digging a hole

A few weeks ago Will decided to get to work on digging a whole for the trampoline.  We have a weird slope in our yard and putting the trampoline in part of the slope is a great way to utilize the weird space.  Will has been working hard on research first and now is getting to work.  He is so smart and works so hard.  He was excited to do some manual labor for his work outs and get a perfect retaining wall made.  He recruited Wyatt and the other kids to help here and there...mostly it was Will and Wyatt.  So...here are some progress pictures: 

Fun fact, along with the progress of the hole and wall you can watch the progress of Will's hair.  He just got it cut the day he started on the project...and it is just about time for another hair cut.  

We set the trampoline into the hole to test out the size when Will was done digging.  It was a perfect fit!

Photo credits: Colter 

Hole dug, time for wall building.  These guys are such hard workers!

The biggest wall is up!  They need to build walls on the side and one more big wall down the hill a bit but this first wall was a big deal and a big job.  They are awesome!  

Getting the flu sounds nice...

Dear Mom,

Was the end of the school year as crazy for you when I was in school as it is for me now?  Did you have a million kid activities to attend and a million major school projects to herd the kids through?  Did you wake up in a cold sweat four nights a week certain you had forgotten to attend some kid's special end of the year stuff?  How did you survive?  I remember having a spring concert in elementary school but not open houses.  I also remember keeping my school load to myself.  Am I too wrapped up in my kids crap--not letting them figure it out on their own?  Or is modern parenting just different from when I was a kid?  I don't know.  Maybe we can talk about it in person soon.

Last week I was listening to the radio and a news report came on that a major out break of the flu was terrorizing some of the northern California counties.  Whole school districts were shutting down due to lack of attendance from students and sick teachers.  The reporter then proceeded to describe the symptoms of the flu.  Followed by the recommendation, if you had flu symptoms to quarantine yourself and get plenty of rest.  I seriously thought, well that sounds nice.  I wonder how I can get the flu?  I'd rather say locked up in my room barfing my guts out than keep up with all of my kid's end of the school year crap.  That's what my life has become, Mom.  Thinking that getting the flu would be a welcome relief from life.  I need a vacation.  Can it be summer now?

There is never any food in the house for lunches.  I don't have the time for major grocery shopping.  I just get milk and cereal when we are out.  I think Adell packed a couple of scoops of cottage cheese and an old juice box for lunch yesterday.  Mom, I never realized what a blessing it was that our family qualified for free lunch every day.  We never had to figure out what to pack in the morning.  It would have been dried rose hips and homemade granola every day anyway.  Hot lunch is over $5 here...we are too middle class to afford that!  So, the kids pack whatever they can find in the morning.  Sigh.  

Mom, I know this May has been even busier than ever.  I think the end of the school year surprised all of us, students, parents and teachers.  It seems like every day has been an open house, concert or major project due.  I am just about ready to raise the white flag.  

Here is a run down of the last two weeks.  I love you Mom.  Thanks for reading.

Love,
Cassie

Lorien's Orchestra concert was first up.  I signed up to bring cookies...like I needed another thing to do.  Lorien's band teacher was taken to the ER the afternoon before the concert.  I think she hurt her back during marching band practice.  I also think she was looking for a break...  Students filled in for her as conductor and the concert went off without a hitch. 

Next up came Clare's Activity Days Talent Show.  It also fell on the same night as the Father-Son camp out...so we had fun getting the boys off to camp and getting over to the church for Clare's show.  Clare did a dance number to "It's a Hard Knock Life" thus the orphany looking clothes in the first picture.

Then the much anticipated elementary school open house night.  Clare needed to be Amelia Earhart for a living wax museum project.  On Tuesday afternoon she told me she needed her costume the very next day...So I stayed up until midnight sewing a bomber jacket and aviator cap.  Woof.  It was exhausting.  Then, the next day after school when I asked her how it went...she said..."Funny story...I didn't need the costume until tomorrow..."  Very funny.  

