Teach's Big News

Teach has decided she wants to go on a mission for our church! We are so excited about this news since she will be the first of our kids to serve. It's bittersweet to think that for 18 months she will be leaving us and living on her own with other missionaries. She can email us once a week, but she won't be able to call except for Christmas and Mothers' Day.

She probably won't leave for several months since there is so much to get ready! Yesterday we headed for the clinic and she started some of the immunizations she needs to have. She also has doctor's and dentist's appointment on her calendar.

She definitely doesn't want to leave until after our trip to Washington DC. (Did you all remember to tweet about the Dog Walker's wish to meet the President?) Some missions require biking or walking, so she is working on physical fitness as well. This is a whole new adventure for us...I'll keep you posted on her progress.

A Pair of Jeans - part 3

You knew this story couldn't be over yet...

The Bossman and I eventually became friends, sort of. I worked really hard for him and he paid me crap-tastic wages every other week. Because Christmas got in the way, it took me several months before I finally got my pair of jeans. Yeah, they were awesome! But by then my boyfriend was gone, I turned 15, and I was on the prowl. I discovered that I really kind of liked boys...lots of boys!

About February or March, the Bossman hired a couple of girls from the local college to work the night shift with me. I had graduated from counter help to cook, to night manager in just a few short months. I was good at being in charge, but it was a little strange to be bossing these much older girls around. They didn't seem to mind though and other than the nights I had basketball games and Sundays, I worked pretty much every day. That meant my social life revolved around my job.

LDS missionaries

My parents didn't really love me hanging around with these older girls all the time and they were even more upset when the Bossman hired a guy from the college to help us close up every night. He was nice enough, and it wasn't long before he started walking me home, after all, it was late and I was all by myself since I still wasn't old enough to drive.

He was never really my boyfriend since I liked lots of guys, but I thought that maybe he wanted to be. When he hit the ripe old age of 19, he decided to go on a mission for our church. His home when he wasn't at school was on the other side of the Bossman's home and since I still wasn't old enough to drive, attending his farewell was problematic. Then the Bossman did something totally uncharacteristic! He offered to let me stay at his house with his family on Saturday night and then deliver all of us to the church meeting.

I was surprised when my parents agreed to this scheme, but excited too. The Bossman's daughter, Lisa, and I had never been friends, but I figured that for one night I would be safe. And I was. We sent off the missionary and then life went back to normal. (I have tons more to tell you about Taco Time, but I need to finish the story about this guy.)

I wrote to him for the two years he was on his mission and when I was 17, he returned. I wasn't really expecting anything and I was too young to really start thinking about getting serious, but I thought we might have some fun together since I knew he was coming back to school. I attended his homecoming and he sought me out afterwards. I invited him to come to my house a little later in the week so we could get reacquainted without all the people around.

He showed up right on schedule. We had been such good friends before and during his mission that I was a little put off when he was so stiff and formal with me. He had only been at my house for about 15 minutes when he finally confessed that he had prayed about me and I wasn't the "one" so he didn't see any reason to continue our relationship. Then he left.

I was completely shocked! I was dumped before we even got started.

OK, now you have to use your imagination to fast forward about 5 years. My sweetie and I had been married for about 4 years and Bossy was three or four and the Gym Rat was a baby. I ran into this guy. He was working at Fred Meyer in Logan, many miles from my hometown and a lifetime away from the day I had been so swiftly dumped. It's amazing how a little time and perspective can heal old wounds.

I greeted him warmly and we chatted for a few minutes about our lives and families. It was comfortable, like two old friends just catching up. As we were wrapping up our conversation, he issued an invitation to me and my sweetie to drop by his home. I readily agreed, thinking it might be fun to meet his wife.

We showed up at his apartment as promised. It only took about 5 minutes before I discovered the motive behind his friendliness. He and his new wife were selling Amway...

credit

Some people just never change.

LIttle Bits of This and That

This is one of the things I love about our church...

Less than 10 minutes ago, this entire gym was filled with chairs and people sitting in them. It's amazing what we can do when we all work together. And nobody was asked, but right after the closing prayer, racks were pulled out and literally a hundred people were suddenly clearing the room.

My girls helped gather paper and trash and the boys helped with the chairs.

On a totally unrelated note...This is the awesome poster hanging on the door of our dance studio. See that scary looking dancer in black? That's Princess! Crazy, huh?! My sweet little girl looking so evil!

I had a sports meeting tonight at the church and after we were finished and I was putting away chairs, a lady came up to me. "I think I know you," she said. "Do your girls dance?" After we established the fact that our girls were dancing together, she admitted that she had just taken the pictures for the Sleeping Beauty ballet! How random is that? I guess we live in a small town after all.

The cookie pile is getting smaller and smaller and is no longer threatening to overtake all the seating in my livingroom. Thanks for all of your concern and offers to take them off my hands. As much as I love cookies and count on the money to plan fun activities for my troop, by the time cookies are done, I'm totally tired of looking at them.

I'm going to be completely tied up with preparations for the Blue and Gold Banquet for the Cub Scouts on Tuesday. If you don't hear from me you will know it's because I am chasing to every Hobby Lobby in town looking for gold tablecloths. Wish me luck!

Guest Blogger - My First Kiss (sort of) by Sweetie

Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent pretty much being afraid of girls.  The thoughts of asking one out on a date was terrifying!  I was pretty shy…. But it hadn’t always been that way.

In first grade I had a little club going on called the Radiator Club.  Rather than go out for recess in the cold of winter, I would stay in and talk to my classmate.  One day we decided to stop talking and kiss instead.  She liked it so much she decided to have her best friend join us the next day…

I still remember sitting on the radiator with a girl on each side, my head being pulled one way and then the next as my attention became a contest between the two friends.  The next day there were four of them… That didn’t work out so well and eventually the club abandoned me.  My lips needed a rest by then anyway.

Maybe that’s what started me being afraid of girls.  It probably had more to do with getting chubby… but that’s another story.  As bad as that story is though, it’s not the one that makes my kids cringe and wonder why I wasn’t struck by lightning.  No, in kindergarten I did something worse…

Once a week instead of going home after school, we all walked to the church for after school primary.   I had a big crush on a girl named Trudy… I liked her and she seemed to like me. She sat by me in primary… so one day I had a plan that was almost as daring as Squints from the movie, The Sandlot.

Trudy was right next to me and I thought of a wonderful opportunity when no one would be looking.  So during the opening prayer I leaned over and kissed her good and long.  She didn’t scream...or slap… she just smiled.  Wow!  I had pulled it off!  Or so I thought.  Did I mention that my mom was in the Primary Presidency?  Yeah, she was sitting on the stand… and evidently she sinfully did NOT shut her eyes during the prayer…. Busted!

Trudy moved at the end of the school year.  My mom teased me that it was all my fault.  Little did I know it would never be forgotten… somehow the story came up once if front of some of the kids…MY kids, and now the story is passed from kid to kid.  If you are ever in trouble, just remind Dad he kissed a girl during the opening prayer…

and lived to tell about it!

Nine o'clock Church

You all know I don't love mornings. Our church is set up on a rotating schedule so all of last year we started at 1:00 in the afternoon. In January we changed to the 9:00 schedule. It makes my Sundays a little miserable, but I usually make it work...mostly...

A reenactment...

I set my alarm to go off at 8:10. I know, that's cutting it close, but we are fortunate enough to live about 3 minutes away from our church building so I only have to allow 5 minutes for travel time. I rolled out at 8:10 on the dot and after sending texts to all the older kids, I took a 3-minute shower with Baby Doll. I always have the kids shower on Saturday night so hopefully they are still pretty clean.

