Cole Bros. Circus

When the kids came home from school last week with free circus tickets, I got excited to take them to the Cole Bros. Circus that came to town this weekend. I knew it wouldn't be anything spectacular, but the trained animals and the people who work hard at their acrobatic acts always impress. So, after school today, we headed off to the early show starting at 4:30pm at Zephyr Field. Our sweet neighbor, Caroline, agreed to accompany me to help with the kids.
When we arrived, they were offering elephant rides in front of the big top. Carston and Peyton were so excited that I couldn't resist letting them ride even though the price was outrageous.
Here they are enjoying a ride on one of the circus elephants:

Their ride consisted of one turn about this small enclosure set up in the parking lot, but....

they couldn't have been happier with the ride.

You can see it was a beautiful day to be outside.

Jackson was nervous to ride until Carston and Peyton were done. Then he decided he would like a ride as well. By that point the circus was starting, so he never got that ride....maybe next time.

Benjamin gravitated to the area where the elephants were enclosed. He kept pointing and saying "elephant" with his sweet little toddler accent. The circus held his attention just as well as these elephants did at the entrance.

I had the kids line up against the tent as we headed inside. Wow, was it dirty! The stands had the same level of cleanliness which made me feel like I should have brought blankets to sit on.

Just my boys!
(minus the littlest one due in three months who is kicking me in the ribs right now)

Grant was clapping with excitement and Benjamin was not enjoying being held back from getting to the show.

I have a lot of fun with my best friends! We were excited for the show to begin.

I brought our dinner with us (sandwiches, juice boxes and fruit). We ate while we watched. Grant could hardly eat because he was so enthralled by most of the acts we saw.

The twins enjoyed their meal.

Afterwards, Peyton favored all of us in the stands with her own acrobatic act. It was so cute. She honestly worked up a sweat twisting around the railing in the middle of the stairs. You can see in some of the pictures that she is watching the act and trying to follow what they are doing. I have got to get her into dance and gymnastics. She loved that part of the circus!

My little acrobat!

Carston's favorite act was the elephants. The last circus we attended had tigers, so we were hoping this one would too. We were sad to find out that this circus didn't have anything more dangerous than camels. Luckily, Carston has loved elephants since he was really little and before the more ferocious animals took his attention, elephants were his favorite.

The elephants were my favorite as well.

This cannon was extremely loud as the man exploded out of it, but it wasn't anything spectacular. I kept wondering what made the man shot from this cannon choose this job. What kind of child sits around when they are little and thinks that they would like to be shot out of a cannon at the circus when they grow up. There must be a serious thrill attached or a love of deafeningly loud noises and landing in safety nets.

Jackson was enjoying the trained camels (you can't see them very well in the background). One might not guess that he was having fun by the pained look on his face. I think I take too many pictures and he can hardly make himself smile for them sometimes.

Benjamin was mesmerized for most of the circus. I was surprised by how much attention he was paying to everything going on. If you're wondering what on earth he is eating in this picture, it is an apple slice.

On our way out of the circus, I had to get a picture of Caroline with the kids (all of whom were begging for a treat from the concessions stands, which I didn't want to buy). So, we went out for ice cream afterwards and came home exhausted and sticky.
We had a great time at the circus!

Pre-K Pajama Day

Peyton and Jackson got to wear their pajamas to school today. They were really excited about pajama day. All week, we talked about what pajamas they would wear. Jackson was certain he would "freak" a few people out with his skeleton pajamas. Peyton let me choose. I didn't want to send her in her favorite nightgown because she is still working on sitting like a lady. Right now her favorite position, when sitting on the couch for scripture study at night, is on her head with her nightgown around her neck. So, her silky strawberry pajamas were the perfect answer and she looks darling in them. She even got to wear her slippers. Jackson doesn't have slippers, so he took this chance to wear his crocs. This picture was taken right after they got home from school, none the worse for wear. I am so glad they love going to school!

