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Spencer's Worst Nightmare Come True...

I used to have nightmares about forgetting to get dressed all the way or about knocking my date out cold with a golf club. I'd always be so relieved when I woke up to realize that it was just a dream or in the case of the golf club incident that he was really a jerk anyway and deserved it.

So what kind of incident could possibly be THAT bad for Spencer? Maybe his pants falling down in public or squirting milk out his nose in front of a girl?


NOPE! In Spencer's case it would be showing up to a youth fireside and being the only one wearing a suit. Even the Bishop was dressed casually! Of course you have to understand that this is a kid that hasn't worn a collared shirt by choice in over 9 years and that it normally takes him 7 seconds flat after returning home from church before he's back in his shorts.

So what kind of nightmares keep you up at night?

New Tactic...

Every year Halloween marks my downward spiral into my months long holiday junk food extravaganza! So this year I decided my self control needed a little boost...

I bought candy that I didn't like. I may not be very original, but I'm hopeful that Twizzlers and Nerds just won't call out to me like chocolatey treats like Reese's and Snickers seem to do.

Mean and crazy!

So Cami was really bitter about the last post. She wasn't bitter at the content, since she totally agreed with the whole mean mom bit. No, she was completely resentful at all the comments that were supposed to have sided with her and been all sympathetic about how hard it must be having such a mean mom. The poor girl was distraught all over again!

Well, you long-time readers of this blog know what my kids think/do when they don't like the blog post I made about them...you get THIS!!!!

So when Cami started conniving about the great vengeful post she could make in retaliation (thanks a lot Spence for planting those ideas), I decided to just beat her to the punch:


While Glen will always be my #1, my #2 spot has now changed. I've dumped Patrick Dempsey and replaced him with Nicholas Sparks! Not only have I gone crazy reading half of his books, but like a true groupie I even braved the long lines at our local Costco with three of my kids so my friend Stacey and I could meet him and get our books signed.


So now I guess this is where you should leave all those sympathy comments for Cami about what a mean AND crazy mom she has.

How mean am I?

Well, let's just say I am in the running for the meanest mom of the year award.

Getting ready for church this morning Cami put on this dress...

Pretty cute, huh? She picked it out with her aunt and I like it too, really I do.

But I felt like the neckline was just a little too wide, so I asked her to put something on over or under it. Obediently, but very unenthusiastically Cami spent the next several minutes trying on on several shirt/tank tops/sweaters and then finally settled on a white shawl.

At this point it was time to be on our way, so I started sending kids out to the car. Unfortunately just as she was walking out the door, Cami went in for her one last glimpse in the mirror and then moaned in horror that the shawl didn't match the dress!

My pleas that we had to leave NOW were overpowered by her keen sense of fashion, and she ran back to her room in tears frantically searching for something else to wear. In the meantime I'm watching the clock tick on--one minute, two minutes, three minutes...

Still she wasn't ready. So what did I do?

I left without her.

Granted when she called me crying 3 blocks away from home I turned around and got her, but I was fully prepared to keep driving and pick her up after sacrament meeting.

It wasn't nice. I admit it. (sorry Cami) But just so everyone knows, Glen may be in Shanghai today, but this whole situation is all his fault! There's no way this ever would've happened if he were here. He would have been the calm voice of reason and we just would've taken two cars and been fine! (See Hunny, I can still blame you for things even when you're not here.)

So I hope I don't have to make a speech or anything when I win that award...

Official Declaration...

Official declaration of the day: Ellie is hereby forbidden from catching any more stomach viruses!!!

After last winter's bout that knocked her flat on her back for more than a week and ended with a trip to the ER, we've been so anxious about her catching another stomach bug eventually and really hoped that it would be a really long time!

Well, here we are ten months later and she's got one. We were optimistic when last Tuesday she threw up twice, developed a fever, then seemed tired, but otherwise fine after a couple of days. We hoped that that was the end of it.

Sadly it was not to be, as after five days or so of seeming mostly fine it's returned with a vengeance! After being up all night with her last night where she was vomiting every last half-teaspoonful of liquid that crossed her lips, I was bracing myself for a repeat of last year's long drawn out horror. Ugh--why do these things happen when Glen is out of town?

Although she now has officially thrown up more than any of my other kids combined (seriously), I am happy to report that she finally seemed to have turned the corner this morning and has begun keeping small amounts of liquids down.

I can not even tell you what a huge relief and answer to prayer this is for me! I have been having a hard enough time keeping everything together with Glen out of the country for a couple of weeks....I didn't need an ER visit too.

Winner!

And the winner of the sweet giveaway is....

DENISE!!

I was worried about how I would pick the final winner. Should I take the first response? Or put all the names into a hat? Or make some more pies for everyone?

But it turns out I worried for nothing, as Denise ended up being the only entrant that wasn't about to go on vacation within a 20 mile radius of me!!!

Thanks for all the nice compliments! I really didn't expect that anybody would actually do that part of it, but they certainly made my day!

I hope you enjoy the pie Denise and I hope you didn't mind the surprise delivery. I REALLY needed to get out of the house.

Enjoy!

Official Declaration...

Official declaration of the day: Ellie is hereby forbidden from catching any more stomach viruses!!!

After last winter's bout that knocked her flat on her back for more than a week and ended with a trip to the ER, we've been so nervous about what her next bout would be like.

Now ten months later we've found out. We were optimistic when last Tuesday she threw up twice, caught a fever, and seemed tired, but otherwise fine after a couple of days. We hoped that that was the end of it.

