Jackson's Party

I'm not really sure where Jackson came up with the idea for a penguin party, but that's what he said he each time I asked him (I had to keep checking to see if he'd change his mind).

Yeah, this happened a few weeks ago - there is a reason I didn't post it earlier (just waiting on pictures from someone else's camera). But I say I don't need a reason to not post right after things happen, since I normally don't anyway.
To make the party penguin-ish, the plan was to swim in cold water, slide on ice, carry an "egg" (rock) on their feet for a race, eat penguin cupcakes, and then they got a couple penguin party favors to take home. Just in case you're looking, there aren't a lot of penguin party favors out there.

It looked like rain was coming, so we didn't put their swimsuits on. I told them they could get their feet wet. They got their clothes wet, too. Sorry party parents.

I can totally understand why Olivia and J. have their skirts pulled all the way up at this point. Grown-ups never get to do anything.

Here's the sliding on ice part. No one else there had done this before. I guess if you have snow to sled on, you don't need ice blocking, but I remember some fun ice blocking YM/YW nights in AZ. Going pretty fast, crashing into each other at the bottom, going back for more . . .

This time, we were trying to push kids down on the ice, while trying to keep them from falling off. That kind of hurts your back. A little more with each kid in line, in fact.

John didn't believe me that it really works, and I couldn't even give a good demonstration because I wasn't wearing very good ice-blocking clothes. Otherwise, you'd see me flying down this hill, of course. Ice in Arizona must be more slippery.

Jackson does have a penguin stuffed animal that he likes, but he hadn't ever talked about penguins before he said he wanted this party. So his penguin is my party decorations. I also tried to get black & white balloons, but the "black" balloons blew up purple and the floral guy couldn't find anything else.

Penguins cupcakes - or maybe baby owls? Familyfun.com does it again.

Sadly, this is one of the best pictures I have of Jackson from the party. He doesn't like the camera, but he did have some smiles on his birthday, really.

Camping

We went camping last weekend, and went on a hike to some ice caves. I loved this view (below) - you could see snow from the ice caves, flowers and green all around, and fall leaves starting to turn colors up on the mountainside. It was like all the seasons in one. So pretty!

The only part that's not so fun about taking our kids camping is getting them to sleep in the tent. And getting them to stay asleep. We ended up driving two of them around in the car to get them to sleep. Around 4 am, Katelyn woke up again, and would go back to sleep as long as I was standing up with her. Not really what I wanted to do for the rest of the night. In the morning, we had a breakfast of sausage, smoke-flavored scrambled eggs with mosquitos in them, and burnt-on-the-outside, doughy inside cinnamon rolls. Not all food tastes good when you're camping. Yep, it was me who planned the menu. And forgot a couple things, like a pan.

Thanks for the already-reserved campsite, Jones's!

First Day of First Grade

"I got the nicest teacher in the whole school. She didn't even yell at us."

"My teacher's nice but school isn't even fun." (They did some boring stuff like rules, listening to principal, etc).

"I'm not even the shortest kid in my class anymore. I'm taller than two other kids because they're like really short. One of them's like a preschooler."

The summer catch-up

We love watching the otters at the zoo.


Gymnastics place, playing in mud, washing mud off, swimming, park, holding bird at zoo, monkey/baby gymnast.



At temple - we're not quite as graceful as they are.


backyard


swimming in Lake Washington


Sweaty survivor from hottest day.

Kids after raspberry picking w/their raspberry covered faces.

Snoqualmie

Mike came up for a weekend in August, and we hiked to Snoqualmie Falls. At the bottom view point, it was worth climbing over the fence, and past the "Danger, Treacherous, Rocks, You'll Fall . . ." sign with our 3 kids (being the cautious parents that we are), to climb on all these rocks and get a closer view of the falls. It would have been an even better idea if 2 kids didn't need to go potty about 5 minutes after we made our way down the "treacherous" terrain.

Playing on their uncle, "The Park."

Our summer's coming to an end . . .

But we did have some fun. Here's a little, and soon I'll report on more of what we've been doing lately. If you're lucky.

My favorite part is about the first 4 seconds (if only I could laugh like that). But you can watch these crazies thanking the waves for knocking them over for the rest of the video if you want to, too.

