Playing Catch Up

I thought I'd give you a summary in pictures of what we have been up to the past 6 months so we are all caught up. Despite my last post, where I claim to only be doing a whole lot of house work during the day and nothing else, we really have been the busy family we always have been.

 

A little blurry, sorry. Sometime I like to just take a picture of my kids room when they are clean, because it is an amazing and rare sight.

 



 

The kids had to say goodbye to their first beloved pet, our little rat, Chrysanthemum :(

 

The Boy turned 12 and celebrated with his best friend at the new LEGO store grand opening.

 



 Our last minute Halloween costumes. I borrowed the shirt from The Boy.

 I liked Bruce's costume as Walter White better.

 

 I crocheted 2 Rainbow Dash hats for the girls for Christmas.

 

 

We took the kids to their first theater experience to see A Christmas Carol.

 

Christmas morning, everyone with their new hats and toys ready to go to Grandma's house.

 

The Boy got a Sonic Screwdriver, just like The Doctor. Probably his second favorite gift, behind the new Kindle Fire.

 

In 2014 I decided we would have family only birthday parties and continue on doing an every other year system for large parties with friends. This didn't stop me from making it fun for her though, it just simplifies my life a bit more.

 

 

And lastly I'll end with C's dance recital. She did great!

 

Well, now we are all up to speed, right?

 

Yeah, there is a bunch in between. My kids are the smartest and cutest kids in the whole school, my husband is the greatest lawyer that ever lived and I never forget to make dinner in the evenings and end up making bowls of cereal for everyone (one of those isn't completely true). 

 

Oh, there you are!

Oh, hello. You're still here? Me too.

 

Where have a been? Home.

 

No, not much exciting happened.

 

Why haven't I blogged?

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I have no idea.

 

Well that's not entirely true. I do think I figured it out. The last time I blogged was September, shortly after I sent the kids to school. All 3 of my kids to school... for the entire day. So you would think I would need some interaction, some one to talk to, an outlet while the kids were gone. As it turns out (and I didn't really understand this at the time I was writing frequently) that my blog was an escape for me while I was home with the kids. I needed someone to talk to, I needed something else to do besides take care of little children all day, I needed to show off my talents a little bit. While I was writing my blog I was daydreaming about the day I would send all my kids to school and have days to myself to write and create. 

 

But they left, I sent them off to school and the last thing I wanted to do was be at home. If you read my blog you know I love my kids. My kids and sewing is really all I talk about. But with my kids safely tucked away in their classrooms I was free for 6 hours to spend however I chose. However I chose usually meant a lot of housework, because that needs to get done and now I can do it without the kids under my feet, but it also means getting out of my house without a bag full of snacks, potty breaks and noise. So up until the time that winter set in and it got horribly cold (because it does that where I live) I was out and about and not at home on my computer or even at the sewing machine, even though I still love to create. The kids kept me at home a lot and though we would fill our days with a lot of fun and a lot of growth and learning, I still needed an outlet, and that was blogging and sewing (Mostly. Also a lot of Netflix).

 

I have to pick the kids up in 15 minutes and I miss them. I miss my husband too. My house is very clean and quite (for now... in 20 minutes it will be littered with backpacks, wet boots and homework) and I've crossed off everything on my to do list that was important to do. And yet, I feel like I've accomplished very little today. I don't really want to go back in time and relive when they were young, that was hard. And I probably wouldn't tell my younger self to "appreciate it while they are young because you'll miss them when they are gone to school". Because she knows that already, and she also knows that what she is doing right now (the diapers, the crying, the messes) is dang hard and she would love a break but she has to get back to work, she is needed. So despite the fact that I haven't done much in the way of molding and shaping the live of 3 little ones in the past 6 hours, I am proud of my success. It's silly, I know, but I feel like a survivor!

 

It's good. Summer will come eventually and they will be home ALL DAY and I will wonder how I ever did it before. In fact in about 4 minutes I'll wonder as I'm shuffling papers from school and starting dinner and telling them for the 15th time "NO computer until homework is DONE". So really not much has changed, I am just able to process my thoughts, clean my house, get my shopping done and have a cup of tea all in a much more organized and quite manner.

 

P.S. If anyone knows of a part time job between the hours of 9am - 3pm, let me know... it does get awfully quite around here sometimes :)

This Family's Electric Run

 

Over the summer The Boy participated in a track program. He did really well. Because of his ADHD I think it works well for him because it's one sport that he doesn't really need to concentrate on but instead just run until he's all out of energy. As a sort of reward for a great track season I signed the family up for a 5k called the Electric Run.

 

 

 

We had an amazingly fun time! The kids called it the "best night of our lives!!!"

 

We came home with dozens of free glow sticks!

