The Apprentice

Remember this post?
Well, we have slightly reformed our chore evader.  He has learned to respect the doubly powerful motivators of wii and weekly allowance.  It's amazing what 15 minutes of game time and $1 a week will do.


Now, his little brother is tagging along, learning the ins-and-outs of doing chores.  If only sibling influence always worked that way....

Blue & Gold Dinner

Micah was assigned to make a cake at his cowboy-themed blue & gold cub scout dinner.  From scratch (and with a little help), he created a peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting, peanut butter crumble topping & a pretzel log cabin on top.  It was yummy.  And he made a good-looking cowboy!  :)

Micah is such a wonderful son.  He loves working outside and always chooses the time and labor-intensive outdoor chore cards when he gets the chance.  He also makes sure to check on the chickens and whether I have left any water running outside (which happens fairly often because we're watering everything with hoses since we have no automatic irrigation here.  On our 2.6 acres.  Getting ourselves properly irrigated is on the list, right after installing animal fencing!)  :)

Anyway, we love Micah.  He's easy-going, happy and has a great sense of humor.  Such a fun kid!

Making Do

When your life is packed away in a storage unit, a maze of boxes stacked several feet in the air, you learn to get creative for seasonal decorations.  While we were on our second rental house, Christmas approached.  I couldn’t bring myself to sort through boxes upon boxes, knowing we would just be moving into our own house a few weeks later.  So my children cut out paper circles and decorated them with a variety of tempera paints.  

It was an enjoyable art project, and I thought, in the years to come, it would bring back of memories of the time when we lived in Limbo.

(See the box in the background?  That's what Limbo looks like.)

In the end, a new friend handed down some Christmas decorations of her own.  They were prettier, and a sweet reminder that the kind of people who take time to think about others still exist.

Our paper decorations are still patiently sitting in a box, waiting for me to punch holes and thread ribbon hangers through them.  And I will, so that we can use a few to remind us of our year-long journey to our new home.  

Prom

When I was in high school, I didn't go on a lot of dates.  (The guys, I'm sure, were intimidated by my good looks and sparkling personality.)  But I did go on a double date to our neighboring high school's prom.  To say that dance was awkward would be a bit of an understatement.  My date seemed equally inexperienced, and it made for a stiff evening.  He shadowed our friends, didn't really talk much, and made the deacon shuffle look smooth and rhythmic (but not because he was doing it).  That is, until the final song of prom.  Between the chords and lyrics of "Stayin' Alive," something crazy was unleashed right before my awe-filled eyes.  Arms were thrown around in a disco frenzy, hips followed suit, and beads of sweat clearly testified to the power of the Bee Gees.  It was awesome.  And then, as the last note faded into the distance, the crazy beast was quickly stuffed back into his tux and the night continued just as awkwardly as before.

A couple weeks ago, Clint's principal assigned him to be a chaperone at prom.  I saw it as an opportunity to redeem all but that last song of prom, and pre-emptively invited myself.  (For the record, I'm pretty sure I was going to be invited.  But I didn't want to take any chances.  It has, after all, been 20 years since my last prom.  Ya.  20.)  We scrounged up some suitable clothing, arranged for babysitting, showered and did our (?) hair for the occasion.  Truth be told, I even painted my fingernails.  Then, we climbed into our 15-passenger van (nothing but the best, baby), and were on our way.

Ahm... kids don't dance the same way anymore.  Deacon shuffle?  Disco?  Facing your date?  Totally unheard of moves.  Instead... well, this is a family blog, so I won't describe what we were subjected to for a very long evening.

Along with another teacher/wife couple, ours was the task of making sure the dancing didn't get too out-of-control.  When I noticed some especially friendly dancing, I would smile at the couple in the most motherly way I could muster.  If that didn't work (it turned out to be semi-effective), we tried to make them uncomfortable by getting closer to them (Hey, guys.  How's it going?).  Once, Clint had to ask a couple to cool it.  (They took it all right in that they didn't throttle the algebra teacher.)

Finally, our prom duties fulfilled, the last song ended and we were sent on our way.  I walked to the parking lot full of gratitude that, eons ago, I had an awkward prom.  What the world needs is more awkward proms.  But not when you go again with your sweetheart.  Although a tiny bit disappointed that he did not perform to "Stayin' Alive," it was still nice just to be together.

Me and the Mr. after a long night of prom-chaperoning

He didn't have time to shave, but that's okay because I think his scruff is kinda sexy.  (Just don't tell him I said so because it can be a little uncomfortable too, sometimes.)

Good night kiss and we were ready to hit the sack.  (And, yes, it looks like we missed.  It was very late at night.  Old fogies... that's what we are.)

I am still alive

Although I've practically killed this blog, I am still alive.  The neglect has been largely due to our move, then taking a while to figure out internet in our rural location, and finally blogging falling lower on my list.

We had a nice visit with my parents last week.  It was their first time seeing us in our new town and in our new home.  We took them to the nearby Celtic Faire.  I was super excited to take my kids to this.  I love history, field trips and spending time with visitors.  Mix it all together and you can't miss, right?  Well, my sweeties didn't tell me until we were loading back up after the fair that they were NOT excited to go!!  They also said it turned out to be the best field trip of their lives, though.  Good for them for getting dragged along good-naturedly and then staying open-minded enough to enjoy themselves!

Little chain mail, anyone?

Asher in a too-big helmet

Jonah's sword-fighting lesson landed him in the local paper.  Front page.  We're so proud.  ;)

Gabe had the time of his life fighting bad guys with slings, swords and javelins.  Made the 10-minutes solid of holding his hand straight in the air to be selected well worth it.  He was the only kid waiting for a turn, but wanted to be sure he wasn't overlooked.  So cute.

Micah enjoying a game of chess

Hello, Parrot.

And the princess makes an appearance.

Throwing in a random shot of basketball, because it's what we've been living and breathing these past months.  

Out of the mouth of babes

Preschoolers have a way of keeping their parents humble.  Some more than others.  Or, at least, that's been my experience.  Right now, I am raising a preschooler that does a very good job of making sure the fact that I've done this three times before doesn't go to my head.  And, even as I furrow my brow and shake my head from side to side, I love him for it.

Last week, he accompanied me to the grocery store.  It was a rare treat, just the two of us.  Plus, he had successfully talked me out of green beans and into corn for dinner, so things were looking good in his world.  They were about to get a wholeheckuva lot better.  No sooner had we exited the glass doors of Save-mart than he exclaimed, "WOW!!  THAT.IS.SOOO.COOL!!!!!!  I've never seen that before!!"  Then, while looking all gaga-eyed at the fire stick-eating woman exhaling smoke before his very eyes, he gushed, "You.are.so.cool!"

What can I say?  The boy's lived in Utah a while and apparently has never noticed a person smoking a cigarette.

As I yanked him away, he laid out his new-found life's ambition, that of becoming a fire-stick eating, smoke-exhaling man himself one day.  The gushing and planning continued as we got into the car, drove away, and picked up Autumn from a friend's house.  Then, because I love my son and don't dream of black lungs, hacking coughs, Nicotine patches, cancer or emphysema for him, I explained the harsh reality to him.  It took some convincing, but he finally began to understand that fire sticks aren't quite as cool as he thought.

Tonight, I took him and his older brother Christmas shopping for their siblings.  Gifts were purchased, Christmas lists expanded, and then we stepped out into the chilly night air.  No sooner had we exited the glass doors of Kohl's than he turned to me and exclaimed, "She could DIE!!"  And, wanting to make sure his warning wasn't given in vain, he looked the new firestick-eating woman exhaling smoke in the face and shouted, "YOU.COULD.DIIIIIIIIIE!!!!!!!!!"

Well, that lesson stuck.  So, onto the next store we went.

Just kidding.  Feeling like I could die, I again yanked him away, scolding him for what was really a warning offered out of concern for a stranger.  After explaining that he wasn't in trouble and I knew he was just trying to help, I also offered the insight that the woman didn't want to hear that she could die; that she already knew smoking wasn't healthy, and it wasn't polite to talk to her about it.  I hope she was as engrossed in her cell phone conversation as she seemed, but I'm not sure anyone could have missed my little guy's concern.

You really can't stay too proud being a parent.  I'm sure every parent's felt it a thousand times over, whether we're drenched in baby puke,  embarrassed by the confessions of a talkative preschooler or shunned by a too-cool teenager.  This raising kids stuff just isn't for the faint of heart.  But, oh, how we love them for it.

Halloween

On Halloween, we took a field trip to the pumpkin patch.  Which really just turned out to be a trip to the pumpkin patch, because no one else showed.  And the lady wanted to charge me for the whole group in order to give her lesson.  But we had fun, and picked out pumpkins which we carved later in the afternoon.

Then the kids put their costumes on.  I think this illustrates pretty well when Halloween costumes turn from cute to scary.  The big boys definitely lean toward the scary now.

Then we headed over to the local senior center for the first round (but really round 2 if you count the church trunk-or-treat 2 nights earlier) of trick-or-treating.  I made it halfway through the line of seniors, all gussied up and mostly smiling ear-to-ear at the littles coming to visit them in their dress-ups, before the tears started freely flowing.  It was a very sweet way to trick-or-treat, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has a senior center nearby that does something similar.  Service, easy trick-or-treating, and just a generally good thing!

My three older kids were touched, and told me they enjoyed the experience more than regular trick-or-treating.

The home turned it into a Halloween carnival and we had fun playing games and watching a magic show, too.  Thanks for inviting us along, Davises!!

Afterward, we loaded the kids up and took them door-to-door until their bags were dragging on the ground, they were so full of Halloween goodness.  Then home for sorting, tallying and sampling.  Followed the next morning with bar & pie graphing (had to squeeze educational value in), and finally trading.