De-Nesting and Re-Nesting

Yesterday morning when I was bringing the garbage cans in, I noticed a bird fly out of our dryer vent. I had Nate check it out when he got home from work. When he took off the vent cover, he found a huge nest. He couldn’t see any eggs, so he started pulling out all of the grass and twigs and lint. He soon discovered eggs (when one fell out and smashed on the cement). He was more careful after that and safely recovered the two remaining eggs. I couldn’t believe the amount of debris that he pulled out of the vent . . . a bit of a fire hazard. After everything was out, we used a cardboard box to set up a new home for our little intruder. Nate hung up the remodeled nest and then made a new and improved cover for our dryer vent. I’ve seen the mama bird flying to and from the box a few times since the relocation. Hopefully she is happy with her new abode.

Nate naively thought that the job could be accomplished with the ladder and a wire hanger. In the real world, it required a change of clothes, a 12 foot extension pole, some duct tape, a flashlight, and the shop vac.

We’re not sure if the eggs will still hatch or if they were cooked while they were in the dryer vent. We’ll be watching for baby starlings in a couple of weeks.

Ben's Special Friends Program

Yesterday was Ben’s second grade program. Each of the kids got to write a letter to a non-parental, grownup friend and invite them to come to the program. Ben wrote a letter to Grandma Reatha. It said:

Grandma Reatha is special to me because she takes care of us when our parents are going somewhere. I remember when she came to our house to have a nice time with my cousins and aunts and uncles. Grandma took me and my sisters to the hospital when my mom had my baby sister Abby. She watches movies with us like Star Wars. Grandma went camping with us in 2008. All the odd number years she comes to our house on Christmas Eve and stays the night. She gave me a Star Wars pop-up book. Grandma comes to our soccer games sometimes. One time Grandma played Sorry with us. She gives us yummy supper when she comes to our house. My grandma is special to me. Sincerely, Ben

Ben thought he was pretty funny to use the word supper. My kids think that Grandma Reatha is the only person in the world to call dinner “supper.” He was sure that all the other kids in class would laugh and say “what is supper?”

The program was great! There are six second grade classes at Ben’s school. That’s about 135 kids. After every song, they would recite a different little poem as a whole group. Usually those things turn into one great big mumble by the third line, but this was just loud and clear. I was impressed. Three kids from each class got read their letter and Ben was one of the kids chosen from his class. He did a good job.

Ben with Grandma. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t meaning to give Nate the finger. :)

Ben and Mrs. Cooney. We LOVE Ben’s teacher! She is absolutely fabulous. I wish we could clone her and have her be Ben’s teacher for the next ten years.

Retro Post - Seven Easters

Here are a few pictures from our post-baby, pre-blog Easters. It is fun to see how much the kids have changed over the years. I can hardly remember those chubby little babies.

2001 – Ben was three months old. This was before holidays became high effort. No baskets or Easter egg hunts. I just had to buy a cute outfit and I was done.

2002 – This was Ben’s last Easter as an only child and our last Easter in our first house.

2003 – I was so excited to get to buy Emily an Easter dress. She looked like a little princess, but we learned that shiny dresses don’t photograph really well. At least she sat still. Ben on the other hand was in his “I’m not going to stand still just for a picture” phase, so we had to catch him when he was already standing still. He looks so handsome and grown-up.

2004 – Apparently we thought it was too much effort to try to get the kids to sit for a picture, so this is the best we got. I’m amazed at how much hair Emily had at 18 months old! My other girls certainly missed that gene.

2005 – I loved that I got to buy matching dresses for the girls. They looked so pretty. Ben didn’t want to pose for pictures with his sisters, but he was fine with striking a pose of his own.

2006 – Ben was too busy running around to get a good picture. The girls were much more cooperative. I loved the little crocheted cardigans that I found for them.

2007 – Abby was nine days old on Easter Sunday. I’m pretty proud of myself for getting everyone dressed and ready (except for myself . . . the other pictures from this day show that I opted for the “scrubs and a ponytail” look). These were my favorite Easter dresses of all time. I bought a matching one for Abby, but it didn’t fit her for another 6 months.

2008 (In case anyone is still reading this and wants to see even more pictures of my kids in their Easter clothes)

Easter Weekend

We had a wonderfully busy Easter weekend. My nephew got home from his mission on Friday night, so they had a big dinner and open house on Saturday night and then we went out there again on Sunday to hear him speak in church. He did a great job and it was nice to be in church with my whole family on Easter Sunday. The rest of the weekend was filled up with lots of family time and lots of yummy food. It was great.

Welcome home Braydon

Coloring eggs

Ready for the Easter egg hunt

We were running a bit late, but Nate grabbed a mug shot of the kids before we left for church. When we got home, we tried to get some cute pictures outside. The combination of a late spring (everything is still dead) and the sun shining in the kids’ eyes didn’t make for good photos. Better luck next year.

Surf-n-Swim

We left our little winter wonderland on Thursday and took the kids to Surf-n-Swim. My sisters joined us since they were out of school too. It was a good fun time. The kids loved swimming and playing with their cousins. Abby loved the waves. She would sit in the shallow end and laugh and laugh every time one would splash her. After about an hour, she was freezing cold . . . to the point of purple lips and constant shivering . . . but she did not want to get out. She is definitely a water baby.

Happy Spring Break!

Today is the first day of spring break. Perfect weather for flying kites and having a picnic at the park.

Soccer Milestone

After 3 ½ years of playing soccer, Ben made his first goal on Saturday. (In truth, he made quite a few goals his first year playing, but they were all for the opposing team). I had stayed home due to inclement weather and sleeping girls, but Nate called me to share the joy. He said that Ben would get super excited when someone else on his team scored, but when he did, he acted like it was no big deal.

Nate took this picture about 3 seconds before the big moment.

I didn’t want to play favorites (and it was still only 40 degrees outside), so Nate went alone to Emily’s game too. According to his report, she picked up right where she left off last season. She looks like she is being aggressive and runs up and down the field a lot, but we joke about how she tries to maintain a two foot distance from the ball at all times. She is actually a pretty good defensive player and blocked a couple of goal attempts. Luckily, in our super athletic family, she’ll be right on track if she makes a goal two years from now.

Twilight Party

I got together with a few friends from the ward last night for a little Twilight party. Amity and Claudy organized the whole thing and Amity’s parents volunteered their house so we could have a kid-free zone. It was great to spend three hours with a good movie, fun friends, and yummy food. Pretending to be fourteen again was just what I needed to recharge my mom batteries.


Picture: Kierstin, Lisa, April, Mariana, Amity, Claudy, Malinda . . . Emily joined us midway through the movie, so she missed out on the photo.

Happy Birthday Abby!

Really, Abby had a pretty miserable birthday. She’s had a horrible cold for the last few days and wasn’t feeling any better today. She laid on the couch and slept for most of the day and was not at all excited about celebrating her birthday. When the kids got home from school they kept asking her if she wanted to open her presents. “No.” Then, “do you want to have some cake?” “No.” We seriously considered just postponing the celebration for a day or two, but our other three kids wouldn’t hear of it. We gave her some Tylenol in hopes that a lower fever would improve her mood. It worked. She still wasn’t very animated, but she managed to open her presents, eat some dinner, and blow out her candles. She even smiled for a minute when her aunts and cousins called to sing “Happy Birthday” to her.

Nate stayed home from work, but he was about as happy as Abby. He has been super sick the last couple of days too. In fact, Ben is the only member of this household that managed to avoid illness this last week. Hopefully this little string of sicknesses is almost over. Abby was actually running around and playing with her sisters for about an hour before bedtime, so maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

We sure love our Abby. She is sweet and smart and funny. Every day she surprises us with how grown up she is getting. It seems like she is growing up lots faster than our other kids did. I guess it is just part of being the youngest and following the lead of her brother and sisters. She is a fun kid and we feel blessed to have her as part of our family.



The highlight of the day was watching Abby blow out her candles. It took a full two minutes to blow out two candles. Who knew it was such a tricky thing?

Scene on the Screen

I’m happy to announce the big unveiling of Nate’s new website – SceneOnTheScreen.com

Always the list maker, Nate starting keeping track of all of the movies we watch a few years back. He made up his own 1-10 rating scale and assigned each movie a score. Then, when our good friends Sean and Gwyn moved to New Hampshire, Nate and Sean started sending each other movie reviews as a way to keep in touch. Since watching a movie together is pretty much what goes for a date in this house, Nate has written quite of few of these mini-reviews. Keeping with his list-making ways, he thought it would be fun to put them together in an online database that he could add to with each new movie we watch. He’s always wanted to learn more about programming and writing code, and this seemed like a fun way to sharpen those skills. It ended up being a bit trickier than he originally thought, but he stuck with it and has learned a ton. I, for one, am so impressed with the way it all turned out.

Along with the movie reviews, Nate added a section all about home theater. He did an inordinate amount of research when we were building our own home theater. It seemed like a waste to keep all of that random knowledge locked up in his head. This is his way of sharing with the world what he has learned (mingled with some of his own opinions).

My favorite part of the website is the “Home Theater of the Week.” Since Nate does real estate photography, he has access to lots of home theater pictures. We looked at all of them when we were planning our home theater. Some are amazingly cool and some are amazingly ugly. We thought it would be fun to feature a different masterpiece/monstrosity each week.

Nate has no delusions of becoming the next Roger Ebert (especially since we NEVER see a movie before it is released on DVD). This is a just a fun hobby (or a combination of 4 hobbies) for him. He is still working out a few kinks and getting everything up and running, but it is mostly functional. Some of the movies don’t have reviews (just a rating on Nate’s 1-10 scale) and some reviews are just a couple of lines long, but feel free to check it out the next time you are looking for a movie to rent. Maybe Nate will be your Vincent {joke for Seinfeld fans only}.