Saturday, May 30, 2009

Concert

We had the chance to see No Doubt and Paramore in concert last Saturday night at Cricket Pavilion in Phoenix, AZ. We got lawn tickets for $15!! Last concert we saw was Ricky Martin (great show) and we paid $75. This show was sold out and lots of fun. Paramore has 2 songs on the Twilight movie. Rich and I have been fans of No Doubt for quite awhile. Fun fact about Gwen Stefani is her whole name is Gwendolyn Renee Stefani and she was born Oct 3, 1969. She bounced and jumped thru her whole show. Not sure how she does that as she and her husband had 2 babies 2 and a half years apart. She kept telling us to jump but there was not a bathroom close enough for me to do that:) It was a diverse group of people there. One girl told me she liked my shirt (it was black tiger stipes with pink neckline) and another said "some guy is undressing behind you!" I thought what the heck until I turned around to see that it was just my husband taking his shirt off. It was outside and it was 90 degrees!! Told the lady it was ok as it was just husband! Hope another band comes along soon that we can afford to see!



Boys clean room

I was in shock yesterday. My middle 2 boys room has been a mess and I have kept getting after them. They did a quick clean a week ago for a sleepover (that meant I could at least see the floor:))

Yesterday I heard happy voices and kids getting along. That itself made me happy but I decided to go see what was up. They were deep cleaning their room!!!! I had not even asked them or nagged them. They even put away all the game cube games in their cases. They next asked me to sit there while they cleaned out under their bed. I was the catcher:)

Rich and I have praised them endlessly for this and for doing a great act of service for me. The best comment was "We did this last summer when Grandma and Grandpa Fowkes were here. I bet this will shock Grandpa to hear we did this ourselves!" Dad, hope you are still standing after reading this :D

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Kindergarten Graduation


My baby boy is finished with kindergarten. They had a wonderful program. I was either laughing or crying. Oh the singing voices!! They were so enthusiastic and so proud. I was running around trying to get the best angle to shoot this. Camyn kept sitting on my lap so it is a little bumpy! As soon as I download the pictures I will post them. Colton was crying after we took a picture with Mrs. Kolodony. Heavenly Father blessed us by putting him in the best class for him. She is full of life and sings and just brought out the best in him. She is being moved to 2nd grade so Colton may get her again in a year!! I love that she is just a kind, gentle person and mom. My mom got to meet her and see her classroom and she agreed she was a great teacher (and my mom worked at an elementary school for 15 years as a bookkeeper - Mom, remember to turn off the music so you can hear the singing:))

Colton is in the top row, the 7th from the left. He has on a green shirt and the girl next to him has very blonde pigtails and no hat. He told everyone that he is going to be an artist when he grows up and I believe him. I always buy him notebooks I find on sale to draw on and for a 6 year old, they are great pictures. Colton, congratulations and we are so proud of you for doing your best in kindergarten!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Blog Slacker

Yes, it is true, I have become a blog slacker:( Sigh.....I started off so well and now I am just slow with this. Must have to do with working for 10 days straight and just not doing anything (at least that I am going to tell about) too exciting!

This is the last week of school. They officially get out on Thursday. We have kindergarten graduation at 1 pm and then Brandon has an art photo show that night. Baseball has finally wound down - yes!!! Colton is supposed to go to summer school for help with his reading. Of course the form that was supposed to have been filled out is no where to be found in this crazy mess of a house of mine. I seriously could bulldoze it over right now as I feel it would be easier to start from fresh instead of trying to clean the explosion that has happened in my house this week. How can 5 kids make such a mess?! Do they not know where the trash can is located or the fact that we do own many clothes hampers and that Mom does not appreciate dirty clothes strewn all throughout the house. I was able to go to an Enrichment night this week and they talked about keeping our houses clean and in order. I seriously had to try so hard not to either laugh or cry!!! All these well meaning and loved sisters were talking about spring cleaning, maintaince cleaning and all I could think of was that I wanted to go hide my head in the sand and just hope the house would be clean when I finally emerged! On the good side, I have this week off and after I recouperate, go to a work meeting, go to court for a photo radar ticket (bad, bad girl!!), go to counseling and somehow fit in a doctor appoinment for my feet and legs that have suddenly decided to retain fluid!! I look like that Micheline tire guy right now:) What happened to fabulous and 40? I think my body seemed to have not gotten that message and heard breakdown and 40!

I am very excited for the kindergarten graduation as they sing songs and put on the cutest program. I also am excited to see Brandon's work in the photo art show!! He has loved this class and I cannot wait to see what he has created. He is my go to guy for all pictures now (if he is home when the event happens). My pictures just look ok where his are interesting, fun to look at and a joy for this mom to see. My other kids are doing well too but these 2 boys are the ones with all the fun stuff this week.

Ok, now that you all think that I should be headed for the looney bin, let me say it just felt good being able to write what I am really freethinking now:) No script, no story just a rambling post about our crazy life this past week. I promise to return to some sort of normal on my next post (or maybe not:)) Just kidding!

