The good, the bad, the ugly

The Good:
Two weeks of school down, everyone is happy and loving it
Cole started the pre-comp swim team, Mondays, Wednesday 6-7 and Saturdays 8-10:30
Tenley played with the other Tenley in our ward
Madison has meshed right in with a great group of girls
Tenley's teacher sent home a super organized bound book with info for the year (gotta love a fellow organizer)
Cole and Maddy started piano, love hearing the tinkling of the piano keys
Carpooling is working out fantastically
My new weekly cleaning/errand/meal planning board is up an running again
Burning through many of the Newbery books
Tenley has conquered her fear of the elastics she has to wear with her braces
Scriptures every night with the family
Everyone reading their own 3 pages a day to finish the entire Book of Mormon in January

The Bad:
Waking up early every day
Fighting with Tenley for nearly a week over her elastics (the fight is over now)
Realizing what a true taxi-mom is
Missing late nights and sleep ins
The hurry, hurry, hurry of the afternoons to get homework, piano, chores, etc... done before dinner
Mailbox broken, no mail for a week


The Ugly:
Hobo spider running across our floor, Mr. Bug Hunter was here yesterday spraying
Countless braces elastics all over my house, floors, counters (Cole & Tenley are both wearing them now)
The garage
The storage room

First Day of School Survivors

Monday, August 23, 2010, began very, very early.  My alarm went off at 5:35 am to make sure Cole was awake.  The lights were on downstairs so back to bed I went.  Not much later, there was much clanking in the kitchen as Cole was fixing waffles (just toaster ones, he is not Chef Boyardee, at least not at 5:45 am).  Alarm goes off at 6:05 to take the traditional front door photos for the first day of school.  Norm takes Cole and picks up Preston on the way.  I go back to bed, much tossing and turning, much mind racing, not much sleeping.  My alarm goes off again at 7:00 to wake up the girls.  We make or I should say "toast" waffles.  They are anxious and excited so they are moving quickly, no dilly-dallying this morning.  We are ready early!  Pictures are snapped on the front porch in front of the door and we are off by 8:00.  We fight the traffic and the parking craziness.  Tenley has Mrs. Smith for 3rd grade this year.  Tenley was ecstatic to read on Mrs. Smith's profile on the school website, that she has a yellow lab, named Chester, that she sometimes brings to school.  She is counting the days until he shows up!  Madison has Mr. Bloom and she thinks he is quite a character.  Everyday she has some funny story about something he said or a funny mannerism.  After I walked Tenley into her class, I was home by 8:25 with six hours of "me" time. I planned to do some organizing, list making, etc...  I made my monthly menu, a grocery list for the month, updated school days chore chart for the kids, assigned myself certain jobs for each day.  I had a moment at about 9:45 where I was super sleepy but it was too early for a nap so I powered through.  I met my Mom for lunch at Costa Vida.  I had never been there, and I loved it.  It is exactly like Cafe Rio, just like everyone told me, but they have a small salad that is just perfect.  I got on to look at calories and a full salad (like Cafe Rios) is over 1200 calories!!!!!  So much for a "healthy" salad.  But the half, without rice was only 450 calories... that works out to about 9 points for weight watchers.  Not bad for a tasty lunch.  I ran into Wal-Mart to get some weird necessities... eye patches for Tenley, braces floss, a pill vial for Norm to put on his key chain and some school supplies.  Ran home, dropped off the stuff and headed to the school to wait for the girls.  They got in the van and said it was the best day ever!  I was sooooo happy.  I think I was just as nervous for all of them starting a new year at a new school.  They loved their teachers, they had made friends and were excited to go back.  I couldn't ask for anything else. Cole gets out at 2:30 so while I am waiting for the girls to get out at 2:55 he texts me to see what time I will be home.  I ask "How was your day?"  His response "Amazingly Awesome!"  When I read that I wanted to burst with excitement.  We had had some drama with the school switching scene the past few months.  Let's just say, Cole was not to up on the idea.  We decided to have a little back to school party the Tuesday before school started and he had about 10-11 boys/girls come.  They watched a movie, played night games and ate some treats.  It was such a good thing for him to get to know some kids.  I asked him if it is the best school ever and he said, "Mom, it's only the first day, I can't decide that just yet."  I am just so happy that he is happy.  He loves his teachers, found his locker and all his classes without any problem, and 9th grade is off to a good start.  So, we all survived the first day of school.  I never took a nap... my other window of sleepy time was right when the kids got home and I wasn't going to miss out on all the back to school information.  So, I just powered through the day and crashed at about 9:30!

