Memorial Day

My face still hurts.    I had sinus surgery two weeks ago (as of Memorial Day), and my sinuses still hurt, a lot sometimes).  I still have some numbness in my upper teeth and right under my nose and where it isn't numb is still really sensitive or in pain.  He said to give it 3 weeks, so I'm trying to have faith that one more week will do me good.  There, I've done my whining.   Brooke had a soccer tournament on Saturday, and Robie got back from Mexico. I  would show you some pics of his trip to Mexico, but he took exactly 5 pictures, none of which are very exciting.  I know he was trying to not rub it in that he was in Mexico at an all-inclusive while I was home dealing with real life, but seriously, 5 pictures?  Sometimes he is such a stoofus (this is our new term for when you do something stupid/doofus - it seems less offensive to Robie in some way... ).  So I didn't do much planning for Memorial Day, but we ended up having a nice day, hitting the pool with the Mendel's.  The water was a cold with no pool heater, but as usual, the kids don't care at all (and it really was a nice warm afternoon).







 I then came home and totally crashed for a few hours (as in, fell asleep at 6:45!).  I'm resting now, seriously.

It's like a birthday week...

Wow - what a week!  It was Ashley's birthday this week, and it was one of those "goes on all week" sort of birthdays.  We had her birthday on Wednesday, then a birthday party on Friday for her friends, then another party for her family (since Robie was gone for both her other birthday celebrations) tonight.    Plus, I worked with Book Decor boxing up 5,000 books for a movie set, I was in charge of the Volunteer Awards at the school (which involved a long night of fixing flower bouquets and sewing cowbells onto lanyards), oh, and Robie was in Mexico, and I was supposed to be resting for my nose to feel better.   This week will be more mellow, for sure!

Ashley chose doughnuts to take into her class for her birthday, so I ran over before school to get nice fresh ones (I know, I am super nice, huh?).   Funny thing is that Fox hates frosting, and even more than frosting he hates sprinkles so he was horrified at her choic.   What kid hates sprinkles?  Anyway, since Ashley's birthday was on a Wednesday, she just took the doughnuts in, then opened presents after her special dinner at Chick--fil-A.  We usually actually eat whatever the kids want on their birthday at home, but there was a Chick-Fil-A event for military (and Robie's dad and grandpa are both retired), so we went over to the party over there.  Her friends were there, and they even had a photo booth, which of course, she loved.  And they let them take as many as they wanted... these are just a few of her selections... she was loving it :)

She loves to be the center of attention.  Everyone got drinks (usually everyone gets water).  Anyway, she was pumped to have her own drink and even had to write on it - just in case anyone didn't realize it was her birthday after all... It says, "I'm 10   :) Ashley"

For her party on Friday, she chose the theme (in March when she started thinking about her party!).  She wanted a Hawaiian party. I  have no idea what made her think of that, except for that she likes Hawaii, and who blames her, right?



We had grass skirts, leis, hair barettes, games and a volcano cake.  She had only invited one boy to her party - her good friend, David.  We didn't even think about it but apparently, this is the age where it gets a little uncomfortable to be the only boy at the party.  The girls were nice, but poor David was pretty nervous about the whole situation.  Once we got the games going he was just fine, though.  Pass the coconut (like musical chairs, but passing the coconut) was a success as well as the relay race that involved putting on swim trunks, goggles and dragging the boogie board across the grass.  There was a lot of giggling and screaming, which I guess means success.

In the past, I have actually made 2 of the same cake s that we have one for the family birthday and one for the friends party, but since the volcano cake was comprised of 3 cakes I just cut out pieces from one side of the cake for her friend party - keeping it classy, of course. I tried to talk her into a cuter cake - a flower, or basically anything that isn't comprised mostly of dirt - but no go.  I did the best I could with my brown tinted frosting :0

Connect 4

Fox wanted to play games this morning (of course, he woke up nice and early when everyone else was sleeping peacefully).   So for a while it was just he and I playing Connect 4.  He was cracking me up because he kept going to the instructions and "reading" them, so he'd follow along with some line with his finger and then say in a slow, deliberate voice the instructions he was reading out.  My favorites were, "Put the orange checks in", "Don't cheat", "Go put one in it", "Put one at a time".

 Of course if you are a Connect 4 fan (and who isn't) you know that there are no orange checkers (he also kept asking me what the little things you put in the game are called, at which point I had to look at the instructions myself to see they are called "checkers").  Anyway, we kept discussing the yellow and the red checkers and I thought he was totally getting it until later in the game when he was adamant that the yellow is actually orange.  We're working on that.

Lauren even woke up to play with us, which I'm sure was unrelated to Fox freaking out over my leaving to go get the camera - what? I wanted to take pictures :)    I've still been working on my lessons with Sara on my pictures so I've been trying to be more diligent about taking pictures when something I want to blog about is happening - I can definitely see the difference when I use the Photoshop techniques I've been learning, but I'm still not happy with the composition of most of my pictures.  We're working on that, too. 

