Easter vs. Halloween



Barry and Ben "hangin' out"

Ben and Kayla




 Our school had half days the last three days of this week, so we took advantage of Maddy getting out of band early and went to the indoor waterpark.  Our neighbors also have passes, so I drove their 15 passenger van with their kids.  I wasn't too intimidated driving such a large vehicle because that is what I learned to drive when I was 16 - our 15 passenger van.


Maddy and Levi



Friday evening we went to the church for our Halloween "trunk-or-treat" party.  Ben was a little confused when we gave him his plastic pumpkin to take trick-or-treating. "Is this for my plastic eggs with candy inside?"

Mackensey



Princess Makayla



Tigger Ben



Cheetah Girl Mindy



Maddy was Mackensey's softball coach (oops, forgot to get a picture of Mackseny -bad Mom moment) and obviously did not want me to take her picture.

cute kitty!

 Saturday we brought in our last three loads of firewood for the winter, then had a relaxing rest of the day.  Maddy prepared her 2 minute talk for Sacrament meeting today.  She gave a talk on gratitude and didn't look nervous at all (even though she said she was a little nervous).  I guess being in drama has paid off.

Have a great week!

I'm going to cry!

Most of the time Ben (3) is all boy.  But every once in a while he will do or say things that cause his daddy to say, "You have been around your (five) sister too much!"  Like last week when I was reprimanding him and hs said, "I'm going to cry!"

Ben looks nice getting ready for church.  Daddy combed his hair over to the side.  If it's long enough that it needs to be combed - it's time for a haircut!

Maddy would prefer wearing sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt, but I told her that she needs to dress nicer for school.  I told her we would compromize and M-Th she would dress nicely, and she could have "Casual Friday" where she could wear clothes for comfort rather than looks.  She got the last word in by muttering under her breath, "Ok, but not too nice."  I told her borderline nice would be fine. She doesn't wear glasses either.  She bought them at the mall with her birthday money.

Softball season ended on Tuesday for Maddy and that will free up a lot of time for her.  That is until play practice starts getting more serious (first two weeks of December).  We were pleased with the improvement Maddy showed in softball.  She joined a team where most of the girls had been playing on a spring league for several years.  At the start of the season she played left field and was second to last in the batting order.  On Tuesday she was catcher for part of the game and was the lead-off hitter (first one up to bat).

We ended the school week with a Green Bluff field trip on Friday afternoon.  We toured an apple orchard (on a tractor train), picked apples and pumpkins, played in their pea box (like a sand box only with dried peas) and came home to make carmel popcorn because they were selling hot carmel popcorn and you could smell it as soon as you stepped out of your car in the parking lot. 

Marianne was in the stroller, but preferred her favorite mode of transporation (in Mama's arms), so she kept doing her "up" sign that Barry taught her (raise both arms into the air).  I'm a sucker for a cute baby, so I oblige.  Now she does it whenever she is in the high chair and done eating.

Here are some more pictures from the pumpkin patch.

 

Ben Teasers

Benjamin is a tease just like his dad and his grandpas (and great-grandpa).  Barry says that he gets it from me, but then again that is just HIM teasing ME!  Today was our children's program during church.  That meant that most of my children were sitting on the stand.  Ben took advantage of having his mama all to himself and he wouldn't stop talking! As each child came up he would ask, "Who's that?"
"Shhh, be quiet"
"Who's that?"
"Shhh, be quiet"
"Who's that?" 
"Shh, be quiet"
"All those people are named 'Be Quiet?" 
"Do you want to go out and get a spankin'?"
"No, I want to go out and get a drink of later (water)."

Two weeks ago as we sat around the tv watching general conference Ben got a little bored and started acting up.  Barry told him to turn around and watch the last speaker (an old man with white hair). Ben responded, "I don't want to watch George Washington!"

Well he surely keeps us smiling!

Pick up Six

I took this picture this morning five mintues before we had to leave for church.  I wanted an updated picture of my six children for my first blog post titled, "pick up six".  Maddy came up wtih that title which I wanted to use as a creative blogspot address, but it was already taken, along with every other creative thing I could think of, so I ended up with a boring one (barryandaverythomason.blogspot.com). Oh well!

Every Sunday afternoon (well, mostly) I send out an email to family and friends to let them know what the Thomason clan has been up to.  It's a way to keep in contact and feel not so far away (I have emails sent as close as WA and as far as PA). Hopefully by setting up a blog I can send better/more pictures. I still plan on sending an email to inform of the update.

So what have we been up to this week?  The usual homeschooling and Maddy had two softball games.  Their team still hasn't won a game yet, but Maddy is showing improvement in her form.  She has worked her way up from sixth in batting order (out of seven girls) to third. More importantly she has enjoyed every minute of it!

We follow the public school's calendar and since they had no school on Friday for "fall break", we took a day off and went on a fun field trip to an indoor waterpark that is just over the mountain - 35 mintues from our house.  The best part is that we can use our homelink funds to purchase monthly passes, which we did on Friday.  They have three pools, waterslides, hot tub, sauna, steam room, teen room, climbing wall, exercise room, gym, child care.  The kids had a blast and played hard for 4 hours.  Then "Aunt Heidi" invited them over for the afternoon/evening.  She taught Maddy how to use their four wheeler and fed them all waffles and ice-cream for dinner.  Barry and I had a nice quiet afternoon and even went on a date to the Chewelah HS football game.