been busy...

sorry it's been so long. I've been keeping pretty busy. Doing what????

* Christmas preparations. (kind of goes without saying eh?)

* major de-junking project. This would be FANTASTIC - if it were my OWN house, but it's not. My neighbor moved back east, and she is a total HOARDER pack-rat. Her health is not good, and the move got the best of her. they had some trouble with scheduling, and the moving company ended up scheduled to come AFTER the date when they had purchased tickets to fly out. She asked if I would be in charge of letting the movers in. Sounds simple enough right? Ended up being much more than that. We are going to try to get financing to purchase her home (better floor plan than our current home) She agreed to a lower sale price of the home in exchange for us doing the directing of the move, and sorting through TONS AND TONS of stuff to either take ourselves, throw away, or donate to DI. It has been really crazy. Tim and I spent about 4 hour over there on Saturday and finally finished sorting out the garage. Have lots to take to DI, which I hope to do on Tuesday or Wednesday. Now we are starting on the CLEANING part of the job. My mom and dad came over Saturday and helped for about 3 hours. The house looks tons better all ready. coming soon we'll call in someone to clean the carpets, and have most, if not all, the walls painted. I don't think I'll be doing a lot there this week. I'm going to try to focus on Christmas instead. (easier said than done. I really have an inner drive to get it DONE so it isn't hanging over my head. If anyone knows anyone who wants to buy or rent a home in my area - let me know... if we are able to get finacing for this new house, then come January I'll start moving my stuff over there, and we'll list this one for rent and for sale - and just see what come of it... Right now the market just isn't really great for selling. People are startign to buy homes again, but they are all looking for the "short-sale" or "super deal" - so who knows how it will all play out.

* regular day to day stuff.


Not an excitiin post I know, but it is what it is. If I don't get back here before Christmas, hope ya'll have a super good one!

The "Bubble Machine"

On Saturday we went with our friends, Aaron and Holly, to the Festival of Trees. In the kids area, they had a super cool Bubble maker thing. (don't really know what else to call it) Tim got videos of each child's turn. Pretty cool stuff. (I'd love to make one for a primary activity or a birthday party, but truth be told, it will probably never happen...)

So here you go... Enjoy!

In the presence of ROYALTY...

A funny thing happened at Family Home Evening tonight. 4 year old Bryan was teaching the lesson (which is always an adventure in and of itself) and when the "lesson" was over, he was calling on people who wanted to share their testimonies or say anything else. Katrina was raising her hand, and he called on her.

(Katrina) "Bryan, may I bear my testimony?"

(Bryan) "Yes, you may, but you can call me KING Bryan."

I think giving the lesson and being in charge of calling on people went to his head. What do you think?

dead mouse = hunger strike

Aaron went on a self imposed 24 hour hunger strike today. I had success with the mouse trap and the world is now short one mouse. Aaron was in the kitchen when Tim discovered the tripped trap, and he was VERY sad about the whole thing, crying and carrying on about how cute the mouse was and this was just so horrible and blah blah blah... then he went on a hunger strike, saying it just wasn't fair for him to be able to enjoy eating food when the mouse had to be dead.

I sympathized for a few minutes - yes, the mouse was cute, in a mouse sort of way - but NOT IN MY HOUSE, eating my food, and contaminating my food storage! I tried to explain that to Aaron, but his response was simply that he'd rather let the mouse eat ALL the food storage than kill it.

I finally told him that if he wants to spend HIS money to buy the humane traps, then I would use them instead and I would just make sure I drove the mouse far enough away that I could be certain it wouldn't ever come back. So far, no new evidence of more mice, but experience tells me that where there is one mouse, there are usually more, so I'm going to stay vigilant for a bit longer to make sure there's no more lurking around. I'll just make sure Aaron is at school before I check the traps...

EEEWWWWW!!!!!!

The cold weather has apparently sent the mice looking for warmer places to settle down for the winter. Aaron told me the other night that he thought he saw something mouse-like running in the kitchen, but I thought it was his imagination... UNTIL this morning when I found EVIDENCE of the little bugger(s) in my pantry.

HEAR YE HEAR YE MICE - you are NOT welcome in my home!

I went down to the grocery store tonight and bought an arsenal of mice killing weapons. Hoping for quick resolve of the problem! I worked WAY to hard gather my food storage this past year to have the little critters nibbling away at and contaminating all my food! GROSS!!!!

And just so you don't give me a hard time about my methods - like my son Aaron is... I tried the humane way once, catching the mice in a live trap, then hiking up the hill and releasing it. I swear that little mouse beat me back to the house every time. I caught a mouse everyday, until once when I set it free, Jasmine happened to see it and kill it. Never caught another one after that, nor did we find evidence of any more mice, so I figured I must have been catching the same mouse over and over. Not playing that game again...

Sunday Gratitude

OH MY HECK! blogger is being really dumb. for those of you with google reader (or another automatic feed) - I apologize if you keep getting blank posts. I promise I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. It's just that every time I hit enter - it publishes the post. Go figure!

Anyway - back to gratitude.

This is a bit difficult for me tonight, because I've been in a horrible rotten no good very bad mood for the past couple days. (I think it's just hormonal... please please please let it just be hormonal!!! I will DIE if this is a permanent state of mind and part of my personality!) My poor hubby and kids!

Today I am grateful for

* a screaming great deal I got on a Christmas gift that Aaron is going to LOVE! It was a good deal to start with, then Tim talked them down $10 more dollars. WAHOO!!! (don't ask... you have to wait until Christmas)

* a good deal on a Christmas gift that Bryan will love!

* for good friends who were driving up to Layton and took the extra time and effort to pick up the said gift for Bryan. (I found it on KSL.com and really wanted it, but not enough to DRIVE to Layton... THANKS Aaron and Holly)

* for kids that make me smile. Today in the middle of sacrament meeting, someones baby (or maybe it was a toddler, I wasn't really looking) started making a wailing sound. Bryan, in his ever so "soft" PLAYGROUND VOICE announced to Holly, "that sounds like a fire truck." Apparently it carried far enough that it was brought up again in YW's - one of the girls commenting about how funny it was...

* good books. Just finished "Goose Girl" by Shannon Hale and I really enjoyed it. I liked the first book of hers that I read a few years ago, "Princess Academy." I think I may want to buy them - I know Katrina will LOVE them in not too many more years.

* BED. It is still pretty early, (for me at least) and I think I'm going to sign off here and get to bed before 10.

Be-lated Halloween

Around the 1st of October, Tim hauled out the Halloween stuff and decorated the house. In the course of that - out came the costume box and and everyone had fun trying on different costumes, trying to decide what they wanted to be. Here are a few of the "maybes."



And now we come to Halloween night. The FINAL winners are: Bryan as Simba, Katrina as a witch, Aaron as a bat, and Caleb as bat baby...



(obviously having some trouble with the sun coming in through the windows - lets try outside...



"oh yeah mom - this is SO much better - now we are all BLIND!"




and this last picture was added after the fact, since when Aaron saw the post he said, "but Mom, where is the picture where I am jumping in the air? So - HERE is the one with him jumping in the air. Kinda hard to tell, I know, but trust me, he is.



What adorable children I have!