Something to write

Greetings from M Court... here are my random thoughts from the day:

Tom is busy working 5 days a week but is happy. He works in Longview on Monday, at Willamette in Vancouver on Tuesday and the amazing Discovery Dental on Wed-Fri. He signed up for the Mountain Marathon again, insane hilly, muddy, practically run through ponds, marathon. So he’s training for that, but what has really captured his heart is crossfit. We joined a new gym just 1 mile from our house and are both in love. I could write an entire post about all the things we love about it and if you’ve seen us recently you’ve probably been stuck listening to us go on about how amazing it is! Short version- we love the people there, the moral support as well as the competition. We love doing new and interesting things all the time and being pushed harder than we thought our bodies could handle and then coming back the next day.

 On top of all the working out fun I am also busy with all the normal things of life. I spend a lot of time helping out down at the school and enjoy being involved in the kids classes. At church I serve with the young women and just got called as camp director. Having Alyssa at school 2.5 days a week also gives me time to go to the temple every other week and just help out with all the things that need to be done in a busy active ward and community. As always, there are never enough hours in the day. But my life continues to evolve as I change from a young mom with young kids to just a “mom.” The kids are more independent and have much different needs.

We have been painting the interior of the house and it just gets better every day. I am sure the project list will be long for a few years to come but bit by bit we are making it home. We are storing a pool table for a friend for the next 6 months so that is taking up the space in our empty front living room and providing lots of fun.  Sadly our appliances are breaking down even though they are only about 8 years old, first the microwave, then the oven and now the dishwasher.  I got to spend the afternoon waiting for a repairman.

Hayden is 10 and enjoying the independence he now gets.  He actually babysat his sisters one Saturday night while we went to do karaoke and did a great job!! As always he is hopelessly addicted to Minecraft and all video games, a battle we re-fight daily as we force him to choose other things to do with his time. He just finished Hunger Games and is still plowing through The Lord of the Rings. We forced him to sign up for baseball for one last year just to get him outside, that starts in a month or so.  His love for band continues and one day Tom took him to a music store and he came home with his eyes all lit up excited to tell me that he saw a bass clarinet.  He still enjoys school and does well even though he will tell you that SCHOOL means Six Cruel Hours Of Our Lives.  He only has a handful of friends but he told me “mom, that’s all the friends I need. I’m not Danica who needs to be friends with the whole world!”  I guess he doesn't need friends because he gets to torture his sisters.

Danica does love her friends and would be happy to just draw or play all day. She barely tolerates school most days and hates being gone all day, every day, but she is excelling in her classwork and is the top reader in her class. We have had to make a new rule about not doing hand stands and cartwheels at the dinner table...who knew... but she just can‘t stop herself from doing them all the time!  We've all been victims as she has kicked us in the face when she spontaneously did a cartwheel while walking down the hall.  She did a week long after school cheer camp at the high school and has fallen in love with dancing.  It was hilarious watching her shy self trying to break free to cheer and yell.  She hardly moved.  But her desire to dance comes at a good time because she needs to move up to the next level at gymnastics and doesn’t want the 9-12 hour a week time commitment that comes with that so we are taking a break from the gym and doing dance for a while. She also signed up for t-ball and asks me every day when t-ball is starting.

Alyssa is a wild card as usual.  She is trying to figure out what she likes and who she is and it keeps me guessing all the time. One minute she will be the star of the show and the next minute she is hiding behind my leg feeling shy. School is going well for her, she loves her class and is does well at her work.  Her teacher said that the first day of school she was told to put down her paint brush before she was finished and ended up in a tug-o-war with the teacher.  However, she must have decided that the teacher was serious because she hasn't had any trouble since then with her listening or obeying.  So now the only problem is that she still has not had a turn to be the "star of the week" and it’s killing her...it’s a real long lesson in patience. She loved her gymnastics and is sad to be taking a break just because Danica has to but in the meantime I have her and Danica doing a little community ed tap/ballet class down at the elementary school and she is loving that. She is going to play t-ball but doesn’t want to because she is nervous to play against another team. Hopefully she will get over it. Mostly she is just loving being the baby of the family and walks around hugging her stuffed animals all the time asking me if I think she looks cute. Which I do.