Yeah For Me!

Curiosity is Getting Old

So while I'm in my office typing about my little monster, Eric hollers from the bedroom that I need to come help get the cat out. Why do I have to do it? Oh, because when a child is in trouble, that child is MY child, not OUR child. Rascal's latest tight space to enjoy (here's his last one) is behind and under my nightstand. I had the nightstand a little bit away from the wall so that I could reach the plug for my iPod Touch charger. And that light on the charger just calls to Rascal apparantly. The nightstand was further away from the wall last night but this afternoon I pushed it back - not all the way back however. Hence our current predicament.

"Mommy, get me out."

Can't get out that way.

Can't get out that way. And it's too narrow of a place for him to jump out of despite being able to get in there, in the first place. So I move the nightstand back out so that he can get in between the nightstand and the bed post.

And what does that little stinker do? Decides he wants to smell everything around him like it's the first time he's ever experienced that part of my room. Whatever! It's probably the third time this week he's been down there. I threw my hands up in disgust and walked away to blog about it.

We've Created a Monster!

A polite monster, but a monster nonetheless. Rascal already has a cat treats problem. We can't find a local chapter of TA (Treats Anonymous) so Eric and I simply continued to enable his addiction. However, Eric has taught Rascal how to say please. When Rascal meows (or whines, depending on my mood) for treats, he runs to his chair in my bedroom (MY chair that he has taken over, mind you) and waits for us to pour treats. We dangle the bag in front of him, he smells it, and then nudges our hand with his head. That means "Please" (or "Give it to me now, lady!" depending on my mood).

I'm such a sucker for this child and such an enabler. Rascal's and my routine at bedtime is this: I get into jammies and go into the bathroom. Rascal follows and jumps on the counter. I take my eyes out and pull my hair back. I turn the water to warm and while it runs to get to the warm water, I cup my hands and fill them with the cold water for Rascal to then drink. (Stop rolling your eyes!!) If I fail to give him water before I fill my hands up with warm water to wash my face, he places his front paws on my arm closest to him and tries to reach my hands for a drink.

So, just now, I'm in the bathroom getting ready to brush my teeth and wash my face. Only, I do the routine a little bit different tonight. I use the bathroom facilities (keeping it a clean show here, folks), take my eyes out, pull my hair back and then scrutinize my face in the mirror. With no eyes in, I'm leaning over the counter and am within a couple of inches of the mirror. (That's what blind-as-a-bat people have to do, you know, when they take their eyes out. We can't look at our faces before taking our eyes out. Duh!) So I'm examining and that little polite monster nudges my tricep. He nudged me! As if to say, "Get a move on, chic. I'm thirsty," (or "Please," depending on my mood.) So I replied, "I'll wash my face when I'm ready to, child." The nerve of some people's children, er - I mean, cats.

It's bad enough to have a 5 year old daughter with attitude. I've got a cat with attitude.

As I walk past the front window this afternoon, Rascal has taken roost on a new vehicle. My van and Eric's car already have paw prints on them. He'd like to mess up a different vehicle.

Uncle Bryce's car really isn't all that clean so maybe it doesn't matter.

Rascal sees me taking pictures of him from the front window and now I believe he is daring me to do something about him being on Uncle Bryce's car. Stinkin' cat!

Even Us "Old" Parents Can Have Fun on April Fool's Day

For April Fool's Day, we short-sheeted Loch Monster's and Sweet Pea's beds. Jellybean doesn't sleep with her covers the right way nor is she long enough to have made this joke funny to her so sadly, she was left out of this April Fool's fun.

We sent Loch Monster to brush his teeth so that he wasn't around when we sent Sweet Pea to bed. She giggles as she gets into bed - not because she's already figured it out but because we're standing over her filming so something must be up. She ends this video in the most appropriate way because she gives the best answer to my question.

Loch Monster's video is a little boring up front because his room wasn't quite ready for bedtime yet. But we got 'em!! And Sweet Pea wanted in on the action as the prank was unveiled to Loch Monster. It's probably way more hilarious to us than to you but enjoy!!

