Needing to vent...

It's discouraging to me that today I don't even feel like I have a moment to waste buzzing through the Oscar's that I taped last night. And I don't have any time to watch trashy shows on E! to see what their take was on it all--like I really care what their take is! I need Thursday to be here. I'm not good at these event things. Too much pressure and not enough fun. I like riding along and not worrying that I'm going to look like an idiot because it's someone else's place. Never again.



Seth was in the tub yesterday and I heard him saying "It's okay little dolphin. Don't be scared." When I turned around and looked at him he smiled and said, "The little dolphin is scared of the big dolphin." It is so fun when you can start to see their imagination at work. He's full of it too!!



Have a good Tuesday. Stay tuned for my post which was to be posted on Fat Tuesday--last week. It's gonna have to wait...

Taking a bit of a blogger Sabbatical...

It's been six days since my last confession...or post I guess. Believe me I would have rather been posting than all the other stuff I've been doing.

Jared was in Vienna all week. He got back this afternoon. I wanted to draw straws for who got the break--a very jet lagged Jared or a "tired of being single" Becky. I decided he needed the break--believe me as soon as he's up to speed, I'm taking a doosey!

I shouldn't complain, he really has not had to travel that much in the past 7 years...but this is the beginning of a streak! He'll be heading to China and Singapore next month. Poor guy is flying to China--flying back to SLC for 48 hours for Karen's wedding--and then has to leave the wedding dinner early to catch a flight to Singapore. What a guy.

So I thought I'd write a quick post so you knew I was alive and breathing. To explain the picture...I have been trying for 5 years to get a diabetes walk at our school. FINALLY...this past September we were able to get district policy changed. That, however, did not seal the deal...It has taken until a few weeks ago to get permission to hold it. The principal has been great...we just had to do some finagling with the PTO to get them to give up Sports Night as a PTO fundraiser. I am so excited about the whole thing. It is going to be a blast! So I am feeling successful in my endeavor! We'll see if I can make it through until Thursday...I really feel like crawling up in a ball.

Have a great weekend.

Not Happy...

Ya know nothing ticks me off more than to take 1 minute for myself today since the other how many thousand have been devoted to doing things for everyone else around here--and I compose a beautifully scripted post and Seth comes up in half a second it's gone.

I will do my best to re-cap for you.

Actually the moment is gone...so I'll just let you in on a couple of noteworthy things this week.

After reading all of the Special Valentines Breakfast blogs I was feeling inept as a mother and so we had heart waffles for dinner! It was a hit. Had to keep up with the Jonses'--literally. Jared had Young Men's so the kids and I hung out and watched the 4 new Kim Possible Episodes.

Now that I've let all of my idiosyncrasies out of the bag I'm not embarrassed to tell you that I have taped EVERY Kim Possible Episode and burned them onto DVD. I even had a spread sheet with them all listed so I could mark them off as I acquired them. It was a long process, but I am complete. Those of you who have Disney Channel watching kids will know that they are now airing new episodes. So I'm back in business. Like I don't have anything better to do.

I feel like garbage right now. This "event" I am putting together for the school is going to be awesome, however the process may kill me. I'm not getting nearly enough sleep and my throat is full of gunk. Sorry for that image.

My "Free Day" on Thursday was all of 30 minutes free. Volunteering in the morning--which by the way got me nothing but my foot thrown up on.

Ya know getting thrown up on is bad enough when it's your own kid let alone someone elses. And...I was wearing shoes with no socks. GROSS!! I really felt bad for the little guy. Almost half of Luke's class was out last week. I was told they are going to have to re-do their Quotations and Commas unit. Well, maybe Luke will just be really good at punctuation now. I'm hoping he doesn't end up with something. His teacher is pregnant, so she was heavily armed with Lysol and hand sanitizer!

After Luke's class I headed home for my notebook and headed off to a 2 hour Relief Society Meeting..oh yeah...I got called to be in the new RS Presidency. I've been promised that we will only be having short meetings once a month...this first one was just to get up to speed. We'll see how that pans out. Ya know I was just telling Carrie a while back that I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to notice that my cush job teaching Relief Society once a month was not requiring much of me. Apparently they did take notice. I'm just the education counselor, so it's not that big of a deal...just more meetings.

Then after that I ran home to make a pit stop and then back to school for my 1:00 volunteering. Then off to get Seth. Not much of a relaxing day. Maybe next time. Seth did have a great day--they had a Valentines Party and he is loving all the "wollipops"!

Rachel had her 2nd soccer game today. Last week was freezing and quite painful for us all. Especially Carrie...not only did she have to listen to Rachel's whining about the cold (like the rest of us weren't cold too) she had to give up her gloves for Rachel to wear. Thanks Carrie!

