Why I love Summer

It's 8:45 am, there are 9 bodies in my house and I'm the only one awake. Amazing. All three of my babies are snuggled into my bed, where I snuck out of an hour ago to do laundry and try to study. The air-conditioner is going full blast so I'm shivering in my undies, folding, and grateful for the white-noise it provides while the kids are piled under our winter comforter that gets a year round job thanks to John and the air-conditioner. My 4 sisters and my mom have been here for the past 3 days, on and off, with the constants being Leanne and her beautiful 3 month old Brielle, and Sarah and her precious tiny 2 month old, Caroline. Ava is in baby heaven, holding, dressing, changing, playing, showering these two. And we're all in sister heaven blabbing, blabbing, staying up way too late, eating and soaking up the company. Life is nice….

Can someone tell me why this song won't leave me alone?

You know how you watch a movie and it sucks you in? Well, I don't watch many movies so when I picked this one instead of a nap on the flight home from Iceland, I was more than ready to give up on it and get my nap if it didn't suck me in. It did. I don't know why, other than the music and the whole country lifestyle thingy. Hard decisions about big life events coming up so it must have hit a cord. Whatever it is, I can't stop listening to this song and all the others he sings. Something about it…..soulful and twangy…. speaks right to me.

(PS. This was the only video I could find but it's a little PG rated so be careful if your kids watch!)

The Vikings are Coming, the Vikings are Coming!!!

In honor of our upcoming Iceland trip, Nathan and Lias are having a Viking themed joint birthday party. This is the protocol get up, minus the shield. All brought to you by cardboard and duct tape and a mother's imagination. Nathan has been raiding villages all night long.

The Ranch in Florida

Interesting newscast about the ranch John grew up on.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=15602133&_mid=805&_rid=805.800.248816

But really, did you notice all the flies?? :-)

Cuteness

At least I think so....

One year down

Took my last final for the first year of nursing school today. I'm so ready to have a summer again and hang out with the kids, uninterrupted playing or surfing the internet, actually sleeping and seeing my husband a little. It's been a crazy 8 months but now it's done and for that I'm glad. I feel like I've learned a ton and yet hardly scratched the surface of what I'm supposed to know. I got my first B at a community college. Yuck. And failed tests galore only to find with the curve I'd A'ced it. Yuck again.

Be prepared for a onslaught of post sometime the future. I have a whole fall and winter's worth of pictures begging to get out. But my bed is begging for me to get into it!

the Strength within

This little girl is so strong, yet fragile. She amazes me daily with her insight, her devotion to us and her desire to want to do what's right.

She's always looking out for someone else, trying to right a wrong or make someone happier. I had one of her little friend's dad tell me the other day that she was destined to be a diplomat when she grew up because she can defuse any situation and it's true.

She's in love with babies, absolutely obsessed and still dresses them up each day and brings them to me to watch all day while she's at school. Daily,I let her down or make her cry when I bark at her or loose my temper and nightly I pray for forgiveness and hope I haven't crushed her little spirit.

Last week she wrote, illustrated and delivered this lesson entirely by herself for Family Home Evening:

"doow (do) you nowe (know) how (who) are profit (prophet) is? he is Presint Monsin. HF (Heavenly Father but she used the abbreviation HF) sprks (speaks) to Presint montsin he tells him to tell us to be good this weekende are Profit will speek to us he will tell us the things that HF tollde (told) him to tell us."

Her testimony is fragile but strong -just like her personality -and she's eager to learn. Her faith and desire are so real that they make me want to do better and be a better person for her.

She has turned the tide on John being her favorite and now I have the honor, but I'm floundering to try to fill big shoes. I have big plans this summer to hang out and really enjoy each other. We're gonna learn to sew a little, play a little barbies and babies and plan a birthday party, for starters. I love my curly girly (hair compliments of one patient Auntie Laurel who introduced her to rollers. She bounced around all day.).

A tale of 2 poops

1. My little man - I guess I really can't call him a baby anymore - pooped all by himself in his little potty tonight. He didn't even call me in until he'd tried to put it into the toilet all by himself, which was ok by me even though he made a tremendous mess. That is one of the best faces a mother can ever experience, watching your little baby so excited and proud of himself that he went all by himself and was successful. It is really priceless and I'm so glad that he waited 2 whole days to let me have the joy - and the fun of cleaning him and the potty and the toilet and the floor all up at 9:25 at night when I have 3 hours of homework ahead of me and I wished the kids were asleep at 7:30. It's a constant battle to want to see them and spend time with them and experience their little lives and know I have homework looming over me. I only have 33 more days of this first year left. I'm just taking one week at a time and trying not to let anyone die or be emotionally damaged in the process. Poor Lias has probably been ready to potty train for 2 months but I haven't found the stretch of time to help him. I don't think we can go backwards from here so here we go! Ready or not!

