Countdown to screentime

At our house, screentime on Saturday is for 2 hours; from 1 PM to 3 PM. The kids must complete all their chores. When they do, the countdown to 1 PM gets exciting; it even includes creating a countdown clock and staring at it as the time approaches.

Incidentally, the kids can earn 30 minutes of screentime on the weekdays if they complete their chores and do one money chore. The money chores are a list of 5 minute chores that can be completed for money.

More often than not, they choose screentime over the money.

The Stowaway

This is Reece getting picked up from his cousin's (Mateo) house.

Mateo stayed over at our house the previous night. When my brother, Matt, came to get him, Reece didn't want the fun to end. He decided to sneak into the trunk of his car and get a "ride" over to Mateo's house.

Apparently, Mateo was in on it, because he told his dad he was going to 'ride his bike'. Mateo let Reece out of the car and they started playing outside.

It took a while for us to notice Reece was gone. Gideon admitted that Reece got into his uncle's car, but when I called my brother, he checked the trunk and said Reece wasn't there.  It wasn't til later, after exhausting all options that we called back again. When Matt ask Mateo directly if Reece was here, Mateo said, "maybe".

By then, Megan was a wreck. I couldn't stop chuckling to myself. What a naughty kid.

Who is that?

Gideon's curly hair is his signature look.

The other day, the girls talked Gideon into straightening his hair. The result was quite shocking. He actually looked remarkably like his cousin, Lina.

Funny Kids

As one of the last horrahs with Scouts, the boys did a pinewood derby.

Reece created a pokemon trap themed car.



 

Gideon made a Nintendo Mario Bullet car. It included some googly eyes, which the kids enjoyed playing with the extras (you can see some on his forehead).



A couple days later, Megan found their posters had been googly eyed. Silly boys.





 

Gideon's 1st Chess Tournament

We signed Gideon up for a Chess Tournament. While he's played chess for several years, this was his first one; and mine as a parent. We were woefully unprepared.

First off, it was much, much longer than we expected. It's a full day event.

Secondly, many of the kids brought books to track their moves. It wasn't required but encouraged. Gideon doesn't know the move format, so he was a bit frazzled by that. It was clear if he wants to do this more, he'll have to learn some things.

Official Chess tournaments are really weird. Parents (for good reason) are not aloud in the main room with the kids. So, you're there supporting your kid all day but can't even see him most of the time or even cheer him on.

He won two games and lost two games. Not bad for a first timer.

All the Hair

If you've known Megan for any significant amount of time, you know she likes to change her hair.

Here are a few of the looks she's dawned over the years:

July 2001: Megan's hair was pretty short when we met and she was growing it out while we dated.

July 2004: Long and straight

July 2005: She tried bangs for the first time. This was probably my least favorite hairstyle.

December 2005: Short and straight. A little more red.

April 2007: Longer and curly

July 2007 - Doing the highlights thing.

December 2007: Short and black

2008: Back to red.

Then a darker shade of brown.

December 2008: Curls and straight

December 2010 - Back to bangs (but I liked them better this time).

June 2012: A bit dramatic change to a pixy cut. I really liked it though.

Dec 2013: A brown bob with highlights

May 2017: Red and straight



October 2017: Going curly again. I have begged her to keep it curly and she has for me. I love it.



Still going strong with the curls. Still my beautiful wife.

Harper's Antics

I take the girls to school every morning. Now that it's getting cold, Harper has gotten in the habit of burying herself in the blankets in the back. She looks like Emporer Palpatine.



In general, Harper is a whacky kid. She does lots of goofy stuff and is usually up for going along with my Shenanigans; like jumping in a pedal car on sales at the store and driving it around.



Painter her face like a shiny plumb,



Going full 80's for a dance,



or wrapping her head so she wouldn't get wet during a water fight.

A budding artist

Among many others things, Tate fosters a love of art. He has a done a number of great paintings and drawings; even a sketch of Harper during he whipped out during a church meeting.





There was one odd thing. During his art class he did a sketch of himself and later of his friend, Hayden. However, both sketches seem to be an amalgamation of the two boys. Both the sketches seem to look both like Tate and Hayden are mixed together. Pretty funny.

[caption id="attachment_2772" align="aligncenter" width="225"] sketch Tate did of himself[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2773" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Sketch Tate made of his friend, Hayden[/caption]



 

Veracious Readers

Like their older brother, Tate, the other kids are all becoming lovers of books. Hudson and Gideon, particularly, are churning through books like there is no tomorrow. It feels like we are taking Hudson to the library every other day.

Oddly though, they still really resist reading certain books.

Hudson will be looking for another book to read. Megan has suggested reading the Twilight Series but she won't do it.

Tate was the same way. Even though Megan suggested it many times, he waited to read Harry Potter for a long, long time for some reason. When he finally read the series, he loved it.

Gideon: Mr. lover of life

Gideon is our most passionate and deliberate child.

He reminds me of the quote from Henry David Thoreau:

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."

He loves animals, little kids and school.







[caption id="attachment_2753" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Taking his 'wax museum' speech very seriously[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2752" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Last day of school. Already misses his teacher.[/caption]

If there is an game or activity, Gideon wants to be the best at it. He's all in. If he loses, he's heartbroken. If he wins, he's elated.

[caption id="attachment_2572" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Winning the rain gutter regatta[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2755" align="aligncenter" width="225"] losing the pinewood derby[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2738" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Getting a fish during the boys camping trip[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2754" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Not winning bingo up at Snowbird[/caption]

She got a job!

Hudson has always been a really hard worker. She actually makes pretty good money babysitting. But in order to earn money for school clothes, she got a job at Lagoon for the last weeks of summer. Now that school is in session, Lagoon is only open on weekends. She now only works about every other Saturday.



 

Crazy Second Half of Summer

This summer was a little lop-sided. The first half was pretty uneventful. Not a lot going on.

The second half was crazy. It was a juggernaut of back-to-back excursions/vacations; one right after one another for nearly 2 months straight. Here's the run down:

• Snowbird: This is the Biennial (every other year) trip with Megan's side of the family. I talked about it in another post, but, it was really fun, to say the least.

• The Subway: The whole family did the subway in Zion National Park. I've been wanting a redo of the crazy family epic subway disaster a few years ago. Mainly to get Hudson over her PTSD of the ordeal. I thought, well, if I'm going to take the older kids, let's just take them all. This was really nice. Everyone did amazing.

• Tommy's annual climb and girls camp: I climbed Mt. Gannet, the highest peak in Wyoming and the second hardest of the high peaks. It's mainly rated so difficult because of the distance. From the Dubois approach, it was 30 miles in and 30 miles out. It took 5 days for Mark, Ryan and I; our longest trip yet. At the same time, the girls went to girl's camp.

• Bear Lake: This year, we went with Brenn's family. Brenn was in full funny uncle mode.

[caption id="attachment_2726" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Brenn - trying to be a meme[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2728" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Brenn - acting the part of beach waiter[/caption]

• Boys' camping trip/Girls' annual trip: My brothers wanted to organize a camping trip for our father's 80th birthday. We went camping in the Uintahs, where he spent time in his youth.

• School: School started the next week so we didn't go anywhere, but prepping for school was an ordeal of it's own.

• Bear Lake (Again): On a whim, Megan invited some friends to come up and hang out at the Bear Lake house on labor day. This was more a chance to get in one last visit to the cabin.