Science Fair

I was certain that the science fair was going to kill us. Mac participated with his friend A last year and with the help of her parents they did a great job and took first place in the 5th grade. Her parents were terrific, we were crazy busy and really didn't have a lot to do with it.

6th grade: New Story! The science fair is not optional in 6th grade. Every student has to participate and my kid is fairly high strung. (No, I don't know where he gets this)
At one point during the tears, that were to be a part of this project, I, the caring supportive mother asked him if he needed a tampon, he was so completely over re-acting. (No, I don't know where he gets this either)

He worked very hard, Chris and I helped but were mostly the manual labor. He did the experiments. He planned them, made the materials he would need, and bossed us around. He wrote the final report with only minor editing on my part and printed and cut out everything for his presentation board.

It was ALL worth it!! He took 2nd place out of the whole 6th grade!!! I would love to be all nonchalant and just write a tiny little post about his 2nd place win, but I can't! I'm so PROUD!! Shout it from the roof-tops proud. I was so proud of the fact that he could speak on the subject, that he wrote the whole thing, and picked the project. We honestly had very little to do with it, other than the prodding that is our job, to make sure he hit all of his deadlines. (which is where the tears came) Seriously dude, do not come to me at 8:00pm on Tuesday night and tell me that you need to have this, this, and this turned in TOMORROW! It makes me want to throat punch you. ( I didn't by the way)

While I am tooting his horn. He was also elected as a Peer Leader this year which I talked a little bit about in my last post. It is a little like being a student body officer. He REALLY wanted to be a peer leader,he has been talking about being a peer leader when he was in 6th grade for years. He has really enjoyed helping with the morning announcements and going to the meetings, participating in the food drive, and other fundraisers.

Ok I'm done tooting his horn, next post I will be tooting The Man's he is pretty spectacular as well. (jJust ask me I'll tell you)

**disclaimer** I was not paid for this review it is my true opinion. However biased I may be. I do of course realize that my children are FAR from perfect. But when they do what I feel are great things I reserve the right to brag about them. Especially considering the imperfect parents they have to work with.






By the way his project was on Errosion ;) and he will be moving on to the district science fair in January.

Bad Blogger

I'm a really bad blogger. I don't blog for anyone but myself, however, I have these huge spans of time that I don't say anything. The funny thing is I think about blogging all the time. In the shower, laying in bed falling asleep, driving in the car, reading other people's blogs. But actually sitting down and blogging is really hard for me and I'm not sure why. I know one of the reasons is that I don't enjoy typing which sounds weird, but I feel like I'm losing my skills. I used to type 70 wpm and I enjoyed typing far more than writing because most people can't read my writing. Which I use the excuse that I write fast because my brain is working faster than my hands can move. But now days I'm not sure you can read my typing either. My brain is working faster than my fingers can move, or my keyboard seems to be very insensitive and I find myself doing a lot of back spacing which is annoying. But today is the day....
So here are the updates:

Drama started pre-school in September and she loves it!! She is doing really well and quite honestly I enjoy the 3 hours a day 3 days a week where she gets to learn and grow ON HER OWN!

The Man is in 2nd grade now I can't believe how big he is getting. (older anyway) He is super smart and is still OBSESSED with football, to the point that I have to ask him to stop talking about it, because it hurts my brain. He has been very patient and very good while we got through this last season of football.

Mac is in 6th grade! I am way to young to have a tween, at least I think I am, he just thinks I'm old. He is having a very busy 6th grade year, he was elected to be a peer leader at his school, which is kind of like being a student body officer. He is really enjoying that. Right now we (he and his dad) are working on a science fair project which may destroy all of our lives by the time we are done. That may be a little dramatic but this thing is totally stressing us out. Another post about that another day. Football is OVER and football is football. They won A game which is an improvement. I am very proud of he and Chris for sticking it out and committing to their team, but football is a whole different story for an entirely different day.

Chris is working hard and does a lot around here to try and keep me sane. (futile I know) We celebrated our 12th anniversary in August and I love him more every day.

I am still running the website and doing day care, which means I'm also still in therapy. I'm down to going every two weeks, and I feel like I am getting better sometimes, and other times I feel myself slipping back. It's that time of year again, I can feel the cold wearing on me already and it just started. For instance it is supposed to get all the way up to 52 degrees today. Do you know what the temperature in Mesa is? I do!! It is supposed to get up to 87! I can feel it calling me home.

I have a bunch of other things I would love to write about, but I especially want to share this link with you which will lead into some other posts I am composing in my brain.
I follow this beautiful woman on twitter and I also read her blog and even though we have never met I feel a very close sister hood with her and the things that she struggles with but she is a much more eloquent writer than I.

