Holland

Matt spent 3 week in June in The Netherlands, for work.  He enjoyed a few weekends of sightseeing. Including going to Amsterdam, Delft, and visiting The Hague.

He amused Jason with the funny difference between Europe and America

I totally enjoyed the signs, and even more so, the Dutch language. Its as beautifully written as it is spoken! :)

Busy Summer Boys

There have been several times that I've wanted to blog about all the stuff we've been doing but that's just it, we've been busy!
Karate! Jason and Ian both advanced!

 

Swim Lessons! Both boys passed their level and are in the last level that they offer. I am so proud of them.

Cubs Scout camp. Nothing like shooting guns and arrows and finding friends for Mom!

Enjoying Brotherly time watching and playing with fireworks.

Science Camp at HMNS

Ian did Lego robotics, he learned how to program a robot.

Jason attended Wizard Science Academy II, it was like being at Hogwarts! I was totally jealous.

Camp Murphy:

While Matt and I lived it up in Cancun the boys enjoyed the best camp of the Summer, staying with the best people in the world. Camp Murphy was full of Boys, Video Games, and we hear they were very well behaved.

The boys have been working hard at the piano, we enjoyed their first piano recital. We love, love, love our piano teacher. I am so proud of how far these guys have come.

 

And we are still looking forward to more Karate, Swimming Lessons, and Piano! Happy Summer.

Unclean, unclean!

I never claimed to be the worst mother, but some day I hope to get that award!

About a week ago Ian started complaining of an itchy scalp.  Being a super sensitive, eczema, contact dermatitis kind of girl, I was first worried about the new laundry detergent that I bought and washed his sheets in.  Okay, easy fix!
1 trip to the store later- clean and free of dyes and chemicals, super friendly laundry detergent, sheets washed, towels too!

Next day- Itchy scalp. 
Ahh, he just has dry skin.  I'll rub lotion in his head. That will help.  It didn't help.

Next day- He went to the nurse at school, thankfully she didn't send him home. I would have been horrified if he had lice! Of course this had been a few days, and I was worried about lice too, so pulled out my super awesome powerful gem magnifying glass, to look at my little boys scalp. Well, I didn't see anything moving around, and neither did the nurse, so no worries- RIGHT?

Next few days- Itchy, itchy scalp. Hmm
Okay, time for another trip to the store for the magic shampoo 'head and shoulders', wash rinse and repeat for an itchy scalp. Verdict - wha-wha-wha  Can you hear it? That's the sound of failure.

Next day - ITCHY (Bleeping) SCALP
Okay at this point I'm starting to suspect that it's a tic, and I need to learn to live with it.  So I ask.  Trying to be the patient mother of boy with Tourette's. Nope, I was almost hoping it was a tic, at least I would be able to ignore his itching.

So, here is where I start to get a little nuts, okay, I went slightly insane.  So you know how we diagnose everything via google, right? Well, I had just about ruled out all itchy scalp problems on the list, I was sure he had some rare disorder, that when from itchy scalp to death in a matter of days.  I know it was a bit of a jump, but I was at a loss, and Ian was clearly fed up.  He wasn't sleeping well, he as irritable and he just couldn't focus.  I took him into my bathroom and looked at his head, searching for a reasonable explanation.
WAIT, did I see something? No it was small, but it's not there anymore. Hmm, what are those little things on his hair? Could they be nits (lice eggs?)
Hold up- Mom needs to google some stuff, don't leave this bathroom!
At that point, I had a growing suspicion that, the nurse and myself had made a terrible mistake days ago.
One word... LICE
 After my quick research, a home remedy for lice was mouthwash, something I had, so, I poured the remainder of the bottle on his little head.
OH, MY AHHHH-  I saw a nasty bugger fleeing from his mouthwashy head, apparently lice do not like minty freshness!

Time for the frenzy - A haircut followed by a trip to the store for the shampoo, combs, and gloves.  10 million loads of laundry, vacuuming, cloroxing, disinfecting. Ian was treated to the royal, you have lice, you need to be burned and everything you own needs to go, treatment.  Despite my lack of maternal-ness, I hunkered down and began the treatment on every living human in the house. Shampooing, combing and watching. 
The verdict, Ian had lice, lots of 'um. I combed and combed his head till I found no more, then I combed some more.  My skin was crawling, but surprisingly, it must have all been in my mind because the rest of us were lice free.

The next morning - No ITCHING.
I still cleaned vacuumed, and combed that kids head till he cried. Like I said I really want that worst mother award. I'm still itching, but I don't think they have a pill for psychosomatic itching, and worry. So now we wait and watch for the next 7-10 days. Die - stupid parasitic bugs!

