Kids Spring Break

The kids are all back in school after 10 days off for Spring Break. And it was actually mostly bright and sunny. . and COLD. What looks like nice warm sunshine out your window ended up being quite deceiving. How could the wind still be so cold in the middle of a sunny April day? Everyday I sent the kids back inside to take off their shorts and put on their coats.

One day Brent came up with a new idea and harnessed up his kids and helped them repel out of the tree house. Camille was first and bravest as usual.

While Brent was in school, we went to the park a lot. I usually am not that excited about hours upon hours at a park unless I can be running around or doing something active myself while they play. But lately with Marcus I just love it. Because he loves it. I just stand there mesmerized watching him enjoy every part of being outside from the slide, to the swing, to just watching a squirrel or bird pass by.
One of our favorite parks around here is Delaware Park. It's the one with the very large "Naked Man" that greets you from the freeway. We have yet to drive by without Caroline calling out, "Naked Man" and then they are all giggling. And It so happens to be on our way to church. We snapped a picture of his less graphic side last week when we spent a morning walking around Hoyt Lake in Delaware Park. I just figured it has been such a big part of our lives here that we needed to preserve him in our memory book.
Anyway that is definitely not the reason it is our favorite park. Rather it is because:
It's close
Home of the art museum that has free family night every Friday, the history museum, and the second oldest Zoo in the country.
In the summer people race boats around the lake
A walking/biking/rollerblading path surrounds a city golf course. I haven't passed by once, even in the dead of winter, that I haven't seen at least one faithful runner. It inspires me to stop hibernating. (On my side of town I feel like a freak to be out walking/jogging around. I always run around our little park while my kids play and you wouldn't believe all the people who ask Kennon, "Why is your mom running?")
Shakespeare in the park every evening for a couple weeks in the summer
Live Jazz music every Sunday night for a time in the summer
Variety of dogs strolling by that keep Marcus entertained
The slipperiest slide we have found yet
Beautiful in the fall for family pictures
People who hang out there seem to embrace the city they live in. You don't have to drive very far on almost either side of the park and things get dicey. But adjacent to the park the homes are well kept and historic. I think this neighborhood may have been the one that gave Buffalo the reputation for being the home of Good Neighbors. If it weren't for the situation in Buffalo schools we totally would've loved to buy a home in this area. Well I would've anyway. Brent was kind of stuck in the $30, 000 price range.

Spring Break really was nice. I decided beforehand that I was going to enjoy each day and not just being dying to send them back to school. And I knew that I didn't need to leave town to be a fun mom. There is plenty of stuff to do around here. I may have overdone the park though. The last day I said something about going to the park and Camille said it sounded boring!

The last 3 days Brent left us to fly with a couple classmates, Josh and Vera, and a local dentist in his private plane to Tennessee to spend the weekend offering free dental care. He even got to do some flying after all these years too poor to be a pilot anymore. AND he pulled EIGHTY ONE TEETH in two very long days!! So many people that were in dire need to have their rotten teeth OUT! Brent was glad to help but came home feeling really bad that now they have no teeth at all and no money to replace them.

Third year has been a major year for Brent in the process of becoming a dentist. After three weeks in Alaska this summer I'm thinking he's going to feel about ready to start getting paid to year from now. It was such a big decision to begin the journey to becoming Dr. Casper, but now it's down to one year it seems like it has hardly been any time at all. And either way we have loved the experience it afforded us all .

Dr. Angelo and dental students -Vera, Brent and Josh Twiss

I am the leader of the healthy eating group in my ward. Last night was our second class. We focused on how important it is to keep on trying to encourage our children to eat a wide range of fruits and vegetables.
My family always hates it when I am getting ready for one of these because I go way overboard for a couple weeks before. Lately my craze has been adding finely grated carrots to everything.

Caroline's PB & J sandwich, last night's spagetti sauce, my homemade mexican rice. They are all eaten up just fine until a shred is detected.
This morning I made oatmeal pancakes and skipped the grated carrots, although I think they would have been a great addition personally.
Here is the recipe. They all ate them and liked them, though they still felt it their duty to complain.

