Bentley is 15!

These kids just keep growing up on me!  Last week was Bentley's birthday, and we celebrated throughout the weekend with his favorite meal (this year it was sweet'n'sour hotdogs), doughnuts, dinner with grandparents, more doughnuts, and of course, presents!  He was also delighted that his porch vibes buddies decided to hang out, so he even got some social time!  An all-around win!

He looks like he's in pain because we're singing to him.  That's the only torture he endured, though, I promise!  (He had various teachers who offered to sing to him and he told them all not to bother.  Where do his genes even come from???)

It was a very happy birthday!  I think I say this every year on his birthday, but I can't believe I've been a mother for fifteen years!  Where has the time gone?

September Stuff

Despite Ryder's early grumblings about Colton playing baseball with him, he is being the best big brother EVER to Colton and really looks out for him on the team, a fact which I appreciate so much.  And they've been enjoying playing.  They've won all their games so far (it helps A LOT that the kids who pitch on their team are actually really good) and I really like their coach.  Each practice, he chooses a star player who did well and yesterday Ryder got picked, so he was thrilled about that (he'd managed to catch a pop fly, so I think that was the reason why he got picked).  Anyway, I'm glad they're having fun.  Now each morning before we head to the bus stop they'll usually spend a few minutes playing catch in the driveway.  It makes me so happy!

Ryder hit two doubles at his last game!

Colton is still figuring out batting, but he's getting better each time!

Meanwhile, the youth in our ward decided to hold a pinewood derby contest, so my kids have been having fun using power tools at youth night:

And then, of course, there's always a little downtime while others are using the power tools!

We noticed recently that Ryder was having trouble with his long distance vision.  He couldn't read the hymn numbers (from the 4th pew!) and when we went to that high school football game, he could read the score, but he couldn't read the words above the score.  If I can read those with my uncorrected 42-year-old eyes, I figured that wasn't a good sign.  So we took him to get his eyes checked and now we're waiting for these beauties to arrive:

I think these will frame his eyes really nicely...

So far his eyes aren't terrible: his prescription is -1.25 in one eye, -1 in the other.  Hopefully they'll stay that way and not get worse.  In the meantime, he's very excited and nervous for his glasses to arrive!

And in more personal news, my BFF Tracy just moved to Wisconsin!  😭😭😭  She's been in Manassas ever since I moved to Charlottesville, so I realize that *technically* I moved away first, but she was still an easy 2-hour drive away and I liked knowing we could meet up and/or see each other at the ward camp out!  That's going to be a LOT more difficult now that she's 15 hours away.  So I was actually pretty sad about her move, although I am also really happy for her, as they were pretty crowded in their townhouse AND NoVA is a pretty crowded place, as well.  Their new home is lovely and huge and I'm sure they'll love being closer to family.  But obviously, her leaving meant we needed to get together one last time:

Quick-- take off your masks for the picture!  L-R we've got me, Jacqui, Sarah, & Tracy at some park in Woodstock, VA

Sarah and I carpooled part of the way there and back.  But unfortunately, about five minutes into our drive, her husband called and announced that he'd just tested positive for Covid.  So we got to mask up in the car.  I'm still fine, but Sarah and most of her kids all caught Covid (despite being vaccinated!) so that's been a real bummer.

I miss you already, Tracy!!!

Crazy Weekend

This last weekend was WAY busier than I like things to be, but everything went fairly well and most of it was really fun, so I'm happy and exhausted now.  Friday morning Adam and I went hiking, which was delightful!  I was a little stressed as to how I hike without my children.  Do I need snacks if it's just me?  How long will this take if we don't stop to eat and catch our breath every twenty minutes?  Do I need to stop and catch my breath every twenty minutes???  My kids give me such an excuse for stuff like that!  But it was great: we did the 5.5 mile loop around Ragged Mountain and it only took a couple hours (it turns out I do not need snacks or a break)!  And the weather was perfect, just starting to get hot as we were finishing up.  

