While Hoss is at School

The younger boys have been trying to find things to entertain them now that Hoss is back in school.  Boone has been excited to take his turn being the one to fit on the tricycle.

They set up the slide to be on the front steps for easy access.  The even turn the hose on and make it a water slide for added fun.

Or they ride the gator.  These two crack me up.  Duke insists on wearing his jammies all day, every day.  Boone insists on wearing church clothes all day, every day.  I've finally gotten him to trade the white shirt for others, but still, he has to wear his church pants, shoes and tie.  Every. Day.  No matter what he's doing.

September Pack Meeting

We got Hoss's new Pack numbers sewn on his shirt, and ready for new leaders.  His leaders are Carla Despain and Becky Anderson.  All three Wards in Weiser are combined for Cub Scouts with our Ward being in charge of the Wolf Leaders.  He has enjoyed meeting new boys and loved meeting right after school instead of at night.  

I was really impressed with their Pack Meeting.  They had a K9 unit come in and plant some drugs around the grounds outside and then the office (Sister Anderson's husband, Jeff) showed everyone how the dogs find the evidence.  It was really neat, and even marked off stuff in their books!

Hoss earned one belt loop this month.  He was the only Wolf to earn an award because their group didn't finish any complete requirements.  This is one that Hoss finished up at home.  He has it figured out that if he completes one adventure every month, he will earn every single loop in the Wolf Book.  Which is good since he will be a Wolf for a year and a half.  It'll keep him from getting bored.

Adventure Loop

Code of the Wolf

Harvest Loving Boys

The boys have loved getting to spend time with Sexy Farmer in the fields.

And some days, when you're lucky and it's just you with dad for the day, he treats you to a pizza lunch.

Other days you have to share the cab with your brothers.

Or, when dad is super busy and can't take the boys, they make mom drive them to the onion sheds to watch the loading.  Hours, and I mean HOURS, of entertainment lies right outside that van window.

Other times you get to stay up way past your bedtime to help dad stay awake.

 And sometimes you get to take your carseat so the tractor ride is extra comfy.

And you get to just be with dad all day.  It's almost like Heaven.

Sprayer has Arrived

In order for this new job opportunity to become real, we have to buy a Sprayer.  Well, after many months of searching the web, calling around, and doing LOTS or research, Sexy Farmer found one in Canada that he wanted to purchase.  Today, it arrived.  The boys were overly excited.  They all lined up to get a close shot.  They even sat perfectly still the entire time.  

They watched it unload.

They watched Sexy Farmer drive it around a bit.  They even sat there until the semi drove away.  Now, we just have to figure out how it works!

Duty to God

One of the requirements for Cub Scouts, as a Wolf, is called Duty to God Footsteps.  In this requirement, they are supposed to visit a religious monument, or any site where people might show reverence, then create a visual display of their visit to show to their den.  We paired our visit with 2 other cub scout items:

1. For the "Religious Knot" in the Faith in God book they are supposed to prepare a pedigree chart, family group record, share a family story and discuss how temple work blesses families.

2. For the "Fun for the Family Award", they are to go to a cemetery and make a rubbing of a headstone inscription, figure out how old the person was, the trials they may have faced, and honor them in an appropriate way.

I decided to head to the Payette Cemetery to get all of these requirements marked off in one shot!  I had the boys gather some flowers from our yard to take to the grave to honor the person I was going to tell them about.  When we got to the cemetery I gave the boys a picture of the headstone that I had printed off of the Payette County Genealogy website and I told them to go find it (I parked close by).  Once they found it, we took some crayons and paper and made the rubbing of the inscription.  Each boy picked a different color.  Hoss - Green, Duke - Blue, and Boone - Black.

After they finished their rubbings, I asked them to figure out how old this person was when she died.  Hoss figured it out, so then I told them how she died.  Here is the newspaper clipping:

Wealthy Wayne

The Payette Enterprise
November 13, 1913

LITTLE GIRL BURNS TO DEATH

Friday afternoon while playing with her little sister, Wealthy, the little four year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Wayne was so severely burned, that she passed away at half past one Saturday morning.

The little girls were playing out in the yard and had stolen some matches out of the house and started a fire in some leaves. The little girl got too close to the fire and her clothes got afire burning her very severely. She was burned to almost a crisp and despite the best efforts of the doctor, the little girl passed away.

The parents are heartbroken and have the sympathy of friends and neighbors.

The funeral was held Sunday afternoon at the Church of God. The body was interred in the Riverside Cemetery.

A fatal accident occurred Nov. 7, at the home of Herbert Wayne. Wealthy the four year old daughter, was playing with matches and set fire to her clothing, the child lived but a few hours. Funeral services were held from the Church of God in Payette. Many flowers were sent as a token of sympathy for the bereaved parents. the flowers sent by the L. S. U. expressed the heartfelt sorrow of their immediate neighbors, for the parents in their great bereavement.

