Tulsa

Ever since the beginning of last school year, when Cameron's teacher told him that the children's museum in Tulsa has a tape slide, the kids have been begging to go. The starts aligned when Dale had an Oklahoma Bar Association conference and we got to join him in Tulsa. While he went to meetings, we got to play and explore!

Kimball turns 7!

We had a family celebration for Kimball and he chose to go to Star Skate for our activity on Saturday. After holding hands and using the little walker thing, he started getting the hang of skating on his own.

 On Sunday we had pizza and strawberries with red Kool-Aid (red is his favorite color currently!) because we were supposed to have a TBall game on his birthday.

On Monday, he woke up to balloons hanging in his doorway and thought it was the funniest thing ever.

 He asked me to come have lunch with him at school, so I dropped off his birthday donuts while there. He has never wanted cupcakes to take to school and loves having donuts! All the kids at school were giving him presents such as stickers or bracelets and he was thrilled to be the line leader.

 I spent all afternoon finishing his Angry Birds cake and he helped arrange the characters/blocks.

 After school, we picked up Dale and drove to the baseball field only to find out the game was cancelled, so we drove home and started the festivities by singing, opening presents, and eating cake & ice cream.

His face was priceless as he opened his presents. Kimball would exclaim "Awesome! I've been praying for this!" It's crazy that we are parents to a 7 year old...and we are so blessed to have Kimball in our family. He has learned so much at school this year.

He came home from school the other day and said "Mom, what's 1 minus 2?" When I asked him what it was, he said "Negative 1!" I asked him several other number questions involving negative numbers and he got them all right.

February 2014

Each month our boys look forward to the Home Depot Kids Workshops. I love them because they're free and the boys get to make/keep a fun little craft. In Feb they made race cars and we perused the aisles afterwards.

We got even more snow! I am definitely ready for spring...we went out and played in the snow for a bit, but then later that day the boys both had fevers.

Cameron lost his first tooth! I am a bit heart-broken that he lost it so early, but he is so proud of that missing tooth.

I had to go up to OKC for a drs appointment so I went to the temple while up there.

Oklahoma is always windy which means it's always a kite-flying day. We finally took the kites the boys got for Christmas and I was shocked how well they flew.

Kimball was the Star Student at his school! He was so excited and made sure to invite us all to his assembly.

Kimball has discovered the joys of texting and often begs to borrow my phone so he can send a text to Grandma. He always makes sure to include a picture. I can't believe how adept my children are at using my phone...Kimball recently taught me a cool feature of my phone that I had no idea existed.

We also found out that we are having a baby girl! That night we went to the local park to enjoy the last of the warmth before another crazy winter storm hit us on March 1st.

And that's February in a wrap :)

December adventures

December was crazy, as is customary. As soon as my family left we pulled out all of the Christmas decorations. Our neighbor gave us her fake tree, so we let the boys use the tiny tree that has been part of our Christmas since we got married.

 In the beginning of December we got a huge (for Oklahoma) snow/ice storm. The ice was under all of the snow and since there are no snow plows here, they had to shut the schools down for an entire week!

Thanksgiving 2013

My (Judy's) family came out to OK this year for Thanksgiving. We had 8 people in our house and it was cozy. While they were here we shared a stomach bug so we didn't go out much, but we had a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and I made my traditional apple & pumpkin cheesecake pies.

Thanksgiving Day was my 10,000 day of life, so Dale went to a bank and got 10,000 pennies...$100 worth of pennies which weighs about 60 pounds! I was so shocked he actually did it and am still not quite sure what to do with $100 worth of pennies :). I had the stomach bug that day and couldn't figure out what the banging was in the kitchen...I realized it had been my dad & Dale having fun assembling the pennies, and the rolls tipping over repeatedly.

One day we went to the "rocket ship park" here. We took some family pictures and everyone enjoyed the merry-go-round.

We also went to the "lake park" to ride the Polar Express Train. The local Kiwanis club runs a small train through the park during Christmas season to see the lights around the lake.

My mom, sister & I also took some pictures at the park.

Overall it was fun to have them here. My boys loved having Grandma & Grandpa, though every time Grandpa would hug Cameron saying "I will hug you and squeeze you and call you George" Cameron would flip out saying George wasn't a people name. I realized later he must have been thinking about Curious George :).

