Homeless Children

Emma once told me that she wished she was a homeless child so that she could eat bread whenever she wanted to.  

....

Today she kind of got her wish because she went to school with a piece of bread in her hand for breakfast.  

Not because she didn't have other options, but because she - and Adam and Leah - are slowly, but hopefully, (hopefully!!) learning about the natural consequences to their decisions.  Including the consequences that come when the decision is to move at the pace of a sloth stuck in honey when it's time to get ready for school.  

But I met her at school for lunch and she didn't seem much worse for the wear.  

So I'm not exactly sure if anyone learned anything from today's life lesson, but it felt worth recording anyway.

Bedtime Story

Last night's story came from a time when I looked like this- 

Look at that beautifully crimped hair!  That was a real labor of love from my mother, I can only imagine!

When I was a little girl, we lived in Alabama where it's really hot and we had a pool.  It was the in-ground kind, not the above-ground kind, and there was a deep end and a diving board. 

Sometimes my parents liked to invite people over to swim in our pool with us. 

One time they invited some teenagers from church over to swim.  There was one boy that came and he was chubby.

And that chubby boy got onto the diving board and he BOUNCED! one time and he BOUNCED! two times and he BOUNCED three times and 

CRACK!!

The diving board broke. 

And the chubby boy fell into the pool and the diving board fell into the pool and he felt really bad and my parents said, "Oh no!" because now we didn't have a diving board.

But Grandpa Mark, he likes to fix things with wood.

(Like if you had a plastic toy duck and it's eye fell out he would replace it with wood?  Yep, like that.)

So he got a big wooden board and he stuck it on top of what was left of the diving board and he drilled it into place and then we had a big wooden diving board that was super springy!

(But didn't you get splinters?  What color was the wood?  Did it ever break?  How high could you bounce on it??)

*****

And tonight's story went something like this- 

So when we were little kids and we had this huge pool and we did all kinds of things in it!  In the wintertime the pool would freeze and we could go ice skating on it!  Even our dog Skipper liked to get on the ice and slide around... or maybe we just liked pushing her onto the ice and watching her slide around...  

In the springtime we had to drain out all of the water and then we could go down into the bottom of the pool and run around and up the sides of the pool and even take skateboards down there and skate around.  

But the summertime was best of all because we had a pool right in our own backyard!  And we could swim in it anytime we wanted to, as long as we had a buddy.  

And then I sang them the buddy rap, which went something like this-

There's a rule about the pool
It's very, very cool.
You have to have a buddy or you will drown!

Having a buddy is the coolest thing around
'Cuz if you have a buddy you'll be safe and sound!

And yes, I still sing that song to my kids when we go swimming.

So in the summertime we would play all kinds of games in the pool, especially mermaids.  When we played mermaids we would take a diving ring and stick our feet through it so our legs were stuck together, just like a real mermaid.  And then we would swim around and flip our hair up out of the water, just like Ariel. 

But what we always really wanted to do was to play with our Barbies in the pool and pretend that they were mermaids.  Our mom said no because there is a filter in the pool that sucks out all of the dirt and she thought the Barbies might get sucked into the filter, but we didn't listen to her.  So one day we took the Barbies into the pool and we played and had so much fun, and then... 

...we forgot about them!  

We left them in the pool and we went inside to have dinner and we didn't remember about them again until the next day, when we ran out to the pool and found them floating in the water- without their heads!!

So we ran over to the big loud filter and took off the lid, and there they were, a bunch of Barbie heads floating around like a big bowl of Barbie head soup.  The filter had sucked off their heads and left their bodies behind.  

And we never took our Barbies into the pool again.

And now we'll see if any of them have nightmares tonight!

Girls Night

Twice a year I get to look forward to a date night with my big girl- the twice-annual kick-off to General Conference is the Women's Broadcast, and that means date night with Leah!

This time around we opted not to join up with friends for dinner, and took ourselves to the tasty Gateway Market downtown.  Although their mac and cheese was not the best she's ever had, Leah declared the grilled chicken panini the best sandwich she's ever set lips on. 

And then we met up with our friends- hundreds of other girls and women in the area that gathered to listen to the uplifting and inspiring words of our general church leaders, and we came home happy with thoughts like this in our hearts and our journals.  

It's always a wonderful time that we both look forward to!  Once Emma is 8 she'll join us, and then once Leah leaves for college Emma and I will have this night to look forward to, but for now it's always a great night out with my big girl.

