Happy Mother’s Day!

May 10, 2015 By

I’ve been blessed with an amazing mom, mother-in-law and friends who are superb examples of what a noble and sacred calling motherhood really is. I absolutely love this quote:


“You will never be this loved again. So, on those days when you are feeling stressed out, touched out, and depleted, just remember that you will never be this loved again. One day you will long for their affection. So choose a soft voice, choose gentle hands, choose love.” -AK

I was recently talking to Bode about our summer plans and I told him that he and his sister were not going to wimp out at Elitch Gardens Theme Park. Last year, the park opened a new ride called the Brain Drain and they refused to go on this fun 7-story ride that does that sends riders forwards, backwards and head-over-heels in an adrenaline-packed 360° revolution. I’m a firm believer in pushing kids out of their comfort zones. However, I’m not out to traumatize them. At Disney, they go on rides far scarier and they drag me on Space Mountain (which I HATE).

A couple of years ago, my friend Tina made me ride the Mind Eraser at Elitch and it was 90 seconds of sheer hell. And swearing. Then repentance.  I’d never make them go on that.

But the Brain Drain is a nice, gentle introduction to Hades, without all the fire and brimstone. Bode doesn’t agree.

“Mom, I’m not going on the Brain Drain. You can’t force a child to do something.”

“I can and I will. It’s called motherhood.”

 

Filed Under: Bode, holidays, Humor

You make one little mistake and you get burned

May 7, 2015 By

I apparently made a cardinal sin last week: I accidentally woke up Hadley. On her day off.

In my defense, the kids have had lots of days and half-days off and it’s tough to keep track of their schedules, particularly because they go to different schools. And so yes, out of habit, I woke Hadley up.

I thought she’d gotten over it but apparently Bode hadn’t because I found this gem on his door on one of his vacation days:

No school. Don’t wake me up if you do you will be sorry. -Bode

 

The fire-breathing dragon was a nice touch.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

Our busiest week of the year: survived!

May 5, 2015 By

We invited Jamie’s parents to fly to Denver from Utah on one of our busiest weeks of the year. And I guess that was the point because they saw our kids in action like never before–a play, Tech week, soccer, Pack meeting, carnival and so much. And, bless their hearts, they survived our week of insanity by being as gracious as ever.

It started with me putting Jamie’s mom Linda to work the first day she arrived by sewing on Bode’s Bobcat badge.
You know, the rank that he received a year ago. We’ll call that one a mom fail.

He was excited to have both of his grandparents in attendance to see him receive his Wolf rank.

Don’t worry, I had Linda sew that badge on before she left. :-)

For four months, Hadley has been rehearsing a play with Colorado Acts and she was thrilled to have Jamie’s family in attendance.

Lame little brother photobomb notwithstanding.

Not only did she learn to sing, dance and act but the kids helped to craft the script and costumes for their original production of “What’s so Fabulous About the ’50s?” Lead character Ms. Oswald taught her class how fabulous the 1950’s were while answering the burning questions: Why is Rizzo in such an awful mood? Will Penny ever find out how to help her friend? Will Johnny ever B. Goode?

Hadley played Annette Funicello.

If this acting thing doesn’t work out, she has a future as a Mouseketeer.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor

Cub Scouts R Us

April 28, 2015 By

I can’t stand fundraisers. Of course, when most people get that “butter braid” handout, they don’t exactly leap for joy but Bode is sucked into the hype every single time. “But Mom, if I sell X amount of dollars, I’ll get my very own Frisbee!”

I’ll tell you what, Son. How about I just go buy you that Frisbee and then we don’t have to sell anything?

Usually, I’ll just write a check as donation but when money is tight, you don’t have that luxury. Bode has Cub Scout Twilight Camp this summer and we had the opportunity to defray the cost by selling camp cards with some awesome coupons for just $5 at our local grocery store. I reluctantly volunteered to take him and was delighted to discover my friend Dawn had signed her twin boys up as well.

We gave them the overview of what to say, how to present the camp cards and how to politely respond when people declined. Then, I hid in the shadows (like any bad fundraising mom would do) and reappeared when they closed the deal or needed additional help.

At first the boys were hesitant and sales were slow but something happened as they became my comfortable: Bode was one heck of a salesman! Bold. Confident. Kind. Cute. Irresistible. OK, that last adjective was my own but as the mother, he was pretty darn impressive.

