Monday Morning Musings - Heavy Metal

My dear son Zac came home from school on Friday with this beautiful flower he made for me in Metal Shop. I love it. He is loving Metal. He has made some pretty awesome stuff so far this school year.

I also must say how proud I am of his recent report card he brought home. He made 4 A's and 3 B's which is a HUGE improvement over all of last year. He really is working hard and trying to get good grades in his classes. Way to go Z!

I can't tell you how nice it was to wake up this morning and have it be semi-light outside. It has been so hard lately to drag myself and the kids out of bed when it is so dark outside. And I am glad it will be easier to get people in bed on time. I am really enjoying this time change thing. I will have to remember that in the spring when we have to pay up for our extra hour.

My cousin Kathy and her son Spencer flew from Texas to Utah over the weekend. Kathy's husband works for the airlines and they let their kids pick anywhere they want to go (inside the US) for their Birthday. Spencer turned 5 on Friday so he and Kathy flew here to go to the Dinosaur Museum. They stayed with us on Friday night. It was good to see them. On Saturday morning, before the had to head out to the airport, we had a delicious breakfast with them and my mom and Lauren came over too.

Spencer and Addy are only a few weeks apart in age and they were instant best buds. They had so much fun together for the few hours they had to play. It snowed Friday night so they were excited to wake up Saturday morning and go outside and play.

On Saturday morning Addy went down the street to a Birthday party. It was a princess party and she came home all decked out in princess attire with her own little princess cake.



The other day we were cooking something on the stove and one of the kids took the pan off the burner and set it on the counter. I picked it up and put something under it and told them we couldn't put hot stuff on the counter or we will ruin it. Silly Zac said, "Oh...so that's why you don't want me sitting on the counter."



That boy is so goofy. A few days after that Emily had something she wanted to put in the spice cabinet. I told her she couldn't keep it there and showed her a different cabinet where she could keep it. She for some reason was not happy with that and really wanted to keep it in the spice cabinet. I told her she couldn't because it wouldn't fit in there. And Zac said, "Yeah, it doesn't fit in. All the other spices will make fun of it."



So the other night I was making dinner in the kitchen when I almost chopped my hand off. I was just going along all fine and dandy like, singing along to Journey as I sliced and diced with a big huge knife. And then BAM! Something hit my big picture window so hard, I can't believe it didn't break it. After a split second of freaking out and almost cutting my hand off, I knew exactly what it was. Because it isn't the first time it has happened. A big huge beautiful pheasant had flown into the window. It was kinda sad. For the bird and my big window which had just been washed a few days before.



I don't know what the deal with me and dishwashers is. Really. At the time in my life when I had the cheapest dishwasher available, no problemo. Whenever I have a nice dishwasher, it is always breaking down. It is totally ridiculous. We have lived in this house for almost 3 years now and this is the 4th time the dishwasher has stopped working. Anyhoo. So when the kids get in trouble and need a punishment, they get to do dishes, since the dishwasher is on the fritz. Again. I think my kids are a little too smart for their own good. Do you know how many glasses they have broken in the last week? I couldn't even begin to tell you. It is so often, I really think they are doing it on purpose to insure that they don't ever get dishes again as a penalty. "She's gonna make me do the dishes again, I'll show her how I do the dishes. Oops. Another broken glass...."



Addy. I don't even know. That kid. She keeps us laughing all the time. The other morning when the kids were eating breakfast she said, "Lady Gaga is bad because she shows her boobs." And Emily said, "Addy, don't say that, that's bad." And so Addy said, "Ok, she shows her MAN BOOBS!" And Emily said, "Addy, that's bad too!" So she said, "FINE! She shows her pecs!" First off, I don't even know how she knows anything about Lady Gaga and what she shows because we don't ever listen to or watch Lady Gaga in our house.