It's not often you see...

Norm and Cole are gone to an overnight Scout Camp.  It's just me and the girls.  We talked about a few options of what to do on girls-night.  Go to the dollar movie, grab a bite to eat, get a Redbox and stay home and pop popcorn.  The girls didn't want to go to a movie.  They were playing so good together with their babies they didn't want to leave.  There was not a movie to rent from Redbox.  So we were left with grabbing a bite to eat.  We are lovers of the "choose three things off the dollar menu"  Our whole family can eat for $15!  So the girls started coaxing me to take them to a restaurant that doesn't have a drive up. They really wanted Olive Garden.  It's Friday night and we didn't feel like fighting a crowd so I convinced them to go to Pizza Factory.  We love their twisty breadsticks that they serve on a a stick.  You can choose your own pasta and your own sauce so we were in carb heaven.  I did have a salad, but there were plenty of croutons. 

The funny part of this story happened on the way there.  We had to drop some movies (that were late) at the library on 13th East.  Since we were that far east I decided to mosey along the side streets and avoid the rush hour free way traffic.  We traveled mostly down 9th east.  So we are sitting at a stop light and out of the corner of my eye I see a bright yellow vehicle.  Maddy says, "It's not often you see a cab and a guy with a pink phone."  I turned to look and sure enough, there was a cab, a Suburban cab, no less, with the driver, a guy, talking on a pink cell phone.  So, I agreed with her that it is not that often you see a cab and a guy with a pink phone.  I am sure in big cities, maybe New York or LA, this might be a more common occurrence, but here in good ol' Sandy, Utah, we just don't see that that often!

Funnies...heehee and a Funley

I have been meeting to capture this memory for quite sometime.  Sometime after moving in with my parents in April 2009 Tenley became addicted to the funnies.  She was obsessed with reading them with breakfast and lunch.  We put the kabosh on her reading them at dinner so we could have some good quality family time, but she would read them at dinner too.  She likes to linger while she eats and reads.  I can relate, as I quite enjoy a bagel (no diet coke for me anymore) with a crossword in the morning.  When we knew we were moving out we kept asking her how she was going to function without the funnies?!?  She started stockpiling them to take them to the new house.  We keep a manilla folder labeled "FUNNIES"  on the computer desk and she pulls it out at every meal and reads and rereads her funnies.  Grandma is so thoughtful and sets them aside for her so when we see her Tenley gets a new stack.  It's like Christmas!  The funny thing is is that she never laughs.  I will have to notice if I even see her smile.  She just goes into this zone and reads.  We always ask her if she gets the jokes and she says sometimes, but she just loves those funnies.

Baby Blues is one of her favorites

Herein lies the Funley... we have a new dog (I guess I need to do another post). Her name is Betty and we have been taking her on walks every night to exercise her and us.  One night I did not go and Tenley came home and said "Mom, while we were walking Betty, I saw newspapers in other peoples driveways!  Did you know we can get the paper here?"  All the way in Sandy, huh... I didn't know. It's a long way from West Jordan.  I think she must have thought that only Grandma's neighborhood gets the paper.  I don't know, but I cracked up.  I told her we would just keep getting the funnies from Grandma.  I don't like getting the paper.  Half the time we don't read it, we throw it away... I guess the funnies would get dug out but that is a lot of money and a lot of wasted paper just for funnies.  But it is funny...hee hee

