Okey dokey, here's round 2 of the attempt to get my pictures caught up. These first ones are of our family at our little rope swing that we like to frequent.
BoyOne
One
Two. Soooo, Two didn't exactly go off the rope swing. Oh, she swung on it puhlenty all night long, but wouldn't let go and drop into the water! So, this is actually a picture of Huz chucking her into the water. He's pretty strong.
I've mentioned before how rigid BoyTwo is. This is a perfect example. Notice how all the other children are flying into the air with bodies slightly curled or bent? Notice how he looks like he is in a body cast? (Jazz hands!) On the brighter side of things, when you are this tense, you flyyyyyyyyy!
Three. I'm kind of bummed that I got the backsides of so many of these pictures as I'm certain that their expressions would have been priceless. I couldn't have stood on the other side to photograph this day because the water was too high. Backsides it is!
Four. I did stand on the other side for this one because she's littler and let's be honest, Huz didn't push her as high so I was able to stand really close to where she was without getting knocked out as she flew by. Because she received a smaller push, she also didn't go as far out into the water so I only had to be in the water up to my shins or maybe my knees. I don't really remember. This is her turn right before she fell on the sand and got hurt:(
Huz, taking his obligatory turn.
Huz and BoyOne. They raced into the water and then dove in. I love this picture. They were both laughing really hard and look so happy.
Just a sample of One from a different angle. I like the other pics better because they show how pretty the mountains are, but this one's good, too.
Happy Father's Day, you rock star of a husband, you. At church all the kids made him ties. So, he wore six ties plus his regular one. Oh funny story, during Primary singing time the leader asked him to come in to help motivate the kids to sing louder. She had brought an old tie, had him put it on and was going to let the kids cut his tie, little by little, if they were singing loudly. Sounds like a cute idea, right? Didn't go over so well. The first time they reached a goal, a little boy was called on and when they handed him the scissors to cut Huz's tie, he started to cry and said something along the lines of not wanting to cut the tie because it wasn't choosing the right. hahahaha. Some older kid in the crowd said, 'this is just wrong.' So FUNNY! Anyhow, by the end of church I had heard from about ten kids how the singing lady had MADE. SO&SO. CUT. HUZ'S. TIE. and how this other kid had cried. It took awhile for the kids to get over it.
Beatrice the woodpecker.
North Fork Waterfall hike, take one. BoyOne was at High Adventure with Huz.
Hiking up the trail.
I don't even remember what they were pointing at, but I thought it was cute/funny that they were all pointing.
Four. She's a trooper. Look at how dirty her face is!
Three.
BoyTwo. Look at how dirty his face is! I think we took half the dirt in the forest home with us:)
Two and our dog, Lady. We brought Lady with us on this hike. Which she LOVED! She was smiling the entire time. But, she is old (10) and has hip displacia (yeah, I know I spelled it wrong) and One and I ended up carrying her/lifting her a lot. The trail wasn't terribly hard for us, but there were a few trees that we had to climb over=lift/carry the (80 lb.) dog over, three steep parts that we had to lift/carry her up which then meant that we had to get her back down again on the way back. Anyhow, I was worried that it was going to kill her. She survived, thankfully, but we didn't make it all the way to the waterfall. We were right. there. but the trail ending was pretty steep and on rock so there was no way we'd be able to carry her down, let alone get her back up, so we hiked back down a few minutes (all the steep parts) and played in this other little area. It worked out really great. Kids loved it and Lades just drank a ton of water and laid there.
One. She was a great helper. It's really nice when you have a kid who is old enough to be mostly helpful.
Ladybug. I LOVE this picture of her! See? Look at that big smile!
The little area that we played in.
BoyTwo, One, Four
Four crossing the water. It wasn't very deep. Deep enough to play in and get wet though!
Kind of an across-the-way shot.
A pretty butterfly.
While Huz and BoyOne were gone, I let all the kids invite a friend over for dinner and a movie/late night. Three and her friend became bored of the movie and so to entertain them, I gave them pedicures which turned into 'makeovers', hair styling, dressing up and a photo shoot. She is such a girl.
Out of order, I know. This was during our hike. One found a rock shaped like a heart, so we took a picture and she convinced me to let her take it home (people. can you only imagine how many potential pets we could end up with? I can't even say no to a rock!) which turned into all the other kids finding 'cool' rocks and me taking pictures of their 'cool' rocks which then turned into me hauling all these 'cool' rocks home in my backpack, only to dump them in the enormous rock graveyard that is our yard. May they never say that I did not embrace their love of nature.
This is from the same night as the whole pedicure/makeover thing. After returning friends to their homes, I went upstairs for the first time all night. Holy Hannah. Before the night started, everything was picked up and put away. I yelled to the kids to get their hineys upstairs stat and ordered them to pick up the crazy mess they had made. The girls all looked at me bewildered and said things like, 'mom, I did not do this.' and 'mom, I have no idea how this got so messy' and then one of them said, 'BoyTwo did this' to which I told her to not blame her brother for such a huge mess as it was clear to me that there was no possible way only one child could be such a tornado. 'Start picking it up now!' I ordered. And then BoyTwo came skipping up the stairs, 'Mom, I do this!' As it turns out, he really did make this entire mess all. by. himself. Not only did he get out every. single. toy that we own, he literally dismantled and dumped out and scattered every single thing (i.e. lincoln logs. didn't build anything with them, just opened the box and scattered them throughout the entire upstairs. littlest pet shops? Same thing. Ev.er.y.where. he filled all the pool ball pockets with a variety of randomness). I asked him if he had been playing with the toys, because I was still shocked and confused. He smiled more and said 'no, just mess it all up'. When I asked him why he did this, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. This kid loves to push my buttons and it had worked. In the picture he looks somber, but trust me, he was not. He was momentarily concerned that I was photographing what he had done because I thought it was cute or something. He was trying to figure out why I wasn't mad anymore. A minute before, he was loving that he had made me mad and that I had yelled at the girls. And he was loving that it was late and past his bedtime and he thought that I would let him stay up to clean it up, but by then I was back on my toes again and told him that he still had to go to bed and that the mess would be waiting for him in the morning. I had grabbed my camera so that I could show Huz what he had done. Sometimes when I hear myself tell these stories and they sound made up, even to myself, so sometimes I document them just to prove that I don't make this stuff up. I have a hard time remembering that I have to always act like I'm not surprised or upset. Do not react. This is my mantra.
What a great family! Your children are so cute!
ReplyDeleteI suppose if it were MY house I'd be upset, but I can't help but hear this story as told by some revered author or artist being interviewed on NPR as one of the crazy memories of this childood.
As long as he helped clear it up, I'd think it is just a whimsical part of his nature. (Think positive until you are absolutely sure you can't -that's my motto). I'm sure HE would have cut the tie!
Annie! Hi, great to hear from you:) It really is part of his nature. (See comments below) He honestly cannot make himself stop. The school principal thinks that he'll be student body president of the high school and asked that we send him a letter in10 years when it comes to pass. I sure hope he's right and that the letter doesn't come from juvey. haha. Like all kids, he definitely has personality traits that could make or break him. Hope you're doing well!
DeleteI think your mantra should be "know what boy two is doing at all times."
ReplyDeleteThey all look so delightful.
My mantra is leave it on the table. There is always a table or desk around somewhere. So, when I start getting tense, I look at or visualize the table and put my tenseness there and walk away. Sometimes, though, special moments deserve to be brought to the table.
It's all good.
Just asking, do you give your kids an allowance? If you worry about theft, you could give each a wallet and put the allowance in their respective wallet and put those in the locked glovebox of the locked car. They get it regardless of whether they've done something. The kicker is that they have to pay you for some certain things that didn't work out right. Then, they get to spend that money on whatever (practically) they want or they can save it. I was just wondering if boy two might react differently to losing something of value rather than receiving your displeasure.
Just a thought.
Interesting thought Jefferson. We do give allowance. Each kid has a check register that we record it in and then I keep cash in a lockbox so that nobody can blame anyone else for any money missing (they tend to forget if they take out a couple bucks here and there so we use the check register to keep track of all that). Up until two months ago, BoyTwo did not earn allowance as he did not understand money at all nor the concept of things having value. Instead he chose an item and worked toward it, gaining points until he received it. At the beginning of summer he was asking to join the allowance bandwagon so I decided to give it a try. He is currently saving his precious dollars for a stuffed monster. There are times where I make my other kids pay me (One is a notorious mess maker. She must give me a $10 deposit when her friends come over that she will get back IF she cleans up the messes they make. Best idea I'd had in a long time). BoyTwo is tricky because he is so continually making poor decisions that we felt like he was always losing privileges and things. The other problem is that he literally breaks all of his toys. On purpose. He can't control himself. He got a little transformer toy from his cousin last week and had broken it two days later. Sometimes I'll have to hold his toys for him so that he doesn't break them. He knows he doesn't want it broken, but he can't make himself not ruin it. All that to say that he still does not grasp the concept of value, wether it be monetary or personal. Maybe I'll have him 'earn' money to pay me by doing jobs? I'll have to think about it and give it a try.
DeleteSometimes, broken toys are their own consequence. My boy two and your boy two are different. I'd buy my son some rather expensive things that he really really wanted. When we first got home, we had some money left over from what we took to Ukraine with us (I know!) and I decided to spend it on him. Some I put in an account so he could have a really good time at our local street fair and some to buy Christmas presents and some for a used PSP. The lady at the place where we bought it was also adopted and threw in a bunch of stuff - case, cords, books, a game, discount on a second game, game-holder case. When he'd get in trouble, we'd take it. Then it wasn't working quite right. Next I knew, he had it completely torn apart. Next Christmas, he said that was what he wanted. I said sure - I wanted the leverage. Now, though, he's been on the computer playing Minecraft. It's summer and I harass him about reading and brushing his teeth and about going out to play. School starts in 10 days; that will really cramp his style, though the school is going all technology - each student gets an iPad. I wonder how long before they have to rethink that.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that mess he made, it looks like he had a plan. Was he actually creating something and we just don't recognize it as creation but rather as destruction?