Bunny hunting

Yes, you read that right. We've been hunting bunnies at our house.

Tonight, while Mike was working in the yard, he saw something dart between the boards in our fence. Scared that we had a large rat on our hands, he peeked between the fence boards and saw a tiny, baby bunny. It stayed there, snug between the double boards of our fence. We confirmed with our neighbors that no one owned a bunny on our street. Hmmm..... How many stray bunnies do you have wandering your neighborhood?Armed with flashlights and sticks, our kids and the neighbor kids tried to coax the little bunny out. It was quite the operation. We pried a few boards loose to better reach "Munchkin," as the kids soon called it.They tried coaxing it out with carrots and lettuce leaves.The girls begged me to let them keep it as a pet.After about an hour, and some extra adult help, all we managed to do was give the bunny enough room to dart out the hole it originally climbed in and it took off.Haley wound up in tears because it meant we won't be having a new pet bunny at our house.

Ahhh, maybe next time.

What to Wear

Work it, Quinn. :)

Cracks me up that my sisters and I all have the same color purse. We realized it when we got together for dinner recently. Different styles, same color. Who wore it best??

Work trip

Just got back from an extremely difficult, hard trip to Denver with Mike. Oohh, I worked soooo hard. Worked my fingers to the bone, I did.

On the first day (while Mike went to work meetings all day), I stayed in the hotel room the entire day. I forced myself to paint my nails, take a leisurely bath, order room service, watch a couple of movies, read my book, do a crossword puzzle or two, take a nap .... it was hard work, let me tell you. That night, Mike rewarded all of my hard work by taking me out to dinner and a movie. Nice boy.

The second day was even harder than the first. I walked (walked!) across the street to a ginormous mall and spent the entire day leisurely browsing nearly every store. I wanted to give every square inch of that mall my equal attention, and I'm happy to report that I did just that. I smiled at every mom I passed who was wrestling their whining 2 year old back into the stroller, and then continued on my laborious journey to leisurely browse at my own pace.

We slept in this morning and had hotel room service in our jammies. While watching a movie. Then we walked and walked and walked through downtown Denver. Such hard work doing more shopping, eating at an outdoor cafe and seeing one more movie. Man oh man.

Hard. Work.

** Thanks, honey, for letting me tag along on your work trip. It was total R&R for me and I loved every minute of it. :)

Top 10

We started our summer Top 10 lists this morning. They are the key to my sanity -- truly. Each child has a Top 10 list of things they have to do each day before any tv or computer time. Elle's list is pretty much, "Get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth...." while Christian's list is more like, "Mow the lawn, practice guitar, clean your room..." Each kid also has "act of service" on their lists, which I'm most excited for. Hopefully it will teach them to love their siblings a little more. :)

The "carefree days of summer" are so much more enjoyable for me when they also include a whole lot of structure. My poor kids ....

Got corn?

Good, free entertainment

We love an occasional field trip to Cabella's...

Remember when we used to sign each others' yearbooks?

And yes, that is permanent marker. Lovely.

Walk-a-bout

Mike and I were in charge of a little party at our church over the weekend. We spent most of Friday decorating for it and getting ready. I love these tissue flowers so we decorated with them, hanging them all over the place. It was funny hearing the women walk in that night, ooh'ing and aaah'ing over them and the fresh flower arrangements (compliments of my master decorator friend, Krista -- thanks again!), while the men looked at these tissue creations and scratched their heads trying to figure out what they were. (No, this picture is not a recreation of the evening. I wish. Stock picture from Martha Stewart.)When it was time for the party to begin, I took the kids home and left Christian in charge. Elle was not happy to be left out of the party since she had helped me all day to get ready for it. She was teary when I left but otherwise fine.

I went back to the church and started serving up ice cream and doing kitchen duty. About 30 minutes later, Elle came walking into the church kitchen. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold, she had a few tears still running down her face, and she had a bag of bread in her hand. She looked up at me and sobbed, "Caa-aan you help me open this br-read?"The child had walked by herself from our house down to the church where she knew we would be. She hadn't told Christian she was leaving and he still hadn't figured out she was gone. Granted, we only live a block from the church but still ... I was slightly freaking out picturing my little 3 yr old walking around by herself.

After we dried the tears and opened the bread :), she stayed at the party and helped us serve ice cream. When the entertainment started, she crawled into my lap and promptly fell asleep. Too much excitement for us both.

I've never...

... broken a bone.
... had liposuction, although I wish I had.
... been in a car accident that was my fault. I'm always the one being hit.
... been snowboarding. I'm a skiing-kind of a girl.
... had a desire to run a marathon or even a half-marathon. A 5k was plenty.
... sky-dived but I would actually like to.
... been to Moab. That's weird for a Utah native.
... seen It's A Wonderful Life all the way through. I know. I know.
... been to Disneyworld. Disneyland, yes, but not to Florida. We need to change that.
... actually seen the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kind of strange for a girl who likes Hollywood stuff.
... had a desire to eat caviar.
... seen the Letterman show in person. Tried once unsuccessfully. It's a bucket-list item for me.
... learned to play the cello. That will change soon.

This is one cool kid....

