Back to School Feast

Now that school has been in for a month and a half, I want to share about the back to school feast we had this year.

This is an idea I've toyed with for a while that we'd never actually done, but I really wanted to do it this year. Planning was very last minute and I wasn't really sure if I would actually attempt it or not, pretty much until the day before, but I was able to pull together a fun night, and I feel pretty proud of that.

One of the things that I really got stuck on in the planning process was coming up with a theme. I wanted something that would be applicable to our whole family, not just the ones going back to school. (Specifically, something that would be applicable to me with this pregnancy and the upcoming birth that I'm still pretty nervous about most days.)

I had all sorts of ideas, but I started to think that I needed to pull our theme from April's General Conference addresses. I don't know if this is the same for everyone else in the Church, but I feel like there's one particular quote from President Nelson (from this talk) that keeps coming to my attention, in lessons, meetings, and personal study. He said, "In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost." It felt so right. 

I think the theme was one of the things that held me up the most, like I couldn't do the whole feast without it, so having that chosen made going forward with the rest of the planning went a bit easier after that.

I set our table with a brown packing paper covering, a vase of sunflowers in the center, and two jars full of #2 pencils on either side of the flowers. I also wrote out a few scriptures to go with our theme that we could read and discuss during dinner. And I wrote our theme quote on a full sheet of cardstock with fancy lettering to display at dinner as well as to hang in our home for the year to come.

Because pancakes are kind of the center of basically all of our celebrations, it only felt right to do breakfast for dinner, featuring delicious apple pancakes + syrup. We also had a potato + egg scramble, a rainbow fruit plate, and orange juice. It was all so tasty!

We ate and talked about the year ahead, our theme, and how we can invite the influences of the Spirit as mentioned in the quote. After everyone ate, the pencils came out of the jars and nearly everyone was doodling on our paper table top. As the evening came to a close, the kids were given their backpacks. (Normally I let them pick out their own, but due to some less than awesome circumstances, I did this year's backpack shopping solo.) Inside their packs they found a few pencils, a folder, and a notebook that I had written our theme into the cover of, as well as some ideas of how to invite the influences of the Spirit and a little message from me. 

As with most of our parties and celebrations, there was a lot I wanted to do - specifically decor-wise - that I just couldn't accomplish with our limited budget and my last minute preparations. Things like balloons and twinkly lights and all manner of beautiful ideas from Pinterest. And you can only make it look so nice with mis-matched, dingy old folding and camp chairs. Ha. But, even though it didn't look exactly how I wanted, it was still a lovely evening. I'm really hoping to make this an annual tradition.

End of Summer Update

School is starting soon, hooray!! Honestly, I'm totally stoked. It's been a rough summer without a car, and I think we're all feeling stir-crazy and ready for some structure and routine!

I've been thinking about it all and realized that I haven't been grateful for the things that were great about this summer. Thing is, I'm super great at wallowing in self-pity, and not always the best at being grateful when things are hard. But this summer hasn't been a total bust, even if it didn't look how I'd initially envisioned. I noticed I started feeling really bummed about it after reading another person's blog post about how great their summer has been. I let their good times get me down. I've been thinking about it more today, and spent some time looking through some photos from our summer, and am feeling a lot better about it than I was. I shared a bit about my new perspective on ig today.

I'm still stoked for school to start, though. Ha. 

We're finally in the process of car shopping, which is not the most fun, but I am grateful that we can finally start on the road to finding a new family vehicle. Although I kind of dread this part, I'm also hopeful that we'll find a van that fits our ever-growing family, is in good condition and doesn't totally break the bank. Prayers/good thoughts are appreciated.

And we've sort-of started on back to school shopping, but we have to do it in waves, ha. Over the weekend I took our soon-to-be kindergartener to get some new shoes for school. (Just don't get me started on how I feel about my 4th babe going into kinder.) The one I think all the bosslings are most excited for, though, is backpack shopping. I'm kind of excited to see what each of them choose, I think a lot of their personality shines through when they choose their pack, and it's fun to see.

Are you excited or bummed that summer is nearly (or already - I'm looking at you, AZ) over?? 

