Cinco de Mayo Celebration

I know, I know, Cinco de Mayo was almost two weeks ago, but I've had so many things to tell you I haven't had a chance to share my fun pics with you (and Teach is getting mad at me because I asked her to take a bunch and then I never used them).

No, I'm not Hispanic, but my SIL is, effectively making my grandsons Hispanic too. Not that it matters, we started celebrating Cinco de Mayo long before Gamer was part of our family. It began as (what else?) a scout project and ballooned from there.

We always cook Mexican food (this year it was sweet pork like Cafe Rio) and we love to bash around a pinata for a while. Gamer is in charge of the pinata. We get it much cheaper if we send him to the Mexican store. This year he brought back some fun and different Mexican candy (usually the sweetness is overpowered by the peppers, but not this time). We got caramels, suckers, marzipan, and some kind of gooey stuff that Crafty absolutely loved.

The pinata got off to a rocky start. It was shaped like a bucket and extremely heavy even though it was only half full. We let the kids whack at it in age order starting with Baby Doll. She was pretty upset about swinging at those princesses...

Then Curly made a valiant effort...and so on, up the line. The Dog Walker didn't try very hard because he said he really didn't want to break it. All the kids started chanting for the Gym Rat. They just knew with his awesome rippling biceps that he would be able to crack it open!

And he did...

He also smashed the dickens out of the candy!

Half the suckers were in powder form, the other half had lost their sticks completely. Tootsie Rolls had been knocked right out of their wrappers! I don't think the kids will hope for the Gym Rat to pick up the bat again any time soon.

Tee Ball

Me and My Team

Scout

Pretty sure I've told you several times about tee ball, but I finally got the camera with us to a game and my sweetie snapped some pics for you. When I signed Scout and Curly up for Tee Ball in the same league, I didn't realize just how often our games would be scheduled at the same time. We are more than halfway through the season and tonight was the first time I've had the opportunity to watch Curly play. (If you remember, I'm coaching Scout's team and my sweetie aka "the awesome-ist guy in the world" is coaching Curly's team.

Our game was pretty uneventful. Scout was her usual amazing self near the pitcher's mound and Taco played first base. They have a great thing going that you don't usually see in tee ball. Scout fields the ball and then tosses it to Taco and the batter is out. Not that it matters, nobody is ever really out in tee ball. And Burrito loves to chase after the ball. He has been know to totally tackle his own team mates just to be the one to get the ball.

Burrito with Taco in the background

After our games was over, we headed over to Curly's game where they were just taking the field. To keep the little ones from getting bored, the coach is supposed to recruit someone to practice with them in the outfield while the game is going on. Even though he has tons of parent support, that job generally becomes his.

Taco

Since I was there, my sweetie asked me to help Curly with his turn in the infield. Now I try to be enthusiastic then the kids will be excited about the game, so when they are fielding the ball I yell, and when they are throwing the ball I yell, and when they are batting, I yell the loudest. So Curly and I were standing there, waiting for the kid to hit the ball to us so Curly could throw it to first.

Only that's not what happened. The boy smacked the ball into right field. I immediately started yelling, "Get the ball! Get the ball!" and Curly took off running. Unfortunately, so did the little guy who was running from first to second. They had a horrible collision with both of them running at top speed!

Curly

It took me about three more batters before I could get Curly's tears to stop. Then he picked up a ball and threw it to first and actually made an out. He was so excited! When the second to last batter came to the plate, he popped the ball up just slightly over Curly's head. I wanted him to field another one since he had done such a great job with the last one, so I grabbed at the ball. Unfortunately, instinct took over and I actually caught the ball.

Smacking the ball

Some of the parents weren't too happy.

But most of them didn't care...the little guy ran the bases for a home run anyway.

That's tee ball!

Running to first!

Field Trip!

I think I’ve told you before that in Utah, many of the schools are on a year-round schedule. That means we have shorter summers, but we get to have the elementary-aged kids home for a several weeks every 10 weeks.

So we are on A-track and that means that every January I get to have a little playtime with the kids. Thursday was one of those days. For some crazy reason we have had beautiful weather here this week and not a bit of snow anywhere. I piled the little kids into the big van along with Grandpa, Teach, and the Drama Queen and we headed downtown.

