Good day, good week, good life.

I sit here and begin my post at the same time I would normally be wrapping it up...so...this won't be long.

(Does anyone ever believe me when I say that?)

No, really, this won't be long. :)

But, I am glad to be sitting here this late, glad to be tired from the day's activities, glad to be overhearing "Mantracker" from the next room over where JC is enjoying a little downtime himself (hisself? Katie? Monica? Laura?...I defer all grammatical questions to my sisters who have better recollections of their freshman Honors English Class where these things were hammered into our brains...), glad to be tingly-stomached about the idea of sand under my toes tomorrow, glad to be . . . glad.


It was a good week. It started out a little sick-y, as some weeks do.
It turned, for me, into a liver detox I've been meaning to do for a while. Raw foods, then three days of a juice fast, drinking herbal tea, herbal tonics, and orange juice smoothies made with garlic cloves, olive oil, and fresh cut ginger.
One big PAR-TAY, that's what a liver detox is!
It was horrible and amazingly invigorating all at once.

I...feel...so....GOOD! (Orange County, anyone?)

We had long days with JC at work (business booms, who can complain?), grumpy afternoons where Ben refused to nap as is NOT his right yet, at only barely two! Someone tell him!

We had homemade granola bars...it had been a while since we honored our used-to-be-weekly-tradition!

We got A Pomegranate off our tree. :) Yes, one. One this year. But how happy it made us! Oh, and by the way, a worm got it and it wasn't actually any good. But, how happy it made us!




Let's try for two next year, my lovely Queen! (Pomegranate Tree has retained the name Queen Anne. For me at least. JC just looks at me funny when I refer to her as such. Coming from the guy who named his car at one point in time. And is now, as I can plainly hear, watching a recorded episode of Oprah and no longer Mantracker. I'm just saying.)

But, to be fair, he also hunts and grunts and lifts really heavy things.
I wish I could show you all the picture Bethany drew of him today. The stick figure that is Daddy has his arms raised over his head "because he's so strong."
I love you, honey.

We had the wonderful opportunity to go view Mark Mabry's photography exhibit at our stake center. I really thought it important that the kids see this...me too. And it was amazing, of course.
As I walked through this small, profoundly touching display of images portraying the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, I was literally made better, happier, more grateful than ever for Him and the amazing (AMAZING!) opportunity we have every day for the rest of our lives and beyond to utilize Him for what He is - - our best friend, our savior, our brother. To rejoice in His love.
I wanted to stay there, wrapped up in that beautiful display forever. Since James was determined to have actual physical contact with these lovely photographs, we didn't stay too long...instead I decided to try to stay wrapped up in the feeling of the display. :)
Watching my children look into the face of the man portraying Christ in these photographs was perhaps one of the happiest experiences of my life.

I got to go with my sisters and Mom to be pampered a bit by getting our footsies rubbed and toes painted, then on to the Relief Society Broadcast.
Where Bonnie had a laughing fit after I tried to use my mind powers to adjust Sister Allred's necklace (it was crooked and I felt bad for her!) and Katie then made it worse by saying something clever...which, as I'm learning, you just cannot do to poor Bonnie Jean, who has a tendency to end up having to leave church meetings when her giggles get the best of her.
Andrew, you chose well.
She fits right in.
Cannot tell you how many family prayers growing up we had to just plain call off because everyone started laughing too hard.
So, anyway, pedicures, dinner, broadcast...it was great.

I am really really glad to be a part of The Relief Society. I have been thinking about this a lot lately anyway and being at that meeting really drove some points home...perhaps the sharing of which is for another time since it is late and I am tired and you...maybe don't care as much. :) But, anyway, I am glad.

Today, we made it through sacrament meeting, Ben stopped crying after a few minutes of nursery, we taught our sunday school lesson, I felt glad to be there. Went to Relief Society, got paired with the Stake Relief Society President, who was visiting, to do a role play where she was investigating the gospel and I was supposed to answer her questions. Did not as much feel glad to be THERE. Haha, just kidding, it was actually great. I guess I usually end up knowing what to say more so than I think I will. I guess that's what growing up in a great family, being taught by great teachers, and having small children I am trying to constantly teach...it all does me some good. :)

Then, this afternoon, this happened:

We were cleaning the kitchen when James got a special phone call.

