Romantic Dinner for Two

Yesterday when I sat down to eat my lunch I turned on the Food Network. Anna and Chloe (Anna's best friend) got really into it. (I'm not surprised those shows are fascinating. I wouldn't eat most of the things they're demonstrating in a million years, let alone make them, but still LOVE watching them do it.) When I turned the tv off they begged me to print some of the recipes we saw for them. I did and they spent the next few hours making a cookbook.






Then they announced that they would like to "do me a favor and take care of dinner for me." I was trying to get more information out of them but they were insisting on everything being top secret. Just then Brennan came home a little early to pack for his Scout trip so I seized the opportunity to run some errands alone. When I got home I was quickly escorted into the dining room along with Brennan and seated at the table.

This was the appetizer prepared by Abby and Nate

This was our meal, ramen noodles with the broth on the side, some Parmesan cheese and delicious toast and Koolaid.

They then shut the doors and kept shewing Nate and Ben out so we could have a romantic dinner for two complete with romantic background music. Here is what we were served. It was actually really good. They also fed the kids, but made them eat at the kitchen table. It was sooooo nice to come home from shopping to having dinner totally taken care of.

I was impressed at what they came up with given they were basically limited to the microwave and toaster. Having girls be the oldest is working out great for us!

Tooth Fairy, Part II

Shortly after Anna lost her tooth and left a questionnaire for the Tooth Fairy she had a dentist appointment and had to get another tooth pulled. Guess what happened that night? Yep, another questionnaire and another exciting glimpse into the lives of these busy fairies. We can't keep this type of excitement to ourselves, so here you go:

This tooth fairy just wrote with her left hand and was out of 1 dollar bills so she left quarters, it's funny how they each have their own style. The girls' favorite part was "what are shoes?" That created quite a buzz. Fortunately there were fewer questions because the Tooth Fairy had her work cut out in trying to honor Anna's request to get the spacer off the tooth, these are always fun things to do at midnight.

Update

Anna will be 10 in a little over a week and we're planning a Nancy Drew birthday party for her. She is so sweet and appreciative, but knows how she wants things down to the tiniest detail. With this party and with everything in Anna's life, I get the job of trying to support and facilitate her big ideas while also trying to remind her about things like budget and time constraints, etc. She also wants to invite everyone she's ever met. I love that she's so inclusive, but I'm insisting on only inviting people she's seen in the last 2 years. We love Anna.

Yesterday we were driving home from my parents' house where we had just been with some of my siblings and their kids. Abby started talking about how Macy did a really good job with naming their kids and then began telling us all the names she wants to use on her own kids someday. "Ellie, Emily, Claire and Lucy. Then Lucy will have a cousin once removed with the same name!" Brennan's jaw dropped as he turned to me and said, "Is that right, the cousin once removed thing?" "Yep, she's dead on." Abby's definitely her mother's daughter. I was also impressed with her names, good taste. We love Abigail.

Nate has impressed me to no end with his patience with Ben. Ben has been on kind of a rampage lately being just generally stinky and Nate gets the brunt of it. He'll grab some of Nate's action figures which had been oh so carefully placed and take off. I'm having to do "time out" more and more with Ben and Nate hates it. He begs me to let Ben come out or to answer him when he yells, "Moooom!" over and over. When Ben is allowed out, Nate quickly tries to cuddle and hug and comfort him and most often gets angrily shoved away. It doesn't deter Nate. He is such a tenderheart and I love that about him. We love Nate.

Ben is quite a character, always has been, but now that he's talking a lot that's becoming even more evident. His favorite things to say are "Aye (I) Haaad it" right after I tell him to give Nate's action figure back to Nate. Then after a few more attempts by me to get him to give it back he'll say, "Aye (I) don't haaave to!"

Perhaps my favorite thing in the whole entire world is the fact that instead of saying "what" he says "why." So whenever I call for him, I hear "WHY?" Or whenever I'm talking to him and he doesn't understand he scrunches up his face and says, "why?" You have to hear it all day long to get how cute it is, but I needed to write it down so I'll always remember it. It will be a sad sad day when he learns "what" like normal people.

Yesterday he was being particularly noisy and boisterous in church. Then all of a sudden completely out of the blue he looked down the row at his 3 siblings who were sitting there quietly and loudly said, "Guys, be ki-ut (quiet)!"

Lastly, whenever I pull out the camera he says, "Mom, I want to take piC-ures OV it!" We love Benjamin.

Weekend Fun

We've had a great weekend. Friday night we had a barbecue which one of my neighbors organized with our street. We had it in our neighbor's beautiful yard and had a pretty great turn-out. It was so much fun but kind of sad to realize how much we don't see each other. We're determined to interact with each other more than the occasional hello as we pass each other at Church. We have several new families too (with young kids, yay!) and it was fun to get to know them a little bit better. The kids had a blast running around with the other kids.





Saturday we had Abby and Nate's final swimming lessons which means we get to go watch and get their certificates. It was really fun to watch Abby, they're really swimming and she did great. Nate's was a lot less showy as their skills were much more basic, but exciting nonetheless because he was completely at ease and his teacher raved about how focused he was. That does my heart good.







Saturday night we were the lucky recipients of tickets for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Pioneer Commemorative Concert featuring The Osmonds! Wow, the choir, the orchestra, the Conference Center, is just breathtaking. As far as the Osmonds, well I wasn't actually that excited about that aspect of the concert. I don't have anything against them, I just haven't really followed them. I remember watching some episodes of The Donny and Marie Show with Braden when we were young, but besides that really haven't seen them perform. I was really impressed. They can sing! Marie sang "How Great Thou Art" with the choir and it was amazing. Donny sang a solo or two too and I love his voice. Their group numbers were fun and it was very sentimental for them as they showed clips of their early years which was neat to see. Overall it was just neat to see how much these 9 siblings love each other and honor their parents.


The other fun part of the concert was to see some serious Osmond fans LOVE every second of it. The concert began with the choir singing some really beautifully arranged folk hymns. Then the Osmonds came out and they were kind of like ready to rock and roll (granted, in a mellow totally Mormon kind of way) and it took me a minute to be okay with that in the Conference Center with President Eyring a few feet away from them. Donny said they had permission to party though and his fans were right there ready to cel-e-brate! Anyway, thanks so much to Mom and Dad for fighting back the mobs to save us seats and giving us the tickets and to Mike and Allyson for giving the tickets to my parents. Good times.

Caillou

I can't figure out why this little boy

loves this show so much (he's honestly ADDICTED)


Hmmm.

What could it be?

Pioneer Day

The 24th of July is a big day around here and we look forward to it every year. This year we started off the celebration the night before at another parade. This parade is in the evening and kind of miserably hot, but it's a great parade. There are tons of real floats and marching bands and all that good stuff. Liza and Abe, my parents and Anna's friend were there which made it extra fun. Thanks Eliza for saving a great spot.

Abby in Nate's sunglasses

The next day we kind of did a big fat nothing all day which was actually kind of a nice change. Brennan was around which was great and we all just relaxed. Anna, Abby and Nate played really well which is always nice. I got to go to the store all by myself. Then at 5:30 we headed for a nearby park for the big celebration. 35 years ago (before I was born) my Mom's family started doing a picnic/party at a park on the 24th and they each invited their in-law families.

The park has changed and all the other in-law families except my Dad's family has stopped coming so now every year we gather with both my Dad's and Mom's families for a picnic/potluck dinner and some serious volleyball. Kids 1 and up are totally on their own, they have the run of the place. They play cops and robbers, water fights etc. Babies get shoved into the arms of non-participating adults. We had 2 nets and 6 teams last night and played until and a little after dark. It was a blast. This summer so often when we go places it consists of the kids playing and the adults sitting and watching. It was so great to be so active and pretend like you're not old and out of shape, until the next morning. Plus my team was kind of awesome and won every game except our first one.

