Behind

I'm behind on everything.  My house needs to be deep cleaned in the WORST way. I feel like I'm living in a filthy pig pen.  I'm a really good surface cleaner but if a real clean freak came to my house, they would have a list a mile long of things that need to be "really" cleaned.  I don't have the time.  Actually, I guess I could be deep cleaning right now but--I'm not.  Life's busier than ever right now.  Jordyn's Willy Wonka play is ruling our lives.  Note to self--never do this again!  Jordyn is really enjoying the production now but the play practices are endless and she needs more sleep.  (she's not getting to bed before 10:30 and she's 7) Yikes!!  The play goes on November 12-17 and will be an adorable show. Jordyn is a squirrel and a towns person.  She's adorable and she's made a lot of friends BUT it's just too much so we'll not do it again for a very long time!

Morgan finished soccer a couple of weeks ago.  She loves soccer and finished the season out strong.  I love to watch her play and love that she loves it (have I said "love" enough)  Anyway, because she loves it so much, she plans to play indoor soccer starting in January even though it's during ski season--we'll just have to squeeze a few Saturday ski days in somewhere.

Regan is getting ready for a piano competition this weekend.  She's stressed, her teacher is stressed, I'm stressed.  She dedicated so much time and effort to a song she played in church a couple of weeks ago that she let her competition sit to the side and it shows.  Yikes!  I'm praying that she'll pull it together.  Poor girl, she came away from piano lessons last week and said, "mom, I just don't want to make Ellen look bad."  Ellen is her piano teacher.  I just want Regan to do her very best and feel good about her efforts, I really don't care about the winning aspect of it.  Regan is just really hard on herself so I'm hoping for a good outcome.

I'm running the Just Cuz 1/2 marathon this Saturday and haven't run near enough to prepare.  I just might be crawling across the finish line so say a little prayer for me.  I just don't want to be last place!!!!!!  That's not asking to much is it?? I'm really excited and really nervous since this is my first 1/2 marathon.  This race will do one of two things for me, (1) give me more excitement about running, or (2) totally shut me down!  I'm praying for #1!

DJ's swamped and stressed all the time.  He really tries to do his very best in everything he does and never feels like there is enough time in a day to accomplish all that he needs to accomplish.  I worry about him and think he needs a week long break on some deserted island where he can just sleep for the entire time.  Anyone have any suggestions? 

Regan got to babysit our nephew's little guy, Austin on Saturday.  He's the cutest little guy and all the kids followed him around the entire 3 hours.  He didn't make a peep the whole time and was just content to play with the toys.  The kids kept asking me why our babies aren't like that.  I was wondering the same thing:) 

I love that the babies are potty trained but I feel like they are ALWAYS on the pot.  They love to go potty and think it's the funnest thing ever.  I feel like I live in the bathroom which causes me to notice how filthy the little crevices are--one more reason I really need to deep clean.  Anyway, back to the babies.  Can I just tell you how much I love not buying diapers??  Although, I think we are now spending as much in toilet paper as we were in diapers. 

Porter has been biting lately but I think I might have cured him.  I have a little guilt over what I did but you should've seen the bite marks on Kaleb and Kami.  I confess, last week right after a biting incident where he nearly drew blood on Kami, I ran to the fridge for Tabasco and gave him a good taste of it.  His mouth burned for awhile and every time he'd go to bite again, he'd stop himself and say, "mouth hot!"  I want to cry when I think of it but I loathe the biting thing.  It just makes me so mad and I feel so bad for the victims.  Call me a mean mom if you want but I think we've taken care of it.

Halloween was tons of fun.  The kids were so excited about their costumes, particularly Porter and Kami.  I got a swinging deal on costumes at the Park City Outlets.  Kami was a fairy and Porter was a little monkey and they were only $7.99 each and they looked adorable!!  The rest of the kids used stuff from grandma's and random items that we had hanging around the house.  Morgan originally planned to be static electricity but changed at the very last minute to a pirate.  Whatever makes her happy!  Regan didn't dress up per DJ's request (he has this thing about teenagers dressing up)  Anyway, she was happy to do her hair wild and crazy and colored it purple! She looked adorable.  Jordy was a bride--the girls just laugh every year because she's always something really girly girl!   Just fits her personality.  My mom made her the cutest vail which Jordyn was thrilled about!!  Thanks Grandma!!  Anyway, the ward trunk-or-treat was  alot of fun and the kids once again came away with way too much candy.  I think Porter is my worst sugaraholic ever!!  He loves candy more than anything in the world--he asks for suckers all day long so you should have seen the look on his face as people just kept filling his bucket more and more with candy.  He came right home and dumped his loot on the floor and within minutes there were 10 empty wrappers.  The candy fairy came during the night and confiscated a lot of the babies candy.  The girls and Kaleb have put some aside for their gingerbread houses we plan to make the first of December.  For fun I decided to continue on in our Halloween dinner tradition.  The menu was:  Mummy dogs (hotdogs wrapped in strips of crescent roll dough), bones and blood (breadsticks shaped like bones) dipped in spaghetti sauce, blood and eye balls (red jello topped with red whipped cream and large grapes), and various other orange and red items.  We enjoyed a candlelit dinner and everything tasted yummy despite the looks of it all. 

Kaleb is making leaps and bounds in learning and writing his alphabet.  His teacher expressed concern last week that he still couldn't recognize his name.  So, after feeling once again like the worst mother on the earth, I went home to work some more with him and after about 10 minutes he says, "mom, I know how to write my name."  He got a pen and paper and wrote out his name perfectly w/ only a little guidance with the letter order.  Seriously, I just about cried.  Tender mercy--that's what I'm calling it.  He is such a sharp little kid and I'm always amazed at the things he comes up with.  I'm sure he'll do fine in school and I might add that I love our Kindergarten teacher.  She always does amazing things with all of the kids!  Oh, before I forget, Kaleb said the funniest thing yesterday afternoon.  I got after him for teasing the babies and he looked at me and said in his most devistated voice, "I just wanted to be good the whole day w/out getting in trouble and I ruined it."  I love this little boy!

DJ made a little deal with Regan and Morgan a few weeks ago that has been awesome in every way.  He promised them 1 Ipod song download for every 600 basketball shots they made.  They have to shoot for 6 concecutive days 100 shots per day.  They've accomplished it for 3 weeks now and it's been fun to see how serious they've taken the whole deal.  There have been a couple of nights where they've had tons going on so it's been 9:00 at night where DJ is outside with them holding a spotlight on the basketball hoop just so they could accomplish it.  But, even more than this, we've noticed that the girls relationship has improved so much because they've been working together.  They've been working together on their Faith in God and Personal Progress on Sunday afternoons for several hours and sometimes during the week and helping each other pass things off.  One night Regan asked Morgan to help her with one of her goals writing down positive attributes that Regan had.  Morgan wrote some of the nicest comments and it meant so much to Regan since their relationship has struggled for quite sometime.  Another tender mercy!  DJ is really good at giving the girls things to work toward and making sure that they follow through.  Just another reason I love this man!

                                                                   Halloween Eve!

Isn't she the cutest little pink fairy?  She still has a total obsession with pink!

Jordyn was thrilled to wear a little makeup!

Kaleb finally decided to be a skeleton--it was a toss up between that and a cowboy!

What a cute pirate she makes.  She had several people mistake her for a boy and she got the biggest kick out of it!

This costume totally fits his personality!

Even with wild hair, she's gorgeous!

Cute kids!

What shall I eat next?