So, really, people get lice, no big deal. So far we are lucky that it was just Ian.  And now with hyper awareness mom, we are going to be on the lookout for any infestations.  Of course, Ian touches his head like 6 times a minute to tic, so that probably won't be the last time. But I'm reminded that it's treatable, and we know how to deal with it. Ugh, I just still feel Unclean.

Ian's Baptism

Well, I can honestly say it was the most interesting baptism I've ever been too! Let's get down to the laughable section - the water.  Sure the water is important for a baptism, some may some a very integral part of a baptism.  The missionaries arrived 2 hours prior to the Baptism to fill the font with water, we arrived 1 hour early and turned the water off.  We proceeded with the program and then it was time to baptize Ian.  The moment Matt stepped in the water he stepped right back out.  His feet were lobster red! The water was scalding hot.  And it had been sitting there for over an hour.  The plexy-glass barrier was totally steamed up.  We pulled the drain and started to add cold water.  Then we dumped in a bag of ice, it melted instantly! After about 20 minutes, we got the water down to a tolerable temperature and Ian proceeded in the font, only to get back out because it was still to hot, so we ran the cold water for a bit longer.  Finally we were able to get the ordinance taken care of.  Ian told Matt that he would always remember his baptism, (we thought for sure because he was going to say trying to cool the water, but he said) because "I felt the Spirit." "I want to tell everyone that I felt the spirit". He did, the next day, he bore his testimony about feeling the spirit after his baptism.  It's not about the water, or the talks (which were excellent) it was about the saving ordinances.  Matt has joked that he was baptized by fire and water at the same time, and sure we've all joked about cooking our food in the baptismal font. Or if you want to talk about how hot something is, you could say it's "Baptismal hot."  I'm so glad that we had family and friends travel with us to share in the "fun."  I will not forget his day either, he's my baby and I am so proud of his choices and his righteous decisions.

Birthdays

April 12th is a special day, Emily, my sister had a baby on that day 11 years ago, and being a younger sibling, decided to copy her, so 3 years later I had a baby on the same day.  This was the first time we've been able to bring these kids together to celebrate the special cousins birthdays.

 

Ian turned 8! He is our funny man.  He loves everything! His favorite food is Mac&Cheese, but he will eat anything.  He's always hungry, we joke that he has a tapeworm.  He loves to play the piano, and he is a natural.  He loves Pi, he can recite 70 digits of it, and working on 100! He is very confident and courageous. He loves deeply and is very sensitive. He also loves to make stories better then they really are (he's a fibber).  He's messy, and can't every seem to make his bed. He does everything with grace.  He makes me smile when he can be so open about his Tourettes. 

Sophie is 11! She is smart and musical, and so grown up.

I sometimes forget that she is only 11. She loves listening to music and reading books.  She has wonderful taste in music, she's a bit of a rocker ;)  She's the biggest space-cadet I know, and I find it totally endearing. She's an amazing older sister, especially to Adam.

The cakes, or rather pie/pi's?
One Pi cake for my Ian, who was disappointed that I didn't put more digits on it.

 A Pizza Pie for Sophie, grated white chocolate cheese, white chocolate pepperoni's, dried pineapple and homemade royal icing black olives.

Catching up-ish?

I'm just going to pretend that I've been dutifully blogging, rather that try and catch up, I will just sum up some recent stuff.

 

 

Meet our new family member! This is Zuko, he's a male pink toe tarantula. What a handsome fellow!

 Easter was fun, we overloaded on sugar and Legos! Who could want for more.  We even dyed eggs.  I didn't get a picture, also they were undercooked, so I boiled them again. They lost all the dye, but fortunately they are hard boiled now.

Boxes anyone? Mom and Dad get new dishes, kids get new toys.  Win! Win!

 

Spring is in the air!

Hobbit Day

Our family oozes Geekyness! And we love it.  September 22nd was hobbit day (it is both Bilbo and Frodo Birthday) and we celebrated in Hobbit style. 

After Breakfast, but before second breakfast Matt read "Concerning Hobbits" From the Fellowship of the Ring.

I worked hard getting a couple of Hobbit costumes ready (not really for Hobbit day, for Halloween) but it was fun to dress up.

We made Lembas Bread (from this online recipe)

http://shirt.woot.com/offers/tricorn-of-the-sacred-realm#read-more

Which was a nice snack for afternoon tea.

We watched two towers and even played a little music from the movies together.

We even went on a Hobbit walk - No Shoes!

Overall the day ended up being so special because we were excited to do something together as a family.  We all acted like Geeks.  The boys loved every second of it.  And yes we ate 6 meals! Hope you had a Happy Hobbit Day!