Our first month of summer has buzzed by. It has been a fun month.
Emilee had a birthday party with Jovee and went to a birthday party with her friend from school Stella. They are two little peas in a pod. It was actually Stella’s older sisters birthday and her mom let Stella invite a friend so she would have someone to play with. Mission accomplished. They had a fun time together.
Allison got her full arm plaster cast off and switched it for a half arm water proof cast. She is loving having more use of her arm back and being able to swim and shower without a big plastic bag.
Matthew’s team played in the State Tournament for baseball. They played really well and ended up making it into the top 8. The game we lost they were fighting the whole time to win and never gave up. It was a great game. One of the games Matthew was nominated for the State All Star game. He was pretty pumped about that. We are going to be in Colorado during the tournament so he won’t make it this year though. Hopefully next.
It is about time for Ryan to get a new car. He has been working out how to get a Tesla for the past 6 months. The original plan wasn’t fast enough so he kept working on it and doing the math and got one a week ago. He loves it.
These pictures were sent to me from Emilee’s old preschool teacher. She was organizing her photos and found a bunch with Emilee in them from preschool. They are from 2 or 3 years ago but I’m putting them in here anyways because she is stinking cute.
Plaster project
Playing in the leaves.
Making volcanoes
Painting her whale
Princesses riding on their horse
First day of 2nd year of preschool
Bug catching
Play time.
Dress up time.
Playtime.
Emilee’s birthday cookies she brought for the class.
We did a traveling baseball tournament for the first time this summer. We made a fun family trip out of it. We went up to Omaha Nebraska for the Slumpbuster Tournament, which is at the same time as the College World Series (CWS) for baseball.
We drove up on a Wednesday afternoon. There has been a lot of flooding between here and Omaha this summer. The freeway was actually closed until the day before we went up. It saved us a lot of time to not have to go around it. The flooding was really sad to see though. Lots of homes and farms and towns still underwater or damaged from being underwater. We checked into the hotel and the first item of business the kids wanted to do was go swimming. They thought it was a great kickoff for the long weekend. There were a few other families from the team that came up that night. A group of them went to watch a CWS game. The rest of us ordered pizza’s and spent a few more hours swimming in the pool.
On their way to CWS
They found princesses at CWS!?!
The next day everyone met at the Omaha Zoo. The kids loved walking around as a big group and looking at the animals together. We saw a lot of cute little baby animals-including a seal, giraffe, gorilla, and some other kind of monkey. When we finished exploring the zoo the kids decided to play a game of wiffle ball at the wiffle ball park in the zoo parking lot. Then is was back to the hotel to play card games and cool off in the pool. Coach Jimmy had a little meeting to kick of the weekend before we all headed over to the opening activities for the Slumpbuster Tournament the boys were playing in. At the Tournament Kick-off they had a lot of activities and baseball equipment to try or buy. The main attraction was giant bonfire with wooden bats and some fireworks.
Wiffle Ball at the Zoo
Emi and Anna
The Cheetah taking a picture with a cheetah.
Emi, Lexi, and Anna
They thought it looked like they were swimming with the fish!
Jake and Matt
Lunch at the zoo
Bonfire
Friday was the day we started playing games…but the weather didn’t cooperate. We had a lot of rain all night long and into the morning. We were supposed to play two games a day on Friday and Saturday. Friday our 8 am game was postponed until 10 then 11. Everyone started going their own way and exploring different shopping areas. At 12:15 we got a text saying we had to be in Lincoln (one hour away) because they had playable fields to start a game at 2. Everyone made it and we had our first game. Ryan’s parents came and watched and were glad they had to drive 10 minutes because they live in Lincoln, instead of an hour. The game did not go well. We tell Matthew all the time he can’t blame an umpire for loosing a game, it’s a poor excuse. However, this time it really was the umpire. Ugg, I won’t waste time explaining but, he was awful.
Playing spoons.
