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Showing posts from 2016

There were helicopters back then?

I was playing some music videos for the kids, among which was Phil Collins' Easy Lover.   Scott's like, "This was made a long time ago." I said, "Yeah, the 80's." "There were helicopters back then?"  He asked. "You're funny,"  I said. "No, seriously,"  he started.  "There were helicopters back then?" Nice. I feel I need to educate the kids on quality music.  They already like Coldplay, so that's cool.  Tyler wants to learn some of their new stuff on the piano, so tonight we went over Hymn for the Weekend.   Then I did Paradise for Kira.  It's her favorite song.  Yeah.

Contentment

I have been thinking about doing a simple remodel for our kitchen.  I am not willing to spend a ton of money at this stage of life for the mere fact that I don't want to worry about things getting ruined.  Friends have installed ikea cabinets, I looked at them last time I was at ikea and liked how they looked.  They seemed perfect for what I was looking at.  Granite is simple enough which could be done in a day or two and lastly new appliances. Well, I was going to start the project, then I realize I just want to do it.  I would rather have my kitchen in one piece.  I would rather have that time to spend on the kids.  I would rather not drag Danny through something that I am certain he doesn't want to be a part of. So i realized I was perfectly content and it was such a nice feeling. I am even content with my family room that is simply good enough.  It isn't decorated exactly how I want but Kira is starting to turn our home into a mattress jumping trampoline zone so rea

I'm a great parent

I'm a great parent. At least in my head. In the eyes of the kids, I'm the worst parent.  Compared to other parents, I think I'm in the 50th percentile.  My latest endeavor was a program to teach Scott to clean up his clothes from off the bathroom floor. Sometimes I throw them in his bed.  Once I put them in his backpack so he took them to school.  I was hoping that he'd open up his backpack, see his dirty choners and be so embarrassed that he'd never leave them on the ground again.  But that failed. This time I told him that if he didn't pick them up that I'd hide them.  He shrugged and said he didn't care.  So I hid them.  After two days he started asking where his clothes were, and he had apparently missed the laundry cut-off.  I told him he could buy back his clothes for a dollar each.  I wanted him to feel the pain of losing money to a lame cause but he said, "I have a lot of money and I have a lot more coming to me."  Wow.  I know

Home schooling

I have spent the week researching home schooling the kids.  I have the most amazing friends who took time out of the busy days to talk to me, to meet with me, to just answer questions or let me talk and process my thoughts and ideas.  The past couple of months I feel like I have been so much more home bound than usual.  I used to love going to the gym to work out and talk and process ideas and life with friends.  Since I started working, I have spent the mornings with blake and parker, cleaning the home, prepping dinner.  I think some of it is that I get social interaction at work or outside the home. Sometimes I think it is dealing with the emotions of my parents deaths and the toll of caring for them.  Sometimes I wonder if staying home is a form of depression.  Probably.  The funny thing about life and emotions is you never quite know why your body reacts or craves certain things.  But getting to the gym and being with friends in the morning was so healthy for me.  Something that I

Jaredites

I have been studying the Book of Ether this week for Gospel Doctrine.  The past couple of months I have gotten lazy with preparing.  So this week, I really tried to repent, improve and study.  It is just incredibly amazing how the Lord opens up the scriptures to you when you truly study them.  The book of ether actually talks about crying unto the Lord and I feel like that is a lesson that is so powerful.  When we cry unto him either in prayer, or by how we ponder and dive into the scriptures, he can speak so much more powerfully and clearly. The book of Ether has so many lessons in it. It is another testament of the book of mormon.  It is incredible to me how the Lord truly testifies through the mouth of witnesses. It is about a journey to the promised land or a life back with him. It is about building vessels to get there.  We are the vessels.  What we must do, how hard we must work in order to return to him. Ultimately, it is a story of the constant need of a Savior.  The

A Great Sunday

We have had the flu going around the past couple of days.  It started with Blake throwing up on Thursday night, me going in the spare room to sleep with him and getting sick the next day.  Danny getting sick Friday night and the Kira and Scott throwing up in the middle of the night on Saturday. So today, I decided to stay home with the kids from church so we didn't pass this around to everyone at church.  Even though we were at a ward party the day before.  I hope people don't get this. The kids played so nice all day.  That is rare for us. And it was like a magical day!  Danny went to church in the morning. Kira and Tyler colored and played games.  Then the kids would go from one kids to another playing various games, coloring, cards, etc.   I think it helped that Scott laid on the couch too sick to move most of the morning and Kira was probably lethargic from the night before. We are doing the advent of #lighttheworld that the church is doing this year.  Essentially yo

School

More and more people are homeschooling.  It is something that years ago was something that I had 0% interest in but as time goes on I become more intrigued.  The past year I have found myself listening to my friends or even strangers telling their story and reason to homeschool.  I feel like it is a road that is becoming more popular and the reasons are vast.  I feel a yearning to learn more, to explore and to be open minded to the idea.  It is a desire that keeps growing in my heart and in my mind. My kids generally like school, like learning and like their friends.  Everything that school should offer.  This year, I have found sports and activities fill our afternoons.  As the kids get older, I find our time together becomes more limited.  I have a 5th grader who has been bored for the past couple of years and I feel like this year is the first year that the culmination of boredom has really hit him.  He goes to school and is bored.  Maybe it is hormones or the age, but part of it

Scrooge

We are so lucky to live within an hour of a temple that has a visitors center.  They put on the musical scrooge this week.  Last year I really wanted to go see the nutcracker but it was sold out, so this year I made sure to get on early and get tickets.  I also decided to get tickets for Scrooge.  We went for a family and it was fun. Scott is playing Scrooge for his class play, which is very low key but fun for him to see the real production.  We got a last minute babysitter for Parker and went to the temple.  The parking was CRAZY!  I wasn't expecting that many people at all.  I dropped off the kids to find their dad in the line, which thankfully they did and then searched for parking. They did a good job at the play.  It was a good production.  It was a little long for the kids and maybe adults but we all had a fun time and most importantly seemed to get something out the message.  Tyler said, "I wish the spirits could visit me so I could be nice."  I laughed.  I to

Our Au Pair

Since I started to coach again, Danny and I looked into the different options for child care.  Last summer Rebekah took care of our kids most days.  She was awesome and would bring them to the pool, watch the baby and bring them back home until I was done.  With starting Aquabears, I realized I needed someone in the fall as well.  It gets a little more tricky since the kids are in various activities and I need someone to drive them to their sports and pick them up. There is always a surplus of teenagers, but not all of them can drive and that is really what I needed. Danny and I looked into getting a foreign au pair through cultural care au pair.  A couple of our friends have used the au pairs and it seemed like it would be a good solution for our family.  We thought it would be good for the kids to have someone who they were totally comfortable with and was almost like an older sister.  Especially Kira who seems to get the most anxiety when I am not around. I called them to look

Aquabears

Mike called me in the summer on a long shot to see if I would at all be interested in coming back to Aquabears.  I had been thinking about going to Aquabears for the Fall program with Scott and thought maybe that would be a good solution.  He needed someone for the Senior group and their beginner group.  I told him I would do 2x a week for the seniors and do the 8&unders. Scott swam with Russell and Steve, who are awesome.  It was fun to see him try new events.  He was really good in the 200 free.  He swam it twice in the fall and both times I think had anxiety leading up the event for week, but did it and realized he can indeed swim more than a 50.  Rec swimming is so intense in some ways.  The kids get up and race, race, race.  It is a lot of pressure to win and race.  USS takes some of that pressure off and it is more about the journey, trying new things and long term development of the kids, which I like.  There are pluses and minuses to both and a definite need for both.  He

Gymnastics

Kira has been going to gymnastics for about 10 months at Black Diamond.  She really liked it and then went through a period that she was scared to do anything.  She was scared to try new things, scared to be without me, scared to go to school.  I am not sure what it was the result of.  Her therapist at school said she would funnel all her fears into one specific thing but it really changed her.  I don't know if it was experiencing my mom and dad dying, me going to work, Tyler being normally mean to her.  Probably a combination of it all. We live in a relatively new community that is about an hour from the City.  That means that most people commute.  It also means that a lot of kids programs are not as developed or available in Brentwood. We went to the only gym in the City.  Unfortunately it was about 20-30 minutes from our home, depending on traffic. She liked it and the teachers were really nice.  When I started to work in Walnut Creek and Clayton and Scott started to swim in

Halloween

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Hey.  Here are a couple of pictures from trick-or-treating.  It's way too easy to shoot a shabby picture with the iphone, and I am pleased to say that I put the big flash on my SLR for these.  Aren't they nice?  Well, they are.  Thanks.   Mister is great.  He still sleeps in his crib, which we keep in our closet, and he likes to sleep with the light on.  He can climb out, too.  He can hardly say any words but he seems to be able to get what he wants.  He likes playing in the dirt outside.   Kira likes playing with our neighbor, Ethan.  In fact, all the kids light up when he's out front.  He seems to have all the cool toys and they play in the court for hours.  That's cool. Scott is swimming with the Aquabears.  He goes out to Walnut Creek with Heidi and usually gets some fast food for the ride home, which he likes.  Heidi's been commuting in the truck, which I like. I'm glad Blake's in a good mood here.  He seems to be having a hard time

Heather Farms and Lindsey Wildlife

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We had a fun day planned to visit Paisley during a day off.  Had a great time at Heather Farms Park.  Then we went to the Lindsey Wildlife museum but Tyler got really sick.  His chest really hurt and he looked really grey.  Luckily we were able to drop off Paisley at home and head home.  It was one of the few times that I actually thought about going into the hospital.  He didn't look good.  We went home, gave him some fluids, he slept for a couple of hours and felt much better when he woke up.  I think he was really dehydrated.  Glad he is doing better.  The kids love to go down these fake hills on cardboard. they are crazy and fearless. Blake made this bread with Lisa at preschool.  He was so proud of himself and it was really good bread!  He is having a good time in preschool.  He loves being with friends and it is fun to see him enjoy learning.  A blessing my kids all seem to have is a love for learning and being with friends.  Not to say they are always good friends or

Kira and 1st grade

Kira is doing really well in first grade.  She had such a hard time when I went to work in kindergarten and seems to have outgrown a lot of her fears and anxieties.  Some of it I am sure was loosing my parents and time seems to heal and make a lot of things better. She is really smart.  Just gets things.  Reminds me of Scott in a lot of ways.  Has perfectionist tendencies.  Scott used to be hard on himself.  She isn't hard on herself or the outcome but just scared to do new things or in the process if they aren't turning out how she wants, she gets real frustrated.  It has been fun to see her learn to read.  All of a sudden, her reading just took off and somehow she went from learning one word to reading at a pretty high level.  I read an article years ago about how they teach kids in Switzerland (I think) how to read when they are older and actually ready to read and they progress happily and much faster than in America.  It really impacted me and for the most part I have ad

Tyler's Yearly Cardiology Appt

Tyler met with Dr. Saba, his new cardiologist.  Dr. Cooper retired with Kaiser a little over a year ago, so this was our second appt with Dr. Saba.  Great guy, great Dr.  We are so blessed.  It was the first appt that I was able to drop him off for because I had Blake and Parker with me. He did great and the best news of all was that his heart is doing great!  We are so blessed.  There are so many kids that spend most of their lives in and out of hospitals and I Tyler has been blessed with a fairly normal childhood. He is getting to the age that he needs to start using judgement of how to manage his health. 4th grade is the first year that the class has a P.E. teacher and I suggested to his teacher and Tyler that he probably shouldn't run for warm up but instead save his energy for more fun activities such as tag, frisbee or whatever they are playing.  He came home one day and told me he had to sit out all of P.E. because he didn't run in the beginning so it was a good opport

Tyler's BD and such

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Kira's into having her hair done.  She asked for [French braids] and I didn't know how to do them.  I told her I'd have to watch a youtube video.  Then, in church, Megan was doing French braids on Malie and I learned how to do them.  My first attempt was pretty ugly, but you gotta start somewhere.  This was my second attempt.  I'm still not that good at them and it takes a while, but I had to take a picture before Kira took them out.  Her hair's not quite long enough to do two braids and merge them into one, so I did three separate ones.   Tyler celebrated his birthday by having a sleepover.  More like a NO-SLEEP over.  I think the kids had a good time, though. The piƱata was popular even though it was too heavy to support its own weight on the hook.  The kids ended up smashing it on the ground. Our new neighbors are great.  Our kids take turns jumping on each others' tramps.  They just climb over the fence like this.  Here the

Dana Hills County Dinner

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Hey.  Thursday was the Dana Hills dinner for the county qualifiers.  Only Scott qualified, but Tyler and Kira came, too.  It was at the Oakhurst country club in Clayton.  Heidi wanted me to dress up so I wore my Neal Caffrey pants.  Heidi likes when I "dress up."  Except for church, of course, because I am down to just one suit--my power suit.  Which, incidentally, has been worn 202 times.  I've gotten my money's worth two times over.   Anyway, it was a pasta feed.  I'm not much into pasta but the salad and dessert were good.  Plus, it was fun talking to my friends.  Heidi and I have the same phone but her lenses always seem to be cloudy, but a bad photo is better than no photo.  I brought my big camera and took a few pictures.  Can you tell the difference?  I am amazed at how much brighter and clearer the SLR's images are.   Hint:  the last ones are from the SLR. I don't know everyone in these photos but it's easier to me to make this post th