super random

I know, yesterday was supposed to be it; but we emptied the camera one last time and this is what we found.

Isaac doing ballet - his new favorite - heehee.



The 100% spelling test doors had to be recorded before they were ripped down.



Nora has been painting a ton! There will be a lot of masterpieces recycled after kids go to bed tonight.


Emmy at the awards assembly.


Diana from afar.


That wraps it up folks! Have a SUPER summer.

Oh yea, someone wanted to know where we are going. First stop Uncle David and Aunt Sherrie's in PG, Utah for the weekend. Then the kids will hang with Aunt Jessica and gang in Logan while I am at Aunt Mel's in Orem commuting to SLC every day to record Messiah in America in Abravanel Hall and perform it in the Tabernacle. When all that is done we head to Idaho for the rest of the Summer. We will be back in time for the trusty van to go on the priest quorum's super activity.

hitting the road

Can you guess what we are doing today?? Yep, one more trip to wal-mart and LAUNDRY. I confess, I regularly thank Heavenly Father in my prayers for my washing machine - a true luxury in life.

We head out early Friday, so this is most likely the last post for a while. Here are the pictures that were left in my blog folder.

Isaac being cool.


Sarah and Dad on the temple grounds a few weeks ago. Ryan gave me my engagement ring here assuming it would never change and when we returned from grad school they had ripped out the old fountain and replaced it with a completely different one! So much for permanence.


The brood.


Last week I made a lot of pita bread. I was shocked that everyone liked them with chicken salad (of course, I did not tell them it was salad, I just called it chicken - what they don't know won't hurt them right?). I also stuffed a million of them with this taco meat, bean, cheese mix and froze them - they freeze super well and will make good Ryan food while we are gone. The girls also like them stuffed with pizza sauce, peperoni and mozzarella. I nuke them to melt everything, then they get frozen too and used in school lunches - hip hooray. I found the recipe for half wheat half white pitas here. I bake them a lot shorter than 8 minutes - my oven goes hot, other than that, it is a GREAT recipe. Find it here.


Finally, I NEVER know what to get teachers and we had a ton this year. Nora had 4, Isaac has 4 and the Diana and Emily each one. We got the brilliant idea that we LOVE Nutella, so everyone else must too! So far, it's been a hit with the teachers.

i WAS excited

I was so excited lat week because we were officially DONE with doctor's appointments of any kind until August - OB, ortho, dentist, well visits, ENT, audiology, speech, all of it.

It didn't last. Emily was running in the kitchen (yes Mellissa, the kitchen arg! yesterday afternoon (running to the recycling bin to get the cardboard they need to make a lemonade stand - a real deal at $10 a cup!). Anyhow, she slipped, or tripped, or something, hit her head on a chair and we got to go to the ER for stitches. She has 10 stitches in two layers, plus steri strips and was brave, chill, good, and great. The staff was fab, but still it's not August, we were not supposed to be there.

Then this morning Diana lost a bumper on her braces, so an early morning visit to the ortho was in order (we have been every week for 8 weeks now - they will really miss us this summer).

I really hope we are done. I truly appreciate all the people we pay to take care of us but I would really love to not see them for a while.

nora graduates

I know, it was 2 weeks ago, but here are pictures - Nora did graduate and we love Mrs. Billings and I am sososososososososo ready for Summer vacation!!!

sick sarah

Poor Sarah was sick last week and slept a TON! She slept in the couch, on me, in her bed, on the steps, even on the piano chair. Poor Bear.

dress up

Sarah has discovered the dress-up clothes - oh the years of fun to be had!

a story

This story inspired by this story.


Once upon a time, Marian was engaged to Ryan and Ryan went to Japan. Before he left, Ryan gave Marian a key to his house because it would soon be their house and he figured she should have some freedom alone there to poke around without violating dating rules of not being in bedrooms etc, so she knew all about her new house.

She took some time to poke around and came away very sad that such a nice boy slept in a pitiful little twin bed set up in the middle of a big master bedroom, with a pile of books, a phone on the floor and an ironing board. She however, liked the house and was happy it was going to be theirs soon.

When Ryan returned from Asia, he took Marian to dinner, and as engaged couples do they started one of those conversations about life, family etc and she asked with all assurance that he would agree, if it would be OK if they never had guns in their house. Ryan stopped chewing, got a really funny look on his face, Marian's confidence in her presumptuous request plummeted and Ryan asked, "Didn't you go into the walk in closet in the master bedroom?". She assured him she had. He asked, "Didn't you see the six guns in there?" (SIX??!?!?!!?!?). She assured him she hadn't, rearranged her face and attitude and steered the conversation to the responsibility of gun owning parents to keep children safe, educated and SAFE.

O the presumption of a naive, engaged girl! Thankfully Ryan was more mature and able to take it all in stride and we found a solution that makes us both feel safe and comfortable. I'm glad he still married me. I also learned that Ryan is very good at resolving differences in opinion without getting emotional, fighting, or being rude - I'm grateful!

math master

For those following the intense math saga at the Chase house, today was a good day. In Mesa Public Schools to become a 2nd grade MATH MASTER you have to pass both a subtraction and addition timed test. Most of Diana's class passed the first time around back in September or something like that, but she has doggedly pursued this title (and the prize of a big pen) all year long. In the third quarter she passed the addition, but subtraction still eluded her grasp. She and Ryan practiced most nights for weeks and months, getting those tricky 15, 14, and 13's and today was the day!

