A Sampling of Gehrig's Journal Entries

April 15, 2009

Today me and Damian have named our clubhous The Gorge Washington Carver Science Club. We have a lot of scienc in it. Tomorow we will dedacate it in honor of Gorge Washington Carver. Then we will present the glass spear (he accidently broke a picture frame and managed to keep a piece to connect to a stick with a string to make a spear--I didn't realize what he was using it for when I discovered it and threw it away--poor guy, I guess his mother is a stick-in-the-mud). In the dedecation it will say. . .In honor of George Washington Carver we dedecate The Gorge Washington Carver Science Club.

April 16, 2009

We've just goten past the gaurd mandroids! Now to the castle! 1 minut later. Irene stay quiet and hold your fire. Cock your guns. The race is on.

Back to real life. I was jumping down stairs when Damian came up the stairs and to my disbelief I jumped right over him!

I have planted some organic Apples. Don't know if I will ever have apples but what I do know is they will probobly sprout!

Isn't he too cute?! I love reading his journal entries. His mind goes in so many different directions. I tried to keep his spelling and punctuation the way he wrote it. The spacing, I added to make it easier to read. He doesn't put much space between his thoughts! :)

Easter Sunday 2009

The boys looked so cute in their ties (doesn't Isaiah look so grown up next to his brothers?) with the little princess next to them in her new dress! How can such cuteness ever be difficult??? :)

Emma was more than happy to do a photo shoot in her new dress. She felt so pretty. This was her very own pose. I don't capture a serious look very often, but I think she's stunning!

The smile that melts hearts!!

I love dressing up the boys, but there is something special about fancy little dresses on girls that's extra fun!

Just before the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting, I heard Emma squawk (b/c of something Damian did) and just as I looked over, I saw the end of a swing with her hand that hit him across the face in retaliation. There was shock on his face and I followed his gaze to his hand, where his tooth sat. She knocked it clean out! :) He couldn't even get angry--it was so funny we all had the giggles. By the way, it had been hanging on by one root the previous day, so was VERY ready at this point to come out.

When we got home that day, the Easter Bunny had visited. He not only set out baskets and hid eggs in the back yard, but he slicked the house up a bit for our company that was coming later on that day. WOW! What an Easter Bunny! He's hired for next year! :) Gehrig told me that when he was younger he thought that Lou & I were Santa and the Easter Bunny, but now he knows they're real b/c we were at church when he came. Shame on that Easter Bunny! :)

A comment or two on the pictures below: I love how excited Gehrig always is with anything he gets that is about Christ. Damian, on the other hand, not only has his candy in his hand, but Isaiah's also. He's always pretty excited about his candy (hmmm. . .wonder who his mother is?).

The Easter Egg Hunt

Our good friends (the Browns) from Lousiana came and spent the evening with us. We had such a great time catching up. We haven't seen them since before Emma was born! It's such a shame we don't live closer to each other. And, our great Davidson family (backyard neighbors) invited us to join them for their traditional dinner and egg hunt as well. And, another great friend, Brother Campbell dropped in to visit us. It was a very eventful, fun day! We feel so blessed to have so many great friends!

Easter Saturday

We actually spent the better part of the day working in our yard, preparing the ground for a garden (even planting a few things!). We did take the time out to let the kids color eggs, decorate sugar cookies, read an Alice in Bibleland story about Easter and read Luke's account from the bible. Can you tell how much fun they had?

April 11, 2009 Highlights

* I love the way Isaiah has always called us by name whenever talking to us. For example, instead of saying, "Okay," he says, "Okay, Mamma." Or, "I love you Mamma." Or, "Thank you, Mamma." It's amazingly endearing. I mean, he's been doing this since he began talking.

* This may seem strange, but while potty training, I love sitting on a stool sitting eye to eye with Isaiah, singing songs with him, giggling with him when he toots, watching his eyes tear up when he's working on something. Don't tell anybody. It's just so funny and exciting to see him nearly potty trained over a year earlier than my other 3! YIPPEE!! Emma and the older boys gave me such a hard time, I figure I earned an earlier potty trained kid!

