November 2016 - Cancun trip with the Bonner clan

 We've been working on a family goal of peacemaking because we needed it. I got a few boxes of puff balls from Target, and whenever I caught the kids choosing to be peacemakers instead of fighters, I told them to "pick a puff" and put it in this big vase we had on the table. When the vase was full and the puffs were gone, we would take the kids to Boomers as a reward. It took some hard work and many long weeks, but the behavior turned around and has been much, much better. Hazel made signs and taped them all over the house to remind us of things such as "be nice to Mom and Dad" and "don't be mean people." Anyway, we finished the jar in November and had a fun night out at the arcade.

Jack was reading a book about moths and butterflies and it reminded me of the Monarch preserve in Santa Cruz. We went there once several years ago, but Jack didn't remember it. It just so happens that the best time to go is in November, if you can catch a sunny, warm day, and that upcoming Saturday looked perfect, so we planned a day trip out. We met up with Uncle KB and his girlfriend Hope. We walked the trail and saw thousands of monarch butterflies fluttering all around above our heads. It was rad. Then we went out to lunch and played at the beach before heading home. It was a good day!

We were having a rough afternoon one day and I blew off dinner to make the kids go for a walk with me on the path behind our house that leads to Marshland. They started out grumpy, but it melted away with the exercise and the fresh air. We reached this spot on the edge of the houses before it gets wild, and it was full of tall clover. The kids had a heyday walking through it, wet and up to their knees. They were making clover angels and rolling around and cartwheeling and it was like they were in this zone, you know, where time freezes and they're just feeling complete bliss. It was awesome to see. They stayed and played there till the sun got low in the sky.

Gemma is in this fun stage where she's starting to see the letters from her name in print all over the world, and each time she joyfully gasps, "My letter!" M is her favorite: "up, down, up, down." 

Jack got a new kid in his class, and his favorite thing about her is that her hair goes all the way down to her waist. After her first day at his school, he made her this card (completely independently). "I'm glad to have a new kid in school. I really like how long your hair is too. I admit that I've been staring at it the whole day. I'm so glad you are here." How cute is that? 

Todd's parents had a family reunion in Cancun over Thanksgiving break. Everyone made it there except for KB. We had a fabulous time! We stayed at an all-inclusive resort and played at the pool and the beach a ton. We also rented a 12-passenger van, aka the Party Van, aka The Shag Wagon, and used it to go on day trips with portions of the group most days. It was great.

Todd and I and Missy and Burke went scuba diving twice. Once happened to be on November 19th, mine and Todd's wedding anniversary, so Todd made a plan with me to kiss underwater. That's pretty cool, right?

We saw a nurse shark! Everyone was gathered around, checking it out from a few feet away. And then there's Todd, slowly swimming closer and closer to it, with his hand outstretched. Yep, Todd touched a shark! Just a light moment of contact, and the shark took off and swam down the canyon until it was far away. Not used to being approached, I'd guess.

We went tide pooling and found lots of pretty coral. 

We snorkeled at Akumal Bay and saw sea turtles. It was super cool! I went out with Hazel and Jack and we just toddled around until we'd find one, then float and watch as it ate sea grass and came up to breathe. Some were probably four feet long, pretty big. We saw a mamma with her baby. And we saw a little sting ray out there, too. 

We drove out to some ruins. Hazel loved it! She remembered everything we had learned about Mayan culture from our trip to Cancun in the spring, and asked the tour guide some good questions and was really into it all. Who knew we had a history guru for a kid? 

The neatest part about the ruins was that they were spread out, so they had bikes for rent. Everyone loved cruising around in the middle of the jungle. Gemma was devastated that they didn't have a bike small enough for her, and she and I had to ride on a cart instead. I was pretty bummed to miss out on the bikes, too!

Jack attempted to have pizza for dinner every single day. I didn't really keep track of whether or not he did. It was lovely to not worry about making dinner! The buffets were our friends. Everyone was happy. The ala carte restaurants took too much time and weren't kid friendly, so we only attempted those a couple of times.

There was tons of cousin time. All the kids seemed really happy to be together.

 

Gemma's favorite animal right now is a kodamundi. She apparently loved the cute little things, even though they climbed all over the tables and bit Hazel's finger when she was trying to feed it (yeah, we learned not to offer them food). 

Todd told one of his famous Jeffrey the Goblin stories. My kids beg for those whenever we're in the car or sitting around at the table with time to kill.

Hazel still made time to read. She even lent her cousin one of her books to read when she had finished it. So cute and mature.

The beach was awesome. The water was warm and the sand was soft. Jack loved body surfing. Gemma loved jumping over the waves and playing in the sand.  There were not enough shells for Hazel; she usually spends a lot of time collecting shells when we're at the beach. That really only happened on our tide pool day. But she was plenty happy, don't you worry.

We went to this beautiful cenote called the Garden of Eden. The water was clear, we were surrounded by trees and rocks, it was super beautiful and peaceful. We snorkeled a little, swam a bit, and just enjoyed being there.

