These Days

I got through all of those papers yesterday. Most of them were school papers that were brought home on the last day of school. It feels so much better to have things put away and organized again.

We are trying to motivate Perry to do a particular thing he does not do every day. We made a reward chart and it worked it's magic for awhile. He picked out a Lego set as his prize. A Mr. Freeze Lego set. He was thrilled by it for days. Eric and Kacin took turns helping him put it together, but he is becoming so much more independent at building by himself. He LOVES legos.

Ky made the silver team on his new soccer club. We got the call when he was at school so we gathered as many silver things around the house as we could to present to him when he got home to tell him the good news. I think this team will be a great experience for him.

Once again, more Layla selfies and pictures ...

 Kacin had a few days off of school because he did not go to science camp. We spent one of the days at the zoo with some of his friends before they went swimming in our pool.

Logan turned 3! We celebrated at his pirate birthday party.

While we were partying like pirates with my cute nephew, Kyler and Eric were getting some work done at home. But they took a dinner break and Kyler got his first try of sushi. The boy wanted to like it, but he finally admitted he really did not care for it after all.

Kacin did an interesting country project on Russia.

I'm not sure why I took this picture, but this is how you can find Kyler most days during his freetime. And now he is doing this for a little bit longer at night because he just lobbied for a later bedtime and won.

I love working with our ward's 10-11 year old activity days girls. This picture was from Missionary night a few weeks ago.

I took this four cute kids to the zoo one morning.

Macie and I thought it was pretty cool that we had matching skirts on that day.

We went to the eye dr and here are Kacin's before and after pictures...

Yes, he got contacts! He is such a handsome kid so I know he looks good either way. But this mom is a little bit in mourning if he stops wearing his glasses. Glasses have been a part of him since he was 3 years old! Every time I see him in his contacts, I have to do a double take or I start to get worried that he broke his glasses or something happened. And then I remember--contacts. Yeah, it'll probably take me some time, but I will get used to it. He looks great though!

Layla was talent for FHE one night. When I told her, she ran into the other room to go work on her talent. A while later she came back with something wrapped in a blanket. When it was her turn to share her talent, she revealed the robot she made. I love her creativity and artistic talents!

Perry followed Layla's example and played photographer on my phone one day.

I guess I'll end this post with this. When Jenny was in town we spent some time at Jacqui's house. Jacqui had just finished a newborn photo shoot and still had all of her stuff out. Somehow and for some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to take newborn shots of Jenny.

You're welcome for that.

Layla's graduation

We had a tough decision last year about where to send Layla to school. She has a summer birthday so the biggest part of that decision was whether or not to enroll her into Kindergarten. Ultimately, we made the decision that she would start Kindergarten at the public school in 2017 (mostly because we decided to enroll Perry into Kindergarten again and we decided we did not want them to be in the same grade). 

We debated where she should go to school last year and we landed on the perfect place for her. She was in a half-day Kindergarten class. Her school was very child-centered and hands-on learning based. She was encouraged to be independent, to explore, to create, and to use all of her senses. There was just the right balance for her to learn academics but also just to learn to love learning. Her favorite part of the afternoon was their 30 minutes of outside time to work in the garden, play on the playground, dig in the sand and water, look for bugs, make up games with her friends, and just get good and dirty, as all kids should.

She loved school. She loved her teacher. She loved her friends. She grew so much throughout the year.

And then all of a sudden it was graduation day.

Eric was able to sneak away from work and join me at the graduation ceremony. They performed a few songs, she received her diploma, and then they revealed the kindergarten project they left for the school this year--a mud kitchen.

We love this girl more than we can say and I know she will do great at full-day kindergarten in a few months. 

book: hillbilly elegy

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I was reading this book, "Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis".

 

Well, Layla and Perry slept in this morning and instead of attacking that pile of papers I had every intention to go through, I chose to read all morning. I finished the book and I just wanted to write down a few things about it. Though, I know I am not very eloquent nor I do have much time right now to explain my thoughts clearly.

