Am I An Exercise Fanatic?

Twice in the past week, Ryan has said that I am becoming an exercise fanatic (those may not be his exact words, but that is the tone I got from him).  Now it is true that in our 18.5 years of marriage, the ONLY time I have ever been consistently awake and moving before 8 am was the 12 weeks I worked the 0600 shift at Delta Air Lines in 1997. And now, since June 1, I've set my alarm to wake me up at 5:45 am every Tuesday and Thursday to join the Exercise Mommas at the church building. And I even went today, knowing full well that I'd be hiking up Table Rock (while toting Beatrix in the backpack) with the cub scouts at 8:30 this morning.

Beatrix fell asleep on the way down.

I have exercised regularly before. Walking with Lindsay Daniel (and Wendy Bushman and Stacy Smith) on the circuit around our neighborhood while pushing Sabrina in a stroller. I had a YMCA membership for a while where I did water aerobics while pregnant with Roderic and then did a personal training fitness regimen after he was born.  Pushing Roderic and Hyrum in the double stroller with Amy Mella around the circuit - and even up the hill to Albertson's on occasion. I even trained for and participated in a 5k race when I was expecting Leo.

But all of these times have been during his work day. Now Ryan is actually seeing me come back from exercise with my face beet red and hearing me complain about my sore muscles. A. Lot. Because the woman (Tiffany Hortin) who is coming up with all of the 'boot camp' torture exercises is spectacular at helping me use all sorts of long neglected muscles in my body. I am feeling stronger. I have more stamina - although I have been taking naps in the afternoon, but I think that is because I haven't been going to bed any earlier. I can do hard things (like completing 80 push-ups, 80 jump squats, 80 chair dips and 70 jump lunges in 10 minutes after already having exercised for 25 minutes).

So perhaps he is on to something...

Meet Dash

When I was off in Colorado Springs singing with my women's barbershop chorus the first weekend of May, Ryan and the boys went to an adoption event hosted by the Idaho Humane Society. (Sabrina stayed home to do homework.) And they brought home a dog. It was to be a surprise for me.

That is the way I like to tell the story. It sounds more incredulous that my husband would adopt a dog while I was out of town. And it really did happen that way, except I encouraged it a little.

Ryan has been wanting a dog of our own ever since we finished caring for Toto (Ryan's parent's dog) in 2012. But I was not interested in getting one at that time because we were expecting Beatrix. Then we watched Toto again in the summer of 2013 and Ryan really enjoyed having her follow him around when working outside. So we started (halfheartedly) looking for dogs online.

We knew we wanted a small dog that would be good with children. The majority of the small dogs listed on the Humane Society website were Chihuahua mixes, Jack Russell Terrier mixes and Pit Bull Terrier mixes - none of the breeds we were interested in. We also looked into Westie puppies, Cocker Spaniel puppies and Cockerpoo puppies, but I really wasn't interested in spending that much money and doing all the necessary training.

The week I was preparing to travel to Colorado Springs, I saw an article in the news (digital version on my Kindle Fire) about 90 small breed dogs being flown in from California that would be available for adoption that weekend. I told Ryan about it and sent him a link to the article saying that there may be a dog that would be a more desirable breed for us. So he went and picked out Nelson, who is a Cairn Terrier mix from Orange County, California born in April 2010. I don't like my animals to have human names, so we had a naming contest at home with votes for Sobaka, Skitters and Snowy. Skitters got the most votes, but I wasn't a fan. Then Sabrina looked up skitters in the thesaurus, found Dash listed and the name stuck.

Except Leo had a setback after we took Dash to see "the dog doctor who is not a dog" about Kennel Cough. We went to the Humane Society clinic and according to their records his name is Nelson so that is what the staff called him, so then Leo wanted to return to calling him Nelson. We have since decided he can be Dash Nelson and Leo is the only one who uses his full name.

Dash doesn't bark a lot. He does whine though, so if you ask Beatrix what a dog says (if she answers) she whines like Dash. He obviously wants to live indoors, but that isn't going to happen. He sits completely still when getting a bath. But if he sees a leash, he jumps around like crazy. So much that it is really hard to get the leash attached to his collar. He was trained to stand and beg. And he prefers the females in our family to the males.

I can call on the Power of God

This morning Roderic got to go to the dentist to have two teeth filled. We found out yesterday at his semi-annual dental cleaning that he has 4 cavities.  All on his left side, two upper and two lower. Two permament and two baby.

