Spring and Early Summer In Pictures

Is it even possible to 'catch up' when you are this far behind?  I often think of posting.  It is a way for me to vent and journal, but most days (and nights) there just is not the time to do so.  But, tonight, the kids are mostly sleeping, the dishes are mostly done, and the laundry is going strong.  So, instead of doing more of the 'jobs' I need to be doing, I'm going to play catch up for a moment, with pictures.  

This spring we:

 went to visit my sister.  While she was at work, we took Huz to see the Red Rock Park that we love.  We ran the kids hard and they slept good that night:)

 One

 They climbed everything.

 Three, Huz, BoyTwo, Two, Four, BoyOne, One

 My shadow.  That's all I have to prove that I was there.

 hahahaha.  Not the best picture of everyone!  My awesome sister took the kids swimming so I could watch Huz play in a tennis tournament without having to worry about potty breaks and keeping them quiet.

 My sister introduced us to pickle ball.

 It was super fun.  We froze.

 With my sis.  Minus BoyTwo.  

This is what the kids do in their free time: 

 Four giving herself a pedicure

 Painting their nails and each others.  Great team work.

 After they have painted all their nails and the neighbors, they move on to the dog's nails.

Let's not forget about Easter:

 We do something special every day for a week before Easter.  This is us acting out Jesus' Triumphal Entry.  Please notice the little colored pieces of paper hanging on the wall to the left of the door.  We hang one for each day of that Easter week and on the specific day add a picture and scripture and description of what happened on that day according to the Bible.  Yeah.  I just took those down a few weeks ago (as in during the month of June).  That is how awesome I am.

 We added a new element to decorating eggs this year.  Not only did we dye them, we painted them, too.  I think a new tradition was born.

 Our Easter Bunny comes on Saturday and this year, he really hooked the kids up.  Usually he leaves some candy in their basket and maybe a basketball for them to share or something along those lines.  This year he went all out and sent them on a scavenger hunt that ended on the back deck where kayaks and a pickle ball set were waiting.  The above picture is of them finding and reading a new clue.

 There were six clues so that each child had a turn to 'lead' the others to find the next clue.   Bunny is smart.  This eliminated a lot of potential problems (big kids figuring everything out before littles, one person dominating the whole hunt, '(s)he read it last time now it's my turn', etc.)

 Kayak number one

 Kayak number two.  The pickle ball set is in the background.

 Later that morning we hosted a neighborhood egg hunt and 'light' breakfast.  It was fun.

 More of the kayak

 More of the other kayak

 I figured out the 'perfect' paska recipe for the boys.  BoyOne got to help me prepare it so that he can carry on this tradition for his own family someday.

 Oooh.  Aaaah.  

More of what we do in our free time:

(notice the kids are all in their pajamas as this was a school night and this is Huz's idea of getting them ready for bed)

 Dodge ball on the tramp.  Huz shows no mercy.  It's one of their favorite things to do with their dad.

 'Rolling Pin'  This is probably their number one favorite thing to do with Huz.  He rolls around on the trampoline and they try to jump over him and not get smashed.  It really is a miracle that there have not been any serious injuries to Huz or the kids.

In May:

 My nephew found out where he would be serving his mission.  This was a super cool night that we got to be a part of.  Young men and young women in our church can choose to serve a 2 year (boys) or 18 month (girls) mission where they teach people about Jesus Christ and give a lot of service when they graduate from high school.  They apply to be a missionary through our church and then get a letter in the mail telling them where they get to go.  We all were invited to watch him open his letter and to hear him announce where he would be serving.  It's pretty exciting!  My sister-in-law had a big world map set out and we each got to guess where he would be going.  It was a fun night.

 Pinewood derby.  He lost.  Bigtime.  That's what happens when you paint your wheels (at least he did it himself!) and duct tape weights on at the very last minute because the weight requirement is actually a requirement and not a suggestion as Huz thought.  BoyTwo led the Pledge of Allegiance that night and did a fantastic job.

 There was a kindergarten end of year program,

(Four is on the middle row, on your right)

 last home baseball game,

 last dance competition,

(Sorry, bad pic.  She's not dancing next year.  She plans to go back the following year, but who knows.  It may really be the last comp.  Sad.)

 Four's kindergarten field trip to the fire station, park and library,

(when BoyTwo did this he turned the hose on everyone.  Shocking, I know)

 Two's Third Grade patriotic program,

 she did a great job, by the way,

 a dance recital for the three younger girls,

(look at that heel stretch!)