Date Night

Sometimes date night means heading to the Lego aisle to feel aaaalll of the minifigure packets until we were just sure that we'd found Lord Garmadon... 

 And we were right!

Best date night ever!

Confession

Many years ago, when Adam and Noah looked like the little boys up there, a funny thing happened.  It's a story that I've told many time since, but I never did blogged about for some reason.

Occasionally I get into junk-purging frenzies, in which I remove as many things as I possibly can from the house in order to decrease the amount of junk I have to tend to ever day and to increase my sanity.

Just a few days before Noah's first birthday, as I was enjoying such a purging, a little stuffed Angry Bird went into the donation bag and out of the house forever.  

Adam hadn't played with it in years, it was forgotten in the basement, and no one in our house has any kind of affinity toward Angry Birds.  It was a goner.

Or so I thought. 

Out of the blue a day or two later- after I dropped the bag off at Goodwill- little five-year-old Adam told me that he wanted to give his stuffed Angry Bird to Noah for his birthday. 

He asked me where it was.

I said I didn't know (truth). 

He looked all over the house but couldn't find it and was just heartbroken that he wouldn't be able to give his baby brother a birthday present.

So during preschool the next day, I drove over to Goodwill and asked if there was any chance that the bird might be located again.  They let me check through the (huge, nasty, that's what happens to your donations?!) bin of stuffed animals, but the bird was nowhere to be found.  

I only had one choice left.  

I reordered the darn thing from Amazon. 

I've heard many times that a good purging rule of thumb is that if you can replace something within 20 minutes for less than $20, it isn't worth keeping around your house 'just in case'. 

But still!  It pained me just a bit to pay $10 for something I didn't want in the house in the first place!

The package didn't arrive in time for Noah's birthday, but the day after, there was a knock at the door. 

I had been hoping to sneak the new bird into the basement, but whichever child brought the package into the house squeezed it in just the right place and it let out the all-too-familiar "hoo-hoo-hee-hee" laugh of the lost Angry Bird. 

Adam was thrilled!  

We ripped open the package and there was his bird, miraculously back in his hands and begging for an explanation as to it's whereabouts.

So I pulled out the packing slip and read (since he couldn't yet), 

"Dear... Neighbor...  I found this bird on the sidewalk and knew it was yours..... So I put it into the mailbox and mailed it back to you.....  From... your neighbor."

And Adam was thrilled!  And he immediately handed it over to Noah, who promptly crawled up to Adam and bopped him on the head with it.

Looking back on the story now, I don't know why I didn't just tell Adam that the bird was gone and move on with life.  But it's made for a great cautionary tale and reminder for any future purging frenzies!  You never know what will come back to haunt you in the future.  

And yes, Angry Bird 2.0 is now sitting down in the basement, forgotten again and just waiting to be purged, as well.  I just haven't been quite as quick to get rid of this one! 

1 out of 4

For the sake of accountability and remembering, I have to note that we paid off another student loan today.  This one felt even less exciting than the last one we paid off.  But still, we keep chipping away at the iceberg of past decisions.

It's usually when the loans get into the last $1,500 or so that I can't take it anymore and just pay the darn thing off.

Our final loan is actually four loans consolidated into one lender, but we pay different interest on each one, so we keep it divided into four loans to make each bite seem a bit more manageable.

And as of today, one out of the remaining four is no longer.  Hooray!

It's funny (sad? encouraging?) when I talk to friends that have student debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  We never had anywhere close to that kind of debt.

And it's slightly deflating when I talk to friends that never had any student debt, thanks always to the parents or grandparents or scholarships that paid their tuition for them.  But I've already shared my feelings about that.

Neither of those groups of people is us.  We're us, and we've got our own debt and our own story and our own reasons for accumulating it and our own reasons for paying it off at the rate we are.

And we celebrate the milestones along the way and keep plugging along!

This Works for Me Too

It was kind of driving me crazy trying to remember where I used to read "works for me" posts, and I finally remembered!  Rocks In My Dryer, and you can find her posts here.  Man, I miss the wisdom and insight I used to get from daily doses of older and wiser mothers via blogs.  Clover Lane is just about the only one left standing in my reader these days, and it's a really good one.

And my list goes on.