Yes, he broke both boards.

Only one more belt promotion and he'll test for his black belt. He pretty much rocks. In my very biased opinion.

Photography 101

As I'm sure is the case with most parents who own a digital camera or a phone with camera capabilities, my kids often hijack my camera/phone and take a myriad of random pictures. Case in point ...It's only when I look through the pix later that I discover these little "gems."

But occasionally, there are some genuine gems in the middle of the randomness...The talented photographer this time was Haley D.

Bowling with whom??

The spiritual side of Christian

by Mike & Misty

Scripture study with children is always a bit of a challenge. We want the kids to understand the scriptures, but sometimes we end up using less than conventional methods to help the scriptures come 'alive' for them. Sometimes we have the kids act out the stories so that we know they are getting the gist of what we are reading. The downside to this approach is that it often leads to some fairly irreverant moments. Try to imagine what it would be like if you walked by our house and heard Mike (channeling his inner-Charlton Heston) bellowing at the top of his lungs, "LET MY PEOPLE GO!" I'm sure the neighbors think we are crazy.

Christian, recently, has really started to add his own sense of drama to scripture study. He really can't help but inflict the scriptures with his love of Star Wars/Greek mythology/the underworld/supernatural powers. When you put that all together, you've got an entertaining combination.

After an Easter lesson during Family Night about the feast of the Passover, Christian was in charge of the activity. He handed out pencils and paper and said, "First, draw a line down the middle of your paper. On one side, draw an angel." When we had done that, he excitedly said, "Now draw a picture of what you think the destroying angel looked like." Christian's "destroying angel" looked remarkably like a dark Sith Lord. Are there really light sabers in the Old Testament?

Another time, Mike was teaching the kids about how Christ and Satan each have very different ideas about how this life should be lived. He suggested that the kids role-play a great debate to see who had the more persuasive plan for mankind. As Mike role-played Christ, he very gently told the kids, "I am Jesus. I love you all so much that I will give my life for you. With my plan, you will all be free to make choices and you can repent of your sins and return to live with Heavenly Father some day."

When it was Christian's turn, he pulled a Zeus-style "lightning bolt" over his head and bellowed in his best evil voice, "And I am Satan! Follow me or I will drag each of your spirits down to the nethermost corner of my realm!!"

To our dismay, the girls all thought that Christian was more persuasive.

So, if you walk past our house some day and happen to hear strange voices shrieking at each other and Christian shouting, "Put that monkey down and go clean out the elephant bins!", please don't call child protective services. It's probably just the Mayfields talking about Noah's Ark.

Rain Forest Rumble

Haley's 3rd grade class wrote and performed an opera. I'm still amazed by the whole process. The Opera by Children program goes into schools and helps the kids with the whole thing. First, the kids brainstormed and came up with characters, a setting and a storyline. A music mentor recorded them singing the different parts the way they thought it should be sung and then he strung it all together and wrote a score. The kids planned and painted the scenery, choreographed the whole thing, decided which parts they wanted to be, learned the entire 15 minute score and then performed it several times for different audiences. Their teacher, Natalie Merrill, obviously helped them through the process but I was amazed as I watched her leave the decisions up to them. She wanted this to truly be their opera. The costumes were amazing, thanks to many creative parents, and I had the fun job of teaching the kids the music and accompanying them on the piano.

The storyline was funny, too, since it was the kids' idea. A group of famous people are flying to a "famous people convention." They end up having to jump from their plane before it crashes into the Amazon Rain Forest, where they meet all of the animals, bugs and plants that live there. At first, no one gets along but then they all work together and end up as friends. These are some of my favorite lines from the opera:

* "We're sooo famous!"
* "Let's skedaddle before they eat us."
* "Those are homosapiens!"
* "We have gorgeous hair! We paid trillions for this hair."
* "We don't care about our fans anymore -- let's have a Rain Forest convention!"

The characters that the kids chose were so great, too. The famous people were Einstein, Hannah Montana, Taylor Swift, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes & Princess Leia. Haley was a black widow. There was a dung beetle, a leaf bug, a walking stick bug, a Venus fly trap, a gila monster, a milipede, tropical birds and animals... The whole thing was such a great experience!

So you think you can dance?

It's dance recital season again and Paige & Elle have been busy. Paige performed in the ballet Swan Lake and was thrilled to have such an amazing costume. She's clearly got her priorities straight, right?She did an amazing job, though, and loved her little moment in the spotlight. I'd expect nothing less from this little performer.

A month or so later, Paige & Elle performed separately in the creative/jazz recital for Creative Arts Academy. Wish I had better pictures -- these are from rehearsal.Elle even had her little moment on stage with her class. Even though Elle's class is a Mom-and-Me class, thankfully we moms didn't have to perform with our girls. Elle is the oldest in the class (at a ripe age of 3 -- the other girls are 2) and so was a little more able to follow the teacher and perform the dance the way they were supposed to. One little girl in their class ran around the stage pretty much the whole time, and almost leaped right off the stage itself. Good entertainment when you put 2 yr olds in the spotlight.Both girls were thrilled to get flowers at the end of the performance. Elle is already asking when she gets to dance on the 'big stage' again.