* Damian is such a great helper when he wants to be. Today he earned a couple extra chores. He was to sweep and mop the kitchen floor. While he was sweeping, he used the pan scraper to get things up that were stuck to the floor. Not bad for a 6 year old, eh? He really is quite a good helper. And very responsible when he wants to be.

* Another favorite thing that Isaiah has been doing is seeking solace from his siblings when he's hurt or offended. For example: today he was upset with Lou, so he passed me up and cried for Emma and held his arms out for a hug from her when he found her. She gave him a comforting hug. I noticed his nose was running (of course), so I asked Emma to bring me some toilet paper. When she got to me, I tried to take it from her, but she said, "No, I'll take care of him Mamma." Such a cute big sister!

* Gehrig and Damian decided to use some pieces of wood they found to make a club house. When I saw that they had gotten the ax out, I put a stop to it. It was cute how they were hammering nails, etc. trying to make it, but I knew that it probably wouldn't end up all fun and games. And it didn't. Gehrig stuck his hand under the mallot Damian was using and ended up with a blood blister. He wasn't too happy about it, but hopefully he learned something about noticing his surroundings.

* Damian's first big front tooth is hanging on by 1 root. It's quite the sight, twisted and hanging. I'm wondering if the tooth fairy AND the Easter bunny might have to come for Damian on the same day!

April 10, 2009 Highlights

* Watching The Sound of Music with my family after reading a Power Tale book , The Story of The Von Trapp Family: The Power of Family Spirit - - I am so happy that Lou stuck around for nearly an hour of the movie (and if you can see his expression, he was even enjoying it whether he'll admit that or not!). This was a very happy ending to a more difficult day for me! Makes it all worth it when my family is enjoying time all together. I wish you could have seen Emma up and dancing to every song. She tried recruiting her big brothers to dance with her after her willing little brother went to bed.

* Which brings me to. . .watching Emma and Isaiah dancing, singing their own music!

* The spontaneous "monkey" hug from Damian after a long, hard day with him.

* Watching Gehrig enjoying his job dicing eggs and pickles for our potato salad (managing to sneak a few in his mouth, avoiding cutting himself!).

* Isaiah's hug from behind that hits mid-thigh (finally not being afraid of the bite that occasionally came when he was younger). Also, today, quite unexpectedly, he hugged me from the front and kissed my thigh! What a cutie!

* Emma enjoying conversation with complete strangers.

* Playing basketball with Damian (teaching him how to take it away or protect it when he has it).

* Bouncing balls with the rest of the children.

* Watching Gehrig & Damian on stage practicing for their first choir performance.

* Cutting out sugar cookies with Gehrig (trying not to be annoyed by his creativity as he cut out his own small designs that wouldn't make great cookies--it really was cute, why was I annoyed?--in the end, I realized it and got over being annoyed).


And so, the list could go on. I'm so glad that I'm doing these highlights b/c it really does help me realize how blessed I am. Even on the tough days (which today was). Sorry if I bore you. Obviously, you don't have to read it! This is really for my own good as well as my family's. Now I have many great things to share with Lou when he gets home instead of just plunging into the problems of the day!

April 7, 2009 Highlights

* Watching Gehrig & Damian playing for hours on the swing set together.


* Watching Gehrig teaching his younger siblings all about the things he learned in his Human Anatomy book he's reading.

* Watching all four kids playing in their "garden" spot (the place Gehrig & Damian planted corn and cucumbers---patiently waiting to see life).

* Listening to Isaiah say, "I DID it!" after he uses the potty.

* Watching Isaiah whip "it" out to relieve himself outside (shame, shame--I'll teach him when he's fully potty trained. Right now, I'm just glad he's keeping himself dry.)

* Watching Isaiah crack up when I keep the door open a crack to make sure he stays in bed. I watch his face as he knows that as soon as his foot hits the floor, I'm coming in to put him back in bed. He laughs & thinks it's a game. I think it's better than hearing his head banging against the door.

* The smell of freshly bathed children at the end of a busy day!