That Time I Quit Social Media For a Week

Monday night, last week, I shared a post to Instagram and Facebook declaring my intentions to take a week-long break from those platforms. I mentioned feeling apprehensive about it, because I often use Instagram as an escape when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and going into last week, I expected to be very overwhelmed. 

Here's what I knew about the upcoming week: The older kids had just gotten out of school for summer, Boss was headed out of town for work leaving Tuesday morning and returning Friday afternoon, and my sister was to start a training class on Thursday that would have her gone most of the day - and I'd already agreed to watch her three kids while she was gone.

For those reasons alone, I was kind of dreading the week. Little did I know what the week actually had in store for me. After I posted my intentions, I uninstalled Instagram and Facebook messenger from my phone and then went to bed.

I was woken early Tuesday morning, I had to drive Boss to work where he was meeting everyone he was traveling with. Not long after returning home I learned my daughter's glasses were broken and in need of repair, and I began to consider that with the other errands I needed to run before I was homebound with children on Thursday and Friday. I needed to visit Target, Walmart, and Costco - I figured we'd hit all our errands in one day since the three stores conveniently happen to be along the same street. So I wouldn't have to worry about lunch, I decided to take the kids to free lunch at the park before we got started. 

My picky children didn't eat much of their lunches, but they ate enough and they got to run around for a bit at the park with the friends and cousins who we ran into. But it was pretty warm that day, so we didn't stay long. I wanted to get back into the air conditioning of the van and to get our errands done. 

Of the three stores, Target is the farthest and Costco the closest, and because I was planning to get frozen things at Costco I thought it'd be best to start at Target and move closer to home with each stop. But we never made it to Target. 

As we made our way, I thought about the quickest way to do each stop with my 6 kids in tow. At one point I got so lost in thought that I didn't realize, until it was too late, that I was actually running a red light. I noticed the other car first and looked up to see my mistake just as we made impact. Shame and guilt and my nagging inner critic were very quick to fill my head with negativity. I apologized profusely to my children - now traumatized - and to the other driver, all but me, thankfully, unharmed. 

It took a moment after impact to realize the van was still moving.
I slammed on the break and did my best to steer, so we didn't hit tree or house.
I was startled to realize we ended up on the sidewalk.

People seemed to materialize, helping to keep track of and calm my children as we shakily made our way out of the van. Both my daughter and I lost our glasses in the impact, but my oldest was able to locate them for us. Police, firemen, and an ambulance arrived. The children were cleared by paramedics, most of their discomfort having to do with the trauma they'd just experienced.

Even though they were traumatized, they still enjoyed getting to see the emergency vehicles.
Plus, the firemen gave them all stickers and pencils! :)

I took the brunt of the impact, my left arm was bruised and banged up, my right wrist looked fine, but hurt badly to move it around, and I felt like I'd been punched hard on the left side of my back. It was recommended that I visit an ER for my injuries, which I waited to do until we'd gotten the kids home. At the ER, I had X-rays done which found no broken bones, something I'm very grateful for. Almost a week later I am still pretty sore, but it's gotten a little better every day. The van on the other hand, has been declared a total loss. 

They made me put on the dang hospital gown and hooked me up to all sorts of apparatus.

The visible injuries. These are all on my left arm.
The bruise from the first photo (top left) - on the underside of my wrist, has traveled down my arm in the days since the accident.
Top right shows the scratches on my hand and if you look close you can see the bruise that covered the top of my wrist and hand.
Bottom left, with my arm at a strange angle, shows the air-bag burn.
Bottom right is various scratches and bruises on the underside of my arm.

I later realized that Thursday - two days after this accident - marked 3 years since my last car accident, the one where I rolled our van on the freeway on my way to Phoenix from Flagstaff. And I will admit that this realization only triggered more personal shame, guilt, and criticism for having, once again, put my family in this position of being without a car at the beginning of summer. 

And that was just my first day away from Instagram. Granted it's been pretty chill since then, as I've taken it easy post-accident, but it seriously tested me in my resolve to stay off Facebook and Instagram. As of last night, though, I made it. It might well be the only victory of the week, but I'll take it. 

birthday recap 1

Birthday season (June-October, for us) is almost over! While I love, love, love birthdays, I'm also really excited that we're almost done! Because I want birthdays to be special and fun, I end up getting pretty stressed out over them, which in the end is totally worth it, and is also why I'm glad we get it over and done with over 4 short months.

