Skateboard Kamakazi

The other night the kids wanted me to tell them a story, so I told them about my skateboarding days with my friends. We use to kayak down the street sitting on two skateboards parallel to each other and putting our feet on one anothers boards. We could turn and race others down the street. We ended up crashing into my brother and his friend and I jumped off the skateboard and sprained my ankle. No fun.
Well, Ellen called me at work the other day and she said Jackson had taken a small table and turned it upside down and put it on the skateboard, but the football container on top of that, put his helmet on, and got inside the football and road down the driveway. He almost hit a car across the street. What a fun imagination. Take a look at the photo...

4th of July Opening Song

This is so cute. Mom Neil helped the kids last week put together this performance, before the neighborhood parade. It was the cutest thing. More pics of the parade to follow. I love how Preston comes marching in. He's ready for boot camp!!

Zipline??

Last saturday while I was working around the house, Jackson and Preston were working in the tree. They grabbed a jump rope and tied both ends of it to different branches on the tree and had put a toy that had a ring with a ball hanging from it onto the jump rope. The purpose was to have the ring run along the jump rope and they could then hold onto the ball at the bottom of it and use it like a zipline. What a great idea. They were proud of their idea. Things looked well, until they tried it and the ring made out of plastic broke, and the zipline didn't get used. Oh, dang. Pretty creative little ones for only being 7 and 5 years old

2 Creative Ideas from the same object

Kids are always finding things and seem to be able to come up with many ideas of how to use them and play with them. We have some barbecue skewers hanging out in the kitchen drawers and so recently the kids have found something to do with them.

Hailey decided to create an icicle lolipop if you will. She put water in a cup and put the skewer in the cup and then put it in the freezer. After several hours she had and ice cube that she could suck on and let drip throughout the house, yea!

Jackson took the skewers and decided to make a bow and arrow. He broke off a branch from the tree, bent it some, took a show string and tied to both ends of the branch to make his bow, and then used the skewers as his arrows. He was so proud of it that he hung it on his wall with the arrows displayed.

Dad's treasure box

So after church today, Hailey was reading the friend magazine and then started to ask me some questions of what I liked to do when I was a kid. Boy that was tough to remember everything, so I said, wait a minute, and I went and got my big box out of the garage that was labeled "elementary" for that time period in my life. All the kids huddled around me as I opened this mysterious box. They wanted to start pulling everything out, but I held their attention, as I pulled items out one by one. My memories raced back to me as I pulled items and pictures out and would recount to the children what I was doing, or how I made something, or what it meant to me. They thought it was so cool. Jackson liked my scout knife.

Hailey was intrigued by a school journal we found, so I decided I would read that to them at night in the hall as they are going to sleep. A tradition that we do. One part of my journal that we had read though talked about how if I could meet anyone, it would be Pres. Ezra Taft Benson. I was 13 yrs old when I was writing this. Another entry talked about how I bore my testimony for the second time that year, which was accomplishing a goal that I had set for myself. Another entry talked about how I hated Science class and wasn't doing very well at it.

Mom(Ellen) was fascinated by some of my pictures I drew, but mostly my hand writing. It was cursive and very neat! She asked, "Where did it go?". I showed Preston some of my favorite hotwheels that I used to love to play with, and many fun pictures of me with freckles, and really blonde hair. We also found some printed money that I had recieved that was in sequential order(They were all impressed that I had saved my money that long). The kids thought it was great, and we had a lot of fun. I had a great time looking back and thinking about what those experiences and days were like. What good memories. Thanks to Mom Smedley for keeping all of these important little memories for me, so now we can look back on them together.

BMX racing

This was our first experience at a bike track. It was Awesome. The kids watched the other biker kids at the track, and then jumped in riding along side them on the track. They all rode without fear. We had a great time!!! Too Fun!! I think we'll be coming back soon!
Go Abby! Hailey on top of the hill
Jackson, How fast can I go?

Preston: I want to be just like Jackson

Dad, racing Jackson
7yr old Jackson showing what he can do!

