MAYLIN2007

Having computer issues. Hard to believe since the hubby is the computer expert. Kinda like the dentist whose kids have rotten teeth. My keyboard doesn't want to type certain letters, my comments will show 3 and then when I go back later to read them, it only shows one, I am not getting updates on people's blogs etc. Hubby said "I will rebuild it." So, pictures of the b-day may be out on Saturday or Sunday. Hang in there with me people!

I can't believe it is Alex's b-day tomorrow. He will be 11. I am kinda late at preparations. I am off a bit this year. Will post pictures of the festivities tomorrow or maybe Friday.

We had a family Halloween Party tonight at our church. I am not posting pictures yet of the kids. We will wait for the actual day for that. But here I am as a tiger, and Jay....he is a tiger tamer. Roar!!! Hee hee hee. The two ladies with me are my cohorts in Young Women. They are the zing, bling and bang to every thing I do.    

The snow from my previous post has stopped. We were left with 4 inches. Enjoy. Enjoy where ever you are.    

Its here. The cold. The snow. The crap. Can you tell I am not crazy about winter? Guess its because I grew up in a state where your nose hairs would freeze. Where the ice remained on the roads until April. Anyway, it is here. Guess there is nothing I can do about it. See the footprints in the snow? Those belong to the man painting the inside of our building in the back. When I went out to take the picture he was playing Christmas music. Ugh! Really. Halloween must come first. Spare me please!   A post about the garage will be made when it is finished. It has been storage, but now it will be storage and Jay's "Man Cave" as he affectionately calls it.

I love the word modge podge. I remember when I was young how modge podge was the thing! I think every thing was modge podged, or at least we thought every thing could or should be. I used modge podge for the first time in YEARS the other night when I made magnets. It brought back memories. In fact a "modge podge" of memories. Thus, the title of this blog. Here is a modge podge of memories from this past week. First, Aus was asked to a girl's choice dance at a local high school. He doesn't go to public school, so it was quite the adventure. He had never seen so many kids in one place. Considering his 11th grade class consists of 15 kids, this is understandable. He had a great time. Obviously it was a costume dance. They had dinner at the girl's home. I was at a football game and missed his big send off, so I went to the girl's home and took pictures there. Yea, he was embarrassed, but the other kids he was with didn't care at all. Nini went with and of cour...

Ever had one of those days that starts out bad or weird and just keeps getting worse or weirder? Well that was my day. It began when I woke up at 3:30 a.m. for absolutely no reason. I could not go back to sleep. At 6:45, Maylin woke up. Now, this is weird because she is a sleeper and always sleeps to 9 or later. She had a field trip for preschool so I chalked it up to that. At 9:30 a.m. as we were 5 minutes away from her field trip, she fell asleep. Obviously, I had to wake her when we got there, but I really don't think she truly woke up. She acted like an infant the WHOLE time. She crawled, scooted on her bum, goo-goo ed and gaa-gawd the whole time. It was like she was glazed over. On the way home she fell asleep again. This time she woke on her own after 15 minutes. She really wanted to sleep, but instead screamed until we had to leave for her passport appointment. Here are pictures of the field trip. You can see the glazed look in this first picture and do you like how I am let...

I love Halloween. I didn't like it at all as a child. It scared me for one reason or another. Actually I know why it scared me, but I will spare all of you. As an adult, however, I think it is great. I love decorating and I love watching my children think of what they want to be. This year I purchased a few new decorations. The dining room table items are new and so are the spiders/ribbons on my lights and the hanging broom/bats.        

Has anyone out there ever heard of a class on parenting that actually works on all your children? I have taken the Love and Logic and the 1,2,3 classes and yes they work on some of my kids, some of the time, but is there a program out there that could answer or fix all my problems? Let's look at some of these issues and feel free to offer advice. First, this week my child (this is the child that has me the most perplexed)said to me the thing a parent hates to hear the most...."I don't like it when people tell me what will happen. I like to see for myself." Ugh! That attitude could open a whole world of terror. Second, my oldest is dating several girls. He has a favorite, so we have imposed the 2 to 1 rule. He can see one girl only two times in a row and then he has to see another. He is following that fine, but I am still having a conniption when he tells me about the hand holding, the snuggling etc. Puke. I talked to a dear friend yesterday whose 16 year old had his ...

Today, I was stupid. Really stupid. When I woke up this morning the first thing I saw was a big black spider crawling on my ceiling. I watched it for several minutes as it crawled over to the side of the ceiling above one of my overstuffed chairs. I thought I could easily hit it now. I found a back scrubbing brush, wrapped toilet paper around it because I did not want to ruin the brush with spider guts and climbed onto the back of the overstuffed chair. Yea, you see the stupid part. Never, never stand on the back of a chair. I know, but I really thought the chair was overstuffed enough and low enough that it would never flip. Famous last thoughts. So, just as I hit the spider the chair lifted off its two front legs and teetered on it back legs. It hit the wall behind it causing me to fall. I fell against our night stand which has an inch thick slab of marble on it. I bounced off that and hit the window sill on the way to the floor. I laid their for at least 10 minutes. Maylin was with ...

