Fall, twins and other random thoughts

Today is a perfect Fall-ish day.

I always feel panic when I realize that summer is coming to an end.

But then, just as I begin to despair in earnest, the mornings and evenings turn crisp, the afternoons are nice and warm (hot?), the garden doesn't need to be watered or weeded anymore, the grass grows like crazy,  I get to watch the boys play football and I can make beef stew and baked squash...suddenly I can't remember why I was so worried about summer ending!

Dallin grew an inch this summer and gained thirty pounds making both Dallin and Landon 6' 1 1/2".  Dallin is 204 lbs and Landon is 205 lbs.  How's that for being twins? They have always, always gone through spurts when one was bigger or taller than the other and then they have always evened back out.

Speaking of being twins, last Sunday everyone sat down to play Settlers of Catan and they rolled the dice to see who got to go first.  Dallin and Landon rolled the exact same number FIVE times in a row.
Hilarious.
What are the odds?
Seriously I would like to know...

Landon got to play in his first football game last week.  He has recovered from surgery well but has some tendinitis in his knee.  Wearing a patellar strap helps a lot.  Oddly enough, Dallin's knee hurts in the exact same place.  It is swollen and painful which means that he, too, needs an MRI--for the bargain price of $1500. There is a good chance that he will need surgery as well.  We have already tried a bunch of physical therapy. Is this a genetic thing?  Seriously how 'random' is it that both boys randomly tore the meniscus in the lateral left knee at the same time?!

Both boys are playing offensive line and Landon plays defensive end, strong side and Dallin has been playing linebacker.  I think.  They all make fun of me when I get the positions wrong.  I'll have it down by the time Jackson gets in there.

Austin is playing football at the middle school this year and he loves it. Of course.

Jackson and I are home during the day.  I spend a lot of time trying to keep Jack from terrorizing the chickens.  He crawls out the dog door and climbs in the chicken coop and picks them up by their tails or wings or whatever else he can grab.  Little stinker. Between Jackson's snatching and Beau's habit of herding the little chickens all over the yard, I'm sure we will never get a single egg.  But it's fun anyway.

I'll have to post a picture of the cutest chicken coop ever.
As soon as it gets its final coat of paint.
Which might be a while...

Football...

Football season is here.

I am resigning myself to the fact that the chaos has already started.  Summer is coming to an end.

I spent the better part of the morning driving: dropping off, picking up, running across town to get the sports physical that was lost and had to be turned in my 11 this morning, running to get new football cleats before the afternoon practice, dropping off again...

My house looks neglected.  I hate when everyone is busy and they leave and the place looks like a tornado blew through even though it was totally clean when I went to bed.  There's got to be a better way...

For the last two weeks of summer we have some serious playing to finish up.  The kids requests?: go to a water park, stay in a hotel and do nothing. They are serious about the do nothing part. "Mom we can't do jobs, summer is almost over! We have to play the Wii, summer is almost over..."

I have a million projects that I need to get finished before all my helpers are gone and I have no one to distract Jackson. Blah.

Speaking of Jackson...

This boy thinks he's a big kid.  When we go swimming he jumps in the water as fast as I can put him back up on the edge.  He goes all the way under and comes up laughing for more.  Sometimes he backs up and runs so he can fling himself into the water.  Dallin and Landon were like that.  We hope he doesn't follow his big brothers in the injury category.  I think their first ER visit was at 15 months when they ate a bottle of Claritin and had their stomachs pumped.

Jackson can now open the fridge and the dishwasher.  He also climbs onto the table and rips apart anything I attempt to put out as a centerpiece. Right now he is dumping out the boxes of butter from the fridge for the millioneth time today and he is trying in vain to smash the cubes back into the box saying "tatdooo" (thank you) as he smashes each cube back in place.

He also goes through the bread drawer and dumps the bread out and takes a bite out of every piece and then stacks them back up very neatly.

This morning he has also nibbled a hole through the chocolate chips, the brown sugar and the baking soda.

Good thing he is cute!

We are such city slickers...

We finally took the plunge.  I have wanted to add chicks to our backyard for as long as I have had a back yard.  This year some friends finally convinced us to take the plunge with them and become true urban farmers.  The fact that we ordered these chicks from a place called  My Pet Chicken.com gives some insight to how seriously we are taking the title of  'farmer.'  My husband and mother--both of whom grew up taking care of chickens--are rolling their eyes.

We have plans to turn our unused little playhouse into the cutest chicken coop ever.

In the mean time we have the most spoiled fowl around.

Is allowing barnyard animals into the house somehow betraying our five generations of Idaho farmers' heritage? No self-respecting farmer would allow barnyard animals into the house let alone into his shirt, right?

I do remember my grandpa riding around the farm with his dog on the back of the 4-wheeler.  And all of his dairy cows had names (women from the ward...).  He also tamed a pigeon which followed him around the farm, so maybe we come by this naturally.

We were most worried about Beau trying to turn our latest hobby into a snack but it turns out Jack is the true chick predator.  He can hardly keep himself from climbing into the brooder box.

I wonder if we will think this is fun while thawing frozen water buckets in the dead of winter. 

Boys in tights

Eighth grade was hazardous for Landon.  In one school year he managed to break both hands and tear the meniscus in his knee.

 We're about to make him wear full body armor. 

Yesterday he had surgery to repair the tear in his left lateral meniscus. It was in an unusual place in the meniscus and the torn piece was curled up into the joint so they weren't able to repair the tear.  They just shaved off the mangled portion and smoothed things out.  Everything else in the knee looked great and there is still a good amount of healthy meniscus so he should heal very well.  And of course he's still hoping to play football...

This is Landon getting in touch with his feminine side.

Shaved legs--

and tights are sooo much fun!

His knee is pretty swollen but it actually feels better than it did before the surgery and he is able to walk with barely a limp.  He is missing high adventure camp this week.  Rustin, Austin and Dallin are all gone.  This is the longest amount of time Dallin and Landon have spent apart. It's not a big deal to them now like it would have been when they were younger.  I think every developmental stage is easier if it is done in its own time without trying to rush things. 

Of course if I had my way no one would grow up and leave home.  They would just stay the same forever. Or at least move in next door.  

Just kidding.  I think.

Pick a puppy

After traveling the world for 15 years my sister and her family are about to embark on their biggest journey yet:  they're getting a dog.

Being the mother-hen-oldest-sister that I am, I'm offering the cliff notes version of puppy training theories. I read them all and we tried most of them before we finally figured out what works best for us.

From our first rescued nippy miniature schnauzer Murphy,

 To our hyper and very distract-able and lovable beagle Molly,

and her puppies,

 

to our current easy going family boy Beau,

we have tried a lot of training strategies and made a lot of mistakes.

Trial and error is not the most effective way to learn.  

So here is my first suggestion:  watch this Caesar Milan video and then read the book if you are so inclined.  Can't go wrong with the Dog Whisperer.


How to Raise a perfect Puppy--Caesar Milan

Where do I send my thank you card?

I had the most lovely surprise at the pharmacy today.

I usually leave my monthly trip to the pharmacy about $300 dollars poorer than I went in, so the pharmacy (even my favorite Dicks's pharm!) isn't a place that makes me smile.

We have two ADHD kids and medicine makes their lives infinitely easier.  The problem is that ADHD medicine is a pain and it is expensive. That should be Expensive--$300 per month for the last four years to be exact.  That's almost 15,000 dollars in the last four years alone!

Today when I went to the pharmacy I was shocked when I went to swipe my card and saw a balance of $10!

Our medicine is finally generic.

Hallelujah!

I think I skipped out of the pharmacy today.

My medical bills just decreased by three hundred dollars a month!


Of course this little tender mercy occurred just in time for Landon to have surgery to fix a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee tomorrow.
  
So the drug savings will just go to the hospital.  


But I'm not complaining...

I lost my camera cord and other excuses...

For some reason I can't blog without pictures.  I guess I figure my thoughts aren't interesting enough on their own.  Most of the things I really want to remember are pictures!

This week I have been having that "past-the halfway through summer mark" panic that sets in every year at this time. 

I feel this tightness in my chest and a fluttery panic in my stomach.

What is that about?

I don't like it when the kids go to school.  It feels like some really important and exciting event is ending and I didn't enjoy it enough. Or I didn't take advantage of it enough. Or I didn't make them do enough projects around the house--like helping me paint the ceilings (which is way easier for the 6 ft+ members of my family...), build that beautiful deck I have imagined outside or at least clean out all the closets!

It's not like the kids disappear when school starts, right? And we still have 6 weeks so no worries...

I have lots to write about--Jenna's 9th birthday, our Hatch family handcart trek, cousins, a chicken coop in the making and a million other awesome summer memories. I'll get to the writing as soon as the laundry is done and I find my camera. 

In other words...don't hold your breath.