The Champion Bowler

For a little bit of fun at the end of President's Day Weekend, we decided to take our kiddos bowling. I haven't taken the kids bowling for about 18 months, when we went with a neighbor during the day. Andy has never been bowling with them...so he was in for the experience.

We had a little surprise when we got there...the alley was completely filled and there was an hour long waiting time. So, we put our names on the list and headed over to Costco where we ordered a cheese pizza, hot dogs, and a chicken bacon wrap. We sat there and ate our yummy dinner while watching shoppers laden down with carts heaped full of cleaning supplies, food, and all of those other miscellaneous Costco finds. When we were done eating, we headed back over to the bowling alley.

The kids were laughing at the funky shoes, and Taylor wanted to know if he really had to wear them. Ahh...I remember the embarrassment I felt the first time I put on one of those hideous shoes. I don't know what happened over the years, perhaps a spike in self-confidence, or a dip in fashion sense...or even a mixture of both, but I really don't care what those silly shoes look like anymore! Actually, I think they're "awesome possum" and maybe will start checking out the D.I. on a routine basis so that I can buy my own stylin' pair.

Really, I should have taken pictures of Andy's shoes. Given that he has a shoe size of 14, I was really surprised when they actually had a size that fit him. Go figure! How many size 14 bowlers could their possibly be? That was worth the money right there, just to see him wearing a pair of those things...huge colorblock bowlers. Nice.

Well, after we finally got everybody programmed in, and everyone found the "perfect" ball to use for the evening, we started in on our fabtabulous game. Andy was wearing his Superman t-shirt...which turned out to be bad luck or something. He bowled one of his worst games ever, which was still twice as good as mine.

Taylor kept taking a turn and then going out in search of a more perfect ball. He never did find one that he thought was the right weight with finger holes the perfect size. Still, he didn't do too bad, he beat me.
Matthew was awesome. He would put his ball up on his shoulder and strut up to the beginning of the lane, get into a strong stance with his legs apart, and then huck the ball forward like a shot put. We let him do it that way a few times before trying to get him to put it on the ground between his legs and give it a nice big push. There were a group of teenagers to our left, and one time Matthew went to take his turn and actually dropped the ball and it went down their lane instead of his and promptly went into the gutter. The guy whose turn it actually was laughed and hurried and threw his ball down the lane before Matthew's could reach the end. He did hit a few pins, but then their game was paused because the poor computer was confused as to why there were two balls down there instead of one.

Brooklynn was really cute too. She used the gutters along with Matthew and Lainah and she did really well. She bowled with a pretty pink ball. She sort of lost interest about halfway through the game and was more interested in the soda that Andy was buying for the kids. She made several bathroom visits.

Rachey also bowled with the pretty pink ball, and did really well. She and Taylor were more into the game, and Rachey did beat him. He bowled faster but she bowled straighter. She was also really interested in the soda after a while and I think I'll have to call and see if you can just buy a 1/2 game of bowling...sort of like golfing 9 holes instead of 18.

I found my nice medium-weighted ball of swirly orange. I have a really funky bowling technique that I've never been able to get rid of. So, I send my ball down nice and straight, but it does a weird back roll think before it starts rolling forward again. I know, weird. It's all in the way I send it off my hand. Usually I can do pretty well, but I was miserably off and only got one strike.

And now Lainah. Lainah was the sweetest, cutest little girl in the entire bowling alley. She would need help each time carrying her pink or yellow ball down to the end. Then, I'd put it on the ground for her, and she'd squat down on her little two year old legs, and push it as hard as her little two year old hands could push it. Then we'd stand there and wait. And watch and wait. And blow as hard as we could...and wait...until her ball finally reached the end. Amazingly enough, Lainah bowled a 3 strikes and won the game with a score of...get ready...116. Yep, we are lousy bowlers! She was so fun to watch. She would jump up and down and say "hooray!!!!" and clap at her ball until it reached the end. Then she'd skip back to the seats to wait her next turn. Too cute.

At the end of the night Tay and I were discussing our amazingly low bowling scores, I pointed out that had we been golfing my score would have won, and we decided that we could choose only one thing in this life that we were really really good at....it would NOT be bowling. :) What a fun night!

