Beach Time

This last week was so much fun. It zoomed by so stinkin fast!

Monday, my sister came to visit. We played, played some more, and then played even more. She stayed through Friday, and it seemed like she had only been here a day!

While she was here, my little brother, Michael called. He mentioned he was in the car driving home from Indiana. I was having so much fun with my sister that I couldn't contain it and I said he ought to just keep on driving and come here and play with us.

Guess what he did?!?!?! Just as I suggested. He kept on driving and came here to visit. What a double treat! Both my brother and sister from out-of-town to visit. I was in heaven. And Michael brought his wife and sweet little 2 year-old, Megan, with him. It was fun. Gavin played with Megan, Danielle, Camie and Spencer played with my sister's twins.

So, I am doing that summer of Seals competition again this year. My sister is on my team. Part of the competition is that you have to work out 4 times a week, minimum of a 30 minute work-out. Only one work-out per day counts. So, we went to the gym together. She is a YMCA member like me, so it worked out perfect. Monday we did the evening swim class together, Wednesday we did the Body Pump class together. Thursday Michael was here, so we all went and did Pilate's together. Yeah, that was awesome! Michael was about the only guy in a room full of women stretching and twisting all over the place. And he kept up! I was impressed.

After we got home from the Pilate's class, Karen (Michael's wife that is 7 months pregnant) suggested maybe we head to the beach. I thought it over, thought about an evening at the beach instead of full afternoon sun. I had a great night sleep the night before. Plenty of adults going. Nothing planned. WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

So, we headed to the beach. Of course I forgot my camera as I was quickly loading the car. But my sister had hers so I snapped a few of my kiddos.

Isn't Danielle gorgeous? And look at how much fun she is having!

Gavin LOVED the water. I took him out into the waves and he kept saying over and over and over, "Water, water. Water, water." So cute! He loved playing in the sand, running from me through the shallow water, and splashing.

I have to explain this picture. Taneal was feeding Gavin a cookie. He was taking bites and accidentally bit her finger. He bit it so hard he chipped the nail polish! Her reaction was to push his face away. Not hard, didn't leave a mark. Well, except for the mud across his face. How she was feeding him and then her pushing him and where the mud on her hand came from I'm not sure. It more stunned him than anything. He didn't cry 'cause he wasn't hurt. Taneal about cried. He got her good. And Gavin has been known to bite, but this time was a complete accident. Poor kid. I was already taking pictures, so I snapped one of this before I even knew what had happened.

Nathan had a really great time, too. He loved the freedom this life vest gave him. He was all over the place with me. He loved the waves and splashing in the water.

Spencer had a great time. He is a lot more quiet about things. More mellow too. He played in the sand. He was buddies with Danielle that day and they had so much fun going out with my brother into the deeper water and swimming though the waves.

Camie spent most of her time on the beach with the twins digging in the sand. That girl sure has the natural ability to play. She can entertain herself and others for hours on end.

I don't know how long they spent digging this hole big enough for Camie to fit in. Probably at least an hour and a half.

Taneal had fun. I think she was out in the deep water most of the time. I had to call her in to get this picture. (She did have a buddy the whole time, was never out there alone.)

He is a picture of 5 of my 6 children playing along the beach.

 I don't like to post pictures of myself, especially in a swim suit. But this is me. Chasing Gavin and checking on the other children to make sure everyone was accounted for.  I read somewhere, probably Pinterest, a little saying that is so true for me. It goes something like this: You know you are a true mom when a trip to Target by yourself feels like a vacation and a vacation is more work than a vacation.

That is how it is with anywhere I go. It is work, work, work the whole time. Chasing kids, feeding kids, spot checking kids, making sure I can count to 6. Checking some more. All the while wrestling Gavin. And sometimes Nathan. And then spot checking the others once again.

But look at the memories we made. And even though it was so much work, it was so much MORE fun. My kids had a blast. And I slept so well that night.

And what was even better? No sunburns! Evenings at the beach is seriously the best time to go!

Swim Class

That swimming thing has really gotten in my blood. I am enjoying swimming and am still amazed that I even know how to swim. Until now. I even got promoted to the next lane at the last swim class. That is HUGE! The people in the 2nd lane have been taking this class for years. I'm no longer considered a beginner! If only you could see the happy dance that I want to do right now because of the excitement I feel that i can really swim! That sounds so good I'm going to repeat it: I CAN REALLY SWIM! There, now that I have that out of my system, I can go on about the purpose of this post.

I take this swim class at the local gym here in my area. It is offered MWF in the mornings. Until the summer. Now it is only at nights on MW and that is super hard for me to go to. So I decided to take pictures of the work-outs so that I could refer back to them and hopefully to do them on my own.

I am pretty good at self-motivation. If it can be done, I can make myself do it. Even if it kills me trying. Hopefully I have my heart condition under control so I don't kill myself with these amazing workouts. That was supposed to be funny. My heart is fine for the time being. It only acts up badly when I get too tired. As in sleepy tired, not exhauseted from an amazing workout kind of tired.

So here are some of the workouts that I have done. The number in the square at the top is the yards I swam. So in this picture of the chalkboard, I swam 2100 yards. That's 42 laps. I know! I'm amazed I did that myself!

