Introducing the Newest Member of Our Family....

Patches, the guinea pig, (look carefully, Anna's holding him) aka another blatant attempt to stall getting a dog as long as I possibly can.

Going for a ride on the toy fire engine wondering why on earth those mean pet store people let him be adopted.

The most bitter family member about the fact that patches isn't a dog. "Guinea pigs are nothing like dogs, what good are they?" Yeah, that's the point.

Update

A random shot of the kids on Mothers' day, particularly nice of Ben in the doll stroller, don't you think?

First order of business, see and PLEASE reply to the post just before this one.

We had such a great weekend and it was the perfect antidote to whatever ailed us the week before. Thanks, by the way for all of your sympathy. Sunday night we met with my Mom's fun family at the cemetery and then to my aunt's home for a delicious BBQ and great company. Monday morning we rolled out of bed and packed up for a day at the park in one of the most beautiful, picturesque mountain valleys ever with my Dad's family. We arrived to a yummy breakfast served up by my parents and aunts and uncles and then settled in for fun. I passed up volley ball this year, but Brennan played and loved it. The kids had endless amounts of fun on the playground, a hike a long the river with a brave uncle and brother of mine, an exciting soccer game and just hanging with all the other kids. Good times. I was sure to bring my camera to both events, but was having too much fun to actually take a picture :(

For the end of school the teachers don't typically do SEP Conferences (Student, Educator, Parent), but Anna's teacher said she wanted to do them anyway. I went down with Anna yesterday and was so touched by this sweet teacher. She got emotional as she said, "Anna, I want you to always remember your fifth grade teacher loved you and expects to hear great things from you." I was in tears by the end of it and so grateful for wonderful teachers. I'm sure she did that for each of her students. Anyway, she only had some of their end of level testing totally graded, but for the science portion Anna got the highest score in her class. That kind of blows my very unscientific mind! We love Anna.

Abigail has been busy preparing for her class talent show, it's actually a shared talent show with their study buddy class who happens to be Anna's class. Anyway, she decided she would write a poem and share it for her talent. She composed it and then carefully typed it and pasted it onto a darling little backdrop. I'll have to try and get it from her and scan it later, but here's what her poem says:

I think I'm cool

I think I'm great

I love my self at least

better than fish bait"

We love Abby.


The other day we pulled up to my nephew Abe's birthday party which began at the fire station. As I drove up I looked around and said, "Looks like we beat the guest of honor." Nate immediately asked, "What the heck is a yestabonner?" He does that ALL the time and it cracks me up every time. He was then really worried about the fact that we brought a present for Abe when Eliza had specifically told us not to worry about gifts. He, like his mother, takes rules very seriously and thought about it for a while before saying, "Mom, just tell Liza we accidentally brought Abe a present." We love Nathan.


My mom asked the boys the other day what they thought our baby was going to be, a girl or boy. Nate quickly replied that he really hoped it was a boy. Benny said, "I hope it's a girl for my Mommy." Awwww. On Memorial Day when we were at the park he stayed very busy playing but at one point as I walked by the playground he looked up and saw me and said, "Mom! I'm so glad to see you!" We love Benjamin.

Abey's 3rd birthday bash

Belle really enjoyed the cake

What's For Dinner?

PLEASE, please blurkers (I realize I flatter myself that I have some) and regulars alike I NEED your input. What do you make for dinner every night? I am so in a rut and would love to know what you make night after night after night. Especially any great summer ideas. Also, what do you grill other than hamburgers and hot dogs?

Update

Here's one of my little lists that helps sum up our week:

Try not to be distracted by how pretty my hand-writing is.

When the kids are sick I let them watch a lot more tv/movies than I normally would because there's not much else they can do to keep their minds off their misery (the stoicism gene seemed to have passed us up all together). Can I just say that I HATE having the tv on a lot, it sucks the life out of everyone and everything and is just plain depressing.

Ben crawled into my bed a few nights ago to tell me "my nose are bugging me!". He also keeps changing his status from "I'm feeling better!" to "I not feeling very well again, Mom" depending on which is most useful for him at the moment. One time I asked him how his throat was feeling and he told me it hurt because it was in his tummy. He also told Anna if she didn't move away from him he would throw up on her, (even though none of them has thrown up - thankfully!). We love Ben.

Nate got pink eye right after Ben did and was super worried about the eye drops involved. When I took him to the doctor our good doc. told Nate he had a irritation-free method and instructed me to put the drop in the inside corner of his closed eye then open it and let it run in. Nate was so excited to get his drops each time and has told me about 353 times that we have the nicest doctor in the entire world. That saved so much grief, what a blessing. Plus we were able to use our new method with Anna and Abby when they got it the next day. We love Nate.

Abigail has had the worst of it and is kind of a worrier, so she's been in tears several times asking me if she was going to die. It was really sad. She was tested for the flu which was negative, but she's still convinced she has the Swine Flu. When we can keep her fever down she perks right up though and is as entertaining as always telling us that a couple of boys in her class want to be "stunk devils". I think she meant stunt doubles/dare devils?? We love Abby.

