Volume XI, issue viii, September 2015

This issue is dedicated to my smart and spunky niece, Hannah, who "had a bone to pick with me" for falling behind on my publication schedule. THANK YOU, Hannah for being my best and truest fan. (Does this mean that I can call you Hannah Fannah now? I love you!)

Sir Charles of Charlie Land

Our little Chuck inhabits a land of his own creation. Sometimes the rest of us are allowed to visit, but he is the only one who lives there permanently.

Here are a few vignettes that will give you a taste of what it feels like in Charlie's four-year-old world:

A few months ago when the summer sun was finally beaming down on us for the first time after enduring a long, hibernating winter, Eric pulled out some shorts for Charlie to wear. Eric helped Charlie into the shorts, but the poor kid had lived in our winter wonderland for so long that he couldn't remember ever wearing shorts before.

Charlie looked down in shock and yelled, "My pants are broken!"

* * *

 Normally Charlie wakes up long after the other kids have huffed and puffed their way off to school, lugging backpacks and stoic expressions. One morning, though, Charlie woke up before any of the other kids. After eating his breakfast, his lack of beauty sleep crept up and hit him and he whined to me,  "I don't want to be tired!"

* * * 

Charlie drops his shoes wherever it's convenient, and we're constantly scurrying around at the last minute trying to find them. Cramming his tiny tootsies into the shoes once we've located them is only another step in the process of getting him ready. (Step? Huh? Get it?)

The other day Charlie refused to let me put his shoes on, so I asked him, "Do you want to walk in bare feet?"

He looked at me like I'd been taking silly pills and said, "We have people feet, not bear feet!"

* * * 

For most of the year, we've had to sit with Charlie in Primary at church to get him to be a little "Sunbeam" with the rest of his class of fourteen three-year olds. (You heard me right. Fourteen squirmy, restless, three-year-olds who are expected to sit still for three hours of church. That's twenty-eight arms and twenty-eight legs just itching to reach out and smack each other while learning about Jesus.) After almost nine months of cajoling Charlie to go to Primary, one week Charlie decided he was ready to face the music-time as a solo.

To communicate his decision, Charlie looked up at Eric and said simply: "I don't want to see you anymore."

Then he just marched over and sat by his teacher and the rest of his class without even looking back.

Eric came out in the hallway and said to me, "I think Charlie just broke up with me."

* * *
Marie and Charlie were racing and rumbling up the stairs together. When Charlie reached the top, he triumphantly declared, "You didn't win and I didn't win. We BOTH win!"

Charlie's favorite part of preschool isn't the friends at school or the snacks or learning about the alphabet. It's being able to wear a backpack that is so big on him that he could live inside it.

He enjoys hiding all sorts of household items in his beloved backpack.

He said to me one day, "You can put Mom's phone in your backpack. It's nice."

It's a Treat to Be Our Pete

Our Sweet Pete turned nine this year. He's quite charming when he puts his mind to it, and tries to be a friend to the underdog.

One of Peter's best friends at school has been a little boy name Keagan. I didn't know Keegan had any social struggles because Peter never talked about him with anything other than glowing terms. Peter often told me after-school stories about Keegan, but they were always full of admiration and laughter.

Keegan's family moved this fall, and a few days after they left, Keegan's grandmother approached me at church and grabbed my hand and said, "Thank you for raising Peter to be such a sweet boy." She cried as she told me how much Keegan had struggled at school because of being Autistic, and was constantly being bullied by the other kids. She said, "Peter was the only one at school who was nice to him."

I looked into his ocean-blue eyes and told him how proud I was of him, but I think those eyes have a natural gift for seeing the best in people. I don't think it occurred to him to think of his friend as being different. He seemed a little surprised at the big deal these teary women were making of the whole thing. He just missed his friend.

* * *

Peter's first piano lesson was on 8/4/15. He had been waiting so patiently for his first lesson and could hardly wait to get his hands on the keys as an official piano student. We got out his hand-me-down books and his legs swung back and forth with quick excitement as he sat on the edge of the piano bench, waiting for his lesson to start. 

