My mom Rocks!!!

I know it's not anywhere close to Mothers Day, (believe me, the snow is reminding me) but I was thinking about my mom today as I was shuffling kids back and forth to school and scouts, and trying to get my laundry done and breaking up fights between my 6 year old and my 3 year old (3 yr.old was winning by the way) and cleaning up one mess after another, all without having a shower before 11:00 am this morning. All I kept thinking was, "How did my mom do this?" So here is my shout out to my mom for all the things she continues to do for me, even in my 30's I've come to realize I still rely on my mom for a lot of things, and I truly love her not just because ....

-she took me to many dance lessons, singing lessons, piano lessons, and so many other activities I can't even begin to name them all.

-she taught me to be independant and to do things for myself without waiting for others to do them for me. (Rob NEVER has a "honey-do" list so maybe he should thank her too :)

-she shows up whenever any of her kids need her even if it means driving through snow storms or long distances to get there.

-according to my kids, she makes the best pancakes EVER. (never mind that I make the SAME pancakes,) hers are ALWAYS better!

-when I call her at 8:00 pm on a Tuesday night to ask her how to make jam, she shows up at my door (2 hours away) at 10:00 am the next morning ready to jump in and help me make it... and then sits on a closed freeway until midnight trying to get home.

-when I have a baby, she doesn't just come and watch my other kids. She cleans the house and washes clothes and does dishes and makes meals and drives kids to school and swimming lessons and takes them to the park and buys them happy meals and just keeps things running.

-she sits with me for 2 hours in a SCARY LA emergency room when my 2 year old needs stitches on our vacation to Disneyland.

-When I send her home with some cute Christmas fabric that I fell in LOVE with, she returns with 7 stockings, a tree skirt and a table topper, all done during the same time she was watching my brothers 3 kids while my sister-in-law was on bed rest.

-she organizes treasure hunts and projects for our kids when on vacation

-She ALWAYS buys me a diet coke when I'm visiting. (even when it's at 6:00 am on black friday)

-she hardly EVER says no to anyone when asked to do something.

-she doesn't let me whine or mope about things, she reminds me that this is life and I decide how to react to it. (and that what I think is really bad, really isn't so bad at all)

-After I've given her crap all weekend she still gives me a hug and kiss and tells me to visit anytime.

.......all of these and many more are GREAT reasons to love her,.... but the biggest reason is,



I want to be EXACTLY the kind of mom you are, and even though I give you grief, I really love you. Thanks for everything! (and no, this isn't a suck-up post so enjoy it for what it is:)

What Christmas is REALLY about.

A conversations between 2 brothers and their cousin in the back of the car on their way to grandma's house.

Jack: "Do you know why we celebrate Christmas? To celebrate Jesus' birthday"

Ben: "It is NOT a celebration, it's about giving."

Jordan: "Yeah, its that Santa brings us presents"

Ben: "It is NOT about Santa"

Jack: "but, it is about Jesus' birthday and we celebrate by giving presents"

Ben: "no, it is about the wise men who gave Jesus presents, it is about giving."

(short pause)

Jordan: "Hey, do you want to play Wii when we get to grandma's?"

Christmas tree

Every year my in-laws trek on out into the forest, with saw in hand and cut down their own Christmas tree. It is always so fun to see what they bring back at the end of the day. Sometimes they are quite interesting and there is always a great story to go with it.

We, to my recollection, have never been invited on this excursion. Now, I don't say that begrudgingly, I'm most certain they know that #1: I do NOT like real Christmas trees. they are messy and high maintenance, and #2: Even if I did like real trees, in my mind, hiking through the wilderness in search of something you can just as easily buy in the Wal-mart parking lot, is NOT on my life-long to-do list.

That said, this year they invited us to come along and bring the kids. My first thought was, "have they gone crazy? I'm not traipsing through the forest with a one year old on my hip and a 3 year old running amuck through the trees in the cold and snow, NO WAY" However, Rob and I decided that this might be a really great memory for the kids to have with their grandparents, so, we agreed to go along.

So, thinking our kids would be ecstatic, we asked them if they would like to go and cut down a small real tree this year for them to put upstairs and decorate as their own. Kaden was indifferent and Noah and Carly had No idea what that even meant, and Jack and Jordan had an adamant NO WAY! Huh? After prodding them a little as to why the NO answer, they both informed us that if we had a real tree it would start our house on fire and burn it down. Apparently, they had the fire department do a movie on fire safety at school a few weeks ago and guess what they showed in the movie?... Bingo, a Christmas tree starting the house on fire and burning it down. They were having NOTHING of this fire trap coming into our house.

So, we had a little talk about how to take care of a real Christmas tree, by keeping it watered and not letting it get dry, and then we took our sheltered little family and ventured out into the wilderness.


We started the day with a family picture. ..

Kevin, Camille, sam, Aric and Jonah, Aimee and Kent, ma and pa, and Jack, Jordan, Noah, Carly, Kaden and me and Rob

Now, my dad-in-law, (aka Paul Bunyan) originally wanted us to hike the cousin to Mount Everest, and we just had to protest. Thankfully, Kevin and Camille backed us up (thanks you guys! :) and we ended up in this little clearing off the highway. PERFECT! Here's our cute little family ready to go!

