Happy Halloween!

Yea for Halloween! Normally I'm not big on Halloween. We haven't even carved pumpkins...I know, shame on me but I find it disgusting. But this year I'm thrilled because my parents are coming to visit for the weekend. Truthfully they are coming to see the kids. I don't blame them the kids really are adorable. But, they'll be here for trick-or-treating...and we're excited!!

Although, I have quite a bit of work ahead of me tonight. Out of all the rooms in the house that I had to organize and put stuff away in ours is the only one not done....go figure. So, I get to find places to put everything in our room tonight and FINISH Samuel's costume. I'm not sure why I haven't done it before now as he's going as a bat and I bought black pants and a black long sleeve shirt and made him a black stocking cap (which he of course can't find and I can't either) and then all I have to do is add the webbing between his body and his arms. It's super simple and yet here it is the night before he needs it and it's not done. Normally I'm not a procrastinator. Oh well, at least I won't be up all night sewing!

I wish you all the best in your trick-or-treating (or trunk-or-treating) adventures on Halloween. Don't eat too much candy!

Schools and such

Ok, I don't understand...what is with parents who send their kids to school and then not support the school? Granted I come from a background of educators, am married to a teacher and at one point before I became a mom was planning on being a teacher. However, I don't understand not supporting the schools and your kids.

I have recently been attending PTO meetings. I figure it's a great way to get to know the principal, teachers and just plain be involved with my kids' education without having to work at the school. (and I don't want the teachers and principal to always be thinking "oh no, here comes Mrs. Mobley again!) It shocked me to find out that only about 4 other parents attend these meetings. (Which is probably why I think I've been nominated to be the PTO co-president...you can all call me madame president now. LOL)

Then, I got a letter inviting me (and I assumed a whole lot of other parents) to a meeting about the state standards and how the school is planning on meeting them. It is an accredidation year for the school district and so the school asked parents to come learn more about what is going on in case the state happens to choose them to see how well informed they are. They even provided daycare! Out of 55 parents that were invited, there were 4 parents that showed up, and 3 of us regularly attend PTO...go figure!

Maybe I'm out of the ordinary, but even if I have to fight Phillip to be quiet during a meeting I'm going to attend. If I don't advocate for my kids and show my support for them and the school who is going to...okay besides Stuart. If I don't show my kids that their education is important why would they think it's important?

Hopefully I haven't offended anyone, I know we are all busy and it's hard to make it to meetings especially with kids in tow. However I don't think I'd be nearly as irritated if the parents in my kids' classes cared about what they did at school and supported them. It's so frustrating to go into the classrooms to volunteer and see what a difference there is between the kids and their learning levels. You really can tell the kids who's parents take the time to work with them, and it makes me so sad to realize that some parents just don't care.

GRRRRR!

The love of my life

Stuart came home from swim practice at approximately 7:20 tonight and I had succeded in having Phillip asleep before he walked in the door...YEA ME!
He had a little silly grin on his face (Stuart, not Phillip) and had his swim gear bundled up in his arms. He gave me a kiss and his silly grin got bigger as he pulled out some ice cream and said "I tried to get you a rose but they didn't have any so I got you this" "this" happens to be ice cream.
He bought weight watchers ice cream because as he said "I was trying to be romantic and be good at the same time."

Who knew ice cream could be romantic? I think he's set a new precident. Although the flowers he bought me 2 weeks ago are still alive and kicking...WOW!

I had a great day today, I had a couple sisters from church over for breakfast and all I had to prepare was a fruit salad. And then I went to a R.S. bread making class. It was fun even though I don't particularly have a problem making bread. (I sure do love my bread machine, although I think I may get a Bosch...they're pretty awesome!) And then the kids and I had a quiet evening at home. The boys played in the bath until they were well "pruned" and KatieJo danced around the house to the music she was singing.

And tomorrow we are trying a new play group that meets at the church on Wednesday mornings and consists of kids (and their mothers) from both wards. Phillip isn't exited yet, but I think it's great and will give us an opportunity to get to know more people. New friends are always good!

