Valentines

It's the thirteenth of February at 8:00PM and I find myself at the grocery store, standing in front of the motley assortment of I waited to damn long to buy my kids cool Valentines cards. Now I'm left with the daunting task of trying to convince the little dears that Dora and Diego are cool cards for fifth and sixth graders to hand out and that a first grader doesn't have to give his teachers a dozen roses. All the cool candy is gone we either get to dump red hot hearts into an envelope or those nasty conversation hearts, "Oh look boys, Nestle decided to experiment with the Crunch bar and came up with a crispy, crunchy, cookie edition covered in dark chocolate, I bet your friends will love these". The Fifth and sixth grader stare at me like I just crawled out from under a lime green 1967 VW Bus, dressed in a tie dyed tank top and bell bottom polyester pants with a peace sign bandanna tied around my afro, the first grader starts to cry.

We fight our way through the crowd of procrastinator parents and wander over to the non-holiday candy aisle. The first grader won't stop whining, I contemplate beating him into a coma with his box of John Deere Valentines...yes, Americas favorite farm equipment company has become valentines and, if you wait until February 13th at 8:00 PM, you too can be the proud owner of a box. We settled on caramel apple suckers, I know, they seem like a Halloween treat but First Graders Valentines box is orange and he used a black marker to draw first grade hearts on it which looked a lot like ugly pumpkins, plus it stopped the whining for a minute.

The non-holiday candy aisle is right across from the beer aisle and there, amongst the desperate Valentine shoppers, were two poor guys who looked like they had stepped out of an episode of
LA Ink, These guys were six foot four, they had piercings, leather boots, tattoos, just the 'Real Bad Boys' to make all my rebel Valentines fantasies come true, and me with out my longed for tattoo surrounded by stressed out kids and guilty parents. Next year I'm buying Valentines when they come out on December 23rd.

Adam Sings

Adam runs around singing I am a child of God constantly, despite the fact that half the time he acts... well, lets, just say that it's a good thing he has parents who are kind and dear. On the positive side I am felling much better and now will attempt to clean the huge mess that my house has become because I dared to get sick and let it go for three days. Lets face it, Moms don't get sick days. Ok I am to stupid to get the video right side up.

Just Say No!

I apologize for this entry before I even get started. I spent the night coughing, I am on massive amounts of cold medications and my mind is fuzzy. That reminds me of the talk on the Holy Ghost at our ward baptism on Saturday. The two boys who had just been baptized had been given blankets to symbolize the Holy Ghost the speaker told them the Holy Ghost would make them, think the right way about things. Then she told them to feel their blankets, "Don't they feel warm and comforting?" she asked.
I thought, "Yeah, I wish I had a warm blanket, I'm freezing."
"Aren't they fuzzy?" she asked.
"So that explains all my fuzzy thoughts" mused I, "It's the Holy Ghost."

Note to self: Do not take cold medication before going to baptisms.

Another note to self: don't take pictures of yourself when sick and drugged, you might show them to someone.

We finally got Joseph batteries for the Leap Frog learning system Grandma bought him for Christmas. He played with it for a few minuets then said, "Mom, my lap top is freakin' hilarious." Too cute!

Speaking of Joseph, today I kept looking at him thinking his hair looked really weird. I wondered if he had slept on it funny. Then I wet my fingers and smoothed it down...still weird, there was this one long piece that looked like bangs but all the other bangs were gone. Finally after realizing that I wasn't just delirious I asked him if he cut his hair. "Yes," he said, "I did it when Tyler was here." (Tyler is his cousin who is Ben's age, he had a sleep over from Thursday to Friday) Not really sure if Tyler had anything to do with it or he was just a reference for a point in time. Grandma, help!

