The Latest Dirt

So I haven't updated in a while. Here's what's been happening: That last crabby post was one day when I must have just had PMS or something. Do you other gals just have bad days when you are a roller coaster of raging mood swings? Well, that was one of those days. Since then, I've been feeling quite normal and happy to have my kiddos here with me.


What else...? Justice was getting himself dressed the other day and he told me, "I found some underwear in the laundry room. I sniffed em'. They're clean."

I did the Memorial Day Biathlon today. I had a terrible run. The heat got to me, and I had to stop and walk. I've never done that before in a race. However, once I got on the bike, I felt good and flew past quite a few folks. I made up enough time that, though I was just over a minute slower than my time last year, I still took 2nd out of 21 women in my age division.

Okay I'll talk you through my recent pictures, in reverse chronological order:

Summer time is upon us, and one of my favorite things ever is when my kids are having fun playing out in the yard. I love the next several pictures!

Here's a big spanking that Clayton earned himself. Check out that bruise on Justice's cheek. That's from a bite.

Lydia was WAY over due to clean out her backpack!! She'd been carrying around all of those old papers for a while.

Ally has a new friend. We have a new set of neighbors. Cash is their little bull dog pup. He's about the same age as Ally (just shy of a year old). The two dogs are good buddies now. The cutest thing is when they try to share toys and sticks with each other through the fence.

Here's Lydia with her last school project of the year. It's a mouse trap car that Bruce and my sister-in-law stayed up ALL NIGHT to finish. I was a party pooper and fell asleep on the couch.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Victory in the primary room!!! Brady (my cousin's little boy, who is in my Sunbeam class, who always pulled away from me and gave me no end of dirty looks, and always stuck his tongue out at me) Brady came up to me and gave me a hug, all on his own volition!!! Then he crawled up and sat on my lap! Yay yay yay!!!

Not a Good Sign

It's the first day of summer and I have already shouted a bunch and cried. Luckily, Ross and Mark were sweeties and cheered me up by fixing me a thoughtful lunch and telling me jokes while I ate it. :)

Busy

Monday: Dr. appt. 45 minutes away, two ball games at the same time. Tuesday: Muddy dog, two REALLY REALLY muddy little boys on the floor that I JUST FINISHED CLEANING, threw kids in shower while I went outside to hose off muddy clothes; shower clogged, came in with hosed off clothes which I took to the laundry room to find water from the clogged shower pouring through the ceiling, ran upstairs hollering my head off, freshly cleaned floor, walls, cabinetry COVERED in mud with a small lake to boot, boys loving splashing in the clogged shower, turn off shower, shop vac floor & shower, re-clean floor, time to get ready for older kids' band concert. Wednesday: Two ball games and church activities. Thursday: Go to Ross' school for living museum, yay for visiting Sister-in-Law!! Friday: Help with Fun Day at Ross' school. Saturday: GIRLS' NIGHT OUT!!! Sunday: Church. Monday: Help with Mark's Fun Day, two ball games.....

Life as a mom of mixed age kids: I'm there.

Happy Days With My Pre-Schoolers

Okay, I really need to get out and play with my school aged kiddos more. It seems like all my posts are about the two youngest. But to be real, they are the two I see the most, since they are still at home with me. Clayton is going to miss the heck out of Justice in the fall, when Justice starts Kg!

Today I am hosting a couple of ninjas. They had Ninja Oatmeal with Ninja Eggs and Strawberry Ninja Milk for Ninja Breakfast. And when Ninja Clayton got his Ninja Spoon out of the Ninja Drawer, he cracked me up when he wielded it high in the air, with a He-man-By-the-power-of-Gray-Skull-I-have-the-POWER kind of attitude, as he cried "I have the NINJA SPOON!!" At the moment though, Ninja Clayton is having a melt down because Ninja Justice is playing with the guy that Ninja Clayton wants.

Here are yesterday's adventures:

This week is big trash pick-up. I couldn't help but give a little sigh over getting rid of the high-chair, the baby car seat, and a couple of other baby things. In the end, I decided to at least keep Justice and Clayton.

I don't know if our neighbor minds or not, but all of the good puddles are in front of his house.

