Good Friday.

One more, people! One more!!

This is our second year of our great license plate challenge.  Last year we failed.  This year.  This year is gonna be the one!

Rules.  Find a license plate from all 50 states within 10 miles of the Moscow-Pullman city limits.  It must be attached to a vehicle.  Photo-evidence is not required, but we like it.  It keeps us honest.  At least for those big ones.  Like Delaware!!!

Last year, we missed out on only two states: Delaware and Rhode Island.  As of today, we have 49 states.  We have until August 6, 2015 to find Maine.  I only saw it on one car last year, so I know it's a toughy.

Help a girl out!

Ben, the creator.

Ben just loves making stuff out of paper and markers.  This was his robot birthday suit.  He carefully attached it over his real-live birthday suit and then wore it around as we ran (drive-thru!) errands.  This kid is one-of-a-kind.

One of my very favorite things in the world...

...one of my precious babies falling asleep on me.

Sewing...the next chapter.

Who would've guessed there'd be a "next".  Well...I'm like a moth to a flame.  Sewing is my Achilles heel.  My kryptonite.

A friend of ours, from way back, offered to help me learn to sew.  It's funny, actually, because this same friend helped me and her daughter sew cheerleading outfits for our Cabbage Patch Dolls way long ago.  I'm sure I still have that thing somewhere around here.  It turned out perfectly, despite my most fumbling efforts.  But that is what a true teacher does.  Makes straight lines out of crooked ones.

So we made a plan.  Tuesday afternoons.

I ran to the store in a mad dash last minute to find some material and a pattern.  I think we learned in chapter one of this saga that you should never plan on dashing in and out of fabric stores.  But there I was again. 

I had decided on a dress for Kayte.  This was a good idea for several reasons.  First, Kayte is tall and very slender, it is impossible to find a dress to fit.  Secondly, she's entering that infamous tween stage where designers aren't sure whether they are women or girls and so decide upon a category that is neither....but far worse.  And thirdly, and most realistically, it was extremely possible the dress would come out not fitting at all, either too big or too small.  If it was too big, she'd grow into it.  If it was too small...well, it was always meant to be a dress for Sara, after all.

I'm flipping through patterns in the Simplicity book.  I never look at any of the other books, like McCall, etc...(look at me name-dropping!).  I've learned somewhere, probably the internet, that Simplicity only makes simple patterns.  Hence the name, of course. 

So with confidence, I choose a cute dress pattern, and I'm patting my back as I know exactly how to use the fancy Dewey decimal-type system to find just the one I'm looking for, and then I head in search of a fabric.  I'm also proud of the fact that I know better than to use anything with lines, what a headache that could be!  Dodged that bullet.

I did need some help with the interfacing...and after a good look-see at the back of the pattern I found how much material I needed and thought, "Might as well double it!  Save me time!"  Look at the forethought!  (And yet another reason that sewing is much more expensive than buying off the rack.  At least for the novice.)

I remembered to express wash the fabric and dry it before I raced off for my first lesson.

Connie took a look at my pattern.  There were box pleats, and darts, and zippers, and buttons...with real button holes!!  The "simple" in Simplicity was just a bait and switch!!  What??!  But Connie pulled out some stuff that she had made and it was absolutely exquisite!  I knew I was in good hands...even so.

Step by step, every little detail meticulous.  Towards the end I was sewing on my first zipper ever and for a moment...well, if I could just close my eyes until I was done!!

Finally, after a handful of sessions, the dress was complete!  Final step, take it home and try it on Kayte before hemming it up.  The moment of truth!

Did I mention she is 12, and growing like a weed?

The dress was too short!  Two weeks ago it might've been fine, if we didn't have to still somehow hem it!  Thankfully, I had way over-bought the fabric and we had plenty to add, and really, a big piece around the bottom finished it quite nicely!  It was done in time for Easter!

There's a good reason why I have not yet taken a good pic of her actually wearing it...but I can get to that later.

Feeling high, like I do whenever there is any little successes, I thought I had enough fabric left over to whip up a quick skirt for Sara, to match!  Haha.  This project I was doing on my own.  I called another savvy friend for a quick no-pattern tutorial and set to work.  Just a quick A-line, she said I could get it done in 20 minutes, hurrah!

I don't have the fancy gear, so it looked a little like this:

 

It was definitely an hour and mounds of thread later, that I sent my husband a text with this:

"Ta Da!!" said the caption.  "Look at me go!!"

