Nov. 21st - 27th

The week wasn't to bad, maybe my holidays are looking up instead of becoming busier, that would be OK with me. Monday was a normal day, kids went to school and TJ and I hung out, that poor little girl is so very bored with her mom. I need to figure out how to put her in preschool next year, just so she has someone to socialize with besides me. Besides my Knightin, who needed the help and got free preschool through the state, I haven't put any of my kids in preschool, and I don't regret it. I have been able to put that same money into other spots, and my kids are among the top students in their class. It just has never been a priority for me. I can think of a thousand other places $700-$1000 could go then to pre-school. So this is very hard for me to even consider, but I just don't know if I can entertain her for a whole nether year after this one. We'll see, I will probably talk myself out of it, and just work through her boredom. Anyway enough about that, so Monday night I went with Todd to see "Fiddler on the Roof". He wanted to see it and he actually got off in enough time to make it. We had another date, wow, one on Sat. then again on Monday! The kids were off with a 5 day weekend. It was pretty lax, cleaned, played, read books and watched movies. I did go out and pick up some glue traps to catch some more stinkin' mice, and by that evening we caught 2 more. I think we might have actually got them all this time. That is 8 in all, in the last couple of months. If anyone is wondering, I really, really , really dislike mice and rats. Wed. evening was taken up with starting things for our Thanksgiving dinner that needed to be done the day before, then we watched a movie together as a family. Thursday was spent cooking, cooking, cooking for dinner. My parents, Grandmother and brother joined us for dinner. My family isn't the biggest fans of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, so we twisted it up a bit. We had London Broil, ciabatta bread, fanned roasted potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, spinach artichoke dip, pretzel strawberry jello, stuffing, and then some cranberry sauce for Todd. It was all good, except maybe the meat, it was fine, but I didn't get it cooked just right, but I think I did pretty good, considering  I hate cooking. I haven't decided it was all worth it yet though. I still am pushing for going out next year again, but I think we will go the night before and start a different fun tradition of sorts for the day of. We'll see!

 I don't have any nice dishes, they just get broken in my house. So this is our set up for dinner.

 Family getting ready to stuff ourselves with yummy food.

 Tay giving my Parents and Grandma a little mini concert on her cello! She is doing so amazing with it!

 So, I don't think we knew how much Knightin liked pumpkin pie. This was what we found a little later Thursday evening. I guess Knightin kept helping himself to finger fulls of the custard. Hahahaha, got to love that little boy.

Friday was another day of relaxing. We had yummy leftovers all day, with a good start of pie and jello salad for breakfast. I know, I know, bad mom moment, but hey, we are on holiday and my kids thought I was a cool mom! Then we cleaned up and the rest of the day was spent building and playing in forts.

 My kids fort, they had so much fun.

Tay spent some time with my brother AJ who is in the process of making family Christmas gifts, he plays Santa Christmas Eve. Tay and KaDi are his elves. Todd got home a little before 2 ( can you feel my shock), and the 2 of us went over and got my grandma set up on skype, so she can talk to her daughter in China. Friday night we started working on Christmas gifts for the grandparents and then closed the night with watching movies.

Sat. was spent relaxing, having fun, crafting, drawing, and continuing to work on Christmas gifts. Todd got to draw, which it has been a long time, so he was in heaven.

 Todd at his Computer drawing. I can't wait until he can do it more often again.

Kids crafting with old magazines!

  

Other things that  have happened this week. We sold Todds old car.

 Glad to be done with it, and now to have a reliable one!

Isn't it pertty?

We moved the couch out of the playroom area, and moved the treadmill in it's spot, the couch is up for sell, hopefully will go soon.

We discovered that we have more moles and this time some Gophers too. Time to go get some poison/bait stuff before the snow sets in. I got to visit with 2 of my favorite ladies this week, and Knightin had a friend over, we haven't really tried that yet with him. He had a blast, they were certainly noisy, but I can deal with happy noise.

Good Week!

3rd week of Nov.

So, once every other month or so, I get really depressed about my house. I try to stay upbeat, but then I get into a cleaning project, or de-cluttering ( which is what it was this time) and I remember how small my house is for our size of family and the things we do in our life. You would think 1500 sq. ft. would be big enough, heck the pioneers had 10 kids all in a one  room house with a loft, I should be able to do 5 kids in 1500 sq. ft. right? Well, I do survive, and have for over 4 years now and will survive for the rest of my life if I have to, but it is hard. Todd and I love art, so we have plenty of stuff to keep us up in being able to do what we want, but still would prefer more, like a drawing table for Todd, yeah like we have room for that. Of course we have all kinds of modern conveniences that that pioneers didn't have so right there we need something bigger. We have camping gear that we really don't have room for and tools, we have a treadmill that has to go in the living room, which I hate it being there. Then there is the start of our food storage, behind the couch, under beds, classic Mormon family. Our kids don't get a lot of toys for birthdays or Christmas, we do the book thing a lot or outdoor stuff, I don't think they are suffering, but sometimes I wish I could do a little bit more. I just do not have room for that kind stuff. One thing I like about it is, we have had to figure out how to be more creative in our fun. Sometimes though I just want the easy out. Any way I have been de-cluttering again, I have to do it often, and got all depressed because I don't have a place for so many things, so in tears I head to my sisters for my quartly uplift. Even though we can't really solve the too small house, without money, she always makes me feel a lot better and we usually come up with a few simple solutions, so that I can face my house again and move forward. Plus she reminds me of all my many blessings that I do have. If a small house was the only problem of so many in the world, the world would be in a better place right now. I am truly blessed with all I have. So that is how my week started. The rest of the week went better, and we even did some fun stuff or at least I did, I don't know if I can speak for all my kids and husband.

Pack Night was on Wed. great success and the boys had so much fun. We made cards for our local nursing home, played speed, and practiced the flag ceremony. Thursday morning I went to the counties Benifit fair with Todd and TJ. We told TJ it wasn't the fun kind of fair, but I am not sure she agreed when all was said and done. The vendors dotted  over her and she got a bag full of goodies, whats not to love about that. Then that night I went over and showed our 2nd counselor of the bishopric how to re-charter the cub-scouts. Check one more thing off my many things that I was doing for cub-scouts. So many things have been lifted off my shoulders. Friday was spent making sure Todd and Ki had everything for their camp-out and editing pictures of my sisters kids so that she could give them to her in-laws at Thanksgiving.  Todd actually got off a little after 1 and headed home, that was a treat. I got to see him for almost 2 hours before he headed off to the hot springs with Ki. This was Ki's very first Scout camp-out and what a fun one for him, especially since his dad got to go as well. They had a fun, but cold time. He even got a black eye, good times!

 If you look closely at the pictures, you can see that it was snowing. The "Hot Pots" are around 100 degrees so you are fine in the pots, but what about when you get out? Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

 Todd thought it would fun to where his hat in the pots!

You can't really see Ki's start of a simple black eye, but you can tell that it is a little swollen. One of the boys tripped in front of him and Ki ended up with his friends foot in his eye. Todd said they first thing they thought of wasn't how it hurt, or sorries it was," cool, lets go get a picture of your eye"!! Boys, gotta love them! Friday night I got to go with my sister (no kids) to the high school play. They were doing "Fiddler on the Roof" Bry my Nephew had the lead of Tevea. I thought he did really well, it was fun to watch him.

The song was long enough, that I didn't get the whole thing in one clip. My DSLR will only do a few minutes at a time. Here is the last part of "If I Were a Rich Man" You can see a little of his dance.

Sat. after Todd got home we went on a real date, not lets get grocery shopping done while we spend time together kind of date. We actually went to a concert.

 We saw the concert at the Covey Center

Todd checking out some of the art galleries.

A friend ended up with a couple extra tickets for the group "Vocal Point" An A Capella group from BYU. They had been on the TV show "Sing-Off" I didn't know much about them except what little through Audrey. Todd and I both enjoyed it, they were a fun group to watch and listen to.Very entertaining! After the concert, we took advantage that we were in the Provo area and did some Christmas shopping and then yes we did go to the grocery store. We hadn't bought any of our food for Thanksgiving yet, so you know we kind of need to do it. It was a good night until we got the text from Tay, saying when she got home from doing Baptisms at the temple,  the babies had gotten into her room and made a mess. She said it looked like it had rained nail polish then a tornado hit. You can imagine what my mind was thinking, I was praying that Tay was exaggerating. Thank goodness she was. It wasn't good, but not as bad as I had imagined.

 We have spots like this in several areas on Tay's floor now, but it certainly didn't look like it rained nail polish, and a few of her shoes and a couple of items of clothing got nail polish on them.

This was the worst spot, but it was an old dresser that we are planning to re-due anyway. TJ had a lot on her and her clothes, I am just grateful that is all that happened, but I really need to not leave Ki in charge anymore, to many bad things happen when he babysits!

Love the boy to death, he just can't focus well enough!

Sunday was a good day. Good meetings at church. I got my visiting teaching in with 2 ladies that I adore, and I got to go with Todd to give blessings to a couple of friends, that just needed some extra comfort and reassures in their life. I am so grateful for a husband who holds the priesthood and feels comfortable using it. I don't know for sure what our friends got out of the blessings. I hope they got what they needed for the time, but my husband was flying high after them. Maybe he need to give them just as much. He told them, as well as continued to talk about the blessings after we got home, that there is one other time that, he felt heaven so close, and that was during a youth trip/activity were they all went out to pray and get answers on their own. He felt like heaven was open to him at the time, and he had that same feeling yesterday. He was reminded again yesterday, how much he loves the gospel and how much we are being watched out for and how much Heavenly Father is really right there when we need him. He is not this intangible thing that is unreachable. Todd is such an amazing example to me and my family.

Slow Week, Yeah!!!!

Kind of slow week overall, I wasn't feeling on the top of the world so it was nice to have some time to take it easy. I even got some good reading in. Still had to do all the normal mom things and my calling in cub scouts, but I didn't feel like I was being pulled in so many directions this week. I would like to say that I took advantage of the slow week and deep cleaned stuff in my house, but that wouldn't be me. I just really hate to clean, so other then keeping things clutter free and tidy, it take desperate needs for me to go the extra mile on house cleaning. I would like to like it better, maybe someday! We did have a couple of things worth mentioning this week, and that was our Veteran's day program on Friday at the Elem. school. It is always a good program and I always cry, I am an emotional baby. Those kind of things just get to me, especially when my dad stands up during the "Military Melody". I was with my dad today and we were talking about the program, and he asked me, "What do you think happens between that Elem. school age ( they have such a spirit and a love for America at this age) and when the kids become adult that makes so many of them forget and start having such a nonchalant attitude towards our country and what it means to be an American." I wish I new, but I agree, there does seem to be a lack of patriotism in the world today. Many still care, but many do not. I hope that my children will always care! 

The next notable thing, is that Todd and I went shopping yesterday to by him a new car. This was a very hard thing for Todd to do, we did not want a car payment, but it was brought to my attention, that we really needed to think about getting Todd a reliable car to commute in ( I was complaining about having to fix Todd's car again), that I could probably save enough in gas to pay for the car payment. I went home (this was a few weeks ago) and started doing some research and some figuring, and found out that Todd was getting on a average about 13-14 MPG, and he is not driving a truck. I new we were getting bad gas mileage, but I didn't think it was that bad. So yes we definitely could cover a car payment with the money we saved in gas. I researched cars. I found out approximately how much insurance would go up, looked into what gas mileage we would want, and found out the max payment we could have and still come out exactly the same or better the we are doing with his old car. I am proud to say we accomplished this task, though it took all day,  we are about $30 better off then we were. Yeah, a fairly new car and less money going out of our pocket, can't beat that. On top of it all , Todd has for the first time in like 10 years, AC, music, interior that is all in good repair, and everything works. He feels very spoiled and he keeps saying he doesn't deserve it, I think is does and he is enjoying it, at least the few times he has driven it so far. So that is us for another week, slow but still full!

 They only used the 4th and 5th graders this year. Ki had a speaking part and he told us afterwards that he has never felt so scared. We have the "American Legion" from Nephi come each year and they preform the a gun salute for us. The kids love it! It is the first year one of my kids didn't cry, maybe it was because Grandpa was holding her and helping her feel safe.

My dad is so cute! My dad is a USMC Vietnam Vet. He proudly comes every year to the programs for his grandchildren. They are all very proud of him for serving his country.

"God Bless America"

"Military Melody"

Gun Salute!

I love these 2 songs that they do. They did a little flag routine to Neil Diamonds "America" which was great. I would be happy if I just heard those songs every year, well they  could add on Lee Greenwoods "God Bless the USA" That one makes me cry too!

 Todd's new ride. I can't say that we would have ever picked red on purpose, it's a little to bright and flashy for me, but hey it works, and it's not like you get to always pick and choose what color you want when buying used. '09' Chevy Cobalt.

I wanted to have him stand with the car, but I couldn't get him to just stand normal. Though if he did, it wouldn't be my husband! :)

Sharpie cleaning "TEST"!

So my post are usually about my family, because it is my journal, but yesterday after searching online I came across something so exciting for me that I decided to share, but I went a step further then my initial find. You see my 5 yr old has recently been a little obsessed with drawing all over our walls and anything else with our sharpie pens. I think I have them all hidden, but he finds them. So our walls,doors, table, dog crate and window seals had many a pictures that didn't belong there. I think we had gone through this with every child, so it isn't that I hadn't looked up how to remove permanent ink before, but this time around I was hoping that maybe there was something new. The other methods I had tried in the past, alcohol, WD40, toothpaste, hairspray, etc....., kind of worked , but often to get it all, it would start taking off paint, and many of them stink pretty bad. So, I was finding all the same solutions, but then happened upon a site that said if you didn't want to use all the harsh chemicals, you could try "Sunscreen". They said apply and wipe off.  Yeah right, I thought, if the other stuff didn't work why would this, but I had nothing to lose, so I tried it, and guess what? IT WORKED, and it worked better then anything else I had tried. On the textured surfaces I did have to scrub a bit, but my house is almost sharpie free.( I found a few more this morning! :) YEAHHHHH, what a great find, I will never go back to the other stuff again.

 Well, I slept good knowing what a find I found, but woke up thinking, how would it do in a side by side comparison with some of the other products. It had been awhile since I had cleaned sharpie, maybe they work comparable, but just a little more elbow grease was needed, after all I can't say that Sunscreen is the cheapest of all the ways to clean. So, I dung through my cupboards to see what of the different cleaners I had on hand, and set out to do the test myself. I went into my boys room, where they have completely ruined their window seal, so if something went wrong and it didn't all come off I wasn't ruining something that looked decent. Then I did it, I drew on the window seal with Sharpie, kind of scary, not something that I would recommend on a normal basis. Then I let it sit 30 minutes, just to make sure it was good and dry. Here are my results!

 My cleaners, Ooops, alcohol, awesome, toothpaste, hairspray and sunscreen.

 My sharpie drawings!

 I choose to not do any scrubbing, I put the cleaner on let it sit for a minute, then I wiped it off with a napkin. In the 1st round sunscreen by far did the best, then I thought toothpaste did pretty well, followed by awesome. All of them removed some, but it is going to take several more applications to get it off, if it even all comes off.

 This is the 2nd round. Again I applied the cleaners for 1 minute before wiping, much lighter. Sunscreen section is gone, toothpaste still in second followed by awesome.

Since there was no contest with the sunscreen, I decided not to keep working on them with their own cleaner until they came off. So I sprayed the whole thing with sunscreen, so I could finish cleaning. This brought me a new find. The original ink I cleaned off yesterday had been sitting a couple of weeks and came off beautifully. Yet this stuff that had only been sitting for 30ish minutes, but had other cleaners on it first. It did not all come off. The areas where the toothpaste and awesome were are completely clean now, but where the oops, alcohol and hairspray were seemed to have set into the paint and there is now, a very light ink stain still there. So if you want to clean off permanent ink, start with the sunscreen, otherwise you might set some of the ink in permanently. I am glad I used my boys window seal that has to be replaced anyway. (Yesterday this was one of the places I cleaned and it was 50% covered in ink, and all of it came clean ) One thing I do wonder though is lotion sunscreen vs. spray. That will be an experiment for the future.

Tay's First Concert

Taylar's first Concert. They played 3 songs, this was the last one and the one that Tay likes best. She gets to do a solo in the Christmas concert, she is so excited.

November

One week into Nov. and the weather is definitely telling us it is time for Winter now. We have had a couple of snows and the temps are staying low. Jackets are a needed thing heading for school now. I am never ready for the cold, just as I am never ready for the extreme heat. I admit it I am a wimp. Can't I just have spring and fall all year round? Oh well, life must go on, whether you have the perfect situation or not. Sunday for us last week, was a full day. I came home after sacrament with A sick TJ. We rested and I caught up on my blog, then when the kids got home we carved pumpkins, then had dinner, went to Taylars first YW in Excellence, then came home and celebrated Keltens birthday with Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle AJ. The kids had a blast as usual carving pumpkins, they get better every year. Taylar shared with everyone that fact that she is learning her cello at YW in Excellence, which she passed off a Individual Worth experience for it. It was a good night and I still can't believe she is growing up so fast. Kelten and I went out on a date Friday for his birthday, but we always do at least cake and ice cream with the grandparents, that gives them a chance to come and spend a little bit of time and give their present. Monday was filled with Halloween activities. Got up early to get make-up on the kids, before they headed off to school. TJ and I ran some errands before we went to the school for Knightin's Halloween parade, then home and back to the school at 1:30 for the bigger kids parade. Then they rushed around after school getting work and homework done before 5 so we could go to trunk-or-treat, then home to have are own Halloween party, with creepy food and scarey movies. The kids enjoyed eating Bloody fingers, mashed brains, werewolf brains, mummy wraps dried skin and drinking pumpkin juice and bats blood.(the kids named all our fun little finger foods). Tues and Wed were filled with normal routine and lots of scouts. Ki got his scout badge passed off and is now working on his tenderfoot. They go camping in a couple of weeks and he is so excited. The wolves and bear did their last combined activity, Yeah we have new leaders, and they are going to be amazingly great. I am so excited and so are they. We did law enforcement and fire safety. The fire Chief was suppose to come over with the truck, but didn't show up, the boys were a little disappointed, but we had a Prison Deputy come to talk about safety and crime prevention and the boys had fun being handcuffed and getting finger printed. They rest of the week was filled with re-organizing our DVD collection and get them over to my sisters house (we are just having one big combined movie collection over at the family entertainment room there. Right now there is over 1300 movie, big collection, not bad.We also did parent te4acher conferences and grocery shopping. Saturday was spent pretty much doing nothing but watching movies, since we had a couple of sick people. Without Todd being able to do much, there wasn't a lot else to do. I didn't mind since I have been fighting sinus headaches for 2 weeks now, and it gave me an excuse to do nothing. This morning started out great by waking up an hour earlier then necessary, since I totally forgot about daylight savings time, oh well my kids have all kinds of time to read and work on Sunday stuff. TJ is still to sick to go to Primary, they don't like them in there if they have running noses and or coughs, she still has both even though she over all feels better. Todd is sicker today, whatever he has, which was already bad ( if anyone knows Todd, if he is willing to admit he is sick it is pretty darn sick) now has added on a sore throat and nauseousness. He didn't have enough enrgy to even get out of bed this morning, so I left him there, hoping that a lot of rest will help him feel well enough for work tomorrow, cause he never allows himself to stay home. I hope they send him home after the doctor leaves tomorrow. It should be a pretty lax day today, then back to craziness tomorrow. Have a great week!

 Tay getting her picture taken for YW playing her cello.

 Standing by her display on the Individual Worth table.

 The decorations.

 Taylar's star. There are 55 YW in our ward, thats a big group. The YM almost have as many and our Primary has hit 200. We have a lot of youth.

 Kelten getting ready to blow out his candles. Big 9 now. He was so excited cause now his bed time has up another 30 minutes.

 This are his gifts he bought on our date. New beanbag, a Lego alarm clock, new scripture bag and a bag of candy there buried.

 The next several pictures are the fruits of our craving labors. I think they turned out really fun this year. The 2 youngest had help but they other pretty much besides some couching did them on their own.

 Tay

 Ki

 Kelten

 Knightin

 TJ

 Todd

 Close-up of Tay's Monday make-up

 Kelten's new costume.

 TJ wanted to dress up for the parades,but didn't want to be the witch, so she was a fairy. She had wings, but the broke.

 Kindergarten Parade

 The rest of the school parade. Kelten

Ki