More catch up: Gabriel's 5th birthday

Since we were out in Ohio at Cousin's Camp for Gabriel's birthday, I wanted his birthday to be fun, special for him, and educational too. I called up the local fire department and scheduled a tour for 13 kids under the age of 1o and 4-6 adults. I didn't expect much. After all, this was McConneslville we were talking about. As Zechariah said about how to get to Nanner and Grumpa's, "Just drive forever and ever in the middle of nowhere until you see the yellow house on the hill". He is pretty much right!
Was I ever surprised! The fire department was HUGE!!! And it was GORGEOUS!!! They had every single truck our books ever told us a department may have. What was most amazing about it was that every fireman there was a volunteer. Chivalry is not dead folks! These brave men do it all. They cover over 400 miles including farms, woods, swamps, hills, and a major river. We had a fabulous time touring their facilities, learning what they do, exploring their fire engines, and trying on their gear.

After the tour, we came home for some fire engine cake decorated beautifully thanks to the ever so talented, Emily Griesmyer. The cake was made out of Rice Krispies. We had celebrated David's birthday the day before and Emily had made him a lovely red, white, and blu cake so I wanted something a little different. The kids LOVED it! Yay me! :)

Gabriel is truly "my very special boy". I call him my angel. He makes me smile. He makes me laugh. He is tender hearted and so funny. I look forward to seeing more of his own personality emerge as he comes out from Zechariah's shadow. This past year was good for him since Zech went to school and he went to half day PreK. The played together and are still the best of friends, however, having time away really helped Gabriel to develop his own confidence. He is discovering his own voice and sometimes he uses it, LOUDLY! :) I love him with all of my heart and soul. He is my angel.

Cousin camp 2010

I got the idea from a friend in our ward after a Relief Society lesson she gave.

Cousin Camp. I had seen things in Family Fun magazine about Grandma Camp, sibling camp, and cousin's camp, but it wan't until I talked with Monica that the desire set in. I dubbed myself planner extrordiaire and got the whole Griesmyer family on board. Who could refuse an opportunity for the children to get together, have planned activities, learn from the incredible and diverse talents of their aunts, uncles, and grandparents who they do not see very often, and grow together in love and an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My goal was to help, aid, and assist the children develop testimonies of Jesus Christ through family unity and support. And to have fun!

Every morning we gathered as a family for Devotional. Nanner and Grumpa shared a new story and introduced a value or character trait for the day. Scriptures were read and prayer was given and shared. It was a powerful and spiritual time for all. Sure it was frustrating to encourage children to sit down and be quiet but it was worth the effort and struggle. They know now that they have a huge family support system that believes the same things they do and will help them along their path of righteousness.

We had many classes at cousin camp that featured all of our talents and skills. Nanner and Aunt Sarah Linn were in charge of Nature Study. Nanner took the children around her garden introducing new flowers, vegetables, and herbs to them. They ate rhubarb and fried day lilies! How cool is that?!

Aunt Sarah Linn took the children on hikes and taught them about what lived in the beautiful surrounding woods. She invented the "imagination tree" a place where you sit when your behavior is poor to imagine all the fun you could be having! Love it! She madew awesomme googly masks for their exploration and even shared her many bones, fossils, and artifacts with the children. She adores the children and they adore her. Sarah can also make a mean lego creation!

Emilaylay held our crafty corner. She made fun treasure boxes with the kids as well as many other crafts and treasures they got to keep and take pride in. Emily was also the calm force in camp. She is low key and lovely. She loves everyone, kisses booboos, talks out and resolves fights, and shows an amzing level of patience. I want to be more like Emily.

Sarah Beth was our camp cook and had quite a big responsibility! She had to come up with menu plans for the masses, delegate responsibilities so that the job was shared, and also held a daily cooking class for the children. There were many fun kid friendly lunches that they enjoyed making and eating. My favorite were the tuna boats. How fun!

As well as dubbing myself camp director, I taught a musical theater class (of course). We had fun playing drama games and learning a short musical number to "It's Possible" from Seussical the musical. Only draw back: too late in the day and the patio was HOT!!!

