Tennessee

Last month we took a trip to Tennessee to visit Sam's sister and her family and I am finally getting around to posting about it.  We had a blast.  Sam's sister Rachel has 2 boys the same age as Henry and Miles (I know I am using the names again, I keep going back and forth about it all, maybe I'll change it again later) and they play and get along really well with my 3 boys so we went down to visit and let the boys all play and check out Tennessee.  First off, Tennessee is beautiful. I didn't expect it to be so green and hilly like here, it looks really similar, except the trees are deciduous, which probably makes their Fall even more gorgeous.  We got there on a Tuesday afternoon after a very LONG day of airplane travel.  I won't go into too many details except to say we had to get up at 3:40 am to catch our plane and it all went downhill from there until we landed in Tennessee.  I now have some seriously funny (funny now, not funny at the time) stories about traveling, all experienced first-hand by yours truly.  Tuesday night Sam's sister Rachel had a girl's night out planned with some of her friends.  We went to a little club-type place in Nashville on music-row I believe they call it.  One of Rachel's friend's husband is in a band and we went to see their show.

Here are the girls.  Top row, l to r: Rachel (my sister-in-law), Allie, Laura, Kathy, Amber, Jill, and Katie.  Bottom row:  Kendra, me, and Munni.  We had a blast!  The band played until after 2 in the morning and we danced the night away. The girls were so fun.  It was crazy having a bunch of married mormon moms out there all dancing away (some even got hit on and swatted on the behind - that was a bit awkward to say the least), but it was the funnest way to start my trip to Nashville.  (The show and the dancing that is, not the behind swatting and yes I know funnest is not a word, but "best" and "most fun" just didn't quite do it for me) The band's name is Savannah Jack and they put on a great show.

The boys spent a lot of the time playing in Rachel and Jason's backyard driving around in the jeep,  (Drool! I never even got to see one of those close up as a kid)

and playing in the water feature (which included disassembling it several times, throwing every toy and book they could find in it, peeing in it, and drinking out of it - in that order unfortunately.  Did I mention that there were 5 boys all playing together that week?)

A couple of times we went swimming in a community pool nearby that Rachel's friend Munni so kindly let us use her pass to. 

Kincaid had a blast and is getting more and more confident in the water.  Miles wasn't minding the water and sunshine combo either. I'm pretty sure he was thinking "I could get used to this."

We also went to the Nashville zoo where we had a real southern meal including catfish, crawdads, cornbread, and good old red beans and rice. We also got to see the Opryland Hotel and the Opryland mall.  The Opryland hotel was amazing!  If I remember correctly it was 3 separate hotels that are connected by a huge arboretum.  It had  a river running through it that you could take a boat tour on.  It had waterfalls and gardens and I don't even know how many restaurants.  While we were walking around we saw 3 separate weddings going on.

You could stay at that hotel and go nowhere else and have plenty to do, look at and eat for quite awhile without having to go anywhere else.  

Here are the 5 boys in front of one of the waterfalls.

This is my nephew Jacob and I watching the water fountain.  If you catch it at the right time it does "shows" where they'll play music and shoot the water to go with it, similar to the fountain in downtown Seattle; it shoots up 200 feet sometimes (at least that's the number I remember). 

We took the boys for ride on the carousel in the Opryland Mall.  (It is really hard to get good carousel shots, what with all the crazy lighting and movement issues)

Back at the house the boys had fun and bonded, not only with their cousins Jacob and Seth, but with their dog George, too.   They would play with him, try to feed him (Kincaid would ask to give him his dog food, Henry would just share his popsicles and other treats, lick by lick, mmm... ) It helped my boys get over their fear of dogs, it was great.  Here's Caid and George having a moment.

At night after the boys were down we would stay up and talk, eat, and play Settlers of Catan (watch out Sammi, Rodney, Amber, and Wes, we might even be competition now).  Rachel is an awesome cook and we had so much good food. I got a few new recipes to try at home, mmm...

On our last day in Tennessee Sam took a tour of Franklin, where the battle of Franklin and some other civil war historic things took place, while Rachel and I took the boys to Pump it up. It was nice to tire them out before strapping them in for a 6 hour plane ride.  Here is Seth giving Miles a ride around the room.  Miles was a little less excited about this idea than Seth was.

We went back to their house and finished packing and loading up and Henry got cozy and took a nap.  (yep, that's George's bed. I don't know if he was really that tired or he was just getting his last moments of George time in.)

Here are all the boys just before we left (some of them were a little worn out, as you can see).  They all did so well together and had so much fun.  We all did.  Thank you so much Rachel and Jason for all you did to make the trip so wonderful.  We had a great time. And although we may not be moving there (any time soon :), we would love to come again soon.

30 Things I Love About You...

So much has happened, and I hate to admit that I am almost as bad at this blogging thing than I am at my journal.  One good thing though: I did take a lot of great pictures, thinking I would post them on my blog, that I otherwise probably wouldn't have.  

S's 30th birthday came and went, and so did father's day. So, in honor of those holidays, I want to publicly declare that I am madly in love with my husband, and that he is the best man for me in the world, ever.  And, since he's 30, here are 30 things that I love about him:

1.  He's loves food as much (and maybe more) than I do.

2.  He does the dishes, laundry, vacuums, mops, even toilets sometimes - often without me asking or nagging first.

3.  The way he looks when he comes home from a run when his hair is all wet and curly and he is totally energized.

4.  He is dang handsome.

5.  He always strives do what he feels is right.

6.  His obsession with writing utensils and things Made in the USA.

7.  He has a great sense of humor.

8.  He loves music.

9.  He is always very supportive of me and my personal endeavors.

10.  He has taught me how to laugh at myself.

11.  He has great teeth and a great smile.

12.  He is honest with me about his opinions; I never have to guess if what he is saying is how he really feels.

13.  He is very logical and can explains things to me in a logical way that my otherwise artistic/emotional brain wouldn't be able to comprehend.

14.  He loves our boys.

15.  He treats me like he thinks I am amazing.

16.  He looks hot with a mustache (that is saying something!).

17.  He makes our family a priority.

18.  He doesn't have expensive taste; and he has taught me to realize that sometimes there is a justifiable reason to pay more.

19.  He is ticklish (even though he would never let me get away with trying to tickle him).

20.  He is teaching the boys to respect me and women in general by treating me with respect and sticking up for and supporting me.

21.  He is very passionate about the things he cares about.

22.  I could make any combination of beans, rice, and cheese in a tortilla (quesadilla, burrito, taco, nachos, etc.) for dinner and he would be ecstatic.

23.  He loves fruit, he considers it dessert  (I have a very different definition of dessert, but I love that about him).

24.  He holds very high standards and expectations for himself (he is probably too hard on himself at times).

25.  How much fun he and the boys have playing and dancing and wrestling together.

26.  I love that he taught me to notice and appreciate a great scream in a song.

27.  His to-do lists.

28.  His massive t-shirt collection.

29.  How hard he tries to understand me and all my illogical emotions, even when I don't understand myself.

30.  That he makes me feel like he is as madly in love with me as I am with him.

Team Sports

I have been a bit preoccupied lately, but I decided to post about our newest adventure: team sports!  K started t-ball last week and is loving it.  Big S volunteered as his teams coach (hence the nickname "coach")  and is having fun and doing a great job.  I think the idea was a bit intimidating at first: he is not a huge sports guy and not really a team sports person at all, but when he heard that it was no scores, no outs, they each run one base no matter how hard/where they hit, and he gets a free t-shirt out of the deal, it sounded a lot more manageable.  We are team #27 (they picked a name at practice yesterday, I haven't heard what it is yet - it must be terribly dynamic).  I was thinking something "Electric" given the dynamic color of our shirts (they told us we were sage green - someone is either misinformed, color-blind, or both).  See K in all his electric green home-run glory below: 

There was a team for 3-4 year olds, but we opted not to sign H up this year.  However, he has done almost nothing but play t-ball since the first practice.  I felt bad at first for not signing him up, but he is having so much fun playing in the backyard, and sneaking out on the field whenever I'm not looking that he doesn't know he's not on the team.  Oh the joy of obliviousness! (obliviousness is a word, right?)

Little M has no clue about any of this, he just likes to sit around, make noise and eat.  Come to think of it, that's all anybody in our house likes to do, really.

Mother's Day has just come and gone and Coach S asked me at the end of the day what was my favorite part of Mother's Day.  You know what I said?  "When you made me sit down and eat lunch as soon as we got home from church while you and the boys cleaned up the house."  Am I sounding like a mom or what?!  I guess it means a lot when they realize that what would mean the most to you is recognizing all the work you do and giving you a little break from it.  Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful women out there who have shown me what it means to be a strong, capable, happy woman and mother.  To my friends, sisters, sisters-in-law, grandmas, and especially my wonderful and amazing mother and mother-in-law. You ladies are the best!  Can I just say I love my boys and I love being a mom?

These Days...

Just FYI:  Maybe I'm going a bit overboard on this, but to make sure I am keeping my family as safe as possible I am taking our names off the blog.  I'll use initials or nicknames so those of you who know us will get the idea.  It's sad that its even an issue, but this world we live in can get a little crazy. No, nothing happened, I just read some ideas about online/blog safety and decided I'd up it a notch.  So this post is just to explain why I refer to everyone in nicknames or initials.  

