just to remember

You know when there is a random moment in time that sparks other random moments in time to come alive in your brain?

One of those moments happened to me on Monday.

Luke's cello teacher texted me Sunday night wondering if I could bring Luke up to her class at the U to have his lesson so she could be evaluated by her peers on how well she taught. I agreed and I don't know why it didn't occur to me to tell Luke that he would be getting in front of other people for his lesson, but when we arrived to the class and he realized what was going on, he was not pleased. He sat in the corner waiting for his turn and even got a little teary eyed. I felt terrible. But what do you do? We were there to help out his teacher and I guess I could have gone up to take his place but that did not occur to me at the time.

He had to cowboy up.

With a bribe and me pretending I needed his help getting his cello out of his case, he made his way up to the front. Although he was uncomfortable and clearly not happy to be in this situation, he sat down and did his thing. I give props to his teacher as well because she made him feel at ease and all of the other students and her professor were totally respectful. By the end of his lesson, it was like no one else was in the room.

I was so extremely proud of him I wanted to smooch him on the lips in front of everyone. But that would have caused him to melt into the floor in embarrassment so I refrained. I just bought him a treat instead.

I started thinking about what a little love Luke is despite his bullheaded nature. I thought about the time when he was 3 and we went to the aquarium. We were in the restroom and he was quietly listening to the music playing overhead. He told me that he wanted that music to listen to as he was falling asleep at night because it was so beautiful. I thought it was so sweet that he would even think of that.

In 2005 there was a movie called "Man of the House" that was being advertised with this clip:

One day Justin was grumpy and putting Luke in his carseat. Luke looked right at Justin and asked: "Where's your happy face?" just like the girl in the clip. We all laughed and I thought it was cute that he took what he had heard on a commercial and put it in the correct context.

I love Luke's mouth when he says sandwich.

I love the way that Luke says "Darn it."

I love the fact that he collects everything and anything and puts it in his pockets.

I love it when he sings in his opera voice.

I love the way that he says "suddenly" when he is telling a story.

I love that he wants to go to Nightmare on 13th and he can't even handle the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

I love that he always has his tongue sticking out, especially when he is thinking.

I love Luke.

tramtastic

I found an awesome deal that I couldn't pass up to ride the tram at Snowbird for just a can of food to help out the Utah Food Bank. AFter an awesome shutout in a rainstorm by Herriman against Copper Hills (and Nick had his best game ever!) and getting the "men" out of the house to go deer hunting, I convinced my parents to go with Liam and me to brave the cold.

The view from the bottom:


Liam loved the ride up there. This was taken just as we were beginning the ascent to the top. He pretty much had his face pressed to the glass the entire time.



He told me he wanted to bring his gloves next time so we could have a snowball fight.


The view looking down. It was absolutely beautiful. Even though I am not crazy about the snow and the cold, there is something magical about seeing the first fresh, white snow on the ground.


We didn't last very long at the top and Liam kept saying he was starving. We went to eat at Smashburger and then headed to my parent's house to watch the Utes crush Colorado State.

As I went to sleep in my cozy bed I prayed that J and the other boys weren't too cold and having a good time. Can't wait to see them on Monday!

any dream will do

The original title of this post was going to be Cornbelly's 2 or Twice as Nice or something super creative like that. Never in a million years did I guess what would happen on this magical return to Cornbelly's.

See, we bought these season passes and I thought that Monday night would be a perfect night to go and enjoy ourselves at the fall carnival. We ate dinner and then packed into the car to head to Lehi. We arrived and started to walk to the entrance and Justin stopped and asked: "Is that Donny?" or something to that effect because whatever he said made me stop and look where he was looking and I totally got butterflies. Shut. Up. Yes, it was my crush and his name is Donny Osmond.

Now before you go and judge, I was not a lover my whole life. In fact, I thought he was quite cheesy for a very long time and in fact I still think he is cheesy, but he is a showman for heaven sakes. Then in 1998 my family went to Kingsbury Hall to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was just going to see the production not expecting to love him performing in it like I did. And when Donny sang "Close Every Door" I was captivated...mesmerized by his pecks, er, I mean his voice and my crush was born.



