EEK!

Rebecca's hair has been in need of some help. She chopped a section off several weeks back, and she won't keep a ponytail in her hair (the only thing that hides it). It was getting so long, the chunk in the back was really obvious. Plus it was just too long. After getting her out of the bath this morning, I decided her bangs really needed to be cut, and while I was at it, I thought I'd at least trim her hair a bit. I didn't stop at a trim. I ended up cutting off about 5 inches! That was never my intention, I just got carried away. I'm not even sure I CAN put it in a ponytail now! But it is pretty cute, at least from the front. And the chunk at the back isn't quite so obvious.

(Becca holding Goldie, Rachel's new puppy.)

Rachel

Today is Rachel's 8th birthday. So following tradition, I thought I'd document a few of the things I love about her.

1. Rachel is the smartest girl I know.

2. She has a love of books that matches Kathryn!

3. She makes friends very easily.

4. She likes to pose for the camera.

5. She laughs easily and often.

6. She's stubborn when angry.

7. She's very sensitive.

8. She loves gymnastics, and she's quite good at it.

9. She has the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen.

10. She loves art in all its forms.

11. She can shop for hours at a time.

12. She loves to accessorize.

13. She loves babies.

14. Dogs are her favorite thing ever, and she would love to have one.

15. She gets excited to go to school every single day.

16. She already has a good sense of fashion.

17. She loves to sing.

18. She's a great helper around the house.

19. She never wants to leave anyone out of anything.

20. She wants to make people happy.

21. She likes doing homework.

22. She's very responsible.

23. She's a GIRLY girl.

24. She wants to be involved in everything.

25. She is a great example to Tyler and Becca

26. She wants to do what is right.

27. She has definite favorites, and she's not movable on those. At least for this week.

28. She gets so excited to learn new things.

29. She loves to be silly.

30. She is kind, compassionate, and loving.

Happy Birthday sweet Rachel. I love you!

Working Family

I have a job. Actually, I've been doing it for a while, but I hadn't posted on it or even told everyone yet. Our budget was stretched a little tighter than we liked, but I didn't want to take a job that would take me away from my kids. The solution seemed to fall in our laps.



A man in the Elders Quorum presidency with Scott has a company that puts up signs for housing developments. You know, the ones that say "This development this way" with a big arrow kind of thing. They go up on Friday nights and need to come down again Sunday nights. Gary was looking for someone to take over a couple routes, so we jumped at the chance. We took the middle seat out of our van to have room for the signs, then we load all three kids in the back seat and head out. I do the driving and Scott does the placing and picking up. At first it took us about 6 1/2 hours to do the placing, but we've brought that down to 4 1/2, and I think we can get even faster. Picking up has gone from 4 1/2 hours to 3 1/2, but we're getting faster there too. We have just over 200 signs between the two routes we have, and it pays $1 a sign, so for 8-10 hours of work in a weekend, we earn $200. The kids get paid for coming along with us, as well as for loading, unloading, and sorting signs. It's been a fun little job for us so far, and that extra $800 a month is going to be a huge boost to our budget. And we get to do it as a family!

At Last

I've been meaning to post for a while on my kids first day of school, but life keeps getting in the way. Let's hope I get it done today!

My kids jumped out of bed as soon as their alarms went off (7:00) and were dressed within minutes. They'd had breakfast, brushed hair and teeth, packed up backpacks, and were asking to go to the bus stop by 7:25. Think they were a bit excited? Unfortunately that meant I had to hold them off for half an hour until it was time to go to the bus stop. That gave Tyler plenty of time to wake up Becca by yelling all over the house, and it gave Rachel enough time to accessorize her outfit with everything she could think of. We even changed the color of her watch band to match her outfit.

I thought they should have something special for breakfast, but I'm really not a morning person, so we bought Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. My kids love them and think they're a real treat, so it was perfect. Tyler was his typical self, scarfing them down as quick as he could. Rachel, of course, was more proper, getting out a knife and fork to be sure she kept her clothes pristine.