My Scout Got Artsy Fartsy

As part of cub scout pack meeting last night, Loch Monster had to make and decorate a cake. He could have help making the cake but he had to do the decorating. He simply wanted to make a regular ole cake in a 9 x 13 pan, frost it and put sprinkles on it. That just wasn't going to cut it for me. "You don't want a rocket or a car or a football or whatever?" So we thought about it and we came up with a chess board. Loch Monster loves to play chess.

But now that we have this cool idea and the cake is baked and assembled, ready to frost when Loch Monster gets home from school, we have a problem. Loch Monster's chess pieces have felt on the bottom. My chess pieces have felt on the bottom. Felt bottoms and frosting don't mix. So Dad, the thinker, suggests to me that the pieces can be made out of Legos. BRILLIANT!!!

I picked up the kids from school and set Loch Monster to work at creating chess pieces. His imagination went wild. His first piece that he came to show me was about 4 bricks high and 4-2x3 bricks wide. Way, way too big for our chess board. I think he was kind of bugged that we didn't have a huge chess board that would allow him to be creative and large with his creations. "How creative can you be with restrictions of nothing bigger than a 2x2 brick? I mean, come on, mom!" (I know that is what he was thinking.) But he did it. I helped a teeny teeny bit to steer him in the right sized direction but he designed the pieces. Super easy to make the pawns be just the 2x2 bricks and we made the king and queen out of real Lego men but with chef's hats for the queens and construction hats for the kings. And then we just pilfered through his thousands of Legos to find interesting pieces to help him build rooks, bishops and knights.

I decorated one row across and one row down to start the checkerboard pattern and then Loch Monster filled in the rest. We were down to the wire and only had 15 minutes left before we needed to be at the church so he piped the white stars on the border and I piped the brown ones. Then we each assembled our own side of the chess board and off we went to pack meeting. He got the award for the Smartest Cake. And the reward of licking frosting out of his Legos. :-) (If you click on the picture of the cake, you can see a bigger image for a better view of his pieces.)

Auditions for Seussical the Musical

Loch Monster tried out for his very first play this past Tuesday, March 31st. He had to perform a song and then recite 30 seconds of text from a Dr. Seuss book.

We kept it easy and he sang a primary birthday song. He did really well considering the fact that he handed his music to their piano player, stepped up to center stage and sang all by himself. He didn't even seem concerned that he hadn't practiced his song with that pianist. I just prayed he came in on the music on time. Many kids didn't seem to know when to come in on their songs. He came in when he was suppose to and was on key. I was pleased.

Then he recited a few lines from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. He was one of a handful of kids who had actually memorized his part. He actually seemed a little more nervous to recite his memorization than to sing. He didn't quite present it the same way we had practiced at home and I felt they cut him off on it a little too early - before he really got into more of the meat of it and calmed down a little. (But I also learned we could have picked his 30-second segment a little better, too, so that it was a better representation of his abilities.) But no worries. It doesn't matter because I thought he did amazingly well!!!! I'm super proud of him.

On the way home, we talked about his experience and how he felt about it. We talked about what he learned from watching the other auditioners - things he liked, didn't like, things he could incorporate into his auditions in the future. It takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of people, strangers, and perform. I told him that no matter what, whether he gets the part he wants or some teeny tiny supporting role or no part at all, he had just survived and thrived at his first audition and I couldn't have been more pleased with how he carried himself and how confident he was. Still scary for him? Yes, but he did great!

Move Over, Bozo!

My kids have really bad chapped lips and Loch Monster's are the worst. We call them his "troll lips." We even have our own sign language for "Put lip stuff on." Sometimes the area around their lips gets chapped as well because they lick them so much. And worse yet, sometimes their cheeks get chapped in this cold winter weather. So as their mom, it's my job to take care of them and teach them how to take care of themselves. I often put their chapstick on for them, going a little bit "outside of the lines" to get the chapped area around the lips and also dabbing a little on their chapped cheeks. Well, I do that for the girls. Loch Monster is big enough to take care of himself. Or so I thought.

