A request from Tyler

Wow, I had no idea it had been so long since my last post! I guess we have some catching up to do. In the mean time, Tyler has asked me to pass along a link to all of you. It is, of course, sports related. And it's a great story. It's full of the spirit of the season. So, when the presents are opened and the new toys are assembled, and you get a minute to yourself, use it to read this story.

Pump It Up!

Coming in from the car the other day, Sophie stops, grabs the air pump, and says to me...

"Just a minute mom. I gotta pump up the party real quick."

No lie. I have no idea where she comes up with this stuff!

Girls Midnight Out!

I don't know what anybody else thought of the movie, but I had a great time last night! For a little while I felt young again, seeing a brand new movie in the middle of the night. This morning, I feel dang old. But hey, you only live once, right?

The movie wasn't my favorite ever, but I definitely enjoyed it. I wasn't sure about the cast from the photos, but they definitely grew on me, especially Edward. I won't say more than that for the slackers who haven't seen it yet. I mean, it's been out for like nine hours now, get with it!

I will be anxious to hear from my fellow fans what you all thought of the flic!

I am actually not sure what was more fun, watching the movie itself or listening to all the hoots and gasps of the female teenage fans in the theatre. Talk about feeling old! It was SO funny listening to all of those youngins' panting over Edward and Jacob. It was also funny because it was one in the morning! But I have lived to tell the tale, so thanks for a really fun night, Jenn, Allie, Nikki, and especially Mom!

Twilight at Midnight!

Technically, the movie actually starts at 12:01 a.m. Which makes me...officially crazy. I'm too old for this stuff! And I know I will be sorry in the morning, but tonight I am pretty dang excited! I'll let you know what I think tomorrow...if I can stay awake long enough to post!

True Blue

(Warning: picture overload below!)

Saturday was a GREAT day. I had been waiting for it for weeks. Saturday was the day I got to see the BYU football team on the field in person.

The game was at the Air Force Academy, and we had great seats six rows up thanks to my (former Air Force football player) BIL. Thanks Trav!!

We arrived in all our BYU blue a couple hours early to tailgate...

...and we got to go meet Cosmo!!

(I think I was more excited than anyone else about this!)


Lily got to have her face painted.

Trav got randomly selected to attempt a forty yard field goal to win a new truck! He missed, but it was a valiant effort. (Let's be honest, who would make a forty yarder in front of all those people!)

We had a wonderful time sitting with and family and friends, (even though half the family cheers for the wrong team!!) ;)

But all's well that ends well, and the Cougars came out with the victory in the end!!

A Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Gee, thanks for the shirt Aunt NeeNee! ;)

Heartbreak

I think I might have the sweetest eight year-old boy in the world living in my house. As I mentioned, today is stake conference, and Hunter woke up sick. I thought he realized that he wouldn't get to go to Stake Conference today. He refused breakfast, (a total anomaly), and then went back to bed without mention of a book to read or asking to watch TV. He is most definitely not feeling well. He watched Tyler put on his suit and tie and head out to the church alone. But then at 10:02, (Conference started at 10:00), he looked at me absolutely horrorstruck. He said "Mom, its' 10:00!!", and I said I knew. He started to panic and said "But Stake Conference starts at 10:00!!" He was absolutely devastated. He started to sob. He told me he could get dressed so fast, and asked would I PLEASE load up the girls and quickly drive him to the church. He told me I wouldn't even have to go into the building or get the girls out of their seats, he could do it all by himself as long as I would drive him there. I told him he was too sick to go, and with tears streaming down his face, he begged me to let him go to the church. He assured me, through his half closed, glassy eyes and tear stained, fever reddened cheeks, that he felt better. He promised that he felt fine, even though I could tell he didn't. He was absolutely beside himself. We had to sneak upstairs and have a prayer together so that I could get him to settle down enough to speak again. He was heartbroken, and so was I. I had no idea that he wanted to go so badly, or that he didn't understand that he had to stay home. What a wonderful child. I was truly humbled by his sweet spirit, his tender heart that longs so completely to do what his Heavenly Father wants him to do. I am awestruck by his faith, his dilligence, and his obedience. And I am eternally grateful that he is my "little man".

