On the Way Home from Idaho...

Matt and the boys had the chance to stop over in Juneau for 8 hours!  My Aunt Jean lives in Juneau, and an added bonus?  My cousin Jess and her family were visiting from Montana so the boys had a chance to hang out with some family they haven't spent much time with.

Thanks for the fun day, Mikesell clan!

The Cousin Guests

I'm going to use the term cousins to describe my family members visiting from Utah because it's too difficult to list all the various ways their family is related to my family. Jimmy is my brother, Kara's uncle, Bentley's great-uncle, and mom's son. Ruth is my niece, mom's grandchild, Kara's first cousin, and Bentley's first cousin once removed. Ada is my great-niece, Kara's first cousin once removed, mom's great-grandchild, and Bentley's second cousin. Too many descriptors! I'm going to refer to them as Cousin Guests.

Our guests moved over to my brother Mark's home on Monday morning because we are getting ready for a visit from Matt's side of the family. The Cousin Guests are in town through Sunday and we've seen them now and then between their camping and canoeing trips. They come and get great-grandma to join them for some of their activities.

Here are a few photos from their time with us:

What is a snake doing at the Alaska Zoo?

The younger members of the group visited the petting zoo.

The youngest members of the group had a confab outside the petting zoo.

Jake had a great time with the older cousins.

A group shot of most of the guys. 

A group shot of a few of the girls with Bentley sandwiched in the shot. ?!

After wearing out one cousin, Jake moved on to the next.

Lots of cousins enjoying Asher's birthday cake. It's unfortunate we can't see Asher in this photo.

A group shot from our trip to Lake Ekultna. You gotta love this group photo....or not.

A rather bizarre group photo taken at the Fourth of July parade.

Baby Ada--she who inherited Viva's old wardrobe.

Cousins Rachel and Emma playing Colorku. Colorku was a big hit with the cousins.

Great-uncle Jimmy entertaining Lincoln. Or is Lincoln entertaining Great-uncle Jimmy?

Rachel and Lincoln: you want your photo on our blog? Pick up one of our children!

Ada is a cutie, but she's rather sober. Or maybe she hasn't had 1,000 photos taken of her so she doesn't know the drill: SMILE!

Idaho In Pictures

Decluttering

We've been doing some decluttering in our home the past few months. Lincoln now has his own bedroom. Our craft room (which we never crafted in) has been rezoned. It's now an official Altman child bedroom. That's what happens when two more little ones (one last summer, one later this fall) join the family. Craft supplies are being relocated, sold, given away, and thrown out. It makes me sad to let go of all those potential projects!

What makes Kara sad is getting rid of all of Viva's little girl clothes. Kara decided to give her cousin Ruth a first option on the boxes and boxes of baby and toddler girl clothes and shoes. Ruth liked most of the items, so Viva's old wardrobe is being relocated to baby Ada's home in Boston.

Out with the girl clothes; out with the craft supplies. What else went out? Kara sold her childhood daybed that was in the craft room. We free-cycled a computer desk from our bedroom, a set of three matching chairs stored in different parts of the house, a very cool (but never used) card table, and another wooden chair. Even in a house the size of ours storage space is limited. We got rid of a reclining chair from the downstairs family room and when the guests leave we will freecycle a couch from downstairs and maybe the sectional, too. We're repurposing our rooms! It's time to put to use our dead zones.

We're on a roll. We're getting rid of items both big and small. Here's one of the small items that was thrown out:

It's Kara's old Etch-A-Sketch. It was starting to leak silver dust. It's amazing that it's lasted over 20 years. I don't know if we will get a new one. Kara thinks there is an Etch-A-Sketch app on the iPad, but how could it be the same when there are no knobs on the iPad?

Flower Children

Mark has been taking lots of photos of the flowers this summer just like he did last summer. Sometimes I sneak a grandchild into the photo. Viva and Lincoln were the only ones available this past week.

Mark did a little fancy framing on the first two shots and here those results are:

While the Boys Are Away

So what's Viva been up to while her brothers and Dad are in Idaho for a week? We've tried to make her days interesting. On the Fourth of July Opa took her to downtown and joined up with our cousin-guests to watch the parade. We missed the fireworks because they were the morning of the Fourth (12:01AM) and we thought they were that night. (Quite frankly without a pitch black night sky, fireworks aren't that spectacular.)

Friday evening was our household's monthly game night with friends and Viva hit the jackpot. Since Jake and Bentley were not around she was able to watch four plus hours of Pretty Pony shows. Her brothers are going to have a tough time convincing her to watch their favorite shows now that she has been introduced to girl shows.

Saturday I took her over to the toy store to use her $5 off birthday coupon. She looked and looked and considered lots of different items before deciding on a princess stamp set. After the toy store we went to the ice cream store and she had mint ice cream. Then we went to Fred Meyer's and filled her princess balloon (purchased at Walmart last year) with helium. We had a good outing together.