7. Since it's usually fairly bare, I make a concerted effort to clean out fridge before I go grocery shopping- wipe down the shelves, clear out any overripe produce, and make sure we eat the leftovers.  Jason does a great job with those most days, but sometimes we just have to have a leftover dinner night.  Like tonight!

8. I do laundry on Mondays and Fridays.  Otherwise I don't think about it one bit.  We've got plenty of clothes to get us through the days in between, and I don't particularly love laundry enough to do it every day.

9. I could probably write a whole blog about ways I like to save money or challenge myself to not spend money, but I'll just throw in here that no spend days work great for me.  Some people challenge themselves to not spending any extra money for a month or a year, but I've found that a day or two or three every couple of weeks feels great for giving our bank account some time to settle down and sit tight between paychecks.

It's also great for making sure that we're taking care of and using up the things- especially the food- that we've already spent money on.  I read recently that "the cheapest food you'll find is the food that's already in your pantry".  I love that!  I'm not a huge couponer or even multi-store shopper, but I do love the challenge of making meals with what's on hand.  This week's menu has included chicken tika masala with naan, meatball subs, fruit smoothies, french toast casserole, chicken noodle soup, apple cinnamon cake and more, all with the intent of using up some of what we've already got before replacing it with more.  (tiny side note- this drives Jason crazy.  He can't always see the meals that are waiting to be cooked in the seemingly bare fridge like I can, but I can testify that he's never starved on my watch!)

9.5  Another no spend tip that works for me (and this one drives my mom crazy!) is that I like to load up the shopping cart at Target with aaaaaallllll the things I want/need/didn't realize I was ever living without... and then I leave it in the store.  I just did this last week!  I walked into Target with the intention of buying Adam a pair of flip-flops, and was distracted by the Dollar Spot (curse that spot!).  I loaded up my cart with the cutest white ceramic pumpkin, some plaid cloth napkins, a leaf garland, a table runner and a notepad of paper before heading over to the shoe section (that was entirely void of flip flops or sandals of any kind, never mind that it's 90 degrees out this week!).  So I didn't need to buy anything and when I looked down in my cart I saw $25 worth of stuff that I liked but didn't want to pay for and really didn't want to have to take care of for the rest of forever.  Do I really want to start ironing cloth napkins?  Because heaven knows I couldn't stand looking at rumpled napkins at the dinner table every night.  So I left the cart behind (putting everything back, of course) and walked out, with more money in my pocket and less clutter in my life.  I make for a pretty lame shopping buddy, but sometimes just filling up the cart is enough of a "shopping rush" for me.

(a much prettier table runner that I actually did take home another day)

Along those same lines is taking a picture of something and then leaving it behind.  Often it only takes leaving the store to realize that we really don't want or need something- works for my kids and it works for me and Jason, too.  We were all set to buy this cute but expensive tree last week, then got home only to measure and realize that buried power lines made it impossible to plant where we wanted it.  $250 saved!

10.  Family cleaning of the bathrooms on Saturday.  Enough said.  Unless we are going to be gone for the day or things have gotten really smelly, I don't clean the bathrooms by myself during the week.  Everyone gets a job and repeats it in the three bathrooms- toilets, sinks and mirrors, floors, wiping doorknobs and light switches with a Clorox wipe, showers and bathtubs.  Many hands make light work!

11.  Date night group.  We started this in Indiana, and it has been a huge blessing to our family.  We currently rotate babysitting with 4 other families- once a month all of the kids descend on one home and four of the couples get three glorious hours to go on a date (not with the other couples, necessarily, although that's always fun, too).  So that means four dates for every one night of babysitting.  It works beautifully for families that don't have grandma and grandpa nearby and for those who want to date but don't always want to pay a baby-sitter (I think that's everyone, right?).

So there you have it!  A few more things that work for me and help make my world go round.

Tortured

"There are no mommies at school!  You are my only mommy- my best mommy!- and I never get to see you anymore!"

"The day is so long and I miss you so much!"

"Now I just go to school all day long and come home and it's time for dinner and then I have to go to bed!"

"It's just so loud at school!  Everyone slams their lockers and yells every day!"

"I'm too sick to go to school!"

"My band-aid is falling off!"

"I missed you so much I almost started crying... and you can't cry at school!"

"I'm never taking my nightgown off.  Then I don't have to go to school!"

"I'll just eat my lunch for breakfast.  Then I don't have to go to school because I won't have a lunch."

