The last remaining warmth of summer...

Monday was such a nice day, with a high near 90 degrees. The kids, wanting to enjoy and squeeze out every ounce of summer left, played in the yard all afternoon and evening, until finally it was too dark. Although I am looking forward to the nice chill fall brings, I am also sad to see summer go, especially when the kids have had such a fun time enjoying the simple pleasures of being in our own back yard.

Katie learned to ride a scooter this summer. It was pink, it had princess on it, so it must be hers.
She is really quite good.

Can't you just see the speed with which this child rides the trike? It amazing the trike and the princess scooter have not collided yet.... (Don't ask about the gloves, I have no idea.)

Dora the Explorer

It will only be a matter of time before my two year old will be speaking Spanish. You see she has a new idol in her life, Dora the Explorer. Every day its "I wana watch Dora!" As in, you had better find it for me right NOW. I give in, plus my satellite dish system seems to show endless amounts of Dora.

Well last night Mark was playing with a paper airplane, flying it all around the house. During a particular landing he got distracted and Katie picked up the airplane. In one hand she had the paper airplane and in the other hand she had her Dora doll. (Quite frankly I think she picked up the airplane to antagonize Mark more than anything else...) Soon Mark realized Katie had his airplane and demanded it back. Realizing that this was making Mark quiet upset, and wanting to push his buttons even further, Katie offered the Dora doll rather than the return of the airplane. Mark replied full of vim and vigor, "I don't want Dora, I graduated from watching that!"

So although Dora has a hold on my two year old, apparently she has lost her magic on the five year old. (FYI paper airplane was returned in tacked, although Katie was NOT happy about having to give it up.)

No whit, charm or mirth....

There will be no witty parlay from me to day. No charm of my children's antics, no mirth at the comedy of my life, you see I am a bit under the weather.

It began about a week ago, on a night when I could not shut off my brain and sleep. The next day I felt weak and tired, and by evening I had a sore throat. (common occurrence when I have had insufficient rest) By the following day I was in full blown sick mode. Watery eyes, runny nose, scratchy throat, and sneezing. No fever or aches, which leads me to question do I have a cold or have I developed fall allergies?

In either case I feel yucky, physically and emotionally. Its hard to be witty, charming or mirthful when you feel like crap, and want to lay on the couch, under a blanket watching really bad TV. Will be seeking drugs, soon.

Swiss Days

Labor Day weekend is Swiss Days in Utah. They have a big festival in Midway and celebrate everything Swiss. As part of the festival they have vendor booths with handmade crafts. Now I am going to tell you a little secret, I am not nearly as creative as you think, but I am really good at stealing other people's ideas, and making them my own...shush...don't tell... So armed with my camera I hit Swiss Days and walked out with pictures of cool things.

There is a very good chance at some point in the future you will see posted on my blog the "Tiffany" version of many of these fine items....

Doesn't everyone have a room like this?

Everyone has one, everyone is embarrassed that they have one, but they do exist. What is it? The junk room, or junk area, or junk drawer. Basically a place where random items that might have value are kept, and usually not kept in an orderly manner. For me it is a section of my storage room.

Here is how it works, over the course of a year, or in this case it was about 18 months, I allowed junk to pile up. Things, items, and valuables were randomly placed in the junk room. Many of which should have just been discarded or given to the Dessert Industries to begin with. Now normally I am a very clean an organized person, but not when it comes to my junk room. See I can throw stuff in there and shut the door, and pretend it does not exist. (Its called denial, I am very good at it!) Finally it reaches critical mass, which as you can see here, means there is no space left on the floor. Its time to take action.

Action taken. Now time for more stuff....

My personal motto.

I have had this poster since law school, it came from a calendar I received as a gift. I hung it at my assigned study desk in law school, and since then it has found residence with me at the various houses I have lived in. Currently it hangs in my laundry/sewing room.

I love the message. So often in life we get hung up on wanting to change things that are not within our control. Our job is to realize what we can control, which quite frankly is very little, and set aside those things and people that are beyond our ability to control. This poster reminds me to look forward at the things that lay ahead, and not what is in the past.

After all the road ahead is can be filled with new paths, new people and new friends, all awaiting our arrival.

Ahoy, maties....

Utah County has a new family friendly attraction, called Pirate Island. (Think, Chucky Cheese, only better food, and cleaner, but only because it is newer...) It is a restaurant, gift shop and of course fun arcade games. We bravely made our pilgrimage to Pirate Island on a Saturday for lunch, knowing full well that we were probably embarking on about two hours of parenting hell, all for the sake of our children.....

Here is Mark in his finest pirate attire. As we were leaving the house Mark said, "Let's set sail for Pirate Island!" While we were there Mark spoke "pirate" to our waiter. Now you might ask, how does my Thomas loving boy know pirate? Well the day before in school they spoke pirate in honor of national speak like a pirate day. Oddly enough I don't recall that from my time in elementary school...

