Neighborhood Birthday Party

Last night our neighbors down the street had a fantastically fabulous birthday party for their little boy. They had a big blow up water slide thingy, a bounce house and awesome face painting. The kids had a blast. It was fun to hang out and get to know some of our neighbors better.

Friday Morning Musings - 1 Week Down, A Whole Bunch More To Go

Our first week of summer vacay is coming to a close. It has been...well, like this:

I have always had a summer schedule for the kids. Like we always go to the library on Wednesday, they can have friends over on Tuesday, we swim on such and such day. It was just a known thing and I had never really put it on paper for the kids to see until I read my friend Megan's blog and saw the calendar she made for her kids. So I made my own. The kids loved being able to see it and know exactly what we were going to be doing that day. Here is our calendar for the week:

The schedule has been working great. My children however, have been fighting constantly. It is about to make me insane. By Tuesday night I was a total basket case. I was thinking, "It has been 2 days. 2 days and I'm about to hurt someone. How can I make it all summer?"

Zac has made it his personal mission to make his sisters scream constantly. He pretty much leaves Emily alone because he knows she will kick the crap out of him. But Aubrey. Oh Aubrey. If I hear her scream and cry one more time....He has found a way to really do nothing, but make her scream. He gives her these looks when no one else is looking and she just goes ballistic. It's just so much fun to watch the sibling love goin' on around here.

I started a park day in our ward here. It was overcast and sprinkling on park day this week, so we only had a few others come. It was fun though.

A while back, my mom was talking to someone and she was telling them about how when they lived in Dallas, Thursday night was dinner night at our house. My parents signed up to feed the missionaries in our ward EVERY Thursday night. As we got older, our friends quickly learned that Thursday night was feeding night at the Snow's. We always had a house full on Thursday night. It got me to thinkin'. I should have known better, but I didn't. I kept thinkin'. I decided I wanted to start our own Thursday night tradition. It had kind of been forming in my head for about a week and around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, I said, "Hey everybody, wanna hear how stupid I am?" Ok, I didn't really say that. I told everyone that we were starting a new tradition called, "Thursday Night, Pasta Night". And every Thursday they could each invite a friend over for dinner. So we made some last minute calls to get friends over. Aubrey called and her friend came right over. And they were playing so nicely together. Zac couldn't get a hold of the 2 friends he tried, and he refused to try anyone else. Emily wouldn't call anyone I wanted her to. She also couldn't get a hold of anyone she was trying to call. She wanted to go to her friends house that she didn't have a phone number for and invite her over. That where the madness began.

I said, sure Em. Hop on your bike and drive over to Gabby's house and invite her over. (Sigh) Oh, sweet Emily. When you are reading this, just realize that my love for you is unconditional. That means I love you no matter what, and nothing will ever make me stop loving you.

(sigh)

Emily came home, not with Gabby. She came home with another friend who she happened to ride past on her bike. Her friend had attachments. One was her sister, the other two were her neighbors. I had met the friend last week when Emily went to her Birthday party. I had never seen the other 3 in my life before. I saw the five of them riding their bikes toward our house and thought, my parents always welcomed everyone into our home. The more the merrier, right? I thought, it'll be great. GREAT.

Do you know what happens when you have 7 girls together. Screaming and running. That's it. SCREAMING. and RUNNING. And the screaming was made even better with the help of Zac, who, like I said before, has made it his personal mission to keep his sisters screaming all summer long. My nice little dinner, yeah. Didn't happen. And when you have that many girls together screaming and running, they don't listen to a word you say. They just keep on screaming and running. There comes a point when you just have to give up. So that's what I did. I gave up trying to have any control. I sat at the table, near tears, watching the clock, rocking back and forth, thinking it will be over soon. It finally came to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I said, Emily, your friends have to leave now. So they all got their stuff together and went out the front door and got on their bikes. You would think it would end there, right? Oh, you would be so wrong.

Zac and Emily followed them out and got on their bikes as well. They made it down the driveway and onto the street. Now, we have had rain all week. And we are surrounded by dirt. So out in the street in front of our house there is a big muddy puddle. One of the girls slipped and she and her bike fell in the mud. Her shoe came off and she couldn't find it in the mud puddle. So they are all trying to help her. I look out the door and see them all out there and tell Zac and Emily they best get their behineys in the house if they know what is good for them. They explain to me what happened and my first reaction was to say, WHO CARES! GET IN THE HOUSE AND LET THEM DEAL WITH IT! But I decided that wasn't very Christlike of me so I told them to hurry and help her find her shoe and THEN they better get their behineys in the house. I went inside and started doing something else.

A while later I realized there were no behineys in the house, so I went outside to yell again. Oh. That's when I saw the disaster. Everyone was covered from head to toe with mud. As soon as I got out there, one of the girls started crying and said, "My mom is gonna be so mad at me when I get home!" Suddenly I had all 6 of them yelling and trying to explain to me what had happened. Apparently Zac was in the muddy water trying to get the girls shoe and then all the girls starting pelting him with mud. So Zac started pelting back. Only he is a much better aim than they are. I am talking hair totally encrusted. Clothes, arms, legs, shoes, bikes. Everything is covered with clods of mud. You think I was mad before? Oh, you should have seen me then. I turned to Zac and Emily and in a voice drowning with venom I said, "Take your bikes right now and put them in the garage and go in the house. And if you know what's good for you, the kitchen will be spotless when I come back in."

I did the best I could to clean those four girls up before I sent them home. I am sure their mothers were furious when they showed up on their doorsteps that way. I was fully expecting some angry mother I had never seen before to show up at my house and demand to know what kind of children I was raising. So far though, there has been no sign of her. Whew!

I went in my house and walked into the kitchen. Zac and Emily were just finishing up with their making the kitchen spotless. I very calmly said, "Well, I hope you enjoyed our very first AND very last Thursday Night Pasta Night". I sent them upstairs to take showers and put themselves in bed.

Then I went into my room and sat in my chair and pouted.

It's now Saturday morning as I am finishing this post up. Enough time has passed, that I can now see some humor in the situation. I have decided not to give up on Thursday Night Pasta Night so easily. It is a good idea. It just needs a few kinks worked out is all.

A GREAT Night

Tonight we had my Great Aunt June and Great Uncle Buck and Great Uncle Ronald over for dinner. My mom and Sam and Lauren came also. And hey, look, I didn't take any pictures of people eating! The above picture is me and the kiddos with My Great Uncle Ronald. He is 87 years young.

Sam entertaining the troops with his magic.


Ronald, Buck and Steve all settled in to watch the game. It was ummm, uuuhhhh, the one with the orange ball where they run a lot. Yeah, that was it. Steve was nice enough to turn the volume up so we could all be sure to hear it wherever we were in the house.

School's Out, Scream And Shout

It's official. We made it through another school year. And the kids made it through their first year at a new school with brand spankin' new friends. There was a school closing ceremony at the school today. During the entire ceremony Aubrey and her friend (above) were being so cute, holding hands, hugging, laughing together.

As for the title of my post, I will leave it to the readers imagination as to who is doing the screaming, me or the kids....

14 And Counting

Yesterday Steve and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Whew! We made it through year 13 with hardly a scrape. I have to tell ya, I was a little nervous when I realized that we would be spending our lucky #13 year of marriage building a house. I had heard so many horror stories about couples building a house and then getting a divorce when the house is finished because they hate each other so much by that time. OK, I wasn't really that worried. I knew we could pull it off and come out in the end, not hating each other, but loving each other even more. And HOORAY! We did.

I love this man with all of my heart. And I know he loves me right back. We gotta good thing baby!

I LOVE YOU!

WebCam Wednesday - The Dr. Said, Oh Man!

Yeah, I know. She is the cutest thing ever. She gets it from me.

Blue Plastic Fun

Friday, after the kids got out of school, I knew we needed to add some variety to our lives. Spice things up a little. Step out of the hum drum. It was hot. We were tired of being in the house. We have no yard. The kids wanted to play in the sprinkler. We have no sprinkler. I said, OK, get in the car, we are running to the store to get a sprinkler. We drove to our local neighborhood grocery store. On the way in to buy a sprinkler, we passed this lovely plastic pool that was on display. It was on sale for $17.99. How can you pass up a deal like that? Apparently you can't. So we left the store with sprinkler and blue plastic in tow. We were set for hours of wet 'n wild fun in the sun. The kids loved playing in their little water park erected on the concrete driveway. We invited the neighbors over. They played in it for hours that day, and woke up Saturday morning yearning for more. Let the summer days begin!

