My mother was right!!!!

Okay, I have said it - there is a written record (don't get used to it Mom). Actually, Mom is usually right, I just have a hard time admitting it ... but who doesn't?

My parents visited us this weekend for Robert's ordination and it was great. So, what was my mother right about this time? I have an instinctual dislike of actually using a blowdryer. Mom has been trying to get me to do it for years and I just shrug it off (or use it while she is there and wait to get home). I do own a blowdryer ... but when Mom tried to use it she found that it had died. So, she bought me a new one - happy birthday to me. Still, I do like to have one around (just in case). I just have way too much hair to make blowdrying it even remotely fun since it generally takes forever! However, yesterday I had to go into the hospital to have a cyst removed from the top of my head and I woke up too late to shower and let my hair dry naturally before the surgery (they really hate to have wet hair in the OR). So, I grabbed the dryer and, what do you know, without any fuss or mousse or anything else ... it was cute! Who knew? Mom obviously. :-) And, yes, I did call to tell her so.

Mom was having a great day yesterday. I also took her advice and cut Ginny's hair again. Ginny has really fine hair and it is getting pretty long - which I like. Unfortunately, it grows straight into her face so unless I have pulled it back and secured it she is generally walking around chewing it. So, I combed it and cut it so that her "bang" is falling forward from the crown. She is very happy being able to see and, as Mom said, she is absolutely adorable. She actually looks the spitting image of her grandmother. I think we will have to start calling her "Little Mimi." :-)

Robert's Birthday ... party

Wow, I have a 12 yr old! Well, almost. Robert technically doesn't turn 12 until Monday. There are a few special birthdays - 8 (baptism), 12 (priesthood/MIA), 16 (dating/driving), 18 (moving out!!!) - days that really need to be commemorated. So, with that in mind, I asked Robert what he would like to do. He decided that to make this birthday really special, he needed to have a few friends over to eat junk and play video games (since I was envisioning theme parks I was more than happy to accomodate him). So, Byron has taken the younger boys to his parent's house to work on the bug and play with Grandma and Grandpa and we have become pre-teen party central! Here is the motley crew ...

I knew that the boys would be playing the Wii for most, if not all of the night. What I did not expect was that the most fun would be found using the Wii Fit - something we got for Christmas. I had the boys take a break so that I could show my friend Sherri some of the Fit features and the boys just got into it. I never new just how uncoordinated pre-teen boy hips could be ... it was truly hilarious! And they really got into cheering for eachother - they even had fun trying to see who could sit still the longest - that is actually part of the video game. The slumber party deal was that they could stay up until the first argument - which occured about 2am. After that, I they had typically disgusting boy issues involving flatulation, etc., until I finally shut down the party out of self-defense. So, the house got quiet about 3:30am and stayed that way until 7am when Ginny (who slept through it all beautifully) jumped up to play.

Other than video games, about 11pm, we heard an animal rattling the side gate of the fence and we all went out en masse to check it out. There was a full moon, but of course, the gate was in shadow of the house on the side with no windows, so we couldn't really see, but it was obvious that an animal was caught somehow in the fence. Since I didn't have a strong enough light to see what was actually happening, I made the boys go back into the house and waited for morning to see what was happening (I honestly thought a rabbit or a squirrel had been caught by a predator who had been startled by us and would be back to finish their meal ... ewww). This morning, I found that a small grey fox had somehow managed to run its head through the chain link on the gate and, of course, could not get back out. I can't begin to imagine how fast it had to have been running to actually accomplish this! Now, I know I am a city girl because I called all over the place to find out what to do with it (animal control, the sherriff, fish & game). Finally a friend who works for BLM come over to see what he could do ... he had the idea of wrapping the fox's body in a towel and pulling it out and then quickly jumping on the fence so that when it inevitably attacked he might possibly avoid getting bit (remember that I was supposed to hold the gate this entire time). Then we tried to find someone who had some time of equipment to put it to sleep so we could work its head through the gate without getting mauled. We finally found a neighbor who works for one of the county's departments dealing with wild animals who told us to put the poor thing out of its misery and then knock it back through with a shovel (wasn't THAT an attractive image). So Dylan went home and got his .22 and came back. I had to admit that even though I have butchered lots of deer and elk, I have never actually shot a living animal ("Wuss" was the word Papa used and he is, as usual, quite correct). So, Dylan did the actual shooting. We thought it was a sad waste since the animal wasn't really hurting anyone, but it definitely turned out to be the best thing after all because we broke every one of its neck bones trying to get its head back out of the gate - an experience to remember. As a side note, other than to check out the fox when we first found it this morning, the boys didn't miss a video game beat.

Insanity is hereditary ... you get if from your kids!

That saying was on a button in a birthday card we bought for my father many years ago ... it is still so true! I have to say, though, that I don't know how I would get along without my often frustrating nearly 12-yr old - Robert. We butt heads more often than not, especially over work ethics and quality control, but in truth he does a ton for me especially with the babies (getting milk cups, taking out dirty diapers, strapping kids into car seat and releasing them too just to name a few). I try my darndest to not have all of the kids with me when I go shopping, especially since Ginny started practicing for 2, but sometimes I just gotta go ...

I often marvel at my good friend, Karrie, who has 4 children as well - but her oldest is in kindergarten. I did lots of marvelling yesterday as I decided I HAD to go down to Bakersfield and daycare was not an option. I also decided that we needed to have a better schedule and so devoted the entire moring to schooling first. We didn't leave until about 2pm. The kids weren't to terrible ... for them. In Target I was very grateful for Robert because then I could take two carts which worked well until Josh had to be put into the back of one because he is categorically incapable of not touching things and the only cart with space was the one Ben was riding in front of which meant that the rest of the store trip consisted of them beating on eachother. Target was also made incredibly "fun" by going down the toy isle (yes, I do know better) so that I could get some little toys to put up as incentives for Ben to start using the toilet. Josh was happy with Hot Wheels, but Ben is set on Thomas the Tank Engine (can we say more $$$). However, I am getting desperate, so I picked up a couple of 4-packs of trains and immediately had to let the boys hold them because Ben was setting off car alarms with his screaming (I am only slightly exaggerating). Then, we went to Costco. I made the monumental mistake of putting both Ben and Ginny in the same cart (because those carts are heavy and Ben had spent the better part of the Target trip beating up on Robert who definitely deserved a break). Ben and Ginny are really 14 months apart, but Ginny is nearly as tall as Ben and they are definitely at the same "stage" (meaning terrible 2 phase) so they are for all intents and purposes "twins." The spent the entire time slapping eachother - I mean really getting into the slapping thing. I would pull them apart for a bit and then slap the one that was hitting the hardest and tell them to fold their arms and sit still (which got me some great looks, let me tell you). The would both fold their arms and just GLARE at me, put their heads down and literally start bumping each other with thier shoulders and cycle would begin again. I really had to just laugh (only slightly histerically) until, of course, they got going too far again and I had to administer a "cycle adjustment." I also found out that car seats cannot contain Toddlers who really want what the other one has because Ben will reach out with his toy toward Ginny (just to pull it back - isn't he nice!) and then go absolutely ballistic when Ginny manages to snatch it from him (which she does every single time ...). I had to stop the car several times on the way home to give Ben back the box of trains which are now decorating my mantle because they need to be seen to be an effective motivation, right?Of course, silly me, I forgot my kids' ingenuity! Josh has shown Ben how to turn over one of the toy buckets to stand on and Josh can just reach them outright. So now, Ben will play for a few minutes and then just start screaming and pointing for the mantle ... it got better when I told him that I was going to give them to Ginny if she started using the potty first. Want to come visit?