Almost a High Schooler!

It's hard to believe Ty will be a freshman in a mere few weeks time! Where did the time go!? I swear he was just my little bundle of rolls, now he's the size of a man! He's at least 5'11" now & still growing like crazy. I'm glad he took after my brothers in the height department & not me. The older he gets, the more he looks like my brother Scottie.

Scottie looked like none of us, always being the best looking & tannest of us all, growing up. I wasn't even sure we were really related until I saw an old picture of my grandfather! There was a baby mix up when one of my brothers was born & my mom took the wrong baby home from the hospital. Cool story but one for another time. Anyhow, she told me about it when I was a teenager but never would say which brother it was. As it turned out, it wasn't Scottie & all my brothers are my actual blood brothers. But there was an impostor in the house for a few days a long time ago. ;)

Here they all are....

Grandpa Gillespie, 1944

Scottie, 2009

Tyler, 2009

See the resemblance?

You've been upgraded

See that sad looking clunker hiding out in the background? That's Butch.

Butch is a custom '64 VW Beetle. Butch is a serious money sucking tramp.

Butch met his replacement yesterday. I couldn't be happier. :) :)

Fun with a friend

Last Friday was our first night watching kids for our babysitting group. There was only one family available that night but we enjoyed the time just as much anyway. The kids got along with Craig so well, I think we should have him over every day!

The complaining & argueing was at a bare minimum & the kids all played so nicely together!

Notice how my kids are only half dressed? This is a step up from the usual "I need to take my clothes off the moment I get in the door". We're really not nudist's over here. Really.

The Birthday Boy

We celebrated Dave's birthday this past week. He turned 36 the day Ty left for Scout Camp & we had a little birthday party for him. I took a stab at a somewhat detailed birthday cake & it turned out delicious! Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of it before we dug in. It was a very yummy black forest cake, per Dave's request.

The birthday banner Jo & I made.

A new favorite shirt.

The famous McKenney fish-lipped kiss.

That's some serious pucker!

Fun times! :)

Need a vacation

It's been F*O*R*E*V*E*R since we've gone anywhere. At least it feels that way. I need a break from the routine. And definitely from this heat! It's making me a bit restless, feeling like I'm stuck indoors 'til the sun goes down.

I know I shouldn't complain. I know I have it really good.

No more diapers!!

I figured it was time to try using the potty when I kept catching Hayleah removing her diaper & replacing it with one of her brother's pairs of underwear. I had already bought a princess seat to sit on the big toilet a while back. All we had to do was reward her when she did well & break out a bull whip when she didn't. :) Bribery can be a beautiful thing. LOL

Really, though, she's been remarkable easy going through all this. I think it's because we've been easy going about it all. She's barely 2.5 so I wasn't worried about it at all. It was hardly on the radar, but she had other plans.

As of the past few days, Hayleah is completely daytime potty trained!! She even stays dry through her naps! Night time will be the next hurdle, but again I'm in no hurry. The less you rush things, the more likely you'll be not to have an intermittent bed wetter when they're older, from what I've read.

Exhaustion

One day we'll all be able to sleep through the night. No giant-sounding cracks on the roof at 1 a.m. (I swear it sounded like a meteor hit our house last week!). No phone calls from old friends on the east coast at 4 a.m. (you'd think they would think of the time difference before calling!!!). No vivid dreams, somewhere between sleep & reality, forcing me (in my anger towards him for having stolen my works of art) to try to figure out why my sketches of butterflies & lady bugs somehow ended up on the sleeve of Dave's shirt & then trying to shake them off by grabbing his arm & shaking it.....

It's never more fun-filled around here than it is at night.

Harry Potter 6

Dave took me to see HP6 yesterday. It was so nice to have a date with him. It's not often we get away, sans kids, for any length of time.

We're big fans, in this household. We've been reading the books (some of us over & over) for years now & though book 5 has been my favorite so far, I think movie 6 holds the new favorite spot. :)

I had plans to go do some stamping at a friends house last night but the movie got out late (how does a 2.5 hr movie last from 4:30 'til 7:45!?) & when we got back home Hayleah was begging for some attention & love, so I wound up canceling. :( It would've been fun, but it was nice to get so much attention from my little sweetie. :)

On a side note: we're on day 4 of potty training. She's doing amazingly well! Allowing the child to decide when they're ready really does work so much better than deciding you're ready & pushing it. At least that's been my experience with the last two kids. The first two were another story entirely!

After the prayers were said, scriptures read, & kids were all down for the night, I decided to take Ty to a movie since he babysat for Dave & I while we went. Naturally we saw HP. :) I've never been to the theatres twice in one day.

It was fun to take him & watch his enjoyment. Once, when he got up to use the loo (he he!) before the movie started, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, looking at him. My pride was shallow, in that I was appraising how nice looking he's turned out to be, but I still felt very proud of him. He will be 15 next month. FIFTEEN! He needs to shave. I'm SO not old enough for all this!

Even though we didn't make it home 'til after midnight, we both had a lot of fun together.

To the girl sitting behind & to the left of me: I liked your choice of nail polish & your flip flops were cute, but you seem to have missed out on an etiquette lesson that taught you to not hang your feet over the edge of the seat in front of you, just inches from my nose. I am a bit jealous of your apparent long legs (mine barely reach the back of the seat in front of me, let alone allow me to dangle my feet over the edge without my head holding the seat down), but I really don't want to see your feet up that close to my face, thankyouverymuch.

Today is a bad thing to be a "thinker"

Why must my children question everything? And in every way imaginable? Plus a few I wouldn't have thought of myself? And why must I explain both sides of things, instead of being able to give an easy answer?

Day 1: Wearing pig gurrl panties ALL DAY (except for the nap)

Hayleah: "Mommy, I need to go pee-pee reeeeally bad"

Mom: (thinking "you just went 2 minutes ago") "Okaaaay *sigh*, but do you think you could ask Daddy next time?? (he's sitting there watching sports, much closer to the bathroom than me....I'm doing important things here {I don't get much computer time})

Once situated on the potty she proceeds to do her bidness, just like she said she needed to, gets her panties back on & declares she needs to go pee-pee reeeeally bad (again).

Grrr.

Me: After sitting her back on the potty, "Please call for Mommy when you're finished. And don't call me back until you're finished."

Wait, didn't I just say that? I swear, my kids not only have to ask it every which way, but they also have to hear it every which way.

A long forgotten hobby

This past week Logan, Hayleah & I broke out some acrylic paints & got creative with sponges for some good, time-killing fun. The kids really enjoyed themselves. However it wasn't long before I found myself borrowing their sponges & paint to create a few masterpieces of my own. My pink kitty & green dragon weren't great (how much can you really do with a sponge after all??), but I remembered how much I really love to paint.

Earlier in the week I broke out one of Tyler's "How to Draw" books for Jordan. He was bored & bugging the crap out of me & I needed to find him something to do without me that would get him out of my hair for a little while. I got him everything he needed to get started & even helped him pick out something that wasn't too difficult. I quickly found that my goal was not to be achieved. His drawing sucked me in & I helped him draw a shark from the book. I had to tear myself away from his work to get my own (boring) work done.

A few days ago I was returning a bunch of stuff to Walmart we didn't use from the ward party (along with the Father's Day gift I bought for Dave...he rarely likes what I get him {brat}) & decided to grab a few things while there. I bought Jordan a sketch pad but before he had a chance to use it, I decided to try my hand at drawing some monkeys swinging from a tree (love that song!). They actually turned out really cute & now I'm dying to hit Michaels to pick up a few canvas' to paint some pics for the kids' walls.

Way back in high school, I really enjoyed art class. Not enough to take it every year (I didn't love the teacher) but I didn't do too badly at it. I had one sketch in particular (we were doing portraits of the person sitting next to us) that I was kind of proud of. I'm very hard on myself & if it's not perfect I don't like hearing what others have to say about it. Not that I expect they would lie about it, just that I didn't want them to feel like they had to lie in order to spare my feelings. I'm a bit neurotic like that.

Whatever I do must be done as well as can be done. If not, I beat myself up & figure there wasn't much point in doing it in the first place. It's like this with all things for me. I try not to do things that will show how neurotic I can be so my kids don't pick this trait up from me.

Thankfully, to date, it's been successful & no one is yet as neurotic as I am. ;) It's sad that my success as a parent can be in any way measured by how un-neurotic my kids are. LOL

Goodreads

It has come to my attention that some of my friends aren't aware of my friendship on Goodreads. (convoluted sentence, I know LOL)

If you are on Goodreads, I'd love to see what you're reading or have read. Please add me as a friend. I just updated my book list today & added some reviews (something new for me...it's hard for me to imagine anyone being interested in my opinion on books). I have a semi-long list of books ahead of me to read, but I'm always looking for another great book.

http://www.goodreads.com/sbm1001

Birds chirping in the morning

Ya know, this is something everyone is supposed to love. The sign of a new day. An opportunity for a fresh start. It's in every Disney movie ever made. Always plays a part in a lovely fairy tale.

Why, then, has the next door neighbor's pet bird (that they keep outside in a cage) not received the message about chirping in the morning? Why must it continue to annoy the mess out of me ALL DAY!?

Grrrr!

I really do love animals. This one I'm not so sure about.

P.S. I don't think it's very humane to keep the (@*%^!) thing outdoors all day in this heat. Maybe a call to Animal Control, or whomever, is in order.

So excited!!

One of my favorite families from the Desert View Ward moved in to our ward! Rayleen & I have served together in the Nursery in the past & we both moved in to the DV ward at the same time. She's an amazingly sweet sister & I'm so glad to have a friend I've known for the past 5 years in my new ward.

As a side note, they released the other girl that was working in the Nursery with me & have someone new coming in but they didn't officially call her in yet so I'm in the dark as to who it is. Dave went to his first Ward Council meeting a few weeks ago & I'm pretty sure he knows who it is. I hate it when he knows something like that & I don't! :P He might as well dance around, singing "I know something you don't know" while he's at it.

I'm excited to find out who it is. And I really hope she's a bit more dependable than the last person. Not to say anything bad about her because she's a really nice girl & the kids always love her; just that she's a little flaky. I understand flaky & it's been an uphill battle for me to change my ways. I'd just love to have someone in there who will be there each week & enjoys it as much as I do. That's not asking too much, is it?

Summer reading

I love to read but I must admit my range has never really extended to any classics. I figure it's still the teenager in me, objecting to any book an English teacher would have attempted to force me to read while in high school. It's nice to see I can budge in some of my stubborn ways though. Much of my "reading" these days comes from audio books. I don't have enough quiet time in my life right now for much more than reading my scriptures, so it's nice to have another outlet where I can listen while I work on other things.

I finished Pride & Prejudice last night, having read it for the first time.

Yay, me! :)

To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. I fully intend to read it again. I read Jane Eyre a while back, too. Next I'm tackling Romeo & Juliet. I read the latter one already but didn't really enjoy it much. It was one of those assigned titles I detested so much. I'm convinced it wasn't the book so much as it was someone telling me what to do & that it deserves another chance.

To my lengthy list of blog readers (hi Mom! :) ): What books are on your must-read list?