Sometimes 10 years olds are awesome!

L has been in a new stage and I have to say that I'm enjoying it. She wants to cook, and cook everything. She made hard boiled eggs the other day (I supervised of course) and then blueberry muffins. Today she made mac n cheese for lunch. I think I'll show her how to make meatloaf so she can make dinner too :P

I'll just try to focus on this part and not the "2nd mom syndrome" she seems to have right now ;)

Yep

Another day of no desire to blog and nothing to blog about.

I decided that I needed to let my loyal readers know that I'm alive and kicking.

Homeschool is coming along well.

School for me is coming along well.

The family is pretty healthy.

Stu's job is going well.

The dust bunnies are coming along well. Ok, just seeing if you were really reading ;). I dusted last week and even vacuumed, yeah I know shocking!

I'm tired of brown air in the horizon, knowing that I'm breathing that lovely stuff.

I'm still in my pj's and its 4:45 in the afternoon. If I didn't have class tonight I would stay in my pj's the whole day ;)

So cool!

I was taking the garbage out on my way to school and noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. I dropped the garbage can lid, because its freaking freezing out! And saw something jump in our neighbors yard. I turned all the way around and saw a deer!! I ran up the steps and fumbled with the door trying not to scare the deer. I yelled "hunny, get the camera quick!" While waiting for him I noticed that there were 3 deer!!

The camera had dead batteries, dangit! So Stu ran to get new ones while I watched whispering to the kids "shh, don't scare them." One started walking toward the street and our street is really busy with no sidewalk on our side, so I said "don't go into the street." Cause deer understand english and would listen to me, duh. To my surprise it started walking into our yard! Woohoo, we might get a pic after all.

Stu got this picture...



before they ran down the hill and out of site.

I hope they found food or whatever it was they were looking for. They were so cute :)
and for Stu's version, click here.

Getting in a groove...

Last week was pretty hard, getting the kids into new routines and figuring out how much they could handle to learn. How much time could they sit and do work, how often did they really need breaks. How long should the school day last? etc etc etc...

Then this week the kids just fought. All. The. Time! It has been really cold here and snowy and just icky. Plus we've been dealing with illness too. I was about to throw in the towel and say, no more school for another week! Just let 'em battle it out for awhile ;)

Yesterday I decided to try a more relaxed approach and see how it went. I had L on once couch, M on the other and Little Man on starfall.com . It was so much fun and we covered a ton more material, so nice! Fighting was much less and I think they really enjoyed the day. I know I did!

Today we are going to the library and we'll do craft time and maybe some geography or history. Just a relaxed day.

I have been tagged!

And it was by my own husband! He has been bugging me to post and with our new 2 O'clock church time, I have some time on my hands.

5 things you don't know about me, and if you already know these things then too bad ;)

1. I am a green belt in Shaolin Kempo, actually a green belt with a brown stripe ;). My next belt would be a brown belt. I only have 3 more belt tests before I would take my black belt test. But the prices went up and the kids became first priority so I no longer go to martial arts.

2. When I was a kid I wanted to become a chef. I even enrolled in the local community college right out of high school. But I didn't know how the whole financial aid thing went and when I saw the bill ($755 plus books) I freaked and dropped out before I even started. Embarassing, yes. I still love to cook but no longer want it to be my profession.

3. I hate my feet. They are wide and ugly and now that I'm a runner, they are bony and gross. Good thing there are a lot of cute shoes out there ;)

4. I cannot stand to hear people eating. It makes it really hard to eat in restaurants or with friends. My family is trained to be very quiet and if they aren't then watch out!

5. My high school ring, that I just had to have, has a naked woman on it. Its the "mascot" but still! I really don't need to see breasts every time I look at it :P

Ok, now I tag foodie, Olivia, musical mom, Sheri, and Heidi. Now go forth and complete your mission, don't forget to tag 5 more people, mwahahahahaha!

Ahh winter!

I promise to post some cute pictures of my kids, eventually ;). But for now I'll whine about the cold weather and the overcast icky days. I think I need Stu to hurry up and make a few million dollars so we can vacation in warm areas during this icky winter weather.

Little Man was sick last week, some stomach bug. I got something similar for about 24 hours on Sunday/Monday. M is now complaining about a headache and has a slight fever, which doesn't surprise me because he gets a fever with every illness. I just hope it isn't 105 this time, not cool.

And this afternoon I was reminded that I am human afterall and I'm getting old. I can no longer skip breakfast and have a few chocolates for lunch, if I do I'll get a migraine. Fun fun :P

Oh and Happy New Year :) hehe.

Yay, 5 miles!

I haven't been running very much in the last several months. I have not run over 4 miles since March 25th! So today I decided to run 5 miles and see how it felt. But as luck would have it, it snowed again last night so I had to go to the gym and run on the treadmill.

But I did it! 5 miles, very slow and tiring, miles!! Woohoo!

A bevy of monsters

Little man and his siblings got some modeling clay from their grandpa. I asked each of them what they were making. L was making people, M was trying to copy her ;) and Little man was making "a bevy of monsters" I said " a waht?" he said "a bevy of monsters."

I tried not to giggle and asked him where he learned about bevy. He said "it means a lot of monsters, mom" like I was a dumb adult :P. L said he learned it from the old McDonalds videos we have. Finally, all that tv/movie watching is paying off, lol.

I taught him that plethora means the same thing. He said this morning "dad, I have a bevy, plethora of monsters!" hehe.

Trans Siberian Orchestra

Stu and I were lucky enough to go to their concert and it was so much fun! Doba, the company that Stu works for, purchased enough tickets for the whole company to go if they wanted to. So we lined up a babysitter and ran out of the house as fast as we could. Ok, so we made sure the kids were fed and in pj's first and we did have a cell phone. But we were both so excited to go.

