"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind... We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith." -- Margaret D. Nadauld
Max has been travelling a lot. He's not home as often as we would like him to be. That leaves us home alone and unprotected. This has worried him and he has been contemplating different ways to remedy the situation.
There are a whole host of methods that have crossed his mind.
He has thought about:
*hiring a big, burly body guard to sit at the front door at all times *installing sensitive laser beams crossing the kitchen floor that will trigger an alarm when the beam has been crossed (that's obviously a BAD idea due to midnight icecream raids!) *buckets of water balanced precariously over outside doors *steel plated doors that seal closed automatically if someone touches the knob after 10:30pm *smearing honey on all door knobs with empty soda cans stacked up on the door jam
All good ideas, but not practical for family living.
Max's problem has now been solved. A weapon has been acquired. A weapon that can be stored in my nightstand.... fully loaded with the ammunition right next to it. A weapon that I can feel good about. I don't worry about Inigo getting a hold of this and injuring himself or his friends. No one will put their eye out with this one!!!
It's a marshmallow gun!!
So much fun! It's my opinion that every member of every family have their own.
Poor Lola (the dog) is going to get fat on marshmallows this summer!
GAH!! I have had a pretty severe head cold for two weeks now. It feels like I'm swimming in a cloud of green colored phlegm. I can't seem to shake it! I went to the doctor on Monday, thinking I had strep... due to the fact that in church the previous day I was singing the base line of the hymns and throwing in a "ribbet" once in a while for good measure. (I was a very convincing frog!) The strep test came back negative and I was so disappointed. If it was strep, I could have legitimately taken an antibiotic and gotten better within two or three days. The doc said ifI wasn't better in two or three days he'd prescribe one for me anyway "to stave off any secondary infections this virus can cause," but I'm kind of crazy about medicine like that. If there is no clear-cut reason to take a pill, I won't take it. (Buttercup had a super virus when she was 4 -- temps up to 106* -- so that freaked me out about drugs.) Today is Friday and I'm fighting a foggy internal battle. Should I call the doc and get that scrip filled? Or suffer through the weekend and see how I'm feeling on Monday?
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Buttercup brought home registration materials for school next year. It's time to sit down and make her schedule for her final year in high school. Am I the only mom that freaks out about this? Along with the class info was information on ordering a cap and gown and instructions to make sure we have her senior portraits taken by September. Heaven help me. I'm not ready for this!!!
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Buttercup has had a rough couple weeks. Not only did she try out for and NOT make the drill team, but she tried out for the select choir... THE choir to be in in our high school ... and did NOT make that cut either. She was devastated by this. We felt that she had an amazing audition and that she sang beautifully. The choir director even said, "Oh! I forgot to take notes while you were singing because I was so enthralled with your song!" He complimented her on the final note of the song (a high E flat). He liked how she sang her scales. I don't know how he picks members of each choir so I don't know why she wasn't picked. Being in the all girl's choir isn't bad. This year they actually sounded better than the boy/girl combined choir, but being in that choir was the natural progression and we had sincerely hoped she would make it. Obviously Heavenly Father has something planned for my daughter and obviously it's something that won't come easy for her. We don't know what's in store, but we hope to have enough faith that it will be amazing and that it will be perfect for her.
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Inigo confessed something to me the other day:
"Mom, I like to say family prayers because then I get to say amen first!"
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Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel a sneeze coming on and I need to go blow my nose.
************************** Update: I didn't call the doctor and now I wish I had. As the day has progressed, my throat has started hurting again and now my ear is sore. Stupid, stupid me!!
I don't dare hope that the temperatures will remain warm. I don't dare hope that we won't have any more snow. After all, this is April and I live in Florin! But when we do have springlike weather, we forget all about the work that need to be done around the house and get outside to have fun.
Saturday was GORGEOUS!!! And Max was home. We had to get out and play. Our choice: go to Guilder and play 18 holes of Disc Golf.... or in our case Frisbee Golf (we're too cheap to fork out the big bucks to buy the fancy discs required to play a "real" game. We just used regular old frisbees).
Inigo shows us his form.
Buttercup's form is slightly softer. I think this throw yielded about 5 feet for the frisbee.