The Grinch Who Stole Halloween

I totally am gonna get a door mat that says this. Really. Just call me the Halloween Grinch. With every passing year, I like this "holiday" less and less. I have my reasons. However I have children and so in an attempt to not cause them any additional emotional trauma (Emily still brings up, on a bi-weekly basis-3 1/2 years later, the fact that her Baptism dress-not the one she actually wore to be Baptised in, the one she wore after-was red instead of white. I am sure she will mention it when I am on my death bed as well.) Anyhoosers. To spare any unnecessary emotional trauma to my children, we still participate in this..ritual. Of Halloween. Which is now a full week long event. It started when we went the Monday before Halloween to the Library for Spook Stories. Then Wednesday, Addy and I went to the Library for story time and she dressed up as a princess and went trick or treating in the Library. I didn't get a picture of that event.

Next up was Zac. He had a Youth Halloween party at the church the Wednesday before Halloween. He insisted on wearing Addison's unicorn costume, which caused her to freak totally out. He did take home first prize for the funniest costume though. And it went well with his pink shoes.

Then the Halloween parade at the school the Friday before Halloween (because if a 4 day weekend wasn't enough the weekend before, we had a 3 day weekend for Halloween and the kids got to stay home for Halloween). This was a HUGE event at our old school and I was so glad when we moved here to find out they didn't do one at our new school. Until this year. yay.

My normal cheerleader, Aubrey. You will see later why I call her normal in this picture.

Emily, who figured the costume worked for her brother, why not for her too?

The Saturday before Halloween we went to my mom's church for their Trunk-n-Treat. My brother Sam and his wife Teresa were in town for the weekend. The best part of the night was when a girl dressed as Hermoine from Harry Potter came by and my mom got so excited and said, "OH! I know who you are! You're JUDGE JUDY!" We all fell out of our seats we were laughing so hard.

After the Trunk-n-Treat we all went to our house for dinner and games. Then my mom and Addy snuggled up on the couch to watch TV and snooze while the rest of us went to a haunted house in our neighborhood that the High School Drama Club puts on. Not my favorite part of the night. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, if I want to be scared I can do it without even leaving the house. All I have to do is not fast forward or change the channel or close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and yell LA LA LA LA when a scary movie commercial comes on TV. Which I would never do, so I don't know why I thought I would want to go to a haunted house. Emily was a brave one though. She made Uncle Sam go through with her twice.


On Sunday we went to my mom's house for lunch after church. We said our goodbyes to Sam and Teresa who were going back to Idaho. I traumatized my children by making them watch Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Then we came home and carved our pumpkins. I fully intended to skip this part of Halloween, but my kids still remind me all the time of the year I wouldn't let them carve pumpkins and I made them decorate them with stickers (just so you don't think I'm totally lame, they were cute vinyl jack-o-lantern face stickers my friend Coren made). So once again, to avoid emotional trauma, we carved our little tiny pumpkins that spontaneously grew up from our old chicken yard. I am afraid however that in this attempt to avoid emotional trauma, I actually caused trauma by not having the proper sized pumpkins to carve. Look, these pumpkins were free. And I am cheap. And I am sure there are children somewhere in the world who would have been happy to have the small pumpkins.





And after a full week of celebrating, we finally arrive at the actual day of Halloween. An event I refused to decorate for this year (which Zac just reminded me of as I am typing this). Like I said, the kids had this day off from school. Steve and I were able to go to lunch that day with our dear friends Ken and Michelle, who we haven't seen in forever. Just to clarify, we did not go to lunch to celebrate Halloween, we went to lunch to celebrate Ken being Steve's lawyer and they had official business to attend to.





That night we had a huge neighborhood pot luck dinner and mass trick or treating. Aubrey went as a Zombie Cheerleader.






Addy changed her mind about what she wanted to be about 5 times that day. Finally, about 30 minutes before we left, she settled for a cat. Does this kids have the eyes or what?!?

Zac took a page from my sister Farrah's book (she sent us a picture of herself dressed up like this) and went as...well....went as this:

Emily also changed her mind several times in the costume designing process. She finally settled on a rock star. That's her with the git-tar.

Sigh...alas our Halloween celebration has come to an end....

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Take A Seat

Flashback: December 2008

This house and the table and chairs were only a few days old at the time this picture was taken. We had just moved into our new house about two weeks before. I hosted a dinner party and I went out and bought the chairs and table the day before the party. It seems like so long ago. So many family and friends have parked their seats in those seats around that table in the last three years.

Flashforward: TODAY! October 2011

For the past week, every time I do dishes dishes, I have been staring out my window drooling at a stack of awesome retro orange chairs stacked in my neighbor Lori's garage. In fact, I just sent her a text the other day saying she better start keeping her garage closed or I'm gonna come in and take them when she isn't looking. She sent me a text today saying that she was back at the DI where she bought the chairs and they still had a bunch left and they had marked them down from $5 each to $2 each! Well, I hopped my booty right on over there and picked me up a dozen. I am LOVING my new chairs!

Monday Morning Musings - Why Don't You Stay With Me?

(The title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself, other than it is the song that was on the radio when I was trying to come up with the title.) Let lovin' start, let lovin' start...

Steve was in Montana last week. On his way back home he stopped at a gas station in Idaho. Apparently in Idaho they sell guns at the gas station. So he couldn't resist picking this up for Aubrey. It is a Red Rider BB Gun. So ever since she got it the kids have been going around saying, "You'll shoot your eye out!" We did get an extra few doses of that movie last Christmas.

We had some mighty fine weather over the weekend. Last Fathers Day we gave Steve a gift card for 5 buckets of balls at a driving range and 5 rounds of golf. He has been so busy since then that he literally has had no time for golf. The gift card we bought expires in December so we figured we better use it while we still had a few days of good weather left. On Friday we took the kids and used all 5 buckets of balls. After the driving range, we went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then came home and had a family movie night and watched The Blindside. It was a fun family night. The next day Steve took Zac and a friend and used 3 of the 5 rounds of golf. 2 more left!

Good form Em!

Yeah. One of Zac's clubs got a little messed up. Addy was using it and she set it down in front of her driving pad thingy. She and I went to get more balls and Steve stepped in and started hitting balls in her space. One of his balls gone awry hit the club and shattered it.

The other day, Addy was digging around in my bathroom drawer. In the very back at the bottom she found a lidless chapstick. She pulled it out and looked at it and these were her very exact words: GROSS! It looks like some man used this in his armpit!

Come on feel the noise...Sorry. Steve is working from home today so we are sharing the office. He has to have music on to concentrate. I must have no music on to concentrate. He says the music blocks everything else out so he can think. When I hear music, I just sing along and there is no room for anything else. I am having a hard time concentrating on this post. We'll get wild, wild, wild...

You know how I found the perfect window coverings, but they were slightly out of our price range by tens of thousands of dollars? Well, I have found the second best thing. And it cost me nothing! On Sunday my mom and Lauren came over to watch the movie 17 Miracles, which I highly recommend. Anyhoo. While we were watching the sun was killing us. It was coming in these windows and there was no where we could move to avoid it. We could hardly see the TV and we were all sitting on the couch sweating. So Steve and I hung these lovely table cloths up that I had left over from kids parties. As we were hanging them we could literally feel a 20 degree difference in the room. Sweet relief. And I think they go perfectly with my lack of decor, so I plan to leave them for the time being.

Everything is different with your youngest child. You are a little more laxed. You sometimes celebrate their Birthday on the wrong date because you can't remember their actual one. You think it is cute when they dress themselves. I never would have ever let any of my other children leave the house like this. But sweet Addy dresses herself like this every day and I think it is so cute, I can't bear to make her change.

So we were do down to the wire and way beyond it when we were building the house. We finally got to the point where we just did what had to be done to get the certificate of occupancy and figured we would finish the rest after we moved it. Ha! You know how that goes. It doesn't. But this past weekend Steve has been working on finishing our deck. It is almost done (the red tape is still up from masking it off) and I am so excited. It looks so much better than it did. We just had the base coat on for the last 3 years and you couldn't walk out there without getting this dry powdery film on your feet. This is upstairs and we keep all our shoes downstairs in our mud room so any time we go on the deck, we are barefoot. I got to the point I never would go out there because I couldn't stand the way it felt on my feet. Well, that and the 10 bajillion mosquitoes. I am loving the new deck!

