So months ago, Tucker got an ant farm at a garage sale. He loves bugs, and thought it would be a fun way to collect the ants from the yard. Unfortunately, the ants around us, are so small, they fit out the air holes of the farm… Therefore, making the farm defunct.
We read the instruction manual that came with the farm, and Tucker was pleased to find out, you could order Harvester Ants that would come in the mail.
Tucker was thrilled. As I read on, I read about the Harvester Ants. Do not Touch them with your skin, they can cause serious allergic reactions, if you have been bitten, and are having an allergic reaction, seek medical attention. I was not thrilled.
We ordered them, and after 6 weeks of waiting, they arrived. Dead. I hate to admit this, but I was secretly a little relieved. But Tucker was sad. So…
We called the company, got new ones in 3 days. Again, I was still not thrilled, how did we wait 6 weeks, then they arrived shortly in 3 days?
I read the directions again skipping over the allergic biting part, to find the best way to put them in the farm.
The instructions stated:
Put them in the fridge for 10 minutes (to slow them down) then use a paper funnel to place them in the farm.
Okay. I could do that.
But it wasn’t that simple. After the fridge time, and the paper funnel ready, we began to poor them in. But instead of going inside, they started climbing up the edges towards us. No matter how hard I thumped the funnel, or shook it, they were all still climbing the wrong direction. I was getting frantic, and began to thump harder. They were about out of the funnel, what was I to do. I crumpled the top, and began to shake them frantically into the farm.
A few went in, and a few went on our counter, and began to dash in different directions.
I began freaking out, closed the ant farm lid, with the 10 ants that made it in, and began to wage war with the escapeys.
Tucker told me later, I have never heard you scream like that mom.
Yep. I was screaming, and probably not as calm as I should have been. I squished 10 ants, we didn’t need any allergic reactions at our house.
So Tucker is happy, some ants made it into the farm, I am happy, they can’t escape, and the surviving ants seem to be happy in their home.
**Later Toph asked me why I didn’t just scoop the ants up and put them in the farm. Like I had time to think about that. I was protecting our children and our home! They were like practically poisonous little buggers. Sheesh.
Category: Life
As of this week, T-ball and Swimming Lessons are done! We completed them last week, now we are ready to sit back, and enjoy the rest of summer, with no more lessons or sports, we can breath the fresh air, and have no place to be running too! Have I mentioned I love this month of July?
T-Ball Sum Up.
T-Ball! The age where children want to participate, and play, but don’t quite fully understand the game at first! It was a fun season to watch.
As with his teammates, Tucker enjoyed hitting the ball,
but was a little bored (and therefore becoming a little mischevious) when in the outfield, waiting his turn to bat, sitting on the bases waiting for others to bat so he could run,
and almost everything else about it. As parents, we would sit on the sidelines, and kind of giggle at our children, and learning group sports.
We had really good coaches,
who taught Tucker alot, and to them we are very grateful! I think Tucker and his teammates kept them pretty busy with there antics, of eating grass, poking teammates, eating mitts,
playing in the dirt instead of catching the ball,
and etc. They were patient and guided them with care. Now Tucker understands the sport, can hit a ball, and run to all bases, is good at throwing the ball to first base, and has overall mastered T-ball.
Hurray for T-ball and the Red Dragons!
We’re looking forward to coach pitch next year!
Swimming Lessons
They learned what they needed to learn: Tucker passed Level 2 and Truman passed Level 1.
They have loved the things they learned about swimming, and have tried to apply them around the house. Last night I walked into their room, Truman was standing on his bed watching his shadow as he did: Chicken, Airplane, Soilder (the steps to the backstroke), and Tucker is constantly cannon bombing off everything, the kitchen table, the couch, you name it.
The last day, was free family swim day, so I got to get in the water with the boys and see what they learned, and let me tell you, two weeks is not a lot, but when you’ve got great teachers, alot can be learned! I loved seeing my little fisheys!
Here are a few videos:
Truman was so happy once he got in the water, he would just bounce around:
jumpingtru
Trumans class learning to kick:
trukick
Tuckers class playing fishey in the basket, he was constantly underwater during lessons, making it hard to get shots of him!:
tuckerfishey
Tucker Ice-Cream Scoop hands, then going underwater, again:
tuckerswim
Here is the last day, Tucker and Trumans class played ring around the rosies together:
rosies
What a fun thing to see your children learn to love to swim, and enjoy the water. Love it!
