Luke's Dinosaur Birthday

Luke is now THREE.  Wow.  I think I've mourned the loss of my baby for his last two birthdays, but at this point I should probably consider removing the phrase "my baby" from my vernacular.

Luke has been looking forward to this birthday for a while.  When I asked him about his upcoming birthday a while ago, he immediately told me he wanted it to be a dinosaur birthday, so that's what we've been calling it.  He helped me make the dinosaur cake on his Birthday Eve and was particularly enthusiastic about licking the beaters.

I was at a rehearsal the morning of Luke's birthday but Ben planned to take all the kids to a nearby dinosaur museum to honor the big day.  Unfortunately, it was closed, so he took the kids to the Dollar theater instead.  Nobody complained.  For lunch we had Luke's requested meal of Ramen noodles.  Then we sang to him and he blew out his candle before we let him open his presents.  Next we cut the cake and started enjoying our dessert, but Luke was more interested in playing with his new bulldozer than in eating cake, haha.  At least there was an extra piece for him to enjoy the next day.

Luke was so excited for his presents.  It was adorable.  He received a fire engine and a fire engine book, a dinosaur book, and a Play-Doh truck, but the super cool Tonka bulldozer was his favorite.  He and the big kids had fun playing for a little while before we broke up the party and took Luke down to his room for a nap.  After nap time we had some dinner and watched "The Land Before Time" to complete the dinosaurness of the day.

Crazy Hair Day

TBT - That time we lived in Illinois for a few months.

When Ben was working for a large construction management firm right out of college, he was sent to work on-site in rural Illinois for a few months beginning in January of 2006.  Usually, the employee would go on his or her own and be separated from his or her family for the duration of the project, but Ben worked it out for us to be able to go with him.  The job was in the town of Mt. Sterling, but we decided to live in an even smaller town called Clayton, because that put us in a ward instead of a branch (hoping that it would help me make friends).

So, Ben worked about 15 minutes away in Mt. Sterling, building a food processing plant for DOT Foods.  We were in the Quincy Ward, which was about 35 minutes away.  The closest grocery store was a small over-priced place about 10 minutes from us, so we also made regular trips to Quincy for groceries and such.  We were in the Nauvoo Temple District, and the temple was just over an hour from our house.

Clayton was an interesting place to be.  It was definitely the smallest town I've ever lived in.  It was so small that the mail wasn't delivered to individual houses, but that was good because it gave Cat and me an excuse to get out of the house - in the freezing cold Illinois winter - and walk to the post office for the mail.  (While walking the two blocks to the post office I would pass a beauty parlor and I always thought that getting a haircut in a little beauty parlor in a small town might not be a good idea.  But right before we moved I got my hair cut there, and it was a fantastic haircut.  So of course I was kicking myself for waiting so long, haha.)  There were lots of boarded-up homes and businesses.  So many, in fact, that I found myself having thoughts similar to Sally's in "Cars." I really wished I could have seen it in its heyday.

Life was significantly slower for us in Clayton.  Ben worked a lot, and Cat was young enough to be nursing and napping multiple times a day, and I had no friends nearby (aside from Esther the Librarian), and it was COLD, so we spent a lot of time at home.  We played.  I cooked. I took many, many pictures of Cat.  When Cat was napping, I did a lot of scrapbooking.  Sometimes we would drive over to the job site and visit Ben, and we even made friends with the guys he was working with.  Cat and I drove to Quincy and met up with some of the young moms in the ward a few times.  We had a few dinners with the other rural families in the ward, who tended to be older, retired couples, and enjoyed getting to know them.  Life was so slow for me that I even tried my hand at composing, writing a song for a Visiting Teaching conference and performing it with a woman in the ward.

One thing we didn't know about when we made plans to live in Clayton was that it was known for two things: the work camp, and drugs.  There is a minimum security prison in Clayton, which is probably responsible for a significant percentage of the advertised population of 890.  And I was told that there were several drug houses in the town.  I never investigated this, but after our next-door neighbors came over to offer us some of their drug of choice, I had no trouble believing it.

Illegal substances aside, living in Clayton was a great experience.  Not only did we meet many great people - I'm serious about my friend Esther in the library across the street, which shared a small building with a dental office - but I learned a lot as a person, and it was a great experience for Ben and I to have as a young couple.  I was thinking as I started preparing this that maybe things would have been easier if I'd stayed home in Jacksonville with Cat while Ben went to Illinois on his own, but I'm glad that we were all there together.

Visiting Daddy at work.

Welcome to Clayton!

Village of Clayton Municipal Office

Town Hall

Post Office, American Legion, Fire Department

Our house is in the middle, the friendly druggies' house is on the left side of the picture.

The dental office is on the left, the library is on the right.

The edge of town.

One of my favorites of the five bajillion pictures I took of Cat.
Give or take...

