Parenting

I don't claim to be a pro at anything, but looking back at pictures always makes me smile.  I see lots of good things and I know I must be doing some things right.

 Ryan, Annabelle and some friends created an animal shelter one day.  There was a method to the madness and mess, and it kept them all occupied and happy.  I even remember them helping put things away.  I love creativity!

 Callie and I have so much time to ourselves.  It is lonely, for both of us.  Luckily she is full of ideas.  I love how much this girl talks.  She tells me stories about her toys and the adventures they are going on.  She always makes sure I am quiet when one of them is asleep.

 

The other day Greg was fixing our van, the EKG valve or something, and the kids wanted to go play in the rain.  Sometimes it is so much easier to say yes than no.  Look at the goofy faces, so much fun and exuberance and life.  I love their expressions!

 It is soccer season once again.  We skipped it last year and I was hoping to do the same thing this year, but after the boys' attending the soccer camp in CA they really wanted to show off their skills.  Greg agreed to coach Ryan's team and both boys got signed up.  It has added stress to our Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and Saturday mornings; but I love seeing the kids' active and having fun with their team.  This is the last week and I am thrilled to have more nights free again.

 And last but definitely not least, the day before we left on vacation Annabelle lost her first tooth.  It had been wiggly for a LONG time and it finally fell out at school.  HOORAY!!  The tooth fairy remembered to bring some money and even found the tooth that Annie had lost on the counter when she got home from school.  I love seeing her smile now.  It makes her seem so grown up and cute.  I just love it!

Mother Of The Year...

...will not be awarded to me this year. 
Yesterday was one of those days where I had a huge lists of things to get done.  Nothing really could be crossed off so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.  I hardly stopped.  I thought I could do it all, but as you will see, I could not.

5:45
 Up and at em' for my turbo kick class.  I love that class and I hated that I had to leave early, but I knew that if I didn't I would make it through the day. (maybe I should have stayed those last 15 minutes)

6:50
Shower and get ready.

7:05-7:50
Wake the kids up and encourage them to get ready.  Make breakfast, lunches and do hair.  

8:00
Made it to school.  Head to the school library to help with hearing tests.

9:00-10:00
Greg drops Callie off.  She struggles to be quiet the last 10 minutes of my shift but overall did great.

10:00-11:30
Grocery shopping.  We were out of the basics and I needed to get just enough stuff to last us until our big vacation.  Plus some pricey sugary snacks to keep the kids happy in long lines at Disneyland.

11:45-12:30
 Get Callie fed, and myself, while talking to my sister.  I love talking to my sisters and just can't pass up opportunities.  Especially to tell her a funny conversation with Callie.
Callie: (on new play phone) I am calling Violet.
Mom: What are you going to tell her?
Callie: Guess what? Chicken butt! (Ahh, big brothers)

12:30-2:00
Clean up the house.  The day before had been crazy and it had just piled up.  I could have waited for the kids to come home and help, but I didn't want to wait and I wanted it done fast.  I was able to get my 5 chapters of reading done since technology is awesome and I could listen to the Book of Mormon while I cleaned.

2:00-2:30
My one space of time where I was able to sit on the computer and figure out what I would talk about at Roundtable.  Balance the checkbook.  And probably relax a little and look at blogs. 

2:30-3:40
Got the after school snack ready and made sure I was ready for the kids.  I have to take a big breath for this one because I like to be in a good mood when the kids come home.  They came home and we ate and chatted.  Then we started on homework-reading, spelling, writing, math.  Nathan just gets to work and does it.  Ryan is a little slower and Annabelle struggles.  She has to write 2 sentences in a journal and she likes to spell everything right but she wants to write big words, and I am not allowed to help her much.  It is a challenge that I hope will get easier.

3:40
Take Annabelle over to her first piano lesson.  It was a group lesson so it was not at the regular time we will have lessons.  She was excited to start something the boys have been doing.

3:55-5:00
Send Nathan to scouts and head over to scouts myself.  We had 9 8-year-olds and were trying to teach them flag football.  Some totally knew what they were doing and others did not.  It was interesting.  My Ryan had been so good all day and then snapped.  He just started disobeying and running around with the ball and pulling flags when we needed him to not.  After asking him to stop multiple times (both me and the other leader) I sent him to the sidelines.  When he came back in and did it again I told him he was out and wouldn't get a snack.  He of course was VERY unhappy with me. 

5:00-5:20
I dropped Callie and Ryan off with Nathan at home and ran over to sign Annabelle up for ballet.  Luckily it was a quick process. 

5:30-5:45
I headed over to get Annabelle at gymnastics.  Before I got there I called Greg to lament to him about my crazy day.  He couldn't really talk so I went up to the door to get Annie.  When the opened the door and saw me they gave me a really weird look and said, "Annabelle isn't here."  Instantly I remember that I was supposed to pick her up from piano at 4:30 and bring her to gymnastics.  Somehow my mind had not remembered that during scouts and then driving to gymnastics I still didn't even remember that I had never taken her there.  Obviously I am losing my mind.  My one defense is that normally she is at a friends' house before gymnastics and she walks Annabelle over to gymnastics.  The piano thing, combined with Ryan's misbehaving and my crazy schedule of the day let me completely forget and look like a fool.  I can laugh about it today, but yesterday I cried.
I raced over to piano and got Annabelle.  Luckily it is Tomie, a good friend of mine.  She didn't call me when I was late because she figured I had realized it was a busy day and purposely skipped gymnastics and just let the girls play.   That is maybe what I should have done.  We laughed and I cried and after a couple hugs headed home to start dinner.

