Yard work

We have made a lot of improvements outside lately!  One of the biggest one came while my mom was in town. There is this area by our mailbox that has been empty ever since we created it.  Every year I intend to do something with it, but the furthest I ever got was putting down fabric to prevent the weeds and dumping 15 rocks we found and some mulch on top.  And the mulch just slid down the hill on the fabric, so it was really, really bad looking.

Thank heavens my mother is really good at landscaping and plants.  I have no idea how I ever would have done it without her, because the entire trip to the "flower store" (as Kaitlyn called it) she walked down the aisles telling me "oh, I had one of those, we don't want that" or "this one is really pretty, but tricky to maintain" etc.  I would have just been looking at the tiny tags in bewilderment.

I don't have a true before shot, but this is after we (mostly my mom) dug the dirt up, got the soil ready, and picked out "Daphne" the bush.  She might not look like much now, but Summer Ice Daphne is going to be pretty one day.  In the meantime, she looked really funny all on her own.

So Kaitlyn, my mom, and I all picked out some more flowers and planted them.

Ta-Da!

But the biggest miracle of all is . . . they have all survived!  I have a real talent for killing plants, so the fact that every single marigold is still growing out there is just amazing to me.

My mom even got Kaitlyn a little Veggie Tales bucket with seeds and helped her plant some sunflowers.  Kaitlyn has been quite diligent about making sure they get all the water they need, and low and behold, they are shooting up too!

Over the weekend, we had a couple of trees taken out.  I hate how many trees we have taken out in our yard, but we have had a lot that were in the middle of fences, 30 feet tall right next to houses, attracting box elder bugs, or in some cases died on their own.  We are going to plant more in their places soon, I hope.  Especially since this latest tree was blocking our view of the hoarder that lives next door.

And of course, when school let out and we headed to the cabin, I found that I had another yard that needed spring cleaning.  We took out some deep posts that bordered an old garden, a couple of zip line things that were digging into the trees, and I am still trying to get the lower "yard" mowed down.  Since it is so rocky, I have to use a weed whacker and pretend it is a lawn mower.

But there have been fun improvements there too!  Christopher was very excited to get a new, gigantic sail shade hung up.  These things really are great.  They stay up all summer, and aren't bothered by wind or rain. The lawn loves the shade too!

Thank goodness all of my gardening there is just about killing weeds.  The flowers are all perennial wildflowers.

And yesterday, we got another new addition to the yard: a climbing dome.

It will cope with the snow a lot better than a swingset would, but we think it will be great for the kids to climb on.

And of course, we broke out the hammock too.  My kids can get on that by themselves now, so it quickly became a swing that they declared either a submarine or pirate ship as the day went by.

We have to take advantage of this week, since it is the only week Tyler has off from school until August!

My Sweet Tyler

Sometimes I am amazed by how far Tyler has come.  I think back to when he was turning three and still didn't understand the purpose of communicating, and I know we have come a long way.  Tyler struggled to nurse at the beginning, he was slow to learn how to crawl and walk, and couldn't figure out how to get himself to sleep until he turned three.  But now, he tells us what he wants!  He can get himself dressed!  He is basically potty trained!  He knows the words to songs and books that we practice!

But sometimes I watch him and how far behind other kids his age he is, and it makes me really sad.  The only word he can read or write is his own name.  He still doesn't understand a lot of what goes on around him, and it takes me 10 minutes to prompt him through every step of going to the bathroom.  I was excited the other day because he got invited to a birthday party.  There are over 15 kids his age in our neighborhood, but since most moms aren't crazy enough to invite all of them at this age, Tyler rarely makes the cut.  It makes the mother bear in me really sad, though I realistically understand that he doesn't know these kids very well and wouldn't understand what is going on at the parties anyway.  And sure enough, when I came to pick him up at the end of the party, he had been so busy playing all by himself in their sandbox that he didn't notice that everyone else was eating cake and ice cream.  The image of him singing to himself as he dug while the rest of the party laughed and ate together on the other side of the lawn really got me down that day.

Sometimes I am just so amazed at how happy and patient he is!  He takes whatever life gives him and smiles.  No matter if we drag him on really long car rides, on plane rides that make him air sick, or trudge him up hill for 1/3 a mile in 3 feet of snow in the dark, Tyler doesn't complain.  Most of the time he has no idea why we are doing any of those things, but he just comes along.  Having seen a lot of the kiddos in in class, I can say that is really, really rare for someone with communication delays.  Usually these kids get very angry and frustrated that life isn't going the way they want it to and they have no idea how to change it.  But Tyler just smiles through it all.  If you give him a toy he loves, like play dough, he will entertain himself for hours without moving.  And even if the water is freezing cold, Tyler is determined to have fun anyway.