I called from my my bedroom door, assigning tasks to each older person. Princess had to get Scout ready, Crafty got Curly, Prima Donna got the diaper bag and toast-making duty. I took care of Baby Doll and me and by 20 minutes to 9:00, we headed down the stairs.

Things were mostly progressing nicely. Curly was still missing his shoes and I had to pull on my boots, but Scout was screaming up a storm. Now this isn't really a surprise to anyone...if there is one person who hates mornings more than me, it's Scout.

A picture? If course Curly wanted in!`

"Who had Scout?" I called above the din. "I did," Princess confessed. "She's ready. I even put on her coat." I peeked in her general direction and saw here bare feet kicking in the air. "Shoes?" I asked. "She has them," Princess remarked, "I guess she kicked them off." I sat down on the pew to put on my boots. My sweetie hollered "Five minutes!" as he headed down the stairs. Kids started pulling on coats and the Dog Walker and Sport left to go save seats. I handed Baby Doll a piece of toast and decided that maybe I'd better escort Scout to the van myself. Her wailing had risen a pitch.

She reached her arms around my neck and sobbed, "Princess put me in this little tiny dress!" I stood her on her feet. It was a size 3T! (She wears a 6.)  I immediately started stripping her down and sent someone for another dress. My sweetie was attempting to scrape the ice from the windshield of the minivan. I pulled a new dress over Scout's head and hurried to button it up. We slipped her shoes back on and headed for the door.

My sweetie had abandoned the minivan idea because the door was frozen shut and now all the kids were climbing into the big van. After we played musical cars and I realized the Dog Walker and Sport were now only about two minutes ahead of us because of his icy car, we finally got everyone loaded.

We did manage to make it into the foyer in time to take the sacrament...barely. Even the best laid plans might need to have a little extra time built in. I guess I'll set the clock for 8:05 next week.

A Music Sample

 I’ve told you before that we have some pretty famous people who come to our church. The kids’ personal favorite is Santa Claus, but we often see Austin Collie from the Indianapolis Colts. His in-laws live on my street and his little guy is so cute! When Shawn Bradley played in the NBA, his in-laws lived on our street too, although they have since moved away.

Steve and Lisa James

It’s not just professional athletes; we have entertainers too. My kids love the music from Steve and Lisa James! (I’ll see if I can get Teach to embed one of their songs for you.) We had a party at our church on Friday night and Steve ran the mike. I’ve never known anyone who can make up a song on the piano while he is talking…until I met Steve, that is.

But even though I could write an entire post on them (and maybe I will!), today I want to tell you about our newest celebrity. Wait! Let me back up a little. Last Sunday I was asked to substitute in the nursery. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the LDS church, the nursery is a little class for 18 months to three-year-olds. That means it’s Curly’s class.

Of course I said yes right away. I love hanging out with the little kids. I can kick off my shoes, sit on the floor, spend time with my little guy just playing, and I even get a snack if I want one. Curly was so excited that I was coming to his class! He practically skipped out of the chapel and down the hall. I was lugging Baby Doll on one arm and trying to keep up as we wove through small groups of people who weren’t in nearly as big of a hurry as we were. The nursery is always staffed with at least two teachers just in case someone needs to find mom in a hurry.

So the other nursery worker’s name was Sarah. She was new to the neighborhood and I had never had the opportunity to talk with her. We chatted about our families and kids as we crawled around on the floor settling disputes and racing Hot Wheels. She mentioned that she had a degree in Music Therapy when I told her that the Dog Walker was autistic. Somewhere I heard that she played the guitar and did some entertaining…

We cleaned up the toys and settled the kids for a snack. There were only six counting Baby Doll, but it was all I could do to keep her sitting upright in a little folding chair. She kept climbing on the table. I was still trying to get her to finish her snack when Sarah herded the older kids across the hall to a tiny classroom for their lesson. I could hear her singing, “If you’re ready for the lesson, find your seat. If you’re ready for the lesson, find your seat…”

Five minutes later they were back and anxious to color. I had just gotten the table wiped down and the leftover treats put away. We spread the crayons on the table and handed each child a picture. Sarah hummed quietly in between compliments on their work. When they had completed their masterpieces, we cleaned up again. Then Sarah asked if the kids wanted to sing a song and she started with “Shake your Sillies Out.” But she got ZERO response. Instead they all wanted to crawl around on the floor and pretend they were puppies until their parents came to pick them up.

Sarah Sample

When we got home, I decided to Google my new friend, Sarah Sample. Turns out she has four CDs to her credit, videos on YouTube, and you can buy her stuff on Amazon! Suddenly my little private concert took on more significance. People pay good money to hear her sing. But I guess that didn’t matter to that bunch of 3-year-olds. They’d rather roll over and play dead!

So Proud

 For the first time in 9 months, I almost didn’t post today. It’s not that I had writer’s block or anything, it’s just that the Dog Walker wrote such an amazing post yesterday, I wasn’t anxious to have something replace it. His Court of Honor was an incredible experience for me. We’d worked so long and hard on this goal that I wanted him to feel like it was something special. I had most things ready by Sunday morning. I only had to stay up until about 3:00 AM to finish my talk. When I finally fell into bed, it was a troubled sleep. The one thing he wanted more than anything, just a little bit of fame, I couldn’t give him. He wasn’t satisfied with just appearing on my blog. And our family interview about the blog didn’t work either. He wanted to be in the spotlight even for just a brief moment. I explained to him that fame is a fleeting thing, but I sent out the media releases anyway and waited all week for word.


By Sunday morning, I had heard nothing…until KSL’s reporter, Sandra Yi, called me! She wanted to interview us and then they were still planning to send someone to the Court of Honor. It didn’t help that we were heading out to three hours of church, and during the first hour, just my kids were scheduled to sing as a group for the congregation. But right after their song, I tugged his arm and we slipped out the back door. His scout clothes were in the van and he changed quickly in the restroom. The interview lasted about an hour although the actual footage on the morning news lasted about 2 minutes.

Church ended at 4:00 and the Court of Honor started at 6:00. We had gathered up all sorts of props to show the different badges and all the hard work. We even took in a huge blow-up raft and a tent complete with a sleeping bag! His bike, his backpack, his scuba gear…anything we could think of that told about his scouting journey. We had four 12-foot tables that held 59 one-inch binders full of handwritten answers and pictures to prompt his memory when he met with each Merit Badge Counselor.

The Dog Walker prepared a slide show that started when he was an 11-year-old scout and ended just this week when he finished the last two badges. Then the kids living at home surprised him with a flash-mob dance to the scout song. He was so gracious and so grown up and only a little bit autistic. When they presented his final badges, the entire room gave him a standing ovation and he stood there, overwhelmed, and then he waved to the crowd of approximately 200 people. It was perfect. I’ll just leave you today with a little excerpt from my talk. Maybe then you can understand how important this goal was for all of us, not just him. I changed all the real names to blog names to help you keep everybody straight.

We have all enjoyed many camping trips together, cooking outside, fishing, rafting. Last summer we loaded up all the kids and drove to Denver for a whitewater rafting trip just so he could add that badge to his collection. Even the Gym Rat joined us for that excursion. He has the patience of Job! I was extremely pregnant with Baby Doll, so I was not allowed on the raft and my sweetie doesn’t do that sort of thing, so the Gym Rat took Teach, the Dog Walker, Princess, Prima Donna, Crafty, and Sport out on the whitewater. He even brought them all home safely although there was some talk of Sport falling off the raft several times and them having to haul him back in. Oh, and when they were working on rescue techniques, Crafty got to be the drowning person. She’s a pretty good actress.

To earn the rowing badge we bought some inflatable rafts and took them out to Daybreak Lake. The kids had so much fun paddling them all over the lake…until security came by and told us we were breaking the rules and we’d have to leave. By then we had completed all the requirements, but the kids enjoyed it so much that we took them camping with us this summer and they spent hours rowing all over a tiny lake up Ephraim Canyon.

We all loved the Home Repairs badge. For years if we needed something fixed we could just ask Nate. He would say, “Is this for scouts?” and I could say, “Yes,” and he was right on it. It was a sad day when we signed that blue card.

And although today is an amazing day, I’m a little sad too. I’ve learned so much from being his scouting buddy. I don’t even know what we will do with all of this free time…I guess help Sport earn all the badges…I still have a stack of blank blue cards.

"Labor" Day

Pic Credit

Summer is over. But we had so much fun on Labor Day, I just had to share. No, we didn't have a strike, I've done that before. OK, it wasn’t all fun, because my sweetie has this thing about “Labor” in Labor Day, so we had to clean the garage first thing this morning. The Dog Walker was actually up at 6:30 putting up flags as a service project for his young men’s group. Then it was the garage. Teach made French Toast for us while we sorted and swept, restacked and rearranged, trying to find a little more space than we had before. (I guess I should have taken some pics, but you might not be as impressed as we were.)

After our yummy meal, we finished up the garage and tried to put the house back together. At 3:00 we decided to take all the kids to lunch at Famous Dave’s Legendary BBQ. I had never been there before, but the kids had some free passes from school…We stuffed ourselves and then headed toward home.

As we were driving along Redwood Road, Bossy’s family met up with us and motioned us to pull over. Then she handed me a bag of exploding bread dough. Apparently, the Gym Rat’s roommate thought he had to take the frozen roll dough out of the freezer the night before instead of just a few hours before he needed it. Rather than deal with this mess, they headed to the grocery store and bought new dough. The kids were ecstatic! That meant sweet rolls for FHE treat. We stopped by the house and stashed the dough in the fridge. It would have to wait.

We had big plans. With all the kids (who live at home) in tow, we headed to the church. After 20 minutes of folding paper, we had a paper airplane flying contest. I was the judge and my sweetie and all the kids stood on the stage and threw their airplanes. We had five different prizes, distance, accuracy, height…you get the idea. The kids had tons of fun; even Baby Doll enjoyed chasing the planes. Then we played a little basketball (I beat my sweetie at Horse, but he made the first 3-pointer.) 

Baby Doll flyin' airplanes

The kids made up a new game where they tried to fly their paper airplanes through the basket. It worked pretty well until Curly's got stuck...oops! Then we cleaned up (laboring again) and climbed back in the van and headed home.

Basketball or basket-plane?

Time for a little more labor on their bedrooms and then I sent Drama Queen and the Dog Walker to the Carmike to fill the popcorn buckets while my sweetie made the sweet rolls. Since it was Labor Day we had to watch Newsies so our kids could remember the reason for the holiday. Oh, and the sweet rolls were amazing! So how did you spend your Labor Day? Did you “Labor” or play?

Curly rockin' out to the credits

Three Strikes and I'm Wiped Out

Yesterday I was sitting in church during our first meeting and Baby Doll elected to fill her diaper and then be ornery about it. So I took her out to the changing room, got her fixed up, gave her a little milk, and rejoined the family.

In our church we have three hours of meetings for everyone on Sunday, and each one is about an hour. We left our first meeting and headed for the second. About 10 minutes into that one, she pooped again. So I took her out again, changed her diaper, gave her a little more milk, and rather than disrupt class again, waited in the hall until it was over.

While I was waiting, I was joined by the Bishop’s wife. She was carrying a large container of Red Vines licorice and offered one to Baby Doll. Now my little girl loves red licorice and she was wearing a red dress. It didn’t seem like a bad idea until I remembered I was wearing a white blouse! Red juice oozed from her little hands as she happily sucked/chewed on the piece of licorice. I turned her this way and that to keep those little hands from grabbing my clothes.

