How to Know if Your Underwear is Dirty

I was educated yesterday by my four year old on how to know if your panties are dirty.

I have been really trying to teach her how to keep her room clean and organized. Yesterday I was guiding her to pick up the small mess of things. A pair of panties was on her floor and I asked her to pick them up and put them in the hamper if they were dirty or put them away if they were clean.

She picks them up and starts to take them to the hamper, stops, turns around and tells me, "Oh these are clean mom because they don't have any poop stains in them."

Looks like we need to have a little talk about what "clean" panties mean.

Mondays

I don't know why but Mondays are my least favorite days...always have been. Yesterday took the cake for my least favorite Monday for a long time. Nothing horrible terrible awful happened...it was just unfun, long, and I felt I accomplished NOTHING.... I guess one positive thing happened...I discovered that I without a doubt HATE Walgreens Pharmacy and will never waste my time with them ever again.

My Monday began 5:30 am (actually it began at 12:21 am when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so a 5:30 am alarm was no good) up and off to run with some friends in the wind. It is so much easier to run when friends are involved so this wasn't the bad part of my day. It all started when I got home whiny children not wanting to eat this but that, not wanting to wear this but that, get the picture. Then around 8:40 I started seeing stars and darkness....nooo I had things to do. I managed to get Kylee to school to come home and lay on the couch because now I had a sharp stabbing pain in my right temple and it was getting worse by the second. I didn't have my preferred drug of choice and opted for another hoping it would help me. Luckily, it worked and 50 minutes later I was back in business. Did some laundry, fed the girls, and then headed out for a Dr appt for Alyssa who has her first ear infection and it is a nasty one at that. Elliott had my car so I crammed us in his car and headed out around 12:45. Taking young children to the Drs is not high on my list of ...oohhhh should we say fun things to do with kids. Ryann and Addy had to sit in every chair in the waiting room and TOUCH everything...floor included....this really freaks me out because of the whole germ thing. While waiting for the Dr in the room they are continuing their fun....oohhh and my favorite was when Addy farted leaving the room smelling oh so fresh. Finally it was time to go and fight over who gets to push the elevator buttons. Just because my headache was at bay I felt one edge. At one point in time I asked the girls to be good because I had a short fuse for the day....of course Alyssa asked what that was and I told her it is what makes mommies nice. If it goes out the niceness runs out.

I choose Walgreens to fill the prescriptions because it was right next to Costco and I needed to get a few things. It also had a drive through. While in Costco I couldn't find the stupid ketchup....you would THINK it would be by all the other condiments...right? Yeah nope. Upon checking out I saw someone with some so I knew it was somewhere and told the lady loading up my stuff that management should place the ketchup in a place that was easy for people to find. (while in my search I asked someone that worked their and they were unsure because they just moved stuff around and that I was the fourth person in the last 30 min to ask her...you'd think after the 2nd time she would have found out...you'd think). The lady asked me if I wanted some she would go and get me some. I said sure and that I would like to know where it was kept for future. She comes back 2 min later...."I can't find it...I guess we are all out"....my response, "Your telling me the lady that checked out 30 seconds ago behind me got the last one?" She responded, "Oh, let me find out". Sure enough they had more and they were in front of the frozen food section....because that makes the MOST sense to place it.

Now I am off to McDonalds to get the girls their milkshakes for the bribe I came up with if they were good in Costco. I was talking to my sister on the phone and she told me the month of March they have a Shamrock milkshake that was really good. So I ordered myself one and was so excited about it....pulled around to pay....."Oh, Sorry our milkshake machine just broke." What kind of a mean joke is that? I was so sad...yes over a milkshake. Now I am heading back over to Walgreens only to discover they only had 2 of the 3 prescriptions she needed....but they kindly could send me to another to pick it up there. This is the 3rd time Walgreens has not had a drug that I have needed. Once in WY, once in UT, and now in Vegas. I said sure and headed off to go pick up Kylee from school...now we are really squished in his car...heaen forbid the girls have to touch each other. I looked online to see where this other one was located and left to go get it...yeah got lost, found another one that gave me directions to the one I was looking for. When I got their the girl at the window told me it wasn't going to be ready until 7:00 pm...It is now 5:00. UUGGGHHHHH!!! I told her that I was told it was going to be ready right away at 3:30 and if it was going to be a problem I am sure Smiths, Albertson's or even Walmart wouldn't mind filling it for me... Needless to say I got it in 3 minutes.....but learned my lesson to not go back because chances are they will not have what I need. It took me 45 min to get this 3rd prescription. As soon as I got home it was dinner time.....what to make? Elliott was still gone and told me at 5:30 he wouldn't be home until late.....he was lucky I hadn't started to make dinner. I instead took the girls out to dinner. Found another McDonalds...I was determined to get this milkshake. No such luck...that one didn't have them yet......mean to me. Finally made it home at 6:30 to return phone calls and blah blah blah. Clean-up toys, read books, put kiddos to bed....So glad the day finally ended and didn't get to do what I had planned...reorganize my closet...maybe Wednesday I'll have time. Like I said I hate Mondays...

