Random Stuff

I am totally bored and I should be folding about 30 loads of laundry (totally NOT exaggerating!) and taking my kids to the school to find out their teachers. Hey, taking a shower and getting dressed would be progress at this point. So of course I thought I would get on the computer instead. Since I am a world class procrastinator, I have a hard time doing things I am actually supposed to be doing (which doesn't work out that well with 6 kids. Calling Captain Obvious!)

I have been thinking about all the stuff that I really need to do this week, but then I thought it would be more fun to blog about what I wish I was doing this week. Cause it is always more fun to think about the stuff you would like to be doing instead of the lame boring things you need to do. So here is what I WISH I was doing this week:

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1. Singing at a sold out concert featuring ME as the headlining artist.

I know I am nervous performing in front of people. It's not that I don't think I sound good, it is the whole everyone staring at you thing. Kinda hard to avoid if you want to sing as a profession. However, in my head I have the whole concert down. I just need to figure out a way to transfer that to my body when I'm actually performing.

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2. Having contractors finish my basement and landscape my yard.

This is one thing I hate about Utah houses. In order to give you the size house you want, at the price you want, they sell it to you with only 2 finished floors. What is up with that? Maybe I want to use all 3! We started finishing it ourselves (before my husband's really lame breaking of his hand. Which was so incredibly lame that we won't go into all the details and from now on it will just be referred to as "The Hand Incident".) and now have 2 bedrooms with walls. Walls that need to be sanded the rest of the way, textured, and painted. Did I mention that they also need carpet? It is sitting in the garage. Where it will probably continue to live. For the rest of the year. Yeah. Also, what is up with my house not coming with landscaping. I am not talking backyard. I mean front and back, nothing but the weeds God gave us cause he felt sorry for us and all the dirt. So I guess it looks like I have plants. Sort of. I have sunflowers. I would love to have the yard done so I could put up the kids swing set and tell the kids "Go outside and don't come in til dinner!". Hey, a girl can dream, right?

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3. Have a secret passage built to a secret room in the attic.

No this is not for the children. This would be for me. That way when I want to escape my children 'cause they are wanting me to do things like, say, cook dinner, I can just sneak up there and hide while I listen to them wandering through the house calling "Mom? Mom, where are you? I give up. Let's just go make peanut butter sandwiches." Mission accomplished.

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4. Have a soda fountain in the kitchen that dispenses Diet Coke.

I have already brought this idea to the attention of my husband. Several times. It went something like this:

Me: Honey, I think we should put a Diet Coke dispenser in the kitchen. Kinda like a beer tap at a bar, but with Diet Coke.

Husband: Yeah right. (keep in mind he drinks just as much Diet Coke as I do)

Me: No, I'm serious. I have thought about it and I think it would be a great thing to add to the kitchen. We could put it by the sink.

Husband: I don't see that happening.

Me: What about if I finally get signed and we make lots of money.

Husband: Well, that's another story. Talk to me then.

So now the pressure is on. Cause I am totally getting that dispenser!

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Ok, now that I got a little day dreaming in, I guess I can move on to the things I really need to do today. Like that shower. And heading over to the kids school. But I have enlisted my slaves - ahem - children, in folding the laundry. After all, I don't wear their clothes. And I washed them. So I think that's totally fair, right?

Weekly Update

Ok, so it has been a little while, so I thought I would bring you up to date.

Today is great. Why you might ask? Because today is my husband's first day of work in Utah. After living here for 10 months, my husband actually has a job in the same state we live in. Even better, his hours are really early so he will get home when the kids get home from school. No more commuting between here and Cali. No more 9 days there and 5 days home, and only seeing each other 10 days a month. He got a job at a new surgery center that they are building about 30 min. south of us. Yay! Same state and a close commute! The center won't be done til October, but they are starting him now so he can help get everything ready like setting up all the OR's and such. I think that he is glad to be back to work, and I am glad to have him back to work. No offense, but husbands and wives spending 24 hours a day together for 7 months while your husband is just sitting around until you want to strangle him. Sorry, but that is just too much togetherness for me. After spending all that time together with him and the kids, I am more than ready for work and school to commence. So I am spending the day cleaning my house spotless (almost there) and doing every load of laundry in the house (not even close), so I can get done the rest of the things I need done this week, such as:

- buy new backpacks for anyone that needs one

- go to school and find out kids teachers

- new shoes for Hailey

- get stuff together for Tyler's birthday on Sat.

- get some grocery shopping done

- schedule vocal session since teacher gets back from vacay this Wednesday.

- see what Robyn is doing for my b-i-l for his birthday Wednesday.

- probably a lot of other things I haven't thought of that will hit me at the last minute and make me want to pull my hair out!!

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Last week wasn't anything extremely exciting. Other than getting my temple recommend and hanging out with my friend Christina, I don't think I did anything. Well, til Friday. Then the fun began. Or it did for my kids anyway. John found out that the rec center near us (which has an awesome pool complete with fountains, crazy slides, a play structure and a lazy river in it) has a free trial week where you can try it out before signing up. So Friday we went swimming, and no surprise here, the kids had the time of their lives. I on the other hand was not as thrilled. Mainly for one reason, which would be wearing a bathing suit outside my house (or bathroom for that matter). But I did it anyway, because I have children and I am not going to let them miss out on anything cause I'm lame. So then they decided that they wanted to go back Saturday. We ended up being there for 5 hours. Once again the kids had the time of their life. Once again I wished I was invisible, but sucked it up for the sake of said kids. I was less thrilled about Saturday because there were WAAAAY more people there than 7pm on Friday. At least our trial is only good til Friday. So I am assuming that we will be heading back a few more times this week, since this weekend is Tyler's 10th b-day, church and then first day of school. Well for everyone except Brooklyn, cause kindergarten starts a week late so they can use that first week for testing. So I have 4 more days of everyone, and then it is back to the grind of life.

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Anyway, I better get back to laundry and stuff. I am hoping to make it over to the kids school today. They want to see if they have the same teachers as their friends from primary. I sure love that about Utah. I love that all their friends from primary go to the same school and will be in their classes. I never had that growing up. Our ward was split among 3 or 4 elementary schools, and my siblings and I were pretty much the only ones from out ward at our school.

Peanut, Peanut Butter (and Jelly!)

I thought this was so sweet. It's my 5 year old Brooklyn (in yellow) teaching my 2 year old (3 next month) Amelia (in blue) how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This is probably their favorite thing to eat, and I thought it was so cute. Brooklyn had offered to make Amelia a sandwich when she made her own (yes I let my kids fix their own food unless it's dinner and they love it) and then decided that she wanted to teach Amelia how to do it instead. Amelia was so excited about it and is now eating it feeling pretty proud of herself, as she should .

It makes me happy to see my kids helping each other and teaching each other new things. It makes me think I must be doing something right.

Family Night Out

Tonight we had a totally fun family night. First we enjoyed cookies at home from Smart Cookie. I told you I was going to go get some for my family to try. They are on the expensive side, so they will not become a regular treat around here ($10 for 8 cookies), but they were sooo good and I thought it would be nice to have something we hadn't had before to kick off our FHE. We haven't ever managed to have FHE more than a couple times since we have been married, and I would like to change that. I like the idea of our family learning together and doing something fun and bonding as a family. So tonight we went and saw this:

Horton Hears A Who was a big hit. It was funny and the entire family enjoyed it. What made it even more enjoyable (for me and John anyway) was the fact that it was at the dollar theatre. Not only that, but on Mondays movies at the dollar theatre are 50 cents for family night. So our entire family went to the movies for $4! Yay! They are only going to continue doing that til September, so I have a feeling we will be going frequently til then. It is not often that we can afford to all go to movie. Anyway, the kids had a blast and it was nice to spend the time together as a family. I am looking forward to many more Monday nights to come.

