Calder, Time Traveler Extraordinaire!!

Calder's 8th birthday was this weekend and he had a friend birthday party on Friday. It was quite the party. Calder came up with the idea all by himself, and all the activities as well.

Here is the party invitation that we sent out:
(Calder helped design it!)
We invited about 15 kids (that includes the Woods and my kids) to the party. Calder chose to have a Time Travel party. He even dressed up in a "lab" coat so he could be the time traveler. Calder wanted to travel to four different times:
Dinosaur Era
Medieval Times
Civil War Era
The future

He wanted to have this happen in four different rooms, and originally wanted to paint the doors. I convinced him that we could just cover the doors with wrapping paper and make it look like a time machine door.
When they first got here I had them make their own time capsules to take home their "booty" in.

In the dinosaur room we put up some palm leaves, draped everything with green blankets, put dinosaurs on them, and dimmed the lights. We told the kids that we came back in time to the exact time the dinosaurs went extinct. The meteor had just hit, there was debris blocking out the sun and volcanoes were going off. Each of the kids made a volcano out of playdough and then we had them erupt with baking soda and vinegar. We also has a fossilization race to see how many dinosaurs they could fossilize in 30 seconds. The got to keep the ones they successfully fossilized (completely submerged and covered in playdough)

The next trip was to Medieval times. We had a utensil free dinner of chicken, french bread and grapes. The kids loved that they got to eat with their hands. Then Joe did some juggling and taught them how. They each got to try and then keep their juggling balls.

The Civil War Era was upstairs in Bonus room 1. It was the battle of Bunker Hill. We had draped the workout machine in green sheets and called it bunker hill. Then we divided the kids into two teams, the north and the south. Levi and Calder had set up two "forts" out of foam blocks and we gave each team foam balls. The goal was to have a battle and the first team to completely knock down the other teams fort won...... It was a tie!! It got a little crazy at the end when I told them to all throw at once (before they were taking turns to throw). The kids loved it.

The final era, the future, was a little different. Levi was in charge and he told the kids "We are attempting to do something we have never done before, we are going to travel to the future, but it is a little rough so we might have to break through the door to get to it." The kids loved that idea. We had taped wrapping paper over the entrance to bonus room two (which has no door) and the kids got to break through it to enter the future. The future was dark, we had completely blacked out the room. We gave each kid some glow in the dark bracelets and nerf dart guns with vests and glasses and had them play dart gun tag/capture the flag in the dark. This was, by far, the big favorite for the boys (which was why I saved it for last!!!!)
I don't have pictures of anything about the last two because Joe decided he needed to get on a call the last hour of the party. I was a little overwhelmed doing the last part by myself.....he owes me big time!!!

Calder got an Ice Cream cake for his birthday cake (since he takes after his dad and isn't a big fan of regular cake)

The downside was that we had about 6 kids that were totally uncontrollable and disruptive. They would be really mean to other kids and say REALLY inappropriate things. Sometimes they made it impossible to continue on with the party. At one point I had to tell one of the kids that if his behavior didn't change right now I would call his mom and have her come and get him. Totally HATE having to discipline at a party, but there are just some things that I won't tolerate in my house and kids will either learn really quickly what those are or they will have to leave. It just isn't fair to Calder to have his party ruined by a few thoughtless kids. (one was even swearing and saying sexually explicit things - at 7 years old I find that totally disturbing) Calder was pretty upset with his friends behavior, and I felt bad for him. But he seemed to have a great time anyway. The kids that I had to discipline I tried to make sure they were still having a good time, it was a party after all! Apparently they did because at the end of the party when their parents came to pick them up they didn't want to leave. I call that a success overall.... just exhausting for me!!

Anselisms and adventures on Columbus Day

Life has been very full the last few weeks with 3 boys in soccer, 3 boys in piano, 2 boys in Cub Scouts, and a boy and a mom in a musical (with lots of rehearsals), a birthday party (with some out of control boys) a mom that very decidedly over-volunteered at the school this year, not to mention the regular stuff around the house and school!! But even though I haven't really had the time to blog here are some recent things that I thought were very blog worthy:

First another great Anselism:

Look at this picture and then read the following exchange between Ansel and Joe:


The weather is now turning crisp, and fall is definitely in the air these days. But, Ansel thinks it is still summer, going outside in his bare feet all the time. One of these times occurred when it was dinnertime and Ansel had been going in and out the back door into the backyard.