On Monday evening Opa again took Viva out for a fun time while Kara and I stayed home with Lincoln. It was a Flag Day celebration this time. I attended this event last year and I wasn't much impressed, but then I'm not five years old. Viva loved it. She ate a hot dog and Doritos. She played some games and won a sucker, a fan, and a rubber duck and she got a balloon sculpture. She was happy.

Viva and opa have spent quite a bit of time together this past week!

Good Fun; Great Photos

On Tuesday we joined our guests for a trip to Eklutna Lake. I hadn't been out there for years and I was surprised to find the gravel road that leads to the lake is now a paved road. You'd think this would be an improvement, but I'm not sure it was. Now you can travel the windy road at faster speeds which made me carsick.

Our group walked the very short distance from the parking lot to the lake. The lake is a water resevoir for the city of Anchorage, so it has considerable variations in its water levels. On our visit the lake was lower than usual so there were fields of green beach (swamp?) grass around the lake. It was quite pretty. There was also an area of the beach that was muddy in places and rocky in others. The mud appealed to my nephew Josh's young sons, but it appalled my finicky grandsons. Viva had no problem with getting muddy. Bentley, Jake, and the cousins had a good time throwing rocks. A few of our group could even skip rocks! I could not. (Two skips is too pathetic to count.) We had a picnic dinner before we left Ekultna.

PS I apologize for the lack of photos of our guests, but my photographer said they had their own photographers, so he didn't take many photos of them. He said I should ask them for photos. It's hard enough to get photos from my staff photographer and I share a bedroom with him. I’m not going to wait for photos from them before I post this.

Outsmarted

I've mentioned a few times how Viva likes to skate under the radar. She doesn't call attention to herself. She doesn't usually like to show off her knowledge or skills. Bentley and Jake are show-offs; if they know it, they flaunt it. Consequently there are times when Kara and I wonder if Viva is as bright as her brothers. But then Viva says something brilliant and we know then that there is a lot more going on in her head than she shares with us.

Today she came home from a shopping trip and walked into the kitchen area and said to me "Look! This is my penny."

I glanced over to where she was proudly displaying her coin and I noticed it was not a penny, it was a quarter. I said to her "That's not a penny. It's a quarter."

Her response: "I know it's a quarter. I named it Penny."

Off to Idaho

Matt and my two oldest are off in Idaho for the next week.  Matt's Grandpa isn't in the best of health, and we wanted Matt and child representatives to have the chance to go down and visit him, so off they headed yesterday morning.  They look surprisingly perky for 6 am, right?  I can assure you that if you saw a picture of me, the one taking the picture, you could not say the same for me.  6 am is never a perky time of day for me.  :)

For about two weeks (I kid not) Bentley has been obsessed with packing.  I explained (more than once) that we'd do laundry the day before he left and then he could pick what to take, but he just kept thinking and thinking on packing.  He even started a list:

In case you can't read it, it says belts for Idaho on the side.  and then he has a no above a picture of his brown belt, and a "yes 2 of the same belt" above a picture of his black belt.

Not sure what the logic there was (I didn't ask because I wasn't sure I could keep a straight face while inquiring into the workings of his mind...).   :)

The report from Idaho is: so far, so good!  It's 85 and hot.  The boys are picking raspberries, watching fireworks, hanging out, and playing ball.  I hear there might be camping this weekend... we'll see!

Hold the Chocolate, Please!

Genevieve has a disturbing new food problem.

I've been okay with her picky eating (at times).  After all, she has an older brother who is master of picky eating.

But lately?  She has decided that she doesn't like chocolate.  I'm not sure how far this dislike goes.  Most importantly, it includes chocolate chip cookies.  This past month she has been asking for chocolate chip cookies, but without the chocolate chips.  I've been putting her off, because I find it hard to accept this as a real honest wish!  :)

It is just wrong!  But I did it, for her.  I made a pan of the cookies without the chocolate chips on Monday.  And she thinks that's great.

I would be okay with this chocolate *issue* if it was simply a quirky little problem with chocolate chip cookies.  But it extends to chocolate muffins, chocolate chocolate cookies, and no bake chocolate cookies.  And plain chocolate chips.  She SAYS she likes brownies still, but we haven't made them recently so we'll see.

We did, however, make fudge tonight.  We'll see if she eats any when she gets home later... I have my doubts.  Along with a few doubts about whether we are truly related (just kidding, Viva!).  A little girl who doesn't like chocolate?  Weird, weird weird.

And earlier today?  I offered her the last of her chocolate free chocolate chip cookies.  She told me "No, thanks.  I'll eat it tomorrow.  I already had 2 of those earlier today".  Such restraint invoking sugar is unnatural, don't you think?!

