Fun With a Trampoline

Family Time- Lunar Eclipse

We let the kids stay up later than usual tonight so we could go outside and watch the lunar eclipse.

Jr. Jr.:  Take a picture of me with the moon.

Yeah, I told him it's not going to show up in a picture like this but he was still happy.

I don't have any really great pictures to show of the lunar eclipse, but you can see a cool picture Jeremy took of the moon last year when we were visiting Arches.  A lot less light pollution there.  I blogged about it on Old Rock Day, January 7, 2015.

Minecraft Birthday Party

Question:  What do you do if your son wants a Minecraft themed party and you do balloons?

Answer:  You build a minecraft world in your living room with lava and torches on the wall all made out of balloons. You make a creeper pinata out of cardboard boxes (not balloons). You put together a bow and arrow game out of balloons for kids to shoot at a minecraft zombie on a door. You have the kids make chocolate chip cookies at the beginning of the party so they can eat them later with ice cream (neither of which are made out of balloons). You give them diamond pickaxes and diamond swords, both made of balloons, to whack round balloons with creeper faces drawn on them. And you give your son two minecraft themed shirts as a present. 

Catch of the Day

Family Home Evening- Monkey Kingdom

One thing we love doing as a family is watching the DisneyNature movies and having themed food to go with them.  We've even made nests out of blankets while watching one about chimpanzees.
For Family Home Evening tonight we watched DisneyNature's Monkey Kingdom.  We had some leftover boxes from all the balloons we were ordering this Summer so Jeremy put some on PVC frames and added some balloon vines to make ruins because the monkeys in the movie lived around ruins.  Yes, my husband is awesome.

It was good family time.  We also ate salad with nuts and seeds and fruit and some other toppings while we watched the movie.  We had gummy worms for dessert and Family Home Evening treat.

Traditions are great.  As long as DisneyNature keeps coming out with these movies that we can enjoy as a family, we will keep having themed family nights like this to celebrate.

We even got pictures acting like monkeys.  We have fun.
Happy happy family time.

We be speaking Pirate here!!!!

This here post is being inked by the old salty sea dog himself, lucky husband to the 'Balloon Gal.'

As we all be knowin' today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. A more grog swallow'n excuse for merriment never existed, and we will not be taking exception when it comes to grog swallow'n (root grog only of course).

There be one flag that flies on our mast on September 19th and she be a jolly one indeed. We did begin the day by spreading the word among the land lubbers at Thanksgiving Point. All those we could convince to take up the cause and shout their 'Arrrrs' did receive a sword and a hearty laugh.

My fearsome piratey woman did dress especially fine and there be many who did wish to be having their portrait done with her.

We will be carrying the celebrations into tomorrow when we battle once again with the wee ones for control of the ship- the Maroon Potato (It be made from our couch mostly). The cannon is built and ready to fire. But that is tomorrow, for today we be even more tired than the ocean herself after a gut punching storm. Enough lollygagging, it is time to hit the hammocks!

Grasshopper Friends

One day, Jr. Jr., Lucky and I were going out for a walk.  On the way out, we saw a grasshopper who didn't want to move... so I was able to get some pictures of it.

Then we took our walk.  While on our walk, Jr. Jr. stopped to look up at one of the trees.  He said it looked like there was a giant spiderweb in the tree.  It did look cool but it was just branches.

We also saw alpacas and quite a few barking dogs.  Jr. Jr. made sure to wave at the dogs since they were all just trying to be friendly so he was being friendly back.

When we got back from our walk, Jr. Jr. noticed our grasshopper friend had a friend.  There were two grasshopper friends.  We even got to watch one of them eating.

 Later, Jr. Jr. spotted yet another grasshopper in the area.  Three grasshopper friends.

Steamed Broccoli for the Win

He was shoving it in his face so fast, it was hard to get a picture.

I finally got one and isn't it cute?

Collect Acorns Day

September 16 is Collect Rocks Day.
Before school, I wrote messages on the kids' sandwich and snack bags for them to collect.  "Have a rockin' good day."  "You're a rockstar!"  "You rock!"
After school, I mentioned to Nichole that it was Collect Rocks Day.  She said, "Oh, that's why you had the word 'rock' underlined on all those notes."  I guess she didn't look at the calendar this morning.
While the older kids were at school, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I went to Highland Glen Park.  We remembered how last year we went on a big walk on Collect Rocks Day.  It has been too rainy lately to make a big walk like that again (didn't want to get caught in the rain too far away from shelter on the walking path) so we stuck to walking around a place where we could get back to the van easily enough if it started raining hard.  The boys had fun at first collecting rocks (we remembered to bring a baggie to put the rocks in since it was such a success last time) but after a while they discovered... ACORNS!

Forget rocks.  Let's collect acorns.  Jr. Jr. started calling the holiday Collect Acorns Day. 
They had a blast with that.  I had a blast watching the terns flying around the pond and diving in to get fish.  And discovering a new bird I did not recognize.  I first heard it while we were on the opposite side of the pond.  Some sort of chittering critter.  Finally when we had walked around to the other side, I saw it sitting in a tree chittering away.

Jeremy later identified it as a belted kingfisher.
You know I like bird watching.  It was a gorgeous morning for it.

Once again we left the rocks and the acorns at the park when we went home.

This evening for Collect Rocks Day, Jeremy had some special presents for the kids.  They unwrapped them and found... rocks.  Well, fossils.  Each child got a group of 6 fossils from the gift shop at the Museum of Ancient Life.

The kids were very interested in them.  Lucky mostly because he could take them out of the container and put them back in again and nobody told him, "Don't touch those.  Put them down."  The other kids enjoyed comparing their fossils to their siblings'.

It was a good day for collecting rocks and acorns and pictures of birds.  I even got some videos of terns diving into the water.

Make a Hat Day 2015

September 15 is Make a Hat Day.  So I threw something together.

I know.  I'm cute.

Brothers

Jr.:  Let's roll the truck across Lucky's back.  Or over his head.
Later
Jr. Jr.:  Mom!  The truck's stuck in Lucky's hair.

Later
Jeremy:  Wow.  You were able to get it out?  I would have had to cut it.

Not So Pretty to Look at But Pretty Yummy

Since September 13 is National Peanut Day and also International Chocolate Day, we always like to combine the two.
We've combined the holidays several different ways over the years.
In 2011, we had homemade peanut buster parfaits.
In 2012, we had peanut M&Ms.
In 2013, I had hot chocolate with peanut butter in it while the kids had chocolate chips and peanuts and we read a book about Reese's Pieces.
In 2014, we had peanut butter chocolate woo-woo.
This year, we went back to peanut buster parfaits with homemade hot fudge sauce and spanish peanuts with french vanilla ice cream.
I didn't get a chance to make the hot fudge sauce until today so I don't know if it cooled long enough in the refrigerator before I put it on the ice cream.
I wanted to get a picture in a glass container so it could be seen so I put it in a big glass mug.  It wasn't so pretty but it was yummy. 

O.K.  It actually is pretty cool looking, but not the look I was going for.
I gave the kids smaller dishes of the parfaits and Jeremy and I shared the big mug.
I LOVE finding reasons to celebrate.

Fall Fish

We went for a drive to see the fall colors this afternoon.  The trees are starting to turn colors.  We'll hopefully go out to see more when there are more colors.

However, we did see a lot of red- red is a fall color, right?
We drove up near Strawberry Reservoir to see the kokanee salmon swimming upriver to their spawning sights.  Normally a silver-colored fish, when it's their time they turn red and even change shape.  They get a sort of humpback and their jaw changes shape.  Amazing.
Jeremy and I have been talking about heading over there for a couple years (it usually happens around the month of September), but we had our opportunity to actually go today.

The kids had a blast.  We watched some swim in the stream then headed over to the Strawberry fish trap to see the kokanees that swam up the fish ladders.  That was fun.  There was much cheering when the salmon made it up and much laughing when some got swept back down.  Poor salmon but great for our entertainment.

Jeremy also got some video and more pictures with the camcorder, but it was a long day and I don't feel like going through those pictures and videos right now.  Maybe later.
It was a good family afternoon/evening.

Joy Is...

watching your little boys having so much fun on the simplest of playground equipment- the slide.

30 Second Dance Party

One day, Jeremy and I were having a "not the best day."  I was in a funk, he was exhausted.  We were both just tired.  For family scripture study, we read from President Hinckley's quote book, "Stand a Little Taller."  Of course the subject for that day was "Enjoy Life."  The scripture that went along with the quote was Proverbs 17:22.  "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."  President Hinkley's quote was, "In all of living have much fun and laughter.  Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured."
We had not been having much fun and laughter that day.  So after we read the scripture and quote, Jeremy asked if we knew what we had to do now to go along with scripture study.  What?
"30 second dance party!"  He immediately jumped up and started dancing and the kids joined in.  Lucky saw what was going on and got so excited, he squealed and joined in as well.

It lasted longer than 30 seconds since I had to run and grab the camera.  And it really lifted everyone's spirits.

Thank you, Jeremy, for adding something so helpful to go along with our scripture study.
I have the best husband.

My Family

September 9 is Wonderful Weirdos Day, so why not show a picture of our wonderful family?
In front of the Taj Mahal of course.  The last sculpture that was built for the 7 Wonders of the World Balloon Art Exhibit.  Earlier this week, Jeremy got to come with the family to see it.  He had no more building to do, just go and enjoy it with the family.

And I couldn't not show this picture of the three oldest kids.  Look especially at Nichole's eyes and how she posed them for the picture.

My wonderful weirdos.