Are you there blog? It's me, Margaret

Random musings, stream-of-consciousness style.

Laziness

So, I'm sitting here blogging at the height of laziness. I haven't showered for the day, I never went to the Y, I'm still wearing the "comfy clothes" I slept in last night, and I couldn't even make it to the desk to blog on our desk top computer, but instead am lounging on the couch with laptop on my lap. Quite pitiful, right?

Anyway, as always it's been a while since I've blogged, and honestly its mostly because I am just so lazy (see #66 on my list of 100 things about me). So, what has been happening? Mostly just too much, as the holiday season is ALWAYS the busiest time of the year.

Turkey Day

We eventually got around to finishing up those turkeys for Ethan's project, and as you can see, Grace convinced me to make one for her as well. The two of them had a grand old time painting their turkeys and putting them on display. And we are so accurate here in our project efforts, that when Ethan discovered that turkeys apparently have only 3 toes, he went ahead and rectified the situation on his own.

Finished product

Two goals down...

Thanksgiving Day 2008

So, I've finished my 10K and checked it off my list. What this picture doesn't show is the following:

The Friday before the race -- so basically a week before the event -- I had a little mishap in the driveway. You see, Ethan was running late for the bus stop and since it had turned FREEZING that week, I couldn't just take the girls and run out the door with them. I had to bundle them up, make sure they were warm enough, and buckle Sophie in the stroller. Well, while I was running down the driveway -- I slipped. I tripped. I did a double flip. And before I knew it, I had rolled my right ankle, taken the total brunt of the fall on my left knee (see above), still managed to knock Sophie's stroller backwards, and had come to a final rest on the ground with the sound of Grace laughing hysterically at the bottom of the driveway. All while desperately trying not to bawl. My two immediate thoughts as I was falling? 1.) I hope no one at the bus stop just saw that, and 2.) Oh good, now I won't have to run in the race.

After a few minutes writhing on the ground, I realized it wasn't TOO bad an injury as I was able to get up and walk (albeit slowly) to the bus stop. It wasn't until I got back in the house that I realized my left knee was stinging. When I rolled up my sweats, I was surprised to see a big gouge and a huge goose-egg bruise already forming right under my kneecap. Nonetheless, I decided it was too late to drop out of the race -- especially since I had literally just registered and paid the night before. So, after resting my ankle for the next 4 or 5 days I finally gave it a trial run and was relieved to find that I COULD run on it -- I just wouldn't be super comfortable or super fast.

Thanksgiving morning dawned cold and bright. I was more apprehensive about the weather than anything else. I mean come on. What was I thinking when I decided to run a 10K at the end of November? But run it, I did. And even though I couldn't feel my toes for the first mile and a half, and I had to stop 3 or 4 times to retie my shoelaces, and even though I was feeling borderline claustrophobic running in a crowd of over 11,000 people, and I didn't quite make it in the time I wanted, I still managed to run the whole entire 6.25 miles of the way. Go me.

On the way to the race.

The drop-off. Scott and the kids headed back to the comfort of the warm car to watch a movie on the laptop until the race was over.

The finish line

...One to go?

So, that's that. And no, I haven't run a lick since Thanksgiving Day. I think I may have fallen out of love with running. My ankle is still not 100% and my knee is still bruised, so I haven't really done any kind of exercise for about 2 weeks now. Which is not really helpful for accomplishing that third goal of mine. Nevertheless, I HAVE lost weight this year, which technically checks that goal off the list as well, so I'm going to go ahead and say that after 11 months I have finally followed through with ALL of my New Year's Resolutions!


Sophie is a bearcat (a total non-sequitur, I know)

She may look all cute and innocent, but when you get up in her grill, she will fight back. Grace has still not learned this lesson:

Grace's hair. Courtesy of Sophie.

Christmas Time is Here


Ethan's wish list:

Since the beginning of September -- when we cut through the Pottery Barn Kids at the mall on the way to getting his birthday pictures taken -- Ethan has had 3 things on his list that will not budge.

1.) A Table



2.) A toy mixer



3.) A bell (so he can ring it when Grace is playing outside so she will know when it's time to come in for dinner, of course.)




Grace's wish list:

1.) "the doctor dog thing" (YOU know, mom. She says in total exasperation/frustration when I asked for clarification).
2.) Hello Kitty books
3.) Little tiny dog junks
4.) The big Polly Pocket thing
5.) Junk
6.) Junk
7.) And more junk
8.) Oh and a Girl's World Thing Maker

Alright, so j/k on the last thing. But you get the picture. Let's just say we've had SEVERAL talks so far about what Christmas is REALLY about.

Grace's Faces

Don't you wish you they were knocking on YOUR door?

As many of you may have noticed by now, it is a bit difficult to get a decent picture of Grace. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner and Family Home Evening the other night, and they taught the kids about missionary work, and dressed them up for the job. It was actually really cute but, of course, I was unable to get a single picture with Grace looking normal.

What? It's almost 10?
This is possibly the most incoherent post I've ever composed. So really, it's for the best if I end right now. Suffice it to say that we are enjoying the Christmas season and look forward to chilling with the family in the Big Easy in just 11 more days!

Gobble Gobble

"A Family Turkey Affair" -- or at least that's what its supposed to be. Ethan's class has an assignment this month for every family to work together to create a turkey for Thanksgiving. It can be made out of anything you want, and the route we have taken is paper mache. And even though it's not due until the 20th, Ethan has been badgering me day and night to start working on it. So, this morning I finally gave in and we started.

Below is a Picture Essay of what can go wrong when I am helping Ethan and the girls are left unattended...

Gobble, gobble -- all ready to layer on the paper mache.

"You have to POP the balloons??" -- Ethan finds out what happens once the paper mache dries.

Grace goes native.

And thinks she's REALLY funny.

Sophie gives in to peer pressure.

And then feels guilty that she let Grace dupe her, once again, into making more messes for mom to clean up.

One down, Two to go!

Back in January, I blogged about my 3 New Year's Resolutions. I can honestly say that not a day has gone by this year that I have not thought about at least one of them. And on today, November 4th 2008, I was finally able to check one of those 3 goals off the list -- yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is true. For the first time in my life I voted!


Seriously, though, I do have fairly legitimate excuses for why I'm only just now voting in 2008. The year 2000 was my first year of eligibility, but being a Sophomore at BYU, and not quite knowing how to do an absentee ballot for my home state of Louisiana, the election came and went without my contribution. When 2004 rolled around, I fully intended to exercise my patriotic duties, but then Grace decided to make her appearance a week early and was born the night before Election Day, and I didn't quite make it to the polling booth once again. So there you have it. Judge me if you must.

In other news, Grace is 4!

Lovely, isn't she?

It's really quite impossible to get a decent picture of her. On Saturday we attempted to celebrate her birthday -- which for some reason, has sort of snuck up on us this year. Usually her birthdays are drawn out to the point of ridiculousness, and we end up celebrating for weeks on end. This year, however, everything was a bit of a last minute effort. While Scott took Ethan and Grace to gymnastics that morning, I ran to Wal-Mart to get her a present and some more decorations for her "party" as per Ethan's request. Even her cake was a last minute inspiration, thanks to the shirt Grace put on when she got back from gymnastics later that morning. She originally wanted a dog cake (which I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make), so I was relieved when she changed her mind to Hello Kitty. The hardest part of making this cake was getting a thick enough layer of frosting on top so that the chocolate cake didn't show through. Oh, and keeping Grace from eating the frosting before it got on the cake, of course.



The party was merely a family affair, and Ethan made his OWN "decorations" for Grace down in the basement. Apparently he thought that a nice tic tac toe board on the wall was in order for the day.

The "X's" are made from blue painter's tape, and the "O's" were drawn on the wall with marker, because as Ethan said, he "couldn't figure out how to make circles with the tape."

While Grace was SUPER excited about her birthday present...


Scott was NOT so excited about her birthday present, and has forbidden playdough to ever come into the house again...

(Rest in Peace little playdough set)

So, there you have it -- the anatomy of a birthday party in our household. I think Grace had a good day. All I know is that the older she gets, the more I'm realizing that having a birthday fall on the day after Halloween is not necessarily a good thing for my sanity. The children have been on an all-out sugar high for the last week, and this weekend was a nightmare of epic proportions with regards to their behavior to each other and to their parents. And don't even get me started on the Time Change. Who even thought that thing up ANYWAY? All it has meant for us the last few days is that Grace now wakes us up wanting breakfast at 5:30 in the morning instead of 6:30, and it gets dark so early in the evening that I feel like its 10 o'clock at night when in reality its only 7, thus making me feel like I'm being gypped out of my evenings. Combine all that with the fact that not a night goes by where one or more of the kids doesn't wake up at some point needing me, and I am EXHAUSTED. And sick of having to do breathing treatments. (Just thought I'd throw that in there).


I'll close with a couple more pictures and a quip from Scott.

Grace is a hippie.


Sophie is asthmatic.

And finally --

said SCOTT to Ethan who was loudly making noises and picking on the girls all during dinner tonight: "Why do you do things to bug me so much?"


There you have it folks. Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow.


post script -- Scott would like his objections to be stated that he is not as a bad a father as this last quote would suggest.

Blogging Makes My Brain Hurt

Where has October gone? I had so many intentions of doing a better job of recording our life, but apparently I suck at updating the blog regularly. So, here is a last ditch effort to recap the month.

Conference Weekend we spent in Indiana visiting Scott's sister and family. Nothing overly eventful happened, other than Scott missing all of conference on Sunday due to driving 2 hours home and 2 hours back to transport a table that Kristin was giving us from their house to ours. Oh, and Grace's final stalling measure of face-planting on the sidewalk while riding a bike down the driveway when she was supposed to be loading up in the car so we could go home. She split her lip open, scraped up her mouth, nose, and forehead, and was basically an absolute mess. You've gotta love an exit like that, right?

Here she is a couple days later, and you can still see the damage.

In an example of what I like to call "unrestrained creativity," here is a photo of Grace modeling her hat that she "decorated" on a Saturday morning when everyone else was outside doing yard work. In case you were wondering, this is a recurring theme with Grace. Grace doesn't "like chores," as she says. She also doesn't "like consequences," but thats a story for another day.


Unrestrained creativity indeed. Here you can see that she has glued leaves and stickers to one side...



And colored in the white lines on the other side with marker.



In other news, it is Fall. And boy is Fall in the midwest gorgeous (see below -- you know you want to live here). A few weekends ago, Ethan decided he wanted the family to go on a "date" to a nearby bike trail, so that he could practice his newly acquired skill of riding without his training wheels. Scott ran along beside him, and I pushed the girls in the double jogging stroller and while we were out I snapped these pictures to document the colors.




This month we also were made aware that Sophie is still allergic to milk. This was discovered quite unintentionally one morning during breakfast when Sophie tipped Grace's cereal bowl over, thus soaking the sleeve of her jammies with the milk. Unfortunately I didn't notice this little fact until a few minutes later when she was still fussing and scratching at her wrist. I then noticed her sleeve was wet, deduced what happened, and pulled up her sleeve to see huge red welts all up and down her arm.

It was hard to get a good shot of this because of the flash, but this shows a LITTLE bit of what it looked like. It took a while for it to go down, and she was scratching like crazy the whole time.

In other Sophie related news, she also caused us an ER trip earlier in the month due to some asthma issues, combined with a cold, and a lot of wheezing despite the steady course of albuterol breathing treatments we were giving her every 4 hours. It seems as though every illness always gets worse during the middle of the night, and after keeping us up practically all of one night with her coughing and wheezing and breathing efforts, I took her to the hospital in the early morning. Of course, as soon as we were settled in, she was all smiles and cute as a button, and acting like everything was just fine, and I felt like a total over-reactive, hypochondriac mother. Luckily her chest X-ray showed only bronchiolitis and not pneumonia. Unluckily for us, the doctor instructed us to start up the pulmicort breathing treatments again, and keep those up through November. As a result, Sophie has become a complete TV bug as it is the only thing that will get her stay still and do the nebulizer.