I am going to break down the workout so I can understand it later.

Begin with 300 Freestyle Swim
Then do 50 yards kicking x 4 - reverse IM order (Freestyle kick, Breastroke kick, Backstroke kick, and then butterfly kick)
150 yards Freestyle pull (with the little boey between my legs and legs crossed, no kicking)
3 x 50 decreasing time (IM strokes)
100 IM (25 each of fly, Back, Breast, Free)
repeat the last 3 steps 4 times
Finish with a 200 cool down, any stroke.

See, awesome workout. If I just went and swam on my own, I don't think I could swim for 1 hour and 15 mintues. I'd want to be done after 30 minutes. Taking the class has been so good for me.

And now I have several of the workouts so that I can do them on my own.

How cool is that?

Know what makes the class even better? I have friends from church that now take it with me. So fun to have Heidi and Meggan there. Would be even better if Wendy was still coming. Maybe one of these days I can get Evan to go. Probably not because he thinks I am crazy to want to swim that much. Monday my sister is coming into town and she is going to take the Monday night class with me. I'm so excited to have her here and see how much fun I am having.

Oh, and did I mention I signed up for Summer of Seals again this year? That is the whole thing that got me started on swimming. And now look at me! I'm curious to know how I will do at this year's competition. I did pretty amazing last year. Didn't think I could improve any on my swim time.

But with these workout outs, maybe I will beat last year's time. I will have fun trying!

(and the spell check isn't working. So sorry!)

Darth Vader Visits

I did manage to get a video at Spencer's 6th birthday party showing the children attacking Darth Vader (cousin Tyler, age 14). Although there weren't a lot of children, Darth Vader sure took a beating!

Scripture Reading Accents

Sometimes I just don't know what to think.

Over the last few months, my kids have occasionally developed an accent. Sometimes it is a British accent. This morning it was occasionally French. Danielle's favorite is the Southern Twang.

Their accent comes out while we are reading scriptures as a family. It is not done in any kind of disrespectful way. Nobody laughs, snickers, or even reacts. It is just as if they were reading scriptures in their regular voice, just with an accent.

And I really want to laugh. But I don't. They aren't laughing and so I shouldn't because I am the adult here. And I don't want to disrupt the spirit that comes with reading scriptures as a family. . .

And it doesn't seem to distract from that spirit. I wonder if the other children even realize that the one reading is doing so in a quite unusual way.

Of course they notice. How could you not?

But because there isn't a reaction, I let it go on. And they all enjoying reading the scriptures together, no complaining.

But still, I wonder. Is this appropriate? Their reaction says it is totally fine. It is unconventional. Maybe a little strange. Hopefully not sacrilegious.

It does make scripture reading more interesting.

I'm Awesome

I should probably apologize before I even write this post.

No, I shouldn't even write this post.

But I'm going to.

Because tonight (it is 10:46pm) I am needing to write down all the efforts I put into my children. And I want them to remember just how hard I work for them. Or at least how hard I work to make life a little more enjoyable for them

Tomorrow morning we have to be at the pool for a swim meet at 7am. The swim meet will probably get over around 3pm.

That's one heck of a long day being out in the sun. We are there the whole time. We don't leave. And I am usually managing two little children while I try to watch the other four swim, hoping that I don't miss anyone swimming. It is quite complicated. And I also don't want to shell out $$$ for concessions. With all those mouths to feed it can get pricey. And quite frankly, the food isn't as good. They don't have all the snacky foods like I like. I have also learned this fabulous skill that serves me quite well (most of the time).

I can cook.

And I can make things perfect. Perfectly the way I like them. It's funny when we go out to eat and I take a bite of whatever it was that I ordered. I am thankful that I didn't have to cook whatever it was myself. But I also think, Man, mine is so much better. Home cooking is just tastier. It doesn't matter who the person is who is cooking (usually), home cooking is just better. Either that or I am picking the wrong restaurants.

Because we have to leave our house at 6:45am, I try to have most things ready the night before so that we can wake up, brush teeth, slip into swim suits or clothes, and jump in the car. (Spencer even sleeps in his swim suit so he just pretty much has to get in the car) Waking up two little toddlers and trying to get them to do ANYTHING is nearly impossible. Especially eating.

So I took trying to feed them on a time constraint, out of the equation.

This is where I want to toot my horn.

It is now 10:54pm and I just popped these cinnamon rolls into the oven.

Next is the pasta salad.

Can't forget the chips.

And I cut up the watermelon. Aren't those kids spoiled?

 The towels are in the wash so they will be nice and fresh for tomorrow's meet.

Having a cooler packed full of goodies makes the meet so much better. And not having to feed them breakfast before we leave the house makes all the difference.

I just want my kids to one day look back at all the work I put into making the swim meets a fun, family event. We get to go watch them swim. And they are all so talented. And we get to have tasty food. That is cold. In the heat outside. Blistering, sweltering heat.

I know right now they don't even realize just how lucky they are. And that's fine. But for my journal, which is basically this blog, I need to write down the cinnamon rolls for breakfast. And the watermelon. And the pasta salad. So they will remember the good times. The memories we made at the pool side.

