Week #39: A Carrot Goes Out to Play

This Week...

...Emma took her carrot with her to play at the park. We were playing the game 500 with The Bagley kids. "Just a minute, while I set my carrot down," Emma told them. Ok, you're eating a giant carrot...and you took it out to play...How silly is that?! Gave me a good laugh.

...I watched our neighbor's, Dan and Amanda's, little girl. Alexandra was such a sweet little baby to hold and play with. Each time I had her it was close to her nap time. I didn't mind holding her and rocking her to sleep one bit. Such a cutie! All of my kids were super excited to hold her and play with her on Wednesday when they got out of school early.

...we went to Grandma Erickson's for dinner. Paul was thrilled for the fried chicken.

...the walls went up on our house. It is so fun to see it finally get going. The permits got held up a couple of weeks longer than we anticipated.

...Emma, Claire and I attended the humanitarian service project and women's conference. Claire is now eight and old enough to go. She was super thrilled to be there with us. They had lots of different stations set up and we could float around and pick what we wanted to work on. We got the most excited about making plarn. What's plarn, you ask? It is the art of taking plastic backs, cutting them into strips, connecting the strips, and then crocheting the strips in a huge person size mat. The mats are then donated to the homeless through local shelters or distributors. We were so excited about plan that I brought some bags home to continue the work.

...moving means saying goodbye to this gorgeous built in. Jason will build us one at the new house, but that will take a while.

Week #38: First Day! All Smiles...Sort of

This Week...

...we went back to school! We had our first day on Tuesday. It caused more than a few tears and plenty of nervous flutters. You'd think with it being the first day back we'd have all smiles. Not the case. 

I took the kids in and stopped in each of their classrooms. Lainey is with her morning teacher, Mrs. Santo. Paul is with his two homeroom teachers, Mrs. McPeek and Mrs. Dutcher. The fourth grade team (four teachers) is actually sharing responsibilities. Paul starts out in homeroom for math and then switches to the other two teachers, Mrs. Gomez and Mrs. Marquez, in the afternoon for English. All four teachers work really well together and Paul really enjoys the set up. Benjamin and Claire are with their teacher, Mrs. Lamb. She just recently had twins of her own and in all her 15 years of teaching she's never had twins until Benjamin and Claire. So fun! As we went around and met their teachers, I could just tell that this is going to be a great year. They are super supportive and squared away. They are excited for the start of school and eager to see my kids succeed. I can feel it!

..Benjamin went back to school with a cast. He's a trooper, but he's feelin' it too. He is sad that this happened to him again, and to his right arm which makes it hard to write. He went with red this time around and he doesn't want anyone to sign it. 

...I left this sprinkler on, ALL NIGHT! This is my life! Once again, I was distracted. I turned this on to water an area that doesn't get as much water as it seems to need. I forgot to go back out. Jason turned it off in the morning when he got home from work. 

...Emma's rented violin decided to fall apart. We had a friend tune it because Emma was so anxious to get playing. There was a piece at the back of the instrument that held the strings tight and it broke. That caused everything to loosen and fall apart. It gave us a a start at first, but we soon realized what must have happened. It was an old one, older than last year's. It was actually a blessing that the piece broke so that I had an excuse to go in and switch it out. Luckily, they had one similar to what Emma had last year, and newer. That made Emma happy.

...Paul and Saul enjoyed their meal at Cub Scouts. They helped put the pasta in and taste it when it was done. Benjamin went to Wolves for his first time. He was so excited to wear his uniform and do the activities. Kuniko had her son Zach come with her to help out. He was so funny. He was telling the kids jokes and riddles and making them laugh. 

...Claire and Ben went in for their well child checks. They're not so little anymore.

...Jason has made friends with the framers. Clayton and Aaron are great guys. It didn't take us long to befriend them. Jason is so interested in the job site and the process of building the house. We're such people persons that we are able to make a connection right away. Over the course of their framing, we took them pizza for lunch a couple of times to let them know that we appreciate their help.

...things are happening at the lot. The garage is poured and the floor is set. They're going to start going up. We took the kids down later after school to show them the progress. Clayton and Aaron got the walls all built and set out ready for raising in the morning.

...we went to the Parade of Homes. I've always wanted to go and go with Jason. Last year, our friends Tyson and Whitney hooked me up with a ticket and we went to a couple homes. This year, with building a house, and building a Brett Lott home, Jason was more than willing to go. Brett Lott had two featured, award winning homes in the parade. They were beautiful! We were able to visit with Brett for quite a bit when we stopped off at his first home. Great man, Great Builder! Lots of things caught our eye from the built ins to the decorations to the landscaping.

...we had a movie theater experience again. I went and got some treats and the kids used pennies to purchase their movie snacks. 

...

Week #37: Trenches, Dirt, Broken Bones, and a Twin Birthday

This Week...

...we checked out the lot after church. The foundation is poured! We look for any and all excuses to jump over things and play in the dirt. This was the perfect obstacle course.

...I left the van doors open, ALL NIGHT! This is my life! I was pulling things out of the back and then got sidetracked before I could finish. Yeesh!

...we worked on our irrigation at the lot. Our builder, Brett Lott, is letting us do the front landscaping. That means we have to do the irrigation. They have the trench open for utilities right now and Jason asked if we could go down and put our backyard irrigation boxes in (so we don't have to do that in the winter time when it's c-c-cold) and run the pipe to the front yard for irrigation there. Our builder was nice enough to let us do that. So here were are at the lot, in the heat, getting the irrigation set up. The kids are still with us because school has not started yet. We put them to work or they played on the dirt piles. Mostly, we just didn't want them sitting at home watching T.V. all day while we were gone. And we were grateful for the heat because it's better than the cold alternative if we would have had to wait. 

Kid President says we should compliment people more and that elbows don't get enough attention these days. "Nice elbows Emma!" Also, some Kid President inspiration for the week.

...we went on more bike rides. They're helping us beat the back to school delay. We go down and check the lot for developments. We stop and refuel at the water faucet-it's city water, not irrigation. :) We jump around from pile to pile, it's just too irresistible. This time we went down the Road 44 hill. The kids loved it! Lainey has turned into a little speed racer. She loves it! We all love it! We can so much faster and farther with her on a two wheeler.

...Emma and Claire with their Activity Day leaders. This is Claire's first time. She was so excited. Their leaders, Whitney Chapman and Haylee Adamson are the best-so creative and fun with the girls. Haylee brings her twins Avonlee and Juliette.

...Benjamin broke his arm, again! Jumping over the trench was just too hard to resist. Ben had jumped the trench multiple times, back and forth, without any trouble. Until the time that he didn't quite make it. He started to slide back into the trench. His arms went into windmill mode, reeling to keep him on the bank. It wasn't enough. He fell back, down, into the trench with his arms extended behind him to break his fall. Well, break his fall they did. His right arm stiff-armed the pipe that we had just laid so there wasn't much give when he landed. We could instantly tell from his cries that it was broken. Luckily, it was early enough in the day that I could call our doctor's office to get him looked at instead of going to the ER. They wrapped it and gave him a sling to immobilize it over the weekend until we could get in to see the Orthopedist.

...we had some trouble at the lot. I mean big trouble. The pipe broke apart at one of our joints and irrigation water was just sleuthing down the utility trench. Luckily, someone noticed it and turned it off before it got much worse than this. You may not be able to tell much from the picture, but the flood raised the dirt level, and the pipes as a result, in the bottom of the trench. We were so sick. We wanted to show our builder that we were responsible and could do a job right since he was giving us special permission to be there. Something that he doesn't typically do. We hurried down there with all the necessary tools to fix the broken pipe before Jason had to go to work for the night. We were both sweating and it wasn't just because of the sun.

...Benjamin and Claire turned eight. What an exciting time! The only damper on the celebration was Benjamin's broken arm. They have grown so much and are so excited for this time in their life when they get to be baptized. Since their birthday is after the first weekend of the month, they'll have to wait until October for their special day. 

...I was invited to lunch at Twigs in honor of a new, dear friend. Aubree Hull has graduated and she is headed to Utah! She wanted to get some of her favorite women together to have a send off. I was pleased to have made the list. We met her family when her dad came to work for Benton County as a Deputy. He stayed for just a short time, but our connection to the Hull family will last forever. Aubree is such a dynamic individual; I can't wait to see where her path takes her. She's pictured here with her bestie, Jocelyn Lott.

...the Cub Scouts went shopping. They had to plan a meal and then shop for the ingredients. We made a quick trip to Walmart, just down from my house, to pick up the fixings for spaghetti. Next week, we'll cook!