I realized there were only two years when I had three kids in elementary school (Clare's Kindergarten, Wyatt's second grade and Lorien's fourth grade and the following school year).  Those were hard years...three classrooms and three kid's proud projects to see.  Not easy.  The girl's class rooms and projects were great.  Will and I had to do a bit of tag team as I had a finance class to attend the same night.  Glutton for punishment.

On to the next week of crazy activities...First up, Adell's Patriotic Sing concert at school.  I also had a Relief Society Presidency meeting at almost the same time.  Luckily, Adell's class was first!  She saw me, I saw her.  She sang, I took videos and pictures.  Amazing.  On my way out of the concert, I got a call from Clare.  She had left her binder at home with part of a major group project in it that was due that day...could I please bring her binder to school?  Sure.  What's one more thing to run around for?

Clare had her very last elementary school band concert.  It was also the same day Will and I took Lorien in to San Francisco to see Hamilton but that deserves it's own post.

On a totally related note, elementary school band teachers should qualify for Sainthood without any discussion.  Have you ever heard an elementary school band play?  If you have, you should agree with me.  Band teachers are amazing people.  We have a particularly awesome band teacher in Mrs. Knight.  She taught Lorien for the few months she took clarinet.  Wyatt when he played saxophone and Clare with the flute.  I know how much all of my kids practiced (zero times) and Mrs. Knight was able to encourage sounds out of all of them...music even.  Thank heavens for elementary band teachers.

And finally, Colter's last day of preschool.  Popsicles, diplomas and scrap books were handed out.  Colter was just pumped that he wouldn't have to leave home anymore.  Please bless him to like Kindergarten in the fall!  

My Name Is Alexander Hamilton

I am pretty sure we've been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack in the background of our lives for the last two years.  Lorien fell in love with the musical at some point and began playing the songs...all the time.  Last year, when I chaperoned the high school orchestra field trip to San Francisco we saw posters for Hamilton coming in March of 2017.  I began plotting, how could we get Lorien to see Hamilton in person.  She knows all of the words, the story and the story of the creation of the musical.  She has fallen in love with musicals and history because of Hamilton.  

First, we tried to get seasons tickets through the Orpheum Theater.  For a measly five hundred bucks you got to attend four shows at the theater through the 2017 season.  We didn't act quickly enough for that...and we would have had to buy at least two season tickets...big money.

Second, we heard early ticket sales were being made available to American Express card holders.  We had an American Express card that we never used so we got the info and tried for a spot.  They do ticket sales through a random spot generator.  So you sign up before tickets go on sale and they email you with your spot in line.  It doesn't matter when you sign up, you are randomly assigned a place in line.  Will tried to get a spot the morning they went on sale...his place in line was in the 80 thousands...it didn't look good.  Sure enough, tickets were sold out long before his number came up.

Finally, when tickets came up for the general public (also through a random spot generator) we tried again.  This time, we requested a spot with every internet enabled device in our home.  We had two lap tops, two phones, all four of the kid's kindles and an ipad ready to get a spot.  7 of our 9 requests were in the 60 thousands, one was in the 8 thousands and one was in the 3 thousands!  We were pretty sure we could get tickets with the 3 or 8 thousand spots.  We were successful.  Will ordered the tickets and we waited until Christmas to give them to her.  I think we ordered them around Thanksgiving.  

Her face when she opened and realized what her present was was priceless...maybe one of my all time favorite Christmas memories.

Anyway, our day for the show was today.  We've all been so excited to go.  A few friends have been already and said it was FANTASTIC.  

We drove in early because Will had a meeting in the city that morning.  Lorien and I wandered around town a bit but ended up at Target...I do what I love.

Once Will was done with his meeting, we had lunch at a yummy Chinese restaurant and headed to the theater.

It was with out a doubt, the most amazing show I've ever seen.  The music was SO GOOD!  I am not going to be able to describe how great this show was...I have no words.  I will say I was so impressed with Lin Manuel Miranda's talent in writing this musical.  The songs, the story line all of it was so awesome.  And to do it all with a contemporary flare with rap battles and a diverse cast...unprecedented and amazing.  There was so much to see going on on the stage.  The set and staging were minimal but impactful.  The prop pieces were moved around by the dancers and singers as part of the story line and dancing.  It was too cool.  I would see it again in a heart beat.

Lorien loved it too.  Ask her about it, she will be happy to tell you.  For the first part of the play, I watched her face more than I watched the actors.  She was excited and cute.  It was so cool.

We were going to name this kid 5

When I was pregnant with Colter, we didn't find out the sex of the baby.  I'm a sucker for a good surprise and finding out the gender of your baby in the delivery room is a pretty rad surprise.  We also had no idea what to name a fifth kid.  We'd come up with four good names and were out of ideas.  I was pretty convinced we should use the name Five...boy or girl it would work.

Well, Colter was born and we found out he was a boy.  We managed to come up with a real name instead of a number.  So...I guess that worked out.

Today he is actually FIVE years old!  He has been counting down the days for months.  He was so happy to have his birthday.  Will worked from home so we each took turns doing something special with Colter.  First we both took him out to Katie's Corner, our favorite breakfast joint in town.  Colter calls it "the pancake store".  He loves it because of pancakes...naturally...and there is a toy room in the back with cool trucks.  

After the pancake store Colter wanted to go to Osage Park and play.  I took him to Osage and we played for a while.  He brought a couple of monster trucks and we had a great time running down the slides.  

After the park Will took Colter out for a car wash in his car.  Colter LOVES the car wash!  And Daddy's car is a special treat because his car has a sun roof and you can watch the car wash from above.  

After the car wash Colter fell asleep on the couch...he had a full morning and needed a rest.  He hasn't napped in three years...so it was kind of a big deal.  Turning five is hard work around here.

Once the big kids were home from school it was party time.  Presents, cake and family fun were up.

Happy Birthday Colter William!  You are one amazing guy and we all love you.  You are kind and polite.  You are smart and helpful.  You love to do jobs to earn trucks from Target.  You love Target Pizza.  You love to build with legos and still love trucks.  You've moved off construction trucks a bit and are starting to love matchbox cars.  You wake up with nightmares some times and like to sleep on the couch at the foot of our bed.  You love to ride your bike and go to the park.  You are going to be in Kindergarten in the fall and have had a good preschool year.  You like being one of the "cool kids".  You like youtube videos and playing video games with your brother.  You had a weird throat clearing tick for a month or so ago but it seems to be gone now.  You like to do tricks around the house; balancing on the edge of the tub or couch, jumping off the stairs, doing cartwheels...all kids of hooplah.  You are a sweet kid and we are so thankful you're part of the family.

Service with a smile...and a hair net...

Our family participated in a service project today...well a couple of them I guess.  It was a service Saturday.  First we went over to the church to pack meals for a company called Feed My Starving Children.  They make these dehydrated food packs to be shipped to areas of the world where food is scarce.  The recipients just need to add boiling water and they have a meal ready to go.  We (with a 100 or so other people) added rice, soy, vegetables and vitamins to bags that were sealed and packaged for delivery.

Our whole family was able to participate (even Colter).  We all had a good time and felt like we had done a lot to help others.  We also made a mess...

After making meals for others we decided to feed ourselves.  We rewarded the kids with a dinner out...we don't do restaurants with the whole family very often.  

Clare and I went back to the church and did another round of food packing.  It was a great experience and we were happy to help.

After the service project was done...and the building was a mess...we went back to clean the building.  We vacuumed and scrubbed, dusted and swept.  In our church there aren't any paid positions, including janitors.  So the members of the congregation take turns cleaning the building every week.  This week we were up.  Most of the kids were off doing other activities so it ended up just being Colter, Adell and Wyatt.  Will and I took them out for ice cream as a treat after their hard work.

Service Saturday in the books.