Today was much nicer. If the breeze would have died down it would have been perfect. Monday's practice was cancelled because of a tornado watch, so they have played 2 games with no practices and they are still awesome. Rachel got a goal today...Sophie had 2! Way to go girls.

Jared took the kids to some garage sales, Chuck E. Cheese, the soccer game and then the park for baseball. What a guy. I've got to get cleaned up for tomorrow.

Have a good Sunday ya'll.

Happy VALENTIMES Day!

Yes, I'm aware I spelled it wrong, but this is how Luke says it and it is so cute!

At about 6 o'clock Jared and I were alerted that it was officially Valentimes Day and then in a low, and drawn out for dramatic effect voice, Luke said, "Dad, [long pause] I love you." And then the same for me. What a sweet boy.

The kids had all made Valentines on Sunday for us. We were instructed not to look at them until today--anyone who knows me well knows I've been giving myself previews since Sunday.



Jonah's was very sweet it says...

Thank you for teaching us all of this good stuff and thank you for being my mom and dad and thank you for giving me all of this important stuff that I need. I love you. From Jonah

Rachel gave Jared a pencil holder she made in art at school. It's supposed to have basketball's and football's on it, but I think the paint ran in the firing process. It's sweet anyhow.



I've been busy making our traditional heart candy boxes for the teachers (White chocolate-ish for the box--milk chocolate inside)...and Valentines will be mailed out today...close enough if you get it the week of Valentines right?

Jared had some beautiful roses for me this morning. Yesterday he called me while I was out and said, "What do you want for Valentines? I'm at the Tractor Supply store and I'll get you anything you want." I frantically thought of all of the things on my "Tractor Supply Store list" and oddly came up blank--so I asked him if I could just have the gift of time. I told him to just take any money he would spend on me and take the kids on Saturday to a movie or Chuck E. Cheese of something and let me gather myself for a few hours. Ahh. The gift that keeps on giving.

Happy Valentimes Day to you all. We love you!

Growing up...

Luke has lost his first tooth. In contrast to his big brother--he wanted me to rip that thing out of his mouth! Jonah screams and hides if he thinks I'm coming for him. Luke noticed in the line to leave school that it was loose. As soon as we got home he grabbed some floss and asked me if I would take it out! It has already been deposited under his pillow for safe keeping. He couldn't be more proud and can't wait until tomorrow to tell his friends.

Ahhh...how cute.

We found Luke and Seth like this Saturday afternoon in the play room. My guess is that Seth fell asleep and Luke...being the snuggle bunny that he is...could not help himself--and then LUKE fell asleep. Pretty cute.

It's Monday and I already feel 6 days behind schedule. Let's hope my inevitable nervous breakdown doesn't happen this week.



This is Seth after church...we all obviously need to get more sleep.

"Utah peanut butter is the best!"

Rachel has her friend Molly over--Molly was in her Kindergarten class for about 2 months and then they decided to home school, however, she and Rachel have remained good friends over the years.

We were making lunch and I needed more PB for the boys. I got a new case of PB out and Molly was shocked to see so much PB in one place!! She'd never seen a case before. She asked me if that was the only one we had to which the kids told her we had about 6 of those. I'm a little nervous about what she's going to report to her parents...weird PB people!

Anyway, this opened yet another PB conversation in which Jonah exclaimed that "Utah peanut butter is the best!" Utah peanut butter would be Skippy. The peanut butter we buy is from the Cannery. Here in Houston we have the Peanut Butter plant where all the peanut butter is made for the church. A few times a years we are asked to take a shift on the PB run. A PB run is about 72 hours long I believe...I have had to work the 10 pm - 3 am shift before. It's actually quite fun...a little like the opening to Laverne and Shirley...hair nets and all. My favorite job is sending the jars through the labeler. My least favorite jobs are watching the peanuts go down the conveyor belt to pick out the 'badduns' (give me some Dramimine)AND watching other people's kids while they work on the run.

The deal is that you can only purchase PB if you have worked on the PB run in some way. They allow so many cases to be purchased and the rest goes to church welfare. So if you ever see them unloading supplies in Africa or somewhere and you see peanut butter coming--it came from Houston!! And contrary to Jonah's tastes...it is very good.

You do the sweetest things...

I heard a lot of noise upstairs this morning. The kids had been up early and came down to get Jared and I to "come upstairs and see something!"

Generally this means they've cleaned something up, so we went through the usual--me pretending to be mad and telling them that if they made a big mess they are all grounded for the day...this always gets lots of smiles and giggles between them as they think they've tricked me.

