Snow Day

Tuesday night we got a lot of snow (here that equals 6-8 inches) so school was cancelled yesterday. The kids were so excited! There was just a sense of excitement at our house. Dance and scouts also got cancelled so our whole day was empty. What a perfect way to spend a snowy, snowy day. This is how we spent our day:

making snowmen (of course!)

decorating gingerbread houses

and making igloos with friends.

The kids had a blast - they'd play in the snow, come in to get warm, have something to eat, and head back out to the snow. Last night it was dark and I still couldn't get Bailey to come in the house. My kids were betting on another snow day today, but their luck ran out, and they're back to school. We had a great snow day.

Gems of Bailey

Here are a few gems from Bailey after the past few months:
One day I was helping Tyler practice the piano in our living room. Bailey and Emmy were playing in the family room. All of the sudden Bailey starts crying. Not "I want attention" crying, nor was it "I want Emmy in trouble" crying (moms can differentiate). This was "I'm really hurt" crying.
So I go into the family room to find her really hurt and laying on the floor. I ask her what happened and she yells, "Emmy made me do the splits!" Isn't that hilarious? To comfort Bay this is what Emmy added, "But Bailey, you really did the splits!"
Then this week Bay went to preschool and I heard this report from her teacher, "Bailey came up to me and told me she had an announcement" An announcement? From Bailey? What does she have to announce? Her big announcement to her class: "I'm popular".

That's what she told them - aye, aye, aye.

P.S. to the Fire Alarm

My friend, who's in Scouts, just told me that for Pack Night this week we are having a fireman come to talk to the boys . . . I just hope we don't recognize anyone. Or vice-versa. That is hilarious timing.

Worst. Stake Conference. Ever.

We just got home from the worst Stake Conference ever. Harsh, you say, hear me out. A few weeks ago a couple friends and I decided we should join the choir singing at Stake Conference. For them, it was about a love of singing and hymns being praises and such, for me it was a way to sit and listen to Stake Conference, from my cushy seat, for 2 hours, while Derek had the kids. Genius I'd say.
So today I was enjoying Stake Conference while watching Derek and the kids. Halfway through, I saw Derek take Logan out and leave the other 3 kids on the bench. Not too concerned at this point. Our last speaker was Cecil O. Samuelson - as in President of BYU and General Authority. Derek and I were at our Stake Center, becuase I was in the choir and all, but it was also being broadcast to 2 other buildings and 2 nursing homes (do we live in Utah?). He was in the middle of his talk when all of the sudden the fire alarm goes off. Ear piercing fire alarm. People covering their ears fire alarm. Babies crying fire alarm. It is so loud that he had no choice but to stop his talk. Through the siren he did manage to say, "kids are cute, but there are things they shouldn't touch".
Emmy and her friend were out getting a drink from the water fountain when the alarm went off, and they both sprinted outside.
The fire alarm is going and going and High Councilmen and the Stake Presidency have gone out to the halls to figure out what is going on. My friend Kim and I start asking ourselves if there's any way it's either of our 2 year olds, since they were both out of the chapel at the time. No way we convinced ourselves, they're 2 - they couldn't reach the fire alarm. It's definitely not either of our boys.
Finally, after several minutes, like 5 ear-splitting minutes, while Elder Samuelson can't do anything but stand there, the siren goes off. The strobe lights on each alarm, however, are still going strong. A counselor in the Stake Presidency comes back and assures Elder Samuelson that it was accidental, and we don't need to start evacuating, to which Elder Samuelson says to everyone, "It was an accident, we'll have a disciplinary council after the meeting. If you need surgery repairing your ear drums, send your bills to your Stake Presidency." And the meeting proceeeds.
Here's the unbeknowst to me part . . . Derek had Logan, and his friend (partner in crime I'd suggest) in the Relief Society room listening to the talk. Derek saw the boys looking at the fire alarm lever and he distracted them away from it. Ten minutes later Derek saw Logan beelining for the fire alarm - despite Derek's chase, the alarm was pulled. When it started Derek was hoping it was just in the Relief Society room, when he heard Elder Samuelson say, "Everyone stay calm" Derek knew he was cooked. Derek ran out of the room to see the High Councilmen looking to see what alarm was pulled. Derek told them where it was, and they told him to stay put. They had a key to turn off the alarm, but not the strobe lights. So the alarm was off, lights still going, and Derek and Logan had to wait otuside for the fire department to come.


