Little Things........

I am tired of school...I didn't think I ever would be..but I am! I tried to enroll for Microbiology..did not get in..so I will have an amazingly easy quarter for spring which is OK. I kind of need the time. I Will be taking all of my classes on-line. So I won't even have to get out of my pajamas if I don't want to! HA! BUt I am kind of excited for my Gender and power sociology class it is about WOMEN and Power!! I think I will LOVE that class. Anything with those two words in the name...yeah!

I came home today to my front yard bubbling up and making a gurgling sounds! UGH! Waiting for the city to come and fix it.

Gracie is getting huge..she weighs over 50 pounds now and she is as tall as Sadie (just not as round!)....GRacie definatly has a voice..if she doesn't get something she wants she lets everyone know..and if she is mad at us for telling her "no" she will whine and pout. It is so cute!

A few weeks ago I went to brush Clarissa's hair and she had "THE BUGS"...oh man ...lice..I couldn't believe it. I guess it was bound to happen at some point because we have so many kids at school. But she was the only one who had it thank GOD and we sprayed everything, shampooed the carperts, got rid of her mattress and washed everything is sight..plus put all of her toys in bags on the deck for a week.

Clarissa is very self conscious about "The Bugs" now and insists on someone checking her everyday. She was so mortified by the prospect....and of course the boys are teasing her. I told Rob to quit teasing her because I am asked to check her head about 5 times a day now and it is hard on her. Well yesterday he told her that he thinks he has the bugs..so she said:
" come here , Daddy"
he said " you want me to follow you?"
She said "yes"
So she takes him to the bathroom tells him to sit down on the toilet( lid down of course) and so he sits down. SHe tells him to bend his head down and she starts inspecting. HAHAHAHa! Apparently she is an expert now..she knows right where to look and obviosly I have done this to her so many times..she has the routine down pat! I took a picture but Rob insists I can't scrap it or blog it...although it is very cute, and somewhat of a weird nature ("the Bugs"), I will probably scrap it years down the road when "The bugs" are nearly a memory and no one feels the pain of them anymore..we are all just a little freaked out by them still..just the mere mention of "lice" or " The bugs" and we all start twitching a little and scratching all over! (like I am now)


Well I hope you all have a great day!

Sunday happenings.....

Every other Sunday Trina comes over for her visit with Jeri and Carl. This last Sunday they made cookies together and as much as we try the other kids like to help as well. So at the end of the batter they didn't have enough to make a full dozen cookies and oatmeal rasin cookies are Rob's favorite the kids wanted to make him a GIANT cookie.

After the cookies were done..the kids presented him with the cookie and as much as Rob didn't want to be interrupted from his school work...he took a break to eat the cookie and then we left him a couple hours to finish his paper. Trina and I took the kids to a movie....Pink Panther 2. The kids really enjoyed it.

We came home and Rob had finished dinner for us ...and we enjoyed a nice family supper.

Sea World

We spent one day at Sea World. Sea world also does special Christmas programs....
Although we all love the " SHamu" show (shamu is dead) and we watched 2 of them... the regular show and the Christmas version which was really nice..they brought in carolers, and a saxaphone player to create the "mood".

Our favorite show was the show ( I can't remember the name now...I am sure it is on one of the many maps we have) With the sea otters, sea lions and walrus'. It was hilarius, cute and just worth watching! We almost missed it and I am glad we didn't they have those anaimals so well trained it is like they are humans.

The dolphin show was the same show we had seen 4 years ago...even with the fake fall-in.

They had some new exhibits though ..so those were really nice. We fed the sting rays and rode the rides.
Sea World is just fun no matter what your interests.

Universal Studios

I took this at night when we were leaving.





This picture is funny because teh kids asked to pose with a picture ....and then they asked who it was..They didn't know who Beetle juice was...I remember being young when that movie came out..haha. Jeri kept obsessing about his teeth..yuck!




we picked a day to go to Universal and it was raining off and on......that happened to us the last time we went to universal studios. But it turned out to be a fabulous day none the less...not many people to fight with in lines..so we got to ride everything and see all the shows....and since it was raining they gave you discounts on lots of things. We bought these food passes you could eat at 8 different restaurants throughout the park all you wanted..it was already a good deal but then they gave us a discount on those as well...and also didn't make us pay for Clarissa.

So I think it cost us 100$ to eat whatever we wanted all day long...for our family--that is a good deal!
They also gave us free Hot Chocolate and you didn't have to wait in long lines to see the characters ..they had a wealth of characters walking throughout the park all day long...the kids loved this!
They got rid of the ride called " Back to the future" and changed it to a Simpsons circus theme with Krusty the clown...it was OK. The kids liked it. They changed everything to a Grinch Christmas theme and even on the tour bus--we took a ride through Whoville. It was fabulous. Members of whoville came thru to sing and put on a show for the shuttle bus and of course we went through jaws and all of the other normal attractions. Also for Christmas they set up tons of activities for the kids like a huge pool type area with "real" snow. Which we all thought quite funny considering we left a blizzard to go to California and they are making it so kids can build a snowman. They also have a huge room with a bunch of soft balls ( snowballs) with air guns and vacuum so you could suck up the foam balls and have snowball fights--it was quite fun and hard to drag our kids away for that. It was like being in whoville.


They had a special area that you could have your pictures taken with the Grinch..even a real trained dog named max..they didn't charge you for this..however the guy that was dressed like the Grinch was really good and teased the kids un-mercifully so it was hard getting a good picture of all the kids b/c they kept looking at him..but we all had fun with him.


They also had a lighting ceremony at night with a huge Christams tree in teh center of the kid type area and The Grinch and othr members of whoville came out to renact the part where teh grinch gets a heart and also sing Christmas Carols. I loved the whole scene and feeling at Universal studios.

During one of the shows they asked for Volunteers and Jeri was called up on stage. She had to turn a drum for a drum roll they were showing us how they put sound over teh top of movies...and Tinkerbell was causing some commotion and the drum sound helped relay that message. So Jeri was excited about being on stage.

On the way there.......

On the way to Disneyland we thought it would be nice to drive through the Redwood Forrest. In hindsight I think it would have been better to take the faster route just because the kids are older and they complain more.
I thought the red woods were fascinating kids could care less about some trees.
We drove through a few trees looked through some of the shops and red alot of the signs of how long the trees have been alive.
Funny thing is as we were driving through all of the tourist type spots we would also come across communities and we came across a commune. It looked as if it had all been there since the 60's with mobile trailers, shacks and big signs that said "No War." Pretty funny.
We also stopped by a shop on the side of the road called " Big Foot"
The kids loved it there, they had a bunch of wood carvings and things you could buy. I bought a live burl to bring home and some starters for growing my own red wood here in Ephrata. They claim to have seen big foot and they had a map containing his spotted sightings in the redwood Forrest..so I bought one for a friend who believes he exists????

Vacation Part 2

One of our days we spent at the San Diego Zoo. It was a nice relaxing day and along with our passes we were able to take a gondola ride above the zoo. That was cool although kind of scary..I knew I coudl not ride with rob because he likes to torture innocent souls like myself who don't want the boat to rock.
It gets hard carrying stuff around I actually had the camera I went to the bathroom....I always hung it up on the hook in the stall..I left without it. We had to stop at the bathroom so many times because we had bought these sippers from the zoo and they were free refills..so anytime there was a vendor we would suck them down to get a refill..many...many stops to the restroom. I didn't realize I had lost the camera until we were about a mile away from the last bathroom.....so needless to say I didn't get alot of pictures at the zoo. But I got a few and actually someone had turned it into the lost and found by the time I had realized it was gone...Doesn't that give you hope that there are honest people in the world?
Funny thing happened when I got off of "it's a small world"(on another day in D.Land) someone else had lost their camera and I picked it up...she actually came back to look for it...and spotted me...but I would have turned hers in as well.
The zoo was alot of walking, the animals were out and about walking around..because the weather was perfect.
Clarissa was so funny....everywhere we went she had to get a map...( she can't read yet) and she would always ask where are we? SO we would all take turns pointing it out to her. BUt it was always a big production she would spread it all out on the walk-way and need to know exactly where we were going from the spot we were at and a few times she had lost her map in the bathroom. Well that was not going to go un-noticed so we always had to find her another map.
She did this all through Disneyland as well..one time she went to guest services to get another copy and she had come back with the japanese version...she can't read so it all looks the same to her.

