Before I go into details, let me just tell you that I’m breathing a big sigh of relief that the week is over.

But what a week it was!! We had Easter celebrations all week, as well as a concert to prepare for and perform. Let me share some pictures that might show off all the fun we had.

These pictures are from the egg hunt we had at my parents’ house last Sunday. We also had a fun family dinner. The next day we had a neighborhood egg hunt.

Complete with rides on the train.

And bull rides.

Later in the week we colored eggs. With 5 kids, they only got to do 6 eggs each, although they would like to have had more.

More later….

I totally forgot my kids’ piano lessons today. DOH!

I guess I’m just in “Spring Break” mode.

Or maybe it’s those paint fumes I’ve been breathing in.

Or maybe I’m stressed about the concert tonight, and it slipped my mind.

Who knows. My kids are outside playing. I wonder if THEY remembered that it was piano lesson day, but conveniently didn’t bother to mention anything. Yeah, I’ll bet they are thinkin they pulled a fast one on me.

I wonder if she’ll charge me for the missed lessons. Dang.

Yesterday John and I went to the dentist. After the hygienist had had her fill of inflicting pain and left me to scrape my nerves off the ceiling and collect myself, we waited. John was in one chair, and I was in the other chair. We just had to wait for the dentist to come in and give us 5 minutes of his time to check the x-rays and the teeth. John was getting pretty bored, so I got the basket of beanie babies and gave it to him to play with. Soon he’s got those little bears and animals playing in some kind of game, and the happy prattle almost lulls me into a tiny little nap.

Until something registers in my brain. I hear John saying, “I’m going to slap you across the face.” I look around the dental equipment to see him, and he’s playing with the animals, but keeps saying, “I’m going to slap you across the face,” over and over. Where did he pick up on that? Have I ever “slapped him across the face”? I’m pretty sure I’ve not. Have I ever said I was going to slap him across the face? Has his dad ever said that? I can’t remember ever hearing that in our home. But there he is, with his little animals telling each other over and over that they are going to slap each other across the face.

I’m hoping it’s from a tv show. Like Finneus and Ferb or something.

Plunged into guilt, I slink over to his chair to play with him. I mean, we’ve got some time to kill here, waiting for the dentist and all. But he won’t have any of it. “Mom, go away.” Um, excuse me? I’m your mother and I just want to play with you. I picked up one of the animals and tried to play with him, but he wouldn’t go along with me. It has to be his idea to play with me. So I slunk back to my own chair, the dejected mother who nobody wants to play with. As soon as I’m out of his sight, he’s back to playing with the little guys. It sounds like things are blowing up over there, and he’s happily playing.

Alone.

Today I get to spend the majority of my day at the dentist’s office. Ugh. You know how much I LUUURVE to sit in the WAITING ROOM at the dentist’s office. Waiting. And Waiting. But it’s teeth cleaning day so we’ll muddle through. John and I have appointments in the morning. We were actually scheduled to go a few weeks back, but John got sick with his mystery sickness, so we rescheduled. The other kids are scheduled for 3-5 pm. Which means from 3 until who knows when. Oh, no! I just realized we have a major problem here. Seriously, I JUST now realized that I can’t BE at the dentist’s office until 5:30 or 6, because I have to be up in Salt Lake at the Tabernacle at 6:15. When I made the appointments months ago, I didn’t realize I’d have rehearsal tonight. I’d better go and talk to my husband about that one.

Last night’s dress rehearsal was…well, let’s just say it was a bit rough. The trumpet player wasn’t going to be there when we started, so we changed the order of some songs, and we actually stopped and worked on a couple songs. So it was more like a rehearsal and less like a concert. I hope the 5-10 people in the audience didn’t mind. But it was good to work through some trouble spots, and hopefully we can all so better on Friday.

Oh, and we’ll be performing with the choir on Easter morning. Tune in to Music and the Spoken word Sunday morning to see and hear us. Or, since you will probably be busy with you Easter festivities, you could always set your tivo.

I’ve been painting this week. All by myself. Usually Ryan helps me paint, especially with the prep work and the edges. But on Tuesday, when I looked at the calendar and saw a big blank space all day, I decided it was the day to paint. I’d only had the paint sitting around for a month, so I think it’s about time. I’m painting the boys’ room. They wanted blue and yellow. I settled for blue and Khaki. So far I’ve done the khaki. I was going to tackle the blue today, but since we’ll be camping out at the dentist’s office, I guess we won’t be doing the painting today. But this time I did it all myself. I took off all the light switch face plates, and the outlet (we have WAY too many plugs in that room, by the way) face plates. I couldn’t get the speakers out, but then Ryan couldn’t get those out, either. I guess I’ll just paint around those. I did the taping, I moved the furniture (to the center of the room. It’s real convenient to paint around a bunk bed, I tell you) and I did the edges. Yes, I’ll admit that the edging is a bit rough. I didn’t realize we had a new pad for the edger available, and once I changed it I did better. I’ve even painted around the nice big shelf. If I do say so myself, it’s not too bad. I’ll post some pictures when I get it finished.

Painting really is a workout, though. They should call it “sqats and lunges with paint”. My legs are sore, my back is sore, and my arms are tired. But that could also be from ringing bells, who knows. It probably wasn’t the best week to start a project, but you’ve got to start these things when the motivation strikes.

Today I got spam in German. It’s a first for me. “Bestellen Sie noch heute und vergessen Sie Ihre Enttäuschungen, anhaltende Versagensängste und wiederholte peinliche Situationen!” among other things. Well, I wouldn’t want to be stuck in any peinliche Situationen, so maybe I’ll look them up. WhatEVER.

