Lagoon, Father's Day, Surgery: normal weekend

Saturday we went to Lagoon. With Gary's work. The kids had a blast, obvious right? Well, on the skyride, (which I do not like) Olea kept saying "This is the best day ever!"
(so why do I have to throw this kid a birthday party? ;)

Zurich knows how it's done. Zurich and Mommy on "Dragon"

That's Gary with the Nev. Babies wait in line.

Olea and Zurich on the planes
riding the train (Zurich does his train whistle)

Suiting up for our old west picture

Nev waits for the Old west pic to be printed. She wears a snail Tattie. She was a total sweetheart all day long. She's such a good kid!


The Dragon Fly. YUP, Nev rode it. She takes everything in stride. We were all buckling up in a row when some kid hops up in Gary's seat (while he was getting Zurich in) and the one Gary is left with has the SHORTEST belt. Solution, unbuckle Zurich and switch him. Solved.

Olea and Zurich. Bumper cars.

Zurich was hilarious, he totally got this and went after people with purpose and had this maniacal laugh when he connected.

Last ride of the evening, we were there till closing. This picture says it doesn't it?
The kids were out 30 seconds after buckling into their car seats.

Father's Day we all went in our matching outfits to church. After we gave Gary his other Father's Day gifties: a new lunch box-for to make him not be teased anymore, and a new rifle case and pictures from the kids. The Dad frame from last post I gave him on Friday. Couldn't wait.


Then bless it. We took a nap, except mine was interrupted by stomach pains around 2pm. By 4 everyone was up with me. At six I told Gary that, as much as I hate to say it, I was pretty sure I had appendicitis. By 8:30 or so kids were in bed and I was useless, writhing in pain and vomiting. Gary called my sis and her husband and they came to stay the night with the kids. Toward the end of waiting for them to get there I was laying in bed talking to myself saying: lets just go, the kids will be fine. We were just about to head out the back door when Ken and Eric showed up at the front door. Good timing. Of course I was eventually diagnosed with what I had already diagnosed myself with: appendicitis. They decided to postpone the surgery till 6am so the surgeon could get a good night's rest. (it was 1am or so when I got that news). Fine. Load me up with morphine and if it ruptures.... but thankfully it didn't.

On the way through surgery doors, oh yes, I can smile, I'm getting the sucker out!

I remember waking up at 7:30. Back in my room around 8:15 and Gary tucks Surgery Monkey in the crook of my arm. He loves me.

It's Thursday. I'm only just feeling like sitting for longer than a little while. (been working on this post in sessions) Still feeling exhausted and achy, and my shoulders still ache! I thought that was supposed to go away within the first 12 hours. Not my luck. But I've been very blessed, we caught it in time, are home, and have been very blessed with friends bringing meals, helping out, making Olea a cake (her bday was this week) and my dad coming down to help with the kids.

Cake my friend Jen made for Olea, talk about going above and beyond! Olea was SO thrilled and told everyone she could about it.

I just need to be smart and take it easy. I have such a hard time with this. I always think I can do more than I can/should.

Father's Day

Today, after completing some sewing projects I took pics of the kids (who were not very cooperative today) to update Gary's Father's Day frame. It worked out all considered.
I sewed:
Nev's Dress
Nev's Shoes
Ojo's shirt applique (actually, currently no sewing, just ironing and cutting but a totally awesome result with my cricut and some heat and bond)
Ojo's skirt
I also added sleeves to a black shirt I had using leftover material from the girl's items.
I purchased Z's tie and one for Gary that matches. So we'll all be matchy on Sunday. I bought Z's tie a little big thinking of the future.
More self indulgent than Father's Day... but don'w worry DaddyMan is getting some of what he actually wants too. :)

Articles of Faith

I belong to the LDS church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Yup, I'm a mormon.
There is a document that was created early in the church's days of restoration that is a set of 13 articles of our basic beliefs. In our church we encourage the young children and new members to learn, and memorize these. I currently work with the 8-10 year old girls by doing an activity with them twice a month. For one of our activities we focused on the Articles of Faith.

We used the document I created below to make magnets. Each girl gets to take the appropriate magnet home when she passes off the corresponding Article of Faith.

This document is a set of icons for the Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 4 sets on the page (legal size paper 8.5x14). To be printed and modge-podged to a clear stone with a strong magnet hot glued to the back. To be used as an aid or incentive for memorizing the Articles of Faith.

I am happy to share.