I did the universal Smith household sign for "Put lip stuff on" and Loch Monster did just as he was told. One problem: he couldn't find his regular clear/white chapstick so instead used his red chapstick. Hence the big red lips and smears on the cheeks. Send in the clowns!!!

The Cat is Rubbing Off on Sweet Pea

So it's Wed. Mar. 4th - the kids are off-track and we get to have BabyCakes over for several hours while Aunt Lisa, my sis, runs errands. To prevent him from falling down the stairs, we put up the baby gate but set it back off the first step a little to allow room for the cat to still be able to reach his litter box in the furnace room. It's not a walk-through gate. Once it's up, it's up and you either need to step over it or undo it in order to get past it.

So I was sitting on the couch doing a crossword puzzle on my iPod Touch when I start hearing giggling and screaming coming from the same child. Sweet Pea had decided she wanted to be like the cat and wriggle through the small opening between the gate and step instead of asking for help to get over the gate. BabyCakes made his move. He couldn't resist the trapped prey or the lures in her hair.

Got it! Hmmm . . . now what should he do with it?

Ah, yes. Eat it and flick it. BabyCakes has a metal fetish. He loves to eat and suck on metal. So he has stretched the two baubbles as far as they'll stretch and he's sucking on the metal clasp in the middle. He's also flicking it between his teeth and spewing baby spit all over the rug and Sweet Pea.

"Can you give me some help here, Mom?" "Uh, nope."

Now what? Ah, yes. Let's take the other elastic out.

Curiosity Is Aggravating the Mom

It's Sunday morning, Feb. 15th. Church is at 9:00 a.m. Our morning is already crazy trying to get 2 girls and their mom beautiful for the day. Why not throw a lighthearted moment into the mix? Rascal loves seeing where he can fit his body, where he can explore, where he can almost, almost get stuck. This lovely morning's location of choice is the bathroom drawers. Lesson learned: close drawers when done with them.

Rascal has crawled all the way through the 2nd drawer and is now sitting on the contents of the bottom drawer.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing . . .


"What?"

Curb + Walking = Fat Lip

Gymnastics isn't apparently in Jellybean's future. On her walk home from school, she was balancing on the curb and slipped off her "balance beam." She got pretty scraped up and was a little bit of a bloody mess along with her endless tears. But then it got hilarious to watch her try to swallow her saliva and not be able to - instead sucking it back since she couldn't really close her lips. She also couldn't talk very well. I didn't hold back the laughter very well.

Feb. 11th

Eric Turned the Big 4-0 Minus 3. :-)

The Big 4-0 minus 3 sounds so much more spectacular than plain, old, boring 37. Whoop-de-doo! Eric's favorite cake is German chocolate cake and I really can't stand it. So when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, I was more than prepared to make a cake for him that I knew I would not want a piece to eat. But I was pleasantly surprised when he asked for a cake that I haven't made in years - Chocolate Satin Mint Cake. It is truly a labor of love to make that cake but he's so worth it!!

Jan. 25th

Draper Temple Open House

On Civils Rights Day, Jan. 19th, we went to the Draper Temple Open House. Eric had a much needed job interview and was unable to join us so I asked my sis Lisa if she'd like to come and use Eric's ticket. We also went with my brother Chris' family.

It was so special to be in the temple with my children for the first time. I got to whisper to them about the special things that happen in the different rooms. As we walked through the bride's dressing room, I stopped Sweet Pea in front of the beautiful mirror and told her, "This is where a bride stands after she gets all dressed up in her wedding dress to make sure she is super pretty for her wedding." The glow that came across Sweet Pea's face and the sparkle in her eyes was so precious to see.

The tour concluded with a small gathering in one of the sealing rooms. We were told that we could sit anywhere we wanted. So the girls and I sat on the sofa that a bride and groom sit on. Loch Monster sat beside us in one of the mother's chairs. The girls thought it was so cool to sit where a bride and groom usually would sit. I explained to them what happens at the altar in that room - that a bride and groom gets married there, kneeling across from one another. I shared with Loch Monster and the girls who would actually sit in the seat he was sitting in and where Daddy will sit when they get married.

Because of where we sat, the kids didn't get to see the beauty of the mirrors. When everyone had left the sealing room, I took the kids to one side of the room so that they could see eternity. I asked them how many chandeliers were in the room. "Just one." But then we looked into the reflecting mirrors and saw how many there were. I told them that when they create their own family in a sealing room just like that one, they would be beginning their own eternal families that will last forever and ever and ever - just like the chandelier that goes on forever and ever in the mirrors.

It was a beautiful, clear, crisp winter day that was so special to have been spent with family - my own children and with my siblings and their families.

Blackmail Photos

We are cruel parents. We truly are, yet - I don't plan on changing my behavior. With Jellybean's room being upstairs near ours, we regularly see her in her finest, most precious moments. Here's just a sampling. :-)

Jan. 3rd

Jan. 12th

Christmas 2008

Let's just say Christmas this year was great! I took way too many pictures to even know where to start just pulling some of them. Even though funds were really tight this year, we still had an amazing Christmas. We focused more on the reason for the season instead of the gifts.

Santa does our stockings and the gifts under the tree come from me and Eric. Santa usually spends as much on stockings as he does on under-the-tree gifts but that couldn't happen this year. I probably did 1/3 of what we normally do for Christmas. I was really, really worried and I braced myself for the kids saying, "Really? That's it? That's all we get?" But they didn't. They adored everything they got. Well, except for Jellybean. She was quite irritated to have received socks as a gift. But that's just her.

Eric and I did nothing for each other but Santa got us each one gift in our stockings. And this year, Santa really did listen to me talk throughout the holidays. He got me Lego Batman for the Wii. He couldn't have picked a better inexpensive gift. More so than the gift itself, though, was that Santa had really listened to me and didn't just get me something he thought I'd like. That meant a lot. My brother did the same thing for me - listened to something I'd off-handedly said, read between the lines, and gave me a gift. It rocked!!

One of my favorite parts about Christmas this year we resurrecting an old tradition my aunt and uncle did in their family when my cousins were little. With funds being tight, I was trying to find large, inexpensive items for the kids' stockings. My cousins never got sugared cereal. That wasn't allowed in their home . . . except when Santa brought one special box to them at Christmas. So Santa swung by the grocery store this year and picked up sugared cereals that I never, ever would buy on a normal day for my kids and put them with their stockings this year. Santa did buy Loch Monster, though, a cereal that he knew I would eat, too, and I'm pretty sure he gave it to Loch Monster instead of the girls because he knew Loch Monster would share with me. :-) Loch Monster got Cookie Crisp, Sweet Pea got a Barbie cereal and Jellybean got Fruity Pebbles. They thought it was pretty cool.

We did have another scare, though, on Christmas day with Loch Monster's migraines and how they basically shut his brain down. We took video again of his incoherency and inability to talk. Once we got some meds and a scrambled egg in him, he started to do better. And our brilliant son was back and normal by that evening, alphabetizing and adding our newest movies into our DVD library. Weird!

Civil Rights Movement Happens in Smith Home - 12/24/08

Rascal ran out of treats, and with Eric being unemployed, we weren't racing to PetSmart to stock back up. To fully understand the gravity of that decision, you must know that Rascal probably goes through a bag of treats a week. Every time he comes back inside from galavanting around the yard and neighborhood, he cries for treats. He cries for treats when somebody comes home. He cries for treats just because he can. And we are suckers (with this child only) and give in 99% of the time he asks. So this is traumatic - to be without treats for 5 days. I keep the bag of treats on top of my jewelry box and as you can see, Rascal is holding a "sit in." By golly, he's going to sit there until we get him more treats. In that 2nd picture you can actually see him crying at me. I made Eric take some of our Christmas money we received to go buy more treats for the stinkin' spoiled child. I could not stand to have one more kid in my household be angry at me for something.

