Mom would often have candy in her purse, whatever kind she happened to be into at the moment. As a kid, I was annoyed that she had that little stash all to herself. As an adult and mom with a candy stash of my own, I get it.
Today would have been her seventieth birthday, a milestone year. I decided to mark the day by pulling out a picture from her last birthday, eating the types of candy she stashed in her purse, and listening to her memorial service. I'm so thankful for that recording and that Dad took the time many years ago to create a slide show for it.
Our kids were recently invited to join our orthodontist's float in the Robin Hood Festival Parade. Devon was an immediate no, Naomi was a solid maybe, and Tyler was an enthusiastic yes. This morning Naomi and I dropped Tyler off in the staging area with the Senestraro Family Orthodontics crew, then walked down the road to take care of an errand. On the way back she made a last minute decision to join her brother. I found a place to sit, visited with some people sitting nearby, read a book while I waited, and then watched the parade.
We skipped the other festivities because we all happen to be in spending freezes with our personal fun money budgets and headed home after the parade. Tyler read, Naomi and I napped.
A couple hours later we headed over to the Woodburn Public Library for one of their summer reading program events, a dance performance by Paradise of Samoa. It was gray outside when we arrived, but the sun eventually broke through. Tyler and I made our way to the shade, but Naomi opted to soak up some rays while she watched the show.
There was one song where the group invited kids to join in the performance. Tyler and Piper, a friend of ours who happened to be there, both went up on stage. They're on the right side of the back row.
He had fun dancing and was pretty happy to get an unexpected handful of candy after the song.
It's not uncommon for people who work at a church to end up sacrificing their families and/or their general well-being on the altar of ministry, so Silas and I had a chat way back when he first got on staff at our church about setting boundaries, continuing to make time with family and friends a priority, and pointing out some role models in that area. He and I have similar personalities, so I know how easy it could be for him to let work consume his life. It's hard to say no to things you value and enjoy, but he's seen firsthand through his extroverted mom who likes to be involved in everything exactly what it looks like to be over-committed. It's not pretty.
Right now he's paid an hourly wage, not a salary, and there are limits on how much time he works because he's a minor, so there are built-in boundaries for how much time he spends at work, but so far he's done a great job of continuing to make the relationships in his personal life a priority. One of the things I've loved to watch is how he makes a point to do something fun with his siblings almost every Monday. That's the one day he has completely off each week and he usually initiates some sort of outing with them. This week Devon and Naomi are out of town, so he gave Tyler a ride to work (he's filling in for Devon), treated him to some Dutch Bros, and then they spent time in the river at Mary S. Young Park.
Once they'd done all the jumping they wanted to, they swung by the church so Silas could pick up his guitar (and struck a silly pose in the parking lot), bought groceries for dump cake (which they made for their dinner while Tim and I were on a date), and picked up a free Redbox with a code I wasn't using.
Feeling grateful for the time he'd spent with Tyler that day, as well as the time he takes with his sibs most Mondays, I asked for a picture with him. Sappy mom.
Silas and Tyler hunkered down for their movie, watched Studio C videos later, and went to bed after Tim and I did.
This is what I woke up to this morning. Ha!! They'd actually made a double batch of dump cake last night, a large pan for Tyler and two small ones for Silas.
Naomi has spent the last week celebrating her birthday. It started with the traditional doughnut date with Tim. Since they share a birthday, they decided to spend a big chunk of the day collecting various birthday freebies while running a couple errands.
Of course, they had to sing their annual song to themselves. The lighting and sound aren't very good this time around, but I can't not post it. I mean, it's tradition!!
A few days later Grace and Elizabeth came over for an evening of jumping on the trampoline, painting nails, eating treats, and watching a movie.
Then it took another few days for us to remember to take pictures in the birthday outfit, which is always a silly affair.
And that was that. She's officially another year older.
We have a tradition called "Family Fun Friday" where all the Ws who are home on a Friday evening spend time doing something fun together and eating a snack of some sort. Last Friday Tim and I saw four flavors of Hubert's Lemonade, which we'd never heard of, at Wheeler Dealer, so we snagged one of each, along with a few bags of chips, and brought them home to the kids.
We all had a lemonade sampling session, which was fun because we're (mostly) water and (sometimes) tea drinkers, then ate chips and popcorn while we watched Ragamuffin, the story of Rich Mullins. Here's a quick family picture taken in the middle of trying all the lemonade varieties.
