FLYIN' RYAN!

A couple weeks ago I was out working in the yard while Ryan was jumping on the trampoline. Blake happened to come home and see Ryan jumpin on the trampoline. It was pretty funny. Every kid wants to fly and some try various ways to do it. I think ryan's way was a good start. As i was getting this video ready to download sam came in and watched the video and said, "what's ryan doing?" i said "he's trying to fly." sam said "too bad he doesn't know about gravity."

Ethan's Birthday

June 7th is Ethan's birthday, and this year he turned 10!!!! (i still am processing that almost a month later). On ethan's actual birthday he got to do some of his favorite things. Saturday chores. Just kidding. He had a baseball game on the afternoon of his birthday. The team even sang happy birthday to him. We gave him a pocket knife (for scouts and camping). He was soo excited about it too.
For Ethan's birthday he had asked for Sub Zero, a place in North Orem, to come to his school for his class. Sub Zero does ice cream by using liquid nitrogen to freeze milk and the flavors and mixins you wish. It really is cool and they go to the schools to do demos for a fee. We had gone to SubZero after one of ethan's games and he saw a poster advertising that. Ethan started asking us and Blake said yes, before we really talked about it. It didn't take much to convince me, either way. So on one of the last few days of school (about 10 days before his birthday) sub zero came and did a demo for all the 4th graders and sam's 1st grade class. It cost some money, but we told ethan that if we did it that was all he was going to get, no party or other gifts and he said that was ok. That is what he wanted. It was fun to watch the demo and then of course to have the ice cream after.

We had family dinner with the Young family side the sunday after his birthday. Grandma had made a beautiful ice cream cake a few weeks earlier that was very yummy. On one of the layers she had forgotten to take out the wax paper so when ethan asked if grandma would make the ice cream cake with the paper we all kind of laughed. Grandma took it one step further and made it with out the paper and made a version of the cake just for ethan. Thanks grandma!

Happy Birthday bud! We love you!

Nobody likes me....

Watch how all the kids are trying to make their sad faces to start the song, even though they are so excited, cause this is their favorite song.

Pre-school graduation

After much delay it's about time that i got this posted. This last year Ryan got to go to pre-school, and not just any pre-school, but the very best pre-school in all the world. Grandma's preschool. Blake's mom has been teaching pre-school for 25+ years. With a few years off to serve as mission pres and wife (we teased that she was dealing with the same issues though--like teaching the missionaries to use good manners, sharing, separation anxiety, etc. just at a much later stage of life). Anyway, Ethan got to go for one year before they went on their mission and Sam missed the boat completely. When mom and dad got home mom was teaching 1st grade at Orem Elementary, but missed her pre-school so much that she went back to pre-school. YEAH!!!!! (I was always hoping she would). So Ryan gets to do two full years with "grandma teacher" (that's what he calls her). Ryan absolutely loved it and is soo excited that he gets to go again after the summer. The other day mom stopped by and was giving ryan a hug and she told him how much she missed seeing him. So the next day as we were driving by grandma's street to go to the grocery store, Ryan in a matter-of-fact voice said to me "mom, grandma misses me, cause i don't go to preschool right now so she misses me some times." I told him she probably misses him all the time. He said "yeah, but i'm going to go to preschool again".

Ryan is already supper smart, and i'm not just saying that cause i'm his mom. He really does know most of his letters and their sounds and knows all of the letters in sign language. (When i was going through them with him the other day he was telling me i was doing it wrong, and that i have to put my finger this way not that way.) For graduation they do a few songs and then get their diploma and a note on it that says what they want to be when they grow up. Ryan said he wants to be an airplane driver. I had no idea. All the songs they did were great and i could have totally loaded down this one post with all the songs they did, but i just picked one. I might post one more all by it self just because it's cute, but i'll spare you all just this once.

Sammy-isms

(This is one of my favorite pictures of Sam when he was 3 or 4. He could wink perfectly! It was very cute!)

So many of you that know Sam know that he can be a funny guy. Today when i was combing his hair for Sunday i asked him if it looked ok and he said it looked beautifuler. Kinda made me laugh since he hates being called cute and for the longest time he would say "handsome please" because only girls say "pretty please".

Today also on our way home from church as we were getting ready to cross the street, a guy had pulled up and parked his motorcycle right along the street right by where we were going to cross. He was sitting there waiting on his bike for someone. When Ryan and i walked by Ryan made a comment about the motorcycle and we continued to walk by. Sam was about 5 steps behind me and started questioning the guy on the bike if he was in the 2nd ward (the ward that we live in) and the guy didn't seem to understand him so then he asked if he was in the 3rd ward. The guy just sort of looked at Sam and said "well, uuhh." Sam then told the guy that we are in the 2nd ward and we just got out of church. At this point i said to Sam come on, keep going, lets get home. Well Sam will someday be a great missionary because he turned to the guy before walking along and said "you really need to go to church."

