Friday May 26 kayaking trip

Trying to get pictures on here, and will write the past later when I'm not on my phone:-)

First Day of school...of sorts

I've never been one who had a hard time with getting older, or age in general. I love seeing things change and develop, for the most part. Today marked another milestone that seemed so far away for such a long time but has suddenly slipped up on me...my oldest baby started college today. 

And true to form, it hasn't been an earth shattering change for me...it's been really exciting and thrilling and I couldn't wait to hear how her first day of school went. 

She is taking a Physics class, and English class, and an American Sign Language class. Out of the three it was the science class we were most worried about. Teagan is not a science person. I haven't been able to pique her interest in any of the sciences we have studied...astronomy, human anatomy, zoology, physical science...they were okay and had some interesting stuff here and there, but none of them ever got her heart pumping in excitement. So when I got a text from her today simply saying, "I love my science class! My professor rocks!" I was thrilled! Finally someone found a way to make science interesting for her! 

 Maybe it is the fact that she is only 15 still, or that she is doing a Running Start program that allows high schoolers to take college courses for credit if they can pass the entrance exams, but having Teagan in actual big kid college just seems like the natural thing for her to be doing right now.

Last night she was really excited to start classes but when we woke up this morning she was a little less sure of her confidence. As we got nearer to the campus and all that awaited her there she asked if we could walk her to her first class :-) So out piled all five boys and she and I and we traipsed four blocks from the nearest parking space I could find up to her first building. Emmett, ever my collector, picked up treasures along the way. By the time we made it to her building I had quite a little menagerie in my hands, each one chosen for a specific reason:-) I love my little collection critter!

Oh my sleepwalking boys are going to do me in!

I have a couple of sleepwalkers. They wander the house, they open doors and go outside to sleep on the snow, they carry on strange conversations with themselves, they have great laughing fits with eyes wide open while still in their dream, and they pee in strange places.

I don't mind the laughing fits or the funny one sided conversations, but all the other side happenings of being a sleepwalker are going to do me in!

Tonight while Owen, Teagan and I were playing a board game (Agricola) in the dining room Emmett and Duncan were in the living room watching Lion King. From somewhere in the back of my head I heard a oh-too-common sound of pee piddling on the hardwood floors. (Yeah, potty training is still going on around here.) I turn to see Emmett standing next to the kitchen trashcan and I can see his shirt pulled up a little, in the way boys do when they are standing to pee. This is what happened:

me: Emmett! What are you doing?!

Emme: *blank stare*

me: Emmett! What are you doing?! Stop!!!

Emme: *more blank staring as the pee bounces off the floor*

*I race to get out of my seat and run to him*

me: Emmett! Stop! Oh man, he's still asleep! I wish they'd stop peeing all over my house when they are asleep!

*That was a bit of an overstatement. This doesn't happen all too often, but I have followed my sleepwalkers into rooms only to find them with dropped drawers peeing on the carpet in the middle of the room or in the corner or the trashcan or basket places like that.*

*I walk Emmett back to the couch to lay him down so we can clean up his mess and then finish our game*

me: Emmett, are you awake?

Emmett: yes....*inaudible sentence as he snuggles down into the couch and closes his eyes*

me: Emmett, why did you just pee on my trashcan? *seeing his eyes glazed over still* Are you awake or not?

Emmett: I'm just playing...

me: You're playing?? Why did you pee on the floor, guy?

Emmett: *closing his eyes* I'm playing outside...*more inaudible sentence as he drifts off again*


He was asleep the whole time.

So Teagan and I cleaned up the floor and the can laughing about the situation and then we went back to our game and let him sleep on the couch until we were done.

Yeah, sleepwalkers are a barrel of laughs!

The Fife's are in the news again!

Okay, so it's been a LONG while, and I will try to catch up on everything, but I thought I'd throw a quick one up today in a spare minute I found lying around...

This is from an online version of a local newspaper, and while there isn't a picture of them, the kids are mentioned and they thought it was really cool. Here's part of that article:


Four local teams entered the First Lego League (FLL) robotic competition in Edmonds on January 18, 2014. Three teams from TECO and one Fife Family team (Dragon Ninjas) competed in a field of fifty-two teams.

Tutu Ninjas (L-R):Brianna Hammontree, Anna Beach, Erin Simmons, Kelsey Green, Sarah Churchward

According to TECO’s Julie Tapusoa, “While none of the TECO teams made it to the semi-final round, our all girls team, The Tutu Ninjas, were awarded a special Judges Award calling them ‘A diamond in the rough’.   The TECOBOTS were our highest scoring team and the Blizzard made by the LegoMiners was super impressive!!”
Tapusoa added, “We were excited for another Granite Falls team that did make it to the semi-final round which will be held on February 9th.  The Dragon Ninjas are comprised of brother/sister homeschool team from the Fife family.  They also took home the Robot Mechanical Design Award!”

