Spoiled Rotten

It's not a book club

2012-01-26T15:13:00.004-07:00

Right now my house smells delicious. I'm baking vanilla bars for my "literary society" tonight, also affectionately known as MELS (Meeting of the Elite Literary Society). I've belonged to a few book clubs over the years. In the end it ends up as more of a social hour. People don't read the book or only get half way through. Then they show up and they don't want to discuss or you can't because no one wants any "spoilers." So I decided no to book clubs and YES to a literary society.
I love MELS. It's a really great mix of people -- girls in their 20s, 30s, 40s. Working moms, stay at home moms, animal moms, single moms. Moms with babies, teenagers and even a Grandma. We rotate houses and whoever hosts gets to pick the book for the month. Every month is a different turnout, but no matter how often you come, everyone is glad to see you. If you're reading this and thinking -- I LOVE to read (or even, "I want to pretend I like to read") just let me know. Anyone is welcome!

There are two things you know for sure about MELS:

1) We WILL discuss the book. It will be long and in depth and if you hated the book you'll probably leave the meeting want to reread it because suddenly you loved it.

And 2) There will be LOTS of food. Since the majority of us don't drink we splurge on the food instead. Sometimes we bring food to go with the theme (like chocolate pie for The Help, Indian food for Life of Pi and chocolate bars for The Glass Castle) and sometimes it's like an overload of everything you've ever pinned on Pinterest. And yet, if you show up empty handed because it's been a crazy week everyone understands.
Tonight's meeting wraps up the 2nd year full of great books (there have been a few stinkers mixed in) and even better conversations. I thought I'd add a list of books we've read:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory
These is My Words by Nancy Turner
Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
A Long Way Gone by Ishmeal Beah
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas
Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
All The Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn
What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project
Escape by Carolyn Jessop

Any suggestions for year 3??

Happenings

2012-01-23T19:49:00.009-07:00

Besides all the boring regular day in the life of the Rogers' family. . .we've had a few exciting moments over the weekend. And since I've heard that people really hate you if everything you blog about is wonderful and fabulous -- I promise that once you make it past all the fun things, there will be lots of real life junk too!

* We booked our tickets for Belize!
We are traveling with 4 really fun friends which will make the whole thing so much more fun. We're currently deciding where to stay.
Where we will not be staying: Francis Ford Copolla's Resort
Possibilities: Hamanasi, Ka'ana, Kanantik
Places I want to see: Mayan Ruins, the coral reefs

* Nate grew up over night. Sunday we went to his baptism preview. They were talking about Cub Scouts and my brain was just reeling. It's probably because we still have 10 months before the big event. Also, I think he has his first babysitter crush. We tried a new babysitter on Saturday and Nate kept trying to track her down at church on Sunday. She is really cute.

* My kids attended the Stake Articles of Faith Ice Cream Sundae Reception. Please excuse the poor phone photo I stole from someone's facebook. Ellie and Nate both worked really hard and memorized all 13 this year. I was the Articles of Faith Specialist last year and I loved working with these kids. They are all spectacular. I *LOVE* our Ward.

* We started our trial "Meal Swap" with out neighbors. Basically Monday and Thursday I make double my dinner and Tuesday and Wednesday she makes double her dinner and we just drop the extra one off at their house. I'm excited and nervous. . . Tonight we made a chicken stir fry, but usually when you make people a meal you bring more than one pot. But, chicken stir fry is an entire meal for us -- chicken, brown rice and veggies. So that counts right? If we're going to do this every week I shouldn't be making some fancy huge dinner all the time. Realism from the start. Thursday I'm planning on a salad, breadsticks and baked pasta to make up for today's simplicity. Plus I'm running a half on Saturday and I need the carbs. I'm really REALLY excited because I do not have to cook for the next two days!!

* OK, so here we go. The bummers of the week: Ellie had a Science Fair. I totally spaced it and we missed it. Ellie went on a field trip to the State Capital. I didn't volunteer to go. And I am currently making her stay up late to three digit multiplication problems.

* And in case you aren't on Facebook, this will also entertain you. My kid was *that* kid at Church on Sunday.

I was slightly frenzied Sunday morning: We have 9 am Church. Dustin is in meetings all morning, so I have to feed and dress 4 kids, plus we needed some printing done on the envelopes for the Girls Camp Fundraiser and they hadn't gotten dropped off until I was in bed Saturday night. I was also teaching so I was gathering all my gear and Dustin was doing a combined lesson on our Ward Mission Goals, so he sent me some stuff to print off. . . Are you getting the state of my house Sunday morning? Because I could throw in there that Luke's nose was running like a faucet and he was hacking up a lung plus a million other things (we've all had those Sundays --right?? PLEASE say YES). Oh and we actually we're leaving for Church early because I needed to make photocopies and my kids apparently need a snack at 8:15 in the morning. BUT the main point is -- I told my kids four or five times to put their shoes on because we were leaving.

I finally get everything loaded up and get Luke all buckled in the car, drive to church and guess who has NO shoes on.Oh wait, that wasn't hard to guess at all. I enjoyed some of these great moments later on. Like when Sadie tells me, "Ellie laughed at me." Ellie said, "No. I laughed at Daddy's funny joke when he saw you." Sadie said, "Dad didn't make a joke. He said, 'Nice shoes.' But they weren't shoes. They were just feet." Or when someone asked her if she forgot her shoes and she said, "Yeah, and my feet are cold."

Happy Birthday Sadie

2012-01-18T08:12:00.005-07:00

Today is Sadie's birthday and we are celebrating by . . . doing nothing! OK, we have said, "Happy Birthday" numerous times, but that's about it for the day. Since Dustin is out of town (this is not new, he has been out of town on her birthday every year for the last 3 years) we celebrated on Monday.

She got Bosa donuts for breakfast, pizza for lunch, a party in the afternoon and Cafe Rio for dinner. At dinner we each took turns saying something we liked about Sadie. After every compliment, Sadie would giggle and say, "It's true. I'm really good at that." Then she would proceed to do whatever we liked about her (tell a joke, smile to show her dimples, give everyone hugs. . .) one thing about Sadie is that she does not lack in the self esteem department.
For dessert we let her pick anything she wanted from Trader Joe's. She picked Orange-Mango popsicles. That girl loves her fruit. I always love reading people's tributes to their kids on their birthday, but I am not really good at all that mushy stuff. Words could never capture all of her spunk and personality and I can never tell her enough how much I love her and how lucky I am to be her mom. So instead you get a birthday interview I stole from another blogging friend.

Sadie at 5

Favorite Color: Pink

Favorite Number: 5

Favorite Drink: Orange juice

Favorite Food: Oranges

Favorite Game: Candyland

Favorite Animal: Unicorn

Favorite TV Show: My Little Pony

I feel sad when: When people say, "You're mean."

I feel mad when: When my mom yells at me

I like it when my friends: Play with me

I like it when I: Open presents on my birthday

I wish I could: I wish Unicorns were alive
Who is your best friend? Brynley

Why? Because she is nice to me

What makes you laugh? Jokes

What is your favorite movie? Megamind
(I love it when the big kids are fighting and quotes, "Girls girls girls. You're both pretty.")

What are you most afraid of? Skeletons

What is your favorite song? I Love to See the Temple

What is your favorite activity? Playing

What do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher

What three things are you are good at? Telling jokes, playing and being with my friends

What is the best thing about being five? You get to go to Kindergarten

What makes you special? My family

With Sadie you never know what you are going to get. One day she came out and begged me to take a picture of her. "I look SUPER cute, Mom." I told her that she always looks cute. "I know, but not *THIS* cute."
About a month ago we were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and nobody knew were Sadie had disappeared to (she's really good at getting out of work). We were calling all over the house looking for her when finally Dustin spots her on the couch. I look over and find this:"Sadie! Why didn't you answer us when we were calling all over for you?" "I was trying to relax at the spa." Oh so sorry to interrupt.

We are so lucky to have someone so spunky and entertaining in our family. Life would be just a little too boring for my taste without her around.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2012-01-17T12:24:00.005-07:00

Monday we had a very colorful birthday party for my very favorite *almost* 5 year old.
Since Sadie's birthday is right after the holidays my brain is a little fried and so there's really not much of a plan going in. The only thing you can bank on is that I will most likely have it on Martin Luther King Jr Day. All the kids are out of school and I get the best child labor in the universe.
However, usually around January 4th, I realize that I should probably get some birthday invites out to people. This year I called my sister in a panic and asked what themed invites she already had: Barbies and Rainbows. We went for rainbows. I also still have half the invitations. The invites went something like this, "Hey *insert name of friend I randomly see*, Sadie's party is Monday from 2-4. We hope you kid can make it." Then I might show them the picture of the invite on my phone. And that's if you were lucky. Karen asked me about it at Church on Sunday. But hey, kids came and it was fun.

I did have fun coming up with the table decorations. Maybe I should have spent less time making rainbow cupcakes and more time mailing out invites? But I hate mailing things and I LOVE themes. Rainbow parties are actually really easy to throw because EVERYTHING works. I did make these really labor intensive cupcakes, but I figured they might be easier than the mondo layered cake that's floating around. Luckily the kids pretended to be impressed.

We did some rainbow bowling, went on a scavenger hunt, freeze danced, and played some musical felt (like musical chairs, but you know, rainbow themed). The kids were all really good at interacting with each other and having fun, even if they got out.My activity had to be when they were coloring. It was meant to be a gathering activity for the kids to do while we waited for everyone to arrive. Instead I ended up chatting with the moms while my beautiful helpers played Duck Duck Goose and Animal Farm. So in the middle of the party I set them out on the patio (the weather has been freakishly gorgeous here) to color. While I was inside I could hear them all singing Jingle Bells. It was the cutest moment of the party. I love their sweet little hearts and how they find even the smallest thing SUPER fun.

I'm sad I didn't take a picture of the whole group because I absolutely could squish Sadie's friends. Their moms are my most favorite friends and I love all of those kids like they are my own. They were all so polite and appreciative. And CALM!

Finally it was time to open presents. I love how little kids always fight over who gets to give the first gift. As usual, Sadie was spoiled (it helps to have a birthday right after the Target gift sale), and she loved every single one. Living with Sadie is never boring. She thinks everything is the most amazing thing she has ever seen. I enjoy her enthusiasm and love for life. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

2011 Hits List

2012-01-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

I feel pretty lucky because I never have a shortage of dates for New Year's Eve. This year the Christensens invited us over for our annual date. We made it a pajama party and had breakfast for dinner. We played some dancing games on the Kinect, Imaginiff and celebrated the New Years with all our East Coast family. That's my nice way of saying we celebrated at 10 pm so we could get the kids in bed at a decent hour because we had 9 am church the next morning. I will say that church on New Years Day is *very* reverent. If you can call an entire congregation of kids and teenagers sleeping on the benches reverent.
The kids were far more into the fireworks this year than in the past. It could have been that it was a few hours earlier so they hadn't hit the wall yet. Or maybe it was the crazy warm weather. But most likely because they're all growing up. Sniff sniff. Even Luke got to stay awake this year instead of being put to bed in a pack-n-play. The older kids decorated him, but I'm sure he deserved it!

2011 was good to us, except that it went too fast and my kids grew a few too many inches. My girlfriend does a little Hit List each year, so I hope she doesn't mind me copying her idea.

Favorite Book
Dustin: Book of Mormon (only book he finished)
Maddy: The Kitchen House
Ellie: Harry Potter 4
Nate: Big Nate
Sadie: Lily's Purple Plastic Purse
Luke: Anything with a train in it

Favorite Movie
Dustin: Sherlock Holmes
Maddy: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Ellie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Nate: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Sadie: Arthur Christmas
Luke: Cars 2

Most Memorable Event
Dustin: Taking the kids to the BYU football game
Maddy: Diving in Grand Cayman
Ellie: Going to the Beach House
Nate: Building the biggest LEGO ship with Daven
Sadie: Going to Aunt Lola's house
Luke: Playing with Olivia

Favorite Christmas Present
Dustin: Massage
Maddy: My new cookie sheets
Ellie: My own room
Nate: LEGO Fire Temple
Sadie: Squinkie House
Luke: POCOYO!

Something You Look Forward to in 2012
Dustin: Belize
Maddy: School ending
Ellie: Nate getting Baptized
Nate: Article of Faith Ice Cream Party
Sadie: Going to Aunt Beaney's House
Luke: Birthday Party with Asa

Change -- or the lack there of

2012-01-11T15:28:00.004-07:00

Have you ever noticed that right before bed, everything seems like a really big deal? The other night I realized that Young Women in Excellence was on Sadie's birthday and I literally could not sleep because I was so upset. My final solution is to tell my brain that I have a good hour long run the next morning where I can hash it all out and I fall asleep. And as usual, I'm not even out of my neighborhood before I wonder what on earth I was freaking out about.

Last night my freak out was spurred on by a conversation with a good friend. I doubt she knew her compliment would keep me up all night. She was feeling a little overwhelmed with a few changes in her life and wondering how I managed to get everything done. I pointed out that I've been doing this for a lot of years, so I should probably be relatively good at it. And then I realized -- my life has been the exact same for years. Nothing has changed.

I am surrounded by friends who are moving, having babies, going back to school, going back to work, running their first race. . . and I'm just me, trucking along. Dustin's had his job for 5 years now and loves it. We've lived in this house for 7.5 years and although it's small-ish for our family of 6, I feel no real need or desire to move. We're done having kids. I've been running/school mom/Camp Director long enough that it doesn't phase me. Even on the Church front, we've all adjusted to Dustin being Bishop. This is all very new for someone who went to 6 different schools and lived in 4 different states and 2 different countries for Kindergarten-7th grade.

So then I start freaking out. The only change that could happen would be BAD changes. Was this some prompting to try and prepare me for something terrible?

Or. . . am I being a completely ingrate by longing for some change? I love my life. I am so lucky. There is nothing in the world that I want more than to live this life that I have been given. We are happy. We are blessed. Our lives are busy and full and fun. What change do I even WANT??

Or (yes, there's more, my head is insane) am I missing something? Is this a prompting to step out of my comfort zone and do something new? WHAT IS IT??

OR!! Am I just allowing one little thought to fester and interrupt my happiness. Is this even making me unhappy?

Does this happen to anyone else? What do you think? Give me some free therapy!

Just the Facts, Ma'am

2012-01-10T06:30:00.002-07:00

Happy Birthday to my amazing sister! I wish I could write something as witty and clever as her birthday tribute to me, but that is impossible, so I will not even attempt such a feat. Instead I will bore you with lists and facts.

FACT (Do you watch kid history? How many of you read that as "FaaaaaaaaaacccT?") #1: Kathleen is actually 7 years younger than me, and yet she still got her driver's license BEFORE me. This also means I was a self-absorbed teen ager for most of our years at home together. I am grateful that she has forgiven me for this and only remembers the good times, like our bouncy ball collection. I do not remember this, so Fact #2: She has an amazing memory.
Fact #3: She was born in the middle of the worst snowstorm Chicago had seen in over a decade. I had the date circled on my calendar because I just knew she would be born that day. I was so excited to have a sister and to share a room with her and I would wake up in the middle of the night and change her diaper. I just knew having a sister was going to be special.

Fact #3: I *adore* my sister, but my kids may love her more. Here's some "facts" according to my kids:

Ellie

"I love everything about Aunt Lola. She's tells us funny stories, like when Nate was shouting 'Teetee,' in the middle of the night."
How old is she turning: 24
What makes her a good Aunt: She plays game with us
What is her favorite thing to do: Read
What is her favorite book: Harry Potter
What does she say the most: "Want to hear a joke?"
Memory: When I went to see her in her apartment at ASU and I was in ballerina costume. It was fun to have her living so close.

Nate:

"She is funny. She tells jokes that aren't real. Like, 'There's cheesey worms in the apple.'"
How old is she turning: 26
What is her favorite TV show: Football
Favorite food: Spaghetti and meatballs
Favorite thing to do with me: Tell jokes and tickle me
Memory: When she painted a rock of my underwear with my butt crack showing.

Sadie

"I like when she comes to visit us and we get to play with her."
How old is she turning: 25
What's her favorite color: pink and purple
What's her favorite tv show: basketball
What's her favorite food: I don't know that one, but I know the one Olivia likes to eat: oranges
Memory: When we were in Idaho and we built a doll house

Luke
"OLIVIA! OLIVIA! LYBIAAAAAAAA."

Random facts you may not know about my sister:

She hates tomatoes and touching paper towels.
She's is lactose intolerant.
She wore boxers under her dresses from the age of 5 to 11 and my mother braided her hair in two braids every.single.day because she has the world's most sensitive head.
She was also obsessed with horses and dolphins.
She get supremely carsick.
She was on the swim team and the rugby team in Thailand.
She was on the newspaper staff in Virginia where she perfected the skill of making signs. My sister is literally the world's best sign maker.
She has given birth to the world's cutest little curly-haired girl. I am already giddy at the prospect that she might be mine one day if Kathleen and Kyle kick the bucket.
She did study abroad in Italy.
She almost accepted a handicapped parking sign from William and Mary when she was pregnant with Olivia. Apparently at W&M pregnant women were a novelty.
She loves ABBA so much she begged Dustin and I to join her in an ABBA cover band
My sister kicks your sister's TRASH!!

Some sappy facts:

She makes me laugh every single day. I was going to write some of our inside jokes, but most of them sound horrific unless you know the story. And if I explained, then you would be in our club and you don't GET to be in our club. I'm keeping her all to myself.
She is my best friend. My mom and Aunt Kristine say this same thing but then they swear that they never fought. Kathleen and I have agreed that we will always be realistic and admit that we fought/fight with all the passion and intensity our crazy genetics have blessed/cursed us with.
She willingly gets sucked into all my "good ideas." I used to repay her with baked goods, but now that she's mastered my chocolate chip cookie recipe, I will have to come up with something to offer her. This is am impossible task because:
She is the most amazingly talented woman I know! She writes, she designs, she has an incredibly artistic eye. Everything she creates is perfect. Just look at Olivia.
She makes everything more fun and brings life to the room. You will never be bored with Kathleen around.
She loves with her whole heart and gives you her whole soul.

I am so lucky to have you as a sister! Happy Birthday Scuttlebutt!!

Snow Much Fun

2012-01-08T15:14:00.006-07:00

Christmas Eve day we didn't have much to do so Dustin and Kyle dragged out the mondo-bin of Legos to "play with Nate." I think most of the project involved digging around looking for specific teeny tiny legos, which meant Nate got bored fast. The big boys, however, were not bored and they had taken over the entire family room.

My sister and I were trying to come up with a project for them that would not involve 1) having to go to a public place the day before Christmas and 2) wouldn't make a mess since I didn't want to clean before our party and 3) would not require the use of the TV or family room since anytime someone walked into the room we got yelled at.

We ended up breaking out these fake snow packets I had bought. They claimed to make a gallon of snow if you just mixed it with water. I was skeptical, but it worked!! I think the kids thought I was made of magic. PS Forgive me for looking horrific. I had just gotten back from a 10 mile run.
They really wanted to have a snowball fight, but I told them they had to settle for having it sprinkled all over them.
Sadie couldn't resist making a snow angel.

After all the craziness of Christmas was over, we (Dustin) decided to take the kids to the REAL snow. I am not a big fan of being cold and I was convinced Luke would hate every single second of it, so I may have been dragging my feet a little bit. Plus it is really hard to track down snow stuff for 6 people when you live in the desert. HIGE thanks to the 4 families I ended up piecing enough clothing together from. In the end two of our really good family friends wanted to tag along, so we sort of had to go. Peer pressure is the best way to get me to do anything.

The drive up to Flagstaff was actually really nice because we swapped kids so that we had the boys in our car. It was so nice not to listen to the sibling bickering that accompanies so many long car trips. The weather was actually gorgeous out and I think the high was going to be almost 60, so I was worried there wouldn't even be snow.

When we finally pulled into the sledding park, they did mention that sledding was limited, but seeing as our kids weren't expecting much, we were supremely happy with what we ended up with. It wasn't crowded, the weather was warm enough that no one was freezing cold and the hills were just the perfect size.

Luke was the surprise of the whole trip. He absolutely LOVED sledding. We would get to the bottom of the hill and the first word out of his mouth was: AGAIN!! Even after we went so fast and far down the hill that he ended up being catapulted into a lake of melting snow and soaking wet. AGAIN!! Sadie fell off of a run on a steeper hill with the big kids, so she came over to sled with Luke and me. She would only sit in the back because she was so scared and informed me, "Heavenly Father invented the backs of things so I could be safe." The two of them were stuck to me like glue. There is nothing as exhausting as hauling a 2 year old and 4 year old AND a sled up a steep, icy hill in a continual loop.

