Interview with a 7 year old

1. What is your favorite color?

Green

2. What is your favorite toy?

Legos

3. What is your favorite fruit?

Oranges

4. What is your favorite TV show?

Shaun the Sheep

5.  What is your favorite movie?

Jurassic Park

6.  What is your least favorite chore?

Living Room

7. What is your favorite animal?

Horses
8. What is your favorite song?

I Am A Child Of God

9.  What is your favorite book?

Mercy Watson Series

10.  Who is your best friend?

Poeta

11.  What is your favorite dinner?

Cheese Burgers

12.  What is your favorite breakfast?

Bacon

13.  What is your favorite game?

Pokemon Card Game

14.  What is your favorite thing to play outside?

Frisbee

15.  What is your favorite holiday?

Thanksgiving
16.  What is your favorite subject in school?

Social Studies 
17. What is your goal for this year?

Not whining 

18. Do you think you reached your goal for last year?

My goal was to be smart about animals. I did reach my goal.

19.  What do you spend your time thinking about?

My parents

20.  What do you want to be when you grow up?

A zoologist 

Interview with a 8 Year Old

1. What is your favorite color?
Green
2. What is your favorite toy?
Legos
3. What is your favorite fruit?
Orange or apple
4. What is your favorite TV show?
Batman
5.  What is your favorite movie?

Mr. Peabody and Sherman

6.  What is your least favorite chore?
Dishwasher
7. What is your favorite animal?

Dog
8. What is your favorite song?
The Secret Life of Six by TMBG
9.  What is your favorite book?
Secrets of Droon series
10.  Who is your best friend?
Caleb Yeager
11.  What is your favorite dinner?
Chicken Tetrazinni
12.  What is your favorite breakfast?
Cinnamon Rolls
13.  What is your favorite game?
Super Smash Bros Brawl
14.  What is your favorite thing to play outside?
Candle Tag
15.  What is your favorite holiday?
Christmas 

16.  What is your favorite subject in school?
Math
17. What is your goal for this year?
To be more awesome
18. Do you think you reached your goal for last year?
My goal was to do my work better. I did not reach my goal.
19.  What do you spend your time thinking about?
Weird stuff
20.  What do you want to be when you grow up?

An artist

Special Drinks

One of our favorite things about visiting Utah is the drinks you can only buy there.  Here are our picks for this trip.

Come on.  Where else in the world but Utah county could you buy caffeine FREE Mtn Dew?  Since our kids aren't allowed to drink Mtn Dew, this is a big giant deal.  

I mean look how excited their faces are.  OK the photo is a little staged, but I swear they really were this excited about finding the caffeine free Mtn Dew.

And this is the other treasure only found in Utah Diet Code Red.  Besides the one my daddy stole out of the ice chest during the family reunion, I drank the WHOLE 12 pack in just a few days.  I get a little gluttonous  while on vacation.  Isn't that why we go on vacation?

Four eyes

Look who got glasses!! Doesn't he look handsome?

I don't think he loves taking pictures. 

Author's Tea

Matthew's class held an Author's Tea.  Each student wrote and illustrated a story.  They then, invited their parents to come and hear them read their story.  Afterwards we all had yummy treats.   Matthew's story was about dogs.  It was non fiction.  He told how much he loves dogs and that everyone who has one is very lucky. Poor kid, he really wants a dog.... 

I am in no way biased to say that Matthew's was the best story of the class.  

School Talent Show

The ballroom dance team preformed at the School Talent Show today.  Here is Holden and his partner, Mackayla, dancing the Cha Cha.  It is so much fun to watch him dance.  He now knows the Tango, Cha Cha, Waltz, and Meringue.

Juicing

Joe has been really into juicing vegetables lately.  I bought him a juicer for this birthday last year.  His favorite juice right now is fermented cabbage juice.  Yes it is as bad as it sounds.  Or at least it smells as bad.  No one else in the family will touch the stuff.  Today as a surprise I juiced up all the veggies in the fridge for him.  Doesn't that color look delish?

Last Soccer Game

Another season has come to an end.  Holden's last game was in Easthampton.  Joe was in New York visiting his parents, so he couldn't be there.  Too bad, because Holden did AWESOME.  He scored a goal in the first half and played goalie in the second.  His coach said he was a natural in the net and I have to say some of his moves were pretty impressive.  

Here is he playing goalie.  

Here, Nicholas appears to be really into the game, but really he spent most of the time reading Popular Science magazine which Aunt Lisa subscribes to for him.

Matthew enjoyed his candy stick a little more than he enjoyed the game.

And this is how Anders watches soccer.  

In the end the Bulldogs lost, but it was a great game.  

