Mothers' Day 2015

Wew hew for Mother's Day!  Gotta love the one day per year when you can ask everyone to do stuff for you and they feel obligated to say yes!!!

This year, I sent David to Idaho to look at a house on the Saturday before Mother's Day.  He was gone the entire day.  In fact, he came home after I left for the annual "we'd-rather-go-out-to-eat-together-than-buy-each-other-small-gifts" dinner with my mom and sisters.

We stopped at Grandma Church's house first.  We had a nice visit, but we were unable to convince her to join us at the restaurant.  I don't know how to label people in this picture because there is no "left to right" or "row one," etc.  Let me try:  I'm the huge beast in front.  Katie W. is smiling at my shoulder and Katie S, is the one in glasses.  My mom is in the light green jacket.  Grandma Church is in white and Krsitin is in stripes.  That wasn't too hard.

We ate at a Greek restaurant that I used to frequent - University Broiler.  Seriously.  I used to eat there so often that I knew the owners and they knew me by name.  But that was a lifetime ago.  I didn't see the owners, and I'm sure they wouldn't remember me if I had.
We sat by a mural of a beautiful Greek Coastal town - I thought Kristin looked perfect beside it in her sailor-striped shirt.   

Some of the delicious food we ate.  Goodness!  I love me some Greek food!

Mother's Day itself was very nice.  We had yogurt parfaits for breakfast.  They were delicious.  David surprised me by buying a box of chocolates from Florence's while he was in Rexburg the day before.  It was a very thoughtful and nostalgic gift!  Of course, each of the kids wrote me nice letters (Nicki even helped Quin write a letter.  She'd say, "Do you love mom?" and he'd nod his chubby-cheeked head, so she'd write it down.  Then she'd say, "Do you like how she cooks for you?" and he'd nod those cheeks again.)  I received a lot of origami and paper decorations throughout the day.  One (again from Nicki) was made of several strips of paper woven together into a mat.  A rock was placed on the mat, along with a sign that read "you hold this family together."  Josh made me a special mug at school.  Nicki gave me coupons for FIVE free foot massages!  She gives great massages and I need them - I have neuropathy issues and I've started running again so they're flaring up.  Alison gave me some valuable coupons for things such as free babysitting, an exercise partner, taking my turn to do the dishes, and being quiet and not arguing.  I felt really spoiled by all the attention and thought that my cute family gave me.

For dinner, we ate homemade chicken noodle soup and a couple of chewy baguettes dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  My mom brought over fresh strawberries, real whipped cream, and pound cake for our dessert.  It was fantastic.  Then, David played chess with Ali and tried teaching it to Josh.  It was nice to see all of them playing together.  I, meanwhile, bummed around on the couch and watched church videos on Mormon.org.  Ahhh...bliss...

Momma and her gaggle of Gee's:  Nicole, Alison, Quinton, Bronson, and Joshua. 

Talking Time

Bronson is officially in speech therapy.  He has a pretty severe speech impediment.  Even David has to ask me to interpret for him.  In March, we had Bron tested through the school district and it was determined that he would benefit from speech services.

So, in April we started a program called "Talking Time."  It's a once-per-week class designed for students and a parent to attend together. (No siblings allowed - thank heaven for Grandma Smith!)  The class has two speech therapists, one aide and no more then five students.  Each child works on their own IEP goals, but each week there is a "theme" and a sound we all say together.  We start out together in a group reading a book, then we rotate through centers:  activities, crafts, and games, etc. Two of the centers are one-on-one time with a therapist.  The other three groups are parent-led.

Bronson loves his talking time preschool in many ways.  It's pretty fun to play and do activities and earn prizes, etc.  Plus, he likes having time with mom ONLY - that almost never happens.  But he also hates it because it's REALLY hard work!  And he wishes he could stay home and play with grandma.   He's working VERY hard and he's doing a great job!  He CAN make the "k" sound when he tries, but he hasn't added it to his normal vocabulary yet (I guess that's normal and expected).  We started working on "f" for a week or two before they stopped for summer break.  We have a huge packet of homework for the summer,  and we'll continue with Talking Time again next year.    We've got a LONG way to go, but I'm confident we'll get there.  In the meantime, I should probably be grateful that people don't know what he's saying all the time.  The other day, the counselor in our ward's primary came up to me laughing and said that when she sat down next to Bronson during sharing time, he smiled up at her and said, "I've got a dice in my underwear."  She looked at Bron's teacher to make sure she heard him right.  The teacher just nodded.  Yup.  I guess he did.  What a kid!

Women's Conference

Bless my husband's heart!  He volunteered (or at least agreed) to take a couple of days off in late April/early May and watch our children so that I could attend the two-day Womens' Conference at BYU in Provo.  Oh how I needed that break!  I was losing my mind at home; feeling tired and overwhelmed and impatient.  The conference was EXACTLY what I needed. Not only a break from the norm, but a re-filling of my almost empty emotional and spiritual reserves.

When I left on Wednesday night, David looked...well...less than excited.  The kids really have been extra wound up and crazy lately and he had a busy couple of days ahead of him (filled with not only the regular shuffle, but also a kindergarten program, a dentist appointment, etc.).  Of course, he handled it all like a champ and everyone was perfectly happy in my absence.

I won't write details about each class I attended.  Only David has to sit through the hours-long, blow-by-blow reliving of the classes.  That's one of the things I really love about that man.  He always listens as I tell him the teeniest details of my life.  He even seems to enjoy it.  What a man!  But I digress - I meant to say that the whole conference was amazing!  I learned so much and thought about a couple of doctrines in ways I'd never known before.   I came home encouraged, rejuvenated, and ready to be a better person.  But for this family history, I'll just share a couple of the highlights that were non-class related.

I went to the conference with my mom.  My dad just happened to be in a conference in Provo that same week.  So, instead of staying in the dorms, we were able to stay in his hotel room.  It was WONDERFUL!  Dad had a little mix up when he checked in, so they ended up upgrading him to the upper floors - the ones with free concierge service and hot breakfast, etc.  It was great!  We ate cookies and drinks in the lounge each night. I met Sister Uchtdorf and her daughter one morning at breakfast.  Talk about amazing!

On the very first morning there, I was remembering the times I had come to the conference with a group of ladies from my old ward in Idaho.  I joked to my mom that I wanted to find my friend, Laura Luthy in the crowd of 15,000+ women.  We laughed at the idea.  Then, about fifteen seconds later, I looked a few rows down, and there was Laura!  I ran down to her and gave her a big hug.  She came over and sat with me for that first session.  We had a great time catching up!

So, I was taking pictures with my tablet, which I don't do very often.  I didn't know until later that night that I had my camera in "video" mode.  This is the only evidence I have of seeing my dear friend, Laura.

And here is another "video selfie."  Makes me laugh.

Mom is so much fun to go to women's conference with!  She's very easy to get along with. She loves going to the classes and discussing them afterwards, but is equally fine with skipping a class to shop and/or eat a little bit.  She's funny and generous and very insightful - just a great all-around companion at a place like that. I had a really great time at the conference, but just as much fun hanging out with her and Dad in the evenings.

Okay, now the camera is in "picture' mode. 

Mom and I spent a little while working in the service stations that first evening.  It's SO amazing to see how much gets done in that one conference:  Millions of pounds of food packaged and kits for various groups in need, quilts, etc.  Incredible!

BYU creamery ice cream.  Yum!

John Bytheway and I "catching up."  Just kidding, but I really did meet him when he was just starting out.  I was the student body president of my middle school and I booked this new motivational speaker for an assembly.  Our hands are blurry because we're doing a fist pump.

My girls LOVE Studio C, so I couldn't resist posing with the life sized cutouts and trying to convince them that I met the real people.  They didn't believe me.  

Alison's writing

I wrote in the past about Alison winning an essay contest and how she wants to be an author when she grows up.  I think she's talented enough to do it if she actually wants!

She won another essay contest a few months back.  This one was about the stock market.  She was competing against all the 6th graders from several different schools.  She was really bummed because she only got third place (the ONLY person in her school who won anything, and she received a $75 prize).

Ali is constantly changing the lyrics to songs.  It drives me CRAZY!!!  I grew up with a mom and a little brother who changed the lyrics of every song they knew to sing about our dog or our cat.  I thought when I moved out that I could just listen to normal lyrics again, but Ali is worse than Mom and Scott ever were!  I have to admit, some of the songs are cute.  She and her friends actually wrote the song that her whole grade is going to be singing at graduation in a couple of weeks. I've also discovered that my dear husband is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to inserting wrong lyrics into songs.  He knows an alternate version to nearly every song ever written.  Between the two of them, I rarely hear the real words to songs anymore.  

