Merry Christmastime

Election Day

I'm on pins and needles today, and trying to keep myself busy.  Yes, I voted (no line, two others voting at the same time), easy-peasy.  Oooh, and I did my first write-in vote!  Couldn't vote for Orrin Hatch, wasn't excited about the other choices, so I voted for my father-in-law.  Heh, heh, George--you've always wanted to be a politician, haven't you?  :)

I really really hope Romney wins.  And now I will go keep myself busy until polls start closing at 4 MST.  Eeek!

Moose and Bears and...Hopefully Not Cougars

Seems my new neighborhood is going to be a tad more exotic than we realized:

It’s common for deer and elk to come down the mountains to the outskirts of Lindon, but a few weeks ago a bear wandered several blocks into town, and residents are still talking about it... 

The bear had wandered several blocks into one of the neighborhoods on the border of Lindon and Orem, Cullimore said...

The bear wasn’t the only big animal to come through a Lindon neighborhood in September. A bull moose also caused quite a stir.

Our new neighborhood is on the border between Lindon and Orem, but we are a little further from the mountains--closer to State Street, really. But still! How exciting!

Main Floor Framing (With Bonus Pictures from Em)

The main floor!

View from our driveway--yes, it will be very steep.  Our lot, it turns out, has quite a bit of slope.  You'd think one of us (cough-cough-the-geologist) might have noticed, but...not so much.  That's okay.  It's going to be fun to landscape and design around, and you should see the way-awesome front walkway we've designed, to eliminate the need for steps.

From the back corner.  See, some parts of the lot are really flat!

Em took this picture.  I thought it was cool, in an artsy type of way.  Not that I think she was trying to be artsy, I just think that's the way it turned out.

Yummy at the top of Grandma's stairs.  Another cool picture by my Em.

Also by Em. Since I'm often behind the camera, I thought I should put it up.

And finally, I think we'll call this one "Hebs in the Hallway, by Em"  (Gee and Daddy were also there, promise, but her pictures of them were very blurry.)

We're so excited by the very visible progress of the last little while.  I'm starting to get a little freaked out by the whole moving thing, though.  I really need to get cracking.

Stairs!

Tobler side stairs, with Yummy and Em in the rec room (the left window is for the Spare 'Oom, the right window for the girls' bedroom) 

Peek-a-BOO!  (Her favorite pose whenever I point a camera in her direction.)  In the Spare 'Oom. 

Standing in the storage room, looking through the studs into the rec room and beyond to the downstairs master bed and bath (where Bradley is standing). 

The cold storage room, AKA the bunker 

Boys in the boys' room! 

Girlies in the girls' room! 

Oh, the joys of sawdust 

Standing in my garage, looking toward the framing happening on the main floor.  That's my front door, my front windows, and beyond is Mema's living space.  Hooray!

And the angels sang...

Be still my beating heart!!!!!  I thoroughly enjoyed Lego Indiana Jones, and mostly enjoyed Lego Harry Potter.  A couple of months ago, I was telling my sister that I wished Lego would make a "Lord of the Rings" video game, because then I could enjoy it without the gore and first-person-shooter or whatever that a non-Lego game would have.

And look!  Glorious day!  My wish has been granted, or will soon be, because the game doesn't come out until October 30, and we won't buy it (barring some awesome coupon or something) until after Christmas, because it will probably drop in price $15 or so.  But still!

(Yes, I freely admit being a nerd.  And playing Lego video games.  I'm unashamed.)

While I was sleeping

I've been battling this virus for a couple of days now, and yesterday I was actually feeling worse than I had the previous day.  I was miserably counting the minutes until my big kids came home from school.  

Zee, almost nine, is big enough to keep tabs on the younger kids while I nap.  I don't expect too much from them--just keep everyone alive, no juggling knives or lit matches--and we don't do it too often.  (The state my house is left in after such a nap is scary to behold.  It really better be worth it.)

I love that my kids are big enough for this!  My Zee is so responsible and gentle with his younger siblings.  Em is growing so compassionate as well.  I put Yummy down for a nap at the same time I went downstairs to sleep, but she wasn't really impressed with that idea.  Em begged me for the chance to stay with Yum-Yum and rub her back until she fell asleep.  I agreed, and went to my bed.  Not ten minutes later, Yummy was sound asleep and Em was tip-toeing back upstairs.  Stuff like this makes my heart just sing.

