Spudman 2015

When I grow up

I found a picture Abby made at preschool the other day that made me smile.  Usually, when someone asks her what she wants to be when she grows up she says a firefighter (I told her I used to be one). This time she said mother. I really hope she is someday :-)

Impromptu adventure

Brian came home from work on Wednesday and said hey let's go get some yogurt. I wasn't sure where he wanted to go but getting out of the house and not making dinner sounded like a deal to me. So we got everyone in the car,  grabbed our coupon for Culver's,  and started planning along the way.  So, we ended up with a little food (which the kids apparently weren't that interested in) and took it down to Centennial park in the canyon. We just relaxed, played with our kids, and enjoyed some ice cream. Then we drove to the golf course and ventured across the utility bridge crossing the snake river. We hiked along the trail in the other golf course and took some fun pictures.  It IS spring, but Abby got a pumpkin basket at DI that day, so of course it had to come along.
It was just a beautiful day, and welcomed vacation from our normal busy lives. I love playing with our kids. I love having time to talk with Brian. So grateful for my little family.

Tommy is crawling!

We had my mother, sherry, and diantha over for Sunday dinner last night.  While I was finishing up in the kitchen Tommy went from laying down to sitting all by himself,  twice,  without me seeing him! I recall dinner time distracted mama the first two times he rolled over as well.  Alright,  so I knew he was getting close to crawling and I thought maybe it would happen in a couple days.  Nope!  Right at bedtime, while we were in Scott's room he figured out how to put his hands forward so he could get to a board book.  It was like a little light bulb sparked in his eyes!  He just got so excited and kept trying out his new trick over and over.  Oh boy, was he excited! Of course I was too! ... well, and a bit terrified at the thought.  I took some videos I'm trying to attach. Here is a picture of him getting into his first mess, the magazines and music under the piano. Think I will be moving those ;-)

April Fools!

We have been back in the saddle doing yard work. So naturally Brian has filled up the garbage can with dirt, rocks, and weeds... again. The garbage can was so full it was hard to move. In fact, it was packed with so much Earth our regular household trash was piling up to the side.  Ya,  it was hideous.... and I was pretty annoyed.  You see the same thing had happened the week before,  and when I moved the can to the street it was so heavy I thought it might just fall on top of me.  So I asked Brian to move it the night before so I wouldn't have to worry about it early in the morning. Brian is kind of a do it when I have to the last minute kind of guy. He waited until just before he took Abby to preschool at 8:45.  Our garbageman usually comes before 9. When I looked outside at 10 o'clock the garbage was still there!  Okay, now I was really annoyed.  Piles of trash and we apparently had missed the garbage man!
So,  I texted Brian that he better plan on making a trip to the dump. Grrrr. And ya,  I was sleep deprived and quite frankly not my best self. The truth is the garbage man was apparently playing a joke on the neighborhood. With a big sigh of relief I noticed he came at 11. Thanks for the April Fools joke mister garbage man. I thought about propping up the garbage lid to make Brian think it was still full (he he he)...but my little Tommy needed me inside. 

Next up,  I talked to Brian at about 11 and he said he would pick up Abby. She gets out at 11:30. I thought all was well as I was running around cleaning the house.  They still weren't home by noon so I just assumed Abby had convinced her Daddy to take her to McDonald's.  Then I got a call from her teacher at 12:05 saying Abby was still there! Ah! Seriously?! Did we really miss communicate that? I apologized to her teacher and had Chissy pick her up.  It took me a good half hour to get out there.  Thanks for the joke hun. He had had a client walk in with with a very sad story and had forgotten. He felt bad.  And I felt bad for chewing him out.  Breathe girl!

Abby had learned all about April Fools at school and thought it was the funniest thing to tell me there was a butterfly behind my back. So I would look and she would point and laugh.  She is a doll :-)

My turn!  For dinner that night I told the kids we were having cupcakes! I cooked meatloaf in little cupcake liners and  I whipped up some blue mashed potatoes for frosting.  Of course I had them eat their carrots before they could eat cupcakes ;-) They even got to put their own sprinkles on!  Abby was like,  this frosting doesn't taste very good,  maybe it needs different sprinkles.  So she found some in the cupboard. Scott was like,  mmmm these are yummy! Then Brian  said they were April Fools cupcakes and Abby finally got it. I also made chocolate pudding in mugs and told the kids it was hot chocolate.