I am not the type of person to go up to people I know in a crowd, let alone a celebrity. Justin kept asking me if I was going to talk to him and get my picture taken with him but I was too nervous. I then weighed my options because Justin is the type of person to totally go up and talk to anyone and I was afraid that he would embarass me. Donny and his wife were talking with some other people and then started walking away and we were walking the direction they was going so I decided to make my move.

I started approaching him and I said: "I am so sorry to bother you with this but do you mind if I get a picture with you? I totally have a crush on you." He chuckled and flashed that famous, sparkly smile and looked right at Justin. Justin said: "It's okay, I know about it." It was a statement similar to those spoken as a polititian ends their commercials and states that he approves his message sent out to the masses. Since he received the okay from Justin, Donny agreed to a picture. He lightly put his arm on my back but I didn't know if it was appropriate or not to put my arm around a celebrity's waist so I let my arms dangle awkwardly to the side. I am also totally hunched over and I wish I would have taken my coat off but oh well. I was totally giddy the entire night. And do you realize the jacket HE is wearing? Two of my loves captured forever for posterity.



Then off to the activities.

The jumping pillows were first and then we ventured off into the maze. I am so glad that I had Justin there to navigate and that I didn't attempt to take all of the kids the first time we went. Not only was I completely sleep deprived but I get so turned around in those things. It would have been a disaster.






We made it through unscathed and then the boys rode on the carts, we went on a tractor ride AND a hay ride, the older boys went through the haunted beast and Luke went in a mini haunted house.









Then on our way out it was the boys' turn to be star-struck. They were able to meet and have a book signed by the author Brandon Mull. He is the mastermind behind the Fablehaven series. He was such a super nice guy and signed a book and a bookmark for each of the older boys--Liam was trying to fall asleep on my shoulder--and then posed for a picture. Then we couldn't leave without a picture with some of the Fablehaven gang. The boys left on cloud 9.





Home again, home again to make caramel apples for a treat. I used a recipe from Justin's aunt--

1 cube butter (I know, awesome)
1 cup light Karo syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup brown sugar



This night was absolutely delicious from beginning to end.

pumpkins

Last Saturday after Nick's win against Brighton, his baseball fundraiser (where they raised just under $2500 dollars for Cooperstown) and Andrew and Luke's last flag football game we had some free time to spend as a family.

We went to scout out the goods at our favorite pumpkin patch.



It was such a beautiful day. It was nice to be in tshirts in the middle of October and be comfortable. Justin pushed our wheelbarrow around and the boys ran down the rows of pumpkins looking for their perfect one.

They had some awesome abnormal pumpkins that I chose. One is a creamy green color and one is a peach orb that looks almost waxy. I don't think we will try to carve them but they sure look cool outside my door.

Then there was the sitting on the tractors and running through the little corn maze.






From time to time I tried to get a group shot of the boys that was decent:

Too squinty and sunny...


too sad and whiny...


too scrumptious!


Stay tuned for the next post which involves one of my wildest dreams coming true. I get butterflies just thinking about it.

creepy cookies

These are some of my favorites that we decorated...

...the 10 eyed mutant cat, the frankenstein pumpkin, and the orange pumpkin being attacked by bats while staring in helpless terror.



I love Halloween.

corny

This year I scored a deal on season passes to Cornbelly's down at Thanksgiving Point. Since it is fall break and all I decided to forego a good day's sleep and take the boys and some of their pals down to spend the day there. I was so very glad I had the boys bring friends because they just ran around doing their own thing and I just hung out with Liam. Liam was a little bummed that he couldn't invite anyone but keeping track of two 5 year olds is too much work.

First we headed over to the jumping pillows.






After that activity, everyone split up and went their own way and I would run into them from time to time. Especially when they needed money.


I think Liam had a great time. There are so many fun activities there for his age. Since he was my only rugrat that I had to worry about I took a ton of pictures of just him. I don't think he minded.



Liam could have been here all day doing this and he would have been happy. He loved pumping that water out of the spout and watching the little rubber ducks that would swim down the tube. I think he did this for about twenty minutes before I finally pulled him away.




We found a huge tractor that I saw as a photo op but HE wanted to play on the darn thing. He kept trying to worm his way through to the front of the line and got so mad at me when I would hold him back. Luckily we were the only ones who wanted to play on it for a while because it was really hard convincing him that his turn was over when someone else came over to sit on it.




