Sunday School

What are you going to do this week to be a better YOU?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was great. It was just my little family of 5. We made way too much food. Ate way too much food. Played games and relaxed. We also put up the Christmas tree and decorated the house.
BLACK FRIDAY (to be read in a spooky menacing voice), was scary. "Hey I think I will get in on the great deals going on and get the kids a few toys for Christmas." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So, I have never in my life shopped on this "shopping day". This is due to the panic and dread I feel in large masses of people. So, anyway, I figure I can go around 9:30 and get those select gifts and be done. NO, friends, this is not how it works. Apparently you have to get there when the store opens and fight people to get what you need. Also good to know, you should go with a buddy. I am a firm believer in the buddy system, and I went without a buddy. DUMB, I know! So, I am clinging to my cart and humming Christmas songs and trying to maneuver my cart through the peoples. I didn't last very long. I left that store with nothing. I got a weird look from the employee by the door. When I got out, I took a breather and headed to another store, thinking since this store was having their sale for 2 days (as opposed to 6 hours), it shouldn't be as busy. It wasn't so bad, until I got to the toy department. Ugh. While I did leave with a few things I wanted for gifts, I lost a little something along the way that I have found irreplaceable...my desire for saving a few bucks.
Lesson learned: Bargain shoppers are the scariest people out there!

I WIN

Remember when I wagered that her room would be a mess by 5:27 today?

Well, here she is all, "But I have a broken arm!"

That is no excuse for this:
How does she manage it?!

I may have won that bet, but sadly, I don't feel like a winner.

7 Seven VII

Coming to you straight from Dixie's blog, here we go.

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Drive without getting a ticket
2. Eat like there's no tomorrow
3. Paint pictures
4. Sew a semi straight seam
5. Jog
6. Be on time
7. Beat Megan at Phase 10 (the card game)

7 Things I Cannot Do:
1. Dance
2. Play the violin
3. Make someone sad
4. Drugs
5. Make up my mind
6. Wake up and get out of bed willingly
7. Give up

7 Things That Attracted Me to Erik:
1. His hotness
2. His manliness
3. He put his church calling before fun
4. He worked full time and attended school full time
5. He seemed really smart, and it turns out he is
6. He had goals
7. His serious side which went well with my silly side

7 Things I Say Most Often:
1. I love you
2. Really?
3. Get down from there!
4. No more snacks
5. I'm tired
6. Oh look, it's a sunny day.
7. What are we going to eat?

7 Celebrity Admirations (and they may or may not be dead, but mostly they are):
1. Joel McHale
2. Louis Armstrong
3. Mr. Rogers
4. Gene Kelly
5. Ella Fitzgerald
6. Phil Hartman
7. Bill Murray

7 Favorite Foods:
1. (standard answer) Grilled cheese w/ tomato soup
2. Spaghetti
3. Chicken
4. Nachos
5. Fried rice
6. ANY breakfast food (except sausage)
7. Fruit like bananas, cantaloupe, watermelon, and grapes

It had to be done

Project #2

Oh, my little girl is a messy one.

I got ambitious after my closet overhaul and filled a garbage bag full of broken toys and trash from this very room.
All in the SAME day!
I am documenting this, because I'll wager that it will look very similar to the before pictures by 5:27pm tomorrow.

It feels so good to throw out trash!

Simplificationalism

Project #1

The Game Closet

I am taking baby steps, and this was easy and rewarding.

Sunday School

I have been thinking about Jesus Christ's admonition that we become as the little children. I have always loved children, and I have learned so much from them. One of the ways (there are so many) that I want to be more like a child is by being more SIMPLE minded (in a good way). Children really are simplistic. When they are hungry they eat. When they are tired they whine a lot, er I mean sleep, when they are angry, they let you know. When they are hurt, they cry. When they are happy, they smile.
What happens to us as we get older that we have to become so complicated? As adults, when we are hungry, we can't decide what sounds good. When we are tired, we stay up too late doing things that really don't matter. When we are angry, our blood pressure rises. When we are hurt, we try to hide it. When we are happy, the prescription has been filled.
From now on, it's basic things for me. I want a happy husband and children (because when they are happy, I'm happy), a tidy home (with less things to make it cluttered), more scripture study (to clear my mind of unwanted thoughts), friends to talk to (it's therapeutic), and me time (to do things that make me who I am). Any more than that may just be a complication.

How do you mend a broken heart, or bone?