Our second game that day was cancelled so we went to Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s house. Grandma had made a spice cake for Ryan’s birthday so we had cake and ice cream together. The girls stayed at their house that night. Allison and Grandma went to the craft store together and made rainbow loom bracelets and slime. Emilee and grandpa played with the stuffed animals beanie baby collection all night. They were pretty happy.
Matthew, Ryan, and I went back to Omaha and went to the Omaha Storm Chasers (AAA Baseball) game that night with the rest of the team. Coach Jimmy arranged for the boys to go down on the field and meet the team and make a high five tunnel for them to run through. It was a fun experience for them.
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Saturday we only ended up having one game as well in the morning. Grandma and Grandpa brought the girls back to us and watched us beat a team 20 to 0 in 2 innings. It took about 40 minutes from start to finish and was not a satisfying game obviously. We were done with baseball by 11 on Saturday. We went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa before they headed home, then we joined the rest of the team in downtown Omaha for some sight seeing, shopping, and Ted and Wally’s Ice cream. It was very good ice cream but they were out of a lot of flavors we were willing to try (no one was willing to try banana/peanut butter/bacon flavor) when we ordered so we ended up with vanilla or a root beer freeze. The rest of the team continues to make fun of us for getting ‘just vanilla,’ the jokes on them though because we all liked our ice cream, everyone else couldn’t say that. After we finished in downtown there was another giant swimming party at the hotel for a few hours. Then we ate dinner and had another impromptu game of wiffle ball behind the hotel in a parking lot with anyone that wanted to play. We made it to bracket play on Sunday and had a game at 8am. We must have had too much fun all weekend while we killed time waiting for the rain to stop. The boys were not jiving. We ended up getting run ruled! I don’t think we have ever been run ruled in the two years we have played with this team. We packed up and were home by early afternoon.
Emi opted for a sucker instead of ice cream.
Coach Jimmy coaching ‘Matty Baseball”
Wiffle Ball
This sign was up in the pool area.
My two little boogers.
Allison got her driver’s license
The baseball was a little disappointing with how things worked out with the weather. It was a fun weekend in every other aspect though. We got to know the baseball families a lot better. The kids loved the zoo and all the swimming. It was a different vacation then we have done before. It was a nice change of pace and all of us had a good time. Hopefully the next time we travel for a baseball tournament we get to play more baseball though.
As summer is getting started and we are all adjusting to being around each other for most of our day. I have had the thought cross my mind a couple times one thing or another just drives me crazy. As I have thought about these things, sometimes they legitimately drive me crazy and I want to pull my hair out. Somethings that drive me crazy though I think I will miss someday so I should quit my complaining and enjoy it while it lasts.
The first thing that came to my mind was our family seating arrangements for church on Sunday. This has changed a lot over the years as the kids go through different ages, we have had assigned seating, rotating seating, and occasionally ‘you pick’ seating. Currently ‘first come, first serve’ is the way seats are chosen unless people get rowdy then Ryan and I start making them play musical chairs. The whole thing is quite ridiculous. It is just sitting and listening for 45 minutes but they act like they are making a life altering choice.
Whatever the seating arrangement is, there seems to also be some unspoken rule that says everyone has to get as close to me as possible and take up as little space on the bench as possible. Every Sunday I feel like I am being smothered during Sacrament. I have one or two people trying to sit on my lap or lay their head on my lap, hold my arm or hand, lay on my shoulder, wedge their body underneath me for warmth. Aaahhh, sometimes I just want to sit by myself and stretch out. I know someday they will sit in their own space though or not be there at all and I will miss it, so I just try to enjoy if for now.
I’ve always had a rule that my kids can come get me at night if they need me or have a bad dream but they can not sleep in my bed. They can snuggle a minute, or sleep on our couch in our room, or I will even lay by them in their bed until they fall back asleep but they are not supposed to sleep in my bed because I like to sleep without being kicked or squished or wake up with a kink in my neck because someone wedged themselves underneath me. Matthew and Allison follow this rule very well. Matthew has already outgrown needing me at night for a few years now. Allison occasionally will come poke me for a hug but not very often. Emilee has been the hardest to enforce this rule with. Partly my fault because she has always been a little cuddler from day one so if she comes for a snuggle, before you know it I’m waking up and its morning time. She has also mastered crawling into my bed without waking me up when she crawls in so I wake up in the morning with a sore back and her mouth breathing in my face. It is getting better but Emilee’s approach to disobeying has always been ignore or act like you don’t hear and smile cute when you get caught. That is really hard to combat at two in the morning when you are not conscious and want nothing more than to stay that way for the rest of the night.