Sick and Tired

Well, those of you in the vicinity know that I should be at Stake Conference right now. But I'm not. Because the kids are sick, and I am tired. It started with Sophie vomiting at bedtime Tuesday night, and then proceeding to throw up literally all night long. (Of course, when hubby was out of town!) She felt a little better the next day, but has been just a little "too quiet", if you know what I mean. She was fine until she woke up early Saturday morning, again with a bed full of yuck. What the heck?!?! I thought the other kids were going to skate by, but no such luck. Sophie was up five times in the night, Lily three, and Hunter once. Lily is now tossing her cookies, and HK is running a fever. You gotta be kiddin' me! I am not sure I can handle another week of this. But they say there's always a silver lining, and I can think of a couple. One: I have gotten lots of snuggles and quality time, holding and rocking kiddos who would otherwise be too busy for me. Two: they are sick this weekend and not next weekend, when we have tickets to the BYU/AFA game at the Academy. THAT would have been terrible. Now, if I can just get some sleep...

Leaves are Falling

I can't believe what a wonderful, beautiful fall we have had this year! I always say that fall is my favorite season, (well truthfully football season is my favorite season, but they happen to coincide!), but this year has been exceptional in my humble little opinion. We trick or treated without jackets, we wore sandals to church yesterday, and raked leaves on Saturday in our t-shirts. I could do this all year! Anyway, we piled up the leaves on Saturday for our annual Monson leaf jumping extravaganza! The kids look forward to raking up the leaves every fall for this very moment, and they didn't let it go to waste.

Much to our chagrin and the kids delight, we came home from church yesterday and the winds had blown...and our lawn was covered with leaves all over again. Anybody got a leaf blower? ;)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was very happy this year, (at least for he kids!), even if it did last for almost a week at our house. We decided to make the most of the unseasonably warm weather, as well as the fact that the kids were on fall break, and pack in as much Halloween as we could. Besides, I actually made costumes for the girls this year, (YES! I know it's hard to believe, but it's true!), so I figured that they better get their mileage out of them. Just in case you can't tell, Hunter was a mobster this year, Lily was a ladybug, and Sophie was a blue butterfly. We had a fun if not exhausting week! In between Halloween festivities, we also crammed in fall break trips to the library and the museum, the eye doctor, and lots of visits with cousins! Whew!! There were too may pictures, so here they are in a slideshow for your viewing enjoyment!!

I am a REALLY nice mom, and I mean REALLY REALLY nice.

Why, you say? What would make me so puffed up and sure of myself, so confident in my parenting prowess that I would make such a claim? This is why:

For those of you who haven't been educated in the ways of the third grader yet, this lovely bowl is the result of the life cycle unit at school: MEALWORMS. And I am pretty sure they're an insect, becuase it says worm in their name. And, as Hunter has informed me, once they come out ouf their chrysalis, they are referred to as a beetle. Yep, insects for sure. I HATE insects. Some more then others, but I am pretty comfortable saying that I hate them all. So, when the note came home a couple of weeks ago asking for permission to bring the creepie crawlies home, I had to think REALLY hard. But Hunter is an eight year-old boy, so he had his heart set. We came to a compromise, and I told him the mealworms could come home... as long as they stayed in the garage. (Hence the car tires in the background and the lovely cement floor! Aren't I a great hostess?) Well...as you can see, the mealworms came home today. And he was SO excited that he took me to the garage to see them the second he got home. And my skin crawled and I wanted to scream, but what I did was smile and enjoy his enthusiasm. I listened patiently even though I wanted to run away as fast as my little feet would take me. He told me all the things he had learned about their life cycle, and I must admit that I was impressed. He must really be listening in class! So you see, I let the mealworms come to live with us, albeit in the garage. I really am a nice mom, aren't I?

"Potty Training"

Sure, it would be great if Sophie could get out of her diaper and onto the toilet and take care of business all by herself. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind!

(And for all you out there asking the big question, the answer is YES, she is sitting IN the water!)

"One Song Snuggle"

Well, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that I really love about being a mom. Like my "one song snuggles" with Lily. Occasionally, Lil will still take a nap after morning kindergarten. She likes to listen to my iPod, and after she chooses something from her playlist she always requests a "one song snuggle". That means that I get to climb into the bed with her and snuggle her for the duration of one song. And let me tell you, Lil is a great snuggler! This occurred today, and I realized that I needed to write it down, because she is five and I don't know how many one song snuggles there are in my future. This is definitely a sweet memory that I want to keep! It's one little thing that makes the whole day brighter.

I Love You Too!

