May

 David went with his third grade on a field trip to the Hogle Zoo.  They were having a dinosaur theme and had these dinosaurs.  I was a chaperone and found it quite funny that the kids were super amused with the dinosaurs that sprayed water out at you.  What was so funny?  Well we were soaked to the bones already since it was raining ALL day.  But overall it was still a really fun trip.

 Rebekah's first four wheeler ride.  I think she liked it!

 Enjoying smores!

 Messy with the smores!  And what we woke up to the next morning.  6 inches of snow Memorial Day weekend :0)  Gotta love Nevada !

 Happy Birthday boy  8 Years old.

 His cake, he wanted one shaped like his letter N with a bunch of stuff he really likes on it. 

May Family pictures

In May we took a bunch of family photos in Salt Lake.  Here are a few of the highlights.

March

 Happy Birthday Rebekah

 Rebekah's cake

 Rebekah at her Primary Children's Dr appointment where we found out she also has Kidney Reflux just like her big sister did.  Hopefully hers will also resolve on its own, though hers is a bit worse than her sisters.

 Keziah playing at the school

McCaul just looking cute :0)

February

So the big event in February was the school science fair.  Which consisted of us doing ALOT of work at the last minute.  We are terrible procrastinators sometimes.  David used his idea from last year that he never got to do.  He wanted to see which activity would bring your heartrate higher, running, walking, or jumping.  So he gathered a bunch of kids together and made them all do the exercises and then a friend who is a nurse took their heart rates. 

Nathan's idea stemmed from us playing around.  He wanted to test which made it easier to lift a 10 pound bag of rice one or two pulleys.  He made up a rating scale and had a bunch of people try and rate which was easier.  We played with the pulleys a little too giving everyone a ride.

David won second place for his grade.  He did a good job.  Nathan won first place for his grade and we were even told he was considered up for Grand Champion of the whole school.  YAY Nathan!!!!  His board got to go to state. 

 

 
Nathan also participated in a patriotic assembly at school.  His class was able to recite the preamble to the constitution and sang while signing the Star Spangled Banner.

One more great picture for the month... my children fall asleep in some of the greatest positions.  Here is the classic "domino formation"

We have also found Keziah snuggled up in Rebekah's crib a number of times.

Trying to make up for my slacking... Starting with JANUARY

Okay so I have slacked off.  However I now have this in my weekly checklist of things to do on Thursdays.  So hopefully I will be better about keeping up.  Seeing as my last update was Christmas I guess I am starting at the new year.


So David turned 9 in January.  My how the time flies.  I cannot believe how big he is getting.  We tried telling him he is only allowed to grow once a year because we cannot afford to buy him clothes multiple times a year just because he "chooses" to grow out of them within a couple months.  Apparently he wont concede and has proclaimed he will grow whenever he darn well pleases.  He told us the other day they all measured each other and he is the tallest in his class.
So David's big goal this year was to earn enough money to go to Lagoon this summer.  He has met that goal which included the cost of a ticket plus $10-$15 for souvenirs.  For his birthday Grandma and Grandpa Arterburn wrote him a check which he took to the bank and opened his very own account along with the cash he got from other family members.  He was thoroughly thrilled when he counted it all up and realized he had enough.

He had a light-saber birthday cake which wasn't a total disaster but pretty close.  It kept flopping over.  I have new skills now though so my cakes should be improving.

 Nathan watching the festivities

 David...Basketball

 David...very cool new tool bag

 David...MONEY

 McCaul...wondering why there are no presents for him.

 Keziah

 Rebekah

Christmas

 Christmas is getting a bit more entertaining every year.  So David has a habit of going to the bathroom at probably 10pm every night.  Not sure why but its pretty regular.  So after Santa Clause came Sheldon and I went to bed.  Well about 30 minutes later here comes David up the stairs he walks into the dining room and comes to a dead stop when he realizes there are things in the front room.  He peers over the gate for a few minutes before running to the bathroom and coming back to look into the front room again.  We kinda waited it out for a minute waiting to see what he did.  Eventually he went down stairs.  About 5 minutes later here he comes again.  This time making a bigger effort to look at things but still not breaching the gate barrier.  Finally he runs back downstairs to his bedroom again.  Then about 5 more minutes here comes Nathan who stares at the booty for a few minutes before finally starting to climb the gate.  At which point I loudly uuhemm him and he hops down and runs back downstairs.  Then David  comes again so I escort them downstairs and tell them that if they come up again before 6am I will tell Santa to come back and take it all back.  Which of course now that they have seen it all is SOOOO out of the question for them.  They very obediently and quietly laid there.  I have NO clue how long it took them to go to sleep, I am sure a while but they didnt come snooping again.  I thought the whole thing was quite funny.
Here is a picture of what Santa left

The twins and the girls santa booty

David and Nathan's Santa booty

In the morning we told the kids they had to wait in the dining room behind the gate until everyone was up.  They anxiously waited until around 6 they couldn't handle it any more and David went down and woke up the sleep heads still in bed.    Here is a picture of them all waiting ever so impatiently at the gate.

Waiting for Christmas

 Christmas morning we didnt take a lot of pictures.  I got rather busy helping people out but here is a small sample.

David and Nathan

 

McCaul

Zephen

Zephen

Keziah and Daddy

Rebekah

The rest of 2010 minus christmas

 So December came with an initial burst of warm weather at least warm for this time of year.  At the end it made up for it with a nice cold spell BRRRRRR... but Keziah doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that its winter now.  I was looking all over the house for her one day and this is where I found her... yep its 30 degrees and I find the girl outside in her undies digging in the sandbox.  Of course she comes in two minutes later complaining that she is cold... well duh hun... its stinking cold out there and you have nothin but a shirt and undies on!!! 

She also seems to like to sleep in strange places.  About half the time we find her sleeping under her table in her bedroom or UNDER her bed... The first time she was under the bed we were looking everywhere for her... she was snuggled up so far against the wall we could barely see her lol... so we set up some blankets down there... at least she can be warm if she insists on sleeping under there. 

 We also got a great snow storm the week before Christmas.  School even got canceled one day  Best we can figure we got 18-20ish maybe more inches.  The kids had a blast and loved having a day off.  We did explain to them we probably have to make the day up in the summer... but hey oh well. 

Here is David trying to make a snow angel 

Then Sheldon showing him how its really done

Then him trying his second round. 

I missed it, I didnt have the camera but one time Sheldon ran up and jumped on David and they both literally just disappeared into the snow.  It was quite funny.
Keziah also wanted the join but since the snow was up to her wait it was a bit difficult

Here is some pictures of Christmas Activities this year.  The kids also did a program at school, but the pictures always come out blurry... I am working on this.  I think I have it figured out for the next school program.  Momma is gonna be in the front row to get the good pictures.
 Rebekah looking pretty

 
Rebekah at the Ward Christmas party

 The kids waiting for the Christmas Parade...