I want them back in school!

So yesterday was the kids' first day off track until the first week of september. At first I was excited because then I would get to sleep in a little, but the excitement wore off when I had to grocery shopping with all of them. While at Macey's I found whole chickens on sale and purchased three of them. This was when the fun began.

I arrived home and fed the kids lunch and told them to go play while I cut up all the chicken. They decided to go ride bikes, but to do this I had to replace Emily's front innertube. Then Laurie insisted on riding her bike, which I have to help or she can't go anywhere (we are working on this problem). This activity took 45 minutes.

Just as I got into the house Emily and Josh come in and want to play with friends, but all their friends are on different tracks and had school. They found some kids who attend the charter school and won't start until monday, so soon my house was full of six kids instead of three.

I finally started to prep the kitchen to cut chicken and got one wing off when Josh and Friend needed help setting up a car track which also required finding new batteries. I get that done and cut up one chicken.

Starting on the next chicken I am inundated with requests for help with a computer game, drinks, snacks, and wanting to go swimming. I tell them that I can't fill up any pool until I am done with the chicken, and I keep working. I then get asked if they can go to their friend's house and run in the sprinkler. This idea sparks a search for their swimsuits. I keep telling them they are going to have to wait because I was all messy.

Long story short. I finally get the chicken cut, sorted, bagged, marinated and in the freezer. While keeping track of where the kids are and what they are doing. I also fill up the pool in the back yard and find all swimsuits.

I never thought that cutting up three chickens would be so hard. I do have three pounds of legs, two pounds of breasts, and a quart of chicken broth. Is it time for school yet?

Testimonies

Emily and Josh love to share their testimonies in Sacrament meeting every month. They go up together, Emily goes first then waits for Josh. Most of the time they end up saying the same things every time.

Today was no exception. The funny part is that Josh will get up and say he wants to bear his testimony and then procede to say something identical to his personal prayers. Today he got up and literally said his prayer. I felt my face flush and Emily was on the stand telling him he was doing it wrong. I am sure nobody really cared.

I am proud of him for getting up there every month, but I think we are going to have a talk about testimonies again.

Great Advertising....

Being a business major and having taken marketing classes in college and doing marketing for my business, I'm always impressed with great ads.

The recent Old Spice guy ads are phenomenal! I've been totally mesmerized by them. Now BYU (Brigham Young University) pulled off an amazing ad similar to the Old Spice guy ones.

Here's the original:



And here's the one from BYU:


Awesome marketing! Way to go BYU!!!

Things you forget

I have discovered that there are things that you forget about being pregnant:

-How often you have to eat...things of substance,even when the thought of eating makes you sick.
-the heightened sense of smell.
-extreme emotions
-forgetfulness/absentmindedness and
-how in the first trimester you look chubby not pregnant.

I am sure as this pregnancy progresses that I will have even more little reminders, but I am not going to complain. This has been the easiest one of the four and sometimes I feel so good that I start hoping for a little reminder that I am still pregnant...beside the fact that my clothes don't fit anymore.

Our Year So Far

Every year I love to put together a photo book of what we did and how the kids have grown and then order the book through Winkflash. Last year I learned that I could put collages together for these books. I have just put the first half of collages together and thought I would share what we have done so far this year.

Mamma Mia!

So I finally saw the movie Mamma Mia! last night. I really like ABBA and with this cast I had always had a curiosity about it. It was so different that I laughed through most of the movie. Graydon watched it with me, but felt it was one of the worst movies he had ever seen.

It was weird for me to see Colin Firth in this role since the main movie I know him from is Pride and Prejudice. I didn't know he or Pierce Brosnan could sing. That really surprised me.

I found myself wanting to watch it again today and it is really growing on me. I haven't listened to ABBA for over 12 years and now I am looking up their songs on youtube. I do have to be careful because the content is not appropriate for kids...especially my kids that pick up on everything and will start asking questions.

I really enjoyed it.

Member Missionaries

We had the a very fun primary activity on Friday. The presidency really put a lot of effort into this.

Two weeks before each of the children received an official-looking mission call in the mail. Emily was going to the Russia Vladivostok Mission and Josh was going to the Argentina Salta Mission. They were told to report to the MTC where they would catch the FUTURE MISSIONARY AIRLINES, FLIGHTS 2910 AND 722.

When they arrived they each had their picture taken and received a name tag. In the MTC they had to dress up like missionaries and make a peanut butter sandwich in a relay race.

Our chapel has a small upstairs with two classrooms. The kids were then told to go upstairs to board an airplane. They all croweded into a small room where they received snacks and watched a film of an airplane taking off, missionaries, and then the plane landing.


Afterward they all got off the plane and headed for their missions. There were four missions: Brazil, Argentina, Russia, and Oregon, and the kids were divided into four groups and spent 15 minutes in each mission. Graydon had a blast telling the kids all about the Oregon mission. Our friend Aaron told about his experiences in Brazil and then two sisters shared their experiences in Russia and Argentina. It was really neat. They then got a "Welcome Home" and almost listened to the actual missionaries in our stake, before devouring all the cookies and going home.
Russia
Oregon
Argentina
Brazil (He didn't have props, but his laptop presentation was great.)

These are the four groups as they reported to the Oregon Mission.