I had a few rough days this past weekend. I came out the other end a better person I think and with many many lessons learned. So as un-fun as it was, I am glad for the lesson learned. I also learned to never post on Facebook when I am seethingly angry. I always feel bad about it the next day. And I think I worried a few too many people. I got so many messages and phone calls. Thank you all for caring about me. All is good. Loving life and all that goes with it. I am so thankful for good friends and family that love me!

You make a grown man cry-y-y. You make a grown man cry-y-y.... (music's still on and I was able to finish this post!)

My Take On The World Series

Speaking as my normal everyday self,

this chick could care less about a silly little game of

Baseball

HOWEVER!

speaking as a girl
born and raised in

Dallas Texas

who is married to

a boy
born and raised in

ST. LOUIS MISSOURI

I really sincerely hope that the

kick some major

Boo-Tay!

GNO - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Last Thursday was Girls Night Out. We decided to dress up as 80's rockers and play Rock Band. We had so much fun! We tried to get our dear Relief Society President to join us. We showed up on her front porch singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". She told us we looked like...well, I won't tell you what she told us we looked like, you can probably come to your own conclusions about that. So we pretty much spent the entire night laughing. Mostly at April and her Rod Stewart-esque costume. It was kinda hard to take anything she said seriously when she was wearing that wig. Oh, I love these girls.

PS: They don't make hairspray like they used to. Or at least I don't own any 80's hairstyle worthy hairspray. It was almost impossible to get my bangs to stand straight up like they used to way back in the 80's. Do you know the 80's were like 30 years ago? I'm so old.

Monday Morning Musings - Somewhere Over The Rainbow

We always have the most beautiful rainbows around here. I have seen probably 3 or 4 rainbows in the past few weeks. Because we are out in the great wide open, I can usually see at least one end of the rainbow, if not both. This was last week and you can't tell from the picture, but it is a double rainbow. And I could see both ends. I love it!

So I have been singing Christmas songs for about a month now. I LOVE this time of year! I love fall. I love that it is not so hot but not so cold yet either. I love the anticipation of the holidays. I love Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is just like one big snuggly quarter of a year magical holiday festival. I just wish Halloween (my least favorite holiday) wasn't smushed in there trying to mess up my love fest. But oh well. I can overlook it. But really, I have been singing Christmas songs for a while. And today when Addy was making her bed, I could hear here in her room singing Christmas songs too. It's going to be hard for me to not put up my Christmas tree as soon as that one holiday is over.

Two Friday's ago, I went to our ward Relief Society's Fun Friday. And it was just that. So much FUN! I made some cute things too, but I have no pictures of them and I don't really feel like getting up at this moment to take some, so just trust me. They are cute. Here's some of the gals at Fun Friday.

That same weekend, Steve had a booth at the Home Show and on Saturday I took him dinner and hung out for a while. We walked around the show and I was so excited because we were able to find the PERFECT (I was singing that when I typed it so you should sing it while you are reading it - PER-FECT!) window coverings for our living room and kitchen (and after only 3 years). And guess what? The lady told me they are about $700 for an average size window. SAY WHAT?!? I was like how does she know how much it will cost for my kitchen when I haven't even told her how many windows I have. Then I realized she was telling me it was $700 eaches. Which would be ridiculous if I had like one window in the room. But I have 8 larger than normal windows, 1 giant window and 2 small windows in my kitchen. And the coverings for the sliding glass door in there, well a normal size sliding glass door is $1500. Ours is larger than normal. In fact, I don't have one normal size window in my whole house of 70+ windows, thanks to my designer husband. So basically what I'm trying to say to you is this, we ain't NEVER gonna have window coverings in this joint.

The whole thing really makes me wonder though...Do people really spend $700 a window for window coverings? Really?

