July 4th Tradition Continues

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. July 4th--Independence Day is my favorite holiday.

Yes. The girl who was once a "proper English school girl" and the person who couldn't say they were an American citizen until four years ago absolutely LOVES July 4th. I always feel flattered when a dear friend tells me I am the most "patriotic person" he knows.

Even though England does and always will hold a tender place in my heart, and I sing "God Save The Queen" frequently throughout the year, especially on important England occasions, I believe that America truly is a "choice land." I feel blessed to live in this country, and I'm am "Proud to be an American."

Our house knows when the calendar turns the page into July...

This year we started off July 4th attending our local city parade. Thank you to the kindness and generosity of some stellar people that live along the parade route, we were able to ride our bikes and skip any reserving spots or setting out chairs early. It was a fairly short and sweet parade. 

The fact that a stuffed animal literally landed in Megan's lap from a passing parade entry was nothing short of perfect. Drew has a strange fascination with stuffed animals (only child of mine that has ever had an interest in them) and he thought he had died and gone to heaven when Megan handed to him this silly stuffed animal dog.

Big kudos to my dear husband who tolerated the small city parade. In fact, I do believe I even saw him smile a few times during it. (He detests parades.) 


After the parade, it was "all hands to the deck" to prepare for our Annual Water Baseball BBQ. It was a smaller crowd than years past. What with my BFF's family out of town and my two brothers and their families moved away. 

Without those two brothers, our baseball game was much less regulated and rule abiding, but it was still the highlight of my summer. Besides, who really needs to run to each base when you're getting drenched in the face?

Just as we thought the party was over, our dear neighbors came and joined us and the fun continued. I love summer evenings spent sitting on the back patio eating and visiting while children (and adult) play. It was a near-perfect summer's day. 
I love Independence Day! Even if we did forget our annual Pledge of Allegiance on the front porch, or the singing of the National Anthem. 
Oh well. You can't do it all.

All Family

This afternoon (Monday) our house feels very quiet. For the last 8 days we have had 23 different cousins float in and out of our house. We loved every minute of it. (Well, for the most part. The 361 cups that seemed to adorn my counters for 8 days got slightly cluttery.)

Mike and I were flattered that so many of the cousins we love from AZ and CA would love to stay at our house, considering our house is already crazy and chaotic enough with the 7 of us.

We had children galore running amuck through the house, yard and neighborhood for days. Bikes, swimsuits, towels, shoes, cups, snack wrappers, socks and toys were strewn all over the house and yard for a week. But OH!!! WHAT FUN!! It really truly was.

And before you ask. Because everyone has. No, it was not my side of the family. It is Mike's side of the family. Several of his 2nd and 3rd cousins. I love them dearly.

 Katie from CA, Emily from UT, Joshua, Dakota from AZ, Ellie and Sienna from AZ

 Cousin Christene and Shannon, Damon, Amber (all from AZ) and Ricky and Katie (from CA)

We had pony rides, long visits on the patio, delicious desserts, crafts, communal meals, sleep-overs, movies and enough trampoline jumping each day that you'd think a long scheduled nap could have happened every afternoon. It never did. 

Cousin Seth from CA--He cooked dinner for us once when our 10 year olds were newborns. I like to have him cook for me every chance I get. (Including last March when Mike and I visited California.)

Mike and Sarah licking the brownie batter bowl. Even though only Mike's hand is showing, he was guilty of plenty of licking too.

 Cousins Jennifer and Shannon (sisters from AZ) and a few of the masses visiting the horses.

Cousin Nicki and Megan were enlisted to help tame the wild bed-hair.

Mons, Seth and Mike relaxing after dinner. Well, as much as you can relax with as many children as there were to interrupt some or all of us!

 All hands to the deck.
 Everyone was GREAT to jump in and help with food prep and clean-up.

Drew, Conner and Ryan, Luke, Joshua, Hannah, Ellie and Megan, Sarah

The goats! How could Hank and Lily not have been a part of the week?!?

(Cousin George telling a story to Drew and Joshua)

Katie and Ricky, Hannah and Conner, Dakota, Sienna and Chevy
Drew, Sarah and Ryan, Joshua

It was the perfect kick-off to an (almost) perfect Sowby Family Reunion at the end of the week. (More on that later...)

I Just Said What?

This evening as we were getting ready to eat dinner outside on the patio, I yelled to Luke, "Please get Cousin Ricky's skull off of the picnic table." As soon as the words came out, I couldn't help but ask myself if I had really just said that.

Indeed I had.

I was referring to one of the 6 cow skulls Luke was gifted by our bishop (leader of our local church congregation) last Sunday that was subsequently being stored on our outdoor picnic area.

I know, I know. Bishops are supposed to give counsel, advice, and spiritual guidance, not cow skulls. But bishop's giving away cow skulls is not my point.

