Spring Dance Recital and Giveaway Winner

Princess is third from the left.

Scout is second from the left.

So after we got trounced at the Countryfest Pinewood Derby (not to be confused with the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby...not that it matters, we lost there too), we piled in the van and headed for Chick-Fil-A.

They were giving all dads a free chicken sandwich between the hours of four and eight, Since we didn't have any other supper plans, I had grabbed all the free chicken soup coupons from the calendars Baby Doll gave everyone for Christmas. We fed the whole group of us for $17 although it could have been free if I hadn't sprung for fries.

Crafty (I like her in the Max costume better).

We rushed back to the house just in time (actually she was a little late) for Scout to get ready for the recital. She quickly pulled on her costume and the Drama Queen did her hair and makeup in record time. We arrived just as they were making the welcoming speech and hustled to find somewhere to sit. Scout did an awesome job as usual and when she was finished we ran home again so the kids could get their wiggles out for 30 minutes before the recital for the older kids.

Sport

The recital was awesome, as usual. I love watching my kids dance! I know I showed you some pictures of the small stage a couple of weeks ago at the Riverton Arts Festival, but here is what they look like on the big stage. And this time you get Scout and Sport too. Have I ever told you that Sport takes an all-boys ballet class? They have so much fun and they get to use swords and everything.

Prima Donna is second from the left.

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And since it's after midnight, I'm announcing the winner of my 500 post giveaway.

Ever since I learned to count and maybe even before, my favorite number has been the number 8. That's because you have to be at least 8 to get baptized into our church. It's also the age of accountability...the age when babies become responsible children.

At our house that means that girls can choose to have their ears pierced. Kids also have to start cutting their own toenails and fingernails when they turn 8 (unless they are so disgusting I just can't stand them anymore, in which case I am perfectly justified in helping them out). It's the age they can start wearing them long if they are girls and they take care of them. It's the age they can choose their own hairstyle (within reasonable boundaries), and the age they start learning to cook. Yes, for us it is definitely a turning point.

So no one else actually chose that number, but Becky and Steve did choose the number 7 and they are the winners of a $50 surprise package crammed full of Tupperware. Please email me your address and I will get it in the mail right away.

Thanks for playing everyone and thanks for being there for me. Have a terrific weekend!

And the Winner is...

Sadly, not my picture.

Thanks everybody for your happy wishes and time spent reading my little blog! Somebody asked me if we had cake. Now I have to confess that I didn't even think of cake...but Princess did. It was the first thing she asked me when she got home from school today. I finally relented and let her make brownies. Then while I was at my basketball game the kids lit candles and sang to the blog and then proceeded to eat half of them!

The game was exciting though. Bossy got stuck downtown at work, so we only had 4 players with us, except that Bethany's mom (who has often played with us) came to watch Bethany. So she agreed to stand on the court for the opening tip-off so we didn't have to forfeit. Since she has had some trouble with her knees, I figured she would simply step off the court and return to her seat.

NOT! She had to chase down a girl on a fast break first and their feet got tangled up and she hit the floor, on her knees, of course. I was so worried for her, but she got up and THEN she left the court. I think I forgot to mention that the other team only had four players too, so they got to forfeit. And then they proceeded to trounce us! The final score was 54 to 30, but it was OK. Teach made 10 points and Bethany made 12.

I put up one pathetic basket because I was playing point guard and I don't generally shoot from the outside. Just for fun I put up a 3-pointer in the third quarter, but it bounced up from the rim and then out.

I know you didn't stop by my blog today to hear a play-by-play from my basketball game. You want to know who won the Tupperware, don't you?! OK, OK, my awesome winner is Marci from Life Doesn't Have to be Perfect to be Wonderful. Congrats, Marci and thanks again for all of you awesome readers! Eat a brownie and sing to my blog for me...apparently it's a new trend.

New Year's Giveaway!

A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would like to host a giveaway for My Memories Suite. The kind folks over there offered me a free copy of their software as well as a copy to give to one of my fantastic readers for my honest opinion of their product. I'm not very good with software as a general rule, so I quickly assigned Teach to try it out for me. She loves scrapbooking and her Cricut is one of her best friends.