Then in the evening we all attended football games, with Kendra going to the Fluvanna game with a friend while the rest of us met up with Craig's parents at the Monticello game.  This required a fair amount of planning and driving Kendra around, but we managed.  As soon as we got to the Monticello game, Bentley ran off with his friends and we barely saw him, which felt delightfully age appropriate and made me very happy (even if we had to go back and pick him up, too, since the little kids couldn't get through the whole game and had to go home and go to bed).  Also, when we went to football games in the past, Craig was always working, so we barely saw him.  It was really nice to actually get to sit with him and enjoy his company for a change!  (And have his help putting super tired kids to bed afterwards!)

Saturday was our ward Day of Service, so Craig took Bentley and Kendra do to yard work for a friend who is very overwhelmed right now. 

Gotta love Bentley's muppet face!

Fresh mulch makes EVERYTHING look better!

I'd been planning on helping assemble refugee kits, but it turned out Ryder and Colton had their first baseball game at the same time, so that's where I wound up, despite my good intentions...  But they won their game and were very happy, so that was nice.  Camille divided her time between climbing a tree and playing with a new friend, so everyone had a good time.  

Then Craig had to go help out with a funeral and I ran around like a crazy person getting my house tidied up and trying to get the kids to actually help (it had been clean the day before, I honestly don't know how my kids destroy everything so quickly?).  Craig's parents arrived at 4 and we left straight away and drove to Wintergreen, a local ski resort, and met up with Sarah and Tracy (and Nate and Joe) to see Sarah's first professional play (as opposed to community theater) that she music directed, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!

It's kind of fun (and only slightly terrifying) to ride the ski lift to the stage!

A couple years ago they did The Sound of Music, which is about the most perfect play to perform in the mountains ever!

Anyway, the show was very fun, and hanging out with Sarah and Tracy afterwards was even MORE fun!  (All the men watched BYU crush the U of U, so a splendid evening was had by all!)  We didn't even get home until 1am, so getting up for church the next morning was rough.  And then I went straight from church to a neighborhood baby shower.  I feel like I mostly see these ladies at the pool so it was a little fun to show up actually wearing makeup with my hair done and cute shoes for a change!  How shallow of me is that?  And the baby shower was one of the more hilarious ones I've ever been to-- the first game they had pictures of huge tummies and you had to try and guess if those were pregnancy bellies or beer bellies.  And then it got dirtier from there...

After that I hurried home to take a nap (bliss!), and then drove the airport road chapel to help set up for our stake relief society activity.  This was an activity that was originally meant to be held in April of 2020, so it was very exciting to finally make it happen!  We were reading from the book The Hundred Dresses, and talking about kindness and actually helping one another.  And we collected a whole bunch of dresses for a local charity.  (We also had lovely cookies from a bakery that were decorated as dresses, and we'd folded origami dresses that were attached to water bottle.  WAY more decorating than I normally do!)  It was a lovely evening and I thought everything came together really well.  

I'd folded a whole bunch of these a year and a half ago so it was nice that they were finally put to use!

So, yes, busy weekend.  The kind of weekend where you wake up Monday morning and think to yourself, "But I still need a weekend!"  But I'm so pleased with how well everything went, I really can't complain!

Moving Into Fall

I feel like we just keep chugging along here!  The weather is starting to cool down beautifully at night, so when you first get up in the morning it just feels wonderful outside.  This is especially great because I am back to exercising at 5:30am again, so it's nice that it's no longer 70°+ and muggy!  That was a bit unbearable...!  (Also unbearable was how sore my arms were after that first time back!  Who knew a few measly push ups could make EVERYTHING HURT?)

With the kids all in school, it's weird how my days just sort of fill up.  Last Friday I'd offered to help a friend move a mattress (it turns out a twin is REALLY easy to shove into my van!), and then that morning I got a text from my neighbor asking if I could fill in since her nanny was sick.  So I had almost-2-year-old Zevi with me all day while I drove from Lake Monticello to Richmond and back to Charlottesville helping my friend.  When the little kids got home from school, they were quite leery of this new little guy, asking me carefully who he was and looking quite relieved when I explained that Zevi lived down the street and would be returning home shortly.  

