School's Out--and other life rearrangements

One of the biggest events of this week was the end of the school year.

Oliver's last day of preschool was Thursday, and the bigger kids got out on Friday. Of course, I forgot to take pictures, but the kids have all grown so much this year. We're grateful for good teachers who inspire the kids to work harder.

Thursday was field day for all 3 kids. Andrew's been working hard the last couple of weeks to run a faster mile. He won't break speed records any time soon, but his goal was not to come in last and I'm happy to report he made it. (I have a very vivid memory of my brother Jared running a mile for field day at the same age. He won--and promptly puked all over the sidelines.)

Friday afternoon, we went to Ladybug nursery to pick out plants for our garden, then put in our garden. Oliver was especially thrilled to help plant carrots (his current favorite). No squash this year, which pleased Andrew. Peppers and tomatoes, which we've learned we actually eat. Some strawberries and an artichoke. And lemon cucumbers for me. (We convinced Oliver to try a cucumber today. He liked it! But he keeps calling them pickles.)

Saturday, we decided to turn the house upside down. Namely, we moved all the furniture out of Oliver's room, painted the room, and moved Andrew into it. Oliver and Evelyn are now sharing.

When we bought the house, I thought the murals adoring the smallest bedroom were darling--perfect for a little girl's nursery.

Then we had Oliver, and it was still okay for a baby's room. But  less so for a growing boy. So, we painted it.

Andrew's thrilled to have his own room. Oliver's thrilled to have access to a room previously forbidden him. Evelyn . . . is sweet-tempered and a good kid and hasn't complained (yet). (And the rest of the house looked like a hurricane hit it).

Today was a little more sobering. We got a message that Dan's uncle wasn't doing well, so we drove down to SG to visit him in the hospital this morning before church. We made it back in time for our meetings (I prepped sharing time in the car!), but I managed to leave my purse. Thank goodness Bubby and Poppy were down there later and could bring it back to me.

The lovely month of May

We've been having a lovely month--up until the last couple of days. Friday was so blustery it was uncomfortable to go outside (and we lost a bunch of our growing plums).

Andrew and Evelyn had well child visits at the beginning of the week and both are doing well. Mid-week was pretty unremarkable, but here's a sampling of Oliver's lovely artwork. He was very proud of himself.

Evelyn got her hair trimmed so her growing-out bangs are finally blended in with the rest of her hair. I forgot to take a picture when she was done--and then she went outside and played in the rain with the neighbors, so by the time I remembered, she looked like a bedraggled rat. I'll try for a better shot today.

This weekend has been a little crazy. Yesterday, we cleaned the church, then our house, then Evelyn and I went to a self-defense class. I thought it was helpful--even if I did have to have a slightly uncomfortable talk with Evelyn afterward (she wanted to know what "rape" meant, since the instructor mentioned it several times). Hard as it is to think about, though, I'd rather she knows what the word means and how to defend herself against it--esp. as it's much more likely to happen coming from someone she knows than from a stranger on the streets. Here's hoping neither of us need to know that information.

On the way home, we grabbed lunch from Dairy Queen (guess who picked?), then I had to shower quickly before going down to St. George for a bridal shower for Dan's cousin's son's fiancee (whew, that's a mouthful). It was lovely: Cindy is such a great hostess and it was fun to see some of Dan's extended family again. (Plus, I won some stuff, including a London-scented candle that smells like tea and lemons and is amazing).

Meanwhile, Andrew spent the morning with his friend, and was so helpful setting up for a party they planned that afternoon (for his friend's little brother--a party Evelyn had already been invited to), that they invited him to stay. So he and Evelyn spent the afternoon at a party, and it was just Oliver and Dan guarding the fort.

We rounded off the day with a wedding reception that evening--Evelyn and I went, but I had to convince Andrew he didn't really want to come (he only wanted to go for the food, but he would have hated everything else). Evelyn was enchanted by everything: the decoration, the bride's dress. Well, and the food (pizza and ice cream!).

Evelyn turns eight!

Evelyn's birthday was the biggest event of the week, but not the only one.

On Monday, Andrew's class participated in Battle of the Books (for those of you  not familiar, the kids are put into teams and assigned to read 20 or so books. The "battle" consists of questions about the content of the book and they get points for knowing the title and author's name). Andrew's team won last year, and he was determined to do that again. He's spent the last couple weeks memorizing author names and titles, and he read most of the books on the list (even though other people on his team were assigned them).

