Hike Stewart Falls!

We just got back from hiking Stewart Falls in Provo Canyon. It was exhausting and thrilling. I carried Calvin and all the water and snacks all the way up, it says its a two-mile hike but with little Eliza legs walking most of the way it felt more like 3 and it took us almost 2 hours. 

When we got to the falls we knew we were a little pressed for time but we rested and got a little wet. Upon taking Eliza's shoes off we discovered blisters on each of her pinky toes, so we resolved to not make her walk too much on the way back. Anna found a fuzzy caterpillar that I wouldn't let her keep. And we all took turns at the falls-

We started back and saw storm clouds gathering. This time Thad carried Calvin in the pack and I was often found carrying Eliza. We got a call from Ben across the mountain and he said the rain was torrential, so we held Eliza a lot and took very few breaks and got *almost* to the car when it really broke open and poured on us. Some babies/toddlers were not pleased.

We passed some of our cousins hiking up with their kids while we were hiking down. I hope they made it down the mountain safely.

Done and Done

I did it! I finished my Couch to 5K training and this morning ran 30 minutes (equivalent to a 5K?). I guess it's not that significant that I ran 3 miles, but what is significant is that I followed an exercise regiment for 2 months and finished it without giving up. (Though I did take lengthy breaks when Ben was out of town a few times.) That's about it. Finishing. That's what was important. This training did not help me lose 10 pounds, it did not make me love running, but it did show me that I can finish what I start when it's important.

So I think I'll hang up my running shoes until next spring when it stays light out late enough to run after my kids go to bed. Watching the sunsets on those evenings was like being a part of heaven.

Kindergarten!

Anna started Kindergarten yesterday. We are all so excited to start this new chapter. She doesn't have a lot of familiar faces in her class, but there are a few boys from preschool that are with her. She would want me to mention that they do not have snack time and recess is a little crowded for 2 classes, there is only a very small park to share. Her classroom has a fish tank and a gerbil, which are the first thing she told us about.

Happy haircuts!

Handsome Calvin got a haircut. His first. He's so handsome.

Actually the girls got haircuts too. Quite a day. 

Kindergarten starts tomorrow!

Anna G.

We thought we did a pretty great job naming Anna. We thought it was a nice, common, but not too common name with solid background. When she was 6 months old we moved into our house and next door there was an older girl named Anastasia, whose family calls her Ana. A few months after we moved in the neighbors across the street had a baby girl and named her Anna. Our neighbors on the other side got a dog about 3 years ago and she is called Annie/Anna.

Today we went to Back-To-School night and found that there will be 3 Anna's in her kindergarten class.

She may be "Anna G." for quite a while.

One year old(er)?

I had a birthday, shout hooray!

1 year old!

Banana bread cake courtesy Gramma Sue. I pretty much mailed it in on this one sadly. I did buy him some clothes and toys, and he enjoys them all. 

He also got clothes and toys from his Grammas and Grampa and he's just super happy all the time.

HR dispute

Who do I talk to about sick days? Who is my HR person? Union leader?  Boss? We need to organize better moms.

Do we have any retaliation for terrible haircuts that make us look like Bon Jovi?

Running

I started running in June, I downloaded a Couch-to-5K app that tells you when to run and when to walk. I ran every night after bedtime that I could for a solid month. I gradually worked up from running in 60 second intervals. My last run was running in 5 minute intervals, I did that a few days ago. My next workout I am supposed to run for 22 minutes solid. I am putting that off as long as I can conceivably do so.

Playing Hooky

Today was pretty much awesome, from head to toe. We started with breakfast with gramma, Grumma great and grampa. Then we went down to the parade.

 Calvin and I rode on the baby float, it was fun. Then dad picked me up and volunteered to sit with the kids while I ran to Costco, he also bathed Calvin and shooed me away when I tried to help, then he put him down for his nap. Awesome.

When I got back we packed up and drove up to LOGAN! We made it there without incident and went to my favorite park ever. It has tons of huge trees and a shallow stream.

My awesome and attentive brothers met us there, we played for an hour and a half. Eliza got filthy, they threw rocks, built a dam, ate some crackers.

Late lunch/early dinner at Jimmy Johns to see our cousin.

Baths, wrestling and games at BKE.

Then we went to the Fun Center in Logan, we went there in February, the last time we came up to play hooky and had a good time. We got a bunch of tokens and ran around like crazy. Then this happened:

Anna put 4 tokens into what was basically a slot machine for kids, she landed on the Bonus and got 1000 tickets! It was amazing! Though for some reason she did not try that machine again. When we cashed in it took us probably 20 minutes of picking out prizes to spend our 1500+ tickets. We got SO MANY cheap crappy toys and candy, totally got my money's worth. Including mustaches that we tried on as we went to get sno cones!

After sno cones we said good bye, the kids ate more candy and eventually fell asleep, we made it home safe and sound and exhausted. 

The car is so jammed full of toys and candy that I did not even try to bring anything other than children in the house, we will sort through it all tomorrow

Big thanks to Gramma and Grampa for making the morning manageable and to Uncles Thad and Matt for playing with us! Such a good day.

The #1 Baby in America! Part 2*

Thanks to my wonderful, doting mother, I entered Calvin in the Steel Days Baby Contest, and wouldn't you know it, he won.

 My mom came over early and helped me get everybody ready, bathing baby and putting his cutest Superman onesie* on, then we went down to the park and registered. 

When Calvin got in front of the judges he was his cute charming self, he all but jumped into their arms. They loved his big brown eyes, his big gorgeous smile and adorable dimple. So he basically swept the competition and now he (and I) will be on the Chik-fil-a float* in the parade Saturday.

*you can read Part One here

*his only superman onesie

*he does not have to dress like a cow, he will wear a steel days shirt

How To Make an Awesome Custom Sewing Table Out of the Standard Cheap Computer Desk

This is actually the second time I have done this, so I know it's awesome. Ben and I got these matching $50 desks when we got married. The first one was destroyed before our move back from CT so I have needed to replace it. You will need: 1 desk with keyboard drawer 

1 sharpie

1 drill with countersink (wide) bit

1 handheld jigsaw

1 sewing machine

Step 1: place your sewing machine where you would like it to be, trace around the base with a sharpie. Leave extra room where you might need to access plugs.

Step 2: Using a handheld jigsaw and a drill, follow the line around the shape. Also drill some holes through the bottom of the drawer to feed your cords through.

Step 3: Set your machine in, make sure it fits snug, feed the plugs through the hole and plug them in. My drawer was a bit deeper than my machine, so I stacked some notebooks underneath the machine.

Voila! Sewing table

Mighty Mouse

My back hurt like it needed popping, I asked Anna to stand on it, but her mighty 34 pounds was not enough, even when she jumped up and down it was not enough. Gotta fatten her up if only for this purpose

Parenting

Parenting, is something I signed up for when I had kids. In my mind "Parenting" is a lofty word that means things like, making sure the kids don't kill themselves on the power sockets, get educated in decent schools and participate in extra-curricular activities. "Parenting" is showing them the world and teaching them to survive in it, much, I guess like what a Lioness does for her cubs.
What I was not completely prepared for was a slightly smaller subset inside "Parenting" that I call "Mothering". Some would call it Nurturing, some days this is easy to do, and somedays it is Just   So    Hard.

Mothering is listening to everything your 5 year old says and responding appropriately.
Mothering is comforting the 2 year old every time she slips and falls.
Mothering is laughing at the same jokes every time.
Mothering is getting more food for a child 20 minutes after lunch was cleaned up. Every Day.
Mothering is holding a child who gets up and down and up and down from your lap 20 times in 5 minutes in a church meeting that you would like to listen to.

Basically what I'm saying is, it's being constantly annoyed and putting up with it.

Escape the Heat

On this hot hot day we went up to Deer Creek to play in the water and sit on the beach and also Ben rented a jet ski. It was pretty fun, if I had planned better we could have stayed all day. But Eliza was whiny and Calvin LOVED the water but his non-swim diaper wasn't cutting it. So now I know that we won't bake in the sun or freeze in the water, I am optimistic that we could hack it even without the jet ski . (Not pictured: Anna also loved swimming around with a life jacket and going on the jet ski.)

Pony Draft

This is how we get the kids to bed every night. Behold our collection of ponies! 

Tonight we had 30 ponies lined up on Eliza's crib. That's just the ones we could find.

Then Ben flips a coin and Anna usually calls tails, whoever wins the coin flip gets to pick one pony. Then they switch off picking two ponies at a time until all the candidates are chosen.

Here is Eliza picking some. Calvin does not get to participate, he is a supportive observer.

Here is Anna showing her choices.

Obviously, this was all Ben's idea, he likes to keep tabs on the ponies and it leads to fair and equitable distribution of ponies for bedtime.

Fire hats

Ben just came home with these firemen hats from firehouse subs and all the kids got one. Eliza couldn't put hers on the right way.

oh man, aren't blurry phone pictures the best?

Fishing with grampa

We checked off one of our summer To-Do's yesterday, we went fishing with Grampa. We'll have to go with Ben sometime later. We drove up Payson Canyon to Maple Lake, it was quiet and beautiful, I couldn't remember the last time I had spent time in the mountains.

