Brothers

Oh how I love my boys!

Sweetie plays soccer

And who knew she would be so fierce? Actually, I should have known, since I play games with her at family game night every Sunday and am well-acquainted with my do-anything-to-win and sad-face-when-losing Sweetie. Still, I didn't anticipate this level of fierceness. She averages 2 goals a game, and the child sacrifices her body for the ball. At this game below, she hit the goal post three times, each time from diving in front of the ball to save a goal. All I can say is that if we play soccer for family game night, I want Sweetie on my team.

Getting a hug from a teammate after scoring a goal:

Spectators: Mister catching the footballs J throws down the sidelines and H, looking for dogs in the crowd and other people's food and drinks to confiscate.

Is that a dinosaur cleaning the play room?

Nope, just Sweetie. Apparently she works better incognito.

Here she is writing to her missionary cousin. Maybe the words flow better when you wear a mask? I'll look into that theory the next time I have writer's block.

Catching up: My trip to Massachusetts

I've been crazy busy. But I'm going to try to catch up with all, okay, some, of the posts I wrote in my head and was too tired or didn't have time to actually post.

At the end of September, H and I took an excruciatingly long flight to Massachusetts to visit my good friend smartmama. We had such a good time. H worked on terrorizing her 2 1/2 year-old while she worked on the mothering painting that you see in this blog post, and I worked on this painting and these throw pillows--all of which, you'll notice, are not yet finished.

I didn't actually take any pics of the trip because we spent it talking, vegging, shopping, eating (who really wants a picture of me, eating my 7th German chocolate brownie?), helping a bright Jordanian friend write his BYU application essays, and being creative. (The latter occurred most often late at night while laughing at what Pandora selected for our listening pleasure.)

What have we been up to lately?

Besides not blogging? Well, life is pretty much kicking me in the rear end these past few weeks. How did I forget how much time it takes to teach a composition class? And remind me why I thought it was a good idea to do this right now?! But I figured I'd better take the time to blog so nobody worries that we might have fallen prey to heat exhaustion since IT WAS 111 ON SUNDAY. That's right. September 19. 111. Sheesh.

Other than staying inside and spending way too much time on school, we had a run of cold/flu, which stretched into 3 weeks for me thanks to an accompanying sinus infection and a return of the cold (and now we're on round 2, since Sweetie came home from school Friday with a fever and is still in bed 3 days later). Also, Mister started football and, whoa, football is quite the serious endeavor, it seems, even when you're 7. He has practice for an hour and a half 3 days a week and has to earn his way into playing time on Saturday's games.

Speaking of football (my students would be proud of me at that fabulous transition of old/new information, which was the topic of today's revision tip), we've been doing a little (read: A LOT) of football watching now that the season is finally here. J, H, and I flew up to Utah to cheer our Cougars on to their first victory. Our good friend Matt got us on the field and sidelines before the game.

And before heading out, for family game night, we broke out the BYU/Utah checkers game. J and Mister were the Cougars, while Sweetie and I were forced to represent the Utes. We were nervous that the outcome of the game might be a foreshadowing of the match-up this season, but J and I argued about his cheating and we quit early. (See, he should have been representing the Utes. Someone please tell him that once you take your hand off your game piece, your turn is over.)

In addition to his football practicing, Mister spent 3 of his days sitting in for recess this week because drawing dinosaurs and white and red blood cells and sickle-back whales have been vastly more important to him than doing homework this week and there's only so much a mom can do before kids have to face up to their own consequences.

Also, Mister lost his first front tooth. Sob, sob, from me. I have been ruing the day because once those new front teeth come in, he will never look like my little boy again.

Sweetie has been insisting that her front tooth is loose, but it's been that way for 8 months now. We'll believe it when we see it. She starts soccer this week and has been loving school, despite the fact that her homework involves recognizing shapes, counting to 10, and coloring. She loves coming home and tattle telling on all of her poor classmates who are not present to defend themselves. Here's a recent Sweetie funny: When we went shopping for discount school supplies to assemble humanitarian kits, Sweetie told me that we didn't need any pencils for the kids in Pennsylvania because they must have plenty already.

