Lacyisms and Her Easter Dress(es)

“Mom, can I PLEASE make dinner?!  I’ll be REALLY careful with the oven!”

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“Here Trent… you hold to the iron rod and I’ll say the opening prayer.”

“I’m so lucky because I love my mom SO much!”

“Mommmmm! INEEDHELPFLUSHINGFORGIVEME!”
(That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear after hearing the toilet flush, and sure enough she had caused a small flood in the bathroom, but she was forgiven the minute I stepped on the scene.)

“Would you mind?” She asked, handing me “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” because she wanted me to read Chapter Three.
(This still kills me. No four year old talks like that! No 40 year old, even! Maybe an 85 year old…)

“Mom, I’m going to get fat like that,” she said, pointing to a picture taken of me when I was big and pregnant with her.
“You are?” I asked.
“Yep! I’m just going to eat and eat and eat until there’s a baby in my belly and then… POP! My belly will just pop out.”
(So THAT’S where babies come from!)

I should also note that as she prayed a few nights ago, she thanked Heavenly Father for the ABC’s -one letter at a time. I’ve got to admit, I’ve never once thought to do that! But I am extremely thankful for the alphabet.

The Easter Bunny used to give me a dress every year, and it was the highlight of the Holiday for me. I looked forward to that more than anything, and I never wanted to take my new dress off. Well, the past few years our funds have run a little low but I always manage to scrape up something in the way of an Easter dress. Her first Easter, we were able to buy an absolutely gorgeous dress. Her second year, I ordered the sweetest dress off  of Ebay.

Her third Easter, we started running out of money for things like Easter dresses, so I haphazardly MADE one from the apron scraps.  I’d been teaching myself how to sew.  The dress worked for Easter day and THAT WAS IT, but it was cute enough and she liked it.

Her fourth Easter, she was able to wear a dress she had worn a few weeks earlier when she played flower girl at my cousin Kimmy’s wedding.

This year, I was a little despondent about the dress situation. Our paycheck, for some reason (*cough* GAS *cough*) wasn’t stretching at all. I found some adorable dresses at Sam’s club, but after we did our shopping (only getting what we needed) there wasn’t any spare money left. I knew she had an adorable dress in her closet that she had outgrown a little. All it needed was a new top made, and I thought I’d refashion it. THEN I remembered that I had three yards of unused pink poly/cotton in my closet. I was going to use them to make a costume for the Founder’s Day parade, and I ended up not being in it. Three yards would easily make a dress for a 4 year old! The only sad part about it was that the color of the fabric wasn’t the prettiest.
Also, I don’t have a pattern of any kind.

But once I get an idea…
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VERY homespun. And the rick rack on the front is crooked (very) but only because the waist band is crooked. Also, it barely fits her. Like, it will work for tomorrow and maybe a few Sundays in May. After that, I’m going to have to learn how to put zippers in clothes and modify the dress AGAIN. That dress, by the way, has been altered and altered and altered… but it’s (pretty much) done!
Now if I can only stop tinkering with it… I started it around lunch time and finished it around 11 PM.
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Thank goodness for having things on hand! I just wish I was a pro seamstress so she could have a proper froofy spring dress with tulle and ribbon.  But it’s done, and it’s new, and she likes it.

Today I’m going to crochet a small shawl that buttons in the front to go over the top.

Oh, and I’m also finally doing the Easter shopping.  Heaven help me navigate Wal-Mart today!

The Wonderful

Through a series of fortunate events yesterday, I now own:

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This is very important. Very important. First of all, it was printed in 1962 and used all of the original illustrations from the first edition (which was printed in 1900). Second, it was written by L. Frank Baum who I respect for his tenacity to follow his day dreams. Third, it smells like an old book.

Have you ever seen L. Frank Baum?

I don’t think I could have married him. First of all, we would have day dreamed ourselves into bankruptcy (which he almost managed to do on his own several times -even after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published). Second of all, he hopped from place to place and job to job. It would have driven me stack-raving mad.
He probably would have used my insanity as fodder for a best-seller, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that I admire the man. He always kept going despite monster-sized road blocks. He even went so far as to publish The Wonderful Wizard of Oz himself. Can you believe that? No one would publish his book, so he published it himself.

