Baby Birds


While out playing the other day the boys discovered a birds nest in the neighbors playset. Two eggs had hatched and two had not. The two tiny birds were huddle to together trying to keep warm. It was a very windy day. The mother was no were around, so I took a quick picture and then we left them alone. Have not checked in since. Hope they are doing well.

Fishing

Patrick got a late birthday present in the mail last week, so I took the boys fishing on Saturday. We did not catch any fish, but we had fun anyway enjoying the park. Besides four fishing ponds and a small lake they have a small farm with a few animals. So, there was plenty to entertain.

Roller Skating






We had a ward activity at the end of March at a local skating rink. Neither of the boys had ever been skating before, so it was interesting experience.

Patrick hated it. I think it was just too hard and tiring for him to get any enjoyment out of it. Even with Leonard and me holding his hands just a few times around the rink was more than enough for him. After 5 minutes he was good to go.

Lenny loved it. It took him a few turns around to get the hang of it, but after that he did really well. He keeps asking when we can go back and when he can have his own set of roller blades. I am not completely against getting him some roller blades. I just have few apprehensions. My first worry is that his interest will fade quickly. Once around the cul-de-sac and then the skates will spend the rest of their life taking up space in the garage. Secondly, he is at a young age were feet growth can happen quickly. So, even if he does get out the roller blades often I worry they won't get enough good use before they get too small. Maybe Patrick will change his mind in a few years and the skates can just be passed down. I don't know. I am not big on buying something just because my kid asks for it, so I am still on the fence. I will have to price them out, then maybe make Lenny work for them.

Kyle Got Married!

Kyle married Collette on Friday February 27, 2009. It was a very beautiful wedding.

I had a great trip to Utah. I got to see my sister Tia and her whole family, including new baby Crew. I went shopping at the BYU book store and Deseret Book. Had lunch at Cafe Rio. Saw my Grandma Johnston and some aunts and uncles and a cousin, my sister Kolayna, and brother Shane with his wife Megan and daughter Addison. I was going to try to go skiing, but that did not work out. So, I tried to go tubing, but that did not work out either. But I had a great time visiting with family.

I have to give a big thanks to my husband who managed to work close to 30 hours, watch a sick kid with a 102 fever, attend a 8am end of season basketball game for Lenny, get a quote for a car repair due to an accident last weekend (not his fault), prepare our house for a showing and attend church all during the short 3 1/2 days that I was gone. Leonard did not attend the wedding because he was too busy with work. I had babysitters set up but once Lenny got sick nobody wanted to watch my kids. When I returned I asked if he had changed his mind and thought it would have been worth the extra $600 to take the kids with me. Even with all the stress he said no, but that it would have been worth $600 to have some else do his 30 hours of work for him.

Patrick Turned 5!

For Patrick's birthday we had a small bowling party. The alley was almost empty, so it was a nice quiet party. All the kids had either bowled just once before or not at all and were young so we opted for bumper bowling. But despite having bumpers one of them still managed to get a gutter!

More snow fun!

The kids were out of school almost all last week due to snow. Here are some pictures of us having fun on the snow.

Finally the long anticipated video of Patrick riding his bike!!!!

Patrick Can Ride a Two Wheeler!

I was going to post some video footage, but have yet to get around to taking some. Patrick would not even ride his bike with the training wheels. They kept slipping out of place and then he would fall over. So her learned not to trust the training wheels and decided he would just rather not ride his bike at all. So, he has been riding his scooter everywhere. I think all that scooter riding helped him practice his balance.

Out of the blue Patrick said he wanted to try riding his two wheeler. I had tried earlier this summer to get him to try and he wanted nothing to do with it. So, I immediately took him up on his offer and in less than five minutes he was riding his bike around the cul-de-sac all by himself.

After that brief experience we took a bike riding hiatus due to the weather. But once it warmed up again, we could not keep him off his bike. He said he wished he did not have to sleep so that he could ride his bike all night long and was up at 7:30 the next morning asking if he could ride his bike.

The weather has cooled down, so there has not been as much riding time this past week. I better get that video taken before it gets really cold.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I was tagged by my friend Shannon to post the fourth photo in the fourth album on my computer.

This is a picture of Lenny and his grandpa Keenan on a ferry in RI were we vacationed with Leonard's family summer 2007. We are on our way to an island off the coast of RI were we will tour the island by bicycle, visit a picturesque lighthouse and enjoy the quaint local shops.

I tag Tia, Ily and Karen.

Soccer season is well under way. There are only two games left. So far Lenny's team is undefeated. Patrick team does not keep score, but they have done well. Below is a video of Patrick scoring a goal. He does quite well for his age. At least his mother thinks so.

Happy Birthday Tamra and Lenny!

We have been out of touch with the rest of the word since Sunday afternoon. They weather service projected severe thunderstorms for last weekend, but we went all weekend with no rain. What they did not know was that instead of rain we were going to get hurricane strength winds of 60 t0 70 mph with gusts up t0 75mph.

We were completely oblivious to the storm raging outside as we sat in church Sunday afternoon. I could tell that it was a bit windy out from the window but was not prepared for the strength of the wind when we went outside. Trying to get to the car the children were struggling to walk in a straight line and the bits of leaves flying around in the air hurt when they hit you. The whole drive home we past street after street with fallen trees, broken branches, leaning road signs, swaying traffic lights. On the highway there was small debris blowing everywhere. Upon approaching our neighborhood there were branches and leaves strewn throughout the roads, more houses with broken trees, shingles flying, siding loosening.

We arrived at home to find the tree in our front yard cracked in half, luckily lying in the sidewalk and not in our house. The power had apparently gone out around 1:30. So we unloaded and settled in to wait out the rest of the storm. A few hour later a piece of metal on the side of our house came loose. I could hear it flopping around in the wind making awful screeching, scrapping, banging noises. It was attached by only a few nails. I really just wanted it to fall off. It was getting twisted and mangled by the wind, so would need to be replaced and I was worried that it was going to damage some other part of the house. Finally it did break loose, but we never found it. By the end of the day we were left with a few missing shingles, the metal off the side of the house, a fallen tree and no electricity.

The power was out for about 55 hours. They did tease us by turning on the power early Tuesday morning then taking it away again just a few hours later. We are lucky to have power back now. The report is that 21,000 local residents are still without power and it could be another day or two until power is restored.

Driving around there are lot of others a lot worse off. Damage to other house include roofs with half their shingles missing, sides of houses with big chunks of missing siding, trees down everywhere, a fallen chimney and who knows what else I have not seen.

I am happy to report that we are all safe and have wonderful friends and neighbors that helped us get through the power outage. It has been like camping out with street potluck BBQs and picnics to help us have warm found to eat and not let thawing food go to waste. We are very blessed and thankful.

Beginning the clean up process.

Hurricane Ike made it all the way to Ohio!

The other night at bed time I read the boys the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. After finishing the story the following conversation took place.

Mom: Patrick, if Lenny dropped you in a big hole and then sold you would you forgive him next time you saw him or would you be mad at him?

Patrick: I would be mad at him for selling me!

Lenny (trying to be compassionate replied): Well, Patrick the next time I saw you I would give you half the money.

Mom(trying to contain my laughter): "HALF?!"

Patrick, however, seemed grateful for his brother's "generousness".

Patrick: Okay, I'd forgive you then.

Baseball is officially over and soccer has started. Today was both the boys first soccer game. It was Patrick's first soccer game ever and Lenny's first game on the older team where they play on a full field, not half a field. They both did well and had fun. I did not have my camera with me and they do not have another game for two weeks because of Labor day weekend. But I will try to get some footage at the next games. Lenny's team is light blue and called the Wild Cats. Although he thinks his name does not go well with his uniform because the Wild Cats are suppose to be red (High School Musical) And Patrick's team is neon green and called The Green Beans! I think that is so cute. It makes me smile every time Patrick tells someone his team name.

I feel like I should mention that the below t-ball footage is of Patrick's first game and he no longer slides into every base and does not have to be reminded to touch home plate. He improved well over the season.

Leonard took a half day on Friday and we went to the Y as a family to practice some soccer, and then went swimming. We got Lenny to attempt to dive into the water. His first few attempts were graceful belly flops. Finally I got him to squat down way low, put his hands straight out in a point above his head and then just told him to kind of fall over into the water head first. He was a little hesitate at first, but then did it! It looked real good, but he had to flip around in the water to get turned right side up again and all that turning around in the water I think kind of scared him. Although he knows how to swim and knows the right technique to do freestyle, he still does not like to put his face in the water. I hope next time at the Y I can convince him to try again.

Patrick had a big day as well. He swam all by himself, no floaty! He did really well at his swim lesson the past two weeks and got comfortable enough to try a back float with his floaty on all by himself. Friday I tried to get him to do the back float with out the floaty and with me supporting him. He seemed so relaxed and said he wanted to try to swim to the edge of the pool. He was practically close enough to reach out and grab the edge, but I let him go and he push off me and grabbed the edge. I could tell though that he had really swam for a spilt seond so I pulled him back further and told him to try again. And he did it he swam all by himself. It was actually a little more like treading water because he could hardly get himself to move anywhere, but the expression on his face and his joy was priceless. He was so proud. And so were we.

Patrick Playing T-Ball

Patrick is the one in red running from 1st to 2nd!