Last but not least, the other day the boys were running through the sprinklers and jumping on the trampoline. Blake headed out to join them in the fun in his swim suit. At one point Sam, Ryan and Blake were resting on the trampoline and Sam said to Blake. Boy dad you're sure hairy, and if I'm ever that hairy, I'm going to shave my armpits! It had only been a week before that the boys were asking me if girls had hair all over their bodies like boys do (ie legs, arms). I felt like my answer was fair, by saying well girls do have hair in their armpits too, but most shave their armpits. But i guess i wasn't completely clear, that boys don't shave their armpits.

GO TEXAS RANGERS!!!!

We signed ethan up to do baseball this year. He had begged and begged. I thought i had signed him up for machine pitch, but because of his age he is in a level that the kids pitch (it's an intructional level). It has been a great expericnce for him and i know he's loved every minute of it. Much to my dismay Ethan's first game was the week i was gone to texas taking care of my sisters kids. (It was also the week that both ethan and sam played their last soccer games. Lucky blake got to do those things with out me. As if there was any question before--i have an amazing husband). Anyway, the day of his first game when the coaches were assigned to his team, they also found out they were the texas rangers. A few days later when i was heading to the airport with my sister we took a quick stop at the walmart in amarillo to get some diapers and things that my sister needed before heading home. While we were in there we walked past all these texas rangers, longhorns and other texas team t-shirt and hats. I thought that was pretty convienient that i was there to see those and so i thought "oh i should get a t-shirt for ethan". So we headed over to the kids section and found a number of texas rangers shirt. I pulled one out to see the size and saw the back of the shirt. On the back it has the name Young and the number 10 (Ethan is number 1, too bad soo close). But since it did have the name Young on it i thought well shoot, i better get one for each of us. I got a hat and a t-shirt for blake, sam, ethan and i, but they didn't have any ryan's size, so he just got a hat. I was scheduled to land in salt lake at 7, and ethan had a game that was going to go till 8:30. So i figured if i was fast enough i would see part of his second game. Lucky for me even though one of my flights was delayed it didn't throw off me getting to salt lake at the scheduled time. I'm pretty sure i was speeding on parts of my drive home, but i wasn't going to miss his game completly. I got there decked out in my Texas rangers hat, and Ethan didn't even recognise me till i was about to give him a hug. It was fun to see the suprise on his face when he said "where did you get that hat mom!" I ended up calling my sister back and having her pick up more hats and shirts for some of the other team family members. Lucky me, going to Texas at just the right time.

Like i said, ethan has done really well with baseball. His coaches have been great at teaching the boys each of the positions and really encouraging them to do their best. Ethan has liked it so much and has done so well i'm sure we have years to come cheering him on. Plus i think the extended family enjoys comeing to watch baseball better than soccer. I'll post more of the pics and short videos of ethan's games another day. But until then, GO RANGERS!!!!

Pinewood Derby

Ok, ok, so this really also happened last month, but since i'm just getting around to it you get to hear/read about it now. Last year for scouts they did the space derby and both blake and i didn't realize that ethan wasn't working on his spaceship at scouts until the night of the space derby. So it was the plain piece of wood that he had worked into a rounded shape, but there was no paint or stickers or nuthin on that thing so he got the award for the "all natural" space ship. This year was a tad different, we were well informed of the event and when it was coming and that he was supposed to be doing it at home (all this because i'm in the cubscouts). Anyway, Ethan came up with the design all on his own and then he and blake worked on getting it shaped and carved to his liking. Then Ethan and I painted it and got it to his satisfaction. We got it all done except for the wheels being put on since i was going to try and spray it with some shine and sealer. Blake was out of town that night so i was frantically trying to figure out how to do the wheels so that it would run smoothly. For those that are pinewood derby alumni i didn't have any graphite and i didn't sand down the wheels like i should have. I was just happy that the design was to ethan's liking and that we had it there. Ethan didn't win in the top 10 or nothing, but he did win the "best design" that everyone voted on. He used a piece of obsidian rock that we had collected at topaz mountain. We made it look as much like a comet as we could. Sam and Ryan were totally stoked to cheer ethan's car on. (Ethan's car came in 2nd on all three runs). It was a fun night.