They both had a great time going through their new school clothes to pick out just the perfect outfit for the day. I have a feeling we'll be seeing this shirt on Tyler a LOT. Rachel took quite a bit longer to pick out her clothes. She had to go through all the combinations of pants and shirts to get just the right thing. It's so nice to see her in jeans that are long enough! (Both kids picked the same shirts for picture day too!)

We did have one snafu for the day. The buses are color coded to make it easier for kids to remember which bus they ride. My kids ride orange bus, but Tyler's teacher told him to get on yellow bus. Rachel got off the bus with the most worried look I've ever seen on her face because Tyler wasn't on the bus! The bus driver of yellow bus figured out Tyler wasn't supposed to be on her bus, but not before orange bus was gone. They had to send a little bus back to the school to bring him home. And the first words out of his mouth were, "I don't like school. It's too much work." He didn't even CARE about the whole bus thing!

So they're off on their next big adventure. Tyler will have his first experiences with all day school, lunch rooms, two recesses, and getting up early. Rachel won't be one of the babied first graders anymore. She's a seasoned second grader. More homework, more responsibilities, and someone to be looked up to. So far they're doing great. They've adjusted to the new schedule, they love their teachers, they're making friends, and they still get up right on time, looking forward to the next day of school!

And the wait continues...

The BEA and the school district reached a tentative agreement on Monday which would get my kids in school, but the contract still had to be voted on by the teachers. So my kids may or may not have school tomorrow. We're still waiting to hear. I know the teachers have left the meeting where the voting was taking place, as have the press vans, but there is still no word on either the hot line or the district website on the outcome of the vote. My neighbor talked to a couple of the teachers, both of whom said they voted against the contract, so it's not looking good. But we're prepping our kids like they have school tomorrow. Lunches have been made, clothes have been chosen, and Rachel is in the shower. Let's hope all our prep work wasn't in vain...

UPDATE:
The contract was ratified with 84% in favor. We will be starting school tomorrow!!

Funny!

Amber posted a blog on an ebay listing that was really funny. I clicked on the woman's blog and found it delightful. She has 6 kids and a crazy life and a great sense of humor. If you'd like to check it out, you can find her here: http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/
I also put her blog up in my links to the other blogs I read. I hope you enjoy her as much as I do!

Power

Last night was a cool night. After a rather muggy afternoon, a storm rolled in pretty late in the evening. Normally I don't think of storms as cool, but this one was. There was a lot of cloud cover, as well as rain, so the huge lightening bolts were reflected off the atmosphere and lit up the entire sky. I've never seen such bright flashes. Even with our black fake leather curtains that block out the bright sun we saw the flashes of light. It was so bright, we just had to go sit outside to watch for a while. Even though I was expecting the flashes, there were still several that made my jump for how bright they were. I've heard loud thunder before, but last night was the first time I recall hearing rolling thunder. We could practically feel it moving across the sky, building and rumbling and receding as it passed us. And it lasted much longer than any other thunder clap I've ever heard. It was one of those times I couldn't help but stand in awe at the power and majesty I was witnessing. All I could think was, "Behold the power of God." It was a cool night.

My yearly torture...

Canning is one of those things that I HATE to do, but LOVE the end result of. As of right now, I think I may never do it again. My back aches, my feet are sore, my thumb is brown and icky, I have several little cuts and burns on my fingers, and my hands still smell faintly of onion. And I still haven't done my pears! At this moment, it all seems a bit overwhelming. But ask me next week when the pain has faded and my kitchen is clean again and I'm sure I'll speak with pride of the quarts of peaches, pints of salsa, and various jars of pear sauce I have stored up. And I know my family will be enjoying the "fruits" of my labor all year. Like I said, I LOVE the end result, but it is such a (literal) pain in the neck!

Oh, and as soon as I'm done with my canning, I'll be pulling out my dehydrator so I can get to work on beef jerky, onion flakes, and other herbs and produce... Why oh why do I torture myself like this?

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!

Our school teachers are officially on strike. Which means we have no idea when school will actually begin for my kids. I remember going through this when I was a kid (anyone remember how long that one lasted?) but it's totally different from the side of a parent. I have not only the frustration of constantly bickering kids with no end in sight, but the added issues of Rachel's tears of disappointment and constant questions about when school will start. Contract negotiations have gone so poorly the state appointed a mediator to help them sort things out. There has been offer and counter offer after offer and counter offer, and from what I hear, the sides are still so far apart there's no telling when a compromise will be reached. But then, that could just be the rumor mill working overtime. At this point, when the first day of school will actually be is a complete mystery. Let's hope my kids and I don't kill each other in the mean time...

When it rains...

Because I didn't have enough to deal with, we're now looking at yet another repair.

When Scott was mowing the back yard on Saturday, the lawn mower shot out a small pebble and it hit the stationary piece next to our sliding glass door, shattering it. Fortunately it's double paned so we don't have to fix it right this second, but we do need to replace it. The glass didn't fall out right away, it stayed all spiderweb like in the frame for a day or so. All afternoon it crackled and crinkled as the glass continued to break more and more. It was kind of a cool sound, and fun to watch new "webs" form on the glass. Of course that didn't last and eventually glass pieces started falling to the ground. I spent a good hour cleaning up the glass yesterday, getting it off the ground and knocking the last of it out of the frame. We're getting estimates on repairs this week, so hopefully we'll get it fixed soon.

Oh, and the starter on my van is going out.

Catch up... again.

I feel like my entire life is spent doing catch up sometimes. For those who want to know, here are the highlights of my past few weeks:

• Someone tried to break into my van by breaking in a window while we were at a concert in the park a couple weeks ago. Fortunately the safety film on it held so they didn't actually get IN my car, but we still obviously had to have it replaced. It actually held for a few days, then blew out unexpectedly while driving to the library. My kids thought it was hilarious. Fortunately it blew OUT of the car, not in.

• A couple weeks later, at the same park, Rachel's purse got stolen right off our blanket. We were playing in the wading pool, and it was there with all our other stuff. It was the only thing taken. She was heartbroken. We're not sure we're going back to that park anymore, even if it is where the concerts in the park my kids love so much are held. (By the way, the concert that afternoon was Taylor Ware, the yodeling girl from America's Got Talent. She was darling, and very good.)

• My kids got to go bowling for the first time ever a couple weeks ago. It was awesome! Bumpers came up automatically for the kids then went back down for the grown ups, and they even had a cool little ramp the kids could slide their balls down to give them more momentum. That ramp was a life saver. The first few balls Becca sent down the lane went excruciatingly slowly. Even SHE got bored of watching it, and there was one that didn't even go the whole way. It got stuck in the pins. But once we found that, the kids' scores went way up and they had much more fun. Of course Rachel was too old for that kind of thing and did just fine on her own, beating me in all 3 games. She also had the bumpers, but that's beside the point. :D

• Scott and I celebrated our anniversary a couple weeks ago. I can't believe it's been 12 years already!

• Scott and I and some friends went to a great club called the Triple Door last weekend. It had great food, and the entertainment was fantastic. We'll definitely go back.

• We made it (EARLY) to 9:00 church in Mill Creek (north of Bothell!!) on Sunday to be there when Devin Williams blessed his baby on Sunday. It was so nice to see them again.

• We finally decided to have our septic tank pumped this week for the first time in 5 years and found our pump had gone out. It turned into this whole ordeal. Instead of being an hour long, $300 job, it was a 2 day, $3,000 job. Fortunately the pump went out recently, or we would have had sewage backing up into the house. We're lucky it was caught when it was.

• I'm on my third medication for my insomnia, and it's working fine without all the weird side effects the others gave me, but I worry about the dependency rate and withdrawal problems of it. I talked to a friend who's on another medication in the same family of drugs, but it has a much lower risk of dependency, and it doesn't have withdrawal symptoms, so I'm going to ask my doctor if I can be switched to that one instead.

