Sibling Memories, Pt 1

Remember how I am keeping a gratitude journal on Facebook?  Well, it has finally decided to haunt me.  Or at least, my sister has.  You see, I recently wrote on there something about how I am thankful for siblings and all the crazy memories and love I have with and for them, and she called me out by asking me to expound. 
I take the challenge.  All week, I will be writing memories I have of my siblings, and seeing as how none of them live close, except the youngest who I am positive doesn't read my blog because it doesn't have anything to do with Halo or Mario, I can say anything.  Mwah hah hah hah hah!  (Evil laughter)
Tonight, I begin with my brother Jacob, who is currently in Afghanistan, and can not kill me.  At least not for another 10 1/2 months.
Things I remember about him...
I remember when he had braces.  He was the first in our family, and I remember thinking what a cry baby he was on tightening day, especially when there was no more yogurt or ice cream in the house.  Then I got braces on my bottom teeth after my mission, when I was working in the military dental clinic in Germany. Easy peasy, I thought.  Later that evening, I went to institute, where we would have a meal before starting class.  I had taken several bites of soup when the spoon barely tapped one of my teeth.  I calmly but quickly made my way to the bathroom to see how many of my bottom teeth had fallen out from that spoon incident, only to discover they were all intact, even if I had never felt such agonizing pain in my life.  I have never doubted that my brother has a high pain thresh hold after that.
He is a fantastic athlete.  He did cross country in high school, and played on a special "talented" basketball team..  After we moved back to the States, both ice and street hockey were added to the mix. He now runs 6 minute miles, 4 miles at a time, for his regular workout, with some other things thrown in to keep it interesting.
Then there were the times we played GI Joes and Star Wars together (what a nice brother!).  Even after I was done with Barbies, I had a hard time letting those little figurines go, and it was because Jacob made it fun. He was so creative with Legos and came up with awesome spaceships and guns, and had all the cool sound effects to go with them. He let me drive around with him in the trunk of my car (in my defense, there were 9 of us in front, and he simply would not fit),  and he was dragged out of bed like me to watch scary movies with my dad.  Oh, and how many times were we thought to be an incredibly handsome couple when we went to institute together?  Or the lady who took our missionary pictures and I swear pulled out a wooden spoon because we weren't sitting close together?  "Sit closer!  Pretend you like each other!  CLOSER!!!"
Good times, good times.  Keep safe, Jacob, and Ah luff yew.  

The Little Things

I have been thinking of things to be thankful for this month, in recognition of Thanksgiving.  I think it's a holiday that gets the shaft, being squeezed in between the costumes and candy of Halloween and the Spiritualness and presents of Christmas.  It should be less about the Alka-seltzer and over eating with a football game thrown in and more about how thankful we should be for all our blessings.
It has been in this vein that I have posted something on my status every day on Facebook about something that I am thankful for.  It's been pretty easy so far, and it makes me think more with the "Attitude of Gratitude" mindset during the day.
Something I am very grateful for that I haven't yet mentioned is the humor I get every day as a mom.  I love some of the things my kids say.  They don't always know it, but boy, do they make me smile.
Benjamin asked me the other day if he could have a drink of eggnog.  Oh, we party hard in the Sharp household and have eggnog from October to February, or whenever the store finally runs out.  I told him there wasn't enough for every one, so he needed to find something else to drink.  He sat at the table, started rubbing his chin, and thought.  Then he came back at me with, "I think I would like something that tastes like eggnog." "Like what?"  I asked. I was thinking something sweet, like maybe hot chocolate.  "Like eggnog."
Brandon was complaining to a friend that he (the friend) was better than Brandon in everything.  The friend replied, "That's not true, Brandon.  You are a better reader than me.  Much better."  I was very impressed, and waited for Brandon to thank him. Brandon smiled and said, "What else am I better at?"
Nadia is learning colloquialisms and those little phrases we all say but don't necessarily understand or even get right.  My favorite from her was when I answered a question quickly and she said, "Wow  mom, you got that right off the back."
All the snot, drool, and worse is worth it for those little nuggets and the smiles I get from these four amazing children.

