Harry Potter (6)

We are so excited to go to this tonight!

I had stopped after book 3 with Emily, because I think they get pretty scary after that.
I wanted to wait until she got a little older to read them.

Then we got invited to the pre-screening.

We have been lucky enough to go to a pre-screening for all of the Harry Potter movies. They are always tons of fun & we feel totally spoiled. The series is almost over, and Emily will not have an opportunity to go to many. Rebekah has been to all of them (and Star Wars.) I wanted Emily to share this experience with us.

The rule in our family is that you have to have read the books before you see the movie. There's no way I could have done it fast enough with her at 1 chapter a night, so we decided she could read them by herself. Emily has worked really hard, and has read books 4 and 5 and most of book 6 in the last three weeks. Tonight she gets to experience a fun night in the city with the big people.

Can't wait.

Summer Swim Meet #1

Emily had her first swim meet of the summer.
I'm not sure who was more nervous and excited - me or her. OK, it was probably me.

Our team, and the team we were swimming against are both really big, so they split the teams into 2 groups - faster kids & others who are not as strong, and had 2 meets. She is on the better team, which made me happy, but also anxious because it meant she'd be swimming against their better kids. PLUS, they put her in the first heat of each event - which is for the fastest swimmers. I wanted to give her a pep talk, or reminders but bit my tongue and said "Have fun, do your best" so I didn't stress her out.

We had to be there at 8:30am for warm ups, the meet started at 9 - but diving goes first, so it was 10am by the time they got started.

After warm ups.

A little nervous.

Pep talk from coach Kevin (in the blue on the left.)

Emy is in the striped towel towards the right.

Listening intently (because she's Em and such a good girl.)
More nerves.

I missed Emily's first race (freestyle, and her best stroke,) because I was timing. What was I thinking when I signed up to be a volunteer at the first meet!! I'm not sure what she got, or her time and either is she! It started to seriously rain as the meet ended, so everyone took off & they said they'll give out the ribbons later. I talked to her coach, who said she placed in each one - he just couldn't remember which. They do write their times on the ribbons, which is good, as she has set herself some time goals for the summer.

I grabbed someone to time for me for the other races, so I could get some pictures.
Breaststroke was next.

Ready ...

GO!

Good kick & glide.

A nice two handed touch.

Well done babe!

Next was butterfly.

Then the relay. Emily swam first.

They won!

This was the only result I saw - the others were all so close, that as I looked up from the camera, everyone was at the end of the pool already!
Our team won the meet too, which was nice, especially for the first meet.

Done! (for the day.)

Whoa, what a swim!

- "Scuttle." (The Little Mermaid)

100 Acts of Kindness

My kids wanted a trampoline and I wanted them to have one.
Trampoline's are fun! I have so many memories of bouncing on the tramp with my siblings as kids, or jumping with the sprinkler under it, lying on it reading / getting sunburned as a teenager ... to me a tramp is part of a great childhood. (And we had a "dangerous" one with no net and uncovered springs!)

However, I didn't want to just give them one. They are expensive, and I wanted them to feel gratitude for it and want to take care of it and have a sense of pride at having earned it - but what to do? It would take forever for them to earn the money for it - that would be discouraging. Maybe I could have them save just $100 towards it? I wanted it to be meaningful. Then it hit me - they could do 100 nice things for each other, or those around them!

So it was declared that they would need to collectively perform 100 random acts of kindness in order to earn the trampoline. I made a chart & went to buy stickers.
Looking at the stickers, I thought about how this would go down. Emily would do 98 kind things, and the others would make a last minute contribution and they'd all get the tramp. Hmmmm, how to get J&J actively involved. A moment of parenting brilliance (I have them so rarely, I need to record them!) One chart, different stickers! I bought stars for bek (who I knew wouldn't care that much about it, but I didn't want her to be excluded from being kind), soccer balls for Emily, Batman for Jacob & ponies for Jane (what else?)

It was wonderful. The younger 3 got so excited about it and putting on "their" stickers. Emily ran out of soccer balls, and made her own little stick person stickers with my Xyron towards the end of the chart. I was delighted with how much Jacob tried to be kind, so he could add more Batman stickers.

It really worked well. I was hard on them. Anything that was a regular job, or that I would routinely expect them to do didn't count, they had to go out of their way to be kind.

