Memory Monday (Yeah, I know it's Tuesday)

So, I've been wanting to do this for a while, but every Monday comes and goes, and then I think, "Dangit!  I'll start it next week!"  And, I'm tired of missing Monday, so even though I missed Monday again, I'm going to start.....

Memory Monday (Monday, Monday, Monday)

(That's an echo, by the way.  I was trying to make it all announcer-y, so it seems way cool.  Because even though it may not be cool, I'm okay with pretending.)

Hey, now that I'm halfway into this post, maybe I should explain myself, eh?

I have never kept a journal.  Wait, that's not true.  I kept a journal when I was in 8th and 9th grades.  And then I went back and read it, and it was all, "Oh, so-and-so boy looked at me!!!  AUGHH!!!!  I can't believe he looked my way in the hall!  AUGHH!!!!  He is SOOOO CUUUTTTEEE!!"  Yeah, total worthwhile journal.  And I was embarrassed, and never wanted anyone to read it, so...I threw it away.  For real, yo.

I have kept scrapbooks, though.  And I've written what's happened, and some of my thoughts and what-not.  But if I die, what will my kids know about me, my childhood, my thoughts?  They'll have some pictures.  But I wanted to write down some of my memories.

I like to blog (it may not seem like it because the posts are few and far between these days).  It's awesome to catch the moments as they are happening.  But I'm going to try this Memory Monday, so I can reflect back on some of the things that have happened to me, or what I've done, in the hopes of someday putting it all into a journal-esque thing.  And even if my kids don't give a flying crap, I still wanna do it.  I'm hoping to shoot for Mondays on this (off to a great start, huh?).  It may end up being "Memory of the Week", or "Sentimental Tuesday", or "Therapy Thursday"...but for now I'm sticking with Memory Monday.

So, without further ado, my first Memory Monday!

My mom recently reminded me of this event.  When I was a senior in high school, I was applying for college and scholarships and whatnot.  Utah State (Hey! Aggies all the way!) had a scholarship program called University Scholars.  As a senior, you go to Utah State, hang out, and then take a test that's a lot like the SATs.  I've never felt dumber in my whole life as when I took that test.  They gave you an example of "Black is to white as big is to.... a) clothes, b) little, c) green, d) humongous".  Then the actual test question would be "Egregious is to flagrant as vestigial is to... a) some other big word that I don't know the definition of, b) how do you even pronounce that?, c) relic, d) better not mark any answer unless you absolutely know for sure, otherwise guessing wrong gives you negative points!"  Good times.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous to go down and take the test.  And I have never been a morning person.  So we had to wake up really early.  My awesome mom drove me down, and my two younger sisters went with us.  I think we stayed overnight, but I stayed in a hotel room with a few other girls while my mom and sisters stayed elsewhere.  So, Brianna and Alexis were in the back seat, and I was attempting to get a little shuteye in the front seat while making the 2 1/2 hour drive.  And Beej and Lex were fighting over some Elmo toy.  I have no idea why, but whatever.  And my mom kept threatening, "If you don't stop fighting over that toy, I'm going to take it away!  I'll throw it out the window!"  And they would just not stop fighting over it.  At least, that's what it seemed like in my sleep-deprived brain.  So finally, I sat up, rolled down my window, grabbed the Elmo toy without saying a word, and threw it out onto the side of the highway.  I closed the window, and laid my chair back down and attempted to sleep again.

And my sisters were all, blink blink.  Blink.  Jaw drop.

They could not believe that I had the audacity to actually follow through with throwing the toy out the window.  I don't think anyone was expecting that, including myself.  I just...wanted silence.

I remember my mom promising to try and find it later on.  I don't remember if that ever happened, though.

I did not get the University Scholarship (though I got offered a different one).  I did end up going to Utah State.

But I have never really liked Elmo.

New

The Nat Pack been facing a lot of changes lately, some of which have been awesome, and some maybe not so much. But as Sheryl Crow says, "A Change Would Do You Good".

Last night I got a new booster seat for Troy-boy. (By the way, there are some booster seats on sale at Walmart for $13.50.) He saw it this morning and is so excited. He just thinks he's all sorts of grown up. I wish it would translate into the potty training realm, though. We've been trying to potty train him, but that's very hit and miss. He'll try to change his own diaper, and I keep wondering why he can't just figure out the whole potty-undies correlation, but whatever. I wish my kids were the types that just take charge of that. I know kids like that exist; well, I think kids like that exist-but maybe only in a galaxy far far away. This morning he pulled out his red Bumblebee shirt (he also owns a yellow one and a blue one), and told me, "Mom, my tummy feels yucky, but this Bumblebee shirt will make it feel better."