2. Two weeks ago we started clinicals at school which means I'm actually in a "hospital" setting now. Actually, it's just a nursing home but at least it's with real patients. On my very first day, my patient - a 94 year old dancing lady who doesn't walk or even stand very well - was having some incontinence issues. To make a long story short, on the way to getting her to the bathroom she ended up sitting on my lap instead of falling on the floor and breaking her hip. Lets just say I was sandwiched between a dirty bed and a dirty bum. Poor lady but she didn't fall and for that I'm still glad. Best part of all was we got to go to a seminar after our time at the nursing home and I didn't have a change of clothes. It felt like I was back on the farm, covered in crap after a hard days work. My classmates were pretty disgusted but it really didn't bother me. Needless to say, I did order a second pair of scrubs that afternoon.

Even Super Heros get Sleepy

Nathan and the Gospital

Every night we all gather on Nathan's bed to read scriptures and say family prayers. Nathan used to be our least compliant one - blame it on his constant need to move and fidget and roll on someone, etc - but lately we've turned a whole new corner with this kid. No longer does he test our patience with sitting still but instead with his incessant request to read more after we've exhausted our time. He is all about reading and soaking it up and trying to understand anything we tell him. He answers even the most abstract questions that John throws out to him and 99% of the time he's right, even if he can't quite say the words. It's very humbling and slightly amusing to hear a 4 1/2 year old trying to explain the Atonement, resurrection and the meaning of righteousness.

Last week we accompanied John down to Duke to sit in the hotel with he went to class and eat his fancy foods and try out the local kids museums. I gave the kids the task of packing their own bags of entertainment for the trip. It wasn't until we got to Duke that I noticed the two - and only - items Nathan had packed to entertain him: His Spiderman costume and.. his Book of Mormon. We attended a ward down in Durham where the vast majority of the testimonies were from kids and after watching the 5th one go up, Nathan turned to John and said he wanted to go up also. So up he went and fearlessly and loudly declared his love for the "Gospital" to all the congregation. Such an amazing spirit for such an intense little body.

A Sad Rooster Story

I just posted this on our family website and figured it was a nice snapshot of our lives, so enjoy:

A couple of months ago Nathan went to feed the chickens the scraps and I heard him screaming. I walked out and he was screaming about a rooster that he said attacked him so I told him to kick it really hard. Then it jumped on him again and I ran up and booted it around the yard a few times to teach it a lesson. Unfortunately, I didn't realize John and all his guys were at the office watching the whole spectacle. Luckily, a few days later John got frustrated at a final he was taking and walked out to feed the chickens, only to be attacked by the same rooster. Lets just say the rooster messed with the wrong person at the wrong time. And that's the end of my rooster story.

Where to start?

Each day I write blog posts in my head - while driving, taking a shower, watching the kids do something funny - and each day they never materialize on this site b/c I never get around to putting them down. So tonight may be random, but it's a snapshot in our lives.

Today was absolutely gorgeous. 65 degrees and sunny enough that we played outside at Ava's school recess (I had 35 kids playing duck, duck, goose) and even walked up to the bus stop to get her. Cinnamon followed us the whole way, avoiding Lias's advances with his stick sword and Nathan didn't have to cover his ears at the highway. Ava was so excited to see Cinnamon when she got off the bus and kept telling me that "this is kinda like the movie Milo and Otis, Mama!" Eli rediscovered the fun of throwing rocks into the creek and we all got very excited for spring.

The 2 boys and I actually made it to story time today and turned out to be the only ones. It was fun and Nathan read me a whole Bob book by himself with hardly any prompting. He's taken off with reading and is leaps and bounds above where Ava was at this age. I think it's cause he's self motivated and also cause he's been so exposed to it from Ava's schooling. Any which way, it's exciting to see him excited and to really think that he'll read well before kindergarten, if I give him the tools. He's using the Headsprout website and jumped ahead and read the story for the lesson 30, even though he's only made it through 10 lessons. His favorite thing to tell us right now is "I know that" - as in "Nathan, don't tease Lias" - "I know that" or "Nope, the letter M doesn't say www" - "I already know that, Mama". It's funny cause he obviously doesn't know that but he's so full of himself that he just blurts it out. He's changed tremendously over the past 3 months and someday's I wonder where my twerpy Natey went. Today while I showered he practiced "random acts of kindness" (his preschool is big on this) and made my bed, his bed, Lias' bed and matched a bunch of socks. He's actually fun and it's fun to watch the transformation.

And speaking of readers - Ava is full speed ahead! We've had a set of Fancy Nancy books from the library since Christmas and she just decided the other day that she could read them. She read 3 in one day and amazed me with her perseverance and patience. Today she spearheaded our Groundhog Day celebration and got the boys and I together to listen to her poem. Here it is in all it's 1st grade glory:

"groundhog groundhog cum (come) out will you plays (please). I hope you downt (don't) see your shadow plays (please) dowt (don't) see your shadow plays (please)."