When Anna gets bored she likes to tease and she's had 3 perfectly vulnerable victims at her disposal so, I think she's actually kind of enjoyed herself this week :) She's also truly been extremely helpful and cheerful for the most part. Today I left her in charge so I could run get more medicine and evidently the boys went into full battle mode. When I got home she had them both in time-out and had managed to talk both of them down. I was so grateful and impressed she handled it all so well in spite of not feeling well at all.

Brennan has been a true hero, he's the latest victim of this sickness but has still managed to work hard at work and then come home to 5 grumpy people and pick up the slack while his healthy but good-for-nothing wife lays around with her eyes glazed over. We love Brennan.

The boys seem to be back to their healthy selves and I think the girls are well on their way to a full recovery - woo hoo!!! I've been so grateful all of this happened while baby is still inside me, I would have been so stressed out to have a newborn exposed to all of this. So many tender mercies. Yay for the end of this week and a holiday weekend and a whole new week ahead.

Happy Holiday!

I've written before about our perhaps freakish devotion to the Memorial Day holiday. I think I also managed to jinx that year because we got rained out and while we bravely carried on inside a few different church buildings, it's just not the same when we can't be at our special park. Anyway, we were looking at the calendar a few days ago when Brennan asked, "What do we do for Memorial Day?" GASP. What? I'm not sure he's invited this year. The funny thing is he LOVES this day as much as I do. Sigh.

I told the kids about what their Dad had said and they were as horrified and outraged as I was. Then Abby said, "I LOVE the part of Memorial Day where we go to the park, but I HATE the part where we remember the dead." We all cracked up, but we also knew that it's not because she thinks the graves are boring, it's because it makes her so sad to think and talk about the people who have died, most of whom she's never met in this life at least.

Have a happy Memorial Day!

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

Not if it means I have to quit relying on my parents. I really, really don't. I'm 35 years old and in some ways I think I depend on them more now than I ever have. Obviously, I depended on them a lot when I was young, but I didn't completely grasp then what I know now -- that they are two of the most amazing people on earth. They're incredibly intelligent, self-less, faithful, etc., etc., etc.

I feel so blessed to live a mere 3 minutes away from them. After watching every one of my kids collapse onto the couch last night in complete misery from some awful, no-good virus I started to feel a little overwhelmed. First thing this morning who did I call? GHOSTBUSTERS, just kidding, you guessed it, my very busy Dad on his way to a special legislative session stopped in to help Brennan give all our kids a priesthood blessing. What a huge comfort. Then, as I got out of the shower later this morning I heard my mom calling my name. She was there to just see what we needed and also cleaned my kitchen.

We love our parents!

Update

We had our last soccer games for the season yesterday. It's always so much fun, but I am also always grateful to have our Saturdays back when the season is over. Anna, Abby and Nate all played this last year and all of them played their guts out and loved it.

Not this weekend, but the one before that we got to have John and Jamie, (Brennan's step-dad and Mom) come stay with us. Everything is always more exciting and fun with Grandparents around. We loved having them for a visit and look forward to the next one.

Anna is still on a high from the fact that due to some logistical mishap she and several other students and parents got a ride back to school from their field trip on one bus while all of the teachers and most of the students got stuck waiting for another 2 hours for the other 2 buses. Anna and her friends were teacher-less for 2 happy hours. She still lights up when she talks about it. She's been working so hard lately with lots of school projects and end of level testing, I'm really proud of her. I think too, these last few days she's kind of tuned into the fact that I am lacking energy and so sweetly made extra efforts to be helpful. We love Anna.


Abigail, the girl who hates having her hair done, begged me to curl it the other morning before school. When I asked what prompted this change in behavior she replied frankly, "Paige and I decided we would look really cute so we could be popular." "Hmmn, aren't you already pretty popular?" "Yeah, but not as popular as Samantha or ______, but ______ is mean popular and we don't want to be like that." When she got home that day I asked her if their plan had worked and she said, "Well, everyone told us how much they liked our hair, but we just couldn't act popular, mostly we just act weird." I guess they have resigned themselves to being their goofy selves and mid-level popularity. She was in the room yesterday while one of the other kids was listing to me all the reasons they shouldn't have to do their Saturday chores. Abby sincerely and sweetly interjected, "_____, I've found that if I'm happy I can do my chores a lot quicker." We love Abby.


Nate was with my Mom the other day and she took him and Ben to a little boutique type store. Evidently it was kind of a significant eye-opening experience. When I asked them what they had done Nate said, "Grandma took us to this store and it was NOT at ALL like Wal-mart!" He was seriously impressed. One of my favorite things about Natey is how transparent he is. When he is happy it's written all over him, his smile, his eyes, his whole body. That's what he's like when he's playing T-ball and soccer, you can see it in the way he runs even. It's so much fun to watch. We love Nathan.

