1/19/2010

There was a question posed by one of my favorite people about what we as mothers do in a day. I thought I would take her challenge. What I love about life is that nothing is ever the same no matter how mundane our lives may seem to us. This is my day--1/19/2010.

6:45--Up with the boys for school. Showers, find shirts, pants, socks. Get the boys breakfast. Make lunches. Sign reading logs. Practice violin with Nicholas. Throw a load of laundry in the washing machine.

8:00--Send kids off to school. Get in the shower, shower Liam, get him ready to go to preschool.

8:45--Put Liam on the bus. Wave and blow kisses until the bus leaves our street. Run inside because it is freezing outside. Load in dryer, load in washer.

8:50--Check emails, check the status of my bidding on ebay.

9:15--Get in the car to head to Walmart to pick up some things for dinner, an ink cartridge, and stuff for the  poster for Nick's science project. Run into an old friend there and am so grateful I decided to wear cute shoes and makeup.

10:00--Start working on the poster for Nick's science project. This was the day I had scheduled to start organizing the jungle of years of clothes piled up on my basement floor that call to me wanting to be sorted by size and put on shelves. Unfortuneately, this did not happen because the blasted poster called to me a little louder.

11:15--Got Liam off the bus. Ate lunch. Switched the laundry. Put on a short video for him while I quickly did some lettering for the poster.

12:25--Left to the boys' school to volunteer in Andrew's class.

1:30--Came home. Started marinating chicken for dinner. Worked on poster. Checked the status of my ebay bidding. Fingerpainted with Liam, worked on cutting paper, danced to some groovy tunes...do you think it is wrong that Liam absolutely loves the song Holiday by Madonna? Please tell me he will turn out okay...

2:30--Call from the school. It is Nick saying he has a stomach ache. I know he is totally faking it but I go and pick him up anyway. Liam is excited that he doesn't have to wear his seatbelt while we drive the two blocks to the school. Switched the laundry.

3:40--Luke and Andrew get home. Put out a fire about who gets to watch what show. NO ONE that's who...if you fight over the TV, it is off limits. That shut them up. Took Nick to his violin lesson.

3:50--Came home and worked on the poster. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

4:30--Justin got home. Yay...told him what he needed to do for the poster since I am so done with it. He stares at me blankly. Ummm...yeah. But to be fair, he did get right to work printing things out which was a huge help. Put corn in the microwave. Put the load in the washer into the dryer. I am totally done with laundry for today, too. Ugh.

4:45--Pick up Nick from violin.

4:50--Start cutting the chicken for dinner. Put the salad together.

5:05--Pray. Eat. Talk.

5:30--Dishes. Sweep. Help Luke with homework. Wipe table down. Change into scrubs for work.

6:00--Leave for work. Justin leaves to take the boys to pack meeting. Glad that I am going to work.

--Oh, and I won the bidding war.

I had no idea

Luke was scratching his corderoy pants and asked me what it sounded like.

I looked at him with a curious look on my face and he said:

"It sounds like cutting pickles."

Fun giveaway

There is a darling jewelry giveaway at Blue Cricket Design from The Vintage Pearl. There is a link on my sidebar--have fun!

Merry Christmas 2009 from our home to yours

How is it I can take five million pictures at some stupid place like Lagoon and only 43 the entire week of Christmas?

We had such a great Christmas week and every year it always seems to be "the best Christmas ever". This year was so fun because Luke and Liam were way into it and even though Nick and Andrew don't believe in Mr. C, it is fun to see them play along for the younger ones. I figure this is one, if not the last, of the Christmases that Luke will believe in the jolly old elf and I relished every minute.

On Christmas Eve we celebrated at my Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Robert's house in Bountiful. At around 9:00 pm someone had a santa tracker pulled up on the computer. Luke came rushing into the living room and yelled with great urgency in his voice: "Mom! Santa is in NORTH AMERICA. We have got to go RIGHT NOW!" Then as we were driving home we saw "Rudolph" (cue airplane) heading north, the opposite direction from our house. Luke then said: "Oh geez, I hope they turn back around! We have to hurry!"