Shortly after Ryan’s 30th birthday I decided that for his 40th birthday I was going to do a surprise party for him. He struggles with turning a new decade so I thought it would be a fun way to help him welcome in his 40’s and be something different.
As it got closer I decided that instead of a surprise party I would just do a party for him so I talked to him about it and he kind of poo-hooed the idea because he isn’t excited about turning 40 like I figured. So I let it go and tried to come up with other ideas. He didn’t really have any suggestions of what to do either. I came up with having one of his best friends from his mission come for the weekend. I thought that would be a fun surprise for him, and it was, but I also had lots of people asking me when his party was or what the plan for his birthday was. A few weeks before his birthday I decided that I was going to do the surprise party anyway. So I rented our neighborhood clubhouse, invited about 100 of his closest friends, got a giant cake, balloons, and some yummy BBQ and we had a party! I had about 150 pictures of Ryan displayed as part of the decorations from when he was a baby up to now.
His buddy Mike Johnson flew in from Arizona and got to our house about 3:15 on Friday, the day of the party. I had told Ryan he had an appointment to get his car detailed (that was something he wanted for his birthday) at 4pm so he would be home. Johnson decided he wanted to hide somewhere and jump out and scare him. I ended up telling Ryan that I needed the A/C filter changed and when he went to change it Johnson jumped out. I was a little worried Ryan might take a swing at him when he got startled but he didn’t and he was very excited to see his buddy and find out they had the weekend to hang out.
As soon as Mike surprised Ryan, I took the kids to sleepover at their cousins house and then I was going to meet Ryan for dinner a little later. What actually happened is the kids and I all went to the clubhouse to wait for Ryan. A few minutes before they were supposed to leave I called Ryan and told him that Emilee had left her mermaid toy at the pool so I needed him to go to the clubhouse and check the lost and found on his way to dinner. He came to check but instead of finding a lost and found when he arrived, he found a surprise party! He had no idea. I thought he might have been a little suspicious but he said he didn’t really have any idea.
We had Joe’s KC BBQ for dinner and the adults visited, Ryan made the rounds to everyone to talk for a bit. The kids swam in the pool and drank way to much soda and blew the noise makers that I made the mistake of providing. We of course sang happy birthday and blew out candles. I think everyone had a fun time. It was a good night.
After the party Ryan and Mike spent the rest of the weekend golfing, eating out at their favorite places, getting massages, shopping, watching golf, enjoying having no responsibilities. They are quite the pair.
Sunday morning was Father’s Day. Johnson headed home to spend it with his family and we celebrated Ryan. We had Ross and Lauren over for dinner to help us eat some of our BBQ leftovers. Then Lauren and I played a game with Ross and Ryan because it was Father’s Day and they said we had too. Playing a game with Ross and Ryan is a 2-3 hour commitment so we often opt to do something else and let them play themselves. On Father’s Day and birthdays they say we have to play though.
It was a nice weekend. I am very grateful for the great dad’s we have in our lives. Ryan and I were both raised by great dads. Ryan is an amazing dad. I took a mental picture today of him skipping across the parking lot to the car after church with a daughter on each arm because they thought it would be fun and silly. I am grateful for all the friends and Uncle’s and other family members that are good examples of dads to my kids too. It takes a village.
Sometimes as I am going about my day I come across things that bring a smile to my face. Usually it is something sweet and child like that my kids do. As my kids have gotten older I realize that these situations are happening less and less often so I have tried to start taking a picture when these moments happen to remember them for later… or when they are driving me crazy and I need to focus on their more endearing qualities. First up, in no particular order is a few of Emilee sleeping.