At one point Joe said "It is a little too cold for bare feet outside, your toes are going to freeze!" He looked down and said "Yep, look at your toes they are red, that means they are cold!"

Ansel replied, without missing a beat, "Nope, they are just embarrassed!"

An Adventure on Columbus day went as follows:

I had a pretty average morning getting the big kids off to school, paying bills, balancing finances, making a couple online purchases for a school fundraiser, getting Ansel off to Kindergarten, you know the drill. Around 12:30 is when I headed out the door to run some errands: getting gas, washing the car, changing the oil and getting a picture taken of myself, at the school, for my volunteer badge. I started off with the picture, which was done in no time at all, and then headed off to get gas.


In Oregon you aren't allowed to pump your own gas, it is illegal. So, when I pulled into the Chevron that I usually use, I did the usual. I pulled up, turned off the engine, rolled down my window, handed the attendant my debit card and said "Regular fill and a car wash please". He immediately went to the pump and swiped my card through the scanner. "Beep Beep" said the scanner. The attendant tried again "Beep Beep" went the scanner. The attendant came back to me "the card isn't working, do you have another?" "No", I say "It is probably the magnetic strip, just pump the gas and I will have them run the card inside" "Okay," said the teenage attendant, eager to move on.

The gas fills up inside the tank and soon we are done. I hop out of the car and go inside to pay. Remember this is my debit card, going directly out of my checking account (we only use that or cash - we don't use credit cards. We have one stored away for emergencies, we just don't use it). I know that there is plenty of money in the account so I am completely confident that the indoor attendant can easily enter in the card manually and we will be done. There should be nothing to it. Well, the same thing happens inside, only along with the beeps comes the word "denied". "What?!" I exclaim. "This is my debit card" why would it be denied? The attendant shrugs and asks "Do you have another card?" , "no", "Cash?" "no" I reply curtly. "I have checks". "we don't take checks" the attendant says apologetically.

We are at an impasse. I have no way to pay for the gas that is sitting inside my car's tank. Now what do we do. I tell the attendant that I have my cell phone and I will try to get a hold of my bank. I call 411 and get a number to my bank. I call, but they are closed..... That's right, because of Columbus day!! CRAP!! Maybe my Bank's ATM up the hill will take my card? Then I could give cash.

I sign away my life at the gas station so I can leave with my unpaid for gas, and head up the hill wondering, desperately what could be wrong with my card??!! When I get to the ATM I put in my card and get a moments relief. It does it's usual thing and asks for my pin number, that goes through, and then it asks for the amount I want to withdraw. GREAT! Things are going to work out after all. I put in $200 (just in case) and it accepts it,... but then it just spits out my card and no cash!! WHAT??? I try again for a lesser amount and pay closer attention. It does the same thing but this time I see in small writing, up in the left hand corner, the words "card denied". Great. If my card's own ATM won't take it then something is seriously wrong.

I feel a huge pit in my stomach imagining the possibilities. Did someone steal my identification and my card info and go on a spending spree since I last checked my account an hour before?? That doesn't seem possible.

Not knowing what else to do I head home and onto the WWW to see what it says online at my bank. First I check my e-mail. Ahah! A new email from my bank is there announcing irregular check card activity. It tells me to go online and look at my transactions to see if anything looks unusual. I go, ... I look... everything looks fine. I call the emergency number listed in the email. It is automated. GRRRRRRR. The voice tells me that there are 5 unusual card activities that have happened in the last hour and it mentions one for $200 and then asks if I did this one. I pause. I just tried to get $200 out of the ATM, but my card was denied before that so this couldn't be the cause. I push "no" for lack of a better option. I am directed to the "Fraud emergency services". Finally a real person. I tell her my whole story.

She is very sympathetic and looks through everything and verifies a bunch of transactions with me. Everything is on the up and up. The most pressing question I had? What about that $200 I attempted to withdraw? She assures me that it did not deduct from my account. PHEW!

The reason my card got tagged for irregular activity? Who knows, but it got tagged with my attempted purchase of gas! I asked her why, since that gas station is one I frequent. She said that it is a computer that tags the card and sometimes there are glitches. Great. How nice for me!

I mean, I guess I am grateful that they are so on guard so that I don't lose money, but it sure was inconvenient, not to mention embarrassing!! At least I was able to go back to the gas station and pay with my card and explain what had happened, saving face a little!

The lesson I learned was that one can never be too complacent about the ease with which we transact our business! All it takes is one little thing and everything is turned upside down and a person can be left with very few options to choose from! Maybe having a bit of emergency cash wouldn't hurt either!!

Sippy Cup Art

As an Artist, I have to/can't help to: truly recognize and appreciate all art,
even when it is accidental:

:-)

You, have to admit it. It is pretty cool.

Kaelan dropped his sippy cup off the counter and it fell under a bar stool.
This is what I saw when I first walked around the counter to pick up it:
It was perfectly centered underneath the bar stool,
giving the nice circle within in a square design.

Hip hip hooray, for accidental art!

The Grocery Game

The coolest thing happened to me last night:

I saved more money than I spent on groceries.

I know that sounds like a funky statement, so let me expand on it a little bit. When you go to the grocery store and use your "club" card or "preferred" card (or whatever the grocery store calls their "savings" card) -so you don't get ripped off by paying the "real" (ie. marked up) price- at the end the cashier hands you the receipt, and says something like: "Thank you Ms. ....... you saved .........today", and you usually walk away feeling so good because it "looks" like you saved $18 on your $200 purchase by shopping the sale items. (just like they want you to feel). It will even give you a percentage saved, for example "your savings are 8% today". I always feel bad for the poor person that doesn't have one of these get out of jail free cards. They must be getting robbed all the time when they shop, having to pay the marked up price all the time.

Anyway, last night I tried something new, in my shopping, to see if I could find a way to cut back on our grocery budget, which always seems to balloon way out of where we want it to be.
I have been trying to figure out ways to save money on groceries for a while now. Who hasn't, I guess. It is probably a universal desire. Most of the time the issues arise from a lack of adequate planning/time, and you run to the store because you need something right then, or you know you will shortly. At this point though you are at the mercy of the store prices, maybe you can buy the cheaper brand, but that's about it.

Last April, a friend of mine in the ward, introduced me to a new way of shopping with coupons to maximize savings. I signed up for the service (which costs $10 every 2 months): I got a newspaper subscription, and started saving coupon inserts. At first they were just piling up in a stack, and I kept planning on getting an organizer for them, but it didn't really happen.

A few months went by. I hadn't really used the service or used the coupons. The coupons were just piling up, so I finally went out and got an organizer to put them in, by month, and used the service's suggested organization system to keep them easy to find. Now, they were sitting in there, nice and organized, but still not getting used. I guess I just wasn't motivated enough, and I was sort of intimidated by, what seemed to me to be, a huge time consuming process. In short, the idea wasn't doing me much good because I wasn't using it.

Here's where the motivation steps in. I badly need (okay maybe it is a want :-) a new DSLR, my current one is 6 years old, has a crushed LCD screen, and can barely focus. The poor thing is on its last leg. The problem is that nice DSLR's are pretty pricey. But, that is what I want, a nice DSLR. Where to get the money though,..... I came up with a great idea. Why don't I actually USE this money saving technique I know works, and use the money I save to buy myself a new camera!! It's a great idea, I pitch it to Joe, he likes the idea, but says I only get half of what I save....the rest goes into *sigh* real savings. Drat. Well, that's okay, it might take a little longer, but the goal is in sight.

I implemented this new technique this week, well actually just yesterday. Even up to the time I started cutting out the needed coupons I was anxious about what was going to happen, how much of a pain it would be, and if I would actually save much money. The coupon cutting process was really easy. I started at 9pm and finished around 9:30pm. Not too painful at all. I put them in my trusty little coupon "purse" organized by isle (sort of), grabbed my printed out list and headed out the door.

