Typical After School Craziness

Here's a typical day with Ashton. He's such a goof ball! He went into the garage and grabbed a 12 pack of Diet Dr Pepper Cherry and took it upon himself to stock up the fridge!

Then he decided he needed to make a Dr. Pepper commercial. Emma took these videos, it's one of their favorite things to do!

Sugar,spice & everything nice....sometimes

Let me preface this with how much I love my girls. It is so much fun to watch them grow and learn. They can be so sweet, helpful, and caring. And then there's the times they aren't so much...

All week Kelsey & Emma have no problem picking out their clothes. They get their outfits together the night before and lay it out so it's all ready. Never a word to me, unless they can't find socks or pants, and they are old enough they don't need help coordinating. But when Sunday morning rolls around and I say, "Go get dressed"...watch out! "I don't have anything to wear", "I don't like that dress, it's itchy", "I wore that skirt last week", "I can't find anything!" So yesterday I was in their closet helping them. Emma picked out her shoes first and asked what dress would go with it, so I grabbed a cute denim dress and told her to get some tights...done! "Um, I don't think tights go with it Mom"....."Yes, they do, go get dressed." She didn't complain much at all.

Kelsey wasn't so easy. She had an excuse for every dress, skirt or blouse I showed her. She had plenty of options! I tried, it didn't work, so I threw my hands up and told her to just pick something, I had myself & 3 other kids to get ready. "Why won't you help me?!" Really....what was I just doing for the last 10 minutes? "Why don't you care?!" Now we're getting dramatic. I said, "Kelsey, I tried to help you. Just get dressed".....to which she replied, "You're bugging me today!" This was a first! I don't think I have heard my kids say something like that before. I could've been angry, or sad. I just thought it was kind of funny, but I didn't let her see that.

Time is precious on Sunday morning, you can't waste it or you'll be late. So I left the room anyway & told her to figure it out. Thirty minutes later it was time to "do hair". I yelled for Kelsey, it was her turn. Low & behold...she was dressed! She some how found something to wear! She looked cute...so I told her she looked cute. I got a real nice rolling of the eyes and sigh from her. Aren't preteens fun? She'll be 11 in June, she's already mature for her age and almost caught up to my 5 ft 1 inch shortness, which is too tall for a 5th grader in my book.

Mallory lately has developed what we call in our house a "princess complex". She is the baby, and she's so stinkin' cute, we all spoil her. She is talking like a 5 year old and gives me her opinion about everything from a pair of shoes she doesn't want to wear to a dinner she doesn't want to eat. In Sacrament meeting yesterday she kept taking her shoes off so she could put them back on. As long as she's quiet and not destroying something, I don't care what she does. Kelsey started to help her with the strap, which made Mallory upset. She threw her shoe down, folded her arms, made a mad face and said, "I hate Christmas!" Kelsey & I tried to not bust out laughing. She has watched "The Grinch" one too many times obviously!

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Maybe my brain was still asleep....maybe my kids were distracting me....maybe because it's Friday the 13th! This morning when I was leaving to take the kids to school (8AM) I backed up too soon, before the garage door was all the way up, and put a real nice dent in it. The kids heard it first. I pulled the car forward a bit, put it in park and stepped out to look at it. My first thought? Jared's gonna kill me. Then I said out loud to the kids...."Dad's going to kill me!" I hurried into the house to tell him the bad news....better sooner than later. He was already at work in his office. Of course he didn't actually kill me, but maybe if looks could kill...

We called a guy Jack said was reasonable, he'll be here around 3:00 today. The door won't shut, the bottom wheel came off the track, it put a small dent in my car.....ugh!! I am more mad at myself than Jared ever could be. He reacted better than I thought he would. I must have left my brain in bed this morning!

Little Artists

Lately Conner and Mallory have been little artists! They sit together at the table and color for a large portion of the day. More often than not, it ends up on their faces, hands, arms and clothes. What did mother's do before washable markers? I love it! It's always nice to see the kids entertain themselves and turn the tv off.

Here's Mal! She wore this Barbie 'Diamond Castle' dress all day today.

Conner with his Wall*E book he forgot about because he put it with the reading books! I showed it to him today and he was pretty excited. Downside....Mal kept asking where her book was! Sorry honey, no more missing books to find!

They usually sit right by each other, but by this point I had to separate them. It's a fuzzy pic, but you can see Conner has his hand out; he was giving Mallory a hard time because she was "scribbling" and not coloring in the lines. Give her a break kid! She's not even 3!