• We had a fantastic Activity Days activity at my house last week. A couple weeks ago we had a lesson on the Word of Wisdom. Last week we put it into action by making a meal together that was based on what we're told we should be eating. The girls had so much fun, and the dinner was really yummy! We had spaghetti with home made sauce full of fresh herbs and just enough garlic, home made meatballs, a really great salad filled with lots of yummy stuff, and home made bread sticks. The girls had the most fun forming the bread sticks. None of them had ever done it before! For dessert we did my crock pot peach cobbler and home made ice cream. I'm not sure how I'm going to top this activity.

• I finally got my eyes checked out for the first time in a few years. I'll be getting new glasses and contacts in a couple weeks!

That's what I can think of about my last couple weeks. We've been spending a lot of time at the park and the library this summer. This was supposed to be my relaxing summer at home, but I'm never home! Does life ever slow down??

Hippo Birdie to Ewe...

Happy Birthday to the bestest, most wonderful, most amazing woman I know!

I love you Mom!

Let's try again...

I went to see my doctor again yesterday because I didn't like the side effects of the medication I was on. So we've changed meds once again. This is the last medication I'm trying. If this doesn't work, I'm going back to be an insomniac. Actually, she suggested doing a sleep study if this one doesn't work, but I'd rather have done that to begin with! I feel like she's really pushing meds, and not the meds I want. We'll see how this goes...

She's awesome!

I officially LOVE my babysitter. My kids adore her (she plays games with them, brings them coloring books, and gives them piggy back rides to bed) and she cleans! My house is always in better shape when I come home than when I left. Friday, she did my dishes (like always) AND she cleaned my kids' rooms!! Getting them to clean their rooms is like pulling teeth, but she and Rachel did both rooms in what I hear was record time. AND she's grateful that I use her and feels like I pay her too much! (I don't pay her ENOUGH!) When both kids love her and the parents love her, you know you've found a great babysitter. Mine is the BEST!

Now THIS is summer

Today is the first of what I'm sure will be many 7+ hour days at the park this summer. We got to the park at 10:00, played for a while, ate lunch while we watched a kids variety act that was the concert in the park for the afternoon, then my kids got drenched in the wading pool. Of course we forgot swimming suits, but it was so hot I couldn't deny them the chance to cool off. We left a little after 5:00 sunburned and exhausted, having had a really excellent day. I took some pictures, but my hard drive is dying so I won't be uploading them until we can get it replaced. Pictures to come soon! I know I should be more detailed about our long day, but I'm too tired. Maybe you'll get more detail when you get the pics. :D

We're expected to hit temps in triple digits tomorrow. Rare for us.

Better than I thought...

Apparantly my lesson on Sunday went better than I thought. I got a call from my bishop last night asking me to adapt it into a talk for Sacrament Meeting this Sunday! How do I get myself into these situations? This has to be his wife's fault...

My favorite lesson!

As I think I mentioned before, I taught in Relief Society on Sunday. It was a pretty remarkable experience for me. My lesson was on the hand of the Lord in the formation of our country, specifically in our constitution. I don't have time to do a full write up here, but I thought I'd pass along a few of my favorite quotes.

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. - John Gunther

No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to God's laws, and such of them as are valid derive all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. - Alexander Hamilton

In 1740, a mere generation before the Revolution, the intellectual life of America was dominated by clergymen; by 1840, a generation or so after the Revolution, it would be dominated by scientists and inventors. Only for the brief span of a single lifetime would America's statesmen and her brightest thinkers be the same men.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! - Thomas Jefferson

One man with courage makes a majority. - Andrew Jackson

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisibly hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. - George Washington

Those men who laid the foundation of this American government were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits... [and] were inspired of the Lord. - Wilford Woodruff

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life. This country will not be a permanently good place for us to live unless it's a good place for all of us to live. - Theodore Roosevelt