Emily is in Drama Club again this year. In the spring they will be doing Aladdin. Last Thursday they did one act plays. Emily was in a really cute Snow White play. Unfortunately all I had with me to take pictures was my cell phone so this is all I got. Emily was one of the Narrators. She is on the left side of the stage in the middle. She did a fantastic job!

So the other day, Addy and I were sitting in our living room on the couch reading. It was a nice day out so we had the extra extra large sliding glass door in that room open. You know, one of the ones that will never have a covering. And our chickens were busy pooping right outside the door on the patio. Well, as we were sitting there this big hawk flew right up under our covered patio and went after the chickens. The chickens started freaking out, and personally, Addy and I did a little too. I jumped up off the couch and when I did the hawk flew back out. It was an interesting little nature lesson in the middle of our story time.

Then just a few days after that when it was freezing and raining outside (and snowing in the mountains and other select places) and all the kids and I were in the living room, a huge flock of about a million birds tried to fly up under the patio covering. A big group would fly in, then fly out and then another group would try. This happened several times before they gave up that game of follow the leader. I have to say, my patio is a pretty happin' place.

Addy has learned how to call my cell phone. Which is great when I am somewhere and she decides she wants to call me 20 times in a row. Finally I stop answering her calls so she fills up my voice mailbox. Apparently I can have 20 messages at a time. And that is what I usually have, thanks to her. I went a few weeks with my mailbox being completely full because I didn't feel like listening to and deleting all her messages. The bad thing is there is usually a real message from someone else mixed in with the ones from Addy and by the time I get around to listening to it, it's too late.

Message one: Uhhhh...mom...it's Addy.....Emily's being mean
again....where are you.....when will you be home?.....well....call me
back.....

Message two: MOM!.....It's Addy!.....why aren't you answering your
phone?!......Aubrey and I were playing this really fun game........ (5 minutes
later)....and so yeah, it was really fun....well.....call me back.....

Message seventeen: Mom! Emily called me a name....and Zac won't let
me have ice cream....And I like the color purple.....can you get me a surprise
while you are at the store?......

Speaking of full mailboxes. The mail lady just drove past my house and that reminded me that I haven't checked my mail in about 2 weeks. We don't have mailboxes at our houses here, we have a big community mail thing where we each have our own box. A long time ago my sister Kristy taught me to not get the mail unless I had time right then to deal with it. That way it won't stack up around the house. Well, I haven't had time to deal with it in about 2 weeks, so...Maybe I should make some time for it today. Maybe....we'll see....

Backwards: Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Been There, Done That

So I know it's not Friday, but I have been meaning to do this post for the last 2 Fridays and I just didn't get around to it. I am doing this post a little backwards, flashing forward and then backward instead of the other way around. Here it goes!

Flashforward: September 2011

As I was watching the premiere of Modern Family two weeks ago I couldn't help but get excited and say, "HEY! I've been there!" On the show they were on a family vacation in Jackson Wyoming. We were in Jackson Wyoming in 2007 with Steve's sister Heather and her family. You can click here if you are just dying to see all our pictures from that trip. And if not, you can just look at this one:

Flashback: July 2007

Monday Morning Musings - Here's The Story, Of A Lovely Lady

For some reason, Addy is scared of Police. She freaks out when she sees them. She was outside playing the other day and came running in the house screaming because she thought she heard a siren and she was scared the police were going to take her to jail. I have had so many talks with her about how they police are the good guys. They aren't going to take her to jail. She shouldn't be scared of them. And I could go on and on...So on Friday when there was a carnival at the elementary school and the DARE officer was there, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to let Addy meet a real live police officer and see how not scary they really are.

This officer was so kind to her. He took a long time talking to her and showing her all the cool stuff in his car. He let her turn on the lights and siren and talk into the loud speaker (something he didn't let anyone else do). Her let her wear his jacket and gave her a sticker badge and told her that she looked like she would make a great officer and when could she come to work? He was playing with her and telling her that tomorrow wouldn't work because it's Saturday, but that if she could come down to the station first thing Monday morning, that would be great. We went on doing other things at the carnival, but every time she won something or if something interesting happened, she had to run back over and tell him all about it. At one point he told her that if she was going to be a police officer she needed more badges, because the one she had on her shirt would get messed up when she tried to take it off. So he gave her a huge stack of badge stickers and told her she could wear one to work each day when she went.

