Ooh La la..

Shhh.... don't tell anyone but I'm lucky enough to have the best calling in the church.    I guess I'm a tween at heart (I can happily binge on a Disney series with the best of them) and I'm a go big or go home type of planner so combine that and I absolutely love pulling together activities that make these girls giggle with delight.      Last night we did a Fancy Nancy etiquette dinner.    I made and sent out these "fancy" invitations through the mail (I'm sure they were excited to get something addressed to just them in the mail) with instructions to come dressed in your "fanciest" which in 8-11 year old girls vocabulary means dress up clothes and forbidden makeup.  

I didn't take pictures of the table but in true fancy Nancy style we had mismatched flower tablecloths, flowers and boa's strung about with little tea lights.  We had the girls come sit down and then we took the different age groups and took their pictures together.  Here is Jane and Emily's groups.

Then the girls got a lesson on how to properly set a table and then had them set their own setting with tea cups I found from the DI and plates we had them previously decorate and personalize.  We then proceeded with a "fancy" meal of salad, spaghetti, french bread, and little bunt cakes for desert.   We taught them things like pass to the right and wait until everyone gets their food before you even touch your utensil and eat.  That was a stretch to see girls just stare at their food eagerly waiting for 20+ girls to pass the food around.  Throughout the dinner we mentioned things like politeness and how to strike up a dinner conversation.  Overall it was a success.  You know it went well when every single girl came plus extras from the neighborhood and you get texts from all the moms saying "so and so came home with their tea cup, flower and plate and won't stop talking about how much fun it was".    

Perhaps the best part is I got to act a little silly with these two!!

Best Game ever!!!!!

My kids came up with the best game in the whole wide world.   This was amazingly done without any help from me.  After one of those try to catch up after a couple overwhelming crazy busy, 4 kids are hard to manage type of weeks.  I get my game on and start putting my house back in order.  It ends with a call for three of my kids to gather in the family room and I dump a large basket of mismatched socks in front of the three of them and say "Nobody is leaving this room until these all have a match."  I walk over to the kitchen to get busy sorting through "everything ends up here" cupboard and look over a few minutes later to see cooperative non lolly gagging around work.  I comment how happy this is making me to see all of them working together  and they respond...... Yeah mom we are playing a game.   When you find a match you put it in your own pile and then the one with the most matches wins.    I have never in all my parenting years seen a basket of mismatched socks disappear so quickly.

Sure hope this game becomes a favorite of theirs like it became an instant favorite of mine to watch.

I wonder...

It's my dad's birthday!  My dad is one of a kind to say the least.   I often wonder what he was like as a kid, especially now that Spencer has come into my life.    Could I be raising a mini Dick Pace?  Case in point.  We are settling down to read the scriptures one night.  I sit down in my recliner and instantly Spencer comes over and hollers at me until I get out of it.  He climbs right up and takes command of the chair.  He instantly points to his sippy cup 10 feet away lying on the floor and yells "Ba" his word for sippy cups full of milk.  I obediently retrieve it give it to him and then he hollers for his own set of scriptures.  I give him that to and then he settles into the chair content he is king of the place.   Just add "Becky to all the hollers" and it sounds about like my dad right?    There are other of the cousins we suspect have a dominant Dick Pace gene as well.  One was coined the charger from my dad who has no problem getting into an argument with him and the other calls himself the "Boss of Brady Circle".  Hmm......

Something to blog about

We leave the ward trunk or treat after putting way to much effort into our trunk as well as making  a pot of chicken noodle soup after we watched Emily play a volleyball game and then spent a few hours at Lagoon to then rush home to and get all 4 kids in costume including hair braiding,  dying it red, and painting a cardboard toilet seat.  I say...

Me:  I never want to do this again
Bart:  (surprised voice) Why?  It was fun
Me:  Too much work
Bart:  Just look at it as something to blog about.


So blog here are my pictures of the day I don't want to do again but glad I have something to blog about and make memories with my kids.

As we were leaving the park Bart turns to me and gives me a thumbs up after he reads this sign.  Ha ha so rude but very true!!!

Emily's costume.  Moaning Myrtle.  The walking test of Harry Potter fans.  People either got it and loved it or were confused

Jane read the Pippy Longstocking book this summer and was sold on being it for Halloween.  Did I mention how much fun red hair dye is for moms?  

Thank you my kind hearted boy for being so happy with a costume you can buy at Costco and slip into in no time.  Any wagers how many consecutive years he'll be a star wars character?

The Monkey has returned.  I love this costume so unique, vintage and full of family memories.  

The perfect couple.  Pippy and her monkey (totally Jane's idea)

This was the first year we opted to contribute to the trunk or treat.   The last few years the trunks were all decked out.  This year not so much.   Just ours actually!   I can never get it right.  