I also can’t help but admire him for his unwavering loyalty and devotion to his wife, evidenced here:
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He dedicated his book to her.
It’s also rumored that after the book succeeded in sales, he bought her an Emerald Ring. I chose to believe -beyond a shadow of a doubt -that rumor is true.

Her name was Maud. Maud Gage. Maud Gage Baum.
Four letters in every name -how wonderful! They also had four sons.

L. Frank Baum (Lyman Frank Baum, but he hated the name Lyman) wrote in introduction to his book. He called it a Wonder Story, something of a modern fairy tale. But unlike the Fairy Tales of Grimm, it was devoid of all nightmarishness. That, by the way, isn’t a word.

Read what he says here:
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“It aspires to be a modernized fairy tale in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartache and nightmares are left out.”

That one sentence completely sums up my feelings about my online web-log (my blog).  Except there’s something antiquated about the notion of a fairy-tale in the world we live in today.  You have to live above the muck, you know, to actually believe it can happen.  For myself, I reside comfortably in the clouds.  As I read back on my blog (which I do quite often) I never remember the tears I’ve had, the sleepless nights of worry, fear, or lost hopes.  I don’t remember the pain, the sorrow, the heartaches.  That is to say: I don’t remember them AS WELL.  With every passing reading, I forget the heartaches more and more.  If everything goes as planned, my children won’t recall them at all.

I do remember the joys, the laughter, the happiness, and the hilarity of my children.

And so we live, day-by-day, in our own little Wonder Story, full of joy and happiness without nightmares.

We have nothing to fear here in the clouds.
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(scripture time on Daddy’s iPod. Scripturing has never been so cool. Esther on a touch screen!)
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A quote:
“As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.

What has happened?’ the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.

Why, we’ve had a revolution, your Majesty — as you ought to know very well,’ replied the man; ‘and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I’m glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.’

Hm!’ said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. ‘If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?’

I really do not know,’ replied the man, with a deep sigh. ‘Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.”
— L. Frank Baum (The Marvelous Land of Oz)

The June Cleaver Experiment

A few days ago, I wrote a post about housekeeping. I shared a few pictures from a housekeeping book. In that same housekeeping book, the author (Daryl V. Hoole) suggests getting yourself dressed and ready for the day before serving breakfast. I thought it was a good idea in general, but nothing I was ever going to attempt. But the thought lingered. And lingered. And lingered longer, and I suddenly found myself thinking of it as a challenge.
Yesterday, I took that challenge -by jingo. I woke up, showered, dressed, did my make-up, did my hair, and then served breakfast to my husband with a (sarcastic) smile.
“This is for you, dearest,” I beamed.
“Thank you, darling,” he beamed back.

And then he left for work.
But before he left for work, he kissed me. Because I had gotten ready for the day, I was wearing lip gloss deliciously flavored with strawberry something-or-other (probably chemicals, right?). And his normal quick “I’m heading out the door” peck on the lips was replaced with a long, long, long… kiiiiiiissssssssss. The kind that make you swoon.
After he pulled away, he looked at me, thanked me for remembering just how much he loves the tasty lip gloss, and then told me I was hot.

Hot? Say whaaa?

I must here state that I really half-arsed my way through “getting ready for the day.” Instead of washing my hair, I straightened day-old hair. Instead of dressing up in something impressive, I opted for my comfy tennis shoes, my Old Navy jeans, and a handy blue Hansen’s Auto t-shirt. Did I mention that I’m still carrying a mound of holiday weight around my mid-section? Well I am.
But throughout the day I got texts from him.
“How are you?”
“What are you up to?”
And when he came home, he showered me in compliments the likes of which have never been heard since the dating days. This is shocking! And I’ll tell you why.
It has nothing to do with my husband. He’s as sweet as a honeysuckle. It has everything to do with me and those children running around my ankles.
THESE children.
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There was NO END to their naughtiness yesterday! Absolutely no end! My main goal yesterday was to fold laundry. My loveseat is overflowing with laundry, and I was going to fold it come hell or high water!
But guess what?
On account of my children’s naughty behavior, I took my exhausted self and banished it to the kitchen instead. I hid behind beef soup (made with steak -sorry dad), dishes, and -surprisingly -pineapple meringue pie. Do you remember that old graduation song -the one filled with great advice and catchy music? Every now and then, a phrase from that song will pop out at me.
Like:
Do one thing every day that scares you.

Well, meringue scares me, okay? It looks so easy to mess up! So I took it on. I let the laundry sit where it may and I beat egg whites to my heart’s content. Because I banished myself to the kitchen, dinner happened to be ready when my husband walked through the door at 5.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL!
And I think it sort of cancels out that one time I served my family dinner at 11:45 in the PM.

As the day wore on, what was left of my patience flew out the window and despite the fact that my make-up was on and my hair was done, I sounded quite the beast. But my husband told me several times over how hot I was.
Hot. Hot.
I’m still wrapping my mind around that.
Hot? No. I’m not hot. I’m a mom!
(“I’m not a woman anymore. I’m a mom!” Name it…)

We ran into town to get a few Eastery things for an Easter package we were assembling for our brother on a mission, and I tried to keep my cool and not dump my negativity all over my husband. I didn’t succeed 100%, but I did okay. We stopped off at the post office to get the mail before they locked the door AND to shove candy in my son’s mouth so he would stop falling asleep since it was nigh unto 7 in the PM and he had skipped his nap.
Which is another story.
And mama doesn’t allow naps at 7 in the PM. EV-ER.

When my husband came back out with the mail, he told me that the latest issue of Country Living had come in. He almost set it aside (gasp!) but I held out my eager hands and begged for it.
I squealed with delight and hugged it to my chest, clinging to my huge ray of sunshine on an otherwise trying day.
As I did so, my husband continued to say some of the sweetest things I’ve heard since we were dating.

During my Kitchen Confinement, I had done the dishes approximately 70 billion times (okay, 3) and after dinner was done, I did them once again. But I didn’t put the soup up.
After the packages were assembled, my husband put the soup up. I didn’t ask him to, he just DID.  Then he scrounged up every dirty dish in the house and washed them.
Then he turned on The Odd Couple as I put the kids into bed (never been so happy to).
Then he laid a blanket out in front of the television.
Then he offered me his arm.
And we laughed and ate pineapple meringue pie.

I also gave him the best foot rub known to mankind as my way of saying “Sorry for my lousy attitude, chum.”

I’m still trying to figure out what went on yesterday, and this is what I’ve come up with so far.

Meager attempt to look nice + flavored lip gloss > losing patience with naughty children

June Cleaver, the world may condemn you in their own way, but today -as I served breakfast to my husband 100% dressed and ready for the day -I praised you. Though your ways and hair may seem dated, they stand for something monumental.
And let’s face it: he did my dishes. without even so much as a nudge.

But today I’ve really got to buckle down and fold that laundry.
Thank goodness for leftover pineapple meringue pie in the fridge.

Here’s a few shots of our package assembly last night (aka FHE):
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Check out how happy I look in this picture. Can you tell it had been a long day? (lie and say “no”…)
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World’s Greatest Man and his children. See how the daughter is clinging to him for affection? See how the son is mid-whine and saying “Nooooooo!” because his mother asked him to smile for the picture?
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Happy Tuesday, all. May it be better than Monday.

After the Flood(s)

I popped into mom’s house last night.  She asked me how my day went.  I told her it was good.  Then I did a mental scan of how my day went and I laughed out loud.

“Do you really want to know how my day went?” I asked.   She said she did.  So I told her the honest truth.

Trent has decided he’s a little interested in going potty.  In fact, he wanted to spend most of the afternoon just sitting on it.  Incidentally, he never USED it.  I’m not kidding when I say he spent most of the afternoon on it.  I couldn’t just sit there while he sat there.  I had to get dinner going and dishes done… so I left him.