Anyway, because it's almost over, I feel like it's about time I do a birthday recap. Mostly because I want to show off the cakes and pancakes I made (I work hard on those suckers!), but also to have a record of my babies growing. And this year was a big one, my oldest turned 10 and the baby turned 1! (Time is a cruel beast.)

I think because there are so many of them, I'm going to break up the posts, so I'll recap the first two birthdays here, and then I'll share the others in additional posts.

First up was Z, who turned 7 in June. He said he wanted a bat cake this year so, when I made his birthday pancakes, I tried to make him a little bat pancake to go with the standard birthday number pancake. Seven. What is life?

Then there was the actual birthday cake. I ask the kids in advance what kind of cake they want, and then I spend the next little while brainstorming how to make it happen, and then usually end up winging it (ha, bat) the day of their birthday, which was exactly the case for this one. I made a 9x13 yellow cake, and then I mostly eyeballed, with a little bit of help from a make-shift paper template I created, the cuts to make it sort of bat-shaped. In the end, it worked out, so yay!

Along with his bat-shaped cake, we splurged a bit and got him the Lego Batman movie. His face says it all. I love his explosive excitement. Also, that bedhead that he rocked all day. Summer break is the best. (Who am I kidding? He goes to school with crazy bedhead most days. It's fine.)

This was also the first birthday after we moved back to Utah, which meant we were able to invite cousins to come hang out and celebrate with us! Hooray! But I didn't get any photos of our guests that time! Not hooray!

------

In July, I became the mother of a 10-year-old. What the actual crap? I decided I would be funny about it, so I made a special hashtag. You know, because we do that with our brand new babies - #babysfirstbath #babysfirsttooth #babysfirststep - so I came up with the hashtag #babysfirstdecade. I know, I know, I'm hilarious. C was not impressed.

This year, he kept being a sassafrass about me not having him on the 4th of July. Because I was in total control of when he was born, you know? Kids. Anyway, it meant that he wanted this super patriotic birthday, so there was that. I decided I wanted to make it a little extra, so I ran to the store first thing in the morning looking for some 4th of July themed mini M& M's and some whipped cream for inside and to top the pancakes. Except no matter how hard I looked, there wasn't a single bag of patriotic M&M's left in the store. So I grabbed a regular bag and had C separate the reds and blues from the rest while I made the pancakes. #childlabor

I kinda decided, on a whim, that I didn't want to make giant, digit shaped pancakes for double digit numbers, so once my kids hit ten and beyond, their pancakes will be the standard round shape, with the full number on them. I made him a regular one and one filled with M&M's. I liked the look of the plain one better, he preferred the candy-filled one. Whatever. We covered them with syrup, whipped cream, and more candy, so who cares?

Pancake party!!

To go with the whole wish-I'd-been-born-on-the-4th, patriotic theme, he decided he wanted his cake to look like the American flag. Fine. Adding the sparklers was my idea. I'm so clever.

I thought it would be such an easy cake, but let me tell you, it was kinda tedious. Like when I got that bottle of pastel-multi-color star sprinkles and poured the whole thing out so I could pick out the white ones... But as I was sweating over trying to get those red and white stripes, without turning the whole frost job into a marbled pink, I was still happy. Because making a cake that makes my kid feel special feels, well, special.

And would you look at that, a picture with some party guests! I'm telling you, each party through this birthday season has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. We're having the final party, to end birthday season, this Friday, and it's probably the biggest one yet. I'm pretty excited and also super hopeful it doesn't end up being lame. 

birthday recap pt. 2

July is extra busy because there are actually 2 July birthdays. C is at the beginning of the month, and N is later. This year, he turned 3 and, because he has been obsessed with Magic School Bus (thank you, Netflix!), he really wanted a Magic School Bus cake. Thankfully, it was good enough to just make a cake look like a bus, and not like the actual bus from the show. Even now, months later, he still talks about his Magic School Bus birthday, so obviously, I did a good job. 

