The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should NEVER Go Shopping The Day After A Long Vacation (With All Your Kids)

1.  The children are not fooled by the sudden clean appearance of the car – should you dare to ask them to enter you will have a revolt on your hands – especially when the notice the TVs have been removed (we have the removable kind that attach to the back of the two front seats.)

2. Sandals become projectile missles launched from the cart by the two year old.

3. The two year old becomes houdini and has decided that he has been buckled into things for long enough and to heck with the safety restraint in the cart, we need to stand and flap our arms in the breeze as the cart rolls along forcing mom to clench to him with one arm and stear with the other (and the unborn baby – heh) Any attempt to get him buckled in will result in endless shrieks and end in defeat as two seconds later he is free again crying, “I free! I free!” with great delight.

4. The children feel a need to finish the poking, fighting, and needling that they began in the car the day before – apparantly its not quite out of their system.

5.  Your children have become suddenly deaf to anything you ask them to do or not do – and you swear you didn’t have the volume up THAT loud in the car.

6. Maybe they are deaf because the two year old chooses to shriek his dissaproval so that everyone around you in the store stares at you with that “control your child” look and plugs their ears.

7.  The children feel a need to express their car freedom by dancing around the cart and having races down every aisle and nearly crashing into every cart, person, and display available – remember they are no deaf so they can’t hear you asking them to “please walk”

8. The children also feel a need to express their displeasure with each other by pounding on them so that strangers have to tell them to be nice to each other while you are hanging onto the wiggly two year old and trying to pay for the groceries.

9. You can’t walk without halting every two seconds to snag a child by the scruff of the neck to keep them from running off and as a result get rammed by the bagger behind you who didn’t realize you stopped. He smashes the cart full tilt into your ankle, then your toungue hurts when you bite it to refrain from crying out choice expletives.  So now you are limping out to the car and speaking with an odd slur.

10.  A Mother’s sanity has already been stretched tot he maximum limit for the last two weeks and will find herself headed straight for the looney bin.  (I’m just curious how many of you I will see there 😉 )

The one reason that you HAVE to go shopping the day after a long vacation:

1. FOOD – you get way grouchier without it! 

Home Sweet Home

It is always fun to go off on vacation and see things and people and play and have a simply grand time, and yet it is so wonderful to arrive home at last to your own cozy bed.  We got home last night after a 16 hour drive home from Montana yesterday.  The kids did remarkabley well – especially Jacob, considering we were stuck in a car all day after such an eventful trip.  We spent 12 days gallavanting about.  The trip started with us driving to Boise, ID for a family reunion – we arrived there on Thursday the 19 (my birthday – spent traveling in a car, wasn’t to bad though because the kids must have sung at least 20 – 30 different renditions of happy birthday to me at the top of their lungs during the entire drive 🙂 ).  The reunion ended on Saturday night, and as we were there with Paul’s parents and his Dad needed to be back in Montana for work on Monday we took off Sunday for the Big Sky.  Driving from Boise to Billings takes you right past Ricks College (sorry, BYU Idaho) and we couldn’t resist the urge to at least drive past and around the campus – and see the almost finished temple.

The temple is glorious – you can see it from miles and miles away. 

And how can I resist taking a picture of our home away from home for all music majors and music nuts (I was a nut, never majored) the infamous Snow Building.  If we had time I would have gone inside and  taken a picture of the Fishbowl. 🙂

After our detour through Rexburg we headed off toward Paul’s parents’ home, but not without stopping by a family favorite traditional spot, Howard Springs. Howard springs is a pretty little spot where a clear, crisp, cool natural springs bubbles out of the ground – the best water EVER. We stop whenever we are near and refill water bottles. The kids enjoyed the break from the car and the fresh cold water.

The tall blond boy is Paul’s nephew who accompanied Paul’s parents on the trip.

Jacob contemplates the small stream nearby.

We made it to Billings with only one child getting sick along the way – that was Jacob, but at least we were well armed with water and paper towells and he didn’t throw up much, poor thing. We did have to pump Elizabeth full of dramamine though. 😉

Our drive home was very uneventful, except that we forgot to give Elizabeth dramamine and she threw up on a straight stretch of freeway about 2 hours out of Billings. Thankgoodness for well placed garbage sacks through out the car – we didn’t even have a mess after that one. We popped her some dramamine and made it home without any further incident – other than cranky whiny parents and kids after 12+ hours crammed in a car together. 🙂 I’ll write about some of the events in the trip indiviually, we did a number of neat things, and saw many grand a glorious sights. But for now, I need to get my house in order after our arrival home last night. (Though what I really want to do is lay back down in that coziest of cozy beds right now – boy how one misses their bed when they are away). Anyway, off to be Cinderella I am… 🙂

Now that we are done with our major vacation, I am hoping to write more frequently – say get back in my habbit of writing once a day – hopefully.