Of course, most people walked by and kindly declined but that kid closed 30% of his sales and was completely fearless by the end.

When asked if they had fun, the boys enthusiastically responded “yes!” and didn’t even mind when people turned them down because they were all very nice about it.

“Look at it this way,” Dawn joked. “At least this rejection is preparing them for when they’re teenagers and start dating.”

Watch out, ladies.

 

I’d buy it from him

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

Accidental disobedience

April 23, 2015 By

“Hey Mom. Remember last night when we accidentally disobeyed you?”

“I don’t think that was accidental.”

“Oh yeah.”

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor

The Man. The Myth. The Legend

April 22, 2015 By

I’ve been working with the Cub Scouts for about six months. I’m still rather clueless and despise the record-keeping element of it but really enjoy hanging out with 9-year-old boys every week, probably because they’re around my same mentality.

On the way to Scouts the other day, Bode and his buddy Bryan were having a belching contest which, had it not been so disgusting, would have been impressive. Bryan observed, “Bode, your belches are louder but mine are juicier.”

I don’t even want to know what that means.

We’re in charge of a carnival for our entire Pack so we’ve spent the last few weeks preparing our carnival games. Because it seems like we’ve been working on these projects forever, I wanted to give the boys something else to look forward to so listed off some of our future activities.

“And then we’re going to the Majestic View Nature Center and also going on a one-mile hike. The week after, we have a very special field trip: We will be visiting with the Pumpkin Man who will teach us about composting.”

A new boy Jacob queried. “What the heck is the Pumpkin Man?”

Acting insulted, Seamus retorted, “YOU DON’T KNOW THE LEGEND OF THE PUMPKIN MAN?”

It won’t be for much longer.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor, pumpkins

And so it begins

April 17, 2015 By

The Johnson Family’s Sixth Annual Giant Pumpkin Season kicked off on April 15 with much excitement and fanfare.

Well, as much fanfare as you can muster when soaking a pumpkin seed in water, filing it down, placing it in a moistened paper towel and transferring it into a pot with bacteria-rich soil.

A few weeks ago Cheerleader Jamie sat the family down to watch Rise of the Giants, a (you guessed it), documentary about growing giant pumpkins.

One of the men in the video said something like, “Yep, my wife knows she’s played second best to my pumpkins for the last 20 years.”

I pointedly glared at Jamie.

“Look on the bright side, Amber. You only have 14 years to go.”

Filed Under: Humor, pumpkins

The Bunny Came Back

April 13, 2015 By

When Jamie and I were first married, he waged war with one of most treasured possessions: Mr. Bunny. When I went away to college, my mom started the tradition of sending me decorations for every holiday. This has continued even today and I have quite the collection.

Mr. Bunny has been with me for years. Not only is he cute and fluffy but he wiggles his cottonball tail while singing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” Who could resist that?

As it turns out, Jamie. Since those early days, he has developed a veritable hatred for rabbits partly because of Mr. Bunny but mostly because they are neighborhood pests who eat our garden. He has waged war to keep them out of our yard and has had the children in on the action from an early age. Whenever t Hadley would see a bunny, she was instructed to chase it out of the yard and if she caught it, she was going to “break his neck!”

Imagine this coming from a sweet 3-year-old’s mouth; obviously that was her father talking, not her. (Though her bestie Alex accidentally did that to her sister’s bunny when she was young. Jamie has never praised her more.)

The lowpoint of our newlywed years was after a particularly charming performance from Mr. Bunny, he went missing. I was worried sick…until I received a ransom letter from my new groom. Pictured on it was poor Mr. Bunny, bound and blindfolded with an encrypted message.  I don’t remember how his torture chamber played out but Mr. Bunny eventually returned but he never sang again. It was like his very fluffy soul had been stomped upon by the Enemy of the Easter Bunny Spirit.

Fast-forward to my recent visit to Canada. I haven’t been home for Easter in years so it was fun to bring out the multiple storage bins of Easter treasures from my youth.

Imagine my sheer delight when I was unpacking them to discover my mom had not one but TWO Mr. Bunnies, who were sting singing that beloved song. I begged my mom to take one home with me and she generously acquiesced. I would surprise Jamie and I knew just how excited he’d be!

I called home to give him a teaser. I mentioned we’d been decorating my parent’s house for Easter and that I had a special surprise for him.

“It’s not that ##$#$* rabbit, is it?”

Little did I know he’s also a soothsayer.

Filed Under: holidays, Humor, Jamie

April updates (nevermind that I’m overdue for Jan., Feb. and March)

April 10, 2015 By

I’m at the point I’m so woefully far behind on blogging that I’m never going to get caught up. And it’s too bad because we had a fantastic winter of travels–I mean, Canada, Colorado skiing and Mexico within a one-month span? Talk about amazing!

After taking several months off, both kids are back in sports. Hadley started volleyball this week and Bode is well into the soccer season. Everything seems to fall on Thursdays: piano lessons, Cub Scouts (for Bode and me), soccer practice, Activity Days at the church for Hadley and also volleyball games. Usually I handle all after-school activities but I’ve had to recruit Jamie because I can’t be 10 places at once.

Hadley has been taking a drama class from Colorado ACTS and their big performance is in a couple of weeks. We’re delighted Jamie’s parents will be joining us from Utah. I hope having extra bodies will help spread out the chaos. A few things:

Easter

Making Easter cookies

Our Easter was probably one of the most low-key we’ve had and not coincidentally, one of my favorites.  I forgot about our community Easter egg hunts and we didn’t get around to dyeing eggs but we didn’t miss them one bit. The kids are getting older and though they enjoyed our family’s Easter egg hunt on Sunday, they didn’t get caught up in bunny festivities like in years past.

Something we did do better was put Christ back in Easter. We did a “Holy Week” countdown, watched these awesome Bible videos and also A.D. The Bible Continues on NBC (I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see the networks picking up religious-based shows). On Easter, we made cinnamon rolls, watched General Conference, went to Jamie’s sister’s for brunch, took a long walk where we boomeranged and jumped over the serpentine stream about 100 times. At least Bode and Hadley did while Jamie and I leisurely strolled along as they accused us of being “anti-adventure.” Then I reminded her of the back-flip they all dared me to do on the trampoline last week and she shut up (’twas my first black-flip in 20+ years).  The girl barely figured out how to do a somersault.

School

After all the drama this year, we’ve decided to pull Hadley out of Mountain Phoenix Community School and put her back in our public school for sixth grade. It’s not a done deal yet–I’m meeting with the principal next week to talk through everything. Not the interim principal at her charter school who spews poison darts whenever she sees me but the new one at her old-new school.

Hadley was at our public school for K-2nd grade and still has a lot of friends there. I still don’t feel like it’s the best place that really taps into her talents and style of learning but for now, it’s our only/best option. I’m feeling a lot more peace since coming to that conclusion but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave our charter school quietly. It has the potential to be great (and it was for a while) but the administration and governing council are driving it into the ground and the result, as one of the parents voiced, “I feel like this school has lots its soul.”

Kids

I have a pretty strict rule on sleepovers: not until after you’re 8 years old and even then, rarely and we have to know the parents really well. I’ve heard too many horror stories and frankly, my kids haven’t been invited to many sleepovers because most of our friends don’t allow them. So tonight, Bode is having his first sleepover at his friend Sean’s house while Hadley was invited to enjoy court-side seats at the Nuggets basketball game with her friend Alex. Tomorrow, it’s a boy’s night out as Bode and Jamie go to the Avalanche hockey again (tickets courtesy of Uncle Chris) while Hadley and I will have an adventure up in the mountains. Basically, their social lives are better than ours.

Jamie

It’s pumpkin season. His will to live has returned.

Me

It’s pumpkin season. My will to live is gone.

 

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, Jamie, LDS

An oldie but a goodie

April 6, 2015 By

It’s that time of year that I dread: allergy season.

Actually, the ironic thing about fall and spring (when my allergies are at their worst) is they are my favorite seasons. But since I moved to Colorado, I am lambasted twice a year with miserable allergies which almost always lead to a sinus infection. I went to an allergist a few years ago who ascertained I’m allergic to pretty much every grass and weed in Colorado.

As an outdoor lover, this is not a badge I wear proudly.

I’ve done allergy shots but had to stop when our insurance changed and since that time I’ve found very little reprieve. A few years ago, I hit my limit when my daughter was sent home from preschool with pink eye. I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and made an appointment with my general practitioner. Now, let me preface this by disclosing I was in my second month of these mind-numbing allergies. I hadn’t slept in weeks and I was on my third sinus infection. CLICK TO KEEP READING

Filed Under: Humor
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