Nice Try Jaysen....

Jaysen came home the other day and saw that our next door neighbor was having a mowing service come to mow her lawn. Now, our next door neighbor is a single mother who is a nurse and therefore works long hours and sometimes odd shifts. Her son is only 8 and she has HER grandmother come to watch him when she is at work. It also helps that her boyfriend has a mowing service.

With the background out of the way here....

Jaysen walks into the house and tells me that he thinks we should hire out a mowing service to take care of our yard because he just really hated mowing the lawn. For all you moms out there....I'm hoping you are feeling my pain here. :0) $150 a month to pay for a service because you just don't want to have to do it. Mind you....as far as the yard goes....that's all he has to take care of. I just looked at him and told him that if he got to hire out someone to mow the lawn then we were going to hire a maid because I really hated cleaning the house. :0)

He didn't think that was funny.

So, the mowing service idea was put aside. Several weeks later Jaysen gets the brilliant idea that Landon is now old enough that he should be able to start mowing the lawn himself. Landon is 9 years old. Our lawn mower is not the fancy kind that propels itself forward. Yeah......Both Landon and I gave Jaysen the "are you kidding me?" look. Jaysen attempts to sweeten the pot for Landon by offering him money. Of course, Landon accepts the challenge.

As you can see.....Landon had quite a bit of a struggle trying to push our monster lawn mower.

Poor Jaysen had to take over after just a few minutes. Landon was really upset that he wasn't able to pull it off. Jaysen is just going to have to be stuck with doing it by himself. Don't you just feel so bad for him? :0) {Merciless teasing has gone on over this....can you tell?}

BUT! The saga continues. Jaysen is now sure that we need a riding lawn mower.

Have you seen our patch of grass? I don't think he would even be able to turn it around in our small yard. :0)

I'm quite interested to see what idea he comes up with next. :0) He's as bad as my children! Honestly....I wouldn't have him any other way. He does keep us smiling......

Mother's Day

I am such a lucky mom! Not only did my kids get me a huge box of yummy chocolates, but we went out and played all day long. I love spending time out and about with my family. Especially when there isn't a time frame to deal with, or a schedule. Just enjoying the day together.
I told Mackenzee that we could walk underneath the bridge after last weekends outing. She was so scared! I'm not sure if she thought that the cars were really going to drive right over the top of us or what. She was relieved to see that there was a path that we could walk directly underneath the bridge. :0) You know, I drive over the Perrine Bridge fairly often but don't really pay much attention to it. It is a MASSIVE structure! Of course, to connect the sides of the Snake River Canyon, it would take something rather large. :0)

This is a fairly new statue out by the bridge called "The Twins". I think it is just gorgeous, and sadly, this is the first time I've seen it up close.

Here is Mr. IB Perrine himself. I didn't know this statue was here either. Kind of sad when you don't even know what interesting features you have in your own home town! I told my kids we were going to make it a point to go out and see everything we possibly could this summer. I think they are more excited than I am. :0)

As promised, I took Landon over to walk behind the waterfall at Centennial Park.

He was so funny about it too. I'm not quite sure why he would think he was going to stay super dry around a waterfall, but the water falling on our heads was not something he enjoyed. :0)
It was a fun afternoon spent outside in gorgeous weather. We did have to get back home for a bit so that I could write a paper for school, but it was nice to take this time and not worry about anything but enjoying the company of my hubby and kids.

Thanks for a wonderful day guys!

Cousin Fun

Because my sister's graduation was so late on Thursday night I figured it would be easiest to just stay the night at her house and then go home the next afternoon. My kids were so excited to have a sleepover with their cousins.
It was such a gorgeous afternoon that we decided to take the kids into Rexburg to go to the park. I had Landon bring a basketball so that all of us could play HORSE together. {Um...I totally beat EVERYONE!}

Actually, it was Landon who ended up giving Stephen all of his letters. He made some pretty amazing shots that could not be duplicated. This boy's got some skills. :0)

Mackenzee was just so excited to be outside {as usual}. I think it took her only just a couple of minutes to fall asleep once we hit the road to go home.

Thanks for putting up with us Melanie! I promised the kids we'd go back and visit again this summer. So, get ready!

Beaming with Pride

My older sister, Melanie, just graduated from the University of Idaho with her Bachelors of Science degree. Since this was such a huge moment for her I wanted to be there to support her and cheer her on when she accepted her diploma. So, with my kids, I drove up to Idaho Falls to watch her on Thursday night. My parents made the trip too.
Her degree is in Psychology. I'm assuming this is because she wanted to take after me. :0) Sure, she got her bachelor's and I'm only getting my associate's degree in a couple of months...but it was my idea first! :0) I told her that she would have to move by me in a couple of years so that we could open up a family counseling practice together. Stumpf and Burnham....or better yet....Burnham and Stumpf. :0) Good stuff.

Even though she is my BIG sister, I felt like a proud mommy watching her walk the stage to get her diploma. She has worked so hard on this and is such a great example for me as I try to get through my classes.

{Have you ever tried to take a picture that has seven children in it at 9:30 at night? Yeah....good luck with getting all eyes on the camera!}

Family Tree

Part of Landon's homework assignment a few weeks ago was for him to fill in a preprinted form of his family tree. As with most "normal" families....there was a spot for him, his parents and both sets of grandparents. Poor kid was so lost on how to fill it out. He wanted to know which people he should CHOOSE to put in the preprinted lines on the tree. :0( I had to explain to him that not every family fits into the "normal" category and that we would just have to add some lines of our own to make his tree nice and full. He was so proud and excited when we were done filling it in with all of the names. He couldn't wait to take it to school to show his teacher how many people he had in his "UNIQUE" family tree. :0)
What I didn't know was that the homework was the outline for their art project at school. I saw this in his backpack yesterday and had so much fun looking at it. Apparently each child had to draw faces on the circles and put them on their "real" family tree made of construction paper.

See...there's Landon in the middle. To the left is the Robinson/Burnham side of the family and to the right is the Holtman/Zeyer side of the family. I think he did a fabulous job. What was funny for me to look at, however, was the faces that he drew for each person.....
Here is Landon. He drew his hair poking up in the back. It must have been a bad hair day for him. Here is Jaysen and me. At first I thought he drew Jaysen with an angry face, but Landon assured me that it was a sad face, not an angry face. When I asked him why he drew Jaysen as sad he just laughed. I guess he just thought it would be funny. I am loving how sweet and nice he drew my picture. Don't I look angelic? :0)Here are Jeff and Shirlaine along with Grandma Zeyer. Apparently Grandpa Zeyer didn't make it through the bus ride home. His head is missing from the tree and all that is left is his label. :0) I was rather humored that Landon would make sure to get Jeff's "soul patch" in on his head.

Here are Grandma and Grandpa Holtman. When I asked him what was up with the angry eyes on Ronald he told me that sometimes he just gets mad. :0) {I think we all do} But, it's great that Landon drew a fluff of hair for him.

Here's Nana and Papa. Landon was so tickled with his drawing of Papa. It was the first face he pointed out to me and he was laughing so hard. "Did you see how I drew Papa's hair?"

Grandma and Grandpa Burnham fared the best overall. Perry grew a head full of hair overnight apparently....and look how happy he is about it. :0)

Here is Mackenzee. Doesn't she look so sad? Why is she sad? Because she is always naughty and has to go to time out. That's what Landon said. If you've been around here lately you would have noticed that she has tended to have a perma-pout on her face. Such a drama queen!

And here is baby brother Brayden. I think he looks kind of scared, don't you?

Anyway, I was glad to see that Landon understood that his family tree just had a few more branches than some of the others in his classroom and that it didn't mean that he had to choose which ones to add to his tree. Sometimes we just have to get a bigger tree. :0)

Thanks Landon

Landon brought me these flowers when he came home on Sunday night. They are my Mother's Day present from him. He even made me a homemade card with a butterfly drawing on the front and a poem on the inside.
"Roses are red, Violets are Blue,
Sugar is sweet, and so are you.
Roses are red, Violets are Blue,
You are my mom and I love you."
Such a sweet little boy I have! Thanks so much Landon!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fuh-un

I finished getting my outfit for 80s girls night together this last weekend. I must say I am super excited to take it out on the road.....to the bowling alley. :0) I have been planning this outfit for over a month now and I think I have done a fabulous job of getting in touch with my inner Cyndi Lauper. I'll post more pictures after girls night next week.....this picture is minus the hair and makeup that will be necessary to "complete" my look. :0)