You’re all shaking your head right now, aren’t you? You’re thinking, ‘IDIOT!’

And you’re all right.  All of you.  He decided to wash his own hands, and I didn’t hear the water running full force because I was doing dishes.  When I checked on him, water was overflowing out of the sink and onto the floor.  I immediately set to cleaning it up, and situations like this usually upset me.  But yesterday, it didn’t really faze me.  I was sort of proud of how I handled the situation.  It wouldn’t have been such a terrible situation if I hadn’t have just washed every towel in the house.  They were all wet!  I went on a real hunt for towels and found just enough to clean it up.  The floor needed to be mopped anyway, right?

I stripped my son down to his nothings.

His clothes were drenched anyway. I didn’t bother putting a diaper on him because I knew he’d want to sit on the potty again. I put the wet towels in the dryer and loaded the washer with a comforter. I thought there’d be enough room for a pillow too. Trouble was: it was a body pillow. A THIN body pillow, but a body pillow nonetheless.
Then I mopped the kitchen. And why not? It needed done, and my knees were already wet from mopping the kids’ bathroom.
My husband came home just in time to see our linoleum gleam. Minutes after he came home, I heard a strange sort of sound coming from the washer. I went to check on it to find…
A flood in the laundry room.

Our laundry room has a door in it -the back door. It’s a splendid set-up, really. I threw the back door open and started mopping up whatever water I could however I could. My landlord (my dad) happened to be a few feet away working on his tractor.
He asked me what my kids were up to.
I confessed to him I didn’t know. I was too busy mopping up my little flood to know. Apparently my kids saw their grandpa from the kitchen window. As I mopped, I saw my daughter sprint by in her tutu and boots. She had escaped through the front door. I thought about telling her to come back and ASK before leaving, but I was so concerned with shoveling water that I was pretty much incapable of noticing anything else. I shut the back door and started moving things out of the laundry room.
Some 5 gallon buckets full of flour.
Our 72 hour kits.
Our three-part laundry basket.
The broom.
The ironing board.
The carpet cleaner.

I threw open the back door again and caught site of something. My son.
I quickly went back to mopping up water and then it registered. MY SON! My naked son! Except he wasn’t quite naked. I looked closer. My dad was sitting on his tractor. My son was sitting next to him wearing a jacket. Then my son leaned forward and…
BARE BUTT CRACK!

I couldn’t help laughing. And laughing and laughing and laughing. When I went to fetch him and bring him back home, I noticed he was wearing his boots. His boots and a jacket. And that’s all.

My husband joined me in the fight to clean up the laundry room, we ate dinner, and last night I slept for 10 hours on the living room couch. I didn’t even make it to bed.

Yesterday might have been hair-pulling awful if it hadn’t been so darn funny.
Take this for instance: after I got the kids back inside my house from Their Great Escape (out the front door), I looked out of my window to see Dad tilling up his garden. Look behind him. His cows. They followed him! Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?
They sure know who their sugar daddy is.

After I took that picture, I walked back inside. I glanced at my flower bed. My barren flower bed. But I saw something pushing up through the dirt. You know what it is?

It’s a strawberry plant!! I planted strawberries in my flower bed last year and they failed miserably MOSTLY because I treated them terribly and a little because the flower bed wasn’t the best place to plant them. The best place would probably be somewhere in Georgia.
I feel so bad for that plant. I abused it! And STILL it wants me back! My husband took a class in college that described abusive relationships. He said that after someone abuses their spouse (or child), they go through a honeymoon stage. The abusive spouse (or parent) is exceptionally caring and sweet, but it eventually wears off giving way to the next stage which is less-honeymoonish. Eventually the cycle repeats itself. The spouse abuses, apologizes, and the couple enters the Honeymoon faze again.

I feel like I’m in the Honeymoon faze with my plant. I’m watering it and loving it and speaking kind words. But my black thumb will inevitably rear it’s ugly head and the plant will suffer. I’ve promised the plant I’ll change, but hey. I can’t change who I am.
And soon enough when visitors come to my door and ask me why my plant looks like it does -torn and terrible -I’ll tell them my plant is clumsy and that she probably fell down the stairs.
At that point, I would expect my visitors get suspicious and they’d never allow me to babysit their plants. EVER.

Did you know that a few weeks ago I told my husband I wanted to deep-clean the laundry room? Be careful what you wish for. I’m off to scrub. After I’m done scrubbing, I’m going to treat my strawberry plant to a spa day.

Not Silly -BEAUTIFUL

A few days ago, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  I took my kids with me.  That is to say: I took my son, Trenton, and my daughter, Rapunzel.

Rapunzel is very particular about being called Rapunzel.  Under no circumstances is she to be called Lacy or honey or sweetie or little miss or Ace (a nickname that has somehow weaseled it’s way into our vocabulary).  Before going to the store, she put on a dress-up dress, her church shoes, and asked for some hair flowers.  I quickly put five temporary hair flowers together, clipped them in her hair, and off we went.  As I pushed the grocery cart around, she made her way under my arms.  She put her feet on the cart and held onto the cart’s handle for balance.  Once she had it, she FLUNG one arm out as I pushed the cart around.  It looked something like this, except her arm was flung farther out and her head was tilted and one leg kicked back for effect.

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“Are you being silly?” I asked.
“NO!” She said, defensively, “BE-YOO-TI-FULL.”
She has no enunciate these things, you know. Her mother is so slow.

I laughed at that, and then I had to wonder what Heavenly Father thinks of us sometimes.

(image taken from mykethemakeupguy.blogspot.com)
Are you being silly?
No! Beautiful!

Are you being silly?
No! Beautiful!

Beautiful!

(image taken from fearlesscreativity.blogspot.com)
Beautiful!

(image taken from blogs.smarter.com)
Beautiful!

 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to do my daily tweeze.

Dandelions and Mama Toilet Paper

Dandelions have always grown in abundance here.

When I was a little girl spending countless hours running amok outside, I used to gather them up for my mom. I’d parade in the house with a grubby little “bouquet” and hand it over to her. I knew that they weren’t the prettiest flowers in the world, but as I watched her fill the bottom of her tiny toothpick holder (shaped like a flower vase) and place the weeds inside, I felt that they were acceptable to her. She would leave them in the windowsill above the sink, and I would stare at them -WILLING them to somehow sprout into a lush wildflower bouquet worthy of someone as wonderful as my mother. They never did though. They only withered up within a few hours, making the area in which they resided lose considerable property value.

Lately, my Lacy has taken to bringing me beautiful flowers. She takes her plastic purple tea cups in the bathroom, fills them with water, and then packs all manner of “shrubbery” into them for me. I remember what it was like to give little gifts to my mother -how proud I was of them -how the excitement mounted in my chest as I gathered dandelions and DREAMED of her reaction as I presented them to her. I presently have two tea cups in my house: one filled with dead dandelions and one filled with cast-off branches from our bushes. BUT I also have something I would have given my piggy bank savings for as a kid:
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(please note the dead branch in the middle. Please.)

An absolutely beautiful floral arrangement to give to my mother!
Lacy, as you may or may not know, is SOCIAL. When we first moved in to our house over a year ago, we didn’t know our neighbors all that well. She soon bridged that gap. As soon as she learned that our neighbor’s name was Gloria… Lacy immediately set to calling her Aunt Gloria. As Lacy jumped on her trampoline, she’d strike up conversation with Aunt Gloria via shouting over the fence.
“AUNT GLORIA! HOW OLD ARE YOU?!”
And I’d rush to hush her.

Aunt Gloria has always been much more than kind to my children, who have -on more than one occasion -trespassed on her lovely garden. She’s let Lacy gather shells in her dirt. She’s let Trent get acquainted with her people-shy cat.
And most recently, she’s sent Lacy home with the most beautiful flowers in the world.
Everyone in the world should have an Aunt Gloria.

