Moving on....

Thanksgiving was great fun this year. We only had 35 who could make it to my parent's this year. Weirdly that was only half the family. After porking out on rolls and pie (the only part of the feast I deem mandatory) we had a family talent show. Besides all the traditional musical talents we had Hub rockin' it with his juggling skills and B and L's family show off their newfound yoga tricks. Did L really do the splits or was that just after-dinner hallucinations?

I am never one to dwell on the past so it is now time to move on. This means taking down our wall of Thanksgiving art

and putting up our treasured Christmas decor like this:

Just kidding. I can't buy one of these babies until I can make sure the kids won't break it. We all know what a broken leg lamp can do to a family.

Here's to pulling out all the Holiday movies, music and decorations! Can't wait!

Dear Amazon.com

Dear Mean People at Amazon. Com,

I was already having a bad day since my 8-year-old decided that he wasn't about to actually turn in the book report we spent all weekend doing. Apparently he thought the teacher assigned it as a recreational activity. I should have let him live with the natural consequences of such a decision and be forever scarred by losing 10 points on his 3rd grade report card, but the anal A student in me just couldn't live with......Never mind. I digress. The day just got worse however, when I checked my Amazon shopping cart.

I am not an impulsive shopper. I like to put things in my online cart and then think about them or not think about them and check on ebay and the ads for better deals before I actually hand over any moolah. Sometimes this process takes weeks. Sometimes it takes months and I forget that I ever coveted anything. As you can see, this method works well for my checkbook. So imagine my anger when I check my cart and see that three of my items had increased in price nearly double!!! Come on! That little bouncy hopper that was worth 7 bucks yesterday is now worth 16? How about a little warning?

To your credit you did try to soften the blow and there were two items in my cart that were actually reduced. By a total of three cents. THREE CENTS. Thank you so much for your generosity.

I know you are trying to teach me the lesson that if you snooze you lose, but the joke is on you Amazon. Because in my twisted mind I know that a hopper that was once worth 7 dollars will be worth 7 dollars again. The Hyper Dash that went up nearly 8 dollars? I've seen it on sale at Shopko and that's where I'll get it. So there. Yeah, my kids might not have as great a Christmas this year, but it's worth me sticking it to the man. And the man is you, Mr. Amazon. And my kids will thank me for this valuable lesson they are learning about principle over presents. Won't they?

Since I hate to leave on a sour note, I will still use you for your product reviews. I find those very informative.
Sincerely, Megz

My secret fashionista

I knew the time would come. I just didn't expect it to come so soon and to come from the mouth of my 8-year-old boy whose sense of fashion usually means mixing and matching hoodies with athletic pants.
The conversation Wed. morning:
Me: Hey, guys, do you like my shoes? I haven't worn these forever!
Mitch:Yeah Mom! (what a sweet brown noser)
Ethan: I don't know (He didn't even look. He just knew it was a safe answer)
Isaac: NO!
Me: What do you mean no? These babies are Hilfigers!
Isaac: Whatever that is. They're just weird looking.
Me (starting to get a little defensive): What do you mean? I used to get all sorts of compliments on these shoes......ten years ago.......do they really look weird?
Isaac: Yeah, they just are weird looking.
Me: (tears streaming down my face now) So I bet you think I'm fat too?! (Just kidding on this last part--it just seemed like a good thing a pregnant lady would say)

I usually would not give much credence to Ike's opinions on my clothes. But he does have good vision and the fact that he didn't give a passive comment like Ethan meant he really had an opinion. Plus I was helping out in his class that day and I think he had a little moment of Mommy Might Be an Embarrassment. I also knew that after ten years it was highly unlikely that my Hilfiger clogs were still the talk of the town. In a good way, that is. So I gave in and changed shoes to something a little less eye catching. I hope by this small allowance I bought enough time in my son's eyes that he will still let me come and show my face (or feet) in his class for a few more years. But dang. I'm way too young and cool to start being embarrassing to my kids. Right?

Recent Deets

Life has been life lately. No cute pictures to chronicle the everydayness, sorry. I've been trying to update our 5 scrapbooks (a thrice-yearly project so it's not as bad as it could be), index records for family history (we have a ward goal and it's been a great excuse to learn how), started some online Christmas shopping, and then you know, just other stuff. Exciting stuff. Like cleaning house, helping at school, taking kids here and there, trying to cook real food and hope nobody notices when I don't eat it because it's kindof gross. But to spice this entry up I have narrowed it down to a couple of family highlights for the week.
* Played charades for the family night game. Nothing is funnier than Ethan coming up with his own charade. Like 'it was me playing soccer and riding my bike and going on a hike.' All in one. How could we not get that??

*Noelle learned to burp and loves it. No, she can't actually burp. But she says the word burp in a guttural voice and then laughs hysterically. Is there a girl in there somewhere? Time will tell....

*For a scout goal Ike helped plan, make and clean up dinner. Some of those scout goals are a little annoying (who wants to make a bird house? Not this mom) but I highly recommend this one.

*Mitch insisted some of his eyeball fell out. No amount of common sense could convince him otherwise because he 'felt' it. He does have a scratch right next to his eye, but rest assured, all of his eyeball is intact.

*Hub came up with a list of potential names for our next girlie. Sadly, the name selection process will not be an easy one as he has a few doozies on there. Which I better not share since some of you may have dear grandmas with those names and I'd hate to offend.
CIAO.

My secret life as Hannah Montana

This revealing questionnaire was meant for Mitch, but since he is never home/awake during prime blogging hours we defer to 4-year-old Ethan. Who apparently had been nagged quite a lot about cleaning his room lately.....

