Hottie Wife

[Paxton] I just wanted to show off my hottie wife. No wonder she had a flock of 16 year old boys following her around EFY.

Kindergarten

Here is another good conversation:

Me: Bryce, how was Kindergarten?
Bryce: Good! Do I get to go to it for 21 days?
Me: More like 100 days.
Bryce: Wow!!!
Me: Actually more like 200 days?
Bryce: Do I get to go there forever?
Me: No, if your really good you will get to go to 1st grade.
Bryce: Then do I get to stay in school forever?
Me: Only if you want to be a doctor.
Bryce: Oh.... I want to be a scout leader.
Me: Ok, then just get through Kindergarten.

Of Penguins and Seals

Can you spot the evidence that we have let the kids watch too many Blue Planet movies?

Get it to go!

We traveled down to Utah last weekend (my brother got married) and of course had to stop for fast food on the way down. I think fast food is chemically engineered to smell amazing when you are hungry. That is the only reason I can account for wanting it. Inevitably I smell it, buy it, eat it and then wonder why I ate it. Anyway, we bought dinner and our total came out to $35! Ridiculous! And the kids didn't even eat half of their dinner. So, after repeating this scenario several times over our trip I have decided to rebel... Next time we head out I am going to order a Papa John's pizza and pick it up on our way out. Once it cools off a bit I can pass it around with napkins and call it good. It is no messier than greasy fries and ketchup, it is cheaper, healthier, and I don't get the grease chills after I eat it. I'll let you know how it goes...

By the way, here are some wedding pictures!

Quote of the Week

"Shaylee, you are six and are way too old to be licking a shopping cart."

For everyone who has ever felt like a bad mom...

If you have ever had a moment when you feel that you have been less than stellar in your role of motherhood consider this:

Avery: Mom, it yucky.
Me: What was yucky?
Avery: da battery
Me: Which battery?
Avery: Dis one, (handing me a very corroded battery I had thrown away earlier that day)
it's yucky don't eat it (while she is rubbing her tongue on the back of her hand.

Whatever mistakes anyone else has made, at least you didn't let your daughter eat battery acid.

Orange Jaylius

My Dad used to make these when I was a kid and call them Jaylius (his name is Jay). I think I corrected people who tried to call them Julius until I was in high school. They are a fun treat anyway:

Ingredients

• 6 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1 cup milk, lowfat okay
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 ice cubes

Water-Melon

Night before last I was up four times during the night (one of those was for an hour) with our little Avery. It wasn't because she was sick or had a nightmare. It was simply because of watermelon.
Paxton decided to let our kids have watermelon for desert the other night. Our kids love watermelon so they were really excited and consumed about three pieces each after which we promptly brushed their teeth and put them in bed.

Moral of the story: Limit watermelon consumption withing three hours of bedtime.

What good is Calculus?

Me: Bryce are you excited to start school?
Bryce: Yeah, I want to be a teacher.
Me: What are you going to teach?
Bryce: I want to teach everyone how to snap!
Me: That seems to have more practical application than Calculus.
Bryce: Mom, why didn't you have a teacher to teach you how to whistle?
Me: Alright, rub it in...

Where did the summer go?

I just got back from an awesome trip to Fresno, CA for EFY. It was a blast and the kids were wonderful. But now I find myself wondering about all the grand plans I had for the summer and how I managed to get so little done.

For those of you who don't have kids in school yet I have a word of advice. Once you have to work around school schedules it seems like a wonderful deadline free summer will leave voids of time to get things done. So not true. I guess I have gotten used to only having all three kids some of the time and when that shifts into all of the time the messes and house work seem to expand exponentially. Add to that all the things that seem so fun that I have to cram our weeks full and say things like, "I paid for this pass and you are going to have fun whether you like it or not!" and all the jobs I had planned for the summer are still on my To Do list. Go figure...

Elephant Painting

I finished this in time for it to be a very late Father's Day present. It is acrylic on canvas and is my second real painting. It reminds me of when we went on safari in Kenya, one of the many adventures that reminds me of Dad.

EFY and such

So, I got back from teaching at my first EFY. It was awesome but hard. I learned some valuable lessons in teaching that I feel obliged to pass on.

First: Don't wear many layers while standing in front of hundreds of teenagers in a hot badly air conditioned room and especially don't do it if there is a chance of panicking. That combination can lead to overheating and possibly passing out (which leaves all those teenagers unsupervised and can create potential problems).

Second: If given weird answers from class members concerning something that you have no expertise ie) global warming as a way that Satan is taking away our agency, an good answer is, "You know, I don't know much about (insert weird topic like global warming), I'm just here to teach the gospel. But I appreciate your comment."

Third: If you get a rambler (someone who doesn't seem to know how to stop their comment)
for example:
Me: what are somethings that happen that make you angry?
Boy: You know when there are guys that try to flirt with girls by doing dumb things like taking their water bottles when there are other guys that are really trying to do nice things and the girls never even know that they are there and then the girls just pay attention to the dumb guys and .....

a good way to break in is to agree with them (you shouldn't to disagree as that will keep them talking) and then to acknowledge that should there be extra time at the end of the lesson you will turn the time over to them (just kidding).

Finally, I do have to say that even when you think you have royally messed up, chances are that you were able to teach something to someone and have thus not failed. In fact, as a rule of thumb, your lessons will have touched more people than you possibly could know (even when teaching the Sunbeams). Besides, I believe that there are special blessing reserved for those of us who are willing to bear some part of our imperfect souls so that other can learn (even if it is from our mistakes).