This is my favorite time of the year. There are many fun times during the year that I get excited about, but Christmastime just makes me happy. There is more thinking of others, family time, the beautiful lights and decorations...all so fitting to commemorate the birth of our Savior.

Here are also a random quote from Liam to start off the New Year:

I was cooking hamburger for dinner a couple nights ago and Liam came over to watch. He looked at it and said: "Ew, is that bwood?"
Me: "Yes, hamburger is from cows."
Liam (mulling it over): Why did you go to the farm to get this?

Visions of sugar plums

Last night we took the three older boys on a special outing. We ate dinner at the Garden Restaurant at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for dinner and then headed over to the Capitol Theater to see the Nutcracker.

I am so glad we had a table next to the window or else we would have been bothering all of the other patrons because the boys would have been running over to the window anyway to see the lights at Temple Square. We were able to see them turn on and it is an amazing view from up top!

I wasn't sure how the boys would like the ballet but they loved it. They started getting a bit bored around the pas de deux, but luckily that is pretty much the end. My favorite thing about the whole night was sitting next to Luke during the performance. He was so excited and had a ton to say. Here are some of my favorites:

• During the applause that occurred after the little orchestral introductory prelude before the curtains open: "That's it?"

• "When are they going to talk?"

• After the fight scene between the mice and the Nutcracker, kindof out of the blue:

"It's a small nutcracker."

Me: "Hmmm?"

Luke: "How did the prince fit in there?"

• During the scene of the Snow Queen (that I mistakenly told  him was the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy):

"Is it raining sugar?"

Me: "No, it's snow."

Luke: "Oh, I thought it would be sugar since it is the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."

• The huge sigh during the REAL dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

• "It's over?!?"

When we were walking back to the car, Luke also let me in on a little secret. He told me that he had been scared to see the Nutcracker. When I asked him why, he told me he thought it would be wooden puppets dancing around on strings. I am glad the actual performance exceeded his expectations.

Luckily for Liam, Santa checks his list twice

As I was walking into my room yesterday, I noticed something on the floor next to the bed. I walked closer and realized what it was.

I wondered to myself how a dog could have gotten into my house and deposited something on the floor and then left unnoticed. I then decided to ask the only other logical culprit in the house what had happened.

Me: "Liam, what is this."
Liam: "Poop."
Me: "Where do we poop?"
Liam: "In the toilet."
Me: "Then why did you poop on the floor?"
Liam: " I was busy playing Playhouse Disney."

This was before preschool. After school he poured his entire full glass of apple juice inside a container that had a hole in it. Obviously, the container didn't hold the juice very well.

Luckily for him, I found his emergency backpack that he had packed himself hanging on the front door. In it was an entire loaf of bread, my tub of butter, a jar of peanut butter, a pair of sweatpants, a half gallon jug of water about half way full, a Thomas train, a small Nerf basketball, a capri sun, and a blanket. I had to smile at what his little mind wanted in an emergency. Justin had him put the backpack on and asked him if he could run with it if there was an emergency. Liam tried but since it was super heavy he said: "I'll just leave my backpack on the ground and then I can run really fast."

This boy is always thinking.

Oh, Hansel and Gretel have a huge decision

We decorated gingerbread houses the other night. I did it easy with graham crackers but they were fun nonetheless. My friend told me about a super easy way to keep the crackers together--just melt sugar and dip the edges of the cracker in the syrup and voila! It is like glue. The frosting was super easy too--just 3 egg whites to a pound of powdered sugar. I put a bit of cream of tartar in for good measure. These are the results:
Santa's mansion by Andrew:

He told me that it was a mansion because he has a big "S" in his yard just like rich people.

M&M and gumdrop mountain by Luke:

This picture makes me think that his name was just a misnomer for "Gingerbread House of Terror". Have YOU ever seen a snowman with daggers coming out of its eyes?

Santa's Wonderland: by Nick

Hansel and Gretel, beware! (or the house that U built): by Me

There is a U on the back :)

Liam just liked the candy and would eat it off his house just as quickly as he put it on.

Justin's is also unnamed but it looks like his house is in a bad part of town or Santa just had a heart attack. Either way, better warn the kiddies that Santa probably won't be around this year.