Jayke's first scout camp-out

 Jayke got to go on his first scout camp-out just recently. I was quite jealous that Ryan went with him. Sadly, we only have pictures of before he left.

His pack weighed a total of 21 pounds. It looked monstrous on him! Since I did not get to come along on the camp-out, Jayke has graciously described his experience for us. It was definitely a memorable experience for him!

As I left for my first scout camp-out I knew I was in for a lot of excitement. It was a long drive before we got there. We couldn't have dinner until we got to camp. On our drive up there it was raining and I said to dad, "My scout book is going to get wet!" He told me not to worry because my back pack was probably built to handle this weather. Since it was still raining we were lucky mom had made me pack a poncho for the two of us. We had to look a while before we found our camping spot. Luckily, shortly after we found it the rain had stopped. We set up our tent and helped the other campers with their tents. We had a welcome meeting. During the meeting the boy scouts performed some skits and I learned that my friend Kyle Petersen's dad saved a boy from drowning when he was a boy scout! When the meeting was over we got back to camp, ate dinner, waited a while (I wanted to explore in this time) and then tried to fall asleep. While we were attempting to go to sleep we heard coyotes in the camp ground right next to the tents. They sounded so cool!!! We woke up the next morning to the sound of a trumpet and there was dew all over the tent! We got some breakfast and went to opening exercises. Then we started the FUN part of the day, trying not to freeze while doing fun activities. We started with learning the key of backpacking: light objects. After that we learned about light foods (most of them are dehydrated foods). Then we went to learn about proper campsites and while we were at that station we saw a tarantula about 6 inches across and 2 or 3 inches tall! On our way to the last station we saw another tarantula about the same size as the last one. The last station of the day was my favorite. We were orienteering with a map and compass! We  had to find five flags that were charted on a map in about 15 minutes. We had a good start. On our way to the first flag we saw a third tarantula  that was again, about the same size! Then we finally found the flag! We had to decide if we were going to take a trail or go over a small (but steep) mountain. We chose the mountain. About half way through I got a small cactus in the inside of my right leg just about 2 or 3 inches below the knee. When we were about to find the next flag we heard the "time to return signal". Brother Hancock was so close he just kept going for a little and found the flag. When we got back the leaders gave us two bags of dehydrated food and told us to make some thing with it. Dallin, Dad, and I made black berry cobbler. Hunter and Jordan made black berry oat meal, scrambled eggs and pancakes. We got in the car and I told dad to drop me off at the out house. I was in the port-a-Jon dropping the kids of at the pool when someone started to prepare to take the out houses away. So as you might suspect, I was a little startled. I started knocking on the door. Luckily they noticed I was in the out house. Then dad came out of the car, worried I might be accidentally taken away, and notified them that I was in there. I got out and started my trip home.

First hike of the "cooler" season!

Now that we are officially over the days of "fire and brimstone" for a few months, we decided it was a good idea to join our home school group for an easy hike. The trail for this month was the hieroglyphics trail.  The morning started out a little rushed because I had forgotten about the hike until late the night before. Sadly, that meant we didn't have a lot of yummy snacks. We were left with Ritz crackers, tangerines, and Wowbutter (peanut butter alternative) sandwiches. Thankfully the kids were so hungry when we got to the top that they didn't complain about the food at all.

The trail started out nice and easy with just a slight incline. Aimee kept telling me, "I love hiking" and "This is the best day", which always makes a mom feel good. Halfway up, she started changing that to, "I'm so hungry!" Sorry girl, that's what happens when you refuse to eat more than 3 bites each meal for the past month!

 Nice wide, "smooth" trail at the beginning.

 About halfway up, taking a drink break.

 Still pretty early in the hike, and still all smiles. So excited to be outdoors on a semi-cloudy day.

The last little bit of the trail was fairly steep and very rocky for the little ones. We had a few other young boys sticking close to us and they kept running off on little side "trails" getting lost. I finally told them to stay with us so they didn't "find" any rattlesnakes in the bushes.

