2 For 1

I am behind, again. I have a good excuse for being a blog slacker this time, we have been busy playing! Nathan finished preschool in May, and Jacob's last day of 1st grade was June 2nd. So now that I have 4 kids at home all day everyday there hasn't been much time for anything but entertaining the kids. So, hold on, it is going to be a long one with two months to cover.

May was actually a fairly quiet month, with only a couple of significant events. First of all Nathan learned how to blow a gum bubble, this is a major accomplishment.
I have always done mother taught preschools with my kids. This was Nathan's second year of preschool. The first year we do Joy School, and the second year we do our own program. My sister-in-law, Erika, put together an outline for us, and then we each find our own activities for the theme we are teaching, as well as reading and math skills. We had a little graduation for our little class.

Darren, Alayna (Nathan's cousin), Xander, and Nathan

And now, the most important event in May, Nathan turned 5 on the 26th. He wasn't excited or anything.

Nathan wanted to have a bug birthday party. He specifically wanted a rolly polly cake, but I couldn't figure out how to make one, let alone how to make one appetizing. So we settled with a mountain of dirt covered with bugs. Very appetizing, right.

It was delicious, especially the cookie crumbs and the candy rocks

We had a bug hunt in the backyard, if you look in the window you can see Jacob, he was sick and didn't get to come to the party, more about that later.

Lexi, Alayna, Adam, Nathan, Ryan, Xander, Caden, Natalie

Nathan was super excited to open presents. He got some fun stuff.

The day before Nathan's birthday Jacob started complaining of a headache and was acting very lethargic. He still had a headache the next day, but I gave him some Tylenol and sent him to school. It was his field day and there was big bounce house set up at the school, so he really wanted to go. Plus, it was Nathan's birthday and we were having a party. At about 11, before his class went out for field day, he called me and asked me to come pick him up. I made him put on his PJs and put him to bed, I quarantined him to my room for the party, he was pretty sad. He was still sick on Friday and stayed home again. On Friday at around 3 he started to complain of neck pain. I am a nurse, I recognized the signs and symptoms of meningitis. I called our doctor, but he wasn't in, it was Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. I decided to just wait and watch him. On Saturday it was still bad. When the medicine wore off he would cry in pain. I decided to take him to insta care. While I was on my way Randy talked to our friend who is a pediatric PA, he agreed that we should get him checked. The Nurse Practitioner who saw him at insta care decided to send us to the ER. At the ER a nurse was waiting for us, she took us right into an isolation room, everyone who came in wore face masks, bacterial meningitis is very contagious. The ER doctor agreed that his symptoms were close to those of meningitis, but the only way to diagnose it is to do a spinal tap. It took the nurse three tries to get an IV in him. Then they did blood work. They had to sedate him to do the spinal tap. Look at that sad face.

Luckily it didn't take long to get the results back, everything was normal. Even his white blood count was only slightly elevated. The doctor said he just had a virus that was causing muscle stiffness. When we knew everything was okay we were able to relax. We even got a good laugh out of Jacob while he was waking up from sedation. The lights were turned off and he had a pulse ox on his finger which has a red light on it. He was waving it around in front of his face. The nurse said it looked like a light saber and Jacob said, "Luke, I am your father." Then he started making light saber noises. It was pretty funny. We stayed home from church on Sunday, but by Monday he was mostly back to normal. We were even able to do some fun stuff for Memorial Day.

We woke up to nice warm weather on Memorial Day, oh wait, that was just a dream.

It was actually only 45 degrees! On Memorial Day!

We decided to take a trip to downtown Salt Lake City to visit the Church History Museum. They have a fun, and free, children's area that we have never been too. It was super fun, unfortunately, lots of other people had the same idea we did. I think we will have to go another day when it is not so crowded. Our favorite part was an area where they had a video teaching Latin dancing, complete with costumes. My boys thought it was great.

Nathan, Isaac, Alayna, Jacob, Adam

Aunt Kristin and Sunny

After the museum we decided to walk around Temple Square. We couldn't believe how small it felt inside the Tabernacle. It is amazing that just 10 years ago or so this is where they had general conference. I don't think you could fit our stake in there.

