Art Explosion

I'll admit after having sick and injured kids the last two weeks I've had a few moments of doubt about whether this whole "live in Pocatello while Brandon works in Twin Falls" plan was going to work out this summer.  But we had a nice, normal week this week where no one got seriously injured or sick and so I'm feeling in control again. The plan is working.

 Here's the run down of things week. 

Derrick went with Miss Christy on Monday morning.  At lunch we all met up at the park.  Derrick and Miss Christy were already in line for the food when I showed up with the girls.  We could hear Derrick yelling, "HI MOM!" from the other side of the park.  I honestly couldn't see him so I just waved in the direction of the line while we walked over there.   

All during lunch I had my eye on these thunder clouds that were building up.  I was trying to decide if we should go swimming that day.  I really didn't want to go if it was going to rain on us within a few minutes of getting there. 

Derrick REALLY wanted to go, but we were doing family training with Miss Christy until 1:00 so it's not like we could just leave.  We went to the little fountain at the park and let the kids play there while I talked with Miss Christy about some of the things we should focus on.  She is so insightful. Having her around to suggest things to help Derrick is one of the best parts about having him in behavioral therapy. 

I decided that the clouds didn't look threatening enough so at 1:00 we went home and got into our swimming suits.  We stopped at the car wash to pump up the innertubes with air and then we were at the Wellness Complex.

It was another fun day of playing in the water.  I really like coming here with the kids.

I was worried about Veronica's arm so my plan was to just put her into one of the tubes and pull her around the whole time.  She thought that was a great idea for all of 5 minutes.  Then she got bored and wanted to play in the water. I kept having visions of her falling in the water and being unable to get back up.  So I hopped in the tube and she sat with me.  That was a little more fun for her.  She also went out with Charlotte and Lydia a few times.

The water was actually truly warm on this trip so Charlotte and Lydia didn't mind swimming in the water.  They pretended to be dolphins.  There were some boys who were really interested in the things we'd brought.  I told them they could play with our boogie boards and later I let them use one of the tubes.  They were really good with the stuff.

After about an hour Veronica started saying her arm hurt and acting really tired. I tried to get her to lay down on the picnic blanket on the beach but the ground under the blanket was too hard for her to get comfortable.  So we had to call it a day and go home.  When we got home Veronica took a long nap.

At home I'd been prepared and had dinner waiting for in the crock pot.  So we had that a little bit after we got home.  Then we hung around the rest of the night.  My goal for the evening was to avoid any "Monday Evening Emergencies."  Two weeks ago we'd had to call the emergency line for Pocatello Water to get someone to come out and fix the leak in our water main. Last week we'd had to go to the Emergency room because Veronica broke her collar bone. This week I wasn't taking any chances.  We just stayed home.

Lydia and Charlotte each built little desks out of cardboard and tape.  Here's Lydia showing off hers.  I asked Charlotte if she wanted to show hers, but she said it wasn't ready yet.

We made it to bed time without any emergencies.  Hallelujah!

Veronica woke up around the time that I was getting everyone ready for bed so I knew she would be staying up with me for a while. She came downstairs while I read to the other kids.  We started re-reading the Silver Crown.  Everyone was very interested in it.  I was happy to be reading something a little meater.  We've been reading a bunch of the Calendar Mysteries books. They were fun for the kids, but kind of the literary equivalent of saltine crackers. It's nice to read something with a decent plot and good prose. 

Veronica wasn't sleepy because of the nap so I let her come upstairs and hang out in my bed. She spent a lot of time coloring while I wrote. 

I've never really seen her sit down with a coloring book before she broke her bone.  I honestly didn't know she could color in the lines.

At ten we snuggled in bed and watched Gilmore Girls together.  Veronica doesn't understand much of what is going on in the show, but she says she loves it.  I think she just likes spending one on one time with me. She spent the rest of the week coming up with reasons to sleep in my bed.  (Most of them involved taking a late afternoon nap and then not being sleepy at bedtime.)

Tuesday was Derrick's first day of summer school.  We have both been looking forward to this.  Summer school is one of the reasons that we aren't planning to move to Twin Falls until later this summer. Derrick has been asking about going back to school for about a week so he was really excited to get up and get ready for school.  The bus picked him up right at our house.  He got on it so happily.

The other kids woke up after Derrick left.  When they were done with breakfast we all sat in the living room and had writing/drawing time.  This is something the kids asked to do an I happily agreed to. We loved doing this together.  After about 30 minutes the kids finished their projects and then went downstairs to watch Frozen, but I kept going for another hour.

Derrick could have ridden the bus home from school, but the ride home was something like an hour and it was right during lunch in the park time.  So I decided it was better if I just picked him up from school. So that's what we did.  Derrick was mad that he didn't get to ride the bus, but other than that he'd had a great day.

We went to Brooklynn's Playground and all nearly got heat stroke because there isn't any shade there. Derrick's other therapist, Miss Annie met us at the park. We both decided that it's a terrible place to go for lunch in the park.

Miss Annie took Derrick and I took the girls.  I can't remember where Derrick and Annie went.  I took the girls to Hobby Lobby so we could buy a letter L so we could finish the project we started last week with Lydia's seashells. We also bought letters C and V so Charlotte and Veronica wouldn't feel left out while we worked on the project. I thought about buying a D for Derrick, but figured he wouldn't care.  The letters were on the same aisle as the fuse beads and Charlotte reminded me that I'd promised to buy more of those as part of our craft supplies for the summer. So we bought a bucket for $10.  Charlotte also saw a paper mache house for $15.  She wanted it so bad and said she'd pay for it with her own money.  I told her that she could think about it and if she still wanted it tomorrow we'd come back and get it.

After Hobby Lobby we went to the Chubbuck Library for their Maker Day.  They do a different craft every Tuesday and Thursday.  This week it was a little project with light sensitive paper. We put cookie cutters onto the paper and then put it into the sun for a few minutes.  The sunlight changed the paper around the cookie cutters. Then we put it into water and let it dry.

I think it's interesting how the paper shows up on the pictures I took with my phone.  Obviously there were some crazy light tricks happening with that paper.

The project was interesting to me, but Veronica was getting super tired and cranky.  So that kind of ruined it for all of us.  We went home as soon as the paper was sort of dry.

When we got home all the girls went straight to the table and started to work on fuse bead projects. I quickly decided this was the best $10 I ever spent. They worked on these for hours and I was able to get a lot of writing done.

Here's one of the many many creations.

A little bit before Derrick came home I told the girls that if they helped me clean up the living room, family room, and dinning room I'd give them an ice cream cone.  We set the timer for 30 minutes and we cleaned so fast that the timer went off as we started eating the icecream.  Hooray for teamwork.  Derrick ended up having perfect timing and arrived home just in time to get an ice cream cone too.  He'd earned it in his own way by doing a full day of school and therapy.

Derrick just wanted to veg out for the evening so we had dinner and then he just watched Walle.  The girls watched the movie and/or did fuse beads.

Oh and I have to tell you that within minutes of coming home Derrick found the letters we'd bought at Hobby Lobby.  He immediately asked "Where's D for Derrick?" Oops he did care.  I told him we'd buy him one the next day.  And we were definitely going back to Hobby Lobby the next day because as soon as we'd come home Charlotte had pulled $15 out of her bank and put it in my purse.

On Wednesday morning I got Derrick onto the bus and then the other three kids got ready for the day.  First we went to a follow up appointment with Veronica's Ortho. The last appointment had been so quick I figured we might as well just all go rather than find a babysitter for the twins. There were some fun magnet toys in the waiting room.

They x-rayed Veronica again.  She doesn't show any bone growth yet, but the doctor assured me that was normal for this point.  We'll go back in two more weeks for another x-ray.

Then we hopped on the interstate and used that to get us to Chubbuck faster than if we'd taken the city roads.  I'm going to miss being able to swing around the city that fast when we move to Twin Falls.  We went into Hobby Lobby and Charlotte went straight for her little house.  We also grabbed a letter D for Derrick.  Lydia brought some money too and bought a little surprise animal (she got a monkey that she named Coconut) and some gum. Veronica also brought money and bought a little stuffed Husky dog.

We came back home long enough to drop everything off, but we had to leave pretty soon again because we were meeting my friend Mindy (and Derrick and Annie) at lunch in the park.  Here's Lydia enjoying her gum while putting her shoes back on.