Just call me Michelle

Another post on darling Fox.  A few weeks ago he was totally on this first name kick.  Instead of just saying, "daddy" if something had to do with Robie he would say "daddy, you mean, Robie?" and anytime someone refers to someone he knows by anything other than their first name.  I took him to the school with me when I was working on some volunteer stuff the other day.  I had a nice conversation with a fellow volunteer and ended with her name by saying, "see you, Marianne".  Fox was totally angry at me and said, 'Mom, don't call her Marianne.  That's what we call Nani.  Don't call that lady that.  That's nani's name."  Geez, dude, chill out.  seriously.

There's variety, all right.

Our school had their annual Variety show tonight.   Sort of like a talent show, but with less talent and more variety?  Anyway, Lauren's friend, Sophia, wanted to do some dancing, so she asked a few of them to participate with her.  They had a choreographer (Sophia's 9 year old sister, but still...) and they actually did get together to practice quite a few times.  All their hard work paid off - they were so cute.  Lauren's grandma (we call her Nani) made their skirts - the girls loved them and they had quite the sparkle!  Abby's mom, Laura, leaned over after and said that Lauren didn't even seem nervous at all, while she thought some of the others might have been a little scared.  I later mentioned to Lauren that Laura said she didn't even look nervous to which she responded, "Well, I've performed on stage before" in a "duh, mom" tone.  Of course, because if you have performed on stage ever before, why would you  be nervous to dance in front of 200 people?  Nice work, ladies.
Ashley was a host, which means she took a few minutes to introduce the acts for one segment of the show.  She wanted more lines, but each host only said a few things.  She nailed her few lines, though - a lot of the other kids stumbled over their words or didn't make any sense, but she did great :)

Volleyball is over.  Volleyball is fun to watch.  I will miss volleyball.  I like summer.

I think I've been reading too many Dick and Jane books with Lauren.  Or maybe I should try short and to the point more often :)  Ashley's season ended in tears.  The great thing about a tournament at the end of the season is that if  you win, it is awesome!  But if you lose, it is kind of a bummer to go out on. Ashley's team has been doing really well this year, only losing a few games.  But they played horribly in the championships.  It was actually really hard to watch.  I don't care if they lose and they played hard, but they gave up the second the other team pulled ahead for the first time, and it's really hard to not see someone live up to their potential (for some reason tonight, I'm totally feeling a gospel message in here about how we can't give up when it seems like we are down and out because Heavenly Father is probably watching and knows we have a really good game in us and could destroy the other team, but if we don't have our heart in the game, we don't have a chance..... weird analogy, I'm just feeling it, i guess).  Anyway, I'm in the "don't tell them they did well, if they played horribly" camp, so it was kind of hard to come up with something that wasn't either rude or insensitive to Ashley.   I think we were supposed to feel sad that she was crying but Robie and I were both kind of like, "well, she had a bad game, she should be crying... "  geez, when I type it out that sure sounds kind of harsh.  I did take her to meet the rest of her team at the frozen yogurt place down the street after, so I'm not totally heartless.

 (this picture is of one of Ashley's
"grumpy moments" - she was mad they were losing in the semi-finals so I was telling her to not be grumpy so she put her hands in her ears so she didn't have to hear me!)

Brooke's team won the first game of the tourney and lost in the semi-finals to a really good team.  I heard the game was great with a lot of good rallies, but I had to miss it for the Variety  Show.  It is a major bummer now that numerous kids are involved in numerous things - it's a bummer to miss things!  Her team played well, though, so see, I was telling the truth, it's not just about winning or losing as long as they play their best (and win most of the time :_)hhahahhahahaha)     I wanted to take some cool pictures (I've been taking an awesome photography class with my friend, Sara Doud - more information to come on that), so I wanted to take some cool volleyball shots and get some sweet pics of digs and hits, but instead I barely got any and they are really boring - the kids didn't want me to move from my spot on the stands so as to avoid the embarrassment factor, which severely limited my picture angles.  Until next season....

Brooke hates those shorts.  They are volleyball shorts, and the longest ones we could find, at that, but they are just too tight for her.  It's actually kind of cute, so I guess I just hope her sense of modestly sticks with her as she ages!  Her team is doing quite well.  I know it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, but I think everyone knows it sure keeps the morale up when you are winning.   They don't have anybody that is really amazing but overall they all just work hard and it's been fun.  After her volleyball practice tonight, I sat up studying Spanish with her tonight.  Mostly because she actually requested help (which I'm sure was caused by my seeing her most recent test score - ouch!).  It was kind of fun - I took 4 years of high school spanish and passed the AP Spanish test, but with only a few short trips to Spanish speaking lands, I don't have much Spanish left in my shriveling brain.  It comes back pretty quickly though once you get going.   Most of the things she was studying were things you feel, such as "I am cold, I am in a hurry, she is hot."  In Spanish things like that are said more like, "I have cold", or "I have hurry," "I have hot."  Brooke just wasn't getting the concept of the "I have, you have", so when we were working on cold, I said, "Tienes un corazon frio" which means you have a cold heart."  she thought that was hilarious - then she was working hard to correctly tell me that I had a cold heart.  For some reason the saying clicked with her and we were cracking up then the whole rest of the night (and it was a lengthy study session).  Then she quizzed me on the words - it didn't go well for me, but I think she was learning something.  She's been starting into the "teen attitude" so it was really nice that she was both pleasant and studying!   Finally, one of those small success kind of parenting nights :)