The Religion Bowl

The two older boys have their Diocese Religion Test this week.

It's a pretty big deal. 

We've decided that a competition is the best form of studying--isn't it always!

The boys take turns answering questions.  If you miss it, it goes to the next boy in line.  

Winner gets a Lofthouse cookie!

It's always a tight competition.  I'm especially impressed with Josh Oliver.  He's known the answers to some pretty tough questions!

No Balloons....but we've got CANDY!!

We made another attempt at the Anthony Sunflower Balloon Fest this year.

This year, though, we decided to head to town around lunch time so we could make the most out of the day!

The big highlight was the parade!  

I always love parades, but this one had an extra bit of charm with all the small town touches.  Plus, they threw out a TON of candy which meant the kids were in total heaven!!

We roamed around town for a bit and got some carnival snacks, but the sun was scorching hot.  We decided to head to the park and lounge in the shade for awhile as the kids burned off some energy.  

The park was really unique!  The favorite was the merry-go-round/swing contraption.  We all took a turn on it!

We also took a little tour of the City Lake--also quite lovely!--before we headed to the airport to wait for the balloons.

Our dreams of seeing the balloons were dashed when the wind started to pick up and the clouds started moving in.  They never even got the balloons out of the trailers.  We let the kids play for a bit and then we decided to throw in the towel and head home. 

It was a full day--especially with the sun trying to suck the life out of us--but those are really the best outings!  

--As a side note, I also got pulled over when I was apparently making up my own driving lanes, and even the police are nice there!  

And Pinky makes Six

Well....Josh has a broken pinky.

Things started out as a wrestling match and apparently moved on to a death match between Luke and Henry.  Josh Oliver didn't get the heck away soon enough and ended up with a broken finger.

The terrible thing is that I was busy dealing with the two trouble makers for a good 15 minutes.  When I finally got around to dealing with a still crying Josh, he told me that he thought his finger was broke.

Although, after the words "broken finger" got thrown out there, the other two straightened right up and Henry, the finger bender, did everything he could to make Ollie feel comfortable.

We gave him a makeshift splint--thanks to some crayons!--and headed to the doctor this morning.  He has a small break at the middle knuckle and has to wear a splint for a couple weeks.

He's pretty excited--true to form--but he's already annoyed by the splint.

So our new total is:

• 5 broken arms
• 1 broken finger
• 13 stitches in an upper lip
• and one messed up lip that desperately needed stitches but couldn't get them

(Luke and Henry claim 3 of the broken arms.  The rest of the injuries are Josh's--his poor lip!)

Drop 'em and Run

We always have May Crowning in the middle of our evenings on May Day.

It puts a serious damper on our deliveries.

This year, though, I got everything loaded and ready to go by the time the kids got out of school.

Our list was cut way, way down from what we usually do, but we managed to five drops done before we had to get ready to head back up the church.

As a total bonus, we didn't get caught on a single one of them!

We're getting good!!