The Bits: January 6th Through January 19th

Lazy me equals many Bits:

Last Saturday afternoon, I couldn't resist the draw of the premiere 2-hour episode of Downton Abbey's fourth season.  I tried!  But I knew it was there, and I couldn't help myself!  So while the boys had a little afternoon screen time, I caught about 45 minutes of it.  It's not like turning it off midway was any more difficult than watching an entire episode through though, no matter how much or little you see, Downton always leaves you wanting more.

Zac and Ben returned from skiing/snowboarding last Saturday night looking exactly like they had just spent a perfect, dreamy day on the mountain: messy hat/helmet head, rosy cheeks, huge grins, sleepy eyes.

One of the jobs I took on for the PTO this year was committee member for the Lynx Laps annual fundraising run that takes place in February.  This is an event where the kids get to run laps around our school's circular hallway (usually it's walk only!) and they take pledges for the number of laps they plan to run.  I was given the assignment of dropping off donation letters to some of our local businesses to help defray the costs of putting the fundraiser on, so that all the money we raise can go directly to the school instead of paying for fundraiser expenses.  Money solicitation was not a role I would have chosen, but I guess it is sometimes good to stretch our comfort zone, so on the last day before the kids went back to school I left Zac in charge and made my letter deliveries.

Ben doesn't know the meaning of the word "boredom."  When he starts to feel too idle, he always finds something to do, like trying out an experiment from one of our Steve Spangler science books.  Fortunately, he's pretty good about cleaning up after himself, too.

I'm pretty sure that the second we turn the lights out and leave the room after bedtime tuck-in, Tommy gets up and gets into his sock drawer.  It's like he's biding his time until we are gone so he can finally play with socks.  Socks.  OK.  There are worse things, I suppose.  In the morning, I usually find several unpaired pairs on the bed or scattered on the floor, some on his stuffed animals, some on his hands, and some on his feet, even if he's already wearing footie jammies.

Thursday morning of last week, the kids reluctantly returned to school after the Christmas break.  I was ready for them to be back in school, and they were too, given the level of annoyance with one another that had been reached in the earlier part of the week.  But I was not quite ready to be slave to the schedule once again.

Last Thursday night, Adam and I stayed up past midnight, hoping to catch a glimpse of some Colorado Aurora Borealis after an early-week major sun storm, but other than a lovely shooting star we happened to see, it was a regular quiet night.  It was nice snuggling together in our fleece blankets in the cold, quiet night though, so I can't complain.

Tommy loves the Franklin the Turtle books right now.  Friday morning we sat and read our entire set.

Last Friday night was not a great night with Luke.  I am not a yeller, but this night, events converged to create the perfect storm.  I was tired and hungry, grouchy and impatient, frustrated and disappointed, and Luke was in rare tantrum, all-about-me form.  And I just lost my cool.  There was yelling and door slamming and crying (all of those from both of us).  Even though the battle was between Luke and I, all the boys were upset.  Ben even texted Adam to ask him when he was going to be home from work.  I ended up feeling terrible, sick to my stomach and couldn't get past the stupidity of my own temper tantrum in response to Luke's.  Adam joked that if I just yelled more, it wouldn't be so traumatic when I did.  Haha!  After I had reconnected to my sane self, done my best to smooth things over with everyone and move on in a productive way (because what was going on before was in no way productive), Zac, who knew I felt like a horrible mother, sent me this text.  It made my terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day brighter.  What a sweet boy!

First it's soccer season, then it's indoor soccer season, then it's futsal season...then we go back to soccer season.  There are no longer breaks, like once upon a time.  Futsal is fast and fun, and inside, so at least we are warm and out of the wind.

The past couple of weeks, Luke has been excited about helping around the house, offering to help with jobs without being asked and do his assigned jobs without a fuss.  It is pretty fantastic and we are enjoying it while it lasts!

We have some really fun missionaries in our ward right now, Elder Hansen and Elder Rich.  You can tell they have fun together as companions, and are both really funny and friendly guys.  They love to sing, and Elder Hansen plays the ukulele, so when we have them for dinner there is always a show included.  The boys are so excited when they come to our house and always go a little crazy with the showing off for the first 20 minutes of their visit.  We are sure going to miss them when it's time for them to move on!

I cannot help it.  I love this view!

Why we buy actual toys, I do not know.  This box has provided hours of fun.  Seriously.  Hours.  Second only in entertainment value to the ping pong table.

Adam and I realized just this week that our drivers licenses had expired on our birthdays last year.  Oops!  And wow.  We've lived here for a long time!  Monday, we went to the DMV for renewal, just in time for Adam to get legit again before his flight to Portland.  Bad news: you have to wait for your new license to come in the mail.  Good news: he has a passport too, or it could have been a challenge to fly out!

There is only one perk I can think of to Adam traveling for work: cereal for dinner.  Oh, well, maybe two: being able to watch "my" shows without commentary.  Which I did while eating my Corn Flakes.

What a happy surprise!  A box of adorable, comfortable, perfect Lululemon workout gear for Adam and I from Ashley, Adam's sis who is a store manager for Lululemon in Washington!  We can now officially be part of the greater Conlin family, because I am pretty sure we were not "official" before we had our own Lulu.

The sunrises have been gorgeous these January days.

The sunsets don't like being shown up by the sunrises, so they've been extra amazing too.  I mean, COME ON!  Look at that!!!

Tuesday, Luke had his first day of chess club.  He had been so excited!  Unfortunately, I forgot that he had it that day, and so I didn't prepare him before school that he'd be staying after school.  When I arrived at pick-up, he was really upset and wanted to go home.  His poor teacher gave me that, "Sorry, I tried," look.  Oh dear.  Luke is not one for unexpected or last-minute changes.  We went to the club together, and I tried to get him to settle in, but it took a long time for him to calm down.  After watching from the sidelines with me for awhile and having Josh, who was not signed up, stay for chess club too, he agreed to stay.  When I returned to pick the boys up 30 minutes after finally being able to leave, he was happy and had loved it.  Next Tuesday, I will have to remember before he leaves for school for the day, so he has a heads-up!

Awww!  He has his mother's eyes!  My quirky ability to move my eyeballs independently of each other has seemed to pass on to our dear Lukey.

Minecraft is huge in our house right now.  All the boys have been linking up and playing games together, which makes their obsession feel a little less annoying, plus it is a game that requires thought and planning, so it could be worse.  Tommy and Luke love it so much, that apparently they can't even waste the time to find a comfortable spot to sit, as I found them on the stairs the other day.  They must play as soon as permission is given to turn on the devices!  Tommy's favorite part is "Mr. Chicken."  Everything he does in his game is to benefit or entertain Mr. Chicken.

This is the view from the window of the office where Adam worked all week in Beaverton, Oregon, where his company, Tektronix, is located.  It's not awesome for any of us when he has to travel.  We miss the guy a ton!  But at least it isn't soccer season.  That's when the word "travel" becomes a curse word in our home.

Almost every day Tommy asks if we can paint rocks.  Which we often do.  I don't remember what got him hooked on rock-painting, but his painted rock collection is quite extensive these days.  Sometimes we go crazy and paint paper, like we did on Wednesday.  The scene in the lower left I entitled "Where I Wish I Was."  It's always a long week with Dad gone.

Most days this is all I need to tame the boys' hair: a spray bottle and a brush.  It's definitely one of the perks of having all boys, especially since I am terrible at styling girl hair.  I still remember taking 45 minutes working on my friend Jen's daughter's hair, and ending up with a sorry-looking half-ponytail in the end.  Truth: most dads would put me to shame.

When we first moved to Colorado Springs there was this sign on one of the streets that said, "Tree City."  Ummmm....  Coming from Western Washington, that was pretty laughable.  There are not a lot of trees here at all, which I don't love.  But one of the nice things about the minimal number of trees is that we can see the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, as well as the rise of the gorgeous full moon, without having to be perched on a view hill.  The full moon in January is called, "The Wolf Moon." and the boys and I were thinking that if we were wolves, we would have very much liked to howl at it.

This chocolate-banana-peanut-butter-flax-chia smoothie is my breakfast pretty much every morning (and if I don't have it for breakfast, I try to get it in for a lunch or large snack, because I love it so much).

Friday and Saturday I was able to spend a lot of time with my dear friend, Adri, chatting and catching up on Downton, while baking and decorating these darling bite-sized brownies for a wedding reception on Saturday night.  Baking, Adri and Downton: pretty much my favorite way to spend my time.  Although, by the time Adam and I attended the reception, I had a piece of cake instead, because I had OD'ed on brownies.

Saturday, Josh was invited to participate in one of the YMCA mini-swim meets for the first time since starting his swim team experience in the fall.  These meets are against teams from other YMCAs in the area.  He had so much fun!  He swam the 50m breaststroke in 1:16, and the 50m backstroke in 56 seconds, finishing first in his heat.  His coach gives the kids rubber ducks for winning their heats, so Josh was awarded a lovely green ducky, of which he is so proud.  We told him the best thing about playing an individual sport like swimming is that he only has to work on beating himself, which I think really appeals to Josh's non-competitive personality.

Our Saturdays are rarely restful.  After the meet, we dashed to the indoor soccer facility and watched Ben play in a nail-biter futsal game.  They ended up winning 10-9; Ben with 4 goals and a lot of great defense against one of the other team's toughest players, and an ex-teammate of his named Hudson.  We are pretty sure we are going to see Hudson on a pro-soccer team roster sometime in the future, so we've got to record Ben's stellar performance against him now! :)

Josh taught Tommy and Luke to rollerblade using PVC pipes as support poles to help them keep their balance.  All his idea.  Genius!  And so nice.

Pizza night!  Who needs Borriello Brothers when we've got Dad?!

Our two teams are playing in the Division Playoffs today!  We've already watched the Broncos destroy the Patriots (WOOT WOOT!)...now...LET'S GO SEAHAWKS!!  We would love nothing better than to cheer on BOTH teams as they face-off in the Superbowl.  We see it as a win-win for us.  Although, we have to admit that our hearts truly belong a bit more to our Seahawks.  **Addendum: THEY WON!  Super Bowl XLVIII Broncos v. Seahawks is on!  YEAH!