Three going on thirteen

I really feel like I'm getting a preview of the teenage years sometimes. At three, Ainsley isn't about to be told what to do. She has picked up on some of her siblings expressions that they wouldn't have even thought of at three, like rolling her eyes at me while saying (very dramatically), "that's sooo boooring!" She loves to "do it herself" and is into everything. If I had a nickel for every time we've said "Ainsley get off of the table/counter/couch/insert other dangerous place for toddlers here" we'd be rich. No wonder she's had more goose eggs than all of my other kids combined. As we often tell her, it's a darn good thing she is so cute. I'm looking forward to another fun year. 

Joey's baptism

This is probably the most significant event that I've neglected writing about over the past few weeks. It's a big, once-in-a-lifetime milestone. And though I would never expect an eight year old to fully understand the doctrines of the gospel, but I do know that Joey wants to follow Jesus, and I'm so happy that he's started down that path. We had a really nice meeting at the stake center. I especially liked the talk about the fruits of the spirit—we've used it many times since then to help the kids try to identify whether or not the spirit is present. Joey and one of his friends in our ward were then baptized and then confirmed. Joey tells me this was his favorite part, because he received the Holy Ghost. 

It was great to have so many family members and friends there to support Joey (even his first grade teacher came)! Because our house was filled with boxes of cabinets, we all gathered afterward at the new downtown Hagermann's and gave the new employees a chance to have a pre-opening with customers who would be back no matter what. The new store is awesome, and the food was great as usual, but the best was not having to clean my house before or after the party! Thanks to Chris and Cara and other Rileys for painting, preparing and pulling it off in time for this.

Quick photo update

As the general contractor of our remodel, I haven't had much time to document the whole process—maybe a few weeks from now, when everything is done and I've cooked a few fabulous meals so that photo scrooge feels like this was all worth it, I'll have time to do a recap. In the meantime, we now have hardwood floors:
and a front door:
a pantry, which I'm very excited about:
shelves in the new den, which photo scrooge is very excited about:
plus doors for said den, so he can shut the rest of us out: 
Tomorrow we'll have a railing and the cabinets will be delivered!

We should be cooking within two weeks, which leads to the all important question in debate around here: what to make first? Cast your vote in the sidebar poll, or leave a comment. 

Eight years old

We are now 4/5ths of the way through birthday season, which begins July 28th and ends October 17th. The days sometimes seem like years, but the years are flying by like days. It's hard to believe Joey is already eight. It's a big milestone around here—he'll be baptized next month.

Looking back through my photos to find a few for this post I found myself smiling again and again, and having a hard time picking my favorite shots. Joey is a big personality in a skinny (but strong) little body. Here are some current highlights:

• He's definitely a redhead!
• One of his superpowers is making friends.
• He thinks he'd like to be a chemist when he grows up.
  
• He loves pepperoni pizza, roasted potatoes & carrots and most treats.
• He's usually the first kid awake.
• This week's note from his piano teacher said "Joey was AWESOME today!"
• He is a great brother!
• He's a great help around the house. A few jobs right now include feeding Jamaica, setting and clearing the table, vacuuming the basement and reading to the girls.
• He's a good student and a teacher's pet.
• When he's happy, everyone's happy. (Unfortunately, the reverse is true too).
• He still lets us call him Boo.
• We love him, and we're proud of him!

It will all be worth it

Photo Scrooge is in danger of being renamed "Remodeling Scrooge." He is not dealing well with the chaos, as you may have read here, here and here. But now that the demolition is done, we will be seeing some progress—the new walls are in, the cabinets have been ordered, the plumbing will be done tomorrow, the electrical on Monday, and the insulation on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll get the drywall started on Wednesday. Anyone want to help me pick out countertops and flooring?

Back in business

After two and a half painful weeks without my computer, I am happy to report the latest addition to our family is a new iMac. It is  a thing of beauty. And function—I don't even think of it as a luxury anymore. I've been working on not drooling on the super-cool aluminum keyboard.

So, now that I've balanced my checkbook, downloaded my photos and caught up reading e-mail & blogs, I'm going to try to post the highlights of the past few weeks, backdating a few just to break things up. We've been so busy that even if I hadn't been without a computer, I'm not sure I would have had time to record it, but there's some good stuff that needs to make it into the year-end book. 

Kindergarten!

Ellie had a few extra days of summer vacation, since the kindergarten teachers had individual student assessments during the first week. Ellie's teacher is young and cute. After Ellie's assessment I asked her what she thought about her teacher and she agreed that she was very nice, then added "And I love her clothes!" 

Happy Birthday Ellie

I've said it before, she is growing up too fast! Here are a few things about Ellie at age five:

• she still sucks her thumb
• she's terrified of dogs, even though we've had Jamaica since before she was born
• she loves ballet, princesses, purple and pink
• she's excited to start kindergarten
• she is an artist, with a great sense for color and design
• her favorite sport is swimming
• she has thrived on a bread and cereal diet 
• she's a five-year-old fashionista, whose shoe fetish started at age two
• he won't admit it, but she has her dad wrapped around her little finger
• she's a great sister
• we love her so much!!!

Back to School

The boys were excited to get back to school, and maybe I'm a bad mom for admitting this, but I was excited to have them start too. Our kitchen/living room remodeling project started the same day, so it was good timing. 

Joey's starting second grade, and we're especially excited because Robbie's third grade teacher moved to second, and Joey's in her class! She is awesome; we couldn't be happier. Second grade is the year that Robbie read the Harry Potter books, and the way Joey has been reading this summer, he should be ready for them. 

Robbie will be in fourth grade, and we don't know his teachers well yet, but they seem great too. I'm hoping for a few more years before Robbie is past my math level, but you never know, it's not something I use much, and he's pretty smart. :)

Happy Birthday Shawn

Yep, we like to hang with the big-wigs. Hope you had a great birthday Shawn! From all of us, especially Ellie, who just said "Write my name on that." Ditto from Ainsley, known for her originality.

Goodbye laundry list

When I started this blog, I thought it would be funny to keep an ongoing count of how many loads of laundry I had completed—maybe I was hoping for sympathy based on the staggering numbers. But I have found that keeping track of this is almost as tedious as folding and putting clothes away, so I'm shutting down the sidebar. On average, I do about ten loads a week, so over 500 loads a year. By the time Ainsley is eighteen, that will total 7800, although I fully intend for my kids to be doing their own laundry well before then, which will help. Until then, I'm trying to think of it as doing my part to make the world a cleaner (and better smelling) place, one sock at a time. 

Birthday wishes

I plan to print this blog at the end of the year, and I'd like to have all our family birthdays documented, but I've already missed a few. Last week was Riley's and Matt's—happy belated birthday, you two. I still have a few hours left of Anne's birthday...I hope you had a great day Anne!

Not quite a super fan

After watching the amazing opening ceremonies, I told Rob that if I had the time and money to be a super fan of something, the Olympics could be it for me. There are a lot of pros: world travel, great ideals, lots of variety, and awesome achievements. Being the cynic, he pointed out the corruption and greed of the IOC, the doping and scandals, the commercialism. But he was cheering just as loud as Robbie and I were when the US men's swimming team "smashed" the French team and the world record last night. I may not be a super fan, but I'll be tuning in for the next thirteen days.

Happy Birthday Robbie!

Ten years ago, we were up at LDS Hospital, just happy to have survived a delivery without medication, no idea what we were getting into. Even then it was worth it, we had a beautiful baby boy. I remember thinking that he would never fit into the huge 6-12 month size clothes that someone gave me. Having a ten year old was the last thing on my mind. It's much better that I could have imagined...I love this kid! At ten, Robbie:

• reads like crazy
  
• is a great helper
  
• is a good brother
• thinks he's the dad
  
• is a talented pianist
• is very in-tune with the spirit
• is an "A" student
  
• is generally happy and optimistic
• is a triathlete
• worships his dad
  
• likes to tease
• had made tennis pro on the Wii
• eats like a teenager
• makes us proud

Happy birthday monkey. July 31st will always be one of the best days of my life.

