Basketball and Back Flips

We had a visit this weekend from Ken’s sister, Cindy, her husband, also Ken, and boys Christian, Jensen, Conner and Jack. The 2 oldest are right around Rachel and Elizabeth’s ages, Conner is Tyler’s age and Jack is 3. What a blast! It was so much fun to spend the day with them on Saturday. They arrived Friday night and left early Sunday morning. Christian and Jensen are both really good skateboarders, so we went to our local small skate park here in Clinton and hung out for a while. Tyler and Conner kicked the soccer ball around and missed the skater’s faces by inches! Jack loved the dirt mounds with a dump truck and Adam wanted to be like the big boys, but hurt himself as he slid down one of the ramps. Adam had a bit of a tough weekend because there really wasn’t a cousin his age, he falls in the middle, and the big kids didn’t want him tagging along, and he didn’t like the 3-year old messing with his stuff!! Poooooorrrr Adam. He did better later in the evening when Ken let him pick out a Redbox movie and watch it alone!
Then home for lunch and a trip to another park—basketball, play structure and tennis courts. I think all of us adults took a nap at some time during the day. We watched football, played cards and the kids played in the backyard. Elizabeth loved to challenge Jensen—in EVERYTHING—basketball, flips, soccer and air hockey.
I think they played Ninja too, but who knows who prevailed there. Of course, Jensen whipped her at everything and she had to quiet her mouth!
Rachel was gone during the day at a debate tournament. At which she took 2nd place in her category of Foreign Extemporaneous. Her first placement at a tournament. Yea Rachel! When she came home, we had dinner and the older kids played night games outside until it got too dang cold to stay out there. They’re coming from Austin, Texas where they’re used to 100 degree+ days all summer long. I hope they used all our blankets at night! That night, we rented 3 DVD’s and everyone watched their movies all over the house, and ate Rachel’s famous yummy popcorn. It’s nice to have computers that play DVD’s now. I have to also say that when we played cards, I emerged the victor. I have to brag a little because Ken wins the game we played, 99% of the time! A series of lucky cards handed me the win! We also got a chance to talk to Ken’s brother, Brad who lives in Newport, OR. He called and we put him on speaker phone. That was really nice for us all.
The last time we saw Cindy and her family was about 4 years ago at a family reunion in Logan. Everyone’s changed and grown so much. They are now moving back to Portland and all the family except for us will be in Oregon again. I must confess to a little nostalgia and jealousy that we won’t be there with them, or in California with my whole family. My one brother who currently lives in Texas, will most likely be moving back to California with his family as well. It’s hard to be away, but so great when we get to see each other. My kids just absolutely love all their cousins. Even though we don’t see them much, they consider them among their best friends. Maybe someday we’ll be closer. I just hope it’s not when they’re all grown. In the meantime, I love it when any of our siblings and grandparents come to visit, or when we get to go there. We will relish in the memories and connections that are formed at these times.

Ken and Cindy, so happy togeeetthhher! Tyler and Jack forever with the Legos

More Legos, only now they've made their way onto

our bed! Conner is such a cute kid! They all are.

One of the few pictures we got of Christian (15) smiling!
He and Jensen are great teenagers!

Ken assuming his normal position of late, sleeping!

Jo-Jo the cat wanted to join him. There's something about Ken,

pets and babies LOVE him! They're very comfortable with him.

Me, preparing early for dinner for 12!

Tank and Rocky II are "helping"

I know it looks like I'm pregnant in this

picture, but I'm not!

Rachel, Christian, Elizabeth, Jensen (13), Conner (6)

and little Jack (3) who didn't want to have anything

to do with a shirt when he got out of the bathtub!

Halloween Pumpkin Costume Carving Candy Week

How this happened, I’ll never know, but Ken and I ended up at home together with no kids on Halloween night!! Rachel worked at a youth council Halloween party for kids and Adam went with her, Elizabeth spent the holiday with her friend from school, Marcie, in South Weber, and Tyler was invited to a haunted house and trick-or-treating with his friend, Zach and his family in Syracuse. Since it was really cold here, Ken and I didn’t mind at all staying inside a warm house and delivering treats to the neighborhood kids. Well, I cannot tell a lie…Ken did the doorbell duty this year. What a guy! My favorite pumpkin is Tyler’s with the Bogart/Durante-looking smile. Ken helped him with that one and it turned out great! None of us is a master-carver, so they are all kid-done. Adam gladly stuck his hand inside them all to pull out the gunk and seeds, a job Elizabeth wouldn’t have done in a million years. Thank heavens for little boys!

