My summer so far

We are two weeks into summer vacation and this is how it is going.

Week 1

The first week we had no schedule and just enjoyed not having a routine.  Let me re-phrase that.  The kids enjoyed it immensely.  I did not.  I ended up with a very messy, chaotic house and irritable kids who were not getting enough sleep.

To top it off, Chasey took a dive off his scooter and ended up with eight stitches on his chin.  Ouch!  The nurse at the InstaCare asked him if he had had stitches before.  Chase proudly flashed his "skorpy" wound on his arm.  He knows about stitches.

Here's the funny/not-so funny part of the stitches.  I had come home from a swim team meeting and asked Taylor where his dad was.  Taylor, without even taking his eyes off the TV screen told me he had taken Chase to the InstaCare.  "What for?"  I asked, starting to panic.   "I don't know, but Owen came in laughing" says Taylor.    That's all I got.  He had no idea.  Really?  Is that how observant you are?  I won't even start on the laughing bit.

Week 2

Week two started out a bit rough as well.  I announced that there was now a routine and it included a little bit of school work and a few jobs in the morning before the playing begins.  This was met with a lot of whining and complaining.  I am happy.  They are not.  They'll get used to it. 

I have also decided that I am in need of a butler.  Seriously, someone to just open the door every time it rings.  Non-stop I tell ya.  I'm not complaining.  Just stating a fact.  It is so nice to have a neighborhood full of kids.

I have tried to keep my schedule pretty low-key.  An art class once a week for Bennett and Owen and swim team for Owen.  That is about it.

However, the swim team will keep me busy enough.  Last winter I had the great idea of having Owen try out for the summer swim team this spring.   I thought it would be a good fit for him for several reasons.  That child has huge amounts of energy,  loves swimming,  is quite competitive when it comes to sports and surprisingly enough, the pool water does wonders for his eczema. Crazy right?  There is a legitimate theory about that, but I won't go into that here.

I had him in lessons all winter just to make sure he got on the team.   He got on and then I realized after the fact that the swim team meets to practice Monday through Friday.  MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY!  I hesitated signing him up, because I couldn't find anyone to carpool with and his practice time was at noon.  NOON!  But I talked to a few people who have had kids on the team and they encouraged me to give it a try and see if he likes it.  Plus, Scott told me he could help out with the driving.

We are two weeks into it and he loves it.  He told me he doesn't even mind leaving his friends for an hour to go practice.  And you know what he really likes about it?  Wearing the tight shorts. :)



 

The Great Room Swap

Long, long ago when we were designing the house we are now living in, I planned on having 3 bedrooms in the basement.  2 bedrooms would be for the boys to share and 1 big bedroom would be for Scott's office. 

I have always been fine with the boys sharing a room and have never felt like they needed their own.  At the last minute though, we decided that putting Scott's office downstairs near the chaos and noise was not a good idea.  He works at home full time so this wasn't an occasional office.  We opted to add a bonus room over the garage for him.  That was such a good idea!!

The third bedroom in the basement we have left empty these past 5 years with only the occasional guest staying in there.  Oddly enough, my boys have rarely asked to use that room.  The room assignments (Taylor & Bennett - Owen & Chase) have worked out remarkably well.

It has only been the past year, that I have realized my well-thought out plan was maybe not so well thought out.  The problem is, that the younger roommate doesn't go to sleep until the older roommate does.  In the case of Taylor and Bennett,  Bennett cannot go to sleep until Taylor does.  That makes absolute sense.  I wouldn't be able to go to sleep if the light was on and someone was moving around.  And if I was a kid fighting against going to sleep, this would be a great excuse. 

Here's the real problem.  Bennett is three years younger than Taylor and he needs more sleep than him.  He struggles going to sleep anyways and if he doesn't get his allotted 11 hours, watch out!  He is grumpy!  The only reason we have made it work is because Bennett is on the later school schedule.  He goes to bed later, but he can also sleep in later.

That may change this coming school year.  I have signed up the boys for the earlier schedule next Fall.  If they get it, the three younger boys will be going to school an hour earlier.

I thought about it for a month and came to the conclusion that we needed to use that third bedroom.  Taylor and Bennett would get their own rooms (2 different bed times) and Owen and Chase would move to the 3rd bedroom (They both go to bed at the same time.)

The boys had mixed reactions when I told them the "surprise."  Taylor and Bennett were thrilled to get their own room.  Owen was not happy about it and Chase was neutral.  Owen has since warmed up to it and now likes his new room.

The good news is that I can enforce the bed times.  No one has an excuse for not being able to go to sleep at their appointed time.

They are off!

After 3 years they finally came off.

Some selfies he took in the car.

The great carrot slaughter

I asked Owen to peel and chop some carrots for dinner last night.
I snapped this as quick as I could before he dashed out of the picture.

And my baby graduates from Kindergarten

It's hard to believe.    Can Chase really be this old?  Can I really be this old? 

Yes and yes. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I have had with Chase while the older boys have been at school. 

But he is so ready to be a big boy. 

 Am I ready for him to be a big boy?  That's a tough question.  There's a little bit of yes and no in the answer.  Time marches on though.  The key is to enjoy and be grateful for every stage of life. 

Busted!

I don't say much about our dog Andi on my blog.  Probably because there isn't much to say.  She's a dog...with issues.   Despite her issues, she's not a bad dog though.  She is well-behaved in the house and for the most part doesn't give us much grief.  

But, she is a dog and dogs can be naughty.  In fact, as a matter of habit we tend to lock her in her crate when we are gone, just to make sure that we don't find any surprises when we get home.   Part of the well-behaved part is that we have trained her not to jump on any furniture or beds and we rarely ever see her do this.

Andi tends to like to hang out in our bedroom a lot.  It is her little safe place when all the scary people come into our house (I mentioned she has issues right?)  Every once in awhile when I leave the house, instead of crating her, I will leave her in there.

For the past six months or so, I have noticed on occasion that the pillows on my bed have been messed up after I had made the bed for the day.  At first I thought it was just the boys caving around.  They will often do that.  But then I realized that the pillows were messed up when the boys were not at home.  Hmmmm  That got me to thinking that it was our dog jumping up there and doing whatever she wants to do when we are gone.

But, we have never been able to catch her!  She is smart.  She only does it when we are not at home.  Yesterday, though she made a mistake.   Scott was working in the kitchen and he heard some rustling in our bedroom.  He immediately thought it could be Andi.  So he opened the door with his phone in hand and guess what he saw?

Andi on our bed.  Not only was she on our bed, she was obviously luxuriating up there.  On her back, feet in the air.   Scott expected her to jump right off, but she just gave him a look like "What? Am I doing something wrong?"

 Dogs.....

Lego Guys

Several months ago, my brother Dalin challenged my boys to sort through all of our Legos and put together all of the guys.

We have a ton of Legos, so my boys looked at the huge box and decided no way.  Yesterday,  after church Scott went down in the basement and with the help of all the boys started sorting and building.  The rule was that each guy had to have a body, legs and a head.  It took them a good part of the afternoon to finish. 

The counting proved problematic.  I'm not sure why, but each of us counted them multiple times and we each kept getting different numbers.  Finally we settled.

341.  That's a lot of Lego guys