Getting Noticed

Nathan has finally noticed girls. Kind of. He came home from school and told me he thinks he might want some chlorine.
Hmmm....
Chlorine? I asked him why and he told me he thought it smelled nice.
Really?
Then...
I asked, "Do you mean cologne?"

Yep.

A Special Birthday

Nathan turned 12 this year. Unbelievable. He has grown and changed so much over just the last year alone. It is hard to imagine him as the little baby I brought home from the hospital as a newborn with bowed legs (he was breech for the last 4 months of my pregnancy) and a cone head (vacuum assisted delivery).

He got a new DS for his birthday. We wrapped it in a giant box so he wouldn't know what it was. He was very surprised. So was Kade (and maybe a little jealous).

Here is his happy dance.

He got to pick a couple of friends to take to a little park nearby for a mini party. Burke took them and said they had a great time. I am so grateful for great friends. They are both a good influence on him.Nathan feels a need for speed.His friend Jordan.

His friend, Trevor.

He received the priesthood by his father the Sunday after his birthday. The next week, he got to pass the sacrament. He was so nervous, but did a great job. I think I may have been more nervous than he was (don't drop the tray, don't spill the water, don't trip, don't go to the wrong place, etc.) There was no need to worry. He has been fine (or the mistakes haven't been picked up by my mom-radar).

He now goes to young men's and I find I miss him in Sharing Time. He has a great time with the boys though, and seems to be fitting in well there too.

It is a great thing to have two priesthood holders in my home.

Getting There

I had what I hope will be the final procedure for this little drama done on Thursday. I am home recovering and hoping to be able to eat, sleep, and have a normal life soon.
My kids miss having me come to help at school and I really miss going to the gym and listening to Harry Potter on my Ipod while I run/jog on the treadmill.
Despite no exercise, I have found myself several pounds lighter. I guess not eating much for three weeks will do that to you, and I am not complaining about that.
I have found myself begging my husband to take me out on the town: last night we went to Wal-Mart for a birthday party gift and got a frozen yogurt that I ended up wasting.
But it was nice to get out.

Burke took both the boys skiing on Wednesday. They had so much fun. Kade did ski school in the morning and kept up with Burke and Nathan in the afternoon. He whispered in my ear that he secretly thought he did better than Nathan did. Nathan whispered that he thought Kade did okay, but needs more practice to keep up with the big guys.
They were all exhausted when they got home and they all looked like racoons because Burke forgot to put sunscreen on them until after lunch.
Now the girls are waiting for their turn.

I am hoping to have some more energy to do something productive with my blog and life soon...

Stay tuned.

Love Is In The Air

Both my laptop and my blog are being resurrected! Thanks to Aaron for helping me with my laptop. I have missed it.
Hopefully I will be able to catch up on my blogging a little easier now.
I will just start with what is going on now, picking up later what has happened for the last four months.

Today was the big sixth grade dance for Nathan. The teachers made the boys and the girls dress up in their nice clothes. They have been working on learning different kinds of dances since December. There was one dance where they boys and girls danced together: the Virginia Reel.


The rest of the dances were line dances (YMCA, the Bunny Hop, the Electric Slide).


Nathan insisted on wearing his suit.
He looked very handsome, but I was a little concerned that it would come home with mustard all over it and holes in the knees.Much to my surprise, he and his suite were both clean and in one piece when I showed up to the dance.
He was adorable (I am biased).
The girls were all so cute too. And tall.
It was a great afternoon to see him thriving and happy with great friends and an awesome teacher this year.

Halloween, At Last

Yes, I know I am finally getting around to posting the Halloween fun, but it is worth the wait.

Right?

Nathan, after much consternation about Kohl's not sending his much needed accessory, was a Doctor for the school Halloween party (we improvised using the scrubs I work for work when I was pregnant with him, with some tailoring, of course).
Annika borrowed a costume from her friend again because of Kohl's late shipment (not my fault, I proclaimed as I clicked purchase on October 21). Annika was very cute as an Asian princess, or as Mulan, whichever she decided was more glamorous.

Kade was a mummy. Which I sewed. With lots of cheesecloth bits flying up my nose as I did it.

Adrienne was a cute little red witch.

Once the Kohl's shipment came (the day after the school parties) Nathan was Albert Einstein and Annika was still the neighbor's Asian girl costume because I got the wrong size. In my own defense, I ordered the size it said was for kids 8-10 years old. When it came, I said 8-10 years old= size 12-14. GRRR. Oh well, maybe she can wear it in 3-4 years.

I had the opportunity to plan the parties for the 2nd grade and for Kade's class in third grade. It was very stressful for me, but we got it done, and the craft and the games turned out to be lots of fun. Adrienne got to come and hang out in the second grade and the third grade parties, so she thought she was pretty awesome.


