Finally Legal!!!

My kids are teeny tiny people. Their mom used to be teeny tiny but that's another story for another day. Oh well. Skinny is over rated. And exercise? One day I will love it. Whatever.

You all know I am a tiny bit overprotective. Paranoid even. I think I stress people out when they have my kids! Sorry about that. Carseats and booster seats are a MUST. Not optional. The law to be able to just wear a seatbelt and not be in a booster is that you have to weigh 80 pounds. When Alyssa turned 12 she was only 60 pounds. At 13 she was 65 pounds. I wondered if I was making the wrong decision by letting her just wear a seatbelt-how humiliating to ride in a booster to young women activities! It has really given me anxiety. I never want to face a situation that could have been prevented by simply being a little more careful. That stresses me out. We've always joked about how funny it would be to send Alyssa to prom with her booster! We laughed really hard-she didn't.

On Christmas day Alyssa stood on her grandma's scale and guess what!!??? Drumroll please....SHE WEIGHS 80 POUNDS!!! We thought this day would never ever ever come. So nice to know she's legal now and that we aren't taking unneccessary risks!

So this is Uncle Corey showing how amazingly strong he is. He can lift Alyssa with only 2 fingers holding each elbow. Not sure if this shows his super power muscles OR if Alyssa was a good choice to demonstrate with. Next time we see him I will have to see if he can do the same thing with me! ;)

What "off track" looks like at our house.....

My kids are creative. Not sure where that came from-must have been Casey. I am the furthest thing from creative. Shaylee loves nothing more than a fun project with the little kids-building huts, making some random craft, anything to have a little fun. I am trying really hard to relax and enjoy the little moments-when these projects are going on things get quite messy. I naturally see the mess but am trying so hard to see the beauty.

A few days ago she took Sawyer & Jaycee in her room with a pile of paper plates, a roll of paper towels, glue, yarn, markers & construction paper. A few hours later we have this under our little Christmas trees upstairs:

They are baby Jesus! They look like a taco but they aren't! He (times 3!) is even in a manger complete with straw.

SO...yesterday was the best. Our living room became an airplane. So funny. The steering wheel really turns (not really sure an airplane has a steering wheel but nobody tell my kids!) and they have an "earpiece" to communicate with the tower.
These are the seats to the airplane-complete with a few passengers. Sawyer is the pilot-Shaylee, Jaycee & my cute nephew Easton are the passengers.
They were super disappointed when I wouldn't serve them lunch on the airplane-it was ramen-not gonna happen! I did laugh and actually left the living room an airplane until today. Good times.

Feeling Appreciated

Does anyone out there know about my diet coke addiction??? Not only do I love diet coke-I love diet coke from The Coke Store aka The Holiday in South Jordan with crushed ice. Being a regular customer is sometimes embarassing-running into everyone there is hilarious-it's just a part of my day. A diet coke from the fridge just isn't the same.

SO....today I went in thinking it would be just like every other day. I was so wrong. You hear about customer appreciation days-I think they went a little far this time. But it made my day. And kept me laughing. I'm still laughing. Hope you find your name on a coke machine somewhere. Makes the "problem" all worth it! ;)

(FYI-they DO NOT KNOW MY NAME!!!! It really was a coiincidence. Let's not make it worse than it is! My friend who is a dental hygienist leaves me messages with the employees to floss my teeth thinking she's funny-and she is-but they really don't know me THAT WELL! I tried to explain to the employees that my name is Joy and how funny it was to me-they didn't even laugh. Oh well.)

Spelling Tests

Way to go Sawyer! 100% on your spelling test is ALWAYS a good thing. The only problem....he spelled his name wrong! ;) Still laughing about it.

What's For Dinner At Your House???

It's been one of those weeks. I hope you moms know what I am talking about. Not gonna bore you with all the excuses HOWEVER let me just say Jaycee has been sick-NOPE-it's not strep-ask my pediatrician-we went there twice this week. It's a virus. I hate that answer. Whatever.