Yesterday I sort of unconsciously rolled through a stop sign when Ben piped up with, "Mom, the sign says STOP!" Whoa, busted by my 3 year old. Poor little Ben's been sick this week too with allergies and then an eye infection. Unfortunately he HATED the eye drops we had to give him. It was so sad to pin him down and pry his little eyes open while he screamed bloody murder. Whenever I said, "Ben, it's time to do your eye drops." He would stop and look at me with total exasperation and say, "WHAT? Againnnnn?!!!" We're definitely noticing a change since he turned 3, he has even more opinions and is a little less patient with us when we don't live up to his expectations. It's a tough job to be the boss of the world when you're 3. We love Benny.

Trials and Blessings

Frankly, this last week has been a tough one. Two of my kids have been really struggling with OCD. They've each had these tendencies to various degrees for a while now, but the last week or so we've seen it kind of completely take over. We've racked our brains for what could have possibly triggered this, but have been completely stumped. Today my wonderful visiting teachers (2 women in my ward who visit me monthly to share a message and see if I have any needs) were here and I unloaded all my worries on them. One of them suggested that perhaps all the talk of the Swine Flu has been the trigger. She talked about how her kids who normally don't worry at all about such things have been really anxious. The teachers have been extra careful and talked a lot to the kids about washing hands and germs etc. I think she's right and am so grateful for her insight, as I think about it it's so obvious but we never connected those dots.

I'm hoping that as the Swine Flu scare passes, we can phase back into a more manageable state soon. It's heartbreaking to watch your children struggle with things and be so powerless to help them. My visiting teachers also helped me remember that Heavenly Father loves Brennan and me and our kids and will not abandon us in these difficulties. We're trying to have hope and faith that these things will ultimately be for our kids' good and help them gain a testimony of the role of the Savior in their lives and that through Him we can overcome all things. And really if they can learn that at an early age, what more could a parent want?

A New Addiction

I believe that we all should be striving for moderation in all things. That you can have too much of a good thing, or in other words even good things or habits can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. That said, I also believe most of us tend towards the extreme and all have our addictions. Most of us understand on a rational logical level that everyone has their weaknesses and that it serves no purpose to compare our weaknesses with those around us because in the end it seems to all even out. However, we all have those people in our lives who's extremes or addictions are things like exercising too much, too obsessed with eating healthily, cleaning too much, too organized etc. As I said, I believe even those things can be carried to an unhealthy extreme, but not a lot of people walk into Miss skinny-toned-spotless's house and focus on her flaws, right? Right. And, oddly enough no one has ever asked me to teach a class on "How to Live in Clutter" or "How to Gain Weight".

All of that was just my very long-winded way of announcing to the world that I finally have one of those kind of admirable addictions - saving money!!!!! Yessiree, about a month ago my friend and her sister came and taught some of my family members and friends the art of couponing. I am merely a novice, but my love and enthusiasm for this new hobby grows leaps and bounds each time I go to the store and save money. I have yet to really even maximize the actual coupons, but thanks to a fabulous website (find your state and click on it), I can see which store has what on sale and even have it be broken down into 1-5 stars according to how good a deal it is, and then told which coupon to use and how much it will end up being. Anyway, I can't explain the rush I get when the cashier rings up my order and I start panicking when I see a subtotal of $124 (trying to stick to a $50 weekly food storage budget) and then I watch in pure delight as all of my savings start registering and I watch that total take a nose dive and end up at $62.00 (okay so it's a little over $50, but I feel fine about it and Brennan will too when I bring up how much he's spent on golf lately:) ) and then come home and unload a ton of food. It's absolutely thrilling. I'm seriously looking for just the right wall to hang all my receipts up on. To wrap up this exciting post, let me just conclude by saying, try not to be annoyed with me for saving too much money.

What I Did Today

Another busy day at our house. You know the usual -- laundry, cleaning, refereeing, chauffeuring, etc., oh and a few other things: First of all I tried unsuccessfully to convince the boys there are no ghosts residing on our street. Sunday all the kids were outside and noticed a parked running car in front of a neighbor's house without anyone in it. When they rode back by the car was gone. This, of course, can only mean one thing - a ghost.

Debated what to do with dead pet frog Guacamole, to flush or not to flush? As usual, the kids had strong feelings and it looks like there will be a burial and services. You're all invited. I personally will not miss frog a great deal, but will greatly miss Benny saying "Mockamowee".

A little later I uncovered a conspiracy to sneak a kitten into our home as a secret pet. After about 1,356 phone calls between a certain child and this certain child's friends, I began to suspect something was up. I managed to interrogate the truth out of said child without water boarding. Said child enjoyed plotting way too much and I even found my calendar/planner in the room they had been conspiring in. Looking for a day that looked open for them to smuggle kitty in, I guess.

Sigh.

All in a day's work.

Movie Recommendation

My parents recommended the movie Fireproof to us a while ago. We finally got around to watching it tonight and want to add our endorsement. When it first started Brennan said, "Is this some marriage counseling movie? Are your parents trying to get us all to have a little marriage counseling?" You know what it really is, only it will only cost you $1 at your local redbox. Seriously, it reminded me a lot of the book Peacegiver which I love. It was so refreshing to watch something about something so real and so important. Kirk Cameron is in it and I think he and the other main characters did a great job. It's definitely worth seeing.