You know you've been forgetting things when....

Your 15 yr old son starts leaving you reminder messages .

(to put away the milk delivery from the front porch)

An assortment of Eyre's and Important Others

Some pics from our summer...

Cub Scout camp at Aurora Reservoir- thomas engraving letters into some dog tags

Thomas is King of the Mountain! Thankfully the local scout chairman is also the owner of the local Chick-fil-a and had an abundance of boxes to share with the scouts.  They built towers of varying sizes and then threw projectiles to  destroy them.

What happens when you give brandon a watermelon and a knife and then bore him with lengthy dinner conversation....

Catherine with our Milla replacement (friend Amy that joined us on the trip)

Ha Ha Sean.  Kids at the airport ready to take off to cousins camp.

Brandon attempting the Jurassic Pork at our favorite burger place, Crave.
Burger, bacon, pork rinds, ham, pulled pork, cheese, probably some other stuff, and 2 ribs (missing) held on top by the toothpick.  It was a feat, but Brandon conquered.
and decided we should probably not attempt this more than 2 times a year if we valued our lives.

One day in Baltimore we toured several ships in the Bay.  Milla decided the sailors didn't have it so bad...she slept just fine

Our awesome hosts

Land ahoy!!  I'm a natural.

My first little bunch of grapes!  Aren't they precious!

I jumped into the car after church one day and Catherine slapped this 75 cent tag on me.  Nice to feel appreciated.

In case you didn't want to wade through the 90+ photos I posted on Google + from this Grand Junction trip...  Yeah for awesome sisters!

Actual pic of the birthday girl is still sitting on my real camera...but I snapped this on my phone when we set up the party the night before.  Catherine is 11!

Life in a nutshell

Too much has happened this summer for me to give a detailed account of it all.  Our 'Staycation' turned into 'A million things to fit together like a tight jigsaw puzzle- cation'.  There wasn't one trip that included all six members of our family. Milla nannying in MD-twilight cubscout camp-Bishop's Youth Retreat-Mt Rushmore-Catherine visit to La Grande-My best La Grande friend visiting here-Hiking-Billy Joel/Maryland trip-Cousin's camp-Sean GT Minecraft and Mystery Writer's camp-Ziplining-Alpine Slide-Grand Junction with Lys.  We didn't make it to the Denver Mint (but did run into a stranger at one point that worked there), a mountain train ride, or whitewater rafting.  But I think that we fit in all that we could manage.  Honestly, all the visits made us more appreciative of the down time just being home.

School began on August 13th.  Sean's first year in high school, Rin's first year of middle school, Thomas braving 4th grade in elementary all on his own.  Well, at least sibling wise.  He's got two great friends: Jacob and Angelo that ride the bus with him and are at our house pretty much every afternoon.  I find myself saying, 'don't you want to play at Angelo's (or Jacob's) sometimes?'.  He says he likes it here.  And then I wonder why I am even pressing the point! I've always thought how much I WANTED the kids to bring friends home.  Funny.

So life is running along, passing by whether I want it to or not.  Milla has a different confidence about her since returning from Spencer and Cherry's.  Being herself and being more comfortable with who that person is.  And just smiling more. Sean is realizing that being on his own is not so far away and keeps commenting about 'when I go to college' or 'when I have my own job'.  He talks about girls sitting at his lunch table.  Milla and Sean have technical drawing together this year, last period of  'A' days.  They enjoy walking to seminary and school together.  I'm glad they have each other.  They understand each other alot better that I understand them.  They give me alot of hugs.  I like hugs.  I do get some eye rolls from time to time because of things I say, but my teenagers still seem to like being around me.  even in public. even when I'm (honestly) not that much fun to be around.  So that's good.

Then there is Catherine. 11 years old.  What!!  My most focused, planned ahead, thrives in the school setting Catherine.  She talks about so many fears, but seems to do what she wants to despite them.  Thomas has taken to sleeping in the hallway between my room and his.  He says that he likes being closer to us, that it 'feels like home'.