We saw some scribbles in the well-used level one piano book and I said, "You very well could have been the one who scribbled in this book!"

Peter replied, "I ruined it for my future self!"

* * *
Peter saw his five-year-old cousin, Matthew, on facetime, and Matthew was wearing his favorite superhero mask and looking into the phone seriously.

Peter said dramatically, "So that's Batman's secret identity!"

Our Golden Boy's Golden Birthday

Ethan had his golden birthday this year, turning 15 on the 15th in 2015. When some girls turn fifteen they get to have a "Quinceanera," so we decided that we could call it Ethan's "Quinceanero." Ethan requested hamburgers at a new joint in town called "The Burg" with ice cream cake for dessert.

Before school started, one of Ethan's friends prodded him unto trying out for the freshman soccer team. To try out, he had to go to practices at 6:00 am, and we assumed that the early hour during the summer would deter him significantly. We were surprised when he not only got up for practices, but didn't complain about having to get up for practices. He made the team and committed himself to two-hour-long practices every day after school, and games every weekend. Although most of our kids played on recreational sports teams when they were younger, this was my foray into the world of real Soccer Mom-ness and it felt a little strange to be applauding a high school athlete rather than going to a recital or listening to a debate. We haven't had much experience with having a true high school jock in our house.

Despite his busy soccer schedule, Ethan kept up with practicing his music and completing his homework, and Eric and I found ourselves looking at each other with raised eyebrows. Ethan had somehow transformed himself into the golden child for his golden birthday.

In our first parents' meeting with Ethan's soccer coach, he told all of the parents that if the boys worked hard and came to practices, they would all have a chance to play at every game. Even though Ethan had less experience than some of his seasoned teammates, his coach seemed to appreciate his loyalty, determination, and his growing skill. After several practices, we could see that he was an equal to his more experienced teammates. We loved watching him play, and we cheered him on as he tore across the soccer field, even performing impressive head shots when the opportunity arose.

Several games into the season, Ethan's team had the opportunity to enter a tournament that would eventually lead them to the finals. All eight of his biggest fans piled into the car and headed down to the water-logged and wind-swept field. We kept waiting for Ethan to play. And we waited. And we waited some more. Finally Charlie piped up, "Where's Ethan?"

Ethan sat on the bench the entire game, which his team won. As I watched him walk towards us after the game, I expected him to mutter or moan about not being able to play in the game. We tiptoed towards him, ready to offer him condolences or at the very least offer to take him to get some ice cream to ease his pain. I tentatively asked him, "How are you doing?

He squared his strong soccer-player's shoulders and said with a sincere smile, "Great!"

What?

He went on to tell me how much he had learned by sitting on the bench. As I listened to him in stunned silence, he happily explained that sitting on the bench allowed him to be able to listen to what his coach was saying to his teammates the entire game. He smiled as he described enjoying the opportunity to carefully watch the game through his coach's eyes, and to think about what he could do better during the next game.

Do you see what I mean about my golden birthday boy?

Holden Comes Home
Our Holden is all grown up and taking girls to dances. After asking a friend from Orchestra to the Homecoming dance, he went to the spy-themed shindig with a group of friends. . . and he even danced at the dance! My favorite line in his uncharacteristically bubbly, chattering report about the events of the evening when he practically skipped in the door late that night was, "You know what the best part of going to date dances is? You get to know other people's dates!" I think he had a good, good time.

Peter's Lego Birthday Party, September 2015

Peter's blue-eyed grin when he saw how I had transformed him into a lego minifigure for his birthday invitation almost made the pain of the emergency c-section that preceded his actual birth worth it. 

I originally designed this invitation for Peter, but since then, I've created personalized minifigures with a variety of hairstyles and clothing and accessories and even light sabers. (My favorite was a lego stormtrooper that I made to say "This is the birthday party you're looking for!")  If you have a lego lover that would like a personalized invitation, go to my etsy shop here

I think this is one of the first parties I've planned for the under-ten set that didn't involve a "craft project" like painting t-shirts or sewing scarves or rolling around in glitter as part of the party. When I made this fact known to Eric he reminded me that the older kids and I had stayed up late into the night before the party making homemade lego gummies, so he was still counting it as a craft project. 

Our huge lego brick piñata was the quickest, easiest, most indestructible piñata I've ever made. We just wrapped up a diaper box in a red plastic tablecloth and then glued on the tops of red plastic cups. Bam. Lego piñata. 

Each of the kids whacked that over-sized brick with all of their might, but it wouldn't break open until Holden, who towered over the little kids like some sort of pinata-obliterating Goliath, smacked it with an actual baseball bat several times with no blindfold on.

One of our more extroverted partygoers kept yelling, "It's rigged! It's rigged!" (Why would we rig a birthday pinata? I'm not sure. But the kid wouldn't stop yelling until he was  showered in minifigures and candy. Then he stopped complaining.)

For their party favor, each child received a basket into which I had glued a flat lego base. They also received a bag of crayons shaped like minifigures, lego gummies, a mold to make their own lego gummies and the recipe for lego gummies (Eric says I need to stop saying the word "gummies" now.)

We divided the kids into teams and then a "builder" from each team had to build a certain object. The other members of their team tried to guess what they had built before the other teams guessed to get a point. 

We played our own lego-based take on the game "Hungry Hungry Hippos" at the church gym across the street from our house. Our party guests each had to take turns scooting out to the middle of the gym and trying to bring back as may legos as possible back to their corner.

The only rule was that they had to be on their scooter the whole time. Most of the kids struggled to bring the legos back to their team's corner while trying to maneuver the scooter with their arms.

The winning team was lucky enough to have a team member who thoughtfully considered how to be able to have his hands free, but still bring back a load of legos to his team. He sat on his scooter, scooped up legos into a big pile in his shirt and then happily scooted back to his team.

For our final party game, we played Ultimate Lego Head, which is like Ultimate Frisbee, but played with an oversized yellow head. It was mighty funny to watch the kids toss the giant plastic cranium while screaming and yelling and running around.

The lego head cake was created out of two dome-shaped ice cream cakes that were sandwiched together. I used vanilla cake with vanilla ice cream for one half and chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream for the other half. The face was made from edible black fondant.

(I'll refrain from making any Biblical allusions the cake on the platter brought to mind.)

Camp d'Evegnee 2015: Sherlock Week

Eric and I had been sleuthing for ideas for Sherlock Week for months, plotting the mysterious twists and turns of Camp d'Evegnee 2015. We'd huddle together like Sherlock and Watson on our Friday nights, deducing which of our ideas might help our little detectives have the most exhilarating time, no matter what their age.

I'll admit that during the last strangling, straggling days of my third semester in a row without a substantial break, I would think to myself while gasping through grading, "As soon as this is over, you can do Sherlock Week!" 

Sherlock's Mystery Meal

We started off the week with a little lesson about deductive reasoning (you know, as most parents do on their vacation), and then Eric played some logic games with our novice investigators. For dinner our first night, we had "Sherlock's Mystery Meal," which was a four-course meal comprised of giggles, guesswork, and a few groans. The kids had to try and figure out which food or utensil might match with which clue. 

There were some interesting culinary combinations like a complete course with only a knife, pepperoni, chocolate sauce, and a napkin. I've put both the menu and the answer key here. Eric and I used some of our best word-play skills to some up with the clues. I especially liked "Apricot Tree's Fruit" (popcorn), "Piggy Polka Dots" (pepperoni), Jonah's Weekend (whale crackers), Personal Shouting (Ice Cream), and "Favorite of the Lazy Student" (spoon). 

You'll notice that in the photo below, Peter has a full-blown brownie sundae with ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. I was quite impressed with his deductive ability until the other kids told me that he had been getting brownies and ice cream for more than one course.  Peter blatantly ignored the rule about only ordering each thing once, and he said, "Well! I figured out which numbers I needed for the dessert and I just kept ordering them!" (I honestly couldn't decide whether to be appalled or proud. . . maybe a little of each?) Eric and I didn't notice because we were too busy scurrying from the dining room to the kitchen with a total of TWENTY-EIGHT different courses for our greedy gumshoes!

Mystery Dinner or The Blind Feeding the Blind

Our second dinner for Sherlock Week involved dining at what Eric called "Café Aveugle." I don't think a group of seven little detectives could possibly be more delightful, despite being blindfolded and forced to eat whatever we placed in front of them.

We had them eat in two shifts so that the younger kids wouldn't be too nervous about what we were going to do to them. 

We tried to choose foods with unpredictable tastes and shapes like drinkable yogurt, potstickers, and cheese curds. 

One of the best moments of the evening was watching Marie try and eat a perogi. She couldn't see how big the item was that she had dangling from the end of her fork, so she kept missing her mouth. 

Clearly our Peter, Peter picky eater didn't love some of the items he ate. 

Later, when I asked Marie if it was scary to eat with a blindfold on, she said, "Oh no! It was fun!"

Mystery Meal #3
Our last dinner for Sherlock Week was a little less  precarious, and we served the kids Korean Barbeque because they hadn't ever had it before (it was a bit tricky to think of something our adventurous eaters hadn't ever tried).

For dessert, we let them create wild liquid mixtures and called them "Mystery Drinks."

On our final day of Camp d'Evegnee, I woke up to a full day of Camp d'Evegnee on the horizon, glanced around at the mountainous peaks of folded laundry piled in my living room and said in my best chirpy Mom voice: "Hey guys! Who wants to play a Sherlock-based game??? It's called. . . 'See If You Can Figure Out Which Closet the Clothes Go in!' YAY!" They were surprisingly willing to play along, those blessed offspring of mine.

The Mystery of the Lost Boy

Our coup de grace for Sherlock Week for Camp d'Evegnee was on Friday when we asked our flock of budding detectives to go and get Charlie so we could get ice cream. This is the note they found in his bed (hopefully slightly bone-chilling, but not too creepy). They DID find him in the end, though, through a series of adventures involving deductive reasoning and the reconstruction of a ghostly back-story.

Where would you go to find the first clue?


"I've taken the boy, You can have him back if you can find him. I saw him with you yesterday when I was with my friend, David Saylor, who is an expert on that place. He has even written books about it.That little boy looks just like my Joseph--the boy I lost in the tragedy on 6/5/76/. That blonde hair and those blue eyes. I thought I would never see him again. We named him after my grandfather, Joseph Ricks. If you can find all of the clues i will consider you worthy enough to get him back."

If a grieving psychopath lost a son on 6/5/76 in Rexburg, what kind of house would he build?
With the back-story about a man who lost a son in the Teton Flood, how could we not involve this awesome house somehow?

It was almost like someone had visited earlier that day and had coached the nice man working at the front desk of The Standard Journal about what to say to six kids who might come in later that day.

Again, it was almost like some people had visited earlier that day, making a donation to the museum, and asking the nice woman volunteering at the front desk to let the kids in for free to look at the newspapers if they just happened to show up later that day.

Our cute babysitter/caregiver of the kidnapped was reluctant to let me pay her for babysitting. I looked at her seriously, handed her some cash and said, "You have to take it. It's ransom money."

Jurrasic Camp d'Evegnee 2015

For phase one of Camp d'Evegnee this year, we decided to have a mini-session at the end of June to tide us over until Eric and I finished school at the end of July. The theme really chose us because of one of the summer blockbusters. To say that we were a little excited to see Jurassic World would be like saying Doctor Allen Grant is just a little handsome.

When our three oldest were just wee little ones, we had more dinosaurs than articles of clothing in our house. There were times when our trio believed that they had been hatched rather than born.

We watched cartoons, movies, and documentaries about dinosaurs until our video tapes were wearing thin. The boys knew more about Dr. Sue Hendrickson the Paleontologist than they did about Bob the Builder. They could pronounce words like "diplodocus" and "ankylosaurus" through their baby teeth before they could recite their ABC's.

We winced with just a tad of guilt when we showed them Jurassic Park on video tape when Holden was three because we were worried it might scare them. As the credits rolled and John Williams' score soared, our guilt was completed abated. The only time they had been scared was when the T-Rex seemed to be in danger. "Mom?" they asked with fear in their eyes, "Did the dinosaurs get hurt?"

We quickly realized that rather than identifying with the humans, our tribe identified with and sympathized with the dinosaurs. Jurassic Park soon became a regular in our family movie night rotation.

We even dressed up as Jurassic Park one year for Halloween:

This summer, we couldn't resist watching one Jurassic Park movie each day on the days leading up to our outing to take all seven kids to see Jurassic World. There. I admitted it. We took every single one of our kids to see Jurassic World. And we took them to see the. . . late. . . show. (I will look away while you judge me.). 

Each day we watched one of the Jurassic Park movies and prepared a Jurassic Park-themed meal. The kids helped me brainstorm about what we would make for each dinner and you would think they had been raised just to come up with party food. 

This one was easily my favorite in the world-play menu. When Caleb came up with this one, I thought my professorial heart would burst.

This is an actual photo of the ribs we ate for dinner, and as I was taking the photo, the kids said, "Mom! Wouldn't it be cool if you could photoshop the ribs so they looked like they were being lowered into the raptor's pen at feeding time?" How could I resist?

When we went to Utah for our family reunion only days later, I took Charlie to Build-a-Bear while all of the other kids were at Grandma and Grandpa Camp. I think he might be just a little thrilled out of his mind about this T-Rex. It was the whipped cream on the jell-o of our Jurassic Park Week.

Volume XI, issue vi, July 2015

The Hafen Family Reunion 2015

Meet the Hafengers! Don't mess with us--we'll correct your grammar or feed you dinner or analyze legal briefs or have gospel-related discussions until we wear you down into smiley submission!

Since the older kids/craft slaves were with my parents at Grandma and Grandpa Camp, Eric helped me paint dozens of t-shirts until the wee, small hours of the morning. He wouldn't ever tell you that he loved being part of my crafty assembly line, but he did admit that he tolerated it because he loves me. That, my friends, is progress.

This is the photo that one of my friends says looks like a bag of human Skittles. This SUPER photo was taken in front of the house my Grandpa Kartchner built with his own two strong and gentle hands. The whole chaotic mess of us boarded a bus and took what my parents called a "Heritage Tour" around Bountiful to learn about my Mom's history and childhood. I've never felt so loved and so appreciative and so weepy while on a bus! This was easily the highlight of the reunion. 

For part of the family reunion, we were all able to go to Lagoon, the amusement park in Utah that my parents used to take us to if we would practice our musical instruments during the summer.

After dragging my three teens around Lagoon all day like some teenaged amuse park cruise director, I allowed them to take a break at my brother, Jon's house for some dinner and then I forced two of my teens back to the park with me so we could make ourselves sick on rides until the minute the park closed.

When I heard that my sister, Rachel, had sweetly said, "Wow. Sarah took the boys back to Lagoon? She is the best mom!" I laughed out loud.

Holden and Caleb were quite reluctant to go on the newest ride in the park, (appropriately named Cannibal) which had only been operational for a half day before we arrived. I cajoled them with all of the maternal persuasion I could muster. Some mothers plead with their kids to eat their vegetables or to finish their homework.

I begged mine to please go on the insane roller-coaster with me. "Please? Please? It won't be that scary. I'm your mother! You have to defy death with me just this once!"