Field Trips are awesome

Heather and I have been slackin a bit this year with going on Field Trips with our kids. Yeah, we're all busy and can always think of an excuse why not to go but it's fun to hang with the little ones on a day at the farm once in a while...Wheeler Farm to be exact. I was in charge of 2 people: Kate and her best friend, Monet. We received our name tags-the "pink bunnies". Wow, nothing "tough" or "cool" about that name-oh well, we had fun with it anyway.

Meet PB & C (that's "Peanut Butter" and "Chocolate"-a couple of the horses that Kate and

Monet met on the farm.

Here's a clip of Kate being disgusted by the smell of the pig. By the way, when Kate came home that day she told Heather: "Mom,...the word on the farm is that the pig is the smartest animal!"

Kate and Monet with their Kindergarten teacher-Mrs. Alder

Kate shows off her hula-hooping skills

Kate has a new talent...hula hooping. In this video clip she does it to the famous "Macarena" song which she makes me sing-yikes! She probably could have gone all day with the "hooping" but we had to call it quits after a while.

Fathers and Sons campout

So every year my boys look forward with anticipation to the Father and Sons campout. This year was a little funny, we showed up and it was pouring rain and I found myself trying to talk us out of sticking it out. I said: "let's go down to that burger joint down the canyon, have dinner and then go to a late movie. The boys said: heck no, let's camp! We sat in the car for about 15 minutes and watched the sky clear and then we set up camp. We all ate about 18 hot dogs each, went on a hike and then sat around the campfire the rest of the night. Liam said he wanted to hit the sack about 11 p.m. Well, I did too. Clayton, Eli and some of their friends sat around our campfire until about 3 in the morning (this is typical)!

Here's a video clip of Eli "hating it" the next morning as I woke him to come to breakfast a little earlier than he would have liked.

Here's our group the morning after a "great night sleep". The 2 unfamiliar faces are Tannon and his little brother Cragun from our ward. Liam was doing great after a good 9 hours of sleep and Clayton was doing surprisingly well for 3 or 4 hours of sleep under his belt...Eli, ...not so much. The level of energy is very apparent on his face-heh, heh.

Here's a short video of the hike around Camp Kiesel and Camp Browning that we took(the camp where Clayton will be working this summer).

The kindergarten program

You may see a couple familiar faces as you watch this video clip: Kate and Garrett! I noticed that this recorded with no sound (not sure why) but it's still great. They are singing "I'm proud to be an American!"

Prom Night

Wow, is Clayton really old enough to go to Prom? Yikes! Maybe a better question-is Clayton old enough to take his date, Kelsey, in a 2010 Camaro? Check it out:

Oh, and p.s. you may notice that Clayton needs to work on his gentlemen skills a bit...his friend John gets to open the door for his date. Here's a video clip:

So Clayton's pretty much a lucky dog. I'm making reference to the car he was able to talk one of our good friends into letting him use for Prom Night-a 2010 orange Chevy Camaro with black racing stripes with orange and black leather seats(I'm drooling as I write). Heather and I weren't able to sleep at all (and I'm guessing our friend as well) until we knew all was well with the car...and with Clayton. We were all dead tired the next day (Mother's Day). As far as we know there were no races, no new scratches and the car was returned washed with a full tank of gas. Heather suggested he write Jason a "note" to say thanks. Clayton said: "guys don't write thank you notes to other guys." True statement.

The baseball game

A few pix of Liam at his most recent baseball game.

Watch him as he hits a double:

The nighttime routine with Kate

Here's Kate joining us for her nightly read before going to bed...eventually in her own bed. Of course, she would prefer to kick me out and stay in our bed all night long.

...and a video clip of her reading:

The Batting Cages

So Liam is now loving baseball and even more so, the batting cages. Kate loves it too. I can't go without showing a quick video clip of Kate wearing the oversize helmet...backwards. It was the only way it felt right to her. You gotta love it.

The campaign t shirt

Of course if you're running for office, you need to advertise that you like turtles, right? Well, this was Eli's thinking at least. Here's the finished product. By the way, I guess I didn't mention already but Eli DID win!!!!! He's pretty stoked since he won along with his cousin Casey (secretary) and good friend Connor (president).

Eli runs for VP

So Eli decides to run for office for 8th grade...VP to be specific. I wanted to post his skit so you could see it since it's quite funny. Prior to running, he and his friend Connor had been making home videos based on the cable show "COPS". He decided to run with this idea for his campaign skit. Here it is....