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And here’s something completely off the subject: how do I get my bed back?
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When I’m in bed and the kids crawl in, I’m more apt to roll over and sleep in an unnatural position (so as to accommodate them) than to force myself out of bed to put them back in it. Three nights ago, I saw my son come into my room in the middle of the night.
“Go back to bed,” I said. He didn’t reply. He just crawled into my bed, made his way under my arm, patted it, and said, “I lubba you.”
And four hours later, we woke up thus. How could I chase him away after THAT?!
Anyway, I don’t know what to do. My husband suggested solving the problem by purchasing a king size mattress.

And here’s something rather MORE off the subject:
Last night, I took Lacy to the bathroom in Target. She was absolutely taken by the toilet paper.
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“Look! It’s a mama and a baby! Oh, they are so cute!”
She also named them. I can’t remember the baby’s name, but I distinctly remember the mother toilet paper was named Wacy.

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This is me and the girl who stayed up past midnight to watch “Tangled” last night. Every scene was her “favorite part.” Movies have seemed so much richer since she came along.

Movies and springtime and dandelions and my bed and life in general… all richer.

Have a Laugh

I laughed hard exactly five times yesterday.

#1) While I was working in the kitchen in the morning making cookies, my son started singing.  Here’s a little background: Santa Clause brought my son a neon green fish that looked like Lacy’s neon pink fish.  Lacy named her fish a few different things before settling on Glinda the Good Fish.  Because Trent isn’t old enough to think of his own pet names, Lacy took it upon herself to name the green fish Jesus.  We tried in vain to dissuade her.  Really, we tried everything.  There’s something radically irreverent about a fish named Jesus.  I expected lightening to strike the tank at anytime, but it never did.  Anyway, we don’t have to worry about it anymore.  The green fish died.  We found it dead in the tank minutes before leaving town to visit Grammy.  We broke the news to the kids on the drive over, and when Lacy arrived at Grammy’s house, she spread the word… “Jesus died!” I told this to my brother, and he suggested we save the fish until Easter to see if it came to.  Sadly, the fish has been flushed.   The bright side to this story is that I thought I didn’t have to worry about lightening striking anything.  I counted my eggs before they were hatched, it would seem.  And I couldn’t help but laugh as I listened to my son sing one of the only songs he knows by heart:

“He’s makin’ a list and checkin’ it Christ.”

I corrected him and he now sings it correctly.  Though it took one more, “He’s makin’ a list and checkin’ it Chr–TWICE.”  But he did get it.  And that’s all that matters.

#2) Lacy has some markers.  I bought them on clearance at Wal-Mart and they hardly ever come out to play.  They are special occasion markers.  As I was getting ready for mutual and my husband on sitting on our bed, our little Lacy Lou came plowing into our bedroom, her arm covered in blue marker.

“TRENT DID THIS!” She cried, holding out the offending blue marker, “So I just said ‘DEMMIT’ to him!”

I popped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, “What did you just say?” I asked.

“I say Trent did THIS!” She held out her arm, “And I was so mad so I just said ‘demmit’ to him.”

Dad took care of that situation.  Sometimes the best solution to a problem is the cause.

#3) Curiosity got the better of this cat, who -for some reason I’ll never know -wondered what it would be like to be a pair of dirty jeans.


I’ve come to believe it’s my lot in life to hear thuds followed by screams. Such was the case yesterday. Any good mother would have just pulled the kid out. But I asked her not to move while I got the camera. These are the things we never want to forget.

(no children were harmed while these pictures were taken. Apart from being shaken up, she was absolutely fine.)

#4) One of my Beehives told me about the book she’s reading. She gave me an introduction into what the book is like, and it went something like this: “It’s like an old book. Not like ‘old’ old, but like set back in time. Like…” she paused here to gather her thoughts… “okay, like you know when they used to kill people that they thought were witches? Like that. The book happened around that time but it’s fake. The story isn’t real… like the Titanic.”

Instead of correcting her, I just nodded and proceeded to make notes on the paper in front of me of what she was saying so I’d be sure not to forget it.

#5) Trent busted out what he likes to call his Battle Cat last night. Prepare to be scared.

Heaven help the David who goes against THAT Goliath.

To Bulk Shop or Not to Bulk Shop?

I love shopping bulk.  When my feet alight the floors of Sam’s, my heart skips a few beats and I ain’t kiddin’.  I sorta wish I were because that’s really geeky of me.  If I had $1000 to just spend in any one store, that store would be Sam’s Club.  I tell you this so you’ll know that I shop Sam’s because I love Sam’s.  I don’t necessarily shop Sam’s to save money.

I’ve never been one to crunch numbers.  I’ve never been one to crunch much of anything which is why my abs look like they do (bread dough, anyone?).  But a few times a year, I’ll look at my massive carton of Olive Oil and wonder ‘AM I saving money?’

On one hand, it’s nice to stock up on stuff like toilet paper because we live out in the country.

On the other hand, we spend so much in gas (over $60 a trip) to just go to the city (read: to go to Sam’s Club).

On one hand, the prices ARE lower!  Two pounds of colby/jack cheese for 6 bucks!

On the other hand, we pay a $40 membership… and then there’s the gas.

On one hand, we don’t have to shop for essentials regularly.

On the other hand: we still do.

It’s all my fault, and here’s why: I use more of the essentials if we have them.  I once made the monumental mistake of buying the Sam’s Club size Crisco Shortening and proceeded to bake my weight in cookies.  Bad, bad.  How did THAT save money? or time? or health?

Take last night for instance.  The kids were bored.  They were starting to fight, and I had spent all day not really playing with them because I was getting a costume ready.  I played the part of Ruth in a Relief Society program last night, and I hadn’t gotten a costume ready at all.  I ended up saying a prayer the MORNING OF the program and taking a pair of scissors to three yards of yellow fabric.

(Note to Jewel: I finally used up the last of the pale yellow fabric!  Now I’ve got to figure out how to use up the yards and yards of school bus yellow fabric. Boo.)

(Note to Sara: your sister, Emily, is on the front row dressed as the mother of Joseph who was sold into Egypt.  She was laughing because she is pregnant and portraying a woman who died giving birth.  She did awesome.)

(Note to Laurie: Beki is on the far right.  She portrayed Emma Smith and did an amazing job.)

(Note to Kristal: thanks a million for snapping pictures for me, champ.)
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Carol Shelly is on the far left. She’s the most beautiful woman in town.
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I can’t tell you how nervous I was about this whole thing. Silly, isn’t it? I was amongst friends! Anyway, it was a really neat experience (“the memory of which I wouldn’t part with for anything”). As I stumbled through the door of my home after the program, arms laden with food and head laden with a headache, I saw my kiddos. They needed the attention they’d been denied all day.
“Let’s play,” I said to my daughter.
“PIRATES?!” She asked.
“Sure,” I nodded. My son went immediately into action, throwing on his pirate hat (compliments of Gerri -thanks, Gerri!).
I went to the cupboards and pulled out my tin foil. I purchased it at Sam’s Club, you know.
I purchased approximately 50 thousand POUNDS of tinfoil all at once from Sam’s Club. I made three swords (ugly swords). After I’d been wounded and killed a number of times, I made a two guns (ugly guns). Then my little girl pirate magically turned into Snow White and requested a crown. I made her one that wasn’t up to par, so she asked for another, insisting I wear her cast-off. As long as we’re talking about insisting, I was also forced to call her Snow White for the remainder of the evening.

(check out her “beaded” necklace. I’ll sell you one for 10 cents.)

We had so much fun that Dad couldn’t resist playing with us.

I should have made my pirate name “Ruthless” on account of my still sporting half of my Ruth costume. Har har. Not like the kids would have appreciated my cheesy humor. Matter of fact: I don’t think they EVER will.

The question remains: Am I actually saving money by shopping at Sam’s?
The answer? Who givza.

