Our True Colors Shining Through

Bob....The journey of our Elf (on the shelf)

We started a new tradition!

Traditions are always so easy in the beginning.  My challenge to myself has been to pick up my camera to document it (as opposed to the iphone camera--wayyyyy easier!).  So without further adieu, I present Bob.  Our very own elf!

Please refrain from any questionable comments about day 4.  As someone pointed out, Bob looks very happy...and obviously if I'd have had my mind on such a level, Bob would have dropped his crayon somewhere else.  Being the good mom that I am, I was obviously focused more on the lumps of coal my kids earned with their arguing that day!

With that said, it should also go without saying that day 4 is completely unrelated to day 5.  Just to clear up any confusion.  

Hot Dog...

We caught ourselves a MOUSE! 

Hubs is optimistic that he was a loner.  Me, not so much.  Therefore we still have all the "artillery" in place.  I do hope he is correct!


P.S.  Syd wanted to know why daddy made "Jerry" go outside.  Gotta love their little imaginations!

There's a MOUSE in my house!

I left my family Wednesday to go out of town for a seminar.  On my way home, I got a message from my husband, to the effect of "Btw, saw a brown mouse in the kitchen this morning.  It ran behind the refrigerator.  You might want to think about a professional, because I don't have time to deal with it."

Nice.

I came home, went straight to bed and forgot about it.  I saw no evidence of a mouse and have been busy running ever since.  Until today.

Today, I am sitting at home, working in my very quiet home, which was nice.  Until I started to hear little scratches and sounds coming from the kitchen.  Now, I am in no way brave enough to really go looking for the rodent, so I did the next best thing.  I shot hubs a message telling him I hear the mouse and he needs to get home and get on it ASAP.  I then put on my shoes and sat on the kitchen counter across the room from where I heard the noises.  I think I've pinpointed it to the cabinet above my fridge. 

Gone is my focus on the grant I'm writing.  Also gone is my ability to wash the dishes in the sink (since that would require my back to the fridge).  I also cannot heat up any lunch b/c I would have to get food out of the fridge and stick it in the microwave--right next to the fridge.  The kitchen is not a comfortable place today.  I am now googling how to catch a mouse in your house while my dog snores lazily by my feet, unaware that the biggest catch of her life is just a few feet away. 

I am not happy.  At. All.

Crazy Drivin'

This evening, driving down the road after we left the park:

Me:  You are driving me crazy!

Syd:  Nuh uh!  You're the one driving.  So you're driving ME crazy!

New Look

Trying out a new look--and I don't like it so much.  However, until I figure out what I do like, it'll do.  It's more trouble than it's worth to take it down now.  So enjoy. 

"Outlast" Shine

I had a walking advertisement for C*ver G!rl Outlast L!p Shine for 3 days.   

THREE DAYS!

 It's safe to say:  This stuff works!

Super busy month!  I'm trying to update more--I promise!  Considering I've done 3 posts in 3 months, I'm doing fairly well.  I realize it's been well over a month since the last one, but it's been a busy month! So here is a quick recap of the good and the bad, and the ulgy. 

• Spent a week laying on the beach...with a roach infested condo.

• Kids went straight from a beach vacation to SCHOOL (!)...and Homework...
  

•  Had a tree in the backyard cut down...instead of buying my new camera.  (Or lens, or cruise...I can think of WAY better ways to spend that money.) 

• Kids had a fantastic new jungle gym to ride out tropical storm Lee on!  But the backyard took a HUGE shade hit.  And yes, I am that mom that sent her kids out to play in the tropical storm on the downed tree.  

• That's how I had time to can the pears we harvested!  Thankfully my hand has a whole year to recover from the peeling and chopping marathon before it has to do it again.

• 3 sick kids.  One at a time, one week a part.  Last one was faker boy.  Mean sick policy is back in effect.

• Lost 4 pounds (!)...but only after I gained back 20.    Dumb diet is back on.   

Add to That Survival List...

A broken air conditioner with a very expensive repair bill AND TS Emily is still posing a potential threat to my vacation!  REALLY????...........

