Hope I Can Survive Three More

Last night number 4 participated in a fifth grade tradition in our community. He Gathered with over 5,000 other fifth graders in the Marriott center at Provo, Utah to participate in a patriotic singing, dancing extravaganza known as Hope of America. I must confess that seeing 5,000 fifth graders wearing appropriate colored t-shirts to form a giant united states flag in a yellow background is very impressive and I must also confess that patriotic songs with flags waving and flashlights involved makes me cry especially when one of the beautiful bright eyed fifth graders singing is mine.

We woke up to Benjamin singing the lyrics to America Rocks which I will try to get him to sing on camera for me to add later( ohh, aren't you excited a sideways video to look forward to). He was so excited and that made it all worth while. Adorable Hubby was not so excited this is his second year of attending and we have three more years to go. This was my third year of attending and we tried to recall, as we wandered around for 45 minutes trying to find seats, why Adorable hubby had missed last years fun, he came to the conclusion as we forged our way through the crowds that he might have been being a, "Hope of an Ass Hole" I giggled.

To understand why he might be anything less then an encouraging father you must imagine how many family members of varying age and ambulatory prowess are attached to each and every happy valley fifth grader and 500+ other varied dancers and performers. The math goes something like this,

Marriott Center Seats = 22,000 - Fifth Graders + performers (5,500) - Average of 4 family members per performer (22,000) - People in the community who think free + patriotic + Fifth Graders = Fun (250) - People who have never been but were convinced its a 'bucket list' must (192) - VIP's and others who gave a lot of money or might give a lot of money(87) Vendors, harried Marriott Center Staff (352) + random (but cute) guys handing out fliers with a smile (1) - Bored between semester BYU students who can't afford any other entertainment (29) - Campus Security (36) - Ron Paul for President supporters (15) - Bloggers for better writing skills...alright but you get the picture= Way Not Enough Seats.

You've got to get there by 5:30 to even hope for a decent seat that means leaving home at 4:45 because traffic and parking are so bad, oh and it doesn't start until 7:30ish depending on how many random Tai Kwan Do, Dance Studios and Singing Companies they have perform before hand. It's so crowded that families cling to each other desperate to not become separated. Last year it took so long for me to get to the rendezvous point with my fifth Grader that he was in tears. This year we sat in a reserved seating section but far enough to the middle that the Marriott employee who felt it her life mission to kick out the people sitting on the edges then gave up and started seating people in the section, couldn't get our attention. I have a few years to prepare a seating strategy for the next Hope of America wish me luck.

As we were driving to the Marriott center Benjamin looked around at all the traffic and people and said, "Wow It's gonna take like two hours to get home when everyone is trying to leave...I guess you could get up and head out before the last song then we could beat the crowd but since the last song is the best I don't know why anyone would do that". After watching in tears while 5,000 fifth graders sing "I Can Be A Light' in a darkened room with flashlights swaying left to right illuminating themselves as part of a flowing human flag for just an instant as they paused at the top of the arch...well I can honestly say through tears of remembrance I am looking forward to Isaac's performance as the Hope Of America.

Well Duh!

Today I heard this discussion between 6 & 7.

Joseph: Adam, How high can you jump?

Adam: All the way up.

A Christian Womens' Dilemma

Yesterday as I went hoarse shushing 4, 5, 6 & 7 for an hour and 30 minuets during sacrament meeting. I was carried away in pondering a thought that starts my hands twitching every friggin' Sunday often crosses my mind as a church going, Christian women and mother...

If your children fight over who gets to pass the sacrament tray is it permissible to whack them in the back of the head with your scriptures? You'd think that this is one time when a properly applied dose of the word of God is a justifiable remedy to sibling on sibling violence?

I do believe telling a child that whacking will get you whacked, whacks... er, smacks of hypocrisy, although I'm pretty sure whoever noticed that handy little tid-bit of parenting illogic wasn't taking seven sons to church. It just seems to me that this is one situation when it would really feel righteous to practice the laying on of hands, scriptures, whatever.

I do however feel that wanting to whack the speaker in the back of the head with my scriptures just because he has taken 15 minutes more then the allotted time isn't very Christian. And refusing to teach my three year old that Apple Jacks are not Ass Jacks because it's pretty funny to take a Baggie of Ass Jacks to church to keep him quiet just might bump me into the heathen category.

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord! all my rugrats are back in school today. No 103 Fevers, No sore throats. knock on wood...I think we are all healthy. Not many things that rouse me to a PTL, not having sick, hurting tweens and allmost 7 year olds following me around telling me how sick and hurting they are is really high on a short list.

I spent the morning yesterday working in my front garden which probably has much to do with my happy mood. I love spring, I believe I'll go to the garden store today. I could spend months wandering the garden store, I could spend thousands of $$$$$$ on plants and pots and seeds and soil...does that make me a bad person?????

I just found a setting on my camera for taking close up pictures of flowers so before my trip to the gardening store I am going to shop-vac the leaves out of my perennial bed (one day I'll dedicate an entire post to my love of shop vacuum's, and, can I just say, vacuum is a weirdly spelled word) and take a few pictures to add to this post later.

Spring Break Project

Hmm, posting these pictures turned out to be rather messy. So I'm now typing, not because I don't firmly believe the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" but, because if I type then at some point I may have enough words to figure out how to get the pictures to quit invading other pictures space.
And quit bugging other pictures.
And quit looking at other pictures.
And quit taking other pictures stuff.
And quit messing up stuff that other pictures are going to have to clean up.
And quit hogging the other pictures computer game when I just asked him to help me and now he won't let me play.
And all the little pictures are bugging the big picture.
And the big picture is being mean to all the little pictures. And seeing as how the precious hour or so this project was happening was about the most peaceful together time that we all shared during Public Educators Revenge on Parents break I think it's only fitting that the frickin' pictures should all cooperate with each other and be nice and not fight on my blog.

For those not familiar with the joys of trying to upload multiple pictures on blogger I won't bore you with too many details, needless to say if you don't do it right, and occasionally even if you do, pictures are all over the place. Sometimes adding text will line them up and keep them in place. This time I was forced to delete all seven pictures and start the upload over.

Finally for your viewing pleasure all seven of the pictures are lined up down the side of my blog in no particular order, not unlike my sons who seem to be catching a nasty virus with fevers of 102 and higher in no particular order, adding to the joys and length of spring break(aka, Public Educators Revenge on Parents Break, for those of you who didn't get it earlier).

Classical Capers

It's spring break which is, in my four days into it opinion, should be called the revenge of public school employees week. In my day spring break was Thursday and Friday and I was happy just to spend two days sleeping in and avoiding spring cleaning projects my mom dreamed up. Now it's a looong week of too cold to let them loose outdoors, to much spring fever to put up with them in the house. I just got Christmas paid off I'm not racking up major expenses to go on vacation so I'm stuck trying to figure out cheap day trips that can entertain a three year old to a seventeen year old.

Wednesdays brilliant idea was a simultaneous paint ball for the older boys, park for littler ones extravaganza. I started the day determined to exercise thus I dressed appropriately in a tank top jacket and sweats. I ended up going to the bank, blogging and breaking up fights till after noon when my sister-in-law came to visit Adorable Hubby and see for herself that he had survived his bumps and bruises. Her boys wanted to join us at the park so she ended up with my three youngest and her three headed for the park while I set off in my Suburban to get paint balls, compressed air and friends with my four camouflaged spring break warriors.

I was still in my exercise clothes, no shower and a very bad attitude which wasn't improved by yet another argument to deal with and a seventeen year old who wanted to crank Blue Oyster Cult or some other obscure classic rock at the highest decibel level he could coax out of my lame factory installed car stereo. In my grinchiest, Mom's winning this round way, I proclaimed, " My car, my stereo, my music!" as I choose a classical CD with at least three variations of Pachabel's canon. I sat in proud, smugly silence while my boys endured the first few measures of Pachabel, "Ha, mom won this time" I congratulated myself. Suddenly Jacob spun around and said in his very best bad British accent, "I say Joshua, isn't this just the music to properly set the tone for our afternoon outing chasing ourselves through the hills blasting the bloody crap out of each other with paint balls?" I tried, I even bit the inside of my cheeks, but they caught me laughing at them the little comedians.

My awesome sister in law called about then and said she was taking the kids to her house because it was just two cold for the park and I could spend an hour or two doing whatever. Did I wisely use my time to excercise?? Yeah right, chocolate, Figi water and a nap in the car, Ahh Spring Break with seven boys.

Bumps and Bruises

A couple weeks ago I checked on my three youngest who were playing outside. I found them in the driveway with the new Matchbox cars they got for Christmas. Oh how cute, you say, they were driving their little cars around in the driveway; wrong, they were throwing them down as hard as they could then examining them to see what kind of damage they had done. I suppose this constitutes crash safety testing on a boy level or perhaps a scientific analysis of Matchbox cars and their components, heck, maybe they were checking for lead paint.
"Boys, No! We don't throw cars!" I yelled.
"But Mom, we're playing a game!" Explained Isaac, their self-appointed spokesman, as Adam launched his treasured Diego car into the pavement, then picked it up to inspect the damages.
"Stop, the cars will break!" I tried an appeal to logic.
"Mom, were not breaking them we're just giving them bumps and bruises" Isaac reassured me.

The reason I have been gone for a while is that on April 8th, my Adorable Hubby was in a rollover accident. I'm happy to say that he is not broken, just suffering from some big bumps and bruises. Thanks to God for his life and thanks to all who have shown so much love. Life wouldn't be worth living without him and all of our incredible family and friends.

Dude!

Yesterday I ran out of paper plates and was forced to use my Pyrex plates. I know, I know kill a tree? save a gallon of water? it's a dilemma. Everyone was at school except the two littlest and their little cousin. I was taking a Pyrex plate with three hot, hot dogs on it out of the microwave when it slipped out of my fingers hit my freshly shop-vacuumed floor, sweeping is way to much like work. It shattered into a brazillion pieces covering a 20 foot radius, and made an impressive, shattering glass, noise. I quickly stepped through the glass to grab the shop-vac. Joseph came running down the hall, "Dude! he exclaimed, obviously impressed with the loud crash.
"Dude!" I yelled, putting up my hand in the stop sign.
"Dude!" He explained, pointing at the shoes on his feet.
"Dude!" I threatened, pointing him back down the hall.
"Dude!" he muttered, rolling his eyes as he turned to go.

Thank you Disney for making communicating with boys so easy and effective.

Eatin' Vegies

Joseph walked up to me this morning eating a sugar snap pea. "You know Mom," he says, "I don't like these," he takes a bite.
"Hardly any kids in the whole world like these," he confidently proclaims as he takes another bite.
"They really don't taste very good," he takes another bite leaving a tiny little piece.
"Mom, do you like these?" he asks.
"Yes, I love them, I think they taste delicious," I reply.
"Well, I don't like them," as he takes the tiniest bite, "Do you want the rest?" he offers me the last little sliver of Sugar Snap Pea.
"No sweetie you can finish it," I smile.
"OK, but I don't like them," he finishes the pea and leaves.

This child is so healthy I am considering the possibility he was switched at birth. Anyone out their with really great eating habits and a junk foodie kid?...hmmm, sorry were keeping him, he's just so freakin' cute.

No More Elephant Burgers For Me

You absolutely must watch this, you won’t believe your eyes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE

Absolutely incredible, proof we share the Earth with other sentient beings; so stop eating them, please if you have not done so already!

I got this email today, call me an evil meat
eating masochist, but it made me laugh.
I don't ever remembering eating elephant, though
come to think of it, that last streak I had at
the Sizzler was kinda gamey.

I also have to chuckle a little at those who think
that just because they don't have the same organs
as us hoitey-toitey sentients that fruits, vegies,
grains and legumes aren't capable of feelings
and emotions.  I have spent a lot of time in my garden
and I promise a tomato is just as emotional as say a
chicken.  If the red juicy object of my salivating
desires could jump off it's vine and run uttering
little tomatoey alarm cries it would.

I did gain a better understanding of painting
as a form of therapy and recreation.  If only
elephants could make paper, paint, easels, brushes,
and teach art classes those rogue teenage male
elephants could act more like...rogue, teenage, male
humans...OK, never mind I'll give up elephant, and
no more, monkey, dolphin or kitty for me even if
they can't paint.

Vicious Cycle

I can't think of anything witty or funny or tender or newsy, so I'm blogging for no reason about nothing. I seem to be on a quest to regain all the weight it took me two long years to lose. At the rate I'm going I'll have it all back on in another two weeks. The fear of returning to the old body has left me so depressed that all I do is eat, it's a vicious cycle not unlike a menstrual cycle or a unicycle or a feline cycle (cat chasing tail, or licking fur, coughing up fur ball, licking fur). I have noticed that during the two years I did well and lost steadily I didn't spend as much time thinking about my weight and setting goals every morning only to blow them by noon, give up and eat everything in sight planning on the next day to start. It's so depressing to think about this let alone blog about it, sorry. I'm going out to plant pansies maybe that will help.


.....Four six packs of pansies and a 3 mile walk later, feeling much better thanks; exercise and gardening the cure for the common doldrums.