Family time

It's been a while, but I don't want to forget everything that is going on right now, so figured I'd pick this back up!  Specifically, we had a great day on Sunday.  The older girls and I went to the church for a fireside - the speaker was a BYU volleyball player and he was good, but that's not the thought of the blog.  When we got home, Robie and the younger kids were still up and Ashley really wanted to practice the piano, so she played for a little bit, but had a hard time keeping up with Robie and Brooke wanting to sing, so they asked me to play the piano for a little while.   We ended up singing different church songs (like old ones from when I was growing up with some Michael McLean etc.).  It was a great time - after we ran out of sheet music, Robie even pulled out his Spanish hymnal and he and Brooke started singing in Spanish (which is really what she had wanted to do in the first place).  We laughed a little about when we sang in church (the VonTyler family singers) and how they haven't had any families sing again after that (coincidence?!)   Especially with teenagers in the house who have their own interests, etc, those special family moments seem fewer and farther in between.  We have been playing games on Sundays, too, which has also been really nice.  We got Settlers of Cataan and have been playing that, and Fox is obsessed with this game called "Sleeping Queens" - it's a card game and he loves it!  I bought it like a year ago but we took it to Zion and got it out to play after the Mendenhalls left which my kids said would be boring and so it was super fun to have something new to introduce :)

text picture sent to a friend with a quote that said "favorite quote from this moment - 'this play house used to be bigger'" hahahaha

halloween 2014

My kids think I hate Halloween.  I'll admit I'm not a super big fan, but the kids do love having a chance to get dressed up and use their creativity and have fun with their friends.    Now that the kids are getting older, they really didn't even want to hang out with us for long.  We have a chili cook off on the street and then the kids go trick or treating, so they were all happy to meet up with their friends and head out.  I was actually kind of glad when brooke had some friends  coming over - I hate it when she just takes off and then we don't see her all night so it's fun when she comes back with her friends and they're looking through their candy and goofing off.

Lauren wanted to match her friend, Sofia, as jesters.  Their hats were the best part for sure!

 Fox had a costume issue.  His Nani had ordered him an awesome x-wing fighter pilot costume which he wore for Jani's big party a few weeks ago, but he seriously wouldn't wear it.  I don't know if someone said something to him or what, but he seriously wouldn't do anything even like that!  So he really wanted to be Harry Potter, but we just had costumes for 8-10 year olds, so he had to use the giant sweater and the random tie, and his dress pants and shoe.  And he didn't even really like trick or treating.  He didn't want to go with any of the big groups of people (I think because he didn't want to keep up?) and when he went by himself he had to go up to strangers and knock on their doors and ask for candy - he's way too whimpy for that!  So we hit some houses and then he said he only wanted to go to houses of people we know and then we went back to the street.  Fine by me - we still had plenty of candy!

Forgotten

I tend to only blog about the funny or good days but today was sure one of those days that's a little rough.  Lauren and Fox walked in from school a little late (our neighbor was picking them up) but I didn't think much of it until Lauren comes in saying "i'm the worst sister, I totally forgot my brother"  I was like, "what?"   She and Fox walk down the hill with the neighbors and then get picked up at the bottom.  Unfortunately, both the neighbor and Lauren had forgotten about Fox!  So they rushed down the hill and it takes a while to walk down, and when they got to the bottom the neighbor was like " where's fox?"  so they had to go running back up to try to find him and the neighbor drove up.  He was already one of the last ones left to be picked up so he had to go into the office and was pretty scared I think.  Instead of admitting that he was scared, though, he was just being so rude!  We were trying to get Lauren ready for dance which is really close by, so I rushed to get her ready and she was freaking out saying things like, "I don't know where my dance stuff is, I'm losing my mind"  "I can't do this" and then he's screaming, "I'm not going in the car to take her to dance"  "I'm not leaving!"  then after I force him into the car he starts screaming things about opening his door and just jumping out and how it's ok if he dies because he doesn't even want to be in our family.  Ouch!  followed by "I hate you, you're the worst mom"  After this tirade for about 20 minutes all of a sudden when we were almost to the school to pick up Ashley, he admits that he was really scared when he got left up at the school and he was really sad they left him and starts crying about it.  He just needed to get it out!  Why he couldn't just talk about it at the beginning I have no idea - sometimes these kids are so crazy!

Teenager funny drama

OK, so Brooke is 14 now and can go to church dances.  Our area has "multi-stake" youth dances where all the youth 14 and up are invited.   I like picking them up because there are always lots of funny stories.  Anyway, this week, the girls get in and they had some funny stories to share.   One of them was straight from some sort of cheesy disney show.  One of Brooke's good friends, James' ex-girlfriend (not that he is old enough for a girlfriend, but they liked to call each other that anyway) - we'll call her M- was there and isn't exactly fond of Brooke since M and James aren't "together" anymore.  Anyway, apparently she was going a little crazy on the cookies and when Brooke went to get one they were all gone.  So, of course, Brooke asked M if she wanted to share one of her cookies. Instead of going with it, M says, "No, but I'll give you some of my water" and throws her whole glass of water on her!  For real?!  The girls with Brooke were laughing so hard at M's crazy town behavior. The girls sure looked cute and had fun.

Brooke is always talking about how she gets all the boys to ask other girls, so she had her cousin, Josh, ask her friend Katie to dance - too bad we just heard that Josh has whooping cough!  They are totally having a whooping cough epidemic over in their ward.  At least 3 of our good friends have teenagers that have been diagnosed.  Brooke had it last summer and once we got the antibiotics it wasn't that bad.  In fact, she had just woken up without breathing and then would throw up and go right back to bed - what?!  She didn't even seem to be coughing, in fact, I thought it was just heartburn or something.  After we got back from our camping trip in Zion, I took her in to discuss her "heartburn" and the pediatrician did the test and we got a call that she did, in fact, have whooping cough - crazy!  Luckily, we were all treated and no one else had any symptoms.

Sore loser

Have to start writing down these funny stories again!  The other day we decided to take the kids to a USD vs BYU women's volleyball game at USD.  Kids were having fun because our neighbors, the Hanna's had decided to go, so Ashley and Lauren were hanging with Bella and Sophia.  Fox was mostly hanging with Robie and I and only paying partial attention to the game.   at the break between games, Fox was over hanging out with Ashley and Lauren and they started throwing tshirts into the crowd.  Well, he's hanging out about 5 rows up from all the kids trying to get the shirts and sure enough, a shirt goes flying over the kids and straight into his arms.  He caught it and then pulled it in and held it tight.  we were all the way over in the other part of the stadium and we could not believe it and were laughing so hard!  He came running over faster than i've ever seen him move - up the stairs, around the top of the stadium, then down to us!  He insisted on putting his shirt on even though it was a usd adult sized tshirt.  After a while, Lauren told him he was cheering for usd so he took it off, though :)
The saddest/Funniest part of the night was at the end.  The last game was pretty intense and BYU ended up losing; they were down 12-8 (they play to 15) and Fox asked the store and then started crying.  I kept saying it wasn't over yet, but he couldn't take the pressure and started crying and when it actually need he fully freaked out - crying, sobbing really.  I kept telling him to clam down but he could'nt take it.  It reminded me how when we went to Brooke's first volleyball game for RBHS he kept obsessively asking me the score and started freaking out and saying we needed to leave when he realized they were losing.  He was so distraught!  I honestly could hardly watch the game and it was really annoying, but now I realize that he just honestly can't handle losing - we need to work on that i guess.... didn't get any pics at the game last night, but here's a few volleyball ones from brooke and her rb team

Tennis Time

Lauren really wants to play a sport, which I think is great.  She keeps saying things about not playing any sports right now, although she is still ice skating, which I keep reminding her is a sport (I mean, hello, we just had the Winter Olympics this year).  Anyway, so she keeps saying she wants to play every sport basically, so she's done some basketball dribbling out front and she's been riding her bike, but the other day she wanted to try out tennis after I had gone to play with a friend. (I've been playing once a week or so for the last little while). 
  We had a lot of "keep your eye on the ball" discussions.  She was having a little trouble connecting with the ball but as long as I stood behind her to shag the balls, it worked out just fine.  She might have her mom's hand/eye coordination (which is not a good thing :))  She sure had fun with it, though.  It was pretty funny, Fox actually had some good hits over on the other side!  I also love that she didn't even think about changing out of her boots before we played.