All About Me Revelations

About a week ago I was shopping at Walmart and picked up two clearance craft kits: one has 30 kits to make family trees, and one has 30 kits to make "All About Me" books. They are supposed to be for classroom projects. But Lily, Ruth, and Adam all love doing little craft things and I thought they would make for fun for a long time.

So, today after church, I pulled them out and gave one to each of the girls and Adam. We decided to try the "All About Me" books. It was just a little book with a little sheet of stickers included, but we pulled out the markers, glitter glue, foam shape stickers, and crayons to augment. It was a real success. The kids spent about 2 hours working on them. And the best part is that afterwards I got to read them. Here are just a few things I learned:

• Adam's favorite things are Dora, Lily, himself, Kate, Emma, Mary, and Ruthie. (What would he do without his sisters and Dora).
• Jesus Christ is the first person in Adam's family.
• Adam's favorite place is going to Anson's house.
• Adam's favorite person is Emma
• One of Adam's favorite animals is "Daddy's scarf"
• One of Adam's favorite foods is trees
• Mary's favorite food is Tic-Tacs
• Mary's quote on friends, "I have a lot of friends. I have so many I can't list them all. I can find friends in almost every grade."
• One of Lily's favorite things is "Butterfly the blanket." (I had no idea she had named her small baby blanket that Mary made her for Christmas last year.)
• What Lily did last summer was going sledding at Anson's and Lorin's when it snowed
• One of Lily's hobbies is Emma doing her hair
• One of Lily's favorite foods is chocolate animal crackers.
• Lily's favorite people are her grandmas
• Ruth's favorite things are presents
• What Ruth did last summer was watch flowers
• Ruth's hobby is hopping on one foot
• Ruth's favorite person is Kate
• Kate wished she went to the beach last summer, but she went to the movies instead
• Kate drew a picture of her family that included Mom, Dad, herself and "etc." after those 3 figures. (It made me laugh that she drew all the important people.)
• One of Kate's hobbies is babysitting (fortunately for us).
• Kate's favorite person is her cousin Jennifer.
• Emma's comment about friends was, "My friends like me."
• Emma's hobbies are football, basketball, soccer and baseball.
• Emma's favorite place is mini-golf (see the pass has paid off already).

Needless to say, I learned a lot. They all seem happy though so that's good. I think I'll wait a few months and have them do it again, just to see what they say. It was definitely a fun experience.

The Pass of All Passes

This year, because of the baby, we won't really be able to take a family vacation. Instead we decided to buy everyone in our family "The Pass of All Passes". It's a year pass for our local water park, 2 local mini-golf places (that also have batting cages, laser tag, go-carts, and small rides), season tickets to our local pioneer league baseball team, and our local D-league NBA team. For all that, it was fairly reasonable, only $40 for a year. It actually was much cheaper than a trip to Buffalo usually costs us (though we don't get the bonus of seeing all the family we love!!).

So, already, we have gone and played mini-golf twice, once with John and I, and once with the whole family. The girls had never been to play miniature golf and they really liked it. And they are surprisingly good at it. While playing, I learned that Adam is not content to just try, he must succeed. No matter how many times he had to hit the ball, he wouldn't leave a hole until he had gotten the ball in the hole. And for Ruth, as long as she got the ball in the whole, she was a winner. After every hole she would shout, "I won 5 times!!" (on the fifth hole, for example). The older girls all had a lot of fun too. In the future we might have to split up into teams, but other than that, it went really well. And no one got hit in the head with the metal clubs, which was the real bonus. So the summer should be pretty fun. I'm very excited for lots of reasons.

The End is Near

Adam will always be our only boy, but his days as our baby are limited. We are expecting a baby sister in July. The girls are excited but I don't think Adam really understands. He will though and I think he will enjoy having someone littler than him. Everything seems to be going well so far, so we hope that it continues.

Conversation with the boy

Me: Come on, sweet cakes. Let's get out of the car.
Adam: Mom, I not sweet cake!
Me: You're not a sweet cake. What are you then?
Adam: I Adam, THE BOY.

Later, when Adam handed me his hat and gloves to put away.
Me: Thank you, sir.
Adam: Mom, I not sir! I Adam the boy!

At least he knows who he is.

New Year's Resolutions: Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New

I like new year's resolutions. For that matter, I really like making goals. They give me something to work for, to look forward to. So I've been thinking this month about what I want to do. I've also been thinking about what I accomplished last year. So here goes:

• Last year my goal was to read 105 books, and I made it to 86 (maybe a few more, but 86 that I recorded). I'm going to stick with this goal. I think I can do it and it keeps me reading which I really enjoy.
• Last year my goal was to index 10,000 names and I did it. It was hard because for a long time I couldn't bring myself to index. But after I got back into it, I really enjoyed it. I think I could do more. So this year I'm going to index 20,000 names. This sounds like a lot but it is actually only about 50 names a day, which is about 15 minutes. Not bad. Usually when I get going indexing I do a lot more so I think I have a pretty good chance. And indexing is very satisfying. I really feel like I am accomplishing something and contributing to the work
• Last year my goal was to finish my 200 projects by Sept. 1. I have no idea how many projects I finished and honestly, I totally lost my motivation because John bought me a really nice, new sewing machine. It is awesome and I love it. I do know that I finally finished Lily's baby quilt for her 4th birthday. That in itself was a big accomplishment. And I helped the girls make things for Christmas, which took some work. This year I think my goal will be to finish 50 projects, and in each project, I want to use at least one thing I already have.
• My goal last year was to complete the $200 DMBA health challenge and I did. I have yet to decide what I want to spend my money on. We'll see. This year I want to continue this goal. Doing the challenge keeps me doing things to be reasonably fit. It makes me feel good and I like it. Plus BYU gives you great little gifts for finishing the mini-challenges. I just got an awesome BYU sackpack. I can't wait to use it when I go walking. Free money and free gifts, I just can't pass it up.
• Last year my goal was to post on my blog once a week. I definitely didn't accomplish that, but I came close. I ended up with 42 entries, just 10 short of my one-a-week goal. I'm going to keep this goal too. I really need to start writing again, if only to keep a record of the silly and great things my kids do. Plus, writing is a good outlet that I could use more of. It keeps me excited about life.
• My goal last year was to write in my journal at least 5 days a week and I think I did a pretty good job. My journal is more a scripture journal and gratitude journal. It is short and sweet, but it keeps me being positive. I'm keeping this goal because I think it's important and it makes me happy to be able to look back on what has gone on in my life.
• Last year my goal was to read the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament reading for the year. I'm still working on it. I've gone really slow but I'm getting a lot out of it. I'm working through the Old Testament seminary manual in my own way, and it is fun. So my goal for this year is to finish both the Old Testament manual and the Book of Mormon. But the most important thing is to do some individual scripture study every day. That's what I really need.
• My final goal last year was to try to be nice to my kids and have fun with them and I think we had a good year. We had a great summer where we did lots of fun things. We also went sledding over Christmas break. And we do a lot of reading together which we all like. I could probably be more exciting and more nice. But I'm not sure what specific goals with my kids I want to work on this year. I'm going to think about it.

I'm sure there are lots of other goals I could make, but I think I'll start with these and go from there.

Should I Be Worried?

A few weeks ago Lily came up to me and said, "Did you know I can count to 100?" And then she proceeded to count to 100. I was pretty impressed. I think that is at least a first grade skill. I guess a little Team Umizoomi goes a long way.

Then on Christmas, Lily came up and sat next to me on the couch. Then she said, "Did you know that I can count backward from 100?" I laughed and said, "No, Lily, I didn't know that." She then proceeded to count backward from 100. I was really impressed then. And a little scared. She still has another year to go before Kindergarten.

The only thing John and I can figure is that either educational TV is much more effective than it gets credit for, or the older girls are number torturing her at night. Either way, I guess it is working.

What do I want for Christmas?

My family has exchanged names for Christmas and my sister wanted to know what I want. Here's the things I can think of:
Scarecrow and Mrs King Season 1 DVDs
Smallville Season 9 DVDs
Pride and Prejudice (the LDS version, Excel Entertainment) dvd
Hunger Games book or Mockingjay book
Biography of President Monson

Oh and I love to shop so I think giftcards are about the best gifts ever. So...
Giftcard to any of the following:
JoAnne Fabric, WalMart, Hancock Fabric, Shopko, Amazon.com, or Kohls.

And I love to eat, so I wouldn't mind a gift certificate to any good restaurant.

And if you're really feeling generous, I'd like a treadmill that could fold up and fit in a bathroom cabinet or somewhere small like that. That would be nice!!

Thank you Santa!

Mean Parents, Clever Kids

I am a mean parent sometimes. What's more, I am also a book fair scrooge. A while back I put the nix on spending money at book fairs. The kids feel all this pressure to buy something and nothing there is a good deal. I know that it is a school fundraiser for the library, and I'm all for books, as anyone who knows me understands. But it just kills me to pay full price for books when I could get them cheaper anywhere else. And there really are no cheap books. So when I tried to limit them on the amount they could spend, they ended up buying $3 erasers. Ridiculous in my opinion. So finally we just said, "No, we are not buying anything at the book fair. I'm sorry. I'll buy you a book out of the next book club issue or something."

My girls, being the clever girls they are, found a way out. They help the librarian (who is their best pal because they hang out there all the time) set up the book fair and she gives them each a $5 book fair gift certificate for helping. They are able to buy one book, and I don't have to spend any money. And there's no begging or whining involved. Smart kids. Everyone wins. I love them.

Sixth Sense

"I see . . .my mom getting up to exercise!!"

I swear that my children have a sixth sense about my trying to get up early. Whenever I get up the energy to decide to get up early in the morning and exercise, my kids sabotage me. Sunday night I finally went to bed early and planned on getting up at 6am to exercise. Adam woke up screaming at about 1am (which he never does) and Ruth woke us up about 3 am to tell us that Lily threw up in her bed and in their room on the way to the bathroom. AAAAAAAAAAAH!!! Thankfully John cleaned their room while I cleaned Lily and we weren't up for that long. I still got up at 6am but my heart just wasn't in it anymore. I tried doing yoga but didn't really like it as much as I thought and I think I hurt my knee a little. I'll have to find something more exciting to motivate me and find some way to hide it from that sixth sense. Good luck to me.

Caffeine-free October

As of September 30, I'm going caffeine-free for a month. I've been having trouble sleeping lately and have had an almost constant headache for a while now. Last Thursday I woke up with the idea that maybe cutting out caffeine might help. I don't drink tons of caffeinated drinks, but probably more than I should. I really like Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper. They're kind of my treat for when I get everyone down for a nap in the afternoon. Some people like chocolate, I like Diet Coke. But I am interested to see if laying off has any noticeable effect in my life. I'll try it for a month and if it doesn't work, I'm going back. For now my treat will have to be Fresca or Diet Squirt or Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper. 4 days down, 27 to go.