I went in to get Sophie up from her nap today, and the conversation went like this:

Mom: Hi sweetheart! Good nap!
Soph: Thank you. Where my daddy?!
Mom: He's at work. It's time to go get brother from school.
Soph: Where my daddy?!
Mom: He's at work. Let's go get your shoes on, ok?
Soph: Where my daddy?!
Mom: Daddy's at work. Let's go get Hunter and you can bring a book in the car and I will read to you. You have such a nice mommy.
Soph: I have a nice daddy.

Ah....the joys of motherhood. I'm off to cook dinner for kids who probably won't even eat it!!

Having Flashbacks

We were at my mom and dad's for Sunday dinner this past weekend and my mom pulled out a dusty box of old books from the basement. It was like finding buried treasure! I have always loved to read, and some of the books in that box brought back such memories. Among them were The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins, Choose Your Own Adventures, and Encyclopedia Brown. But the real treasures were the two series of books that delighted me as a kid. I can remember reading for hours and being as happy as could be.


I absolutely LOVED the Anne of Green Gables series when I was young. If you have never read these, you might think about it. I have decided to reread these treasures twenty something years later and see if I love them as much now as I did then.

The Little House on the Prairie books were my other favorites. I've read them over and over. Thanks to the Hallmark Channel, Lily has recently been introduced to the Little House tv series. When she saw the books she was so excited and immediately asked if I would read them to her. Absolutely!!


OK, this CD wasn't in the box of dusty books, but deserves a shout out from my childhood. We had Power Tunes on a cassette tape when I was a kid. I am sure I played the tape in my rockin' purple boom box. Ah, those were the days. Anyway, if you haven't heard these songs they are worth a look for your kids. They are cheesy, corny, dorky, and goofy, and my kids LOVE them just as much as I did. The songs have titles like "Attitude", "Determination", and "Family". When I saw this on the Deseret Book website last fall I knew my kiddos had to have it.

So now, when you leave me a comment, tell me one or two things that give you flashbacks!

Sophie Adventures

There are so many Sophie adventures, I dare say they are a daily occurence. And they aren't always the good kind of adventures! But this was one of my favorites from this week. The kids were playing in the back yard and Hunter and Lily felt the urge to tattle (once again) on their little sister. Apparently she was eating fresh vegetables, straight from the garden, again. The kids know this drives me nuts, because we don't have that many vegetables in the garden to begin with! So I went out back to check things out and found Sophie playing happily after ingesting not a tomato or a bean, but an entire jalapeno pepper, all but the stem.

Mom: Sophie, are you ok?

Sophie: ya

Mom: Do you need a drink or something?

Sophie: (thinking...) um, ok

So she heads in to get a drink. Thirty seconds later she is screaming at the top of her lungs. I head to the kitchen and find this:

She got to the milk, but then she couldn't get down. Talk about doing things the hard way! (Ignore the DDP on the top shelf. I really have no idea who it belongs to.)

I'm Raising Her Right

Lily was so excited to take me outside today to show me what she had created on the back porch all by herself.

That's my girl!!!!

Homework!

After school is seriously not my favorite time of day. It seems that is when the bedlam really begins. Snacks, stories of the day, all the kids back together...and homework. Hunter is at that blessed age where I pretty much hand him a snack, he downs it, and then off he goes to do his homework on his own. I give it a cursory glance when he's finished, and in the mean time I start dinner, vacuum, chase Sophie, whatever needs to be done. Lily, on the other hand, is a different story. She has started bringing home her once a week homework- get it on Thursday and return it the following Wednesday. It's so enriching...(not!) Maybe for a kid whose parents don't pay any attention to them whatsoever. Furthermore, I have become convinced that the homework is conceived of by some pencil pushing workbook writing ding dong who has never had children. Our assigment today was to walk around the house finding everything we could with a number on it. Seriously?!? I want her to take her homework seriously, so I kept my mouth shut and didn't cut her off as we wandered the house. But do you have any idea how long it can take when you tell a five year-old to find every number in the house??? Every electronic appliance, every remote control, phone, calendar, food package, shampoo bottle, medicine box, magazine, book, UPC code, CD case, clock, measuring cup, piece of mail...you get the idea. I thought it would never end. Needless to say, we'll be having dinner late tonight. You gotta love homework.

Rise and Shout!!