We finally got to the top and found hoards of people soaking up the sunlight on the rocks. We found a shady little area and ate our lunch. Then, the boys ran off and played with the little tadpoles in the water. The kids were all very excited to see the petroglyphs carved into the rocks.

 Little Miss was excited to see Mama after the long trip.

 Finally relaxing at the top.

Kate enjoying her Wowbutter sandwich.

Playing with tadpoles in the water.

V begged me to let her play on the rocks. (Meaning she screamed as shrill as possible until I took her out of the pack.) She was more than thrilled to find some sand to play with!

I stood around, enjoying the views and watching the kids play around the rocks.

 The view down the mountain.

All the boys playing under the petroglyphs.

Some of the kids playing up the rocks.

 The view up the mountain. Beautiful clouds speckling the sky.

 Ethan and Kate basking in the sunlight.

All the kids ready to head back down.

Going down was much easier, as it always is. Aimee just wanted to run, which was a definite no-no with all the rocks. The first time she fell, it was more of a slip and roll, in really slow motion. She was pretty upset that she rubbed her face on the ground. She tried convincing me that she got a cut, but it wasn't even a scratch. It was more of a "light sanding". I convinced her to let me hold her hand for a while. That is when she fell again, but this time it was a "trip and fly" because I picked her up as soon as she tripped and then let her get her footing again. She didn't appreciate my holding her hand, even though I saved her face from eating rocks. So towards the bottom of the trail, when the parking lot was in view, she got excited and started running again. This time I was nowhere near her and she took a really good tumble right onto some rocks. She still has rocks embedded in her palm. :-(

 This is after the first "roll" for Aimee. She was not happy to be in a picture and thought it was the worst day ever. Little was she aware of what was coming her way. ;-)

 

Same place on the trail. Just without Aimee. 

 The kids loved the look of this part of the mountain.

Jayke kept looking for viewpoints and wanted to stop anytime he could see anything. It was all basically the same view, just lower and lower elevation.

 Almost to the bottom. Kids are enjoying the hike again after they were able to drink some of my cold water. I am definitely hoping to get more hydration packs in the future instead of carrying water bottles for all the kids.

I just loved this picture. As we started to get closer to the bottom of the mountain, we started to feel a little breeze. It felt really nice on our sweaty bodies! Aimee started raising her arms in the air and chanting, "let the wind blow in our face" over and over again. You can just see how glorious it must have felt to have a little breeze.

Overall, it was a nice, easy hike to start out the season. Even with a baby on my back, it wasn't too difficult. My knees didn't even complain with their typically popping and grinding. The trip took a total of 3 hours, with probably only 20 minutes at the top eating and playing. I am incredibly grateful for the slight cloud cover, as 72 degrees was still a little too hot for my enjoyment. I am just glad that it wasn't the 90 degrees that it was last week! We will be doing this hike again soon, though it will definitely be much earlier in the morning next time. Hopefully we will have Ryan and a nice camera on our next time around.  

Boys...

 I really do love boys. They are so inquisitive and creative...especially when there are two of them together.

A while ago, Jayke lost another tooth. Ethan thought he would be funny to pretend to be the toothfairy. He carefully slipped under Jayke's pillow and took his tooth. He left this note in place of the tooth. "Dear Jayke, I'm sarry (sorry) I ran out of candy so I just gave you a quarter. Love the tooth fary (fairy)" I thought is was hilarious. Typically the tooth fairy gives candy in our house, as it is easy to come by, but Ethan has an abundance of coins so he switched it this time. Thankfully he did this when he did, because the tooth fairy actually missed our house that night...and the next night... Ugh. We are getting so forgetful in our "old" age.

 A few weeks later, I went outside to check on the boys. They were quite busy with whatever project they were working on, so I let them continue for a while. That is, until I walk to my side yard and almost step on these next to my garden:

At first I was confused about what I was looking at. Piles of similar looking items were grouped together, but I couldn't quite tell what it was, even though it looked very familiar but yet different from what I remember. Upon closer examination, I realized that I was looking at wings, legs, and abdomens...of grasshoppers. My boys told me they were dissecting grasshoppers.

Oh my! I was appalled and curious at the same time.

My first question was, "Did you torture them or did you make sure to do it humanely as possible?" They assured me that they were all dead before they started tearing them apart. They did mention that the legs still kicked even though there were no heads on the bodies. (Gross!) They simply wanted to find out more about the grasshoppers and how they worked.

Ethan took it a little further than that when he started to string the abdomens on a stick to make a necklace. (see pic #2) He said their abdomens made perfect beads.

Yes, those are my boys...and they are definitely boys. And I do love them.

Does anyone else have boys like mine? I'd love to hear some stories.

More V

The other day, I found V under the table with something in her mouth. She typically will throw her Kix cereal on the floor so she can eat them when she pleases. I figured she was just scrounging for some of her stash. When I reached for her, she started screaming at me (telling me to leave her alone). I knew at that moment that she had something other than Kix in her mouth. When I finally got her out, she was halfway finished with a strawberry that Aimee had dropped. She was obviously enjoying her new find, so I let her eat the rest of it. When she was finished, she was covered in strawberry. It was smeared all over her face, clothes, and highchair. And she loved it.

In other news, her test results came back. Bloodwork showed no signs of allergy. Her endoscopy showed no signs of allergy in her esophagus and stomach. I do wonder how accurate the endoscopy and biopsies were, since I had not fed her any of the offending foods for a while before procedure. Anyway... Her intestines did show elevated levels of something, I can't remember what the doctor called it. The doctor said that sometimes this elevated level is a sign that she could be developing celiac disease, but that I should not worry about that until further down the road.

We have tried a few new foods recently. She did not have any reaction the first time she had strawberries, but has not eaten any since. She has eaten pears 2 times without any reaction. She has had squash once, though she didn't like the flavor. Slowly, slowly, we are adding foods to her diet.

So, as for foods that she can eat: sweet potatoes, corn, squash, pears, and probably strawberries. (and lots and lots of breastmilk!)

Foods that I'm pretty sure she has issues with: rice and/or oats, milk and/or soy, maybe wheat.

She is still growing and just plain cute, so I'm sure she will be just fine once we work through all these feeding issues.

A visit to the farm

A couple weeks back, my friend told me that a local farm had free admission for kids if they wore their Halloween costume. It was a farm that I had driven by in the past and wondered what it was like. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to get the kids in free. My only problem was finding costumes for all the kids so early in the month. I typically wait until the last week (or day) to figure out what to put my kids in. We threw a bunch of stuff together and came up with a Ritz box, a flamingo, a doctor, a lion, and a fairy. (yes, her skirt is a curtain.)

Being so early in the month, it was still hot. Those poor little kids in all the fuzzy costumes were dying in the heat. Halloween costumes definitely were not designed with AZ in mind! There was a dry storm blowing through that day, so it was slightly cooler than the previous week but mostly it was just dusty and windy!

We started out petting looking at the animals. The kids were not quite thrilled to be touching animal fur covered in dark colored mud. (I'm sure it was mud, right?)

After that, we went to a little play area and took a few pictures. Jayke was really trying to play the part of a cow, which is why he is scowling.

Next came the hay maze. Jayke and Ethan rushed through it because they could see exactly where they needed to go. Obviously it was designed with younger children in mind.

We went on a "hayride" around the farm, but half of the people got to see the surrounding businesses and parking lots and the other half got to look at empty, dry fields of dirt. :-( And everyone got straw all in their clothes. It was so itchy! Ryan even got a rash from just touching the straw. (I think I know where Ethan gets all his allergies from.)

The kids got to take some more pictures...

 (Definitely a windy day!)

They had just the right amount of animals for all of the kids.

 (My cute little lion.)

At the end, all the kids got to take home a free pumpkin and stickers to decorate it with.

  (Aimee went on sticker overload.)

 (Jayke made a witch.)

(Kate's)

The trip was pretty quick and the farm was definitely designed for preschool aged kids. I am definitely glad all the kids got in free.

Aimee did it!

I am so impressed with Aimee. We have been casually working on letter sounds together this year (mostly just watching Super WHY! and a little bit of one-on-one when the other kids are at school). I had also spent a day or two working with her on blending sounds to make simple words like at, cat, bat, rat, fat, etc. I stuck with simple word families and just tried teaching her that letters make sounds and when you say them together, they can make words. I didn't want to do too much, since I am not technically required to start teaching her until next year when she is in kinder.

I had checked out easy reader books from the library a couple weeks ago and went through them, having her read all the articles (a, an, the, etc.) and I read all the other words. It really helped her to quickly recognize those words by sight when we were reading books together. She was SO excited that she was actually reading! She wanted to read those books over and over again just to show that she could "read" those words.

This past week, I decided to check out an early phonics book for her. I showed them to her and told her that they were for her and then I forgot about it. A few days later, I see her and Kate sitting on the couch together with one of the books. She is asking Kate questions and Kate is leading her through it. Excitedly, she tells me she can read. I sit down next to her and she actually reads the entire book. I am so thrilled that she actually did it! That means that the hardest part of teaching her to read is behind me and I hardly had to do anything! I am so glad that she is so self-motivated! I just love her to pieces.

We took a little video so all the grandmas could see her reading and she is just so excited to share her new talent with you!

Life...and V

I am so behind on documenting our lives and it is only getting worse each day. Ever since school started again my life has been CRAZY! Sadly, I don't think it will get better any time soon. I was hoping that second year dental school would give us a little break, but it might actually have become a little more busy. I think it is due to the fact that they started night classes in addition to the daytime 8-5 classes. Now on the nights when Ryan might actually be home and not studying for a test he has to do the work for his public health classes. :-( Add to that the new feeding issues with V and I am drowning in my responsibilities each day. Someday it will get better...and then it will get even worse during 4th year rotations... I look forward to the day that Ryan is finished with school and we can decide where we are going to live and where he will practice. And then we will actually settle down and start our real adult lives.

Here is a little something to entertain you while I try to find the time to play catch-up with our lives.

And another...V loves bathtime and especially loves splashing in the water! Yes, those are squeals of delight. She can scream better than any of the other kids.

10 months

Utter cuteness. Brought to you by V, who thinks she is bigger than she really is, trying to act like she is ready to walk, but is really a wobbly mischievous little 10 month old love who succeeds at getting into everything and stealing everyone's hearts. (How is that for a run-on sentence.)

Prescott and the Grand Canyon

Our third day was spent in Prescott.  I strapped sweet lil V to me.

 And we took a lovely morning walk around the Groom Creek neighborhood and surrounding areas.

 We looked for birds and I longed for a longer camera lens.

We found a plastic deer that showed a sign of Graves' disease and Ryan was very quick to diagnose it. It is a little difficult to tell from the front, but its eyes are definitely bulging.

Once the sun really started coming up, it was very toasty, so we headed back to the cabin to finish our morning playtime.

We spent the afternoon at the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and ended with a lovely afternoon rainstorm.

On our fourth day, we met my brother and his family at the Grand Canyon. We miscommunicated a wee bit when we discussed the meet-up time, as the south side had no daylight savings and the north side did. So, we showed up a bit later than my brother's family.

We started out by eating lunch in the picnic area while my brother dropped off their dog at the kennel. While we were eating, the kids saw a deer walk right through the parking area and began chasing it. It's all fun and games until someone gets lost. :-) We spent a few minutes trying to find little ones, only to find out they went to the restroom. Once we had everyone together again, we went to the first and busiest lookout point right next to the main visitor's center. My fear of heights certainly showed up in full-force at the edge of the canyon. If I were one to have panic attacks, I would have had many that day! Even as it was, I often found myself holding my breath with all my muscles tense just looking at people close to the edge. It was fun trying to keep track of all the littles, make sure no one fell over the rails, take pictures, and catch up with everyone's lives all at the same time.

 The views were spectacular and the clouds were very relieving. In direct sun it was incredibly hot, but as soon as the clouds shaded us it was beautiful. After we left the first group of lookouts, it started sprinkling on us. It was a nice break from the heat.

 Ryan had the babe strapped to his back in my sister's pack. We were so thankful to have it instead of the Moby with how hot it was. The only scary thing with it, though, was that she was held in only by a loose strap around her waist and Ryan kept bending over the rails, putting her almost horizontal. The first time I saw him do that I completely freaked out. Each time after that, I made sure to grab her foot so she couldn't wiggle out of the pack.

My brother took a picture of our family, but somehow we didn't get a picture of both families together.

 Even more beautiful than the canyons were the clouds as they quickly rolled across the sky.

 By the time we rode the shuttle to the second set of lookouts, the lil one was fast asleep.

The views from the second lookout were just as amazing and colorful.

We walked around in the air conditioned building, learning about all the rock formations and earth layers.

 While we were there, I discovered a job that I would not be a good candidate for: a window washer.

This ledge actually went all the way around the building at the base of the windows and there was nothing under them to break your fall, well, except for the bottom. 

 By the time we finished at the second lookout areas, V was not only asleep, she was completely conked out.

After that, we rode the shuttle back to the visitors' center and parted ways with my brother's family so they could make it to my parents' house before nighttime.

 (Ryan standing with V on his back, Ethan in the gray hat, Aimee in the pink hat, and I think Jane next to her. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

(Jayke next to Markie, Kate next to Sophie with Andy on her lap. Again, please correct me if I mixed up the 2 younger girls. I can finally tell them apart when I see their face, but not the back of their heads.)

The kids were so excited that they could ride a bus and even more excited that they didn't have to wear seat belts. They loved playing with their cousins, even if it was only for a couple hours and were so sad when they had to say good-bye.

After my brother's family left, we went to the visitor's center to look around and also so I could feed V. You can tell she has a full belly now with that big ol' grin across her face. Full belly, happy baby.

We hopped back on the shuttle to see the lookouts on the East side of the visitor's center. This is where the storms really started gathering, giving a beautiful contrast to the canyon walls. 

 It was beautiful to see all the different depths across the canyon.

Jayke convinced us that he could handle carrying the babe on his back. I was a lot more nervous about him carrying V than I was about Ryan carrying her. I wouldn't even let him come close to the edge out of fear that he might slip on loose rocks, especially since the lookouts on this side did not have rails like the other ones did.

At our last stop, the rains started coming down at the other side of the canyon. It was beautiful to look at. 

 Even more beautiful, though, was the lightning. Incredibly dangerous, I'm sure, but there were a few of us that sat there trying to get a little lightning on one of our exposures. The rain was really thick and it was still pretty light out, so it was hard to get any bright lightning in the pictures.

With a quick black and white conversion, you can barely start to see the lightning on the left side.

And turning just a few degrees, you wouldn't even realize that the storm was so bad right around the corner.

The kids enjoyed the views a little and the parents probably appreciated its grandeur a lot more.

 As we were getting ready to board the shuttle again, the storm clouds were covering up the last bit of blue sky to be found.

As I sat in the van feeding V while the kids were in the visitor's center getting another junior ranger badge, the rains started coming down. First in a light drizzle, followed by a heavier sprinkle, and then finally a good rain. It could not have been a more perfect way to end the day.  I love the rain.