it's not easy being green...

One of my new year's resolutions this year was to be better at recycling. We have done great as a family, but it is kind of a pain! Aluminum goes to the school, where the music department receives the revenue (yay, music)..Paper goes to the "dumpster" outside of the school, which brings in revenue, also. (I put ALOT of junk mail in that one!) So it makes me feel extra good to recycle these items. As far as the other recycleables go, though, such as cardboard, plastic (PETE 1 & 2), etc. (not including glass) it has to be hauled away to the recycle bins. Oh how I long for curbside pick up! I live within walking distance of the drop-off spot, but honestly, with my kids and a wagon full of recycleables, it takes me nearly an hour to get there and back...BUT I feel guilty when I drive. So...my recycling builds up and builds up and builds up, before I finally break down and haul it away. My kitchen always looks like it's overflowing with trash, but it's just my recycling...there's got to be another way! I researched the possibility of curbside pickup here at the first of the year, and learned that a curbside program in our area can't match the performance and cost effectiveness of the system already in place by the landfill. Apparently HAFB uses the methane gas produced at the landfill to produce electricity. So Brandon says we don't have to feel too guilty about not recycling once in a while. What they have done to make it easier for us is putting the drop bins in various communities. And we are getting better. In our area in 2003, only 100 tons were recycled from bins. In 2006, it was more than 450 tons. This is SO turning into an essay on recycling. I really just wanted to express my desire for curbside pickup, although I have learned it will never happen. I guess I'll continue to trudge my junk down to the posse grounds on what should be a weekly basis, but is more like an every 3 week huge job...For some reason I just have a strong desire to be green!

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear momma,
Happy birthday to you!

Just needed to give a shout out...today is my mom's birthday. My mom is such a good example to me. She has always been a great friend to me, especially when I've needed it the most throughout my life. She is one of my favorite people! I'm sure those of you that know her well agree with me that she is a lot of fun to be around. I think she is a great mom because she kind of just let us kids (teenagers) figure things out instead of over-reacting to our little rebellious moments. She did a good job "picking her battles" so to speak. My mom has a calm, steady way about her. She's done a great job raising us, I actually feel like she still helps me along most of the time! I'm very dependent on her, and always want to make her proud. I can talk to her about just about everything, and she always makes me feel good about myself. This sounds a little fragmented, I know. I'm not very good at expressing emotions! Plus I'm doing it in shifts between running my kids here and there...

My kids all LOVE "Gram" a lot!
Lucy says: "I love Gram for reading me stories and taking me on the 4 wheeler."
Lucy also says that Odie says "just 4 wheeler, I guess..." but I know Odie loves Gram by the way he runs to her when he sees her with a grin on his face and a light in his eyes. "Hi Gram!" and he wraps his little arms so tightly around her neck.
Will says: "I love that Gram makes cookies...if you didn't already say that about Odie..."
Phoebe loves that Gram taught her to sew, and
Abby also loves to sew with Gram, and says "I LOVE the Quilt Hop!!!"

So anyways, Happy Birthday, Mom. I won't tell y'all how old she is. When I saw her at the temple today someone told her we looked more like sisters than mother/daughter. I won't ruin her "youngster" image...

now what about these two?....

ok, I knew I would miss my big kids when school started. I know I depend a lot on them to help me with the "babies"...but oh my word, we are having a struggle, to say the least! Owen is used to sleeping in until 9 and sometimes even 10, but with all the excitement monday and tuesday, he was up before 8. I don't think he stopped whining and crying all day. Lucy thinks I should devote all of my time entertaining her...On day one, she HAD to color while I was washing the breakfast dishes. All of our coloring books were just recently boxed up in the process of moving out of our kitchen. She persisted, and I gave in. The "fun pad" I found was NOT acceptable, so I had to find the box, untape it, and dig way down to find a book for her to color in. Keep in mind little Odie was crying and whining and I was holding him most of the time throughout the searching. And my dishwater was getting cold. After coloring for 15 seconds, she HAD to do a puzzle. I put her off long enough to finish the dishes, but in the mean time, Odie had plastered his face with glue stick. Next, Lucy really really wanted to blow bubbles. I agreed with that activity, because it would entertain Odie and take them both OUTSIDE. That also lasted mere seconds. Then as Lucy and I were cleaning up her puzzles, Odie dumped the rest of the bubble solution on the kitchen table and drenched his shirt with the soapy mess. My kitchen table is now shining clean. Anyways, by 10 a.m. I decided it was time to check out the fall line-up of toddler shows on Playhouse Disney. I've never been so happy to see Handy Manny in all my life!
Day two wasn't much better. Odie started wailing "NOOOO......!!!!" when Phoebe and Will got on the bus, and kept up the whining and crying all morning, until I was wondering if he was sick, or teething or something was seriously wrong with the boy! The good part of that day was the fact that Lucy had a nap, something she hasn't done all summer long.
And here we are at the end of day three. Odie slept until 8:45 this morning, so we were off to a better start with him, but Lucy had got up with me at 6:30. I took them both to library story time, thinking maybe some time out of the house would be good for us. It was...and they both napped again when we got home. Things are looking up, it just takes some getting used to, for all of us, I guess.
As far as the school kids go, Abby is LOVING jr. hi. After our rough start with the bus business on the first day, she hasn't had a bad moment yet. Her flip flops broke on tuesday, which left her barefoot for half the day, but I don't think she cared. She did tell me she wasn't ready to deal with taking a water bottle yet, she had too much other stuff to figure out before she would be able to do that! Funny girl!
Phoebe is loving it, also. She thinks her teacher is great, and has some cute friends in her class. She is more worried about how she looks each day than anything. She has also been a little sick with the same dreaded sore throat that I have had for over a week now. She did not want to miss a day of the first week of school, though. Hopefully she's not contaminating too many classmates! Ugh, what's a mom to do?
Will's first words off the bus on his first day were, "Mom, I LOVE school lunch!" We are not surprised. The kid loves to eat. And he was thoroughly excited about the fact that he got a planner. And today he came home with a TCW (totally cool windjammer) ticket for good assembly behavior. He is the model first grader, I'm sure!
So we're slowly sinking into the routine of it all. I'm sure we'll get the hang of it eventually, just in time for dance, soccer and softball to start and throw us for a few more loops routine-wise! Yikes...5 kids=chaos!!!!

First Day at School

by Rod Hull

My first day at school today.
Funny sort of day.
Didn't seem to learn much.
Seemed all we did was play.


Then teacher wrote some letters
On a board all painted black,
And then we had a story and...
I don't think I'll go back.

trophies and ribbons and medals...oh my!

Here in our wonderful little city we have Country Fair Days the first week of August. I LOVE IT! and always have. This post will be long enough without me professing my love in detail, but one of the reasons it is so great is the opportunities it provides my children, with a different activity every night of the week, there truly is something for everyone. My kids love it all. It started out with the baby contest. I won't say much about it, except for I haven't entered my babies for years. Lucy was never in the baby contest. I don't really like the way it makes me feel. I take it too seriously...that being said, this year I was on the committee, so I decided to enter Owen, since I would be there anyways. Plus he's really cute. I think he should have won,Don't you? He did get "most delightful wave"...he waved the whole time he was on stage. The little guy that won had a fake tattoo and a mohawk. I guess the judges didn't like the clean cut look. ;)
That night was the little miss pageant. This is a favorite event, because they draw the winners out of a hat. This was Abby's last year and Lucy's first year participating. The 50's theme turned out adorable. All 3 of the girls dances were very cute, and they all had tons of fun. Even Lucy, who I was worried about letting go of my arm. They walk out with a cute boy escorting them, and of course Lucy, little miss independent, refused to walk with the boy, but had no problem whatsoever strutting her stuff on stage alone. She was cute. While they walked the ramp, the mc read questions that the girls had answered beforehand. Lucy's answers were so funny!
What is something most people don't know about you?
Lucy: I like to sing.
What do you want to do when you grow up?
Lucy: Be in the rodeo.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and who would you take with you?
Lucy: I would go to a soccer game with my family.
Ah, the simple life of a 3 year old!

The next event the kids participated in was the little buckaroo rodeo. This is their favorite, but not my favorite to take pictures at. It is too action packed, and I always miss stuff when I'm worried about the camera. Lucy did the stick barrel race and rode a sheep, but her sheep was a dud, and she was sad about it. Willie won this:

for this sweet ride:

Phoebe threw a goat. The rodeo is not really her thing, but she liked socializing.

My Abby girl won 2nd place in the goat throw and RODE A BULL! well, a steer, technically, and won 2nd place! She and Lexie (Missy's daughter) were the only girls to ride, and they placed 2nd and 3rd. Fun stuff, but this was Abby's last year of the rodeo, too.

Wednesday night was the Kid-K. All 4 kids ran it, and all 4 kids did awesome. Abby came in 3rd in her age group,
and little miss Lucy placed 3rd in the 3-4 division.

Saturday was the parade, and Phoebe claims it was her first time watching instead of riding in it. Abby and Will got to ride on the rodeo train, the rest of us watched and got lots of candy!

Oh, and one more thing. Brandon ran the 10K and I ran my first 5K saturday morning! And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!Oh how I love sw days!

My Excuses...

Here's what I've been doing instead of blogging lately.

A little of this...


Too much of this....


And 2 heads of this...

I MISS BLOGGING!