Sunday Happenings

Well, not a whole lot went on today. We went to church. We came home for a couple hours, then I headed back to the chapel for choir. The music it's self was easy, but they have me singing 1st soprano (which I haven't sung since high school) so that was somewhat of a challenge, but I am up for it and it is nice to sing something different for a change.

Then I went home and had a couple hours to hurry and get dinner before I had to be back at the chapel at 7 for a Relief Society leadership meeting. I had to go since I am on the Enrichment Board (TOTALLY excited about that!!!). We had fun visiting and planning out the upcoming activities for the next couple months. I was also excited to find out that my new friend Christina is my Visiting Teaching companion. Yay! We just meet this last week and totally hit it off. I told her, "See? It was meant to be for us to be friends. We just managed to do it before we got the list." Judy said that she had assigned the partners and routes a couple weeks ago, so it was before we even knew each other. We had awesome talks by Judy (the RS Pres.) and the Bishop. I really enjoyed it. The perfect ending to the evening? Cookies from Smart Cookie. They are sugar cookies with really thick frosting that are to die for! Possibly the best cookies on the face of the earth!!! I wanted to eat all of them, but restrained myself to one. (My personal trainer should be so impressed with me now!) I am totally going to get some for my family to try cause they were sooo good!! If you are in Utah, go to American Fork or Provo and eat one. If you aren't in Utah, sorry. You are REALLY missing out!!!!

Down on the Farm

Well, today was fun. I didn't take any pics, cause my camera needs to be emptied from all the AI and Martina pics. We took the kids over to my ex's parents house. Sandy called me in the morning to tell me that one of her goats had a baby last night, cause she knew we would want to come over and see him. So we headed over this afternoon to see him. The baby goat was the cutest thing ever! I wanted to take him home, but of course John wouldn't agree to that - especially since we don't have a fenced yard yet. The kids were excited to get to go gather eggs and visit the chickens. They also jumped on the trampoline and we put the soaker hose underneath it on high. They had fun splashing around and getting drenched to the bone. Then they changed into some of grandma's t-shirts and I stuck their stuff in the dryer. After playing inside for a while, we took them outside and let them go horseback riding. Well, they only got to ride on the property surrounding the house (they have 14 acres total) cause they don't know what they are doing and I didn't want anything to happen to them. They got to take turns riding Buddy, who is a good first time rider horse. They had a blast and were really impressed with themselves. Amelia wasn't sure at first that she wanted to and took some coaxing, but once she got a taste of it, we had to pry her off the saddle. John also got to ride for a while. He had been on a horse once, a long time ago, but it was in a pen and I told him that doesn't count as actual riding. I didn't ride this time. I figured I have ridden tons of times, and I wanted to make sure that the kids got enough time. Plus I was wearing my Havaianas. Not exactly riding wear. Then it was home for dinner and bed. The kids passed out, which was no surprise since they totally wore themselves out at grandma and grandpa's house. They talked about it non stop on the way home and I am sure we will be going back soon. :)

Happy Girl

Well tonight I got to go to the Martina McBride concert at the USANA Amphitheatre. John won tickets by texting over 100,000 times. No I am not kidding. If it can be won by texting, we will win. (That's how we won the Rascal Flatts tickets back in March) Anyway, we originally had lawn seats (ie: the back 40) that would have been forever away from the stage, but John sweet talked the event worker that was policing the stairs to the area right off the stage, and she let us sit in the handicapped area. This was great for 2 reasons: it was slightly above the area in front of the stage, so it had a great view, and the handicapped seats are only 2 to a section, so we had way more room to sprawl out. There were 2 openers at the concert. The first one was Chris Young, who I hadn't heard of but was really good. The second one was Jeff Ingram, who I had heard of and was also really good. But of course, the star of the show was Martina. She is amazing. We had the opportunity to see her in concert last summer, when we lived in Cali, with a good friend of mine, Cheryl and her husband. Martina is such a great performer and an awesome singer. I was excited to see her perform again, and I was not disappointed. We rocked out and sang along to all her songs and had a great time!! Here are some pics I took: