Girls' Camp Revisited

I am in charge of going through the photos/videos that were taken during girls' camp for our camp party that is tonight, and in going through the goodness, I found this shot of one of my very favorite girls:
She had to wear a "loin cloth" for a skit & it was funny in and of itself, but I just read the caption on her shirt & it had a whole new meaning (it is a shirt for the girls lacrosse team).
And for anyone wondering if I earned my keep up at camp, here is a picture of me earning the title "Flo" (I'm getting ready to open my own diner after the number of pancakes I flipped).

Sum-Sum-Summer Time

Today was the first day this year that felt like "summer" to me. The girls and I started the day with a trip to the doctor's office (not really a summery thing, but it sets the background). Ellie had to give a urine sample, and she was having a VERY difficult time of it, so I bribed her with increasingly more appealing rewards if she would just "go." (She had already had 2 cups of water and a water bottle that had been filled with Crystal Light).
By the time she finally went, the ante was up to 1. a trip to 0ur favorite frozen yogurt spot, 2. a trip up to the canyon for hot dogs and 3. a dollar.
Thus began our first "summery" adventures. After leaving the doctor's office, we headed to the store for some canyon essentials, only to discover that the price on some of their wares was higher than I would have liked. So, I told the kiddos that we could instead have lunch at Carl's Jr. where they could play on the toys to their hearts' desire, then we would go to the canyon for dinner when daddy got home (and I could get the hot dogs defrosted from the freezer). So, we had a "yummy" lunch, and SUPER YUMMY frozen yogurt, and went home.
I was pretty tired from chasing the girls by the time I got home and sent the kids to play in the yard, but my sweet neighbor called moments after we got home to see if we wanted to play on this:

So how could we refuse? The girls had a great time eating Popsicles, floating in the kiddie pool, going down the slide, and playing in their giant sand box...all the moms agreed it was even better than a day at the beach (seeing as there was zero commute time, flushing toilets, and all possible amenities at our disposal).

As soon as we got home, the girls got dressed and we went up the canyon with Greg for hot dogs and s'mores--the ultimate summer event for me. I LOVE the canyon. It is especially beautiful this year with all the extra water we have had this month & the girls took to the little wooded paths like ducks to the water. It was fabulous (and as evidenced by the pictures Rachel REALLY got into it).

14 layer cake

I made my dad a 14 layer cake for Father's Day & it was really fun. It looked like a giant stack of pancakes & tasted pretty yummy. This picture is actually from Bakerella, but it looked very similar to my cake. It was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be. Because the layers were thin they baked quickly, and the recipe I used said to assemble the layers as they came out of the oven, so I didn't have to wait for anything to cool. The whole thing took about an hour from beginning to end, which isn't too bad if you ask me :)
So if you want to try something a little different, but still easy, I would highly recommend it.
Oh, BTW, I used Marie Callender's pie tins to bake them because I had seven & only had to reload each pan once. I think that it is something that is worth making again.

Real Life

Well, I am back from girls' camp, Father's Day is over, and Greg went back to work this morning. Life is definitely back to "normal."
Camp was fun, but I am glad to be back with my kiddos (even if Rachel took her diaper off this morning and wet my bed).
I am so sad I didn't take a picture of Greg with his Father's day present. He has requested that the girls go to DI and choose a tie for him.
The girls chose a fly fishing tie that was short for a Deacon. Greg tied it as long as he possibly could, but it only came about a third of the way down his shirt.
It was quite entertaining. Maybe I will make him put it back on tonight so I can take a picture.
He loved the tie, though; and everyone else was certainly entertained by it, too.

As I said, today we get to get back to the real world, complete with a truck-load of laundry, some serious cleaning and a few cases of the grumps (Sarah has already cried 4 times this morning for such lovely reasons as: she can't find her flip flops, her eyes were tired, she wanted breakfast, and Becca was in her spot on the bed). But hopefully we'll be able to turn that frown upside down once we get our work done & can go do some fun things :)

For Sale

Four girls for sale. Used--ranging in age from 2-8 years old.
Naughty antics include:
Cutting up passports
Flooding bathrooms
Painting with Tanning Spray
Decorating with feminine hygiene products
Spreading Packing Peanuts (very effectively) throughout the house

Asking price: $200 (just enough to cover today's losses) OBO

Drop one or two in your worst enemy's home & watch them go! A real bargain (and they are under-aged so they won't be charged with anything criminal).

Sunday Summary

I am a very punctual person. I HATE to be late. Growing up, one family motto was "I'd rather be an hour early than be a minute late." Well, other than at parties during high school (where I was still always the first one to arrive given that I only showed up 10 minutes "late") I totally agree with this motto.
Well, Sunday, Greg was working on a lesson, the girls kept taking off their shoes, they were all still hungry after breakfast and we ended up arriving at church at 9:01. I heard the prelude stop as I walked in the doors, and as I headed across the foyer, I heard Brother Erickson announce that he was conducting and that the Bishop was presiding. I took a flier from Brian (my next door neighbor with Down Syndrome), gave him a quick hug and tried to hurry my girls to the front of the church and the only remaining pew big enough to fit our family. As we walked up the aisle, Brother Erickson said, "Oh, yeah, I guess President Eyring is actually conducting."
I looked up and saw President Henry B. Eyring watching me usher my little girls into their seats. OF ALL DAYS TO BE "LATE!" Oh well!
Sacrament meeting was amazing. We had a returned missionary couple speak & they did a great job. Sister Rose specifically said that when her kids were younger she felt like she was always the "enforcer" and her children didn't appreciate it. She said she saw herself as a "witch" most days, but one day went to the temple, and as she was thinking about Adam and Eve being ushered out of the garden and cherubim and a flaming sword set in place to guard the way, she realized that even Heavenly Father sets boundaries and enforces consequences. She said that this made her realize that she wasn't a witch, she was just "cherubim and a flaming sword."

President Eyring also spoke. He talked about the fact that President Benson purchased land in Bountiful for the temple and he didn't know about it. However, word leaked out and his wife and son both asked him about it. He told them that he was in charge and would certainly know about it first, only to see the announcement in the paper the next morning. His son teased him about realizing just how much he was "in charge."
President Eyring said that it was a great reminder to him that this really is the Lord's work, and the Lord is in charge.

It was a great meeting.

We also had a great Sunday School lesson about the HISTORY of the Word of Wisdom (including things like the fact that the Salt Lake Temple had spittoons in it when it first opened)...It was very enlightening and it was a refreshing way to study the principals that have been taught over and over again.

Say Hello to Mr. Mom

If any of you see this guy with my girls for the next few days, give him a hand (you can either clap for him or help him depending on how he looks).
Greg has been such an amazing dad. Tomorrow morning I take off to spend the week with the young women of our ward at girls' camp, and Greg has kindly taken the week off to play Mr. Mom.
Greg and I have been married for almost 10 years, and this is my fourth time attending girls' camp in the last decade. Now, when you consider that for the last 7 years I have been serving int he primary, & have been pregnant or nursing for 8 of the last 10 years (give or take) you might wonder how I have managed to hit 4 girls' camps, but it is true.
So, I just have to say THANK YOU to my sweetheart for taking the time to be with his girls, for supporting me in my calling, and for being an all around awesome guy.....
And if you see me sometime after I get home & I don't respond, just know I probably haven't slept for the past few days. :)

A potty poem

Last year we took our children to the beach to have some fun
and naturally they had to use the potty one by one.
So when we took our oldest, and she saw it didn't flush
her eyes got big, and over her there came a kind of hush.
I feared that she would be a little too afraid to "go,"
but then I saw her smile and I knew it wasn't so.
In fact, she told me as we made our way back through the sand
She thought a flush-less potty in her room would be quite grand.

I didn't think much of her plan, and as the days flew by
I thought that she gave up her dream of "toilets in the sky."
But as I called my girls tonight to kneel in family prayer,
I looked in Becca's bedroom and saw something strange in there.
A cardboard box was cut to look a lot like a small potty
and then I saw that my sweet girls had been extremely naughty.

For all of them had tried to use the "potty" on the ground
and it was plain to see the box was not exactly sound.
And so instead of gathering to pray and read good books
I read one verse of scripture and gave my girls dirty looks.
And then I made them clean their mess and sent them all to bed
as I sat down to write down all the thoughts inside my head.