From this guy.
From ten feet away.

It was really cute. I liked watching the two of them be silly. Well, I don't think James thought it was silly at all. He held up his end of the conversation with much seriousness.

But soon the phone got passed to another who wanted to talk to him.

And she WAS a bit silly. :)

The trade:

And the continuing of conversation.

SO funny. We loved that.

Anyway, it was a good week.

Our trip to Huntington Beach begins tomorrow and I could not be more excited. I will miss the kids. Like always. But this will be a fantastic couple of days.
Much needed.
Huntington is my happy place. Away from home, that is, of course. :)

So, off I go with my bags packed (yes, I really am packed! Yay!), my toes purple and embellished, my book of choice in tote (a must for any trip), and my camera so I can properly tell of my adventure...or perhaps non-adventure...it is the beach after all...when I return.
Also, my straw cowboy hat.
And flip flops.
And a craving for good seafood.

Anyway, I could keep this going forever but I think the whole point was not to.

So, I will report back next week to tell of another great seven days after we have had our fun. JC has the whole week off and when we get back from our excursion we plan to do some special and fun things with the kids. It will be delightful.

But now it's bedtime. And I'm glad.

Ben's Birthday Party - Finally!!...etc.

Well, take two of scheduling Ben's birthday party went without interruption by sickness. Yay!!!
And, I'm up to date enough on my blogging to be posting about something that happened just yesterday. Yay!!!
And . . . I bought new jeans yesterday in a size I haven't bought in a really long time. Yay!!!
But, this isn't about me - - so, back to Ben's birthday party. Yay!!!
(Sorry, the over-excitement tends to take on a life of its own...)

That morning, Ben preps for the busy hours ahead with his usual morning smoothie.
These have become a daily standard around here.
We've all developed a love affair with these.

We had a normal day-of-party morning...JC running around town (and by "town" I mean the square mile surrounding our home...I love our location.) getting stuff prepped, me running around the house (and by "house" I mean...well...our house...) getting stuff and children and maybe myself prepped. I had been feeling sick the night before and not wanting to do much but lay on the couch and watch my recorded episode of Oprah interviewing Whitney Houston.
I'm sorry, but I find it fascinating.
I've had it recorded for like, two weeks and watched like, ten minutes total. I think maybe my brain tricked me into feeling sick just so I could justify watching it for a few minutes.
Anyway, again, this is not about me . . .
Mid-morning, family and friends started to trickle in and the fun began...Bethany wasn't around the first part of the party because she had a Primary Program Practice (try typing that three times fast). Her first Primary Program! So fun!

The "fruit cake"
(that title implies a completely different kind of dessert but I can't think of a better name...)
I found this idea in 'The Friend' magazine, August's edition.
Perfect birthday cake, right?
(At least while he's still too young to get upset about the lack of chocolate...
by the way, I am officially old enough to get upset about a lack of chocolate on my birthday...)

While everyone was having a blast in the other room, this is what Ben did:
pushed up a chair

shimmied on up

beheld the bounty

and dug in.

Within a few minutes, he had a red red watermelon face and a soaking wet shirt from all the drizzling fruit juice. We pulled him away before he could do too much damage to his already-smoothie-packed-tummy. Got a new shirt...got him back to the fun!

We had pulled the ball pit upstairs and stationed some good ol' bubble machines up high in the playroom, which made for a good culmination of all things loved by Ben.
Here, we have some friends enjoying these just as much as he is:
the back of James' head, little Rowdy White, Birthday Boy Ben, Teagan and Maylee Lunt in the background, good ol' Heidi and Braydon White on the couch, and Little Livia (also a Lunt).

By the way, I'm going to get really obnoxious with my blog here for a while...or always...we had this really great lesson in Relief Society today about family history. Someone made a great point about how we can't all be elbows-deep in geneology during every phase of our life (i.e. when having small children), but that there are always things we can do. For example, we can all keep a journal, a scrapbook, some sort of personal history since "we are all somebody's ancestor." (Someone said that in class and I thought it was very profound.) Anyway, so I feel eager to do a better job at really using my blogging as a family record-keeping tool. So, I may do more labeling of pictures and more silly story-telling than I have been lately...at least until I get it out of my system and get lazy again. :)
Really, though, I am so glad I have this way to document our family goings-on, keep in touch with friends and family, and record my thoughts and feelings along the way. We live in an amazing time.
Um...really...not about me...moving on...

Ben gets some cuddles from Grandma Trudie (my mom), while Cousin Carrigan looks on.

Little Livia again.
I love how sweet and cute and unassuming she is.
And I love to call her Little Livia.
She is being sweet and cute and unassuming as always, waiting for bubbles to fall into her little hands. I think I heard her say "Yes!" one time when one did. Too cute.
Livia is just about six months younger than James. But since she is more like Ben's size, Bethany has assigned her the role of "Ben's best friend."

...but notice how they play with the bubbles separately...
It's a very casual best friends relationship.

Maylee takes her bubble playing very seriously.
It is not to be taken lightly.

When Bethany arrived, she made her presence known.

James and company (Teagan and Carrigan) enjoy their food at "The Little Table" in the kitchen.

Brittney opts for table-side snacking.

When it came present time, Ben was delighted (Bethany's new favorite word...as in "Mommy, don't you think Daddy will be delighted we put his clothes away for him?"...yeah, I have no idea where this stuff comes from...).
Here he shows off some new tub toys!

and bubbles!

And, from his siblings...

his very own Woody doll. I mean, action figure.

Conversation just now - -
Me (to JC): Would you call Woody an action figure?
JC: Yes. (in a voice that clearly indicates his frustration of my non-understanding for boy playthings.)

Back to the party:

My family taking their spot on the red couch laughing at something. I don't know what was going on but Katie's facial expression clearly indicates she just got done making some clever comment.
It's nice to have Katie back.
But now we miss Monica.
This day we missed Laura too. She was sick. But at least she didn't leave us for college. :)

Back to the Woody Action Figure.
WAF.
I'm going to call it WAF.
Katie demonstrates how to remove WAF's hat.
This skill has proved quite disastrous in our cluttered playroom.
Ben is always walking around "Oystry's hat? Oystry's hat?" (Oystry is his version of Toy Story which is what he calls Woody. I mean WAF. Okay, forget it.
I tried it, it doesn't appear to flow effortlessly as all nicknames should.
We'll stick with Oystry.

Hugs.

Kisses.

Classic pull-string action. So cute.

I think he loves it.
As he did his party and all his guests.
And, the fact that he got to celebrate his birthday again three weeks after the fact.

So, it was all good. Party, guests, new Oystry, a laid back afternoon playing in all the wrapping paper, enjoying the ball pit out of place, having rest time with Daddy while mommy goes shopping...
Yeah, about that...

So, my ward had an activity that evening. Really cute little theme...County Fair. With displays of homemade goods, baked goods, booths of face painting, ladder golf, etc., fair food (corn dogs, caramel apples, fry bread), and live entertainment. Such a cute and well-executed program. Props to the people in charge, for sure.
Not so much to the people doing the live entertainment. Well...they were all actually really good. Except the first number.
Haha, I'm so funny.
Yeah, I sang and played my guitar (actually my sister's guitar because mine has been around small children so long it will not hold a tune once it is tuned). It was terrifying. But I figured it's about time I start doing things like this again or I never ever will.

So, a couple weeks ago, I gave my sister, Katie-of-the-guitar, the assignment of finding me the perfect song. So, she helped me and coached me a little, then turned me loose to practice. Which I hardly did. Small children that are either awake and wanting to bang on your guitar/shove small plastic animals past the strings so they clank around inside or cry about you doing something other than stare at them, OR asleep and requiring semi-quiet made this thing difficult. But anyway, it's all okay because I did it. It was okay. People clapped for me and JC was proud of me. And I can say that I did it.
AND, I have developed calluses on my fingers from playing again. Hopefully I can keep them there. :)

Oh, also, back to the original lead into this one-sided conversation, as confidence builders, I got new jeans. And maybe a top, bracelet, and shoes as well.
Katie-of-the-guitar, my coach and JC-of-the-bank-account, my husband both gave me permission.
The end result was some kind of embellished hippie look that made me feel like a rock star. Or the older sister on The Wonder Years. So, I owe any success of my not-so-important-to-be-talking-about-it-this-long "debut" as Katie called it.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to get my groove back.


My last topic of the evening...

