Life Zooming By

My life has been so crazy busy that I want to post it for me so I can remember and keep it as a journal.

• planning a 50th anniversary party for my in-laws
  
• turning 40-big surprise party, going to St. George for the weekend


• setting up a booth at back-to-school night for the PTA Reflections contest


• faculty meeting to discuss Reflections


• piano practice battles


• rescheduling piano lesson because of the battles


• cleaning up diarrhea in Allie's bed at 1:30 in the morning


• cleaning up vomit in Cooper's bed the next night at 2:30 in the morning


• multiple loads of laundry that I wasn't planning on


• making invitations for Maggie's 8th birthday


• making invitations for Maggie's Baptism


• making arrangements for Maggie's Baptism
  
• planning a Hannah Montana Birthday Party for 12 girls
• Making 2 fancy cakes


• setting up a preschool and preparing the years lessons


• writing the Primary Program and assigning appropriate parts to all children in the Primary


• making the seating chart for the Program making sure that all children can be seen


• scanning over 400 pictures so my cousin can make me a dvd
  

...and this and more has all been done in a 2 week time period. My house has been neglected, my children have watched too much T.V., and I need to dote on my husband more. But I love my life, I love my husband, and I love my children. I have to enjoy this moment and giggle while Cooper, Allie, and Miles are playing and racing around the house.

1st Day of School

Today was Maggie's 1st day of 2nd grade! Cooper, Allie, and I walked Maggie to school. She was so excited and as we rounded the corner, she said, "Mom, I am a little nervous." I reassured her it would be great. Coop and Al had fun delivering Maggie and riding in the green wagon. Note to self: wear running shoes and not flip flops when walking to school. My feet hurt a bit when I got home.

My Nature Hunters

We had a fun family day going to the Nature Center. The kids had fun hiking around and seeing the aviary, looking for frogs, bug hunting, etc. We were like the only people there. They had the bald eagle out, so it was fun to learn about her.

My New Chef

I have a new Chef! Maggie has been loving the idea of cooking. She has made pancakes, french toast, tacos, taquitos, scrambled eggs and a few other things without the help of mom. She loves doing it and I love having her do it...it is the mess that I need to teach her how to clean up after she is done.

"39 and Holding" and other things

I have dreaded turning the big "4-0", but when it finally came, it felt just like another day. I didn't get any new wrinkles, I looked the same, and I still felt 25. So, all in all, it wasn't half bad. My family spoiled me rotten. Chris took me out to dinner the night before my birthday. Tony Roma's used to be my birthday place, but they don't have them in Utah any more, so we went to Goodwood BBQ. It was good. I love going on dates with my husband. After our dinner date, Chris took Maggie, Cooper, and Allie shopping for Mommy. Allie does not keep secrets very well and blurted out, "Mommy, I got you a shirt and licorice!" Thank you Allie. Cooper and Maggie kept their surprises a surprise.

On my birthday, I received many phone calls (starting at 7:15 in the morning), emails, cards, flowers, and well-wishers showing up at 6:00 for a birthday bash sponsored by my Chrissy. I was overwhelmed by everyone that participated. Chris did great on getting everything together. A guy from his IT department put a birthday song on their dialer and it called me every minute for 40 minutes singing to me. It was cute the first 5 minutes...but it got to me after 40. It filled up all of my messages in my cell phone and home phone.

Chris gave me a pencil drawing of our kids that is outstanding. It captures all of their personalities and is a treasure. The kids gave me movies, a candle, handwritten card a la Maggie, chocolates, comforter set, licorice and shirts. I made a haul!

Another wonderful gift he gave me was a trip to St. George with 3 of my old roommates, Nikkie, Melinda, and Kristine. They had all secretly planned it with Chris and had it all set up. All I had to do was show up in Salt Lake and the rest was taken care of. It is so fun to get together with friends and pick up where you last left off as if no time has passed in between. We watched movies, went to dinners, slept in late, went to massages, shopped, and just reminisced and caught up on our lives. Fantastic weekend.

The weekend ended up on a sad note. Chris called me as we were getting on the freeway to come home and told me that 5 Focus employees that were going to Guatemala for a humanitarian project that we had done 2 years ago had been in a fatal airplane crash. There was only 1 out of the 5 that survived. I cried a lot on the way home. I knew a few of them. Chris knew them all well. I cried for my husband, I cried for their families, I cried for our family, thanking Heavenly Father that it was not Chris and me. Heavenly Father knows what is to become of our lives here on earth, but it sure makes it hard on us at times.

Hope all is well. Have a great day!

Monet to Strip Tease

Last night I went to the Monet to Picasso exhibit at the U of U Fine Arts Museum. I enjoyed it very much (Thanks Chris for suggesting I go!) I went with 10 women from our ward. There were many pieces there that I really enjoyed (I finally saw the Thinker by Rodin and a few Monet's that I hadn't seen along with many more) and some that I really didn't care for (Picasso was a strange fella.)

While I was gone, Chris stayed home with the kids plus Miles, our nephew. Chris was in the kitchen and Allie said, "Daddy put some music on your ipod and do your dance for Miles." Chris had done a funny dance for the kids while he changed his work clothes into casual clothes on Monday that might be construed as a partial strip-tease. Allie then demonstrated for Miles what Chris had done. I hope it doesn't become her future profession!

Bugs in the Blog

Well, I am working out some of the bugs of my blog...so it is a little different today. Change is good. Right?!

Oops! We did it again...

With no reference to Brittney Spears, we were in a parade again. It was the Roy Days Parade held on August 2nd. Teresa called and asked if we wanted to be on a float with her kids. "Okay," I said and it was a done deal. There has been a lot of negative feedback in our local paper about Roy being the armpit of Weber County as people ride the FrontRunner (train) to Salt Lake. (It sure looks the same to me all the way to Salt Lake.) Well, Teresa gave our float the title "Bee-utify Roy." We decorated it with live flowers, beehives, a bee keeper (Tanah), bees (Miles, Cooper, Grace) and flowers (Allie, Maggie). Of course you need a queen bee (me) to keep the flowers, bees, and beekeeper from falling off the float. Teresa navigated well and I kept the bees from falling off. All turned out "bee-utiful."

Pioneers on Parade

On July 19th, Ogden has a Children's parade to commemorate Pioneer Day. Teresa has invited me the past couple years to join her in it, but this year she was gone. So, I invited Stacy my sister-in-law on the Davidson side to be in it with us. I whipped up some pioneer skirts for the girls and bandanas or Allie said it bananas for the girls and boys. Stacy came in a long denim skirt so I quickly put mine on. I called my sister, Denise, to ask if we had any pioneer ancestors. We did. I made a banner that the kids carried. It said, "Proud Descendants of Isaiah Barkdull Lott. Our Pioneer Heritage." (I spelled Descendants wrong on the banner.) We got there right as it started and the kids had a ball waving to all of the people as they marched down Washington Blvd. Stacy and I joked that we should have put on the banner, "Proud sister wives of the Fundamentalist Church." We kind of looked like it wearing long skirts and tennis shoes."

"We're goin' on a bear hunt..."

Well, I am a sheep right now and thought I would follow suit and start a blog of our own. My friend, Kristine, has said for me to do it and my two sisters-in-law have started one also, so I think I shall do it. So, after figuring it out-or trying to at least (there are some bugs), here it is:

We went to Island Park, Idaho this past week with the Davidson side of our family. We had a great time. We went into Yellowstone hoping to see a bear, but we were satisfied with Elk. We got to see Old Faithful, the Paint Pots, more elk, Biscuit Basin, and some more stuff that I don't remember the names of (which my brother-in-law, Kory, would know). As we were leaving Old Faithful, Allie started crying and said, "Where are the yellow stones?" I tried reasoning with a stubborn 3 year old that it is just a name. Maggie solved the problem by giving Allie a yellow flower and said, "Here is some yellow for you Allie and here is a stone." Allie was satisfied.

We also floated down the Snake River. Our 1 hour float turned into a 3 hour float, or as Jeff, my brother, would have said, "A 6 hour tour." Cooper and Allie ended up in the canoe with Kevin and Stacy's family and we came in about 5 minutes after them. Maggie was with us. (Good thing we have responsible family members taking care of our children for us.)

On this trip, we opted to stay in tents. Maggie wanted to sleep in her own tent, so we borrowed one from Lance and Teresa and set up Maggie's "bedroom." She kept her tent neater than her bedroom. The last night we stayed in Island Park, we slept in my parents' cabin so we wouldn't have to take down camp the day we left. Chris and I slept in a hide-a-bed that night in the cabin that was so uncomfortable, we finally put it away and slept on the floor--well, I slept on the couch with cushions.

We went to Mesa Falls on our way home. They are beautiful and the kids enjoyed the bear, bison, moose, and deer heads in the building at the falls. They also had about 20 pelts to touch and feel of different animals.

Overall, it was a great trip with lots of memories and lots of laundry to do at the end.