Where Are You Going, My Little One?

Yesterday was one of those days when absolutely nothing went the way it needed to go. I painted the cabinets the wrong color, found out my oldest child has yet to show up for Seminary and then got to listen to him try and tell me why he shouldn't be grounded because "seminary doesn't count." and the oven wasn't cooking evenly so my zucchini bread was a little undone in the center. Not that the family didn't eat it, but it frustrated me.

Today I have a super busy day scheduled and yet, it's going more smoothly.
Go figure.

Every fall I those urges to put food away and add to my storage grows stronger. I did peach jam this summer, and we didn't plant a garden this year, so I don't really have much in terms of fresh stuff to store.

I decided to go back to my old way of adding to the year supply and that is to just add 10 dollars a week to food storage.

Today I picked up this:

We have 9 people in our family and having enough food put away for us all is daunting. I have a pretty solid 3 month supply down and we could survive probably for a few more months if we were careful and ate things like power bars. It dawned on me this morning that in 10 years, the number of people a year supply needs to cover will be down to two, really.

This is our last season of raising our kids and the season of them leaving the nest has begun.

I'm both excited and freaked out.

What do families do with the year supply as the kids leave the nest? Do you just make yourself eat the surplus? Do you give it to the kids? It's weird to realize that before we know it, the time to downsize our food storage will be upon us.

Time is flying by at warp speed now with my kids. When they were little it dragged on forever and people would say "It goes by so fast." In that space of time it was so hard to believe. I've worked hard to add light into every day, to make memories and live in the moment.

It seems those moments come and go before I even get my head around them now.

Matt bought me that negative scanner from my wish list and I've been scanning old pictures of my kids.

It's bringing to light just how much time has passed, and how swiftly the days go by now.

 

Where are you going, my little one, little one?

Where are you going, my baby, my own?

Turn around and you're two...

Turn around and you're four..

Turn around and you're a young one going out of the door.

Where are you going, my little one, little one?

Where are you going, my baby, my own?

Turn around and you're a child....

Turn around and you've grown.....

Turn around and you're a young man with babes of your own...

Not quite yet.

One more season.

Stay little one season longer before you go, sit by the hearth and stay a child just a little longer.

I love you kids so much.

End of Summer part 2

As a blended family, we are not always on the same schedule. We actually have 7 kids in 6 different schools, three different districts.

We started off in the same place, things aren't this insane by choice, I promise.

My kids started school last week and because I was sick most of the week, I never got those first day of school pictures posted, but that's okay, I don't think anyone actually cares all that much and I posted them to facebook anyway.

This was the last weekend of summer for the rest of the kids and Matt took Friday off to spend with them and we managed to pack in a lot of fun stuff before the weekend was over.

We went to Gilgal gardens in Salt Lake- it's a park that has some of the oddest Church themed sculptures I have ever seen. I guess it use to be the yard of a man who was a Bishop and an artist and this was his artwork. It's very interesting, but I'm still not sold on the Sphinx with the Joseph Smith face.

Then we went out for lunch and Bear Lake raspberry shakes. I'd heard they were the best, but I didn't like them. I'll stick with Hire's and JCW's for my raspberry shake fixes.

We went to Trolley Square and hit the taffy store.....

Then after the rest of the kids came home from school, they kids tried to go swimming one last time before we took the pool down. Mother nature didn't agree and they were out in 5 minutes, freezing.

To warm them up we had warm mugs of harry Potter's Butterbeer.

I will post the recipe soon, it was so good the kids all loved it and licked their mugs.

After that roe and Jane asked me so sweetly if they could have a "mini party" in their bedroom and I said yes. We made some chocolate coconut popcorn, had swiss cake rolls and mini nutella & marshmallow whip sandwiches. They spread out a blanket in their room and watched a movie and had a party with just the two of them.

Saturday, we kicked off the start of the school year with a Philippine dinner. 

Parker wasn't here because he was on his first date. I am trying very hard not to totally geek out about that.

Matt made adobo and I made sweet sticky rice with cinnamon and coconut milk.

And of course, Buko pie.

As I said before, it's been a good summer. Not too intense, not too boring.

The kids all have their new school supplies, father's blessings and are back in school. 

The pool is draining and the shorts have been put away.

Summer is oficially OVER at the Olson house.

Wants, Needs, & Self Indulgent Blog Posts

Yesterday Matt and I had a talk about Wants Vs. Needs. Finances are tight for the next while and we need to make sure we keep the right perspective when it comes to spending money. Needs come before wants and we have to take care to make sure we don't confuse the two. Sometimes in life, it's hard to know the difference, and even harder to have to make choices that put needs before wants when we want something so bad.

Christmas isn't that far around the corner and I'm going to start having the kids think about the things that they want or need that will really bring them some happiness that will last longer than just 5 minutes after opening the gift. They have all of their needs met that we are aware of in this home.The holidays will bring a chance to give in to the "want" category, or things that we differ in opinion about regarding whether something is a want or a need. (For example, new music is a WANT, Parker, not a NEED,lol)

I started thinking about some of the things on my own 'want list' and decided to post them so that when the holidays roll around, Matt isn't left to panic trying to find something that will make me happy and I won't do the same for him.

Yes, this is a purely self indulgent post, bordering on obnoxious, but I'm not feeling good and have been stuck in bed for nearly three days and I am bored out of my head with nothing but TV, the Internet and books/magazines to fill my head.

The first week of school has been spent with me in bed, not dancing around the house in silence as I imagined.

So here are some of those things that challenge my own want/need list- that I KNOW are wants, but sometimes, they feel so much like needs that I make silly blog posts about them.

A ceramic cake stand, preferably vintage. Not glass or crystal- just ceramic

Can you just see this on my table with a carrot cake or yellow cake with chocolate frosting on it?

My basement bedroom/master suite finished.

It won't look like this, I just gave away my fancy bed, but I want that space finished before next summer.

A negative film scanner.

I'm ready to get rid of the hundreds of sleeves of negatives and get them stored in a way that makes more sense to me and allows for easier access to out photos.

You know I'm a sucker for Egyptian cotton.

Can you imagine a whole bed covered in that wonderful white softness and not just my sheets?

Because every woman has her own nerdy indulgences.

This costs more than my first car.

This one blurs the lines of want and need for me, but at the end of the day, I know it is a "want."

Bummer.

I also have to remind myself regularly that the perfect pencil skirt is also a want and not a need.

A pressure canner/cooker.

Who can judge a woman with such a practical want?

I love love love canning. It's another one of my nerdocities. I want to start canning my own veggies soon.

Another bottle of this stuff, it smells so divine. I bought a bottle of this to keep at Matt's house when we were dating because he didn't own lotion and it always takes me back to those months when we were so blissfully unaware of a world beyond our big dumb grins from all of the brand new happiness. I'm still grinning with happiness, but I'm out of this lotion.

And finally.....

Hey, it never hurts to dream big.

Nathan's Birthday Party

Yesterday we had a lot of things planned for the evening and we needed to get things done around the house early. That meant yard work for everyone. We try to avoid it as much as possible, and because of that we have one of the ugliest yards in the neighborhood. The crack house down the street has us beat, but we don't have the "I can't mow today, I'm high on crack" excuse that they have.

The kids pulled morning glory weeds out of the fence. We rebuilt one of our brick edging walls and pulled weeds. One of the kids said said "pulling weeds is so Willard." Well, so is marrying your cousin, but sometimes, you just have to do it.  They all chipped in and we got it done in about an hour. Greyson had a meltdown about halfway through though so he was really not much help.

Look at that face...

I guess when we're helping, we're not always happy.

The kids jumped in the pool afterwards to cool off.

---

After that we headed to Lehi for Nathan's Birthday party.

Nathan is our sweet bugaboo that came into our family after so many years, prayers and the mountains shook to bring him home. The journey he has taken pretty much makes all of our trials seem smaller. I can't really put into words how thankful and happy we are that he is safe at home with his Mama and Papa.

This little guy is a miracle, tangible evidence that God loves his children and blesses us. It may not always take the route we want, but God always takes us to where we need to be. Nathan needed to be in this family, and this family needed Nathan.

We love you so very much, Little Man.

Nobody knows for sure exactly when Nathan's birthday is, so Lori and Brent were told to choose one and they had his first ever birthday party yesterday.

There were cute babies for Aunties and Uncles to snuggle and tease.

Adorable Lilly and Sweetheart Rocco.

Beautiful Princess Abbie.

And then there were not so cute babies.........

Just kidding Brent, you're pretty cute for a giant sized baby, even if Lilly does have more hair than you.

The kids loved Nathan's big gift from Mama and Papa...his "Moto."

He wasn't loving it until Collin hopped on and rode. Every time Collin got on, it was suddenly Nathan's turn according to him.  He'd get on, ride a few feet and try to get off by stepping on the gas pedal to hop down.

Cute cute cute.

Happy Birthday Little One. Thanks for the fun evening Brent and Lori, we love you so much and are lucky to have such a great family.

Take them Bowling....

Last night we went on a group date with some friends from the ward.

We met up at the bowling alley with Frank and Doreen and Diane and her new guy, Mitch. Dianne has had a rough few months and we were excited to meet Mitch, the guy that has been bringing a smile to her face lately. He was super nice. We've all been worried about her and after meeting him, many of my worries melted away for my good friend who has had one craptastic year.

Doreen and Frank were serious bowlers, they brought a whole case full of supplies and had their own shoes and everything. The only equipment I brought were socks and a bandaid for when my thumbnail eventually tore off.

Unfortunately, it had been 4 years since they last bowled and Doreen was having a bad bowling night. She just kept getting gutterball after gutterball, it was like bowling with Katie,lol. That first game, she bowled a 15. Sorry, Doreen, but it was kind of funny.

At ten pm they turned on the black lights and the hip hop music and our scores went from lousy to laughable. We're old, we cant bowl in the light, let alone in the dark.

It was a fun night and a nice break away from the kids, even if I did only score a 78 and Matt scored an 82.