Pictures Again

I'm just going to come right out and say - Facebook is so much easier than blogging.  I have found myself using it spur of the moment like I used to blog, just because it's so much easier.  Even with an app on my tablet for Blogger, Facebook is just easier.  Still, there's worth in this here blog, so I'll continue to try to add to it.

First off, Henry has been learning to say, "Bah-bah-bah." :D It's so cute!

Now, for some pictures.  I saw that not all of the ones I told blogger to upload last time made it, so I'm going to try to get those up along with some newer ones.

One thing I don't have pictures of is the scouts' super activity.  In June the teachers and deacons went on separate camping trips and did all kinds of things.  Hyrum and Joshua went to Fossil Creek near Strawberry, and Benji went to Big Lake.  Hyrum and Joshua got to do a zip line, and Benji did some fishing.  Joshua told me that they listened to country music all the way there and back and didn't like it.  He told me the three things that he thought all country music is about.  I can't remember what he said, so I need to ask him and write it down.  It was spot on!

And another thing - there's a church here that is also a movie theater, and they have free movies for kiddos every weekday morning.  They have a different movie each week.  Half of them so far have been things we didn't want to see (The Smurfs 2 and the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie), but we've been to two of them, and it's been fun.  And since it's families we don't have to worry so much about our wiggly guys.  We saw Hotel Transylvania 2 and The Croods.  We've seen both before.  I don't really like The Croods a whole lot.  (Jeremy calls it The Cruds.)  But the kiddos wanted to see it, so away we went.  Hotel Transylvania is, of course, great!

Here's a big part of our summer so far: eating at the Safford Middle School cafeteria.  We go almost every day for breakfast and lunch.  The 4 little ones mostly love it, and the Benji and Michael sometimes come too.  I like that it keeps a schedule and is part of what keeps them from being bored.  The food is usually at least OK, and often better than OK.  And they give me a tray for Henry, and since he can't really eat it I give him little bites while I eat most of it.  Works out great!  

Some days Benji and Michael walk over to the Safford Library afterwards, and then I pick them up after a couple of hours.  One day there was a tournament for the card game Magic.  James gave our boys some Magic cards a while ago (maybe last family campout), and Benji and Michael went to the tournament.  It was free, and everyone who participated got a new deck.  Hyrum really wished he'd gone!  And now they have a new friend that they go play Magic with at the library some days.  There's also a Lego club that meets a couple times a month.  We tried to sign up for the summer reading program, but we were too late for the younger groups.  Hyrum and Benji went and did a live Pac-Man game there.  They had a Pac-Man board drawn with tape on the floor, and the dots that Pac-Man munches were little candies like miniature candy bars and Jolly Ranchers.  Fun!

We also got a family pass to the pool across the street at EAC.  It's been great!  Hyrum comes with me and helps when Jeremy can't.  Benji and Michael like to go over there on their own a few times a week, and I try to take the little ones at least once or twice a week.  That's Hyrum holding Bubby, and that's Jill holding the rail.

Benji and Timmy

We now have some dollar store floaties, and they've been great.  Jill is doing great learning to swim, even though we couldn't do swimming lessons.

I got a new swimming suit.  I don't look amazing in it, but I think it's a cute swimming suit, and I've had fun going swimming this summer. :)

Another horrid thing that happened in June (It was a hard month!  So far we're still dealing with the after-effects.) - our washer broke.  It smelled like burning rubber.  Not cool.  We haven't been able to get it fixed.  I've been to the laundromat 3 times, and Jeremy's gone once.  Benji really liked it the first few times.  You pay with a card instead of quarters, and he liked using the card.  They both liked watching the wash cycle.

The lady at the laundromat was crocheting these headbands.  She says she sells them.  Anyway, she finished one and then asked Jill, "What's your favorite color?  It's pink, huh?"  Yep. :) And then she made this one for Jill, just cuz. :) Such a nice lady.  She even helped me fold the last few towels last time I went.

