Singing in the rain

Well, I told him to do a rain dance and sing and he didn't. And it was only just sprinkling at this moment. I had this idea, to be thankful for our rain. I've long thought that singing and dancing in the rain would be fun - but if it were warm {which it wasn't yesterday} and without the threat of lightning...{see Virginia has fantastic summer rain ~ crazy hard rain and it's warm ~ so you feel like you want to go sing and dance in the rain ~ but the rain always comes with crazy lightning. I've seen it strike across the street, I seen trees in my neighborhood split down the middle, my very own friend's childhood home has been hit three (?) times now {once on our way there and so the firemen came to check it out - the kids thought it was pretty neat}, so the lightning there is very real and close so it's not acceptable in my mind to just let loose in the rain.}
But I live here, not there. Here, we've had lightning storms pretty rarely...so I thought it'd be fun to go play in the rain and let them jump in the big puddle in our yard. It should be fun! Especially with the promise of hot chocolate when they were done:) But, It was cold and not warm and the boys didn't quite get my idea.

Oh well. We've had days of rain again! Yipee! And check out what Ryan spied out the window! It went all the way across the sky. We were too close and I couldn't fit it in one picture.

Seeing a rainbow is so exciting! It lasted only a few minutes before the sun was gone again. It was awesome!

Rain, rain COME AGAIN!

Three drought years in a row is not good. After hearing from our city manager at church that we are desperate for rain, our family has prayed for rain consistently. We did get some great systems that dumped some good rain, but we've also had some of the most gorgeous spring sunny days around here with the temperature just around 60-65 degrees. Down right gorgeous park weather. We have enjoyed it by going on walks and to the park...but despite the beautifulness, I've been wishing for RAIN!!! So I decided to dedicate our "preschool" this week on Weather. We focused on snow, rain and wind. We did a few projects that were super easy and fun, and thought some of you fellow moms might enjoy a Spring rainy day activity...Ryan couldn't wait to do these himself.



RAINY DAY Picture:

Shaving cream
Glue
Black paint or food coloring
tin foil
Blue cake sprinkles or glitter

So I found this idea to make clouds by mixing shaving cream with glue. The kids thought it was super cool and it stayed very fluffy through the mixing and drying. After it dried it was pretty spongy. You could push on it and it would spring back. I'm sure if you used more glue than I did it might work even better.


The aluminum foil was a puddle.



WINDY DAY Picture:

I found a picture online of a windblown tree and kite...then watered down some paint and put drops on the paper, gave them straws and said BLOW!

The paint needs to be really watery and it works awesome. My first few drops were too thick to really blow in the "wind."







On a side note...my boys had a little mishap while reenating a scene from Star Wars. Sean was Darth Vader and was to throw his light saber to Ryan. Ryan expected it to land on his lap, but Sean threw too high and hit Ryan right above the eyebrow. Apparently he had to stand in front of the class to explain what happened {it happened less than an hour before school and was worried about having to tell people - I guess he got over it.}. The class aide told me after school one of the boys asked him if he ducked when he saw the light saber coming and he said he did but at the wrong time!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!! I LOVE YOU!

10, missing clothes, family project

10 months old today!

He loves to play. He gets a wrinkled nose and big smile when anyone comes to play with him. He loves to be chased. He loves to try to communicate with us. He's so fun. But poor baby has been sick nearly all month. He was better for less than a week before another round of coughing and wheezing came on. Bummer!

Speaking of sick...Sean too got this
ridiculous cough... again!

It hasn't slowed him down too much this time except yesterday afternoon, he fell asleep on my bed waiting for me to read him a book, then woke up to go pee...but didn't quite make it back to the bed or putting his undies back on. And notice the one sock. I laughed so hard when I found him!

Our school boy has avoided being as sick as his younger brothers this last month, just tolerates a mild cough - comparitively. But I had to take this picture because when we tuck the kids in at night, we often find him with no shirt or his shirt in some strange concoction - this wasn't too odd as it was just around his neck. Last week Scott found his arm in one sleeve, but it was twisted inside out before his arm went in and the other arm was bent somehow. It's a funny thing.

Lastly, we completed our family project tonight! We've been working on this for about 6 weeks ... purchasing lumber (Scott's preferred word instead of just wood), sanding, building, painting (multiple coats)...and finally it is finished and in the boys room! This picture makes me happy...you can read why...

I had this idea and my husband was game(He cracks me up and I love him...he got so into it, wishing he had his own circular table saw because relying on Lowe's or Home Depot to cut the wood was lame and it gave him an excuse to wear his toolbelt...that he got when he was a framer {for a few weeks} before we got married)! It was really fun. We all loved working on it together...though me and the boys observed the beginning stages. Scott sanded and built it...I helped paint - we primed...and did 3 1/2 coats of black paint and the boys got to help a bit during each step - even moving it into the house. It's exactly what I wanted there and I'm super duper happy to finally have it in their room! Thank you Scott!!!!!!

The boys were thrilled to move it in. They decided their room was brand new and it was kinda like moving into a new house. I put their robots from Santa on this shelf in their closet now that there was a vacancy and Ryan thought it was genius!

This boy loves organization - He used to line up blocks or cars by color..

He took the picture because he thought it was so cool. He also thought the picture turned out great:)
My dad was a lucky guy. He had these cool vehicles in High School - and drools over them still.

We love you dad!

All done means so much...

A few weeks ago, Kyle almost simultaneously learned how to wave hi/bye and sign "all done."
Now he loves to communicate this way...but uses his new communication method all the time, for many reasons. He's so proud of himself and loves to connect with us. It's super cute.

He always does it when he's getting out of his crib, the bath, leaving a room, etc....but yesterday I had to wake him up so we could take Ryan to school...and he'd only been asleep for maybe 30 minutes so he was very groggy as I picked him up to get buckled into the van...and though his eyes were only half open, he did his all done sign. Then laid his head on my shoulder with eyes closed. What a dolly-babe (my grandma's nickname for us grandkids).

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

We started our day with a yummy breakfast celebration!

Menu: waffles
Strawberries & cream

I love my family! I love my friends and family far away!

Happy Valentines Day to all I love!

Then we said goodbye to our kids who are spending the day with the Motley Grandparents! Now my one and only and I are going to go shopping - by ourselves! Still gotta spend some Christmas gift certificates! Shopping with no kids is gonna be great! (well 1 kid - but he sits in a stroller:)

Lucky us ~ Another snow day!

Another snow day for the Motley's! We had a great time, the boys did not want to stop having fun and have already asked if we can go back next Saturday!


This time we went with the Favero's. Scott grew up with Bryan Favero and now they live nearby and have a 4, 3, and 1 year old ~ pretty close in age to our kids. Scotty and Kaylin are the kids Sean gets together with once a week for mom led preschool activities. Ryan gets so jealous on Wednesdays and has even pretended to be sick when he knows it's a Scotty and Kaylin day so he could stay home from school for the fun. Luckily for him he's had a few Wednesday's off from school and has gotten to participate.

Soooooo...this day has been highly anticipated!

Sean and Scotty.












A triple!




Brothers!
Scott and Sean. Isn't Sean's little body on Scott's back super cute? A moment in time I definitly want to remember since all too soon he will be all grown up!















I took one of Ryan and Scott doing this same thing but it didn't work because my camera battery was lame! Argh.

Journal moment: The moment we got out of the car the kids were climbing snowbanks. I was still prepping Kyle for snow, so I only heard this exchange that went something like...
Ryan says, "You need help Sean?" (as they were on top of a tall snowbank ledge) "I'll help you Sean! That's what big brothers are for!" And helped he did. I live for stuff like that!












The hill we played on ended in this really pretty snow field...that is a frozen lake!



And we could brush away the snow to see the ice, there was only a few inches of snow laying on the ice. It was pretty neat. It was very firm. There were tons of people playing, running, making snowmen, etc on this ice and no issues.



























Here's a little proof! That's ice!



















Poor Kyle wasn't a very happy camper today. He's still sick, it was a lot colder than last week and sometimes a bit windy, very sunny, he couldn't crawl around and he didn't nap long enough on the way up so he was tired ~ so unfortunately he tolerated us pretty well until it was time to go, then I took off to the van a few mintues early and he was happy to get out of his eskimo and into his favorite blanket.





















They still love the saucers! It's such fun watching them go down the hill (even more fun than going down yourself!)...we love watching them in real life and in these little clips!

GB3 Snow trip with the Motley crew

Last weekend our ward's youth had a snow activity...and since I'm in YW and Scott's in the Bishopric and independently we'd both go, we decided to just take the whole Motley crew.

Scott and Bishop Cota

Ryan has his ice pick from our Calaveras trip...Kyle is about to fall asleep and Sean is hot.

I went down only once (because I borrowed one of the girls passes) and after seeing so many of our youth flip over, I was a wuss and dragged my feet most the way down.

The kids wanted to do the real tubing like everyone else, but they were too small and it was too steep, so we just had them play on the side which they weren't too happy about until daddy gave them a push on a tube and then helped them make a snowman!

It was so hot...I feel bad Sean is wearing his coat! ...Which made the snow was really icy so they had to do far away to find snow good enough to mold. Sean has monster hands because I accidently left Sean's gloves at home so he is wearing mine.

Towards the ends, Kyle actually fell asleep on me. I was surprised he was that tired because usually he'd be fine with a little tiredness...but it was so cute and I loved it. Until later that night when he woke up from a nap at home and had a fever. Bummer! They never just fall asleep on me "just because."

After the youth activity was finished, we {finally}took the kids down the street for some sledding of their own. They were happy...and had a blast.

Neither of them had issue with the saucer...in fact, they loved it. Maybe more than the sled. I on the other hand do not love the snow saucer! You spin and go so fast and you feel so out of control! I'm glad they are tough and love it.

From the moment they woke up and we were getting ready to go to the snow, they would not stop saying, "It's going to be totally wicked!" (A quote from Dash in the Incredible's)

We are planning to go again with some friends and our kids are super exicted about that trip...but we need cold and snow! We've had a pretty bad drought around here, so we are praying for rain in our parts and snow in the mountains!