Halloween and Politics

Well I think I'm over my bit of Halloween scrooginess. I'm usually way more into it than I was this year, I'm not sure what the heck happened. I was pretty bummed that I had to miss BOTH grownup costume parties, so mabye that was it. We had a really fun time while my mom was here, so that helped and Mark was able to come out with us on Halloween, which he never does so that was good too. The kids had a blast, so thats what counts.

Now on to the Political scrooginess: Warning: soapbox rant ahead!

The election and voting on the propositions have my guts in a knot today (and for the past couple weeks). I don't want to write a novel about it, but lets just say I m not thrilled with McCain at ALL, but Obama is truly scary. I'm so ticked off that McCain was so wimpy as far as not bringing up some issues about his opponent that are SO important and SO wrong. People are so concerned with little things and not looking at the big picture as far as our constitution and what this country's purpose is. People have rights and priveleges so screwed up and backwards. Everything has to be politically correct and fair all the time for everyone, and its ruining our country. Bottom line is that this country is going to hell in a handbasket, whichever candidate wins will determine how fast we get there. If 102 dosen't pass and our state takes the same road as Massachusets has with it, I'm going to have to home school or something which will be really annoying. OK I can't think about it any more its making me sick. ARG! I voted on friday. I got there at 6 am, and was 7th in line. The office opened at 8 and by the time I left at 8:15, there were about 300 people behind me. Crazy.

Mark is gone for the week(basically) and I am so bored, I'm gonna go do some errands today which will hopefully help my mood. Right now its time go get a good workout in and work off some stress. I vow to not watch ANY more news or TV until at least 5 pm tonight. I need Election Detox.

The Latest

Running Update:

So-so. Lisanne and I have been doing it, but our milage is not increasing like it should be. On Saturday I did manage to run an entire 3 mile stretch, so that was promising. I need to know WHY WHY WHY everytime I need to do a distance run it decides to kick up some 20 mph winds directly into my face?? It really makes it a lot harder. Bleh! Today we ran some intervals and we will be doing that 2 of the 3 days, and I think that will really help. Ive started cross-training (lifting, core work, lunges, etc) on the off days too and some of my bloat is leaving since I've tightened up my diet a lot. I predict we will be making big improvements soon if we just stick with it. SOOOO lets hear everyone else's progress reports??


Kid Update: Cade got the priesthood on Sunday, and we had a nice little dinner afterwards with the grandparents and some aunts and uncle. Even Emily came down, YAY!. I can really tell a difference in him, he is feeling much more grown up. I love it! And, if you were following the saga of him in the school, he had a breakthrough day today and came home happy, besides finding some friends (good friends!!) in the neighborhood. Hopefully this stays on the upswing! Prayers are being answered, folks!! :D

Sadie is beside herself with excitement to go to science camp this week. She can't sleep and its all she talks about. I have to go find her a winter coat tomorrow. She is packed 2 days early. Did I mention she is excited?? It's better than Christmas!!

Cooper is coming home lately telling me that a lot of kids in his class drink beer. Niiiice. I'm sure its all a lot of talk trying to impress each other, but I'm gonna have to get to the bottom of this one. Crap.

Wyatt is reading like nobody's business. I love when the whole world suddenly opens up and they can read all the signs, posters, words on the TV, and pretty much any book they choose out of our home kid library. And it is really motivating Dayton to get on board and want to read too. YAY for smartypants's. :D

I'm doing a carpool with some of the little kids in Daytons class for PM kinder now. He loves getting to ride in his friends cars, and loves it even more when they all ride in his. He ADORES school and his teacher.

On the other hand, the have all been driving me a little batty lately with the chattering. Its good, pleasant chatter, but 5 small excited people trying to get your attention all at once is tiring!! I make then wait their turn to talk, but then just knowing that when you are done listening to one, there are 3 or 4 more waiting in line to tell you what they want to be for the next 3 halloweens or what their friend did at school or how they want to buy a mannequin to put their Halloween costume on for a room decoration etc etc I swear my brain wants to short circuit! I realize that this is just a warm-up for the teenage years, and believe me, I don't want them to ever stop sharing all the little tidbits, especially for the jr high and HS years. But seriously, sheesh!! Cade and Wyatt have all the big ideas, Cooper is a little quieter, and Dayton is really starting to chime in with his 2 cents quite often. Sadie is just all girl with the friend drama and wanting me to take her to "get" things all the time. I just love them all to death, how did I get so lucky??

My little guy is not so little anymore...:(

You really think its never going to happen and then one day.......

8 months old.....

15 months old(this was one of those Kiddie Kandids nightmares where he was throwing a tantrum at the mall because he wanted to go in the sports store across the way instead....this was the one and only shot we got





Age 5....



And then you blink and then.....

He turns TWELVE!!!!!!

Steak and Broccoli with Mtn Dew on the side...as per requested

Posing with the new Patriots beanie and TapouT shirt

Rocking out on the new (used but awesome) electric guitar and amp while watching his Pats (finally) win!

Giant Cookie and ice cream .......

And in addition, Mark passed down his grandpa's Ruger 10-22 rifle to Cade when they were out shooting this weekend. Could this kid be more spoiled?????? I guess we just love him a LOT and we can't believe he's so grown up!! He gets the priesthood Sunday, it will be an awesome experience. It does make me feel sort of old, but then again, its exciting to be doing something new besides changing diapers and filling sippy cups. I have a feeling this is the start of another crazy section of the rollercoaster ride of having kids!!!

Love ya Cade, You ROCK!!!!

So AWESOME!! And pics to prove it!!!!!

Can I just have a 15 year old moment here??

It's a good thing that blogging dosen't require hearing, because I think mine is gone! LOL I just got back from the NKOTB concert and it was so incredible!! And Mark is busy at work and I'm all revved up now so I'll just blog about it all. He's probably actually not busy, he's probably just like "Hey, um, actually I'm busy, I can't hear all about it right now" LOL just kidding.

First, I have to update the SYTYCD concert. LOVED IT! It was so fun to take Sadie to her first "concert" and have a GNO. She loved it too. The only dance I wished they had done was Joshua and Katee's Bollywood, but I realize that that they had tons of the good dances and they couldn't do them all. I also could have seen much more of Will, but at least he did the Pas De Deux with Katee(?) wich was one of the best ever. I lOVED Gev, he was hilarious!It really makes me wanting next season to start NOW! Can't we have 2 seasons a year of SYTYCD??

OK next off, it was just really fun to go have so much fun with the girls tonight, I have no clue how we laugh so much, but we do, it's always a scream. I love it so much. But we went to Pei Wei and then headed out. We even splurged on valet parking, that was my first time ever! Our seats were on the floor but pretty far back, but it ended up being better anyway. I LOVED the concert. I thought they didn't seem old or like washed up wannabe's at ALL. They all looked good and sang really good. I'm not just saying that :D About halfway thru the show there was this little round stage thing that looked like it had a covered piano on it and we were hoping for something to happen with that, and wow it sure did. We noticed that they had uncovered it and security had hand picked some hot chicks to go stand by it, so of course we got ourselves over there all sly. We were RIGHT THERE and they came out to the little stage in the middle and did 3 songs, 2 of my favorites from the new CD and the classic Tonight. We were within aout 3-5 feet away that whole time. I was juuuuust out of hand reach but Marcie grabbed Joes hand, I was so excited for her. Marce and Jaimee got some seriously amazing pictures, I can't wait to post them. It was interesting, we got to witness the sneaky exchange of backstage passes from Donnie to an extremely hot girl in her early 20's and he gave her his water bottle. Dang it, I was really thirsty, too! LOL Definite after show hookup going on there. You always hear about it but to see it in action, yeah, "scummy". Jaimee also thought she was seeing Jordan giving the nod and passing something to a different girl, too. I'm sure he did. Icky, but somehow also hot. :D It would be very hard not to be a man slut living that lifestyle, I'm sure. ANYway, the rest of the concert totally rocked, I loved every bit! I have no hearing left and my throat hurts, that means it was AMAZING!!! Here are some of hte awesome pictures. Can you believe how close we were?? I'm going to do a flikr of all of the ones I took and the girls took so if you are a fan (or a closet fan) you can see everything!! :D


I'd say we were pretty darn close!!!

View from our seats........ on our tiptoes