HAPPY CHAOS

I think it's been  awhile since I posted about books I've read. I don't even know if I will remember all of them, but here are my thoughts on some:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Most of you have probably already read this book, and now the movie is coming out in August. It is about a young white Mississippi woman in the early 1960s who begins to write the stories of the black maids the local families have working for them. I loved this book! Loved the characters and the story. I liked how authentic it was. I would crack up at some of the expressions and characterizations of the town, as I heard many of them growing up. It still blows me away that this mindset existed just years before I was born, and while my parents were growing up (in the South, I might add). My mom told me that her family and none of her friends' families had maids, but that she did she remember the public pool being shut down when integration was being enforced. It's a really good book.

The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright - Not really my kind of book, but it was ok. Pretty heavy on the cheese. It was a nice enough story, though. It is about a man named Cole Connor who heads a project that helps struggling teenagers. The story is centered around the story of his father and how he could have let something that happened in 17 seconds destroy his life, but instead he decided to do acts of kindness to change other people's lives.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - One of the most incredible books I've ever read!! I highly recommend it. It the true story of  Louie Zamperini, who is a true American hero and I don't know why we haven't heard about him before. Louie lived in California before the start of World War II and was kind of a hellion as a kid. But it was his tenacious, unbeatable spirit that led him to be an Olympic runner and then an Army hero and POW during WWII. He went through so much - including a plane crash, floating and surviving at sea, and multiple Japanese POW camps (including some that were off the grid). His story is one of tenacity, survival, and resilience. He is still alive and is an inspirational speaker. It is an amazing story I think everyone should read. When I read things like this, I can't help but wonder how I would have held up in all the circumstances and if I would have the inner strength to not only survive, but triumph after those experiences.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson - You've all probably heard of this book as well. Now they've made a movie out of it, along with the rest of the trilogy. I had no idea what this book was about when I started reading it. This book is twisted. It is about a disgraced financial journalist who is hired by an old, rich businessman to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece 40 years earlier. As he begins to dig into the family's past, lots of deep dark secrets are uncovered. The title refers to the multiple tattooed, pierced, and somewhat dysfunctional research assistant he hires to help him that has her own storyline throughout the book and the rest of the series. I can see how people get caught up in reading it, as it is suspenseful and a mystery, but it was such a disturbing story on so many levels.

Right now I am reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. This has been out a long time, and I haven't seen the movie made of it yet, either, but for some reason it attracted my attention when I was at Half Price Books. I don't really like the writing style, as it reminds me of the lame romance novels my sister and I would secretly read from my grandma's headboard. And it is pretty much historically inaccurate. However, I am fascinated with the role of the women during those times and the politics of family and their rise. What a messed up mentality! It makes me want to read more about that era.

My next book will be Two  Rivers by T. Greenwood. I think it sounds good. A friend recommended it for book club. Has anybody read it?

Here's wishing you lots of poolside reading! (Unless you are like me with little kids and going to the pool is not relaxing at all....)

This month has been C.R.A.Z.Y. busy. My kids' last day of school is tomorrow and I am SO glad. I am ready to take a breather.

Things of significance this month:

Mother's Day was really nice. My boys pooled their own money and got me some of those little bags of sports jelly beans I use on my long runs. Little Man also saw some hot pink wristbands at a sample sale down the street and insisted to JC that I needed to have them. (These will make an appearance later - see below). Big J made breakfast of eggs and bacon all by himself and then JC gave me beautiful yellow roses and grilled some steaks for dinner. I think I got a nap that day, too. I felt pampered and like they actually remembered it was Mother's Day :-)
 
We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on the 9th. We planned to go to a new restaurant I wanted to try, but found out that it wasn't open on Monday. How's that for planning? So we went to Jack Stack Barbeque and had a delicious dinner with just us. I guess I should have taken a picture of us or something. We just aren't cheesy like those couples that take pictures of themselves all the time....jk Sister. I can honestly say I love JC more now than I did when I married him and I think that is good.

The second weekend of the month, JC took the boys on the annual father/son campout. The boys were looking forward to it so much and I am really happy the weather actually cooperated that one day so they could go. They fished, shot guns, made smores, played capture the flag in the dark, played kickball, and did all sorts of manly things. They made it back with only one unattached tick and one tiny patch of poison ivy. Little Miss and I stayed home and swung, jumped on the trampoline, and then cuddled up together on the couch to watch some riveting episodes of Go, Diego, Go!, her current obsession.


