Who's got talent??

I am surrounded by talent! Which sometimes is a good thing and sometimes it's everything I can do to recognize my own talents among such incredible people. Take Halloween for example. I was lucky to get out the door with all four kids while my sister has her boys ready plus the cutest candy bucket you've ever seen. Now why didn't I think of that? My husband can verify that I consistently comment on the lack of party dishes around our house and if I just had the right apothecary jar everything would be peaches and cream. I mean, think of how many uses an apothecary jar has. The possibilities are endless. So that is my Christmas wish.....one good apothecary jar and a little creativity. oh ya, and my new year's resolution will be to notice my jar is always half full!

Wordful Wednesdays

chocolate on my cranium gave a challenge for todays Wordful Wednesday. The assignment is to describe your life in 6 words. I thought I'd take a crack at it. What do you think?

Patiently discovering the once hidden me

Memory charm?

I've heard people say before that their mother never yelled at them. Do you think that is really possible or just that kids don't remember it? I'd like to say I never raise my voice but after a few days of irritation simmering inside I burst and out pours everything I meant to say in a quieter voice. I admit it is one of my least favorite traits and as much as I try to work on it, I just can't seem to add anything to my simmering pot that keeps it from boiling over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about extreme yelling here, but I wish I could reason with my kids in a whisper no matter what happened. For example, two of my boys were taking a shower as I got my baby dressed. All of a sudden I hear a loud thud and the little one sounds like he is crying while drinking a glass of juice. Of course, I run in and my oldest son is holding onto the younger one and they are both lying on the bottom of the shower. Surprised by the fall, my oldest wouldn't let go of the other one. So I yelled at him to let go. As he came to his senses and finally let go, he began to cry and explain that he didn't mean to grab his brother as he was falling. By now I feel terrible and try to calm them both down as I wrap them in towels and hug them both. Is this just me or does anyone else suffer from a boiling pot? Now that I think about it I don't remember my mom ever raising her voice. I may be on to something here. I can only hope that the memory of my occasional voice raising will be forgotten along with all of the times I ask them to clean their rooms.

Nap time

Which is worse? To miss going to the zoo because it is nap time or to miss nap time because you are going to the zoo. Tonight I voted for the missed nap time as my son screamed through dinner, threw his plate on the floor, and took so long to go to bed. It was like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde had invaded my home and kidnapped my son. One moment he is making us all laugh and the next he drinks his special potion and turns into a madman. Since it is really my fault in the first place, I made a mental note (that I'll probably forget by tomorrow) that nap time is more important than almost anything. And why is it that adults don't have nap time anymore? Honestly, I would be a much better mother if I had a good nap each day. I'll be sure to add that to my list of things I want to do some day....take a nap.

Stress Relief?

For those of you who know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you know that we have a meeting for women every few months. Tonight was the night and as I looked forward all day to socializing with other women I didn't really care what the theme was, only that they provided a nursery. So you can imagine my surprise when they turned on "The Cupid Shuffle" and every woman from 18-100 started to get down! It was awesome! I admit I felt quite hip when some of the other girls my age had never heard of such a dance before but that quickly left as my good friend's mother began to dance and had moves I've never seen a 60 year old have before. I think the lady on this video comes pretty close!

Soccer Mom

Today my role of choice was soccer mom. If you've never applied for this role, you may just be missing the best way to vicariously live through your children! Back in the day, I played several sports and consider myself to be athletic, but as I look in the mirror I seem to have lost that coveted athletic body. Now, when I think jump, my body waits a few seconds before exerting a tremendous amount of effort to lift a few inches off the ground. I recall a certain track coach in high school telling me that I should get my best times racing in High School before my hips got too wide. I should have listened. Except it's not my hips that hinder my vertical exceleration. So I admit I feel a little too involved with my kids soccer careers' at this stage of my life. Of course I would never tell them this for fear of scaring them away from my first opportunity to shine as soccer mom. No, I valiantly sit in the car during practice, nursing my 3 month old, yelling at my 5 year old to stop pushing all the buttons as the windows roll up and down, and horrified that my 1 year old is hanging onto such window and about to become two 1 year olds. At this point any normal mother would have left the scene and vowed never to allow her kids to participate in any team sport that required mid-week practice. But this mother had to stay and see if her daughter scored or not. In the end I punished my kids with a well deserved ice cream cone from a local drive-through as I contemplated whether or not to teach the following days lesson on healthy habits. Aah, victory is sweet!

The new supercalifragilistic

At our house there are two kinds of people. Those that require order and an ice cold glass of strawberry lemonade and those that are atacatatic. You may ask yourself how these two groups can coexist in the same environment and believe me, I've pondered that question many times. On the one hand, a house has to have a certain order to function properly. Yet, there always exists that element of chaos just waiting to blow open the game closet that has yet to be really organized. I'm referring, of course, to my  extremely, incredible children who cleverly came up with atacatatic. In a word, it means crazy! Yes, you may still sound precocious when you say it loud enough but we'll get to that another day. For now, lets just say that this will be a journey into that unorganized closet in hopes of finding the slightest bit of order among the chaos.