Eve's turn, FDOK.

Kindergarten, here she comes!

Today wasn't nearly as traumatic for Lily, she did ask about Eve at least 100 times on our walk this morning, but none of the weepiness. That was me. We were both really glad to see that big yellow bus bring them back though!

FDOS 2008

Tall, cool 4th grader.

Pretty, sweet 2nd Grader.

Waiting for the bus.

Time to go!

Lily sobbed when the bus drove off without her, then ran behind the trash cans to cry in private. I totally feel her pain.

Good Bye Beijing

My Olympic posts are delayed. Oh well. I'll start at the beginning, at the end...

We kicked off Olympic 2008 with a breakfast of Champions. Olympic Rings.

The kids found an Olympic cake in a book and made it. I only helped with the oven and the eating. Now if I can just get them trained to make healthy meals I'll have free time to blog.

For Opening Ceremony dinner we ate Chinese. Kind of. I attempted home-made Chinese food. It tasted good, it disappeared off the plates, but it wasn't Joy Garden Chinese.

It has been fun to watch the Olympics. We sat with the Globe in hand as we watched the Parade of Nations, it was fun for the kids to find each country . I was struck by how beautiful the athletes from around the world all looked... We've let the kids stay up late each night (9:00 woo hoo!) watching the coverage with our kids. I've loved listening to my kids say things like "When I'm in the Olympics getting the gold for platform diving. will you come and watch?" or "When I am in the Olympics should I be a sprinter or a gymnast?" They all know that if they do anything on a high bar or a beam I'll have my eyes covered and just watch the instant replay. They also are all experts on perfect landings (no jump or step!), perfect handoffs (no fumbling or dropping that baton), no splash dives and Perfect Sportsmanship. Aren't the Olympics great?

My favorite Olympic moment was watching Bela Karolyi cheer on NastiaLiukin. It brought tears to my eyes. It was precious. I wish the video hadn't been deleted. He is so passionate! Here is a photo of him cheering. This is a link to the video, but I'm not sure it'll work if you don't install some fancy schmancy viewer... I also loved it when Shawn Johnson won a gold, her performance was great, but her parents hugging and crying was sweet and tender. And Michael Phelps, and that lightening Bolt kid! Wow.

I'm getting soft in my old age, I cry watching the Olympics! No, wait, I've always been a teary emotional basket case, now I just see it from the parent's POV and I get weepy. The emotions are so raw. Watching that Russian woman clear the pole vault, and seeing her instant joy... or the coach bury his face when his diver missed the mark... or the gymnast who cried, because she knew she was capable of more and just choked. It all gets me right here, and I get all verklept and fan my face to keep the tears from falling ;)

Good for us, even though the Olympics are over, we have hours and hours of Tivo'd "lypstick" to watch still!

Working Backwards

Clearing the memory card getting ready for the first day of school next week... sob, whimper. Here are the recent pictures...




Today I had a baby shower at my house. Sweet Baby Pierce is so precious and it was joyful to have a house full of women and their children celebrating him and his amazing momma. The kids and I made this diaper cake, very fun! I thought it turned out cute.

Lily decided the floor was clean enough to eat off. Plus all the chairs in the house were taken, it was a full house. Yummy cake made by Wendy the famous cake maker. Chocolate Pistachio. Yum.Yesterday we ran to Wal-Mart. I think pushing this limousine style cart with 4 kids bouncing on and off is like pushing a moving circus. The woman at the check stand is my new best friend. She saw us coming and said, "Hooray, it is my favorite kids. These are the best kids I ever see at our store." I suppose I should be alarmed that the Wal-Mart lady recognizes us, but I'm not because she made me feel happy. Plus notice Lily's chubby little arm around Michael's back? Sweet.

On Sunday the kids sang in Sacrament meeting as part of a special Musical number. They sang Child of Promise, it was beautiful and I was proud of them. I made a video, (during the practice, not Sac Meeting.) If you want to see it, let me know and I'll email it. I'd post it, but a friends kids are on it and I'm all weird about putting somebody elses kids on the blog. :)


Lastly. Henry. :) Just.so.cute. If you don't know where he is, go straight to the piano, he'll be there. He is our budding musician. He dances too. Charming.

School Days, Schoool Days....

