WANTED: A babysitter each Sunday from 1-4 pm for the next 33 weeks

I love my baby. No ifs ands or buts about it. But she is a beast in sweet baby clothing on Sundays. She used to do the cute beastly things at church like growl and spit raspberries at anyone fortunate enough to be sitting close enough to make eye contact with. Her newest trick however is to throw anything she can and cry until I put her down so that she can have a fair chance at the microphone and piano in Relief Society. Today was no different. Relief Society consisted of her items being picked up by other people a half dozen times, the usual up and down on my lap and a trip to the hall. All developmentally appropriate, I know, but oh so not cute. I decided enough was enough though when in sacrament meeting she launched her binky and it bounced off Jocelyn's head and hit the single man in front of us followed by her trying to stick her sweet chubby fingers up my nose throughout the sacrament hymn. So....

WANTED: A babysitter each Sunday from 1-4 pm for the next 33 weeks. Must be good with babies and wild animals. Must have limitless patience. Must work for free so that it will be SERVICE and I won't be making you work on Sundays. Please let me know if you are interested!

I didn't expect it to happen to me! (at least not so soon!)

Something big happened to me yesterday. Not earth shattering big, but almost. (No I am not pregnant, thank you very much!) So, I was at McKayla's school handing out tickets for kids who walked laps during their lunch recess when it happened. I'm not even talking about the boys I had the pleasure of watching eat worms all recess, although that was very disgusting. Here it is.... When McKayla came out to recess she threw up her hand and said "Hey Mom." And that was it. No hug. No kiss. Nothing but "Hey Mom." And right past me she went. I think I am going to have to stay curled up on the couch today and comfort myself with ice cream. Sigh.

Dance Baby Dance

Last night our girls had their dance recital. They did a fabulous job and we were so excited to see all that they had been working on!


The girls waiting for the recital to start.


McKayla



Jocelyn

I might be a little (or a lot) biased but I thought I had the cutest little dancers! My only regret is that the dances were so short, especially in comparison to the hour and a half I spent curling hair and makeuping! Great job dancing girls!

Book Fair Blowout

This year I am the book fair chairperson for McKayla's school. That means I am in charge of it all- set up/break down, volunteers, prizes, reordering books, the financials etc. It is very much a love/hate relationship. I LOVE books, HATE stress! In fact, I think when my kids are bigger it would be something I would enjoy tons. Anyways.... the book fair was this last week and everything went well until Thursday night. My baby was in the playpen by the cash register and I was straightening books etc. My friend Kristen's little girl came by and said "your baby stinks!" So I headed that way and was going to change her but suddenly there was a huge line and only one gal checking so I told her to hang on a minute. Just a couple of minutes later another mother comes by and asks to pick her up. I let her know she stunk but sure. Just as she picks her up I notice it had leaked mid calf! I know, disgusting! To top it off, I was right in the middle of ringing a large order. Well Kristen was there and offered to change her. So Kristen and Michelle (the mom who'd picked her up) went off and changed her for me (thank you thank you!!) but I didn't have any clothes in the diaper bag (of course!). Luckily for me and poor, bare to the diaper Olivia, Raegan was able to come get her shortly thereafter.

So the next morning we show up for the final day of book fair. This is the day that teachers come and pick books with money that parents donated to them. As I expected it to be easy, I didn't get any volunteers to come and help. Shortly after arriving at the school Olivia starts projectile vomiting all over the place. Now, if you know me you'll know that I haven't repacked the diaper bag yet and still don't have a change of clothes for her. I almost never need clothes for her. What are the chances of needing 2 changes so close together?? Either way, clothes or no clothes, I can't keep a sick baby at the school and manage the teacher picks and breakdown of the fair. Just isn't going to happen. Luckily for me (again) Raegan was on his way from physical therapy to work and brought some clean clothes for her (thanks Raegan!). Then I called my mom who drove over and rescued my children. I can't even say how grateful I was she was willing to come and get them as this was one time I couldn't call in sick! As I handed her the keys to my van and house I had a moment of embarrassment as I realized my house was atrocious. I don't mean a little atrocious. I mean, I hadn't touched it in a week and a half atrocious because I had been living and breathing book fair. What's a girl to do though but hand the keys over?

When it came time to breakdown the fair a couple people who had volunteered to come help and take it down didn't bother to show and I ended up doing almost all of it by myself until the PTA president was able to come and help. By the time I got home I had a splitting headache and was exhausted. Guess what I came home to? My dear sweet mother had washed 2 days of dishes for me (by hand no less!), made my bed and picked up my living room. A mom always knows just what a girl needs. Thanks a million Mom, I love you!

Needless to say, I'm not sorry it is over! Hooray! I'm grateful I had the opportunity to do it but more grateful there are only 2 book fairs a year and they are both done! Oh... and there is a change of clothes in the diaper bag now...

Little Ms. McKayla

McKayla has always enjoyed school and tried her best. At her fall SEP conference her teacher told me that she was a perfectionist. Sometimes she has to bring home her art work to finish because she took so much time redoing things because it "had to be perfect". This morning as I was going through her bag I found last weeks spelling test folded over and over again. They have 10 spelling words and one spelling sentence they are tested on. Well, she had misspelled the word didn't (spelling it diden't- easy to do for a 7 year old!) in her sentence and because of that only scored a 94% on her spelling test. She had folded it so small because she was embarassed it wasn't 100%! I think it is so cute she wants to do so well but 94% is great and you can't always be 100%. I did tell her I would love her all the same even if she misspelled every word! I am sure that she will do wonderful things in life but I hope she isn't too hard on herself on her quest to "perfection"!

Pay it Forward

What a cute idea copied from my friend's blog!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may sew or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did post it win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

This will be fun....