So you know what she did first thing Saturday morning when she woke up? She jumped out of bed, got dressed, put a new badge sticker on and came downstairs to tell me she was ready for me to take her to work. I broke her poor little heart when I explained to her that the police officer was just kidding and that she really couldn't go to work. She kept saying, "No mom, remember? He said I could go to work today!" Anyhoo, she's not scared of police any more!

I love living in Utah. I really do. So on Saturday night while the boys were at the Priesthood Session of General Conference, the girls and I went out for dinner. They wanted to go to Carl's Jr. so they could play in the play place. We pretty much had the entire restaurant to ourselves most of the time. Then 2 buses full of students all wearing the same black shirts came in. Following closely behind them were about 30 guys in white shirts and ties. It was great. I knew then that the Priesthood Session was over. It was kinda like the week before when I stopped by the grocery store on my way home from the Relief Society General Meeting and there was a traffic jam of ladies in dresses.

After Conference on Sunday, we took a walk. It was perfect weather. You could also tell Conference had just ended because there was a traffic jam on the trail too.

Aubrey and Emily wore their rollerblades because that is pretty much all they wear any more. Zac would have been wearing his, but he didn't come with us because he was busy making his movie with our neighbor. They are making an awesome movie and I will have to post it when they finish.

My silly girls. So the night before when we left Carl's Jr., we went to The Dollar Tree. Emily bought these fake earrings that you can put on your lip and ears and make it look like you have a ton of piercings. She also bought this blue hair that you clip to your hair. She wore about 6 or 7 "piercings" on her face and the blue hair. I'm sure all those people just finishing up with Conference thought we were outstanding parents.

Yes, she really is THIS cute! (Please note her police badge)

I have a ton of pumpkins that spontaneously grew where our chicken coop used to be. I am so excited, because none of the ones I actually planted produced anything. They are mostly still green, but we have about 4 or 5 that have turned orange. Well, today as I was walking by them, I noticed that my naughty chickens have been eating the pumpkins! I was so mad. And they couldn't just eat one pumpkin, they have eaten just a little bit off of about 5-6 pumpkins! GRRRRR.....Oh well, I guess they figure those are their pumpkins because they sprang forth from the pumpkins I gave them to eat last year and I'm sure the reason why they grew so well has something to do with all the chicken poop.

So I have decided that I am sick and tired of the shows my kids watch on TV. I have put a ban on Disney and Nick and I have started recording Little House on the Prairie and The Brady Bunch. My kids are really enjoying watching them. They love the Brady Bunch (The first Little House they watched was the one where Albert accidentally starts a fire and Mary's baby dies, so they thought it was a little depressing....) and we watch it all the time now. The first time we watched it, I kinda freaked them out with my vigorous singing of the theme song, but now they sing along with me. We fast forward through the commercials, but never through the song. Never. That's the way we became the Brady Bunch...

One of the first times we watched it, Mrs. Brady said "Oh, that's Groovy!" I felt the need to educate my children, so I paused the TV and said, "OK kids, when she said 'that's groovy', that is like in our day saying 'that's awesome'. I just wanted to make sure you understand the lingo." Then Zac said, "No mom. That's like saying in our day ninja or epic or sick or beast." So instead of me educating my children, they educated me and also made me feel really super old.

And BTW (see, I can talk like them there youngsters) I'm totally diggin' on the Brady's house and furnishings. I would so love to furnish my house the exact same way!

Want to know more about General Conference? Our church holds a General Conference twice a year. We are able to get updates on things that are happening around the world in our church and we are also able to hear from a living Prophet on the earth today. The messages we here are inspired and inspiring. Want to hear some of it for yourself? Click here.