Daddy's home! (and other nonsense)

After ten long days Glen is home now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After grilling him about when they'd receive their surprises, the kids were excited to belatedly present him with his traditional Father's Day card--a giant candy bar note.

The kids have been doing it for him for so many years now, that in an attempt to not be repetitive it's tended to get more and more nonsensical every year!

So here you are for your reading [laughing] pleasure:

Dear Daddy,
Happy WHATCHAMACALLIT Day. It's a good thing you're not allergic to SWEDISH FISH too, or else you might become CHUNKY and that would give us some real SNICKERS! The whole MILKY WAY ORBITs around your KISSABLE BUTTERFINGERs. We can't wait for PAYDAY so we can buy some ICE CUBES for the TURTLES.
Love your,
Five SUGAR BABIES




And that would be the end of my daily posting...it's been a fun challenge, but I'm done. I'll be back soon!

Not yet Ellie!

Caution: If references to (or pictures of) female items of clothing make you blush, then you may want to close this window quickly...or not!

I have three sisters and when we were growing up my Mom set the precedent for us sisters that we could talk only in code terms about girl stuff, so as not to embarrass my four brothers and Dad.

So when my own girls and me were shopping at the mall the other day, Ellie became fascinated with the bras and just couldn't resist trying one on.

She was quite proud of herself as she figured out how to get it on herself and showed it off for anyone who would take notice.

(I'm sure my Mom has fainted with mortification right about now at the appalling behavior of her daughter condoning such behavior and even documenting for the world to see)...sorry Mom.

Then she asked me what it was called.

Almost without thinking I replied, "Oh Ellie, that's an 'arb'. "

So here's to Mom, my sisters, and daughters...better put away your "arb", since "grandma's coming to visit".

I hope you're not blushing too much now.

This is for the birds...

So I decided that daily blogging is for the birds...and certainly not anywhere near as rewarding now that I know that ever since Glen arrived in Shanghai a few days ago that he's not been able to see the blog at all. :( But a goal is a goal, hence I go forward blogging until he returns....although a short one is all I can manage today.

An update from "A Bad Hack Job" posted on Saturday--our obnoxious looking bush has 3 new fuzzy, hungry little residents (and 2 more to come)!

Sorry if I sound a tad bitter, I may be a bit worn out today after we spent several hours of our first day of summer break without electricity.

We miss you Glen!

(Sorry if the ongoing music is annoying. I tried to change it so it didn't play automatically, but then it wouldn't play at all. )

My kids are so confused this year...why I was away from home on Mother's Day and now Glen is away on Father's Day. After reassuring them that it was not their breakfasts in bed we were avoiding, I gave some thought to the matter and decided that it is not something I'd like to make a tradition. It was really sad not having Glen there as the Primary kids sang, "My Daddy is my favorite pal..." and although I've missed him immensely the entire time he's been away, the feelings are even more acute today.

We miss you Hunny and want you to know that this Father's Day has been so lonely without the Daddy around!

Happy Father's Day to Glen and also to Grandpa Steve & Grandpa Dave...you're the best!

A Bad Hack Job

I'm not quite sure how my more prolific friends (like Denise) keep up with new, interesting posts every day week in and week out, as here I am after only a couple of days of it and I'm definitely stretching for material !

My mom is distracted taking care of my cousins, so I (Cami) am now taking over the post

Here is a picture of the azalea bush in front of our house, it was completely overgrown so my mom trimmed it (three year old Christmas lights and all).

But she had barely started chopping when she discovered this birds nest, with five eggs in it. So if you come to our house and you were wondering why our bush looks so odd with the sides neatly trimmed and a big overgrown patch at the top (to shelter the nest), you'll know the reason why.

Oh I have so much power right now, I could say anything I wanted. Like Spencer is coocoo or my mom likes the cookie dough better than the cookies

Tip:
never trim an overgrown bush before checking for birds nests or else it will look even worse. And never leave a blog post unattended and if you do make sure your daughter is not around!

