Blackham Update (September 2008)

Well, our last update was a “what we did on our summer vacation” essay if you will. Since then, school has started and we’re all back on a schedule, and as September has ended, I figured an update is probably due.

Landon is now in Junior High. We went to his orientation and walked the halls to familiarize him with all his classes. He rides the bus to school, and he always gets himself up and off all by himself.  Instead of the t-shirts and basketball shorts, he has begun dressing in nice jeans and golf shirts every day. He only had a couple collar shirts, but once I realized this was his preferred method of dress, I was happy to invest in several more. He looks so handsome.

Callahan and Keaton started their school too. 4^th and 2^nd grade respectively. Last year I couldn’t really carpool with anyone, but now with a space vacated by Landon, I’ve been able to set up a schedule with our neighbor. She drives to school, and I pick up. This works out well for me, as the drive at 3:30 usually gets Colton down for his nap. There is an Arctic Circle about a quarter-mile from the school, which hands out free mini ice cream cones to the kids. I’ve been letting the kids walk down and get an ice cream cone and I pick them up there. I get to avoid some of the school traffic that way.

Callahan is very busy! He has basketball practice on Monday nights, scouts on Tuesday, soccer practice on Thursday. He’s had a couple of soccer games on Friday evenings, but mostly they fall on Saturday mornings, often conflicting with his basketball games. So far they are undefeated in soccer (one tie) but they have a couple tough teams yet to face. In basketball, they have already faced the two hardest teams, one barely beat them, but the other was a blowout (we lost). Callahan really takes defeat hard.

Keaton turned the big 8 years old and got baptized. It was good to see many of you at the church and at the house afterward for the chocolate fountain. We usually let the kids have a big “friend” birthday  party upon turning eight, but with the baptism and a family trip to Moab, it just didn’t fit into the schedule. So ... we’ll be putting that on the calendar for next year!

Keaton received a brand new Nintendo DS for his birthday. Landon promptly traded him $20 plus his old DS for the new one. After my Ipod was stolen (again ... from the church parking lot, again) Grayson bought me one of the brand new Nanos. Landon promptly traded me his older Nano and $35 for the new Nano (I figure he’ll appreciate the cool new features more than I would).

Cooper has started preschool again with Ms. Cindy. It is about a half mile away, so while the weather holds, we walk to drop him off and pick him up. Cooper celebrated a birthday too. 5 years old ... and still not potty trained. I hadn’t planned on giving him a friend party, but shortly before his birthday, he would carry around a couple of catalogs (from Oriental Trading Co and an online toy store) and point out things on the pages. “This is coming to my party, and Riley is giving me this for a birthday present, and Ben is giving me this, and I want this for my birthday, and I want that for my party...” I ended up throwing him a little party with three little friends, and he was happy. He still loves catalogs and runs to the mailbox each day, hoping for a “toybook” to come in the mail. Then he will just pour over the pages until the catalog falls apart. He loves the ones featuring Halloween costumes too, but NOT the scary ones!

Colton has quite a fascination with things up in the sky. The moon, airplanes, helicopters, birds, even clouds. He is always pointing them out to me. I like the time when it is just baby and me, when all the other boys are in school. A good portion of the time, we do have to run errands, but he’s such a good boy and is never any trouble.

During the summer the boys got into the habit of “sleepouts” – they would just get blankets and pillows and sleep all together, in the downstairs family room and weekdays, and upstairs on weekends. With school starting, I told them they should return to their rooms to sleep ... well, all five boys are in the downstairs bedroom.  Usually Gray and I get the kids pretty much ready for bed and then he and I go downstairs into our “gym” (we’ve been trying to get in evening workouts together). When we come out, the house is quiet, and all the kids are down. It makes for nice, quiet evenings.

So that is basically what’s been going on around the Blackham home. I’ll leave you with a cute quote from Cooper ... he will walk up to you and ask “Do you want to take a hug of me?”  I always do.

Jen and da boys