And both Sweetie and Mister have been obsessed with silly bands, which they pile on their wrists and trade with friends for different shapes.

Meanwhile, H has been ruling the roost while the kids are gone. He loves it when they come home, but while they are gone, he has been intent on learning new tricks, like bringing me his shoes all day because he wants to go outside (Note to H: IT'S STILL 111!); and like climbing on top of the couch, where he sometimes takes scary tumbles off and sometimes sits nicely reading the hymn book; and like removing his diaper and leaving little Desitin marks around the house; and like throwing or pulling everything off of every height he can reach. The latest object to bite the dust was my huge glass Ikea vase with sticks in it that stood by the door. I thought it was too heavy for him. Guess not. I did decide to put his love of the vacuum to good use. You're never to young to work in this house.

Mostly, I feel like I am not keeping my head above the water of life right now. But I'm still swimming so hopefully someone will throw me a rope or a huge floatie here soon. And hopefully I'll be better at keeping my blog updated . . .

Birthday thoughts

Today is my 35th birthday.

I have to type it/say it out loud because it's not really real to me. I'm not really 35, am I? As surprised as I am at my own age, I don't think I would wish to be younger. I like the experiences I've had, the person I've become in the accumulation of the days and weeks and years that total 35 today.

This morning I got up early and headed to the gym for some time on the revolving staircase and the ellipsis (there's no better way to celebrate a birthday than to work out hard and feel strong and capable, despite another year added to your age). I was thinking about my birthday as I climbed the unending stairs. I was thinking about how glad I am that I was born to these people in this particular family. I was deeply grateful and felt humbled at that simple blessing that has shaped my days and weeks and years.

Anyway, after teaching my class this morning, I spent a nice chunk of time on my birthday collecting birthday freebies in the form of food (there's no better way to celebrate a birthday than to eat good food that's free and that you have not prepared). I visited Joe's Farm Grill, got lunch for tomorrow at Firehouse subs, picked up my Krispy Kreme dozen doughnuts, and printed off my free Cold Stone for use later this week.

Maybe I'd better head back to the gym tomorrow morning.

First day of school for me too

Actually, today was my second day teaching a persuasive writing class at ASU. But the first day of a college class hardly counts, right? Just the syllabus and introductions. Blah, blah, blah. Today felt like the first day since I lectured and did in-class group work and collected assignments for the first time this semester. And it's good to be back. I forgot how much I love school and love the college atmosphere (although the college atmosphere at ASU currently involves 112 degree heat and a walk across campus, which would be why, when Mister took this pic at 4pm, 4 hours after my class, my hair is still plastered to my forehead and there's still a shine of the sweat that was.)

See the textbook I'm holding? It's "Everything's an Argument." Well, given H's treatment of my return to school, I think he's arguing against it. He did thoroughly enjoy his time hanging out with his new babysitter in the institute building (complete with ping pong balls and a basketball court--could life for H get any better?). BUT he also thoroughly protested the disruption in his schedule by refusing to nap the morning of my first day teaching and the entire day today. That's right. Just a lot of crying going on around here. Oh, and a lot of destruction. Because a no-napping H means not only do I not get anything done, but H creates even more for me to do. Case in point from this afternoon:

That would be cd and video cases, most of which also do not have their contents in them, thanks to H who likes to open each one to inspect it (and remove it).

And then there's this new development called throwing-everything-I-can-find-upstairs-off-the-landing.

There goes the Diego flashlight to join the pile.

So hopefully H adjusts quickly, seeing as how I did actually plan my 1 hr, 15 min class time for right in-between his naps. And hopefully teaching doesn't prove to be overwhelming for me. Today I could have done without the added stress of a standstill on the freeway due to a car accident, nor was losing my textbook somewhere on campus after it fell out of the stroller any fun.