Oatmeal Pancakes

2 cups milk
3-4 Tbsp. butter
2 c. oats
Microwave these ingredients till butter is melted.
Then Add the following ingredients
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour (I used 1/4 white, 1/4 wheat flour)
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp. baking powder.

I added about 5 craisins to each pancake after I poured them on the griddle.

Way better than a plain old white flour pancake and much more satisfying and healthy.

Easter Greetings

For the first time here we didn't have snow for Easter so we were able to have a real outdoor hunt. Although the snow had melted it was still pretty cold.

Savannah and Kennon filled and hid their younger sibs eggs. Savannah decided to be creative and filled this one with a fake bloody bandaid for them.
Marcus got a candy "DUCK"! Still his favorite word ever. He was astonished to be able to bite the head off of this one since it looked just like his rubber ducky.

Boys are just as fun to dress up as girls I am finding out. I'm lovin' my boy in camo and out on a hunt.
Camille made a basket for Marcus this year. He started collecting eggs as instructed, but soon lost interest and just watched the neighbor's dog race back and forth behind the fence. That is until he dropped a plastic egg and his favorite gold fish spilled out. Startled he picked one up and popped it in his mouth, but kept walking. He walked about 10 more feet before the taste finally registered, then did a 180 right back to the spot to eat up the rest. Now he is going all over the house stealing eggs and popping them open.
Stubborn at 13 months old and unwilling to take a Easter picture with his sisters.
Caroline and Camille were excited about their recycled Easter dresses from their older sisters.

Kennon and Savannah were twins for Easter. And so far there hasn't been a single fight over each other's dress. I think I may be on to something here.

I led the primary choir for sacrament meeting. I love the control I enjoy with 4 out of the 20 children mine. I made sure they knew it well and sang loud even if all the other kids were shy or forgot the words after a two week break. Caroline as usual was just a little too loud. She was smiling and hamming it up the whole time. Max, a sunbeam, was in front of her with both hands over his ears. His mom asked him later why. "Caroline was singing really bad!"

Spring Formal

Every spring the Dental school holds a formal at the Pearl Street Bar and Grill downtown. We've never gone yet.

But someone finally convinced the planners that they needed to offer a mormon price that leaves out the bar. I think it was Brent.

So he had to take me then. We couldn't get any other mormon couples to come along. Maybe that's because they didn't have anything to wear that didn't either scream "I wore this to my high school prom" or "I am going visiting teaching". I didn't either.

Until three days before when Brent decided to ditch class and went to the mall to find something for his date. He called me and said he was headed home early with 8 different versions of the little black dress -all from the Sears clearance rack and ranging in size from 4-12.

I'll never tell which size fit. But I will tell you it was only $15.

I had a great time in my $15 dollar dress Brent picked out for me. I even danced in it long enough to get splashed at least a hundred times by everyone's drinks around me. The rest of you might not notice because your a little drunk but it's approximately every 5 seconds that you get hit.

I think this is our first picture ever where we are holding drinks. They are just diet Cokes. This is Shady and he's a real Egyptian. Brent can't wait till he opens up his practice someday. Shady Dentistry.

But Alas, Brent's old ears couldn't handle the loud music and he kept complaining that the floor was too sticky and messing up his moves. :)

So we mostly hung out on the sidelines. It was fun. Thanks for the date honey.

I am really loving General Conference morning on the East Coast. We lounge around till NOON when it comes live on LDS.org. Of course I do have Kennon begging me every 10 minutes to get off the computer, take my jammies off and take her to the church to watch. Our ward does a pre-breakfast and she's social and always wants to go. But as usual she can't coax any of us out of our PJ's and into the car. Much better to watch on the couch and have Marcus nap in his bed.

We had such a good Saturday yesterday. BEST ever for Conference Weekend. I planned Marcus's naps for each session. Caroline did this and that but was quiet, and all three of our older girls sat on the couch with a notebooks for the entire 4 hours!

Savannah was practicing her artwork she admitted but the other two took notes on all the talks. Kennon is planning a quiz for family night so she even has what color of ties the general authorities wore listed. It really was a miracle AND it's all a true story.

This is what happens if you make it a tradition every year. Eventually they start to join in. Of course I made the traditional cinnamon rolls and had treats and that helps to sit around and rot your teeth and stuff your gut all day.

Here are some pictures taken over the last couple weeks when we have been lucky enough to have sunshine and warm temps all at the same time.
The only time Marcus isn't screaming for something is when he is outside. He's all boy now it's spring. Or whatever you call this. It was snowing yesterday and as you can see we all wear jackets.

My mom and I at our park.

Grandpa took the kids out every day to play.

Kennon took all the pictures. Next time I go on a cruise I am bringing her with me.

Camille suited up to relearn bike riding after one long winter.

Suessical -A Family Affair

Kennon and Savannah were cast in their grade school musical last fall. Then Caroline was hand selected to play the elephant bird. Realizing what they had done the directors quickly came up with a part for Camille, making a special exception for a first grader to be in the show. Since returning from our spring break vacation I have spent every afternoon at the school with all 5 kids till 5:30 just so Caroline could the fine art of practicing popping out of the egg. All the egg popping practice payed off and she was the cutest elephant bird ever.

The other girls made us pretty proud also.

My parents took a break from the busy B & B business to fly in for the performances this week. It meant so much to our girls that they came. They missed the last performance to head back to Washington. Grandma is surprised here after finding out that after a year of not seeing her granddaughter, she is almost as tall as she is.

Kennon said later that it made her really sad when she looked out during the bows the last evening and didn't see Grandpa up leading the standing ovation. I have no idea where she learned how to strut her stuff so well onstage. It's almost like it was just . . . NATURAL? Acting or not we all had to admit this birdy's got talent.

"Mazie La Bird"

Each performance Savannah did she gained confidence and by the last performance she stole the show. Which is pretty hard thing to do for a girl with a one feathered tail.

"Gertrude McFuzz"She won the Horton Award for best performer so it's not just me saying these things. She went to bed that night bawling her eyes out because she would NEVER sing her songs again. She has always had a hard time with goodbyes. I didn't take it too seriously because she once cried as much for a tooth as it was placed in the envelope for the tooth fairy. And it wasn't even hers. It was Kennon's first tooth but she just couldn't bear the fact that that it was taken away FOREVER!

So if anyone is looking for a guest performer Savannah is ready and willing to dress up and sing it all again for you. I think we are covered for the family reunion talent shows this year.
Camille's last minute addition to the play involved carrying a heavy tray piled with cotton candy and popcorn. Somehow we ended up with one shy daughter and I love her for it. Kennon was soloing during Camille's two minutes on stage, but all I could do was watch sweet Camille walking around trying desperately to do it all right and not get in anyone's way.

"Circus Girl"She was happy to be in the show but was as nervous and could be up on stage. It didn't help that she could barely balance the tray and had circus performers bumping into her the whole time and giving her dirty looks to stay out of their territory.She hated the bow tie I picked out for her and had her art teacher make her this one for the last night.

Caroline on the other hand was right in her element. She got her own mike headset for her three little words, "An Elephant Bird". She pops out of the egg, stretches, smiles, looks around, then waits till her mother just wants to scream, "Caroline say it!"

Once she has built enough suspense and has every eye in the room, she is sings it out loud and proud. Here's the story real quick how she got this pretty costume, instead of a boring one I had planned for her.

"The Elephant Bird"

The week before I was late for the dress rehearsal already, when I noticed that Caroline's white leotard had chocolate on it. I hand washed it and threw it in the dryer. When I thought it had been long enough I sent Camille down to retrieve it. Still wet. So I started blow drying it not wanting to run down to the basement again. After a couple minutes I decided that this was something Camille could do while I got Marcus's diaper changed. Two minutes later the blow dryer shut off and Camille came in . . . and announced she had something that she didn't want to tell me. The good news is I got the chocolate out. The bad news is Camille added about ten large holes with the blow dryer. So Caroline and Camille decided to put on the soggy, holey costume backwards to hide the holes that were across the front of it. Now she had a saggy, soggy crotch and a skimpy hindend that showcased her little mermaid panties peeking through behind tights with a run in them. And I actually put her on stage in that! I didn't know what else to do. Turned out to be a great way to get a new pretty costume.

Marcus hated the show and I hated involving him in it. The kid can't stop hollering out for one minute. I watched one of the performances through the crack of the door in the hall!!

The last evening one of the teachers helping out backstage saw me peeping through again and swooped off with him. I didn't see him again till he came out with the teachers for the bows. I almost broke down and snapped a picture then. All 5 were up on stage.



No pictures from the show since it wasn't allowed (even though as I stood in back with a crazy 1 year old I saw cheaters snapping all over the place.)

I know Savannah doesn't agree but this little guy and his parents are glad that all good things come to an end.

You wanna see the beach?

So, here's the beach. This is Grand Cayman's 7 Mile Beach. On board the ship they encouraged you to book a shore excursion that would get you there for about $35 each. Cheaper to rent a moped. Then, once on shore there were taxi drivers begging us to hop in for a $4 dollar ride each to the beach. I asked one driver which way the beach was. She pointed. We walked that way. Turns out the first mile of the beach was just a 15 minute walk away.

You will have to settle for this swim suit shot. All the others we took were inappropriate. . er I mean had Kashann in a bathing suit in them.

After Brent snorkeled for a half hour and got his sunburn, we read our novels we had picked up in the ship library. We almost made it through two novels each. We had to give them up the last day without finishing the last ones. Brent only had a couple chapters left. It was sad.

Does anyone have "The Host" for me?
And here is the Norwegian Jewel. For anyone taking a cruise let me give you my take on NCL. We have taken three other cruises before -NCL, Princess (that was Brent's), and Carnival.
Good entertainment most nights and not near as skimpy or crude as a Carnival cruise. Comedians weren't allowed to swear like they did on Carnival.

The Food was excellent and in my opinion better than the Carnival Cruise I took before. But it's Freestyle Dining now on NCL. That means you can eat whenever and wherever you want. Four of the restaurant choices are free. The other 8 restaurants they MAKE YOU PAY FOR???? They have a $10-25 charge per person and unfortunately every single one of the shrimps Brent and I were salivating about on the drive down ended up in those other restaurants that we refused to pay for. I am still trying to get over that one. A cruise just isn't a cruise for me if I don't eat at least one plate of shrimp a day.

Best Spring Break Yet

The Buick rides again. The latest road trip went by without a hitch. Buffalo to Miami and then back again 7 days later. 270, 000 miles and still running beautifully!

I was grateful for every single one of the 47 hours we spent on vacation just in the Buick. For the first 20 hours I never stopped talking once. All of the stuff I had saved up over the last 3 years since our last vacation without kids (Paris and Hamburg Germany in May '06)

It was an amazing experience from beginning to end. I can't believe we actually were able to pull it off. We booked the cruise Wednesday and left Friday morning.

What I did from Wednesday to Friday:
Find babysitters, write instruction manuals, leave reminder notes all over the house, organize every nook and cranny of my house, refinished three dressers, finished dry walling and painting our bedroom, major clean up of my basement, moved furniture from one room to another (by myself), planned a menu and shopped. Basically a lot of OCD stuff that had nothing to do with taking a cruise but important in my opinion when you are asking someone to live in your house and do your job for a week. I crammed everything in two days that I have wanted to get to for the last two months!

It never would have happened without Taylor, Laney, and Henry. These are the ones that we will forever be indebted to.

They were the best. A very clean house to greet me and 5 well cared for children.

But just ask the kids.
Every five minutes they have something new that they just remembered their other mother did for them. Like just this morning as they left me for the bus. "Laney came out to the bus stop with us EVERY morning"

Or

"Laney cooked breakfast for us almost every morning. She made us biscuits and gravy."

"Laney crimped our hair"

"Laney took us to Wegman's and let us pick out whatever we wanted for dinner"

"Laney took us to Target and let us choose stuff to wear for St. Pat's Day and got us Peeps to hand out to all our friends!"

"Laney took us for a walk after church"

"Laney took us to the corner store for ice cream"

"Laney took us to Wendy's and said we could GET WHATEVER WE WANTED!"

Oh don't forget about Br. Hawes.

"Taylor painted our fingernails."

Caroline and Marcus loved Taylor. Marcus called him Daddy when he saw him at church yesterday.

So anyway basically the kids loved them, and we love them forever for putting up with all they did and doing it with such flare. I think their poor little Henry suffered the worst of all.

We have heard several stories since we've come home that really make us laugh/feel horrible about. Marcus woke up one morning at 4:30. Camille woke up one night because the blankets on the bed she shares with Caroline were not quite right. She had the light on and Caroline screaming when Laney came in to settle things down.

Taylor may have had it the worst though. On day one, our key less remote for the van we left at his house malfunctioned and he couldn't get the Durn thing opened. We didn't leave him with an actual key. Not sure how he ever worked that little conundrum out. That happened on the way to get some air in the flat tire on the minivan we left for him.

And he was left alone most of the first two days with two baby boys plus Caroline while Laney was off at the Gap. He once called Laney and said, "Come home now!" He had Marcus, Henry and Caroline in the bath. Marcus screams non stop during all his baths and tries to climb out. Henry decided to join him in the screaming "I hate the bath" tirade and I don't know how you take care of two screaming slippery baby boys at once. Caroline wasn't any help I am sure.

The kids also reported that someone plugged the toilet downstairs (Oops. . .we forgot to warn them about that toilet. It's strictly a #1 toilet) and the only plunger they could find was a mini one that I've never used. It just came with the house. I thought it was a prop for a plumber costume. The tip was just hardly above water level. Taylor had to plunge holding on with the tips of two fingers. Oooh, sorry man!

Oh, and we took the iron along on the cruise because we had no time for ironing the night before as we threw shirts in our bags. Taylor had to wear a wrinkly white shirt Sunday morning.

A couple nights before we came back they turned our fireplace heat down too far one night before going to bed. The fireplace was the only source of heat we left them. The next morning they found out they didn't know how to relight the pilot light. Somehow that didn't make it in either the 10 page instruction manual I left for them or the dozens of reminder signs I pasted around the house. It's hard to think of everything. According to Kennon they froze for two entire days without heat.

Meanwhile Daddy was soaking it up in the sunny Caribbean.
With Me! and only me!

And all you can eat Wegmans? That's nothing. We had all you can eat gourmet every living minute of the night and day.

But we figured it was all good. We had made a pact when we first went on the cruise and we never broke it. No elevators. Even with luggage or in high heels. I am sure that that made up for all restaurant splurges.

Besides eating like there was no tomorrow here are some of our Grand Cayman - Cozumel Spring Break highlights:

Brent's 20 minutes in the sun splotchy sunburn that embarrassed us for the rest of the cruise

Making friends in the hot tub. Although with my grandma skirt and Brent's sunburn we were hardly the coolest cruisin' couple in the tub.

Many hours reading our novels or watching Fox News relaxing in a completely pitch black cabin. Loved that part.

Separate beds for a week. We actually didn't mind it and dreaded going home to fighting for space in our queen at home.

Kashann hating the drunk spring break college crowd we endured all week. Brent enjoying the same spring break bikini coeds Kashann was complaining about.

Brent taking himself way too seriously in my opinion in the karaoke lounge. I signed us up to sing a Barry Manilow duet without his consent. I thought it went okay. I love "Can't smile without you". Brent on the other hand was mortified at our performance and will NEVER forgive me. I forgot he thinks Barry is not cool.

Seeing the space shuttle launch miles out to sea off the southern coast of Florida Sunday night.

Brent making me keep a gas log the entire way so he could calculate the mileage in his old Buick.

On the way home another memory to add to the book I am going to write called the Buick Motel. But spending the night in the Buick with two is a breeze. We once did it for days getting to and back from WA state.

That was when it went by the name Double Decker Buick and came with boards, harnesses, four highly abused kids, and one pregnant wife.

I missed the kids like mad. Especially the one I had just weaned. But having Brent all to myself for days was !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the happily married and refreshed couple.

On remote in the Gulf of Mexico

I have 5 minutes left on my time here at the mexican internet cafe here in Cozumel. Just wondering what the buffalo weather is like this week. We are both sun burnt way down here. It's been a great vacation so far but definitely hard to not see my kids for so long. We haven't been paged on the ship intercom so we assume that all is well, or at least all are alive. Since we haven't talked to our kids or babysitters in days this is our way of saying hello, thanks again, and we will see ya soon. Kennon, go ahead and post some pictures on your blog of what you guys have been up to. Love you girls and marco!

It's Happening!

This extremely lucky Amazing, ( and highly insane) couple won the lottery and will be taking over our duties for the next few days! Good Luck!
And Thanks to all the others making our spontaneity and reckless abandonment of our children possible like Erica, Diana, Abby, and Alaska. We will love you forever. Please don't hate us for doing this to you!

Speaking of needing a vacation. . .

Brent and I are up late tonight and just found a steal of a cruise for spring break and we REALLY want to go. I think you all know what the problem is. FIVE CHILDREN.

We are willing to pay $500 for the week OBO.
Please SPREAD THE WORD. We NEED someone March 14th-21st.

They really are great kids and being the mom around here is a breeze. Well, maybe not a breeze but if you don't have any other spring break plans please apply.

First person to comment here could will be randomly selected to win 5 children for a week. We'll even throw in the whole house, a mini-van, and all-you-can-play Wii privileges. And don't forget you'll have access to the blog password. You'll need it cuase you'll have plenty of laundry on this family to write about.

This is not a joke.

And if you don't want to babysit but want to come with us, that would be awesome too. Provided that we find the babysitters of course and you don't steal ours.

I don't want to take the time to organize a crafty post tonight. Just wanted to jot down some stuff.

A couple weeks ago our gas company dug up our entire front lawn. They took a bush we planted a couple years ago-threw it aside and and dug up the flower beds and pretty much all of the grass. I was very confused. Did they have a right to throw out my $5 home depot shrubs without asking/telling me? I only understood that they were moving an inside meter to the outside. I For some reason they needed to dig up all our grass to do so. And with all the recent rain it is a big mud pile. I've been pretty upset by this and wondered how long we are going to have mud piles out in front and if they are going to get around to re landscaping the place. I finally was bold enough to ask them exactly that Friday and found out they will be making everything pretty when they are done. So actually I am pretty happy. We have had really ugly grass and kept talking about sod, but never did it. Glad we didn't.This picture was taken before things got muddy.

But right now, I am sick of muddy feet coming into my house. I feel like I am back on the farm. Caroline loved watching them working all day. I had to leave the back door open so they could go in the basement when they needed to. Sometime during the afternoon I heard Caroline holler down the basement stairs, "Dad, is that you down there?" Camille told her it wasn't Dad because he was at school. Then Caroline started hollering, "Who's down there? You better tell me who you are?"

I was busy and lost track of her after that. After awhile I realized I had lost track and went looking. As I got closer to the basement I could hear her jabbering away. She was going on and on telling him anything and everything about the occupants . I thought it was pretty entertaining. But the gas man completely ignored her. I listened for quite awhile to her going on and asking him questions, and never heard him respond once. Either I caught the tail end of the conversation and he had learned the art of selective hearing with here like I have so your brain can survive, she had just worn him out by then, he was on the clock and and doing his best to put in an honest days work, or he was just pretty rude. I really have never seen anyone (besides Brent and I) be able to ignore Caroline. But she didn't mind so much. I had to drag her upstairs.