Adam’s “story” of the day: Jana called this morning and asked if he got a lot of candy for Halloween. He responded by saying that he didn’t because he was working on a science project and his mom didn’t let him go out until 10:00 p.m. And by that time there was only one person who opened the door, but he got a king-sized candy bar. Hmmmmm…..an 8-year old out at
10 p.m. Sounds a little fishy to me…

Tyler’s funny misunderstanding: On the way to church: Tyler: Mom, what day was I born on?
Mom: What day do you think you were born on? Tyler: I don’t know at all mom!
Mom: Well, what day is your birthday? Tyler: May 22nd……(thoughtfully) Ohhhhhh, is your birthday the day you were born on??? (Lightbulb seemingly goes off in head). The things you think your kids “get”….

Family Home Evening Quote: Dad: “Tyler, how do you know the church is true?” Tyler: “Because it said so in True to the Faith”. So much for feelings in our heart and mind!

Tyler was in charge of the lesson and he wanted to give it on revelation—He had opened his scriptures up to the Doctrine and Covenants where we’re reading as a family and saw the word “revelation” in most of the chapter headings! So I got out True to the Faith and he read over that section with Ken, Rachel and me and Ken helped him put a lesson together in his words.

Not too bad for Wal-Mart pumpkins
See what I mean? Isn't this one cool? I think
Tyler must've had Kool-Aid for dinner!

Adam decided he wanted to "fling" his pumpkin

seeds all over the floor, so he got clean-up duty.

She'll scoop them out, but not touch them
Heaven forbid!

Rachel, always wanting to use some sort of "prop"

Speaks for itself!

The finished products!

Straight out of the 60's. I think my

mom may have had a similar outfit.

Rachel has wanted to be a Disney

villain forever, but she got too big

for kid costumes but not big enough

for adult costumes! When we found this

Maleficent one from Sleeping Beauty,

we grabbed it. She wore it to 2 parties

and trick-or-treating with Adam.

Too bad that car beside him isn't a Batmobile! More

like a kid-taxi-mobile!

He actually doesn't need to do much

to look like Harry Potter. He wouldn't

let me spray his hair black because it

made such a mess.

Sweet Little Lies

I seem to have a typical 8-year old boy on my hands these days. You know the one...wants to make everyone laugh, loves silly jokes and riddles, torments his older sister, torments his younger brother, doesn't want to have anything to do with chores or homework, would sooner get Pokemon cards than eat, THAT one.
Adam is all that and more. His latest foray into wanting to make people laugh, is telling these stories that are unequivocally untrue! As we've talked about this behavior, and I explain to him that he is really lying, not telling a "funny story". He doesn't want to accept that, so he continues. Now, the funny thing is that he doesn't do this at home. He only does it with other adults who he is with or who ask him questions. With a straight face, no indication that he's not the most truthful child, he spews out a complete untruth. The only way I know about it is that the adults ask me about what he's said and I have to keep from laughing all the time. He does this about once a week. I wish I would have recorded all his "stories". This week, he was in carpool with my friend, Sara, and he told her that our whole family was going to Kentucky for Christmas! Now, we know absolutely no one in Kentucky. How he pulled that one from his little hat, I have no idea. She e-mailed me, thinking he was totally serious, asking if we were going there for Christmas! The things he comes up with are not malicious in any way, just completely out of the blue. Very random. On Friday night, we were all at a friend's Halloween party and one of her family members approached me and said, "I didn't know that Adam was allergic to sugar." I rolled my eyes...another not-so-sweet little untruth. Because he's so serious when he says these things, they are taken as truth. What to do?...what to do?... I'm sure he'll outgrow this and head into the next "boy" stage. I wonder what that one is? Belching, yelling out in class, farting, arguing, forgetting to change his underwear for who knows how long, going to bed in his clothes, breaking things and not 'fessing up, sweetly hugging his mother when no one's looking, sitting down at all times of the day to play a new piano piece he's just learned, getting good grades because even when it looks like he's not listening, he really is, bearing his testimony in church--EVERY Fast Sunday, being excited about being a new Cub Scout, and just generally being a good addition to our family. Oh, wait, he's already there.
We are blessed...

Adam's latest joke--Sunday morning, 10:40 a.m. Adam: "Mom, how does a fish say fifty?" Mom: "blub blub?"
Adam: "No, 'Fish-ty!'" Mom: "That's a good one, Adam." Adam: "I know, I just made it up myself." Mom: (In her mind) "Reeeeaaalllyyy, I never would have guessed."