Lauren and Katie with drinks, patiently waiting for the food. We ordered pizza and an appetizer of onion rings. The onion rings were some of the best onion rings I have ever eaten in my life. I would go back just for the onion rings! The pizza.....well it was definitely a cut above Chucky Cheese, which is not saying much seeing as how I think Chucky Cheese pizza tastes like cardboard, but it was not the worst pizza I have ever eaten. It was heavy on cheese and light on sauce. Personally I prefer more sauce to cheese.

After lunch it was on to arcade games, with the goal to win as many tickets as possible to be redeemed for prizes.

Here is Mark taking his turn.

Lauren found herself a motorcycle to ride. It was a really cool game, the motorcycle tilted side to side, so you could really get the feel of riding one, and I thought it was the only safe way to ride a motorcycle.

I do believe we will be voyaging to Pirate Island again...Arrrrrrggggggg.

Why am I not skinny?

Why am I not skinny? I really want to know the answer to this question! By all accounts when you look at may daily activity, I should be rail thin, so what is the problem?

My "shift" starts between 7:00 -7:30a.m. when either Mark or Katie wakes me up. Then begins our morning routine. In the space of just shortly over an hour, I shower and get dressed for the day, which includes hair and makeup, I feed three children breakfast, and give three children a bath, and get them dressed, which includes hair for two girls. In order to be efficient we have a routine, the large bath tub in my bathroom gets filled, Mark is the first to get in and out, followed by Katie and Lauren. Then if it is a school day, its off to school. Otherwise its morning activities, which generally consist of mommy mediating all toy disputes, getting drinks and snacks, cleaning up messes, and following children around the house to limit the damage.

Now mind you my house has three floors, so there is a LOT of going up and down the stairs, plus the square footage of my house....well lets just say, its a bit larger than most homes. I have a lot of territory to cover.

Of course there are the things I have to do around the house, such as laundry, vacuuming, yard work etc. Rarely do I get a moment to just sit down. As soon as I do, one of my three children, demands something from me. Plus if I do sit down it becomes a tug-of-war between Katie and Mark for my lap space and lovin, which usually ends in an argument of whose mommy I am.

If I am lucky I can get a nap for an hour or so in the afternoon while Katie is taking her nap, and Mark is watching a movie.

By late afternoon, it time to pick kids up from school, deliver kids to activities, make dinner and homework. In addition to cleaning up after dinner, and doing a sweep through the house prior to bed to clean up all the toys that have managed to grow legs and leave their safe basement abode.

Finally at 9:00 p.m. I tell the kids that mommy is off the clock, and its time for bed. Now its time for me to do the work that the State of Utah pays me for!

So I am wondering with all that running, going up and down stairs, bending and picking up, scrubbing and vacuuming, why am I not skinny?

Don't you wish you were MY sister?

As many of you know I have been on a craft binge lately. Crafting has reached new heights of being out of control. Well I only have so much wall space in my house so I had to expand to a new house, and I decided that Arianne's walls needed my attention. (I am not forgetting Ciarran, but until she recently moved, she had NO wall space in her apartment.) In honor of my cute niece, and soon to be second cute niece, I made pink and black items for Kallie's room, which will also be the room of her new, yet to be named, sister. The color scheme was Arianne's choice, I just followed suit.

The original intent of the magnet board was for Arianne to attach ribbon to it to hang Kallie's hair bows. Apparently Kallie as too many hair bows, so its being used to stick up pictures of her cousins, which is just fine with me. I happen to have an affinity for Kallie's cousins. The star is a metal star like the one I did for Lauren's room. Finally the square object you see is a box. I bought a paper marche box and covered with with scrapbook paper and sealed it with Mod Podge. (Yes I am a Mod Podge junkie.)

Its good to be my sister!

Where does the Princess sleep?

The Princess, i.e. Katie, has official announced she is a big girl, no more baby for this girl. So it was time to put together a big girl room that has been waiting for Katie to occupy it. It is a room formerly occupied by Lauren prior to her room upgrade last year.

This was my inspiration. When Katie was born, Lindsey made this quilt for Katie, but let me chose the fabric. During my pregnancy, I became obsessed with the color orange and have not quite gotten over it. So I thought an orange and pink room would be perfect, plus it would be different from Lauren whose room in green and pink.

This is her bulletin board, for hanging all sorts of "treasures."

Here are some cute decorations for her book shelves. (Note the flowers, Lauren painted the orange and pink on the flowers, and then I covered them with scrapbook paper.)

Of course she had to have a shelf! (Arianne did the letters when Katie was born.)

Finally her bed. The princess crown was left over from Lauren's occupancy of the room. I cut the orange and pink flowers out with my Cricket which cuts vinyl, and simply stuck them on the wall. They were the easiest part of the whole redecorating project.

