Getting Older

Why is it they actually have to grow up? We celebrated Lightnings Birthday this week. Daddy would not be home for an evening celebration so it was a perfect morning for a sugar overload and off to school. (lucky teachers) We always have french toast on Birthdays at our house. This kid loves to build and tear apart and rebulid, so two fun science kits came his way and he could not have been any happier!! Mom and Dad were happy too because a friend of ours found them on clearance for a smokin deal. Who doesn't LOVE a deal? Oh wait, we were talking about him, not us...... He grumbled and sneered his way through some Birthday pictures. His present to me on his Birthday. He got to have dinner out with his Mom and Grandparents and will head to the movies this weekend with a few friends. I hope he had a fabulous day!!





Nothing better than french toast made with organic sourdough bread!!!

Change

With all the homework and required reading time Lightning has this year I decided it was time to change. Time for this Mom to step it up! I have always been some what of a morning person. Paper routes as a kid, and A hour in high school. My Mission & getting up for work as an adult. Sleeping in to me has never really been later that 7 or 8 at the latest. As I get older I have become a HUGE GRUMP in the morning. I fully admit it. I wake up and I am NOT nice until the fog lifts. You know what I am talking about? That feeling of not being able to think straight. Couple that with needy, sometimes screaming, sometimes grumpy, or sometimes to playful right off the bat and that spells trouble at our house. Let's not forget the mornings where I come up against pure defiance by some small ones. I usually run to the computer and find something to read. It was my scriptures for a while until the kids caught on to where I was, and then I was getting nothing out of it. Over the summer my friend and I were walking 3 to 4 days a week. I always came home happy from our walks. Now that school is in that has changed to nights. How was I going to get all Lightnings homework in, his scouts, his soccer, and take care of my grumpiness, my family clearly did not deserve? We needed a better plan. My poor husband has been begging me to get a grip in the mornings. I found my self telling my kiddos when they are grumpy that Happiness is a choice. When my husband said it to me, I knew, I deserved an ounce of my own medicine!! So, I am choosing to be happy, a change for the better. Last night I announced my plan and this morning it went very smoothly with out a single bit of grumpiness on my part. I know, it's only been a day...... I am determined to change my ways and set a better morning tone at our house. To be a better example!

The new schedule.

6:15: Mom & Lightning up and reading side by side.

I read my scriptures He reads his scriptures, chapter book , fun book of his choice. No more trying to fit his required reading in after school. Hopefully he will pick up a good scripture study habit along the way.(fingers crossed)

6:40 Piano practice Miss M & Lightning. While one practices the other one gets dressed head to toe.

7:00 Breakfast, family scripture study, prayer, & vitamins .

7:30 Do Miss M's hair get back packs and head for the bus.

7:45: Sneak a five minute breather on the couch, sigh and relax.

I DID IT!!!

Pat my self on the back. No grumpy Morning Mommy at this house today, because I got up and sat reading to clear my head before all the small people could all need me at once. Totally worth the missed half hour to 45 minutes of sleep. I will just have to take a power nap later:)!!!!!

OH,

and speaking of change little H started Dance today. She has been begging for a while to get to go with Sweet K. Today was the day. It started out like this

but ended like this.....

I guess it was a little too big of a change for my Little cutie pie today. Sweet K is even there with her and she would not be consoled. We will try again next week and if she does not love it we will wait till next year & try then.

No Laundry

is getting done around here, but these are.

Guess I feel I have the right to sit and relax a little now that some of the hooligans are in school. I even got an entire book of pages printed. It is so fun to watch my kids look at the pages and laugh and giggle together.

A Little Secret

A sure fire way to get this kid to go to bed on a Friday night.

Tell him how much fun it will be to sit and watch Mommy and Daddy eating our dinner in front of him and not sharing.Then sitting with his back to the T.V. watching Mommy and Daddy periodically make out while we watch a Movie that is PG-13. No PG -13's for him. Works like a charm every time!!!!!!

I think the making out threat is the clincher.......

Burned

Poor Lightning, He is just to playful for his own good. He is in a constant state of motion. Always teasing...... He's a boy, that about sums it up. In the mornings when I am still groggy I beg him to settle down, to not run through the kitchen especially. I am usually making breakfast and it usually means there is a HOT something brewing some where in the kitchen. Sure enough, what I had predicted and warned him about happened today. I have often said, "One of these days you are going to get burned or accidentally hurt one of your brothers or sisters!" Today it was him. He was playing around and teasing about finding a bowl for his oatmeal.. I had just heated and poured Little H's water for her oatmeal and warned her not to touch, that it was HOT and I had just finished speaking when Lightning came over and with one finger in the bowl to grab it for himself he pulled hot scalding water right down the front of him

DAAAANNNNG IT, THAT HURT'S!!!!!!!!!!

A hard lesson learned,or is it a lesson learned the hard way??

Either way it is painful and I feel so bad for him. He insisted on going to school. He knows staying home is no fun. I am sure I would be lenient today. I sent a note to the teacher and left a message for the school nurse. I guess if he can't hack it, I will get that fun call to go pick him up. Hopefully the ibuprofen does the trick!!

I Saw The Signs

You know the ones.........

The ones that mean school is in full swing. That my morning routine has to be earlier and a little more structured. That when those kids come in my room TOOOOO early to say hello, I am actually going to have to crawl out of my bed instead of cuddling with them, or kissing them and sending them off to play while I rest a little longer. I am always out of bed by 7:00 am anyways . So, I guess it won't be that big of a change, I am just whining. We thought we were off to a great start today when we sent Lightning to the bus right on time.

I was Doing Miss M's hair when I realized I had sent him without his first homework assignment. You know the one the teacher gives out at meet the teacher night? Since when? Look teachers, Moms have it hard enough please do not ask anything extra of us on the first day of school !!! I for one can't remember them. I was headed to the school anyways so it was not a problem, but really...... Miss M chose to be taken on her first day of all day Kindergarten. I am glad she let me take her!!! I needed the extra time with her. I have been counting down the days until school starts, but I am always sad to see them go. It also gave me a chance to take her picture at the school and catch her all ready making new friends.

Have great day Kiddos!!!

For Your Dining Pleasure

We would like to introduce.....

The Apple Dufus Gang

Our kids are dorks and we love it! They make us laugh.

Dinner is always an adventure. Food is never for eating, just for play.

Dinner is usually eaten fully clothed unless previously doused in water while playing in the back yard. Then it is a whatever goes as long as we don't make more laundry for me to do.

And in the absence of the needed prop, but still wanting camera time, a fork will always do.I am glad I thought to grab the camera.

We Caved....

We let Lightning have a Mohawk. He only gets it for the week. He doesn't care, we are all of a sudden parents of the year. What? we are not always totin that title? Not by a long shot, but we will take what we can get. Like all overly obessed Moms like me must do. I took pictures and while I was editing them he was bustin out all these crazy suggestions as to what I could do to the pictures and I was nodding and really just ignoring his antics. He finally had enough and said, "Don't you get it? I want one of those pages with all the bows and stuff you do." Ohhhhhh, silly me, he wants me to scrapbook it. No problemo, DONE.......He sat by me and picked out what he wanted and even helped me arrange things. I took veto power at some points, but all in all he designed a fun page and he wears his Mom's very first and very lame attempt at a mohawk pretty well, don't ya think

.

WHAT IS THAT SMELL???????

(I had to revise this post after I simmered down and found some perspective.)

I am not sure with the mood I am in if I will look back on this one and laugh. At least that's how I feel at the moment. As I was headed out the door to the urgent care on Tuesday I opened the garage door where Lightning and his buddy were playing. Lightning likes to build things. I let him take a fan out there and go to town all the time.. He can tear apart clothes I am going to throw away and card board boxes and so he decided to make a sling shot on Tuesday and in the absence of any water balloons he decided he would sneak eggs out of the outside refrigerator and launch them at the inside of my garage door and the beam that crosses inside the garage ceiling. Because I had a kid with a split open chin I did not see the full mess and never checked to see if it had all gotten cleaned up. I did notice the rag he used laying on the garage floor yesterday and asked him to throw it away. I thought he had....... This morning I had to run a dessert over to a funeral and when we all walked in the door you would not believe the SMELL that hit me in the face. Sippy Cup Surprise, NO comparison!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a small fellow at my house scrubbing our garage as I type.Boy, we have had one heck of a week.

Lots of sad eyes at our house today............

Checkin Out

Seriously what Mother ever really gets to check out? I don't, but I like to call it that even if it's not true. A mental game I play in my head. Did that last sentence scare you? Mental games I play in my head? I digress..... "Checkin out" is merely a little break every now and again, and it consists of a lot of scrappin.

Sorry, guess I have needed to check out a lot lately!!!

Credits:

The Shabby Shoppe

Andrea Dickinson@ DSO

Scrap Orchard

Sippy Cup Surprise!