For some reason when a kid is sick I lose focus. The house gets crazy. I hang out in sweats more. Dinner loses it's priority. I know I made enchiladas on Sunday. Can't remember what we had on Monday. On Tuesday we had lemon chicken & rice. Lastnight I made a loaf of banana bread-my sister in law mentioned she made us some-I can't make banana bread. (We were excited to get the real thing from my sister in law today! Love you, Heather!) Sadly-yep-that was our dinner. Casey needs a support group-poor dude. It's 6:15 and I haven't even thought about dinner. But Sawyer has. Here is his request...he handed it to me while I was on the phone:

Translation: Grilled cheese/those puffy cheeto thingys (Chester's Puffcorn-cheese flavored)/diet coke/fry sauce-doesn't everyone eat grilled cheese dipped in fry sauce like Casey & my psycho kids??? SICK! NASTY! WRONG!

Time to get it together. Why do we have to eat dinner every single day? EVERY SINGLE FLIPPIN DAY??? All I can say is that from the looks of things I should be getting a tip. Sawyer thinks I am his waitress.

Costco

SO yesterday I had to go to Costco. I needed dishwasher soap. The only thing I ever use is the Electrasol Tabs-super convenient and they work great. I thought I had another tub of them in my food storage-I always do-somehow I didn't. The only thing I had was liquid dishwasher soap and it seems to be working just fine. Sadly the only coupon I had was for liquid Cascade so I decided to buy that....always up for a new adventure.

I picked up the Cascade and then noticed there was a Kirkland brand. Cascade was $8.99 for 1 bottle but I had a coupon for $2 so that would make the bottle $6.99. HOWEVER the Kirkland dishwasher soap had 2 bottles the exact same size as the Cascade for 9.67ish. Killer deal. Does it work good? Not sure. But it would be nice to have 2 bottles-1 for upstairs and 1 for food storage. Decisions, decisions. Casey always gets mad when I buy cheap stuff-but is Kirkland cheap? It was stressing me out.

I picked up the Cascade. Then put it back and grabbed the Kirkland. Then put it back and grabbed the Cascade. I was driving myself NUTS.

I didn't notice the man in the driveable shopping cart that was trying to drive between me and the dishwasher soap. The bald old man that looked harmless. He all of a sudden gave me a very crusty look and just stared at me. I didn't know what to say so I said, "Are you ok?" His grumpy response as he is STILL STARING AT ME was, "YES! Are You?" The only thing that came to mind was kill him with kindness so I put on the biggest fake smile I could muster and in a super sugary voice said, "I am great! Thanks!" He mumbled "I highly doubt that" and drove past me. He barely missed my toe. I honestly wanted to crash into him with my cart or dump him off his snazzy driveable shopping cart. Jerk.

But I didn't. I did laugh and make fun of him with a few customers who observed the whole thing. I felt like I was in high school. I had to make it crystal clear that he was the jerk-that it was totally normal to be indecisive when you are making a huge purchase like I was-which dishwasher soap to buy was life and death.

If you are heading to Costco-watch out for my friend. Tell him hello. Give him a hug. I wish I could go back and offer to buy him a hot dog and a smoothie for his stress. I hope I never treat someone like that! Life is just too short. I'm sure he was sort of justified. Stay away from me when I shop~I might make you grumpy!

Beautiful is......

Lastnight I picked Shaylee up from Activity Days. Let me just start by saying that Shaylee is awesome. I'm not saying that because I am her mom-she really is-I believe Heavenly Father sent her to me so I can learn from her. She has so much to offer. She is completely selfless. Very thoughtful. She makes birthday banners for everyone in our family on their birthday-she even made one for herself one year. Pathetic-I know. I totally felt like mother of the year that year! She's like a 10 year old social worker. She loves to be a helper to kids at school that have it rough-she's always befriending a foster kid or the handicapped kids. She blows me away. Family Night when Shay is in charge? Watch out-she's over the top. Truly amazing girl.

SO...back to picking her up from Activity Days....here's our conversation:

Shay: "Mom-I love my Activity Day leader. She is so so so beautiful."

Me: "That's cool Shay. She really is pretty."

Shay: "Ya. You are pretty too, mom. But it IS way more important to be pretty on the inside. That's what you are."

Take that.

I already feel like I am looking at a fun house mirror every day-what the crap happened? Little chubby? Gray hair? Hello!? Now I know what my 10 year old thinks....

I still love Shay. I really do. I might just add a few minutes to my morning treadmill time-maybe get a pedicure even though it FREAKS ME OUT to have people (especially ones that don't speak a language I understand) touch my feet-and even though I am SUPER CHEAP about keeping up on my hair color maybe it's time to splurge. Any positive suggestions are welcome.