The big 12th Birthday Bash

Lelu lucked out that her birthday landed on Friday so that she could celebrate all day long. There were 12 girls including her, for pizza, swimming, playing games, watching movies and half of them spent the night. I have a rule in my house, no sleepovers after 12 - so this was the final hurrah! Half of the girls' parents have the same rule - which was so nice because when Aub was that age, none of her friends had that rule. I was the overprotective mean mom!

The difference in sizes of these girls was incredible too. I'd say half of the them are like Lelu, still look like little girls and the other half are women. 4 of them are like 5'6" to 5'9" and 12 years old. I think girls are getting so much taller than when I was that age. There was only like one or two that were tall like that. I think everyone had a great time, there were no super dramas and they all got along pretty well considering there was quite a mix of girls from our new ward, old ward, old school and new school. Today she gets to go to YW. I think that's where she'll really make good friends and feel included.

First Day of 7th Grade & D starts 11th

But I have a Disclaimer for not posting a first day photo of D: He decided to take early morning seminary against my recommendation, so he leaves at 6:10 am. I do not wake up until 6:30 and even that is a difficulty for my "late night reading time". So the truth is I didn't get up or take any photos. I tried to get him to let me take them after school but he said that's being dishonest. Thus my disclaimer! This was of he and B playing thumb war and it's from this week, so this is what he looks like right now anyway.

Lelu is now attending the neighborhood middle school. She is very excited about not having to wear a uniform, but the crowds are a bit overwhelming to her. There are apparently 37 kids in her first class and 40 in another class. I am not too happy about those numbers, but it's too late to send her back to the charter school. She only knows a couple of girls at this school so this is going to be the year of making new friends. The first couple days she couldn't get her locker open because it was jammed. The school times their bells differently for 7th grade and then 8th and 9th, so they aren't all in the hall at the same time. But her locker caused her to be in the hall when the older kids were let out and she literally got knocked down and trampled a bit. Not so fun for the 2nd day of school. It's funny how many people comment to me that 7th grade was their hardest year. I've been telling her that the large majority of 7th graders all just want friends and to be accepted. Be friendly and accepting. But the fact of the matter is: Jr. High is the pits!

A Role she Was Born to Play

Some little neighbor girls (the tall ones in the back) love acting and decided to do a little acting class in the neighborhood. They put together a production of "Alice in Wonderland". So my little Ari went to the class fully intending she'd get the lead role because "I look like Alice" and indeed she does. The big girls thought so too, so she got the role. I was very worried about it because she has selective stage fright. They practiced 4 hours a week for a month and took it very seriously. Thursday night we went over to the church for the big performance. It was very exciting for her. She totally got into it and played the total diva smiling and bowing etc. The big girls worked really hard trying to keep all these little girls remembering their lines and what to do for over an HOUR. I'm afraid I've got another thespian on my hands.

My kids had never seen Alice in Wonderland, so I went on a hunt to buy it or rent it and couldn't find it. The neighbors had a copy and so the twins watched it. Mr. T thought it was awful "mom they smoke in it and chop off heads, that is not a kids movie!" This from the kid who lives for Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. He'll probably love it when Johnny Depp is the mad hatter, but in a cartoon there's apparently a moral code to keep to.

The Twins Start 2nd

Does anyone else feel like they are living in a time warp and someone just keeps cranking up the speed?
So half my children still living at home started school last Monday. They constantly tell me how unfair it is that Lelu and D don't have to go. It doesn't seem to matter how much I try to strip them of their blissful childhood by telling them that life isn't really fair, they still proclaim their outrage. But so far so good, they like their new teacher, who've I heard is quite strict, and they aren't completely devastated that their BFF's from 1st grade aren't in their class this year. They still have each other. I love that the school gives me the choice whether or not to keep them in the same class. Until and unless they each figure out that the other is better at a subject (and I am not verifying anything on here since they read this) and that particular twin can do one set of homework and vice versa.......they'll stay together in class until Jr. High when I'll no longer have the choice.

