Summer Fun: Monsoon

Oh how I love the Monsoon season!  I get excited every afternoon when the clouds start to pop up!  Monsoons make the Arizona heat SO much more bearable!

A good mom lets her kids jump on the trampoline during a monsoon!  A FUN mom jumps with them!  (Yes I did...I just don't have the pictures to prove it!)

We love the rain!

I hope my team remembers me as a mom who liked to have fun with them!  :)

~Kristee

Team Trip: Adventure in the Unplanned

This past weekend we had the privilege of taking our team on a little get-a-way with some dear friends.  This was our escape from the heat for the summer, and we surely did appreciate it!  :)  We stayed up in a huge house high up in the mountains.

 12 adults + 15 kids + 5 acres of forest + rain + 70 degree temps = FUN!

We were in the middle of nowhere without cell service!  It was a great place to unplug for a couple of days.  The boys loved spending time with their friends roaming around outside!  It was a much needed time to be refreshed for us all!

I have NO photos to show.  I took my camera, but never even took it out of my bag.  It's 1/2 broken because the batteries spontaneously fall out!  So hopefully some of my buddies will share their photos with me!  :)

The adventure part of the trip was the drive home and let me tell you, boy was it unplanned!  There was a rollover accident on the 17 and it was completely shut down for hours!  When we got to the backup, we were 10 miles from the accident and were completely stopped.  We were able to talk to a DPS guy and he said it was at least a 2 hr delay!  We couldn't think of many things WORSE than being stuck in the middle of nowhere on the highway with 4 children for several hours!  Seriously!  We decided to exit and turn around and wouldn't you know, we needed a potty stop!  Luckily, having boys make side of the road pit stops pretty easy!  So we got out and I got stung by a bee!

 Since, there aren't many ways to get into Phoenix from the north, we had NO idea what we were going to do.  We thought about heading back to Prescott and just staying the night, but we didn't really want to spend the money on a hotel.  So we decided to drive north to Camp Verde then over to Payson and into Phoenix that way!  Did I mention that all of our team gets carsick?  We had lots of Dramamine on hand and were passing them out like candy! :)

We hit a thunderstorm and our little desert dwellers were freaking out about the lightening!  Eli had a panic attack and thought we were going to get hit by lightening and die!  I think we actually drove through the same storm 3 times.

The whole time the boys were saying, "Where are we going?", "What are we going to do?"  We kept telling them we were having an adventure!  We were relying solely on our GPS to figure out how to get home.  (Thanks Poppa!)  We went from the mountainous woods to the mountainous desert.  Then made our way down to a valley, back to the desert, back to the mountains and woods and finally the desert again!  I think we saw every type of terrain that Arizona has to offer!

By the time we made it to Payson, the boys were done.  They were having meltdowns and fighting.  Of course I'm sure the music Jeff and I were playing didn't help.  We were torturing them with Alabama and Michael Jackson!  We added a couple of hours to our trip, but we figured moving is better than sitting!

Overall the team did really well considering that for all of the driving we did, we could have gone to Disneyland!  Everyone survived!  We had no puking and only a small amount of pooping (Micah)!  We definitely can laugh about the trip now, but there were many times that Jeff & I wanted to scream, "GET ME OUT OF THIS VAN!"

We had an adventure!  Was it fun?  Not really!  Was it memorable?  Yes!  I guess that's what it's all about, making memories.  In the end, I'm hoping that the boys can say that Jeff & I made the "unplanned" adventures in life, fun and not stressful!  I'll admit, I haven't always been able to handle the "unplanned" particularly well.  I'd like to think that has changed, but you'll have to ask Jeff about that!

Well here's to the "unplanned"....all 4 of them in fact! :)  What a blessing they are!

Trainer Tip: Pizza Pizza!

My team loves homemade pizza, especially cheesy sticks!  I like to make it so it works out well! ;)  Back in January, before Micah was born I mixed up a couple of batches of homemade pizza dough and had tucked it away in the freezer.  I was hoping it would save some much precious time later down the road.  Well, fast forward 5 months, I just remembered I had it! :)

I dug it out, took it out of the baggie, and plopped it in a bowl yesterday morning.  By the evening it was completely thawed and all I had to do is roll it out in the pans!  It was pretty awesome.  It eliminated the measuring and mixing.  Sure it probably only saved me 10 minutes, BUT sometimes 10 minutes is all it takes for complete chaos to break out in my house! :)  I don't know about you, but that is especially true with my team at dinner time!

Anyway, just wanted to pass that along!  Try mixing up your favorite pizza dough and freezing it.  I felt like a rock star yesterday already knowing at 9 a.m. what I was making for dinner! :)

I love time saving tips.  Anyone out there have any great ones to share?

~Kristee

Team Transportation: Thankfulness

Well, it's official!  We are now the proud owners of 2 mini-vans!  We are so incredibly thankful.  It was getting pretty difficult to coordinate transportation arrangements for our team with just a 13 year old Ford Ranger as our backup vehicle.

Our racing Sedonas!  They are 7 years apart in age!

It's a new-to-us Kia Sedona!  While it's not the Nissan NV that we would LOVE to have (evidently there is a law about feeding your children), it was a complete God-thing!  The timing, the price, everything...such a GIFT!

We've been having some problems with our current van for several months and have spent a small fortune trying to get it fixed.  We've had bad parts, bad mechanic, you name it!  It's still not quite right.  But it is paid for!  In fact, we just recently paid it off!  We were so excited!  We had plans for our "freed up" monthly car payment.  It's called vacation, paying off debt! BUT alas all of the car problems!

We really wanted to see how long we could get without having to buy one, but it became clear that our current van was becoming less and less reliable.  Well this deal popped up and we really couldn't pass on it.  We were bummed that our "freed up" money was no longer "free".  While we were sad about that, we quickly remembered how thankful we were!  Thankful that because our other one was paid off, we now had the option to buy.

How many times are we SO focused on what WE want to do with God's blessings that we become frustrated that it doesn't work out the way that WE had planned?  Sometimes just changing our perspective can be a game changer.  Instead of focusing and complaining about what God says no to, we really should really step back to see what he IS saying YES to.

For us, His gift was that our other van was in great working order until we paid it off!  How can we complain that it's having problems now?

My hope is at some point in my life my FIRST thought will be of thanks rather than a complaint.  I won't lie, it's a struggle.  God has proven time and time again, that the greatness of HIS plans far outweigh mine!

Psalm 9

1 I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
    I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;
    I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

What do you need to be thankful for today?  :)

~Kristee

Player Milestones: Micah Eats Cereal

Micah is 5 months old!  AHHH!  Time has gone by so quickly!  While I'm SO thankful he's such a great sleeper, it makes me so sad that he's out of the newborn stage! :(  BUT he IS in my most favorite stage.  The belly laughs, coos, and baby chatter are so precious!  Plus I get to enjoy all of that without him crawling, walking, tearing up my kitchen, playing in the toilet, smacking his brothers, or talking back!  It's the BEST! :)

Well, we had the green light for him to eat cereal at his 4 month doctor appointment, but I just couldn't do it yet!  :)  I finally asked Jeff to drag the dreaded high chair out of the garage.  We still had it.  Lucky us!  I actually had tried to sell it at a garage sale a few years ago and it didn't sell.  I guess God knew we'd still need it! ;-)  We certainly had no idea!

I cleaned it all up and decided to let him try cereal!  

Isn't he so tiny in this great big seat!

Big brother Noah wanted to pose.

 Since Daddy was at work Eli was my photographer!  He did a pretty good job! ;)

1st bite

Not liking it!

Maybe it's not so bad!

Yum Yum

Happy Boy!!

He actually ate better than the other boys did on their first attempt.  My guess is because he's a bit older.

He did great and it was fun watching the big boys get so excited about him eating!  I'm hoping I'll have some helpers taking turns feeding him! :) 

Here's to another milestone!  

~Kristee

Summer Play Book: Fry an Egg Outside

Well we tried this one a few days ago, and we were pretty bummed.  I had high expectations, probably a bit misguided probably due to the movies.  Jeff & I both thought we'd see some sizzling action when the egg hit the ground!  I guess we were a bit naive. :)

When we told the boys what we were doing, they were like:  What?  Why?  Eli was concerned about us wasting eggs.  (Sure, he is concerned about wasting things but could care less about smacking his brothers around!)

Anyway we tried it two different ways.  The first time, we put an old cookie sheet out in the yard for several hours thinking the sun might heat it up.  After several hours we went out and tested it.  This is what happened:

Yep that's right, nothing!  Not a sizzle, not even the faintest sign of being cooked.  Lame-O! :)

So we thought we just crack one straight on the road.  Maybe, just maybe it would be hot enough.  So this is what happened:

Again, nothing!  We stood there for a few minutes waiting with anticipation.  But since it was 118 degrees outside, we didn't wait too long!  We thought we'd come back out and check later.  

Well later, we noticed that a neighbor drove over the egg in the road.  What was left was now completely dried out and didn't even remotely resemble an egg.  The egg on the pan, well, I looked out the back door to see one of the 5 or 6 feral neighborhood cats chowing down!  (I hate those cats!  They poop all over the yard!) 

Now I know what you're thinking, "Gee Kristee, I could have told you that wouldn't work!" That's OK, chances are I would have tried it anyway! :)  That's just how I am.  :)  Has anyone EVER had success with this?

Oh well, it was mildly amusing.  I hope this saves you the trouble!  Of course, if you just want to "waste" some eggs, go ahead!  Knock yourself out!  :)

~Kristee

Summer Play Book: Slime

Well today the boys had a play date at our house.  We had a total of 7 boys under the age of 7.  It was loud and crazy!  Since it was 118 here today, I didn't figure they'd be playing outside too much, so I thought we'd make slime! It was messy & fun, absolutely perfect for little boys!  I will say it's more of a flubber consistency than slime!  Not that it matters!  :)

They each were able to mix up their own (with some assistance).

Not sure what Noah is protesting!

The clown

Mixing in the glue

Glue/water/color mixture

 I wasn't able to get many good pictures of the slime after.  It was a bit chaotic!  :)

Here's a few tips:

*Since we had 6 boys making slime, I dug out the handy Dollar Store bowls.  We used 2 bowls per boy.  One for the borax/water mixture and then one for the glue/water/coloring mixture.
*We used plastic spoons to mix.  I wasn't sure what the borax would do to our "real" ones.  Probably nothing! :)
*The directions said you could use either white glue or clear glue.  We used both.  We liked the texture of the white glue better.  It was more smooth.  But the clear glue had a more true slimy look.
*After it was all mixed up, there was quite a bit of water left in the bowl.  We just took out the slime part and let them play with it on a plate.  That way there was less splashing!

They all loved watching it "transform" into a blob when they added the borax mixture.  It was pretty cool to watch.  There were lots of giggles, references to balls of snot, and of course the sounds of passing gas.  You know, normal boy chit-chat! :)  We put it in Ziploc bags and so far it's keeping pretty good.

This was a great activity.  It was inexpensive and quick!  Perfect!  I know that your little man or little gal will love it!  With the heat this weekend you made need an extra activity to help keep you sane!  :)  Let me know if you try it and how your team likes it!

~Kristee