So that is life right now.  We played a round of family 'Tennis Baseball' at the park last night.  A few breakdowns but even more smiles.  That's life too.

I got a job as a CNA- working for a non profit Long Term Care center in Centennial.  Most days in regular skilled nursing (think traditional nursing home), taking some turns in Rehab (Seniors staying only a few weeks following surgery).  I start tomorrow. Really looking forward to it, but know it will take some time for the family to adjust.  Working 3 12's, Tuesdays, Fridays and alternate Weds/Sat.  One of those things that I don't quite know how it will all work out, but I feel so calm about it that I'm just going to start. One day at a time.

I asked thomas to make his bed on Thursday.  Here's what I got. ;)

Brandon's the Best

The kids decided to do a little something special for Father's Day this year.  Probably would have been nice to have the camera straight, but honestly, we were all pretty happy that we were able to figure out how to hook the computer up to the projector to show the kids google presentation, to download and then to successfully edit and export the movie WITHOUT papa's help.  That's a miracle in inself. 

*BIG SMILE*

Here's to all the great dad's in our family!

(and when I say 'Sean's dad', I'm talking about Sean Spencer from the show 'Psyche', in case that's lost on you. I'm not sure where the kids came up with some of the others. ;)

Success!

Thomas has been working on landing his front tuck with Coach Charlie for a while now.  Yesterday he just got it.  And then did it 3 times in a row.  Gave me the biggest smile.

Digging

So, in trying to be more active this summer, I've been doing morning outings while it's still cool: bike rides, neighborhood hikes, tennis.  All close to home and not to exceed an hour.  And all optional because then I don't have whiny kids to worry about.  I thought I'd be going out alone a lot.  But not so!  I usually only one or two companions, Thomas being my most regular. Milla did give me a pity walk one day (when I made a really sad face after no one wanted to come, 'It's just so EARLY!'), but it ended up nicely.

This morning we biked to a nearby neighborhood park.  Very small but has a 'dino dig' so we came equipped with brush (yes- the bottom of my broom), shovel and magnifying glass and discovered an amazing collection of bones. ;) 

Thomas and I climbed about on the rocks and played in the waterfalls and pools that run between our subdivision on  another day, trying to get sticks in the right current to flow into the reeds instead of run circles around a rock.  That was fun, but someone just told me we have a bunch of crawfishs in those 'marshes' that you can fish for!  Good reason to pull out my old fishing line from grandpa... I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Guess who's 7?

Or 49 if you want to count that way.  Henry is

finally the oldest one in the family.

Carrot, Peanut Butter, Beef stick cake.  Mmmm.  Doesn't get much better than that.

Wicked

We had a lovely outing with the family last night.  Went downtown to see Wicked.  Which was awesome.  Only Thomas fell asleep and that was only for the final 20 minutes of the 3 hour show.  We arrived with a few minutes to spare, thanks to Brandon's particularness and so got to walk around the grounds for a bit first.  Perfect weather for it.

A chalk drawing of a stream that we crossed over 'Mom! Papa didn't cross over at the red bridge!' (guess who that was...)

Trying to dance with the happy dancing giants

And last, but not least, Sean trying to avoid being digitally captured

Milla's Amazing Race

 It has been a mad dash of events for Milla this week.  She was thoroughly exhausted by the end (so was I!),but I think she would say it was all worth it.

Thursday - The awards ceremony

3pm: Milla arrives home from school, grabs a snack, changes and we head out for her horse lesson up at Saturday's venue in NW Denver (we live in SE).
4 pm: we see her stable's trailer just arriving with their horses at the same time we arrive.  They begin unloading horses and Milla helps get 'Paige' ready for a ride. (the horses will stay here at the show location through the weekend)
4:30 pm: She finally gets into the arena for a quick practice
5:00 pm: We rush out, but hit rush hour traffic... get home at 5:45 and Milla jumps in the shower.
6:05 pm: Dinner
6:10 pm: Milla grabs her plate to scarf down in the car and we leave for her HS awards ceremony.

*She got a little medal and award for being nominated by 2 of her teachers (science and english) as being an exceptional talent in those classes*

SLEEP...a little

Friday - The Prom

after school and seminary,
4pm: Lady from our ward arrived for hair and makeup!  Rin enjoyed chatting with the stylist as she worked.  I could hear the 3 of them laughing and conversing for the 1 1/2 hours it took to pretty up.  So grateful there are people that know how to do such things!
5:30pm: left to take Milla over her friend Maddie's house were prom festivities were to begin!
After pictures and dinner, Milla's date, Ethan Hunt, drove them over to the Wildlife Experience in Parker (south of us), the venue for the dance.
11 pm: She arrived home happy and exhausted.  (Luckily neither Milla nor her date are late, late night people so she could get some sleep before Saturday...)

The group!  Milla and Ethan on the left.  Thankfully his mother passed these pics along to me.

The couple shot!  She's growing up!

Saturday - The Colorado Classic Horse Show

8:15 am: Out the door for the horse show.  Milla's first 'academy' show competing with riders from other stables.  Jods (the long pants they wear for American Saddlebreed riding), collared shirt, tie, tiebar, vest, leather gloves and boots.

9:00 am: The riders aren't allowed to help prep the horses this morning!  They stay in the makeshift 'lobby' as others come to do their special buns and cement down their wispies, clean their boots and apply their numbers

10:00 Shows on!  Parents go to the stands!  This is a pretty small show including American Saddlebreed, some western (no jumping or barrel racing), and some english that I really don't know about!  There was a 'record 65 people watching in the stands'.  The venue was so large, though, as you can see from the pictures, we had our choice of seats. ;)

Milla performed in one morning 'class' and in the evening champion 'class' on equitation.  Her type of riding is all about presentation.  I learned from the southern grandmother of one of the rider's that this Saddlebreed was developed in the American South back in the age of plantations.  They needed a horse hardy enough to make all the rounds through the fields to check on things as well as calm and presentable enough to pull the family carriage.  So one has to maintain posture, balance and form: hands up, back in the saddle, posting (controlled bounce with horses gait) properly, heels out and down.  And probably a bunch of other things...

Terribly fuzzy, but here is Milla looking beautiful and on her correct diagonal (posting up when horses leg on the rail side is up)

Milla's first entrance into the ring.  This show arena in connected to a practice arena.  They start a trot in the practice arena and then continue in this trot into the show arena as their name is called.  She competed against 4 other riders in each of her classes.

So fun to watch Milla ride!  She showed confidence and grace!  As she did her first circle in the morning, her coaches kept calling out to her about something.  I couldn't figure out what was going on!  Turns out the horse was doing some other gait, similar to the trot he was SUPPOSED to be doing, that she wasn't familiar with.  She looped once before reallizing what was going on.  Even though her equitation was beautiful, this landed her in 5th place.  She was thrilled with the pink 5th place ribbon, none the less, I mean, it was pink after all, and still got to progress to the 'championship finals' in the evening as there were only 5 kids in her class.  We went home for a brief rest in the afternoon.  Keeping her spirits up, we returned in the evening with the whole family.  Paige was getting in the spirit of things and was responding well to Milla as she came out for her final 'class'.  I thought she rode beautifully, but I always do, so when they called out her name as Championship Winner of her class, I couldn't believe it!  We were all whooping and hollering as we cheered for her and went down to the edge of the ring to congratulate her as she did her victory lap.  Pretty cool.

And her Blue/Yellow/Red Championship ribbon and Pink 5th place ribbon go together just fine.

Nursing: Step 1

So I'm half way through week 3 of my 4 week CNA class and really enjoying it.  Mon/Tues/Weds of next week are clinicals!  24 hours of shadowing CNA's at a long term care/memory care facility in Englewood.  I'm fairly excited about it, even considering the fact that it is 40 minutes away and I have to be there at 6am. ;)  At least I'll beat rush hour!

I'll be taking the state board exam/practicals the weekend after I get back from Puerto Rico.  That solves my dilemma of how to keep myself preoccupied on the long flight back from the islands! (study, more study...)  Once I pass (staying optimistic here), I'll be licensed to look for a new job!  Not planning to until August but it will be good to be ready to go.  And enjoy my kids for the summer!

