It's about time

For my birthday my visiting teachers gave me some cute little cards with a matching little book. I've been debating what to do with the book. I thought about putting it in my purse and making it a fizzy joy book. I thought about putting it in my church bag so I could attempt to take notes on the rare occasions I actually get to listen in sacrament meeting like Jill does. Finally I decided to take my mother's advice.
She told me years ago that I should write down the funny things my kids say. I always thought it was a good idea, I just never actually did it. I know my kids are now older and won't say as many funny things as they used to, and their pronunciation is now quite good, so we won't get the "Paga" or "wippers" anymore, but I am starting. Better late than never, right? I'm also going to include some of those things you have to say to your kids that you never thought you'd say. My first entry for that particular thing is, "Baby, don't rub your biscuit up your nose, please."
I think this is going to be fun and interesting. Maybe one day I'll have enough for a book!

My fizzy joy for today:
After a week and a half of rain, the sun is shining again today!

nothings

I don't have anything specific to blog on, but I've missed doing it so I'm going to ramble for a bit.

My kids hit a couple of milestones this week. Rachel has learned how to do a one handed cartwheel. This is a pretty big deal. She's only the second one in her gymnastics class to have done it. All three of her teachers were so excited about it that they all had her demonstrate it for me, not knowing I'd seen her do it while watching her class! :) I really am proud of her. It's a big accomplishment! She is also now reading entire books by herself. She read Hop on Pop to Rebecca this week, reading every word except Constantinople and Timbuktu. She reads and spells to herself all the time. I LOVE having a reader in the house!

Tyler is now counting to 100 all on his own. I had no idea he could count past 20 since I don't really count with him, but I asked him on Tuesday to count for me and he went all the way to 100! Where did he learn that? I didn't teach him. I feel a little like I ignore my kids because I'm often surprised at how much they can do, and I wonder where they learned it all.

Becca is now officially potty trained, except at night. I don't even think about making her go potty before we leave the house, or making sure she goes when it's a convenient time to make sure she doesn't have accidents. She just does it when she needs to, and I don't have to worry about her. She's not even having accidents during nap times anymore. It's a huge relief to have that done. If she didn't wake up with her diaper sopping wet every morning, I'd work on night time too.

How do kids manage to grow up so fast? I feel like I'm missing it!

I thought I'd also mention the Alias finale was awesome, so if you haven't watched it, do so! Scott loved the Lost finale last night, and it was very interesting to learn why the plane crashed.

If Kelly took 2 hours to finish the DaVinci Code final challenge, I beat his time! :) It took me more like 40 minutes, best we can remember. But like him, I'm still cursing that restoration puzzle! What was the pattern that got them to clear? I never did figure it out. I also messed up the sudoku puzzle initially. Ironic, considering I do sudoku all the time, but I had to restart it. I got lucky on the chess one, and hanging the paintings, which is usually pretty hard for me, I figured out pretty quickly. The changing picture in the jigsaw threw me a little, but it was probably the easiest of the 5 for me. It was certainly fun to do, even if I'm not going to win any cool prize over it. We also saw the movie last weekend. Has anyone else seen it yet? We really enjoyed it. There were some pretty obvious differences from the book, but mostly it stuck to it really well. I loved the actress who played Sophie. She was great.

Well, that's about it for me today. Hope everyone is happy and healthy and safe!

Oh, fizzy joys!
My three new shirts from Mervyn's
Not spending $ on diapers
rereading a favorite book
being a little bit tan for the first time in my life
a good sale on something you're buying anyway

Kinda cool!

I had kind of a cool experience this week. A few weeks ago Scott e-mailed me a link to a game on Google. It was a daily puzzle game centered around The Da Vinci Code. The puzzles got increasingly difficult, but it was a fun daily distraction. There was a symbol game sort of like sudoku, observational challenges, geography, chess, and other games. It was a lot of fun! As I was nearing the end of the game, I looked at the rules again, and there are some pretty cool prizes for the winner of the game, but only 10,000 finalists get to compete in the final challenge. Whether or not you qualified depended on time; what time did you finish the final game. The first 10,000 to finish the last game and get their registration form in got to compete. The rules stated the finalists would receive an e-mail on Monday to confirm they were in, as well as instructions for the finals.
I went to my mail box on Monday and found an odd box. It was addressed to me, but I had no idea what it was, and there wasn't a return address on it. I opened it up and found this:

This is a replica of a cryptex from the movie! How cool is that?! And, I'm a finalist!! I get to compete this weekend in the final challenge! I don't expect to win, of course, but I'm pretty excited that I get to do it. Apparently there were MILLIONS of people doing this game. I had no idea it was so popular. And the cryptex is really cool. It's a lot heavier than you would think it would be. Scott looked on ebay and a lot of people are selling theirs. They're selling for somewhere around $65 each. No, I am NOT selling mine. I think it's cool, and I earned it! So wish me luck this weekend! If I'm really good, I would win a trip to Europe!

Belated Mother's Day

I wanted to share a belated Mother's Day present I got from Scott.



How many of you can say you have a picture of your family on a soda bottle?? :)

Crazy!