My point?
There are so many things I say to my children that I never could have imagined ever saying. I'm sure that in 13 years of motherhood, I could come up with a pretty exhaustive list, but it's late and so in addition to the aforementioned "Please remove the skull" comment, here are a few things I can't believe I have had to say.

• While sitting in a church meeting, saying to a child of mine, "No! You can NOT take off your clothes."
• "No, I won't hold the chicken for you."
• "Please get your underwear off of your head."
• "We don't melt crayons in the car."
• "Please hold onto *it* while you are pee-ing."
• "Yes, you can have ice cream for breakfast."
• "Just shove it under your bed for now."
• "We don't store boogers on our foreheads."
• "Who put a cup-full of rocks in the freezer?"
• "Yes. I'll have the goats to school by 2:30pm."
• While driving in the car together, hollering to the back-seat, "Does Drew have clothes on?"
• "Sorry, but we don't take bags of chips into the bathroom with us while we go potty."

And I know as a fact, I could never have imagined this: having photo after photo of a child conducting his own singing with a pencil, wearing just underwear and sunglasses. (Not to mention the fact I have no idea who took the photos!)

Sometimes I feel like motherhood is just one surprise after another.

Just Words

We are now in the 3rd week of summer vacation. I have mixed feelings about having my children home all day every day. I am forever in a state of "doing". If it isn't reminding a child to practice their music, it's reminding a child to wear clothes when they go outside. If I'm not doing the 43rd load of laundry for the day, I'm asking a child to please not keep fish from a nearby pond inside my kitchen.

I'm tired and I'm exhausted and we're not even half way through the summer.

But then last Friday, Luke volunteered to fix lunch (and clean it up) for everyone. His announcement? "I'm going to cook everyone a sandwich. What flavor do you each want?"

He was dead serious.

He thinks fixing a sandwich is the same as cooking one. And when he asks which flavor you want he's asking if you want peanut butter and jam, or ham and cheese.

I sat back and smiled and reminded myself there ARE some joyful moments of motherhood.


So what if Luke doesn't know the correct vocabulary for food preparation when he's 10 years old. While 10, he can drive a piece of machinery. (And he drives the neighbor's truck when they are hauling hay.)

I'm sure Luke will get through life just fine. 
Even if he does cook flavored sandwiches.

All In a Day's Work

I went to bed very late on Tuesday night, and had to wake up early Wednesday morning to take Luke and his goat, Lily somewhere. It wasn't exactly the way I wanted to start out my morning, but I'm a mom and sometimes I don't get my first choice of activities.

Fortunately, my rushed and busy morning slowed down somewhat when my BFF and her boys decided to come and do nothing for the day. Well, our boys were busy fishing, riding bikes on bike jumps, playing outside, and devouring a whole bag of candy left over from a birthday party, but Melanie and I chose to sit outside in the sun and catch up on our lives since summer began.

Much to mine and Melanie's delight, Megan opted to stay inside and bake something delicious. Of course Megan can't ever quite stay focused on one task without about 315 interruptions. Wednesday was no different.

As bad luck would have it, Melanie and I switched our chairs to the driveway rather than the back patio to keep a more watchful eye on the little boys. As such, Megan walked through the garage about 297 times to either inform us of her baking progress, ask our opinion on the baking process, or to tell us such things as the sky being blue. (Actually, to Megan's credit, there were far fewer interruptions than typically.)

I'm not sure the exact course of events that ended in a trip to the ER a few minutes later, but Megan came out to tell/ask us who knows what and the next thing she is laying down on the dirty garage floor writhing in pain. Now, I have to tell you that I've never been a mother to jump up immediately to attend to an injured child. Especially my girls. They have a tendency to, well let's put it this way, they could probably both be very successful in drama and theater.

Except after a couple of seconds I could tell she was probably really hurt and instantly thought it was probably another sprained toe (she's done that more than once!). Except out of her mouth blurted, "Mom, help me. I have a nail in my foot."

Whhhaattt???
My natural-mother-bear-save-my-child-reaction obviously doesn't cover nails in feet as I turned immediately to Melanie and said, "Go look at it."

Of course I was inches behind Melanie and within seconds couldn't help but look myself. It was sort of a big, fat nail and we looked at each other in kind of a shocked and dazed "What do we do?" kind of way. Weren't we just sitting on the driveway gossiping about nothing, while waiting for a delicious cookie-dough-brownie-topped-filled with oreo dessert?

The long and short of it, was we knew we shouldn't pull the nail out ourselves, and after a call to the pediatrician, I headed to the local emergency room. Megan was near hysterics the whole time, crying out how scared she was of stitches, needles and any sort of medical procedure. Oh, she was crying because of pain too.

