For those of you who may not know, Kaylynn is Alligator, and Jeremy is Baloney Boy (sometimes Mr. Balonicus).
Kaylynn celebrated number 14, and picked out grilled cheese, mashed potatoes, strawberries, and sparkling cider for her birthday dinner. She's definitely a girl after my own heart! She got a cool pillow from Anna, school supplies from Amy, and a Jonas Brothers CD from Jeremy. She also got a Boys Like Girls CD, a planner, a book, a cross-stitch, and a $25 gift card for the movie theatre.
I added this picture of Kaylynn from when she was 4 or 5, because whenever I looked at her the last week of eight grade, this is literally what I saw, and then I would get all emotional and hide out in my room. The growing up happens too fast.
Jeremy turned 12. (Yay! Now we have two live-in babysitters!) His birthday was a little non-traditional this year. For his birthday dinner, we ended up ordering pizza and watching Monk, which he was pretty happy with. All his dreams came true as he got a Wii for his birthday, after a somewhat complicated plan for buying it (he had to earn $100.00 of it, which took him several months, another $100.00 took the place of any birthday party or other gifts, and the other $100 was from us, giving it the status of a "family" toy, rather than just Jeremy's. Weird plan, but it works for us.) Soon after getting it, Dan tried a game of tennis, and busted the ceiling fan:
And Jeremy didn't actually get 0 presents, his sisters collectively got him the Indiana Jones Lego game. I usually hate the sound of video games, but I actually like this one--good Indiana Jones music:
And here's a little peek at Jeremy as a baby. What a cutie!
Scout Camp
Other than all of our activities, life has been pretty typical for us. Here are a few experiences that stick out in my mind:
Midnight Ordeal:
Having kids wake me up in the middle of the night is a regular part of my life, and I am sure I am not alone in this. I have learned that if I get woken up in the early morning hours, all is good and I am an affectionate, loving parent anxious to comfort or nurse my darling child. If, however, I am woken up within the first three hours of falling asleep, Mrs. Hyde emerges and it would be wise for whatever little brat wakes me up to have some sort of protective gear. The other night Anna woke up around midnight, with pains in her legs. She has this often, and Motrin usually takes care of it. But . . . we were out of liquid motion. Let me tell you what I learned: the middle of the night is not the best time to teach a child how to swallow a pill. After much eye-rolling on my part, and tears on Anna's part, she actually managed to get it down. It takes about 30 minutes for the Motrin to kick in, and I needed something to ease her pain in the meantime, so we went to the freezer for an ice-pack. We have about 6 different types of ice-packs, but none were in the freezer. This is because my kids use them for various non-intended purposes and don't put them back in the freezer. What I did find was a baggie with four frozen pancakes--sounds like a great alternative when you're only half awake. So Anna gets up on her bed, and all of the pancakes (and crumbs) fall out of the bag. We get them cleaned up, Anna gets to sleep, I get to sleep, Dan continues to sleep. The next morning we were talking about it and Anna asks me, "Why didn't you just put some ice-cubes in a bag?" Good question.
Breaking Dawn Release Party:
On Friday night, Kaylynn, Ashley, Jeremy(?), and I ventured out to the Barnes and Noble party celebrating the release of Stephenie Meyers new book. It was a little crazy in there (imagine huge numbers of teenage girls, their hopelessly romantic mothers, and a few wandering males-including my son). Ashley and I were probably the last two to get a wristband and were destined to be at the end of a long line of people. We left for a little bit and went to Wendy's for rootbeer floats, and then, due to a tip from another parent, ditched Barnes and Noble, and went to Walmart to get our copies where there were only about 30 people in line, and the book was much cheaper. From there we went to Denny's, where we met up with Christina. I realized that Denny's is really the restaurant for me--it takes me a long time to decide what I want to order, and our waiter gave us plenty of time for that. We also waited a while to get our water cups refilled. Again, I think he had our well-being in mind: it being the middle of the night, I know he just didn't want us to be up peeing all night. I ordered chili-cheese fries, which were actually quite delicious. I went home and tried to figure out how many Weight Watchers points I had sqaundered. It turns out it was off the charts, so I'm going to count that as zero.
Beautifying Dirt:
Yesterday I did some yard work. I will generally avoid this as much as I can because viewing my front yard too much could be hazardous to my relationship with my hubby, because we prioritize the front yard a little differently. (As I write this last sentence, I realize that this comment could itself be hazardous to my relationship with my dear husband, who does read my blog, so I must say that although we have never done our front yard, Dan has redone every room in the house from ceiling to floor (except for part of the kitchen), painted the outside of the house, installed windows, alarm system, cool garage door opener buttones, great closet units, fixed appliances, created a media PC, cool attic ladder and just yesterday was putting up wainscotting in our living room, etc., etc.) Anyways, the front yard could not be ignored any longer, so I engaged in one of my favorite chores which I lovingly call "Beautifying the Dirt." This involves first weeding, then raking up big rocks, then with gloved hands gathering into piles the small rocks and debris, which then either go into the trash or into the side yard. Then to top it all off, a decorative swipe of the rake. It is very rewarding, because when you finish smoothing away a lot of dirt, what you have left is, well, dirt. But it's prettier dirt. It only took me about 3 hours, and I only did half. I also did weed-killing for the first time. I am generally anti-poison, (I don't even like bug sprays--I would almost rather live with the ants), but we have this patch of grass that is invading my beautiful dirt, and I was ready to kill. I also sprayed myself a little bit, but I'm still alive. As for happy yard work news, my pomegranite tree finally has blossoms and fruit!! I also picked several apples from our apple tree and we will hopefully make some applesauce today. Our plum tree bore fruit for the first time in three years, but we kind of ignored it and now we have a lot of prunes on the ground. Anyone want some?
