March 15, 2023: MTC, Hyrum leaving, Track, Room switcheroo, Update on everyone

 Hyrum moved downstairs after the Shetkas’ visit ended, so he could have a little more calm and quiet for doing missionary study.   We took advantage of the change to move rooms around.  At first, the only solid move was to have Eli move up into the bunk room with Xai. I have honestly LOVED having them up their together.  One of the first nights, I could hear the boys happily chatting in their new room.  We moved a bunch of furniture out, moved in a new bookshelf and Xai happily gathered his favorite books from around the house and organized them on the shelves.  He also went through and organized all the clothes in his drawers.  It is a simple set-up and really seems to fit them.

One of the fun adjustments that occurred without my planning was that Liesl came striding across the room, announcing that she was going to be sleeping up in Maia’s room. Liesl's bravery has really been remarkable.  That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some hard nights.  Having Hyrum leave has been really hard on her, so last night was pretty brutal. Both she and I were raw and needing (her-me, me-space) so it wasn’t the prettiest night, but we both survived.   Hopefully I will be able to fill my cup better earlier in the day so I can give a little more at times like that. 

We actually got some snow!  While the nation around us is getting plastered with extreme moisture and low temps, we are enjoying a very balmy winter.  Who knows?  March isn’t over yet.  It has come in like a lamb and a couple of years ago it sure enjoyed a lion-like middle with two weeks of blustery blizzards keeping us trapped at home.  There was enough for the younger ones to enjoy some snow and syrup, a tradition started by Tova.

The other night was excited with the kids driving back and forth with Xai navigating for Piper.  Apparently at one point he turned off the GPS guidance and they ended up wandering.  At one point, Piper asked if someone had responded to a text.  Xai said, “Nope! I haven’t heard any farts!” I have kept my “gas-passing” notification setting because it really does grab my attention. I just try to make sure it is off in places like church, the temple and other more sensitive gatherings. 

Piper has really enjoyed driving more. I may have mentioned it, how she miraculously passed just days before Hyrum started his online MTC.  She has been such a blessing, running people hither and yon to track, music lessons or just to a fun gallavant in town, like last weekend when she took all the kiddos rock climbing.

Speaking of track, Havala, Piper and Maia are all participating this season and that meant that Havala and Maia had to get new physicals.  We are blessed to have a clinic at the school that takes care of them for free.  When we went to the office, Maia went back first and apologized profusely to the nurse for not being able to read the bottom line of the vision chart.  Overachiever ;).  Havala will be doing the discus and shotput, Piper is running the 800, the 4x8 and the mile, maybe and Maia is going the 400, the 100, and the 100 hurdles.  I am happy for them!  We have arranged our Lightside Performing Arts groups so that they are over by 2:30 so the kids can participate more easily.  Win-win for everyone!.

Last Wednesday, Hyrum decided to go out with a bang in family basketball and helped Quinn hyper-extend his leg his last Wednesday with us at the FVRC.  That meant that Quinn was out of commission for the next several days from organized sports.  We have group volleyball and basketball every Friday night at the church so that meant I was going to do it without Quinn.  Pulling up my big girl pants, I drove over with the older girls to volleyball to find a room packed full of youth…Lance Ausserresses had been heavily recruiting, in addition to Greta Meyer bringing a friend. It was eight on eight, a challenging number, as anyone who has played volleyball knows. 

It was fun, though, and when it was almost time for basketball to start, a few more youth walked in.  Whew,  I thought. I hope another adult shows up soon!  Well, technically, some of the youth were barely eighteen but as they were new to the building, I didn’t want them to be the responsible ones.  We divided up–Havala and I were picked on the same team by Danny, a guy who knows his Biesingers–and had four teams. I was lucky to play on the first team that played and it was super fun!  Most of Lance’s friends hadn’t played basketball very much, so I didn’t feel out of place.  Brother Balli showed up partway through the first game and I sighed with relief that I could ditch the b-ball game and go have my girl party that I had planned with my younger three girls and a friend who lived nearby.   But then, when the game was over, Brother Balli was nowhere to be seen!  What??  Apparently he didn’t want to take a spot from one of the youth but what was I going to do?  Fortunately, the elders showed up shortly thereafter and I said a fond farewell to the gang. It is super cool having all those youth at our church playing sports.  The teams are friendly and fun.  It was just a kind of strange thing to be the only adult!.

Recently, Kel and Reka made a deal: if he dropped the Christmas tree off the balcony, she would go poop in a whole.  Kel thinks the deal is still on; Reka says it was a one day deal…now in the past. Those two are adorable!

Ben and Tova made our day!  Ben sent us a whole case of Milka bars and Tova sent some math stamps for the kiddos.  They know us well ;).  We are looking forward to visiting them soon. We were going to go down this week, but it was going to be super cold and we are camping so we are going next week, throwing all sorts of problems into the schedule for Piper and Havala and their track schedule. 

