Playing with the Big Boys

I couldn't help it. I had to take a few pictures and blog about Jake's first basketball adventures. He played with our ward team. Not only was he the youngest on the team, he was by far the smallest on the court!
He did pretty well for his first year, and he's a scrappy little player. But it is really funny to see him out there among the older taller boys. (The pictures may be blurry, those darn boys wouldn't stay still!!!)

Yertle and friends

I was in the middle of a tutoring session this afternoon, when I received a text. It was from Phil. "Jake just found a 25 lb snapping turtle in the creek. We got pictures."
How do you respond to that? That's about all we have heard about tonight. The kids were so excited about it. We are of the opinion that maybe this turtle was nesting.
I know, some of you don't believe that Yertle the Turtle lives in our yard. So we have proof:




And yes, that is in our yard. In the creek I mentioned before. The kids are having a hay day with that creek, especially after it rains a lot. Which it has. 5-6 inches this week.


And just in case a turtle isn't enough, we get to listen to the "Peepers" all the time now that it is getting warmer. Frogs. Loud frogs. They live in the creek and the wetlands across the street. And they sing. All the time. Did I mention they were loud? Phil taught Jackson and Gabe how to catch them last week. And it kept them busy for hours. Proof again? Okay:



One of our favorite past times lately is sitting in the family room and looking out the big picture window at the birds visiting our bird feeder. We were given a cool Connecticut Bird Guide, and have had fun figuring out what birds we are looking at. We have a male cardinal and his girlfriend, a male hairy woodpecker and his girlfriend, several black capped chickadees, various finches, a prairie warbler, and at least one tufted titmouse ("little bird"). We had some blue jays, but they haven't been around for awhile. We just put the feeder out a week ago, so it is a lot of fun to see who is visiting. The squirrels are a little jealous, one climbed the pole but went back down when he realized that the suet was in cages. Even Jackson will look through the book to match up the birds. During the day, the birds compete with the frogs.
(Pictures are coming. Just don't know when. Have to take them first, haha!)

The Wait is Over!

Sorry for the delay. I didn't mean to keep you in suspense so long. Sometimes that's just how things work out. Phil got sustained on Sunday. His new calling is....(drum roll, please) Young Men's President.
Phil is excited to be back working with the youth. We have about 20 young men in our ward. There is no honeymoon period with this calling, he is going with the youth on a temple trip to Boston this Saturday. I have to say I'm a little jealous that he, Mady, and Jake are going to Boston. But what do you do, my turn will come.
So the wait is finally over. After 7 months without a calling, he will now be back to work. Watch out, young men, he has a lot of free time on his hands right now to devote to thinking about you!

I Blinked

Really, I swear. That's all I did...blink. I closed my eyes for just a second. Not even a second really. I didn't take a nap. I wasn't even daydreaming. Just a blink.

So tell me, then. How did it happen?

How did we get from here:

to here?

In the blink of an eye.

Because seriously, I'm not even talking about all this:

It's just not fair. Where do I file my complaint? I am being dealt with unfairly.

I only got one little girl. Little. Not anymore. She's as tall as I am and still growing like a weed.

She's not allowed to grow up this fast. I'm not ready.

Mady turned 14 today. The first picture was taken the night she was born. The second picture was taken this afternoon. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young woman. She would make any mother proud, I'm just glad I get to call her mine. She is becoming everything I could have hoped for and is such a tremendous blessing in our home.

She is friendly, happy, helpful, caring, sensitive to others, and has an amazing testimony of the gospel. What else could I ask for?

Other than a few more blinks of this:

But since I know that won't happen, maybe time could slow down so that I can enjoy this a little longer:

(and no, it' not what you think. Those are IBC rootbeers.)

I wonder if I could ask for a redo? I did blink, after all. That's not too much to ask, is it?

History

There is something Connecticut has that Utah doesn't....it's called History. Now I am not saying that Utah doesn't have any history, but (at least the area we lived in) it just doesn't have stories like this:

We live on a road called Josie's Ring. Most of the road is actually hard-packed dirt, it is only paved at the very ends. We are in the sticks. Not the sticks like Eagle Mountain, but if you looked at the pictures of our yard that I posted in December, you'll see it is literally the sticks. Big sticks. Around here they call them trees. Not like the trees in Utah, but towering 60 foot tall trees. And not just one or two, but a forest full. Literally. But I digress...

Silently we have wondered about the interesting name of our street. Did it have to do with a girl named Josie? Maybe a wedding ring? Well this week we were told the story.

The area we live in is an old orchard. (What kind is irrelevant.) It was owned by a man named Josie. He used to light a ring of fire to trap the coyotes in so he could shoot them. One night, Josie set his ring of fire. As the story goes, he was a little tipsy that night. Had a few too many to drink. And ended up burning to death in his ring of fire. Thus, the street through the orchard was named after him, Josie's Ring.

Now that's history. Crazy and fun. Makes our street name just a little more interesting. As much as I love Decrescendo Drive, it just doesn't have that kind of History!

A Swear Word

Today we were assigned to clean the church. On the way down, Jackson said, "mom., this is gonna be fun...cleaning the church I mean." Thankful for his good attitude, I commented, "Yeah, service is fun."
It didn't take him long to correct me. "No, Mom. Service isn't fun. Service is a swear word!"
How do you respond to that? At least he thinks cleaning the church will be fun.

Recipe for flubber

I had a lot of requests for this, so here it is:
you need water, elmers glue, borax, and food coloring


FLUBBER

What to do:
In a large container combine and mix:
1 ½ cups very warm water
2 cups Elmers white glue
A few drops of water color and/or glitter if using clear glue
Mix this combination thoroughly
In a small container combine and mix
1 1/3 cups very warm water
2 level tsp 20 Mule Team Borax
Mix this combination thoroughly
Use your hands to mix the contents of the small container into the large container.
Lift and turn the mixture until it is fully combined. Discard any leftover liquid.



It is a lot of fun, and will keep for quite a while in a plastic bag or container. My boys love to put it in a cup and make noises by sticking their fingers in it to release air bubbles. You know what kind of sounds I'm talking about. Jake could do that for hours!

Enjoy!!