Fourteenth Passage

Last weekend we took the kids to Kuna cave. We bought them all flashlights, and tried to get them excited, and met up with my brothers' family. 

The one problem with the Kuna cave is that you have to climb a large ladder into a giant black pit. It can be scary for the kinds of kids that get scared. We have two such kids among us. 

Morgan wasn't one of them. He did great.

 I carried Lydia down, and she did fine. But William and Owen were very nervous about the ladder. I took Owen down, and David followed with William. It was kind of comical how they screamed and/or cried the whole way down the ladder.
But once in the cave they were fine.

Lydia got a flashlight to hold, but most of the time she held it like pictured below. Didn't help much.

 Owen stuck with Daddy for the first half, but soon grew more confident and followed the bigger kids around.

 Morgan and William climbed up into this little niche. They are in the back.

Going back up the ladder was another ordeal for the boys, be we eventually all made it out. Then we played at my brother's house and had a great time.

Post-it #25

Lookit! We're twins. 

Thirteenth Passage

Last weekend we took the kids to the drive-in theater. First we went to Wal-Mart and let them all choose a box of candy and a bug juice. The movie didn't start until about 10:00, which is two hours past their bedtime, but they were great. 

Here we are waiting for the movie to start. It was a double feature. First was Pirates, Band of Misfits, which was okay. It kept the kids entertained. In fact, all three boys stayed awake for the whole movie. However, all three boys ended up in the two chairs with David and I before the movie was over. 

 We kept Lydia strapped into her carseat, which was a life save. She was kinda difficult until she fell asleep.

My three cute boys. 

The second movie was The Lucky One. We all sat in the car for that one, because it was getting pretty cold out. We just turned the van around and David and I watched it from our seats. The kids slept through it. I could have slept through it. It really wasn't worth watching. 

It was a fun evening though!

Post-it #24

From another room I heard Morgan teasing Owen.

Morgan: You're a lady, a little, little, lady!

Owen, in a very angry voice: No! I'm a big lady!

Twelfth Passage

I'm going to do a new chapter of this blog. Pictures of things the kids break.

I'll do a few retroactive pictures to start.

There have been broken drinking glasses, ripped up books, branches torn off the trees, you know, the normal stuff.

David has an ipad. He had a stylus for the ipad. The kids like to play with the ipad. Morgan was playing with David's ipad and using the stylus, and decided to rip the rubber tip off. Bah! So David bought a new stylus. (They aren't cheap.) Owen was the culprit this time. First he dipped it in water so the rubber got all dry and crackly. Then I do believe he ripped it off when using it.

The kids were jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler under it, but thought it would be more fun to play with the sprinkler and hold it, and aim it at their brothers. It resulted in a fatality. William was at fault for this one.

 My sister, Stephanie, gave David and I this resin figurine for a wedding gift. We really liked it. I guess the boys did too. The story we have pieced together from the accounts of guilty 3 and 5 year olds goes something like this. Owen was holding the figurine. He was also holding a flashlight. William wanted the flashlight, so ripped it from Owen's hand, causing Owen to drop the figurine.

William and Owen got to buy the glue that will hopefully fix it.

Our kids seem mighty destructive. Is that normal, or are our boys just over achievers?

Post-it #23

All the boys have the same shoes, and Morgan and William wear the same size shoe. At swimming lessons one day, right when we got there, I noticed William's feet. 

Two left feet! Doesn't bode well for his dance partners in years to come.

Eleventh Passage

Morgan and William took swimming lessons during the first half of the month. We signed Owen up too, but after two days of him refusing to get in the water, we asked for our money back. 

Check out this photo; the little circle of kids and teachers is the boys' class. Morgan and William, however, aren't paying any attention, they're doing their own thing. This, unfortunately, wasn't unusual. 

 I had to take this picture of Morgan's little butt crack.

 Morgan learning a back stroke.

 They got to play in life jackets the last day.

During the lessons, Owen, Lydia, and I, hung out on the bleachers. Owen played with my phone most of the time, and Lydia was surprisingly good about just sitting and watching. Often on my lap, often in her stroller. But as the second week progressed, she started to get bored, and became much more unmanageable. 

Here's some fun videos.

Morgan's like a little fish, and he did awesome. The teachers recommend he move onto the eel class. William, while he made a lot of progress, was too scared of the water and too timid of the teachers to learn most of the stuff in the class, and it was recommended that he repeat it. We'll see though. I doubt we'll put them in lessons again until next year, and a lot could change by then.