So I Can Be Happy

It's bedtime and Sarah is searching for excuses to stay up longer.  Everyone is bedding down in the hallway tonight. They think it's such a treat to sleep on the floor and the hallway is even better.  Why do we buy them beds and mattresses?  Anyway, Sarah came into the library here and said she wanted me to read her a bedtime story.  I told her it was too late and she should just go to bed.

She started to argue and I stopped her with, "I am not reading you a story."

She picked up some little books and replied in an exaggerated, out-of-breath display, "Well, I want you to, so I can be happy."

I laughed, called her a devil and sent her back upstairs.  I think this one is really going to be dangerous!

Answered Prayer

We've been busy today.  I had a doctor's appointment at 9 and then went back to town half an hour after getting home to take the boys to the physical therapist.

We'd been blessed to get in...and there were two back to back time slots still open.  They'd had a rough weekend as far as pain goes, Daniel especially.  It seemed an answer to prayer when they had available times that worked with our day.  When I mentioned it to the PT, he agreed that it was an answer to prayer.  He'd been wondering all weekend why they hadn't made sure to fill those appts at the beginning of the week when the rest of the week was booked.

I know a lot of people that scoff at God and call nearly everything a coincidence.  They are welcome to maintain that attitude.  It doesn't change what I know to be true; Heavenly Father is aware of our needs and concerns.  He knew that we were going to have a rough weekend and provided a way for us last week to get help this morning.  We had been praying for the boys and the prayers were answered beautifully.

Right now, we are getting ready for Chad to get home because he is going to turn around and head back to Hagerman with the kids tonight.  They have been looking forward to it all day!  It is spud harvest here so the kids are out of school for two weeks.  I am going in for a little same day surgery in the morning and now I won't have to worry about the kids home alone.  It will be nice to know that I don't have to worry about how I feel when I get home, too.  I can just go to bed if I need to!

Chad's parents are going to keep the kids during the day while he is at work.  They are giving me a great gift!  Just thinking of how I will use my quiet time is lifting my spirits.  :)  We're hoping to make it to Thursday before the kids come back, but we'll see if they only make it to Wednesday.  Either way, I will enjoy myself.

I have plans for a hot bath tonight.  I should get to bed early, but I never seem to make it.  I only have myself to answer to!  Maybe I'll find that missing library book this week.

Swimming Lessons 2012

We had 4 kids in swimming lessons again this year.  That is an expensive 9 days and I always dread bad weather that steals away days in the water.  We did have one day with lightning that kept the kids out of the water.  They made it a safety day and kept the kids inside.

This was Joseph's first year in the pool.  He had been looking forward to it! Daniel was gone to Scout Camp   for the first week, so it was just me and Sarah hanging out pool side (or on the other side of the chain link fence).

Joseph was in Level One.  They take it easy and get the kids used to being in the water.  They do something called "washing machine" at the beginning of the lesson which swishes the kids back and forth and then submerges them.  Some kids handle that better than others!

This is Joseph in the washing machine (he's in the middle).

This is Joseph's washing machine under the water.

Joseph had to "eat a lot of cookies" to get his belly full enough to float.  I'm sure he had no trouble visualizing real cookies.  We can still see his ribs, though.

Joseph really likes trains.  This one was no exception.  He is the 3rd cute kid from the right.

Rebekah was in Level Two this year.  (She is the one with both hands on the wall.)

I got an action shot of Rebekah jumping off the wall to her teacher.  She showed little fear in the water.

 Leah and Nathan were in Level Four together.  They were the farthest away and the hardest to pick out through the camera lens.  Here they are in the middle of the picture with another kid between them.

They did a lot of swimming back and forth across the width of the pool while trying to dodge the Level Six kids who were swimming across the length of the pool.  It was a tricky thing to do!

 They also did a lot of diving.  There were a few belly flops.  Of course.  :)

 I didn't expect anyone to pass, though I thought Rebekah had the best chance.  She did, but the surprise was that Joseph did too!  Leah and Nathan get to work at Level Four again next year.  This all means that we will have 5 kids in swimming lessons next summer in Levels One, Two, Three, Four and Four!  (Sarah will start.)  Yikes.  I should start saving now.

I have a sense of peace that the kids are learning to swim.  Sadly, we don't really go swimming as a family and our tub isn't that big.  I hope it's like riding a bicycle.

Halloween Pajamas

We have started introducing Halloween into our home this month. It started with vinyl on the door.  The sun has been trying to melt it off, but we keep smoothing it back on.  ;)

This year, I made sure I got the kids' pajamas done in time to really enjoy the anticipation of the "holiday."  And an extra was a matching shirt.  I had some special vinyl that I was anxious to use.  I cut the fabric on Tuesday, cut the vinyl on Wednesday, ironed it on the shirts on Thursday and spent 3 hours sewing on Friday (today).  Whew!

Here they are tonight before bed.

 (Rebekah's pajamas do have legs of equal length, despite the apparent proof otherwise.)

Chad and I like this shot the best, but it's not about the pj's.  We think six kids make a PERFECT pyramid! Of course, this picture was captured right before the top of the pyramid slipped off and the bottom crumpled.

And while it seems we're rushing into Halloween, I don't think the bin of decorations will come out for at least another week.  ;)

Animals, animals, animals

We have a few animals around here.  The number fluctuates depending on what is sold, what is born and what dies.  The kids love the animals that fit in their laps (or used to).

This is Stripes.  She is a 2nd generation cat in our family.  

This is one of her kittens, Potato Chips.  He is such a sweet cat and has a little raspy purr.  We really should find him a new home, but we aren't that motivated.  His sister is a tiny copy of their mother.  They are both very calm and friendly kitties.  Unless you are a mouse. 

We sold all of our sheep this summer.  It was too much responsibility for me, even though at this point they were taking care of themselves.  I was thinking ahead to winter and didn't want to worry about all of that.

This is Molly, on her last day as a member of our family.  She was terrorizing the farm a little and needed a home where she could get more human attention.  An older (than me) couple took her about a month and a half ago.  Leah sobbed.  She'd become much more attached to Molly than I'd realized.  She's OK now.

As part of the deal that we could find Molly a new home, we got a new puppy for Leah to attach herself to.  (No one else around here is as much an animals person as Leah!)

This little puppy is Lucky.  She is technically Daniel's dog.  We had her first and knew that she had a sister still available.  She was anxious to meet Molly.

But I think she was happy to be reunited with her sister.  They were only separated for two days, so it wasn't a huge reunion.  They had already grown a bit in these pictures.

Meet Georgia.

 Here they are two months later.  When will they stop growing?  They are growing SO fast!  They are about 15 weeks old now.  We had to buy choke collars so that Leah could handle Georgia.  That is one strong pup!

We set up this kennel for them yesterday, got them off the grass and are using the house as a weather shield. We had to steal it from the chickens though and will have to put up something to contain the birds soon.

I've heard some specific meowing/crying late at night for the past week.  I'm sure we'll be dealing with more kittens in about 4 months.  I'd fix Stripes, but that is a sure way to never see her again.  You might not believe it.  We have too much experience to think otherwise!

We still have one cow.  And too many spiders.

Horsin' around on the 4th of July

Is anyone else like me?  I always feel some sort of relief once the 4th of July is over.  Maybe it's because I am not a crowds person.  And Independence Day seems to be a day of crowds.  But despite my mild dislike of the holiday, it comes every year.

I did make shirts again this year.  I just can't help myself!  It seems that half of what the kids wear are shirts that I've designed in some way.  I hope that they will forgive me for that when they are older.  :)  

I was too lazy to line them up properly for a formal shot of their matchy-matchy shirts.  This is the best I could do.  Sadly, two of my children ended up without faces!

The kids really didn't care about their shirts anyway.  We were at the Bishop's this late afternoon to ride his horse, Shadow.  Leah nearly combusted waiting for the time to get in the van to drive 3 houses down the road.  So we let her go first.

Then it was Rebekah's turn.

Joseph was next.

Doesn't that expression make you wonder just what he is thinking?  I love this shot.  He is gripping that saddle horn pretty tightly.

