We went to church today at my parents ward.  My Dad was speaking in Sacrament, and so we went to hear him speak.  It was nice to be able to listen to his talk.  During his talk he told of a time early in my parents marriage.  It was a story I had never heard before.  It was neat to hear a little bit about my dad when he was younger, newly married, with out kids or grandkids.  I need to hear more of these stories :)

What did you get into???

I think that "What did you get into???"  is a common question for moms to ask.  I know it has been for me this week.  Here are a couple examples.

What did you get into???



Answer : A Stamp



What did you get into???

Answer: A Balloon!

Thanks!

Josh and I were sitting around playing Monopoly (he totally killed me) this afternoon, when my sweet sister-in-law stopped by.  She had brought us dinner because I had posted last week (HERE) how I didn't feel like cooking.  I was completely taken by surprise!  How sweet of her to think of me and make me dinner.  And she didn't just bring the main coarse...  She brought the complete meal!  And it's not like she wasn't busy today.  She went up to Denver with her husband for a Doctor's appointment.  I really feel like it should have been me taking them the meal.  All I can say is "Thank you Mandy!  You are so sweet!"

Who has the right of way?

I went shopping this evening.  And while I was shopping I was reminded of a thought I have had MANY times while shopping.  When you are going down an isle, and going strait, but it crosses another isle, that is also going strait.  Who has the right of way?  With cars there are stop signs or lights.  But not so much at the store... 

Monopoly

I played monopoly with my oldest this afternoon.  I think it might have been the first time we have played it together... It started out well for me.  By the time we had bought all the property, I was the only one with a monopoly.  Not wanting to beat Josh Jr. too bad on our first game, I willingly change cards with him so that we got more monopolies...  I didn't realize at that point just how MUCH money he had!  He had enough money to put hotels on just about all of his properties!  He didn't, but he could have.  We played for a couple hours, going back and forth on who had more money.  But I got a little too cocky, and Josh Jr. ended up slaughtering me!  But it was a lot of fun :)

Higher and Higher

My baby is 13 months old...  And she LOVES to climb!  I mean CLIMB!!!  Each day she seems to climb higher and higher.  It is not uncommon for me to find Myra in the middle of the table.  She LOVES to climb up on the chairs by the computer, and then of course hit buttons on the computer :)  And she LOVES the piano!  She is always trying to get on the bench so she can play.  This morning when she woke from her nap she tried to climb out of bed...  She ended up falling out (I think), because we found her on the floor. 

I'm not sure who that will be...

Catalina loves to keep us on our toes.  She was a little sick the last couple days, and all she did was sleep!  I could tell when she started to feel better today, when she started to talk again :)  Earlier today we had a fun conversation...  Catalina was telling me about her friends from pre-school this last year.

Catalina - When you have a baby, it is your tummy.
Me - That is true.
Catalina - I gonna have a baby when I are older.
Me - After you get married.
Catalina - I'm gonna marry Ty.
Me - Ty moved you know.
Catalina - But he still gonna go to my school.
Me - No he wont, He moved..
Catalina - But he can still go to my school.  I gonna marry him.
Me - OK
Catalina - And I am gonna have a baby.
Me - After you are married.
Catalina -To Ty.
Me - OK.
Catalina - But you will still be my mom.
Me - Yes, I will always be your mom.... Who will be your baby's grandma?
Catalina - I'm not sure who that will be...

Ready for a vacation...

Not where we are going,
but always a fan favorite!

We haven't gone on a trip for a while...  In fact ad a family we haven't gone since before Myra was born.  Josh and I did go on a trip in February/March (thanks again Aunt Jodie for watching the kids).  I have been reading about all the trips my friends have taken on Facebook, and I have to admit I am a little jealous.  I am starting to get an itch to go on a trip...  It doesn't even have to be something BIG.. Just a few days away from reality would work for me...  Sadly the kids go back to school NEXT week!  So I guess a trip this summer is out :(  I guess I will have to just make it work for this fall :)

How can you tell???

We had friends over tonight to play games.  We played a new game tonight that Josh and I had never played before...  It was a ton of fun (even though I don't know the name of the game).  There were 6 of us playing, and out of the 6 there were two "bad" guys (I can't even remember the names of the people).  The spies (bad guys) knew who they were, but know one else knew who was the spies.  As the good guys you had to figure it out and win three out of the five rounds to win...  It was so hard to do!  The 6 of us playing are all honest people, and you naturally trust each other.  So to have to figure out who was the spy was really hard!  But so much fun.  I guess I had better learn the name of the game :)

No you don't have to eat that...