"My legs don't work!  I can't ride my bike to school!"

... Things Emma said to me this morning in an attempt to avoid spending another long and torturous day at kindergarten.  But, like she does every day after dragging out of bed and fussing through breakfast, she hopped right on her bike with a smile and rode off like a big girl.  

And she always comes home with a smile on her face and a dozen stories to tell.

And I'm thinking that our secret lunchtime date during Noah's preschool is going to become a weekly affair to help ease the pain of separation!

Don't Eat Squashy!!

Why?  Why would I cook up their best friend and serve him for dinner?  It's a cruel, cruel world.

But boy was that good butternut squash ravioli!

Noah-Isms

Oh, the guilt I've felt as Noah and I have continued to enjoy our daytime secrets together!
But I love hearing all of the things he has to say!

*****

N- You'd better pick up that blueberry before the dog gets it!

M- What dog?

N- The dog that we're going to get!  You'd better pick it up before that dog gets it.

*****

N- Mommy, why did you make that face.

M- What face?

N- That face where you were like... (crinkles up his eyebrows and scrunches his lips together)

M- Oh.  Just because.

N- Because is not a reason, Mommy.  You need to tell me more about why you made that face.

*****

I want mayo on my sandwich!  And mayonnaise!

*****

While playing one of our "secret" games, we needed to find pictures of anchors.

N- Okay, we need to find those things that I get in my mouth.

M- Ummm.... no, not canker sores.  Anchors!

*****

After being eaten alive one night, Noah's face was covered with itchy bumps.

D- Did you get some mosquito bites, buddy?

N- Yeah... and some bug bites too!

*****

While helping me shop at the store.

N- Mom!  We need honey!  

M- Okay, can you get one?

N- Just one?

M- Yep, we just need one honey.

N- Why are you calling me honey?  You just called me honey!

*****

There's a general topic that I try to avoid on the blog, but man, Noah has said some funny things lately about his thoughts and feelings about a certain body part of his.  Always with a straight face, but always hilarious.  And I'll just leave it at that.

When Daddy's Away...

The boys will play... and the girls, too!

It's horrible, I know, but they're just so pretty!

Cub Scouts So Far

"I just know I'm going to win the whole race, Mom."  

That's what Adam told me the night of the Raingutter Regatta- his first big event in Cub Scouts.  He worked so hard on his boat- he even took it to Utah so he could get extra help on it from Scoutmaster Extraordinaire Grandpa Mark- and it turned out great.

 When the big night came, he was prepared!

 And he did win some of the races!

 And he lost some too.  There were a few frustrating moments when his boat got stuck or the sail got turned around, or he took his eyes off his own boat and looked at his competitor instead of the finish line.  But he stayed with it to the end and came home with a truth-telling ribbon and a few ideas of how to improve for next year.

I can already tell that scouting is going to teach Adam a lot of things that a good boy needs to know to grow up to be a good man.  He can already tell me that a scout is "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty brave, clean and reverent" and that a scout "does a good turn daily" and that "on my honor, I will do my best.  To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."  

Even if he doesn't know what all of those words mean just yet, I'm glad that he's learning them and heading down a straight and narrow path!

Nauvoo

We took another day trip to Nauvoo a few weeks ago.  This one was a little rougher with the 3-hour-each-way drive, but the scenery was beautiful along the way and it was another great day to be together as a family.  I hardly took any pictures- 

We had to wait for the bridge to let a barge through before we could cross over the Mississippi.

It was a temple trip with our ward, so we got to spend the day with about 100 of our favorite church friends, eating lunch, enjoying the activities in Historic Nauvoo and swapping kids so we could enjoy some time in the temple.  

Our kids always want to get as close to the temple as they can.  Just one more year before Leah can go in with us!

 We ended the evening down by the Mississippi- enjoying the view from Nauvoo before making the trek back home.  

Zoo Day!

Labor Day weekend always seems to come too soon after school has started up again.  It's a cruel reminder that summer is gone and fall is coming.  Maybe we should just start school after Labor Day like we did when I was a kid... Anyway, I didn't want to ruin the good routine we've got going by exhausting the kids the day before they had to go back to school, so we took a day trip to Omaha on that Saturday instead.  And we had such a lovely day at the zoo!  

Pretending to sit on cacti...

 Riding the train (probably a first and last- even with our annual membership it cost over $30!) 