The bummer of the night was that I forgot my camera, but when we got home realized that I hadn't forgotten my camera. No pictures, boo. We got home just in time to catch the last few fireworks put on by a nearby amusement park that we can watch from our front lawn. Great day. Here's one photo from the night:

The grand finale

Oh, and when I got ready for the party I came out in a new outfit and Ben said, "Mom, new jammies?" Jammies means all clothes to him. Pretty observant for a 2 yr. old. Also, I love having girls, they always notice and comment and love when I get dressed up or have something new on. "Mom, I LOVE your outfit!" I'll enjoy it while it lasts and before they're saying, "Mom, you're seriously wearing THAT?"

The Perfect Summer Day

This summer has been a little crazy. I feel like the six of us going in six different directions and I can't keep up. I went grocery shopping last week at midnight because we were out of EVERYTHING but I couldn't seem to get out of the house until then. I've sort of been missing those lazy summer days until Thursday when we had what I've been missing.


We have a playgroup with some of my aunts and cousins and all our kids, of course. We take turns planning something usually fairly low key and always free. Eliza was in charge this week and had us meet at a nearby park. This park has a little stream and it's really big and there are lots of trees, it's really pretty. She had all the kids bring all their water weapons so they could have a gigantic water fight (which no matter what we plan it usually ends in a water fight of some kind).

Johnny

Jocelyn, Nate, Joe, Harris, Halen and Abby

Evidently Ben was a little pooped

Anyway, it was so much fun. I got there a little late because of swimming lessons around 12:30 and left at 5:00 pm. I can't believe we stayed that long, but it was so nice. The kids played so well, they were totally entertained by each other and the water. They ranged in ages 7 months to 14, but they all played together. Ben wandered back and forth checking in with me and joining the big kids. Some of the little ones slept in their Moms' arms. We moms sat in the shade and chatted to our hearts content. We laugh a lot, this week we got pretty deep and really bonded over some pretty trying things. I love these women. It's a group that I feel like I'm a better person just for being in their presence. This week consisted of Eliza, Mandolin, Sevana, Allyson, Megan and Liane. It was perfect in its simplicity, the kids were in heaven and we moms got to forget all the craziness, all the running around, and just enjoy the moment -- cuddling a little one, watching our kids' happiness, and feeling understood and loved by this most amazing group. Good times!

Hold On

You know how when you have your first baby and everyone says, "Oh it goes SOOOO fast, just enjoy her while she's little because she'll be all grown in 2 seconds." You look at them and smile. Then you think about all the days you look at the clock kind of ready for your husband to walk through the door only to see that it's 10 am. Or you wonder if it's really possible to change 4 million and 3 diapers and breastfeed 4 million and 2 times in 24 hours because you're pretty sure you haven't done anything else all day or night. Or you think about sitting watching your 1 month old baby and wondering if she's bored or if you're doing this right at all.

Well, I know it sometimes doesn't feel very fast (see the title of this blog) but the reality is what they told us is true. The days still seem long sometimes, but I can't believe my first baby is almost 10 and my youngest is 2! Looking back, it seems that it all happened while I was blinking or something because where did it go?

Yesterday I picked Nate up from swimming lessons at noon and he and Ben and I went to a little swim party. I dropped Abby off at a friend's so they could go to another friend's birthday party and Anna stayed home so she could run to Chloe's where they were going to have their 2nd book club and then go see the new "Kit" movie. The boys and I got back around 3:00 and Abby finally waltzed in around 6:00. Anna came home at 8:00. They were gone all day. Nate was busy with friends when we got back. They're already getting lives and busy and I miss them. During school the girls are rarely here and now Nate will be going to school too.

So, you see it's all true. My kids are still fairly young, but they're growing faster and faster and I know that their days are truly numbered here in our little home. I realize it's not the end of the world, it's fun too, watching them grow and our relationships change and experiencing new and older things, but I'm starting to get it now that I've got to hold on to them while I can.

Fearless and Fairies

Today was a momentous day for us here in our little world. Perhaps you recall my swimming lesson saga from last year with Nate. He refused to get out of the car and we both bawled all the way home. Good times. Well, guess who jumped right out of the car today at swimming lessons? You guessed it.... Natey! He requested I walk down to the pool with him and then happily waved goodbye as I left him for his lesson. Woo hoo! I'm so proud of him and so happy for him. Way to go, Nate!

Some of you know that Anna, our soon to be 10 yr. old, has a great imagination. We love that she's still young and innocent in so many ways and that she has a happy fantasy world she can escape to when need be. There are times I feel conflicted about how to help her balance that with reality and well, honesty. I'm not sure we've found that balance yet. The following may confirm that to you, but bear in mind it was very late and there was no one awake to consult. It's so revealing about Anna though that I decided to share it.

A few nights ago Anna had a tooth fall out. The Tooth Fairy came to Anna's pillow very late at night and discovered a sweet note from this sweet little girl.

The Tooth Fairy was more than a little surprised and more than a little tired. She was touched though by Anna's sweet interest and couldn't bear to disappoint her so she stayed up for quite a while answering Anna's questions. She also is normally left-handed, but to add a little mystery she used her right hand. She is also surprisingly not artistic for a fairy.

Anna and Abby were absolutely overjoyed upon discovering not just the crisp new dollars, but a whole new insight to this mysterious Tooth Fairy. They have all of her answers memorized and they are both anticipating losing more teeth very soon for a chance at continued correspondence. This makes the Tooth Fairy adore these girls even more and also really hope that she knows what she is doing, but really doesn't think so.

Festival Days

Yesterday was our hometown "Festival Days". We started with the parade which I LOVE. It goes down our beautiful tree-lined Main Street so we always have shade which makes the experience so much nicer. Some neighborhood friends and my sister and BIL (he rode his bike for quite a distance and met Liza and the kids there, impressive!) and their kids joined us. There were actually some amazing floats and I always love marching bands, plus two of my cute cousins were in it.

Ben not letting Brennan unplug his ears during the sirens.

gearing up for some serious candy

Anna and Belle

Abby taking Josh's bike for a spin

After the parade we went with our friends to the carnival. I always think that will be so much fun. In some ways it is, both girls climbed the climbing wall thing which was cool and Abby really wanted to be in the dunking machine which was fun, oh and we got a new tiny pet frog (which not sure if that's a good thing yet), but basically it's just really hot and exhausting to try and herd really distracted kids through crowds of people. The kids beg to spend every cent we ever made on really dumb things. Brennan and I came home kind of ornery, okay I was really ornery - hot, tired, keeping track of 4 kids going in 4 different directions in a crowd - not a good combo.

Ready...

Splash..

wet!

Anna scrambled up the wall in no time at all.
Abby did great.

However, the kids enjoyed themselves and after the carnival we went to lunch with our friends which was nice (except for the fact that Brennan got one medium drink for 6 people and Ben was lording over it mercilessly and the other kids were not amused) til Abby came within inches of getting hit by a car as she headed back to the car to check on their new frog.

All in all it really was good family fun. The parade was definitely the highlight.

Yesterday

We have a little playgroup each week with some of my aunts and cousins and all our kids. Yesterday we went to a cute new little splash park. Good times! I love the time I get to spend chatting while our kids have so much fun. Most of the kids are actually my cousins who are always so cute with and attentive to my kids.

Ben and my cousin's little boy, Brigden, playing football

Anna blissfully ignorant of her impending wetness

Blogosophy

I think probably anyone who has blogged for any length of time has probably experienced varying degrees of love and hate for this whole blogging phenomenon. Whatever your feelings are it seems to me that blogging has hit a nerve and is taking over the earth. I feel like perhaps all of us are a little starved for a sense of community and blogging is allowing us to fill that void. Instead of bemoaning the fact that our fast-paced lives, garages (we pull right inside eliminating any chance of chatting with a neighbor), fear of child molesting creeps, and so many other things are now the reality and have slowly pushed out the casual openness and sense of community as depicted in Sandlot, we have grabbed hold of a new substitute. The question is, is it filling the void or only drawing us into our homes more and away from making "real" relationships?

There are those who use their blog as a creative outlet, a journal/family history, a way to connect with family and friends and a way to make new friends. When I started mine I didn't know this entire culture existed. I had only seen group blogs that existed to support some common ideal or theme like Mormon Mommy Wars, Times and Seasons, Millennial Star, etc. I felt like a brilliant pioneer as I realized I could start my own personal blog to transition from writing a somewhat regular update/journal email to friends and family to a much more broad way to record my thoughts, my children's (and husband's) sayings and antics and photos with those who truly want to be part of it and can do it on their schedule. Then to my amazement I discovered this whole individual/family blog thing not only already existed, it was this major sub-culture that had been going strong for quite sometime. There were cute backgrounds, slide shows, background music (which still scares the tar out of me EVERY time I go to a blog with music), sidebars features galore, give-aways, tags, etc.

Plus in a few clicks you can know everything there is to know about your 2nd grade bff or your husband's ex-girlfriend. Weird. Good weird or bad weird? That's a whole other issue, what are the rules? Where are the lines of propriety? Then, just when you're pretty sure you're writing to an audience of your faithful 5 commenters and therefore feeling pretty comfortable and safe in airing your every thought someone you kind of know makes a casual reference to one of your posts. At first you're kind of flattered and then you panic and wonder what you've written that could possibly be offensive or insensitive or something to people you had no idea read your blog.

I've decided that for me I love the access I get into the lives of those I love. Even my family and friends I see regularly, in some respects I know and see way more through their blogs than I do in their presence. And for those family and friends who I never see, it's invaluable. I love that I will have this record of these days with my little family. I love that I have this outlet for my thoughts and feelings as I navigate the ups and downs of motherhood and life in general. I love the rare occasions when there are no misspelled words when I spell check. I love when I get through the word verification letters on my first try.

However, I still struggle to know where the lines are, how much time is too much time to spend posting and reading? Do I want to belong to the "blogging community"? Are comments a healthy way to get some validation or just another popularity contest? Am I endangering or humiliating my children? Am I always true to myself and my family when I post or do I sometimes play to the audience? Have any of you come any conclusions you'd care to share?

4th of July and More

cousins Noah, Jonathan, Ethan

I've got to catch up here. We had such a fun 4th of July; however, we grabbed the old broken camera (which I keep on hand for Ben to play with) and so I didn't get ANY pictures of our festivities. My cousin let me take some with hers so when she emails them I'll post them. Anyway, we got up and did our chores, packed up and went to our neighboring town's parade.


I have realized that the parade actually isn't an amazing parade in that there are really very few floats. It's mainly 1,407 emergency vehicles with sirens blaring and unsung heroes in fancy cars and local business owners in some kind of truck. There are a few marching bands and cheerleaders etc. too. They all throw candy which is always fun and then after the parade part there's about an hours worth of huge trucks with huge tanks of water that come spray everyone they possibly can and then it turns into one big huge community water fight. Good times. We just love it. The water part got cut short this year due to some poor boy who fell off one of the trucks and got his leg run over.


