Adventures in Fishkeeping

What have we been doing since Max's baptism?? Well, Max finished his massive lego set.  This summer could be deemed "The Summer of Lego".  The kids have played Lego almost every single day. Max hasn't lost his love for rocket ships. When he's not building them out of lego he still loves pillows and chairs as a frequent medium for them. Here's one he built today.

Mer and Jack and Luke teamed up and built one too, but lost interest when Max kept shooting imaginary holes in their ship.

Mer has been wanting a pet fish and on Saturday we let her go and buy some, with the understanding that it will her complete responsibility.  This seemed like a fun adventure, after all we had all the supplies from our days of trying to raise tadpoles.  She bought three, and Max jumping on board bought 2, Jack bought 1.   

We came home and filled up the tanks, one in Mer's room and one in Max's.

Alas, one by one they started dying off starting on Sunday evening.  Mer was okay with the first death but when her second one died Monday evening, she was heartbroken, and felt like she was a murderer. Tuesday came and all were dead but one. This little guy...Max's "Speeder" He was chosen because he has a cool black stripe down his back.

Tuesday was spent purchasing a filter system and setting it up on the tank in Mer's room. With that and a lesson to not feed the fish too much, we are hoping we can keep this little one alive for a few more days.  So far so good.  The plan is to go get another one if we can keep him alive for 2 weeks. Wish us luck!




Oh, I almost forgot to add this picture of this luscious S'mores Ice Cream Cake that Doug made on Sunday.  He found the recipe in his gourmet cookbook.  He was supposed to make homemade ice cream for it, but in the interest of time we added dark and milk chocolate shavings to Breyers Natural Vanilla. 

The real recipe is here but I'll just tell you the layers of it. From the bottom up, layered in a springform pan...
Layer 1. Graham cracker crust
Layer 2. Vanilla ice cream with dark & milk chocolate shavings, Layer 3. Mini marshmallows mixed with marshmallow fluff
Layer 4. Mini marshmallows broiled just before serving.


It was soooo good. You know you want to try it!!

July 17th, 2010

Max's Baptism Day.

 Grandma Blanche and Grandpa Val came out to be with him on this special day.  They graciously gave the talks.

He was baptized by his Dad.

His family sure is proud of him for having the desire to get baptized. He is a great example to his brothers.

some of the details to remember... 

• He got baptized even though he drove a shovel into his big toe the day before.

• Meredith and Doug sang "I'm trying to be Like Jesus".  Meredith came down with a fever that morning after we arrived at church. She almost didn't sing the song because she felt so horribly, but she pulled it together and sung it for her brother. She sang beautifully.
• At Max's request, Neighbor Cake Muffins were served as refreshments, along with Neiman Marcus cookies made by Grandpa Val.
• The water heater at church was broken, good thing it's Florida and you can't get cold tap water if you want it.

 

 

Fun with G-ma and G-pa

The day after Max's birthday Grandma Blanche and Grandpa Val came to town for a visit.  We had a ton of fun with them.  Here are a ton of pictures from their visit and a little recap as well.

Wednesday morning we ventured out into the heat and headed to a park for a spray bottle fight.  It was WAR. Grandpa and Jack against Mer and Max

Grandma and I hung out with Luke, though we did get sprayed a few times.

When the bottles were empty we went to another park to fill them up and ended up wading in the pond a little.

On the way home we stopped to show them some of our favorite little forest trails.

Luke spiked a fever on our walk and he did this for the rest of the day while the rest of the kids went swimming.

Thursday they all went to the Movies.  Grandma brought a book to share which she read out loud to the kids complete with different voices and a deep southern accent.

Grandpa made his famous Neiman Marcus cookies to help get ready for the baptism.

On Friday we went to the beach to try our hand at fishing again.  We had a bunch of mishaps along the way and it seemed like the day was just  not meant to be.

One of the mishaps was this...Max drove the shovel into his foot shortly after we arrived.

Grandma saved the day and treated everyone to snow cones to help the situation and we all ended up having a great time. Thank you Grandma!!

Max was a good sport and his toe is feeling better (no stitches necessary), though he still can't swim for a few more days.

