Why we love Vegas (some of the time)

So, we don't always love it here. But on March 15, my kids were outside having a water fight. Good stuff (the weather has since suffered from a bit of manic depression, alternating between warm, windy, and nasty). But, spring here is a glorious season--one of the things we love about living here. These are our buddies, the K kids. We love having them over to play.

10 on the 10th

So, I haven't been trapped under a pile of elephants in Africa.

Nor have I succumbed to Indonesian swine flu.

I have not fallen off the face of the planet.

I just haven't blogged in ages.

I shall try to repent.

What better way to renew my ties with blogging than a post celebrating my double digit boy.

Todd's birthday was today, though we celebrated yesterday because a birthday on Sunday just wasn't going to hack it for our adventurer.

Todd is an amazing kid. Truly he is. He was a miracle ten years ago and is still a blessing in our lives today. I sometimes feel sorry for the kid that he has to be my first, because I feel like he gets all my practice and failure as a mom. I know I put a ton of expectation and pressure on him because he is my oldest, and because I haven't had enough kids that I can thoroughly spread my anxiety over many. So he gets the brunt of it, but usually holds up pretty well under all that weight.

I know I spend a lot of time thinking about, praying for, and loving this growing boy of mine. Hopefully he'll make it through in spite of my best laid plans. . .

Todd is a great reader, if he is caught in a book. If he isn't interested, no amount of persuasion could get him to read. If he loves a book, you can't get him to put it down.

Todd is a great aim with the B.B. gun. He loves shooting at a favorite little spot we've found in the desert. Last month we ran into a herd of wild horses while out there. They were beautiful. Todd shot our 9 mm a few weeks ago out in the desert and was quickly convinced that he's happy with the smaller caliber for now.

My medium man is a great swimmer, eagerly anticipating the start of this summer season. We're excited to see what it will bring.

Guitar is the latest venture for Todd. It has been exciting to see him find a new skill--he's always had an ear for music and melody, but he claims that singing is a "girly" talent. Little does he know that in ten years that talent will cause girls to swoon. So, it's been fun to see some practical application of his talent that he doesn't think is too girly. I hope he can be patient enough with the learning process to stick with it.

Those are some of Todd's "outward" talents, but some of his other gifts are what really makes him who he is.

Todd is great with kids. He's not all that interested with brand new babies, but once they start to interact, he loves them. A friend of ours has a little two year old who we occasionally watch. A few weeks ago, Todd and Ben were fighting over who got to play with Abby. They were both blaming the other for "hogging her." I thought that was so sweet.

Todd is an amazing big brother. These three years of homeschooling have been a gift in this respect--Todd loves his brother and is truly a fantastic protector and friend.

My boy is sensitive with a tender heart and a giving soul. He loves to have people over for dinner and take bread to friends. He is easily concerned when others are struggling. We're grateful to have him as part of our family.

It's a challenge at times to raise a growing boy. . .I'm glad I wrote this post to remind me of all the good I see in my boy and to overlook the things that are sometimes rough. What a blessing my Todd is in my life.

Witticisms from Ben

Tonight we began reading The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I read the author page and was surprised to find that he had been shot down and died flying a reconnaissance mission for the French air force during WWII. So I shared that tidbit of information with my boys.

Ben exclaimed, "What? I thought he wrote that book. You can do two things?"

"Yep. He was an author and a pilot," I explained.

"What?" he repeated again in wonder, "that's crazy."

Here Todd chimed in, "like I'm going to play the guitar and sing when I grow up." Pause. . . "And I'll probably have a real job."

Ben sagely replied, "I don't want to do two things. I just want to walk around the house."

Traditions

This year marked our fourth annual Jones Gingerbread Decorating Party! We love that this has become a fun part of our Christmas tradition. Our designs have improved with each year. I have sort of worked myself into a corner, however. My kids now believe that it is possible to craft nearly anything out of gingerbread, a task which gets more and more difficult to live up to each year. This was Todd's "lighthouse" in progress. I've already thought of improvements we could make were we to do another in the future.I have a battle between wanting to make Todd do things on his own and loving the fact that he wants to work on things together. He's got a bit of his mom's perfectionism in him, so he likes having help. But I also know he needs to learn how to let things go. This mom thing is a balancing act, that's for sure.

Still not feeling 100% after the head-on collision

This is Ben's "castle", a much better design than last year's castle.

Ben is always surrounded by girls. His luck of the draw is that most of the kids his age that we spend time with happen to be girls. And cute ones at that.

Viola! The finished product.

Thanks, Jones family for your hospitality. We love this yearly event.

Head-on Collision

Todd and Ben made up a new game about a month ago called Tarock. It is a strange combination of football, soccer, and rugby played indoors on one's knees with a beanbag. Todd has a select group of friends with whom he will play this highly specialized "sport." These are friends who listen well, follow instructions, and allow him to change the rules (I'm not sure I would be allowed to play).

Well, a few weeks ago at the annual Jones Gingerbread House decorating party, in between the delicious soup buffet and the decorating, the kids went upstairs for a quick game of Tarock. Todd came down about 20 minutes later in tears. After about 20 minutes sobbing on the couch with the ice pack,
This was the result. I'm a little disappointed that in our cool city of Vegas, there was not a Star Trek convention going on that weekend. He could have dressed up as a Klingon or perhaps a Ferengi:
This was Sam, the other half of that fateful collision. The story finally came out. Apparently, Same and Todd were actually on the same team, running some sort of "tricky play" which involved facing each other on the snap. They collided head on in mid-air.

