These kiddos are growing up way too fast.   Summer was great.  Mike ended up being gone half the summer with traveling but it's more doable now that the kids are older.  I wish I felt up to homeschooling.  I hate sending them off to school each morning and wonder if their teachers get a glimpse of the powerful sweet spirits they have.  I'm not used to the new schedule yet. Today I was running on the treadmill at the gym when Mike called at 1:00 from Sacramento and I realized it was early-out day.  I grabbed my gym bag and got home in time to greet the little munchkins.  They love to knock when they get home even though they know the code just so I can answer it and they can throw their backpacks and bodies on the ground with exhausted grunting and other random noises.  They can be quite dramatic like their mom. 

I want to protect the kids’ privacy yet still document all the cute things I don’t want to forget, so if I ever sound like I’m just blatantly bragging, just know there are challenges too. 

Jonathan continues to excel with academics.  He got a perfect score on state math testing again.  His Lexile reading test scores are at college level and James claims he’s famous throughout all Reading Counts schools in the district for being the “King of Reading Counts”.   I signed him up for AYSO soccer not realizing that this age is the beginning of co-ed AYSO soccer in this area.  So, he was reluctant to play with girls but there are enough boys that I think he’ll give it a try.  He and James are still swimming laps at THVS on evenings they don’t have other things going on.  I think they’d be happy to take a nice long break but I just love having them swim.  I have been on hold for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for a few weeks and Jonathan has anxiously been checking my library account.  It came in today!  The other day Ryan told me I better start exercising and eating a lot more so I can stay stronger than Jonathan.  He has a good point.

James was baptized the first Saturday of August.  I hope James will remember it as an important starting path to covenant keeping.  Extended family came from near and far to show support.  His top front teeth are loose and he is worried they may fall out during soccer practice and make his mouth bloody.  He is learning an Ewok Celebration song for his first piano recital in November.  He chose the Ewok song because he knows I like Ewoks and figures that means girls like Ewoks.  When I tell the kids stories sometimes I use Star Wars characters and ideas and they like to tease me about it.  Jonathan says, “Life is more than big fuzzy teddy bears, Mom.”  I was able to get Jonathan and James’ soccer coaches to coordinate fields and times.  This comes in handy when Mike is out of town and Gracie and I chase Ryan as he kicks soccer balls at furious speeds around the surrounding fields while Jonathan and James practice.  James is excited to be starting Scouts but was slightly disappointed they didn’t give him a welcome party.  He loves being tucked in just right with songs and cuddles and can be as sweet as they come.  He has Jonathan’s 3^rd grade teacher, Mrs. Keb.  This is great since we already know each other.  After swim a couple weeks ago James said his coach told him he is getting better everyday.  I said, “oh really?” and he replied this is true because he “turns on his nitro speed boosters”.  Nitro type is a fun typing game he likes to play.  I’m glad it transfers over to swimming so well.

Gracie is quite a love bug and I sure miss my girl while she is in full-day first grade.  She also seems to have a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Kim.   Mike and I tell the boys they are responsible for keeping Gracie safe to and from school and they know we mean it.  So far, they’ve been good about taking care of their little sister.  Hopefully, they will always look out for her.  She loves spinach ravioli so I get that from Costco just for her.  She loves princess stories and finally lets me braid her hair.  She brushes mine and loves to scratch backs and heads.  She loves to play “puppy dog” with Ryan and tells him what to do.

Ryan is full of energy, love and smiles.  He named his sheet blanket, “Sheet Blanket Comfy Grey”.  It has large holes, medium holes and small holes in it and he likes to point out the size of the various holes.  He is in preschool with “Miss Delene” again and enjoys his friends there.  We do reading lessons everyday and he’s doing well.  This is the first time I’ve done them without a baby or two around so it feel strange.  He has Paw Patrol underwear that he wears with pride and wants to have Paw Patrol keys when he is an adult.  He pushed me off the bed the other day while I was getting him to nap.  He still needs one every few days because he wakes up early and goes non-stop.  I got up smiling since we were just joking around and he was crying heavily into his pillow.  I asked what was wrong and he replied that he couldn’t tell me because it was “really, really bad.”  I said it was ok and that he could tell me.  He said, “Ok, I’ll tell you Mom.  I pushed you off the bed on purpose” and returned to crying large tears.  It’s hard to be mad at such a remorseful little fellow. 

Yesterday, while driving to San Diego in the as a family, Ryan starting singing a song he made up which repeated “obedience” over and over.  Then he asked what the word “obedience” means.  I asked him what he thinks it is and he said, “sitting still at church.”  I said, “That sounds about right”.  I figure we’ll just start there. 

A couple weeks ago Jonathan was trying to get Ryan to be good in FHE.  Ryan said, “I will be good if you let me tickle your belly button.”

A few weeks ago I took the kids to the dentist.  They may have inherited a number of bad things from Michael and me but cavity-prone teeth aren’t one of them.  It’s nice to go to the dentist because they always complement me on what a good mom I must be because my kids don’t have cavities.  When the dentist was getting ready to look at Ryan’s teeth, Ryan tried to get me in trouble saying, “My mom always reminds me to go potty before I go to bed but she doesn’t remind me to brush my teeth”.  What could I say?  Not going potty before bed can result in early rising and the wiggle bug crawling/jumping all over me.  It’s all about priorities. 

The boys have been swimming most evenings this summer.  The coaches told them they needed to get them speedo–type-racing suits.  Supposedly these make them swim faster.  So they got new suits and joke about how it’s like swimming in their underwear.  One evening a few weeks ago, I was driving the boys to swimming and Jonathan was complaining about having to swim all summer and take piano.  James joined in just because Jonathan was doing it.  I think when school ended he must have pictured himself just playing on the computer everyday, all day for the entire summer.  The funny thing about it is that both he and James actually enjoy piano and swimming so I don’t get why they complain about it.  They claimed that I should see how dirty the pool floor is, there are beetles in the pool (I’ve never seen any) and Jonathan gets itchy from the chlorine.  To make the argument even better, James ends up swallowing water while he is swimming laps so technically I am making him eat beetles.  Anyway, he went on about how I was ruining his life.  I replied, “Jonathan, I only have eight more years to ruin your life.”  As my dad would say, “With a mom like that you don’t need enemies.”  I was corrected at church the next week when the first counselor in the ward gave a lesson on how our calling as parents never ends…

We’ve been getting ants in the house the past month.  It’s been cute to watch my little ant patrol of Gracie and Ryan finding them wherever they are throughout the house and putting baby powder or soapy water on them.  Finally I’ve resorted to putting this white ant remover powder around the outside of the house.  We had the Elders and Sisters over to dinner a couple weeks ago (Don’t ask me why our ward has us feed the Elders and Sisters together every evening because I don’t know) and one of the Elders joked about how I was trying to ward off evil spirits with white powder around the house. 

Gracie’s been in and out of eye doctor’s offices over the past few months.  We’ve come up with a game to fill the wait times where I tell a little story and she stands in a square and jumps to a new one every time I say the words “hop” or “bunny”.  She’s usually such a sweetheart.  I’m sad she’ll be going to full-day school this year and hope I still get enough cuddle-time with her.  If she ever is grumpy, I ask her, “Who are you and where’s my sweet Gracie?”  She likes that one. 

A couple weeks ago I was tucking Jonathan in and asked him about a boy that had been playing in the neighborhood.  He described him, “You know, he takes the Lord’s name in vain a lot and is a lot more cool than our family.”  I felt bad that I wasn’t helping Jonathan feel like he fits in and said, “So he’s more cool than us?”  He corrected me, “Mom, I didn’t say cool.  I said crude.   No ones as cool as us.”