Let the Creativity Flow

We have been doing some fun Halloween crafts lately. The first thing we did (for Family Home Evening last week) was to paint pumpkins. The kids each picked a large and a small pumpkin at the store and then they got to paint them. We normally carve pumpkins, but didn't think they would last until Halloween if we cut them up, so painting it was. I was going to have a guess who made that pumpkin contest, but decided that it was pretty obvious who made each one, so decided to just tell you.
Trevor had a lot of great ideasKaylee said "I don't care if it does not look like a face, I just LOVE to put a lot of paint on it!"Nathan was very creative in mixing his colors, he has a great knack for turning any combination of colors into the same shade of gray.
Here is my lovely masterpiece (most of the pumpkins have glow in the dark paint on them, and it makes them look really cool in the dark)
And here is Bryan's (I think he won the coolest pumpkin award)Oh yeah, and Ashton's pumpkinThe next craft was last night for FHE. We got together with Barlow and Andrea and made TONS of graham cracker houses. Then we gathered in the club house at their apartment complex with a few other families to decorate some Haunted Houses. It is normally a Christmas Tradition, but it was REALLY fun to modify it into a Halloween activity. Nathan promptly finished first and fell asleep on a chair (turns out he wasn't feeling well), and Bryan was the last to finish (turns out he is quite creative) All in all it was a great night and I think even our crazy Halloween Aunt and Uncle aka Kim and Ken would be proud of our houses.It was Kaylee's idea to have the eyeball in her mouth (poor thing growing up with 3 brothers)Trevor wanted to show off both sides of his house (some day he will regret making THAT face in every picture I take of him)Nathan put all the candy on this himself (we helped with the frosting glue)Bryan's Masterpiece (notice the dirt landscaping made from crushed graham cracker)And Mine and Ashton's not much to brag about. (Ashton ate tons of candy so that he would stay out of our hair....turns out he wasn't feeling well also and ended up losing most of the candy later that night....yuk!)I am still busy working on costumes. I am half way done, and getting started on the other half....can't wait for the big night!!

Don't Open that Door!!

I have a TERRIBLE problem that I have been trying to hide for years (it has NOTHING to do with Clay Aiken by the way) I spent some of my non-blogging time taking care of it this week, but I know it is not a permanent fix. I am not sure how to fix this problem so maybe some of you can help.

I will start by sharing my FAVORITE part of the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen." You know when they are just pulling up to their new house and the front of their car is COVERED with fast food wrappers? Well just picture that ALL OVER MY VAN. It doesn't matter how hard I try, my car is always a wreck. I can understand when it is right after a road trip and the car is messy, but when you pick up your kids from some one's house, and their kids follow you out to the car, and when you open the door and their kids say "WOW! What happened to your CAR!?!?" That is when you know you have a problem.

It is not just garbage, it is shoes, toys, diapers (CLEAN diapers ONLY, dirty diapers make the car smell to fast....not that I know that from experience or anything...), or mail that I picked up, but never opened or brought in. It does come in handy sometimes. In fact I don't even try to make Nathan put shoes on before we leave the house because there are always shoes in the car (occasionally there are only Kaylee's shoes in the car, but don't worry, Nathan doesn't mind wearing them)

I have tried threatening my kids "bring EVERYTHING in the house or ELSE!" ("else" just doesn't carry the weight it used to) but they still leaving stuff in the car claiming "I didn't know you wanted me to bring in my shoes too" or "but I was going to play with/read that next time I was in the car"

Here are some of the dilemmas that I have to deal with that are associated with this problem. I dutifully drop my kids off to school on time every day. But sometimes when they hop out of the car 2-3 things fall out with them. I try to catch their attention..."Hey!! wait, 'stuff" fell out of the car", but they are running to class (not because they were almost late.....because they LIKE to go to school. So now I am stuck. My van door is open and the whole world can see into the abyss of the van and now the wind is picking up and more stiff is flying out, but I CAN'T get out...I am not dressed properly (OK, I am most likely still in my pj's). So what do I do?? I have tried to get Nathan to learn to unbuckle himself so that he can hop out and pick up our rouge garbage, but to no avail. I usually hope no one is looking (or laughing) and pick it up.

The other major problem comes at church. We are usually there with plenty of time to spare before the meeting starts (at least 30 seconds) and what luck....there is a spot up front! But NO we cant park there, then everyone will see into the van, what a mess it is, and when church is over they will see me put my kids in the car so they will know whose van it is. So don't take that spot, no...lets park back in that corner and run. I have even gone as far as to load all of my kids into the van on the wrong side and make them climb over the seats so that people on the other side can't see in.

For those of you whose cars are always clean...I have NO idea how you do it. Don't you ever have to carry in sleeping kids, and if so do you really go back out and bring in all the stuff after that? I am pretty sure the best solution is to buy a new van, one with NO windows and only one door....on the roof, where nothing will fall out. (I guess I could clean it out more often.....)

Picture, Picture, Who Has a Picture?

I realized that I have not had a good post with pictures of us on it for a while (don't expect great things from this one either) I have just not been in a picture taking mood (or a picture developing mood....or do we not use the word "develop" with digital pictures anymore?) Anyway, back to the point. I thought I would just do a quick update on a few things going on around here. I will start off with a GREAT story for all you Moms.

I was busy cleaning the house while my kids were playing in their rooms (I know you think I am being sarcastic about the cleaning stuff, but really I was!!) Trevor was "bored" and didn't know what to do, and after he rejected my suggestions of helping out with the housework, he decided to do a puzzle. So he got out a puzzle and a large board to do it on. After dumping out all the pieces he promptly left the room and went back to his bedroom. I told him several times to come pick up his puzzle, to which he kept responding..."I am not done with it yet!!) As I was about to finish the room Trevor comes over to me and says "OK, Mom, I am done with my puzzle now you can pick it up." I look over and it looks the exact same as before! So I start the mental dilemma of "do I want to start this battle? I could pick it up in 2 seconds or I can make him pick it up, argue about it with him for 1/2 hour and then end up either threatening his life to get him to do it, or just doing it myself while he stands in the corner" I decided that the afternoon was going so nicely that I would just take the 2 seconds to pick up the puzzle. As I scooped the pieces into the box this fell out:

If you can't read it, it says: "Thank you Mom for all the hard work Mom."

How much sweeter can it get! The whole thing had been a set up. He was in his room making the card and hid it in the pieces so that when I cleaned it up I would find it. A few minutes later Kaylee came out with this lovely card for me.

If you can't tell what it is, you will have to ask Kaylee because neither can I, but I told her that I loved it and said Thank you.

While on the subject of Thank Yous I must mention that I woke up yesterday morning and came out to find that my WONDERFUL husband had gotten up at 5:30 and was cleaning the kitchen for me! What a great surprise!

The next big thing that has happened is that I cut my hair. Now when I say that I cut my hair I don't mean that I went and had my hair cut, I mean I went and got some scissors and cut my hair! It started as my trimming my bangs and but I'm afraid I got carried away. I figured if I screwed it up to badly I could then pay someone else (like a professional) to fix it, so long as I didn't cut it to short. I think it looks OK, and so far no one is willing to tell me otherwise, so I guess I will stick with it. Here are a few pictures of my new do:

I KNOW! This is a terrible picture of me, however I couldn't resist putting it on because I thought it looked kind of like Clay Aiken and I got a good laugh out of it and thought you might too.

And here is a cute picture of Ashton:

So there you have it. This is what you get when I sit down with no idea what to blog about and decide to check what is on the camera. Have a GREAT day! (and I promise to take better pictures of my kids this week!)

General Conference Inspiration

This past weekend I spent several hours sitting at the feet of prophets....well really I sat at the computer and listened to the prophets. I was reminded how grateful I am that I belong to a church that has inspired leaders and modern day revelation. The current prophet of the Lord is Thomas S. Monson and I was deeply touched by one of his talks on Sunday. It felt like he spoke directly to me as he said to enjoy life right now. To not worry about the piles of laundry or the finger prints that are on every newly cleaned surface. I knew this was not just an old man telling me to enjoy my kids when they are young, but these phrases seemed to be coming from my Father in Heaven, letting me know that it is OK to have "piles of laundry" it is OK that as soon as my house gets clean someone comes along and messes it up. That so long as I am choosing the right, keeping the commandments and enjoying TODAY, then the rest will be fine. In fact he said that one day I would miss it!! (I am not sure I have enough faith to believe that I will miss these things, but who knows) Although I felt spiritually uplifted by all of the talks I had a few favorite that I thought I would share with you:

1. L. Tom Perry spoke about simplifying you life. He spoke of eating nutritious food, regular exercise, and getting enough sleep (all of which I am currently trying to do better with) He also spoke of having simplified clothes and stated that what we wear lets people know who we are and that casual dress = casual manners.

2. Dallin H. Oaks gave a fabulous talk on the observances during Sacrament Meetings. He reminded me that getting there early is required for fulling preparing for the Sacrament of the Lord. He also said that amusement, light mindedness, and laughter are not appropriate for those meetings.

3.Joseph B Worthlin being to weak to stand gave his talk from his seat and I could not take my attention from it. He spoke of reacing to adversity and gave the following advice when dealing with trials: a) learn to laugh b) seek for the eternal c) understand the principle of compensation..which is that God will compensate us for every trial we endure. d) put our trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus. He also stated "Come what may..and LOVE it!"

