Ahhh... those days...

Ninth Grade... we were such goofballs!
After seeing Jon at Sam's club, I began to reminisce about all of the silly things that we used to all do together.
This year, we wanted to have a picture in the yearbook of all of us together. We were all in our own clubs' pictures, but never all of us together. The closest we got was track, and they still took those in separate teams, the boy team and the girl team, so not all of us together. Plus we just wanted to see if we could really get away with it.
So we made-up our own club.
The "Students Of America", otherwise known as "SOA"...
In order to get in the year book, and be called down on picture day to get the desired pic, we needed an advisor. So Which teacher was cool enough to do just that? Lie, act like it was a real club, pose in the pic, etc... Mr. Adams. He was awesome. I asked him if he'd do it during German. He said okay, without a single question. He rolled like that.
Mrs. Waddoups, the secretary with the nasal-ey voice, called us liars when we told her she forgot the "SOA" and needed to call our club down over the intercom. So we told her to talk to Mr. Adams to verify the legitimacy of our little-known club.
So here we are... in the year book... unfortunately not everyone responded to the call, some claimed that they didn't hear, I think that others were too chicken... Kevin B..... We pulled it off.
Those were some fun days.

Pre-School Graduation

Lynn graduated from Pre-School today...
She had a really good teacher who always had fun and creative things for them to do. One of our assignments for this month, and to share in the program today, was a book, pictures drawn by Lynn, and her own words written by me, and her... "The Princes and Princesses Fall in Love"... Sounds like a dreamy little book. She had some silly ideas in it, like a bald King and Queen, and a funny little character who said, "Oooh! Banana orphage! (a made up word of Lynn's that makes her giggle...) I am going to turn that banana into a Princess!" She laughed so hard while her teacher read it. (That's the pic!)
They also did a 4 little pigs puppet show and sang some songs that they have learned. It was cute.
Pre-school was good practice for me, it got me to loosen those apron strings, and get ready for kindergarten.
Lynn picked out flowers for her teacher and even wrote her a little note. She kept telling her teacher how much she loves her and that she's "just going to miss her so much!"...
She even began plotting when she would come back to see her... I know, a little attached.
Yesterday, we were gone all day. We helped mom get a quilt done, got the Sam's Club run over with, and I ran into my eighth grade "boyfriend" there. We got to talk for a little while and catch up. My ten year reunion is coming up...
Went home to have a quick dinner and then we were off to the dance review to see Katie and Sophie. They both did so well. Sophie is quite the performer and Katie just exudes confidence now. She's such a Lakette!
Ashley had her issues there, as in she wouldn't sit still and behave. For the little time that Cade was there, he did better than Ash... she has had this little asthma cough, because of the weather being so weird... she kept coughing, more like blowing, on the woman's neck who was sitting in front of us. I got the stink eye a lot... so Ashley was quite disappointed to not enjoy ice cream and watch Lynn eat hers when we got home!

Rain, rain, go away!

While I admit that I do enjoy a good old thunderstorm, I really wished that the rain would have relented long enough for us to have some fun "outside time" for our Memorial Day.
Instead, we stayed inside, we did grill with the rain marinating our meat... but no traditional "first dip of the season" at the pool. We had kind of planned to get some work done outside, Merrill to mow the lawn, me cleaning out the car and getting our back yard whipped into shape, maybe get some tomatoes into the ground... nope, not even close.
We finally got so bored of being inside, that in the evening when the rain was put on pause, we went out to the cemetery, with flowers in hand, and visited Grandma's grave. The girls all fell asleep on the way out, but Peyton was the only one who was happy to be there.I bribed the girls to smile by reminding them of what it sounded like when I burped, "I love you", to them. (A longer story for a longer day...)
After, we drove to Mer's parents house, visited Great-Grandma, and bowled... so we did end up having fun.
Today I got groceries done, mowed the front lawn for Mer, got the car cleaned-out, Armor-alled, and even got the garage started on. The girls both mastered the bike and trike (well Lynn the one, and Ash the other...) but there were tantrums during... Lynn had a pre-school day (only on left!) so the tiredness contributed to the fits. She did get afternoon kindergarten!!!
So, got a lot done today. Mer was so happy to come home to a well-manicured front lawn, he'd been dreading doing it... and the lesson I learned from visiting Grandma P., from Marriner Wood Merrill's Journal, was even if my day is documented in one line, some one some day, will be reading it... okay... this post was two days, more than one line... but on those other days, knowing that will help!

And now, life is simplified...

So now Peyton will take a binky!!!
Life is easier...
Our date last night was fun. Mer actually shopped for himself! As a bonus, he even remarked how it wasn't painful... that's always good. We went hunting for steel toed work boots, but got him casual shoes instead, shoes that I have always wanted to see him in, and I must have persuaded him... He got new jeans too. Crab legs for dinner, how could this have been a better date?!
Today at church, well, we'll just say CRAZY!!! I have had my eyes opened to the fact that I am not the only one who has been having trials calling-wise. I visited with the Bishop, and he too, isn't faring so well. So I guess that I had better start praying again, ;) and pray for my leaders, who sometimes feel like my enemies...
Hopefully things will look up soon.
Happy Birthday Emma!

What a freakin' good Friday!

In front of the Hawaii Laie Temple... before kids...
We're gonna be alone tonight, on a real date... well, kinda. Errands to run. Dinner to eat...
Yesterday was fun. We went to El for dinner, saw some old friends that I worked with in my slicing roast beef days... they have a connection to the X... so I guess he's doing okay. At least he's finally over it!
We went and saw the progress on the hotel... walls are going up! It's pretty cool to see the layout of actual rooms now. Hmmm... maybe I'll get to frequent the one with the jacuzzi tub in it...
We drove around looking at homes in our area... that's one way to get out of this hellish calling... well, it's that way at the moment at least. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow...
We came home and stayed up watching "There Will Be Blood"... Upton Sinclair, he wrote some interesting novels... I will not eat sausage because of "The Jungle"...
And we stayed-up even later, but it was for a worthy cause... ;)
I think it was my shirt... or maybe watching all of those drilling rigs exploding with oil in the flick...
Chicka-Chicka Bow-Bow...

Flashback Friday...

So you might think that this post will be riddled with details of my non-sexual life... naw, I'll give you a break (for a second) and instead, take you back to 1987...
The last day of first grade... (it's the last day of school for kids in these parts...)
This is me: (but not on the last day... just that year, sometime...)This is the award that my teacher gave me...You see, because of my hairstyle (mom claims that I asked her to do my hair just like hers...), my teacher gave me the nickname "Muffy" after her dear dog... she seemed to think we looked alike... nice to grow up with the same kids my whole life, and they all remember, "Muffy"... real embarrassing nickname to have in junior high.
So for my life... in the present...
I got Mer to seriously (as serious as we can be together...) talk about our "life" together... as roomates ;)
When I brought it up, after some silliness, he said, "Well if you wanna.... then let's..."
Encouraging!...
But I want to be a picky, needy woman, and have HIM initiate it. I told him that and he says he feels bad "buggin'" me, when I am so busy doing mom stuff all day, and he thinks I am just too tired at the end of the day.
And then there's the same old excuse that there's nothing sexy going on around here, to which I gave him a little twirl in my well-fitting jeans, and asked him if this really was so un-sexy... he just smiled.
So I asked him if I needed to shake my hips a little while I was bent over wiping children's bums, you know, to make something sexy happen around here...
I really must say that it isn't as debilitating as I make it out to be, it's just funny.
But I seriously cannot live without sex...
Who's ever been too tired for that??? Not me! I have that "horny housewife" condition that Dani L. so wisely called it.
But I did think of a cute name for a 4th girl... obviously I am not preggers... but I can dream!
Macy...
I love it...

My 5 year old uses "air quotes"...

This is a "self-portrait" of Lynnie-Lou-Hoo...
Lynn has been doing some pretty silly, yet, grown-up things lately...
One of which is using the "air quotes", you know, when you take your pointer and middle fingers on both hands and make quotation marks when you are talking.
I can't remember the exactness of the situation, but she used them.
She also remembers everything that we say, or that the TV says...
Deal with it if you've heard these before...
Family Guy: A stork flies into a woman's window with his little pouch in his bill. The woman is reading a book, sees the stork, puts down her book, and exclaims, "A baby!" The stork puts down the load, unties the bundle, and there's no baby, instead a red light bulb. The woman asks, "Where's my baby?" Now the stork's answer is what Lynn remembers and says all the time...
The stork: (in a Barry White deep sensual voice...) "You and me are gonna make the baby..."
Yeah, I really like my five year old reciting that one...
Merrill got a new ZUNE. He always has issues with new electronic gizmos and getting them to work with our computer. EVERY MP3 player has had it's drama when it first arrived at our house. I was fortunate enough to miss the dramatics of last night. He told me that it got pretty bad. Bad enough that he was ready to do "a Julie" and throw something... fortunately he didn't, and there was no ketchup bottle to use as his projectile ;)... Julie, you oughta appreciate that one! He said that the girls went to bed so easily, they must have sensed his frustration. No arguments and no repeated trips into their room to tell them to get back into bed, to be quiet, to go to sleep, etc...
Went to Lisa's baby shower tonight. At first, I wasn't going to be able to make it, then by a last minute miracle, I did. I was so glad I got to. We had a lot of fun. "Celebrity" is a game that I want to play again, the full version...
Peyton has been so fun today. She has been talking a lot and smiley... must have been all that fun that she had last night with me and the girls.
I asked Merrill if he has performance anxiety... :) He appreciated the humor in that speculation. Hoping to play "shrink" with him and help to unwind his weirdness... really, it's still humorous, but c'mon! I've gotta seriously figure this out!