Tree climbing in the rain

Who says you can't climb the trees in the rain? It's saturday and were going to play outside!
Note: green bucket and rope was for Abby and Preston to put food into the bucket so she could pull it up on her homemade pulley

Climbing the tree is fun. How high can we go?

Look at me! It's fun to hang from the tree.......and I'm only 7yrs old. Just wait!

"You're saggin' Jackson"

Good thing Jackson had on two pair of pants. He couldn't get the first pair to stay on... next time, I think we will bring a belt! He thought it was pretty funny... we did too!

The boys

The kids couldn't get enough of sledding down the hill! They tell us often that they want to go back, and do it again!

Jackson's 7th Birthday!!!

Jackson turned 7 February 5th! It is hard to believe... time has just flown by. As they say, time flies when you're having fun. Jackson is one of the "funnest" boys I know. Always ready for a new adventure. He loves skateboarding, climbing trees, riding bikes, building anything, and playing basketball! He is such a blessing in our family... his smile lights up a room- he loves life! We love you Jackson, Happy Birthday!

Jackson's Clubhouse

The other day I came home from work and found a homemade ladder leaning against the front tree, some nails, hammer etc ditched up in the tree, and some old fence wood nicely laid out in the tree. Turns out it's the beginning of Jackson's clubhouse. He decided to do this after hearing about his cousin having a clubhouse. Wow! I was pretty impressed with his creativity, and will to get in there and just figure things out.

Airplanes and trees

Saturday the 4 kids and I went to the park to go on a hike and fly some little wood airplanes that you make out of a box. It takes a a few minutes to assemble, and then you wind up the propeller, and let it fly. The kids were so excited to let them fly. Some were flying straight up, and then straight down, some flew around in circles and occasionally they would fly straight. We were tossing them, having a good time when I thought I would give it a try and show them how to make it really fly high and long. Well, mine flight turned into a challenge and an opportunity. I wound it up really good and let'r fly. It zoomed around until it got caught high in the middle of a big oak tree. oh, boy! What was I going to do now. I couldn't leave it in the tree. I'd never live that one down. So, I attempted to climb the tree but there was no low hanging branches to start my climb. Jackson then said, let's say a prayer. I thought, what a noble thought from my boy. All the kids stopped right there and Jackson said a prayer that we would get his plane down from that tree. What a neat experience to see him think of something like that(maybe some of those many days of teaching him are sticking with him). Afterwards, I looked around and found a garbage can that I thought I could use to help me get up in the tree and retrieve that $2.00 airplane that Jackson wanted so bad. So I climbed on the garbage can while Jackson and Hailey were holding it down for me. They were getting nervous watching me try to climb the tree. I think they were suprised to see me trying to climb a tree. If it were one of them, not a problem, they are tree climbing experts. I kept hearing, be careful, and don't fall. As I made my first attempt I jumped and tried to hug the tree branch and pull myself up, that was a big joke. As I was hanging in the air losing my grip I quickly told the kids to get out of the way, because it didn't look like I was going to make it up. They were scared and nervous for me. I got a little scratched up and a little disappointed that I didn't make it. What was I going to do.......I gave it one more try, and this time I hung on to a branch for my dear life, hoping and knowing if I didn't make it this time, it probably wasn't going to happen with this old dad. I held on tight and finally my old tree climbing skills kicked in and I remembered how to climb a try again. It was kind of fun, and scary at the same time. I was then able to position myself so I could knock the airplane out of the tree with a stick. The kids all celebrated, and so did I. I was releaved that I didn't let my boy down, and more releaved that I wasn't going to have to climb any higher or find another branch to climb onto to find this airplane. We finished a fun afternoon flying the planes at the park. It wasn't until much later as the kids were rehearsing what happened to someone that I heard that they had later said a "thank you" prayer that we were able to get the airplane. I wasn't around to hear them do that, but it sure made me proud to know that they also remembered to thank our Heavenly Father for answering their prayers.

Just wanted to get the word out that we... finally have a blog!!! Hopefully it will improve with time. For now- at least it is something!