Happy Birthday to Chiyaruzu

Happy Birthday to my life loving son Charles! Whose only birthday request was for me to write him a poem 


what better way to be
in your body than to feel
oozy mud murking
'tween fingers and toes,

than to wildly descend
careening hills without
considering the journey's end;

what better way to see
than to delight in dappled rainbows
stirring otherwise dormant halls.

I watch this boy, not boy,
solid citizen of the concrete
and corporeal
appreciate every morsel,
sliding open each new day
with a whoop of "ni wa!"*

what better way to dream
than to drift face up
in the Mediterranean Sea,
gentle wave nudging,
lost in the finding;

what better way to remember
than to relish only the
long worthwhile "whee!"

*2 year old American boy version of konnichiwa

Mango Mango

Charles got a job!  We are so happy that he can earn some money... and be away from the house sometimes... They serve Thai style rolled ice cream and claim to be the only place in the state that does so.  We decided to pay him a visit today and there is no denying that it was pretty yummy!

Sufjan!

Today we had to say goodbye to Charles for the summer so we took him down to St. Louis where he caught a train to Kansas City to sell pesticide.  Fun stuff.  After we dropped him off we went to a yummy Korean restaurant for dinner and then to the Peabody Opera House to see SUFJAN!  He's my fave, for sure!  We had great, I mean completely amazing, seats!  And no one stood up in front of us, score!

Happy Birthday to my oldest son -- he came in with a bang and has been livening up our days ever since. I am so happy with the person he has become -- he is smart, has interesting opinions about everything, is a wonderful big brother, and is hi-lar-i-ous!!!

He did it!

We joined a farmers coop this year so we paid in advance and will go to pick up our crate every Tuesday.  It actually started last week, but I had something else that night and couldn't go pick it up.  The farmer said that I could get a double portion tomorrow as long as there are leftovers so that was nice of him.

Yesterday was crazy.  It was Charles' graduation so that was fun! Congratulations! We couldn't be more proud of our little sack of flour  It was very similar to Ella's graduation ceremony, but the talks were better at hers.  Charles looked so incredibly bored!  I'm sure you can recall his usual pained expression.  Just add a purple robe and hat to that.  He said that only interesting part was walking across the stage.  Ellen was there being a "marshal" so she had on a white robe and helped everyone to their seats, etc.  She is Junior Class President and has already been elected as Senior Class President.   Doesn't that seem a little strange?  I don't think they should even let people run who have already been the president, but that is just me.  Spread the love!  I didn't tell her that, though.  She came to our house for dinner and we were telling her that her talk should be better next year -- she didn't give one this year, in case that sounded totally rude.

Last Friday we had the ward campout.  Charles had to work --  he got a job at a Thai restaurant which is awesome!  We are excited for him and will hopefully get some food out of the deal.  And today he started his other job at the Bloomington library.  Two totally nice environments, don't you think?  Way better than fast food.  Anyway, everyone else went and we all even stayed the night!  I was having a lot of fun singing around the campfire with Melissa McLaughlin and others when this new lady in our ward came out of her tent (her family put theirs the closest to the campfire so that was their first mistake) and told us that if we were going to be there until 2:00 a.m. then they were just going to go home right then.  Then she looked at me and told me that  I am so loud!  And that she could hear my voice above everyone else and it just carries so far!  I was mortified!  Mind you, almost everyone and their kids were still up running around and making noise, but I'm the loud one.  Great.  So I grabbed Lucy and Ibby and we went to bed right away.  Matthew had already gone to the tent with the boys and he said he couldn't hear us.  Anyway, I couldn't sleep at all because I was so upset.  And I was laying on a twig.  And there were really loud frogs croaking.  I got up around 6 not having slept at all, but we took the boys on a walk and then she and her family were gone when we got back.  She is a funny person.   Anyway, I decided to write her a note and tell her that I was sorry that I am so loud, that I don't have a sense of time and didn't know how late it was, and that I'm pretty inconsiderate anyway and hadn't thought for one second that my singing was bothering anyone.  She hit a nerve with the loud thing.  I hate that about myself.  And Matthew has been telling me how loud I am every chance he gets ever since.  So playful!  She wrote back and said that she was sorry, too and was just frustrated because her kids couldn't go to sleep.

That is your story for the week.  Not much else going on.

Memorial Day

We just set out for the parade and then to the cemetery, but as we were passing Wesleyan I heard a badump, badump noise and mentioned to Matthew that we just might have a flat tire.  Sho' nuff that is what it was.  We were all just going to stay there while he put on the spare tire, but then Archie mentioned that he needed to poop.  So I walked home with the boys and Matthew went to see if there are any places open today that can take care of the tire.  Fun stuff!!!  But it is giving me a chance to write in my blog and I don't even have the baby today, yay!!!  He is really sweet and all, but it is tiring taking care of a newborn.  I heard the saddest story about a woman in California who had three daughters ages 2, 1, and 2 months and she killed them all last Friday.  They said they found the mom naked, in a daze, covered with blood.  My first thought is that she probably was just wanting to take a shower, but they were screaming at her and she just lost it!  I just feel so bad for her!!! And her husband!  And her whole family.  Oh my goodness.  It can be hard to take care of babies.  And moms need support.  In the past, people were usually living with their parents, aunts, uncles, etc.  Lots of people who could help hold babies or cook or clean, but now people are so separated and alone.  We ended up being able to get to the parade and over to the cemetery to go on the trolley with Miss Jen Jen.

We always enjoy romping around cemeteries!

It has been a busy week.  I had the annual mother's day tea last Wednesday.  I have moved it to a park since there are so many people now.  I put table cloths and flowers on two long tables and people proceeded to sit their children at the pretty tables and then the women were all sitting at un-table-clothed tables.  That was the only buggy thing.  Everything else was lovely -- the weather, the food, the people.  So I guess it is worth all of the headache.  There was also the Bent School carnival.  The kids had fun, but we didn't stay very long.  I missed Ali Harvey's graduation party.  It was on Friday and I didn't remember until Saturday afternoon.  NCHS had their graduation on Saturday and BHS will have it next Sunday.  Charles is doing a graduation party with Sam at his grandparents house on Lake Bloomington.  I don't know how many people want to go clear out there, but we will see.  It should still be fun.

I've been working a lot in the garden.  I spent tons of money, lots of time and effort, and then I just have to hope for the best!  It hasn't rained for a long time so I have to walk around hosing everything down.  Rain dance, rain dance! 

I'm reading an interesting book about Energy and people's auras.  I haven't gotten very far so we'll see how it develops :)

Prom!

This week was nice.  It is getting warmer and the grass is getting greener. 

Lucy made the colorguard team.  She just found out today and is very excited.  Also, Charles found out today that he got a job at the library.  He has been looking for one since November!  So we are so glad.  It is not full time, though, so he really should find another job, too.

Prom was on Saturday so that was a big to do.  We went to take pictures and then later I went to help with After Prom.  It was crazy!  Ella tried to describe it to me, but I didn't have the scope in my head.  I helped with the prize corner and it was busy the whole time.  I didn't get home until 3:30 a.m. and Charles didn't come home until 11 a.m.  It was annoying.  He missed church and so did my entire Sunday School class!  Emma Harvey was the only one there out of 12 kids!  So I just took her to Gospel Doctrine with me.  I didn't want to waste my amazing lesson on one kid, right?  Ellen was Prom Queen and her cousin, Maureen, crowned her since she was the queen last year.  Quite the family!

The dining room is pink as of today!!!

I'm tired.

I need to go outside because Archie is crying.

Some prom pics!

::a candid one

 ::the cute couple

 ::the boys

 ::my favorite one

Charlie boy!

Happy 18th birthday to this guy! Oh, what a cute boy, yes you are!

 

This is what we got Charles Smith for his birthday because he s̶m̶e̶l̶l̶s, ahem, likes to smell good. We are also allowing him to live here until graduation.
 

Whew!  We are just busy!  But it is good.  I am really enjoying the sunny, albeit rather windy, spring and feel like we dodged the bitingly cold winter bullet this year.  It is so comforting to have the grass greening up and the leaves back on the trees where they belong. There is something about this time of year that makes me restless!  Spring fever, as it were.  My friend moved a couple of weeks ago (sob, sob) and it made me want to move, too!  We have halfheartedly looked around for a bigger house, but my husband relentlessly reminds me that we are reaching the peak of our full capacity -- steadily chug, chug, chugging up that first steep hill of the roller coaster, almost there to that breathless pause of no return, looking down the empty track at nothing for the sheer drop off. Then the mechanism releases and we are off, with our hearts in our throats, letting them off one by one until Matthew and I finally, out of breath, finish the ride alone.  It's all downhill from here, right?  I'm not ready for this!  So we probably don't need a bigger house, I just like to dream about it sometimes.  We might go look at one tonight (rubbing hands together in anticipation...).  I also have been plotting to just switch some rooms around to stave off my itch for change.  I'll keep you posted about that.

