What I’ve been up to in the past few months.

Slowing down.  No more cooking club.  About to be done with voice lessons.  Seriously looking into minimalism as a lifestyle but skeptical about how “low I can go” on the personal possessions with a house full of children.  Still- I have been throwing inanimate objects out right and left.  I try to keep the ones that holler when I pick them up :).

Homeschooling.  Not tons of creative stuff right now.  Just getting through the basics.

Gymnastics.  Because that is pretty much what life revolves around right now—sad as that may be.

Growing a baby.  20 weeks along today.  Don't feel bad if you didn't know.  This is also an announcement.  Not my favorite picture, or shirt, and no makeup, but it would take so long to get one I like…

Playing interior decorator.  Well, just basically trying to make my house look nice and put together.  *Sigh* I have a feeling this is going to take a while.  

Reading.  For the sake of my sanity.  And because the more stuff I throw out of my house, the less messy it gets and the more time I feel like I can spend reading.  Pretty much all homeschooling, pregnancy, and religious-type books.

And in the interest of organizing and minimalizing- we have redone the boys' closet.  Actually, I took everything out of their rooms except their beds.  No toys, no clothes.  They do each have a drawer up there where they can put their "treasures."  It's basically the only safe place in the house, where I won't come throw things out...but it has to fit.  This closet is downstairs--a spare one I happened to have hanging around in the laundry room.  Convenient huh?  And while it probably doesn't add much to the decor, these are the all clothes of 4 boys in one closet, right next to the washer and dryer.  No more endless trips up the stairs to gather all the dirty laundry, or getting down on all fours to inspect under the bed, only to tell the boys that shoving everything under the bed does NOT constitute cleaning the room! We pared clothes down, and may do it again; they don't wear half these clothes.  I put baby blankets and extra towels on the very top.  They each get one towel till I'm ready to wash them.  I had the hardest time getting them to stop using a new towel every day, so I finally just put them out of reach.

Midsummer Update

Cooking club every Friday has been a hit!  After deviled eggs we learned ants-on-a-log and fruit salad, dirt cups, personal pizzas and smoothies, and today was yogurt parfaits- because it was easy. 

 Science class has been fun too- for the kids.  I thought it was an overkill, but everyone apparently liked the 30 ft. homemade slip n' slide.  Crazy people.

And these are just bonus pictures, because life is fun.  Pushups with Dad, and the Polynesian Cultural Center (the main character of the night show).

Here's The Plan, Man

About the time I had several rowdy boys (not mine) jumping around on the furniture I decided we needed a little structure this summer.  The kids in the neighborhood are bored.  When they get bored, some of the kids get together and bully other kids, pick on each other, or just get cranky, and wild. 

So, today was COOKING CLUB.  Every Friday at 10:00.  And we had so much interest that I think we’ll have to split into two groups, an older group and a younger one.  I didn’t think the older boys would come in force like that.  We started with something simple: deviled eggs.  Easy right?  Try teaching10 kids how to make them while the baby screams and holds on to your legs.  (I finally sedated him with a bottle.)  But it all worked out with minimal mess, and they loved them.  I’ve had requests for pie and kabobs, but in order to preserve my waning sanity, next week is actually much easier than either.  I’ve noticed kids have a hard time waiting for things to cook or set, so before I try anything where they have a prolonged wait, I will have to think up some crafts to fill up the waiting time. 

I’m currently trying to decide on a time for story time in the park :), and art.  The outside/water games will be a little more random, and more organized pillow fights have been requested.  I’ve promised the kids I’d post a schedule on my door at the beginning of the week so they’ll know when stuff is happening, with a list of stuff they need to bring, if anything.  What have I gotten myself into?!  At least my kids are happy, and will probably have plenty to do.  Now excuse my while I scour the internet for creative ideas that will help me survive the summer.

A Fun Trip Home

We had an awesome, and effective, trip home.  It was great.  Two family reunions, so we pretty much got to see everybody (except my brother Kyle who is on a mission :)) and family pictures with my husband’s side of the family.  We did 5 generation pictures with my great grandma, and visited with her for a while.  Lots of fires, marshmallow roasts, four-wheeling, and trampoline jumping.  Massages from my mother-in-law, and the best company in the world.  I helped my sister clean so she could move and got to hang out with my adorable nieces, met my new nephew :), went to track districts, caught up with a couple of friends, helped clean out the basement, and generally had a great time. Time flew and it wasn’t nearly long enough, but I’ll take what I can get. 

On the way there we flew standby on a C-17 (military cargo plane).  A new experience for sure, and very different from a commercial flight.  The 13 hour drive to Idaho from Travis AFB was…well, much longer than 13 hours.  I would have to think about whether I’d do things the same way again.

On the way home we stopped at the Ramada Inn by the Spokane airport.  I picked it for three reasons: the shuttle to the airport, the swimming pool (with waterslide) and the in-house restaurant.  We didn’t have a car so we weren’t going to go somewhere else to eat, and I wanted the kids to be entertained.  They were only in the pool for about 3 hours, haha.  The food was great, for a hotel restaurant, and didn’t give me indigestion as many before have.  They also had enough food for my boys.  Often the “kid’s menu” comes with little enough food that the boys could each eat two of the meals.  The hotel had no problem with all of our family being in one room, and a crib was there for us.  I think it’s my new favorite stopover in Spokane.  Accommodating and convenient.

Flying Allegiant was much better than anticipated too.  We brought all our own food, and water, because their prices were ridiculous for both, but that was expected.  They seated our family together because we had little kids, the flight was on time, and they didn’t have a problem with my one-year-old constantly walking up and down the aisle.  (It was that or listen to him scream.)  It all worked out, and the price was great.

Time to plan the next vacation!

Life in PICTURES

 ART time with neighbor kids.  Had a hard time finding a pic without other people's kids in it.  Turns out all kids love art.  Who knew?

 One of our more recent beach adventures.  Paradise Cove :)

 Yeah, he pretty much froze in this position for the entire time.  At least he wasn't screaming this time.  That would be normal for a beach trip for him.

 Pinewood Derby car testing.  Making sure it's fast enough!

 Oh look, a picture I don't HATE!  Taken by the up-and-coming photographer, Demetri.  So glad I don't have to develop rolls of film anymore with tons of random photos taken by kids.  On the other hand, now they take hundreds!

 Our Easter egg hunt.  He's just waiting till it's over now so he can eat the candy.

 Olie was a little more into finding all the eggs.

 Dad hid Demetri's eggs really really well.

 It took forever.

Xander, cleaning up.  Actually, he thinks these are balls and throws them all over the place.

For the most part, this is in chronological order.  Homeschool, Beach, Pinewood Derby, Easter.  Yep, that's what we've been up to.

Last week. Well, the memorable parts of it anyway :)

We’ve had some interesting times lately.  Wednesday we went to Paradise Cove with friends and swam with the turtles.  The kids explored, and the baby sat in a sort of stunned/comatose state as he warily watched the water and sand around him.  Demetri got a little careless and jumped from rock to rock instead of slowly climbing them, resulting in a pretty good fall.  I thought for sure it was another trip to the ER as an adult helped him get back to me.  His foot was covered in blood.  But after it was cleaned up, we saw it was just a shallow cut.  It didn’t stop him from screaming into a towel for the next 20 minutes, but I guess that’s just part of his dramatic personality. 

Friday we had “friend homeschool,” as a couple friends like to join us most Fridays.  We wrote beach stories for our books, and now I need to print the pictures of the turtle for them.  Then we played math computer games.  More neighborhood children wandered in and listened to Pandora while I cleaned.  A pillow fight eventually developed, and I had to stop cleaning to make some ground rules. 

1.      Anyone who hits the fan, tv, etc is out till the next round. 

2.      You can’t hit anyone who doesn’t have a pillow. 

3.      If you drop your pillow or sit down on the couch you’re out until the next round. 

4.      If you’re too hard on the little kids and they get hurt you’re out. 

5.      The baby is a bomb.  Anyone who touches him is out.

They had a blast!  We had to stop for a mandatory water break because I could see the sweat dripping from the older boys.  All in all, I think we had 12 children and a whole lot of pillows in the living room.  They did a great job at following the rules!  While they were waiting for Uncle Shawn to get home (because I told them he could whip them all in a pillow fight) we ended up doing karaoke to Disney songs on Youtube.  And the Hokey Pokey.  You should have seen the “too-cool-for-you” 8-12-year-old boys doing the Hokey Pokey.  It was all for Xander.  Sweet kids :).

Saturday one of our (8 yr old) friends came over and made bread with me.  Then we all made personal pizzas.  During lunch he exclaimed, “This is like my second home!”  And my kids told him he was welcome to live here forever and be a brother. Hmm...do I have a say in this? Haha.