After they got the lights off, they had to have a talk with Logan. I'm sure that went well. The firemen said since he had called them, he might as well get a tour of the fire truck. So Logan got a tour of the fire truck and met his first fireman.

Right after the alarm got turned off, Derek's friend - who was another building - text him and said, "It was your kid wasn't it?" Other favorite texts have asked if we think the fire alarm will make the report that Elder Samuelson gives when he gets back to Utah, the fact it was Logan who pulled it "was no shocker", and when will his disciplinary council be. My brother thinks we should print the picture of Logan and the fireman and mail it to Elder Samuelson with a note that says, "It was me".

When I first saw Logan after the meeting all he could say was "loud, loud". After we went into the Relief Society room to see just how low this fire alarm lever was. Logan was so scared he didn't even want to go in the room. Maybe the fireman's talk did sink in . .. . Needless to say, I will not be singing in the Stake Conference choir again - we need all hands on deck.

Heat Wave

We have had unusually hot weather the last 2 weeks. Today's October 1st and the high is 91. It's just still hot, hot summer around here (which I do not complain about, winter will be here soon enough).
This week Emmy wore a dress to school and she wanted to wear her dress boots with it. I told her it was too hot to wear boots to school but she insisted and off she went. She came home from school taking off her boots as fast as she could.

Me: Were your feet hot in those boots?

Emmy: Yeah! I told my teacher my boots were full of sweat!

Is that the sickest thing you've heard all day?

Late Start Wednesday

Every Wednesday our whole school district starts school 15 minutes later. The point is to give teachers 15 minutes of grade-wise collaboration time. So instead of school starting at 9:05, we start at 9:20. Last year we had Late Start but the buses still came at the same time - the kids just played on the playground for an extra 15 minutes in the morning. This year, due to budget cuts, the buses come 15 minutes later so they don't have to pay for the extra playground duty-people.
I love Late Start Wednesdays. School starts so late already that I never have to wake up my kids. So on Late Start days we get so much done before school. Both Tyler and Emmy get through their piano lessons, and can work on their spelling.
Tyler has the same spelling homework every week. On Wednesdays his assignment is to have his spelling list in one room and his paper in another. He looks at his list, starts with the first word, and spells it outloud while he walks to his paper and then writes it down. Logan has caught onto what he's doing and every Wednesday morning Tyler walks through the house spelling words outloud with Logan a step behind him yelling E I E I E I E I (I'm guessing from Old McDonald). Another reason to look forward to Wednesdays.

Second Grade Spelling

Today Emmy came home with the homework assignment of having to write a sentence for each of her spelling words. She decided that each of her sentences would be about apples. Here they are:

I studied about apples.
I hurried to pick apples.
I cried when there was a worm in my apple.
I worried about my apples.
People gave me apples when I got married.
(This was orignally: I married apples. I intervened.)
I carried my apples everywhere.
"I love my apples" I replied.
I tried to get my apples from the tree.
I copied my neighbor picking apples.
I fried my apples so they would be good.

I thought they were hilarious!

Mama

Tonight Derek is out with Tyler and Logan at our ward's Fathers and Sons. I love Fathers & Sons, and not because I get a break from the boys in the family. But because I love to have time with my girls. We planned a girl night - eating out, going to a park, and watching the latest Barbie movie.

When we were at the restaurant the waitress kept calling me 'Mama' - "Mama, can I refill your water? Mama, did you save room for dessert?" All night she called me Mama. Emmy said, "How does she know you're a mom? Is it becuase of me and Bailey?" Yes, it's because of you and Bailey. I hope everyone knows I'm a mama. I was proud to be called 'Mama' - even if by some stranger waitress.

7 Years Down the Road . . .

The rule in our family is that you have to be 12 to get your ears pierced. My girls talk about getting their ears pierced quite frequently - planning what kind of earrings they'll get, if it'll hurt, etc. But lately Emmy has been telling Bay that she'll wait until she's 14 so she and Bay get their ears pierced together when Bay's 12. That puts this 7 years from now.
So this week the girls come to me with a plan: they're going to get their ears pierced the same day and then they wanted to know if we could go out to lunch afterwards. 'Sure' I say, you got it. Then they say, 'can we go to Wendy's?' (I know, dare to dream girls). Again 'sure' from me. Then they say, 'I hope it has a playland!'
We'll see if 7 years changes things.

Family Laws

I just got home from Education Week in Rexburg. I got to go with my 3 sis's-in-law. We had a blast staying in an off-campus apartment and having some mom-time.
One of the classes I went to talked about having Family Laws. She told us that you need to have the kids help come up with laws and consequences so they buy into the laws. So the kids and I had a family meeting where I wrote down on all their rules they wanted for our family. There were some goodies:
No tattling
No arguing
Include everyone
Don't slam doors
Shut outside doors
"No" means "No"
Clean up after yourself
No jumping on others
No pouting
No screaming
Don't climb on couches
No blaming others
No hitting
Take turns
Share
No lying
No running over people with your bike
No food on the carpet
No whining
No punching
No choking people
Don't make others do what you want
No kicking
No pinching
No breaking stuff
Be tough about little things
No bragging
Don't put 2 things in the oven at once
No name calling
No pushing
Don't shoot anyone with your BB gun
Don't throw the exercise ball at others
Don't feel sorry for yourself
No touching others

I thought there were some solid new rules for our fam! Just in case you're wondering what we're going to do with 30+ rules, we put them all into 4 different categories so we now have 4 family laws, which covers everything - even shooting others with our BB guns.

Pine Wood Derby

The Pine Wood Derby

a.k.a. Night of Horrors

Last night was our first Pine Wood Derby. Tyler and Derek had picked out a model to make online, and then went to a friend's house who helped Tyler cut it out with his saw. Tyler sanded it, painted it, added a Batman tattoo, added wheels, and soon we had the coolest Batmobile in town. Not only was last night the Pine Wood Derby, it was also the night Tyler was going to get his Wolf Badge. This was a night I was really looking forward to. My parents came to cheer on Tyler.

The night had excitement . . . the night had promise . . . the night had some problems.

Now Derek and I are not the handiest when it comes to tools - and car making might be at the limit of our handy skills, so on the way there we really had one goal - just not to be embarrassed. We didn't need to win, we just needed to not be embarrassed. That was the whole goal of the night.

So we get to the church for the official weigh-in. Our car was too light so Derek added some weights to it. He taped the weights onto the bottom of the car with electrical tape, got it exactly 5 ounces and we were off to the races!

The gym was divided in half - for spectators and racers. To get into the 'pit' you had to have a 'pit pass' that all of the boys wore quite proudly. The races started and Derek said to me that he was worried that with the weights on the bottom he hoped Tyler's car wouldn't get high-centered down the track. "Oh that won't happen" I assured him.

Then they called Tyler's name - Derek and I were on the edge of our seats - with one goal in mind: don't get embarrassed. Off they go . . . and then his stops . . . half way down the track. The race-director-man declares a need for a pit stop so Derek can move the weights to the top of the car. So Derek goes off (calling himself Guido from Cars) to fix our Batmobile. Now the race has to stop and wait for our car because the race-director-man's brackets are on his computer and he can't skip Tyler and then come back to him. Well Derek thinks they're going on with more races, so he takes his time . . . his sweet time . . . his 'take all the time you want' time to fix the car. And the rest of us are just waiting for him to come back. The race-director-man starts telling jokes to fill this time. People start wondering what Derek is doing to this car. People start wondering where Derek went to fix this car.

Finally Derek comes back and the race is back on. Tyler puts his car back up on top and off they go . . . and Tyler wins (fastest time thus far too). So we won one heat - which wasn't even the goal, but we had lots of embarrassment which was the goal (so not really a victory). Then Tyler went on to win a few more heats - making our initial embarrassment lessen. We get through the whole race and Tyler ends up taking 5th - way better than we ever thought we'd do. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end here.

So the race is over and while they're letting siblings race their cars and getting ready for the awards I was standing at the back of the gym holding Bay. She had fallen asleep at home taking a really late nap, and when we went to Pack Night we had to wake her up and she never fully woke up. Through the races she was really clingy and kept trying to fall back asleep. So I'm standing at the back of the gym holding her, when all of the sudden - and I don't know if I heard it first or felt it first - but Bay starts throwing up . . .gallons. Gallons and gallons. It's everywhere - in her hair, in my hair, our shoes, and all over the floor. We're just soaked in the stuff. And I become a deer in the headlights. I don't even know what to do or where to start. As I'm standing there, horrified beyond belief, I just hear moms telling their kids not to get in it! While I'm still standing there petrified a few friends and Derek start bringing me paper towels - they're wiping me down, their trying to mop up this giant mess - and a few paper towels are not going cut it. So we're doing our best to clean up and in walks our friend with the giant mop and bucket (you know the one you never want to have anything to do with). So Bay and I head out to the car - where another friend gives me a gallon ziplock bag so I can strip Bay down. And we just wait for the rest of our family to come out. While I'm dealing with Bay, Tyler gets his Wolf and I miss it -though Derek did want Tyler to pin the 'mom's pin' right on me and my puke shirt! Derek gets Tyler a ride home with someone else so we can go home and end the horrification.

Poor Bay was really sick - after I scrubbed her to death - she climbed right in bed and went back to sleep.

The whole thing couldn't have been more embarrassing - and that was the whole goal of our family!

Notes to self for next year's Pine Wood Derby:

• Use electrical tape to add weights
• Tape weights on top of car
• Don't throw up

*Think this might win for longest post ever?*

Eenie Meenie

Both my girls are obsessed with doing 'eenie meenie minie mo' to decide between anything. They do it to decide who puts them to bed, what shoes they're going to wear, and how their hair is done. But Bay's Miley Cyrus twist cracks me up every time: "Eenie meenie minie mo, country-fi it, hip hop it, and my mother says that you are not it".
And here's a compltely random side note: since this week is Teacher Appreciation week, all of the kids in Tyler's class had to write a thank you to their teacher. I just got done assembling them into a book. Here are my two favorite (thankfully neither were from Tyler): 'You are stern, but fabulous.' and 'I like Mrs. B. she eats chocolate.' Kids are too funny.

First Grade Pen Pals

These are two letters from Emmy and her pen pal Jadan, who goes to a different school. Spelling and punctutation have been left alone.

Dear Emily,
my hair is blond to. I have the wii do yuo. I like you. My favorite color is pink! my favorte shape is harts What is yuor favorite shape. do you have a dog I do it's name is Magee! do you have a fish I do!
Love, Jadan

to Jadan,
I do not have a dog. Happy St. Patricks day. when is your birthday? Do you like Hershey Bars? Did you ever loos a tooth. I like pink to. I like you. Do you like the moon?
love, Emily

Church Comparisions

The Setting: Sacrament Meeting, during the sacrament

Bailey: Ya know what would be good, if we could have 2 breads and 2 waters.

Me: Yeah, that'd be good. Ssshhhh . . .

Bailey: Cool churches give you 2. But we don't go to a cool church.

Division Obsession

Tyler has a serious obsession with division right now. He had to pass of his division facts through 12's in school and the boy can't stop. He looks for division problems everywhere. His favorite place is a digital clock. He'll see the time is 7:28 and that's a math problem to him. He'll tell me the answer '4'. That's all he says, '4'. But if I don't look at the clock, see it's 7:28, acknowledge that the answer is 4, he keeps saying '4' , louder and louder, because he has to get me to see it before it turns 7:29! He tells me no less than 30 'answers' a day from the clock. Some times I'll see him just watching the clock if he knows it's about to be a math problem - like 5:14 - he'll just sit and watch it until it turns 5:15 so he can tell me '3'. Derek has now joined in and tries to beat Tyler to yelling out the answer - but you can't beat Tyler. He doesn't miss one. It was getting a little out of control so we've had to set some rules:
1 - he has to stop at 8:56 (7) at night. Every night Derek and I are happy to hear '7' come out of his room because we know that's the last one of the night.
2 - he can only tell me the answer twice. If I don't acknowledge after twice, he has to let it go.

We were driving through our neighborhood the other day and he saw an address that was a division problem - that's his next source of math problems. I'm all about loving math . . . but this is a little much!