Here are the lyrics to a song Alison wrote which I actually like.  It was inspired by a similar version that my parents sang about my baby brother when I was little:

TO THE TUNE OF "THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC"
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the chubbiness of Quin.
He's the cutest little baby and it's borderline a sin.
He is sweet and round and cuddly and the opposite of thin.
His thighs go thunderin' on.


I also love this poem, which she wrote for an assignment at school.  I don't even know what the assignment was - I assume writing a poem about a color???  I wouldn't have known about it at all if she hadn't left in on the counter one morning, printed in green ink and pasted on a paper cut out in the shape of a tree:

GREEN
Green is rolling hills, topped by trees,
Bitter candy, not so sweet.
Morning air, crisp and thin,
Green's a summer picnic shared by kin.
Green is when you feel so sick,
Green is lots of foliage thick.
Green was made a holiday,
Green's when you don't get your way.
I think of mint and trees and leaves,
I think of a chill carried on a breeze.
And now when I hear the word "Green",
I'll always think of poetry.


Pretty cute, huh?

So this is a little off topic, but these are pictures of Alison dressed up as a queen (you have to EARN the title of Queen and it's not easy!) for her class's medieval days.  Is it just me, or does it seem like Alison has a lot of dress up days?  I swear this is the fourth or fifth costume I've had to come up with and she's got another one next week where she has to be Joan of Arc.  Sheesh!

Suffocating

Things are going along just fine in my life.  I've learned the joy of sprouting seeds in a mason jar and I eat delicious sandwiches and salads all the time.  I've asked David to tear out a big chunk of grass in my backyard so that I can have a decent garden and he actually agrees to it.  I planted some herbs and lettuce in various pots on my back porch.  What more can a woman ask for right?

I'll tell you what a woman can ask for...space!  room!  distance!  I'm getting claustrophobic in our little .2 acre plot in a subdivision.  I want land.  I want chickens and goats (maybe) and a beehive!  I want my kids to play outside in the back yard for hours with JUST each other!  I don't know why it's hit me so hard recently - I really haven't had a problem for the past three years.  But I'm done!  I'm suffocating!  I need space!!

Around the time I went into surgery a few months ago, I mentioned to David that I wanted to go "home" - meaning Idaho. He said that he would love to go back, but that I should be aware that it wouldn't be the same.  I couldn't expect to pick up the same life we left.  I understood.  Then, I dropped the subject.

Three weeks ago, I saw a friend's posting of a home for sale in Rexburg, so I clicked on it.  It wasn't interesting to me, but I happened to scroll through a few other listings on the real estate agent's website.  What I found was staggering.  We could buy a decent home with a few acres of property for LESS than we bought this home for.  One house in particular stood out to me.  I showed it to David and he was actually interested in it too.

So, doing everything absolutely backwards, David drove to Rexburg a couple of weekends ago.  He went by himself, met an agent friend of ours, looked at the house, then drove home while I stayed home and held down the fort.  What he discovered was that the house wasn't quite right for us.  Bummer.  But it has made me hopeful that there may be a good place for us out there. David told our agent friend that "Kelley has a bee in her bonnet" about this move.  Later, when he told me that, I looked David square in the eye and sternly said, "Don't you EVER say 'bee in her bonnet' again!"  Then I laughed. Now I say it all the time about myself.  It actually describes me perfectly in this situation.

I like our lives here in Utah.  It has been really wonderful in many ways.  I'm so grateful for the time we've spent and the memories we've made here.  But I miss the space we had in Idaho and there is NO way we can afford it here.  Plus, I really miss our family in Idaho so much!  My side of the family is so great, but we don't see each other much more than we did when I lived in Idaho.  We talk on the phone (which I can do from another state).   I see my folks a lot.  That would be hard to let go (maybe not for them - they watch my kids more than they should).  But the Idaho crew has more kids around my children's ages (4 of my 5 kids are younger than all their cousins on the Smith side) and I love the weekly Sunday afternoon get-togethers.  If we're going to make the move back, we should do it soon, before our kids get any older.  Alison already says she doesn't want to go.

The bottom line is that we're probably not going to move.  You don't leave a good job just because your wife needs space.  If you do, you usually have another job lined up.  Plus, the idea of selling this house, packing, etc, makes me tired!  Still, if I have anything to do with it, I'll get it done.  Don't mess with this woman once she gets a bee in her bonnet!