How to Ruin Your Husband's 40th Birthday

Yes, today Photo Scrooge turned forty. I know, when you look at the picture on his blog, you'd think he could easily pass for eighty, but no, he's just a young one. And here's how I'm ruining this important milestone:



I actually tried to make his day. I called the Apple store this morning at 8:10, only to get the recording for store hours (open at 10 a.m.)...then I called back at 9:59 and asked if there was any way to get my hands on this today. I was told that there were only about twenty people in line so far, so my chances were good. After picking the kids up from swimming and dropping them off at Melissa's, I rushed down to Gateway. I was relieved to hear the employee out front telling the guys in front of me that they would have a phone in their hands by 6 p.m. Then he said "but I'm out of black 16's." He gave the last ticket for one to the person just ahead of me. And I don't see Photo Scrooge using a white phone. So you see, five minutes really can make a difference. Because other than this failure, Rob's day is a perfectly orchestrated birthday dream come true. Yep, up at 5:15 to work out, then to work, then straight to a swim meet for the kids. His only regret is that we'll probably be home too late for him to mow the lawn. :)

On the bright side, he apparently did like this gift, which I made him open last night, because I knew our schedule would be so crazy today:



It's a book made on blurb.com—haiku written by family and friends then matched up with photos by me. If you want to read the haiku, just click on the slideshow and you can see it enlarged. Thanks to all of you who weren't intimidated by the idea of writing a poem!! And thanks again Katie, for the great idea!  (BTW Rob, there are actually a couple of extras here, that I somehow missed when publishing.)

I'm putting another slideshow, with one photo per year, on the sidebar. Because I'm all about ruining perfectly good birthdays.

PS—ILYTM!

An epic day.

You've probably heard of Toyshare and similar companies, where you can pay an annual fee and have access to fun recreational equipment...well, we've found an even better option. It's simply to be related to someone who has all the toys and mooch off of them. :) Yesterday we went to Echo Lake with Shawn and Melissa (and yes, all eight of our kids!) and had the best time ever. It marks the beginning of a new, fabulous stage in our parenting lives—even Ainsley was old enough to ride a tube and LOVE IT. Notice in the photo that she's got the sign for faster figured out. Thanks Stringhams, for buying into the boat, and for being willing to overcrowd it with us.

Dodo Salad

Because we've been living the Stringham lifestyle (read "cereal diet" or "food is optional") Rob's worried about getting too skinny and my recipe book has been neglected. I did make this for the fourth of July, however, and I highly recommend it. If you read the commentary at the beginning of the recipe, you'll also see that it's a great wedding gift idea, along with some salad bowls.

Photo Scrooge won't like this...

I can't believe this was taken almost four weeks ago! The summer has been flying by. Here the short version (that seems long because of the photos):


The kids think Bear Lake is the greatest place on earth, and I have to agree. We love spending time with our extended family there. Thanks again, Ralph and Judy!

Here's a more complete cousins photo at the Smolka's on the 4th—check out cute Clara:

If the Marshes weren't already sick of us after a week at Bear Lake, plus a picnic, swimming & BBQ on the 4th, they had another chance at the family reunion in Alpine on the 5th. It was fun, and I think I could live in Alpine... 

We celebrate all Riley birthdays on the second Sunday of the month, so Rob and Robbie got to celebrate early:

We took the boys to see Kung Fu Panda on the 3rd (four thumbs up), and Robbie was excited to get the game for the Wii.

We were able to go and see Ralph set apart as a sealer in the Salt Lake Temple on the 15th. It was great to meet President Uchtdorf, although Rob called him Elder Uchtdorf, so now he figures he'll be consigned to years of service as a nursery leader. Everyone laughed at me for bringing my camera, so if they want copies of the photos there will be a charge. :)

Not pictured here (You and Photo Scrooge can breathe a collective sigh of relief here) is lots of swimming, Webelos Camp, weeding, soccer, remodeling, weeding, piano, and The Police concert. Did I mention the weeding? The remodeling is going to be covered in another post, possibly on the next holiday, when I have time to blog again.  

"Are you INSANE? Nobody uses Microsoft Works!"

So I've been too busy to document our past few weeks here, but there's always time for font hilarity. Century Gothic has been one of my favorites for a few years...I am SO nonconformist. Vote for your favorite...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

AMAZING.

We had such a good time at The Police concert on Saturday night—the weather was perfect, the company was fun, the kids were in good hands and the music was AMAZING. This clip was one of my favorite songs of the night (although it's from an earlier concert, Sting is wearing the same shirt). Now I just need to find the Ghost in the Machine shirt that Stewart Copeland was wearing for Rob's birthday.

Bonus

When I started this blog it was mostly to relieve my guilt for not scrapbooking or keeping a journal. I've found since then that it's also a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, and even meet people. But I recently discovered yet another benefit of blogging: incentive for my kids. While we were swimming at Ralph & Judy's on the 4th, Robbie was trying to land a flip off the diving board, but couldn't quite make it around before hitting the water. I suggested that I could film him and he could post in on his blog, and here's the result:

Think of the possibilities. I'm envisioning the following post titles by my kids: "I vacuumed the whole house by myself!" and ""Today I didn't whine ONCE!" Or, as long as I'm fantasizing, how about "My full-ride scholarship to Harvard!" 

Still laughing

So, at the swim club there are bubble gum machines with little rubber animals in them, and much to photo scrooge's chagrin, the kids have spent a few quarters to buy some. Today, Joey, Ellie and Ainsley were bartering with them when I heard Ellie tell Ains "I have a no-return policy on the squirrel." I'm still laughing.

The writing is on the wall

This is Ainsley's portfolio. She's never met a writing utensil she didn't love. Unfortunately, her favorite canvases are our walls, doors and furniture. These are a few that we haven't yet cleaned off, or that won't come off (no, not even with a Mr. Clean sponge). It's too bad I didn't have my camera when she grabbed the red sharpie at the Stringham's summer solstice party and decorated their chairs and tables (luckily those did come off with Mr. Clean!). 

Seriously though, if I had a nickel for every time I've said "WE ONLY DRAW ON PAPER!!" I think we could finance our kitchen remodel. Maybe I've got the wrong strategy going—if she learns her letters, she can work on her tag and make some really fly graffiti art.

Robbie the Fish

Robbie had his first swim meet tonight. He swam the team relay, the 50 meter breast, the 50 meter back and the 25 meter fly. He did a great job, and won three third place ribbons! We are so proud of him! He may not be the next Michael Phelps, but he's working hard, making friends and having a great time. What more could you ask for?

It was fun to get to watch Jonas, Samantha and Jenna at the meet too. When Joey starts swim team next year maybe we'll get up to ten minutes of water time during the four+ hour meet. :)

Happy Father's Day!

First of all, let me apologize for not paying tribute to my mom, Judy and grandmas on mother's day—I was busy sleeping in and having breakfast made for me, and then of course church and a great dinner made by Ralph. Hopefully, they know that I love and appreciate them.

I'm feeling pretty blessed today as I think about the great dads and grandpas in my life:

I was born to the best dad,


AND I married the best dad,


who also has the best dad.


We are also lucky to have the best grandpas still around.

Happy birthday Mom!

Mom, 

I'm sorry for all the clothes that I wouldn't wear. And for being such a picky eater. Also, for the dents in the Celica, Station Wagon and Astro Van. Pretty much for my teenage years in general. I'm really grateful that you brought me into the world and let me live in spite of all that. Right there I'm forever in your debt, and since then, you've potty-trained my oldest and been on Disney trips with us three times, so I have no chance of payback. But I hope these four make up a little for all the pain of raising me. ;) We love you!       Shell

The salad that launched a blog

This really doesn't qualify as a recipe, unless your name is photo scrooge, but it belongs in our family favorites book, especially after Robbie wanted to start his own blog just to post this. I was hesitant to let the boys start a blog (I can't even keep up with my own!) but Rob encouraged them, and helped set it up, and now I'm looking forward to getting more of the boys perspective on our family doings. Credit goes to Anne for introducing us to this yummy combination at Bear Lake. And speaking of Anne, congratulations to you and Matt! We can't wait to meet little Clara!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Yesterday I asked the girls if they knew how lucky they are to know their great-grandma. They are especially blessed because we live less than a mile away from her, so we get to see her a lot. Yesterday the girls had a tea party at her house, which they always love, because Grandma makes real hot chocolate and food for them to use with the plastic tea set instead of just making them pretend, like mom does. Grandma came to Ellie's ballet recital on Tuesday night, and we met her for dinner at Apollo Burger on Saturday. We are so lucky!! 

We love you, Grandma! Happy birthday!

Test smarts

I had to laugh when Joey brought this picture home last week:
Today we went to the awards ceremony at our elementary school to see Robbie get an award for being in the top ten percent nationally on his IOWA tests. We are so proud of you, Robbie!

And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank photo scrooge for genetically enabling my kids with smarts.

Ballerinas

"Mom, I loved my ballet recital. I wish I could have gone on stage a hundred times! When can I do it again?" Ellie has been ecstatic since last night's performance. Being a prima donna might just be her calling in life. :)  She really did a great job; she was much more confident and excited than she was last year. In my completely unbiased opinion, she and Amelia were the cutest ballerinas on stage. Next year's cast is already showing some promise though: