Halloween - Lego style

You would think with how much we love legos around here that this would have happened sooner. 

This year was the year of the home-made lego costumes. It seemed like a "no-big deal" project when I suggested it. You would think that with tools like cardboard and duct tape it would be pretty simple right? First let me tell you what I've learned through the month of October this  year.

1. Lego leg shaped cardboard looks really cool in photos, but is impossible to walk up stairs in.

2. Trying to make Lego leg shaped cardboard that works for stairs is impossible.

3. There are some things that duct tape doesn't stick well on, like wicker baskets

Now let's talk about what I did here just in case you ever think to yourself, wouldn't that be a fun/easy Halloween costume...

1. The masks are made out of dollar store wicker baskets with the eye area cut out. I had to put foam cushion in the basket to protect their heads. They eye holes are yellow foam and sharpie

2. The main suits are cardboard and duct tape.

3. The shoes are cardboard and duct tape, also packed with foam so they would stay on their feet

4. The pants. This gave me enough laughs to count as an ab workout! I sewed "sumo" sized pants for them out of fleece. Then I took big rectangles of foam and cut a hole for their waist. I attached the fleece pants to the foam and voila! Fairly lego-style legs that were stair friendly. Then I put the cardboard tops on and shoved the foam inside the tops, where it magically stayed for the entire night. 

Were they worth it? Heck yes and here's why. My kids looked at me like I was a goddess (always a great experience when they get into the double digits age group) and they looked really cool. It was fun making duct tape art. Ty really doesn't have much longer for cool costumes so it was really fun to go all-out with making one this year. 

Chapter 12: In which we decrease our kid size by 75%, I begin to homeschool, and we move to Missouri

It has been almost an entire year since the last post. I can't say I feel guilt about that but I have lately wished that I was back to the blog. If for no other reason other than someone should be cataloging my and my family's life somewhere.

Last year August found us moving to Fort Leavenworth Kansas. My brother was deploying and his 4 children, our nieces and nephews, were in need of a guardian for the span of deployment. We raised our hands and said; "we're on it" sometime around August of 2010. We moved into my parents basement for the span between "we're on it" and "we live in Kansas". July 24 saw us packing out truck and reversing the pioneer trek, sniggering all the way that "this was not the place". We still find that pretty funny. :)

Hindsight is 20/20 and I can't say that I had any kind of clue what it meant to add 4 more children to our family. Or to add Teenagers. Or girls. All of these things allow me to wear my supermom cape with nothing but pride. I did it, and 1 year later as we prepare to move as my brother arrives home I can say I am so grateful for the experience and so proud to be the aunt of these remarkable children. I have been blessed to grow a very close relationship with my nieces and nephews that most "distant" relatives never have.

A brief glimpse at our weekly happenings would look like utter chaos, I was also teaching yoga and within a few months found myself the director of a lovely little studio in Leavenworth Kansas, The Leavenworth Yoga Co-op studio. On any given day we would spend the hours of 3pm and 9pm driving the four youngest to sports, going to watch the older two in their sports, homework, work, taking care of the dog (my brother's), a kitten (mine), and an obese hamster (Jake's). And yes, the hamster had a bit of an eating problem when it came to the sunflower seeds.

One week from today is the last day I will be a mom of 6. I will return to being the mom of two and it will be very quiet. I'm not sure I know how much spaghetti to put in the pot after cooking for a home of 8 spaghetti lovers. I feel sad and elated at the same time. It has been 2 years since my little family has been in a home alone. Our own home. Alone. Do I still know how to run my own home? We'll see. But then we throw in the real kicker...I am homeschooling my children next year.

I'm going to give you a minute to pick your jaw up from the floor...go ahead....

Ok, here's my reasonings. I understand that everyone see's a child's education differently and these reasons will mean nothing to you possibly. Or they will resonate and you will want to chat more about it. I'm available after 2 every day ;)

1. When we decided to stay living in the Kansas city Missouri area we found that very few school districts here are good ones. The average test scores for the schools near our new place are 35%. That is not good enough. When my kids ended school last year I felt that they had been cheated out of an education. And they had. The schools here (supposedly the best in the area) have 25 kids per class. Most of the kids are behind grade level having very little school-stability (they are military kids, they move every year to different areas of the country). With the no-child-left-behind ra-ra going on, they certainly don't leave the behind ones behind, instead they let the ahead kids fall off to the side while they try to rescue the behind kids. Do we wonder why we never catch up with this? Teachers are overworked, over pressured, and underpaid - period. They cannot keep up with making sure every kid in a large classroom gets on the exact same page everyday. They are judged by numbers and they number crunchers require improvement. Why do I care? Because my "ahead" kids started the school year above grade level. They ended the school year well below grade level.

2. I actually LIKE having my kids around. I do enjoy free/me time but I'm not one of those moms who is constantly complaining on facebook that they have to see their kids for more than dinner time each day. (if you are that mom, I hold nothing against you, it's just not me)

3. I feel responsible for my children's education and I feel that in public school I am handing that responsibility over to someone else.

4. It's probably time for me to learn my multiplication tables, I figure this would be sufficient motivation. :)

So we press forward, discovering a new "normal" to our daily scene. I'm sure the posts from this moment on will be nothing but entertaining! Although I will spend a while catching up with last year's photos in a very brief but necessary way.

Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday to me!

This is my new best friend. It's a vitamix and it was a birthday gift from my wonderful parent-in-laws. I have to drink rice milk due to a milk and soy allergy and rice milk is ridiculously expensive considering rice is pretty dang cheap. They are also rice milk drinkers and they use a vitamix to make their own.

I figured that rice milk was an amazing enough thing to be able to make myself until I started reading the recipe book that came with it. A WHOLE new world opened up...pardon the pun :) and I've been making crazy green smoothies ever since! Here is the before photo to the left <---------- br="br" nbsp="nbsp">

What you are looking at is:
Grapes
Oranges
Carrots
Bananas
Apples
Spinach
Pineapple
And here---------------------you are looking at it in juice form! Amazing

Who loves their mommy?

I have to say this for my boys, they really love me. Brian is monumentally bad at taking photos of major family events but he is very dedicated when it comes to documenting for posterity the moments when my boys let down their pride and too-cool-ness and snuggle with me.

A few things are cracking me up about these, the first is that Tyler is bigger than I am in that photo to the right. By about 2 inches.

The other thing that is amusing that I probably would have forgotten to post about since I've kind of blocked it out is look at my hair in that photo with Jake. There's a story to it, and no, I didn't for a minute think it looked good and I did NOT ask for it to be that light. Here's the story:

I went to get my highlights put in for summer and I decided to go to Lifetime spa for it since I would already be there for work. I made pretty clear that she was understanding what I wanted and she sounded like she got it. Well, 1 hour and 20 minutes later she takes the foil off my hair over the sink and all I hear is: **gasp** "I'm not really sure what happened". If there were ever words to strike fear in the heart of women everywhere it is this.

I respond, patiently but fearful: "what do you think happened?"

It didn't get better from there. She still wasn't sure but what she came up with was that it somehow magically got lighter than she thought it would. Um, yeah, caught that part darlin.

As she brings me to a mirror and takes the towel off my head I get the rare opportunity to see what I will look like in about 40 years when my whole head of hair is white. Needless to say, it convinced me that I will forever be maintaining my trips to the salon for a very long time. I can't explain the amount of shock I experienced at what she had done. To top it off, I was 5 minutes behind for a massage so she asks if I would like to have her fix it after my massage. As kindly as possible, this is what I said:

"this is one of those really honest moments, do you really feel confident that you can fix it in any way or is it time to let someone else take over that could help me?"

Well she felt confident so I figured I'd let her try, really it couldn't get worse. So I went to my massage (which was a little harder to relax for that usual) and when I came out she tried hard to fix my hair. That really blonde photo is the result of her fixing my hair. Believe it or not, it really was worlds better than what she had done the first time.

I have since then gone to someone different who has brought my hair back to it's normal color. Lesson learned, only go to HIGHLY recommended people!!

Scout camp, dance camp, and Legoland

I had no idea the amount of dirt that could hitch hike it's way home with one kid after only 2 days in the wilderness. Agh. These photos don't even do the dirt justice! After camp this year Tyler had finished his requirement to earn his webelos badge, he's pretty excited! 

 Jake had an amazing year learning from a professional break dancer that happened to also be military and living near us. He learned a ton and execute moves I had no idea were possible! This is him after his last performance.

 I am that mom that pulls her kids out of school for Legoland. It was Jake's birthday and I just felt like doing something fun. So I let them go to school then I went up and surprised them by pulling them out of school for a Legoland trip. They were thrilled to say the least! We had so much fun, totally worth it!

Jake's baptism

Oh how time flies! It was just yesterday I was doing this with Tyler. We were really blessed to have Brian's parents and my Dad out to visit for Jake's baptism. My mom was sick and we missed her terribly!

We also got a photo with some of our favorite elders, Elder Eldrige and Elder Skidmore, we love these guys!

 With the grandparents. He was so excited to get baptized! You would think it was Christmas the night before his baptism!

Jake's birthday

This was a big birthday for Jake, he turned eight this year! Jake has spent most of his year break dancing with an amazing instructor here in town named Jay so it was fitting that he insisted on turntables for his birthday cake. They were really fun to make, I just need to find a fondant recipe that is good, the packaged stuff is terrible!