The Bits: May 1st Through May 7th

I'll try to keep up on the Bits a bit better...but no promises.  Life is busy for us all!

Happiness is getting a front-row parking spot at Costco on a rainy day.

Two trips to Costco in as many days, pantry shelves and two fridges stuffed full: I think I am finally equipped to feed 7 boys, plus Adam and I, for the next couple of weeks.  Along with Andi the dog came two of her human brothers, Jake and Bryson, who are living with us for the month of May while their family house hunts.

This is how our sweet Luke decompresses after testing day, in a quiet house with a good book, while his brothers noisily bounce on the tramp.

We remembered Josh's piano recital four minutes before it began, but we are speedy and arrived just in the nick of time.  Josh played beautifully!  We were most proud of his performance of "Pachelbel Canon," a difficult song which he chose from music he found in our piano bench, convinced his teacher that he could do, and practiced dutifully to master the song.  He played so well!  Here he's pictured with Marianne, his teacher and one of my young women, and also with his buddy, Ryan, a good friend from school who also takes lessons from Marianne.

Ram's first win!  Tommy was so happy!

It's lilac season and the world smells lovely!

Bruthas from anutha mutha...Jake is one of our two bonus boys for May.  They are enjoying this arrangement, and may soon start to finish each others' sentences.

Sunday twilight street football.  Here you can see Bryson, Jake's little brother, our other bonus boy for May.

Two years after having Tommy's second round of ear tubes put in, one of them had not healed its way out as it was supposed to, which is not surprising, because Tommy's body seems to like to do the unexpected.  Unfortunately, surgery was required to remove it.  On Monday morning, we woke up early for Tommy's quick and easy surgery.  Everything went really well and Tommy is now tube-free with a little patch in place that is supposed to help the hole left by the tube heal up.  The best part: watching Pokemon (banned at home) on his own personal TV.  The worst part: Mom having to watch him go under from the anesthesia.  awfulawfulawful. 

Tommy was pretty grumpy from the after-effects of the anesthesia and spent most of the day with this look on his face.  So sad!  When he finally perked up, we had to spend the afternoon vigilantly watching the trampoline, which is off-limits to him for at least a week, so he wouldn't try to sneak a jump with his brothers.

A weird/creepy souvenir from the anesthesiologist that Tommy carried around like a badge of honor for the rest of the day, telling everyone to smell its sweet strawberry scent.

Since his game on Saturday, Ben had been suffering from a low-grade headache that became worse with physical activity.  He had been nailed with a ball that was intended to be cleared down field, but went sailing into the side of his head only abut five feet away from where it had been booted by an opposing defender.  Tuesday morning we took him to the doctor, who diagnosed him with a mild concussion.  He said no mental or physical strain until the headaches subsided, and then a slow step up back to activity.  Ben said, "So, no school?"  I said, "That's not what he means, Ben."  The doc said, "Actually, it is.   No school until his headaches are gone."  He also said, "Concussions are the most boring thing an active kid can endure."  Which is 100% true.  No straining his eyes or his mind, which means no screens, no reading, no catching up on homework, nothing to stretch his mind at all.  Poor buddy!  And pretty scary stuff! 

So, it's been kind of a cruddy week.  Surgery, concussion, and...fever.  Sunday, Josh came down with a fever and a wracking cough.  It lasted three days, and although he went back to school on the fourth day, because the fever was gone, he was dragging.  Our poor, sweet Josh!  He is so hardy, he never really gets sick, and this was a bad one.  It really took him out.  And to top it off, he shared it with Ben, so now we can't tell if Ben has a headache because he's concussed or because he's fevered.  I hope it's the latter. 

Tuesday night, I was in charge of our ward's Senior Recognition night.  I think it came together to be a lovely night, filled with just the right amount of laughter and tears.  We only have one young woman graduating with a group of six young men, but she's a pretty special girl; her faith and integrity are a source of unwavering strength for us all.  Jessie is going to leave a big hole in our hearts when she leaves us! 

Even with all of his restrictions, it is not surprising that Ben still finds fun things to do.  He's already listened to two audiobooks and built a kiragami bowl using over 200 folded paper triangles.  This was before the fever hit, which now has him kind of sleepy all the time, and wanting to take a lot of baths.

