Determined to go to the temple

I've been wanting to get these baptism names my parents sent me done and after making arrangements for John we agreed last night that Sarah, Nathaniel, Peter and I would leave this morning at 7:15 am for the Provo temple. Busy place over there and the earlier the better. Nathaniel isn't so hip on the idea because he finds the baptisms awkward (due to his height maybe?) so we sweeten the deal by agreeing to take him to breakfast afterward.

As you know good intentions are always thwarted by detours and last night about 10:30 Nathaniel discovers that his recommend is expired. I told him we'd deal with it in the morning and went to bed.

It just so happened that the woman who volunteered to babysit John is married to a member of the bishopric, so this morning I called him at 7am and he agreed to run over to the church to interview Nathaniel. I love living here.

But just as we think we're back on track Nathaniel finds that his church pants are in the washer and throws them in the dryer and I am following him around while he's in his boxers telling him to get on his jeans and run up to the church.

The pants dried pretty fast I guess because they were ready to go by 7:30 when we left. Nathaniel, who said he must have put his pants on "inferno setting" has to wait a minute for them to cool before he could put them on because they are burning hot. Of course I think this is funny.

I was feeling pretty good as we were running only 15 minutes behind. We had not driven more than 1/2 a mile from the house when Sarah announces that she just threw up. Nathaniel is in the back seat desperately trying to visualize himself away from the scene as we turn around to take her home.

Turns out she took a medication this morning that you are supposed to eat with food and all she had was a couple of pieces Canadian bacon. This strikes me as ironic because Nathaniel had just informed me the other day that he doesn't like ham anymore and all I'm thinking is, great, one more thing one of my kids won't eat, and having Sarah vomit ham next to him is not going to help me change his mind.

I'm happy to report that we got all 40 of my names, as well as 5 of Peter's done and all went great once we arrived at the temple.

As we walked into Einstein's Bagels for breakfast I suggested that Nathaniel might want to try the bagel with cheese and ham.
I just kill myself!

Popsicles and the 8th Commandment

I put up a sign by each of my freezers in the garage to try to prick the conscience of these neighborhood kids who are always on the prowl for our popsicles. I caught a group of 5 or 6 yesterday. One even threw his shoe under the sensor when Rebecca tried to shut the garage door. (I still have the shoe.) We ordered a lock for the chest freezer last year and most of the time it is locked, but of course on occasion it doesn't get relocked and we will catch them actually just stealing popsicles.

I've talked with parents but these particular kids seem to have little to no supervision and my frustrations seem to fall on deaf ears anyway. It is a hassle for me to have to lock my freezer and the whole situation makes me mad!!

Nathaniel making me laugh

Nathaniel texted me right after I got home from dropping him off at a soccer game at 7am on Saturday morning "I forgot my water."
Then he sends another, "But its fine. Ill just sit here and dehydrate."
Of course I drove back. Meh.

He is at EFY this week and right after he left I went to straighten up his bathroom and found his electric toothbrush still plugged in. I texted him telling him to please tell me he brought one. (He did)
These are a few of our texts the last couple of days:
Nathaniel: We have 38 ppl in our group. We ended up with 2 girl groups. That means 2 girls per guy!
Mom: Only 1 for each arm? Sounds rough!
Just so ya know, Nathaniel still won't talk to girls (which I say a prayer of thanks for every day) and hates dances so much he would probably rather go to the dentist, which is saying a lot, so I think EFY is good for him.

Nathaniel: I got up at 5:45 this morning. Then i got to sit through a morningside followed by a class about the abrahamic covenant by this guy who kept yelling a ton.
Mom: Sounds great!
Nathaniel: Were flippen tired! We are trying to not fall asleep. Weve both been drinking a ton of sprite and eating skittles and junk
Mom: Sounds like yr trying to make yrself sick alright. Go to bed early boy
(Later)
Nathaniel: The showers get way busy by like 6:30. We can't go to bed til 10:30. I felt sick during the dumb dance from massive amounts of captain crunch, skittles and sprite
Mom: Just hope you didn't throw up

But the best one was the text I got this morning:
Nathaniel: This kid in our group said this during the prayer: "and thank you for your daughters and their soft eyes and luscious lips."
Mom: Oh dear.

Almost. Done.

The tile is in!
























Old kitchen . . .













New kitchen.

The sun is hidden so I couldn't get a good shot today. It really is so much brighter and open feeling.

So how's your summer vacation going?

As John is pushing my buttons and I try to create order in the house I keep reminding myself it is so great to be finally done with school and have some freedom from the schedule that rules my life. I have a whole list of things I want to do. Finishing sewing projects, organizing, digging out a path from our pergola to the gate, building a headboard for my bed (out of recycled kitchen cabinet doors!) And books! So many books, so little time! I've also been I've been scouring the internet for things to do with the kids in our area. We are going to be visiting some local museums (Pioneer, Hutchings, etc) and I am hosting a three day art class for the kids in the neighborhood. Mostly Rebecca's friends.

We are currently overhauling our transmission to the tune of over three grand. So that means Peter has to work a lot and I get to figure out what to do with the kids all day.
Summer vacation = thumbs down. Cheap/free/local entertainment = thumbs up.
But right now I just want my van back. Apparently Honda sent the wrong drum 3x before they finally got it right. It has been gone a week now.
"It should be done by Tuesday. Wednesday at the latest."
"Thursday afternoon."
"Looks like it'll be Friday."
I think I should post the phone number to this shop just so you can hear this lady answer the phone. You'll wonder, as I did, if she is just messing around.
But here's the thing--she isn't.

I took John to the park to catch minnows today. I only do it because he loves it. It was gross. The water stinks. He's in heaven. When he finally caught some the jar gets knocked over so he has to start all over again. I'm long past ready to go so I decide to help to speed up the situation. My foot slides into the stagnant water and I'm looking around at all the nicely dressed moms sitting prettily on their blankets with their cherubic children and wonder, why? Why can't I be more like them?
I bring John home, strip him, and put him in the shower.
An hour later he comes running up to me tugging on his cowboy kerchief.
"Take it off! Take it off! Hurry! I gotta go!"
I'm confused. "What do you want me to take off?"
"This!"
"Your kerchief?"
"Yes! Hurry!"
"What? Why?"
"I gotta poop!"
But he is hopping up and down and I can't get the knot out and I still don't understand why he has to have this thing off to poop.

As I'm making dinner Nathaniel wants to know what the heck I'm shredding vegetables for.
Then he demands to know what it is I'm making and I'm trying to put it off because I know he hates meatloaf. I only make it about once or twice a year but I found a new recipe that has shredded squash, zuchinni, onion & carrots. It does not go over well. It won't set up and so I just keep cooking it until it looks like this:


I know. It's bad.

And it still didn't set up.
But I thought it tasted pretty good for being the consistency of chunky barf.
Who am I kidding? Who can really expect their family to eat this? I just sat at the table and laughed and wondered aloud about the things we could do with this burnt loaf of meat besides eat it. And by the time I put all the ingredients in it was kind of a lot so there is two more pans of it in the kitchen.

Peter, who can usually find something good to say asked me why I don't just stick to the recipe that we like.
I tell him its because I get bored with the meatloaf recipe I make once a year.
It is hard to cook something every day of your life for dinner. It gets old. I get bored.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I remember a friend of mine with six young kids once told me the hardest part of her life at that time was trying to figure out what to make for dinner every day. As I'm listening to her I was wondering why with six kids dinner could be the hardest part of her life.