Warning: totally disjointed post.

Only 7 more days till school starts.

Yowza. I can hardly believe summer is over.

I always feel a mixture of anticipation, dread, excitement, sadness when School starts again. Part of me craves the structure and routine and part of me dreads it. I might have some bi-polar tendencies.

My friend Paula put it best today at church, she said, "In the spring, I'm so ready to have the kids home and quit running all the school errands so I can get something done. Then at the end of the summer I feel like once the kids go back to school I'll get something done... maybe the truth is I'll never get anything done." (this is a loose quote here, I didn't actually grab my paper and write down her exact words... but it is the gist.) I feel the same way!

This woman wrote a terrific blog post about Back to School Traditions--here is her great post. She has a wonderful lesson plan for a back to school Family Home Evening (go here if you want to know what on earth FHE is.) I really like her ideas and am totally going to copy her this week. (probably not gluing me foot to my shoe, but the rest of it.) I had been thinking of how we could start the school year off on the right foot... I think this is the ticket!

I skip New Years Resolutions in January. I do them in September instead. Here are my personal goals:

1. Get up and showered/dressed before the kids are up. (This will be a challenge because I am a horrible/wonderful mom who lets Henry come to bed with me from about 4:30a.m. on each morning. He is so delicious and snuggly and I love how he smells. I love the sound of a quiet house and a gulping baby. I love the feel of his chubby little warm body... going to be hard to get out of bed.)
2. Plan better breakfasts and dinners. "plan" being the operative word here.
   
3. Create good routines to provide a nice environment from 4-8 every day. Those are usually the crazy hours... everybody needs something,homework, activities, coming, going, dinner burning, baby fussing....
   
4. Limit personal computer time when kids are home and awake.

There you go. My goals. I have about 20 more, but didn't want to bore anyone. Those are the biggies.

Great day.

Today I went here:

And we did this:

What a treat it was to wake up in the wee hours of the morning and drive with my dearest girlfriend to DC (and miss all the traffic!) What a treat to chat all the way there and back. What a joy to be in the Temple. I hardly wanted to come home, so peaceful and clean and wonderful... but on the other hand, I couldn't wait to come home to my sweet family, I felt refreshed. (Becky cheerfully pointed out how sparkling clean the restroom was! You know we are Moms of Young Kids when we admire clean bathrooms!) It had been way too long and we are going to go again soon (right Becky?)

If your not LDS and don't know what on earth I'm talking about, here is a great page full of Q&A.

My cup runneth over. (Figuratively and Literally. Henry did great with Daddy for 6+ hours... but I was sure glad to nurse him!)

I saw a woman wearing my sweater yesterday.

It was hand-knit sweater I had passed on to a thrift store.

She was easily 90. Maybe 95 years old.

It looked good on her.

I feel somewhat crabby that when I was in my "hand-knit-granny-style-sweater-phase" nobody told me I was dressing like a 90 year old woman.

Oh if we could turn back the hands of time for our fashion blunders.

More horrible cakes...

First of all, sorry to all my "readers" from SN. I am getting all my material from recent posts. Shoot me, I know, but these things make me laugh really hard and laughing is so good for you, I have to share it with my other "readers".

Up for the laughing pleasure next is a Cake Wreck Blog. Dave and I scrolled through these. The month of May has some particularly good ones. We were laughing so hard we woke Henry up and I had tears streaming down my face (See, I really would be good at that paid Crier gig.) I love the plaid wedding cake...http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/07/inspiration-vs-perspiration.html

Anyway, tell me which cake makes you laugh the most.

(I should probably post some sort of a disclaimer... they are mostly G rated, but there are a few that I would quickly scroll away from if one of my small over-the-shoulder readers was next to me...)

:)

I'm starting a new business.

I've been looking for a way to make some extra bucks... you know, with the price of gas and groceries and all.

This is my new venture. I just need to contact these people, get the specifics, then start it up in my neck of the woods.

click here

Henry has a new trick.

Henry delighted us with a new trick during FHE tonight! He was rather disruptive but we didn't mind. He is cute. Part of what I love about this video is how he claps, too fun! But what I love most is the way he looks from sibling to sibling, grinnning from ear to ear! You can tell from the cheering how proud they are of him too.