Grandpa Jonesy to the Rescue!

Yea! Grandpa Jonesy!
Brannen and I are so glad that Grampa is willing to help get us out of any pickle that we seem to be in. You know - when my car gets stuck in the snow, when I lock myself out of my house, when I need a ride home from Afton, when Brannen flushes a ball down my toilet!!! What a boy!
Here's the scoop.
Brannen is in the bathtub and I'm watching him play. I decided to be ambitious while I'm sitting there, and get busy cleaning the bathroom. I just finish the toilet with a final flush - and Brannen - the new starter for the Jazz- launches a buzzer shot and SWOOSH! He makes it - despite my slow motion "NNNOOOOOOO" and desperate shot block. Yep. He's done it. He even laughed sinisterly and rubbed his hands together. What a kid.
So I quickly do what every mom does - I plunge my hand into the toilet hole to see if I can possible retrieve the ball he has thrown in. I can feel it, but no. It's not coming out. Just big enough to fit - not small enough to grab and bring back. So then I do what every good girl does - call dad (husband is at work, of course) and say HELP! DAD! HELP!
So here comes grandpa Jonesy, armed with a tool kit ready to help.

Brannen is helping too. He's finally repented of his evil ways, and rolled up his sleeves ready to help. And what a helper he was!
So, try as we might, with every idea imaginable, we can't get the darn thing out. It is a hard plastic ball, and just rolls around in there, and has nothing to wedge against - so we can't do anything. We finally decide that we have to take the WHOLE toilet up and apart. This we do. We STILL can't get the ball out. It rolls around in there - but is a bit too big to come out the other end. Jonesy ponders the problem at hand.
Much pondering later - we are still working on it. Let me take a moment to interject that grampas are great! I think there is a certain age you have to be to spend the entire morning pulling a toilet up from the floor, and laugh about it the whole time.
Jonesy -- "This is somethin' . . . . " "Crazy baby . . . ." "What a kid . . . " "Come on in and help, Brannen" "Let that kid in here - he just wants to see what is going on" "What are we going to do now . . . . " "How a bout if we . . . "
Now if the husband were working on it, it probably would have gone more like this.
Husband -- "Darn kid" "Why didn't you watch him" "This stinks" "This can't be done!" "Call a plumber already" "Get that kids outta here" "Let's just break open the toilet already!"
*Note to wonderful husband who fixes plenty of kid messes - I'm not complaining. Just being realistic! And commenting that one has to be a mellow grandpa who has lived a lot of life before you can see the humor in the situation.

So here is the crazy solution we came up with - after much thought and trial and error. Jonesy found a bag of golf balls in Kelly's tool room. They were small enough to roll around inside the toilet and fairly heavy. Jonesy put about three of them in there and bouced that thing around - jumping up and down - trying to get one of them to knock the ball out.
Naahhh. It didn't work. But it sure was funny to watch. I'll bet my dad is still tired from jumping up and down while holding a toilet!
So then, we decided to fill the entire thing up with the golf balls - so as to hold that plastic ball still and then maybe we could stick something in the ball to pull it out.
WAALAAA! It worked. After all the balls were jammed in there - we stuck a grabber screw in THE ball and pulled that sucker out. FINALLY! How brilliant we are.
There it is - the culprit. The problem.
We've done it. Mission accomplished. Many hours later.
He even put the whole thing back! What a Jonesy! Saved the day! Thanks grampa!

The silver lining: I DID just clean the toilet. I had something to blog about. : )

Reesie!

What a girl! She just performed with our high school drill team and had a great time. Pictures like this remind me that she is growing up. Love you Reese! You are a beautiful person!

He Toddles! And Attacks!

Brannen is FINALLY thinking that walking is pretty cool. He is trying it more and more on his own without being coaxed.

There he stands at the back door saying - Ma-Ma, Ma-Ma ---Nana Nana! Nana Nana! Over and over. (Nana is our dog's name) He loooooves the dog. He always wants to go outside and hug on her. He loves to be outside in the sunshine (when we have some) and crawl around and throw rocks and eat grass or dirt. He has cabin fever somethin' terrrible!

He spied me! Now he's comin' for me!
He's in attack mode! I'm being accosted by a baby! A crazy toddling baby!
Yep, he caught me. I was too slow. I've got Bran slobber on my face to prove it. He tried to eat me too - but I ran away. I'm sure he will attack again.

Solution to the Snow

We have finally had a couple of sunny days! Horray! (However, as I type this, I see out my window, that it is currently snowing again - ho hum. Such is spring in Star Valley) We really enjoyed the sun - the kids have been playing outside non-stop and the snow has almost gone! Yahoo!
Kelly must have really been fed up with the snow last week. I looked out my window and what did I see? A crazy man with a shovel - throwing snow like crazy! He was spreading the stuff out to help the melting process. So anyway, the kids noticed this shoveling too and pretty soon the whole neighborhood was involved in the "getting hit with snow" game. The danced and screamed while Kelly pelted them with snow. I'm not sure who had more fun!

They had a great time. And all the snow melted.
Kelly and Jeff Sims (our great neighbor and friend) were able to thatch all of the dead grass from both of our lawns and get them all cleaned up from winter. They finished just in time for a snow storm today! Gotta love Spring!

April 15 2009

Ahhhhhh! WE NEED SUN!!!!!!

Easter 2009

Happy Easter everyone! We had such a nice weekend. The rabbit found us on Saturday morning and we had a fun time finding eggs and discovering the goodies in our baskets. Then we colored some of our own eggs - in which we did NOT involve Brannen at all. He merely posed for the picture. We then went to Grama and Grampa Fullmer's house and ate and colored some eggs there. Kelly helped Barry for the day - building- to make Grama Marge a nice room for her arrival at the end of May. Fun Fun!
Ohhh - I feel a sugar rush coming on!
Brannen LOVED to find the eggs and put them in his basket. All the kids were great to help him.
Checking out all of our loot!


See! We even caught the Easter Bunny before he left! Wow! We are amazing!!!!

Haircuts!

The baby had to have his first haircut this week. Made me kind of sad. First haircut. The boy is growing up. It was really time to cut it though. Rae kept putting it in ponytails of all kinds. He did have the baby mullet going - much like Maura.
He was such a good boy while I cut his hair. Played on the bathroom counter and looked at himself in the mirror. Thanks for the tip Bekki!
Handsome man! Posing so very well!
I can't believe how much older it makes him look! It is crazy!
So Rae has been bugging me to arrange to get her haircut too (right Aunt Jennie?!?) So when we got back from Spring Break I called awesome Lexi and Rae got a new do. It looks so great! Rae is such a cutie! However, I kinda cussed Lexi for making my 7th grader look 25!! She looks older too. She was teasing Brady and Reese a bit last night - and I realized - only a haircut. 7th grader she still be! At least for a couple more months!

I did get my haircut too. It is about the same as it was - just a lot shorter. I couldn't get a decent self-inflicted photo - so you'll just have to wonder. I'm sure you'll be up nights. : )

Holloman Air Force Base

Of course, we had to go visit Corey's base. We enjoyed seeing where he worked and walking around the planes a bit.
Brannen loved Uncle Bingo (Corey called himself that in a message on our answering machine -he was quoting a movie - but I'm afraid it stuck. Uncle Bingo he will be.)

We are tired and ready to go home! Long drive, but worth the fun!

Swimming Fun

I recently realized that I have one of "those" kids. I have never had one of "those" kids before. You know - one of those kids that splashes uncontrollably in the pool with total disregard for his safety or well being. The kind of kid who is just wild in the pool and will fling himself around - not realizing that people are holding onto him in order to save his life!!! The kind of kid who doesn't care if there is water in his eyes or not - whether they are closed or open! My kids have all been the clingy - "I'm going to die at any moment in this vast wetness" type. So timid and safety oriented in the pool. Well, Brannen didn't get that gene at all. Summer swimming might be interesting. I'm getting many baby floating toys very soon!
Brady and Reese - the fish.
Happy Rae.

White Sands National Park

So, this was the best part of our trip! We really didn't know what to expect - and it turned out to be sooo fun! It was beautiful and cool and such clean, great sand. It looked like another planet! We had a fun time playing around and then eating a yummy picnic that Aunt Jennie packed. So much fun!

Aunt Jennie even found some sleds for us! AWESOME!
Can a girl have more fun than this?!? Without a horse - that is!
Brannen wasn't sure if he liked the sand or not. He wasn't feeling that great.
Kelly knows how to make his own kind of fun!
Those are the kids off in the distance. We finally hollered at them to not go too far. They had a great time exploring - and even wrote some big messages in the sand for us to see!
These guys really do like each other. They are both such nice kids!
Rolling in the sand proved to be great fun too. I think Brady and Rae rolled down an entire mountain of sand! Time to dump out the undies!