Jantzen's Spring Music Program...2012

Jantzen had his spring music program at school yesterday and today. When I went to go watch him yesterday he didn't really do much singing, but today was different...he actually sang and did the actions.

I got a few pictures of Jantzen with his friend, Jose, before they started singing. As you can see, he wasn't too thrilled about the whole singing thing...

These pictures are a little blurry because I took them off the videos I recorded of Jantzen singing.

The first song they sang was "How to Make Popcorn", but for some reason I didn't get it recorded. This is Jantzen singing "RB the Robot Man". He did a lot more laughing with Jose than he did singing...


Then he sang "Ladybugs' Picnic", Jaedyn loved this song. He's been singing this song with her at home for the last week...




The next song he sang was "Caribbean Amphibian". I'm not sure what was going on with Jantzen and Jose in the 2nd picture, but it did make me laugh...


This next song made me laugh so hard (when I actually watched the video at home). The song was "Happiest Street in the World". It wasn't the actual song that made me laugh, it was what happened during it that made me laugh. For one thing, in the bottom left hand picture Jantzen was doing weird things to Jose that were making him laugh, but that wasn't the funny part. The funny part was...


...in this first picture. Can you see the little girl in the row in front of Jantzen and the dirty look she's giving him? Well, let me tell you why she's doing that. She was being REALLY loud during the song, so Jantzen told her to "shhhh". She then turned around and gave him the dirtiest look and he just looked right back at her. Then both him and Jose looked at each other and laughed. It's a lot funnier watching the video than just hearing about it. Even after watching it several times, I still laugh so hard! Then, in the bottom pictures I caught Jantzen seriously goofing around!


Jantzen then sang "Dance Myself to Sleep". I think he was really ready to go to sleep. This was their third performance and it was the end of the day, so he was tired...


He ended his portion of the music program singing "You're a Grand Old Flag". I think he really liked this song, or at at least he liked waving a flag around the whole time...


I'm happy that I was able to go to more than one of Jantzen's music programs. He likes it when I come to support him at school functions and I like being there too. He did a really good job singing in the last performance and I like that I got a good laugh out of it and will continue to for a long time.

Solar Eclipse

Yesterday we were able to experience a solar eclipse. I've seen one before with my dad when I was a little girl, but this was the first time with my own family. My boys were so excited. Jaron kept track of time to make sure we didn't miss it. When the time for it to start came around we all went outside. Unfortunately we weren't able to get our hands on the special glasses to see it, so we improvised a little. Josh heard that you could see it through a CD, so that's what we did...

...it actually worked pretty good and we didn't damage our eyes in the process.

I tried to get a picture of the eclipse with my camera, but I don't have a special lens and this was all I could get (if you look above the sun, there's a reversed image of the eclipse)...


I was pretty bummed that I couldn't get a good picture of the eclipse and then Josh had a good idea. He suggested we put the CD up to my camera lens and take a picture that way. Guess what? It worked awesome! Here's the results...


I was so excited to get a picture of the sun and moon before the eclipse was over.

Here's my kids hanging out with the eclipse. Isn't Jaron so cool?!?!


Jantzen had fun watching the eclipse with Jaedyn. She had to give me her favorite camera face...


The kids had a blast playing outside while watching the solar eclipse. They thought it was so cool and I'm so happy that we were all able to see it and experience this together.

Now I Know My ABC's...

Jaedyn loves to sing and one of her favorite songs to sing is the ABC song. She's getting so good at it. Today at dinner I recorded her singing it because she kept doing it over and over, it was so cute!

I took some pictures off the video, so they're not the greatest quality, but they were parts in the video that I thought were the cutest.

This is how Jaedyn sings the ABC song...

A B C D E F G H I "JARON"...this is where she said Jaron's name for the letter "J"...

...K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y and Z, now I know my ABC's next time won't you sing with ME!...


...YAY!!


Here's the video if you actually want to hear Jaedyn singing...it's very cute.



I love hearing Jaedyn sing!

Pinewood Derby...2012

Today Jaron had his final cub scout pinewood derby race. He thought it would be more fun to have his car look good rather than make it to win, so he decided to make his car a truck this year. It was nice that he had that attitude about it because he'd enjoy the race more that way.

Josh helped Jaron cut out his truck with his new saw I gave him...

...while Jaedyn entertained the rest of us...


After his truck was all cut out and sanded, Jaron painted it red...


When it was all dry, I helped paint the rest of the truck. I painted windows and a "FOX" symbol on the hood. Then, Josh added the dirt bike in the back (yes, it's a "HONDA", of course) complete with a "strap" to hold it down.

I got a quick picture of Jaron with his truck before we left for the race...


Here's a close up of Jaron's truck. I think it turned out pretty awesome!


When we got to the church, Josh found out that he had way too much weight on the truck (3 oz. too much), so he had to perform a little surgery on it before Jaron could race it...




He finally got it down to the 5 oz. weight limit barely in time for the races to start.

Here's Jaron anxiously waiting with Kaiden and Keagan for the races to begin...


I'm still trying to figure out how to get action shots with my camera, so not many of the pictures I took of Jaron's truck racing turned out. This is really the only one that doesn't look like a red blur. It's at the finish line of one of his races. His truck took 3rd place with every race he did...he was happy with that!

On a side note, The cub scout leader in charge of racing the cars complimented Jaron on his truck. His exact words were, "That's sweet!". Several other people also commented on how cool his truck looked. No one else got compliments like that for their cars, so Jaron felt so happy even though his truck didn't win. He accomplished what he was trying to do, make it look good!


These are all the cub scouts in our ward that participated in the pinewood derby this year...(Kaiden, Keagan, Ethan, Jaron, Caleb, and Bryce)...


After the races were all over, the cub scout leaders let Jaron, Keagan, and Kaiden race their cars for fun until the next group of races began. Jaron was happy because his truck won every race...


After a couple races, Jantzen wanted to join in, so he added his pinewood derby car (the far left with the yellow stripe) that Jaron made for him a couple years ago. His car took 3rd every time and he was so happy!


The boys all had a good time racing their cars. Jantzen only has a couple more years before he'll be able to really race a car with the scouts, he can't wait.

After the race, Josh took the boys to see "The Avengers". They've all been dying to see this movie and they all said it was "Awesome!".


So, I guess it was a pretty "awesome" day all around.

Naptime!

This afternoon I caught Josh taking a little nap in Jantzen's chair with his new snuggle buddies when he was supposed to be hanging out with Jaedyn, so I decided to take a picture. He woke up after and didn't think that was nice, but I thought it was funny because Jaedyn put her Minnie Mouse and monkey on his lap to cuddle with. What a sweet girl she is to share her toys with her sleepy daddy. Notice how he's still holding on to his phone...

Jaedyn thought it was funny that I took a picture of her daddy sleeping, so she insisted I take one of her too. She took back her toys and pretended to be sleeping, but she had a hard time trying not to smile...


...she's so cute!

Mother's Day...2012

I had such a good mother's day this year. Josh and the kids actually surprised me this year with some awesome gifts (I usually go buy my own gifts if I want anything). Before church they handed me a gift bag and I got so excited because I didn't know what was inside.

Inside were some cute cards, a couple chick flicks, and a curling iron I've been wanting for a long time (it's not in the package because I used it on my hair for church). Jantzen also made me some cute things at school complete with a personalized gift bag...

I did order something for myself though (before mother's day) because I usually do and I have been wanting them for a very long time. Plus, my whole family knows how much I LOVE shoes, especially wedges. Unfortunately the color (shown) wasn't what the actual color looked like (insert sad face here), so I exchanged them for the black pair that I am now waiting to have delivered to me. I can't wait...they are so comfortable and sooo cute!


Here's a close up of the card Josh gave to me. I laughed when I opened it. He's never given me a card that is all sweet and mushy, he always picks out the funny/borderline dirty ones. That's okay, I love them!


Here's the card I got from my awesome kids. I was told that Jantzen was trying to pick out a "Toy Story" card for me, but Jaron said no. I like this one, I can tell Josh helped them pick it out...




This is a "Recipe for a Great Mom" flowering pot that Jantzen made for me. I loved all the information he wrote on it...


...and this was a coupon book he made for me. I had to get a picture of this particular coupon because when I read it out loud I told him that I was definitely going to cash this one in and he said, "Oh crap! Can I take that one out?". I quickly replied with a "No!"...it's a keeper!


I'm so happy and grateful that I get to be a mom to these little angels. Even though they try my patience at times, I still love them more than anything in the world and I can't imagine my life without them in it.


I feel so blessed to be able to be a stay home mom and to be involved in my children's lives, thank you Josh for being such a hard worker to make that possible. Being a mom is the greatest job ever!

Father/Son Campout

Last night Josh took the boys on a father/son camp out with our ward. Jaron and Jantzen were so excited to go, they love camping and we didn't go at all last summer. After they got out of school, they packed up the car and headed to Mt. Charleston for the night.

I asked Josh to get some pictures of all of them up there since I wouldn't be there to do it and this is all I got...just some pics of the boys hiking and goofing around, but no pictures of himself with the boys. I guess that's okay because Jaron and Jantzen looked like they were having a fun time with their friends...

The boys told me they did a lot of hiking and loved it. Another thing they got to do was shoot guns. Jaron was super excited for this part of the camp out. Josh took up some of his guns and both the boys got to shoot them. Jantzen didn't really say much about shooting the guns, but Jaron told me all about it. He shot a 22 caliber hand gun that he said is his new favorite gun...he LOVED it!

This is him shooting it...




The boys all said they had a fun time and they can't wait to go camping again. We'll for sure go this summer because it's nice to get out of this heat!

Helpful Little Sister!!

Little sisters are the best! Okay, so Jaron and Jantzen didn't really think so on this particular day a few weeks ago.

My kids love to put puzzles together and every once in a while they get the desire to bring out every one they own and put all of them together on the kitchen floor. The boys even let Jaedyn join them this time and they all seemed to have a blast. I loved that they were all getting along! When Jaron and Jantzen were done with all the puzzles they made the mistake of leaving them out instead of putting them away. When they left the room Jaedyn started having some fun of her own. She put all the puzzles, that's right, every single piece from every puzzle in the same drawer and mixed them together very well.

Just look at that sweet face, she was so proud of herself for putting them away...

Here Jaedyn's saying, "Yay, I'm such a good helper!"...not according to your brothers you're not.


And then she realized, "Uh oh!"...


Here she said, "This is a puzzle"...yes it is and you're so cute!


Jaron and Jantzen got so frustrated when they saw their puzzles, but it's their own fault for leaving them out. Now they get to have fun separating them.

I really think Jaedyn was just trying to help her brothers clean up the puzzles in her own way, so you can't really get mad at her for that...you should just laugh, like I did!