Grumpa: Poor Grumpa. He was probably the most stressed out person at camp. He was the handyman. He laid floors in the bunkhouse before we arrived so that the children could stay out there and lessen the stress on the farm house. But the farmhouse only has 2 toilets. 2 toilets and 20 people is not such a good combination. There's a reason why the Duggars have 9! The toilets kept stopping up adn poor Grumpa was beyond frustrated. I truly appreciate him though. He works like a dog and is such a wonderful man. Praise and love is his only payment for all that he does and I hope hope that he knows just how much we do love and appreciate him. Don't worry, he did make time to take us on some awesome tractor rides through the fields and one especially for Nanner up to the top of Helaman Hill! She had never been and was so pleased to make it up there. Thank you Grumpa!

David was our creative genius. While he was supposed to teach firearms safety to the kids, he instead won them over with their very own wooden guns that he specially made for each person. David also designed (with the help of our kiddos) and air brushed our camp t-shirts and somehow found that fairies live in Nanner and Grumpa's forest and even leave imprints of their wings on bark and rocks surrounding the farm house. David is amazing and SO much fun!

A special treat: DeDe, Rob, Tanner, Jordyn, Maddie, and Jackson "Griesmyer" drove all the way from American Fork, UT to spend cousin camp with us. We had never met Rob or their kids and so this was such a special opportunity for us to meet more of our family, play with them, and grow lasting friendships and love with and for each of them. We miss you guys! You can move out here whenever you'd like! :)

On the last day we had a award ceremony where everyone received awards such as "Most Energetic" Hannah, "Future Performer" Gabriel, and "Happy Feet" Jackson. Each child enjoyed their certificate and award. Afterwards, we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows and of course told camp stories and sang camp songs!

I cannot wait for the next cousin camp and many cousin camps to follow!

May Madness

Gabriel and me after his PreK presentation
Gabriel and his wonderful PreK teachers. I could not have been happier with their work with the kids this year. These ladies are amazing!

Gabriel on stage (kinda) Still I could not believe he actually said his line and did the motions. Yay Gabe!

the end of May was CRAZY!

I took off to Georgia for a week because my mother had to have back surgery. I got home late Saturday night 2 days before Memorial Day. Before my mother's unfortunate rupture of her disk, I had asked (begged, pleaded) Scott to come down from Syracuse and help me and Gary finish some home projects that were about to drive me crazy. I came home to newly laid floor and lots of dust from spackling and sanding walls. Needless to say, my house was a hot mess! Thank you Scott for helping me stay sane, Gary for putting up with me nagging, and Cortnie who really was the one who made Scott come bail me out/help me. :)

My brother and sister in law showed up a few minutes after I got home with a van load of their things to put in our garage while they figured out where they were going and what they were going to do since they sold their house in Catonsville, MD. The next day, they moved in with their 4 children and all the things they would need to live out of suitcases for 2 months or so. Since my mom's surgery was kinda sudden I did not have anytime to prepare the house the way I'd wanted to for them before they arrived. Needless to say, I spent the next 3 days rearranging furniture and clothes to make room for their family. Oh plus cleaning from the home improvements projects!

My boys moved into Eli's nursery, Gary and I were in our room, Will and Sarah got the older boys'room with the full bed, and their 4 kids got Ammon's room that had 2 twin beds in it. It was tight but manageable. Their kids were pulled out of school early while mine were still in school and Zechariah thought that wasn't fair at all! :) But we were busy with soccer, end of the year festivities, Elijah's 1st birthday!, Zech had a piano recital, Gabe had a PreK presentation, etc, etc. We were BUSY!!! Thank goodness for 2 moms! Sarah was a huge help! It was nice having another set of eyes and ears in the house especially since the # of children doubled!

Soccer fun

Soccer was very time consuming and such a blast. Zechariah and Gabriel really enjoyed themselves. So did Elijah and Ammon! Their favorite thing to do was kick the ball. It was so cute
to watch Eli chase and kick the ball like his big brothers.

