Miss Anytown, USA

We had the exciting privelege of attending a local Miss pageant for our town. This was supposed to be our date but BD is sick--too sick to take care of all the kids--so I brought them along--minus Adrie--I draw the line at 3yr olds after bedtime.

We enjoyed 2 hours entertainment which included a, dancing cowgirl, prima ballerina, lots of singing with a couple of piano numbers sprinkled in there, sparkles, sequins, and some emcee jokes that Kate found very funny. (What do you find inside a clean nose? A fingerprint) The third hour was more about enduring--Brynn had fallen asleep on me and in a quiet part of the program she woke up in a stupor and said quite loudly, "Can I go home now?"

I had to nurse Cannon to sleep as discreetly as I could in a sea of audience members. We were relieved to finally hear the winner: the shortest of them all --a cute little teensie thing that played the piano well whose platform was about teens adopting a grandparent in the community.

We try to hit these every few years. Mainly, I find them fascinating because this is not something available to the average city girl. It's a unique opportunity and novelty to be had in a small town . Also, I admire the girls that get up there and give there all to be judged in front of the whole community! That takes some serious guts.

I was way too self-conscious as a teenager. Even now it makes me queasy with fear thinking about having to do all that on stage? A dozen scenarios would go through my head: What if I panic and run off stage? What if I go blank and start speaking jibberish during the interview segment? What if my shaky legs collapse under me and I fall in a heap of sparkly evening gown material. What if people start throwing tomatoes at me and I break out in hives? What if the last words I hear are, "Does anyone know CPR?"

Okay, so putting all fear and reality aside indulge with me for a moment. What if you lived in Anytown USA as a teenage girl vying for that coveted Miss title and a scholarship: what would your platform be? your talent? what would you wear if your stomach wasn't sagging from 4 kids?...

Talent: wearing performance black I would have to play the cello. Thank goodness I have that 'cause I certainly can't sing or dance--Besides, anything other than singing is a welcome relief to the audience and I'm sure the judges.

Casual dress: a flirty skirt, dangly sparkly necklace, flower in my hair, and espadrilles that would give my legs some extra height. Kelly green

Evening Gown: Something elegant, flowing, in rich red. It would't be too hot to wear in the 4th of July parade.

How 'bout this for a winning platform: tutoring immigrant children and their families in English.

I'd have to do my research first to see if we have any of those around here.

Let's hear it.

So, if last week was field-trip week, this week was hit-the-books week. We've been doing History/Art Lessons every morning covering Ancient Greece. We've made Medusa masks and sculptures out of clay, listened to Greek myths on CD. Yesterday we learned what it meant to be Spartan. (7 yr. olds being sent off to battle school?? no wonder that culture didn't last) We did some excercises and stretching, running around the house (what's new about that?) and some gymnastics in the living room. Today was review day where the girls roll the dice and earn hard cash for answering questions. I think it was rigged because somehow nobody ever rolled a 1 or 3 meaning no math or science???

With their earnings I thought it would be a good time to introduce Tithing. It didn't go over very well with Kate. Giving 8 cents of her 80 was too much to ask. She suddenly reverted back to a 2-year old's vocabulary, "NO, MINE" (sound familiar?) and then went stomping out of the room with ALL her money. Did I wait too long? Was not my testimony of the blessings of tithing sincere enough? Do 7 yr -olds have any agency? Where do we sign up for battle camp?

If she was in charge of the world she would have her own huge TV in her own room, her own pink phone so she could call her friends at midnight. We would go to Disneyland this summer and have no school. She may seem quiet and meek but she is opinionated. Also she would play Webkinz all morning on her own laptop.

NOTE: If your kids don't know what Webkinz are try to keep it that way. Once they learn you will never get to use your computer again. Basically they are stuffed animals with online passwords that they type in and create their own world. They can play games to earn webkinz cash to buy all kinds of stuff for their pet: toys, food, beds, clothes, etc. Everyday she has to "feed it and put it to bed" sometimes it needs dr. checkups even! Anyway, besides being SUPER FUN for 2nd graders it might teach them money management and responsibility. They don't have to pay tithing in Webkinz.

I think the man of the house needs to take over this one. Any ideas? Persistence? Someone...is breathing down my neck right now waiting for her turn to play Webkinz...

I Need a Vacation after this Vacation

BD had a week-long drug and alcohol conference at the U so we hitched along and called it a vacation. What could be better than paid-for hotel, food, and gas?....well, having BD with us during the days would have been nice. It was a bit like being a single-mom toting 4 little ones around everyday and without the home-court advantage. I'm sure at the Y we would have blended right in but at the U walking around with one baby strapped to me and 3 little girls following close behind, we were quite the circus sideshow. One lady told me I was verrry brave. another told me I had quite the entourage and then there were the looks and the pointing and counting. C'mon you know we loved the attention!

I did my best to introduce the girls to a whole new bigger world: "Look girls that huge building is a library. It is full of books. And that 5- story thing is a hospital... Remember how Cannon was the only baby in our hospital when he was born? Well there are probably about 50 babies in that one." The girls were excited to ride the campus shuttle. It was really bouncy and fun for about 2 min. until we all started feeling a little hot and sick.

DAY 1: Museum of Natural History. Rocks, animals, dinosaur bones, Indian artifacts and all things Utah. This was a cool museum.

Lounging on campus. We sneaked a peak at Kingsbury Hall to watch a dress rehearsal for some dance production of Aladdin. Brynn is so honest in her observations and comments she whispered to me: I don't think these are the BYU dancers because they're kinda immodest.DAY 2: Hogle Zoo. Why do we always pick the day that 200 zillion different field trip groups are there. They all left around 2 pm which is also the time we got some welcome cloud cover. I was finally glad to learn the difference between alligators and crocodiles this time. Now what was it again?DAY 3: Red Butte Gardens: Imagine this was our backyard! Fountains, ponds, fragrant and beautiful flowers everywhere, hidden trails, and a view of the whole valley. Awesome! What a great children's play area too!

DAY 4: A trip to the city is not complete without some shopping. Left the girls behind at Nana's house. Cooked dinner for the parents and family (you can only eat out so much)

DAY 5: Campus Tour, bumpy shuttle ride, head home. Goodbye Utes.

In case you didn't know, Kate is passionate about soccer.

In between all those adventures we watched plenty of Disney channel in the hotel, enjoyed our free breakfast buffet, had some jumping on the elevator, yelling, squished sandwiches, mosquito bites, diaper explosions, restaurant tantrums, etc. It was great. Could I just sleep for a couple of days before getting back into the routine?

While You Were Gone...

So, with Brandon being away on the guys campout we put our heads together and tried to come up with some really girly ways to celebrate our time together. This was our best idea... A day at the local spa AKA "beauty college" for a change from the summer ponytails.

If you zoom in 100x you will see tiny flowers on their nails. The nail techs did this as a bonus to keep the girls occupied while my hair was curled and curled and curled.... How did Cannon pass the time during all those curls? Like any man would.
All this for 16 bucks and the day half over...2 more days to go!
Talk about getting all dressed up with nowhere to go.

We ended up at Winger's--where we only take kids along on very special occasions. Leave it to a 3-yr old to remind me why. If fancy hair and dressing up couldn't keep Adrie from climbing on the table and throwing popcorn what would? We were still cute enough to get a free asphalt pie--or maybe it was because I had a coupon for it--either way that is a lot of ice creamy gluttonous goo.

Notwithstanding all the highs of the day we did have some lows. Everyone (not me, not yet) had their share of tears from injuries, feelings hurt, etc. All just part of being a girl.

We ended the day none too soon with a bedtime story, " Princess and the Pea." Our princesses are having their own little campout in my room. After I finish writing this I will watch my movie "In the time of the Butterflies" with Salma Hayek. If we get any sleep we'll be able to come up with more girly activities for tomorrow...that's it! SLEEP! PJ Party all day! Pancakes!

Week in Review

1. 1. We kicked off the week of fun with a neighborhood "Barbie party." Luckily I had a day's warning for this unlike last week's "everyone bring your outside toys and play in our driveway" party. I was too busy doing crowd control to take pictures so you'll just have to imagine our whole living room covered with Barbies and little girls and make-shift Barbie houses. Boxes for rooms, rags folded up into beds, cupboard door for a slide and a blue pom-pom made for a nice sparkly pool. After playing they did some coloring and we had "Barbie cookies" which were regular cookies with some food coloring that made them pinkish and topped with a star marshmallow. They taste super delicious when you pull them hot out of the oven and call them Barbie cookies.

2. Cannon and I arrived at the Dr. office for a checkup and were told the Dr. had just left to deliver a baby and to come back in 20 min....Ha 20 min! We went grocery shopping, came home and unpacked them, and returned to the clinic just in time to be seen by the dr.

We found out that Cannon barely made it onto the charts: He is a whopping 16 1/2 lbs. and in the 97th. percentile for weight. He cried for 2 seconds during each of his 2 shots in the leg and fell right back asleep. Gotta love those chunky thighs. We did the shopping and appt. plus bloodwork at the hospital and prescriptions filled at the pharmacy. Where else could you get all that done in under 2 hours!

3. Dr. called to let me know I have borderline low thyroid. That helps explain my irritability and why I woke up boiling hot when BD was freezing cold. I'll start taking something to regulate it and hope that it turns me from a lion to a lamb. Apologies to anyone I have roared at in the last while.

4. Attended a local information session for our online school. We got to be the family to share our experiences over the last year. Good news for me-- one of my neighbor friends who also has a 2nd grader wants to enroll. Now we can trade off lessons/kids and have some fun doing school together!yeah! support group! After, we went out for free lunch in the park. Yes--in case you haven't heard me brag about this before--the school district provides free school lunch to ages 0-18 every weekday during the summer at 4 different local parks.--something about living in a rural area...?

5. Went as a family to a Bluegrass concert in the park last night. The girls lasted about 30 min. before they couldn't resist the call of the nearby swings and slide.
This is not a photo of the actual concert but I thought it summed it up pretty well. That's going to be me in a few years.








6. Lastly, and no pictures for this, Adrie has pink-eye. This means we will not be going to free lunch today, no playdates, and no date for me and Dad. We'll just have to rent a DVD after the girls go to bed. Keeping Adrie from touching Cannon has been a challenge to say the least. That stuff is awfully contagious and icky. Here's to a good weekend with no plans!