Before I go to bed each night I peak in on each kiddo to make sure they are sleeping happily. This night when I checked on Emilee she had decided to wear sunglasses to bed. She woke up with them in the morning too, they stayed on all night much to her delight.This is Emilee sleeping in the car. When I looked at her something caught my eye. When I looked closer I found a little toy frog tucked under the edge of her shorts for safe keeping during her nap.This is Wrinkles the puppy and Froggy the frog. They are Allison’s favorite stuffed animals. She left them hugging in her bean bag one day.
Ryan was saying something to Matthew about how he used to hold him when he was a baby. Matthew jumped in his arms to goof around and said he would let Ryan hold him like a baby if he sang a lullaby. Ryan started singing ‘Sweet Baby James’. They were being silly but Matthew was a little embarrassed when he saw I had gotten my camera out.
It is hard for Allison to brush the back of her hair with her broken arm so Matthew was helping her brush her hair. It made me smile so I snuck a picture.
We have played Nerf Dodge Ball since Matthew was 4 or 5 years old. It is hard to say if the kids or Ryan and I love it more. Most of the time its the kids run through the kitchen and Ryan and I sit in the living room and try and shoot them with Nerf guns. Sometimes we will switch spots and let the kids shoot at us. It is a pretty therapeutic game. 🙂
We have started our trips to Harvesters again this Summer. The kids really like it. They would like to go every week so we try to fit it in when we can. They each invite a friend or two to come. I think 4-5 kids is the magic number. Everyone has a job and can keep busy and it’s not too many for me to wrangle and keep focused. The minimum age is 8 years old. I debated on passing Emilee off as an 8 year old because she is the only one that can’t come. I asked her if she was interested in going to sort food with us, she said, “Umm working is not really my thing so I will let you guys do that. I will stay and play.” After our first trip I figured that was probably best. So I get a babysitter for her or she plays at a friends house and we are all happy.
Hailey Hinton, Aliya and Cambrie McDonald came with us. We sorted and boxed 1,850 pounds of canned goods in 2 hours. They worked hard!Allison, Matthew and Reece. We shucked and bagged a few hundred ears of corn.
Ha! I didn’t mean to make that pun in the title, I realized it after I typed it.
Anyway, it is true. We are in the meat of our Spring Baseball season. We have had a lot of rainouts which is crappy, but in return the games we have played have been in gorgeous weather or cold weather which I will take any day over heat. The Summer temps have finally arrived so now it will get a little less pleasant to watch them play. The team has been doing great though. Matthew started out strong, had a bit of a hitting slump (still one of the best hitters on the team though) and this past weekend finally came out of it and it doing great now. He has had some pretty awesome fielding plays too. Diving and rolling catches, huge leaps through the air to catch it, double plays, and some impressive catches off of hard hits or crazy bounces. He is a fun person to watch play. The last two tournaments we played in were on turf which we have never done. The boys had fun sliding and diving on it. They also took 2nd in one and 1st in one. They played well.
Allison went to her second year of day camp this summer. Her arm was freshly broken and still pretty tender but she decided she felt good enough to go every other day. She loves her leader and her best friend Hailey was in her Unit so she had a pretty fun time. We were able to get a cast cover for her so she could not completely swim but still participate and cool off a little in the swim activities. She grumbled about it a little but overall she had a fun time.
Emilee went for the first time this year. Per her usual she was a nervous nelly and not to excited about going somewhere new without me. Jovee signed up with her though which was a big help, and there were several other girls in her group she new from school or gymnastics as well. It was also a huge perk that they got to ride on a bus to and from camp everyday and go swimming. She loved it. She was exhausted but loved it. Her and Jovee were really into SWAPs (Share With A Pal). They are little trinkets that each girl makes a bunch of before camp and then during camp they trade and swap them to pin on their hats, by the end of the week they have a hat full of different trinkets from camp.