Downtown.. fun in our own backyard

So, how is it that you live in a place your whole life and we don't experience all the sights and entertainment our city has to offer?!?!  We always want to run off somewhere else, yes I have been itching to go to Disneyland again, but I must say that we made two trips to downtown Salt Lake on Tuesday and it was so nice!  In the morning we did the Temple Square/Visitor Center scene.  We are speaking in church on Sunday on Temples so we thought it would be appropriate to take a visit.  With all the neat resources, visuals, art work, etc... I am ashamed to say that it had been a year since we had been there with our family!  There was a really neat display of the Salt Lake Temple that had the side cut out so you could see what the inside looks like.  It had all the tiny furniture and everything.. Funny story...  There was a lady looking at the display, she was not a member of the church, and I know this because of the questions she was asking the sister missionary... like "Why are there cattle in the basement?"  Sister missionary "That is the baptismal font and they are symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel."  Good answer, I thought, but I also thought she should have clarified that they were oxen.  The lady then said, "Oh, they are statues?"  The sister missionary, speaking over her giggling, "Yes, they are statues, they are not real cattle."  I chuckled to myself thinking of how odd, and smelly, that would be to have twelve live oxen under the baptismal font.  The kids loved seeing what the inside of the temple looked like.  I did not know that the four corner spires were spiral staircases.  So I learned something new, among other things.  I always enjoy seeing the beautiful gardens and the different plants and flowers they have.  We took some pictures so hopefully we could replicate some of the looks in our struggling flower beds at home.  We will see how that goes..

We didn't have much time since we had hair appointments to get to so we rushed a little. But, all the more reason to go back sooner than later.  It definitely won't be a year before we head back.  The kids love going and as long as they are excited about going there we should be going!

While we were walking back to the car we were crossing the grounds of the conference center and I saw a poster about the concerts in the park.  Apparently on Tuesdays and Friday nights during June, July, and August they do free concerts at the Brigham Young Historic Park.  I wish we would have discovered this earlier in the summer.  When I saw that the concert that night was a bagpipe band I knew I had to call my Mom and Dad.  My Dad is in love with bagpipes.  He always says he wants them at his funeral, which as I have been thinking lately, that he won't really enjoy them there so we should go see them as much as possible while he is still here!  So, we pulled off a last minute plan and met at Winco at 6:45.  Grandma and Grandpa hopped in our minivan and we headed downtown.  We parked next to City Creek park which was a beautiful little park with the creek running through it, bridges over the creek and huge shade trees.  We enjoyed walking through this park on our way to the Brigham Young Historic Park.  It was pretty full when we got there but we found a spot, set up our chairs and laid out a blanket.  The kids played Go Fish and Old Maid while we were waiting.

As the concert started and the pipe & drum band marched in it was so exciting.  They played for about an hour and it was amazing to listen to.  If you didn't notice I said listen and not see.  They don't have a good stage just one row of risers so we couldn't see anything except the drummers from the waist up.  So, what we could see, was the girl drummers that twirl and spin their fluffy drumming instruments in unison.  I know that is not any of the correct terminology but I don't know how else to describe it.  Their precision and synchronization was amazing.  Tenley was very sad that we couldn't see the dancers.  I learned something else new at the concert... that the hymn "Praise to the Man" is from a Scottish tune called "Scotland the Brave"  It was very cool to hear in with the drums and pipes.  As we walked out I couldn't resist trying to get a picture even though 1300 people were trying to stream out of this little park... hee hee gotta love a blogging mom!

10 minute miracle

When Norm and I met with Bishop Swallow of our new ward I noticed he had a while pillow with "Ten Minute Miracle" stitched on it sitting on her desk.  I wondered what it was but luckily he brought it up so I didn't have to ask.  He shared his testimony with us about the youth, but I strongly feel it applies to all of us.  He said that he knows that if we can get our youth to spend ten minutes in their scriptures and in prayer each morning that a Ten minute miracle will be performed.  That ten minutes will protect them and strengthen them and guard them from the evils of the world.  They will have their testimonites strengthened and will then have the strength to withstand temptation.  Ten minutes, who doesn't have ten minutes.  We had a family night about this last week.  We decided to read the Book of Mormon, three pages a day to finish it all the way through in about six months.  So, we will finish in January.  Sometimes we have read together, like at the cabin when it was 11:00 at night, I would read outloud to the kids in bed.  Sometimes we read on our own.  I hope we can develop a daily reading habit and that we can experience the ten minute miracle in our home and individually.

