So busy

I don't really have time to blog but I am looking forward to tomorrow and Friday-I will be home more. I subbed Fri and Mon and half of Tues. I have the usual Halloween run around. But with Kindergarten I get to go to the school 2 times for parties and take Amber some food for one of her classes in between. I got to drive kids to school from seminary this morning. I did Autumn and Hannah's hair this morning for their costumes. Autumn hair needed to be curly all over. She slept in rollers and we curled her hair in ringlets-ish and Hannah has Belle hair. Kylee's hair was done last night. I plan on remembering to take pictures this year-I don't know what happened to me last year. Now I need a shower and to get myself going.

By the way, I got my first call last week from a teacher telling me one of my daughters has been naughty, more like disrespectful in one of her classes. Can you guess who? More on that later.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Crazy can stop now!

This coming week would be somewhat restful if it wasn't for Halloween in the middle of it. I really don't like Halloween much as an adult. I have never liked scary anyway and it is one of those I help my girls indulge in. This year I bought costumes for the little ones we rotate picking from the box of costumes past and fulfilling their imagination but I think I bought 2 of the 3 costumes the little girls did last year and made the other. Santa was memorable. Our current trip brought out the disney this year with one exception. Kylee is Cinderella in her wedding dress from Cinderella 3. I have to add some stuff to the store bought costume. Hannah is Belle-so easy. Autumn wanted to be Peter Pan and wear a Tinkerbell wig. I had a hard time indulging that one and partly because there are not any peter pan costumes or tinkerbell wigs around. And it was just weird. We have done a Pippi Longstocking cheerleader before but Autumn's idea was just weird. So I asked her if she still wanted to be that and she said that or Christine. I had to ask who Christine was-from the Phantom of the Opera. What 9 year old wants to be a character from a broadway musical. It wound up being easy because she wanted a white dress and Fred Meyer had a snow princess dress that works perfectly. I just have to get creative when it comes to curling her hair.

More on the weekend.

Aren't they Cute?

We woke up on saturday with our lawn being "spooned" as Amber called it but it was actually forked. D 3 was on our lawn. Streamers and silly string in the trees, sticky notes on the car and balloons on the car and the house. We replaced the sticky notes with spirit stuff for band now I need to get to the car wash.

Big Band Day

The biggest marching band day of the season. It is D III competition. Capital placed this year WOO HOO! In last weeks competition they did not get best music. This week they got best music out of 6 bands I think in their division. The Auxilary got 3rd place and Capital won 3rd in their division. Even Amber agrees by looking at the pictures that they performed well. Amber is the one to the left in each picture. First one-left of the 3 standing together. On the left podium. in the awards the one with the gold helmet on the left. It was freaking freezing by awards time and it almost started to snow. My sister has an awesome camera. My two cameras would never take pictures that good. You see the top most seats on the other side of the stadium? We were sitting a few rows from the top but we got the best view up there.

The last two pictures aren't great but pretty good considering we were in the nose bleed section of the stadium.

Stats-

4 bedrooms in some state of reorganization
4 cans of different colored paint for one bedroom
5 beds taken apart.
6 beds put together
3 closets rotated
1 new set of bunkbeds
1 old set of bunkbeds sold
3 bedrooms almost in perfectly clean condition
2 bedroom disaster zones (Amber has no excuse)
3 bags of leaves
2 trash cans of tree branches
1 baked cake
3 pans of Chocolate Chip cookies made
4 awards at the latest band Competition on Sat-Best percussion, best visualization, best general effect and 2nd place(?) At least they won something.
2 people finally got their dinner date
Unspecified loads of laundry done with bedding and rugs included
Messy, leaf filled front yard
AND a Disaster zone of a house

5 happy girls

1 tired achy mom

1 very helpful hubby

Boy we got a ton done this weekend

OWW

Maybe if I could take my eye out, my head would stop hurting so bad. I've lost my momentum on the room change because I have been sick and busy for 3 days. Today I can rest. Just a volleyball game afterschool and the usual pickup schedule. I was sick all day long yesterday and worked at the school for 45 minutes early in the morning and had an appointment for me and then an appointment for Kylee to get a tooth pulled. I was miserable and asked Lee Joe if he would take the girls to the school carnival. he said he would. But at 4 everything just kind of went away. I took medicine all day that helped little I took some hours before it decided to just ease up. I made dinner, Lee Joe didn't make it back and I took the kids and felt OK and then as soon as I got home it slowly came back and today I feel the same. HMM-
I am going back to bed. Even though my house looks like it blew up in every room. Right now I don't care.

When Kelsea knows you are taking a picture of her this is what you get


When Kelsea doesn't know you are taking a picture of her this is what you get
These two pictures are from their Faith Quest trip this summer on their hand cart trek day. This was on a video of pictures from the trip the stake watched and got as a sovenir. Above is Amber and her giggle buddy Andrea with Kelsea pretty exhausted and below is how exhausted she really was. She is asleep.

I wish--

I wish I knew a little more about computers so I could figure out why mine is acting so retarded right now. I have a bunch of issues so I can't get all the pictures on the computer right now. And there are so many I want to download.

Amber just got home from her competition in Washington. It is 2:30 in the morning here. They did come home with a trophy. They took 3rd in their division but they didn't make it into finals but they did a great job from the way it sounds.

I am in the middle of a big bedroom over haul and change over project. We filled 3 trash bags full of clothes from the 3 youngest and three trashbags full of trash from Kylee and Autumn's room. Kylee is about to get her own room, Hannah is about to share her room with Autumn, we will move upstairs and Kelsea down into our current room. Amber stays where she is. I was suppose to do this in August. I hope I can find enough time this week to keep it up. So far Kylee and Autumn's room is half empty. What isn't in there is in the family room.

Off to bed.

Well-

I was trying to figure out why I was so bummed about my birthday but last night Lee Joe brought me a dozen roses and two cards in apology because he realized my birthday was a disappointing one. First of all I can't remember the last time Lee Joe got me a dozen roses. I am not kidding when I say it was probably a dozen years ago. They were beautiful.

Having a sunday birthday stinks first of all. Especially when married to a last minute shopper like Lee Joe. All I really wanted on Saturday was to go to dinner but Lee Joe got home too late to take me and 3 schools had their homecoming that night so my favorite restaurant would have been full of teenage kids in formals. He took the kids shopping and it was odd because we wasn't even gone an hour. He suggested I order take out from the olive garden so that is what I did. So I ate my dinner at home with two of the girls trying to mooch off my dinner while I ate it.
Sunday the bishopric gave me a "gift". I got released from nursery and called to be the Mia Maid advisor. As if I wasn't already freaking out from my current state of everything at the moment.
Lee Joe invited my family to dinner and made it. There was a weird glich in the mashed potatoes. They were a little almost like potato soup. But everything else was really good. A friend of mine and her daughter brought by cupcakes that all had different letters on them to spell Happy Birthday Kim. I got money for a monitor and pretty crystal from my mom and Lee Joe and the girls got me an MP3 player. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I really wanted an ipod. I had asked for an Ipod. Lee Joe always does that, I ask for something and he gets me something else. I didn't have to get an ipod and a monitor. If I had wanted an MP3 player I would have had one by now. But the real surprise was in the end that they got me an ice cream cake from baskin robbins. They hid it in the big freezer and I didn't find out about it by accident. My mom or someone usually brings me flowers and I guess Lee Joe remembered that Tuesday and realized he really didn't try that hard for all I do-those are his words not mine. I did go buy my own present in the end. I wasn't picky about the monitor, the cheapest one would do and in the end I found one for $150. So I was sad and he kind of acknowledged that.

I have fixed 7 band uniforms in the last 3 days on top of our craziness. Yesterday was nuts but I made it. Hannah had dance, I needed to grocery shop and did that before and after. Kylee had her first basketball game. Our girls outscored the other team so bad it was time for our girls to stop shooting. Kylee scored one basket and rebounded like her sisters. We made it to Honor Choir very late. Kylee and Autumn are in it. (Autumn may be not so tone deaf after all) It isn't as easy for her though as the other girls. She has several friends and I may be able to get a car pool going-WOO HOO for car pools! Once I dropped the 3 little girls at home I picked up Amber and stopped by a firends house that was in charge of altering the the 30+ uniforms. Glad that wasn't me. She had Amber try on her uniform so she could figre out where to place the cape-by the way it is the home of Amber's admirer -ahhh. Amber came home and said that was so awkward. It wasn't that bad. I sewed until midnight last night.
What I am looking forward too- Marching band is over in 4 weeks, basketball for Kylee is over in 4 weeks, Volleyball is over in 4 1/2 weeks. But then 9th grade basketball starts.
Hannah was paid a very nice compliment after dance yesterday. The teacher said she had very nice dancers feet. She does a very good job. All of my girls have walked on their toes since they started walking. They all still do and so do I. And she is getting Student of the month award today.

The kids are out for 4 days starting tomorrow. And it is conference weekend. Amber will be gone to Washington this week-the source of my busy-ness the past 2 weekends. It feels like a vacation!!! Not really because we are overhauling bedrooms. I will get those pictures up, they are great but I need to shower and get uniforms back to where they belong when I pick of Hannah.

My birthday present

Yesterday was my birthday. I got money from my mom and sister to buy myself a new flat screen moniter for my computer. I found a pretty good one today and now it is like looking at everything with new glasses. It is about to give me a headache by all the crispness of everything but it is still pretty neat. I have loads of pictures to download but I am in the middle of hemming band uniform pants. I needed to give a few fingers a needle break. Maybe that is the actually culprit for the eye strain. More later!

Busy

It's so busy I shouldn't be blogging but Kylee is 11 today! This Sunday she was moody like a teenager. We are on our way to 3 teenagers-EEWwww. We will see if I get a chance to blog until after Sunday. I should have lots of pictures after this week too. Between a hair do for Kylee, Homecoming for Amber, First time marching in uniform this season on Friday, two birthdays, and yeah, we are almost too busy for birthdays. But Kylee is getting a bike. Gotta run and clean and laundry and whatever else shows it's ugly head besides the lawn that hasn't been mowed in 2 weeks.

Poor Hannah

Hannah missed school yesterday. Her throat was really sore. And she was so bummed when she realized she missed getting a 3rd grade buddy. She was so sad all day about it. She went today but her nose was pretty runny and by tonight she is even worse. She may not make it again tomorrow. She loves school. Her teacher really enjoys her. I have to work tomorrow but she may get time with dad. I am in the ERR and I hear there is new girl that is really REALLY difficult. Hopefully I won't have to work with her. I kind of dread days in the ERR. It always depends on the day. Those people don't get paid enough. Most of the kids that were there last year are gone. But they were all kids I liked though.

I may have an update on the teenage soap opera for later but it won't get posted until after the weekend. We have to shop for a homecoming dress this weekend.

I tried to take a power nap at 5 today. Mistake. I went out completely until 6:30 and jumped out of bed thinking the kids weren't up for seminary and school. OOps. They were just not getting dinner. I am surprised I didn't get woke up by someone before that. I guess I needed it but now I should be sleeping so I can get up for school in the morning.

We will see if there is a riot in the house in the morning over the absence of bagels in the house. I have already heard about it before bed. The girls think it is the end of the world because there are no bagels. Apparantly froot loops and waffles are insufficient. Well that is more like snack food not breakfast for me too though. There are no bagels so now they starve I guess.

Save me!

Someone save me from my life!! I read an article about finding joy yesterday I thought it all sounded good and then my day didn't stop at the end of the day I was frustrated. I did something for me again. I had a massage. I have been getting nasty headaches at the back of my neck that painrelievers don't relieve so I was hoping to help that. I visited the tanning salon and had a bad encounter with a different tanning bed I look more like a tomato in places and my behind was in much pain. Kind of funny really, but ouchy. Hannah had her during the day dance class since we are too busy for an evening one right now. Kylee and Autumn started choir so they left for school early and then I had call from Kylee afterschool that basketball was starting. Means trip back to the school in an hour and half. Then I had a call from new visiting teaching companion and we scheduled that. I had been on a note route So now I guess I am not and we sceduled visits-caused me some more anxiety. Then I got a call from my new visiting teachers to schedule appointments in the evenings- I don't like evening appointments because we are too busy! but I scheduled one anyways. We had a lousy dinner so I could leave to Amber's back to school night. I was there awhile with Amber because I couldn't get her home. And then after that I was trying to find lotion to relieve my butt of its flaming on fire feeling. I guess what fueled the frustration was probably the lack of sleep from Hannah waking up at 3:30 with a tummy ache and then throwing up about 5. But she was well enough to go to school when she got up and was fine the rest of the day. She had a bunch of congestion I guess. But she is home today with a sore throat. I have mountains of things to do and I don't like it!! I am blogging in avoidance and the worst thing to have happen right now is my STINKING dishwasher is broken!!! ANd it won't be until this weekend before we get the part! I really hate dishes. I would rather do laundry all day than one load of dishes. But I bought a bunch of paper plates and bowls and cups to buffer the need for dishes.

I forgot to recap the weekend- It was Wade's mission farewell. Darren and Carrie had an Open House on Saturday. We went to that. Just before we got there we found out Grandma Lay was in town. So we saw her and Grandma Leavitt and Kim and Gwen and Andy. Then on Sunday we went to our Sacrament and then their Sacrament to hear Wade speak. He is going to Phoenix Arizona. And then we went to Darren and Carrie's again for dinner and saw Sheila too, and Jared and Michelle and 3 of their 4. I don't know where my camera was so I am sorry-there are no pictures. Grandma Lay stayed with us for the weekend and we did dishes until midnight Saturday.

The rest of this week continues to be busy. I don't like lots of busy. I need to learn how to stop fighting the busy and learn to go with the flow but it hasn't happened yet.
I am still adjusting to the baby being in school and running back and forth all day-this is our week for seminary driving too. Lee Joe is doing that thank goodness. Lee Joe is doing his own business, that is stressful, But he has lots of work right now and we are dealing with our crisis still but that is improving but there are still good days and bad days with that and I plug along and act like all is well to the kids and the rest of the world and that can be tough. But the better days are now outnumbering the bad ones. I suppose that is why the weight of keeping up with the kids, their school and every other distraction is taking its toll. We are working on getting Amber her license and when that happens there will be a little bit of relief but new worries for mom. If it was just a 30 year crisis, I have been going through that since Hannah was 18 months. I have had 2 years of counseling and my big advice from the counselor is to find things that I want to do to take care of me. It is time and has been time for me to take care of me. Now more than ever. I am finally doing things other than going to the store by self. That is about as much me time as I have ever had and I am not a social person to count Relief Society stuff as me time. Doing the stuff I have has taken a lot of courage. I am standing up for my needs and doing some of my wants and finding value in myself and that is probably why the crisis I have been having didn't ruin me completely. Because it could have. So I am going to try find joy like the article said. I will figure it out. I am trying to remind myself how fast this year will fly by. Not that I want it to, but it will. Oh and Kylee's birthday is in a week and mine is in 11 days.

What do you do?

What do you do when you have lost touch with yourself? Try to find out what you have been waiting to do for a long time. I have wanted to try tanning for a long time. And since I didn't spend hardly anytime at the pool this year I don't want to be ghostly white come Christmas. You wouldn't be able to tell me from a snow drift. So I tried it. And my belly got pretty red but the rest of my looks a little the same. But the coolest feeling was when I got done with the 2nd time there I felt I had spolied myself, it was kind of nice to actually feel good about something I did for just me. Plus I am hoping that I get the vitamin D I need to fight off the winter blues this winter. I signed up for an exercise class at the community center. I would have started this week but that class was full so I start in October. I still have a few more ideas to do for me and I am working on fitting them in to my always busy schedule. I have some money from working at the school to invest in it. It is kind of a long slow process trying to figure it out and then having the courage to do something just for you. I guess it would be like that after always sharing your time with somebody as long as I have.

The week got strange with my neighbors father having a heart attack when just their 16 year old son and his grandmother were there. I was at Kelsea's volleyball game so I wasn't there when All the emergency vehicles showed up. Poor Sam gave him CPR but he passed away at the hospital. So we are still trying to help our neighbors.