Until he saw the fire truck. This was a dream come true for his inquisitive mind. All the buttons and levers and pedals. He played on this for a good 15 minutes. He totally could have played on it longer but I got bored and wanted to do something else.

Here he is asking me what this thing-a-bob does...

...and I can see the little wheels turning inside while he is playing here...

...and here.



After a while the older two boys found me and said that they were done. I talked them into going on the tractor ride with me before we left to go home. They were nice enough to endulge me. Where is Luke you ask? He and his friend were obsessed with "The Beast"--I think they went through this thing like 20 times.

Luke and Liam received their flu shots today. Both were very brave.

On the way out of the doctor's office Luke whispered to me a very serious question.

"Do I have a forcefield around me now?"

Holey moley, I have the cutest kids ever.

simple

After our rousing game of Guess Who, Liam layed across my back and wanted me to massage it. I told him to go get the lotion and come over to the couch and I rubbed his back for a minute, then his hands, and then his feet. He totally fell asleep. I kissed his little feet and felt his little heart beating. I love that kid.

His little friend drew me a darling picture and brought it to me when she and her brother came to play today.

I bought myself a cherry diet coke from Iceberg.

I think that work may be tolerable tonight.

our journey to hogwarts

Holy moley, last night was fun.

I was searching for something to do on parentsconnect.com a couple days ago and saw that there was the opportunity to go to a Magical Museum. It sounded very Harry Potterish to me and I do like Harry and the whole Hogwarts feel. I also feel that we don't go out of our comfort zone when this time of year rolls around so I thought it would be fun to try it out.

It was brilliant.

There were people walking all over the place in their Hogwarts robes and speaking in an English accent and talking about magic with live owls everywhere that it felt like I was actually in the school itself. Or really made me want to be in the school itself.

First stop was choosing a wand. Although they all looked pretty much the same, the containers were different and the boys took it very seriously. Heaven forbid they choose a fairy wing wand. That would be disastrous.

We then proceeded to go to the Owlry and write a message to Professor Dumbledore (that he will respond to by email! Fancy that!) Liam wished him a happy birthday.



Next we were able to observe some enchanted rocks and shark teeth most assuredly used in the most deadliest of potions. We purchased some of these treasures with a few of our galleons and then went off to meet the charming Professor Lockhart.



Andrew was chosen to show the audience what a wizard would dress like and he loved being in the spotlight. However, I don't think that I would take a wizard dressed like this very seriously.



Professor Trelawny was waiting in the next room to read our fortunes. This lady was freaking awesome and the boys were in awe of her skills. Liam was even invited to write his name on the magic crystal ball. For what purpose, I don't know, but he sure thought he was pretty darn cool.




Next was a lesson on dragons and fairies. My favorite part about this was the regular old stone painted with some swirlies and put in a fancy box and the boys totally believed it was a dragon's egg. They didn't even touch it. It just reaffirms that ordinary things can definitely be extraordinary with an imagination.


I thought this was clever. These two were like the characters in the paintings. I really liked the attention to the details that made it seem like it was really Hogwarts.


We headed down to the dungeon and listened to a story by Professor Umbridge's sister about the famous Utahn Butch Cassidy. It was super interesting because she was able to intertwine the fact with a little bit of magic. The dungeon included a replica of a jail that had some dementors inside--Luke and Andrew ventured inside the jail but weren't in there very long. Liam and I kept our distance. Who wants the life sucked out of them anyway?

Then it was off to Honeydukes. Seriously, this was amazing. I didn't get any pictures of all the fun candy they had there because the boys went crazy. They had jelly beans, chocolate frogs, gummy bugs and such, chocolate eyes and other body parts, cobwebs, gummy salamanders, pop rock chocolate bars, licorice wands, gummy earthworms...and that isn't all. The spread was incredible.


Potions class was last and the best of all the game. There was the old mentos exploding in the soda bottle trick, dry ice, making bubbles look like they are crawling out of a glass, and of course, burning things.

I thought for a while I was having more fun than the kids but then they asked if they could go again the next night. I am glad that there is a new Harry Potter movie coming out this fall so I can copy all of these ideas and throw a party.

A definate repeat for next year. So. much. fun.