Our plan was to earn another Cub Scout patch for Sport. This one required a trip to the Pioneer Museum and the State Capitol. We started at the museum and other than the fact that Curly was totally bored and pulling on my leg every three minutes, almost two hours slipped by before we knew it.

The favorite exhibits were the old-fashioned fire engine, the doll buggies, and the commode. I wish I could have taken pictures for you, but they forced us to lock up the camera and my purse in a little locker before we could enter the museum. It’s a pretty amazing place and it is all free!

After we finally located Grandpa (he was lost somewhere on the second floor), we walked up the hill to the Utah State Capitol. It was rather grueling with the stroller, but Teach did most of the pushing. I told the kids that I thought I had read somewhere that the entrance was on the east side, but they didn’t listen, so we hauled that double-stroller all the way up the front steps! Yeah, we were puffing by the time we got there.

The badge required us to identify three trees and it’s a good thing we had Grandpa with us, because I’m no good (except for pines) when all the leaves are gone. I had also printed out a little Bingo card for each kid to help them find interesting stuff in the capitol. We worked hard to get the blackout so we could earn a special prize from the visitor’s center staff. They were so excited!

When we were finally finished, we took the fancy elevator down to the first floor to claim our rewards. I have to admit to being a little disappointed when the lady brought out a handful of dum-dums (tiny suckers). The kids didn’t mind, in fact, they were happy.

After some outside photo ops and Grandpa chasing off a scary-looking guy in a long trench coat, we hiked back down the hill. We even went four-wheeling out across the grass! We piled back into the van and then braved our way down North Temple to the Wendy’s by my sweetie’s work. He met us there for a quick hamburger before we headed for home. I love off-track time! (And besides, if we aren’t home, they can’t mess up the house…I’m no dum-dum.)

That Guy in the Middle

See that guy in the red shirt in the middle? That’s my dad. And he’s surrounded by a bunch of his grandchildren (but not all). His grandkids love him very much! After my mom passed away 5 years ago, my dad was not happy about living on his own, so he moved in with my youngest sister. Then about a year and a half ago, the powers that be dictated a change. My little sis wanted to have another baby and they simply didn’t have the space.

It was about the same time we had decided to finish our basement family room, so I suggested to my sweetie that maybe we could finish our final bedroom space to make a room for my dad. The amazing man I married readily agreed and we started framing once again. Soon the bedroom caught up with the family room.

As you can see, his grandkids played a huge part in the construction. My sweetie firmly believes that the best way to teach kids life skills is to let them experience them, so we had them help with as much as we possibly could. We only hired out the ductwork because we wanted to move some of the existing ducts, but other than that and the actual laying of the carpet, my sweetie and his little army did all the work themselves. (I’m so glad Teach didn’t put in some extremely unflattering pics of me caulking the baseboards. I was about 7 months pregnant and looked incredibly silly crawling around on the floor.)

Sadly, my dad is only with us part of the time since he likes his friends and contacts in Utah County. I have five siblings who live down there, so he stays wherever he likes. He really is the guy in the middle. But remember, Gramps, we love it when you stay here…so come often, ple-a-s-e!? (PS. Thanks for the fun movie party last night!)

Casualties of War

 You ever have one of those days when no matter what you try, everything just seems to go wrong? I’ve had one of those…ok, I’ve had half of one of those. It started out pretty good. My sweetie doesn’t usually work on Fridays, so he was home. When the kids got home from school we decided to take them all on a short adventure (since we had football practice to worry about). We piled them in the van and headed to the athletic store to pick up the Dog Walker’s brand new letterman’s jacket.

Then we drove up to Cookies by Design to get our free sugar cookies on a stick that we earned because we read some books this summer…like they have to reward us for reading…we love to read! Those eleven cookies retail for something like $75. Then we drove back to Chick Fil A and fed the entire family for $3.99. I know, I’m cool like that…I can show you the receipt. Six kids meals, two chicken salads, two large drinks, two 8-piece nuggets and two large fries. So up to that point all was going well, fantastic, really.

But things went downhill fast. I have an embroidery machine and occasionally I take on some small jobs that bring in a few extra dollars. My sweetie spent half of last weekend digitizing a custom pattern and I had 8 shirts that needed this logo. So my sweetie and the kids all waved goodbye as they headed downstairs to watch a movie so I could work in peace. They even brought me a little bag of tootsie rolls as a consolation prize for my good responsible behavior.

