Poof! Clint is 9!

Mr. Clint celebrated another birthday today!  He requested a cookie cake again.  Months ago at the ward youth fundraiser auction Clint begged us to bid on the magic show that was being auctioned.  Craig Jensen is a guy in our ward that is pretty great at magician and he offered to do a 30 minute magic show.  We figured it would make a great birthday party for Clint so we bid on it and won.  We had to schedule the party for tomorrow, since his birthday fell on a Sunday, so Clint can hardly wait for today to be over. :)  He was pretty excited for his gifts from the family.  He decided months ago that all he wanted was the Nerf Zombie Cross Bow Gun, so when he saw it he was super excited.  The best though was his reaction when he saw his gift from Kade and Cole.  It was an electricity ball.  The boys had so much fun with it all day.

All Tuckered Out!

Cole finished his dinner at 6:30, got up from the table and while walking to his room said, "I just want to go to bed."  I thought he might go lay down but get bored with laying there and then he'd be off playing something.  I started cleaning up the kitchen, which isn't a quiet process; Cole's bedroom borders the kitchen.  After about 5 minutes I realized I hadn't seen him.  I went in to see what he was up to and found this.  His bedroom door wide open, his blinds pulled up, it's 6:36 PM and Cole he was asleep for the night.  I was shocked because his room was blinding bright from the sun shining through his west-side window.  He clearly takes after his father.  Darryl can sleep through brightness and noise where I have to have all sound and light blocked out.  I guess you could say he was all tuckered out.

Get Your Brownies and Lemonade!

Though these stands are a little of a pain to get set up it is just so adorable to see these little business men at work.   The boys had some great friendly customers that made them smile.  Konnie and Kim came and bought a bunch of brownies for the office and for friends.  The large orders blew the boys away with amazement.  Another customer that amazed them was a construction worker that had been working on the new subdivision across the street.  He came over and got a brownie and a lemonade, gave them a $10 bill, told them the change was theirs, jumped in his truck and took off before I even saw how much he'd handed them.  Cole liked the fact that the guy said the change was for them but I don't think he understood how much that was.  Kade figured it out pretty quickly and was pretty impressed that the guy did that.  It's so neat to see how happy it makes people to make little kids happy.

GRRRRR!

This is what the kitchen looks like when you have brownies all mixed up, the oven preheated, and you can't get into the oven drawer to get a pan out to cook the brownies!  As you may have spotted in the photo this was actually taken after I was finally successful in getting the drawer open since the brownies batter is in the pan on the counter.  It didn't occur to me to take the picture until I was cleaning up.  This actually after I had put away a few items and reattached the oven door so the room was even more disheveled than the picture shows.

I was happy that I was getting a jump on making the brownies during the cool time of the morning.  Well that came to an abrupt halt when I discovered a cooling rack was lodged in the oven drawer preventing it from opening.  As you can see I tried many various items to dislodge the cooling rack.  After 2 hours of trying different ways, then trying them again, and taking off the oven door.  I was only successful when I started sliding and shoving all of the pans inside the draw around and shaking the drawer wildly in hopes it would help somehow.  My frustration paid off because I'm sure it caused me to shake the drawer a little harder.  The cooling rack fell down and I was able to open the door.  Then I had to put the door back on-- thanks to YouTube that became a lot easier.  I tried and tried to reattach it but figured there was a trick I was missing.  Then had the thought to look for a how-to video on YouTube and sure enough there was one that walked me right through it.  Once the oven door was on it was preheating the oven, pouring the batter into the pan and then cleaning up and putting away the mess I made.  All this for a pan of brownies. . . and what were they for????  Because Cole and Kade wanted to have a lemonade stand with brownies today.  In the next post you'll see how cute they were-- it was worth it.

Backpacking with Dad

Clint's finally got his turn to go on a backpacking trip with Darryl this week.  He was pretty excited about it.  They went up near Gooseberry to Abes Lake and the fishing was unbelievable for Abes so they spent most of their time there instead of hiking around to some of the other little lakes.  I love that Darryl has made this little tradition with the boys. They find it pretty special too-- to have dad all to themselves is quite the treat.

Grandpa, Uncle Jason, and Connor came up on the last day to fish with them.  The fishing was good but nothing like it was for Clint and Darryl.

Building a Pool Table

I never knew what really went into setting up a pool table.  I'm willing to bet that most people haven't the slightest idea either.  Our friend Chris and his dad Kavin happen to have a little bit of an obsession with pool tables.  They buy them and sell them and kind of ;-) collect them.  Chris ended up with a really nice slate one for free because it was missing a piece.  He gave it to us and told Darryl he'd help him build the missing piece in his dad's wood-shop.  All the building aside and it still was a huge process to get this table ready.  They had to set up the legs and let them settle for a few days.  Then they had to level the slate and let it set.  Then they filled in the gaps because the slate is in 3 pieces other wise it would be so heavy you couldn't move it and I would think it would break.  After they built it up and filled in the cracks then they had to let it set for days again.  Then they stretched the felt and stapled it on. Which is what they're doing in the photo.  Its the only picture I took of the whole process and it only happened because it looked like Chis was just laying around while everyone else worked.  He had been holding the felt but then just stayed there and had put his hand behind his head so I had to send it to his wife Becky to show her how hard he was working while he wasn't home.  After the got the felt on the table we still had to get the felt on the edges and attach those along with the pockets.  It's safe to say the pool table will stay with the house if we ever move.

It took about another week to be all put together but here is a photo of the finished table.

OH Yeah! Ice Blocking, Baby!

Here we are with yet another brag tagging adventure.  Today the boys chose ice blocking!  It was a super hot day so it was a perfect choice.  Dalton, Kade's friend, joined us for the fun.  We went to the high school soccer field hill and boy did they fly!  Gotta love simple crazy activities

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Awe, The Water Wheel!

We were in our old "neck of the woods" today and passed by the water wheel.  The boys begged to take a minute and play for "old times sake." (I love when they use an old figure of speech.)  It was a great simple life moment.  We frequented the water wheel when we lived on the north side of town.  It was the boys favorite walk or bike ride destination.  Even if we were driving somewhere they liked to go past the water wheel just to see if it was going or not.  It was fun to watch them play.  They love to float a leave through the ditch tube from one side of the street and watch it come floating out the other side.  Great moments sponsored by Rex Glazier-- thanks for building it and setting it up each year!

Go Fish

It was the final day for Fishing Club and so they finished their day of fishing with a fish fry and awards.  Kade, Clint and Cole all received a participation certificate and a 100% attendance certificate with an attached pack of starbursts.  Cole and Clint got a little extra award for the Most Improved and received a poster of all the Utah fish.  Kade was pretty disappointed because he has a hard time not winning.  It was a good season for them all though.  They each had a day where they would catch a fish almost as soon as their worm hit the water, and  they each had a couple days where they just couldn't catch a thing.  That's how fishing goes.  They all had a different group leader but all of them were wonderful.  It is so awesome to me that someone would be willing to take the time to help little kids learn to fish.  Such an awesome program!

Go Go Go Joe!

With our Pass of All Passes we were able to go to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for free tonight.  We were excited to take the boys. They are always so jealous when we go to the Hale Theater so I'm happy they have the opportunity.  It was a fun night made even better because we met up with the Goodes there too.  The kids enjoyed the show and hanging out with each other.