But sometimes I wonder what is in store for him in the future.  I wonder if he will ever be able to have a job or a family of his own. I wonder if he will ever be "normal" enough that people don't notice, or if he will always be someone that others feel awkward around.  While he is young, it is okay for him to be the happy and oblivious little guy, but when he gets older, will he be able to handle real life?

There is an always though. I am ALWAYS grateful for the angels that have come into our lives to help him (and me!) learn and grow.  He had wonderful therapists at Kids On the Move, and last year his teacher Joanna was a huge turning point for us both.  I adore the amazing people at Clear Horizons that he has gotten the chance to work with.  And this year, he had a sweet and dedicated teacher that made a huge difference once again.  I am amazed by the patience of Kindergarten teachers in general, but a classroom of these kiddos can be a real handful.  Even with the extra aides she gets to help her, it is often all hands on deck to keep them on task.

And yet, as we went to their "graduation" yesterday, she was struggling not to cry as she talked about how wonderful each of them is.  You could tell she genuinely loved these special little souls, and said that the rest of the world was missing out by not seeing the world through their eyes.

This year Tyler also had a wonderful pair of bus drivers.  You would think that bus drivers wouldn't have that much impact in their lives, but these went above and beyond.  Angie told us that since her grandkids were getting older, she loved every second she got with these little ones. And Ed was just so sweet with the kids.  They never missed a chance to tell us how much they loved Tyler.

And no matter what, we'll always love him too.

(There were other pictures where they were more posed, but I loved seeing her try to stop him from waving at his mommy.)

The Adventures of Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn has been cracking us up a lot lately.

Last Saturday was the annual Fireman breakfast, where our city fireman cook a meal for the whole town as a fundraiser.  It is one of our favorite events every year.  Not only is our neighbor across the street the fire chief, but  . . . well, Tyler likes big breakfasts.

And all the firefighters loved their hats.

Do you like how Jasmine got stuck in the bottom of that picture?  I took a couple of the kids checking out the fire truck before it occurred to me that I should make it look like I have three kids and not just two.  The big kids really like the trucks though.

And for about three days afterward, Kaitlyn asked if we could go to the fire house for lunch.  And when that didn't work out, she asked if we could go for dinner.  Every single day.

Sigh.

After the fire station, we went to the farm country tor the Sheep and Wool festival, where the kids saw a sheep get his "haircut" and learned how that turns into clothes.  Pretty cool.

But the really fun event was the end-of-the-year concert for Kaitlyn's preschool.

The program was basically the kids singing a half a dozen songs that they learned.  And what I learned is that my daughter knew all the words, sings very loudly, and is apparently tone deaf.  Daddy and I were laughing nearly the whole time.  So cute though!

Here are a couple of Kaitlyn's new friends this year.  Slowly these girls all started going to each other's houses after school for one reason or another, and then they started requesting it more and more often.  By the end of the year, it was a daily surprise on whose house they decided they were ALL going to that day.  We moms tried to coordinate it, but mostly just had to laugh.  It is pretty hard to explain to a four year old why you can't just invite yourself to someone's house, or invite your friends over on a day that mom had other plans, but we all tried really hard.

I had Kaitlyn pose next to her "All About Me" poster before we left.  She decided her favorite place was "the place with lots and lots of flowers", which surprised me.  But the one that made me laugh was the "If I Could Have One Wish . . .".  Kaitlyn has decided she wants a "fin like Ariel".  Which I find ironic, because the entire plot of the movie is Ariel trying to get rid of her tail!

This morning she was so excited because they were all coming in their swimsuits for preschool and going to run in the sprinklers.  And then she told me about how some kids get to take their lunches to school, and how she wanted to bring a lunch to school.  No, dear, your school is over at 11:30, you aren't old enough to take a lunch.  She was quite insistent, but I talked her out of it.

And then when I picked her up, she told me happily about all the food everybody shared out of their lunches.  Because she was the only one whose mom didn't pack her a lunch like the email said to.

And I would have fixed my error and fed her lunch, but the girls had all invited themselves to Grace's house, so Jasmine and I just walked home alone.

