Teaching

These are the things I taught today all before 9:00 a.m....
To Courtney: When you say "Hi" to a boy in Jr. High, have a friendly tone to your voice. It won't sound like you're in love with them -- you'll simply sound friendly. Friendly is good.
To Marty: When you hold your violin firmly with your chin, you don't have to hold so hard with your hand.
To Christopher: Orange aloha shirts don't match with green camoflage shorts.
To Nicholas: Take one bite of your toast at a time. No, don't cram the whole piece of bread in your mouth. Finish chewing before you take another bite. Spit that whole slice of bread out and try one bite at a time.

First Day of School

It was a great first day! Courtney loved Jr. High! Christopher was so excited to finally get to wear his new Star Wars shirt. Marty was just happy to have something to do all day. Mom was happy not to have PTA and Nicholas was happy to have mom all day. We went to the aquarium!

It's 10:30...

It's 10:30 and we just sent everyone home. I'm such a sucker -- but I knew I was!

Night Games

It's technically the last night of summer. Tomorrow night we will be getting everyone in their pajamas at 7:30 (yes, 7:30) so we can have plenty of time to wind down, read books, turn out the lights by 8:30 and stay awake until 10:00 in our beds staring into the dark as we will our bodies to switch to "school-night" mode.

The kids and lots of friends are all playing Ghost in the Graveyard. They've previously been playing Capture the Flag. It's 9:20 p.m. and I agreed to nightgames tonight under the condition that they finish by 9:30 so we can start getting used to going to bed a little earlier. I won't stick to it. I have too many fond memories of playing nightgames -- running around in the dark with lots of friends--screaming, hiding, running--with total abandon. I'm not that committed to bedtime on the last night of summer to break it up. So live it up kids! It's why I could be talked into moving to Utah -- I knew my kids would get the chance to play nightgames. It's why we bought the house next door, tore it down and replaced it with grass -- so the kids would have a bigger area to play nightgames. It's the last night of summer -- HAVE FUN!!!

Pagosa Fun

Lexie joined us for our annual trip to Pagosa Springs this year and as always it was a blast. ATV's, fishing, beebee guns, s'mores, hot chocolate in the morning, lots of food, snacks at the store, fires in the evening, hike to the falls, and new this year, swimming in the river at Box Canyon! We usually go earlier in the year when the river is running high and fast. In August, however, it's slow and shallow. We found some good fishing holes on our hike and the kids went from getting their feet went to stripped down swimming in their skivvies. What a blast! Marty also built the nightly fire on his own, boy scout style, without the help of kerosene -- way to go, Marty!

Pagosa -- First Fish

Our first night in Pagosa, Chris caught his first fish!

This is Classic!

I just read this on another blog and loved it...

(Visit Daring Young Mom's personal blog: http://theparentingpost.parenting.com/daring_young_mom_index.html)

Yesterday I caught myself yelling at the top of my lungs for [my children] to just be quiet. I put Laylee in timeout. "Laylee," I said calmly, "Do we yell in this family?"

She looked up at me with utter confusion, a look that said, "You were just yelling but I don't want to be in timeout forever for talking back to you so I'm going to wait this out," and stayed mute.

So I apologized for yelling and now I have to go in timeout if I yell in the house too. To me, timeout seems like a great place. You chill out, staring blankly at the wall "thinking about what you've done" but honestly you can think about anything you want. Laylee's not the boss of my inner-most thoughts. No one is supposed to interact with you in timeout so it's really like a mini-vacation in the middle of the day. I may have to start yelling on PURPOSE!

Nicks Big Boy Bed

After 3 nights of Nicholas waking up and wanting to sleep in our bed, we decided it was time he move from his crib to a "big boy bed." He's always gone to bed so well and loved his crib, we were never in a rush to move him out of it.

He was so excited to get a real bed! The funny thing is, he still wakes up wanting to come to our bed, but he sits in his bed and calls out. Same with naps...he sits on his bed and calls for me just like he used to do when waking up from a nap. I guess he hasn't figured out he can get out on his own!

Dan took the crib down while I was at book club. I'm a little sad to see it go. We've had stretches of time when we didn't use it between Marty and Chris and then Chris and Nick. But it was always sitting in the storage room waiting for the next little baby to arrive in our family. Now that time of our life is over.

I remember staring at two different cribs in Babies R Us, not able to decide which one to get. I was there for over an hour debating. That was 12 years ago. We've taken it up and down 12 different times -- moving apartments and simply moving it from one room to another as we got settled in different apartments or homes and changed our minds about what would be the baby's room. Courtney climbed out of it at 20 months. Marty loved his crib but moved to a bunk bed at 22 months when we moved to California. Christopher was thrilled to find he could jump out and have a soft landing when we moved it too close to Courtney's bed as we were switching their rooms. He was 27 months. And Nick's been perfectly content until now at over 2 1/2.

Now we're taking the crib down forever and saying goodbye to our babies. I'll miss the crib and our babies who slept in it.

Michelle, We Missed You!

It was a dream come true having an Adair family Around the World tournament. The only hard part was because we are now adults we had to be good sports about sharing with the kids!! It was a perfect summer night -- a great BBQ, the boys played basketball (yes, I do mean Dan, and Dad, and Michael and Jared, of course.) while the girls talked, and then we threw the football, jumped on the trampoline, talked some more, jumped some more and then the kids played Red Rover (even recruiting Rachel, Rebekah and Wendy) until it was too dark to see. The only thing missing was Michelle and Fam!!

California Surfin'

We just got home from our big family reunion celebrating Marty and EC's 50th wedding anniversary. We had a blast at Knott's Berry Farm, Soak City and a few days on the beach. We basically headed to the beach in the morning and stayed all day. We all boogy-boarded and built sandcastles and read lots of books.




Driving from Orange County to Ventura County on the 405 and PCH on Sunday is a great reminder of why we like Utah so much. The ocean is gorgeous and we'll never tire of playing in the waves, but the traffic!