Last week Charles turned sixteen!  Everyone is surprised he wasn't that old already.  He does look mature for his age, but rest assured, I am fairly certain he isn't acting older than he is.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday since I couldn't think of anything, and he replied, "I'm content."  Amazing.  He is funny all the time and keeps us laughing.  Last week we had a kind of humorous incident.  I made the all-time best snicker doodles ever!  They were baked to absolute perfection and I ate too many.  Well, the next morning Lucy failed to see a glass in front of the microwave before she opened it and said glass crashed to the floor.  Almost simultaneously in another part of the kitchen the cookies also crashed to the floor.  Matthew put the cookies back in their container because they were just too good to throw away and then cleaned up the glass.  We felt it would be safest to put a note on the cookies explaining that the possibility, however remote, of glass being on them was there.  It said, "Be careful!  There may be small pieces of glass on the cookies.  Look before you eat."  When Charles came home from school he thought that we were just trying to keep him from eating the cookies and was horrified to learn that there really could be glass on them.  He yelled, "I should throw them away for everyone's sake!  Are you trying to kill us?  There is no way I am eating any."  I tried to assure him that if I really thought there was glass, I would have discarded them.  He was disgusted.  The next morning on the box of cereal was this note from him, "Be careful of poisonous fruit that looks like raisins in the cereal."  Ha, ha!  On Saturday I took part in the Great Cloth Diaper Change -- where people all over the world changed a diaper all in the same moment.  It was mostly to bring awareness to cloth diapering and to the fact that in every minute in the U.S. 60,000 disposable diapers are thrown away -- every minute!!!  Well, Charles thought that was THE most absurd thing he had ever heard of in all his days.  Yesterday, at our family meeting as we went over the calendar for the week he very straight faced-ly added that he was getting together with 100 other guys on Saturday at 2:00 to simultaneously pee in a urinal.  Matthew was confused to say the least, but I knew right away that I was being mocked!!!  So Happy Birthday, insolent one!  Love you!

gallivanting

I inevitably forget my camera when we go out, but thanks to our cool new phones, (we got the most amazing deal on a new phone plan which was very exciting because some kids wanted phones, some kids wanted texting -- can you believe we made it so long without it?  And it is already causing trouble...) I was able to take some pictures while we were out last weekend.  They're not the best, but they will do.

We went down to Springfield to see Charles run in his third cross country meet.  He is doing really well and got 13th out of over 90 kids.  He was very excited because they gave the first 20 a medal.  I have no pictures of him, not that he would've let me, so I suppose since I didn't even think of it he obviously has conditioned me.  He rode home on the bus so we took the three youngest over to New Salem.  It is so beautiful there and they happened to be having a bluegrass festival.  Matthew sat and listened to some great music while the kids and I visited some of the little dwellings.  And by little I mean minuscule-y tiny.  Some of those families had 9 or 10 kids with only one room!  We think we have it so bad sometimes and we in all actuality absolutely do not.  We came home and thought our house was so spacious and had a lot more rooms than we actually need.  A separate kitchen and indoor toilet are merely luxuries.  We also decided that what we do need is a family bluegrass band, doesn't everyone?  There were people playing the banjo, the ukulele, the dulcimer, the bucket (?), apparently anything goes -- now I know what we're getting for Christmas...

After New Salem we missed an important turn, but decided that we were perfectly capable of finding the freeway by taking country roads in the correct general direction.  Normally our rule is to never turn around or backtrack, but  we ran into this:

And a whole lot of this:

And had basically decided that the new rule was that yellow lines on the road were mandatory when we ran into this:

Can you see that rusty car in the silo?  It was amazing and must have happened during a tornado years ago!  And to think that we might have gone through our whole life without seeing it just because it is on an extremely remote Illinois back road -- that was a close call!