My Monday effort

In order to make my Mondays more fun I thought I'd list (so I can come back later and look) my favorite things about Monday.

I LOVE that Phillip is always happy to see me when he wakes up...even on Monday mornings (I also like that he LOVES to cuddle with me when he wakes up).

I LOVE that I can have lunch with Stuart. Yes, we can do that any day; but today we went to the school and took him his lunch.

I LOVE that I can start laundry for the week (yes, it sounds nuts...but I don't typically do laundry on the weekends and so it piles up a little bit with 5 of us).

I LOVE that my house can be clean with KatieJo and Samuel gone at school.

I LOVE that when I pick KatieJo and Samuel up from school that they think it's SOOOOO great to see Mom again!

I LOVE that I can have a quiet time at naptime and check my blog.

Ok, I think that's pretty good....What do you LOVE about Mondays?

I also thought I'd post pictures of our FHE (we do it on Sunday nights since Stuart works on Monday nights coaching swimming). We made halloween pumpkin shaped sugar cookies and read stories.

The kids really enjoyed making the cookies, although they thought it was more fun eating them. Phillip's cookie is the one with the green squiggle. I don't think I mentioned that the kit came with edible eyes. Our pumpkins really came to life! Yum!

Don't you love Stuart's "smile"?

This is a picture of the new color (minus the trim...it hasn't been painted yet). I'm not sure you can see anything really with the sun shining on it, but it is obviously not brown or green.

Samuel says he "hates" it and that he liked the green but will live with it if I paint footballs somewhere on the walls. We'll see how ambitious I am in regards to the football and as for him living with it...he's out of luck if he thinks we're going to change the color!

The boys have been sleeping in KatieJo's room on the floor while their room has been painted and they have enjoyed sleeping on the air mattress (although Phillip takes WAY too long to fall asleep because he is SO excited!). I'm just glad everything is ready for them to sleep in their own beds tonight. Aren't they cute in the picture though?

The microwave

Ok, I have a picture of the microwave and cabinet. If I do say so myself, I think Stuart did a great job (minus after drilling a hole in the side of the cabinet because he was convinced he couldn't mount the cabinet any other way and still be able to plug in the microwave he re-read the directions and found he could have mounted it over to the right more). Oh well, I'll just cover it up with a plant. Yucky, yucky colors!!!

Turns out though that even after priming poop brown and packers green walls you still have to put on 2 coats of light blue paint. So, all I have is beginning pictures of the boys room. Hopefully we'll be done tonight with the painting...but then again maybe not since we're about to go to a Elder's quorum bbq. (We also have to re-arrange the boys room because the "Monkey" formerly known as Phillip has learned how to scale the side of the bunk bed without the ladder and so bunkbeds are being dismantled until he can climb safely!)

Sunny days and family

It's Friday! Which means painting (which didn't happen last weekend and has to happen before next weekeng) will be commencing soon. As well as our new cupboard and microwave that are going over the stove...YEA, more places to put things...our kitchen doesn't exactly have a plethora of storage space as it was meant to be an eat-in kitchen. Since the new microwave will be going under the cabinet our old one will be headed elsewhere which means MORE COUNTER SPACE...WHOOOHOOO!

Sorry, I've been with all 3 kids this morning. They were supposed to have school today until 11:15 with lunch being from 10:30 until they got out of school so we decided it was a waste to send them and so we've been messing around this morning. Stuart got out of school at 12 and so now the kids are napping and we're (Stuart) is working.

Did I mention it's a beautiful sunny day? What more could a person ask?

I'm going to be an Aunt!

YEA! My sister just called me and told me she's pregnant!!!! I had my suspicions, but since she had a miscarriage a few months ago she kept it on the downlow until today. She's due in May, yea for not having a June birthday!

I know I'm already an Aunt to some awesome kids on the Mobley side of the family, but I'm so excited to be an Aunt to my sister's baby!