Is It Friday yet?

Because that would mean that I survived:

• My baby turning 4
• A surprise visit from my mother (with just a couple hours notice)
• Trying to get the house ready for mom's visit, which involves trying to make kids cooperate, clean the house, and still get my work done
• 80's day at work--Holy Cow, was that FUN!
• Crisis when dog knocked the earring out of the newly pierced ear of 4 year old--and 4 year old refusing to cooperate to put it back in
• School Supply Shopping--with 4 kids and a hubs
• Vacation shopping and packing
• Did I mention trying to write grants with loud kids under my feet?

 

A Holy Cow kind of summer!

Well, I'm still a working gal--only a working gal from home!  Apparently my part time status took up too much office space, so now my space has been relocated to about 20 steps from my bed.  And while that sounds, um, fantastic...yeah, think about the FOUR hoodlums kiddos that reside 40 steps away.  You wanna talk about NOISE?  AND I've got more work duties too.  Who knew I was good enough to write all these freaking grants?  There is a reason I majored in MATH!  It used to take me hours and hours to write a paper.  (Unless it was a math paper--then it just took hours.)  Yeah, now that's my job.


I do have to say I love my new freedom, though.  Working in my yoga pants (or um...sometimes my jammies) ROCKS!  Waking up when I want...ROCKS!  But that's about it.  I miss having lunch with the ladies in the office everyday.  I miss walking to the copy machine and stopping for that impromptu conversation.  I miss always knowing what's going on...now I show up once a week and I feel disorganized and out of my element.  I still have stuff I have to be at the office to do, and setting up a temporary camp in the conference room is disorienting.  Plus my network connection is seriously undesirable.  I'm talking it can take 5 minutes to open an email.  Or having my computer 10 or so keystrokes behind my typing.  Fu-Rus-Tra-Ting!!!!

So throw in 4 unruly  active kiddos and you can imagine my delight over school starting in 2 1/2 weeks!  Throw in one week for vacation and I'm down to 6 1/2 more business days of them!  Any longer and I'd be begging the doc for happy pills.

Busy Busy Bees!

We have been so super busy the past few months, that it's been hard to stop and blog.  However, we are both finally done with our semesters, and I will not be continuing for now.  My job changed, which is a great thing, but it went from simple office work to actual responsibility.  YIKES!  Still part time, but now I have to use my brain!  We also had to get through the season of dance conventions/workshops/competition/birthdays/holidays...One of the highlights, though, was flying up north for a friend's wedding.  I got to take her pictures, which in theory was a wonderful gift for me to give her.  In theory only, because I didn't take into account the below freezing temps I had to shoot in--for hours!  So while the pics turned out beautifully, the posing left something to be desired, since it was all my shivering self could do to just hold the camera and press the shutter!  (Really--big time involuntary shivering!)  So I'm going to post a few of those pictures, instead of Christmas ones, since that's all I've been working on.  Maybe I'll get around to the Christmas ones next week! 

Fun times--but I have to say that I  NEVER   want to be that cold again!

An Attempt, At Least

I haven't even thought of attempting a blog post this entire summer, or longer.  I haven't even thought of the blog, really.  In the back of my mind, I do miss it, really, but I'm either too lazy, too busy (or all of the above) to do anything about it.  I have managed to pack my life FULL this past year, and while I absolutely love it, when I am finally sitting still, writing a blog is too much to manage.

Facebook, however, has become ridiculously easy.  Awesome app on my phone, and it's as easy as texting!  And I don't have to write a whole blog post either.  Throw up a sentence or two, and bam, I'm updated.  A short and sweet forum for my goofy stories and frustrations.  The only problem is, facebook doesn't list an archive like blogger does, so keeping old posts isn't easy.

So I'm thinking I'll throw a few up here every now and then.  And if I feel like it, maybe I'll elaborate?

• Jacob insisted that he knows ALL the math in my linear algebra book. So I handed him my notebook and asked him to finish my problem for me. He looked at it, then said, "I said I know MOST of that. I can do the rest of the book!"