I asked Allison if she wanted me to come and be a helper during the week for her Unit. She thought about it for two seconds and said no. I did not ask Emilee because I knew she would say yes and want me there all week and she needs to work on her independence. I also didn’t really want to go to camp. A few weeks before camp I got a call saying Emilee’s unit needed a helper on Thursday. I decided to do it and spent one day at camp with Emilee. We saw Allison once, when we waved she pretended to not know us. We had a pretty fun time. Jovee and Emilee insisted I sit in the middle of their bus seat instead of the empty seat next to them so i wouldn’t be lonely. Sweet thought, I agree. Not the most comfortable though. We spent the ride singing camp songs, talking about what we were doing that day and they shared all the details of their SWAPs and how they traded for them with me. We did opening flag ceremony and went to a science lab station about density. The girls had a great time. Then we made volcanoes out of lemons and baking soda. Then it was their cookout day, so we cooked hot dogs and smores over the fire. Then it was scavenger hunt/hiking time. I think I have mentioned this before but Emilee is the least ‘outdoorsy’ of our family. None of us are very outdoorsy to be honest. We like the comforts of modern amenities but we like going on hikes and enjoying the outdoors on occasion. Emilee does not. About 15 minutes into our hour hike (which was maybe a mile and a half round trip just VERY slow going) she decided to start the whining and asking me to carry her, or her stuff, or just sit down and be done completely. It took a lot of coaxing, begging, dragging, and threatening to get her to finish but she took every step on her own. At several points she did just sit down and refuse to walk any farther. Luckily we were hiking with 8 other kindergartners so it was slow going enough and they took enough breaks that we weren’t to far behind when she finally flopped the last little way back to camp and I was muttering to myself this is exactly why I didn’t want to do this in the first place. Her leader confirmed with me later that she didn’t have any other issues the rest of the week when I was not there keeping up or cooperating with what they were doing. Oh well, we finished our day up with a painting craft and closing flag ceremony and all three of us shared a seat on the way home again (I did insist on taking the outside seat though). We fell asleep as soon as the bus pulled out of the parking area to head home.
Happy Day Campers after their first day.
My day at camp with the girls. Bus ride to camp. We sang LOTS of fun camp songs
This is where we found our last clue on our scavenger hunt hike.
Some of Jovee’s SWAPs. Her dad helped us out and 3D printed a bunch of SWAPs for Allison and Emilee.
Eating our fire cooked hot dogs.
Working on our density science project.
End of the day. Dirty, tired but happy, and ready to head home.
This little power nap on the way home is why they arrived at home with just as much energy as when they left that morning.
This is how Allison’s first day of Summer went. Matthew and his friends were going to the pool so of course the girls wanted to go. I had to run to the store to get some things for them for Day Camp so Ryan was going to take them. As I was walking into the store Ryan called to tell me that Allison had broken her arm and they were headed to the hospital.
We went to the hospital closest to our house. I got there a few minutes after Alli. She was sitting in a chair waiting for them to take her back. You could tell she was in a lot of pain, she was focusing on keeping it together. Her and Ryan told me what happened while we waited for them to check her in. She had decided she was to excited to wait for Ryan to drive to the pool so she grabbed her towel and left on her bike, about 5 seconds into her ride the towel fell down and got caught in the wheel and flipped her over the handle bars. She had a couple scraps and of course her arm hurt really bad. She walked in the house and got an ice pack and told Ryan that she didn’t feel like going to the pool anymore and laid down on the couch. A few minutes later Ryan came to see if she really didn’t want to go swimming. She had her arm covered with the ice pack and asked him to get her a new one, he saw her arm when she lifted it off and realized that her arm was broken. She said, “Oh, that’s probably why I can’t move my fingers.” Then she got hysterical for a few minutes and Ryan said his brain was going hysterical too. He put the girls in the car and called me and headed to the nearest hospital. By the time they got to the hospital Allison had stopped crying and put her game face on. She never cried or even whimpered again after that.
