What They Wore-turkeyboys (turquoise)

Quinton( in grey suit) with Zany behind him, Arch (top), Declan (middle), McCoy (bottom)

When McCoy was little he called turquoise, turkeyboys it was so cute, sometimes you're a bit sad when they grow out of their little quirks. Since Zany's Great-Grandma Parke made her a cute little turquoise dress I had the rest of them match her. Isn't this dress so cute? Zany really likes to wear dresses and she actually left her necklace on too. This dress seemed to call for pigtails and I even curled them in a pigstail (one big spiral curl) but since her hair is curly I just have to twist it around and around and a perfect curl is produced. I wish my hair was so easy!

Ashlee is always trying to get Eddy and I on a sleep diet she thinks we keep wild hours and should go to bed earlier.  I flagrantly flouted her sleep edict/encouragements and decided to take a nap despite the late hour (4:00 p.m.). I tell you working at church as a nursery leader wears you out.  I threw caution to the wind and risked the late night insomnia and had a lovely nap.  I may have to use another of Ashlee's tips and employ The Honest Guys sleep meditation on youtube. The honest guys have a variety of meditations even Lord of Rings ones. (They do sound better on headphones.)

Zany is the best little hugger and kisser ever. I think it has to do with how fierce she is which she applies to her hugs and kisses. She is always happy to give you a leg squeeze or an arm squeeze without you even asking her to.

                  Quinton gets a kiss        

Declan gets a wee kiss!

                                                     

Archer: the necklace and the hallway

Archy came home from school today besides himself with excitement for he had picked a prize from the treasure box. From what I gather you must turn in your homework all week and at the end of it you can pick a prize from the treasure box.  As soon as a family member arrived home Archy jumped up to go show them his necklace.  

Archy wanted to tell all of you the following:

"I want the whole world to know that I got a necklace from treasure box at school. I got a stucker from Mary (bus driver).  I had fun at school. I played at the playground. Swings. I go on little slide and I have fun at playground. I go with bus driver with Mary."

Archy's prized possession-the necklace

Wearing it proudly

Archy has been accused by his brothers of never doing chores. While not entirely true there is a bit of truth to it.  Archy for years has gotten away with doing very few chores if any. At first he was too little and not interested and then was slightly bigger but still not interested. (I know, I know the first few kids would have never gotten away with it!)  I told him once kindergarten started he had to pull his weight around here, luckily, for him he is very light. His daily chore is the hallway. He picks it up and then vacuums it. Archy does his chores very quickly without being asked because he knows that once his homework, chore and snack are done he can play a video game. Video games are a great motivator for him. Thank goodness I have something to motivate him because he can be very stubborn about getting his way. I wonder which parent he takes after?

Archy doing his daily chore

Dyson-best vacuum ever! Good job Archer!

More of Those Dam Jumping Kids!

The kids have been begging to go back to Frye Mesa since we last went. We finally had a free day to go after the house was cleaned of course. It is such a pretty drive up to Frye Mesa and it is short enough that just as people are getting carsick we arrive. We drove a bit further this time to look at the waterfall and rock slide but it looked like it was a bit of a steep hike to get there so maybe when the kids are bigger we will go there. Archy was totally freaked out by the crawdads this time and didn't even want to put a toe in the water. There were way more crawdads last time I think people have been catching them quite a bit. There was a guy there who made custom traps just to catch them and had gotten quite a few.  I have never eaten one but they are awful tiny so I can't imagine they have very much meat on them.

I literally had to chase Archer down and drag him in the water. Once he got it in he realized they wouldn't pinch you and he began jumping off the dam and having fun. 

View from the shore

Zany and her pretzels 

She hung onto them the whole way there despite falling asleep a few times.

Eddy and Archy come to shore to get tubes, Quinton tried fishing again-no luck

Last time we were there Zany was asleep the whole time so this time she got to jump off the dam with Eddy for the first time ever. 

Preparing to jump

Off they go

Zany gets a ride back to shore. 

As far as she was concerned once was enough she wouldn't do it again.

Quinton on rock face preparing to jump (from a little lower down).

Zany, Rhiannon, Eddy enjoying a float

This is my prefered activity a nice float on a tube, Zany liked this much better than the dam jumping

Attempted synchronized jump=fail

Flashing the devil sign (Sundevils-ASU)

Due to the recent rains it is so lush and green on this mesa. Knee high grasses cover the flat mesa and wave rhythmically in the wind-quite mesmerizing.  

Frye Mesa overlooking the valley

It was a lovely outing!

Armageddon Continues in Duncan

We have had a lot to deal with the summer with the earthquake and a fairly active monsoon season. We are not out of the woods yet, though. We have our very own sink hole! In fact it is the first sinkhole I have ever seen with my own two eyes.  I am currently fascinated by sinkholes. They seem to be in the news a lot. 

Here you can auctaully see the poor woman still in her car, but according to the news, she was unhurt.

Be careful when in parking lots. A sinkhole can strike at anytime

Here is the corvette museum, where sadly 8 classic cars were lost to this behemoth.  I love that they considered keeping the hole as attendance has shot up. But in the end it was too expensive.