Budweiser Bru-ha-ha

I hope you are reading just based on that title! I just had to tell a funny story, that afterwards gave me a good laugh. On Tuesday morning, as I was driving out of my neighborhood, there was a huge, bright blue Budweiser beer box in the middle of the road. I had seen it for a couple of days, and finally decided to stop my car, pick it up and get it into my garbage can since the garbage was being taken that day anyway. So I threw it in the back of my Explorer and headed on my way to the store. Needless to say, I completely forgot about it, UNTIL I showed up at the junior high to pick up Rachel and the debaters who needed a ride to their tournament in Kaysville. I threw open the back, so 2 kids could climb into our jump seat back there and the HUGE Bud box stared up at us! The 2 girls who were back there with me, got very wide-eyed! Here I am in conservative Utah! I started laughing and told them the story, but I don't think they believed me. I mean this box was probably one that held 24 cans at least. It was hard to miss! Rachel came back to see what we were laughing at and her face turned bright red! I explained to her and she said, "Uhhhh, mom, there's a garbage dumpster over there, how about if I throw it away?! It was odd to see my little church-dressed daughter hauling the Bud box to the dumpster. Hmmmmm, I wonder how many junior high rumors THAT little episode started??!

Mother Harmony--AHHHHHH!

They did it! They got better! Well, almost all the way. But at least they're back in school. Just in time to have a teacher development day today. It's funny because I dread the end of summer when we give up leisurely days, no schedules, days at the pool, having fun together and sleeping in. But once they go back, we all get used to routine, calendaring and knowing where we need to be and when. Trying to combine the 2 doesn't work. Oh well, it is what it is, right? Elizabeth and I had a nice day Tuesday. I was craving scones and hot chocolate for breakfast, so I got some with honey butter and we really enjoyed our breakfast as you can see. One on one time with your kids--priceless... Then she proceeded to go back to sleep until about 2 p.m.! When she woke up, she had energy, was happy, and worked the rest of the night on make-up schoolwork. It was amazing. She had a blessing on Monday night from Ken and our friend, John, so I'm sure that expedited her recovery. Thank you for all your concern about the sickies.

(I don't know why this all ended up underlined--blog operator failure!)

Pure Yumminess!!

"Technically" the first snow of the season. Looks
like powdered sugar to me!

Mother Mayhem

So, I'm having a bad mom day. It's almost 6 p.m. and it just seems to be getting worse. The kids have been home from school now, at least 2 at a time for over a week. I feel like one of those nurses in an old black and white movie--no smile, grumpy face, but with messy hair and food and bodily-fluid filled clothing instead of a nice starched hat and white uniform. I'm trying to maintain compassion, but they're basically not contagious anymore, but don't feel up to going to school. Stomachaches and bad, hacking, sound-like-you're-dying coughs. I just can't do it (send them to school). Needless to say, the mountains of homework and prospects of make-up tests are piling up. It is totally stressing me out. Elizabeth is supposed to be working on things here, but she dawdles endlessly, fiddles with her pencil or hair for hours on end it seems and is not making much progress. The end of the term is this week, or I wouldn't care so much. She claims she can do absolutely no algebra until Ken gets home, and has been rolling her eyes at me, mimicking me and generally being disagreeable since last Wednesday. I thought Adam was well enough to go to church yesterday, when I got a tap on the shoulder in Sunday School and I went into the hallway. When he saw me, he started crying because he didn't feel good. I felt like a real great mom in that moment...

I've been trying to start subbing in my local school district here, and they've called me every day in the past week, but...you guessed it...MY KIDS ARE SICK!! I know...this too shall pass. Then Tyler came home from school--his first day back in a week. The papers he brought home are innumerable. Who knew they did so much in 1st grade??!! It's not about shapes and letter sounds anymore!

This is my very hardest thing to handle about 4 kids. They all want you at the same time. Rachel wants to share all her comments from the debate judges--and of course, as a 14 year old, wants my absolute undivided attention for this; Elizabeth can't get her computer document to cut and paste where she wants it to, Adam is bored out of his mind and has been bugging me to play a game with him, and Tyler--well, you can already guess...with the mountain of first-grade paperwork! ALL AT ONCE! In between all of this, I continually hear I'M HUNGRY! This after numerous meals and snacks. I thought you had stomachaches?!

I'm a member of a produce co-op. Every 2 weeks we get fresh produce delivered to us in a laundry basket we take to the leader with a check. Although I enjoy this feature of my life, when that basket sits on my counter, full of stuff, begging to be washed, organized and somehow SQUEEZED into my too-small fridge (did my fridge shrink as my kids grew?), I start to hyperventilate a little. Oh darn, I forgot to let them know I positively don't need apples or lettuce! How much lettuce can one family eat? And our apple tree is taking over our house, yard, car and garage! But because I didn't think that through very well, we now have even more. I literally find I am cleaning my fridge out twice a month these days. I don't know about you, but I don't like that household job. In fact, Adam and Tyler do it for me when we do big cleaning once a month.