As I have been driving to swim lessons this week I have noticed a sign in a yard of a house that we go by every day...  The sign is for Domino's pizza, and it is offering 1 medium pizza, 1 topping, for $3.99.  That is a great deal, and we LOVE Domino's!  Tonight I didn't feel like cooking (really not just tonight, but tonight I DIDN'T cook).  I called up Domino's, and sure enough the deal was what the sign said.  So we got 4 pizza, that way I wont have to cook lunch tomorrow either :)  When our kids were younger and we would have pizza, they would ask if they had to eat the crust...  Who am I kidding, they still ask.  But when they were younger, we would make them eat the crust...  We actually still do...  Except when it is Domino's.  Now I am "willing" to let them not eat the crust.  Because I LOVE the new crust from Domino's!

Take Two

Tonight the kids and I went to the out door movie night up at the "Shops at Briargate".  We went with a good friend and her kids.  My kids were more excited to go with our friends, than really see the movie...  Because it was "Despicable Me" again!  And if you read my blog from yesterday you would know that we watched it last night at the pool.  I have to say that by the time we got there and got set up I was not in the best of moods (for a couple different reasons).  And I wasn't sure I really wanted to stay.  But we did.  I ended up holding Catalina on my lap for about half of the movie.  It is hard not to enjoy Despicable Me while holding Cat.  She laughed so much during the movie!  She must love Despicable Me.  It was very enjoyable to sit and hold her and enjoy her laughter.  :)

Movie Night

We finally did it tonight!  We were able to have another movie night and show Despicable Me!  I was a little worried that we might end up canceling it again, or even worse, calling it when we were half way through the movie.  But we lucked out, and were able to show the whole movie!  And it was FANTASTIC!  I love the movie anyways, but we had a great turn out!  Not a seat left in the place.  And MANY kids in the pool floating.  Thank goodness the water cooperated with us (been a LONG pool week).  Next movie night is next Monday.  We are showing Tangled!  If you are in Colorado Springs next Monday, and would like to join us, let us know!  It is always fun!  Love movie night!

Catalina - "I love that part!  He's going to kick your butt!"  Talking about when the girls tell Vector that Gru is going to kick his butt!

What is wronge?

It often seems that I have just fallen a sleep when one child or another wakes.  That would be the case for last night.  And what better sound to wake to than a young child screaming bloody murder?  Catalina came running up the stairs (the kids were all sleeping in the movie room) screaming that her leg hurt.  She was followed by Josh Jr.  He wanted to make sure that she was OK.  I tried to calm her down with a drink and some medicine...  She was finally calming down, and we were heading back down stairs when we came across Brooklyn.  She was on her way up the stairs complaining of pain in her leg as well.  We not more than four steps down, when Savannah came around the corner crying of pain in her legs as well!!!  What the heck???  Three kids with pain in their legs???  And now all screaming outside Myra's room!  I can't believe that she slept through it all (and Josh as well).

It took some time to get the younger girls to calm down and go back to sleep.  And sweet Josh Jr. rubbed their feet to help them feel better.

Myra is 13 months

I know you are saying no way.  I am too.  I can't believe that it has been 13 months! I can't imagine our family with out her.  She has her own personality that brings us so much joy.  One fun thing about Myra...  She LOVES cuddle things!  And she loves to wrestle them!  When ever you lay her down in her crib she immediately turns and grabs the closet blanket, and then pulls it up to her face.  This evening as she was getting tired she pulled down one of the older kids swim towels to cuddle with.  Josh went to grab it, and started a wrestling match with her.  She kept trying to wrestle the towel away from Josh.  Grinning big the whole time!  Love her!

Height - 29 1/2 inches
Weight - 18 lbs. 14 oz.

Still blue eyed and red haired :)

You want to cuddle now?

We watched a movie (or two) tonight as a family.  And we watched them down stairs in the movie room, in hopes that it would be cooler.  At different parts of the night, several of the kids wanted to cuddle.  Really?  Now?  When it is THIS hot?  Oh OK, I guess I will take the cuddles...

Where's the wind?