I've just had one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Rebecca came walking in the house from the backyard talking about a bird. I was in the middle of something, so I didn't pay too much attention to her at first until I heard Tyler and Marisa talking about the bird and how cute it was. It turns out, a bird flew onto Rebecca's hip and stayed there. It was perfectly content to latch onto her as she walked around the house. It even stayed there as the kids pet it and cooed over it. It didn't get off until I physically took it off her. Why would a bird do such a thing? It really was crazy.

Calling

I have another post in draft form that I'm hoping to get finished today (even though Monday's are my busiest days) but I needed to get this off my chest first.

A week ago, Scott and I were called into the Bishop's office right after sacrament meeting. I mentioned I had a class I was supposed to be teaching (Course 16-17) but I was told it was already covered. That in and of itself was surprising because they always struggle to find substitute teachers for any of the Sunday School classes, and yet they already had one for me even though I was there. They had already planned on me not being able to teach that class. I was informed they would be releasing me from my calling and I should turn in my manual to the Sunday School president that day. Then they told me they had me in mind for nursery leader. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I've never turned down a calling in my life. I did express my reservations to the Bishop, but I also told him I would accept any calling he had for me.

So yesterday I was released. I actually wasn't surprised. I'd told Scott a few weeks ago I was pretty sure I was going to be released soon. I feel a difference in my lesson preparation. It's kind of like a little warning light that my time in that calling is about to end. It's happened every time I've taught Sunday School. Then they called me to be a primary worker. As Brother Swonger said it, I felt an overwhelming sadness hit me that I can't explain. It was consuming and I couldn't seem to control it. It's now been a day since it happened, and I'm not feeling any better. Is this just disappointment at being called where I don't want to be? Do I just need an attitude adjustment? Why do I get teary and sad every time I think about my new calling? I don't want these kids to be short changed, and I want to do this calling well. But will I be capable of that if it takes all my self control not to burst into tears every time I think about it?

I'm here, I promise!

I know I haven't posted in a while, or even commented on your posts, and I have no real excuse. But I am still here. I do try to read as many blogs as I can when I have time. Thank you so much to Jenn and Jill for all the amazing thoughts on Women's conference! I'm so jealous of the opportunities you women have.
I will try hard to get back to doing this more often! At the very least I'll try to get a new fizzy joy list done today!

Celebration part 2

I had such a fantastic day yesterday, I have to blog about all the details!

I was up at 4:10 to deal with these extra kids that I have, and I hated it, but I was able to get a little bit of sleep after they went back to sleep. The very first thing Rebecca said to me in the morning was "Happy Birthday Mama!" Then she proceeded to repeat that about every half an hour all day long. My kids were as excited for my birthday as I was! And they were exceptionally good and well behaved. That in and of itself is a pretty amazing present!

Scott had a doctor's appointment at 8:30 (just a check up). About the time I was expecting him to get in to work, he walked through the door! He took the day off so that I could have a day to myself! It was a beautiful sunny day and he wanted me to get out of the house without kids and do something fun just for me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I really wanted to get to the gym first. (I know, you can make fun of me now.) He decided I needed my birthday presents right away though, so first we had our little party. He'd been talking about his gift to me for a couple of weeks, and he was really excited about it. I wasn't disappointed. He bought me an iPod nano! I am thrilled!! And not only that, the kids gave me a case for it that straps to my arm so I can take it to the gym! It was so nice to not only have my music, but to not have to deal with my cd player that skips on some of the machines, and to not have to put my music away when I go to do my weights. It was a very thoughtful gift, and I love it!

So after the gym I came home and got showered and dressed for the day. After a light lunch outside while Scott washed my car, he sent me off to get a manicure and pedicure! I think a pedicure is the ultimate in pampering and I'm totally hooked on them. When I got home, the kids and I frosted cupcakes, and of course we had to eat one! Then Scott made them dinner while I picked up the babysitter. Then it was off to Hooters!

We ended up with 13 people at Hooters! I didn't know a couple of them, but it was still quite a party. The wings were just as good as I'd hoped, the company was fun, and we had a fantastic time. Because it was my birthday, they had me stand up on a stool while they sang to me (right next to an 18 year old girl). Of course we forgot our camera, so this is what we got from Scott's camera phone. Hooters really was a fun place for a party!

I think yesterday was the best birthday I've ever had. I got several phone calls and e-mails wishing me a happy birthday, and Jenn even blogged on it! Scott worked really hard to make sure I had a great day, and I really did.

Celebration part 1

I got to start celebrating my birthday on Friday! We met Scott's parents for dinner, and to our surprise, his brother Michael and his wife Tessa came too! We spent a very enjoyable time talking and eating at a local buffet, and they even had my birthday announced over the intercom so the whole restaurant heard about it. It was quite fun!
But the real party will be tomorrow. We've invited a whole bunch of people to meet us for dinner and I finally get to go to Hooters! I've heard they have the best buffalo wings around, and I love wings, so we're going! We'll do a little party with my kids before dinner, then they'll stay home with a babysitter so we can have some adult time. This surprises me, but I'm actually looking forward to turning 30 tomorrow!