Boo-Yeah!

That is what Charley has been saying A LOT this last week so it is pretty much the only thing currently on my mind. Funny little dude. This last week has been pretty much the norm. Ben studied, William went to school, Charley Emmerlyn and I stayed home and worked on getting over being sick and playing. We are finally starting to get better which is nice. On Friday it was homecoming so we went to the parade. William was super in to wearing red and white to school that he tried to get out of the house wearing 4 shirts. I stopped him and made him take off 1 layer all together and then replace 2  of the other layers with thinner options. It is finally starting to cool off at night her so the mornings are a little chilly but the afternoons are nice. The parade was fun other than the MILLIONS of hornets that have now settled into Glasgow. Luckily none of the kids got stung. We met up with a bunch of our friends from our ward so the kids had people to hang out with and we had people to talk to. 

 Typical for William, he loves parades but HATES the noise. Poor kid.

 She was pretty satisfied with her perch she even allowed another little boy to play with her stroller (that is a feat because usually she is VERY possessive of what she thinks is hers)

 The boys got plenty of treats (and I may have done a mean mom thing by giving away about 10 of their suckers to the girl that was standing with Charley because I cannot stand it when my kids eat suckers I hate the sticky drool that gets everywhere followed by the sticky hands and the fact that they take so long to eat that it just parades the sticky everywhere I just can't do it. I saved them each 1 sucker and I will deal with it for 1 time per event but that is my limit!)

 He brought these ridiculus glasses home from school yesterday and wanted to wear them today because it is picture day. As funny as that would be I said no and we decided we would just get a picture of him with them now and he can have his normal eyes today. Silly boy.

He had his primary program on Sunday and he did great. He had 2 speaking parts and did them both from memory one of which was the 4th Article of Faith and he did great he gave me a thumbs up part-way through the program and only yawned hugely once. Good for him. Charley got to go up and sing the first verse of I am a Child of God with them and he did so good and sang with a big smile on his face and kind of twisted and bounced the whole time he was SO cute and so little looking up there. He also knew all of the words!

From the Mouth of Goobs

The boys are playing and Emmerlyn is running around in and out of their game. After she ran past William said to Charley "She's toast!" Charley got a very concerned look on his face and as William got up "William don't turn her into toast!" Luckily William clarified that he was REALLY going to make her into toast. At least I know deep down Charley cares for his sister!

Miss Emmerlyn. . .

So Emmerlyn's current most favorite book is Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do You See and we had it checked out from the library and we read it over, and over, and over and then we had to return it. So when it was time to read again she came to me and asked "where pana beer go?" Then she got a scowl on her face and said in a distressed voice "Charrey stole it!" and she went storming off. Thankfully I caught her before she reached Charley and he felt the full force of her wrath and I explained to her that we had to take Panda Bear back to the Library. Now when we go to the library or even just drive past it she says in her saddest little voice "pana beer at wibrary?" poor girl.

We Sold Our House!

That is the biggest news of this last week, and most of you already know because we are super excited about it. We are set to close on Oct. 4th and we can't wait. Other than that life in Allen Land has been pretty chill. We have all been sick this last week except for Ben who is miraculously avoiding most of it. He has been busy studying and helping YM in our ward with an eagle project. We can't wait until he is done with his tests that's for sure!

He got a sticker the other day and this is where HE chose to put it! It was a full 24 hrs before I could convince him to take it out and then there was a nasty adhesive spot on the back of his head. 

 He wanted to sleep in the closet for rest time. I couldn't find him at first but I could hear him talking and giggling so it took me a few minutes. 

 Because she doesn't already have enough butter on that sandwich she thought she better add some peanut butter. She only ate like 2 bites. I let them do this because William really wanted to make his own sandwich and because he did the other two HAD to. William did a great clean job, Charley did pretty good, Emmerlyn, not so much. 

Getting these two to quietly go to sleep is a difficult task, getting them to stay in their beds is totally impossible. Whatever, at least they were asleep.

William Says

So William got his first loose tooth yesterday (finally) and he has been super excited and taking extra care of it. This morning before school Ben went into the living room and he was lying on the couch with a pillow and a blanket and he told Ben he was "resting his tooth". Ben laughed and was going to take a picture but the battery was dead on the camera and William said "Great! Now my tooth can rest without needing me to cheese with it!" Crazy boy.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

Routines

I think that I like school being in session because we can kind of get into a routine and I like routines. We have been staying busy at home reading books from the library, cleaning, playing, and doing a little preschool with Charley and Emmerlyn. William is always saying that he wishes he could stay home because we do fun stuff, but he also suggests that we add a recess to our curriculum. 

 Last week the letter was B so we made butterflies.

 They also endulge in a movie at rest time. Emmerlyn was actually clobbering Charley at this point because we had a man here working on the AC (which and broken, and sent water all over our basement and then our house was 90 degrees for a few days until it got fixed).

 Charley created a reading nest and has been enjoying it thoroughly (PS this is a candid photo, he is not even posing :).

 Her lastest most favorite outfit. Complete with "cowbe (cowboy) boots"

 When our neighbor and Ben got home from work tonight then saw a turtle chilling in the drive-way so they told me to bring out the kids to check it out. William actually volunteered to carry it over to a puddle by the culvert where we assume it came from. It surprised us all that he wanted to. Charley just touched it and Emmerlyn giggled the whole time and keeps asking "where turtle are?"

 Delivered.

This week we also had a Temple trip to take the youth to the Temple in Billings. We all went and were were lucky enough to get to go through a session while the kids played with Grandma and Grandpa Allen who met us in Billings for the morning. They had lots of fun and now they keep asking when we can go back to Idaho for a visit. Emmerlyn just wants to go swimming. I had to put her swimming suit up high because I was tired of her pulling it out and telling me that we were going to go swimming "water" (later) and then crying when I said no. Silly girl, she is really trying to get her way by exhibiting big alligator tears. She started crying as soon as they started saying the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting because she didn't want to go to nursery but after a few minutes she adjusted and did just fine in there. 

Charley's Firetruck

I think I am going to start off today with a little story. I have found that over time we have accumulated a plethora of junk and not an extremely small part of that junk is made up of toys. We spend many of our waking hours stepping over them, stepping on them, moving them off the couch, then when too many have been stepped on or our house has been overrun by pretend worlds we spend a good part of a day cleaning them up. I have also noticed that the kids feel like they have no good toys to play with or as William would say  using his current favorite phrase "I'm bored". So we started cycling our toys. I had heard of people doing this but it sounded like a lot of organization and I didn't think it would be worth it. Well I tried it and put about 2/3 of the kids toys away leaving out like 2 different categories of toys and then a few basic staple like teddy bears, puzzles, etc. Then they play with those toys for a few months and when the boredom begins we gather up all the toys and pull out a different box. They play with the toys like they are BRAND new. It is seriously like Christmas (except with some of the toys missing a few parts and pieces :). Well it was getting to that point again in the cycle to pack up some toys in exchange for new ones and about 2 days ago Charley came to me and asked if we could get his firetruck back out. I told him that we could if he picked up all the toys downstairs and then decided which ones he wanted to pack away. He has worked VERY hard these past 2 days cleaning, gathering, sorting, and enlisting the help of anybody who was around to help him get the toys ready to trade. This afternoon he and I worked very hard and finished the job, he worked until the very end with me getting it all set up. When we were ready I pulled out the box that the firetruck was in and Charley was shaking with excitement (you can picture this with his little hands can't you?) I took the lid off and we dung in. The firetruck was not there. 

I cannot describe to you how awful I felt when I realized the toy that he had worked so hard for was not where I thought it was and I nearly cried when I had to tell that little face that it wasn't in there. I told him I would keep looking and he could play with something else and he tried but every toy he picked up he told "that there was nothing he could do, he needed a firetruck to help put out that fire." By this time I was frantically opening boxes and digging through them looking for the truck that I had promised him. I looked everywhere downstairs. I looked in the top of every closet in our house, I even went outside and looked in the car but I could not find it. I prayed and looked again in all the same places. I went back downstairs and searched some more. Finally I told Charley that I couldn't find it. It was lost. I told him that maybe we should say a prayer together. So we knelt on the CLEAN playroom floor and he said a sweet simple prayer asking to help him find his firetruck. After he ended he opened his eyes and promptly said "When is He going to get here mom and help me?" I explained that He was not going to come here but that He usually sends a thought in your mind that will tell you where to look. So we all sat and thought. Then I went back to looking trying to figure out what I would do if I couldn't find it. I would I tell him that I couldn't come through for him. He would be SO let down and I would feel awful. Then he said I think it is in Emmerlyn's room so I told him to go look. He came back and said that he didn't see it. After I finished where I was looking I went up to look in there. I pulled everything out and then I realized that I did not know what was in the gray tote sitting at the bottom of the closet. I opened it to find it full of toys and sitting at the very top was the beloved firetruck. It was seriously one of the best moments of my life. I called to Charley and he came running up. Then he said a prayer of thanks for helping him to find the toy and ran off to play. I said my own prayer after his. I was so grateful for the experience and for finding the firetruck so I did not have to let my adorable little dude down. 

Long Weekend

This last week I think that our biggest undertaking was making a whole bunch of rolls. As you can see I had lots of help and they probably ate almost a roll's worth of dough (seriously who likes to eat bread dough? My kids of course. The only dough they won't eat is pizza dough because I think it is too salty for them.)

 She was even eating just the flour. You would think that I don't feed my kids but truly they had just finished eating a big breakfast of eggs and toast. She just HAS to try everything that is for food.

 This cute little girl has been working on potty training these last couple weeks. She has been trying to get the hang of it for MONTHS so I finally just said we were going to do it. She is doing great now and can even take herself to the bathroom and pull down her own pants etc. The downside is that she cannot pull them back up so therefore she spends a large majority of everyday naked from the waist down. Not to worry we are working on that! 

 Fun finished bag. I needed a new purse so I made one. It is a little bigger than my purses have been in the past so we will see but so far I like it!

 Cute dude. With his shoes on the wrong feet!

It was nice to have a long weekend these last few days. On Friday Ben came home from work at 3 and we picked William up from school and drove out to an area called The Pines which is a little part of Fort Peck Reservoir I was told that it had lots of pine trees out there so I was hoping to go out and see kind like you would see in Island Park ID with super think pine forest. I must say I was a little disappointed in that respect BUT, it was beautiful nonetheless and the kids played in the water for awhile and we roasted hot dogs and had a lot of fun so I am glad that we went.