Hobble Creek and Dirty Boys

For family home evening last week we decided to go up Hobble Creek Canyon for the evening. The river was really swollen so we didn't get to play in it but we did get to have a nice fire and roast some hot dogs and marshmallows. The boys had a great time.

About a week ago we let the boys pick out a treat at the gas station for some reason. (I can't remember why right now.) Walker picked some bubble gum tape and decided he wanted to bring it with us up the canyon. As we were driving up we heard some loud noises coming from the back seat and when I turned around I realized it was Walker with about half the package of gum in his mouth. He couldn't close his mouth to chew it because he had so much stuffed in, and Walker isn't like most two year olds. That kid will chew a piece of gum all day and not swallow it. Anyway, when we got up the canyon I asked him to show me how much he had in his mouth. Here was his response....

I'm not sure what it is about boys and their sticks, but the first thing the boys did was go and find some "awesome" sticks to play with. These sticks played the following roles on our outing: Light Sabers, Swords, Walking sticks, stir sticks (for the fire) and sticks to hit your brother with. The last one didn't fly with mom and dad but they did have a great time of it.

While they were waiting for the fire to get going so we could cook the dinner Porter and Walker found a tree to climb. And they did it in sandals too! Tricky little beasts!

All in all it was a fun filled evening doing what boys like to do best. Throw sticks and rocks in water, climb trees, play with fire, and eat campfire food. I'm lobbying for our next FHE to be at the spa. Anyone think I'll win that fight? Sigh.... I didn't think so either. Oh, and if you were wondering where Luke was this entire time.... he was asleep in the van!

WOW! Duck Pond Sludge Stinks!!

Grandma Hurren had a great idea to go feed the ducks today. The boys and I though it would be a lot of fun so off we went. Earlier the boys had declared it a pajama day so yes, I do realize that they are still in their pajamas in these pictures and before you mention it... I also realize Walker's ginch are on the outside of his pajamas. He is convinced that if he does this he is Nacho Libre. I don't tell him otherwise because I love it when they use their imaginations! Now, on to the duck feeding.... I brought my camera with me thinking this would be a fun thing to blog about. I had no idea what was in store for my blog....

It all started out innocently enough. Porter liked feeding the ducks the little pieces of bread we brought for them.


They both had fun tossing the bread into the water and watching the ducks fight over it. There were even quite a few ducklings swimming around. They were very cute!


Walker's favorite thing to do was chase the ducks back into the pond every time they got out. He ran up and down the shore chasing any strays back where they belonged!


What a cute little innocent kid right? That's what I thought too when I saw him standing there!

Porter and Walker decided to go down the pond a little further and when I called them back Walker came a runnin'. I was happy he had listened so quickly. That's kind of something we are working on with him. Anyway, Porter wasn't coming so I called him again and when I did Walker turned to see where he was. The bad thing was that Walker was still running in my direction while looking behind him. He didn't see the great big pile of sludge right in front of him and....


He was not happy about falling into the pit that you can see right behind him but man.... it was hilarious. Paula and I burst out laughing while trying to pull him out. He made the funniest sound I ever heard come out of his little mouth. He was sure he was drowning and had no idea what had even happened. I didn't think he normally minded being so dirty but after we rescued him for the sludge, I realized the real reason for his little yelp. That stuff stunk!!!! It was so bad I was gagging while trying to get his clothes off. Luckily he had on four... yes four.... pairs of underwear (he thinks Nacho wears a lot of underwear for some reason).


We pulled off the yucky pajamas and underwear and sandals and he was ok again. Grandma explained the hazards of duck ponds and he was very cautious after the incident. I don't think he wants to go back to feed the ducks anytime soon and I don't blame him.

Brave Boy!

Porter will be starting school this fall and needed to get his kindergarten 'Well Child Visit' exam. It was a full physical that included a blood sample, a urine sample, weight, measurement, and then shots. The doctor asked him a lot of questions and Porter was happy to answer them. He was having a great time of it for while. That is until they pricked his finger for the blood sample. He said, "That kinda hurt!" But he was glad it wasn't too bad. That is until I told him this wasn't the shots he had to get, but just a blood sample. I have been talking about the shots for about a week now and trying to get him ready for them. I told him they would probably hurt and they wouldn't be fun but they would help to keep him from getting sick while he was at school. Grandma Hurren was getting some shots for her upcoming trip to Guatemala so he went with her to see what all the fuss was about. She didn't cry so I think he figured it would be ok. The following picture was taken when we first got there and Porter was pretty excited to show me how tough he could be at the doctors!

When it was time for the shots Porter was very brave. He watched Davian (our awesome nurse) get the shots ready and found it pretty interesting. He was given the choice of having Davian and her helper give the shots at the same time or taking turns. Porter wanted them to take turns and since he had to get FIVE shots it was going to take a while.


To distract him, Davian asked Porter if he knew his ABC's and if he could sing them to her. He started singing and the shots started. He did so well! The first two shots he didn't even flinch!


Things started to go downhill at about "Q" in the Alphabet Song. This is when the third shot was administered and Porter didn't like that one at all. I guess it had to go in on an angle and Davian told us that those hurt a lot worse.


Until this moment Porter hadn't even whimpered. There was a slight pause in the song where he said, "Owwwww..." but he carried on and finished it up. One arm down, one to go. I think by the time the song was over he realized that this wasn't great and it actually did hurt a little. I asked him if he wanted to sing another song for the next arm but he said he would just like to hold me.


This is about when I started breaking down too. I think I felt worse for him than he did for himself. I was so darn proud of him for being so tough that I even got teary! Even though it was so hard for him, he didn't cry out once. His eyes got full of tears but he didn't make a peep!


When it was all over Porter bravely put on a smile and showed off his battle scars! He was so good and big and brave. I'm so proud of you Porter!!!


I told Porter he did such a good job that I was going to take him to get a special treat, just him and me. He said he would like ice-cream and then magically Davian came in with a coupon for their "Brave Patients" for a free ice-cream cone at SOS Drug here in Springville. Porter was pretty excited about that. We went out to the car and I asked Porter if he liked going to the doctor. He said that he did. I asked him what he thought of Davian (interested if his opinion had changed since the shots) and he said he thought she was really nice. So good job Davian (and thanks for the help with the pictures)!


All in all the visit was a success and I will feel much better sending him to school with all if his immunizations caught up. Oh and for all you moms out there, when your little boys is asked to pee in a cup and it starts filling up to the top and you calmly ask you little guy to stop and he doesn't so pretty soon you are yelling, "STOP! STOP!" because you are afraid that it will pour over the top and all over your hand and onto the floor in the doctors bathroom... well, let's just say that they can't stop mid-flow. Believe me, I know!

Luke's First Solids

I started Luke on solids the other day. I figured it would take him a while to get used to it but man was I wrong! He downed the first bite and didn't stop until two bowls later! My other boys took some coaxing to get them to eat a few bites but not Luke. He loved it. Here are a few pictures.

This is the before shot...
This is the first bite...
This is the 'after' shot...

My Newest Undertaking!

So Luke is at a stage in his life were all he wants to do is grab things and try to get them into his mouth. He gets really frustrated if he drops things and can't get them again. Since his hand-eye coordination has a lot left to be desired he is mad often. I have been trying to think of something that he would be able to hold on to easily to avoid all of the orneriness. I remembered seeing a cool little blanket somewhere before and thought it would be the perfect thing. It is a small blanket with tags coming out all along the seems. They are easy to grab on to and the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it would be perfect. This is my version of the tag blanket. He has been playing with it all afternoon and I am happy to say it was a success. An hour of work has created, (hopefully) hours of quiet play. If he hates it tomorrow at least it worked for a day, and I'll take what I can get.

Wait a Minute.... Moving Kind of Stinks!!!

So while I am really very excited to get up to Canada and set up shop there, I am not enjoying the packing phase of things. My house is a disaster! Kara came and helped me pack up all the decorations last week and this week I am working on random things. Today was the boys' room. I took all the clothes out of their dresser and put them in plastic bins. I guess that could have waited for a little while but I really want to have everything done early. I really hate it when people ask for help moving but what they really mean is will you come over and pack up my house and then move it and then clean it up after? I guess service is service but that really gets to me. I guess maybe I'm just a jerk! Anyway, after the dresser and closet were done I moved on to the crib and bunk beds. I usually let Mike take care of this sort of thing but I decided to tackle it myself. Man, those things have a lot of little pieces to them. I think I pulled out about 50 screws from the bunk beds alone! Oh, and they're heavier than they look too! Anyway, so now my boys are living out of plastic bins and sleeping on mattresses on the floor. I was going to feel bad for them until they saw it and thought it was pretty cool. Not too sure why we bought them cool bunk beds in the first place if they were happy with mattresses on the floor. Oh wait, now I remember why..... it was because I wanted them. :) I think tomorrow I might tackle the kitchen and bathroom. On the other hand, since I worked so hard today maybe I'll take a break and go shopping. After the garage sale I realized I have a lot of extra space..... Just kidding Mike!

Just Some Cute Pictures of Luke

I keep thinking Luke is getting so big but I put my wedding ring on his finger and I realized how small he still is.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My family loves peanut butter cookies. I think they are the favorite by far and Walker really wanted to make some the other day. I thought about the pros..... yummy cookies, snacks on demand for a few days... and I thought about the cons..... possibly more weight gain on my already robust buttocks, having to clean up the mess etc... Guess which one won out? Yeah, my butts already big, whats another cookie or two? I told Walker he could help and we had a good time of it. It was a little difficult keeping Walker out of the dough and I finally gave up and let him go for it. The end result.... yummy cookies and snacks on demand for a few days, okay maybe they only lasted the evening, but dang it they were good!

Boys Will Be Boys

So I like to consider myself a fun person, up for whatever and willing to let things slide in the name of having a good time. Well the other day Walker found my old bag of balloons and a pump that I use to tie balloon animals and such. I haven't pulled this out for a while so I thought what the heck, lets make some cute little balloon animals. I made a nice little bunny, a parrot in a swing, some flowers and a few other cute things I thought the boys would like to play with.


Well, I was right about one thing.....they did want to play with the balloons. Their idea of play, however, was a little different than mine. With dad in the picture and being the boys that they are, the balloons soon lost their shape and became weapons of mass destruction. I can honestly say I was not surprised, just a little sad that my hard work ended up looking like this......

Hell, even Luke got into it!

The Real Estate Process Steps 2,3,4.......and so on

I am so far behind on my blogging it is ridiculous. At least I feel I have an excuse! So we put our house on the market in February thinking that would give us time to be sure to have a buyer by July when we had planned to be up in Canada. We have been told the market is very slow and we would need to expect to be on the market for a while. We had the real estate experts come through on two different occasions with the feedback the same both times. "Great house, great yard, great staging, be prepared to wait a while because things aren't selling very quickly right now." Well, we had only two people come through the house in the first couple of weeks and we figured the experts were right. That is until the second couple that came through asked to come through again, then again, then put an offer in. We were a little surprised to say the least. We kind of thought we wouldn't get any offer for quite a while. Even our agents were surprised. We thought that their initial offer was a little low and knew we had some time to sit on it if we needed to so we came back and said we wanted full asking price. They accepted! I think they really want the house, ok, I know they really want the house. They are planning to have their reception here in early May so we are closing the end of April and will be officially homeless the first of May. We are waiting for all of the final stuff to go through. The home inspector was here yesterday and checked everything out and the appraiser should be here before next week. After that we just wait until closing. Very exciting. Now we are in the process of cleaning the house out for a garage sale and getting ready to pack everything. (Anyone have any extra boxes?) If you are looking for a bunch of junk our garage sale is April 12th. Come on over! Actually we are getting rid of some pretty good stuff. The thought of moving it to Canada is inspiration enough to sell it though. Maybe we can make enough money to pay for the gas it will take to get up there, I doubt it though. So, as long as everything goes well, we will be out of here soon. Wish us luck!