Rockin' It at the Beach - A Family Photo Album

We had the awesome opportunity a few weeks ago to visit my brother Zack and his family at their new beach-town home, to attend their son Arron's baptism.  Zack lives 5 hours away (5 1/3 if you miss your turn, thus causing you to miss the baptism as well.  Oh, well, we got there for the closing prayer!).

Besides being my sister-in-law, Julean was my favorite missionary companion in Costa Rica.  She jokes when I am introduced as Zack's sister, saying "She was mine first!"  I like to think that my mission call to that far away tropical land had something to do with bringing the two of them together, but I know, of course, that God didn't need my help.

Aaron is a sweet little guy, and I still can't believe he's 8.  Zack and the family had moved across the country for several years, and so Aaron became suspended in my mind at about age 3.  We are so glad to have them back!  5 hours is peanuts compared to 2,700 miles!  Heck, it's like we're next door neighbors!

Zack loves the ocean, so after church on Sunday we ate a lovely lunch and then drove to the beach.  Since Sundays are our Sabbath, we don't engage in typical recreation on those days.  The kids understood we wouldn't be swimming or playing ball, but we enjoyed a relaxed rest on the sand looking for cool rocks and beach glass.

Uncle Zack has stories galore, and knows everything about everything when it comes to animals, rocks, and, well... everything.

A family that blinks together, stays together!  (I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that Noah is blinking behind those shades!)

Guy created an installation art piece.  

He calls it "Rocks on the Rocks".  

This kid cracks me up.  

I think Jason is the Ellie (read "clown") of their family.

No wonder they chose to hang out together.

He can't read, but he did stay off the fence. 

 Love the forced smile. 

 Hey, these days I'll take what I can get from him.

Mmmmmm....

Love these two.

Honey I shrunk the Nephew!

Zack was trying to demonstrate "Horses in a field" with Julean, wherein two horses stand nearly touching, necks crossing, and somewhat oblivious to each other.  She couldn't stop laughing long enough to join him.  I was busy trying not to piddle myself.  I love seeing how much fun these two have together.

I wonder why on earth they would want to come back here to California....?

Ta-da! 

 That was it.  The end. 

 Fun over...till next time!

(The salmon start running here in Sacramento in July, Zack!)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Don't know why this picture didn't show up in the last post.  Perhaps it was too glorious to behold!  I am pretty lame with heavy power tools.  They get away from me.  Someday I will cut off some toes, I am sure.  But I had to show the final product of the last post.  The heavenly gleam is from a chorus of angels declaring the fabulousness of our handiwork.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Good Fences

A strange bike showed up in our back yard.  It was our neighbor's bike, but they hadn't put it there.  In fact, neighbor Denise had been leaving that morning and seen a guy in a hoodie putting the bike in our yard, and assumed it was Ethan.  Ethan was with me on the way to school, and no one had been home at the time.  Along with the bike we found a single shoe on the ground.  Which made it go from weird to a little Twilight Zone.

The best we can tell, some guy was going from house to house after everyone was at work and sneaking into back yards, stealing what he could.  When he found the bike and took it, he had no idea that that was the moment Denise would come out of her house to take her teen daughter to school.  The back tire on the bike was flat, so this guy couldn't just hop on and take off.  He must have ducked behind our garage and pushed open our floppy, broken, held-shut-by-a-bucket-o'-bricks-and-a-trash-can gate.  He stashed the bike.  Since we were gone, who knows how long he was back there and what else he might have been doing.  It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.  

It was creepy.  There have been strangers in our yard before, using it as a shortcut through the block.  We've had our cars broken into, and even had a car stolen right out of the driveway.  But having a bike-snatcher use our yard as a stash is freaky on a whole new level.  I didn't like the thought of him casually coming back to retrieve his loot.

We took the bike back next door and propped a huge old couch against the gate to get us through the night, then the next day I had the boys demo the gate.  We built the new fence and gate that day and got a sturdy lock.  I had every child help in some way.  Natalie was the project forewoman, and expert holder of screws.  It's really my thing to make sure my girls get the same opportunities to use power tools and help with big projects.  

I guess I should thank the bike-snatcher.  He lit a fire under our tails to get that horrible fence and gate fixed.  I wonder if there is anything he could do that would force us to paint the house.

Ellie and Dad

One more!

Hangin' with my sib!

Something Great (times two)

We decided to celebrate 

Adam's great job qualifying for the finals in track.  

And to celebrate Guy's awesome nomination for Teacher of the Year.  

