Busy...But Ordinary Week of August 31-Sept 7

Sunday 7 Aug
Last Monday was Labor Day. We celebrated with Rachel’s Family here at our home. Ken’s family came down from Kingman for the day, so the cousins had a good time playing together. Ann brought her famous homemade spaghetti sauce and we all enjoyed dinner and getting caught up on the happenings in the families. We also had the missionaries joining us for dinner. It made for quite the busy house. 22 people in 2000 square feet of living space. We did just fine. I think we're ready to move to a one-bedroom log cabin.....

Kyler found the Legos – one of the few boy toys we have - and got his girl cousins involved in creating things. Kyler made the spaceships and cars while the girls worked on little houses and lego trees. Later on, they all got their swimsuits on and went out to play in the kiddie pools and the slip-n-slide.

Next time will be our turn to visit Kingman. We will try to make it up there in October during the kids’ school break.

Rachel created a costume this weekend for Katie to wear as she gives her report on Amerigo Vespucci. She sewed a vest and a pair of pants that looked a lot like "Hammer pants." Who knew that 15th century explorers were such trend setters. We’ll post a picture later.

We did get Zach to stay in nursery the last two weeks using a somewhat unorthodox method. Rachel had watched a show on Animal Planet that is like Nanny 911 for dogs. This dog had huge anxiety attacks when his owners would leave. The dog would wig out, pee on things, destroy things, etc. Well, the dog trainer had the owners say goodbye to the dog, put their coats on, leave through the front door and then immediately come back. After about 5 times the dog stopped wiggin' when they'd leave. Well, unbeknownst to Rachel, Troy had heard on the radio talk show about a man using dog training techniques for kids, like the leaving the kid in a room and coming right back. Troy put it into use last Sunday and little Zachy stayed in nursery for the whole last hour by himself. Today, Rachel was on duty and did the same thing only she left just once and came right back. Little Zachy had no wig out and stayed the rest of the time. Good Zachy. I think we're going to try to teach him to roll over and stay off the furniture next!

Other than that, this week was fairly routine.