Now to get D and Lelu off to school this week - the house will be mine for 6 hours a day, woohoo!! It'll be clean for about 4 of it.

Lelu's Favorites

I am adding an element to my blog called Favorites. My kids love to play this game in the car by asking each other their favs. Since it seems to change rapidly I thought it'd be fun to record them from year to year around their birthday. Lelu's is next week. Big 12!

Movie: Legally Blonde

Color: Turquoise

Restaurant: CPK (California Pizza Kitchen)

Birthday Treat: Chocolate Molten Cake

Food: Shrimp

Day: Friday

Holiday: Christmas

Song: Clocks

Musical Artist: Chris Martin (I have a lot of influence at this point in her life;)

Vacation: San Francisco with Mom (see above)

Book: Harry Potter

Animal: Panda Bear

Career Choice: Elementary School Teacher

How many kids in her future: 4 (2 boys 2 girls)

College: BYU

Dream Place to Live: Maui

Quote: Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.

She wants to have all of her kids before 30 so that her poor kids won't be embarassed by how old her parents are.

Fun in Jackson Hole!

Even though I moved and left all these amazing friends back in my old ward, they take pity on me and invite me to hang out with them. For some reason I am just not settling in to my new ward. Maybe these girls are just too awesome to compare to. B tells me it's my oxymoron - I have a lot of great friends but I am antisocial. Hmmm, I'm going to ponder on that awhile.

From the left we have our new friend "Soon Yun Lee", Staci, Angie, Sharon, Antler Biker Dude, Heather, Cherie, Stephanie (crouching) and me. Soon Yun just showed up in our photo so we went with it. Behind the girls is our new friend Moosey who just seemed to be annoyed by our antics outside of the cabin. The cabin belongs to Angie's parents and she was kind enough to invite all of us. I came home with a scratchy voice having talked way too much but feeling so much less stressed after some good group therapy and only a couple bruises from a slip down the hardwood stairs. A cold front came in and it was a little cold, but fun to put on sweatshirts and breathe the clean air! I swear every mom needs to do these things to be a better mom. Our husbands rock for holding down the forts while we went!

Melinda Visits and Give a Reason to BBQ

Roman is definitely an AZ pool lover!

A couple weeks ago Melinda came up from AZ and so everyone came over to BBQ. We even had the pleasure of Aunt Ramona, my cousin Andrea & her cute daughter Riley, as well as my other cousin Ashley and her baby Roman. The teens stuck together, the adults enjoyed catching up and there was way too much food. Porter & Mr. T hit it off and were lost in Lego heaven too. D convince his "really cute cousins" Kari and Kalee to go hang out with his friends playing night games. They were really good sports and D's friends were impressed. It was a nice night and so fun to see everyone!

Another Girl's Camp, Lucky!

Hello, this is not Lelu blogging about girls camp because she has her friend staying with us for a few days, so I am going to write about what she told me.

First of all, this ward has 18 beehives so she went with a much larger group. She is officially the youngest and smallest girl to go too. She doesn't even turn 12 for another 2 weeks, but since she's going to 7th grade she was allowed to go. All the girls were asked to bring a charm for each girl there that represents something about her. We searched and searched for a a cheap running shoe, (since she had to bring 36 charms) and couldn't find one. So we settled on a charm with a peace sign, a heart and a musical note. Lelu is definitely the peace maker in our home, loves everyone and they love her and she loves to sing and is learning to love the piano (Chris helped with that!) Also since she was the tiniest she got lifted up to do all the obstacle course activities. This summer was a great entrance for her into Young Women's. And I stole all these photos off one of D's friend's facebook. Thanks Linda!

The Smiles and Bummers of Summer

One of the other mom's sent me this soccer photo & I've added a photo of B's hamstring pull from sprinting against D and the one swim party with friends.

The Smiles & Bummers of Summer:

Smile: D beat B twice, sprinting, after working out the other day.

Bummer: B pulled his "hand-spring" (everytime he calls it that, I want to scream HAMSTRING, now he just says it to bug me) sprinting against D. It's painful enough to go to physical therapy and he can't run & it left a big bruise.

Smile: We love having a pool to swim in every day!

Bummer: I've only had friends over once to have a swim party. I better get on that, time is running out.

Smile: B and D went on a river trip and had some really cool spiritual moments.

Bummer: I had to hear about those moments in testimony meeting today from another guy.

Smile: I am proud to say I worked out for 1 1/2 hours without my ipod!

Bummer: My ipod died after 2 songs into my workout (this is usually when I decide my workout is over)

Smile: I got released from Primary.

Bummer: I got released from Primary. Someone else got called to be Beehive advisor.

Smile: Lelu is going off to girl's camp tomorrow in our current ward.

Bummer: Lelu is going to be gone for 5 days at girl's camp.

Smile: Lelu is playing competetive soccer and they won 5 straight games this weekend to win the Park City tournament.

Bummer: She practices 6 hours a week not including games.

Smile: The kids start school again in 3 weeks.

Bummer: Summer is almost over and Lelu will be in Jr. High, twins in 2nd grade and D in 11th. Time is flying by.

Smile: Mr. T's hair is this totally cool surfer dude blonde and longer than ever.

Bummer: Ari got stung by a bee for the first time.

Smile: We are staying up late and sleeping in almost every day.

Bummer: My house doesn't stay clean and my laundry is not done.

Smile: Ari's jeans have grown too short, so she's had a growth spurt this summer.

Bummer: I need to get her new uniform pants.

Smile: Aub is working for B and we get to see her a lot more often. She is very happy to leave her job and join B's office, which has a very happy and productive environment.

Mostly our summer has been lazy. I still owe the kids a trip to Lagoon (Bummer!), a class at the Young Chef's Academy and a shopping day with mom. Stay tuned, I'll keep my camera close.

Lelu's a "town girl" not a "downtown girl"

Lelu's "ready to rock" concert attire!

Yes, I do realize I have some amazing opportunities to have a lot of fun! Lelu told B if she won the Moab 5 miler that she wanted to go shopping with mom somewhere. This was total retribution for the torture of Izzie (well almost as I'm sure she'll live for 15 more years). We decided on going to San Francisco since I missed going with B for a conference because Lelu was really sick. Since I am a super fan, I heard that Coldplay had just announced more concerts including one in SF. Ahhhh Serendipity! We had a bonding weekend of shopping, sightseeing (going up and down the crazy hills - good thing it doesn't snow there!) sleeping in and eating out. Some highlights: a homeless guy walked across the street while the top was down on the car and pretended to shoot at people and then Lelu didn't allow the top down very much after that; the skeleton performer at Fisherman's Wharf pretty much sent her into convulsions; we drove over and back across the Golden Gate bridge for $6; I bid on 4th row tickets on ebay the night before the concert and won them, so Christina and Landon drove up and took my other tickets and went to the concert with us; Lelu tends to be very scared of people who look "off", meaning scary or dirty or mean and there were plenty of them in SF. She announced that she isn't a downtown girl (remember our little mishap in Hollywood), she is a town girl - she loves Draper. But she wants to live near a big city. So I declared her a suburban girl. Now me, on the other hand, likes the big cities and can find my way around pretty well, but I wouldn't want to raise my kids in one of them. When they are all raised, I want to live in London and New York for a year. We had some great conversations about her goals for this year going into 7th grade. It makes me sad that my kids are growing up so fast. I cherish these moments! I look forward to taking D and the twins one on one sometime soon.

My review on the concert is that Salt Lake's concert was the best. There was an amazing energy in the crowd and the band seemed to thrive on it. Maybe it's because 95% of the attendees aren't wasted. I don't know but there was a definite difference. I would still follow them around the world because they put on an amazing show. We got lost on the way home from the concert and my phone was dead so I couldn't use my navigation. But Christina and I found our way back and was just glad Lelu was asleep in the back with Landon.

