Mi rutina diaria, Cinco de Mayo Cultural Celebration, and some overnighters

I have a friend from Guatemala in my ward here that used to work in the conversation lab at BYU, so when we hang out I have her make me practice speaking Spanish to her.  Last time we talked about mi rutina diara, which I imagine will change at some point in my life and I'll forget what it was like now, so I shall document.  

I get up between 6:15 and 6:30, depending on how much prep I did for breakfast the night before, brush my teeth, throw on my uniform (my Navy sweats and my U of U sweatshirt), and head downstairs to make breakfast and pack lunches for Drew and Vivs (Vivs gets a note in her lunch--I rather liked how this note turned out).  I wake Vivien up at 6:40.  We read scriptures at 7 at the breakfast table, then Drew and Vivien leave for work/school NLT 7:16.  Vivs gets ready mostly by herself.  Sometimes her bed-head needs a little extra attention. 

 After they leave and Annie and Merrick are settled, I try to get Rafe's reading lesson done as early in the day as possible (because he tends to get crankier as the day wears on).  He is a very squirmy student and still loves to say a couple words in a Cockney accent, but he's been doing really well the last week or so. I like how you can see exactly what he's thinking by what his mouth is doing.  Once that's done, it's time for the "What will my children allow me to fit into this day?" game.  If I am doing manual chores, they will let me FaceTime fairly unmolested, so I will often "hang out" with sisters in the morning while I clean up breakfast.

 The garden often needs attention in the morning, and everyone loves to "help" with that.

  It's doing the best of any garden we've ever had.  I love these planters.

 We harvested some awesome radishes.

 Vivien and Oceanna helped me pick some and then they decided to marry the radishes they picked.  They ate out sections to make faces.  Then Vivien got pregnant and birthed a radish baby (I wouldn't let her pick any more to play with, so she made one herself out of paper).

Merrick helped with the harvest as well.  

 He loves the garden.

 And he is very sad when I have to remove him from it because he starts digging everything up and eating dirt.

 He prefers a glass cup to wash down his potting soil.  His great grandma would be proud.

 My tomato seedlings are thriving in the window.

 I started hardening them off this week.  They don't like it very much, but it is a necessary step in their progression!  So many good parenting parallels to be had in gardening.

 I also try to do something educational with the kids during the day, whether it be writing practice...

 ...or finding shapes...

...or doing a puzzle.  I WILL make my children like puzzles so when they are big enough to not eat the pieces we can do crazy hard ones together!

 If I am feeling very patient, I invest some time and teach Rafe, who looks like Little Drew, to help me with the chores that need doing.

I also try to get at least a half hour of exercise in every day.  I have been consistent enough that I felt like I merited some adjustable dumbbells to take my exercise to the next level, but I decided to look online one day too late.  This is the price history for the year.  Just one day earlier and I could have saved over $100!  I have yet to order some; too disappointed.

 Once the kids are dressed, Rafe has read and practiced piano, and their room is clean, they can have their 15 minutes of screen time each.  I try to put it off until after lunch when Merrick goes down for a nap so I can have some time to myself to study Spanish or do things that require my full attention.  Vivien has grown and needed new clothes.  I sewed her some shorts from leftover fabric from my wrap skirt...

 ...and a new dress out of an old, very comfortable pair of scrub bottoms and leftover fabric from Rafe's silky.  Rafe came in when I was cutting it and instantly started to cry: "Why are you cutting up my silky??"

 I think it turned out rather well.  (Excuse Annie's nakedness below--sometimes she has a hard time getting her undies back on after going potty.  We're working on it.)

 Except the pattern I used as a guide had a cut-out in the back that turned out to be a bit too revealing.  I fixed it, but it looks kind of funny.  She doesn't mind.  It's so easy to clothe little children. My friend that's in the Primary presidency with me brought over some hand me downs that have been through both of her boys, and Rafe was like, "NEWWWWW CLOOOOOOOTHES!!!"

 Usually we have to leave at 1:40 to pick up Vivi from school, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays the same friend who brought the clothes has been coming over at 1 so I can go volunteer in Vivien's class.  I help them with their math centers.  It's been really fun.  They sent me a card for the end of the year.

 Sometimes I use picking up Vivien as a springboard to run errands, but usually we just come home.  Vivien's been playing with Ocean a lot because Grandma Leo and I are switching off picking up kids.  I'm not sure how it'll work when we move, but it's been nice these last few weeks of school to not have to wake up Merrick from his nap every day.  Yes, speaking of moving, we are buying a house!  So, back into boxes the stuff doth go.

