Youth Camps, 4th of July, and Losing Chickens

 A couple of nights ago, we were kneeling in prayer with Quinn being our voice when I heard the distinct sound of liquid drops rapidly spattering on a plate. I looked over to see Eli trying to hold in his urine, while it freely flowed onto a plate as he stood over it on the couch. Yuck!  Crazy kid.  Poor kid. I know he doesn’t like to have bladder problems just as Xai doesn’t like having bugger problems.  

Lily has started writing in her journal more regularly. It’s cool. I’m excited for her and her posterity.

Yesterday was a good day. I woke up late (Penelope was up with a thunderstorm a bunch and we went to bed late) and hurried out to let the chickens out. (Whom I forgot to close all the doors to last night so hopefully they are okay!)  Speaking of chickens, we have caught two raccoons in the hen run in the past two weeks!   Eli technically caught them in his empty, unbaited trap, crazy kid.  Hey! I used that again!  He is a sweetie!

Yesterday we also started our “Secret Sibling” exchange here at home since the girls (and soon Hyrum) will all be going to camp and the younger ones wanted something to look forward to.  So they did that.  Lily and I dropped off Maia and Havala at the girl’s camp drop-off at the church and then went and played pickleball and basketball.  I beat Lily at pickleball and felt a little bad. I have had a lot of racqueting experiences and wanted her to have fun and want to get better at it and not just feel defeated. She won the first game pretty soundly but I won all the ones after that. I don’t like playing too hard because it feels mean. I guess I know how Quinn feels now?

Well, she got a turn to school me at basketball after that. I also arranged to pick up a booklet for Havala while we were there, we picked up some plants to fill in the holes in our garden and then grabbed some food at Wendy’s.  

We have also been trying to donate a lot of shoes and clothes and books that we don’t use or need anymore and I think we finally got the last of the current batch out after Hyrum dropped some books off at the FVRC last night when he was driving through Stewart after working out with the football team.

I have a lot of worries for my kiddos: mainly worried that they won’t have the experiences they need to have a fulfilling life. I guess they don’t have some things, but it seems like even having those things (social, athletic, scholastic, etc) still doesn’t preclude success in later life if modern young adults are the measuring stick.  

Hyrum watched the kiddos yesterday while Lily and I were gone and they played games (including the running and screaming and laughing hysterically kind :D!) and watched some Bluey.  He is such a good kid.

I feel bad that I didn’t take the time to braid Maia’s hair tightly for camp before she left. 

I ate too much and poorly yesterday. I’m having a hard time doing this “intuitive eating” thing when I’m tired and feeling down. My arm is also very sore. Whenever I do a lot of work with it, it starts hurting. It’s my right arm and I think I must have injured it while falling on it when chasing Eli at the temple grounds back in March. I’ll have to ask my brother Jon about it.

Lily and I cleaned up the house, which was still a little off from our painting project in the basement last week and our Fourth of July celebration with a BBQ with friends, going to the lake and watching fireworks. So fun! But time to clean.

I spent a long time herding chickens with Quinn last night. We have been losing a lot of them recently and are trying to slow down the trend.  They are pretty spooked and don’t come as easily as they used to to the coop.

We are still trying to find a good home for Kujo.  He needs someone who wants to hunt with him. That is what he is, a hunting dog.

Missionaries, Weeds, and Bedwetting

 We have a huge garden.  I may have planned for too big of one.  We also have all sorts of root rot happening since we have such a humid climate, but spent a good amount of time this morning trimming out the bottom of the plants so the sun could reach them and hopefully dry them up.  Last year we lost all of our tomato plants pretty quickly to it. This year, we have already lost all of our cucumber plants. :(  Maybe I can plant them again?

The kids have been troopers.  Lily has been the corn weeder (a HUGE portion of the garden).  Piper has knocked out the sections with cucumbers, butternut squash and canteloupe and they look amazing.  Havala has been taking care of the tomato plants very well, Maia the peas and lettuce, Hyrum the super hard onions and carrots and Xai the peppers. I have been helping here and there and it's wonderful to come back later and see no weeds growing where I weeded.  Yay for in depth weeding! I still have kiddos who don't bother to get the root out and we have to weed and weed and weed some more.  I think they are starting to see the benefit now.

After we took care of some weeding and culling, we straightened up the barn for Mirabel, our pregnant cow, to have a place to lie down out of the rain. Elijah used the push lawn mower for the first time and did awesome!  Maia took up the push mower and finished up the area and also did awesome!  Hava, Liesl, Penelope and Xai helped me weed the strawberry plants and then we put a net over it. We are finishing all these projects that I've just been putting off.  

Maia is mastering her math facts!  She knocked out addition, subtraction and multiplication very quickly! She is super frustrated with not being a genius in 10 minutes, but I KNOW her genius just takes a little time and love to manifest itself. She read all seven Harry Potter books in about a week of reading.   I think her favorite character is Snape. Or Moody, actually, even though he dies. She loves fashion, ice cream, friends and Oreos.  She had a great time at camp, and made several friends in the Stake.

Havala and Maia are currently taking voice lessons and love it! Their teacher, Gracious Pack, struggles emotionally and mentally, but they enjoy when they can meet. :D Maia is singing a French song and Havala an Italian one.

Xai is super sweet. I just love him.  He is a pretty good worker, loves math and science still and is learning how to not exact perfection from everyone around him :D.  He and Piper did VERY well on their end of year scholastic tests.  All the other kids rocked their tests, with strengths and weaknesses in different areas.  Those two just seem to take tests better than the others.

Maia has been fun trying to help our new little kitten. We have a strange situation where our mamma cat had another little kitten before her other two kittens were full grown. Now they are nursing from her, too!  It's really weird.  Hyrum found the little baby mewing from the back of the trailer that is full of wood. I trust that the momma knows what she is doing.

Lily is starting the online MTC next week. Drew is still in Provo, leaving next Tuesday, which is a week before Lily arrives. SO fun. I am actually missing him a whole bunch and am trying not to think about missing Lily so much :S.  Hyrum has also started his mission papers...so much fun!  And so sad, all at the same time.

We have a new treadmill. Piper told Quinn that if he would purchase a treadmill, then she would tell him her deep dark secret from Medina, NY.  $200 later Quinn got himself a secret and Piper had a treadmill! Well, we all do, but she is super excited about it!  

Hyrum is trying to help save Federal Hocking football so he can play his senior year.  We went to a school board meeting to support any action the district could take to make it happen.  We'll see!

I love snuggling with Eli and Liesl before they go to sleep at night. And Penelope still goes to sleep with Quinn and I and then we move her to her port-a-crib where she is happier. Eli and Liesl still struggle to not wet the bed at night. We lost the previous two devices that alerted them when they wet the bed so I just ordered two more. Liesl is going to be super sad (and maybe Lily too) when Lily leaves to sleep on her own soon.