San Fran Day 1 and 2

Days one and two in SF.

Someone please tell me why I like this statue so much.  I just do.  ^^

Shhh.....don't tell.  After two frustrating days trying to find hotels or vacation rentals that would accommodate our large family, I had to get creative (hotel search engines are NOT built for 2 adults, 5 kids!  I just kept getting-- "no rooms available," blah).  We needed the air mattress for camping.  So it worked out in a few hotels too.  We had two big beds and the air mattress, which was comfy enough (in this photo, two little ones are late-snuggling with the big kids, they slept elsewhere).  Hopefully our neighbors and the hotel owners thought so too. I didn't know what else to do!  Suggestions?

Church.  We made friends with a nice group of boys visiting from AZ, who kindly took our picture and let us chat their ears off for a few minutes while our kids played jungle gym.

I can hardly look at SF and not get college flashbacks of Mike Meyer in So I Married an Axe Murderer.   Good times.  Miss my college friends!  We came here together during our freshman year, and it was magical!

 I don't know the name of this cathedral, but I thought it was pretty.

This poor boy was tortured by the too-tight jeans I had thrown in for him at the last minute.  He was a good sport, though.

 Running, running, this boy is always running!  But I love it.

More later!  I may not be back until next week, since we have company coming.  See you then!

Goal Update

Last month I worked on reclaiming some patience.  :)  It seems to be a lesson I'm learning over and over  during my project, that it is so much easier to retain a good habit than it is to reclaim it once it's lost!  As with other goals, I noticed it was especially hard at first, but after a couple of hard days got easier and easier.  (another pattern I've noticed-- some goals have felt nearly impossible to reach at the first, very daunting, but get easier even with a couple of tries)

This month, I'm going to work on a few things.  First, I want to focus on being more playful-slash- lightening up.  This is not hard for me when we are at a park or something.  I have learned to let my adult inhibitions go (with a lot of practice) as we go down slides and generally act kid-like and have fun.  My kids love this.  But some days I catch myself slogging through the daily mundane stuff and realize I could do better at making the little moments more fun for little ones.  So I'm going to try and be mindful of that this month.  (got a little taste of this in the car with my four year old, who was being whiny, so we ended up playing some silly games like elbow fight, yes, indeed, and got our giggles on)

Next, since I almost have a junior high kid, I want to introduce my kiddos to some good music.  Since I'm an NPR addict (not much lately though) I don't listen to much music.  But I used to!  So I'm going to revive some different styles of music and introduce them.  My kids are still a pretty clean slate in this regard, so this should be fun.

Lastly, I'm going to refresh my efforts to get healthy!  I know I've set this goal a lot.  But this time it's for real. :)  I really need to get the little one sleeping through the night, get him weaned, eat healthier, and exercise more consistently.  I'll let you know how this goes.

Will see you tomorrow!  Getting ready for another short trip and super excited to see my sister and other well-anticipated company!

What kind of music do you like?  Have your music tastes aged as you have?  I love me some good folk-type music with acoustic guitar.  Some day after I'm dead I'm going to take lessons from James Taylor.  But I like other types of music as well.  If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear!

Off on an Adventure

Dear friends, you have despaired or hoped that I was away forever!  Which was it?

We have been off on an adventure, and we have the laundry to prove it!  I can't wait to share.  Here are a few photos for now.

I hope you had a wonderful 4th!  Goal update tomorrow.

Rogue Girl Boy Scouts

When my husband and son tromped off to scout camp last week, we girls + the littlest boy tromped off on an adventure of our own.  It was a fairly easy hike with a big pay-off.  The kids really loved it.  And I gave my inner scout some "time." (when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a scout so badly!  my dad was a scoutmaster)

 Daughter number three is entirely self dressed in any photos you have seen over the last year.  It is quite fun to see what she will come up with, though sometimes her outfits don't work quite as well for a particular occasion.

Happy Wednesday!  Sorry, I thought I'd blog more this week, but it's been crazy (when I don't plan ahead, and find that certain towns we're planning on staying in have been booked for six months, oops!)!  We're going on vacation next week, so I won't be around.  But I hope I'll have some fun photos when we get back, on July 10th-ish.

I will see you here Friday, if you dare! :)

Memorial Day Part 2 (One Month Later!)

Here are some photos of our second half of Memorial Day weekend.  We always visit my father-in-law for Memorial Day, remember Miguel's mom, and enjoy some crazy times with our wonderful growing extended family.  This usually means someone is playing the organ, someone is building with blocks or Lincoln logs, someone is holding the "kitty" (a really beleaguered looking thing, but they all fight over it), little girls concocting ideas and trailing around after one another as they implement said ideas, kids go outside to explore the barn or the sheep camp or to traipse through knee high grass, gingerly over-stepping animal pies, or just to watch a long-eyelashed jersey cow crunch down her lunch; the adults get in some conversation, fantastic food while my father-in-law is awake, junk food when he is asleep, some late night games.  We often go for a "picnic" in the mountains-- usually hot dogs.  And often we go fishing.  So nice to enjoy each other's company and a break from every day routines, as well as the beautiful rural surroundings.         