The book is filled with strong language and some parts are hard to read, but it is very real. It is one man's story. Like he says, his story really is not unique and he isn't claiming to be an expert or to speak for everyone. But that's why I appreciated this book. I do feel it was authentic. It gave a voice and a face to stories that I think so many of us are actually oblivious to (sometimes by choice and sometimes unintentionally).

I think it struck a chord with me so much because of my experience with foster care. I have heard stories similar to his from real people during my hours and hours of foster care training. Those stories were life-changing for me. And one of the reasons I feel the call to be a foster parent.

I guess it also just reminded me of all the experiences we had when we were foster parents in WA. I already know my perspective from those experiences so I appreciate reading this perspective from the "other side", if you will..

And then the whole time I read this particular book I kept thinking of someone in particular. Someone I have much love and concern for--the biological mom of two of our children. She was a child from this area of Appalachia. And while I don't know all the details of her childhood, I think this book gave me a little glimpse and a little bit of understanding about how her life maybe could be. I certainly don't know for sure. But I can imagine.

I had a lot of take-aways from this book. The power just one person or example can have on someone else. The need for constants in our life. The influence of culture. Choices do matter. The importance of both hope and taking the right actions. The importance and power of strong families and religion (the author does make a quick reference to mormons and Utah in relation to this. its just always nice to hear your religion mentioned in a positive way, you know?). As well as, forgiveness, love, and moving forward.

Overall, I did think it was a powerful and important read. And they are already making a movie out of it so there you go.  

these days

This is our first full week of summer break. And I can't believe it is already Wednesday.

Kyler and Kacin are away at scout camp. Which means our house is quieter and cleaner. And our pantry and fridge is fuller than normal. But I am missing them like crazy!! This is the longest they have ever been away from us. Especially without being able to talk to each other on the phone. It is killing me. I just want to hear their voices and see those cute faces. and if it is this hard while they are at scout camp, I am already worried about how it will be when they are serving missions.

 

I came upon Layla playing school. It melted my heart because that's what I remember doing throughout my own childhood.

 
We had a foster care home inspection today. Our house is currently the cleanest it has been, all at one time, since we moved in. They really aren't even checking for cleanliness. It's a safety check. Medications locked, smoke detectors working, etc. Nonetheless, it was a good excuse to make sure everyone cleaned up their toys, made their beds, that the stairs were vacuumed, and everything was dusted. I give it 24 hours (or maybe less) before you really won't be able to tell that we tidied anything at all.

I love when my scale decides to knock off 40 pounds for no reason. But the next day those pounds were right back.

 

We are preparing for a birthday party for a little someone who is turning 6. She comes up with all sorts of ideas for the celebration. At lunch today she was talking about her birthday once again. This time Perry chimed in and told me that on his birthday he wants to walk in the house and then I will yell "Surprise!" at him. I love that idea.

I am reading a book called "Hillbilly Elegy" by JD Vance. I am half way through it. I do highly recommend it (warning: there is language in it). Last night, I realized the author of the book was my age. Like literally born within a month of me. Since when are authors my age? I thought the people who wrote books were adults, not my age. Wait, could I be getting old?

Go read the book anyways. It's very good.

We LOVE our pool. I am sooo grateful we have it. Perry did the cutest thing ever. He was getting changed into his swimsuit and then I went to check on him. When I found him, he showed me the flippers he made to help him kick in the water. He had cut and taped and he was so excited to try them out. Unfortunately, they din't work out as well as he hoped but kudos to him for his creativity.

   

 

 

I have the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in paper form, next to my computer. It's a tall tower. Which is why I keep avoiding it. And probably why it keeps growing taller. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will attack that stack of papers and get things sorted and cleaned up. Today I must go make brownies because I have a big group of activity days girls coming over in just a few hours for a swim party.