The Tree Fort

This weekend Aunt Lori came over to help the boys start building a tree fort in our black walnut tree.



Aunt Lori is notorious in the family for her love of and skill for tree climbing.



In fact, the story is told of how, as a child, she would climb to the tops of the one, maybe two hundred-plus feet tall trees in their yard in Oregon.



Now she is making it possible for our boys to do the same!



Except that we don't live in Oregon. And our tree is maybe only fifty feet tall. And the boys have a healthy fear of heights so they will probably be reluctant to go even halfway. Fine by me.



Onion Ring, especially, was excited to now be able to climb this tree.







Phase one of the tree fort is now complete.

Campus Adventures

Every Saturday Buttermilk Sky has a piano lesson on BYU campus because his teacher is a student there. Yesterday we made it an outing by taking a couple more boys with us and going exploring. Here are some of the adventures we had.

We went into the Kimball tower to ride up and down the elevator. We tried to find a place to look outside on the top floor but all of the rooms with windows were locked.



So we had to resort to having fun in the stairwell.



Specifically, dropping crumpled up paper and wrappers (it was all we had on hand) from the top and seeing how far they fell.



By the way, if you ever want a good place to run stairs, this is it!



We found this pond covered in frozen pond froth pads. What a novelty!



The boys had fun poking them to break them...



...and picking them up and dropping them to see them shatter on the cement.







Then I asked them to pose--here is Lovely Pose Number One:



and Lovely Pose Number Two:



This photograph is titled: Glacial Beasties in the Courtyard.



Here we have Morning Glory Number One:



Morning Glory Number Two:



Four Males Descending a Staircase (Fully Clothed):



Bum Prints (On Frosty Benches):

Eggs and Junior Shrugged:

Dali's Boot:

The Fort:

Sunny B:

Rabbit Ears in a Snail Shell:

Rabbit Ears and Scuffed Steel:

Rabbit Ears in a Vortex:

Nose Pick:

Cubist Communism Number One:

Cubist Communism Number Two:

Splitting Headache:

Cold

See Junior.

See Junior walking barefoot in the snow.

See Junior eat snow.

See Junior's arms rise.



When Junior's arms rise it means he is cold.



Do you feel cold now, too?

All I Want for...Valentine'th Day...

(I was hoping these would come out in time for Chrithmath. Oh well, I guess Valentine'th Day is next best.)

Mother, mother, aren't thethe the motht thecrumpthyuth vampire teeth you ever thaw! I never thought I'd ever thee anything tho thcrumpthuth ath thethe thcrumpthyuth vampire teeth! (Name that movie.)

I hope the Tooth Fairy finally cumth tonight. What ith taking tho long?

Mo-om, will you thtop taking my picture? I'm tho thick of thmiling.

Reflections and Projections

With the beginning of a new year it is fun to make lists of the best and the worst from the past year. So here is a list of our ten (get it? 2010?) favorite blog posts from 2010 (in no particular order):

1. Gratitude
2. The Peeping Tom
3. Big and Awesome News
4. Lagoon 2010
5. Jumping
6. Feats of Strenth (and Daring)
7. Suspects
8. Best Camper Awards
9. Halloween
10. Pwnage

Here is a list of the ten worst experiences (one was a confession):

1. Buttermilk Sky: When he flipped off of the trampoline and landed head first in a window well. He broke through the plastic window well cover which caught him at his waist so that his bottom half was sticking up in the air and his top half was dangling into the window well. He was not hurt except for a few scratches and his pride.
2. Buttermilk Sky: School.
3. Eggs on Toast: When his friend let him borrow a Nintendo DS which Eggs played at night when everyone else was asleep and he wasn't supposed to be up.
4. Junior: When he had a really, really, really bad headache.
5. Onion Ring: Couldn't think of anything.

Oh well, they couldn't come up with ten and I don't feel like encouraging this line of thinking because I would rather focus on the positive.

On New Year's day when Brandon and I crawled out of bed, all of the boys were sitting together in the living room, discussing their New Year's Resolutions (lead and encouraged by Onion Ring). Here is what they came up with:

1. Onion Ring: Be nice to Eggs on Toast and Junior.
2. Onion Ring: Stop farting on brother's heads.
3. Onion Ring: Stop saying "bum".
4. Buttermilk Sky: Stop bugging Onion Ring, even if he bugs me.
5. Eggs on Toast: Stop talking in this weird, whiny voice.
6. Eggs on Toast: Stop burping really loud with my mouth open.
7. Eggs on Toast: Stop saying "bum".
8. Junior: Stop burping with my mouth open.
9. Junior: Stop saying "bum" and "burn".
10. Junior: Be nice.

Wow, what great resolutions that they came up with all by themselves! We wish them the very best of success!



And what does the above picture have to do with anything? Not much, but I just thought it was cute.

I think that starting a new year is invigorating and inspiring. I feel renewed energy to improve myself.

We hope you all have an excellent 2011!

Inspired

The other day we were all driving somewhere together and we passed a Pizza Hut. At the sight of it, the boys burst into song.




I had no idea that Pizza Hut could inspire such melodic praise in them.

A Better Ending

At some point during the Christmas festivities, our boys watched Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" at the Silly Grandma's house. They had never seen it before and this is what they said when asked about it on the way home:

Onion Ring: Not that great, but it was okay.

Buttermilk Sky: There was a fight scene that was all right. It would have been better if the beast had been evil.

Brandon: Did you like it when the beast became human?

Onion Ring: Eew, no way.

Buttermilk Sky: That was so dumb. Here's how it should have ended. When the Beast became human, Belle should have said she didn't like him anymore because she only liked him when he was a beast. Then he would have turned back into a beast because she didn't love him and the spell came back on. Then she would have said she loved him again since he was a beast again and then the beast would have thrown her off of a cliff because she said she didn't love him when he was human.



Do you think Disney may want to hire him in the future?