We get a break in August. Sort of. Because we have our anniversary in August, but nobody's birthday. But before I knew it, September had arrived and we were celebrating S turning 5. 

His birthday was pretty exciting because it happened to coincide with some very special visitors. My grandparents were able to visit from Costa Rica, and while they weren't able to make it to his party, it did mean that we had family come up from California, and they were able to party with us.

S wanted a lightsaber birthday, and I'm all about complying with birthday requests. We went with cupcakes, instead of a bigger cake. Not my favorite, because I felt like it looked sloppy, but to my boy, it was perfect, so hooray!

I super love having friends and family over to help celebrate all the bossling birthdays, it was hard to be away from siblings and parents as my children reached milestones and never stopped growing, no matter how nicely I asked. So having all these gatherings with friends and family has been by far one of my greatest joys since moving back to Utah. 

july 23, 2016 -- pioneer day celebrations

If you were to ask me what the number one thing I miss about living in Utah is, I would tell you, hands down, Pioneer Day. I miss the parades, the day-long celebrations, the firework shows. That's not to say we haven't been able to celebrate this special holiday while living away from Utah, it's just that -- well, I'm spoiled. After living right off the parade route, and within walking distance to one of the bigger firework shows... the celebrations in Denver and Flagstaff just can't compare. That said, we still enjoy the celebrations, no matter where we are. No need to miss out on a good time, just because it's not the huge celebration that I want.

Last year and this year our stake hosted a Pioneer Day gathering at the park nearest to us. We had just gotten a vehicle earlier that week, so we were pretty dang thrilled just to be getting out of the house. Plus: free food. The downfall was that Mr. Boss was working, so I was on my own with my 5 monkeys and my big, pregnant belly. Plus, it was really warm, which exhausts me so quickly. There was a hay ride, and pony rides, which the kids begged me to let them go do. I was too tired to go right away, and I didn't want them to go without me because: pictures! So I made them wait until after lunch, and then a little longer. Finally I decided to put my big girl pants on, suck it up, and just take them. We went just in time, too. We were some of the last ones to enjoy the hay ride and pony rides.

My handsome, newly-2-year-old.

Waiting for our turn on the hay ride.

They all loved the hay ride.
N was so content sitting on the hay. As we rode, I asked him if he was having fun.
"Yeah!" he responded, with a vigorous head nod.

While the babes waited for their turn on the ponies, they pet and hung out near this goat.

Little N was so cute with the goat. I was kind of surprised at how brave he was, he usually only likes animals from a distance.
But watching him was probably my favorite part of the whole day.

Finally we made it to the front of the line. Ladies first!

Then the big boys got their turn.

As they came back around, Z let go of the saddle horn and called out to me: "Look! I can ride with no hands!"

Last but not least, little N. He was pretty excited about riding a horsie, although he didn't look it. haha.

Waiting around for the hayride that would take us back to the main pavilion.

It's all fun and games until someone has an allergic reaction... 

It was only a few minutes after the hay ride had dropped us back off that C started complaining about his eyes. They were super red and starting to swell up. The activity was basically over by then, so we loaded up and made our way home to get poor C an allergy pill and a shower.

He looked so sad, and so unlike himself, but he was willing to let me get a picture. I felt so bad. I hadn't even considered that the goat or ponies might bother him. But live and learn, I guess. After he'd gotten his pill and a shower, he was feeling better, but it took a couple of days for the swelling in his eyes to completely fade away.

We decided to end the night with creamies, because Utah. The bosslings were all pretty thrilled about that. Especially our littlest, who worked so hard to try and say "popsicle", but his tongue kept getting in the way. He says "plock-ah-lull" with his tongue sticking out and sliding across his mouth with the "L"s. It's just about the cutest thing ever.

Poor swollen boy, in better spirits after a shower and pill.

I love this cheeser!

Seriously, this boy is just so handsome. He makes me swoon on the daily.

Did I mention he's also quite the sassafrass? These three pictures crack me up.

And then there's this studly-kins. He's such a dream boat!

You guys! I can't handle his perfect little face.
...Which is probably a natural defense mechanism, given how mischievous he is.

Playing in the dirt. All day, every day. (I miss grass.)

Creamies to end the night. Everyone was thrilled!

The end.