Here it is! This sinkhole is in the parking lot of Family Dollar (Duncan Mall as Pa calls it). In fact it has grown a bit. I will post an update later today. I won't park at all near to it nor will I let anyone who is driving me around (mostly Nona) do it either.  We also have a lot of cars in the area with a slight oil leak as it appears.

HeroesNGoats: Our Fantasy Football League

 About halfway through the NFL football season I always lament that we didn't do a family fantasy football league. This year is different as I got my ducks in a row and we made our own fantasy football league.  Our league is named HeroesNGoats because my dad's favorite phrase to say when watching football and someone doesn't make a big play is, "Ah, he could have been the hero but now he is the goat." We have eight teams in our league. I decorated the mantle with the chosen team names and logos (I just printed out on cardstock the name with a clip art picture and then drew ruler lines to cut them out since they were various sizes and couldn't all be the same.)  I also trotted out Eddy's elementary football team and my dad's ninth grade football team pictures for decoration.

Teams with a few name changes:

Ashlee: formerly Ashlanders now Ash's Awesome Possums

McCoy: formerly Ninja Mohawks now Mohawk Ninjas

Declan: Dark Knights

Rhiannon: Hooliganders

Pa: Headhunters

Quinton: formerly Power Players now Power Playaz

Eddy: Devilbackers

Nona & Archer: formerly Eagle Agles now Eagle Agle Archers

I didn't think Archer would want to do the league and so he didn't have a team. During the draft he kept trying to download the NFL draft app and he was really sad to miss out on the fun so Nona is sharing her team with him. In fact when he heard that he had a team with Nona he quickly got on his kindle and dutifully looked at each of his players pictures and if he could read he probably would have read their bios and stats.

We do have simple prizes to be won: 1st place $10.00, 2nd place $5.00, 3rd place candy bar of your choice.  There will be a traveling trophy that the victor will get to keep for a year. 

(The fantasy league we are doing is free but I thought I throw a few prizes in the mix for fun.)

Framed prizes and Eddy's childhood football team photo

Pa's ninth grade football team

 I had never done a fantasy draft and wasn't sure what to plan for food wise. We did a live draft with Pa, Nona, and Ashlee at their house while we were at our house but we had our phone connected on speaker phone. The draft is so intense and fast you really can't eat anything during it but you can have food before and after. We had chili with all the toppings and some cookies and nibbles after.

Very intense drafting going on here.

Photos with team pennants

 The computer grades each team drafts with letter grades and does a brief summary about the highs and lows of your picks. Nona didn't/couldn't get signed in in time and so the computer picked for her while the rest of us just picked for ourselves. Wouldn't you know the biased computer gave her drafting an A+ and picked her team to win with league, well, we shall see.

Game On!

A New Collection

Well if you know my sister and I, you are probably aware we love to go to thrift stores and yard sales. We think it is funner if you have something to collect. We were at a church rummage sale I believe when I found the below two cuties. Even though one had a broken candelabra I had to to have them. I got them both for only$1.50! We have a saying that in order to have a collection of any sort you need three items. Luckily I knew that we had a nun doll wearing a crocheted outfit at our store when I then took to begin my collection.

The Sweet blue wearing nun my sister Rhi was kind enough to by me when she happended to be at a yard sale without me. The left nun was from our store.

So this fellow was just so cute, that I felt my collection could be all inclusive and add monks to my display. He is actually a mug, we found him on our recent trip to Tucson.

Here is my growing collection,  The nun on the far right was also found on our Tucson trip. I think I need some more monks to balance it out though!

What They Wore-the well ones

As sickness seems to go in families from one family member to another more of us were struck down by the cold Archer had last Sunday. The well ones (Eddy and Declan) pictured below were photographed but I didn't take of photo of the remainder in their pjs. Eddy was giving me a hard time for missing two Sundays in a row but I said he could have stayed home and cleaned. He rather wouldn't are you surprised?

The most fun we have had around here over the weekend is deep cleaning boy bedrooms.  It seems we are always having to do this every month or two. The main difficulty is they keep outgrowing things and they are spaced just too far apart to immediately hand down the too small clothes instead I have to pack them up for a year or two and then drag them back out.  When we were packing up Quinton's to small stuff Eddy wildly said, "Just get rid of it all and we will buy Declan "new"stuff."  I was shocked and replied, "So you want to get rid of all these shoes and clothes that Declan will probably wear in a year?"  Eddy rejoins, "We can just get it at the thrift store how much could it be." I explain, "Quite a bit actually even at thrift store prices it all adds up and I am afraid teacher families don't have that luxury so get the bin and we will pack it up and put it in the shed."

I would love to get rid of things as soon as one kid outgrows it but instead I have whole shed full of shoes and clothes just waiting to fit the next kid in line. Blah, someday we will be able to chuck it out but not today!

Eddy and Declan (in hat)

You may find Eddy celebrating labor day by trying to fit all those bins of clothes in the shed.

                                                                    Happy Labor Day!