* The way when Emma is asked to do something that shows responsibility like clear, rinse & load her plate, she responds, "Oh, (insert giggle) yeah! Sure."

* When Gehrig asks about rocks and I lead him to an online class that he reads and teaches his brother--and loves what he learns even though when I first directed him to his lesson he asked me, "Mom, how come whenever I show you something, you turn it into school?"

* Watching Emma & Isaiah going down the slide together, arms around each other--hoping against hope that they don't go over the edge at the top of the slide!

All Caught Up!

Finally, I'm all caught up! I just thought I'd share this favorite thing Emma does. She loves to read books. During her quiet time, she just quietly reads books (for 2 hours), ocassionaly falling asleep. At night, she always goes to sleep reading. What a cutie!

This is NOT a favorite thing that Isaiah does, but looking back, it's kind of funny! I have to make sure that my bathroom door is locked so that he doesn't get into my makeup. Here he is with a tube of lipstick.
While getting caught up on the blog, Emma and Isaiah were so cute with each other sharing this snow cone they found in the freezer! I love their expressions!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yikes! Can you believe he's that old? :) We had fun bringing my culinary disaster (a long, sad story about a cake overflowing in the unprepared oven) and joining Lou and his employees for lunch to celebrate his birthday with him.




Later that evening, we went to The Golden Corral to celebrate! The kids had a blast eating all they could.

Our great friends and adopted grandparents, the Campbells, joined us for dinner. They're always so good to us and fun with the children. Having them with us made it feel more like a party!

Lou had fun opening this present from Damian. I love his expression as he enjoys the creation Damian came up with for him. A cute letter and a couple of nick-knacks wrapped creatively in the bottom of a cereal box.

More presents! We had a great day celebrating the great Man in our life!

Matching Wounds

While in Idaho, Emma decided to try being Super Woman. I stopped her from jumping from the bunk bed to her little toddler bed several times before she caught me with my back turned. When I heard the awful crash, I didn't even dare turn around. I knew exactly what she had done. Luckily, she made it out with just a goose egg on her forehead, a black eye and a couple of strawberries on her chin.

This is such a cute picture of her with Carli. No picture I took captured her wound very well. You'll have to take my word for it.

Not to be outdone, Isaiah decided to hurt himself a couple of days later. He was mopping my kitchen floor when the mop got caught in the banister and he tripped over it down my 3 little stairs hitting his head on the wooden edge. Poor kid. His goose egg was twice as large as Emma's and now a week later, is still visible. I hope it will go away soon! His bonk was higher on his head, so he avoided the black eyes.

Our Provo Trip

Sadly, I didn't take many pictures from our little trip down South last week. I took the kids to an a capella concert in Lehi during the middle of the day and decided to go on to Provo to visit some friends and pick up a water barrel that we had left there 5 years ago (how embarrassing!). The concert was okay, but visiting Howard & Jeanette was even better! Howard was so cute to hook up our kids to his harness and swing them from his massive tree in their back yard! I can't believe I don't have a picture of Emma doing this. When he first brought it out, but boys were apprehensive. When I said, "Whose the man of the family?" Emma stepped right up and paved the way for her tough brothers! :) What a little adventurer! It was so fun to visit them and a few other friends from Provo.

A funny note. . .when I originally left the house, I wasn't planning on going to Provo, so I didn't pay much attention to what the kids were wearing. While in Provo, I had to visit BYU and see some of my friends from the Admissions office. I almost reconsidered when I realized Damian was wearing a U of U hoodie. He loves his hoodies and someone gave him this one, so I let him have it even though I'm not a U of U fan. Anyway. . .they DID give him/me a hard time, but while visiting Pat in the new Hinkley building she hooked us up with the smallest BYU hoodie they could find (still too big for him, but just right for me :))! Damian LOVED it! It was so cute on him, long sleeves and all! I should have taken a picture.

