RAIN

by ceily at 3 years old

crying

We arise at 6:11am.
Lana starts complaining she doesn't want to go to school. She's too cold.
We finally get dressed, brush teeth and hair without too much of a fuss. That's good. We're happy.
I mention that her dad will be driving her to school this morning so she can help Noah find his class.
She's not too happy. She wants to ride the bus.
We eat breakfast. Get shoes and backpacks.
Lana walks outside ready to hop on the bus.
Her dad reminds her she will be a car rider today.
The bus comes and I stick my head out the door to remind our little lady she needs to not get on the bus.
Lana returns to the house clad with intense scowl.

That's when it begins.

She comes inside, angry and upset, takes her shoes off and storms upstairs to her bed, crying.
Once Lana gets crying, there's no return.
Me: "Lana! You have until the count of three to be downstairs!"
Lana: "I don't want to go to school!"
Me: "One....
Lana: "I'm not going!"
Me: "Two...
Lana: Silence
Me: Waiting to give her some time..."Three!"
Lana: Nothing.
Me: Stomping upstairs (wonder where the little girl gets her stomping from)
Lana: Making her way downstairs.
So, she's crying of course. She doesn't want to help Noah get to class. I lecture her about being the big sister and having a responsibility to help her parents and her brother. How would she feel if her brother got lost at school? scared? and lost? crying? She didn't want that to happen. But, she still didn't want to help. She's crying. Now she doesn't want to go to school at all. She wants to stay home with me. Have I mentioned she's crying?
Me: "All children have to go to school. If they don't their parents get in trouble. You can only stay home if you are home schooled."
Lana: "I want yoooooou to take me nooooot dad!"
I have to push her out the door, crying and wailing, trying to pry her little fingers from my hands and body.
Chris finally drags her down the front steps. Lana yelling and crying: "No! I don't want to go!"
I close the front door, sigh with relief and try to collect myself. I still hear Lana's cries. The car leaves the driveway and I can still here Lana's cries. Five minutes later I can still hear the cries.
I poke my head out the front door and see Chris one house down struggling with Lana, trying to get her seat belt on. She is screaming and crying- "No!!!" Chris sees me walking towards the car and I hear Chris say to Lana; 'Now you're in trouble.' He tells me he had to chase her around the car before he got her inside again.
I am sternly telling Lana blah blah blah, hoping with all hope that the neighbor whose house we are in front of is still sleeping, or at least doesn't have their cell phones taping this chaos. I get the seat belt fastened and they drive off.
Chris calls me from the car after he has dropped them off. He said he had to literally drag Lana from the car and was just glad she didn't dart to her class, not helping her little brother.
What am I going to do with this girl? Do you think she has a hard time with change? I'm beginning to believe this to be true. Now she is grounded from all things pretty and pleasing and pleasurable.

It's now only 8:26am...Can't wait for the day ahead...

noah is off!

Things have a way of changing.

On Friday, I got a phone call from Lana's school. They were offering Noah a space in the Pre-K program. Last year, I had signed Noah up and was hoping he would be selected. This program is a Pre-K peer mentor program. Growing up with a sister with special needs, I have always wanted to teach my children tolerance and acceptance of those that are different. Noah, being the youngest is a bit spoiled. He thinks the sun rises and sets at his command. We do not have ANY living pets. Not much opportunity to nurture anything or anyone. Noah hasn't ever really had to "take care" of anyone but his cool self. So, this was the perfect opportunity.

And it's sort of thrown me for a loop.

Having not heard anything, we had Noah registered in a wonderful program. He was there last year. Eddie attended for two years. Lana did as well. So, we were happy and excited to start school next week. We were especially delighted that Noah would have the same teacher as Lana. Three days a week, 9-12. I still have two days of Noah all to myself-no sharing. One more year until I had to let go. Great program. I'm happy and ready to go.

But, when they offered the spot to Noah, I sort of had to re-group.

Noah's first day of school was today. He was very excited. He made sure I remembered that he got to choose where we would go to lunch because it was his "very first day." He wore his new PUMAS, and ran quite fast. He was happy and excited.

I was happy and excited too...until I got to school. THEY WOULDN'T LET ME TAKE HIM TO CLASS BECAUSE I HAD NO PICTURE ID. Yes. It's true. But, I don't want to dwell on that, just had to mention it.
He's home now.

Asleep.

The first day of school was a success.

have i said it enough

Have I told you, all you readers, how much I love my children?

