Gratitude--Day 5 (4, 3, 2, and 1)

Maybe it's the two dogs.

Maybe it's the four kids in four schools.

Maybe it's the mistake of getting roped into being Rachael's Room Mom. (And the least involved Room Mom there ever was.)

Maybe it's the "job" I have at church that  boils down to planning a big activity for 30-40 women every month.

Maybe it's my (over)use of Instagram which feels a lot like blogging, but with much less time and hassle.

Maybe it's being married to a surgeon which can sometimes feel like being a single mom. (Though I am super happy Brandon was able to save the testicle future children of that 16-year-old boy who came into the ER at 2:30am Sunday morning.)

Maybe it's the process of actually--finally--trying to decorate my house for real for the first time in my life (as opposed to buying the cheapest scratch and dent Target desk off the floor or some unfinished kitchen table that ends up looking so bad you have to cover it with a tablecloth because you can't even wipe the top with a damp cloth without the "finish" bubbling up and flaking off) with no clue and very little support. (You would never know I was making progress if you walked into my entry, but I have a humungous hole in the wall of my master closet as proof that something really is happening.)

Maybe it's the age of 42 which feels like losing steam for all things that require extra effort or that are intended (at least in part) to impress other people.

Maybe it's the reality that teenagers somehow, inexplicably, take more time and energy than toddlers do--at least in proportion to the lack of energy that comes from not just aging physically but from tiring mentally of the five million daily details and demands of motherhood. (LADIES! Don't have babies in your later years unless you are prepared for the next EIGHTEEN!)

Maybe it's the Obamacare disaster and my propensity to watch WAY too much political news.

Maybe it's because I've been trying to live more of what I've been reading and writing about on Power of Moms for the last several years rather than just, well, reading and writing about it.

Whatever the reason, I've lost my blogging groove as of late, but that nagging little voice in my head keeps reminding me that I need to write and record my thoughts and keep my family's history in order to be at peace and keep everything in perspective (and make my mother in Iowa happy).

So here I am, trying to squash down my almost manic all-or-nothing tendency to go back and do mega-posts full of pictures from our week in California over the summer, Kate's 16th birthday in Seattle, and Rachael's 6th birthday with my parents here from Iowa (among other things).

BUT! I'm simple going to start again with a picture-less post in preparation/honor of the most underrated holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. This daily gratitude thing with people sharing simple sentiments of thanks every day during the month of November is going on all over the blogosphere, Facebook, Instagram, etc. so it seems like an "easy in" for me to get back into the blogging groove.  Yes, I've got to keep it simple.

SO! Today (Day 5) I am grateful at this very moment to be listening to Kate practice a positively GORGEOUS arrangement of Silent Night on her harp. (Especially since I have been a crab all day. This is very soothing . . .) I am also SO VERY grateful (this is incredibly shallow but completely honest) that I am able to get my hair colored on a regular basis (as I did today) because I am SUPER gray and too chicken and lazy to color it myself. (And I just really love that little mini head massage I get when they wash my hair at the salon . . .) I am also grateful today that the big hole in my master closet is almost completely taken care of thanks to my new favorite dry wall guy, and very, very grateful for the person named "Stouffer" who made it possible for my family to eat dinner at home tonight, even if it wasn't all together at the same time.

DAY 4--I felt grateful for modern technology as I took care of tons of business on my iphone while waiting forEVER in the orthodontist office while Will got his braces on. (And I'm also grateful for braces! Nice looking teeth are just . . . nice. And supposedly they generate less cavities due to less crevices and all that stuff. Is this just a scam to get my money? Because it's A LOT of money . . . ) I also felt grateful for the ridiculous bounty we enjoy in this country as I wandered the aisles of Wal-mart with Kate and Will yesterday afternoon. (Though I was NOT grateful to be shopping with Kate and Will--they are worse than toddlers in the grocery store, complete with physical fighting and hiding behind the mega paper towel packs.)

DAY 3--Super grateful for pumpkin pancakes (this is a good recipe!), playing beautiful Christmas music on the grand piano at church for choir practice, and a gorgeous sky with beautiful lighting on the mountains at sunset. Sunday is my favorite day of the week.

DAY 2--The weather was PERFECT, so I was grateful to be able to go on yet another beautiful bike ride, and then I had the best time ever planting tulip bulbs from Thanksgiving Point with my sweet little  Rachael. (Six dozen, but we won't know what kind until they come up next spring-- fun surprise!) Then I spent one last afternoon at Cornbelly's with the little girls and even scored a mini-date with Brandon after a wonderfully inspiring adults-only church meeting that night. An all around fantastic day! And I was grateful . . .

DAY 1-- I was really grateful I decided to do playgroup at my house on Thursday (Halloween) instead of Friday (Day 1) so I could put what was left of my energy toward cleaning up the after-party and then enjoying some dark chocolate on the couch while watching my DVR'd episode of Parenthood during the 15 minute time period when everyone is at school and I have a few blessed moments to myself. (Not really 15 minutes, but close: Kate catches the bus at 7:00, Will at 7:30, Elizabeth leaves at 9, Rachael has kindergarten at 12:30, and then Kate comes home at 2:45 . . .)

Okay, that's it! In my efforts to keep it simple I am still over reaching! More (the less kind of more) tomorrow.

Reynolds Camp 2013

One of the very first experiences my kids had after moving to La Canada (CA) back in 2006 was going to Johnson's Camp. A family from our church purchased several acres of land from the county just outside of the city boundaries and built their home (with a pool) where they also kept all kinds of animals like horses, a llama, chickens, and a dog. Every summer we lived there (5 in all) I signed up any of my kids who were old enough to go to Johnson's Camp. They loved it! Not only did they get to do fun crafts and games, but they also rode horses, went swimming, and sometimes even came home with an egg they had collected from the chicken coop. Having spent a good chunk of my childhood on my grandparents farm in Iowa, I felt like this was a gem of an experience to have in a city that was about 15 minutes north of downtown L.A. The oldest kids in the Johnson family and their friends ran Johnson's Camp as a way to earn money in the summer, and ever since those days of attending my kids have been asking if they could organize and run a day camp of their own once they were old enough.

Well, this year they were old enough.

We started talking about it in the spring, but between Kate's two weeks of Driver's Ed, Girls Camp with the church, EFY at BYU, Youth Conference also with the church, Will's week at scout camp, our week at the Reynolds family reunion, and a week of our own little family vacation, we didn't actually settle on a date and start advertising until ONE WEEK before we planned to pull off our first annual REYNOLDS CAMP.

Since our plan for landscaping the backyard (complete with swimming pool) didn't work out this year (fingers crossed for next year/not holding my breath), we knew our plan to create a Johnson's Camp-like experience was limited. But one thing we knew we could do to increase the fun factor was to get a nice, big trampoline, so I got on KSL (local classifieds) and found a great deal on a practically new tramp and went to pick it up. It was a pain in the patookie to set up, but totally worth it:

After deciding on the details together (date, hours, ages, price), I made a flyer (also a pain in the neck--I am SO not good at that kind of thing, but with the help of some crafty person on Etsy it turned out pretty cute) and we spent a good two or three hours on Monday morning taping them to the doors of everyone we knew who had kids between the ages of 5 and 10. (That's a lot of homes.) Knowing lots of people would be out of town or already have plans, we didn't know what to expect so we just crossed our fingers and waited. We figured we could take up to 21 (3 groups of 7), but we were still pretty happy to have 14 kids sign up by the following Monday morning. Not too bad considering we advertised with only a week to go and had no reputation whatsoever. What this means is that this is a viable option in the future for summer "work" for my kids. Not only is it fun, but it's pretty good money for kids who are either too young to get a "real" job (Elizabeth and Will), or too busy with other summer commitments to get a job with really steady hours (Kate).  Of course, I probably did more work than anyone (mostly because they hadn't done anything like this before), but I have to say I was pretty proud of all their hard work. They were really motivated and certainly did their fair share. It took quite a bit of planning, set up, and of course clean up  after everyone went home--and then running the camp itself. So without further ado, here are some of the pics that I haphazardly shot here and there throughout the week. Not the greatest, but I think it still gives a pretty good representation of what we did.

The first thing we did was organize everyone into groups and have them come up with names for their group. (This is per Johnsons Camp, exactly how my kids remember doing it.) We ended up with the Killer Crocs (the boys group--big surprise), the Cheetah Swamp Bunnies, and the Sparkly Pigs. (Smiley face.) The next three mornings we spent the first half hour or so doing Joke Day, Talent Day, and then Crazy Hair Day. The judges (my older kids and Will's friend who was helping) picked two winners every day, one boy and one girl. I think my favorite day was Joke Day--oh, the jokes that were told! Nothing like the execution of a 5-year-old. It's almost funnier than real comedy!

Here we have the killer crocs:

And here we have the audience on Joke Day. I love how Rachael is sitting in her little chair and crossing her legs like she's the stuff. If she hadn't been so drugged up and in such horrible pain all week from having her tonsils out the previous Thursday (I had no idea how bad the recovery would be!) she might have been even cockier than she was about Reynolds Camp being at her house:

(Here she is one morning after sleeping in our room again during a long and painful night, so tired she doesn't even register that her hand is being licked to pieces by Bunny.) 

This little guy pretty much won every single event in my mind. So ridiculously cute:

The judges consulting with one another:

After free play time and our opening activities outside, we broke up into three groups for three rotations every morning. Kate ran the crafts (of course). Here she is helping these little cuties mold a hedgehog pencil holder out of clay (of course):

Elizabeth and I ran the food/cooking crafts out of the kitchen. The first day we made homemade rainbow crayons:

Will and his friend ran the physical games outside. They came up with all the games on their own and the kids thought they were pretty cool:

After rotating through the three groups (crafts, cooking, games) we did a group activity all together every day. The first day was music. We talked about the different types of instruments in an orchestra and read "I Know A Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello" and then Kate and Will both played songs on their harp and cello and gave the kids a chance to play them as well:

The kids were especially mesmerized by Kate's harp playing. She played a song called "Nightingale"--one of my favorites:

After the group activity the kids ate the lunches they brought with them and then played with water toys outside until their parents picked them up. That's it! Not much compared to horseback riding and a swimming pool, but the kids still seemed to have a fun time:

And because I am too darn lazy to organize the rest of the Reynolds Camp pictures in a way that makes sense, I'm just going to narrate them in the order that they were uploaded. 

Some of the fun cooking crafts we did were the coconut tree from the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and apple/grape cars:

The Sparkly Pigs:

The hedgehog pencil holders drying:

Kate doing origami with the Cheetah Swamp Bunnies:

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The same day we did origami I did a group activity on Japanese culture:

Teaching them how to bow:

More outside play pictures. Everyone was crazy for the big bubble wands and special bubble mix:

The morning we did "Talent Day" and Yuki graced us with one of her unique musical performances:

One day for group activity we did "Skit-in-a-Bag" where each group had to make up a five minute play using the props they found in their bags. Truly, this was theater at its best:

Elizabeth kind of became one of the Cheetah Swamp Bunnies by the end of the week:

Will helped out the Killer Crocs:

Everybody's favorite cooking craft was the chocolatey "Bears in a Bath":

I believe they were supposed to be painting their hedgehog pencil holders here, but it looks like they are painting themselves:

Final products. Inspirational, isn't it?

Lunchtime:

More bubbles:

More slip-n-slide:

If you can't tell, Rachael is being a cheetah. That is kind of her 24/7 persona these days:

The Cheetah Swamp Bunnies using their free play time to make some music:

The boys using theirs to play on the tramp:

Everyone's favorite thing about the end of Reynolds Camp every day was choosing a Dum Dum from the giant Dum Dum ball:

Crazy Hair Day:

Again, the judges consult:

Waiting in nervous anticipation:

Okay, MY favorite "cooking" craft (more like science experiment . . .) was the Flubber:

Favorite pictures right here:

The final plate of "souvenirs" they took home on the last day:

This is how our entry looked for four days:

They probably weren't as exciting as horses or a llama, but the kids really loved playing with the dogs every day, and I think the dogs loved it too:

They got pretty tired out each day from all the excitement:

One of the leftovers at the end of the week:

Enjoying some free play of their own after everyone went home:

Again, these guys worked really hard to earn the money that they did, and made some fun memories for those cute kids in the process. I'm pretty proud of them! Looks like Reynolds Camp may have to be our new tradition:

(Whew!)