Grandpa even caught a couple of catfish.

That night we had dinner at Longdogger's where we laughed at a bunch of funny stuff I'm not sure should be publicized on the blog.  Then it was off to see the Manatees and try out some softserve at Dell's Freez.  FUN TIMES!

More to come....soon.

Belated Birthday Post

So much has happened in the last week.  It's not fair that I show you the cake a week ago and then never tell the events of the Max's birthday so that's what I'll start with.

Of course, you would have thought it was Christmas, Max woke up at 6:00 in anticipation of his presents. We made him go back to bed but that only lasted for about an hour. He was especially excited about this massive pink present from Mike and Sher. He had a lot of theories about what it was, but it turned out to be a huge STAR WARS lego set.

He opened presents, and more presents. He didn't even care that they were wrapped in elmo.

He spent the rest of his day putting together lego, trying on his new clothes, and helping mom get ready for his party

Here he is with his birthday cake.

Then it was FINALLY time for the party. 5 of his friends showed up to play Minute to Win It with him. How nice of Max to choose to do the exact same party as his sister did. Though the girls squealed louder, the boys were definitely crazier.  There were only a few moments where they all sat still enough to take a decent picture.

This was one of the moments...but just after I snapped this shot one of the boys unexpectedly threw up all over the table.  We sent them all outside to play while we cleaned up.

Then we took the cake outside to blow out the candles.

Max was so full of Hamburgers and treats from the games he'd played that he passed on his birthday cake that night.  He was really very exhausted by the time the night was over, having been up so early.  He finished out the night talking to his Grandmas and Grandpas and telling them all about his big day.

Lego update: He finished the putting on the last pieces of his big lego set tonight. Here's a picture of it in process.

Tune in tomorrow!  There are a lot of really good stories from the week that you don't want to miss. Including a shovel cut toe, a spray bottle fight, catfish catching, and Max's baptism.

Sneak Peak

Hey There... tomorrow Max turns 8...here's a look at his cake.  I finished it tonight in preparation for his big party tomorrow.  Once again, I used an idea from the Hello, Cupcake book. FUN!

I call it "Feeding Frenzy"

 Meredith supplied the swimmer.

Good Night!!!

Reminiscing....

The days just blur into the next over here. We take field trips to the beach, the pool, and the library but mostly the kids do a lot of this...

I miss Colorado! And the couple of posts I made about it just didn't say enough.  There are too many stories left untold, so I'm going to throw in a few more pictures from our trip....

Cousin Jared taught Luke how to play dead and to roll over on command. 

 We of course took a full family picture on the steps of the back porch surrounded by mom's beautiful flower pots.

I wish I took a picture or two of all the beautiful flowers and gardens in their yard. My favorites were the peonies and poppies. I miss living in a place where you can actually plant a garden and have it produce. I also miss the Mountains.

We drove up to Brainard Lake where we were high enough to find piles of snow to play in. For most of our kids it was their first hands on, experience with snow.  Jack's comment was,"its so cold it makes my hands hurt."

It was beautiful there, the we did some hiking and tried a little fishing. My mom painted a picture of the spot where we were fishing.  The air was crisp, it was awesome.

We went hiking a few different times in the mountains close to home.  Mer spent the whole time picking Wildflowers.  She has added Florist to the list of things she wants to be when she grows up. (That's NCAR behind them. There are a lot of cool hands on science exhibits inside the lobby.)

Why the bandaid on her nose??? She smacked it on the side of the pool and got very deep scrape which has turned into a wonderful scar.

  Doug loves the mountains too.  His favorite thing to do was climb on top of every rock formation he could. Luke was smart and got to ride on most of the hikes. On one hike at Brainard lake he ended up falling asleep on the way back down as I was carrying him. Let me just say that after carrying a sleeping kid for 20 min straight of hiking, I was ready for a break.  That kid is getting big.

That's enough reminiscing for now.  I have to show off the cool patio chairs I found on 75% clearance today at Target.  We couldn't pass them up at $69 for the set of them. I'm excited, my back porch is looking a little more purposeful.  Now for a plant or two and some side tables, colorful pillows... I can dream right?