Emptying my Brain

Biggest Loser

To start, I have to say there are some really nasty women on it this time and I would love to see them go. The one nice girl on there gets sent home, what is wrong with this situation? I haven't been to the gym in a week, crazy. Lots of different reasons and it won't be until Friday that I can go back. During the show last night, I did jumping jacks, ran laps through my house and went up and down the stairs during commercials. While I was watching, I did dumbbells and sit ups. At least it's something. But really, these two nasty women are ruining the show for me. I used to turn it off inspired and emotional. Lately, just kinda ticked.

My Economic Car

Another $300 today. That makes $800 in the last two weeks. This is an '03 with 50,000 miles on it. A piece of crap is what it is. I so regret buying it.

Outings

While my car is getting fixed, my mom comes and picks me up and we go have some kind of outing. Isn't it sad that there is tradition are regularity here? Anyway, today we went to the mall, Bo's favorite place. I did manage to get through the day and spend less than $20. I can't believe Mervyn's is going out of business! Don't rush over there or anything, no big sales yet. Still disappointing. After we ate lunch, Bo and Katy both noticed the carousel so I thought, what the heck. That was until I got over there and got ready to buy a token. Three dollars! Are you kidding? To ride around on a horse for 2 minutes? No thanks. I took them down to the 75 cent bull downstairs. Shopping is getting much harder, Katy does NOT want to stay in the stroller.

Bo's funny

On the way to the mall, we were discussing how Katy is pretty stubborn and Bo pipes up from the backseat and says "She IS a stinkhead!"

On the way home, we were discussing why milk had to stay in the refrigerator. I explained that if it gets warm, it can make you sick. He paused and said "I like fresh milk." The reason this is funny is because when he was little and used a sippy cup, he might find one and I would take it from him and say "Don't drink that, let me get you some fresh milk." From then on, he would always ask for "fresh milk". He hasn't said it in awhile, but he still remembers that's what he likes.

Finally, and only pictures could really do this justice. My mom and I were looking at bras and we turned around and there were Katy and Bo both with enormous bras, Katy's blue, held up against their tummies. Katy was so proud. She was definitely aiming high!

Playing Catch up

The last few days have been pretty busy trying to get settled from our camping trip. Sunday I even cancelled dinner because my house was a mess and laundry everywhere. Monday morning came around and it wasn't much better. I made the responsible choice and skipped the gym to stay home and get laundry finished and find my kitchen. I spent basically the whole morning in there scrubbing down while making a fresh batch of bread. My bread was pretty hole-y this time, a little too soft. Any suggestions? By noon it looked like my house again and was filled with the aroma of fresh bread. I dressed the three of us (barely) and headed out for milk. We have gone through a ton of milk lately. Got home just in time for a short snooze and finished the day with homework, soccer games, dinner and FHE. I was definitely ready for bed. Although I stayed up a little longer to get in another chapter or two of my book.

Was up and at 'em by 6 am. Had playgroup at my house today so I needed to be ready. Katy loves when we have it here. She gets so excited. Bo was a little weird. Very possessive of his stuff. He is not usually like that. He didn't even want the girls going into his closet. He made it through the day with only some minor tears and drama. Stephen has soccer games everyday this week and they all have play practice as well tomorrow. Thursday is Bunko and I always love when that comes around, especially this time of year. Saturday we have about a million things going on. Most exciting is Brooklyn's belated birthday party. We are going to see High School Musical 3. Yeah!

Family Circle
Last night while making dinner, I kept having to shoo Bo out of the pantry. Finally he comes out and says "do the pans live in there?" Pan-try....

I'm Reading Again

I ran across this at the bookstore Saturday night while trying to locate some books Chelsey had to have for school. It is a novel about the lives of Mary and Joseph. While it is fictional, the author stays as close to scripturally accurate as possible. There is little about the couple in the scriptures so he tries to convey what their personal lives may have been like. While I have to keep reminding myself it's not real, I find it very intriguing. It's certainly not riveting or suspenseful, (we all know how the story goes), I keep wanting to go back. His idea of them as people, as a couple, the things they most likely struggled with, make them so much more real and the story of the birth of the Savior much more than a picture of a stable with a big star over it. I'm only half way through so I don't know how far the book takes you, Mary has just given birth. I'm sure in the next few days I will know!

scarred for life

So Bo, Katy and I stopped in to Chick Fil A for lunch today. We were the only ones in the restaurant sitting quietly enjoying our meal. I went to get a refill and when I came back, Bo was asking me:

Bo: Ya know that girl with the blue shirt?
Me: What girl?
Bo: The girl with the blue shirt with lines on it?
Me: (I say "sure" even though I have no clue who he is talking about)
Bo: She was hitting me a lot! She was very mean.