We caught 3 little "nemo's" that all got released back into the water.

Recipes That Don't Work - PB pancakes

As I melted the peanut butter and added it to the pancake batter I was pretty sure I was at the beginning of a Breakfast Revolution! 

But... it turns out that the peanut butter made the batter really thick and gluey and I thought, maybe there is a reason I have never heard of these before.

After pouring the batter into the pan they did NOT spread out and thin. Somehow the batter was less viscous than plain peanut butter would have been. It just sat there in a pile. So I spread it with a fork and waited and waited and waited for it to cook all the way through. 

Flipping them was also a pain, because they were so heavy they would fall apart, losing pancake limbs all over the place! One just gave up the ghost and collapsed into itself, folded in half like a taco shell. 

The tragedy of all this is that they DIDN'T EVEN TASTE PEANUT BUTTERY! So it was all for naught. And I cried maple syrup tears.

So learn from my experience, this is a recipe that doesn't work.

Compare, Contrast

Tonight was such a 180 from last night. We were pretty busy today, we had to get ready for and go to a bridal shower for my sister. Again, we were late getting home but the kids were well fed, had boxes of candy on their laps and a cup of water in their hands.
I told them we would go right to bed when we got home, but Anna asked about reading stories - I tried to put her off saying that I would read all the books tomorrow but, to her credit, instead of whining, she bargained. She said if I read stories, she would give me a back massage. Can't turn that down! So when we finally got our teeth brushed and pajamas on and Calvin in bed, I read books and Anna gave me back massages and foot massages - stuff she had seen on them do on My Little Pony called "hoof-icures". It was great, everyone was happy and relaxed and I let them stay up past 10:00 because we were having a good time. It was fun to have some silly giggle time with the kids, especially when they offer massages!

Tired Children and Tired Moms

Tonight we left a very very fun Family Reunion Extravaganza in Park City. Everyone had a great time, we played, we laughed, we swam. Some babies napped. Some 5 year olds did not. Which leads me to our departure, which is still very fresh in my mind, as I have only been home for 20 minutes.

Anna wanted to play at the park one more time.
I said "No"
Anna whined and screamed and begged and tantrum-ed for 20 minutes until we drove away from the park.

We started down the canyon, Anna told me she did not have dessert.
I said, "Sorry, there was dessert at dinner, you should have had some"
Anna whined and *screamed* and begged and tantrum-ed for AN HOUR.

Until we got out of the canyon, then the baby sitting next to her started up, because, fancy this - he couldn't sleep because someone had been screaming right next to him!

And what did this 5 year old do? Did she offer him his bottle? Did she try to distract him or play with him? No, she sat straight up in her chair and covered her ears. My favorite was when she said "It would be easier to drive if he wasn't SCREAMING"

At this point I was speeding home, mostly on the chance that I would get pulled over and maybe talk the friendly police officer into taking me in to the station for the night. He probably would have when he heard the chaos I was immersed in.

At the reunion I heard my cousin Steve talking about how his wife went out of town and he had all 5 of his kids. He talked about how just relentless it is to stay home, there is ALWAYS someone that is hungry and there is ALWAYS some mess to clean up and there is ALWAYS someone with bathroom issues he was even getting up in the night with the baby. Eventually he said he wanted to just curl up in the fetal position and hope that it would all disappear. I laughed when I heard this, not because it was funny, but because it's so true, and it was nice to hear it acknowledged for once. I kind of can't believe that everyone doesn't know how very hard it is and how it just never stops.

So we finally got home and into bed an hour and half after bed time, so I definitely recognize that all this was a product of over-tiredness. My point is not that I have terrible children. My point is this: Why don't my terrible children just go to sleep when they are tired? Why must they fight it?

Calvin and his Grandpa

This is Calvin. He's so cute.

This is Calvin's grandpa Richard. 

The end.

Greenest thumb

Look what my Dad and I built! Dad gave me the tools and the boards and the knowledge and I put it together.

I filled it up with the compost I've been brewing and after I planted the tomatoes I noticed some little sprouts coming up that are not weeds. I think they might be...watermelon? Not sure, but they are all over. I'm basically so good at gardening, I don't even have to plant seeds anymore.

Landscaping

Continuing my re-landscaping efforts I planted some bushes in this troublesome garden bed on the side of the house. I wanted something low maintenance. I got 6 bushes for about $6 each. Two boxwoods and 3 euonymus - which I mostly picked because I like to pronounce the name. Euonymus. Is the plural euonymi? 

In any case I am very excited to check this off my list. 

On Being Nice

My birthday was Saturday, Mother's Day was Sunday. Sunday night Anna said "finally we can stop being nice to you!"

Oh. Is that what that was?