Oh, one more thing about the laundromat - last time I went was last week.  I had everything washing and was just waiting, and in came Sister Brenda Stevens, our bishop's wife.  She said she saw my car there and wondered if she could help.  Yeah!!  We spent some time just sitting and chatting while waiting for the washers and dryers, and then she helped me fold most of the clothes!  And that wasn't all.  Before she came to the laundromat, she actually stopped by our house and dropped off a bunch of food she'd bought.  I was blown away!  Hyrum called me at the laundromat to tell me that some lady from the ward had brought food, and he described her.  He was so touched, and he put it all away too.  I'm touched too!  I'm thankful!  I wrote her a card and made her cookies on Sunday.  We are so blessed!  Thank heavens for people like her!  :) I'm glad I'm getting to know her a bit.

Also, her husband was Paul and Kelly's bishop when they were at EAC.  Cool, huh? :D

Sweet Henry!  I can't get enough of my sweet babies sleeping!

Henry discovered his toes!

Jeremy sent me this one of him at work.  I like it. :)

One of the places where they have free lunch is at the splash pad park up the street.  We walked there one day, but I don't think we'll do it again.  They hardly ate anything.  And I didn't want to do swimsuits.  I told them they could get wet in their clothes if they wanted, so Jill did. :) 

Sweet baby

One thing the little ones have enjoyed is that the Thatcher Middle School Library has a craft day every Monday and Wednesday from 10-noon.  We can go do a craft and check out books.  I thought this book sitting on the counter looked pretty cool. :) I have pictures of some of the crafts later.

Jill turned 7! She wanted a skyscraper cake for her birthday.  I wasn't sure how to do that.  I knew I didn't want to try to make just a tall cake.  I'd have to figure out how to stabilize it.  And it would be a lot of cake.  And I only have 2 square pans.  Anyway, so we decided to make sugar cookies shaped like skyscrapers.  Jill helped me cut these shapes.  What a fiasco that cake ended up being!  It's been so hot, and, like I think I said before, we only have 2 air vents in the entire downstairs, and one of them isn't really attached to the hose.  HOT!  So baking cookies is kind of a bad idea, though we've still done it a few times.  We have a sun oven, but it can only fit like a toaster oven size pan in it.  I didn't want to mess with that.  I put these out in the van to try to bake them in the windshield.  It did not work.  They got warm and spread, but they didn't cook.  Oh, well.  I brought them in and stuck them in the oven.

Here's the finished product.  Ha ha!  Jill was happy with it, though, and that's the main thing.  I made 4 small cakes and stacked them, but they were kind of all different sizes.  I had 2 almost-the-same-size square pans and 2 almost-the-same-size round ones.  The result was the sides were lumpy and funny-shaped.  Jill decorated the cookies with pink frosting and flower sprinkles.  She made that big one, saying it would be the centerpiece.  It was funny making this with the kiddos.  We've been watching Nerdy Nummies on YouTube a lot lately, and my little ones have picked up some new words as a result.  Jill used the word centerpiece, and every time we cut out a cookie Timmy would exclaim, "Take off the excess!" 

Here's a side view.

Present time!

Jill wanted a Ken doll that can go in water with her water Barbie.  I got her one, along with a suit for when he's not swimming. :)

Michael loves to buy his siblings birthday presents with his own money.  He got her some bubbles in bottles shaped like ice cream cones.

The Little Mermaid movie!

Happy little brother turned 6 months old on Jill's birthday! :)

Here's a better picture of the birthday girl, but still not a very good one.  Darn!  I love my girly!

Timmy has made lots of hats at school.  He made a bug hat and an octopus hat and several others.  This one is a dinosaur hat.  He loved it!  He also loves microwave burritos. ;)

School has been great for him, but it's also been hard on him this summer.  Well, technically, it's done now.  It only lasted for the month of June.  He wet the bed a few times, a sure sign that he's feeling stressed.  He also yelled and screamed a lot.  We found out that one reason for all the yelling and screaming is that a kid in his class yells and screams a lot.  He just thought it was fun.  And his brothers like to tease him, especially Joshua, which means that he screams even more when they're around, and now Bubby has picked it up.  Oh, joy!  I'm a little worried about that Timmy at school.  It seems like things should even out in the end, but for now, he's had a hard time getting up and having school be early in the morning instead of in the afternoon, and he's had different teachers and different kids.  Poor guy.  And he'll have to go through it all again in a few weeks when school starts.  I'm worried about that.  At least church is the same, huh? :) His helper there is Yolanda Hunter, and she's wonderful!

