Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Okay, it is time for dinner and time to put on the costumes and I'm still trying to clear the breakfast dishes.  If that's not scary on Halloween, I don't know what is. 

But I thought I'd throw y'all a life line because that's the kind of person I am.  If you need a last, I mean very last minute costume idea, I've got your back.  Or you could consider this really, really early help for Halloween 2012. 

Just to make it fun, I'm not going to tell you what the costume is--use your imagination folks, dust off the cobwebs and make your guesses in the comments section.  :)

Have fun, and happy haunting.

1

2 (Yes, that is underwear around my waist
and the lovely Lila in my arms)

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

For the Record

Just for the record, in case you are wondering after my last post, I'm not.  Definitely not.

Cause what could be scarier than this at my age?

That's all.

Blahgging

Blah.  Blahgging.  I mean blogging, which in case you haven't noticed I haven't done for a spell because folks, I've been busy. 

First our whole family spoke in church which requires a wee bit of perspiration preparation.  This phenomenon happens when you think things like, Quin and Bree are blessing their baby, the cute LILA in case you've forgotten, I hope the speakers are good and then your phone rings. . ." 

For the those of you who haven't been to an L.D.S. (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/Mormon--and holy canoly if I didn't just find out that my whole life I thought I was a Christian but according to Pastor Robert Jeffress I'm not-- but that's another blog) sacrament meeting/church service we have a lay ministry which means sometimes people like me are asked to speak in church which usually gives people like you a good laugh especially when I don't wear matching shoes or when my daughter, yes Cool Beans, tells the whole congregation that I am pregnant and everybody looks horrified--- and then she says just kidding, my mom's too old to have a baby and everybody laughs hysterically because what could be funnier than the thought of a 46 year old woman with a bun in the oven?

But before I was roasted in church, I spent Saturday cleaning up the Pleasant Green Cemetery in Magna, UT with 150 youth because that's what us Mormon cult members do to raise cain on a Saturday morning in October if we're not making soap with our sister-wives.  Sheesh.

Then that evening, my second oldest daughter who has never had a boy-friend until this past summer, was proposed to by the very charming Landon Benson who treats her like she is the reason he breathes--sigh . . .  So now I am planning a wedding when I can't even plan dinner.  But at the end of the day we eat something, so the wedding will be good, right?  Or at least we won't be hungry.

This is the first time ANYBODY has seen Cassie kiss someone or something besides her pet bird.  It looks like she's knows what she's doing. . .

Next I went to see my cute grandkids in Phoenix, adorable Charlotte who thinks she is a Lion and Marcus who is the epitome of squishy goodness and gets goose bumps when I stroke his cheek.  I also shot some large, powerful assault (is there any other kind?) rifles at targets which I was 100% accurate at missing.  But I looked "bad" which my kids tell me is good.

I also got introduced to this thing called Pinterest which is like Google crack especially when you are planning a wedding, or making thinking about making dinner, or avoiding blogging.

Cool Beans

Tonight I want to blog about my daughter "Cool Beans."  That's the name she uses to comment on my blog because she thinks she is so darn funny. 

After school a couple of days ago, she was stealing Tess' pizza.  Tess had a melt-down because this is what middle-schoolers do after they've spent a day in the middle school jungle of awkward puberty and low self-esteem.  Of course Morganne thinks there's nothing funnier than to watch all 90 lbs. of T fight for pizza.  Tess is yelling and then I chime in with the good old stand-by, "Stop teasing your sister or I'll cut your arms off." 

Morganne looks sullen for a moment then says, "Can't you guys just love me in spite of my, a what's it called, falsies?"

Bwahahahaha.  That girl is a crack-up.  This moment alone is worth the not so stellar score she got on the English section of the ACT.

However, this is the same girl who had her nice, fairly new cell phone stolen and did not make a production of it.  She laughed it off, went to the T-Mobile store and took care of the whole problem herself.  She's complained less about having her cell phone stolen than I complain about misplacing mine.

Ouch.

This is the same girl who in her basketball game tonight, tells the younger guard who has never played in a varsity game (Cool Beans has played varsity for 3 years), to bring the ball up the court and run a play.  The girl says, no, you do it, and throws the ball back to C.B.  C.B. calls time out with 50 seconds left in the game (we're up by 30 points), pumps the younger player full of confidence, who then runs the play and ends up scoring. 

