Lazy Sunday Afternoon...

We've all been a bit busy lately. Ball practices, games, births, playing Wii, work, school, field trips, etc... Needless to say, we haven't spent much time together as a family, rather than running someone here and there.

This afternoon we took a picnic to the park to eat and we had a lovely time. (thanks to the H family for their recent trip to downtown Madison for the inspiration).

Liam didn't eat much. He mostly just ran around... of course his favorite thing to do is run AWAY from anyone trying to 'catch' him. He ran across the street a time or two. At one point we said, don't go in the street! Dad told him to go look at the train tracks (he meant he could go up to that point and look through the fence). We are all sitting down, watching him and all of the sudden Liam flops down on his belly and goes UNDER the fence!!! He's now on the side with the tracks! Amanda was the quickest, and was able to get under the fence and retrieve him! She passed him back over the fence to Sariah. The other people nearby were laughing at all our crazy antics.

Amanda didn't want to go back under the fence as there was no IMEDIATE hurry any more, so she walked around. As she was about back to us, we heard the whistle of the train heading towards us. WoW! That was pretty close timing! I THINK Liam would have turned around and crawled right back under the fence in a hurry, with all the loud noise, etc. of the big scary train!

Later we found out he could just slip right between the bars of the fence... then, that Marissa, and Hannah (just barely) could also slip through the bars of the fence.

Liam also picked some flowers for me, For his sisters, for himself... he blew the dandy lions...

They all had fun playing in the Gazebo. They danced, and pretended they were in the Sound of Music... I am 16 going on 17...

Liam as usual, climbed on everything...

Later in the afternoon when it cooled down a little bit, we decided to take a walk (the kids rode scooters) through the neighborhood. Hannah (and possibly Marissa) thinks she wants to walk -or ride- to school, instead of taking the bus. So we sort of meandered that direction to see about how long it migth take them in the morning... with having to either wait for Liam, or to have to push him along on his scooter, or to have him walk, and one of us would end up having to carry or push the scooter, we took much longer than I'm sure they will in the morning by themselves.

After we walked to the school (across the street from the school) we went over to visit the H family to see their new baby! She sure is a cutie! Then we wandered through the neighborhood again, and finally ended up back home. We spent about 3 hours on our walk/visit. It ws a very pleasant way to spend our afternoon together as a family.

Tonight Sariah finished off the rest of her project. She had to make a totem pole for herself - each animal had to represent her in some way. I thought she did a great job.

Some days are very very good...

Back in March/April when we painted and fixed up Sariah's room we had some things that did not get done. Before we did her room, Sariah had a bunch of things stuck to her walls with thumbtacks. After patching all those holes in the walls before and while I painted. I told her she was NOT to put any thumbtacks back in the walls!!!!! I told her we would make a nice bulletin board.
Her first week in Y.W. the leader had them make wallhangings/plaques. Sariah was so excited. SHe made one that was the colors of her room, and said her name and I Am A Child Of God on it. So cool! We had wanted to paint something or hang something over her door. This was Perfect!!! We finally got something on the back to hang it up, and it looks so good!

At some point when I helped my friend L move from her rental house into a nice house down the road a ways - she had a bunch of things the previous owners had just left behind. One was a bunch of movie posters and a bunch of large picture frames 24' x 36'. She gave me one of the big frames, and I thought it was a great start to make the bulletin board.

It took us quite a while to finally get all the things together for it. I had been promising Sariah we'd work on it... well, the time was FINALLY here! I had told her last weekend as I worked on something for the other kids, that this Saturday was THE DAY!!!

We went out and bought some of the remaining needed supplies, came home and worked and worked. Sariah made thumbtack buttons, way cute! We covered some squares with fabric, some parts are cork board, some are white board, and two of the fabric area's are also magnetic.

Sariah got a cool new bed for her new room, but she felt like it was taking up too much of the room and really wanted to get rid of the bed altogether and get a small fold out chair or something for her bed. Well, after spending the money on the bed, Dad said she was keeping the bed! We did take the dresser she didnt' want, out, and gave her a smaller dresser that fit in her closet to give her more room and we moved the bed to a different wall (in front of the windows, which seemed wrong to me... but, after talking it through, I agreed to let her try it). It actually did open the room up and make it seem much larger. We also took off her closet door (it is behind her bedroom door and if it was left open - which it ALWAYS was, and then the doors would bang into each other... Very annoying! I reused a shower curtain we had when the little girls were in the big room, for the curtain over the closet doorway, and it matches and looks really cute.







Bill told me this morning as he was getting ready to leave for a trip to Orlando, when times are hard, Remember the good days. Yesterday was a very good day!
















Today was the Primary Program at church. I always LOVE the primary program! Seeing and hearing the little kids is so fun! They are all so darn cute!!!!! I knew Marissa was singing a solo of the first verse of I am a Child of God, but I didn't realize how much she was doing! She and 4 other little girls got up right at the beginning, no introduction or anything, and started singing. She was First on the whole program! She sang the whole first verse by herself, then the other little girls sang with her the second verse and then the whole primary sang the third verse. She did a great job! She didn't even look or act nervous at all! I was so proud of her!