Henry is sitting so good!  I can sit him with a little pile of toys and he'll stay entertained for like 15 minutes or more sometimes. :) He pulled forward onto his tummy once to reach a toy he'd accidentally pushed away, but then he was sad.  Cute fella!  This stuff doesn't get old.

Hyrum babysat for a few minutes, and Henry fell asleep. :)

More lunch time!  This time was chicken stir fry.  They even had these cool Chinese food boxes, shop sticks, and fortune cookies.  Bubby loved those fortune cookies.  And since it was Friday they gave us a treat too.  This time we got blue raspberry slushies.  It was all very yummy!

This was Henry's fortune.  Uhhhh....  Ha ha! The only people I can think of who are from his past are the people at the hospital. XD

Jill at Library Con!  The Safford Library had a convention kind of like Comic Con, and we went.  That Magic Tournament I talked about was part of it but was a few days earlier.  We all went together.  We didn't stay long, but it was fun. :) There were all sorts of things to look at.  There was fan art and a cosplay competition.  They only had female picture boards like this one, but there were all sorts of other things.

There was a couple missionary helping at the mask table, and I've seen them there one other time too.  I wonder what their assignment is.  They're from South Carolina, I believe.  Anyway, the kiddos got to decorate masks, and then there was a bucket of props to take pictures with like the one Benji's holding, and some backgrounds with cardboard cutouts, like C-3PO there.

Hyrum

Joshua and Michael

Henry

Jill

Jill in her other mask

Timmy

I don't know if you know it, but Timmy is obsessed with Mario.  He called that guy on it Master Mario.  He made it up.

After Library Con we had to stop at Walmart.  We haven't taken all the kiddos to Walmart at once in a long time.  It's a lot of work, but I like doing it now and then.  We had fun looking at these fish.

And we played with emoji pillows.  Here are Jill and Timmy.

Michael

Angry Papa

Purple Hyrum

Here's Timmy wearing both of his masks.

I can't believe how this guy has grown!  I took this picture because he's changed so much since the first time he sat in this seat.

Here's a picture of that :) <3

We got Henry a stroller, a walker, and a high chair.  They've been great!  I bought the stroller used, but we had to buy the other two new.  The only walker that was in our price range was girly, but he doesn't care.  Michael put them both together.  Henry LOVES that walker, and he figured it out really quickly.  He zips around pretty much everywhere.  He struggles with carpet, but he's getting better at it.  It's so fun!

Michael LOVES this baby!  He talks to him all the time and tells him he's a sweet, sweet baby. :)

I thought Henry looked pretty cute in his white shirt. :)

Here's one of the crafts at the middle school library - a sun with sunglasses.  It's made of foam.  I think all of the crafts are from Oriental Trading, so they don't last long, but they're fun to make.

Here's Timmy's

and Jill's.

Timmy made this pocket for his Valentines at school way back in February.  He decided it was a mask and had me take a picture. :)

He made this out of Play-Doh.  It says apple.  By the by, he's learned all his letters and their sounds.  Pretty awesome!

Jill loves to carry Henry around.  It freaks me out a bit, but it's also cute.  I remember a little Susie doing the same thing with huge old Hyrum.  I had to avert my eyes on numerous occasions.  Sometimes that's the thing to do.

Timmy loves our down comforter.  Sometimes at bed time, during scriptures, he falls asleep on our floor with it.

Happy Henry!

Jill and Henry on my bed

It was stripped because Timmy had wet it.

Timmy has been working hard drawing.  It's fun to see what he makes!

Happy 4th of July!  There was a fire-engine wake-up, and then they parked across the street from our house, and people got on, and then they paraded down to the elementary school field.

Here's Michael headed over there.

Michael and Jill on the ladder truck

Benji was on the same truck, but he was a little earlier, so he got to get in the bucket.

After that we packed up and cleaned the house a bit and headed to Globe.  We met Jennifer there, and she took our 4 oldest boys to the Badger campout near Heber.  The rest of us stayed and spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa.  Jeremy worked that day, but at least he didn't have to drive forever home that night, and we got to see him for lunch! :)

Hyrum, Thomas, and CJ

Timmy found a gug and suctioned it to his face.

Bubby, Henry, and cousin Jesse (Joe's boy)

We went to the church in Miami to watch the fireworks.  We brought poppers, sparklers, ice cream sandwiches, and popsicles.  It was fun!  I don't think Timmy or Bubby had ever done sparklers before.  We had a ton of them, and we still have some for when the older boys come home.  And the best part was that we were able to share all of that with the people around us.  That made my day!  We've been the people that the others around us have shared with in the past.  It made me so happy to be the ones to share this time! :) 

Here are Grandma, BreAnna, Joe, Jesse, and Bubby.

Papa and Henry

Jeremy got that hat for Father's Day.  I want to get him a leather one someday.  He also got a chain mail tie. :D I need to take a picture of that.  It's awesome!

Jill

Bubby

Grandma

Grandma and Timmy

Timmy

I stole this one from the internet.  There was a program at the field where the fire trucks stopped that morning.  There was a band that played.  The kiddos whined to leave, but I made them wait until the band had played at least one song.  See that brown building at the left?  It's the middle school gym.  We were parked right by it.  This was taken soon after we left, but we saw them hosting this big flag.  It thought it was pretty great. :)

I also pilfered this one from the internet.  Paul took it.  There are my boys and my dad doing a flag ceremony at the Badger campout. :) I was so happy to see this!  I can't wait to see those boys!  Jennifer will drop them off at Grandma Burk's, and Jeremy will bring them home after work.

Here's another craft at the library.  This was yesterday.  They made buckets with ladybugs and grass.

I like this library, so I took a picture to show Jeremy

The best thing about the library is the big windows!

There ya go. A bunch of stuff.  I'll try to say more stuff in the near future.

Pictures I should have already blogged about

I'm sorry I've been slacking.  I've been dealing with some things, and I just haven't felt like blogging.  For shame!  Here we go.

First of all, here's a continuation of the saga of the ripped-out oleanders.  So I told you that guy broke the pipe and then capped it.  Well, he didn't bother cleaning around it.  He got mud in it.  And the things that got used right after were the downstairs toilet and the kitchen faucet.  Now they both have dirt stuck in them.  The kitchen faucet barely drips at all, and same with the toilet, which is constantly running a tiny bit at a time.  I think I'm gonna have to put on my handygirl britches because Jeremy just doesn't have time to fix them.

Funny story.  Every morning as Jill got dressed for school I was finding shoes and socks.  There was always dirt in her shoes to dump out, but this particular day there was an incredible amount!  I had to document it.  One day she told me that she had little rocks like these in her bed because she dumped out her shoes on her bed once, and that she liked those little rocks because she could rub her feet on them when they itched.  (!)  I washed those sheets, and she was so sad to no longer have little rocks to scratch her itches.

I think I mentioned that Timmy likes to ask me to print lots of different things for him to color.  This particular day he colored Max and gave him a space suit.

We went to visit the transition kindergarten classroom at Timmy's school, and we found his rainbow in the hall.  He'd decorated it with feathers and pipe cleaners.  I told him to go stand by it and I'd take a picture.  He stood right in front of it.

I just recently bought him these overalls, and he LOVES them!  They're just like Mario.  The only trouble is that he's hit a growth spurt and grown out of a bunch of new pants I bought him.

Here's one of the first hibiscus flowers from Jeremy's plant.  They're right outside the front door and have been so fun for me to watch.  They bloom at the same time of day every time, and then they wither and fall off within a day or two, and then another blooms.

Did I mention about all the plants we've acquired recently?  We have a maple tree out front, and 2 grape vines by the grape arbor on the south side of the house.  And in the backyard we have 2 apricot trees, 2 peach trees, a pear tree, and 3 apple trees.  We're working on the lawn, but I secretly think we're going to need to till it and manure it before reseeding before it'll grow.  We will have one someday, though!

Henry is getting stronger!

And still so cute! :)

Cute boys!  (We call Henry's outfit a bag of baby.  It's one of those fuzzy sleepers that's a sack on the bottom with no leg holes.  The boys think bag of baby is so funny!  Also, notice that Mario (He LOVES it!) and the new pants that are too short!

There was a graduation at Timmy's school for both preschool and kindergarten.  Timmy is up there in an orange shirt and orange hat.  It was a cute little ceremony.  They sang a song and they got to shake hands with their teachers.  They'd have given out diplomas then, but they decided they'd survive better if they gave them to the parents later.

Here's Timmy with "Miss D'Anne," his teacher (D'Anne Lutz)

After the ceremony they marched out singing this to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?"

We are leaving. We are leaving.

