Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Two Trailer Park Girls Go Round The Outside

Cassidy: "I want to live in a trailer home."

Me: "Hmmmmm."

Cassidy: "And be home schooled."

Me: "Hmmmmm. Not really the life I had planned for us... but we each get our own dreams."

Monday, February 8, 2010

I Drive Myself Crazy

I'm about to break down and purchase some N*Sync songs from iTunes. It would be really great if somebody could talk me out of this since I will probably regret it in the morning.

Tough basketball game tonight. We were soundly beat. And my darling child walked away with the only technical foul of the night. He looked pretty confused when it all happened... which works in his favor since I enjoy an aggressive game, but I'll walk on the court and pull him out of the game myself if he purposefully hurts anybody.

Oooooooh. I sound like such a mom.

Now all I ask of tomorrow is that somebody work through our dirty clothes (hey, the dryer is fixed! that should help you out!), plan a couple of seminary lessons for me so I'm ahead of the game (don't forget to bake up some treats... they love that!), and change the sheets on my bed (it's only been... about four weeks. nothing gross about that at all.)

Sunday, February 7, 2010

I Need A Dress, A Nice Dress

So it was 10 pm and I had long since sent everybody to bed. Suddenly, I smell brownies baking in the kitchen. Curious. Turns out my children picked the perfect night to sneaky-bake-brownies because once I smelt them... I wanted them too.

On another curious note, is 'smelt' even a word? I was once an English major in college. It's not obvious, is it.

Here's a good story for you: Since the boys have their bedroom the furthest from mine and MySexyHusbands they can get away with staying up later than they are supposed to. Well, if they were quiet they could. But they aren't quiet so my first statement is actually false.

Anyway, the other night I barge in their room at midnight and allow Lucifer to take over my facial expressions for a moment and persuade them (in a ferocious manner) to go to bed. Finally. Once and for all.

And right before I stalk back out of their room I notice what they have been spending their time on... math. Math. Like, the kind you learn at school when you would rather be playing outside at recess. Max is teaching Cannon math. For fun. And Lucifer is gone now, so I can smile at how adorable my children are.

Then the next day after Cannon gets off the bus he tells me that his teacher has asked him not to use 'powers' anymore. I ask, "What are powers?" He says, "During math class today she was showing us 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5. So I told her that is 5 to the 5th power. She said not to use powers anymore, at least not at school. They are down the road a ways."

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Everyone Has A Motive

Max: I worked hard in Leadership class today.

Me: Really? What did you do?

Max: Emptied garbage cans and recycleables.

Me: So your school ultimately just needed more help with the janitorial duties, so they opened a class called Leadership to cull assistance from?

Max: Hey, I got milk squirted all over me when I was pulling the garbage sack out today. Don't downplay that.

Me: Well, you were definitely leading the way on that one, I doubt anybody fought you for that opportunity.

Max: (Said nothing at this point... just stared out the window. I'm pretty sure he was unimpressed with me.)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Love Is In The Air, Everywhere I Look Around

I need to download that song! It's from Strictly Ballroom if I am remembering correctly.

So Max pulled out the car ads from Sunday's paper and said, "Mom, I think it's time I start looking for a car."

Now I remember that he is still 14, some of you might even remember that he is 14... but Max himself has obviously forgotten.

On a side note he won his basketball game tonight, and it was a close game. Winning means donuts on the way home. Donuts if you win, dead silence for the ride if you don't. That's the parenting technique I espouse. For sports at least.

Max loves basketball so much that last week when his brother was sick with the flu and throwing up, Max found a way to convince Cannon to brave the drive to his game. MySexyHusband wasn't around, Max couldn't go without a ride, Cass was at basketball.

And it worked. Cannon climbed into the car with his throw-up bucket, so of course Ellie wanted one too. I thought it was so cute that she wanted to be like her older brother even when he was sick, until she began throwing up for real also. Longest game of my life.

30 minutes to the game, 1 hour waiting out in the car with two children throwing up and one child watching a movie, 30 minutes back home. All in all, I emptied throw-up buckets six times that night. Max properly thanked us all and I figured, 'What the hay, we would have been doing the same thing if we'd stayed home anyways'. It ended up a heart-warming evening, sort of like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

It's February! I Just Noticed!

Today was laundry day. All. Day. Long. And I loved it... every second. Because once again I joined the world of women (and men? oh, hahahahahahah who am I kidding anyway?) with working dryers. I have discovered that a washer is no good without a dryer. They are like... Oreos and milk. Heidi and Spencer. My car and it's battery. No good without each other.

Last week my dryer was broken which is why I "happily" drove 20 loads of laundry to the laundromat, spent $50 in quarters, and ran the battery to my suburban down letting Ellie and Simon watch a movie in the car for the third and final hour of "laundry fun".

Can you even imagine what it's like to finally finish all the washing, drying and folding of your laundry while juggling potty breaks and snacks, all the while using your best and most pleasant princess voice since you are, after all, in public only to climb in your car exhausted and sweaty AND IT WON'T TURN OVER!

This week? No dead batteries. Unless you count the ones in my computer after that horrible run-on sentence I will refer to as "the previous paragraph".

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Line Up People... It's Not That Hard!

So today, when an elderly couple tried to butt in front me at the Costco pizza line, I totally directed them to the back of the line. I told myself it was for the benefit of all the people in line behind me... but I think you all know the truth.

Latest favorite conversation overhead from the basement: Max has become superior at fake-crying his way the front of the Wii line when Ellie is playing her turn. She has too big a heart to turn him down.

UNTIL he played the alligator tears act one to many times and then she gave up on him/figured he was tricking her/finally didn't care any more and responded with "I hope you're not sad for too long" without even taking her eyes from the screen.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

:-)-]O=

Do you know how much weight one can gain just from eggnog?

I do.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Sharing The Warmth Of The Holidays

Somebody tried to take the hot chocolate mixes away from me tonight during the gift exchange at MySexyHusband's work Christmas party. They went home with a Snuggie instead. Oh yeah, that's what happens when you mess with me... you become the owner of a blanket with arms.

P.S. My college degree (and my "B" in Calculus at Utah State University) do not help with middle school math homework. So if that is what you are looking for I cannot be of service.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

A Pregnant Story While Not Actually Being Pregnant

Cassidy: "Mom says it hurts really bad when she has a baby."

Cannon: "No. She said it doesn't hurt, it feels more like a relief."

Me (with one eyebrow raised): "Is that what I told you?"

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Law of Moses Tonight

Cannon comes into my room tonight crying: Cassidy kicked me in the stomach!

Me: Go get your sister. (enter Cassidy and Cannon) Did you kick your brother?

Cassidy: Yes, but not as hard as I meant to.

Me: Why would you kick your brother?

Cassidy: Because he threw something at me.

Me: Cannon, did you throw stuff at your sister?

Cannon: Yes.

Me: You could have mentioned that earlier, would have saved me the last 10 minutes of my life... sounds like you deserve each other.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Pre-Apology

After a couple of recent time-outs Simon seems to be picking up on what situations require him to say he is sorry. This last time he yelled, "I'm sorry!" to Cannon right before he threw the magazine for his head.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Downloading Sister Hazel Today

So we're sitting in Sacrament Meeting at church this past Sunday, and of course my children are ranging between various levels of irreverent to really irreverent. The family sitting right in front of us are good friends of ours and really nice people so the dad passes back a paper boat he made for Simon to play with. And Simon is interested in the new plaything, especially when he sees that Ellie is very interested in it.

Now Simon is playing with his paper boat and Ellie is asking incessantly for a boat of her own, which I cannot provide her. I have a great many talents in life... and paper boat making is not one of them.

So I'm trying to keep her quiet but she finally gives up on me and tears a piece of paper out of her notebook, then taps the dad in front of us on the shoulder in a shy but persistent fashion. He isn't a dim man and understands immediately why she is handing him the paper, so he grabs it and begins folding. The problem is that he overthinks it and passes her a party hat instead of a boat. She took one look at the paper hat, drops her shoulders in retreat and says, "Oh, just forget about it."

Friday, November 6, 2009

I Only Live To Serve

The movie The Box: waste of time, waste of money, waste of energy, waste of brain cells... but totally worth the funny jokes made by everyone the rest of the night.

My favorite? When I came out of the restroom and my husband had put a thin trail of ketchup streaming out of his nose. ahahahahahah. You have to see to understand... although don't misunderstand me: I do NOT recommend spending money on this movie.

Don't Be Tardy For The Party...

New sign on Ellie's door:

Everyone Can Come In
NO DOGS
NO CATS
love, Ellie

I found this sign unusual since Ellie loves cats and dogs. In fact spends plenty of hours pretending to be "Fluffsy" as a daily routine. So I asked her why dogs and cats weren't welcome in her room, and her very logical answer, "Because I don't have any pet food."