So much catch up to do

I have neglected this blog for so long that I began to wonder if it was even worth catching up and forging on. I mean does anyone really read this stuff? Then I told myself that since I don't journal, even if no one on the face of the planet reads it, at least I've written it down and can print it for future posterity. So, here it goes. The first of many posts in attempts to catch up on the last 2 months of our lives.
Has it really been that long? Seriously, it feels like much longer. I'm not kidding. I'm exhausted! I cannot believe it's almost time for the kids to go back to school! I am so sad. I have not done anything that I wanted to do with them. So much for teaching Gabriel and Ammon to read. (sigh)
I am getting ahead of myself. Ok, I've got to back up to May and soccer and school getting out.
Have fun! Here I go:

Mom

My mom had back surgery today. And I just need to talk about it.
I am very upset I couldn't be there when she went into the hospital. I have been upset that she is all alone without any family around to help her. I was mad at my Dad for putting her in Columbus and then divorcing her and leaving her with no family around to help her. However, things happen and as soon as I was mad, I got over it. I am really appreciative my SIL, Teri could be with her. Teri is another awesome woman that I will have to blog about at another day. She is an understated force to be reckoned with. That's what I will say for now about Teri.
I've been very weepy concerning my mom lately. I love her so much. We have had a rocky road growing up. Her and I didn't get a long very well for a very long time. I could go into it, but choose not to. As an adult, my relationship with her has really improved. Maybe it's b/c I had to mature to appreciate her, maybe the things she has gone through over the years has made her more vulnerable and reachable-I don't know. I just know that I love her. I have finally felt that I have a mom that I can rely on and confide in. She has helped me many times over the last 5+ years when I didn't know where else to turn. She was always there when I had each one of my babies. She helped me move into my house in TX when I was 8 months prego with Gabriel. She would come watch my kiddos when I had to work and Gary wasn't around. She showers my children with love, presents, fun outings, and loads of kisses she calls "sugar". The boys LOVE their "sugar" from Grandma! I want the best for her. I want her to be happy, healthy, and well. She is a wonderful mother and Grandma. I pray that she will recover quickly from her surgery and be able to live a happy full life that she desperately needs and wants.

FHE fun

So, I love reading my friend Sarah Bradley's blog, she is totally organized and writes Monday Memoirs, Tuesday Tips, and so on and so forth throughout the week (pretty cool right?). Last week her Tuesday Tip was about the FHE she had the night before. She had bought a metal tub from Lowes for around $4 and enough graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate bars, and marshmallows to make smores for her cute family. The whole night cost her $10! She is my hero.

Since I can only copy good ideas and not come up with them on my own, I decided to cook hot dogs over a fire and make smores for part of our FHE on Monday. I went to WalMart in search for a tub. Why not Lowes like smart Sarah suggested? Well, WalMart has everything right? I needed other things for the house, like the Smores materials, and I have 4boys. I must maximize my happy cooperative time when I have it! WalMart is fun for all: when they are good while I do my shopping, I will take them down the toy isle and let them drool over, wish upon, play with, then say goodbye to the toys. (Yep! I NEVER buy them! teehee) Guess what? You know already...they did NOT have any tubs! Zip, Zilch! So, I go to the garden center in search of bricks or paving stones-I'll build my own fire pit! How about those suckers were like 3 bucks a piece!!! I would need 10-20. I might as well BUY a real firepit. I call my sweet hubby to consult, he gives me the OK (this man has been wanting a fire pit for years!) I find one for cough cough 75 dollars that I like. Nope, they don't have any in stock. OK people if it were just my family I would have given up there, hit Lowes the next day for a tub and had FHE on TUesday. But, I had invited another family over! Then I had a brillant thought! I have 2 metal trash cans at home! Maybe that would work. I drive home and do a test fire in both trash cans. As soon as the sticks caught on fire, so did the trash can!!! Ok, now what? Another light bulb goes off: There is a Target next to my house. What's better than WalMart to a kid? TARGET! I throw the kids in the car, again, and off we go. Target has a cute copper fire pit there so I grab it and put it in the cart, swing by the toy isle-"Target has different toys Mom", pay for my stuff, and head home. On my way I receive a phone call from Gary saying he is running late, and one from my friend who tells me her day is crazy, her kid is screaming and can we reschedule.
$100 and 2 hours later, the kids and I roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We had laughter, lessons, singing, crying, and lots of hugs and kisses. It was the best 100 dollars I've spent in a long time. I tried Sarah, I tried. :)

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Our new fire pit! Zechariah and Daddy

Me and the boys Ammon was crying b/c I told him no smores until he eats his hot dog