 (Four for her Miss Hannigan/Annie/It's a Hard Knock-or NOT as all the little girls thought-Life dance)

 (Three for her 'Trouble' by Tay.lor Swift dance where they acted out Red Riding Hood.  Three was grandmother.  It was darling)

 (Two with her best friend for their dance Carousel-I think that was what it was called.  They're clowns)

 BoyTwo had a birthday,

 Four had a birthday and a birthday party,

 One graduated from 6th grade, and then there was the most wonderful

 last day of school (holy freaking FINALLY!!!).  The teachers all lined up to wave good-bye to the students.  One teacher did cartwheels all the way down the side walk.  It's a long side walk.  I think she may have been as happy as I was:)

Whoever said that Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year clearly did not have six kids in school, five at the local elementary, four with learning disabilities, one a budding pyromaniac.  I am here to tell you that SUMMER is the most wonderful time of the year, hands down.  Bless you warm weather and sunshine for saving my life.  So far this summer, we have:

 been boating with friends, 

 kayaked a lot,

(don't panic, I make them wear life jackets.  In this pic they are headed back to shore to get them after taking off w/o)

 danced on the beach,

 went to Boise for my brother's wedding and visited with my best childhood friend and her kids,

 (this is my big little bro and his super awesome wife and all of us, including BoyOne with what he believes is his 'cool' look, until he sees it and is upset but we cannot talk him into not looking constipated in the moment.  sigh.)

and of course, hiked a lot.

(this is the waterfall hike with my friend Jodi and her kids)

This only takes us to the middle of June.  I hope that you're all enjoying summer.  More to come as soon as I upload my camera.  

Happy, Busy Spring

Lack of posts does not necessarily mean lack of events to document.  As for most of us, lack of posts or communication means serious lack of time.

Three had an endoscopy a week or so ago and we found out that she has something called eosinophilic esophagitis and eosinophilic duodenitis.  Very basically, as far as I understand, this is an allergic reaction resulting in eosinophils (a type of white blood cell that fights off infections.  Different problems can cause high numbers of eosinophils such as allergies.  When there are too many in the body, it may be and in our case is an eosinophilic disorder.) within the esophagus and duodenum which is causing all of her problems.  Her GI believes that this is what is affecting all of us and we feel that because we are not a severe case, we can achieve good health through food eliminations.  We are wheat free, dairy free, peanut free and egg free.  Over the past three months we have noticed some significant changes in our health.  One used to get migraines (since she was four), nosebleeds (every day) and has done physical therapy for joint pain.  These things have stopped.  Two, Three and Four have all had major stomach problems (think grass green diarrhea 10 times a day), stomach pains and cramps, nausea and vomiting, and serious leg pain (I haven't slept through the night ONCE since One was born (except if I've been out of town w/o the kids.  Think Ukraine).  That's 12 years people.).  They wake up in the middle of the night screaming with pain that we treat with tylenol and/or advil and heat and massage.  If I had not experienced these same pains growing up, I would not understand.  We were told it was growing pains, although all four girls are in the 10th percentile for height and weight.  Leg pain has stopped, stomach problems have ended.  Just out of curiosity, I fed them wheat three different times over a three week period.  Each time these symptoms recurred.  When I asked the GI about this, wondering if a stomach allergy could in fact affect the rest of the body this way, she told me 'the proof is in the pudding.  Obviously wheat is like poison to your body.  When you ingest these foods it results in an allergic reaction that initiates in your esophagus and gut but that effects the rest of your body.  Everyone's bodies are effected differently, you are finding out how your body is effected.'  So that's that.  It's good to know.  

Our day starts at 5:25 a.m. which I realize is probably fairly typical for the rest of the world.  However, when you don't go to bed until 1:30 a.m., it quite sucks.  BoyOne goes to a football conditioning class at the high school.  He's what we call 'over-committed' at the moment, but at his choosing.  As his parents, we decided this was a great life lesson for him.  We counseled him, he chose to ignore us (because we're just his parents, what do we know:)) and now he is committed to A LOT.  After the first day of all of his many activities, he wanted to back out of all of them.  We sympathized with him as to how tired he must be and then reminded him of his commitments by showing him the contracts he had signed to be on the various teams he had joined.  Anyhow, on to the rest of the day and week.

The rest of the kids are up at 7:30 a.m. and out the door at 8:30.  Sometimes, like today, we get to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store in that hour because we're out of almond milk and our already limited choices for breakfast are basically non-existant without that main ingredient.   

