Remember how I said she's been horrid? Well, here's another example

Last week, I made cheese enchiladas for dinner. All of the kids complained mightily about having to eat them. I have no idea why they hate them so badly, but hate them they do. And yet, I still continue to make them. I'm a glutton for punishment I suppose. I punish my kids by making them eat them and I punish myself because then I have to listen to the complaints. Anyway, I fed myself and Peyton (the only one who wasn't complaining) and then I took him downstairs to give him a bath. I left the responsibility of force feeding the rest to Ryan.

Ryan was going in and out of the kitchen because he was doing some work. Every time he would pass through, he would make the kids eat another bite. During one of his moments away, Avery saw her opportunity and left the room. A few minutes later Ryan came back into the kitchen, but didn't notice that Avery wasn't there. He told Tyler to finish up and Tyler was whining and crying about it. He didn't want to, it was disgusting, why did he have to eat it, we were mean parents for making him. Suddenly, I heard Avery call up the stairs from the family room to Tyler. (I hadn't even heard her come down.) She said, "Tyler, just do what I did. Sneak away." Yep. She's still being horrid.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm so grateful to have all that I do. I hope all have a wonderful day, filled with love, fun, family and food. I love you all!

These are my nemesis

I'm willing to pay someone to come to my house and fold all of the socks in my sock basket. I would say that my husband has about 80 pair. Around 30 pair for each of my 4 children and I probably have around 60. If that doesn't sound like too much to you and if you're willing, please let me know. *Note - You will not be paid a monetary reward. You will simply receive a sincere thank you. That's more than most moms usually get when they do an everyday job like this. So, it seems like a fair reward to me.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The good part about letting your kids watch Kung Fu Panda is it's a fun family film that has a good message.

The bad part about letting your kids watch Kung Fu Panda is that they will think they are Kung Fu masters after having watched it.

The ugly part about letting your kids watch Kung Fu Panda is that they will try to use their newly learned Kung Fu skills to kick the crap out of each other.

*How did I not realize before yesterday that today was a short day at school? Thanksgiving break starts today and they don't go back to school until Monday. That's a lot of time to try to kick each others butts. I know I'm in for a very fun weekend.

He's at it again

Two days ago, I discovered that Cameron has again been gluing papers to his bedroom wall. GLUING! Argh! At his school, kids can receive special notes of commendation when they do something good. They're the size of a post it note. He has about 11 of them. He's very proud of them and wanted to display them. All in a nice, straight line. When I took the time to actually really look at them, I noticed that they were very flat and smooth on the wall and knew that this wouldn't happen with just tape. I tried to take one off and could barely get one of the corners up. Great. He did this in his old bedroom and when he moved in with Tyler, I threatened him (yes they're mostly empty threats) that if he did it again he would be one sorry little boy. I try to hide the glue and tape from him, but I obviously didn't do a very good job. Now we have 2 bedrooms that will need to have the walls patched, sanded and repainted.

If this doesn't get my parents to comment, I don't know what will

Avery has been one big stinker lately. She's asked a few more times to go back to her real family. To which I have responded, "well, if you can tell me where they live, I'll take you there." A couple of days ago I told her no about something, I can't remember what and she said, "my real dad told me I can do whatever I want." I told her to find that real dad so I can smack him for telling her that.

A couple of nights ago, I was trying to help her get into her pajamas. She was sort of flopping around and doing the exact opposite of what I needed her to be doing to get them on. I was really frustrated and asked her why she had to be like that. She gave me this sweet, snotty smile and the put her hands on my cheeks and said, "I don't want to listen to what you have to say." Evil. I smacked her butt and laughed at the same time.

All of her naughty antics have reminded me of a nursery rhyme of sorts that my dad would always tell me when I was little. It goes something like this:

There once was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Horrid. That's a good word to describe how she's been acting.

Revealing my slobbish ways

My friend Annette is having a contest to find the messiest of messes. She challenged anyone who wanted to, to find the most disgusting room in their house and then clean it. You needed to take before and after pictures to prove that you really are a slob and then readers can vote to decide the winner. The reward for the best result is a watercolor portrait of one of your children painted by her. I've seen her work in person and it's amazing. I would love to have one of her pieces. I submit to you for your consideration my before and after pictures of the room I decided to clean. The reason I do this is because if you go to her blog and vote for me, I will obviously have extra chances to win the portrait. So, without further adieu, here is the room I decided to clean. It's called a dining room, but it's never used as that. It's used as my craft, scrapbook, sewing, catch all junk room. I do occasionally clean it, but I have to be honest and say that for the most part it gets ignored. The messes in there are not always visible and I'm an out of sight, out of mind kind of person. It's a room that I have wanted to clean for quite some time, but have lacked real motivation to get it done. A free portrait was just the kick in the pants that I needed.

Before

This is the entrance into the dining room. Peyton went on a mess making rampage several days before this picture was taken. No, I didn't let him crap up the place before I took pictures just to improve my chances of winning. Messes like this can often be found in my dining room. When I took this picture, those packing peanuts had been sitting, undisturbed for about 4 days.

The entrance to the dining room after.

The rest of the pictures are various locations throughout the room, before and after being cleaned.
Before
After

After

Before

After

After

Before

After

This disgusting spot is candle wax that Avery spilled on the rug no less than 2 years ago. I don't know why I had the brilliant idea of burning a candle on the table, within easy reach of children. This was the result of my stupidity. I tried to get some of it up at the time, but when I wasn't very successful, I simply gave up. Sheer laziness has kept me from doing anything about it since. I finally decided to do something and I'm quite pleased with and proud of the results.