It took them almost 6 weeks, but they did it ....

... and the trampoline was delivered today!

If this isn't happy, I don't know what is!

Bless Emy's little heart. She worked hard to earn it, and encouraged the others to be kind too. It was wonderful to see her jumping and flipping and having such fun enjoying her achievement.

I'll have to make a trip to IKEA for one of those big step stools to keep outside and make it easier for them to get on & off. For now they're doing OK just hoisting themselves up - even little Janie can do it.

Does anyone have any trampoline picture taking tips? Anything taken through the net is not really clear, and when I tried standing on it too - it was so bouncy from them jumping that everything was blurry! I'm thinking about rigging some kind of window washer seat from the oak tree to get shots from above ....

P.S. All are welcome to come jump with us - you just have to sign a release form first - it was the only way I could get Rick to go along with the idea!

Sandbox

For some time I have been considering building a sandbox in our backyard. It really came down to Jacob's happiness versus mine. The boy loves to dig, but I couldn't stand the thought of sand strewn hither and yon- including in the house.

Two factors swayed me his way -
(1) I cannot keep him out of my vegetable garden.
(2) One day Rick was out of town and Jacob was recounting his fun day to him over the phone. He told how we had gone to the zoo, and on a play-date and then out to dinner. Then he ended with "But I didn't have a very good day, because I didn't dig today."

OK, the digging thing is serious.

One reason I love & appreciate Rick is that he goes along with all my schemes, and is super patient with all my plans and ideas - even when they inevitably go awry.

Since we didn't have plans over Memorial Day, I proposed that building a sandbox in the backyard would be a WONDERFUL Memorial Weekend project. We'd buy all the lumber & dig it out on Saturday, and then build it on Monday. Simple.

I found plans online for a big sized one, and we went & bought all the lumber (3 times the price quoted in the article - but we weren't surprised - we're building it in NY and everything is more expensive here.) Oh, we also bought a pick axe to dig out the space. Since our yard is sloped, we'd have to dig it in on one side, and build it up on the other.

Getting started, aka the official "before" picture.

With Rebekah helping us, we actually made pretty great progress. We gave a bunch of the grass we cut off the top to our neighbors who filled in bare spots. Perfect.

We also had some other stellar helpers.

By the end of the day we had dug it all out -

and sorted the lumber ready for Monday
(we had it all pre-cut to length for a small fee at the lumber yard.)

The work might have gone a little faster if I didn't keep stopping to take pictures of the garden whenever I picked up the camera to record our progress!
I couldn't help it, everything is filling in so nicely, and it's great to see the rewards for my efforts!

We stopped for dinner & got the kids into bed, and then left them with Bek to go and buy the gravel for the drainage in the bottom. If you have to go to Home Depot for 33 heavy bags of gravel, I suggest going at 9pm right before they close - we were the only one's there.

The next morning we read the instructions more carefully, ready to start building & realized that we had dug the hole WAY too big on one side. Bummer. All that wasted effort - not to mention filling it back in was no fun.


That day we got it framed.

(Only because we completely ignored the kids.)

In the evening, I fed the kids & got them into bed while Rick built the cover for the end (to store the other cover pieces) and the toy box lid.

And we started to fill in the side that needed to be built up.
This sure would have been a lot less work on flat ground! Too bad we don't have any.

The end of day two. (Um, yes the end of day 2 was when it was supposed to be finished - but what can I say. There was a lot of digging.)

The following Saturday we started in on day 3 of the sandbox project with measuring the tarp.

We filled it with gravel for drainage, then stapled the tarp in all the way around.
Then poked about 100 small holes in the tarp for more drainage.

Emily was pleased with our progress.

It sat like that for some time. The pattern called for cedar for all but the side benches, and pine for the sides. I wanted to use cedar to make it all match & be nicer - but we had to special order that size and it took two weeks to come in.

The cover keeps out animals, and will double as a stage if the kids want to do little plays or dance performances (which they often do.) They lift off and store in the end closest to the fence. The other end has a hinged lid and is a place to store sand toys.

The big cedar pieces came and we put them on. (When I say we, I mean Rick.)
Finally it was finished and ready for sand. This is where we came to another screeching halt. I started looking online to figure out how much sand I would need, and discovered that play sand is actually dangerous! It has been banned in California because it's carcinogenic.
Great, I just built my kids a giant death box.

I figured out we needed 45 cubic feet of sand. That's 1.67 cubic yards - or 3375 lbs of sand!! I found some that was "Safe" in California & they would ship it to me, but it was about $1 a pound. I could just see me explaining to Rick that I needed over three thousand dollars for sand!

The girl at the safe sand place told me that the "unscientific" way to make sure it doesn't contain silicates (that cause lung cancer) was to stick your hand in the sand, swish it around and pull it out. If there was a powder on your hand, it was dangerous. If I could find riverbed sand, that would be safer, or anything that has had lots of water going over it to wash it. She also said that since it's an outdoor sandbox, rain washing through the sand would be helpful, as long as we have good drainage (making all that gravel seem worth it.)

It took a little effort, but I finally found a place that had sand from the beach in Long Island. I went and checked it out - no powder. I ordered it, and it was only $150 (+ $75 for delivery.) Bargain!

The closest we could dump it was on the driveway. We'd have to bucket it down to the backyard.

Waiting for the sand.

So on the morning of June 27th - over a month after we started our "2 day" project, we filled the sandbox. Jacob & Emily both wanted to do the 1st bucket - so they did it together.

Dad's wheelbarrow loads made the work go faster.

Before you knew it - we were done!

Jane & Stella played happily in the pile on the driveway while we worked - making me wonder why we hadn't just dumped a big pile instead of building a sandbox!

Ready for kids!

The sandbox is 5' x 6' x 2' deep.
As soon as it was finished, my 3 and the two kids from next door got in it, and
I thought "We should have made it bigger!"

It will be fine, I doubt that all 5 of them will ever be in there at once again
- it was just a novelty, since it was new.

Good work Daddy! Thanks for the sandbox.

We still need to slope the ground nicely away all around it, and grow grass - but there's no way I can keep the kids off it long enough to establish seed, so we're going to wait until fall to do that.

Broccoli

One day in early spring, we were eating broccoli and Jacob asked "Where does broccoli come from?" I was aghast that he didn't know, and explained it was from a plant. A few days later we were at the nursery and saw small broccoli seedlings. I showed Jacob, and we decided to give them a try in our garden this year.

Here they are at the end of May.
(far left)

It took about 45 days to be ready to pick. One thing I love about growing our own food, is the appreciation it gives me (us) for the whole process. I didn't have to pay for water for them, since it's been SO rainy here, or transport it, and it took up quite a bit of space - it's a large plant for what it yields AND the plant was gone after we picked the bunch. A 45 day investment for 1 bunch! Seriously, I can't believe broccoli isn't more expensive ($1.69 a bunch at my local store right now.) I had the same experience the first time we went raspberry picking - labor intensive! Nothing like 1st hand experience to make you grateful for the ready access we have to such varieties of food at a relatively cheap price!

I cut it and we ate it with dinner that night. It was delicious, and made me so happy to know that it was cut just about an hour before, that we grew it without chemicals or pesticides, and no extra energy or resources were wasted transporting it great distances. Hooray!

Jacob, "snitching" a piece.

We all loved it, but Jacob ate it with his usual enthusiasm - plus some, since it was his idea to grow it in the first place.

So Yummy!

We picked another bunch about 6 days later, and have 4 more getting close. It's a delightful surprise that, even though they were all planted at the same time, they are maturing at different rates. Perfect, as it means a steady flow of fresh broccoli for us!

Father's

I wanted to post this last week for Father's Day - better late than never.

I am LOVING the Mormon Messages on You Tube & the church website.

When I was 8 years old (Emily's age), my Dad read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to my sisters & I. I dearly loved that time, and have such great memories of it. He read a chapter a night, and did really great different voices for each of the characters, which made the story easy to follow. I can still hear his voice in my head, reading it to us.
He made it come alive, and gave me a love of reading that has lasted all my life.

I just recently found out that he would pre-read each chapter of those books during the day - so he would be familiar enough with the story to use the right character voice at the right time, and have the story flow seamlessly. Finding that out touched my heart so much. My Dad was a very busy man. He had a job with a lot of responsibility, at the time 5 (0r 6 ?) kids, a stake president for most of the years I lived at home... Knowing, even though not until years later, that he had gone to that effort for us brought tears to my eyes.
Thank-you Dad, I love you.

Now I have my own family and am married to a very busy man, who works ridiculously long hours in a stressful and demanding job.

Rick has got up 40 minutes early (4:50am) every day of the school year for the past 2 years in order to drop Rebekah off at Seminary, bring the car home to me & make the 6:20am train. He even got up on many days that Rebekah accidentally slept through her alarm, leaving him ready early for no reason. This also greatly benefits me, leaving the little one's and I free to sleep for 45 extra minutes each day, before we have to go and pick her up. On Sunday's he's frequently up early for his assignments for the High Counsel for church. You would think that would make him desperate to sleep later on Saturday mornings, and I'm sure he is. He doesn't. On Saturday's he gets up with Jane and Jacob and scurries them to the TV in the basement to let me sleep a little longer. A true sacrifice. I am sure I have not thanked him enough, but I am so grateful for his commitment to our family and his compassion towards me, that he would give up the most precious of commodities in our house - sleep.

There's a real man. I adore you babe!

Happy Father's Day.

Little Boy Heaven

"Fathers & Sons" the church camp-out for boys & their Dads - seriously the highlight of the year for Jacob.
He asked every day for the week before if it was the day to go.

Rick got him a little fishing rod. I thought it was bound to end in disaster, and envisioned lots of tangled line & a hook lodged somewhere in Jacob's body. However, it was great & Jacob caught not one, but TWO fish - reeling them in entirely by himself.

I think the look on his face tells you all you need to know!

He apparently also spent a great deal of time playing in the fire. On Saturday night I washed his hair, rinsed it out, then did shampoo again, rinsed and conditioned. When he got out of the tub, his head still smelled like campfire!

One of the guys in the ward had his boat there. The next day Jake went out with the boys. Again, a picture tells a thousand words - Jacob is the one on the right.

Jacob really had the GREATEST TIME OF HIS LIFE.

Rick took these pictures with his phone. I didn't dare send my camera with him (I love it way too much) and wanted his entire focus to be on keeping Jacob alive (there were several pep talks and some eye rolling before they left.)

Next year though, I think I will at least send the point & shoot, because this is just too priceless to miss. I sure love my guys!

More Swimming News

Here's what we've been up to with swimming -

Emily swam in a swim-a-thon to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She swam 100 laps (over a mile & a half) and raised $105! Not to shabby for a little 8yr old. Thanks to everyone who sponsored her!
She got this T-shirt for doing it. I'm so proud of her.

For the end of the year for Aqua Tots (where my kids swim through the school year) they had a swim meet. Emily took 1st place in the backstroke and 2nd place in freestyle. The freestyle was so close, I couldn't even tell who had touched the wall first - they had to go by times. The winner only beat her by .38 of a second!

What a little champ - she was so proud of her ribbons.

Now summer swim team has started and Emily is swimming for Lake Isle.
Since they are still in school though the end of June, they have practice every day after school. It has been either cold or cold & rainy. Jacob & Jane and I hang out and play while we wait for Emily. I've been in the water only once. It really is COLD. This does not prevent my swimming little boy to get in - he has been in every time we go - even on the day it was torrential rain.

He is often the only one in.

At least he has the pools to himself.

Seriously, check out the lifeguard in long pants and a sweatshirt!

Insomniac

Jane is the worst sleeper of any of my kids. BY FAR.
She has slept through the night about 5 times in her entire life. Yes, she's three.

I don't believe in "cry it out" - but Jane almost converted me.
The problem is she's incredibly tenacious, and the few times we've tried it she has screamed with 110% intensity for over 3 hours - by which time all the other kids & Rick are awake. Rick gets up at 4:50am during the school year, and Rebekah not much after that to get to seminary (& then work and school), Emily has to go to school - we just can't have their sleep interrupted, so Jane has us over a barrel.

Also it's so easy to just pull her into bed with us when she wakes up, and she's so darn cute ....

Anyway, because I am often up late working, she sometimes wakes up and comes downstairs to find me. Usually she just needs a drink and then I take her back to bed. The other night I was in the middle of something, and my hands were wet. I told her to just hold on a minute and wait for me to finish. I looked around, and she had fallen back to sleep on the dining room floor.

Comfy!

Jacob's Kisses

(Thanks to Ben Blair who took this picture at Pepsico Gardens in April.)



As I was tucking Jacob into bed he said

"Mom, when you give me kisses, they go straight down into my heart."

love that boy!

Mass Murder

Every year I buy ladybugs (ladybirds) to scatter on our garden. They do not eat the plants, but they DO eat small bugs like aphids that are harmful to our plants. They are pretty to look at, and my kids love them. There's nothing bad about ladybugs.

Just over a week ago, I noticed that there were a few small aphids on the tomato plants - since I am committed not to use chemicals on my veggies - I announced it was time to go buy the ladybugs and on Monday morning we did.

To release them you are supposed to water the garden then wait until dusk, since they don't fly at night.That way, with a water source they will stay on the plants all night in search of small bugs, and as long as they find a food source, they will stick around indefinitely (no food source means the bad bugs are all gone, so I'm OK if they fly away then.)

It has been pouring rain for weeks on end here. It's driving me crazy! When we came home that day it was raining, so I figured I wouldn't need to water and we'd just wait until dusk. I put them on the shelf in our vestibule. As it turns out a tub of ladybugs can be a bit stinky, so later in the day I moved them to just outside the door under the cover of our big maple tree.

Several days later Jacob, Jane and I returned home to find a package on our doorstep. Jacob declared "Mom, we got a package! Maybe it's worms, or caterpillars, or ladybugs." I loved it and was just priding myself on raising a kid who would assume any package coming to us would contain those things, when I realized - THE LADYBUGS!! I had forgotten all about them. I hurried to the spot where I had left them. It was sheltered, but after several days of heavy rain, the tub was more than 1/2 full of water.

I usually sprinkle them over all the plants, but instead just dumped the entire lot upside down on the soil in the vegetable garden. Only about 10% of them were still alive. I left them for a while to see if any revived. Those who were alive crawled into the rosemary, and I spent some time picking them gently out, one by one and placing them on the tomatoes and other plants that needed them. I buried the bodies of the others in the soil - hopefully they'll still benefit the garden with their little bodies.

So, I am sorry and hope by confessing my neglect to the world, I will somehow ease my guilt.

And if this blessed rain ever stops, we'll go buy another tub.

All 13 Articles of Faith

Emily is an extremely self motivated and goal oriented person. I love it - it makes my job so much easier. I'm very competitive and goal oriented too, so it also makes it very easy to understand her personality.

When Emily turned 8 she got to start participating in the "Faith in God" program at church. One of the things to do is to memorize all 13 Articles of Faith. All Emily had to do was see that there was a sticker chart on the back wall, and she was all over it!

She finished memorizing them in May, and was awarded this certificate in Primary.

Man I love this little girl! I am so proud of her.Here she is with her certificate - signed by the Bishop & Primary President. Well done Emily!

Now you can help me teach them to your younger brother & sister.

• 1. WE BELIEVE in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

• 2. WE BELIEVE that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

• 3. WE BELIEVE that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

• 4. WE BELIEVE that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• 5. WE BELIEVE that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

• 6. WE BELIEVE in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

• 7. WE BELIEVE in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

• 8. WE BELIEVE the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

• 9. WE BELIEVE all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

• 10. WE BELIEVE in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

• 11. WE CLAIM the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

• 12. WE BELIEVE in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

• 13. WE BELIEVE in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Joseph Smith

Butterfly's

We released this years butterfly's on Sunday. In all the years we've been doping this (I think 12 or 13) I have never seen one actually come out of the chrysalis. This time I was upstairs one day, brushing my teeth, and the kids were downstairs with Denalee (babysitter) when I came down they were looking at one that had just come out! I couldn't believe I missed it! At least they got to see it, and we watched it over the course of about 1/2 an hour slowly unfurl it's wings and start moving around.

We let them go after they had all hatched out. I love to let the kids hold them before they fly away. This is always the highlight of the whole experience.

Jacob went first - he was delighted, and (remarkably) so very gentle. I grabbed the camera, and took one picture. I realized the flash was on, and looked down to turn it off - when the butterfly flew away. I thought I'd give him another one to get good pictures - but as I was giving them to the girls, a few neighbor kids came over and I let them hold them - then forgot to ever go back to Jacob for another turn & a better photo - so here's a bad shot of him as he watched it fly away.

Can you see his cute cheeks smiling? What a beautiful boy.

He named two of them. He called them "Vampire, Vampire" and "Colin."

Emily (covered in poison ivy rash) - holding "her" butterfly that she named "Paint."

I think this is the first year Jane has held one. She named hers "Jane."

Trying to give it a kiss. She's such a little mother to everything.

Rick even got in on the act this year.

Maybe I'll get another batch of caterpillars so I can get some pictures of Jacob.
It really is worth recording when he's spontaneously gentle!

UP

Hurry, hurry! Go see this movie!!!

We took the kids to see "UP" last night. It was delightful. Sweet, funny, touching and a bit scary ... OK, Jane was actually terrified in several parts, and I had to keep whispering in her ear "It's OK, everything is going to be OK" while she buried her face in my chest, so as to not see the screen!

We love Pixar anyway - but I think this is the best one they've done in a while.
(Be there in time to see the short film that plays before it.)

Jane's 3rd Birthday Celebration

Our friend, Rob, makes the best birthday cakes for his family. He usually makes a sheet cake, cuts it into a shape and then decorates it. He makes whatever was significant for that year - like a sneaker when his wife ran a marathon, or the cover of "Goodnight Moon" when his daughter was turning 1 and loved that book.

My kids are always saying "we wish Rob could make our cake", so I decided it was time to give it a try before they left our family for theirs.

Jane loves purple and horses, so requested a "purple horsey cake." No huge surprise there. I asked her what kind of cake she'd like it to be inside and she said "purple", I explained I was talking about the inside of the cake and it could be vanilla, or chocolate, or yellow cake ... She repeated "purple." OK then, purple it is.

I made a white cake and added purple food coloring. These scraps show the color.

Then I cut the shape. Rob free-hands his, but I'm not that good. I used a favorite coloring page of Jane's and enlarged it on my printer, then cut around it.

Then decorated it to look like a horse, in her favorite colors.

She liked it!

With 3 pink candles ready to sing.
Happy Birthday to Jane!


I don't know anyone who loves birthdays as much as Jane. Even as an infant she knew what they were, she gets the concept of it being your special day, the cake, gifts, everything.
We don't give our kids a birthday party every year, and Jane had one for her 1st and second, so I was going to skip this year. Jane asked for weeks before her birthday how long until her "birthday party" and talked non stop about her "purple horsey cake" and that she was going to invite "everyone."

At the last minute, we invited over a few of her friends for cake and ice-cream, bought some balloons, threw out our bounce house, and put the bubble machine in the backyard. Instant birthday party. Jane bought it, and was delighted that her friends came over to share her day.

After everyone left we took her for her birthday surprise - a horse ride (really a pony, but she didn't care.) The pony was really cute, and named "Tinkerbell" - she was delighted.

She got to be lead around the arena twice. Rick said "It's probably really dangerous that this place is so close to our house." Yeah, I think we'll be back on a regular basis.

After her pony ride we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We had just been seated and ordered when Jane said she felt sick. She was lethargic, and felt warm, and wouldn't get off my lap. She even dry heaved a few times. I had them put her food right in a box, and was thinking about leaving Rick and the others there, taking Jane home to get ready for bed and some Tylenol and then going back for them. Rick suggested we just eat and then all leave together, since the food was already there - but I just felt awful for her - who wants to be in a busy restaurant on a Saturday night, surrounded by food if you're feeling sick? Even worse on your birthday! I decided to zip into Whole Foods, which is next door, and see if they had any kind of homeopathic fever reducer, that could tide her over until we got home. I bought some oscillococcinum, which I have never used before. I gave it to her and within 10 minutes, she was sitting up, eating her food, drinking lemonade and talking. Even the waiter commented "Oh, you feel better now?" when he came by - it was a marked difference. By the time we left, she was skipping out of the restaurant, holding the bag with extra food it it, and swinging it around. I'm not sure if it was a fluke, but I'll definitely try that again when one of them gets sick!

When we got home we opened presents from family. She got lots of lovely things including -

A purple skipping rope from Emily -
from Green Toys, the handles are made of recycled milk bottles.

A light saber from Jacob - purple, of course.

Comes in handy for battles with Jedi brothers.
A big horse puzzle and horse stickers from Rebekah.

A new tea-set from Grandma & Grandpa O.
She had asked for "a big big horse." So, we gave her a Breyer one - that looks like "Spirit" (from the movie.) But I also got her a stable to play with all her smaller Schleich horses.

It's beautiful, and she loves it. Because it's made by Schleich, all the other horses we have (we have many) fit in it really well.

I also got a fence to make a corral around it.She and I will have lots of fun with this one!

We changed pj's - it was too hot for winter one's, and then opened cards. Grandpa D. sent her money. I asked her "What are you going to buy with it?" She said "A horse."
At least she's consistent.

All in all, I think she had a really great day.

Jane's 3rd Birthday

Janie Baby is 3 today!

How is it possible that time has passed so very quickly and she has gone from this ...

(two weeks old)

To this ....

(three months old)

To this ...
(1st Birthday)

To this ....

(2nd Birthday)

To this!!

(taken yesterday)

We say that Jane was a "surprise" and she was. We were surprised that we had 4 kids a year sooner than we had planned AND that she was a girl....

Yet, the real surprise is - how well she fits into our family, how much we love her, how much Jacob loves being a big brother, how cute she is, how much we could embrace horses and babies and purple, how little sleep I could survive on, how much her smile can brighten a day, and her songs lift our souls, how much fun I have with blond curls, how much we adore her.

Here are some more favorite pictures of Jane.

5-16-2006 meeting Jacob.

OH Jane, I love you so much. I'm so glad that you were the most wonderful "surprise" I ever could receive.

Shower Curtain

So the conversation went like this -

ME; "Rebekah, where did you get the scissors you were just using and left in the bathroom?"

BEK; "In the plastic box, on top of the bookshelf, in the office."

ME; "Do you know why I keep them there?"

Worms 2009

Our worms arrived today. Jacob and I could not be happier.

I am looking forward to them making a difference in my garden again! I don't think the vermipods were the best way to go for the lawn last year, so this year I spoke with Jim (THE Jim from Uncle Jim's Worm farm) and he suggested Super-Reds. He said that they are best at earth that isn't turned over, or full of decomposing material (like under a lawn) and the red-wrigglers are better at decomposing areas - like the veggie garden and flower beds that I have mixed compost and peat moss into. So I ordered 500 super reds, and 2,000 red wrigglers. You would be surprised how little an amount that is - I think I'm going to call them back and order the same amount again. Of course they breed - and if I were more patient I could wait for that to happen - but patience has never been one of my virtues, and I want a spectacular garden now - so I'm adding more. I also sprinkled a few into each of the pots I have for flowers and tomatoes.

We had some serious rain today, and when they were delivered I thought we'd have to keep them in the box a day or so - but it cleared up this afternoon, so we headed out to release them.

I mean, Could. Not. Be. Happier.

I admit - there is something pretty great about the feeling of a handful of worms - all that wriggling goodness. I completely credit my Dad & Ann (his sister) for helping me grow up loving worms, and the garden.

I'm making sure Jane feels the same way.

She loved holding them and sprinkling them too.

Emily started off with the same reaction she had last year ...

- then got a little braver (it didn't hurt that her friend was touching them) ...

- and eventually was helping distribute them through the flower beds.

We saved a few for "pets" for Jacob. He filled a little box with dirt and some peat moss and dead leaves, then we added a few worms. Do you think they'll crawl out? I'm hoping that they won't want to leave the nice environment for concrete floor in the garage - but we'll see how long they are around.

Go, go worms - help my garden!

Of course, putting boots on Jacob & Jane is pretty much giving them free reign to seek out puddles and mud - which they did.

And since it was near the end of the day, and they could just strip down for dinner and then baths & bed - I let them have at it.

I love spring!

Hide & Seek.

These flowers almost cost Jacob his life today.

Here's the story.

When I was pregnant with Jane, we renovated our basement. The very best part was the custom toy and book storage I put in the back. It had been my dream for years. I found baskets I liked and designed the shelves to fit them. I planned drawers at the bottom (one each for soft toys, dress-ups and babies.) There are closets at each end for games and DVD/movie/video game storage. I keep all the kid craft supplies down there too (high out of reach.) All of this, streamlined along the back in white and brushed nickle.
Clean, crisp, uncluttered. Be still my heart.

It's 3 years old now. We spend A LOT of time in our basement, especially in the winter. It's had a few nicks and scuffs - but I still love it. It's my favorite thing in the house.

So today we had play-dates. Twins for Jane and a friend for Jake. Five kids under 4, but I was totally up for it. I went grocery shopping while they were at pre-school, but also stopped to buy more plants for the garden. I had hoped to make it home & put everything away, but ended up going right to school to get them.

When we got home we all ate lunch. Bit by bit I put away the groceries with lots of interruptions for hand washing and potty trips, and disputes over toys. It was a very rainy day, so we were all playing inside, and had out just about every toy we owned. After stopping for a snack (2nd lunch really) of watermelon, I suggested the kids play hide and go seek while I cleaned up in the kitchen. Then I realized the flowers I'd bought while out were still on the counter. I thought I'd better quickly get them in water, it had been about 3 hours since I bought them.

I heard the kids "finding" each other and continue playing downstairs. Jacob's friend came up and calmly said to me "I want to show you something." I asked him if it could wait until I put the flowers in water - or could he maybe bring it to me. He said he couldn't bring it to me, but he'd wait. He did wait, very patiently while I trimmed the stems and outer leaves, filled the vase and arranged the flowers. I could hear Jane and the other kids still playing downstairs.

After finishing the flowers, I went downstairs. I couldn't see Jacob anywhere - but did see a big pile of dress-ups. I figured he was hiding under them, and was going to surprise me - that was what I was supposed to "see." Then Jake's little friend pointed to the (tightly closed) dress-up drawer and said "He's in there." Instantly I made the connection. Instantly my heart froze. Instantly I yanked open the drawer. Poor little Jacob, sobbing and sweaty was curled up inside.

I pulled him out and wiped him off. I checked him, and asked a million times if he was OK. He said "You were taking too long." I tried to think - how long did it take me to do those flowers? 5 minutes or 10 - or (gasp) 15? Surely not 15 - he couldn't have been in there that long. Could he?

He is fine, and saying that he almost died is probably drama - but I've been traumatized with "what if's" all afternoon. His little friend went home not long after that. What if his mother had come early, and he had left without telling me where Jacob was? Jacob is a runner - he leaves the house all the time and I'm always chasing him down or looking for him. I would have searched for him outside and at neighbors houses, I would have never even thought to look in that drawer. Jacob said he was yelling for me. I didn't hear a thing. I couldn't hear him crying when I was standing right next to it - I would have never heard him. It's a small tight space, those drawers close snugly - how long could someone breathe in there?

Jacob and I have had a tough couple of weeks. I've been super busy and extra tired. Rick has been traveling a lot. Jacob has been extra energetic (aka naughty) or maybe he just seems that way because I am so tired. I have joked that I need him to go to foster care for 3 weeks so I can catch up and get a break.

I have been on the verge of tears all evening thinking about the horror I might have found opening that drawer. And that I sent him to go and hide. I am so grateful to have my busy, exhausting son and this reminder that he's just a little boy, and that I need to tell him a million times a day that I love him.

So, the drawers. He was scared, and at bedtime tonight we talked about how I was scared, and how dangerous it can be to get in there (he said he's done it before with friends, but opened the drawer right up.) I think it was scary enough that he won't want to do it again - but should I get rid of the drawers? Make a rule that they can never be all the way shut? At least now I know to look in there if one of the kids are lost or hiding.

And my little guy is snug in his bed, sleeping soundly - just where I want him to be.

Littlest Fishie

Not to be outdone by her older siblings - Jane earned her first swimming badge today.

Thanks goodness too - for the last several lessons she's lamented not having a badge as she's left the pool. I bet none of the other kids her age even know what badges are - or care, but I guess that's an occupational hazard of being the youngest child.

She was delighted, and we called Daddy from the car to let him know the good news. I couldn't decide which of these pictures of her with her new badge were cuter - so here they both are!

To earn her Starfish she had to -
"... be comfortable putting their face in the water. They must be able to demonstrate a “sit down dive”, and they must also be able to float on their backs for a count of 10 and return to the wall unassisted. Students must also be able to jump into the pool and swim back to the wall, unassisted by a teacher or a floatation device."

The other kids were appropriately delighted and praised her when she told them - but Jacob had the best reaction - he was so proud of her. What a good big brother!

(Um ... a note on Jacob's outfit. (1) Red "cape" - his favorite because Colin gave it to him (2) Cleaning Gloves. Alternate between making him look like Darth Vader, or Luke Skywalker. Honestly - I'm just going with it, the odd looks we get when we're out are far easier than the battle to leave them at home.)