It is accompanied by an awesome picture of her and Cassia looking down into the groundhogs hole while he was still asleep.

Last night we had a whole saga when her fable she made and illustrated got accidentally thrown away with the leftovers at IHOP. It was recovered, but not without grease stains all over but someday soon I hope I'll get it up here for posterity's sake. I feel sad and glad at the same time, but she's definitely moved into the school kid years and mostly left her baby stages behind. Her main excitement right now is waiting for the postman to bring her Kaya American Girl doll that she bought with her Christmas $ from Papa. Her cousin Abby gave her all the books and we're already on the last one, book 6, and it's been very fun to spend nights reading with Ava until way to late on a school night. She's way into her apperance lately and is begging me for bangs, cause she thinks mine are cool.

I keep trying to tell her they're kinda annoying but we'll see where we end up. Sorry for the lack of quality pictures but they are the biggest hamper to my blogging so they may have to take a back seat for awhile.

Elias - he's the baby and still lives the role. He's such a lovey dovey little thing wrapped up in a naughty baby too. We are trying to get him to sleep in his own bed but somehow one of us ends up with him draped around us each night. He's actually growing taller (I thought he'd be our shrimp for ever) and losing his baby fat, which just makes me downright sad. He's a tyrant, yelling at Nathan in the car that he's not allowed to sing I'm getting Nuttin for Christmas or Follow the Prophet but then turning around and decreeing that it's ok if Ava does. Sometimes we humor him but lately we've been telling him to hush. We've found a new technique for disciplining and it involves pulling ears and when he's naughty he'll come into us looking sad covering his ears. The funny thing is that we've never even pulled them hard, but just the threat scares him into sadness. He's got a nervous habit of biting his nails down to stubs and uses that as his soothing method, to the point of he's falling asleep with his hands in his mouth. He's an incredible talker, but super shy too - today he actually talked at lunch in Ava's school and the kids looked at him amazed. He claims to like preschool and willingly hangs up his jacket and waves goodbye. He can pick out his letter "E" all over and the other day he actually wrote it. Crazy. He's a doll and still so yummy to kiss.

As for me, I just took a test that I thought would take 30 minutes and it took the whole stinking 2 hours and I still feel like I failed. School is my sanity, gives me a little break from the house when John's gone for weekends on end. I love what I'm learning but still feel torn between being gone and ruining Lias and Nathan's childhoods. But then we have a snow week where we're stranded home for 4 days straight and I think I'll go insane so I decide it's good to be in school. We have the "should I quit" conversation about once every 3 weeks and it gets to the point where I don't even study for 5 days since I'm sure I'm not going back, then I regret that when I have 1 day to get ready for the test. We're in the hard stretch of it but we can see the end in sight and that's where we keep pushing for. We're surviving but I don't think we'd do this again if you gave us thousands of dollars.

As for John, I just have one word. Russia. I'll leave that you your imagination. Adios and goodnight.

The day has arrived...

So today as I stood in the kitchen making bread in my brand-spanking-new Bosch mixer that Santa brought me, I couldn't figure out if I should laugh or cry that I've turned into my mother. The day has arrived.

-------Update------

That thing rocks! My bread is awesome - even the kids and John noticed it and we ate an entire loaf for lunch today. I finally feel redeemed for the past 6 years of making bread and it being so-so - burnt on the outside and doughy in the middle- it wasn't just my fault as a crummy bread maker after all! Now we'll all gain 15 lbs instead of losing 15 from eating all these dang carbs. Yum!

A Little Post-Holiday Cheer from Lias

Lias got pretty good at most of the Christmas songs this season. I caught him singing this one while I was in the middle of vacuuming. He's pretty cute and I'm pretty impressed that I finally got a video on here!

Merry Christmas to All

and to all a good night!

Isn't that all that a family with young kids really wants anyway? We could all use a little sleep over here but somebody had to go handout a Christmas card this year promising an update on the lives of the Genho family. What was I thinking? Since I haven't blogged well enough this year, this will be one heck of a post but just realize, you were forewarned! Here it is, in all it's glory -

JANUARY/FEBRUARY:
We started the year with a foot of snow left over from Dec 2009 -we regretted not getting any pictures of the first storm until the end of January brought us 2+ more feet of the stuff.


We cried as our old friend Allie (John's border collie) passed away


but smiled as 2 new baby lambs were born in the middle of the storms.