Quinn just summoned everyone in for a quick “leftover” feast. (Until I size my portions down, we will be doing similar feasts every 2-3 days.)  The girls had to be to youth group 30 minutes early, as did Quinn for a Bishopric meeting, so we rushed things along a little quickly, not bothering to round up the two boys for our song and prayer.  

When we asked–about halfway through the “meal”--if anyone knew where the boys were, Liesl knowledgeably informed us that the boys were probably in the “all the games we like to play” hole.  It is an oddly specific game.  She has corrected and clarified the name of it several times for me so I could record it accurately here.  Maia explained that in this “new dimension” they are able to pretend to be all sorts of characters from their favorite shows and movies.  Love it!

Hyrum traveled yesterday to the MTC, after a weekend full of missionary stuff and some last minute yummy meals and hugs. We are sure going to miss him!  My momma heart is a little heavy, I must admit, with so many of my darlings so far away. I know that eventually they will all probably spread out, but so many so fast?  I found out that other people could take the missionaries to the MTC once they fly into Utah, so he was able to meet up with some of his Utah Buchanan family that lived in the Salt Lake valley: Nathan picked him up, Mark joined the two of them for dinner and Aaron and Niesha let him sleep over there and then took him to the MTC the next day.  Niesha said she gave him a momma hug, sweet woman. I guess I had mine on Monday. Hyrum and I went on a walk with the dogs together, jogged a bit, chatted a bit and I got a really great hug.  I am going to miss that guy. 

Liesl got her "hug, hug, kiss, kiss..."

Lily has been enjoying her district and has done a lot of patient loving to her companions. It is fun to see her having so many great interactions with peers, especially during p-day. It is also cool to see the Australians take to her loving spirit so much.  She took a cool video last week of some pretty quick jumping spiders, too.  The Australian wildlife has been fun for her!
Drew–on literally the other side of the planet–spent part of his last p-day making snow angels wearing his t-shirt!!  Crazy.  He loves the cold and his new companion is pretty fab.  I am happy that he is getting at least one meal a week from two of the four regular members of their branch. (They’re married, and have the meal over “branch presidency meeting” each week.)  I am happy for him. He is having some cool experiences in this area with people that are ready to hear more about their Savior Jesus Christ.  

We had a cool miracle this last week.  Quinn has been crazy busy lately with everything and hasn’t had time to do all his balancing, paying of tithing and paying our missionary payments with finances.  He sat down to do that on Monday and got six orders that day!  Orders have been more and more scarce, so that was distinctly a tender mercy.

I did a YouTube video on my take on the commandment, “be ye perfect.” I have a friend who wanted me to do it, and it was fun!  Now I am going to go and work on my children’s books. I discontinued working with my therapist. I feel that she has given me a lot of tools to help find clarity and emotional stability. I still have a long way to go before I am healed and healthy, but I feel perfect, now.  A blend of imperfection, grace and trying again and again…trying to learn what I can along the way.  Right now, I am kind of sad, cranky and maxed out. So I am feasting on carbs and trying to take a breath before making a choice

Visiting Tova, Bribes and Hyrum's "horrible, no-good, very bad" week

 A few nights ago, Piper was relaxing in bed, doing what all good 15 year old girls do...checking out all the latest knives in the BudK magazine.  Liesl was snuggled up next to her, quietly watching until one particularly ferocious-looking knife stood out to her.

"I want that one," she insisted to Piper.

"Oh, yah?" Piper curiously replied.

"I need it to cut brownies."  Innocent enough?

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I am in Texas now, visiting my darling daughter and her husband, Ben.  I am also getting to bond with their black lab/retriever puppy Zoe, who I am highly allergic to, but we're trying to figure out how to manage that with allergy meds :D.  Tova recently finished getting her Bachelor's degree in Psychology and is currently on the lookout for Master's Programs so that she can get into "play therapy." Who knew that was a thing!  Just imagine how much more fun it would be for moms and dads all over the planet to realize that playing with their kids is actually theraputic!  

I know that I have a hard time just getting down on my knees and playing with them.  The other day, Elijah was fixated on having a nerf gun war in the house. It was a pretty bad emotional health week for me, so I just couldn't get myself to do it. He took matters into his own hands and soon we were playing a nerf gun war whether we liked it or not--weapon or not.  

In the course of one hour, he managed to accidentally hit Xai in the face with nerf bullets. He lost the privilege to use Nerf guns, despite his protest that it was just an accident. "Well, if you're not able to control your shots enough to NOT hit someone in the face when you don't want to,--three times in one hour--you don't have enough control to be able to use them."

Everything lately has been a matter of debate and discussion with him, Maia and Liesl...I am sooooo debated out!

Shortly after the guns were removed, Elijah started sword fighting with Liesl. I am not sure if it was voluntary on her part, but what I do know is that it didn't last long.  Elijah managed to poke her in the eyeball with a hard play sword.  No lasting damage (a little red in the eye) but then that weapon was also confiscated.