A citizen of this republic cannot do his duty and be an idle spectator. - Ezra Taft Benson

Because of our unwillingness to get involved in the preservation of these values, small, radical, Godless groups are literally stealing from us our rights to enjoy the freedom to choose our own value system. - L. Tom Perry

Evidently the Supreme Court misinterprets the true meaning of the First Amendment, and are now leading a Christian nation down the road to atheism. – David O. McKay

Ok, that ended up being a few more than I intended, but still not nearly enough. What a blessing it is to live in a land prepared by the Lord. This truly is the promised land and I am grateful to be blessed to be a citizen of The United States of America. Happy Independence Day, and God bless you all.

I need a nap...

I'm exhausted! I've spent pretty much every day at Lisa's house over the past week or so, helping her clean and unpack and paint and take care of her kids. Hunter, her 7 month old, is incredibly cute, but he's a needy little boy. If he's not being held, he's screaming bloody murder. That makes for slow going. The past couple nights I've been there past midnight trying to get Annabelle's room painted (stripes of two colors of pink and white stripes, and we had to paint over a horrible blue wall). So that's why you haven't seen any new posts from me. Lisa is great. She and I are a lot alike and get along like we've known each other pretty much forever. Our kids play really well together as well. I feel really lucky to have met her. But I am exhausted. It'll be nice when life gets back to normal a little. Her husband gets home this weekend from an almost 6 months away doing training for his job, so she won't need me as much then.

I taught Relief Society again on Sunday. It went really well. I'll try to post some of my favorite quotes from my studies tomorrow. They'll be appropriate for the day.

It's a small world after all...

I went to help a new family move into our ward this afternoon. Well, the Elders Quorum did the big move on Saturday, but this woman's husband is across the country doing job training, so she is doing it all herself, with a 3 1/2 year old girl and a 7 month old boy, so I went to help her unpack today. We got to talking about where she was from and what her husband did. She mentioned her husband went to school on Bainbridge Island. "WHAT? What is your last name again?" Dahlstrom. Ken Dahlstrom and his family just moved into my ward! The world seems so small inside the church.

He happened to call while I was there and asked my maiden name. When he heard it, he immediately went into stories of scouting with Ben. I just had to laugh. You never know who you'll run into or what distant memory will suddenly turn up in your ward! I was just going to help a woman alone with her move, and suddenly I'm taken on a trip into my past. This is weirder to me than driving down Meridian and having Alan Cleaver driving right behind me.

Catch Up

Just a few random oddities of my life so y'all feel caught up:

1. Tyler had his birthday party on Saturday afternoon. It was the easiest one I've ever put on, and he loved every minute of it. He looked so handsome in his new church clothes from Grammy and Grampy today! (picture to come)

2. I got my first "excellent!" out of my piano teacher on Saturday afternoon. He was very pleased with how far I'd come on a song we've been working on. That was really exciting for me.

3. I badly twisted my ankle Saturday night and can hardly walk.

4. We had a storm come through here this afternoon. I LOVED it. The colors in the clouds were amazing (as were the greens of the trees against the dark sky) and I've come to love thunder and lightening. I'm so glad my kids love storms too. They ran around, loving every second nearly as much as I did.

5. I still don't love my new medication. I'm still having side effects, but not as severe as with the other one. But I'm not sleeping as well either. I'm leaning towards forgetting meds all together and just suffering through my insomnia, but I'll talk to my doctor once more before I make that decision.

6. I have about 10 loads of laundry that need to be folded. My kids are finally out of school for the summer. I'm supposed to be at Activity Girls Day Camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I'm still not sure if I can make it. I promised to help a new woman in our ward unpack tomorrow since she has 2 small kids and her husband is out of town. Scott is going out of town for the weekend with his dad and brothers. I'm having a fondue party one night he's gone (Jenn, I could use some help on this!). What happened to the LAZY days of summer?

That's about it for me for now!