First Girls Camp

Hello everybody that is reading this blog! This is Lelu typing right now because my mom says that I have to tell about girls camp myself because I was the only one in my family that was there! Well, it was awesome! I loved it! I went with my old ward with a very small amount of girls, only 16 girls were there (as you can see.) This was my first girls camp ever and our theme was, "not all that glitters is gold" so we were pirates. Not my favorite theme but it turned out to be the most fun theme in the stake, and I have to say that it was fun to go with my old ward because I knew every body there, and also my best friend, Morgan is in that ward (she is the one with me on the right that looks like Captain Hook.) This experience was also very spiritual for me, my testimony is now stronger and so is my friendship with the ward. I learned a lot of things at camp. The first thing is that you never get sleep, the second thing is that you never go 20 minutes without laughing, the third thing is that every one there is so nice and caring, and the fourth thing is that there is no such thing as snipes. I can't wait tell next year!

Lake Powell 2009

This being only the second year that we've gone to Lake Powell, we learned a ton. This year, I brought enough sun screen and cover-ups and B learned to handle a boat better (except forgot that his blackberry was in his pocket when he jumped in to free a rope that got caught). We are especially blessed to have friends with a houseboat that have kids our kids ages and are kind enough to invite us to go. The great thing about going down there is that no one is ever bored! The kids never once came to me and said they were bored. They pitched in for every meal and clean-up. They had constant friends to play board games when they needed a break from the sun. This year, Dave & Shel were coming to visit at the same time as we were invited to go and since there was room, they got invited too. I think they had a great time too, even with 2 little toddlers. Here's a few of the highlights:

Mr. T never stopped until he fought his eyes closing each night. There were 5 little boys who kept really busy climbing cliffs and jumping off them, tubing, digging in the dirt, swimming, canoeing, riding as fast as possible on the waverunners with whoever would take them, jumping out of boats, trying kneeboarding, wake boarding (not quite staying up yet) and occasionally the Wii (only in the hottest part of the day). He was in heaven!

Should I jump? Should I jump? Should I jump? .........

D made the decision for her.

Ari pulled lots of attitude, but wouldn't try any of the sports. The funny thing is that I'm sure she could get up on whatever she wanted. She's such a little tough gymnast.

Yay! Lelu learned to wake board! She got up every time and stayed up for a long time. She was really nervous about it too because the other kids (who are super boaters) could all do it and she didn't want to be embarrassed if she couldn't. We were so proud and I'm pretty sure she was too.

B is the super skier, that I actually never saw ski because he got up everyday and went with the early risers. Then he skippered the boat all day so everyone else could have a turn.
D surfed in the wake, body surfed, wake boarded, knee boarded, cliff jumped, super tubed and took off on the wave runner with Hannah (cute teenage daughter of friends from Nevada) and Griffin (friend he brought along). All that kid is missing is melanin to really enjoy Lake Powell. He fried the top of his feet and back of his ears. I think it's the only time he doesn't like his red headed complexion.

Dave pulled Shel and the kids on the tube with the waverunner. I'm pretty sure Dave won't have any trouble talking his boys into being a boating family in the near future. Taylor loved the speedboat with the wind in his face. Christian just went to sleep with the motion. Start them young, right?

Pretty much anyone can drive the houseboat, so each kid took a turn including Taylor. Sharon (owner of said houseboat) is usually the Pied Piper too, between she and Michele, the lizards and speedboats - I never even entertained my kids! It was awesome;)

Lelu Beats Her time by 32 seconds

Lelu competed again at the State Track meet at BYU. She ran the 1500 (just shy of a mile) and beat her time from last year running it in 6:01. She took 3rd place this year behind these two girls who are a year older. She was hot on their heals and once again we were in awe at her ability to run! NeNe and Papa stayed long enough to watch her run & Michelle came down to cheer her on too.

Support from CA Closes the Show!

Once Upon a Mattress has closed and D was lucky enough to have NeNe and Papa come up for a a couple days to see him perform. The cast had really improved their performance from the first week, when we saw it. There was 12 of us that went to see it, including Aub, Michelle, Brett V and his wife Charlotte. We filled an entire row. I think they all really enjoyed D's performance as the jester, esp when he took a hideous looking face dive. He came out of it unscathed and was happy to have so much support.

Why Don't Boys Have Any Sense?

Out of the mouth of twins:

Ari: Mom, why don't boys have any sense?

Me: Which boys do you think don't have any sense?

Ari: Dad and D don't have any. Mr. T has some though.

Me: Well hmmm, I can see how you might think that with some of the things they do and say. I mean girls tend to have more common sense sometimes. Boys think totally different than girls. Sometimes they are daredevils and do dumb things. Especially as they get bigger they have a bigger ego and think they can do things that they maybe shouldn't. What did they do to make you think that and maybe I can explain better?

Ari: I asked for a quarter and they only had dollars.

D Finally gets his Court of Honor

Having finished his Eagle project almost 2 years ago and being a card carrying Eagle Scout for months (did you know they send you a real card?), we finally had the ceremony and he got his day in 'court'. Since he did everything in our old ward, we waited to do his Court of Honor with 3 other boys. 2 of them are Cherie's sons, so it was fun to do them all together. It made me very nostalgic for my old ward though. (sigh...)

I came up with the incentive for my kids (after Aub passed this age and I no longer had any power) that in order to get their drivers license they need to get their Eagle Scout or Young Women's medallion. It worked quite well for D. And I am so proud of him, because I can honestly say he did it mostly himself with just a little prodding from us and a lot of help from his great scout leaders. He's a great kid!

All of the mom's made treats for after the program. I decided to make snickerdoodles, since they are Mr. T's favorite and he's been begging me to make them. I only made enough for the thing and they fit perfectly on the platter, I wouldn't let the kids have any until after the program. Apparently they went really fast because Mr. T. ran over to me and said "Holy crap, mom you're the MOST FAMOUS!" If only....

B's got his Athlete!

Of course, she did awesome! This was running in the hills on a dirt trail too. One of my friends ran it too and said "it kicked her trash". There was 22 women who ran this race, the one who came in 2nd was 22 years old. Geez, Lelu never ceases to amaze me!

Sidewalk Chalk Saturday

By Brie (the babysitter) and the twins

Another year goes by & I learned something new about my hubby!

This week I took the kids to the aquarium. Sandy city has a pretty sorry excuse for an aquarium - but when it's pouring, what else can we do? We lasted an hour there, 45 minutes of it petting sting rays. They have a gift shop in there and I have never been able to get out of there without dropping some cash. I preempted the gift shop purchases by telling them we'd get a puzzle and go home and continue to increase our brain cell activity by working on it for the afternoon. The biggest puzzle the gift shop had was 50 pieces, which would have taken up maybe an additional 15 minutes of our day. The first of my lucky breaks, not a dime dropped in said gift shop! We left the aquarium in search of a hard puzzle. Score! this baby has 1000 pieces and it's aquatic themed. The kids helped me get the perimeter done in about an hour and then disappeared. B came home from work and I was sitting at the table working on it and he sat down to work on it with me. To be honest, I really expected him to be irritated that I had it spread across the table. He does not like to play board games and I thought a puzzle would get the same reaction. NOT! B was like a dog with a bone on that thing. 6 hours one night, then a warning for me not to work on it without him, and then 6 hours the next night, 2 hours in the morning and we're done! B explained that he used to sit and do puzzles with Mimi at night. Happy childhood memories, ahhh. 20 years of marriage and I never knew. I guess we'll be on the lookout for some more good puzzles.

Friday was my b-day and D took the little kids shopping and they all spent their own money and bought wooden frames. They painted the frames and then each picked a picture of themselves to put in them. They are so PERFECTLY chosen to fit their personalities. Now I just need to get Aub to do one too. Aub came up and brought me jordan almonds from the BYU bookstore. In case you didn't know, that's where the best ones are! B, Aub, me and Mom & Dad all went out to dinner. It was a great day - even if my salmon was dehydrated - at least it was free. 40 is the end of the 30's, did you know that? so now I am IN my 40's....bummer