Cat Scan Anyone? - 12/22/08

Candid Shots - 12/21/08

Candid pictures taken at a Campbell family party. I won't bore you with all the pictures of presents or family or food - just the precious highlights.

Sweet Pea - I think she's going to grow up to be a model. She loves posing for the camera.

Loch Monster - Tender, quiet, brilliant and quick as a whip.

Jellybean - VERY independent and headstrong, hilarious!

Grandpa Campbell singing carols. He had encephalitis of the brain 11 years ago when I was pregnant with Loch Monster. I was terrified that my Grandpa would send me my firstborn child instead of meet him here in this life. He's since been around for many more great-grandchildren coming into the family despite not ever being the same man that he used to be before getting sick and we cherish every moment we get to still have him with us.

My Grandma plays this STUPID $5 gift exchange game every year. We hate it and the spirit of the holiday is completely lost but none of us dare tell that to Grandma. She'd have a fit. This year she finally did size-down the game to only include children under the age of 18 instead of every single person. I was trying to forget that I needed to take three $5 gifts for my kids to put into the pot but sadly remembered that day, a Sunday, that I was suppose to be a dutiful granddaughter and participate. So I scrambled through the house looking for new, child-appropriate white elephant gifts valued around $5. I found a Kid's Apron and Chef Hat set from Pampered Chef that I still had lying around, in the package, unopened. It costs more than $5 but it was one of the three gifts I needed. It would have to do. Of all the gifts on the floor to choose from, having no idea which gifts I prepared and brought, Jellybean picked the apron and hat. She's a wonder!! And she thinks she's the coolest kid ever and is always asking to help with dinner or treats so that she can wear her new duds.

Julie Got Artsy Fartsy!

For my Team Open House on Dec. 17th, I was looking for easy and cheap recipes to make for treats. Imagine that - Pampered Chef has just the thing I was looking for! Christmas Stocking Cake is a no-bake recipe using cinnamon graham crackers, a white chocolate pudding filling, whipped topping frosting and decorator's icing. Garnish with a few whipped topping stars from "the gun" and sprinkle candy like it's spilling out the top of the stocking. I'm not artsy fartsy very often and I, 99.9% of the time, never prepare recipes that look like the Test Kitchen so when those moments happen - I always take a picture. :-)

Christmas Angels - 12/06

Somebody was very generous to our family this year. We had secret elves visit us late that Saturday night and share with us these goodies. Eric answered the door and when he told me what it was, I hastily told him to yell "thank you" into the cold night air in hopes that our elves were still nearby.

I just sat on the couch and bawled. It's so different being on the receiving end and I was having a hard time accepting it. I didn't feel we were hurting bad enough to receive such service. I was reminded by a very special friend that I know what it feels like to give like this and that I couldn't deny or take away the opportunity for somebody else to feel those same feelings.

I was scared to count the money in the Christmas Jar. I was scared to know the total and know how much somebody really sacrificed for us. Tonight, Jan. 24th, we counted all those coins and the surprise $50 bill hiding in the middle of all of them. Somebody sacrificed a lot for us!! If you know who did this for us, PLEASE tell them thank you from the bottom of my heart. Whomever did this knows our family because they chose gifts perfect for my kids. You forever blessed me and my family with your generosity. I'll never forget this Christmas! THANK YOU!

Holly Jolly Christmas - 12/06

Jellybean dancing at Macy's Grocery Store with Leapin' Lizards Dance Studio

Don't Bring An Elephant to Dinner - 12/06

Sweet Pea dancing at the Festival of Trees with Leapin' Lizards Dance Studio

Oh, The Days of Flexibility!

Yes, you're seeing that correctly. Rascal's back paw is clear up by his head. Weirdo. (Click on the picture to make it bigger so that you can really see it.)