I got a new computer, because our other one died. It's very little, and very cute. Now maybe I'll find the energy to start working on my online scrapbooking again.

Ivy's had the most changes. Her new trick is climbing up things. It's been kind of a blessing in disguise, because she's been able to climb up on my lap as I haven't been able to pick her up since my surgery. But we have to be extra careful about leaving things on the table.



And although she's a good climber, she's not good enough to get out of her crib. So we got her a new big girl bed. It's very pink, and has princesses on it. I'm thinking I might need to repaint the walls, or rethink the wall decorations, seeing as how they all went with our nursery theme of Winnie the Pooh. Maybe someday, I guess-I'll just add it to the mile long to-do list, that starts with hanging the new window blinds I got for our front room.

Oh, and also this Sunday Ivy gets to try her new nursery class, because she's 18 months old today! YAHOO!! (Well, unless she's like my boys, and hates it, and I have to sit in there with her for at least a few months. But you never know.)

Also, she's getting 4 new teeth. The child already has 12 in her little noggin-this will make 16!

Jakob has a new interest-Bakugan toys. Maybe anta-Say will bring some for istmas-Chray. But I'm thinking I'm going to have the kids help me clear out the unused toys before Christmas. I've done this before, and it's worked really well: I tell the boys how there are some kids that can't afford new toys, so we need to give our toys that we don't use to a store (D.I.) so that they can have toys for Christmas. So then I have them help me organize all the toys (blocks in the block bag, dinosaurs in the dinosaur bag, etc.), and then I have them take turns picking their 10 favorite toys to keep, and we get rid of the rest. (I'm not a super toy Nazi, though- If they pick a dinosaur, they get all the dinosaurs, and sometimes I still hang on to some toys that they don't pick-I call them Ivy's 10 toys.)

And I got new pain meds on Monday, because dang. I will hopefully be able to lift my kids, and vacuum and the like next week, though. It may hurt to do it, but I'll be able to.

Finally, Pete and I have a new obsession: a game called Plants vs. Zombies. It's hilarious, and fun, and the kids love watching us play it. Which I'm going to go do right now, because I have a very patient Brock sitting on my lap, ready to watch.

YAY for new things!

Merry K.I.S.S.Mas

This year for Christmas my unofficial motto was K.I.S.S.-Keep It Simple Stupid. Call it the Scrooge factor, call it laziness, call it lack of ideas for gifts, but Santa was the only one that brought gifts for our kids this year: one toy (albeit a bit bigger than normal) and one movie. Of course, we had other gifts under the tree from the grandparents. But actually it was pretty nice; less really was more.

Our Christmas Eve traditions for the last few years have included doing luminaires at my parents' house, a tradition we started at our own house this year. My parents usually put salt pellets in the bottom of the paper bag, but we just put snow in, which did rather well. My boys are so spazzy:


And thus:


Brock was being very efficient:


And Troy couldn't get enough of the lit candles:


We did luminaires at my parents' house this year as well, but of course my camera died for that portion of the night.

And the kids, Christmas morning, with their loot:

Brock was sooo thrilled to get his picture taken on their new trampoline that takes up the entirety of our basement. (It will be going outside come spring. So, like, in June.)


Ivy, with her new phone cord. She loves the thing.


Jakob with his new Iron Man DVD.


Troy on his new bike.


Brock with his Wall-E toy. It plays music and dances around.


Pete asked me when we were going to start having the kids give gifts to each other. But after reading this post, I'm kind of thinking I may have the kids give immaterial gifts to each other-like services or something. Just to keep it simple, and to help remember what Christmas is about in the first place.

Anyway, I know it's a bit late, but I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Aiye Em Soooe Smarrt

Minimalism is kind of my thing. Less is more. I definitely need to stitch that on a pillow. But then I'd probably get rid of the pillow, because it would be taking up room and cluttering some surface somewhere.

Mind you, don't come over to my house right now. You would laugh in my face at how much crap I have laying about, and then I'd be a hypocrite in your eyes, and then I'd have to erase your memory MIB style. So, just take my minimalism stance as the truth and we'll all be happier.