I slept for four solid hours--it was 7:15pm and Bradley had been home for an hour before I woke up.  Zee kept the kids happy and not bothering me (and not technically destroying the house; after all, it's still standing!) for three hours.  And what a difference it made for me--I feel nearly normal today.  Still tired, still a little shaky, but the horrible headache and sore throat are gone.

Zee even answered texts from my mother!  I found these on my phone this morning:

Mema:  Can I come do laundry tomorrow?
Me, except really Zee:  It is [Zee]
Zee:  yes mom is a sleep
Mema:  Hi how are you?
Zee:  Good
Mema:  Good maybe she will feel better when she wakes up
Zee:  Bi
Mema:  I love you.  Bye.

I don't know why I find that incredibly adorable, but I really do.  He's such a good kid, and a keeper.

Brought to you by the letters F, L, and U

(Or maybe C, O, L, and D.  It's hard to know.)

I have lots to say, maybe, or maybe not.  Right now, my head feels like it is full of cotton.  And yet, unaccountably, I can still smell the fire to the west of Utah Lake.  That doesn't make sense to me.

I'll leave you with this.  It's almost the official start of autumn, and I, for one, can't wait.

So it turns out they need me...

Last night at about nine, I realized that the slightly-runny nose and barely-there tightness in my throat -- that I had been ignoring for the last several hours -- were not, in fact, going to go away.  Instead, they were getting worse and my head was starting to ache.  So I did what all reasonable people do:  I drank two large glasses of raspberry lemonade and went to bed.

Of course, I woke up feeling pretty miserable.  My family went off to church and a family event without me, and even while they were home, they were under strict orders to let me sleep.  This has been agonizingly hard for them.

So now it is 6:35 in the evening on Sunday, and Bradley up at the stake center helping take down chairs.

And four of my five children are currently laying in my bed, each trying to have my attention and/or touch me in some way.

Awwww.  I think they missed me.

Basement

It is amazing just how fast things start to happen once you get all the permits.  I know that not everything is going to be as obvious and visually exciting as this particular part, but oh boy! Are we enjoying it!

This was Friday--all the footings poured.  (This was also the day that we met our future Bishop and his wife; remind me to tell that story later!) 

On Saturday we visited the lot with David and his crew, Telima and Tyler and their crew, and most of my crew (Daddy was home with a sick Yummy).  I didn't get pictures on Saturday, but the construction company had already started getting the forms up for the basement walls. 

On Sunday we rested.  (Oh, naps, how I adore thee...)

On Monday we visited the lot again (pity that gas is so dang expensive right now, or I think we'd be up there daily).  This time, all the forms were up and FILLED with glorious grey concrete.  It was very exciting.  (And very wet, with marvelous lightning-thunder-rain storms coming AFTER the concrete was set.  Whew.)

And this is today, Tuesday.  The forms are down, and the walls--complete with windows--are up.  It is amazing and thrilling to behold. 

We lifted the kids into the hole and through the Spare 'Oom's window, and they had a fabulous time playing inside our basement.  There was a very noticeable echo, and the kids used their voices to very good effect.  Our neighbors will be glad when we get windows and a roof.

World War II

Much to my husband's amusement, I've been on a World War II kick of late.  I found an amazing podcast (The History of World War II), and I have been just loving it.  Mr. Harris is very thorough, and although his podcast series is on episode 59, we're only in August 1941.  So.  I'm all caught up, and needed something else to listen to, while I'm cleaning, packing, driving or whatever.  Continuing the WWII trend, and taking advantage of a sweet free Audible books deal, I have made my way through three new books, and I'm just starting a new one.

In case anyone cares, here are the books I've been listening to, and a rough review of each:

 The Miracle of Dunkirk (Walter Lord)
Dunkirk and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces in 1940 has long fascinated me, but until recently I knew very little about it.  This book turned out to be an excellent overview, with enough individual vignettes and interesting stories to make it difficult to stop listening to.  The narrator (Jeff Cummings) is excellent, as well.  Five stars!

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William L Shirer)
This book, published in 1959 and over 1200 pages long, is considered a classic in WWII histories.  Although the events are occasionally colored by Shirer's own experiences in Nazi Germany (he was an American press correspondent prior to the US entering the war), most of the information draws on documentation seized from the Nazi government after their downfall.  Despite the length, I was completely fascinated by this book.  Like in The Miracle of Dunkirk, the narrator of this 57+ hour book (Grover Gardner) is perfect.  (And you have to admire his stamina!)  Five stars.