Either Sam has a harder head or the main force of the blow landed on Todd's head. Not sure which. Either way, about three weeks later, Todd still has a visible lump on his head and a hard protrusion. Thinking perhaps he chipped off a piece of skull? Good mother that I am (recall the shoe sizing problem I had a while back) I'm thinking perhaps I should take him to the doctor?

There have been no games of Tarock since the incident.

FIRST Lego League

I made my coaching debut last weekend at the FIRST Lego league tournament. Really that meant I carried the camera around and read the schedule of events and the map of the school. The kids did everything else. We had a sister team from our Freedom Academy and their coach was the one with actual engineering knowledge and know-how. I learned a lot. Our team, "The Dudes + One" took home the trophy for "Innovation and Strategy" It was a super fun day.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League is a research and robotics competition. This year the theme was "Body Forward." The kids chose a body system which they then researched. Our team chose the respiratory system. They then had to identify a problem with this system (asthma) and propose a possible solution. Their solution was a surgically implanted device that would sense when the patient was having an asthma attack and instantly inject medicine directly to the airways and lungs. It was called the Asthma Attacker.

The second portion of the event was the robotics challenge. The kids designed, programmed, and built a robot (Lego NXT) that had to navigate through a challenge course with a medical theme. Super cool stuff.

My very favorite of the "Dudes"--It was fun to "coach" Todd's team.

Don't tell these kids that robotics competitions aren't stressful. See that tension in Sofie's face? These were the kids from the other team represented by Freedom Academy. We all prepared for the event together, but I wasn't their actual "coach" on game day.

The whole team. Skyler has our robot in the front row.

The giant minifig (is that an oxymoron?) the kids constructed for part of the research presentation.

On stage during the research presentation skit. That's "Asthmaman" and "Dr. A"

The real highlight of the event--the robotics challenge. I don't remember if our robot was Fred or George.

The "Core Values" portion of the event. This was a teamwork challenge: 4 decks of paying cards, a bajillion binder clips, and a softball. They had five minutes to make a tower to hold the softball. Our team bombed it big time, but they cooperated well in doing so.

I learned a lot from my experience. We had two teams that had entirely different personalities. One team really had a lot of brilliance, but they couldn't stop arguing long enough to get anything done. They would yell at each other when they messed up. When they could get past their differences, they did amazing things. Luckily, this happened in the teamwork challenge and they rocked it.

The other team (my dudes) were delightfully easy going. They would laugh at each other's mistakes to the point of hysterics. But they were hard to motivate. They were so easy going that no one wanted to take charge. They sure had fun.

Kids are so different. They come in a variety of packages and with different presets. What a fun opportunity to try and figure them out.

The Bleacher Incident

So, the bleacher incident (see last post) must be written for posterity.

We did our morning Mayor's Walk and ended at the finish line for the actual marathon. We then decided it would be fun to watch the first runners finish, so we played at the park and stuck around. Then, we got caught up in the drama and excitement of the morning and ended up staying on the bleachers for about two hours. We made a snack trip and a potty trip, but other than that, we were people watching and chatting with new marathon friends. At the 4:30 mark, we were eagerly anticipating Dad's arrival when Ben said, "I need to go to the bathroom."

Now, I had made that trip already and it was a 20 minute hike around the finish line, the runner's zone, through the park, and back. "If we leave now, Benny, we'll miss Grandpa finish his race."

"But I need to go."

"Here's my iPod. That will help you forget," I responded. (Because I am a parenting champion).

Ten minutes later, "I really need to go," he said with urgency that cannot be denied.

Now, I had a dilemma on my hands. I love my kids. Really, I do. But I had been sitting on those bleachers for two hours to watch my dad and cheer him on at the finish. I had our sweet camera for some great zoomed in shots. I was not going to miss this. So I did what any self-respecting parent would do. "Here. Pee in this bottle."

Ben was not interested in this option, "No."

Of course I responded in a totally loving manner, "you can either pee in the bottle, hold it, or wet your pants. I'm not missing Grandpa's finish."

"Fine. I'll pee in the bottle."

So, my mom and I got out our "Go Grandpa" posters and jackets to make a shield around little soon-to-be-naked Ben. I was ready to help him with the delicate aiming procedure. He, however, took the matter into his own hands and while we weren't looking, he set the bottle on the bleachers, dropped his drawers, and proceeded to try and pee into a small-opening water bottle from 2.5 feet in the air. It was running all over the bleachers and dripping down the sides. He had this look on his face like, "I told you guys this was a dumb idea. Look at the mess it's making."

We could do nothing but try to cover him up and pull his pants up the minute he was done. I literally got him snapped up when mom yelled, "Here he comes!" So I whipped out the camera, avoided stepping in the puddle, and got my pictures. We were laughing and cheering all at the same time. When he'd run by, we poured an entire water bottle over the mess and quickly made our way off the bleachers.

We're still not sure how many people saw the event or if there is some sweet little St. George family scandalized by the spectacle they witnessed on the bleachers. But, we didn't miss Dad, I got my pictures, and Ben seems to have come out of the situation unscathed.