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!

Day 10

Today's good things:

1) Ran, practiced yoga, took a 10-minute nap, and drank my quart of green smoothie. All things that lead to daily happiness!
2) Abigail wrapped up her monthly project today (think big report and craft EVERY MONTH) 17 days ahead of schedule. Yahoo! She's such a good worker and I'm so proud of her for not leaving things until the last minute (also, super thrilled to have that off my mental to-do list).
3) Everyone's valentines are addressed, wrapped, and hanging in bags ready to go to school on Friday morning. Another thing that I am thrilled to have finished and off my mental list.
4) This for dinner tonight (I sub in 1/3 c. whole milk for the cream & add sauteed zucchini or mushrooms). Always one of my children's favorites (as is anything by Stephmodo! I'm so sad she's no longer blogging, nor are her Zupa's links live).
5) Right now all 5 of my children are freshly bathed/showered, all the laundry is folded and put away, the kitchen is clean, the bathrooms are clean, and the house is vacuumed. Nice and calm and sparkling around here and I'm definitely enjoying having older kids who can contribute so much by their simple daily chores!

Day 7

Five things I am very very thankful for. :-)

adventuring with my half-grown children

This morning (I know, can you believe I'm blogging it already?!) we revisited a nearby (giant) dairy farm. I spent the majority of the visit thinking, "Oh my goodness, my kids are getting SO old!"

Nathan looked so tall. Abigail looked so tall. In one exhibit with prohibitively tall walls, Juliet busied herself boosting up not just her own siblings, but the other little kids around us. The girls climbed up walls and did flips on the bouncy thing and took care of passing out every else's lunch stuff in the car...sometimes I just take a breath and look around and it's like time has flown by in an eyeblink and everyone is suddenly six inches taller and months more mature. Today was one of those days.

 That's Nathan in the photo below, FYI. Not Luke.

And Abs isn't that much shorter than the ride staff...

Abigail booking it up the climbing wall--wish I'd timed her.

Jules was starting to acquire some groupies who were really impressed with her flips--I heard them excitedly calling over other kids and saying, "Wow, she's going to flip again! Watch--it's amazing!"

And my youngest and oldest, again both looking really tall to me (okay, Nate is squatting down, but...).

 The girls did such a great job all morning of taking turns with Natie on the rides. So sweet and I loved watching them keep an eye out for him.

a week or two back

It seems like I'm always a couple of weeks behind in posting things--I need to focus on taking photos with just one device instead of two so that I can update everything at once rather than alternating back and forth! Oh well. These photos of our sushi night a few weeks back are just so fun to me--it is the first time we've ever tried rolling sushi and it was a hit!


I just spread out a ton of ingredients and the kids were able to pick and choose what they wanted to include in their rolls (trying to remember what we had--I think orange & red peppers, cucumber, pears, kiwi, mango, scrambled eggs, avocado, hard salami (no raw fish but the salami was a kid-friendly substitute). We went through the first batch of sushi rice really quickly and then it was kind of a pain to wait 20 minutes for the second one to cook, so I'd recommend making more at the beginning. And the nori sheets went over surprisingly well! The kids were very skeptical of the smell but decided that they couldn't actually taste it in the rolls.



While the younger kids helped with ingredient prep, I put Abigail in charge of writing up instructions on our kitchen whiteboard. She watched a few YouTube tutorials to figure out the best technique and then wrote up a little 5-step process for us to follow.

 Some of our finished rolls--I was really pleased with how well they turned out! Super yummy and lots of fun to make--definitely a nice change from nights where I make dinner while the kids play outside and then they all come in and complain about the food. :-)

One day this past week it was lovely and breezy so we put Tot down for his nap and then all went outside together to read stories on a blanket under the tree (very cozy since it was a small blanket and there were five of us!).

We planted this tree in October of 2006 just a few days after we closed on our home--the little sapling was shorter than me.

We spent a few days with Legos all over the library (we moved the couch to block Tot from coming in when we weren't there) while we sorted through and found missing pieces from various sets. On the second day Luke got tired of stepping on Legos, so he decided to climb up and watch us from the couch and ended up taking a 3-hour nap. Love that kid. He totally isn't bothered at all by the noise and chaos around him!

Abigail loves Pinterest--she found a pin about making ice cubes out of KoolAid and was so excited to try them! First time my kids have ever had KoolAid--I could see their horizons broadening rapidly as they stirred it up. ("You mean we can make juice-stuff from a packet, Mommy?") Sidenote: I was also similarly unfamiliar with KoolAid when I started college, but I thought it was awesome how it always woke me up when I was faced with a long night of studying. It wasn't until after I married Neil that I learned that you were only supposed to make it with one cup of sugar per packet rather than two. Oops...that explains a lot!

 ps--the rest of that dinner was really good too! Makes me hungry just looking at it--I had tried out a new baba ghanouj recipe and it was amazing!! plus my favorite baguettes, the "zucchini stir-fry of glory," as my sister calls it (recipe at the bottom of this post), and apricots which are my very favorite fruit!

 The kids are endlessly entertained by the bizarre places Hermes loves to sleep...

 The other night I was really tired so I persuaded the kids to style my hair (my favorite way to just relax and get a delicious head-rub/hairbrushing/braiding time...I swear, nothing feels so good as having someone else do your hair! Neil was feeling bereft so the kids decided to give him a "flower helmet" (Isaac and Luke aren't in this picture because they were still busily giving me a similarly beautiful hairstyle).

More reading under the tree..

 And some of the things that make me happiest at this time of year--glorious beautiful fruit in my favorite bowl. I rearranged all of my serving dishes the other day so that I can see them first thing every time I open up my cupboards--pretty things make me so happy. Sounds materialistic, I know, but I just love beauty whether it is a bowl full of delectable fruit or a mountain sunrise or a table set with serving pieces I adore. :-)

 See? So very very beautiful.Makes my heart happy.

And here's that recipe! (If you're in my ward this might look familiar--it's the one that I demonstrated a year or two ago at recipe group.)

Zucchini, Corn, and Peanut Stir-fry 
recipe from Fast, Fresh, and Green by Susie Middleton

1 large zucchini (10-11 oz)
1 3⁄4 c. fresh corn (I have used frozen corn with good results)
6 large scallions (or one large onion), diced
2 t. thick hoisin sauce
1 t. fish sauce
1 t. lime juice
1 T. finely chopped fresh ginger
1 1.2 t. minced garlic
1⁄4 t. chili-garlic sauce
2 T. oil
1/3 c. unsalted peanuts
1 t. kosher salt
1 1⁄2 T. finely chopped fresh mint (or 1 t. dried)
1 1⁄2 T. chopped fresh cilantro

1. Trim ends off zucchini, cut in half crosswise, and cut panels off all four sides of each of the halves, revealing inner core & seeds. Discard core, and dice panels. Combine zucchini, corn, and scallions and set by the stove.

2. Combine hoisin sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, and chili sauce in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Heat 1 T. oil over medium heat and stir-fry peanuts until spotted, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer peanuts to a bowl. Add remaining oil, zucchini, onions, corn, and salt. Stir occasionally (more frequently as they start to brown) until the corn is nicely browned and the zucchini is somewhat browned and starting to look translucent.

4. Add ginger-garlic mixture and stir-fry abou 30 seconds until well mixed. Add hoisin mixture, scraping it out of its bowl, and remove the pan from the heat, stirring to incorporate the sauce. Stir in reserved peanuts, mint, and cilantro.

Mix well and transfer to serving platter. This is delicious warm or cold!