(Don't) Cheer On!

 

This is the view from the stands at CBC. 

This is where Dallin and Cody had their first flag football clinic. 

 

 

Notice it is right next door to the St. Louis LDS temple. 

 

On the way to the clinic, I was telling the kids that the field was right by the temple. 

Cody said, "Perfect!  So if I want to get married I can just leave football practice and go next door.  Then I can come back and play football again when I'm done getting married."

 

 At least he knows he wants to get married in the temple... 

I'm sure the dream of leaving his wedding to go play football will only last for so long. 

 

Dallin was trying to explain to his friends what flag football was. 

"In tackle football people can tackle each other.  In flag football your 'enemy' just has to try and pull your flag." 

 

Dallin told me before the practice started that he really hoped there weren't any cheerleaders there.  He was going to feel really uncomfortable having cheerleaders cheering for him.  (What?!)

 

At this clinic they had the kids do football type warm-ups.  Ex: sprints, back pedaling, side stepping, etc.  My poor kids have a lot of catching up to do as far as their coordination goes.  Cody looked like he was swatting mosquitos every time he ran.  They were looking a little better at the end of the day.  I'm sure they will have made some major improvements by the end of the season. 

 

Brian was at school during the clinic so Brylee, Tate and I just hung out on the track waiting.  There was a large tractor tire that the kids had fun playing in and on.  Tate practiced kicking a football through every soccer and la crosse goal net he could find.  Brylee had a great time playing with a boy friend from church.  His brother is playing football as well. 

 

I think the boys had a good time.  During the 90 minute clinic I only caught Cody looking through the turf for bugs twice!  (That's pretty impressive for him.) 

 

They have their first game next week. 

I guess we are hoping for no cheerleaders...

"I'm at a pay phone trying to call home, all of my change I spent on you!...."

Sometimes, even our best intentions, aren't part of the 'real' plan.  For instance, let's look at my morning so far...

I had somewhere to be today at 9:30.  I had to be prepared with supplies.  At 9:00 I was all ready to go, but was a little early.  So I decided to run by Target on my way there.  I left Target at 9:23, with plenty of time to get where I was going.  (The next 20 -25 minutes seemed like an hour or so.  I guess that is why I can have so much to say about such a short period of time.)

Next to my car was parked another car, on the drivers side, where a mom was getting her kids out of her car and putting them in a cart that was sitting right by my door.  Leaving the drivers side of my car, momemtarily, unaccessible.  It was freezing cold outside.  With the wind chill (and it was windy) the temp had to be in the teens, maybe low 20's.  So I was anxious to get Tate in the car and let car start to warm up. 

I went to the passenger side of the car and unlocked the door.  (Manually, no 'working' power locks on this baby.)  I reached to the back passenger side door and unlocked it.  I put Tate in the back seat and told him to crawl across the seat and get in his car seat.  I then reached across the front passenger seat and started the car so it could warm up.  I also unlocked the driver side door.  I closed both passenger side doors and walked around the car.  The other mom and her children were now gone.  I still needed to unlock Tate's door, so I reached for the drivers door and before I pull the latch, ALL the locks in the car locked by themself.  Ummmm....  WHAT?!!!!!! 

So, Tate is now locked in the car.  The running car.  My purse with my phone in it is also locked in the car.  Before completely freaking out, I told Tate to unlock the door by pulling the lock up.  He tried, but wasn't able to get a stong enough grip on it, and his little hands slipped off the lock every time.  Within a minute or two a woman was walking by and I had to ask her if I could borrow her phone.  After being briefed on my situation, of course she let me.  I called Brian, but of course we don't have a spare key.  There was nothing he could do. 

By this time Tate had crawled up to the front seat and was having a blast turning the steering wheel and playing with the window wipers.  My pleas to Tate began to grow louder, and probably more desperate sounding.  Tate had found the radio button and had turned on some Maroon 5 as loud as he possibly could.  With all this noise it was no surprise that more and more people started to ask what was going on.  One man was kind enough to call the police for me. 

My new friend (the random woman with the phone) finally decided there was nothing she could do anyway, and she was FREEZING, so she went about her shopping and was going to check on me on her way back to her car.  I kept talking to Tate to try and get him to open the locks or roll down the window.  He had no intererst.  He was enjoying every minute of this freedom with full access to all the controls in the car.  The smile on his face was huge, and I'm convinced he could have played there for hours.  As long as he didn't put the car in gear before that...  Forunately, he had set the emergency brake. 

