Spring catch-up...birthdays, sports, and school!

 Oh gosh, so much has been happening!!!

Abigail turned 12 in April and my parents met us at the temple. We had a really wonderful morning--my dad & Neil baptized Abigail for the family names that my mom & Neil's mom had collected for Abigail (while my mom hung out with Nathan and Matthew outside the temple), and then my dad, Neil, and Abigail chilled with the little boys while Mom & I did the iniatory ordinances for those names. It was so so so so so wonderful.

Then my parents took us out for Indian food, which was also wonderful. :-)



That night Juliet & I ran her Girls on the Run 5k--she did the whole thing without walking, even though she wasn't feeling fantastic and it was SUPER SUPER hot (easily the hottest day by a good 20 degrees we'd had yet that spring). She wanted to hold my hand every step of the way and I was so proud of her! My mom snapped this picture of us at the finish line (she was there cheering us on with Matthew).



Meanwhile Abigail was at softball practice and my dad & Neil were at Isaac's game with the younger boys. Pretty much our life is spring ball right now.

The next day was the birthday of Luke the Magnificent, Magician Extraordinaire!!

He was very specific about wanting a "sneaky cake--white on the outside with my name in blue, and then CRAZY inside!"


The kids all had a piano recital after baseball/softball practice this morning, which my parents were able to attend. It was so neat to have them there! I don't think I took any pictures--oops.

And then it was off to Luke's first softball game!


We celebrated Nathan's birthday a few weeks before; he had some of his little friends over for a lunch party and some playtime. I didn't take a single picture, but Nate LOVED it so much--we ate "dirt cups" and had construction hats and served a construction themed- lunch (I can't remember everything now but I know we had clementines for wrecking balls, chicken nuggets for boulders, carrots for logs, etc. And we had baguettes and roasted tomato bisque to appeal to adult palates as well).

 We got some new chicks and our old chickens went to a new farm, where presumably they are happily laying away. I was SO sad to see our older hens go--they are nearing the end of their laying career, so we let each kid pick out 2 chicks this year with the understanding that we would have to rehome the older hens once the chicks got big enough. But four of our chicks died (and it was absolutely awful--totally devastating to everyone, especially since 3 of the chicks were killed by a predator when they were pullets and had really developed some personality and had been around long enough for the kids to really love them).

Here is Nate with one of the six remaining new chickens--Excavator. The ones left are Darth Vader, Excavator, Goldie, Raccoon, Spot, and Parsley (who survived being pecked by the older hens whereas sweet tiny Nutmeg managed did not--she wriggled through a gap in the chicken wire and it was very very sad and awful; Parsley's pecking happened after the young pullets were 8 weeks old and we'd very carefully integrated them in with the older hens, and after 12 hours when Parsley had been attacked we decided we really had to move the older hens on...argh).

I know this photo wasn't from Mother's Day--maybe the week after? My six cuties! (We matched because we were singing in church that day and I wanted us to look a little more visually coordinated!)

We finished up another year of school and we are 4/4 for kindergarteners starting to read the Harry Potter books at the end of kindergarten! I was really not thrilled with Luke's teacher this year, so I was happy that his school day ended up being only 2 hours every day. I actually didn't have him go the last 4 days after his teacher went on maternity leave and the substitute lost Luke on her first day. Yep, we're done. 

Isaac finished up his first year of high ability with his fabulous teacher who I love so so much! He was invited to skip 3rd-grade math and do 4th-grade math next year, so he's super excited about that!! I didn't get a picture of Jules with her teacher, but she has her same teacher next year for 4/5 and I am so grateful--I just love her teacher to pieces. So different from Isaac's amazing teacher and so wonderful in her way. Those two have really lucked out on teachers this year; Jules was also on the 4/5 highest honor roll for the year (they don't do one for 2nd grade, but Isaac had straight A's all year) and Abigail was on the highest honor roll and got a bunch of awards--one for English, another for band. She had a great year but I wasn't really blown away by her teachers.



And boy were we excited to be done with school this year--not least because we were headed down to Tennessee the next day for a week of camping, hiking, and Dollywood-attending!

But before I blog about vacation, a few more baseball pics...nice and blurry for most of these, but with a few great sharp ones taken by my friend with her nice camera when her son's team was playing Isaac's (thanks again, Melissa!!)

Neil is Luke's head coach this year for t-ball; it's been really fun for them both!

Abigail has had a fabulous time with her softball team--her coaches are awesome and the girls on her team are so sweet!

When we started the season, all of our kids were total novice players. It's been awesome to watch their improvement in both skill and confidence!

I confess that I'm not the biggest fan of frantically rushing everyone through dinner/packing up dinner to eat at the fields/figuring out how to get 3 kids to games & practices all over town, but the kids have LOVED LOVED LOVED the spring ball season so much that it looks like it's in our future for the next 18 years!

Staycation 2014, or "let's make the best of things"

As I mentioned in my last post, we decided to take advantage of the fact that Neil took a few days off work & have an impromptu staycation (aka if we all stay in the house we'll go crazy & I am always much much happier when we are making fun memories rather than folding laundry and the like). 