The good news in this tale is that all my girls stayed down
Not one got up and that's enough to get rid of my frown :)

Mary Poppins

Growing up, one of my favorite scenes from Mary Poppins was the tea party on the ceiling. I thought it was such a wonderful thing, that I convinced Rick that we needed to figure out how to have our own tea party on the ceiling. We figured out that we could shimmy up a hallway or door frame to get our heads to touch the ceiling, and from there all we needed was a little imagination. We spent countless hours playing on the ceiling (and subsequently washing our footprints off the walls), and it is a memory I'll always treasure.
Well, today the girls figured out our trick and have been checking out all of our door frames to see if they are climbable (to their astonishment any frame that 'only has one door in it' will work!).
It is really fun for me as a parent to see my kids enjoying the same things I did when I was little.
Watching their plays/dance performances reminds me of the many ballets, plays and comic routines I performed with my siblings--at home and at my grandparents' house, and it makes me a little nostalgic, a little sorry for my parents and grandparents and the amateur productions they had to watch, and extremely grateful for the chance I have to watch my girls forming bonds that will carry them through their lives.

Welcome Back Internet!

Oh how wonderful it feels to be able to post again! Greg just got the internet up and running again, and I have checked my email, visited facebook, and now I get to give a quick update here. Oh happy day!

I wouldn't consider myself an internet addict, but there were many times this week when my kids said or did something humorous and I thought "Ooh, I'll hurry and blog that!" only to remember...Oh, yeah, no internet. Or, I would want to look up a recipe (for example, I made curry on Tuesday & wanted to make some Indian bread to go with it) and remembered I couldn't (we had rice instead).

So, I am all smiles tonight (especially since I need to finish working on a lesson I'm giving tomorrow for YW) that I have internet access once more.

Sadly, I don't remember the fun things I was going to write, but here is a brief summary of the past few days:


Today we had a great & productive day pulling out two aspen trees from our front yard...should I say two trees, or two tree-trunks, since aspens are really just one ginormous (you must be kidding...spell check didn't say I misspelled ginormous, but it claims that every contraction I use is wrong)....anyway....aspens are one big-old-hooked-together organism.
Greg's parents came to help us with the task, and thanks to Grandma Lorna's kind guidance all of my girls were actually quite helpful for the better part of the task.
Had I not thought that running inside to get my camera was a desertion of my post, I would have taken pictures of the girls gathering sticks and throwing them in the trailer. My favorite was watching Rachel with two six-inch sticks in her hands trying to get them inside, grunting and "jumping" to get herself a little higher.

Yesterday, Janelle watched our kids so that Greg and I could go to a movie (the first one we've been to in a LONG time) and it was really fun. We saw the new Star Trek movie & I have to say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

The girls finished the school year, and are excited about the thought of advancing to a new grade. We made cookies for the bus drivers & were going to go hiking, but it was raining off and on through the day and after Monday's storm, I didn't really want to risk being outside when lightning came.

The rest of the week we spent outside for the most part. We went swimming, had friends over to play, and worked in the yard. I have stirred up pollen in my front yard, back yard and nose to the point that I almost thought I had a cold I sneezed so much, but our yard is slowly improving & I am hoping that it will eventually look "presentable" (I am not much of a gardener and I'm not aiming for beautiful).

Snap! Crackle! Pop! Explosion!!!

I got my girls down to bed early tonight, but it is now almost 10:00 and they are playing cheerfully in the next room. Why am I not upset by this? Because at present my heart is beating a little bit faster than usual, and I’m just happy the girls don’t seem too traumatized.

We had a fun FHE tonight, and the girls went to bed quite easily, but I decided to stay upstairs just to make sure they stayed down. I climbed in bed and was on the computer when it started to rain. I had my window open and was totally enjoying the storm. A breeze carried the smell of the rain in to me, and the lightning and thunder seemed like a symphony until the lightning got a little too close for comfort. From my position on the bed the lightning didn’t look like a yellow streak in the sky…it looked like fire raining out my bedroom window. Yep… FIRE. Yes, I know that lightning IS fire, but I have never seen it actually LOOK like a fire. I have also never seen it and heard it at the SAME TIME. The entire cul-de-sac was white & right out my window I saw streaks of red, orange and yellow. Oh, man! I don’t remember the last time I screamed, but I SCREAMED.

The girls immediately came running out of their bedrooms into my room, and I ushered them all downstairs to see if Greg saw/heard what we did.

By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs Greg was on his way up, telling me that he had a different, but equally impressive experience. He was on his computer downstairs and he saw the lightning, heard the thunder, saw sparks flying from his computer, was paralyzed and had to change his shorts all at the same time.

At present, I am posting this blog via Greg’s phone’s wireless connection on my laptop [Editor’s note: Android rules!] because the lightning took out our cable modem (so we have no phone) and fried Greg’s computer.

So if anyone needs to reach us, call us on our cell phones because we are disconnected from the world right now, but we are just happy to be safe and sound with the storm moving off to the North.