Rose harvested a zucchini, grated it up, and cooked herself some green zucchini eggs one day. She LOVES doing things for herself, little miss independent.
Rose being artistic at her new desk. In July we went to the Sunnyside School District surplus sale and snagged two desks and chairs for 25 cents apiece to put in the girls' rooms. I love gems like that sale! We got two desks and two chairs for a grand total of $1. And I found a table for the basement for another whopping $3, bringing our total up to $4. Talk about bang for your buck!
Rose's intensity takes on many forms, including anti-chore meltdowns.
Using our tiny garden's zucchini bounty, I tried my hand at chocolate cinnamon zucchini cake. It was a success, although I'm not sure how necessary the zucchini was to the recipe.
We got about 10-15 zucchinis from our lone zucchini plant before it suddenly gave up the ghost, turned brown, and perished on us in late August. I'm not sure if it was a disease or some form of neglect or ignorance on my part, but we had our fill of zucchini so it turned out just fine.
Zucchini hash: grated zucchini seasoned with salt and Cajun seasoning, with over easy eggs and garden fresh cherry tomatoes on the side. I ate some form of this second breakfast nearly every day for a month: so nourishing, filling, and GOOD!
Nothing like a little post-bath science reading at bedtime.
"Look, Mommy! We're unicorns!"
Sleepy reader at bedtime.
These kids and their random poses! At Dog Lake Campground on the ill-fated 90 degree day that Jeff and I took turns running part of the marathon course.
Amber is the silent learner. She knows the difference between letters and music notes! One day while she was browsing the Friend magazine she found a piano song and put the magazine up on the piano to "play" it. And Jay devoured TEN thick Rick Riordan books this summer. He is our resident expert on all mythology now.
Our Grandview friends the Smiths came over to play one morning. These kids play so well together!
Rose: proud of a Barbie hairdo she did. Amber: proudly sneaking the milk jug across the kitchen.
Amber really likes her zebra backpack.
Jeff had jury duty for two weeks in August, and every night after five he called in to find out if his group had to go to court the next day. He only ever had to go in one day. Looks like our crossed fingers paid off!
This awesome little curly-top has really been developing her personality (even more) lately. She decided that using the potty is too much trouble and usually refuses to go more than once a day now, necessitating a return (again) to diapers. I got a box of pull-ups and I'm settling in for the long haul. Even though I know she will eventually decide to switch to the potty sometime in the next year, it still feels like a failure! Arg, little miss stubborn-pants.
Wildfire smoke in late summer changed the kids' morning run to morning cartoons. Not ideal, but smoke is smoke.
She still stretches like a newborn sometimes, knees folded up and back arched.
Amber made sure to accesorize her crazy bedhead with a headband before settling down for morning cartoons.
From my journal on August 22, 2017: Did I write about the eclipse? It was yesterday. We had somewhere between 88%-95% of the sun covered here, and it was pretty awesome to look at. And then life went on. It was fun sitting on the grass in the side yard with our funny cardboard glasses on, watching the moon slowly cover the sun. The light was eerie, and the temperature dropped--that was the craziest part for me. I had goosebumps on my arms! The weak sideways light reminded me a little of tornado weather in Tennessee.
Rose used most of a black marker's ink to draw what the eclipse looked like to her. We were at like 95% coverage so it wasn't all dark, but it was still cool!
Amber and her stack of Beep Beep books: they go everywhere with her. (Magic Schoolbus books)
We dropped something off for Jeff at work, and Amber was SAD when he didn't come home with us.
SAD LIPS!
Jay and Rose play real games of chess following the actual rules. Once the coerced me into playing. Jay taught me the rules and Rose was my conscience, leading me to victory over Jay. He called foul because he had promised to "go easy on you" when I agreed to play. After that game, all of the rules fled my head again. Amber is going to know how to play chess before I remember where the pieces can move! Parenting bright kids is continually humbling.
Jay made me breakfast in bed at 6am, cute boy. Jeff intercepted him in the nick of time at the top of the steep basement stairs and carried the tray down for him. I love how Jay randomly decides to serve me, and how completely unaware he is that waking me up in the wee hours of the morning may be hard on me. I can't be upset about the sacrificed sleep, though, because he is just so SWEET.
Everyone wants in on Sunday morning couch snuggles!
Boring, but satisfying: after 3 months of living in this house, I finally unloaded and reorganized the jumbled closet by the playroom. I used an entire Amber-nap to do it. I deal almost exclusively in Amber nap currency on weekdays. "How much will that cost?" --three Amber-naps. Thankfully this closet organization only cost me one Amber-nap.
Another quick project (1/4 of an Amber-nap, although I did it after naptime) was the command center wall. Every family needs a command center that's out of reach of the resident toddler. This is where we hang things like school reading logs, homework that's not due till Friday, Cub Scout activity plans, etc.
That hallway is pretty narrow for the command center, but it really was the only place for it.
Amber loved picking and shredding the big bush of purple flowers behind our house. Every now and then she brought me a sprig of half-shredded, half-alive flowers. From my wild monkey-child, it felt especially sweet.
The cousins came over to play while Aunt Steph went grocery shopping one day, and it was meltdown central--Steph's kids do not like being LEFT ANYWHERE. Moana to the rescue! I keep telling myself that someday my nieces and nephews will like me. Well, little baby Cole likes me, with his charming chubby smiles. But then again, Grayce liked me when she was that age, and last time she came over, she screamed and cried inconsolably for thirty minutes straight, until her mom came back.
And look! I won a CONTEST! A book contest! One of my favorite authors, Wendelin Van Draanen, held a series of social media contests for a free copy of one of her freshly reprinted Sammy Keyes books, and I actually WON one! She mailed it to me and it was the best package ever! I love books. I love books in the mail. I want to go read right now.
From my journal entry on August 28th--the last day of summer break for the kids:
I loved this idea from a parenting article I just read: "If, instead, we can stay mindful – meaning we notice our emotions and let them pass without acting on them – we model emotional regulation, and our children learn from watching us."
Today was rough. It involved four hours of cleaning the playroom, or in other words, four hours of being a slave driver to get the kids to clean the playroom. And by kids, I mean Rose. Jay was dilligent the whole time, if not all the way competent at organizing. But Rose really gave me a chance to practice my patience! I did not really succeed though, and the morning included way too many severe instances where I hissed/growled/firmly declared "get back to work!" I was basically peeved the whole time, which I hate, but Rose was reluctant and Amber kept undoing everything we did or sneaking off to create giant messes elsewhere, like the spice cabinet-- her personal favorite. Sigh. We finally organized the last toy around noon, and I carried four small boxes of toys out of the playroom to hopefully keep it less cluttered.
Piano lessons started today too. It was normal but also exhausting with cranky Amber there. I did NOT want o make dinner when we got home, but I was cornered because I didn't go grocery shopping today, so I cooked anyways. It took a large effort!
From a August 18th journal entry, when I jotted a few useful notes from my scripture study:
Notes and thoughts from scripture study (Elder Rasband's latest conf talk, Let the holy spirit guide). What an excellent talk. The more I look at it, the more solid gold everyday counsel I find.
*These tips on how to always have the Spirit to be with us from Elder Rasband are specific, practical, and useful:
- Strive to live worthy of the Spirit
- "We must always try to obey God’s laws, study the scriptures, pray, attend the temple, and live true to the thirteenth article of faith, “being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and … doing good to all men.”
- I love that he said we have to TRY. We may not manage it all every single day, but it's our effort that makes the difference. Effort counts!
- Be willing to receive the Spirit
- Recognize the Spirit when it comes
- "The Spirit most often communicates as a feeling. You feel it in words that are familiar to you, that make sense to you, that prompt you."
- President Monson said: "As we pursue the journey of life, let us learn the language of the Spirit.”
- "These feelings are gentle, a nudge to act, to do something, to say something, to respond in a certain way."
- "If we are casual or complacent in our worship, drawn off and desensitized by worldly pursuits, we find ourselves diminished in our ability to feel."
- Worldly pursuits diminish our ability feel.
- They aren't all bad, but too much of that stuff and my ability to feel and be sensitive to the spirit is affected. Diminished!
Here's a clip from my September 2nd journal entry:
Amber story: I ran with the stroller in town yesterday and we stopped at the park afterwards so Amber could play while I did a few exercises. Two cute bilingual kids arrived with their mom and Amber lit up and immediately started playing with them, following them around. They were so cute and kind to her, calling her bebe, and including her in their play. The little 4ish year old girl was especially sweet. She kept helping Amber put her flip flop back on when it fell off. It made me so happy to watch! At one point they were all climbing onto a bouncy toy, and the little girl wasn't sitting all the way on top yet. She said "no ya, no ya, no ya!" (not yet!) to her brother and Amber, to stop them from bouncing before she was in her spot. Amber clearly thought she was saying"weehaw! Weehaw!" because she bounced higher, joining in the girl's no-ya-no-ya with a similar-sounding "weehaw weehaw!" I was laughing and laughing on the sidelines.
2 comments:
"Amber-nap currency"!!!!! I'm still laughing at that!
And I love reading your scripture study / Conference talk insights. I always learn from you.
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