Poster Child

Rob's boards are meeting in February, so he has been desperately trying to get his files ready. Being at an Air Force base has made this a little harder than usual. First of all, he had to get new shoulder boards. He told me he was going to go to clothing sales to see if they had any. Yeah, right Rob, they are going to have a plethora of Army boards- for sure with your branch and rank- on an Air Force base. He said, he just had to try. He was back home soon afterward. Needless to say, we had to wait until January. We had New Year's in Ft. Knox with a friend and he was able to pick up his shoulder boards there. When he went in they took the photo and then made him one to keep, calling it his "Angel" profile. A week later, the photo still wasn't on his electronic file. He called and the gentleman said that it kept being sent back to him with error messages. Rob had to figure it out for himself. In short they had the wrong background- it was the darker blue instead of the lighter blue. The guy tried to cut Rob out and put him on the lighter blue background, but this looked too obviously photoshoped. Photoshoping is not allowed. So Rob had to go back and take another day to get another photo. This actually was a good thing, because they found several other problems with his photo- the main one being that they had made him a Military Intelligence officer. Hmmm- sorry buddy- not even close! After they finally looked up all the regulations and got his photo perfect they made a blank template with Rob's photo on it for future weirdo Army officers that want to come to an Air Force base to get their board photo done. I always knew that one day Rob would become the Poster Child for something!

Reflections on our Birthday

Tuesday when I got home from shopping, Max asked me if I liked pretzels and chocolate. I said, "yes" and then he said that he was going to make me some for my birthday. Sam was over there running around shushing him. I figured out that Sam must have done something like this already and that's how Max came up with the idea. I went along trying to put the groceries away and doing my thing until Rob came in and saw the Max had climbed on the counter and gotten down the pretzels and the butterscotch chips, then he decided to help Max out. They worked together to make me some beautiful chocolate covered pretzels and then put them in Max's room to be presented to me in the morning. In the end I got 2 sets of chocolate covered pretzels- Max had taken the idea completely from Sam. Sam even made a set for Emma. He stole into her room and put them by her bed so that she would wake up with them next to her. He really is a sweet boy.

Robert took me out on Monday for my birthday. We went and did a little shopping and then headed to a movie after a quick stop at Chipotle (because their fabulous!) It was a nice relaxing date.

Friday was Emma's Shop 'til you Drop party. I made a purse cake and finally got my birthday banner fixed! Yeah!! I love my birthday banner!She has invited 3 church friends and 3 school friends over. I took them to the mall and had them play a scavenger hunt. They had to find things like a clown, someone wearing a feather boa, the ugliest dress they had ever seen, a panda, polka dots, a pink mannequin, a deer, etc. and they had an hour to do it in. When they got back I gave them all $5 gift cards to Claire's and we headed over there. While we were there one of the girls got her ears pierced for the first time. Don't worry the mother actually followed us there so that she could be with her when she got it done.

It would have been a really fun party except that in the mall the girls started realizing how different they were. Two of the girls wanted to keep shopping and bought some kind of coffee creation. They also went right into Spencers- a store, I even stay out of. The other girls stayed out of it, except Emma who went in to get them out. Then when we got home and turned on the PG movie, "Confessions of a Shopaholic" each of the three swear words in the movie made the church girls squirm. By then the other two (one of the three school girls was a good catholic girl and was a little closer to our church girls) were really making fun of the other girls until they all decided to go home. Emma was super mad! She couldn't believe I had allowed her to invite one of the girls (who was the worst,) since I told her that I knew exactly what she was going to be like just from her telling me about their every day interactions. I explained that if I had told her "no" to inviting her, she would have just thought I was judging the girl unfairly and being mean. Now she knew exactly what she was like for real and so she could be nice to her, just not go to any of her parties! (which for sure would involve "hot guys", sneaking out the house, and alcohol!) I realized once again how odd we Mormons are. Our children aren't allowed to date until they are 16, we don't watch R rated movies, we don't drink alcohol or coffee or tea or smoke or do drugs (not even as an experiment). We go to church every week and read scriptures at night and do family activities. We dress modestly even at the swimming pool. We really are just weird compared to the rest of the world, but how glad I am to be so weird and know that my children will be protected because of it.
I didn't always have the luxury of church friends. Especially in my last two years of high school there was me, one girl that was older than me (we never really became friends), and a guy my age, which I dated. Then there were my siblings and a couple other kids that were a few years younger than us in our church. So my friends were all non-Mormons. I went to some pretty bad parties. At one of them it was a friend's birthday party and someone had given her a bottle of tequila. She said she was going to drink half of it before she stopped. I didn't really know much about alcohol poisoning at the time, but I still had the feeling that it would be really bad for her to do that, so while I helped her around and kept her from jumping in the lake, I slowly poured out the bottle on the ground. I think in the end she still got about a quarter of it in her, though. There is such a peace of mind that comes from knowing that my daughter won't be out around a bonfire and a lake trying to down a half a bottle of tequila on her birthday!! Once again I am thankful that we are odd!