A few minutes later they took us back and we started the waiting process for x-rays, doctors, and pain meds. When the x-rays came back it showed both bones broken, one obvious, one not so obvious. Since she was a kid and the way it was broken they wanted us to go to Children’s Mercy Hospital. They splinted it and gave her pain meds and sent us on our way. Ryan went home to drop Emilee off with Matthew and then met us there. Before he left to do that he gave Allison a blessing in the car then I took her to Children’s Mercy.
They put us in our room and Allison settled in and watched Harry Potter. The doctor came in and told her that they could give her more pain meds and do a shot in her arm to numb it then fix it, or do a shot in her arm that made her fall asleep and she could wake up when her arm was fixed. This seemed like an obvious decision to me but Allison didn’t even hesitate and said to just give her the shot to make it numb and fix it while she was awake. Ryan and I were both pretty surprised but she said she was sure. A little while later they came in to numb and set her arm. I sat at the bottom of her bed and rubbed her leg and tried not to pass out. She sat there and watched with only an occasional grimace and powered through it like a champ.
Through the whole process which took all day I was very impressed with Allison. It would have been totally fine if she was crying and upset. She definitely had a mental conversation with herself in the waiting room and you could see her decide to set her mind to the task at hand and handle the situation. When the doctor was explaining things, she listened and asked questions and when they were fixing her arm she cooperated and did whatever they needed without any issues. The doctors themselves kept saying over and over how impressed they were with how great she was doing.
Throughout the day she was asked several times if she needed anything to help make her comfortable. They wouldn’t let her eat or drink anything in case they had to put her to sleep, she didn’t complain about not eating ALL DAY even once, but she did ask if she could have some watermelon when she got home and a pizza with extra pineapple on it. Of course we made that happen. Her other request was she really wanted to see her brother, he was watching Emilee for us and can’t even handle someone talking about a broken bone let alone see one so he sent her some messages on the phone instead. Ryan and I were both touched that she wanted him for emotional support. After we got home Matthew sat in her room with her for a while and talked and hung out with her until she fell asleep. They have been spending a lot more time with each other since she broke her arm and it is nice to see them developing a closer relationship.
Ryan and I both had the thought separately that while it is crappy that she broke her arm it is also a blessing in disguise and opportunity for each of us to develop and work on our relationship with Allison without her having to much choice in the matter. Allison is extremely independent and isn’t always the most pleasant person to be around so the rest of us tend to keep a little more distance between ourselves and her than we do with other family members. Since she broke her arm she is limited on some of her regular activities and is around a little more than usual and obviously needs more help with things then she used to. She is also very particular about the way she looks and dresses and cares about presenting herself a certain way. She hates having to have help doing things that she has to do (shower, get dressed, brush and do her hair, cut her food, put on socks, tie shoes, carry things). Control is a big issue with Allison. It is very hard for her to even give the impression that she needs help because then she feels like she isn’t in control. This is when she can become quite unpleasant. Her SOP if she can’t control a situation to her desires is to take the stance that she could care less about it and wants nothing to do with whatever it was anymore at all costs. Again, this can be very unpleasant to be around. So while it would be annoying for anyone to not be able to put your shirt on. For her the situation is made even more loathsome and unbearable because she cares a great deal about her appearance and it irks her to no end that she not only has to ask for help, she has to wait and be dependent on when someone can help and be pleasant enough about it that whoever is helping her will continue to help her.
So the blessing in disguise, that for all involved seems to be very well if not perfectly disguised at times, is that Allison is presented with unavoidable ways to offer more opportunities of service and positive interaction with her to us, and we are presented with many opportunities to serve her and spend time with her in different ways then we are used too. It isn’t always pretty but I really do see many opportunities for each of us to better ourselves and our relationships with each other for the next 6-8 weeks she has her cast on. In case any of us are really slow learners though, Heavenly Father has given us plenty of extra practice time. We went to the doctor for a follow up a week or so after she broke it. They took a new xray and gave us an update. She will have her cast for 6-8 weeks minimum, then she will have a full time braces for several months, then she will be able to wear it part time for several more months. Then in 6 months to a year she can go back to her more active activities like gymnastics.
