The Oval

We are moving soon to a house in the same town. I am excited about having a fenced in back yard and a washer and dryer. Our children are excited about having more space to play inside and about having a yard. But I think they will miss the "oval" a little. It is the grassy space in the middle of our apartment complex. A perfect racing track shape. We headed out one night this week for some family time. It started with a little "Where's Roman" game. Can you find him? Then a race around the track. I think Jude has the best running form of the kids but no one can compete with Adelle's legs. I think Maeve may have inherited the tongue from her Aunt, Air Jordan Dahle.

 

Then we finished with popsicles. Yes it was a little warm for a shawl. But I just finished it and had to enjoy it. Too bad I am such a slow knitter that I am finishing my winter knits in the middle of summer... oh well winter will come again.

Roman is 2

Dear Roman,

It is hard to believe that you have been a part of our family for 2 years. It seems like just yesterday that you looked like this, a sweet little bundle of joy, a gift freely given from above without even asking!

It is crazy to think that I was sad (just a little) to have you join our family when you did. Certainly God's timing is different then ours and He knows better than we do. My sweet little boy, born during a busy, stressful time of our lives. You are so well adjusted and mostly easy going. 

It is fun to watch you learn to speak (hot and crack (ha, ha, for cracker!) being your first words) and now you are insistent on saying the prayer yourself after we have family prayer. You love to give hugs and kisses. You throw temper tantrums but don't have the heart to carry on for long. Mostly they just make me laugh as you fall flat on your face in frustration.

You are similar to Maeve in more than looks. Like how no matter how many books I read to you at bedtime it is not enough. I love that you love to read. Unlike, Maeve, you are fearless. Flying off the couch, following the example of Jude. Keeping our fingers crossed that you survive childhood without any stitches, broken bones, or brain damage. 

This is probably the last birthday that we get to choose your cake for you. Each day you are developing more and more of your own opinions. It makes me sad to have you grow up. Your little life seems to be going by so quickly. You aren't a little baby anymore but a little boy. Slow down, don't grow up! You are my last little baby and I want to cherish every moment!

I love you forever,

I like you for always, 

As long as I'm living,

My baby you'll be. 

Love,

Mom

Maeve

Thank you to my faithful readers for responding to last week's post. You have encouraged me to continue writing. We have moved around so much that we have great friends spread around the country. I love how easy it is to keep in touch with everyone and know what is happening in their lives. Thank you for being wonderful friends! I wish I still lived close to you...

This week Mom and I went to the Kansas City temple for the first time since it was dedicated the beginning of May. We were 3.5 hours from the nearest temple (Winter Quarters) but are now only 45-60 minutes. It has been a long time since I have worshipped in the temple and it was good to be back. But you know that one part where you see the beach with the waves crashing on it. It made me really miss OC...

We are settling down after two crazy weeks at work and with the PTA doing end of school year stuff so I don't have a lot of exciting things to tell you. I will just share some sweet photos of dear Maeve that Joel took before he left. She is going to turn out great. That stubborn, defiant attitude is somehow going to bless her life. I just need to keep telling myself this.

Austria and Kansas

Does anyone read this anymore? Just curious. 

Joel was home for ten days in April. We tried to cram two months of family fun into less than two weeks. One of our outings was to the KU Spring football game. KU won. Ha, ha. We got to see the BYU transfer quarterback play. Mostly we were glad that we had not bought tickets because the girls were not that into the football game. They thought it was boring. Imagine that. A KU football game boring...

Now Joel off in Austria filming the story of the priest who wrote Silent Night. He sends me pictures like this of the front and back of his hotel. Gorgeous huh?

So while he is off working 18 hour days in beautiful country where he is too tired to even go see the Von Trapp's family home, I am in Kansas with views like this. Adelle with her two gymnastic coaches. She loves it so much I don't think I will ever get her back to soccer :(

And my cute soccer kids who only stay on the field in order to get the treats. Maeve has informed me that she is not playing soccer next season. She knows I like it so she is rebelling. Bummer. I should have acted like I hate it. I think Jude will play another season...when he is older. 

But to really see what I spend my time on while Joel is off traveling the world, go visit 

The Gauge Wars. 

Team Alligator

Jude and Maeve are playing on Team Alligator. Jude may be a bit young for soccer but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have both of them on the same team. This will be the only season that they can play together. Batman didn't get scored on. After a few minutes he decided to take the mask off and reveal his true self. 

