Fun weekend

We had a great time in Thatcher. My mom pampered us, as usual and I got to scrapbookmy brains out on the last night. The kids had a really good time, although Wyatt was a pill every night and the last day. I don't know what the heck was up with him but I wanted to beat him. He seems fine now, so who knows. It was nice to spend some down time with my mom, aunt and sisters. I stayed up late every night talking and scrapping, so I cam home exhausted, but I slept in till 11 this moring for the first time in years. I know, it sounds great, but the aftermath of Sadie and her friend making giant chocolate chip pancakes for everyone(yikes) and the kids having free run of the house is a little scary now. Oh well it was worth it because it felt GREAT. Then Mark and I pooped up the yard with grass seed and steer manure and took the boys out to a late lunch at Fridays. Mark is working 11 grave shifts straight so we won't see much of him for the next 2 weeks or so.

As of now until I go to Montana I will be cleaning and yardworking like a madwoman. I looke dup at my family room fan light and htere are so many cobwebs on it the kids were like "whoah, its like Halloween!!" How horrible is that?? LOL Time to get serious!

Blogger isn't letting me download pics so I'll have to do it later.

Weekly wrap up

Thanks so much guys for your awesome comments. Heres what I worked out. I did call my brother back and told him that I couldn't take her to Thatcher. Yay for backbones!! LOL I told him I could take her fri night and Saturday before I left but that I couldn't take her out of town till tuesday night. He had already made arrangements with my other brother Nick to have him bring her back with him to Chandler on Sunday afternoon. SO I agreed to that compromise, now I'll only have her part of the time. My brother is a really cool guy, he was understanding and wasn't offended, he knows she's a handful and a lot to take on with the other ones I already have. ANYWAY the situation is sort of fixed. Of course, 10 minutes into her being here tonight I was ready to pull my hair out trying to get everyone to calm the freak down. It is 7:30 and they are parked in front of a movie in jammies and blankies with the lights out and being threatened with Ava sleeping in my room instead of with the boys, which is the worst punishment they can possibly imagine, so it is working so far. Also, the first person I have to tell to stop or calm down is going straight to bed first. They are trying really hard. Only 2 more days, one more night of this. I can totally do it.

Today was really nice. In fact, this whole week has been pretty nice. We took the kids bowling on Monday, did projects, and then tonight went to the car wash (Yay finally!) and then I took them to see Underdog at the dollar theater. I really made an effort to do stuff with them and it was fun. They have even been pretty good about doing their chores and helping me keep things all cleaned up all week. It makes me realize how draining and stressful babysitting part time is on me.

So far the haunted gingerbread house is still fully intact. Amazing. BTW Amy I have a lot more baking coming up soon, including a wedding cake so you are welcome to come down and keep me company while I bake my brains out. I also am thinking that a Christmas house might be a fun idea, I might get creative and do a little village or some different shaped things, I'll have to look online. Anybody who wants to help is more than welcome. Hmmmmm....I'm thinking a fun mini-village made of pseudo gingerbread houses (i.e. graham cracker houses) would be a fun project for a neighborhood kid decorating party. Oh-oh I better quit now, this is getting a wee bit out of control!!!

So SPOOOOKY

We had such a fun time today. I decided the other day that I needed to find a project to keep the kids busy this week and get excited about halloween(although we neeed very little help in the excitement area) I trekked on over to Michaels and found some cute little projects. THen I decide to do a real from scratch halloween gingerbread house. I've wanted to do one for about 5 years,and this was finally the year. I quickly realized why people buy the kits. Making gingerbread is a real pain in the butt. Although, the recipe I have says you need two batches to make it work, and I barely needed one, which was good because one of my batches wasn't very good. I would have had enough to make 2 houses had it all turned out. Anyway today was bake, assemble, and decorate day. It was really fun, but a lot of work. I got a cool tree to put with our house, and I think the kids and I did an really good job for our first time. Now when I see those elaborate gingerbread christmas houses, I can really appreciate what it takes to make something like that, no thanks!!

Cade took charge of making our little terracotta pot guys. They were really fun and only a dollar, I may go get some more to take to my moms this weekend for something to do. Cade was cute making all these things, he really got into it.







And about my trip to my moms this weekend.....HUGE bummer now I have to take my neice who is a spaz and encourages my boys to be more crazy than usual. I am SO dissapointed! I really really just wanted to chill out. Now I am going to have to be all disciplinarian and enforer and referee. She is starting to swear a LOT (because it is what she hears) and there are just all sorts of issues. I am so pissed at my brother and especially his psycho ex who just refuse to believe that I have nothing better to do. My older kids are really disapointed that it wont be just us....AGAIN. I should have just said no, but then I feel guilty because I know my brother needs to work, and I feel like she should have as much cousin time and good influence as she can. I am so wanting to call him and say sorry I just can't do it, but I'm just too nice. Mark says I have nobody to blame but myself. If anybody had a suggestion I would be very interested to hear it. :D

VACATION!!

Sort of. I'm off babysitting this week, which stinks from a financial standpoint but the kids were thrilled and it is nice to just chill for a whole week. So far today is a pajama day! Not for much longer, though. I sent Dayton to school with Jill and I"m really thinking of crawling back in bed. It is so hard to not stay up late with Mark. Since he works graves he tried to stay up really late on his days off too and sleep in a little, just so his schedule isn't so messed up all the time. Of course today he took an extra shift, so he had to be up at 4:30 and will get home this afternoon. Our schedule is so wierd sometimes. This weekend after Cades game I am heading out with the kids down to Thatcher to spend conference weekend and monday and Tuesday with my mom and sister. I plan on reading the Twilight series and making cards. I can't WAIT!

Yesterday we took the kids bowling. It was really fun. They were having a blast. I sucked it up and only got 2 strikes. I'm a really bad bowler. I guess if I bowled more than once every 3-5 years that might help. If you havent'seen the new Brunswick XL place over on Warner/Gilbert, it is awesome! It is all clean and spacious and it smells good, which is a first for me! Plus the shoes aren't all old and disgusting. Good times.

I also made it to the gym yesterday for a full body workout and cardio. It felt really good but I'm so out of shape and my intensity SUCKS. I have got to figure my crap out on this. I really need a trainer but can't afford one. I need a a cute guy with big muscles to yell in my face and put me through the ringer 5 times a week. OH well, I'm not giving up. Its all about persistence. I'll keep at it and hopefully my killer instinct will resurface.

I have 1 month till my trip to Montana and I am getting so excited. It's not New York like Caseyann or Paris like Nichole, but at least its something! I get to experience REAL winter, I haven't seen that since I was about 7 years old(Utah dosen't count...its not that cold there) I'm such a cheeseball but I AM getting one of those new FairIsle sweaters from Old Navy to wear there. I'm going to milk it for all I can. LOL