little drummer boy

I have mentioned before, my little drummer, Seth.

Well I just find it extremely funny that while practicing his drum, he keeps asking me to guess what song he is playing.
Well . . .um. . . it's really hard to guess.
But he seems to think it should be obvious.

So I keep guessing and getting it very wrong.
Apparently he has played the beat to Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter, and even Happy Birthday but I have been clueless on them all.  Just sounds like, boom boom boom to me :)

Just let them sleep in a snow cave

Because they will survive in a snow cave.
And be proud to tell about it.

We do have winter in Arizona.  I love it.  Cool evenings and 70's in the day time.  But a month ago it was COLD!  And if you drive up into the mountains its even colder.
So the Deacons, well the non-wussy ones, went on a "winter-camp" in the Arizona mountains, a month ago.
The mountains were covered in snow and it rained most of the18 hours they were there.
But Seth slept in a snow-cave, swore he was toasty warm, and lived!  He is still very much alive, and as fighting with me about piano, as ever.

I have a over-nurturing condition.  So knowing my boys are suffering or perceiving my boys are suffering, tends to cause me pain.  When my neighbor picked them up for the camp-out, she wondered how her sons' equipment fit in one backpack and my boys had a large garbage bag and rubbermaide tote each.  I wondered myself.  Her poor, unwaterproofed, son.
My strategy for living through the thought of them living through the campout?
Left town.  Flew home to Utah for a late Anniversary celebration.

Like I said both of my boys were happy and warm when I returned.

An now a quick update of blessings and realities.:

• James is playing on a comp basketball team and loving it
• Peter just started little league football here
• Seth is enjoying flag football and soon soccer
• notice 2 of these sports are outdoors because you can play sports outside in January in ARIZONA
• Dave was able to go to the most recent Deacons camp.  weather was gorgeous!  Hiking and biking was awesome he says
• Peter found a friend who likes pokemon and legos, maybe as much as he does
• this friend even influenced peter to purchase 2 songs from 'the piano guys".  The rest of Peter's ipod is full of top 40 teenage, excuse my language, "crap", and some classic, though still a little hard, "rock" music.  So we are welcoming this addition of some instrumental music. 
• while Peter was with said friend, and the other 3 were at a campout, I watched the Emma Thompson/Hugh Grant version of Sense and Sensibility at a girlfriends house.  Since we talked through the whole thing I will just have to watch it again. 
• And. . . . I found out I had somehow missed the BBC version of Sense and Sensibility.  I happily rectified that Saturday.
• Seth successfully completed his 6th grade castle, it took 8-10 hours total time
• the home owners association approved our in-ground basketball standard (already purchased and partially installed before receiving a letter that they had to approve it.)
• Dave is now acting in his bosses position.  His boss is leaving to work in SLC at Kennecott, so Dave is the "acting" whatever his boss was.  What a blessing for our job security as his project was cut by 75% of its funding. 
• I finally joined a gym closer to home
• My little sister was Broadway quality fantastic in BYU's elaborate and professional production of The Phantom of the Opera.  Dave and I flew in for one night to see it and it was worth it, beyond description!!!!!!
• I am finally making a difference for about 1/2 hour a day at my job
• A kindergartener asked my the other day if I had "tie-dyed" my hair.  My hair did look different that day, so I'm assuming he was wondering if I had "dyed" my hair.  It was endearing. 
• fondue dessert on Valentines day
• fondue for dinner tonight
• No School on Presidents Day!
• having some scripture reading moments where the boys are ALL focused and seem to be getting something out of it

Reality Check:

• James is really being challenged on this basketball team.  Its hard on us all for him not to be the star.  He is learning lots of good things though. 
• Peter was so sore from his first practice he could hardly move.  I am not exaggerating. 
•  Seth scored 2 touchdowns his last flag football game (did I mention these games are played outside? he, he. )  Well just after that, he went aggressively doing whatever you do in flag football and slit his knee open on some metal grating near a drain on the side of the field.  5 stitches and 4 Saturday hours (which are the hardest hours of the week to give up) later, he is just fine and has a great war story to add to a growing list. 
• after Peter plays the "piano-guy" version of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars theme all day and then all day the next day, and then on and on to infinity, you start to go mad.
• Seth building a medieval castle out of foam, and turf, and paint and hot glue makes a mess that we are still finding little remnants of, 5 days later.
• I tried a spin class (that's indoor cycling) at this new and, so close to home, gym.  It was a torture sessions.  Not a workout torture.  I like to work hard.  I like to sweat.  It was a mental form of torture.  Seriously what has happened to the world where spin instructors are now clueless as to how to instruct a class!
• I have a lot of gray hair so I have to die it a LOT
• my boys took for granted my gestures to make Valentines day sweet for them.  I made heart shaped pancakes and pink smoothies for breakfast, and "heart-attacked" the sliding glass kitchen door with love notes and candy, and only one of them gave a sincere thank you.  I think they are too spoiled.
• had to drain our pool and have the surface redone.  We have never used the pool.  Crossing our fingers we didn't hire a faulty contractor
• having nights where contention leaves one or more boys skipping scripture study
• these are all light-hearted sorrow, but trust me, we have the deeper ones too.  Stay Praying and Carry On.

Boys to Men volume 3 - a LOT of Cereal!

Peter can eat a lot of cereal.
1 big box of cereal - 2 days.  Just him.
The other 2 are cereal monsters too, but Peter is incredible.
Comically, he will eat ANY kind of cereal.
The funniest is when he finishes a half a box of grape-nuts in a sitting, okay maybe a third of a box.  Those little babies really pack a punch.  Needless to say, fiber is not lacking in that boys diet.
I don't buy as much cereal as I used to, because at the rate described above, it would take about 10 boxes a week for 3 boys.  That's about $30 bucks just in cereal. 
What do I feed them?
Still working on that.

I have to share a Ramen story quickly.  You know, Top Ramen.  A sort of food substance, with an Asian twist.  Really its fried white flour with lots of MSG for flavoring.  It does provide calories, and calories keep the human body alive, but it provides no nutrition as far as I can tell.
Well James was in scouts a few years back now.  I'm going to say 10 year old cub scouts.  I came to pick him up from our diligent, sweet leader, Liz Jensen's house.  Out he runs with a plate full of treasure.  I'm not sure what the occasion for scouts was.  Maybe a "learn about other countries" lesson, or maybe knot tying, but whatever the instructional theme, the "treat" provided that day at scouts was to James a delicacy beyond his wildest imagination.  When he got to the car, his leader, Liz, was following.  He then enthusiastically described to me this scrumptious creation of special noodles his leaders has introduced him to that afternoon.
If you can't tell where I am going with this, James had just had his first taste of Ramen noodles.  And he was smitten.
His leader came to the car to, to see how it was possible that this was James' first experience with Rames, a staple of every American household.
Simply, I had never allowed my kids to eat such nutrition-less junk.
James somehow tweaked the situation so that he brought home all the left-over Ramen,  and he has never looked back.
I have joined the ranks of Ramen-purchasing-mothers-of-growing-children who sometimes need cheap junk-food to fill the gap in their tummies or in their perception of hunger.
I mean 24 packs for, what, like $4.  Even I can't resist now.
Happily our last supply is gone for now.
The boys are stuck with healthier stuff
Ya, like $3.50 a box, cereal :)

Boys to Men Volume 2 - Tweezing Doesn't

 

No, I didn't say teasing doesn't work.  Here at Stanley Central, teasing works perfectly.  Teasing here always results in a reaction.

I said, Tweezing doesn't work.
In step two, of "dealing with early facial hair", I assumed that where waxing doesn't work, tweezing will.  Those stray chin hairs, and extra bristly eyebrows, or the dreaded beginnings of uni-brows. 
"Screaming like a girl" was the result of my tweezing experiment.  Okay not quite.  But flinching, watery eyes, pulling away, running away, etc. was.
It was comical.
I have tweezed myself enough it doesn't even faze me now, but these boys couldn't take it.  I even chilled the skin a little first, but to no avail.  They won't let me anywhere near them with a tweezer now.  And I don't trust myself with wax on eyebrows.  So I guess they are just destined to let nature take its course. 
I promise I am not a sadist.  I just got a little carried away with some willing-to-give-it-a-shot teenagers.  Hopefully I haven't completely lost their trust when it comes to other, less extreme grooming suggestions, like, "I don't think you should go to school without combing your hair" or "if you do not put deodorant on, I will not let you leave the house". 
I just love them and want them to look decent.
XO guys.

boys to men volume 1 - waxing works

This is a first, in a serious of posts, in a survival series Dave and I are creating.  Surviving raising boys into men.  Not that we do much of the raising.  They grow and mature, and I lament the fact and then am forced to live through it and have so far survived.  So . . .

Tip/skill #1 - Waxing Works:
Yes waxing.
For any male readers who may not know, or postertity, who may wonder as well, it is a way of removing unwanted hair from the body.

The problem: my 2 oldest boys have started looking more like Poncho Villa, okay wait, I have no idea who Poncho Villa is, so lets say,, the 2 oldest, have started looking more like Pedro (Napoleon Dynamites best buddy) than themselves.  That dark hair on the upper lip has becomes hard to ignore.  But Peter's started coming in thick at least a year ago, and he was only 14, and James is right there with him now, at almost 14.  Shaving at 14?  Weird.  The Latino look isn't quite what the boys want to sport right now, but the prospect of shaving has us all leery.
MOM to the rescue.
Waxing Strips.
You don't even have to heat them up.  They come in a little kit at the drug-store (which is also a retro name in this day in age).
Not dummy proof, but not too hard to deal with, and we are keeping those budding mustaches at bay.
I don't know how long we will keep this up.  I am sure I will record, at least in writing, the first shave, when that comes about.