Anyway, most of the stuff that's been driving me crazy right now is the toys. The massive amount, the can't even walk in my basement without stepping over, on, or around a toy. So I decided to get rid of some of them. My brilliant idea was to take some of the lesser-used toys and sell them on Amazon. Then I could take that money made and put it toward something that we would use. See? Brilliant!

So I put a toy up for sale, priced it at $15. Amazon gives you another $6 to cover shipping, and when your item sells they take $4 as their little cut. So my profit should be $17. Simple math.

Said toy sold. Hurray! I rushed down to the shipping store to send it off. After they packed it up in bubble wrap and packing peanuts, I gave them the address (someone in New Jersey) and they rang me up.

"It will be $20." Huh? "Is that the cheapest form of delivery?" "The delivery is $13, the packing material is $7." My brilliant, money-making plan got dim really fast. (And? Thanks a lot, stinking Amazon, for painting the picture of $6 shipping!)

So, not only am I out a toy, I'm out $3. Merry Christmas, New Jersey stranger! From here on out, I'll stick to my usual D.I. routine. It'll be better for me in the long run, anyway, because then my obituary can read "philanthropist minimalist" instead of "cluttered entrepreneur". (But I think I'm still going to cry myself to sleep on my stitched pillow.)

Third Arm

My Brock has always enjoyed carrying things around. I don't know if it's because he likes putting things in containers, or he's carrying stuff so his brothers won't take it from him. A little of both maybe.

Last year we bought two Spiderman backpacks. One I had to cut open when the zipper broke. The other, which Brock had for a while, had a huge hole in the top and the fabric was literally pulling apart and falling off if you even breathed on it. I made a little backpack out of Lightning McQueen material for Brock, with a drawstring top and back straps. But apparently that wasn't good enough.

So we got Brock a Batman backpack. He hasn't been separated from it since. It's in his bed with him while he's asleep. He eats with it on. The only time it's off is during bath time (it sits on the rug) and when he's going potty. Here he is at breakfast:



Yes, it's huge for him. And he puts SOOO much stuff in there! I think it weighs as much as he does. Here's the mass of toys I found in it one night.



Well, I noticed that the bottom was already starting to get holes in it. Something about him taking it outside. Oh, and the fact that it weighs a million pounds. So a couple of nights ago I had to separate Brock from his beloved Third Arm while I attempted to fix it. You should have seen his face when I explained to him why he couldn't take it to bed with him. But he got that trusting look in his eyes (he's had that look since birth-really), and let me keep it out while he went to bed without it.

Here's a picture of the inside. You can see the awesome plastic cracking, and the holes starting at the seams.



So in all my crafty glory, I hot glued old jeans into the bottom of the bag. I did a double layer on the bottom and glued the top layer about halfway up on either side. Hopefully that will hold together for the next little bit. And hey, it's on the inside, so no one can see how craptastic my patch/glue job actually is.



Brock was ecstatic the next morning to have his bag fixed-I mean, to have his Third Arm back.

Buried Treasure

I decided to vacuum out my couch today.

Here's what I found:

tons of unidentifiable food
Spiderman cell phone
two pink and one elephant ears for Mr. Potato Head
several crumpled coloring pages
a quarter (I'm rich!)
many many cars of various shapes and sizes
magnets
a barrette
a purple dinosaur (not Barney)
airplane
lots of wrappers
a coin to our cash register toy
two Spiderman figurines
heaps of color crayons
socks
a wooden spoon
a toothbrush belonging to no one in my family

What a treasure trove of goodies! Well, and junk. And my vacuum is completely full of crumbs. But my couch is free of debris for at least the next two minutes before my kids lose something else in there. Hurray!

What ARE You?

This is possibly the weirdest Happy Meal toy we've ever gotten.

I don't think George Lucas had anything like this in mind when Princess Leia was created.

Jakob immediately "shared" his toy with me. So generous.

Carrie Fisher would be embarrassed.

It has little wheels on the bottom, but they're too little to make it actually roll somewhere.

It's not really a bobble head toy, either. The head barely even twists side to side.

Maybe they're trying to dissuade kids from going to Clone Wars.

It's a little disturbing. It's a little creepy. It's... hmm.

Nearly-Headless Nick

Brock got this monkey from Santa. I think our nearly-headless Nick got caught in a battle between his owner and the owner's younger brother, who has become quite the toy swiper. Nick got some first aid, though, and will live to see other battles, I'm sure.