Doopity Plop

The other day Justice was crying about something, and flopped face down on the bed. Ha ha! (I think he'd been eating something chocolate.)

I met with a person from the music dept. at a university close by the other day to get a list of things to work on to prepare for auditions and going back to school. True I won't be going back till Clayton is in kg, which won't be until fall 2013, but I'm so freaking excited!!! I can't even tell you! I love school! I love learning! But most of all, I LOVE music!!!! You just have no clue how much of a geek I am about good music. I doubt there is a person alive who loves it more than I do. It may seem a bit daft, with things going the way they are right now economy-wise, to choose to go to school to study music education, but seriously, I just want to learn it all. Even if I never get a job teaching, it will be TOTALLY worth it to learn all that I can. For me, majoring in anything else is absolutely unthinkable. I only wish I had time to do a double major. I REALLY want to study music theory / comp. I'll get to take a lot of those classes too as a music ed. major, but oh the drive I have to learn to write music! Music theory has become my major geek spot. I want to learn EVERYTHING!! Anyway, I'm rambling. You get the picture.

If you missed it on FB, I just finished writing a piano duet. Instead of having one person playing high, and one person playing low, you have the more experienced piano player sitting in the middle of the piano, while a person who is fairly new to piano flits back and forth from the high to the low and back again. At one point the 2nd person entirely pushes the seated person out of the way and makes a run down nearly the entire keyboard, while the seated person gets up and walks around the back of the 2nd and then plays a similar, but more complicated run down the keyboard. I posted the music and a MIDI file (so you can hear how it sounds) here. It's called Foolishness. Got to run folks!

To Be Like a Child

The next time you are with someone under the age of about 5, try doing all of the things that they do, exactly like they do them. It's pretty hilarious when you think about it. Just watch the way they jump, skip, throw their hands in the air, and dance around completely at random, expressing the utter joy they feel to be little and carefree. I love to see them at it, but grown-ups look absolutely ridiculous doing those things. I was out running errands with my sister and my two pre-schoolers the other day, and I was trying to mimic everything that they did. Ashley just about peed her pants laughing. You really should try it! Where do they get the energy?

Just a Little Venting

The day went okay. The weather was great, and I enjoyed a walk with my two youngest boys. Family night was good.

But the past hour and a half... from an entire banana smeared all over the floor that I just mopped earlier today, and a cup of milk splattered on top of that, to an entire shelf of books dumped out, to Clayton (the 2 yr old) giving Ross (the 11 yr old) a fat, bloody lip, to a bunch of boys who just would NOT settle down and go to bed...

Sometimes I just wonder if I'm really cut out for this mothering stuff.

On a lighter note, earlier today when Justice, Clayton and I were out walking with the dog, Justice was pointing out all of the signs that he sees and trying to read them. He did in fact read some of them. He likes to do this kind of thing. Then he tells me all kinds of letter combinations and the words that he thinks they make. As he was doing this he asked me,

"Mom, how do you spell 'sh'?"

"S-H." I tell him, glad that for once he's out of the house, out from in front of the computer screen, and actually using his brain.

"Good. I've been trying to watch The Ultimate Showdown, but I can't spell it." was his reply.

(For those of you who don't know, The Ultimate Showdown is a rather gory cartoonized music video on youtube that Ross and Mark like to watch. Apparently he wanted to know how to spell "sh" as in "Showdown" so he could google it. Sigh!)

A Thoroughly Good Day

I started the day off with the ward's Relief Society birthday brunch. Good friends, good food, good time.

Then I came home and practiced my piano for about an hour, then vegged with the kids and hubby for just a little bit.

Next we took the kids and the dog to the park. There aren't many things that make me smile more than watching my boys running around with a happy dog. We took Ally (the dog) swimming for the first time in her life. She's half lab, so she ought to like it, but she seemed a bit apprehensive about it. Bruce chucked her in a few times, but she just swam back out. When two ducks swam up by us, she really looked tempted to jump in after them, but she couldn't quite talk herself into it.

Another highlight was when all five of the kids were swinging in a big row and Bruce was running a straight line under / in front / behind them - gauntlet style. (Did that make sense to anyone?) We were all laughing our heads off. It was just fun.

Then Lydia accidentally stumbled across a geocache thing. We signed our names and put it back. We built a fire and ran races. I just love watching little boys running! Clayton was found eating a s'more, though we didn't bring any food with us. I think he found it under a picnic table. Eeewww!

Lastly, inspired by Lydia's find, we looked up the coordinates for another geocache and for the first time set out to find one. However by the time we got there, it was getting dark, and we didn't find it. We'll try it again in the daylight.

Now we are sitting around watching TV. Does life get any better than this?

It's funny, but I spend a lot of time plotting my "get aways" from the kids, but to be perfectly honest, my very favorite times ever are when we all play together. I just love hanging out with my bunch!

Two Year Olds!!!

When you are having company for dinner in a couple of hours, and you have just invested a good deal of time in making dough (the hard way - withOUT the bread machine, and covering the counter in flour and bread dough grime) for some yummy rolls, and upon leaving it to rise, one does not like to come back to the kitchen to find the following:

Thought of the Day (Plus a Couple of Pictures)

First the Thought of the Day:

On this St. Patrick's day, if you see an associate or a friend NOT wearing anything green, it would be kind to help them by protecting them from other people's pinches. You may do this by wearing several strings of green beads around your neck, and sharing them with your un-greenified friends, as my daughter did. However I think it would be funner and more convenient to share your boogers with the un-green.

This is me just before running in the Zilla-pede in the St. Patrick's day run. Good fun!

This is Bruce having a little accident when we were doing Ross' science project. We did a really fun experiment with Mentos and Coke.

Blah!

Blah, Blah, Blah!

How I LOVE My New Door!

What's that saying about when God shuts a door, somewhere he opens a window? Well sometimes He opens another door that is WAY better than the one that you were contented to live in for the rest of your life. I'm still finding out about this particular door, but if what I'm feeling is really there, then I will be forever grateful for the hard knock it took for me to be diverted from that shutting door!

Something You May Not Know About Me

I once bit a mentally handicapped woman in the face.