Cabin fever and 2 weeks out of school must have made us crazy-in-the-head


cause by the end of Feb both John and Lynnie applied to yet more school - John for an MBA at Duke, Lynnie for an ADN (RN in Nursing) at the local community college.As if we weren't busy enough: Lynnie with juggling the kids and a few classes to get ready for nursing school and John with his calling in the bishopric, running the farm and moonlighting for ranches all over the US as a genetic consultant. Luckily, we had an awesome family friend/nanny, Jocelyn, that came to live with us in Nov 09 and helped make it all work.



MARCH:

John and Lynnie stole away to see the off-Broadway production of "Wicked" in Richmond


before the spring rush started on the farm.



Lias' obsession with John started to emerge



(Uncle Dan is a good substitute but Mama is NOT)



while Nathan has started a strange habit of wearing a single glove on his hand.


John continually teased him by calling him "Micheal" and Nathan frustratedly told him that his name is "Na-fen". Ava deftly balanced between princess and farm girl, wearing both hats equally well.





APRIL:

Spring blooms all over,


especially next door in Jenkins apple orchard.





Nathan lives for Ride N Romp every other Monday and burns up the gym on his bike.


Lias is moving from baby to big boy and tells us so all the time. John gets sophisticated with his acceptance to Duke, so takes up coon hunting with a neighbor to balance it all out.


May:

The craziest month ever. Nathan turns 4 with an awesome, impromptu trip to Litchfield, SC to play in the ocean with the indispensable Ryan family.


Clover Hill is fancied up to host Lynnie's sister Laurel's wedding and over 300 guests.





Lynnie's whole family is invited




- the chickens

bunnies


and naughty little boys that color


all over themselves are not.

Papa (John's dad) drops by to get a shot at a Virginia turkey



but has no luck -darn, that just means he'll have to come try again!



Jocelyn decides to leave us for greener pastures in Boston and Lynnie cries tears of despair.


JUNE:

Even though he turned 2, Lias held onto his spot as baby of the family and both Lynnie and John were quite relieved at that feat.


John started his time at Duke with a week long visit so Lynnie and the crew ditched Ava's last day of kindergarten for impeding adventure.



Thankfully, they still let her graduate even though we pushed the limit for "excused educational absences".

After an awesome 8 hour roadtrip we arrived in Kentucky at the DeLuca home



and settled in to wait out John's return with Lynnie's old college roommate, Kristen and her adorable little man


Connor.


The garden survived just fine without us


and soon John came back to lead the kids around on horseback after a day of work.





(More to come - it's 3 in the morning and I'm dead! As if anyone is still reading this monstrosity!)

Today

(Disclaimer - picture overload ahead)

Fall is made for Virginia. It's been stunningly beautiful for the past 2 weeks and each day I think about how I need to get out to take some pictures.

John is in NC this weekend so we're all alone and that means we do nothing for the next two days.

We ate cold cereal and fresh from the chicken coop scrambled eggs for dinner, with a little toast on the side. I even let the kids drink OJ for dinner.

We were planning on swimming at the gym tonight, but Nathan has a touch of a stomach bug so we scratched that plan.

We met Ava at the school bus at the end of the drive and geared up for pictures. I didn't worry about clothes, hair or getting ready.

Each time I pass this spot on the driveway, I've been imagining Ava standing in this patch of weeds looking beautiful. Too bad the sun didn't really wanna work with us.

See this kid? He's incredible hard to photograph.

He smiles all the time, but he refuses to look at you and then when he does, his eyes get lost in his creases. He gets that from his dad.

Thank goodness for the green tomatoes still on the vine right next to our outdoor studio. They entertained the boys for over an hour.

I'm pretty sure I got hit with more than one. Sorry Ronnie - I hope you were through with them cause Nathan and Lias made short work of them.

Doesn't Ava have a great eye for photos? I even saw her tilting the camera all funky angled and everything.

She's also an incredibly cute girl with a knack for posing. And that's alright with me.

I took over 150 pictures of this kid and 95% of them were some form of this face.

This one, on the other hand, did an amazing job. I also took over 100 pictures of him, but 95% of them are great. Now I have to narrow it down - decisions, decisions.

Amazing what 2 years will do for you.

These three little persons are my life. I maybe busy doing other things (like sorting and editing photos all evening) but when it all comes down to it, they're the most important part of anything. Ava is gone all day now and I still feel the sting of sadness each time I put her on the school bus or watch her walk into school. Nathan drives me absolutely mad with his incessant questions about volcanoes, immortality, knights, the rules of the road and his inability to entertain himself. But at night when I'm laying next to him, watching his chest rise and fall I know I'd never change a thing about him and he's growing up way too fast. Little Lias is still my baby, although he's quick to tell me he's not a baby but a big boy. He's undemanding, easy going and resourceful so sometimes when I stop and focus on him it blows me away that he can count to 12 (where did he learn that?) or that he washes his hands "all by heself". They are my life and I really would be lost if they weren't around to keep me grounded.