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

WHAT!!????!?!? You must be mistaken Doctor, we don't make girls. My family doesn't know how. My parents have 10 grandchildren and 9 of them are boys. We (Chris and I) apparently do know how to make a girl, and let me tell you, we broke the mold! I didn't know what it meant to be the mother of a daughter.
The DRAMA!!! The clothes :) The Princesses and just plain girlishness. I love aspects of the girlishness. Others not so much. I call her Drama Daughter because that is the best way to describe her. EVERYTHING is dramatic. EVERYTHING. She is happy, and sad, and excited and loving, and sweet and that was just in the last 5 minutes. The roller coaster is a lot to handle.
However, she is so sweet and caring and says the cutest little things that the boys would never say.
Drama is funny!!! She says totally hilarious things. This weekend she was all dressed up and ready to go to the parade in her cute 4Th of July dress when Courtney said to her "You look beautiful" to which she replied "No I look Gorgeous" SNAP!! She is like this ALL the time.
Drama is:
Loud
Sweet
Funny
Charming
Endearing
Emotional
Imaginative
Smart
Bratty
Cute
Everything a little girl should be and more. I love her! She loves her Daddy. She has him wrapped around her little finger as she should. She LOVES the boys Mac's age, she has most of them wrapped as well. It's ridiculous the attention she gets, and knows how to work it. She makes me laugh, cry, and want to pull my hair out everyday, and I wouldn't change a thing. We can all use a little Drama in our lives. I'm proud to be her Mommy and I'm so happy we made a girl.

The Monster is 7!

I can't believe it has been 7 years since a 7 lb 1 oz ball of tiny nervous energy made his way into the world. At 7 Chan man, Chandler, or the Monster as his dad calls him bounces off the walls. Literally the kid can't even finish a complete sentence unless he is moving. If I try and make him hold still he can't speak.

He is the "middle" child. I am not a middle child myself but I can see it is not easy for him. Especially since his older brother is 4 years older than him. He wants to do all the same things that Mac does and have the same things, and privileges but it just ain't happenin. I know he struggles with that. However, on Monday he received an award for outstanding handwriting in his class and that is definitely better than Mac's. Actually he probably, I mean totally prints better than I do. He is reading at almost a 5th grade level! He is crazy smart. Not just oh look you colored in the lines. I mean CRAZY smart and he wants to know EVERYTHING!!! Most days he drives me a little crazy.

He is totally OCD, which I don't know where that comes from. He has to know what is going on all the time. What are we doing next? Who is coming with us? How are we getting there? Do we have to run 2 errands or 6 errands? At the store how many things do you have to get mom? CRAZY!!!!

Every morning his alarm goes off 15 min before we have to get up so that he can crawl into bed with me and we cuddle. The way he cuddles, which means we hold hands. Those precious 15 min are the my favorite of the day with him. I cherish them, and even if I get up earlier I make sure I am in bed when his alarm goes off so I don't miss those minutes. It's the only 15 minutes of the day when he is not interrogating me with questions and telling me seemingly useless information about what someone said at school.

He has my spunk. Mac is a little more tender. The man, is not so much. He pretty much tells it like it is. He doesn't seem to mind letting other little people know when they are wrong and he is right. I cringe when he flys off at the mouth, but I have no one to blame.

I will never forget when he was minutes old and the nurse said "something is wrong with his heart" It was broken, and we are so blessed that the Dr's were able to fix it. He is such a blessing in my life, what he lacks in size he makes up for in attitude. He's a good boy who loves his mama, what else could I ever ask for?
Happy Birthday Chandler! We love you!

Size Does Matter

This is not a filthy post I promise. A couple of months ago I purchased an Ipod touch for myself, and I LOVE it!! It is the best thing I ever purchased for myself. I can do all sorts of cool stuff, from check the weather, facebook, twitter, my e-mail. I play games with friends all over the country, and I can download my own games for when I'm waiting...anywhere. I have also found some great apps for my kids to practice letters, timetables, and states and capitals.

Last week my fabulous friend Heather got an Ipad and I WANT ONE it is pure awesomeness and I am trying to win one so check out this link Airport Suppliers Directoryand maybe you can win one to.

Our First Full day in Cali

I like to call it Cali, like I'm from there. My dad is from there and my best friend lives there so does that count? Plus I've been there twice this year. Once to Northern Cali and once to Southern Cali. Which I think they should be two seperate states. Like North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina. They should be two. North and South California. But that's just me.

On with our story. On our first full day we went to Sea World!!! I LOVE Sea World. There is just something so cool about these beautiful, graceful animals being so close and awesome, and it doesn't stink like the zoo. We got there right after it opened (which is key people if you are visiting these major attractions) arrive early!!! The reason you ask? Because no one else does, and you get a good parking spot and in the gates fast and you can see the major attractions first thing before the lines get too long.