Trying to be a Good Mom

K (see "Current Obsessions") is now back into Bob the Builder. On Saturday he saw a picture of cupcakes with Bob the Builder machines toppers and begged me to make cupcakes with different colored frosting for each of the machines.  I said yes.  Three days, no cupcakes and a very disappointed son later I decided I better be a good mom and follow through with what I said I would do. Here are our cupcake shots (notice each frosting color has a matching bowl and (almost) matching knife).

Several member of S's family (and mine too, actually), make funny faces with their mouths when they are concentrating on things. It's become a family joke.  When they catch someone making the face, they say "You're holding your mouth wrong!"  H has it bad.  I tried to get a shot of him "holding his mouth wrong";  I call it his working tongue.

K had a different issue.  Here is his working tongue (it seems to be working quite well, too.)

The finished masterpieces.  For all you Bob the Builder fans there is green for Roley, Orange for Dizzy, Yellow for Scoop, and Blue for Scrambler (or for Lofty, in case you like Lofty better).  They taste even better than they look.  They are a new recipe I tried from my America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (I highly recommend it).  It was easy and better tasting than any cake mix I've made.  (And besides my favorite scratch chocolate cake, that's a first for me). Yeah!

M didn't get to help make or frost them, but he had a few good ideas of how else he could help with them.

Speaking of trying to be a good mom, I decided to try on my own and get some cute shots of M.  Here are 3 of my favorites. I am fairly proud of them, given my limited photography experience.  But I would love advice from all you experienced photography moms (or not) out there.

H was feeling left out and informed me that it was his turn. So he got his buddy and we took some of him too.  Here's one of the best.  Classic H.

Spring Break

I am terribly late on this, but I have been trying to not spend so much time on the computer.  More on that later, but following are pictures of what we did for spring break.  Well actually first is a picture of one my favorite parts of spring at my house.  I am not sure what this bush is called, but it blooms right at the beginning of spring and I love it!  It is so full and colorful, I had to take a picture of it because I knew it wouldn't last forever (in fact the snow last weekend- yes, I said SNOW for all of you that aren't in WA - already killed a lot of the flowers).

So, on to Spring break:  On Monday we just went shopping and got stuff done.  On Tuesday my mom came over and we went out to lunch, and then to the park to fly some airplanes she got the boys.  It was a beautiful day and fun to see her.  S had the day to himself.  He spent most of the day cutting back some HUGE "shrubberies" in our backyard, it was quite the project.  We had so much stuff we cut off we filled ours and 3 other neighbors yard waste bins full (they even jumped in them to pack them in and the garbage guys wouldn't take one of them - sorry Jessica!)  On Wednesday we sat around and did research for a bigger car - no results yet, we're still looking. Then finally decided to get off our fannies and go out for dinner and get K some new shoes, it was fun in the end.  On Thursday we took the boys to Whirligig in Seattle.  I had never been there before but they fill the Seattle Center House with big slides and bouncy houses and a bunch of other fun stuff.  It was fun, but crowded.  Luckily we ran into S's cousin and her family and they invited us to go with them to the Seattle Children's Museum downstairs. It was fun; I tried to get some good pictures.

After the Children's Museum we took the boys for a ride on the monorail.  They loved riding in a train up high above the roads.

Then we took the boys to see the fountain. K had a blast running up to see and touch it.  H wouldn't hardly get near it.

On Friday we took the boys to the Everett Children's Museum.

Friday night S and H had a jam session.  It was quite the concert!

On Saturday and Sunday was our church's general conference.  Saturday night all the girls did the usual banana splits for dinner at S's parents while the guys went to the priesthood session.  Then the guys went to S's brother's house for a Wii (did I spell that right?) boxing match.  I forgot who won.  

Sunday we went to S's parents house for the afternoon session and stayed for the evening.  The boys took full advantage of having Grandma all to themselves.

That was the big pieces of our week, and it was fun and busy.  A little more than H could take I guess.  

Batman

I will post all about my Spring Break last week later, but something funny happened today I thought I'd share.  The boys were running around crazy downstairs and I had already asked H at least 2 times to clean up his play food.  So I went down again and told him (firmly) to clean up his food.  He looked at me and replied (even more firmly) "Batman's don't clean!" (apparently they were playing super heroes which made him exempt from cleaning).

I then started counting "1.... 2...."  He very quickly got up and started picking up his food.  

(I guess while super heroes may not clean, they still have to listen to their moms.)

H is so funny sometimes.