Funny little Matthew

Andy and I are yet again in the middle of home remodeling projects. I look forward to the day when I will finally own a house that does not need to be updated...that I can remodel because I choose to, because I'm bored with the decor, and not because I have to in order to make it livable. Ahh.....
Well, I was working on a bathroom fixture the other day and needed a phillips head screwdriver. I called for 3 year old Matthew and asked him if he could please bring me a screwdriver because he usually knows where all of Daddy's tools are. He said, "Yep!" and ran off. A few minutes later he came back carrying....Andy's powerdrill.

I just had to laugh! He is such a boy! Forget hand tools Mom! What was I thinking anyway!? I got the job done much faster with a "real" tool.

Love that little guy!

If I Had A Million Dollars...

Hmm...what would you do if you had a million dollars? Sure, sure...give to charity, pay off debts, buy a house, cars, toys, go on fabulous vacation...how many of us adults would say stuff like, "get a job?" Have you ever wondered what your kids would say to this question? Rachey, our 8 year old third grader came home from school today with a paper that she had written as a writing exercise. I got a kick out of it, and was actually really impressed by the things she wrote down...I had to post it on here for posterity's sake.

A Blast from the Past

While cleaning out some old scan files, I came across these pictures. Wow time flies! The first is of me when I was Rigby's Jr. Miss. I was 17 years old in this picture. This picture brings back so many memories! I loved Jr. Miss, and all of my friends who competed in it. In fact, it was my friends who convinced me that I should do Jr. Miss in the first place. I remember thinking that I didn't have a chance at winning...but that just motivated me to work hard and practice all the routines and my talent piece extra hard every single day. I interviewed myself in front of mirrors, and would walk all over the house in my heels so that I was comfortable in them on stage. So when the final night came, I felt so prepared that I just went out on stage and had a blast. That's when I think I realized how much I enjoyed performing on stage. And this is when I was Miss Idaho 1997, just a few years after being Jr. Miss. This year, Miss America was trying to get away from the "beauty queen" image, so they asked all of the contestants to have their official pictures taken without their crowns on. I suppose holding a crown, rather than wearing it makes a difference....to...somebody. I loved that color of lipstick for on-stage. It was called "Siren." Andy proposed to me while I was Miss Idaho, and so we had an 8 month engagement. I was very busy, and he was very patient! I'll have to dig up some more of my pageant photos and post them later.

My favorite part of being Miss Idaho was being with the school kids. I loved visiting the classrooms and talking to each of the children in the classroom. On my very last school "appearance" as we called them, I was walking out of the school to go home when I noticed this little girl just sitting on the sidewalk. I sat down by her and asked her what she was doing. She told me she was waiting for her mommy to come and pick her up. (My, how times have changed! No child would be allowed to be outside the school alone today!) Anyway, I asked her if I could just wait with her and she said yes. So we sat there and looked at ants crawling in and out of the sidewalk cracks. I was wearing my favorite royal blue business suit and crown, and she was in shorts and a t-shirt. She asked if she could wear my crown, so I pinned it on her head and she wore it until her mom came to get her. I don't remember her name...but I remember liking the feeling of making that little girl feel special because "Miss Idaho" talked to her and let her wear her crown. On my drive back home to my host family (the Bucks) house, I cried because I knew that that little moment with that little girl was my very last one with a school child as Miss Idaho. It was a great way to end. My year was filled with moments like that one, and I loved it.

What Were We Thinking?

Most of our family and friends have heard about the drug rep days, the years really. The four years prior to dental school when Andy worked for Merck Pharmaceuticals. But I stumbled upon this picture the other day while unloading the last of our boxes....boxes that have been tucked away and stashed in closets for the past 5 years.

This is a picture of the top salesmen in the Northwest Region, all of which I have to say were on Andy's Idaho Falls team. Go Idaho!

Look at those distinguished, professional, handsome, and classy co-workers...
and we gave all that up for dentistry?

Brooklynn's Spring Soccer

This year was Brooklynn's first year playing organized sports. She wanted to play soccer with Rachey, so that's what we signed her up for. She was so excited to get her cleats, shin guards, and...very bright uniform! When her coach handed us her uniform...I was very surprised at how bright green it was. But she didn't care, she was so excited.

Spring here in Idaho tends to be cranky. Some days it's nice, but it's a lot of cold days and wind...so her fleece poncho came in handy a lot. Her team was so entertaining. They started with 5 players, and then lost one after a couple games, so for most of the season their little team consisted of 4 very dependable kids. In their age-group, they only play 3 on 3, so the coach would let one rest for a while, and then keep rotating them. A few games, only 3 players showed up, so Brooklynn would be running and playing the entire game.
One of the funniest things about her age-group, is that it took them nearly until half-time to figure out which goal was theirs. They'd get the ball, get excited, and keep it going and score....in the wrong goal! They'd jump up and down and be all excited, not even realizing that it wasn't their goal. When they finally figured out which one was theirs....it would be half-time and then the goals would switch. Ahh....oh well.

