Yay! Football!

I missed writing a post last Sunday so I’ll have to update two weeks’ worth of news in this post.

Nora has had her first two Preschool Days and has had a lot of fun with her friends. I am so grateful she has the opportunity to spend these couple of hours with other kids doing activities. It’s like a playgroup except one mom takes all five kids and does craft and a series of learning activities. This week is my turn and I am pretty lucky I have three older helpers to make things easier for me. (we’ll see)

Friday a week ago I took my 1hr. glucose test and didn’t pass, but the OB said it wasn’t bad enough to do anything about except for telling me to eat better. I was also low on my blood count so I have to take Iron (nothing new) and was told again to eat better. I’ll talk about what I’m doing to change things in my next letter.

Lily has begun rehearsals for the Nutcracker Ballet. She is having a little bit of a struggle because she was the only girl in her level that was given an angel part, matching her to smaller and also younger girls. She feels left out of her group and sad about being small for the first time. I’ve talked to her about the importance of conformity in some aspects of ballet. I think she understands why she was put where she is but it’s hard sometimes. She is still having a lot of fun doing the Party Scene with many more of the kids.

I had my monthly book group meeting at my house last Saturday. We discussed a book about a boy dealing with the loss of his father on 9/11, so it was well timed. Most of us really liked the book and felt it had a good message, despite it’s being extremely weird and incredibly strange.

Riis started his soccer season and has the same color (turquoise) and name as last time(Sharks), but completely different boys and coach. Their first game was Saturday and they did really great. It was a tie but they kept the ball in the other team’s half most of the game.

I did some extra cleaning work this week in addition to school. Before book group last week I’d worked really hard cleaning the house. (I always use people coming over as a motivator to get extra cleaning done!) I had the kids help and they washed floors and scrubbed the cupboards in the kitchen, plus other things. Sunday my body hurt and I had to recover. That day the kids got out paper and crafts and then left a huge mess. I was getting really upset telling them to take care of things but no one was taking accountability for the messes and things only got worse. I said on Thursday morning we’d take an hour out of our schedule to do extra straightening. When that hour was up and things were still a disaster I went into Commando Parenting mode. I was so disheartened by their messes and my inability to train them, as well as keep up with all of it that I decided to act on one of my favorite threats. I have in the past put many of the kids toys in the garage. I constantly comb through and get rid of old things we don’t need, but this time I took every single toy out of the girls’ room and put them in the garage. I felt bad doing it, but after the day was over and I had picked up a half a trash bag full of trash out of their room and still had to constantly ask them to put shoes away, pick up towels and blankets, etc. I didn’t feel bad anymore. Riis didn’t get any toys taken away because he always takes care of his toys and keeps his bed made and room straightened. I will just have to keep the girls out of his room now! The girls have very little hope of getting their toys back in their current state.

This past weekend it also rained a lot which was wonderful! It was almost amazing to see the rain and Casey said he was distracted by all of the rain washing away down gutters and into storm drains, wishing it could’ve been saved somehow. Unfortunately it’s going to take a lot more rain to recover from this drought!

On Saturday Casey ran a two-fifths marathon, which equals out to about 10.5 miles. He finished with a time of 1:25 which is about 8:11 a mile. He ended up getting really bad reflux during the race but felt good otherwise. He also got first for his age division. It is great to see how happy he gets when he runs races.

After an incredibly busy Saturday I went out with my sisters. Aslinn planned the fun as part of her birthday present. First we ate dinner at a place called Simply Fondue. We had the cheese fondue appetizer and chocolate dessert fondue. It was delicious! Then we went to see a comedy improve group called Four Day Weekend. They were hilarious! They talk to people in the audience and have funny conversations with them and then act out skits about the people as part of their show. Marina got chosen out of the audience to go down on stage and be part of a skit. She was supposed to be going on a police “ride-along” for “citizens on patrol.” The officer/comedian sat next to her and asked her name and then said, “Marina? I once knew a girl named Marina. I asked her out in Jr. High but she wouldn’t go out with me.” Then he continued and said, “Your maiden name wouldn’t be Washburn, would it?” AT this point we were floored. Marina was laughing and nodding, but she didn’t know who he was. He said, “Are you from Farmington, NM?” (nod) “You went to Hermosa Jr. High?” (nodding and laughing) And it continued this way while he remembered things and asked her more questions. The comedian (Josh) was so funny and he and the rest of the group continued to bring up their “acquaintance” for the rest of the evening. Luckily Marina finally remembered who he was. She said he was really funny as a kid so I guess he picked the right career!

Well, that about covers the past two weeks. School is going great. We’ve finished 7 weeks of school and done 192 hours total, averaging 28 hours a week. We’ve also averaged over 10 hours a week of extracurricular activities, not including driving time, trips to the library, errands, etc. I track weeks, but I calculate days of school completed based on hours done so we’ve done 32 days of school so far this year. I hope I can keep it up as I’m now in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy!

Thanks for reading!