You might wanna be family.

If you're not going to be overwhelmed by all these pictures. And off we go . . .

But, then again, don't take my word for it. Lindsay says:

"Oh, these pictures are all FABULOUS!"


Come along for a Nolte ride then!

Just not in this one--you might end up thumbing a ride home.

How Owen didn't go loony on this breakdown with us, and our kids' bathroom sagas, and his migraine, I don't know.


So, here we are together with our family. [cue Primary song]

There's Nolen,

and Aimee, and some gu-uuy, and Bryan,

There's Alli and Ella, and Simon and Charlie,
and pet stingrays/leaves


and microscopes!


And music

and sychronized swimming (wow, we're glad to have Sarah and Owen's skills in the family!)

and ALL FIFTEEN GRANDKIDS!

The menfolk engineered some volleyball poles so we could play (not nearly enough!)

lawnchair volleyball

If someday Mark becomes like his grandpa and wears a lilac shirt, I will be so pleased. So classy, so wonderful, that Grandpa Nothum!

This is also a pretty good shot of the backyard fantasyland Mark's parents created.

Everything good happened on the tramp.

or at the Bean museum

or in a minivan

or on the tramp.

Join us again for next summer's installment!

Now, mind you, this was just our Utah week. Next I'll devote my efforts to our Boise time--but I've had a few technical difficulties with getting pictures from there. It seems that my one and only sister delivered an 11 pound boy this week--named Jackson!!!! Quite an accomplishment and quite a diversion! Just so the Tayes don't think I love them less--they're coming soon!

Thanks all you Noltes, Sneads and Nothums for being fabulous, admirable, so enjoyable, fascinating, and kind. I would gladly spend so many more weeks with you!

If you still can handle a wee bit more, here is Late Night Fights: William Nolte vs. Nolen Snead.

Taking roll

Okay, so someone noticed that I'm at the bottom of the blogroll pile. Sad sad place to be. Will you forgive me if I say last night I uploaded 183 photos off the ol' camera and all I can say is: soooon, soon, you will have too much of me. But for now, it's baby steps. Baby steps back into blogging ("Where is that 'new post' button???!!"). So much of August (theme: "Wow, that was living!!!!") to tell about, and not a single post to show for it. Shame. But for now, since we're talking about baby steps and taking roll, let's just talk about the present. Simon's first day of school was today. I'm feeling brainless about it (maybe because I got up at 5:30, maybe because I'm out of blogging practice?), so thankfully, Bethany crafted this montage:

Can you believe that those two little chubs are both now Pledging Allegiance to Texas daily? Me either.

Also, for a fitting tribute to this day and some of my real sentiments, head on over to Weeds Seeds!

Finally, I think it's great to start off your education with a Ms. Washington. What a name! Simon says she was fun, he shed no tears, we were just barely on time even though I planned to be there 20 minutes early (there is something cosmic that dogs me and dictates that I must arrive 5 minutes late), I feel good about the school change, and finally, Simon told me from his bed that "it was actually really boring and I just said it was exciting." Sigh. Here we go . . . am I rambling?

Oh, one last thing: I couldn't get Simon's school supplies before our Grand Western Tour because they like you to buy them from the PTO the week before school begins. So, when I went today to make the $28 purchase his teacher told me she had too many supplies and I didn't need to buy any--take that couponers!!! I join your ranks in the triumph of a penny saved!

Cancer-free that's me!

I'm happy to be a part of my cancer center's slogan. I went back for my check-ups recently--a year and half since my diagnosis--and through ultrasound and blood tests they determined that there is no detectable thyroid cancer. I'm really glad. I knew those would probably be the results I'd have, but I always get a little nervous the day or so before my appointments. It's really nice to have your doctor say "You're my most consistent patient!" meaning that all my levels that were supposed to get really low (near zero) and stay there have done so over the last year. It makes me want a "Have you hugged your endocrinologist lately?" T-shirt. The other fabulous thing is that I can continue to nurse Mary Tessa until she weans in the next 6 months or so, with no adverse effects on my health. Last year quite a few less-experienced doctors were not giving us that option. I remember hearing a woman with my same cancer say that a year later she looked back and thought "Did that really happen to me? It feels like a dream, my life is so normal now." I'm not quite ready to say that, but I am happy with how little my diagnosis affects my everyday now (beyond my morning granny pill).

We've got it good OR I haven't got it.

This morning I made an appointment to see if this is strep throat that I've got. So I was able to swing into the Medical Center and get Mark, trade off the car and kids to him, and while I was at my appointment a few buildings away they went off to prove why we've got it good. And this is it: Instead of having to wait in the waiting room with me, or killing time with Dad at a quikEmart, they got to go to the zoo. Because it's right across the street. And fabulous. And free to student families ("we're not low-income, we're just in academia!") The Zoo was particularly fabulous today because it was a bit breezy and the animals were all feeling social and the flora there is always so refreshing. Being with Dad in the middle of the day is treat in and of itself. And I just think that that is great. So the raging fiends of whiningland that I brought to Mark were all tranquil and pleased when they picked me up a few hours later. If you know Mark, a true mandate to go to the zoo in the middle of a Friday was just bliss--he's too hard-working to get there very often, even though there are FEW places he'd rather be. Those kids and Marko, they've got it good.

I've got it good too, because I haven't got it. The strep throat that is. So you can still be my friend.

Now, a picture of the kids at "swim blessons with Miss Morgan" last month. In honor of finding out that the Parks Department maintains free swimming pools here--we're going again tonight. Got it good, I tell you!

Simon's school of lizardry

Simon is so intent on tracking lizards that he's become despondent over all the following in the last 72 hours, purely because they interfere: having to go to church in the morning (morning being when lizards are slowest), having to go to bed (he wants to be free to slip outside at any opportunity), or having anything scheduled during the day.

However, he attended his Sunday meetings and was rewarded with this prize shortly after:

A baby gecko.

Poor buddy dropped its tail over the new friendship with Simon, so we had a little conversation about observing and not always catching, and "what would it feel like if you had to choose between dying or losing a leg? Is it different than just loosing a fingernail?" (Pretty good reasoning of mine, if I do say so myself. Did you know a gecko's tail keeps twitching as a decoy for a lot longer than you'd think?)

Simon even mowed down by hand a huge patch of grass near the garden that's been growing out of control and out of the mower's reach--all because he was sure a green anole was still hiding there. Tenacious. Dedicated. Amazingly observant. Those are the qualities you'll come away with if you study at his school.

Mary Tessa's found an apprenticeship as First Tomboy. She's not afraid to get right down there in the leaf litter.

Lest you think it's only lizardry you'll come away with, Simon discovered this outside before I was even awake today. Happily Mark was still here to throw around words like "ovipositor" and "stick bug" and "male/female dimorphism."

"This" is actually "these"--a couple of stick bugs . . . ahem. The male is much smaller (the dark brown section at the bottom).

So you can probably already tell, but I think this is a great way to experience childhood. Keep it up, my boy!




Keeping us well-rounded was our attendance at the library's fairytale event. Books, fancy dresses, and small sandwiches.




We like culture and we like dirt.

All-American bike parade!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Cute as a button.

Thanks Lindsay, mother of boys, for these adorable button and bow hairthings!!!!!!!

We've been enjoying their cuteness for a few weeks and have just been waiting for the right photo-op for a digital thank you! Allianna couldn't wait til this Saturday to wear the Americana one, the Hello Kitty ones are a delight of course, and I personally love the funkiness of the button colors that Mary Tessa's styling. happy happy happy! Thanks again!

Also, in other news of cuteness:

Allianna wrote her Sunbeam teacher (from church) a lengthy letter or "email" each day this week and then handed her a fat envelope of love on Sunday. I don't think Sister Seeley has any idea of the level of adoration. She sure deserves it though--she goes to such wonderful lengths to make her kids comfortable and happy.

Since we're using cliches today, I present "Snug as a Bug," under a blanket, in a fort.

Finally, the cutest of them all: Simon's first lizard. Captured by his able hands, held captive and loved for a day and a half, and named Bob, Jr. (though I was personally pushing for Nolen the Anole).

After Bob had been in the cage all day, Simon picked him up and got bit. A few minutes (and tears) later Simon came back by the cage and said, "You bit me, but I didn't die!" Heckler. Later, he said he forgave Jr. for biting and said it didn't really hurt and he wouldn't mind if he bit him again. Accepting the responsibilities of lizard keepership--that's my boy.

The Waiting Place

Last week we brought "Oh the Places You'll Go" home from the library. Somehow I never read it before, and it turns out it was a timely read for me.

Today I was entrapped in the waiting place.

Took Mary Tessa in at 10a.m. for a real normal "she's been coughing now for three weeks and got a fever yesterday" doctor's visit. The good Dr. quickly noted that she had a double ear infection. Then I had to open my big mouth and mention that she swallowed part of a lollipop wrapper last week while we were plodding through grocery store purgatory. (Side note: I used to really like grocery shopping. Now people swallow wrappers and whine and have to go poo when we are 75% done and on the other side of the store.)

With that fool statement, I got myself sent with Mary to the Children's Hospital emergency for chest x-rays and etcetera. Lucky for me, Mark works a building away and could take the big kids off my hands and to a WIC appointment (hah ha!).
Not lucky for me: 1. I left the Dr's order on the passenger seat. 2. the good dr. didn't exactly tell me where to report to. 3. i waited in the wrong place from noon to 4:30***. ***lots of extraneous details omitted here. 4. got admitted to the actual e.r. or was it the e.c.? i'm still not really sure 5. sometime between 4:30 and 9:45pm Mary Tessa received a second x-ray which took about half an hour. the rest of the time? you guessed it! waiting. 6. sometime around 7pm i started to get that cartrip feeling. you know the one. where you feel like you've been eating lots of fruitsnacks and trailmix and chips and SITTING and you almost feel like you really have to go to the bathroom, but not quite because you've been sitting for soooo long. 7. around 7:30 mary accidentally pushes the BIG RED/ CALL NURSE button. it beeps for over 45 minutes with no response. during this time i also somehow get our sliding glass room door stuck. TRAPPED. nurses obviously don't care that our "distress" button is beeping. (happily, this psychosis-inducing turn of fates happens after our bathroom trip)

I SPENT ELEVEN HOURS WAITING WITH A (ANGELIC) TODDLER IN SMALL, GERMY? PLACES!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I learned:

Mary is truly an angel baby. She only had a meltdown after 7 hours, and that was because she hadn't hardly napped, nursed, or eaten (didn't know if we were going to be sedated, you see.)

It's neat to find $3 dollars on the floor.

The Children's Hospital must subsidize fruit snacks, because they were only 35 cents. I think that's nice.

Keep your mouth shut about swallowed things. Just take your antibiotic prescription and run. But maybe not to Walgreens. It's 11:35pm and we're still waiting for the stuff.


Unbelievable.





But she's totally okay. No pneumonia, no "foreign body".

Please vote for universal health care. I saw people in distress today.

Oh, the places . . .

. . .. perhaps tomorrow I'll go to the grocery store. I hear we've been out of milk, cheese and bread for a few days now.

spanked them all soundly and sent them to bed

There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children
She knew not what to do.
So she gave them some broth*
Without any bread*,
And whipped them all soundly,
And sent them to bed.

*pancakes, vegetables

I never used to get this poem. The sound spanking seemed so out of nowhere.

But it was really after 7 straight hours of repeating over and over to people who don't listen: "stopitLEAVETHEBABYALONEnoyoucan'twatchtv

LETTHEBABYPLAYWITHYOUpleasecleanupDON'TSTICKYOURBUMATPEOPLEpleasestopwhiningGETOUTOFMYKITCHENIFYOU'RECRYINGcleanup!NOICAN'TPLAYWITHYOU" which had gone almost completely unheeded. guuuh!

so, one looks at her tornadoed house and decides that since, under no conditions is she going to take this brood to the grocery store even though the fridge is bare, it will be a "pancakes and to bed by 6:30" plan of attack.

course, after our sugarcharged dinner we're all feeling much better. except for the house. the children are gleefully marching around in a parade. for now. no. wait. one's having a meltdown. time for the takedown.

so i guess i'm just writing this to capture my "a-hah." To capture my understanding that--even though there was plenty of tattling and whining on my leg--I probably missed quite a few misdeeds and got very little response to the ones I tried to negotiate/referee. So "spank them all soundly and send them to bed" should pretty much cover it.

Oh, and Tess learned to climb up on the table today.

Don't worry, I rebound quickly. I'm feeling better now. The ones who can talk back are all out of earshot playing some secret game. Mary just climbed up on a stool next to me and whacked me five times on the head. And almost fell off . . .

Hammerhead Snake!

Again, for your reading pleasure, I welcome guest blogger Mark:


I returned home today around 8:20 pm. Emily and the kids arrived around 9 pm. I had just finished my second bowl of dinner -- Emily had kindly left something for me on the stove. In my post-long-day, post-two-bowls-of-dinner vegetative state I decided to recline on the couch and for a few moments do, well, nothing. I am glad that I looked unoccupied because Simon immediately seized the opportunity to sit by me … practically on me, actually. Since we hadn’t talked all day Simon was pretty happy as usual to catch me up on the day’s events. Emily had taken the kids to, as Allianna calls it, "Snake School" at the local library. A woman and her daughter brought all types of rescued snakes for holding and facts for absorbing. On the heels of such a mind-expanding outing Simon was excited for me to greet our family’s new pet snake. He had made it out of green and orange construction paper. This was no ordinary reptile; indeed, as Simon explained to me, it was a new species: a hammerhead snake. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Simon is very good at inventing new animals. At one end of a strip of green construction paper that served as the serpent’s body he had pasted an orange strip perpendicular to the body axis in hammer-like fashion.