The weekend of Halloween, we headed up to the library for their annual party which is usually pretty fun, especially for the younger kids.
Nathan won the costume contest for the "Smartest" costume and was able to pick out a book.

Kade won too for the all around best costume! It validated all of the tacking of cheesecloth that took many more hours than I thought it would.

After the library party, the boys went trick or treating with their friends, and the girls got to go with their dad until a friend's mom picked them up and took them out for a little while.
They were soooo excited and felt like they were big like their brothers to be out without mom or dad.
Adrienne got separated from the group though, because the house they went to didn't give her candy fast enough and the other kids left her. She was a little upset at that, but seemed fine once she sat down to munch on her candy.

Burke and I were home alone on Halloween night.
He got to fulfill his fondest wish (next to getting his truck).
He wore a horrendous mask and scared the bigger kids who came to the door.
His chuckles and comments of "They screamed like little girls!" Were pretty funny.
Love that guy!

Oh, the Places We'll Go

We finally did it.

We finally got "THE TRUCK".

Many of you may not know the full import of this.

Many others do.

And if you do, you will rejoice with Burke.

He finally has his truck after all these years.

Now our lives can really start.

According to him.

Now we can really have fun.

Now we can bond.

Now we can go to cool places.

Now we can get all of those projects around the house finished.

Now we can get the Republicans in the White House and therefore save the world.

Maybe he didn't go quite that far, but it is pretty close.

Burke is very excited. His truck is very big, I feel like I am driving a big rig when I take it places. But I am getting used to it.

We currently have 5 vehicles at our home (6 if you count his motorcycle). Three of them are running, and one needs to be sold. But I have some hoarding issues with vehicles, and I find myself having a hard time parting with the one that gave me my sanity in Michigan.

But it needs to go.

Because his new truck is really big (I call it "jugly". It is a nice combination of jacked-up and ugly).

And I just realized I didn't take a picture of it for my post.

Another day.

It has been offically broken in by our family, however.

Literally.

We went up to my parent's cabin for the weekend. Nathan, trying to be helpful, locked all the doors because the little kids were playing in it.

Unfortunately, the keys were also inside.

After some yelling and threats of making Nathan walk home to get the spare set of keys, Burke and I broke in and unlocked the doors.

We all learned a valuable lesson: Nathan inherited the locking out gene from his dad.

My Boy

Nathan is my first born. He's my oldest child, and yet remains an enigma to me much of the time. He and I are very alike in some ways and complete opposites in others.
Which makes us butt heads more often than I would like.
But more and more I find myself being pleasantly surprised by his attitudes, opinions, and ideas.
And I like it.
He is growing up and we are finding interests we can enjoy together.
We spent the weekend up at my parents' cabin. Nathan inserted himself into an adult game of Pictionary.
I am sorry to stay he surprised me, but he did very well.
He was so proud and so am I.
It is nice to be able to associate with him in that way.

I think I am ready for the teen-dom. The good and the bad. Because the good is going to be a lot of fun, and the bad can't be too much worse than we have already endured, can it?

He keeps me hopping, that is for sure. Like yesterday when he brought home a progress report from school that had all A's. Except for vocabulary. Where he said he ran out of time (4 days) to look up definitions for his assignment in the dictionary, so he made them up. **Sigh**
Looking at the positive, trying to work with the negative; we congratulated him on his good grades and offered to help him learn how to use a dictionary more effectively. He took us up on the offer.

He started his first "job" this summer as well. He is mowing the lawn at our bishop's business with the bishop's son. The first time they went, it took them 4 hours. The second time was three. Mowing time has been speeding up for them and they finally did it in under two hours the last time. And were rewarded with a sundae.
He is saving his job money for an electric scooter. Not just the namby pamby kind. He wants the one with the most power (hear the manly grunting?).
He has been very diligent about saving, tithing, and putting some money in a long term savings account.
He is hoping to have enough money by the end of the mowing season. It should be enough, perhaps with a few household job ideas from mom and dad.
I am looking forward to seeing more goal setting from him.
He has told me he would like to run a 5k with me next year.
I told him to get his running shoes. His teacher gave his class an assignment to write what is called a Bio-Poem. I have never heard of one, but this was Nathan's:

Nathan
Small, nice, gamer, and smart
Brother of Kade, Annika, and Adrienne
Lover of candy, fun, and science
Who feels happy, entertained, and weird
Who needs fun, games, and candy
Who gives laughs, smiles, and winks
Who fears homework, death, and fire
Who would like to invent something, go to space, and get a job

High Adventure Camp: The Conclusion

Nathan finished up his high adventure camp with indoor skydiving.
He really liked it until they turned up the air flow on his last turn. He panicked and started flailing around because he said he couldn't breathe.
His poor instructor thought he had a wild man on his hands.
Needless to say, that last turn was cut short.
Other than that, it was a lot of fun and we were sad to see it end.