1. What is something mom always says to you? Clean my room

2. What is something that makes mom happy? When I clean my room

3. What makes mom sad? Not cleaning my room

4. How does your mom make you laugh? When she tries to catch popcorn in her mouth and it always misses

5. What was your mom like as a child? quiet and goofy

6. How old is your mom? 41 [thanks a lot]

7.How tall is your mom? 41 tall

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Play with us

9. what does your mom do when you are not around? Do stuff

10. If your mom becomes famous what will it be for? Being a cheerleader [what the %!@?]

11. What is your mom really good at? Sports. I mean some sports.

12. What is your mom not very good at? She's good at lots of stuff so I don't know. [oooh, that is so sweet! You don't have to clean your room anymore, sugar buns!]

13. What does your mom do for a job? You work at home, Mom. Doing cleaning work.

14. What is your mom's favorite food? All food [so he hasn't realized I somehow end up with the smallest portion of veggies on my plate....mission accomplished!]

15. What makes you proud of your mom? when she plays the piano.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character who would she be? Hannah Montana

17. What do you and your mom do together? play

18. How are you and your mom the same? we play games

19. How are you and your mom different? she doesn't let me get drinks out of the sink

20. How do you know your mom loves you? she said it before

21. what does your mom like most about your dad? when he plays games with us. Like the ones you don't like to play. Like the long ones. [amen, kid]

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? maybe the store or Hawaii.

That was a fun tag courtesy of Addie. And kudos to Disney for marketing so well that my 4-year-old boy knows who Hannah Montana is.

A Day in the Life.....

...of an exit poll worker.
6:30 a.m. Leave the house adorned in 'professional clothes'. Haven't really owned any of those for say 8 years now, but made do.
6:45 a.m. Realize the address for the precinct I was to poll was incorrect. Thankfully I am very good with Spanish Fork geography and find the correct school.
7:00 a.m. Try not to say bad words as I see where I am to stand to approach voters. OUTSIDE. IN THE STORM. Now my very handy training manual said to be prepared for the weather, but since my polling place was a school I figured there would be plenty of room inside for me to accost voters. However, this particular polling place had a setup which allowed no room between voting and the exit door. The only way to catch them once they were done voting was to stand outside in the elements. Which were not favorable.
8:11 a.m. Look at my watch and try not to cry as the wind picks up and my toes lose all feeling and my 'professional' hair gets less professional looking.
9:10 a.m Dear sister, CC, arrives with her winter coat and some hefty boots which ruins my professional appearance but I don't care. And I still want to cry because I have 11 more hours of this.
10:00 a.m. Rain, snow, sleet, blizzard, or whatever you want to call it hits and I hightail it inside to wait it out. Sorry networks. Nobody is telling me all their voting secrets while standing outside in a storm.
10:45 a.m. Election worker realizes that the voter turnout is sparse enough to not warrant such strict traffic control and allows people to exit from an interior door which means, yay! I can come inside!
11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Politely approach every 4th voter and ask them to fill out my survey. Meet lots of nice people. Meet some not-so-nice people. Ate a baggy of gummy worms and Mother's Cookies delivered by lifesaver CC. Felt like I earned every penny of that check Edison-Mitofsky is going to send me.

The end. Hub is super and took the day off of work to be Mr. Mom. I didn't even leave him a very long note because I knew how competent he was. (He even tried to put Noelle's hair in pigtails but gave up after the first one failed.) I did have many moments of 'Why the heck am I doing this?' as I do every election year when I end up working at the polls. But this was a slightly different scene and I wouldn't have to set up those stinkin' voting machines. Or maybe I have a chemical imbalance that makes me think it would be fun. Who knows? Can't wait for 2012 to do it all over again....

Proof that we do Halloween

We carved pumpkins like all good Americans. (OK, Royal We in use. I mainly supervised while Hub and kids did all the dirty work)




We came up with some 'creative' costumes that involved no shopping trips, makeup or hair dye. Sure, Mitch is a cowboy for the second year in a row. And Isaac's last minute idea of going as a BYU Fan worked perfectly with his existing wardrobe (I think he was mostly looking for an excuse to wear a BYU hat to school for once). As you can see from the photo, Ethan the skeleton and Noelle the tiger are actually in sinful Store Bought costumes. I feel guilty everytime I look at them. And it wasn't me who bought them. Hub knows I have issues with that and went behind my back a couple of years ago to Walmart and came home with them. Apparently he was slightly more ashamed of our poor costume choices than I was. I just really feel like I should be the type of mother who makes her kids their own costumes. The fact that I still can't thread a sewing machine or that my kids don't really like to dress all out does nothing to extinguish my dreams of grandiose homemade attire.


Here is Noelle with a tear running down her cheek. She was very offended that we made her wear this piece of fake fur. She really thought a baby tiger had to die just so she could earn her tootsie rolls. No, the stinker just doesn't want to wear what we want her to wear. Thankfully, she got over it after the first treat plopped in her bucket and she realized that sugar was way worth the price of a baby tiger.

To finish the holiday we watched 'Ernest Scared Stupid.' Does anybody else have fond memories of Ernest P. Worrell movies?? Apparently my memories should have stayed buried as this was way too scary for my two younger boys. Great slapstick was not worth Mitchell and Ethan being scared to go to bed.

Moving on to November... the kids are in bed with threats of time changes running in their heads. Remember the good ol' days when the end of Daylight Savings Time really meant an hour extra to sleep?