No more pencils, no more books...

Yay! School is finally out! I'm not sure who is happier about this--the school kids, Ellie & Adam who finally have their playmates back, or me who will finally be done with the forty things a day on my calendar (after tomorrow anyway)!

I decided to celebrate with a scrapbook page showing one of our summertime staples--popsicles! We go through them quickly this time of year.

Quick note: I was requested to add an image of Emma's yearbook page, so Ellie's "signature" would be visible...so I've added it to the post below.

Another day down!

Just so I'm not creating any false expectations for my future blogging habits, I feel it is only fair to let all my blogging friends know that the reason for my recent rash of daily blogging is that I am attempting to make a new blog post every day that Glen is away from home. He's been missing out on the crazy events of our daily lives, so this is my small attempt to keep him connected from the other side of the world. In another week or so I will be returning to my every-other-day-or-so blogging routine. :)

Today we started the day at the elementary school to see "Madame President" get sworn into office. She's a good foot shorter than the previous president (seen at left), but I have no doubt she will fill the presidential shoes quite well!

Cami was glowing as she showed off her other awards: the Presidential Physical Fitness award and a Literacy award (both received by only a handful of other students).


Then it was off to Emma's end-of-year party where, much to Ellie's delight, we got to enjoy cheese pizza and juice boxes with Emma's first grade class. Here is Emma with her teacher, a fun, energetic 23-year-old fresh out of college.

Ellie and Adam have been in the school so much with me this year, that they seemed like part of the class sometimes. Both Ellie and Adam were asked by most of Emma's classmates to pose for pictures with them and also to sign their yearbooks. Adam's signature blended right in with the rest of the first graders, but I had to laugh as Ellie enthusiastically "signed" all those yearbooks with a giant E (with several more horizontal lines than necessary).

As per Kristina's request I've added an image of Emma's yearbook page including their signatures (circled in red).

So, now there's only two more crazy, insane days left...then hopefully we'll have a few days to relax and hang out at the pool before Daddy comes home! We miss you Glen!

Youngest Queen fan!

Recently Ellie has begun this charming little habit of quoting lines from her favorite books and of dramatically singing her favorite songs.

How it makes me smile when she quotes from one of our family favorite books, Bedhead! ...."One, she said. Two, she said. Three, she said. B-b-b-b-b0ing!" (out of context it's not very humorous, but this book actually makes my kids roll on the floor laughing every time.)

And I have to admit my motherly pride surges when her little snippets of songs are almost on-key! Yes! Another child who's inherited Glen's musical ability and not my own unfortunate tone deafness.

So yesterday I discovered that in addition to enjoying the more typical three-year-old fare of primary songs, You are My Sunshine, ABC's, and Twinkle Twinkle that she's also a fan of the musical group Queen.

How do I know this fact?

It would be that within a 24-hour period she could be heard enthusiastically belting out: "We are the champions, we are the champions, we are the champions of the WORLD!"

and then later on: "We will, we will ROCK you!"

Um, yeah. Now you know what kind of music we have on our I-Tunes.

Mission Accomplished....almost.

When Glen told me that he had a business trip to Asia starting on Sunday, I was somewhat relieved that through most of his trip the kids would still be in school. However my naive relief was very short-lived and quickly turned to panic, when I realized what herculean tasks I had before me this last week of school.

So last night I had a tall order...a pretty tall order even with both parents around...THREE CONCERTS in three DIFFERENT PLACES at exactly the SAME TIME.

I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I was sure going to try!

So I arranged a ride for Cami to get to her orchestra concert, dropped Spencer off at the middle school for his band concert, then went back to the elementary school to watch Cami perform on her cello.

Cami played beautifully and thankfully her orchestra was performing second on the program, so we were out of there by 7:25...off to the piano recital for Emma and Cami.

We made a very grand and rude entrance into the piano recital about 5 minutes after it started in a very packed house. Emma had worked so hard on her songs, "Ode to Joy" and "Brahm's Lullaby", and didn't even need her sheet music. Cami performed, "Tarantella" which she also knew well and played it super warp speed! Then at 7:45 we made a very grand and even ruder exit....and we were off to the band concert at the middle school where Spencer was performing last. Things were looking good!

Unfortunately this is where our well-laid plan went asunder. We had a little melt-down leaving the piano recital--and who could blame them? I was rushing them around like a crazed taxi-driver and they were missing out on the fun parts of the evening...friends AND refreshments!

So we almost saw Spencer perform--missed him by less than a minute, but missed it completely nonetheless.

I hope that was the worst of it and now all I have left is two end-of-year picnics, field day, teacher gifts, two award ceremonies, and a sick child! I think I'll be just as excited about school being over as the kids this year!

We miss you Glen!

Girls' day out!

While Glen, Adam, and Spencer were baking in 99° weather at a fathers & sons camp-out at Virginia Beach...I made an executive decision that us girls needed to have a little fun too.


So we threw out all chores for the day and played...and then I came home and played some more with my Photoshop Elements! (Notice how Ellie can't take her eyes off the cheesecake long enough to even glance at the camera.) °Ü°

This page was made with elements and papers from a Shabby Princess kit called Island Chic.

Freeze frame!

The older I get, the faster the milestones keep on coming in our family! Lost teeth, graduations, "big" birthdays, awards, riding bikes, potty training, reading independently...you know what I mean. The kind of thing that's good and you're excited that it's happened, but at the same time just a tad bit sad and nostalgic as you realize that THAT child will never have that moment again. That they're growing up way too fast...[sniff]!

So, my sweet little Adam is graduated from preschool and off to all-day kindergarten in a few months and it might as well have been high school graduation for how emotional it made me! I keep telling my kids to stop growing so fast and freeze frame for a while, yet every time I turn around they're taller and smarter and my hair is grayer!

Oh well...I guess I wouldn't have it any other way (except maybe for the gray hair part).

Be careful what you wish for...

So it seems like ages since I've blogged. After the last post I kept trying to think of something worthy of blogging about...silently lamenting that although my life is in super-speed, there wasn't that much going on that anyone else would be interested in reading about.

Then yesterday afternoon I decided that I just HAD to blog about something...so I sat down to do a post about Adam (which you will see sometime in the next day or two), when a huge storm blew in quite quickly and powerfully. Because of the large trees blanketing our neighborhood and the above-ground power lines--our power is very quick to go out with any storm....so sure enough, within one minute of the storm beginning our power was out!

Thunderstorms aren't uncommon here, but this storm definitely had a different "feel" to it, so just to be on the safe side I took Ellie and Adam to the basement and called my sister to check the weather for me. Not surprisingly she informed me that it was indeed a severe thunderstorm and in fact that there was also a tornado warning...but no worries it was several miles away.

Unbeknownst to me, while Ellie, Adam, and I calmly played car and dollhouse in the basement to pass the time, Spencer was hunkered down in an interior hallway of his school because of an actual tornado touchdown nearby--not several miles away at all! In all of my years of tornado drills after having grown up in Minnesota and NEVER having had to use it...I was so shocked to find out that poor Spencer actually had to experience it. In retrospect, I'm really glad my sister didn't know about or mention this particular tornado...because I'm pretty sure I would not have been anywhere near as calm had I known how nearby it was--especially to one of my children!

Today life is back to normal. The kids are at school, our lights are back on, our internet is working, and our air conditioning has finally sucked all of the humidity back out of our house, I have no excuses for not doing laundry or cooking dinner tonight or picking up all of the branches and sticks from our yard. Chores, schmores! Blogging is way more fun than all that! :)

In the future, I think I'll forgo the interesting/exciting events and be ever so grateful for my busy, sometimes mundane life with a houseful of chores to do, five little sweeties who keep me running, and a totally amazing husband who supports me in my craziness!