I finally tricked them into going down the hill with Dustin a few times. The kids made a snowman (Sadie was worried about what we do since we forgot to bring carrots), snow angel, and basically wore themselves out. It was the perfect amount of time.

The Christensens spent the night in Flag with us, so we took the kids swimming at the hotel in hopes of wearing them out for bed. Sledding and swimming all in one day. Nothing like two extremes. Please note the moms did not get in. We had no desire to get cold or wet.
Then we managed to find a sit down dinner place (OK, it was a BBQ joint with plastic chairs in the basement of a building) to seat 12 of us for a surprisingly uneventful and delicious dinner. Bed and then breakfast followed by a 5 hour long shopping trip at Anthem on the way home. I was surprised we only had two moments of panic with 8 kids and no strollers.

I'm so glad that Dustin dragged me along -- kicking and screaming -- or else I would have missed out on something really fun. At least I thought it was fun. Maybe it was only such a good time because I had invented such a nightmare in my head. It was a great way to end the year with great friends and my very funny family.

Jaunary Girls Club

2012-01-05T07:35:00.005-07:00

After Dustin and I were married, our next door neighbor was a hairdresser. She was/is a really talented hairdresser. We had so much fun every single day. We talked Dustin into getting his eyebrows waxed. Anytime she had extra hair color, she'd call me over and we'd put a few foils in my hair. If she had a new product, she'd try it out on me. We had relay races in trash cans. I don't think I ever laughed as hard as when Katie was my neighbor.

When I was pregnant with Ellie, I decided I was sick of my long hair and I wanted a bob. Katie started cutting and she cut it short. Really short. I think we both started freaking out and she sort of finished as best she could without losing too much length anywhere else. I went home and cried. I called my best friend, Sam, who lived upstairs and wailed, "I look like a BOY!" Sam ran to the store to buy me hair magazines and cute clips (which was probably a HUGE sacrifice since we were all on student budgets at the time). It was then that I learned the important lesson: DO NOT MAKE DRASTIC CHANGES WHEN YOU ARE PREGNANT.

I have repeated this mantra to my sister many times. She did not listen. While she was back home in Virginia she went to see our family hairdresser, Sherri. Sherri is a part of the family. She is from Thailand and has cut my family's hair for almost 15 years. She makes us sticky rice and mangoes. She knows all of our kids However, Sherri does what Sherri wants. She's responsible for this haircut, after all:
In case you don't know the story, read here.

Anyway, all of this is a long introduction to say that Sherri cut my sweet pregnant sister's hair into a very short bob that she hates, so she refused to have any pictures taken of herself while she was here. And while I think it's a slight overreaction to not have ANY pictures of yourself at Christmas, I understand being a hormonal pregnant woman and you don't mess with them. EVER. And so there are no January Girl Club pictures. But the fact remains: The January Girl Club was together for Christmas.

PS When Sam saw my bad bob, she marched me back over to Katie's and announced, "She hates her hair." Katie had been crying because she knew I hated it and she was so upset. The only choice was to cut it even shorter, but she did a really cute haircut that I loved. Best neighbor ever.

You may be wondering what the January Girls Club is. It is a made up super secretive club that only girls born in January can belong to (ie Kathleen, Sadie and Olivia). They have badges and secret handshakes and eat lots of candy on shiny new table cloths. I know this because Sadie is a HORRIBLE secret keeper. Never tell her anything you do not want repeated. I'm sure I could know more of their secret rules if I cared to understand the insanity of the club. Actually, I'm pretty sure they have one rule: Anything you make up is just what we needed.
This is just one example of how fun my sister is. Even when she's sick as a dog and pregnant-ly tired she is fun and my children follow her around like little puppy dogs. I am so grateful to have her!! She had ONE goal while she was here: teach my children to ride a bike. It appears my children have inherited my fear of moving vehicles. One accident and we are DONE. In first grade Ellie broke her arm riding her brand-spanking-new-from-Christmas-bike (ironically, my SISTER was the one with her at the time) and that was the last time she ever got on that bike. So maybe it was my sister's guilty conscience that prompted this goal. Nate has been DYING to take the training wheels off of his bike but the weather was always too hot and I was too lazy and Dustin was so busy and we had scooters and and and.
So Friday morning, my sister said, "Today, I am teaching these kids to ride their bikes." I'll save you the long story, but wait, the story is really short. Dustin took Nate out there, he got on his bike and started riding. Literally that exact instant. I think he may have fallen once, but right from the get go he could get himself started, stop and turn. Whatever. All of that anxiety. I think it took Dustin longer to fill up the tires.
I ran next to Nate while he biked all over the neighborhood and then over to show his friend Brady. Then my evil eyes turned to Ellie. I was going to make her learn too. Her bike was in terrible shape since 1) It hadn't been ridden in 3 years and 2) it's the size a 7 year old needs. I thought she could just try on Nate's bike (which was also 3 years old, so already a size too small for him). She couldn't even pedal because her knees hit the handle bar, so we borrowed a neighbors bike while Dustin went to work on her. Needless to say, she got up and pedaled and she was done. Apparently learning to ride a bike is like potty training. You just let them wait until they're old enough and they do it themselves.
Unfortunately in moments of past insanity I promised them brand new bikes when they learned to ride without training wheels. They both looked and me and begged to go shopping right away. Two days before Christmas. Uh, no.

We Had a Little Christmas

2011-12-30T16:35:00.007-07:00

Our Christmas was perfectly perfect despite the lack of sleep. We finally let Nate crawl into our bed around 6 am and Luke followed around 6:30. By 7, we woke up the girls so we could eat some breakfast before 9 am Church.
We let the kids look through their stocking while we got breakfast (it was baked french toast with buttermilk syrup, so really we got "dessert" ready) made. They were so good about not opening presents until after church. I am so grateful that they understood what Christmas was all about. An what better way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior than with song and loved ones.
Our sacrament program was amazing and I was so happy to wish some many friends a Merry Christmas. With all the singing and hugging I felt like I was living It's a Wonderful Life. I think I may have been singing too enthusiastically because Karen Malanca kept turning around and looking oddly at me. Also a fun fact -- Luke cries during any slow Christmas song. So he would alternate between clapping and whooping when the choir was done and sticking his lip out and weeping. At least he gave me lots of kisses.

We headed back home and some kids (and mothers) opted to change back in PJs. Livy decided that she would rather steal Sadie's presents instead of open her own.In her defense, the first two presents she opened were PJs and book. I'd steal Sadie's bike too. Unfortunately, she kept telling people that she got a bike for Christmas.I promise that Livy did get lots of really fun presents -- My Little Ponies, a baby doll, snap n style dolls, games, a laptop. . .Ellie, on the other hand was overly enthusiastic about PJs. Ellie got lots of girlie gifts -- shoes, lotions, jewelry, clothes. . . and her own room!! She was over the moon excited about it. Sadie was not. "Oh boy, now I'm going to have horrible dreams all night," she told us. She managed to get over it and help Ellie move everything into her room the next day. Then I found her video recording a tour of her room, "This is my old bed. Now it's a trampoline."Nate had a really fun Christmas. Legos, Bey blades, Paper Jamz. . . Basically everything that is fun to play with and Nate had a blast playing with everything Christmas day. Dustin and I totally disagree when it comes to present opening. He wants to hurry up and get everything open and I'm much more of the play-as-you-go kind of person. We have all day!! Just DO NOT open a present without me in the room. I will hunt you down, rewrap it and force you to recreate the excitement.
Everything Sadie opened was "exactly what I always wanted." They always came with great big hugs too. Oh and she also may tell you that she got an iPad. Sadie believes whatever fantasy world she has created in her head. We may have told her a million times that it is a Barbie laptop. She will still tell you she got an iPad for Christmas.Luke's gift included a giant dinosaur, a scooter and Nate's entire GeoTrax collection. I had them in a giant box that I kept forgetting to wrap. That is until Luke wandered into my room one day, opened the box and screamed, "TRAIN TRACKS!" in delight. I quickly grabbed the box (the box was huge and I'm pretty sure I almost toppled over in this maneuver) and insisted it was full of spider. "No, train tracks." Sadie came in and helped me tape it all up and wrap it as we told Luke scary spider stories. My trick did not work. Every time he came in my room, he would walk right up to the giant box and say, "Train tracks."

It doesn't even matter, though, because to Luke there is only ONE Christmas gift. It's called "POCOYOPOCOYOPOCOYO" or maybe a Pocoyo train track.The second he started opening that thing he could barely contain his excitement. We could not get him to open another present for the entire day.After a few hours, all of the presents were opened and everyone was off playing. Sadie the Unphotogenic was riding her new bike with Nate. Luke was out there too, but of course Pocoyo had to come along. I was inside cleaning up when I asked Ellie what Santa had gotten her for Christmas because I couldn't remember her opening it. "Nothing." WHHHATTTT? My daughter was on the naughty list? Oh my gosh, I started freaking out. We searched everywhere for the lost gift. Finally 15 minutes later I had a mental jog. . .and a few minutes later there was a knock on the door and a whole load of presents Santa must have found left over on his sleigh. PHEW!Just what she asked for: A hot pink camera with her name blinged on it. I bet that was a tall order to fill!

The rest of the day was a blur. The boys spent all day putting together Legos and we had a yummy square steak and mashed potato dinner followed by molten lava cakes and ice cream.Luke and Livy did not join us for much as they were. . . STILL playing with Pocoyo. Did I mention that it plays the theme song over and over and over and over and over again?? Hours upon hours. Those batteries must die soon.

We wrapped up the evening with our brand new BYU firepit (do you love BYU as much as we do?? I highly doubt it), You Can Dance (ABBA Just Dance if you can imagine something some awesome existing) and Just Dance 3. We hope you had yourself a Merry Little Christmas too!

The Creatures Were Stirring

2011-12-26T12:05:00.005-07:00

Christmas Eve we hosted our traditional dinner of soup followed by the world's greatest Christmas Pageant. This tradition actually started in 2005 when we found we were going to be all alone and family-less on Christmas day. We were very lucky that our friends, the Hortins and the Kimballs, were in the same situation. Seven years later, they've both moved and we've had a few different families over over the years, but I'm very grateful that we always manage to fill the house.
For the second year in a row we had an Oregon Love fest with the McGuire sisters. It was even more fun because MY sister was here, too!! You probably don't believe she was here because there is not one single solitary picture of her. She absolutely refused to have herself photographed. Possible reasons:
1. Kyle is secretly a vampire and she is now been turned and she didn't want us to find out when she didn't appear on the screen.
2. She had joined the Blackfoot Tribe and adopted the belief that cameras steal your soul.
3. Our Thai hairdresser back home gave her the worst haircut ever and she wants no record of it.
But I do have proof that her adorable daughter was here.

Sadie was dying to be Mary and Lindsay had to pinch hit for her achy pregnant mama as the donkey as they road to Bethlehem. Although there was no room in the inns, they found a quiet stable. The Angel(s) appeared and announced the good news to the Shepherds. Eventually the Wisemen made their pilgrimage as well. And then it was time for COOKIES!!
Oh the mess! But oh the fun! Dustin was quick to remind the kids that he read on the internet that Santa does not like too many sprinkles. It did not help.I will say the cookies are getting prettier every year as the girls get older.

Shockingly there was a knock at the door and who could it be?? Well, no one. But there were. . .
PRESENTS! And just like every other year, in those presents were. . .
PAJAMAS!! The kids changed anywhere they could and then went CRAZY!!! We attempted to take a picture:And then we let them go wild.There was a crazy fun dance party and Christmas Taboo before everyone left and we settled in for a nice, relaxing Christmas Eve. All the presents were wrapped and ready to go, the boys just needed to put a bike together.

Around 10 pm were sitting in the living room laughing when Nate wanders out thinking it was Christmas Morning already. He had been asleep for a total of 30 minutes. This was just a foreshadowing of our evening. All night long you could hear the pitter patter of little(big) Nate feet. I guess at one point Kyle heard him ringing the bell on Sadie's new bike around 1 am.

Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-24T06:14:00.004-07:00

When I was 6 years old, my parents took me to see the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker. I was mesmerized. My kids have all loved it too. We have been taking them every year since Ellie was 4.
I use the term "we" liberally because someone has to stay with the little one/ones, and it usually me since driving in Phoenix gives me hives. My sister and I did take Ellie one year when Lola was here for Christmas.
Last year, we decided to try the Polar Express. There just weren't enough days in the month to make both of them work, so we had to skip the ballet. After Christmas was over, we polled the kids and the Nutcracker was the clear winner. My kids have been begging to go ever since.
This was Sadie's first year going and I was a little nervous. That girl can't even make it through a movie without "needing" to go to the bathroom 5 times. But even Sadie Lou Who got caught up in the magic of the Nutcracker. It might have helped that Daddy bought them each a little souvenir. A nutcracker for Nate, a snow globe and Clara and her nutcracker for Ellie, and a ballet dancer tree ornament for Sadie.MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Sappy Post Ahead

2011-12-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

Oh wait, aren't all my December blog posts super sappy? I think the theme has been: Maddy is a Grinch, does something Christmas-y and feels holiday spirit. But guess what -- I'm not so Grinchy anymore.

We lucked out when we moved onto our street. We had *the* best neighbors. Most of them have moved (some are moving back) and don't get me wrong, I really enjoy our neighbors now, but there was something magical about the street when we first moved in.
Throughout the year the girls will get together, or we'll try to have an adult game night, but every Christmas we get EVERYONE under one roof. It's one of my favorite parties of the season and it doesn't feel like Christmas until it's happened.

The kids keep getting bigger. And there keep being more of them. This is Noah and Jill's newest little baby Tessa. She is only 5 weeks old, but seeing as she wasn't even due until January 10th, we were glad she made the party. She's up to 5 pounds and 7 ounces. I am in love with her and I can't wait for them to be right back down the street.

We were debating on who was taller -- Dustin or Mark?Dustin may have him beat, but we might have to shave his head to be completely certain. It doesn't matter since Cade Lamb will surpass them in a year I am sure.

The kids all do a $1 gift exchange (we draw names -- which can get confusing with all the Sadies and Brady/Brodys) and it never fails to amaze us how excited the kids are over their $1 gift. They are seriously THRILLED and the gifts are always perfect. Ellie got a felt hair bow, Nate got Bubble Gum (they couldn't have known that he was dying to learn to blow a bubble), Sadie got a princess purse and Luke got ring pops (someone hates me).

We ate and the kids played and that was it. Somehow were were still there for over 3 hours. I love love our friends and I love that we get to spent the holidays with them.

"I'm SO escited"

2011-12-23T06:12:00.005-07:00

I love the way way Sadie says excited. (Yes, I do know it is spelled "excited.") Her preschool party was on Tuesday and she was counting down the days. "What day is it? I'm so so escited!" She also reminded me that she needed to eat lunch before she left because there would be no time to eat at her party.

Tuesday finally came and Sadie changed from her Hello Kitty pajamas into her Snowman pajamas and off she went. Mrs. Becky is very lucky because she has an "in" with Santa Claus. It is the REAL Santa according to Sadie. Even though my other children have told her it is Mr. Becky (yes, that's what Sadie calls him), she insists that it can't be him because he has to work. And even though I've mentioned that the real Santa doesn't make appearances, she is still "so escited." I think it's kind of cute that Sadie believes whatever she wants to, just like with the Easter Bunny.

Sadie was also "escited" because she got her first gift of Christmas. A necklace from this cutie:I guess Garrett has quite the crush on Sadie. So much so that he might have sticky-fingered a necklace from Mrs. Becky's house to give to her (along with $2). It was returned and his mom helped him make a much less expensive one. He also took our Christmas card and carried it around to so much that there are holes in it, so Sadie thought maybe she should give him a picture of herself for Christmas.

Tuesday was also Ellie's Winter Choir Concert. I'm not a big fan of her music teacher's orginizational skills so I was kind of dreading the performance. Especially after Nate's Christmas concert where we sang Jingle Bells 800 million times (yes, there are no pictures of that since it starts 30 minutes late, a full hour after "call time" and the entire school was shoved in a tiny little cafeteria and left to chase after their screaming babies and toddlers who decided their hour of being good was up). So yes, I was not "so escited." I thought it would be smart to get Courtney to watch Luke since he cannot sit still more than one hour a week and I reserve that for Sacrament Meeting. Sadie decided she did NOT want to change out of her PJs, so I left her home as well. It was actually a pretty cute concert and Ellie did a great job. It's so cute to see her smiling while she is singing. Her little dimples shows up. And maybe some of my jealousy appears as well. How I wish I could sing and be in a choir!!

The next day was the holiday known as Thelastdayofschool. Everyone was SO SO escited, but this is where my Mommy Guilt set in. I feel bad that I had to miss out on Nate's party. It was in the morning and there was no way I could swing it. I still had to run some errands for Ellie's class party (like picking up the teacher gift and making hot chocolate) and I seriously would have felt horrible pawning off Luke and Sadie for another 2 hours of the day. There are SO many volunteers in 1st grade and I *had* to Ellie's party since I'm her room Mom. I just felt so bad because I hate to miss anything. I'm still an OK mom, right? Plus I had just been in his classroom on Friday for Art Masterpiece. And Thursday I volunteered in there.

Ellie's class party went perfectly. Seriously so little chaos. I was impressed with the kids. Usually I come home from class parties and kiss my children after dealing with their peers for an hour, but these kids were really fun and sweet. The moms of her class are so amazing too. A lot of them have gone back to work, but so many of them took off to come in and help or e-mailed me to make sure I didn't need them to run to the store. Everything I asked for was donated times 10.We did a hot chocolate bar where I had a Would You Rather game I made up, some minute to Win-It games, other random games (Blind Snowman, a relay race and the Candy Bar Game), and a craft station.

You know what game we were NOT going to play? BINGO. Last year Ellie's room mom played BINGO for every.single.holiday. Literally for almost an hour they played BINGO. And there were prizes, but it wasn't like, "No, you won a prize, let someone else win." It was the same kid (usually sitting next to Ellie and a really obnoxious boy) winning over and over again and shoving it in her face. No no, there would be no BINGO!

After all the prep work I am so glad it ran smoothly and that we.were.DONE!! No homework! No waking up early! And even better -- in just a few hours LOLA was coming!! Can you feel the "escitement"? But we'll save that for it's own post.

Finding my Christmas Spirit

2011-12-20T09:03:00.004-07:00

Yesterday we were scheduled to have 3 families come over for Family Home Evening at 6 pm. Dustin was up in Scottsdale and Ellie had been at choir rehearsal for the last 3 hours. Around 5:50 everything started converging. Daddy was home! Hooray! Ellie was home! Double HOORAY!
Only she had a boatload of homework. 60 math problems (long division and three digit x three digit multiplication), reading comprehension, 2 math fact drill sheets, a vocab sheet and spelling senetences (complex and compound, please, no ordinary sentences). My eyes started crossing and then maybe some fire shot out of them.

I hurried her into our bedroom to get as much done as she could before everyone got here. About 5 problems in we hear loud crashing noises as every toy in my house was dumped out simultaneously. A few minutes later there was much wailing as Luke had hit Ryder in the head with a light saber. A lot more crashes and crying. Children bouncing off the walls. FHE was off to a rocky start. I could feel my brain freaking out. I finally started the lesson while uttering, "Dustin, I'm having a mental break down." I talked to the kids about Elder Uchtdorf's talk, "You are My Hands." Slowly half the kids settled down. Then we watched this clip:
and all the kids settled down. I could feel the Christmas Spirit reentering my soul.

After it was over we divided up into our usual groups and took off for our super secret service project. We ended up with the big girls (Ellie, Chloe and Kyla) this year. They were very fun, but *very* opinionated. Last year I remember being a little sad because the big boys just agreed to anything I said, so I guess I got my wish??

Everyone met back at the house and all of the kids shared what their group had done. It was so neat to see their excitement as they shared what they had decided on for other people. As we worked on some projects, there was still crashing and maybe some doors being locked. There were crumbs and sugar everywhere, but suddenly none of it mattered. Amidst all the chaos there was such a feeling of peace and happiness.

In fact we were all so caught up in the Christmas Spirit, we bundled up our kids at 9 pm on a school night and took them Christmas Caroling. Every year my girlfriend's parents hook a trailer up to their horses and take the kids Christmas Caroling through the streets. This year due to some surgeries, they weren't able to do it. I think everyone was a little sad about it, but Mike suggested that maybe it was *our* turn to do something nice for them. We piled some plates full of cookies, hoped that our children were in someone's car since our car was full of theirs and took off.

Somehow that turned into a giant leaf fight and I thought of how lucky I am that my kids have "family" to celebrate the little and big things with even when our families are far away. Merry Christmas!!

Smoooosh

2011-12-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

That is the sound of me trying to fit every last thing in before Christmas comes.
Friday night was our Ward Party. The Young Women were put in charge of decorations, which meant a skeleton crew since it was smack in the middle of finals, illnesses, a graduation and surgery, and work parties. I am so grateful to all the leaders and girls who managed to sneak in a few minutes to help out as we spent Wednesday night preparing the center pieces, Thursday night setting up and Friday night prepping last minute details.
Dustin had one request: No ham! We ended up with brisket and it was delicious. We ate, made packages for missionaries, collected donations for a shelter, Santa came, there was a gorgeous talent show. . . It was really wonderful especially when you consider how many people put in so much work during the busiest season of the year.
Luke was not in the best mood at the party and I was trying to get him to sit still for the presentation of Luke 2. He loved the animals, but when the Wisemen came on he was pretty bummed there were no animals. I told him a star would appear. If you've ever watched Luke 2, you know it's quite a bit of time watching the Wisemen plot and plan and watch the sky before one finally steps out. Luke kept asking, "Where's the star?" "Where's the star?" And I kept promising him it would come. Finally the star appeared and Luke jumped for joy, "The star!!" I felt like I was there at that exact moment and I almost started crying. The joy and elation of knowing that what was promised had finally come to pass. All the hope and waiting and finally to know that the Son of God had been born. The Savior of the World.

Saturday Dustin and I both had to get in long runs, then we met up with some friends to see A Christmas Carol and lunch.We ran some errands for Sunday and then met with our friends, the Amins, for dinner and temple lights. I think this year was more gorgeous that last year if possible.
The weather has been rainy and cold, but Saturday night the weather was gorgeous and clear.
All the while I am freaking out that it is the last weekend before Christmas. All the presents are bought and wrapped, cards sent and the packages are mailed, but I feel like we haven't gotten to be a family this Christmas. Dustin has been knee deep in callings, Tithing Settlement and out of town on business. When we do have a night together it's been a party or concert or something fun, but busy.

Ironically I taught Young Women's today about making time for the Savior based on Neal A. Maxwell's quote, "Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!" My girlfriend shared this gorgeous song with me: Do You Have Room. It was such a great reminder to SLOW DOWN and focus on what really has meaning. One more quote from President Howard W. Hunter, "Even in our day, although two thousand years have passed, there are many who say the same thing that was said on that night in Bethlehem. ‘There is no room, no room.' We make room for the gifts, but sometimes no room is made for the giver. We have room for the commercialism of Christmas and even pleasure-seeking on the Sabbath day, but there are times when there is not room for worship. Our thoughts are filled with other things—there is no room."

Someone asked me if I was ready for Christmas. Yes. I am ready, because whether all the packages are bought and wrapped, whether I've delivered all my neighbor gifts and attended all my parties, Christmas will come. And really, being ready means that my heart is turned to the Savior. This week I will make room.

Cookies, cookies, cookies!

2011-12-13T20:14:00.006-07:00

** this is a rewrite because I know no one actually reads the entire thing and I have to put the adorable Luke anecdote first**
Luke and Sadie spent Monday at my girlfriend's house so I could get the last of my Christmas shopping done. When I came to pick them up, Susan told me that Luke wouldn't eat lunch and just stood by oven and demanded cookies.

Now Luke went through this stage when he first discovered the oven, but after a month or so, he realized that cookies do not constitute an entire meal. His regression into sugar-obsession is completely my fault.

Our first sugar load was last Sunday night when I made lemon bars for our dessert meeting. We were having a team get-together for our Ragnar 2012 team and apparently I had a lapse of sanity because I thought that eating loads of dessert went hand in hand with talking about a 200 mile relay race. Exercise is only necessary to burn off dessert calories anyway. Why else would people actually want to run? Plus I thought I could get them all sweetened up so all the talk about training and no sleep and the hills would seem fun.

Monday night is FHE night, so of course we needed dessert. We even had company since Tia's husband was also out of town and Work Widows need to stick together. I did recycle Sunday's leftovers but then I thought the little boys might not like lemon bars so I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies as a back up.

Tuesday my oven was on for four straight hours (which I didn't mind because it is FREEZING in AZ right now) because Wednesday night was our Ward's Annual Hayride. All the kids end the night at our house for hot cocoa and cookies. You need a lot of cookies (and hot chocolate) to feed 30 hungry teenagers. We made Oatmeal Scotchies, Chocolate Chip, Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter. . . I was so sick of baking, I actually called my neighbor and asked if she'd make a brownie mix for me because I couldn't beat one more egg. My kids are always complaining that our house is too small and I always tell them that our house always fits the people we love. Wednesday night might have been a tight squeeze. But I love a house filled with fun and laughter and I'm always happy to offer up a warm place and lots of food. I love love these youth.

Wednesday was dedicated to making cookies for Thursday night's Cookie Exchange Party. When the Ward boundaries were realigned, the self proclaimed "Crazy Cookie Lady" ended up in our ward. I had heard that this party was over-the-top fun and I was ecstatic when I scored an invite (despite being a social leper known as "The Bishop's Wife").

My very sweet girlfriend, Julie, offered up an extra set of hands and her cookie expertise. We mixed, shaped, frosted and sprinkled over 200 spritz cookies. It took over 4 hours of both of us on our feet. I think I would have gone crazy (if that's possible because I might already be there) if I had baked all of those by myself. I feel so blessed to have friends who come and make even mundane tasks fun. Those are 144 plain, chocolate and mint spritz cookies. The other 5 dozen went to my children and the Hayride kids. Well not all of the cookies went to a good home. Apparently chocolate spritz cookies that you make in the shape of trees before you realize they look like giant turds are not appetizing. But the mint and plain went fast.
The Cookie Exchange was not over-hyped. I felt like I was on Oprah's Favorite things. Dinner was better than any Christmas dinner I've ever eaten (originally I had typed "made" -- ha ha, like I've ever made Christmas dinner), plus a box of 15 dozen different cookies and then gift bags! Mine had the cutest Santa Cookie Jar.

Right after the Cookie Exchange was our Book Club Christmas party. I cheated and brought fixings for the Hot Chocolate bar. There was too much food there (as always), so no one seemed to mind. And the Hot Chocolate Meredith made was AMAZING, so I totally piggy-backed off of her success. People would rave over the Hot Chocolate Bar and ask if I had tried it. I would then tell them that I brought some stuff for it and they would fawn all over me. But then I would have to come clean and admit that everything I bought came from a store. Also, I should add that I love our book club more than one should.

We read What Men Live By, which I can not recommend enough. It was beautiful and I found the message very profound. It's also really short, so if you click on that link, you too can read it in half an hour and say you read Tolstoy in your spare time.

Saturday was the Brandes' Ugly Sweater Party. I offered to bring a dessert 2 weeks prior -- before I had looked at my calendar??? That's the only logical explanation I can think of. I really had plans to make something new and yummy that's been sitting on one of my Pinterest boards forever, but instead it turned into a Laura Numeroff book.I was home from my run by 10 with nothing to do so I ran over to Brenda's to borrow an ugly sweater. It was so 80's that I thought maybe I needed some legwarmers. This meant going to Target on a Saturday 2 weeks before Christmas. . . Then I ended up getting one of my Young Women to style my hair 80's (you know, to match my sweater and legwarmers. That is SUPER important) because I have zero hair skills. That ate up more time than I thought it would so and I whipped up a batch of plain old brownies. Well not plain old brownies, it was the Ghiradelli mix from Costco which are the most delicious brownies ever. So delicious that Luke kept on insisting that I feed them to him on the way to the party. All I would hear from the back of the car was, "I WANT CHOCOLATE!"

And so that is the story of why my son thought it perfectly appropriate to have cookies for lunch on Monday. Plus I've been the worst role model. I may have had a tall glass of milk and four cookies and calling it "lunch" one or two days last week. I have no self control, help me! We (Sadie) are happy Daddy is coming home tonight because he's good at chopping vegetables and reminding us to eat all the food groups. Does your husband say things like, "You need more protein," too?

Ellie

2011-12-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Little known fact -- Ellie's name is not Ellie. When she was a Sunbeam, she had her hand raised to answer a question and the Primary President called on Isabelle. Ellie kept her hand raised and looked around the room looking for Isabelle. When she was 6, her Primary teacher came up and asked me where Belle was. I had to inform them I had no idea who Belle was. Turns out they had shortened Isabelle to Belle and Ellie had been to sweet to correct them. They still call her Belle to this day (we find this endearing, not annoying).
Apparently naming your daughter Isabelle and calling her Ellie is the world's greatest disservice. When I was pregnant with Nate, I wanted to name him William after our Grandfathers and call him Liam. Dustin told me he was "over" the end of the name nick names. Ellie would even like me to legally change her name to Elanor. I'm actually contemplating it, but I'm probably too lazy to do it.

Anyway, whatever her name is, we love Ellie!! Let's think up some random tidbits about Ellie at 9:

She is grumpy in the morning and yet every night she wants to stay up reading
Ellie would love it if she could color and create everything with nail polish. It's probably because it was banned from our house for a year after the birthday party where they left all the nail polish out and open so Sadie painted the bed spreads and carpet.
She is a shoe girl. First it was sketchers, then it was Vans (which she bought with her own money) and of course every winter we have to get boots (even if it's the end of November and still in the 70s).
Ellie is currently obsessed with Harry Potter. She's on Book 5 and asked for all the movies for Christmas.
She enjoys squeezing into her PJs from Kindergarten (she's in 4th grade) and Sadie's sweaters
Ellie is the best organizer ever and is always coming up with fun games and activities for us to do. She also leaves sweet notes everywhere in the house.

Many Thanks!

2011-12-01T17:46:00.008-07:00

Did you know that Thanksgiving is my number one favorite holiday of all time? Christmas is close, but Thanksgiving wins every time. Friends, family, food and no expectations. . . DONE! I do get a little bitter when it tries to bust in on my birthday glory, but even then, it STILL wins. It's this quiet little holiday that sneaks in right between all the holiday/birthday/costume/stocking/wrapping/shopping craziness.

We are lucky enough to have the tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving with either Dustin's family or at our really fantastic friends, the Bryners, home. This year we were extra lucky because we got BOTH! Chris and Shauna were still in town and Rickie and Mike were enough to have all ten of us over, along with some of our other favorite (and very tall) friends -- the Brooks'. Mike even forgave Dustin after Elbow-gate. Everyone should have friends that feel like family!

I look so forward to Thanksgiving, that I started planning in early October. We bought placemats to color. I printed off Bingo. Rickie thought the kids could paint rocks. And yet, despite all of the fun activities we planned they all disappear. We did manage to get a few to decorate the cookies Michelle made (and pose!).But for the most part they had fun playing upstairs. Or sneaking veggies.Or napping and cuddling with the dads. Or picking out toys they want in the Black Friday ads.The food was delicious and it was a really fun and relaxing day. Everyone should get to experience a fun, stress-free Thanksgiving like this. We laugh, we play, we nap. . . Every year we talk about going out to see a movie after dinner and every year we look at the clock and can't believe it's been seven hours.

I'm grateful that we could have family visiting and I'm grateful that we have friends we consider family to spend the Holidays with. Now on to Christmas.

I Wobbled 2011!

2011-11-28T12:23:00.007-07:00

This year I was lucky enough to work with my 3 incredibly talented and diligent friends to organize our 2nd annual Gobble Wobble and Pumpkin Pie Plod. Despite this year being slightly crazy for them (broken ankle, moving into a new house, MBA program, back to work full time) they were still up for the challenge and I am SO GLAD! This year was bigger and better than the last and I could never pull this off without them. See! We even had a LINE! I think we had close to 120 runners. Wendi, Chris and Meredith have so many great ideas and made it so much better than I ever imagined in my head. Like our fantastic START banner and canopy for registration. Don't we look so official?I was really excited that I got to run this year since I injured myself last year. I tend to be slightly competitive, but I know some really fast people so I was trying to be realistic with my goal. I knew there were probably 3 or 4 guys that I couldn't beat, so I set my sights on finishing the first of the girls and within the top 5 (there were only 14 people who ran the 6.4 mile loop, so this was not a lofty goal).Apparently the start was brutal for some. Consider exhibit A: My husband ELBOWING one of our best friends?? Dustin and I started back a little far in the pack while I insisted Dustin not run ahead of me and that he share half of his ABC gum because I had forgotten mine in all the morning chaos and my mouth was dry. And we ran.

Meanwhile they started the 3 mile run.And the 1 mile fun run, which all of my kids ran.No pictures of Ellie and Caroline, but I'm sure they had fun. Nate ran with his best friend Daven. That morning when I asked him if he was excited he said, "No! We should have trained!" He still did great. Look at those adorable pink cheeks! My lifelong BFF, Molly, ran with Sadie who took a sprint/run approach. I guess the whole time she kept saying, "If we just pass those people we'll win!" Well they did! And then Sadie yelled, "WE WON!"
Two of my extra amazing girlfriends, Tia and Julie, do not enjoy running, but they were so sweet to offer up their services and run some kids' games.When Luke got bored of ruining the parachute for everyone, he decided that maybe he should run the Fun Run too. I am grateful Mike saved him from the canal.

Back to our race. . . I think when things thinned out, Dustin and I were 8th and 9th. 2 miles in we passed our first two runners. VICTORY! Oh wait, they were 9 & 11. But they were seriously FAST! I can't believe they ran the whole thing. About 3 miles in, one of the Young Men got a cramp, so we passed him and then I noticed runner number 4 was slowing down. My competitiveness took over and I had to sacrifice running with my husband to pass him. I was convinced he was behind me the entire time, but Dustin passed him too. I came in #4 (first girl!) at 50:11 and Dustin was right behind me (#5 at 53:03). I am so proud of him!!

I am also grateful to everyone who helped out! My heart always over flows with gratitude when I think of this race. All the people who helped plan, brought snacks for the food table, entertained my kids so Dustin and I could run together, came out with their families, took pictures, donated food and clothes to the Food Bank we sponsored this year. . . I am so lucky to know the BEST people.

And of course a HUGE shout out to my husband who always gets suckered into my grand plans. He booked the park, helped make pies for prizes, colored in my route marker signs, left at 5:30 am to put them all up, dealt with the world's worst locks and everything else I throw at him. I am so lucky to have him and I know I don't deserve him!!

And of course I can't wait for next year. I think we're baptizing Nate that weekend too. Should be crazy!

Cousin Lovin'

2011-11-26T13:07:00.005-07:00

Last Monday the "twin cousins" drove all the way from Northern California to spend time with us before they move to North Carolina. With their parents of course. Ike and Zoe are only a month younger than Luke and have about the same appetite. I have a lot of pictures of all three of them huddled together. Whatever one wanted, they ALL wanted. And no matter what it was, Luke did not want to share.

I felt like we were running around like crazy when they were here, but maybe going anywhere with three 2 year olds feels like that. We went to our neirghborhood park, Tumbleweed Park, Joe's Farm Grill, breakfast at the Chandler airport, dinner with Doug's family, lots of running, Thanksgiving, and then getting ready for Christmas.

Zoe was very excited about Christmas and when she saw a Christmas tree she said, "I need one of those." And since they are moving across the country in a week, we decided we needed to give her a tree! So Dustin hauled out the tree and even let her put the star on the top.And since Dustin had gotten the tree out, why not destroy the house a little more and get all of Christmas up?Then we had a little mini-Christmas and opened some presents before we pushed the car off for California. We miss those sweet little faces!! I felt like a Laura Numeroff book because once I got one Christmas thing out, it was a like a frenzy to get it all done. Got my Christmas cards printed and addressed (just need a letter, BLAH!), got up all the decorations, finished up all of my shopping, got everything planned for the class parties. . . now I'm just waiting for December 1st to hit so I can use all the advent calendars!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADDY!!

2011-11-23T15:42:00.007-07:00

Scuttlebutt here. AKA the lucky sister of Maddy the Jet Rogers. Nick name made up on the spot. Today Maddy turns 29! Or somewhere in the early 30s, you decide. A couple weeks ago the relief society made the BOLD choice to highlight the bishop's wife and she shirked the task of self description off to ME. Apparently it was a little lengthy and at some points not so much inappropriate as church inappropriate so it was stripped to its bare bones. So in the name of the free press, journalism and the Constitution as a whole, here it is printed in its entirety AND uncensored in honor of Maddy's special day.

The Life and Times of Maddy Rogers

Maddy Rogers was born quickly. This detail may seem irrelevant, but that just means you don't know Maddy Rogers. From the very moment she entered this world she was exhibiting some strangely subhuman behavior-- the ability to do things at the most rapid of paces. What takes you an hour will take her a minute and what takes you a minute, she has already done.

She was born in Portland, Oregon to really attractive parents, no surprise there, Maddy Rogers is gorgeous. From there her attractive family state hopped for awhile before they decided to start continent hopping-- Korea, Austria and then BYU, oh my!

Maddy spent her youth in really embarrassing haircuts forced upon her by her mother. She also participated in some unique extracurriculars like ribbon dancing and sibling rivalries. When she was seven years old her very favorite person was born, her sister!

Maddy went to international schools, this she credits for making her a genius. Do not ask her to measure distances: inches, miles and yards will make her eyes unwillingly cross. Fun fact: she is the only one in her entire family with perfect eyesight!

Many people wonder if there is anything Maddy is NOT good at. The answer is... No. Her high school yearbook will show her smiling face on at least fifteen pages: model un, plays, cross country, honors societies, most talkative, biggest flirt, cutest person ever... You get the drill.

She did have detention once. It involved a paper airplane.

She took her SATs in the Slovak republic. She backpacked through Europe. Her hotel room was under video surveillance in Russia. She delivered a baby naturally. She is a superhero, seriously. She can’t remember the last time she ate a bagel.

She graduated high school without a driver's license and headed off to her holy land,

-- Provo, Utah. She is a true blue cougar. She will cut herself so you can see her bleed blue. This is not a joke.

While at BYU she met her giant husband by offering to let him host her birthday party in his apartment. They were married in the Idaho Falls Temple and had a backyard reception complete with barbecue and a mariachi band. Just kidding, they wanted the band but someone in the chain of command nixed it. Thankfully.

Maddy then started teaching fourth grade but decided to pop out their first baby (the gorgeous Ellie Rogers) smack dab in the middle of the school year. Okay, April... She finished out the year. She cleverly had the infant Ellie Rogers poop on grandma's Rolex so it would be gifted to Ellie in the will.

From then on she took on the task of being the world's greatest mother ever. Nate, the handsome, was born the day they moved into their current house involving a hilarious incident with taco bell, the famous Sadie came a few years later and then fireball Luke brings up the rear.

If you've ever been in the Rogers' home, you know it is a place full of love, laughter, volume and charisma. A lot of volume. Maddy is selfless and makes everything she does a little better. When she isn't baking goodies for her family and a small third world country she is volunteering at her kid's school, organizing the most fantastic of parties, running thirty miles at the gym and then outside, starting book clubs, teaching her children the gospel and school-esque things and somehow finding time to serve others.

There isn't enough time in a short synopsis to even begin to list her innumerable fantastic qualities or all the interesting facts in her life or go into detail on the question on everyone's mind-- when DID she get her driver's license??

Most people who have spent a minute with her love her and if you've sent five minutes with her you love, love her. Her energy for life really is superhuman and it is contagious. In the fifth grade her sister wrote her "hero" essay on Maddy... Nothing has changed! Although let it be known Maddy explained a certain puberty related condition to her sister in such grotesque terms that when her sister experienced said condition she had no clue it was actually happening…

If you don't know Maddy, you're missing out. And if you don't know her four incredible children, I'm sure you've at least heard them, you should probably offer to babysit them... They're pretty awesome themselves.

