Crochet Fun

So my dear friend and neighbor, Kim, decided that she needed to teach C and I how to crochet.  There are some cute things being done in the world of crocheting so I decided to push images of my grandmothers afghans out of my mind and give it a whirl.  What I really want to do is learn how to knit.  There are 2 pictures of me doing my best impression of a little old lady while holding knitting needles, because this is the image in my mind when anyone says they are knitting.  But, there are some super cute things you can make knitting, so that will be my next venture.  Knitting has so many possibilities of  things that I actually want to wear.  Today, however, was crocheting day.  C decided to make a scarf, Kim was making a hat and I decided to make an afghan for one of my kids' stuffed animals.  Kim's daughter is always wearing such cute crotched flowers in her hair every day that she made. Now that I've got the hang of the basic stitches, I know Jordy would love for me to make her some flowers for her hair.  All in all,  it was a blast and super easy to catch onto.  You too can be silly and have a blast when you get together with some friends to crochet and...as a bonus, you will even end up with something to wear when you're done.  

Tried This Too!

I am having lots of fun playing with hair.  MJ was my Guinea pig this time though.  I had her look through some pictures so I could do her hair fancy for church today.  This is the one we decided on.  I can't wait to try out all the other ones we have found.  She has the perfect length hair for the braided styles.  Love it <3

Tried It

I have been looking at lots of hairdos on a sharing site for interests and decided to give one a try. The picture looked pretty cool and the video promised it was a 2 minute hairdo. So, I tried it. It really was 2 minutes and this was my first attempt. I think it is the perfect amount of messy and super easy. So fun. I can't wait to try out some others, especially on my daughters long and lovely locks. P.S. yes, I did go crazy and get bangs. :0)

Lessons in Loosing

Another year, another pinewood derby. This year we started working on the car nice and early so there was plenty of time. Grandpa was in town so E even had help sanding it for the perfect streamline effect. We had a couple of problems with the paint refusing to dry in the cold temps, but we got it figured out. This year we also waited until the last minute to put the wheels on. The wheels are the trickiest part of the entire process. The wood can splinter and they don't like to go in straight and it can cause all kinds of problems. Nate took it slow and steady and got the smoothed to perfection wheels and axels in perfectly. Then we hit the wheels with some graphite and checked that everything was balanced and looked good. I think there were around 20 cars racing that night and each kid got to race on all 4 lanes twice, so it took awhile. You can see by the pics how we were entertaining ourselves. Jordyn and Ethan were playing with tape and we were acting like dorks. Bro Dick didn't dissapoint again this year with his car cake and hand made trophies. Now we just needed a little luck.

Ethan was up for his first race, which, by the way, was recorded for ease in watching on a projector and having access for instant replays, and woo hoo, he took first! We couldn't believe it. We never have come in first. There was high fives and screams and jumps. We were pretty excited and quickly ditched our plans for coming in last place. We are the kind of twisted family that goes for last place. Anywhere in the middle is boring, so why not shoot for last. Well, like I said, that plan was now ditched. Could our luck be repeated? Second race, 1st place. Third race, 1st place. Fourth race, 1st place. Now we are getting pretty excited and thinking we've got this in the bag. This goes on for 6 races. Then…..dun dun dun……I decided to have Ethan recreate him showing me 6 fingers in the air so I could capture his excitement on film. But, when I called his name he had just been handed his car from off the track and when he turned around his brother was turning back toward him and their hands collieded and BAM, the car dropped on the floor. Nathan was in emergency fix mode while I was trying to get the picture of the 6 on Ethan and you can see the distress on E's face. For his final 2 races of the night, he came in 4th place. The way the point system worked out coming in 4th 2x was enough to kill his score and it knocked him down to 4th overall. He had beat every kid that won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I have never seen a kid so broken hearted. He was trying so hard to keep it together while standig up to get his trophy. 1 small mistake or misstep can completely change the course of things. Life is never fair and you never know how things are going to work out. One thing is for sure though. Life is full of losses. He got lots of hugs and we talked about how what happened was an accident and that it was no ones fault. Sometimes crap happens, but his family loves him and we are proud of him and we know what to do differently next time. Poor little guy would recover and then just start weeping, even while we were at icecream celebrating 4th place. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to view things, life was designed to be hard and unfair, it's how we deal with it and who it shapes us into that matters.

