Random Bits of Life....

Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is Matt's dream day since everyone has to wear his favorite color: GREEN! Matt and I ran to Wal-mart together last week (a "special" day as he calls them) and we found a perfect green t-shirt for him to wear. It says: This is my LUCKY shirt. It was cute and I knew he'd wear it all summer and not just today. Too bad I didn't pick up one for Trey and Josh too. We had a major meltdown this morning when Josh couldn't find a green shirt that fit. After many tears we found a large green short sleeve shirt. Trey's long sleeve one was a bit too short. It seems like I didn't quite think this simple holiday through and double check the closet before the morning of. Hope they didn't get marked tardy. It was a close one. Thankfully I found green shirts this morning for the girls, so I think we'll all avoid the dreaded pinch! Good Luck!

Happy Birthday today to Rich's sister HEATHER! Hope it is wonderful, relaxing and of course full of LUCK! Happy 31! We love you!

Congratulations to Rich's sister Julianne on the safe arrival of her new baby boy on Saturday, March 15, 2008! We haven't heard word of the name yet, but know he has lots of fuzzy blond hair and looks a bit like his sister Annie. After 3 baby girls, they were ready from some blue in their house. We can't wait to see the photos and meet him in July! We love you! That makes 14 grandchildren for Rich's parents and one more coming in June. Busy, busy, busy!

I have a love/hate relationship with Mondays. I love that it is garbage day. I love that I don't have to think about my next YW lesson for a few days. I love that my boys are back in school so I can get out and run errands a bit faster. I love that my house stays clean a bit longer. I love that my girls take better, longer naps in the quiet house. I HATE all the catch up work Monday brings. I have 4 clean loads of laundry on the floor in my room waiting to be folded. I hate the mega homework day and seeing the new spelling lists. Thank heavens for FHE. At least then I can get my mind back on track, see the good in life and get ready to tackle the rest of the week!


Josh lost his second front tooth last week and is now sporting a real toothless look now. It's cute. Thank heavens the Tooth Fairy came through on the first try and Josh was pleased with his note and crisp dollar bill under his pillow the next morning. He's had a bit of fun with the whole thing. He loves to stick his tongue in the hole and when he bit into an apple yesterday and I laughed when I saw the big spot where there were no teeth marks. He thought it was quite clever. Matt's next. His other front tooth is a wiggly mess, but I think he'll hold out until it falls out on its own. I just hope we don't have another missing tooth (swallowed) incident in the near future.

Trey is an addict. He absolutely LOVES video games. We have rules- no games on Sunday and homework must be done before he turned the PS2 on, but still he would play a new or rented game for an entire day if we let him. Really. He's tried. After much pleading we let him rent a game from Blockbuster last weekend but I made him use his money ($8.00- that's pricey!). He got some Lord of the Rings game which didn't really work. We took it back and they gave him a free rental. So on Thursday night I took him back over to get a car racing game. I told him he couldn't play it until Friday. The next morning something unheard of happened. Trey bounced out of bed, hopped in the shower before Rich, was dressed in 10 seconds flat, swallowed not chewed a bowl of cereal and headed to the basement for 20 minutes of fun before we left for school. If that boy would put that much energy, effort and passion into something that mattered a bit more (school or sports), he'd be awesome. No joke. Oh, and it seems he also loves bottled whipping cream. Yum.

Sweet little Brynn fell and hit a chair in the computer room early Thursday morning. I was upstairs when it happened and was shocked when Trey brought her up to me and there was blood on her cheek. Not good. I called Rich who was heading home his over night call at the hospital and told him to bring supplies. It wasn't deep enough to stitch, but with the swelling we couldn't get it pulled super tight together. He put on glue and steri strips and I'm now hoping it'll look OK when we remove the bandages later. Poor thing.

Matt's building skills are still alive and well. He is constantly taking over the basement setting up cities and battles. I am grateful we have more space than when we were living in Louisville. Matt would scold us daily when we knocked down and tower or bridge while crossing the family room into the kitchen. Glad he's still creative, now I'm just wishing he was a bit more understanding of the girls' curiosity toward his forts. They just love to explore them when he is away at school. But can you blame them?