When I was pregnant with Boone, I had major insomnia.  I used that time to learn about family history and quickly became addicted.  She was one of the names that I entered into the system for temple work.  When we sealed my dad to his parents, she was one of the people who also was able to be sealed to hers that day.  I was able to act as her.

Here is the visual display Hoss made to show his den.  It included the rubbing, newspaper article about her death, and a printout of her completed temple work. I'm sad that I didn't save the pink temple card that had the original date stamp.  It would have been perfect for this project. 

Grow Something

Hoss has a requirement to plant some seeds, care for them for 30 days and visit a botanical garden.  We did the next best thing and headed to the closest garden nursery in town.

The boys loved the fish pond.  Some of these fish were huge!

He picked out some radish seeds to plant.

We felt that the 28 day germination date was a best fit.  We got home and planted and watered them.

Here is after a week of growth.

and after 2 weeks of growth.  He's been having a hard time remembering to water them.  Not sure they will pull out of it this time.

3 Boys 1 Room

Shane gave us his old bed that is the other half to Sexy Farmer's bunk bed.  While he was here staying with us for Hoss' baptism, we had him help us move the boy's all into the same room. 

I know, we have a 4 bedroom house, why do we need all 3 boys in 1 room?  Well, they sleep better when they are all together.  So, we figured why not make it permanent and move them all in the same room.

The older boys are sad that they aren't in their John Deere room anymore, but at the same time they are thrilled that they don't have to go downstairs anymore.  Duke especially, he has bad dreams almost every night and it's a long walk up stairs in the middle of the dark night.  Now they are all right across the hallway from us in Boone's room.

Baptism

Hoss turned 8 in July.  He really wanted Uncle Shane to baptize him.  When he called him up and asked him to perform the ordinance Shane said "YES!" but then when he found out the event was to be held on August 1st, he felt horrible.  He had already committed to be a Groomsman for a friend's wedding.  Since it meant so much for Hoss to be baptized by his favorite Uncle, we offered to move the baptism back a month so Shane could still be there.  Hoss helped make his invitations and get them sent out a whole month early so that people "could plan ahead".  He was really excited, can you tell?

Hoss was really excited for this day.  He had prepared himself.  He read the entire Book of Mormon, we had numerous family home evening lessons on baptism, and our old ward, in Ontario, had given him a baptism book full of questions, thoughts, and different baptism topics for reading, that we went over many times. We really wanted to make sure that getting baptized was HIS decision, and not something we were making him do.

When the event got closer, we had to make even more invitations because he wanted to invite more people.  He invited his teachers from school.  His Cub Scout leaders.  Friends from school.  Even Sexy Farmer's co-workers.  People started calling to RSVP.  Lots of people.  We found out that Hoss was the only person from the entire Stake getting baptized that day so we decided to kind of turn the event into an Open House of sorts.  We invited the Spanish speaking missionaries, because some of the people Hoss invited to attend, that RSVP'd, don't speak very good english, or any english at all.  We really wanted them to feel comfortable and to know exactly what was being said, and what better way for them to understand then to have interpreters there to help?!  We decided to host a dinner afterward in the gym so people could stay, eat, mingle and not have to rush home.

With help from Lilli, my mom, 2 sisters and niece, we made up a bunch of side salads.  Sexy Farmer's cousin offered to make hoagie sandwiches.  I ordered some sugar cookies shaped like the number 8, CTR Shield and Ties.  The boys helped me make some fun donut shaped 8's for the kids. (I'm really sad that I didn't get any pictures of the food) When we counted up the number of people we knew were coming, it came to around 70 people.  But when the night was over, over 80 people showed up.  Just for Hoss.  My heart was full.

We had Hoss and Shane pose for some pictures before the baptism.  Both in their suits and in their whites.

Then we had Hoss pose with our Bishop.  In the book our old ward gave us, there is a spot for a picture with his Bishop.  Can't have any blanks in those pages.

The program was beautiful.  Hoss picked out the songs to sing, the people he wanted to speak, pray and sing, and who he wanted to be the witnesses.  He called each person himself to ask for their participation.

These are the men who stood in the confirmation circle.  Bishop Ammon Nordgren, Matt Malan, Shane Johnson, Hoss, Sexy Farmer, Don Wayne, Chris Johnson

Hoss also helped pick out some stuff he wanted to display on the entrance table going into the Chapel.  He chose, the Book of Mormon that he read, along with his reading chart, the Article of Faith punch card and picture of him with his cake for memorizing them all, his Thomas S. Monson award, Gospel Scholar board, and some pictures that Aunt Katie took.  This has been a very humbling experience for our family.  We are truly grateful for Hoss and his decision, and also for the great missionary that he is already becoming!