Bit of braggin about my son

D "made" dinner tonight. He was in the house by himself while I was out watering the (new!) lawn. When I came in he was chopping a tomato he had gotten out of the fridge and washed. He wanted salad for dinner. So, we headed out to the garden and picked some lettuce. I washed and tore the lettuce while he finished chopping the tomato. Then we discussed what else he wanted in his salad. I had some left over taco meat that I offered him. He chose red pepper, tomato, taco meat, cheese, kidney beans and sunflower seeds. On his own, he found some peanuts which he 'chopped' in half and an open can of peas in the fridge to add.


Then he put the lid on the bowl and shook it up. He set the table and went around taking drink orders. He even made chocolate milk for himself and K. (As a side, D has been pouring his own milk since he was 3. I still don't like him to pour it when it is full, but he's great with a partial gallon.)


He was SO proud of himself. And he should be. It was an excellent salad! Seriously. And I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom. I may be biased, but my taste buds are not! Plus, he ate two servings of salad. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY VEGETABLES THAT IS?!

We've got some excitement going on here!

We're getting a lawn today! After months of weeds and dirt (read:MUD) we are finally having someone put our lawn in for us. We have gone back and forth between hiring someone to do it all and doing it all ourselves with several stops inbetween for doing parts of it ourselves and hiring out the rest. This is the final conclusion.

As you can see (barely) there are two excited and interested children cheering the work on. In fact, right now D is singing as loud as he can: "Jorge's the greatest guy! Jorge! Jorge! He's the greatest in the world!"
Even little A is getting in on the excitement!

We've already had a semi truck with grass pallets here and a forklift unloading all the pallets. There was a truck here to dump large piles of bark dust and "black dirt". By the end of the day we should be all grassed out.
It is very exciting to see our yard coming together. There will still be a lot of planting of flowers but that will wait until next year. For now, we're just happy to finally have grass!

Macey:
Would you mind settling a friendly dispute for us? At this point in his life, would Ryan put in his own lawn or would he hire someone to do it for him?
As we were discussing hiring someone, Roy pointed out that this is not the Pyatt way. He claims that Ryan would never hire someone to do his lawn. I stated that he might now days. So.....what's the answer?

Yummy!

We went to pick raspberries today.

I think it was a hit.

K likes to ride her bike.

We live on a cul de sac and K likes to ride her trike around the 'sac. The trouble comes when she gets to the corner across from our side of the 'sac. She rides down the sidewalk ramp, crosses the street and rides up the other corner. This is a four-way intersection with the other three intersections being mildly busy. Our side of the intersection is not so busy.
Twice today, I've had people stop to comment on this practice. One was a lady who didn't see me and was concerned about such a little girl riding her bike with no mommy or daddy around. I thanked her for her concern and brought K inside for a while.
The second time, I was standing 10-15 feet away from the corner talking to someone when a gentleman in a vehicle stopped to tell me, "I feel uncomfortable with her riding her bike like that." I was completely taken off guard by that one. First of all, I was standing right there, obviously keeping an eye on her. She was not in his way. Second, it wasn't like he'd said, "Letting her ride her bike there isn't a good idea." He said, "I feel uncomfortable...." uhhhhh, sorry? I didn't know what to say. So I smiled, nodded then ignored him. In retrospect, that wasn't the best approach. But still, what was I supposed to say?
When we first moved in, K was riding her bike on the sidewalk toward her daddy when a truck stopped to let Roy know she was riding her bike alone. (Roy wasn't looking at/for her)
Honestly, I appreciate people being concerned and living in a great neighborhood. But I do feel judged, like I'm a less than good parent because I let my three year old ride her trike across the street.
The thing is, K was crossing the entrance to our cul de sac. Not one of these people were entering our cul de sac. They were passing by on the perpendicular street. She was not in their way or on a street they were planning on driving on. I think I'm going to buy a "children playing" sign to put out when we're outside.

We're Baaack!

We are officially done traveling for the year. Except maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or when Rick leaves on his mission. Or... just kidding.... that's all.
We left dark and early in the morning yesterday. In fact, had we left 5 minutes earlier, this could have been us. Literally. When we passed by, the only emergency vehicles there were the police who had been chasing the guy. It made me pause and think the entire way home. Especially because the guy was laid out on the ground -- we figured he was dead. Life is full of near misses and chances. It just isn't very often that you see so graphically what might have happened.
Other than that, the trip was rather uneventful. Our kids are A-maz-ing. They travel like little troopers. We stop for potty breaks and food. They hop back in the car with no complaints when it's time and drive for another 3 hours.
Actually, the drive home was even easier than the drive out because they were exhausted from all the hard playing and late nights they'd had!

Cute stuff

K, pointing to a picture in her Book of Mormon: "That's my Jesus. Hims give me a right big hug!"

Fourth of July....on the third

Today we celebrated Independence Day. We love the 4th in Delta. There is a big parade, games in the park, free swimming, free movies, a demolition derby, fireworks, bbq's, friends, family, everything you would expect at a small town celebration.
The day starts at 6:00 am (I believe -- I never actually check the clock) with the American Legion setting off blank cannon shots around the valley. This signals the start of the festivities I suppose. There is a community breakfast in the park run by the Boy Scouts (for a small fee, of course). We didn't make it this year. Slept in too long. Just before the parade there is a fly over from some fighter jets. It was rather disappointing this year. They flew over the trees and didn't come back for a second pass like they usually do. Oh well.
The parade follows the fly over with the regular line up. Flag at the front with the VFW and AL following behind in the back of a pick-up truck. (I remember when they used to march in the parade. . . ) There are floats from local businesses, local politicians usually ride in nice showy cars, the high school band marches and plays music, dance team dances, cheerleaders cheer, beauty contest winners wave, candy is thrown, horses prance, etc. A few derby cars bring up the rear to get people excited to see them destroyed later.
Immediately following the parade we went to the festivities at the city park. There were some blow-up bounce house/slide contraptions that were a BIG hit with the littles. I wandered and visited old friends. I ate a deep-fried Oreo. I am ashamed to say it was *cough* pretty *cough* good. Apparently you can get anything deep-fried now. Because a Twinkie isn't bad enough. We'd better cover it in batter and dip it in boiling fat. Yup.
So. After the park is the bbq part of the program. Then swimming, although we opted to beat the crowds and have the kids swim in an inflatable pool in the backyard. Friends came by. We ate, talked, laughed. The works.
That night we lit off fireworks. Roy and I bought fireworks with us. We had some great ones called Festival Balls. They were great and slightly less than legal. In fact, my friend Emily had seen them from over near the derby and been joking with her sister about how those people setting those fireworks off had to be crazy because everyone could see them. How dumb. Then Emily came over and got into the spirit of things herself. Roy loved them. He liked the loud "BOOM" the most I think. The kids were less than thrilled about them, but they loved the bottle rockets and Piccolo Petes which was more than a little surprising given how loud those are.
By and by, another successful Independence Day celebration!

Happy Birthday!

Today was my 10 year class reunion. That's right, Class of 2000 BABY! The reunion was, er, sparsely attended. I was happy to see the people I did see though. I have some amazing friends from high school. The internet (ie blogging and Facebook) has made it easier to keep in touch but it is great to see people. Naturally, I have ZERO pictures from the reunion. *sigh*

We also had a family party for K and A. I do have pictures of that! Yesterday was K's birthday. She is now 3! Unless you ask her, then she's 6. A's birthday isn't until after we get home but it is so close we celebrated it today. I really can't believe she's 1. **big-huge super deep sigh** (K calls everthing a "big-huge". As in, Do you want a little piece? No, I want a big-huge.) I let K pick the cake since A really doesn't care at this point.

She picked a monkey cake:

Naturally, I had to make the cupcakes too because they were too cute to not make!

So we ended up with a dozen cupcakes and two smallish monkey cakes.

The smaller of the two cakes I gave to A for her hands on cake eating. K ended up just eating a cupcake so the other monkey was spared for another day.

And, of course, we had to open presents. What would a birthday be without presents?

Back to Utah (pictures)

Why oh why didn't I get my camera out at the park with all the kids?!!

Here's some from Temple Square.

D and K playing in the reflective pool

They all want a piece of the action

She's so cute

K trying to be like Uncle Rick

K asked Roy why Jesus had "owies" so Roy was explaining it to her. She wanted to wipe them off.

Back to Utah (story)

Wednesday morning, dark and early (4am) we loaded the kids in the car and headed out. I had a super hard time getting up as I stayed up until 12:30am making sure everything was ready to go. Good thing Roy was driving this time! One wonderful thing about getting up that early is that we got to Perry by 5 that evening so we had time to play with cousins and relax before going to bed.
Today we were met my family for family pictures in SLC. All my family was together for this one afternoon and my mom was going to make the most of it! The photographer had no small job getting 6 kids under the age of 6 to look and smile at the camera at the same time. He did a good job though.
After pictures we headed to park for lunch and play time. Roy and my brother James had much to debate for the entire afternoon. Some of Roy's practice area involves personal injury work. James in going to med school. They are both opinionated and they are both right. If you don't believe it, just ask them! It was interesting to listen to them. And really, they kept things very civil. Roy really enjoyed himself. I think James did too.
It was so fun seeing my neices and nephew. We'd never met the baby. She is precious! It works out really nicely with James' family because he has kids near the same ages as my kids. K and W (James' middle child) can both be........ uhhhh....... shall we say, aggressive.... So there was a fair amount of pushing and otherwise going on. I don't think they ever really hurt each other, just made sure they didn't forget who was in charge. (Who was actually in charge is still up for debate.)
After the park, my kids wanted to go to Temple Square. James' family had to head out but the rest of us trooped over to Temple Square for a few tours. We were able to take in the Conference Center and North Visitor's Center as well as small stops by the temple and in the Tabernacle. It is really a beautiful place.
We finished with dinner. Then we had to say good-bye to Uncle Rick who is getting on a plane early the next morning to head back to New York. Uncle Justin came with us but mom and dad stayed in SLC to take Rick to the airport in the morning.
*YAWN* No more traveling for a few days. Until it's time to go home anyway.