Monday, May 11, 2009

couseling

I was able to finally go to another counseling session. Can I just say that it is wonderful to meet with someone who understands the Mormon culture, our background and our beliefs! What a difference from the psychiatrist person I saw who was not LDS and had me convinced that I was a really messed up woman and that it all has to have stemmed back to a traumatic event in our life. That may be true for people who were sexually assaulted, molested, igonored, etc. But I had a great home life with 2 parents that loved us and were always looking out for our best interests. I never knew how hard that job was unil I am now in the middle of it. So thank you Mom and Dad for providing a loving hom and guidance when we needed it. I may not have said so at the tme, but I truly appreciate the skills you instilled in us of hard work, finishing a job and serving others. I am proud to say I learned many great lessons from my wonderful parents. I just wish they would have moved to AZ instead of Sandy, Utah. They are much closer than Viriginia but I was hoping my dad would not really think his brain would fry here in the summer's. I think after coming to help me after 2 surgeries back to back in the summer made them quite happy wth their choice to go to Utah:)

I now have the complete model of what the counselor was telling me during our last session. I just could not remember it, but thankfully he wrote it down and so did I! Ok, ready for some psych 101 (ok, this is probably more advanced but just chose that name for convience sake:) He says an event happens, we have an instantaneos that which leads to our reaction. A straight line up from our thoughts are our rules that we have eiher set for ourselves or that may have been set for us from our parents or whomever raised us. Traveling up te arrow from the rule is our Core Belief system. In my case it means my core beliefs about the church are what is right or wrong for me within the bounds the church has set for us (which I love and am so glad they are there). He told me to keep a journal of every event and my reaction to it. I do have to say I acted little kinder as I did not want Rich thinking I am some whackadoo going around yelling at everyone in sight!

The one I chose to brng up was my sweet 13 almost 14 yar old boy. He is usually a pleasure to be around and brings much love and vitality to our household. He was having a bad week last week (according to him). I knew he was in a bad mood so I asked him politey to please take the trash out. He just sat on te couch and defied me. I tried sending to his room, turningoff the tv, games, etc. Darin, of course, was added into the mix as always. If there is every any argument, Darin will be right in there throwing in his 2 cents. That did not go over well that day so a knock down fight happened. I finally got thm apart from each other (no small feat when one is taller and stronger than you). I then put them in separate rooms so I could have a minute to just calm down. I was told to shutup by Brandon and then that is when the mean yelling mom came out! We then later had a discussion about it at family home evening and the boys had to tell each other they were sorry, face to face. They also got to talk with dad on the phone!

I brougnt this up with the counselor as right now all my time and energy are wrapped up in these little people. He gently reminded me that I do need to take some tme out of each day and just have mommy time. It can be as simple as going to the bathroom ( i have a feeling I will be spending alot of time there). He also showed me a disciplining strategy to try over the mext week. When eve the kid misbehave or get me to a point where I am gong to blow, he said that I need to calmly (which that is the hard part) approach the child, tell him that they were disrespectful and hurtful. I am then t0 time how long I am feeling that way and then tell the child that he owes me that much tme back in chores,cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. I know my kids well enough that this is going to take longer than a week to get rectified. I also know that no matter how tired I am that I am going to have to be consistent and so is Rich. It will be hard but worth it!!

He said this all ties back into my depression and anxeity as I have set my rules pretty rigidly, so when they are broken I tend to find some solution, shopping, etc. to fill the void left from the confrontation/emotion. So my plan for this week is to get a set of rules that are not so rigid (taking out the I should always and my kid would never). These words are absolutes and we are just setting ourselves up to fail or keep gong viciously around and around the circle. I want out that circle!! Wish me luck with my plan writing and implementing this week. I will wrtie back about this after I find out how I did with it. Hopefully well:) Happy Mother's day:) Your gift is in with your other present.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

More Recital

Here are the other two videos I took. The first is Beverly Kerr and she is the one who owns "The Dance Loft" and does all the teaching, instructing and choreography. I helped her sew some of the costumes and that was fun. The second video is the finale when each class got to come out and do their short final dance.

Camryn's Dance Recital

We had such fun yesterday going to our first dance recital. Beverly Kerr has her masters in dance and has opened a dance stuio in her home that is in a loft - thus the name Miss Beverly's Dance Loft. She teaches beginning ballett, modern movement and also belongs to a group in AZ called The Condors. I helped her with some of the costumes and it was great fun watching them perform! The ages range from 3-18. Camryn is in the beginning class for 3 and 4 year olds. It was very nice there was only 4 kids in the class. In the videos just look for the girl with the red ponytail wearing a bright blue superhero costume with a bright pink cape:)

Thursday, May 7, 2009

What teenagers do to amuse themselves

Can you tell I finally found the camcorder:) This just cracked me up!!

Mother's Day Program

Every year Mrs. Billings puts on a program for Mother's Day. I have had fun going to quite a few of these as Camryn is my 4th child to attend this preschool. I cracked up about how animated she was - she could not stand still throughout the entire program!