Well, at least I thought I would have a break just to play with the kids....but the Bishop had different plans.  New calling this Sunday...you know that big one that is like having another part time job?....which I feel right about and at peace with, but I will admit that I have had a few cries since finding out.  No rest for the weary.  May slightly affect Nursing: Steps 2 and 3, but it will all come about as it needs to, so I'm just going with it. *BIG SMILE*  

I can't really complain.  I have a beautiful family, that besides a few gray hairs, is a constant support to me, we have better health than literally ANY other family I know (except maybe Shannon's?  But then she shows me up on everything), I have a loving husband, and don't have financial stressors that plague so many, and I have a faith that gives me peace.  No doubt this calling will end up being one more blessing as the opportunity to serve usually is!

Last Thursday was 'Bring your child to Work Day'.  Catherine thought my 'work' would be more fun than Papa's so she came with me. ;)
And it was!  After the 2 hour lecture, I got to use my gait belt to transfer her to the wheelchair, get her positioned with the bedpan, and assist her with feeding.  Then she pretty much just played with the wheelchair popping wheelies and such to finish out the day...

Goldfish Challenge!

What to do when you see Goldfish crackers on sale for 99 cents?

Thomas says, 'Buy all 21 kinds of them!!'.

So actually we had to scour 3 stores to find 21 varieties.  Missing 2 or 3, but we decided we would survive.  Poor Thomas and Catherine could hardly standing seeing them all lined up on the fridge, waiting for family home evening to come...

I have never seen my kids so focused... Harder than you might think to differentiate 21 flavors.

THE WINNER: PAPA- with 15 correct.
2nd PLACE: MAMA- with 11.5 (1/2 pts given for a few close flavors like chedder/xtreme chedder)

Parents rock ;)

Not to ruin your weekend drag racing plans...

After years of constant frustration with flat wheelbarrow tires, I say to Sean, "Sean.  Here is a million dollar idea for you.  Solid foam tires for wheelbarrows so they don't go flat!  Why don't they make that!"

(well, it turns out that they do...)

I want to know what idiot tried using a wheelbarrow wheel on the highway and then sued the tire making company when it blew out at 55 mph, bringing about the necessity for this warning.  Really?  I had to laugh

Birthday 3

So this is actually part two of my birthday.  Time kind of got away from me... 

Brandon's daily surprises leading up to birthday were, as always, awesome.

Birthday itself was also. awesome. 

Woke up to a lovely cake decorated by my girls with loads of fresh flowers.  Ahhh. After some perfect present opening, we headed over to a trail that Brandon had found near to red rocks.  Although the hike was only 2-3 hours long, we did manage to trudge through some snow, climb to a great overlook to view downtown Denver, get lost (harder to see the trail when there is snow!) and circle the same 80 ft stretch a few times till we found our way, and find the ruins of a castle.  Good times!  Can't remember the name of the family that built this 'castle', but if memory serves, it was built near the turn of the 20th century by a (of course) very wealthy man,  He planned to make his property a place that US Presidents could vacation when they were out west.  With in a year of it's completion, however, his wife died and then (I think) about 7 years after that it was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground.  I guess he took that as a bad omen as after the fire he decided to leave town. 

I loved being out with the fam, though, and was pleased the sun decided to come as well. ;)

The castle.  The kids were actually all collapsed, exhausted, on a bench right before this, but were sweethearts to show some energy for the camera.

One of my sweet coworkers made me a personalized nursing card for my birthday, as well as some fajitas for lunch.  Mmm!
I'm enjoying my CNA class but do miss the company of Sandy, JoNell, and Brisa.

Birthdays 2

THOMAS

What an awesome kid.  I look forward every night to tucking this kid in.  After the scriptures, prayer, song routine, I can just lay by him and chat.  He's not generally a talker, but at night he has all sorts of things to say: thoughts, questions, musings, curiosities.  All good stuff.

My baby is 9!!

After morning presents and skylander cake, we had a hangout 'yes' day (that's from Alyssa's family ;). Played games, random treats and such.  Then as soon as Brandon got home from work we picked up Thomas' friend Charlie and headed over to the 'Family Fun Center'.  You always worry when they have to put 'Fun' in the title, right?  But we actually had a really good time.  One more friend joined us over there.  3 rounds of Laser Tag (which I pretty much stink at...but still enjoyed) and then many MORE rounds of bumper cars, and then obstacle course racing (and no, I never beat the 9-10 yr olds, but I totally rocked it against Brandon!).  I was tired.  And feeling more than my young 39 years.  A couple head first leaping dives over inflatable mountains takes it out of you.  Once I got the tuck and roll down, though, it went much better.  Then came rock climbing.  I 'let' all of the kids go first.  Really just needed to catch my breath.  I saw Catherine make it all the way to the *very high* top and knew I had to do it.  Two moves off of the ground and my hands were sweating like a pig and I knew I was in trouble.  Stay calm and don't look down. Stay calm and really don't look down.  Proud to say that I made it!  Woo-hoo!  So pleased with myself.  Got down and am like, 'Brandon! Let me see the picture of me at the top!' And he's like, 'oops'.  Sooo. No proof, but I never lie ;)

Nana gifted some magnifying glasses.  Forget looking at small things when fires can be made!

 

Fire!  Now we need something to burn.... Mama had a whole bag of past tax documents to part with.  Ahhhh.  Kept us nice and toasty.

(we did move to the fire pit for this one)

birthday- post 1

I love birthday week!

So far cheez-its and a family card game on my pillow and date night was to see Shen Yun, a classical Chinese Dance company.  Which was fabulous.  A little hokey, like old martial arts movies, but really impressive and fun at the same time.  And beautiful dancing.

and did I mention Cheez-its?

My little ponies..

Conversation on the way home from the orthodontist yesterday:

Milla- 'I can't WAIT for the next MY LITTLE PONY episode! It's going to be AWESOME!!!'

Mama- 'Oh yeah?  How so?'

Milla- 'It's about BETRAYAL and the IPAD of EQUALITY and...COM-MU-NISM!'

Mama- (Waahhh?) 'This is not the My Little Ponies of the '80's......'


So you think I ought to actually sit down and watch a few episodes?

(Oh- and *spoiler alert*- Milla's braces are coming off April 1st! She's so excited)

February

I think I might as well just label all of my posts by month as I don't seem to get around to writing any more often than that.  Might even be time to switch to 'season'.  But I'm going to stick to 'month' right now, showing my unending optimism.  

So in January, we decided to begin our 'Christmas 2015' season with getting a snowbuddy: a program with Volunteers of America where you are paired with someone nearby that is in need of snow shoveling assistance.  It took a couple of weeks to get the background checks done, forms filled out, etc, but we were finally paired with Ms. Barone.  Since then we have been consistently enjoying 50-70 degree weather.  But the skies did open up on February 1st and gave us a good 6-8 inches so with our 1 snow shovel, 1 large broom and 1 flat bottomed regular diggin' shovel we had Ms. Barone's driveway and front walk cleared in no time.  The sun came out and shown 60 degrees the next day and melted off all that we may have missed.  Consistent with my aforementioned optimistic spirit, we purchased a second snow shovel the next week so that more of the family could participate next time.

For February, as well as continuing with our snowbuddy, we decided to focus on Family History and have a goal of 24-48 hours of indexing by March 15 (we are about a half month off).  Milla has been enjoying the challenge of learning to read cursive (you all know that cursive is kind of a thing of the past?  My kids have still been introduced to it in school, but Milla has said that her teachers usually ask that they just print -- or type ofcourse--as appropriate).  