D-Day:  The Battle for Normandy (Antony Beevor)
Having read about the arc of the Nazi Party, and the escape of the British at Dunkirk, I wanted to know more about D-Day.  It was a little harder to find a good D-Day book, and I'm not 100% sure I've found it yet.  This book disappointed me slightly--it was a little harder to follow, much emphasis was given to troop movements (nearly impenetrable in audio form, without a map or a working knowledge of the area), and, sad to say, the narrator (Cameron Stewart) was not as good as the other two.  He tried to change accents every time a different nationality was being quoted, and I thought that his American accents were--to put it mildly--really, really bad.  (I wonder if his German, French, Australian, or New Zealand accents were as grating to a native speaker of those countries.) I still listened and enjoyed the whole book, but I think I'd have to give it three stars.

The Guns of August (Barbara Tuchman)
I've switched gears with my current book, moving over to World War I.  I've discovered that the underpinnings of WWII are fairly understandable--broadly, the end of WWI lead to WWII.  But what was the cause of WWI? (Not just poor Ferdinand.)  This Pulitzer Prize winning book has been highly recommended for understanding what led to WWI, and the first month of the fighting.  So far -- I'm only 1/5 of the way through -- I'm really enjoying it.  The narrator, John Lee, has been doing a great job thus far.


P.S.  I noticed that, in this post, I've used four of the six sounds that "ough" makes in the English language:  thorough, through, thought, and rough.  Once I realized that I had so many of them, I tried to get them all.  But, try as I might, I just couldn't find a use for "bough" or "cough".  Sorry.

Happy Birthday

To my Daddy.  I miss and love you.

Muddy Mothering

My life isn't as crazy some people think it must be, with five young kids running around.  We're used to it, after all.  We have routine, expectations, and (most of all) the memory of summer 2011 when we had eight young kids running around.  Five isn't that big of a deal, is all I'm saying.

But every so often, my life gets really, really intense for an hour or so.

Like today.

I've been trying to pack a few things everyday, in anticipation for our move this winter, and today I was packing up part of my craft closet.  (Oh, okay, that was my objective, but then I started looking at my beads and jewelry things and was struck by inspiration and sat down and made a new necklace for myself.  If you must know.)  Point is, I was concentrating on something messy.

We had the loveliest rainstorm this afternoon, and Em went out to play in it.  (What can I say?  She's my daughter!)  She begged me to let her younger siblings come with her, and after many promises of Keeping An Eye On Them and Watching Out and Being Responsible, I said yes.  Zee wasn't interested in being out in the rain, so the four youngest trouped out.

I became immersed in my beadwork again, and as long as I could hear all of them from the open window at my back, I wasn't worried.

I should have been.

Eventually, Hebs came back inside.  Zee made a sound of amazement, and I looked up to behold...this:

I shooed him back outside immediately.

This is what baby sister looked like.  (Gee and Em, while very messy, weren't as impressively covered.)

Standing in the pouring rain, there was little I could do but take pictures and laugh.  I stripped the two littles and hosed them off.  (They did not appreciate this.)  I hosed off Em's feet, and made her and Gee leave their shoes outside.  Herding everyone inside and downstairs, I ran a warm bath and plopped the littles in it.  While scrubbing them down--oh, the MUD that ran off their heads.  I had to wash their hair for ages to get it off, and then I had to rewash their little bodies--I directed the two bigger kids to take off their muddy clothes.  While I was washing a screaming Hebs' hair (he hates it on a good day, and this wasn't that day), a completely unclothed Em and mostly naked Gee ran around, chasing each other in the hallway.

After getting the two littles out, drying them off, and putting pajamas on them ("I don't care if it's not bedtime, this is what you're wearing so STOP WHINING PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF LITTLE GREEN APPLES."), I rinsed out the bath (grimy, gritty, gross!) and ran another bath for the older two.  While I was helping Em with her looooong thick hair, Yummy somehow got into the zillions of hair ties and strewed them all over the hallway.  Exasperated, I scolded her and she, of course, burst into tears.

Sigh.

Eventually, we cleaned the hair ties up, got everyone out of the bath and the bath rinsed off again (I'll need to really scrub it tomorrow, but I just couldn't face it), everyone's sweet clean faces kissed and smooched, and I went back upstairs to my beading.

It had been an entire hour of non-stop movement.  I felt like I had run a marathon.  Whew.

But these are the times I want to remember.  I do love these muddy, messy, sweet, fabulous kiddos.

Holes

The hole is getting bigger -- hooray! -- but we're running into snags with slow city approval.  It's only the beginning of the delays, I'm sure.  But I'm eager to get the concrete poured before it starts to rain. Of course, if we have another winter like last winter, I have absolutely nothing to worry about.  Except running out of water next summer...

The girls, hanging out where their room will be. 

The boys, in their "room"

(Gee's first day of kindergarten was not a success, as both he and they were getting used to everything.  He missed recess completely because they were changing his diaper, and he couldn't keep up with the other kids chasing the "gingerbread man" around the school.  He kept getting knocked over, poor buddy.  He told me he had a "terrible" day, which made me want to cry, and he said he was done with kindergarten.

Once I convinced him that he HAD to go to school, Gee reluctantly agreed to go back.  And he was glad he gave it a second chance, because he had a great, wonderful day yesterday and today.  So...we're 2 for 3, and that's not too shabby.)

Impossible

Today is Gee's first day of kindergarten.  (Not. Possible.)

For obvious reasons, and some not so obvious reasons, I'm more anxious about Gee starting school then the other kids.  I've tried very hard to hide this from him, because he's been a little apprehensive himself.  When we went to the assembly at open house, he refused to go into the gym.  "There's too many people!  I don't want that many people in my class!"  And last night, he was holding his midsection.  After some gentle questioning, he admitted to having a little tummy-ache.  We talked about how it was okay to be nervous before the first day of school.  But I think his excitement was greater than his nerves, because this morning he was raring to go.

He loves his backpack.  ("It has four dragons and a castle and a dragon warrior and a horse!") 

They really aren't going to walk all the way to school, but the big kids wanted a picture of them walking. 

 Gee and his kindergarten shadow.

 Many, MANY eager helpers (I finally banished them to their own classrooms.)

(Sniff!)

Non-Ceremonial Groundbreaking (or, the Real Deal)

 Nothing like a ten-foot drop to get a heights-hating momma's adrenaline running!

LaDale!  Can you hear me?  I'm in a hole! 

The hole looks ridiculously big and absurdly small, all at the same time.  How does it do that? 

Man of the house hole.

Queen of the mountain 

I'll bet you can imagine the state of my bathtub that weekend. 

King of the hill

Looking for a new mom (briefly)

To set the scene:  Momma has just banned Hebs and Em from eating plain bread, having found an entire loaf's worth of crusts (with a goodly amount of actual bread still attached) in the garbage.

Hebs:  You're not being a nice mother!
Momma:  Yup, I'm not.
Hebs:  I don't want you for my mom anymore.  I'm going to find another mom!
Momma:  Okay, go find another mom.  Bye!
Hebs: (starting to cry)  You won't be my mom anymore?
Momma: (going to hug him)  Of course I'll be your momma forever!
Hebs: (sniffling)  Will I always be your boy?
Momma:  Hebs, you will always be my boy.  (Big hug)

Groundbreaking

Press Release

The groundbreaking for the Tobler-Ross home was held on August 14, 2012.  Distinguished dignitaries participated by digging small holes in the rocky soil.  Excavation is slated to begin Wednesday, August 22, with a proposed completion date of December, 2012.  

The new home will house the five most adorable children in the known world, as well as their parents and marvelous and wonderful grandmother.  

First Day of School, Zee and Em, 2012

Another first day of school is upon us.  Given the squabbling of the last week, I think the kids are as ready as I am.  

I love the attitude of humoring his old mother...if you must take pictures, I suppose I will stand still.  (We're not going to talk about how old and long and grown-up he looks.  I don't want to cry.) 

She is soooo excited.  And just a touch self-conscious of pictures of just her.  

I wonder what iconic picture we are going to have at our new house.  Going through the gate?  

And, yes, Zee has a "new" backpack this year.  Although his old one is perfectly usable--still quite good, actually, three full years in--Zee thinks maybe it is a little too...babyish.  (Sob.)  Two years ago, the school gave everyone a new backpack, and Zee's has never been used.  (Nor has Em's.)  So that's the one he's using now.  Much more mature.

She's getting so big!  And fortunately she still loves her backpack. 

And away they go!  I love that they can walk to and from school.  As soon as Gee starts (next week), I will be either walking or driving the kids to school, because seven blocks is too much for my Gee.  (He thinks that the three blocks to the church is too much, but I make him do it anyway.  Heh heh.)  But Gee is out at 11:05, so the kids will still walk home from school. 

Oh, the sorrow.  But, Mom, they're leaving without me.  I want my shoes and I want to go!