:)

Lincoln: Nearly Perfect

 Lincoln is nearly the perfect baby. He wakes up happy, although earlier than the adults would like. He likes people. He's happy around them and he loves to be with his siblings. We have no jealousy issues. He also likes to play by himself. He's quite content to ransack the bookshelves, redistribute the kitchen plastic ware throughout the main floor, or empty the toy shelf. He keeps busy without constant adult attention. (Is this a good thing?!) He walks and he's not a year old. He has an impressive vocabulary for an 11th month old. He's very adroit (for his age!) with balls. He's cute as a button. He's nearly perfect.

My problem with Lincoln is that he HATES being held in your arms or on your lap if he's on his back. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but you try and give a baby a bottle in any other position. It's hard work. Kara stands over the crib and feeds him his bottle as he drifts off to sleep. (She does not leave the bottle in the crib with him or allow him to sleep with it draining into his mouth or over the crib sheets.) She says he can hold it himself, but I haven't gotten him to yet, so I have to stand leaning over the crib getting a back ache while he blissfully drains his bottle. Why can't he be a normal baby and just let me feed him while he's lying in my arms?! (He's teething and it makes him harder to feed. When he isn't teething he's a wonderful eater and skipped bottles are no big deal.)

Guest Time!

Summer in Alaska is synonymous with guests. Some summers it's just a few guests, other summers it's lots of guests. Nine days ago my brother James and his wife Diane came to visit. Since my mom lives with us we are the central location. Sure they want to see us, but really they come to visit mom. We just happen to be her house-mates.

Jim and Diane arrived with their two youngest daughters, Emma and Lorna, and their married daughter Ruth and her baby Ada. Then this past Friday their other adult children arrived: Will, Rachel with her spouse Tanner, and Josh and Andy with their three young sons Asher, Isaac, and Aidan (sp?). Josh and his family are housed at cousin Anna's (she's the best for helping us out!), but we are housing the other three. We now have six extra adults, two teens, and one more baby which doubles our household size. Meal time is a little chaotic. Often they eat out at friends' homes. (They used to live here so they are in high demand.)

Bentley, Jake, and Viva love having guests to interact with. Bentley is our morning bird. Instead of getting up and reading which is his usual routine, he checks on the guests to see if any of them are awake and ready to start the day. He likes to talk to them, play games, and do sports. He's fascinated with them. Jake likes the cousins, too. Viva favors the girl cousins, but she's not adverse to a good game of hide 'n seek or chase with any cousin. Our trio gets quite wound up with all the extra attention.

Lincoln wasn't happy at first to have company. When Ada started to crawl towards great-grandma, he made a strong claim of "Mine!" It was quite clearly spoken. I'm not sure Ada got the message, but the adults did. He's mellowed a little since then. He's friendlier to Ada, although he prefers that great-grandma doesn't hold her. Lincoln was afraid of the adult guests at first, but he's coming around and happily interacts with them.

On Saturday we went to the zoo with the guests and Anna and her family. There were 27 in our group. It was a birthday party zoo trip for Josh's son Asher who turned 5 that day. We had a good time. The animals were active and prowling their cages. The children were running and playing. The adults strolled and talked. Jake globbed on to Tanner and Willie who were good pals to him.

I will try to take and post photos of the guests and the children, but with so many guests it's hard to do. I don't want to play favorites, but getting photos of all nine (plus five) out-of-towners might be more than I can manage. It's hard enough to find time to write this blog entry! I, too, like to socialize with our guests and, as I mentioned, there's a lot of them.

Scripture Study

I recently bought an oversized Book of Mormon for the kids.  It has big print, lots of pictures, colored words with definitions... cool stuff.

Part of the daily routine for the kids is scriptures.  Now that they have a card on the wall that says "read scriptures" to flip over, they make sure that reading gets done - which I appreciate!  They're on top of things!  Jake and Viva normally have someone read them a story out of the Friend magazine from church.  Which is fine, the magazine is certainly getting much more reading than it has in the recent past.

Bentley, on the other hand, is working his way through the Book of Mormon by himself (my new big one, to tie it back into the conversation!).   Tonight he was busy reading, and his sister scolded him: "Bentley, you don't have to read scriptures today.  It's Sunday and we go to church instead."

To which Bentley replied: "But I want to read them!"

A little bit later, Bentley came out of his room with the scriptures.  I asked him what was up, and he told me that Daddy was reading the Berenstain Bears to Jake & Viva but he really wanted to read one more page in his book instead.  (and it was too loud in his room apparently...).  A few minutes later he looks up and says: "He killed him!  He chopped his HEAD off!  Laban's head!"

Swords and mayhem?  I think this 6 year old is hooked!  :)

Cute Hair, Kid!

Lincoln has way more hair than Jake did at almost 1.  And way less hair than Bentley did at 1.  

But forget about his brothers.  The truth is his hair looks perfect on him, doesn't it? 

The Twins

Some people think that referring to or calling twins "the twins" is not right. They believe that individual names are important to establishing the child's individual worth and identity. I say pooh to them. I was a twin. I was proud to be a twin. I was not only an individual, but part of a special twosome which the name twin celebrated. So here's a photo of the twins celebrating their twinness.