On Sunday night we had a snowball fight in our living room. Everyone was laughing and panting, layers were getting shed and windows opened (and it's cold here) as people worked up a sweat, and there was a fair amount of trash talking. We spent about 45 minutes pelting each other and it was so much fun!
Here's the crew in action.
And here's a little explanation, along with more action.
We snapped a quick picture in the middle of the fight, partly for the memory and partly because we needed to rest for a minute. The gradual loss of clothing layers from the first video through this picture show you just how hard we were playing. It got hot in our living room!
If you're looking for a fun Christmas gift for a family or just want to bring some fun into your own home, I highly recommend getting a tub of Snowtime Anytime snowballs! It took us nearly a year to use this gift from Ashley, but it was a blast and I predict a whole bunch of snowball fights in our future.
In case you think these pictures and videos indicate life is always a party here and we love every minute we spend together, let me assure you we have plenty of conflict. In fact, we probably have more tension than you'd expect. Sometimes sharing a life and roof with other people is super hard, but that's what makes things like lemonade sampling and indoor snowball fights so awesome! It's good to do something fun together, make some positive memories, and laugh a whole bunch. Those are the moments that carry you through the rough patches, right?
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My nephew, Hunter, came to visit us by himself four years ago and with my dad two years ago. He came again with my dad earlier this week for some cousin time, which was great. We got back from our camping trip on Sunday and they arrived 24 hours later. We spent the evening relaxing at home with pizza, ice cream, popsicles, and Secondhand Lions. Tyler, who always wants to sit as close to Papa as possible, ditched him in favor of Hunter for most of this visit. Thankfully, Dad was mature enough to handle the rejection.
The plan for Tuesday was to visit Get Air Salem, but Silas suggested we leave early and spend some time at Bush's Pasture Parkfirst. We love it there, so we took his suggestion. The kids half-heartedly complied with a request for a group picture before we let them loose to play.
We thought we'd sacrificed a soccer ball to the park when Devon, who had been kicking it up in the air, somehow managed to get it caught on a high branch. Miraculously, he was able to knock it back down just minutes before we had to leave. Crisis averted.
I made everyone take a selfie with me.
I noticed Hunter sneaked a bark chip into our picture at the last second ...
... but didn't notice until the day after he left that the next picture we took was blurry. The only blurry picture was with the person I see the least, of course. Life goes on.
Naomi asked me to get a video of her on a swing, so I did.
Hunter and Tyler were inseparable most of the visit, including our walk back to the car as we left the park.
Off we went to Get Air for two hours (plus an extra 15 minutes, which was cool). Devon played dodgeball about 95% of the time, while Silas, Hunter, Naomi, and Tyler jumped and jumped and jumped. I got a few videos, three by request from Silas and Naomi and a sneaky one of Hunter who learned to do a back flip while we were there.
Dad also got some videos and made a fun compilation of them.
I got one group shot of the kids just before our time was up, then we headed home.
Tim joined the rest of us after work that evening for dinner, games, puzzles, and chatting. Three of the kids played Speak Out for a while, which was pretty funny to watch.
With about five minutes of daylight left, I suddenly remembered we hadn't taken a group picture with everyone in it. Most of us weren't particularly in the mood for posing at that point, but we all survived the experience and now have evidence that we spent time together.
The night ended with two kids playing Rat Slap, a game I'm pretty sure Hunter will be a master of by the next time we see him.
I'm glad Dad put the time and effort into making the trip happen and that Hunter was able to get away for a few days. It was a fun visit!
Get Air had a great Cyber Monday deal last November, which Tim and I gave the little Ws as a group gift at Christmas. Snow and ice storms, illness, and scheduling conflicts kept them away for over four months, but they finally got to use their gift yesterday. I got them all in the same place for a quick photo about halfway through their jumping time, but neither attempt turned out well. Such is life. Spending a lot of time trying to get the perfect picture wasn't as important as them simply enjoying their time. And they did enjoy it. A lot!
They did stuff alone, in various sibling groupings, and with other people there, including a young man they later learned is paid by Get Air to do tricks in their promo videos. They were all doing various jumps and flips the whole time we were there, so I said I was willing to record two tricks per kid. My purpose was so they could show Tim later, but I'll go ahead and share them here. It's not high quality video and these weren't necessarily their best tricks, but they're the tricks the kids chose and the video quality is good enough to see what they did.