 We flew home on Thanksgiving Day, took the next day to recoup from it all, and took the simple route by hunting for our tree at Home Depot this year. While the search was understated, the tree has been a good one. It's as tall as can fit, and lovely and green and full and smells great and makes me happy. I love a good Christmas tree.

Oh, and Santa was randomly there, so we popped over to say hi to the fellow.

The next week was pretty fun and busy, but that's in December, so I'll keep you in suspense for a few weeks more before I tell all about that. 

October 2016

 We started off October with General Conference. Saturday was a busy day, with soccer between sessions and the young men coming over to our house for Priesthood session. We heard a lot of good talks. Sunday I woke up with a sore throat and within a few hours had a fever, so I basically slept all day long. I'm grateful it's so easy to access the Conference archives online, so I could listen again to all that I missed, and review what I had heard before.

I was pretty sick for the next day or two, and then fatigue and congestion continued to hang around for two solid weeks. It was annoying.

Here's my promised photo of Hazel and Jack at soccer.

My Grandma Bingham passed away the first week of October, so that next weekend I flew to Utah for her funeral. It was nice to be able to visit with all my siblings, meet my brother's girlfriend Xiao, and take some time to drive through the canyon and soak up the beauty of fall. It was also nice to remember Grandma when she was healthy and reminisce on many good memories we all shared. 

While I was gone, Todd took the kids boating with some friends from church. I'm glad he was able to plan a fun weekend for the kids and enjoy himself as well.

Jack lost his first tooth. It's so cute! He wanted to lose it at school. I dropped him off with it dangling loosely in his mouth and was sure it would be out in minutes. I was totally surprised when it was still in there after school! With Jack's permission, I grabbed it between a couple of fingers and yanked it out. Jack hid it from the tooth fairy that night because he wanted to show it to all his buddies at school the next day. Ha! And then he wanted to hide it again the next night. Todd and I had to warn him that the tooth fairy might stop coming by to get it and he would end up penniless. 

We took the training wheels off Gemma's two-wheeler. She's been practicing in the cul-de-sac and is getting pretty good, but we don't spend enough time working on it. She's so little! I'm sure she's shorter than Hazel and Jack were, even though she's the same age they were when they started riding two-wheelers. I think I'm holding her back because she's my baby.

Gemma is always talking about how big she is and measuring herself against me. She's up to my belly button and thinks that's pretty great. She was excited to show me that she can reach from the bathroom doorway to Hazel's doorway. 

Jack's been writing an epic story in school about our family reunion in July. It's pages and pages long and really cute. I was lucky enough to be working in his class when his teacher invited him to read what he had so far to the class. It was adorable to see him standing there, back to the kids, kind of shy, as he went on and on reading this .... book. Little smartie.

Todd's sister Missy drove out with her kids for a quick visit. I took them on a stroll downtown while Todd was at work, and we all spent the afternoon at the G & M pumpkin patch and corn maze. The cousins had a blast playing together. It was fun to watch them all zooming around the cul-de-sac, on bikes and scooters and bare feet.

 I just love this picture of Gemma with her two best friends, Clara and Grace. She gets excited to see them when we go to kindergarten drop off and pick up, and gets bummed out if she doesn't get a chance to see her buddies, like if it's raining or someone's late.

Todd has been building bookshelves with Hazel and Jack for their bedrooms. They love going to Home Depot with him and hanging out in the garage, using tools and painting and spending good quality time with Todd.

All three kids had field trips to pumpkin patches. We ended up with a good slew of the orange things to carve the day before Halloween, including a huge guy Larry and Ellen brought from their garden when they visited in September.

Between church parties, class parties, and pumpkin patch visits, Halloween seemed to last all month. At last, it was the night of the real deal! Hazel was a witch, Jack was Darth Vader, and Gem-Gem was Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). 

We tried out a street nearby we'd heard lots about. Turns out it was pretty crazy. Closed off to traffic, with a live band and a food truck, at least a thousand people milling about, and many of the houses on the street went all out. I mean, ALL OUT. Robotic dragons, smoke machines, jumping spiders. It was insane! Definitely a memory-maker, but hard to keep an eye on all our little kids in the crowds.

September 2016

We bought three boxes of apples on Labor Day and canned applesauce all afternoon and into the evening, till Todd said, "enough!" and we left a box for another day... Later in the month, Larry and Ellen came to visit and brought three bushels of peaches, which we proceeded to can, until we ran out of steam (48 jars later).  That left loose ends to take care another day, when we canned six or seven more jars of applesauce and sliced and froze the rest of the peaches. Phew! Our poor pantry shelves can't take all this food preservation! We are canning animals over here! (As in, we are animals, not as in we are preserving animals to eat later, ha!)

Gemma started preschool the day after Labor Day. She was so, so psyched! Huge grins, lots of gratitude, tons of excitement. She feels so big. She keeps talking about how big she is and how soon she is going to be as big as Jack, and then as big as Hazel, and then she will be a mommy! I asked her how many kids she wanted a few days ago, and she said, "all of them," which I thought was a wise answer: all of the kids you are meant to have. Then she said, "I will have Jack, and I will have Hazel, and I will get to sleep with Daddy!" Such a sweetheart. She makes me grin all the time.