The police finally arrived.  They set to work prying a wedge between the door and frame to see if they could manuver a long wire down to push the door unlock button.  (The same buttons that don't work.)  Obviously that didn't work.  Another woman offered me a cookie to see if it would tempt Tate to try and open the doors again.  He did act interested for a few seconds, until he realized that he couldn't lift the lock so he went back to playing. 

The police couldn't get anything to work on the passenger side door, so they came over to the drivers side and tried there.  Luckily, Tate decided to move over to the passenger side seat and try and open the glove box.  This was a relief because we thought for sure he would start grabbing the wire and mess up all of the police man's efforts. 

Finally, the cop got the window rolled down and we were able to unlock the door.  I was relieved.  It only took 20 or 25 minutes.  Seemed like more.  I got Tate buckled in, signed a form for the police (luckily no ticket or anything), and began on my way again.  Brian showed up just as I was leaving. 

Lessons learned: don't start the car until I am sitting in the drivers seat.  Teach children to unlock the car!  Have a spare key, or two.  Get one of those magentic boxes to hide spare key somewhere on the outside of the car.  Be grateful for people who are willing to put their schedules aside and help out for a minute. 

Things could have been worse.  Looking back on it, it was more funny that stressful.  I'm lucky Tate and I were watched over and that a few special people were sent to help me. 

I never made it to where I was supposed to be going today.  But, apparently, I just wasn't meant to be there.  Instead I have a good story to laugh about.  :)


(I didn't proof read this, it was too long.  Ha.  Congrats to you if you made it through the whole post!)

Angry Bird Party

 My little Dallin is 8 years old today!  Where has the time gone?

 

He chose Angry Birds as the theme for his birthday. 

Because our kids only get birthday parties on their even numbered birthdays, I decided to do a little more than I normally would.  (Ya know, what all the other moms do EVERY time.)

 

 

I put together goodie favor bags for Dallin's friends to take home.  They included Angry Bird crackers and gummy worms. 

I made a mask for each child as well.  Pigs and red Angry Birds. 

 

 

Dallin was so excited to have his own special day.

 

For the cake I made Oreo truffles and used candy melts and fondant to turn them into Angry Bird characters.  I was pretty happy with how they turned out, considering it was my first time usin candy melts or making anything like this. 

 

For the last week or two I collected all our cereal and snack boxes and large cans to make this angry birds game.  I painted them green for the pigs, and brown for the wood structures, and then sewed some red angry bird bean bags to throw at the pigs and wood.  Brian was nice and took charge of the game.  

 

 

 

Dallin seemed to have a good time playing the games and rocked the angry bird mask most of the night. 

 

Dallin was excited about getting so many fun toys from his friends. 

But before he opened the gifts he said (while all his friends were downstairs) "so, I can open presents and then everyone can LEEEAAVE!" 

Apparently his feelings about the party were heading the same direction as mine.  (More on that at the bottom)

 

Make a wish, and blow!

 

So, I'm glad we only have parties every other year.  I put a lot of time and effort into this party, and of course it wasn't only not appreciated, it wasn't even noticed.  I think Dallin did appreciate it, but a bunch of 8 year old kids could care less if it's not their b-day. 

Of all those Oreo truffles that I spent about 3 hours making, I bet most of them went in the trash.  We gave each kid one, and they took a bite then threw it away. 

Also, little boys tend to be a little stinky.  My basement still doesn't smell the same.  I"ll spare you the details of the mess Brian got to clean up in the bathroom.  Yuck!

These boys couldn't even sit still to let Dallin open his gifts.  They were wrestling, and asking for soda, and cake, and more games, etc.  Repeat. 

I am SOOOO glad Brian was here to handle most of the interactions with the kids.  I was going crazy.  So, I think Dallin has picked up a few of my quirks.  The chaos of the group was a lot to handle and I think he was glad when it was all over. 

We tried to invite every boy from his class, and not leave anyone out, so we had 10 guests and two teenage brothers.  Next time, a smaller group will be better.  (Also, no teenagers who throw basketballs at defenseless smaller kids!) 

 

At the end of the day, I think Dallin had fun.  I'm glad it's over.  And we realized after we put the kids to bed, that in the rush of the party preparations, we didn't even give Dallin the presents from us!  I guess we can make his day last a little longer by letting him open the presents tomorrow. 

What was that?!