They each thanked me for our gift to them in the midst of jumping, one said it was the best Christmas present ever, they all talked about how fun it was on the way home, and the outing made it into the "best" category of "hardest and best" at bedtime. I think we chose wisely when we bought that gift!
All the little Ws have a silly side, but Devon and Teebs are the goofiest and most random, by far. This is how Teebs walked into the living room one day. No reason other than he thought smashing his nose flat and pulling his cheeks forward with a rubber band sounded like a good time.
Devon reached behind himself during a meal to grab a yam, then used it as a phone for doing Mrs. Doubtfire impersonations.
This is what I saw across the table when I sat down to dinner one night. Because, why not? I mean, if one buys a huge roll of duct tape, one must come up with creative ways to use it. Right?
Then I looked over and saw Devon's leadership skills in action.
Then this happened later in the day.
Teebs started singing the always obnoxious, super repetitious lyrics to Watch Me, a song the little Ws picked up somewhere unknown to me. It refers to the Nae Nae, a dance move, but we discovered that Teebs didn't really know what he was singing about. He got a little embarrassed and awkward once I busted out the camera and asked him about it, but it's still funny.
These two can drive me bonkers with their shenanigans sometimes, but more often than not they make make laugh.
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The first half of Naomi's birthday was filled with grocery shopping and produce harvesting, but we squeezed all of our birthday traditions into post-nap afternoon and evening. Tim's been gone anywhere from 5-17 hours for work lately, so we started Naomi's celebration without him because we didn't know if he'd be home before she went to bed. Silas is out of town missing the whole thing completely, so it was the least amount of Ws we've ever had around for a birthday. Such is life, though, and we just rolled with it.
Naomi requested teriyaki burgers with pineapple and tomatoes, Pirate's Booty, and sour cream and cheddar Ruffles for dinner. I don't know what it is about the little Ws and those Ruffles, but they make an appearance at almost every one of their birthday meals.
We busted out the birthday outfit and she posed for a few pictures. The one legged girl with a tail was the first one.
Then came the normal pose.
She wrapped things up with another goofy shot before changing back into her own clothes.
She and I went to LimeBerry for our ice cream (or frozen yogurt, as the case may be) date after dinner. We didn't realize until we sat down that we got the exact same thing - Dole pineapple and strawberry lemonade sorbet. So tasty! Especially the pineapple one!
Later in the evening she opened gifts from the other Ws and we snapped sibling shots of her with Devon and Teebs. I guess we'll have to add one with Silas after he's back in town.
Finally, she and Tim went out for their doughnut date after bedtime had come and gone. That's usually a morning outing, but Tim was out the door just after 5:30 this morning. There isn't anywhere with doughnuts in town that's open that early, even if they'd wanted to get up early enough to accommodate his work schedule, so they just bumped it to the end of the day and we're grateful it wasn't one of the nights that he gets home at 11:00. Looks like she enjoyed her treat!
They busted out the 2016 version of their birthday duet ...
... and then posed together before heading back home.
And that was that!
UPDATE: I totally forgot that this year I was combining posts about actual birthdays and birthday celebrations into one single post, which meant I posted about Naomi's birthday two days before her party. Oops! So I'm coming back on 8/13 to add some pictures of her party, which was earlier today.
Naomi wanted to hang out at Ibach Park for her birthday, so we had a low-key morning there with a bunch of friends. The kids played, the adults visited, Naomi opened gifts, and the kids ate some of Naomi's favorite candies instead of cake and ice cream,. The party was mid-morning, so our family packed a lunch to eat at the park when the party was over. I'd given the guests a heads up about our plan, so several other people brought their own lunches and hung out a little longer with us after the party technically ended.
I took a quick picture of the first three girls at the party, then promptly got distracted with talking to people and failed to take any more candid or posed shots of the kids playing together.
I did, however, get one of all the kids before Naomi opened gifts.
Naomi's been asking to have time alone with these two ladies for months on end. They weren't alone, but they were together and Naomi was absolutely thrilled when she found out they'd both be at her party!
I also managed to get a couple shots of her opening gifts before I totally slacked again in the camera department.
Fun morning with people we love!
UPDATE: Here are some pictures Steve took of the girls.