Dad (D): Why did this particular snake evolve a hammer-like head?
Simon (S): Because when predators come from the sides it can kind of just hit them with its head.
D: Oh, so it’s for protection. What do hammerhead snakes eat?
S: Well, for half of the seasons they eat meat – they’re carnivores. And then for the other half of the seasons they eat just plants – like vegetarians. He just switched to eating plants yesterday so if we put him in the backyard all of the grass would be gone.
D: That’s interesting. Why do they have those eating habits?
S: I’m not sure. It sure is a good thing we have him for a pet so that we can study that, right? And see, right here, on its belly, if I rub it (he is rubbing near the tail) it causes him to go real fast – to slither! Dad, my snake is good at climbing trees too. It has these little bones on its stomach that poke out kind of like caterpillar legs so that it can hook onto trees. And you know what, if a copper snake saw my snake it would die. (The kids are a bit scared of copper snakes recently because we heard from a friend that a little boy picked one up at a park and was bitten).
D: Why does a copper snake die if it sees hammerhead snakes?
S: I don’t know, but if there was copper snake right there (pointing to the opposite side of the room) then BAM! It would just be dead.
D: Man, it sounds like your snake is pretty awesome … and interesting.
S: It also likes to swim. They can swim down to the bottom of the ocean.
D: How do they hold their breath that long?
S: They don’t need to because they have gills right here (pointing to the underside of the snake’s head). There is a piece of skin that covers up the gills so that water doesn’t get in. (Granted, the boy needs to learn a bit more about gill physiology, but the idea was still cool!) It can also be heavier and sink or lighter and fly. Its muscles fill up like this (moving his hands apart) to make it sink and shrink like this (moving his hands flat against each other) to fly.
D: Whoa. Does our pet snake have a name?
S: Um … Changer.
D: Changer?
S: Yes because it changes from being a carnivore to being a vegetarian.

Of course by this time I was convinced that our family had made a good investment in purchasing such a rare reptile.

D: How much did it cost?
S: No, I rescued it. I found it. You can touch these two scales that have scratches (touching two frays in the cut construction paper).

So there you go. I hope that that was as enjoyable for you as it was for me. There were actually a few more facts that Simon shared with me about hammerhead snakes that I didn’t jot down; my neurons can only record so much after a long day. Something about how they can fly fast enough to catch an SR-71 Blackbird. I love having Simon in our home – there’s always a scientist to talk to! Or should I say – there’s always an imaginist to talk to!

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ~ Albert Einstein

PS: Simon is sleeping with Changer on his pillow tonight.

Awesome music notating site!

I just found this completely awesome site. Never have to write down a part by hand again! Just click with your happy mouse and it will allow you to choose note lengths, add third endings, hear a real instrument play what you wrote as you go--just completely awesome. Here's my proof, the cello part for "Love is Spoken Here." Go, and use it today! And while we're at it, do you know about the Interactive Music Player?

Up with produce, down with caterpillars! Garden Update

One of my trusty laborers.

• We've consumed: basil, cilantro, and pinkynail-sized lettuce leaves (just couldn't wait on that one).
  


• Prospering are: zucchini (took two sowings), cucumbers, cantaloupe, Simon's Pre-K lima bean and tomatoes (x3).

• The "Sprouting Finally" Award goes to: bell peppers.

• Fading inexplicabley are: peas, carrots!?, and possibly rosemary.

• Being preyed upon by !@#$%^&*$^#-ed caterpillars with reckless abandon are the kids' sunflowers. I admit I've attached a lot of romantic notions to these sunflowers. I've wanted to grow dinner plate sized ones ever since my elementary school held a summer long sunflower contest and kids like Pat Byron came back in the fall with enormous sunflower heads in a paper bag which they then got to display to the entire student body. Thousands of beautiful striped black-and-white seeds. All different shapes and patterns! But I digress . . .

• Confessions: I've used Preen (organic--prevents weeds and other from making roots with some corn derivative), and Caterpillar Killer (not recognized by the State of California . . . you know what that means . . . but hey, before you call me a gardener without principles, I'd rather have some plants at the end of this--PESKY little grey things were even taking down the zucchini. The indomitable zucchini zucchinius! One of the WASTEFUL creatures lopped the top off of a sunflower sprout--killing it--and then left it there UNCONSUMED. not. to. be. tolerated.
  

So, what do you do for your rosemary and peas?

Just ducky.

On one of our rare trips to the big bad blue walmart we discovered there was a duck pond hidden nearby. So we went back another day to enjoy.

One for them . . .

. . . one for me. Luckily the bread wasn't moldy.

A few weekends ago I went to the temple and Mark and the kiddos planned to go check out a big park nearby. They lasted about 20 minutes before potty-breaks sequestered them to the visitor's center at the temple for the rest of the time. Here are the few pictures Mark took after he managed to wrangle them out of the car at the park (I hear people were honking at them--crazy.):

Happy Summer Days to you!