The End of an Era

I just found a few posts that I had started and never posted since they were waiting cleaver commentary, so I will post them anyway.

 

 

Rez 8th grade promotion celebration.

 

Daphne 5th grade promotion celebration. 

 

We were just lucky they weren't on the same day.

Where have you been?

That is what people should be asking me.  No posts for almost 3 months, and when I had been doing so well too.  Ok I hadn't been doing well for several months, but at least there were some posts.

This cute little guy is the reason.  

Indie keeping me busy, and up late at night, which should mean that I could write posts, but I discovered Amazon Prime Instant Videos and so I watch "Poirot" episodes instead.  

Here are some updates...

Rez became a Star Scout and finally finished his Law merit badge.  He has awesome hair at the moment and can do 15 pull ups in a row.  He is almost as tall as me.

Ocean decided to go back to blond.  I had to bleach all the red out and then tone it to the right color.  (Every time I look at his hair I think what a great hairdresser I am and then I remember that I don't do it alone.  Then, I think how grateful I am to God for his help in getting the right colors and having it all turn out good.  I wouldn't be as great of a hairdresser without him.  He is my secret weapon in all that I do.) 

He will be getting his braces off soon.  He is excited to be able to whistle again.

Daphne is growing up and getting more gorgeous.  She is sick at the moment with a fever, headache and sore throat.  She is learning to play the trumpet and the piano.  

Zelda, where do we start with her.  Her hair is much curlier than this, I had straightened the front this day.  It normally is in cute ringlets with frizz in the back.  She has decided that she doesn't like to be in a wet or dirty diaper and takes it off as soon as she does anything in it.  She got training pants for Christmas and wore them for the first time today.  We had several times of sitting on the potty with nothing happening followed by little puddles on the floor.  She is learning though.  She loves Indie and can often be seen leaning over him making him smile and occasionally  cry.

Mo, how can you not love that face?  There are some things I learned about him a long time ago.  He thinks of something and does it.  He cannot not talk.  He speaks really fast, and it is hard to understand him.  He doesn't sit still for very long.  He plays really well with younger kids.  But recently I have learned that those things add up to ADHD.  And that helped us learn some other things about him.  Like, he is paying attention when he is moving.  And his mind is moving so fast it can't be bothered with little details like how to spell correctly or write all of his numbers the right direction.

I have been trying to get our life back in some semblance of order after having a baby and Thanksgiving, Christmas, new year and having everyone out of school and Trip home for the holidays. I am still trying to get the Christmas tree down, find homes for new things and recently we had dining room benches delivered that I have to find time to finish.

Harvey is loving school.  It turns out that he is thriving with the structure and schedule of school life, not to mention he is very smart.

Julius.  He is my little buddy at home every day.  He and I play Uno together.  He will do yoga with me and loves to play computer games when I have a client.   And in the afternoons, he will watch a "move-move" and take a nap on the couch.

Trip is busy at work, home and church.  He switched to the research department last year and loves it.  Work is much less stressful when you can't accidentally loose millions of dollars.  He is working with the young men at church, which is great since we have 2 of them.  And he is the #1 kid putter to bedder.  While I am sitting nursing the baby in the evenings, he is reading stories and singing songs and leading by example:)

Help! Bleach on Scout Pants!

This is the post that I wanted to find a few months ago when I discovered bleach had gotten onto Rez's $40 scout uniform pants.  I didn't want to buy another pair, they were not that old and in really good shape otherwise.  The bleach turns the green a lovely lavender color.  

They are made of some microfiber fabric, really nice but not easily dyeable.  I looked up how to dye polyester, not an easy proposition and that is assuming you can find the right color of dye.  

So, I came up with my own solution, fabric paint.

I mixed these 4 colors to get a color that was close, then dapped it on to the bleach spots, rubbed it in and let it dry.  

After a day or so, I washed them.

It turned out pretty good, not perfect, but when you look at them you think more of camouflage than, "my what a lovely lavender that is."

I ended up buying another pair of pants for "dress", but these work great for when he is on hikes, etc.

First Day of School

September 5th was the first day of school this year.  

Rez and Ocean were the first to leave, off to 8th and 7th grades.

Daphne was the next to go, she is in 5th grade and was on Safety Patrol the first week of school.

