Orange You Cute!

When I was young, I had an obsession with oranges. I would eat them incessantly.  Apparently, my dietary obsession was so extreme that my face would be stained orange. My mom would scrub and scrub my face before church on Sunday, but to no avail.

I was reminded of this when I saw my Harry Bob sitting on the ground in the kitchen opening a fairly large orange all by himself.  No one, including Rinar, will eat an orange unless I peel it for them.

What can I say? I am just so proud of my boy. Finally! Someone who likes oranges as much as me...I mean, likes them enough that not even an orange rind will keep him away.

Good job, Harry!

Give Your Kids a Hug

I was trolling around the internet last night and came across this blog, Pack of Fixations. I cried buckets... buckets.  My friend Lindsay posted something on her Facebook account about Kelly and Ryan Pack the day after the accident happened. I think they were friends in high school.  


The Packs were driving home from a family thing on Christmas Eve when they were hit head-on by a huge suburban!  Kelly was injured the most severely, but there precious 18 month-old, Colum, didn't make it.  

Finn and Colum Pack

I think about my five children and how they can drive me insane, how I sometimes want to just float away to some tropical island, where the only sounds are seagulls and waves crashing on the sand.  Oh, how I need to be so grateful that I have all of my kids. They are safe. They are sleeping peacefully right now and in the morning they will drive me crazy once again.  I know I am very blessed for all of that craziness.


I thought I would share this with you all.  The Pack's are really struggling right now.  You have got to read her story.  All I can say is...whoa.  But the worst part is that the driver who brought all this misery into the Pack's lives is uninsured, so not only did they lose their little boy, they are going to be in financial ruin.  Please, click on the link and make a donation to this family.  I am sure that any donation would be greatly appreciated.  Pass their story on to your friends and families.  Share it where ever you can.  Hopefully, by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.


And while you are at it, give your kids a big hug.  I know I will.

You Got To Get Small

Eli told Rinar to come sit down. They had to talk.  Eli told him that he needs to grow small.  How small? He needs to be 3! Then Daddy can wear Eli's clothes and go to his birthday party. Then once he grows small Daddy can grow big again.


Just one of those really sweet moments.


If you want, you can watch it here.



Ever since Eli attended Raef and Zach's birthday party, he is anxiously looking forward to his own. He will get presents and puzzles and cake. Eli is very excited for his party.  Oh, how I love the machinations of a 3 year-old.

For Real Snow

Finally, our first real snowfall. We got a few inches on Saturday morning and this is the second layer.  Rinar, Raef, and Zach woke up early this morning to clear our double switchback driveway.  Unfortunately, we don't have any salt, so I guess I am stuck at home today.

Make a Bath Eli

Rinar let Eli make his own bath tonight.  Whoops!

Raef is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.

Party Like a 10 Year Old

Raef and Zach turned 10 last week.  Wow! I have been a parent for like, a decade.  So, of course we threw a party for them.  It was a big success.  I had the boys clean up the house.  They were surprisingly motivated because they had good motivation.  Then they decorated.  All you need is a bag of balloons and some scotch tape and eager boys and voila! 

I wasn't sure when to schedule this shindig because of kids' schedules so I asked around at Cub Scouts on Tuesday and it seemed that Friday night would be the best time. Kids are way too busy on Saturday.  I made some calls, sent out an evite, and we were on the way. No sense in dillydallying.  I like waiting until the very last minute.  I even remembered Wednesday night to ask my friend Wendy to make cupcakes.

Aren't they awesome?  She did Mario for Zach and Legos for Raef.  Wendy is uber-talented.  If you need a special cake or cupcakes in the Reno area, she is the one to call.

One less thing I had to worry about.

I set up some activities for the boys.  I had made a scavenger hunt for outside, but the weather changed quickly and I decided to keep it all indoors. Instead, I whipped up a word search and told them that when they finished, they would get a prize. It was full-sized Skittles candy bag and stuff like that. They loved it and pretty much everyone did the word search.  

Then I had lots of office supplies and instructions on how to build weapons.  It was a huge hit. The book is called Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction and my boys totally love it. They are at the age where they love to construct things.  The other boys did too.  It made it even more fun because once they built their pen bow and arrow set and catapult they had a war and were running all over the house having lots of fun.

Back row (left-right): Aleks, Adam R., Porter, Ryker, Adam D.
Middle: Raef, Trevor, Ethan, Anders, Gus, Brenan
Front: McLean, Ryan, Jaden, Zach, Tucker

I also had stuff for them to make their own pizzas.  I kept them coming in batches so kids were constantly eating.  Plus, with the Doritos, licorice and cookies, the kids seemed pretty well fed.  What can I say? I am a stickler for healthy food.  And surprisingly enough, they ate all the cookies!

These are the boys my kids wanted to invite. I reminded them of a few they forgot, but I didn't really make suggestions beyond that.  There were a few boys that couldn't come, but it was neat that so many boys were able to celebrate with us, even with the wild fire evacuations the day before.

Trevor and Raef

Ethan and Julia

Happy birthday Raef and Zach.  You are on your way!

Washoe Drive Fire

Yesterday was a bit exciting for our family. After lunch, I got a call from my neighbor.  She told me there was a fire at the bottom of the hill, about two miles from our house. Reno has not gotten any moisture all winter, so it is very dry outside. And then the winds were completely nuts, with 80 mph gusts.  A fire was not good news.

But I just kind of blew it off and kept doing my stuff. About 30 minutes later, I looked out the window and I was astounded. Right at our tree line I could see tons of dark smoke billowing menacingly close.  I was like, oh crap.  So, I started packing a bag and calling people to warn them.  Then people started calling me.  It got a bit hectic. I was able to get us all out of the house in about 30 minutes.

Here is the beginning of the fire.  The road to the left goes straight to my house, and I actually was running on that road Wednesday.  All of the wind was constantly blowing northwest, towards Reno.

This is the intersection at Rinar's work.  They had to close the freeway because that is where the fire was.

There was just nothing to stop the path of destruction because of the winds. Luckily, our house was to the west of the fire, at the beginning, so we were just out of harms way.

I had a whole bunch of people from church calling to check on me and offer their houses as a place of refuge. The only problem was that their houses were in a lot more danger than mine and they didn't know it. I ended up going to the McDonald's for a few hours because it had a playground. There were actually quite a few refugees there. This was the view from the parking lot.

The houses at the bottom of the hill are all houses in our ward.  I started calling all the people who checked on me and told them they needed to pack their bags and get out of there. They couldn't see what I could see because of all the smoke.

Gratefully, the winds died down and no houses were lost in that neighborhood.

We were able to go home at night.  I was really happy about that.