Some Days, I Wish I Were Mean!

I'm going to vent just a little in this post, so if you don't want to read about how somebody annoyed me today, don't read on.
I babysit a 5-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 5 month old on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week.  This week, their dad had to work full time, so I watched them everyday.  Wednesday night, I developed a cold.  My throat hurt Thursday, and it hurt today, so the less I spoke the better.  At the time of this moment, it hurt to talk.  Also, it's getting chilly, so the kids' mom brought a little jumper that you put on the baby and there's a slit where the car seat buckle can go through to make it easier to keep your baby warm while they are in their car seat.  We haven't needed it in the afternoon when I walk the kids to school - until today.  I just so happens that this jumper (I call it a jumper because it has no sleeves.  I don't know what it's really called.  I never had one.) is blue.
While I was watching the kids on playing on the playground before school, I was holding the 5-month-old.  She loves to watch the kids play.  Kaleb loves this little girl, too.  He came up to her, and was trying to make her laugh.  Which isn't hard.  Her laugh is pretty dang cute.  I squatted down, so they could be on the same level, and a woman I didn't know and had never seen before, came up to tell me how cute my baby is.  "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked me.  "She's a girl," I said quietly because it was painful.  Then she says to me, "Don't dress your baby in blue if you want people to know she's a girl!"  I just looked at her like she was nuts, and she walked away, but geesh!  Then, I said to Emily (the baby), "Girls can wear blue, too.  Don't listen to her."  Man, I wish I had a voice, and were meaner because her outfit underneath the jumper was pink!  She had pink sleeves with little flowers all over them sticking out.  I would have pointed out the sleeves to her if I could have.  I hate it when I can't talk.
But where does that woman get off telling me how to dress my baby?  First of all, she's not my baby.  I don't really care if people know she is a girl or not.  People who know her, know she's a girl.  That's all that matters.  Strangers don't need to know her gender.  Second of all girls can wear whatever color they want!  Besides, I don't have any say in what she wears.  If I were her mom, and I had a blue jumper thingy from when the first kid was born (a boy), I wouldn't get a pink one just because I had a girl.  It's in perfectly good condition.  No holes.  A new one just isn't necessary.
It was just annoying.  Having had all boys myself, this has never happened to me before.  I feel better now.  This is why blogging is therapeutic.

Let's Pretend It's Sunday

Because that's when I was going to type up this post.
Kaleb was sitting on my lap in church today, and it was time for the sacrament.  He was being a little bit rowdy, so I held him close, and whispered in his ear, "It's sacrament time.  Who do we think about when it is time for the sacrament?"  He said, "Heavenly Father!"  "Yes, let's think about Heavenly Father."  But he doesn't keep his thoughts to himself.  Oh, no.  He's still 5.  They don't do that.  He says, "God is bigger than dad."  I said, "Oh, really?  So, he's like 9 feet tall?"  "Yeah.  He is 500 million billion big!  A giant is 150,000, and God is bigger than a giant!  He is bigger than the church or the temple!"  I think he would have gone on, but Kurtis turns to him at this point, and says, "Ssshhh!"  He was starting to get louder than a whisper at that point, so it was justified.  But I thought it was cute.

Argyle Love

If you don't know I love shoes by now, you haven't been reading this blog enough.  But I am also really picky about them too.  So my favorite pair of shoes (the ones above) have worn out.  I'm pretty sad about it too, because when you find a pair of shoes you really love you want to wear them forever.  Maybe that's what heaven is like.  I will miss that argyle print, and enjoying the fact that I create a fashion foe-paw (No, I don't know how to spell it, so I did it phonetically.  Get over it.) every time I wear my striped socks with them.  It's super funny to me.  The bottom of my shoe looks like this:

 And water gets in.  So not fun.  I hate the way it feels when I can feel the liquid seeping in, getting my sock just a little bit wet. Blech.  So I have been looking online for a replacement.  I started where I got them.  Payless.  I know.  I usually hate all of their shoes.  Once in awhile I will find something, but usually I just leave disappointed.  I found a pair that were quite similar, and I got excited.  I was going to be able to have the same pair - only new!  Except for one thing.  See if you can see the difference:

Yep.  Those are elastic bands across the shoe rather than laces.  I am a big girl now.  I know how to tie my shoes. All. By. Myself.  The hunt continues...

Oh My Heck!

Today, Riley is eight years old!  Oh my heck!  It's awesome.  He came to me this morning and said, "Mom, I was trying to tell Kaleb something and he interrupted me!  He's ruined my birthday!"  It wasn't even eight o'clock yet!  Oh, man.  What would the rest of his day be like?  He went to school packed with the treats I put together for his class.  When Tyler, Lydia, and Emily's mom came to pick them up, she asked Riley if he was having a good birthday so far today.  He shook his head and said, "At school, there were these girls who teased me."  He cracks me up.  Everything is the end of the world sometimes.  But the rest of his day has been pretty stellar.  He finished his homework, and got to play the computer.  When Kurtis got home, we went to IHOP for dinner.  When Zach turned eight, we took him to IHOP for breakfast on his birthday.  Riley wanted to do that, too.  We explained to Riley that Zach's birthday was on a Saturday that year, and that's why we got to go for breakfast, but we could go for dinner and they would still have pancakes.  That was acceptable to him.  Thank goodness, because I had to work today.  I usually work on Tuesdays, but Zach had to get spacers yesterday, so we switched.  Any way, after IHOP, we tried to go to our local bakery for some cupcakes, but they closed at seven.  We went to the grocery store and got some donuts for breakfast tomorrow (no school because of UEA!), and some cupcakes for his special day!  He is still up and having fun with his brothers.  I'm so glad today was awesome.  We're not having a party because he will get one on his baptism day instead.  Two parties is just too much work!

His treat for his classmates.  I know.  I'm awesome.

 Here he is reading the card Grandma Nancy sent him.

 That's the card I made him, and then made everybody sign at gun point.

 He was asking why we skipped a number in the set we got him.  Because it wasn't there.

His other gifts were a cards from Great Grandma Day and Great Grandma and Grandpa Sharp with money in them.  Grandma Nancy also got Riley his scout uniform and book.  He's very excited to go to scouts.

 This is Riley's favorite series of books.  He wants to collect them all.

 I think he's having a good day.

 I have weird kids.

 His birthday treat courtesy of IHOP.

 He chose the Halloween cupcakes.  Not the ones with Happy Birthday stuff on them.  He's totally my son.

 It was really hard, but he blew out his candle! ;)

 Then, of course, he smashed his ring into his cupcake.  It's just what boys do.  They really can't help it.

 

These are the various rings that were decorating the cupcakes.  I chose a witch.

Metal Mouth!

Today, Zachary got spacers on his teeth.  Apparently, his arch is more triangular than round, so this will round it out.  Hopefully after this, he won't need braces.  But he now has a mouth full of metal!  My poor kid.  He did a really good job while he was in the chair.  They numbed him up a little, and then set to work fixing the appliance to his teeth.  I forgot to bring my book, so I leafed through the Halloween issue of Martha Stewart Living while I was there.  It made me really happy inside.  The September issue about decorating bored me.  I thought there would be more ideas, but then I found October's issue.  I want it.  Halloween gives me joy.  It just does.  It took them about 45 minutes to fix that thing to his teeth.  Now, I get to tighten it every three days.  I got a pretty cool looking tool to do it with, too.  I can't wait for Friday!  Muwahahahah!  I feel bad for him, though.  He can't have a lot of the candy he is going to get while trick-or-treating.  No skittles, starbursts, hard caramels, etc.  I am bummed for him.  But I suppose I will just have to sacrifice, and eat them for him.  It will be hard, but I think I can do it.  They did say he could have twix and milky way, though.  I will have to figure out a way to weasel those away from him, and into my bucket instead.

He Sooo Does NOT Know Me Very Well!

Tuesday, I got a call from our Bishop's executive secretary.  The Bishop wanted to meet with me.  This always freaks me out.  I feel like a naughty kid whose been called into the Principal's office.  "What did I do!?" is always the first thing to enter my head.  He just wanted to ask me to volunteer to help out the ward choir director.  Our numbers are dwindling.  But the thing about the LDS church is that we all volunteer our time for the positions in our ward, but we call them "Callings".  The person in charge is supposed to pray to Heavenly Father for inspiration about who to put in each position.  So because it comes from God, we are taught you should always accept your calling because that's what God wants you to do.  With that in mind, let me go on.
So the bishop says to me, "This is a calling I think you are really going to enjoy."  And he goes on to explain that our ward chorister needs to be able to focus on the music side of her calling, and they would like me to be the one who calls people and asks them to come to choir practice, co-ordinates when and where it is, and all that business.  Why in the freaking world would any one think that I would ENJOY that!?  I used to sell Mary Kay Cosmetics.  They wanted me to call  people, too.  I don't sell Mary Kay any more.  At least I still get to be on the Activities Committee.  Here's my latest poster that I finished this morning:

The spiders and bats are dangling from the witches hats with black thread because I couldn't find my white thread.  Oh well.  It turned out really, really cute.  I told Kurtis I wasn't sure I liked the background, but he said it looked art deco.  So I thought, well, if it's art, then I won't change it! ;)  The committee chairperson loved it, so I am happy. :D

This Post Was So Much More Interesting In My Head

Today, as I was walking Kaleb to school, he says to me, "Mom?  Would you come walk home from school with me?"  I said, "Why?  Don't you like walking home with your brothers?"  "No.  They are not nice.  They yell at me and Tyler.  When Tyler runs ahead of us, Riley yells, 'Tyler, get back here immediately!'"  Usually I don't walk home with the boys.  I just let them do their thing.  But this seemed important to Kaleb, so I said I would walk home with him.  As we were walking home, they asked if I had put up the Halloween decorations.  I said I was going to put them up today.  Fridays are early out for my kids, so I hadn't gotten to it by the time I had to walk to the school to pick up the boys.  I told them I hadn't gotten to it yet, and that we still needed to make some more cookies because Zach ate the last of the oreos I made Sunday.  Tyler said, "Oooh!  Halloween cookies?  Those are yummy!"  I said, "No.  I'm just going to make regular chocolate chip cookies."  Then Kaleb suggested we make frosting cookies.  I am almost out of frosting, and don't have enough for sugar cookies, but I said, we could dye the chocolate chip cookies orange.  They thought this was a brilliant idea.  Kaleb also wanted to put sprinkles on them, but I said no.  I also nixed the dying of the cookies green.  I said, "Orange is for Halloween.  At Christmas we can dye them red or green."  It was 91 degrees today.  I think I want to move somewhere where fall is an actual season.  You know, because it is my favorite and all.  I'd like to experience it.  I bet it's going to snow soon.

 

Here is my orange cookie batter.

 

 I should be a food photographer.  I'm getting pretty good at it. ;)

I took these out of the oven, and Kaleb said, "Those aren't orange!"  Apparently the orange wasn't as dark once they were cooked. :P

 While the cookies were baking, I decorated for Halloween.

I love my Halloween tree!  I don't know if I blogged about this last year, and I am too lazy to find out, but I got this on sale for 75% off after Halloween last year!  I'm excited to finally get to display it! :D