Spooky Dinner

Tanner has a NO-holiday or party, what-so-ever, school.

Something had to be done.

Invitations were "mailed"

Flying bats and webs and dry ice

Cats and body parts jars and pumpkin treat bags


Witches hats and dance-with-the-broomstick game

Stirring the witches cauldron

Dinner Menu:
Frog Legs Soup (broccoli cheese, of course)
Skeleton Bones (breadsticks shaped like bones)
Decomposed salad (garden salad)
Eggs and Noses (grapes and cut strawberries)
Orange Witch Brew (Sunkist soda)
Brains and Slop (cupcakes and Chocolate Chip Orange Sherbet)

I love my witches

Landon's missing. He was probably in the candy jars.

Today

I know I was fired. For sure. Actually, maybe I should have never been hired. I think my application should have been tagged: under-qualified.

That said- I'm tired. Just mom worn out. Ryan mentioned that a colleague asked him to stay longer and let him sleep for 3 hours before he worked through the night on his shift. Ryan says he told him, "Buddy. I have to get home. My wife and kids have not seen me." So charming that he thought of me. Sometimes it's hard to remember the last time I had 3 hours of really good sleep. I know, I'm sounding like a wimp. I'll spare the details of my slumberless children. As for today, Ryan won't be home til tomorrow. (He's on Q4, meaning every 4th night he stays over at the hospital. He comes home tomorrow and then needs to sleep to recover and so for me it feels like every 3rd day I have him around in the evening. And, yes, I know I'm a wimp and people have it worse.)

Today I dragged myself around errands and life and my carpenter came to fix the trim on my floor. He came at "nap time" and I was too busy to get them off to beds. I tended a friend of Emma's until 5 pm, and then onto dinner, and then I sat down to nurse the baby and I fell asleep. With a house full of children. This is where I should be fired. I KNOW.

And while I was sleeping, the containers that had been left out from the work being done in the pantry were Landon's heaven- he went to town on them. 5lbs of flour, 24 ounces of yellow cornmeal and half a container of brown sugar. Everywhere. A light mist of dust. Everywhere.

I awoke to Emma whispering, "Mommy. Landon's dirty."

I didn't even get mad. I just sighed. I knew I should have been better and more careful. And yes I cried a tear. (Okay, a few tears.) It was such a mess. And my vacuum stopped suctioning today. I had to use the shop vac. It took me almost 2 hours to clean up the dust from seemingly every surface on the first floor.

And since I am confessing, I also thought I lost Tanner. He went to play outside and went too far. I knocked on doors and finally found him. But I was shaking. And he felt bad. And then I was mad.

And all the while I was cleaning up, after I found Tanner, I kept thinking, "It should be illegal to have 3 kids in 3 years." (Okay, 3 years and 2 months, but still.) And who thought I was qualified? I sat Jacks in his bumbo (thanks again Sara) to vacuum and when I got back to him, he too was covered in a fine sugary dust from the vacuum exhaust. I kissed his neck and fat cheeks and told him never to get into the flour. He better remember.

Things I love

This commerical- I love her voice.


This Spooky Banner from my "neighba lady". I love her to.

And my funny husband. He had some presentation to give at work today. I found this excerpt at the end of the powerpoint presentation. I can just envision the room full of 40ish doctors and colleagues and his serious presentation then ending like this.

1. Let's not get caught with our pants down.

2. Let's do our homework and join the tea party.

3. So we can all save some lives and be superheros at the end of the day.

All the need to's

I've gone to bed thinking.

-I need to sort through all the totes of kids clothes. Must purge. I will not haul those around anymore.

-My house needs a deep cleaning. I'm always behind. I had a dream a potential buyer didn't like the house because the kitchen cabinets weren't clean.

-Get the fall bulbs planted. Because they bloom in the spring- and I think they will add some curbside appeal.

But instead of dealing with any of the above. It's been Fall Break. And I have been alone on the home front day and night. All-the-long-week.

Monday- to the Zoo

Tuesday- to the Newport Aquarium in Cincinnati. I went in the afternoon, planning on less of a crowd. Don't you know it, but we pulled up right behind the arrival of the Senior Citizens Greyhound bus. Tanner asked,"where did all the grandma's come from?" We waited our turn for the heavily used elevator, we with our double stroller and they with their wheelchairs.

