We ordered caterpillars this month to watch them turn into butterflies!  Even though we’ve done this before it was still exciting to see. 

Once they create their chrysalises we transfer them to this:

Four out of five caterpillars made it to butterfly this year, but one was a little mangled.  His wing never fully opened.  He couldn’t fly too well and so he hung around on the kids, which they of course loved.

When we let all of ours go, we went to see the ones at the zoo butterfly house.

Waiting for one to leap onto his finger.

It leaped onto his back instead!

Such amazing little creatures!  Thank you, Heavenly Father for giving us this wonderful creation to enjoy.

Cade is back in baseball this year and loving it. 

I have to admit I love it too.  No rainy, muddy fields like in Jersey or Washington.  Just blue skies.  It’s great!

Reagan has been doing a lot of baking lately.  He has help sometimes.

He picked the cherries for this pie from our very own cherry tree!  He pitted the cherries and made the crust from scratch.

A few days later he made Rock’s Father’s Day apple pie from scratch too. 

And I made my first batch of freezer jam! 

My children now call me blessed.  Who knew Winco jam was that bad. Picky picky people.

We planted a garden this year!  We started small, just strawberries and tomatoes, but it’s something.  
 

The odds have not been in our favor, though.  The birds have been eating our strawberries (we haven’t gotten to eat a single one!) and Levi was trying to help one day and weeded one of our tomato plants.  He was devastated when he realized what he’d done.  It was so sad and funny at the same time.  But at least everything is growing! 

See the green balls!

So are the birds going to eat my tomatoes too????

I realize that with four kids I should be grateful I’m not in the doctor’s off ice all the time.  Admittedly, Levi has tried hard to make sure I don’t miss out on that part of motherhood, but for the most part the apples I buy seem to do the trick for my other kids.  But this week they really tried to help me catch up on all those doctor visits they’ve been missing out on. 

On Monday Reagan jammed his finger catching a soccer ball.  When it was black and blue and rigid Tuesday morning, I took him to the doctor to see if it was broken.  They didn’t know, so they sent us for X-rays at the hospital.  Later that night while waiting to hear back from the hospital, Liberty ran out into the street in front of a boy on his bike, got totally run over, and fell and hit her head.  For the next hour she was totally disoriented.  She couldn’t remember what happened.  She kept crying and asking us over and over again what had happened.  We looked up concussion symptoms and she had none except for the disorientation, so we didn’t take her in at that point.  I’m not one to rush to the doctor as soon as my kids get hurt or show signs of sickness and now that we have a $40.00 copay, I am even less likely to do so.  She had a good bump on her head and some scratches and bruises, but that was all externally.  When we tried to feed her some bread she kept asking what it was there for.  At one point I asked her who Sleeping Beauty and My Little Pony were and she couldn’t tell me!!   After an hour of this we finally decided to distract her a bit with some TV and she seemed to calm down and went to bed mostly herself.  I will say that I checked on her about four times that night worried that maybe I should have taken her in and maybe she’d die of a blood clot in her brain.  But she slept fine and woke up her usual self-except that she still couldn’t remember what happened.  (She still doesn’t, actually.)

The next morning when the doctor called to tell us Reagan’s finger was not broken, I asked them about Libby and they politely told me that I should definitely bring her in to be looked at and that I should have brought her in right after it happened because it was a head injury.  Nothing like the doctor’s office to make you feel guilty.  So we took another forty dollar trip to the doctor (two days in a row) for him to look at her and tell me she had a mild concussion and that I should make sure to keep my three year old from doing anything where she might hit her head again.  (Don’t you love it when doctors say that? It’s all I can do not to laugh in their face.)

You think I’m done.  But I’m not.  That weekend while I was out of town, Reagan stubbed his toe and took a big chunk out of it.  Had I been there this time, we would have gone to the doctor for sure, forty dollars or not.  But he and Rock opted to band aid it.  I didn’t even hear about it until two days later when Reagan showed me the horror show that was his foot after two solid days sealed in a band aid.  So, Monday morning, we went BACK into the doctor’s office for the third time in less than a week.  This was also the third time I was bringing a child in AFTER the fact and I’m sure they are ready to call CPS on me.  Sure enough he did need stitches but it was too late by then, and his foot was slightly infected.  Doctor’s orders:  antibiotics and no swimming lessons for three days (the first three days of his class, no less). 

Not to be out done by his siblings and because I’m sure deep down he was really missing the doctor’s office, Levi fell down on his scooter and got three good bloody scrapes on his knee.  We put some band aids on and not two hours later he was back in with another bloody scrape on the same knee right next to the band aids for the first three wounds. 

Count em.  1,2, 3, 4! 

I think there was definitely something wrong with our apples this week.  They sure didn’t do their job. 

Sorry I’m almost a month late on this.  It’s mostly pictures, but they are too cool not to post.

This is the “Field of Honor” near our home.  People all over Boise can put up a flag to honor a war hero in their family.  It was really cool to read their names and the wars they fought in.  Perfect thing to do with small children on Memorial day.  Twenty minutes in and out! 

Wesel boys at the BBQ

This Mother’s Day I was peacefully enjoying my French toast in bed when there was a huge crash downstairs in the kitchen and Liberty started crying/screaming.  I couldn’t tell if it was a “my limb is broken and I really need my mom” kind of cry or an “I’m hurt, but mostly scared and don’t need mom all that much” kind of cry.  I opted for the latter so I could enjoy warm food for once, but she kept crying for mom so I went down.  She was balling and covered pretty much from head to toe in powdered sugar.  I had to try really hard to stay and give her a hug instead of laughing and running for my camera.  After a good long hug we were both sufficiently covered in powdered sugar.  She and the witnesses explained that she had been sitting on the table trying to sprinkle her own powdered sugar on her French toast from the container at one end of the table to her plate at the other end of the table.  (Might I just add here that if Mom had been in the kitchen Liberty never would have been on the table OR attempting that long distance feat with the powdered sugar on her own.)  She lost her balance, plummeted head first to the ground, hitting her head on a chair on her way down.  Her plate landed on the floor with a tremendous crash, spreading the love of the powdered sugar ALL over the dinning room floor.   The kitchen also looked like a bomb had gone off because when you let an eleven year old boy cook you breakfast he will cover every inch of your kitchen with mess.  I wish I could say that I got to enjoy my warm food after all, but that was not to be.  All that being said, I will take that mess over the barfing children some of my friends got to take care of on their Mother’s Day. 

Liberty and Levi presented me with these sweet gifts after breakfast.

Notice the expensive packaging she used.

And inside:

Flowers from our yard.  Notice the powdered sugar still in her hair.

Those flowers happen to resemble a heart and so Levi got creative with his card:

If you need a translation it says; “Mom, I (heart) You.  Love love love this cute little card!  Thanks, Levi!

The rest of my Mother’s day went splendidly until my kids came home with “The Paper”.  You know the one.  The fill in the blank questionnaire about Mom that all primary kids come home with on Mother’s day.  What I like best about mom is……., what my mom does best is……., my mom makes me laugh when….I love my mom because…….  When they are little and their primary teachers are helping them fill it out they tend to be pretty cute and hilarious.  But when my older children are left to answer it unaided, it is not so pretty. 

Cade: What I love most about my mom is “she provides the four needs of all living things: food, water, shelter and space.” 
Let’s hear it for warm and fuzzy!

Reagan: My mom makes me laugh when “she says something funny (very rare)” 
I resemble that remark!!!  I can’t help it.  I can be funny around other people but not my kids so much.  It’s sad I know, and even sadder when your kid calls you on it.

The day was saved by French Silk pie and a new set of pots and pans to replace our wedding pots and pans which are finally biting the dust. 

Thanks everyone for a wonderful day! 

You’ve heard about the new movie coming out next year called Superman vs. Batman.  Well here’s a little sneak peek from the boys piano recital last week.

Then, as if those two songs were not enough of a competition for you, here is Reagan playing “The Dancing Spider” and then Cade playing, “The Spider Dance”. 

Interestingly enough, neither boy noticed the similarities in their songs.  Good thing too.  Competition is never good at our house.

On the Thursday before Easter, baby Bryce was born!
We had all six Wesel/Hymas cousins at our house that day.  I was dumb and tried to dye eggs too.  Dying eggs with 6 kids under 12 can be scary.  I don’t know how other people do it.  It’s one of those traditions that tends to send me over the edge.  I would gladly pay someone to dye eggs with my children.  Any takers?

Bryce!!

Our Neighborhood puts on an Easter egg hunt that was pretty fun.

You can guess what colors her basket was full of.

More Easter egg hunting

The Easter Dress

This was a fun Chemistry science experiment on density we did this week. 

Guess which item stopped at what level.

Every time we read about it in the science book I kept wanting to say Destiny instead of Density.

This little girl brought me a perfect bouquet of flowers yesterday.

She brought these to me after I looked out the door to check on her and found her chatting away with a total stranger in the neighbor’s driveway.  If I could remember back to when I was her age I would have been having flashbacks I’m sure.  I now know how my mother felt with me wondering off and talking to total strangers. 

Liberty went to the dentist for the first time this week and thanks to the tv attached to the ceiling, (the MOST ingenious idea I’ve ever seen) she did fabulous.  The dentist also pulled out Levi’s second tooth this week!

And I got this video this morning of Liberty dancing to Vivaldi’s summer during our classical music lesson.  Sorry the music didn’t come through in the video very well.  Am I wrong in thinking she has natural talent?  I’ve been raising boys, who don’t do this kind of thing, but it seems to me she’s pretty good. 

We’ve had lots of little big things happening around here lately.

I found this little girl totally asleep one night IN her laundry basket after having emptied its contents onto the floor.  I don’t know what she has against her bed, but most nights we have to pick her up from off the floor and put her back in her bed. 