• Jake asked me if he can have my iPhone when I die. HA! I told him "No, because I'll probably be buried with it."

• Just pulled in the driveway right as The Cure came on the radio. Guess Steven and the kids will live w/out me for a few more min while I sit in the car and jam!

• Jacob: "One thing I know is that I can totally run faster than the treadmill, but don't worry. I'll try to keep it's pace."

• I just told Syd to get her finger out of her nose. She propped her hand up on her hip and said grandly, "But Mom, I a Doc-tor!" DUH! What was I thinking?

• So my husband says to me this morning, "Bye Honey! Be careful and STAY OUT OF JAIL!"

So maybe I should go ahead and elaborate on the last one there!  It's not that I have a problem with being arrested, or doing illegal things.  Although to give him some credit, he did say that he would bail me out.  But, I was heading on a super long road trip with Londie, and well, we do have sort of a reputation for having fun!  And come on, we're mormons.  Our kind fun is taking a bunch of 15 year olds to Walmart at 2 in the morning, buying 20 large packs of plastic forks, and letting the kids decorate the yard of the leader who ditched our sleepover at the last minute.  Even if it's not very mormon-like to deny deny deny...

We headed up to Fort Smith, picked up a 3rd member of our band, and drove over to St Louis to see one of our girls get married.  To say it was wonderful would be a gross understatement, but it definitely made the 40 hours I spent in the car that week worth it.  It was an amazing testimony of the Young Women's program!

Wicked Happy!

I have completely left the land of "Blogger deadbeat" and wandered into the land of "Blogger LOSER!"

And no, I'm not here to promise that I'm turning over a new leaf.  I just felt like blogging!

I don't have much to say, really, though.  I could comment on the almost 3 year old's new attitude--and by new, I mean bad.  I could comment on our busy busy comings and goings.  But really...boring.

What's more interesting tonight?  I'm READY for ECLIPSE! I'm ready for hot vampires and werewolves tomorrow!


And, more than that?  I'M READY FOR SOME WICKED GIRL TIME!!!

Houston, Here We Come!!

Warning

I picked up our copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends this evening, and found the perfect poem, quite by accident.

So I called out to Ashley:

Ashley, did you know?

Inside everybody's nose
There lives a sharp-toothed snail!
So if you stick your finger in,
He may bite off your nail!
Stick it farther up inside,
And he may bite your ring off.
Stick it all the way, and he
May bite the whole darn thing off!

How about that?

Once she finally quit giggling, she informed me, "That's not true!  I have experience!"

Cool Voice

Christopher and I sat outside this afternoon working on his homework together. He had to make up some sentences, and was doing very well on his own. Or so I thought.

I checked his work after a couple of minutes, and here is his sentence for the word, "voice."

What voice do you have?

I said, "Dude, what does that mean? Does that make sense to you? What kind of voice do you have?

He looked at me, in all seriousness, and said, "Hmmm...A smart one."

I said, "What kind of voice do I have?"

He said, "Hmmm...That's just too hard. Your voice is just hard."

So now I need to define the word "hard." I believe I shall go with the definition "firm," with the synomym "Cool." Definitely!

"Don't let a suitcase full of cheese become your big fork and spoon"

I just realized I am engaged in a war.

Ok, well maybe it's not a full scale war, but certainly at least it earns the label of petty-battle-wife-must-win.

Anyone remember that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond with the suitcase of cheese and the big fork and spoon? Ray and Debra both refuse to put up the suitcase that RAY left out, so Ray (in his manly wisdom) put smelly cheese in the suitcase to teach Debra a lesson. Marie decided to give some advice to Debra and tells her that the big fork and spoon that hang in her kitchen have been left there for like 40 years and they both refuse to take them down.

Her advice to Debra? Don't let a suitcase full of cheese become your big fork and spoon.

Back to me. So hubs installed a new stove yesterday in my kitchen! How exciting! Until this morning when I walked into my kitchen.