Guess I get to start baby shopping. There are some cute things out right now. I'd give her my baby clothes, but we're not done yet (I think...some days I think we are, others I think we're not).

I have a confession to make....I'm addicted to blogging, well and facebook. I think it's great that I can keep in touch with all of the Mobley's and other friends better than just e-mailing or well I guess we never really write letters. I love reading about what everybody is up to and I love getting to know my sister-in-laws better! (Aimee I LOVE your book reviews and Hannah, I love seeing how Orion is growing...and helping and I look forward to loving Rachel's and Kylie's blog) It makes me feel like we live next door to each other rather than hours upon hours away from each other.

So, you want to come over and have breakfast after the big kids go to school? Wouldn't that be lovely? The younger kids could all play and we could all just sit and chat.

I love you all!

Happy Cleaning!

I was cleaning the outside of the fridge today as there were some stubborn spots that needed cleaned and Phillip brought me a dishrag and asked me to spray some stuff on the fridge so he could clean (really he pointed to the cleaning stuff and said "some please"). So, we both cleaned the fridge; then we vaccumed, I folded laundry and Phillip unfolded, we colored and generally just had a great morning!

I'm going to digress a few days, we finally got some nice weather on Saturday and so we planted Tulips! Turns out it was a family event as we had to remove some grass from the flower beds and then the kids thought it great fun to drop the bulbs into the holes.

And, then it snowed again last night. At least the bulbs are planted!

Have a Happy Wednesday!

Monday, Monday is here again!

I hate Mondays! I hate that the weekend is over and my family once again leaves me and Phillip to go back to their lives. Although, I did get lucky today because Stuart came home for 20 min. at lunch time to have lunch with me. Of course that was after fighting the sick and tired Phillipmiester to take a nap. He finally fell asleep about 10 minutes before Stuart walked in the door.

Today probably wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to wait around for the contractor to finish the work he's here to do. (Our loan required us to have some work done...i.e. a handrail to the basement, new bathroom sink because it was cracked etc.)

I'm excited for the kids to come home because after we do homework and eat dinner with Stuart we are going to go get a white shirt for KatieJo (her class at school is making tie-dyed shirts), and then to the library.

I think I must be boring! I miss my kids and husband everyday and when they are home I'd rather spend time with them than just about anybody else.

Oh well, I've decided this must be what heaven is like....spending time with my family all the time, minus the fighting amongst the kids.

Stress and Paint

Okay, I admit it I am a perfectionist. Sometimes this is good; most of the time bad. I am currently stressed out and tired (partly because of some medicine I'm on) because my house is a disaster! I like my house to look show home quality which usually never happens because 1. Stuart likes the lived in look and 2. I have 3 small children, one in particular that dumps out the toys in every box everyday.

I will admit that it's not as bad as it could be, but Samuel is home today sick with a fever and so I can't run the vaccume or make much noise as I'm hoping he'll sleep. And, Phillip is crawling all over me telling me he wants to go outside mind you he has no pants on, just a diaper which cute as that is just isn't appropriate for being outside and it's also COLD outside. So, he's just going to have to live with my messy house and attempt to be somewhat quiet because of Samuel.

I can't wait for tomorrow....Stuart and the kids are home for "fall break" and we are painting the boys room (or should I say Stuart is). Right now it's a poop brown color on 2 walls and Green Bay Packers green on the other 2 walls...I hate it! So, after this weekend it will be light blue (Samuel asked for orange, and I lied through my teeth and told him that Home Depot wouldn't sell me orange paint). I may however paint some footballs at the top if he's good. Those are easy to cover!

Cribs and beds

GRRRRR! My backup plan for when Phillip fails to fall asleep after an hour in his "big boy" bed has failed. After a frustrating hour this afternoon Phillip was still awake and I put him in his crib knowing he usually passes out within five minutes when I do this. So, I left the room after turing on his music and started putting the winter coats etc. away in the coat closet and was thinking how exciting it is to have a coat closet when I heard an ominous creaking noise. Sure enough, the boy's door was opening. As I walked toward it Phillip must have saw me and quickly giggled and closed the door.