The Cougars are out, and they are awesome! I hope you all are loving this season so far as much as I am. Bronco Mendenhall was on the Jim Rome Show this week, and gave what I think was a great interview. You can listen to it here. Enjoy!

i couldn't resist!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

OK, so I admit it. My kids are counting the days until HSM 3 comes out. (It's 37, in case you're wondering.) Hunter even asked me if I would let him camp out for tickets on a school night. (Yeah right!) So when I saw this JibJab, I knew it had to be done. Enjoy, my little HSM fanatics! And if you haven't gotten on the bandwagon yet, (Nikki and Jenn!!), there's still time to borrow our DVDs before October 24th arrives!

(Make sure to pause the player at the bottom and turn up your sound before pressing play!)

Lily's Salon and Photos

It's a full service establishment offering a new 'do and pictures to go with it. Says the owner: "You're going to look so pretty, you're probably hardly going to recognize yourself." Thanks Lil!!

(Can you tell this picture was taken at the end of a VERY long day?)

Help Yourself!

About 9:00 this morning I finally got around to making myself some breakfast. I parked Sophie at the kitchen table watching "Curious George" so I could make my toast, and I grabbed a yogurt from the fridge in the garage. I got my toast made, then went to sit down and I couldn't find the yogurt. I thought I has lost it!

I looked everywhere, and finally realized that Soph had helped herself to my long awaited breakfast. She poked a hole right through the foil, and was eating one fingerfull at a time. I hope she enjoyed it!

A Real Cub Scout

I can't believe that we have a real Cub Scout in our house! But doesn't he look grown up and handsome? Yes, I cried when he left for his first den meeting. Lucky for him, I was not the one that took him to the church that night! So far, he is having a lot of fun! Bless those poor, dear Cub Scout leaders!!

Smarter Already

Lily has now been a kindergartener for three full weeks, and she already knows it all. We were sitting in the car today waiting for Hunter to come out of school when this conversation occurred:

Lily: Mom, did you see that boy running down the sidewalk?
Me: (thinking, of course he's running, it's Friday afternoon...) Yes
Lily: You shouldn't run on the sidewalk. If you have to run you should do it in the grass.
Me: Really, why?
Lily: (exasperated with my obvious stupidity) MOM, because if you fall the grass is a lot softer than the sidewalk.
Me: You're right about that
Lily: Plus mom, you know it's called a sidewalk and not a siderun

Wow, if only I were as smart as Lily.

Hunter's Special Day

Hunter was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on August 30th, his eighth birthday. Every time I look at the pictures, I think of a song that I learned as a kid:

"This is my day, my baptism day.

Jesus was baptized the very same way.

Maybe I'm little and maybe I'm young,

And maybe my learning has only begun,

But Heavenly Father, I'm doing my best,

Just lead me and guide me, and I'll do the rest."

In some ways, he really did look young to me that day. The last eight years leading to this milestone have flown by so very quickly. And in some ways, he looked so grown up to me that day. He was so excited. We had his birthday party the might before so that it wouldn't detract from the importance of his baptism day.

This is just a little piece of the journal entry that I wrote the day after the service. I don't know why, but I feel compelled to share it.

He really did seem little and young to me yesterday, but so handsome and wondeful. Ty and I gave him new scriptures yesterday morning as a baptism day gift, and he treasured them. It made my heart swell to see him so excited about that blue leather quad. He took them to the church for the service, and wouldn't let them out of his sight. He took such good care of them. He was so excited to be baptized, and he was ready. My favorite moment of the morning was watching him with Tyler in the font. The water was sparkling, and Tyler's face looked so peaceful and strong and righteous as he recited the baptismal prayer. And then Hunter went under the water and it was done! After he changed into his dry clothes and came to sit with me I asked him how he felt. He beamed at me and said "Happy!". I was happy too.

My two handsome men. Hunter was baptized and confirmed by his dad.

On the steps at the church. Eight years ago we stood on these same steps for a family picture when Hunter was blessed.

We were blessed to have many people at the baptism that are important in Hunter's life. Thanks to Mandi for getting all the family pictures.

Nana and Papa Whitmill

Nana and Papa Monson

Great Grandma Klaversma

Chris, Nikki, Jake, Brayden, and Logan

Travis, Allison, Shane, Jace, and Brett

Tom, Jenn, Tori, Lizzie, and Owen

Mandi, Marlee, and Makenna

Hunter-Man, we are so very proud of you! Thank you for setting the example for your two little sisters, and for being such a good friend at church and at school. We know that you are on the right track, just keep holding to that iron rod. We love you!!