Happy Birthday Jarin!!!

This week, we celebrated Jarin's birthday with him. Of course he had to work, but we tried to make his evening special once he arrived home. We started by decorating the house and hiding before he came home and we each jumped out and yelled "surprise" when he entered the rooms we were in. Then we each told him what we loved the most about him. We had our sweet neighbors over for dinner and some peanut butter chocolate cake. YUM!!


Jarin's favorite car is the Cooper Mini. I think this was taken in Europe somewhere.


Jarin at the Tour de France


Always the handyman!



Here are the things we love about Jarin. He really is awesome!!

He's:

Kind, would give the shirt of his back to anyone
Funny
Dependable
A Great Daddy
Mr. BBQ
Mr. Fixit
An amazing singer
He literally brings home the bacon (and milk and eggs...)
Very spiritual and a wonderful priesthood leader
A Brilliant Genius
An incredibly hard worker
SO Loving to everyone
He shares his bed with a tornado and has never complained
He loves Jesse
He gets him food
He gives good hugs
He loves Hannah
He cares
He's nice
He's careful
He changes diapers
He lets Nate slobber kiss him
He gets Elle food
He likes our kids
He's nice

The haircut.

Jarin has been gone a lot during the last month. After two trips totaling about 2 weeks, I decided to take an afternoon off and run some errands. Not spa and bakery errands, but school shopping and other mundane errands, just the stuff that is really hard with 4 kids. I come home and learn that Jesse has cut his own hair, the cut was enough that it neccessitated this cut:


I can't say that I know what its like to have a really life-threateningly sick kid, but I can now say I have experienced the looks of pity and extreme sympathy people give you when you have a child that may have the big "C" word. Anyway, he may not have his hair, but he has his health.

A week later, it looks like this:

Every morning, he wakes up and I tell him it grew more last night. That makes us both feel better.


And here is a gratuitous Nate picture. I just think he's irresistible. I'm sure he just came from destroying Jesse's room, but he sure is cute.

Nate's ears

Nate had tubes put in his ears today. Everything went great and he is up and around now. He seems a little groggy, but other than that he is fine. Jarin will get home tonight too, so our house is a happy place today.

Another one bites the dust....

Elle won't be doing much biting anytime soon. Pretty much exactly one week later, she lost another tooth, so she's symmetrical again, well as symmetrical as possible. Hopefully the tooth fairy will be a little more on top of things this time, so we don't have to write emails and fill out all of those "lost tooth" forms again. Its funny, she is SO HAPPY about her toothlessness. Who knew? I guess she's a real-deal big kid now.

Big news!!

Elle lost her first tooth!!! We were having dinner at the McKnights house when Elle yelled out "my tooth fell out!" She ran over and gave me a big hug -she was so excited!! Here she is with her new hole in her mouth, a perfect spot for her tongue to sneak out or a great place to insert a straw.



Occasionally, the Tooth Fairy is not as responsible as we would like her to be. Her job must be very difficult during the summer, with kids staying up late and what not. Anyway, she forgot to come last night. We sent her an email requesting a visit and we actually got a reply. Here is her reply:
Thank You for contacting the Toothfairy. Whilst the Toothfairy is extremely busy collecting teeth these days she does make every effort to come and visit all children. At times, it is necessary for the Toothfairy to rely on her trusty helpers. Sometimes, they aren't so trusty! Hence, visits are at times tardy. Nevertheless, we here at Fairy Land will do our utmost to satisfy.

This notice is an Auto-Reply - it is likely that the Toothfairy will contact you directly.

Wishing you a sugar-free day,
Fairly Land Admin.


We used this email address: toothfairy@toothfairy.com. We sometimes send letters to Santaclaus@santaclaus.com, but have never received a response. Thanks for the letter Tooth Fairy!

Fourth of July

Happy 4th of July!!! This year we celebrated the fourth of July by attending the parade here in Brandon. Well, I took the kids and celebrated as Jarin has been out of town. We missed him! But we met up with a few other families from the ward, which made for good company.

Here are the kids all lined up waiting for the parade. Thayn kids don't like direct sunlight, just in case you didn't know that already, and its almost impossible to catch them smiling on a good sunny day.
I thought this was one of the cooler floats. All the paraders threw beaded necklaces instead of candy. There was still some candy, but we came home with a TON of necklaces. As for the candy.... there was plenty of that. The kids had a one day free for all on the candy and then it goes in the trash. Happy day for all!!


This guy was my favorite. He was one of the Egypt Shriners. I'm not sure what the Egypt part means, but Shriners help a lot of people, including my dear mom who was treated in a Shriner's hospital as a baby and walks today because of it.
The parade was a LONG one and it was a hot day. This is my kids best attempt at a big smile for the camera after the parade.


When we got home, Nate wanted in on the candy action. He dug around in the box for a while and chewed a few wrappers down.
We watched a fireworks show (and an exciting lightning show) in a parking lot near the mall. We enjoyed spending the evening with Matt and Sarah Mitchell and kids. We had glow sticks and sidewalk chalk, plus a few snacks to keep kids happy. All in all, we had a fun time. The kids were great and it made for a pretty relaxing evening. Thanks guys for not shunning me in my husbandlessness!


Fun with glowsticks! Matt had a great time taking the kids pictures while they played with the glowsticks. I think they turned out pretty cool. Plus, the kids were very patient while we waited out the traffic.

This week at our house

Jesse has been taking swimming lessons for a few months now. He loves the water so much. He is getting very comfortable swimming and floating on his back. I love this picture because he is smiling while he's floating.


They have the kids jump off the diving blocks. Jesse loves to jump into the water!! Yes, we have noticed how very white Jesse is. That just means I'm doing my job as official sunblock applicator.


This week, Hannah and Elle had a sewing class at home. We made cute little aprons. Double click to see the whole picture. They're not finished in this picture, but they turned out great.


Nate played so hard yesterday, that he just couldn't make it through lunch. I watched his eyes roll back into his head as I fed him yogurt, then he just passed out. Classic! Not to "one-up" myself, but if you want to see a hilarious sleepy kid, click here to see my very adorable (and exhausted) nephew.