My suitcase of cheese:

I'm Hiring

In response to an ad for a cleaning lady, I got this:

Hellow my name is (man's first and last name) i feel that i am right for the job because i have done alot of janitoral work in my life. And i am trustworthy i have a litle girl her name is ***** ,her mother name is (first and last name). We stay on (street address). I'm 24 of age, my litle girl is 4, and my women age is 24. My girlfriend and i are both born in the same month september i'm the 21 and is the 22. Born in the same year,1985. I was on alot of resepct

Hmmmm.....Uh, NO!  Seriously?  I know it's only cleaning but I am seriously uninterested in hiring someone who is on a lot of "resepct" to clean my toilets!

Anyone around here have a recommendation or suggestion?

Not In the Kitchen!

I've been home from work for 2 days now with a sick toddler who's really not very sick.  Oh sure, to say she's running fever and has a crusty nose and icky cough makes it sound like she's miserable, but to see her run around the house despite all that is irritating!

And only I would be irritated with a sick baby not being sick enough, right?  But she's become so accustomed to having other kids around to play with and not being the only child at home anymore, that she's bored.  So when she's not shadowing me throughout the house, she's getting into something she knows she shouldn't be in a blatant scream for my undivided attention.  I've taken to locking the door when I'm in the bathroom so I can have my "bathroom time is private time" moment.  Unfortunately, this only angers the princess who pounds and hollers at the door for me to "O-pit tha door, Maa Ma!"

Compound this with potty training.  "Maa Ma!  O-pit tha door!  I wan poo tha pot tee!"

Take this morning.  I sat down at the computer to take care of a few things while she's sitting down by the tv.  The second I plop down in my chair, she's up, in the kitchen, dragging the step stool over to the pantry to see what she can reach.  I didn't stop her, and I could see her, so I didn't worry.  The cookies are too high up for her to reach--no big deal.  And then I hear a noise. 

A "who turned on the sink and left it running" noise.

Not a good noise to hear when your toddler is trying to climb into the pantry while you forgot she's not in a pull up.

"Maa Ma!  I Wet!  I wet, Maa Ma!  Oots! Yuk-ee!"

I'm quickly regretting my decision this morning to NOT be one of those moms who doses their child with tylenol and sends em on to school anyway.  Trust me, she would've been fine.

Almost Time to Clean the Gun!

I have a cute 2 year old. Actually, I know for a fact I have the cutest 2 year old ever. And she's even cuter when you add in her spunk. She truely thinks she is as royal as Cinderella is, and that she rules our castle with a mixture of the stepsisters' bossiness and Cinderella's loveliness.

So I wasn't totally surprised when, in getting ready for school this morning, she scoffed at the cute red warmup suit I pulled out of the closet for her and demanded, "I want a pree-tty dress!"

So to school we went, in the totally adorable jumper dress and mary jane shoes. A sweet picture I will never forget.

However, even more than that, I will never forget picking up her royal heiney too. She pranced out of the classroom with her teacher in tow, who informed me that she has loads of "beaus." In fact, it seems that most of the little boys are as enchanted with my princess as she is with playing princess. So enchanted that they keep kissing her. Right. Smack. On the LIPS.

And I'm ok! My baby is kissing boys, but you can congratulate me on keeping my cool. I'm so cool, in fact, that I'm able to keep my concentration on shopping for hubs' birthday next month! I'm leaning towards a shotgun. You know, for hunting.......

Why I LOVE Google

I can't say things ever get boring around my house. Tonight, as I was settling in with my squid--who, by the way, was sporting a tutu, tiara and zebra striped slippers along with her jammies--I was interrupted by a ruckus out in the hall.

So I did what any loving mother would do--I ignored the child who should have been asleep in the hopes that his daddy would intervene. And yes, this was despite hearing the phrase "really painful."

It wasn't until I heard the really loud, serious "OWWWWWWWWWW" that I got concerned and made my way to the bathroom where the noise was coming from.

Can you imagine my reaction as I rushed in, thinking my child was really sick, and was confronted with this?