Wait! It's not over! Door bell rings. Why hello youth from our ward!  Yes,  my son is greeting you without any underwear on and a mixture of blue potatoes and chocolate pudding smeared all over his face. Oh, you are here to do a service project we were supposed to be prepared for?  Um,  great!  Um, um, um, let's go pull weeds! I think there is room in the garbage can ;-)

Spudman Triathlon 2012

Brian's Aunt Minta has been trying to get Brian and I to join her in a triathlon for four years.  The first year we were maried we did the Boise YMCA Spudman Triathlon as a team.  Our friend Beca did the swim.  Brian road on a nice road bike with clips for the first time, and I did the 10 K run.  We had a great time doing it but we knew it would be pretty difficult to do the whole thing without some training.  The following summer I was pregnant with Abby.  The summer after that I was pretty wrapped up in taking care of Abby.  Last Summer I was very preganant with Scott.  So this summer had to be it.  It was now or maybe never.  So we started training in February....and then we just hit one obsticle after another. 
Perhaps the biggest obsticle was we decided to move to a bigger house.  Moving is a VERY big job! We stopped training for at least a month.  Then there was a the yard work we felt so obligated to get done on our acre of weeds.  If that wasn't bad enough Brian was struggling with an injured hamstring.  I had planter faciatis in both feet, which meant I had to wear orthotics. I had to strengthen my feet enough to handle running 6 miles without hurting them.  I also had to wear moleskin because my orthotics gave me blisters. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Busy July

We have had a very busy July!  Most families have a lot going on this month, but there were times I felt I barely had enough time to breath.  We were preparing for the Spudman Triathlon and family reunion.  We had a bunch of yard work and weeds to pull.  Of course our children needed much love and time.  The most time consuming thing for me was moving Brian’s office from our little space we shared with Mark Wasden, 137 Gooding St. W. to our own larger space with it’s own reception area (something we did not have before) in the Justamere Inn, 401 Gooding St. N.  We were pretty crammed into our old location.  Now we have more room for comfort and growth.  I had to beg my family and my visiting teacher, Andrea Baird, to help watch my children while I got it ready to go.  I painted it with the help of our ward’s former bishop, Chuck Hansen.  I purchased new furniture, wall hangings, an additional desk, plants, and a million other things  an office needs.  Somehow, we managed to get the phone lines and internet all working by Monday, the first day of operation.  Soon after that, we left for our Tanner Reunion with all of Brian’s siblings and their families in Cascade, ID.

Our family reunion was wonderful.  Everyone made it there except Matt Briggs and John Coburn.  It was not easy for some people to travel that far and for the men to miss an entire week of work.  I know Brian will have a very challenging day today because he missed an entire week.  

We rented a 6 bedroom Cabin about 150 yards from Lake Cascade.  It was just perfect!  We played a lot of games, went to the beach, paddled some kayaks, prepared meals, had devotionals, and had a lot of fun just being together.  Abby, Ester, Louisa, and Clara, who are all close in age became as thick as thieves, running around everywhere in a little pack.  Scott was running around making friends with everyone.  Half the time I didn’t know where he was and sometimes I got a little worried.  Usually he’s my little hip buddy.  He survived though.  I only had to run after him once to fish him out of the road.  

 Andrew Howard carrying Scott to the lake for me:)

 Are you saying something buddy?

 Abby and Clara playing in the water

 Grandma and Scott

 Essie!

 Cami and Aaron

 David....looks so much like his brother and sisters:)

 Isaac Howard

 Sarah and Tanner

 Grace and Steve

 Isaac and Moni

 David and Emily

 Lisa and Scott... Abby in the back

 Here's the trouble makers! Thick as Thieves I tell you. Essie, Abby, Louisa, and Clara.

 Grace and Scott

 Grandma with ALL of her grandchildren

 6 little boys from all 6 children in 13 months. 

Scott, Tanner, Aaron, David, Isaac Marc, and Isaac Scott.

 Emily, Cami, Tia, Sarah, Brian, Diane, Ben

 Every once in a while we try to get a good family photo....maybe we'll pay a photographer next time:)

 

 Scott was so tired we had to tickle him to get him to smile!

 Maddy pulling a Maddy.  Who knew corn starch could help acne?

 Brian with all the candy

 Here comes trouble again:)  It probably didn't help that I snapped a bunch of pictures before telling them to stop jumping on the bed...oops.

 They tried to get the little ones to run a foot race...the prize was Twinkies.  Here's Scotty Bott's Twinkie kissy face:)

 Pass the wet sponge over your head game

 Piñata....Abby barely tapped it....but she had fun.  

 Candy!

Scott learned a new trick.  This clothes hanging rod was just the right height for Scott to walk up the wall and hang upside down....over....and over...and over again.  

We left Friday and stopped at The Joint in Boise, which was where my chiropractor was filling in for a friend that day.  He taped my feet to help me combat my plantar faciatis for the triathlon the next day.  He taped Brian’s knee as well, but his tape didn’t even stay on during the drive home.  I think he needed to shave the area first.  Brian was very concerned about his knee.  He had knee surgery as a teenager and he hurt it again a few months ago while bringing a grill home from Lowe’s.  He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to finish the race and was pretty grumpy about the whole thing all day Friday.  He was being so pessimistic about just about everything that day that I asked him a couple of times to cut it out because he was being so unpleasant to be around. We went to Burley that evening to get our registration packets and drop off our bikes.  While we were there I bumped into one of my classmates from the dietetics program at BYU, Krista.  We made the connection that she had actually been at Rick’s the same time time Brian was there.  She is still unmarried but has a boyfriend who was participating in the race.  It is very hard being unmarried in our church at this age.  I do not envy her.  She is pretty, an accomplished ballroom dancer, involved in her community, and works fulltime as a dietitian for WIC in Salt Lake.  We know a lot of awesome older women who are unmarried.  I really don’t think they have any problems....it’s the men.  

We didn’t get very much sleep that night.  My mom was so kind to come over and watch our children at bedtime.  Scott woke up at 2:30, wiggled around in our bed until 3:30, and watched the ipad in his own room until 4:30.  Then I just got up and fed us both Breakfast, got ready to leave, and passed Scott off to my mom as we left the house.  We met up with Brian’s uncle Mont and headed for Burley.  It was such a zoo getting into the parking area that we barely made it in time for the gun @ 7.  I think I had been in the water for only 30 seconds!  

This year the river was a lot swifter, cutting our swim time almost in half.  I lost Brian in the sea of orange caps and black wet suits, so I just swam on without him doing mostly my comfortable breaststroke, and met him a minute and a half later at the transfer station.  Brian thought that he had been following me until he got out and realized the woman he was about to sidle up to was NOT his wife!  I thought that was pretty funny:)  He was glad to see me by the bikes because he couldn’t get his skin tight wetsuit off by himself.  

At the beginning of the bike ride Brian told me he “just wasn’t feeling it.”  Then about halfway through he started going so fast I had a really hard time keeping up with him.  It was a little cool and rainy, which was just perfect, and the whole ride felt awesome.  

The run felt pretty easy to me.  Brian had an injured knee and was smart to take it slow.  He pretty much alternated jogging and walking.  I could have left him in the dust.  However, that’s what I had done last year and I felt a lot of regret not going through the finish line with him when I saw other couples doing it.  He kept telling me I could run on ahead, but I guess I was being a romantic, so I said to heck with the race times, I’m going to stick with my husband so I can hold his hand across the finish line.  That’s exactly what I did this year, and I’m glad I did:)  We had a great time.  Brian’s knee held up.  My feet were okay.  We had such an adrenaline high that we felt great for the rest of the day.  Next time I might just go for a personal best....we’ll see.