Wednesday- Costume prep. (Can I call it crap prep?) And finally the doctor was in. We took hot chocolate and sugar cookies over to the Spook Alley off of Zorn in the evening.

Thursday- Back to the Zoo for the Halloween Party, costumes and all.

Friday- Harry Potter movies at home and then to the Art Museum at UofL to the kid area.

I love my kids. My baby is not nursing very well this week- I think I have been on the go too much. I stood on campus today at the Art Museum and watched all the coeds walk around and thought- man those were the days. I could eat by myself and read a book and there was calm, maybe a lot of uncertainty, but calm. Yet, I know I was working then to get to this point today. To be home with my 4 kids. To be married to someone that tells me "you're doing fine." when I feel deflated. They don't seem to care too much about the purging and cleaning and fall bulbs.

Vote Today

Go HERE.

It's this design....................

(she's cute!)

See my post below for more details.

Halloween's Past

Just got to Grenada. 2002

2nd year in Grenada, 2003. Same costume. Throwback for my Grenada friends.


2004
2005

(I immensly disliked sewing these robes.)
2006
2007

Please Help- THE Dancing with the Stars official contest

let me explain. I visit teach a girl, Amy Smith. She lives right around the corner from me.

History first. There were 3 of us dark-haired girls that moved into our ward at the same time and it seems I was always getting mistaken for one of them. Both beauties and a true compliment, Amy Smith and Angela. Someone in the ward even thought their mom was my mom when she visited. We've all been pregnant close together and even in my families desperate times, their husbands have BOTH come to sit with my kids when I needed to go to the hospital while pregnant with Jackson. Good people, and more importantly, good friends. Now, to the point of my need for help.


Amy Smith is talented. She just had her 3rd baby. Her husbands a busy guy. She's far from family and ticks on her own most the time. She has an amazing design sense. Like the real deal. How do I know?

Because the TV show, Dancing With The Stars, had a costume design contest. Amy entered. She mentioned it in a sort of blase way. Like "no big deal". BUT, her costume ensemble was picked as one of the Top 5 in the nation.

In order for her to win the top prize, she has to have her design voted for. Voting starts this Tuesday. Go Here for the home page of the show. As soon as her design is up, I will post a new link. Remember voting starts this Tuesday.

Amy makes me proud. And she's true. I asked her how she managed to design a modest costume and she says she used BYU ballroom dance standards. She's a previous BYU ballroom dancer and graduate, costume designer, and fantastic artist, but she's staying home to tend her babies. She takes care of her home. She loves her husband. And they all come first. Let's vote her first! And, In support of an LDS stay at home mama, please link this post on your blog so she can get as many votes as possible. It's not like she has a design firm to promote her ya know?

(do I sound like a campaign manager or what?)

I'll have an update for the voting site soon.

Why'd she have to go?

I miss her already. And her sweet bear baby, Gavin. (He felt so loose and slouchy. My Jacks is not so.) I tried to hold the tears back the night before she left. I laid in my bed and thought how much I love her. How much she still means to me. How I can laugh at her. How she has been a loyal sister.

We sat and nursed and talked. We shopped. She helped immensly with the crazies and came with bagels and trinkets for all. It would have been really perfect if the other sisters and "ladies" (as Emma calls them) from our family were here too.

We both thought, heaven help the mother of twins. (maybe, for her next pregnancy though?)

Civil War

Our day in pictures... my sister Summer and her baby were here too. Perfect!

It was not over-crowded, under a couple hours drive away, and we learned so much. Like, the soldiers were all issued shoes that were not left or right footed... the soldier broke them in himself. Clothes were issued in a "one size fits all" fashion- pants were tied in the back with string so as not to lose them for the skinny guys.

For the reenactment battle, the "soldier" knew when to "play dead" by the card he recieved- it had an authentic name and brief history about that person, and if they were disabled or killed. We still are not sure who won. Or who we were rooting for. Summer, my sister, said she heard it was a battle that no one won.