Some weeks are worse than others. 2/9

What a week. I ran out to run a quick errand on Wednesday night and rear ended the car in front of me. He stopped quickly and I wasn’t able to swerve fast enough. We pulled over and exchanged information. Sadly I was disoriented on what side I hit him with my car. I looked at the side of my bumper I thought I hit him with and it looked perfect. His bumper was scratched a little and pulled down some. The guy driving was actually really kind. His car was a brand new Toyota Corolla and he had only had it for TWO month. He just said, “it’s ok, things like this happen.” I was feeling blessed it wasn’t more serious. When I started driving home I heard a weird flapping sound. After further inspecting our van when I got home I realized that half of my front bumper was barely hanging on. I had looked at the wrong side when I got out of the car. So…..this ended up being a lot bigger deal. With a deductible and four days in the shop our van should be out as good as knew. On the positive, I am grateful I was by myself and nobody got hurt.

That was Wednesday, next came Thursday. The boys had ANOTHER “snow day” because we had a big ice storm Wednesday night. In the afternoon, Charlie was hiding in my closet while talking to his friend Austen on the phone.  I heard Matthew screaming and yelling that Charlie was bleeding A LOT! He had made contact with an old picture frame I had placed in my closet. I had thrown the glass away but the sharp holders were sticking up and he cut his back on one of them. It was deep. Thankfully my neighbor was home and she let Matthew and Lucy go to her house while I loaded up Charlie and Conrad to head to the Emergency room. Our hospital has a Children’s Emergency room so it was a lot more kid friendly than other hospital emergency rooms. The doctors were great and Charlie was able to watch the Cartoon Network for a few hours while they stitched him up. It took a lot time and a lot of stiches. They had to put in some internal stiches first before they put in the 15 top stiches. Once they numbed him up he was fine. I think Matthew was more upset by everything than Charlie was. I think he actually enjoyed the experience somewhat. He was able to watch cable and chat with the doctor about all of his interests. We even went through the drive through at Krispy Kreme to pick up a hot dozen when he said, “this has been great mom!”  He didn’t have much pain and was eager to return to school the next day.

Overall I’m grateful for kind people. Even the insurance company was kind and competent. The man I hit was kind and the doctors and nurses that worked with Charlie were kind.  Cheers to kindness.

Charlie was the one who pointed out that both he and the car were injured on their right sides.

Project (s) Connect- January 2/6

My sister Nora was bored- she was only growing another baby and building a new home so she started a project oriented blog group (she’s not bored but has been talking about this for a year so it was time). She ended up convincing 42 friends and family to join her. We all picked 12 activities/crafts/goals/focuses working on one each month. We are each assigned a day when we post what we did the last month and how we faired. It’s great to complete something and then get such supportive feedback. I’ve also loved getting to know each of these women and seeing their successes and failures.  I’ve only posted for the month of January but am looking forward to more. The following was what I posted for January-

Greetings!!
I'm Sharon, Nora's twin nine years late. It's true, we think very similarly so when I need validation for anything in my life, I call Nora and she supplies it.
I live on the East Coast with my Husband of 10 years and 4 kids (9,7,4,2). I grew up in Utah but haven't lived there since 2005. After graduating from college we lived in Michigan for six wonderful years (for my husband to do more school) and have lived in Maryland for two years. We'll see where we'll land next. I stay at home with my kids and love the three Rs: Running, Reading, and Relaxing......and talking on the phone and Netflix.
For February I made a birthday banner for my family. I actually got the idea to do this many years ago. We love to celebrate birthdays with a fun cake, streamers, and balloons. A reusable banner would be a perfect and practical addition. I knew exactly what kind of fabric I wanted to use and I even found a couple tutorials here and here (I ended up merging the two tutorials together to make by banner). But then.....nothing!
After my first baby was born my dear Mother-in-Law offered to buy me my first sewing machine. I remember going to the Singer Store by my house and picking it out and working on my first projects. I made quilts for my boys beds, baby gifts, bags, etc. I had a good friend who was project motivated and pulled me along. Years have gone by, my friend lives far away, I have been blessed with more kids, and the sewing started to die off . I realized I didn't sew anything fun in 2013 (I did patch some pants for my boys) . What happened? Excuses. I love this talk by President Uchdorf. My favorite part below:

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children."

I know that I am the best person, mom, friend, daughter, and neighbor when I dedicate time in my life to create things. It doesn't have to be sewing but creating anything does wonders for my soul.
Thanks to Project(s)Connect (and THREE upcoming family birthdays) I decided to "create" and make the banner. It's embarrassing how easy this was. I went to Joanns and purchased seven fat quarters, bias tape, heat n' bond, and I was ready to go (total cost was under 15 dollars). It took me three days with a few hours each day and it was done. I am very happy with the results and my kids love it too.

Baby Panda at the National Zoo 2/1

We spent a beautiful Saturday morning at the National Zoo enjoying a break in the freezing weather.  We went with the hopes of seeing the new baby panda “Boa Boa” who was born in late August and had only been on public display for a few weeks. Thanks to a miraculous parking spot close by, we got into the zoo before 10am! It wasn’t crowded as we started walking straight up the hill.

The boys were jumping on everything.

When we finally reached the Panda House, Boa Boa the baby had actually just gone into his little pen so we couldn’t see him. We did get to watch his dad eat an insane amount of Bamboo (they eat 40lbs a day)! We were able to watch Boa Boa on the Panda Cam and he was adorable. He was very active and showed us a lot of somersaults. We also got to see his mother running around in the outside area where Boa Boa was not interested in venturing.

Panda Spirit!

The animals were all really active. The chameleon crawled up the branch close to Lucy’s face. The best show we got was in the large primate house where a daddy and baby were racing around playing tag.  So, no baby panda in person but still a success!

Our FOUR year old Lucy! 1/23

In true “Pony Style” Lucy celebrated her fourth birthday. The day before her birthday was her birthday party with friends from ABC School. The boys were home because it was a snow day so we had a great group. It was a different experience planning a “girlie” birthday party. There were no trucks, swords, or pirates. We did have a pony piñata and we played “Pin the Cutie on Rainbow Dash.”  For being such a basic game the kids all got really into it. We had rainbow cupcakes too. 

Her actual birthday was the next day and it started out with gifts. She got a new “Big Wheel”  which will be great fun when the snow goes away. She also got the game “Busytown” that EVERYONE loves playing together. The boys went off to school and Seth was able to work from home. In the afternoon we took her to Build-A-Bear in the mall to make a Pony. She loved it all and since the place was empty she got a lot of attention. We took her and Conrad to the play place after where she made  a new friend.

That evening we had a family party that our neighbors Nancy, Lanlan, and Alan joined us for. Alan gave her the gigantic Pooh Bear that has been everyone’s favorite toy. Who would have guessed? I love the picture of Nancy tickling Lucy. What a fun night of laughing.

What a year of change it has been for this little girl. I love all of her silly observations like, “mmmm mom this bathroom tastes delicious” (said while walking into the bathroom at Target) or “your room is so pretty mom”. We asked the other kids what they loved about Lucy and Charlie said, “I love Lucy because she likes cool things like Legos and isn’t too into princesses.”  She does love Legos especially the Lego magazine which she spends hours looking over. I love her friendly nature. She loves going places and meeting new friends. She can be really shy around adults but I’m fine with that. She loves to look at books all day and she would let me read to her for hours. She was also the first child to figure out my password on my Ipad. She twitches  her mouth to one side when she asks questions. We are so thankful she is part of our family. I asked her some basic questions about herself and these were her replies.

Favorite TV Show: My Little Ponies

Favorite Color: Pink

Favorite Friend: Cassie (her cousin she doesn’t see much but adores)

Favorite Toy to Play with: Duplos

Favorite Game: Busytown

Favorite Food: Apple

What do you want to be when you grow up?: FIVE!!

January Happenings.

We started the new year by eating our favorite food: Café Rio! My kids even love it. We came home and put the little kids to bed and let the boys stay up to play games. We watched the Dubai fireworks display on tv and sent them off to bed around 10. Good times.

Little Miss Lucy started Sunbeams, finally!! Since she has a January birthday she has spent a long time in nursery and was very ready for Primary. She wore her new sweater Grandma Thacker crocheted for her. Her teacher is “Sister Sellers” who she talks about all the time.

January was moving right along and then all the kids (and Seth) got the stomach flu. It started with Matthew on a Sunday night and moved to a different child each day. I’m so thankful for a washing machine!! Thankfully it only lasted a day for each person. That week ended but the next week was “Snow” week. It actually only snowed a Tuesday but that meant the kids were out of school on Tuesday (they cancelled  school before the storm hit) Wednesday, and they had a late start on Thursday. They had already missed Monday because it was MLK day. It was nice to have some lazy mornings but everyone got really bored really fast. I wish we would have packed up and gone somewhere that week.

I looked over and laughed when I saw Charlie in this reading position. He is all ready to walk out to the bus stop and is trying to get in some last minutes of reading. The book he was reading (Michael Vey) was from the county library so he was not aloud to take it school. 

Matthew still loves to build tents.

Conrad has spent a lot of the month crying. He has had one cold after another. With him waking up a lot earlier in the morning and taking a shorter nap he’s not very functional. This was a happy moment he spent carrying around “Michael” in the Bitty Backpack.

Christmas Break Air and Space Dulles. 12/28

We went to the Air And Space Museum in Dulles, Virginia during the week of Christmas and New Year. I still hadn’t seen the “real” space shuttle (they previously had the “Enterprise” shuttle but it never actually went into space). We were able to get there right when it opened so it wasn’t too crowded. They had a space shuttle landing simulator that Charlie loved testing out. Matthew preferred observing. I loved seeing the Space Shuttle Endeavor up close. I got emotional thinking of all the American ingenuity that went into building the space program. Matthew LOVED everything about this museum and could have spent days wandering around. He even spent his own money to buy the little space shuttle miniature.