Here is a cool vine to swing on across the street. After an old guy driving down the street stopped and told me that it was a poison ivy vine, I immediately took the kids in and scrubbed Justice down. However, after consideration, I think that guy must be wrong. While I do know that poison ivy does grow into vines like that one, I don't think this one can be poison ivy. I asked Justice if he had ever swung on that vine before. He said he had. Well he didn't get poison ivy then, and he didn't get it this time. I think it's probably okay.

A Rule Of Etiquette That I Never Thought I'd Have to Make

No peeing at the dinner table.

So Much Stuff

Quotes of the week:

1) Ross: "We boys have to be able to laugh off a certain amount of pain."

2) Justice: "He bit me twice and I only hit him on the head. Grammy, I want you to deal with it. I don't want my dad to deal with it."


The other night when we were having a chill out snuggle session on the couch, Justice and Clayton kept pushing each other out of the way so that they could snuggle with me. Poor Bruce, alone on his part of the couch says "Doesn't anyone want to snuggle with me?"

Clayton walked off and came back a minute later with his giant truck. "Here Dad," he said as he tucked the truck in to snuggle with Bruce. He then continued in the Pile on Mommy game.

Today after we dropped Ross and Mark off at school, we paused at a stop sign in front of the clinic where we had Ally spayed several months ago. Ally looked over at that place and growled. Lol! Do you think she actually remembered that place??


Okay here are the pictures from the last couple of weeks, in reverse chronological order. I don't feel like rearranging them, so deal with it.

Here we are in our Easter finery. (We are standing on a hill. I may be tall, but I don't tower over my family quite like that.) You know, it's a mean trick to give kids a bunch of candy and then dress them up in new clothes (courtesy of Grammy) and not let them touch all of that candy, lest they spoil their new duds. None-the-less, two of our boys had gum on their shirts by the time we got to church. Oh, and what does it say when your children develop bed-head while at church?

The kids left out carrots for the Easter Bunny, and they left a note saying "...there is a chocolate egg in the freezer on top of the bacon."

The Easter Bunny wrote back "Thanks, I love bacon!" When the kids checked in the morning, the egg was still there, but the bacon was all gone.

In other news, Lydia did her first triathlon this weekend. Her middle school put it on. As the youngest Zilla, she borrowed my tri-suit and did Team Godzilla proud, taking second place!

Okay, is it just me, or is she totally my daughter?Lydia is also busy doing track. Surprisingly, she ended up being a thrower as well as a runner. In spite of her thin build, she's actually pretty good at it.

Okay, I REALLY owe my sister-in-law an apology! Sorry Liz!!!! People are going to stop allowing their kids to come to our house. It seems that nobody can escape clean. I'll have to do a better job of making sure that they are wearing my kids' old, jumpin' in puddles clothes before going outside. It was too late by the time we found them, so since the damage was done, why make them stop? They were having so much fun! (For the record, I did soak that shirt in spray -n-wash and give him a shower before sending him back to Grandma's house.)

The boys are loving Justice and Clayton's new bunk beds. Ross and Mark haven't slept in their own room since we got these. (Not that they did much of that in the first place. That's why we got the full size bed on the bottom.) Gotta love a good craigslist deal!

This is a nutso hail storm. Bruce stood at the window and shouted "Oh HAIL!" Now the kids have another favorite fake swear. Sigh!

It's that time of year again, and I've been having a ball going on field trips with the kids. Ross' class went to the City Museum. It was a blast! I also went on Mark's field trip, but I left the camera at home. Poo!

Yesterday I tried making my own bubble solution and improvising my own bubble wands (we didn't have any of that stuff around). It was a total bust. I only got one stinking bubble; it started raining on us; and then when Justice and Clayton decided to dunk their heads into the bubble solution, it ended our "bubble" session real quick.

No Wonder She's So Hyper

The dog found the Easter Bunny's stash.

WTFreak?!

When Justice, Clayton, and myself are the only people home, finding an open bottle of crazy glue on the floor is probably not a sign of good things waiting to be discovered.

It's Official

At the tender age of 35, I have just submitted a piece of music for copyright for the very first time. Ain't I big stuff!

Small Miracles

I'll be honest. I struggle with a bad attitude. I spend my life taking care of young ones. There is ALWAYS a to-do list longer than my entire life. With a husband, five kids and a fixer-upper of a house, I simply can't do all of the things that need to get done around here. From time to time, it REALLY gets me down, and I feel like a failure in every single aspect of my life.

I know that really I have a great life. I have a husband who is truly my best friend, I have five healthy kids. I have my health, I have the gospel, and really what more can one person ask for. More often than not, I'm okay, but from time to time, the responsibility of it all gets to me. I have some serious ambitions of my own and almost no time to work on the things that I want to learn to do. I crave solitude and time to work on my music. Okay, I'm rambling...

Sometimes my attitude just down right sucks. One night a week ago or so, I was having a particularly bad night. My list was just weighing on me, the house was messy, the two littlest kids just wouldn't go to bed, and I was frustrated and mad, mad, mad. I was wondering if I would ever be allowed to do the things that I wanted to do with my time. I was in a bad, bad, bad state of mind, and I just could not stop feeling put out, stepped upon, unappreciated and no end used.

I went to my room in tears and not knowing any other way out, I turned to prayer. The thought "cast your burdens on the Lord" came to my mind. In tears I told the lord that I just could not stop feeling this way. I just couldn't do it on my own. As I asked for help, really wanting to stop feeling so mean inside, it was like I could literally feel those bad feelings leaving one by one. Where there had been a long list of things that I had wanted to complain about, now there was nothing. I'm sure that I could go and dredge up every one of those feelings again, and feel all of that nastiness again, and to be honest, I have from time to time. But for the time, they were just gone. It's a testament to prayer and the Lord's ability to lift burdens.

Okay fast forward to today, when I am once again a jerk. Clayton kept me up much of the night last night, I had neglected my scriptures, and I was just exhausted in every sense of the word. I can't tell you how much I depend upon church to help me feel better, to give me a new sense of perspective, to point me, and to give me the energy to keep on keepin' on. Let me diverge slightly for just a second. You always hear women in the church saying how much they love Primary (the classes for children ages 3-11). I have spent the vast majority of my adult life involved in teaching Primary in one capacity or another, and to be perfectly honest, I just haven't really felt that way. It's horrible. I stink! Maybe that's why I just keep getting called back to Primary, or maybe that's all I'm fit for, I don't know. I tend to feel like I get my fill of little people in my regular life. When I'm not in Primary, I really enjoy Relief Society (the class for women 18 and up). I feel uplifted and like I finally have a little bit of time to spend with grown up women. In R.S. the classes are geared to me, and I soak it up. In Primary, the classes are geared to little children, and to be honest, the last thing I feel like doing is dealing with more little people. It's completely horrible, I know. I shouldn't have such a bad attitude, but I really struggle with these feelings.

ANYWAY, I am SOOOO rambling today. Feel free to not read my stupidity. So when I was called away from my beloved R.S. a few months ago to teach the Sunbeams (3 year olds), I was honestly less than thrilled. (I'm so going to hell!) I go every week, and I do my best, but I just don't look forward to it. Today I was tired physically, spiritually, and I felt like I could really use a boost. I just did not want to teach my class today, and I prayed for the Lord to help me once again stop feeling that way. I begged the Lord to feed me spiritually.

On to my class I went, just wishing to be somewhere else. My lesson was about how we are thankful that Jesus made birds and insects. I just did not want to do it today. Feeling tired, I closed my manual, and took the kids outside to look for some real birds and insects. The weather was beautiful, and bam right there in the parking lot were two geese. They let us get within about six feet of them. We talked about how Jesus made the birds, we listened to bird sounds. Then we saw some real live bees collecting nectar. We talked about how the bees made honey and helped the flowers to grow. It was actually a fun lesson. I actually enjoyed my primary class!

Oh and if you actually held on through all of my drivel this long, you deserve this funny thing that happened in Primary today. As he was coloring today, Brady, one of my three year olds, decided to "write his name" on his picture. "B-R-A-T. That spells me!" he says. Lol! I told his mom (my cousin Brooke who is also in Primary), and she jokingly said "Well that's about right."