Magukas

2011-11-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Luke has a nickname? Courtesy of the Queen of Nicknames herself, my sister: Kathleen Lola Beebee Little Beans Skinner. She is only person in the universe who calls him Lukas Magukas, but I have a feeling it may catch on one day.
Lukas Magukas is a very opinionated child. Do not cross him. He will cut you. Luke will never actually like you. He will tolerate you if you are lucky. In order to help you accomplish the feat of becoming "tolerable", here is a list of things to NEVER do to Luke:

Take away his iPhone. Oh wait, that's mine that he's taken over to watch Spanish YouTube videos of "Cars Two."
Try to take a bite of any food he will be eating. He does not share.
Talk to him at Church. He will scream and then *I* will cut you.
Watch anything on the TV other than Pocoyo.
Forbid him from riding around the neighborhood alone on the pink Barbie scooter that he stole from Sadie.
Try to give him a high five at the store.
Tell him, "No," try to put him to bed, change his diaper, take him shopping . . .

Luke does like some people. Namely, me. The other day I considered taking a restraining order out against him because he was getting a littler stalker-ish. My kids all have that tendency at times. He does have one really good friend that he loves playing with: Asa.Asa and Luke are 4 days apart and destined to be best friends. They teethed at the same time and learned to walk together. And finally they agreed that their moms weren't just making this "best friend" stuff up -- they really do like each other.

Nate the Great

2011-11-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

My sister said the big kids weren't getting enough blog time, which I find ironic since she has only one child, who STILL isn't getting enough blog time. It's probably because I am slave-driving her to finish all of ~~her~~ ~~our~~ my Christmas design needs.
So Nate is having. . .the BEST WEEK EVER (is that show still on?). Not literally the best week ever, but it's been pretty good.

He beat the turkey at the school Turkey Trot.
He got all E's and 100s (ok a few 99s) on his Progress Report.
His mom bought him Sugar Cookie Pop Tarts (I have never bought my kids Pop Tarts before in their entire lives).
They're watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 2) tonight while I'm at the movies watching the world's worst end to a saga. Oh wait, there's also a part two to Breaking Dawn. It might not be the worst.

Some funny things about Nate this week:

He brought home the words to the songs for his winter concert and locks himself in his room for half an hour every night to practice singing them.
We were watching Survivor together and he told me, "I would never go on Survivor. You know why? I would miss my family."
He wrote his Christmas list and right after a long list of Ninjago Legos is: CASH.
I asked him what I should write on the blog about him and his two contributions were, "My nickname is Nater Tater" and "I still haven't gotten to be the Star Student at school yet.

Thumbs up!

2011-11-17T09:10:00.003-07:00

Have you ever tried to give something up for Lent? Well I thought about it once (and then Dustin informed me that it was kind of ridiculous to give something up for Lent if you weren't Catholic) and the idea of going cold turkey on my favorite thing gave me the shakes. I have the will power of . . . well someone with no will power.

The other day Sadie decided to give her thumb up. It may have been because Ellie told her she would have to get braces and couldn't eat gummy worms. Or it could have been because I bought a La La Loopsy doll at Target an told her she could have it when she stopped sucking her thumb. But she gave it up.
I've tried to get her to do it multiple times before, but she appeared to also be lacking the will power gene. BUT, for some reason, it's magically working this time. She's gone FOUR days without sucking it. Could this really be? I'm really proud of her but slightly incredulous. Is she taking off the bandaids off at night when I'm not looking?? When she goes to the bathroom is she getting a quick fix? This girl LOVES (loved?) her thumb. It had blisters and cracks from being sucked so much. And now. . . nothing?

I keep randomly walking up to her and feeling her thumbs. So far they're dry. Except for the time she was eating an apples and then they were sticky. Cross your fingers!!!

In other great news. . .
It's almost Christmas time! Which means. . . ELF is on TV. Our big plans for the day: First we'll make snow angels for a two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle.

Bucket List

2011-11-10T13:18:00.001-07:00

Do you have a Bucket List? You know I do!! And since I love lists, I actually have TWO Bucket Lists. One is a Lifetime List and one is a Birthday Bucket List.

It started off the year I was going to turn 30. I thought it would be fun to have a 30 Things to do Before Turning 30 List. It was not to be. I don't think I accomplished half of them. I don't even think I came up with 30 things.

So last year right after my birthday I came up with a list of 32 things I wanted to do during the year before my birthday. I admit, I totally cheated and put a few things on here that I already KNEW I was going to do, but they were goals I set for myself so they got to be on the list. And so here is my list (everything in bold is a goal I never met in case you're a frienemey and take glee in my failure):

1. run Ragnar -- FEB
2. touch raw chicken -- MAR
3. bake bread from scratch -- MAR
4. find the best ever chocolate chip cookie recipe
(I had great plans for a Chocolate Chip Cookie bake-off that never came to fruition -- this one goes back on the list for next year)
5. go camping -- JUNE
6. see a Musical (wicked and mamma mia) -- JAN/MAY
7. read 50 books
(I only read 40)
8. trapeze -- MAY
9. girls weekend -- JAN/APR
10. take my kids to the zoo, because I hate the zoo -- MAR
11. Leave the country -- JAN
12. finish the B of M -- twice
13. Memorize the 13 Articles of Faith -- OCT
14. Have people over for Sunday dinner more -- Break the Fast with the Youth
15. Get my family to run a half marathon
16. Go to the temple 12 times -- check
17. make my blog into a book
(I turned this one over to my sister -- she failed)
18. Make orange rolls -- FEB
19. volunteer for a community project
(I suck, I didn't even do this! Can I count school stuff?? Art Masterpiece??)
20. Take my family on a vacation -- just the 6 of us -- OCT
21. Hang out on the beach -- JULY
22. Teach Nate to ride his bike
(I am currently hiring this out -- any takers?)
23. Make a new friend -- check
24. Take the kids on the Polar Express -- DEC
25. Cook our own turkey -- NOV
26. Organize my own race -- NOV
27. See my sister more -- March, April, July, Oct
28. Host a cooking challenge -- Jan & July
29. Send more packages/mail
(epic fail)
30. Read Harry Potter 1 with my kids
(does watching the movie count?)
31. Go on a one-on-one date with each of my kids
(I spend lots of one on one time with them, but we never got out on our dates)
32. Make jam -- MAY

I guess I still have a few more weeks to accomplish a few of these. Sadie and I had our date yesterday! And I'm now accepting goals for year 33!

Drive Thru

2011-11-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have a million blurry pictures of this kid because he is ALWAYS on the move. Ellie thought if she turned on "sports" mode it might help.
If the car is out of the garage, you'd better believe Luke will be in there riding around on a Barbie scooter. And if the car is blocking his ultimate playground, he'll just drag toys inside the house and zoom around the hallways.
Yesterday he wouldn't even stop for lunch, he'd just drive through the kitchen, ask for a cucumber and get back to the road.

Birthday Month

2011-11-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

My sister keeps wishing me a "Happy Birthday Month." I protest loudly, though, because I am much more of a birth*day* traditionalist. One day that makes you feel special and everyone celebrates you?? What could be better? I don't like any of this lame "Birthday Week" crap where everyone basically admits they're going to forget your actual birthday, so they randomly do stuff for you when they remember. NO! I want SACRIFICE!

However we have company coming for my birthday, so let's face it, my birth*day* extravaganza is not going to happen. And my very own parents sent me my birthday present a month early. I was going to refuse to open it until my birthday, but then I realized a perfectly good birthday gift is sitting in a box. I hate when people waste things just to prove a point.

And then I figured that since my parents sent it so early, they must have wanted me to open it early. So I did. I made the most delicious cake for Break the Fast. Plus, BONUS: It looks beautiful. Thanks Mom and Dad! And thanks Nate, the Photographer, who even told us how to pose.

You're probably wondering why someone who bakes as much as me has never bothered to get a Kitchen Aid before. I actually inherited my Grandmother's old Sunbeam stand mixer and I loved it. Every time I baked something I felt like my Grandmother was with me.

But after washing one of the bowls one day I noticed a chip and then I freaked out because I did not want to break my Grandmother's mixer. She made millions of cookies and cinnamon rolls in that mixer. And so up it went, on the shelf and I used the hand mixer Dustin and I bought for $10 when we were first married over 12 years ago.

And I got prideful. Who needs a fancy schmancy mixer when you can do things by hand, like the old days? Kneading dough for 15 minutes by hand makes your bread taste WAY better. And it means you love your family more. But, I guess my sister doesn't love her family as much as I do, and suggested to my parents it was time for me to get a new mixer.
Actually I'm pretty sure it's one of four reasons:
1. She wanted to talk to me on the phone more and always got really annoyed when I had to hang up to mix something.
2. She realized that this was going to simplify my life and make me so happy.
3. She wants me to bake more, which means I'll eat more, which means I'll get fat.
4. If I bake more, she will receive more packages of baked goods by default.
It may be a combination of all three. Who knows!

Halloween

2011-11-03T15:34:00.008-07:00

I can't even come up with a descriptive word for Halloween this year (because I was dying). I don't really remember much of anything except insisting on doing Sadie's hair. OK, I lied I remember one other tidbit. I had a basket in my room that contained everyone's Halloween costume and accessories. Saturday night Dustin grabbed the basket and got everyone ready for the Ward Party. Easy as pie.
Fast forward to Monday night. NO costumes could be found. The basket is full of glow sticks and plastic wrappers. We found Nate's shirt with hot chocolate spilled all over it. Sadie's costumes from Thursday and Saturday were both filthy with food stains and Luke was refusing to be a Cowboy. I felt like going to sleep and never waking up again. Oh yeah, and Nate's glasses were missing, so we cut up those cheap glasses that have the nose and mustaches attached. Halloween Night was off to a good start.

We still managed to get the kids out the door by 6 and ready to trick-or-treat (most likely only because our sweet Relief Society President brought us dinner including homemade rolls which my children gobbled up). Unfortunately for YOU, my energy levels were low so I took a shamefully small amount of pictures. Also for Ellie's hair because it did not get put in the sock bun curl the night before as planned, which would have totally rocked the Hermione hair.
Luke ended up being a BYU football player because he owns a jersey and it when everyone is spazzing out (me! Just me! I'm the only one who was spazzing out), it's good to go with whatever will make everyone happy. Plus he got to carry a football. Win-win-win (source that quote)! Since this costume was not pre-planned, he ended up in 3 shades of navy in my mad dash to get him dressed. I think the fever was making me delusional. Dustin gets mad props for coming up with putting the black under his eyes to make it look like we put *some* effort in there.
The kids had a fun trick-or-treating?? I'm assuming? The pictures looked fun and they seemed happy. Luke learned to say "Trick-or-Treat," "Happy Halloween," and "I'm a Football Player," so he was already more verbose than any of the children that came to our door. I'm giving them (and their parents) the benefit of the doubt and blaming the fact that they all forgot to say Trick-or-Treat and instead shoved their baskets in my face on the fact that I looked and sounded so scary (being sick is a totally rad costume).

Every year I think my kids are going to get bored of just doing the 2 streets in our neighborhood and EVERY year they come home with their bags stuffed full. They were only gone an hour! Really? You don't want to go get more candy?? Nope. Our neighborhood is really generous. Thanks a lot neighbors.As you can see, Nate was REALLY done. I'll have to ask him what curse he is putting on us. Ellie wanted to go to the Martin's Haunted House (I'm assuming more to see everybody than actually go through it), so Dustin took the GIRLS and the wimpy boys stayed home with me. I then made Nate pass out all the candy (while I moaned, "Don't forget to make them say Trick-or-Treat) which he really enjoyed and I can't remember the rest. We have lots of candy. The end.

Thankful

2011-11-01T20:46:00.006-07:00

In case you missed it -- I've been sick.

Stop reading this paragraph now if you already know this story, because you're going to be bored. If you *didn't* know (last chance, you probably shouldn't still be reading)-- Thursday afternoon (Dustin's birthday) I started feeling miserable. I downed some ibuprofen and started feeling better Friday morning (the day of Nate's birthday party). By that afternoon I was feeling miserable again, but drugged myself up again to get through the day. Saturday (Nate's birthday) I woke up unable to swallow so I headed off to the Urgent Care. Strep Throat. Gave me a script for penicillin and promised I'd be better in 24-48 hours. Saturday was miserable. I honestly don't even know what happened. Sunday was worse. Monday I went back in and it turns out the infection had gotten worse. They gave me a shot in the butt, doubled my dosage, gave me some prescription pain meds and told me to cross my fingers that I would feel like I was turning it around by Thursday. It's Tuesday night and after 4 days of no voice, a liquid diet, hot flashes, chills, a swollen face and ear aches so bad that my entire face radiates with pain. . . I finally feel better than I did two hours ago. I even tucked my kids into bed.

OK, so now that we've recapped how much strep sucks in adults, yadda yadda yadda. . . On FB, there is a "Postsomethingyou'regratefulforeverydayinthemonthofNovember" challenge going around. I was reading some and I thought, "I could probably fill 30 days just from this sickness." And so I did. And more. So here's a HUGE thank you to the 30+ people who made me grateful during a week where I was quite certain I might die:

1. Dustin -- I don't even think I can list everything he did, but his homemade chicken soup and constant trips to the store kept me as comfortable as possible. I mean, this is a man who took all 4 kids to tennis, picked up his own birthday dinner and cleaned up the mess. And I've been SNORING this whole week and he hasn't even exacted his revenge. Need I say more?

2. Karen -- Taking the kids Friday to make sure I could get some rest before the party, offering to take them to church (she even said if I was splitting them she would take LUKE -- you might think he's cute, but we all know he's a disaster at Church), bringing in dinner, taking Ellie on Today for homework and the massive activity run around day, driving all of our many carpools both ways, and always checking in on me, eben when I couldn't talk.

3. Casey -- Giving me very sound Nurse advice (without freaking me out like SOME PEOPLE -- I seriously appreciate it, I know you think I don't, but I do! Otherwise I wouldn't harass you for it so often), volunteering for just about anything you could think of (except for cleaning my bathrooms -- that was not on your list of offered services) and taking Sadie during Nate's party at the last minute.

4. Susan -- Texting me the second she found out to see what she could do to help with the party, volunteering to take the kids and insisting on taking Luke along with Sadie for the entire day so I could take a three hour nap. It's a good friend who takes your child who is still in the top half of his Halloween costume from the night before in a diaper that might not have been changed because "you look awful." I may forgive her for that comment.

5. Ellie -- Blowing up over 3 dozen balloons for Nate's party and many many hours of helping me with the kids and picking up some cleaning slack. Basically being the mom when I needed some extra help. But mainly for tickling my back and talking to me. You are an angel.6. Nate -- Getting me many many cups of water and always asking me how I'm feeling or if I feel any better. And when I started crying because I missed his birthday telling me it was OK and he knew I loved him and he hoped I felt better soon.

7. Sadie -- For playing with my hair and always coming in and talking to me when I was laid out in bed. You were always such funny company.

8-13. All my friends who still let me come to the October Birthday dinner even though I was sick and especially Brenna who even let me sit next to her. And for all coming back to my house and not caring that I wouldn't get out of the chair to be a good hostess. And also putting up with crazy hot temperatures because I was having chills.
(I'm just randomly inserting picture of my kids in here from last Sunday, when I was just being lazy, but laying around in bed and they all came and hung out with me, but for some reason there is no picture of Nate).

14. Heather Griffiths -- being my sick buddy and checking in with me all week to see how I was doing. Misery enjoys company and you were delightful company. Just complain more next time. I'll be the tough one.

15. Everyone at the Ward Party who asked my kids how I was doing. They noticed and they came home and told me. It made us all feel loved.

16. Brenda -- offering Jamba Juice and bringing over popsicles. We'll always be friends -- even if we aren't in the same Ward anymore.
17. Brenna -- bringing salad and dessert, although the bars were unevenly sized. I'm kidding! Brenna was very embarrassed that she sent over the wrong tupperware of dessert. They got the pretty ones and I guess we got the rejects. I think the kids devoured them before we could even check.

18. The Martin's -- showing up with a yummy plate of cookies which my kids gobbled down for an after church snack. Dustin was at Church meetings and I think they were starting to eye me to see if I would cave and tell them where the Halloween candy was.

19. Maggie -- answering all my million medical questions, and knowing how bad that butt shot hurts and the importance of good pain meds.

20. Kristine -- insisting that I should feel better by Monday, not worse and making me go back in, at which point I finally got enough junk to turn this baby around.

24-29. Sarah Slavinsky, Amanda Schouten, Maren, Rikelle, Julie, Karen Cherington -- all your sweet texts and e-mails checking in on me and offering to help, run to the library, bring me food. . . Did anyone offer to fold my laundry or clean my house?? Because I might take you up on that ;D

30. Tia -- dropping by a new kind of soup because as yummy as that chicken noodle soup was, I couldn't eat if for a 4th day in a row.

31. Stacy -- bringing in dinner on a very busy Halloween night so Dustin could have more time to get the kids ready and take them out to enjoy Halloween while I stayed behind to scare all the Trick-or-Treaters in my very real costume of "Girl Moments Before Death."

32 & 33. Becky and Heather Robinson -- knowing how much I love Golden Spoon and dropping by when I'm sure all my other friends are tired of doing nice things for me

34. Wendi -- many many icees were consumed due to her bringing by a giant box of otter pops. Both by me and by a very short and demanding male in our family who discovered if you threw them hard enough they would split in two.

35. My parents -- calling and checking in, even from work

36. My sister -- listening to me whine, laughing at me when I was totally drugged up and offering to blend up food and feed it to me. Only you could make being sick be so fun.

And of course there were even more nice messages and offers to help on facebook (Molly, Meredith, Kris. . . all my sweet friends who live far away). I think I'd overload this post if I started listing all of those. And I forgot LUKE! Oh who am I kidding -- he made this really hard and long by always trying to steal my icees or trying to drinking my water while I yelled, "I'M CONTAGIOUS!" He wouldn't let me watch any good TV and would jump on me if I fell asleep. And of course running out the door and down the street so far I had to get in the car to get him back, where the women at the park eyed me as I tried to explain that when you're really really sick you don't have to wear a bra or do your hair after you shower.

But seriously, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and I don't even know how to repay all of you. How do I even begin to say thank you? It's amazing how many people can touch your life in so many little ways. You all make my life better. Thank you for being my friends and I only hope I can brighten your day as much as you have brightened mine.

As always when you're going through something rough, you sit back and think, "What on earth is Heavenly Father trying to teach me?" And I think he taught me a lot about service. That it doesn't have to be huge, it can be a small little text or call. And you don't have to be pre-approved. Just showing up with something for them or theirir family will still brighten their day. I didn't know what I needed, but my friends did. I love you all!!

It's a Nate Party

2011-10-31T11:21:00.004-07:00

The very day after Dustin's party was Nate's birthday party. I thought I was better, but I wasn't, so I'm extra grateful to Dustin for throwing the world's LOUDEST (but funnest) party and Karen for taking my kids so I could rest up for it. Also to Ellie who blew up probably a million balloons (ok, probably closer to 50, but I bet it felt like a million) so Nate would have the most fantastic Mario Party ever.Let's add another big shout out to my sister and brother-in-law who made the cutest invitations, a fun "Pin the Mustache on Nate" game and cupcake toppers. Yes, we had cupcakes and not cake. The toppers are way cuter than any cake I could have attempted. According to one of Nate's friends, this will just not do. As he was leaving he exclaimed, "Wait! We haven't had cake yet." I reminded him of the cupcakes. "But those are just cupcakes!" He was also horrified that we didn't have juice in our house. Only child possibly? I had woken up feeling pretty good that morning, but by the afternoon I was thrashed and I really didn't want to make the balloon creations I had planned on -- Boo Ghosts and Bob-ombs. My sister INSISTED that I make them as cool as possible and I am so glad I did. Those things were the hits of the party. The kids kept asking if they could take them home and then begging me to tell them how I made them. How?? You can't tell just by looking at these poorly crafted things?

We played lots of fun games like Yoshi Egg Rescue, Mario Mushroom Mix Up, Pin the Mustache on Nate, Bob-omb (like hot potato) and Mario Kart Balloon Battle. The winners of each game got a gold coin. One gold coin. Lame right? NOOOOOOO! They thought it was SO COOL! They started trying to steal my gold coins. Kids are so strange, and yet, that's what makes them so cool! And Nate's friends are some of the sweetest, coolest kids I know. They are also very LOUD! They weren't naughty at all, just really really enthusiastic. They made Nate feel so special and they made me feel like the most creative mom ever. Nate is one lucky kid! I love you sweetheart!

Super Dad

2011-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Dustin's birthday was Thursday. I woke up feeling pretty crummy that day, but I shoved some ibuprofen down my throat and got started on his cake and wrapping his presents. By the time I picked Sadie up from school I felt like I wanted to pass out because I felt so miserable. Dustin ended up taking Nate to tennis and picking up his own birthday dinner. I feel like the worst wife ever. But Super Dad doesn't care. His one birthday wish is always: "I don't want you to stress out."

Luckily for me, I am always overly-prepared so we still had gifts and cake. I asked all the kids what the wanted to get him. My kids are SO predictable. They pick the same thing every.single.time. Nate: A water bottle. Ellie: Gum. Sadie: A birthday hug. Oh my gosh, I laughed and laughed when they told me. The only other thing that they know Dustin likes is peanut butter and chocolate and could I please make him a peanut butter chocolate cake?? I love those kids and how sweet they are. Even if they get us the same presents for the rest of our lives. Just wait for my birthday -- I'm almost positive I will get a dress, a purse and jewelry. And I love it!!!

We also spoiled Super Dad with some surprises -- new ties and church shirts and a Nixxon watch. I also found a picture someone drew for him on his mission and had it framed because there should always be a sentimental gift in there! And then I passed out because my ibuprofen had worn off, so I took some Nyquil and went to bed.

Dustin really is the most amazing person. He has a full plate (actually more than a full plate) between work, church, the kids and a very needy wife, but he manages to keep us all happy and never complains. Things have been especially stressful, as I've been sick and he has to do his work and mine. Add in taking care of a sick wife, getting the kids to all their Halloween activities (in costumes no less), then coming home and getting them to bed and heading back out to help clean up, Nate's birthday and party, re-staffing a Ward, getting the kids to church in between Bishopric meetings and teaching 5th Sunday. . . I think I'm going to owe him some new birthday presents when I get better.

One his best (and worst) qualities is that he always sees the situation for what it really is and rarely gives in to emotion. It's great when you need someone to tell you the logical thing to do or need some words of wisdom. It really stinks when you're all fired up and practical Dustin is sitting there reminding you that it's not worth all the anger or drama. But I appreciate it at times like these. He knows I'm sick and as much as I feel guilty, he just picks up the workload and does it happily. I love you Dustin!!!

Painful

2011-10-27T18:31:00.004-07:00

Sadie is adorable. Just all around a cute cute girl. Blonde hair, dark skin, deep brown eyes, dimples that make your heart melt and a personality that never quits. She is also horrific at having her picture taken.
When I take her picture she looks like I have her hooked up to some sort of shock therapy treatment.

Today was her Halloween party at Pre School and I wanted to take some pictures since I knew she would look like this: by the time school was over. Tangent: Anyone have any hints for me on how to keep the curl in her hair??

So I told her to laugh thinking that might get rid of the pained expression. Is legally insane better than miserable? Luckily she's cute no matter what. In the end we managed a semi-decent shot: Cutest butterfly ever!! Yes, in a whole store of costumes, my daughter saw a pair of wings and was good to go.

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-24T13:09:00.001-07:00

Even though it's 94 degrees in sunny Arizona, we still like to pretend it's Fall. Visiting the Pumpkin Patch is actually one of my least favorite Fall activities -- it's hot, dusty and I have to chase Luke everywhere -- but I feel like I *have* to do it. Like if I didn't do it, I would be depriving my children of some sacred childhood tradition. It's probably because I grew up overseas so I never did things like this when I was growing up.

After the hay ride, the kids were suppose to pick their pumpkin and decorate it. Of course Sadie picked her pumpkin like a good girl. Luke was very excited to pick out his pumpkin. . . Until he discovered that it was more fun to walk on the pumpkins. And roll around on the pumpkins
And then he saw the animals! Goats, sheep, pigs and cows. . .oh my! He could have stayed there all day.

When I went back to check on Sadie and take some pictures she told me to stop because, "I'm trying to focus on decorating my pumpkin right now." It's just beautiful and she has placed in on my entryway table in a spot of honor.

We got to feed all the animals, pet the baby pigs, run around in the hay maze. . . but the highlight for all the kids was the Bouncy House. It's almost like everything was a to-do list that had to be checked off for the ultimate reward. So maybe I can skip the hay and dirt and just buy them a pumpkin at the store and drive to Bounce U next year??

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

2011-10-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday our Ward Boundaries were realigned. It was a bittersweet split. They took off a chunk of our Ward full of some of my favorite people and they gave us a large chunk of another Ward, full of some of my *other* favorite people. I really am excited to have so many of my kids' friends in our Ward and a lot of really great friends are coming over!

On the downside side, we lost one of Dustin's Counselors whose family we are incredibly close with. The Jandas sit next to us each week on Sundays and help with the kids. Her kids babysit for us. They lend us their truck,invite us over to swim, or for dinner when Dustin's gone. . . They're constantly checking in on me to see if I need help. Brenda was also the Young Women's President and my 1st Counselor when I was Primary President, so we have served together for years. How was I so lucky??

I am (was??) the Mia Maid & Laurel Advisor and we're losing half of our girls in the Ward split. I am going to miss those girls more than they know! There were many tears on Sunday, but I keep telling myself in a year, they'll give all of our girls back to us!
These girls are all as different as can be, but they love each other more than you could ever imagine. I was always in awe of how they built each other up and always made sure everyone is included. It was such a joy to serve them. I miss you all already!!

Wicked Fun

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was our annual Wanda Witch Race. My girlfriend, Rickie, didn't hate me too much after last year and agreed to do it again this year. I love Rickie and we have so much fun planning this! We seriously start in August and then we discuss it non-stop until October. She's also my running buddy so we'll plan routes to check out places, or come up with ideas mid-run. We're always trying to come up with fun ways to earn points and get the teams to work together so this year we introduced a few fun twists.

Instead of pulling pranks on each other, like last year, we thought we'd go nice and have the teams bribe US. I don't think we were prepared for their generosity and the guilt that would result. Our friends have to be the yummiest bakers, best crafters and most creative people in the Valley. We had so much fun seeing what they would bring us: a pizookie and ice cream, orange rolls from the red team, capes and brooms in trash bags from our husbands' team, snickerdoodle blondies, Kitty Katrina cake all the way from Utah, necklaces, oreo bark, cute Halloween crafts. . . If you want to see all the bribes, you'll have to check out our Race Blog.

Another hit was the team uniforms. Usually teams just wear matching shirts, but this year the costumes were THE BEST! The Ghastly Green Goblins -- someone was even injured in the making of that flagThe Red Devils -- those costumes are too cute
Purple Rain -- Tribute to Prince & all things 80s
The Gimp O'Lanterns -- Chris broke his ankle a month or so before the race so this an homage to him.
The Golden Ghouls -- our team of newbies! They showed up a little late for the race (they obviously didn't realize how competitive this has gotten over the years) and I didn't get a picture of them until the party ended.And winners of the costume contest -- The Wicked White Trash of the West

Maybe our worst idea was the starting location dare. We thought it would be really funny if you had to stick your hand into something disgusting to get an extra help. We thought about worms or crickets or dead scorpions. . . but logistically (and economically) it worked out better to fill #10 cans with gross foods from the grocery store. Only did you know you can buy pickled pigs feet at the grocery store? Oh my gosh, it was so gross. And the worst part was that some of it spilled in my car during transport. I guess payback's brutal sometimes.

The race went well -- no real drama except for the Security Guard at the parking garage who collected all of our clues and ran an Inquisition of the poor Green Team. Thankfully he put all the clues back. And there was the poor Yellow Team who solved a clue incorrectly and ended up at the Reservation where Steve signed a flashlight into a car where some seedy business was going down. . . but all in all, everyone had fun. Especially the WINNERS!

After *most* of the teams got back (I won't say which team got back last), we enjoyed lots of food from our food contest. Some of it was cute some of it was beautiful some of it was revolting . . .

I won't go into too many details about the race because it's all over on the blog, but I do want to say a HUGE thank you to all of our friends who come every year and make it such a fun party. I love your enthusiasm! I love your funny names and costumes and all the details. And I appreciate you patience and understanding when things go wrong. Love you all and can't wait for next year!!

Confessions

2011-10-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

Dustin has been out of town this week. I miss his terribly. I love my husband. . . But there are two glorious things that I love when he is out of town.

1. Bedtime! I am a *really* bad sleeper. I have a hard time falling asleep and I wake up at the slightest noise. Once I'm up my mind starts making lists and thinking about all the things I can't change in the world and what I should be doing to prepare for Christmas and if I should reorganize the closet and when am I going to clean out the garage. . . and I can't get back to sleep.

This also means that I shove poor Dustin all night long. I just know I would stop thinking about needing to add shampoo to my shopping list if he weren't breathing so loudly. And why does he hate me? I just shoved him and he didn't roll over and he's *still* breathing loudly. And then he rolls over and starts making a *new* noise. And will I ever fall back asleep? His alarm is going to go off at 4 am. Should I check the time or will the light from my clock wake me up more? Maybe I should go to the bathroom so I won't wake up again if I ever fall asleep.

But when he's gone, it is so silent. It's like my mind knows there is no one to wake me up and it shuts off.
2. Messy House Day. Dustin works from home when he is in town. This means that I am ever fearful that he is going to walk out of the office to grab a drink of water and find the living room floor covered in toys and me sitting on the couch reading a book. Or checking my e-mail when there are crumbs on the counter.

I should take a moment to point out that Dustin does.not.care. Really. He has in fact told me that he thinks I'm crazy for cleaning the counters 5 times a day and I should just do it once after dinner. I, however, am much happier when things are always tidy.

Anyway, I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep everything perfect in the house when he is home. I feel like he is working really hard and he should be greeted with a very lovely looking home when he walks out. Which he does about a million times a day because I do not bring him snacks or water or lunch. Maybe I should start doing all that and he'd never come out???

The second he leaves town, I have one big fat lazy day. I don't get dressed at all. I let the kids make forts and not pick them up at night. I leave the counters a mess until after dinner. I read a book and watch TV and ignore the laundry. I cook one meal and make it stretch for 4 days of leftovers. And then I madly scramble the day before he comes home to make sure everything is perfect again.

This little trip coincided with the 2nd week of break, so it has been REALLY been glorious because we've had literally nowhere to go. Like I'm blogging from bed at 7:21 in the morning instead of making breakfast and packing lunches.

Homecoming!

2011-10-12T12:23:00.013-07:00

Saturday morning we wore the white and blue and headed to campus for the Homecoming Parade.Or should I say The Greatest Parade on Earth? OK, it wasn't the greatest parade on earth because all of the candy was salt water taffy. But it really was fun. Next year I'm joining the Homecoming Parade committee to make sure there's better candy. Maybe we should have our annual donation go toward the candy fund?

On the walk over Sadie proclaimed repeatedly how cold she was, so we bundled her up. Yes, this dorky look was on purpose.She was freezing, but she wouldn't zip her coat up because she wanted everyone to see her BYU shirt. I'm assuming that she didn't want to be confused with for Ute fan, like he poor baby brother who was dressed in red.

We set up near the DJ, grabbed some free blue pancakes and got ready to hoot and holler. The parade started out a little slow and there were definitely some cheesey floats (if you can call a car with a sticker slapped on the side a float), but we had great entertainment. Like Livy dancing.
And Luke cheering, "GO COUGARS!" My sister actually took enough pictures that when Dustin was looking through them he commented, "It's like I'm watching a movie." But sadly no pictures of Cosmo on top of a van looking oh so awesome dancing with his groupies. Or Nate high-fiving the basketball team. Or the School of Humanities float (car with a sticker that Kathleen cheered very loudly for). Or Dustin foiling the the tweens trying to steal the ball clearly being thrown straight to my kids. You see, we were VERY popular with Dustin looking like this:And this kind of enthusiasm:So we ended up with some really sweet goodies made in China/Thailand. And a toothbrush! And enough balloons that we were worried Luke or Livy might float away

A parade so fun could only be topped by one thing: The Greatest Aunt on Earth. And this time I'm not exaggerating. Aunt Beaney (Kristine -- every great Aunt in our family has some sort of crazy nickname) is everyone's favorite person and we were very lucky she drove down to see us and babysit the little ones for the game (even if she let them stay up until midnight and sent Luke to bed with a cup of ice and a noisy car).

We played and played with Kristine, ate pizza for lunch and left the babies napping and Kyle crocheting furiously (just you wait and see why -- you are going to be really jealous) to go play at the Provo Beach Resort. The Provo Beach Resort has everything. It has a carousel that Sadie rode a million and one times. A mini-bowling lane because we just hadn't bowled enough. And a mini-croquet course. And lots of arcade games including some sort of lame-o computer painting game which cost $2 a pop that Sadie ended up playing multiple times since someone couldn't say no to her. . . Guess who??I think they are actually looking at her creations in this picture. Probably talking about how they were totally worth MORE than $2 for 15 second of fun.

The most terrifying thing there was the ropes course. Nate told Dustin he would do it and immediately regretted it once he was hooked up and facing the first obstacle. I believe the words he uttered were, "Why did I think this would be fun?" I am really really proud of him, though, because despite being terrified he sucked it up and did it. Dustin also won the Dad of the Year Award for holding his hand and baby stepping him through the entire thing. There were two levels (I wish I could tell how high up he was!!) and the bottom level was the easier of the two. When they had finished the bottom level I suggested they go back the way they came and not bother with the upper level. Dustin asked Nate what he wanted to do and Nate picked to head up top!! I was so proud. And also about to vomit at the same time. Nate couldn't even reach any of the stabilizing ropes and I was terrified he was going to fall and freak out. But he didn't. Even when he was waving at us.I have no idea how long it took, but we were all mesmerized and watched the whole thing in awe. How did he grow up so fast?? It probably happened when he lost those two front teeth.

After that ordeal, Nate got some well deserved ice cream, and we took Sadie to the giant playzone which was built like a mini-American Gladiator Training Facility. She talked Kristine into doing circuits which was good because I heard they kept it heated like a sauna to get the future Gladiators of America to sweat off some pounds.

And then because my Aunt has never been there, we had to hit up The Chocolate. Azzgain. Dustin almost vomited at the thought of more sugar, but I disagree. I don't think you can ever eat enough cake/cazookies. And please note that he did, in fact, partake. Luke is a BIG cupcake fan.

At this point I think we all wanted to crawl into our beds and never eat again, but we still had the main event: The Homecoming Game! Yes, it was LAME-ly planned to start at 8:15 pm. Add in the cold front and Sadie's "I'm so cold" freak out that morning, and we decided that Sadie would stay home with Kristine.

The rest of us went to the hotel, where I packed every BYU blanket we own and layered my Arizona born and bred children in a million shirts, gloves and these adorable hats: Kyle (my very talented brother-in-law) crocheted hats for all of us. And I mean *ALL*. Even Luke and Livy have hats. And trust me -- people thought we were awesome. YOU probably think we're awesome. It's all in the hat. It instantly makes you look cute!!

We decided to walk from the hotel since traffic is insane on game day and we were less than a mile away. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera. I wish I would have to capture the excitement on my kids' faces. They were in HEAVEN! I was so worried that the game would be a let down and they wouldn't find it fun, but they LOVED it. They cheered and sang the fight song. They stomp and made noise when we were on defense. They drank hot chocolate and ate gross stadium food. They got excited when they saw Cosmo. And the best part -- The Cougars WON!!!! Thank you Cougars!

I can honestly say it was my FAVORITE game ever. And I've been to a lot of BYU football games. I contemplating moving to Utah just so we can get season tickets. And since we have such adorable hats, we now have to go to the Homecoming game every year!

The Rogers Family Epic Adventure

2011-10-11T06:23:00.012-07:00

One of my very favorite memories of BYU is going to the football games. So when Dustin brought home the Rise Up football shirts for all the kids I told him that it was time to take the kids to a game. And the Homecoming game fell right in the middle of our Fall Break. EVEN BETTER!

Now the week before we drove up to Utah the weather in Arizona was in the 100s STILL. And Utah was hitting 80. However, I seem to have an ancient curse which means I being snow with me anytime I plan a trip. Especially a trip to Utah. I probably shouldn't have been surprised that the day we drove up we brought a horrible, dreary storm that alternated between snow, rain and slush. I personally do not enjoy being cold, but the kids got snowed on and they were really happy so I might forgive the state of Utah one day.

We actually left after dinner one night and drove up to Flagstaff so we wouldn't have to deal with traffic in the morning. I'm not sure this was such a great idea because Luke stayed up all night throwing a disco party in his pack 'n play.

Wednesday we rolled into town in time for dinner served with a side of insanity! Sadie, my sister (Kathleen/Lola) and niece Livy are all born within a week of each other in the month of January. This means they all belong to a very special made-up club: The January Girls Club. The month before our trip to Utah, Sadie *needed* to talk to Aunt Lola every night and tell her what was needed for their January Girl Club Party. Namely candy canes, candy corn and a shiny new table. Yes, Sadie is part elf (if you don't get that reference, you are really missing out on the greatest Holiday movie ever made). SO we walked into the house and there was candy EVERYWHERE! And balloons! Oh my the balloons. And STAIRS! Stairs which Luke could run up and then promptly fly down on his belly. It was a very fun evening. And my sister who usually cooks for two, managed to feed a family of 9 including very fancy vegetables.

Thursday we decided to hit BYU before it got too busy. Our first stop was the Bean Museum. The Bean Museum is pretty much a glorified trophy room of some hunter. There are loads of stuffed creatures, often in menacing positions and the upstairs is just a wall of heads. Case in point -- that "lion lunging at a gazelle" exhibit ROTATES!! And there is a Polar Bear "Bigger than Dad" in full attack stance. My kids LOVED it. Especially my animal obsessed Luke. He could not contain his excitement as he ran around that place. I kept trying to shush him when someone informed me that it was not a library, so he would be fine. Besides there were a dozen other children, all of them completely unattended and crawling under the ropes and laying on the displays. And one little boy following Livy around trying to beat her up. Where *WAS* his mother??? A little enthusiasm was not going to destroy the place. And really, can you ever hear "ROOOOOOOOOOAR" too much?

Next we headed over to campus to go bowling. I can't remember why, but one of the kids noted that "Everyone is so NICE here." Yes, yes they are. Nate and Sadie kept on pointing out all the "BYU"s they could find -- the banners, the door mats, the fliers. . . I had to remind them that we were in fact AT BYU. Sadie would then inform everyone, "Did you know my mom went to school here?" Even in the bathroom. They would then melt into a puddle at her dimples and beg to take her home. Just kidding, they're college students and totally self centered. They just melted.

We suited up in our very finest bowling shoes and Sadie was up first. By the way have you ever noticed how adorable Sadie looks in bowling shoes? I swear she's been bowling before, so I don't know what she was thinking when she took off running down a very waxy bowling lane. She slipped, fell and landed with a bowling ball on her chest. I was so freaked out that I took off running after her and proceeded to fall on my butt (back??? I obviously have a concussion from the event and can't remember) as well. This was also while Luke was running all over screaming, "BALL! BALL!" And shot putting 15 pound bowling balls all over the bowling center. It was not our best start.

Luckily for all the students in Bowling 101 who witnessed what their life will be like in exactly one decade, we settled into a groove and things only got better. Like we decided to let Luke and Livy take some turns. And Luke bowled MULTIPLE strikes.We used the little trainging slide which he loved and then we would all cheer as the ball very slooooooowly made it's way down the lane. Luke would literally jump up and down the entire time. FINALLY when it hit the pins we would all celebrate. Luke and Livy even had a little hand holding dance. And then all the male students in Bowling 101 got down on their knees and proposed to the first girl they could find because they could not WAIT ten years for their own cuteness.

After that we hit the Cougar Eat. At lunch time. It was chaos. I'm glad we didn't lose any children. I can't remember much else happened. Luke only ate ice and a roll. I ended up with orange soda all over me, but Kathleen had a Tide to GO! pen so all was saved. Someone was wearing a red sweatshirt and Nate almost booed them. We ran as fast as we could to the BYU Bookstore, where it turned out we did not own every BYU item ever made. But never fear because we do now. Actually that is a lie -- I think we were very restrained.

We managed to do all that before nap time. Actually it was well passed nap time, so we raced home and put Luke and Livy down. Then Ellie, Kathleen and I went up to Tai Pan Trading. They had all of their holiday stuff out and I was completely overwhelmed. I ended up just stalking people's carts and asking them where they got things that I liked.

For dinner we hit up Guru's, which is one of our very favorite places to eat in Provo. I think there was lots more non-eating and Sadie may have yelled, "This chicken tastes like barf," so we headed home for bed and Scribblish.

