Month: April 2008

Just playing with some pictures I took.

There are woman in the church who amaze me. They have such grace, and charm, and can get up and lead a meeting with such class and seem so articulate. I marvel at them, and wonder if I will ever grow into a maturity like this. It got me to thinking about the women in my life. There is of course my mother, where would I be without her? I have a hard time seeing her as a young mom. I wonder if she had the same self doubts that I have when it comes to being a mother. Or how about Danny’s Mom, she seems so sure of herself and capable in her parenting skills, were these great women once young with little ones hanging on them? I know they were, I just have a hard time picturing it, they just seem to have so much more wisdom and understanding on the issues of life then I, so I’m hoping to grow into this maturity that I see in these great woman in my life.

So moving on… Tanner had a soccer game on Saturday, the wind was blowing like it can only in Dayton. According to Danny it was blowing in gusts of over 60 miles per hour. It was blowing Alyssa right over and if Danny got off the chairs they would take off also. Tanner played goalie and the wind was with the other team, but nothing went past him. At half the coach put Tanner in as a forward, Tanner’s team won!

Aubrey came down with Strep throat this week, and it has run it course through all of us. I still have a residual sore throat, and wonder if I’m going to have to go see the doctor. I took Aubrey to the doc, and she was given some antibiotics, and it kicked it in her, but I’m the only one left with a sore throat.

I’m going to take the kids to Tahoe this weekend and get some photos I’ll post them if any of them turn out.

“Just another manic monday… oooo oooo… wish it were Sunday… ooooo oooo, that’s my fun day…” was blaring on the overhead music. I thought to myself how fitting for my day. In between the oooo’s there was the buzzing sound and then the statrling flinch that comes when water splashes onto my face. Oh where’s my fun day? Then Cindi Lauper comes on and I vision her pink hair half shaved and her hidious makeup, oh the things that go through your head when you are at the dentist. It was all going fairly well except for the annoying music and the occasional splash of water when I hear something really large go up that suckie thing, and the dentist says “hmmm interesting”. Hmmm interesting, are you serious, that is all you can say… I guess it is better then “oops”, or “uh oh” but still, what does that mean. I knew it couldn’t be good. My eyes are still closed, I assume that he’ll tell me if something serious is going on, and what good does it do to look anyway, all I have to look at is a fire sprinkler directly above my head, and the thoughts that come with that aren’t much better then the picture of Cindy Lauper in my head. I hear the nurse go out and talk with the front, and then I hear the front lady tell the people waiting that they are running 30 minutes behind. How can they be running 30 minutes behind it’s 8 in the AM and I’m the only person in there so far… duh, it’s me that is running 30 minutes behind, I’m assuming it has something to do with the “hmmm interesting” statement. So now I’m flinching with the water splashing, and my butt muscles starts to twitch, at least it’s a twitch no one can tell is happening, and it gives me something else to ponder. Do you think there is a connection from my right uppper back tooth to a twitch in the right lower cheek? Hmmm, I’m sure when I’m finished here that I’ll delete this out of embarassment. Buzz buzz, flinch flinch, twitch twitch, oooo that’s my fun day. After an hour and a half of this I finally emerged my twitch has stopped, I pay my $600 and wonder why I didn’t stop for a $20 pedicure instead of driving all the way to the dentist… don’t you think they should have at least given me a massage for that price? Sigh…

I try hard not to over schedule my kids. I do require that they take piano lessons, I guess that is my thing, but neither of them complain. I let them each choose one sport, but I can see with four kids how that might become a problem in the future if they all choose a different sport. Anyway, soccer has started and Tanner is all fired up. His first game was this Saturday, the day couldn’t have been more beautiful for a game. We all got a little sun and are looking all a little sun kissed.
Tanner plays goalie. I can’t believe how nervous I get for him when a ball is coming his way. I know the team counts on him, and it is a lot of pressure for a little kid. His coach plays him as a forward when the ball is mainly on the other end of the field and Tanner isn’t getting much action in the goalie box. He looks so cute in his uniform though…

Emma changed gymnastic coaches this week, and I’m hoping it’s a change for the good. She is now doing gymnastic practices for 4 hours a week, and seems to be loving it.

Our fence is still on the ground but we did get some peas in the ground this week. I guess the fence will have to be next weekend. We are just having a hard time getting the wood posts home without a truck, but we have a neighbor who works in Carson City next to Lowes, so I’m going to ask him to meet Danny there at lunch this week so we can get the large posts home.

We went to dinner at a friends house tonight, they are a little older then us and have teenager children which is delightful because they have been where we are but their children are usually more then happy to help us with our children. We bbq’d and just sat around and talked. We have come to love a lot of people in Dayton and have a great ward family here.

Danny has been given a new calling. He is now Sunday School President. So I guess he is moving on and leaving me in the nursery. I was told that I was being released in a couple of weeks, but they couldn’t tell me what until they had found a replacement for me. I have actually come to enjoy the nursery, the kids at least, I struggled a little with other issues of the nursery, but will truly miss the innocence of the little ones.