We chose not to wait until after the track finals.  Adam did a great job on his qualifiers.  It was tempting to wait until he had his very last race to see how well he did, but then we realized that we were missing an opportunity to enjoy the "Here and Now".  His success in the qualifiers would be diminished by waiting, win or lose in the final race.

And the same for Guy.  His nomination was special all on it's own.  It was a red letter day, just because it was.

It reminded me of the talk by Dieder F. Uchdorf where he reminds us to "Forget not... to Be Happy Now".

 "If we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny forget-me-nots that are all around us.

This is not to say that we should abandon hope or temper our goals. Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But don’t close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day’s ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life.

The happiest people I know are not those who find their golden ticket; they are those who, while in pursuit of worthy goals, discover and treasure the beauty and sweetness of the everyday moments. They are the ones who, thread by daily thread, weave a tapestry ofgratitude and wonder throughout their lives. These are they who are truly happy."

Also, ice cream definitely helps!

Mother's Day

It's been a while since I've done a foodie post!
My Honny made me an awesome Mother's Day dinner and we ate it outside, which is my favorite!  

The breeze was breezy and the sun was only blaring in our eyes for the first hour or so.  Guy made stuffed chicken breasts with a bacon cream sauce and rosemary roasted yams, with a yummy cheesecake topped in chocolate ganche and raspberry sauce for dessert.

It was all amazing.  

The breeze created a windchime symphony, and my kids did not fight once!  It's the second time this week.  Somebody pinch me, please.  No!  Wait!  Don't do that.  I'll wake up and they'll start fighting again.  

The Littles brought me flowers one at a time throughout the night, and I received about 12 glittery handmade cards and pictures.

My day was already going great because I got to take a nap.  

(No, the boys are not reading the bible.  I have a phone ban at the table, but this was before dinner, so they feel like it's okay to be anti-social.)

I was gifted with bird feeders and clay, but my favorite came from Guy: Fourth of July Banners like the ones they hang at City Hall in The Music Man.  They are so cool.

Also, he found a Donkey Tail succulent plant for me.  It is a throwback from my childhood.  When we were kids, my dad had several of them, and we evil children would rip off the plump little leaves and throw them at each other by the handful.

When I told my kids my evil-children story, they gasped!  "That's terrible!!!" they all agreed.  I have done a lot of things wrong in my parenting, but I know that at least in the plant department, I have raised my children right.  They respect botanicals.

I am blessed.  Six kids is a lot.  Overwhelming at times, like today at the library.  Not recommended.  But I am blessed to share my life with these small and not so small humans.  Motherhood is so hard.  Most of the time I feel like I'm making this up as I go along, but when I am smart, I seek answers through prayer instead.  On my best day I couldn't come close to God's Plan for my family.

Who better to learn from than a loving Parent.    

An Honor Just to be Nominated

Guy and the Board of Trustees for Sacramento

Guy was Nominated as Teacher of the Year for the Sacramento County Office of Education by a coworker this month.  Yay, Honey!  

This is such an honor.  Twice he has been recognized as Teacher of the Month in recent years, but this is a very different process.  The nomination is just the beginning.  A reception was held the past week to recognize the nominees and to present them with a certificate recognizing this accomplishment (as his wife, I was bubbling over with pride!).  But next, each of the 15 candidates must fill out a lengthy application with essay questions about their philosophies and work ethic to continue on.  There is an interview process, and finally, the committee of administrators meet to select the Teacher of the Year.

Guy doesn't feel deserving.  He has a laundry list of reasons why he is not "that kind of teacher".  

He can't decide whether he should follow through with the process.  He thinks it would be braggy.  He theinks that there isn't anything to brag about.

Let me tell you about Guy as a teacher.

Guy teaches a class of 10 severely disabled students, each from about 12 to 22 years of age.  Their disabilities range from severe Autism, Down's Syndrome, and Cerebral Palsy, to a combination of problems.  One highly challenging student this year has both Autism and Down's Syndrome.  Most of Guy's students are in wheel chairs, most need to be fed, and several have extreme health issues including seizure disorders and feeding tubes.  Many have profound behavior challenges as well.  They need help with EVERYTHING.  And Guy does.  He cares for them with immense respect for their privacy and their spirits, and makes sure everyone of the staff in his room does as well.

This alone would be a full time job, as each must be changed and fed twice while at school, requiring the use of a complicated lifting device for some of his adult sized students, but this is only the beginning of what Guy does for them.  Guy's greatest desire for his students is that they fulfill their full potential.  If they have a skill within their grasp, no mater how simple or how challenging, Guy will develop a program for each individual student to master that skill.  Those skills include washing dishes, doing laundry and dressing themselves, but may be as simple as holding up their head or as unexpected as mastering locating and playing their favorite music on the computer.

But again, these are of the more basic skills Guy teaches.  To me, the most significant things that Guy does for these young people are the intellectual ones.  Guy tries to mirror the academics that their typically developing peers are experiencing.  While some may not understand what is being said, I imagine that some may have great and powerful minds locked inside of bodies that refuse to cooperate with them.  I have read about people who were locked in their bodies due to Cerebral Palsey, or trapped in their own minds due to Autism, until a thoughtful and intuitive person in their lives found the key to that child's communication.  Were it not for computer advancement, the genius Steven Hawking may have been parked in his wheelchair in front of a TV spewing Barney or some other rubbish.  We live in an age where technology makes amazing things possible, and Guy uses them to his advantage.

Guy does unit studies on science, health, art and geography.  He spends a week at a time focusing on different states, teaching the state flag, capital, flower, export and other points of interest.  He does units on other countries, always featuring a feast of delicious foods he makes with his students at the end of each unit.  He takes the kids out on community based instruction outings and gives them the experience of ordering their own food, and paying for their own purchases.  But my favorite thing he does is read.  He reads the classics to his students.  If their typically developing peers are reading Of Mice and Men, so is Guy, out loud, to them.  

To add to all this, Guy also has to arrange and hold progress meetings for each student, coordinating the efforts of nurses, speech and vision therapists, OTs, PTs, and other support services.  He has to deal with parents (sometimes, no, usually not the easiest part of the job), transportation and administration in a far more hands-on way than a regular education teacher would.  He is even responsible to do home visits to check on the welfare of his students.  He must know the law and rights of his students, and to defend them.  He has, on more than one occasion, even had to attend the funeral of one of his students whose fragile health would no longer hold out.

If I were a young student confined to a wheelchair, unable to care for myself; to speak, to make choices on my own - if I were locked in my body and could only choose when to breathe and blink, I would want to be in Guy's class.  I think that in a would where people tend to talk baby talk to students like his, or to ignore them entirely, speaking about them as if they weren't sitting right there, being if Guy's class would be a salvation.  

More than once Guy has been accused of being a glorified babysitter.

That could not be further from the truth.

He is more amazing than the Teacher of the Year committee will ever know, because even if Guy does complete the process, he will never toot his own horn to say how great he really is.

And he really, really is.

*****

I don't know when you will read this, Guy Alan.  Probably weeks or months from now.  But I want you to know that I love you, I believe in you, and I am so, so proud of you.

Congratulations!

The Littles

Jonah was "the caboose".  That's what we called him.  We knew he was supposed to be in our family, and though it would have been nice to have a sibling nearer his age than is Tessa, we accepted the fact that it had taken 4 years and 3 miscarriages to get him.  We were blessed and content.

Then came, as you all know, the "bonus baby".  It has been one of the many unexpected blessings that she is here to grow up with her brother.  Jonah is often left out because his age precludes him from playing car-crashing video games with The Bigs, and his DNA (predisposed as it is for smashing things), is a hindrance in him playing sweet little pink-lego games with The Middles.

Nanobot can talk a bit now.  It sounds like drunk-monkey-chatter, but somehow Jonah knows what she is saying.  She is able to play puzzles and look at books with J-boy, and they play in the sand pit in the corner of the yard together for hours on end.  Yesterday they squealed and giggled in the bath and soaked the floor.

I'm so glad she has him.

They feed each other from one another's plates.  They sit in the hammock together, and tumble on the trampoline.  They find mischief and enjoy it together.

I'm so glad he has her.

Together they destroy my house, 

crowd my lap,

 and steal all my yummy bites of food. 

I'm so glad they have each other, and so glad that I have them.

Grandpa's 80th! ~A Photo Album

My sweet father turned 80 last month.

Now, I know a lot of folks reach 80, but he has had two heart attacks, the last being almost 20 years ago, on Guy's and my 1st anniversary.  With a history of heart trouble in the family and his own father passing away in his 40's, mom had always predicted dad would die young.  But it ended up being her that left us far too early.

For Dad's birthday my awesome sister-in-law, Tracey, suggested that we gather to celebrate.  My amazing sister Korinne who cares for my dad planned a big project for us to do as a gift for my dad.  We would build an aviary for him to raise quail and turtle doves (because apparently the hundred or so hummingbirds he feeds everyday don't quite keep him busy enough!). 

Almost every member of the family was able to come, which made it extra special.  The menfolk dug and chopped and did very manly things that required much sweating and grunty-sound-making.

"Num", as Natalie calls him (Adam).

While the dudes worked and got stinky, Julean and I pretended to work (but mostly talked and laughed) while we assembled the bench that was our group gift to Dad.  I mean, there were only so many shovels, and the guys had it all under control.  We lady-folk did assemble a meal worthy of a barn-raising, though.

(Testing out the bench.  The "sitting" pictured here is for purely scientific purposes.  Nothing lazy about it)

Auntie Julean and Nanobot.  A regular redhead convention.

Cousins Jason, Natalie, Emma, Sam, and sundry animals.

  Jason always finds a baby to look after.

There is a predominance of Y chromosomes in our families  (If you look at the young man standing by Guy you will see John, Adam's twin from another mother).

Pete, Caleb, and Isaiah.  And cake.  Lot's of cake.

Ellie, Jonah and Elijah.  They worked for an hour filling in State nicknames.  Homeschool kids are known to suddenly do schoolish things without provocation whilst right in the middle of an otherwise utterly non-schooly event.  It's awesome.  Also awesome; a picture of Jonah smiling.  A rare sighting from our little camera-phobe.

Happy Birthday, Dad!  

I hope the next time I see you, there are a dozen baby quail following you all over and calling you "mama" in Quailese.

Something Ventured

Adam had another meet.

Of course he did.

But this one was just minutes from home, and there was only one other school competing, a considerable improvement over the 19-school, hour-away meet-a-thon-o-rama-saurus.

He took second in both his races.

Small pond, you know.  But mama was still proud.

(Jonah is that little kid you see out in public and have to stare at.  This is his "Sup-heeyo" (Superhero) suit, and a lovely sword he found on the ground.  Yes, he makes sound effects and battles invisible foes)

When Adam went over to the long jump pit to jump, he realized he had gone over too late to get a practice run in so he could pace out his "steps" to determine where he should begin his run.

"I'm not going to jump today," he said.

"Aw!" I whined.  "But I loooove to see you jump!"

(also, between you and me, I love the fact that he falls into a big soft pit of fluffy sand, rather than getting all twisted up on giant, deadly, solid iron, spike-encrusted hurdles).

"I don't know..." he said, now feeling conflicted.

"Do what you feel is right son.  I don't want you to have a bad experience.  I just love to watch you."

"But I haven't paced my steps and so I'll probably scratch on every jump."

"Well, that's true.  But what if you don't scratch?  What if you have a really good jump?  Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"Okay," he smiled after a moment, "I'll go for it."

He jumped twice, scratching on the second jump.  They closed the pit, so he ran out of time for his last two jumps.  Jumping is funny that way.  You snooze, you lose.

Also, jumping is not like racing, where you see the winner cross the finish line and you know the outcome of the event right away.  It was two days before Adam saw the results posted on the school's website.

"Hey, Mom, they posted the long jump results..."

Adam smiled at me as he walked through the room, stalling for suspense.

"I got first place."

First place by 2 inches.

  It was a foot and 8 inches short of his best jump last year, so he knows he can do even better.  

***

It's true that we might fail at things we try, but if we don't try at all, we will fail, guaranteed.

Yes, we might fail at things we try,

but what if we don't?

What if this time is the time we will succeed?

Makes me wanna go jump into something.

A Thousand Words

Enough said.

Somebody's Watching

Somebody's watching,

In big ways 

and small.

Somebody's watching.

Watching it all.

Somebody's listening

somebody hears.

All that is spoken

fills little ears.

Somebody's waiting

to know what to do

Waiting and watching

and following...

you.

Dem' bones, dem' bones

One day recently I walked into the living room to this:

Adam and Jonah sitting almost motionless.  I thought they were snuggling, but then I noticed the pen in Adam's hand.  He was drawing on Jonah.

Oh, awesome, I thought.  

But not all snarky and sarcastic-like.  I was truly glad.  I get a crazy high when I get to see my kids in the act of making art.

Adam is very artistic. And frequently bored at school when he is done with work early.  This combination has led to a new pass time: Body art.  Okay, left-arm-art, really.  He regularly embellishes his left arm with interesting designs; zombie flesh, gears and pulleys, and of course, skeleton bones.

Jonah found his old PJs/Halloween costume of skeleton bones and wanted Adam to complete the look for him.

Big brothers are so cool.

Can you believe Adam is getting a meh sort of grade in art class?

I guess I can. They say an artist is never truly appreciated in his own time.  Apparently, Adam doesn't like some of the parameters of his teacher's assignments, and sometimes refuses to change his work when his teacher tells him to.   Also, it is very hard to turn your project in when it's on your little brother.

I was once told by my art teacher I should switch to home economics.  "You wouldn't be a good artist.  You don't know how to follow directions."

Because, as you well know, all of the greats obeyed tradition, fell in line and above all, followed directions.  

Pickle Girl

I am so far behind.  

I missed three birthdays in our family, and several other important events, like ground hog day (hey, it's an important day.  The whole meteorology world holds it's breath till they know what a large rodent thinks).

Guy's birthday was at the end of March, but he just went from old to older, according to him, so there is mot much new to report there.

But Ellie, on the other hand, hit a big milestone like a Mack truck.  She turned twelve.  I remember twelve.  I think that was the unfortunate year I began wearing a ribbon headband and knickers.  I had a super cool big sister and I wanted to be just like her.  The headband looked way cooler on her.

Ellie loves certain things... and when she loves something she really loves it.  She adores the color green.  She has monkeys everywhere.  She loves pickles.  Her favorite present was the giant jar of pickles we gave her.  When she's older I plan to tell her it was her only gift.

She had a fun birthday party with a monkey theme which she meticulously planned out, including a banana eating contest, swinging from vines, and "grooming", where party goers had to search through the grass, the "big hairy back", for candies (lice, apparently) and eat them.  Don't worry, they had wrappers.  I wouldn't let them eat little chocolate balls right off the grass.  Too risky; dogs, you know.

Coconut Alley... look for the prize!

Some of these girls have been friends since they were babies or toddlers.

Ellie also had her first real-life, paid-in-cash babysitting job.  I am told she did an amazing job and even did the dishes.  My favorite part of her retelling of her adventure was when she wasn't sure if she could leave the 3 year old alone so she could go pee.  She waited till she was dying to go, and in that 30 seconds when she stepped out of the room, the little girl she was watching peed her pants.  I think Ellie will never use the bathroom while on the job again!

We have been learning a lot about Ellie lately.  She's rather a late bloomer academically, and I have been requesting testing through the charter school for a year, but they only have very basic assessments.  I started to pay attention to the nature of the reading mistakes she makes and realized there are a lot of letter and sound reversals (like seeing the word "item" and saying "time"), and I began to suspect dyslexia.  Our Educational Supervisor got us some assessment materials (a program called Brain Integration Therapy by Dianne Craft) and I was able to run and interpret a few tests, learning that Ellie has what is called a blocked Auditory Processing Gate.  Now all those millions of times I have had to give her instructions over and over are beginning to make sense.  Interestingly, this dysfunction occurs often in children who didn't crawl long or at all.  Ellie crawled for two weeks at 8 months old, and then stood up off the middle of the floor and started walking.  The lack of practice her brain experienced working both sides in tandem left her with an underdeveloped ability to use both sides of her brain for the same activity, something very necessary in reading.  

We are beginning the retraining program now, and it will be at least a year of daily exercises.  She may begin to show improvement in about 8 weeks, but it will be a challenge to remember to do it everyday.  We are going to make it be one of her daily tasks, like brushing her teeth.  We'll let you know how it goes.

  

An Invitation

Hey!  I finally did something I've been talking about for ages!  (no, not clean my closet, sadly.  Looks like that old prom dress will be staying for another couple years)

I started my ART BLOG!  

and, not to be out-done by myself,

I opened my ETSY SHOP as well!!!

(it's like twins!  Born the same day!)

I am excited to begin posting items that I make often, as well as show projects and other artsy endeavors I am embarking upon.

(FYI: it is politically correct to call an artist "artsy" if you are a friend.  It is also acceptable if that person refers to themselves as "artsy"  It is, however, total TABOO to pair the word "artsy" with any reference to flatulence.  We hate that.)

It has taken me a long time to take this jump.  

I am great at making cute babies, but to be honest, they sort of make themselves once the DNA gets mixed.  But there is a certain fear in making art and then putting it out there for the world to scrutinize and judge.  It is why I particularly dislike commissions.  I have had the regretful experience of making a commissioned piece that was not well received.  Maybe it was a breakdown in communication, or a lack of vision on my part, I'm not sure.  

I hate that feeling.

But nothing ventured nothing gained!  

So here we go!

Please stop by often to read up on the latest art HERE.

Then pop over HERE to see what's looking for a new home.

Thanks for your support!!!