School's Out!

Aeryn is officially done with 4th grade.

She brought a friend home from school so they can play before everyone's lives get insane for the summer. And yes, those are lollipops sticking out of their mouths so precariously. So far the afternoon has brought hearing Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen songs over, and over, and over again while girly laughter escapes from the bedroom door. 

I'm so ready for summer to begin, and yet so not ready at the same time. Fortunately, we've got some fun things to look forward to, including summer 5th grade prep homework! Mwahahaha. As much as I love getting a break from homework battles, I am one of those mean moms who makes the kids do homework in the summer so they can return to school in the fall as moderately intelligent human beings instead of having forgotten everything they slaved over for months. 

May by iphone

Yesterday I was playing around with Photoshop and realized I have not taken a single picture with the *real* camera since May 4th. This is most definitely not like me. It is just so easy to rely on the iPhone now that the camera is so good. Seriously, it's hard to understand why anyone would buy a point and shoot camera anymore when phones are multi-taskers with such high resolution cameras.

I know the month is not over, but since I've been both a photo and blog slacker, here's an overview of life as captured imperfectly and in the moment.

May is walk/bike to school month. We did one of each in the first week but nothing since. It's just far too easy having the school bus pick up 20 yards from our door.

My parents sent chocolate covered strawberries for Mother's Day. I did a good job of sharing, but probably just because the insert card said they should be eaten within 48 hours and I thought I'd get a stomachache doing that alone.

I ran the Hippie Chick again - only this year I did the quarter rather than the half marathon. In truth I felt like a slacker since all these amazing ladies are so. much. faster. than I am and totally rocked it. Then I saw this picture and noticed how much weight I've gained since last year and wanted to cry. Oh, well. It was a really fun time.

Squirt made a Mother's Day gift at school and hid it in her room. Amazingly, it stayed alive and well! I almost cried when she gave it to me. She was so very happy about it and it's pretty much the cutest thing you ever did see.

Jim made chocolate souffle's of awesomeness. One bite and your eyes will roll back in your head from awesomeness. Seriously, we eat really well. Like, really, really well. It's no surprise since our entire courtship (like 2 weeks) before we decided to get married revolved almost entirely around food or conversations about food.

Aeryn's newish bike endured it's first major wipeout. Of course, that means Aeryn did too. It was in the middle of the bike lane on Alder and I just counted my lucky stars there wasn't much traffic at the time. She was a little freaked out by this one, and it made for the third pair of pants to get gaping holes ripped in the knees in the same week.

Squirt had track and field day for school. She was so very excited about it. She really is enjoying running and track events, even though she takes after me and doesn't have an excess of natural talent in the area. I love her continuous excitement just to try things and that she doesn't get discouraged by other's successes.

Some friends are gone for an internship this summer and loaned us their laminate flooring. I installed it one night (or was it two nights?) while Jim was gone and it was seriously a PITA. If we had somewhere to move our furniture it would have been much easier, instead I would move things from one side of the room to the other laying a small section of floor and then shifting the furniture so I could fit a few more boards. It was a lot of work for 2.5 months of non-crappy flooring (but I LOVE IT anyway).

Jim's cousin Jordan got married so we (Aeryn & I since Jimmer was in L.A.) headed to Portland to offer support. Aeryn and the cousins had so much fun running amok around the temple grounds. I love this picture. They were so goofy and really make me laugh. Tyler looks like a total hipster with his hair and glasses - it's pretty much my favorite thing ever.

I love the Portland Temple. The contrast between the marble and the evergreens is just stunning.

This is actually the only picture I took of the wedding-folk and it was mostly so I could text it to Jim and prove that the deed was done. It was a delightful day and both families seemed very pleased with the union. I wish them all the best life has to offer.

After the wedding we headed to the coast to spend the weekend in the Lenz family's beach house. It was really charming, but seems small compared to the new one that is in the works.

This house will be about as close to the water as possible. It was a chilly day at the beach, or rather a normal Oregon one, but of course the kids did not mind one way or another.

Our youngest niece spent a decent amount of time like this at the beach. She was squeezing the sand between her fingers repeatedly and I don't really have any idea what she was trying to do but it made me laugh.

May has been good. For June, I plan to return to my normal camera-happy self. I've missed it. 

Car Wash

This morning I read an article about how parents inadvertently make their children more fragile by protecting them from boredom/pain/small failures and so on. One of the points the article made was that children need to be allowed to make mistakes, to be expected to work, and to let them be bored once in a while (yes, I realize that there was more than one point there). If you are curious, I found the article here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps).

I've been thinking about how I parent and I feel I do really well in some areas and not so well in others, but the law of averages seems to be working in my favor as my kids are reasonably well-adjusted, capable, and happy. However, I sometimes make silly mistakes. Like today, when I didn't take Squirt to school for the 4th/5th grade fund raising car wash.

I couldn't find info in the school newsletters and there wasn't any clear information sent home or on the website so I figured it was just 5th grade and we didn't go. Instead, Aeryn got to play outside with her friends, make her own lunch, sweep the kitchen and vacuum under the table as a result of the mess from cooking her own lunch, sit in time out for a small mistake, and get bored. When she got bored, she chose to do this:

Yep, she chose this on her own.

Which is when I realized that I may be imperfect in many ways and I could easily over analyze my parenting on so many different levels, but I truly think she's going to grow up and be ok.

A Tale of Two-th Fairies

Squirt has a tendency to get a little crazy when she's got loose teeth. Her hands are always in her mouth playing with them (which drives us all a little nuts), she doesn't want to eat anything or brush her teeth, and she talks about it constantly. Her gums are often sore and purple so she doesn't want anybody to look at it, let alone help the thing come out.

Three days ago, she lost a tooth. 

It wasn't unexpected because she'd been bugging the thing for a couple weeks. I was even on top of it enough to make sure I had cash on hand so I wouldn't be running around town at 3am trying to find an open store to buy a pack of gum and get cash back. You laugh, but I have done that more than once. FYI: the only stores open here at that time are Walmart and 7-11. 

We had a great night; We got a Redbox, ate pizza, and just had a drama-free evening. It was delightful.  Then, as fate would have it, the tooth fairy forgot to come. 

Again, this is not the first time it has happened in our home. What happened to the days when she was little and I never forgot to do any of this stuff? It's so much easier when they go to bed by 8... Fortunately, the movie we'd rented was Rise of the Guardians and Aeryn just assumed that Santa was helping collect the teeth so the tooth fairy didn't get too far behind. The next night, you had better believe that I was on top of that one right away! 

The tooth fairy was redeemed. 

Imagine my surprise when two days later she lost ANOTHER tooth, one that I didn't even know had been loose. Fortunately, I still had some moolah on hand from my previous preparedness and figured I was going to get it done right this time. An hour or two after she fell asleep I crept into her room to get the deed done, only to discover that once again she'd rearranged her bed and switched where her pillow was. 

Dang. 

I stood on a chair, because I am a shorty, and dug around under the two pillows and three pillow-pets to no avail. Even on a chair I couldn't reach to the opposite side of her twin bed (man, I sound pathetic) so I sat on the bottom bunk and reached around from every side trying desperately to not lose my balance and smash my face into the wall. I was a sight, I tell ya. 

It didn't work. I didn't find the tooth, nor could I get the money situated. I was functioning on only 3 hours of sleep (I never sleep when the hubs is out of town) and so the only rational option was to go to bed and set a timer to get up at 5 and take care of it then. It was flawless! I woke up, went into her room, and woke her up - on accident of course. 

The tooth fairy was busted. 

Or not. 

She asked what I was doing and I just said I was checking on her to make sure she was sleeping ok. I STILL didn't find the tooth, so in a last-ditch-effort I tucked the money under a pillow at the foot of her bed (man, that girl has a lot of pillows) - which happened to be where her head had been a couple nights before when the first tooth fairy redeemed herself. It wasn't perfect, but it was something, except for the detail that she didn't find it and still thinks the tooth fairy forgot about her. 

Bummer. 

I suppose now I get another shot at it but I feel confident saying that I don't feel confident at all about how it's going to go down. 

{I asked her to smile and show me her missing teeth, which would have been effective if they hadn't been hidden in the back. This missing teeth stuff is much easier when they are little!}

The Littles in our Life

We realized something tragic. With friends moving this summer, there are a whole bunch of kids we love who Ellie may never see again. That all depends on if they move before she gets here this summer, which is as yet uncertain. Jim wanted to be sure we got pictures of the kids all together - you know - more than I already do since I'm a little camera-happy with them all.

When it comes to kids, my favorite pictures are always candid. You just can't force a child to smile and stand perfectly. In effort to preserve the relationships we've built at this point in time I offer the following:

Our attempt at a group shot. At least most of them are happy. Whippy was not thrilled with the idea.

Can't you tell? I don't think she liked feeling contained.

