This Week at Our House #18

1. Our Utah ward almost never had a fathers and sons camp out, so John was pretty happy to take all four boys to the one our stake had this weekend. The campsite was a church-owned one and it had a shooting range, a lake with free boats, and cabins! They enjoyed shooting our 22-rifle, boating, and the campfire. The stake provided a dinner that all the boys mentioned as excellent. The one downside was that Adam and Johnny packed for the trip and they brought 2 sleeping bags and one pillow for 5 guys. John got the boys all snuggled together underneath the 2 sleeping bags and then stayed up cold all night. I said I would have just come home. But he stuck it out for the sake of the boys.
2. I took Ruth, Kate, and Johnny to the Temple to do baptisms Saturday night. John was going to, but because he didn't sleep at all Friday night, we thought it best that he did not attempt the 3 hours of driving that it takes.Ruth, Kate, and Johnny had spent the last two weeks gathering family file names and that made the trip even more special. It was wonderful to be there with my kids. We thought about how in a year Ruth will be taking out her endowments to go on a mission and Adam will be joining the youth for baptisms. Life is still good despite the hard things, and I have been blessed with 10 really great kids a husband who is a strong spiritual leader and teaches are children the scriptures and right from wrong every single day. 
3. Ruth got up early Saturday morning to do the laundry and clean all of the bathrooms for mothers day. She is such a great kid. I hope she has a daughter just like her.
4. On Friday night after the boys left, Kate helped me do a super around the edges clean of the upstairs and didn't even complain about how messy the boys room was. The boys clean their room everyday, but they shove, so it needs a girl's touch every now and then.
5. Johnny was going to write a poem for mothers day on Friday, couldn't think of anything, went and played Zelda on the wii and then neglected doing phyisics before he left for fathers and sons. But I think he had a lot of fun boy camping, boating, and shooting guns.
6. Adam loved shooting the 22-rifle at fathers and sons. He must like North Carolina because nearly every father and son brought a gun, and he thought that was awesome. He came home with a bunch of different bullet casings that he collected to show me.
7. Rachel stayed up until 3am with John on Wednesday night and then was annoyed that I still expected her to do her school work the next day and then thought we were mean sending her to bed at 11pm, the next night.
8. Anya takes such good care of Susan for me. Anya takes her outside and plays with her and pushes her on the swings. We don't have a fenced in backyard, so we have to keep a close eye on Susan if she is going to go out at all and Anya is really good at being those eyes. 
9. Joseph did not like being in a canoe apparently. John said that he almost cried. When he got home, he admitted to me that it scared him, but he had to be a tough little guy and not admit fear while at the campground.
10. Arwen's hair seemed to grow a lot in one week, or it was just really humid. But all week long,  it was wild and curly and sticking up all over the place and I was out of little hairbands. Every time I told Arwen her hair was a wild curly mess, she would pat her head and very happily say, "My hair has grown now."
11. Suzy has been taking off her diaper. Eventually, I am going to get to the store and buy her a bunch of onsies so she can't get to her diaper. Today we put duct tape around it and she cried for over an hour because she could not get it off.

This Week's Pictures or Johnny's Funny Faces