Family Pictures

Megan Anderson took our family pictures at Pacific University the week that Brian graduated, and then she was nice enough to move to the Tri-Cities so she could take our family pictures again, three years later.  I'm so excited to get them printed up and put on our wall!

Lesson Learned

It's raining here in the Tri-Cities.  Summer just doesn't want to come.  This picture that's been floating around Facebook sums it up perfectly:

I woke up this morning and heard the rain rushing through the rain gutters by our window, and thought, "I don't want to go running in the rain," but then I thought that I wouldn't mind walking in the rain if I had an umbrella, so I got up and got dressed.  I couldn't find the umbrella, though.  Alyssa took it fishing yesterday, just in case it rained, and apparently she didn't bring it back.  So I went back upstairs, and went back to bed.  Then I started thinking of my book, and I decided to work on that a bit.

One thing that's been stalling progress on my book is that some of it is in a notebook, some of it is on the computer, and some of it is on loose pieces of paper.  Plus, some of it is written, some of it is planned, and some of it needed to be scrapped and rewritten.  The big hurdle to cross with all of this was that I didn't know where I was at and what needed to be fixed, because it was all just one big jumble.  So I got out a binder and put some dividers in it.  I took the already written and printed prologue and first two chapters, and put them in the binder, with the dividers between them.  Then I took the pages I had printed with the plans, and put them in the binder as well, divided by possible chapters.  And last, I put in a bunch of extra paper in the back.  So now I have everything in one place, and it's easy for me to look back and look forward all at the same time.  So hopefully there will be some progress soon.

Anyway.  My point:  I felt very creative this morning.  Alyssa woke up and started putting together a book of spells and healing potions and such, and I was glad that she was being creative, and it was raining.  So I called a delay on summer school due to rain and creativity.  "Good idea," I thought.  I was wrong.  Bad idea.

Alyssa got on the computer, wanting to research healing potions.  Her research led her to a website where you could buy healing stones.  Thank you, Google.  So instead of being creative and cute, she spent the morning begging me to let her buy healing stones, and even after I convinced her that it was not going to happen, she went back to the computer to dream of all the healing stones she would someday buy.  (Please note that this girl already has 30-50 really cool rocks in her collection that she could have easily pretended were healing stones.  She didn't like that idea, though.  Remind you of anyone, Mom?)

The boys took advantage of the morning by dumping out every single toy box in the family room, then they went outside, in the rain, and turned on the hose.  Thirty minutes and three wet kids later (Alyssa joined them), I finally gave up on starting the next chapter in my book, and I realized that not following a routine does not work for us.  I'm also pretty upset that it feels like every time I try to do something for myself, not only am I not able to do that something, but everything else falls apart as well.  It was pretty depressing there for a little bit.

So I guess I've learned that we need to start our day by following our routine.  If we would have had summer school and done our chores, then it wouldn't have bothered me so much that the boys made a mess and Alyssa was whiny.  I would have been proud of what we had accomplished, and those things would have seemed smaller and less significant.  Plus, we would already have the momentum of getting things done, so it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to say, "Woah, boys, that's quite a mess you've made!  Let's clean it up."

I've also learned that I just need to be patient with my book.  I'm glad that I now have my binder for it, because it means I can work at it little bits by little bit without losing my place.  I just need to remember that I can still finish it, even if it takes a while.  Going slow does not mean that I have to stop.  I just need to be happy with slow.

Now I need to get back to the kids.  Alyssa just came upstairs with a wet and muddy Becca, and she says the boys are playing with the hose again.  I think it's time to bring the boys in and get them cleaning up their messes.

Piano and Summer School

 We've been having fun having a piano for the past week.  We had a piano guy come over last week to fix the wobbly leg.  Before he even looked at the leg, he played a bunch of keys, and tapped and tightened things inside the piano.  When he was done, we found out that he was making sure that it was worth fixing and tuning.  Apparently our little piano passed the test, because he's coming over to tune it next month.  Then Brian and I stayed up late Saturday night putting a special stain and wax on the piano, and now it is just beautiful. 

Summer school has been going very well.  The kids are doing a great job of following their work boxes, and I am so impressed with how hard they've been working with very little complaints.  Alyssa especially.  She just dives right in each day and get's everything done.  She's fabulous!  We've been having summer school each day during Becca's morning nap, and then we've spent the rest of the day having fun.  Today Brian's parents took the kids fishing while Becca and I stayed behind to have some quiet time.  (Apparently Becca needed it, because she would not let me put her down, even when she was sleeping.  I didn't mind, though, because I read a good book while she was asleep on my lap.)

I still haven't finished the school room all the way, and it's dirty, but I decided to take pictures to show anyway, because if I wait until the room is completely finished, I may never get the chance.  I still have to hang some of the curtains and put up some Alice in Wonderland wall quotes, then I think it will be done.

