHH!
All TEN boys... that's Brock in the middle behind all the rabbit ears! HA! Trying to get ten boys to smile for a picture was a major task!
Brennan was camera man on this shot so sorry it's a little blurry - but you can still see the birthday boy blow his candles and make a wish!
Playing with the toy pirates was a popular game - I should have put 10 plastic pirates on the cake and made my life much easier!
Grrrr!!! Brock had such a great time and hopefully all of his friends did too! Mom and Dad were sure tired at the end of the night.. but the kids... NO WAY! Happy Birthday Brock! So glad we finally got to have your party... even if it was a few weeks late!

The Makings of a Pirate Ship!

The beginning...
... and the end! The "waves" crashed a little high on the boat so it looks a little low in the water, but all in all, I think it came out great! Especially since I was really scrambling to get it all done yesterday!

I had promised Brock that I would make a special cake for his pirate party and of course.. he requested the pirate ship. Grrrrr! It's one of the most difficult for me to make so I was really banking on the treasure chest idea, but he had to have what Tate had! Thankfully, this time around, I was able to make the ship stay intact! Last time for Tate's party, the ship cracked in half while I was building it and it had to be a ship wrecked Pirate ship! Brock's came out cute and he really like it! Shiver me Timbers!

The Babies are Here!!!!

Day one - Four Bouncing Baby Bluebirds!!! Hooray!!! Poor little naked babies - but I had to be the nosy neighbor and snap a few shots! 5/19/09
Two days old - growing already!!! 5/20/09
So sweet - little fuzzy heads!
Day Four - getting little feathers on the wings already. WOW! They seriously grow right before your eyes! 5/22/09
Proud Daddy - Mr. Blue... he is comfortable enough around me now that I snapped these just TWO FEET from him... He comes to my whistle now and doesn't seem to mind me watching. Now the sound of the flash on the other hand is a little frightening.
One Week Old!!! We are starting to look like real birds now! I'm quite anxious to see how many males and females we got! Won't know till almost late summer I am sure. 5/26/09
"I'm so glad when Daddy comes home..." Mr. Blue is the best little provider for his family. He will carry as many worms in his mouth as possible - the record is 6 meal worms! What a sight! Ms. Lucy -Mrs. Blue is such a shy bird and very, very protective of her babies. She dive bombs our heads anytime we get close to the box and she will not pose for a picture as of yet. At least not a close enough one to post! Babies are growing like weeds now and I am sure will be out of the box in a week. We'll have to stop taking pictures of the babies as we don't want them to fall from the nesting box so now we just watch from a distance. I do have a clear glass side to the box, but it is really, really dirty now and hard to see through - lots of bird poop!!! We'll post more when they ALL start coming to the porch for worms.

Happy 6th Birthday Brock!!!

Rise and Shine! Brock was really excited to have a new outfit to wear to school on his birthday. Chocolate muffins for breakfast too - his favorite. Reese even woke up early for the occasion - Brock has to get on the bus at 6:45am so this was EARLY!!!
When Brock stepped out the front door, more birthday greetings awaited... all over the sidewalk!
... and all the way to the bus stop. Tanner and Brennan helped me at about 10:00pm the night before... complete with birthday wishes on the road too!
Brock was SOOO excited to open his gifts... he could hardly wait!
YES! Sing to me!!! The cake was a little embarrassing, but I promised him I would make up for it at his party with a REAL "Mommy" cake. He did choose the color frosting he wanted and made sure he was in charge of the birthday candles!

Happy Mother's Day...

Sometimes I could just kick myself for being such an over acheiver!!! Mark was in charge of buying the flowers for the women of the ward for Mother's day.. we went to Home Depot and found the most beautiful annuals for a great price. Once we got them home, I thought, "Oh, it would be so nice to put a little card on each one and tie them with a ribbon so they looked a little prettier. It can't be that bad... I'll just do something really simple and quick!"

