child's personality + situation = changing strategies

Saturday is our day to clean and find our house again. It actually stays clean until about Sunday night. Last Saturday Jon wasn't home and I was in charge of getting the kids pepped up to clean. For some reason there's a lot more fighting when I'm in charge. I decided I would stay calm and every time a fight broke out I would calmly just add another chore to their list. Genius! It worked for a little while but then I heard a huge yell from downstairs. I went into the boys room and one brother (no names) decided the other brother wasn't helping enough so he opened the bin of summer clothes I had just switched out of their drawers and dumped it all over the room. I lost it. After yelling for a good five minutes, I stayed down in the room with them telling them exactly what to do and helping them until it was done. Complaining to my husband about it later he said, "You should have tried the strategy where they have a certain amount of time to finish then you check their work, that almost always works for me." It's hard because each child has a very different personality and what may work for him may not work for his sister or brother. One of my children will cry if I look at him/her funny where another one has to have a big blow out to get him/her motivated. I just wish there was a formula that said, "In this situation and with this child do this and you will get the result you want and the child wants and everyone will be happy." I guess that's part of parenting, I'll just keep trying the best I can and hope it all turns out for the best!

More Halloween Stuff

On Friday I helped with Max's Halloween party at the school. We had 3 groups of 10 for about 10 minutes which is pretty manageable. I played a game that our family would always play at our cabin when I was growing up. You tie a string of yarn to a marshmallow (ghost) and put it in the middle of the circle. Someone has a pan lid and if they roll a 7 or 11 they crash down the pan lid to try and catch as many ghosts as possible while the kids try and yank out their ghosts before the lid comes down. I'm not very good at explaining it but it's a lot of fun!

This is Max's teacher, Mr. Wise who is really nice, not devil-like at all.

After Max's party was over I went into the other kids classrooms to get a picture of them.

Seth with Miss Jones

So, in the past I made soup in pumpkin bread bowls for Halloween dinner then Jon would take the kids trick or treating while I stayed in the warm house passing out candy. Last year and this year it started changing. This year we had Wendy's drive thru because we went to a BYU soccer game all day and each of the kids had a group of friends they wanted to go with. Even though those were simpler times, I'm okay with this change, everyone is still happy.

So here is Max and Seth's group...scary?

Tanner's group, which hid behind the bushes scaring "older" kids. Michael is wearing a book cover. Then they went to the neighbor's house to watch a movie.
And Maddie's group. One of her friends is from Alpine so I had to drop them off there and then her mom brought them back to our neighborhood to finish, a little complicated. It was a fun and safe night.

Halloween stuff

We had a Fall-oween carnival at the elementary school. It was packed and they ran out of pizza before we ate, but according to the kids it was a lot of fun.

Maddie and her friend were suppose to be in charge of a booth but "some mean girls took it over." Maddie is going to be a gypsy for Halloween but she didn't feel like getting it all together yet.

When they ran out of pizza Tanner was still able to find some food, shew!

Two of my kids hate the goop in the pumpkins and two of them like it, guess which ones...

Tanner had a lofty carving idea that worked half way, it got too thin and we did not have the right tools.

Tanner and Max hate the goop, Maddie and Seth like it!!

Ear Tubes and Adenoids

Seth has fought ear infections all of his short life. He had tubes for a few years which is good for one set of tubes. We were trying really hard to not have to get tubes again, by trying I mean crossing my fingers. Every time we went to the ENT she would say, "They look good but not great, let's see him in 3 months." The copay starts to add up after doing that for a couple of years. Then in September he had an ear infection the WHOLE month. He was on three antibiotics that didn't seem to touch it. So today he got his second set of tubes and his adenoids out. His Dr. said his adenoids were infected which made her think they might have been the source of his many ear infections. Also, he had a sinus infection and his ear drum was about to burst it was so infected. For some reason my first reaction was, "Good." I feel like the surgery was definitely necessary and now he should have all that yucky stuff out and be able to hear and be pain free. He's recovered really fast, right now he's playing away with Max and his friend. I told him he could take the day off school today and tomorrow which thrilled him.

Seth watching a new Wallace and Gromit movie in my bed. The hospital gave him a "free" t-shirt.

Flag Football

Tanner and Max wanted to play flag football this year. It's only four weeks long with two games a week, so it's short and intense. This is Max's first year and he really loved it. His coach says things like, "God gave you two hands to pull flags!" And he thinks that's great. He learned a lot this season and can't wait until next year.Tanner's team never had practice because his coach was pretty busy and two games a week plus practice is hard. His team did pretty well but other teams he played you could tell had practice. It is a sport that's pretty laid back but not as fun when you're losing. For some reason Tanner always wore this shirt under his t-shirt so the other team would call him "red sleeves." So as a family we would cheer for him, "Go, Red sleeves!" He made a couple of touch downs and interceptions, it helps to be tall.

Yellowstone

For Fall Break, Jon's mom rented a cabin right outside of West Yellowstone. It was a lot of fun and relaxing, I think our family slept in until 8:00 every morning. The first day we went to Old Faithful which was amazing. Then the second day we went to the Paint Pots which had so many different colors, it was beautiful.
All of us, Wow, that's a lot of people!
Max and Seth bought little pocket knives which they are showing, they did a lot of "whittling."

We went on a short, beautiful hike above Old Faithful and almost ran into this Bison. It was pretty scary but it didn't charge and we were all safe, shew!
Family picture in front of Old Faithful
Tanner in front of Firehose Falls

Farewell to soccer

So, Maddie's team this year is called the Treehuggers. They are a great group of girls that are really fun to watch. Go girls!!

