Hoops a Cure

Kacin hurt his leg playing outside on Thursday.
I'm not sure what happened,
or even where he was hurt at.
It was one of those
migrating pains--
the exact location seemed to shift
every time we checked him.
He limped for the rest of the day
and continued to limp on Friday.
Sometimes he insisted on being carried up the stairs
because he was in so much pain.
And then we found the cure.

A sweet, sweet lady from church is moving soon
and offered us her basketball hoop
and bucket of balls.
We surprised the boys and picked it up on Friday.
We don't have the best driveway for it,
but we could not pass up this gift.
And that's how Kacin was healed.
Miraculously,
he could shoot hoops and run around the "court"
on both legs just fine.

It was like Christmas!
That night,
Kacin asked over and over,
can we really keep it?
He's told everyone about our new hoop.
We are all so excited, and grateful, to have it!

Music Videos

Clips of Kyler's favorite songs from the performance . . .

Music Share

Kyler's 1st grade Music performance was a few days ago.
He especially loved playing percussion,
but enjoyed being a part of the singing, too.
We really enjoyed the performance!

As a side note,

Kyler had his parent/teacher conference this week.

There was only good things to be said about this bright boy!

KKKKK

Count 'em.
That's 5.
a 5K.
I can check that 2011 goal off the list.

The story behind my run:

I set that goal at the beginning of the year.

And then after talking with my friend,

who is preparing for her first marathon,

I completely changed my mind about wanting to run.
I resigned myself to the fact that my body was not made for running.
I came to terms with it and started thinking
I should go back and change my 2011 goal.
And then I brought Kyler to his piano lesson.
My friend Dzana is his teacher.
She had seen my post
and asked me if I wanted to start running with her.
Literally the day before
I had come to the conclusion not to be a runner
and here my decision was being challenged.
Overcome my running fears and join her?
Or try to be content knowing I gave up on the idea?
I went home to think about it and
then took it as a sign that I shouldn't abandon my goal.
We made a plan to take it really easy
so we would stick with it, and not get hurt.
We were excited when our friend Christy agreed to join us.
It's now been about two months since we started.
We have increased our distance, our speed,
and the number of days we run.
We meet 4 mornings a week
and I LOVE it.
I truly do.
It was so hard to wake up so early at first,
but now I feel so good.

And I'm not as grumpy in the mornings as I used to be.

I was going to wait until the end of the summer to do any kind of race,

but we heard about our local Y's 5K.
I figured it would be a most nonthreatening, low-key event
but I could still claim it that I ran in a 5K once.
Because I'm probably too cheap to ever pay to be in one again.

Race day came!
It was a fun, no pressure event on a beautiful day.
We got a number,
we ran,

we finished,

we grabbed a snack

and we carried our goody bags home

(yeah for the t-shirt and water bottle!).

I look forward to many more running mornings with these girls.

A Blue Apron and Black-Rimmed Eyes

Chef Kacin at your service.
A little of this and a little of that
makes
Kacin Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I told him he could create something in the kitchen this afternoon.
He decided what to add and how much of each thing to use,
with a few guidelines,
like when I steered him away from pouring
a whole cup of vanilla into the bowl,
and a few suggestions,
like there are chocolate chips in the freezer.
I think he added a little flour, water, chocolate chips, brown sugar, vanilla, oats and an egg.
He plopped a gooey mixture onto the baking sheet
and they cooked for a few minutes.

He tried one and said they are very yummy.
We are saving the rest until after dinner
when daddy can partake with us.

And did you notice his new glasses?

The other ones were about 6 months old
when Kacin and Kyler bonked heads and they broke.
It's a really good thing we bought that insurance on his glasses!
That paid off.
The only thing is,
he goes in for an eye exam tomorrow,
that is if they don't cancel on us again
(I'm so frustrated at his Dr. office right now!).
and I'm hoping his prescription didn't change!

Einsteinian Evening

I had this ingenious thought last week
that it would be fun
to have an Einstein party
and play strategy and math games
and solve mind-bending puzzles and such.
No one else I told was as excited about the idea as I was,
which is often the case with my brilliant plans.
I let my idea go idle for a few days.
And then on Sunday, Kyler and I
were looking at a calendar he has in his room.
It's one of those calendars that
tells you the date of important things like 
National Anthem Day and National Goof Off Day.
And what do you know?
The next day was Albert Einstein's Birthday!
March 14th.
I was stoked.
We could have our Einstein night the very next day.
So we did.
I went into my school stuff
and pulled out
Rebus puzzles, brain teasers, and math games.
I gathered whiteboards and markers.
I wrote down a few Einstein quotes.
And we were ready
for some brainy good fun.
To start out the evening,
we looked on the internet at a few pictures of Einstein
and read a little bit about his life.
Then we read the quotes I had written on notecards.
Two of the quotes were not by Einstein
so my family had to figure out which quotes were
not true Einsteinian.

Eric picked out the one by Abraham Lincoln (to stand firm)
and Kyler figured out the one by Elvis (about truth being like the sun).
Then we divided into teams and decided on names.
We were
the Experiments (Kacin and E)
vs.
the Mad Thinkers (Kyler and Me)
in a battle of the minds.

We played first team to ten points on the rebus puzzles.
We had simpler ones for the boys,
and a bit more challenging ones for me and E.
Point to the Mad Thinkers.

We solved one of these.
Point to the Experiments.

We played first to five on brain teasers, like

If there are 3 apples and you take 2 away, how many do you have?

and

Two men play 5 complete games of checkers. Each man wins the same number of games. There are no ties. How?

Point to the Mad Thinkers.
We had to be the first

to put the addition and subtraction signs in

to make the equation true.
6   4   1   2   6   2 = 15
Point to the Experiments.
We studied a picture for one minute
and then had one minute
to write down as many things as we could remember.
Point to the Mad Thinkers.

We could have kept going with the fun games,

but it was time for bed.

At the end,
we each made an awesome looking snack
using 6 treats,
but we made it for another person to eat.

We are definitely more intelligent after tonight.

For the record, I do know that Einstein was a physicist and probably didn't do rebus puzzles, but the point was building our thinking skills.

Whose Turn Is It?

It's Kyler's turn to be the sick one.
He has accepted his lot well,
probably because of the cheez its, popsicles, and Star Wars movie.

It's Kacin's turn to feel healthy.
He got tubes put back into ears last week.
So far, so good.

It's my turn to be tired of Dr.'s appointments
and ready for sick kids to just be kids again.

Sweet Sunday

Sunday is very much my favorite day of the week.

Since church doesn't start until 11am this year,

we sleep in really late
until like 7:30 or 8am.

Sometimes the boys will jump into bed with us.
We hang out in our pajamas all morning.
We eat waffles for breakfast.
The boys play together.

I can take a long shower and take my time getting ready.
Everyone gets into their Sunday best,
we help the boys with their ties
and drive off to church.
A big highlight of our day is going to church,
all three hours of it.
We meet as a ward,
made up of imperfect people,
and learn together
of our Savior, Jesus Christ and His teachings.
My life is happier and my week goes better
when I go.
We drive home
and go through our ritual of questions and answers--
What we learned, who taught the lessons, and
how the classes we taught went.
We eat a late lunch.
The boys slip back into their pajamas.
I try not to notice the remnants of our life
littering the floor and covering the tables
so we can all just rest.
We spend the afternoon reading, playing games,
or like today, we yoga it up,
until Eric falls asleep in corpse pose
so we cover him up with a blanket
and speak in whispered voices until he wakes up.

We usually venture out on a family walk through the neighborhood.

Kyler on the way to the Stocks for sugar cookies, skipping the whole way.

On sunny days,
Eric tries out new recipes and grills us some steak and veggies.
We love when we can Skype with our family living in distant lands.
Before bed,
we sit on the couch together and read Chronicles of Narnia.
The boys get tucked in and they fall asleep.
That gives me and Eric a couple of hours to talk, read,
and watch Amazing Race.
I'm so glad we have Sundays
no work. no studying. no errands.
to rest, rejuvinate, and spend together as a family.

Magic

I set the goal this year to read
Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage.
I received the book as a gift when I graduated from High School
dare I say
Nine years ago.
I can't even count how many times I have picked this book off my shelf
and then put it right back again.
I think it had something to do with its 793 pages.
So intimidating.
But in January I was determined to read it.
And to help me along,
I pulled out my highlighter.
I don't know what it is
But with a highlighter in hand
I pay much better attention, retain more,
and there's just something delightful about marking pages.
Its the most magical tool.
I am now half way through the book.
I am so mad at myself for never reading the book before!
Its been so good.
My understanding has grown so much.
Maybe I'll say more about the book later,
but for now I highly, highly recommend you read it.

Anyways,
Kyler has noticed me using my highlighter
as I've been studying this and a few other books.
On Friday, he asked me for a book that he could highlight.
I told him I'd think about it,
maybe tomorrow.
Well of course he remembered
and asked me on Saturday, too.
So I looked through our bookshelves
for some book he could play with.
I found 3 copies of the little book True to the Faith
and figured we could part with one of them.
I showed him how the book was organized.
He wrote down a few topics he was interested in reading about
(and that would be good for a 7-year old to start with).
I bestowed him with his own blue highlighter.
And basically the rest of Saturday
(oh yes, even when our friends came over)
and all of Sunday
was spent clutching that book,
reading and marking in blue.
Sunday morning,
He grabbed another copy of the book for Kacin
and told him they were having a Book Club.
They sat with blankets and pillows and read.
Well, Kacin lasted for 2 min.
But Kyler read and marked and then told me about baptism and faith.
If the book made reference to a scripture,
he grabbed his scriptures and looked it up.
That night he wrote a note to his good friend at school
telling him to read the book True to the Faith,
and if he didn't have his own copy at home
(which I'm sure his family does)
he could borrow his and read what he marked in blue.

Oh, my Kyler kid just makes me smile.
I love him.

And while I'm speaking of his love of reading,
I got a call from the school nurse this afternoon.
Kyler was in her office with a headache.
I talked to him on the phone,
and he was so insistent that he needed to come home
because his head was hurting.
I went down to the school to check on him
and reminded him that if he came home it woul be to rest and sleep.
He agreed and we started walking out to the car.
On the way,
I reiterated the fact that he would be resting and sleeping.
He was skipping next to me
smiling
and telling me his plans to read and finish his book.
I let him know that if his head was hurting,
he wouldn't be reading,
he would be closing his eyes to help his head feel better.
And
Poof!
Just like magic.
His head was all better and he was jumping back to class.
We haven't had a trace of headache since.

And
what do you know,
no joke,
as I wrote that last sentence,
Kacin came stomping out of Kyler's room,
where they've been playing with Legos for awhile,
yelling
"All you ever want to do is read! Fine!
Go finish your TEN Geronimo Stilton books!"
Kyler's rebuttal to him,
"How are you going to get smart if you don't read?
You read to learn!"
Its their constant battle.
hmm,
where's the magic on this one?