Welcome to Albuquerque

I drove the 1161 miles from Metairie, LA to Albuquerque, NM last Sunday in just over 16 hours. It was a long trip, but I made it one piece. Now the countdown begins to head back home. In the meantime things have been really great here. This is a picture of the place I am staying. I was able to sublet a furnished room for the month and it seems to be working out pretty well. I really like the Ortho program here. The residents are all hard-working and good people. I feel like I am learning a lot. Things have been pretty busy for me over the last week and a half.
My schedule has been the following:

Monday: 8:00a-7:30p
Tuesday: 6:30a-8:30p
Wednesday:6:30a-8:00p
Thursday: 6:30a-12:00a (Call)
Friday: 12:00a-7:30p (Post Call)
Saturday: 7:00a-12:00a (Call)
Sunday: 12:00a-11:00a
Monday: 6:30a-12:00a (Call)
Tuesday: 12:00a-4:00p (Post Call)
Wednesday: 6:30a-8:00p
Thursday: 6:30a-4:00p

I have gotten a total of about 30 mins of sleep while I have been on call (unless you count the times that I dozed off at the operating table) , so it was nice to have most of the afternoon off today to catch up on some rest. It was weird to come home and not have Shannon and the kids around...I really wouldn't know what to do with myself if things were always like this. I miss them a lot! My life would be so empty with out them. Anyway, after sitting around for a few minutes I realized that I was wasting a beautiful, sunny fall day so I went for a bike ride.

I am sure I looked funny riding around Albuquerque on a tiny woman's bicycle. It has a 15 inch frame. When I was in 6th grade I bought a bike with a 21 inch frame. It was fun to get out though. I am on call again tomorrow night so here we go again...

Sunshine after the Rain

We had a dark rainy day yesterday. In vivid contrast, we woke up this morning to bright sunshine and a cloudless blue sky. This reappearance by the sun was a happy invitation to come out of hiding and enjoy the gorgeous weather. Grant, Benjamin and I spent the morning playing outside and we were anxious for the older kids to get home to play with us. As soon as Carston, Jackson and Peyton got home from school, we pulled the bikes and cars out into the front yard. It was hot enough outside that everyone requested drinks early on. I brought out juice boxes, which are a special treat at our house.

When I came out to give the kids their drinks, they had already pushed all of their bikes into the shade and were waiting on the grass. They were a pretty happy crew sitting there sipping apple juice with the promise of more time outside to enjoy their bikes and the sunshine.

This was the only picture I took all afternoon in which Benjamin is looking toward the camera. I had to trick him to get him to look at me.

Jackson made me smile. His bike is too small for him now, so he doesn't ride it often. He kept sneaking back over to the shade to enjoy another sip of his juice. He is able to ration food in a way that most of us are incapable of doing.

Peyton is serious when she rides her bike! She was pushing herself to go as fast as possible. For added excitement, she cut corners and quickly shot through tight spaces in our neighbor's carport. She got frustrated with herself when her performance was less than she anticipated.

The kids quickly discovered that our neighbor, Henry, has a sloping driveway. They kept pushing their cars or riding their bikes up into his carport so that they could turn around and cruise down his driveway. Grant enjoyed this the very most and only put his feet down to stop himself right when he reached the edge of the curb, only inches from entering the street. He knows how to push limits! When I wasn't pushing Benjamin in the police car, he pushed it around himself following his older siblings. He thinks he is one of the "big kids". ( Notice Peyton in the backyard zipping through an opening in the brick of the carport.)

Here comes Grant, rounding the corner to make his assent back up Henry's driveway in order to enjoy another effortless ride down the driveway. I love that carefree smile.

Oops, I got in Peyton's way! This was her look to tell me to move it or lose it.

Jackson figured out it was more fun to cruise down the driveway with his feet up.

Carston caught on and enjoyed this method a few times.

Benjamin kept up the serious work of pushing this car around for a good hour, without taking a break. That is determination!

I took this last picture of Carston as we were reluctantly heading back indoors to eat dinner. The shadows were starting to cover the driveway lessening the heat and making it even more enjoyable to be outside. The kids weren't ready to go inside, but the night time ritual dictates that we eat dinner at a decent time or I have all kinds of difficulty getting everyone to bed.
Goodbye, Mr. Sun. We hope to see you again tomorrow.

All for Nothing?

