BATS!!

A colony of bats have taken up residence on my living room wall!

Aren't they awesome?  I wish I could claim the cleverness of this project, but I can't.  I found this post on Pinterest and knew that this was the Halloween project for me. (i.e., cheap and easy)

Sppooooooooookkkkyyy!

Of course, the scariest part of the project was having to deal with a toddler and a ladder, two things that should probably never mix.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised a trip to the ER didn't become part of our afternoon plans.  That boy has 39 lives.

Have You Ever Been So Tired...

... that you stole a rather large bunch of grapes from the fridge

snuck into your parents room to gobble them down

and then passed out in a grape-induced coma with your tush in the air?

Cole has.

All Night Party

Josh and I had a pretty good party in the middle of the night - he brought the croup and I brought the worry that moms have when their kids are sick and there's not much you can do about it.

It was pretty bad there for a while in our steamy bathroom.  Poor Josh just coughed and wheezed and you could tell he felt gross and didn't really understand what was going on.  Things calmed down a bit after Lance gave him a blessing.  An hour or two later (who can remember?) he was back in bed asleep.

An hour after that he was up and bugging for a snack.  That's when I knew he'd be Just Fine.

An hour after that Cole woke me up at some ungodly hour for some unknown reason.  Since he wasn't coughing or wheezing I wasn't nearly as nice to him as I was to Josh.  (I just gave him some milk and unceremoniously dumped him back into bed.)

At some point during the small remainder of the night some other children came in and bugged me, but I don't remember the details now; the party, by then, was a bit fuzzy.

At this point the question of "Why don't my kids ever bug Lance in the middle of the night???" should be asked.  I know it's one of those imponderable questions that will never be answered, but still.  

I planned on taking a short nap today, but every time I laid down some child would start crying or yelling or fighting or whatever.  So I gave up and got some work done around the house.  Then I decided to edit a rather large, boring, and poorly written dissertation.  Might as well make some use out of my time, right?  Except that I kept falling asleep instead of editing.  Dang it.

So now that the kiddos are in bed I've been editing for three hours straight and I'm only halfway through.  Ugh.  I would rather be doing just about anything else in the world than editing this paper.  Which is why I'm blogging.

But I suspect there's a good chance that I will be invited to another party tonight.  Which is why I'm now ending this post and going to bed.

I'm a Mormon

Have you seen those new "I'm a Mormon" ads on TV?  I find them very interesting.  I also think that I'm probably not interesting enough to be featured on one of them.  But that didn't stop me from writing one (very long one) of my own!  Here we go:

I’m a wife of eleven years going on eternity.  I have four children under the age of eight – three boys and one girl.  I graciously ignore comments from strangers at the grocery store about my family’s size and gender.

I have a home that is never 100% clean all at once.  While I clean one room, the children work on destroying two others.  So then I get to work on the other rooms as they start to work on the one I just cleaned.  It’s an imperfect system, but I haven’t figured out anything better.

I love pumpkins.

I’m a mother.  There’s a quote that has been floating around the inter-webs quite a bit lately: “Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling…” Amen to that.  It’s also not a job, as I am always on call, the health benefits are non-existent, and you couldn’t pay me enough to do some of the things I’ve done. Oh, the things I’ve done.

I love my kids.  Most of the time.

I’m a blogger.  I don’t know that I would classify myself as a Mommy Blogger; it just happens that most of my best blog-fodder comes from incidents with my children.  I’m sure I will still have plenty to blog about once they’re all grown and out of the house.  Like the weather, or antics from the neighbor’s cat, or… my grandchildren.  I don’t know.  I know my husband probably won’t be entertaining enough on his own, but I’ll find something to write about.

I’m a grammar Nazi.  No wait – I’m more of a grammar Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.  Sittin’ on my porch with my rather large shotgun yelling at punk teenagers to “Get off my lawn” and “Quit messing up your possessive plurals, you jerks” and “LOL is NOT a REAL word!!!”  I’m not saying everyone has to be grammatically perfect all of the time; heaven knows I’m not.  But if you’re gonna email, text, of, oddly, write me, then you’d better get your “there, their, and they’re” right.  Or your “its and it’s”.  Or, worse yet, your “your and you’re”.  I mean, for the love of all that is good, most of you were born and raised with this language – take the time to use it properly!  (Unless you want the shotgun to make an appearance.)

I don’t *heart* anything.

That’s a lie.  Sometimes I do *heart* things online, but I always feel lame afterwards.

I believe in public schools.  I especially believe in our teachers.  They’re overworked and underpaid and I thoroughly appreciate all they do, especially because I know I couldn’t do it.  But it makes me angry every year when I have to pay registration and book fees for my supposedly free public school.  In a few years I estimate, between these fees and all of the required school supplies, I’ll easily be forking over close to a grand to send all of my kids to public school.  For one year.  Just vote for slightly higher property taxes, people!  It won’t kill you.  You won’t miss those few extra bucks each month.  Sure, you may not have kids in school, but you used to or you will.  And if not, you were a kid once and probably went to public school.  And if you went to private school?  Well, la-dee-dah, look where it got you – right back into a neighborhood full of publicly-educated children.  Just pass the dang bond.

I believe in speaking my mind, but not to the detriment of others.

I believe in being on time.

I believe in being fair when you can, but that we have the responsibility to teach our children that life is not always fair.  If we try to make everything 100% equal and fair between them, what are we setting them up for in life later on?  Not reality.  Not success. 

I believe in going to church even if your children won’t allow you to really hear any of it.

I believe my life wouldn’t be as happy as it is today without the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ. I believe in the Book of Mormon.  I believe in modern day prophets and personal revelation.

My name is Maren, and I’m a Mormon.

Fiery Serpents

This evening I needed my hands free, so I put Tess on the floor and gave her a rubber snake to play with.

What?  Rubber snakes are great toys for babies.  They're easy for baby hands to hold, they're easy for toothless gums to chew , and they're in plentiful supply in homes full of little boys.

Tess loves rubber snakes. 

But in a fit of parenting awesomeness, I forgot that Tess's new favorite thing is to fling things around her face.

You can see where this is going, right?

It was within a matter of moments that Tess had a rather large, red, rubber snake welt across her cheek.  To say that she was Less. Than.  Pleased. would be fairly accurate. 

Fortunately, a brief spin in the office chair while in Momma's arms helped put this bit of poor parenting out of her little Tessy mind.

Tess on Wheels

Josh doesn't usually pay too much attention to Tess - there are far more interesting things to play with than a boring ol' baby.  But put Tess on some wheels, and you have plenty of fun for your average five year old!

They must have gone up and down the driveway 50 times.

Josh was super-excited.

And for once, so was Tess!

Cole was not interested in pushing Tess around - thank goodness!  No, instead, he was much more interested in ramming her stroller with his bike.  Punk kid.

Just look at those chub-a-licious legs!  It's a shame we will have to start hiding them under pants soon.

Good times, Josh.  Good times.

My Day In a Nutshell

As a mother of a toddler you sometimes find yourself yelling at the top of your lungs such things as:

"NO!  Do NOT play in your brother's vomit!!!!"

and

"HEY!!  Quit licking my computer!!"

and

"NO!  We do NOT step on the baby!  HEY!  We don't sit on her either!!!"

These are often followed by various oaths and curses said under your breath, because they are not intended for children's ears.