Its a good thing she's so dang cute, because she is one high-maintenance chick!

I also experienced my first foray into field-trip chaperoning this month with Ethan's Farm trip/pumpkin patch visit. Here below is the group I was in charge of, and just so you know, 3 of those boys were named Ethan. That made for a fun time of keeping everyone together. Let's just say I think that is the only field-trip I'll be chaperoning for a while. It was exhausting trying to keep an eye on 4 little boys running all over the place, while the entire Kindergarten population of HIS school was there, along with a couple of other school's as well.

Ethan (my Ethan that is) had so much fun.

Scott got a big kick out this picture of Ethan sitting "Indian-style" next to the pumpkin head.

The Three Ethans

Having a finished, yet unfurnished, basement is providing countless hours of entertainment for the children. In yet another example of their "unrestrained creativity," you can see some "trails" that they decided to make one afternoon made-up of lines and lines of every little toy or object they could find. They were quite pleased with their efforts, and there was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, when I finally made them clean it up yesterday along with the MESS OF ALL MESSES unpictured on the opposite side of the basement. It helped to have the threat of no trick-or-treating dangling over their heads.

So, really, nothing much note-worthy has happened in the month of October. It has been a blur of sick kids, sick me and falling into the routine of school, work, and play. Oh, and of course prepping for the annual Primary Program. The actual program was last Sunday, and let's just say that Grace was the funniest non-comedy of the show. Despite the fact that she has had her part memorized for weeks ("We should follow the Prophet because he knows the way") she totally froze like a deer in headlights when it was her turn, and she was the only Sunbeam who wouldn't say her part. It was actually kind of cute seeing her up there staring blankly out into the audience and chewing on the neckline of her dress, before stepping down and sitting back in her seat. But then, apparently, she went on to entertain the congregation for the rest of program by making faces, pulling her dress up over her head, fidgeting, and just being ridiculous in general. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I didn't see any of this from my vantage point and only learned about it afterwards when people came up to me saying how funny she was up there on the stand and how they were just watching her the whole time trying hard not to laugh. So there you have it. My child is THAT child. Her poor primary teachers.

I know this post is kind of lame, but the title says it all. Blogging makes my brain hurt! Especially when the kids are finally asleep, I'm tired, it's been a long day, and I just want to go to bed. So, until next time...

Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday, DoDo!

I don't really have as much to say as I thought I did, so to sum it up, here we go:

1.) First up is a birthday shout out to Freddie! Ethan and Grace really wanted to come to your birthday party -- we miss you and wish we could be there to bake you a cake.

2.) Ethan is honing is art skills at school. This is an apple tree that he came home and drew for me one day.

I think they were learning about Johnny Appleseed. But apparently our efforts to go green have really entrenched themselves in the kids. Evidenced first by Ethan's tree-hugging picture, and second by Grace's latest line of questioning when a neighbor was over to play -- "Um," she said, "Do you recycle like us?" To which HE responded "I don't really know," and ETHAN responded, "Yes, you do. You have two recycling bins and we have one." (His powers of observation are astounding).

3.) I have this weakness for matching pajamas on the kids. It's ridiculous I know.

Grace's skeleton jammies ------------------- $6.50 at Once Upon a Child
Ethan's skeleton jammies ------------------- $14.99 on eBay
Sophie's skeleton jammies ------------------ $0.65 at Gymboree after a $10 reward card

Their excitement at having matching Halloween pajamas? --- Priceless

And that is the end for today. I REALLY didn't have as much to say as I thought I did. Until next time, Anonymous. Hope you had a happy day!

I Have a Legitimate Excuse!

I know, I know. I failed in my challenge! A solid week of blogging and I almost made it, but I do have a legitimate excuse.

You see, a little thing called the-tail-end-of-Hurricane-Ike blew threw, and boy did it blow! Sunday morning dawned inauspiciously enough, and aside from the minor set-back of 2 sick girlie bugs needing to stay home from church, everything was on course for a typical Sabbath day. It was a little windy, but nothing to write home about.