As this is my 'February' post we mustn't leave out Valentine's Day!  We've made it more of a family affair as Brandon and I will have Anniversary fun on Monday.  Following a relaxing morning of taking it easy, we headed out to our nearby Cherry Creek Reservoir and spent an hour walking and exploring with Henry and the family.  They have a great off-leash area that is HUGE and, along with the meandering paths, is lined on one side with a river/stream.  It's nicely edged with rocks and sand (so you don't get muddy!).  A lot of dogs were jumping in.  We were a *little* concerned that Henry might follow suit and we'd have to go in after him, but luckily at almost 7 years old, he has wised up to the fact that a gimpy 1+ foot tall basset hound would probably drown in 18 inches of water.  Nice to be out on a gorgeous day.  Afterwards we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of missing items from the 'heart' menu the kids had planned out and then went home to make dinner! 

Seans strawberry lemonade

 Catherine's fruit pizza (okay-you know Rin better than that, right? She did the sugar cookies with me, but everyone decorated their own 'pizza's' and hers was, true to form, covered in chocolate and marshmallows)

Sean and Catherines hearts shaped cantaloupe

and

Milla/Papa/Mama's spinach cheese and sausage basil raviolis

We watched one of our favorites, 'Return to Me', while eating dinner and then finished with evening off with an emotional round of HERO QUEST.  (thanks again, Lys!)

I suppose just as March's post will contain the last part of February, it is okay to include some of January here.  The next two pics are the only time I remembered to take out my camera in January.  It was quilt washing day and I had my white bed quilt soaking in my tub when Thomas came in and said, 'You know that big thing in your bathtub?  I really want to jump on it!'.  I thought, 'why not?  needs some agitation after all'.  So in he and Catherine went.  And out came the water.  We had about 5 towels out soaking up water by the end

they were getting pretty creative with ways to coordinate their movements so that geysers of water would shoot up into the air

by the end of quilt 2, Catherine was a little worn out and was showing me here how she could trap air in the quilt and make a little pillow for herself.

New Year's Thoughts

As Brandon and I were driving home from the temple yesterday, we flipped on the radio and there was a discussion going on with the announcer and people calling in about a mother that had let her children know she was leaving them for a different life via text message (or something...didn't really catch the back story).  The discussion, though, was about how many mothers (often secretly) regret having children at some point in there lives.  One caller was expressing her views when the announcer responded  something to the effect of, 'No doubt most moms still love their kids, but they often regret that they had to give up....THEIR life. (their own goals, bar hopping with their friends- yes he actually said this, etc)'.   Although I get what he was, inarticulately, trying to say, (there are many sacrifices parents make), I'm saddened by this perspective on parenthood.  What is MY life, but a collection of experiences, both sought out and given?  One's life doesn't begin or end with a career, with children, with mastery of a certain skill, with reaching a certain income, or with having sufficient time to play.  It is enriched by the good and the hard.  Although I am having to decide what priorities to focus on while I raise my children and try to strengthen my marriage, I am growing and becoming with them.  Not despite them.

So what experiences am I going to seek out this year?  What challenges will come?  I guess I can only plan out the former question and do a lot of praying and listening about the latter.  Our family has begun discussion of 'Christmas 2015' which is something I have been wanting to do for several years, but which we have actually decided to DO this year.  I am just calling 'Christmas 2015' what is actually intended to be a yearlong experience.  In lieu of present buying this year for Christmas, we are going to focus on community service and then use present money and any money the kids have earned and chosen to give for donating to where we see a need.  Every month we will sit down and discuss what needs we see and decide what ways we want to serve that month.

The other major change I have decided to pursue is going back to school to get my BSN (nursing).  I am planning to apply to the UC-Denver nursing program in the fall of 2016 (2 yr program), but have to redo some science  pre-req's first (I can hardly believe I've been out of school for 16 years!).  So to ease myself back into college life, I am taking just 4 credits (via BYU-i online) of Anatomy and Physiology starting on Jan 5th.  That was my favorite class at BYU, but I am feeling really terrified at the moment.  So we'll see how that goes!  I've learned thus far in life, that most things don't work out the way that I originally imagine them, but that all my experiences have led to growth and blessings.  So here's to growth and blessings! and sweat and tears and satisfaction (and probably a lot more tears, in my case ;)

Happy new year!