Last Day of School

Yes, Mother's Day was wonderful. My family took extra good care of me. And our 13th anniversary was fantastic, my sweetie and I had a lovely day and we are loving taking care of each other. And I've been busy with a new calling and some service opportunities. And some of us had the barfs for a while which was way fun. And we've been attending talent shows, gymnastics performances and class plays which were very impressive and entertaining. And we have just been busy busy busy. But the big news is...

Last day of school.

Alana was puking last night so she is staying home from school today. More sad than a wet kitten.

Summer plans are looking good. Hopefully there will be beach adventures and pictures in the next little while. . .

Empty Nest and a LONG Story, but I'm due for one

So I'm allowed to write a long one because my sensor is out of town so he will just have to roll his eyes about it tomorrow. So, here's the low down. I am alone in my very quiet house. It is such a stark contrast from yesterday when there were seven little monkeys bouncing around, bedtime took forever! But it was fun. We had two extras, Sweet Benja and Baby Yubyub from North Carolina. Here is a long sub-story.

I love my brothers and sisters and I have lots and lots of them thanks to the wise choices they made of sweethearts. A couple of my sisters re-gifted brothers that I already had, but that's another story. I am looking forward to having a full and complete set in the near future (Nunu, Squid, Chris - I'm talking to you). But that is off subject (neener neener neener Ryan!). The point is, my sister Cory is AWESOME and I will now tell you a tale that will make you so very grateful for your own set of challenges and difficulties. So, Army sent my brother Jake off to play in the desert for a long time and get all hairy and dirty. Leaving sweet Cory with their four boys. They were floating along until a tornado hit their town, hard. Their house was mercifully fairly untouched considering just up the road people got full on instant sky lights (their roofs got ripped off) or their house just was obliterated. Great big trees snapped like toothpicks, etc. You know, biblical type destruction. That sweet family was living right though, they had their years supply and a generator and they were prepared and while the lack of power for four days was a bit of a downer, and the fact that her oldest had to be taken to the hospital a couple of times for barfing and barfing everything he thought about let alone ate did make the experience a bit more challenging; Cory sailed thru like a champ and seriously was wonderful. The dear girl made a pancake breakfast for the neighborhood the morning after the disaster to help lift spirits for goodness sake!! Then the next week the house was flooded by torrential rainfall. Seriously. Let's just look at it like, "Well, at least we can turn in all the insurance claims at the same time and deal with contractors all at once; like ripping off a huge festering bandaid" Which is pretty much how Cory saw it. By this time her Dad had decided she'd had enough so he flew out to help, he ended up taking her van and three youngest kids home with him to AZ while Cory stayed for the oldest to finish up the school year and get the house put back together. Then they'll fly home to AZ for the summer. The summer in AZ was always the plan but if it were me, I would have been home crying to my Mom and sitting in the pool after disaster #1. But that's just me. THEN, a few days after the flood and after the boys had been sent away (you know, like they did with the kids in London during WWII and they were being bombed so they sent them to the countryside) she had a natural gas leak in the house. She felt nauseous, tired and couldn't keep anything down then she smelled gas. . . She said as she laid on the front porch on a discarded and dirty mattress that had been wrecked by some natural disaster or another waiting for the emergency gas repair person, she had fleeting thoughts of testing the gas leak theory by simply lighting a match and tossing it in the house. But she was too nauseous and sick to put that theory to the test. I might have made the effort. The gas leak fixed, she returned to work repairing the house with a gusto and effort that is crazazy to imagine. The contractors who were repairing the roof had left some debris out front that had to be moved in order to secure the perimeter (Army wife and all) so she decided to move the stuff herself. She was almost done moving it all when she dropped a sheet of roofing plywood on her very own foot. Roofing plywood is not light. Of course nobody was around so she drove herself to the emergency room (no valet parking, if that isn't the biggest oversight in the universe. . .) and had a lovely visit to the hospital. I think I've lost count but it was possibly the third in as many weeks. The x-rays revealed no breaks but her foot is understandably painful. When we talked she was camped on the couch with Olive Garden take out, Almond Rocca and a superhero icepak on her foot. She planned to watch tv, not move, and possibly nap. I think it is a pretty good plan. Don't you?

So that's why I had Benja and Yubsie yesterday. They had a sleepover and it was lots of fun. Benja's twiner Grant stayed with other Grampa because he had a sad tummy. It was sad that we didn't have the full set, but they will come play with us again next week. I had to give them back this morning so the other side can play with them too. They are sweet kids. On the way home from the big drop-off I met up with my Mom and gave her her Mother's Day gift, got my grandmother's dry cleaning from Mom and took it to GG, and stopped at a couple of stores on the way home to get stuff for the camping trip because my wonderful Ryan took our boys to the Father Son's Campout tonight, my brother David went too with his two boys. They are going to have lots of fun. I hope nobody gets lost, but since I already had to chase after them with their bag of clothes. . . I'll be doing a lot of praying tonight. Amanda took two of my remaining girls to the movies and the last little person had an invite to a friend's birthday party leaving me alone. Able to finish a thought. Able to sit and eat a plate of spaghetti despite the shambles of a house I am in. It has been a good day.

Harvest

I found a little snap pea growing on our little plant that we grew from a seed. I ate it. There was another one a couple weeks ago and I ate that one too. I think maybe I should have showed it to the kids and let them eat one. Maybe next time if they are lucky.

