Flying pigs and other amazing events!

Hi everybody !
I know you all thought that pigs would learn to fly before Amanda would learn to blog, but here I am! Anyway, we FINALLY got our phone and Internet hooked up here in Florida so I thought I might give this a try. I read the adorable stories that the Johnson boys wrote so I thought I would share about the "authoring" that's been going on here.
A few days ago Brandon and KK decided to write books. They spent at least 30 minutes drawing (Mikayla drew 6 pictures, Brandon had a huge stack.) Then KK had me write the words to The fish went out to sea. (The Octopus was out swimming. Up at the shore a party was going on. When an earthquake came...but then a tornado came with a bomb. But all the people were okay and the fish came along. The End!) It's not Shakespeare, but shes 4 and her words went along with the pictures. Then it was Brandon's turn. He was STILL drawing pictures and tying to figure out the best way to bind them so I suggested we just start with what he had. He came up with a loooong title about fishing and then gave up on the words half way though the first page. That pretty much sums up their personalities right there. Mikayla- Not the most creative child around, but she works hard and loves anything to do with learning. Brandon- the kid would play or do art all day but ask him to do anything remotely academic and he says "I'll just do that part later." Can you tell I'm just a bit concerned that he's the one going to kindergarten in 2 months?

Bowling Party

Nathan was invited to a birthday party at the bowling alley this afternoon. It was his first time to bowl, and he had a good time. He scored a 69 in only 9 frames. They ran out of time because it took so long to round-up each kid when it was their turn!

As party favors, they passed out coupons for a free game. (Very clever of the bowling alley.) I'm sure we will be going back for more. Maybe Jeff will break out "Uncle Leo" for the first time in years!

Don't try this at home...

Yesterday while Ashley was taking a 3 hour nap (!), Nathan and I played some games on the Kung Fu Panda website. I offered to make this 3-D Kung Fu Panda cut-out for him. I don't usually brag about my obscure talents on the blog, but I am quite good at wielding a pair of scissors. However, I knew that I was in trouble when it said, "Printing Page 1 of 3"! It was so complicated that it took me 45 minutes to cut it out and stick all the tiny little tabs into place. Then he played with it for all of 5 minutes!

Season Finale

Nathan played his last T-Ball game of the season on Thursday night. Ever since he saw Brandon and KayKay get their T-Ball trophies, he's been counting on getting one of his own. We didn't know if they gave out trophies in our league, so we just told him that we didn't know when he would get his. Jeff and I had already made a back-up plan to buy one for him at a trophy shop if they didn't get one from the coach. I know, it's lame...buying your kid a trophy, but you do what you have to do.

I arrived at the ball field at the same time as the coach and was looking to see if he unloaded any boxes that might contain trophies, but he did not. His wife arrived later, and still, no trophy box. I was getting a little nervous. When Jeff got there, the first thing he asked me was, "Did you see any trophies?"

After the game, the coach announced that he would call each kid on to the field to get a medal. Fortunately, that was sufficient. Nathan was thrilled with his T-Ball medal, and I didn't have to make a covert trip to the trophy shop!

One terrible exchange rate!

Jeff's teaching a late class tonight, so I took the kids swimming and then to Larry's Pizza for dinner. I was "in the zone" on SkeeBall, so we won a lot of tickets - 224 to be exact. If you want to know what kind of prize you can get at Larry's for 224 tickets, it's 2 Airheads and 4 Pixie Sticks. Now that's one terrible exchange rate! But Larry's is a good alternative to Chuck E. Cheese for several reasons: (1) MUCH better pizza, (2) small game room, and (3) generally fewer children than adults in the building.

Kiddie Kamp

Jeremiah and Makayla went to Kiddie Kamp last week while Brianne and I fed 300 people lunch everyday for City Reach. They had a good time. It was sort of like Vacation Bible School. They worked hard learning their memory verses, and doing their journals, and bringing money to missionaries. At the end of the week Jeremiah received a bible from the Kiddie Kamp Store.

Random silly picture

This is a little blurry, but I took it while driving. Jeremiah and Makayla piled oranges on Lily after I picked them up from Kiddie Kamp last week. Don't worry, Lily liked it she was laughing.

Happy Birthday Ralph!

Ralph and Saundra and Elisabeth were here for City Reach so we were able to celebrate Ralph's birthday and Father's day with him. The kids had a great time with Aaron's parents this week.

Lily Update

Lily is growing by leaps and bounds. She is on whole milk now, she has six teeth and she is cruising all around the house. She is not officially walking, but as long as she has something to hold onto she is unstoppable. Last week I found her half way up the stairs!!!!! So needless to say the baby gates are back up!

Soccer, Soccer, Soccer

Jeremiah is in his second year of soccer and I can't believe the improvement since last year. Last year he was running the wrong way and kicking the ball in the other teams goal. This year he is doing much better. Last week he even scored a goal!! We had three games this week in the middle of City Reach which was a little crazy, but he had lots of fans.

I'm a binge blogger

So I decided today that I have a blogging disorder. When it comes to blogging, I binge and purge. I don't blog very often, but when I do I REALLY do. I save it all up, then throw it all out at once. So enjoy.....

What does a cow say?

Jeff got off early today, and we took the kids to Magic Springs. Nathan is into everything: water slides, kid-sized roller coasters, and (my old favorite) the log ride. He is especially excited about the rides that he can go on by himself now that he is over 42 inches tall.

The only ride Ashley can go on in the whole park is the carousel, but that's fine by her. She loves it! But Little Miss Independent did not want me to hold on to her on the ride. (Of course, I did.) Here's a sample of our conversation on one of the rides:

Me: What does a cow say?
Ashley: Mooooo!

Me: What does a horsey say?
Ashley: Neigh-neigh-neigh

Me: What does Ashley say?
Ashley: I do yit myself!!

Go Braves!

We have been very pleased with the YMCA T-Ball program. It's been very well organized and well coached. It is non-competitive, but Nathan has learned a lot and has improved drastically over the short season.

Nathan's coach e-mailed a picture of his team to the real Atlanta Braves organization, and they sent everyone on the team another hat, foam tomahawks, and baseball cards. Very cool!

Glimpse of the future

2:30 Pick kids up from school
3:00 Run home to change clothes
4:00 Morgan's birthday party
6:00 T-Ball
7:00 Dinner with Paynes

This may not look like a busy day to some people, but to me, it's a lot to cram into one afternoon. Now that Nathan's 5 ½, he's starting to develop his own agenda which involves a lot of rushing here and there to different activities. I know that it's only going to get worse as he gets older! And then Ashley will start adding things to my schedule!

We actually had a pretty good day. My definition of "good day" is rather loose, however. If there are no serious injuries and no major temper tantrums (by me or the kids), that's usually considered a "good day".

We had a lot of fun at Morgan's 5th birthday party at JumpZone. Nathan loves JumpZone and was running all over the place. Ashley was a little more timid today than in the past, so I had to go down the slides with her. (Remember this video, Renee?)

Birthday Girl Morgan and Nathan

Ashley and Grace

Lydia and Ashley

Heather and Cate Skinner, Ashley, and Jenna S.

Stuffy the Bear

A few months ago, Nathan finally gave up his beloved Razorback burp rag and started sleeping with a stuffed animal - a yellow lab puppy that he named "Nathan". Until now, he has never really been interested in stuffed animals, so he has never shown more than vague curiosity toward Build-A-Bear. But now we have been sucked into the Build-A-Bear vortex. He got a Spiderman costume for his dog a while back, and Saturday night, he got to get his first real Build-A-Bear. He was very excited about it. He chose a velvet bear that he first named "C3PO" but then decided to change his name to "Stuffy". (He's not so good at choosing names.)

Jeff and Nathan decided that Ashley also needed to get one. She was not interested in anything but pushing the stroller around in the store, so Nathan picked out a dog for her. We tried to get her to at least participate in the naming of her new dog, but she rejected all our suggestions. For now, we just call him Puppy Dog.

Happy Father's Day!

Oak Bower

Mom took Nathan down to Lake DeGray yesterday for the annual Ten Mile week at Oak Bower. Dad, Ashley, and I joined them this afternoon. I can just imagine what my sisters would have to say about this:

Amanda: I love Oak Bower! I wish I were there! Remember that summer when we.....(insert random story here).

Renee: I'm out. I'm not dragging 3 kids out in this heat to get in that nasty lake!

Total opposites. I'm glad that I went. I haven't been down there in a long time. They have a new main building, and it's really nice. Mom says that the cabins are even air conditioned! It is kind of weird because I only knew about 15 people out of the 40 or so who were there. But Josh and Laura were both there, and I got to visit with them for a while. It's sort of like everything has come full circle. Here are the kids that I used to babysit all grown up, coming down to Oak Bower with their boy/girlfriends, and playing in the lake with my kids. Nathan just had the best time. He would have slept in the lake tonight if he could have!

Cheeburger Cheeburger

The first time we ate at Cheeburger Cheeburger was just after it opened on Hwy 10. That was probably about 2 years ago. They have a cheeseburger called "The Pounder" - which is a little bit of misnomer because it has 20 oz. of meat! - and if you eat the whole thing, they put your picture on the wall. They make a really big production out of it by ringing a cowbell and announcing your feat of gluttony to the whole restaurant. Well, Nathan has just been fascinated by the whole thing. Every time we eat there he says that he is sure that Papa could eat The Pounder.

Last night after T-Ball, we went with Fisch and Papa to Cheeburger. Dad rose to the occasion and downed the whole thing. He didn't even struggle until the last few bites.

Before picture with The Pounder
Nathan got to be in the picture with Papa and the big Cheeburger. You can't tell from this picture, but he was thrilled!
Nate and Fisch
Little diva: "Oh my gooh-ness!"

Myth Busters

Renee sent me an e-mail recently where someone claimed that Listerine works as a mosquito repellent/killer. After some extensive research in my backyard, I can confirm that Listerine does NOT work as either a mosquito repellent nor mosquito killer. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of the big bottle that I bought, but it was useful as a quick hand sanitizer after Nathan caught this frog in the backyard tonight.

Bye, bye Froggy!

Panda-monium

We went to see the highly anticipated (at least by Nathan) movie "Kung Fu Panda" this afternoon. He loves movies so much that anytime there is a new one being previewed on TV, he wants us to "rewind" so he can watch it again and again! Thank goodness for DVR! It was actually very enjoyable for both kids and grown-ups. Even Ashley (my non-TV watcher) paid attention for the first 30 or 45 minutes.

Even more exciting than the movie was the grand opening today of the new theater at Chenal and Rahling. It was the first thing in the new shopping center to be completed. It's got an IMAX screen, so we got to watch the movie on the really big screen. IMAX pro: only one preview; IMAX con: matinee ticket prices were $10.50 for adults! (You just can't beat the twilight special at Breckenridge.) But luckily, popcorn and Cokes were just 50¢ for opening weekend.

Johnson's gone Drag.....

My friend Brianne gave me some 18-24 month old clothes for Lily. The boys had to have a little fun with them before we put them away.

New swing set

When we returned from our trip to Arkansas Aaron had this new swing set for the kids in the backyard. They love it. They have played on it everyday!

Story Time

Today Jeremiah came to me with a crayon and a pad of paper and said "Mom, I want to write a story." So that's what we did today.... write stories. I thought I would share them...

Once upon a time there were six little monkeys Ashley(pink), Mary Beth (pink), Jeremiah (white), Micah (blue), Nathan (yellow), Renee (purple), Aaron (green), Jeff (brown), Racheal (pink), Jonathan (gray), and Mandi (pink). They went to Walmart and Target. They all lived in a big tree in Washington, PA. One day a bee went into the monkeys ears. They went to Sonic to eat some ice cream and chicken nuggets.

This was written by Micah. I would love to have the colors psychoanalyzed. Apparently, whatever color we associate with a person represents how we feel about them.

Jeremiah's went like this.....
Once upon a time, there were two monkeys who were cousins. The two monkeys were white and brown. I'll bet you were wondering what their names were. They were Nathan and Jeremiah. One day the two monkeys met Brandon and he was red. One day the three monkeys found a tree. And when they were climbing they saw a big monkey that lived there. He was sleeping and snoring.

Then the monkey woke up! And the three monkeys started running! And they found another big tree! The big monkey climbed the tree too! They were scared! then a big good monkey came and saved the three little monkeys.