I knew he had climbed out of the crib, but to confirm my suspicions I put him back in hoping maybe he had fallen out and not hurt himself. Nope, he had climbed out. So I called the only expert I could think of...my sister-in-law Aimee. I remember Aimee telling me that Naomi had climbed out of the crib and they had then been forced to put her in a big bed. But alas Aimee's advice won't work for us as the top bunk of the bed doesn't have a railing all the way across and so Phillip would most likely start practicing his swan dive.

I even checked a book out of the library that was supposed to in 5 days give the kid a better night sleep. Mostly it involved the parent to put the child in bed and say "mommy is teaching you better sleep habits so you need to stay in bed" and then walk out of the room. Let's just say it didn't work. The laughing made me feel better though.

Oh well, I guess we'll just have to sit there and keep telling Phillip to lay down. Maybe before he leaves for college he'll have it figured out....hopefully!

Homework

My gosh, do teachers not realize that kindergartners and first graders should be playing and not doing a minimum of 2 hours of homework?

Granted Samuel goes up to first grade for math and reading and gets the first grade homework sent home. But my goodness....KatieJo had at least 5 worksheets to do and Samuel had I think 7. We tried to hurry and get homework done before soccer. (which was a bomb because it was 36 degrees outside and Phillip screamed the whole time because he didn't want to put his mittens on. I finally convinced him to stick his hands into my unzipped coat to which he would stick them under my arms into the sleeves, pull them out to clap when someone scored and then quickly stick them back in.) But, it didn't get done before soccer 1. because Phillip kept stealing their papers and then their pencils and would take off running; 2. because KatieJo just couldn't figure out what one of the questions was asking and thought it was more fun to watch Phillip steal Samuel's papers etc. and 3. There was just a whole boat load of homework.

So, now it's almost 9 and KatieJo has finally finished hers and Samuel is working on his last sheet. I'd say my kids are slow after the amount of time we've spent on it tonight, but the teachers keep telling me their at the top of the class.

Can't wait for tomorrow, I KNOW there is only 2 sheets of homework; which with talking and snack eating usually takes about an hour (including bathroom breaks). The 1st grade teacher sends a list home on Monday with all the worksheets for the week. But for some reason they had added homework today....DARN teachers!

Winter coats

We organized our basement yesterday. Sounds exciting, I know. But all the rubbermaid containers of kids clothes that I am WAY to cheap to part with were right inside the basement door. So, we re-arranged everything and finished opening any boxes in the basement. I'm proud to say that I think we opened the last box. Yes there are 3 boxes left in the basement, 2 are Stuart's music stuff that we haven't figured out what to do with yet (he's not convinced he's done teaching music) and a box of kids stuff.

This however wasn't the point of my post. We also went through looking for halloween costumes, winter coats and hats & gloves. Like I said before, I'm cheap. I spent the summer going to garage sales with my mother in Broomfield (they have AWESOME garage sales!) and bought my kids clothes, winter coats and anything else we may have needed for our new home.

I managed to buy Phillip 2 winter coats (and found another the other day), Samuel got a new "used" coat (Which gives him 2-he tends to loose everything, we have to have a backup!) and somehow along the way KatieJo only has her coat from last year; which fits in the length. However, her arms must have grown by leaps and bounds and are too long for the sleeves. So, I was forced yesterday to order a coat with the hopes that her old coat will tide her over until the new one gets here. I can't believe I spent $50 (with shipping) on a coat!!! JCPennys was having some sales, but I thought I'd see if I could get her a little nicer of a coat since I planned on buying it big so she can wear it next year (see, the cheapness in me coming out). I did manage to find a Columbia Jacket for $40. It was the same price on sale as the JCPenny's coats and so that's what we chose. The coat isn't pink (as she would have preferred since pink is "her color") but black is much easier to keep clean.

