A Day With The Cousins!

When there is perfect weather oustide on a Saturday afternoon, what child can resist? After the children had spent most of the day inside while Chris and I got things done around the house, I took the children over to Miriam's house for a day with the cousins (my sister and her children).

The kids had a great time riding bikes together, and Chris was able to get in some much needed study time.
Our neighborhood is not so great for riding bikes, there really are not very many flat stretches of road, its all hills. So these flat roads were a nice change for all of the kids. I liked the change as well since I didn't have to be watching their every move to ensure they didn't begin to head down hill and reach unwarranted speeds while laying down a path of destruction in their wake. :)


Of course, Addie found the cute little pink bike and claimed it for the day.

Info On The Last Post...

Hey ya'll! That last post was brough to you straight from the man himself - Chris! Hey, Chris has finally made an appearance on the blog! As you can see, Chis is not a man of many words - he says what needs to be said.
So I will fill in the blanks for him. The last post is not necessarily saying that Chris has decided to support Obama, neither of us have fully decided.
Chris does spend a lot of time studing the political/government system in his classes, as he is about to have a master's in public administration, and he has worked for the state for the last 5 years, so naturally, we are always interested in how his job will be affected by what the government does.
Chris just thought this was a good speech to remind us all about what patriotism is, and who we all are as Americans.
It is a long one (about 30 min), but it does make some very good points about patriotism.

Obama Speech

Speech on Patriotism by Barack Obama

We Can ALL Relate!

This comes from a great email we received from our wonderful Aunt Niki. I got a pretty good kick out of this - I know pretty much anyone with kids/dogs or even both can all relate to this one!
Thanks Aunt Niki!

Life really boils down to 2 choices:
Should I get a dog...?

..or have children?

Some Tunes For The Kids

So the other night, the kids were looking at the blog, and they were having fun dancing to some of the music that is on here. Then the kids wanted to put some of "Their" music on here - so we went on a search for some of their favorites. Hence, the latest additions to our music list, and perhaps the silly music you may be hearing right now. They are funny kids. :)

Our Dancer

Pretty much since we knew we were going to be having a little girl (Sarah) -- ok, maybe since we knew we were going to have children and there was a possibility of little girls -- alright, perhaps when we got married and there was the prospect of having children that could turn out to be girls -- well, either way, I knew I was going to put those girls in dance classes. :) I loved dancing and I have always wanted my girls to know that same joy of dancing. You can imagine my delight when we came to discover that Sarah has an incredible command and control over her body. The girl was sitting up when she was 5 months old, crawling by 6 months, and walking soon after that. She has a serious determination to keep up with her older brothers. For a 3-year-old, Sarah is extremely coordinated - so I know dancing has the possibility of coming easily to her.

One of the best parts -- I actually stopped teaching dance at the Rec Center here in Pocatello after Ethan was born - Things were getting a bit busy at that time. (I taught right through my pregnancies with Addison and Ethan, to whom "summersaults in the womb" took on a whole new meaning. :) ) Now things have sort of slowed down again and I have recovered from my c-section with Ethan, so I am teaching again, and I get to be Sarah's teacher! I love it!

I have a video I am getting ready for Sarah's first days of dance, but it is still in the works - I just couldn't resist the super cute photos of Sarah - so here they are. The video will come later.

Grandma Lets Us Crack The Eggs...

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I loaded up all of the kids and headed back up to good ole' Newdale for a quick visit. And being that my mother is one of the best cooks/bakers in all of South East Idaho, of course the kids wanted to eat her food. And what is better than warm bread right our of the oven? Of course Grandma had to oblige. So the kids helped her bake fresh bread - Certainly one of my favorites as well.

I will never even come close in comparison - so the kids totally dig the whole culinary experience when Grandma Simper is in the area.

Since then, whenever I try to cook anything, all I hear about is how "Grandma lets us crack the eggs..." (Something I have not quite allowed myself to let the kids help with thus far.)

So, the other day I was giving Ethan a bath after lunch time while the kids were supposed to be doing "Quiet Time". I came out to find the kids excitedly mixing a large bowl of instant pudding in the kitchen instead. I was quite impressed. They had made the pudding themselves, and it actually looked pretty good, so I was going to let them sit at the table to eat it. Just as I was was about to serve the first bowl, I hear Jonathan pipe in with "And we didn't even make a mess with the eggs!" (Sound of a scratching record running through my head as the sentence registers in my mind) Turns out, the kids thought that eggs were a necessary ingredient to instant pudding. The dismay on their sweet faces as I told them that the pudding was not good to eat anymore was too much to bear. We compromised, and I quickly put the pudding on the stove to heat it up real quick and cook the eggs. And the pudding was actually pretty good.

Thanks Grandma for giving them the confidence to attempt the eggs on their own - I think... :)