Tanner had one soccer injury but recovered pretty well. He had a lot of strong kicks and headers this last game. I don't think their team had a name. Go yellow!! If you look closely you can see the ball on Tanner's head as he's heading it.

Seth's team is the Blue Dragons. He played teams that were the green dragons and the red dragons, I think this age of boys like dragons! This is the pizza party after the last game, sorry no action shots but at this age there's not a lot of action shots!

Girls night out/Boys night out

Maddie asked if she could go with her friend Clara to Garder's Village in Salt Lake. It's such a cute place that's built like a village and each house is a store. When I dropped Maddie off, Clara's mom asked if I'd like to go with them. So, I did. There are tons of big witches everywhere doing funny stuff that the girls had to pose by. We ate dinner and bought a few trinkets and ate treats. It was a fun night.

In the meantime...Jon decided to do something fun with the boys. He took them to Teppanyaki. The boys ate and ate and loved watching them cook the food on the table right in front of them. Jon said they all came home with leftovers except Tanner, he ate everything.

Ahh, the cabin

Most of my family was heading up to the cabin to watch conference. Maddie had her last soccer game at 5:00pm on Saturday (she hasn't had an evening game the whole year!) and she really didn't want to miss it. We decided to go up to the cabin after her game even though it would be for less than 24 hours. I'm so glad we did. It's so beautiful in the mountains and nice to be with the family!

Donovan's trying to put on Seth's coat and got a little stuck.

Grandma Dewey

Last weekend we all went to St. George for my Grandma Dewey's funeral. It was sad because we will miss her, but happy because she was 93 and wondering why she was still around. She was ready to be with her husband again. I'm glad she came up for Christmas to be with all of us this year. My kids are very fortunate to have had 5 grandmas still alive and to be close enough to see most of them often. We love you, Grandma Dewey!

Dream vs. Reality

Dream: Seth (the youngest in the family) goes off to first grade leaving me with ample time on my hands that I won't know what to do with. I'll probably clean out a closet and then scrapbook (something productive and then something fun.)

Reality: Seth was home one day with a fever, Max was home one day with pink eye, Seth was home another day with an ear infection, Maddie is home one day with a stomach ache, Seth calls to come get him after lunch from school because he is "sick" which he is not I realize after watching him, Seth is home another day with another ear infection/fever, Tanner goes to school in crutches because of a soccer injury which means I take and pick him up and haul his drum kit for him. As I was bringing in groceries in a rush today so I could put them away before going to get Tanner I thought, "Hey, what happened to my dream?!"

I'm not giving up, I still have hope that I'm going to have time to scrapbook and de-clutter...sometime very soon.

Labor Day in Idaho Falls

We decided to take a trip to ID since we got Monday off. We got up Saturday and all put on our BYU shirts. Jon brought up his school's projector and Marilyn made lots of "game food." We watched the game that evening which happened to be a great one!On Sunday we went and visited Grandpa's grave. It was very peaceful and beautiful at the cemetary. The kids found a praying mantis praying over grandpa's grave and played with it for a long time.
On Monday the kids were begging to go back to the sand dunes. It was actually kind of cold and windy but they were determined. We adults stayed in the car and talked while all the kids played away. It was fun to all be together.

Storytelling Festival

Every year there's a big storytelling festival in Orem. Jon had taken the older two kids a couple of years ago to "Bedtime Stories" and some of our kids have gone for school, but we've never gone as a family. I'm so glad we did, it made us laugh so hard. There were 5 talented storytellers and it lasted until about 10:30 pm. Here's a picture of the stage and audience. It's just nice to be outside in the evening air, especially since the weather was nice. You can just bring blankets or camping chairs.

We got there an hour early, which was fine because they had entertainment while we waited. They had a juggler that went around the crowd that Tanner really liked watching and they had a band on stage performing. We also brought our books to read, since storytelling was the theme of the night.

A Bee's Death

Our stingerless little bee lived a whole week. I felt kind of sad when I dumped him in the trash this morning. I thought, "I shouldn't have an emotional attachment to an insect!" But I did.

A Bee's Life

We went to pack meeting tonight for cub scouts. It was at our neighbors the Westwoods who have bees. I learned so much about bees and honey tonight, it was quite interesting. For instance, honey has its own natural antibiotic properties so it will never mold. And male bees which are the drones have no stingers. They get kicked out of the hive when it starts getting cold because they are no longer needed. Seth actually found one and brought it home. They only live 30-40 days total and I'm not sure how old he is but it's fun to hold a bee. I actually couldn't do it, it just doesn't seem natural. The female bees (workers) only live 21 days. Pretty amazing.

School is back on!

Seth was always disappointed last year because he had 1/2 day kindergarten and couldn't ride the bus to school with the kids. This year he has 6 long hours of school which he was happy about for the first day. Yesterday he came home and said school was so long he almost started crying. It'll be an adjustment.
Max is in 4th grade and this is his first year to have a male teacher. He is very excited about it and really likes him.
Maddie is the Queen of the school this year being in 6th grade. She had no anxieties. She said her teacher has a lot of enthusiasm, maybe even too much enthusiasm.
I couldn't get Tanner to go to back to school night because he "pretty much knows everything." I asked if he just wanted to go see where his locker was and he said the #'s on the paper he knows right where it is. He's in 8th grade this year and says it's going pretty well.