We went to Ross Park for lunch this time.  It has some fun lava rocks in it.  Charlotte enjoyed eating her lunch on top of the big rock.

And here's Veronica on a little rock.

I was able to sit with Mindy and talk with her for a while.  Her husband is out of town too so I suggested we meet up today so we could both have some grown up conversation.

Annie was so great and followed Derrick around and kept an eye on him.  I LOVE having help with him. He'd thrown a fit about missing the bus ride home and so Annie and I talked about how to make the next day go smoother.  She planned to get there a little earlier and I planned to write out a picture schedule to help him.

Derrick wasn't too excited about going anywhere with Annie so we had them both come back to our house so Derrick could paint his letter along with the girls.

Everyone had fun painting their letters. Derrick has been really interested in Spiderman lately so he did his in red and blue.

Annie and Derrick left to go back out into the community. Charlotte and Lydia pulled out the house and started painting it. I went through my fabric/craft back log and got things organized. Veronica played with buttons.

Charlotte and Lydia impressed me so much with their painting. I would have spent days trying to figure out the "perfect" way to decorate the house. But they just charged right in and did it.

Charlotte had been surprised to find too mire houses nestled Russian Doll style in the big one. She was excited to paint those later.

Derrick came home and we had dinner. After dinner was cleaned up we went on a walk to the park. We were all excited to see the roses on this giant rose bush that we pass all the time.

When we got to the park I saw a couple of my friends from church. The young women were having their activity at the park. They had popsicles and shared them with us. We'd picked a good night to go to the park.

It was really windy. Our original plan for this evening was to go swimming at the Ross Park Pool (they have half priced nights on Wednesday's after 5:00) but I'd cancelled that plan due to Veronica's arm. The wind made me glad I cancelled. We would have been so cold in the water.

The next morning I wrote out thus schedule for Derrick. He'd been mad the night before that we didn't have time to watch Spiderman 2 after the park so I promised him we'd watch it on Thursday night.

Normally the girls are still in bed when Derrick gets in the bus, but for some reason they were all up before Derrick left. So as soon as he left we started working on the final touches on the letter projects.

We glued pompoms on Charlotte's. Thus was so easy, but looks so fun.

Lydia's seashells were the whole reason we started this project. It was fun to finally glue them on.

We left Derrick's letter as it was. He was pretty proud of the Spiderman colors.

Veronica wanted glitter on her letter. It was so fun to do.

After we were done with the letters the twins wanted to paint their houses. Veronica was feeling left out so I found her some rocks to paint. All the girls had a lot of fun painting. I took a shower and did a little bit of writing.  I was so glad that the kids were old enough to be left unsupervised with paint.

Here are the finished houses. They even added packing tap "glass" to the windows.

Here's the cute little stack.

The artists.

At lunch time we met Annie and Derrick at Caldwell Park. The pickup had gone so smoothly. Annie couldn't believe the difference.

The Friend Zone group was back again. Derrick lived the bubbles.

There was a face painting area so the kids got in line. Lydia got a crown.

Charlotte was a puppy.

Veronica was a tiger.

And Derrick was Spideman. Here's the group picture.

It was super cold and windy at the park so as soon as the kids were done we took off.  I took the files to the store to buy more medicine for Veronica and Hit chocolate because we were FREEZING. Annie and Derrick went to the library to watch Captain Underpants. None of the girls were interested in the movie so we went home and they painted some more.

I was writing a lot and not really paying attention to what they were up to. So I was rather surprised when I walked to the dinning room and discovered it was an art studio.

I texted Brandon and told him we needed to add "art studio" to the list of thing we need in our next house.

Here's one of the pictures Lydia painted.

Derrick came home and we had dinner as usual. Then we went downstairs and watched Spiderman 2. It's been a long time since I watched that movie. It was fun to watch it with Derrick.

Normally Brandon would come home on Thursday night, but this wasn't a normal week for him. On Wednesday he and another mechanic flew down to Sierra Vista, Arizona to fix a plane. They got there in the evening so they stayed overnight in a hotel and then fixed the plane in the morning.