This is my coupon organizer and "purse":

I was in and out of the store in 30 minutes, it was the fastest "major" shopping I have ever done (it helped not having any children with me and going late at night). When I got up to the check out with my completely overflowing shopping cart there was only one check out isle open. I really hoped that no one would need to check out at the same time as I, as I was a little embarrassed to be using all these coupons and didn't really know what I was doing.

But luck doesn't favor me that way. Just as I had gotten about 50% of my stuff up on the counter there was a mad rush on the check out lane. Great. Now all these people get to watch me do this. I turned to the man behind me and apologized for having so much stuff and being slow. I told him all about what I was attempting to do and he was actually really interested to see what would happen and how much I would save. He started to relay to the people behind him what I was doing and they all turned to watch the process. An audience...wonderful. The check out guy was really cool. He was an older gentleman who obviously knew the whole process like the back of his hand.

The checker rang up all of my stuff, then had me put in my club card and give him the coupons. And then the total started to fall fast. The man behind me gasped and said, " she's already saved $75 dollars and it is still falling... now $100... WOW! $120... it's still going!" It was funny that he was commentating on it, like it was a great sporting event!! He was just as excited as I was, everyone watched the screen to see where the total would actually land. It started to slow and finally stopped $143 below the original total. Amazing. Everyone was whispering and passing on the total to the person behind them. It was really funny to see how much everyone else was into it.

Look at these numbers!!

(I am sure that I will get even better at maximizing these savings, with time!)

I was ecstatic. I had just saved $143. My total was now only $140. In the end the amount I paid was less than the amount I saved!! I had a 51% savings!! That means that everything I had just bought had averaged more than half off!! How cool is that?!! That was the funnest grocery shopping trip I have ever made!! I will definitely be doing that more often. Who can argue with those kinds of results?!!!!

Here is my haul:
(well 70% of it anyway, the rest was already put away)

If I spend that much money each week I will have cut our grocery bill by around 75%!!! I can see my mountain of money now......

A snapshot of one very happy shopper:

9 things for 9-9-09

Today was filled with momentous events......some good, others bad. It's a ying/yang day, I guess. Here are 9 experiences to mark the day:

1

Ansel started Kindergarten today.

It was SO hard for him to wait this long for school to start..... He has been waiting since the beginning of summer and kept asking me if summer was ever going to end so he could go to school, F-i-n-a-l-l-y. He was positively glowing all morning. He was up so early all dressed up and ready to go. (he has afternoon kindergarten at 11:30)

I got a call from his teacher after school, just to tell me what a sweet kid he was, and that she wanted me to know that he is extremely bright, picking up on everything in class so fast. She said "I think he is already reading" I told her that he was, and she said that she would definitely up the challenge in class for him. She also told me that Levi's teacher had mentioned to her that Ansel would probably need extra challenges in class, because Levi sure does. It makes me feel good that my kids are getting so well taken care of at school. Isn't it the best when teachers take a real interest in your kids???!! It's the stuff parental dreams are made of.


It was Calder's 2nd day of the second grade... He is old hat at this now, so no exclamations are necessary. (although he was extremely bummed that his two best friends got in a class together and he didn't. A very sad day for Calder when he found that out). He is in a 2nd/3rd grade blend. (and it turns out he has a couple of friends in his new class, so the sadness is gone. One is from his soccer team, the other from church. Little boys get over things so easily). Calder is one that doesn't ever really need to worry about friends actually. He is one of those kids that others flock to. Did you know any of those kinds of kids growing up? He is well loved, and as he puts it "I don't need to make friends, they make friends with me".

Now if only school work was so easy for him...... *sigh* That is our "Calder" struggle-- he has no interest in traditional school work, you know the three RRR's. Actually, I take that back, writing is his strong suit, it fills his tactile needs (he is very tactile in learning) and satisfies his creative side. But the other two are like pulling teeth.


Levi is just blazing through. He is big man on campus this year (as a 5th grader), but other than that no new surprises. He is in the same class/same teacher as last year because he is in a 4th/5th grade blend. (which I really love by the way). He has been in school two days and has read TWO 300 hundred page books in that time. He told me today that his teacher told a fellow teacher, at the school, that Levi had done this and she didn't believe him!!