Things were rolling along just fine. Each shirt takes about 20 minutes to embroider, so sometimes if I’m not too paranoid I can multi-task a little. I had just gotten my serger back from the repair shop after five weeks and $120.00, so I decided to check it out to make sure it worked. I hemmed a few pairs of pajama pants for Sport while randomly watching the logos appear on the embroidery machine. I enjoyed a couple of tootsie rolls and then re-hooped the machine for the next shirt.

I stitched all of Sport’s scout patches on his vest. This was pretty frustrating because the thread kept breaking and I started over at least a dozen times. The embroidery pattern completed, so I re-hooped the next shirt and turned back to the sewing machine. Suddenly the needle broke! I pulled it from the patch and tossed it in the garbage. Then I put in a new needle and proceeded to rethread. After about a dozen stitches, the entire post holding the sewing foot detached itself from the machine! I’ve sewed for many years and never had a calamity like that. I helplessly studied the pieces. I guess that meant another trip to the repair shop.

That’s about when the embroidery machine decided it was tired and wanted to quit for the night. It stopped right in the middle of the pattern and refused to go further! (I guess I know how it feels…) I gave it a breather for about 20 minutes and then got it to sew a few stitches before I ran out of bobbin thread. I pulled off the hoop, re-threaded the bobbin, then the machine, and got a few more stitches.

Forty-five minutes later, I finally coaxed the machine to finish the design. Sadly, I’ll get to miss the fun tomorrow too because I still have two shirts to finish. See what all this frustration can cause? Besides that, I pretty much ate the entire bag of little tootsie rolls. Casualties of war, I guess.

Bobbin' for Apples

Remember a while ago I told you that I couldn't think of anything to write about so I had Teach throw in some pics and then I had to write something about them? Just for fun, we decided to try it again. She chose some of my favorite pictures, but the story isn't all that great, so I apologize if I'm a bit lame today.


You all know that Teach is trying really hard to be a teacher. She has finished all of her coursework and she is getting ready to do her student teaching at a local elementary school. (So is the Drama Queen, although her student teaching is in a junior high.) But this story is about Teach.


Last year she had an assignment to do something with a child. That’s it…do something…and then turn it into a lesson. It was supposed to be child-directed, in other words, the kid got to pick the activity. So Teach partnered up with Scout and asked her what she would like to do. She immediately said she would like to bob for apples. Who thinks of that???


But Teach is usually up for any kind of adventure, so she loaded Scout in her car and off they went to the grocery store to buy some apples. I’m not sure how it happened, but they also ended up with doughnuts.

So Teach pulled out her camera and got these fun and amazing pics of apple-bobbin’. This one of Scout and Sport is my favorite! I'm not sure why Teach didn't give you part 2 of this pic because after they posed with it together, that slippery little apple fell and they ended up knocking foreheads! Ever ready with the camera, Teach captured the whole thing. (Maybe I can get her to find it and put it in when she gets home from work.)

Part 2- As promised.

After the apple adventure, Teach hung strings from the landing in our entryway and tied doughnuts to them. She had the kids race to see who could eat their doughnuts first without touching them with their hands.


I’m still a little fuzzy on the lesson here (perseverance, maybe?), but it was fun to watch the kids try to bite into a doughnut that kept swinging away from them. Except for the Dog Walker. That poor doughnut didn't stand a chance. He pretty much swallowed the whole thing in one bite.
As a parent, I’m thinking I want my little ones to be in Teach’s classroom…education has sure changed since I was a kid…and the playgrounds are much safer too.

She Speaks

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments on yesterday’s post! My writer’s block seems to have disappeared and I want to apologize to Teach. She felt bad yesterday about the off-hand comment she made about nobody caring if I posted or not. She just meant that maybe no one would notice if I took a day off here and there, not that I should quit writing because no one was listening.

My biggest fear about missing a day or two is that I might never come back. I have precedence for that…I used to be a journal writer with plenty to say. I started when I was in 6th grade and never missed a day until after I was married and my first child was born. Then I missed one here or there and pretty soon I was only writing when I had a new baby. Sadly, I didn’t even manage to get all of their births down. So I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, but sometimes just getting the words out doesn’t come easily.

