Pinewood Derby, Spring Break, Etc.

The Activity Day kids in our ward recently had a Pinewood Derby. (That meant Summer, Mette and Hans got to participate.) 

Here Mike is putting their wheels on for them (with the derby starting in about ten minutes).

And here Mette is with her 2nd place prize! (There were a large number of kids, so that was no small win.)

It's the kids' spring break. Last week was incredibly warm. And next week is supposed to be as well. Unfortunately, this break landed on a week of wind, snow and cold between the warm week we just left and the warm week ahead. We went to the cabin for several days. But I hadn't realized there would still be snow everywhere up there and hadn't had the kids bring boots or any sort of snow gear, and it snowed practically the entire time we were there, so my plans to go on hikes and wander about town didn't materialize and, while the cabin is always a happy place, it was a rather uneventful trip (especially with Mike and Goldie having to leave us early to get back for work and  with the other older kids in Provo). I didn't even take a single photo. Well, there are these:

Here the kids were during some of last weeks' warmth.

Jesse recently made a boomerang. If you look closely in front of the tree in the photo below you can spot him out there throwing it. 

Jesse, Mette and Goldie during a little family-night walk a few weeks ago.

Anders looking thoughtful and lonesome at the end of the walk.

A photo someone took of Abe and the other counselor in the bishopric with him doing ... something.

The sweetest picture. Hans had been sobbing about something (I don't even recall what), but Starling came and hugged him and his dear face just makes me want to cry.

Starling with Shasta.

Starling with Bisquit ("Bisky" as she calls him). He likes to be tickled under his chin. Occasionally she will begin tickling one of us under our chin while she says, "Hi Bisky!" and we struggle and squirm to get away from having to play Biscuit.

At Penny's One Act play. They made it to state.

Goldie's friend Becca came to watch as well.

Penny and her date at Spring Fling. (The two of them bought this couch at the DI for photos.)

And I guess that's all on the camera roll for now.

Starling Age 6 and a Strange Spanning of Time.

Little Star turned SIX at the end of March.

One can tell themselves, as I have been this past year, that five isn't really so far removed from baby and toddlerhood (especially easy to believe when that five year old is the baby of the family), but ... six? It feels like we've crossed a threshold.

More and more my life is shifting away from what it has been (what I have been) for over two decades (a life of mothering a houseful of very small, needy people) to something more like what life was in my parents' home while I was growing up--a few of us younger ones still around, but also a lot of older siblings off on missions, and starting college, and off to graduate school, and getting married and beginning their own families (and coming home only for Sunday dinners or holidays). 

It feels very strange to be recognizing my own childhood so clearly in the dynamics around here now. After all, I didn't grow up as my older kids have--with a home full of babies and toddlers and all my siblings around. I grew up ending my parents own decades of baby years. I grew up while my parents were watching their older kids take on lives of their own and while they were experiencing how that changed home and family. It's very strange having not only lived just what Starling is living now, but to be reliving it, in a sense, from my parents' vantage point. I can't quite express how strange and caught-between-times and tied to the past as well as the future it all makes me feel. I can't explain how newly connected to my parents I feel as I recognize in my life now .... what they experienced in their lives as I left toddlerhood behind.

I could go on about all the things I am sensing shifting and changing in our family, and all the wonderings I have about what that will mean in the years ahead, but for now, we will just wish a very happy birthday to this little tenth child, who, like myself (also a tenth child) will grow up with her little passel of closely-aged siblings (Summer, Mette and Hans) watching us usher in so many new phases of existence for our family!

Happy 6th birthday Starling!

(Though perhaps I should add that I haven't so completely left the stage of mothering helpless people behind as this post might have made things sound. It actually took me about 40 minutes just to write the above as every time I'd write a sentence, I had to get back up again for something the youngest two needed. Starling needed me to cook her something in the microwave for lunch, and then I sat, and then Hans needed help getting butter and salt on his own lunch, and then I tried to sit and type again, and then they both needed drinks, then I sat, and then Starling spilled milk, and then I tried again, and then they both needed lifted to the area over our closet where their Duplo Legos are strewn. And just now I had to wash and bandage the back of Mette's heals after she cut them on a door that swung shut.) 

St. Patrick's Day Groundbreaking

Well, I should have liked for there to be more pomp and circumstance. A ribbon cutting perhaps? All of us gathered around as Mike scooped the first shovelful of dirt (with a golden shovel)? Certainly a big celebration to mark the long-awaited event!

That's sort of what I imagined breaking ground for the house would be. 

Only, the kids and I went over on St. Patrick's Day evening. It was cold and windy, and we just went to feed the cows. But then we saw this:

Why, I wondered, was a thin layer of earth completely removed where the house would eventually sit? Surely that couldn't constitute a groundbreaking or a "we've begun digging"? Not with such a small amount skimmed off the top! And not without my even knowing it was happening (and making an appropriate fuss)! 

Only then I was reminded that we aren't having a basement (nor even a crawl space) -- just a cement slab foundation. And when I did a little googling AI told me that "for a concrete slab foundation in Logan, UT, you'll typically need to excavate several inches down ...".

And while I do find it questionable that a word as hearty as "excavate" can be used if it is to be followed only with "several inches down", I do think we must conclude that yesterday, St. Patrick's Day 2025, fanfare or not, was the day we broke ground!

Well! 

Hurrah!

And now for a bunch of photos from Sunday evening feeding animals at the farm. Mike took all the kids over--including Daisy who was in town. I wanted to stay home and get Sunday-dinner cleaned up, but I asked Daisy to take my camera and get some photos. She accomplished her task well!

Milling about on the new drive. (It's still in its rough state. It will have a more compacted top layer, but it will just be a dirt drive.) You can see, from the standing water in the area, why they needed the drive put down first before they could get back to where the house will be.

To think! Just a week ago this road onto the property didn't even exist!

Goldie and Anders appear to be mortal enemies in a surprising number of these photos.

I'm sure she was teaching Anders a valuable lesson. (Don't mess with your older sister, perhaps?)