All I Can Make is Cold Cereal and Maybe Toast

This is our traditional Thanksgiving Eve dinner. The kids love it. I wonder why?

On Turning Ten...

This about sums it up. He always has a great way with words.

Hayden

Here's Haydee at about 8 weeks old. She is such a sweet baby. She is sleeping through the night, however, most of the time she thinks she can't sleep unless she is being held. So I have quite the crick in my back. (I think postpartum care should include a good masseuse.) The kids love her and even Cameron is starting to pay more attention to her. He loves to give her a binky, even when she doesn't want it.

We were so lucky to be able to have some family come for her blessing. It made for a fun weekend. I wish we lived closer so we could celebrate more occasions and holidays together. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be quiet around here this year.

Ha! Who am I kidding? Things are never quiet with 5 kids.

This is Halloween, Everybody Make a Scene

Batman, Robin, Penguin, The Flash, Storm, Wonder Woman. You know we had
to separate the Marvel comics from the DC comics.

Never could talk her into anything else. Her costume was definitely the easiest to make. She gathered up random pieces from her dress up box and called herself a fairy princess. She was more than happy. I was ecstatic that it was one less costume for me to recreate.

Diva for a Day

Matt wanted to do something special for Addison on her birthday and someone told him about this cute place in town. We took Addie in to Paislee Punch for a mani/pedi. For $8 she got her fingernails and toenails painted a glittery pink. Yeah, it might have been 8 bucks I could have saved by doing it myself, but she felt like the queen of the world and the excitement on her face was was worth every penny.

Halloween Apothecary

My new blog friend turned me on to this great Halloween apothecary. I downloaded the labels here and printed them on card stock. I scoured the D.I. (which wasn't easy as they are remodeling and everything was on wheeled carts on the sidewalk outside) and Goodwill (I'm always disappointed that they don''t offer better prices. They have better quality stuff, but not much better than shopping at TJ Maxx or the like) for the jars. After mod podging the labels to the jars, the real fun began with rifling through my cupboards to see what I could fill each jar with.

If you look closely you'll see:
Toadstool Essence = Craisins
Mummy Mold = Oreo crumbs
Werewolf Howls = Cotton balls
Tincture of Skull = Salt (both kosher and table)
Corpse Dust = Butterscotch pudding powder (the instant variety because I accidentally bought it instead of the cook and serve for sticky buns)
Deadly Nightshade = Dried Cloves
Poison = Water with red food coloring
Eye of Newt = Wrapped caramel filled chocolates (which I steal one from every now and then)

A fun little project and my kids enjoyed seeing what was going in the next jar. Now if only I could finish my "BOO" blocks and skeleton board (pics pending). Oh, and get out those fall decorations that were supposed to be up before the baby was born. Guess it's time to put up all the rest of the Halloween decor anyway.

Here She Is...

Hayden Dawn English
September 8, 2009
8 lbs. 2 oz.
21 inches

More pictures to come, I promise.

09/08/09

This friend of mine and I are due on the same day. We thought it would be cool to be induced on 09/09/09. Looks like she is set to get her wish. Unfortunately, I am not. I am scheduled to be induced one day earlier. My doctor originally had me scheduled for Wednesday and I had to talk him out of it. You see, my husband, the ever advocate of higher education, thinks his students would rather be in class reading, writing and well, no arithmetic in English 101.

I can't complain, he is starting his "paternity leave" tomorrow (except for teaching one hour a day three times a week). He asked me what is he really going to do for two weeks at home ("besides take care of the kids and get them off to school?"). Oh, I told him we have all kinds of things on our "to do" list. He is anxious and willing (well, anxious might be an overstatement). I am looking forward to having him around for a while.


p.s. check here to see another friend who will be birthing a child around the same time (guess which one is me?)

Why Is that, Anyway?

You would think that I would be blogging more, especially now that it is hot and I am 7+ months pregnant and really don't have the desire to do anything except sit on my rear. Plugging in my camera to upload even seems like too much of an effort.


Maybe I should correct myself. I have the desire to do a lot of things. I do want a clean house, and laundry done, and sewing projects finished, and scrapbooks worked on. It's just the motivation that I am lacking. There's a difference. I did manage to upload a few pictures to Facebook. I don't feel pressured to come up with witty captions and sarcastic remarks like I do when I post them on this blog.

So, I guess I'll just sit here under the ceiling fan and slurp down Sir Isaac Lime and Alexander the Grape Otter Pops (the two flavors of choice in the last half hour). They do a surprisingly good job of cooling a preggo off.