After downloading the software, it took her an hour or so to create these amazing pages! She tells me the program is so easy that even I could do it...and that's really saying something. My normal mode of scrapbooking is to slap a picture on a colored sheet of paper with a couple of tape rolls and maybe write a few words with a marker...or maybe not depending on how big of a hurry I am in. It has not really been a task I enjoy, it is just something I feel compelled to do (that's one of the reasons I started my blog). Well, this program might just change my mind. Aren't these pictures fun?

The Giveaway starts today, January 2, 2012, and ends 11:59 PM on January 15, 2012. All you have to do is visit www.MyMemories.com and then leave a comment on this post telling me one of their products you could use for your own scrapbooking. For a second chance, tell me you are a follower and/or tweet this giveaway. And you know what? My Memories even has their own BLOG! You can visit it at http://blog.mymemories.com/

If you decide to follow them, I will throw in one more entry for you. Just make sure you let me know when you do any of these things. Maximum of five entries.

If you just can't wait to try this software, I have a deal for you. I have my OWN coupon code! That means you can enter it when you order and get $10 off. Here you go:  STMMMS3111.



One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to get my scrapbooking (and my thighs!) in a little better shape. I'm afraid I'm several years behind now. Baby Doll has about 3 pages in her book...I guess I should be grateful that she actually has a book!

Bringing Them Together

Memorial Day weekend was rather crazy and busy for us, but then so is every other day…We spent most of Friday getting ready for the Drama Queen to move home. Except for my sweetie, who was busy planting the garden since we actually got a day that wasn’t totally wet and soggy. The Drama Queen has finally finished her TRIPLE major (English, Theater, and Education) and other than her student teaching, she is ready to graduate.

We are excited to have her closer to home. She has been about 4 hours away, so that means she can only come home for major holidays (Mothers’ Day is NOT a major holiday…). So on Monday I sent my sweetie and Teach in our huge van without most of the seats, and the Gym Rat and Princess in Grandpa’s truck across the state to pick up the Drama Queen. She finished her classes on Friday, so she had two days to get all her crap packed and ready to go. We knew she wouldn’t be able to leave until Tuesday because of the holiday since she had to turn in her keys to an insurance office. But at least they could pack everything up and bring it home and she could follow the next day.

At home we were moving kids around, cleaning closets, and preparing a room for her. I wanted her to be right in the thick of things. Sport is nearly 8 years old and he doesn’t remember when the Drama Queen lived at home. Needless to say, neither do any of the younger kids. I recognized this problem with my kids about 2 weeks ago when the guys were preparing for fathers and sons camp.

Curly was helping me pack the cooler and I was wondering out loud what drinks to put in for the Gym Rat. "Why is the Gym Rat coming with us?" he questioned.
"Why wouldn’t he come?" I slipped some diet Cherry Pepsi from the box into the cooler for my sweetie.
Curly looked at me sideways, "He’s not part of our family," he said.
"Of course he’s part of our family!" I was taken completely by surprise.
The confusion was obvious in his little face. "Why don’t you think he’s part of our family?" I sat in the nearest chair and pulled him onto my lap so we could have a real conversation.
"Well, he doesn’t live here," he said matter-of-factly.
"He’s your brother!" I exclaimed.
"He’s not my brother," he said promptly.
"Yes, he is!"

Like there is any doubt. Curly (left) Gym Rat (right)

This conversation lasted the better part of a week before I finally convinced him that the Gym Rat really was his brother. But mostly it got me thinking about the fact that I sort of have two families. The younger kids don’t really know the older kids. That’s why when the opportunity came to have the Drama Queen move back in for the summer, I decided that she would have to live upstairs with the little kids so there wouldn’t be any question that she was their sister.

We waited anxiously for the vehicles to arrive Monday night. They had been stuck on the freeway near Fillmore for over an hour because of a huge accident. We were so surprised when we opened the door and saw the Drama Queen here a day early and safe and sound with the rest of our crew. It took our little army about 20 minutes to unload all three vehicles. Even Curly ran back and forth carrying small boxes and pillows. But then it started all over again today…he asked me about half a dozen times when the Drama Queen was leaving to go back to her house. Then I had to explain that she wasn’t leaving. And yes, she was his sister.

Has anybody else faced a problem like this? How did you solve it? We will send a pair of Grandma’s homemade hot-pads to three great suggestions (selected in a random drawing to be held on Fathers’ Day – June 19, 2011).

Mother's Day Article

Hopefully Mom will forgive me for making a post.  The online edition of the article is up and I wanted to share it with you.  Remember you can get an extra entry in our May giveaway by reading this article and commenting on it. 

Click here to read.  


PS. The article ends with her interview on page 4.

(Sarah A. Miller | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Gardening

We have a big backyard. The first summer we spent here in our house, we tried to do some landscaping. I already told you about our out-of-control sandpile, but we also had some other requirements. My sweetie grew up gardening so we definitely needed a garden spot. We also marked off a large area for a basketball court (my idea, of course). We had lots of dreams and plans…but before we even made our first house payment, my sweetie got laid off from his job. 

We were devastated! Our new mortgage payment was three times our old one and to make matters worse, we had used most of our food storage because we were planning to move. I was still working full-time, so thank goodness we didn’t lose our insurance or other benefits. It was August 1994 and we didn’t even have a garden to help us feed our growing family.  It was a scary time, but we survived. We had set aside a small garden plot in the northeast corner of our lot, but after struggling through the better part of a year waiting for my sweetie to get full-time work, we realized that we needed a much bigger area to plant. 

So that was the end of our basketball court. We couldn’t afford to put in the court anyway, so it seemed only logical that the big dirt area could all be planted in vegetables. My dad owned a farm, but my parents didn’t start growing a real garden until I was about 10. Unfortunately, they weren’t very good at it. My mom believed that the bigger the vegetables got, the better. No sweet tender green beans for us, just huge bulging ones. But we didn’t know any better, so we ate them anyway. I have a special place in my heart for bean patches. 

My parents ran their beans up poles, but my in-laws did it a little differently. They ran them up strings in two rows that were higher than we could comfortably reach. This double row ran the length of their garden or about 75 feet. It made a nice shady place to relax and spend a little time together pretending to pick beans when we were engaged. So now we make our bean patch the same way, hoping some of our older kids will get the idea and find a soul-mate to smooch in the bean patch. Our patch is only about half the length, but it is higher than our back wall so we can hide just a little better from the neighbors. 

Picture from Castle79's photostream

When we lived at the university we had our own little 6 x 6 garden spot. It helped us get by during our starving student days, but more importantly, it gave us a chance to get dirty and remember our roots. Now in our garden, we grow all kinds of veggies and that makes it much easier to feed a big family.  The kids are very involved right from the planting stages through the weeding and harvesting.  We are also into all that canning and preserving stuff, but we can talk about that later. For right now, I just want you to get excited about doing a little planting of your own. 

So for our April Give Away, I want to send you a garden basket that includes tools, seeds, gloves, and various other things you might need to create your own little garden spot. The rules are the same as always, you get one entry for being a follower and one entry for leaving a comment on any post. You can also earn a third entry by linking your blog to mine. (Only three entries per person.)  Good luck and happy gardening! 

Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

Some nights I stay up late just writing this blog for you. It drives my sweetie crazy because when I don’t get enough sleep I get ornery. But if I don’t spend time forcing a particular story from my brain, I don’t get any sleep anyway because it rattles around in there until I spit it out. So Friday night was one of those nights. The Autism stuff is such a huge part of our lives that its story was itching to be told. I finally forced myself off the computer and up to my nice soft bed around 2:30 a.m.


The baby fussed a few times and demanded her middle of the night snack…she’s getting really chubby, by the way…but by 9:00 a.m. I was still snoozing soundly when the door slammed open. Ten-year-old Crafty was responsible, "Mom! Get up and bring some towels! We have a flood in the bathroom!" She grabbed an empty laundry basket and headed back down the stairs. In my dazed and confused nightmare, I reached for my bifocals and knocked them to the floor. It took me a minute or two to locate them and clear my head. We do not live in a floodplain!

I pulled on my clothes from last night, grabbed a pile of towels and headed down the stairs. I nearly crashed into the Dog Walker as he brought the shop vac in from the garage. "Dad’s downstairs," he said before I asked. "It’s raining in the storage room." Crafty was busy trying to soak up the water on the bathroom floor with towels that were already more than saturated. "Toss that wet rug in the basket," I suggested. "I’ll go start the washer." That was dumb! Laundry baskets have holes and I totally underestimated the amount of water one rug could hold. When I picked up the basket, water ran all down the front of my shirt and shorts. Did I mention that it was the toilet flooding? Yeah. Not clean water…

After I got the washer running I grabbed a few more towels from the laundry mountain and made my way back to the flooded area. We spread them out on the carpet all around the bathroom door. Then we did a new kind of potty dance by stomping all over them to help pick up the excess water. My sweetie, Teach, and the Dog Walker were dragging heavy Christmas boxes out of the storage room. Cardboard was soaked and so was the carpet in the downstairs family room. We only finished that area this past summer so my sweetie was more than a little stressed.

brandfreak.com

"Get the fans!" he hollered. The kids set them all up in various spots on the wet carpet. We danced some more. As it turned out, the little fans weren’t enough to do the job. My sweetie headed to Home Depot and rented a couple of their industrial strength fans to blow away the rest of the water. They were loud and noisy, even for my house, but they seemed to do the trick. I rounded up the kids and headed them all to the van to get them out of the house. I didn't want to take any chances by leaving them stranded in a floodplain!

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 Time for details on the new contest! We thought it would be fun to give away some cute kids stuff for Easter. We have one box for boys and one for girls. If you are the winner, you get to choose. Prizes retail for about $25.00 and include things like Barbies and Hot Wheels sets. It will definitely arrive in time to assist the Easter Bunny. Now, there are three ways to get your name entered into this random drawing. First, everyone on the followers’ list will automatically get one entry. Then, if you leave a new comment on any post you will receive a second entry (limit one entry from commenting). And, if you link your blog to mine (leave a comment directing me to your blog so I can visit), I will enter you again! The contest begins at this very moment and ends on March 25, 2011 at midnight MST. Remember to leave me your contact information so I can find you if you win. Good luck!

Friday Freebie: Build and Grow

I have to tell you that I love Saturdays! The kids are out of school, my sweetie is usually not working, and sometimes (depending on the sport or dance schedule) we have a little time together. One of my favorite ways to use that free time is to hang out at our local home improvement stores and make a fun free wood project with my kids. 

 The first Saturday of the month is the kids’ class at Home Depot. You have to sign up several weeks before, and at our Home Depot they hang the sign up sheets near the returns desk. They usually recommend 3^rd – 5^th graders, but they have always let all my kids participate as long as I put their names on the list. So you show up on the day of the class. They give you a free apron, goggles (nobody actually wears these over their eyes, but they make a nice necklace!), and your kit. 

$2 at homedepot.com

You know those orange Home Depot project buckets? They tip those over and they become your table and chairs. They cover some with sheets of plywood and they set out hammers that are just right for the little ones. I’m a little too tall for the bucket chairs, so my legs always go to sleep but the kids don’t seem to mind. We usually take up a whole table by the time the grandkids show up and 2 kids/adult seems to be a good ratio for us. Just be careful which kids you offer to hold the nails for! When Scout was little she smashed my finger several times before I got smart and started putting her next to my sweetie. 

The wood pieces have predrilled holes for the nails and that makes them very kid-friendly.  The instructions are usually easy to follow with pictures of each step, but sometimes the kids don’t pay any attention and they end up nailing in a piece upside down or backwards or both. Then my sweetie spends the next ten minutes trying to pry those thin pieces of wood apart without breaking anything. I’ve taken to asking the assistants if there are any "tricks to this one" before we start. They usually laugh and admit where they screwed up their first kit attempt. 

 

In February we made these cute little heart shelves. The kits take about 20 minutes, although the time we made birdhouses we were there for over an hour! (Those darn slanted roof pieces were almost impossible to line up, but I don’t think the birds care if they live in a Dr. Suess house.) Since we couldn’t think of any reason we wanted to keep seven of these little shelves, we took them home and spray-painted them pink. My sweetie did the red accents on them and then we had the kids give them to their teachers for Valentine’s Day. The teachers loved them! They were unique and calorie-free. 

Lowe’s offers two classes each month on the first and third Saturdays. Their signups are all on-line at www.lowesbuildandgrow.com We attend nearly every class and Wendy, the cute girl in charge of handing out the kits, knows each of our kids by their first names! In February we made these Valentine’s Day music boxes with the heart-shaped top. My dancer girls were excited because the music boxes actually played Swan Lake! On the third week of February they offered these fun pull-back cars.  Their classes are pretty much the same as the Home Depot ones and when the kids are finished and show off their projects they are awarded a patch at Lowe’s and a pin at Home Depot.  

In December Lowe's offered three classes, one each Saturday and each class gave us a different piece of a train!  These pieces were designed to hook together.  So after the third and final class we gathered around the kitchen table and let the kids paint them.  Now they all have their own little Christmas trains.  All of these classes are free, but it is difficult to sign up right before the class. The night before we go to a class I usually get on-line and sign up for next month’s class. They do have a limited number of kits. Try one out and let us know what you think! Or leave us a comment if you have been to one. Our contest for March starts next week! Check back for more details.

Hot Potato

There’s never a day that goes by around here without some kind of excitement or another. I told you it was the Gym Rat’s birthday the other day. We have a tradition that on your birthday, you get to choose what you want to eat for dinner (within reason, of course). He chose steak and potatoes, an expensive but acceptable choice. He even offered to make the potatoes himself, commenting that he had a new recipe he wanted to try out.  That was great with me. I don’t really like cooking anyway and if he made the potatoes and my sweetie cooked the steaks on the grill, the only thing left for me to do was open a few cans of corn. 

We had planned dinner at 6:30, but he showed up late with a bag of potatoes. After looking at his recipe, he realized that he was supposed to bake the potatoes before he fried them. By then the steaks were almost done and all of the other food was just sitting. So he threw the potatoes into a skillet and with a little help from Bossy, soon they were steaming and about ready to go. 

Because we were already running behind schedule and we had friends coming over for cake, we put all the food on the table and quickly gathered the family. After a 10-second prayer, everybody dug in. (It didn’t help that there were about three minutes left in the Super Bowl and it was still anybody’s game. ‘Grats to the Packers – to my son-in-law, "You were right again, but don’t let it go to your head!") 

Anyway, my 14-year-old Princess took a big bite of those yummy steamy potatoes, not realizing how hot they were. She choked and breathed and tears streamed down her face as they burned all the way down. When cold water didn’t soothe the ache, I gave her a popsicle. That helped some and eventually she rejoined the party. Fast forward to the next morning. About 10:30 she texted me that her throat hurt. So I called the doctor’s office and waited impatiently for the next 20 minutes until they called me back. Yes, she could swallow, no, I didn’t ask about her pain scale (someday I’ll tell you how much I hate the pain scale!), and a half dozen other questions that I didn’t think to ask her. So I hung up the phone and after another 20 minutes of furious texting, I called the doctor’s office again. 

This time they must have been waiting for my call because they called right back. Her pain scale, which was 6, by the way, was acceptable, but if she didn’t feel better within about 24 hours, she needed to be seen. I settled down, sent her a message that she needed to eat ice cream and yogurt, and went back to my mountain of laundry. My kids come home from school in small groups; first high school, then middle school, and finally the elementary kids. When she and the Prima Donna came in I was relieved to hear that she was feeling better and no follow up appointment would likely be necessary. 

Stickers available Cafe Press

Less than an hour later, ten-year-old Crafty bursts through the front door. Blood and snot and tears are streaming down her face. "I fell off my scooter!" she wails. I grab a cool, wet rag to staunch the flow. As I gently wipe the road rash on her cheek and upper lip, I punch the number of the doctor’s office into my phone for the third time that day. Maybe I should have gone into medicine.

What about you Mom & Dad readers?  Have you ever had days like this on hold with the doctor's office all day?  Do you recognize your doctor's medical assistant's voice?  Has the receptionist ever joked about you setting up a tent in the waiting room?  Non-parents can enter too just leave your best story about your own childhood and how you drove your parents crazy with doctor visits.  Leave a comment telling me your experience and I will pick one lucky reader's story and send them one of Grandma's special quilts to help hug away those boo-boos.   The give-away ends on Friday, February 18th at 11:59PM Mountain Standard Time.  Share this with your friends and be sure to enable your e-mail in your profile so I can contact you if you are the winner. Contest is closed thanks for all the great entries.  Winner with be notified tomorrow and announced on the blog on Monday.

Grandma's Wonderful Quilt