I am currently in a major battle with my children. Mind you, if you see us, it will look like everything is normal. But it is not. We may be going through the motions of every day and the carnage may not be visible, but my dear friends, looks can be deceiving. Let me tell you about it.
Nadia and Brandon are getting ready to go back to school. Now, depending on the day or what disaster has recently happened, I am either very happy or very very happy about this. Yeah, that's right. No sadness at all. These two have decided that the cool thing right now is to ignore Mom and just do what they want, and I am pretty sick of it.
I think part of the new problem is that they are nervous about school starting, who will be in their class, who the teacher is, etc. We find all that out on Thursday night. School starts on Monday.
This does not give them the right to ignore me or pull attitude, however. How shall I engage on this battle front? With the sneak attack. I have agreed to watch some good friends of theirs in the afternoon. Plus, I don't think they realize how much fun time will be cut with the beginning of school. There are only so many hours left after school, chores, and homework. What a shame it will be to let friends play with their toys or ride their bikes while mine are left to wallow on their beds. Oh, and I will make sure to rub it all in. Yeah, I checked, the Geneva Convention is cool with it. Perfectly legal and perfectly evil. I am going to break them.
Benjamin is the bane of my existence right now. Do you know why I call him the Smiling Terror? This story and the background info should clear it right up for you.
We have been potty training for about a month. I tried to get it done before my trip out to see my sis in VA, and we had made some good progress. It went a little down hill at grandma's, but really, can you blame a 3 year old who is getting spoiled every day for not always remembering to use the facilities?
When I came back, we started back up again full time, and things seemed to be going well. Until I realized that Ben will not go #2 on the toilet. I have tried bribery, treats, shown him the cool big boy underwear he can have as soon as he keeps dry all the time, and have even gone so far as to give him cold showers. This is what we had to do with Brandon, and I hated it. But it worked.
What I am really worried about is that none of these tactics have yet proved to be effective, and the other Sunday, he was quite insubordinate. Let me set the picture for you: it was the last 5 minutes or so of Sacrament meeting, and I was starting to clean up the crayons and such. Cliff was up front, since he is the new ward chorister, and Benjamin started to help me put things away. He picked up a crayon, then turned and smiled at me. Then his eyebrows went red. For anyone without fair children, this is the sign that business is about to occur. Like, within the next 15 seconds. What was I supposed to do? Oh, and did I mention Caleb was sleeping on my lap at the time? And the last speaker was still bearing his testimony? I was stuck. So instead of grabbing him by the arms and yelling, "HOLD IT!!!" as I ran down the aisle and out the door, I had to quietly watch my defeat. It was over in under a minute. We went quietly to the rest room, where we had yet another talk about how appropriate places to go do not include in your pants.
I am still stumped on a line of attack for this one. All I know is it is ON.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tiles
Sunday, July 18, 2010
And There Was Light
From the Book of Sarah:
Chapter 7
1: There was, in a far off country, a kitchen with much darkness even in the summer. And lo, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the darkness of the kitchen, even with many curtains opened, and Sarah did cry out even unto her husband and father about the darkness thereof.
2: And Sarah was much in luck, for they did hear her many cries and whinings.
3: There was also a wise brother-in-law who did suggest the use of canned lighting, and the husband and father did go and find and even put in the canned lighting.
4: And there was light.
5: But no new cool floor. Yet.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Is It Really Only July?
Boy, have we been busy the last few weeks. We had a 2 week vacation down in Utah, and got back last week. I have been cleaning ever since, but let's face it, when all the kids are home the best you can do is current damage control. Getting ahead has to come later.
So what have we done on this wild and wacky 2 week adventure? Well, to start, we stayed in Santaquin with Cliff's bro and his family. We left I.F. after Brandon's morning T-ball game. He got all three outs during the inning he played catcher, by the way. He has really enjoyed playing. Cliff helped his bro put up some dry wall in their unfinished basement, and we let the kids play. Later on, we went up the canyon by their house and roasted hot dogs and Smore's over a fire. They hiked around and threw things in the little river, and then it was time to head home. We went to church with them, except for Cliff, who sang with his mother in Delta. He headed back up to I.F. with his dad and the dog, and they all came back down that Wednesday evening.
While Cliff was working for a living, we had fun with the cousins. We broke out the Slip and Slide, went to the Red Barn for ice cream, made crafts, and had a picnic and swam at Spanish Fork Reservoir until Aunt Jennie cursed us with thunderstorms. Thanks, Jennie. No, really, it was a lot of fun to be there, and thank you for keeping us for a whole week.
Wednesday afternoon the kids and I drove over to Delta to wait for everyone else. Cliff and his Dad arrived around 11:30, and the next day cousins started to show up. We were pretty busy riding bikes, especially Brandon, who had to learn to ride a bike without training wheels in order to be in the bike parade.
He made it, and on Friday night Brandon and all the others took their decorated bikes and rode in the Children's Bike Parade. They were all so excited to participate!
Saturday came, and with it, all the 4th of July festivities. Cliff sang the National Anthem after the parade and before all the talks, and then he sang again that afternoon in the talent show.
My batteries died after the first pic of the parade, so no videos of Joe dancing to the marching bands or of the kids riding on horses. They had a lot of fun going to all the different booths and playing games. They went to see the fireworks that evening after we did our own perfectly legal small show with lots of water and supervision. My bro who works in the Sheriff's dept. in CA reads this blog.
Oh, the food, the food! We had carne asada, grilled by the grill master himself, shish kebabs, a great BBQ with Cliff's other bro, a flag cake, and I better stop now before I ruin all the hard work I've had to put in since then to make sure I still fit in my britches.
So why haven't I posted about any of this earlier? I have been exhausted. While on vacation, I had a nephew and then a niece born. I am still recovering. Whew!
Here's what's up next on the list of summer fun: the kids are going to take swim lessons, Ben is getting potty trained (we've already started and it's going MUCH better than I thought) and then at the end of the month, I am flying out to see my sis in VA. Yahooo!!!
Below are 2 slide shows to show you all the fun.
So what have we done on this wild and wacky 2 week adventure? Well, to start, we stayed in Santaquin with Cliff's bro and his family. We left I.F. after Brandon's morning T-ball game. He got all three outs during the inning he played catcher, by the way. He has really enjoyed playing. Cliff helped his bro put up some dry wall in their unfinished basement, and we let the kids play. Later on, we went up the canyon by their house and roasted hot dogs and Smore's over a fire. They hiked around and threw things in the little river, and then it was time to head home. We went to church with them, except for Cliff, who sang with his mother in Delta. He headed back up to I.F. with his dad and the dog, and they all came back down that Wednesday evening.
While Cliff was working for a living, we had fun with the cousins. We broke out the Slip and Slide, went to the Red Barn for ice cream, made crafts, and had a picnic and swam at Spanish Fork Reservoir until Aunt Jennie cursed us with thunderstorms. Thanks, Jennie. No, really, it was a lot of fun to be there, and thank you for keeping us for a whole week.
Wednesday afternoon the kids and I drove over to Delta to wait for everyone else. Cliff and his Dad arrived around 11:30, and the next day cousins started to show up. We were pretty busy riding bikes, especially Brandon, who had to learn to ride a bike without training wheels in order to be in the bike parade.
He made it, and on Friday night Brandon and all the others took their decorated bikes and rode in the Children's Bike Parade. They were all so excited to participate!
Saturday came, and with it, all the 4th of July festivities. Cliff sang the National Anthem after the parade and before all the talks, and then he sang again that afternoon in the talent show.
My batteries died after the first pic of the parade, so no videos of Joe dancing to the marching bands or of the kids riding on horses. They had a lot of fun going to all the different booths and playing games. They went to see the fireworks that evening after we did our own perfectly legal small show with lots of water and supervision. My bro who works in the Sheriff's dept. in CA reads this blog.
Oh, the food, the food! We had carne asada, grilled by the grill master himself, shish kebabs, a great BBQ with Cliff's other bro, a flag cake, and I better stop now before I ruin all the hard work I've had to put in since then to make sure I still fit in my britches.
So why haven't I posted about any of this earlier? I have been exhausted. While on vacation, I had a nephew and then a niece born. I am still recovering. Whew!
Here's what's up next on the list of summer fun: the kids are going to take swim lessons, Ben is getting potty trained (we've already started and it's going MUCH better than I thought) and then at the end of the month, I am flying out to see my sis in VA. Yahooo!!!
Below are 2 slide shows to show you all the fun.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Concrete Countertops
Another milestone reached in the kitchen remodel: WE HAVE COUNTERTOPS!!! I can actually use my kitchen again! I can put things and clean things in the kitchen! Cliff and I decided to go with concrete countertops and backsplash. Here are the results.
I really like it; it's a granite stone wash look done in chocolate with white, ivory, and black. On Tuesday we priced out tile for the floor. We are getting so close to being done! :)
I really like it; it's a granite stone wash look done in chocolate with white, ivory, and black. On Tuesday we priced out tile for the floor. We are getting so close to being done! :)
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