Teacher Felicity

Felicity went to a play at the junior high the other day with her school, and it inspired her enough that she came home to make a play with Caleb. Some how or another it turned from play- theater to play-school, but she still wanted an audience. My sisters were coming for a visit so she made tickets for us and went around very seriously asking us if we would be attending her debut(OK, not her words, but her facial expression said it all), and then writing us down in her little notebook. When it came time for showtime, she ushered us into her room. She had set up seats for us with our names on them (I was on an overturned bucket, Melissa got her princess stool, Caleb was on the floor, and Nicki got a bucket lid. Sorry, Nicki), and she was attempting to hire Farris to play the music (he asked her how much she would pay him, and she counted 17 cents out of her piggy bank. She was very relieved when he said he'd take a hug instead of money). It was amazing all the work she had put into it, she spelled everything by herself and had it all set up for us. First she handed out shells with instruction sheets. We were supposed to count them and then write how many we had on the paper. She told us that she would be checking our work (!). When we finished, she taught us a song. She had written the words to "Down by the Bay" twice and had the paper taped to the wall on two sides of the room so everyone could see. She even drew a picture of the song and had it taped in between the words. It was funny to see how adult she carried herself as she explained everything, just like we were a group of first graders, very teacher-ish. She's growing up!

Joseph takes his show on the road

Yesterday Felicity fell in a mud puddle during recess, so I grabbed the boys and went to the school with a change of clothes for her. While Felicity was getting dressed in the girls bathroom, Joseph went into the boys bathroom, and I sent Caleb after him to bring him back. Caleb comes bursting out the door, "Joseph's going potty!" So I sent him back into make sure that Joseph would eventually come out again. I must not have given good instructions, because a minute later out comes triumphant Caleb with a no shoe, no sock, no pants Joseph. Luckily no one was around to see my naked boy and I sent them back into the bathroom to find the lost articles. I'm hoping that Joseph will outgrow this pantless penchant soon, at least before kindergarten.

Interview a kid

I got tagged on Facebook to Interview a Kid. It came with a list of questions, and I asked my kids, ,first the boys, then Felicity when she got home from school...and I'm putting their answers down as they said it, even if it doesn't make sense or is just plain old silly. Now you are all tagged to do this, with whatever kid you want!

Interview with Felicity (age 6, going on 16 or 2, depending on mood) and Caleb ( age 4) and Joseph (age 2)
1. What is something mom always says to you?
F: Hmmm, good question...clean your room!
C: Go get dressed!
J: Get Dressed!

2. What makes mom happy?
F: When I do something for you.
C: If you say clean your room and I clean it right then
J: Ummm, feel better

3. What makes mom sad?
F: If I do something you don't want me to.
C: If I don't clean my room or if you get some owies or if you're bleeding
J: Til you feel better

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
F: By tickling me! That's an easy question!
C: If you do a crazy puppet show
J: Feel better

5. What was your mom like as a child?
F: You liked that doll that you had.
C: You liked that cereal, Apple Jacks
J: I don't know, feel better

6. How old is your mom?
F: Ohhhhhhhhhh, I do not know! (me:can you guess?) ummm, 41? (me: what is the deal here!?!)
C: 41
J: 42

7. How tall is your mom?
F: You are really, really tall! I think you are as tall as this (standing on the couch with her hands really high)
C: 11
J: 20

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
F: I think your favorite thing to do is read, 'cause you read a lot.
C: Type on the computer
J: say bing-bong

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
F: You take care of the boys.
C: Give us babysitters
J: Say Caleb get back here! (This was my favorite answer!)

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
F: To get money, I guess.
C: To be beautiful for a party (What a good boy!)
J: scriptures

11. What is your mom really good at?
F: Oh, I think reading.
C: Feeding baby Seth
J: Joseph!

12. What is your mom not very good at?
F: I think you're not good at dropping us off at the school.
C: Standing on your head (I thought this was pretty good, too)
J: Standing on your head

13. What does your mom do for her job?
F: You take care of the kids!
C: Feed baby Seth
J: play with toys

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
F: OHHHHH, that is so hard! I think your favorite food is pizza.
C: Soup and even grapefruit
J: scriptures to eat

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
F: I do not know...by helping me.
C: to smile at you
J: get sad

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
F: I think you would be a fairy! I like fairies. Or a pizza monster...
C: The people that go in the letter factory
J: Character

17. What do you and your mom do together?
F: I help you do my quilt.
C: Help you feed baby Seth
J: just be sad ( I think he got tired of questions at this point)

18. How are you and your mom the same?
F: We both have brown eyes and we both have eyebrows.
C: We got hands, noses, two eyes, two eyebrows, one mouth, five fingers...
J: get sad

19. How are you and your mom different?
F: We are wearing different clothes and we have different names, and there's lots of things!
C: our clothes are different
J: get sad

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
F: Because you say you love me.
C: Because we both get happy
J: get sad

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
F: That he gets us money so we're not poor.
C: because he gives you a kiss
J: get sad

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
F: Hmmmm, very good question. I think your favorite place to go is to pick me up from school. No, not that. The place you go to get babies, because you really liked to get us, so that is your favorite place to go.
C: To daddy's office.
J: get sad

Joseph's antics

I sent an e-mail to my brother with a list of messes that Joseph had made this week. His family enjoyed them so much I thought I'd pass them on and add a few more that I remember now.
--Joseph, with Caleb's help, shoveled dirt in right in front of our front door. When I told them to sweep it up, somehow the broom ended up in the tree, although I think that was Felicity.
--Joseph, with Caleb's help, dumped out all of the balls all over downstairs. We have a lot of balls.
--He painted the kitchen counter with the tuna fish and miracle whip that I had mixed up for sandwiches. Plus, the four pieces of bread that he was trying to get the mixture on.
--He wet his pants so he went into the bathroom to take off his wet clothes and decided to cover his body with conditioner. He did smell really good for two or three days after that.
--He snuck into the kitchen and took out some blueberry muffins, then wiped his hands down his shirtfront. He was dressed for church at the time.
If I think of more, I'll add them. They all happen so fast, they just kind of blend together.

I think I'm going to start a list of things I catch myself saying that I never thought I'd say. I don't mean things like "because I'm your mom," I do say that but I'm talking about the really strange stuff, like: "put your underwear back on before you climb on the counter". or "Stop dancing on the table." or "Brooms don't belong in a tree." You know, things like that.

I just have to say that I really do like being a mom. I'm just glad I can laugh about it.

Dinner for five (plus one who politely waited for his dinner)

Dinner tonight in our crazy house was just kind of funny. We had Parmesan chicken (adapted from my aunt Ellen's recipe, thanks!), mashed potatoes and gravy and carrots. Caleb decided to stand for dinner, I couldn't convince him that it would be easier to sit down. Seth was giggling. Felicity was actually eating with no complaining, surprise. Joseph...well, he is the funny one. He ate most of his food, then started playing play dough with the mashed potatoes (one good thing, he refused the gravy). When I asked what he was doing, he said he was making pizza. I thought that was kind of weird, but with all the gooiness on his hands, it looked how my hands look when I make pizza dough. He then informed us that he "was mommy." "You're mommy?" I asked. "Yes," he said with out missing a beat, "I have hair." I kind of had an idea of what he was driving at, but I let Farris ask the question. "I don't have a lot of hair, huh?" Farris asked. "No, just head." Joseph replied in that very honest way two year olds have. "Just you wait," Farris told him, but Joseph didn't seem very concerned. Now, I have not told Farris that I am posting this story, and since he rarely reads this blog, none of you guys can tell him what I've written here, OK? Or I'll sic Joseph on you.

A friend of mine on her blog, challenged us to run a 5K, a 10K and a half marathon. She had some pretty persuasive reasons for doing it, and I have my own...so, I told her I would do it. At least the 5 and 10K's. But I know that I haven't jogged or even had a lasting exercise prgram since Ricks College, and yeah, that was before it was BYU-Idaho. SOOOO, to those of you from here that are reading this, does anyone want a running partner? And I do mean running very loosely. And although I'd welcome some more people to do the 5K with, you don't have to. I'd just like to have someone to run/jog/walk for safety reasons (we can take turns carrying the bat) and so I make sure I don't skip it altogther. We can do it morning or evening, we could try it in the afternoon, but I'd have to drag three to four kids along, and I don't think that would work (I think it would be like taking three lab puppies for a walk in a squirrel infested park without a leash, yes, I do). To help motivate any of you (or, yeah, to make you feel guilty), here are my reasons for doing this:
1. So I can chase Joseph without panting.
Seriously,
1. My dad just started taking insulin shots. Both my grandmas had diabetes and a few assorted uncles and aunts. Also, my kids have diabetes on both sides, I'd like to be a good example for them, they're going to need to exercise.
2. High cholesterol runs in both sides of my family, too. Both my grandpas and one uncle died of heart attacks and my dad has already had one heart attack, along with his sister needing bypasses. Again, it runs in Farris' family, too.
3. Just like on Legally Blonde, you can't be sad if you exercise alot.
4. As I said before, at Ricks (BYU-Idaho) I got in shape for a backpacking trip in the Salmon River country. That was amazing, and I'd like to be able to do something like that again.
5. It would be nice to fit into clothes that I haven't worn for a long, long time.
6. Just like my friend said in her blog, the word of wisdom! I really wouldn't mind being able to run after my kids and not be weary. Mentally and emotionally would be great, too.
7.There are some really gorgeous places to jog around here. Farris sees deer all the time on his rounds. It feels so good to be outside, seeing things. And it's more productive than golfing.

I could go on making a bunch of stuff up, but I think this is enough. So anybody in my neighborhood want to go running (loosely, remember) with me? We could go with a small group, or just two of us or anything in between. If you've aready started, I'd love to join you. If you haven't, let's start together. If nobody answers this, I'm going to start talking to you face to face...

Kung Fu Panda vs. Daddy and other stuff

This morning at breakfast Caleb and Joseph started a discussion about what would happen if Kung Fu Panda and Daddy fought. Sorry Farris, the panda won. Later, I heard Joseph run up to Farris in the kitchen and yell "hiii-yaaa!" I'm not sure what happened at that point. Maybe Daddy got little Kung Fu Panda that time.
This was a fun week, on monday we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgving Point and met Rocky and Stacey and kids there. We'd never been there, and it really is cool. The kids have been into dinosaurs lately, thanks to the Land Before Time series, so they enjoyed seeing three-horns and sharp tooths and long necks (Joseph called all the bigger long necks "grandpa" after Little Foots grandpa in the cartoons). We also watched a 3-D movie there about dinosaurs. I've never seen a 3-D movie before, it whacks your eyes out. Caleb wouldn't put his glasses on, which might be good because some of the dinosaurs were scary. Yes, I gasped really loud (it wasn't a scream, maybe) when a pteradactyl came right out at me. The highlight of the trip was after when we went to McDonalds for dinner and let the kids play in the gym. Well, it was the first thing Caleb told Nicki about anyway.
Seth is still growing, we're starting to put him in 6-9 month clothes now. He has also grown out of his bassinet. We switched it out for his playpen (yes, our kids sleep in a play pen instead of a crib. One less piece of furniture to worry about, and you can pack it with you on trips so they don't flip out about sleeping somewhere different) anyway, we switched it out after the kids went to sleep. The next morning Joseph and Felicity came running in and stopped short when they saw what Seth was sleeping in. Joseph, in his little awed voice said "Look, Sissy, it growed up!"
Felicity has informed me that she's going to marry Maka, a little boy in her class that protects her from bullies on the playground. She told me that if his family moved, we were going to have to follow them and move, too. Just thought I'd let you all know, our family is going to become stalkers.
AND hurrah! hurrah! Farris is fixing up our laundry room, on saturday he put up new sheetrock. Some had big holes and some was entirely gone. Next we're going to mud and paint and then put up shelves and drying racks, and let me tell you, I am not going to miss our laundry dungeon. But I can't decide what color to paint, any ideas? I want something that will brighten my mood when I stagger in the door with large armfuls of dirty everything.