Kaitlyn's hair finally has started to look a bit girly. Woo hoo! It only took 2 years! Her bangs are growing and it seems like the mullet look might thankfully be over. Birthday party next week. Can't wait.

Selection Sunday was awesome. We watched it at the Rosenhans. We were there last year too. I think they thought I was some deranged fan when I kept pestering them about turning on the TV and then had the sound blasting on loud through dinner. Thanks guys! Stanford got a great draw (#3). They'll play Cornell on Thursday in Anaheim. Wishing I could go. Basketball and Disneyland in one day= Heaven! Wishing BYU (#8) a victory against Texas A & M (#9). Rich's little brother Taylor is a walk on for BYU this year. It will be a battle. I was excited for Louisville (#3) and thought about Sally when Boise State was named as their opponent. Think I will have to fill out my brackets today.

Baseball is here. Actually I should say it's starting to take over. I walked into the bathroom on Saturday and this is what I found. Not something you dream of seeing. (Rich begged me to not post this photo, but this is real life- pure and simple.) Trey had three practices this week. Josh and Matt's start on Tuesday. We were supposed to have clean up the field day on Saturday, but it rained so they moved it to Sunday. Sorry, but we don't do yard/field work on the Sabbath. Games start in three weeks.

We got a mailer on Friday for Thunder Over Louisville. I am SO excited. I love Thunder. This will be our fifth time going. It's early this year: April 12, 2008. Calling all our long lost friends from the 'Ville and any other family members that would like to attend- who can resist the Greatest Firework display in North America! Come out to watch with us- our basement is yours!

I am having Easter candy withdrawls since I stopped buying the good stuff when my supply ran out last week. I just have to know when to say when. Hard but true. I'll just have to steal bits of the kids treats when the bunny visits on Sunday.

The past few weeks I watched another slew of movies while I rode the bike. I'll give you the run down and my own personal ratings: Nancy Drew (B, clean and entertaining), Dan in Real Life (A-, could have lost a couple of scenes and it would have been better), Waitress (D, what to say, waste of time) and The Painted Veil (B, a bit sad but a good movie overall). You can see why my Hinckley challenged has been stalled! I wish I could say no movies this week, but Enchanted comes out on Tuesday. Even though I have seen it my family gave it rave reviews. I'll be headed to Wal-mart to buy it. With 2 girls of my own, how could you not?!

I got a very sweet birthday letter from my little brother Kurt who is serving in Taiwan. He was able to attend a temple session on my birthday (February 20) and it was very nice to know he was thinking of me on my big day. The letter was mailed on February 28th and arrived last Thursday. That made me even more grateful for email! His kind words were a real pick me up and the photos were amazing. My boys LOVE Kurt. It was a real treat for all of us.

My favorite part of Kurt's letter story involved Matt. The night before it arrived I was typing Kurt a letter while the boys looked at old photo albums. The girls had yanked a few shots from their sleeves earlier and Matt found a loose photo of him, Kurt, Jeff and Josh. He asked me if he could have the picture. Knowing that I have another copy in the basement I agreed. Later I found him in the kitchen putting this darling note together. It says: I love Kurt. I love Jeff. He then glued all these little bits of things he had found in the craft drawer. It was so cute. He then had me type a little note to Kurt about the note he had made and hid it away in the secret small drawer in the main floor bathroom. When Kurt's letter arrived the next day, Matt knew Kurt had read his email, learned about his note and sent the photos just for him as a response. It was just perfect. He glowed for the rest of the day.

I am so excited for friends with extra cell phone minutes. I am a talker. I love to chat on the phone. So happy for more frequent, longer chit chats ahead.

I noticed that when my fridge is beyond full (things are starting to freeze on the top shelf) the kids tend to say- there is nothing to eat! I also noticed when my closet is unorganized (girls) or I simply have too many shirts to hang them all properly and they are squished into the space, I feel like I have nothing to wear. It seems that less is more in both cases! Glad I realized that. I may give me strength next time I see a great sale at the mall.

Now that I have an a fresh new set of dinner and salad plates in my cupboard, my attention has turned to my sad bunch of spoons. Yes, only the spoons. It seems over the years we have lost half of the cereal spoons and most of the ones remaining have had unfriendly encounters with the garbage disposal. Not good for the spoon or the mouth. We'll have to see what I can come up with.

I ran out of my favorite Williams and Sonoma soap (Valencia Orange) so I headed to the store last week to get a new bottle. I hadn't been to the store since December when I bought the pine scented soap and before that used the Spiced Chestnut set in November. I was shocked when they told me they had revamped the line in January. My favorite soaps were now discontinued. OH NO! The new stuff stinks (literally). Not happy. I guess I should be grateful to save the money, but I am sad. I'll have to hope I can find some new, wonderful scent to replace it. Doubt it.

I made a quick run to the mall with the boys to replace Josh and Matt's baseball hats that were lost at a primary activity months ago. Josh selected a St Louis Cardinals hat, while Matt found a green UK hat. That makes nearly every hat he owns green. At least he's predictable. I had to laugh later that day Josh asked why the hat had a S and a T on the front. I explained it was for St Louis. He was shocked. He thought it was a Louisville hat since they are both the cardinals. No worries. He really does like St. Louis and he even rooted for them we went up to Cincinnati and they played the Reds. Glad it will still work.

And my last story of the day. Trey was invited to a birthday party on Saturday at the Kid Zone. Rich was home so we put the girls down for their nap and I took the boys to the party. Trey got in with the group and headed off with his friends from school, while I paid for Josh and Matt's admittance. They have a huge climbing area plus a variety of Chuck-E-Cheese type games. They only gave me 8 coins when I paid. That meant each boy only got 4 tokens. I thought these would last 3 minutes tops. Matt spied a cool bow and arrow set when we walked in and told me he wanted to win it. It was only a measely 250 tickets. In your dreams I thought.

After an hour of climbing Matt came to me and told me he wanted to spend his coins. He carefully survey his gaming options and decided to only play games that had the highest ticket potential. After he deposited his second coin, dissapointment struck. The game failed to work. We quickly went in search of the guy with the keys in the blue shirt. The guy who controlled the games. He fixed the game and gave Matt his token back. Matt played a few more and once again another game ate his money. He would not be dissapointed. He found the fellow again, had him sit by him while he explained what happened and in the end got his own coin plus a few extra for his pain. Matt's face glowed. Soon we were down to 3 coins. I asked Matt if he would play air hockey with me. He agreeded. We didn't realize it would take 2 coins. He sadly put in his token and told me it was OK, he just wanted my share of the tickets at the end. He nearly died of anger when I told him this game DID NOT give out tickets. He sulked off to the corner while Josh finished out the game.

One tiny, shiny coin left. I handed it to Matt. I asked him to share it with Josh. We found a game that you could stomp on some lights. I said Matt could take the top 3, Josh the back 3. It would work. Matt slid the coin in and nothing happened. We peered into the hole and saw it was jammed. I used a key from my key chain and tried to push it further in. Nope. It was stuck. Matt went off for the THIRD time in search of the fix-it boy. I was getting embarassed. How many other people had pestered him this many times in visit? None I bet. He came over and when he undid the lock, coins started pouring out of the machine. It seemed that it had been broken for a while. He handed each boy a token and then turned to me and asked me if I was with them. I gave a feeble "Yes" and then he did the nicest thing. He gave me every coin that had fallen to the floor. 27 tokens to be exact. The boys were jumping for joy. I just said thank you. They played for another 30 mintues. Trey joined in the fun too. For a full hour they played games, laughed, danced. It was great to watch.

When we crunched up our large stack of tickets we had earned 252 tickets, just enough for the bow and arrow. But Matt changed his mind. He decided to share and let his brothers pick out a toy too. What a day. What a nice teenage boy. What a determined and generous Matt. What a memory for me and them. Good times. Good times...