The next week, Gemma started dance class, which she is also exuberantly in love with. She gets to wear ballet shoes and dance to pretty music in a room filled with mirrors, and I just can't take my eyes off her the entire hour. She is always beaming with joy. It's the cutest thing. 

I might as well finish up with Gemma here. She has also outgrown her balance bike, so we put training wheels on the 14 inch bike and she's been practicing in the cul-de-sac. She was frustrated at first that she can't go as fast now, but she's been putting in a lot of effort, and before we know it, she'll be zooming past people on the path once again. 

I've been volunteering in Hazel's and Jack's classrooms while Gemma's at preschool on Tuesdays.  I love being in their classes, watching them interact with their friends and teachers. They both get so excited to have me in there. I love that when I give my time, they feel my love. They both have just excellent teachers this year and are thriving. 

Hazel's piano teacher is calling her a "natural" and praising how quickly she is learning and how well she seems to understand the concepts of music. I don't know if she's really musically talented or just plain smart, but either way, I love that she hears herself praised and deserves it. It's good for her self-esteem and is quite powerful coming from an outside source. She's also crazy about reading, is testing at an upper 4th grade level right now (early second grade). Haz always carries a book or two with her. It's thrilling for me to see how much she loves to read. I even caught her reading while she played some memorized music on the piano a few days ago. I had to laugh and take a picture. 

We've been working on a family goal of being peacemakers in our house. There's been too much contention the last few months, so we've had a few FHE lessons on peacemaking, and we've got signs all over the house to remind us to be kind. Hazel painted this lovely family portrait that states, "All I want for Christmas is a happy family." She's been a great leader in our efforts to love one another. (Not to say she's not causing any contention - but she is definitely spearheading our efforts to remember our goal.) 

Hazel and Jack are a few weeks into soccer classes. Both seem to have a lot of fun, and finish the time sweaty and tired, so they're meeting our aim: to exercise and have a good time. I thought I took pictures the first day, but evidently not, so I'll have to make sure to get some this Saturday. Keep an eye out in my October post! 

We drove down to Sunnyvale to have dinner with Chrissy and Suzanne and their families the Sunday before my birthday. It was so good to see them. I brought my birthday cake so they could help me eat it. Todd got me a pedicure and a massage at a spa for my birthday. It's so nice to be treated to a luxurious experience every now and then. 

Croce had their fun run and I helped tally up the kids' laps. I thought Jack would want me to walk with him, but he was totally confused and embarrassed and told me he thought I was going to hang out on the sidelines. I guess he doesn't remember walking laps the last two years as we cheered Hazel on. Anyway, after that, I'd cheer him on every time he came through and shout his name and run for a high five, and he would look away all embarrassed and try really hard not to smile. Funny shy boy. He made it six laps, so two miles! Hazel rocked it, as usual, running almost nonstop even though she was feeling a little sick, and pulled in eight laps. 

Jack's favorite parts of school are "special art projects" and "busy bee writing club." He is rocking it at writing! I'm so happy about this. I wasn't sure what the kid was going to do walking into kindergarten already reading chapter books and kind of shy. He's discovering all sorts of new talents and is very excited about it. He can't decide when he grows up if he will be a scientist, a writer, or an artist. He loves it all! He's writing this epic, pages long story about our family reunion in Utah. Mrs. Allen has been pleading with him to finish it up and start a new project, but he just keeps going and going. Here's a sample page, for your reading pleasure: 

He is getting all sorts of creative, suddenly. Like, hey, how about some cat ears and whiskers? He taped pieces of elastic string to his cheeks!<3 p="">

He's been saving up his allowance and finally had enough money to buy a much-talked-about dinosaur kit, in which he wears adorable goggles and digs up bones. It also came with a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur skeleton, which is now displayed on his dresser. The archeological bones, however .... proved quite daunting and have been sitting on my kitchen counter for longer than I'd like. 

It got blasted hot again for a week, so we found the time to go swimming. Everyone loved it. It was 100 outside and we had the pool to ourselves. Apparently, everyone else decided it was too hot to swim. 

Todd took the girls out on a daddy/daughter ward campout in someone's backyard, and Jack and I had a nice date. We went to Croce to get free ice cream for participating in the fun run (man, was he excited to eat ice cream dished up by his teacher and principal!) and played Candyland and Battleship at home. 

I took the van in to a repair shop to have the body work done from my little accident in July. It was awful carting the kids around in a little rental car for three days, but it's been nice to have the van look new again and not make me feel guilty every time I step in the garage.

Todd's been working like a madman, long days and most Saturdays, too. We can't believe it's been two years and we're still not in love with his job. There are pros, but the cons are heavy. Also, he got called to be Young Men's President. Not sure how he's going to manage to find the time to do it right, but we'll do the best we can.

Sayonara, September!