Not Scrapbooking

This is what I do when no one shows up for Scrapbooking day:I found some tutorials on line and just had to try them. (Emma wore the hot pink one to New Beginnings and I wore the little red one.) What I really need is some good material to make them with, though. Mostly, all I have is cotton and cotton didn't work well at all. In fact the two pink ones were made with ribbon instead of material. I guess I am going to Joanne's, because I really need to try this one and this one two!!

I understand the value of the Lesson, but do I have to like it?

We were reading in 1Nephi the other day about the trials their family had crossing the wilderness and building a boat, so we began to talk about trials. We talked about their value and how we can help make them strengths, etc. Right now my back is having it's painful time. I started having back pain about 5 or 6 years ago. The first time it lasted for a year. Every day I was in pain, for an entire year! It was awful. During that time, I did a lot of research, tried a lot of different things, got a blessing. I have since figured out how to get over these bad days a lot faster. They usually last for 3 days- 2 weeks tops, now. I absolutely have to exercise. People think I am so committed to exercise- what I am really committed to is not being in pain (and not weighing 200 pounds!) I also have to eat right and control my stress level. These are all excellent things. I have very little self-motivation, so I know the back pain is the Lord giving me a little push to do the right things when it comes to my body. I also have developed a real empathy for those who come in to the ER for their pain. I used to see everyone as a drug seeker. Now I realize how bad that pain can wear you down until you don't care anymore and you just want it to stop! In a way, my back pain is a blessing in my life, but do I really have to like it?
We sold our home and had the inspection the other day. The night before the inspector came our water heater went out. We have had lots of problems with that water heater. I think it was defective to begin with. But we always eventually got the pilot light to light again. It always took a lot of time and at least one prayer, but it would eventually light. This time, it didn't. Rob worked really hard on it and prayed. We prayed as a family. I prayed. During my prayer, the thought came to me that if it lit, we would continue to ignore the fact that it had problems and probably move out of the house with the new tenant (a single mother) moving in. What would happen when the water heater went out on her. I got the distinct impression that this was happening now, to make us take care of the problem for good, so that she didn't have to deal with that. I have so much more empathy for single mother's since Robert was deployed to Iraq. I wasn't upset anymore, but do I really have to like the 2 days we had to bundle all the kids up and trudge through the snow up to the gym to take our showers?
Do I have to thank God for my trials, or do I just have to thank him for the lessons we have learned because of them? And can't I wish their was an easier, less painful way of learning these things?

Productive

The kids had about 2 weeks off from school, because of all the snow. Usually this would have really bummed me out and caused distress, because I couldn't seem to get anything done, but since it caused most things around the DC area to come to a screeching halt as well, I got all kinds of things done that I had been meaning to do!

I read lots of books- most of which I was not impressed with and will be throwing away. I really have to be more selective when it comes to modern day authors. They like to throw out lots of swear words, throw in a gay couple or two and lots of sex- no matter what the story is actually about. I did enjoy The Tales of Beetle the Bard by JK Rowlings, though. I also enjoyed a book that Emma brought home with true stories about World War 2. I have said before that I enjoy a good historical story, but for some reason World War 2 fascinates me.

We played games as a family and build LegosWe went to the new Percy Jackson movie. I liked the books a whole lot better!

I finally got to making this sign that some of the sister did together in November.

I finished 2 more aprons. One for me and one for one of the winners of my little contest. Rebecca promised to tell me how it went, so let's hear it Rebecca! I still have one more winner to make something for. If I do this again, I may have to give myself less time than a year to fulfill the requirement! A year is just way too much time to procrastinate!

We went and saw the Enola Gay, a trainer Space shuttle, some Top Gun aircraft and other fun things at the Air and Space Museum out by the Dulles airport.

We logged tons of time on the TV, Playstations, Wii, and computer.
We did homework
We played in the snowWe made Valentines- For the primary teachers I just made a sign that said, It takes a lot of ----
to serve the way you do. Thank you from the bottom of mine and then I affixed a chocolate heart on it in the appropriate place. For the kids for school (which may not even happen now!) I bought little things of bubbles and cut out bubble shapes that said, "Valentine's you blow me away."
We played with friends.
We went running in a blizzard, all so that we didn't have to dig our truck out of the snow bank.
It was a good 2 weeks, but I am definitely ready for them to go back, now!!

Sometimes I just have to Shake my Head!

Warning: If you don't have a house full of boys, you probably will be entirely grossed out by this conversation!

So these are the kind of conversations I have had to get used to as a Mom with 3 boys. Joseph has a problem with eating good food and therefore has problems having bowel movements. We give him Benefiber every day in his juice (when we remember!) to help with this- otherwise he can go up to 2 weeks without having any movement. Today after Robert reminded Joseph to get some fiber in his juice, the conversation went something like this:

Joe: If my belly is full of poop then Monsters won't eat me.
Rob: But monsters love poop! That's why they are monsters. So they would actually go for you first.
Joe: But they wouldn't know- they don't have x-ray vision.
Rob: But they could smell you and smell that you were full of poop.
Joe: I don't think they really like to eat poop.
Rob: They do! My monster friend, Hercumer George loves to put poop on a stick and freeze it and eat it for dessert.

This is the point where I put my head down in my hands and just started shaking my head. Who else has these kinds of conversations at breakfast?

The Snowpocolyps- a collection of short stories!

In Which I Show that I have Some Mad Skillz!

Snowpocolyps hit the DC area this weekend. Unfortunately, I am essential personnel, being an ER nurse; therefore, I trudged into work on Friday before it got too bad in my 4 wheel drive truck. I was armed with white chocolate popcorn as provisions and extra clothes and boots (just in case.) During the 6 hours I was there it continued to dump snow like crazy. It also didn't help that the "snow removal crew" for the hospital happened to be drunk, but that's another story and one lost job! Many of the nurses spent the night in our transitional care unit. The OR sent down scrubs for the next day for everyone. I decided that I just wanted to go home, so after digging myself out of the parking lot- once again the "snow removal crew" didn't do such a hot job, I slowly made it through the storm to my home. The rest of the snow removal crew need to take a long lesson in Idaho or Wyoming, because they weren't doing such a great job either. One of them was coming right down the middle of the road at me, so I had to go to the side. The snow grabbed my wheels and almost sent me over the edge. Do they not know that you need to remove the snow down both sides, not right in the middle? Also they weren't putting their snow shovels all the way down, so their wheels were making big ruts while the rest of the snow was being left there. The next day when we went out, they still hadn't shoveled all kinds of places. What exactly were they doing all night?
Arriving home, began the tricky part- parallel parking! I just had to take a picture. I ran out in the snowstorm to get this picture of my mad skillz! I parallel parked a truck in a snowstorm! I had to get that out there, because I know that guys like girls with skillz! (Rob said it made me walk around like I had just killed a bear.)

In Which We Take Out a Couple of Boys on an Air Mattress

This being Virginia at the end of January, beginning of February it is impossible to find a sled this time of year. In fact a lot of pool stuff is out now- not blow up rings, but pool cleaner and goggles and floaty suits- useless! So instead, I bought us an air mattress. It turned out to be the perfect sled. All the kids could ride at the same time, it flattened out wide and distributed the weight so that the kids just didn't sink in the powder. Here we are trying it out the first couple of times. After we cleared a path, it started to get faster and faster.
Unfortunately, we didn't pick the best sledding hill. We didn't want to go far from home, so we didn't look too hard. This is what happens when you end your sledding run in a forest!
This one decided to stop our ride with his face in a tree. This one got scraped up by a bunch of brush.

In Which Emma gets stuck

This one was just hilarious! I had to get a picture. But even when she got her legs down, she coudn't get her head out of the hole by herself. She did this just by tipping to far over while trying to make an E in the snow with her feet.

In Which All Your Needs Can Be Met with Snow

Emma's and her friend's creation: Now you don't have to go inside and get out of all your snow clothes every time you need to go!

In Which Joseph Makes a Few Bucks!

Joseph decided to open his own hot chocolate stand. He did a great job. He brought the card table upstairs all by himself. He made a sign. He got everything set out beautifully- hot chocolate, spoons and cups. He deserved the money he earned. When we all had our hot chocolate he said, "I love this job!"

It's Science Fair Time again!

This year Emma is doing it on static electricity. She let me do most of the charging of electrons, so she could time and measure- Isn't she the sweetest! LOL- especially since it was after my weightlifting class! Ow, my arms hurt!!

This is Why you have Children

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