Halloween 2010

 This is Nadia's costume for Halloween.  She was an angel, with glitter in her hair and wings on her back.  I wouldn't let her have a trumpet, though.

 Brandon was a ninja.  So was Ben.  I was going to make ninja stars for them, but then realized that my two boys +  ninja stars = trouble. 

 Ben only wore his whole costume Halloween night.  But he loved putting on the little ninja shirt I made for him.  Uncle John dressed up as a GI Joe.  Ben couldn't leave his gun alone.

This was another costume that Ben's been wearing lately: the knight costume.  He has been fighting me on nap time the last few days, but apparently this dragon mom knows better than the nightie-knight boy.

Nadia is Nine

 Nadia turned nine last Monday.  I can't believe she is so old!  We went to Leo's Place for pizza and the play area, watched "Despicable Me", (very cute) and had a birthday dinner with the family.  Dinner of choice?  Spaghetti with meatballs.

 She just wanted a simple chocolate cake this year.  Maybe she's getting old enough to realize I just make wrecks out of the cakes, or maybe she was more interested in chocolate this year.  I am not asking.

 This was the big present this year:  her very own boombox!  Now she can close her door and listen to music all afternoon and ignore the rest of us.  Wait, isn't that supposed to happen in a few more years?  Are we really getting to the "Tween" stage with all its drama?

Well, at least Caleb is still small.  For now.

Totally Awesome Is Totally Gone

 I must make a confession:  one of the biggest reasons why I haven't posted very much recently is because we just got a new computer.  I am still figuring out what is on here, what programs need to be reinstalled, and how incredibly stupid I am because the programs that are already installed are so incredibly different than what we had before.  I sometimes think that computer programmers hate us normal people and are getting their revenge on us all for not saying hi in the hallway back in school by changing everything they possibly can while still keeping the name of the program the same.
On the left is the new hotness.  On the right is the totally awesome, totally old tower.  It was about 7 years old, which is 3,876 years for a computer. 

 
Funny story- when we went in to stores to look at new models, Cliff told one of the guys that he couldn't tell how much memory the tower had.  It just said something about an eye-teebee.  Come to find out, that means one terabyte.  1 TB.  We knew we were way out of our league after that.
This is the external hard drive that holds all of the memory on our old computer.  ALL of it.  Our new computer has over 10 times the space that our old one did, even with upgrades over the years.

And now that I know my pictures are no longer lost in cyberspace and are posting in a regular manner, let the blogging begin.  Again.

Rant on Wednesday

A long time ago, there was a little rhyme that told you the days of the week and the chore (or chores) to be accomplished on that day.  I think it went something like, "Bake on Monday, mend on Tuesday, wash on Wednesday"...and of course I can't remember the rest.  After this past week, however, I am certain that ranting went right along with the washing.  It would take some serious motivation (or frustration) to wash all the clothes on an old scrub board, and let me tell you, I have it right now.  Maybe that's why I bake so much and still haven't gotten a mixer-I take it all out in the mixing and kneading.
So what am I all worked up about?  Here's the list:
I took the boys to the store with me to finish getting Halloween things and look at present ideas for Nadia.  They were pretty excited to come with me, until it was time to look for stuff for Miss N.  Brandon asked why couldn't we just get her a card and be done, because there were toys for boys to look at the next aisle over.  I almost told him that it was a great idea, and we'd do it for him, too, but he'd already had one meltdown in the store.
What was that from?  From me telling him I wasn't buying Caleb a Star Wars Clone costume for $20.  He was a little upset, and then decided that maybe it was okay if Caleb went as an elephant or pea pod instead.  Umm, no, those were all still $15 to $20, and why am I spending that on something Caleb will wear for MAYBE 3 hours one evening?  He has a pair of overalls, and pair that with a good plaid shirt and one of the dress up hats, we have a cute little farmer.  Apparently, this wasn't good enough, and thus was born the first meltdown.
Not to leave anyone out, I must confess that I also had a meltdown when I realized how much we were spending on Halloween.  Who knew that an angel, 2 ninjas and a farmer would be so spendy?  And time consuming?  Or am I just being the Grinch of Halloween since we just finished off paying the children's dental bill?
That of course left Ben being the only mature one of the group that evening.  So now I will tattle on him.  What is the deal with 3 year olds cuddling up to you when they are sick?  And then whispering in your ear, "My mouth is hot," just before the tidal wave bursts the dam?  Huh?  What did we ever do to you (besides the whole potty training debacle) to deserve that?  And why do they always always ALWAYS eat or drink something red right before they spew?  Fortunately, this time it was Cliff and not me.  Hey, I call it like I see it, babe, and I still had to clean up the whole mess, so we're at least even on this one.
Family Home Evening this week was a painful experience as well.  I thought we would talk about Moses freeing the Isrealites, and how when we do what the prophet says, we stay safe.  Unfortunately, I went way too far in the background story, and they lost attention until the Angel of Death came around.  Then we got all kinds of questions.
"So the blood was on the door or on the door frame?  'Cause that would be confusing if it was on the door."
"Does Jesus kill us if we don't obey?"
"Is there a real Angel of Death?  Does he still look around doors?"
"But if it's night, how does the Angel know if there's blood or not?"
I kid you not, these were all questions asked and then answered.  But not by me, because at that point, I was just trying to wrap it up and not kill any one after being either interrupted or ignored the entire lesson.  I will not stray from the Gospel Art Kit lesson again.
Well, I just heard the timer.  Time to take another loaf out and punch, er I mean put another loaf in the oven...

M is for Masochism

As the mother of 4 children, I am asked the following question:  "Why?"  I know, that surprises some of you, but people do ask me why I have 4 children, and if they are truly brave, cringe as they ask the follow-up, "Will you have more?" 
There is just one answer to both questions:  I am a masochist.  It is the reason I became a mother in the first place.  Why else would I purposely decide to go through at least 10 years of short hair and write "Not Tissue"  on the lower half of all my pants?
I have joined a preschool group.  Or more accurately, I have volunteered to help teach 5 smiling terrors once a month, with a 3 week reprieve between torture sessions.  Now, those of you who have not fallen off your chairs laughing at this are probably wondering what the big deal is.  Well, it's pretty simple: I am not a teacher.  I am an excellent enforcer, as my children will all tell you, but I am still learning how to teach.  Except for the whole slow neck roll with lots of cracking noises, I could probably teach that, but once again, that's because I am an enforcer. 
Monday was my first teaching experience.  We did F is for Fire Fighter.  I was going with F is for Fish or Frog at first, but couldn't find enough stuff for younger children.  The boys came over at 10, and were slated to leave at 11:30.  I was trying to not get too nervous and convince myself it would be like educational babysitting, and that it would go by in a flash.
At 11:45, all the boys were out the door, and it was safe for me to curl up in a ball and cry.  In a different room than Ben of course, because he had a great time.  We played Smoke, Smoke, Fire (Duck, Duck, Goose), read books about fire fighters and fire safety, and watched a video about a fire fighter and his equipment. At the end, the boys got fire fighter badges and free time to just play.
Sounds like a pretty normal, somewhat educational preschool experience, right?  Now remember that there are FIVE of them, and they are all BOYS.  I also had a little screamer named Caleb who wanted to be held the entire time.  I had to hide the trains, keep attention focused, make sure no one cried (too hard, anyway), and  keep them all in a similar condition to when they arrived.  That is EXHAUSTING work!  I don't know how teachers do it!
So, in two weeks I am in charge of the letter H.  Any ideas? Or ways to keep my sanity that don't involve chairs and duct tape?