Friday was another cold and dreary day so we decided to spend it swimming at our Hotel pool. I did not actually step foot in the pool (because it was freezing and I'm from Arizona, so I only like the pool when it feels like a bathtub) and entertained the little kids in the hot tub instead. Dustin and Nate ditched us early on and went to hike the Y.There are loads of pictures form this hike and I wasn't there so I don't have too many cute stories to tell. All I know is that Nate wants everyone to come next time and his favorite part was having peanut butter pretzels with his dad at the top.Ahhh! They are so handsome.When they were done they hit up Burger's Supreme for lunch and shakes. Also one of Nate's favorite memories.

Back at the Funny Farm (I will skip the scene we made running through the hotel in our swimsuits and towels chasing Luke and trying to find a key since I wish to erase that from my memory) we had 4 heads of hair to dry so we didn't get anywhere too fast and hit up Smash Burger for lunch, put the little ones down for a nap and went to paint pottery.

The second we walked in, Nate sees a GIANT coffee mug (literally giant. It was larger than my kitchen sink) and says, "I want to paint that." Seeing as we were spending a small fortune at every meal on food that was not even being eaten and that I, in fact, do not enjoy coffee, I had to say no. I could have bathed Luke in that mug. We then spent thirty minutes trying to find things that I deemed acceptable to paint. Nate would later claim, "I just wanted to paint something for my mom," but I know the true story. His first choices included a surf board, a jet plane, a football and a race car. We finally settled on a monster cookie jar.
Sadie went for suck up value and picked a cupcake for the January Girls Club.
And Ellie painted a birthday plate. Aunt Lola very generously treated the kids to the whole experience. That is another reason why she is the BESTEST SISTER EVER! We can't wait to see how everything turned out. In December. Because nothing was going to be ready until Wednesday.

We went to Zupa's for dinner. This seemed like a good idea since I was dying for some greens at this point, but the place was INSANELY packed. I forgot how crazy it is to eat in Provo. On a weekend. Homecoming weekend no less. The line was out the door in the rain. I really hope we get one down here, though, because it was yummy. And then we went to my next favorite place: The Chocolate. Wait! You've heard me talk about it before? Like a million times?? Well this time even my sister, "The Chocolate is Overrated" Kathleen, fell in love. She is a big cazookie fan.

After that we thought, "We haven't spent enough money today!" so we headed to the mall. While the kids played at the play area my sister took me to the cutest clothing store: Urban Wear. I am so jealous of everyone in Utah. They don't even have an on-line store, but I did get some cute stuff and then the check out lady and I eloped because we loved each other so much.

So those were our first two jammed packed days in Utah. I'm kind of exhausted just thinking about it, so you'll have to wait for the glory that was Homecoming!

Just Today

2011-09-27T09:52:00.005-07:00

How is it already the end of the first quarter? I can't believe August and September disappeared like that and I only have 3 Christmas presents ready to go. Pretty soon I'm going to be one of those slackers that leaves Christmas shopping until Thanksgiving weekend. Or even worse -- December.

Current status update: Dustin is out of town. I'm knee-deep in planning two Halloween parties & Nate's birthday party. Sadie and I emptied out the toy room and hope to get it painted this weekend for a super secret project. Nate lost another tooth and we're packing our cold weather clothes for a trip up North! I love this time of year because there are so many projects, events to plan and lists to check off. I can't be the only person who loves making lists, right???

Today my do list looks like this: stay home, get some laundry done, clean the bathrooms, have some friends over for Sadie and wait for the big kids to get home from their half day. I thought maybe I should blog while I'm sitting around in my pajamas. Yes, I am in my pajamas. Who gets dressed when they won't actually have to get out of their car? The problem -- I have no pictures to speak of. I got out my camera to take a few and of course Luke is covered in yogurt and Sadie won't let me brush her hair, but here they are in all their cuteness.Have you ever seen her dimples? Of course you have. You can see them from space.
Also exceptionally handsome, despite being TROUBLE! Yesterday he repeatedly climbed out of his crib at nap time, took his diaper off and pooped on the floor. He's really lucky he is cute. And my last.
When I got the camera out, the kids were "sharing" Sadie's iPod (it's Fisher Price and so much fun if you're looking for Christmas gift ideas -- you can download songs straight from your iTunes account). It captures their personalities so well. Sadie is the performer and Luke is a "fixer."Last night the kids were suppose to be cleaning their rooms and I found Sadie playing in the bathroom. I totally didn't yell, "SADIE! Why aren't you cleaning your room??" I probably said, "Oh sweet Sadie, why aren't you making a good choice?" But whatever I said, Sadie replied, "Probably because I'm a scurvy pirate."

Defeated

2011-09-19T09:21:00.005-07:00

We are HUGE BYU fans. And that may be a slight understatement. We also happen to have friends who are Utes fanatics. Naturally, the BYU v. Utah game is a huge deal and sometimes people's lawns even end up with a giant red U spray painted on them (and our FedEx man thought we were Utes fans -- the horror). This year we had planned a rivalry party full of red and blue. . . even the food. And then (cue ominous music). . . Stake Conference was scheduled.

Already we (mainly me) were torn. I told Dustin he could do whatever he wanted, but the kids and I were going to the Bryner's. Dustin was convinced BYU would lose if we didn't go to Stake Conference (not really). And then (more ominous music) . . . they announced a General Authority would be coming. Dustin had meetings with him starting at 4 and I had a dinner with his wife followed by the Adult Session at 7 pm.

I felt like I was living Sophie's Choice!! Church or BYU? And isn't BYU pretty much the same thing as Church?? To the less awesome out there, maybe not, but you obviously do not love BYU as much as we do and therefore do not love the Gospel, so why are even going to Stake Conference anyway?

I know you're dying to hear our decision! You probably feel like you're reading Harry Potter right now and you have to know -- is Snape really good or bad??? Never fear, I will not make you read 7 books to find out.

We ended up deciding to be righteous. And by we, I think we all know I mean *me* because Dustin is always righteous and was always going to attend Stake Conference. But never fear, I had my sister all set up to text me updates. I only checked them in between speakers. I swear!! And Dustin made "I'm annoyed" sounds anytime I checked. But I bet he's glad I did.

In the end, it turns out being righteous results in immediate blessings: I did not have to suffer through that miserable game. BYU was trounced 53-10. At one point I asked my sister if she was making it all up because BYU could not possibly be playing this poorly. Sadly no. Our Utes friends said they were even hoping BYU would score at some point near the end because it was so sad to watch. I am so glad I didn't have to see the disappointment on my kids' faces. And the point of this story is: The tender mercies of the Lord are REAL! Even when it comes to football. And while the score was 40-10 we made to executive decision to go out for dessert with our friends and deleted the game off of our DVR when we got home.

Sunday night we headed over to the preplanned post-game party. I had been expecting to celebrate our clear superiority, but obviously I needed to learn humility and teach my kids that sometimes even BYU loses to the U. But not often. And clearly not where academics are concerned. We made some cookies and I even wore a red shirt!! My kids said congratulations and that was about the end of the story because as our friends so lovingly pointed out, "You can't even gloat over a win like that." Thanks for being gracious winners!!!

We had lots of yummy desserts and hung out while the kids played. Luke decided to use an airplane as a spoon and Sadie and Logan reminded us that Red and Blue can in fact co-exist:

Ni Hao

2011-09-15T11:43:00.006-07:00

Sadie is always thinking. Her mind runs a million miles a minute and she is always full of questions and profound insights. Sometimes I need a little break from my bundle of energy and that comes in the form of a nap. Especially on days when my own crazy brain wakes me up before 4 am.

On days like these I like to turn on the TV for Sadie while Luke takes a nap and pass out on the floor of the living room for 20 minutes. During this precious 20 minutes there is a show on Nick Jr. called Ni Hao Kai-Lan which Sadie LOVES to watch. It's like the Chinese version of Dora.
Yes, Sadie likes to run and talk and make a mess, I mean CREATE! She does NOT like to stop and pose for pictures.

A few weeks ago at Sadie's Pre School Open House, I introduced her to a little girl who would be in her class on Wednesday. It went something like this:

Me: Sadie, this is Kailyn. She's going to be in your class.
Sadie: Oooooooh! Hi Kailyn.
Kailyn just smiles
Sadie (in her sappy sweet mothering voice): Oooooh, don't worry Kailyn. I speak Chinese! Yi, er, san.

Sadie is not only a constant source of entertainment, but she is also very considerate of others! And brilliant. I mean, she speaks Chinese.

Whoops!

2011-09-01T07:35:00.008-07:00

I'll skip the excuses and get straight to the fun!

Real school started (not just Ellie's Playroom School) and we got back in the groove of getting dressed before 10 am, packing lunches, homework, after school activities. . . I decided that since I had agreed to be the Assistant Coordinator for Art Masterpiece this year, plus Sadie & Luke still at home that I would volunteer less in the classroom. I only signed up to help at a few parties in each class and teach Art Masterpiece for both once a month. Then came the desperate plea for more classroom volunteers. And following that came the news that Ellie didn't have a Class Mom. So needless to say, I've already put in a good 20 hours of school volunteer hours already.

We celebrated the First Day of School with a fun themed dinner. The kids came home to find the kitchen table decorated which was slightly poor planning on my part.
Ellie already had homework and Nate wanted a snack and I didn't want them to mess up the table before dinner, so I made them use the bar. They were both disgusted with me because they wanted to be under the paper airplanes.
However all was forgiven when I introduced the cootie catchers. We sat at the table for hours after dinner filling them out and playing with them.
And of course no Back to School Bash would be complete without an ode the greatest institute of eduction -- BYU. Dustin brought home a Cougar Paw Cake Pan from his trip to Utah. I know that is the worst decorating job ever, but I tried a new frosting recipe and it didn't quite set up right. It was the Best Frosting I Ever Had recipe which requires a level of patience I apparently do not have. It was obviously not the best frosting I have ever had.

Some of our favorite neighbors came for a visit (and yes, we had just seen them a week before in Virginia Beach, but we really do love them). I love when they come because it's a great excuse to get all the old neighbors together. Amy had us all over for a swim party.Of course we always forget to take a picture of all the kids, so here's a portion of them eating dinner. The next week we had a night out with just the Moms so we could actually catch up instead of chase kids (we have 24 kids between all of us).Forgive the hideous angle -- our waitress hated us. I seriously think she was independently wealthy and did not care what we tipped her. I am also thinking that was a wide angle lens because it is HORRIFIC. However, I will suffer through it because I love love my "freighbors." I will, however, be going on a crash diet before any more pictures will be taken of myself.

Luke ate a sandwich. Could it be because it was on a cow plate?? Yes, yes it was. I caved and bought Zoopals. Worth every.single.dollar.Luke is obsessed with animals. He can make any animal noise from turkeys to fish to dinosaurs. This has an upside because he is glued to any book with animals. The downside is all sacrament meeting he makes animal noises.

Somewhere in all this, Dustin and I celebrated out 12th wedding anniversary. Lucky me! Dustin bought me a new dress, a new purse, and a new necklace. I got him nothing. Why do men never listen when you say, "Let's not get each other anything"?? I wish we had pictures, but our poor sitter forgot she was babysitting, and then we were running late for our reservation. . .

Another fun night out with my girlfriends/our book club to see The Help. Have you ever tried to save 19 seats the weekend a movie comes out? Casey insisted it would not be crowded. I think we all know who was right.Loved the movie. Loved the book more. Love my girlfriend the most.

We learned to Hula at a fun Scout Activity at church. And since Nate hasn't gotten any face time, he gets to be the picture for this event.
Luke became the first member of our family to ever belong to an "Of the Month" Club. For Luke's birthday my parents enrolled him in the "Train of the Month" club and we have been having fun getting a new train in the mail each month. Between Dustin's church orders, Nate's LEGO club stuff and Luke's trains, the boys clearly get more mail than the girls. Someone send us girls a package -- PLEASE!

Sadie started preschool HOORAY! As enthusiastic as Sadie looks, we really do all love Miss Becky. Why else would this be the SIXTH year I sent a child there?She had a full month to wait after Nate and Ellie started school and everyday she would wake up and ask me what "fun" thing we were going to do today. Apparently running errands and going to the gym is not fun. On Sadie's approved list: going swimming, playing with friends, going out for lunch. . . About the only way I could appease her was copious amounts of trips to the library.She is much happier back with all of her friends. I vacillate between missing her funny little saying and sweet compliments and be glad she's not stealing food and leaving a hidden mess somewhere.

And then there have been the birthday parties, baptisms, temple trips, dinners with friends, game nights. . . It's been ridiculously hot so we have to make up our own fun to keep from getting cabin fever. Luckily there are always lots of swimming playdates and parties in Arizona. I can't wait for the three day weekend!!

Hats Off

2011-08-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

Luke loves hats. My favorite hat he wears is this old cowboy hat. He gets out the stick horse and runs around the house saying, "neeeeeiiiiiigh" and "WOO HOO." Everyone once in awhile we'll remind him it's "YEE HAW" but we usually prefer to hear what he comes up with when he's a "Cooooow." Yes, he doesn't say cowboy either.

School Dayz

2011-08-04T16:39:00.001-07:00

In case you forgot, we don't have summer vacation in Arizona. Truthfully, it's because if we did it would have to stretch from May until October. Don't worry, you can make fun of the fact that we live on the surface of the sun because while I'm sitting by the pool, I'm thinkng about how I'm going to rub our gorgeous winter weather in everyone's faces when they're shoveling snow in April.

OK, back to the whole school thing. Summer literally never ends in Arizona, so we have year round school which every mother I have ever met appreciates. The end of July, my kids headed off to 4th and 1st grade.

Last year there were tears, so I was convinced this year was going to be a repeat. Dustin kindly agreed to come up with me so we could divide and conquer with the kids. We got up to school half an hour before it even began, but you seriously have to if you want to find a parking space. I got to the school 3 minutes before the start of Meet the Teacher and had to park a good quarter of a mile away. Which might not seem bad, but remember, it's July in Arizona.

As we walked up Nate saw his best friend from Kindergarten, Travis. They got excited over their new Mario lunch boxes, put their back packs down and ran off. This was not the dramatic scene I expected.

Luckily for me, I still have one child who know how to make her mom feel loved. Ellie moped and refused to talk to anyone. Finally Grace showed up and announced that she had picked the desk next to Ellie and everything was better.

The next thing I know, the bell was ringing and the kids lined up and headed in. Nate was so excited and Ellie totally ignored me. Can you imagine? So I guess I've learned the official age you do not respond to your mother yelling, "I LOVE YOU," as you walk into school. In my defense, everyone I know still does this to their high schoolers, so I'm sure I'm not the most embarrassing mother in the world. I mean, I'm a cool mom, right?

Luke, Sadie and I headed off to celebrate/commiserate the first day with lots of friends at our traditional brunch. It luckily ate up the entire morning, so I didn't realize how lonely my house was going to be. By the time we got home and I put Luke down for a nap I was slightly excited that I didn't have anything to clean.

Everyone had a great day. They both LOVE their teachers and Ellie even proclaimed, "I GET to do homework." Best first day of school yet!

Christmas Card picture?

2011-08-03T12:47:00.002-07:00

Dustin went to Utah on business and stayed an extra day to see family and friends. I think he might have spent more money at the BYU bookstore than I did on my last trip. We really do love BYU!!
We can't wait to take the kids to their first BYU football game this fall.

The Beach -- continued

2011-08-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

By Saturday night we were all lucky enough to be sitting around eating pizza while the kids ran back and forth from the beach to the pool.

When we first saw the pool, I think we were all slightly disappointed. In the pictures it looked small, but in real life it was miniature. Good bye cannon ball contest. Good bye pool races. In the end it turned out to be the best pool EVER! The little girls could walk across the entire thing, it was always warm and perfect for jumping into. Luke literally demanded people catch him by shouting, "JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!" repeatedly. Livy loved watching the show and so her parents sweetly obliged by catching Luke literally hundreds of times in a row. Kathleen came home with biceps of steel from lifting Luke out of the pool while the rest of us figured out he could climb out himself.

And when we weren't in the pool or hot tub, we were probably at the beach. The big kids loved being thrown into the waves and boogie boarding. Unfortunately after 2 days straight, their stomachs were rubbed raw and we had to run out and by them all new rash guards.
Nate also graduated to the stage where you were underarmour under your bathing suit too, so no more cute butt crack shots.
Sadie was jealous of all the big kids boogie boarding, so she invented her own method. She would take the board and lie down in the water and let the waves take her in and out.

Luke loved the sand more than anything. He loved to lay in it. He loved to roll in it. He loved to eat it.SO he was pretty much covered in sand the entire time we were there. Finally, the last two days we were there, he warmed up to the waves. Unlike his cousin, Livy, who loved the waves. The bigger the wave and the colder the water, the better.I'm actually glad Luke didn't like the ocean until the last few days, because once he discovered how fun it was I had to be on guard the entire time.

One day we thought it would be fun to get the kids surf lessons. You had to be 8, so poor Nate was bitterly disappointed to be left out, but little did he know how lucky he was. It was a hot and sticky day with the temperatures nearing 100 and yet the water was ice cold. I think the lifeguard said the water temperature was 58 degrees. BRRR!

Ellie popped up on her first turn and rode the wave in like a pro.
And then a few turns later, she lost her balance, fell in and she was *cold*. She is just like her mama -- once she was cold, she was done. Nate was such a sweet kid that he actually took off his rash guard and gave it to her so she could warm up and she headed out for a few more turns.

Other beach entertainment included digging a giant hole (that we waited inside of all day for the tide to come in and destroy)
copying our neighbors and building a sand couchburying the little girls in sand and making them into mermaids, Red Rover in the surf, Duck Duck Goose and lots of other fun games.

If we weren't near the water, we were probably eating. Dustin found a new love-- Rita's Water Ice so we went there every single night. My kids got ice cream from an ice cream truck for the first time in their lives. I discovered the cake shop in Sandbridge sells the most delicious giant soft chewy cookies ever.We made brownies and we also ate ourselves silly the night of the FOOD FEUD.

My sister and I assigned out team colors and each team had to come up with a menu based on their color. Quick run down:
RED TEAM! WOO HOO! We won the TRUE COLORS award (for having the most food of our teams color). Our menu was cherry lime soda, fruit salad, sweet and sour meatballs & red velvet cupcakes. I had my dad on my team, who wanted to literally buy everything pre-made, but we still had fun.
GREEN TEAM won the JAZZ HANDS (most team spirit) award for sherbert and sprite, pesto ravioli, & mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. They had a cheer and everything.
The ORANGE TEAM won the THERE'S A PARTY IN MY TUMMY award (for yummiest main course). The served a blood orange drink, orange glazed salmon, and peach cobbler with hand whipped orange cream. Kyle literally hand whipped that whipped cream and it was delicious.
And the YELLOW TEAM! They ended up with the FANCY NANCY award for being so dang gourmet. We had hand juiced mango lemonade, crab cakes with hollandaise sauce, and pineapple and mango granola with caramel sauce. Everyone else was sharing their menus, but those little girls were trash talking everyone so they were the team everyone was feeling competitive with. I had Ellie sort through the toothpicks to get all the red ones for our team to use and I walked into my room to find "YELLOW TEAM STINS" in all the leftover yellow tooth picks.

We also played lots of games like Sardines, Saboteur, Maui Maui, Just Dance for kids
and my sister had a whole night of Minute to Win It games.The other big hit was Ooga Booga, a long honored family initiation. I cannot show you any pictures or give you any details because it is an absolute secret.

Harry Potter part 2 came out while we were at the beach house so my sister went on-line and bought us all tickets to go see it. We were trying to decide how early we needed to be there to get seats together and we decided to head out about 2 hours early.You should have seen the usher's face when we asked where the line was. Apparently people do not stand in line to see Harry Potter at the beach. We still had time to go eat (at a sit down restaurant no less) and get back in time to stand in a line of about 3 people before we were seated in the theater.

One morning I went out for a run and the winds were fierce. By the time I got back the lifeguards were driving up and down the beach with their red flags. We decided to head to the Virginia Beach boardwalk where we ate at the a Mexican restaurant with the biggest round table I have seen in my life.

The kids all got cheesey souvenirs including Luke's cow (his newest obsession) and Ellie decided to get her hair wrapped. While my mom and I waited with Ellie, Dustin and Tommy rented one of those giant four person bikes. Except there were only two of them to pedal all those lazy kids around.
Luke LOVED riding on the front.
All in all, we were so lucky to see all of our family for an entire week. Cousins, Aunts & Uncles, Grandma & Grandpa . . . We love you!

