Sunday, July 20, 2014

Beach day…finally!

Somehow the summer got away from me, and I hate to say that we didn’t go to the beach ONE time.  There were plenty of other fun things we did, but that wasn’t one of them.  And I feel bad about that since there are so many great beaches around here, and I denied my kids the beach experience!  I won’t blame it all on Peter, but with a two-nap kid, we were kinda chained to the house to a certain degree.  Daily schedule:  get up, feed everyone breakfast, get everyone ready, time for morning nap, nap ends, feed everyone lunch, run a few quick errands, back home for afternoon nap, nap ends, time for dinner, jammies, and bedtime.  It’s OK for Peter to skip a nap now and then, but for the most part, I’m pretty adamant that naps happen. 

Anyway, that’s a long excuse for why we didn’t go to the beach this summer, but I partially redeemed myself by taking the kids one afternoon the week after school started.  The following unseasonably-hot Wednesday after Seth got home from early release school, I had everything packed and we headed to Newcastle Beach Park.  Despite the chilly lake water (it’s never really WARM), the kids had a blast, and so did I.  I promise right now that we’ll go much more often next summer!

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Our budding civil engineer made an impressive network of water canals.

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Happy end-of-summer and back-to-school!  This is one of about 30 attempts at a picture together.  I sure do love how they play together.  We celebrated on the way home with a McDonald’s ice cream cone, and Peter fell asleep in the car.  After all, it was time for his afternoon nap.  :-)

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Back to school 2013

First day of school for Seth and Lydia.  They’re excited to go back to school (and I don’t feel guilty admitting that I’m excited too).

IMG_7903IMG_7907Bus stop boys Spencer, Aiden, Seth, Damion

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Lydia is at a new preschool instead of the in-home one she attended last year at Miss Tammy’s.  She liked it there, but we wanted her to be in a classroom setting to transition into kindergarten next year.  She feels like a big girl going off to school.

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Since I didn’t have my camera on Lydia’s first day of preschool, here are a few snapshots of her second day:

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Concentrating so intently!

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1 – Seth and Lydia entertain themselves by doing stuff to Peter like putting his socks on his hands and watching what he does.

2 – Seth lost his second tooth and wrote a note to the tooth fairy.  Background:  he actually lost his tooth 2 days ago, but the first night, the tooth fairy was running behind schedule and didn’t make it to our house.  In his own spelling:  “Dear tooth fairy  Please rememder to check for my tooth and please leve me a present or a coin and I will take good cear of my teeth.”

3 – I finished 30 crayon rolls for a preschool teacher who wanted to give one to each of her little students.

4 – Look in the bottom right part of the picture to see a hummingbird approaching our feeder.  We have so many!  Never mind the bugs in the feeder.  I know that’s so gross, but somehow the earwigs find their way in and then drown.  Any tips for keeping them out??

5 – Beautiful roses brought to me by my new camp friend Jen when we invited her family over for dinner.

6 – We finally got our congratulatory note for Peter’s birth from the White House.  “Welcome to the world!  Your arrival is a cause for great celebration for your proud family.  We wish you a long and happy life filled with chances to learn, ideas to explore, people to love, and dreams to fulfill.  Sincerely, Barak Obama & Michelle Obama”  I’ve gotten one of these for each of the kids when they were born, and honestly I held off sending Peter’s birth announcement in hopes of getting a note from President Mitt Romney (that has a nice ring to it), but this will do as a baby memento.

7 – Matt comes home sometimes for lunch, and Peter likes to stand at the front window to watch his dad drive away.

8 – The sign of a fun summer day outside…dirty marks on Lydia’s feet from her sandal straps.

9 – Almost done sewing my quilt top of Great-Granny Squares.  This is the 49th of 56 squares.

10 – I can’t resist this little cutie.  Check out those eyelashes!  He was playing with some of Seth’s legos, and whenever he dropped them or broke them apart, he’d say his newest word “Uh-oh!”

11 – Two little apples on our Jonagold tree.  Yay!

12 – Lydia is the best and most adventurous eater at dinner.  She usually asks for things Seth wouldn’t touch, like salsa or avocados or pickles or salad or more chicken.  Of course, it doesn’t take much coaxing to get her to eat a bowl of ice cream for dessert.

YW Camp 2013

I was asked to volunteer at Stake Girls’ Camp by helping in the kitchen.  That meant stocking food baskets for ten camping units at each meal for them to prepare, and preparing the meal itself for the stake leaders, stake staff, and 6th & 7th year girls in “head shed.”  All in all, there were about 230 people in attendance.  headshed Here’s all the stake staff.  Can you tell this was the first day?  We’re all clean, smiling, rested, non-sunburned, and non-mosquito-bitten.

I knew it would be a lot of work because I’d helped with the food for Mom’s quilt retreat, and I knew at camp I would be helping cook for a lot more people, and the cooking would be done outside on camp stoves and dutch ovens.  About halfway through the week, we laughed every time someone would tell us we had the hardest job at camp.  It became our inside joke, among other funny experiences.  Here was my home away from home for 6 days:

DSC04426DSC04416  Looks cozy, right?  We stapled up old thrift store sheets so we wouldn’t have to wonder what kind of bug would drop on our face at night.

 DSC04418 Our well-stocked and organized “pantry.”

 DSC04419Cute kitchen babes L to R:  Me, Pam, Pattie, Melanie, Jennifer (I made the aprons for us).  We had so much fun together.  I haven’t laughed that hard at dumb random stuff in a long time.  Love these ladies!

 DSC04420This seems like a weird photo, but I had to laugh about it, as it reminded me of my girls’ camp days.  At the beginning of the week, lots of the girls braid each other’s hair…and they don’t take the braids out ALL WEEK.  During devotionals and flag ceremonies, we sat behind these 7th year girls, and each day I witnessed the ever-growing halo of ratty hair  around their heads.  I totally remember doing that! Ha ha! 

I wish I’d taken photos of our kitchen because it was a pretty impressive setup.  Brother Richmond from our ward has been going to camp for 15 years, and he was a lifesaver!  The kitchen is made up of a few folding tables and a long countertop from his kitchen that he remodeled. 

I literally did NOT sit down all day long.  If I wanted a shower (which I very much did), I needed to get up at 4:45 am and walk to the showers.  As hard as it was to get out of bed, that was probably my favorite time of day.  Walking through the camp, with no one awake but me, and having only the light of the full moon to guide me down the road, I appreciated and recognized my purpose for being there.  It’s all about the girls and the growth they’re experiencing.  I was immensely impressed with their strength and kindness.  The theme was “Finding Precious Gems” to go along with the scripture “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” (D&C 18:10).  These girls are confident and certain of their worth.  I’m not sure I could have said the same about myself when I was their age.  The whole experience was touching, exhausting, awesome, stressful, amazing, uplifting, etc, etc...a bit of a rollercoaster it would seem.  But camp made a positive impact in one girl’s life, then my small contribution to the whole experience was worth it.

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Just look at me in this photo, and you can guess that this was the LAST day of camp.  This is my sweet friend Jen, whom I might never met if not for camp.  We made each other laugh, listened to each other complain, learned about each other’s family, and made it through the “hardest job at camp” together with smiles on our faces.  I’m personally thankful that camp gave me this gift.