This is the first time we have been there since the little girl attacked him and I had completely forgotten. Obviously he hasn't. He even remembers her blue shirt with lines on it. Very sad.

Camping Details

What a fun few days! An adventure, that's for sure. Me and 6 of the kids headed out camping without Glade and the oldest 3. Chelsey and Whitley had school and Nick found himself in some pretty good trouble so he got left behind. We left without a hitch, other than the struggle with our hitch. The journey there was uneventful, the kids all got along well and the cars ran smoothly. The area was a little rough, it had burned before and there were lots of little prong like stumps everywhere. Made it rough for little ones walking around. OK, so a few of us big ones tripped a couple times too! The ground was a little uneven so we had a "fun" time trying to get the jacks under the camper to level it. Eventually we used a car jack, which none of us knew how to use, to get it up high enough to make it all work. Lucky for us we had Stephen. He was very helpful. After getting it level, we quickly got camp organized and the kids were off exploring.

It was pretty chilly when the sun went down so we got a fire going and broke out the hot dogs for roasting. Normally this is one of my favorite things to do while camping. Because there were only 3 s: Me, Julia and Shellie, the kids way out numbered us. It was a little stressful having that many kids around a fire. They just don't think. We got through dinner and started getting the little ones ready for bed. My kids go down really easy so I was back out at the fire in no time. It was just me, Stephen, Rhett, Dalin and David for the rest of the evening. I don't know how it came about, we ended up trying to teach David the Macarena around the campfire. That was fun. We all turned in early. Shellie let me borrow a little heater for my camper and I was so grateful! It got cold! The heater did just enough to take the chill off. Unfortunately, it ran out of propane in the middle of the night and I was too cold to get up and get more. In the middle of the night, Bo let out a huge belly laugh. I was waiting for more, or for Dalin to say something, but nope, nothing else. I guess he was having a good dream! In the wee hours of the morning, I was dreaming that I was at the mall and I was having a stroke. When the paramedics arrived, I told them my nose was paralyzed, I couldn't feel it. Sure enough, I woke up and my nose was numb! Funny how our minds and bodies work.

The second day was great. The kids played and hiked all day. It got a little warm, but not too bad. We did happen to see two tarantula's while we were sitting around. Julia didn't think that was so great. Especially since the first one had it's front legs reared up at her two year old. Rhett and Stephen found a little hatchet in one of the bins and spent the whole day chopping stuff up. I never thought they could get through anything, but they did. At one point we heard a huge crash (tree falling) and all the kids came running. "Did you see that!" We put a stop to that. Rhett tried three times to build his own fire outside the fire ring and was successful at one point. I wanted to ring his little neck! Us s sat around and talked and giggled and probably shared way too much information. It was nice. The second night, I stayed out by the fire by myself for a while and listened to my mp3. Very peaceful. I made sure to take enough propane in the camper with me this time so we stayed toasty warm all night. It was a good night's sleep except for the elk who was looking for some action. I'm guessing since he howled all night, he was not successful.

Katy woke up bright and early that morning. Still dark and freezing. She was wild, wouldn't stay still, kept talking. Eventually we were all up. The kids ventured out but were back with purple lips and freezing hands in no time. We decided to turn the heater back on and have breakfast in the camper. That was fun. The last day there was almost as good as the previous. One little problem - BEES! Not just a few bees while you were cooking, but swarms of them. OK, I've never seen an actual swarm, but I have also never seen this many bees at one time. The kids out hiking and playing in the trees weren't too bothered by them, but anywhere around camp it was awful. The women stayed holed up in Shellie's camper. We kept the little ones with us as long as we could. The kids kept wanting in then out, in then out. There were always at least 5-8 bees on the door of the camper. Shellie was really good about swatting at them to try and keep them out while kids got in or out. Eventually one went up her pant leg and stung her. I felt really bad. Katy just walked around shooing at them around her head. She got stung right above her diaper. Jared just walked around with a ping pong like paddle swatting at them. About 2 pm, I just called it quits. I was hot and having no fun and the bees were terribly annoying. Julia agreed but Shellie was a little frustrated I think.

We packed up in about an hour and then spent the next 40 min trying to hook the stupid camper up to my van. My camper was free ($) and obviously so. The little wheel that you crank up and down to get it on the hitch doesn't work. We had to lift and pull. This took all 3 s and Stephen to accomplish and even then, it wouldn't completely hook on. I'm sure on hidden camera we could have provided all with a great laugh! We finally got it to hook and then came the really fun part, backing it out. I could NOT figure out which way to turn the wheel. Frustrating and funny at the same time. Back and forth, forward, backward, over and over and over. We finally got it done and were so excited. She told me to lead so I did. After I pulled out on to the main dirt road, she turned the other way and says "where are you going?" I pulled out the wrong way. Here we go with the backing up again, grrrr. We got out and the trip home was mostly quiet, except the two babies who were way beyond tired. We met Stephen's scout leaders half way and he jumped in with them and went back up. They had a camp out this weekend so he is still gone. I'm sure I could go on and on with more funny stories and silly things, but I'll wrap it up now. If this was way too detailed for you, sorry. It is, after all, my journal!

Memorable Tid-bits

-Katy lifting her shirt, and sticking her belly out to all the trees. (Copying all the boys )
-Shellie rethinking "tree hugging" due to the aforementioned. (boys all over them)
-Lainy and her "crack house" - she says her r's like ow "crackers" We copied her all weekend
-As long as we're talking about Lainy, she has a thing for "cracks". We saw hers all week.
-Dalin going on and on to David about Pokemon and David staring blankly at him till he paused and then he would let out a funny little laugh.
-9 boys sword fighting for 3 days
-Hiking with a baby on your shoulders who doesn't want to be there
-Trying to dig a hole with a square shovel
-Forgetting the propane tank for the stove.
-Every kid gnawing on rock hard donuts
-Playing cards with my friends protected from the bees
-Warm peach cobbler
-Watching Stephen and Rhett create a bond
-Roaming around with a cell phone held high in the air searching for a signal
-Chapped lips
-Two good friend agreeing to accompany me on this trip!

Bo and Lainy, practically inseparable


Me following Katy around picking her up and dusting her off


Stephen taking a rest from hacking up logs


Dalin with his walking stick


"What?" Bo says after me calling his name several times.


Jayce, Dalin, David and Jason hauling logs


Rhett taking a whack


Victory over the log!


I'm sure he was saying "you can't get me!" to Lainy



Pretty Brooklyn was so helpful with the little ones


Katy kept getting in the van and taking my Dove chocolates


The boys walked up and down this log a lot (it was really long)


Breakfast in the camper


The other kids went upstairs to shower and left the TV on, this is how we found Katy. She tucked herself in.

Day of Packing

The cleaning had to be done. I was very tricky about it though. On days off, they get bored easily. They are only allowed to have 30 min computer time. They can earn an extra 15 if they do a chore. Well of course everyone wanted more computer time by the afternoon. Viola! Then there's always the FHE treat. We couldn't possibly make a bigger mess on top of the old mess. By bed time there were only a few toys in the living room and some forks in the sink. Ahhh!

Yesterday I made homemade chocolate chip cookies to take camping. I always used to make these and they were pretty good. I couldn't find my old recipe so I got the Original Toll House recipe on line. They even gave tips to perfect cookies. Yuck. What a waste. I'm dying to find my recipe and see what was different. For one thing, she suggested tripling the amount of vanilla. I was chicken, but doubled it. Vanilla cookie anyone? I'm sure my kids will still eat them, so will I for that matter, but what a disappointment. I also made more bread for my family that is being left behind. This is the best batch I have ever made. The texture is almost that of what you would get in the store. Amazing! Now only if I knew how I did that.

Today is a packing, getting ready to leave day. My kids were all packed and dying to leave yesterday. In Stephen's words "What? Ya just throw some clothes and a sleeping bag in and go." Oh to be so naive. What would the world do without mothers? I'll give credit to the dads who so easily execute what the mothers think up. I will miss my hubby for 3 days. Thank goodness for my big strong boys. I'm actually very excited to go, I think we will have tons of fun! Back to the packing.

Doing Nothing and Loving it

Icing my butt. That's what I'm doing for the next 20 min so I thought I would blog. Sunday was a struggle. Do you ever just have a day you don't feel like doing anything? That was me. Not really grouchy, just blah. If no one else cared, I probably would have stayed in bed all day. The weather was again, gorgeous. I even put pants on my kids to go to Sunday dinner. Took jackets too! Dinner was nice and we weren't in too much of a rush to get home since no one has school today.

Glade wanted me to go running with him again this morning, but he went so dang early. I just can't get myself going like he can. I got up and putzed around getting stuff ready for camping. The kids are way too excited. Finally got to the gym by about 9. I think I ran my best 10K yet, one hour and 12 minutes. I need to go back and look, it might not be. yup, (2 min faster) I felt good though, not like I might die.

My house is a disaster. I mentioned to the kids that we needed to get some work done today and then Whitley said something that struck a chord with me. "why clean anything today? Just finish packing today and we can clean at the end of tomorrow. " Why not?! If they don't mind hanging out in filth for 2 days, what the heck? I have a lot of running around to do so I'm just not going to worry about it. I also decided that since they really only have 2 days of being at home over break, I don't even care if they watch TV the whole day. Wow, I'm a good mom. We'll see if my lackadaisical attitude lasts!