Then it was time for the sad good bye. We checked out of the beach house and headed for the mall to kill some time before our flight.And in a long honored Mangum family tradition, Lola and Livy pushed us off for the airport.

Virginia Beach -- the beginning

2011-07-22T06:06:00.007-07:00

Every year we get together with my family for an epic summer vacation. We rotate between two of my favorite places in the entire world: a beach house at Sandbridge Beach, Virginia and my Grandma's house in Blackfoot Idaho. Last year was our trip to Heaven on Earth, so this year was the next best place -- THE BEACH!!!

In all my brilliant planning, I wanted to get to Virginia as early in the day as possible. Between layovers and a 3 hour time difference, most flights put you in pretty late at night. When all was said and done we found a flight that got there at 2:30. Yippee! It also left AZ at 6 am. Boo! What was I thinking?

So at 4am, we hauled out of bed and loaded up the kids. We were all moving pretty slowly so we didn't even get out of here until after 4:30. By the time we got to the airport, parked, caught the bus and got checked in (where our luggage was all tagged with the dreaded neon LATE CHECK-IN tag), passed security, we literally walked straight onto the plane. We may have cut it a little close and all the kids had to pee and were starving, but they did great on the flight anyway.

Ellie took Luke up and down the moving sidewalk as entertainment in the Chicago airport. And yes, we did leash him and he loved it.

We spent the first few days with our old neighbors, the Tylers. They moved to Virginia Beach 2 years ago and we love to see them whenever we can.

Sadie, Sadie, Brody, Ellie, Nate & Ronan

We played games, went to the park, swam, went on walks, caught fireflies (and Dustin caught a frog). . . just generally hung out. One night we got a babysitter and went to dinner on the boardwalk and stayed up late playing games. Jill also gave the girls haircuts and Sadie had a few crashes on the scooter. This led to a scab right over her lip that looked like a Charlie Chaplin mustache all week.

She also tore open her toe a few times and has 4 scabs on her knees. She put it best when she said, "I am not having very good luck with scooters today."

Saturday it was time to say good bye and meet up with most of the crew for lunch. We were going to try out some hot dog joint but my kids informed me they would *not* eat hot dogs. We opted for Kelly's Tavern instead where my kids ALL ordered corn dog bites. Fire probably shot out of my eyes at that moment. Luckily we had our own room, but that was one wild lunch!

Allie, Matt, Nate, Zach, Luke, Ellie & Sadie down in front

After lunch my dad and my brother took the big kids and headed for the beach house, while we ended up with blondes in the back and headed to Costco.Costco was an adventure and everyone kept commenting on how cute my twins were. They were pretty adorable singing and hugging each other. Sadie is so lucky to have her very own built in cousin/best friend.

When all was said and done we spent $460. This is what $460 gets you at Costco:
And this is what you car looks like when you pack it all in:
And with that we were off for a week at the beach!!

Bizzarr-o World

2011-07-18T12:58:00.004-07:00

One time I placed fish tacos, loaded with avocados, peppers, tomatoes and spinach in front of Sadie and she yelled, "EWW! There's not even any vegetables on this plate and that's my favorite part." Sadie has *never* liked much more than fruits and veggies.

The kids start school a week from today so I thought I would be a nice mom and make them hot nutritionally unbalanced lunches all week. OK, maybe that thought came into my head after I went to the gym and ran 6 miles, took 4 kids to the library, Target (back to school shopping), Costco, Sprout and Fry's all before 12 noon.

I hurried to make the kids a pot of Macaroni and Cheese. You would have thought I was trying to poison Sadie. She *refuses* to eat it. "I"m allergic to it." "I never even eat it unless Mommy feeds it to me." This could honestly be said about 75% of the food Sadie eats. We get Sadie up to the bar and promise her as soon as she's done she can eat a peach.
A few minutes later, I notice how quiet it is. HOORAY! Sadie has finally stopped her tantrum. Then I hear Ellie open her bedroom door and gasp. "Mooooooom! Sadie's sneaking fruit."

4th of July

2011-07-05T16:03:00.002-07:00

Despite the lack of pictures, we had a really fabulous 4th of July. In the morning, we went to the gym, then I spent two hours trying to pack (OK, that part was not fun), Dustin took the kids to see Cars 2 while Luke and I napped and then we met up with some friends to swim and BBQ.

Most of our friends were out of town (and who wouldn't be when it's 118 outside) and another family got hit with the flu bug, so it was just us along with Mark and Michelle and their two girls.With just two families, we still managed to have ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn on the cob, fruit, chips and sugar cookies. We're pigs because there weren't really any leftovers. We also mooched off the Bryner's who were out of town and used their grill and pool. Thanks Mike and Rickie!!

Luke had the best time of all once he discovered how much fun it was to jump/fall into the pool. This was actually a welcome change from throwing rocks into the pool (which poor Nate would then dive for), but now I'm a little panicked because he officially has no fear of the water.

After we swam for a good 3 hours, everyone came back to our house to change into clothes for fireworks. The thought of keeping Luke contained in a parking lot when it was in the 100's didn't sound fun, so I decided to stay home and put Luke down. Turns out I totally missed out.

On the way to the parking lot they had planned on going to, they drove by our High Councilman's home. I guess they were having a little family party so Dustin asked if they could put their chairs up on his lawn since he's right next to the Church that was doing the fireworks. There were tons of kids, swings, a trampoline, homemade ice cream, root beer floats, cookies. . . I'm glad it ended on a high note for them. Happy Independence Day!!

Summer time and the Livin' is Easy!!

2011-06-25T10:39:00.006-07:00

June is almost over and I feel like we're just starting to get to my major summer goal: Don't overschedule. We had so much going on with getting out of school, camp, Father's Day, Dustin's parents coming that we haven't been able to just pick up and go. This week has been much more laid back and we've been loving it.

This week we:
* Spent too much time catching up on laundry & cleaning the house.
* Went to 10 tennis lessons where Sadie made a new friend.
* Shopped at Costco & Sprouts (twice) to refill my house with food.
* Saw a Junie B Jones play.
* Tried not to think about how much we ate out this week.
* Celebrated when Luke sat through an entire summer movie: How to Train Your Dragon.
* Slacked off & bought a cake to bring to a swim party.
* Admitted it was too hot to run outside & spent some time at the gym.
* Stayed up way too late watching movies (finally saw HP 7).
* Hosted Ellie's book club.
* Reunited with my UT Road trip buddies with lunch & temple date.
* Picked Ellie up early from a sleep over because she missed me.
* Enjoyed lots and lots of spontaneous play dates.
* Cooled off swimming for playgroup with 20 other kids.
* Gorged ourselves on lunch with friends.* Cut the boys hair and finally dragged my butt to the salon after 4 months of blah!
* Tried not to rant and rave as we cleaned out the kids' rooms.
* Partied it up at the SAP summer event at Dave and Busters.* Ate a lot of ice cream.
* Crafted over at Karen's.
* Caught up on my blog!!

Sadie Love

2011-06-24T19:00:00.005-07:00

Sometime over the course of dinner, both these random quotes popped out of Sadie's mouth:

"I'm so disappointed we aren't going to the mall tonight. I'm really craving an Orange Julius."
and my personal favorite:
"I don't love Justin Bieber. I'm just his biggest fan."
What 4 year old talks like this???

Tennis Camp

2011-06-20T16:08:00.004-07:00

Ellie and her girlfriends have been taking tennis for a year now and they're really quite cute. I can't wait until they can play matches against each other. This week we decided to put them all in tennis camp for the week.

Nate decided that maybe he would give tennis a try too. He was so nervous before camp this morning. You could tell because he couldn't eat breakfast and started freaking out when he couldn't get his socks on. Finally I asked him what he was so scared about. "I'm scared a ball is going to hit me in my face and I'll bleed."
Well good news: No balls hit him the face. Bad news: He did bleed. He tripped and skinned his knee. When I asked him how it was he said, "AWESOME!" At first I was a little nervous because he kept wanting to swing the racket like a baseball bat, but he settled in and started getting the ball over the net.

Nate's lesson started a little later than the girls and ended 15 minutes after it. I thought they were doing a lovely job entertaining Luke. And I guess they were. Sadie came over, sopping wet, and told me she wanted to change clothes. I informed her that I had no extra clothes. She then pulled out the backpack she had brought and guess what was in it? Extra clothes. I asked Sadie why she had a backpack full of extra clothes and she said, "You know. In case I wanted to get wet." She is always prepared.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

What do you say about the Dad so amazing that he made his own Father's Day Dinner because he knew I was exhausted from Girl's Camp??We are so lucky!!

I took the kids to Target a week ahead of time to pick out gifts. I really believe in letting them pick out their own stuff so he ended up with a water bottle, a pink tie, sticky note pads, new dry erase markers for the white board in his office at Church (the kids like to play on it), peanut butter oreos and gum. They all picked out singing cards except for poor Nate who really wanted a "My Dad Rocks" card, but in the mix up, I misunderstood him and bought another card. He was completely devastated on Saturday when the card was not in the bag. He did a great job making his very own My Dad Rocks card complete with a Superdad picture on the inside.

I did manage to make him a chocolate cake (I was missing just one ingredient from all his favorite desserts) and my kids made me proud by actually eating an entire cake in less than 24 hours. The are mine after all!!!

This is how we Wiggle-Oh

2011-06-18T16:24:00.001-07:00

In case you have been living under a rock: I don't camp. So when I was called to be the Ward Camp Director, I think we were all a little skeptical of how everything would come off. I probably had the least faith in myself, but it worked out surpringly well.

The girls are AMAZING! We had no drama, we surpassed every goal we set for ourselves and all came back loving each other and the Gospel a little more.The theme for this year was: Values are always in Fashion at the Chandler Values Mall. We ended up being assigned the value Divine Nature and the Optical Store. I think the girls were kind of bummed about the optical store because it wasn't as exciting as some of the other (shoe store, jewelry store, clothes store. . .) But we made it work. I decided we should be a sunglass store, so we went with Aloha Optical and went tropical.This meant we spent our days lazing around by the palm trees in a hammock. OK, if only! I did have to laugh that poor Sadie fell out of the hammock *multiple* times a day.

It was also fun that my sister was my "assistant camp director." My poor sweet sister always gets dragged into all of my fun plans. I am grateful that she shares her talent so willingly with me. She made me gobs of cute tags to put on all of our scripture study gifts. Like this:and this:and this:And she spent hours on the phone with me trying to come up with clever sayings to go with each scripture. At first I was worried the girls wouldn't appreciate all the time and effort but they totally got it!!

Along with the tags, she also made me a tidy tent award that all the girls were dying to win.There was also lots of hair washing, braiding, games, laughing, hiking, screaming, cheering and general Girl's Camp-ness.

Lows:
* The elbow song. If I never hear that again, I will be a happy girl.

* Too much candy. I am so sick.* Forgetting the foam pad for my cot. My sweet husband texted every Priesthood holder that he knew up there and they all jumped to my rescue. I slept amazingly well and stayed warm. All thanks to the Priesthood! Our Stake Presidency is really the best.

* Dustin lost my pillow on the drive home. After flying off the trailer, it is laying somewhere on the highway. I hope some desert animal gave it a good home.

And that's it. Even being dirty wasn't that bad. Although I did look at my leg at one point and I had dirt up to my knees.

Highs:
* The Wiggle-O
I've brought it home and the kids love doing it too

* Dustin getting to come up for Bishop's NightYou should have seen me staring down the road when I expecting him to appear. He brought the girls ice cream cake which was delicious and we even won the "Name That Bishop" game.

* Spending time with the girls.We have the most amazing YW in our Ward. I know some of them from back when I was Primary President, but I was so grateful for the opportunity to really get to know all their quirks. They made me laugh and I really love them so much more now.

* Big Booty(this is actually my favorite picture of the entire week)

Kaycee taught it to us and had to leave for a family reunion right as we were getting good at it. We ran out of chairs, and I came back from a meeting to find sweet Brother Stewart sitting on top of the ladder.

*Pranking
Christy and I may have had a little rivalry going. I think it all started over her killing me off repeatedly during Mafia and involved some "alloy" lotion. I'm not even sure if we've called a truce yet since I woke up to a "We love the Utes" sign on my garage this morning.

* Solo Time
Isn't it gorgeous? It was so nice to get out of the heat and be in nature for a few days. You could really feel the love and power of our Heavenly Father out there. I hope the girls felt the peace the gospel brings.

* Testimony meeting. Our girls had such sweet & simple, yet powerful testimonies. I am in awe of the things they shared and the spirit they felt. I am so touched that I was able to be there and share in this experience.

After a week up there I totally get why people love going, although I don't know if I could ever go with anyone other than *my* girls!!!

Hooray for Grandma & Papa!!

2011-06-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

While I was camp, Dustin's parents sweetly responded to all my begging and pleading and came and watched the kids for a week. Cheryl is Super Woman! If you don't know, Dustin's dad has Parkinson's, so she takes care of him all day (and takes him to the bathroom every few hours each night). Then to take on all 4 of my kids on top of it?? We are so lucky!!

Below are a few of the pictures Ellie took while I was gone.
Sadie was of course wonderful at buttering up her Papa. He is a very good cuddler and we all know that is Sadie's specialty. The kids were also really lucky to have their cousins, Jake and Cody, come out and spend the night for a few days.While I was gone, Luke started pulling the kitchen chairs around so he could climb up to get any food or games/crafts/things put out of his reach for a reason that he wanted. I am so sorry Cheryl. He also turned the garage into his playroom, which resulted in beautiful feet:The kids made sun catchers, painted shirts, paper airplanes, bead crafts, played games (Ellie got a double Yahtzee!), took a few trips to Dairy Queen for ice cream (one opened up a quarter mile from our house -- come visit and we'll take you for blizzards every night!!), had a water fight and made pie.
Cheryl remembered how much my kids love making pies with her and brought them all their own mini-rolling pins and pie tins. Sadie and I were really excellent at eating the pies.I know my kids had a wonderful time and I'm so grateful to Cheryl for giving up a week of her life to come spend time with all of us. It was so nice to be at camp and not worry about my kids because I knew they were being spoiled rotten by Grandma and Papa. I just hope we didn't wear them out so much they won't come back! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Soaring

2011-06-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

I am a wimp. I'm pretty sure this is a well known fact, but I am surprisingly unadventerous. I am perfectly content to watch my husband jump off the waterfall or send my sister parasailing right after the rope snapped while I stay warm and dry taking pictures. I am also scared of a ridiculous amount of things -- rubber bands, popping balloons, being cold, being the only one not doing it and letting go.

Once when Dustin and I were newly married we went with a bunch of friends to Seven Peaks Waterpark in Provo (whoop whoop). They had one of those Tarzan ropes that you could swing out to the middle of a pool and then when you let go, you would drop into the middle of the pool. Everyone was doing it, so I climbed up, grabbed on, swung out and then realized that while I may not be afraid of heights, I am afraid of dropping from high places. And so I didn't let go. Do you know what happens when you don't let go of the rope? Eventually you swing BACK into the faux rock wall you jumped off, slam your head and cut up the back side of your body. Most embarrassing moment of my life.

OK, so back to the story. My girlfriend, Karen, has been obsessed with this trapeze place that is about a mile from my house. Earlier in the year, there was a groupon for half off Trapeze lessons. I called her and told her that she and her husband should go do it for her birthday. Fast forward half and hour and somehow she has talked 2 other of our really good friends into doing it and won't I be buying a groupon too?? Well we all know I buckle under peer pressure so I signed up.I may look happy in this picture but I was crying before I had to go up the first time and literally shaking each time I was done with my turn. The place was amazing and they really did a fantastic job -- I am just a scaredy cat. We had to climb up, jump off, grab the the bar, hook our legs, hang upside down, let go and reach back, then grab back on, pull our legs down, swing 3 times and then do a back flip and land. All in about a minute. Believe it or not, they got even me to do it and not hate it.

The hardest part for me was letting go while flying through the air.But I did. I wouldn't say I conquered a fear, but I definitely confronted it. Of course now I'm trying to figure out what horrible thing I should make all of them do for my birthday.

The Terrible Twos

2011-06-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

Luke turned 2! And trust me, the terrible twos have hit. Will he survive this year? Will *I* survive this year? We are in full force tantrum mode and he's climbing onto and breaking everything in the house. Despite that, we all still love him to pieces! He still loves trains, balls, saying prayers, talking on the phone and making animal sounds. He still hates eating, sitting in Church and going to time out.

I will have to grab a picture of him pouting because it's hilarious. He will stick his ginormous bottom lip, shrug his shoulders and make this sad puppy dog whimpering noise. SO pathetic.

To celebrate his birthday we. . . went to the lake. Adults only. Am I terrible mother? We did celebrate it with his favorite non-Mac & Cheese dinner (spaghetti) and a cake he didn't eat (anyone surprised??). I knew he wouldn't eat it, so rather than spend hours making something I sent Dustin and Sadie out to pick up a cake. I was hoping they'd picked up something yummy, but Sadie had an idea in her head of what kind of cake she wanted and she wasn't stopping until she found it. She even told me, "I worked really hard on picking out that cake Mom." She loved the present and party hat decorations and I think the pink and purple frosting probably won her over too.

He loved his presents that the kids picked out: a giant Chuggington coloring book, the Little People Airport. My parents enrolled him in the Train of the Month Club. Did you ever think one even existed? So Luke is officially the first person in our house to be in a Month Club. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!!

Schools out for SUMMER!

2011-06-06T10:53:00.005-07:00

Is there any more glorious day of the year than the last day of the school year? No more homework, no waking kids up, no projects. . . I love it with a passion that cannot be described unless you are also a mother of school aged kids and then you know what I mean. Luckily, mother all over the internet understand the need to celebrate this holiday and helped me throw some stuff together the weekend before, which we all know is "last minute" in Maddy-land.

I had to drag the kids out of bed, but they perked up a little when they remembered it was FREE DRESS DAY! Possibly the second most glorious day of the year to all children in uniform schools. Excuse my pride for a moment while I gush over how handsome/gorgeous my children are!! I used to teach 4th grade, how could I ever *have* a 4th grader?? Those moms were so OLD! And Nate is going into 1st grade? He can READ!

I put together a bunch of Minute-to-Win-It party games for Nate's class which they all played adorably well. Nothing could be cuter than kids shaking cotton balls off their noses, cheering while they stack a giant cup tower or screaming over the idea of trying to keep balloons in the air with chopsticks. Luckily I share their enthusiasm for the small things in life, so I was just as entertained. I have loved working with Nate's class this year. There is something so sweet and loving about those Kindergarteners. They try SO hard to be good and do the right thing.

After the party I hopped over to Ellie's class party which was board games and ice cream sundaes. They handed out some awards and Ellie won "Most Likely to Be a Famous Athlete" and "Most Caring." Awww, make a mom proud (and possibly confused at the athlete one). It was such a fun party and the girls were so cute. . . until they handed out the report cards. The report cards that had their teachers for next year listed. Suddenly there was lots of crying. Ellie and her best friends are all in 4 different classes next year. Curse you report cards for ruining my third favorite day of the year (#1 Christmas, #2 the day after Thanksgiving). After that the kids came home and cried (I can't even remember why Nate was crying), but I tried to cheer them up with some Cafe Rio for dinner.

And now our summer plans look like this:

Graduates!

2011-06-02T10:26:00.002-07:00

It's not just the wrinkles and grey hairs reminding me that I'm getting older anymore. Now it's my kids too. This year I had TWO graduations to attend. OK, they were only for Preschool and Kindergarten, but they definitely reminded me that my kids aren't getting any younger and one more blink and they'll all be gone. But enough sappy sobby stuff. . .

Sadie graduated from Miss Becky's preschool into. . . Miss Becky's preschool. Hooray!! But now she's in the older class. Where they get to eat lunch at school. She can't wait! OK, maybe it's me that can't wait.

Sadie sang some cute songs, got her certificate and then we watched a video of picture throughout the year. I always get teary eyed watching those montages (and it's my secret wish to have my life flash before my eyes with sappy music one day) but when "Let Them Be Little Came On," I started crying. I had been dancing with Sadie up until this point and I told her that now she had to snuggle me because I was getting sad. Sadie said, "Yeah, because I'm growing up and then I'll go get married and you'll miss me." Cue sobbing mess of a mommy now.

Nate's Kindergarten graduation was that same night. When Ellie was in Kindergarten, we went on a fun family stay-cation and skipped graduation all together, so this was my first experience. Nate informed me that he could wear whatever he wanted and I didn't remember seeing a dress code on any of the flyers that came home so I let him go change into his Superman shirt. However, being the rule follower that I am, I called my girlfriend (maybe after this story I should amend that to frenemy) to check. "Yes, they can wear whatever they want," she informed me (omission is still a sin, dear "friend"!!*). And it only made sense to me, the graduation was on the basketball court! And no chairs, you had to bring blankets to sit on. I even encouraged Nate to put on some flip flops and we headed out.
* We are actually still friends, I say this all in jest. I love her and all her guts.

When we arrived, I look around and all the boys are in collared shirts. And most are in ties! And slacks! And people are carrying bouquets!! And balloons!! This was obviously a bigger deal than "blankets on the basketball courts" would lead one to believe. Luckily for me, I have lots of REAL friends, not just frenemies, and I found one that was running a little behind who was sweet enough to grab me an extra shirt for Nate. She even helped him change in the middle of the cafeteria. He said no to the tie, but I totally think he pulled off "faux graduation semi-formal" very handsomely.
I can't believe he's on to first grade already!!

Help me!!

2011-05-27T12:07:00.006-07:00

In one week this cute little thang will be turning 2! I have no clue what to do about it. Throw a party? Leave him with a sitter and go boating with friends? Hang out as a family?
And what about a gift? I usually don't get my kids a lot of gifts of big gifts for their birthdays, but I would like to get him *something*. Anyone have any ideas of things every 2 year old should have??

And now let me help you.

(Sadie is actually incredibly helpful in the kitchen and loves to pound out the meat for me)

Sadie has informed me that she does not like it when people call her Sadie Lady. "Because ladies are old and then I will be old." So if you want her to like you, please stick to the approved list: Sadie, Sadie Michelle, Sadie Loo Who, and Baby Doll. Sadie Baby is also frowned upon

Overheard

2011-05-25T10:51:00.002-07:00

Sadie and her friend Embrie always have the most entertaining conversations as I drive them to preschool. Today I hurried and wrote one of them down.
Sadie: Embrie, do you know why I'm wearing bandaids on my thumbs?
Embrie: Because you hurt your thumbs?
Sadie: No, because I need to stop sucking my thumbs so they won't fall off.
Embrie: Your thumbs won't fall off.
Sadie: Yes they will. If I keep sucking them, first they'll turn red, and then they turn orange and then green and when they turn blue they fall off.
Embrie: I used to suck my fingers and they didn't fall off.
Sadie: What do you suck now?
Embrie: My thumb. It tastes soooo good.
Sadie: Mine too! . . . . (silence). . . . But my mom doesn't even care.

Women's Conference

2011-05-25T09:24:00.009-07:00

I don't even know what to say about my trip up to BYU for Women's Conference. It was a complete BLUR. Much like stopping to get this picture.As we approached the Utah sign, cruising along at about 90 mph, I lamented, "I wish I had noticed the sign earlier so we could have stopped and taken a picture." Followed by the screeching of tires and the jerk of a car. Not sure the brakes will ever be the same on that Aveo, but it was a rental car so who cares. And no. We did not actually all squeeze in an Aveo for our trip up there. That is a hilarious inside joke, that you will never get because you were not cool enough to commit to Women's Conference 2011. Not that I was an easy sell. I almost missed that hilarious joke myself. Typically I'm "the committed one," but I had poor Maggie hounding me for weeks trying to get me to agree to the trip. In the end she convinced me with her winning personality and incessant amount of texts. I'm so glad she did.

The whole thing was amazing. I loved the girls I went with and all the time we got spend together. I loved being back in Provo and all the great memories I have from going to school there. Even if we had to stay in a stinky boys dorm. It was completely and totally worth all the stress of leaving the kids and being freezing cold for 5 days.

Just a couple of random highlights:

* Driving : On the way up Maggie almost killed us 2 or 3 times before we were even out of Phoenix. We mocked her driving and then she paid us back by taking us on the curviest route ever (through Jacob's Lake) where Karen and I nearly barfed. Luckily she's a nurse and was loaded up with all sorts of goodies. On the way home, I took a turn driving, where I also maybe did a slightly poor job of driving and we almost ran out of gas because I forgot to check the gas before we turned onto UT-20. Let's just say after that experience only kind words were spoken about people's driving skills. And Heather even texted us later to thank us for preparing her to drive with her 16 year old on the freeway.

* The dorms. OK, totally scuzzy, but honestly, we weren't there much. We ate breakfast in the Cannon Center and I get how people gain the Freshman 15! I lived in Heritage when I was freshman where we had to cook for ourselves, so I pretty much lived off of toast and quesadillas. The first night we looked over the breakfast options and decided we would get omelets. So the next morning we paid out $5, got in line and were served the world's smallest omelet. $5 for that?? I asked the girl if maybe there was some fruit somewhere that I could purchase. She then informed me that EVERYTHING inside was free for the taking once you were inside. I guess we were all dinning hall newbies because our eyes were HUGE when we realized it was buffet. Oh butterscotch muffins. You were delicious.

* SNOW! We looked like total nerds when we walked out of class to a few flakes and screamed, "It's SNOWING!"Someone stopped and asked us if we wanted our picture taken because we were making *that* much of a scene. I think they must have been laughing because you can't even tell it's flaking in the picture. The good news is, the next morning we woke up to this:
So we finally got some REAL snow pictures! And then we wondered how we were going to scrape the car off. And Heather, the only good driver, told us that she doesn't drive in snow.

* The classes. They were really excellent. The general sessions were probably the best, but I may have cried a time or two in the other classes. The shocker for me, was how cut throat some people were trying to get into classes. People would walk out early, try and cut in line. . . All while trying o improve themselves spiritually. I found that slightly ironic.

* The food. We ate and ate and ate some more. I was really nervous taking the girls to The Chocolate since I had kind of talked it up a lot. Is there anyone who doesn't know my obsession with that place?What if they thought it was mediocre? Like my sister. Well I can say that they all are as obsessed with the Kitty Katrina as much as I am. Two trips including cake to bring home to family. Along with BYU mint brownies.

* My favorite peeps! I love visiting Utah because I feel like I'm reuniting with all my best friends. My sister braved the BYU bookstore (that place was CRAZY with 16,000 women in town) to meet up with me, took me on a trip down memory lane by driving to all the places I lived in Utah and let me snuggle Olivia. She even came to hang out with us and play games at the dorm one night.
I also got to meet up with our friends from when we were first married up in American Fork and see Vanessa's new baby. And Tasha met up with us so we could check out Tai Pan Trading (why does Utah have all the coolest stores??)

* The Temple. I have never done a live session so that in itself was amazing. Then add in not having to worry about getting home to a babysitter and the four hours we were there flew by. It made the whole thing one of my most profound temple experiences ever. I think every girl's trip should include a trip to the Temple because you really feel a connection as sisters when you share time talking in the Celestial Room. I seriously felt like I was at a tourist attraction when I was staring at all the art and details in the Salt Lake Temple. You can feel the Pioneer Spirit.

* BYU. I love that place more and more each time I go. It was so much fun to run around the campus and see all the new buildings (OK, I only made it running once because it snowed. Hello -- who is going to run in the SNOW?? I might slip. And it was freakishly dark at 5 in the morning and I didn't want to get mugged. PLUS Maggie gave me ambien so I actually slept). I made three trips to the BYU bookstore and spent a small fortune on stuff to take home to Dustin and the kids. And maybe a *few* things for myself. I think my biggest excitement was the Jimmer jersey for Nate. I about died when Maggie asked who Jimmer was. And I literally started to choke when she didn't know who Lavell Edwards was. Hopefully all the girls left BYU feeling like true blue Cougars!!And then I got to come home totally renewed to a clean house and these cute kids!!!

So who's in for next year???

It started with stinky, smelly shoes

2011-05-17T08:05:00.005-07:00

Every few days the kids will come home, take off their shoes, get up to the table and start on their homework. I then banish them to the bathroom and scrub their feet until I can focus on helping them instead of feeling waves of nausea from the odor steaming off of their feet. I don't know how they missed me chanting, "You have to wear socks with your shoes," every.single.day, but it has gotten bad. Especially the B.O.Y. The repulsive smelling PE shoes and canvas slips ons were affecting my quality of life. On top of that, Nate's feet grew two sizes this year and he was squeezing into them as it was.

It was time to go shoe shopping. Like months ago. But with everyone's activities, play dates, meetings, parties, business travel and general life, we never had the time. The only night that things seem to be calm are Mondays and we generally reserve those for Family Home Evening. I asked Dustin how we could relate shoe shopping to Gospel Principles and being the genius he is, he came up with the Armor of God. We made up a fun little lesson based on Ephesians 6:10-18.
The kids did a great job dressing Sadie in her armor! Which was kind of necessary since she was wearing a bathing suit from a party 6 hours earlier. We'd hate to see her go off to battle in that. And with that we set off to make sure Nate and Ellie's feet were shod with the Gospel of Peace (and odor eaters). And while we were there Sadie and Luke each deserved a pair of shoes. And maybe Mommy needed some new running shoes. Now no more new shoes until July!! However, we will buying new socks.

Sleepy Sunday

2011-05-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Our Ward meets at 11:30 which is kind of a miserable time. Lunch time, nap time, play time. Poor Luke. We've finally got Sacrament down to a science. We all scrunch up on the left side of our pew. This works out well since my oldest three want to lounge all over me so the closer to me, the better. The Jandas sit on the other side of the pew as far over as they can. Luke then runs his train back and forth across the middle of the bench. Do not touch his train. Do not LOOK at him. Just throw some Apple Jacks in the tinder of the train every once in awhile and he's good to go.

Occasionally he'll hop up on the bench find Dustin and shout, "MOM!" Or take a train book to Kyle and make him flip the pages. Then he goes to Nursery where I'm sure he bullies the other kids.

After all that hard work he comes home and it's too late for a nap, so I try and keep him up through dinner and put him to bed early. He never makes it. This was right before dinner last week.Sundays are rough if you don't get a nap.

Oh, I love technology

2011-05-10T13:23:00.002-07:00

What did we do with our kids when they were sick in bed before iPads?And what did we do when we were at the Doctor's office and sitting in a cramped room for an hour waiting and there was no app for that?

And what about when we were in the car trying to find the nearest frozen yogurt store because when you're sick you really need a treat and there were no iPhones?

And how would my parents know how cute Sadie was when she was sick if there weren't blogs??

I should add that when Sadie is sick she is really really emotional. My favorite from this round of fevers was her grabbing me and crying, "You'll never not be here for me mama. You'll never leave us. You could never let me down mama."

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love being a mom!! Don't think there aren't days where I want to run into my bathroom, lock the doors and let them fend for themselves, but for the most part I really love my life. I love my kids and I enjoy making our home a fun place to be. I love making treats, reading books, playing games, coming up with projects, fixing dinner, snuggling, talking about important things, teaching them the Gospel and even cleaning and organizing. I don't think there is anything else in the world that could fulfill me like trying to make this house a safe haven. I consider it a commandment to find JOY and I hope I help my kids feel it everyday.

I look forward to the cute programs, sweet hand picked cards and hand made crafts that come with Mother's Day every year. The bad news is -- my kids are only getting bigger. Nate can read and no longer picks out the Buzz Lightyear Birthday card to give me for Mother's Day. And Ellie's gifts are actually stylish. Case in point:She MADE that! And I love it.

And lucky me got to go to TWO programs this year. Miss Becky's preschool program is always adorable. This is my fourth year and yet, Sadie was surprised that I knew some of the songs she was going to sing.She sang her little heart out. And then gave me this really cute plaque.
Nate made the same thing last year and I had it up on a plate stand. One night I came home to find Nate's on the floor and Sadie's replaced on the plate stand.

Nate's Kindergarten had Muffins with Mom.I was actually a little irritated about the whole thing. When Ellie was in Kindergarten it was in the afternoon in the classroom and a big production. This year it was at 7:30 in the morning (have you ever tried to find someone to watch your kids at 7:30 AM??? Thank you facebook!) in the cafeteria and with another class which made it really impersonal. Plus there was NO FOOD. Nate was so excited about the whole thing, so he didn't eat breakfast because we were going to eat breakfast at school. The whole way he told me we could only take *one* muffin. Well peeps, they were MINI muffins. I think even Luke, the food hater, would need more than a mini muffin and two strawberries for breakfast.

I forced my mini muffin on Nate and filled him up on strawberries. I hope they had a hearty snack! By the time all the moms and kids made it through the line, they had 5 minutes to sing.

The upside was Nate's enthusiasm. I love that boy! He is so fun to be around when he's excited about something. His whole face glows and you can't help but have fun.

Mother's Day morning all my kids came into bed with me and cuddled. I have been *waiting* for the day when my kids were old enough to just sit in bed and not demand to watch TV or roll all over me. It was PERFECT! Unfortunately, the whole sitting still thing didn't last through Sacrament and while Luke meandered up and down the row, Sadie fell asleep on me. I should have suspected that by the end of the night, we would have this:
Dustin made me a lovely dinner of stir fry shrimp and chocolate souffle, but poor Sadie was so sick she couldn't even eat hers. I decided that as a mother I should sacrifice and eats her dinner and dessert for her. See how great it is to be a mom???

BIG news

2011-05-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Nate stopped sucking his thumb!!

You know what you should never do -- promise Nate something. He will never.ever.forget.

About a year ago I was trying to get Nate to stop sucking his thumb so I promised him that when he did we would go to the Lego store and buy him ANY set he wanted. Well, he didn't stop and I stopped promising things. . . And then a month ago Nate announced that he had stopped sucking his thumb and he was ready for me to take him to the Lego store.

At first I didn't believe him. I told him that first I would need to check on him every night for two weeks to see if he had really stopped. That boy kept a countdown! "11 more nights mom until we go to the Lego store." And wouldn't you know, every time I went to check on him there he was sound asleep without a thumb in his mouth. I started popping in right after I sent him to bed to see if he was cheating. I would feel his thumb to make sure it wasn't wet. Sure enough, he had stopped sucking it.

HOORAY for Nate. And so luckily for me, I had bought a LEGO set at the Target after Christmas 75% off sale for a smoking deal and I talked him into accepting that as his reward. I think his face shows his feeling of triumph perfectly! I should add that he put the whole thing together by himself too. ANNNNNND. . . He lost two teeth the same weekend. Sniff sniff. He's getting so big!

Easter Sunday

2011-04-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I try and keep the secular aspects of Easter to a minimum. I do like the fun of the hunt, new clothes and having some goodies in their Easter baskets, though. Every year I swear I'm going to do it on Saturday and every year we get too busy. This year I was insistent that I was going to get everything ready Friday night. Of course, I ended up being exhausted after all the girls left Ellie's party and I decided that I'd just do it on Sunday like every other year. I headed off to bed, looking forward to sleeping in.

Of course Nate had overheard me saying I was hiding the eggs for Saturday and unaware of my sudden slothfulness, woke up Saturday morning at 6 am wondering where all the eggs were hidden.

Sunday was pretty much a repeat and all of the kids were in bed with us by 6:30 waiting for Luke to wake up so they go hunting. I am NOT looking forward to how early they're going to wake up for Christmas this year if this was their reaction to Easter.
To sum up the morning, let's just say the kids loved their baskets (sidewalk chalk, new swim suits, clothes and toys) but they are horrible egg seekers. A few days later I was still finding eggs in my shoes or behind pillows.
Despite missing a few dozen eggs, there still seemed to be plenty of candy. I think it's pretty much all that I ate the entire day. That and leftover cake from Ellie's party and birthday. In fact the only healthy food we ate all day was when we went to dinnerat my mom's Uncle Floyd's house. It was amazing to be with family on such a special day and we are so lucky to have some close by who adopt us whenever we need it.

I did try and take some picture of all the kids together and failed miserably. I think we all know who the problem was:I will even admit that I may have thrown a fit similar to Luke at one point in the day because I couldn't get them to just.sit.still.
Oh well, I will remember exactly what they were like at this point. A little wild, but perfectly mine!

Nine

2011-04-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

I think turning an odd number in age makes it seem like a huge jump. Nine. NINE! I can't believe my baby is nine. I know she's not a baby, but she was my *first* baby. And now she's my amazingly beautiful and tall nine year old daughter.The years have really flown by and I can honestly say that she is a JOY! Don't think there aren't times when Ellie can really try my patience, but for the most part she has been an amazingly fantastic daughter. She is incredibly helpful and fulfills everything I ask her to do. She is also so easy to be around. She's funny and thoughtful and loving pretty much all the time. Often times it's her suggesting to me that she is capable of handling more responsibility. She practically had to beg me to start taking out the trash (and my life is so much the better for it). I'm so grateful we have her in our family because she takes care of everyone.

For her birthday we let her pick the menu all day. First off, Bosa Donuts for breakfast. Dustin took the kids to see Hop after lunch, and then we hit up BJ's for dinner. For dessert she picked The Cheesecake Factory. I think she may have been slightly overwhelmed when I took her up to the counter and showed her all of the choices.

After cake, we opened her presents. I count the birthday party as my major gift to my kids, so we usually get just one small present. Ellie wanted a scooter and asked my parents for some sketchers twinkle toes. Wish granted!

In typical Ellie fashion, she loved everything and didn't demand anything over the top. She's the kind of kid that's happy with anything and always has fun. Ellie, I love you so much. Thank you for the sweet spirit and example you bring to our family!

Whoooooo had a Birthday?

2011-04-23T10:04:00.001-07:00

Being the first kid can't be that easy. I have some high expectations and I rely on Ellie for a lot of help. On the upside she gets a lot of perks that I won't mention for fear the other kids will read this one day and wonder why they don't get as many benefits. To my children in the future I offer this advice: work harder and whine less.

One of the perks for Ellie is her birthday party. Her birthday is at a great time of year usually because the holidays are over and summer is on my brain so I'm not stressed out or overwhelmed. I usually start planning it around February right after Valentine's Day is over.

This year she wanted to base her party around a pair of owl pajamas she has. I stumbled across a cute cute blog where the lady had made owls for all the girls. I immediately called my party planning co-conspirator (I think she'll like that better than "my sister who I always talk into my insane ideas") and asked her if she would make 8 owls for Ellie's party favors. With that, out theme was ready to take flight.

Ellie and Sadie were BIG helper. They designed and glued together the birthday party invites, which were ENORMOUS. I ended up just doing an e-vite for everyone, but Ellie still wanted to hand deliver some of the invites.

They also helped me make the cake.
Poor Sadie was really distraught when she couldn't come to the party. And even more distraught when every single girl we invited made it to the party, so there was no left over owl for her. Or Ellie.

We played 7-11, made lip gloss, played hide-and-go-seek in the dark, watched party of a movie, and went on a scavenger hunt for glow-in-the-dark stars. At the end of the night it was time for the owls. They were a HUGE hit. But, how could they not be loved and cherished. They are SO cute.

My sister is amazingly selfless and talented and if you don't have a sister like that, than I guess you must *BE* that sister. I am lucky enough that she loves Ellie and me so much that she put her blood sweat and tears into these. THANK YOU SCUTTLEBUTT!! And now I'm indebted to you for all of Livy's birthdays for the next 10 years.

SPOILER ALERT

2011-04-22T15:48:00.003-07:00

This blog post will discuss the validity of the Easter Bunny -- so if you have no desire to know, DO NOT READ THIS!We were having a very spiritual Family Home Evening on Monday discussing Easter and the reason we celebrate it. Sadie kept bringing up the Easter Bunny and finally I was so sick of listening to her try and squeeze the Easter Bunny into a lesson about Christ's Atonement that I blurted out, "THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY." Ellie already knew and I'm pretty sure Nate wasn't believing the whole giant bunny who brings eggs either, but I did feel kind of bad taking away some of Sadie's childhood.

She was sort of agog and stared at me with giant bug eyes, but we managed to get back to get everything back on track and finish things sort of spiritually. Then I turned secular and we dyed Easter Eggs.I should also mention that since I had spoiled the whole Easter Bunny thing, I also made them stuff their own Easter Eggs with candy. WIN for me!! Should I make them hide them too??Oh yeah, Luke was there too.And to wrap this up, Thursday was Sadie's Easter Egg hunt at school. First thing she said when I picked her up was, "MOM! The *real* *live* Easter Bunny came to our school and hid eggs." So I guess I didn't really rob her of anything.