That's another thing about the kids being sick. We believe in a division of labor around here. Mom doesn't make all the mess, so mom doesn't clean up all the mess. But when the majority of the family is out of commission, but home more, there's more mess and less "division" of labor. The "mom shoulders" are becoming weary.

I decided it would be best to have great big salads for dinner tonight--remember the lettuce? which I feel 100% sure the kids won't touch. So as I'm cutting, slicing and dicing, Rachel sets the table and I ask her if she would like to make some grape juice. We have fresh grape juice from grapes grown in our yard. Now, I, myself don't care for grape juice, but the rest of my family loves it, so I bottle it every year. So, I decide it would be nice to have it for dinner tonight. Rachel goes to open the jar, takes off the sealed lid, and SPRAYS grape juice all over herself, the food, me and the rest of the kitchen. She freaks out, knowing that grape juice stains, and runs downstairs to take care of her precious grape-juice stained clothes. Leaving me, you got it, on my hands and knees, wiping up grape juice. I, on the other hand, don't care much about grape-juice stained clothes, and am still wearing them...Oh well, it's better than what else is on them.

To top it off, right before I started writing this, (for therapy), I happily remembered that I had an avocado in the fridge. If there's one thing that makes a salad for dinner palatable, it's avocado. I cut it open excitedly only to find the majority of it is ROTTEN!! Gray and smooshy. YUCK!! I think I nearly started to cry--over an AVOCADO! It really is time for this day to end. I think I'll go to a movie tonight, I need to get out--as you can read! Oh yeah, it's Monday night. I guess we'll be watching a DVD for Family Night! (maybe if I put it on during dinner, I'll still have time to slip out!)

I know there are many positives about my life, but right now I can't bring them to the surface, I'm sure things will look up tomorrow--especially if all my kids are back in school!

NEXT DAY: I'm feeling much better today. One more kid back in school--Adam. I didn't end up going to the movies after all. We watched "The Mountain of the Lord" again for FHE about the building of the Salt Lake Temple, and it was a good reminder for me of what real sacrifice is. 40 years to build that temple at much cost of life, limb and health. And that coming AFTER the saints had already lost so much in their old homes in Missouri, Ohio and Illinois and traversed many horrible conditions across the plains just to arrive in the DESERT of all places. I'm sure I would have been one of those who was pushing to build the kingdom in San Francisco!! I am a more grateful mom today! I have my children around me and although sickness sets in at times, at least I don't worry every day about losing my family to death.

This is it?! Really?

Okay, so I know these are a lot of posts. I'm new to blogging and will get the timing better next time, but this is the first chance I've gotten to sit down at the computer and figure this out. Sorry for the extensive reading! The mad blogger has arrived!

Rachel is, for all intents and purposes, pretty much a homebody. I, on the other hand, am not! Well, at least I wasn't until more recently. but certainly not as a teenager! She loves to hang out here with us and her siblings. She's patient with them and helpful at home. I've been worried about her being more social for forever! But it's just not her personality. I finally accepted it when she was about 11. She definitely takes after Ken that way. And I really love and appreciate that about her. The place she generally feels most comfortable is in the athletic realm. She's played soccer since she was 3 and is very good and loves it. (I'll post family soccer pictures next), she has taken up distance running and is very fast and has a lot of stamina, she loves 5K's. She identifies with the young women program in our church mostly through the sports program-bball, vball and indoor soccer. She tried out for her jr. high bball team, never even having played before and made it her 8th grade year, and her very favorite pasttime is playing football with the boys! She plays the piano in seminary and just played a beautiful arrangement of "O My Father" in sacrament meeting last Sunday. She's very smart and does very well in school. HOWEVER, as you can see, the following pictures are not of sports, or music, or school or family, at all. Her junior high school added a debate class for her 8th grade year. She took it as an elective and was hooked! Last night she competed in her first debate tournament as a novice 9th grader and came home about as giddy and excited as I've ever seen her. She LOVED it. She's the only one in the class who wants to compete in the extemporaneous category. Basically stating her researched opinion about national current events. Her assignments were to argue in favor or in disagreement with 1. Google's digital library. 2. Whether or not the media has too much power, and 3. Something I can't remember! In the future, she will be competing in a foreign extemp. category, discussing political issues relating to foreign policy and happenings. (Jr. high speech with Mr. Odom, anyone?) I told Ken this morning that of all the time, money and energy we put into other things with the kids, the best thing we did with Rachel was teach her to write and give her own primary talks at age 5!!

There were 6 that competed from Sunset Jr. High

Who knows where the gorilla came from?!

The bus ride home, havin' a blast!

Rachel goes nowhere without a blanket. She's not

cold, just attached! Her baby one is in shreds in

a box downstairs and she looks at it longingly still!