Later that night, Quinn and the other older kids came home from a temple trip they had just taken to Kentucky for the day. They also stopped by the Louisville Slugger Museum, which apparently has some pretty cool free take-home toys. I walked into the living room after hearing that they were home only to see little 2 feet long wooden bats in the hands of all my little darlings.  Elijah was armed and dangerous again!

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Back to Texas, we got here without too much difficulty.  There was only one leg where we had to deplane and reboard an hour later on the way there due to faulty systems.  Penelope was super fun and adorable to travel with.  She loved running back and forth on chairs, smiling and waving at everyone, and snuggling for the airplane rides.  During the leg where we had to board and then deplane and then reboard, there was a child (I'm guessing 3-ish?) who was mad.  And the whole plane knew it.  As I listened to the grumbling of fellow passengers, I looked at Quinn and smiled ruefully.  We both knew what it felt like to have "that" child on the airplane.

Several people around us were super complementary of Penelope, who had really been calm and sweet (or sleeping) most of the rides.  We assured them that this was not always the case with her (and our other children) and that we had also been in the shoes of that poor family with the screamer.  While no one likes to hear it on a plane, I think it is infinitely worse to be the one with the child causing the ruckus.  I guarantee that there is not a parent I can think of who is deliberately upsetting their child just to torture everyone else on the plane!

This girl LOVES to dance!

We have played games, eaten delicious food, chatted and laughed, went to a BOOKSTORE (yes, I got some books) and just enjoyed each other.  Ben is coming home today from a trip, so soon he will be here too!

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Before we left, I tried to spend the day bonding a bit.  The two little boys and two little girls went on a bike ride with me, while the older three girls went out for a $20 on the town shopping adventure in another part of Athens.  The library has free bikes, so we checked those out for the boys to use and I tugged the girls in a bike trailer.  They were super awesome at being responsible with sharing the road space with others, although it did get a little feisty any time one of them wanted to pass up the other one.  Xai was able to stay in the lead for the most part and I let them have their good-natured competition.  Xai doesn't beat Elijah in many physical contests (Elijah is so strong and coordinated!) so it was good for them both. Elijah took it good-naturedly and ended up hanging back with me. I really tried to keep up, but I did have to ask them to slow down a few times.

Meanwhile, the girls had some fun!

Then they shared that fun with the baby as they kept her busy while I checked out a couple of carts of bribery to keep the kids in a food/media coma while I'm gone.

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While I am gone, Hyrum will still take on some lifeguarding shifts, Piper and Havala will travel south to help one of the current "Helping Hands" projects--flood disaster relief in Kentucky.  Babysitting is a crazy combo of Auntie Loni (our fabulous ward neighbor who is staying in my parents' house while on their mission in Nauvoo), the older kids and a fantastic homeschool friend--Miss Penny--for the last day.  

Things got a little tricky because Hyrum accidentally totalled our car in a stop and go accident last Tuesday. Poor guy. First he finds out he doesn't get to play football this season and then totals the car.  To rub salt in the wound, we made sure he got "dirty Nora" every hand of Hearts we played that night.  He's having a rough time of it, but seems to be taking it in stride, amazing young man that he is.

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We had a few miracles, though, that show how near God is to us.  We received a random reminder of a doctor's appointment three weeks away exactly 50 minutes before the appointment I had scheduled that day...and forgotten about. It was the perfect amount of time for Hyrum and I to get our things together and jet.  I was so grateful! It is his physical for his mission so that he can finish submitting his papers. I am so happy for him and we were both SO grateful that we didn't miss this appointment!

Also, last night, when the kids checked on the animals, someone had left the guinea fowl gate askew and all 24+ birds were nowhere to be seen.  They are not old enough to be out on their own yet, so this was not a good thing.  We all prayed (several times) and this morning the kids found them near the coop and herded them in!  Yay!  Guineas are great for eating ticks, and BOY do we have ticks for them to eat!

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Piper is one of two girls on her cross-country team at Fed Hock. Hyrum was only able to recruit 5 boys (including himself ) to commit to the football program.

We explored options with nearby schools and were treated respectfully with one district and abominably with the other.  The first helped us explore OSHAA rules to see if we could make it work, but it didn't look promising.

The second, even before really being fully aware of the details of the situation, proudly declared that he never allowed homeschoolers to change districts...nor did they ever have homeschoolers participate in high school sports until the state of Ohio made them.  I was okay with the verdict--which was the same as the other district.  What I was not okay with was the flagrant prejudice exhibited by someone in that kind of position of authority.

I took a little too much time to write him a few emails.  But it felt right.  Captain Moroni kind of "right."

How to Get Taller

 We were watching "Tall Girl" where she wants to have reductive surgery, and Hyrum commented, "Maybe if they stick more dead people in me, I would get taller!"

Such a funny guy :D.