Fresh Art

Rex: This is every single kid in the Bell family, but Ikey and Ollie are there. (From right) This is Bennie, this is Jane, this is me, that's Nate, that's Anna, that's Ike, that's Lucy, that's Abby, and that's Will. So Will and Jane are there. And the little babies by Anna are Ollie and Molly. Ollie is following Molly everywhere. They're at our house- that's our house. They're having a picture taken. If we took that picture for real, it wouldn't have a purple sun. The yellow didn't really show up on the blue, so I did purple. (What's that thing down by Abby's foot?) I don't know. Lucy: Maybe it's a turtle or something. Rex: Yeah, maybe.




Lucy: This is Daddy and me. There's his chin, there's his mouth, there's his eyes, there's his cheeks, there's his ears, and there's his hair. But I forgot to draw a chin and some cheeks for me. We're just smiling at each other.




Rex: We drawed it in art, and it's me. It's my body and I have my BYU shirt on. The mouth is open and I'm yelling "B Y U!" I'm at a BYU game.




Lucy: This is a butterfly. She's flying. She's going to live with her baby butterflies. She has a name. It's Tiny. These are all her colors on her.




Rex: This is a star. It's to help us remember to be nice. I just wanted to draw that hand pointing to the star, so you would know that it's helping you remember him. (Who's 'Him?') You know who 'Him' is. (Who?) Heavenly Father. Or Jesus. I just wanted to make it kind of beautiful.




Lucy: This is me. These are her lips, and these are her teeth. And this is her mouth and these are her eyes and these are her ears and this is her hair. She is looking at Mom and Dad. (Why are her teeth out like that?) Because I just drawed her teeth out like that.




Rex: This is a thing we did yesterday. There was instructions to follow this house. I didn't do it all yet, but when you were done, you filled it up with creatures, well not real creatures, like Halloween creatures. And this is a mummy (on the right). He's oohing, like 'ooooooooh!' And this is a witch. That's her house. She's flying back to her house. She has a witch's broom. This is kind of sad, but Maddy in my class drawed one of those things that when you die, they're over you. (A gravestone?) Yeah. And guess what she writed? (What?) Ryan.




Rex: This whole thing (the top half) is me. And this whole thing (the bottom half of the blue figure) is a lion. (Why did you draw yourself on a lion?) I didn't draw it. I just thought it would be cool. It is cool. The yellow is desert. The purple is sky. The red is my head.

Blast From the Past

I was at my Grandma's house the other day going through old photos with her, and came upon this little photo of these two well known city dwellers. I had to post it!!

Not a Real Post . . . Just a Few More Moab Photos

(no comments necessary- just wanted to get these in for when we make this all into a book)

Good Friends and UEA

Seriously, who could ask for anything more? This year we met our friends the Florences and the Hougaards down in Moab, and visted Arches National Park. I have to say I have never been a huge red rock fan. People out of state would talk about how beautiful Southern Utah is, and I couldn't say I fully agreed, or fully appreciated it. I had never been to Arches though, and seeing it through the eyes of my kids made me really take another look, and see its beauty. The kids were in heaven jumping off the rocks, playing in the dirt, and hiking around. They could yell and run around as much as wanted, and by the end of the day they were exhausted. They would all go to sleep while we crazy adults stayed up until all hours chatting. It was just like old times in Virginia. We had a great trip. Here are some pics of all of these darling kids. I really can't believe how many there are of us now. It wasn't that long ago that we all lived in Arlington together childless or with maybe one kid. Now we all have at least three. Time has flown by so fast.


Check out how delicate, Delicate Arch is
Our non-napping kids
Isaac, Rex, Lucy and Abby

Molly's little bear den
Rex could not get enough of all the climbing and little caves.....he made Ryan and I a little nervous at times.

Lucy was very proud of this little spot


Molly and Charlie
Rex and Lucy after the Delicate Arch hike
The kids were very chatty all during the hike....it was funny to be a fly on the wall listening.





The whole crew

Potpourri

Rex asked me last night "are there are a lot of earthquakes in heaven?

I said "no, Heaven is perfect. So nothing bad happens there."

Rex said "Except wars. There was a war in heaven."

Me: "Hmm, well, yeah."


I asked Rex and Lucy: "Do you guys know what Anna and Abby and Nate's last name is?

Complete silence. After a while, Rex said "Roberts?"


In church, I asked Lucy "What's that little girl in your class's name?"

She said "Luc . . . wait, that's me."


Rex and Lucy were at the table naming the various colors on their placemats. "Red, orange, yellow . . . " Finally, the last patch of color was a little square of red and white stripes. "blue . . . green . . . Merican."


Lucy's pre-school is part of a Lutheran Church, and as a result, she's being indoctrinated into . . . Christianity. It's funny to hear how this manifests sometimes. The other day she was walking around the house all afternoon singing "thank you God for giving us thnacks! Thank you God for giving us thnacks! Thank you God for giving us thnacks, ri-ight where we are. A-MEN!"

Responsible Rex

Macy and I have been commenting to each other what a change we've seen in Rex lately, since he's been in school. When Rex is laying around the house, he can be a bit of a menace, whining and needing a snack every few minutes, bored to death. The problem is, Rex is built for action, so keeping him stuffed up in a tiny house with two sisters napping is never a good idea.

That's why we were so looking forward to school for him. Since he's started, we've really seen him blossom. He's almost never grumpy, always has enthusiastic things to say about his school day, and dutifully sits down every night to do his reading. You know how sometimes you just see someone find a groove? That's what Rex is in right now.

And it's brought out a side of him we hadn't seen much of before. He's one of those really responsible kids. He stays away from kids who talk too much in class or break rules. He tries really hard to be good all the time in school. He was really excited when he earned an award at school-- one of eight kids in the whole school to be called down to the office to be given a prize for good behavior. Three weeks into kindergarten, I was shocked to hear him randomly reciting the whole Pledge of Allegiance from memory the other day. That's right, our son is learning the kind of conformity demanded of him by the soul-crushing, bureaucratic public school system. We couldn't be more proud.

Anyway, all of that came to mind this morning at breakfast. Context: A few weeks ago, Rex heard me telling Macy about my frustration with the fridge cleanout policies at work. It seems that a lady comes by the break room fridge occasionally and just tosses out everything that someone hasn't marked with their name on it. I've lost several valuable lunches this way, because I just can't remember to mark my name on the bag or box. Man that bugs me.

This morning I headed to work with a new box of burritos I'd bought at Costco, to stick in the break room freezer as quick and easy lunches. As I walked out the door, Rex came running after me with a sharpie in hand, yelling "Dad, you forgot to write your name!" The necessity of doing this was so far from my mind that I had no idea what he was talking about. "What?" I asked. "You need to write your name on your lunches or they'll throw them away." "Oh, yeah, thanks." I said, and set down the box for a second. Rex took the lid off and began to write my name, before realizing he might not be able to spell it. I said "my initials will be fine." So he wrote them on the box.

Today when I took out the box to get a burrito, there was that big block lettering spelling RBB, my special charm, forever warding off the evil fridge cleanout lady, conjured by five-year old Rex.

How my son got the mental resources to be able to make that mark, when I have already lost several lunches because I lack just that ability, I cannot say. All I know is that this is one responsible guy.