The Highlights

 Here is a highlight of some of my kids amazing accomplishments this past week or so...

Stylist super-hero.

Fine diner.

Culinary explorer.

Future farmer of America.

Reader.

Fashionista.

Football

Football season is in full swing and the older my kid gets, the more we get submerged in the football scene. Raef just loves to play football. It really brings him joy. I love it that he can play but I do have a slight bit of anxiety thinking about him getting hurt. Well, I am just worried about his hands and arms mostly. It would absolutely derail viola. That would suck. But I am just going to trust in my Heavenly Father and let this kid be who he is, even if there is a risk.

Since the end of July, he has been practicing hard five days a week, two hours a day. Unlike last year where he played a skill position (tight end), this year he is on the line grinding it out. He actually made it on to a much better team, Chad E.'s team.  This is the third best team in the league. There is A, B, and then Raef's team. I am proud of him for the improvements that he has made.  

Fortunately, Chad is a very calm coach who doesn't yell and certainly does not swear. His teammates all seem to be top-notch. He has really become buddies with his fellow linemen. And now that he is going to school this year, he will instantly have 20 friends. This is such a blessing because friends are important to him.

Last week, the coach brought in a special guest speaker to talk to the boys about tackling. This is Bryan Kehl, who plays for the Washington Redskins. He is injured this year, but is still an active player. He was super nice and had some good things to say to the boys.

I am really looking forward to seeing these kids play some games. They have been working hard. It should be a great season.

Surprise Evening

I love it when something spontaneous happens. We experienced this last week when we decided to go to the park in the evening. I was outside putting away some projects I was working on and Dawson and his mom Heather walked by. They were going to the park. I thought, hey, why not? Let's go with them to the park. Rinar had gotten all the little kids ready for bed, but an hour at the park wasn't going to hurt anything. 

When we got there, to our sheer delight, there was a huge water slide and a whole bunch of friends already there having a great time sliding down this thing. Darcy and Jason were the masterminds. So naturally, with my kids in their jammies, I let them slide down the slide. It was great.

I mean, look at that face. Pure joy!

Then on the way home, I ended up visiting with some neighbors and the kids went in the house. Unfortunately, Rinar didn't get to see the cool slide and the impromptu fun all the kids got to experience. All he saw was five sopping wet, grass-covered kids who needed to get bathed and ready for bed AGAIN. Poor Rinar.

Still, dad was a good sport and it ended up being a very nice surprise evening.

The End of Summer is Near

I was at the store and on a whim bought Noelle and Julia a matching outfit. It is their first one. I found that it was hard to get the right sizes when Noelle was small, but now that she is easing into 12  month stuff, it will be a lot easier. I think I am going to look forward to many more matching clothes. It is just too cute.  

We had Breken stay at our house last week and it was a lot of fun. He is just the best kid and fits right in with the rest of us. By Thursday, the house was so trashed. I finally told everyone, including Breken, that if we cleaned it up really well I would take everyone to Leatherby's for some ice cream. Bingo!  They all pitched in and helped get our place tidy again. And the ice cream wasn't too bad, either.

Right after ice cream, I took the little kids over to Katie C.'s house. Her daughter Molly was having her 4 year-old birthday bash. Katie rented a bouncy water slide and the kids had a blast playing on it for a few hours. It was hard to get them to leave.

Then on Saturday, I dropped Raef and Zach off at the Carolina Hills trailhead to help build a trail for their merit badge. The volunteer coordinator Mike sent me this picture of my boys working hard. He said they did a great job. And like a mentioned before, they now have their merit badge for this one. Thank goodness.

Things are starting to fill up on the calendar for this fall. I guess that is what happens when you have 5 kids doing five different things. Life is about to get crazy for a few months. Raef and Zach will be heading off to Draper Park Middle School this fall. We are going to try out public school this year because I need a break and a chance to really focus on my little kids and get them going academically. I just can't see myself doing it well if Raef and Zach are home and I am pulled in a million different directions. It is just too  much for me right now. I know my limits.

Eli is finishing up the 100 Easy Lessons book and he is becoming quite a good reader. I am very pleased. I would like to have that done before the end of next week. I also ordered his school books and they should be here soon. My plan is to send the boys off to school early every day, then get the little ones up, do a few chores, practice violin, and then head off on an adventure every morning to get all of the wiggles out. Then we will come home and put Noelle down for a nap and do school work. This time I plan on doing most things separate. That means I am going to set up little stations and rotate them through each one. One will be with me and then there will be an electronics station for educational games and then a hands-on puzzle/game type station. I hope that I can keep all three of them intellectually engaged for a few hours every afternoon.

This is totally going to work...right?!?!?

The bottom line is that all of my kids are ready to have some mental stimulation and challenges to help them grow. My school room and play rooms are all cleaned out and I think I am about ready to go. I sure hope it works out even somewhat close to what I am thinking. But I guess the most important thing with homeschooling is the ability to be flexible.