Aubrey mastered writing her name this week. She has had the AUB part down for a while, but this week mastered the rest of it. I thought it was cute how she added little lines at the tops of the Y. That is how the Y looks on a little cut out of her name that is taped to her dresser. She is obviously studied it, and copied it pretty closely.
Some funny things that Aubrey does: She loves to give gifts, mostly strange things that she finds around the house. She will completely cover the gift in tape and tape it to a piece of paper. It will take her an hour to tape it all up to the point that you can almost not even see what it is through all the tape. She will do this to flashlights, and other large items. There’s a part of me that thinks I should stop her, but she is so intent on what she is doing, and she isn’t meaning any harm. She can lose herself in a taping project for over an hour and hardly realize anyone is anywhere around. So if anyone wants to know what to get Aubrey for birthday, Christmas etc… tape, and more tape. I am officially out.
Yesterday we were getting into the van and Emma was in her way. Aubrey yelled out, move it Emma your holding up traffic. Yikes, where did she learn that.

Our kids have figured out what grown up do after they go to bed. They were awakened by noise, laughing, and screaming, I know GASP, They came running into our room and what they saw has shocked them for life. There lay Mom and Dad hiding under the covers with the children’s Nintendo’s deep in a a game of Mario Vs. Luigi. All this time the kids put there Nintendo DS’s on the chargers and head to bed, only to learn that Mom and Dad secretly take their games and play them. Oh the therapy bills are going to be huge. Now that we have been caught what are we going to do in bed at nights…

I’ll move on to something else before I get myself into trouble. Sometimes I’m not sure what to write. I have the purpose of keeping this sort of as a family journal and also keeping family up to date on what life is like for the O’Barr’s in Nevada. Anyway, soccer has started back up for Tanner so evenings are busy, luckily practices are so close to home that it doesn’t take a lot out of us to get him there and home.

Danny was up well after 1 am last night, which is nothing at all like our normal schedule. Work issues. Anyway, he didn’t get up like normal so Emma and Tanner brought Danny and I breakfast in bed this morning. It was sweet of them to think of us. They are good kids.

I’ve been making some plans for summer. The kids both have sport camps scheduled for July at BYU/Provo. Unfortunately their individual camps didn’t work out to be on the same dates so I’ll be traveling to Utah twice this summer just weeks apart unless I can find us a place to stay for a month in the Provo area. I’m working on that. I really wanted to go to Alaska this summer, but I just can’t see a way to make it work. I’d drive it with my kids, but gas would be so much money and air line tickets are going to cost too much also. So it looks like there will be many late afternoons napping on the beach at Lake Tahoe. Anyone is welcome to come and join us.

I guess that is it for me. Alyssa is into the dog food, and Aubrey thinks she is starving. I’m still going to the gym every morning, but I’m not sure I’m losing any weight, but I’m going to keep at it. Yosemite is still calling out to me, and I can’t wait till we can get out there and start exploring.

I’m pretty sure I have an addiction to brownies. There is just something about warm, gooey brownies. I actually startled myself today when I started making a batch. I told myself that I’m such a good mom, what a nice surprise that will be for my kids when they come home and have warm brownies to eat… what a crock. It’s me that wants the brownies. Sigh, I need to work on that. I even refer to my baby as a brownie, when she wakes up she is so warm and cuddly and it reminds me of the feeling I get from a warm brownie, maybe I need professional help. Don’t respond to that.

Anyway, it’s been a good week overall. The kids had dentist appointments on Thursday, and it took forever. We got to the office at 10:45, the appoinment was at 11, but you know me on time things, so 15 minutes was my fault, but we didn’t leave until 10 after 1:00, and that was just to have two kids teeth cleaned. It was nap time for Alyssa, and she was so restless, and fussy. Aubrey held up pretty good, but I was a bunch of nerves because of Alyssa. I have come to the realization though that my older two are old enough to be left at a dentist office. They have grown up so gradually, that I don’t think I realized that they are well growing up. Next time, since the dentist office is just 5 minutes from my home, I will drop them off, and then come back for them. With a book and a DS they are capable of behaving. There were no issues with teeth. I’m always so relieved when they get a good check up, they have their fathers teeth if you can inherit teeth, I have so many more issues with my teeth than Danny does.

We had Parent Teacher Conferences this week also. Both kids, I’m proud to say got glowing reports, and straight A’s. There teachers just love them! Danny likes to come to the Parent Teacher Conferences with me, which is great, but meant that we had to leave the kids home. The little one was napping, and the school is just down the street so we left Emma and Tanner home and told them to call if they needed us. We were just in conference with Tanner’s teacher, and she was saying what a bright, and gifted child he was when Emma called to tell us that Tanner had gotten his foot stuck in the coffee table. There’s my little Einstein at work…

I went out to lunch today with some ladies in our ward. We try and do it monthly, and we bring our kids. It was nice to get out and chat with well, grown ups. I don’t realize how much I miss that until I go out with them.

The rest of the day is pretty busy, this is my down time while Alyssa sleeps and Aubrey watches a little TV. Emma has a birthday party at 6:00 tonight and Costco has some good coupons so while she is at the party in Carson City, I’m going to run to Costco and do a mega shop. Tanner has a play date, he probably wouldn’t want me to call it that, he is going to a friends house to play after school. So everyone is busy this evening. We are also planning on fixing the fence this weekend so we need to go buy the stuff for that.

Danny fired up our sprinklers last night, I love the sound of sprinklers. They sell silent sprinklers but I requested noisy ones, to me that sound is like well a brownie. The kids ran through the sprinklers last night and I sat outside on the swing and enjoyed the smell coming up from the lawn and the noise of the kids and the sprinklers. The kids were wearing long sleeve shirts and jeans, but they just couldn’t seem to stay out of the water. Who can blame them. I can’t wait to fire up the BBQ and enjoy some sunshine. Well that is all from me. I went on a little long today… but now I can smell those baking brownies and I must go.

Go check out www.bluecoat.com and see Danny he’s famous now…