A Man's Man

Yesterday I volunteered in J.J.'s class and was filing these short stories in a filing cabinet that his class had written.  The topic was something like "What I would do if I went to a ball" or something to that effect.  The girls all had these elaborate stories including what color their dresses would be, how a prince would come pick them up, take them out to dinner, they would dance all night, etc.  A few of the boys even had details like being picked up in a limo, and having a fancy dinner or whatnot.  It was actually quite impressive!

The majority of the boys however had stories like my boy.  And when I got to his, I had to take a picture.  If I was smart and knew how to operate my dumb phone (and it is literally a dumb phone) I could post this pic.  Instead I will write his story out for your reading pleasure.  Don't worry, it won't take me long.

"First I would get a suit and throw it on me.  Next I would go to the party.  Then I would eat dinner and go to bed."

Yup, definitely a man's man.

The funny thing was that the next story I had to file was a Halloween story and he filled the entire page with details about bloody zombies and graves and skeletons and the like.  At least I know he has writing skills when the subject interests him!

Honesty...it's such a lonely word.

Wow.  It's been so long since I posted that I didn't even recognize the new look that blogger has and it took me a minute to figure out how to write a new post!  Oops.  I don't even have time to write a full update.  I've increased my workload for my work-at-home job, at the most inconvenient time ever:  right before Fall Break when my kids are out of school for a week.  Yup, I'm an idiot.  But hey, when you need more money you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm on here because Trey always says and does some really funny/weird stuff and I decided I need to start writing these things down so I don't forget them.

At 6:30 this morning I hear running feet down the hallway.  Not unusual at my house because my children awaken at the crack of dawn.  I do not understand this and never will.  But we do have a rule at my house, and that is that they don't come out of their room until 7:00 A.M.  This rule is ALWAYS being broken.  Anyway, I go to investigate the sound of running feet in the hall at 6:30 A.M. and I find Trey fully dressed in jeans, T-shirt, socks and shoes.  What the what?

me - "Trey, what are you doing?"
Trey - "Oh!  Me and Bubba had an idea.  We're going to sneak out of the house, and go steal stuff."

And...another day begins in the Larsen household.

Am I Insane?

Maybe. In 2 days my oldest child will turn 8 years old. Yes yes, I can't believe it either. But what I can't believe EVEN MORE is that I was crazy enough to convince him to have his very first "friend" birthday party. Yes, you read that right. He's never had a friend birthday party, and I had to CONVINCE him to have one. He didn't want to do it and I made him do it. Of course now he's excited, the invited have been sent out, the RSVP's (sort of ) RSVP-ed, and there's no backing out! I am stressed to the max! The party is tomorrow.

I just have to keep reminding myself:

1. I have planned for every possible scenario (seriously, every possible one. It's a little ridiculous.)

2. It's only 1 1/2 hours long.

3. It WILL be fun.

4. I'm doing this for my son, so he can have fun with his friends.

5. And lastly, I have my supply of migraine meds waiting for me at home when the party is over.

Bye Sari!

My little sis Sari is headed off to the big bad world of college! So we decided to have one last sisters' night before she left. You know, a farewell to Mesa since she won't be back until...next weekend. Let's face it, she has a car and she's only 2.5 hours away so she will be back frequently! But still, it won't be the same. She's a grown up (kind of) now!

We started off by going out to dinner. We forced her to pick the place. And by forced, I literally mean forced. She is so indecisive! It was baby steps with this girl.

Me - "Sari, where do you want to eat?"

Sari - "I don't know, wherever."

Me - "No Sari, you have to pick! It's YOUR night! You have to pick your favorite place!"

Sari - "I don't have a favorite place."

Me - "Okay well where is a place you like then?"

Sari - "I don't know, wherever."

Me - "OH MY HECK! Okay...what kind of food do you like?"

Sari - "Um...Mexican?"

Me - "Okay! Mexican! Are we talking Taco Bell? Filiberto's? On the Border? Chili's? Serrano's?"

Sari - "I don't know..."

Me - "AUGH!"

Sari - "Okay okay...Costa Vida?"