Today was Scout’s Kindergarten Orientation. We showed up at the elementary school bright and early for Scout (just after 10:00). She was excited but a little nervous. I was counting how many times I had done this before. (I’m in to double digits now.) Whenever I start thinking those sorts of thoughts I try to remember that this is the FIRST time I’ve ever done it with Scout. Her new teacher happens to be one of my good volleyball friends, so I know her well. Even though there were lots of kids and their parents wandering around the classroom, Scout’s teacher sought us out immediately. She had on a happy smile and after greeting me, she said “hello” to Scout. I don’t think she got the reception she was expecting, because Scout stared at the floor and refused to say anything.

This is certainly not the first time her mouth has quit working. Just this past Sunday she was assigned to give a talk in Primary. She worked all morning drawing pictures to go with the fun pioneer story we had pulled from our own family history. She practiced the words and held up her pictures. When we got to the Primary room, she asked my sweetie to be her helper. He had a piece of gum in his pocket as a prize for her hard work.

When it was her turn, she walked calmly to the pulpit. I’m pretty sure she never had any intentions of saying anything, but my sweetie didn’t see it coming. He stood behind her and whispered the words into her ear. She glanced at the handful of kids and half a dozen teachers in the audience. My sweetie continued to whisper louder in her ear, but nothing was coming out of her mouth. He looked up helplessly and I shrugged my shoulders. Then he gave the talk for her. She smiled at the audience when it was over and marched triumphantly to her seat. I have to admit it was a great talk, my sweetie can tell an amazing story as you all know. When we got out in the hall, he popped the piece of gum into his mouth. He’d earned it!

Last year Scout attended a neighborhood preschool. She knew her teacher well. Four of her siblings had attended the same preschool and all of my children had learned to swim from this same teacher. Yet as soon as school started, Scout clammed up and wouldn’t say a thing. Finally, in January, I took her out with the rest of the girls to sell Girl Scout cookies. We sent her to ring the doorbell by herself. Selling the cookies was important to her. I knew this was our opportunity and so did her teacher. She refused to buy any until she had a real conversation with Scout. Three boxes of cookies later, they were chatting like old friends. I assumed our problem (at preschool anyway) had been solved.

Several months passed and Curly, Baby Doll and I attended preschool graduation. The graduates were sitting in chairs all in a row. Scout said something to Curly across the room and the little girl next to her turned in her chair. She looked at Scout incredulously, “You talk?!” Scout just smiled. She never had any intentions of saying anything. Too bad I didn’t have a piece of gum.

The Early Riser

The Prima Donna has been working on a challenge from one of her teachers. The hardest part for her was going to bed at 10:30 and getting up at 6:30 (and that’s in the AM!) Like Scout, she has never been known as an early riser, but she really wanted to “rise” to the occasion this time. She started on Monday and it was pretty hard the first day. But by Tuesday, she was feeling good and she asked me if it would be OK if she made pancakes on Wednesday morning for the family. Of course I’m fine when anybody offers to cook around here, but I reminded her that I would be sawing logs at that time of day and unless she was burning the house down, she needed to let me sleep. It’s summer for crying out loud!

Not actual pancake photo credit

Wednesday morning arrived bright and early and she crawled out of bed with great intentions. When my sweetie got downstairs just before 7:00, she was staring at the pancake batter. “What’s wrong?” he immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion. “I don’t know…” she mumbled slowly. “The dough looks funny.” Now my sweetie is a fixer when it comes to recipes. Just the other day the Drama Queen was making rice pudding and she accidentally grabbed the container of cumin instead of cinnamon…well my first response was to just throw it away, but he actually made it not only edible, but delicious.

photo credit
 

So he immediately jumped in and tried to help. “It looks like your griddle isn’t hot enough,” he concluded as he scraped the black gobs of dough from the griddles. Then he proceeded to give a five-minute lecture on the merits of a hot griddle including the dancing water test. They poured out another bunch of cakes with similar results. “Hmmm…” he decided it wasn’t the griddle after all, it must be the batter. It looked a little thick. “How much of each thing did you put in?” he questioned as he stuck his little finger into the batter and then touched it to his tongue. He almost spit it out. The Prima Donna shrugged her shoulders and then started going over the recipe with her showing him each item.