Joy Comes in Moments

A friend started a discussion on another blog on this topic:
Lately I have found myself having a harder time than usual being a stay-at-home mom. I am searching for ways to find more satisfaction in doing the laundry and sweeping for the tenth time today and constantly breaking up bickering, and cooking dinner. Do you ever experience feelings like this? What makes being a stay-at-home mom hard for you? What makes it worth it to you? What gives you daily satisfaction? Where does your inspiration come from?
She got some great responses, and if blogger would let me cut and paste, I would share some of them. But here's part of my response:
I don't really have the desire to go back to work. Deciding to be a "stay-at-home-mom" isn't the hard part for me. Doing it with patience and cheerfulness, that's a different story. Yes, at times I would love to turn my housekeeping duties over to a maid and pursue plenty of more exciting, well, pursuits. Once, while getting my hair cut, the girl cutting it said, "Oh, you're a stay-at-home-mom? I don't think I could ever just sit around all day like that." Right.
When I first became a mom, someone told me to remember the phrase, "This too shall pass." It didn't sound like very good advice at the time, as I thought, "I don't want this time to pass!"
But it reminds me that life won't always be this way.
I won't always be getting snacks, making lunches, having a dishwasher full of every color of plastic. I won't always have those days when I spend an entire mrning trying to accomplish the single task of finally getting my floors mopped, only to have juice spilled everywhere.
But. I won't always have those little hands to hold, the squishy cheeks to kiss, the arms reaching out, needing me.
The days of hearing squeals of delight from "I'm gonna get you" or seeing the treasures they find for me are short lived, as are the days of stepping in a puddle of pee on the bathroom floor. (Hopefully, you never know what the future could hold).
Opposition in all things. Motherhood wouldn't bring so much joy if we didn't have the bad to help us know the sweetness of the good.
As for the daily grind of sweeping, picking up toys AGAIN, folding laundry AGAIN, I don't know the answer to always finding satisfaction in that. And as for trying to get some cleaning done, while your kids whine and fight, and making it worse by being impatient with them, or instead putting on a movie for them (again) and feeling guilty about that . . . I still need lots of answers.
I love the saying "you comes in moments." It's okay if we're not always feeling it.
Something I read recently said to think of houscleaning as the special work of providing a place of peace for your family. (Though I haven't fully signed on to that rosy attitude). But I am finally figuring out how to keep my house consistently in some state of order, which does wonders for my mood. I have a few things I try to do each morning to keep the house running smoothly. If I finish those, I feel a sense of accomplishment, as opposed to just thinking of the endless work that I would like to get done. On busy days, I can let some things go (like the toy room), but still have clean clothes, clean dishes, and the living room tidied up.
Every job has its drudgery. But when we're old, looking back, I know this "job" of being a mom and teacher to these little ones will have more lasting fulfillment than anything else could.
One of my babies is starting first grade, one turned four-years-old this week, and my tiniest just started nursery. I'm starting to believe those random people at the grocery store who tell me, "They'll be grown before you know it." And Abby, it sometimes makes me weep, too! But for now, My Little Pony is about to marry Optimus Prime, and I'm invited.

So what's your response/comment to those questions?

Then and Now

Then

and now.

Some recent projects

. . . and by recent, I mean like the last six months. This summer, I haven't done many projects. But I've added to my list of projects I want to do, and some of those on my list are ideas I've seen on other people's blogs, so I thought I'd put a few I've done on here. They're not that impressive, but I always like ideas that are do-able enough for me to actually finish.

I saw this idea on my friend SJ's blog - a holder for girl's headbands and hairclips. The headband one just has a roll of paper towels inside.


Really bad picture of skirt for me (ignore the model), and skirt for Olivia below. The fabric for Olivia and Katelyn's "spring skirts" is still sitting by my sewing machine.

A friend brought me some fabric and asked me to make some chair covers for her chairs. It was easier the second time around - my mom helped me figure out exactly how I wanted them the first time, so I could just copy.

The before and after of the baby mullet.

Okay, the last one doesn't really count as a project.

We did a yard sale with a friend last Saturday. ONE person came. They spent a dollar. One dollar!
Lemonade is a much better business to be in.


Tonight, we told the kids to go get pj's on. A few minutes later, this parade came back chanting, "We're Olivia, we're Olivia!" They are all wearing a pair of her pajamas. It wasn't quite as cute (or modest) when I put one of her shirts on, so I didn't get to be in the picture.




Maybe because she lives on a busy street, maybe no one wanted kid/baby stuff that day - we don't know why we sat out there for three hours and got one customer.
At the lemonade stand, lots of people stopped. Probably not really for the lemonade, but because they didn't want to feel like a jerk for not giving a kid a quarter. Jackson thought it might be better to do a water stand next time so we wouldn't have to buy the lemonade. After a while, Olivia thought I should sit out there and sell while they went to do other things. That's when we closed shop with a total of about $10!
Jackson got to try some raspberry soda this week. After a couple sips, he said, "Mom, do you know raspberry juice steams out your mouth?"
That's kind of how I feel about carbonation. Safer to drink lemonade.