Sorry for the picture glut.  I just couldn't choose.

Sorry if this grosses you out.  The kids enjoyed looking at it.  Below, bro explains.

 I love how sweet his sister is being, too.

 Cousins!

 Looking up at some sort of bug.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!  That your summer is going well so far!  I may post more this week, because next week we are going on vacation!  Wahoo!

Some Goals

(I had nothing to do with this ^^^.  Love the innocence of childhood and love the times when they help one another!)

Okay, so I haven't really talked about goals so far this month.

So here is what I've been working on and how it's going:

1 - Patience.  See end of post.

2 - Foster friendships.  I'm trying to do a better job at enabling my kids friendships.  It's just so easy to let them play at home, with each other.  And I often wait to have friends over until the house is clean, but the house is never clean!  And when it's really clean, the last thing I want is for my hard work to get undone quickly by a herd of happy friends.  So I've decided two things.  One, that I never cared whether my friend's houses were clean or dirty when I was a kid.  I cared about my friend.  I'm so glad their mothers didn't wait for a clean house, or I would have missed out on a lot of great memories.  So I'm going to swallow my pride and foster friendships regardless of the state of my house.  So far, this is going well, I think.  And part of this resolution has included car-pooling to soccer.  I'm surprised that I'm a little sad to let go of all the driving, just as I had started to find ways to enjoy it, like time to talk with the kids and listen to books together.  But my son needs some more friend time, so we switched to a team with a couple of his friends and have been carpooling.  It has been so nice, from a time perspective, and from a friend perspective.  Though I miss him and our bonding time with the other kids.

3 - Encourage exercise and outside time.  Learning about ADD has made me realize that exercise is a lifeline that I can't deny my kids.  (I think my own ADD was subconsciously causing me to keep them inside more often, because it's mentally hard for me to keep track of kids spread to kingdom come, and hard for me to round them up when the time comes)  So I've relaxed about letting them outside.  They have been biking around like crazy.  It's pretty cute.  The only sad thing, is that the littlest boy, who has an adventuresome spirit, runs away!  I can't tell you how many times I have had to run like the wind, Tonto, to catch him, and he can run fast (he bolts even faster when he sees me coming)!  He is not afraid to run away from home (four times while I was making dinner the other night!  I had to stop what I was doing and go chase him down, I'm sure my neighbors are having a good laugh).  So I have to lock the other kids out, to keep him in (he even learned how to get out through the garage!  I'm in trouble).  It makes me sad that he has to be stuck inside when I can't be out with him, but it's for his own good.  We have also been going on summer bike rides and went on a hike yesterday.  I love time like this together. (also: after a long injury, I have been tentatively exercising myself!  it feels SO good!)

4 - Get up-to-date work charts and rule lists.  I did a mini refresher on The Parenting Breakthrough (translation: I do way too much for my kids!) and made a list of the things my kids should be doing at their current ages and will be using as I update chore charts and move to a new system.  Will also be starting allowance!  We'll see how it goes.  I've also been trying to translate my new knowledge about ADD into routines/work charts, for example, piggybacking certain chores onto others, so they are easier to remember (ie, making bed right when you get out of it).  This is taking me much longer than expected.  I've let the kids veg out more than I should in an attempt to get it done.  Next year I'm doing it before school ends.  Oh yeah, and we're working on our summer bucket list.  You know what?  It was a little overwhelming to write down all the things my kids should be doing at their respective ages, but it was also exciting!  I am excited for them to learn some life time skills (and it will reduce my load, too).

Okay, on the patience thing, don't ask me why I saved this for last.  Just a little observation.  I used to think that patience was something someone either had or didn't have.  A quality, not a skill.  And while I do think that biology and nurture do make patience more difficult for some people than others, I now see it in a new light.  I think it is also a skill to be practiced, honed, and bettered.  And a habit to make or maintain.  I suffered from some moderate depression in the spring, as I found out about my diagnosis, and the possibility that several of my kids suffer from ADD as well.  As I've read more about it, I've found that post-diagnosis depression is very common (all the doomsday forecasting in the ADD books doesn't help!  you will become an alcoholic!  you will go to prison!  you will get in lots of car accidents!  your relationships will suffer!  on and on.  not exactly encouraging sometimes, though there are some rays in the clouds I'll relate when i get around to it!)  Back to the subject.  I was down, and I let myself get more snappish with the kids.  I am not normally like that.  But I let myself.  And let me tell you, it's not just a matter of telling yourself you are simply going back to the way things were before, there are now impatient habits that are hard to break!  So....just something to think about...patience is a habit.  It is also a skill we can practice and acquire, not just something we are or are not.

Happy Wednesday!