This is how we played: Inigo took off running all the way to each basket. He had to be first... big shocker. The rest of us moseyed along behind.
Traffic jam at the basket.
Most holes had a Par 3 or 4. We usually threw 8 or 9 per hole.
HOLE 18!! COURSE COMPLETED!!!
The park where the course is has some GREAT trees for photos. I have wanted to try my hand at some pictures there for some time and I got a little practice on Saturday. Under the right lighting and caring a little more about our appearance, I think we could get some decent shots.
I think this will be our family picture for April.
Buttercup didn't quit the drill team tryouts. She stayed all three days, even though she was in pain and taking Ibuprofin to get through it all (she fell down the stairs a couple weeks ago and while her foot isn't broken, she has bruised her ligaments).
The actual tryouts were yesterday and I'm relieved/sad/happy/ohIdon'tknowhowIfeel to report that she didn't make the team.
♥ I'm relieved because the ordeal is over and we can get on with our lives. ♥ I'm sad because I really like it when she is part of the team. It's an amazing thing, being part of something like that and I think it helps you grow as a person. ♥ I'm happy that she stuck with it and now she won't spend years wondering if she could have made the team. I'm also happy that she learned that she isn't a quitter and that she can stick with something -- even if it's hard! ♥ I'm not really sure how I feel about it because she has decided, once and for all, that she is finished with dancing. She isn't even going to take a dance class at the studio anymore. This has been such a part of our life... for the past 12 years... that I'm sure I'm going to have a hard time letting it go. Dance recital is on May 15 and this will be the last recital that I will see my children dance in (Inigo doesn't want to take dance classes anymore either!). So I guess we can put this into the sad category. But maybe not: Think of the money I am going to save!!! Dance costs more than just the class. There are registration fees, recital fees, costume fees, production fees, etc. etc. I will appreciate having that extra cash every month!
I have told her that since dance is over, she has to find something to replace it. She must join another club at school, find a volunteer opportunity (Mayor's Youth Committee, or the Crisis Center, etc.). SHE MUST STAY INVOLVED!!! Expecially since it's her senior year. She also needs to find a job, but that's nearly impossible in this college town. (Spring track starts next week and there will be thousands of kids looking for jobs.)
So, while the dancing part of our lives is over, a new, unknown part is just beginning! We're looking forward to what's ahead!!
Picture the scene: A tired mommy with her children gathered around her bed, kneeling in preparation of saying tonight's Family Prayer. She asks her too precocious 6 year old to say tonight's prayer.
The boy readily acquiesces. His prayer sounds something like this:
"And please bless that I can stay up until 10:00."
Stifling a chuckle, the mother opens her tired eyes to peek at her son, whom she finds out is already peeking at her with one eye, just before he closes it tight as if he is praying in earnest.
Hmmmm.... Think it's time for a FHE lesson on praying with a purpose?
And no.... this prayer was NOT answered. He was in bed as soon as it was finished: by 9:30!!
(BTW: He is now praying for TWO baby brothers!! Someone help us find a baby before he ups it to 3 or 4!!)
Today hasn't been the most positive, wonderful or fulfilling day. It should have been. I started out the day with my list and I was able to check everything but ONE item off! That's quite an amazing feat for me!
But something is off. Have you had a day like that?
It started off bad. I was soooo tired. I got little to no sleep last night. When Max travels I can't sleep until I know he's arrived at his destination safely -- which was after 1 a.m. When he finally texted me and told me he was at the hotel, I allowed myself to try to fall asleep. But something, I don't know what, suddenly woke me up about 2:30 am. It was disturbing enough that it disturbed the rest of my sleep until about 5 or 5:30. By then I was so exhausted that I knew I could NOT get up and go to the gym at 7:30. I forced myself out of bed at 8:30 -- just in time to say goodbye to Buttercup -- and from that point on the day was a bust.
I worked steadily at my list and tried to be upbeat and positive, but I'm just so tired that I couldn't pull it off. Add to it that I have this irritating, dry cough and I fought nausea all day....
OH, WHAT A WHINER I AM!!
But I'm not done.
