How to BOOM without the Buck

One look at the $350 "bargain" priced firework package at Walmart and I knew I was in trouble. What's a poor college family with a hankerin for blowing stuff up going to do? Was Independence day over before it even began? Not if you're hanging with the Hills. We don't let being financially challenged stop us from making things go BOOM! Especially if we have some duct tape.


My Nephew Xander and I settled on a rock solid design for a rocket and tested it for launch.

It worked pretty good. See for your self. WARNING: Only the first 20 seconds of the video is relevant to rocket launching. The last part of the film is my artsy film director's (Mikkena) riveting documentary on child seating order during rocket launches. As you will soon see, Paisley will let Cody sit by her next time.

Apparently our "rock solid" design wasn't as rock solid as we thought. That's why I'm in school for counseling and not engineering. Look at Tagen's face, I think he's judging me.

After we got tired of shooting things in the air we decided to throw stuff at each other. The game started out boys versus girls, that is until my first water balloon smashed Elyse in the face. We then rearranged the teams so that it was everyone against me. I lost.






Elyse rushing me from behind posed a challenge, luckily I blocked it with my third hand conveniently protruding from my left hip.

Let's just say the coolest part of our day was not the fireworks.

She's BAAAAAAAACK!

Don't let her "Where's the beef?" look or her snaggle-tooth-canine grin fool you. This is not a dog, it's a baby. First, she's 5 pounds, she's carried every where she goes, she shakes when she's cold or scared and.....

She goes on walks being pushed in a stroller.

This is just getting sad. If Amber doesn't get pregnant soon we are going to have a zoo.

For those of you who don't remember Roxy's story check out my July 8th, 2008 post. Roxy was not in very good shape when we found her, and she is very fortunate that the Birchalls took such great care of her over the past year. Her breath has been officially downgraded from suffocating to poo-poo and she has gained 2 pounds (that's nearly half of her body weight). Well, she fits in our condo, and we love her. Mikkena really, really loves her.

PLUS!

I lifted this photo of my nephew Marcus off of my sister's (Adrienne) blog. I'm just surprised how much they are pushing the limits of infant fashion down in Kentucky. I thought cleavage showing peep-holes were reserved for the red carpet. I've tried a similar look, but mine was met with less enthusiasm.

Crack is wack!

The work begins..........

This week my youngest brother, Zach (you may remember him as the puking peep contest winner), left on a mission to Singapore. Before he left, he went on a 4 day lecture tour (he was receiving the lectures). His final stop was my house where I proceeded to deliver a two hour power point presentation on how to be a good missionary (only partly true). I figure I was fulfilling my two-part role as the oldest brother. I beat him up for the first 19 years of his life, now I get to spend the rest of the time telling him what to do. If he's smart, he'll forget half of the crap I told him and just work hard and have faith. I'm proud of you Zach! I can't wait to hear all about your time in Singapore. That is, if you can make it out of the MTC alive.

If any one wants to follow Zach's journey check out the link on my blog list thingy.