Papa Roach

This weekend, we were able to skip town and visit family down in the warm, sunny valley.  It was a quick trip, but we’re always SO excited to go when we can!  Saturday night, my husband went out looking for a sturdy pair of shoes, and he took his little sister with him.  I stayed home with the kids.  I was in a Sunday dress on account of just having come home from the Young Women General Broadcast.

My in-laws, my children and I were all camped in front of the TV watching Bobby Flay throwdown.  As I watched, my daughter came toward me with her hands cupped together.

“This,” she said, holding her hands out so I could see them, “was under Trent’s pillow.”

I peaked into her softly cupped sweet little hands to find… a roach.  I yelped a great yelp, causing my daughter to jump and THROW the roach out of her hands and ONTO my skirt.  I started yelping and yelping and yelping some more and jumping and swiping… in short, I freaked out.  My poor daughter burst into tears, and in the middle of it all my mother-in-law, who had dozed off on the couch, shot up and wondered if the house was burning down.

It took more than a few minutes to settle my daughter down.

All my fault.

If I had handled the situation like a grown up instead of a wimpy little girl, we would all be better off.  As it is, my daughter is scarred.  Thinking about the incident on our drive home, I was reminded of Carson Daly.  Is that how you spell his name?  Anyway, I used to LIVE for his top ten countdown on MTV.  One of my all-time favorite music videos was Papa Roach’s “Last Resort.”

I went to youtube and watched it this morning.

Oh. My.  I think we can all pin point THAT video as the spark that flamed into the movement now known as EMO.  I’ll post the video, if you want to watch it.  I’ll also recap here:

punk singer dressed in black.

Offensive lyrics about how awful life is.

Zoom in on depressed, tatted teen.

Lather, rinse, repeat.  Over and over and over and over until the video ends in one screaming mess of depression, piercings, and black clothing. Immediately after watching it, I watched an old music video, “Cruel To Be Kind.”  It was like walking from Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk.

Mira:

 

Children Darling

My daughter borrowed “Peter Pan” from some of my favorite kids.  After watching it one day during her rest time, she came over to me and said, “I’m going to call you mother today.”

I said, “Okay, Lacy Darling.”  She loved being Lacy Darling, and she went out of her way to find different ways to talk to me -just so she could exercise the Mother word.

“Here’s a towel, Mother.”

“Mother, I love you.”

“Mother, look at my twirls.”

Yesterday, she took to calling me mother again.  She also insisted that I refer to her as Lacy Darling.  But Lacy isn’t always Darling, so sometimes I forgot.  Like when she hit her brother about a million times yesterday.  Like when she had to be asked a million times to pick up her things and STILL decided not to.  Like when she yelled at her brother.  Like when she threw a screaming FIT when we left the second birthday party of yesterday

By the time the sun went down and I had prepared and delivered both a FHE lesson, dinner, and a FHE snack and then gotten the kids bathed, dressed in PJs, and had family prayer… I was through.  Wasted.

I sat down on the couch while Lacy “Darling” scurried to clean her room up in hopes of getting to color in her chore graph (it didn’t happen, by the way.  She couldn’t stay up long enough to finish her room because it had been days since she’d cleaned it).  Sitting next to me was my husband.  I listened to the kids fighting in their room (“No!  TRENT!   GET OUTTA HERE!  I just gotta CLEAN UP!”) and the sounds of Angry Birds coming from my husband’s phone, and I took a stand.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone to bed while the children were still up.  But last night, I was at the end of my rope.  I said my prayers, slathered my feet in lotion before applying my awesome arch support socks, and then remembered that I had forgotten to take my daily herb.

I went back out into the jungle and took it.  As I walked by the kids’ room, they were both in bed watching “How To Train Your Dragon.”

“Goodnight, babies,” I cooed to them, and made my way into my room.

“MOM!?” Came the cry as crossed the threshold into my room.

“NOGOTOBED!” I shouted back, almost without realizing it.  The silence that followed was broken only by a thundering laugh from my husband.

Apparently shouting after cooing makes me a regular comedian.

Or maybe just a regular mom.