We bought our tickets on-line, when you do this, you actually create and print a ticket for each member of the family with their name on the ticket. Then you just go to the gate they scan your paper and in you go. Until the cute old lady is scanning your papers and she only has 4 papers. Ummm there are 5 of us? Crap where is Chandler's ticket? Of course I bought him one, of course I printed one. I'm OCD people I had all of the tickets and maps and coupons etc. all nicely filed in a file folder that I kept in the van until we got to the condo then they night before Sea World I took the tickets out of the folder and put them in the stroller and then in my purse and then handed them to the lady. Seriously? The Lord already fixed our car, so I figured we were out of the woods as far as vacation issues go. So I sent Chris back to the van to see if it was there. (even though I knew I left it in the folder in the condo because I don't ever remember seeing an extra piece of paper in the van) Which is another reason why it was awesome to be parked close. At this point, Mclayne, Delaney, and I were already through the gate so she just let Chandler in. When Chris came back and said it wasn't there, I told him just to go buy Chandler another ticket. Because really in the grand scheme of this vacation what is another $59? When at that moment we had another tender mercy bestowed upon us, and the lady said to Chris "It's ok he is already in, don't worry about it. It will be our secret." He said "are you sure?" Umm yes she's sure get your butt in here. We thanked her profusely and went to check out the Dolphins!





We saw EVERYTHING!!! Shamu, and the penguins, and the sharks. The park was not crowded at all, and we got on all the rides very quickly, and into the 4-D Elmo Show. For the first time EVER we actually got to touch the Bat Rays in the Bat pool. Delaney wasn't that interested in touching them so she just hung out, the wall however, was just over her head so when the rays would use their "wings" to swim by they would splash and in this picture she got splashed really good, and she was laughing so hard that some lady thought she was crying.




It was such a fun day. It rained a little bit in the evening. We didn't mind we are used to crappy weather.

Vacation and Prayers

For the first time in 6 years we went on a family vacation. We have had some weekend getaways, and camping trips here and there but this is the first BIG family vacation we have been on for a long time. Plus, it is the first vacation that was just "us", just our little family. I totally realize that many of you probably don't give a crap about my vacation, but I need to document it before I forget and I don't have time to scrapbook right now so this is how it's gonna go. I'm going to blog a day at a time.

This vacation was seriously MAGICAL!!! I kid you not, we went to the Magic Kingdom, aka The Happiest Damn Place on Earth, aka Disneyland. We also put in a day at Sea World. In planning this vacation I kept having this anxious feeling (so not me) that something was going to go wrong. I just knew that it was too good to be true. We had the time off, we had the money saved and ready to be spent, we had a place to stay and we were going to DISNEYLAND!!!!

This is how our trip started on Friday night. We were making the first leg of the trip from our home to St. George UT. The kids were watching movies, and being really good, and it was generally a nice drive. We took some pictures to document our road trip. When we were about 5 hours from home and 45 minutes away from my Grandma's house where we were spending the night.

 

 

 

We stopped to stretch our legs, take a potty break and fill up the van. We pulled out of the gas station turned left and the van DIED!!! DIED!!! at 11:00 pm in a small city in Southern UT! Seriously? Seriously? Chris went back in the gas station to get a phone book, and I called the insurance company to see what our Roadside Assistance covered, and the kids prayed. Literally. They were scared we were on the side of the road, it was cold and our car wouldn't start. I was trying really hard to hold it together but I was really upset as well. I couldn't help but think our vacation was ruined. We weren't going to let some car trouble stop us from going, however, we didn't have major car repairs and/or rental car in the budget for this trip.

The insurance company sent a tow truck to pick us up and tow the truck to a repair shop, they also took us to a hotel around the corner. I was prepared for a large tow bill since it was late at night and we were in the middle of nowhere. But it was only $45 and the room was $60. Ok I could handle that, now onto what the car was going to cost us and could they get it done quick. That night we had a family prayer, that our car could get fixed quickly and we would be able to continue our vacation. Chris got up early and was at the repair shop when they opened the doors so he could give them the keys. He tried one last time to start the van. But it wasn't to be. So he left them the keys they said that it sounded like the fuel pump and they could get the parts and have it fixed for us that day. The hotel said we could do a late check out so we settled into our room for the duration. Luckily we had WiFi and movies so we were finding things to keep busy. I was REALLY upset but I was trying really hard to keep it together and make it fun for the kids. My dad offered to come and get the van so we could rent a car and get on the road, and my Grandma has an extra car that she could loan us as well. But we are big kids so we were just waiting to hear what the repair shop said. We also had our awesome friend Heidi offer to bring us tools or whatever we needed so Chris could fix it himself. We even had twitter friends wishing us luck. I just felt really blessed that so many people cared and were worried about us. Around 9:30 the guy from the repair shop called and said that he charged the battery and it started right up!! Then he drove it 10 miles, brought it back, and hooked it up to the scanner and it didn't throw any codes! What the hell?? I couldn't believe it. He said he couldn't find anything wrong with it. We could come and get it, and they weren't going to charge us anything! We quickly gathered our things and walked to the shop while I called everyone to tell them we were on our way! I just cried! I couldn't believe it. I know that there were lots of prayers said in our behalf and I am so grateful that we were able to get on our way. We did not have one second of trouble with the car for the rest of the week. It ran perfectly. So if that was what I was worried about, I think we were lucky. The rest of our week was like a dream! I'll share more magic later this week :)