As I was telling him what to expect as we were driving to the appointment, I could tell he was starting to get nervous. The great unknown of having your mouth made numb and all. When we parked, I asked him if he'd like to say a prayer before going into the dentist office. He said yes. I asked if he would say it or if he'd like me to pray. He designated me. And so I prayed. Asking for the Comforter to be with Roderic throughout the procedure and in the lingering numbness afterwards. Asking for the Spirit to guide the dentist's hands. What a rush of the Spirit of God was felt in our minivan. It was amazing.

What's in Nutella

We are a reading family. Books, Comics, Billboards, Signs, Food Packaging.  So it should come as no surprise that Leo would come up to me and say, "Mom, do you know what's in Nutella?"  I like to engage my children in a conversation, so instead of being a know-it-all, I replied, "No, what?"  Without missing a beat he says, "Coconuts, flowers and bushes. Crazy huh? But it still tastes good!"

Well, if you read the picture on the Nutella packaging with some awesome 4-year-old eyes, it sure does look like Nutella is made with coconut, flower and bushes.  Yum!

As I'm writing this post and Leo sees the picture, he asks, "Why is it called Newtella, cause that {container} isn't new it is old!"

 And yes, today for lunch he had a Nutella and Grape Jelly sandwich.  So did Hyrum. They said it was the best ever.

Finding my groove...

I have had a feeling for quite some time that as a mother of 3 boys, I would have the opportunity to be a Cub Scout Leader.  I was asked to serve as the Wolf Den Leader in July 2013 - about 6 weeks after Roderic graduated from the Wolf Den.  Hyrum will join the Wolf Den in October and he REALLY wants me to still be the leader.  Let's just say that if I had my way, I'd be den leader until Leo is done with Cub Scouts. I love working with 8-year-old boys! 

One of the first things I worked on as a new den leader was my uniform.

I made the pattern from Caitlin's vintage Den Mother Dress.  It took a few months and finally I had the push to get it finished in time for "A Century of Honor" the broadcast celebrating 100 Years of Scouting in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Our stake watched the broadcast together on November 6, 2013.  So my uniform is home made, but I feel justified in that because the one I copied is also home made.  It makes sense because in the 1950s off the rack dresses were out of the budget of many.  I found the vintage hat and 'den mother' badge on ebay. I do also have a yellow uniform shirt that I wear with pants when we're doing an activity that isn't comfortable in a dress, like picking up litter in the neighborhood.

In January, I got really excited to build a pinewood derby car to race against my 7 wolves.  Ryan worked hard with Roderic to design and build his car.  Ryan also worked with Hyrum, who was able to be in the "Open Class" of racers.  My car lost every race against the wolves, however it did finish the race ahead of CubMaster Midgley's Model T.

 

Soon after the Pinewood Derby, I was asked to serve as the Pack Committee Chair while still being a den leader.  That added a new layer of scouting for me and requires some leadership and communication skills that I'm still working on acquiring.  The thing that has tried my patience the most though was when my assistant den leader was released and it took a couple of months for a new one to be called.  The moms of the wolf scouts did a great job of coming and assisting each week, but it was quite stressful to have to come up with ideas, plan and execute a den meeting each week.

 

On occasion I have brought the 3 younger kids with me to scouts, but usually Sabrina is able to stay home with Hyrum, Leo and Beatrix for the 90 minutes on Thursday afternoons.

 

Now we're gearing up towards Day Camp and then a summer full of  Cub Scout Adventures!

What would you do?

What would you do if when you tried to do your homework right afterschool you discovered that you left your booklet at school?  Would you ask your mom to call your classmate who lives next door?  What if she isn't home and your mom leaves a message and then the friend calls you back close to bedtime?  Would you run next door and borrow the book by yourself?  Would you barely enter the house, lay down on the floor in the entryway and read the assignment, finishing in less that 2 minutes?

If you said yes to these questions, then you must be Hyrum!

Our Parade of Nations

One thing we've done during the Olympics since 2002 (thank to Grandma Gibby for buying us Betty Crocker Olympic sugar cookie mix complete with flag cookie cutters) is make flag shaped cookies and frost them to be flags of countries competing in the Olympics.

This year, I made the rule that if they wanted to eat 1 cookie, they needed to decorate 5.  Otherwise they wouldn't help.  That is, until we got going, then they were sad when we ran out of cookies.

We had fun asking "OK Google Now" to show us images of the flags of the different countries.

Roderic designed Great Britain, Japan, Israel, Italy, and Latvia.

Hyrum designed Russia, Argentina, Venezuela, Switzerland, Spain, China, and Norway.

Leo (with Mom's help) designed Ukraine, Armenia, Brazil, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland, Jamaica, Sweden

Sabrina designed USA, Greece, Mexico, Canada, Poland, France, Denmark

 We let Ryan eat the Russian flag.