What goes up, must come down!: September 2010

I really haven't posted since the day I fired my gallbladder, made it clean out it's office, and escorted it out the door. That being the case, I figured it might be good to use it as a reference point for all things since. Poor thing, I wish I could say that I miss it.... but I don't. I REALLY don't.

To show you how much better I feel without it, just take a look at what I did right when I got home after the morning's "sedated" activity (while in bed on Vicodin no less....wait, maybe that's not a feat after all)

Calder came up to me as soon as I got home freaking out about a soap carving we had to do for his book report the next day. (don't you love how kids only remember to tell you important things right before they are due) So there I sat in bed, on Vicodin, Calder next to me, carving the head of a sea serpent, from the Beast Quest book he was reporting on, with a butter knife.

I had never carved anything before, so maybe my choice of carving utensil is laughable, but it worked and that is all that matters. Ivory soap is SO easy to carve from, I had no idea. Calder helped me carve large chunks out of the soap at the beginning and then at the end I taught him how to do the scales and he finished it up. He did those very well, I thought.

A before and after shot, of sorts:

Calder was so excited and proud of his carving, I was proud that the soap survived the process and we didn't have to re-do (especially the lower jaw and beard as delicate as they were)

Calder took it to school the next day and it survived that as well, amazing. Now this little guy resides in a place of honor on Calder's bookshelf in his room.

All in a days work when you are a mom, I guess. I should add that that was all I had to do that day because my sister Lani was here taking care of EVERYTHING else. Thanks Lani!

Since that day it has just been one big whirlwind, one activity after the next, with no breaths in between.

After Levi's graduation (see previous post) we had all of the class parties (10 days after surgery), and being room parent in two classrooms, I had the lovely job of helping organizing etc. them (luckily I have great friends that stepped in and did more than their share to help me out)

Two of the parties took place in the park so here are a couple of highlight pics:

Levi won the award of being the only one in his class that could successfully jump through a hoop, rolling at breakneck speed down the hill, without disturbing its progress/path:

Don't ask me how he did it, I have no idea, it looked pretty impossible to me. (I should mention that he did it over and over and over again, it just wasn't one lucky shot....very amazing.) He must have some secret superpower that I don't know about.

Calder got to play the part of a banana in his class skit:

Afterwards he insisted on keeping the banana. What, I ask you, can you do with a giant paper banana? The answer is: nothing. So you have to secretly throw it away, very discreetly, because you know he will never ask about it again and because you DON'T want that thing hanging around your house as part of some, ahem, unnamed mini-packrat's hoard.

Doesn't he get that I don't like unnessesary things hanging around? I can't believe that my removing of all of my unimportant organs over the years hasn't clued him into that fact. Let's see.... appendix -check, tonsils -check, gallbladder -check. Yep, that's a rap. All cleaned out.

For Levi, my offer of a "photo" keepsake of his panoramic silhouette project, instead of taking it home, was well received, so here it is. Of course, he would choose a battle for his subject matter.... Shocker, that.

We also got to go to his Marimba performance, very groovy. KK totally dug it and wanted to stay and play the marimba for the rest of the day. (we seriously had to pry the sticks out of his hands while he was kicking and screaming in protest.)

Finally, school ended joyously for all (yes even I admit to feeling so glad school was out).

We had about a week of pure summer lazy bliss before things picked back up in their usual way.

We even went to the Oregon Coast for the Cannon Beach Sand Castle contest, (the boys, Remi and I), and then stayed to play on the beach ourselves (and pretended that our sand castles were as awesome as their's)

This one was called "iCastle" it is a sandcastle built on top of a giant iPhone: I liked that one the best, of course. Very cool subject matter. Usually electronics and sand don't mix, but hey...

Here is the whole title: :)

The boys in the midst of building their sand creations:

Kaelan was particularly into it, so much so he didn't even realize that he was sunrising us:

Some pants just require a little more flesh on the backside to stay up..... what's a boy to do?

This is what Remi did the whole time on the beach:

Okay, maybe not the whole time:

Oh wait, yes.... the whole time:

Love you Remi! :)

But wait, I am forgetting something.....

What summer would be complete without celebrating F-day?

What is F-Day you ask?

Here is a clue to help you out:

It is what happens when you don't have enough red and blue poker chips to spell "Father's". Now, because of Levi's ingenious father's day "card", Father's Day will always be known, around our house, as F-day. Hope you all had a great one.

Speaking of Fathers..... Ours was conspiculously missing from his own Severson reunion:

Our Family photo on photo day:

It looks like I am a single parent...

I was, but only for two days. Yes, he had to skip out on half of his own side of the family's reunion, for work. I hope they appreciate how good he is to them.