You know what stinks? No literally, what STINKS? A dirty half full sippy cup left in the cup drawer with the clean cups. The the air in our house was turned way up while we were out of town. I have been had by this shenanigan one to many times. I head for the drawer to get a kid a drink, unscrew the lid to what I think is a clean sippy and WHAM, the smell of rotten whatever hits you square in the face.

There you have it, the recipe for sippy cup surprise.

Not really the way to welcome me home from a vacation but better than a flood or a fire! We went to Snowflake over the weekend to stay with cousins and had so--o much fun. So for documentation sake a picture outline has been provided below. If you are tired of them feel free to move on, if not enjoy..........

A parade,

Cotton Candy,

Riding with Dad,

Learnin how to drive with Dad,

and loads of other fun that left us all with a grin as big as Bubba's on our faces.

K and J, THANK U so much for having us, we had such a great time!!!!!!

Determination

Lightning and Miss M have TONS of it.

I took them skating for the first time at Skateland last night.Passing of stuff for scouts. They were troopers and Lightning has the bruises to prove it. I am sure Miss M fell just as many times . I am sure her hind end caught her fall just as many times. Lightnings knees look much the same as his elbows. One fall and I am done for. I am too old for that. Don't ask me why I did not give the poor kid knee and elbow pads! The answer is, I did not think of it until it was too late.Poor kid said as he dropped in to bed last night how much they hurt and I said, "oh, it can't be that bad!" and when he got up this morning and showed me his knees and elbows I knew I owed him a BIG apology and some Advil. I had a few other Mothers at the rink mention how determined my kids were. They got up every time they fell, and tried again until they went from hanging on the wall to both being able to skate the loop almost fall free. I am sure this determination will serve them well in life. It already has in so may ways.I just want to muster enough determination today to get my to do list done so we can get out of town for the weekend.

Never Had A Big Brother

But if I had, I would have wanted one like my girls have, this guy...

Yep, he can be pushy and bossy and sometimes act like he's the one in charge around here, or the resident two year old, but then he pulls out all the stops and I find him doing this.

Which led to this.

Lightning was teaching Sweet K to ride her bike. He took it upon himself to get the tools out and take off her training wheels and talk her through it. It was ADORABLE. It really was the sweetest thing to watch. He held onto her bike and gave her pointers and told her, "You can do it if you really want to!" I checked on them when I noticed they had disappeared into the garage after dinner. I immediately caught on to what was happening and quickly grabbed my camera.They are used to being followed by me and my black box and and just move along with their lives.

I always wanted to have a boy first and I am so glad I got what I wanted. This guy really has a tender heart and loves his little Brothers and Sisters and for that I will always be grateful!!!

Craaaazy times

at our house are what we are all about. We took a two day old baby into our care this week who we thought would be with us longer but instead got placed with family on Friday.We were sure happy to love and kiss him while we could.!! My kids just LOVE having babies around the house. So do I for that matter. We took him in forgetting I had a trip planned with just my three oldest kids this weekend. I refused to cancel the trip and I am glad I did not. My oldest need time with me with out three small people always getting in the way. We have friends who have been in Flagstaff for a month so we loaded the car with us an some other friends and headed up to see them and for some great weather and good times. Trains seemed to be a theme. We watched some go by.

Toured some old ones.

We almost got ran over by one while being rear ended by our other friends (The B Crew) who were just as surprised at how quickly those fast blinking red lights came on and how those safety bars came down. SCARY.... This train was at the Pioneer Museum, where we also got tour and old hospital and see an Iron Lung up close. They had lots of old buildings and farm equipment to see.

It was kind of funny us three Mormon women with ten kids between us. Onehm assured the curious people that we all have our own husbands.:)Lightning was so excited to see his buddy E again. It's been a long month of June at our house while E has been away.

We played at a park and got rained on it was FABULOUS.The mountains, the pines, the weather. We went to the Lowell Observatory and missed looking at Saturn by just a few minutes. the clouds rolled in again and spoiled our fun. Sweet K crossed the chain that is meant to keep kids out and almost knocked over the original telescope brought in by wagon. Yep, that's my girl.Boy you should have seen the worker bust a move to save the antique. How much do you think that would have set us back in damages and repairs? Yikes........

This was the sunset through the trees as we left the observatory.

The next day was spent swimming and playing by a creek in Sedona.

I think my Summer plans from now on are always going to consist of cooler weather and a lot of outdoor fun.