And that is how we finally had a place to go! Here we are all ready to go. Correction, here we are where I am all ready to go and my sisters are making fun of me for being too overdressed compared to them. I can't help it, I don't get out much so when I do get a chance to go out in public, I actually do my hair (kind of) and makeup and put on jeans and a shirt without stains on it. :)

My boys wanted in on a picture too. Well, they all did until the last second and then Samuel tried to bolt but I forced him and then we got this:

Then since she had actually been up in Flagstaff the previous week getting to know her roommates and the "lay of the land", we made her dish up the details. Here she is ready to dish it up:

And here Nikki is ready to hear the good stuff:

And here I am with my giant scary eyeballs totally enraptured by tales of having to write your name on laundry detergent and food, splitting the cost of toilet paper, and weird roommate decoration choices:

We ate our delicious food and then left, and my crazy little sisters got in the fountain outside.

I didn't because I'm old and they said it was cold. Also I was wearing jeans and someone had to take the picture right? And then I saw a cricket almost crawl into my bag and I freaked out. I made Nikki carry my bag and empty the whole thing and make sure there were no other crickets that snuck in there. Have I mentioned my irrational fear of bugs?

Anyway, we got ice cream, came back to my place and watched a movie, talked, and had a grand ole time. I hope Sari has as much fun at college as I did! They really were some of the best years of my life. As I recently read in an awesome book I'm reading, Sari has "started a journey from which she will never really return."

Aw yeah...

You know what this pictures means right?

It means BACK TO SCHOOL! Today was the day I have been counting down for all summer long. Trey had his first day of full day Kindergarten and J.J. started 2nd grade. They were VERY excited to finally be in the same school together and ride the bus together! Usually I take them to school on the first day but they weren't having any of that. They waited long enough for this day and wanted to ride the bus NOW! So I decided to follow in my car and let them have their fun. Aren't they just adorable?

Trey can hardly contain himself.

The difference in personalities between J.J. and Trey sometimes cracks me up. Remember J.J.'s first day of school? Yeah, this was nothing like that. Trey literally ran off the bus.

He was the first one in his classroom.

After "Meet The Teacher" yesterday all Trey could talk about was how he gets his very own desk! Here he is, sitting at the famed desk!

J.J. was such a sweetheart, he didn't even want to run off and play with his friends he's missed all summer. He wanted to be with Trey on his first morning of Kindergarten! Here they are, still not embarrassed to be seen together. How long will this last I wonder? I hope it never ends!

And before I left I had to snap a quick picture of the big 2nd grader going into class for the day. Luckily he's not too cool to wave bye to Mom.

Well...here's hoping we have a great school year! Samuel starts preschool next week. Then I'll FINALLY get to clean this house! And trust me, it needs it.

Goodbye Grandpa

Last Friday my Grandpa Black passed away. I had been expecting the news. Still though, when I got the phone call and heard the words it felt like a punch to the stomach. Luckily I was able to go visit him 2 weeks ago. I heard he had been admitted to the hospital and things were not looking good. I felt very strongly that if I wanted to see him one more time in this life, NOW was the time. So even though we were leaving for a family wedding in a couple of days, I packed up, took J.J., and the two of us left for Utah that very same day. We had some adventures along the way that I'll blog about another time but we made it to Utah in one piece and were able to spend a couple of hours with Grandpa and some other family members. It was a great visit and I'm SO glad we were able to make it!

Here's me, J.J., and my Grandpa:

Grandma Susan was ordering Grandpa's dinner so we had to take another picture with her in it! I love her so much. I've been thinking about her a lot this last week, the two of them were always together. They were such a great team and supported each other so well. I love this article about them.

Today is my Grandpa's funeral and I was not able to attend. I had decided early on that if I could make a trip to Utah I'd rather make it to visit him, not to attend his funeral. And I later heard that he had made the comment, "I'd rather be seen, not viewed." That makes me feel better about the fact I'm not there today! I'm posting his Obituary just for my own references.

This last week I've been looking at a lot of pictures of my Grandpa, and reading this awesome book that he and Grandma Susan wrote together a couple years ago about his life. I'm so grateful they thought to do that! My kids, especially J.J., have LOVED looking through it and learning all about him.

I thought I'd just post some pictures I found too.

1980

1998

2008

2010

I love you Grandpa! Thank you for your awesome example to me and I will see you again someday!

Camping!

Sometime in May we went camping. It was fun. I really need to be better about blogging because 2 months after the fact, the details of the trip become very hazy. Luckily I took a lot of pictures and can recap the trip based on those! We didn't really have a particular site we were going to, which really made me nervous. I am a planner by nature and like to have things mapped out beforehand. I don't do "spontaneous" things. I don't like surprises. I don't like figuring things out as I go along. I like lists. I like maps. I like plans, backup plans, and backup backup plans. So...I tried to do my research as best as I could but the fact of the matter was that free camping is a first come, first serve situation and needless to say, I was stressed out about getting a good spot!

So we left on Friday evening after the boys got out of school and drove up just past Payson. We picked up a pizza in town for dinner because we were going to get there just before it got dark, too late to try to cook up some grub and set up camp! And just as I feared...we drove and drove and drove trying to find a decent unoccupied spot. We finally found an open spot at dusk and quickly set up our tent, unloaded what we needed for the night, and went to sleep. We were WAY too close to the "Rim" (Mogollon Rim for those familiar with Arizona) for my comfort level. I have 3 very curious boys who are...let's just say...NOT the best at listening to their mom. I was afraid one of them was just going to fall right off this massive cliff drop and die. The drop was literally 30 feet from our camping spot. So in the morning, we debated what to do. Should we move? Stay? We decided to eat some breakfast and think about it. First things first, we needed to start a fire. What's camping without a camp fire right? We put the boys to work finding some wood.

Then we poured some lighter fluid on it and lit it up. J.J. was in heaven!

Trey...not so much. He HATED the smoke and demanded that he sit in the van until the "fire was over". He looked pretty cute though. Don't you agree?

That is, until he set the car alarm off. Did I mention it was only 6:30 in the morning at this point? I'm sure our camping neighbors LOVED us. However, I did not feel very bad about it. Because said neighbors had themselves a grand old time drinking and loudly partying until 3:30 A.M. Let's just say I had myself a little bit of passive aggressive enjoyment at my son setting the alarm off and imagining their hangover headaches pounding at the sound of it.

Samuel was just being plain adorable. And I was being plain scary with no makeup.

After breakfast we went for a SUPER long walk around our camp area looking for a better spot. It was a longer walk than we thought it was going to be. See Samuel's face? This is how we all felt:

But the walk was worth it because we found a better spot. Still a bit close but not as close to the Rim. The kids and I stayed there and Josh ran back to go get some stuff to stake our claim on the spot. J.J. was not happy about it. He liked our old spot.

Don't worry, he got in big trouble for sticking his tongue out at me. He's actually sitting on that stump in timeout.

The other two kids were happy about moving.

Samuel was so happy he hugged every tree in our new spot.

Right after Josh got back, a fellow camper saw us and gave us a tip, to check out a better campsite down the road and across the highway. So we decided to have Josh drive over, check it out, and come back for us if he saw it looked good. By this time I was thinking how ridiculous it was that we were essentially spending our entire day trying to find a better camp spot but also thinking it was kind of funny and would make for a good story later. So Josh took Samuel (who by this time desperately needed a nap) and J.J. (who was insanely grumpy) for the car ride to go check it out, and left me and Trey to wait. And we waited...and waited...and waited.

Trey started to get worried they were never coming back! In the end it was all worth it though. Josh found the BEST camping spot EVER!

It had this huge open field next to it, plenty of shade, and no campers next to us. PERFECT. My sister and her hubby joined us (and brought a portable potty seat, HALLELUJAH!) and from then on, we had a perfect camp trip!

We played some baseball in the field:

Samuel got some loves from his Aunt Nikki:

We had a little rough patch when Trey realized there was no TV when we were camping...

He still wasn't over it when we tried to take a family picture.

The next day on the way out of town we stopped to check out Christopher Creek for a few minutes. The boys loved it and now they want to go fishing. I'm gonna have to leave that up to Josh. I hate fish.