The Snow ritual

There are many snow rituals out there- dancing in front of the refrigerator with your pajamas on backwards and inside out is one of my favorites. I keep hoping if I wear my pajamas right side in and dance backwards in front of the refrigerator that it will cause a heat wave, but I haven't tried it yet. But the one that my kids subscribe to is this:

1. Wear your pajamas inside out and backwards.
2. Throw three ice cubes down the toilet.
3. Sleep with a spoon under your pillow.
It's guaranteed by all higher brains to bring snow. It did today, too, unfortunately they were already at school when it started! I guess it wasn't guaranteed to bring snow at a certain time!

The Tooth Fairy visits

We are in the throws of Tooth Fairy visits! She comes quite regularly to our house, except for Emma, who will sadly never see her again. But just when I was getting a little complacent, I was looking at my baby's mouth while he was talking and noticed something was amiss. I made him stop and looked closer. (He was not very cooperative!) And do you know what I found- a loose tooth! Not only loose, but loose enough to be coming out of it's socket. He did not want it yanked out by the dental floss, but we should have done it. The next day we came home from a date and found a tooth on the counter in a little baggie. What does it say about your life when your baby has lost his first tooth? I guess mostly it says, "you need to stop calling him baby!'' I think of that every time I call him "baby!"

Snow Days

The school is being very careful about their snow days. They only gave us 3 this year and we now have none left. The one day that it was snowing like crazy, they went to school and just came home an hour early. Sam said the bus slipped a couple of times. When Emma got home, Joseph said, "here's Emma. She made it home safe!" Next year they are taking all their snow days away. I don't understand it. I would assume that somehow it will save them money. So here we are in the middle of January- every one knows that February is the worst- with no snow days left. I know some schools have already had to make some of their days up- going to school on Martin Luther King Jr. day. What an uproar that caused! I think the media forgot to add that most of those schools are also going on Presidents day (mostly because that would make the news not so "dramatic!")
Anywho... We did have fun sledding at the golf course the one day in January that we got off- at least the kids did. By the time I got all my stuff on and walked over there, they were freezing and ready to come home- especially Max who was being a big baby and getting a sled dog out of their friend Joey.Bummer!

What it's like to be me Jan 2011

Emma had a project for Spanish class to make a calendar. She kept asking for my help and I kept being busy. Finally it came down to the day before the project was due and I had time to help. We spent a couple hours making this. After making the first two, Emma said, "creativity is only 20 points, Mom!" Ok, but I couldn't do it halfway, right? Rob just shook his head and said, "why couldn't you just make this on Power point? Um, cause I still don't know how to use Power point and neither does Emma. I have used Printshop forever and I am teaching myself to use Photoshop Elements, so learning Power point is out! When I become a power executive, I will learn how to use Power point!
One thing I used to do was put a little note in everyone's lunch boxes. I did it up until about a month or two ago. I didn't know this until the other day, but Emma collected a bunch of hers and put them in the outside cover of her binder. Some of them still make me laugh! I really need to do that again!
We decided to try and motivate the kids to really do their goals this year, so I put up their chore charts (finally) and added the goals to them. At the end of the week, we get to do something as a family, if everyone did their goals that week. This weekend we went to see Megamind for our treat. We had waited long enough that it was on the cheap theater and so we got into a 3D movie with all of us for just $30! Sweet!
Sunday we had the couple over whose dog we babysat and they brought Malo over with them! He was really excited to see us and gave lots of kisses! It was so funny to see Rob baby talk to that thing over and over and give it hugs and love! The kids just ran around him until I think he got a little tired of them!
I am still not used to getting up at 6 am. I know that's not even early. I just hate it in the winter! Who wants to get out of a nice warm bed into the cold and dark beginnings of the day. Winter time was invented to give us extra rest, I swear and modern society is just ruining that for all of us! Luckily, I think there is a storm rolling in today- so maybe we can sleep in tomorrow!
I have gained back almost every pound I lost before the cruise, I still haven't tried out my big Christmas gift, and I just finished getting all the stuff done that I needed to get my Ohio's nurses license (yes I procrastinated big time!) I like being an ER nurse, but it's still a job and sometimes a really stressful and thankless job. I hate going to a new place and having to learn all their stuff. Everyone does it all so different. And when you only work 1 day a week, it gets really difficult to learn fast! And that's what it's like to be me, these days!

A Spelunkin' New Year

For New Year's we decided to head down south to Kentucky and visit our Friends at Ft. Knox. This is the only picture we could get of the Bullion depository- because generally they frown on anyone taking pictures or thinking they can take a tour!
We did however enjoy ourselves with lots of food, a game of Ultimate Frisbee, Ultimate Football and family style Soccer. It was a really fun day and wore both Joseph's out so that they couldn't make it to the New Year!The next day we headed to one of the many caves in the area and spelunked! Does one spelunk? Well, we went spelunking any way. (I had some pictures of this, but they seem to have disappeared on both my computer and my phone! Hopefully the Dean's will e-mail a copy of theirs to us and then I can insert them later.)
The start of the cave was like mailing yourself in a mail-slot- you had to get nice and flat. It opened up into a nice cavern with a waterfall that Joseph accidentally stood underneath. It then got tighter and tighter and then opened up again and then went tighter and tighter again until you squeezed yourself through a small hole near the top of the cave- ladder and rope included. At the end there was nice size cavern with some stalactites and stalagmites that looked like a crocodile mouth and a dog. Going back through the small hole was one of the scariest parts (besides mailing yourself into the cave!) You had to go backwards and hang over the edge and really commit to going before you found the ladder! 4 of our 9 flashlights went out during our trip with 17 people. It got a little dark!
In the end, one of our best New Year's experiences ever! We love the Dean's! Thank you so much for having us!!

A Keeper

I had to include these little stories, just because they are "keepers."
One day before Christmas the kids' bus driver called to say that he played Santa and would Joseph and Samuel like to talk with him. I said sure and gave the phone to them. They talked with him and then hung the phone up. Max came blazing around the corner and yelled, "hey, what about me!" Darn, I knew I should have mentioned him and asked for him to speak to him as well! Trying to do a quick smooth over, I started to say that Santa was very busy and so I talked with him real quick at the beginning to confirm what Max wanted. Then Dad jumps in and says, "yeah, we told him you wanted a hippopotamus- that's right, isn't it?" Oh, the horror! The broken dreams! It was too much for our little guy! Now all he was getting for Christmas was a hippopotamus!! He ran away crying. It was so sad, yet so cute! Don't worry dear reader, we did not let the illusion go on for more than a second. We promised him that we really told him that he wanted books and Legos and a bumble bee mask (transformers). Dad did tease him a little after that, though, just to make sure he didn't really want a hippopotamus- because really doesn't every kid "want a hippopotamus for Christmas to play with and enjoy!"
The last Sunday I had my 14-15 year old Sunday school class before they moved up to the next class, we had a party. I brought tons of treats. One young man looked at all the treats and said, "you do know there are only 6 of us, right?" Then we had a closing prayer before we ate them. The young man that gave the prayer blessed the food that it would not make them sick. After saying Amen, I turned to him and said, "thank you, that was perfect!" Really, you couldn't bless all those fattening sugary treats any better than that. Although, I would really like to bless it to pass right on through without stopping at my thighs on the way out, but I think maybe God just wouldn't do that!