 



And in the end it was a pretty big party! That night they were filming an episode of The Bachelor. We got to participate in the fun of that and at one point along the race route P got to give Juan Pablo a fist bump and a kiss on the cheek. I'm so totally jealous! :)

 

We are definitely doing this race again when it comes to town! I loved that we were able to show the kids how being healthy and active can be so much fun! Later that night I reminded The Boy of this and pointed out that there was no drinking, no drugs, and yet we had a really awesome time and partied way past bed time :)

 

 

Hobbit Party

Here's my promised Hobbit Party post. Pretty fitting since September 22nd is Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday!

 

In years past the kids and I have celebrated Harry Potter's birthday (see my post HERE for Harry Potter party ideas and printables). It was just a fun way to cure some boredom in the middle of the summer. Us Fransons can get a little geeky sometimes... ok all the time.  

 

Here we are at the Salt Lake City Comic Con a few weeks ago...

 

 

(Not LOTR, but Doctor Who...another Franson favorite)

 

I've always loved the Lord Of The Rings books. I first read them in high school, and when I met my husband and we were discussing books I recommended he give them a try. When he told me how awesome he thought they were I knew he was the man for me :)

 

This year I decided to skip Harry's party (we did still make a birthday cake for him) and throw a Hobbit party instead. We took the kids to see the movie when it came out last winter and they loved it. They came home and watched each of the LOTR DVDs. I was worried, they are pretty violent, but the boy was then inspired to read the books which made me very happy!

 

My favorite part of our party was my dinner table, which I actually thought resembled more of a dinner at Elrond's home in Rivendell or maybe Galadriel's meal by the river (oh jeez, I'm embarrassing myself with how nerdy I am!)

 



 

I created some invitations to give to the kids in the morning before we started our party day. Daddy was at work but he joined us later in the day. I took the wording for the invite from the contract the Dwarves gave Bilbo before they set off to reclaim their treasure from Smaug the dragon.

 

It reads...

"Thorin and Company to burglar [child's name], Greetings!

We accept your offer of personal assistance. We have proceeded in advance to make requisite preparations, and shall await your respected person on [date of party] at the Green Dragon Inn, Bywater at [time of party] sharp. Trusting that you will be punctual. Terms: cash on delivery. All traveling expenses guaranteed in any event. Funeral expenses to be defrayed by us or our representatives, if occasion arises. We have the honor to remain yours deeply, Thorin and company

 

You can find some pretty cool, free Hobbit fonts HERE.

 

So for our first set of adventures we headed to the backyard for some games. I picked up these cute little dragons at the dollar store for prizes for the kids...

 "Part of your share of the Lonely Mountain treasure" You could also have some chocolate coins waiting for them. It was a super hot day so I didn't want a chocolate puddle on the table.

 

I found a LOTR map online and added some of our games for the fun of it with photoshop.

 



 

"Flight of the eagles" See how far you can jump off the swing set...

 

"Spider web rescue" 3 legged race, we pretended we were tied together with a spider's web....

 

and "barrel roll escape" we did summersaults across the lawn...

 

After playing outside for awhile on a very hot summer day we headed inside for a snack, lunch, and to watch the Hobbit movie. For lunch we had "second breakfast" ... Eggo waffles, and for a snack during the movies we had some Gollum's goodies gummy worms...

I actually wanted to attach gummy fish but couldn't find them at the store that day. Worms are yuckier anyway.

 



 

After the movie daddy came home from work and he got to join us for the rest of our party. My kids have recently taken to archery and so we created some quivers for our arrows from some mailing tubes and duct tape. We also learned how to write our names in Elvish (thank you internet) and added those to our quivers.

By this time I'm feeling a little burnt out so I hand the kids their next Hobbit snack, Bilbo's trail mix, and send them off with daddy to the field near our home for target practice and to defeat the dragon Smaug.

 



Bilbo's trail mix "It's a dangerous business going out your door. You step on the road, and if you don't keep your feet there's no knowing where you might be swept off to"

 



The kids on their quest to defeat the dragon. Bruce carried the heavy target for them.

 

 

 

While they were gone I started on a true Hobbit style dinner...

 

 

We had pot pies for our main course, sausage, cheese, apples, root beer and apple pie for desert. 

My picky eaters refused to eat the pot pies so they got fish sticks instead. Their loss.

 



 

After dinner and on their way to put on their pajamas they had one last task: to cross through to the other side of Shelob's Lair....

I pulled out the box of Halloween decorations and some yarn to create a super spooky hallway.

 



 

Before bed we had story time, like the elves do after dinner in the evenings. We read a picture book created from one of Bilbo's poems called Bilbo's song. After that we tucked the kids in bed a cleaned up a big mess from a fun day.

Today at dinnertime when I told the kids it was not only the first day of autumn but Frodo and Bilbo's birthday they were seriously disappointed we didn't do more to celebrate. One of the greatest things for me about being a parent is sharing the things I love with my children.