a chocolatey update.

success!!
(sort of.)
two of my three little ones actually stayed in their own beds the whole night.
(no wakie-uppies.)
i was able to...
sleep..
kind of..
in a bed.
not my bed, mind you..
but peyton at least got the idea that she is to sleep in her own bed, and not mine.
i needed to clarify that in order to earn a candy bar, i would have to be allowed to sleep in my own bed, all night, as well.
the kiddo got half of it!
she woke up "fweaked out", and asked me to snuggle her.
it wasn't her fault that while snuggling, i fell asleep in her bed, and stayed there the rest of the night.
i replenished my cupboards with a variety of candy bars from the fall-apart (aka wal-mart).  all children were paid (with the exception of the youngest, who didn't nap today and fell asleep early).
i think i might just pay myself for surviving yet another night in a twin-sized bed with my littlest who also enjoys kicking the covers off.
yup, mars bar for me indeed!
(moral of the story is: bribery works.)

i am placing all my hopes on candybars.

let me tell you what the nocturnal hours have been like  here:
bedtime.  not always on time, but pjs are put on, teeth brushed, a little girl with longer hair gets it brushed and loosely braided for the night, prayers are said, and three little girls get tucked in their own beds.  sometimes (most times) a second prayer is said with each little girl who is anxious and nervous for what the night will bring to them, all alone in their own little room.  tuck-ins and reassurances are generously given, and then night begins for the parents.
well, the night begins, as do the interruptions from three, nervous little girls.
they are not always all nervous on the same nights, just sometimes.  peyton in the only one who is consistently nervous, and she tells us everyday that she is "grateful when there are no bad dreams".
she usually ends up in our bed with us, after she wakes up crying.
now a bad dream isn't what you expect it to be with this little one.  she had a "really bad one" last week.  you  know what it was about?  she got something stuck in her toe at lake powell and it made a hole in her foot.  but in her little mind, that is awful!
last night, she fell asleep on the couch.  merrill was up late with an uncomfortable cyst swelling in his armpit (remember this?) so we left her there, tucking the other two into bed.  only the oldest of my bunch was worried last night.  bedtime went on for almost 2 hours due to the nerves of this child..
i was later awakened by ashley.
(i am unable to tell you at time, i used to look at the clock when these things would happen, and that is just a bad idea.)
lynn hijacked her bed, kicking her out, and into my bed.  i was all for sleep of any sort, so i welcomed her into my bed.
then peyton arose, crying.  crying and needing to go potty.
after we took a trip to the potty, i went to snuggle her in her bed.  sleeping there until it was time to start our day.
needless to say, i am one tired momma.  so tonight, before our circus of bedtime rituals, to try to insure one good night's sleep, i bribed my children.
"if you can all sleep in your own beds the whole night, i will give you a candy bar."
shall we see how this ends up?
let's do.
but let me say this:  i know it would be more than enough to keep me in my own bed the whole night.

those funny little things that happen that make life, life.

I have three little girls.

they add a fair dose of drama to our house.

a lot of humor.

too much excitement at times.

here’s just a sampling of the shenanigans that have gone on the past week:

lynn has another loose tooth.  she won’t let me touch it, but complains about how it bugs her and has given her a sore on her tongue from playing with it.

she is also terribly nervous about the moment (which will inevitably come), when her third grade teachers will start to throw all of the “hard” stuff her way.

she passed her level one, basic ice skating class!!

she has also started channeling her inner comedian.

then there is ashley.

she is growing up. 

the child who was once afraid of talking in front of people, saying prayers in primary, etc.,  has started to voluntarily, and by herself, fill in for kids who aren’t there.  amazing!!

she is also the child, who will lose things.

she is at school all day now.  (sniff..)  which means she doesn’t have lunch with me anymore. (sniff..) which means that I pack lunch for her to eat at school.  (sniff sniff..) 

now I could put her lunch in a boring old brown bag, but that might just depress her.  if I put it in her fun hello kitty lunch bag, it will make her happy, but she will lose it.  honest!

so as school started last week, so did the eating lunch at school minus her mommy, and the hello kitty lunch bag went too.

it came home two days in a row, and the third day, it was forgotten.

now do I know my kid or what?

it was happily reunited with us friday.

she is also obsessed with dinosaurs.  mammoths are her favorite, and she will happily recite random facts about them to you if you listen.

(allosaurus is a close second.)

and the youngest of our bunch has an obsession with taylor swift.  I need to record her singing along to a few songs and post it.  it’s pretty darn cute.

she is also currently idolizing mulan.

she even butchered her hair (but not obviously), in an attempt to be like her.

I swear, every time I fix her hair, I find a new spot that has been trimmed or scalped.

p.s. merrill turned 32 on saturday.  he desired a low-key day, no cake, but he does make a handsome 32 year old!

and then there was august..

I don’t want to depress you..  I don’t want to depress myself, but did you know, were you aware, that august is almost over?

really.

next week, and that’s it.

hello september.

see, I depressed you.

shame on me.

I really am sorry.

maybe what I have been working on, catching up on (because I’ve been enjoying the last bit of my summer and playing a lot), will help to cheer you.

they just make me long for summer…

(click on image for list of full credits + links.)

Say it isn’t so…

Summer, over, really?

I don’t like the idea of this.

So I am going to proclaim that it isn’t over, nope, not really.  Not yet.

We still have stuff we want to do.  So much more fun to be had!

So what if they are “in school”.  I will just pretend that it is just a practice run until our summer fun is really over and done.  (Well, more like when the weather doesn’t shout summer at us anymore.)

Sunday night, we slept out on the trampoline, you know, one last “hoo-rah” before bedtime becomes nazi-ish again. 

(And when I say “we”, I really mean just me and the girls.)