This is the kids' working area.  They each have a desk and a shelf for their work boxes. You can't tell from this view, but the green door matches the green leaves in the curtains.  Actually, I don't even think I took a picture of the curtains.  You all will just have to be impressed by the curtains when I take pictures after I put the quotes on the walls, which will hopefully be soon.  I bought the chandelier (it's purple!) at Habitat for Humanity, and it has an almost matching buddy on the other side of the room.

These are Ethan's work boxes.  You can tell, because of the two boxes that have cleaning wipes in them, that I haven't moved the downstairs bathroom chore to Marcus' boxes yet.  You can also tell that Ethan read the Book of Mormon today, cleaned the upstairs bathroom, then didn't put his worksheet back when he came to box three.  He was very excited about going fishing, and it was really hard for him to pay attention to his work today.  Not a big deal though.  He did great.

Rebecca's favorite thing to do lately is to empty boxes or drawers or bookshelves.  You can see the pile of books I collected by the shelf, along with the scattered library books on the floor.  All done by Becca.  She's fun.

Anyway, I love how this room is turning out.  It's such a bright and happy place to spend our mornings, and I know I'm going to be so thankful for it when we start spending more time in it come Fall.  I feel so spoiled to have a room just for our school work (and my crafting stuff) and I really am thankful for the space.

Catch Up Post (Get Ready for a Lot of Pictures)

Summer vacation is here!  I was counting down the days until the kids would be home, and it didn't feel like it was really coming until the very last day of school.  I'm so glad that they're home now, and we can follow our own schedule.  That really is my big beef with public school - that they set the times and I have to follow.  Silly, isn't it?  But really, what I didn't like this year was having to get everybody up and ready and out the door, then picking up Ethan right in the middle of when Becca wanted to take a nap, then having Alyssa come home each day after four o'clock.  Now that I'm in charge again our house is staying cleaner, we're having better, more planned meals, and we're doing more things as a family.  It's great!

So here's a recap of everything.  I think I'll go backwards to help me remember.

Yesterday we went to go pick up our fruit box from Fresh Picks, and we met our cousins at the park, who were also picking up their fruit boxes.  My mom was watching Tallia's kids, so she brought them, and then after we were done playing we went to her house to have lunch and to swim.  We stopped at Wal Mart on the way to get some pool toys and sidewalk chalk for the summer, then we just played all afternoon.

She doesn't like the feel of the grass, but that doesn't stop her from cruising around.

When Brian got home we left the kids swimming for a bit and went to look at a baby grand piano that we saw go by on Craigslist.  It's over one hundred years old, but still in good condition, so we bought it, and once we get it moved on Monday our quiet room will turn in to the music room.  That room has limited wall space, so we knew that any piano we got would force us to move furniture out, which is why we went ahead and looked at this one, even though we were originally looking for an upright.  The kids are already lined up to take piano lessons in the fall, so now they'll have a piano to dink around with over the summer before they start.

Last week we had Alyssa's end of the year ballet recital.  Our summer weather has been reluctant to show up, and it was cold and rainy for most of the day.  Alyssa, Becca, and I went to the rehearsal in the morning, and then we went to the actual recital as a family that afternoon.  We were late in getting there, and we were actually walking up just as Alyssa's class was about to go on, and they were calling her name, wondering where she was.  She ran up to the stage, hurried to put a skirt on and flowers in her hair, and then they announced, "Beginning Blue and Alyssa Jacks," so we're pretending like she was the star performer for their song, even though she was in the back row for most of it.

I had a lousy spot, being the last parent to make it to the picture taking area.  Guess where the recital was - you got it!  The Columbia Center Rotary Charity Stage at WSU Tri-Cities.  You can see Alyssa doing a really cool jump in the background, though.

And this is my camera dying, not special effects.

After the performance.  She's such a cute ballerina!

Alyssa and her cousin, Kenna, were in the McGee Talent Show.  They danced to "We've Got the Beat," and they were so cute.  They even got crazy with their pretend guitar playing skills during the guitar solo.

We went to the cabin to go mushrooming a couple of times.  Brian's parents were too busy to go with us this year, but we still had a great time.  One time we went up for just the day, and the next time we went up for a few days.  The kids are getting really good at finding mushrooms.  We usually batter and fry them, but this year we read in one of the books at the cabin that morels make great soup, so we found a recipe for Morel Bisque when we got home, and gave that a try. It was so yummy!  We kept trying to figure out how much a bowl of the soup would cost in a restaurant, because morels are actually pretty spendy, and we felt quite cultured and cool as we ate our mushroom soup.

the kids on the cat walk

pure joy

I think Ethan is about to say, "Marcus go to sleep!"

Then he just gave up.

I think that just about sums it up.  We've had a couple of summer school days this week after school got out on Monday.  The kids each have a service (chore) that they need to do as part of it, and they're doing a great job of doing their worksheets, scripture reading, and book reading along with that.  I'm really excited about what this summer will bring!