Peter's Birthday, April Fools, Zoo Trip and Welcome Home Mom and Dad!

Lazy blogger that I am, here is the scoop on the latest events at our house. In no particular order. Peter turned three on Sunday! Yeah Peter! So while we watched Conference (which was wonderful) we celebrated Peter. I made him a birthday cake with cars.

See, Lightning drove off the road and into the rosemary cactus and Mater had to tow him out, Sally and Sarge are looking on and there's a tractor nearby. Good stuff. Pete loved it and it was all eaten within hours even though there were black beans pureed in the batter to replace the oil. It is seriously way yummier that way.


He is happy to be three and he is getting to be more and more fun.


For April Fool's we invited family and friends over for a special dinner. We set up tables in the park and Ryan drove the guests over in the golf cart after they had their appetizers which were meringue with pudding on top, meant to look like eggs. They tasted good though. . .


They were slightly disoriented when they were told that their table was ready and they were taken to the garage and driven around the corner and thru the gap in the park fence, but they liked it a lot. Dinner was yummy but not super tricky, oh well. It was a lot of fun to visit with everyone and get people together. It was really nice out too. I'm loving having a park in the back yard.

And yesterday, Tessa's class went on a field trip to the zoo.

This makes the third fieldtrip to the zoo this year for me.

Only Leah's class hasn't gone yet. In order for me to not be recognized by the bus driver again I drove over in the car so Peter could go with us. He had fun and the kids had a great time. We saw everything but the zebras. Not too shabby.


Also, in my laziness I have neglected to announce that My Parents Are Back! They've been home for a couple weeks now and it has been lovely to have them home. We had a big party with all sisters at GG's, my Aunt and Uncle and some cousins came too which was really fun. I failed to get sufficient pictures of that occasion as well. Argh. But here are all grandkids but two. Which ones are missing?

I'm glad they are home and I'm excited to go fabric shopping with Mom and Linz tomorrow.

P.S. Lindsey has a bun in the oven!

Family Pictures!

For one of my Christmas gifts Ryan gave me a photography session with award winning photographer, Arnon Livingstone! I was very very excited about this gift and it took a while for the planets to align in such a way that we could make it happen. But last week it did!

The girls wanted to be Charlie's Angels which went well with Tessa's "Farrah Hair", she's requested Farrah-Do's the past several times we've done her hair.

The pictures I'm putting up for your viewing pleasure are actually my second round picks. If you want to see the first round you'll just have to come over and look at our walls :)

Peter had a sore under his nose, not to worry, Arnon has a wonderful photoshop program and we are working on it.
He was a bit of a pill that day. In my defense I tried mightily to get him to take a nap before the event but instead he decided to throw a vicious fit in the car on the way there and fall asleep mid-fit to be awakened sweaty and unsatisfied and be made to smile for the birdie. We will be retaking his individual shots :)

Come on. She is too pretty.
Pickles.

Bug didn't have a bad picture. She is going to be a problem.

He is getting too old and tall and grown up. I had to remind him that he was four pounds ten ounces when I first met him and that he and I were the best of friends. We still are.

This one is actually a third round pick. This was taken while Pete was still in the hitting mode and we were all just trying to stay clear of him.

Come over to see the final cut, but give me a few days, I sort of still haven't ordered them yet. . .

funnies

All this was said this morning as we were getting ready for church.

J: Alana's hair is longer than Tessa's.

T: It's because my neck is longer. Look how long my neck is. . .

T: How old will I be when I get a phone?

M: I was 33 when I got my first phone (*Just a couple of weeks ago :))

A: I want one when I am 33.

T: I want one when I am 12.

A: You will get one before me.

(she is super good at math ;) )

T: Mom, did you have phones when you were a little girl?

M: Yes, but they were attached to the wall, and they had cords and we had to walk to them and stay there to talk and sometimes we would get tangled up in the cords.

T: Did they have that funny shape where they curved around and went from your ear to your mouth?

M: Yep.

T: Weird.

Welcome Home!

Our Squid completed his mission in Washington and returned home! There were about 50 of us waiting at the airport for his plane, balloons, signs, and many many children. Thankfully his flight came to terminal 2 which is the least busy terminal. We did get a lot of funny looks as we waited for him to appear. It was a sweet experience, you can see from the picture that Jeff and Leah both were a bit teary, I was too. Justy is a good boy.

We had lots of fun with him for the 10 days he was home then he drove off to the snow and wonders of BYU, he's started classes and is back in the game. I told him he has to find a wife from AZ so we don't have to share him with another state (I'm talking to you Katie, Kent is nice and all but Iowa? Seriously?!), and she has to be from the Phoenix Metro area because people tromping off to southern AZ every other weekend is lame (I'm talking about you Jess, Mitch is okay, but those St David trips are wearing on my nerves, just tell his fam to move in with you, your palace is big enough.) But really, the Phoenix Metro area is pretty big, whenever Jake and Cory are here they have to split their time between here and Mesa so. . . how about if you just find a nice Glendale girl. Or better yet, an orphan! I'll put an ad on Craigslist.

In other news, my dear parents finished up their mission in Montreal yesterday and have begun the arduous journey home. They made it to Kingston, NY last night and I will be closely tracking their progress. They've promised it will take them all month but it is cold out there in the world and I'm hoping they decide to just power thru and ditch all the people they promised to visit on the way back and come home. I miss my Mom and Dad.

I'm grateful for these wonderful people and their examples of service and selflessness. They rock.