We attempted this in July, the night of the 5th (really our 4th what with the real fourth being on Sunday and all..) but a little rainstorm somewhere around 3 in the am cut out night out on the trampoline short.

This time, I was going to have all our bases covered.

- good weather (check)

- mosquito repellant (check)

- plenty of cushiness (check, check, check, check)

- sprinklers off (check)

Or so I thought on that last one.

4:30 am I hear the combined gush of air and water and then one drop, that was all it took, right on my forehead.  I was up faster than I have been in a long time, running back into the house, out to the garage, and turned that water off!!

It was pleasant sleeping after that.

Well, until that period of time, right before dawn, when I would swear to you it gets its coldest.  I wasn’t sleeping too well then.  I wished I’d had my socks on then.  So instead, I curled up in a little ball, snuggled close to Peyton’s warm little body and fleece blanket, and all was better.

Yesterday evening was back to school night.  We knew exactly what we were going to get with Ash’s teacher, and we were ALL very excited about that.  Lynn was a little nervous about her teachers.  There was a last minute switch to her teaching line-up that left my already nervous daughter that much more.  I think some of her fears were put to rest after meeting them.

We came home and had family home evening.  We talked about prayer, that the girls can always go to their Heavenly Father in prayer, whenever they need help.  Even if it is while they are sitting at their desk and need help.  We also talked about the priesthood, how it blesses our lives.  Merrill then gave them each a father’s blessing to start their year off right.

Peyton was so excited, she even got one too.

That is a tradition I cherish.

Then there was last night.

Sleeping (or trying to).

In our own beds.

At a nazi-ish time.

I don’t know who slept worse..  me or them. 

Third grader..  times-tables and cursive?  Really?!  Good heavens, I had to buy her a flash drive as part of her school supplies.

And then there’s the first grader.

I will miss her terribly come 11:30.  She will have lunch, at school.

It is a happy time of life.  It really is all good…

But it sucks that summer is over.

there was this one time, that we went camping, and i wanted to take the bikes, but didn’t have a tow kit, or a bike rack, so i did this..

ratchet tie-down straps and all my muscle/energy/patience and there you have it.  (there are 3 mountain bikes and one bmx with training wheels up there.)

this was the way to start off our week of camping.  (with a lot of fun!!)

driving up the canyon, i realized that i forgot the milk, at home in the fridge.  no big deal, we could buy some at the valley market.  so we drove on.  once we reached the turn-off for snowbasin, about the top of trapper’s loop, i realized that I also left the camping chairs, on the floor in the garage.

so we turned around.

one cannot fathom how completely crushed my children were, especially lynn, who had been talking about this trip for the whole summer..  she was driving me so crazy the day before, I nearly sent her packing, on her bike, with a headlamp, her stuff strapped to her back, and a map.  “we’ll see you there tomorrow!!”

(she was just a little excited.)

after our take two, we eventually got to camp.

(we wish we were still there.)

(like, really bad.)

you can see why:

grandpa got to come along…

lynn loved spending every day she could with sophie.

we all loved playing at the river.

loved cade’s (my nephew) expression…    james and ash.

    

just for you mom!!

     

painting rocks..

playing headbandz and other games.  uno got fierce when merrill was there.

other crafts that involve rocks.

being with our favorite cousins.

talking around the fire.

painting nails, very dirty nails..  and toes..  and feet.

who does she belong to?!  sheesh…

again.. 

my dad.

s’mores.  we (sophie and myself) tried them with caramellows.  i highly recommend it.

along those lines, i would also like to highlight some other camping favorite foods.

-tin foil dinners (or hobo dinners)

-hot dogs (usually all beef, cooked over the fire).

-easy cheese and crackers.

-um, marshmallows..  of course!

and a new one, banana boats (thanks jacks!!).

this is my niece abby.  this was the condition of her face about 90% of each and every day.

isn’t she darling?

ken would tell the girls stories around the campfire each night.  there was one in particular about a cannibalistic doll.  lynn became possessed and chased ken around camp with her little napkin tucked in and a knife and fork.

(she refuses to sleep with her doll anymore.  thanks ken.)

we had plenty of laughs.

this day, levi and ash started using the bike pump, pressed against their skin to make fart sounds.  it was pretty funny.

each and every day there was a dream, one i didn’t want to leave.  maybe because i love it up there with all my family, maybe it’s the simplicity.  maybe it’s because school is supposed to start next week…

either way, i didn’t like coming home so much to the tv, the computer, the phone…

i would seriously take washing my laundry in a small tub, hanging it to dry, and cooking over a fire, over all the crap that we have.

(call me crazy.)

my kids miss their grandparents and cousins.

i miss the simple life, the relaxation.  having two other women to wash faces and feet with every night.

i even kinda miss the mosquitoes and the fragrance of bug repellant…  the screech owl that visited us every night..

kinda.

p.s. i ate an ant.

p.p.s. it was on a dare.

p.p.p.s. my dad was the dare-er.

p.p.p.p.s. so you see, i HAD to do it.

a special moment with my "most special-est" middle child.

today was a fun day.
i had only two children for the bulk of the day instead of my usual three.
so it was just me, the youngest, and the middle.
during our day, ashley asked rather thoughtfully, "mom, is it true that the middle child is the most special-est?"
suppressing a laugh, i answered her in the affirmitive.
"you bet."
there was a little chorus of "yes-es" and fist-pumping from the middle seat (perfect for that  middle child, wouldn't you say?) at my response.
"i knew i was the most special-est!!!"
after a while, she came to me, rather somber again, and asked, "mom, even though i am your most special-est child, because i am the middle child, you still love us all equally, don't you?"
i had to answer yes again.
such a sweetie.  glad she is embracing her middle child role.