We enjoyed our semi annual Conference Crepes at General Conference.

Thank you so much, Reagan, for ruining the picture.  Sigh.

Last week at pack meeting Cade earned his Bear award.

That’s a bear skin hat, not a new hairdo.

And then he demonstrated how to reel in a fishing pole for all the boys.

Levi finally got bloody in a GOOD way this week by losing his first tooth!

Every week it seems Levi is knocking a tooth loose and we’ve been lucky he isn’t toothless by this point.  I’m very glad this one came out naturally.

My friend’s daughter graciously gave Liberty a ton of Barbies and a doll house too!  She has been in heaven for days!  Thank you so much Bethany!

Those of us who have had to help dress the Barbies when it is too hard for Liberty have NOT been in heaven.

We spent a fun afternoon at Aunt Janie’s last week.

Feeding the chickens

Holding the chicks

Wearing a cow pelvis

Riding Horses

The kids absolutely love Aunt Jane’s.  I wish we could get there more often!

Levi started his first season of soccer!

His team is the Dragons.

That’s Levi out in front.  He was all over the ball!

Having big brothers can be a pain some of the time, but it was a definite plus for Levi out on the soccer field.  He really knew what he was doing and was totally fearless.  But I guess that kind of describes Levi with everything.  Fearless.

We were actually late to Levi’s game on Saturday because just before we left, a mother duck and her ducklings wondered into our yard!  We have a small irrigation ditch in our neighborhood and we think that’s where they came from. 

Eventually she made her way back out again.  I hope they found their way home again.

On April Fools Day the boys did all kinds of things to play jokes on people and though most of them flopped, this one was funny.  I came home to a foil wrapped plate from Levi.  When I opened it, this was inside:

It’s a Brown-E!!!! 

In other, not surprising news, Levi had yet another head injury this week.  Five minutes before it was time to leave for church last Sunday he decided to jump head-long into the corner of the bunk bed.  Luckily, he did not break the skin, he just earned himself a huge goose egg.  His sister decided to poke it with a pencil later in the week, thus the red scab you see on his forehead in the middle of the greenish yellowish bruise that is now left. 
He was being such a goof when I tried to take a picture of it today that I decided to put them all on.

It’s a shame he’s trying so hard to wreck his adorable face.

This month we’ve been studying the American Revolution in history and Reagan wanted to try making some scone type things he saw the British soldiers do in a movie.  He didn’t have rocks and fire like they did, but he had flour and water.

Two weeks ago Rock informed me that for date night (in two weeks) he had signed us up to run the Bo Glo 5K, a night time, everybody wears glow in the dark clothing, run to support Cushings Disease research.  I haven’t trained for a 5K in years!  But I ran the whole thing!  Who knew!  Of course I cannot walk today, I’m so sore, but it’s conference weekend, so that’s OK!!

I never post anything on Facebook because I’m never really on Facebook, but I decided to post this picture and the response was pretty funny, I must say.  My favorite comment was that Rock is a dork, but he has really nice teeth.  LOL.   He does have quite the cheeser grin, for sure.

This week was our Spring Break and though the weather didn’t cooperate all that well, (we had to cancel our zoo trip due to rain) we managed to get some real fun in.

On Monday the kids started off their break doing what every kid wants to do on their spring break.  Spring cleaning!  We thoroughly cleaned the basement and they were so excited to help clean and beautify our home that they generously refused my offer of lunch at Burger King if they helped.  Ok, so they totally needed a bribe and who wouldn’t on spring break, but it worked like a charm!  They each got their OWN milkshake, which is something they never ever get. 

Then we headed to the river for the first time this year.

The kids skipped rocks and played happily for two hours by the river.  I love that it’s so close and that there is so much to explore.  Even Liberty tried to skip rocks, but you can see by the size rock she has in her hand, that she was not very successful.  She just enjoyed the big splashes.

Tuesday the older boys went over to a friend’s house to make these awesome paper Marble Runs. 

Wednesday the kids watched Frozen for the first time because, yes, I am the only parent in the WORLD who has not shown their kids Frozen. 

I don’t have anything against the movie, it’s just not my favorite Disney movie of all time and is really not worth all its hype.  But the kids enjoyed it.  Honestly, the bigger reason we didn’t take them when it was in the theaters was because I did not want to waste the money on Reagan who would, I figured, just make gagging sounds the whole time.  Turns out he didn’t gag.   Olaf helped gloss over the yucky romance. 

We finished up Johnny Tremain, a Newberry medal book about  a young boy living in Boston at the time of the revolution.  One day it was even nice enough to read outside under the cherry tree.

Yesterday we started up Co-op again after a two week break and Levi is taking a class on the human body.  The kids got to put this whole x-ray skeleton together and label it.

And that was Spring Break 2014.  No, it wasn’t Disneyland, but hey, we watched a couple Disney movies…..