Before

After

No, I didn't just take a picture of the rug in another, wax free spot. I really did get it up and here's how I did it. I placed an old rag over the wax (you want to be sure to use an old one because it will be ruined after this) and then placed my iron on the highest setting on top of the rag. The heat from the iron melted the wax and the rag absorbed it out of the rug. You want to be sure to keep the iron moving and not leave it in one spot for too long. If you do, you'll have a ruined rug.

I need to insert a disclaimer here. I know that the room could look better. There are still some boxes piled up in the corners, but for the time being, this still has to be used as a storage room. Once we move Peyton downstairs, I plan on turning his current bedroom into my office, craft, scrapbook, sewing, catch all junk room. When I do that, all the superfluous stuff you see will be gone and the room will finally be used for the purpose it was intended. A dining room.

Thank you Annette for inspiring me to get up off of my butt and improve the look of at least one room in my house. I'm not a total slob, but this room definitely needed some work. I now plan to move on to other rooms and closets and all the other dark and hidden places that could use a good dejunking. If anyone feels like it, go and vote for my room.

I need to go back to my real family

Today, Avery has decided that she doesn't belong here. She seems to think that there's a better family out there just waiting for her to come back to them. I don't know where this idea came from, but she's driving me crazy.

She's been asking "Mom, when are you going to take me back to my real mom?"

Me: "What do you mean your real mom? I am your real mom."

Avery: "No, I need to go back to my real mom. When are you going to take me there?"

Me: "Uhhh...I don't know. Maybe later."

Avery: "No. You need to do it now."

The first time she did this I thought it was a little weird, but also a little funny. The 30th time she did it I was ready to take her back to her real mom. Whoever she may be, but I just said, "whether you like it or not, I am your real mom and you have to stay here." I know that once she realized that what she was doing was bugging me, she just kept it up to annoy me more. It's what I would do, but it's still annoying.

Freakin Feet

I'm shooting for this! I know. Way to reach for the stars!

I have been really lazy lately. I was doing really well with at least walking, but since the weather turned just enough to give me a good excuse to not do it outside, I haven't been doing it. I have a treadmill in the room off of my garage and I could go out and run on it. You know, whenever I wanted and be inside and not affected by the weather, but I don't do it. I'm too afraid my feet will cramp up. I should go to a podiatrist and learn the proper way to tape them up (I'm pretty sure that I have really crappy arches) and start doing something again. If I did, it would get Ryan off of my back ☺. He still thinks that I'm going to drop dead from a heart attack at any time. Remember how my cardiologist said I'm just fine, but he did say that regular exercise was a good thing. Oh, I don't want to hear it.

The Monsters

Halloween 2008

Peyton the Dragon
Avery the Fairy

Cameron the Pirate

Tyler the Jedi Anakin Skywalker

Shopping

I would just like to rub it in every one's face that I am almost done with my Christmas shopping. That's right. I'm well organized and on top of things like that. Nanner, nanner! Except, I don't have a thing for Ryan yet. Oh, and there's our parents too. I have a small thing for the moms, but nothing for the dads and certainly nothing for the 2 of them together. I have to get something for the names Ryan and I drew in his family. Something for my brothers as well. I need to decide what to bake and pass out to prove that I'm a good neighbor. I also plan on getting things for the giving tree in our ward, but I have to wait until that's all set up. So, it's not really my fault that's not done yet, but crap! I guess I'm not as done as I thought, but I am determined to be entirely done with the big stuff by the end of this month. I don't want to be out shopping too close to Christmas. I hate being out with all of the idiots who are shopping during the Christmas season. It tries my sanity supremely and I always come home with a headache. I get enough headaches as it is, so I don't want to cause more. I suppose I could avoid the aggravation by simply improving my attitude. Yeah right. Like that's ever going to happen. It's just that some people have no common sense and I just have no patience. This references some of the things on my pet peeves list. I guess I need to pray for kindness, patience and tolerance and remember who is the reason for the season. That way, I can get it done without causing bodily harm to anyone.

Oh, what a beautiful morning

I was truly excited to wake up this morning to snow. I'm ready for it and for the winter season. By the end of January I'll want it to be done, but I'll take it right now. All of my kids have spent time doing this this morning. I love that they get excited over snow like me. No, it's not sick and twisted to get excited over snow.

This is what the cold and flu season looks like

Peyton has been sporting this runny nose and has also had a cough for about 3 weeks now. Most of the time, it looks much worse than this. It's usually green and all over his face. You all got lucky I'm not making you look at that. I think he's still cute. Disgusting nose and all.

It's the month to talk about stuff we're grateful for

I've found that simple things make me the most happy.


I used to buy more expensive clothes and shoes, but I've found that I really don't need them. Most of them wear out just as quickly as the expensive stuff. I'm just thankful that I have clothes and shoes to wear.


I'm thankful that in the summer months I have central air conditioning to keep us cool and in the winter, a powerful heater to keep us warm. I get teary every time I walk in from frigid air to a house that is warm and inviting.


I'm thankful that we have a home of our own. I don't need, nor do I want, a big, new, expensive house. My 45 year old house works just fine for me. I don't want to be house poor and I'm glad that we're not.


I'm thankful for my comfortable bed. I don't spend nearly the amount of time in it that I would like, but it's a comfort to me knowing that it's there.


I'm thankful that my children have a love of learning. It's amazing to watch their brains grow.


I'm thankful that my children have things that they are passionate about. They each have different talents. I'm thankful that we are able to nurture those talents and help them grow.

I'm thankful that we have a nice water heater. I love taking long, hot showers. I did not want to want to get out of the shower this morning.

I'm thankful that my husband has a good job. The troublesome economy hasn't affected us so far and fingers crossed, it won't.

I'm thankful that there are people out there, somewhere who read this. It's kind of nice.

Of course, there are so many more things that I'm thankful for. I'm just going to let this be enough for now.