The County swim meets were held this week. They divide it up into three tiers, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. You are put into a tier based on what your fastest times were in certain events at the earlier city meets. Ivan qualified to swim freestyle and backstroke at the Bronze level meet. Lincoln qualified to swim freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke at the Gold level meet.
Ivan's meet was on Wednesday at the Springville pool. He did awesome and took 2nd place in backstroke and 3rd place in freestyle. I am so proud of him for how much he's improved this season.
Lincoln's meet was on Saturday at the Spanish Fork pool, and it was hotter than Hades. I seriously thought I was going to melt my pregnant self into the concrete. Luckily, Linc didn't seem bothered by it. He did awesome and took 2nd place in the breaststroke, 8th place in backstroke, and 16th place in freestyle. Even though he didn't qualify to swim it at the county meet, I am proud of him for trying out a new, hard race, the IM, this year, and for choosing to dive off the blocks at the start like a real swimmer, instead of just off the edge of the pool. Doing new things can be scary, but it also makes you the better for it. It was a great season for both of my little Swan swimmers!
The days are hot, so I live for the cool of the evenings. After the kids go to bed, I step outside and I admire my garden and my grapevines, and then the cornfield waves to me and catches my eye, and back even further the are mountains glowing golden in the setting sun. It's beautiful. I am grateful for this slice of heaven and relief in the evenings.
You better believe I have plans coming out my ears for things I still want to do here, improvements I want to make. We are a long ways off from a finished product. But as I make my rounds these summer evenings, I'm satisfied with the progress so far. I can see our yard taking shape. I can see it growing into the visions I've dreamed up for it. A yard takes so much longer to come together than you ever think it will. But it is coming along.
My hummingbird friend came back, and this time I got a picture of him. :) The kids have been anxiously sitting in front of our front room window in the mornings to see if they could spot him. I'm glad they are as excited about it as I am. The Zinnias have been attracting butterflies too.
We spent a nice weekend up in Hooper for the Lemmon/Sparks family reunion. It's always really fun to have everyone together. I especially love that the cousins get a long so well. It was great to sit in the shade with my siblings and their spouses and relax and chat and eat.
Aaron and Rue and Ollie in the kiddie pool. The big kids couldn't be bothered to stop jumping off the diving board for a picture.
She thinks she's big.
Ruby loves swimming. She's not one bit afraid of the water either.
Jackson and Bri's baby Stratton, modeling the pool floaty and pretzel pose.
Of course Adelia found a dragon fly at the park. No outing would be complete without one bug or another worming it's way into her affections. :)
We got home late Saturday night. Sunday we went to church and spent the rest of the day trying to recover from our wild weekend. So I didn't get out to check on the garden until this morning. Needless to say, our Monday harvest was about three times the usual size. :) The tomatoes are starting to roll in, and I am loving it! There is nothing on planet earth quite like a fresh garden tomato. I have some beans that need picking, but since I won't be eating them today, I'll leave them on the vines until tomorrow. Also, the rest of my beets are ready for pickling, so I'll probably pull them up tomorrow too. And the cantaloupes should be ready this week or next. Yippee!
Borrowed this pic from Bravewriter.
These are the 2016 Arrow books we'll be reading this year.
I've been trying to gear up for the school year. I usually don't start school until after Labor Day. But this year we'll probably be taking most of September off to have a baby. I'm thinking I might try slowly adding one thing in at a time until we are up to full speed. And since my writing curriculum is the one I love the most, I'm planning to start there. I'm doing the Arrow program from Bravewriter again this year. I'm super excited about the book choices for 2016. In August all the copy work and grammar lessons in the Arrow will be based off of the book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Today I assigned both Lincoln and Ivan to read the first chapter. I think I'll have them read silently some of the time, and some of the time we'll get together and take turns reading aloud to each other. I also plan on using the Jot It Down writing projects, as well as continuing with Poetry Tea Time and Nature Journaling.
Ivan asked me last week if he could get some books about Egypt at the library. So we made a trip, he picked out just about every book they had in the junior non-fiction section on Egypt and we brought them home. Friday night after scriptures and family prayer, he said he had a presentation he wanted to show the family. He brought out a clip board with a blue piece of construction paper on it. The construction paper was filled front and back with drawings. He took turns asking each person to pick a drawing. When the person did, he explained what the drawing was of, and what he'd learned about Egypt that related to the drawing. Example: I picked the picture that looked like a scale. And Ivan told me that Egyptians used to weigh a person's heart after they died, if the heart was light they got to go into the after-life, but if a heart was heavy they got eaten by a monster. I was super impressed with how much detailed information he could remember just by looking at his pictures. On Monday, I asked him to do his presentation for me again so I could take a video. The video cuts out early though because I ran out of space on my phone. I thought it was so awesome that he put together a report all on his own, and that he did it in a way that was meaningful to him.
And I do think art is meaningful to Ivan. I think he uses it as a way to express what's on his mind. He got an art easel for his birthday back in March, and he has used it to turn his bedroom into his own private art gallery. But he takes his time with each picture. He thinks about it, and then once he's decided exactly what he's going to do he'll start drawing. And sometimes he'll work on one drawing for a week or more. Making sure he has it just how he wants it. Sometimes he'll stop what he's doing and take a couple more days to think about it, just to be sure, before he starts drawing again. It's actually a really interesting process to watch.
Besides his art, he has also hung up lists of things that he wants to memorize. Days of the week, months of the year, mine and Aaron's phone numbers, his school schedule for the day, etc. And he also has his swimming ribbons hung up as well. :) I love to watch how differently each kid makes a space their own. I remember loving to make my room my own space as a kid too. Also, that stack of books on his bed railing, yeah...I have plans to make him a nightstand/shelf of sorts that will be accessible to him from the top bunk, but I have to finish Ollie and Cal's room first.
Complete change of topic, in case anyone was wondering why I hate cats, I present exhibit A:
I don't predict that our screen door will last very long under the circumstances. *sigh* But, the good news is that we bought a little kitty house, so now the cats sleep outside instead of in our down stairs bathroom. So that's good. They are officially 100% outside animals now.
And to end on a happy note, look at my adorable husband reading bedtime stories to our crew. It's getting to be quite the pile-up. :)
Aaron and I met Danny and Suzy shortly after we got married. They lived in the apartment above us. Danny was our home teacher and Suzy was my visiting teacher. Aaron and Danny were in the Electrical Engineering program at BYU together. The four of us were fast friends, and have been friends ever since. Their five kids were all born within a few months of our five kids, and were each others first friends. (Except the youngest girls, because Briana was born after they moved to England.) They've been living in England for the past 18 months, and we have missed them! But they are in town for a summer visit, and we were lucky enough to snag an evening with them. You know it's a good friendship when you can pick up right where you left off as if there had never been a gap in between. I did my best to convince them that they really wanted to move back to Utah and be our neighbors...I guess we'll see if they take me up on it. ;)
10 kids between us! Ivan, Nathan, Briana, Lincoln, Ollie, Ruby, Benji, Katelyn, Adelia, and Ryan.
There was a hummingbird on our Zinnia flower this morning. Linc spotted it out the window while he was practicing his piano. He called me, and I came running, just in time to see it sip a last bit of nectar and flit off. Even though I only caught a three second glimpse of it, I'm thrilled! If we have a hummingbird, it means I'm doing something right out there in my front flower bed. I want hummingbirds and butterflies to abound in my yard. I want flowers, all kinds, spilling out of everywhere with their vibrant colors and fragrances shouting out to the rest of the neighborhood that we are rebelling against the clean cut, low-maintenance, drab suburban landscaping that seems to be the norm these days. I want so many flowers to be growing in my yard, that I can step outside and cut a bouquet, just like that, to give to a friend or put on the table, without even making a dent in the foliage. I have a long way to go. But I do have a hummingbird, so I must be heading in the right direction!
I also have two cantaloupe in my garden. A big one and a little one.
Aaron took Lincoln, Ivan, and Ollie to the Father's and Sons Campout on Friday night. Adelia and Ruby and I went with Aaron's mom out to Cold Stone for fancy ice cream. It was tasty, and Del thought it was about the most magical thing ever. (Usually family trips for ice cream involve the soft serve from Maceys, which isn't bad...but it isn't Cold Stone either.)
Lincoln took first place in his breaststroke race.
Saturday morning the boys made it back in time for us to get down to Payson for Lincoln to compete in his IM race at the swim meet. He needed another qualifying time in order to swim in the county meet. And because they got back in time for IM, Linc and Ivan were also able to swim Breaststroke (because it comes after IM). I was proud of Ivan because he remembered to touch with two hands at the of breaststroke and was not disqualified. I was proud of Lincoln because he got first place in breaststroke. (He also got first in the IM but he was the only one competing it in his age group.)
It was a good weekend. We got a lot of things accomplished that needed to be accomplished, including buying the wood for the bunk bed!! I canned 10 more quarts of Apple sauce with apples from our tree, and Aaron did a bunch of yard work. But we also had time to shoot a few hoops in the driveway, and have a fire and roast hot dogs. Ruby was cracking me up. She thinks she's just as big or bigger than everyone else. Her determination face just kills me! Haha! Never a doubt in my mind about her Type 3-ness.
It's interesting to me how our daily rhythms and routines change over time. Just a little bit ago, I was on this kick where we went to swimming and stayed out until lunch time. But now it's too hot for me to stay out all morning. And I'm getting bigger, so it's harder for me to carry Rue around all over creation in the heat. So our rhythm has changed. We still go to swimming every morning. But we come home right after and I make a giant "To-do" list for everyone on the school room white board. The list has some things that are the same every day, and some things that change. The big kids work independently for the most part, and while they are doing that I do my chores and help the little kids do their stuff. Well...I help Ollie do his stuff (clean his room, fold his laundry, etc.) and Rue basically just follows me around and "helps" me do my stuff. It's not the funnest thing I can think of to be doing this summer. But my house has been a lot cleaner. It usually takes everyone about an hour and a half to get their stuff done. Then we have lunch, then quiet time. Then in the afternoon the kids have free time for their own projects or to play with friends, or whatever. And I work on my projects.
In the evenings, after the kids go to bed, if I'm lucky, I can talk Aaron into helping work on projects. And since the bunk bed is the project we are currently working on, he's the one doing most of the work, and I'm the one helping and fetching tools. :) Last night it was a beautiful, breezy summer evening and I sat out in the driveway in my camping chair, enjoying the cool, and watching Aaron cut wood for the head and foot boards. I can't think of any other way I'd have rather spent the evening. I love to watch Aaron woodworking. His methodical measuring and adjusting the tools. I love how he rarely uses an actual measuring tape, but finds whatever is close at hand and measures with that. I love to see his wheels turning as he decides how things go together, or the best way to go about the process. So many details, and he's patient with them all. It makes me happy, to watch him.
Clear back in April I promised to write this post about how Aaron and I are related. I didn't forget, but Ollie scribbled on the paper that I had hand written it all out on, and it didn't look nice for a picture anymore. Aaron got asked to teach in Elders Quorum on Sunday, and the topic was on family history. We decided we could probably be doing more Family History than we've been doing. So yesterday during quiet time I finally got around to making a computer graphic with all the same information. The computer graphic looks a lot nicer, and it's color-coded, and more visually appealing. It was worth the wait, I promise.
Aaron and I share a 10th great-grand father, William Francis Tanner Sr. We found this out by getting on relativefinder.com and signing in with our Family Search accounts. It gives you the option of creating a little group where you can invite your friends and family to join and then you can see how many generations back you have to go before you share any relatives.
Relative Finder showed the Tanner line coming through both of our moms. This really surprised me, because we have tons of family stories, etc about the Tanner line coming through my dad's side. There is even a genealogy book about Nathan Tanner Sr. (who was the father of the apostle N. Eldon Tanner, but we aren't related to N. Eldon, we come from one of his sisters) that has a family tree mapped out in it that my dad is in. (Side note: My brother Tanner is named after Nathan Tanner Sr.) So I investigated, and did a bunch of research using the Nathan Tanner Sr. book. And it turns out that William Francis Tanner Sr. had 3 wives (not at the same time). Aaron comes through the line of the 2nd wife via his mom. Both my parents come through the line of the third wife. Cool, yes? Aaron and I thought so, which is why we decided that if we ever had another baby boy that his middle name would be Tanner. And shortly after that, we found out I was pregnant with Cal. All my kids have family middle names, but I feel like Tanner is the ultimate family middle name because it belongs to both mine and Aaron's families.
As I was fact checking, I did notice that some of the dates from the Nathan Tanner Sr book didn't match up with the dates on Family Search. And there is a small possibility that Jane Tanner is not the daughter of Mary Babcock, but the wife of one of Mary Babcock's sons instead. So I still have some investigating and fact-checking to do. I want to start on our end, and find birth/death certificates and census records for everyone and then work my way backwards. It should be a fun little project. It might take forever, but I feel like it's something I can chip away at a little bit at a time.
Oh, all right, fine! A non-blurry picture of the cats. But then we're moving on to cool stuff...
Remus in the blue, Pearl in the yellow. They mostly hide under our shed.
I finished the changing table yesterday!! Huzzah!! It was a giant pain in the butt too, by the way. If I'd have known how much of a pain it was going to be, I just would have sold it on KSL and used the money to buy wood to build a new one. But now it's done. Here are the "before", "in the middle", and "after" shots.
The whole time I was staining it gray I was pretty sure I hated it, and that the gray was the wrong gray. But getting it out of the garage and into the boys' room made a huge difference. I like it now. It looks good in the room. And I think we will stain the bunk bed the same gray color.
Now I just need to figure out how to organize all "the things" that need to go on it. I've been looking on Pinterest and am kind of loving "nursery peg boards", but I can't decide if that would distract too much from what's already going on in the room. Sometimes I have a tendency to over-do it, and I'm trying really really hard not to let that side of me run wild. I want to keep a peaceful happy feeling in this room. But on the other hand, there is a big blank space on the wall above the changing table so...
The Foxgloves have just about run their course for this season in my front flower bed. :( But the good news is my Day Lilies are going strong, and the Zinnias that I planted from seed are just starting to bloom! I tried to do that on purpose -- plant the flowerbed in such a way that there was always something blooming from Spring to Fall. So far so good.
The lighter Day Lilies, some of the flowers are also that pink color.
Zinnias, I sort of bought the seed packet for these on a whim. They are turning out to be a really cool looking flower.
Here are a few swim pictures I haven't gotten around to getting up yet.
Lincoln and Ivan during some down time at the Springville Meet.
Ivan backstroking at the Riverside Meet.
My cute little Ollie Frog, waiting for his swimming lesson to start.
I'm grateful that we've had so much swimming this year. I feel like without it our summer would be completely empty and boring. Besides the hour we spend at swimming every morning, we have pretty much stayed home all summer. I'm too hot to venture out. And it's exhausting to get a toddler, a three year old, and three older kids in and out of the car, and supervise them all while we're out somewhere in the heat. We're going to have to plan some killer field trips for fall after Cal gets here, to make up for our extremely mediocre summer. I want to be up in Bear Lake so bad I can taste it. I literally dream about it every night. Sitting on the beach watching the kids play in the sand and the water, eating good food and talking with family sounds so heavenly. Hiking, camping, s'mores. The mountains. The ocean. As I sit here trapped in my house day after day, I just want them all! But my back aches, my belly is big, and my hands and ankles are starting to swell. So instead of going out, I just find things to do around here. Trying to keep myself busy. Trying to keep myself occupied. Trying to pass the time without wasting it. Maybe today I'll work on something for Ollie and Cal's room. Or maybe it's some produce from the garden that catches my attention. Or maybe I'll buy a Norwex cloth and go crazy cleaning every inch of my house. But I've gotta keep moving, keep doing, keep my hands busy. Work hard at what I can, daydream about the great outdoors...this baby will get here. But it's taking forever.
It is so satisfying to walk along the garage shelves and see the colorful jars of homegrown, home-canned food sitting there waiting for me to pick them up and serve them to my family. All my planning and efforts and hard work are preserved and on display for me to enjoy all year long. Eating the fresh produce from my garden is gratifying too, but nothing delights me more than the jars of goodness on my garage shelves.
Goal #1 for my garden this year was to grow beets and pickle them. And Saturday I accomplished that goal. Even if it was only 6 pints and 1 quart's worth. Not enough to last me a whole year, but a decent start. And I still have more beets growing out there. And I'm planning on planting more. My spinach has all gone to seed in the hot weather, so I need to rip it out and plant more beets. I love pickled beets. Adelia does too. She and I could sit around eating them straight out of the jar like candy. I think we are the only two in our family who like them, but we are just fine with that. That's more beets for us!
Goal #2 was to experiment with trellises. I've already mentioned that our peas were not very successful, but that wasn't the trellis's fault. The squashes are doing pretty well so far, I have one little tiny cantaloupe growing, and my hubbard squash and mini pumpkin plants have flowers. But they seem to be growing up their trellises just fine. I do need to figure out a solution for squash bugs though, any suggestions?
But the trellis I've been most anticipating since I decided to try it clear back in February, is my bean tepee. Just because it's so freaking cool. :) It's decorative as well as functional. Well, the beans have fully filled in the tepee on the right, and they aren't far from doing the same on the left. This is my first year growing pole beans instead of bush beans. I like it better so far. Plus, there are PURPLE beans growing. How cool is that? I mean, I knew purple beans were supposed to grow, that's what I planted. But something about seeing a real-life, actual purple bean just makes me happy. I picked a bowl full this afternoon to have with dinner. (They are supposed to turn green when you cook them, which is slightly disappointing, but still, PURPLE beans!!)
The bees are having a party in my squash flowers.
Squash trellis
Baby cantaloupe
The apple tree I have is a 3-in-1, meaning it grows three different varieties of apple on one tree. Cool. I can't remember what the kinds are though. BUT, one of the kinds is ripe. :) Yesterday the kids and I picked two grocery sacks full of apples. By afternoon I had turned them into 5 quarts of applesauce and 16 half pints of apple butter. Not bad for a day's work, eh? And that was only about 1/3 of the apples on the tree. Plus it made my house smell like fall. Oh, how I wish it were fall. If I could time hop, it'd be into about the middle of October. However, since that isn't a possibility, I'll keep working at my garden and my little boys' room renovations to keep my mind and my hands occupied until Cal gets here. Remind me again what I was thinking deciding to be pregnant for an entire summer.
Today's harvest from the wanna-be homestead. The tomatoes are starting to trickle in. Bring it on!
The good news is, I went to the Dr this morning and everything is looking good. I'm 31 weeks and some change. Heart rate is good. Measurements are good. Blood sugar tests came back good. We're down to visits every two weeks now. I'm having a debate in my mind about our name. Not about changing it, just about shortening it. The original plan was to name him Calvin, but always call him Cal. That seemed simple enough, tons of people do that. I've never heard anyone refer to my father-in-law as Charles, always Chuck. And my Gran is the only one who ever calls my mom Tamilynn, everyone else calls her Tam or Tami. But everywhere I go, family members and friends, and even my Doc keep referring to the baby as Calvin. Which isn't horrible or anything, but I want the baby to be Cal. His name is Cal, I feel very strongly about that. Stronger than I've felt about any other of my kids' names when they were still in the womb. So I'm debating about just putting Cal Tanner Swan on the birth certificate and having that be the end of it. Calvin can be his long nickname. Do people even do that? Have a longer nickname than their actual name? I don't know. I haven't run this idea past Aaron yet. And maybe I'm just over-thinking it, and once he's born and we only call him Cal everyone else will catch our drift.
Oh yes, and lastly......
Hell froze over and we adopted two kittens. They don't hold still for pictures.
If you had asked me what the chances were of us ever becoming cat owners, I would have told you about the same as a snowball's. I guess snowballs have a better chance than I thought, because we have not one, but TWO kittens. Pearl and Remus. They are strictly outdoor cats. Their purpose is to catch the voles that have been eating plants out of my garden. I guess when it comes down to it, cats are better than putting out poison when you have little kids running around all over your yard. Pearl is a girl Calico. Adelia picked out her and her name. (And I thought Pearl was pretty mild for Del, haha!) And Del has been in mothering, cat heaven, ever since. Poor Pearl has barely set foot on the ground in the two days she's been here because Del keeps carrying her around everywhere. Remus is gray and white striped and has really cool gray eyes. I picked him. The boys named him. We all decided he looked sort of like a werewolf, and since my boys are big on Harry Potter, Remus seemed the obvious choice. They spend a lot of time under our shed....probably trying to escape from Adelia.
We're turning into a real farm, I guess...we've got 14 animals, 6 fruit trees, and a large garden to show for it so far. Now if I can just talk Aaron into a milk cow it'll all be settled...:P