Last of all, Julius, Zelda and I walked Mo and Harvey to school.  

Mo is in 3rd grade and Harvey started kindergarten. 

Boulder River Trail

We decided to take a hike in July on the Boulder River Trail.  

It was a beautiful day.  

 My sister and her family came with us.  She knew all kinds of plants along the trail and ones that were edible like these wild berries.

We walked through beautiful forests.

Zelda walked almost the whole way to the falls where we turned around.

She carried her baby the whole way too.

Daphne and Julius were buddies.

There were old logs to climb on next to the trail.

Ocean is surveying  the path.

At one point there were all these ferns growing.

And large cliffs.  Harvey was trying to climb up.

There were many little crevasses for photo ops.

Rez helped Zelda join Julius, Harvey, Mo and their cousin.

Here they are again.

Zelda and Rez didn't make it in time to join everyone else, so they go their own picture.

 

One of the favorite things was to run ahead (with an adult) and hide, scaring the others that came along.

There was a part that went up and down some.

And still Zelda insisted on walking herself.

You can see how Harvey liked it.

Here is looking down towards the river.

Zelda did get carried over the rocky part.  Daphne is carrying the backpack we brought for her.

We made it to the overlook of the falls.  They were beautiful.

Plus there was a cool tree to climb under and through. 

We sat next to it and ate our dinner.

There was a drop off down to the river on the other side of the trail, so we had to keep close tabs on all the kids, but we had a fun time.

We headed back to the start after that.  It was starting to get dark, but we didn't have any problems.

It was a fun afternoon.

Brave

My sister and brother in law like to dress up in costume to go to movies.  The fact that she has long red curly hair made it a given that they would dress up to go see brave.  

My kids were very excited to join her, so we all did.  

There were great preparations to be made to get us ready.  Daphne sewed her first dress (with my help) and she and I made kilts for the boys to wear.  

Ocean was game to let us fix his hair.

It is so light that we had to apply the dye twice to get the depth that we wanted.

We also had fun sculpting it.

Here he is a red head.

Then he let us set it on rollers and sat under the dryer to get some curl.

I think we did pretty good.

Music To My Ears

Daphne has been playing the trumpet this year.  It was her first year playing in the elementary school band.  They only have lessons once a week for 1/2 hour, but she has come along way.  (She did have some help from her older brother.)

Here she is after her concert.

Last night was the boys concert.  

Rez and Ocean walked down before hand to be there early, and I came with the rest of the kids, and Trip met us there.  Mo and Harvey, got out of the car and headed off down the side walk as I got the rest of the kids out.  When we were ready to go, Mo and Harvey were no where to be seen.  I figured they had walked down to to the doors and would be waiting by the doors for us.  When we got there, they weren't there.  They weren't inside or anywhere I could find them.  AAAAAA!  I sat Daphne, Julius and Zelda in some seats and went out to look of the boys.  I met our neighbor and he started looking with me.  Outside I met Trip who had just arrived.  We all looked inside and outside of the school.  Finally, our other neighbor, who had just arrived, said she had seen them out in the back parking lot when she pulled in.  Trip and I went out to the back parking lot and split up.  I walked up by the upper field thinking I would have a better view of the parking lot, and started calling.  

Pretty soon I heard a voice echoing mine back as I called out, "Mo".  "Mom", "Mo",

"Mom, Where have you been?"  

It is hard to be mad when they are just as upset at having lost you, too.  

They had gone to that back of the school instead of the front (who knows why) and been waiting at the back door for me, then had gone back to the car when I didn't come.  

We discussed staying put when you are lost.  

We missed the first 20 minutes of the concert.  

Luckily, it was the 4-5 grade bands and orchestras. 

Here are the middle school bands.  Beginning is on the left and advanced on the right.

I didn't get any pictures of Ocean playing, but here he is watching the advanced band.

Zelda and Trip liked the concert too.

Harvey, Mo and Julius quietly played games to keep them occupied.

Daphne just watched and listened.

We couldn't really see Rez.  He was on the 3rd row behind the girl in the center playing the flute. 

If you look closely, you can see the bottom of his baritone peeking under her music stand.  Occasionally we would get a glimpse of his red head.

and when they stood at the end, we caught him.

And one more of Ocean.

They did a fabulous job.  It is amazing how good the full band sounds compared to just hearing their parts.