Another adventure

Caroline and I are off!By tonight, we'll be standing on a corner
in Winslow, AZ.

We're flying home for my little bro's wedding. I'm nervous about traveling with my super-active and LOUD toddler, but so excited to see my fam and my hometown where I haven't been in about 3 years. Wish us luck! (And while you're at it, wish Andrew luck being a single dad to Brandon and Whit.)

Ups and downs

My life is just flying by. It's crazy.

I blink and another week has passed.

I feel that way every summer. But usually once school starts, I have a good month or more where there is a nice rhythmic flow to life before the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas flurry. Not this year! Sheesh.

It has been a combination of fun, general busy-ness, and stress that is making it zoom. Let's start with the stress, so I can end on a fun note.

STRESS
I am a laid back kinda girl and have a comfortable lifestyle where I truly don't stress out about much. But today was a terrible day at church. I mean a had-me-in-tears kinda day. Mostly because I was feeling bad about my mothering shortcomings and how visible they are in the middle of sacrament meeting. It was SO not fun. And then I feel bad because I know when I'm stressed out that Andrew worries about me and he had his own set of troubles that he just put on the back burner to make me feel better. I needed that. After a nice afternoon nap and a good cry on his shoulder, I felt ready to face the world(or at least my kids) again.

The other major pain in my neck right now is the BYU class that I started a year ago and have made very little progress in. I was supposed to finish by Sept 17th. Nope. Not gonna happen. I can pay a small fee for a three-month extension and that's it. If I don't complete it in 3 months, I have completely wasted all the time and money I've invested in this class. No! Can't let that happen. So almost all of my free time during C's naps and after the kids are in bed has been spent on English 312--Persuasive writing. I can write blogs, but I stink at writing college-level papers. I think I just need to aim low and get this thing done. How's that for ambition?

FUN
We had the best day yesterday. We went to the water park with our cousins from Asheville and some friends. It was perfect weather, the big kids were great, the babies took naps, there were short lines for the rides...we couldn't have asked for a better fun-in-the-sun day. LOVED it.

Whit slidin'

B jumpin'

Mason playin'

Avery and Whit huggin'

Care Bear and Drew lunch breakin'

And for date night, Andrew and I went to a friend's home to watch the BYU-Oklahoma game and BYU WON! Are you kidding me? It was a nail-biter, too. It was great to watch with other BYU fans. The perfect finish to the night.

Also, I am having the best time with

Caroline during the day when the big kids are at school.

We especially love playing in the backyard.

She throws a fit when it's time to come inside.

She even started joy school once a week.

She is in a very clingy phase right now,
but still had fun with her little friends.

She is a good shopping buddy and

likes carrying this little purse around--

a hand-me-down from Whit.

Unfortunately, she has expensive tastes.

Out of the mouths of babes--August

8/1--While Whit and Andrew were cleaning the bathroom this morning she said, "Dad, I know why you give us chores."
Drew: Why?
Whit: "To teach us responsibility!"
And I thought it was just because I was lazy and wanted help cleaning the house.

Can you tell the responsible kids from the mannequins?

8/5--We were swimming with our friends at their pool today. Brandon was carrying Whit around. He said, "Whit, you feel so light in the water because of the buoyancy. Buoyancy rocks!"

We heart buoyancy!

8/7--Whit named her toes today.

Their names are:

Baby, Toddler, Kid, Teenager, Adult

8/9--We have some generic disinfecting wipes in my bathroom called "Sani-cloths". Brandon came walking out this morning holding the can and singing in a Christmasy tune, "Sani-cloth is coming to town." It cracked me up.

You better not pout.
I'm telling you why.

8/10--Whitney had her kindergarten screening at school this afternoon. In the middle of the reading-based questions, Whit randomly told the teacher, "I saw a baby ape."
Teacher: Was it cute?
W: Yea. I wish you could come to my house.
T: Do you have a pet ape at your house?
W: No! I have a picture. It was in the zoo.

8/14--This was the face Whit was making at B in the middle of Safety Town graduation in front of hundreds of parents:

Nice.

8/14--When I came down the stairs today in this outfit

Brandon told me I looked like a DJ.

I think that's a huge compliment, right?

8/20--Just finished watching "The Neverending Story" with B and W. At the end, the main character gets wishes, so we started talking about what we'd do if we were in his spot.
Brandon would wish for
1. A "give and taker". It's a machine that has been appearing in his dreams lately. You put in $10 and get whatever you want.
2. A billion water parks put together to make a super long ride.

3. All the money in the world.

Whitney would wish for
1. A "spender." It's a machine that you can point at any toy you want in the store. It will go pick up the toy and pay for it and you get to keep it. (You think she's easily influenced by big bro?)
2. A really really really really fast horse. (She might've thrown a couple more "really"s in there.)
3. To meet the empress. (The heroine at the end of Neverending Story.)

8/24--While waiting for a Dr's appt, Whit told me, "I know why it's called a gumball. Because there's gum inside that colored ball. There are gumballs in Africa, too. It's a pea inside wheat and they chew it." Hmm...really?

African gumball, anyone?

8/24--After Family Home Evening tonight, we were sitting around the table eating our treats. We decided to tell a story around the table, each person adding a sentence as we went along. The kids were really good at it! It was about a fish and B added some moray eels. When it was Whit's turn she said, "And then the gourmet eels went away." In some places, they probably are gourmet.

Bonus Caroline pics:

The wind blowing through her blond hair.

Peek-a-boo!

She's cute even when she's sad.

We love to hear her play the piano.

And especially love her hugs.
(They are not given out freely!)


She loves to drink cold water and chew ice.

On a walk with her daddio.

Obligatory back-to-school post

Like many other 5-18 yr old children, mine started setting alarms, packing lunches, and donning new clothes this week.

Back to school time!

B is an old pro at elementary school now.
Starting 3rd grade.
It's the first time he'll get A-B-C grades.
(Instead of Outstanding, Satisfactory, etc.)
He's the type who is highly motivated
by feedback, so he's excited about that.
Best part of the first day: Getting four "Behavior Bucks."
Worst part: "I didn't really have any bad parts."
(Is this MY son talking???)

Miss Whitney headed off to kindergarten!

She was SO ready to go and had no hesitations.
Best part: Making new friends, Julia and Ellie.
Also making a self-portrait and a
sculpture of a mammoth in art class.
Worst part: "My chest hurt at play time.
Maybe I've been taking too much footsteps."

It's weird to have her gone ALL DAY LONG, but
I'm loving the one-on-one time with Care Bear!
We play with toys, dance, eat, go up and down stairs.

We even went to her first story time especially for her.

(She obviously needs some help
figuring out how to use books.)

She doesn't seem to miss B & W
much throughout the day.

But she sure gets excited when they come
running home from the bus!

We know we can't dance...

But that sure doesn't stop us from trying! We had our second (and final?) "We know we can't dance" party this weekend. It didn't go as I had expected(we were the only couple that danced!), but we still had a really good time.

Care Bear didn't do a solo at the party, but at Gigi's request, here's a *little* clip of her dancing. I had to put two clips back to back and it's still pretty short. Guess we need to work on her endurance. Or else she's camera shy.



Whit, on the other hand, is anything but shy. Here she is shaking her groove thing at the party.



B didn't want to dance at the party, but here's a sample of what he can do.



And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for....our interpretive dance of Twilight. I think this will be most funny for those who were at the party and could actually see it in real time. The video doesn't do it justice. I should've had it recorded in a higher resolution. (Thanks to Jeremy for being our cameraman.)

Here's a summary: Bella moves to Forks; Edward walks into the cafeteria; sitting in science class together; Edward goes hunting; he takes Bella to the meadow; we play baseball; we fight an imaginary James; we go to prom.



I hope to perform it again sometime before we forget it and get a better recording.

B's tooth-pullin' contraption

This video is from a few months ago, but I finally figured out that for some reason I have to post them on YouTube instead of directly uploading through my blog to make them work.

Brandon had a loose tooth that just wouldn't come out. Here's how we solved the problem. (Sorry it starts off sideways. I was being an airhead.)




My favorite part was that he didn't even realize it had worked!

He's at that stage where those teeth just keep falling out. Maybe he'll come up with another method for the next one.

Our new sacrament meeting tradition

Ahhhh...made it through another Sunday. Sometimes that feels like a huge accomplishment.

Andrew is still not back to 100%. He had a "minor" surgery on Friday to have his kidney stone removed. You never know how minor it will actually be. He had complications in recovery and had me downright scared for a couple of hours there. Everything is OK now, but he is just still really worn out and uncomfortable. Dang. Here the surgeon had me thinking we could be running laps by today if we wanted.

Anyway, I wanted to share something we've been working on with our older kids to improve reverence at church. It has been going pretty well. I got the idea from an article in The Friend magazine a few months back.

I got each of them a notebook from the dollar store
and challenged them to listen to the talks at church.
They need to write something down that they hear
from each speaker.

Whit's are real basic.
She listens for a word and
draws a picture.
This one is the temple.


Sometimes she'll also sound out the word.

And then sometimes she gets distracted
and starts drawing swirlies and pictures of the EXIT signs.
She's a five-year-old girl.

Brandon goes a little more in-depth.
He's supposed to write what the
talk was about or something that he learned.
That takes some listening!
I am so impressed with him.
I'm so distracted with Caroline that I
think he might hear more than me!

My favorite so far has been the second #2 on
this page, "a movie creator and fathers."
Toni, he was paying attention to your talk!

As a reward for their efforts, they earn Big Kid Time to spend with us after we put Caroline to bed. We usually play a board game. Our favorites lately have been Apples to Apples Junior, Cinderella's Enchanted Slipper and

Settlers of Cataan.

It's so fun that Brandon is old enough
to understand and enjoy this game now.
And he's good!
(Whit is just kind of along for the ride on
the weeks we play it, though. She likes
rolling the dice for Andrew and me.)

Our anniversary getaway

**Andrew update**He's feeling OK. Most of his pain is being relieved by meds, but he still gets uncomfortable sometimes. He is finally able to keep fluids down and even ate a small dinner tonight. The ER doc said that for stones of his size (4 mm), 80% of them pass within 72 hours. That would be by 7 am tomorrow morning. So far that hasn't happened. He'll make an appt with a specialist for the end of the week and will need some sort of assistance if it hasn't passed by then. And now on to a much happier post than last one....

We had a VERY special treat for our anniversary this year. (Which is actually back in June, but it worked out to celebrate at the end of July...we'll take what we can get.) My saintly mother agreed to watch our kids for three days and two nights while we got away to the mountains. Yes, friends, this was after spending five LONG days in the car with us. She is amazing! And to top it off, we forgot to leave her a set of keys to the van, so they didn't get to leave the house the whole time we were gone. (We're so lame!)

We left after church on Sunday and enjoyed a quiet, relaxing drive to Asheville. It was a stark contrast to the drives I had been through over the past month. We had great talks about retirement, Andrew's book ideas, parenting...the three hours flew by.
We stayed Sunday night at our cousins' home, even though they were away on vacation. (Thanks Destinee and Ryan!) On Monday morning, we drove to the Biltmore, touted as America's largest home.

It was the Vanderbilt's mansion built in 1895.

The setting is GORGEOUS. I could see why someone with an endless supply of money would want to settle here. They didn't allow any pictures inside the home, but it was as lavish and extravagant as you could imagine. Very fun to tour, especially with Andrew. You can read his review here. Only he could have me belly laughing uncontrollably in the middle of the library. And he even agreed to talk in a British accent with me for a couple of hours on a challenge from Shelley.

We spent a couple of hours in the house with plenty of sitting breaks for Andrew's back. Walking is OK, but standing is still hard on him. Then we toured the gardens. We tried to take exotic nature photos.

Rose

Stargazer lily

My eye

We were really confused about how this
rose was the 2010 winner.
It's still 2009, right?

We both LOVED touring their little farm.

We have gotten really into gardening this year and
were envisioning our next home with acreage so we
could live off the fruits of our labors.

On Monday night, we stayed at a GREAT little
bed and breakfast called the Bent Creek Lodge.

It was fantastic.
I would highly recommend it.

We went on a little hike in the woods behind it,
watched a movie on Andrew's laptop,

and played a couple of super close games of pool.
(Darn you, 13 ball! You hexed me!)

After a scrumptious breakfast Tues morning,
we headed to the NC Arboretum to enjoy more hiking
and further attempts at nature photography.

How did we do?

When Andrew's back had reached it's walking quota,
we started heading home with a quick detour
at one of our favorite Chuck E. Cheese's.

Andrew won the jackpot on Flamin Finger for the first time.
Yes, we know we are nerds.
And we're completely OK with it!

We came home to find that Gigi and the kids had
not only survived, but even had fun together. Hooray!
Thanks again, Mom, for making this happen.
I wish it was an annual tradition.
Getaways are so revitalizing!