Mother's Day

Sometimes I wish this wasn't a public blog, so I could vent more than I do. We'll see how nicely I can put this....Mother's Day this year will not go down as one of my favorites. Even Scott will admit, he wasn't exactly on his "A game" this year. I didn't get any presents. Scott asked me what I wanted, and I gave him the usual, "Oh I don't need anything" response. That has never stopped him before. He takes the kids to the dollar store and they pick out an assortment of cheap lotions and candles. This year he actually took me up on the "I don't need anything", and really didn't get me anything. And, church doesn't get out till 4:00, so dinner was not exactly "planned out" and was just kind of thrown together (and not at all one of my favorite meals). And he didn't make me dessert because he knows I'm trying to lose weight. So it was all just kind of like any other normal day. He did (at my insisting), make the kids assemble for a "Mother's Day moment" so I could get a picture with my kids.

The kids showing off their true sides.

And then, because the kids could sense that the day had been pretty lame, they decided to do a "spa" for me. They had me lay down on the floor, and for the next half hour I got covered with lotion and climbed all over. It made me feel very loved.

But, my favorite thing of the day was getting this picture e-mailed to me. Saturday evening I met up with a friend for her to take Owen's 18 months pictures. She followed him around the park taking pictures of him. Then at the end, she assembled us all together for an impromptu family picture. No one was dressed fancy, and we didn't worry too much about posing everyone perfectly. We just all climbed up on the tree and she took our picture. And it turned out perfect. Sunday morning I got on the computer, and found half a dozen images she had e-mailed to me as a "sneak preview". Owen's pictures are adorable, and I'll post them when I get the cd with all the images on it (there are 51 total). But, getting this picture made my day. To see my beautiful family, and know that I created them, it was a great Mother's Day present.

New Furniture

A couple of Saturdays ago, RC Willey had their big parking lot sale. I'd never been to one before, but had heard you could get some pretty good deals. So, I made Scott go to the Friday night preview, to scope out any "must have deals". I've been wanting a chair for my piano room ever since it became a piano room last summer, but haven't felt like I could splurge on a frivolous piece of furniture. But, I found a chair I wanted that was half price (because it was the last of it's kind and didn't have the matching ottoman). So I made Scott get up early Saturday morning to go with me to buy a chair.

And I kind of found a dresser to buy, also.

The dresser sat in the kitchen for a day until we found a place in Owen's room to store it till we need it. As the kids get older, their clothes get bigger, and they are going to outgrow our current amount of dressers, and this was just too good of a deal to pass up. Savannah thinks the flip top will be perfect for her to put jewelry and make-up in. She also thinks that since it has found a temporary home in Owen's room, that Owen should move into the boys room (totaling 4 boys in one room), so she can have her own room and use the dresser. I told her to keep dreaming.

I Looked Out the Window, and What Did I See?

...Five cute boys on my trampoline!

Projects

This summer will go down as the summer of "the backyard makeover". We have big plans this summer. Santa brought us a trampoline for Christmas. I'm tired of moving it every time I mow the lawn. So, one project is doing an in-ground trampoline. We've decided not to try and dig the hole ourselves, so we are going to hire that job out. It will be really nice when it's done. Another project we have planned, is adding more big trees along our hill to block out the roads that border our house. We are going to try and plant most of them ourselves (which saves us $70 a tree, and with 20+ trees coming, that adds up to a lot of money). Scott tells me I have no idea how much work it's going to be to plant them ourselves, so he has our landscaper scheduled to come in a week after the trees are delivered, to finish planting what we don't get done. The next project is the fire pit. When we had it built 6 years ago, it was perfect for our little family. But, three more kids later, our family has outgrown it. When we have a fire pit, all the little neighbor kids see the smoke and come running to join in the fun. Our first fire pit of the year, we had 15 people crammed around the fire pit. I was terrified that someone was going to trip over someone else and fall into the fire. I decided it was time for an expansion. So, I started digging.

Along with digging, we had to move a few rocks--big rocks. We tried to lift one, but decided it was too heavy, so we put it back down--right on my big toe! It hurt more than I can even begin to describe. And I couldn't bend my toe for three weeks, but it's all better now. I told Scott we needed a better plan. (Savannah was kind enough to pose with the evil rock so you could see just how big it was.)

I sent him to Tate's Rents to see what he could find. He came back with this dolly that was only $10 to rent for the afternoon. It was the best $10 we'd spent in a long time. (He'll kill me for posting this picture of him making a face, but I just had to include it for posterity's sake.)

Owen was a lot of help.

Of course, we had to put all these rocks somewhere, so we used them to make retaining walls at the base of our big trees.

And we had to put the dirt somewhere, so we added another layer of landscape brick behind the swing set and then back-filled with the dirt.

Now all the digging is done, and we are waiting for the concrete guys to come in and finish the job. They will expand the patio, and then build a retaining wall with a bench built in all around. It's going to be so nice when it's finally completed.

It's going to be a very expensive summer, but in the end I'm hoping we will have the yard of our dreams (and a few broken toes and callouses to show for it).

Zoo Field Trip

Last week was Aaron's Kindergarten field trip to the zoo. It's a family tradition of ours to go along as a family (minus the older kids that are in school), but Scott had already committed to play in a golf tournament, so it was just me and the little boys this time. We had a great time. On the way home we got Happy Meals from the drive-through at McDonald's to "celebrate Aaron getting to go on a field trip" (Aaron's words). I love making memories like this with my kids.

Pine Wood Derby

We had a major milestone in our family this past week. Our first pine wood derby! Scott figures he's going to be doing a lot of these over the next 10 years, so he invested in all the right tools to help Josh build his car. We were into Josh's car over a hundred dollars, but Scott tells me it's an investment in the boys' future, so it's worth it. Plus, when we divide it out over all the cars we'll end up making, it really only comes out to about $5 a car, so I guess it's ok. Josh came up with the design and helped cut it out. He wanted to paint it navy blue, but I only had black paint, so he settled for black--with orange flames on the sides. Josh was so proud of his car, and couldn't wait to race it.

We all went to cheer Josh on. The little boys were especially excited to watch the races.

(Sara and her best friend Ady. I love these two girls. They are only one month apart in age, but are both on the either extreme of the growth chart. They don't care, they love each other.)

Josh was so excited for his first race.

But, the first race didn't end so well. In fact, it didn't end at all. The weights that were glued to the bottom of the car, were dragging on the track, and the car stopped mid track and didn't even cross the finish line. Josh was devastated and so embarrassed. He started to cry and thought he was just done. But we explained to him that it was triple elimination, and that we would fix his car and everything would be fine. We pried the weights off the bottom and glued them to the top. Josh wasn't sure he wanted to try racing again, but we convinced him to give it another try. And the next race he won! That put a smile on his face and he enjoyed the rest of the derby.

Josh ended up placing third overall and got a trophy for "Best Racer".