Seems to be the policy here in Hawaii, which might explain why school doesn’t get out until mid-June… and then starts right up again August first.

(Ask me how much I like that, by the way.)

However!

It was great to have all my little ones home today.  I loved it.  They were anticipating a NO-FRIENDS day, in which I was hoping they’d remember how to play together again.  Not that we don’t love our friends here, of course, but that every once in a while I feel the need to rope them all back home and establish “We are Smiths, this is our house, we all live together, we all work and play together,” with no distractions.

Well, it worked fabulously.  I had in mind that I’d let them play after they cleared the breakfast table, and we’d …

But it’s slow.  And it sounds like that title up there sometimes.  Ka-chunk!  Ka-chunk!  Ka-chunk!

Here’s a little updating you on our sweet daughter, Creativity.

She had a great time at the PCC last Saturday.  We took the family for a quick walk-through, and it was definitely one of our more spontaneous outings.  Grab the kids in whatever they’re wearing, toss ‘em in the car, hang out for an hour, & go home.  It was actually pretty fun.

Next time, though, I’m taking 10 minutes to get my children  into something that looks a little less like we were mucking around doing yardwork all day.  We weren’t, but that’s what it looked like.  At the PCC, you never know when they’re going to end up on stage in front of 50+ well-dressed tourists from Japan.

<palm-to-forehead>…

And now to share something that makes me giggle every time I think of it.

Our kids were running around with the other 200 kids there. (Okay, so it was more like 30, not 200. Still. That’s a lot of kids.)
Mr. Smith came back with this commentary:

“They’re all playing Harry Potter, waving their wands around at each other, ‘Wingardium leviosa!’ and the like,” then he chuckles, “Our kids don’t know it, so they have no idea what they’re doing.”

I had visions of …

2 weeks ago tomorrow

Baby G was born.  Beautiful delivery.  Favorite quote from the midwives who were there, after it was over:
“You really didn’t need us.” 

Yep.  I agree.  Glad they were there anyway, and grateful (so grateful!) that they read my mind in terms of their involvement.  After the initial monitoring and the barbaric waking of the baby with a loud buzzer on my tummy (Oh look!  Now that he’s awake his heart rate looks wonderful.  Go figure!  Sorry, baby - I would be trying to sleep through labor if I were you, too.)  they left me alone and let me do my own thing.  It was exactly what I wanted. 

My favorite:  During that initial monitoring — the one where the stuff is strapped around your tummy — the nurse in L&D let me undo the obnoxicity that is an elastic-strap-around-a-contracting-uterus …

As a mother, do I cheer him on or tell him to get down on the safe, solid ground before he breaks his neck?

I think I just stood there speechless.

How high was that little 4 year old monkey?
This high…
(Keep in mind – my sister is 10 feet tall.)

Okay.  She isn’t really 10 ft. tall.  She’s only 5′ 10.”  Still!  That’s really high!

Yes, it made me nervous……

Doodle was just a little bit happy, just a little bit excited, and just a little bit awed by the whole white-belt-testing ceremony thing.  Me too.

John did martial arts in high school, so it was all pretty familiar for him, but it was totally new to me.

I was thoroughly impressed by the kids testing out of yellow belt, that’s how ignorant I am.  (Hello!  They could walk across the room on their *hands*!)

I was amazed how Doodle was cool with the whole testing process.  He didn’t seem nervous about a whole room full of people watching just him and the two other 4yo’s who were man enough to do it.

Tough kid, he is.

And happy, he was, about getting the new belt.…

I wrote a nice little post.  It took me a while.  And then the connection dropped, autosave failed me, and all I have left are the pictures I’d uploaded.

GRRR.

Here’s the short version.  Not that I can ever be brief, you know, but I’ll try.

The kids invited me to play in the kiddie pool.

I accepted.

They were happy.

I still can’t believe I played out there in my swim suit, but it was everything that is good and wonderful to be there with them, just being happy at being alive.

And there you have it.  More or less what I wrote and lost.

I need to play more often.  Like, every day.  I mean, I do expect them to work with me daily, right?  I need to stop with the never ending, “Not right now”s and the “I’m too busy”s.  Something tells me they’ll be more happy …

Surprise, surprise, they had a part in Alice, too!   The bigger kids were flamingos and the little ones were hedgehogs.

They crawled around, climbed over each other, and took turns sporadically jumping up into the air while the “flamingos” danced & flapped around them.  It was super cute.

C even featured as Alice’s hedgehog, and obstinately didn’t go through the arch – like a good little rebellious crochet ball.

Poor Alice.  She really struggled with that flamingo.  Fortunately for her, she woke up not too much later.

…

And so has her two-year-old brother.  Nothing like straight protein powder while mom nurses the baby.

Doodle, on the other hand, has been strong.  Super strong!

He was a little bit happy about splitting that board.  I’ll have to load the video of him telling us the story.  Someday.

Freedom has been learning to crawl.  It’s still in the very beginning stages, but it is indeed official.  He can do it.  The army crawl business is on it’s way out before he even gets it down. I’m seeing my life in the near future consisting of a LOT of sweeping and vacuuming.

And there was much rejoicing.
Yay.

(And see? I told you my laundry room was a disaster.  I’ve been working on it.  Slowly.  It does indeed look better than that now.  Sort of.  Kind of… That red-curtain is still firmly in place.)

Hope you’re …

Once upon a Sunday…

An adorable 12-year-old (who would probably die if he knew someone called him adorable) was passing the Sacrament for the first time that day, and I happened to be sitting in his line of duty.

I have long since forgotten exactly what happened (and come to think of it, I’ve forgotten which new, adorable Deacon it was!) but that new adorable Deacon made some silly mistake, some noticeable breach of “protocol,” in passing the Sacrament to me.

My heart went out to him in complete and …