Awesome family vacation.
No, I'm not referring to the time we shall spend in Huntingon Beach coming up, nor the brave trip to Pennsylvania next year to grace Sesame Place with our eager presence.
I'm talking about something that will be years in the planning and more awesome than all other family vacays put together.
I'm talking about something inspired by our callings as Sunday School teachers, our rich heritage, and the way our sweet four-year-old's eyes light up whenever we tell stories from the scriptures and church history. (This is where JC gets really nervous about what kind of crummy vacation I'm going to be dragging him into.)

Oh, but it will be awesome.

We're going to have a Ballard Family Trek.
I've always wanted to do both a trip to Central America and tour around the Book of Mormon lands where my brother served his mission. (want to be our tour guide, Uncle Andrew?) :)
And I've always wanted to do a church history tour.
I've always wanted to do both while our kids were remotely young so they still had that insatiable appetite for these stories and the spirit that accompanies them. So they had these memories to build on and remember as they moved through their adolescent years. So we could just have a darn good time as a family.
Anyway, all the details are still in the making but all I know for sure is we ARE doing this. Maybe all in one summer.
Maybe with a trek west following (but in our mini van and not handcarts or covered wagons) to bring us back home. Where we can stop along the way at historical sites...for either our family specifically or just many of those heart-touching stories we all hear over and over. Sweetwater River, anybody? (And by the way, I will take the fact that JC fought emotion when telling this story in our class today to mean that he secretly cares for this stuff as much as I do and does not mind being dragged on a crummy vacation.)

So, anyway, I just had to share.
It's going to be awesome.
I'm going to start planning...NOW!

Goodnight. :)

Summer's End.

Let me start with exciting, life-changing news: Bethany started preschool this week!!!
(Don't think this is life-changing? If you had lived in our house this summer while she was bored to death, despite my best efforts, you would agree. Poor, bright girl! She definitely has a hunger for all things learning, all things busy, and all things...not mom and brothers day after day!)

So, the last couple of weeks were full of anticipation, sickness, and more work around the house in connection with The Summer of the Second Move-in.

I could probably do something creative, but as has become my signature blog-style this summer...
Here are some pictures to tell you all about how we spent our last couple of weeks of unscheduled, restless, summertime. :)

This is how Bethany arrived at the office door one evening after she was supposed to be sleeping. I think I had been out working out and JC snapped this beauty.
PJ's, dress-up beads, and -yes - tights pulled on over pajama pants.
Never a dull moment.

When the house is all cluttered from closets having been cleaned out, toys gone through, etc. our scattered toys get a little overwhelming and hard to play with. So, we start focusing on dress up.
Ben sticks mostly to hats.
Please note that he is also holding the string of his birthday balloon. I told you.
Also, pleast don't note all the clutter on the floor in the playroom.
Some days (or summers) are like this.

Bethany convinced James to dress up to dance with her.
Somehow, music usually accompanies dress-up.
Much to JC's relief, James has started choosing the boy dress-up clothes (more often than not) now. Here he is a cowboy. They are so cute.

Um. Precious.
(Especially the part where she is clearly the instigator of this and he is just kind of standing there taking it.)

Our trusty ol' ballpit got a leak in it and all the air kept coming out. After patching it a couple of times and still waking up to a deflated ballpit/swimming pool, JC decided to replace it. So, here is how we used the old one for a couple of days. The kids were kind of sick anyway and doing a lot of laying around, watching movies, etc. So, it became a pillow pit.
I rather enjoyed this.
I wish we had one always.
To eat grapes and watch movies in.

SO, I hit a big milestone in my organizing/unpacking/cleaning a couple weeks ago and finally the only closet I had left to clean out was the BIG one under the stairs.

My parents' house has a closet under their stairs that keeps on going and my family calls it Narnia.

Mine can't be Narnia because it doesn't have the little door leading to the extra space/foreign land.

Perhaps it will just be The Cupboard Under the Stairs. Still a cool reference.

Anyway, here is a glimpse of all the stuff I was wading through and dealing with as I cleaned it out.

All of that came from here. And needed to be organized. So I worked on that.

But then if you actually walk into that closet, you discover this off to the right:

Which, after an hour or so, turned into this:

How much do you love that space? I love that space. (We all know Harry would have loved that space.)
Someday I will utilize it to its full potential.
Moving on...

Just a shot of Ben in the disheveled playroom, on the disheveled couch. Holding his balloon.
He wasn't feeling well this day and requested "Toy Story" repeatedly until I finally caved.
Definitely worth a little extra tv time to get this shot.
And, of course, for him to feel all warm and cozy watching his favorite movie holding his treasure.

A few days later, it RAINED.

The heavens be praised, it rained.

Unfortunately, Bethany had been up much of the night before with the stomach bug. All she wanted to do was lay on the floor. Not be held, not snuggle up on the couch or chair. Lay on the floor. I think she liked the cool breeze coming in from the balcony door being open while the boys and I played in the rain.

Here, Ben had had enough of the rain (had started to not feel well himself...was up the following night with the stomach bug) and he and JC cuddled while Bethany held her spot on the floor.

James and I continued to enjoy the rain. It came down HARD for a while.
We hid out under the stairs.

Where I enjoyed this view of the wet world.

And he colored, with wet sidewalk chalk (the best kind), on the porch railing.
I would love to have some sort of rule about this...like, "no coloring on the house"? But, he was enjoying it so much and, really, what does it hurt?

Over the next few days, the kids worked on getting all the sicknesses we'd experienced recently out of their systems. And we had a lot of down time. A lot.

Here is a new favorite past-time.

SesameStreet.org

Wowie, does this hold their attention. A little too well sometimes! I usually use this as a way to get dinner prepared and limit its use to that time of day, but we used it a little more while not feeling like doing much else.
You can see how the office has also fallen victim to my household overhaul. Yes, those are piles of papers. And, yes, I for some reason feel the need to draw attention to them.
I will also draw attention to the fact that I thin they (kids, not papers) look really cute sitting together in the office chairs.

Then, it was officially time! The first day of school!!! We were all excited!!!

Little Miss Bethany, all ready to go!

A blurry picture of the three of brothers sending her off.

And some more cute shots of the special morning...

She did awesome! Eased right back into her class, was excited to be with her teachers again...the boys seemed to remember the old routine of dropping her off, then coming back to play/let mommy clean the kitchen, get lunch ready, go back to pick her up, come home, eat lunch and move on about our day! I remembered it pretty well too. I think we thrive on a schedule.

This weekend we worked on some more organizing of stuff.
Just too much stuff around here!
Bethany climbed back into the Cupboard Under the Stairs to help JC with something.

Then Ben wanted a turn. This sure looks like a fun...concrete...playground!

Here's a good story: The other day, I'm getting the kids set up to play with some playdough. I get them each in a chair at the kitchen table and head to our crafty/activity closet to get the necessary supplies. I heard some commotion, then Bethany saying "Ohh JAMES." then "Mommy? You better come see this! It's bad." Nobody was crying so I didn't go running or anything but I made my way back into the kitchen expecting to see my grocery list torn up or maybe some crayon on the wall. (I really can't think of a wall in my home that does not have at least some crayon on it)
Nope.
Instead, I find Bethany with humongous eyes, pointing silently to James...who is silently frozen in a pose that was clearly the end result of slamming his water bottle (the metal canteen one) down on our table top.
Our glass table top.
Now, the actual table top itself is not glass. The whole table is made of wood...but it's a soft wood, so after many many dents caused by little forks being slammed down on it after just the first couple of days, we decided to get a glass top to protect it for a few years until the kids could be trusted to not...destroy things...
Um, yeah, well, the plan wasn't foolproof apparently.
Luckily, nobody was hurt in any way, I just got them out of there and kept them out of there...nothing went flying, we just had a cracked table top on our hands and I didn't really want their hands near it. But it was definitely ruined.

Definitely.

Here is JC in his valiant clean-up efforts later that night!
I have to mention this awesome knife he had that was just right for this job. It actually has a point or a pick or something (I am hardly knife-savvy) on the handle just for breaking glass...or breaking ice...? But anyway, he went to work and thanks to that, his studly ways, my mom's contribution of a box, and our trusty ol' Kirby Vac, the kitchen was again a safe place to be!

Good bye glass top. Hello, gorgeous black-stained wood ready to be dented!
We'll just be going for the distressed look.
That's pretty "now," right?

Anyway, with clutter, stomach bugs, balloons, first days of school, that story, and this picture that Bethany took on our camera a long time ago when I was sick that I happened to stumble across tonight,

We kiss the summer goodbye!