Today, Brian, the kids, and I, were on our way home and came to a stop at a stop light.  A few seconds later the car lurched forward with a big bang.  Brian had to slam on the brakes because we were being pushed forward were getting very close to hitting the car in front of us.  We were rear-ended.  It took a few seconds to realize that was what had happened.  That was a first for me, and all of the kids.  (Not sure about Brian...)  We immediately checked with the kids to make sure they were all ok, which they were.  There was a cop at the same intersection, but going perpendicular to us, so we tried to flag him down, but he was oblivious to all of our attempts.  So we pulled on to a side street to assess the damage and talk to the person who hit us.  Luckily no damage to our car, one benefit of having an SUV I guess.  His car was not so lucky. 
Anyway, I'm glad we were all ok.  :/

Friends

As parents you try and give your kids the best. 
We have tried to teach them all the things that are important to us, and what we think they will need to be successful adults.  (We are still working on teaching these things...)

But when your kids are sent out into the world at such a young age, there is a lot of pressure on them.  I hope they will remember what we have taught them.  I hope they can make good choices that won't hurt them or others.  However, I am having a hard time with just having to 'hope' they do that.  I want to protect them from the world.  Any negative influences I hear or see them come in contact with have me stressing out. 

Our current negative influence has actually been in our life for about a year and a half now.  He is a neighbor kid.  He rode the bus with my kids last year and would show up at our house almost every day after school.  He didn't seem too bad at first, and maybe I'm too harsh on him, but I grew tired of him fast. 

On one, uninvited, visit to our house he broke our screen door.  Another time he broke our batting tee (not a HUGE deal, but annoying).  He is a big kid for an 8 year old and he pushed Brylee to the ground because he was mad at her.  A year ago he threw Tate on a bean bag and hurt him. 

He tells my kids that I am a mean mom, because I have rules and don't let my 5-8 year olds run around the neighborhood unsupervised.  He tells my kids "your momma's so fat..."  jokes.  Which they believe are really about me.  He is a bully to littler kids on the bus, including Cody. 

All this has been going on for so long, and it didn't hit all at once so I never realized how many complaints I had about him...

This week Dallin told me that this kid has a tablet that he pulls out on the bus and he and Dallin listen to music.  So Dallin wanted me to find the songs on the computer so he could listen to them here.  Of course they are all rap songs.  I don't know if he has the clean versions, or the ones with explicit lyrics.  Dallin is now convinced that he likes rap music.  Great. 

So, now I'm torn between forbidding this friendship (even though I can't really control that because he is in Dallin's class) or just 'hoping' that my kids will remember what we have taught them.  Will they follow his lead and start using crude language? 

Dallin already got a half-day-in-school-suspension for hitting other kids.  I'd like to think there was some outside influence on that behavior...  I just think kids are so fragile and impressionable.  Of course they want to be cool and do what their friends do. 

I'm considering taking my kids off of the bus.  But there would still be interaction with him at school.  I'm very frustrated.  I can't wait to move simply to get away from this kid.  I know there will be kids like him wherever we go.  Too bad I really don't want to homeschool.  If things got bad enough I would. 

Anyway, sorry for the long rant.  Being a parent isn't easy. 

Happy birthday to Me!

Brian and the kids spoiled me on my birthday this year.  They made me breakfast in bed, and then Brian did the dishes.  He also made me some AMAZING brisket for dinner.  Here are some pics of him, Dallin, and Brylee working on my cake.  It was a 3 tiered chocolate cake with fresh grated chocolate shavings on top.  I'm such a lucky girl!  :) 

 

 Here's Dallin grating (and eating) the chocolate. 

 

Also, Brian and my parents got me a food processor!!  Squee!  I am so happy.  You can see it still in its packaging there behind Dallin.   Can't wait to use it. 

 

I know Brian's mom also has something waiting for me next week when I go to her house.  Like I said, I'm spoiled. 

 

Thanks everyone!!   

 

 

Tater see, Tater pee...

On Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful 70 degree temps and played a round of frisbee golf with some friends.  While we were on the course Cody had to use a tree to releive his bladder.  Well, when Tate saw that he HAD to try it as well.  All on his own he took his diaper off and copied Cody.

 

 He didn't actually pee, but he had all the other important steps down.  Like, drop pants, remove diaper, face a tree, hold yourself, and stick your hips out. 

 Someday we'll add the wet stuff, too; then we'll being making some real progress.  ;)