Slicing and Dicing - Fruit, Baseballs, Presentations . . .

update from August 19:

We had a great time watching the Olympics on the last Friday before it was over. Andrew and Lissy were asleep, and Josh and Noah wanted to watch, so we let them stay up. I made cookies, and it was just one of those nice nights. At one point Gary started flipping channels during a commercial, and ended up on some sitcoms. Josh was absolutely laughing his head off at some of the jokes. We were laughing at him laughing. That kid has the cutest sense of humor.

Noah helped me cut some watermelon for a fruit salad once, so he decided it is his job to help me make fruit salad from now on. On the day pictured, he asked if he could help, and then when I put him up on the stool to do so, he said, "Yeah, this is my slice and dice!"

These kids can do a lot with butter knives.

One Sunday I woke up with the kids, and let Gary sleep in a bit. The kids decided to form a band, and everyone participated, even Lissy. Actually, she was a very enthusiastic player. I was on the mini-tambourine. I actually have a video of this, but it won't post. We played for quite a while, and amazingly - Gare slept through it. Wow, that's skillz.

I like that Lissy looks like she's leading the band in this one.

Noah had a master plan last Sunday to have "backyard night," so we did it for FHE. We played some baseball, climbed the climber, and watched Gary plant pumpkins. We ate s'mores for our snack (Josh request), and it was a good thing we were in the backyard. Noah wants to have a backyard night every night now.

Lissy just likes playing in the grass any opportunity she gets.

Started out with pitching to these two . . .

 . . . while Gary put our pumpkins in the ground (poor pumpkins, already scorched) . . .

. . . Noah helped Lissy to participate . . .

 . . . but mostly just wanted to climb. He had me race him to the top.

Lissy had her first marshmallow, and was a big fan.

We ended up pitching to all 3 boys. Noah hit his really far over the fence and across the street. 

Lissy had her first otter-pop one day. Fan of that, too.

On Tuesday I told the boys we'd invite some neighbors over to slip n' slide that afternoon, and unbeknownst to me, Josh gave out a few invitations. Totally fine, but my neighbor Matt thought for a second his kids should bring presents. Slick, Josh. The kids had a blast, and apparently some of the kids couldn't quit talking about how great it was. I love kids. We also went to a "farm" on Wednesday where the kids got to see a horse, a cow, and some chickens. So, pretty much like being in Preston. The kids really liked it, but did relate it to Tate's house a lot.

On Tuesday night I was all set to go to a Relief Society BBQ. All I made for dinner was an enormous side dish, as I was leaving the family to eat their man food. Gary called after five and said, "How would you like to come to Salt Lake and pick me up?" Not in the plans at all, but turned out to be fun. Gare was busily trying to figure out how much the death penalty costs, so we didn't pick him up until after 7. We ended up eating at the food court at City Creek and ate with (a table away) Dave McCann. He supports Chick Fil-A, by the way. Gary did a fantastic job on his presentation the next morning and got interviewed by some reporters and is now famous (as in quoted in the paper). Because of that a Japanese guy wanted Gary to work for him so bad he offered him a 3 million dollar signing bonus. That last  Japanese guy part may have been a dream. 

And that's all folks, except the worst part and the best part, I guess. The worst part is Gary's back totally wacked out on him and he could barely move on Friday. Poor guy. Best part is that we switched for the temple this week, so we got to go to the temple on Saturday. Hooray, it was soooo nice.