Welcome back, little sink!

I'd like to issue a warm "welcome back" to the bottom of my kitchen sink. It has been paying a visit to the underworld, under a world of dishes. Ten days' worth, if my count is right. Don't judge me too harshly, it has not been strictly neglect on my part that has caused it's absence. This has been one of the busier weeks of our year. And I have done a load of dishes nearly every day since it disappeared. It just wasn't enough to dig it out. But at long last, after 2 loads of dishes yesterday morning, another by my husband after dinner (thanks Jon!), a bedtime load, and one this morning, we said "hello" once more.

Now, dear kitchen sink, your face is clean and bright again, and you smile at me forgiving-ly. Maybe you understand. Maybe you sympathize with my busy, mother lifestyle. Or maybe I am just nuts enough to imagine that we are friends (you are, after all, just a sink!). But one thing is for sure, one load of dishes per day is no longer enough to keep you present in my life. Time for me to step it up, if we're going to keep up our renewed relationship!

Pink Eye!?!

So today is the 1st day of school for my sweet second-grader, Hyrum. He has been so excited to go back to school. His best friend Briggs is in his class, and he already knows his teacher well because he had her for kindergarten two years ago (she switched grades this year). But the poor kid won't get to go to school today, because PINK EYE has struck.

What's crazy is it doesn't even look too bad right now; I was tempted to send him anyway. But it just didn't feel quite right to send him, and he couldn't keep from rubbing it, so instead of the school we headed out to the doctor this morning. I was hopeful they would tell us it was allergies and not to worry, but nope! It is pink eye for sure.

After one day on antibiotic drops he will be able to go to school, but he's missing his first day! Bleh! What's awful is that of all my kids, he is the one who has the hardest time with medicine. Just to apply the drops I had to wedge his head between my knees and have his brothers sit across him to hold him still while I pried open his sore eyes to get the drops in. And we have to do this 3x daily for 5 days. Double bleh.

Ah, well. Thank goodness for modern medicine. And doctors who are willing to see other doctors' patients when the real doctor is not in the office. And for chocolate chip cookies to cheer up a disappointed little 7-year-old. And thank goodness that tomorrow is a new day.

Spider Caleb

Sorry for the recent famine of posts in Erin land. Summer with 5 kids at home has been pretty busy! What's really sad is that for the past 2 or 3 weeks I have finally gotten a handle on structuring our days in such a way that the kids aren't as bored, and NOW we are at the end of summer! Sure wish I could have figured it out a bit sooner for them. Anyhow...

Last week my oldest 2 were each occupied with a fun activity of their own, and my #3, Caleb was feeling a little left out. So, thanks to a newly-purchased mask from Grandma B., we turned him into "Spider Caleb." He ran around the front yard posing and shooting imaginary webs out of his wrists while I took pictures and filmed him. He felt very "cool." Here are a couple of the cutest pics:

Spidey Grin!


Web-slinger!

Darling Picture...

We saved up a bit and ordered Daddy a new camcorder as a late Father's Day gift. It arrived over the weekend, and turns out it takes a pretty nice photo, too! Here is one from Friday evening in our backyard:

Enoch and Caleb

It will be so fun to see what else it can do! We're taking the kids (and the camera) to Goblin Valley and Arches and a few other fun spots thereabouts this weekend. I'll share pics and let you all know how the trip went once we're back and recovered. Hope you all have a wonderful Pioneer Day weekend!

Plunger Fun

If anyone is interested in knowing what life is like with five little boys, ages 6 months to 7 years, I will happily tell you that it has many pleasant days with only minor crazy moments scattered throughout. I sometimes tell people that because we have no daughters, I get to be the princess of our family. The boys bring me flowers from our yard (or darling weeds they call flowers), and I sometimes even feel like their princess. But there are other days when their behavior tells me those boys would rather have a wicked old witch for a mother than a princess.

One such day occurred on Friday last week. It started off well enough; I had let the boys ride their bikes around in the garage (I don't let them ride out front unsupervised). My oldest son, Hyrum, had stepped barefoot in a dirty, oily patch. I told him that he needed to rinse his foot before walking on the carpet. He opted to wash it with the garden hose in the backyard. I had gone inside to put 2-year-old Samuel down for a nap. I called out to Hyrum to please turn off the hose when he was done. Five minutes later, I could still hear the water running, so I called out again to remind him to turn off the hose. After a couple more minutes, I heard 4-year-old Caleb yelling, "Hyrum, how do you turn off the water?" to which Hyrum yelled back, "Not yet, Caleb! Not yet!" I peeked outside, and Hyrum was STILL holding the hose, half soaked, squirting his brothers who were fully dressed and also soaked. Rather than nag at him again, I decided to use a "magic mommy trick," and I turned off the water to the whole house.

