The other night Aaron and I were playing a game and the boys kept sneaking out of their room. After telling them to go back to bed a few times we just ignored them and played our game.  They eventually got quiet and we ended our game and went to the family room to watch, "Lost."  During a commercial I heard a rustling behind the end table.  I jumped thinking there was an animal back there.  I got brave and took a peak...Noah, fast asleep.  I giggled.  A while later, he woke up and stumbled his way to the bathroom.  He came back in the room and sat in the middle of the floor.  I noticed he had socks on because he started to take them off.  He was struggling so Aaron went to help him.  Aaron laughed and said, "He's got two pairs of socks on."  Noah said, "No.  I have 3."  I asked him why in the world he had 3 pairs of socks on.  He said, "So I could be quiet...it's not comfortable."  Well it worked...he got past us and made his way downstairs without us catching him.  When we came up to bed, we found Joshua in our bed with a ball of lots of socks by him.  I asked him about it and he told me that Noah wanted him to be sneaky...but he just wanted to sleep.

Tonight, we came up to bed and I turned on the light.  Joshua shot up from our bed and yelled, "It was Noah's plan!"  Two naughty boys out of bed way past bedtime and chilling in my bedroom.  And Joshua...I KNOW it was Noah's plan :)

The Father and Sons camp-out was this weekend.  Sarah made the boy's and I lot's of yummy treats and she was right we had too much food.  At Noah's request we had fresh quesadillas for dinner but by the time I had camp setup and they were cooking on the griddle the kids were full of nutty buddies (some of Sarah's treats) and covered from head to toe in powdered sugar (No pictures, I forgot the camera).  We went down to the lake after dinner to catch some salamanders.  Noah really wanted to keep each one we caught and have it as a pet.  They were dark brown on top and yellow/orange on their bellies.  We found an all yellow one for Joshua and as he held it it turned chocolate brown.  We told him he had the chocolate touch (we just got done reading that book not that long ago), he liked that.  After playing in the campfire and bumming some marshmallows off of some people I put the kids to bed.  Anyway (the point of the whole post) the next day we talked about fishing wile catching salamanders again.  Noah ask if he could keep a fish heart.
 "No", I said, "Fish guts stink really bad".
"Well", said Noah, "I'd like it for my collection".
 Again I tried to explain and he seemed to get it a little.
 "Well", he said again, "then can I have the eyes for my collection?".
 He was pretty insistent that he needed some fish parts for his collection.  He brought it up with Sarah while fishing later that day (We picked up the girls to go fishing with us after leaving the Father and Sons).  Sarah caught two fish and I caught the small one to make three.  I wish Noah had been around when I cleaned them so I could show him what it was he'd been asking for.  He and Joshua were excited to eat the eyeballs when we sat down to lunch.  They said they were delicious.  Anyway latter that day Noah comes up to me, and I realized what'd been going through his little mind about the fish guts, he'd brought me a little plastic heart and said, "I guess we can use this one to make mommy a necklace for Mothers Day instead".  He'd been reluctant to give up his treasure and figured he'd just get another heart from the fish.  What a cute boy.  Anyway Sarah has a nice non-fish heart necklace that Noe gave her for Mothers Day.  The other kids also helped me pick some flowers (above) and draw some pictures for her.  Arwen helped take the picture.  Happy Mothers day Sarah.

Love,

Aaron and the Kids.

I stayed home with the girls from church today because Larkin has been really sick for the last 5 days and got worse last night.  Arwen was sick yesterday, but I think her body kicked the bug. Anyways, as I was getting the boys out of the bath and ready for church and the girls out and ready to go to the doctors, Joshua was upset because he couldn't stay home from church too.  I told him that he really needed to go because it was Mother's Day and he would probably make me a neat little present in class.  (Joshua really likes to draw and make crafts these days.)  He then told me that maybe I should go to his class and make my craft for him...with my eyes closed so it would still be a surprise and then he would give it to me.  Nice.  Happy Mother's Day :)

Arwen made breakfast this morning...

Chocolate Grape Toast is one of her specialties...I guess.  The kids love it anyways.

As the kids walked off the field to go to their cars I noticed a few had pretty muddy shoes and mud spattered here and there.  But when Arwen came tromping off the field it looked like she'd been trampled by all those muddy shoes.  

Seeing my questioning look, Arni said smiling, "I got hit in the face by the ball".  Well that and about everywhere else I added in my head.  She sure loves soccer.  What a beautiful princess she is, even covered in mud.

Dandelion Blowin'

Love her!

 For the 186th birthday party of the Relief Society we met at church as families and did a fabulous service project.  We helped make "angel dolls" which are plain dolls with no hair or faces that are wearing cute little hospital gowns that sick kids in the hospital get.  They don't have hair since many of the kids receiving them don't either and they don't have faces so that the kids can draw on their own faces.  We mad a TON of them that night.  It was the greatest assembly ever!  Aaron and I helped stuff and stitch up.  Afterward there was a cupcake decorating contest...since our whole enrichment was to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society. 

These are the cupcakes I dreamed up and created.  They turned out similar to what I was imagining.  I really wanted to add edible glitter, but didn't want to drive across town to get some, so I settled for pink and purple sprinkles instead. 

The flowers were made of fondant...which my fabulous sister in law gave me a lesson in a while ago.  I think it tastes pretty terrible (made of powdered sugar and marshmallows) but it turns out cool.  My kids LOVED how the fondant tasted...big surprise ;)

Do you know how much I LOVE this little thing?  She is seriously the sassiest, funniest, cutest little thing ever.  Larkin started talking really well about at month ago.  She went from babbling to speaking in complete sentences, telling me things like the dinner I made was disgusting!  When you ask her what her name is, she always chirps, "Yu Yu."  (Lu Lu.)  She knows she is two and her favorite color is pink.  Her favorite movie is Ponyo...and she sometimes insists that we call her "Pawn-o."  She knows she has blue eyes, but sometimes gets confused and tells me they are pink.  She loves to wear dresses.  I put bows and flowers in her hair and when they fall out, (or when she tears them out) she always tells me that her "lady is falling."  (I think she calls them ladies because we always tell her she's a pretty lady when she wears them.)  She really is very naughty.  She loves to dance, and is always shaking her bootie, yelling things like, "tooties," as she juts her hip out to the side. She loves to swagger back and forth and make us giggle.  She says naughty things like bum bum and boobies...because she's two and she does what she wants!    She rules the roost around here...and I wouldn't want it any other way!  

So we went to El Gaucho or "El Gouge-o" for dinner last night.  It turns out that neither Sarah nor I are fans of meat flavored meat.  And expensive meat flavored meat is no better.  Both of us wished we'd got something off the seafood menu after we got our meals.  Sarah's medium was raw and mine just tasted, well, like meat.  Our appetizer was really good though some tuna tar-tar stuff.  And desert, bananas foster, was delicious.  All in all we had a fun time and did some walking around the city afterwards.

 Thanks for the fun night Sarah.

*Freckles*