To celebrate that our Stake has been organized for 10 Years, they threw a huge party. It was such a fun night. Way funner than I expected! We packed a picnic, then walked over to the stake property with our wagon.
People brought refreshments for dessert, and they provided popsicles, watermelon, and the entertainment.
When I say entertainment, I mean entertainment. It was a fun night. They had wonderful music, a candy cannon that shot taffy out to the kids who were eagerly waiting,
a fishing pond for the kids, face painting (Truman insisted on having his whole face painted like a tiger, then went around roaring at everyone the rest of the night, )
Truman thought it was especially funny when it was pitch black dark outside and he had his matching orange sweater on. He went around scaring everyone we knew.
There was Relay races, kickball, and so many other things.
The night ended with one of the most amazing firework shows that I have ever seen.
It was such a fun night, and a great way to celebrate 10 years of being a stake.
So a few weeks ago, while at our local library, my boys found out about a bug making contest. They were excited, and really wanted to participate. We had a busy few weeks, so in between everything, we made some bugs, a little here and a little there. The boys had a great time, and made them completely and totally by themselves, and did really work hard on them.
Last week, everyones bugs went on display. When we went to go find our bugs, we looked around, and saw that there was alot of bugs that looked very nice. When I say very nice, I mean, like, VERY NICE, like maybe mom and dad helped a lot, very nice.
It made me feel sad for my boys, that they had worked so hard, and probably would not get any credit for that, because there bugs didn’t look professionally done. But at the same time, it’s a good lesson to learn: it doesn’t matter whether you win or loose, we had fun in making and creating.
Trumans bug is the blue bug
Tuckers is the Green bug
The first week of lessons concluded, we are halfway through!
And I am happy to report, that thanks to our friend Crickey, the plastic cricket, Truman is participating and loving swimming lessons. (Tru gets to hold him only during lessons, and if he decides not to go/participate, then Crickey doesn’t get to go swimming either). Crickey and Truman are making significant progress, they know how to do the frog kick, ice-cream scoop hands, splash under the water, water safety, and now, love their teacher Kirk,
as he plays the game fishey in the basket.
Tucker on the other hand is hard to capture on the camera.
He has discovered that he can see under the water. So when he is not having his turn, practicing his new swimming strokes with his teacher,
he is on the side of the pool, underwater, practicing swimming and looking around. He smiles the entire time, is a good floater on his back and his belly, is an awesome flutter kicker, and I can’t wait too see what he will learn next week.
Hurray for swimming lessons. And what part am I enjoying the most? They come home, a little bit more mellow, and always have a nice quiet time.
I loved the idea of this…. I stole it from my friend Jensa’s Blog. And filled it in for our fam.
Thanks for the great idea, Jensa! 🙂
2 words to describe us right now, today, half way through two-thousand-eight:
Family – productive, joyous
Toph – working, sunnergetic
Em – exhausted, undaunted
Tuck – absorbing, inventor
Tru – growing, learning
2 things we’re into right now:
Family – smoothies, Wall-E
Toph – Hiking, books
Em – Chocolate, Afternoon Naps
Tuck – bugs, Construx
Tru – planet heroes, Tucker
2 things we’re looking forward to:
Family – Disneyland, Tomatoes
Toph – camping, frisbee
Em – August, sprinkling system
Tuck – kindergarten, peas
Tru – preschool, Being Done with Swimming
2 things we don’t like:
Family – Sickness, When the Internet is down
Toph -Appendicitis, broken email
Em- Waking Up, Hot days
Tuck- Not being able to just invent all day long, when little brothers get on his nerves
Tru- When his blanket is dirty, having to stop playing
2 things we can’t live without:
Family – Sandpile, Oxygen
Toph- My Hubba, Frisbee
Em- Her Hubba, Cheese
Tuck- Truman, Bill Nye the Science Guy
Tru-Tucker, Carebear Blanket
2 things we did today:
Family – Eat Dinner, Good Night hugs
Toph – Kissed his wife, and farted (he told me to write those things!)
Em- RS Meeting, Ate Popsicle
Tuck- Swam, T-ball
Tru- Swam, Rolled down Hill
For me, this is official summer time.
Both boys are enrolled in swimming lessons, that began yesterday. (look at that silly/crazy face!)
Tucker did awesome, and is swimming like a champ, he’s always been a fish.
