The Year In Review

In place of sending a letter with our Christmas card, I decided to put our blog address on our cards and then post a review of the year.  

Paisley is just about 3.  She is a bundle of energy and rules the household, pretty much.  She loves Pet Shops and Dora and pretending to play the violin and piano.  Her favorite question is "Why?" and she makes us all laugh with her funny expressions.  Her vocabulary is growing every day and she loves to go everywhere with Mom.

Anya turned 6 in September, and started Kindergarten in August.  She loves all day school like the older girls and is on the Wall of Fame for her class for tying her shoes and writing her numbers.  She is very social and has many friends and is constantly asking which friend can come play.  She plays the violin and loves dancing and singing around the house.

Sierra turned 10 and is excited to be a two digit number.  Sierra started playing the flute this summer and is also taking piano and Irish Dance lessons.  She is very creative and is always drawing new fashion designs.  She collects Webkinz and Silly Bands and loves to read.  

 Emma turned 12 in October and joined the older girls in the Young Women's class at church.  She is home-schooling this year, but still sings in the choir at school and also plays viola in the Elementary Honor Orchestra.  She is working on her first piano Concerto as well and really enjoys playing whatever music she can get into her hands and also likes to play a bit on the guitar.  She spent a week this fall at the Outdoor Science School in McCall, with the rest of her 6th grade class.

Alexis is looking forward to her 14th birthday coming up in February.  She is in 8th grade and ran with the cross country team this fall, winning first in one race and taking 2nd with her team for the season.  She is taking advanced classes through the Treasure Valley Math and Science Center and is in the school choir.  In February she starred in the lead role of the Junior High production of "The Boyfriend"--a cute musical set in the Roaring 20's. She takes cello lessons and has had several boys already ask her out.  Dad has the shotgun handy.

Christa's major milestone for the year was taking Driver's Ed and getting her driver's license.  While still limited to daylight driving hours, she is enjoying that extra bit of freedom every now and then.  She started high school, and is taking AP Chemistry and AP Calculus through the Treasure Valley Math and Science Center.  She was especially pleased with her score of 5 on the AP Physics exam this past spring.  She took first place in her division in the Boise Sonatina Festival, on piano, and took first place in her division in the Meridian Symphony Young Artist's competition on violin. She took the first level of Teacher Training at the Suzuki Institute this summer, and now has her own violin studio with several beginning students.  She started taking lessons on both instruments at the University, and is really enjoying the perspective of new teachers, and is playing with the Boise Philharmonic Youth Symphony, as principal second violinist.  She is the self-proclaimed "Grammar Police," a talent she gets from her Dad.  

Most of our family travels involve either music camp or a conference for Ryan's work.  This year we were able to spend a few days seeing the sights and a show in New York City, skiing in Montana, enjoying some sun in San Antonio, visiting the Oregon Coast and Mt. Bachelor, listening to Itzhak Perlman in Sun Valley and watching a BYU football game (a winning one!).  We were able to pull Dad away from the lab for a few days for a much needed actual vacation, sitting on the beach in Hawaii for a few days over Thanksgiving.  

I spent a good part of the first few months of the year trying to get settled in our new house.  I'm loving my garage where I can park my car out of the weather, and heated bathroom floors.  I'm finally getting the house furnished and decorated bit by bit.  I still spend one day a week helping out at Ryan's office, mostly keeping the books up to date and sharing my opinion on whatever the topic of the day may be.  I had the last of my 30-something birthdays this year and have a few goals of "Things to accomplish before I turn 40."  We'll see how many of those I can make a reality.  Mostly I spend my time driving 6 busy children around town and keeping the household running.

Ryan's practice continues to grow each year, and he is enjoying being busy.  We started several new business ventures this year on the side, including a lumber milling business, a fine woodworking business, a bee-keeping business, and a gold mining business, in addition to Cole's Organic Fruit Tree and Berry Farm here on the property.  He loves listening to TED talks online while he works, and finds all sorts of inspiration for new projects.  

We feel truly blessed, despite the challenges that life inevitably brings to all of us.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Birthday Girl

Anya turned 6 a couple of weeks ago.  We had to sqeeze in cake and ice cream between piano lessons and back to school night, but we got to sing and open presents.  She really wanted to go ice skating for her birthday, so that is still on the to-do list when we have a day to get to IceWorld. There wasn't really anything she wanted, other than to shove her face in pie.  For months whenever Anya gets excited about something, she says, "I think I want to shove my face in pie."  Where she got this idea, I don't really know, but we promised her that on her birthday she could make that dream a reality.  We made a delicious Jello pudding cream pie, and after opening present, she got to shove her own face in it.  Crazy girl. Six things we love about Anya:  She is adventurous and willing to try new things. She loves to read to me and with me.  She is a good big sister to Paisley.  She loves music-both playing it and listening or dancing to it.  She remembers to say her prayers every night.  She loves making new friends. 
This past weekend she went to Utah with Uncle Andrew and visited grandma and cousins there. Our family definitely noticed how much she was missed.  We love you, Anya!  