I sometimes think it's a flaw or should I say a strange quirk that I am as cheap as I am. I don't think there are many things besides our bed that I actually paid full price for. (Oh and Stuart's flat screen TV...but I have to admit that's nice.) The vast majority of things in our home have come from garage sales or my favorite store...the ARC thrift store (That place is AWESOME!). I like to think that I have to be cheap or we'd never afford anything because Stuart's a teacher and well, we all know they don't top the scales as far as paychecks go. But, I think it's nature (well and a lot of nurture). I talked to my mom and sister yesterday and both were garge saleing and my mom had just been to ARC. Guess it runs in my family!

Camping? It's snowing!

Earlier tonight as we were searching for KatieJo's glass that have been MIA since the day we moved; (I got a note from the school today saying KatieJo failed her eye test and need to get her eyes checked so I figured I had to find those glasses...even though I've been looking for weeks.) KatieJo looked at me and said "Mom, I want to go camping." I looked out the window at the snow that was drifting toward the ground so peacefully and then looked back at KatieJo.

"KatieJo, it's snowing and cold" I replied

"I know mom, I didn't mean right now. I want to go when it's warmer like when we went camping with Annie." (sidebar- Annie is the daughter of James & Aimee Mobley, Stuart's older brother) See picture below- I guess you just don't have as much fun unless you are with your cousins.

So, it has been decided that we shall wait to go camping of which I am grateful since I am NOT a boyscout and DO NOT enjoy going on Polar Bear campouts!!

So look out spring...I may consider gracing the outdoors with my presence....does staying in a hotel count as camping if I take a sleeping bag?

Annie, Phillip, KatieJo, Samuel and Stephen....Do you like their carriage?

Aimee if you want other pictures I have some more, just let me know and I'll e-mail them to you.

It's snowing!

It's snowing (well it was earlier)...yea...I think. I was going to take a picture, but alas my camera isn't freed from memory card overload.

I'm not sure we're ready for snow, I haven't planted my tulips yet or put down the seed for the grass....oh well at least soon we'll be able to build snowmen (monsters) and make snow angels!

(This picture was added this evening at about 6:45, the post was put on this morning)

Random thoughts...someday I'll laugh!

Did you know that a camera memory card will only hold approximately 200-250 pictures? I made this discovery today when I tried to take a picture and the camera gave me a message that said the memory card is full. I was fairly appalled, I scanned through my pictures and tried to find a couple to delete. I managed to delete 2 that I thought I wouldn't need. Other than that I guess I'm going to have to burn a CD and figure out how much it's going to cost me to get the pictures developed!

So as I write Phillip just walked into the room...normally not a big deal. Unfortunately he has the laddle from dinner (which was spaghetti) in his hand. I promptly grabed it from him and looked down at his clean jamies...what the heck? His "clean" white jamies that have turtles on them now also have red spots of spaghetti all over and will most likely never be the same. He also had a bath right after dinner and now needs another one.

Thank goodness I have plastic runners under our dinning room table, otherwise our carpet which is beige would now be red as well! I guess he was trying to get some more spaghetti and Samuel neglected to clear the noodles and sauce off the table; so Phillip helped himself and put it all on the table....darn (cute) kids....someday I'll laugh!!

Phillip's lamp

I've had a lamp sitting in KatieJo's room since we moved in. I haven't managed to plug it in yet partially because I need to rearrange things before it can be and because I haven't bought a new shade for it. The old shade was a casualty of the move.

So, Phillip found it a couple of weeks ago on KatieJo's desk and started carrying it around the house. I took it from him and put it up higher and he got it. I got it back and put it higher and somehow my little monkey somehow keeps finding it. I've decided to stop the fight and let him just have it. I think it was a fairly inexpensive lamp anyway, and it hasn't hurt him nor has he hurt anyone with it. At least he doesn't sleep with it!

I was also asked yesterday about the picture of Stuart in my "about me" section. So, I thought I'd post the pictures bigger and give the story behind them. I find these pictures hilarious as I will most likely never see Stuart in prison stripes or handcuffs again.

He was part of a mock shootout for the parade in Republic, WA before we moved. He was playing the imprisioned gang leader and the bandits and the cops had a shootout.

The other two men in the below picture are our friends AJ Haddenham (on the left) and Lorne Spooner. Both happen to also actually be in law enforcement.

Lunch with Dad

Well, KatieJo is feeling better today...YEAH, no fever!!! Actually feeling better is an understatement. She was smiling and laughing and playing around. So, I asked her (and Phillip) if they wanted to go have lunch with dad. With a resounding yes I packed up our peanut butter sandwiches (nix the jelly today since I wasn't sure her stomach would really handle it) and grapes and away we went.

KatieJo thought it was great to eat with dad since she doesn't ever get to go to his "new" school and eat lunch. Phillip just likes the snacks that he somehow finds in Stuart's room. And I really should refuse to go have lunch with him because everytime we do I end up working on his bulletin board or something to that nature.

Today I put up the letters and mountains I cut out on my cricut machine (if you scrapbook this is a must have since you can create your own dicuts). Part of Spanish is learning about the cultures of different countries. This month happens to be Argentina. Although I enjoy being creative, sometimes I wish he'd try to do his bulletin boards especially since I made it easy and cut everything out for him.

My sister teases me that I refer to Stuart's paycheck as "our" paycheck. I think I earn that right since I get the opportunity to grade papers and tests (that don't involve too much Spanish translating) and I get the job of doing his bulletin boards.

Anyway, Happy Fall!! The weather is finally getting colder!

Our weekend

Well, the weekend didn't start out all that bad. We usually have dinner and a movie on Friday nights and so when the kids get home from school on Fridays everyone takes a rest so they can stay up late and watch a movie. So, we laid down and KatieJo fell asleep....not terribly shocking after a long week. However when she woke up about 45 min. later she had a low grade fever. Saturday the fever had escalated with the only other symptom being a headache. Sunday afternoon we decide she was probably feeling a little better and so we went to the chapel to watch the last session of conference....not even 5 minutes after we got there she threw up all over the carpet. So, we didn't get the opportunity to watch conference.What a bummer! We had planned to watch at home on our computer, but alas our computer was in the shop and KatieJo's illness didn't give us the opportunity, as well as Phillip's lack of willingness to sit still for 2 hours!Thank goodness we can get a copy of conference!! I think we may even be able to get online and still watch it....at least that is my hope since I am hoping to watch it during nap times!On to better news...Stuart has started a "new" job. Not only is he teaching; he has been hired as the USS swim team coach. He will also be the assistant boys swim coach for the high school and possibly the middle school. We are so excited (ok, I think I am more than Stuart as in my opinion anything is better than football!).

Wow, life is different!

I knew moving to Rawlins would create huge changes for us. Small town life doesn't always present the same opportunities as "bigger" town life.

We are so busy here! We recently had homecoming week. Growing up homecoming was confined to the high school....but not here. All week long the elementary school had spirit week right along with the other schools, and don't forget the practicing for the junior cheerleading, tumbling classes and soccer games (not to mention the football game)...oh and the fact that Stuart volunteered to judge the class floats which involved nightly rounds of judging.

By the end of the week I was tuckered out just from all the running around and making sure they were all at the right places at the right times!!

We drove to Casper last weekend to do our grocery shopping...how exciting, there is a mall, Wal-Mart, Target and don't forget SAMS!!! And it's only an hour and a half away. We had to drive that far in WA just to get to a Wal-mart. People keep asking us how we are handling such a small town. We just laugh and tell them that Rawlins is HUGE!

KatieJo is able to take dance lessons and Samuel is playing soccer (very succesfully I might add. they don't keep score at this age, but last week he scored all the points for his team and tonight he scored 3 out of 5.).



And, we are part of a ward again....which has to be one of the most exciting parts. No more funny looks in sacrament because Phillip is talking to himself (or his truck) a little to loudly, and Samuel actually gave a talk last week in Primary without me asking if our kids could give a talk.

So far Rawlins is terribly exciting!