Dandelions and Josie, the Violinist

Happily, I plowed through the MCO photos Monday afternoon! The most time consuming part was actually resizing the photos to shareable size and running the photos through a denoise program. I had those delivered through dropbox, with a headache since my dropbox did not have enough space for all the photos to share at once. I ended up uploading the photos in two batches, the best batch uploaded then removed after the MCO gal on the other end downloaded the files, onto batch two the outtakes. I made a mess for myself by trying to upgrade to a business account for a free 30-day trial, it made the process much worse before I downgraded and worked on batches. 

Evelyn outgrew her beloved Pioneer dress, I got her a darling new set in blue so she can be Mary from LHOTP. She’s worn the outfit most afternoon for the past week. We are VERY proud of Evelyn for earning Student of the Week for the THIRD time this year. Her entire class voted for Evelyn to get the award again this time for loyalty. She is rocking the classroom with help from her parents, Nina, medication, and her beloved Ms Gingerich. She would rather be in school than home, weekends are now boring for Evelyn! She is reading all on her own, started reading book series just because she wants to. I got her a reading lamp that hooked her even deeper into reading. She plowed through the Jewel Princess series and is now working on the Rainbow Fairy series. We’re SOOOOOO proud of her progress. Her new trick she does is putting her head backwards between her feet, she has come full circle. Bendy little thing. 

Mom turned 71 on Tuesday. Dad spoiled her with a fancy day of romantic gestures, including dinner at Red Lobster. She tried out the gardening sleeves I got her and loved them! Yay. I finally went to an orthopedic walk-in office that Sara mentioned. It turned out to be the same orthopedic chain I used for my carpal tunnel analysis. The dr ordered up a series of x-rays of my shoulder. My shoulder looked perfect, no worries at all in my bones or muscles. As we talked about my pain my shoulder was on fire, so I put my arm on my head which is the most comfortable. He moved my shoulder around with no pain, then looked at me strangely asking if my neck was in pain. Not really, no more than usual?! He ordered a series of new x-rays on my neck. The first thing he said was that my neck bones were awfully straight, isn’t that good? Nope, Appears my nerves are the cause of my shoulder pain. The nerves stemming from my neck down my left arm are causing the pain. He prescribed a “steroid pack” for a week to reduce nerve inflammation followed by PT for a month starting in 2 weeks. Yay. I am afraid the cost will be thousands.  

Wednesday the older kids had a stake Spring Social at the Deer Flat building. Amelia and the boys went early to help set up. Since they had dinner I chose not to make dinner. Evelyn had a Book-it! Certificate expiring that very day that I put off filling for a month, sweet! Dinner! Our Mommy and Me time was a picnic at the park with personal pizzas and root beer. In between trips to Walmart and Pizza Hut (across the street) I got my steroid prescription turned in, pizza ordered, meds picked up, and a cheaper root beer at Walmart for our picnic. We went to the park on Greenhurst for our dinner date. Thrill of all thrills! The Potter family was at the park with their sweet bunny on a leash and friends to play with. After the Potters left we ate our pizza and gloried in the beauty of a spring evening. Evelyn was on the border of boredom when she decided to play with a darling 18 mth old girl. She picked up her ball and started playing with her (Addie?). I sat down in the grass to make dandelion crowns with flowers the girls gathered. That was a memorable evening! By the time I got home from picking up the older kids Evelyn, Josie, and I all had itchy eyes and running noses. Stupid allergies! We washed our faces, downed Benadryl, and applied eye drops. Gah. I think our entire family had allergies of some sort by bedtime. Yay for spring. 

“May the Fourth be with you!” Most of our family dressed up in Star Wars themed shirts, Evelyn won the best outfit award in a Leia dress and buns. She was very cute. 

My Spring School Photo event started on the 4th with about 20 kids coming by for darling portraits and kindergarten graduation photos. Thursday was also Ward Temple night. I went a bit early, tried to get into a 4:30 session, alas sessions only start on the hour. Justin stopped by the temple on his way home to put a sweet note on the van with $20 for dinner. Phillip had a rescheduled drum lesson that Justin was able to pick him up from. I arranged for him to get a ride to drum lessons from Hailey Hansen because the truck has a very flat tire. 

