New Baby and Pinewood Derby

A very original title, I know.  But nothing else really seemed to fit these two random events!  At the end of May my baby sister had a beatutiful baby girl, Ayla Noelle.  Liv just LOVES Noelle so much and always wants to be holding her.  We call them ebony and ivory, and just adore how different they are.  Noelle takes after her mom and dad with her beautiful olive skin and dark eyes and hair.  Liv takes after her dad with his fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.  So different, but both so cute!



 Liv is SOOOO happy to be holding Noelle.

 I hope Noelle can survive so much "love" from Liv!

 It didn't seem that long ago that Liv was my precious newborn. 

Ah, the pinewood derby.  A right of passage for any Cub Scout.  Although we knew about the Derby for quite some time, our busy lives kept Rick and Luke from doing much work on the car until just the night before!  Rick was actually out painting a second coat after midnight!  

 Luke's car was on the end in lane six.  Yep, my little cougar went with a blue and white BYU design!  Suprisingly, being a BYU fan here in Utah puts you in the minority.  I'm so sad that Luke has actually come home from school upset because of what kids say about him liking BYU.  Oh well, I just tell him that we are nice no matter what.  But I seriously almost got in a fight during the Derby when some Utah fans actually BOOED Luke when he won an award for biggest cougar fan.  Really?  You are gonig to BOO a 10 year old boy for his pinewood derby car?  Really?  It just goes to show the CLASS of Utes.  Classy, really classy.

They had quite the set up going for the Derby.  Everything was computerized and official!  All the cars raced in every lane and all the times were automatically entered into a computer so we could have results down to the hundredth of a second! 

 Here is Luke with his awesome BYU car!

Luke didn't win, but did come in sixth. There were 41 entries, so he was actually very happy with how he placed.  He won most of his heats, so he came away feeling very proud of his car.

Life on the Farm

Most people know I was raised on a dairy farm.  I have many wonderful memories of working alongside my dad, mom, brothers, sisters, and grandparents as we did all that goes into living on a farm.  One thing that I remember well is bottle feeding new calves.  I can still smell the sweet smell of the milk, feel the warmth of the bottle in my hands, and smile when I think of letting the calves suck on my fingers.  As I've said many times, one reason that Rick and I were eager to move back to Utah was to allow our children to have many of those same experiences.  My dad recently lost a mother cow who had just had a calf.  This calf now needs fed twice a day from a bottle.  With a quarter acre fenced off, a shed for protection, and three strong boys, our home was the best place for this calf to come.  It's quite a responsibility to take care of a calf, but that is what I love most about life on the farm... learning how to work and be responsible.  The boys have really taken well to this new responsibility, even being irritated with me for mixing the milk for them when they KNOW how to do it.  Thanks to my mom for the wonderful pictures of the boys learning to feed the calf.  To see more pictures of this day, and hear her version of the story click here.

 Elijah and Evan watch as Luke goes to try his hand at feeding.

 Noah pays close attention as he waits for his turn.

 As the oldest grandson, I'm sure this is the first of MANY learning opportunities on the farm.

 Noah holds the chin just right to help the little calf drink.

"Awesome!" 

This expression is permanent on Elijah's face.  He's the happiest kid I know!

Christmas in April

I feel like most people out there have completely given up on blogging.  I haven't.  I mean, I wasn't intentionally giving up.  I just got too busy, then too far behind, then too unmotivated.  Well, I'm back!  And since my last post was Christmas Eve, this post is about Christmas.  Yes, even though it's April.  Hopefully you will stick with me over the next few months as I play catch up!

Christmas Morning



After Church

My little Christmas Doll

 

Testing out my new Christmas present...

(Liv was so hard because you had to sit completely still with the shutter open for such a long time!)

Christmas Eve

WAY back when I was in high school, my mom decided to start our family Christmas tradition with a Christmas Eve dinner. She wanted to make sure that as we grew up, got married, and had children we would know that Christmas Eve was a special time with our family. And what a special time it is. We always have an amazing candle lit dinner, a program, and open a "special gift". Early on, the program was short and consisted of each of us playing a little something on the piano. As we got married we sometimes threw in our spouses. One year Rick and I even mixed things up with a recorder duet! Now that we have children we are off the hook and get to sit back and enjoy watching our children perform. This year in addition to the program we had a wonderful nativity program complete with speaking parts, vocal solos, and beautiful violin music. I'm so greatful to my mom for the traditions and memories that we have and continue to make.

All the grandkids in their new Christmas pajamas.

You may have noticed in the above picture that Noah was really doing his best posing for the camera!
The nativity cast.
Here are my little cuties!

Luke was the wisest wiseman, Noah was Joseph (and couldn't have been more pleased that Mia was Mary), Elijah was the happiest little shepherd (despite what he looks like in the picture), and Liv was a beautiful angel (just like she really is!).

I was so proud of Noah because his part included singing a solo. I was certain that he wouldn't want to do it so I made Luke practice it just in case. But, Noah practiced and practiced and performed his heart out that night. It might have been a little off pitch, but to me it was perfect. Elijah also sang a solo (which was suppose to be a duet with his partner shepherd who really just wanted to be a pirate and left the production in tears) and if you listened REALLY carefully, you could almost hear him! Oh well, it was the best a little shepherd boy could do.

The food was amazing, the program was great, the nativity was touching, but the best part of the evening was spending time with my family. The best gift ever!

Let the good times start!

Christmas is just three days away and I'm not sure who is more excited, me or the kids! Last night Chelsea invited us all over for the first of MANY parties yet to come. She totally out did herself with cookies, candy, and gingerbread houses. I'm not sure how she does it all while tending MY baby girl! The kids had a blast frosting cookies, decorating gingerbread houses, drinking caramel apple cider, playing together, and eating gumballs by the dozen. Thanks Chelsea. You are always one for a good time.

Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

I don't remember 4th grade being too hard, but in the last couple of weeks I have learned that apparently I am NOT as smart as a 4th grader. The first experiece that led me to believe this was a simple science experiment, growing a sugar crystal. When Luke brought the assignement home we woked together to follow the instructions, but after 4 days we still didn't have a crystal starting. My guess was that we didn't "saturate" the water enough, so we started over. Again after three days we still didn't have a crystal starting. I decided to look up some more detailed instructions online and was sure that we could get this darn crystal growing. Rick worked with Luke on the third attempt and once again we failed to grow a crystal. I tried once AGAIN, this time with a skewer (as opposed to yarn) rolled in sugar. This was the internet's best suggestion for getting your sugar crystal to grow. Four days later and nothing. Five days. Six days. Seven days, I poured out the whole sugary mess and called Luke's teacher to report that he would not be bringing in a sugar crystal, although we made many attempts!

Luke had strep throat the week of Thanksgiving and missed the whole week of classes leading up to the break. I stopped in one morining to get his homework and his teacher explained the math homework to me and said what a hard time the students were having catching on to the new way of doing multiplication. New way of doing multiplication? Don't we just multiply and regroup? Nope. That is WAY old school. Way 1980's. Now we use "friendly numbers", "communitive property", "half and double". There were seriously 5 different ways for the students to do their multiplication, none of which included regrouping. No wonder why the kids were having such a hard time. I couldn't even remember the many steps of each different way of doing things. I had to keep referring back to the teacher's copy that she made for me. I guess I understand that this new math isn't about knowing how do math, it is about UNDERSTANDING how to do math. Big difference. For instance, way back when kids start learning addition, they are now taught to do "double plus one", or "double minus two", or even "number families." Silly me, I still just add on my fingers! Back to the Thanksgiving math homework. I was getting annoyed to death with these new ways of doing things. At one point I thought that I had it broken down well enough

Me: Now you have it broken down and you just have to multiply 10 by 3.
Luke: I can't do that, mom.
Me. Yes you can. You know that when you multiply any number by 10 you just have to add a zero to the end of the number.
Luke: I know that, but we aren't suppose to do any double digit multiplication. I can't do 10 x 3.
Me: JUST WRITE IT DOWN!

Honestly? Luckily Luke was actually pretty good at this "new math" and figured most of it out without my help. But, even with Luke's help even I couldn't figure one question out. It was a story problem which not only did you need to figure out, but then it said "Sally got 1020 for her answer. What did she do wrong and how would you tell her to fix it." I HONESTLY couldn't figure it out.

What did Sally do wrong?

She doesn't know how to multiply and regroup.

Hilarity/Insanity

In raising children there seems to be a healthy dose of both hilarity and insanity. I've found the best thing to do is try to find the hilarity so as NOT to be driven to insanity.

For some reason I have been cursed with picky eaters. Dinners at our house have been unpleasant since Luke was about 3 years old. He is slowly growing out of his pickyness, just in time for Noah to pick it up. Let's just say that as INSANE as it can make me, there have been a couple of HILARIOUS moments with our picky eaters.

When Luke was about two years old I was tying to get him to eat some chicken noodle soup for lunch one day...

Me: Luke, you need to eat one bite of that soup or I am going to give you a spanking.
Luke: (with a big sigh) Just spank me, mom.

The rule in our house is no seconds or dessert until you eat everything on your plate...

Me: (seeing Noah slyly reach for the bowl of broccoli, which he happens to love) Noah, you may not have any more broccoli until you taste your chicken. And remember that you will not get dessert unless you eat everything on your plate.
Noah: (in a most unpleasant tone) Fine, then I won't eat any ice cream if I can't have more broccoli.

Sometimes my kids get upset about the MOST RIDICULOUS things...

Me: Noah, please go get me a towel. Noah, please go get me a towel. (I repeat many times to a child who apparently is deaf) Noah, please go get me a towel.
Elijah: (running into the room with a towel) Here, mama (yes, he still calls me mama!)
Noah: (throwing himself on the floor and yelling) I WANTED TO GET THE TOWEL!!!!!!
Me: Seriously???!!!

It seems that my life consits of wiping. Noses, bums, counter tops, floors, toilets etc. You name it, I've wiped it. Jack had been with us for four days while Chelsea was working, and on day four a funny little situation played out...

Jack: Aunt Olivia, I need to go to the bathroom.
Me: Ok, go get on the potty.
(Time elaspement of 5 minutes)
Jack: (calling from the bathroom) I'm dooooooone....
Me: Can't you wipe your own bum, Jack?
Jack: Nope
Me: Well who has been wiping your bum for the last few days?
Jack: (looks at me like I'm speaking Chinese)
Me: Jack, who wiped your bum yesterday when you were at my house?
Jack: I just went pee.
Me: Okay. (I then proceeded to wipe his bum and noticed that indeed he must have only gone pee for the past three days as was evident by what he had just done!)
Jack: (after getting off the toilet and witnessing what I just saw) Aunt Olivia, does log rhyme with dog?
Me: (Trying my HARDEST not to laugh) Sure does buddy.
(Sorry about the bathroom humor, but it was SERIOUSLY hilarious!!!!)

The other night my cousin Laura got married (CONGRATS LAURA!). Chelsea and Jack rode to Salt Lake with me and the boys, and on the way home Jack and Elijah could NOT stop fighting. They were fighting over singing/hurting ears, touching each other's car seats, pulling on each others car seats, coughing/hurting ears, who's penny was who's, being cold/hot...
After 40 minutes of the constant fighting I finally pulled over and got Elijah out of the car and put him in with Rick (who was following us). I had no sooner gotten back into the car when...

Jack: (Crying his eyes out) Now I don't have anyone to talk to. I'm lonely.

Chelsea and I just looked at each other and laughed... so we wouldn't go INSANE!