Wednesday

I am LOVING having Wednesdays off this summer. Although I still have class at 5:30 each night, it's so nice to have a day with my family. I think the kids are enjoying it too. Yesterday, we met Josh and Brooklyn in Farmington. Farmington has a great little place called Station Park Center. There are some beautiful fountains and a great play area right outside the movie theater. We had some Johnny Rockets for lunch, played in the playground, and then saw Monsters University. It was a perfect day!

The Nana

The Nana is what we call my mom. The Mama is what The Nana calls me. Just go with it. The Nana is the real reason why I am able to go to school. I leave the house at 6 a.m. and I get home at 8:30 p.m. each day. The Nana makes sure the boys are fed breakfast and dinner, laundry is done and put away and there are no major injuries from the day. Yesterday I told The Nana that I wouldn't be going to class because I felt like crud. And I did. Like real, brown, lumpy crud. Any who, she text me and asked me if I wanted her to make me some fish for dinner. And she did. It was delicious and it settled my tummy. The Nana also switched the laundry I had started and folded it for me. The Nana also makes sure that the boys items from the Library are returned, that their bedrooms are inhabitable, that they have showered at least once during the week (it's a big problem!), that the dog has had food at least once during the week (another big problem!), that the boys are tucked in and prayers are said... you get the picture. On Sunday after church, Little Miss wanted Nana and no one else but Nana. Nana took her out on the front porch with her while she read. Little Miss fell asleep on the bench. Nana wrapped her in a blanket and just sat with her. We sure do love The Nana!

NO Bored Kids

Last Friday, I sat the kids down in the Target Cafeteria and went to find some things in the dollar section. I had a goal to put together a "no bored kids" bucket. My sweet boys are home all summer without their mama, except on Wednesdays when I get to be home with them. Even though we have a trampoline, an entire school yard to run and play on, an x-box and playstation, I still get those dreaded phone calls... "MOM! I'm SOOOO bored. There is NOTHING to do." I do not love those phone calls. So, I put together a bucket. Right now there are flashcards, comprehension worksheets for each of their learning levels, puzzles, coloring boards, side walk chalk to draw a city on the driveway, muffin mixes to bake muffins, playdough to make creations, paper to write letters, and marshmallows with toothpicks to create structures. There was also water balloons for water balloon fights. Those were gone first! I bought a few other things and will add to the bucket in a couple of weeks. So far, so good!

Home from Trek

This boy is home from Trek. His mama is very glad! The parents and families of the kids who went on trek lined the street and waved white hankies as the buses pulled in. It was very emotional! When I saw him come off the bus, I ran to him and loved on him. He looked so tired. He smelled very bad. He was so sore. I didn't care. I just wanted to love on him. He spoke in church yesterday. There was not a dry eye. It was so powerful. He spoke of the women's pull and he cried as he relayed what that experience was like. He bore his testimony that he saw angels helping those girls pull those 600 pound carts up an extremely steep incline that took them two hours. I am so grateful for these experiences that my kids have that teach them things that I never could. Love this boy!

Why Do I Do What I do?!

A woman's girdle is (was?) a torture device undergarment designed to reduce the apparent size of the waist and hips. This is the definition of a girdle as found on some Google sight. And it's perfect. So let's get personal, shall we? I have cellulite people. A lot of cellulite. It's actually a big problem. All summer I wear skirts and dresses. Anything maxi is what I wear. Even with a slip, that lovely cellulite shows its awful ripples through the skirts and dresses. When I walk by a window and see my dimpled skin through my skirt and slip I want to barf. If I want to barf, I'm pretty sure everyone else does too. So, I went to the store. I bought a torture device as described above. It's supposed to suck in all of the dimples and make it look like it doesn't even exist. First of all, it took me about 45 1/2 minutes to put the thing on. Second, every time I go to the restroom AT WORK it takes me a good 49.375 minutes just to pull the thing down and then back up again. Forget about breathing! You take small, shallow breaths. The good news-- I will never get a blood clot because it's like wearing those pressure stockings from my boobs to my knees and every where in between! We are talking no room for error here people! Oh, and don't even get me started on sweating. It was like 95 degrees yesterday and I'm wearing this device walking around campus. Even my elbows were sweating. So, besides not being able to take full breaths, feeling like a was living in a suction device times 1,000, holding my pee until I about wet myself because of the time it takes to pull this thing on and off, it was a great day in my new device!

Going Trekking

Josh finished packing Jackson for Trek. Jackson left this morning. Both Nana and I cried.