Pretty cool stuff!


****update****

The kids' Lego League team made it past Qualifiers, winning with the Mechanical Design award, went on to semi-finals, and then on to state. They were 9th in state for the robot competition. It was a phenomenal first year for them; 9th out of almost 500 teams!

Back in the land of playgrounds and splash pads!

Ahhhh... we're back in the land of playgrounds and splash pads and family friendly living!

 

There's sunshine and blue skies and fluffy white clouds all around.

 

We spent part of the day playing on a great splash pad in here in Delta and the little boys had a blast!

 

 Emmett loved running around the pad and decided that next time we need to bring his bike with us so he can ride it through the water.

 Duncan is always a bit apprehensive of water, but after a while he got into stepping on the water sprinklers. He always chose the little fountains, but all the same, at least he was in the water!

 Emmett wanted to stay there all day. Scott and I decided that we were going to take a video of the park and bring it back to Granite and try to convince them that we need a park like this one up in Washington!

 We love being back in Utah! We're so excited to see my sister and her hubby and her oldest daughter tomorrow at the Manti temple!

Look who made the paper...again :-)

Last April Emmett, Duncan and I were pictured on the front page of our local paper for working on a service project with our ward and Teagan had a picture of her, along with a quote from me, on the inside portion of the corresponding article. We joked that the boys and I were local random citizen celebrities!

Well, in fear that our fame was diluting too much (haha), we renewed our reputation as random citizen celebrities this month by making it on to the front page spread once again...this time with Reed in tow as well!

We were at a safety fair here in town at the right time for the local photographer to snag our picture as we came out from touring the inside of an ambulance. I have Reed on my right hip, am holding Duncan's hand as he is climbing down, and Emmett is surveying the area trying to decide where we are going next (it ended up being to climb inside the fire truck!)

Then, on page five, Owen got a quick little article all about him and his story! She got a couple of the facts a little screwy, but over all it was a nice little article.

He's our 'not-so-random' celebrity citizen around here!

I'm a little afraid of what Friday will bring...

If your Monday starts off like this....

and you just sent the car to the shop to get fixed, leaving you at home with no way to get to a dentist...you can say you've had a tough day.

If your Tuesday follows with this....

Your 14 year-old best bud leaving for a week long girls camp, leaving you to fend for yourself in a house filled to the brim with boys who also happen to have OTHER boys spending the night... you can say the week started out kinda rough.

When Wednesday comes and you are asked to babysit a couple of kids who are just at the tail end of their lice treatments and who you later find out also have an unfortunate case of diarrhea (unfortunate for your couch, your carpet, and ultimately you because you have to clean it all up...) and you can't say no because it is your hubby who is asking you; add on to that the missing 14 year-old helper, an 11 year-old who is out on a 15 mile scout bike hike leaving you with a sleeping 8 year-old and 5 kids under the age of five, all the while your toddler is crying and not wanting to walk around on his own...

Well, then you think, "Man, am I glad I am half way through this week, I am ready for a break!"

But when Thursday comes and you finally have your car back and have an appointment to take the 8 year-old in to get his tooth fixed, but when the toddler wakes up STILL not wanting to walk on his own and now has a swollen, bruised ankle sending you to the doctor  to find out that he broke his ankle somehow, and having to be there so long  that you miss the dentist appointment and the next available appointment in a week and a half....

It's about that time that you start to worry about what else the universe is planning on throwing at you!

I'm glad today was 7/11 so we could get a free slushie from the 7-11 gas station after hauling 5 boys to the doctor's office and holding a screaming toddler down for multiple x-rays (two different times!!). I needed some serious high fructose, artificial color, artificial flavor, artificial bring-life-back-to-normal-izers!

Time for the Rows again!

Carrying on a tradition from when I was a young woman going to girls' camp, each year before Teagan heads off for a week to have fun at camp, I corn row her hair. This is our way of helping keep the buggies out,  cutting down on having to take care of it and making sure it isn't tangled or filthy each day, and it keeps it out of her way during camp.  Plus it looks really pretty and feel neat!

 

Her first year we did about 16 rows and put three same colored beads on the end of each braid in one of the eight young women's value colors (white, blue, red, green, orange, yellow, purple, and gold) and alternated through the values. It looked pretty cool, if I do say so myself!

 

Then last year I wanted to try something new out and spice life up  bit, so I opted to leave the beads off and we made 8 rows and I braided the value colors into the braid (http://ourownpieceofheaven.blogspot.com/2012/07/worth-fighting-for.html)

It came out looking wonderful!

 

So, keeping up with the goal of doing different rows each year, this year we decided to do crisscross rows and have 8 rows again.   I like the way it looks, but I think if I would have added the ribbons like last year, then you would be able to see the cool crisscrossing better.

It was looking a little boring to me, so we added a flower to then end of each one in all of the value colors. Teagan liked the way it turned out, so I guess all's well that ends well!

 I love when she is happy, it shows all over her but especially those gorgeous blue eyes of hers!

 This year' camp theme was Princesses, and her year in camp were given Ariel (The Little Mermaid) as their spokes-princess. I told her her eight braids were like octopus tentacles; she didn't like that a whole lot. The flowers helped make them not look like tentacles anymore :-)

An Interview for PBS

 Owen has many gifts, and one of them is the gift of story telling. He has entered the PBS Young Author and Illustrator contest four times, and he has won three of those four years. His first year entering he won first place in Utah state and went on to take fourth in the nation. His second year he won second place for his age group. Last year he didn't place at all, and this year he won first place in Washington state for second graders.

As part of winning first place this year, the PBS station he  entered through wanted to do an on air interview with him to air on TV and then wanted him to record him reading his story so they could put it on line so people could listen to his story online.

We went today to have him do those things. It was a bit of a drive from our little town down to Tacoma and he was a bit nervous - he kept asking them to repeat the questions during his interview - but everything went great.

 He relaxed after a few minutes and they assured him that his fifteen minute interview was going to get cut down to fit in a much smaller time slot - down to like a minute or so and all of his nervousness was going to get edited out. They said they were going to email us times as to when it would be aired and would mail us a DVD of the finished interview as well.

After the interview we got a tour of the studio. We saw the control room and saw a rand new episode of Wild Kratts (his favorite show) being fed in. We got a sneak peek of a never seen before episode and he thought that was pretty amazing!

 Then we went to the sound booth for him to record his story. Reed was a bit wiggly and squirmy so we stayed outside and watched him through the glass.

 He had a fun time there and was so relieved after it was done that he got a migraine on the way home and slept for the two hour car ride.

I did take a small detour on the way home when I saw that we were passing through Fife, Washington. I had to get a couple of pictures with him near some Fife signs.

 I liked this one especially since he recently was our fire and rescue man during our house fire in March.

 

 It was a long driving day for us, but it was fun and very memorable for him.

 He was thrilled to get the chance to be famous for a day!

More fun with Reed at six weeks old

 The kids and I had a lot of fun setting Reed up in different poses and then I taught them how to edit the pictures in Photoshop.

Here are some of the ones from Reed when he was six weeks old.

 Our kids have a clear understanding of where babies come from...we tell them the absolute truth right from the get go. The Fed-Ex guy drops them off.

 Here is Reed giving Teagan a fist bump...you know, because that's what babies do.

 This was Owen's photography homework for the week. He came up with the idea and set up the shot and took it. He was lucky in being the first one to take a picture of Reed in that Reed stayed asleep the whole time - the other two kids weren't so lucky and Reed was awake the whole time for both of their photo shoots.

 Garrett was the unlucky last photographer of the morning and got Reed's I'm-Done attitude. Luckily for him, though, it worked with what his idea for a picture was!

Sunday strolling - Fife style

 Recently a friend asked me what our Sunday rules were; what we did after church, where our limits were, how we enforced our rules, etc. I told her that we did go out and do things as a family as long as we could keep the spirit with us and feel close to our Heavenly Father. We aren't the sit at home type of family; especially not on a beautiful day!

This Sunday was a great example of how we exemplify the line in the Family Proclamation that talks about "wholesome recreation."

After church, choir, lunch, and naps were all done we all got in the car and drove up the mountain loop road and went to the river to stroll about.We sat along the river bank and tossed rocks in the water and played target games with the stones we tossed. We talked of the things that we had planned for the week and what we had done the week before. The boys examined minnow fingerlings in a tide pool and mosquito larvae in a stagnant pond.

Scott built a fire and Garrett had brought marshmallows and roasting sticks for everyone to share. Campfires are a great place for finding peace and deep thoughts. It's also a great place for laughter and fun as a family!

 I had fun playing with the panoramic option on my phone camera while Scott took the big kids along the river and let me nurse the baby by the campfire. Listening to the sounds of the river mixed in with the laughing and happiness of my family is definitely a Sunday approved activity!

 I think that times like these when we can let our kids experience the happiness of life along with the feeling and closeness of the spirit are a priceless use of our time. I want my kids to be able to recognize that you don't have to be sitting reverently with your arms folded and dressed in your church best in order to have the spirit with you. He loves Heavenly Father's creations just as much as we do and loves to be outside enjoying them with us.

And seeing expressions like this on my kids' faces tells me that this was definitely a great Sunday activity for us to do...he and the spirit are getting to know each other better through excursions like this.

Summer Dreamin'

Sometimes you just really need a little sunshine in your life.

 

Even if you have to create it yourself.