But all in all, we had a great trip! I didn't sleep very well because I'm the lightest sleeper on the face of the planet, and camping with kids = no staying up late to play fun games...but the kids did better than I expected! And unlike this camping trip, there was NO putting flashlights in the fire, sticking hands in the fire, or picking up hot coals. So that was nice.

I kind of forgot about taking pictures the rest of the time. My sis did a great recap, complete with video, on her blog. Check it out here!

All about Trey!

I don't know where to start to catch up so I'll start where I left off. Trey turned 6 years old! I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday he looked like this:

Now he's huge! For some reason I can't find any pictures of his cake. Oh well, I'm sure it wasn't anything special because a cake decorator I most certainly AM NOT. J.J. was very excited to get him this shirt though:

He also scored a Lego set (which Josh and I spent over an hour putting together...) some Bakugans, and other stuff I can't remember now but I'm sure I have stepped on and put away 1,000 times by now. :)

A few days later he had a singing program at school. For weeks beforehand I heard him singing the songs at home non-stop. The day of the program arrives...and he stood up there and didn't sing the ENTIRE time! My little charismatic boy sat there like a statue and I have it all on film. But he sure was cute!

Honestly it's the ADHD medication. It calms him down so he is manageable at school...but also makes him very nervous/anxious and he loses some of his "stage presence" if you will. Here's a cute shot of him and his teacher from this year. They had some ups and downs but they survived. I think they learned a lot from each other this year and he has since told me he misses her. Aw...

After the program that day we got out earlier than normal and were able to spontaneously join J.J. at his school for lunch! We hadn't been able to do that all year because the exact time I had to pick up Trey from school was the exact of J.J.'s lunch so it never worked out. So we surprised J.J., which was also good because this will be Trey's school next year and he was able to see what eating lunch at school will be like. J.J. got to pick some friends to eat with.

I love this next picture because even though J.J. was surrounded by his friends, he still was happy to see Trey and wasn't too embarrassed to hang out with him. They really are best friends. Sheesh, I'm almost getting teary eyed even looking at this picture right now!

Anyway, I had a lot of fun volunteering in Trey's class this past year when I could fit it in between work, etc. He struggled a lot in the beginning of the year but I think really surprised everyone in the end! (not me though, I knew he was a little smarty pants and just needed to adjust!) I love my Trey.

Summer is here, and so am I.

I am still here, I am still alive.

It's Summer, which is NOT a time of relaxation for mothers with small children! Instead I seem to be constantly running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I literally have no time to do anything. My house is just gross. The floor is disgusting. In fact, I should be cleaning it right now instead of blogging. There are officially SIX, yes, SIX weeks until school starts again! That my friends, is 42 days away. I think I can survive that long. We are keeping busy with swimming lessons, free lunch at a local school, summer recreation programs, summer movie programs, summer library reading program, dragging the boys with me on every stupid errand I have to run...and unfortunately I had to increase my workload for my at-home job right as school was letting out so there's that too! I'll blog soon about all the stuff we've been up to.

Day 53-60

Yup, I'm sick of this now. I feel like I can't blog about anything else going on because I haven't finished with the dang 60 day challenge. So let's just wrap it up now shall we?

Day 53 - A picture of someone you think is hot.

Besides the obvious answer (yes of course I think my husband is hot) I have to say this guy is pretty hot.

Day 54 - A picture of the one thing you would bring if you were stranded on a deserted island.

I would bring this guy. He's pretty handy to have around.

Day 55 - A picture of the last movie you saw in theaters.

We don't get out much.

Day 56 - A picture of something that makes you happy.

When I'm having a bad day, one of these makes me happy.

Day 57 - A picture of your favorite holiday.

Christmas!

Day 58 - A picture of your favorite animal.

There is no picture here because my favorite animal is any animal that I don't own. :) Again, not an animal-hater, just don't want to be the one responsible for taking care of it!

Day 59 - A picture of a random item that you own.

My sis got me this for my birthday and told me it was the best water bottle in the world. She was totally right! It doesn't spill when I drop it, it's totally amazing!

Day 60 - A picture of something you're excited about:

Yes, that's right, I'm excited for school to start...in August. And yes, I'm fully away that we still have 2 days of this current school year left. So what?