Disneyland

Of course Cinderella is all of our favorite!










This is in toon town.


OK SO over Christmas vacation we spent almost 2 weeks in Disneyland between traveling and vacationing there.
I have been horrible at taking pictures lately--( does the last 2 years or so mean lately?)
SO I have children armed with cameras during our trip and although I do not have everyone's downloaded I have quite a few.
Bryce was very good about keeping his Camera ..SO was Jeri in fact but hers kept running out of batteries...not sure the problem but none the less an issue.
SO to tell you what we did.....Hmmmm is was so long ago haha.
We spent 3 days in Disneyland. 1 day universal studios. 1 day at the Sandiego zoo, 1 day at Sea world and we spent a couple days shoppinga dn we went to a movie.
SO to start with I would like to say that spending the extra money to go at Christams time is worth every penny! The last time we took our family was spring time and Disneyland at Christmas time is very magical. First off the fireworks are everynight along with Christmas carols, followed by created snow..if that isn't magical enough, they change all of their rides..to christmas themes (well not all of them but alot of them) I love " It's a small world" it was so beautiful inside and all the dolls were decorated for Christmas and they were all singing christmas carols in their native languages and they would have christmas type smells wafting through the air.
There is so much to see and so --and I am so thankful we spent our first 2 days in disneyland earlier in the week because the closer it got to Christmas the busier it was..so we actually got to complete everything in 2 days without long lines.
There is so much to talk about that we loved..First off if anyone goes to California adventures--it is a must to go to "Turtle Talk" with Crush ..it is hilarious! HE actually asked me a question.
We stopped at a show on that side I can't remember what it was called but something about animations and Preston was selected to go up on stage and because of that he got to meet Woody and get a sketched drawing of him and have him sign it.....Also we stopped by The BRother Bear show and once again Preston was called up on stage to help them with the show...so that was a big hit!






We also ate Dinner at Ariel's Grotto when we visited California adventures. It was a themed dinner ..Princess' of course. That was yummy and very expensive however, if you bought the vouchers on-line it saved us over 150$. During our whole dinner many of the princess came by to visit us...so you are really paying for the visits. We didn't do much eating at Disneyland because it is so very expensive there to get anything...so we packed lunches and made that our big meal.


Everything at Disney is really a racket. YOu have to stand in -line to meet princess now in a special location they don't have princess just raoming out and about like the other charachters. When you have a 5 year old girl who has a big part of her life centered around The Princess' ( the other part is Veggie Tales) and she has to stand in a line for 90 minutes to meet them it is a travesty!
Also Clarissa saw all of these little girls with princess hair do's and beautiful face painting...she was harrassing me the whole time to get it done herself. (mind you they have this everywhere , Zoo, universal ect.) I finally waited until the last day when we would meet the princess'.
IF I were to give her the whole treatment it would have been over 300$...I am in shock that parents would pay that for a little girl for one day????
Instead I told her she could get the face painting...and she had to spend under 20$. Good greif!


But all in all --if you go to enjoy all of the attractions and none of the extras..it is very worth it and we know how to get through things pretty easily.
The Christmas parades ..once again Magical..all of my kids were in awe..didn't want to leave afterwards ...if Disneyland was open all night ..I think we would have stayed and forfeited sleep. Rob, Jeri, and Clarissa were the only ones complaining about walking and being tired..the boys and I could go forever.
So this will be installment ONE of our vacation.



I love this ones because until recently (with the help of Speech therapy) SHe always referred to Sleeping Beauty as "Sweeping Doody." awe..How cute.

A picture

DO you ever come across a photo and just think......ohhhhh?
I just loaded a bunch of pics on the computer and saw this one..it looks so cool and I couldn't even tell you where we took it? Somewhere between here and California is all I can tell you...but It looks like a keeper to me.

Formal Dances

Mr. cheapskate himself! Self portrait as well!





MISS FlIP FLOP!



