Zoey's New Look

Last week I decided to cut Zoey some bangs. I love this look on her. She's just so cute and her hair was getting so long. I had no intention of cutting it for a really long time. I just wanted it to grow and grow. Well apparently Porter didn't have the same plans for Zoey that I had.

This morning Porter took a pair of scissors to Zoey's hair. Her long, beautiful, flowing hair. Three days before we are scheduled to have family pictures taken. To say I freaked out, would be an understatement.
I chopped off the bottom, but you can still see the lovely alfalfa thing she's got going on up top. I'll have to use a lot of product on it to get it to look decent for the picture. sigh. He really did a number on it.

I didn't kill him, though. I, honestly, was speechless. And I gave him a "mommy guilt trip". I cried and told him that maybe Santa wouldn't be getting him any presents this year. Usually, when I lecture him, which is often, he tries to distract me or change the subject. But today he sat silently, staring at me and then promptly burst into tears the minute I shut the door. I'd like to think it was because he felt so bad about making mommy cry, but I really think it was the Santa thing that caused the tears. Whatever works!

How sad for him that daddy hasn't had his say, yet. I almost feel bad for him. But then I look at Zoey and I get over that pretty quick!

Mountain West Conference Champs!!!!!!!

Congratulations University of Utah Football!!!

They just trounced BYU 48 to 24!!!!! And won the conference! Now we are BCS bowl game bound!

GO UTES!!!!!

Our New Find

Every year I beg/nag Scott into putting Christmas lights up on the house. You all know how I feel about Christmas lights. I LOVE lights. If you've seen my Christmas tree you'll know to the extent I will go to have lots and lots of lights. And every year the most I get on my house is a strand across the top of the garage. Pretty pathetic. Last year, I don't think I got any on my house at all. Scott hates to get on the top of the house. Not that I blame him, really, I wouldn't go up there either! sigh.

So this year I was doing my usual beg/nag routine and came really close to calling one of those lighting companies who will do it for you and spending more money than I really want too, when I happened to be looking at target.com. And on their website they had a handy little product. It's a ladder-less light hanger. It's a telescoping pole designed to hang your lights. So instead of the $260 dollars for the professionals, we spent probably $40 on the pole and the special light holders. YEAH! Course Scott told me I now owe him $100 for the labor, but that's STILL cheaper!

Here's a close up of Scott in action. It was really easy to use and he didn't even have to climb up on the very top of the house, which is the part he loathes and refused to do.
So, now I have lights on my house. Of course, they don't even come close to rivaling the lights on my tree, but at least they are up there. Maybe next year, I can get Scott to do something a little more elaborate. Baby steps........

An Interview With The Bishop

Sunday afternoon, Hali had her baptism interview with the Bishop. The whole walk over to the church Hali was a chattering magpie. The minute the door shut behind us in the Bishop's office, she went mute. The Bishop would ask her a question, that we knew she knew the answer to, and she would just sit there and stare at him. If she did answer a question, it was one word and spoken really softly. Scott and I kept giving her hints and nudging her with our elbows, but she just sat there. The Bishop kept cracking jokes to loosen her up, but she just stared at him, like this was the most painful thing she had ever done. Scott and I were sure the Bishop thought that we hadn't taught her anything. The second we stepped out of the church, I just looked at her and said, "Hali, what was that?" She just looked at me with these big eyes and said, "What?". My kids become suddenly shy at the best times. Jeez.

Fabulous Mantle!

So I was blog surfing this morning and found a link to this woman who made a step by step instruction guide on how to make the most fabulous mantle greenery! I think I just may have to attempt this. You can find it here.

Vinyl Crazy

I've been going a little vinyl crazy lately. I refused for a long time to put them on actual walls, because I just thought I'd repaint too much to keep them up. Reality has set in and I really don't think repainting will be a problem. So I've given into my inner decorator and have been ordering vinyl lettering like crazy! I'm sure that Scott will be staging an intervention soon.

Here is one I just put in Porter's room. LOVE IT!

I had this one custom made. I've wanted to do a "Prophet Wall" for a long time, but never got around to buying the pictures. A couple of months ago we were at the distribution center and I grabbed them while I was there. I finally got around to buying the frames and then got the idea for the wall.

I have a couple more that I don't have pictures of. One is about family and I still have to hang up all the pictures that go around it. The other is for my front door, but I want to paint my front door a different color before I put the vinyl on. I'm also thinking of ordering another for the girls room. What did I tell you: CRAZY!

I Should Have Knocked On Wood.

I ran into a friend of mine the other day that I hadn't seen for a while and got to talking about how busy life is. She mentioned something about me not getting any sleep, because of young kids. I smugly said "Oh, I don't have to get up with kids anymore." I know.

Let the games begin!

Two nights ago, Zoey decided to take her "sniffles" and turn them into the flu. We were up all night with her puking all over the place. And she's still young enough, that she can't really tell us when she's going to throw up. So, yeah, that was fun.

Last night, we went to bed, thinking we were going to get a great night's sleep. Not so much. Regan had an ortho appointment, yesterday. She had one last molar to lose and it was very loose, so the dentist popped it out of her mouth. She kept complaining all evening that it wouldn't stop bleeding. We didn't pay much attention, because it really wasn't bleeding all that bad. At about 2:48 am (yes, I looked) Regan came rushing into our bedroom yelling about how something was wrong. We turned on the light to find the most gigantic blood clot in her mouth! It had to be the size of a nickel. It took us an hour to wash her off and get the bleeding to stop. She had just gotten a rubber band on her braces and it was hooked to the tooth right in front of the one pulled and I think the pressure of the band pulling the tooth away from the empty place just really made it hard for the area to heal.

It occurred to me as Scott and I were trying to get back to sleep, what I had said days earlier. I confessed my sin to Scott, who groaned and muttered, "Thanks a lot."

I really wish I had knocked on wood. I'm not all that superstitious, but I would have liked a little extra ammo against Murphy and his stupid Law's.

It's Great To Be Eight!

Hali is finally EIGHT!! In the Mormon church, eight is a really big age. Eight is when you get baptized into the church. Hali's baptism won't be until December, though, because they only do baptisms at the beginning of every month.

Sunday, Hali's actual birthday, we had family over for dinner and then cake.

Saturday, Hali got to have a friend party. She decided that even though we had already seen the movie, that she wanted to go see High School Musical 3. So she got to invite some friends and the movie place had the audience sing Happy Birthday to her before the movie started.
Scott and I got a kick out of watching these girls sing all the songs and hide their eyes when Troy and Gabriella kiss. We didn't have cake at the party, because the movie is 2 hours long, so we just had Hali open her presents.
After the party I took Hali shopping with her birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa Law. She had so much fun picking out really girly things. She's my shopping diva!

Porter PMS.......Again

I have spent my morning screaming at Porter. He really has been getting better, but I guess he's still got a little left in him. In an earlier post, I described how boys have PMS, too, but instead of getting all emotional, they get destructive.

This morning, Porter pulled Hali's left over birthday cake out of the fridge while I was in the shower. I came downstairs to find cake smeared all over the floor and in my new carpet! And lying next to the cake container was a really large knife that we had used to cut the cake the previous evening. Lovely. I yelled and sent him to his room.

Oh, but that's not all!

After a while I let him out and then got on my computer to make out my grocery list. Again, I came down stairs to find that Porter had decided to make himself and Zoey some peanut butter and HONEY sandwiches. I had crumbled bread, smeared peanut butter and a large deposit (not anywhere near the sandwiches) of honey dumped on my table. I screamed some more, but realized that I was making no impression on him at all. I thought about banning him from the TV, taking away his toys and even spanking him, but really, that wouldn't faze him.
So, I did the worst thing I could possible think of to punish Porter and have him realize that I meant it.

I went to McDonald's and bought myself lunch and bought him NOTHING.

I know, I know. Many of you are calling social services right now, but I was desperate! He cried the whole way home. I think he thought that I was bluffing and I'd actually buy him a Happy Meal when I got there. And truthfully, I almost caved. But then he got this little smile when we drove up to the drive thru and my heart just hardened. So, now I have a really upset child and I couldn't really care less. Little stink.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween seemed to sneak up on me this year. Usually, I'm planning costumes in August. I think that this year has gone really fast and I'm just not keeping up! I just need it to slow down a little bit. Anyway, last year all the activities seemed to be spread out over a couple of days, but this year it all happened in one day. 9 am we had Regan and Hali's Halloween parade at school. Then I dropped Porter off at preschool, had to turn around and pick up the girls at school and drive back to Porter's preschool for his Halloween party! Then, of course, there's trick-or-treating and then off to Dave and Natalie's house for a Halloween party. Whew! It was a long day.

Here are the kids posing out in the front. That white thing in the upper left corner of the picture is a ghost. It's attached to a string and is motion sensered. It moans, laughs evilly, and moves across the string. It was by far the hit of the night. We had little kids scared and parents asking how it worked. We loved it!

Regan was a devil this year.
Hali a mermaid.
Porter was Buzz Lightyear. The first time he saw himself in a mirror, he let out a huge WHOA!
Zoey went trick or treating as Minnie Mouse.
You'll notice in this picture that Zoey is dressed as a ladybug. She wore that costume all day and by 4pm was filthy! Luckily, we had the Minnie mouse dress-up.
The slide was at Porter's preschool. Zoey loved this slide. We had a hard time getting her off.

Here are the kids just goofing off.
We had a great Halloween. The kids have lots of candy and the weather was so warm! On the news, they said that the last time we have had a Halloween so warm was in 1986. I loved it, because I hate to have the kids wear coats over their costumes and it's just not fun going door to door in the snow.