I still spend quite a bit of time at the elementary, but this year I don't have to be in BoyTwo's classroom at all times.  It's sufficient for me to be in the school.  If there's a big problem, they can get me.  If there's a little problem, I usually have a little suspicion rise in me and can simply walk down the hall and happen to run into Mr. Trouble.  I'm super happy that he's much less violent this year, but really wish he could get through the day without throwing a tantrum, being sent to the principal's office or losing a recess.  Those three things tend to happen every day, not just one of them each day.  Just to keep it real, last week he was sent to the principal's office four times, threw a tantrum at school each day, missed three of his recesses, was removed from an assembly, tried to start the neighbor's playset on fire, broke all of their matchbox cars they had received for Easter (he smashed them with a stick into smithereens.  He smashed them into a railroad tie so hard that we could not even remove the pieces.  If you didn't know what they were before you saw the pieces, you wouldn't be able to tell.  He did this while I was in the bathroom, so what, maybe five minutes?), broke a picture frame, stole three different times from three different people...  You get the picture.  

After school, we hit the ground running.  

Monday:   BoyOne has baseball

                 One has dance

Tuesday:  BoyOne has a baseball game, then soccer game

                 One has dance

                 Two has tumbling

Wednesday:  BoyOne has baseball

                      Two, Three and Four have dance, all at different times, of course:)

                      BoyOne, One, Two and BoyTwo have church activities this night

Thursday:  BoyOne has his away baseball game, then an away soccer game

                  One, Two, Three, Four and BoyTwo have tumbling

Friday:  BoyOne has his track meets

             One has dance

Just to recap, BoyOne is participating in football conditioning, baseball, soccer and track.  It is kicking his butt.  We are happy that he is having to listen to direction from several other people at the same time.  He has a difficult time taking direction from anyone and tends to think that whomever his current coach is is a tyrant.  While we readily acknowledge he is over-committed, it's been good for him to have these four things going on at the same time so that he can see which coach really is a tyrant and who is not and that all have similar expectations.  I'm not sure where this mentality comes from, but he tends to think he is king of all sports and everyone else is a pathetic loser.  This has been a humbling experience for him, in a good way.  He is realizing that while he is very gifted athletically, he still has to put forth effort and train hard and still might not be the best.  Instead of motivating him to try harder though (I do know where this mentality comes from), he tries to back out and quit (this is where the contracts come into play).  He has learned to persevere (thanks to his stubborn mother) and that with consistent and determined effort, he can progress (thanks to his coaches).  He is getting stronger and much more healthy.  It's a good change in him.  

School is still a fairly significant struggle for four of my kids, which weighs heavily on me.  Although, and perhaps because, they are in public schools, I feel largely responsibe for ensuring they progress in their education.  I look forward to summer when I can have our own curriculum and structure.  We tend  to make leaps and bounds during the summer months academically and generally the kids return to school in the fall caught up.  With the exception of BoyTwo who will more than likely move at his own pace indefinitely.  He does progress more in the summer than during the school year though, both academically and behaviorally.   

Life is good and busy and we are all still here. 

Fingerprints

Well, it's almost like I went and fell off the face of the earth!  Life is so busy.  Oh my gosh whirlwind what just happened busy.

Today as I ran through the house trying to get things somewhat in order, feeling frustrated that the kids aren't better about picking up their 'things', I remembered the fingerprints.

In our old house, there were french doors in the kitchen/family room area that led to our backyard deck.  The girls were all babies in that house and grew up there.  They loved to stand at those windows and lick the glass as babies do and put their chubby little fingers all over them.  We'd often leave the door open so they could wander in and out.  They loved 'kissing' each other through the window and pulling funny faces at each other with their little cheeks and noses smooshed against the glass.  As you can imagine, the bottom third of the windows were covered in prints.  Lip prints, cheek prints, finger prints, you name it.  And I never cleaned them.  I was always afraid that if I did something would happen to one of the girls and I'd be so sad that I had cleaned off their little markings.  I wanted them there all the time so that I could see them and remember their littleness.  I remember one time coming home and a well meaning baby sitter had cleaned them for me.  It was all I could do to not start bawling that very moment.  haha.  Now don't pass out, they did get cleaned, occasionally.  Just not every single day like they needed.  It was a sad day when we moved out of that wonderful little house and I had to wash the prints away forever.  And it was forever.  They were gone and so was that phase of our lives.  We wash the windows weekly here in our new house and rarely are there any prints at all on the windows.  That little phase of our life was left behind at our old house and in our memory.  Silly as it may sound, I'm so glad that I let those fingerprints and smudges stay.  I can still see them in my mind and it is a treasured memory, a reminder of a different part of my life that I will never have back.

They're growing up so fast.

As I looked around at backpacks not put away, sewing projects left out and unfinished, coloring books and puzzles haphazardly slid to the sides of the walls, I realized that this was the new 'fingerprint'.  And that sadly, someday, the house will stay picked up after it is cleaned, the locker hall will hang empty, toys and puzzles will be a thing of the past, and Huz and I will be alone.

I'm grateful for these thoughts that I have that help me to slow down and to be present.  It's something that I have to work on constantly.  Time is so easy to take for granted.  'I'll read it to you tomorrow', 'I'll play chess with you after I _____', 'let me make this phone call first', etc.  One day I'll wake up and they'll be all grown up.  I think about my own mother who will call me to talk and it will take me a day or two to get back to her with a free minute to chat.  Someday they won't need me every second of every day (like today.  I think 'mom' was said over 50 times in a single half of an hour.  I hid in the bathroom and they were waiting centimeters away from the door when I emerged thirty seconds later:)).  Someday they will be the ones who don't have time for a game of chess or a little chat.  Oh, it makes me wish for more time with them.  

(the fingerprinted doors are behind us)

Cabbage Rolls AKA Holubtsi

When we were in the early stages of adoption, I had grand plans to carry on their Ukrainian heritage, to regularly make Ukrainian meals, to celebrate the holidays and customs the boys were familiar with.

Then we got home and the beautiful music came to a screeching halt as I realized the boys had not experienced much of Ukraine at all!  In fact, during my time in their country, I sampled more 'Ukrainian cuisine' than they were familiar with.  

Holidays?  Yeah, right.  This made me sad.  Searching the web for traditions and foods didn't produce any finds that the boys were familiar with.  I grilled them for information about how they spent their holidays asking questions about anything that they could remember in hopes that I could incorporate these things into our lives now.   There was nothing.  I should have realized this before, how many happy family memories are there going to be for them to draw from, really?  I was naive for expecting this.

Then as Easter was approaching, I got all gung-ho again and tried to make paska.  The one time I DID make something Ukrainian I made the wrong version (although I had pulled up several pictures to show to the boys prior to making it to be certain it was the right one).  It was a lot of work and honestly not that great, so I was content to, once again, let it go.  Truthfully, the boys seem hardly interested, so this was an easy decision.

Fast forward to about a month ago.   I decided that, as their mother, I should make more of an effort to introduce them to their country, to teach them about where they came from, as best as my American self could.  I believe that some day they will want to know more about their country of origin and I don't want them thinking that I kept it from them or don't want them to have an association with it, because I do if they do.  And I really hope they do.

For a few nights from 1-4 when I should have been sleeping but couldn't, I took a break from researching CAPD and FASD and looked up some recipes.  I decided to start with something easy.  Easy to make, easy to introduce the fam to.  These little cabbage rolls were my experiment.  I chose them because it kind of sounded like yummy meatloaf, which is pretty close to American.  I didn't find any one recipe to use, instead I combined a whole bunch and hoped it would work out.  It did and we will have these again.  I'd love to share the recipe, but I'm not always the greatest about following recipes or about writing down any changes that I make.  I also tend to not use measuring devices except for a one cup scoop.  I estimate all other quantities, if I must at all, in that puppy.  BUT, I did remember to take some pretty pictures:)  One helped me make these and we had fun doing it.  

End result?  Pretty good.  It's what I would describe as a comfort food.  BoyOne remembered having eaten these when he was younger.  In fact, when he saw them, he pointed out the cabbage, and in his best grandma voice said, 'Eat zis, Danichka.  It lots of veetameens,' and told us his babushka used to say this to him.  hahaha

Best Guess at a Recipe

the meat mixture

1 lb ground turkey

1 lb ground pork

some minced garlic

chopped onion

salt, pepper, onion salt, stuff like that

a couple eggs

Mix it all together.  I meant to saute the onions and garlic but totally forgot but it didn't matter.

Cook some brown rice, but not all the way through.  I think I did the equivalent of four servings.

Mix meat mixture and rice and throw in some tomato soup or juice or sauce.  I can't remember which I used, but I don't think it really matters too much.

Plop a head of cabbage in water.  Bring to a boil.  One at a time, grab a leaf with your fingers (be careful the water is hot:)) and fill with meat mixture.  Place in greased cast iron pot (I have an indoor dutch oven that I used, but anything would probably work), seam side down.  Repeat until all cabbage leaves have been used.  

Pour crushed or dices tomatoes over the top, along with tomato soup and tomato juice.  I actually remember doing this about half way through and then again at the end.

Bake at 400 for 1/2 hour and then 350 for another 1 1/2 hours.

 the cabbage

 the meat

 placing the meat in the leaf.  I found a couple resources that talked about how to roll it.  It suggested that you roll it like a cone and then stuff the top into itself .  It worked out really well.

 the bottom is the pointy part of the cone and so nothing is falling out.  the top was the wide part which I stuffed into itself after rolling.

the end

p.s.  it makes a lot and tastes pretty good as left overs

a couple of the resources I remember: natashaskitchen(dot)com, followingclosely(dot)blogspot(dot)com, and learnpysanky(dot)com