And the rain has turned to snow. But I’ve complained enough about the weather, so I’ll just let that one go.

Have a GREAT Thursday!

Don’t you love it when you hear yourself turning into your mother? This morning, for example, I did the “You’re going to wear THAT?” that used to annoy me so much when my mom did it.

But don’t we all eventually turn into some form of our mothers? Personally, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

Megan celebrated a birthday on Saturday. She’s now officially a teenager. How nice.

She started out her birthday with–what else?–A Soccer game. It was 34 degrees out, and snowing. There was so much snow on the ground that they had to all walk along the lines to clear away the snow, so they could tell when the ball was out of bounds. She DID wear a hat and gloves, a few shirts and a hoodie, long pants under her shorts, and all that gear. But she was still freezing when it was over. Oh, and they lost 1 to nothing. But still, for a soccer loving girl, I think it was an appropriate way to start her birthday. I was not there for the whole game, and when I did get there, I watched from the car. Because they should rename Spring Soccer as “Watch from the car Soccer”. Because I’m not insane. Poor girl couldn’t get her shoes off when we got home, because her fingers wouldn’t work.

She did thaw out and there was no permanent damage, though.

After we got home from soccer, we warmed her up and had a house full of kids. We watched my sister’s 3 kids overnight as a birthday gift to her. They were actually not too much trouble, and I think all the kids had a good time. We turned on conference through the house. I don’t know how much they heard, since they were all playing, but at least it was on. On the radio. Not the TV. Because when we turned on our tv
–remember that big tv that we got for free and then Ryan fixed for about $40? Well, we turned it on for conference, and there was a flash and then some green, and then—nothing. It died. So, we have no tv. Eek. Thankfully, we could still listen to conference, and Megan hadn’t planned a movie party for her birthday like Cole had done the week before.

Megan’s party was Saturday night. She only invited four friends, and it was a great party. While the men were at the Priesthood session of conference, I took the girls to Boondocks. They played laser tag and video games, and more laser tag. Since I didn’t have any little people with me, (thanks to a sitter at home) I was able to sit and read a book and not worry about anyone getting lost or needing help. It was great. I finally got them out of there at 9:00. On the way home I learned lots of lyrics to songs that were playing on the radio, since they were being sung VERY LOUDLY right behind me. But Megan’s friends are so cute and fun, I don’t mind.

While we were gone, the elves were busy at home. When Ryan and Cole got home from the meeting, they hauled up all the pieces of the drum set and got it assembled before we got home. They also took the chance to jam a bit.
When we came home, all the kids were hiding. They jumped out when Megan came in and said, “Happy Birthday!” It was quite the scene.

She was thrilled with the drum set and other presents.


Megan decided she wanted a birthday cookie instead of a cake, so we had made this one in the afternoon, and she had fun helping me decorate it.

It was a fun party, and more importantly–easy for me.

So, we’ve made it through birthday land for a while, and I thankfully get a break from parties. For a while, at least.

This morning the treadmill was so exquisitely boring, I could only handle 1/2 a mile. Then I had the great idea to do my new workout video, Jillian Michaels’ 30 day shred. I mean, she scares me on Biggest Loser, so I thought maybe she’d bully me into a few more crunches and stuff.

I knew the DVD player up in my bedroom worked, since the kids all piled into my bed last Saturday to watch a movie while Cole was having his “teenagers only” party in the family room. So, I went upstairs to pop in my new video. I managed to switch inputs and hear Jillian’s motivational introduction, but then it dumped me into a menu and I had to select my workout of choice. Hmmm. Let’s see. When I push this “down” button, I’m back on tv. If I try this button, it does nothing. This button? Nope. There is no way to navigate on the actual DVD player? What if I don’t have the specific remote needed for this DVD player? Let’s see, I’ve got about three remotes here in my room, let me see if ANY of them will solve my problem. Nope. Lights? I don’t think so. Radio? Not this time. Huh.

Thus ended my workout for the day.

My husband has got so many gadgets and remotes and everything is so “automated” that a simpleton like myself can’t figure it out. I think he does this to keep me dependent upon him, right?

Having said that, Techno Husband just sent me a link to a really funny article about the Ten Surprisingly Common Causes Of Death In TV Hospitals. In honor of ER’s final episode tonight and all. He’s funny, that one. But I am thankful for Techno Husband and all that. If I didn’t have him, I would have to record tonight’s 3 hour ER extravaganza on an old VCR, since I won’t be home to see it. I mean, who remembers how to program a VCR anymore?

Tonight we have our first activity as a new RS presidency, our Relief Society Birthday dinner. Eek. I’ve put in the time, and I hope I’m organized enough so that things will go smoothly tonight. And hopefully it will be fun for everyone who comes. I hope people come. Ugh.

If I didn’t have that party that we’re in charge of, I would be going to the viewing for a high school friend who died way too soon in a tragic auto accident this week. He was a good man with a heart of pure gold. He was one of the kindest people I know, and even though I haven’t seen him in many years, I still feel a great loss at his death. He leaves behind a wonderful wife (also a friend from high school) and 6 children. His obituary is here.

I’m reminded today about how important it is to live every day, and cherish those that you love.

Wow. That was a terribly mottled mix of a blog post. Oh, well, I don’t have time to rewrite and edit it all, because I get to take my 8 year old daughter to the dentist and see if they can repair her molar that has a chunk missing.

How’s that for more randomness?