Of course, that was before we tried it on.....I managed to forget to measure the hips and instead had just measured the teeny bit that makes up her waist.  So the little thing was much too tight.

Sara, ever gracious, was super-impressed anyway, until I shared with her my concern that it might split down the middle with any kind of movement.  So again, she graciously agreed that would be "majorly embarrassing".  So back to the scrap pile it goes! 

And back to real lessons for me!  But we are coming along!  What could possible be next??



PR!!

My girl kills it at her first-ever track meet... This was the 1600 meter. So proud of that little rockstar!

- Live from my iPhone

The Easter trampoline!

...and there was great rejoicing!!


- Live from my iPhone

April Fools' Day. Where sanity goes to die.

My own special section of hell would definitely be filled with practical jokers trying to make eternity there actually worse. 

This is my least favorite day of the year. 

My kids love it. 

I caught Kayte with an alarm set at midnight last night so she could creep out into the dark and set all her traps.  The boys were ready.  It was salt in people's milk, corn flakes in the cheerios, and water bombs.  It was pillows hanging from doorways and painted red eyebrows and toothpaste mustaches.  All before 8 AM.

They are good at it.  Well, mostly.  One of my kids said, "Go ahead Sara, drink the milk...there's nothing wrong with it.  It is perfectly normal milk.  Really."

I read that in Scotland April 1st actually lasts two days.  Course I read that on the internet.

Good. Heavens.
If you need me, I'll be hiding from my children.  Call my cell.



Ben's Saga.

Oh, Ben.

I'd like to preface this all by presenting my defense.  Because, I don't know, taking your kid to the dentist to find that he has 10 cavities and an abscessed tooth?  Well, that just screams BAD MOM.  Neglect.  You know, it's just really a reign of shame.

So my defense.  I take my kids to the dentist every six months.  I've gotten to the point that I don't brush my kids' teeth for them, but I remind them to, at least twice a day.  Ben being the baby of the family, I might've ditched the toothbrushing lessons at a younger age. Yes.  But all in all, my kids' teeth have faired well!  No, I don't let my kids suck on juice boxes in bed.  I don't freak out about sugar, but we don't generally eat a ton of it.  (And by 'we' I don't mean me, of course.  Just the kids.  They don't eat a ton of sugar.)  We never have juice, just cause my kids don't like it.  But here we are.  Something has gone wildly out of whack.

I'd taken all the kids in to the dentist in September.  Ben did have two cavities.  One was so bad that they had to pull his tooth.  The dentist suggested that there might have been some kind of injury to the tooth that cause bacteria to get in there, and then it went wild.  But I was instructed to up the homecare, just in case.  Ok, so I only took that a little bit seriously.  I did do some more brushing and rinsing and flossing, but mostly I just increased my encouragement to Ben to brush his teeth well, and I'd check to make sure things were getting clean.

We go in for the next regularly scheduled check, and bam!  10 cavities!!  One abscess!  We were referred to the local pediatric dentist who immediately put him on antibiotics.  We had to schedule his extraction out a bit, because of the antibiotics, and then we were gone for a week.  Two days before his appointment, his face started to swell:

He was in terrible pain. 

I was again, in a bit of a panic.  I don't know why.  Something about google and WebMD and abscesses killing people.  The dentist was in surgery all day, but she took time out to call in a prescription and I busted up to school with it to get him right on it.  By evening, well, it was bad.  My little bud was cheerful, despite the meds making him nauseous and well, the monstrous stretching out of his skin, and the pain.  We had an appointment for the extraction the next day, so we had a chance to visit with the doctor.  She obviously couldn't work on his mouth in that condition so we had to reschedule.  I pleaded my weak case in order to get the soonest appointment imaginable.  (I hate being the mama bear, I just do.  I fear desperately for my likability, but I also have real fear.  Like WebMD.)

And then things get ugly.  Let's dial back a couple of weeks.  On our last round of antibiotics, I accidentally gave Ben the wrong dose a couple of times, and then, of course, spilled some down the sink.  So somewhere mid-course, I had to call in to get some more.  Kind of another bad mom moment, where I'm already suffering great hits.  Anyway, we are now on stronger meds for this second abscess flare-up because the first meds don't work.  I was strictly instructed to keep the antibiotics refrigerated or they would be no good.  Got it.  I am going to be very diligent and I head to the school with his meds so he can get all his three doses in a timely manner.  Then despite extra-good intentions, I forget to put the meds back in the fridge and then I head to Lewiston, where I find the bottle in my purse a couple of hours later. 

Ack!!  Seriously.

  At this point. Well....what can I do?

  I called the office for yet another script, which they can call in for me, but insurance probably won't cover a second round, and it is a $100 prescription.  If I start a new script, Ben will miss his appointment and we will have to wait until the doc gets back from vacation....all the while, the decay growing, and the antibiotics in his system for nearly a month.  They change the dose.  The meds are covered and we are back on schedule.

I put the bottle in a cup of ice, just in case.

Haha.  At this point, you surely believe I've learned my lesson, changed my ways, and became super-mom overnight.

Two days later.  We are in a super-rush to get out the door.  I proudly, in good-mom style, remember to dose Ben before taking off.  We come home five hours later and the meds are sitting on the counter and definitely room temperature.  Again.

Honestly.  Every day that my kids survive is just a plain miracle.  A miracle.
On the plus side, I just really admire this kid.  I get a hangnail and emotion-eat a lemon pie.  He has an abscess the size of a golf ball and his biggest concern is that he won't be able to smile for his teacher when she says, "Ready Racoons!"  But then he discovered he could still smile for his teacher, as long as he didn't show his teeth, he'd be ok.  He's just a happy little bud.

Meet Piper!

So we arrived home about 7:30 pm on Thursday night, dumped everything in the foyer, ate some boxed mac and put the kids to bed.  Joe and I were feet-up on the couch by 9.  It had been a long day of driving.  I popped open the laptop because I'd recently come into the habit of cruising craigslist for dogs. 

I know.  I cannot even believe it either.  Who would've thought?  I'm not a pet person...the goldfish were a giant stretch already.  But over the past two years, we'd been talking more and more about getting a dog.  Spring seemed to be a good time, and we don't have a yard, so why not?  We'd thought a bit about the breed we wanted but mostly we just really wanted a good family dog!  Ideally a golden retriever, a lab, or some kind of shepherd mix was on our list.  Turns out, getting a puppy is quite the ordeal.  I feel like in the 80s you would just show up at the local farmers' market and pick a puppy out of a cardboard box.  Now, when things like the internet should make this even easier, I found it to be quite overwhelming.  Google "golden retriever puppies for sale in Idaho" and you will find a website that boasts the best breed in the history of the breed for the low low price of $1800!!  We didn't want the best breed.  We weren't taking her to any shows.  We just wanted a good family dog to maybe toss the Frisbee with.  I contacted a few people that had puppies listed on craigslist and suddenly I was in a phone interview and needed a 5 year plan and a resume.  It was daunting and just a tad frustrating.  I got a little desperate and started looking at breeds I know I didn't want, like Husky mixes (wanderers, and we lack a fence) or even an Australian cattle dog.  Patience is well, not be best virtue.  I wanted to find the puppy equivalent of the big box store and find what I liked at a price I could live with.

So anyway, we'd been looking for about a month, and after that long day, I went searching without any real hope of success.  But sure enough, there was an Australian shepherd for sale.  Just one, a girl, 8 1/2 weeks old.  She was completely adorable, the age and gender that I wanted.  The post was 2 hours old and came from Tri-cities.  I knew that if I wanted her, I'd have to call right away!  The lady was super friendly and told me all about the pup.  She was a breeder who had gotten the pup from another breeder on trade, but was all of a sudden having to leave to pick up two other dogs for breeding.  This pup hadn't had her shots yet, so it wouldn't be safe for her to be around the dogs.  If I wanted her, the lady said, I'd have to come tonight.  There was no way that was going to happen.  It would be a six hour round trip, and it was nearing 9:30 pm.  I convinced her I could be there by 8 am the next day, and we made a deal.

I didn't sleep at all that night.  I would be leaving at 5 am, with Will to go to some random stranger's home in Tri-cities to pick up some pup I found on craigslist???  In the middle of the night, that seemed downright insane.  But we'd committed to a path, and at 4:30, I hopped out of bed and woke up Will.  He'd gone to bed long before we'd found the pup, so he had no idea, and he was super.excited. 

 

Sun finally came up!

We had no trouble finding the house, and I was super-skeptical since I knew nothing about the neighborhood.  But we pulled over at the house, and a woman came out with the puppy in her arms.  I tried to hand her a check which of course she would not take.  So we turned around again, headed to the nearest ATM, and headed back.  The pup was adorable.  The exchange was quick and we were back on the road.  The little pup cried all the way home.

And that's when the panic came back.  What was I thinking, getting a dog???!  I mean, it was a decision that Joe and I had made together in total sanity, but I was the one that hunted it down and begged to get this very one!  What if I hadn't done any searching at all?  Maybe eventually the whole thing would've died down and we could've remained pet-free forever!!  What if the pup isn't healthy, or has fleas?  I called from the road to get an appointment at the vet that afternoon.  We stopped at Walmart to pick up a crate for her to sleep in, and then we headed home to surprise the kids!  They, of course, were thrilled and shocked.  I was still in a bit of a whirlwind.  Our luggage was still stacked in the foyer, shoes and sand everywhere, and now we had a creature peeing on our floor!!

We got her to the vet.  I'd written down just a fraction of the million questions in my head.  The vets were so kind and patient and reassuring, and I left there feeling entirely different.  We could do this.  We could survive this thing that millions of Americans do everyday.  We could be dog people.  It was truly an epiphany :)

And yet, we still didn't have a name for her.  From the very beginning I wanted a dog named Charly.  And of course, I meant that to be a girl's name.  Joe was super onboard with that, unless it was a girl.  Sara wanted Zoe, Kayte liked Lizzie, Ben thought maybe Annie, and Will was sure that Bolt would be perfect!  We were definitely at an impasse.  I suggested maybe Piper?  The pup's mom's name was Piper and I loved that it was feminine without being super-fussy.  I heard at least three positive responses to that and not a single veto.....so eventually we settled.  Piper it is!  And it fit her perfectly.

This is me.  On the other side of sheer panic.  Whew.

It has been nearly two weeks now.  The potty training is going slowly.  She is spending much of her time still sleeping, and a lot of time outside.  Turns out Australian shepherds stick very close to home.  They are called Velcro dogs because they also like to stay close to their people.  The fact that we have loads of undeveloped land and no fence is actually pretty ideal.  She has the spirit of a puppy, but is still really mellow, which I love.  And as the kids head out every day with her across the fields on some kind of adventure, I get pretty excited.  That's what we'd been dreaming of.  She is the perfect fit.



Spring Break 2015!!

So, for the last two years in a row, Kelly and I have loaded up our 8 kids with the help of their Grandma and their Great Aunt Nette, and headed across Washington for the northernmost coast.  It is a crazy cousin vacation, in which we eat a lot, read a lot and spend a lot of time bundled up on the sand.  This year, it rained from the minute we left our home until we went to bed that first night.  Absolute pour down rain.  In the morning we woke up to sun....and it lasted all three days we were there!  I spent much of this trip trying to catch moments in my memory, or capturing them on camera.  It was absolutely the best week with my kids.  My mom. My sister.  And my dear Aunt.  A very sweet time.

Oh Jack.  Someday....

 We match!

The ferry.  Always a highlight.

Kayte creating stories....

Will, snuggling with Henry.

Notice the little photobomber in the back.  Not sleeping.

Ben lost his coat right before we left.  So it was coat-sharing of all sorts for the week.

A very cool hut on the beach.

Will and Jem.  She is engaged in some kind of hilarity.

The cozy house!

 

Aunt Nette's beads!!  That, some drift wood, and some hot glue.

 

 

 

 

And one amazing coloring book.

 

Superman supervising Sodoku.

....and then building castles.

Baking.  Of course.

From Sara.  My true artist.

Fairy houses.

Friends.

Food.  Orange, carb-y, vacation food.

A challenge.  Many wars conducted on that beach.  No injuries.

Happy feet.  Very happy.

 

Lots and lots of seals!  And there, in the background, on the white branch:  a bald eagle.

....more happy feet.

KP.

Fishermen.

 

Art on the beach.  Not ours.

Sara's gift for her daddy.  We missed him like mad.

My beautiful oldest.  She is getting so tall!

We read a lot of books. 

One night, the ladies decided threw a four-mom baby shower!  It was pretty epic.  These girls knew what they were doing.  So adorable.

So cute!!

 

 



Missed him.

 

This year, we were happy that the owner of the house had left us a number for the housekeeper.  We didn't have to clean!!  We got to the ferry literally 20 seconds before the cutoff, which meant we got home by 7:30! 

Aunt Nette bought them all ice cream, and then we headed out.

Really truly a memorable trip.  Soaked.it.up.