A Figment

I used to believe in mythical creatures... such as elves, dragons, unicorns, fairies, and children who made me look like a competent parent.

Red attended a meeting with his dad today for all the 11 year old boys at our church.  Our Bishop asked each boy to share something that they had learned from their mothers.  Now, I've had almost 12 years with this kid.  I've tried to teach him to be obedient, respectful, kind and happy.  I've taught him to pray, read his scriptures and to try to be the best he can.  Apparently I need a refresher course on how to teach these things because what he actually learned is to be to be silly, sarcastic and to go for the laugh instead of giving a real answer.

His response when asked what he had learned from his mother :  "She taught me not to kill people".  Which, in the grand scheme of things, is good.  Really good.  I'd rather my children weren't running around being serial killers.

But, now that we've got the "no murdering" thing down... I think it's time to move on to other things that will eventually turn him into a well-rounded individual.  Perhaps we'll start with "there's a time and a place for everything..."

Oh, hey... Hi

So, um, as you can see, I haven't written in awhile.  So, let's do a quick catch up post and move on, shall we?  Excellent!  Here we go...

July - Spent some time in Idaho with family and then came home to pack like maniacs!  We moved to Arizona on one of the hottest days of the year.  Oh yeah... some like it hot... or, um, something like that.  So anyway, we had such great help from friends getting out of our old house and a ton of people showed up to help us get into the new place.  We're settling in slowly (a.k.a. I'm still not done unpacking).  But the kids are adjusting fairly well.  We've had a few small bumps in the road, and I'm sure there will be more, but for now, we're good.

August - the kids went back to school and I was so scatter brained that I didn't get pictures.  Lame, lame, lame!!!  Hubby's birthday was in August, but, again, trying to unpack and finish things up in California and it ended up not being a big celebration... MEGA LAME!!  Sigh... I'll do better next year!

September - wait?  What?  Did we even HAVE a September this year?  Oh yes.  I had a kidney stone in September.  Spent most of the month feeling awful.  Let's forget September this year.  Moving on!

October - Busy.  Really, really busy.  First off we had Hubby's parents come visit.  It was so great to have them here.  We didn't do much... just relaxed and enjoyed their company!  I think everyone had a good time.
We had two birthday's in October. Baby Girl had a fairy birthday party that was a blast!

I decked the house out in lights and yards and yards of tulle.  Made skirts and got wings for all the girls instead of goodie bags.  It was a lot of fun.
Then we had an "October Birthday Beach Bash" with friends from California.  Between the two families we have 4 October b-days.  It was so fun to see our friends for the day!

Little Bug's birthday was more low key.  He doesn't like lots of people around. So we kept his day simple.

I gave him a book called "Wild About Books" and all present opening stopped.  He had to read it a couple of times before we could resume the rest of our evening.  He still packs it around the house reading his favorite parts over and over...

Alan surprised me with a vacation away from kids!  He plotted and planned with my parents... they came down and watched kids and we took off for a few days.  It was really, really nice!  The first evening was spent in Carlsbad, CA right on the beach.

The next two days were spent at Disneyland!  I love, love, love that place!  And I know it's a great place to take your kids, but can I tell you how awesome it was to go without kids?  No begging for over priced toys or treats.  No whining or crying because exhaustion had settled in.  No skipping rides or shops because the kids don't want to go or because we don't want to take them.  We were able to do anything and everything we wanted.  There were things that I know the kids would have loved, but they can go next time... maybe...

(BTW - World of Color is absolutely AMAZING!!)

Last day of the trip was in San Diego.  We went to the temple and then headed for home.  It was a fantastic trip!  (thanks again for watching kids Mom and Dad!!!) 

Halloween was awesome!  I had asked Baby Girl what she wanted to be for Halloween back in September and she said "Alice from Alice in Wonderland".  And I said, "Oh, that will be fun!  We'll get you a blue dress and some black shoes and..." she interrupted and said, "No mom.  Not that Alice.  The Alice from the new movie.  In armor with a Vorpal sword to kill the Jabberwocky."  Ah... yeah.  Her costume turned out pretty good though... here's what it looks like in the movie and what we ended up with (yeah, that's the best pic I got of her alone...)

Not too bad, if I do say so myself.  I got up Saturday morning and decided to be the White Queen... so I made a costume that day.

 Then we had "Return of the Jedi" (he was a Jedi last year too)

 Our rather reluctant farmer...

 And the crazy weird guy...

November - not much so far.  And I'm glad!  We'll have a few things later in the month, but for now, it's been peaceful... well, as peaceful as we ever get.

I don't know if anyone will even see this post or care.  But I'm going to try and get back to the blog once a week.  Yeah.  Try.  I'm not making any promises... but, it feels good to write again.  We'll see how this goes!