First Day of School

So this post is a bit belated.  But we are all back into the swing of things with school.  The girls are all enjoying their classes and teachers, and mostly getting to see their friends every day.  Anya is in all day kindergarten, and has adjusted well to that new schedule.  Of course I was the typical teary mom dropping the kindergartener off.  It doesn't really matter how many times you have done that, or have left to do it, it still is an emotional milestone.  Sierra is in 4th grade.  Emma is in 6th grade, and went to school for 2 weeks, and then we decided to homeschool for the year with her, so she can have more time to work on her music and work more at her own pace (somehow I didn't get a first day picture of her.  We'll have to go back and recreate the moment).  Lexi is in 8th grade, and has started with great cross country season, besides a great academic year.  Christa started at high school, and especially loves choir and Calculus. Paisley gets to be home all day with me and asked about 25 times a day for the first week, "Go get Anya?"  It took a bit for her to get used to the girls being gone all day.  It didn't take me long to get used to it :)

Football Season

I have to admit it . . . I LOVE college football.  I'm not a fanatic about it, but I really do enjoy a good game.  I have loved it since I was 11 and my dad would take us to the Air Force Academy games (he taught there for 4 years) and we would watch the cadets all run down on the field to do push-ups when they scored, and my 6th grade teacher was the wife of one of the coaches and we would make posters for the team to put up in the locker room.  I loved going to the games, even when one time my sister threw up when we were stuck in traffic and there were several of us crammed in the back of my dad's old Monte Carlo.  At BYU, my roommates and I camped out for tickets and I don't think I ever missed a home game in the 4 years I was there.  One roommate was a HUGE Ty Detmer fan and would wear her #14 jersey and paint her face blue.  Her dream was to toss the football around with Ty, and I think she realized that dream during that 1990 year when he won the Heisman trophy.  I was there cheering at the top of my lungs 20 years ago this week, when we beat Miami, a highly ranked team that year.  It has been fun to be in Boise during such great years for Boise State, even though we haven't made it to many live games.  I love seeing the highlights for all the good games on College Football Saturdays.   I keep an ESPN app on my phone to track the  top 25 teams (especially when BSU and/or BYU are in the top 25).  This was a great weekend for my teams.  We were able to go to Provo and watch BYU play, and there's nothing like being in the stands when they win.  We watched the BSU game here at home.  Both teams gave me a few new gray hairs by waiting to the last 2 minutes of their respective games to pull out their lead.  I get way to anxious when things are that close.  I didn't see the Air Force game, but their offense put 65 points on the board, and they play BYU next weekend.  Yeah for fall and College Football!!
On a related note . . . We dropped Christa off on Friday night at her first High School football game.  I just about cried.  It was one of those weird moments where I all of a sudden felt much older.  I sometimes feel like I should be the one walking into the stadium as a student, not my child.  Strange.

Paisley

Hi!  I'm Paisley and I am 2 1/2.   Some moments I am so cute and sweet and lovable, and other moments I am wild and completely out of control.   My vocabulary is increasing daily and I love to mimic what I hear other people say.  Two of my favorite expressions are:  "Bad Baby!" (I say this whenever someone else, including Mom, does something I don't like) and "I love YOU."  (I just learned that this is a great way to melt daddy's heart and get whatever treat he has that I want.)   Everyone is also entertained by my gangster "What What" or "Peace Out" complete with appropriate body language.  I want to be like the big girls and follow them around trying to do what they do constantly.   I recently learned how to use the big girl potty and can keep my Cinderella panties dry all day and all night!  Yeah for Mom-no more diapers.  The girls just spent a week at music camp and whenever someone asks me what I want to play when I grow up, I tell them "I play BASS!-A tiny one"  I really like to read books and I love our new puppies, Sugar and Snap.  I don't want to take naps, but if we are in the car after 4 pm, or if the TV gets turned on in the late afternoon, I am sure to fall asleep, and then I will be up until 11:00 or so.  I love  "Lella" and any other princesses, and I love coloring with markers, especially on my hands and legs and some hidden corner of the wall or cabinet.  I have snipped my own hair at least 3 times already.  I love playing outside, and would spend all day in the swings if I could.  I pretty much know that I am in charge around here.  It's great!!  

Oregon Coast and Vancouver

Ryan had a conference scheduled in Vancouver, Washington so we decided to make a little family vacation of the trip.  Here are a few pictures of our adventures.  We spent 3 days on the coast first and then headed inland to the Portland/Vancouver area.  