Erika, Eli, Jason, Isaac, Jacob, Steve, Alyssa, Alayna, Kristin, Sunny, Nathan, Adam, Natalie, and Randy

Jacob's soccer season is now over. His last regular season game was on June 4. We have a pretty good team, we generally dominate the teams we play. So, we decided to sign them up for a tournament. That just happened this weekend. We didn't win a game, but it was a good experience to play with some more competitive teams. It was a good intro to what next year will be like. We are excited that most of our team is staying together.

Randy and I love BYU, we both graduated from BYU, it is where we met and fell in love. We take any opportunity we can get to go down there. So when we heard about a free summer reading kick off party down at BYU we decided to go. It was already a busy Saturday with Jacob's last soccer game, a family reunion, and a ward party, but we still fit it in. The kids met Clifford the Big Red Dog. And, their favorite Monkey, Curious George

Does Adam look star struck? I don't know about the other two.

They also got to try rock climbing.We saw our friend Misty Moncur, who was there signing copies of her new book, Daughter of Helaman. That was fun, we are so proud of her, it is a great book, everyone should read it! They also had bounce houses and some fun free stuff. We were really glad we took the time to go.

The next weekend was just as busy. We stopped by the Riverton Arts Festival on Friday night to seen our neighbor girls dance. We ate dinner with them and then we all headed over to Herriman Town Days to go to "Touch a Truck". The kids got to climb in and around just about every kind of truck you can think of.

Adam driving a dump truck

Nathan driving a roller

Natalie had to have daddy help her drive a Fire Truck

The front of this tractor can sure fit a lot of kids!
Wardle Kids, McNeil Kids, and Newton KidsI don't know why Jacob was sitting in baby seat, but he sure is a cute boy.

Our favorite event of the whole year is Herriman Town Days. We didn't get to our usually parade watching spot early enough this year, it was already crowded by the time we got there, but we were able to squeeze in on the corner.

During the parade a karate studio went by and the teacher yelled, "Who wants to try breaking this board?" Jacob jumped up to volunteer. The guy showed him how to do it, and he just did it, it was pretty cool. I hope he doesn't want to take karate lessons now.
In between Herriman Town Day festivities we went to a super fun pirate birthday party for our neighbor Harlie. She turned 5. Isn't she a cute pirate?

Randy and I are fierce Pirates, I am sure no one wants to mess with us.

Or with Natalie, she wasn't really in the mood for being a Pirate.

But Nathan was

What Pirate Party is complete without a sword fight and trying to sink each others ships in a water balloon fight?And of course you have to have a treasure chest.
Brian didn't disappoint with this treasure chest cake, that's right, cake, we ate it, it was delicious.Natalie, finally happy now that I am not trying to make her be a pirate.

After all the fun, Adam needed a nap.

That evening we headed back to Town Days. We have lived in Herriman for 8 years, and every year it is the same. Go to the park, spread out our blankets by the pavilion, listen to some free, sometimes cheesy, music, ride some rides, hang out with our family and friends, while we wait for fireworks. This year we picked up some pizza on our way to the park. We got there, spread out our blankets, and realized, there was no band! The band that the city had been advertizing was playing on another stage, and they were charging to get in. How lame is that? So we thought at least we can ride rides, but there were charging double what they charged last time, I am sorry, but I wasn't going to pay $3 for each of my kids to ride some lame ride. So no music, no rides, we showed up 4 hours early for nothing. We were not very happy. Randy found a few members of the City Counsel to express his displeasure. The fireworks were still excellent though. Natalie especially loved them.Randy and Natalie at Herriman Town Days

This week our neighbor Josh was deployed to Afghanistan. He will gone for a year. We got to go to the departure ceremony. We are so proud of Josh, and grateful for his willingness to serve. We hope we can be a support to his wife and son while he is away.


His unit flies Blackhawks. It was neat to watch them leave in formation.They had a Blackhawk on display for people to see. Randy has always wanted to sit in one.

Oh boy, that was long. We will see if I can do a better job at this in the future, but don't count on it.