Belt Loops

The new cool thing to do in our ward is to earn Belt Loops in scouts. Ben earned his first 3 belt loops this month--and he was SO excited. He got a video game (I know, really...), chess, and a kickball belt loop.
Tonight was also the much anticipated Blue and Gold Banquet where every scout was supposed to decorate and bring a cake. I quickly learned last year that when they say the scout is supposed to make the cake, that really means that the mom is supposed to "help" the scout come up with the coolest cake ever. So this year more thought and time went into it. It just happened to turn out that school was canceled today because of a snow storm so all the kids got to get in on the fun. And it was a lot of fun. After we went through several ideas, Ben decided that a pizza cake would be the best. We had as red of frosting as we could get for sauce. There was white and yellow coconut for the cheese, cut up Swedish fish for the green peppers, caramels for mushrooms, black licorice for the olives, fruit roll ups for pepperoni, and Milk Duds for sausage. Now, 365 days to think of another idea.

She keeps me on my toes

Oh my Sweet Lydia. She is an adventurous soul. She loves to experiment. She loves to find things to get out that I didn't even know we owned. She loves to pour things out. She loves to throw things. She LOVES to make the biggest messes when I have my back turned for one minute. What takes me 10 minutes to clean up, she can undo in 1 minute. I say tomato, she says tomahto. It all works. And she is our constant source of laughter around here. Oh does she have a sense of humor!
And we all know that she likes to dress up. With all my other kids, I gave them free reign over their clothes. I let them pick out whatever they wanted to wear. They could change whenever they wanted. Each one of them went through periods when they would get a couple of different outfits on a day, but that stage quickly went by. Lydia isn't getting through this phase as quickly as I would like. I would put her clothes up hoping that it would solve the problem, but she doesn't care whose clothes she is wearing: Grant's, my clothes, Ben's, Trevor's, especially Karmin's--it's all fair game to her. So I can't put everyone's clothes up. I have discovered that there is a reason why I need to fold laundry when she is in bed and this is why:
Yesterday I was folding clothes and she wanted this on:
Which is normal. She wears this a lot.
Then she went back to her normal outfit:
Then somehow she found all this and put it on:



That must have been hot, so she opted for this:
Then added a sweatshirt, dad's hat, and Ben's shoes (and we don't wear shoes in our house--who am I kidding? We don't wear shoes, but I guess she is still learning this):
Time to switch the hat:
Enough of that dress, let's have a new one:Oh, I guess she remembered that tutus are always fun:


And this is all minus the first two outfits that she had on before the giraffe. I finally quit folding laundry and saved it for when she was asleep. And for good measure, here is half of the outfit that she put together today: There is one long sleeved striped shirt with a short-sleeved onesie (how do you spell that word) on top of that, a coat, one glove, a tutu, one of Karmin's flip flops, and one of mine. Just call her Punky Brewster.

Ping Pong, Anyone?

For the last SEVERAL (I've lost count of how long) months this is what we have looked at on one wall in our living room:

Yes, that is a ping pong table. The room that it will eventually go in is occupied, so it is in limbo until the room opens up. Until then it will probably be placed here and there. But for now, I'm so excited for the break in having it in our living room. This is what we get to look at now (what was behind it for all those months):

Much better, I do say.

Rolling the night away

Grant and I have been making a huge effort to spend a good portion of the day on Saturday playing with the kids. With all the remodeling that has been going on, Saturdays have become a "work, work, and work some more" day. Tonight we are going to be busy, so we decided to stay up late and have our playtime on Friday night.
We took the kids roller skating. Oh, did that bring back some memories. It was the same place that we both went to as kids. I don't remember everything being so...alternative, liberal, I don't know the right words. It wasn't terrible, and actually the people that worked there were very nice. It was just something that I don't know if our kids have been around too much of.
The boys did great. They scooted right along. I could tell that a lot of concentration was being put into their skating though. Karmin started off holding Grant's hands, but then got the hang of taking "little skating steps." Then she just took her time and skated near the wall. We ended the night with a few bruises, soar feet, and tired kids. It was a lot of fun!

First one down

Mr. Trevor has been so anxious to loose a tooth. For good reason--he will be 7 in 6 weeks and had not lost his first tooth yet. And being in first grade it seems that everybody else has lost teeth, but him. Tragic, I know. He has had a tooth that has been practically sideways for about 3 weeks now. He has wiggled it and wiggled it. We tried pulling it, and there was just too much hanging on. It started bugging him last night while eating, and then again this morning. He gave it a tug and out it came! Finally. He was so excited and couldn't wait to show people at school.

Now, I just HOPE that the Tooth Fairy remembers to come. I think her tooth radars don't always hit this house because sometimes it takes a couple of nights for her to get here. We have patient kids.