After Tyler and Kaitlyn got home, we went on a Wal-Mart run.  Tyler needed a belt, so we went to pick one out, and Kaitlyn insisted she needed a belt too.  I told her she didn't, and while I focused on picking one out for Tyler, she pulled down 4 more sparkly pink and silver belts.

When I told her no again, she started breaking into sobs, telling me that (and I quote) "if I don't have these belts, then I can't have my Rock N' Roll party on Thursday!"

Say what?

I don't know who taught her the words "Rock N Roll", but it was today's catchphrase.  When I asked her later who she wanted to invite to this mysterious party (scared she had already invited people), she said that she wanted to invite "anyone that has running shoes."   And then told me she had to go practice running for the race that was part of her ballet show she was going to put on.

Four is such an awesome age.

Celebrate the little things

On our drive home from the Ironman, I felt truly invigorated.  It was amazing to watch my husband work so hard at his goal and achieve something that left everyone we know impressed.  And it made me think: what about me?  What could I do that would be truly amazing?  Conquering mountains seemed fun!

I crossed out races very quickly.  My husband tries his best to remember to sound impressed when I run a 5K, but to be honest, after hearing "oh, I only had time for a short run tonight, so I only made it 9 miles" for years, I can't even be proud of myself for it.  I don't think I'd even feel accomplished if I made an entire marathon.  Because it would take me hours more than my husband's slowest time ever.  And given how awful my hand-eye coordination is, all other physical goals get eliminated quickly.

So I thought about where my actual strengths lie.  I'm good at teaching math, but rewards and milestones for that are few and far between.  I consider myself rather good at crafty stuff, but the only contests for that are online blogs.  I would need to have a blog that people actually read (ha), enter a contest, spend hundreds of hours making ridiculously elaborate things I would never let my kids touch out of terror they would ruin it, and if I won, I would only end up with a thousand comments on the blog post that say "OMG that's so cute!" Ugh.

And the more I thought about it, I wouldn't want to spend that much time away from my kids for just about any goal.  In the end, that is my main focus for my life.

I realized that maybe the key is to celebrate the small accomplishments.

I'm proud of what sweet little kids I have.  I loved watching Tyler a week ago when we brought in baby Jasmine for his show and tell.  He LOVES his baby sister.  When we came home from our vacation, he gave us hugs and then spent the next 10 minutes cooing at the baby he missed so much.  And when he got to show her off to his class, he laughed and hugged her dearly and danced with joy.

I'm proud that I get to help out my neighbors with their math classes.  I had a younger student that started coming recently because his dad's job didn't leave enough time for the help he needed anymore.  He was a bit nervous at first, but every time I complimented him on getting something right or remembering something important, he took it right to heart, nodding with pride.  "Thank you!"  And when he went home, he told his mom that he wanted to keep coming back because he had FUN.  I love hearing from the parents that their child passed their last test miraculously, or was happy to go back to their class because they finally understood what was going on.

I'm really happy with how Jasmine's baby blessing dress turned out!  This project was so perfectly me, to be honest.  I had this white skirt that I loved . . . until I got a stain on the lap of it.  So it has sat in my "to be re-purposed" pile for a while now.  Instead of a pattern, I tore apart an old baby onesie I didn't like to pattern the sleeves , and made the rest up as I went.

I might not win awards for this talent, but I am really glad that I know how to sew.  It isn't a given these days, and it is such a useful talent I just don't know how anyone lives without it!  I mean, an hour before we were heading to the airport for our beach vacation, I was at my sewing machine adding elastic to my husband's favorite swim trunks so that he could keep them up.  I am so glad that I can fix clothing and create random toys and bags and things for my kids.

We had a wonderful baby blessing on Mother's day, by the way.  What a perfect day to celebrate a little baby!  And when my mom lamented to my dad last week how much she wished she could be here to celebrate with us, he told her that she should go.  And so she did!  I had a wonderful Mother's Day, hosting all of our family and friends, admiring my adorable little girl in her pretty little dress, and then leaning back in my Mother's Day present to relax afterward with my favorite girl friends.

And my mom loved that I made her favorite Black Forest cake for the occasion.

I'm so proud of Kaitlyn lately!  She is honestly a big help with baby Jasmine.  She loves to run and get me binkies, and has become a pro at giving them to Jasmine herself.  But the biggest victory has been her reading skills!  I have spent a lot of time with her lately, going through words letter by letter.  "What letter is that?  What sound does it make?  Okay, let's sound them out together . . ."  And then, lo and behold, last week she shifted from writing books by scribbling a line on a page to attempting to sound out and spell words all on her own.  She wrote this letter to her Uncle Gary and Aunt Jackie and Maya and has asked me to mail it for her.

Obviously it isn't spelled the right way, but the fact that she tried it herself and got to "Mieu" and "Gre" instead of "Maya" and "Gary" by asking me is actually more impressive in my mind.

Another day, she decided to ask her friends to "please come to my sleepover."

She is by no means the first kid in the world to learn how to spell, but what I'm really proud of is that I could actually see cause and effect in my parenting efforts.  We have worked hard on letters and spelling, and she is making great progress that she is proud of.  Many parts of parenting feel like running on a treadmill - cleaning up toys that will be all over the house again tomorrow, potty training for two years straight, etc - but for once, I could actually see that what I did made a direct impact.

That might not all add up to an Ironman, but it's enough for me!

Christopher Skarda, you are an IRONMAN!

Wow, what a day.

To recap how we got here, Christopher figured he should try a full Ironman while lying on his back exhausted after last year's half Ironman.  Which was only 4 months after his first ever Triathlon.  That should give you an idea of how crazy and determined my husband is.  He and another co-worker got into a "if you sign up, I'll sign up with you" pact, and rather than pick a nice and easy Ironman for their first time, they signed up for the toughest Ironman out there.  The St. George Ironman was the closest and most convenient, but also had 5,000 feet of climbing on the bike course.  They made the run a bit flatter than in the past (though it was still worse than most), but at least one swim should be the same as another.

We had to be in town by Thursday at 4 to sign in, and then he spent almost all day Friday testing out the water in the reservoir, setting up his bike and turning in his gear bags.  Friday night we went over to the house my aunt and uncle rented to have a family dinner.

That was the awesome part of doing a local Ironman - we had such a huge support group!  My aunt and uncle have come down to watch the Ironman before even though they didn't know anyone running it, simply because they thought it was so amazing to watch.  (They have both run many marathons, triathlons, and relay races, so it is right up their alley.) So when we told them that Christopher signed up, they were thrilled. Two of my cousins came down with their families to have a weekend vacation and come watch with them.  And then one of my brothers jumped on the chance and drove up from Las Vegas with his family to cheer Chris on as well.  They have run a few races themselves, and my niece (with the red hair in the picture above) has already started triathlons.  In fact, she ran one at 10 years old and pulled a 3:15 minute half mile!  She told me she couldn't imagine ever trying something like this, and I told her that Christopher remembers thinking the same thing when he was a kid.

Saturday morning was an early start for everyone.  My brother drove Chris down to his shuttle at 4 am, and then we headed out to the spectator shuttle at 5:30.  Since my kids had been up late for two nights in a row, they were not very happy with me when I woke them up.  The amazing part was that after we waited in the long line of cars to park, gathered our gear, and hustled over to the shuttle, my aunt and uncle walked coincidentally into line right in front of us.  It was fantastic.  I never did find my mother-in-law, who came down with a grandson to watch as well, but I was really glad to have my family all day.

And Daddy even found us in the sea of people before the start of the race!

Watching them start was amazing.  They sound off the cannon, and off went almost 1500 swimmers!

Notice the kayaks and boats on hand to help out?  Yeah, they got important really fast.  The swim started  in nice and calm water, but the wind picked up not more than five minutes in.  It got worse, and worse, and by the time they turned the corner and headed into the wind it was up to 40 mph and created 4 foot waves.

It was mass carnage.

On land, we had trouble merely walking in the wind.  My kids were frozen, and I ended up keeping them tucked behind a large rock so they didn't feel the worst of it.  And soon we saw athletes coming in by the dozens, walking like zombies over to where the spectators were watching the finish line to tap their families on the shoulder and end their IronMan day.  Unfortunately, Christopher's friend was one of them.  By the end, over 200 of them didn't finish that swim.  The race director is quoted as saying that had the wind picked up 15 minutes earlier, it "would have been a no-go."  With all that goes into putting on a race like this, that isn't a decision to be made lightly.  But with everyone already in the water, all we could do was pray the volunteers kept everyone safe and will your particular person to shore somehow.  I was huddled at the barrier, shivering and craning my neck to watch everyone step out while muttering "come on hon, you can do it . . ." under my breath.

On Christopher's end, he said that when he felt the first wave he stopped and looked up "to see what idiot was driving their boat so close that I felt the wake."  When the wind really picked up and he realized what was going on, his first thought was "oh no, Russell isn't going to make it", since the swim was his friend's weakest leg.  But as it got worse, he said his thoughts went to "oh no, I'm not going to make it!"  One of the things that kept him going was seeing how busy the volunteers were pulling out the ones that needed help, and deciding that he didn't want to add to that.

And let me tell you, I was never so relieved to see my husband as when he came up to transition!  I knew that he was a good enough swimmer to be safe out there, but I was so nervous that he wouldn't make the 2:20 cut off and be devastated.  Luckily, he pulled in at 2:02.  He said that he was so nervous that he would go the wrong way around the buoys and get DQ'ed that he ended up going around the outer edge of the lane just to be sure.

By the way, I love that at a race like this, they have "strippers" there to help take off the wet-suits.

As a side story, I had completely not thought about us being cold when I packed for the trip.  St. George is warm, so I packed warm.  And when I realized that it would be cold early in the morning, all I could find for the kids was our beach towels for them to huddle in.  Thank heavens we had those, as they spent the entire morning wrapped in them.  And when Chris came across, I went back to where the kids were with my brother, and he informed me that Kaitlyn fell asleep.

By some utter miracle, Jasmine slept through the entire four hour ordeal snugly in her car seat, and I was glad that my brother kept watch over them all in the back of the crowd so that Kaitlyn could get a nap too.

Anyway, Christopher went through transition one, and headed out on his bike.

He seemed excited to have that behind him, but of course the wind was not kind to the bikers either.

Apparently the first place pro got blown literally off the course at one point because the wind was so strong. Since finding your biker out on the course is nearly impossible, we went back to the condo to rest and watch his progress on the tracking app.  Thankfully, Christopher followed nearly exactly what he had done a month ago when he biked the course with his friend, and since it was windy that day as well he wasn't too surprised by it.   And since he was on track, we knew right when to come down and see him finish the 112 mile bike ride.

We couldn't believe how every time we saw him, he was looking up and smiling.  Time to head out on the marathon.

It felt almost rude, but when the race is 17 hours long, you have a lot of down time.  My brother Gary went for a round of golf with a friend while Christopher was biking.  And when he started the marathon, we took the kids to a carousel in the town square.

And then we found a nice shady spot of grass to watch the runners go by.

By the way, I have to mention that having my brother and his wife along was quite literally a life saver.  I'm not just saying this because I know he reads my blog - I cannot imagine any possible way I could have made it through the day without them.  Watching races is a lot of standing around and watching for your runner to come by, and toddlers aren't much into that.  I can't count the number of times they got dumped with the kids so that I could search for Christopher to take pictures or run alongside him for a minute.  It often took all of us just to carry the gear and the kids.  They were awesome.

This part of the day was actually oddly anticlimactic.  The weather was beautiful, and we could just relax in our chairs, attempt to keep the kids out of the running ditch water in front of us, and watch the runners flow by.  The marathon was three loops that went up and down the street, and many of the athletes didn't have much energy left, so it was a constant stream of them walking up and down in front of us.

Not my husband, though.  He said that he has walked on marathons before, so it wasn't that he was above it - he just wanted to see if he could manage to run the whole thing.  So he did.  He ran every single step of the marathon, and despite what came before it, pulled a 4 hour 13 minute time, which is a great time for anyone on a normal day.

Maya tried to offer him one of our cookies, but I think he was just too focused.

Before we started, we had a lot of discussions on what he expected to be able to do.  He told me he was thinking the swim would be a little over 1:30 (obviously that got off track), the bike would be 7:30 (he did 7:38) and "I'll just put whatever I have left into the marathon".  All told, he was thinking it would be great if he could come in by 15 hours, but "as long as I finish by the 17 hour cut off I'll be happy." Since he made up so much time on the marathon, he finished the day even earlier than he had hoped.  When he turned the corner to the bright lights, all he could see were silhouettes of hands reaching out for a high five, so he decided to duck and weave across his lane, slapping as many as he could.

And at just over 14 hours, he ran in and kissed the finish line post.

I just can't believe how well he did!  Finishing an Ironman at all is a major accomplishment, finishing this particular Ironman with the horrendous swim and mountain climbs is unbelievable, and my husband managed to finish 537th out of  just over 1100 finishers.

My title is literally what they say as you cross the finish line - Christopher Skarda, you are an IRONMAN!  It might be the most amazing title he has ever achieved.  Way to go, babe!