The organizers said they will try to do a parent-child camp next year. I'll be all over that one!


Here is Nathan on his second run. You can tell when they turn up the air speed. He freaks out and his instructor gets a little frustrated.


He missed the last activity of the session (kayaking) because he decided to stay with his out of state cousins for a week.
That was high adventure itself. He has never been away from us for that long. I think it was a little difficult for him, but he had so much fun.
Thanks to them for being such great but sudden hosts to a shy but excited cousin.

Summertime

Nathan has been keeping busy with plenty of summer activities.

He completed his second year of robotics camp and had so much fun, again. We are truly a bunch of nerds. When we went to pick him up, the rest of my kids were excited to see what he had programmed his robot to do each day.

He is also involved in a High Adventure Kids Camp that goes through mid-July.
The kids meet once per week and get to try "adventurous" activities.
The first week they did rock climbing:

The second week it was surfing.
Kind of. It was indoors and probably safer, although Nathan did get pretty banged up. He toughed it out and ended up carving some bodacious waves by the end.


Nathan has also been involved with city baseball. His team did very well and were undefeated all season. They have been invited to the county playoffs next month. Nathan played in the family place of honor: right field. He was excited to be on a team that won more than they lost.
The last game of the season was a blowout, so Nathan's coach let him have a turn pitching. He was so nervous and excited that he struggled. But we were so proud of him and glad he had a chance to try.
In the midst of all this, he is also doing piano lessons. He really enjoys it and tends to practice longer than is required just because he likes it!!!
I don't know how much longer that will last, but I am going to make the most of it while I can.

We have all been doing swimming lessons, going to the splash pad, and reading some good books. I just finished the first in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series-- Captured. Nathan is reading the Red Pyramid and can't keep the information to himself. He is going to make sure I don't need to read it to know the plot.
I don't complain, though. I am just grateful he is enjoying a book. He is so picky about what he reads.
I am trying to figure out what to get him to read after Red Pyramid is over. It looks like we will pass that milestone tomorrow.

Fishin' In The Dark

Burke took Nathan and went fishing the other night.
An old friend from the college days went with them.
They had success, despite Burke taking a very cold bath.
Nathan had a lot of fun and learned how to gut a fish.
He shared the experience the next evening over dinner accompanied by his sisters' squeals of disgust.

Medical Care on the Cheap

This:
Is supposed to be attached to Adrienne's arm.
Nathan took care of it while "helping" her to get in the car the other day.
I think when it slid off it scared him more than it did her.
And they were all scared of me when I came on the scene.
You know that "deer in the headlights" look they get when they are about to get in trouble?
There were four pairs of eyes looking at me as I climbed in the van with my previously lost keys in hand.

Nathan began by telling me he was trying to help, Kade was trying to stuff her hand back in it, and Annika was busy tattling.

I checked her hand and felt the area that was broken. The doctor told me he was just planning to push on it and move it around to make sure it was healed.

I can do that, right?

So I did. And it was.

And Nathan saved us another visit to the doctor.

Thanks... I guess.

The Choir?

Nathan rarely sings in Primary.
I can see his lips move when there are songs about melting snowmen, or sometimes "Scripture Power"-- when he can swing his scriptures around legitimately.
It drives me crazy, but I understand it is probably a "macho" thing.
That is why you can understand that my jaw dropped to the floor when he asked if he could join the school choir.
Really?
Whatever floats his boat.
(Sarcastic eye-rolling goes here).
I guess singing the Beatles is more fun than singing "Follow the Prophet".

The choir had a mini concert at a local grocery store as a fundraiser for the school. I missed it because I was at Kindergarten Roundup with my baby *sniff*.

Burke was superman and got home from work early, rounded up my other three, and took them up to the store. All the while remembering to grab the camera.

I got there just as the concert ended, but I did get to see the pride in Nathan's face.
It was almost as good.

A Birthday Gift

My mom and dad came to visit Nathan for his birthday. They brought him a gift that he could open and a gift that I don't think he realized was a gift.
His Great-grandpa came with them. And he brought his harmonica.We all had a little laugh about that.
Grandpa always finds an opportunity to play for whomever he can find.My kids loved it.
Great-grandpa loved it.
Annika is still talking about when she can get her first real harmonica.
I think the real gift is being able to appreciate family.
I am so blessed to still have all four of my grandparents. (Got some good genes there).