Thank goodness for google--the greatest resource ever--for educating us on the effects of rubbing alcohol on silly putty.

And Steven says if Santa ever brings silly putty again, Santa's going to EAT it. Do ya think Steven realizes that HE is Santa?

Excuse Me, Please

1. My computer caught a virus that seized it up and even the computer man can't fix it.
2. I had to build bar stools.
3. It's just too freakin cold to do anything!
4. Hey, I'm a workin woman now. (Like answering phones and filing qualifies as work more than poopy diapers and mopping floors does.)
5. I woke up to a 25 degree morning with no electricity and 6 people to get ready and out the door in an hour. Without even a blow dryer to help me out!
6. I had to spend 3 days holed up in a suite with no internet in Houston with a sexy man. It was our anniversary, afterall!
7. My purpose in blogging is to entertain with stories of my family. Does this mean I have to be entertained by them too?
8. I'm still working on my Christmas cards. Priorities!
9. Sick kids, sick spouse, sick dog. But not me. I got to go to work! YaHOO!
10. Oh, and did I mention the unpotty-trained 2 year old who can lock me out of bedrooms/bathooms now? And how I don't have a key, and I stink at using a screwdriver? And how she laughs at me fussing at her to open the door?

Screw 30, Screw 29...HELLO 25!

It's that time of year again! My favorite sucky day of the year: MY BIRTHDAY! And while I've become a serious blogging slacker, I HAD to sit down and add to the saga. You remember this and this, right? Let's continue on!

Hubs told me a few weeks ago that he was going to take my birthday off from work and take me to lunch! Wow! Sounds great to me!

Only, then the truth came out. He had a final scheduled for that evening and he was really taking the day off to sit at the library and study. His plan was to head over there from lunch and sit the rest of the day there cramming. Lunch was in place of dinner out.

Only then, two days before, he says he was thinking it would be nice to go have brunch somewhere. He was thinking IHOP.

I looked him square in the eye and said, "You are NOT taking me to IHOP and you are NOT taking me to brunch just so you can hit the library earlier either."

He looked pretty sheepish at that. Can't deny the truth!

So birthday morning dawns. He's HOME, so I turned OFF my alarm clock and happily snoozed away while he juggled the morning crankiness hatefulness cheerfulness of my kiddos. AND, he COOKED breakfast!

I got to eat my eggs and MUFFINS with the topping stuff in the bed in quiet while the rest sat at the table and *sigh* argued over who got the most debated amongst themselves.

He also let me eat my cake for breakfast too. Wanna see it? Then I went back to sleep!

Fastforward to my lunch at DeAngelos for shrimp and corn bisque, and YUMMMM!!!! The best part? On the way to the restaurant, we got a call that Steven's final got rescheduled for next week!

AND, he gave me a PRESENT too! Now, there was no wrapping paper, but it was in a nice fancy box. This man actually asked around at work, got a recommendation, DROVE to the place and bought me a SPA PEDICURE!!!

AND since his evening was suddenly freed up, he made me a big ol pot of GUMBO!! AND cleaned the kitchen! AND put the lights on my Christmas tree! I hate that job.

And, for those of you who are wondering...

YES, HELL FROZE OVER!

IT SNOWED!!!!

Nutcrackers

Daddies will do just about anything for their daughters. Including sitting through a full scale ballet production. But not five minutes into it, he leaned over to me.

Hubs: I just can't handle those man tights.

Me: You're just jealous. You wish your butt looked that good.
Hubs: It does look that good!

HA!!!

My Sass

To the best, most gentle, loving and loyal doggie ever:

It's been over 16 years since I brought your sassy heiny home "to watch for the weekend." I knew they'd love you and let you stay. I didn't know they'd refuse to let you leave with me. I still love you as much as I did back then, and I respect you too. For loving my babies and never flinching when grubby little hands grabbed handfuls of your ears or tried to pull you around by your tail, and not even when they plopped right down on top of your head. You are awesome.

I love you and home will never be the same without you there.

Sassy
Aug 4, 1993-Nov 13, 2009