And so has Truman–Fishey, fishey, they’re both great in the water. And Truman was doing awesome until his teacher turned his back, and told him to step down to the next step. Which was too deep. And Truman thought he was drowning.
For some reason the teacher was surprised when he didn’t want to get back in the water. Hmm… We’ll see how things go today. They can’t get much worse right?
Well It’s official, last night we saw the Wall-E Movie. and after leaving the theater and some pondering, I decided I loved this little robot character….
There is not to many movies we go and see in the theaters–The boys especially (Or if we do, it’s the dollar theaters, in fact I think I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been to a movie with them!). But this is one we had to see shortly after it opened, the boys have been looking forward to it for over a year now, and it was well worth the wait.
Honestly it was full of Robots and excitement, if you’re Tucker and Truman, what’s not to love? Truman had a hard time sitting that still, after the drive there, and no time to run around before the movie started, but for the most part he sat still, and was entertained.
Of course it’s more fun to see a movie when you’re there with people you love. Thanks again Mom and Dad for the evening, it was fun to be together with the full Greene Crew!!!
Possible Spoilers (don’t read on if you haven’t seen the movie, and don’t want to know about it!)
Tuckers Favorite part was:
Any part with Wall-E, but the part where Wall-E dances with Eve.
Trumans Favorite Part was:
When Wall-E adn Eve were floating in space and chasing each other.
The boys totally appreciated the movie, and I think that at DisneyLand in August, we just might find ourselves purchasing some Wall-E Apparel for our little robot lovers. Something else (Wall-E related) to look forward to!
And oh yeah, here’s a funny picture of Dad in front of Beverly Hills Chihuahua (when all the kids saw the preview, we thought dad would love it….made him stand for a picture) But instead of getting the Chihuahua in the picture, it looks like dad is a Chihuahua. Sorry Dad… 🙂
So the month of June has been a crazy for our family….a WICKED CRAZY MONTH! Full of so many fun adventures, that I haven’t even had time to recover enough to post about one before the next one came. So…here is the end of month long summary.
In the past month we have been so many place, and done so many things, that I can’t even begin to recall them all…but here is a list (of the things I CAN REMEMBER)–attached to an apology, This will be a crazy long post… please don’t feel any obligation to read any further than this point. I will never know 🙂
So here is what we’ve done during the month of June, There are no captions on the pictures, they’re out of order, and I’m sorry. Each one of these could be
there own separate post, but there are not enough hours in the day right now for me to accomplish this, and life just keeps on moving, so…
Here we go, drum roll please….. JUNE by the phillips family.
**My Cousin Leslie’s Bridal Shower, (Pictures to come)
**I Chopped my Hair.
**Our Family Went Camping with the Phillips Family
**JoAnna took out her Endowments at the Logan Temple
**Helped Plan and attended Jo’s Bridal Shower
(picture by Lexie) I know you ladies took other pictures of the shower, will you email me some? Thanks…
**Treehouse Museum
**Picnic in the Park
**Attended Strawberry Days
**JoAnna and Chad’s got married!!
**JoAnna and Chad had a beautiful Reception (Again, I didn’t get any pictures with My Camera, but I’m sure I’ll get some from Cat, Emily and Lexie, please girls? The ones I do have, I stole off Cat’s Facebook Page)
**Mandatory Work Hours
**Brian and Lexie in town at our house, playing with cousins in the tree house is the best thing ever.
**Summer Library Class Started (including a make your own bug contest–more pictures of finished bugs later..)
**Twice a week T-Ball games continue
**Boys Weekly Movie Group
**Weekly Ward Playgroup at Local Playground
**Began our fruit smoothie summer tradition
**Planned, got ready our ward’s Large Enrichment Activity: Summer Salad Social
**Had a Bumper crop of Cherries (and I guess we still do?)
**Celebrated the wonderful men in my life, with Father’s day….
** Of course some bug hunting,
**Plus, just keeping up with Laundry, dishes, cleaning our house, and raising to energetic boys has just exhausted me!!! Although this has been an amazingly wonderful month, we are looking forward to a relaxing month in July, because we have very little planned!
I am surrounded by men who have shaped me , my life, my husbands life, and my children and their lives daily. I am blessed to have and love and be loved by so many amazing men.
Happy Fathers Day to the amazing men in my life….
Toph
My Dad
My Father in Law
My Grandpa Greene
My Grandpa Hunsaker
Ryan
Eric
Patrick
Matt
Brian
Mike
Dallin Paul
