Oakley's buzz

Oakley's hair was getting long and I was getting ready to cut it.  I asked him if he wanted a shark boy haircut (faux hawk) or a buzz (I showed him an old picture of him with a buzz) He said,"All gone" and did a sweeping motion over the top of his head with his hand.  So I took off the attachment from the buzzers and took off his hair.  When I showed him what he looked like in the mirror I expected a reaction like what Owen does when he gets a buzz.  (He hides his head and says he looks weird.)  Oakley just beamed and said "All gone" and rubbed his head!  He was happy with his new hair cut.  I love it because it brings out his amazing eyelashes!  I just love this boy!

Owen's birthday party

Owen had a hard time deciding what he wanted to do for his birthday party this year.  He usually does a water party but he didn't want to do that.  He thought about going to the Payson pool but I told him he could only invite three friends if he wanted to do that.  He thought about it for a while and then decided that the didn't want to do that.  Finally he decided to do a movie party.  

He was so excited, he filled out all the invitations himself and passed them all out, well most of them.  There were two that we didn't get passed out, oops.  Time just slipped away from us.  Six boys showed up from four different families. Callen, Erik and Alex, Denver and Charlie, and Grayson.

We started out by eating pizza for dinner then Owen opened up presents.  Then they went outside and played while I cleaned up the kitchen to get it ready for cake and ice cream.  After cake and ice cream we started watching "Wreck it Ralph", the boys watched it up until the part Ralph crashes into Sugar Rush and they lost interest and they wanted to play outside again.  Morgan went outside and took pictures of them playing while I cleaned up the cake and ice cream mess.

Overall it was a fun party and a good thing Owen didn't decide to go to the Payson pool because I heard that it got shut down because of lightning. 

Raph's burial

Sadly ten days after we got the turtles, Raph died.  We are hoping that he just got too cold.  We didn't have a heater for the water and the tank was just sitting on the kitchen table.  After he died, I cleaned out the tank and we got a water heater.  We also moved the tank into Owen's room where it's warmer because of Ozone's tank and his lights.  Leo and Mikey seem happier and are swimming around more.  I hope they survive!

All of the kids were really bummed that he died but Owen was the most affected.  He was the only one who took the initiative to bury him.  

He chose a spot by the raspberries where it was poky so no cats or dogs would dig him up.  When he put him in the grave he tipped upside down.  Owen fixed him so he was right side up.  I thought that was very tender.  When Raph was covered up he found three sticks to mark his grave so we would remember where he was buried.  

He wants to dig him up in a few weeks, once the body has decomposed, and keep the shell.  I don't know how I feel about that so I'm hoping he'll forget. 

I love this sweet, thoughtful boy of mine!

Outside Fun

Our neighbors probably think we're crazy half of the time doing gymnastics and baseball in the front yard but hey, it's what the kids are into.  Morgan has been taking a tumbling class because she wanted to learn how to get better at her back kick over, she also wanted to learn how to do a front hand spring, back hand spring, back walk over and lots of things that I don't even know the names of and I wanted her to learn them in a safe environment.  

Well they must have done something in class along with lifting and learned this little trick.  They had fun lifting each other up.

Owen and Oakley played jump rope with a ghost for a little bit until Oakley didn't want to play anymore.

Reagan did a few cartwheels

Morgan had to practice her back bend walkover.  I'm sure at this point Addie and Grayson thought we had completely lost it!

Owen played a little baseball

Oakley fashioned his own little stick horse

Evenings are the best thing about the summer.  The air is cooling down, neighborhood kids are running around, the kids all play night games.  I am so glad that we live in the neighborhood that we do.  I feel safe letting my kids play in the dusk.  We love all of our neighbors and in the 21 homes in our neighborhood there are 60 kids and there's more to come!  There are no shortage of kids to play with, except for Bailey but she doesn't play anyway.  I'm so glad we live in this place, I know that we are meant to be here!

Reagan's 7th lost tooth

Reagan has two wiggly teeth.  The right was wiggly first and then the left but the left became wiggly faster!  She would wiggle it for a couple of days and then forget about it for a few days, she would wiggle it on and off for a while.  Finally the left tooth started getting very wiggly.  She would tell Dad that she thought that it was time to pull it.  She would get a paper towel and try to pull it herself first and then give the paper towel to Dad and let him try.  The tooth was loose but not quite loose enough.

Then Reagan was going to spend the night at Abi's house and the tooth was really loose.  She wanted to try to pull it out before she went to Abi's, we told her that we weren't sure the toothfairy would visit there and that she would have to wait a night anyway for her to visit.  She was okay with that.  So Dad tried again but it was hard to get his fingers in between the teeth because the tooth was kind of hidden by the front adult tooth.  I tried but my stomach gets queasy with the sounds the tooth makes when you wiggle it around but I tried to pull it but it was hard to get a good grip on it.  We decided that it was better to let it stay in and we would try again when she got home from her sleepover.

I guess once she got to Abi's house she started wiggling her tooth.  Rachel said she wiggled her tooth all night and into the morning and finally it was barely hanging on.  Abi and Kyara convinced Reagan to have Rachel pull it out.  Rachel pulled it out and not one drop of blood came with it, which is really weird, usually all you kids bleed a ton whenever you have lost a tooth.

Once she got home she put her tooth on a note card and wrote a note to the toothfairy asking for gum.  She woke up in the morning with a pack of watermelon Bubblicious under her pillow!

Owen's 9th Birthday

I can't believe that my first born boy is 9!  In just 10 short years he could be on his mission!  Wow!  Owen is such an awesome kid.  I love him so much and he is such a good big brother to Oakley and Reagan.  He protects them and helps them out.  Yes, he does tease them too, but that's just part of the job.  He's a good little brother too, especially with Bailey, he looks up to her and will do most anything she asks.  Morgan and him still butt heads, I think it's because their personalities are so alike and they are so close in age but when they get along it's awesome.  They are either best of friends or worst of enemies, more and more it's becoming best of friends.  

He didn't have a huge wish list.  He really just wanted a pair of head phones and a skateboard.  I decided to throw in some candy and a helmet, since all of our helmets are pretty shot.  He also got an iPhone, we had an upgrade and only had to pay $0.99 for all of the kids' iPhone's. 

 I wasn't quite sure what kind of skateboard he wanted so I just gave him a gift card to Wal-mart so he could pick out his own.  He was playing around with it later that day and into the next and I had a feeling that I should probably put it in my wallet but I pushed that feeling aside because he has always been so good with money and he had never lost money.  

The day after his birthday it was our turn to clean the church.  He had $20 from Grandma Holdaway in his pocket and the gift card.  We got to the church and went to the cleaning closet.  We got all the things sorted and Reagan found $20 on the floor of the cleaning closet, Owen checked his pockets, they were empty, the $20 was his.  I asked him where his gift card was and he told me that it was either in the car or at home.  We continued to clean the church.  

After we were done we went out to the car and his gift card wasn't there so he said it was at home.  We went home and dropped off the girls, he ran inside to get his gift card.  When he came out he said,"I'll just use the $20."  I told him that $20 wouldn't be enough, he would need the gift card too.  So we got out and had everyone search the house and tried to retrace his steps.  

We couldn't find it.  

We went back to the church to retrace his steps there but by that time there was a baby shower going on.  I decided to call Wal-mart and see if there was a way to replace it.  There was as long as it hadn't been used yet and I had the original receipt.  We drove over to Wal-mart and waited.  They used to have the gift card number printed right on the receipt but there was a lot of problems with people finding lost receipts and saying they lost gift cards and they would reissue gift cards, so they quit printing the numbers on the front.  Nobody that was working though knew how to find out if the gift card had been used yet or not.  We had to wait about an hour and had five different people helping us before we finally had Owen's gift card reissued!!

He was able to go and pick out the skateboard he wanted!

We got home and about twenty minutes later Reagan found his gift card under the counter!  I told him that's the way things usually work out!

When we got home I took a few birthday pictures of Owen.  The sun was super bright so he was pretty squinty.

We decided to wait a little bit and some storm clouds rolled in and covered the sun and I was able to get some good pictures.  I sure love this boy!