Well ONE HUNDRED cards and ribbons later... they looked beautiful, but I really was a little stupid to think that I could whip these all out in just a few minutes! HA! Hopefully they put an extra smile on the faces of those who received them! For those who weren't there on Sunday, we were able to deliver them that evening or on Monday evening for FHE. I turned out to be a great missionary opportunity and EVERY sister in the ward got a flower for Mother's Day.

Infertility NO MORE!!!

Gotcha! No, we are not pregnant but everything else around us seems to be very fertile this year! After FOUR long, LONG years of watching our Bluebird pair build their nest with no success, we finally have four beautiful eggs!!! Yeah! Reese and I are a little nutty when it comes to the birds... they have names - Mr. Blue and Ms. Lucy (or Mrs. Blue on some days) and we buy worms to feed them on a regular basis. We are anxiously awaiting their arrival in the next few days! Today is day 16 since the last egg was laid so hopefully we will have babies soon!

Ms. Lucy protecting her nest. I had to tape the lookout door shut because all the neighbor kids keep on trying to see into the box. The silver cylinder at the bottom is a snake baffle that Mark built for me. We are not sure if the snakes had eaten the eggs in the past, but just in case! It's quite the contraption all for about $8 in supplies. Much better than the $40 baffle the bird store sold. I love my handy husband!

Our Black Capped Chickadees however are much more regular and this is about the 4th year that we have had babies in that box. The above picture is the baby just before he fled the next. There was another behind him... maybe giving him the boot! They have been fun to see grow - the kids were all mesmerized by the whole process and would often sit on the trampoline and watch the mother feed her babies. That's the momma below...

We have one other nest that we just discovered over the weekend in our Chocolate vine arch on the side of the house, but no pictures of them. It's quite the circus act, just to climb the ladder to see them... probably not the best time to take a picture unless I want to join my husband on the sick list with a broken back!

Shingles - and not the ones for your ROOF!

This was just the beginning of Mark's Shingles case... it spread from the center of his chest and wrapped all the way around to his spine in the back and was about 10 inches long all the way around. This was the only picture I dared put on the blog because it got much worse from this point on... OUCH! It has been horribly painful for Mark and still continues to be now that the rash is on the mend two weeks later. This is an AWFUL disease!!! Mark said that if they were going to choose a part of the house to name the disease after, why didn't they just call it the Crapper!!! Shingles just doesn't cut it!

Some Day Mark will smile about this...

Let's just say that Tate learned a good, GOOD lesson. NEVER ASK YOUR DAD TO TIE A WATER BALLOON WHILE HE IS SITTING AT HIS COMPUTER!!! The picture says it all... water EVERYWHERE... Tate had filled a water balloon to the MAX and then took it to Mark to have him tie it. All Mark did was touch the side of the balloon and it exploded, gushing water all over Mark's desk and his COMPUTER!!! Thankfully... it all still works, but this did not make Mark very happy... especially since this was about the most painful day of his case of Shingles. (see other post on that) I think he will finally laugh about this, but it took a lot to get a picture of this little episode!

14 years of Laundry Later...

For many, many years I never ever thought I would see this come out of my dryer lint catcher... until Miss Reese came along. Now thanks to her new pink blanket for her bed, I had my first cotton candy pink dryer lint! Maybe I am the only one to appreciate this silly thing, but after four boys, there were countless days where I would have wished that pink fuzz came out of the dryer instead of snake skins or melted plastic army men!

WANTED: Front tooth by Christmas!

With several more wiggly teeth in the works, Brock is going to be eating nothing but milkshakes soon! Hooray for losing his first front tooth... and he's still in kindergarten! The tooth fairy is staying very busy here!

Like Mother, Like Daughter...

Reese too has developed a LOVE of gardening! She has had a blast playing in the dirt and planting flowers and vegetables with mommy.

She is not afraid one bit to get really, really dirty in the process too.

But then there are times when she is ALL GIRL!!!! GIRLY GIRL!!! Don't mess with her when it comes to her personal purse selections and playing with her cell phone! Man we are in deep trouble!