Monday Morning Mousings - I Can Talk Texan If Eye Wont Tu

So, Addy's new favorite thing to do? Lock doors. She has locked us out of the house before. Locked herself in the car. But her very most favorite locking trick to do is lock a door on her way out and then close it. We have had some very close calls of people needing to use the facilities and not being able to get into the actual facilities. Good thing this is a new house and we still know where the little tiny "key" things are to the bathroom and bedroom locks. Otherwise we'd be in a heap of trouble.

I had this thing this weekend where I was talking in a southern accent and I couldn't stop. It lasted for days. I was really getting on every one's nerves, including my own. I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't control it. Yesterday we were at my mom's house and Sam kept saying, "STOP! You don't have an accent." And I was like, "Well, I AM from Texas. I really COULD have an accent. What if this WAS my normal way of speaking? Then what would you do? Huh?" Emily decided that she was going to yell everything she said if I was going to southern accentuate everything I said. Steve thought that was an excellent idea. He told Emily not to stop yelling her words until I stopped accenting mine. I was like, please. I have been listening to her yell everything she says for nine years. I think I can beat her out. Thankfully I woke up this morning speaking in my regular old voice. I seriously had no control over it.

Aubrey is obsessed with loosing teeth. Oh my gosh. I know that the only reason she lost her first tooth is because she was wiggling it for 2 whole years before it fell out. She is convinced that her top front tooth is about to fall out any minute. She keeps making me wiggle it. I'm like, Aubrey, I don't want to stick my fingers in your mouth. And she gets all exasperated and says, "MOM! JUST WIGGLE IT! LOOK! IT'S SO WIGGLY!" So I wiggle it. Or I put my fingers on either side of it and move my fingers (there ain't no wiggle ta that there tooth) (whoa! I thought that accent was gone). Anyhoo, I "wiggled" it and she said, "See mom. How long do you think it will be before it falls out?" And I'm like, "I'm sure it will fall out anytime in the next (cough) year or two.

You know how there are some movies that you have just seen so many times that it doesn't matter how long it has been since you last saw it, if you even see just a flash of it when you are changing channels, you feel like your eyeballs are gonna start bleeding. Last night I turned on the TV and there, right before my bleeding eyeballs, was Twister. AHHHHHHH!!!! I could not change the channel fast enough.

You know what McDonalds is giving out in their Happy Meals? Kids Bop CD's. Someone just kill me now. As if some of those songs weren't irritating enough. Hearing a chorus of 20 high pitched kids singing, "Nobody gonna love me bedda. I gotta stick wit chue fo-eva." SHUT UUUUUP!

I just finally got around to watching the premiere of Glee. OH! I LOVED it. How do they expect me to wait for fall for the series to start?

Smushed: Holiday! Celebrate!

NOTE TO SELF: When photographing an event, take pictures of people doing something other than sitting around the same table eating.

This picture was taken right before we left to drive to St. Louis for Christmas. If you will recall, we decided at the last minute to go to St. Louis and surprise everyone there. My mom, Lauren and Sam came over and we had take out from Chili's. Then we opened presents and Santa even came early and delivered the kids gifts to them.

These pictures were taken right after we got home from our trip to St. Louis. This was New Year's Eve. We rang in the new year with banana splits and a rousing game of "Would You Rather". We had to play the store bought version since Farrah wasn't there to provide us with the home grown kind.

Valentine's Day. My mom and Lauren came over and we had a lovely red dinner and played games after.

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Smushed: In Good Company

So, we have been having a lot of company over to help break in the new house. We had a group of friends over way back in January.

Below: Bridget, Zac, Sara, Sam, Marquie, Addy, Rylee, Aron, Cammy

You will notice a lot of red in this picture. Something about the University of Utah in some kind of big deal game.
Below: Steve, Aron, John, Nathan, Spencer, Camilla

Sam, Aubrey, Sara, Rylee

Also in January my cousin Kathy and her husband Steve came from Texas for a visit.
Below: Steve, Aubrey, Lauren, Emily, Addy, Kay, Zac, Kathy, Steve

In February we had our friends Preston and Betsy and their family over.

Matt, Tori, Betsy, PJ, Zac, Steve, Preston, Meg, Aubrey, Andrew, Emily

Playing Rock Band

Betsy and me playing Flash Uno. I kicked her booty.

In March we had LaRee and Brent and their family over. We were able to scaredy cat LaRee on the ATV.

Below: LaRee and Kylee

Cole, Brent, Kierra

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