A Off 4

Naughty Nema

Nev plays the piano

She's a little climber, I find her all sorts of naughty places:
My keyboard

The kitchen table

the speaker

(touching the TV)


And getting into all sorts of fun stuff
my cell phone

the Tupperware

In the cupboard

my tatting though this picture is mild, I typically pull her away quickly and not take a picture due to all the little needles, scissors and etc.

Celebrating Mediocrity

I can't help but think of the line from Incredibles where the Dad is talking about his son's Graduation.

Helen: I can't believe you don't want to go to your own son's graduation.
Bob: It's not a graduation. He is moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen: It's a ceremony!
Bob: It's psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity, but if someone is genuinely exceptional...

Still though, it was super cute, and Olea was THRILLED with it and that's what matters. They did a great job.

And for the record, My Olea is Genuinely Exceptional!

Family Walk

It's just so pretty here.

and he's pretty cute. Look at that cranium amplified by the helmet.

Garbage can

oh dear!
Nev has thrown herself away!

I was walking past the loft in a hurry trying to help Zurich use the potty and noticed a little head peaking out where it shouldn't be. Forget the potty, I had to run for the camera. How did she manage? At least she took out the old garbage first.

Japanese Beetle

oh blast it all. Olea and I found this today on the property. Now, that's just not cool, there is a lot of grass here and these little devils are not good for it.

FHE fun

So for Family Home Evening we try to have a lesson. It is usually pretty short and sweet with ages 1, 2 and 5. Last night Gary used the Friend magazine to give a lesson around this article. The kids were sitting on stools on the living room floor. Gary was actually in the middle of singing a song related to it to the kids when Nev and Zurich started standing up and sitting back down on their stools and laughing their heads off. Of course Olea joined in and laughter continued. Here's a lil video of the giggling fun.

So I guess you could call that our activity for the night. It proved to be a useful activity since Nev then tried standing on her own for the first time. See how she squeals to let us know how much coolness she is exhibiting? We skipped treats since the kids were already on one and didn't need any more sugar. Hope you had a fabulous Monday.

Iris

This morning I sent Olea off to school with an Iris. While this may seem insignificant to most this was reminiscent for me. Last Friday Olea came home from school saying something about it being her teacher's last day of school and that she graduated that day. Olea was very excited about it and wanted to bring something for her teacher when we got to our house she saw that the white iris's were blooming and asked if she could take one to her teacher. I told her that if she remembered and was early enough (this is a problem) she could give one to her teacher on Monday.

This morning Olea was wasting time shutting her brother in the coat closet instead of getting her coat and shoes on. So again she was pushing it to the late end.

When she finally sat down to put her shoes on she started freaking out, "My flower! You know those white flowers that grow in our garden, you know the little garden out front, not the really little one but the bigger little one? Well the white flowers that are alive, I like those ones, the white ones with the lelow inside and you said I could give one to my teacher for her last day of school this day. So can I pick one?"

I lie not. This is how she talks. It takes FOREVER to get to the point and with other little ones and a husband that needs attention too, it gets quite exhausting and quite frankly I often tune her out. If that little quote is in anyway misrepresented, it is that I left something out.

I was irritated by this point because she was going to be late and if I took the time to cut off a flower and package it like I know.... she would certainly be late.

However, as annoyed as I was, I couldn't deny her this.
Why?
Because I remember in elementary school, when the end of the school year came around and the iris's started to bloom I remember my mother cutting off an iris or two, wrapping the stems in a wet paper towel and putting it in a plastic bag tied off with a rubber band. I remember walking to school in jacket weather with the sun just peeking over Flat Top carrying my precious irises to my teacher.

So this morning I took the time to cut off an iris, package it and send it off to school with Olea.

The bird's nest

So that wasn't working... on a seventeen foot ladder....

Ya, that's high, very high. Can I just take a moment and say I am glad I have a husband. I am afraid of heights. Gary just earned his MAN OF HEIGHTS merit badge today.

Removing the nest

Tightening the cornice we'll paint the screws later.

Ya, it was high.
Thanks Gary.

Green Grass and bumble bees

Monday evening was beautiful and the kids were still itching to play outside. Nev is braver now and crawls out into the large grassy area, instead of just crawling up and down the concrete stairs.... ( I like her in the grass much better). Zub played some mini football with Olea. I love this shot of him. Olea often is too excited about life to get a good picture of her. After time outside we had a lesson on Reverence for FHE (since Olea is having trouble with this again) and then made these sweet treats. Simple, DELICIOUS and cute. I got them via Morgan. We used large marshmallows sliced up for the wings.