Weekend

Friday was Brittney's 6th grade graduation. It was pretty cute... they did a fun Hawaiian theme with lei's and sunglasses. She received some really neat awards, and I was really proud of her. I can't believe she's in 7th grade next year, but I think she's going to really like it.




Look what we planted in our garden...



Hopefully it will be fun this summer. And we can have POOL PARTY on the 4th of July. It's supposed to be 100 degrees.



Saturday night we watched fireworks with Marilyn and the Sessions from the backyard patio. It's always fun when they come over. The boys had a great time wrestling and jumping on the trampoline.

Sunday we hung out with my family at my mom's house and had a yummy dinner and a nice visit. Sean got the boat partially de-winterized and ready to tow home. Josh is so excited to go boating that he can't even stand it. He talks about it all the time, has his backpack all packed (with what, I don't know), and about every half hour says, "I want to go to Pineviewwwwwwwww". He's going to be so upset if we don't go out on it soon, but there is still more work to be done.

Lagoon and other junk

I just got a set of photos from last summer in the mail from Heather. This is one of my favorites. Priceless. Thanks Heather!




Sean brought me in a bunch of beautiful flowers tonight. I thought he was just being sweet. Turns out, he dug up all these flowers that I loved to plant something else in there! Gah!



I guess he and Josh were out planting seeds of all kinds around the yard... we'll see if any of it grows. It's a little late in the year, but they just did it for fun.

So the doctor thinks Josh may also be allergic to wheat and wants me to cut that out of his diet now. He also wants me to cut out peanuts, but I'm not doing that one yet. I'm pretty sure peanuts aren't the problem, because he doesn't eat peanut products very regularly. I went out to Whole Foods today to see what I could find. We don't have any good stores like that within a 20 mile radius, I've discovered. It's so frustrating. It's quite a long drive there and back with traffic, and the stuff is just so expensive. $6 for a tiny bag of rice flour, then you have to buy a $10 bag of xanthum gum that you use with the flour, $5 for a cake mix or cookie or muffin mix, then you have to pay another $5.50 for egg replacer to use with the mix. $5.50 for chicken nuggets or fish sticks that he can eat, and it's a teeny little box... 2 servings. $5 for a small box of cookies. The bread he can eat is $4 a loaf, and it's nasty stuff. So I've gotta keep researching some more doable-from-home recipes and just try to get him to eat stuff that's less specialty (fruits & vegetables would be a great start). Anyway.... that was today's adventure. They have a fabulous looking salad bar in there, though. I need to go back sometime and try it.

Yesterday we took a drive up to the cabin and went past the lake. It looked so nice to be out on the water. I hope I can do some of that before the end of the summer!

Heather is coming to visit tomorrow for 2 months while Peter does a residency at the U of U hospital. Yay and double yay! Can't wait to see them. Scott is hopefully coming in a few weeks, and it'll just be a regular party! So excited.

Saturday we went to Lagoon for Sean's work summer party. I wasn't up for doing any walking, so I sat in a chair honestly the whole day. It was really nice to get out in the fresh air and read a book though. The kids had a good time. We were in a pavilion next to this Samoan group, and since I stayed back at the pavilion the whole day resting, I got to kinda watch them. Let me tell you, these guys knew how to do it up right. They pulled out the charcoal bbq grill at about noon-ish or 1:00 and they did not stop cooking until almost 10:00 at night. I'm not talking about throwing something on the grill now and again; they had that thing full of meat *all *day. I should have gone over and tried to make friends. Looked like they were having fun over there. I'm always envious of the big families having a good time when we go places like that. I love it when we get to do that with our family. Those are some of my funnest memories. Anyway, Lagoon is such a great place to people watch, too. Man, you certainly do see some ill-advised clothing choices.

Not much else going on around here. Just taking it easy. This is Brittney's last week of school. She'll be in junior high next year, and Josh's birthday is too late to start kindergarten yet, so I'll have a year break from elementary school before we start all over again. It will be so nice to have us all on the same schedule for once!