A few antibiotics, some antiseptic ointments and some bandages were about the only treatments needed. (Thank goodness her immunizations are current and I didn't have to put up with the added drama of a tetanus shot!)

**Warning-don't look if you're squirmish. It's sorta disgusting. (The dirty foot and the inserted nail.)**

Don't you just love that her apron never got taken off?! The doctors and nurses wished we had brought some of the baked treats with us, but at this point we were just hoping someone at home had removed them from the oven on time.

We could blame a nail left on the floor in the garage to any number of the seven people that reside in our house. We've narrowed it down a little bit though. Mike cleans up after himself and doesn't leave his materials out. I'm too busy driving goats places or children to emergency rooms to use nails for a project. Megan prefers baking and sewing to hammering and nailing. Ellie would much rather be playing school or painting finger-nails to using any kind of tools. Joshua, well yeah he could be guilty. Luke, well yeah, he could be too. Drew-yep-even the 3 year old may be guilty, as he spent the first part of the week carrying around a small tool bag filled with all sorts of things that may or may not have resembled the nail in Megan's foot.

Not that we're pointing fingers or anything. But we have had more than one discussion on not leaving out nails, and other potentially dangerous objects. We ought to discuss the importance of shoes too. Although the ER doctor said if you do step on a nail, doing it barefoot is much better than doing it with shoes on. (Too much added bacteria and germs.) So maybe we won't have the barefoot discussion after all.


Late Wednesday night I talked to my mother-in-law about my day beginning with transporting goats, interspersed with a nail in the foot ER visit. (At this point in the evening, I was not yet aware that it would end with an 11:07pm visit into my three year old's room to tell him to quit shining a flashlight in his brothers' faces.)

Referring to goats and nails in feet, I lamented to my mother-in-law, "This was not in my job description." Her experienced reply said, "It was. It is just in the fine print that nobody reads."

Warning to all you younger mothers with fewer and younger children--there is a fine print.
READ IT.

Dad's Day

I love Father's Day. I wish as much pomp and circumstance was given to Father's Day as there is to Mother's Day, but that isn't the case. It seems the excuse as to Father's Day vs Mother's Day is because there are so many "dead-beat", "loser", and "absentee" fathers out there. I get that. I do. But you know what, there are still plenty of deadbeat, loser and absentee mothers floating around out there too, but that doesn't mean we skip the fanfare of Mother's Day.

In many church congregations, a small token gift is passed out to mothers (and women over 18) each Mother's Day. Of the people I talk to, few church congregations do the same on Father's Day. I love that my ward (church congregation) does. I love that they pass out king size Snickers to all the dads. (Even if Mike declines to share it with me.)

I love Father's Day. Perhaps it's because I have a good and decent dad, and because my husband is a good and decent dad too.

Last week I broke my promise to quit doing anything related to crafts (remember Drew's Hot Wheels floor-mat?), and hand made a gift for my dad. Of course I copied the idea from a combination of websites, and switched it around a little. I made a little book, "52 things I'll always remember about my dad"

I filled it with everything from quirky personality traits my dad has, to funny memories and loving sentiments.  
About 2-3 years ago, I decided that I wanted Mother's Day and Father's Day in my family to be less about giving presents, and more about recognizing the days for what they should mean. Shower me with presents on my birthday, but on Mother's Day-I want my children to let me know what it means to them that I'm their mother. They do the same thing for Mike on Father's Day. (Every year, I've told them they can even include what they don't like about us as their mothers/fathers, but they've never taken me up on the offer!)

Mike is less bothered about presents, and requests the same thing of the children every year, "Just be good and nice."  But I know he certainly does love the handwritten notes and cards too. I mean who can't love a note that says, "I am very glad that you came to life."

I love good dads. There are a lot of them out there. I'm glad to know two of the best.

The Party That Wasn't a Party

I have found myself surrounded by some of my favorite people the last few days. Both of my younger brothers and their families came into town. Oh so fun!! I love my parents and all, but it sure is nice to have my siblings and their wives around once in a while. I wish I had had my camera with me more, but I didn't. Oh well.


One night, we babysat Lucy while Casey and Cindy (and my parents) went to a wedding reception. James and Kristin opted to come eat dinner with us and before long, everyone (except Casey) ended up sitting out on our back porch until the mosquitoes closed the party.


There was no fancy dinner, no prepared dessert and no planned activities. It all started with my kids in the wading pool and a few chairs on the patio. But by the end we had experienced such things as pony rides in the back yard, dish soap on the trampoline, ice cream sandwiches, three naked toddlers in the pool, then those same three naked toddlers in the tub.


I love, love, LOVE these people...

I don't think I could have planned an evening that ended up being as fun, relaxing, and good. And I've planned a fair number. 


Here's to more spontaneous, unplanned summer evenings.