Here's my upcoming post schedule:
Monday: Follow Me Boys: The Adventures of Dan and Jeremy at Scout Camp
Tuesday: Alligator and Baloney Boy Celebrate Birthdays
Wendnesday: Roll Out the Red Carpet: Chris and Tiffani Come to Visit
Thursday: The Dance Festi-Hell (The Place I Might Go for Calling it That)
If I actually keep to this schedule, I should reward myself. Maybe take a bubble bath, catch the latest movie, curl up with a good book. Or better yet, I can reorganize some more dirt.
The idea of making a post has seemed more like a chore lately--I think it's the heat. I don't want to do much of anything, and yet I have so much to do! Yesterday I had some things I planned on getting done and then I fell asleep for a few hours! Oops. Today I am all doped up on Diet Coke so I'm raring to go. Here are the rest of the photos that I said I would post days and days ago:
Here's Jeremy at his sixth grade "promotion." He made the all A's and B's Honor Roll:
Here is Jeremy with a group of his friends. Sadly only one of them will be going to the same middle school, but I think they will still keep in touch:
Here is Kaylynn terrorizing Jeremy at his Sixth Grade picnic. I have some good video of him being a goofball, but I have to figure out how to post it:
This is Amy's kindergarten promotion. She is in the lower right corner. I was a bit grumbly about her promotion because I think it's silly to do in kindergarten and it made me miss Kaylynn's 8th Grade promotion (Dan went), but it was really cute--they sang a lot of fun songs:
A picture with Amy's friends Layla and Jackie:
Anna's class had a family picnic on the last day. The fruit you see is half of the fruit salad that I cut up for Jeremy's party (at a cost of about 30 dollars that filled 2-2 gallon bags) that they did not even get to. Amazingly we managed to eat it all in the next week:
This is Kaylynn before the Eighth Grade Dance. She got a picture taken with her friends, but we haven't gotten them yet. I'm not sure if Dan took pictures of her graduation because I had the camera for Amy's and he had the video camera. I'll have to see if I can get a video clip. But for now, here is my beautiful daughter who really likes polka dots:
I'm amazed that I made it through that last week of school. I'm not really good with that crazy-busy lifestyle that many people embrace. I try to avoid it, but often it finds me and there is not much I can do about it.
It's Friday! I'm going togo get the Friday Fill-ins . . .
Okay, here they are:
1. If I could be a fly on the wall I would spy on the North Korean government.
2. Jealousy is destructive but inevitable.
3. When I see a shooting star my wish would be that I could have more energy. I am just so dang tired all the time!
4. I'd rather be cold than hot any day!
5. Certain songs when I hear them make me wanna shake my booty.
6. If time were in a bottle where would the genie go?
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finish watching The Great Escape, tomorrow my plans include seeing Chris, Tiffani, Evan, Jared and MEGAN! and Sunday, I want to hold Megan alot!
1. Holidays in the summer are explosive.
2. Well-done hot dogs are my favorite things to grill.
3. My thoughts are usually a chaotic mess.
4. Sleeping in my own bed after a week at girl's camp is what I'm most looking forward to this weekend!
5. My favorite book so far this summer is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.
6. Running five miles is the best way to begin a day. Too bad I am incapable of doing that.
7. And as for the weekend, last night I soaked in Dave and Lorena's spa for a few hours, today (Saturday) I worked on cleaning up the paint mess in the living room and then went swimming, and Sunday, I want to really and truly kick back!
Girl's camp was pretty fun for sleeping in an A-frame and only getting four hours of sleep four nights in a row. I had an awesome cabin filled with great girls who loved to read! Someone was definitely inspired! Most of them were also Office fans, but I had to discourage a couple of "That's what she said" jokes. My cabin was at the top of the hill, so I was able to work on getting "buns of steel." My biggest challenge (unless you count the fact that we had to back in when parking our cars) was a girl who wanted to go out at night to other cabins and do pranks. Apparently she is known at camp for doing this. But I love her, she's a lot of fun and a good person. I got to talk to a lot of people, leaders and girls, and looking back I think I must have talked to or meet about 50 new people.
The food looked delicious, but I avoided most of it due to what is probably my gallbladder. For the last four or five months I have had a squeezing pain in my right side, and the doctor says it is probably my gallbladder--I have an ultrasound coming up to check things out. (I feel really old writing about this, realizing I am getting to an age when conversations with other people consist of reports of various bodily aches and pains.) She told me to cut out any fatty foods for three weeks, and see if that helps. I think things got worse before they got better (plus I think I ate something with lots of cheese that day), because I had a really bad night with pain and weird sensations that resulted one hour of sleep. Looking at the silver lining, I did get to watch Splendor in the Grass, an old movie with Natalie Wood that I remembered from my childhood--but I should save that for another post. Anyways, the horrible night has given me fat-a-phobia, and I have cut out anything high in fat, which was most of the camp food.
I was able to do two of my favorite things: hiking and volleyball. It was hard to live without secular reading for a week, but I am still alive and mentally stable . . . ish.
Here's a picture of us Ninja Turtles:
