Secret hiding places, games, and dewberries

Life continues to be eventful at our home. Here are some excerpts into the minds of a 5 year old and an 8 year old.

Dustin (in relation to my Mother’s Day surprise) “Mom, I know there is a paper in my underwear drawer, so don’t take it out until tomorrow”. Apparently that is his not so secret hiding place for surprises.

Dustin (his mind is ever thinking) “Mom, if you shake your head yes and then no, it makes an L” I admit this took me a few minutes to figure out what in the world he was saying. I finally figured it out and was slightly impressed at the thinking process.

Dustin (in relation to a friend’s dogs who got loose in a small patch of trees behind the donut shop) “mom, you know Abby’s dogs could have been eaten by a bear in there” Mom “where?” Dustin “you know when they got lost in the forest” I just smiled and agreed, even though the patch of trees was not a forest and I knew there were no bears in there. A boy’s mind at work.

Daria (this is on a daily basis) “mom, look how many chapters I read.” No matter how thick or thin a book is Daria will always point out how many chapters she has read. She just finished the book “Because of Winn Dixie”. She said “It’s so good I just might have to read it again”

Daria, while in a state of boredom (in our house we have a slogan adopted from my step-mom that says “boredom is a choice” so if you’re bored there is always something to do), decided to make up a game. It was a pretty cute game. It’s called the Webkinz game. Webkinz are these stuffed animals that have a key that you can go on the Internet and feed the animal you adopted. It is the next big thing amongst 2nd grade girls in Daria’s class. She put two large pieces of paper together and made a game board. The players are cats. We all played it as a family last night. Dustin kept asking what the idea of the game was (he’s looking for someone to beat). I said “to have fun.” You see, you roll the dice and just move along the path. You may land on a spot that has an apple, and then you get to pick an apple (imaginary). Or you may get to go to the park and swing, or pick a flower or eat a cherry. Personally it was so cute that Ken and I had to try hard not to laugh. The biggest challenge of the game was telling our cats apart. They all looked the same. I mentioned to Daria that maybe she should color the cats so we knew who was who. Still I thought it was pretty creative.

An exciting note of this month was that Daria had a piece of artwork in the Art Festival. This is an annual tradition where plenty of artwork from students at all the schools and all grade levels is showcased at the High School. We went up to the school just to see Daria’s piece. I had to take a picture of these cute clay figures that other students made. I thought they were pretty cute. Ok, so the smudges on the photos are from me blurring them out. I do not like to put person's full names on my blog.

And last, just a fun memory. Most of you know that we live very close to the elementary school. Since Daria has been in Kindergarten we have spent most days walking to school with a handful of good friends. Right out our back gate of the community is a grove of trees and bushes which are decorated with honeysuckle at certain times and dewberries. Every day Dustin will pick me a flower. Lately though, the honeysuckle is in, so we always stop and pick a few to suck on. This week the dewberries were in. What a pleasure it is to walk to school and munch on a handful of dewberries as a treat!

This last weekend the kids and I participated in a walk to cure CF (Cystic Fibrosis) since our good friend's two daughters have the disease. It was a lot of fun, and a beautiful walk. Thanks to all those who donated! Here is a picture of Daria and Dustin. Daria is the one in the orange shorts, holding Abby's hand. Abby is the one with CF. Dustin is in the baseball cap. Me, of course I'm the one who is ALWAYS taking the picture.

Another exciting moment of last weekend was that Ken passed one of his huge EMT tests!!!! Way to go DADDY!!!

You know all those e-mail friend questionnaires that ask you things like "what color are your socks?", well they always ask what your favorite time of year is. I realized today that one of my favorite times of year is graduation. Why you ask? Well, Becca's I love getting the graduation announcements and hanging them on my fridge. I even cleaned my fridge off to make room as the announcements have started to come in. I love getting the pictures. In fact I think it's totally boring to get a announcement of any sort without a picture. Tonight I was pleasantly surprised to get an announcement from a young woman who wasn't even in my ward, but who I know very well. I thought that was kind of her to think of me.

On to another day.