That afternoon they flew to another town in Arizona to look at another plane. They stayed in another hotel and then flew back to Twin Falls on Friday morning.  Brandon doesn't have current flight ratings yet so he didn't actually do any of the piloting, but once he is current again he will be able to help fly the plane.  He did get paid for the time that they were traveling so in a way he was paid to fly.

On Friday morning the kids were all in good moods. I told them we should clean up the house so Daddy could be surprised by a clean house when he came home. The kids agreed. Since we'd already straightened up on Tuesday we didn't have a huge mess on our hands.  We set the timer for 45 minutes and then hurried to vacuum the living room and dinning room. We straightened up the kids' rooms. And we even mopped the entry way and the kitchen. We finished it all before the timer went off.  What can I say? My kids are freaking awesome!

The second half of Property Taxes had been due on Thursday and I knew it had been a busy do for my former co-workers.  (I was also pretty happy that I hadn't had to be there.)  So we made chocolate chip cookies to take to my co-workers.

I've been back to visit my office a few times since I left at the end of March, but this was the first time I took all four kids. It ended up being a short visit because Derrick was trying to push buttons on the copy machine, but it was good to see everyone (and meet my replacement.)

The kids had been asking to go to Alameda park for several days so we decided to go there for lunch in the park.  The kids came weekly as part of Adventure Camp last summer, but I've never been there. Their favorite part of the park is the sandy volley ball court.  As soon as they were done eating lunch they went to work playing in the sand.

We stayed here for quite a while so the kids could play.

At 1:00 we went up to the Chubbuck Library to go to the Princess Party they were having. I hadn't really planned to go to this, but since Brandon was still travelling back from Twin Falls we needed something to do. I'd assumed that at least some of my girls would be interested in the Princess Party, but they kept saying things like, "We are WILD girls. You trained us to be wild not tame."

But one of my kids enjoyed the party.  Derrick was so excited to be there.  He kept saying, "It's a PRINCESS PARTY!"  He was like, "LOOK Charlotte, It's ELSA!"  He ran around and stood in line for several of the little activities..  Here he is doing archery.

The girls were interested in one thing - the treats.  They were pretty happy when they got mini cupcakes and punch.

Part of the reason we went to the library was so the kids could play on the I-pads.  So after a few minutes at the party we went into the nearly empty childrens room and the kids played on those for about 20 minutes.

Then we drove back home.  On the way there Charlotte said she could see a rainbow.  A little bit later she said it was around the sun.  I was able to get a picture of almost the whole thing.

But the rainbow was soon forgotten because when we pulled up the house we saw the Jeep in the driveway.  Brandon was HOME!  He'd got home about 15 minutes earlier.  He was very surprised by the clean house.  Last week we'd been a sorry mess of a family when he came home, but this week we'd held things together the whole week.

It was so nice to have Brandon home. (Even if I did keep tripping on his boots.)  We did something as a family that evening, but now I can't remember.

After the kids were in bed Brandon and I watched About Time on Netflix.  The guys on the Baconsale Podcast talk about this movie every once in a while and so I've wanted to watch it for years.  It was so good. If you are looking for a movie that will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you appreciate your life then watch About Time. (Slight disclaimer: it is Rated R for using the F word a lot, but it's a British movie so somehow that makes the F word seem highbrow.)

On Saturday's I like to donate plasma because I get some alone time and I get paid for it. After donating I went to DI and did a little thrift shopping.  I found new swim shirts for Charlotte and Derrick, some new shirts for Brandon, boots for me (I don't need them now, but I knew I'd be kicking myself this fall if I didn't spend $8 on cute boots) an I found a jar for displaying more of Lydia's sea shells.  

I came home and we worked on putting the shells into a jar.  We saw this at Hobby Lobby and I knew this was a better plan than keeping her shells in the container where they've spent the last 3 years. The shells look so great now.  Lydia even added a bead to a shell so it looked like it had a pearl in it.  See if you can find it. 

I'd also got to Fred Meyer and picked up some little brackets to hold up the painted letters.  We hot glued the brackets to the back of the letters and then hung them up with nails.  Derrick was SO excited to put up his D.

Here's Veronica with her V.

Lydia an her L (as well as all her other treasures on her dresser.)

Charlotte wanted her C on display with the other things in her bottom bunk lair. 

Lydia added more things to her wall and dresser so she wanted another picture. These were some of the paintings she'd been working on in the dinning room/art studio.

We went through some of the shoes and jackets.  Charlotte found her old cowgirl boots - which actually fit her now - and so she quickly put together a whole cowgirl outfit.  She went grocery shopping with me dressed like this and an older lady came up and told me how adorable Charlotte looked.

The rest of Saturday was really relaxing.  We'd planned to go swimming at Ross Park, but it was still cold.  The kids were trying to talk me into it and I told them that if we got into the water their lips would turn blue and they'd start shivering.  So we didn't go.  

Brandon was getting ready to go to Kentucky for the SKILLS competition so he was packing all day.  He took Charlotte and Lydia to Walmart so he could buy some things.  They also went to Fedex so he could print off a color copy of his resume for the competition.  

The day had kind of slipped by quickly so all of a sudden it was bath time.  We usually do movie night after bath time, but it was getting pretty close to bed time.  I went downstairs and found a little documentary about Southern Utah. It was only 54 minutes long so it was perfect.  The kids were all riveted by the scenery  and kept asking if we could go there on vacation.  I'm hoping we can go there next year.  It will be 10 years since Brandon and I went there and so its a fitting time to go again. 

After the kids were in bed Brandon and I spent a super romantic evening that involved him cutting a planters wart out of my foot.  Yeah that's true love baby.  It reminded me of this meme. 

Brandon's flight to Kentucky left Salt Lake at 7:00 am on Sunday.  That meant he had to meet up with the other contestants and their advisors on the ISU campus at 3:00 am.  And that meant I got to get up at 2:30 to drive him there. Then I came back home and tried to fall back asleep for an hour. 

With Brandon gone I was responsible for taking the kids to church by myself.  Thankfully Derrick was in a better mood than he had been on Mother's Day so sacrament meeting passed without incident.(It helped that I put a number by every song, prayer, and speaker on the program and then he could cross out the number when that part was over.) Here are the kids petting some dogs we see on the way too and from church.  

Back at home I told the kids I didn't really care if they watched movies.  Normally we only watch church movies on Sunday's, but Brandon had been home for a grand total of 36 hours and wouldn't be back until Saturday night.  This wasn't a time to be altruistic.  We were in survival mode. So the kids watched Finding Nemo and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I took a nap and relaxed.  Lydia painted.  Brandon had made her a table top easel on Saturday so she was excited to use it. I realized that this little artist was going to need a smock. I remembered that I'd found an old dress shirt when I went through the fabric.  I hadn't been able to figure out what to do with it then, but now I knew exactly what to use it for.  I cut the sleeves shorter and put it backwards on Lydia.  It looked perfect!

We were starting to reach dangerous levels of art and I was trying to figure out where to put it all.  Brandon had picked up sticky tak at Walmart for me so I could hang the pictures up.  I walked by the stairwell and realized it was the perfect place to hang the art.  So I started putting it up.  I'm fairly certain this will be covered with pictures by the time we move.

I love this scene of Charlotte and Lydia working on projects.  Charlotte is doing fuse beads and Lydia is painting.  I love these little artists.

Derrick went outside for a long time.  I found him playing in the dirt by the tree.  He also spent a lot of time swinging on the rope swing.  He likes to pretend he is Spiderman.

I checked on my garden and found some big peas.  The kids have been eating them right off the vine.  Peas are so fun to grow.

Derrick left the swing and found his bubbles.  He can mix up his own bubble mix now (water, dawn dish soap, and a little bit of sugar) and we are both happy about that.

The kids were all good at bedtime.  They are all loving the Silver Crown.  Derrick sat and blew bubbles the whole time we read.  After the kids were in bed it was Charlotte's turn to stay up late with me in my bed. This is something we did when Brandon went to SKILLS last year and the kids were so excited to do it again.

Charlotte and I painted our nails and then we watched the new Grinch movie on Netflix.  (Well Charlotte did, I was mostly texting Brandon.  He'd arrived safely in Kentucky and had a good feeling about the competition.

And that's the end of that week.

Thanks for reading.