We get into a discussion at dinner a few weeks ago ......
Jeri is learning dancing in PE and I remember dancing in PE b/c it seemed as if you were always stuck with the one guy who
A) was either the biggest NERD
B) The guy that refused to take a shower and was covered in acne or
C) the one guy who had a mad crush on you and you were always trying to get away from.....( AKA: Pepe LePew)
I hardly ever lucked out to get the one guy I might have wanted to dance with in my class. Except that one time..and he ended up being my homecoming date!



I digress....Back to Jeri
Her Pe teacher was explaining how guys have to pay more money at dances because ( well I think because the PE Teacher has a son ...and didn't have to dish out 300$ for a dress....shoes...jewelry...hair do's....but whatever) She says this because the guys have to pay for pictures, corsage, suit and Dinner not to mention transportation to and from said dance. ( another side note: Jeri says I don't have to buy her nice shoes ...she will just wear flip flops with her formal gown...OVER MY DEAD BODY...I refuse to pay top dollar for a dress to have her wear 99cent flip flops...she says that we can buy the 12.99$ ones from pay less..oh thank GOD! what the heck is that?)
WEll..while Bryce is hearing all of this he says- " Well if I have to pay for everything , I hope my date likes Mcdonalds"
I said " Umm..You better not take a date to Mcdonalds!"
HE says " Mom, if she already said YEs to be my date....she doesn't have a choice"
I said " Umm.. Bryce..you might get away with that once..but at school she is going to tell all of her friends what a lousy date you are...and you will never get another date!"
To which he says " Mom...look at me..You are talking to "THE BRYCE" I will get another date"
I say "Bryce you have to take your date to a decent dinner."
HE says
" Where do you take a date around here for dinner, It's not like there is an Olive GArden around here?

I am thinking to myself: is this the extent of his fine dining experience? Probably.

SO I started listing restaurants in Moses Lake;
Bryce says " Whoa, MOm ..wait a second..I have to take my date to Moses? That is alot of gas money..just forget it!"
WHen did I raise such a cheapskate child?
I said " Bryce, where else do you think your going to go?"
HE said " I will just take my date to Tequila's"
The local Mexican restaurant..no where near formal dining..I might add.
SO I said " Bryce, just to make it easier on you ..I will pay for the corsage and pictures when you start going to dances..that way I know you can afford dinner and I will get pictures, and so will your date."

HE said " OK Mom"
I said " you had better not be one of those crappy guys that treat women badly"
HE said " I know mom, you didn't raise me like that"

All I could think with this conversation is LANDON...BRyce is just like his father! This apple did not fall far from the tree either!

MIssion Trip

Well I went on my mission trip ...you can read about it from older posts. But now this year part of my original team is going to go back ....although I can't go I asked them if it would be OK to send 2 of my children. SO Bryce and Cole are going to Jamaica next Thanksgiving. They are also going to take 3 of their friends with them and Rob is going to join them. Rob and Landon both feel un-comfortable sending the kids on a mission alone... I might have felt that before I went but I trust Tish and Lance 100% to take my kids and I trust Bryce and Cole to do what they are supposed to do ..SO since Landon can't make the trip...Rob will join them be-grudgingly. Rob doesn't like to do work unless he absolutely has to...and he has already been to foreign countries (he was in the military) so he feels he has done his "duty." But I guess, since he feels more un-comfortable sending the kids alone...he will go. I will be in some important classes so I won't be able to make it...otherwise I would go. It is to hard to keep up if you miss any time in science classes.(for me anyway)
SO I am excited for my boys to get this chance..I think it is coming at a perfect time when they are in junior high and the minor things seems so important...they get to go to a place where the right things are important. They get to expand their horizons and help other people. These boys are going to have to work their tails off to earn the money..and they are ready for it!
SO Please pray for them as they start this process and journey and please support them and give them a thumbs up when they need it! thanks so much for your support!

Clarissa

Well I have some things i want to remember so I am posting them on here:
Clarissa
She is 30 years old in a 5.5 year old body.
She is getting smarter and smarter each day.

Last weekend Rob was teasing her and all of a sudden she says:
" Dad you better stop it!"
Rob: " why"
Clarissa: " Because if you don't I am going to jello your belly!"