Home for a while

July was a totally crazy month for us.  I think I may have already posted about this but since it was so crazy I forgot.  Our last adventure for July was a trip up to Bear Lake.  Me and the kids left Thursday afternoon and arrived in Bear Lake about 5:30.  We waited for Grandma and Adrienne to show up and had dinner.  We drove through rain most of the way and it poured rain most of the evening at the cabin.  It was very windy and there was some thunder and lightning.  We decided to watch movies and do pedicures.  Since Cole was the lone boy that night he watched Get Smart on Adrienne's laptop while the girls watched Steel Magnolias and did pedicures upstairs.  Smart move Cole... I love Steel Magnolias, but it is the epitome of chick flicks!  I was surprised the girls watched it and said they liked it.  It is definately an old school PG movie... lots of the minor swear words and I totally forgot about the football locker scene.  Lots of naked rear ends!  Not just a flash of one either, the scene goes on for several minutes and the whole football team is just walking around.  Adrienne brought up her little massaging foot bath so she gave us all a mini pedicure.  Friday we just hung around the cabin.  Lauren and Tanner and Bridget came about lunch time.  We played Foosball and Ping Pong, did our crossword with our bagels.  Kam, Brandy and Grandpa came about 7:00.  We bbq Bruschetta chicken for dinner.  We decided to watch a movie that night again and by the time we got the kids watching their own movie up stairs and all the adults finally sat down on the couch in the basement it was nearly 10:00.  We were into our movie about twenty minutes and the power went out.  We had to use our cell phones for a little light.  I went upstairs to rescue the girls and we all just went to bed.  Grandma had two flashlights so that was helpful.  The power stayed off all night long until about noon the next day.  We sealed all the logs inside the cabin in the morning.  Kam cooked us a breakfast, good thing for gas stoves, before we got to work. He makes the best hashbrowns.  I think it might have to do with the amount of bacon grease he cooks them in.  It tooks us about three hours to seal all the logs.  It looks so much better and we all wondered why it had taken us four years to get that project done.  We hashed and rehashed about taking the boat out on the lake that afternoon.  According to the weather forecast is was supposed to be crappy weather all weekend so we didn't want to get down to the lake and have to pack up twenty minutes later like we usually do.  After an hour or so we decided to just go down to the beach, take a few snacks and our towels so that if we had to pack up it wasn't that big of a deal.  Well, with eleven people, eleven chairs, eleven towels, beach tows, a stroller, one small coller for drinks and four beach bags we still had a lot of crap!  We didn't take the shade tarp but we took everything else.  Grandma and Adrienne drove a four wheeler down and we packed eight people in Lauren and Tanners Pathfinder.  Tanner drove, Lauren and Tenely sat in the other front seat.  Cole and Maddy behing Tanner, Bridget in the middle and Brandy and I were behind Lauren.  It is a two minute drive from the cabin and you needed four wheel drive and we didn't want to make trips so we piled in.  We left the other four wheeler there for Kam and Grandpa, which wasn't the best idea, but they were working in the boat and we didn't want to wait anymore.  After we got set up on the beach grandma took the other four wheeler back so they wouldn't have to double up.  When she got there the boat was gone.  Apparently there was some more hashing and rehasing.  But the weather turned out great and we stayed out until 5:30!  Brandy and I rode the tube together and then Lauren went.  I have been so sore after tubing.  Apparently I need to do some more bicep curls!  We played 500 out in the water and we all need to work on our catching skills.  We had so much fun. I love a good beach day.  We BBQ hamburgers and had corn on the cob and baked beans that night.  We ate out on the deck and it was perfect weather.  Not that we are complaining but it was the complete opposite of the forecast.  We played password and blurt.  Love a good game of password.  We always have good laughs when we play that.  This time the joke was Panda Plant.  The password was bamboo so I gave the clue Panda to Lauren.  Adrienne gave the clue plant to Mom.  She kept saying panda plant and we were all imagining her imagine a black and white plant.  Well, she didn't guess it so I sait Eat to Lauren and she guessed correctly... Bamboo.  So if you want a really cool plant in your yard go to a nursery and ask for that Panda plant.  hee hee...  We were all so tired that we cut games off at 10:30.  We wanted to get to bed early since we were leaving in the morning to get back for church.  It was after 11 before we turned off the lights and 7:30 came too quickly.  We made it home about 11, unloaded, showered and headed off to church.