Boys

Recently, the little boys in our house were playing in their room with Duplo Legos and Dale decided to give them some help. While he built a tower to the ceiling (solely for the purpose of knocking it down with the ceiling fan), K & C kept chanting "You're a genius!"

When the ceiling fan took off there was much laughter and cheering, and they all worked to build another fire station tower after.

Farm Boys

Right now, both of our boys are aspiring farmers. They are obsessed with the idea of becoming farmers when they grow up!

Cam insists that his farm will be built on our land. I will be his farmer's wife because he has to be married and daddy doesn't need me as much as he does (according to Cam). He will have a store behind his farm house to sell the food he grows, but he will give food to people who don't have any. Cam is also insistent that he will save some carrots for the bunnies so that they will like him. Duke will obviously need a puppy to be friends with.

Kimball says he won't get married because no woman would want to help him take care of the animals. He will deliver the food and leave the hard labor to Cam.

They talk about their farm all the time and it's fun to hear how their plans develop and change over time. I don't remember any of my friends dreaming of becoming farmers growing up, but maybe that's the price of living in OK? :).

Conference Weekend

For General Conference weekend, we got to go up to our sister-in-law's family farm in Kansas. On the way up, we spent the day in OKC and went to the 45th Infantry museum where the boys conned Dale into buying them soldier hats. The boys were enamored with the weapons, vehicles and other aspects of the museum.

 After that we went to the Railway Museum which happened to be a "Day out with Thomas". Though we never saw Thomas the Train, the boys got to do several Thomas related activities. They got balloon animals too. Cameron wouldn't go anywhere near Sir Topham Hatt, and this was as close as Kimball would get...

Then we drove up to KS. It was nice to escape from regular life and the boys loved playing at the farm. They especially loved the 4-wheelers!

Duke found his true calling herding cattle and was quite impressive with his instinctual skills chasing a bunch of cows across the pasture.

Dale enjoyed Duke's company in the car (probably far more than anyone else)...

Ada Air Show

Last year we went to an air show in Norman and the boys LOVED it...there was so much to do, and so many activities for young kids to enjoy. This year we went to the Ada Air Show, and though Dale & I enjoyed it, and were able to admire some cool planes, there wasn't much for the boys to enjoy.

Among the many planes, there was a B-17, A-26, and P-51. It was very moving to see planes fly overhead, that have been flying for decades, and did so much to protect our freedom so many years ago. 

The boys loved touring this plane that landed after showing off for a while

Amazingly, Cam loved his earplugs

Loops, spirals, twists, dives...amazing!

Cam got to try on some gear and just about toppled over :)

Chickasaw Cultural Center

The Chickasaw Nation has a large presence here and has done a lot to make sure their establishments add to the beauty of our little city. Just over 1/2 an hour away, they have a large cultural center, so we went there for a day trip during spring break in March. It was totally FREE and we learned so much about their culture.

The boys weren't terribly into the stomp dance, but afterwards, Kimball moved like a whirlwind from one station to the next, wanting to see everything they had to offer....from a skit about the Three Sisters (corn, bean and squash) which inspired our garden this year...

to skinning a hide...

to shooting a bow and arrow for the first time. This was perfect timing because Kimball had asked just days before how a bow and arrow works since we'd been reading about Nephi's bow in the Book of Mormon.

Puzzles

Every once in a while we get a hankering to do some puzzles and this Christmas break was one of those times...we ended up doing 4 puzzles but only got pictures of the following two: 

Kimball actually took a random piece of one of the puzzles and hid it until we were done so he could have the honor of putting the last piece in...sly little boy.

Cameron got his own alphabet puzzle in his stocking and is so proud of how well he can put it together! He still needs a little help, but he's well on his way to becoming an avid puzzler :)

A Lawyer

Dale is officially a lawyer! He was sworn in on September 19th...

 To keep K entertained during the ceremony, I let him take pictures with the flash off...

 Afterwards, K expressed his surprise at how short the ceremony was, because "Daddy's graduation lasted for hours!" :)

 My boys in front of the State Capitol...

 We are so proud of Dale, and SO excited to be done with school, and the bar!