Why is that anyway?

My Fifteen Minutes

Well, it was more like 30 seconds, but I'll take what I can get.



Click on the title to be taken to Pocatello's NBC affiliate. Then find the "Summertime Presents Learning Opportunities" story on the video player and enjoy my fifteen minutes of fame.

It's A Girl!

Everything looked great. She's due September 13th. We're open to any name suggestions.

A Little Bribery Never Hurt Anyone

This is how I get my kids to listen to General Conference. Every time they hear the word, they get to eat. They get to help pick the words and assign them to the treat. After one session, they do some switching with words that they never heard to words they think they will hear more. So for Sunday afternoon we added "temple" to the mix. I have to thank Elder Bednar for his talk about "temple" and "service". We ate well during that one. We even ran out of our "temple" treat and had to combine with something else.

It must be noted that I don't expect my kids to sit motionless for the entire thing. The rule is they have to be close to the room with the TV. You'd be surprised how well they hear a word and come running in to get their snack.

Who says you shouldn't bribe your kids with food??

The Force is Strong With This One

Archer is all about Star Wars these days. Naturally, he wanted a Star Wars birthday party. I have a bone to pick with George Lucas. The lack of Star Wars party supplies around here was very limited. Nothing at Fred Meyer, Target, Shopko, K-Mart and I even resorted to Wal Mart (where I don't shop) and all they had was wrapping paper. From the local party store we grabbed a pack of plates and napkins (because Matt thought the Yoda on the napkins looked cool, not because 6 year olds would actually use them). We also found a Darth Vader helmet pinata. Very cool. When I was informed that my total was $30 and change, I almost lost consciousness. The pinata was $22.99! For something a bunch of kids were going to smack open in less than 5 minutes.

I put my crafty mind to work, and decided to make one. What I won't show you is my feeble first attempt (because no documentation exists). I bombed. Second attempt involved buying a baseball pinata, removing the stitches, spray painting (by dad), adding some electrical tape and voila, the Death Star.The cupcakes Archer wanted had Storm Trooper and Darth Vader helmet rings and were $18 at Fred Meyer. However, they were gone and the bakery wouldn't have sold me the rings even if they had more. Instead, I traced an image of a Clone Trooper helmet onto wax paper 40 times. Then I melted chocolate candy melts, tried to dye it black and piped the outlines.
When those hardened I filled them in with white candy melts.
I peeled them off and this is the final product on the cupcakes. Pretty ingenious if I do say so myself. The kids loved the fact that they were edible!
The arsenal of light sabers waiting for the party to start (pool noodles cut in half, duct tape and electrical tape). Of course, the princess of the house had to have a pink one. Archer said to just pretend it was purple because Mace Windu has a purple light saber. Of course.
And of course, what kid doesn't dream of attacking the Death Star with their own light saber? I don't think I needed to have planned any other games (Lego Star Wars bingo, pin the light saber on Anakin, pass the Thermal Detonator aka hot potato), they were totally content running around outside. I'm sure one or two moms were less than thrilled that I sent their kid home with a weapon.

Homemade Goodness-Pay It Forward

All right, it's time for a new post. Since I'm not in the mood to be creative or witty, I'll do a couple of random tags since all I have to do is cut and paste. And this one is my own fault since I was number three on a friend's blog.

The Rules:

1. Be one of the first 3 (three) people to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?! (But if you live far away, don't count on the yummy, and I just learned to knit).

2. Winners may then post this challenge on their blog, meaning that they will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on their post about this giveaway!

3. You have 365 days to send your items. (There always has to be a disclaimer!)

Thanks to everyone who reads my blogs, thanks for letting me read yours. It's fun to catch up and learn more about you and enjoy your sarcasm. But mostly it's nice to know that there are others out there just like me going through all the same things day in and day out.

The Line

Some of you know this line. I'm sure you all have something like it in your own home. Everyone at Grandma Darlene's is very good about obeying the House Rules, especially the rule about not crossing the line (I wish they would listen this well at home). We are grateful to have somewhere close to go where people like us. Maybe I'm just it's my wishful thinking on that last part, but I'll just claim ignorance.

Thank you again for letting us crash for the night. Thank you also for watching all of our combined children for a couple of hours. It's nice to go out to dinner and pretend we don't have kids once in a while.

Bad

So, I've been accused of being a bad blogger. I'm sorry. I'll try to post more.

There, that's all you get.