Sadly it was not to be, as after five days or so of seeming mostly fine it's returned with a vengeance! After being up all night with her last night where she was vomiting every last half-teaspoonful of liquid that crossed her lips, I was bracing myself for a repeat of last year's long drawn out horror.

Although she now has officially thrown up more than any of my other kids combined (seriously), I am happy to report that she finally seemed to have turned the corner this morning and has begun keeping small amounts of liquids down.

I can not even tell you what a huge relief (and answer to prayer) this is for me! I have been having a hard enough time keeping everything together with Glen out of the country for a couple of weeks....I didn't need an ER visit too.

Sweet Giveaway!

What do you get when you cross an entire bag of Granny Smith apples picked straight from the tree on Saturday with an overzealous burst of baking on Thursday, and then a lower than expected turn-out for book group (the reason for the baking), a family that's already consumed two apple pies in the last week, and sick kids to keep me from going out visiting?

You get a sweet giveaway, that's what!!!

All you have to do is leave me lots of comments, tell me why you love me (you don't really have to do this part--I really was kidding, although I am enjoying the nice pick-me up today!), and let me know when you can come pick it up...and it's all yours!

Totally unfair!

How is it fair that the best eyelashes in our family belong to a five-year-old boy?

At least we try...

Does it really count as Family Home Evening if during our 20 minute lesson:

• there were four "desperate" trips to the bathroom,
  
• two separate fights over where people were sitting,
  
• one giant stomp out of the room with a door slammed,
  
• tears shed because they didn't get to hold up equal numbers of flannel board figures,
  
• after one of the aforementioned trips to the bathroom someone comes out and asks why the towel rack was ripped out of the wall, after which my demolitionist child immediately covered his face and hid,
  
• AND there were no treats since they'd all been snitched earlier in the day?

I did, however, manage to have an opening and closing prayer AND Ellie does now know that it was John the Baptist who baptized Jesus and not the Holy Ghost, as previously thought. So maybe that counts for something...

Flushing money down the toilet!!

Every month I write out the DirectTV bill that is how I feel! 70 bucks that's just gone, gone, gone! It's enough to make me want to...

give the stupid bill to Adam and let him destroy it by any cruel means possible...yeah I know, I'm harsh.

It's just that we lived so nicely without it for so long, and I really liked the fact that I felt that it was one way we were being so smart and frugal with our money. Then two years ago it all changed. Glen decided that he was missing out, so he exercised his prerogative, found a deal, and signed us up.

What good has it done us since then? It's gotten the kids hooked on Hannah Montana, Drake and Josh, and the Suite Life of Zach and Cody. Oh yeah, and there's all the sporting events that Glen was missing out on...you know Ohio State vs. USC or some other teams he doesn't care a lick about. And how can I forget the golf? Can there be a more boring sport to watch than golf? Did you know that you can find golf on DirectTV almost any time of the day or night? Trust me. I know.

And what do I watch? NOTHING! No news, no Oprah, no HGTV....literally nothing!

So why haven't I put my foot down yet?


It's because I've grown rather attached to staying in our jammies to watch General Conference twice a year. I like that I can have dinner cooking upstairs, we can pause it if someone needs to leave for a minute, and I don't have to be embarrassed that my kids are the loudest ones in the whole building.

Ahhhh! It's almost enough to make me forget about the $70.

Almost.

How to be happier person...

I've never considered myself a naturally creative person, but over the years I've gone through many creative "phases". Sewing, recipe collecting, crocheting, cross stitching, scrapbooking, FHE lesson making, card making, blogging, etc. have all occupied many hours of my time. I'm not that great at any of them, but I have found a great sense of satisfaction as my skills have improved with practice and I love the feeling of accomplishment when I actually finish my project and have this new creation before me that didn't exist a few hours before.

I've thought a lot about why I thrive on this "extra" part of my life, and I've decided that it has to do with the fact that there aren't many other things in my life ever finish. Every day I cook, clean, do laundry, help the kids, drive people around, and pay bills, just to wake up and do it all again the next day. Don't interpret this statement as complaint, I'm merely saying that sometimes it's a little frustrating to have things undone so quickly after I've done it.

There have been many times in our married life when I'm sure that Glen thought I was some kind of sick masochist for the stress I put myself through to complete a project before a deadline (usually self-imposed deadline), but somehow at the end it's always been worth it to me...adrenaline, lack of sleep, messy house, and all!

[Like these fun cards that I popped out this week for card club--totally worth it!]

So I found it so interesting when President Uchtdorf spoke about this very thing in Women's Conference last week. I felt like he expressed this yearning inside of me better than I ever could myself...

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before...Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children."

So I'm not crazy! I've just recognized that I'm a happier, better person/wife/mother when I have a creative outlet in my life!

So thanks for bearing with me while I hone my latest creative phase...this blog!

Name them one by one...

We've recently begun a new tradition in our house to help our kids better recognize the many blessings in their lives. Each night before bed we take turns sharing three specific things that we were grateful for through the day. It's been heartwarming and humorous to hear what's on their minds.

Ellie's been sick all day, so I couldn't help but smile a bit tonight when she shared what she was grateful for....

"I'm grateful that my fever's going to be gone in the morning."

"I'm grateful that when my fever's gone I get to go to preschool."

"I'm grateful that I'm tired."

and that is why I love my job (most of the time anyway).