And then the unveiling occurs and they are so proud of themselves for taking the initiative to do something good. I love those days!

Afterward Jonah said, "Remember 3 years ago when we had that rule that you only get one toy out to play with and then you have to put it back before you get anything else out?" I said, "yeah, the rule that lasted 25 seconds?" Then Jonah said, "I like that rule. I think we should have it again. Then we won't have such big messes."

We'll see how long that lasts.

I will say for as crazy as they make me sometimes...they always redeem themselves. They are pretty great kids. I'm a lucky mom.

Spring has Sprung?...

I'm feeling sad for my friends east of the Mississippi. Jill pointed out that it is like -30 below with wind chill in Chicago and Carrie is freezing her Texas tail off in NY right now. I'm quite comfortable actually.

I remember well, Chicago in February. February and March seemed to be the coldest. I remember one year we could not get my car started until like 1 or 2 p.m. for 2 weeks it was so cold. I even tried parking it where it would get sun the earliest. I had to have my visiting teacher and a co-worker take turns taking me to work...they had garages, and cars that were used to those temps.

When Jared's brother Matt would visit from Ann Arbor, MI we'd have to pop the screen off our bedroom window and hang 2 lengths of extension cord (we were on the 3rd floor) and plug in his VERY old Mercedes to keep it warm enough so he could go back to Michigan. Crazy!!

I can remember walking out of our apartment building and walking 10 yards to the car and not having any feeling in my fingers or toes. It is cold. And on the lake it's worse!! Part of Northwestern...unfortunately the part where Jared's program was located...is built out onto the lake. So throw in there some wind and you think you are going to die.

So like I've told them...I'll be thinking warm thoughts for them and enjoying our 71º weather. The kids and I went outside after school and played until it was time to head in for dinner. I love those days...although I wish we had the Zavaleta's or Banta's or Twiggs to chat and play with...not so much social fun anymore. Are you feeling sad for me yet?

Caught stickey footed???

I just got home from taking Seth to Mother's Day Out, and came home to this in my kitchen. Obviously it happened before we left. By the little size 9 foot prints I'm guessing it was a two-year-old. Thank Goodness for Swiffer's. I'll have it cleaned up in a jiffy.

It's juice by the way...and don't look too close at my grout. It's not supposed to be a warm chocolate color. :(


Have a good Tuesday.

Good Friends

We had the Pearson girls for a bit this morning. Carrie left (at 4ish I'm told) for a business trip this morning and Eric had a meeting at 8 so the girls came here for an hour until it was time for school. The kids love it when they come--and I do too because it gets me moving. Seth kept saying, "I like those girls! I like Sophie. I like girls." (That last one has me a little worried.

Rachel had to leave at 7:25 to go to her Destination Imagination group. I got everyone else off to school (with plenty of time to spare--which is a miracle) and came back to start up the weekend's mess. I decided to start with Rachel's room. When I went in her bed was made, which surprised me because she RARELY makes it--at least on a school morning.

When I got closer I saw a note that said,

Rachel,

I made your bed because I didn't have anything else to do.

Your friend,

Sophie

What a sweet girl! Now you can see why we want her to come live with us!! The best part of it is that because I was so touched by her kindness I could feel myself getting less irritated at the enormous mess in every room in our house!!

So thank you to Sophie!

Something to tell...

Finally a nice Sunday for taking some pictures. It was a beautiful morning. Everyone was relativly cooperative...it was a sucessful outing. It is very difficult to take a picture of 4 children--who don't really listen to you anyway, so why would they when you're trying to get a shot for your Valentine? Yes we do a Valentine instead of a Christmas card...yours will be coming soon!

Nothing to tell...

I really don't have anything interesting to post about. I've been busy working on an event I'm helping out with the school. Note to self: Don't sign up to help with anymore events at the school. I'm happy to pass out ice cream for an hour at the carnival, but this one is bigger than I had anticipated. It is going to be great fun, but I'll be glad when it's all over!


Jared went up to check on the kids the other night and found Seth like this. Funny boy!

I found Seth playing with his magnets the other day. He can spell 3 words...Seth, Mom and Dad. I thought this was sweet.


I'm finding that Rachel is pretty handy to have around. I found myself in a position where I was torn between multiple things that needed to be done. One of which was fixing dinner. So I enlisted a 9 year old girl who would cook morning, noon, and night if we would let her. We are limited to breakfast foods right now. Her specialities are waffles, french toast, and pancakes. Although, she can do mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. I'm seeing a light at the end of my tunnel.

If you've ever had a pedicure...you've got to watch this.