Category: Uncategorized (Page 98 of 118)

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Weekend! We had a nice one, here in Highland.
–Friday night the kids colored easter eggs. When you have 5 kids, you tend to color a lot of eggs. We did about 4 dozen this year. John goes for quantity, and went through about 10 himself in the same amount of time it took the more particular girls to do 6 or 7. But we made a big mess and everyone had fun.

–On Saturday, I went out garage sale shopping for the first time this year, and went with Michelle’s entire family! Thanks for letting me tag along, I had a fun time! As soon as I got home I took Natalie to her freezing cold soccer game, and then came home and got the house cleaned up for a family party. We had a fun time with my sisters and their families, and our stand itn grandparents, Sandra and Walt. We had a fun easter egg hunt, and cooked up some burgers. It wasn’t nice enough weather to eat outside (darn), but we found a place for everyone inside (I love my large table and bench!) and had a fun time. It was quite loud with all those kids (16) and adults (8), but we love to get together with family.

–On Sunday we had a lovely Stake Conference in the Alpine Tabernacle, and I’m happy to report that none of our belongings were dropped from the balcony onto the heads of unsuspecting people this time. Although I didn’t buy the kids new clothes (they don’t care) and didn’t spend hours and hours making cute new dresses (they really don’t care), I think they looked pretty cute. We topped off the weekend with a visit to Ryan’s parents and the kids enjoyed playing with grandma and granpa and cousins there, too. We should be exhausted from all the festivities, but spring break is just beginning! Wait and see what we do this week!

I’m doing some cleaning today (shock, I know!), and I’m having trouble with the central vac. It seems some little round thing ALMOST the same size as the hose has gotten stuck in there, and it blocks the hose and then there is no suction. Well, there’s not No suction, but the suction is severely compromised. So, last night I asked Ryan if he could fix it, because–really, what can’t he fix? So, he turned the hose around, stuck the nozzel into the wall part, and sucked it right out. But today, as I go to vacuum my floors, again there is no suction. The little round thing (which I can see, but can’t get at) is back stuck at the end of the hose. He sucked it through the hose, but it didn’t get out of the hose.

I’ve tried tweezers (not long enough), tongs (too wide, can’t fit them into the hose), two knives held together like chopsticks (I can grab it, but can’t get it past the ring on the end), and scissors (I thought I could just cut it into two pieces and it would come out). Nothings working. So, I can’t vacuum–ugh, and I’ve wasted at least 20 minutes trying to figure out this stupid problem by myself.

In other news, I went out and did some weeding yesterday–about an hour, I’d say, and burned my chest. Only in the shape of my v-neck t-shirt, but it was SO RED and itchy. It always does that on that spot. Could I have a localized allergy to sun? I don’t even look at all sun kissed anywhere else on my body, and my chest will look absolutely red. Whatever. I just need to remember to sunscreen my chest. Wierd.

And here’s John playing a song for Sundance.

How great would it be to have a magic backpack like Dora, where anything you needed was already in there? Your child poops his pants? Well, in the backpack is a diaper, wipes, and clean clothes! You get a spot on your clean blouse right before a date? Well, in the backpack is another blouse (and pants to match.) You get a flat tire? Don’t worry–there’s one in the backpack.

Diego has one, too, but it has cool “emergency” things like rafts and ziplines. His would be useful to anyone on the Amazing race! Although it wouldn’t have been too helpful with Lori trying to put together that greek statue, unless it told her, “by the way, those two are just extra pieces in thrown in to try to stump you, miss smartypants.”

Or better yet, we could be like Inspector Gadget, and have all the necessary parts built in! Go, go, gadget Vacuum! Go, go, gadget dishwasher! Go, go gadget laundry sorter! (I guess those would just be his hands, but they would go really fast!) Go, go gadget can opener….Microwave….printer….treadmill!

Maybe I’ve been watching too much tv with my kids. Do you think?

Speaking of watching tv, I watched the greatest show on PBS last night, The teachings of Jon. It’s about a severely retarded boy named Jon, and how he lives with his family. He loves to fold paper, play with his furbys, and swim. He doesn’t talk, but communicates. The theme of the show is, “Jon has an important purpose here, not necessarily to learn, but to teach.” It was a wonderful and touching show about how he loves unconditionally, and therefore allows others to love more because they have known him. Check it out. I’m sure it will be broadcast again, sometime. It made me so thankful for the people in my life, and reminded me that I need to be more accepting and loving to them.