Josh is his daddy's little shadow. If Sean is working on a project, Josh is right there beside him. When Sean was building my dad a wheelchair ramp, Josh was right there with his own pencil, pieces of wood, tape measure, working away. This weekend Sean was hanging blinds and Josh had all his equipment, too. He told us the other day, "Know what I'm gonna be when I grow up? A dad. And we're going to be 2 dads. And I'm going to have all daddy's tools and mow the lawn." Of course, he also said something about how he's going to nurse a baby, so I don't know where he's getting all his info.

I had a few editorial pieces in mind to write about this week, but I'm having a hard time working up much righteous indignation at the moment, and plus that's all my last blog was about. Hate to get too predictable. So maybe another time.

So really I don't have much to blog about at the moment. I had surgery last week. It sucks. The end. My body was really run down before I had surgery, so it hasn't been a swift recovery, but I'll get there. That is all for now.

Things On My Mind....

Things That Make Me Want To Yell...
Things That Are Annoying Me...
Things That Must Go....
Take your pick; they're all accurate. They are as follows:

I'm in the family room/bedroom/backyard. Kid (usually it's kid... sometimes it's husband) calls to me, "Do we have any yogurt?" "Is there any leftover pizza?" "Well, where in the fridge is it?" Hey, just let me pull out my trusty little map that I made of the contents of the fridge, because I keep it in my pocket for just this occasion! How the heck do I know where in the fridge the string cheese is? Look! Move things around! Clean it out while you're at it. Sheesh.

In the week that I've been off work I've eaten too much and spent too much money. That's why I work. It forces me to be out *making money instead of home figuring out ways to *spend it. And I can only eat what I bring with me at work. Or buy in the school cafeteria, and honestly, who wants to eat much of that?

Crazy weather. This year has been really weird! We wanted to go out boating this week, and it's been too cold and rainy! It's been too cold to go boating in June! Not right, people!

There is a middle school health teacher (in another district, not mine) who got into some trouble when parents complained that she was answering their childrens' questions about sex and sex-related topics. This is against the law in Utah. She was put on leave and there is an investigation pending. Fine. Sounds appropriate. If she was out of line, I'm sure they'll reprimand her or take her license. However, that wasn't good enough for some of the parents, who promptly held a meeting to discuss how that teacher could be fired without giving her due process. Without hearing her side of the story or completing any investigation. And, they are pressing their representative in the legislature to make it a criminal offense for a teacher to discuss anything related to sex that is not approved by the legislature. A bill will be sponsored next year in the legislature to make it so that a teacher can go to *jail for saying anything not in the approved curriculum. I'm fine with them having a curriculum, and with firing someone for not sticking to it, but jail time for a teacher who says, "Being gay is OK" or "If you are having sex you need to protect yourself"? Honestly, this is an offense worthy of criminal proceedings? People who have never spent much time in front of class, a high school class especially, might not understand just how crazy this is. There are topics that come up as you read novels and discuss literature, as you discuss events in students' lives, and you make a good-faith effort to stay within the boundaries of what's acceptable and appropriate. I take that very seriously. And not just sex-related topics, either. Religion. Politics. Biases and prejudices. A recent example of this in my classroom was when we talked about stereotypes in English class. In every class, the kids brought up the stereotype of the "slut" and I feel like that's definitely a valid one and we talked about it. I was very careful, but the conversation could definitely be construed wrong and I could get into trouble for discussing sex in a non-health class. Now I have to worry about doing jail time if I say the wrong thing? I've always just felt like if you use common sense and good judgement you'll be fine, but who knows? It feels like the legislature and at times the parents are suspicious of and even hostile towards educators. Anyway, why don't these parents get together and have a meeting to discuss why their kids are looking for info from their 8th grade health teacher instead of asking at home, if they're so bent about it. Teacher shortage indeed.