We finally entered the last classroom with only a small stain and I quickly sat down and retrieved a wipe from the diaper bag. She grabbed it from me so I pulled another one from the box. I figured she could wipe her own hands a little while I rubbed the red goo from my arms and hands. After about 30 seconds, she bit off a piece of the wipe. I fished it out of her mouth and tossed it in the diaper bag just as she bit off the second piece. People were starting to snigger around us. Me gathering bits of wipe as she tore it into smaller and smaller bites. I finally got the whole thing away from her and stowed safely away.

Then the lady teaching the class passed around a basket full of mint chocolate chip cookies. I took one and carefully broke off a small piece for Baby Doll. But instead of being grateful, she grabbed the big piece and shoved it in her mouth! Pretty soon we were smeared with chocolate cookie crumbs and mint chips. Dare I admit that I pulled out the wipes again?

After a failed attempt to clean her up, I sniffed that familiar aroma…I gathered up the diaper bag, wipe shreds, Baby Doll, and headed for the changing room for the third time. I changed her diaper, washed her smucky little fingers, and then mopped myself with a couple of wipes. Then I dug in her diaper bag until I found the remains of the bag of Cheerios. (The good ones, not the ones that ended up inside my sweetie’s shoes during Sacrament meeting.) I proceeded to down the entire bag! Not sugar, but desperate times call for desperate measures…Baby Doll didn’t mind…she’d found another wipe.

Summer Vacation

I promised you a broken bones story, but I’m gonna have to keep you in suspense until tomorrow. I forgot about Shell’s new linky that I wanted to join. She is asking us all to write an essay on “What I Did for Summer Vacation…” OK, not really, but she is suggesting we link up some of the fun pics we took with our families this summer. So here we go.

(Oh yeah, and if I want to win prizes, I have to say Link up your Summer Fun for a chance to win prizes from Ubisoft
since I'm on a lucky streak, I thought it was worth the shameless advertising...I could use a new Just Dance game.)

In June we sent all the kids packing for a couple of weeks. They did Girls’ Camp, Youth Conference, Girl Scout Camp, Oakcrest…I don’t have any pics of any of those. But I do have this cute pic of Baby Doll that Teach took yesterday on her fancy camera.

We also went to the pageant in Manti and we spent the 4th of July weekend at Grandma’s. The Dog Walker needed to work on the Backpacking Merit Badge, so we did a couple of camping trips. I took my Girl Scout Troop to the zoo, and we spent lots of time just clowning around...

We bought a couple of Justin Beiber dolls; took the kids to see Cars 2. And kissing...don't forget the kissing!

Did I tell you we signed Sport up for football? He likes it most of the time, except when it's time to take off his helmet. It usually gets stuck around his ears.

We vacationed for a week in Idaho (remember that trip? We took the grandkids too…it was crazy!) We were all pretty happy to be home.

Summer ended for us on July 26 when the elementary-aged kids headed back to year-round school.  It's a good thing, because we were all pretty tired by then. And how did you spend your summer?

Food for Thought - Zucchini Bread

Picture credit

Hey, how are your gardens doing? Usually by this time of year we have plenty of fresh produce just waiting to be eaten. This year May and June were so rainy we were forced to plant everything late and now that we have stuff actually growing, nothing is producing. Today my sweetie brought in a cabbage and four beautiful little zucchini. I was so excited! Most of us love zucchini at our house for at least the first month… My favorite way to cook them is to slice them about an eighth of an inch thick. Then I toss them all into a frying pan on medium heat with a couple of tablespoons of butter. I stir them every few minutes so they don’t burn, otherwise I keep them covered. Once they start to look clear, they are done. Yumm! My second favorite way to use zucchini is the 3rd grade Zucchini Contest. Our elementary school does have a sense of humor. In the fall, after the harvest is in full swing and people have tired of zucchini, they have a contest to see who can dress the biggest zucchini in the funniest way. We have turned ginormous zucchini into Santa, baseball players, Frankenstein…anything goes! We have also provided zucchini for those poor unfortunate souls who don’t grow gardens. Several years ago, our church had a pumpkin-carving contest and instead of pumpkins, we used extra large zucchini, covered them with fake blood, and labeled them Ammon’s Enemies. (That’s BOM humor…Ammon cut off all the arms of the guys who tried to kill him.) Ewww! But I do want to share a recipe with you today. I’m not sure where this recipe came from originally, but it has become a family favorite. The only downside is that with the shredded zucchini, the dough doesn’t taste very good. I always add extra walnuts (because I love nuts!) and make sure you stir it well or all the nuts and raisins will end up in the bottom of your loaf. Even my icky picky eaters love this bread and they know it has zucchini in it. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Zucchini Bread

2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
¾ cup oil
2 cups grated zucchini
1 ½ cups chopped walnuts
½ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Put aside beaten eggs. Add sugar and beat until thick.

Add oil and beat well. Mix in zucchini, nuts, and raisins.

Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Pour into well-greased and floured bread pans.

 Bake for 50 minutes or until done.

 

Enjoy!

Six Seconds of Confusion

This is Curly, but pretend it's somebody else's kid.

You ever look down and realize that the child hanging on your leg is not your own? You’ve heard of “Babe Magnets…” well, I’m a “Baby Magnet”! It happens to me at least once a month. Usually it’s in a crowded place like a grocery store, the library, or maybe the park. My kids will be wandering around, ignoring me for the most part. Then I feel it…that little arm wrapped around my thigh, or my personal favorite…the lean. A small head just above my knee. None of this bothers me until that little person looks up at me and after about six seconds of confusion, usually it begins to scream, then run. Not that I’m THAT scary.

Princess

Then there are the times when I’m the one who makes the mistake. Like last Sunday at church; Baby Doll and I were wandering the halls because she doesn’t like Sunday School class. We rounded the corner and headed down the long hallway. Just up ahead I saw a beautiful little girl in a short flowered sundress with a white t-shirt beneath it. She had on black stilettos and her blond head was bent over her scriptures. I walked toward her for about 20 feet before I realized that it was not my Princess. I was so startled by the resemblance that I even said something to her about it as I strolled by. She glanced up at me and again I got the six seconds of confusion. Thank goodness she was a little too old to do the scream and run thing at the church although for a minute I thought she just might.

Princess

So last night we had Pack Meeting for Sport and Bean Dip’s Cub Scout group. My sweetie happens to be the Cubmaster, so at our house it is a big huge hairy deal. He spent the whole weekend designing a rocket launcher that would send 2-liter bottles a couple hundred feet into the air. We had about a dozen cub scouts and their parents and little brothers and sisters. I know bottle rockets are cool (at least for 8-year-olds and their dads), but I and the rest of the moms were just chillin’ out in the pavilion waiting for them to finish up.

Gamer

Since Bean Dip also attends scouts with us, Bossy and Gamer were there with their boys. As usual, Gamer was teasing my girls and visiting with the neighbors. One of his favorite things to do to the kids (especially Princess and Curly) is to ruffle up their hair. He likes to run his fingers through Curly’s because it’s kind of like petting a woolly little lamb. Princess he torments because she cares what her hair looks like even in front of a bunch of 8-year-olds (as long as they are boys!).

My cute blond neighbor, Angie, and I were talking about our kids (she has six!) and the blog. We were straddling the picnic benches and I was keeping an eye on the action on the field and she had her back to everyone else. (I guess watching a 2-liter bottle sail up in the air 25 times gets a little boring after a while.) Suddenly, and without warning, Gamer slipped up behind her and ruffled her hair! Then he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so he could laugh at her…except that when he realized she wasn’t Princess…I’m not sure who was more surprised, my friend or my SIL. After the six seconds of confusion (from all three of us), I think he was ready to scream and run, but all he could do was apologize…over…and over…and over….