So...we made a big list of things that we wanted to do and tried to cross off as many as we could. Most days we tried to time it so that I could have a couple of hours to rest in the afternoon, since I seemed to be okay for the morning and then abruptly crash about 2 pm with crazy nausea and vertigo. And we also tried to be outside as much as we could since that was another thing that really helped me to feel better (noise in an enclosed space was the worst! instant headaches and extreme nausea). And lots lots lots of physical exercise since that is my #1 way of self-medicating.
We kicked things off by making everyone furiously mad! Wednesday evening I really wanted to go for a walk in the woods, but I also wanted to go for a run. I suggested that we could go get ice cream (thanks again, summer reading program!) and that Neil could drive the kids to the park & I would meet them there, we'd grab ice cream, and then we'd go hit the woods. Except I was still feeling sort of vague/confused and never actually nailed this plan down with Neil, so we didn't have the ice cream coupons. I ran 4 miles to meet them and arrived feeling SO great (mostly because I caught up with and passed the high school men's cross-country team, which may have been one of the greatest moments of my adult life) and the kids were furious because nobody could find the ice cream coupons, and so we literally dragged the girls screaming into the woods (Jules tried to make a run for it and I chased after her and wound up with poison ivy all over my leg for the first time in decades!). Anyway, long story short, everybody cheered up within about five minutes and we had a lovely walk until we realized the mosquitoes were feasting happily, which is why everyone has awful mosquito bites in all the rest of the pictures.


On Thursday we started crossing off our list items. First thing: donuts. Lotsa lotsa donuts. And then the zoo! And then the train at the zoo! (And then home to collapse and I slept most of the rest of the day).

On Friday we headed south to a state park and hiked--it was absolutely glorious weather and so incredibly beautiful and cool and breezy. A bit too breezy, in fact, for Luke, who jumped into the river, completely soaked his little shorts, and ended up running through the woods in his undies the rest of the day (we hung his shorts to dry on the backpack, but...they were still sopping when we got in the car). It was an amazingly wonderful perfect day and I was so happy all day long.

not us swimming...all kinds of "stay-out-of-the-water" signs posted and my kids were pretty mad that I made them obey!

 We did this same hike back in May when we camped here, but this time we remembered to bring a camera AND we packed water sandals for everyone in addition to hiking shoes! (We probably spent half an hour every time we changed all our shoes, but oh well...)

I forgot to get a photo with the kids until we'd been hiking for six hours and we were almost back at the car...they did NOT want to pose! It reminded me of the photos of my family near Stonehenge...my sisters & I all look so miserable and furious at those parents who forced us to come to Europe--lots of folded arms and pouting and one kid (Elise maybe?) who isn't even in the pictures because she just flat-out refused and took off running through some crop circles or something like that (my poor parents--we were so awful on that trip! I remember at one point telling 7-year-old Rosalind that the fly paper hanging from the ceiling was the light pull and laughing when she got stuck to the nasty paper coated in flies. Yeah, I was 17). 

 The next day we went to our favorite Indian restaurant for lunch, stopped by our local children's museum (we were the only ones there! Sweet!) and the kids introduced Neil to the glories of the hurricane simulator (I stayed outside since I was already pretty queasy). We also swung by the fabric store and I got some really gorgeous yarn to knit a pouf ottoman--knitting is really soothing to me and I haven't done much of it lately. 

 Then I slept most of the afternoon and when I woke up we went on an 8-mile bike ride to get blizzards at Dairy Queen. I was so proud of the kids--it was NOT an easy ride (one of the biggest hills in our city is a good 2 miles of the ride!) and they were amazing!! We stopped at the playground afterwards. So fun and I really loved biking along in the twilight with the kiddos on our way back. 

Sunday was a hard day since we were inside for most of the day. I ended up having to leave church early because I was so sick--I spent most of the day in bed and Neil was Superman and made an awesome dinner and took care of everything with the kids.

Monday was the vacation-is-winding-down day...we spent the morning at the pediatrician's office doing physicals & vaccinations for three of the kids (although we have the world's best pediatrician so it's always fun to catch up with her--soooo different from the pediatricians we had in Utah/Michigan!). More resting in the afternoon and then we finally finally finally for the first time this summer went swimming--no photos, but it was absolutely wonderful. We hit the water park pretty late in the day and so most people left about an hour after we got there, and then we had a good two hours where it was practically empty (Abigail rode the water slides upwards of 40 times...there was no line and we just floated around on the lazy river watching her! Jules, Neil, and I rode the slides too but we didn't have quite Abigail's enthusiasm.

All in all it was a really delightful little break from our real lives and such a nice way to ease what could have been an incredibly difficult weekend. (And we even got an extension on our staycation when I had to call Neil to come home from work the next day & take Isaac back to the pediatrician with a crazy reaction to one of his vaccinations! Fortunately steroids and antibiotics restored him after 48 hours).

And I'm kind of in love with this photo...it makes me realize how much our family has grown since we did the same thing on the Brickyard!