This kid reads SO fast that I can't even keep up with him (and I am not a slow reader). I will get halfway down a page and he will ask me how much longer, like he has been patiently waiting for a while and just now is asking. Speed reading at its finest. (the best part is that he remembers everything he reads.) His teacher really loves him. It is really neat to see their relationship. When we went to back to school night, and walked into Mr. Anderson's room, he dropped everything (even the conversation he was having with a parent) and rushed over to say hello to Levi. I was so surprised and pleased to see the emotion behind the welcome. I could tell that he really had missed Levi.

He took him over to the class "library" and told Levi that he had bought all these new books with Levi in mind, as he was pointing them out, Levi kept commenting "oh yes, that's a great one..." "oh I just finished that one". Mr Anderson kept moaning "oh Levi, how can I ever keep up with you??" So I had to point out the ones that I knew Levi hadn't read to appease poor Mr. Anderson. He felt much better at that point.

2
Mommy outing with/for Kaelan

During kindergarten time, I am down to just one kid at home! So fun to spend some one on one time with my little guy. We had an outing, just he and I, to Bridgeport Village (a really neat outdoor mall close to our house). We got Gelato ice cream (peach and oreo cookie) and played on the play ground that is in the central area of the mall. He had a great time. He is so active and fearless, it was interesting watching him. He was drawn to kids with similar temperaments and it was really interesting to watch them play together. (because school is in session all the kiddos were KK's age, a built in playgroup!!). They would chase each other laughing and pushing, enjoying the physical aspect of their play. I noticed that he was always playing with children that had older siblings, I wonder if that is a common phenomenon for younger children. After that we went and bought some Thomas the Tank Engine books from the bookstore with mommy's border's rewards money. KK was a happy boy when he took his nap today.

Oh here is a little video clip from today, of him doing somersaults. I was impressed by his control!! :

3
A Yang (bad) for the day

But I should back up a bit to include a "yang" for this day. It happened just before it was time to take Ansel to kindergarten. It was caused by distraction, on my part, coming from the smallest member of our family. It is a hazard of having a newly potty trained person in the household, and trying to keep the house clean for a work party coming up on Friday, at our house. When said, small child, comes running down the hall yelling "poo poo", I drop everything and run to assist before there is an accident.

Unfortunately, the thing I "dropped" was a sink full of running water and bleach, plugged up and flowing freely. Not good. Especially since this "said" distraction was replaced my another and another, until I had completely forgotten the filling sink for over an hour. I know.... cringe... it was bad. I discovered.... or ahem.... rediscovered my filling sink when I went into the laundry room, to access the garage, and stepped into 3/4" of standing water on my laundry room floor.

Panic set in, but I quickly turned off the HOT water and burned my arm reaching into unplug the over flowing sink. Water was every where, under the washer and dryer inside the cabinet the sink is on, over-saturating the rug and flowing into the vent. I yelled for Joe's help (he was home sick) and grabbed some towels to start the soak up process. Joe politely reminded me that we have a carpet cleaner with a spill pick up feature, after I had gone through 4 beach towels to no avail.

It took filling up the cleaner tank 5 or 6 times to get the water all up from the floor and cabinetry, but I eventually did. Now I have an extremely clean laundry room floor that smells like bleach. I guess it could be worse..... but I don't want to find out how. Funny how worrying about preventing a possible small mess, by KK, led me to create a MUCH larger one myself. Oh the chagrin, wasted time and mess.

4
A little garden bounty to brighten things up

I harvested some of my garden today, look at the beauty:
Doesn't that just brighten your day?? It did mine.

5
Soccer practice/Soccer practice/Soccer game

Wednesday is our crazy day. We have three boys in soccer that practice at 5, 5 and 6. Joe takes Calder (because he is his coach) and I take the rest. Today was a little different because Levi had a scrimmage game lined up instead of regular practice and it was taking place at 6:30, so it made it a little tighter for me (Ansel practices at 6). Soccer is good for my boys. They have way too much energy and soccer really burns it up!

6
Another "Yang"West Linn Patrol cars:

(license plate blurred out to protect the owner) ;-)

I took Ansel to his practice, and then headed over across town to Levi's scrimmage. On the way a police officer got behind me and was following me pretty close for a while. It made me nervous. I was doing everything by the book and really didn't have anything to fear, and yet...........all of a sudden he surged forward to almost right on my bumper and on came his lights. Great, I thought. This is so my luck. If Joe were driving this wouldn't happen, I KNOW that for a fact. Some guys have all the luck.

I pull off the main road, onto a side street and roll down my window, "what seems to be the problem, officer?" I ask. "I can't read your license plate" he says curtly. "????" was my response. "that will give you a $100 ticket in most cases for disrupting procedure" he says ostentatiously. I am still trying to grasp what in the world he could mean by this when he says "you can't having any covering over your plate." Now I get where this is coming from.

When we bought our Enclave, my step-dad Kurt, provided us with a plate protector to protect it from becoming illegible in the snow. Now, apparently it was having the opposite affect, as this officer was claiming he couldn't read it in plain daylight with no inclement weather effecting the visibility. Apparently these CLEAR plastic protectors are illegal in Oregon, but not in Utah?? Because, as Joe puts it "why do they sell them then??". Luckily he let me off with a warning, after he felt that I had been sufficiently humiliated for the day. As we drove away, Levi asked "What was that all about?", and responded with a "I really couldn't tell you" What a complete waste of time.

7
Stunt planes are cool(the stunt plane we saw)

When we finally arrived at Levi's soccer scrimmage we noticed that right next door they were having a HUGE biker "convention" at a local tavern. There must have been at least 600 bikers with their leather "skull" jackets and tattoos. Loud music was blaring, and low and behold there was a stunt plane performing tricks overhead. (a very cool benefit indeed) We got out and were watching it instead of Levi's game. (oopss).

8
Yang #3 "poo poo, mommy" and Honey buckets

I became very familiar with the good old "honeybuckets" on our Hood to Coast relay race, as that was our only source of "plumbing" on the run. Even so, I don't enjoy entering them for even a moment, and try not to breathe too hard when I do. After wards I always feel the need to bathe. Yech. Well, imagine if you would, dear reader, having to help a little boy "poop" in one of these contraptions. Doesn't the thought of it make you nauseous? Well, add a little boy who appears to be constipated and can't make up his mind whether or not he has to go, coupled with the fact that he is newly trained and so the answer is never "no" no matter how much I wish it could be so. No, I didn't want to risk cleaning poopy underwear at the soccer field because I wouldn't take him to the potty for the 10th time in a row.

Well this is what happened to me. He was so sincere in each request that we would hurry to the honeybucket, lock the nasty door, attempt to cover the nasty seat, and check to make sure there was more "purell" in the dispenser, and wait for about a minute. Until he got bored and wanted to go out and play. (I don't blame him, who really wants to wait out a BM in one of those nasty contraptions that have "blue pee pee" as KK so correctly pointed out). We did this about 8 times and at about the 3rd I was already begging for mercy. But, even though he never did have success on the potty, he also never pooped his pants. So it almost comes out even....almost.

9
Winning a soccer game during a beautiful sunset.

Levi's team was definitely the dominant team. They crushed their opponents 5 to nil. It was a great victory. I had a good time (inbetween honeybucket trips) watching Levi do his thing. That kid is FAST. He blew by everyone on his team and the other team. I think he must be built for speed. It was the first time I could really see a clear difference in speed between Levi and his peers. Wow. that kid can really move. I was impressed. Really impressed. He reminded me of a Ferrari next to a camry. Racing along together and then all of a sudden turning it on and blowing by as if the other was standing still. It was fun watching him excel at it. He also had the most amazing falls. He sort of just rolled/somersaulted and came up running, with out a pause. I must admit I let go at that point and yelled "WOW. levi that was cool!!"

As the game came to and end we were greeted with an amazing sunset. What a way to end the day.

What KK did during the soccer game (beside enter the honeybucket):

Here is the official end to the day (I let the boys stay up to 9:09pm):

(it says 9:09 on the microwave, the flash ruined it)

9:09pm on 9/9/09.
What a day. Whew. I am glad its over.