BUSY!

Friday night was a fun night. Spike and three of his best friends went (with Dad) to Medieval Times to celebrate his birthday. They had a great time. Spike has some great friends. We are so grateful for them.Star went with the Crimson's to a youth activity. He had a blast, they saw Alice in Wonderland in the park. FUN!
And Blue Tiger's best friend came over for a sleep-over.
A fun filled night for all. Well, almost all.
After Spike's friends were all dropped off and Star came home. Everyone was tucked into bed for the night and I looked forward to a good night sleep.
During the wee hours of the morning I was awakened by footsteps outside my door. I never close my door all the way because so many nights I have children in need of something or another and I would rather have them come into my room and just wake me, than pound on my door and wake up everyone.
So, I knew something about these footsteps was unusual from the very beginning. They weren't coming into my room. After being awakened by them several times (I was in that dream state where I would wake up and then quickly go back to sleep thinking the footsteps were part of a dream). Finally I woke up enough to go out into the hall to find out what the problem was.
As I walked into the hall I was immediately accosted by a leg and then an arm. I stepped back to watch as Blue Tigers best friend marched straight legged with alternating stretched out arms back and forth down my hallway. "What are you doing?" I whispered.
He retorted in a deep (for his age) militant voice, "Night Patrol."
I asked him if he wouldn't mind saving it for at least sometime after 6:00. He said okay and quickly went back to bed. It just makes me laugh to think about it. "Night Patrol."
Here is a pic of he and Blue Tiger the next day at breakfast.

AND today the three Scouts in our family went to a Boy Scout Day camp. Here is a pic of them as they left. Dad told me they had a good day. Spike kind of acclimated to the bugs, which is a good thing. He even went outside all on his own later this afternoon. Which is close to a miracle lately. He's had a hard time ever since a bee sting on his trip to Guatemala. Star is extremely sun kissed. He looks great with a little bit of color. And Dad always feels good when he can do Scouting stuff with his boys.

Pretty busy, but fun filled days!

Happy Birthday Spike

Today was Spikes birthday. I remember 11 years ago (also on labor day) when he was just a tiny little newborn baby. My how the time has flown. I am so impressed with the progress he has made over the last few years.
We spent the day with the Crimson family. Our Angel got home from college on Saturday night, it was fun to have her there again. But alas Uncle Crimson and Cinnamon Crimson have both left us to go back to college. Their presence was greatly missed.
We had hamburgers and hotdogs, and cake and ice-cream. As we sang to Spike he was so cute. Shy and WAY happy. I love to see him so happy. Spike got an I-pod (which is what he REALLY wanted, either that or an i-touch, but mom wasn't willing to get that one for him yet). The Crimsons got the coolest accessory for it. It's a speaker system attached to one of those plasma balls. Too cool! I think Sage loves it as much as Spike does.
We spent the whole afternoon and when it was time to get the bedtime routine started Dad had to drag me kicking and screaming (okay... not literally) into the van to go home. Although, I do think it's harder to get me to leave than the boys.
I love you Spike. Happy Birthday!

The woes of taking family pictures

Yesterday we went to the temple. It was a good thing to get us out of the house and yet still be Sabbath worthy. We decided it would be fun to try to get a pic while we were there. We grabbed a guy sitting outside and asked him to take a picture for us. He was very kind and said he would. THEN as if on cue, the boys started to scatter. "Quick, a guy has a camera, let's make this as hard as we can for him." I know they have some kind of communication through their thoughts. Anyway, so we finally get them all together and the guy taking the picture was actually really good. He was engaging with the boys and I was hopeful that we would get at least one good picture. Hmmmmm.
This was our first pic. I like it. I even like the fact that Sage was so enchanted with the temple that he couldn't take his eyes off of it.
So, here we are on our next try. I love the temple in the background. This pic just made me laugh. I love the look on Spikes face. TOTAL Spike. And Sage's eyes were going through withdrawls from not looking at the temple. Either that or Spike and Sage just can't be out of the spotlight for too long.
We decided to try one more. Okay, three boys this time. EZ is playing a bit of peek-a-boo, either that or Spike just wanted to scoot him out of the picture, you can never tell with those two. The light at that moment was too great for Star's eyes and the look on Sage's face says exactly how he feels about the current situation.

So, it seemed we had a little pattern going on. First pic...one kid off. Second pic...two kids off. Third pic....three. We decided just to take what we had and run with it. Family pictures with a big family...It's all good, we love them all. One of these days we are going to get professional pics again. And then we will have to pay for a bunch of pictures that are off.

Having a "O" Day

You remember in the mission field when we had "P-days". Well, today I had an "O-day". I organized!
It was great. I decided to fight the paper fight. Sometimes I feel like I have pilerea. (That is the disease where you just can't help but make piles everywhere.) I have piles of mail in my kitchen and on my piano. I have piles of papers from school covering my buffet. I have piles of books on my side tables. Piles, piles, piles.
So for the last few weeks I have been making plans to change all of that. I am going to tackle the piles. I bought some shelves, some file folders, some drawers, and a few other organizational things and I have a plan.
At the beginning of the year I set out this year to be an organization year. Well, for the past few months I have been off track, but I have officially stepped back on the train. YEA! I feel good. Maybe if I actually get my system working well I can get some time back for reading books, or writing them.

Back to School

So, the boys headed back to school this week. It's been great! These are my four in elementary school. (Although Sage isn't officially in school, he attends a RECC program at an elementary school.) Blue Tiger started 4th grade, Puppy is in Kindergarten, and EZ is in 2nd grade. He was a little disappointed to not be going to a new school. He really enjoyed where he went to summer school and wanted to go back there. Star started 7th grade and Spike 6th. Man, am I old enough to have two middle schoolers? Both were a little nervous on their first day. Spike because everything was new and unknown, Star because he didn't want Spike bugging him every 10 seconds. (He told me after the second day that he didn't see Spike much at school. Just on the bus. THAT he can handle.) Spike has had a great couple of days and is now just excited about school. YEA!

When each of my boys started kindergarten I always wanted to know all about their day when they got home. Most of the time I got answers like. "It was good." Or "Yes, I made friends." But not with Puppy. As soon as he saw me he started talking and it was non-stop talk for a good 15 to 20 minutes. And then later when Dad asked him he did it again. All about different stuff than I had heard about. Every sentence was followed by "Yeah, it was so awesome!" I'm glad he likes it. He hasn't gotten homework yet, which has been heartbreaking for him. He REALLY wanted some last night and cried when I pulled out some worksheets for him. It wasn't from school, it's just not the same.

Sage hasn't officially started. He starts at the beginning of next week. We have enjoyed hanging out and doing stuff together. Wow, it is so much easier with just one coming along with me. For that reason, I do enjoy having the boys in school.

Family Reunion

We just got back from an awesome family reunion. What could be better than a family reunion in the happiest place on earth? Unfortunately we didn't take a lot of pictures because we were too busy making sure none of the boys were wandering away. But we had a ton of fun, and the pics we did get prove it!
Not a great family pic, but hey, for us I thought it was pretty good. Here is Spike with two of his beautiful cousins. He LOVES Space Mountain. In fact we stayed an extra day just to go and ride it again. (This is not a figurative statement. I didn't get to ride it and really wanted to, and Spike really wanted to ride it again. Our AWESOME cousin (from the other side of the family) got our cool hotel room for an extra day just in case and we couldn't resist using it. And our other AWESOME cousins got us into the parks on their employee passes. So we went to Epcot as well. SO COOL!)

This is Sage in our hotel pool. I mean bathtub. Our suite had two master bedrooms each with a tub like this. Boy I think we all enjoyed this tub, but none quite so much as Sage. He was scared to death when I first turned on the jets, but once he saw the bubbles multiplying he was all about the jets. Our suite was so cool. Even Blue Tiger questioned why we got to stay in such a cool hotel room. I told him how great it is to have family in the right places and reminded him that one day (when he is rich and has his own limo) this will be everyday stuff to him. He liked that idea.Here are Star, Spike and Blue Tiger on Splash mountain with cousins and aunts. They loved it so much and talked about it so much Puppy decided it was his favorite ride. (Even though he never did go on it.) Because we stayed the extra day, we had to book it home quickly. We barely stopped on the way home so Dad could make it back in time to go to work. Whahoo! It was a long trip, but the boys did really well. I am so glad they are such good travelers.

A note about Star's hat. We went to "The Laugh Floor" which is an interactive comedy act. Star got to participate, we all loved watching him and are sure he got "chosen" because of his hat. (The claw... he is chosen...) BAH!

Blue Tiger also got chosen to have a conversation with "Crush" from Finding Nemo. (Another interactive show. It's so cool to have cartoons talking to you.) He asked a really good question and was told he was "muy intelegente" I have to agree with that statement. What fun!