Another funny thing was that sometimes in the middle of the game, one of them would just dart off the field and run towards the bathrooms without a word to anyone! The coach got pretty good at just making a quick sub to keep the game going. All of us parents and the refs just knew that that child must of had somewhere important to go. Brooklynn would also just stop in the middle of the game and come over to me asking for a drink or snack. I had to remind her over and over that she had to wait until a time-out for drinks. So funny. I think about the World Cup, and how it would be if one of the players just ran off the field to go to the bathroom...or if they decided that they needed a snack. Too funny. Leave it to our Brooklynn.

At the end of the season, they all got medals and t-shirts. This was a particularly cold day. You can see that Brooklynn is wearing her warm-up pants underneath her soccer shorts. It actually snowed that day...the end of May!

Her official team photo....Go Fireballs!!!

Rachel's Spring Soccer

Rachel has always played baseball, mainly because that's what Taylor did. Out in Cleveland they were able to be on the same team for a couple years because they're so close in age so it was also really convenient for games and practices.

One thing about our Rachey though, is that she loves to run, and so this year we asked her if she'd like to try soccer. She was SO excited, it was a definite "YES!!!" So we signed her up, bought her some cleats and long socks...picked up her cute blue and pink uniform and her season began.

It didn't take too many practices for us to realize that...Rachel had found her sport. Rachel and soccer are made for each other. Rachel has the perfect combination of speed, agility, coordination, and aggression that a good soccer player needs. She was so fun to watch! I also quickly learned that unless you have a good camera with good shutter speed, it's virtually impossible to get a good clear shot of your soccer star zipping across the field. So, although I never missed a game or practice, I don't have very many action shots of Rachey. She was a key player on her team, rarely sitting out and then only until she could catch her breath and then the coach would send her right back in. It just came natural to her. They had a great season, and after the last game her coach had a pizza party at his house where he handed out their medals. She made some great friends with the girls on her team, and enjoyed every minute of it.

The "Pink Panthers."

Tay's Team Picture

Here is the official picture of Tay's baseball team, the Longhorns. What a great season for Tay. Good friends, great coaches, and a lot of fun games and good baseball.

Taylor's Baseball Season 2010

Tay has been playing baseball every summer except one since he was 5 years old. During those years, his shoe size has gone from a size 1 boys to a size 6 in mens. Yikes! His foot is bigger than mine! He's also gone from being a lightweight to weighing in at just under 90 pounds. He is solid. I can't pick him up anymore, but he can me. How things have changed! He loves the game. The one season he had to miss because we were moving from Cleveland to Idaho, and missed the sign-ups. He was a little nervous about having not played in so long, but didn't take long to get right back into his game.

This year his team's name was the LONGHORNS...and they were a great team! They only lost one game the entire season...and won the championship game by making some great plays. I think this was the first year of Tay's baseball career where we saw the boys really making some great baseball plays, where we saw all the fundamentals making sense and transposing into some good ball. It was fun to watch.

Tay has played 1st base, pitcher, and short stop out in Cleveland. This year, Andy asked him to try playing Catcher. Wow. As a mom, I have to say that Catcher is such a fun position to watch! Every game I knew just where to sit so that I could have a great vantage point of my boy the entire game, that was nice.

Tay was outstanding. He got so that he could read what the players were going to do, and if they tried to steal a base he would catch that ball and let it fly over to 2nd base or 3rd and threw a lot of outs throughout the season that way. It was also fun to watch him fake a runner out. If they looked like they were itching to run, he'd catch the ball and then fake a throw to 2nd just to psyche them out. It just made me laugh. After a few games, he let me in on a little secret that most of the time, he could figure out a base coach's "steal" sign by the middle of the inning, and so then he'd just watch the coach for that sign and immediately throw it over to the base for an out. Andy and I both laughed, and then cautioned him about that technique, reminding him that coaches can change signals mid-game.

This year was also a great season because Andy had time to coach. Wow, that has been a while since he's had any free time to spend with family! We thoroughly enjoyed it. Tay had three great coaches, and I know he enjoyed having his dad as one of them.Another of my favorite things this season was to hear Taylor cheering his pitcher on. Pitcher is such a tough mental position, and I loved it when Tay could see that his pitcher was tiring, or becoming unconfident or unfocused, and so Tay would start saying things like, "You can do it!" or "It's okay, let that one go!" It was great to watch him and his pitcher work as a unit.

This season was also a little tricky because both Rachel and Brooklynn were in spring soccer, so I was juggling the three kids to their different practices and games. There were some days where they would overlap and have to be to two different locations. Wow. But we survived, and somehow were all able to cheer and support one another!

I think that Matthew's favorite part of baseball was sitting on the lawn mower that's used to condition the field. He would sit on it for most of the game (which almost always lasted over two hours). He called it "the tractor." As long as he had a tractor and food...he was happy. Rachey was my big helper, she would help keep an eye on Matthew and Brooklynn so that I could watch the game... Brooklynn loves meeting new friends, and this little girl was so cute. I just loved her, she would come over and spend nearly the entire game with Lainah and the snacks, or Brooklynn. She was cute. and Lainah would keep me company in her stroller...which she sometimes didn't appreciate all too much. We bought a lot of snack food from Costco during the months of April-July. We also bought a lot of cheese pizza, and gum, and sunflower seeds. We kept Costco in business there for a while.

One of Tay's best buddies from school came to watch the championship game, and Tay was so happy to have Carson there watching. Here's Tay getting his medal from Coach Lott. Friends are the BEST!!!GO LONGHORNS!!!

They're Growing Up

Boy, these past two weeks have been so crazy, and so fun-filled with all of the kids' end of the year activities. I think that Matthew and Lainah and I have spent more time in the van driving to and from activities than ever before! This school year has gone by so fast, it's so hard for me to believe that next year I'll have a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, and a 1st grader.

Rachey had an end of the year bbq at her teacher's house this week, and it was so fun to watch her socialize with all of her classmates, and help get Matthew's drink and plate, and mother little Lainah. She has grown up so much this year. It makes me happy and proud, and it also is a little sad to watch her grow up a little more each year. She does make me laugh though, she is the center of her class social atmosphere. It's interesting to listen to how many times her name is called by her classmates as she flits from one little group to the next. I love it, and I hope she holds onto that quality, of being able to include everyone, and make everyone feel important.

Taylor had a big end of the year party last night at his teacher's "house." His teacher's husband is a professor at NNU, and together they manage the Sophomore boys hall...NNU is out for the summer, so Mrs. Baas planned a big party at the dorm. So after school the 4th graders got on a bus and headed to the party. They had a water slide, lots of yummy food, watched a movie, played games...and when I went to pick Tay up at 9:30...they were all sprawled out on the lounge couches and all over the floor. They were in the middle of watching their class DVD, composed of pictures from the entire year and so it gave me time to just watch. Tay and two of his friends were lounging on one couch. He was in the middle. They looked so tired, but they were all three trying to not look tired, they were acting "so cool." It just cracked me up. I stood there and wondered if in a few years when Tay was at college, if he and his buddies would look just like what I saw last night, and be doing about the same thing. Just a bunch of good kids having a great time together.

Today Brooklynn graduated from Kindergarten. She could harldy wait to get ready for 1st grade tomorrow...but I let her know that she had summer vacation first. She was a little disappointed. I remember her 1st day of Kindergarten, and how small she looked in her big backpack as she turned around to wave at me one last time before going in. She's taller now, and her backpack fits like it should, and we had to buy her several new pairs of jeans along the way because she kept getting too tall for them...but she still seems too small to be a 1st grader. She reminded me of Andy last year at Dental School graduation. She held her head the exact same way, flipped her tassle out of her face the exact way that he did, and as she walked off, she looked back just the same as he did for that one last picture. That was so endearing to me, to see how many of her daddy's personality attributes she has inherited.

I'm a bit of a cry baby, I fully admit it. I've been told before that because I have "so many" children, I couldn't possible care for them and love them or value them individually the way that someone with only one child would. I am thankful every day that I was chosen and blessed by my Heavenly Father to be the mother of my five beautiful and wonderful children. I am also amazed at how I, an imperfect parent, does indeed have the ability to love and care for each of my little ones individually, and I strive every single day to give them each the attention, and love, and care that they need. It helps me to better understand how our own Father in Heaven, who is perfect, loves each of His many many children each as individuals.

So, they're growing up...and I am loving my role as cheerleader, pep talker, should-cryer, nurturer, fashion consultant, book reader, homework editor, friend, and mother.