It was hot today!!!  So very hot.  They say it got to 92 degrees today.  I know there are a lot of other places that have it hotter, but Colorado Springs, 92 is HOT.  And there was no rain today.  And not much wind.  And my AC unit doesn't seem to cool off the upstairs of my house...  When the temperature in the house hit 84, I opened windows.  Just having air moving some helped a little.  It was still hot, but at least the air moved.  As I am writing this the local station say it is still 80 out (it is 11:15 pm), and guess what...  My house is still 80!  Man I miss the rain and wind :(

Family Night at Progressive

This evening the girls and I met Josh up at Progressive for a Progressive family night.  The boy decided that they wanted to go to there grandma's house for a sleep over instead of going with us.  They have actually been gone ALL day.  They got to go and see the last Harry Potter movie with their Grandma and Uncle as well (Thanks you guys!).  So tonight we were a family of 6 instead of 8.  It was funny to see how many people who didn't really know Josh comment about our "big" family...  with the 6 of us...  And then to see their reaction to the fact that there are two more to our family...

Any ways.  So tonight Progressive had all kinds of fun stuff for the family.  They had games out to play, a karaoke machine set up, bingo (sad we didn't get a chance to play), and ALL kinds of fun food.  The girls had their fill on popcorn, snowcones, lolly pops, and cotton candy.  They also had a hot dog (which were really good) that we had to get the girls to eat first.  It seemed like every time we turned around Catalina had gone and gotten another cotton candy.  The evening finished up with a movie outside.  We watched Rango.  And it was a beautiful night for a movie outside.  Not too cold, and not too hot.  And no rain :)  They even did a drawing at the end of the movie.  The winner got to take the movie home with them.  Savannah won! 

I'll add pictures tomorrow!

Weeds

My kids love to swim.  But some times they don't remember to help load the car :) As we were leaving the pool today they both forgot to help take things out to the car, and forgot the rule about not fighting...  This led to a UNHAPPY mommy.  Which led to three kids being in big trouble.  I decided that their punishment would be to weed.  I figured since they didn't appreciate what was done for them, that they should do some service for others.  I picked service for their dad and me :)  When Josh got home and we were still weeding he joined in.  He asked me later if it was a chore for the kids or punishment.  I told him punishment.  He then stated it was nice of me to weed with them for their punishment.  I stated that I was weeding for my punishment for yelling at the kids :)

Strike Two!

This last Monday we were suppose to have movie night at the pool...  It was canceled due to weather.  We canceled early, and if we had let it go it probably would have been just fine.  The movie night was rescheduled for tonight...  It was NOT canceled early tonight.  Even when it RAINED hard around 7pm, and the kids had to be out of the water for 45 minutes.  And there were a lot of people excited for the movie night.  Many hung out at the pool during the rain storm, and even more came after the rain stopped.  We even started to set up for the movie...  And then the lightning came back.  After a brief meeting between the two managers, and the four board members on hand, movie night was canceled again :(  We rescheduled for next Monday night.  Lets hope it works out for us!

Gookie Gookie?

You might wonder what "Gookie Gookie" might be.  That would be the "word" you would need to say to get my sweet baby to make her fun new noise!  It kind of sounds like gookie gookie.  And if you say it to Myra, she will do it back.  It is so cute!  She walks around saying it too, but if you want her to do it on comand, you have to say "gookie gookie"!  So cute!  I'm trying to get on video, but you know Myra, and her lack of love for cameras, must not be related to her sister Cat ;)

Was that a flash of lightning???

That is what I thought this afternoon, when there was a bright flash from the living room.  But come to find out, it was just Catalina taking another picture!  I asked her if she was going to be a photographer when she grows up.  She said "NO, I going be a picture taker.  A muckateer, maowmay, picture taker with a kid and a purse.  Cause you can take a purse in the water.  Not our purses, but other purses."  Got to love that girl!  Here are some of her pictures!

Computers!

As I went to get on my computer last night I discovered it wouldn't start...  I didn't worry too much, since the boys have a computer I could use.  This morning when the computer still wouldn't turn I started to worry.  There is a lot of things saved on my computer that I need.  Lots of pool board stuff, but more importantly ALL of the pictures taken in the last 4 and a half years!  And true most have been saved to back up, but not the last 16-17 months worth!  That would be Myra's whole life!  That's when I was panicking.  All of the pictures of Myra gone!

Thanks goodness I have a computer genius's for a father (since I would still be computerless with out him).  He came over this evening and "saved" my pictures.  He even got a computer up and running for us.  But most importantly he "saved" my pictures!  Thanks dad!  You are the best!