We shall see.

More Merit Badge Stuff

It was the summer of merit badge craziness. After talking with the merit badge counselor at the zoo, she said that Zach would be able to sign off his Mammal Study badge if he built a bat habitat. Apparently, bats are good to have around because they eat rodents and pesky insects like mosquitoes. This sounded like a job for dad. I am happy to report that the bat habitat got built and painted and passed off. He has now completed Mammal Study. Thank goodness!

They also finished Soil and Water Conservation and have Bird Study about 98% done. But they also have to do a big project in order to complete Fish and Wildlife. I think it is something like build an aquarium and watch it for three months. It is something along those lines. My brilliant idea is to try to coordinate it with their science project for school and kill two birds with one stone. I will find out next week when I talk to their counselor.

When they have a Court of Honor again, my boys will be getting a whole lot of badges. I think they are more than halfway to Eagle. That is going to feel real good to have it done.

Lacey's Wedding Reception

After our camping trip, Rinar and I headed back down south to go to my cousin Lacey's wedding reception. Her reception was in Orem at my Uncle Barry's house. It was an absolutely beautiful day for an outside reception. And I am really grateful that I was able to go. I have not been able to make any of the wedding things for Uncle Barry's family. But finally, I made it.  

And my grandma was there!  She was able to make it up for this special day. It was really nice to see her again. 

This is a picture of her with her great grand-daughter Sophie, Julie's daughter.

The colors for the wedding were orange and turquoise. Here is my Aunt Sue with Devi and Julie. I took this picture right after we waved goodbye to Lacey and her husband, who were on their way to the honeymoon.

As is the case with pretty much every wedding, there was a ton of cake left over. So we went home with a box of chocolate cake. It came in handy on Sunday. The choir was very grateful.

Payson Lakes with Friends

July 24th weekend was the perfect time to do a little camping trip. Amazingly enough, we were able to fit all of our kids and all of our camping equipment into and on top of our Ford Expedition. Let me clarify by saying that no kids were put on top of the Ford!

After getting all packed up, we had to get our supplies at Walmart. Of course, every other Utah family went camping the same day we did, so there were some things that were out of stock. But we managed to get by with what we could.

As soon as we got to Payson Lakes, a fellow camper informed us of a moose in another area of the camp. I didn't want to miss a moose, so I quickly gathered all the kids in the car and we headed over to see her.  She was very busy eating the leaves on that plant. Everyone got a good look at the moose. It was a fun little surprise to welcome us on Thursday.

We set up camp quickly and then found Lindsey, Ryan, and all of their kids down at the lake. They had gotten there several hours before us. We decided to share dinner. They dined on my gourmet chili I made and then we had some delicious dutch oven peach cobbler over at their campsite.  I have to say that it was a lot more fun this year being able to go with another family. The kids had someone else to play with and everyone got along very well.

We have a huge tent. It has three rooms and it barely fit in our campsite. Rinar thought it was a good idea not to put the fly on, so that we could see the stars. Seeing stars is great, except he did not bring enough warm clothes and blankets for himself. Hence, he pretty much didn't sleep all night. And for some reason, I had a difficult time falling asleep as well.

I was happy to get up the next day and go do stuff. In the morning I took Raef and Zach on a bird watching expedition in order to help them get a merit badge done.  I really stunk at identifying birds. I bet there were probably 40 different kinds of birds, but I was only sure on 6 of them. But I guess 6 is better than nothing.

Then we headed down to the lake with the family to hang out and have some fun. We were able to bring our large inflatable boat and a slew of life jackets. I can't believe it fit in our car, but it did. It was a lot of fun. They went out many times on the water. I hung out on the shore because I forgot my darn swimming suit. And Noelle couldn't just crawl around because it was super rocky and dusty. She sat in her stroller or we all took turns holding her. Surprisingly, she just fell asleep at some point and took a solid nap after lunch. But I did end up taking her on a little hike with my backpack and Rinar also strolled her around the lake once.

We were there for about 7 hours and Ryan took advantage of the calm and had a siesta right there in the brush. Must be nice Ryan.

 

Besides swimming, exploring, and sand castles, the kids played Scum together, the new favorite card game the boys brought back from Scout Camp.

In the evening two other families came to join us: Cassie and Zach W., and Brett and Kristen M. It was just a bummer that they weren't able to come sooner. But we did do desserts together...smores, of course! I brought my guitar and made sure to print off some current music. Everyone had a blast singing Imagine Dragons songs. We did those many times and then we also sang "Let It Go" from Frozen. That was adorable, as all the little girls joined in joyfully. Campfires and guitars seem to go together really well.

We had to leave pretty early in the morning because it was the official start for the football season. Raef had try-outs and he couldn't miss. But it was a great to be able to go camping again this year... and this time with friends. I hope we can do it again next year. Fun times.