Making Eye Contact

A couple of weeks ago Alyssa was asked to give a talk in Primary. As usual I wrote her talk. A good portion of it I used pictures for her to hold up and wrote what needed to be said on the back. Right before church she was sitting on my bed practicing her talk with Elliott....I thought nothing of this. Elliott told her it is important to make eye contact when giving a talk. She told me while I was fixing her hair that she no one makes eye contact when they are giving their talks because they are too nervous but I will make eye contact even if I get nervous.....

I am sitting in the back of the Primary room next to Elliott to be the supportive parents that we are. Alyssa gets up there and begins her talk. Then the weirdness begins.....

After every sentence she stops reading, looks up and moves her head from left to right scanning the room, then looks right back down to read the next sentence to, stop reading, look up, and then look left to right....she repeats this. Elliott was so proud of her for looking up. But I could not help but hold in laughter that tears wear running down my face because can we say "AWKWARD". Elliott told me he taught her to look up. Then when she got to the pictures she would hold it up, read it, move it side to side, then scan the room with her eyes..."awkward". Elliott was also proud of her because he taught her how to move the picture from side to side so every one could see.

She was so brave and really did a good job....thanks to her BIG Dad! Kylee had her turn today to give a talk...lets just say I did the coaching this time.....she did great.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Alyssa received a kite for her eighth birthday. It took us until today (almost a year later) to actually take it out. Well let me rephrase "us" I was not a part of this. I enjoyed a quiet house to myself as Elliott took the girls to the park...this rarely happens. They get the kite out and all ready to go only to realize it was missing two parts that made it useless. Elliott threw it in the trash....Alyssa was okay with it saying, "That's okay, I wasn't real excited about flying it anyways." Hey, one less thing in the garage.

Who's Coming?

Last night while the older 3 girls were all snuggled in their beds we were up with Addy. She is not a big fan of going to sleep. Elliott thought it was a good idea to tickle her instead....because that would calm her down and make her sleepy... She has the cutest laugh and you just can't help but laugh so I didn't stop him. After he was done he asked her if she knew who was coming next week for a visit (his parents will stop by on their way to AZ).

She replied, "Jesus".....

Does she know something we don't?

But then again when he asked her who dumped out all the blocks at the top of the stairs she blamed Colin. My friends 13 month old who was not over since last Friday.

Cute Talk

Finally figured out what "Sparkle-lees" means in Addy talk = "Hercules" as in the Disney Movie.

Yesterday I was up in the office and I heard Ryann start freaking out over a spider she saw. The bigger girls came to her rescue and wanted to see the "spider". When the girls saw this scary spider Alyssa became all annoyed because it was teeny tiny and said, "Ryann, C'MON your giving me a break!"

Friday Ryann had her buddy over. They were sitting at the table coloring. I was walking by when her friend pulled out a brown marker, opened it, put the lid back on and said to herself....."Ooh brown THAT IS NOT A GIRL COLOR"....and put it back to grab a purple one. I found this so funny because that was me as a little girl, all about pink, purple, princesses, and dresses! Heaven forbid boy colors!

Happy Love Day!

To start our Valentine's Day I made pink heart shaped pancakes with strawberries on top. Then for lunch we made pizzas in ....you'll never guess...heart shapes. I took a large heart shaped cookie cutter to the pizza dough and let the girls make there own. For dinner I made Filet Mignon, Lobster tails, and grilled Salmon....yum and no heart shapes about it. After dinner we played a few "valentine" games. We did a coin toss onto hearts that would tell you to do something...kiss, hug, etc someone else. The girls liked the "pinch a bum" heart. Then the girls had butterfly nets to catch hearts I cut out that Elliott and I dropped from the balcony on the second floor in front of our office. Following we played pass the heart and HEART (Bingo). Yeah I know a little cheesy but the girls loved it and the little prizes.


For Valentines this year each girl wanted to do their own thing. Life would be so simple if they merely wanted to give a Fun-dip or Hannah Montana Valentine.....but that wouldn't be a child of mine I guess. Kylee wanted to make Muddy-Buddys or Puppy Chow from Chex mix. She has 33 kids in her class so we had to triple the recipe and then put in bags. Alyssa wanted to make candy ipods and Ryann we did bags of goodies for Pre-School (this time I made sure I didn't forget wear I placed the items) and sucker-flowers for her other friends. For their teachers this year, instead of give chocolate we gave hand soap....I know chocolate probably would have been better. I bought red soap took the labels off and printed on transparency paper Love in different languages and then inserted it inside for "Love Soap". I really am not a big fan of Valentine's Day because I just think it is dumb. But I will still try and make it special for my valentine's.....speaking of which gotta run and make some chocolate covered strawberries.

Some pics of our final projects:

The ipod is a box of sweethearts candies and peanut butter cups...cute idea from Family Fun magazine.

I placed the ipods in a bag to keep the strings from tangling

Miss Smarty-Pants

Do you remember playing around the world with math flash cards in elementary school? You know you get paired up with another classmate and the first to give the right answer to the math problem on the flash card moves forward to challenge the next classmate until you have the ultimate winner... Well I am proud to announce our Alyssa is her class champ. She also was the only 3rd grader (I don't know how many 3rd graders their are but her school is K-5 with more than 1200 students) to guess right on with how many cubes were in a jar. Her name was announced and her whole class screamed and cheered for her...too cute. She won a pack of pencils...yay!! She is one of those kids that with little effort gets strait A's....hope the trend sticks.