The next week, on top of all the other regular things like preschool, speech, piano, Scouts, Mary Kay, YW, etc., went something like this:

Monday - Big J 4th grade celebration and picnic at park, Little J 2nd grade spelling bee
Tuesday - Little J 2nd grade celebration and picnic at park
Wednesday - nothing out of the ordinary just Scouts and YW
Thursday - Little J 2nd grade geography bee, Big J specials award ceremony, Little Man end of year preschool celebration and picnic
Friday - Little J end of year awards assembly and later in the day his end of year party (which I am the coordinator for - had an ice cream truck come - easiest party ever)
Saturday - 5k race
Monday (today) - Big J end of year awards assembly

I pretty much feel like I lived at the school for the past week. But some things of note about the above happenings:

Little J did well in his spelling bee and got 7th place. He was disappointed because as soon as he spelled "citys" he knew he had made a mistake, but you can't go back and correct it. But I was proud he even made it to the spelling bee. He also made it to the geography bee and did so well. He was really motivated to win and studied above and beyond and really knew his stuff. He went out on a question because he said an answer I had told him while reviewing that was wrong. It broke my heart. He was really disappointed but handled it as graciously as he could. It was dumb luck he happened to get that one question that I had happened to tell him the wrong answer to, but I can't describe how terrible I felt and kept crying about it on and off all day long. Five of the kids went out on the same question. Just for future reference - Des Moines is west of Chicago, not northwest!

He didn't look very excited being presented either of his certificates at the awards assembly later in the week. But Little J has really excelled this year. He loved his teacher, which really helped, and had a really good experience in 2nd grade. Last month he was admitted into the Quest program at school. He scored 99.9% on his testing.



Big J was awarded several awards in his ceremonies. At his specials award ceremony (art, music, PE, computer, Spanish) he got several certificates, one of which was the fastest typer in his class :-) He liked that one best because along with the certificate he got a chocolate bar that was covered to look like a keyboard. At his assembly today he was awarded a medal for exemplary achievement for his reading assessments and also a zero tardies trophy. Good thing our neighbor does the morning carpool!



Little Man loved preschool this year and had a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately, the weather was being crazy and thunderstorming the day it was suppose to be his end of year celebration, so it had to be moved inside and be somewhat abbreviated. He still had fun, though. Next year he will be in three days a week and is already looking forward to it.



Saturday I ran in a 5k race for Girls on the Run. I think it is a great organization that promotes self-esteem and positive body image in preteen girls. It ended up being perfect weather for a race with a good course. It was hilly, but nothing overly steep, and I ran it in 26.35 which was a personal best. I actually got first place out of 63 in my age division. Overall, I was 33rd out of 833. I realize if it had been a bigger race I wouldn't have medaled, but hey, I'll take it! My next race is the Hospital Hill 10k on June 4th. I did Hospital Hill about 3 years ago and it is a big race around here. I was suppose to do it last year, but I threw out my back right before it. It's a tough race due to the heat, humidity, and oh yeah, HILLS.  Any race whose T-shirts say "I Conquered the Hill" you can bet they are pretty killer hills. That is why I do the 10k and not the half marathon.


Little Miss has enthusiastically been participating in anything and everything she gets lugged around to. That girl has quite the personality. She is talking so much now and is such a goofball. She is such a smart cookie. As of right now, she can consistantly identify about 20 out of the 26 letters of the alphabet and several numbers as well. She is very excited to point them out all over the place. She knows the majority of her colors, too. I can not believe she will be 2 years old next month!! We are going to Texas the week after her birthday, so I think we will have a party there.


This week still has quite a few things on the calendar, but I am looking forward to the summer break. I hope the weather here decides to cooperate and we can actually get some swimming and fun stuff in. Scout camps, vacation bible school, and swim lessons are on the menu. No baseball this summer because we also have several trips planned and would miss too much (and the boys didn't seem too interested this year anyway). Texas, Florida and Seattle here we come!

I am happy to report I did indeed survive JC being gone for half the month and that I actually got quite a bit done while he was away. That fact may or may not be related.

I am also happy to report that I did complete the half marathon on the 16th. The week leading up to it had beautiful, warm sunny weather and then Friday a huge storm rolled in and Saturday was terrible. Especially for running long distances outside. I am grateful it still wasn't raining, but it was butt. cold. When I got there, the temperature was 34 and the wind chill was 23. Even in and of itself that would be bearable, but not when the freezing wind is blowing 20 - 30 mph, which is what we had. Any of you who live out this direction knows how bitter the wind is. It is not a dry cold and the wind chills you to the bone. It was horrible. I got out of my car at the race and immediately got back in, ready to drive home. I sat in there for a good 20 minutes debating whether or not I really wanted to do it. I am just not that hardcore. Not like the guy that was running by me later in a sleeveless shirt, shorts, and no socks or shoes. What finally made me decide to suck it up was that I didn't want to go home and tell my kids I wimped out.

So I got out about 15 minutes before the start time and tried to get warmed up and stretch to no avail. I pretty much just jumped into the pile of runners right at the last minute and decided to just get on with it and get it over with.  By around mile 2 or 3 I started to be able to feel my face. I was so glad I had gotten a windbreaker type jacket the night before because I think I would have frozen otherwise. I was actually keeping a really good pace for me throughout the race, but what set me back was that my left calf kept tightening up and I had to stop and stretch it 4 different times! But despite that, and despite the cold, I actually finished about a minute better than my previous best time. I was really hoping to finish by 2:05, which I would have, but I ended up finishing at 2:07:50. I was 29/89 in females 35 - 39, 184/516 in all females, and 405/836 overall. 
 

The bummer was that after not wanting to wimp out because of my kids, we all missed each other at the finish line. I didn't see them and they didn't see me. I didn't know they were there until I got a text 30 minutes later from JC saying, "We are at the finish line...." By that time I had already walked around at the post race things and was back at my car. So I ran back up so we could get a picture made.

We've had a lot of things going on, which always seems the case towards the end of the school year. May looks crazy! But the best thing that has happened was that Little J was baptized this past weekend. My parents were able to come up for it, so I was glad they were able to be here. I thought Little J's baptism was beautiful and I am really proud of him for making that decision.


We had enough Easter desserts to last until next Easter thanks to the Young Women camp fundraiser dessert auction that was on Friday night. Or I guess I should say thanks to my parents' generous spirits that bought a plethora of desserts to support the cause. On Saturday, we did our neighborhood Easter egg hunt and also hid eggs in the backyard. Then Little J took over as entertainment guide and hid eggs and directed activities for the younger ones.

On Easter, I dropped a glass measuring cup and it broke. A piece of it jumped up and cut my ankle about an inch across. It didn't even hurt or bleed at first, so I just started cleaning up the glass and thinking about making mashed potatoes. Then it started to bleed so I stuck a band aid on it. Shortly thereafter the band aid was saturated. Long story short - it was a pretty significant cut, but Super Glue and athletic tape work well when you are in a pinch and need to keep making your Easter dinner. Three days later and it is healing up quite nicely.


 Saturday night I told Little Man that he needed to put out his Easter basket for the Easter bunny to leave treats and he looked at me funny and goes, "The Easter Bunny doesn't come to our house!" I said, "Sure it does." He says, "I've never put out my basket before and it has never come before." I corrected that statement, to his utter disbelief. So there you have it - they don't remember any of it anyway! At least not before they are four.

I sat down to write about what I've been up to and basically it is the hustle and bustle of daily life. Is it just me, or does April and May just turn into crazy busy months? JC left town on Thursday for work and won't be back until the 15th, so that adds an entirely new aspect of adventure to the daily happenings. I may be certifiable by the time he comes back. The weather has been schitzophrenic and can't decide to be warm (like the 87 degrees it was on Friday) or thunderstorm and hail or be cold (like the current 33 degrees). I am so ready for it to be nice and warm!!

I didn't think I had done that many things out of the normally scheduled things since I posted last, but then I realized that I've: planned and executed a ward activity that the youth were in charge of, gone to my Mary Kay Career Conference, helped with a teacher appreciation spa day up at the kids' school, entered into the world of pet owners with some dwarf hamsters, and ran in my first 10k of the year (my first 10k since I got pregnant with Little Miss, actually, so it's been a LONG time).

The activity turned out well from all accounts, even though I wasn't able to be there at the actual event because I was at career conference.  We did a dessert potluck with Minute-to-Win-It challenges. Everyone had a punch card with numbers and when they completed a challenge they either got a circle around it if they did it within a minute or an "x" through it if they didn't win it. At the end we determined who the top winners were and had the final challenges for the championship. It was a pretty simple idea, but I think it had good results and created an atmosphere for good interaction.

Career Conference took place over a Friday afternoon through Saturday evening. Among other highlights, a homeless-looking guy with dreads down to the floor sent his friend over to me while I was eating lunch to tell me he wanted to hook up. Oh yeah, I've still got it! I politely declined while stating that I was married with four kids which produced plenty of ribbing from all his pals. Besides added bonuses like this, I like to go to those events because there are not many places you can surround yourself with so much positivity. I am so impressed with the resiliency, work ethic, faith, and attitude of the powerful women we are able to learn from.

We have been pet-free since our short foray into having a kitten about 6 years ago. The kids have wanted to have a pet so bad for so long, but I just couldn't bring myself to have something else to take care of or more poop to have to worry about. I would satiate their appetite for wanting a pet by pet-sitting Little J's class guinea pig every once in a while. We had it most recently over Spring Break, and Little J did such a good job of taking care of it and it brought them so much entertainment, I started to think that maybe I could handle having a small animal confined to a cage. Just about that time, some people we know had some baby dwarf hamsters they were wanting to find homes for. So, now we have the very fluffy and active Buddy and the albino and pretty lazy Fluffy (both girls, despite what the names may indicate). You would be surprised at how much entertainment they have provided. I think it was a good choice for us.

I ran my first 10k (6.2 miles) of the season on Saturday. I had never done this race before, but am so glad I did because I really loved the course. It was in a beautiful area and although there were hills, the last bit had a nice downhill push. It was nice weather, even though it was chilly in the low 30s when we started. The last time I did a 10k, I did it in a little over an hour, so my goal was to do this race in an hour or less. I set a new personal best at 56.03 minutes, so I was happy with that. For my female 35 - 39 division I placed 27/187 and overall 379/1391. My next race is a half marathon on the 16th, so we will see how that goes. I have to admit that I really enjoy the 10k distance much more than the half, and I always wonder why I sign up for half marathons when I don't like to do the long runs to train. Why is that??? I guess I like the challenge.So we shall see how it goes.

Until then, I will leave you with a great ant-killing remedy. We always get ants in our kitchen every spring. This year they started moving in again and I was spraying them and stinking up the place like usual. So I found a recipe for a natural mixture that kills them. You mix an equal amount of powdered sugar with baking soda, and then add about a 1/3 of that amount of active dry yeast. Then you sprinkle it around where they come in. The sugar masks the other stuff and they take it back to the nest and it kills them. I did that 3 days ago and have only seen one ant since. Just add "exterminator" to my resume.

Little J had his 8th birthday about a week and a half ago. We waited to do his official party until this past weekend when his cousins were supposed to be here for Spring Break. However, my brother-in-law was in a terrible accident while on duty as a cop the day before they were supposed to leave, so they weren't able to come. Thankfully, he is just banged up and not seriously injured, which is a miracle in and of itself.

My mom was in town for his actual birthday, so she took him for a one-on-one birthday breakfast and then he got to pick where we went for dinner, as well. We had a cake with trick candles (which was hilarious) and he got to open presents from us.

 
As you know, I usually do the themed parties in the backyard, but Little J's group of friends when they are all together are just too much. In all truthfulness, after last year's party I wanted to have that whole group over again as much as I wanted to stab needles into my eyes, so I took the stress-free way out and we had it at a fun place called  Emerald City. They had an hour and a half to run around to their heart's content burning up all their energy and then we had a party room for half an hour for cupcakes and presents. Perfect!






Eight is a big age! Little J started Cub Scouts and will be getting baptized next month when my dad and my mom are both able to come up, so we are looking forward to that.  Looking forward to a great year!

Little Miss is officially off bottles and officially done being sad she is off bottles. She had been on them way longer than any of my other kids were, but she still seems so little because she is my baby and I was  actually a little sad when I finally put them all away. But we all got over it and I am glad to report she is no longer dehydrating herself through her protests.

Little Miss is a funny girl. She has got a lot of personality wrapped up in that little body. She is really smart, too. She's adding a lot of words to her vocabulary, which come out randomly. She laughs a lot. Sometimes I think she takes a goofy pill because she is quite amusing to herself. Her latest favorite thing to do is to read. I ad lib a lot of parts into the books I read her (keeps it exciting after reading the same books 200 times) and when she is "reading" them to herself she puts those parts in, too. For example, there is one book that talks about teaching your dog a lot of words and one part says "he'll sing with birds" and on that part I always raise my arm up like I am singing and make some opera-ish lalalalalalalaLAAA sound. So now when she is reading and gets to that part she always does that.

Big J has been busy with school and all his extracurriculars. He just got done doing his biography bottle project where he had to read a biography about someone and make a 2 L bottle look like that someone. He did his on Helmuth Hubener because his mom is weird and already had a child-appropriate biography on him. He is still taking piano, guitar, is in the CSI (Cool Science Investigations) club, Battle of the Books club,  Scouts and basketball. I have been the assistant coach for his bball team this year and have loved it.  He's done really well, too. It helps that he is about a head taller than 99% of the other kids. This last game he was rebounding really well and reading the passes and getting a lot of steals. It's fun to watch your kids play sports.

Little Man is keeping pretty busy himself. Since the beginning of this year, he started attending joy school twice a week on top of his regular preschool days, which he really enjoys. He is a great helper and loves to play with his little sister. He keeps her laughing and is a peacemaker in our home.

I decided to sign up for a half marathon that is in mid-April. Seven weeks from this weekend to be exact. I had already signed up for two 10k races (one is the first weekend in April and one is the first weekend in June) just to keep myself motivated, but I kept eyeing this half and finally just decided to suck it up and do it. Needless to say, I have only been running on the treadmill since we've had such awesome weather (although I did run outside 2 days last week and it rocked) so I'm getting a little worried if I'll be able to get enough distance runs in before then because I hate running on a treadmill and max out after 4 or 5 miles. But I figure that if I could go from running zero miles to running a half in just 10 weeks, which is what I did the very first time I ran a half, then I can do this one this time since I already have a decent base to go from. The last half I did was the week I found out I was pregnant with Little Miss and then the only race I've done since then is one 5k that was pretty ugly. So we shall see.

I'm excited for next weekend because I am going (alone) to Utah for my friend Kim's wedding. Yay! I am going to get to see lots of my good friends and my sister-in-law while I am there. It is going to be fun!!!

You may have heard that the Midwest got slammed by a blizzard. Since I live in the Midwest, I can now officially say I have been in a blizzard. That's a first. Thankfully, we were on the upper edge of the massive storm that came through and didn't get the worst of it. That being said, my kids did not go to school Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday because of the weather. Then they didn't go today because of a teachers' work day. (And they won't go next Thursday or Friday because of conferences. And they won't go on President's Day. So basically we could have just taken and extended vacation to somewhere warm this month and called it good. But I digress...)

I think my area got about 13.5 inches of snow. We never lost power or anything, so everything was fine besides going a little stir crazy. And it was really, really cold. Like negative temperatures cold. Here are some pics, although admittedly I wasn't that persuaded to get out in the freezing cold and take blizzard pictures:


  

Last week the boys had 2 days canceled because of the weather, but that didn't stop them from playing outside in it. They had a blast! Even when the temperature was only 8 degrees and I thought they were insane for being out. There are lots of really good sledding hills around here, but they had fun sledding down our driveway, hill in the front yard, and the street. I think we got about 5 inches that time with single-digit temperatures.




I thought last week was a lot snow until I saw today's. We got about 7 - 8 inches. Compared to some places I know that's nothing, but it is a pretty respectable amount! It's 13 degrees right now and we are still suppose to get a few more flurries.





My kids have only been to school 8 days out of this month so far. That's crazy! I don't mind it, though. I like having everyone home with me. There's something comforting and cozy about it.

OUR CHRISTMAS HERE:

 My Loves

 It was fun having Little Miss more into it. Gift from Abuela.

 Most of our gifts this year were "group" gifts that everyone could enjoy likes games and Wii accessories.

 Little Miss pitching a fit. I just thought this picture was funny.

 Making Dada pretty.

 All girlie. But she'll still kick your butt.

I bet YOU didn't get a handmade ceramic cupcake.

CHRISTMAS THERE:

Visiting my Grandma

 Little Miss Cutie Pie on Christmas Eve

 Waiting to open presents. Missing our older cousins :-(

 My littlest sis Ali and Big J

 Little Miss on Christmas morning

 Little Man on Christmas morning

 Little J on Christmas morning

Big J on Christmas morning

 Ali, Mom, Tori and me

 Some of my homemade b-day cards. I went on a fun Girl's Night Out with my sisters, mom and niece.

 JC and 3 of our children. Mason was not participating, although you can get an idea of what he was doing by viewing the picture below. JC's cousin Diana who lives 30 minutes from my parents had him over for some authentic Mexican food that night, so he was happy.

Nicole would have been 32 on New Year's Day.

 My dad and his siblings. He is the baby of the family, but the biggest.

Front row L - R: Aunt Rita,  Aunt Roma, Aunt Fran, Aunt Syble. Back row: Dad and Uncle Gene

 My cousin Leah the dentist. She is a year younger than me and a year older than Tori. Her two boys and Little J were playing outside in the same gully in the woods that we use to play in.

 Skillz, baby.

 Primping my sister Ali for the New Year's Eve Dance. Can you imagine her wedding day?!?

 The finished product.

 Her hot date, my nephew (and her nephew!) Alec.

 You Tube watching, guitar playing, and general festivity making. (Sister-in-law Lissette, brother Walker, JC)

 Happy New Year! Someone lock the crazies up!