A stunning storm front plows into our area.  Our monsoon season seems to have hit early this year with thunderstorms and rain nearly every day.  I love it!  Soccer coaches don't.

Tommy checking out how deep our "moat" is during an afternoon storm.  When he first asked if he could go see our moat, I wasn't sure what he was talking about, then he explained that it was where the water flows in front of our house.  Ah!  The gutter!  I guess our home IS our castle!  Speaking of castles, the other day we decided to watch a Disney movie and Tommy hurried to turned it on for us.  When I sat down next to him he said, "Don't worry, Mom, you only missed the temple part."  Huh?  Then I realized it was the part at the beginning of Disney movies where the outline of the Sleeping Beauty Castle is drawn above the word "Disney."  Haha!  Love his Tommyisms!

MEGA HAIL STORM!  This is the biggest hail storm we've ever seen in our seven years living here in The Springs, and we've had some big ones.  It came in and just went on and on.  Thunder, lightening, hail dumping in buckets for a good long while.  By the end, there were four inches of hail on the roads, even the hail rivers had become too clogged with hail to flow.  The kids were held at school and couldn't leave until the lightening cleared and a parent or other known adult was there to check them out.  In the bottom left corner you can see the lightening strike map with the little blue marker pointing to our red location dot, which is barely visible because it is covered in yellow lightening bolts.  Yipes!  It was pretty incredible! 

Once the storm cleared, Luke, Tommy and Bryson spent a couple of hours floating aluminum foil boats down the rain gutters...or moat, as it would be.

The Bits: April 10th to April's End

Oh, I am so behind!  Bits!  And a lot of them!  Does that still make them Bits???

The shirt was spot on!  Everything was awesome!  After too many bouts with germs, Tommy's fever passed quickly and Ben headed back to school.

Celebrating National Sibling Day with a throwback pic to my magical hippie childhood.  We played SeeWees in the tub and took turns pretending to live the happy and tragic life of Pollyanna.  She once spit carrots in my mouth and tried to pour pee in my bed to make it look like I had wet it.  We imagined our way through the long summer days with games where pussy willows came to life and explored the seemingly endless forest around our house.  She took me to my first all-ages show and *sometimes* let me borrow her oversize plaid flannels.  She traumatized me twice by making me think she was going to die, first, because a huge rock we were trying to move rolled over her and second, because she sledded into a car.  We exchange regular phone calls and texts asking for advice.  We laugh...a lot.  She is my sister and I adore her!  

Zac's soccer skills and comfort with the ball sometimes take me by surprise.  He's really growing up and has such finesse when he plays.  Here, he receives a ball up the sideline, flicks it up to himself, turns and makes a behind the back pass to his teammate who is waiting to take it down the field, and is already on the run to make sure he's there for support.  Wow. 

We had a great evening at the ward talent show!  Zac and Ben gave a fantastic performance of the "Alphabet Aerobics" rap, assisted by Tommy and Luke, and Josh beautifully played "What a Wonderful World" on the piano.  Luke, Ben and Adam displayed some recycle art (Wall-E), origami (dragon, Yoda, anime boy) and pottery, respectively.  My fellas shine so bright!

The tulips Tommy and I planted in the fall are up!  I love the reward for patience of tulips.

Love.

It can't be morning yet, I'm still so sleepy.

Another day, another germ attack.  This one was a nasty 24-hour stomach bug that took Luke down.  Poor boy!  I'm always relieved when they wake up asking for food--pronto--after spending the previous day emptying their stomach.  It's been such a weird sick season.  One boy gets one thing, another gets something else.  A lot of random sickness, but nothing that goes through everyone.  Not complaining.

Spring snow.

I don't like the rudeness, I don't like the constant refereeing, I don't like feeling stressed that I don't have enough energy for my family after spending it all on the school kids, but there are things I am really enjoying about being a recess monitor.  THE KIDS!  I love when they run up for hugs, or get excited to share something that happened.  One day I received a bouquet of dandelions, another I received a paper snowflake, and this day I got a sweet note that made my day.

Same tulips, more snow overnight and a 2-hour school delay in mid-April.  It's not unusual, but I still feel like it catches me by surprise.

I love visiting the temple with the youth!  I love them all.  And even more, I love spending the time there with my boys.  What a special, joyful feeling to be with them in such a holy place.

Pinewood Derby Day!  It was Luke's first, and he chose to race a replica of our minivan, complete with sunroof and little passengers.  So funny!  It was Josh's last Derby, racing his own sleek and smooth design that he called "The Dawn Treader."  Josh's won for "Flashiest" car, and placed 6th out of 15, and Luke's, which finished in 8th place, was declared "Bounciest," because it hit the end and bounced almost halfway back up the track.  Such a fun day for these boys! 

Racquetballin'.

One of Josh's favorite places to be.  I never have to ask him to practice.

Victory!  It took awhile, but Ben solved the 5x5x5 he borrowed from a friend.  Tough stuff!

Day-off-school morning snuggles with this handsome boy.

The boys had a day off, so we took advantage of a neat opportunity to visit a Compassion International project that intends to bring living in a third-world country into vivid reality.  Using walk-through staging, along with sound recording and video on an i-pod, we were given a pretty good glimpse of what life is like for kids living in poverty throughout the world.  The boys, Ben's friend, David, and I went on two journeys: one, seeing life through the eyes of a young girl living in a city in Uganda; and a second, witnessing the hardship of a young boy in Bolivia.  It was hard to hear the stories and witness the living conditions of these two real-life people, but so wonderful to hear of the success they have had when given access to education and an escape from the drug and crime culture of the city through the generosity of sponsor families.  I liked that the boys could see that empowerment is the best way to make a difference, but also that they could see how different their life experience is from the majority of people living on this planet and hopefully gain new gratitude for it.

Walking home and hearing all about the boys' days.  One of my favorite daily rituals.

Swirling storm clouds.

Rocky Mountain Spring: a weather sampler.

I was so happy to spend a beautiful spring day with my best little buddy and his preschool class on his last preschool field trip to the Bear Creek Nature Center.  I adore this boy!

Zac's fantastic wood shop clock project!  A much nicer/cooler project than the spaghetti measure or oven hook that I made back in the day!

Tom with the goal kick!  It's a good thing he is assigned defense from time to time, which means he is supposed to do the goal kicks, otherwise he may not touch the ball at all during a game.  Our gentle boy has the opposite of killer instinct!

Josh's beauty of a save!  He's such a great keeper.  He was recently invited to the older age-group goalie clinics because he's got the younger age-group skills down so well.

We are happy when we are helping!  Luke has loved stepping up to help out more with chores around the house.  He says,
" I really like when I am responsible for myself."  Well, that's nice, because we sure do too!!

Documented: Tommy is a soft cheese addict!  Before I knew it, the wheel of the spreadable Swiss that I had put out for him thinking he'd take one or two was gone in one sitting...no crackers needed!  Those Trader Joe's Pub Cheese tubs?  He could eat a whole on on his own, easy.

I came home from Sunday meetings to find four happy boys playing a game that Ben had made up using tiny paper airplanes called Starship Battle.  Makes a mama's heart sing!

A very happy birthday to the best mother, role-model, grandmother and friend!  I am so grateful for ALL the amazing things she does, and is and has been in my life.

The craze continues and new cubes have arrived in the mail!  Josh's Gear Cube, and Ben's 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5.  While I love that they have a non-screen, brainy activity to keep them occupied, sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get them to put down the cube in order to take care of the regular things of life, like simply eating breakfast.  There have been many "cube timeouts" so they can get stuff done!

While the Laurels had a great time learning how to make basic balloon art, I was awakened to how deeply I was affected by B.P.A.: Balloon Popping Anxiety.  By the end of the activity I was ready for bed, exhausted by the hour-long adrenaline rush!

After being involved in some sort of mommy-and-me group, co-op preschool or weekly playgroup with each of my boys for the last 14+ years, when Tommy's cute co-op friends came to our house to learn about ocean exploration at the end of April, I had my very last turn ever as "host" for one of these events.  My heart got that nostalgic, sad, squish feeling when it was over!  Choosing to be a stay-at-home parent was easy for me, it's the best job I know of, and I recognize and know its value, especially when I see how it affects my family to even have me gone in the middle of the day when they aren't home.  But I can't help feeling nervous as I face the days ahead without a little one at home, now knowing if my usefulness has diminished in some way....

It's amazing how dandelions from the elementary kids can really make my day!

Meet Andi, our guest-pup for the month of May while her family looks for a new place to live.