Matthew's First Assembly

Here is my baby sitting in his first official school assembly.  He has been to school assemblies a bunch of times when we went together,  But now he sits with his class wearing his school uniform.  It all happens so fast.

Special Olympics

The youth of our stake volunteered this year at the Special Olympics in Boston.  Joe got up really early and drove Nicholas  and some of the other kids from our ward up.  They said it was a really great experience and they were glad they got to help.

Here are our Youth!  What a great group of kids.

This is a picture of one of the events.  Nicholas helped at the javelin and Joe at the shot put.

The games were held on the campus of Boston University.  

Out to Lunch at Zoes

The last day of my parents visit my mom and dad wanted to go to lunch at a seafood restaurant .  The only problem with this plan is that I don't like seafood AT ALL.  I had no idea where to go to get seafood.  I googled seafood restaurant Western Mass and it came up with a place in Northampton called North Shore Seafoood.  We drove up there and it ended up being only a fish market.  I asked the owner of the shop if he knew of a seafood place and he said he didn't know of one.  

We finally ended up at Zoe's Fish Market in South Hadley.  It was fun to hang out with just my parents.  

Look how cute they are.

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Thanks so much for coming mom and dad.  It really means a lot to all of us.  

Newport

On the Monday of my parent's visit we headed to Newport, Rhode Island.  There is a National walkway that goes right along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and right behind some of the mansions from the Gilded Age.  Of course we took the boys out of school so they wouldn't miss out on the fun.  Here are some pictures from the Cliff Walk.

After the walk we did the 10 mile coastal drive around Newport.  We saw many of the mansions and some amazing ocean views.  Of course I don't have any pictures because I was driving.

The drive ends up at Fort Adams, the largest coastal fortification in the United States.  It was garrisoned during the War of 1812.  It is located right on the harbor and the views were great.  We got there 15 minutes before closing and decided we didn't want to pay the entrance fee.  So here we are outside the fort.  The man in the background is actually in a Civil War Military uniform.

They had old cannons outside that had been used in battles.  Of course the boys all needed to have their pictures taken with them.

Here are some more pictures of us exploring the fort and the harbor.

After a busy day, we ended up eating at Friendlys.  A real New England tradition.  

We arrived home tired, full, and sunburned (especially mom.)

Backseat of my car

This is what the backseat of my car looks like after morning drop off.  EMPTY!  Sad face. 

Oliver

Holden, Matthew and I went to see our friends in a community production of Oliver.  They did a great job and it was fun to watch.

Here are Zoe and Gavin in their costumes, all ready for stage.  

Clue

The boys love board games and have recently discovered Clue, which happens to be my favorite game when I was a kid.   Don't let Nicholas's face fool you, he had a good time playing.

Facebook

Years ago when all his friends were getting Facebook accounts, Nicholas asked us when he could have one.  I told him that FB says you have to be 13, and since I wasn't going to lie, he had to wait until then.  Of course when I said that I had no idea how fast the years would fly by and he would be 13.  When he turned 13, I told him that he had to read a book about internet safety.  Then Joe and I had multiple conversations (aka lectures) with him about how damaging an online profile can be, what is OK and not OK online, blah, blah, blah.  Then set some more ground rules about knowing his password and having access to his account at all times.
Finally, I ran out of reasons and we succumbed.  Nicholas is now on Facebook.  Here is a picture of his first time logging on.  He was a little annoyed that I wanted to document even this.  Has he not met me?

Soccer Practice

This is the view from my camping chair every Monday and Wednesday from 6-7 starting in April and ending in June.  Good thing Holden loves soccer so much.

Tomy Lewis

Nicholas's friend Tomy spent the night last night.  We LOVE Tomy.  He is always so sweet and gracious.  He went to Holden's soccer game with us and he and Nicholas threw the football around.

The rest of the Lewis clan showed up for the second half.  What good friends they are.

After school snack

Every single day, the first question I am ask is, "What is the after school snack.  Every single day.  Today's was cheese stick.  A favorite of many of these crazy boys.  Maybe we should just have it every day so the questions will end.

Last day of Co-op

Matthew attends a homeschool co-op on Wednesday.  He loves it.  He takes a History Class, a Humanities Class, a Literature Class, a Science Class, a Cooking Class, and a Weekly Reader Class.
Today was the last day and he is very sad.

Here he is with his class.

And here he is with the whole group that meets at Miss Lucy's house.

We are so lucky to have such an amazing group to home school with. We will miss them as we close this chapter and begin the next.  

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Today Caleb turned six and we headed over to the Yeager's house for cake.

We wish you tons of happiness this year.