Colton and Trips

This is a tricky one, folks. He does great with his DVD player and movies, usually. This road trip was a bit more rough. I think in the future I will give him one dramamine prior to leaving. He can go from being completely calm and happy watching his movie to tears to yelling "how many more hours?" to asleep. In general, he does very well, but it can be a good time if he is nervous or anxious or if we are traveling on the last day of school. Enter our latest road trip on the last day of school. Summer all by itself is tougher for Colton, as it is for most ADHD/Pediatric Anxiety kiddos, because of the lack of structure. When you have a single mama who works full-time and goes to school it is extra fun. I do create a calendar for the boys and during the summer, I am home during the day on Wednesdays to add a little more routine, but the school-days routine is gone and that is tough. I don't know if it was the fear of not having school for three months that contributed to his struggles this past weekend, but it took patience on everyone's part. Colton would panic about HIM not knowing how much gas was in the car. We have NEVER run out of gas. FYI. Colton would panic about hearing someone else's movie over his. Colton would panic about not knowing where we were. Colton would panic about what time we were going to arrive. You get the point. This poor little soul can't just sit back and relax. Everything seems to come with a panic button and that button gets fist pumped a lot! When it comes time to do activities, patience is a virtue. And I don't have a lot of it. Colton cried and cried the entire time we were in line for the Alpine Slide. Josh pulled him aside and calmed him down and gave the option to do it or not do it. He decided he would do it. He and I were sitting on our sled (the same sled) and he was screaming. Picture it people. We were not the only ones in line!! The line was loooooong and my sweet boy was screaming. A sweet old man in the line talked very softly to him and told him that he was scared the first time he went on it too, but that once we started he would want to go down it over and over and over. That sweet old man was right. Colton loved it, as we knew he would. After the slide, he was done. Like, done done. Braxton decided he didn't want to do the zipline and offered to go take Colton to the sandbox to dig for fossils. We were in line for quite.some.time. and sweet Braxton was so patient. Colton had a great time digging. He loved, loved swimming and was just happy to be in water. Water always seems to have a calming effect on him. He is free in the water and he loves that, I suppose. Someday I hope that Colton will be able to find peace in his sweet mind and not worry about every aspect of everything. He just gets so rattled by things that no 9 1/2 year old boy should have to worry about.

Colton's Adorable Lack of Focus

As I have told you before, one of the best activities for Colton is yard work. He loves to mow the lawn and help Mommy pull weeds. It's so freeing for him. He doesn't have to focus on much... except where our yard ends and the other yards begin. Enter a cute story. He was mowing the lawn last Saturday while I was weeding. I heard the lawn mower get further and further away. I looked up to see him two houses down, still on the street stretch of lawn. He looked up at about the same time and started to cry. He couldn't believe that he had lapsed into ADHD mode and had lost all focus. Long story short, there was a long, crooked line in the grass that did not belong to us. It was really cute. I explained to him that it was no big deal. Plus, I thought it was adorable. When you have a child with ADHD and Pediatric Anxiety, you tend to find darling lapses of focus. There are so many lapses of focus that can be scary or frustrating or heartbreaking. It's fun to find the silly, harmless, cute lapses in focus!

Miss Daisy

Meet Miss Daisy. She is our newest addition. I love her. She is big. Brooklyn says she is "SO heavy!" She fits everyone comfortably. Her spedometer works. Her windshield wipers work. She has a lovely air conditioner. She is currently so clean! She isn't brand new, but new to us! I am loving driving Miss Daisy!

Naptime

Nana and I caught a glimpse of Braxton and Kaydon napping on the trampoline. Love my big boys!

Kaydon as J. Sloan (waxed)

Kaydon and the rest of the fourth grade had their annual wax museum. These are so fun! Kaydon was Jerry Sloan, former head coach for the Utah Jazz. He was standing next to Larry H. Miller and John Stockton, naturally. Yep, my kid is rad!

May Service Project

May got a little out of hand. I did not do a planned and organized service project with my boys and I felt like such a failure... then I remembered that we were doing service throughout the month and that counts! For instance, Jackson received a phone call from our adorable neighbor two doors down. She just had their second baby, Lucia. Her little Wyatt is in my Nursery class. She had signed up to feed the missionaries and her husband got stuck at work. She called Jackson and asked him to come sit in as the Priesthood holder. He went down there and did his job! Also, I was at Costco BY MYSELF (so big!!) and I was waiting in line for my ice cream bar. A girl next to me had placed an order for she and her mom. Then they told her that they don't accept debit cards. I handed the cashier enough cash to cover it and hurried away. That is the BEST feeling! My boys served me a ton after my surgery. They got me food and drinks and covered me up with blankets. They loved on me and wiped my tears. It was a great reminder that service projects don't need to be planned service projects to be valuable and necessary. We have opportunities every single day to serve - in big ways and in small ways. We can bless other people and we can be blessed in turn by doing whatever we can every day to serve others!