I am teaching a song to my primary children using signs. Today was the second week working on the song and the signs were turning out to be a great way to hold their attention. But once again, one of my children had to shatter my confidence. In between verses she hollered out loud enough to make a big statement, "This is BORING!" I guess boring is better than embarrassing. That's what Savannah and Kennon both agreed I was on the way home from church another week. I figured it was my singing. "No actually Mom, it's your dress. It is so ugly." I was in shock. The dress had been one of my favs for years. I told them that I remembered wearing it to Kennon's baby blessing. Once that came out I took a good look at it and realized that maybe they were right. I took the dress to a ward swap and shop that week. No one wanted it but I let it go. I think it had a good run.

Sometimes I really feel like the shoes are shifting to the other feet. My kids have more fashion sense than I. And the worst part is that they care more than I. That is when you know that you are letting yourself go. I either don't have the time or I don't have the interest but either way it makes me realize how I really am a mom. In the negative way that we never wanted to become. Kennon and I have a lot of issues with who is running the show around here. When we are getting ready to go somewhere she starts putting kids coats on, grabs the keys, and says, "We'll be in the car." Now this sounds great, but the part that isn't great is that then while I am just barely having a chance to get ready myself now that all the kids are ready and in the car, she keeps running in and screaming, "We are all in the car. It's time to go now! Mom, you are taking so long."
Saturday night we were eating dinner at the church after a baptism and Kennon noticed that I wasn't able to eat because I was holding Marcus. She hurried and finished, then came over and took him so I could eat. She is always willing to hold him ANYTIME at church. After eating, I strolled around visiting with everyone. About 45 minutes later, Kennon (who has been sitting in the hall playing with him the entire time) comes in, interrupts my conversation saying, " It's time to go. We need to leave. Look at this kid. He is tired." Plus she had set aside a plate to bring home for sick Savannah. I hadn't even thought about it.

It's just so bizarre. I don't know if I am complaining that my 11 year old is responsible and thus bossing me around or bragging that my 11 year old is responsible and I am so lucky she keeps us all in line.

We were throwing out ideas for Brent to do an internship tonight and he mentioned maybe he could get one in NYC. How would we feel about living there just for a year? I would totally go for that. But Kennon. . . She immediately said, " No, that wouldn't be safe for our family living in a city like that."

On to Camille. She has been pestering us all year with every little fundraiser that comes home. She wants to win a prize. But we won't let her sell to friends, family or neighbors. The latest is mailer that she fills out addresses and they send it away to ask friends to order magazines so her class can get a year subscription to some very beneficial kids magazine. Once again I discouraged her but she was persistent. We were driving along, she had her pen out and wanted addresses. First she wrote "Grandma Casper" then wanted to know her address. After refusing several times I finally said, "Fine. It's 50" then I spelled out NOT TELLING YOU." She wrote it out all in one word like a street name then moved onto the city. I told her "Nothing" But pronounced it Notting and she got it all down IN PEN, before Kennon started laughing and got her to read back to her what she wrote. It was pretty funny for Kennon and I in the front seat, but Camille was so mad at her momma for wasting one of her addresses labels. She said that she was telling her teacher and that it was the worst thing I had ever done to her. So she talked to Dad and he agreed and she got the rest of the addresses out of us. So if you are one of her top 10, whoops make that 9 since Grandma Casper doesn't live at 5o Nottellingyou in Nothing, you may be getting a little nice note from her. Most of them she p.s.ed with a note like "You do not have to buy one" Or in other words I just want the prize. She also sent one to Grandpa Fielding. His p.s. read, "Bring me Apples!" They are coming for the musical in a couple weeks! YIPEE! VISITORS!

And Savannah is getting over a very nasty flu. She was 103 for several hours this weekend. It seems like she always gets it the worst out of all us. If only she would eat a vegetable now and again she could have a better chance to enjoy the perfect health I have the whole winter long. (Is it safe to say that yet? It's starting to feel a little springish)

Marcus is really sick of the Wii. It wakes him up at night, right after he gets to sleep. And the last thing he needs is to wake up, have an ear ache and not have any more milk from Momma. And the poor kid that has to sleep in a closet. I was so sad to stop nursing because I didn't know if I would get to snuggle with him anymore. But I must've have forgot that he is my snuggliest baby ever. I was watching other women try to hold on to their kids in church and remembering going through that with all my other kids. But Marcus will just lay his head on my shoulder, rub cheeks with me, give me kisses, and he isn't even trying to get down.?? It's wierd but I am really grateful for that. I need him to stay my baby for a very long time yet.

Brent spoke in Stake Priesthood on Saturday. As usual he starts preparing the day of. Lucky for him I keep a file downstairs with all of my old talks and a few years starting throwing his in too. I had the exact topic for him on file. And another thing he can be grateful to me for: I have been doing all the freaking work around here. I don't usually use that word but it is a famous line from Brent uttered back in the farming days. I can't remembering what he was complaining about at the time and he usually doesn't mention when the workload is unfair. . .like I do. But anyway, lately motherhood has gotten way busier for some reason. Sick kids, too many after school activities, the Wii obsession, Brent's motorcycle shopping craigslist addiction or who knows he may be studying on that mac once in awhile. BUT whatever it is I am drowning here at my casa in laundry, kids stuff everywhere, marcus's food throwing recent craze, 100's of shoes by the front door, oh and DISHES!

Anyway, I am really extremely happy with my marriage and kids but so weary of MESSES! When we were discussing where we should live after this place Savannah very innocently said, she wants to have a big enough house so we can have places to put everything so we don't have all this stuff everywhere. I couldn't help but be blown away by that revolutionary idea. Everything in it's place? So she doesn't like it either? That's funny because every time I mention the word Clean I am accused of being a NAG!

Brent is looking at disgusting pictures of the human mouth behind me and just told me that it looks like this is a pretty long blog. I don't care, tonight. It's my blog. I don't even think I will proofread.
Here's some proof that I play my new Wii. I am getting warmed up here to face Brent boxing. I am pretty sure he won't like me posting this next picture. But I couldn't resist. He was looking pretty scary with that tounge. He beat me right after this.

A first birthday

Remember this little man? He's One!

Old enough to have his own cake and eat it too.

The little birthday cake turned out a little bigger than I planned. Luckily his appetite ran out before the cake did.

Marcus got bath toys in his packages. He carries a rubber ducky around with him most the day saying "Duck. . Quack (cack)" over and over again. At least 50 times a day I hear that kid say "Duck!" So I gave him another duck. A fireman duck that goes over the faucet and some wind up toys to swim with him. If a rubber ducky is his favorite thing his worst thing is his bath. Anything warmer than lukewarm and the little wimp is screaming. And Caroline is in with him so I am pretty sure that it's just his problem. So we gave him a cold birthday bath with his duckies and he did okay. After that cake a bath was definitely in order.

I found out at his Dr. appointment today that he has an ear infection. He has been screaming a lot lately. I thought he was just a spoiled one year old because his momma is too sentimental (this may be it for me! :( ) to stop nursing him. But I forced myself to let him grow up, hoping he would chill out. Turns out it was pain not milk he was screaming about.

He is 23 lbs. (50th %) and I can't remember the inches but it was the 90th %. It was amazing how fast the antibiotics kicked in. He was doing so well this afternoon we took advantage of the 50 degree weather and went to our park.

It's been 5 months since we've had park weather. It was so amazing watching him learning about the outdoors for the first time. He caught onto the outdoor bumpy ground walking thing pretty quick. Before long he was running all over the jungle gym, runny nose and smiling like he had just been given a whole new world. As far as he knew outside was just something you raced through getting from here to there (the car to the front door) as fast as possible. Or he also gets to see a little of it when he stands on the couch. So today as we just hung out OUTSIDE he was amazed! I am really looking forward to the warm weather for Marcus. It was fun today, but I am pretty sure it won't last. March is known for cold weather around here.