Let Go

A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that has stuck with me.  I was really high above a really large swimming pool making my way across it by hanging on to a ledge suspended from the air.  There were several times that I slipped but managed to regain my grip and eventually make it across to the other side.  An actor from a boxing movie I had recently seen was even on the sidelines cheering me on.  When I reached the other side and was supposed to jump down to a landing I realized that the landing was too far away.  There was no way I could land on it from where I was.  This got me panicking because the only way down was to let go and drop the several feet into the water.  I tried giving myself a pep talk but just could not get myself to let go. One of the Mom's of some kids noticed my distress and got in the water and reached her hand up to me and told me that it was all going to be ok.  All I needed to do was bridge the distance between letting go of the ledge and her.  She kept telling me "you only need to go this far, let go."  So with the encouragement of the actor and this Mom I let go.  I have no idea what happened next because I woke up, but I do know that I let go.  

I decided to put my new mantra into practice while in Kauai a week later.  I have a terrible fear of heights and I always have visions of plummeting to my death.  I always get nervous leaving my kids behind to go on vacation and I always think something bad is going to happen and my kids will be parentless.  I even go through the panic of deciding that whoever I had picked out to take care of the kids, if this scenario played out, was not who I wanted anymore.  I always figure that it will be the plane ride that will get us, so I am usually a little on edge.  This time armed with my new let go attitude I was completely calm and relaxed and knew whatever will be will be.  This was working out so well that I let my husband talk me into getting into a helicopter to view the island.  Say whaaa???  Yep I really did.  Although you can see the tension smile on my face right before take off.  But, I was pretty calm about that too, although I will admit that I got a bit nervous when it started to rain and the clouds got dense.  I wasn't sure how our pilot was so sure of himself and his skill at avoiding the mountains, but I let go.  We got to see the "jurassic park waterfall" which is on private land so there is no other way to see it.  We also got to see the "fantasy island" waterfall that we were swimming in the day before.

The waterfall was quite the experience.  It was a kayaking and hiking trip that stopped at the waterfall.  We were told that the water was 72 degrees.  It was not.  But, we were there and it is an historic waterfall with many mythical elements of health and stuff like that so I wasn't about to let some frigid water keep me from standing in a waterfall.  Luckily when my SIL saw that I was just crazy and committed enough to actually go for it, she went with me (the boys were having none of that nonsense) .  It was sooo worth it.  We also picked the zip line adventure with the most and highest lines.  It was also the most beautiful.  I even got wild and crazy and jumped off backward on one of the lines thanks to my new mantra.  Now I did have a couple of moments of hesitation and wondering at the wiseness of my decisions to do some of these activities, but I let go.  The last line of the day I had to literally let go.  This was an optional line and we knew from the day before that the water below was most likely going to be freezing.  My SIL and I happily watched everyone else from our group do this (again my hubby was having none of that nonsense).  At the last moment I begged her to do it with me.  We couldn't not or we would regret it later.  I stood on that ledge for a bit of time almost chickening out.  I didn't have a movie actor cheering me on, but I did have the group doing it.  Once you went out, you had to commit to letting go before you hit the stopper in the middle of the line.  If you hit the stopper you would most likely end up doing a back flop, so letting go was a must.  I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I did and the water was freezing.  It is so invigorating conquering your fears and experiencing all that life has to offer.  This new mantra of mine can be applied to anything, not just literal.  Let go of bad habits, your expectation of others, expectations of yourself, worrying what would happen to your kids if you die, having things perfect...  Sometimes you need to hold on, but sometimes you just gotta let go.

Ethan is 9

Ethan got to have Grandma and Grandpa here for his birthday this year.  They came to watch the kids for a week while Nate and I headed out to Kauai.  Before we took off for some sun and fun we celebrated with our little bubba ganoush.  We took him and his friend to a place that we like to refer to as a casino for kids.  The most popular thing that day was the claw machine filled with angry birds.  Jared and Emma were the heroes that kept getting them for all the kids.  They cared more about that prize than scoring piles of tickets that ultimately bring a sad face when entering in the prize store only to find out you can get a bouncy ball for like 50 tickets.   The food wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be especially since they force you into buying it. There are actually a couple of buffet style restaurants that I hate more than this place, if you can believe it.  The most important thing, however, was that the kids had a ball.  We came back home for some cheesecake and presents to round out the celebration.
 Happy Birthday Ethan!