Inigo didn't have kindergarten so I had to drag him along on all my errands and he was so good that when we got home I told him we could call a friend to come over. Seriously, the boy called 5 different friends and not one of them was home! *tears* Finally, an hour later, one of the friends called back and he was able to come up and play for a while. *whew*
Then Buttercup got home from school. Today was the first day of dance team tryouts. She was frustrated and her self-esteem levels were scraping rock bottom. The coaches were asking the girls to do steps and techniques that she didn't know how to do. AND SHE HAS BEEN DANCING SINCE SHE WAS IN KINDERGARTEN!! She felt that every other girl auditioning is so much better and that she is just going to look foolish and embarrass herself by continuing. She was going to walk away and quit. It's so hard as a mom to see your daughter feeling this bad about herself. I gave her the pep talk about not having any regrets, about not being a quitter and how you can't live your life avoiding situations where you could possibly be embarrassed. My goodness, you'd have to stay in the house, by yourself, every day to avoid embarrassment! But ultimately, I had to walk away and say, "You decide." I didn't have any emotional energy left after the talk to try to convince her to keep trying.
(She came to me about 1/2 hour later and said she realized that she is NOT a quitter! I was so proud of her!)
And the frosting on the cake was tonight: the scanner attached to our home computer doesn't work. Max doesn't know why and hasn't been able to fix it. Buttercup needed to scan some old pictures (BEFORE digital) to use for a school project. We had to go to Max's office and use the scanner there. Of course, it wasn't easy. We were there for 2 hours and only got 29 pictures scanned. We got them home to begin editing them and... no surprise.... this is how they turned out:
This is a photo of Max and Buttercup on the Oregon Coast when she was almost 3 years old. But you can't tell that can you? How in the heck did they turn out so small? What did I do wrong?
No, wait!! I know what I did wrong!!
I GOT OUT OF BED THIS MORNING!!
(I certainly hope the planets are aligned much better tomorrow!)
We had a GREAT Easter weekend. Red came up from the land down south and brought with her Codyette (the mg). There was much hilarity and much laughter....
Also, the primary president of my ward (somehow) knew that after being released from YW, I wasn't quite prepared to go to Relief Society today and invited me to sub Inigo's 6 & 7 year old primary class.
Here are some of moments from the weekend that made me laugh:
Primary: In the Easter lesson, it suggests that we practice saying the word "resurrection" with the children. I found that was a very easy word to say. The all boy class nailed it.... first try. The word we actually needed to practice (and it took about 5 minutes to get right) was Gethsemane. The most common mispronunciation was "Geth seventy."
Papa: My dad was on a hilarious roll this weekend. The funniest thing that came out of his mouth was this (and I have to paraphrase): Inigo mentioned that the movie Bedtime Stories was out on DVD. He asked Papa if he had seen it. Papa replied that he didn't need to see it because every night Grammy reads one to him. It's called the Riot Act.
Hee Haw: See my next post
Our drive home: This is probably one of those stories that only Buttercup and I will find funny because we are the only people who saw it. We were on our way home and driving through a residential section of Guilder (across from Grammy's best friend's house). We saw a little girl riding her bike on the side walk. As we got closer to her we could see she was 8 or 9 years old and having the time of her life. Seriously, the happiness on her face rivaled the face of a kid who gets to see Mickey Mouse for the first time in Disneyland. Kind of like this face.
(Only, the girl was blonde.)
Upon closer inspection, we could see the girl had one hand on her handle bar and her other arm stuck waaay up in the air, waving at the passing cars.... while she just laughed and giggled away.
Upon even closer inspection we noticed that the hand up in the air wasn't waving with all 5 fingers at the passing cars. She was only using one finger.
Can you guess which one?
She's not the only one who thought she was hilarious. Buttercup and I laughed for the next 10 minutes. (We had to tell Inigo that the girl was sticking her tongue out at us. He still doesn't know about the middle finger.)
Bumpits: I wonder if this product makes any money outside of the Utah/Idaho area. Seriously. Do girls in other parts of the world actually want ski jumps on the top of their head? We laughed hard about this commercial!
I'll add photos later this week.... It's getting late and I have to make it to the gym early to work off the ham, funeral potatoes, cheesy beans, banana cream pie and chocolate peanut butter eggs that I consumed today! I think I'm gong to have to go 5 days this week!
I'm about to disclose a scary thing here: My age. Or my general age, to NOT be exact. Tonight, I want to take a walk down Memory Lane for a minute...
I grew up in Guilder, not far from where we now live in Florin. In my growing up years I was blessed to have both sets of grandparents also live in Guilder. We were doubly blessed to have wonderful loving relationships with them. As children, my sisters, brother and I knew that Sunday afternoons/evenings were to be spent visiting our grandparents.
Grandma Ruby and Grandpa Pat lived by the City Park. As long as the weather was somewhat decent, we knew that after we got to their house they would put on their walking shoes, head through the backyard to the Park for our Sunday afternoon walk. We walked the entire perimeter of the park in the grass (no pavement!), surrounded by trees in almost every season. Spring brought us the scent of lilacs wafting on the breeze, or the smell of the crab apple trees in full bloom. Summer was a hodge podge of scents: families barbecuing, sweat from the men playing basketball or baseball, cotton candy from the midway. Fall was always great. Big leaves crunching underfoot and the distinct odors of summer winding down to the cooler, crisp air.
The grown-ups would meander slowly along while the kids would run up and down, chasing the dog. There were many hills along our route and sometimes we would run ahead to the top, lay down and roll -- round and round til we were dizzy -- to the bottom. Sometimes, in the fall, while the grown-ups were busily engaged in their conversation, we would gather up piles of leaves so we could jump in them. We always got a little quiet and just a little scared as we walked past the fence that bordered the cemetery... remembering all the ghost stories we heard about acorns and ghosts of women that wander through the gravestones there. And of course we HAD to play in the "old dead tree" which wasn't really dead. Just a tree that had, at some point in its existence, split in half with parts of it growing perpendicular to the ground. That is the only tree I ever climbed on as a kid.
Grandma Millie and Grandpa Bob's visits were a little different. Once in a while we would go on walks but our visits were mainly eating cake and ice milk while we watched Sunday evening TV. (Never heard of ice milk? Lucky you!) If it wasn't the Lawrence Welk show it was Hee Haw.
Do you remember Hee Haw? The country music comedy sketch show? I was so young that I am pretty sure I didn't get the humor of the jokes they told, but I saw all the grown-ups laughing and that was good enough for me. I definitely remember that I hated all the country singing on the show and I couldn't wait to get back to the funny skits. (I still HATE country music!)
There were many regular skits that, to this day, permeated my life. I can't tell you how many times I have said, "Hey Grandpa! What's fer supper?" or I have sang, "Gloooom, despaaaair and agony on me...." Sometimes they meld together.... gloom, despair and agony instantly segue way into the song, "Why did you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over ....." You remember the song, don't you?
There is a purpose to this rant.
Tonight, after Easter dinner at my parent's house and after all the travelling guests had to leave, we settled down for a restful moment in front of the TV (no ice milk... THANK HEAVENS!!) As we were scanning through the channel guide, we saw that there was an old episode of Hee Haw on. Circa 1969. One of the originals.
We couldn't resist. We had to watch it. To be honest, I thought I would hate it. I thought it would be so completely corny that I couldn't sit through a whole hour. But as the show progressed and I saw Roy and Buck (my least favorites of the cast) and Lulu and Grandpa Jones and those old skits, I kind of felt like I was going home. There was the old corn field where people would pop up in pairs and tell one or two line jokes. There was the old fence that would flip up and hit people in the behind when they told a joke. There was everyone laying around with the hound dog between them singing about their gloom and their despair. OH! What about the guy in the moth eaten sweater giving a news update with the roosting chickens behind him? And of course, you can't forget about Archie Campbell and Gordie Tapp singing "Pbbt You Were Gone."
That was one of the best hours I've spent watching TV in a long time. Poor Buttercup... couldn't handle the 1969 hairdos or plaid suits. She did laugh when Archie told the story of the "Pee Little Thrigs." But mostly she read her book.
Inigo enjoyed it. Not that he got any of the jokes, but I think he enjoyed the fact that the grown-ups were enjoying it. Kind of like I did as a kid.
It was great fun spending that hour with my parents. Those were great memories that came back to the surface. I could instantly go back to that little house on 10th street, sitting on Grandpa's footstool in the cramped "den", with the smell of this morning's coffee surrounding me, a plate of white cake with chocolate icing getting soggy from the fake ice cream.
