How Much Is Too Much?

We had my brothers and their families over for the BYU/Utah game on 11/22 since I've got the basement that children can be banned to and kept away from the adults. (No, really - that's why we do it at my house - to keep the noise and drama away from us.) Chris' youngest child, who's 2, absolutely adores Rascal. She follows him all over the house when she's over here. Rascal was whining for treats and I thought I'd let my niece have the honors. Well, she abused the privilege and gave Rascal the rest of the bag. She was so proud of herself, though, for helping to take care of Rascal.

Darn That Facebook!!

I found Facebook at the end of October and that pretty much has ruled my life since. So I'm getting back on the blogging horse and will work to be better about keeping you up-to-date on my wacky life. Sorry for the massive updating that will be going on over the next several days. You can really just ignore all of it and start following my life once I'm caught up. I felt that since this is kind of a little journal for me, I needed to catch up and post about the old news. :-)

Curiosity Got This Cat in Trouble - Again

A little cat deja vu for you. You've already been warned about what happens when dad is left in charge of the kids. This is what happens when dad is playing WOW and not paying attention to the kids.

I'm watching TV and hear Eric frantically yell to me to come downstairs and bring the camera. The kids haven't gone to bed yet. So nobody is asleep in a funky pose. What could be so pressing that I need to rush downstairs with a camera for? Oh, only Rascal. He's jumped on top of a filing cabinet and then into the "ceiling" of Eric's office.

Does this look familiar, folks? Eric trying to coax down the cat?

Once again - Rascal is trying to figure out how to get down from his predicament. "Oh, now you've done it, cat. You touched dad's Star Wars poster." It's not funny anymore.

Sweet Tooth?

Sweet Pea lost another tooth - her third one. She pulled it out all by herself. But here's the rest of the story . . .

Let's set up the scenario for you: I'm at work, Eric and the kids just got home from the school's show choir performance and Eric needs to use the little boys' room, and the girls want ice cream. So - to paraphrase - I'm gone, Eric's indisposed and the girls are left to their own devices. Through the bathroom door, Eric gives permission for the girls to get their own ice cream. And just like their mother, the girls must have tons of chocolate sauce with their ice cream. (Some days it's ok that Heavenly Father blessed me with two carbon copies of myself - like when it involves eating ice cream. Most days, it is not ok to have 3 Julie's in the house!!) Dad's occupied and can't help open the bottle of sauce so Sweet Pea is going to be the big sister and make sure she and Jellybean get chocolate sauce on their ice cream. She uses her front teeth to try and open the bottle. Eric says he then hears wailing coming from the kitchen - not whining, not whimpering, but wailing. Jellybean is screaming that Sweet Pea has blood everywhere. Eric's still tied up and can only hurry so fast, you know. Sweet Pea is still hysterically crying and is now in the kids' bathroom. Jellybean is just in a state of panic and freaking out. What a brave little girl Sweet Pea is - she wrenched that tooth the rest of the way out all by herself. She met Eric at his bathroom door with tissue in the wound and a tooth in her hand. Oh the drama!! That front tooth was loose but nowhere near being ready to come out yet. She's amazing!! So I guess you could say Sweet Pea has (or rather, had) a sweet tooth!!

We've Got a Thespian in the House!

Loch Monster takes acting lessons at Hale Centre Theatre. He just finished the fall semester and performed at the recital. He's taken 2 previous semesters and then we took a year long break because I wasn't happy with what was happening during the classes. I didn't feel like playground games taught anything about acting. I paid for one hour acting lessons not daycare. This is the first semester of classes I've finally felt like we were getting our money's worth. He memorized lines and performed in a small play. He did superb!! And he enjoys every minute of it - that's the best part.

Curiosity Got the Cat Stuck

My youngest child, Rascal - age 2, is exactly what his name suggests - a rascal. This morning, I'm in my office being unproductive on Facebook (again!) and from the basement, I hear Jellybean yell, "Daddy! Daddy! Oh no! It's Rascal!" I hear Eric run down the hall and then hear, "Julie, get the camera." Rascal has decided to explore the nether-regions of the basement. (Yes, we've lived in our home for almost 8 years. Yes, the basement is still mostly unfinished. Yes, our grandchildren will get to enjoy the basement. Sorry, no - it's really not that bad and Eric's doing a great job and working hard at finishing the basement in his spare time.)

Rascal leaps from the air shaft to the green support beam and is kind of freaking out. Behind the green beam is the air shaft so he is moving towards the camera - to give you some perspective on the layout.

Eric decides that he's going to try and help Rascal get down but Rascal doesn't understand that Dad is just trying to help and won't have anything to do with Eric. Now you can also see the whole picture. And I really wish I would have thought to get a picture of Rascal's other half. That would have been hilarious to see. You could totally hear his claws scatching against the wood. I'm sure his toes were spread-eagle, claws out, holding on for dear life.

Eric tries to be a good dad again and save the day but Rascal still doesn't get it so Eric gives up. "He got himself up there, he'll be able to get himself down." Sure enough, Rascal jumps down and then is super angry at Eric. For real! He won't let Eric pet him, talk to him, get close to him, nothing. He just bites and lunges at Eric whenever Eric attempts to get close. See - Rascal's just glaring at Eric in this last pic.

Turns out, Eric is the one who started this whole chain of events into motion. "Rascal wanted to see what was up there. So I put him on top of the box." That would be the clear box with the blue lid on top of the pile of white boxes. (P.S. The white boxes are my scrapbook memories dating back to 1997 - waiting to be taken out of hanging file folders and actually scrapbooked. Based on completed scrapbooks, Loch Monster isn't even born yet. How sad am I!?!?!) Not thinking anything of it, Eric went down the hall to his office until said Jellybean screamed and panicked. This is what happens when dads are left in charge of the kids. You've been warned!

5th Grade Homework is Rough!

Fifth grade homework is not a walk in the park. It involves a whole lot more than reading for 20 minutes a day. Loch Monster and I have spent the last month working on his USA Scrapbook. He had to create some kind of ABC book of the United States that included the following: 5 states, 5 famous Americans, 5 famous events, 5 important places, and 6 other topics relating to the United States - plus - a title page, table of contents, bibliography and cover page. Phew!! We finished it on Wednesday - a whole week ahead of the deadline. Eric and I helped him come up with his 26 topics and then I helped him research each letter (thank heavens for Wikipedia!!!) and assemble each scrapbook page. This was Loch's first research project so we had a little bit of a learning curve to work through. I helped him research A - U - describe it, find the interesting facts, write it in his own words, etc. Things were crazy this week and he was left to research V - Z on his own. He finally got around that learning curve, though, and did great on those last few letters all by himself. I'm so proud of him!!! He did 95% of the work on his project (I did the cover, title, table of contents and bibliography pages). He muddled through the learning curve, the frustrations of harder work and even a couple of migraines. And he's truly the sweetest boy ever - he was quite emotional as he hugged me and thanked me for all the help I gave him with this project. That's all the reward a mom really needs!!

Here's my 3 most favorite pages in the entire scrapbook. D was for the Declaration of Independance and E was for the Emancipation Proclamation. On each of their Wikipedia pages were pictures of the actual documents. I saved a copy of the picture and then blew it up to an 8 1/2 x 11 image and printed it on cream colored paper. Then the best part - I burned the edges using the stovetop element to create the antique look. So instead of a plain colored background for those two pages, the "actual" documents were the background. How cool is that?!?!?! (Thankfully, I did this when all the kids were at school. That's all I need - for the girls to learn the latest way to have fun! And for future reference - be sure to have doors and windows open before burning edges of paper.) There's nothing super special about the actual page of the Twin Towers but 9/11 is a sensitive topic for me. I went into labor with Sweet Pea while we watched the events of that day unfold. She was born the next morning but we'll always know how long it's been since the tragedy.

To save you some key strokes and curiosity fits, here's what he did for each letter: Arkansas, George W. Bush, California, Declaration of Independence, Emancipation Proclamation, Benjamin Franklin, Grand Canyon, House of Representatives, Independence Day, JFK Assassination, Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore, New Jersey, Ohio, Michael Phelps, Queen Mary Ship, Theodore Roosevelt, Statue of Liberty, Twin Towers, Utah, Valley Forge, World War II, Richard M. Nixon, Yankee Stadium, and Zion National Park. (What would you have done for the letter X?)

We learned some really interesting things about our country and its people. My most favorite piece of unknown information is that Pres. Roosevelt didn't have a vice president for his first term in office. Honest! Click it out.

Loch Monster, I'm so proud of you! You did awesome!