Saturday In The Park

Today was a gorgeous day.  It was in the upper 60's here.  We anticipated this being our last nice Saturday for many many months to come.  So we decided to get out and enjoy it.  We took a picnic lunch to a park.  After lunch the kids headed over to the playground to play tag.

 Addy hitching a ride with Zac.  He is such a fun big brother.

They were pretty darn rambunctious.  At first there were only a few other kids on the playground, but after a while there were a ton of kids and they were all really little.  And my kids are really big.  I knew they had to be making the parents of the little kids nervous.  So we left the playground in search of safer places to run wild.

 The kids found this amphitheater and immediately Aubrey and Addy ran to it and started dancing. 

Then Zac got there and it turned into a wild game of  tag again.

Then Emily joined in and it progressed into a friendly game of butt tag.  (you had to smack the booty of the person you were wishing to tag-it's harder to play that way)

 Then Steve joined in...

 And then suddenly I was in the middle of it.

 Addy photo bombing 

 Steve photo bombing the photo bomb. 

 Awesome berries we found growing on the trees

Then, someone-who shall remain nameless- started throwing acorns at innocent people.

This resulted in a lot of acorn gathering and an all out acorn war.

Addy's ammunition stockpile. 

 Emily and Aubrey had their own ammo stockpile too.  I went to get a pocketful of acorns from them and Emily asked if I wanted some berries from her berry belt.  For some reason this was really funny to us all.

At the end of the war, we all gathered around to make peace.  We had a little spiritual thought to get us ready for Fast Sunday tomorrow.  Then it was time to head for home.  It was a fantastically fabulously fun day and I am so thankful I got to spend it with the people I love the most.

On Any Given Day I'm a Pretty Decent Mom. But On Halloween...I SUCK!

Before I start this post, I need to preface it by making the reader aware of the following (because it will help me feel better about my crappy Halloween skills): My old head injury has been acting up for the last week and I'm doing pretty good just to be keeping my eyes open and functioning right now.

OK, now that that is out of the way and I feel all better, this is why I suck:  Because I hate Halloween.  Should you be allowed to have children if your views of Halloween are such as mine?  I don't know.  But that's how I feel and I do have four children.

Last night we had a Halloween party at our church.  Steve and I showed up with Aubrey (not in a costume) and Addy (in her soccer uniform dressed as well, duh, a soccer player).  And Steve and I were in our normal street clothes (thankfully I did have the decency to change out of my stretchy pants that I had been wearing all day, as I was running errands all around town no less.)  My friend took one look at me and said, "Nice costume.  What are you supposed to be?"  I looked at Steve and I looked at myself and replied, "What are we?  We are lucky just to be here right now."  

We got home last night.  It was late.  I really thought I was going to have to take a trip to the ER (you thought I was making the head injury thing up, did you?).  I shouted off a list to the kids of things to do as I was climbing in my bed (the place I had wanted to be all day long)- "TAKE A SHOWER!  BRUSH YOUR TEETH!  SAY YOUR PRAYERS!  PICK OUT A COSTUME TO WEAR TO SCHOOL TOMORROW!  (I brought out our huge costume box on Monday) PICK OUT AN OUTFIT TO WEAR TO SCHOOL AFTER THE PARADE!  GO TO BED!  I LOVE YOU!"

I don't think they got the fact that when I said pick out a costume and regular clothes, this was not something I wanted them to do mentally.  Like I really wanted them to physically have these things out and ready to go in the morning.  My morning was a little more hectic because after getting Zac up and making 5 lunches and take Zac to the bus stop I came home to wake the girls up.  And instead of having time to help them get ready and then driving them to school in my PJ's, I had to take a shower and get myself ready because I had to go into the school and watch the blessed parade.

I get outta the shower and Addy doesn't have her costume on.  Nor does she have one picked out- mentally or physically.  Tonight she wants to be a Zombie and carry around Emily's scary baby doll like Emily did last year.  I have this profound belief that I should not have to put a huge amount of effort into dressing up my child unless it is actually Halloween and we are actually going trick or treating.  I fully intend on going full blown Zombie on Addy tonight.  But tonight was not this morning and tonight we will not be having to leave for school in 20 minutes.  I explained to her that if she just went to school carrying around scary baby without all her Zombie makeup on, no one was going to know what she was.  I then proceeded to list off 5 different things she could be and told her she better hurry and decide because we had to be in the van in 10 minutes and she still didn't have her change of clothes, she hadn't brushed her teeth and I didn't know for sure, but because I've been her mom for almost seven years now I could almost certainly say she doesn't know where her shoes are!  

Out of my list of 5 possible costumes that require little or no effort, she chose princess.  So she went up to the playroom to the dress up box (different from the Halloween costume box) and drug out her Cinderella dress.  I didn't have much time to focus on anything else but getting kids in the vehicle at that point.  We got to school, the kids got in- hopefully before the tardy bell rang.  And I found a parking space and proceeded to put my makeup on before I went in for the parade.

I made it inside the school and found a place to sit and got all ready for the parade.  The kids started coming in and that's when I started feeling like a pretty crappy mom.  I'm looking at all these kids in these costumes, some of them that I'm sure cost $100 and probably took 100 minutes to apply to the child.  That's when I started regretting my 3 minute costume efforts earlier that morning.  It was made all better when after the parade, I went to Addy's classroom to take a picture of her class all dressed up.  She was standing on the back row and all I could see at that time were her beautiful blue eyes and her smile.   One of the kids in her class took her picture with her teacher.  I could tell Addy wanted her picture taken with her teacher too.  So I asked her teacher if Addy could take a picture with her.  She obliged.  And that's when I noticed....

As if to add insult to injury, that's when I noticed that that Cinderella dress was absolutely filthy.  Not just a little dirty.  But filthy.  It has food all down the front of it.  It looks like it has been worn outside a few too many times.  My kids mom SUCKS!  Thank goodness it was time to change clothes!

Thankfully you can't tell the condition of the dress from the picture.  Just focus on the cute girl inside the dress.  Hopefully she won't read this post until she is much older and has ironed out all her mother issues.  Hopefully she will never know that her mother sent her to school in a filthy Cinderella dress for Halloween.  Hopefully her brother and sisters won't read this to her (Zac, Emily, Aubrey- I'm talkin' to you!) like they did the post about the time when I couldn't remember her Birthday.

And now I'm off.  Back up to the school for class parties!  Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday Matthew

My Nephew Matthew turned 7 years old today!  Back in 2006 my two sisters and I were all three pregnant. Owen was born in March and Matthew and Addison were born one month apart, in October and November respectively.  Matthew was born on my parents anniversary, October 25th.  He is the cutest kid and I am so excited because I get to see him in one month.  Happy Birthday Mattycakes!  Here is your Birthday video:

Click here to see all my Birthday videos.

Happy Birthday David

Tuesday was my Brother-in-Law David's Birthday.  David is Steve's youngest sibling.  I feel a special bond with David.  When my kids were younger, David came from Missouri to live with us for a few years.  He became a member of our family and he became like a son to me.  Zac was pretty little and he and David became best buds.  They had all the same interests at the time.  Star Wars, dinosaurs and rocks.  They spent endless hours together collecting rocks.

David is special needs.  Between Steve and I we have three siblings with special needs.  I feel like our family has been blessed with these 3 sweet spirits to care for in this mortal life.  I loved this quote by Elder Jeffery R. Holland in the last  General Conference: 

"I testify that ...that which was sown in weakness will ultimately be raised in power. I bear witness of that day when loved ones whom we knew to have disabilities in mortality will stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be!"

Happy Birthday David!  Here is his Birthday video:

Click here to see all the Birthday videos.

Happy Birthday Spencer

My Nephew Spencer had a Birthday 2 weeks ago!  I feel so bad it has taken me so long to make his Birthday video.  For the week leading up to his Birthday and the week after I literally wasn't home for more than 30 minutes at a time.  This week my girls are out of school for fall break and we decided to interchange the contents of 4 rooms in our house with one another.  But this video has constantly been on my mind.  Here it is, finally!  Spencer I can't believe you will graduate from High School in just a few months!  Your mom was pregnant with you at my wedding.  It has been fun to watch you grow up and become the young man you are.  I hope you had a wonderful Birthday!  Here is your video:

Click here to see all my Birthday Videos

General Conference Countdown

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Our church has a living Prophet and Apostles on the earth today.  They lead and direct our church and speak the will of the Lord to us.  It is my belief that Heavenly Father loves us just as much as he did the people who lived on the earth during the time of Moses and Abraham and other ancient prophets.  He wants us to hear His word and know His will just as much as he did the people of ancient days.  So why would he not give us a Prophet in our day?  

Every April and October our church holds a General Conference.  It is a two day event and during that time we are able to hear from the Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and his counselors.  We are also able to hear from other leaders in our church.   Their messages are always uplifting and inspiring and very relevant to the struggles and trials we are dealing with at this time in earths history.  The Conference is held at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City but it is viewed by our almost 15 million members world wide via modern technology.  

I have never been so excited about General Conference before.  I have always loved it and looked forward to it, but for some reason, this year is different.  I have been so excited and making preparations for over a month now.  We live in such a troubling time.  The earth is in constant commotion.  I just feel like things are spinning out of control in every direction I look.  I think I have been looking so forward to Conference because I want to gather my family around me for a few days and just shut out the outside world and be still and hear the comforting words of the Lord and make a new commitment as an individual and as a family to better heed the will of God.

I wanted to get my kids excited about General Conference too.  I have some fun things planned for this weekend and I know what they are, but they don't.  So it is easy for me to be excited, but I wanted to do something to excite them and get them to look forward to this weekend just as much as I am.  I made little notes with a treat attached that I have been leaving by their bed each night for them to find when they wake up in the morning.  Here are the treats they have received so far:

(PS: This is the first time I have had Skittles since they changed the green to green apple.  Shame on you Skittles.  Shame on you.  I shall never purchase you ever again.  Why mess with a good thing?  I eat skittles in certain color combinations and the only thing green apple goes with is grape.  Lime, that went with all the other colors.  It was my go to color.  So thanks a lot!)

I have also been putting General Conference memes in their lunches this week.  

This was the one in their lunches today.

Tomorrow I am getting together with some friends to make some AWE-SOME (please use a sing-song voice when you read AWE-SOME) stuff for this weekend.  I am so excited, I just can't hide it!  I'm so excited, I joined Pintrest (something I swore I'd never do), just so I could find and pin General Conference ideas (sorry if you started following me on Pintrest and now you are like- how lame can this chick be?  If you would like to watch General Conference you can do so by clicking here.  On that link you can also find ideas for preparing for conference and activities for kids.

Happy Birthday Myrle

Today is Steve's mother's Birthday.  She would have been 68 years old today.  She left this mortal life when she was only 45 years old.  I cannot even fathom that.  My husband is 46.  I can't even think about what the rest of my life would be like without him here.  

In 1990, when she passed away, I was just beginning my Junior year of High School in Dallas Texas.  I was living a happy and carefree life and was completely oblivious to the fact that just a few states away, in St. Louis Missouri, my future husband was being devastated and my future life, and the lives of my children, were being forever changed.

Even though I  never met Myrle in this life, I know we were friends before we came to earth.  I know we will have a very happy reunion someday.  There are so many times I look into my daughters eyes and see a part of her alive in them.  She lived a short 45 years on this earth, but her beautiful legacy lives on.

Here is the Birthday video I made to celebrate this special day:

Bump, Set, Spike

Our girls started a new school  this year.  So far we love everything about it.  Great teachers, awesome curriculum and values, standards and beliefs that we embrace.  One of my children, who shall not be named, was not very keen  on switching schools.  But I think she has come to learn that being a big fish in a little pond has its perks.

Emily tried out for the school volleyball team and she made it!  They had their first two games last Wednesday. I was not able to be there because Zac had a Court of Honor that night and I went to that with him while Steve went to Emily's game (we are finding ourselves having to divide and conquer more and more often these days).  She had two more games last night and we were all able to go to her first game before Zac and Steve had to leave to attend an event at Zac's school.  I was so proud of Emily.  She did a great job and she has a pretty awesome serve.  I lost count but I think during one run she got 7 or 8 serves in a row across.

Between games we enjoyed a picnic dinner (We had a hot dinner that I had made earlier that day.  Want to find out how?  Click here.  I love this and we use it all the time).  Steve's employee Jose Luis ate with us and helped cheer Emily on during her first game.  When the boys had to leave, my mom and Lauren came to cheer her on during her second game.

Girls Version Of Labor Day Weekend

So last night, Steve did a guest post about his Labor Day Weekend adventures.  He took Zac and his friend Emerson and Emily on an awesome ATV trip.  Aubrey and Addy and I made our own kind of fun that weekend at home.  We were invited to go on two different trips, but we turned them down for a low key weekend with just the three of us.  Steve invited us to go along on their excursion.  And my BFFs invited us to go with them and their families camping at Bear Lake.  I've always wanted to go on an ATV trip of the likes that they took.  But at that moment in time I just could not bring myself to want to go on another trip that would take so much effort to plan ahead of time (Steve decided they were going less than a week before they left).  We had just been on two back to back trips- Camping and Education Week, and in between those trips Emily had girls camp, and if you read Steve's post you will know I was in charge of packing for that as well.  Life had been crazy fun all summer long and we had just gone back to school the week before and I was so excited for life to calm down and get back to normal.  I really could not bring myself to want to go on that trip.  Or camping at Bear Lake.  I know if we would have gone we would have had a blast.  I would have been on the beach all weekend with my BFFs and the girls would have been on the beach all weekend with theirs.  But again, I just could not get excited about preparing for and packing for and going on another trip at that particular point in my life (this means I am getting old).  So these cute girls and I decided that we were going to have the most relaxing fun girl weekend possible.  We were not for one second going to do anything we didn't want to do.  All weekend long.  And by the end of the weekend, the house was living proof that the weekend did not disappoint (I didn't want to clean).  

Aubrey took care of my friend Allison's chickens and dog Mingus while they were away living it up at Bear Lake.  Aubrey was in heaven!  She is our animal lover.  All of our chickens have been eaten by animals other than ourselves and she has been missing them.  She loved taking care of the chickens and especially Mingus since her mother is so mean and won't let her have a dog.  Although I must say, spending the weekend with Mingus almost made me want to have a dog.  But only if we can have Mingus.  And I don't think that's going to happen, so I guess we are safe.  Anyway, here are some highlights from our weekend.

First, as soon as everyone left, we hopped in the van and hit up the Redbox.  The girls chose a couple movies and video games each.  Then we went shopping for food for the weekend.  We bought pretty much everything that looked good to us at the moment.  I don't have any pictures from that night but we just basically put ourselves into a movie/food coma.  The next day we slept in and then went to see Monsters University with my sister Lauren.  I'm super cheap so I never buy popcorn or drinks or anything at the movies.  But since this weekend we were not doing anything we didn't want to do, well, we didn't want to watch the movie without popcorn and drinks so we splurged.  After the movie we went to my moms house where she had her homemade chicken soup waiting for us.  They girls played on her electronics.

Then we went for frozen yogurt.

Sunday we went to church and came home and slept.  And since I was in such a giving mood that weekend, I let Aubrey bring Mingus home with us for a few hours.  This made both girls and Mingus very happy.

The next day, Aubrey's friend Grace came over and we all went out to lunch.

And that evening our adventurers came home.  It was Zac's Birthday.  He had requested fajitas and guacamole for dinner so we had fajitas and guacamole (that was the most food prep I had done all weekend so I hope he appreciated it!).  My mom and Lauren had dinner with us and my mom made Zac his favorite Pina Colada Cake.