Then, around 1:30 or so, the wind started to pick up. Grace was doped up enough on Children's Motrin to be in a frolicking mood, so she scampered outside to swing and otherwise be one with the wind while I seized upon the opportunity to get dinner started in the crock pot and bake a batch of the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in the world to take pictures of for my recipe post. (Side-note -- this exercise in daily blogging has caused me to realize that I have a tendency to craft overly long sentences. See what I mean?).

I had just finished up in the kitchen, and Grace had just come inside to get a cookie, when the wind started to pick up even MORE, and a little after 2 PM the POWER WENT OUT. Sophie was just waking up from her nap, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon being entertained FIRST by watching someone's garbage can blow back and forth and up and down our street, and SECOND by watching Grace reenact the same scene as she rolled across the main floor of the house saying "Save me, save me! I'm the garbage can." (It wasn't until much later that we discovered that garbage can we had been watching blow away was actually ours).

The wind continued on into the evening, and we quickly realized that the power would not be coming back anytime soon. The next day we discovered the extent of the damage. I was shocked to see trees down all over our neighborhood and across town. I had noticed on Sunday that it looked like the pole in our back yard that all the wires were connected to was leaning to the left a little:


And when we went outside the next day, I quickly realized why:

(It was hard to get a good shot of this, but this is our next-door neighbor's backyard. The neighbors behind HER house had a bunch of trees get knocked down into her yard, and right on TOP of the wires connected to that pole, thus pulling the pole towards her yard and causing it to lean).


(One more shot showing all the trees that went down).

Anyway, Ethan didn't have any school and we spent the day picking up the yard (kind of). And trying to find emergency type supplies to buy. Because even though I HAVE gotten started on my 72 hour kit (we DO have our 3 day water supply), we were missing some of the basics -- such as flashlights. We also needed an ice chest and some ice to be able to salvage some of the stuff from the fridge.

Knowing how many lines were down all over town, and realizing that some were down practically in our own backyard, I thought it would be DAYS before we got power again. So, let me tell you that I was ECSTATIC this morning when the power came back on around 7. ECSTATIC.

So now that my computer and the internet is back up and running, I present to you the long-awaited recipe post. Without further ado, here it is:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe courtesy of my good friend Lindsey F.

1 c. margarine (although I always use real butter)
1 c. peanut butter
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 package chocolate chips (although for my personal preference I only ever use 1 c., and I LOVE milk chocolate chips in these cookies -- especially the Guittard brand. Simply divine!)

Mix ingredients until blended. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes (or 10-12 minutes at lower altitudes, e.g. outside of Utah).

There you have it. The BEST cookie EVER. They are my new favorites.

Alright before I go, I have a couple more items. First off, there are many people out there who see my husband and then see Ethan and say "Oh, wow, he is the spitting image of Scott!" A much less-vocal minority see him for what he is -- a fairly good mixture of both of us, but definitely leaning more towards my side of the family. On Saturday night, I took him to the mall to get his 5 year old birthday pictures taken (you know, only 3 months late) and it took me a few days to realize what exactly seemed familiar about this picture:




And then all of sudden this afternoon, it just hit me. So, I frantically searched all around the house (through several, as-of-yet-unpacked boxes) to finally track it down. My kindergarten picture:


I'll let you be the judge.



And finally, one last item and a contest to boot. While Grace was playing in the backyard yesterday, and Ethan was busily raking up piles and bagging debris, I slipped and almost rolled my ankle on one of these small, green, ball-like "acorns" (for lack of a better word) that are scattered all around the bases of the trees in our backyard. I was talking to my neighbor a little later, and she mentioned what they were, and I was completely flabbergasted. I will send a prize to the first person who comments that knows what these are:

(and a second prize to whoever comes closest to guessing how many are in there -- although that number may not be completely accurate seeing as to how Ethan and Grace were the ones tallying them up after I shamelessly exploited there labor in a little contest of "let's see who can pick up the most 'acorns' ").

Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow!