megan's late-night!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The smilebox is by Megan...commentary by Mary. I don't know if there's a way to explain how loud 10 ten-year old girls can be unless you've actually heard it. And when they're playing "High School Musical 3 Sing It" the volume only doubles. Did I say we love them?
Tim had an idea last month that each child should have their own late night on evenings when there isn't school the next day. Megan's late night was last week. We have been waiting for some windows to get in so Larry (my brother-in-law) could install them along with new siding. Larry left a message on our voice mail saying the windows were in and he'd be here to start working on our house on Thursday, but we didn't check our voice mail. It wasn't a problem for anyone but Larry, who was spending the night...good thing we didn't have a sleep over!
The plan was this: Tim, Larry, Nate, Jeran, and Joie went to see a movie, get back about the time the late night was ending, and we'd all go to bed. They actually got back about 45 minutes before the late night was scheduled to end, and Tim and Larry were exhausted. Picture this: The two of them fighting to keep eyes open, counting down to 10:00 when I'd take the girls home.
Other highlights of the evening included: 1. Thursday caroling (instead of Christmas caroling)...neighbors loved that one. 2. Ice cream sundaes, complete with whip cream fight. I put all the ingredients for the sundaes in the downstairs kitchen so they could serve themselves. In hindsight, that might not have been the best idea. (Sidenote here--At Megan's 9 year birthday party she wanted to shave balloons, which turned into a shaving cream fight. As I was cleaning up shaving cream, one of the girls said, "Mary, everybody's in the shower..." Turns out they showered with their clothes on, but shaving cream and a shower were interesting activities to explain to parents.) 3. Prank phone calls...someone forgot to tell them that there isn't such a thing as prank calls in the age of cell phones and caller I.D. 4. A little tiff about who got to be in on the prank calling...what's a girl party without a little drama, right? I love that we can have friends here, love that the kids want their friends here, and love that they can have fun. The stories amuse us...usually a little more after we've all had some sleep.

Better Late Than Never

We realize Valentine's Day for the rest of us pales in comparison to Nate's story, but for the sake of catching up on our blog, we're sharing. Tim knows not to send flowers to work. I don't know if I'm necessarily a private person, but I don't like being the center of attention, and receiving flowers at work tends to have that effect. The day before Valentine's Day I was explaining that to a few other co-workers and they agreed with me. I was ready to come home and tell Tim I wasn't the only one who preferred quiet expressions of affection but Tim stole my thunder. I got here to find an entire boquet of roses in a 2 quart camping drink cooler on the dining room table. He said he searched the house for vases and couldn't find any (neither could I, so that mystery is still being solved). It was just different enough to be funny, so I kept them in there instead of putting them in a vase. That night he gave Megan and Joie a rose at their Daddy Daughter Valentine's Dinner for Activity Days. This is a picture of Joie's rose. Her's died first. Megan cared for hers daily, and it lasted the longest. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of mine. However, I do have a letter, written by Tim. I love his letters. He claims to not be a writer, but he made me cry.

The following day (Valentine's Day), I arrived home from work to find "Heart Attack" signs all over the house. Tim left for work a few hours before I came home and had put the girls in charge of Project Heart Attack. They did a great job. There were hearts all over the door, our room, the ceiling, ceiling fan, and every object in our room that had a surface. They exceeded Tim's expectations. The only ones left hanging are the ones on the ceiling fan...up there with all the dust bunnies. I told Megan and Joie if I'd known they were climbing up there I would have given them a duster!

She broke another record!

Joie's new record: 21 minutes flat, start to finish on jobs. That was tonight when she was hurrying to watch a show. She was rushing around the whole time she was sweeping saying, "I'm making a record! I'm making a record!" And she did.

New World Record

Announcing the new world record for doing jobs, held by Joie, age 9 of Sandy, Utah. The record is 7.5 hours, start to finish. The jobs included cleaning room (which didn't start out too horribly dirty), making bed, and unloading and loading dishwasher. On a typical day it takes her 30 minutes. The amazing thing is she was happy most of the time, just killing time. Can anyone beat that?

The Flu

I must have thought to myself at least 50 times through the fall that I needed to get a flu shot. I had great intentions, and if intentions were a vaccine, I would not have been sick last week, and Tim and the kids would not have been sick this week. This was one of those viruses that you only get about once every ten years. This was not one of those viruses where you take ibuprofen and power through. In the 6 days I was sick, I drank warm peppermint tea with honey, warm honey and lemon, took every cold medication imaginable trying to find one that would give some relief, and even though I was in bed most of the time, I got very little sleep. In addition to honey and lemon and peppermint tea, I tried other home remedies. One particularly disgusting remedy was gargling with cayenne pepper and vinegar. I owe this one to my dad. It actually helped a little, so I kept doing it. So far as other family members have become ill, they've turned down my home remedies in favor of cough medicine and ibuprofen.

The last time all of us had "THE flu" was the week of New Year's 2000. Any guesses how we welcomed in this new millenium? I remember sitting there that night looking at my three sick chilren and having the realization that once every 30 or so generations we welcome in a millenium. We happened to be alive during one of those years, and our celebration took place to an orchestra of coughs, sniffles, and the drone of the cold mist humidifier to mark the occasion. If this only happens once every 9 years, we'll stop complaining. Less than a century ago, millions were killed by the flu. I've decided health is a gift you don't realize you have until you don't have it.