I'm really tired of everyone dogging on and making fun of Hilary Clinton for not bowing out of the race. I understand the issues and the problems it presents, but I think the people have the right to vote for the candidate they want. I am a Clinton supporter, and there are plenty others out there who are as well. She won, what, 5 of the last 6 primary races? Who gets to say that she should step aside for Obama, when there are plenty of people who support her. Last number I read showed that she won the popular vote... it's just that Obama has more delegates, which leads me to another issue. The Democratic National Party needs to make a change to the way we do this. We need to put candidates on the ballot based on the popular vote, not on super delegates. I admire Clinton for sticking it out, even when the odds got long, because that's what this country is all about, by damn, the democratic process. My vote is extremely important to me, even if my candidates seldom get elected here in Utah, and I want the right to exercise it, not have a bunch of super delegates trump that and take it away. Hmph. I'll still support Obama, but I think Clinton would do a better job, and it's my right to have the chance to say so.

In other, non-complaining and ranting-like-a-crazy-person news... Lexi went to the doctor for her one-year checkup. She has dropped to the 20%ile for her weight, while in the 70th for height. She still looks chubby to me, and the ped said that she doesn't look like she's hurting for food. She still has fat rolls. Her eating has really dropped off as she's gotten picky, and I've been afraid to give her a very wide variety of stuff before a year, but he said it's fine now, so it's game on. I'm finding a lot more stuff she likes now that I feel like I can try more things.

Josh went to the doctor and I pushed him to retest for at least some of the basics, so we'll see what comes back. He cried when they took his blood, and the nurse was almost in tears too because he was just so sweet and trying to be brave but not quite hacking it. His skin looks really great right now, but he's on about a billion meds to try to get it/keep it that way. Hopefully the tests will tell us something, and then we can take him off everything but the allergy med.

I bought albums to start making my kids memory books. You know, Courtney will be in college in 2 years, so I figured, hey, maybe she should have a baby book! Better late than never? I'm an unrepentant slacker, what can I say. That's one of my projects for this summer.

And now I must go lie on the floor and say, "I ate too much!" (shout out to my brother Scott) because I had a Cafe Rio salad for dinner and I'm *stuffed.

Lexi's Birthday

Lexi is one year old now. It's really fun to watch her little personality develop. From the very beginning, Lexi has been different from the rest of my kids. It's been kinda funny, actually. Even the pregnancy was different from all the others... It has been really amazing, actually, all the things that could have gone wrong and that they thought might be wrong with her, and everything has just kept turning out fine. From the perfect timing of her due date, and then some of the testing coming back scary, and then her not staying head-down at the end and her heart rate dropping, my heart rate dropping in labor... I just feel so fortunate that everything has been fine. She's my only baby that's gone over the due date (and by a week no less), my biggest baby, my baby with the most hair, my only baby that wouldn't take a bottle, my sleepiest baby... In fact, in the beginning I couldn't wake her up to eat. I tried everything. She slept through the first bath I gave her, in a sitting up position... She is my only baby that wasn't walking at around 10 months... she's just been different, and she's scared me a few times, but she's super sweet and worth it.





Brittney made her a butterfly out of cupcakes.



Josh was excited to see if she would like her cake. I didn't give her one with frosting because she was really tired and I didn't want to have a melt down when I had to clean frosting out of her hair.






Sean's family came over to help us celebrate, but then Lexi slept all through her party. I felt bad, but she was so cranky earlier in the day until she fell asleep that I just hated to wake her up. It was fun to have them come over, though, and really it was just a good excuse to get everyone together anyway.

We went up to the cabin today. Here are some pics. I got sunburned while I was mowing. I don't know why I can never remember sunscreen.

Before:




After:




The river is running pretty swift, but it hasn't flooded. Yay!


I've gotta take Josh in to the doctor for an allergy follow-up this week. I'm going to push for re-doing the testing. If they won't do it for me here, which I don't know why they wouldn't, we're going up to Primary Children's. We may end up there anyway. It's just getting way too bad and no one has any answers.



Tomorrow I am going to make my menu for the month again, and then do a big shopping trip for the entire month. It really worked out pretty well last month. Then maybe we'll hit the library and go look for some good mindless summertime reading. My favorite kind.