Evelyn enjoyed a fun field trip to the Discovery Center (children’s museum) on Friday. I went to the last field trip so had to stay home. Stephanie Edwards sent me photos of Macie and Evelyn throughout the day! Evelyn was thrilled about the Star Wars displays. The 3rd graders made it through a picnic lunch and scavenger hunt before the rain came down with a vengeance. 

The boys attended the Fathers and sons “campout” minus the campout. They had shrimp tacos then drove the hour to swim at the hot springs for a couple hours. They slept in their own beds, in comfort. The girls had a fun evening with the Ostler girls. We spent a hot minute deciding on a place to eat dinner, finally settling on Ramen. I’m the only one who’s had real Ramen. It was perfect for a rainy day. We listened to “happy” music like Lemonade, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and etc on the drive over. We had 15 minutes to try on clothes at Down East, dude…talk about expensive clothes. Amelia is on the hunt for a new swimsuit again, the ensemble from last year did not last very long. Next we had to have ice cream, of course. We listened to the Broadway version of Anastasia and Rigoletto. Cold Stone had almond ice cream that tastes very similar to my favorite Amaretto they stopped serving years ago. Heaven! With Anastasia on our minds we went back home and watched the movie. I brought over pedicure stuff for those wanting to work on their nails. Yee haw! That was a fun girls night. 

Josie enjoyed her first violin recital with Jessica Digiacomo. She wore her new favorite dress and put on some fancy eyeshadow. She was ready to go! I scurried to make taco meat filling for a post-recital luncheon. Josie’s friend Anna was also performing on the piano so that was fun to have a friend. Everett held up the line guessing how much candy was in the jar with a sheet full of algebraic equations. I was both thrilled and exasperated! He moped for a good while because he did not win a jar. The boys got a stiff lecture from Justin on concert behavior. I was equally irritated at Justin because he is always on his phone, can’t lecture a kid when you are not behaving either. Most unfortunately, I completely undermined Justin at exactly the wrong time in front of the kids. Having two ADD parents makes for interesting unexpected situations. I apologized, he took a nap, and then everything was ok again after talking about it as a couple. I had a family photo session at 3 pm. The rest of the day we worked on the yard and house. Justin and I FINALLY took Amelia out for her birthday dinner. Choosing a spot was most difficult: sushi? Red Robin? Steak? Pho? Tacos? Gracious. I convinced her to try a new place P.F. Changs which was perfect because it had a bit of everything. She had her sushi, fried green beans (instead of edamame), and glazed chicken. It was all quite delicious, although my salt and pepper shrimp was heavy on the salt! Coming from a salt lover that is saying a lot. 

Justin and I are at odds about chores. He is convinced I am enabling the kids, especially Phillip when it comes to kitchen duty. I consistently help the kids with the kitchen dishes and clean up after dinner. Justin is of the opinion the older kids can (which they CAN) do it alone. I know they can do it alone, but when I, as an adult, feel overwhelmed about the dishes imagine the extrapolation for a child.  We opened the discussion to the kids and decided to think about it and bring ideas to the next family meeting. Later in the week I had a fun chat with my parents about dishes and fairness. Dad suggested I make a silly powerpoint presentation. Laughably, I did! I titled it the “Isms” of Living in a Family. An ism is a system, like a family system. We talked about our family phrases relating to fairness (no fair I have to help Josie with her chore, no fair Mia doesn’t have to mow the lawn, no fair Evelyn gets alone time with Mom, etc) We discussed what our family would look like if everything was fair, would out relationships change, could be joyful? That same week we studied the Prodigal son parable. It fit perfectly. Talking about how the lost son comes home and is unfairly welcomed, the reaction of the good son, and if the Lord owes us. Then we banned some expression trains: It’s not fair…, That’s not my job, and delegating a job given by a parent. We decided on Sundays to do a family clean in the common area, just band together and get it done. The experimental family clean worked well. The fact that Evelyn has changed is a huge perk now, she is getting things done without complaint. It is a very nice change. She had a friend over last week who refused to play in Evelyn’s cluttered room. Guess what? Two days later Evelyn took two days to clean her room ALL BY HERSELF. It was amazing…add a little bit of peer pressure!