As I went upstairs to nurse baby Enoch and get him ready for a nap, I could hear the boys shouting in confusion about the mysterious cessation of the water. From behind Enoch's closed bedroom door, I could tell that they had recovered from their disappointment, and were playing elsewhere in the house. I could hear occasional giggles and squeals and I figured that all was well. I moved into the kitchen to clean it up, and could still hear the boys playing... somewhere. When it was time to do dishes, I realized the water was still turned off. On my way to turn it back on, I figured I had better find the boys and see what they were up to. My search led me to the closed master bathroom door, behind which the boys were talking and giggling. Suddenly Hyrum called out angrily, "It still won't go down, Andrew!" (Uh-oh.)

Wondering what they could possibly be doing in there, I threw open the door. There they were, all three of them completely naked, clothes strewn about on the floor, Andrew and Caleb in the shower fussing with the faucets, and Hyrum in front of the toilet, plunger in hand. After asking in my best witchy-mom voice what on earth was going on in here, they explained through giggles that since they were all wet from the hose, they figured they would rinse off with a shower. But of course, they couldn't turn the water on. They each needed to use the toilet before getting in, but after the first flush, the tank wouldn't refill, and in an effort to get it all to go down, Hyrum grabbed the plunger... Yeah, it was a mess.

Some days are like that. Thank goodness for a good-natured husband and mother-in-law who each responded to my venting later that day by laughing at the ordeal. It really lifted my mood and helped cast the whole experience in a much better light. And no, I didn't kill my kids. They are alive and well, and are probably stirring up mischief somewhere around here!

Happy Birthday, America!

I hope everyone had a fun-filled 4th of July! We started off our morning with homemade banana bread (mmmm!) for breakfast. We spent most of the morning doing household chores, and while I sorted and folded laundry, I watched HBO's "John Adams," the episode called "Independence." It makes my heart swell with pride and gratitude to think of the early Americans who were brave enough to do what needed to be done to establish our country.

In the early afternoon, we celebrated by making these patriotic red, white and blue star cookies. Caleb is my smiling model:

My husband's family has the happy tradition of doing a late afternoon BBQ/water party followed by tank races and backyard fireworks:

Each cousin (and anyone else who wants to exercise their creative juices) gets to decorate a tank in whatever way they can imagine. We came prepared this year with printed images for the kids to cut out. Here is Samuel's "Super Samuel" tank:


Samuel watches his tank in the race:


Caleb's "How to Train Your Dragon" tank:


Caleb watches his tank:


We invited our brother-in-law, Nathan, to join us this year as my sister (his wife) is in Germany playing in the German Opera for the summer. Here is his fancy tank:


Nathan watches his tank:


Andrew's tank sported an "army" of his favorite characters from Pokemon, Star Wars, Angry Birds, and his favorite Marvel Heroes. An army tank driver is on top, driving the whole gang:


Here Andrew watches his tank:


Hyrum wanted a Beyblades tank with Ginga Hagane riding on top:


Hyrum watches his tank:


After the tank race, we lit our other fireworks. Jon is lining up a bunch of parachute fireworks here:


The kids got to have all sorts of treats while we watched and played. Here's Andrew:


And Samuel:


And Caleb:


Enoch, sweet baby, slept through most of the fireworks show inside the house:


Hyrum caught a red parachute:

Jon holding our little ones:

Here's what the table looked like before we lit off any fireworks.


Enoch did wake up to join us for the last few fireworks:


This year was so fun with aerial fireworks being allowed in Utah now. My favorite was one that Nathan brought called "Powder House" made by TNT. I'll remember to buy that one next year. It was a fun, sweet, and happy day. Happy birthday, America!

On Motherhood, Insanity, and ignoring the kids

Today the nagging has been constant. I ask my kids not to whine, but it does no good. My 3-year old can't find his sunglasses and he has developed this slidey-whiney tone that is going to turn my brain to mush. We are headed to a birthday party this afternoon, and my precious 5-year-old has been asking every 5-15 minutes all day long, "is it time to go yet?" My 2-year old seems to think I am a jungle gym, even when I am cooking. Between that and the incessant requests for chocolate milk, crackers, and diaper changes, and nursing the baby, I cannot keep a constant stream of thought in my head about what needs to come next in my day. About a half hour ago, as I realized I have a very big head ache coming on, it occurred to me that this is what leads to insanity in mothers; we can't think in a straight line for long enough to get anything productive done thanks to all the detours and stop signs our kids put up each time they ask for something. The only solution is to occasionally and temporarily ignore our favorite little people, just for a little while! So if you see a lady at the grocery store whose children are wild enough they seem to belong in the zoo, and yet she is the very picture of concentration as she puts her goods into her cart, know that she is in survival mode. If we didn't ignore our kids now and then, all mothers would have mush brains or go insane, and we can't have that, now can we!