Planning Ahead

I really like to plan ahead but sometimes no matter how organized I think things are things don't work out quite right. 

I had a fairly busy week last week and I was looking forward to having a calm week this week - there wasn't even anything written in on the calendar until Saturday when we were supposed to head to Arkansas.

Then last Thursday, Tom and Sandy invited Nathan to join them for their Youth Conference pioneer trek and that Tom would be in Memphis on Monday night and we could meet up there.   I let Nathan know fully expecting him to realize it would never be able to happen because he still needed 40 hrs of work for Gems camp, and he had a painting project to do.  He weaseled out of the project and worked 4 10 hr days and set it up to show up in Memphis on Tues. morning by 8:30 am. 

I realized that I could drive 4 hours there and then 4 hrs back at 4 in the morning or just the 7ish hours to Mountain Home - just show up early instead of Saturday and hang out while Tom, Sandy, and Nathan were on the trek.  Originally we planned on buying Dan and Miranda's car but since we had decided not to I could easily head up early and Andy could join us later. 

In the mean time my friend mentioned the Megabus and I looked it up and it had a bus that would end up in Memphis at just the right time for a mere $2.75 for a ticket.  Getting Nathan to Jackson by 2:30 am sounded easier than driving to Memphis or hanging out by myself with my kids for 3 days at Tom and Sandy's house.

I thought that sounded perfect!! We bought a ticket and this morning at 1am Nathan and I got up and drove to Jackson to meet the bus.  Turns out that you have to be 17 to ride alone.  Nathan is 27 days shy of 17.  No bus.  Ahhh.  We had to drive the hour back home (both ways we hit some pretty impressive storms).  Driving up Wednesday was not really an option anymore because we are indeed buying a car and picking it up in Arkansas so taking two cars at different times was not really an option. 

I quickly grabbed the kids, got them shoes, had them go potty and grabbed some cereal, and my tablet and off we went, for an 8 hour drive (back in the same direction I had just gone and returned from.)  I was totally unprepared, having only had 3 hours of tossing and turning sleep, also without sufficient snacks for kids who were up 3-4 hours early and didn't have breakfast, and I had put Frozen on my tablet but forgot to download it so it would work without internet.  About halfway through the poor kids were wasting away and practically starving, so at about 10 I stopped and bought sticky buns at a gas station. 

Here I thought I had saved myself 6 hours by sending him on the bus, but really made it a 10 hr drive.  I thought losing 2 hours of sleep in the middle of the night was worth not having to get up at 3:00 to drive, but again instead I got up at 1am and just got to stay up. 

Ah the things we'll do for our kids.  On the bright side Nathan is where he needs to be and will hopefully have a great experience, the bus ticket we didn't use only cost $2.75 and we made it home safely.  Hopefully the strawberries I was supposed to turn into freezer jam will survive one more day, and I'll live one more day with no bread to eat.  (those were my two original tasks for today)

A Family is of God

So my kids have been singing this song like crazy.  We were learning it for primary last month and we have been singing it before we read scriptures so it is kind of on their minds.  I was up in my room and I came down to them singing and thought it was cute. 
The funny thing is that they were looking at Friend magazines and Charlotte found the page with the music on it and I imagine that is why they started singing it.  Charlotte can't really read yet, but she knows which magazine has it and that it is the family song and then she looks at it avidly as she sings -- so cute. 
Let's just say we aren't ready for America's Got Talent and until I offered to video them they were walking circles around the room while singing at the top of their lungs; they are off tune and what not, but it is a sound that brings a mother joy!

Reading Fair Projects

I avoided Reading Fair Projects for as long as I possibly could -- Nathan never even did one.  At some point they made it mandatory for grades 3 and up bleh!!! When we were doing them last year Matthew really wanted to do one and I told him he could wait until next year.  Then I think I back pedaled a little bit and said well maybe not even next year.  He talked about it enough that I guess Nathan agreed to help him this year. 

 

I just remembered that I told him he could do it this year so 3 projects it was; then of course Emma wanted to do one too.  I had started working on Aaron's with him and we had such a good time together painting and creating that I thought -- well why not.

 

Here are our final creations:

We started Aaron's last Saturday.  He came up with the idea to paint a scene from his book. We looked online for ideas; it was pretty comical because he had a specific idea of what it should look like but all the pictures are what other people interpreted it to look like -- he kept saying -- "that is wrong."  I had him sketch out what he wanted and then gave him tips on how to paint the different things, and he did 99% of the painting himself. He even did a lot of the spray painting; he would have done it all except one can would only spray if it was being vigorously shaken at the same time.  I loved it when I would give a suggestion and he would think about it for a minute and say "No can't we do this!" and we did because it was his board.

 Emma was sick on Sunday and we were waiting for the 24 hours without a fever to send her back to school, so she was home on Monday but felt fine.  I banked on the extra time to work on her project with her.  We practiced drawing Pinkalicious on a paper and talked about what made her look like Pinkalicious. Then we did the real thing with the same process as Aaron, I would paint a technique on a paper and she would do it on the board. 

  Matthew was a little more enthusiastic about painting and didn't want to wait for instructions but his picture turned out pretty good anyway.  (you should zoom in on his little pictures -- I think they are great!! One is Junie B Jones sneaking at her sleeping baby brother, one is sneaking in the produce section on the store, and one is hiding under her principals desk with her dress over her head.)  I think he had a fun time, and Nathan really did help him with type it all up - Yay!

Katie's turned out really cool - which is good because she spent the whole time complaining that she couldn't do it and it looked awful, I can't paint people - why won't you do it for me etc.  She was pretty much mad about the whole process and if I made a suggestion she told me in no uncertain terms how that didn't work and it would make it look stupid.  Fortunately she is very capable and it turned out great.  I was sad that we missed out on the fun time together that I had with the other kids!

Over all I think my kids are awesome and I am very thankful to my friend Angie who said she normally spraypaints her boards - I never thought of that.  I am also thankful that Aaron wanted to paint a scene - I also never thought of that.  It made a tedious chore turn into a fun one for me because creating is fun and having moments where I could teach my kids a little about something that I enjoy doing was great!

Halloween 2013

On Monday we carved pumpkins for FHE. 

 

Mondays are a little tricky lately; Emma, Charlotte and I don't get home from ballet until 6 pm. The kids watch themselves until Andy gets home.  Nathan and Katie did have a conflict of needing a ride home from swimming while I was at ballet not sure if I could leave the kids because wow they have been difficult for girls who really wanted to do ballet.  Every week at least one of them would cry or throw a fit. One week Emma completely refused to go to class -- AArgh.  Anyway so the older kids were supposed to get a ride, but it didn't always work out. 

 

Aaron and Matthew got home about 20 minutes before everyone else and they were told to help each other with homework and then play video games to keep them occupied and happy. 

 

A couple weeks ago I called home about 4:20 to make sure everyone got home and in the house all right; the first words out of Nathan's mouth were complaints about how the little boys had been playing the computer for too long and it should be his turn.  I fixed that fire and thought all would be well.  Andy stopped to get a haircut that night so he wasn't home quite as early and I got a call from Nathan.  Katie was screaming in the background and he yelled at her to send her to her room.  Then he reported that Matthew got mad when he had to stop playing the computer and he pulled out a knife that Katie tried to get from him and ended up with a cut in her hand.  It wasn't too bad, but it did bleed a lot -- Katie doesn't do blood -- once when Aaron was 2 and she was 3 he split his head open and was bleeding everywhere, but Katie was the one that went into shock. 

I told Nathan to send Matthew to his room until dad or I got home, and go help Katie, because while she was irrationally screeching she really needed some help.  Fortunately Andy got home shortly after. 

 

Needless to say I am not as eager to leave the kids alone on Mondays. To make it more interesting Andy has been working the 4pm to 12pm shift at work so does not come home part way through! 

This week I gave them all assignments. Swimming is over so Nathan and Katie are home early.  Nathan was supposed to work with Matthew, to type up his reading fair stuff, and then help Aaron make dinner - so he could pass off a Faith in God goal.  Katie was supposed to work on her reading fair project and then help Matthew do his regular homework.  Aaron was supposed to do the dishes and then make dinner with Nathan.  And most importantly Nathan was supposed to watch over and diffuse things that might get out of hand. 

 

They did pretty good and the overall goal was achieved -- nobody got hurt.  The boys actually all played together and enjoyed each other's company!! Although I did get home to find Matthew's homework wasn't done, because Nathan told Katie he saw Matthew doing it and Katie assumed that meant she was off the hook.  Also dinner was just being started as I got home so we had another half hour to wait --the ultimate point of this tangent is that things were running a little behind!

 

Now back to FHE: Aaron has been very excited about carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds, so I figured I would have to do it.  We had our lesson and then off to carve.  Aaron had a great idea to have one kid do the eyes, one do the nose, and one do the mouth -- since we had two pumpkins and six kids -- it worked out perfectly!!