There were MANY more talks all of which will help us to become more like Christ and bring joy and happiness into our homes. I encourage everyone to read them when they are available. (a text version will be available to read on Thursday October 9th at http://www.lds.org/ .

I know my Savior lives, and loves me. He is my rock and my salvation.

Spelling

I HATE spelling. I was always able to memorize my spelling lists and do just fine on my spelling tests in elementary school, but when it comes to real life I stink. I have come to rely on spell check for everything. But sometimes spell check lets me down. You would think they could come up with something that can tell you..."Hey idiot you typed pole, but you meant poll!" (I made that mistake once and it ended up sounding like I did a "pole" workout :0 ) and while I am on the topic of dumb things that spell checks do, why is it that when I spell the word dont with no apostrophe the word don't with an apostrophe is the second option on the list, the first being dint...what does dint even mean??? and does anyone really mean dint when they type dont? (I googled it and it apparently means a blow, or force, it can also mean the same as dent...go figure)

Another rant about spell check is the word OK, I know it is supposed to be spelled with a capital O and a capitol K, but when it is at the beginning of a sentence, I like the way it looks as Ok, or sometimes even ok and for some reason it erks my to have it come up on spell check when I type it that way. Especially when the whole OK thing might have come about due to a misspelled word in the first place (Oll Korrect in stead of All Correct), but could have also come from TONS of other places like the Greek phrase Ola Kala (Ὅλα Καλά, ΟΚ), "everything is fine". (Wikipedia is awesome!)


One last thing....Why is Walmart not in the dictionary...it totally should be.

First Tag Ever

I have never done a tag before, I guess I figured no one really wants to know all that stuff about me, but then it hit me...if no one wanted to know anything about me, then why would they read my blog? (Grandparents are excluded because I know they only read to see cute pictures, stories and video's of the kids) So here goes>>



I was tagged by my sister Charlotte with the following rules:

1. I shrink everything. It its sad but when I buy a new shirt I think to myself "I will NOT shrink this!" but then when laundry time comes I COMPLETELY forget and throw the dumb thing in the dryer! I have learned to buy things a little big so that when it shrinks it will fit just right.

2. When I was younger (like in my early twenties) I would rearrange my furniture about once a month. I was constantly changing things around. I don't do this any more, in fact most of my furniture is in the same place we put it the day we moved in. I think it is because now in order to give any particular room a "new" look, I just clean it.

3. I am terrible at standardized tests. I was pretty smart in high school, honor roll, AP classes stuff like that, but when it came time for a standardized test (SAT) I could not compete. I barely got a high enough score to even apply to BYU and Ricks (I did get accepted to both by the way...and I will not feel bad about bragging about it because I lost so many brain cells with all my pregnancies that I am way below average now) So I HATE the idea of the WASL and plan to do my part to veto it when I get a chance.

4. I hate my forehead...enough said.

5. I did not pluck my eyebrows until I was married for about 5 years. And BOY did I need to. When I was growing up I had NO idea that people really plucked eyebrows. No one ever said hey you should try this...no one that is until my little sister grew up and spilled the beans. I am a diligent plucker now (not as diligent as I should be, but I will never go back to my "bushy" days of the 90's) I thought about posting a picture from back in the day, but that was before digital pictures and it is just not worth the effort, you will have to come to my house to see it.

6. I love fried eggs with the whites all the way cooked but the yoke still runny, but for the life of my I can't cook them that way. I try, but always either break the yoke, or let it cook to long in the fear that the whites are not cooked through yet. My dad makes GREAT eggs and I look forward to his visits so that he can cook me a nice over-medium egg. (Bryan does pretty good to, he manages to cook it better than me most of the time.

7. I LOVE the spacing issues on blogger. I know most of you hate them, but I find it a fun challenge to figure out how my post is going to look when blogger changes it all when I hit the post button. Ok this is not true, I hate it like the rest of you, but I could not come up with any more facts about myself so I thought I would throw this in.

Um...as I went back to proof read my post I realized that I kind of only put down negative things about myself like: I shrink things, my house is a mess, I stink at tests, I hate my forehead, I have naturally awful eyebrows, I am a terrible cook, and I hate the spacing on blogger. I will have to try this tag again and only do nice things about myself ( I am a pretty good person after all...?)

Last Chance Workout?

The newest season of Biggest Loser is underway and Bryan and I look forward to this show whenever it starts (although we start hating the show when the people start to get skinnier than us) But we have always found that the show motivates us. After a long day of mothering and housewifing I am usually SUPER tired. But as we watch this show after our kids are in bed we find that we both want to use our exercise bike. It normally sits dormant in the corner, but not during this show. Here is a picture to prove my point:

Well, I never said we used it to exercise with! It actually makes a GREAT end table.So the show motivates us to sit there and eat ice cream and have a nice peaceful evening, so sue me. Still our exercise bike hasn't seen this much action for a long time!