I got to help out and ran a couple of the battles with another teacher aide--I got to see Andrew's team in action, where they got a perfect score (70) for their part, and the other team got 20 something? Turns out that was pretty typical of their rounds--three perfect scores qualified them for the final round, and the reading specialist told me she'd never seen anything like that.

In the final round, teams could "steal" questions (that is, get points if the other team answered wrong). Andrew's team choked a little--Andrew was team captain and thought the answer was one thing; his team thought it was something else. He gave his team's answer (as the captain is supposed to do) and they got it wrong (Andrew was right), the other team stole it, and they lost by 7 points. (I can be honest here, right? I understand the tournament system. But the scores going into the tournament round were 210 v. 154, so it's clear to me which team actually knew the books better.) This has occasioned no small amount of angst over the last week, as Andrew goes over what could have happened if he'd answered differently (they'd have won).

At this point, I was super proud of Andrew. He was watching as the points were being added, and as soon as it was clear that the other team won, he was the first to congratulate them. And he continued to try and be positive, though he did ask to use the restroom. I followed him out b/c I could tell he was upset and disappointed but trying so hard not to be. I ended up taking him to lunch, both because I was proud of how hard he'd worked (I'm pretty sure he read more of the books than any other kid there) and because I wanted to give him time to compose himself before going back to class.

Andrew wanted to go to Alberto's, so we did.

Tuesday was Evelyn's birthday. She started the day with pancakes for breakfast, and then I took *her* out to lunch (Oliver got to go twice, because Oliver) at Panda Express. She opened presents after dinner (pasta and meatballs), then went to the park because the weather has finally gone gorgeous.

We rounded off the day with angel food cake, berries, and whipped cream.

Speed forward to the weekend: our ward had their annual Fathers and Sons campout near Antimony. This year, Dan took Oliver too. (Oliver was apparently pretty good; he slept better than anyone else in their tent did!) As usual, per his over-achieving chef self, Dan attempted to make cheesecake in a Dutch oven. It turned out well, but I guess it took longer than expected. Andrew was upset that Dan let his fishing license expire and didn't bring a fishing pole. Oliver liked sleeping in a sleeping bag and a tent, though he told me, "I missed you too much." (Personally, I think it's good for him to not have all mom all the time).

Evelyn and I had a girl's night out. Sans car, we walked to a local restaurant and had a nice dinner and then watched some funny video clips on the computer. (Oh yes, and Oliver and I have been spending lots of time at the library park this week).

Saturday was Evelyn's birthday party, so I spent the morning cleaning before the boys came home. We had a little big of a hiccup the day of, when we discovered that half of her invited list couldn't come b/c they were sick (what happens when you invite a set of triplets), but I think she had fun anyway.

She wanted a "sleep under" party, so we started with dinner (waffles), then the girls played games outside and I painted faces. While I was expecting more girly requests--fairies, butterflies, etc.--the girls went much darker than I expected. Most of them wanted "gargoyles" (one of the girls is obsessed with Ghostbusters--I don't think her idea of gargoyles is exactly the same as mine, but they seemed pleased enough with the generally monstrous appearance). Funny girls.

When they came in, we had a sundae bar and then they watched part of Labyrinth (Evelyn's request), but they were more interested in playing Playmobils so we turned the movie off after a while. All told, I think my girlie had a pretty good week.

Semester's end and Storymakers

This has been a busy, wonderful, crazy week.

The first part of the week is a bit of a blur--Dan and I handed in final grades, and on Wednesday, we celebrated "Star Wars Day" (May the 4th . . . be with you). Kind of nerdy, but that's how we roll.

The kids and I wore Star wars shirts, and after school the older kids had friends over and we made Star Wars sugar cookies, using the cookie cutters that come out once a year--on May the 4th.

Of course, since there were eight kids running around my house, the cookies were all gone in about forty minutes.

Thursday I drove up to Provo with my wonderful writing friends for one of my favorite writing conferences, LDStorymakers. This was my fifth (?) year going, and every year I come away inspired with new ideas and new friends (a huge thank you to Dan for making this possible!)