 Team one was Nathan, Charlotte and Emma.  I was impressed because Nathan did most of the scraping and seed separating -- he does not do messy hands - so he got major points that night.  He was a very good sport about working with the little girls too. 

 Team two was Katie, Aaron, and Matthew.  They all worked well which was also surprising since Katie can't seem to stand Matthew's existence most of the time.  Over all I think both of their pumpkins were pretty cool and I think people had fun.  I was meanwhile trying to rinse off seeds and roast them and help the little 3 carve their parts.  It was such a great division of labor because nobody bossed anyone else around, everyone got a say, and they even communicated with each other about what they should do. On the down side I haven't slept much in the last week and a half and I was tired and wanted a break, but the carving took a while and since we started late kids were in bed about 45 minutes late. 

Wednesday we had a Harvest Party at the church. 

 Charlotte was a "wedding girl"  she also had a fairy costume but only wanted to be a wedding girl.  She is wearing the dress that Katie wore when I married Andy - even though she is about a year younger than Katie was at the time - she is a tall little girl.  She also refused to wear the poofy skirt under it, but she was awfully cute.

Emma wanted to be a witch, but didn't want to have her picture taken.  She had taken off half of her costume before the activity even started. 

 Nathan was a wizard, but he also took it off in the first 10 minutes of the activity. This was a costume my mom made for my brother and we swiped it the last time we went home.

 Katie is a renaissance lady - not necessarily a princess because I think that is too girly.  She is the only one I made a costume for this year.  We had a lovely time making it together. It was fun because she had some great ideas that I never would have done and they turned out great.  She was very particular about what she wanted though, so I actually even bought a pattern to start with and modified things like the sleeves, belt, gold stripe at the bottom, and the cinching  rope on the front.  She made quite the impression at the YM/YW activity the week before, in part because she was really pretty and in part because it was so out of character for her to be girly!!

 Matthew has been waiting for about 2 years to be Harry Potter.  We bought him some cheap black hair spray paint but he ran off with it and we couldn't find it when we needed it so we used black shoe polish! It worked, but it sure stank.  I even had him wear a winter hat to bed to keep it off his sheets so I didn't have to totally reapply it on Thursday. 

 Aaron is the grim reaper.  He was even made some tickets to the underworld that he passed out that night. He also had a half mask that he was very excited about but he couldn't wear it that night at church and I didn't get a picture on Thurs.

 Group pictures -- Emma still wasn't excited about the pictures -- oh well.

For the school storybook parade at school Thursday, Emma went as Pinkalicious.  I was pretty excited about painting her pink -- I had to bribe her with candy so she'd let me paint her face.  Matthew was Harry Potter again, and Aaron almost dressed up as Percy Jackson, but a brotherly squabble and a pot being dropped on his head by Matthew made him change his mind.  Although I think I killed his joy some, by not letting him write Camp Halfblood on his orange shirt. 

Wednesday and Thursday I went and did a craft with Emma and Matthew's classes where you glue marshmallows to a paper in a ghost shape. I also taught a ghost song and read some books.  Emma is interesting when I go to her class because she gets clingy -- all through the stories she just wanted me. The last time I went to read she cried when I left her so her teacher suggested I come at the end of the day this time -- smart lady!

Trick or treating was kind of a bust.  It was really stormy all day so we thought it wouldn't happen at all.  Fortunately a friend reminded me of trick or treating at the mall so we went there and that was fun -- we should have called it quits then....  We went around the neighborhood.  The last couple of years there have been fewer and fewer lights on so we have to walk further for less stuff and it is hard for the little kids who are over exhausted from the days of excitement.  This year maybe because of the rain, I don't know, there were only about 10 houses handing out candy.  The most frustrating thing was we kept seeing lights in the distance but there was no one home.  We walked about 1 1/2 miles - which shouldn't have been bad, but Emma was whiney and Matthew kept lagging behind and complaining -- especially after he lost his cool wand!  (I did feel a bit more sympathy when he threw up last night - I guess he wasn't just being difficult)
Next year maybe I'll just stay home and buy discount candy the day after!!

Halloween 2012

I figured before I post for this year, I need to post for last year.  I was feeling a bit sick so I told the kids they could be whatever we already have so the costumes aren't amazing. Also somehow we hardly took pictures...

 Charlotte wore the princess dress from Emma's birthday.

 They had Rock star day at school that day or soon before. Katie decided it was more wearable than the whale from the year before.

 Emma has the same ball gown on.

 Aaron was originally wearing the dinosaur again, but I think he got too hot, and it would be too hard to bob for doughnuts.

 Matthew was a cowboy, but I think by the time we dressed up for this party he had lost his star and handkerchief and his hat kept getting in the way.

Nathan went as a 50's dude.  I personally love the hair swoop!!

 

 

Obviously not our most impressive year!!

Boys, Boys, Boys

We love lizards and geckos around here and they are plentiful enough that catching them is fairly routine, but every time the kids are so proud of their find.

 I am still writing past blogs... I went a little lego crazy last summer and bought tons of legos of ebay in random assortments and the kids really have had a good time with them, of course when they are not fighting over the 12 - count them, 12 - horses (I thought I got enough to not be a problem -go figure), or other hot commodities!! Although there have been a few occasions when it looks like the living room threw up legos.

 I think it was worth it, just look how cute he is! and I was impressed that he was able to build this plane even though we didn't have all the real pieces and he had to dig forever to find the pieces he needs.  I had one teacher think he was ADD, but he can focus so long on things if he is interested in them that I think there is no way!

 Of course sometimes you have to divide your time between watching TV (probably Phineas and Ferb) and building with legos.

2012 Fox Family Reunion

We had a fun Fox Family Reunion last summer.  I'm not sure what order things went in anymore, but it was really fun and here are some of the things we did:

Fun family hike. We never go hiking so it was a novelty to us and we kept hiking after everyone else left.  It was about 5 miles in all and Emma and Matthew walked the whole way.  Charlotte was doing good until she fell and hurt her knee - she spent the rest of the hike on my back.

 We frequented the swimming pools and had lots of fun.  It was a good thing they had more than one pool because we took up a lot of room!!

 Older more aggressive chicken fights led to younger simpler chicken fights

 Andy had a great time throwing kids in the air. 

Of course we needed to have family picture time.  I think it went rather well, we got a great picture and didn't take TOO long.



Grandma and Grandpa Fox with all the grandkids, although since this is so long in the making there are actually two more and one more due next month - but better late than never!!

 There was a great park right by the pavilion that we ate at for dinner.  I think a lot of the little kids spent more time playing than actually eating. 

 I love that Camden looks so confused by the kids in the dirt. 

 

 I think Charlotte is trying to join the "planking" craze.  I don't think she has it quite down yet.   

 This wall was major fun for the kids too.  It did make me a little nervous at times when the little guys were climbing.

 Of course we had multiple trips to the pool

 And you can't have a family get together without games - lotsa games mostly in the evenings when the little ones were in bed.  Nathan even joined the ranks one night. 

 There was a cool indoor water park we went to.  Some of my kids were disappointed though because they weren't big enough to ride down the cool slides.  We did get good mileage out of the lazy river and the kiddie pools though. 

Feeding the masses: Each family got the opportunity to provide a dinner.  I thought that worked out great because we had to make a lot but only one night during the vacation - yay an actual vacation!!

Nathan of course found time to participate in his favorite past time.

Emma got to have a second birthday cake -- rainbow cupcakes -- fun!! 

Charlotte and Samantha got very dirty eating fudge pops and they were actually interacting and being cute about being so messy.

Some of us went to see the Dutton show.  It was really fun and they are amazingly entertaining.  I think Matthew, Emma and Katie went with me, but I don't remember for sure.   

 Of course Uncle Dan was the life of the party like usual with his child play and "Chubby bunny" carrots!!

And more swimming!

 The three little kids and I went with Savannah, Denali, and Carter to the Butterfly Palace.  We saw a bunch of cool butterflies and the kids loved the water fall. 

I think Charlotte is trying her planking again!!  The other kids were happily looking at butterflies in a feeder and she was just happily laying on the ground studying it intently - who knows.   

 I loved this butterfly seat.  I also love that Matthew is totally sitting in it in boy fashion!!

 

Andy and the older kids went to the dam and had a tour of its inner workings.  I think I won out on the deal, but then he probably thinks so too; good thing we are not all the same.

We also got a discount to Silver Dollar City and rolled with it - thanks Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Dan. Fortunately Grandma and Grandpa came too, because you needed an adult with each child on the rides and while Nathan counts as an adult for ticket price he didn't for rides.

 The big kids and Andy stayed to ride the big rides that the little guys couldn't go on while the rest of us returned to the hotel.  I haven't mentioned yet but it was over 100 ever single day.  It was hot, but I was really glad that it was not nearly as humid as home!!

 

 Of course some of the vintage members of the group were a little worn out by the festivities!! just kidding.  I'm just surprised he could nap with all the noise in his room.