Chucky Cheese, Circumcision and Puppies

First, let's get to the puppies. Nana and Papa's Miniature Schnauzer had 5 puppies last week. We finally went over today to get a peek.

We put this little guy up so Sammy could see him. Sammy kept leaning in to kiss him (we like to say he was kissing him, but he was pretty much sucking on the poor puppy's face).
Gracie was, to our surprise, very gentle with the puppies.
Jonah named this one Bagera (after the panther on the Jungle Book)

Hudson did not want to stop holding the puppies. Nana offered cookies to the kids, and Emma, Jonah and Gracie ran off to eat them. However, Hudson would not leave the puppies. He named one of the ones he's holding Chipmunk.Emma named this one Max. I love it when Shelly puts curlers in her hair.



Sammy is at the great age when kids start to feed themselves. Food gets in their hair, all over their clothes and seriously caked to the floor.

Lucky for us, Sammy's mess making hasn't been an adjustment. Gracie's been at that stage for nearly 2 years and is showing no signs of leaving any time soon. If anything Gracie is becoming more proficient at her food mess making. She has the ability to make a huge mess with yogurt, cereal, bananas (fill in any food you wish) and make it in a way that it is not discovered until the smell gives it away and by then it is so much more joyous of a clean-up.
I see this picture and I am amazed at how much Emma looks like Shelly. I used to be a little envious of this and thought that I wanted a child that looked like me. Then, one day a friend pointed out that if I had a child that looked like me then they would look like me....Forever, and why would I want to wish that on a child. Point well taken, so, here's to my kids not looking like me.
We used to have sing and dance night once in a while when it was bed time but the kids weren't tired enough to go to sleep yet. It never works and the kids just get more hyper, but it's so much fun we still do it once in a while. Lately, however, we've been singing and dancing nearly every night.

Here is Gracie on the drums. The way sing and dance night works is you crank the music up and sing and dance, it really isn't hard.
Jonah, by far, has the best dance moves of any of us. The music selection is also very important. In our home American Idol music has been banned, and that means current and past singers. Sorry Kim Clarkston and Clay Archuletta, take your crappy karaoke music to another home. By the way, Shelly and the kids have decided that my ban on everything Idol is stupid and as yet have not obeyed my embargo. My kids seem to like "Magic" by America, "Piece of My Heart" by Melissa Etheridge and "Corn Dogs" by Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band.

Hudson dancing with maracas on his ankles.

Emma had the gross idea of smothering bananas in yogurt and then rolling them is sprinkles. Shelly let them do it because:
1-She's a cooler parent than I am.
2-She thought it would get Gracie to eat a banana.


Although it doesn't look like it in the picture below the kids thought the banana with yogurt & sprinkles were great. Although, Gracie picked off and ate the sprinkles and left the banana and yogurt.
Here are a couple of pictures of Jonah and Hudson. They really are the best of friends. This week we went to a High School football game to cheer on some young men from our ward. Jonah and Hudson were really into it, and were so loud cheering for "the scouts."We want to thank Chuck E. Cheese for moving in down the street. We have taken the hour ride to the old Chuck E. Cheese in the past, but now it's only 2 minutes away. Jonah really liked the horse ride and Emma showed her Stewart athletic prowess on the basketball game.


Hudson was actually really good at the basketball game.
Sammy somehow got in some Z's amidst the loud noises and screams coming from 150 unsupervised kids.
Jonah loved this game where you pop bubbles by touching the screen.
Ahhh, the tickets, that is why we love you Mr. E. Cheese. My kids are obsessed with the earning of the tickets. So that, as we are trying to leave, they can spend 30 minutes deciding between the pop rocks candy or the plastic dolphin. On one hand you get to eat pure flavored sugar that explodes in your mouth or you can have a dolphin that you cannot eat, but you can take into the bathtub. Jonah and Emma chose plastic dolphins and Hudson left with 2 packages of pop rocks. Let's see, two 25 cent plastic swimming mammals and Hudson on a sugar rush right as we are trying to get him to bed. All this was ours for the price of 120 tokens that we bought. Thanks again Chuck for moving in next door.


This is Sammy before his surgery, we had to wake the poor kid up at 4:45 to go to the hospital. He got through the surgery without any problems and has been recovering great.
Mom with our little guy right after the surgery.Sammy is getting back to normal and has been happy since being allowed to jump in his jumper again.