We made it through:

A lovely bridal shower on Saturday1 We had chicken skewers, mini quiches, lemon poppyseed muffins, apple strudle muffins, pina colada cheesecake cups, fresh veggies, fresh fruit, brownies, little cream puffs, m&m’s and various soft drinks. There was no shortage of food. Everyone’s favorite, however, were the little mini bottles of martinelli’s apple juice that my brother-in-law, Chuck decided we needed, so he sent them along as his contribution to the shower. Thanks, Chuck! And thanks to Tess, who let me borrow her cute “wedding plates” and cute plate holder with 3 layers (can’t think of what to call it!), and thanks to Ryan for cleaning the windows!

Got through Cramps, cramps and all the strange sicknesses that go along with TTOTM (that time of the month).

I taught my lesson and it went well, even though I was only left about 15 minutes to teach. I just took all the best parts that I was excited about teaching, left out all the other parts, and there you have it. Thanks to Ryan for copying about 5 minutes of a conference talk onto a DVD so I could use that in my lesson.

Right now I’m waiting for my honey whole wheat bread to rise (I hope it does, the yeast was sitting in the fridge for quite a while) so I can bake the loaves to golden brown goodness.

Today marked the last time I am in charge of Dads and Donuts–Forever! Well, maybe not forever, but for the near future, at least. And it’s not like it’s such a hard thing, either. But I’ve done…let me count…6 sessions times 2 (for am and pm) this year, and 8 sessions times 2 last year, and 1 for each grade the year before that in the spring. So, that’s ….carry the one…34. Thirty four times I’ve gotten to hand out donuts. And very few of those times have I had anyone offer to help. Why is that? It’s the same moms doing all the programs on the old PTA. We just switch jobs each year. We need to recruit some new blood!

But anyway, I’m glad that I’m done with the donuts for now. My kids are sad, because I’ve usually taken them with me to help, and if not that, I always bring them home a donut each time. Today, since I wasn’t feeling all that well and didn’t want to breathe whatever stomache ache germs I’ve got brewing in myself on donuts of unsuspecting readers, I let Megan and Natalie wear the plastic gloves and hand out all the donuts. I sat nearby and watched, and they did a great job. Cole was off reading a book, which is the point of the whole Dads and Donuts thing, so I didn’t mind him not helping me.

Today I’m trying to get my house clean so we can have a bridal shower for Ryan’s sister Julene! on Saturday. So, I’ll go and get back to vacuuming.

I spent a large chunk of my time yesterday searching and researching flights to New York. I had it all picked out, with a flight into Rochester, and out of JFK, with a rental car picked out and all ready to book. I just needed to check it with my significant other and make sure he approved (I’m a little insecure about spending large amounts of money on non-refundable items like airline tickets) and I hadn’t made some silly mistake like enter May instead of June. So, when he got home, I checked the web page to show him, and *silly me* it had expired. Not having time to redo it all, I left it until this morning.

So, this morning, I went to travelocity (home of the gnome–which reminds me, is anyone else disturbed that they moved amazing race to Wednesday? Is that just for this week or for forever? Now there’s nothing good to watch on Tuesday!), input all the same stuff I had yesterday, and find that the flights listed yesterday were not listed tody. Today they only had Delta flights (and it’s kind of iffy to book a Delta flight at the moment) for more than $100 more each. And they only went up from there. UGH!!! Why did I wait!?? Why didn’t I just click on “Purchase” yesterday? Ugh!! Why do they make this so hard? (Ryan tells me it’s because you’re supposed to use a travel agent who will do all this for you.)

So, click on other travel sites: Orbits, Priceline, trying to find another site that will let me choose multiple destinations (they don’t all let you do that, you know), and I found “lowestfare.com”. So, I started the whole process over–departing city, departing date, blah, blah, blah. It came up with fares priced LOWER than the fares I was looking at yesterday! So, it’s booked! We actually are going to New York! I’m so excited! We’re going to stay with my parents in Palmyra for a few days, then drive to New York city and spend a couple of days there, and then fly home! With no kids!

Now I have to work on figuring out where all the kids are going to go (oh, don’t look at me like that, I already have three of them arranged, I just have to find homes for two more! I’m not a total slacker of a mother!)

So, if you have any tips on where to stay and how to get cheap play tickets in New York, let me know.

Well, Megan’s Surprise party went quite well, if I do say so myself. I had told her friends to come in the garage at 5:15, and then when they were all there, I asked Megan to go and get something out of the garage for me. She went out there, and her friends jumped out and yelled “SURPRISE!”, and Megan, not being a child of great emotion, said, “hi.”

But she seemed to actually enjoy the party. so I hope I’ve done well. As far as parties go, this one was pretty easy once we got started. We played a little game, and then I took them down in the scary, disasterly messy basement (which I didn’t even TRY to clean up–yes, I’m that much of a pig) and let them all play step mania, which they really liked. Then I just had to wait for the Pizza guy to come, call them up all to eat pizza (the cheers went up to the ceiling on that one) and have root beer and creme soda. After they ate their fill, Megan opened up her presents.

And since I had bought “The Chronicles of Narnia” yesterday for her birthday, we opened it up and let the kids watch it. We took a little break for cake, and that was pretty much it. Some of the girls got bored with the movie and wanted to play outside, so I let them do that. I ended up taking them home about 8:30, and I think they all had a fun time.

And this morning Megan told me thanks for her party, so I guess she had fun, too.

And the good thing is, that after the bridal shower that’s here this Saturday (which I haven’t even starte on), I’ll be done with parties–for a little while, at least.

Megan is 10 today–again I can hardly believe it. She’s a great girl with lots of spunk and she keeps it interesting around here. She is a talented artist, a great soccer player, and does well in school. She helps out with her younger brother and sisters, keeps Cole moving in the morning, and always seems to have plenty of money. If she practiced the piano without a fuss and cut the backtalk, she’d be perfect!

She could never decide what she wanted to do for her birthday (maybe I gave her too many options), so on Sunday I decided we would throw a surprise party for her. I called 9 of her friends, and they should be coming over around 5. We’ll surprise Megan, do some step mania, play a couple of low-key games, have pizza, open presents and watch the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I bought today. I hope she likes it!

I had this dream (oh, no, not another weird dream) that was so real I just have to share it. My friends and I were going to start up a quilting group. Originally we had planned to go to Juno, Alaska for a month to quilt, but realized that wouldn’t work. So, we started out meeting at Lisa’s parent’s house. Her mom and sister Susan were there, too, and teaching us the basics of quilting. The deal was, we each had to make our own quilt top (pieced together, of course), and then we would get together as often as possible to quilt them. We were going to donate them to a church relief mission that would auction them off to raise money for a special project in Africa.

One day while we were together, Charri had brought a whole bunch of old things that we had all given her for Christmas or Birthday presents YEARS ago. She wanted us to sign the bottom and put the date if we could remember what year it had been. She had boxes of stupid silly gifts that we had bought for her (ceramic penquins was one I remember) or made for her. We all laughed at the stupidity and total uselessness of these gifts that we had been so proud to give her, and laughed and wondered more at the fact that she still had them.

When I woke up, I was still in the middle of this dream, so I don’t know if we ever accomplished great things and made beautiful quilts, but I will assume we did. It just made me so thankful that I have had a wonderful circle of friends who stuck by me through all the years (some of them for over 30!) and that I can still count them as friends today! Oh how lucky I am!

Ok, everyone, *April Fools* on that last post. It’s nice to know I can still shock a few people, and that you would miss me if I moved. It was fun to see the reactions that one got. Ryan was more excited than I was if I fooled anyone. He probably checked the blog 8 or 9 times in the past two days and would tell me whenever it got a new comment. In all fairness, Melinda posted a disbelief comment 1st, but I deleted it because I wanted to give the rest of you a chance to be fooled. So, Happy April Fools to all of you.

In other news, because of daylight savings time, John waited until 7:20 (instead of the usual 6 something) to come into bed and hold mom’s hair this morning. It’s kind of sweet, the little ritual he’s got going. He wakes up and comes immediately into our bed. He climbs into the middle of the bed, pushes Dad aside if he’s in his way, asks me to turn over if I don’t have my back to him, snuggles up close and plays with my hair. He’s a squirmy kid, though, so it’s not like I can sleep through it, but it’s kind of a sweet way to wake up. Even sweeter if it’s not in the 6:00 hour!