Go for the Gold!

This time last year Cami was running a campaign for Vice President of her school's student council, which did not turn out quite how she wanted it to. So in true Cami-like enthusiasm this year she decided to up the ante and take on the position of student body president!

So here she is with her enthusiastic campaign crew, eagerly donning their "Cami clothes" as Ellie likes to call them.

Using the same catch phrase that Glen used in his school day elections, she worked diligently on creating a poster extraordinaire to hang in the hallway near the cafeteria.

She worked hard on memorizing her speech for today...

"Good Morning! My name is Cami, and I am running for SCA (student council) President. I will start off by telling you a couple of things about me. I like to read, run, ice skate, and bake yummy treats. In school my favorite subjects are Math and Science. My favorite season is summer and I love to swim!

Now I will get onto the important stuff. If I become President the first thing I will do is banish cauliflower hereby and forever! But seriously…since I work well with others I will be a good representative working with students and teachers to make important decisions. I will also try to think of some new fun spirit day ideas.

Some qualities I have that will make me a good SCA president are that I am always kind to others, I am brave, I work well with others, I try to include everybody, and I have had three years of SCA experience. The main reason I am running for SCA president is that I love our school, and I want to make it the best place it can be. So vote for Cami, and GO FOR THE GOLD WITH GOOLD!"

After a nerve wracking day of wringing my hands, I am pleased to announce that Cami's campaign was not for naught this year! You can now refer to her as "President Cami" or "Madame President" (with a French accent)...whichever you prefer. :)

Cami, we are so proud of you--not just because you won, but because of your resiliency, determination, optimism, creativity, and hard work. What a wonderful example you are to your family and your friends.

Yay Cami!

Happy Birthday Nate!

In honor of my brother Nate's 34th birthday, I've made a list of 34 things you should know about my awesome younger brother!

1-He's tall and athletic
2-He has an awesome smile
3-The first sentence he ever uttered was, "Lara did it!"
4-He is very kind-hearted and generous
5-He is only 13 months younger than me.
6-He's still searching for the "right one"
7-He is a great negotiator
8-He was born in Kassel, Germany
9-He served a mission in Berlin, Germany
10-He's a very thoughtful gift giver
11-He's very sweet and patient with my energetic children
12-My kids adore him completely

13-He makes the best chocolate chip cookies the world has ever known--no recipe needed!
14-He ran track at BYU
15-One time he jumped out of the car at a stoplight after he became annoyed with my singing.
16-He's in process of moving from California to Colorado (both of which are too far away from us)
17-He's so buffed he can do push-ups with my kids on his back
18-He graduated from law-school, but chose not to pursue a law career
19-He went on an African safari with my sister just after graduating from law school
20-He knows how to make a plan and stick to it
21-He's the king of finding internet "steals" and bargains
22-He has an awesome movie collection
23-He's a die-hard BYU fan (see evidence in picture below)

24-He occasionally writes articles for BYU sports websites and magazines
25-He's double jointed and can do really freaky things with his wrists and fingers
26-Despite his double-jointedness, one year on his birthday he broke both wrists at the same time mountain biking in Moab
27-He's writing a book about dating
28-He's a great motivator
29-He was an avid baseball/basketball card collector in his teen-age years
30-Nobody called him anything but Nathaniel until he was 17, but then there was no going back
31-Be prepared to lose if you ever challenge him to "Settlers of Catan" or "Scrabble"
32-He works for a wind energy company and is an expert on high-tech windmills
33-He's traveled to 29 different countries
34-He introduced me to my sweetheart a little more than 15 years ago, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Oh and did I mention that he's tall, handsome, strong in the gospel, has a good job, AND he's still searching for his eternal companion?

Happy Birthday Nate! We love you!