Tonight for a young women activity we had a Johnny Lingo luau. For those of you who don't know Johnny Lingo, he is the main character of a movie made in 1969 about how he pays 8 cows for his wife. She is considered to be the ugliest one of the village, but after hearing her true value of 8 cows, she comes out of her shell and is amazingly beautiful. It is a great show! !   Maddie Brown After that, we had the highlight of the evening. The Browns (many of you know them from the adoption world)as in Kim and Hill and Maddie, came to teach us the hula! They are such great dancers. They danced for us and then taught us a great hula. They are such beautiful girls! We had such a great night because of them!!! Thanks so MUCH Browns. We love you. They even brought us bracelets which were a wonderful, unexpected treat. We met the Browns years ago through our adoption. They have 3 Chinese kids. One also has a heart problem. I feel a kindred spirit to this family! Here are pictures of our grea...

  The last few nights Maylin has wanted to offer our family prayer. They start out great, but by the end we are all trying not to laugh. Here are a few selections from the most memorable prayers. "Heavenly Father. Please bless everyone be safe. Bless mom, dad, Aush, Owlex, me and all the grandmas and grandpas and Jason (Jay's nephew that is living with us.) Thanks for everything." Me interjecting, "Bless Kenzie." Maylin: "No. I don't want to bless her. I don't want a sister." Muffled laughter begins. Maylin: "Amen" Next night: "Heavenly Father. Please bless everyone be safe. Thanks for everyone. Bless (instead of saying anything, she proceeds to point at everyone) Okay obviously we were peeking so we could see. Muffled laughter begins. "Amen" To end up the week, last night she wanted to read the scripture: This is how it went. "One day a man went to Maverick naked. He went to Walmart and got clothes so he was dress...

And the winner is.....its a tie! Both Aus and Kennie entered an essay contest at their school as part of a 40th anniversary celebration for the school. There were even cash prizes. Both entered and both wrote amazing essays. The theme was "what does American Heritage stand for and what does this mean to you". Aus wrote about it standing for the principle approach or the 4 R's which are research, reason, relate and record. He focused specifically on reason and relating and how learning how to do this has helped him deal with his heart problem. Kennie wrote that the school stood for educating of the heart and mind. She told of her experience of having her heart neglected at school as they were trying to teach her mind that had a learning disability how to think right. She shared about how her heart has been healed as she has been taught that she is a daughter of God and that she was born with her learning disability for a reason and that she has a great mission. She shared ...

It is amazing in life how each day brings new things. Some things are planned and others are unexpected. I thought I was trough with canning, but due to an unexpected phone call yesterday, I am canning today. Again. I have been canning a lot. I am t-i-r-e-d of it. I have done 11 bags of frozen peaches. Twenty four jars of pear jam and 24 jars of peach jam. I have done 12 bottles of raspberry-mango jam. Six jars of apple maple jam. Six jars of apple cinnamon syrup. Jars and jars (too many to count) of peach nectar and peaches. Eighteen jars of salsa and 12 jars of tomato sauce. Today I am making grape juice and grape jelly. Canning is not what I wanted to do. I was hoping to be done, but I am grateful for the generosity of a neighbor and this winter I will be grateful for the grape juice and jelly. I woke up this morning complaining about what I had to do today, but then with one small reminder of what others were doing today, my attitude changed. Today, Jay is up at the hospital seeing...

  Alex made this great airplane out of Legos. He wants me to send it in so it can be in the Lego magazine. He is so cute. Nothing new to post. I just feel like I am doggie paddling and am barely able to keep my head above water. A lot of it is the time of year. October seems to be a month where a lot of people struggle. Also having a hard time keeping up with the changes and demands in my family. I try to do my best, but it seems like it is never good enough, at least that is what everyone tells me. Maybe I need to stop listening to everyone and just listen to my gut.

Help! I think the 3 year old is winning. Stamps on the cups and glasses and hairspray on the cat.    

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Hazel, Eliza and Emily! What a wonderful way to welcome in October. I guess I should say what a wonderful way to get me to realize that we are out of September. I have been living in the past. Time went way to fast this month. Anyway, today we played in hay mazes, picked pumpkins, rode in wagons, ate at McDonald's, visited and enjoyed each other's company. It was a grand day. Maylin is a bit afraid (okay a lot afraid) of Halloween. She was last year too. I was concerned how she would do at the patch. She did great until we walked by a zombie statue at the pumpkin weigh-in. She saw him and just stopped dead in her tracks. She didn't move for a minute and I just watched to see what she would do. All of a sudden she let out a little whimper and then ran for my leg where the whimper turned to a bit of a yelp. Here are some of the highlights of the day!