It was kind of nice to realize that Zevi was incredibly easy to take care of.  When I needed to change his diaper, I just asked him to lay down on the changing pad and he did!  I had him changed in about 30 seconds like it was the easiest thing in the world.  A far cry from Isaiah, where it would take three of us to wrestle him down and I'd be sweating profusely by the time I was done...  I think trying so hard to take care of Isaiah and sort of not being able to do it really messed with my head and left me wondering if I just really couldn't handle watching other kids at all.  It was kind of nice to get some confirmation that the problem wasn't me.  Or at least it wasn't just me...

The youth had a hiking activity that sort of turned into a just getting milkshakes activity (because the trails were closing).  They didn't seem to upset by the change, though...

This is Bentley's favorite way to stand awkwardly.  What a goofball!

He's not always a weirdo, though!  (With him are his buds, Ivan and Aaron!)

And Kendra finds the girls to hang out with!  (Avery, sitting in the car, has cerebral palsy, so it's much easier for her to sit.  Lest you think her lazy for not standing around the parking lot like the rest of them!  I'm sort of impressed she was willing to try hiking, actually...)

On Saturday we spent one last day at Kings Dominion before they switch over to their scary Halloween stuff.

They finally have their Eiffel Tower open, so that was the first thing we did!  Apparently it's one-fifth the size of the real thing, which is just insane to think about.  Made me miss Paris...

I just love Camille's cool face here...

Waiting for forEVer for the log ride...  They really need to hire more workers here!!!

It was a fun day, but I was glad we had Monday off, too, so we could have a relaxing day before the week started again!  So for that "relaxing day," Craig cleaned out the garage and I took Ryder and Colton to buy gear for baseball.  Ryder's been playing for a little while now, and he made it look so fun that Colton decided he wanted to try it, too.  This, naturally, enraged Ryder because baseball is supposed to be "his" thing.  I had to explain to him that he doesn't get to hog baseball all to himself.  (Although, as a fellow middle child, I do understand the need to differentiate yourself from your siblings!  Why do you think I took Japanese in high school rather than French???)  Anyway, they're on the same team, which I'd been trying to avoid, but now that I see how busy we'll be with games and practices, I'm very glad that we don't have to double that!

After that shopping, Colton and Camille went with the Palmers to splash in...  some lake somewhere?  I have no idea.  I'm a really great mother.  But they had fun, wherever they were!

And there's Sydney's super cute puppy, who was named Rosie, but then became Lexi. I was super proud of myself when I figured it out.  

And in the evening we had dinner at the pool.  It will be closing at the end of this week, so we have to squeeze in our last few visits!

And a few more random pictures to wrap up this post!  I liked these two matching at the bus stop:

And here are Ryder and Owen at the top of the spider web during recess.  Apparently they've taken to calling themselves the high council, a fact which I find absolutely hysterical!

And here's Camille climbing a fence during baseball practice!

Yay for September and autumn and all that great stuff!

Quote to Remember

I'm not going to make it a habit of sharing memes I found on Facebook here, but I did really love this quote and would like to try harder to be this sort of person, so here goes:

"Regardless of how another person interacts with you, you can give away only what you have inside to give.  Just like the proverbial orange, when you squeeze it, you get what is inside-- it has nothing to do with who does the squeezing, or the circumstances surrounding the squeeze.  What comes out is what is inside.  If you respond to hate with hate, or anger with anger, it is not because of what was directed your way; it is because that is what is inside you.  You can't give hate if you only love inside, no matter how much squeezing comes your way."  -Wayne W. Dyer

As someone who has road rage nearly all the time, this feels like a better way of viewing and changing myself from the inside...

And in a note that feels related to this, Craig sent me this article about a woman's new approach to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion training and I just LOVED it.  I hope she's incredibly successful because her ideas feel correct to me.  I try hard to keep this blog fairly apolitical, so I'll leave it at that.  But if you read and have thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Next post will be back to pictures of my kids and such, I promise! 😉