I Dream of Choo Choos

Last night Paul and I were laying in bed reading with Jacob nestled in a small portacrib across the room from us.  Paul was engrossed in Harry Potter while I was submerged in a Helen McInnes spy thriller. 

Suddenly Jacob rolled over in his sleep, “Choo! Choo!” he called. 

Paul and I froze, knowing that we were caught and that our light had awakened the boy. But on closer inspection we found him still sound asleep.  We chuckled quietly as we thought of our boy’s dreams of Planes, trains, and automobiles.

3 Little Birds

At Paul’s Aunt’s cabin at the beach there is a mother bird who regularly makes her nest there. Upon our last visit there we had the pleasure of observing three adorable baby birds huddled in a nest above the back door.

This was my lucky shot – just as I took the picture the momma (or poppa) flew in with food for the little tykes.

Busy, Busy, Busy – A Random Tuesday Post (because Friday is so far away)

I keep meaning to write and I keep getting swept away in the hectic fun of summer.  I had a prenatal back on the 5th of July – we figured I was about 14 weeks at that point.  Everything went great, but the only problem was that try as she might my midwife could not track down a heart beat.  Before Jacob I would have shrugged and said “we’ll get it next time” but with paranoia attacking me, and with the extra excuse of wanting to be sure of the due date (my due dates have a way of never being what we think they are), we opted for an ultrasound.  So in we went on Sat. the 7th for an ultrasound.  Baby is in fact in there. 🙂 We heard that glorious little heart beating away and got to watch the little tyke wiggling and kicking around like a regular squirmy fishy.  So, with all the fun of seeing thing #5 and hearing the heart beat, I am now at ease (at least somewhat anyway) until the ultrasound at 20 weeks where we will check for defects and the like.  My due date is officially Jan. 3, 2008, so I am 16 weeks this week.

*****

After the children’s great success with the lemonade stand they decided they wanted to do it again last week, only this time they wanted to donate the proceeds to the Children’s Heart Foundation. So work they did – Tuesday through Friday, Friday they actually put in an 11 hour day, I was rather amazed.  By the end of the week those kids had made over $65! We took some out for tithing and expenses to go back to the kids, and had $50 to donate to the Children’s Heart Foundation. (I’ll have more pictures later – we’ll being doing the lemonade stand more in August and then I will get photos of all the kids 🙂 )

*****

Saturday was the Children Heart Foundation Oregon Chapter’s annual Lionheart Festival and Paul and I were volunteering again.  The kids dumped all their change and money from the lemonade stand and proudly handed it off to a very surprised and elated president of the chapter.  They were even officially recognized during one of the speeches, which thrilled the kids to no end.  We, of course, had a marvelous time volunteering, chatting with other heart parents, and playing to our heart’s delight.  I even got a charming cariacature of adorable Jacob done by an artist volunteering her time and work.  It was also neat to see how the art project turned out, and we now have a poster with Jacob’s artwork on it. 

(All the yellow shirts are kids, and adults, who have a CHD)

(Jacob’s heart that he painted is in the one in the bottom lefthand corner)

Here are a couple of pictures of Jacob at the Lion Heart Art Project:

*****

After church Sunday I needed to get a couple of quick things done, and Paul was in a meeting. I kept a tight hold on Jacob and asked the girls to “Please wait quietly and patiently against the wall, I should just be a minute.” Yeah right. I really only did take a minute, but the girls did not wait peacefully and quietly. They were sprawled on the floor on top of each other – noisily. There was another ward (congregation) in session (the chapel of course was closed, but sound does carry, even through heavy wood doors). As I scolded the girls for not listening and disrupting the other ward’s meeting I didn’t realized that I had let Jacob’s hand go as I helped the girls stand up. With horror it suddenly dawned on me that Jacob was not anywhere near me. I looked across the foyer, just in time to see Jacob quietly slipping into the chapel. With a sigh of, “what could possibly happen next”, I sprinted across the foyer and whipped the door open, snatching for that rascally arm, but to no avail. Jacob raced along the back row. The chapel was uncommonely quiet (where are all their kids???) as Jacob drowned the lone speaker out with his calls for, “Dadda”, “Dadda!”, “Dadda?” as he ran up to our usual bench. With confusion he looked at the stranger sitting there. So, he headed for the sacrament table, after all, Dad was sometimes up there, but then hesitated as he saw no one. That hesitation gave me my last scrape of luck as my hand shot out and snatched the back of his shirt collar. Mid horrendous embarassment and humiliation I scooped up the squirelly thing 🙂 and marched myself back down the aisle, across the back and out the door. There were many amused smiles and chuckling eyes, this was, after all, the ward I had grown up in. (Then I went home and cried – don’t you love those pregnant emotions?)

Lemonade! Lemonade for Sale!

“Mom, we want to have a lemonade stand,” the girls told me after I had refused to let them go down the street and by lemonade from some other kids for the exorbitant rate of $0.50 a cup. 

“Sounds like a fun idea, but there is a lot of work involved in a lemonade stand.  First, you will need lemonade, sugar, ice, and cups.  You will need to make signs and decide on a decent price to sell it. You also will need some starting out change, so you can make change for your customers.”  The girls had heard me say that $0.50 was way too much for a single cup of lemonade, so they were prepared for that one.

“We want to sell it for 5 cents a cup,” Elizabeth said proudly.

“Well, we do need to be sure that you make enough to cover how much you spend.  So, how about 10 cents, that should be enough. Dad and I will help out with cups, sugar, and ice this time; you guys can buy the lemonade.”

First we hit the bank and I started them off with nickles, dimes, and quarters. Then off to the store we trudged, each kid clutching in their hand their precious  60 cents which I figured would be enough to buy a couple of packets of lemonade each to get them started.  The kids were delighted when we found the lemonade (well, all kool-aid really) on sale for 10 cents a packet, so we started off the day with 18 packets of lemonade.

We got home and the kids made signs. The lemonade stand was up and going by 10:00 a.m.  and it didn’t shut down until 6:00 p.m.  Elizabeth ran it faithfully the full 8 hours with a couple of mini breaks here and there.  They even ate their lunch out there.  They sold a lot of lemonade – 12 packets worth.  I was so busy running lemonade out to them I was exhausted. Of course I was also out there painting and hauling their dressers, so that might have had something to do with it too.  Anyway, Lizard manned the table and change box. Emily and Dorothy marched up and down the side walk waving signs and shouting “Lemonade for sale! 10 cents a cup!”  Customers were kind and generous – many giving a dollar or 50 cents to the three little squirts sitting under the tree selling lemonade. 

At 6:00 we hauled it all inside and sat down to count the proceeds before dinner. We seperated out the starting up change mom and dad had pitched in, and then counted the mounds that were left.  The kids made a whopping $18! We were astounded.  Each kid got 6$ and then dad pitched in $1 per kid – so Jacob got a dollar too. 🙂 The final count that night was $7 for each kid.  Elizabeth is raring to go today for another lemonade stand.  And I reminded her,

“Now that you guys have made a really good proffit, you will be expected to buy your own sugar, cups, lemonade, and ice.”

So, the kids are all prepared to pitch in and buy more lemonade (hopefully it is still on sale), etc.  They will be quite the little buisness ladies when the summer is over. 🙂

Why My Parents Didn’t Name Me Grace

I teach a primary class at church – a large group of girls from the ages of 9 turning 10 this year up to just barely turned 12 this year.  I’ll have anywhere from 12-15 girls a week.  We have a lot of fun, they are a hoot to teach.

Sunday I was walking into our classroom while chatting with a friend when suddenly my right ankle turned (blasted high heels, though they are wider heels and pretty sturdy) and I went flying backward. I fell backwards across the hall, my legs shot out in front of me (at least I didn’t flash anyone in my sunday skirt) and I landed on my bum – HARD. The momentum of my fall caused my elbow to smash into the door (where a Sunday school class of teenagers was) behind me, followed my my entire back.  It was humiliatingly loud. My friend was caught between astonished, laughing, and concerned about my *condition*. And pronounced, “That was the strangest fall I have ever seen.” 

All of my girls heard my resonating crash and one of them popped out, “That was you???” In utter amazement and I was greeted by many giggles once I limped into the room – after they made sure I was all right, of course. Only one of the teenagers witnessed by glorious grace, thankgoodness, though he was kind enough to tease me about it heavily later on in the day.  My friend of course was kind enough to let my husband know, so he hunted me down later and renewed many giggles.  I don’t know that my lesson was terribly effective that day – the goofiness of their teacher seemed to occupy them for quite some time.

And, aside from being very, very sore, I – and baby- are just fine.  Feeling a bit wounded in the pride department, but fine just the same. 🙂