Fall Fun with the Johnson Quad...

After school on the Halloween party day after all the costumes were off, we took some fun fall pictures in our leaf pile. It was a lot of fun and boy was it a mess!! I think the pictures turned out great though! Check some of them out (there is a couple hundred more on the laptop should you like to see them sometime when you visit us...)

It took a lot of showers and work to get the leaves out of the clothing and hair after this! Especially out of the ladies hair!!

Halloween 2010 at School

Well, last year, Solace and Ender were at school at Cather elementary. Solace in Mr Ruth's second grade class, and Ender in Miss Jenkins First Grade. I was the PTO co president so I was at the school a lot helping out. Armour was at preschool at Cody elementary where his teacher was Mrs Amy Beeder. Armour's class did not invite parents in to help, so I just went over to Cather for their parties and their parade.
The kids chose the following Halloween costumes: Solace was Hannah Montana, Ender was a Transformer (Optimus Prime), Armour was a doctor (as always), and Kindle was (and I quote) "a pinkalicious skeleton."

Here are a few pictures of the School day Halloween celebration:

On the way to Cather-see, she is "pinkalicious"

 Kindle and a friend, Emma. Emma's sister Megan is one of Solace's best friends.

 Solace and her class!

 Pinkalicious skeleton and Hannah Montana.

 A peek at the man behind the mask of Optimus Prime.

 Solace in the parade

 Ender watching the parade and waiting to join in!

 Thirsty Pinkalicious-who knew skeletons got thirsty?!

 Armour after his party!!

I love Halloween at the schools and look forward to it each year-I hope they do Halloween parties that I can help with in Arizona!!

Iowa Interview Last October/November (2010)

I have to leave in a couple minutes to get Kindle but I thought I would do a quick catch up post or two really quick. Last fall Wes was interviewing for a fellowship. He had a few interviews around the country. It happened that his interview in Iowa fell when we could all drive out there with him. This was particularly fun for Solace because her Second grade teacher, Mr Chad Ruth, is a HUGE Hawkeyes fan (that is where he went to school). In case you are unaware, this is Husker country, so there was a lot of rivalry with Mr Ruth and the class. Solace though is a Ute at heart (we have raised her well), so she was just peachy to root for Iowa with Mr Ruth. The hotel where we stayed had tons of Hawkeye paraphernalia so Solace wanted her picture taken by all of it! Here are a few pic of all the kids on our Iowa adventure from fall of 2010 (Everest is missing as he was not born yet):

Hope you enjoyed that small catch up!!!

Literally! Kids say the darndest things...

One of my favorite things to document is the funny things my kids do and say, but I have totally sucked at that lately. SO, I wanted to tell you about some of the recent ones-Wes will have to read this later and remind his old forgetful wife about the other ones I forgot!

Kindle is 2 now and speaks better that most of the kids in Armour's preschool class. She is articulate and always surprises people when she opens her mouth, and it is rare that she says something I do not understand. A month or so ago, she came in to the kitchen where Wes and I were cooking dinner and said "I want so buffalope." We asked her to repeat it so we could understand, so she clearly asked again for some "buffalope." I told her I did not know what buffalope was, she got upset, opened the fridge, pointed to the cantaloupe and said "buffalope!" Oh how we laughed! Buffalope! Classic! All the funnier by the fact that Ender used to mix up cantaloupe and antelope.

Solace and Ender are at this stage where they are really broadening their vocabularies, and they both LOVE words. Once they learn a word, they want to use it, and use it often! But never has a new word stuck more in the Johnson household than "literally". Solace and Ender use it in every way they can think of-even some that really don't work. In fact, anywhere most people use the word "really", those 2 kids use the word "literally". For example, Solace might say "Ender, are you literally sick?" Or Ender might say "I literally love playing Wii." You know how people will ask "Really? REALLY?" when they are not sure they believe what you said? Well, here at our house, they say "Literally? LITERALLY?"

Oh and Armour...wow he is somethin'! I don't have a specific Armour word, but it is just how he uses his words. He has some nerve and he is spunky. One night Wes and I locked ourselves in our room as it is the only room in the house we can lock the kids out of. We had put them to bed and were dome with them for the night! Armour came and started pounding on the door for like 5 minutes. Wes got up opened the door and put him to bed with firm instructions to stay there. A few minutes later he was back and we returned him to bed. This happened a few times, then it finally stopped. It stopped and we had about 30 minutes of silent bliss in which time we thought he had fallen asleep. Then another knock came. I thought "who is awake this time?!" So, I yelled out "Who is it?". A very low manly response came saying "You know who it is." It was all we could do not to crack up and send to wrong message...it was hilarious!!

Oh Johnsons...buffalope, literally and you know who it is! Literally , you do!!

Cute Johnson kids...

Just another attempt to catch up...

One lovely May day this year, while Wes was at work, I somehow miraculously got the kids ready to go with lots of time to spare. So, I took them out in the front yard and we had a fantastic photo shoot. They loved it as I let them choose their own poses (for individual shots) and their own "kind" of picture face to make (goofy, funny, smiley, etc...). I took well over 200 pictures, but here are some of my favorites.

These first few are of all the kids together...

Solace wanted beautiful smiley pictures and she loves to pose.

Ender wanted to pose "cute" laying down (he made me lay down on my belly too to get the pictures right).

Armour wanted to be goofy/silly. He hates pictures and posing.

Kindle just did what I told her and wanted it over quick to get the sun out of her eyes...