It was nice of him to share the mask with his side kick. 

Actually even though Jude is the younger of the two, he probably kicks the ball about as often as his sister. At his game this week each time he kicked the ball he came running over to me on the side line so I could give him a high five for kicking the ball. 

Maeve is more active this season. I am not coaching and I think that helps. Though she did tell me that she liked me better as a coach. She said I had better games at practice. Nicest thing she said to me this week. Most of the other things were at the top of her lungs and had the word hate in them. 

Remember the boy on the right? Zach, Maeve's future husband. He broke his arm at the play ground and is out for the rest of the season. Total bummer. Especially since it happened the week I was the substitute coach and we got slaughtered in our game. The kids didn't care but it was lame. All they care about is SNACKS! In fact that is the ONLY reason Jude stays on the field. I have to remind him that people who play get snacks several times during the game. Good times!

Broken Arrow Walk-a-thon

I will be honest. I regret volunteering to be on the PTA board. It is not really that time consuming right now but the commitment of being the president next year makes me anxious. (On our board the vice president is the president the next year.) I did it so Adelle could continue at Broken Arrow which I keep reminding myself I volunteered for a good reason. She is on a transfer because we moved out of the boundaries when we left Joel's parents home. But the district closed another elementary school last year and moved all those students to our school so I had to reapply for the transfer. 4th grade is huge for Kansas, 29 students in each class. No other 4th graders were approved for transfer as far as I know. The district actually denied our transfer but the principal reversed it because I was on the PTA board. So if I had not volunteered she would have had to leave her friends and all of Joel's old teachers. I just couldn't make her do it.

Emerson and Adelle

Megan and Adelle

Mrs. Turvey who taught Joel and Adelle for 4th grade. She retires this year.

I spent the day at the track helping with the walk-a-thon. (Thank you to those that donated money!) The child care I had arranged fell through at the last minute so I ended up with all the children there. Jude and Maeve both did several laps and everyone was really good. I wore Roman on my back most of the day.

The bummer about being on the PTA board is the commitment for next year. We are trying to figure out if we are suppose to move back to Utah or stay here or what. I feel bad leaving my commitment at Broken Arrow and my job, which would both end next year. So do we stay and fulfill those commitments and maybe be a single mom again for a year or do we go to Utah where Joel has some work lined up right now at least? It is a tough decision.

I went and look at a home to rent this week because I REALLY want a yard for the boys. The price was great but as soon as I walked into the door the landlord told me, "I could put 25,000$ into this place and it wouldn't make a difference." That pretty much says it all about the landlord and the place. The yard is awesome but I am not sure it is worth it just for a year. It is a fixer upper--for a renter. :(

Tuttle Creek State Park-- Our Cabin

Joel and I talked about going camping over spring break at Tuttle Creek State Park, outside Manhattan, but then he got a job in Utah. I was not up to going tent camping alone with four kids so we decided to rent a cabin. It was a good thing too because it really rained both nights we were there. But we had a great time. Here are some photos of the Osage cabin. The boys never tired of going up and down that ladder to the loft over and over again.


During the day the weather was great and we did a lot of hiking, I mean what hiking you can do with three kids 5 and under. They had a great park in the campground, shaped like a tree house, that the kids loved. Unfortunately we were there at 5pm one night when it started to rain. We made a run for it to our cabin but were drenched by the time we got there. The rain was coming down so hard it felt like hail!

We were close to the swimming beach so we went and threw rocks and sticks in the lake for awhile on our last day. I tried to teach the kids how to skip rocks without much luck. I should have been teaching Jude how to aim at the lake because he hit two of us with rocks he was trying to throw in the water.

One night we decided to go into Manhattan to get ice cream. We took a driving tour of K-State (actually a pretty campus) while there which resulted in Jude and Maeve falling asleep and missing out on ice cream. You should have seen Roman's face when I handed him his gigantic ice cream cone from Sonic. He was in heaven. I covered him in napkins that protected his clothes but they dissolved under the ice cream mess which was nasty to clean up. Not the best bib. You can't really call it camping when you sleep in a cabin and go out for ice cream.

On the way back to our cabin we passed the dam. This fat little animal came walking up on the road right in front of us. I was not sure what it was until it turned and waddled back to the water and I saw it's big flat tail. Maeve was bummed when we told her she missed the beaver.

Here are pictures from our hikes. It was a much needed, relaxing two days.

Jude and all his "weapons" (Should I be worried?)