  

Last time I blogged we were pretty set on putting an offer in on a nice 4-bedroom house on a 0.5 acre lot in Puesta del Sol Elementary's boundaries with a killer view of the mountains and the city.  We had started working on the offer paperwork when I got a text from an old friend from high school who has been living in the area and was looking for someone to take her violin students because she is moving away.  She got my information from her parents, who got it from Kaitlyn at her neighborhood Sunday Stroll Soiree she's been feeling like she needed to host for months.  As my friend and I were texting, she mentioned her neighbors were selling their house and that we should definitely come look at it.  I checked it out on Zillow and it looked awesome, so the next day I set up a time to come take a tour.  It felt right and was going to be a lot less work (the other house's yard needed significant attention), so we went for it!  This was my favorite photo from the Zillow listing.  Their 7-year-old's turtle lives in the side yard.

That weekend I sang in a quartet at a community concert our stake hosted.  One of the girls in the quartet noticed one of her old friends from home in the audience and invited him over to her house to chat for awhile afterwards.  He actually lives in the neighborhood we'll be moving into and told her that he has some awesome neighbors that were having a hard time selling their house.  The mom felt impressed that if their family gave service, their house would sell, so for a week they took breakfast to a family in the ward who needed it.  At the end of the week, they got my call.  We are very sad to be leaving our ward (because we like it, but also because half the ward seems to be moving this summer and things will be tricky for them and we feel bad leaving them in a lurch), but it feels like this is where we're supposed to be.  And the VA loan people sent us a thank you package of waffle related items, so you can't go wrong there.

It will be nice to not have to move far and adjust to a completely new place again.  We're finally getting used to the climate, now that spring is in full force.  The yuccas are all blooming.

The hesperaloe, too.

 And these flowers that remind me so much of...

 ...the New Mexican flag.

The bosque down by the river is actually quite lovely.  

 These pictures are from when our bishop invited us to go for an evening stroll with his family.  We walked down to the Rio Grande to skip rocks and watch the barn swallows swooping.

 They are really nice people.  In addition to evening strolls, I know they are guilty of "random acts of cornbread" in the ward as well. Our bishop is behind that darling cuddle fest below with his hiking poles.

In our new house we'll also be close enough that Vivi can keep going to her school.  

 She's done awesome this year, even with the move in the middle.  Look at her, just reading for fun!

And here's some art to enjoy.

 More.

 And more.

For Cinco de Mayo, her school had a Cultural Celebration.  We went to watch.  

 It's hard to get a good picture sometimes.

 Her class went very first.  They lined up in the grass behind all the seats...then came up from the back.  I cried a lot.  Her teacher, Ms. Stovall is in the purplish dress.

Here are the two dances.

Her partner's name is Angel.  He's adorable.

Here she is with her cutest Spanish teacher.

  

When I picked her up from school earlier that day, she cried and told me she was too scared to perform and didn't want to go.  I promised her if she participated and didn't cry at all, we could go the toy store and pick something out.  It worked!  (In contrast, I offered her nothing to perform with the primary kids for mothers day and she stood up there on the rostrum right in front of me crying the whole song).

She will be very happy to not have to make all new friends next year.

Even though these friends come with a lot of learning!  Ocean's grandma is a direct descendant of the English Berkeleys, of Berkeley castle:

 

So when Ocean is upset, she gives me what I like to call her aristocrat look.  She is very good at it. 

 It's far more dignified than Vivien's expressions of frustration.  Here she is flopped in the grass after Ocean had the nerve to ask Vivien to stop jumping up and down dangerously on the teeter totter they were sharing because it was making her fall off.  It was such a fun day . . .  Vivien made a behavior chart for Ocean, like the one they use at school.  She showed it to me and Ocean was on red or orange (the worst ones) for like every day of the month.  Friends are hard.

But there's always siblings for when friends are too complicated.  Here they are trying out a bath bomb I made with my friend for end of year/Mother's Day gifts.  Not pictured, Rafe stirring the water with a toilet brush 5 minutes after this was taken.

 Everyone at Ooalmart.  I had to pull the ol' "lizard on my head!" to get Annie to look.

Going for a stroll that one "rainy" day we had this month.

Rafe had his last t-ball game.  We did it through i9 Sports.  It's a nice way to get a feel for a sport without too much commitment.  It's once a week, practices are right before games.  It was at the Loma Colorado field.  They had 2 different baseball games, cheerleading, flag football, and three soccer fields going all at once.  

 We all came to watch the last game...

 ...but we spent most of our time on the playground.

 Merrick made a friend.

Not that he needed any help climbing anything.  

 Look at him in his new outfit from Nana.

 He's the cutest.

We went for a very quick trip up to Mesa Verde National Park to meet Haley and Jacob for some camping.  

We got there Saturday around 7 and made some delicious carne asada while the kids ran around.   

Jacob's hammock was very popular.

 It was nice to have lots of hands to keep Merrick out of the fire.  We were supposed to meet Haley and Jacob in Black Canyon of the Gunnison the night before, but we had to cancel due to Vivi's cultural celebration.  Turns out it was a good thing--the people they camped next to had a loud and lengthy argument at about 3am, which culminated in the boyfriend and the boyfriend's brother driving away, leaving the mentally ill and highly agitated girlfriend sobbing in the tent.  All the campers within the vicinity were able to discuss the fight in great detail the next morning.  I'm glad we didn't have to add baby cries to the mix.  We had a much pleasanter evening in Mesa Verde.  We love camping with Haley and Jacob!

And now some random pictures.  Merrick loves to look at books. 

I've been helping the kids practice identifying mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, and white winged doves by their songs, so right now for Merrick all animals make cooing noises.  He's saying "uh oh" "wow" and "Daddy."  As soon as he hears Drew walk in from work, he'll make his waddling way to wherever he is and bury his head in Drew's knees, wrapping his arms around his legs for a hug.  Totes adorbs.

 I thought Merrick had some food dried in his hair the other day.  Turns out it was this cactus spine lodged in the back of his head!  The only part sticking out was the lighter colored portion that I'm pinching.  I have no idea how it got there.

Maybe on one of our walks...

 ...where he loves to walk up to other people's front doors.

 I bought him some new jammies.  They have monsters eating junk food, which seems fitting for my little chunker.

Post church nap. 

  A different walk.  These babies . . .

 Look how white Annie is.

Still got that crazy hair going on.  

Annie likes to listen to owl sounds on my birding app right now, likes to choose between pig tails and pony tails for her daily hairstyle, and would really like to sleep with Rafe and Vivs in their room but usually gets too excited to fall asleep and has to be banished to Spare Oom where she sleeps very well.  We graduated Rafe from the futon mattress to Vivi's old mattress.  He was very excited, but still sleeps like this sometimes.  That plunger is a favorite toy.

 He would also love to be just like his Daddy, down to putting Tapatio on everything.  He totally got this out of the fridge himself.

 He makes everything into a weapon.  He loves to say "I pyoomed you!"  I walked into my bedroom the other day and he had out all my hair tools and was making them into spaceships.

 And these are his guns named Des and Troy.

Random things

We used our pro babysitter to go see Infinity War.  We hadn't seen Black Panther yet and knew we'd need to so we could understand everything, so Drew sent me Friday to the movie by myself to see it so I could come back and give him a report.  That's how much he loves me :)

 We caught a lizard on our fence.  Our baby seat that has taken us through all of our children is expired, so we tossed it.

  

 And here are Drew's hairy legs coming back from a weekend in Ruidoso to see the Kirkham girls' dance recital, which was awesome!  It's so fun to have cousins close by.

Quotes

Vivien: SOMEONE TOOK MY LIP BLAME! (lip balm)

Rafe wanted to do his "exercises" (flips on the monkey bars above his bed) before story time because, "I need to learn my strength!"

Rafe: Ewww, it smells like chicken beef.

Annie with a blanket over her head: I was looked like a ghost!

Rafe: I like Papa Mark's boat because it has a 'cavrin.'

Me: Yay!  10 points to Vivien for hanging up her towel!

Rafe, crying: Waaaah, now I only get one point because I didn't do it right away.

Me: No, everyone gets 10 points as soon as they hang up their towel.  

Rafe: NOOOO! ONLY 1 POINT!

Me: Fine.  1 point to Rafe for hanging up his towel!  

Rafe: crosses arms, scowls, stomps away in anger and throws things in the next room

We just switched to the Veteran T-Mobile plan (which is way cheaper than our previous plan AND includes complimentary Netflix subscription).  There was a little trouble with the Netflix so we had to call and get it straightened out:

T-Mobile customer service rep: I'm assuming since you're calling you're the one who handles this stuff?

Me: Umm, we usually share.

T-Mobile: Well, that's very progressive of you.  I applaud you.

Me: Thanks.

Rafe has had an ear infection this week and hasn't been able to hear.  I can't tell if he actually can't hear, or if he knows he can get away with not paying attention to me while he's sick.  

Vivien won't eat grilled cheese sandwiches.  She "doesn't like melted cheese."  I'm not sure what's wrong with her . . .

The kids have an imaginary game they play.  The Mini-mervils are the first creatures on earth.  They are like little mermaids who like to take naps.  They were followed on earth by the Papatowners.