The teenagers at the pool at last week's meet prompted me in this post. They asked my kids where they could get a pan of cinnamon rolls like those. My kids just responded, I don't know, my mom made them. (as they are licking the gooey frosting from their fingers).

They really have no idea how lucky they are.

Because I am writing this down, they will know that they had a mother who tried to do simple things that would make a difference. Because we all know the only way this momma functions is in baby steps, simple things. Large, grandiose things are just too hard to accomplish for me. Too overwhelming.

So I start with cinnamon rolls. You should smell my house right now. Those bad boys just came out of the oven.

Have a great weekend. We will be.
I just finished this post at 11:01. I only spent 15 minutes writing it, spell checking it. That is why you find error after error after error. I'm not in this for perfection. I would never write a post if they had to be.

Spencer Turns 6

Spencer turned 6! I can't believe that little boy is growing up so fast. I mean seriously, look at how grown up he is. He has his own opinions. He has humor. He can read. He loves to help others. He is considerate. He will go out of his way to do something nice for someone. He holds the door open for me everywhere we go. He can sweep the floor. He does an awesome job on baseboards. He is a huge helper. He is funny. And he STILL does not like vegetables and has major texture issues. He won't try any new food without me inflicting consequences, and even then it is a big deal to get him to even take the first bite, after which he usually gobbles the rest up because I am such an excellent cook.

He is a REAL person, so grown up!!!!!

For Spencer's 6th birthday, he finally asked for a friend birthday party. My rule of thumb is my children can have a friend birthday party every other year, typically on even birthdays. But I will not offer to throw them a birthday party. They have to realize that they want one all on their own. And then they have to start talking about it and asking for it.

Which is why this is Spencer's first friend birthday party.

Of course Spencer wanted a Star Wars Themed birthday with Jedi robes and life sabers. Yah, that's a lot of work. And work is something I am not afraid of, I just like it in fairly small doses. So I limited his party to 7 Jedi robes. 2 of those 7 being him and Nathan, his dear brother. So that meant he could only invite 5 friends.

And guess who his first friend that he wanted to invite was?

Ellie. Yes, a girl.

To a Star Wars birthday party. And then he listed off about 15 other people he was planning to invite. I helped him narrow that WAY down. He insisted two of his cousins that just moved here needed to come.

He was quite concerned about inviting Ellie. He really wanted her to come, but didn't want her to feel uncomfortable because she was the only girl. So should he exclude one of his good friends and invite another girl so Ellie would be okay with coming? I insisted that Danielle would be here so Ellie would not feel uncomfortable.

And then he had another concern. He said that all the girls on Star Wars are ugly. If he invited Ellie, he didn't want her to think that he thought she was ugly. Because Ellie is NOT ugly. Ellie also couldn't wear the brown Jedi robe because girls are special and need white robes. So I had to make Ellie a special white robe.

Here are the pictures from the birthday party. My nephew, Tyler, came and helped out. We had a special visitor, Darth Vader. And all the Jedi knights attacked Darth Vader. It was so much fun. Tyler was such a good sport

I made a pinata, the Death Star. That sucker took several days to make. But it was kind of fun. Spencer said it was one of his favorite parts of the party. Tyler was also a super big helper and held up the pinata while the boys took a swing at the Death Star. They were super delighted when candy spilled out from it.

We also had lunch with Galactic Pizza and Yoda Sodas. Those were a pretty big hit. You know, cheese pizza with a really cool name and lime sherbet and sprite, done like a root beer float.

The party was so much fun. We invited a sane number of children. It was very manageable, so much fun, and Spencer felt like he was a super star. Success.

Now for the family party. I was convinced I had put enough effort into Spencer's birthday party, so I was either going to skip the cake and do cupcakes, or just buy a yummy Costco cake. After the friend party, Tyler asked what my plan for the cake was and I told him. He looked at me with disbelief and told me I could NOT buy a cake. Completely unacceptable. So I brainstormed for a minute. Camie walked in the room with a sketch of a cake. And there it was. See the cake below? I threw a cake in the oven, and left for Hobby Lobby to buy some fondant. And Target to get some Star Wars figures. Camie stayed home to pull the cake out of the oven for me. Two hours later, we had a cool Star Wars cake that Spencer really like.

Happy 6th birthday my sweet boy. I look forward to celebrating many, many more birthdays with you.

Sleepy Gavin

Every child does this, and every time I see it I am amazed that they can fall asleep in these positions. I have to be laying in a bed with a comfortable pillow and a blanket before I can fall asleep. I also need almost total silence. All my children have to be accounted for and asleep before i can fall asleep. I can't fall asleep sitting. Or even laying on my back. And I need at least 20 minutes to get my mind calmed down. So to find someone asleep, like Gavin in this picture, I am amazed. He was eating lunch at the table and then next thing I knew, he was asleep. Evan has this same ability to fall asleep anywhere. At stop lights. Sitting at the computer with his head tipped backwards and mouth wide open. Right in the middle of asking a question. He can fall asleep anywhere, anytime.