Hippy, yipee, skipee she passed! I am super proud af her for sticking with the practice - beacuse, let's face it, math facts are not great fun, even if you do get to stay up for 10 minutes with Dad. I am also really grateful she got to learn the lesson that you can set a goal, work hard, and achieve (I wasn't ready for her to learn the lesson: you can work really hard and still not get what you are working for, we'll save that one for later).

nora

Here is a picture of Nora at her pre-school mother's day program. Pre-school ends tomorrow (sad for Nora), she LOOOOOOVES school and asks several times a day when will Kindergarten start already! It's so hard being a grown up 5 with sisters gone all day. I hope kindergarten fulfills all her dreams.

a big 'ol mess

One of the reasons I LOVE finding out the gender of my baby is so I can use all that good nesting energy to get life organized before the baby comes. Nora and I did great work last Thursday and Ryan pitched in on Saturday. Here's the run down.

We started, Nora and I, by bring all the bins, diaper boxes, and loose clothes down stairs - all of them, boy, girl, infant, toddler - everything we could find - it was a lot. See below.


We spent the nexy 2-3 hours going through every piece, weighing it's uslefullness, cuteness, sentimental value and condition making 6 different piles. #1 girl clothes for baby Olivia (Aunt Di's baby), #2 girl clothes requested by our comassionalte service leader, #3 boy clothes for new brother, #4 boy clothes and girl clothes in good shape but not cute enough for Olivia or new baby - to send to Goodwill, #5 stained, hideous, or otherwise unusable clothes for the garbage, #6 girl clothes I just could not give up for sentimental reasons (this was actually a really hard process for me. I am thrilled to be having a boy but some of these clothes have really strong memories attached to them and I shed quite a few tears as choices had to be made).

Here are the 4 bins we will keep; 2 of boy clothes, one of girl, and one of winter coats. The pile on the top are the dresses I could not part with, the pink puppy PJ's that I want buried with me and I also let each of the girls pick a dress to keep and take on to their own family.

This beautiful pile is 3 buckets for Olivia, 2 for the ward and 2 bags for Goodwill - yipeeee!

On Saturday, Ryan helped me empty out the 2 closets in the kids room and his closet, food storage, dress-ups, blankets, camping equipment, 72 hour kids, MREs, and stuff. Ryan was a huge trooper and got rid on some stuff that he was really attached to (I was so proud of him) and we ended up with three very clean, organized closets and lots more stuff for Goodwill.

Look at all that room for food storage!


The Goodwill stash!

It always feels so good to really clean something out and get rid of some of the baggage in life. I'm grateful for my good helpers!

braces on our faces

I've suspected for a long time that our lovely Diana would need to become acquainted with an orthodontist so it wasn't a big surprise when the dentist recommended a visit post haste. Off we went and not only are braces a good idea but she gets to have two sets - oyi!

Her mouth is pretty small, her palette (the upper arch of the mouth) is very narrow and there just isn't room for new big teeth to come in. We could have waited to let all the baby teeth go and the adult teeth squeeze in there, but one of her adult bottom teeth was already worn away quite nicely and other permanent teeth would follow and get worn down too, so we decided to get her palette expanded and get the adult teeth some room to come in. She will have the expander and braces for 15ish months to get that all done and then wear a retainer until the rest of the adult teeth come in when she's 12 or 13 and then braces one more time to get everything nice and straight and in a good bite.

So, off Diana went to the orthodontist all cute and excited for x-rays and payment and spacers (just a little sore) and the like. All was well until yesterday when at 7am she got the real hardware in there. She was OK with instillation and going to school excited to show off, but by the time she got home the glamor was definitely gone and reality had set in. Ryan and I had both tried to gently tell her that braces, especially at first really make your mouth really sore and are uncomfortable, but in her excitement, she was impervious to our words.

To add insult to injury she got violently ill this morning and thew up 13 times (she kept track). She is feeling better now and is keeping Gatorade down, but it has not been that happiest 2 days of Diana's life. She begged me this morning to take her back to the orthodontist to get her braces off (ouchy mommy moment). All I could do was assure her that her mouth would heal, she would get used to the braces being there, they would not be there forever, and that she would be able to once again eat comfortably.

Here are the before and after shots:


OUCH!

tidbits

#1 I'm feeling better
#2 I'm eating Mexican food again - hip hooray!
#3 Kisha and I are walking again
#4 I have shin splints - ouch
#5 We switched the kids rooms all around and no longer have a place for guests to sleep (come visit anyway)
#6 Sarah has started using the potty and telling me she wants to use the potty
#7 Sarah has also graduated to a big girl bed

There was something else I needed to get out there. . .

















Oh yea, #8 New baby is a boy - we are thrilled!