Wednesday night:
I went to book club to discuss one of my all time favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird.
I got home around 9:15pm, and I took care of some last minute things for Joy School (this is a group I am in with 5 other moms and we take turns doing preschool activities with our kids, and it was my week).
Sometime after 10pm, I was washing several days worth of dishes. I heard Mackenzie crying (this happens pretty often that she has a bad dream or wakes up disoriented) so Erik went and checked on her. She had fallen out of bed. Erik held her for a while, and tucked her back in.
Thursday morning:
Mackenzie is crying. "Mommy, I can't move my arm!" Yikes! I look up a couple of possible problems it could be, a sprain or a fracture. I go with fracture because it isn't swollen. I cancel joy school, and get her in to a primary care doctor at 9:30. They have me go get X-rays several thousand miles away. Then after we get home from there, we get a call from the doctor, that yes, Mackenzie's bone is fractured (right above her left wrist) and bring her in and they will put a splint on it. We go back and do that, they have us scheduled to go see an orthopedic doctor the next day.
The Next Day:
At 1pm, I pick up Sam early from school and we head up to the doctor's office (which happens to be right next to the hospital where I had my appendectomy, remember that?). We check in at 1:30 for our 2pm appt. and the nice lady says, "do you have the X-rays with you?" I say "No." She says, "well do you have the disc then?" I say, "huh?" she says, "They didn't send you with the x-rays?" I say, "I think I said NO!" Just kidding, I'm not sassy like that. She was baffled, and said, we would have to get another set of X-rays, and they do that right there in their office. What's the big deal then, right? So, Kenzie does that, then we wait. Then we go back into a little 8x8' cell, and wait some more. Then the doctor comes in and looks at the x-ray, and says that she needs a cast, and he will have to do a little manipulation of the bone to get it to straighten out more. So we do that, and she gets this cast put on, and he is pressing on both sides of her wrist really hard, and she just sits there. I have to take a minute here to say that she has the highest pain tolerance known to man. First off, she only cried when she fell, and the next morning when it hurt to move her arm, and that was it. The fact that she went back to sleep that night with a broken bone astounds me. She rocks. OK, back to the story, after the cast was put on, we had to do another x-ray, so the doctor could see how the bone was looking after he squeezed the life out of it. So we did that, then we got to go back to the cell, where Henry by this point was crazy mad and kept saying "go home" every 10 seconds, which turned out to be a lot because we waited for 50 minutes that time. And after that wait, the doctor came in, looked at the x-ray, and said, "looks good, come back in a week." AHHHHHHH! We were all ready to cry at that point, but somehow, I got us all home. It was almost 5pm.
Fun Facts:
When you tell people that your daughter broke her arm by falling out of bed, it is always followed by "is it a bunk bed?" and no it is just a regular bed, followed by "How is that possible?" followed by me saying, "sometimes people can be walking and fall down, and break a bone, is that crazy or what?" just kidding again, I really am not going to say that.
Sam had me wrap his arm in an ace bandage so that he could be like Kenzie. I think it's sweet that he would do that, and it makes Kenzie laugh.
Mackenzie got a pink cast, and we all signed it.

Happy Halloween!

Since I never showed my costume winners, and it is still technically Halloween, here you go.

Jane Banks won!

and these darling M&M's won!

If there had of been a contest for coldest fingers, she would have won.

That's more like it!

Hello Life!

I haven't been posting. Maybe you've noticed. I have. My reason is really lame, I can't find my cord to hook up my camera to download the pictures and I have some fun pictures and they are what I want to be writing about (deep breath).
Instead I will write about what has been happening around here, in case you are dying to know.
OK, since last Thursday, my library opened, and we went to the grand opening. My library isn't as big as I had hoped it would be. I mean the part where the books are. It's not so big, but it is so nice and new and shiny.
We moved Erik's things out of his office so he could put a different desk in there. When everything was out, I came up with the wise idea to switch the office with Kenzie's bedroom since her room was smaller than the office. So we did. Then I was without computer for several days (also, another reason I didn't post anything). Then I single-handedly with the help of Kenzie, painted the new office. It is a really nice shade of ocean mist (light blue with a hint of green). This totally surprised Erik, and it was worth all of the work just to see the happy look on his face.
Also, Henry, Erik, and I got sick with some nasty cold. I was in my house for three days straight and I went really stir crazy. Today I had to fix it by going to the library and park with the kids, which I really enjoyed.
There was some other stuff that happened, maybe. I'm not sure.

Thievery Thursday

Charmen, I just haven't had enough of Halloween!

I hereby declare another costume contest!

And here are the entries,

Vampire/Witch Siamese twins costume:

Pumpkin carving pirate (ask him how he lost that eye):
The YMCA (youthful mummy costume of A):

The Drool Monster:

The bat that wants to be a human boy:

and the winner is....

This Neil Diamond costume:

Nice attention to detail! Congratulations, you won a prize!

The Decorations

For those of you too scared (or too uninvited (sorry)) to come to my Halloween party, here is the spookiness that you missed:

Can you guess how many candy corn are in that jar?

Kenzie, with vampire teeth and red eyes!

And a big thanks to Megan for helping me decorate! Without her "artistic eye" the streamers would have been completely asymmetrical.

P.S. Look, I swapped the tree pictures

What Makes Me Happy?

1. a clean house
2. a book to read
3. happy children
4. sleeping babies
5. rain
6. jacket weather
7. painting pictures
8. hugs
9. giving presents
10. making someone laugh
11. someone making me laugh
12. empty laundry baskets
13. quarters in my purse when little ones need them
14. eating dinner without having cooked it
15. playing games with friends
16. singing really loud with the radio
17. going on dates with Erik
18. long walks
19. late night talks
20. writing with chalks
21. etc.

The Cake!

My friend, Amy, had an auction for Nie Nie several weeks ago. I won the bidding and therefore, I won a cake of my choosing. I decided to have a Halloween party to honor Amy's cake. This cake exceeded my hopes for a "haunted mansion". Well done Amy, and a huge THANK YOU!

I took some pictures, but be looking at Amy's blog for some better shots.

Here is the chocolate cemetery:

Amy and I by the best Halloween cake EVER:
click on the picture to make it bigger, can you see the man in the doorway?!?

And, just so you know, it was delicious, and I have the whole bottom cake sitting in my fridge (which I have to peek at quite often, I can't believe it's MINE!)!!!

Halloween Costumes

Wonder Woman's head chef:

Punk:

SpiderHenry:

Commander Cody:

Dorothy Gale: