Sweet Dreams brought to you by Hasbro

Okay, by now, most of you know of or have witnessed first hand Adam's extreme love of Transformers. You may not know of Adam's sleepwalking habits. (now you do!) This happened last night and I thought it was really funny. Around midnight I heard Adam calling me, and usually that means he is going to be up and walking around if I don't make sure he stays in bed. When I went in his room, he said "Hi Mom, did you know that Blackout's propellers fold back so that you can transform him?" He then started mumbling about how to fully transform him and then he laid his head on the pillow and rolled over. It was really funny, but I couldn't laugh or it would really wake him up. What a funny kid.

America's Got Talent (Or Melanie doesn't really need to do anything productive with her time)

I never got on the American Idol bandwagon or the dancing shows, but I am hooked on America's Got Talent! Right now they are narrowing down the finalists and they are all amazing. It's crazy to see how talented people are. Plus, all the cracks at "The Hoff" are funny. At work, we just did an art festival and my entry...oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Yes, that was the best I could do, but they are mighty tasty! These are the ones where Melissa, Michelle, Matt and I would make a batch, and it generally wouldn't even get to the baking stage because we would eat the dough first. My kids love the dough as well, and it's good that I can bring in all the extras for my agents at work to help me get rid of these. If not, I'd be eating 4 dozen cookies on my own and I could! haha!

It's about time!

Okay, I know, I know, I'm the definition of slacker. Or...maybe I just wanted to memorialize the King of Pop by having everyone see the one movie Michael Jackson was in as a tribute. You make the call. Quite a bit has happened over the last few months. Let me try to sum it up as quickly as possible.
May: My sweet Grandpa Soulier passed away. I miss him a lot. He was such an amazing man and I am so proud that he was my Grandpa. We spoke at the funeral which was very difficult, but we made it. Matt was nearby just in case one of the girls went down. Mark was given one of Grandpa's blazers which fit him perfectly. The kids were excited to finish up the school year. Adam had a great part in his school cowboy program. He even sang a solo! I have a copy of it for anyone who would like to see it. The video is a little shaky because I was crying the whole time- it was darling! We also bit the bullet and had a new furnace and central air unit installed. Bye, bye swamp cooler! I think this was the best decision we've made and we're really enjoying it on the 100+ days! My only problem- why did we wait so long???
June: Our first camping trip of the season to Little Mill in American Fork Canyon. It was really windy and we even took Rudy along with us. He was quite worried about all the blowing smoke but loved it. The kids had a great time fishing at Tibble Fork. Adam got a new fishing pole and Ashley had so much fun, we'll end up getting her one as well.
July: Our downstairs bathroom addition is moving along. Mark and his friend worked on the plumbing, and now it's just about ready to have the sheetrock and then tile done. It's a big project and we've got another bathroom so we're not moving as quickly as the other ones we've done in the past. We also went to Lagoon with my parents last week. It was so much fun! Mark and Ashley love all the scary rides so I usually stay behind with Adam. In another year or two, he'll really want to go on all the rides. I was surprised that he wouldn't go on Colussus, but his favorite ride was the Jetstar- aka the whiplash ride (or the drool ride- don't ask...). After talking mom into realizing the Rocket wouldn't hurt her ribs, her and Ashley rode it, and then she found us later on to ride it with Ashley again! I'm sure Ashley thought she had the coolest grandma to be riding along with her on all those rides that I wouldn't even go on! :) It was really hot that day, but it was such a good time. No long lines and lots of fun with the family. It couldn't get any better than that. At the beginning of the month, we went camping to Lodgepole Campground right at Daniel's Summit. Mark and I were commenting that it was probably the best camping that we've had so far. It was perfect. I can't wait to go again. Speaking of camping again- we'll be going to Whiting Campground this weekend.
I think that's about the highlights in a nutshell. I'll try to update my blog more often. I'm sure I'll have a lot of updates with Ashley starting high school next month!! Ahhh!!!!

Ease on down the road

Last night, we saw Ashley in the musical "The Wiz" at Eastmont. For those of you that aren't a child of the 70's, or a fan of Michael Jackson when he had a nose, the Wiz is a creepy Motown version of the Wizard of Oz. I can gladly say the play was much better than the movie. Ashley was cast as a slave and an Emerald City person. The Emerald City cast all had to wear green dresses. Ashley, apparently, got to wear someone's 80's prom dress just minus the lace. It was so funny!!! Ashley said it was a horrible dress, and she wasn't kidding!!! The other highlight of the play was when they showed a large painted picture of the Wiz on one of the backdrops. I guess Bob Ross is the Wiz. And over here we'll paint some happy little munchkins, and over here a happy little scarecrow. It was hilarious. The night was great- Ashley really had a lot of fun rehearsing and now she's excited that the performances are finally here. There will be shows tonight and Monday night if you want a chance to see some motown magic. :)

Happy Birthday Adam!

Adam turned 9 on February 17th. He had a lot of fun and got lots of great toys that have kept him very busy. Some of the highlights from his loot this year are Baukugan toys (I guess they are all the rage with boys his age) a King Arthur Viking ship and a huge Bionicle set. Adam is so good at putting things together. He will sit still for hours reading instruction sets on how to create the masterpieces. I am so impressed with his patience! Hmmm....I wonder where he got that skill from. :) Mark sits and smiles as he watches him work on those- too proud of him to speak. (I had to throw in a little Shel Silverstein reference in there.) If I ever tell him to take a little break, he tells me "No mommy, I'm not giving up!" I admire his determination, but it's off to bed at some point. Another great gift was a book from Melissa- The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He has been loving it! Any time I can get Adam interested in a book or something other than a video game is good news! It's a really funny book and he's looking forward to finishing it so he can start on the other ones in the series. Thanks to everyone for helping to make Adam's bday such a great one!

They need a warning label on those things....

For Adam’s 9th birthday party, we invited a couple of his friends to celebrate at Nickelcade. They had a blast! It was like a mini-Vegas casino the way the boys were dropping nickels in two at a time. The best thing about the party was the fact that I didn’t have to clean up after it, and the boys didn’t gang up on Ashley and torment her. She really appreciated that little bit. At the party, each kid got a bag of goodies. In the bag was a cute little mini-stapler. Adam wanted to play with it when we got home. I guess Adam was having a hard time loading it, because a few minutes later I hear him crying. When I ran to see what happened, I noticed a little staple sticking out of his thumb. It was a little funny, and luckily he was fine so we bandaged him up and off we went. Or so I thought… A couple minutes later I see Mark staring at this thumb. This time, the mini-staple went all the way in with both prongs. Ashley and I, being really caring and all, laughed and laughed and laughed. I have to say it was probably the funniest thing I saw that day especially since we just saw that happen to Adam minutes before. So, make sure your tetanus shots are updated before playing with mini staplers. And, bring lots of nickels to Nickelcade.

Jazz hands!

For Adam’s birthday, one of his gifts that he really, really wanted was a new kitten. We weren’t sure about dealing with a new kitty, but we agreed to a 10 month old cat. She’s cute, but not too young. Adam named her Jazz. It was only fitting since Potter and Rudy are named after movie characters. If you don’t know where Jazz came from, it’s not his love of Utah’s basketball team, or even some good soul music, but after Jazz in Transformers. Hey, it’s better than the other name he chose…Susan. Huh???