Beds

I spent some time today planning a future trip for our family today.  I mapped it out to figure how many miles we would be going and how long it would take to drive there.  I even looked up attractions that we would want to do and priced them out.  But the most frustrating part of this whole ordeal was the hotels.  I know I have 6 kids, and that is a lot of people to fit in one room, but some of the hotel had problems with just 3 kids!  And the hotels are NOT cheap to begin with, but now they want me to get 2 rooms?  Why do I have to pay for a bed for my kid to sleep on in a hotel, when they sleep on the floor (by choice) most of the time when we are home, and they ALL have their own beds???

That darn Cat ;)

Josh is away on a camp out tonight with our oldest...  Brooklyn is at a friend's house for a sleep over...  That means I only have 4 kids tonight :)  Instead of sending them all down stairs to watch a kids movie, I thought that I would spend a little "quality" time with them.  So we watched a movie together!  But we had to wait for Savannah to finish her dinner...  This is how my conversation went with Catalina during that time...

Catalina - turning the fan on and off

Me : Don't touch the fan.

Catalina - touched the fan again
Me : Catalina if you touch the fan again I will send you to bed.
Catalina : But what if you ask me to touch the fan?
Me : Catalina, I wont
Catalina : But what if you do?
Me : I wont
Catalina : But what if you do?
Me : Catalina I wont ask you to touch the fan
Catalina : But what if you do?

Later Catalina wouldn't stop touching Myra (this was after I finally had Ben move the fan to another room).

Me : Catalina stop touching Myra.
Catalina - touches Myra
Me : Catalina if you pick up Myra again I will send you to your room.
Catalina : But what if you ask me to pick her up?
Me : I wont.
Catalina : But what if you do?
Me : Catalina I wont ask you to pick up Myra.
Catalina : But what if she is on the stairs and you ask me to pick her up?
Me : You are not suppose to touch Myra on the stairs.
Catalina : But what if you ask me to?

And so the night went :)

Movie Night out!

The shops at the north end of town put on a movie night in the parking lot on Thursdays in the summer.  I have KNOWN this for sometime, but I always forget until the end of the summer and they are done showing movies...  My sweet friend emailed me a link early in June that had the summer movie schedule.  We didn't go last week to the movie, but we decided to give it a try tonight.  I was a little worried with the weather that it would be canceled.  I was also worried that we would be too cold.  But we still gave it a try.

It turned out great (mostly)!  We got up to the shops by 7:45 (the movie was suppose to start at 8:45).  When we got there it was sprinkling a little.  We still went and set up, finding a great spot to lay out a blanket for the kids to sit on.  There were several booths giving away things (water bottles, pins, free karate for a month), and even a local radio station.  The radio station started doing contest for prizes too, and Josh and Josh Jr. won!  They won 4 dollars at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and a Cheese burger at Champs Bar and Grill!  The karate booth let the kids break boards, and my four oldest enjoyed doing that.  We even ran into friends there that we hadn't seen for a little while.

The time went by quickly, and before you knew it the movie was starting.  The movie they showed tonight was "Shriek, Forever After".  It was pretty cute.  And I think that for the most part the kids really enjoyed it.  It started to spit on us again towards the end of the movie, and I was worried that we would have to make a mad dash to the car, but the rain held off for us to see the end of the movie.

I think the only down part of the night was that Josh got a migraine and couldn't finish the movie.  He had to go lay down in the car.  Poor guy!  He really missed out!

How do you answer?

I have a few kids ;)  And it always amazes me that complete strangers have the gall to ask if I am done having kids.  Really?  You want me to get in a discussion with you about if I am going to have more kids or not?  Do you even know my name?  I even had a lady go so far to ask if I "got that problem fixed yet"! Really?

Books

I love to read.  I think I might have mentioned that before once or twice :)  I also love to watch movies...  I use to be in a book club where we would read a book and then get together and watch the movie.  I LOVED that book club.  What a great reason for a girls night out :)

I have to say though, that there are hardly any movied out there that are better than the book.  Movies just don't do the books justice!  I have been thinking about this for a while, and really I have only come up with one movie that I liked better than the book...  I love the Anne of Green Gables movies!!!  OK not the third one, but the first two movies are great!  I watched them earlier this year woth my kids on snowdays, and I still love them.  After watching the movies again, I started to reread the books...  I didn't get very far.  Don't take wronge.  The books are good, but they did a great job with the movie that I just don't need to read the books.  I am sure that I am missing out on the books, but I have a hard time finishing them because they are not like the movie :)  How often does that happen?