Come, Come, Ye Youth

This year our ward's youth is doing a pioneer trek. This is replacing our Girl's Camp and the boys' High Adventure. When I got called to Young Women's last summer I was told that this year we were doing trek - this was the best part of being called to YW. I have always wanted to go on a trek and now I get to with the girls I've been working with for a year. I can't wait for trek. It's going to be 4 days and 17 miles through nothing but desert but I think it sounds awesome.
I really wanted to go, but Derek also is in YM so he really wanted to go too. So we've persuaded people to take our kids for the 4 days we'll be gone. So now that we've got them squared away Derek and I are set to go. Since we're both going we volunteered to be a Ma and Pa. We'll have 6-8 kids in our family to pull our handcart (Derek wants the Ma's and Pa's to get together and hold a draft to pick the kids - I don't see that happening). Everyone gets a 5 gallon bucket, and 17 pounds to bring with them what they want.
Everyone has to be in full Pioneer attire - no jeans, no ball caps, completely authentic (down to the bloomers). Everyone is responsible for their own clothes - buy it, sew it, borrow it - just get it. So today I went to the fabric store and picked up my fabric for my skirts and apron (I'm buying the bonnet off eBay - I hear they're tricky to make - and I'm trying to keep this authentic right?
So now me and my electric sewing machine can really start feeling like pioneers!

It's Not Just Me . . .

Today I noticed that my daffodills are poking up out of the ground. They're about 3 inches high. Nothing gives me more joy than my spring daffodills telling me winter is on it's way out. Coming up in January makes me think it must not just be me who's got spring fever.

A Fish Tale

A few weeks ago I needed to clean out our fish tank. So I moved the fish into Temporary Housing (a.k.a. a bowl on the kitchen counter). I cleaned out the tank, filled it with clean water, and left it on the counter so it could get to room temperature before I moved our fish back in.

Much later . . . Logan woke up from his nap and I put him in his high chair for a snack. His high chair, unfortunately, is right next to the counter where our 3 little fish were hanging out in their Temporary Housing unit.

Not giving my homeless fish a thought, I went upstairs to talk to Derek for a few minutes. All of the sudden Emmy comes running up the stairs yelling, "The fish! The fish! Logan got the fish!" Instantly I know what she's talking about - Logan in his high chair, perched next to the counter with the bowl, pulled it over for a closer look - dumping out the fish. I start yelling at Derek telling him he's got to save the fish (Derek has no idea what I'm talking about - but there isn't time to explain). So we all run downstairs and find exactly what I'm afraid of - the bowl, water, fish all on the floor. I fill up the bowl as fast as I can with new water and am yelling at Derek to pick up the fish. At this point the little guys aren't flopping around anymore - they're just lying there still, with their big eye staring at us. Derek's trying to scoop them up with the net and I'm yelling that their isn't time for the net - just grab the little guys with your fingers! He's yelling at me that if he touches the fish their fishy oils will rub off and they'll die - all the while, we're getting stared at by their big eyes! Derek finally scoops up 2 and gets them in water - then we realize we can't find the third fish. We're looking frantically for him when I have the horrible thought to look on Logan's high chair tray - yep . . . one still fish just lying there. Derek scooped him up and we took a collective sigh as all three fish are back in water - and miraculously are swimming around.

We're all starting to calm down when Emmy says, "I'm so glad my fish already died so he didn't have to go through that!". Even though that third fish didn't have the fall from the counter to the floor we're pretty sure he got the worst end of it being within poking distance from Logan. Amazingly enough . . . all three fish are all still alive, I don't know how. We now call Logan "Darla" from Finding Nemo. Now there's a fish tale!

Chappy

Emmy came home from school yesterday saying her lips were really dry. She demanded requested politely that I give her chapstick to take to school. Then she tells me that her teacher said she could bring some chapstick and keep it in her pocket. Then she tells me that she went to the school nurse for her overly dry lips.

. . . the nurse . . . over dry lips

Yes, you can call her Napolean.

Money Bags Bay

Last week at church our ward's financial clerk gave Derek the tithing statements for our family. He told Derek he'd need to look over them because he was wondering if there was a mistake on one of them. When we got home we opened the envelope wondering what kind of mistake could have been made. It didn't take us long after looking at ours, Tyler's, Emily's and Logan's to realize that something was definitely odd about Bailey's. Apparently in 2009 she paid $2,000 in tithing - in several different payments. We laughed all week thinking about how Bailey's making such an income - all in secret - and definitely against child labor laws.
So today we went to tithing settlement and I explained to our Bishop that there was mistake - Bailey hasn't cleared $20,000 this year. He just laughed and laughed and kept telling Bailey "Way to go Bailey!". She'd just smile at him and say, "thanks". It was hilarious. If you need a loan, I know a girl . . .
Just as a p.s. - I just found Logan hitting our decorated Christmas tree with a Fat Bat. When I took that away, he quickly picked up a basketball a chucked it at the tree. And people tell me we should add a dog to this circus!