Notice Noah and his general dislike of loud noises... 

 Cooling off in the splash pad- 

Enjoying an IMAX movie, laughing at the playful mama and baby orangutan and staring at the gorillas for a long time.

We checked out the awesome new kids play area, 

wandered around the rain forest... 

 and quit while (almost) everyone was still smiling.

 We treated ourselves to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, which was such a rare and tasty dinner.  It's clearly been a long time since we've taken the kids out to eat since Emma declared, "We can't go out to dinner!  We're going on the Disney Cruise!"  We've been cutting out a lot to be able to afford this winter's trip!

And, in typical Adam fashion, he didn't want to eat his corn dogs because they looked cool.  

So I took a picture.  

It was a great day-trip, and a perfect way to enjoy a long weekend for Labor Day.

Adam is 8!

Goodness, my posts are all out of order this summer.  Adam turned 8 back in July!

It took a really long time to get here, but his big day finally came!  

He was so very excited about having a slip 'n slide baseball party.

A party like this calls for peanuts and cracker jack... and cheesy poofs!

I always tease Jason about picking me up a 5-gallon bucket of cheesy poofs... 

The kids were ridiculously excited about it.

This was such a fun and easy party- lots of baseball, lots of junk food, and lots of cake!

Unlike last year's failed attempt at a swimming party, this year's slip 'n slide baseball party was a hit!

 It was hot, but there was plenty of water at every base to play in and stay cool.

It was a very rare treat that we had Grandma Morales here to help celebrate.  I had just come home from my quick trip to Utah the day before, and it was so nice to have an extra set of hands to help get everything ready.  Grandma was in charge of keeping the slip 'n slide wet, and I think she had a liiiitle too much fun spraying the boys as they came around.  It was pretty funny to watch!

Jason was here for the party too, which is also pretty rare.  Even with a pretty small group of guests, it was fabulous having so much help!  

It was a great day to celebrate our favorite Mr. Man!

 He got exactly what he wanted for his birthday- thanks to his grandmas!

 Adam needed a new bike, and Jason insisted on getting him one that he'll grow into.  I get nervous every time he climbs onto this big boy bike!

It was a wonderful day, and a great chance to celebrate our big 8 year old boy!

Adam is such an easy-going kid.  He just floats from activity to activity without a care, and definitely without a sense of urgency.  But he's also aware and kind and helpful- as long as he hears me, he's willing to help out with whatever I need.

He's a deep thinker, and loves to learn more about the about whys and hows and whens and what ifs?He's one smart boy.  He's working with the extending learning teacher again this year, and I'm grateful for teachers that push his to learn as much as he can.

Adam says he'd like to be a Lego builder or a corn breeder when he grows up, although I think he'd make a fantastic surgeon some day.  He's methodical and meticulous and never in a rush.  

He started in Cub Scouts, and so far he's loving it!  I'm excited for him to be involved in such a worthy program and to be keeping up the family tradition.  There is a long line of Scouts before him in both of our families.

He stays up waaay too late every night, reading stacks of books by flashlight in his bed, but he never seems tired or affected by a lack of sleep.  He's usually one of the first to bound out of his bed in the morning and get on with the important business of playing with Legos, folding origami, or reading some more- reminds me of when he was a toddler and just could not be bothered with naptime.

Adam's best friend is Mason, and they are so sweet together.  They both have very chill personalities, and get along so well.  I love watching them together because they always have so much fun.  Adam has other sweet friends too, and I am always amazed at the energy and enthusiasm that they all have for life.  Childhood is such a fun time!

Adam loves mashed potatoes, olives (still), hard-boiled eggs, and blueberry pancakes, and categorically refuses to eat lunch meat or certain other kinds of meat. He doesn't seem to hate chicken or fish nearly as much as he hates ham, turkey, and beef.  Meatballs and hamburgers seem to be okay though.  It's tricky remembering everyone's preferences, and gone are the days when Adam used to ask, "What's the healthiest thing on my plate?" and then enthusiastically gobble that up.  Not anymore.

 He's "dabbing" while shaking cream to turn it into butter.

 This was a silly day- I told Adam that he wouldn't be able to ride in the car carts once he turned 8, and he insisted on taking one last ride while he was still 7.  He lasted for about a minute before declaring his legs were cramped and crawling back out.  Ha!

Happy birthday to our best boy!  We love you!