Well after the fit of laughter..I thought to ask Where did you learn that?
Apparently from her brothers ..when you punch someones stomach it jiggles....so she put her own spin on things and called it jello belly. Nice!

Once again Sunday Night Rob is teasing Clarissa ...he gets an ice cream bar out of the freezer ..she was eating cookies.
She says: " Daddy , I want one of those"
Rob replies: " oh, you can't these are for adults!"
C: " why"
R: " Oh because they have bad stuff in them"
C: " Let me see the box"
R: " Why, you can't read"
C: " I will sound it out!"
Rob had just been outwitted by a five year old..there is no turning back.


I can't believe how grown up she looks or even the amount of wit she has at such a young age.

I got sucked into a stupid reality show the other night. " Little Miss Perfect" it is about little girls and their pageant moms.
Clarissa was watching with me. I know my daughter well...but during a commercial break I decided to ask her " Clarissa, would you like to do that?"
She looked at me with her big blue eyes " ummm no" while shaking her head. (SHe kept commenting on the pretty dresses before I had asked her this so I was semi interested) I said " why" She said "Those people are weird." This is even before we got to the really crazy moms on the next program..hahaha. Then I said " well, you would get to wear those pretty dresses" Her reply " I Don't want to miss school." Due to the fact that I know her well and I am sure in her 30 year old brain she was thinking to herself...maybe these people should not be missing school either....I let her off the hook. All I can say is no matter what those moms say to justify why they are doing that is ( in my opinion) because they want to live through their child. I have run across moms liek that before and let me tell you ....I don't have the patience.
So she loves the clothes but I know she would not have the patience of sitting there trying to please someone judging her or putting up with the fakness of everything that that is about. Not to mention --she would have eaten my head several times for making her do a bunch of stuff she is not interested in...so thank God..b/c I couldn't imagine sitting on the sidelines asking my child to smile 24/7 ....I think that is un-natural and I would not do it myself...I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

There is no way out--we are just going to have to try and outwit her if at all possible and try to stay a couple steps ahead of her..but I know we will need to stay on our toes all of the time.

Gracie Lou Freebone

HI,
It's been awhile I know......things have been crazy and I would like to say that it will all settle down...but i think we all know that I probably won't ever do that! So many things have happened since my last blog..My family took a trip to Disneyland, Christmas has come and gone..The Superbowl party that we hosted for the kids..and Valentines has just passed...it has been months. Shortly after our family vacation we added a new member to the family. Gracie. She is a Mastiff. We thought since we haven't had much luck with little dogs we would go for the biggest dog around. I wanted a English Mastiff for a long time I was just hoping it would be after (years down the road) Sadie or Brodie Passed on because having 3 dogs in the house is alot...but We came upon Grace and we couldn't let her go. We fell in love at first sight. She is brindle...I think brindle is ugly...I wanted a fawn mastiff..but once I saw Gracie I couldn't get her out of my mind. She is very Dark brindle and she looks very cute! She has a big blocky head and she is full of wrinkles..which just makes her look like the sweetest thing you have ever seen! I tried to convince Rob that we didn't need her and he wouldn't have it...he was convinced that she should be our dog. So do to the fact that we are both suckers we got GRACIE. I wanted a name that meant something because of her birth story...
And Rob wanted something silly ( like he always does) and so we decided on Grace Because Mastiffs are known for not being graceful so it is kind of an oxymoron and it also means something. When we were deciding on a name JEralyn put in the movie called MISS CONGENIALITY....and her ( the main character's) fake name was Gracie Lou Freebush. So we changed that up and bit and named our puppy Gracie Lou Freebone.
She is going to be around 175 pounds at full growth and she is only 40 now. We got her at 20 pounds and within 6 weeks she has grown to 40.
Gracie is very sweet, lazy most of the time, has to snuggle and love attention. SHe snores even when she is awake and she won't even let the big dogs push her around. Her and Clarissa battle it out because Clarissa is just the right size for Gracie to win and Clarissa is always trying to reason with Gracie , which doesn't always work. Gracie loves my slippers and Clarissa stuffed animals.
So here are a few pictures of Grace.