5:45-6:45
Making dinner-meatball subs.  I was going to make rolls but while at the store I decided I needed to cut something out.  I am SO glad I did.   The kids all sill had some homework that wasn't finished and chores that needed to get done.  I made a list for Greg of what was left to do and as soon as he pulled in, I headed out to roundtable.

7:00-8:50
I barely made it to Roundtable on time.  Roundtable is a cub scout thing.  Every month they have meeting for the district cub scout leaders.  I get to teach a class there to all the wolf and bear leaders.  I have been doing it for the last year and while it isn't hard, it isn't my favorite thing to stand up in front of people and talk for 20 minutes.  Near the end of my class someone came in to tell me all the teachers needed to meet afterwards (we have never done that).  After a long day that was the last thing I wanted to do.  But I stayed and listened and participated.  I found out I get to teach for at least another year and we are going to start having meetings after each one.  GOODY!  As I drove home, listening to really loud music (it helps) one more thing just had to happen to make the day even better.  A light came on the dashboard.  The same one that came on during my summer trip.  So now I get to take the car in (not until Monday) and hope that it can get fixed for our trip on Friday.

Luckily when I got home Greg had cleaned up and got the kids to bed.  He listened to my rant about my day and made me feel a whole lot better.  I love being married to that guy.  He laughs and is sensitive to my feelings at the same time.  So far today has been much calmer.  I hope that it can stay that way:)  Thank goodness I have no aspirations to be mother of the year.  I just like when I am occasionally Mother of the Moment.  That does happen at least once a day for at least one of my children.  It is those moments that I will cherish and these other ones that I will look back on and laugh!

Labor Day

We relaxed all morning, walked to the park, shot some more arrows and played some video games.  Then we loaded up and drove to Tooele.  I always forget how far away it is, but family is worth the drive.  All of Greg's family that lives in Utah was able to make it.  There were 13 of the 18 grand-kids and 8 of 11 siblings.  It was a lot of fun and I am so glad Amy offered her house again.

 Aunt Katie and Callie

 Clara and Callie were hard to get a picture of.  Either both were not smiling or only one, or they both just looked really serious.

 From age 12-1 with 5 missing throughout.

 I love this guy!

 Greg's family has moved from a hacky sack to using a water bottle.

Archery

 Ryan went to a VERY fun birthday party today.  Why?  Because they made bows and arrows.  Well, they got arrows, real ones.  Real enough that when you shoot them at a cardboard box, sometimes they go straight through.  Ryan has LOVED this today.  He kept asking to go outside (with one of us) and shoot his arrow.  Greg said that once as he walked to the box he said, "When I hit the target I feel so cool walking to get the arrow."  He looks pretty cool with his bow on his shoulder.  He hit a couple arrows closer than the one he is pointing to, but I didn't go back out and take another picture.  When I asked Ryan if he is going to go hunting someday he at first thought that could be really fun, and then he said, "I don't want to shoot animals, though."  Yeah, I didn't think my tender-hearted Ryan would be a hunter.  I told him that when I was a teenager and went to girls' camp I got to do archery and was even in the bulls-eye club.  He wanted to see my skills.  Apparently I left them at camp, 18 years ago since my arrow didn't even make it to the target.  Thanks Spencer for having such a fun party (and his parents for being brave enough to do archery with a bunch of young boys)!

 

Feild of Dreams

 Nathan's baseball coach has made Nathan have an unforgettable baseball season.  It started all the way back in April and here we were in August still hanging out.  We also had a party in July!  This time the coach got the team able to meet the Orem OWLZ players.  Each boy got to go out with a player and chat for a minute and then stand there for the national anthem.  As the player and boy ran out they announced both names.  Nathan ran out with #29, Mike, the 3rd baseman.  

 The kids had a lot of fun walking, carefully, down the hill.  And rolling, slowly, down the hill.  It was pretty steep so I was a bit paranoid. 

It was nice to lay back and relax knowing the kids were all just having fun and laughing outside. 

 Callie's hat was a big hit.  Too bad the mitt is Annabelle's and even though it is too small for her she just pass it on to her sister.  I understand though.  I have 3 sisters and I remember it being hard to pass along my things.  It was a fun night, until the younger three didn't care about the game anymore and just wanted expensive treats.  That is when we left.  Nathan was old enough to understand and he was done with his stuff anyway.  I think we are officially done with baseball now. 

Cooking

 One of my most favorite parts of cooking is when I can take a recipe and adjust it according to what I have and what I know my family will eat.  This recipe was on my "to try" list and when I realized that I had everything I needed to make it work and didn't need to run to the store I decided to try it and we LOVED it. 

 

The recipe called for 2 cups of grape tomatoes but since I have a bunch of small tomatoes, but not as small as grape ones, I decided that it didn't matter.  They still tasted fabulous and the kids don't love cooked tomatoes much anyway so Greg and I were able to eat them all.

 

 Surprisingly my herbs have taken off.  I have thyme, parsley (this one flowered and so there isn't much usable parsley left), basil and rosemary (not as much as I'd like, but it is there and I have used it). 

 The recipe also called for only zucchini but since my zucchini plant isn't producing that wonderfully, I used both zucchini and crook neck squash.  Again, it tasted great and it even added more color to the meal.
Greg and I talk about our eating habits a lot.  We love the way we are about food.  We are ALWAYS trying new food and going to new restaurants.  We really don't like to eat at the same place over and over.  Our kids are great at trying new things.  Annabelle even ate a few of Greg's homemade sushi tonight and the kids all loved the coconut/macadamia nut encrusted shrimp.  We just love food over here and I can't imagine doing it any other way.