What used to be the largest Sitka Spruce in North America.  The top blew off about 2 1/2 years ago, but it's still an impressive tree. 

 

Ecola State Park

Tillamook Creamery-a must see for dairy lovers.  

Portland Children's Museum

The Portland Zoo

Japanese Garden and Rose Garden in Portland

Bonneville Dam Fish ladder

Multnomah Falls

One event I didn't get a good picture of-we brought home two new family members.  Someone at a gas station had 2 cute puppies they were giving away.  My husband has a very soft spot for homeless animals and we now have two (because we couldn't separate the brother and sister) new puppies, named Sugar and Snap.  They both rode 4 hours home on Ryan's lap (fleas and all.)  I'll post pictures with the kids later (with fleas all dead).  

I guess I should go clean out my car instead of playing on Blogger.  I'm sure the girls will post more pictures on Facebook.  

Zoo Animals

My sister was here in town on Monday and Tuesday for a couple of days and we decided to take the kids to the zoo.  I hadn't been there in a couple of years so my girls were pretty excited, especially Paisley, who has never been to a zoo.  Our zoo is pretty small and doesn't have too many exotic animals, but it's about right for the 2-6 year old crowd.  They also got to ride on the merry-go-round.  Note to self-do not try to take pictures while riding on the very small merry-go-round.  My head was still going in circles for several minutes afterward.   

My Front Door

This post is way overdue, but I still have to write it.  Since we first started building our house, Ryan wanted to build the front door himself.  The idea came from an Amish tradition where the husband would build the front door in anticipation of his marriage.  He had some beautiful walnut wood that came from a tree that was on one of the original homesteads here in Dry Creek Valley.   There were so many projects going on when we moved in that the door just didn't happen.  We put some boards up over our main entrance and just went on.  But our mortgage company withheld a portion of our funds in escrow until we completed the door, as well as several other items that weren't essential for living, but certainly kept the house unfinished. I patiently waited without trying to be too nagging for our front door.  The mortgage company said our deadline was April 30th. By April 30th I had a frame for the front door, but still no actual door to put in there.  We were able to get extensions from the bank, and I kept telling Ryan the deadline was 3 days away, and he put in many almost all-nighters, and by the end of May I actually had a front door hung.  It still needs a couple of coats of finish, and the actual art glass that will go in the windows of the door, but it's beautiful, and it makes the house look more finished.  Ryan does some amazing woodwork-he just doesn't like to be on a timeline.  Now can we talk about bookshelves . . 

Farm adventures

Wednesday morning I woke up and was sitting at the computer doing my morning email checking routine.  Everyone else was still asleep, except for Christa and Lexi, who went out for a run.  I thought the chickens were being especially noisy, but thought maybe I just hadn't noticed them before since it's not usually so quiet this time of day.  Chickens?  I guess I should explain.  We had been told that chickens are fairly easy to raise and that we could have our own fresh, organic eggs within a few months.  So we decided to give it a try.  Of course when Ryan decides to try a new hobby, he goes all out.  Within about a week's time, we had close to 50 tiny chicks and 4 cute ducklings in a little pen in our garage under a heat lamp.  This was in mid-March.  In about 2 weeks they grew out of that pen and he built a slightly larger pen for them, still in the garage, since it was still pretty chilly outside.  Meanwhile, a friend started building a more permanent chicken coop out on the driveway in front of Ryan's shop, with the intention of moving it to it's permanent home in the pasture when it was complete.  Well, the chickens continued to grow and didn't know they were supposed to wait for the coop to be ready so they could have a home and learned to fly out of the pen in the garage and were creating a bit more mess and smell that I really wanted in the garage.  Plus the nights were mostly above freezing by the first part of May.  We attached wheels to the coop and moved in about 50 feet down the driveway, where it has been stuck since the first week in May.  The ground has been too wet for us to try to take a large, heavy building across the field.  And the original plan for moving it did not work quite the way we expected.  The chickens (and ducks) were moved to a new temporary home of enclosed chicken wire in the field. They have been mostly content with this arrangement, as long as someone remembers to feed and water them often enough.  The girls like to go out and pay them a visit every now and then.  We have several varieties-mostly hens, but some roosters, too, and four funny ducks. On Wednesday morning as I was sitting here, I heard an especially loud THUMP, followed by more chicken sounds.  It's not uncommon for birds to hit my windows in the morning, but this didn't sound like the usual chickadee hitting the glass.  So, I went downstairs to investigate.  Out the back window I saw my chicken enclosure completely empty with not a chicken in sight, and a large dog running away across my field.  Hmmmm.  I stepped out the back door, and still could see no chickens.  I walked around to the front of the house and found about a dozen of the chickens hiding out on my front porch.  Then I went around the other side and found another couple dozen, and the ducks, hiding out under Ryan's truck.  I also found a few on the back porch, and two that had somehow fallen down the window well to the basement.  I don't know a lot about chickens, but I really didn't want to leave them all over my house and yard, leaving little presents for us to find later with bare feet.  So how to get them back to their home.  (There was one chicken dead next to the enclosure, and lots of scattered feathers.)  In books and movies it seems you see chickens happily following their caretaker, who scatters corn as she wanders the farmyard, and all the chicken follow.  My chickens were not the least bit interested in following my trails of feed.  Next idea:  to herd the chickens back toward the enclosure.  I learned that chickens are not particularly herding animals.  Especially if there is only one chicken herder.  I did manage to get all of the ones on the front porch to join the group on the back porch.  Now to get the ones from under Ryan's truck.  Finally Ryan came out to join me in my chicken herding endeavors.  (Of course by now it's starting to rain again.)  With the two of us and Ryan's brother Andrew, and our lawn boy, Blake, we managed to herd all the chickens back to their enclosure.  Ryan nicknamed me "Chicken Whisperer" because I did have a good number following me around.  We must have looked pretty silly chasing chickens all over the yard.  Blake had to climb down the window well and carry the two that were down there up and out.  I need to get better farm girl shoes-my good white sandals got pretty muddy.  Another adventure of the city girl trying to turn into Farmer Brown.

Shopping . . .

So, the last few months have been crazy busy and I was in Facebook world for awhile, but it's not really working for me as a good way to actually share or record what's going on in my life, so I think I'm back to blogger.  I'm not deserting Facebook altogether, since I still like to spy on my children that way, but for my personal use, I think this is better.  I've skipped a lot, but I'm not going to try to go back and catch up now, I'll just pick up with my thoughts for today and maybe one day next week I'll find some pictures we've taken in the last bit and add a few historical notes.
As for the title of this post . . . I've discovered that the trade off for the fun of shopping for cute baby girl clothes is the agony of shopping for preteen and teenage girl clothes.  This is where having boys would really be handy-jeans and T-shirts and styles that don't really change from toddler through adulthood.  That doesn't work for girls.  Particularly my girls.  You would think that with all them I would just be able to pass things right on down the line.  Not so much.  For one thing, they are all different body types.  For another thing, they all have completely different tastes.  Thirdly, they are all pretty particular about what they will and won't wear (it's too itchy, it's too clingy, it's too loose, it's too short, it's too long, the pockets are strange, I hate glitter).  Fourthly, styles change between the time #1 child wears it and #6 child gets it.  Fifthly, after about 3 children, clothes start looking pretty worn or stained.  So, I find myself needing to buy every single one of these cute girls a new summer wardrobe this year.  Luckily the oldest 2 have their own source of income and are largely responsible for paying for their own things.  But I still have to endure the shopping for the new things.  I confess, I have never been a shopaholic.  I spent some time wandering the mall as a teenager, but not for the love of shopping.  I get a headache after running from store to store for more than about and hour and a 1/2.   I don't even enjoy shopping for my own clothes.  I find myself spending hours perseverating over whether or not I'm getting the best deal, and whether I might find something I like more somewhere else, how often it will have to be ironed, and whether I really should be spending my money on this at all, or if this article of clothing will match enough of what is already in my closet.  That's after I even find something I kind of like and that mostly fits, which in and of itself is a major chore.  I inherited my shopping dislike from my mother.  She was one of those who knew what she needed, knew where to get it and was in and out of the store with her mission accomplished.  I'll probably pass it on to my children.  Summer clothes and church dresses are particularly troublesome shopping missions.  Shorts are too short, tank tops too skimpy, and dresses don't come with sleeves anymore.  Of course my girls want to look reasonably stylish, and so do I, but these days stylish means having the least amount of coverage of your body as possible.  That doesn't work for me.  This season I seem to be having an especially hard time finding things I like and that they like for anyone.  Lexi and Christa are so long-legged that any skirt or shorts is too short.  Emma is difficult right now being in that weird preteen size where juniors don't really fit, unless I can find an extra small, but girls' size 14/16 don't really work either.  Sierra is just too skinny and pretty much any bottoms fall off of her.  I had a bunch of knit shorts that Emma wore, but she hates those.   I have several cute summer skirts in Anya's size, but she's not so much into those.  I've tried saying, "Well, that's what we have, so wear it or not" and they usually opt for the "or not" and wear the same 3 outfits that they like every day then cry to me in the morning that their clothes aren't clean.  I just gave away boxes of clothes that were just sitting in the closet not worn while my kids complain that they have nothing to wear.  Internet shopping doesn't really help me because the girls really need to be able to try things on-there is so much variation in sizing.  Maybe I'll be hiring a personal shopper for back to school season . . . for the next 15 years.