Adios.  Adios.

Have a great summer.  Have a great summer.

Adios.  Adios.

Those last few days of school were so busy!  I went to lots of things at the kids' schools.  This particular day Michael was in the school knowledge bowl.  The whole school was quizzed, and the ones that did best from each grade got to compete in the knowledge bowl.  They competed by grades (4th, 5th, and 6th).  4th grade won last year.  Michael got to be in the knowledge bowl for 4th grade this year.  They took third this year.  I don't know who took first because the screaming was too loud.  It was fun to go watch Michael anyway.  This was before the rest of the school came in and packed the gym.

Benji sat by us for most of the thing.  It was fun watching him try to interact with the kids around him.  Some of them kind of blew him off, but not all of them.  It's a different dynamic watching your kids at school, you know?  And the 3 girls in front of us were just enthralled by Henry.  That was kind of fun.

Michael got a medal.  He was pleased.

There was a kindergarten celebration at Jill's school.  They sang a few songs and each class said a nursery rhyme together.  it was cute.  Then we got to go to Jill's classroom, and the teacher had a bunch of certificates to hand out.

Here are the kiddos on the rug.  Jill's right next to the shelves.  That kid in the green is named Andrew.  His mom helps Timmy at church.  She's from Mexico and such a sweet lady.  Andrew's a really nice kid too.  He was so, so sad because his mom couldn't come that day.  He was sitting at his desk later just about in tears, and it made me so sad!

Jill's teacher gave her the alphabet pages she missed first semester so she could do them at home.  She did get some certificates too.  She was worried that she wouldn't pass to first grade.  Ha!  She did fine. :)

Here's Jill with her teacher, Mrs. Montierth.

I like this picture of Hyrum.

Here's Michael's to-do list for one of the last days of school.  He threw it away, but it fell out.  I found it, and it gave me a good laugh.

Michael likes to steal my phone. I have a ton of pictures like this.  Gee, thanks, Michael!

Michael put his wig on Henry.  It actually looks almost natural on Michael because it's so close to his natural color and his hair has some curl in it.  It's funny.

My beautiful niece Emily graduated from high school!  (I pilfered this from Facebook.  We weren't invited.  Poor us.  /sob  OK, we didn't get a graduation announcement, but that probably doesn't mean we weren't invited. ;) )

Michael took this picture.  I like it, even if my babies are growing up. *sniffle*

Joshua made this swan with an apple just out of the blue one day.  Go, YouTube university!  (That's what Aaron calls it when you learn stuff on YouTube, which is Joshua's favorite lately.)

Henry learned to sit a few weeks ago!  So darn cute!

He went through a time when he had his fingers in his mouth all the time!  He doesn't as much anymore, but for a while there I worried, until I realized he was chewing, not sucking. ;)

Jill's teacher sent this picture home.  Cute!  I have one of Timmy, too, but I forgot to scan it before filing it.

One day Jill brought home a book about what miners do, and Jeremy heard me reading it.  He volunteered to come to Jill's class and talk about mining.  He did it some time in May.  It sounds like it was really great.  Jill's teacher took this picture of Jill wearing Jeremy's safety gear.  Hard hat, safety glasses, maybe some earplugs, mask with pink for acid (I believe), safety vest, steel toe boots.  He talked about mine equipment and such and all sorts of stuff.  He brought in a lot of pictures to talk about, too.

Henry discovered his feet! 

Michael took this candid photo.  I can't figure out where we were when he took this, but I just thought Henry looked so, so cute!

Henry does a thorough job of pooping when he puts his mind to it.

My big brother Robert was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church on Saturday, June 4, 2016 in Gallup, NM.  I can't deny that this has caused me considerable hardship.  I know he knows that and is just doing what he believes is right.  That is to be commended.  Please understand - I love my brother so much.  I'm so, so proud of him.  I will be loyal to him until infinity.  I'm just having a hard time with him leaving our church, even though it's been more than 20 years.  It's silly, but I guess it's a combination of things.

  

Enough of that, though.  I'm proud of him.  I'm happy that he has this opportunity, and I know that he'll be such a blessing to lots of people, that he'll do great wherever he goes.  I just wish I had been able to be there to wish him a happy Fathers Day.  Pfffff!  Baaah-ha-haaaaaa!

More later.  Maybe tomorrow if you're lucky.