Another aspect of this adventure that we really enjoyed was the opportunity to see new places in Illinois.  We gained a greater appreciation for the city of Quincy and the role it played in Church history (read about it HERE).  We spent a weekend in Nauvoo, and it was extra special because it happened that we were there the same weekend as a lifelong friend of mine, who had brought her family to Nauvoo from Wisconsin.  What a blessing!  (Note to self: write a blog post about Janean one of these TBTs.)

We took a day trip to Springfield to go to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which was a memorable experience.  I still remember the harrowing graphics describing the vast numbers of casualties during the Civil War in one of the exhibits.

Rubbing Abe's nose for luck at his tomb.

My Mom came out to visit us in March and we took the train to Chicago for the weekend.  We saw some of the big tourist attractions and at least one smaller one (are you already familiar with Hull House?) and saw my actress cousin performing in a play.  We were crazy-cold all weekend, but the adventure was thrilling.

And that's our stint in Illinois in a nutshell.

It's Fits

One afternoon last week, Luke saw some footie pajamas in the laundry and wanted to try them on.  These are pajamas that Cat has outgrown but which are still much too big for Eliza.  When I put them on Luke he said, "Wook!  It's fits!  I'm gon' show Wiza."

Then we went out to the garage where Eliza was vacuuming the car (because she was literally throwing granola at Luke, who sits in front of her) and after showing Eliza the pajamas that "fit" him, he wanted to go for a ride in the stroller.  At one point during the ride, he said, "My foots is scraping the road," and I looked and saw that the foot of the pajamas was indeed hanging so low that it was dragging along on the sidewalk.  It wasn't bothering him, he just wanted to bring my attention to what was happening.  So cute.  But I'm not sure that I like how these pajamas make him look bigger...

Proud Mama

I recently checked out a copy of the soundtrack for Carmen from the library and played it in the car for the kids.  Okay, maybe not just for the kids.  But they were in the car too.

As the overture started, I prompted them to recognize the familiar melodies and asked if they could just imagine a line of dancers, the ladies kicking their feet up over their heads.  I've never seen a staging of Carmen, so I don't know if that's what happens when the theme is played in the fourth act, but it certainly sounds like it to me.

The kids were soon enjoying the music, and asking what was happening in the story.  Cat read to us from the notes in the CD pamphlet and we tried to guess what was going on.  It was fun to share that time with the kids.

After listening to parts of that CD for a few days, the overture came on and I switched it to a different track.  Luke was really upset.  "I want to hear the ladies kicking their legs!" he cried.  How could I refuse a request like that?  And later on when Cat was in the car, as soon as we started driving, she changed the track number to Habanera, before she even realized that I'd put in a different CD.  Once again, I didn't want her to be disappointed, so I quickly got Carmen back out.

After we'd been listening to Carmen for a week or so, Eliza and her friends in the Kindergarten carpool were being really loud and I decided to turn on some music to hopefully distract them from their game of chanting at each stoplight on the way to school.  I pulled out the CD and put in a Disney mix album.  Once Eliza saw me getting ready to turn on some music she told her friends, "It's opera.  My Mom ALWAYS makes us listen to opera!"  They were all pleasantly surprised to hear "Colors of the Wind" start playing, and the kids were much quieter.

I can't imagine listening to opera all the time - I like too many different kinds of music - but I'm glad that my kids can at least enjoy it with me in small doses.

Cat on the High Ropes Course

Cat again.

My soccer team went to the CLAS Ropes Course.  We had so much fun and it was a great team-building experience.  Down below are pictures of the girls and I doing some fun things.  You can see how we struggled but in the end it all worked out because we got together as a team and it was just really great.

The first activity down below is the one we really struggled on.  We could see our coach kind of laughing to himself that the answer was so obvious and we couldn't get it.  So basically this is it.  The ground is like lava so if you touch it you lose a limb or something. We had three logs that you had to move to get to the last stump.  Then you had to do this without falling on the ground.  If you fall to the ground, I'm going to go to the sentences before this where it says, "you will lose a limb." This just means that you had to put a rock in your armpit, elbow pit, or hand.  If you had a rock in one of those places it was like you were handicapped, so mostly you had dinosaur arms.  "Mehhhhh!"

We failed.

Cat and her dinosaur arm.

These next captions are about The Fear-Killing Activity.  In this activity, you had to face your fear of heights.  Or of falling from heights.  You had to climb up a swinging log... (Y'had a harness folks. With a darned helmet too!!)  Then after you finished killing your legs, by climbing up that weird ole' log, you came to a tree with a log horizontally spread across it, attaching it to another tree... It's this amazing thing called... Placement!! Well, I think that that was my favorite activity out of the two activities that we did. My favorite part was swinging down from the middle log. DO NOT FORGET THAT IT WAS HORIZONTALLY LAYING!!!!!!! Well... that was nice to get out my feelings.  Anyway, you walked across the HORIZONTAL log to the other side. Then walk back... to the middle. then you do a wall sit on the air and the instructor will pull you down. It was sooooooo fun. You felt like you were flying. 

Right now I am looking for a place where I can insert an emoji.  There is none...