March Madness with the Harris Family

It's been a long time since I've been able to update my blog. Now, I'm just trying to give a condensed version of our life for the past month. As a side note, while I've been preparing the pictures for this post, Gehrig has been reading a Human Anatomy book to the rest of the children and examining everybody's veins, bones, teeth, etc. telling them all about the things he is learning. It's great to see learning taking place without my bossy influence! :)

The first set of pictures are from our trip to the Draper Library for March Marble Madness (a K12 activity to help the children learn some math through games with marbles). On our way to the activity, we stopped at Applebees for lunch (redeeming coupons the boys had earned from K12). It was so nice to have all four of them acting appropriately in public! A rare occasion (hopefully getting less rare as they grow older and I learn better parenting skills). Emma & Isaiah had a "ball" playing with a ball behind the scenes.

March brought great winds--maybe too great for kite flying, but we tried it anyway. It was fun to have Lou flying with the boys. The little ones missed out this time b/c they were taking naps.

We had so much fun watching Lou during his tournament games. His team won the stake tournament and went on to the regional tournament. They won for the 3rd year in a row (even with the ward boundary change that took away some of our key players--but added other key players)! Isaiah couldn't wait for the game to end so that he could have his time on the court. He was the last one out of the gym that day--being eventually kicked out! :)

Our poor house. . .Gehrig threw or kicked or something (I wasn't there to witness it) an empty laundry basket into our wall and put a great big hole in the wall. I put cardboard over it for over a month while waiting for Lou to help fix it. My friend MaryLynn loaned her kind brother-in-law the other day to help fix it while he was fixing a hole in her wall. He was so cute to let the boys help him fix it. Now we just need to prime it and repaint. At least the hole is patched up!

One day I heard hysterical laughing outside from Gehrig & Damian. I went out to see what was so funny and found Emma working in the dirt with the big boys and Isaiah wearing her Snow White dress. Sometimes the big brothers think it's funny when Isaiah joins Emma in her play, but often they are disturbed by it and try to get the "girl" things off of him!Another fun puzzle we did together as a family.

Too precious! I love the angelic sleeping face. Lou brought his sleeping "pose" to my attention.

Lambing in Idaho

I started this post a while ago, but wasn't able to finish it (computer technical difficulties that are now nearly fixed! YIPPEE!!!). The highlight of March for us was our trip to Idaho to participate in the lambing with Blake & Carlianne! I took 185 pictures, so in order to minimize this post, I made a bunch of collages. It's not as exciting to see it this way, but if you're interested, open the images large to see some cute pictures!

This first collage is the first part of the process that Blake goes through with the new lambs. He finds the lambs that have been born and captures the mother (top left). Then he loads her on the "ambulance" and puts her baby next to her. The picture on the bottom left reminds me of a cartoon. The poor mothers looked so silly "sitting" there on the ambulance!

We rode on the ambulance.

It was so fun to have Mom, Camille and her cutie-pies Quincy & Katelynn with us! Here are all the children in the back of Camille's truck. Aren't they cute?

Carlianne's job is feeding the baby lambs whose mother's can't. I think she has around 85 she has to feed each day! What a job! The top middle picture is Katelynn's cute hand next to a baby lamb.Proof that I was there with them!

He's so cute, I just want to squeeze him!

Damian & Gehrig literally delivered a couple of lambs! What an exciting adventure for them! The pictures are pretty graphic, so I crammed them into one collage to spare you the gore! :) Next time they ask how baby's come out. . .they have some frame of reference now! Not that it's exactly the same for humans, but similar enough for it to be a great, non-traumatic lesson. If you choose to blow these pictures up, you should notice Damian's facial expressions! They're great. You can see where he's working really hard to get the lamb out, etc. I also love how Emma & Isaiah were right there! If we'd have given Emma the chance, I'm sure she would have helped deliver them too. The bottom left picture captures Quincy's grossed out face! Very funny!
Yeah, I just love the similarities between Damian's hair and the sheep! :)

There were many puppies on the ranch that were fun for the kids to hold.
Kids, at least mine, will always find dirt to play in! And things to climb! And MUD (Isaiah, bottom right).

Thanks to Carlianne and Blake for letting us join them for a great day of learning and fun! What a great experience!

Here are a couple of random Idaho pictures. . .