I got everything ready and put the whole room together while Katie was taking a nap. Her eyes got big with excitement when she saw her room. The only problem, she did not get the message that the Princess sleeps here, because she refused to sleep in her new room. For right now she still wants to sleep in the crib, which is in the alcove off of my room. I guess there is a little bit of "baby" left after all....

Dichotomy

Is is fall? Is it winter? Is it Halloween? Is it Christmas? Perhaps its "fallter?"

Yes, its true I left my Christmas tree up. Its my favorite and I could not stand to take in down in January. It has not looked to terribly out of place until now....

Get Smart?

On Saturday Lauren and Mark decided they were spies/undercover agents and set about solving all the mysteries that abound in my house. Of course most of the mysteries involved Halloween conspiracy theories.

Mark began the adventure by saying "There is a giant spider in the temple of Halloween. I have to kill it." I instructed him to go and kill said spider, and he returned and reported "I am done with my mission, I killed the spider."

This is Mark's attempt at spy wear, not very Maxwell Smart. Personally I think he looks a little like the uni-bomber...., either that or he is ready to rob a bank...
Lauren the ever stylish "Agent 99" Note the ear piece in her ear, a necessary requirement for all good spies.

Karate

Mark is not really a team sport sort of a guy. He is a rugged individualist, who marches to his own drum. In light of that I thought the sport of karate might just be up his ally. After all it involved kicking, hitting and punching, along with all sorts of fun grunts. What could be more Mark?

Mark is practicing his punches with his instructor.

Wow, check him out he earned his white belt!
An added side benefit, discipline and focus are a large part of karate.
There is nothing about this sport that I don't like.
For Mark it is a perfect fit.

Family

Newest craft addition to my house. Easy and fun! I purchased unfinished wood blocks, sanded the edges down, painted them black, glued scrapbook paper on the blocks, added letters, and "details."

New family motto.

Enough said....

Fair Warning????

During the first week of kindergarten they do testing to figure out what your child knows and does not know. I signed Mark up for testing on a day when I was scheduled to work, so I would not have to worry about taking Katie with me.

I showed up in my work clothes, which was a black dress, and of course I was accessorized to the hilt, with very cool long necklaces. And don't forget my platform shoes. I brought my binder full of cases thinking I would read a few while Mark was completing his testing.

Apparently I forgot to clear this with the teacher, because she had other plans for me. Upon arrival she had Mark lay down on a large piece of paper, and she drew an outline of him, and then handed the outline to me, pointed to the paints and told me to paint my son. What????? Did I look like I was wearing painting clothes? Did I look like I wanted to paint? Did I look like I had a clue how to paint a life size version of my son? Why was I not warned of this in advance?

So there I sat on the floor of the kindergarten art room, dressed to the nines, painting my son, trying not to get my dress, jewelry, or hair covered in primary colors. I can't even imagine what a site I must have been....

Here is my semi-finished art work. She took a black marker and outlined him, and then cut him out. He is now hanging in the hallway outside his kindergarten classroom.

Its tradition!

Every year on Labor Day weekend we remove the summer decor and bring out the FALL. (Although we wait to decorate the outside until conference weekend, after all we would not want to neighbors to question our sanity even more than they already do...)

It starts with a trip to the storage unit to retrieve all the orange bins.

You can see Lauren is excited!

Katie thought my lantern was a purse, and promptly put it over her shoulder.

Mark found a jack-o-lantern.

I was hardly allowed to touch the tree, it was taken over by three blonde hair, blue eyed kids.

Come stop by, we are seasonally festive!

What do you think?

My sister Ciarran says my girls are ridiculously cute.

I could not agree more. I want to eat their cute faces every day.

The lamp.

This is Lauren's new lamp. I purchased the shade and base at Ikea, and then hot glued gunned the crystals to the bottom and added the ribbon. I think its an improvement, don't you?

Fun with crocs.

Recently we made a trek to the Croc's store in Park City to obtain shoes for Mark and Katie. Mark's feet have been impossible to fit since the day he was born. They are wide and fat. I can't tell you the number of shoes I have bought only to return them after trying to shove Mark's foot into the shoe as if he were one of Cinderella's ugly step sisters with the glass slipper.

The one shoe I have found which fits his feet is the Croc. Its wide, its comfy, and he can get them on and off all by himself, which is an added benefit in my book. I have enjoyed Croc's for Katie, even though she does not have the same foot issues as Mark, because at two years old she is able to get them on and off all by herself.

During our last visit, because we spent such an obscene amount of money, (bad news about these shoes, they are NOT cheap) we were rewarded with an item called the "Croc-a-doodles."

A croc-a-doodle is a kit that contains markers and paints that you can decorate your Croc's with. Good news, you can wear it, enjoy it, and then wash it off.