*If anyone in Colorado Springs is interested in doing a book club with me, where you read the book and then get together to watch the movie let me know.  I would love to get one going again.*

It's done!

The big VGRA 4th of July Pool Party is done!  Over!  Finished!  Completed!  Ended...  for a year!  It was a LONG, beautiful, hot,fantastic day!  I have to say that it was the best 4th of July party the pool has had since I have been on the board!  We had an ENORMOUS turn out!  Really!  The rough figures stand at 239 members, 87 guests, plus about 40 board members and their families, and 15 lifeguards.  We are looking at over 360 people at the pool today!  And except for one incident, everyone had a lot of fun!  My oldest three kids swam in races. 

 Brooklyn and Ben took 1st, and Josh Jr. came in a close 2nd for his race.  And I think the boys came in second for the watermelon relay. They won money to the snack bar (always a good thing), and some of them CLEANED up on the money dive!  I think it is safe to say the kids had fun :)  The pool might have even made money this year on the pool party, something it has NEVER done! 

All around great day!  And to end the day we had a great BBQ at Josh's parent's house, were I won at a game of Hearts.  And then Fireworks at Jaimee and Daniel's.  Happy 4th of July!

DId I plan???

I wrote on Friday about ALL the food I picked up at Sams for the pool 4th of July party (you can read it here  http://jandkcase.blogspot.com/2011/07/thats-lot-of-buns.html).  The board had sent out an email to try and get a head count, so we would know how much food to bring...  When I went shopping on Friday it was around 200.  Apparently is has JUMPED in the last two days, because it is now close to 350!  Now we as a board are not so sure we have enough food.  Tomorrow morning one of the board members will be back at Sams at 8am to get a BUNCH more food...  Let's hope it is enough...

This evening as Josh and I were playing games with my sister and parents I remembered that I need to bring Josh's Turkey Fryer.  That is full of oil...   Sorry Josh!  As my parents were leaving I remembered that I was also suppose to bring our large table...  That doesn't fit in Josh's car (he will need the van to bring all the kids).  Luckily my parents had their big suburban and they took it home with them tonight.  It is at this point that you might start to wonder if things were planned for tomorrow.  They are, I just forgot my part of the plan!  I guess I had better go find my to do list and make sure I haven't forgotten anything else :)

Chores

My kids have chores they do each Saturday.  This is not a surprise to them.  They know they have them.  They can pretty much even figure out what chores they have on their own.  There are three sets of chores for my oldest three kids.  And they rotate through them week by week.  Each of the older kids have four chores, plus cleaning their room (Josh Jr. has and extra, which is cleaning his birds' cage).  The chores are not hard.  It is one bathroom for each kid and two rooms to vacuum and a hall or the stairs.  They can get all of their chores done in under an hour (they have done it before), but usually it takes ALL DAY LONG!!!  Like today.  We talked about chores this morning at 9:15.  They all knew what their chores were.  I even offered a prize for the first of the older kids to get their chores done as incentive for a fast chore day...  Sadly it was not to be.  No one had their chores done by lunch, like I had hoped.  In fact no one had them done by 3pm either...  And my slow poke of the day was still finishing her last chore as I was putting dinner on the table...  My question is... Why if you can get your chores done in an hour, would you choose to take 9 hours???  ( hour of being told by mom to go do your chores can not be THAT much fun, trust me it wasn't for me.

Thats a lot of buns!

I went shopping this afternoon.  I was shopping for the 4th of July pool party.  We are hoping for over 200 people to come to the pool on Monday.  That's a lot of food to buy.  Josh Jr. and Brooklyn went with me (thank goodness) to Sams.  We ended up with three carts almost filled full. I purchased 512 buns today!  That would be 304 hot dog buns, and 208 hamburger buns.  I also bought 200 hamburgers (you know to go with the buns), 96 brats, 10 lbs of onions, 12 tomatoes (not sure if I got enough),  two head of lettuce (REALLY don't think I got enough of them), 5 bottles of ketchup, 1 bottle of relish, 1 bottle of mustard (we already had two others), 2 BIG jars of pickles, 216 slices of pre-wrapped cheese (we did not wrapped last year, BIG mistake), 150 little bags of chips, 80 Capri suns, 500 plates, and 3 boxes with 40 assorted different types of ice cream.  I'm sure there was other things, I just can't remember right now.  It was one LONG shopping trip!