Sariah has technically graduated from Primary, but until January is till there for closing exercises, the talks, and singing (since we have three meetings in the same building that over lap, we have sac. mtg first, then PH, RS, and YW, 2nd, then after that we have sunday school). Anyway Sariah sits with the sunbeam class (which is a very active sunbeam class), and helps with the kids. So today she had the role of helping them sit reverently and had one if not two children sitting on her lap the entire time. She had also promised the kids that if they did a good job durring the program he would give them a treat. She fixed little treat bags for each one of those little 3 yr old sunbeams. Bill commented that he doesn't know what they will do in January when Sariah leaves primary altogether and is no longer around ot help out.

This afternoon, we stayed for a baptism (there are a lot of 8 year olds in our ward!). Then we came home and Amanda suggested we have a picnic. The kids wanted to eat outside, but after making all the sandwhiches, etc. it was getting close to dark and I didn't want to volunteer myself as Mosquito food, so we spread the blanket out and watched a movie and ate our pinic inside. While we were getting ready, Liam came into the kitchen and announced he'd 'gone' potty or something... Amanda rushed to find out what, and he'd put a ball in the toilet, and flushed!!!!! Luckily the ball was too big to go down and had holes so the water could flow through it and it didnt' block anything up, I'm just hoping that was the ONLY thing he put down the potty!!! UGH!!!!!! What to do with this boy! We keep everything locked most of the time (to where it's hard to get in the bathroom when someone REALLY has to go!!! we have to find the metal stick/key and unlock the door! This one time someone left the door unlocked, and wouldn't you know it, he found out!

Oh wait! He's upstairs, and everyone is in bed, and I think I hear him in my room/bathroom! YIKES! I didn't lock my door!

It's DONE!!!!

This morning we got up early to see dad and grandpa off to drive to D.C. After Liam and I had showered I wrapped him in a towel and sat him on my bed to watch his favorite show (Barney), while I got ready. When I checked on him, he was all slumped over. He had fallen asleep. I finished getting ready, and then I spackled the nail holes in the trim to get ready to paint it.


Here's his room. He walked in and the first thing he said was "BALL!" then proceded to get each ball and throw it up over his head... Then he went over to play with cars and the little people airport. (thanks M. for passing that along for him to play with).

I want to get some of those cute wall stickers of Spiderman, and perhaps do some artwork to hang on his wall with a Spider man theme.





O.K. I still have a yelow wall to paint in Sariah's room, and then when dad comes home Friday we'll have him put her bed together this weekend.

Happy Easter!!!!! (and yesterday's work)

Saturday: We had a long day of working on the room again. and then before I sent the kids for baths and bed, We died eggs... It was probably the most crazy time I've had over the years with dying eggs! The two big girls were out at Movie night (the last night of Spring Break), with a bunch of friends from church, so I had a little less help and CONTROL over the situation! Liam was grabbing eggs and literally THROWING them into the cups of Dye! Then he'd stir the eggs and dye in the cups like crazy, and if I wasn't right on top of him, he was drinking the dye from the spoon! Luckily it was yellow and not a dark color like Blue or Red, or Purple! Yikes! (I tried to keep the darker colors farther away from him at the other end of the table.)

Through the day we worked inside, I gave the walls a second coat of Blue paint, Bill painted the outside of Liam's wall, in the hallway the color of the hallway (we had to buy another gallon of that paint, since the paint we had left over from when we moved in 4 1/2 yrs ago... was dried up solid)! Amanda helped me paint all the trim and the door frames. Bill and his dad got the carpet pad down, Bill and I cut the rug, and then got that put in while his dad went to church.

Meanwhile, the kids played in the backyard, with Liam, (o.k., so I made them come home from the neighbors across the street, to help keep Liam occupied and OUT of the house - and out of the pans of Paint!!!) and they even had a little picnic lunch on the trampoline.

The guys hung the door in Liam's doorway, and got the trim all put in around the room. I did some touch up paint, and Wallah! we have a room! Now to decorate it! Actually I still need to fill nail holes and paint over that on the trim, but he is sleeping in his little bed in his room tonight. Yippeee!!!!! Of course he's asleep and I can't get a picture of his little bed in there until tomorrow...

You know you have teenagers in the house when your under two year old knows about camera phone's. Liam is holding my cell phone, and holding it up to 'take his picture'!!!

Here is Liam sitting in his room, with the door, on his nice carpet, playing with my cell phone.

********EASTER MORNING********

Here's Liam with his Easter bounty... can you say crack for kids? Man they were all wild today!!!

This is what it looks like when no one would open his candy for him! I really wanted Liam to eat SOMETHING for breakfast before he ate too much more candy! Finally he decided to eat some of Hannah's cereal.

Grandpa is going home in the morning. We will miss 'papa' as Liam has been calling him all week!

Bill has a trip this week to D.C. and New Jersey, so he and his dad are driving up together.