But, that brings me to another random thought that keeps going through my head. Have any of you got a hair cut and ended up with Dumb and Dumber Bangs? (that's bangs cut really blunt, straight across your forehead, about half an inch above your eyebrows, like Jim Carrey's hair in the movie dumb and Dumber) I have a paranoia about getting Dumb and Dumber bangs so I always caution the girl who does my hair
not to go too short. This last hair cut she didn't cut my hair because I was happy with it but she did cut my bangs. They are not to short but I keep thinking something is wrong with them, so I took a picture. (my camera actually has a setting for holding the camera up and taking a picture of yourself LOL) So tell me dear readers, all 8 or 9 of you. Do my bangs look weird to you or is it just me?
I think Joseph has come up with a hair style to solve both of our hair issues, we could call it diaper wipe hair.















Yesterday we had a really great Fast and Testimony meeting. We laughed and cried, lot's of kids got up and bore beautiful or funny testimonies, a man in our ward who is deaf bore his testimony about how hard it is for him to participate in church because he is afraid people won't be able to understand him. Two of my boys and my Mom bore neat testimonies. One of the brothers wore his Kilt and bore his testimony in honor of President Hinkley. To make it even better Richard had stayed home with the three little ones who had colds, so I got to enjoy the meeting sitting peacefully cuddled up with my big boys. When we got home I told Richard that I thought it was the best Fast and Testimony Meeting that we had ever had in the ward, I asked Jacob if he agreed he said, he couldn't say because he hadn't been in the ward that long. ???
"Jacob, we've been in the ward seven years," I said.
"Well the ward was split not that long ago," he replied.
"Um, Jacob, that was five years ago," says I.
"Mom, it's not like I started listening and paying attention until, like a year ago." Well, at least he's honest.
So there you have it; I thought it was the best Fast and Testimony Meeting ever, but take into account that I was heavily drugged, @@ (I like these they look like little drugged eyes) Jacob hasn't been paying attention long enough to make an informed decision.
I think we've got to be really high on the list for Mormon Family of the year.

I have decided to go on the Adam diet. This includes playing with all your food during meal time but not actually eating it. The only foods you actually put in your mouth are a gallon and a half of milk a day and fruit-by-the-foot which you eat by shoving the whole thing in your mouth causing you to gag until you throw-up. Then for exercise you whack a brother older and bigger then you, call him an idiot or something worse and run. You repeat this exercise endlessly through out the day, causing those around you to get their exercise by chasing you thus helping the whole family stay in shape. Don't let the pictures fool you he's noooot! eating (notice how much is on his pants and on his plate) he's just playing. Yes, its the Adam diet for me...Oh, wait! He's gaining weight constantly despite not eating, never mind I'm doing that pretty well all by myself. OK, OK, so I'm eating everything in sight. Is it, "Starve a cold, feed a fever" or, feed a cold, feed a fever, feed your cough, feed your sniffles, feed your fuzzy thoughts?

Well time to go, I just realized that I now have cold symptoms and diarrhea, don't ask.

Email From Suzie

This is an email I got from my friend Suzie, since it is the story of my life and I'm sure most of yours, I thought I'd put it on my blog today then use the time to accomplish something useful. The time that I would have spent thinking of and writing some random event you all might find amusing as you're escaping your to do list by reading my blog.


Susan,

How the heck are you? Sorry, I didn't call yesterday. I had a huge list of things to do. I have to make a list because if I don't, I just wander from room to room doing a little bit here and there. I'll be cleaning and go into the next room and get side tracked. It seems like I never get anything done. Well I got lots done today. I made a LONG LIST, as I wandered from room to room not accomplishing a damn thing I'd stop by the kitchen and add yet another task to my list. So, there you have it, today I made a list. I actually crossed a few things off. One task was laundry, I crossed it off! Who am I kidding, laundry is never done.

I also crossed off exercise. Good thing I exercised. I'm beginning to think that I'll never get past the plateau I'm at. I have even gone as far as to think maybe I'm putting on pounds from the "shea body butter". It smells good enough to eat. That would really suck if our bodies took on calories from lotion. Well, I'm sure that it wasn't the body butter, it's most likely the chocolate chips I munch on before going to bed, the two pieces of warm bread lathered with butter ( not shea butter) that my visiting teacher brought by, and the spoonful's of cookie dough that I ate, the large cup of cocoa with three huge spoonfuls of hazelnut coffee mate in it. Great now I have to add exercise back to my list for tomorrow.

I 'll have to add " call Susan to the list", that would be an easy task. I'm sure I'll wander past the phone sometime tomorrow. You see, I originally sat down at the computer to order Jason some DVD's for Valentines Day.

Love, Suz

I love friends, they make you laugh, they cry with you and mostly help you remember that you are normal and beautiful and awesome because they are.

Super Hero Angst

Joseph, like most five year old boys, lives in a world of super heroes, at any given moment he may be Superman, Batman or Spiderman, he may be saving the world from bad guys or honing his super hero skills by running at supersonic speed from one end of the house to another. He is able to pick up cars, trains even toy tool benches with little effort; putting them back where he got them is still beyond his super powers that requires Supermom skills not Superman skills, but, you should see him climb the rock walls around the fireplace, amazing.

We all know that superhero's have a tortured past; some painful dark event that enhanced an awareness of their human vulnerability yet inspired the awareness and pursuit of their super-nature. I have been watching Joseph wondering what his pivotal moment might be.

Joseph loves to wear the costumes of his favorite heroes, most mornings he wakes up, get dressed, eats breakfast and puts on the costume of the day; unfortunately he is still forced to seek Mom's help to get in and out of most costumes. One day I heard Joseph running at super speed up the basement stairs, down the hall, through the kitchen, halfway down the grandpa room stairs where he tripped, skinned his elbow and knee, peed his pants and burst into tears.

Oh the humanity, foiled in the height of super growth by a villainous zipper in the back of his super suit. Will this dark moment dampen his heroic aspirations or lead him to greater heights of superness? The world must wait,wait with his anxious parents for the answer.

Tribal Markings

Last night when I called the boys up for dinner Adam and Joseph proudly showed me their legs hands and feet. Here are a few pictures.





Adam: Momma, look. (as he holds out his hands, legs and feet while sitting up to the bar and over hot pans and bowls of food ready to eat)

Mom: Where's the marker, what else did you write on?

Joseph: Mom I put the marker away and we only wrote on each other. (as he gives me a, how stupid do you think we are, look)

Mom: Why did you write on each other?

Joseph: We are playing a game.

Adam: I'm the Daddy tiger.

Joseph: No, Adam you're the Boy tiger, I'm the Dad tiger.

Adam: I'm hungry, I want rice!

Joseph: I'm only eating meat, tigers eat meat.

Adam: Tigers eat rice.

Mom: Sigh!

What's up with war paint, tribal markings? I have this picture in my head of how it all started; two little cave boys rushing into their cave momma and covered in mud stripes. They proudly hold their little appendages up for her to see, dangling them over the hot, steaming mammoth roast that's ready to eat.

Cave Momma: arghmph, what you mud?

Cave Boys: huhmph, mud good, saber tooths. (as they proudly point to their chests.)

Cave Momma: Whatmph?

Cave Boys : Tiger, kill, mammoth. (as they use their muddy hands to draw on the walls of the cave.

I bet Cave Momma told them they had to clean the mud off the walls which would be why, today, we have hieroglyphs, and scrubbing sponges, and Prozac.

Good-bye

I loved President Hinkley his, vision, his humor, his love. My favorite part of his teachings are the Be's, be clean, be grateful, be humble, be true, be smart, be involved, be positive, be prayerful, be still.

I loved that with President Hinkley it was all about being, not doing, yes, he was a doer the beauty of President Hinkley is that everything that he did sprang out of what he was. He was not afraid to be, from the stillness of being springs gratitude, humility, your truth, intelligence, joy, service, and the awareness of prayer.

I love that he lived so well, he was so much his spirit, that his death was a peaceful shifting from this form to another. May I live my life as fully and peacefully. May I be all that I am.