Tanyard Creek

The Natural State really showed off her beauty for us on Saturday. We took the kids (some were more willing participants than others) on a family hike. 

This “River foam” appeared to be breathing abd growing! It was wild. 

Cello Recital

Corbin and Quincy had a cello recital on Saturday evening. Quincy played Humoresque and Corbin played The Happy Farmer. Quincy’s cello buddy, Lance, learned the piano accompaniment and the two of them played wonderfully together. They’re now looking for a piece to play in church.  It was Corbin’s first recital and he wasn’t nervous at all! He just got up and played with confidence.  He sounded great!  It’s always mind blowing to me how much they learn in the first year with a nee instrument.  I love watching these kids grow their talents. 

May-hem

May is notoriously the month that destroys mothers. We get into a groove and work hard and live and live well, loving what we do, and then May shows up

Like a creep and runs us into the ground with all the things.  I’ve been a designated “read aloud” on all things World History the past month. Reese has one class that is very heavy on reading. The text has an audio narration option, but 3 hours of monotone robotic voice narration does not make history exciting or understandable.  So I’ve been reading to Reese during naptime and into the wee morning hours so she could survive the onslaught of end-of-term World History she was berated with. Quincy and Corbin both were in hyper speed academic mode this month as well. I wrapped up Soren and Sloane’s school year once Soren completed his math and language arts books. He is now doing fun things like writing a magazine about animals. Each week, we pick out a stack of animal books from the library, he reads them and adds a few colorful and fact filled pages to his magazine each week. Dreambox, pen pals, gardening and cooking endeavors, and mandatory reading time fill the rest of his “school time”. Sloane resisted most formal instruction this month but I sneakily get her to read, play dream box, and do copy work, a math, or s language arts lesson each day.  She also loves library books and writes to her pen pal, Willow.  She’s helping  the twins “learn to read” by (bossing them around) doing alphabet flashcards with them every Wednesday. It works. Mostly though, any time it’s not a torrential downpour, the kids want to be outside. They ride bikes and scooters, play with the neighbors, and work in the garden with me.  

Most days are just a steady go go go.

We still have a giant hole in the bathroom tile because the tile guy and restoration company are duking it out over who’s fault it is for all the tiles popping loose and grout cracking. No end in sight. 

We had our bi weekly OT sessions, weekly therapy sessions, visits, and monthly casa and DHS home appointments. This month we also had our quarterly resource worker visit where we open cabinets and walk through bedrooms and update all the paperwork and get filled in on new policies. 

An ironic (and highly unethical in my opinion) change has happened where the adoption specialist (who does not favor us adopting and us part of the appeal we are waiting on) has been promoted to become the resource worker supervisor. She is keeping a few adoption cases, though, one of them being ours.  So now the resource worker who is supposed to be our department support system is also the adoption specialist who is on the opposing side in a very long and tiring legal case. Conflict of interest anyone? 

Due to covid restrictions, there was no kindergarten graduation, preschool graduation x2, 6th grade commencement and award ceremony, 8th grade commencement and award ceremony. No end of year field trips! Fun and Field days were rained out, rescheduled, then rained out again, so even the lack of scheduled things was still “busy”.  The arrival of summer is just surreal! Maybe it’s because Reese is still working on economics. And that she and Q are both signed up for a 4 week summer course. Or maybe it’s because we homeschooled Soren and Sloane, or that we still have many weekly commitments like piano, cello, caseworkers and therapies, but it just doesn’t “feel” like summer or a break yet. I hope that we feel a gigantic slow of time very soon! 

Last week, Sloane climbed into the car to play. I was cleaning out the garage and let her tinker around in the van.  I didn’t realize she’d taken the keys with her or that she locked them inside when she got out 🤦🏻‍♀️. The best part is that I only noticed the keys were locked inside when it was time for the boys to go to soccer and needed the soccer treats from the van. I knew may would be crazy, so I purposely had picked up soccer snacks 2 weeks before and kept them in the van for when I would inevitably forget it was our turn. So here we were 5 min late for the game, with the keys and snacks locked in the van. Doh! 

A locksmith and $75 later, I had my keys back 🤷🏻‍♀️ Just another day in the life!  

Finals Week

This photo brought to you by the letter zzz and the lack of them that I’m getting.  

Reese worked her TAIL off the last few weeks of school and proudly sports a report card of all A’s abd B’s that were hard fought for. She totally bombed a Spanish vocabulary test a few weeks ago that tanked her grade from a low A to a C. Getting 100 on all of her assignments after was only enough to pull her grade to an 79.28% in Spanish III.   I didn’t understand. I watched her study for this test. She knew the material, what happened? 

What happened is that the “vocab” words she was tested on were plugged into a short story with blanks where the students had to fill in the blanks with the vocab words.  Reading and comprehending a short story with blanks in it is not an easy feat for a dyslexic brain that wants order and less abstract processes.  Filling blanks into a story is a challenge for Reese in English, let alone the added factor of translating from Spanish to English, finding the correct missing vocab word, translating that word to Spanish, conjugating the verb into the correct tense and filling it in.  But after all she could do and an A all year long, she had a 79.28%. This didn’t sit well with her because she didn’t feel like it reflected her year of effort. So she opted to take the final even though she was exempt (she had all assignments turned in and above a 75%) to right that C to match her work.  

She studied HARD. 

The test was 45 questions. Multiple choice. But the questions were “fill in the blank” with a sentence or two missing the vocab word.   

She only missed 5 and got a B in Spanish III. We are so proud of her! 

Reese has also been serving for over a year as the president of her 16-18 year olds Young Women’s class at church.  She was released from this calling today and accepted the call to serve as class secretary.  She learned a lot in her calling as President and served and loved and ministered the girls well.  She met regularly with the yw leaders, bishopric, her presidency, and ward and youth councils.  She conducted meetings for the stake and ward youth. She organized activities and navigated the pandemic like a boss. Last week, she overheard a zoom presentation from a linguistic specialist on Corbin’s Google classroom.  She thought it would be fascinating for the young women, so she emailed Corbin’s teacher, asked for the languages presenter’s (who lives in Michigan) contact info, reached out to her, and invited her to present to the young women over zoom.  The woman was friendly with the church and a wonderful and gracious guest speaker. This calling has provided countless growth opportunities and  leadership experience for my introverted girl. 

Reese is currently finishing up a BYU independent study economics course (final is next week!) and signed up to knock out Algebra II virtually over the summer.  My feelings about this are mixed, but she is excited to do it and I am supportive of her decision. 

Quincy’s Orchestra Concert

Quincy played beautifully in her 8th grade orchestra concert. Her favorite pieces were El Toro and the small group arrangement of Somewhere  Over the Rainbow.  They also played Gaelic Castle with the 7th graders and a few other pieces.  She’s getting quite good and we just love listening to her play. 







(L-R; Millie K, Lily, Lance R, and Q) 

Soccer Season Finale that never “finaled”

Corbin and Soren have had s very wet soccer season. Many games and practices have been rained out, and the season continues to have new dates added on each week to make up for the unfinished season and the league tournament.  Two nights ago, Corbin’s semi finals game went into triple overtime with sudden death penalty kicks. Corbin scored the winning shot! Aaron caught it on video and it’s amazing and joyful and a good reminder to me of the benefits of sports. What a rush of excitement. Corbin was elated. 

Soren had a great season! He scored many many goals and had fun playing against buddies like Dean S, Jacob Mac S, and Titus G.   They worked hard and played hard! Way to go Teams Force and Nitro! 

Continued Education

To keep out foster care license up to date, we need to complete 15 “approved” hours of training classes every year. We read books and watch informational webinars, attend zoom foster parent association meetings and of course wrote reports about them because you know how DHS loves their reports. 🤣

Here are a few more that we did in addition to that ironic “lunch n learn” training about the dept initiative to get permanency for children as quickly as possible. 

Two TCU Karyn Purvis training videos. These came from the twins’ therapists and were definitely not new information to us, since we live trauma, attachment, and sensory processing disorders every day with our little ones, but we enjoyed the refresher techniques and  the renewed hope in their potential for healing and healthy development through our attentive love and connection. 

Running water

We have had SO much rain the past week! 

Last night’s rain caused a little river to flow through the backyard. 
We had a mess of rocks and mulch to clean up today. Our potted plants were so waterlogged that I ended up drilling holes in the sides of them to let a few gallons of water drain out the sides. 

Baked Donuts with Eunice

Eunice made a date with the kids to

Come bake donuts with them while I was in therapy with the twins. Sometimes, the hours after a counseling session can be difficult for the twins because so many big emotions and memories are triggered. The twins transitioned really well from therapy knowing there were donuts and out friend waiting at home and It was such a treat to come home just in time to eat the yummy treats they made! 

“Big Rub” Copycat Pork Tacos

There used to be a delicious food truck in Bentonville and Lowell that served a pork taco that was killer with a brisket sauce that was soooo good.  Another favorite was a brisket taco with a fried cheese and smashed  doritos homemade shell with sour cream and franks hot sauce combo on it. We don’t have the brisket sauce, but I did have leftover smoked pork in the freezer and we created these bad boys tonight. We’ve tried a few variations in the past, but these were the best ones, yet. 

Flour tortilla, leftover smoked pork butt, pepper jack, black beans, avocado, nacho cheese Doritos, and a little hit of sour cream & marie sharps hot sauce. I mass produced these assembly line style on the giant electric griddle, and sprayed the outsides of the tortillas a bit with canola oil so they puffed and crisped just a bit when they cooked. 

10/10

We will make these again. 

Corbin is 12!

He is 12 and he really loves his mama. And his mama really loves him right back! Happy birthday to one of the most influential people in my life. Corbin is witty, responsible, tender hearted, and competitive.  He lives to play, have fun, and win. He is a super thoughtful friend, a dedicated student, a protective chicken dad, a business owner, and a perseverant athlete and musician.  He is the perfect mix of younger brother and older brother. I continue to learn so much from him. I love the way he lights up our home with a laugh every day.

We skipped school on Corbin’s birthday and took a trip to KC. Soren and the 3 littles stayed home with Delaney and Finley Shaw and my parents.  It was so wonderful to be in the temple again! Corbin liked the experience and said it was “awesome, peaceful, really cool, and I could feel the Spirit.”  

Harvest: Celery

I successfully grew celery in the garden and it’s the most delicious celery I’ve ever had! Isn’t it just beautiful?! 

New BEEK in town!

We got honeybees! My neighbor Vernon caught a swarm and split a hive. We bought two hives and are keeping them on Vernon’s buddy’s property nearby.  Soren and I have been reading and learning all about honeybees. They are a masterpiece. God is so smart. He loves order and hard work.  He believes in opposition, perseverance, sisterhood, cleanliness, sacrifice, teamwork, and sweet rewards. I love beekeeping SO MUCH already, I cannot wait to have my own land to keep my bees on.