It's just so much fun to sit and feel part of a community and visit with great company (two of my uncles and aunts and their families and my cousin and her family) and watch our kids love every minute. They had some of that yellow caution tape up in an attempt to keep the kids from going into the street. All of the kids went right under the tape and happily scrambled for candy. I noticed that Anna was a solitary figure behind the tape reaching for the rare piece of candy that got past the wall of kids way in front of her and then if she did she would give it to one of the littler kids who she felt bad for even though they were all getting plenty. We finally convinced her to get out there, but it about killed her. We heard ourselves saying all the wrong things, "Anna, just do it, everyone else is doing it." "Quit giving all of it away". Great parenting.


After the parade we went home for a little downtime. Bren and Ben napped, the other kids played, and I watched 2 more episodes of the "John Adams" series by HBO. So good! I love Abigail Adams, she is definitely one of my heroes and why I've always loved that name. I highly recommend the mini-series which I know has been released to buy on DVD, but not sure if you can rent it yet.

After our nice mellow time we went to a nearby park with some of our extended family. We cooked burgers and hotdogs, had some yummy sides and played and chatted a very pleasant evening away. When darkness set in Brennan and my uncle Mike hosted our own firework show which got really exciting when Brennan lit a fountain type firework to distract the onlookers while he lit and then threw at them a flower type firework (you know those ones that spin and fly all over). I think one sort of singed Tavin's (one of my cousins) shorts and maybe burnt his leg a tiny bit. Always good fun with Brennan. Ben wouldn't let me get him within about 200 yards of any type of firework. We enjoyed the display from a very safe distance. They finished just in time to watch the nearby amusement park firework display. Even though poor little Ben was completely spent by the time we got him home around 10:30, it was such a fun day and night. It's just a great family holiday and it always reminds me how blessed we are to live in this country. We love America!!!

Saturday we kind of lazed around and then put the house back together. Brennan and I went out with our good friends, the Beechers who are sadly moving away soon. We'll miss them so much.

Sunday we had a nice quiet day and after Church my parents came over for dinner. We always love having them and the kids were thrilled since they think the three weeks we don't go over to Grandpa and Grandma's for Sunday dinner is the most tragic thing EVER.

Today Anna had her first book club. She invited a couple of friends and had them each read one of her favorite Nancy Drew books. After having to postpone several times they finally met today. They were so cute because there were just three of these really good friends but they were being really formal and serious about it all. They discussed the book for quite some time and then I served dessert. They felt very grown up and it was so cute.

Lize, Abe and Belle came over too and I couldn't resist taking this picture. Oh she's so cute!

The Things They Say (and do)

This morning I went out to water my garden and shortly thereafter Nate came out. When he saw me he sternly said, "Mom, you can't just go outside without asking anyone!" It's good to be missed. Also, lately he's in that letter phase where he'll just list random letters and ask me what they spell. It's so confusing and frustrating for him when often I have to explain that those letters don't really spell a word. He also says, "Mom, can I have a B-R-E?" which can mean anything from an otter pop to a friend over and if I have to ask what he means it's highly offensive to him. We love Nate.

We have a song we like to sing along which goes "cool, cool water running down your face". Today Nate sang that very phrase and Abby said, "Nate, it's not 'cool, cool water!'" Nate and I both looked at her and asked what she thought it said, she was suddenly sheepish and giggled as she sang, "cuckoo, cuckoo wah-wah". We love Abby.

Ben is still very much attached to his "beep" (binky) and we've recently lost several and are down to one which is just asking for trouble. To remedy this precarious situation I bought a couple more the other day, but couldn't find his usual kind and the new ones are significantly smaller than he's used to. Today after a fruitless search for the "one" I gave him one of the new ones. He put it in his mouth and then immediately furrowed his brow and said, "MOM, not wuhking! (working)" He noticed the difference. We love Ben.

Anna and Chloe spent an entire afternoon dressing up themselves and my other kids. They also carefully applied make up to each other and Abigail and then had a photo shoot. We love Anna. Here are the results:

The sporty look

Working it

Can you see the coaching in the reflection?

Quite a team

working it, part II

model gone wild

a little coaching

note the wardrobe change on Ben.