Happy Thoughts from the Past Week

Happy Thoughts from the Past Week:

• Rebecca brushing Lizzie's teeth
• creative alphabetic preschoolers creating creative art
• a giggling sleep-over
• handsome teenager
• where did those teeth go?
• two baseball wins
• it's official! She's on a two-wheeler!
• lunch at the park with friends
• the ending of a great band year at the junior high
• very extremely dressy junior high awards night (oops!)
• graduation caps and diplomas for miniature graduates
• a long-dreamed-of drinking fountain is in working order and there are far fewer cups on my counter!
• a fun & festive wedding & reception
• Cameron's duty-to-God requirement to do his own laundry for 2 months is starting out as a disaster. First, he didn't know where the laundry soap was, so instead of putting his clothes in the washer, he just stuck them into the dryer instead. Then he pulled them out of the dryer and put them in the washer (after me getting upset with him that he had put dirty clothes in the dryer) and started the water, then asked me how much Pinesol I thought he ought to add to the load. I showed him where the real laundry soap was (on the shelf right above the washers) and I didn't notice the pair of muddy socks he had stuck in the sink. I'm sure he was being considerate since the socks were so muddy, they'd need to soak for a while. Well, our washer empties into the sink. So 20 minutes later, water was flooding out of that sink onto my laundry room floor. Thank goodness we have a drain right by the washers so nothing was damaged. Yes, I can see the need for this requirement in the Duty to God book. Cameron definitely needs to learn how to do laundry. It's been an education already (for both of us).
• Teancum trying to convince me that he deserved more ice cream because he ate "this much spaghetti" (using his hands to diagram on the couch the length and width of his helping of spaghetti).
• Lizzie poured her sacrament cup in my lap right before I went up to play the piano for a musical number
• Jamey has suddenly become a super-reader! Partly because he wants to be like Micah, and partly because of his competitive nature and was trying to beat-out the other kids' AR points (mostly Jalynne, his girlfriend), he suddenly started reading huge books (like the ones Micah's been reading) and earning lots of AR points. Today is the last day to do AR tests and he worked so hard all weekend reading his final book and was so excited when he finished it. "I knew it!" he said, "I just knew Jack and Molly were going to kiss in one of these books!" Micah broke the school record for AR points. I think the record was something like 922, and he's got around 1030 or something like that. I'll have to ask him for the exact number. I warned him, though, that he doesn't know how much the other kids have been reading -- maybe somebody earned 2000 points this year.
• I am so happy. I just love this time of year, and I love this time of my life. Who would've thought that I'd enjoy being past the baby stage so much! I babysat for Tami on Saturday morning while she loaded up her moving van to move to Star Valley. Since James was on his campout with my two baby-sitting-aged sons, I took all the kids to Sam's graduation party, then to Rebecca's preschool graduation by myself. It made me realize how much freedom I have now that Lizzie is getting older. I thought I'd be sad about not being able to have more kids, but I am really happy that we are done. Life is good. My kids are growing up and I'm enjoying every second of it... Well, almost every second...

Classic Quotes from the Past Week:

• Micah: This is the last week of school. On Friday is the awards assembly. I received an invitation for both Micah and Jamey. I asked them if they knew what awards they were getting. It annoys me that they don't tell the parents what awards their children are getting so that we know when to turn the video camera on. They both told me they didn't know. I said, "well, you must have some idea of what you were good at this year." Micah said, "I was good at everything." I said, "well, you won't be getting the humility award." He said, "yeah, they don't have that award." :)
• Teancum: "I'm going to get the I LOVE OLIVIA award!"
• Lizzie: "Yas!" That's what Lizzie says instead of "yes."
• Ethan: "Dad, I think you're growing up to be like Mr. Sebade." (because he sings a lot)
• Teancum: "Mom, you are really BABY sitting!" He said this several times on Saturday as I was walking around holding Baby Kimball and following Toddler Tel around. He thought he was sooooo clever -- baby sitting!
  
  Check out this video of Rebecca trying out her two-wheeler!
  

Pure heaven! I bought this drinking fountain a few years ago. This is the first time it's been officially installed in our back yard. This will make the summer go a lot smoother! No more cups left everywhere inside and outside. I think it's great, but Kaykay says the water tastes like "potty water." Kaykay, when have you been drinking out of the potty?

Check out that completed soccer shed! Actually, it still needs some shelves, but James keeps arguing that Cameron's role is completed, and that since he is the equipment manager for the soccer board, he gets to build the shelves and determine where everything goes. They hung the bags of balls on the walls. Those are the nets hanging from the ceiling.

I think my Cameron is growing up to be a very handsome teenager. And despite his lack of laundry ability, he is a great kid. Here he is serving ice cream and hot fudge at our Soccer Team ice cream party. He's also turning out to be way too skinny, like his dad. We need to fatten him up. Eat more ice cream, Cameron!

There's the soccer team!

Baseball games started this week. We had 2 games, 2 big wins. They switched the rules this year in the minors so that if you get 4 balls you get to walk to the base (last year if you got 4 balls, then the coach would come out and pitch to you, so the kids were able to actually hit the ball). That means that if the other team doesn't have a very good pitcher, you end up walking all your players and getting lots of points. That's what happened to our team. Jamey and Ian never hit the ball, but got to score a point(s) anyway due to getting 4 balls. I felt bad for the other team. We played them both times this week and won pretty big both times.

Cameron had his Junior High Awards night this week. For those of you who don't have kids at Starrett yet, let me tell you what I learned about our junior high's awards night. It is like the Academy Awards. Boys wear suits and ties, girls were fancy, sparkly, shiny dresses. If I had known this, my Cameron wouldn't have been wearing shorts as he walked across the stage 3 times to receive his awards. I expected it to be like the simple awards assemblies that the elementary school has. It was held in the high school auditorium. 8 girls and 8 boys from the 8th grade were nominated as the Outstanding Student of the year. Those 16 kids were also the presenters for the evening, and they read each award and the recipient thereof. Cameron received an award for Science Fair, Student of the Week, and Honor Roll. I guess this is another of those learning experiences that you have with your oldest child. Now we know for next year's awards night -- dress in your Sunday best! Micah is so lucky to have Cameron to test the waters for him.

Naughty Daddy, where is her helmet???

Rebecca decided she wanted to ride her bike without training wheels, like Kaykay does. James took her training wheels off and he and I both worked with her a couple times one day, and the next day she was riding on 2 wheels without any trouble. I guess we should have tried it sooner! Now we just need her to convince Teancum to give up his training wheels. He's a pretty cautious guy.

Preschool Art Show

Cameron's final band concert. He played the cymbals for one song, and the bells for the other.

Preschool Graduation

Teancum has been growing this blister-like thing for months now. It started out pretty small, and when they looked at it as his cleaning, they weren't too concerned. But then one day Teancum noticed it and showed it to me. It was huge. This picture doesn't do it justice because it had already started draining by then. I took him to the dentist and Todd said it was caused by the permanent teeth trying to come in. He said we could either wait up to 2 weeks for the loose teeth to fall out on their own (and he'd prescribe antibiotics) or he could pull the 2 teeth. I asked what he would do, and he said he'd pull the teeth. So that's what he did. Now Teancum has a cute partly-toothless smile. And he's a lot happier. Those loose teeth were bugging him more than the blister on the gums.

My friend Kristi's son Josh got married a year ago. Since he was in Iraq, they didn't have a formal ceremony or reception. Saturday was the big party. They renewed their vows up at CWC Sinks Canyon center, and then had a big, fancy reception (I think 500 people?) at the Community Center. It was a sit-down dinner with fancy table cloths and chair covers (I think Kristi ironed all 500 of the chair covers) and beautiful decorations. I bet Kristi is so relieved that is over with!

This is my handy-dandy ribbon holder that I asked James to build me so that I could keep Rebecca & Lizzie's room in some semblance of order. I thought I was so clever, until Rebecca looked at it and said, "yeah, Aunt Brittany has one of those."

James left this message on my bathroom mirror before going on his scout campout this weekend. I told him it was a good thing I noticed it during the day, instead of during the night when I would have been totally spooked out. I'm scared to be home alone at night! I need James there to protect me from the Boogie Man. Rebecca saw the note and asked how Daddy did that. Why do I have a feeling that I'll be finding more soap messages on other mirrors in the near future...