The kids thought drawing on their Croc's was all sorts of fun, usually prohibited by mommy.

Katie, who is usually my wall artist, working with a new medium.

Mark, intent on getting his design just right.

Lauren, whose designs of course looked professional.

In the year 2019.....

I have seen the future, and it might not be pretty.....

Prior to his kindergarten enrolment, Mark attended pre-school for last two years. He is a VERY smart little boy, but his fine motor skills are very delayed. In the first year of pre-school the teacher and I just assumed he was a boy, and behind. Second year, not much improvement, and with how crazy life was last year, I was in survival mode only. Now when I say he is delayed, I mean the kid can barely draw a straight line, let alone form any letters.

The school noticed the issue during the initial testing for kindergarten and had the occupational therapist test him and discovered his fine motor skills were about at 34 months, and he is 60 months. We did a little occupational therapy over the summer, but what he really needed was for me to work with him every day, and I was trying to muster up the courage to do that, because he can be very difficult to work with, and a lot of times he and I clash. (We are wayyyy tooooo much alike.) Well when the kindergarten teacher tested him last week she was very concerned. She has never had a student as delayed as Mark is, and told me it was going to take significant intervention on my part to bring him up to speed.

After speaking to her last week, I made a re-newed commitment to work with Mark every day. (FYI, Rick is even less patient with him than I am, and admits it.) I decided the best time of day to work with him is after lunch when Katie is down for her nap. Its quiet, he is mellow that time of day and not tired. After dinner he is tired and his patience is not good, which means neither is mine. Its really not difficult because we can only do about 10 minutes since that is about all his attention span will hold. After that he is frustrated and does not want to work with me anymore. (His teacher said I was right on with the 10 minute limit.) We work on drawing straight lines from dot to dot. Both the teacher and I have noticed it is something in his brain that is not communicating with his hands, and we need to connect that pathway.

Since he loves trains and is always begging me to buy him a new train, I told him last week that if he learned to write his name I would get him a train. That was good motivation, and he has been willing to sit down with me every day and work on writing. Tonight we went to Target and he was drooling over the trains he wanted. I again reminded him that if he learns to write his name he get to chose a train. It reaffirmed his motivation to practice writing.

Tuesday I came home from work to find a message on my answering machine that his teacher wanted to meet with me after school. Now mind you we are only in the second week of school....not a good sign when you are already having to meet with the teacher after school. I am afraid, knowing Mark, it is a significant foreshadowing of things to come.... She asked me what I thought about pulling him out of kindergarten and having him work on his skills for another year. I have thought about that, but intellectually and socially he is soooooo ready to go. Her concern, and rightfully so, is that he could get frustrated and discouraged if he sees the kids around him can do all sorts of things he can't. (I have also wondered to myself if he does stay, that at the end of the year he might need to repeat kindergarten, if he is still really delayed in his skills) She knows Mark's pre-school teacher, because the pre-school teacher is also the school's art specialist, and agreed to talk to Diane about Mark.

We decided to watch him for the next few weeks and see how he does. If it is really becoming an issue then I will pull him out, and figure out where to go from there. I am really stressed about bringing Mark's skills up to speed and the commitment it is going to take from me, when life is already feeling overwhelming. I am also stressed about doing what is best for him, and not damaging his sweet little spirit.

The good news for Mark is, he got in the personality line about 5 times, so what he lacks in fine motor skills he makes up for in personality, which as far as life goes, will serve him well, but I know school is going to be a struggle, despite how stinking smart he is. Did I tell you he argues and negotiates with me better than most lawyers I know? There are many days I am counting the minutes until he goes to bed, because it has been verbal warfare with him ALL day long.

Then there is Lauren, whose motto should be "practically perfect in every way" Although she puts wayyyy too much pressure on herself. She reads 165 words per minute, (going into third grade they are happy if they read 100) She is a perfect speller, (clearly she did not get that from me) and just got placed into an advanced math class, where she leaves her class room every day to go to a special math class. (not sure where that comes from?????)

So I have these two dichotomy of children that both live under my roof, and attend the same school...what comes to mind for me is that in 10 years I will be living "Ferris Buller's Day Off" as Mark is charming the school, getting away with everything, and Lauren is mad she played by the rules.....

The sleep over

Lauren and Katie decided to have a sleep over in what will be Katie's new room in about 6 months when I am willing to admit defeat to the crib.

As you can see Katie is giddy with delight at sleeping with her sister.

Matching eye masks were a must, and as many stuffed animals as the bed could reasonably accommodate.

The sleep over lasted about 45 minutes until Lauren and Katie ceased to have a meeting of the minds regarding the lights. Katie wanted lights out, Lauren wanted lights on. Good thing they are in separate rooms and will continue to be in separate rooms....