Category: Family Fun (Page 23 of 25)

On my way to Costco today, I saw a little VW (looked like a rabbit, but I’m not sure) plastered with bumper stickers. After reading Mich’s comments on this the other day, I took note. they had the standard non-conformist ones on there: Avoid prime time, read a book; and Why be normal?; and one that I had to get pretty close to read: Won’t it be nice when the public schools have all the money they need and the air force has to have bake sales to buy new f-16s? I counted 16 on the back of that car. Wow!

I also saw a lady dressed as the statue of liberty standing in front of liberty something or other holding a sign that said “Tax returns 30% off today.” Now, wouldn’t that be a bad thing? Don’t we want our returns to be high?

I also saw my cutie son wearing his sun glasses upside down. Several people in Costco commented that he had his glasses on upside down, but really, when I change them to the right way, he just changes them back.

I also heard my 7 year old singing pumpkin carols from the back seat. Lots and lots of Halloween songs. I just turned the radio up a little bit louder.

There comes a time in every one of my children’s development that they start calling me “Mama.” I don’t really know why they do it, since we prefer the term, “Mom” around here. Maybe it’s from the beloved Disney movies (Roo calls Kanga Mama, I think Thumper calls his Mom ‘Mama’, and it’s probably used in many more that I can’t think of right now). But it seems to me they all have called me Mama at some point in time. I think it’s when they realize that Mom and Mama and Mommy are all the same person. I guess I should be proud of John that’s he’s made this conection. But all it does is irritate me. I don’t picture myself as “Mama.” I dont’ wear an apron and a do-rag around the house, nor am I on the Carol Burnette Show. They don’t ever go through a stage where they call Ryan “Papa”–I guess that’s just too “Little house on the prairie for us all”. So this morning at church he kept saying it over and over and over again–Mama this and Mama that, and I realized that he is now in the Mama stage. Let’s hope it’s not that long lasts until he goes back to Mom.

Today we went to an afternoon matine of The Rat Pack Remembered at the Desert Star Theater. We enjoyed the show with Dean, Sammy, and Frank, and even an appearance by Judy Garland. Of course, there sure were a lot of old people there. I don’t know if it was for the buffet, the show, or both. It was quite a bit of fun, and a nice “after Valentine’s Date”.

After emerging to find the city in a snowstorm and the roads all black ice because it’s 23 degrees outside, we made ot way home–after a few quick stops in Herriman, which, if you think creatively about it, is “right on the way home”. After taking the babysitter home and getting the kids bathed and/or showered, I realized that we’ve got two girls who are reverence children, and Cole has to give a talk tomorrow, and it was up to me to figure one out. Luckily, I stumbled upon Jenny Smith’s website, which gives lots of ideas, object lessons, and even some talks. So, after only a few minuts of searching, I’ve got the talk situation under control, a lovely talk about the Great Plan of Happiness printed out.

Good job, Mom.

We were all set to enjoy our Superbowl Sunday and invited friends over for dinner and games. Unfortunately, both families ended up with sick kids. So, my Sunday afternoon pretty much consisted of me holding John and wiping his nose every few minutes. The poor little guy was just miserable with a fever and runny nose and coughing. We emptied out one bottle of motrin and finished off a bottle of cold medicine to boot. Today he’s doing a little bit better, but it will be a sit around holding John day, I’m sure. (Like this morning I was trying to read scriptures while holding John. He was holding my greasy ponytail, and watching Caillou. It was quite a sight.)

So, I’m in my office reading my e-mail, and I hear wailing from upstairs.

Oh, No! John’s fallen off the bunkbed again or something like that, I think.

I trot upstairs prepared to see blood, or at least break up some fighting, and I follow the noise (which doesn’t sound so much like crying anymore) to my bedroom, where I see John and Jenna on my bed singing.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Singing!” they say.

Obviously.

And they’re cute, too.

I don’t know how it is in your house, but for me, as soon as I put the game away way up high in the closet, I find one or two pieces for that game. Do they just hide out under clutter waiting for me to put the game away and then JUMP out to be found? I don’t get it! Maybe I should just leave it sitting out where the kids left it for a little bit longer, until I’m sure I have all the pieces.

Or not.

The painting went well, and I can’t believe how good the bathroom looks (if I do say so myself). I’ve got a few touch ups to do, then clean everything, then decide what goes back into the bathroom so it looks nice. Currently everything that was in the bathroom on the counter or hanging up is now in my bedroom–talk about a mess.

John is happily playing with the little train set. He’s talking to the train and the animals that he brought in to play with the trains. Very cute. I guess I haven’t totally ruined his life.

It’s leftover night tonight, as I don’t have room in my lovely new fridge (went shopping today) for anything else until we eat up all the leftovers. We’ve got: Chicken fried rice from last night, Meatloaf and potatos from Monday night, and baked potatos from Sunday. I’m making a jello right now, but since there isn’t any room in said fridge, it’s cooling on the step in my garage. Don’t laugh, it’s colder than cold out there, I’m sure it will set just fine. I’ve also got a butternut squash that I’d like to cook up, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow so there will be room in the fridge.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and find all the train pieces. I think I just heard some go crashing accross the kitchen floor.