I don't think I say it enough.

At least to them.

For those readers that know me, I'm a few words woman.

It's difficult to express myself vocally. (ask chris. i think this is one of the most frustrating things about me for him.)

I'm a visual person, so I find myself writing love notes to them.

In lunch boxes. (ceily asked me to stop. it's a bit embarrassing opening napkins with hearts and love notes in front of lunch mates! i understand.)

In letters.

And I do make really yummy cookies that my children adore, and I make them more often than I should because I love them-my children of course- so much!

daily works of art #41

by eddie

FLOWERS

by jayne

Angel Oak

This is a massive live oak tree out on Johns Island. Whenever we end up out on Johns Island I try to swing by. These are cell phone pictures and there are much better ones out there on the web but even these tell the story.

Riverfront Rope Swing

Whenever we are up in Virginia, staying with Jayne's family, I'm always looking for someplace to take the kids. It canbe tough to have them cooped up all day and, I'm sure, we can wear out our welcome in a hurry if we just loiter around the house all day. This year we had a great day wading in some local creeks south of the Potomac, looking for crayfish, skipping rocks, etc. Court Godfrey, Jayne's cousing (see his blog at right...) helped me chaperone but we didn't take pictures. Our hands were too full of buckets and bottles for the task at hand to carry a camera.

But we also heard about a place about an hour away on the Shenendoah River that had a great rope swing. I ended up taking Noah, Eddie and their cousin Micah there and my Brother Brian came along to help make sure nobody drowned. It was great. Muddy and a little unnerving at first (Brian had to be the brave, first one) it was a lot of fun. Really deep right there and you could get a decent swing from a log on the bank.

Eddie, getting ready to go and then at the end of the swing.

Noah, swimming after a swing.

Micah, getting ready to take off

All I had was my phone so the pictures leave something to be desired but it was great fun. That was, until a cop showed up and told us we were on private land and had to leave. He even pointed out where the "No Trespassing" sign had been torn down. He was very nice about it and we were about done anyway. Fun day!

Confederate Jasmine

time to catch up 0n some long over due posts.
When Jayne and I first visited Charleston we stayed downtown and got to walk around getting to know this beautiful city. It was springtime and the air was thick with the scent of this little, white flower growing on vines that clung to the cities walls and trees. Confederate Jasmine we were told.
One of my first tasks at the house we moved into was to build a trellis over the garage where Confederate Jasmine would grow.
It took a while to cover the trellis but there's no turning it back now. You can't see the trellis at all and this spring it got really bad - it was covering most of the garage door and it took a game of limbo to cross the threshold. Jayne and I were sitting on the porch and we heard neighbors laughing at it as they walked by (they were a little embarrased when they saw us...) But we didn't want to cut it back until the flowers were all done. Here's what it looked like.
We trimmed it back pretty good once all of the blooms, and the scent, were gone.

Problem Fixed

So the layout issue is fixed. Still not sure why it happened. Not exactly sure what I did to fix it. But it's done now...

there's something wrong with the layout of the blog. it's sort of driving me crazy. all the stuff that used to be on the right side of the screen, is now at the bottom. i can't seem to figure it out...

sick

4:00am
Noah walks quietly into our room.
He climbs into bed.
Noah: "Mom,remember when I got my shots and my leg hurt and my head hurt and you gave me medicine?"
Me: "Yes, hon."
Noah: "That's how I feel and will you get me some medicine now."

That was two mornings ago. Last night Noah woke, asked for some more medicine and then threw up a few times. He woke this morning and threw up some more.

Today- 8:00am

Me, Ceily and Noah in the car, driving Ceily to school.
Noah: "Mom, please hurry home."
Me: "Do you need to throw up?"
Noah: "Yes."
Me: "You can use your blanket."
Noah: "No. Just hurry home."

We are home and Noah goes quietly to the bathroom and proceeds to dry heave.

Poor baby. If all my children were as controlled when they were throwing up and heaving up bile, life would be ok when they got sick.

it begins

First day of school! It's begun. The early rising. The hair-brushing-teeth-brushing-Lana-ordeal. The quick to rise and out the door Eddie. The new middle schooler that gets a few extra minutes to sleep in.

Today we started and it went pretty smoothly. Lana didn't want to ride the bus (no surprise) and Eddie happily waited to jump on. Which is helpful because there are three different schools to get to this year. Ceily and I walked Lana to her classroom. She ran right in like she was returning home. She has the same teacher this year and only one new student. Everyone else was in her Kindergarten class last year. She didn't even turn around to wave goodbye. And I didn't have one tinge of sadness as I watched her pony tail swing back and forth!

