My Husband Is Sexy...

I walked into my bedroom to find blaring music and my whole family rocking out like this:

They were all totally in character and jumping on the bed. The dance moves they created that night were legendary. There is nothing sexier than a man who can totally bust a move and look completely ridiculous while exuding great confidence at the same time! Humor is sexy. The evidence:

Earlier in the week...

Sarah wanted a photo shoot with her new dress.

Ice Cold Lap

So last night Russ and I were out to dinner. The waiter dumped about 24 ounces of ice cold ice water on my lap. I was so happy he dumped it on me and not someone else! I'm a pretty chill girl, you know, and tried to make the waiter feel better. Although having freezing cold water on your ______ and soaking wet jeans is not the best feeling in the world, I was not going to let it damp-er my evening with Russ. So I sat on a towel and we laughed and I was thinking I may just get a free appetizer out of it or something. Well, no free anything...but I didn't ask. I'm sure the waiter felt a lot worse than I did. Plus, I ended up cuddling with Russ while we ate so I wasn't shivering. A much better seating arrangement rather than across the table from each other!

Here are some pics of our escape to paradise last weekend...

Pictures do not do justice of the wintertime view from all sides. I look out and feel like singing opera! Complete awe and wonder.

Mom and Dad preparing the movie style popcorn. Looks like Denzel wants some too!

Yummy taco salad dinner.

Ava watching 8 deer out the window at the top of the picture. (We saw a moose in our neighborhood yesterday too!)

A picture to prove I was there.

Mom's famous angel food cake jelly roll cake...the kids say it's their favorite dessert in the world!

Later in the week I helped throw a shower with my visiting teaching comp. She decorated super cute.

The guest of honor, a sweet girl I visit teach, is pregnant with twins...her 4th and 5th girls. Her older 3 girls are ages 6 to 2. And I am feeling like my life is a piece of cake compared to hers!

Because I am the best delegater, I concocted a service jar for people to offer meals, folding socks, etc. for the mother of twins to be. I commented on how the lid looked like something I saw on Oprah (this kegel exerciser thing) and had one of my most embarrassing moments because the ladies looked at me in complete shock that I would say such a thing. I am very talented at sticking my foot in my mouth! It was just the wrong ladies to say that to. Most of my friends would have said it before I did! Okay...maybe just one or two.

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This weekend has been filled with one on one dates. Sarah chose Old Country Buffet...her fave. Alyssa chose the cat shelter and Krispy Kreme. I was loving it myself! And Chad chose to go see a movie with Dad.

And that is the end of our week!

My Buddy

My love for this guy is infinite. He is the most enjoyable guy I know and SO fun and SO happy and SO funny. I laugh and laugh and laugh and have the BEST time around him. He is a riot. He's easy going. He's funny. So why can't other kids see the same? He sits by himself every day at lunch and has not one friend at school. He has made up some imaginary friends for himself as a result of the social isolation. It is heartbreaking...but as always I am amazed by his positivity and resilience and courage. He is my hero in so many ways. Thank goodness he has neighborhood and church friends that adore him. But this charter school has been socially CRAPPY for him. Might have to change to the traditional school where he has friends he could sit with at lunch.

Here are a few of our conversations the last couple of days...

Me: Chad, you are so handsome. Do you know you are handsome?

Chad: No I'm not.

Me (shocked because he has a very high self-esteem): What? Of course you are! You know that.

Chad: But there are a lot of guys that are more handsome than me.

Me: Like who?

Chad (completely serious): Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Me: (totally busting up!) Chad, (still busting up) you can do better than that.

Chad: And Barrack Obama.

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On our one on one date Saturday...


Chad eating some mall food: MMMM. Wow...this is some QUALITY food! I need a straw.


Me: I'll get it.


Chad: No, I'll get it...let a MAN handle this.

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Puking Forces Blogging

I'm all dressed up and nowhere to go. So I guess I'll blog...

I baked 2 pies (the frozen kind of course) for the Stake Council potluck at the Stake Pres.'s house, got the house clean for the sitter, got all dressed up, kids fed and jammies on, put my shoes on and got my keys in hand to pick up the baby sitter. On my way to the car, Ava starts projectile puking everywhere. It even came out her nose...poor thing. So I cancelled on the sitter, and we're having Mrs. Smith's apple crumb pie tonight! It is to die for.

Sarah turned DOUBLE DIGITS...the big 1-0 on Wednesday! Every other year the kids have a family birthday with no friends. I love those years. So she opened presents, we had another lazy snow day off from school, and we played family games. Pass the Penny*, Poisonous Frog*, and Find the Penny* were an absolute riot as they worked for all ages in the house.

* Pass the Penny: Everyone sits in a circle and holds their hands flat together like in the prayer position but horizontal. Someone is "it" and sits in the middle of the circle observing. A penny gets passed around the entire circle by sliding your hands on top of your neighbor's hands, but one person can decide to keep it and just pretend to pass it and then everyone after them has to pretend to pass it. "It" must guess who has the penny.

* Poisonous Frog: Everyone draws slips of paper from a bowl: a blank paper means you are one of the regular frogs, a green x paper means you are the poisonous frog, star on your paper means you sit in the middle. The poisonous frog quickly and inconspicuously sticks his tongue out at the regular frogs to kill them when they make eye contact and the person in the middle tries to guess who the poisonous frog is.

* Find the Penny (I think everyone knows this game!): The finder(s) have to leave the room. The hider(s) hide the penny in plain sight anywhere in the room (on top of someone's head works well). The finders look for the penny and get "you're getting warmer"/"you're cold as ice" type clues as they get closer/further away from the penny. I beat Russ by 2 seconds in a timed contest with this one!!! I AM THE CHAMPION, my frieeee-eeeends!

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And can I just say that one of my favorite parts of motherhood is the dance parties!!!! Turn on the music, dance like you completely know what you're doing or just copy one of the kids, and the mood INSTANTANEOUSLY turns up 100 notches. They are a mother's best friend.

And on a much more serious note, Alyssa has been ticking. She can't help but do this jumping jack type thing a couple hundred times a day. My heart is bursting with love for her. I can't imagine how a challenge like this if it is long term would affect her very sweet and sensitive spirit. Praying like crazy here.

Chad Is Becoming a Man

I've noticed Chad's facial features are changing as he approaches adolescence. So I asked him to show me his underarms to see if changes were happening there too. As Russ and I inspected, we realized he had plenty of peach fuzz.

Then Chad declared with complete seriousness and major excitement,

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"Yes! Peach fuzz is SO MANLY!"

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He was on Cloud 9.

Who ever would have thought my kids would build igloos growing up? This was a scout activity Chad did in his leader's backyard Saturday.

Finally...

After years of conditioning, strength training, pilates, etc., Sarah's ultra strict ballet instructor has determined she is ready for pointe. This is her getting fitted for her pointe shoes (the man with her and his wife are dancers and owners of the store). Amazingly she did all of this even on a broken middle toe!

We followed this with a super long one-on-one date eating and shopping.

Then we partied like it was 2009! We always party with the New Yorkers (Eastern Standard Time New Years). The kids had a ton of fun exploding the firework confetti poppers, making a huge but welcome mess and jumping off the couch a hundred times shouting, "Happy New Year!"