Nathan really enjoyed the gift he opened though. I have no idea how I have not gotten a picture of it yet because I believe that it was surgically attached to his hand as soon as he got it out of the package.
It was a nerf gun. And he loves it. It has been confiscated more than once for my other children's protection.
We are currently working on getting him to focus on target practice right now.
But it is so fun to shoot it at people.
I got Adrienne the other day when she was trying to sneak up on me.
And it was really fun.
Then she took it away.
Darn.
Guess I should be a better example.

Wanna Play Ball?

Nathan just celebrated his birthday with a fun family party.
I got an opportunity to have a one on one lunch with him since Adrienne was at preschool. I checked him out for the lunch period and we dined at McDonald's. It was fun to spend time with him alone.
We got some donuts for him to take as a class treat and he was the most popular guy around for the afternoon. That evening he got to open his gifts: new scouting items, and a basketball standard.
That was a big surprise.He was so excited, even though he had already unknowingly found it despite Burke's best effort to keep it hidden. Nathan hadn't realized what he found, thankfully. Maybe the best gift would be the two and a half hours Burke and I spent putting it together.Nathan used the new basketball Grandma W. gave him and would have spent all night out there if we hadn't made him come in for bed.

He didn't want a birthday cake, so we celebrated with birthday brownies. It was a nice afternoon spent with family. Happy Birthday to my first born son!
A Birthday Interview is upcoming...

Spring (?) Break

We spent spring break up in the mountains. It wasn't so spring-y, but it was a much-needed break.

The first challenge was getting into the cabin. This picture was taken with Nathan standing at the entrance to the driveway.
We decided to take our chances and try parking on the road. "The Man" left us a nasty note, but by then the neighbors took pity on us in our poor minivan and let us park in their plowed driveway.
Then we had to get all the stuff in our work-horse van into the cabin. It wasn't pretty, and involved some yelling and wet boys, but we finally got settled in and warmed up with some hot chocolate.
After that, the fun began. We played games, watched movies, and went tubing. We tubed and tubed and tubed.
The best part was there was a really long hill where we could drop off the kids and one adult and then meet them at the bottom. We loaded everyone and all the tubes up and drove around to the top to let them go down again. It was so much fun.
One morning we availed ourselves of the local Easter-egg hunt. It was a massive undertaking. There must have been a thousand kids in the events center. For us, it ended up being a moderate success.
Adrienne had a bit of a struggle to pick things up with her cast on, but I let her tough it out. There were many parents who got in there with the 4-5 year olds and grabbed candy, though.
It was a little ironic because the grumpy man who kept telling me to leave my 4 year old daughter there alone felt pretty dumb when I was the only parent who was actually waiting on the sidelines and letting my daughter get her own candy.
Annika seemed destined to "find" all the stupid scraps of paper the organizers spread out as advertisements for the sponsors. She mostly ended up with a bag full of papers. Nathan's bag mysteriously developed a hole in it, so as he was furiouly filling it, other (rotten) kids were coming behind him picking up the stuff he was dropping. The kids had fun though (except for a disappointed Nathan) so that is all that matters, right?

After the big hunt, we went to the city park to play fox and geese, a family tradition on my side. I was appalled that we had never taken the time to play it before. I got to teach the kids and Burke to play. It was hilarious. When Adrienne got tired of running around, she said that she wanted to play fox and squirrels and she was going to be the squirrel hiding in its burrow. She walked away and sat in the snow to rest. After the fun in the park we let the kids play on the playground for a while. We had it all to ourselves, since it was freezing. The kids didn't seem to mind, though.


We finished the afternoon with a stop at the famous local burger joint. I got a turkey sandwich (sigh) but treated myself to a nonfat yogurt shake with Oreos that I'm sure kept it nonfat(YUM).

That night it snowed. A lot.The kids decided to take advantage of the new snow and tubed down the driveway while Burke and I loaded up the van.
We were a little worried we would have to move in until Memorial Day, but our faithful minivan got us out and we headed home to check out the Easter baskets the Easter bunny had left us.
It was an amazing weekend and we had so much fun. Thanks for letting us use the cabin Grandma and Grandpa!

Randomness

How do you know spring is on the way? Surely not by checking the weather. Around our house, it is when the trampoline goes back up.
You may wonder why this photo is noteworthy... It is because the plate is Nathan's and he actually ate what was on it. Highly unusual for super picky Nathan to eat any sort of pasta. (He really wanted dessert). We had to record the event for posterity.

What do you do with all that Easter Chocolate?
Build a chocolate palace, of course! Mmmmmmm..... I wanna live there.

Yep, we're on borrowed time.
The other two have 155,000 (and in the shop right now) and 125,000 (currently unregisterable). Just hoping we can squeeze out another year.