Waiting

UEA usually means heading to Teasdale.   For as long as I can remember we've lucked out with nice weather which means my kids get plenty of outside time.  We are often hanging out around the cowboys who are moving the cows from the mountain to the desert.   This year Bentley wanted to have a cousin sleep over so I dropped the girls off in Annabelle.  Sarah said they would head over to Teasdale and take a short stop in Koosharem to load up some of her cows.    As most things cowboy related go a short stop to gather up cows ended up being a full days work.    My girls ended up in the cab of a truck for hours waiting for the gathering of the cows.  For one it was a cold windy day and  my dad told them they better stay in the truck and not spook the cows away.  I told Sarah she should have called me and I could have come and rescued the girls and Sarah just replied "Why? it's not like we never had to do that sort of thing growing up".    It's true we had to do that sort of thing a lot and without any complaining.   I remember waiting in trucks for my dad to finish up chores.  Waiting in the car while my mom ran into Red D grocery store to do her grocery shopping.  (It was legal or at least nobody cared back then).  I waited before and after dentist appointments in a room with nothing more than scholastic children's magazines.   Waiting rather impatiently and most likely hungry while my mombrowsed through jobbers odd lot (i.e. junk store) after a long day of shopping in Salt Lake.    Each year my mom took me over to Richfield for my annual checkup for my leg with Dr. Sodaberg, an orthopedic doctor from Primary Children's hospital.  I don't really know how long we sat in the  clinic but it must have been a while because I still have vivid memories of reading the public health posters about bottle mouth and kids.  I should write the public health department to commend their work because I never could put my kids down to sleep with a bottle in fear of bottle mouth.  I waited at the movie theater for my mom to come back and get us.    The routine was you walked a half a block down the street and called twice without putting a quarter so that my mom knew if she got too hang up calls in a row the movie was over.  I waiting for rides home from junior jazz practice and most every after school activity in middle and high school.  There was no mobile phones so no way to get a  hold of my parents back then to see how close they were.  I just had to hope for the best and stand there and wait.    I'm not sure my kids have ever had to wait for much in their life.  Heck they don't even have to wait for their favorite movie or song to rewind.  So I guess it was a great character building experience for them to be stuck in a cab of a truck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but listen to the radio.    I hope it stretched their patience even a little bit.  Here's to hoping we can get through the prayer on the food without someone starting to eat.

The cows being moved from the field by my parents house to the ranch where they would get their immunizations before trekking down to the desert

Shaz

Spencer loves shoes.  He will notice some shoes and with so much enthusiasm say "Shaz".  It doesn't matter whose shoes he just wants some on his feet.  

My other kids at this age were constantly shedding their shoes any chance they could get. I was always so annoyed to arrive at our destination to see bare feet and shoes and socks tossed every which way in the backseat.  I use to go jogging with Emily in the jogging stroller and would often discover one shoe missing when I returned.  After a couple lost shoe episodes I would first take off her shoes and leave them home.   Spencer on the other hand will notice his bare feet go find his shoes and bring them to one of us and ask to have them put on his feet.  It's pretty incredible to me that he always knows where his shoes are.   In one of those hurry out of the house moments I called to anybody listening "Will someone find Spencer's missing shoe we've got to hurry"  Emi, Jane and Aaron ran around the house, I'm sure a little haphazardly,  without any success.  Spencer on the other hand hearing the word "Shoes"  disappeared and a few minutes later reappeared holding the missing shoe and we were out the door "like a herd of turtles" as Bart often says.   Speaking of missing shoes Jane, who has never misplaced anything in her life, is at her wits end always looking for her shoes Spencer has scattered around the house.  I get her frustration as she and I like things in their place and their is nothing worse than frantically running around trying to find a lost  shoe.   We deal though because how can you get mad at such a face!!!

Super Saturday!!!

It's a beautiful Sat. morning in October and Bart is away to New York City chasing autographs.    The kids and I start the day watching Emily play her first volleyball game of the season.

Then we decide to take a trip down to Brooke's house to raid a pumpkin patch her family helps take care of.  On the way there we stopped by "Jaker's Jack-0-Lathern" pumpkin patch in Springville (can't beat the $2 admission fee) and enjoyed a few of the festivities.    

Spencer navigating his way through the toddler hay maze!!

It's hard to get 4 kids to look at the camera at the same time

Hey mom,  take a picture of us way up here.  

Pumpkin patch hay ride.   Spencer is intent on counting the pumpkins just like his older brother Aaron was doing. 

Emily convinced me it would be fun for all of us to go through the big corn maze.  I hesitantly agreed and about half way through the maze had a minor anxiety attack trying to keep all of us together while finding the way out.  It became apparent we were just going in circles and then I missed Bart badly because he's the steady I'll get us out rock we rely on.  The sadness turned into madness that he wasn't there but was doing his stupid autograph thing.  The anxiety and madness kept building until I found a group and decided our best bet was to follow them.   They noticed the trail of stragglers behind them and told me we  foraging our own trail the hell out of here.  I said "Sounds good to me".  And like a breath of fresh air soon we were out!  

Spencer was enamored by the animals and especially liked petting the pit 

We then headed down to Brooke's house and gathered us up enough pumpkins to fill up our porch as well as some for the preschool classroom kids I work with.

We got back right in just enough time to drop off the boys for Emily to watch while Jane and I used some free Real Monarch's soccer tickets that were given to all the Sparta soccer players.    I know nothing about soccer but it's a developing interest with Super Soccer Jane in the house!!!