Next was Daniel's turn.  I tried to tell the Bishop that you can't just throw Daniel on a horse the same way he'd been doing with the first three.  I think I was too far away.  Daniel is short, but he has 12 years of growing packed into that body.  I hope the Bishop's back was OK the next day.

Daniel enjoyed his ride.

We had to force Nathan on the horse.  He's our child that would rather watch life pass him by.  Half of his memories will probably be ones we shoved him into.  Even so, he did enjoy the ride.  He just wouldn't admit it.

This one of Sarah kills me.  I think she should become a jockey.  She sure looks like she wants to go!  The funny thing about Sarah is that she doesn't think she is small.  She had just watched 5 people before her ride this horse and she was going to have her turn.  When she started to slip off the saddle after the horse jumped to the side, she decided she wasn't so brave and let her 2-year-old girl cry out.

Luckily, Sarah's Daddy was there to make the experience positive.  They rode together once the Bishop brought the horses out of the corral.

When it got dark, we lit our fireworks.  We had decided to skip the public show because it wasn't the firework show that had the kids wide-eyed and mesmerized.  We don't need drunks and scantily clad women to complete our holiday!

True to tradition, we were down to 3 empty BBQ lighters to use to light our fireworks.  Our thumbs and fingers were raw by the time we got everything lit.  I guess it just made the show last longer!

HOLY SMOKES!

It would not be a real family celebration if someone didn't cry.  It was way past this little girl's bedtime!

Even now we still have a few sparklers left over.  I can only take so much smoke and burn risk!

June - and what it was.

I've already mentioned Daniel's birthday and ordination.  Those events happened in June.  We also celebrated Chad's birthday in June.  It passed relatively quietly.  I made him a lemon meringue pie, at his request.  We had to have it a day late, for some reason that I can't even recall!  Thirty-nine is not so momentous an occasion as forty, I guess.  So we'll have to really whoop it up next year!  

June was the big start to the summer for us.  We filled it with letter boxing; a little here and there.  The next 4 pictures are from our adventures looking for boxes.

In June, Nathan saw an orthopedic specialist for his leg/hip problems.  That's when he was diagnosed with "spastic hamstrings" which we have since abandoned and moved on to more reasonable explanations.  I am including this picture because I caught Nathan on camera (hard to do) with a severe case of the giggles.  :)

Mid June had us at the Shrine Circus, watching routines that we have started to memorize.

Even so, it still manages to mesmerize!

 OK...so this one looks less like "awe" and more like "yawn", but the circus is not action 100% of the time.

Hey, Daniel.

We anticipated a rush of people leaving all at once and decided to skip the two-elephant finale at the end to get out of the parking lot ahead of the chaos.  It worked and it was worth it!

Chad's maternal grandmother turned 90 in June and the family got together one Saturday to celebrate her.  We visited with cousins a lot.  I gave the camera to Chad to record what was most important to him.  He turned the camera over to the kids.  So we have a lot of pictures that aren't really that important at all.  Here are some of the better ones.

And what about a picture of the honored matron?  We got one.  I doctored it for you so you would be able to pick her out.  Wow.  We did good.

We recently discovered that Chad's something-great grandfather homesteaded in this area (Presto, not Preston).  I used to know how far back but I've forgotten and if you want to hear any of the story, you won't mind that I don't feel obligated to find out before I post.  The delay has been long enough!  Anyway, we tried to do some investigating one Sunday afternoon.  We found a very old stone house built in 1909 - by the people that bought the land from the Colletts. So here is a shot of the land that they used to live on.  Good ol' Idaho; it's easy to picture them out there since the city hasn't found this beautiful piece of earth yet.

And that is (was) June in pictures.

Chad started his new job in June and it has been challenging to be separated so much.  I am having a hard time running a family, a house and a farm while taking care of church responsibilities and trying to keep from giving up all of my "me" time.  I think the hardest part is not having family around; no one to call on and impose upon without feeling like a bother or intruder.  I end up leaving my kids home by themselves a lot and I feel guilty about that.

I have some great neighbors and a few friends that have lightened the burden, but it really isn't the same as family.  Even being able to call home to discuss the challenges and get a pep talk isn't an option.

So I hope our current situation improves soon and that we can just "keep on keeping on" until it does.