A Night to Reconnect

I know when my kiddos are being so rotten that I just want to get some space from them, is when they need me to draw closer to them. Such has been the case with Jordan and I lately. These teenage years are no joke. I had foolishly thought things would be smoother sailing because I had boys. If raising teenage boys is this trying, I'm even more grateful now that I never had any daughters :)

So Jordan has been exhibiting all his teenage glory, moodiness, failing grades, just all around bad attitude; What's a mom to do. My solution was to take him to a concert, he's 14 and never been to any concerts. A friend had posted about a christian band that would be preforming not too far from our home. Once I got over the idea of I'm not rewarding bad behavior, I'm reconnecting with child who is craving more attention, I ordered our tickets. They weren't the best of seats; the furthest section from the stage and second to the last row. Jordan was fine with the seats, because this was something that we were doing just the two of us, no brothers allowed.

See that little hand next to the 3? That's Jordan in our seats :)

The View from our ticketed seats

The day of the concert we packed up the younger two who were going to spend the night with our friends from Growing into Me. Once the little guys were happily on their way to a fun filled night, Jordan was allowed to plan the rest of our night. Instead of going out to a restaurant for dinner, Jordan opted for extra electronic time and grabbing fast food on our way to the concert (YUCK! The things I do for my kiddos...lol). Once at the arena, which was a tiny place, we easily found our seats even though it was a sold out show. A friend of mine was volunteering as staff for the event, so we spent some time with him showing us around. Finally the music starts and we head back to our seats. The first act was just this guy and his guitar on the stage, Jordan wasn't too impressed :) The second act was a christian group that is known to others but was new to us, their music was a bit more lively. I had forgotten until the second act started just how LOUDLY Jordan claps. I had to bite my tongue to refrain from commenting on just how annoying I found his clapping. I'm glad that I did, I was having a great time watching him clap and dance in front of our chairs. By the third group Jordan had his hands raised in worship and the biggest smile on his face. I sure have missed seeing that smile!!!

John Tibbs

Audio Adrenaline

Finding Favor

During the intermission we walked around for a bit, until my friend asked if we'd like to move to seats closer to the stage. So we ended up stage side for the final act, the one we wanted to see. Jordan had an absolute blast!! He was singing along with just about every song and was very grateful for the better seats. (A quick shout out to my friend for being so awesome and helping to make the evening even better for Jordan)

Newsboys from our stage side seats

LOOK AT THAT SMILE!!

Newsboys

We were surprised to our car being snow covered when we came out of the concert. Figuring that we wouldn't be getting out of our parking spot any time soon, we sat in the truck for a bit looking through the pictures and videos we took. Then because it was still Jordan's night, we stopped for sundaes and french fries on our way home. Once home we stayed up into the wee hours of the morning looking up songs for the new to us bands and danced, sung along, and laughed until exhaustion won out.



I'm so glad Jordan and I had the evening to reconnect. He wasn't a "big bad, having to impress everyone else" teenager, he was my happy go-lucky Jordan for a bit. While it only lasted until his brothers came home, I hope now that he have found his "happy self" that we'll all get to see more of it.

Skater Boys

When the boys asked to add the skate park again to our summer bucket list, it was mostly because they had so much fun last summer riding down the ramps on their bottoms. This year they are a bit more intense about skateboarding. All of my boys have their own skateboards, around seven years old they have all asked for one as a birthday or Christmas present. While they have had the boards and protective gear that goes with them for years. Usually the skateboards stay buried in the shed except for a day here or there then they dig them out to make sure they still know how to do their one or two "tricks" and toss them back in the shed.

This spring we had a new neighbor move in next door who saw the boys on one of rare days the skateboards were out. He showed them some of the tricks he use to do when he rode his skateboard years before. Since that day there has been an epidemic of skateboards in our neighborhood. Every kid near our little corner of the community has their own board or Ripstix. Which is so fantastic!! All these kids leaving their favorite t.v. shows to come outside and try to learn a sport!

I'm one of those parents that tends to get overly involved in whatever it is their kids are into. So that has meant learning what the tricks were called, what the trick is suppose to look like, and watching many Youtube videos. This also meant trips to the skate park. It's much more fun knowing how to do a trick, no matter how simple it may be (or look to be), when you get tp show off to people who also know the trick. A visit to the skate park holds a different meaning to the boys this year than last year. Last year it was about being silly and having fun. This year, it's more serious business. This year there are things to show off that we have learned for our neighbor, and new challenges they are more willing to try. Joey is more comfortable on this Ripstix than a skateboard, so that is what he brings. It makes me kind of giggle that skaters that do daring tricks and jumps are leery about just riding on Joey's Ripstix.

The boys are still looked at as "little kids" at the park by the older more experienced skaters. We are still working on learning the proper skate park etiquette. A couple of times one or more of my boys had almost been run over by other skaters or bikers. However, many of the older skaters have been very considerate and have offer some tips to the boys. There are some that who would rather not have to share the area with "little kids", and then there is also the issue of convincing the older kids to watch their language while we are there (sometimes they do, some times we have to distance ourselves from them, and there has even been times that we had just left).

We have visited the skate parks four times so far this summer. We have been to three different parks, which all offer different equipment and their own "flaws". The first one we went to is close to home (about 5-10 drive) and we are familiar with it. The downside is that the ramps are metal and have a bit of a bump at the bottom and the whole things sets on cement. The second one is about 10- 15 minutes from home, but is an enclosed park with a playground and basketball nets near by. It sits on asphalt so its smooth riding. The second park doesn't have as much "equipment" as some other parks do. The third park is about a half hour away. It is all slick and waxed, just the way the more experienced skaters prefer it to be. The main problem with the third park is that majority of it is way to advanced for my boys skills.

The 1st park

The 3rd park

The 2nd park

When we visited the third park we quickly realized that it was more than the boys could handle. We met some of neighbors there, as they knew the park well. Our friend suggested we head over to a hill that leads to a small lake/pond. That the boys could skate down the hill. The only part the boys heard about the hill was they could skate down it, then they quit listening. The part they tuned out was there is a sharp turn half way down and to proceed with caution because they would pick up speed on their way down. They all headed towards the hill, Joey was the only one who put on a helmet, because it made him look cool. I hung back for a minute to talk with a friend who opted out of the hike back up the hill. Just as I was heading towards the hill I thought I heard one of my kids cry out, then dismissed it when it was followed by other cries of "Woo-Hoo!". Then I heard it, the screaming cry that meant I need my mom! I took off like only a panicked mom can (they were right you really pick up speed racing down the hill)! Jordan yelled at me on my way to Joey  "You can see bone!", my heart sank. There lay Joey on the ground just before a 90* right turn and there was blood. Between the neighbor and I we manage to carry Joey back up the steep hill where we could better assess his injuries. Thankfully there were no broken bones, but he was really banged up. He had some gruesome scratches on both elbows, his right shoulder, right hip, and his left knee. The bone Jordan thought he saw was just where Joey's knee looked like hamburger. Later we learned that Joey was lucky he wore the helmet, because he cracked a piece just about the ear on the helmet almost all the way through.



As Joey was flying down the hill he was screaming from excitement then he say the sharp turn. He knew he wouldn't be able to take the turn on the Ripstix as you can't turn it he same as you could a skateboard, so he jumped into the grass just before reaching the turn. He was afraid that it he tried to make the turn and didn't, he would crash into the tree that was in the corner of the 90*.

Although his crash was scary for both him and I, I was better once I knew he wasn't permanently damaged. After getting him cleaned up, Joey was bragging about his wipe-out to everyone we saw as he joined use as we walked down the hill to the water. I was very proud of Joey, the next day (before he could even scab over) he was back on his Ripstix.

Skateboards and the Ripstix come out everyday for at least a half hour. While writing this the boys are outside with our neighbor practicing their skills. Jordan just rushed in to have me watch him do an Ollie while the board is moving (and thanks to all the Youtube videos I know what an Ollie is).

Going Back To Basics

I have often joked with friends about the joys of having a teenager and all their mood swings and attitude that comes with it. I foolishly thought that would never happen with my child. We have a great relationship. We have an open and honest lines of communication. Jordan has always gone along with whatever goofy plan or project we were doing. I've always treated him with respect and avoided talking down to him. Jordan has a good head on his shoulders and has always been goal orientated. He keeps good grades at school and has been planning the steps he needs to follow to get into the college of his choice and to follow his dreams to become a computer programmer.

Literally since his 13th birthday he has been making gradual changes to fit the typical teen mold. At first the attitude showed up in full force. He and I had a chat about how just because we hear about the dreaded "teenage attitude" didn't mean he needed jump right on the band wagon. Soon his attitude cooled and I had my reasonable child again. Recently his attitude is back, this time he's not doing it for show. The rebellion is there too. Thankfully it's not nearly as bad as it could be. Really, refusing to brush his teeth isn't going to hurt me any. (Why is that one of the main things for teens to do? They all seem to feel having gunky teeth and funky breath is acceptable. Yuck!). It broke my heart during our last bucket list when Jordan started opting out of our activities. We try to plan activities that all of us will enjoy and some of the ones Jordan opted out of are things he enjoys doing, like family game day. I had excepted most of these things and accept that they won't last forever. He's attitude towards his younger brothers has been less than kind. He stopped accepting responsibility for his property and his actions. I needed him to understand just how not okay this was.

When his behavior in class started to go south along with his grades.  Assignments weren't getting done or turned in. Homework almost never came home. He picked up the habit of taking things just because he wanted them. Nothing major just swiping things that belonged to other family members. Then there was the hiding of and lying about taking the objects because he knew it was wrong. He has tested out using "little lies" over little things. I understand that middle school age is when kids start messing up. I remember all the trouble I caused when I was younger. While its part of growing up and figuring out who you are. I want to keep Jordan from doing things he may regret when he gets older (like dropping his GPA drastically), or tarnishing his relationships with his brothers.

I have tried informal talks about his behavior, then formal "sit down we need to talk" talks, taking away privileges and haven't seen much change. I figured I needed to try something more drastic to make sure he gets the message he's going astray. I didn't want him feeling like there's always the threat of losing something; that good choices equals more privileges. I was informed that Jordan is the only 13 year old in America who does NOT have a cell phone; I know I'm a heartless mom :p

I thought maybe the lines have become fuzzy about what was expected of him. We have a list of house rules that have been in place and posted for years, it seems they're more like just part of the decor now. I sat down and wrote out a contract for all 3 boys, outlining exactly what was expected of them and the consequences for not upholding the end.  So while he was in school I rid Jordan's room of everything except his bed, dresser, desk, and his books.  I went old school and setup "star charts". He has the opportunity to earn back all his stuff by maintaining his responsibilities. The younger boys still have their toys in their room because they have been doing well and losing a privilege is still working with them. I made contracts for all the boys so Jordan didn't feel singled out and they were a good reminder for the younger ones.

After school I sat down with each of them one-on-one and went over their contracts and chart.  They all signed that they agreed with the terms, some more readily than others. The general gist is maintain your responsibilities listed on your chart. If you skip 3 things you lose a privilege, if you have no privileges to lose than you have one week to complete either a book report or history report determined by mom (I try to get in education wherever I can). If you complete the week with no lost  privileges or reports you earn back a privilege (or an additional privilege if you had not lost anything). Taking things that don't belong to you (no matter how insignificant) and lying (even the little white ones) result in an automatic report.  I'm also not a fan of assigning chores, that everyone just helps out because we all live here, but each boys was assigned two chores a week, that will rotate every two weeks. The chores as been an added blessing, because I get a break from doing dishes for two weeks :)

The point of the "star chart" was to get them back in the habit of completing things that have slowly been slipping away. Example: Jordan had not been bring homework home so one of his responsibilities was to bring all school books/folders home everyday. That way he was sure to have the materials he needed to complete his assignments. After little over a week he was in the habit of stopping at his locker to gather his books. He now only has to bring just the materials needed home, unless he starts "forgetting" again.

I've had our contracts and charts in place for about a month, they seem to be helping. There has been a couple reports turned in to mom and privileges that had been regained and lost again. Sometimes while trying to help our children find their way, we have to go back to what had worked in the past. Jordan is working hard to get back on track so he doesn't have to do the little kids "star charts" (No, I don't actually put star stickers on Jordan's chart). 

First Time Trying Out

For the past three days we have been anxiously waiting to find out if Jordan would make the basketball at his new school. He is very passionate about playing basketball and has been looking forward to this opportunity for a couple reasons. 1) He loves the sport and wants to play for his school. 2) Being new to the school not many people know him and this will make more students aware he's there. 3) He likes to belong to a group; being part of something big. 4) He helps keep him accountable for his grades. It's one thing to disappoint mom with a bad grade, but to disappoint his coach and team members carries a bit more weight for him.

At our old school, anyone who paid to play was automatically on the team; he actually had to try out to  make the team this year. For the past three nights he has gone and worked his butt off along side over 60 other young men. The first night there were no cuts, I was grateful no one had to be cut after just one day. Last night a few didn't make the cut including one of Jordan's buddies. Tonight was the big night, we would learn with he had what it took to make the team.

I was a bit concerned that he may not have been at the top of his game, since he hasn't really even touched a basketball in almost 10 months. He hadn't been running his drills all summer long like he usually did and kind of got lazy over the summer. I knew he had the knowledge of the game and a bit of natural talent. I just wasn't sure physically he would be able to show them what he is capable of. *Every night he has come home and rubbed Icy Hot on the muscle he had been neglecting.

Jordan was a pretty certain he would make the team, however his grades so far this year aren't as good as they could be. Report cards came home today (the day of the last cuts) and the coach wanted to see them at try outs. While his grades aren't what I expect of him, they aren't really bad. Jordan was worried that having one "D+", may keep him from making the team.

I would love to say there was never a doubt in my mind that he would make the team. There were so many other kids trying out and I had no clue what skills they had so I could make a comparison. The try outs were closed to parents and spectators, which was really hard not to watch to see how my kid was doing, to know if he needed any extra encouragement. It was all up to Jordan and the effort he put into it.

I am very proud to report I will be a Basketball Mom again this year, Jordan made the team!! I think the best part is this year he was not just given a spot on the team, he had to earn it. He was able to show that he deserve his place with the other 14 young men. He did it all on his own; I wanted to be there and help point out anything that would help him; but he didn't need me. I'm over the moon excited for him, and loving watching him relish in pride of a job well done.

Extra bonus for me- all his practices and game days work perfectly into our already busy schedule.

MY MOM

 * My boys didn't have school today and Jordan thought he'd like to give blogging a try. So here is his un-edited guest post. I guess its fair that he blogs about me since I write about him all the time.

So my mom is always blogging about me so she decided to let me say a few words about her. First off she looks out for me, but sometimes I think she is being a little to protective. She and I both know that if I do something wrong I have to learn a lesson so when basketball starts she makes me miss a practice or a game depending on what I do. other times (and I think this is her favorite punishment) we lose a game or TV. I got an I pod for Christmas last year and I have been loosing that a lot. Its my favorite appliance so I loose it more than other stuff. I know that she means well but I would rather lose TV or the Xbox instead.


my moms favorite:

color: green

food: anything she doesn't have to cook (or Mexican)

animal: frog

kid: me of course

hobby: blogging, scrapbook, cross stich, crochet, and crafts

movie: the host, twilight trilogy, the atoms family

book: the host, twilight trilogy

book writer: Stephaney Meyers

saint: St. Anthony (she looses stuff a lot)

TV show: greys anatomy, biggest looser, switched at birth

superhero: superman because he was born with his powers

sport: basketball

I'm not 100% sure on all of these but I'm sure most of them :)

My mom is also a basketball fan. I was the water boy at my old school and I got to practice with he varsity team so she started to find a love for the sport. she is always coming up with new ideas for us to do as a family and for us by our self. she is always trying to get me to write a lot because I'm not very good at it (again she is looking out for me) and I'm good at coming up with ideas and I have A LOT to say I just cant make it flow so she try's to help me with that. she is just all around looking out for my good. she also does all of  this stuff for my brothers to so don't think I'm her only concern because I'm not, she loves us all the same.

It's neat to see what he knows about me and what he thought to share about me.

Bucket List and Birthday

This week ended with celebrating Jordan's 13th birthday. He and I attempted to watch scary movies Friday night, but 45 minutes into The Messengers we decided it was a bit intense to watch after 9pm and switched to Beatlejuice followed by The Mummy. After staying up late watching movies I was blessed to witness the joy of having a teenager sleep in, Jordan slept in until just about noon.

After everyone was finally up and moving we set out on our pumpkin count walk. We have noticed the last few weeks that many people in our neighborhood didn't have pumpkins on display, so we headed over by the boys' school to the neighborhood behind the school. This is a neighborhood Jordan I walk just about everyday while we wait for the younger two get released from school. I downloaded an app to see how far we walk. It only took us about 45 minutes to walk a little over 1.30 miles and we were able to locate 163 pumpkins; Jacob says he spotted 164, we must have missed one. The boys were not shy about walked up  someone's driveway to get a closer look at the pumpkins to make sure we got an accurate count.

On the way home from our walk we stopped at the store to gather what we needed to make gingerbread monster cookies. Luck was not on our side as there was no gingerbread cookie mixes/dough to be found, we opted for sugar cookies instead. The boys chose some chocolates to use to decorate with and some frosting tubes; as we don't have any dyed frosting at home and our dye-free sprinkles/food dyes are expensive. Once home we realized the gingerbread man shaped cookie cutter is at Grandma's house, and switched to using Halloween theme cutters. They cut their own cookies as well as decorated them. Anything went, they wanted to stack chocolate and then coat the chocolates with frosting...sure, they wanted to load their cookies with icing...sure. It was their creations they could add whatever they wanted to them, with the understanding that whatever they put on them they themselves would be willing to eat. The boys did great and used just about all the frosting and their cookies were very creative. Some of them looked so sweet, you could have gotten a cavity just by looking at them.



He received some Aero shirts,
pajama pants, cologne, iPod charger,
& a gift card for Barnes & Nobles

Saturday evening Jordan headed out to stay the night at his cousin's house, Joey built a Lego rollercoaster, and Jacob and I played board games.

Early afternoon Sunday we went to pick up our store bought cake to take to Grandma's and were surprised that is wasn't even close to what we had ordered. We had ordered a basketball themed cake, what they tried to give us was not only the wrong team, but wrong colors, and the wrong size. We have order many cakes from them before and have never had a problem. Needless to say we didn't take the cake.
*The store called me and will be giving us a gift card for their mistake.

Sunday was our birthday celebration with Grandma and Papa, although we did not indulge in any of the birthday cake we did finish off all the cookies we made the day before. It was a really low key celebration, Jordan opened some presents and the boys spent most of the day outside playing (burning off some of their dye induced energy from the cookies). Joey and Jacob preformed a birthday song outside for Jordan with the use of a guitar and some "drums"; Papa helped them construct a stage to preform on. Jordan, Grandma, and I did some shopping and exchanged some of Jordan's birthday shirts. Mostly I spent the day in the basement clearing out some of the stuff the boys and I have been storing there. We ended the day with a bonfire that the boys had split some wood for before heading home.

Clearing out some of our storage has me motivated to tackle the boys rooms and move some furniture around and go through the toy boxes. That's my plan for most of today. Also trying to figure out were we can rake some leaves so we can jump in them, we have mostly pine trees around us.

Today I Offically Have A Teenager!!

He's a fan of Minecraft, so I made him a creeper cake.

Today I officially became the mother of a teenager. It still feels like just yesterday they placed my 9lb 6oz baby in my arms. I'm so very proud of the young man Jordan is becoming. Although 13 is a big deal, we're keeping things simple. We usually keep birthdays small and make sure to incorporate our birthday traditions. We started the day with donuts for breakfast (this is a tradition Grandma started when we lived with them), we do this for all the boys birthdays. Every year I bring the boys something special to school for lunch and  have lunch with them. This is one of my favorite traditions we have, it gives me time with my birthday boy without the other brothers vying for my attention. This year I was a bit worried that Jordan would think he's "too cool" or "too old" to have his mom sit with him for lunch, thankfully that wasn't the case. I was able to meet some of his new friends while he shared his pizzas and cupcakes with them. It's kind of funny how many people suddenly want to be your friend when you have a couple pizzas sitting at your table :) Jordan loved the attention and pointing out only his buddies would be joining us.

We had a small party just the four of us with dinner of his choice (more pizza of course), a cake made my mom (and ice cream of his choice), and opening presents from us. Part of his present from me is visiting a haunted house, since last year's gift of a haunted hayride was a flop; but we have to wait to have a babysitter before we can go. I pulled out the scrapbooks (the ones I have finished) and flip through them and I told the boys what Jordan was like when he was younger. He's gets to stay up late and watch a movie (of his choice) with mom, I think he's going to make me watch a creepy, scary, things that go bump in the night movie (I don't do well with spooky movies).  Maybe we'll watch Friday the 13th, seems he's 13 on Friday :P

We'll have another small party over the weekend with the grandparents and a store bought cake, ice cream, and of course more presents.



2 Rick Riordan books
The Kane Chronicles

Sketch pencils, charcoal pencils,
 sketch pads, and art portfolio.

Duck Dynasty Fuzzy PJ pants.