At the start of the week when Ellie first got here, two brothers were fighting over who loves Ellie more. I can't remember who "won" the argument, but right after I took this picture I just said "now, kiss!" and Darion went for it. Ellie was a little faster however and was able to evade it successfully.

Baby-boyfriend and Ellie were trying to see each other really big and really small at the same time through his binoculars. Just try to tell me this isn't better than a perfectly posed and fought for picture with half smiling children.

Ellie and her Whippy. My favorite thing is how this is just perfectly both of them. Ellie hovering over her and Whippy twirling her hair and sucking her thumb. This is a common sight for both of them.

I think this is the brother who won the love-debate. He's really sweet and has a huge heart. It's not uncommon for his tears when Ellie leaves to bring both Jim and his mom to emotional breakdown.

We had to pretend to be t-rexes, Indians, football players, and a host of other things before they could be somewhat normal. It's all good. I don't think that smile would have emerged otherwise.

Her favorite big kid will still be around, however.

Next year will be weird. I'm choosing not to think about it. {Still}

Easter Egg Hunt Extraordinairre

The holiday this year was a little different. For one thing, we had planned on Ellie coming out for Spring break and bought her plane ticket home for first thing Sunday morning based on a significant difference in cost only to realize after the fact that it was in fact Easter Sunday that she was leaving. Bummer. We decided to do an Easter egg hunt for the kids on Saturday morning instead and then our ward had a fantastic outdoor egg hunt for the Primary kids that afternoon. Once again I found myself at the store way too late at night the day before our Easter events endlessly deliberating what to do, and consequently buying way too much in the name of being afraid we'd run out. C'est la vie. The girls woke up to find their "baskets" on the couch and a bunch of eggs hidden around. While we pretended to get to sleep in we listened as they would yell "EGG!" every time they found a new one. Needless to say, I was huddled under the covers instead of taking pictures.

I made up for it at the Primary party.

It was a blast.

The men-folk frolicked through the wilderness spreading eggs for the wee ones to find. There were literally hundreds of eggs littering the lawn, hiding in tree branches, and inside shrubs.

Ellie was all business. It took mere moments for her to fill her basket and look for another receptacle.

Aeryn was a bit more focused on being with friends than with finding a million eggs. That said, she did fill her basket fairly quick too.

The guys created a "cornucopia" of eggs right in the middle of the yard, though unlike the Hunger Games my baby-boyfriend wasn't violent in trying to get his fair share of the spoils. Not that I'd have expected anything else... I think he's pretty much perfect (in three year old terms).

It was quite a fun scene. Kids all over, interspersed with parents wielding cameras.

Toward the end they joined forces. You can see Ellie holding Whippy's Easter basket here. She went around and filled the whole thing then gave it all back to Whippy. I think Ellie makes a total of four members of our family who would place an order for the "Whippy model" if it was that easy to acquire one.

After filling Whippy's basket, Ellie was still on a roll and found someone to loan her ANOTHER basket to fill. I think she sees a competition in everything. She wants to win/be the best or fastest at every single thing, but once the competition aspect of egg hunting was over she was completely non-possessive with the eggs she found and kept giving away candy.

The girls had a blast. Aeryn filled one basket, Ellie filled three. Aeryn let me take a picture of her with her spoils, Ellie didn't.

On Sunday morning Ellie and Jim had to leave for the airport just before 4am. Aeryn and I had a leisurely morning and didn't think about eggs or candy at all. It was really nice to do on Saturday and leave Sunday as a day for spiritual focus. I felt like a slacker mom because for the first time in Aeryn's life I didn't get her a new dress for Easter. She didn't seem to mind, or even notice. I'm sure I'll make up for it sometime soon.

Rock Band

Aeryn recently finished a recorder unit at school, after which she was able to bring her recorder home. She is so excited about it since she has been begging to take music lessons. We didn't bring my piano and they don't offer music in the elementary schools so we haven't taken action on that front yet, so the recorder is a really exciting thing. 

She and Ellie have been playing random notes on that thing almost constantly. One day, I was told I couldn't go outside because they had a surprise. Clearly I had to find a way to sneak out and peek and this is what I found:

Aside from the really bad spelling, I love that they are charging $0.50 to watch and $1.00 to join them in performing. They explained that Jim and I could come for free. If all the neighbor kids are free and we are free, then I'm really hoping they don't count on this for a substantial income. 

As it turns out, we weren't home at the right time and the concert has been delayed indefinitely.