Kelsea had 2 games and they won both. She played more the 2nd game. I met the "horrible" orchestra teacher. He is a little odd. She is complaining a little less but I am trying to be sure she doesn't wind up being disruptive. Autumn is working at getting her work done faster. With each day she would bring home less and less work. I talked to her teacher and it is Autumn's perfectionism getting in the way. She is working on it. She will spend hours on the homework and not complain and get up early when I tell her it is time for bed and work on it some more.
Kylee is playing violin this year and next year she will be in band. She is enjoying it. Basketball will be starting soon for her.
Amber wasn't asked by her admiring boy to homecoming but we know who he is going to ask and we are both excited for Amber's friend. She is a very sweet friend. Amber may go to the dance with a bunch of her friends and she is happier about that anyway.
Hannah is just lovin school.
The kids were out of school on Friday and that gave us a chance to recover the back yard from all the shed drama and trauma. I found some of my garage floor and the back yard is able to be watered and cared for again. I have a beautiful patio once more. Our Bar-b-q croaked over last weekend though. But anyways things look nice for the moment but the leaves are getting ready to drop so it won't last long.

We broke down and got cell phones for the 2 teenage girls. It has been more and more neccessary with the way things are around here. Kelsea has been begging for one for 2 years now. She is such a kick in the pants. She made her voicemail sound like she is talking to you and then she says leave a message. She got me and she got Amber with it and we had my sister call her and she got her too. The funniest part, and this is so Kelsea-when she called her phone to see if the message worked, she got herself!! I laughed so hard when she told me that! There is never a dull moment with her around.

Here we go!

The "routine" is in full swing. Friday was the first pep band football game. We saw Amber be Drum major for the first time. She likes being bossy! She did good. So cool! We heard a rumor yesterday she may get asked to the homecoming dance by her longtime admiring boy. Here we go! She kind of got a job this weekend. She worked for an ice cream place by us at the park for a thing that was going on there. I don't know if she is going to keep working or not.

All of us have wicked allergies tuning into sinus infections or colds. There is a fire not to far and the smoke is bad.

Lee Joe's shed is in place. The yard is still trying to recover. There are still tree branches everywhere. The girls made a fort out of them and slept in it over the weekend. I need to take more pictures.

Kelsea had her first volleyball game yesterday. They won. She was a little confused when she was first put out but she got to play the last half of the 2nd game and most of the 3rd and she did fine. She is still complaining about the orchestra teacher a little but not so bad. I will get to meet him tonight at the back to school night.

Autumn is bringing homes tons of homework everynight. Kylee had the same teacher last year and that is not typical. She is taking way to much time getting stuff done. She is just slow with her perfectionism.

Off to collect a kindergartner.

SO SAD!!!

There has been a big shed on our back patio where our gazebo has been. Lee Joe had a crane to put in the back yard and that was the only place it could drop it. So there it has sat all summer. It got moved last night. I was sad about the branch it broke on my lilac tree when it got put in the yard. Last night one of the neighbors almost cut the entire tree! It was my most favorite tree in the back yard. But I told Lee Joe he is trying to build a village in the back yard. It is called Recycleville. I will have to take a better picture of the tree later when the sun is shining on that side of the yard. I mourn the loss of most of my lilac tree. And I almost lost the grassy patch next to the sand box because the gazebo has shaded it all summer and it has been impossible to mow and water.

First day of kindergarten

Amber being the in charge drum major.

She gets a podium-wow

What's that noise?

It is almost 10pm and only one child is left still awake. 4 were in bed before 9:30. What a miracle. The youngest LOVES school. The 4th is starting to feel the pressure of 4th grade-she is just slow getting her work done. The 3rd came home sick today-2 calls in two weeks with 2 sick kids already. And she got her violin today. She is taking a year of orchestra and next year she will take band. The 2nd hates her orchestra teacher and wants to quit. She may have to endure a semester at least. No real complaints from seminary like I expected. Orchestra is overriding that one I guess. This is the part where I hate being a parent of teenagers. It is be the bad guy time. And the oldest is exhausted and hates school because of the homework load. But loves being drum major. They have their first football game this weekend.

Lee Joe had all the girls cleaning house on Monday. It soo needed it. It isn't quite there yet but a huge improvement. I was home sick on Sunday some sort of sinus infection/cold /allergy thing. Saturday was a slow day but fine. I finally got the freezer we have been needing. I am trying to stock it up. The lawn got mowed finally.

Has it been a week already?

The week sure ran away with me. Hannah absolutely loves kindergarten. She wishes it was all day long. I only got to feel what it was like at home without her on Friday. I had so much to do on Tues and Weds. Thursday I had an appointment and already got a request to come in and sub. So I did and Hannah got her wish to stay at school all day. But it was so hot outside it was miserable for us both. And during last recess after we sent about 3 or 4 kids in to the nurse, I stepped on a bee and had to go in as well. How silly is that. Thank goodness I am not allergic to that but it still hurt like crazy for awhile. Kelsea missed a half day of school that day. Half the volleyball team caught a cold or something. She wants to quit orchestra because of the new teacher. Ugh. Several 9th graders already have.

Friday I had a terrible time trying to figure out what I needed to do and did not get far at anything. My house is a disaster. And my crisis does continue but I should say it is a big couple issue and not just me.

Saturday Lee Joe finally got around to repairing all the bikes. Amber got 2 flats on Friday. I think we maybe had two bikes that had air in their tires and my bike broke. We must have something like 12 bikes around here in various sizes. Now there are enough bikes for everyone to ride and Hannah has moved up to a larger bike already.

We watched Akeelah and the Bee. It is a very good movie. It has a few 4 letter words in it but it was soo good.

One guppy died today, I think that is the only fish death to report since my last report. Our injured Gourami is doing well.

Sorry Devanie about the weekend. We will have to make it up to you. Thanks for all the love my way. I think I need it right now.

silly fish tales

Yes I have a tremendous preoccupation with the fish. I have been treating all my fish with a broad spectum parasite and bacteria killer. I got a new male guppy over the weekend and 3 cory cats and 3 shrimp that are in my 2nd tank with the one surviving shrimp. The medicine I put in the water has a net and sponge life preserver thing that helps it float above the water. I was looking for the new guppy this morning and finally found it caught in the net! How he did that I don't know but he was alive and it was tricky getting him out. SO then at 11 I was looking at the tank again and was looking for our two biggest new fish. They are dwarf gouramis but they about 3 inches wide and 4 inches long. I couldn't find the biggest guy. He is the biggest fish and I didn't see him anywhere until I saw something sticking out of the plastic hollow tree trunk. He was stuck. He was really really stuck but still alive. I couldn't figure out how to get him out at all. I thought popsicle sticks might help. Hannah and I ate a fudgesicle as fast as we could. I tried with one first and it didn't work and then I tried two to gently grab him and tug gently. He was terribly stuck. I pulled on the back half of his body and he made it out but boy is he bruised and traumatized. He looks awful. I think he was stuck awhile. I don't see how he got there in the first place. But he will be lucky if he survives his recovery.

This morning and late night was so obnoxious. We got a car pool figured out for Kelsea and Amber to get to seminary and school together. I got a call from my friend saying that she is hearing rumors that seminary is at our church rather than the seminary building. She told me that days ago and I talked to someone and then she told me it again. So after 9 last night we are trying to call the people in charge to find out. We never got a call from anyone regarding seminary. No luck so we set our plan to go to the seminary building and check there first. THen Amber gets a call and finds out her zero hour class starts later because of it being the first day of school. Our car pool has to be reconfigured a little. It worked out. Kelsea's ride was late. Lee Joe picked up another boy to be picked up at our house and was about to take them to seminary. Their only problem(Our car pool people) was they had a hard time finding our house in the dark. They took Kelsea and Chris in the end. I took Amber to school when I went to pick up the seminary kids. That worked out fine. Kelsea told me that the three of them from our ward were not on their roll at all. Then I got home to get Kylee and Autumn ready. Hannah's first day is tomorrow. That saved me one more trip to the schools today. So everyone survived their first day that went today. Amber has homework in every class. But she was glad to have opted out of AP history. Her friend has it with the other classes Amber does have and her backpack broke from the weight of her books. I haven't seen Kelsea yet. She has volleyball and is hanging out with friends until then.

I didn't sleep but maybe 2 hours last night so today has been kind of rough. I was in bed but couldn't sleep. I am under some tremendous stress but I still can't say much more, it is just not good at all. When I stay lost in fish and kids I am somewhat all right. But not really. I can't talk about it online or in person. So again I am sorry.