Yes, I like that girl, in spite of her falsies.

And if they had a perspective section on the ACT she would nail it.

Cool Beans with her new niece, Lila

Something Worth Crying About

I wanted to post something really witty and clever that would make you laugh and make you think I was witty and clever but the truth is I just figured out how to work my dvd player this month and how is that witty and clever?

Mostly I am just singing Joseph songs in my head that sound really great in there and then I open my mouth and well, if Joseph could hear me I think he would be mostly glad to be sold into slavery and not have to listen to my singing. . . sigh. . .

I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on my birthday 6-ish weeks ago.  You probably missed my birthday post because I didn't write it because I was just not feeling celebratory this year because who's to say that avoiding death and gaining a few pounds are great accomplishments?  Anywho, my friend called on my birthday and offered me tickets to Joseph because she couldn't use them.   I snatched those puppies up because that happpens to be my very favorite musical mostly because it is less than 2 hours long and the only corny songs in it are supposed to be corny.

Imagine my great surprise when the opening number started and I felt this huge building and swelling inside  that pushed the moisture right out of me just like the water show at the Bellagio, only it wasn't pretty.  It was mostly blubbery.  I attributed this to old-age, p.m.s., and Joseph's amazingly cut abs. 

But alas, when we took the kids 3 weeks later to see the show because we thought it was so awesome, the same thing happened.  I was a wreck, an emotional wreck.  Now I like to have a good cry, but not so much in public. 

I have since analyzed my emotional state and I have a theory.  This is the part where I wax all religious so I'm warning you.  Anywho, when I wasn't laughing at Joseph's brothers singing silly songs about Joseph wrassling with a goat, or those Canaan days, I was moved by the power of the story.  God knew Joseph.  Even in his darkest hours, God had a plan.  Joseph couldn't see it; I doubt he could fully imagine it.  But the plan was there.  And since God is no respecter of persons, this gives me great hope that God has a plan for me and for my friend in a wheelchair and for the orphans in Mexico and the lepers in India. 

Redemption.  Another powerful theme in Joseph.  Believe you me I was feeling the love when Joseph forgave his brothers and they could escape that awful nightmare of guilt they must have lived the last several years.  I never sold a sibling into slavery, but I did pin my sister to the ground and paint her entire face with peanut butter while I was babysitting.  She deserved it--just like Joseph.  She never told.  I don't think I ever apologized.  Oh, I'm sure I've done much worse.  Forgiveness folks is happy news.  The best kind of news.  The kind of news that leaves you crying for joy in the middle of a crowded theater.

Subbing

Right now I'm wondering why I wrote 40 something in my About Me section of my blog because before I know it I'll have to change it to 50 something then 60 something--and still trying to figure out what I want to be besides old when I grow up.

Currently I have chosen the glamorous job of substitute teacher.  Not a real teacher because then I would have to do lesson plans and go to parent teacher conferences and do beaucoup de paper work which is right up there with shaving my legs and going to the dentist.  But today I subbed in 2nd grade and they said I was the nicest sub they'd ever had (how many subs can you have by the beginning of 2nd grade?) and they wished I could be their real teacher probably because their real teacher does not play the quiet game with them or do the Happy Dance.  And what's not to be happy about when you are in 2nd grade and you get to go to recess and eat corn dogs for lunch and read Junie B. Jones?

But sometimes subbing is not so great like when you are the ONLY teacher on recess duty and somebody is wetting their pants (besides you because you haven't had a break all day) and somebody else has playground gravel in their knees and you cannot let them into the school because you cannot be trusted with a key because you might run to Home Depot during lunch and make a copy of the key and break into the school at night and steal all of the Rubber Cement because man oh man is that stuff fun. But you can be trusted to protect 100 second-second graders from any gunmen or raving lunatics who may invade the playground.  And protect them you will because you are making so much money and they love you more than their own teacher because you can do one mean Happy Dance.

Subbing is also not great when you are at the middle school and your students ask if your grand kids go to their school and you put a big black mark by their names and then try to laugh it off, telling yourself how foolish middle schoolers are, and then the teacher in the next classroom introduces himself and he is one of your children's childhood friends. . . or when you are subbing a special ed class and somebody asks you if you are in the class. . .

But it's all good because at the end of the day you turn in your badge, go home, eat chocolate chips with handfuls of marshmallows because you haven't had time to go to the store and buy anything else, tell your son, who says you are the meanest mom in the world, that Mrs. W's second-grade class thinks you're the bomb-diggety, blog about your day, and wait for that big ol' fat pay check to come.

Not in my Backyard--But Feel Free to Come Inside

Last week I came home from running errands as opposed to real running which makes you sweaty, short of breath and gives you shin splints.The errands I run are mostly things like taking back 2 week over-due library books, buying milk because we've been out for 3 days,and running the kiddy shuttle. 

But I squirrel. . . Anywhoo, in my cul-de-sac there were several police cars, okay two, but it's a little cul-de-sac, another car and a 20 year-oldish, non-hoodlumish looking young man up against one of the police cars having a bright light shined in his baby face.

This was big news in my quiet little neighborhood so I opened the front door and said, "Hello family (minus the husband because he was at work), have you looked outside?  There are police cars in our circle."

They said, "Yeah, we know.  They've already searched the backyard for drugs."

Apparently, our neighbor who is a policeman saw a suspicious car and in the "hood" and pulled up behind it.  He got out and looked in the backseat and I guess the non-hoodlumish looking 20 something-year-old was mixing drugs in the backseat which apparently is not at all like mixing ingredients for cookies or colors for a painting.  He bolted, ran through the school yard, hopped our neighbor's fence and ran across his yard and then hopped our fence and ran through our yard and then was caught in my cul-de-sac.

The police suspected that he tossed the drugs, which were in a red balloon, during the chase.  Hence the search in our backyard.  My kids were all tres excited and participated in the drug hunt with more enthusiasm than last year's Easter Egg Hunt. They found several pieces of balloon from summer water fights, inedible Tootsie Rolls, headless action-figures and tennis balls, but alas--no drugs.  So lucky me I have a drug-free backyard because he threw them in someone else's backyard or maybe this explains why my dog has been so darn happy. . .  

I wanted my children, who never lock the doors, to be just a leetle bit fearful, a leetle bit traumatized, a leetle bit repentant.  I whipped out my trusty pointer finger and commenced with the "What If" lecture.  "What if that crazed druggie had just slipped in the back door?  What if he decided to take hostages?" Point, point, point.

What I wanted, was expecting was this: Oh mom, we're so sorry.  You are always right.  I don't know why we ever ignore your wise counsel.  We'll never leave the door unlocked again.  No NEVER!

This scene should be followed by extreme groveling, crying, and promises for clean rooms, chocolate and foot-rubs.

But alas, this is what I got: But he didn't come in. 

These kids are quick and witty I tell you.

When the biggest kid of all, and the loudest advocate of unlocked doors-- my husband got home, and I told him the whole scary tale ending with the merits of locking doors and a little bit more finger pointing, he said, "I don't think we have anything to worry about."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, in 26 years of marriage, this is the first time a crazed drug dealer has run through our backyard without coming in the house.  I think we're good for another 26 years," he said.

Help Yourself

I loved reading Brittany's posts last week about gratitude.  Focusing on someone else's problems is always a great shot in the arm for poor-me-syndrome.  It's like the man who feels sorry for himself because he has no shoes, until he meets the man who has no feet.  I have feet and I have shoes--more than one pair, so I am one lucky chick.

A couple of years ago we took a family vacation to Mexico to work in an orphanage.  We took 5 of our 7 children, the oldest being 19, the youngest 8.  We bent rebar, mixed cement, plastered walls, painted out-buildings and did general clean-up.  After a good day's work, we played with our new friends.  We rode bikes with the toddlers and small children and cuddled the sweet babies in the nursery.  We went swimming, played "street" hockey and soccer.  After a week of hard work and sleeping on a cement floor, my children, even the 8 year-old said it was the best vacation they'd ever had and yes, we had been to Disneyland just a few months before.

So, to get to the point, serving is fun and this past weekend my family got to have lots of fun.  Friday evening we were able, with our ward (church group), to help host the carnival for the Kauri Sue Hamilton School.  This is a school for kids with special needs. Saturday we were able to run participate in the Kickin' it for Kendra 5k.  Even my 11 year-old son who complained when we woke him up early and said his body ached all over, had a great time. 

Bottom line is, when you help someone else, you're really helping yourself.

Tess playing "street" hockey

Morganne and Bri riding bikes with the toddlers

Morganne playing soccer--me in the background being goalie

Me and my sister-in-law Robyn standing by a building we just painted

Bri, in the background, plastering walls

Me, visiting the nursery

Cassie, crafting with her new friends

Luke painting rocks

Ric with his brother Rod working with cement

Buckle Up For Safety and Other Reasons. . .

Several years ago when my oldest daughter was 5 or 6, she was in the backseat of the car with her brother while I was driving on a busy road.  We stopped at a traffic light and a white, ghastly butt appeared in the rear window of the car ahead of us.  The mooner was targeting the car to my left.  Unfortunately, we got a better view than the intended victim.

Not being able to do much, I used this as a teaching moment.  "That man is doing a very bad thing.  We should never do that."

From the backseat my daughter agreed with me.  "Yeah, he took off his seat belt."

I don't know why I've been thinking about that story.  Maybe it's because my "baby" turned 11 yesterday and the oldest will turn 25 on Thursday.  Have I taught them anything?  Did they learn what I was trying to teach them?

Or are they picking up all the wrong things like when my 2nd daughter said to me, "We don't say bad words like dang or shoot.  We only say words like crap. . ." 

So, kids, if you are reading, here's some quick reminders:

It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice. 

Never suppress a generous thought.

Don't hate people.  It takes too much energy and makes you ugly.

Fair is a place you take a pig and you win a prize.  Life is not fair.

Let other people win.  It makes them feel good and it will make you feel good too.

If not now, when?  If not you, then who?

Your integrity and your morals should never be compromised.

Play hard.

Work harder.

Don't do stupid things.

And always wear your seat belt.

I am a Winner Winner

The last thing I won was a French dictionary playing bingo in my 7th grade French class.  The thrill of that victory has kept me going all these years, but alas, I must admit that it was wearing thin.  So, I was tres (that means very in French) excited to be presented with these two awards from Cortney.  Click on her name and you'll be wisked away to her cute blog.

If I knew how in the heck to get these bad-boys on my side-bar, I would.  But I'm sure some of you more experienced bloggers, or my 11 year-old can tell me.

As for my acceptance speech, I would like to thank my husband who serves as my right arm and my left brain and who would be mortified if he knew that I was blogging about him again.  I would also like to thank my daughter "cool beans" for leaving such insightful comments on my blog.  And I certainly have to thank my entire family, immediate and extended, my funny neighbor whose initials are Raelynn, and my many pets and Costco for giving me so many things to blog about. 

Aaahhh, merci beaucoup (Dang where's that dictionary? Does beaucoup have an e on the end???) 

Now it's my turn to pass it on. By accepting these, I agree to:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me. -check

2. Share 7 random facts about myself. -will do

3. Pass the award to 5 blogger friends -will do

4. Contact and congratulate the nominated blogs. -will do



7 Random Facts About Myself in addition to the 10ish random facts I previously shared.  (It's a good thing I am so random.)
 
1.  I am terrified of the ocean, but if I could be any animal I'd be a whale.
2.  I have 7 children and between them and me, we've had 18 broken arms.  (My husband does not break things.  He finds and fixes things.)  "Cool Beans" has had 7 of them.  (And yes, I still have custody of my children.)
3.  My favorite vacations have been working in an orphanage in Mexico and re-enacting pioneer treks.
4.  I had a lot of pets growing up.  My brothers and I counted how many animals (of all different sorts and  cow sizes--did I say cow?) are buried in the yard of the house we grew up in and we got well over 50.  Can you say pet cemetery?
5.  I have no sense of direction.  I could get lost in my own house.
6.  I am a Mormon.
7.  I was on the show Romper Room and was reprimanded by Miss Julie for cheating during the game Sometimes I'm Small. . .  It took a long time to get over that one.

Voila, here is who I am passing the awards to:
(drum roll)
And the winners are in no particular order:

Robyn http://campbelltabletalk.blogspot.com/
Madi  http://madilynnslife.blogspot.com/
Brittany http://mylifeherdingcats.blogspot.com/
Eliza http://ourvoiceteen.blogspot.com/
Kathy http://mishmashmom.blogspot.com/