It has been pouring rain all day, putting our newly raised backyard to the test. It appears that our pond has simply moved closer to the house. We'll see how long it takes for it to disappear. That will be the real test, but for now I am slightly trepidatious and hope that paying for all of that dirt wasn't a waste. At least I won't have to water the dirt tonight....watering is done, dude.

Grant doesn't seem to mind having the water closer to the house.
Who doesn't love a good rain puddle to jump in?

Eating a Ghostly Dinner and Going Batty

We had witch fingers and ghosts for dinner tonight. The garlic mashed potato ghosts were a hit, but Carston insisted that I should have used something besides raisins for eyes. I was supposed to use black beans, but didn't feel like opening a whole can. The witch fingers are actually Frankfurters. I found them at Whole Foods this morning and they made me nostalgic for my mission, so I bought them for dinner. They just happened to look like fingers if you cut them in half, so I did. The spaghetti and eyeballs and the brains (mac-n-cheese) we ate last week didn't go over as well as one might think. Carston said that thinking of his food as eyeballs or brains made him sick. I have to agree. Actually, he didn't want these Frankfurters to be fingers either. He decided they were worms. He then proceeded to ask me if eating worms is what makes witches' faces green. I love his questions!

Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake.

The kids loved it, except for the crust. They scraped the filling from the graham cracker crust and left the crust sitting practically perfect on their plates. I like to make pumpkin pudding rather than pumpkin pie myself. I think we'll have that next Monday.

Benjamin insists on eating everything by himself and he makes a total mess doing it. He has ketchup all over his face from his frankfurter. He then mixed that loveliness with pie which got all over the floor, his shirt, hands, chest and face.




After dinner we had a regular family home evening lesson and then went totally batty! We read stories about bats and made a few. I worked for awhile this afternoon to get ready for the bat crafts. I liked how the bats on the clothes pins turned out. They are hanging on the drapes behind the kids. The kids also colored their own bats and we cut them out and glued them together. They are now hanging on the wall with our jack-o-lanterns from last week. It was a fun way to decorate our house for Halloween. I think we'll have a ghostly encounter next week. Isn't Halloween fun!?

General Conference Weekend

We have been looking forward to General Conference for months. The kids love the idea that you get to watch "church" on television. We also have some fun conference traditions.
The only hard part about this conference weekend was that we were missing Mark!

At the beginning of the Saturday afternoon session, Grant automatically went over and sat down to watch. It really touched me that he was interested.

At that same moment, the other kids were enjoying a conference snack at the kid's table. We buy all kinds of treats that we don't normally get for conference snacks. The kids get to choose treats they want to try that I have never bought before and they choose treats I won't buy when they ask. That sweetens the deal for them and for me too! It is our semi-annual splurge.

This picture was taken during one of my favorite moments of conference. It was during the Saturday afternoon session while the children's choir was singing. Every time the choir sang, all of my kids would burst into song as well. It was so sweet to watch them enjoying primary songs. They were also interested in watching the children singing. It was the only time they all paid attention. You can see that Benjamin was also attempting to join in the song. He ran straight for the television and was fully belting the song, but not exactly using words.

The kids had a fort built bright and early Sunday morning, one of our favorite conference traditions. They were ready for conference hours before it started. When Daddy is home, the forts are a little more majestic but this is one they made all by themselves. I spent the rest of the day fixing and completely rebuilding this fort. We also had quite a few arguments over who was ruining it and who wasn't allowed in it anymore.
We had conference breakfast and enjoyed the fort until conference started. I didn't include pictures of my rubber eggs, because they didn't look quite as nice as the ones Mark makes. He is usually our conference breakfast chef and he cooks everything to perfection and arranges the food on our plates like artwork, visually delightful. It always tastes great!
We really missed him.

Aren't they all so cute! I loved these pictures. This last one was taken at the end of the Sunday afternoon session. Everyone was getting tired and they actually laid down for the last few minutes. Peyton and Grant were very particular that their blankets be perfectly positioned. I was worn out as well. I think we all felt a bit cooped up, but we enjoyed listening to the words of our prophet, apostles and other church leaders. I was grateful for so many talks that touched my heart and seemed directed right at me. I know Heavenly Father is so mindful of us.