Overheard

I was going downstairs and overheard Ryan and Tyler telling Eli that he should be so excited that the baby was going to be coming soon. Then one of them said, "And hopefully mom can stay in the hospital a long time." (What????)
Then, "Yeah, one time Jeanisha was so lucky, she got to stay there for a whole week." (That's lucky????)
Then: "The hospital has lots and lots of TV channels and when you go visit someone there, you can watch tons of different shows." "Yeah, it's awesome."
Okay, now it makes sense, it's not the new little sister they want to go see at the hospital, it's cable TV. And of course, I would want to stay there as long as possible with all those cool shows to watch. :) Sometimes their thought process just makes me laugh.

Where babies come from

Adam (4) was sitting with me tonight when Cumorah started moving a bunch and he watched my stomach bouncing around. Then he said, "I know how the baby got in your tummy."
Me: "Really, how?"
Adam: "It came down the chimney and then you swallowed it."
Me: "How did it get to the chimney?"
Adam: "Jesus or Heavenly Father brought it to the chimney and dropped it down."
Me: "How do you know?"
Adam: "I remember from when I was a baby."

So now you know. That's where a baby comes from.

PS As far as our resident baby ducks go, we've lost 2, so we are down to 7, but they are a ton of fun to watch. As long as Bella (d0g) and Lucy (cat) stay away, the mama duck will let me get right up close to the babies (especially if I bring out some bread).

Ups and Downs

In the past bit, we've had a bit of a roller coaster. Melynda and Eli were sealed to our family in the temple on May 15. That was a wonderful experience and it was neat to see all the kids dressed in white.

Then on May 28th Melynda turned 18, and on June 1st, she ran away. It has been a heart-breaking, frustrating couple of weeks. We know that she is now living with a friend in Twin and looking for a job. She took nothing with her and left very impulsively.

The kids are adjusting pretty well. And for the most part, Stephen and I are too. I have started having contractions easily and have to stop and sit or lay down frequently during the day. I'm only 32 weeks along, so this baby needs to wait a while longer.

Outside of the big stuff, we are enjoying regular summer activities. The kids are super excited today because we have 9 new baby ducks in our yard. We found the mother duck and the nest by accident around May 23rd when a basketball bounced over into the weeds by the fence. At the time, we didn't think the kids and dog and cat would leave her alone long enough to hatch the eggs. She had to sit on them for 30 days, which was a long time to not be bothered by the kids or their friends. I'm not sure when they hatched, but they are pretty tiny and today is the first day she's been away from the nest at all. (She's been "checked on" numerous times every day since she was discovered.) We fed her some bread and the kids filled up the wading pool and put it out on the basketball court so they will have water. From reading online, it looks like they may stick around for about 8 weeks until the babies can fly. It should be fun watching them grow!

No internet and Funny kids and school update

We went over 2 weeks without internet as we tried to find someone who could get a signal with all of the trees that surround our house. We ended up with DSL and wires. It was amazing in some ways how peaceful and how inconvenient it was. When my only option for checking email was an unsecured connection while the kids did track, and I had no printer, people just had to wait. There were lots of things that got put on hold, some of which probably won't make it back off hold. :) It was interesting how often at first, I would think, oh, I'll just go check that, look up that recipe, whatever, and not be able to. But usually I could find a similar recipe in a cookbook or find the number in the phone books that rarely get used. After the first week, it actually started to feel kind of nice. :) We've had internet for about a week now and I'm still working on getting all caught up. I didn't realize how much I relied on the internet for things like paying bills and school. It's so easy to just print off a worksheet on a topic that needs more review, but it's also easy to waste a lot of time browsing.

During that time, the kids made a couple of funny comments that I jotted down to record.

I was making peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch, and Adam pipes up, "I know where honey comes from." Me: "Really, where?" Adam: "Bees." Me: "And how do the bees get it?" Adam: "From the store."

Another day, Tyler had been outside working on sanding his pinewood derby car. He came into the kitchen where I was grinding wheat, making bread, and making pizza dough while spelling words for Jeanisha, helping Eli with math, answering Melynda's questions, and trying to keep Adam and Lincoln out of trouble as they "helped." He stood there watching for a minute or two and then he said, "Mom, since you are not doing anything right now, do you want a turn sanding my car." I can't imagine what my day would be like I was "doing something."

I also wanted to copy some of Jeanisha's kindergarten writing. I love when they are at the stage where they write with the phonetic spelling. Especially Jeanisha who writes much more than the boys did at her age. Today she was supposed to describe what she could see from the desk she was sitting in. She chose to describe the window.

it has scwirs. it is sefoor. it is rit in frunt of mi sid uv the desk.

Translated: It has squares. It is see through. It is right in front of my side of the desk.

She is still my workbook loving child and is determined that she will catch up to Tyler by the end of summer on math and writing. She sits and listens when I am teaching him and often surprises me by what she picks up. She's figured out multiplication and is starting to catch on to the two digit multiplication that Tyler is learning. It's nice to have one kid who is so easy to teach! She often has to be told to put the school books away on Sunday!

Ryan finishes 5th grade in public school on Wed. and is very excited to start homeschooling again. I was planning to let him start again after Memorial Day (we do light school all summer), but he was insistent that he should get to start on Thursday, the day after he gets out. He's been so excited about his algebra book that he's already done the first 10-15 lessons, for fun. (We use Life of Fred, and it really is a fun way to learn math.)He's enjoyed public school, but has missed being challenged and is excited to "learn something new again." He's helped pick out the books and topics for next year and is excited about being home. I think the main thing he will miss is choir and I'll be checking with the middle school about dual enrollment options for that for next year. Hopefully his enthusiasm will last for awhile!

Tyler is finishing 3rd grade and finally reached the point where he doesn't hate writing. It's still not his favorite, but it's not the battle it was. He is enjoying math for the most part, but generally just wants to get it done so he can go play outside or dig in the hole. Over spring break the kids dug a 6 foot deep hole what has continued to grow and get filled in and grow again. We've decided to bury the trampoline, so now they have a much bigger hole marked out and permission to expand their hole. Right now, it's about 8 feet in diameter, 4-6 feet deep. And if it takes all summer, that's fine. It is such a good project for them to learn to work together and to stick with it and just have fun. Every time friends come over, they go straight to the hole and spend a good bit of time digging.

Eli (1st grade) has made huge progress with school. In the fall, he didn't know all his letter sounds and couldn't count to 15. He's now up to grade level on math and reading phonics readers pretty well. He struggles with fluency and sight words and is still well below grade level with that, but his progress is really amazing. He's working on an animal book where he draws a picture of the animal, colors it, then copies 4-5 sentences below the picture. He is very proud of his book and how many pages he is getting in it.

Melynda is finishing up her junior year and has also done well. It's been a hard year for her academically as she's worked to fill in gaps from the past, especially with math. She is also learning to have higher expectations for herself and learning that she is smart enough to get good grades. She, like most high schoolers, is ready for a break and the fun activities coming this summer.

You either have to laugh or cry

Today I was at ShopKo with the 4 younger kids, basically killing time for 1 1/2 hours while the others were doing the testing for school. They had been mostly good, but Lincoln was a typical 2 year old pulling things off shelves into the cart anytime he could reach something. At one point, right near the end of our shopping trip, he grabbed a spatula set out of a bin. I pulled it out of his hands and tossed it back and said "No." Not a mad no, but a "I've had enough and you better knock it off" no. He knew he was in trouble and started to cry/throw a fit. I moved up to push the front cart with Adam in it, Jeanisha was pushing Lincoln right behind me, and Eli was walking right behind her. My cell phone rang. It was my friend who was just picking up her son from testing and I knew she would be updating me about whether my kids were done. As I'm talking to her, this really rude, obnoxious man, a total stranger, walks up to me and says (insert snappy tone), "Lady, don't you think you should stop yapping on your phone and take care of your kids. One of them is crying, in case you didn't notice."

I responded that he was throwing a fit because I had just taken something away from him. He responded, "I know, I saw that too, and you didn't handle that very well either. The way you took it away was unacceptable."

I was speechless. As he walked off, he muttered, loudly, "Some people just don't know how to be parents."


I just wanted to scream or at least think of a smart aleck comeback!!!! But now, a few hours later, it's quite funny. I'd love to trade him places for an hour or two (at the store) and see how he handles it!

Ultrasound Today

I had my 22 week ultrasound today and everything looks good with our little GIRL!!!!! She's due August 11th. We will probably name her Cumorah.

Highlights

So much has happened lately that I am just going to post some pictures and highlights. They will probably not be in any real order, just however I find them on the memory card. :) And each picture should probably have it's own post, but I just don't have time.


The kids have been in 2 plays with Missoula Children's Theatre. This picture shows Melynda as an Icicle marker and Jeanisha as a Dust Bunny in the Princess and the Pea. Then Eli was a bat in Snow White and the other kids were in the Pre-Show. Melynda as the wicked queen, Ryan and Tyler as dwarfs, and Jeanisha as Squeaker the mouse. They did great and had lots of fun. Missoula Children's Theatre comes to town with all the costumes and props and the kids try out on Monday, practice all week, and perform on the weekend. It's busy and crazy, but fun.



Then we went to McCall for the Winter Carnival. They make wonderful ice sculptures and we love to go see them. We found a fun hotel room with enough beds for the whole family in one room and had a blast!














Next came Adam's 4th Birthday with a party at Chuck E Cheese. He is such a great kid and so fun to be around. He's small for his age, and Lincoln is big, so we are asked CONSTANTLY if they are twins. He loves to play outside and with his brothers and to go feed the ducks at the Greenbelt. One of his favorite presents was 2 bags of stale hamburger buns and the promise to go feed ducks. He even wanted the greenbelt and ducks on his cake.


The next picture is one of many that Tyler set up to make a wonderful powerpoint book report on Charlotte's Web. I had originally asked him to set up one scene, but he was having so much fun it quickly evolved into about 20 scenes covering all the main points in the book.


Then came Melynda's first big day when the adoption was finalized and her name was legally changed forever. We went to court and the three of us were sworn in along with the caseworker and the judge made everything official. One of her favorite perks of being adopted is that now she can ride with someone under 18 (like home from mutual) and I don't have to get a copy of everyone's driver's license. Another important "perk" was that she could finally be baptized. She had taken the discussions from 3 awesome missionaries, Elder Blair from Arizona, Elder Itche-a-Ramon (from France and spelled totally wrong), and Elder Tomaz from Utah. We loved having them in our home every Sunday afternoon for about 6 weeks before her baptism and the spirit they brought. Elder Itche-at-Ramon left to go home right before she was baptized and Elder Blair was also on his way home and came with his parents.

The baptism itself was wonderful. I think the fact that she had wanted it so long made it extra meaningful. There was a huge turnout of friends, family, and ward members there to support her. (Thank you!) One of the most memorable things about the day was the squeal of excitement she gave as she came up out of the water. She was so excited, she just couldn't hold it in.

Eli's birthday fell that same weekend and for his party he wanted to go play at a McDonald's playland. Easy enough request! I think he's had withdrawals from McDonald's since coming to leave with us. He also wanted a pink snowman and flowers on his birthday cake. I had fun being creative and think it turned out great!



Since then, Melynda had a piano recital, of which I have no pictures, only a video that won't load, but she did great. Then Ryan had a choir concert (he also had a solo on the CD the school made and was very proud of that.)


Tyler and Stephen ran in the Mad Hatter relay. Each person runs 2 legs, 2 miles each. Tyler was the youngest racer, but they had lots of fun and took 3rd in the Men's division. As soon as they finished Tyler asked when they could race again. He loves running and is really good at it, especially long distances. 3-4 miles is easy and after a sip or two of gatorade, he's ready to go again. He's way faster than I am and keeps up pretty good with Stephen pacing him. Pretty good, especially when you figure he legs are half the length Stephen's are. Next is a Beat Coach Pete (from Boise State) 5K in April, and then either a 10K or Half Marathon in May. Stephen's planning to do the Half, but we'll see how Tyler does with training to see which he wants to do.



I think that about catches up the last couple months. At least the things I have pictures of. :) The kids are currently involved in lots of activities, (gymnastics, PE, track, karate, scouts. . . . ) and keeping me busy. We are also doing lots of yard work to tackle the overgrown yard-- but I have hundreds of bulbs coming up, so it should be pretty in spite of the neglect here soon. Eli's adoption should be finalized in April, we're just waiting for some last paperwork. Then he and Melynda will be able to get sealed to us in the temple. So, I'm sure the next few months with be just as busy, but I will try to post a little more often to record all the fun memories. :)