This week was actually very busy. And I have a lot of pictures to show you.
Older:
This is a picture from my birthday party. It is a little olds. Please excuse the lack of clothing.
Friday:
Friday was the Fairytale ball at the Public Library. Alice got all dressed up to go and Buddy decided that he wanted to get dressed up too. You cannot see very easily, but Buddy is wearing two pairs of pants. One of them is correct and the other is kind of twisted. He put them both on by himself. and waddled around like that until it was time to go.
He decided that he also wanted a "Hat" like his silly big sister (2 pictures up).
There was a puppet show.
And dancing, although this action shots in bad lighting is kind of fuzzy.
Saturday:
On Saturday we worked outside in the yard. It was wonderful weather. We finished putting together the raised beds. We put in a border around it to hold the giant pile of mulch that is blocking our driveway. And we planted 6 fruit trees, 2 peach, 2 apple, and 2 pare. Our soil here is very high in clay, so we bought 480 lbs of composted cow manure and top soil to help give the trees a good start. The yard is starting to look good.
The following are some Christmas pictures that were missed from previous posts. Most of them are from my phone so the quality is not very good. Sorry about that.
What we do on Christmas day when we don't have much else to do.
It has been a long time since I posted anything. That is because we have been on vacation, like Susan said. I was not a 3 week vacation, although it kind of felt that way. The last Sunday before we left I did not write for two reasons. First is that I was the only member of the Bishopric in town that day so I had to run a fair amount of church myself. That is not a big deal but it was time consuming. Second we left on our trip shortly after getting back from church. We had booked a cheap flight out of Indianapolis early Monday morning, but we forgot about the time change, and did not really factor everything in. There was just no way that we were going to wake up at 3 am to get to Indi on time so we stayed that night in a hotel. It was not ideal but it worked out.
We did a tone of things while we were out west. I cannot really tell you about all of them. But I will post the pictures and things that I can. I don't have a lot because I don't know where the camera is. We came home and there were a few people who wanted to look at the house, so we hurried and cleaned up. And I don't know where the camera got placed in all the cleaning. These pictures/videos are from my phone.
This is Alice sitting in a fake Chickens nest at a childrens part of the Idaho falls zoo.
This is Alice riding a horse for the first time ever. We have one of Robert too, but that is on the camera. She did this a Pioneer Village at This is the place monument in Salt Lake City.
Here is Alice and Robert Panning for "Gold." It really is fools gold so the banter that you hear in the video about how much per ounce is nothing. This is in the Pioneer Village at this is the place monument in Salt Lake City.
This out of this world looking video is actually Robert staring at a Monkey sunning itself (Again at the zoo in Idaho). This boy loves animals, this particular animal just looks like it is from another planet.
As for what happened this week. Well not a lot. It was a fairly normal week trying to recover from vacation. I read a lot of e-mail at work and everyone tried to catch up on their sleep.
Well, this week was very busy, with the 4th of July and all. The 4th was a very busy day.
We had a ward Lunch/BBQ. There were lots of games.
Some of them were water games.
After that we went home, and invited another family in our ward over. They have three boys Alice's age.
Finally we went to see the fireworks. Alice was very excited to see the fireworks, but they freaked her out. We had good seats, and she felt like they were going to fall on us. Poor girl. So we came home early.
The next day we went to the zoo in Decatur. It is a little zoo, but it was fun. Robert loves animals and I was hoping he would get really excited about it. He liked looking at the animals and petting some goats at the petting zoo, but he didn't get as excited as I had hoped.
They also have a playground to play on next to the zoo, which he did like a lot, probably because he loves to climb.
This week has been slowly returning to normal. Susan is back from her trip to North Carolina and we are starting to get back into our routine. Yesterday I had a first. A friend of ours had a piano with a cracked soundboard. So the piano would never be in tune and it was more expensive to fix it then the piano was worth. So we loaded it up into their minivan and took it to the dump. It was a bit of an adventure because the first dump we tried, the one in town that they called up yesterday to confirm that they would be open, was closed. So we adjusted last minute and went to a landfill half an hour away, and got there just a few mins before they closed. Alice was happy that she could spend all morning playing with her friends instead of just an hour. Susan was a the Family History Center the entire time so it really didn't impact her.
When you drop a piano into a large dumpster and it shatters it makes the sound I expected it to make.
Well, it has been two weeks since I last wrote. This is because last week we spent in Utah at my brother's wedding. Sadly we didn't take a lot of pictures. We didn't steal too many from others just yet, so once we get them we may post some more. One of the highlights of the wedding was the reception. Susan and Robert were not feeling too well so they stayed at her parents while I took Alice. The following are of her dancing with her cousins. The first one after the audio cuts out is Alice trying to kiss her cousin, and me telling her kissing him on the lips is not the best idea. She was not too happy about that.
At the party she ate 2 huge pieces of wedding cake. Had lemonade (the best thing in the world in her opinion) and had a large plate of fruit, and chocolate covered treats. She had a wonderful time. When it was time for us to go home, she cried for half a hour she was so sad to leave.
We also got to spend easter with Susan's family. Alice loved it too. She got to go on an eater egg hunt with her cousins, and got a huge bag of candy. Robert didn't quite get it al, but he still picked up three eggs.
We did get to spend some time with my parents too, who are on a mission in Salt Lake City.
The top one is Alice pushing Robert on top of the Church administration building in down town Salt Lake City.
This week has been a long week. My birthday was this week, but because we have had so much going on each day, we have celebrated it some what piecemeal. We went out to dinner on the day itself, because Susan had so much going on that day she didn't have time to make the requested birthday dinner. Later I made my birthday pie.
And finally we made my birthday dinner. We had everything for it, just not a lot of time for dinner.
Yesterday was a very busy day. We are getting our house ready to put it on the market, and would like to put it out in about a week. So we spent Saturday getting some things ready. We panted Robert's room. It hasn't been painted since we moved in, and it wasn't in the best shape when we did move in. I also installed two new light fixtures in the halls. Wow it makes a big difference with the light level in there. And then just a bunch of general things around the house. The whole house is starting to look ready. We still have a lot of clutter to remove, and a few more minor things to finish up, but it is very close.
This week has been very crazy. Well the last few days have been crazy. Alice had her birthday party yesterday. She was so excited all week and especially in the morning. It was very hard for her to wait until 3:00 for the party to start. The party consisted of cake and ice cream.
WHAT?! There was a whole lot more goin' on than cake and ice cream! Weeks ago, Alice and I started putting the plans together. She decided on a pinata, a cake she would serve her friends all by herself, and an activity ("not a craft, Mom, an activity"). I decided on goody bags and made a crazy goal to put on a 4-year-old birthday party that would produce "zero landfill waste." Alice consented to the goody bags, selected the fabric, and helped with the design (back pack!), but they were stuffed with secret surprises that only I knew about. Mwah ha ha haaaa. Those were SO much fun to put together. I loved it.
Alice decorated the cake herself.
The original "plan" was a fuzzy pink spider cake, but the girlie gets into something and changes her mind all the time. We were at the store picking out candy (in the bulk section) and she still hadn't completely decided on her cake. The night before the party, she settled on a self-portrait cake. I didn't complain. A plain old circle is way easier than a cephalothorax, abdomen, and eight fuzzy legs cake.
It had lots and lots of candy on it, which was exactly what all of her friends (and Alice) wanted. They would ask for pieces of cake by the candy on top of it.
She did end up divvying out most of the pieces herself. She got impatient, though, after serving the 5th piece of cake and seeing the other kids eating theirs.It was a whole wheat super-carrot cake. I had to somehow counteract all the frosting and candy going on, right? ;)
Sorry about the video quality.
Alice requested it be "dark, dark, dark" in the kitchen, so we had the lights off and the curtains drawn. It still wasn't very dark at 3 in the afternoon, but I humored the girl.
It started out as a self portrait (see her design below), but then became a "Zombi".
"Zombie" was Alice's own description of her work. To her credit, Alice actually did a great job copying her original design onto the cake in candy. Unfortunately, we had a lot more candy than the self-portrait required and she just couldn't stop. I did snap a photo of the cake before it went "Zombie." I should also explain that she doesn't normally have 6 limbs. There are her two arms and two legs, then the long ones at her hips are "bad guy arms stretching out to get me." The blob on top is a "crazy hat!"
After that they did a dancing/movement activity. They jumped and spun and had lots of fun, which also is perfectly Alice.
I was very, very happy with how this turned out. I asked my friend Marianne to do the activity for us (delegation rocks!) and she put on a 20-minute creative dance class. Very cool! The games were spot-on for the age group. Every single child participated gleefully, regardless of dance experience. It cracked me up! I laughed out loud seeing the kids have so much fun.
Confession here. When I first met Marianne and heard that she was into creative dance, I just kinda nodded and smiled with a non-committal "Oh, I see." Dance seemed so, well, frivolous and unconnected to anything I ever wanted for me or my children. Then we happened to be over at their house one day when she was giving her kids their weekly dance class. Alice didn't get it, but she wanted to. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. It was a series of fun and active games, using the kids imagination, where each kid gets to choose his/her own movements and yet they're all still part of the same game. It blew me away. I instantly gained respect for children's creative dance and an instructor who can turn enthusiasm and personality into a group fun session.
After that we did a piñata. The kids were not the strongest, and it was fairly well made, so everyone got lots of turns to try and break it open.
The original idea for the pinata was a fuzzy pink spider, too. We made the papier-mache ball ourselves, then started cutting out legs for the spider. Alice was eager to start painting. I told her we couldn't paint until we were all done putting on the legs. She decided two legs were plenty. Maybe I should have made her wait for 6 more legs. Oh well. Next time. Here she is painting it every color we have (and some we mixed up on the spot). She put on a purple spot and I told her Grandma Poulson loves that shade of purple. Alice was sad Grandma wouldn't be at her party. A few days later, we learned of Bobby's new calling and suddenly Grandma and Grandpa Poulson were coming out to Illinois...just in time for her party. I can't picture a calling to the bishopric as a "tender mercy", but the Lord knows how to make hard news more palatable ;)
After that the weather was good enough that they all played out side until it was time to go home. Everyone had a great time.
I liked this part a lot. The idea was to have unstructured free play built into the party. I'm so glad the weather allowed them to play outside. Kids were lugging around fallen tree branches, digging in the garden, playing pirates, chasing balls, tromping through the brush, and just plain enjoying each other. Robert wanted in on the action, too.
Oh and by the way I am now the second counselor in the Bishopric.
P.S. I loved having my parents in town for the weekend. As an added surprise, my friend Julia was able to visit for the weekend, too! There was ample adult help and lots of adult conversation and plenty of people to play with the kids. I actually got a break! A real break!
P.P.S I have three extra backpack/bags leftover from Alice's birthday surprise. How about a giveaway? Details to come soon. I have to figure out what to fill them with...most of the original party favors are gone. Hmmmmm.
A lot has happened this week. Robert has started walking a lot more. He now walks short distances by choice. Before he would only walk a little ways if we stood him up and and encouraged him.
Robert also got his first real haircut yesterday. It was just clippers around hit head and some trimming over his ears. He looks different now, a bit like a crewcut.
Yes Robert's eyes are a little bit red. The whole family has been a bit sick the last several weeks. I think we are finally getting over it, but it is still not that much fun. Especially the lack of sleep.
This week we also made valentines. Alice had fun decorating them and writing the names of the kids in her preschool class on them.
This week was a crazy week. It started out with us going to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins, and to carve a jack-o-lantern.
We ended up with a 2 faced pumpkin. One Alice drew and one I did.
Alice is addicted to candy. Last night our ward had their annual halloween party. Alice got a fairly good haul of candy from the Trunk-or-Treat part. Well in the car, and the entire time she has been awake she has been interacting with the candy. She has been planning out what she will eat and when she will eat it, because she doesn't get to eat it all at once. She has gone through the basket several times asking about the flavor and type of each of the candies so she knows all about them when making the proper decision on what to eat.
The party was more then just a trunk or treat, there were also some games, and lots of fun costumes. Robert was supposed to be the Pillsbury Dough Boy. But we were too tired from out temple trip that day to finish it, so he was just a baker.
Alice was a turtle. She was originally going to be a princes. But she decided that she wanted to be something else, and put on things from her dress-up box.
This week was mostly a normal week, but we did have some fun. Alice and Robert were goofing off with a laundry basket, and some old cloths. Alice still thinks that she fits in some of them.
We also did out annual pilgrimage to Arthur Illinois of the International Cheese Curling Competition, which is part of the cheese festival. I waved my chance to compete so that Alice could take a turn. The first video is her practice roll. The second one that is fuzzy is when it really counts. But she did a perfect roll and got 4 points. For those who don't know cheese curling is when you roll a 4 pond wheel of cheese at a target and your teammate with a broom directs it towards the target. Below is a picture of the team. they got 11 points out of 12, and almost won, except for one member of the team that abandoned them to help out a team that was a player short that got 12. Susan was quite disappointed to have missed out on the free t-shirt, the picture in the local paper and bragging rights. But I think she is OK now.
Sorry about the missing posts the past few weeks. We have been on vacation. It was a long vacation visiting most of our family out west.
We flew through the Detroit airport. But the bad weather in Detroit that day shut down the airport for 45 min. This delayed our flight in by about an hour, but our flight out was about 4 hours late. I really love how the airlines do it with delays, They don't actually mark a flight as delayed or even give any hint that it might be delayed until the plane has already missed the original time, and then they only updated it once, which turned out to be way off. However, there was a very nice guy who works for the airline that helped us out deciding if we had any hope of catching the last flight from Detroit to SLC that day. He was very confident that everything would be delayed and we did manage to get to SLC, just at about 2 AM. We spent a long time in the airport there.
Here is a tunnel that runs under the runway between the terminals. You cannot hear it but they are playing music that is synchronized with the walls.
Once we got there we visited just about everyone. I will be posting more pictures soon
This week was a somewhat normal week. At least until Saturday. Saturday we had a very busy day. We woke up early and went to go pick blueberries. These were perfectly ripe berries and many of them tasted like eating a piece of blueberry pie or jam without any sugar added. It was wonderful. On the ride back we kept hearing from the back seat where Alice and the bags of blueberries were rustle rustle rustle, munch munch munch. We all munched a pit on the way home but we think Alice ate a whole half pound of berries by herself. She was very happy.
After we got back Will and Kayla, Alice's cousins came over to play. They had a great time.
All this week Robert has been working on his hand eye coordination. The following are several clips of him. I really love the look on his face in the first one. I always imagine it is part of a bad kung-fu movie and he is saying "You have insulted my family and my honor. Now the fist of death will take care of you."
And now just for fun a picture of us all in red. Alice noticed that Robert and I had both picked red cloths on Friday and quickly changed her cloths to match us.
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