This is me fantastically flying to the ground. You can see my smile of relief that it was over as I spun to the ground!

This is a picture of my friends and I shoes. I am the lime green.
We were huddling together because it was getting late and it was COLD!!!!

To conclude this fun moment where I can talk to all the people that I can not see right now when I am writing this at 5:51 p.m. 4/24/16, well now its 5:52... I have to say, I would like to hear from a few more people... so PLEASE leave me a comment!!!!!   :)  ( There's your emoji...)

Spring Soccer is Half Over for Jack, too.

Well, all the stuff I said about Cat's spring soccer games being unjustly cold apply to Jack's games too.  Even on weeks when other days were warm and pleasant, the weather during soccer games this spring has been quite different.  I'd say that the games the kids have played have been in cold weather 90% of the time, with those cold weather games being wet and/or windy 90% of the time.  Brrr.

Anyway, Jack has had a lot of fun playing soccer this spring, in spite of the cold weather, and seems to be getting better.  He has a better idea of how to play the game and what he should be doing, even if he continues to join the flock of boys within a 3-foot radius of the ball much of the time.  He continues to prefer to back up a considerable distance so that he can get a good running start when it's his turn to kick the ball in, but often doesn't end up kicking it very far.  It's an entertaining spectacle, though, and I'm beginning to wonder if his strategy is to try to psych the other team out.

During the game when I was taking these pictures, Jack scored the first goal I've ever witnessed, though he claims to have scored one or two before this...

Pssst... turn around, Jack.

Look out!  It's Jack's turn to kick it in.

#1000

I planned to blog about something else today but noticed when I pulled up Blogger that this is my ONE THOUSANDTH post.  Wow.  And it only took a little over 7 years.

Back when it really was The Adventures of Cat & Jack.
This is the photo I used for my first header in March 2009.

My most current decent picture of the four kids.  February 2016.

I remember being hesitant to start a blog, thinking about it for a long time, but preferring that my time and energy going into somehow, miraculously, getting my scrapbooks caught up.  I disliked that blogs were solely digital and I couldn't hold the pages in my hand.  When a friend told me about programs that could print the content of your blog into a book, I made up my mind.  Blogging would be faster, easier to keep up with, and accessible to family and friends who live anywhere in the world.  I could also print out multiple copies of books eventually.  Done and done.

Back in 2009, I hoped that keeping a blog and using it as a way to share the things we were doing as a family would motivate me to try a little harder and do a little more, and I think it has.  An adventure is that much more fun when I know I'll get to share it with people I love.

I also have to mention that it has helped me to see the humor in things that might otherwise make me want to stomp my foot or curl up in a ball and cry.  When I think about messes or mishaps from an outsider's perspective, it helps me to see them for what they are instead of getting quite as worked up as I might be inclined to in the moment.

Of course, this blog has been a fantastic way for me to keep up with our family happenings.  Knowing that other people read this really holds me accountable.  And the kids love it when they get to look back at the things they've done or said.  They laugh at themselves and their siblings and marvel at how much has changed and the way things used to be.

Blogging has been a true blessing for my family and me.  Thank you for checking in with us and helping me to keep it up.

TBT...

Drum roll please......

With the publication of my post about Christmas last week, the blog is now officially caught up.  I will be going back and changing the dates of my TBT posts of things that happened in 2015 so that they are all in chronological order, which will make my brain happy.

And now I get to re-focus my TBT posts on family history stories.  This might not happen every week, but I will make an effort to drum up a story from a family member or sift through my cloudy memory for something that happened in The Distant Past (i.e., pre-blog) and share it here.

For tonight, I'll tease you with a picture.  I'll let you try to guess who is in the picture, and when and where it was taken.

Spring Soccer is Half Over for Cat

I officially really really dislike spring soccer.  The weather is so unpredictable from week to week, and day to day even, but we can pretty much count on bad weather on soccer days.  Last week it was sunny and warm on Tuesday, then rainy and really cold during Cat's soccer game on Wednesday.  Multiple parents supplied hot chocolate for the team - and anyone else who wanted some - during the first two games.  We brought multiple layers to wear and blankets to bundle up in and we were still cold.  This is what Cat looked like when she was sitting on the bench during the first game in mid-March:

Enough about the weather, though.  Cat's team continued to practice in the winter, but only once a week, on a small indoor field.  They've had 5 games so far and have won 4 of them.  (The game they lost was the weekend we were out of town for Easter.)  The team has been a bit rusty getting going, but I think that they finally hit their stride in the most recent game last weekend.  Cat even scored a beautiful goal during that game.  Cat has continued to play forward most of the time, and is also the back-up goalie.  She's gotten faster and has good ball-handling skills.

Guess Who

Plus One Equals Five

Even though I insist on having no more than one TV in the house, all these other little screens have become part of our lives.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I found this scene in the family room last Saturday afternoon, with 4 people watching 4 different screens.

This is still an anomaly in our house, to the extent that I thought to take a picture.  And then I grabbed my computer and sat down with the bunch.  Because I had some blogging to do...