I've been on the faculty for this conference the last couple of years, and this year was no exception. I was part of a workshop Thursday afternoon on prepping materials to submit to literary agents and editors (writing query letters, synopses, pitches, etc.). Friday afternoon I taught two classes, one on Writing Emotion (the objective correlative) and one I co-taught on online pitch contests.





The first of these ended up shocking me--I was right after lunch, and lunch ended early so I thought I'd go get set up and have time to run over my notes. Instead, I discovered that I didn't have an adaptor I needed to connect my laptop to the podium, so I ran off to find the appropriate tech guy (hunted all over the building unsuccessfully) and came back to the classroom to find that the room was full to bursting--every seat was full and there were people sitting on the floor in front--with 20 minutes still to go before the class was supposed to start. Someone suggested I talk to the committee about a bigger room. I was already feeling stressed about the tech, and this just added to my nerves! Luckily, someone loaned me their Mac and a tech guy showed up with an adaptor we could use--just as one of the committee members showed up to say we were switching rooms.

I got a room twice as large and there were *still* people sitting on the floor up front. (Here's my view of the room, just before the class started). Afterward, several people complimented me on my direct approach to the class, that I started right into the material without spending lots of time introducing myself or explaining my background. Truth is, I was too nervous to think of anything other than the topic! Luckily, my teaching training kicked in as soon as I started, I calmed down, and I think the class went pretty well.

I also got to spend time with some of my writing friends (including the two on the floor in the picture above). Here are some of my "Swanky Seventeen" friends--other writers whose first books are coming out next year like mine. 

Another wonderful thing about the conference: my agent (Josh Adams) was in town for the conference, so I got to see lots of him. I met him at this same conference two years ago. Saturday night, after the conference, he took me and two other clients to dinner; Sunday morning, one of my writer friends (and an "agent-sister") hosted a brunch in her beautiful new home for Josh and all our families, since his flight didn't leave until early this evening.

For my mother's day, Dan brought all the kids up north (they spent Saturday playing with Sarah) so that we could go to the brunch--also, so I had a ride home, since my ride up left Saturday afternoon when the conference finished.

I hope our readers had a wonderful week--now, to planning Evelyn's birthday and catching up on everything I didn't do last week . . .

Tenure Tea party

By far the biggest event this week was the celebratory tenure tea party we threw for Dan on Monday afternoon. We spent much of the weekend prepping for it--and I spent all of Monday morning cutting out sandwich shapes for the tea sandwiches. (Good thing I love Dan!)

Trisha was the brainchild behind this, and we could not have done it without her help--she assembled all the teacups and trays (basically, everything pretty in the pictures we owe to Trisha). We were very sorry she had to miss it, as she was away on an important service mission in Mexico.

Dan's colleagues seemed to enjoy it, though most of them were not sure what to expect. The most frequent comment was, "Wow! This looks amazing." Several of them had never had tea before, and most seemed to enjoy it--the cranberry grape punch we had simmering in a crockpot with a cinnamon stick seemed to be the favorite. Also, the lemon scones, but those are always a hit.

Oliver, "helping" us set up. 

Drinks--Bubby let us use her nice china. (The tulips were from our yard).

 Food table (lilacs from the bush in our neighbor's yard that hangs over our fence).

 Ty Redd, practicing his pinky lift.

 Barb and Rhonda.

I think a lovely time was had by all. We did over plan a bit--but the kids weren't upset at all to have leftovers.

The rest of the week was pretty standard, though Thursday wound up being a little crazy: I had my final exam in the morning, and the kids and I had dentist appointments in the afternoon, and the departure from routine meant I completely forgot the kids had piano lessons that day too. Oops.

Friday, Oliver and I celebrated my first Friday not teaching in 3.5 months by driving down to St. George. I'd thought to do some shopping for me, but of course Oliver had other plans. So he got ice cream for lunch and we ended up at the park. 

Yesterday, Dan spent most of the time at commencement activities. The kids and I cleaned, went to the Kite Flight for reading event that the school district hosts (didn't stay long, because of rain), and then Andrew went to play with a friend while Evelyn and Oliver played nicely and let me work on my presentations for a conference next week. Evelyn got to go to a movie party at a friend's house last night--a rare late night event--and was thrilled. Andrew was less thrilled, because it meant he was in bed before Evelyn was.

All in all, a good, if busy!, week.