He Blinded Me With Science

I have spent way too much time in the past few months adjusting to medications and doing school work. In fact, that's about all I've done. Rob's company sponsored a free night at the local science museum last Saturday. Since it was in the evening on a weekend, I was able to rest all day and was up for taking six kids to a museum by the afternoon :) We had a wonderful time! The kids loved being told they could touch everything :)

All ready to go!

 

Beth and Kylie playing with light

 Megan and Eva making shadow puppet

Jack found a giant lite brite!

Making pinball machines

Everything's an instrument!

Wicked cool bugs

Making music with bubbles

Jack's favorite thing was the toy train

Kylie loved the grocery store

Computers just for kids!

What Laura and I did most of the time

Eva's favorite part was the hospital section, complete with several "babies"

Yay for dinosaurs!

Watching a super cool 3D show that started off being about science and ended up as an advertisement for a natural gas company. It was still a lot of fun zooming through space and down into oceans!

Digging for dinosaur bones

As we walked out of the dino dig place, a couple with one little boy commented "Wow! Four kids!" (Two were over by Rob). I turned, smiled, and said "No. Six." Their jaws hit the floor. They don't seem like that many to me, but apparently a half dozen kids constitutes a lot.

We wrapped up the night with dinner at Braums :)

Elder Randle

Of all the missionaries we've gotten to know over the years, there are a few that have made it to our list of favorites. Jensen and Ogden, Larson and Hales, Ingalls and Chezik, McRae, Speer. Ugh. I know I'm forgetting some. I almost didn't type up the names because I knew I would leave someone really important out. I'll have to come back and add to the list with Rob's help :) Anyway, one of our favorites was Elder Randle. And apparently we were one of his favorites, because he came back here to visit and drove over to our house as soon as he dropped off his bags! We loved getting to see him again! He really needs to move here :)

He made it his goal to make Eva smile. Just once. He failed. Eva has a better poker face than anyone I know. She stared at him across the table all through dinner without even a twitch of a smile. She stared at him so long that she fell asleep. Elder Randle took a picture of Eva as she stared.

All the other kids were super excited to see him though :) Jack was especially excited!

And a picture of Kylie with her Jack backpack - 

Elder Randle with all the kids (except Eva, who was still asleep) -

Field Day '13

I can't believe this school year is almost over! Field Day was Friday. I was not doing very well on Friday as Laura was up all night. She's teething. One of the things we've noticed is that I can't handle no sleep like I used to be able to. If I get sleep, I usually do pretty well now :) Yay for diuretics! Anyway, Rob had to stay home both Thursday and Friday as Laura was up both Wednesday and Thursday nights despite us giving her motrin.

Rob and Eva headed off Friday morning to get pictures of field day.

Megan and her best friend, Paula - 

Kylie -

Beth - 

Jack - 

And Megan again - 

Happy Birthday Kylie!!!

Birthdays are low key at our house. We let the child pick where they want to eat dinner, then we come home for presents and cake. In lieu of a party, they get to invite one friend out for lunch and a movie.

Kylie always picks IHOP to eat her birthday dinner at. It is her favorite restaurant because she gets to draw a face on her pancake. This year was no exception. Kiki even took an early flight home (she was out of town for work) so she could make it to dinner with us! She also brought each of the kids a "Boston Strong" bracelet and me a "Boston Strong" shirt!

Kylie picked a frozen snickers cake this year. We had to drill holes in the chocolate coating with knives to stick the candles in, but it was super yummy!

Our little princess got a set of nerf guns and a power ranger samurai sword for her birthday :) I love that my kids don't pay attention to gender stereotypes and are proud to be exactly who they are! 

There was a whopping total of one movie rated PG and below available for Kylie to pick from. She decided she'd rather go to a bounce house instead. I found a coupon that would include all the kids. We let them stay home from school the Tuesday after Memorial Day and we turned it into a birthday extravaganza day. Betsy let Caitlin skip school too and all nine of us (7 of us - everyone except Rob - and Betsy and Caitlin) headed down to the bounce house. It was pretty empty as school is still in session down here, which was awesome as my kids tend to be somewhat reticent around kids they don't know and sort of get pushed around when there are pushy older kids. Betsy and I had a blast talking while the kids ran around for an hour and a half. On the way home, we grabbed lunch as Braums and topped it off with ice cream cones :)

Our friend Jursey's birthday is the day after Kylie's. She invited the three oldest girls to a party at a local kids' salon. They each got makeovers and fancy hairdos, then got to dance to pop song. I got to hear Justin Beiber's "baby, baby, baby" song for the first time. It was fabulous ;) The girls loved it though!

Kylie decided she didn't want to dance and sat with me instead.

Megan is the second from the left in the back row and Beth is third from the right in the pink shirt and white skirt. The girls had a wonderful time!

 In other news, we have entered into what I like to call the "urgent care" part of Laura's childhood. She is now climbing on anything and everything :) We now have futons and pillows surrounding the slide.