Here is one of their songs just incase you haven't heard of them before. I love listening to them while I workout.

Sorry, the video decided that it didn't want to work anymore. I'll put another one on here as soon as I find a good one.

Snow

We usually don't get that much snow at my house, atleast not at once. This pic was taken Sunday morning after two days of off and on snow.




And this is what happens when your 4 year old is so excited to play in the snow. He runs outside and falls down the cement steps. The goose egg is ginormous. The pic doesn't do it any justice. Poor kid.

Oh how sweet it is :)

To PASS your math 990 class when you are not smart when it comes to math and half your brain cells are gone since having children.

I needed 70% on the final to pass my math class (dumb rule by the math department) and I got a 70.83% hahaha. I don't care, I'm moving on, woohoo!!!

And I earned every point, especially after my morning. Which I'll post about later today or tomorrow.


Edit: I got a B+ in the class overall, fyi :)

One down, two to go!

Just took the last test for my psychology class, woohoo!!

I have a final review for math tomorrow then the final on Tuesday. And my final for my fitness class on Saturday morning, afterwhich I get to go to the ward Christmas party. Did I mention that it starts at 10am and my class should be over at 10:15am? and I have to run a mile and a half during said class. Ho Ho Ho Merry Stinky Christmas Neighbors :)





Edited to add:

Some spammer commented on my blog, dangit. So I added word verification, I hope thats enough.

Mom, who are those guys?

Me - "They are missionaries."

M - "Oh, missionaries going to school."

Me - "No, they carry their scriptures and stuff in their backpacks."

M - "Oh, I thought missionaries carried guns and were fighters."

I guess we need to have a talk about what missionaries do, though he may not want to be one as badly as he does now ;).

A sad day

My Uncle passed away this morning, in his sleep. He was 52 and has struggled with arthritis for many years. The drs don't know how he died, he has been in the hospital for a week because of a fall which resulted in two broken vertebrae. They think it may have been an aneurism but aren't sure. I guess it doesn't really matter now, he's gone.

Jeff was a strong man, he dealt with his fragile body better than most could have. He was a wonderful man.

I will miss him.

Wow, my faith in humanity is restored!

We have a neighbor across the street and they have a really large tree in their front yard with like a gazillion leaves on it. Last year the owners only raked them up when their driveway was so loaded that it was slippery and the wind blew half of them on our yard, made me pretty grumpy.

The owners sold their home this spring and the new owners came and raked up their leaves from my yard!! How cool is that? And they have really kept up with keeping the leaves at their house raked so we don't have a mountain of their leaves on our lawn :)

I had 4 big black garbage bags of leaves from our own trees to take care of today, so I was extremely happy that I didn't have to add theirs to the mix this year!

No, I'm not crazy.

I'm going to start homeschooling my kids. I have thought about it a lot for the last few weeks. The more unsatisfied I am with the kids school, the more I want to do something about it. M calls me daily and asks me to pick him up, his "tummy hurts", we've done everything we can think of to "fix" it and nothing is helping.

I know I can do a great job and feel like this is the best thing for us to do. I've immersed myself in everything home school related. I have books on how to transition, books on what level they should be at, what the differnt types of techniques are.

I'm going to start Little Man as well. So we'll get all three kids going and catching up to where they should be as well as advancing in areas they love.

I'm excited and ready to go. Though we will wait until January so I can finish my finals and get everything all set up. L can't wait to start many craft projects that we just haven't had time for, as well as baking! M just wants to be home where things can be faster paced and he can wiggle from time to time ;). Little Man has no idea what is going on, haha.

Dear Soldier

My kids PTA decided to have the kids draw a picture or write a letter to send to soldiers serving in Iraq. I told M about this and he decided to write his letter without my help. I'll put it in his way first and then decipher ;)

Dear Sholchrs

I like your figting but can I wach


Dear Soldiers,

I like your fighting but can I watch?

think he plays too many computer games? ;)

Edit: M just told me that I read it wrong, it is supposed to say.....

Dear Soldiers,

I like your fighting but I can't watch right now.

He needs to learn how to write in a fairly straight line rather than all over the page, haha.

Happy Birthday, Pumpkin! (and Halloween stuff too)

Miss L had her 10th birthday this past weekend. Of course I was sick, oh so sick, so our plans were thrown out the window. But she had lots of fun anyway :). Good thing too because there are no do overs, ha j/k.

Here is her "cake" on her birthday. (ignore the mess)




And here is her oh so professional cake that I made the next day.



And now for Halloween pics :) M is the Super Cheetah (same as last year), Little Man is an Elephant Fire Fighter (he wanted to be an elephant fire fighter monster puppy, um..yeah)



Sideways L is the Vampiress on the left, W is her cousin and B is her other cousin :)



Here is a sideways Little Man



And last but not least, a sideways M :)

Happy Birthday Doba!

Stu works for Doba and every year they have a "Doba Spirit Day" where everyone dresses up and other crazy stuff. This is the third "Spirit Day" and it gets better each time!

Here is Little Man as "The Incredible Hulk" according to him, but "Doba Dot Boy" according to many others at work ;)(the "O" in Doba is green, that is why everyone goes overboard with green!)



Here is one of the "activities" the Engineering group came up with....



And here is the back of Stu's head, pretty clever eh? ;)

29:55!

I did it! I finally broke 30 minutes running 3 miles! I've wanted to for so long but haven't quite had it in me. I felt like I was going to puke when I was done, lol. But I survived and I'm so happy :)