Jack and Jordan

Kaden who started out the day as a SUPER grump head (ok, I'll admit it, I was a bit of a grump too,) but we managed to have a TON of fun!
Carly and noah getting used to the snow, Not sure if Noah was helping his sister or just about to push her down. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Carly, giving someone her "evil eye"


My idea of Mount Everest... 50 feet up the hill to a little grove of trees.

Jack with his prize. The kids VERY own tree. Isn't it lovely? It's our little Charlie Brown tree. Our ONLY tree criteria was that it NOT be any taller than Kaden. Mission accomplished!

Squeezy cheese and crackers after the "exhausting" hike up that path, (ha, ha)

And EVERYONE's favorite, grandma with her hot chocolate! Good thinking grandma.

Thanks grandpa and grandma for a memorable adventure, and a really fun day!

Robbers

Last week the boys school was burglarized. The principal thought it was a good idea to announce that fact over the loud speaker the next morning. (a judgement I am STILL questioning) Jordan really could have cared less, that's just how he is. If it doesn't affect his world directly, he puts it out of mind.

Jack however, is an entirely different story. The first thing he said to me when he got home Friday was, "mom, there are robbers at my school and Parker told me they are hiding in a secret door in the lunch room and are going to steal all our lunches."

I then spent the next hour, trying to convince him that :

#1: he was safe at school and robbers won't get him there because there are LOTs of adults that robbers are scared of there. (thus the reason I question the principals judgement in TELLING the kids) Of course, in his defense,it's such a man thing to do, telling it like it is without thinking through what would go through a childs mind once he said it and not coming up with a little better way of putting the information out there, women are sooooo much better at this!
After some crying and being scared about robbers, I attempted #2...

- Convincing him that Parker, is NOT the authority on everything, and that his lunch is COMPLETELY safe.

Pretty sure he bought #1, (thank goodness), however, I think the jury's still out on #2. Aparently, I am NOT as smart as his friend Parker! :)

primary disaster

Yesterday was primary program day. Every year we go into the primary program a little leary of what may happen. For example... When Jordan was 4 he hid under the bench and wouldn't come out to do his part, when Jack was 3 he made it up to the stand only to come running down halfway through the program crying and refusing to go back up. He didn't even go to primary by himself until he was halfway through his 4 year old class. Last year was the first year we had zero trauma's at the program so I was feeling pretty good going in yesterday. The boys all had their parts memorized, we practiced before church one last time, they had nice ironed shirts on, and better yet they were actually excited. Even Carly and Noah seemed to appreciate the importance of the day because we only had to take each of them out in the hall once.

So, we sit through the program and Kaden gives his little one liner, Jordan sings his song with his class and we wait, and wait and suddenly, the primary president is up and thanking the kids and bearing her testimony and the program is over. It took me a minute, but I looked over at Rob, sort of dumbfounded, and said, "I think they skipped Jack's part". Sure enough, my little boy, somehow got skipped right over. Now, if he would have had a little one liner like Kaden, it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal, but he actually had a short talk about Nephi and how he obeyed his father. I walked up to the stand to get Jack and he was kind of walking around like he was lost. I tried to not make a big deal and gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was at how reverent he had been and he looked at me and said "but I didn't get to do my part!", and then the tears came and he just kept saying, "I want to go home, I just want to go home!" This did me in and it was all I could do to hold in the tears. Now, I'm not one to pester the primary president after they'd just put a lot of time and effort into a great primary program, but while every other child was getting praises and ooh's and aahs from their parents and grandparents, my little boy was crying and devastated at being left out. So, I informed her that they had totally skipped Jack's part (which she already knew) and he was really upset and they needed to make it right. He had worked sooo hard and we had made SUCH a big deal about it in our family and he needed a chance to say his part.

So, he got to stand up in opening exercises and with me sitting proudly in the back, gave the VERY best talk ever. He was soo proud and had the biggest smile for the rest of the class.

I was really proud of all my kids yesterday but Jack gets the credit for turning a bad situation into something he could be happy about, and I am super proud of him for that!

Stitches update

So the great Dermabond in place of stitches was a great short term fix (great in the fact that we didn't have to listen to Noah scream and carry on while getting his chin repaired for the 3rd time), however, not so great in that... He is NOT a kid who is careful. So, Saturday we hauled him back in because the glue had come off and his chin was slightly peeling apart again. (Sorry a bit graphic) She re-glued it and sent us on our way and all was well with the universe again until last night when he biffed it AGAIN. I'm telling you this kid is going to do me in. So, I've given up. I stuck a lovely batman bandaide on it and am calling it good. He's going to have a lovely scar, but maybe it will remind him in the future to put his hands down when he falls. :)

A conversation with Noah

Today while Noah was having lunch he informed me that I was big. Here's how the conversation went..

Noah: "mom, you are sure big!"

me: "big? what do you mean"

Noah: "you know big,.. old!"

me: "Oh, you think I'm old? How old is old?"

Noah: "you know, eleven!"