Eddie starts a new routine and will switch classes during the day. He has a few familiar faces to welcome him every morning, but it's mostly newness for the 4th grader. His reputation has followed him. All his former teachers have already told this year's teacher how lucky she is to have him in her class.

Ceily would NOT let me walk her into school today. We were very early and I could have walked inside with her. I would have even held her hand. I could have met her homeroom teacher, gotten a look at her locker, maybe even make friends with some cute guys for her. But, she'll have nothing to do with that. She spotted a friend and hopped out of the car as fast as she could. One day she'll miss me. One day...
Ceily had an orientation yesterday morning. Her cute morning face for view.

So, it begins. Noah and I home. Running errands. ("Who's Erin!?" Noah ALWAYS asks.) One more year and I'll be taking Noah to Kindergarten, me crying, not wanting to let go...

talking

Today everyone was able to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. We spent the week preparing. I wrote 5 talks. Actually, Ceily and Eddie did a great job getting their talks put together. I just helped fine tune them a bit.

I was sooooo proud of everyone. When I had to give my very first talk in Sacrament meeting, I cried for a week. Not one child cried. Not one child fainted. Not one child did a bad job. They were all stars. Ceily tired to prepare for a sick day. Didn't happen. Lana was positive she wasn't going to stand by herself and read her talk. Didn't happen. Noah was happy he was going first. Eddie didn't complain once.

I've got some good kids.

for chris

NOT a good idea to drink a large diet coke w/lime from sonic right before bed.
click on link below and enjoy

iheartchris

noah thinks....

...he's so funny. He actually is. He kept ringing the doorbell and then hiding. His giggling ratted him out every time. (It's easier to hear if you pause the music at the very bottom.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!

how do we love thee?
let us count the ways...

1) you always let us do really fun stuff at your house-eddie
2) you love and cherish your children-jayne
3) you always spend time with each and everyone of us-ceily
4) because you are nice and you're my grandma- lana
5) you believe we can do anything-chris
6) you are TOTALLY awesome!!!-noah

other things we saw, corrections, etc.

So, the beach was awesome. Really great. Amazing house (thanks Bill and Kasi) and just a lot of relaxed time with family. A lot of fun.

And Jayne is right, we saw a lot of cool things. I spent a bunch of time on the water, either learning how to surf (I was just getting confident when the waves, already anemic, gave out completely) or fishing so I saw a bunch of cools things.

Eddie and I went to a fishing pier on Thursday and as we were dunking our bloodworms and reeling in Spot that weighed less than and weights, someone pointed out a ray floating by. At first I didn't see it - couldn't have imagined that the enormous shadow floating in less than 3 feet of water was really alive. It was a ray (a Manta Ray, maybe), probably 8 feet from wing to wing and with a tail that was about 10 feet long. There was also a smaller ray 3-4 feet wide that was flying around gorging itself on schools of minnows. Unfortunately, very few bluefish schools came through while we were there. But Eddie did give his Spot to a Cobia / King angler at the end of the pier for bait and he caught two Cobia.

The bluefish, as Jayne showed, did run through the beach where we were, close enough to get to, on the last day we were there. They were crushing the minnows (see Jayne's pictures of the explosions on the water's surface) and herding them onto the beach (see Jayne's pictures of those who leapt to their death in the sand, only to have our children delight in their innumerable corpses.) I had put my rod away already but went and got it again. After waiting all week for that, I didn't mind looking a little silly running down the beach to catch up with the schools. They were small (8-12 inches) but they are nothing but muscle and teeth and they are a lot of fun (until one took his revenge and clamped down on my pinky...)

Earlier in the week I was surfing when the blues ran through, maybe 100 yards off the beach. The blues were rounding them up from below and the birds were picking them off from above. There was also a bunch of bait around me but no blues. Then, all of a sudden, a dorsal fin sliced through the water about 20 feet out from me, cutting a line through the school of bait for about 10 feet. The speed of it was what was so impressive. 10 feet in less than a second - just flying. It was pretty clearly a shark but I have no idea how big. The dorsal fin was only about 3-4 inches high - at least that's what broke the surface. I sincerely doubt it was more than 2.5 feet. Still, I hopped off of my board and ran back to the shore. I didn't want it to mistake my finger for a finger mullet.

We also say a number of rays jumping in the surf. Yes, jumping. They would flop out of the water, up to a foot, and crash back in the water. We caught two skates (small rays) - one on a rod and one, believe it or not, in a cast net.

The funniest sight of the week was also related to fishing. Eddie had taken out one of my rods with the other boys - Conwey was supervising. Eddie left the rod in a sand-spike, baited with cut mullet. All of a sudden, something hits it and pulls the sand-spike down and, in an instant, the rod is in the water. Conwey gets up to grab it but it is steadily swimming out to Bermuda. Conwey won't give up and is literally swimming after the rod as it plows through the waves. The whole scene was something out of Popeye - until Conwey caught up to the rod, well past the breakers, and, instead of seeing it was attached to a cartoon whale, the line broke. Yes, all that for nothing... Thanks Conwey!

The first night we were there the boys made a game of catching as many ghost crabs as they could with their flashlights, using their t-shirts as nets. Those boys have some serious hunter-genes. They were incredibly aggresive. They filled a few pizza boxes with ghost crabs and after donating one to a guy fishing for sharks took them back to the house. I stepped away for just a second and then entire contents of one box ended up in the pool. I fished them out with the net - and I think I got all of them...

I took these pictures of Chris and as I was looking at them, it made me laugh. Doesn't it look like I have superimposed a picture of Chris on the cover of a fake Caribbean Magazine beach picture?
Chris was crazy fishing and was trying to pry an attack fish off his one finger and it attacked both fingers. Maybe I should submit this to a fisherman's magazine? I'd buy it.

breaking dawn

Ceily is obsessed. She's obsessed with Edward Cullen and Bella. She was given Twilight by a friend and has been hooked ever since. Her bedroom walls are papered with pictures and drawings and characters cast for the movie. She's re-read and re-read each book. I don't think I can even say how many times she has read Twilight. It might embarrass her. She has counted how many times Edward's name is mentioned. So, when news of the 4th book was announced, she was quite happy and we have had a countdown. We pre-ordered Breaking Dawn over a month ago. That was before we knew that we would be at the beach during delivery. So of course we had to be part of the midnight release. And thanks to Kirby, we were not disappointed.

We did it. We went to the bookstore at 11:30pm to get the Breaking Dawn book. Kirby had pre-ordered 5 copies. She didn't know exactly where she had pre-ordered the 5 copies, so it took only one wrong book store to find the real one. The Lighthouse Bookstore was located down a long, dark, unlit road, behind the Corolla Lighthouse. It's sort of funny we found it.

There were maybe 14 people there (7 were in my car). Ceily was hyper crazy. She couldn't stop squealing as she waited for them to place the books in her hands. The car ride to the store was loud. Mainly because Ceily couldn't stop talking.
But, the car ride home was completely quiet. All were engrossed in their pages. Ceily and I stayed up until I don't know how late. We popped popcorn at 1:30am and sat on the couch reading together. Jordan and Kirby were upstairs reading.
There were many bodies asleep downstairs, so Ceily and I read by the light of the lamp.


The next morning everyone picked up a book when someone had placed theirs down. There were multiple bookmarks in each book. There were books at the beach, at the pool, in beds, on the decks. Books were being read during breakfast. During lunch. During dinner. As everyone was packing up they were still reading. My mom even called me from her car panicking that she had left hers at the beach house. She didn't. It makes me happy that my daughter loves to read and stays up all night long to do so. It's a good thing...reading. Even boyfriends support the habit.

things we saw

Our trip to the beach was the best!! We sort of wish we were still there. I was amazed that we could fit 29 individual human beings into one house. But we did and it was fun. Here's a photo list of the things we saw.

sand crabs

sand diggers


awesome cousins




boy swimmers

beautiful dads

All the fathers were dressed up by the children. Can you guess with father has only boys?

lots of sun kissed smiling faces







cute families



greatest grandma

cool aunt

thumb sucker

one boyfriend

handsome fishing cowboy

boy posers

belly floppers





clear waters

sleeping cousinsyes, that's jackson asleep...upside down!

midnight reader

many huge schools of jumping fish


dolphin
stingray
20 foot manta ray
sharks
jellyfish, big and small, tiny ones the size of our finger nail
sharks
Chris was surfing one eveing and he noticed a 5 foot shark about 20 feet away. He immediately placed his surfboard between him and the fish and quickly swam to shore. We also saw two dorsal fins swimming among the school of fish. Pretty cool.

boy belly feelers