When they got to the baking powder, she proudly held up the tablespoon. “Did you notice that this recipe calls for teaspoons of baking powder, not tablespoons?” my sweetie asked. The Prima Donna frowned. He started adjusting here and there, trying to get the recipe to work. After 20 minutes of adding flour, milk, anything he could think of, the batter still exploded on the griddle into tiny black balls of gooey mess. “How about we try again tomorrow?” he suggested. “I’m already late for work.” The Prima Donna agreed and set about cleaning up the mess and pouring the spoiled batter down the sink.

The next morning dawned bright and early at 6:30 and the Prima Donna climbed out of bed again. My sweetie joined her a few minutes later and they started mixing the batter. Now I know this is crazy, but remember, we have many mouths to feed so they had to six times the recipe. When they came to the baking powder, the Prima Donna proudly held up the teaspoon this time. “I’m not going to mess it up today,” she said brightly. She started to dig into the baking powder. When she got to six, she started digging for number seven. “What are you doing?” my sweetie asked. “You only need six.” Her face reddened and she started to laugh. “What’s the matter?” demanded my sweetie. “I think I did the math wrong yesterday,” she confessed. “Instead of six teaspoons of baking powder, I put in 24 tablespoons!” It’s no wonder my sweetie couldn’t fix it. And no amount of leavening is going to make the Prima Donna an early riser!

Sweetie

I don’t know why I start these silly traditions…but since it’s Fathers’ Day week, I’m just going to have to tell you a little about my sweetie. First, let me say that he doesn’t like to be in the spotlight and he will be annoyed that I shared him with you. Second, because he is the most amazing guy on earth, he will forgive me for embarrassing him.

I’ve already told you how we met and fell in love and all that mushy stuff back in February during Valentine’s Week. So we will make it easy. I will just tell you about today…a rather typical crazy day at our house.

My sweetie is an Electronics Design Engineer by trade and he usually works four 10-hour days on the other side of the valley. Now that the kids are out of school, I usually wave to him from my sleep-induced stupor as he heads out the door at the crack of dawn. Sometimes he sleeps in a little and goes in a bit later, but on those days the kids hardly get to see him because when you do the math, if he goes in at 9:00, the earliest he can come home is 7:00.

So this morning was one of those days, we turned off the early alarm and decided to snuggle for an extra hour before he headed out. While he was in the shower, I got a call from my SIL asking me if I could run over to his house and jump-start his car. I moaned and rolled over, sliding Baby Doll to the center of the bed. I don’t like early mornings and it was still early…My sweetie calmly agreed to make the 15-minute drive and take care of the ailing vehicle.

I assumed he would head off to work after that. Imagine my surprise when he showed up again 45 minutes later with Burrito in tow! “I’m taking the day off work!” he announced. “I want to get the backyard in shape for you before Sport’s birthday party on Friday.” I was absolutely thrilled with this news since I was dreading the yard work that would definitely fall to me when the girls left for girls’ camp on Tuesday. He had the older kids organized within the half-hour and soon they were all working together in the backyard. I kept the younger ones inside and we tackled the kitchen and the other areas on the main floor including my monstrously high pile of clean laundry that I hadn’t been able to get to over the crazy weekend. 

We took a break for lunch and he herded them all back outside to put in another few hours. By 3:00, everything was looking good (Except for the patio furniture; I’m supposed to be making new cushions…I’ve been working on them for almost a month now.) My sweetie and the Dog Walker had moved an entire pickup full of rocks to fill in an area that was full of weeds this morning. 

Yet he still came in the house, tired, but cheerful and helped all the kids make wooden racecars from our Home Depot kits. He finished putting together his little kid trampoline (a Fathers’ Day gift so he wouldn’t have to worry about Curly getting hurt on the big tramp), and watched the kids play for a bit. He also tilled our huge sand-pile so the sand is nice and soft for the kids to play in and then he sprayed the entire area for bugs so they wouldn’t cause problems at the party. 

After a quick shower he ran the Dog Walker over to the park so he could check on his geocache…which had disappeared, btw…He returned just in time to grab a bite to eat and then we all watched a movie for FHE. He is like this every day, working hard to make my life better and easier. He still calls me his “Arm Candy” when we go out and he tells me I’m beautiful, even though I know my 46-year-old self is nothing like the 18-year-old girl he married. I am so glad that we found each other and plan to spend the rest of forever together. I love him to pieces…Did I embarrass you too much, Sweetie? You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Thanks for being the father of my children. Happy Fathers’ Day!

I guess you can say we have good chemistry!