I don’t know how my sweet little boy is ever going to sleep through the night again if he keeps wetting through his pajamas every night. He’s a big milk and juice drinker, and even though I don’t give him anything to drink before he goes to bed, he seems to wet through his clothes every night around 4 or 5. So, I get up, change his clothes, warm him up, and put him back to bed. But then, can I go back to sleep? Not easily. Ugh.

Oh, yeah, and he stinks, too.

I have an 11 1/2 year old boy, so you wouldn’t think we’d have all that teen boy stink already, would you? But apparantly, they do not have to be teenagers to begin smelling like one. Yesterday I walked into his room for some reason or another, and when I opened the door, I was assaulted with such a rank smell that I thought I might throw up. It smelled like smelly boy plus… I don’t know. I swiftly grabbed all the clothes from the floor (not that many, really, for such a bad smell), and started a load of laundry. I grabbed his coat, a towel flung over the back of a chair and all the stray socks I could find, and put them in the laundry room, too (oh, my freshly painted landry room that was clean for about a day!). Then I rummaged around in a kitchen cupboard until I found that little plug-in air freshener that I had bought a while back, and plugged it in!

When the poor boy came home from school yesterday, I practically pounced on him and told him to go and take a shower, right now, and don’t forget to put on deoderant. I don’t want to punish him for being a smelly boy, I just don’t deal well with certain smells, and would like to not have them in my home.

In discussing this with Ryan, I said that that’s why teenage boys have a room in the basement. Why? he asked, so you won’t smell them? Exactly. My brother had a room in the basement, and I’ll bet that’s where you and your brother’s rooms were, right? I was right. Well, we aren’t quite ready to plonk a bunch of money that we don’t have into finishing the basement just so I won’t have to smell my boy, so we’ll work on hygene and general cleanliness habits and hope we can improve things a bit. Which reminds me..I have to go and strip his bed.

Last night my sweet Jenna just couldn’t sleep for some reason. She was up at 10:45 (right after I had gone to sleep, so when I woke up I was really out of it) and wanted a tape to help her fall asleep. I started a tape really quietly, so as not to wake her sister who she shares a room with.

At sometime around 1:00 she was back in my room asking about something or other. I don’t know if it’s the same with everyone, but I sleep REALLY soundly for the first couple of hours, and hav a hard time waking up. So, I really wasn’t sure what time it was, what she needed and all that. I told her to go use the bathroom, and I heard her softly crying as she did so. She wanted another tape. No, I said, you should have been asleep long ago, and you don’t get a tape. She cried all the way back to bed, so I went and sat by her on her bed. It only took about 5 minutes for her to fall asleep. But how long did it take me to fall asleep? Probably about an hour. Ugh.

My point about the other parent is–if Ryan had been here, he would have still been up, so hopefully he would have been the one dealing with the sleepwalking (or just not asleep) child. But alas, Ryan is not here, he’s in Las Vegas for the week for a big Consumer Electronics Show. And I miss him.

Well, it’s been an eventful day of playing with friends.

I took the kids to the “Meet your Teacher” at church this morning, and we brought a friend home with Jenna. A friend, who, altough cute, has a bit of a phobia about the stairs. Jenna told me “Maddie’s afraid of heights and wants you to carry her up the stairs.” So, I told her there was nothing to be afraid of and I would hold her hand as we walked up the stairs. She started crying and said she wanted to go home, so what was I to do? I carried her up the stairs. And I carried her back down the stairs when they wanted to come back down. hum.

I instructed the other kids to call around UNTIL they found someone to play with, so Megan found a friend to come over, and Natalie went back with the friend’s mom to her house to play with her friend, Cole had a friend come over, too. Lots of kids, but less trouble.

Ryan cleaned the old fridge (I helped a little), loaded it up, and took it to his parents’ house. They will replace their 40 year old fridge in the garage with our 12 year old fridge. It will seem like new to them.

I watched “Chicago” (it was a lot different than I remember it, seeing as I watched it in the hospital right after having had John), and cleaned up. We had a lovely dinner of stuffed potato skins and pizza. Now the kids are piled in Ryan’s office watching him play some kind of video games, and I’m blogging. How exciting!

We’ll play games, pop popcorn and watch movies tonight, and have a very low key stay at home New Years. I got tickets for us to go the New Year’s Eve celebration for youth up at the conference center “First Night for Youth”, with Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband, but Ryan doesn’t want to truck “all the way up there”, deal with parking and traffic, and try to keep our kids well behaved for 3 hours (or however long they lasted). So, we’ll have a casual night here. Which is nice, too, since we have church at 9:00 in the morning and don’t really want to stay up late.

Maybe someday we’ll be invited to a New Year’s Eve party, or have friends over ourselves, but for now, we’re content to stay home with the kids.

Happy New Year!