Happy New Year

Well I wasn't in the mood to host the family party this year and Kirk agreed he wasn't either. Then his Dad called about noon and here is how it went,

Bon, see's who is calling on the caller id " Kirk we aren't doing the party you need to tell him"

Kirk, "I got it... Hey Pop"

Bill " So we having the party tonight at your house?"

Kirk "That sounds great, Bonnie what time?"

He didn't even try to now have the party. But I know it was the right thing, the kids love it every year. I spend way too much at party city and I made 4 pound of beef worth of meatballs but then the in laws brought 3 pizza so we'll be eating meatballs for a few days, sigh. Happy New Years to everyone I think the Mayan indians had it wrong it's not the end of the world its going to be the best year ever. Hopefully, it's starting off rather rocky over our way, but I have high hopes!

Old photos

Just found a cd with pictures from a meet Elle was in last year. It still makes me sad she isn't doing it. Guess I'll have to go sit by all the ultra competitive parents so I can remember what I didn't like. Luckily I have the pictures :) I really wish the one wasn't blurry. WHen can I get the camera that automatically fixes the blur?? My new camera instead of fixing the blur only takes blurry pictures, where's the logic??

Christmas post

WEll it has come and gone. ONe of the most stressful/spiritual days of the year. Well we succeeded at the stressful part. The kids verdict after the chaos was that it was a smaller Christmas but with better stuff. Which was my original goal. I had hoped for the 3 presents each but it was more like 6. But that included things like earphones and scrapbook paper. You will see a picture of Matt by the biggest gift, after all these years the oldest finally got the biggest gift. When Elle got a kitchen when she was 2 we heard Matt telling everyone from the banister that the biggest ift must be his since he was the oldest. Well this time it was finally the case! Connor got a 2 person deer blind. Don't know how Santa talked the Misses into that... guess it's our redneck version of the tree fort Connor has always wanted. The Nativity the night before was difficult with 2 teenage boys who thought they were old enough to sit out. And i was the only one to bring any costumes. I keep telling them to smile for pictures and stand straight becuase someday they will enojoy having these pictures. currently Matt looks away fromt he camera or doesn't smile. Its the illusive smile, you will see the one smile I caught...

Phantom moods

It has been so busy and so many big things are happening around here that I am exhausted! Just plain drop dead tired. I was supposed to go run this morning, which while making me wake up and not sleep in would have been therapeutic to talk to a friend. But I missed the alarm clock, I kinda turned it off and snuggled with Elle and forgot to get up. Totally stood my friend up which wasn't nice. But then even with my sleep in I woke up in the WORST mood! Maybe it wouldn't have been that way but I woke up to the phone ringing and it was my mother in law and the conversation didn't go well. It was like listening to a train wreck happening. Then Kirk jokingly asked when I start my mood medication, which somehow wasn't funny. I started right then to try and make my mood better. But why is it this way 2 days before Christmas? It's my first day off this week, I'm with the kids I can get my stuff done. Just a lot on my mind I guess.

Score for one good phone call today

I was having kinda of rough morning, like a hangover from yesterday you know? When my phone rang, I really didn't want to answer it but I did. The guy introduced himself and said he was from South Forsyth HS and my first thought was oh my gosh what did matt do now??? But he was calling to say the raffle tickets I bought from a friend of Matts was picked and I won a Ipad!! I was like Get OUT! And he said nope can you come get it? Sweet! Do I keep it or sell it and buy something else?? When will I ever buy one for myself but what else could I get? That is the question!

are my posts starting to sound the same? well today is no exception. worked 7 hours only to find my car would turn on but had no steering capabilities and made a awful noise. had to get it towed waited for awhile to get a ride home. Elle got home alone but went to a friends house. was told by the secretary at AJ's school they couldn't let him know he needed to ride the bus since I couldn't get him to go to practice because "administration aren't allowed to interrupt the classes", i guess it's better to not interrupt and have a 12 year old boy waiting outside for a ride thats not coming. got 2 phone calls from 2 different school regarding fairly big trouble they were in. got yelled at and run away from when I tried to talk to those to boys, cried all my makeup adding what looks like 10 years to my face. whew. but on the fun side I got to bleach my teeth at the office yesterday and while my teeth hurt the rest of the day they are certainly white. not as white as ben affleck in Armageddon, but white nontheless.

i can't even think of a title or make myself use the cap button. maybe if i type in monotone it will sound calm??

Ever look down at your legs on Sunday in church and realize you forgot to shave your knees? For maybe a few days in a row and it's completely obvious?? No? Oh me neither :)

Prayers needed

We are applying for some alternative high school programs for Matt to help him stay focused and maybe get him out early, it's a real long and won't make my life easier but if you would please cross your fingers and or pray for him this week! <3

Aj's first meet for 2011-2012

Well it's meet time again for AJ. This one was on a Saturday which I hope means we will get a lot of Saturday meets this season. The progrma had him listed as competeing in the 12+ category which made me nervous because some of these boys looked big and old! You see the picture of boys gathered in lines? See AJ in the middle of the picture, see the giant to the right of him?? thats who he was up against! He is the oldest in his level 5 group and the level 6 group above him, partly because all these boys started at 5 where AJ is only in his 2nd year of competition. He got some of best scores ever and it was fun to see his growth. When they actually awarded the medals he was grouped with the 11 year old group. The parents around me guess they are awarded based on how old they were at the beginning of the school year, which makes sense but didn't anyone tell the guy who made the programs?? So he earned a medal in every event, 2nd in floor, 2nd on pommel(which used to be his worst event), 1st in vault, always his best event, 3rd on parallel bars and 3 in high bar. I am always ready to give the "we do this because you love it not for the medal" speech if he doesn't get anything which has happened but I am always relieved when he gets a reward for his hard work! See the picture of him grinning from ear to ear, thats what we love to see! (and that was after the parallel event!!) I have all his routines on my video camera but I don't own the cord to put it on the computer, I will try my best to fix that soon!

Yeah

remember yesterday when I had a tough time with Matt cutting his hair super short? well... now he's dyed it. :) yeah. He was nervous it wasn't turning quite as blonde as he wanted, so i had to break out the pictures of me when I cut my hair short and tried to die it blonde myself and turned it a lovely shade of copper. Not my best moment, he looks better then I did. And the good news is his hair is so short, it's going to grow up in only a few short weeks!!

Special Sunday

Well after waiting for 16 years for this day, one would think I would be better prepared. But it was a rough week to shop with me working everyday and then Matt gone on Saturday so I couldn't take him. I really wanted to have Matt in a suit to bless the sacrament for the first time today. He wanted nothing to do with that since only 1 or 2 Priests in our ward wear them. I still really wanted it, but then couldn't even find one I liked. I tried to find the middle ground and I bought him some new church pants and looked through 2 malls for a new vest without luck. The pants which of course he didn't try on until this morning were way way too tight even though they were a size 18. And then in all my stress about the pants versus suit and vest fiasco I forgot his church shoes are a size and a half too small. 3 sizes bigger then Kirks so he couldn't even borrow. Needless to say of course he looked nice, just not what I have envisioned his whole life. Then I saw him with the razor this morning and I begged him to please leave it just for today, just leave it longer, I tried forbidding it and then I tried taking the razor and he decided to flex his musles proving yes, he is bigger then me. Which for some reason started me on a huge crying streak I'm embarressed to say. No, not just crying, I sobbed and sobbed that he couldn't just do one thing for me and no one was getting ready and I as running behind. the best part? The entire family witnessed my melt down. Every child. It was not my most wonderful moment. We got to church and Kirk and Matt sat on the stand and Matt wouldn't even look at me. In the pew ahead of me was a darling little baby boy who kept laughing and smiling at me while in the same view I could see my 16 years old son sitting at the Sacrament table. This caused me to cry through the entire Sacrament song. Partly the love that he is my son and he is so wonderful and grown up, and partly he is such a big turd and it hurts my heart... confusing I know. Then AJ was called up to the stand to bear his testimony as he graduated Primary today. Kirk gave a beautiful prayer for his ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood, and Matt got to join them in the circle with Kirk, Grandpa Bill, Uncle Mike and Uncle Kyle along with the Bishop and AJ's teachers. That was such a special moment to see Matt with his Dad blessing his brother.

Sigh. I know special days are always proceeded by difficulty, I guess I just forgot and didn't gird up my loins! The good part is dinner was NOT at my house. The bad news is I'm still kinda hungry.

Lovely morning (don't be fooled by the innocent title)

I can't remember if I've posted this before. My oldest son has been a bit of a hypochondriac in the past. He has gotten somewhat better with age. It was especially bad when he used to watch House and they were always diagnosing some funky disease. He would go to the school nurse with the most amazing symptoms. I've been on a first name basis with all the school nurses from 3 school because of Matt. But for at least the last year it's been honed down to just one symtom. He gets diarrhea a lot at school apparently. Today makes twice this week. I found myself starting a search on google for what could cause chronic poop. But then it occurred to me... hmmm, it really only happens at school. But he calls me from the nurse's office whining, sharing gross details and threatening to call his Grandma to come get him. He wants to go to the Dr right away, "it's leaking out during class". I know you don't want to hear this, but you know what? Neither do I! He's also mad because he swears his teachers all think he has ADD or ADHD and we've never bothered to treat it, and thats what he's doing so poorly in class. It can't have anything to do with the fact that I fight all night with him to study even 5 minutes. So why does he need to come home so desperately today? I would like to know that as well. I'm going to assume that he had a assignment due today or a test. But it could also be more serious about trouble that around him and he doesn't know how to avoid it. But I don't know what to do either. If I brought him home every time he feels like this, he'd be homeschooled.

Any ideas? I think starting this week I'm going to get a record of all the times he calls home for this. Someday, long long years from now, we are both going to find this funny. I hope.

Connors birds

The bird on his head is Falcor one of the first set of baby birds. The one on the front of his shoulder is the biggest of the new set, he is currently named #1. The one on the back of his shoulder is Peanuts, the mommy bird. Do you hear the whiney noise the baby is making? Thats him begging for food, then Peanuts feeds him.

My poor car was towed away today :( we think the radiator is a bust. we are hoping that is the only thing wrong! There was a puddle when I drove away from home this afternoon but I figured it was your normal whatever type puddle. But I guess it was radiator fluid. ON my way back it started making funny noises and smoking. Luckily I have a mechanic I really like and trust, so I called him while driving and he told me to park it and tow it. Guess I'll know the damage tomorrow. I am not excited or happy. Doesn't fate know that the fall is my expensive time??

Last funny race story

we also figured because of where we were running we needed more local southern sounding running names. I figure that means we put a La in front of our names. The friend I was running with calls me Bo, (it's a long story). SO we figure my running name should be Labo, although that doesn't look right so I'm going to need to borrow from Dad and be Labeau. :) makes me sound faster doesn't it.

My latest race

I'm late for choir, and it's going to take me awhile to get ready since i'm moving like a sore old lady, so this is going to be short. Savannah was a riot! The hardest run I've done in a long time, I think my body wasn't happy with me running 2 weeks in a row. I was a little bummed since I was running with the friend I trained with. I hit the wall and never recovered. It was a comedy of errors the whole trip. A drive that should have taken 4 hours took 6, so we couldn't stop for me to use a bathroom or we would miss getting our numbers. So so painful! I found a miracle short cut which caused us to get in the expo 4 minutes before it closed so we got our numbers, huge relief! But we were so late we couldn't buy shuttle tickets to the race from out hotel, so we had to drive to the mall in the morning for the free shuttle. We got there a hour and 20 minutes before the race, waited in line for 30 minutes before people started jumping the line and just running for buses, kinda ugly. The bus than took almost 40 minutes to do a 15 minute drive. So we got to the race way after it started. We were supposed to be in corral 6, and we ran to the front time where corral 17 was just crossing. which means we were just leap frogging people for miles since it was a slower division. Kinda fun but kinda hard. It started off in a beautiful part of the city but then we ran through industrial park and slums, not really what I wanted to run through. We got some good laughs, like a fast food place that says it's chicken and shrimp, Chicago style. Can't figure out what that is. And we ran by a funeral home, that was fun. About 5 I started hurting, about 10 my friend was dragging me, and at 11 I told her to leave and it was like watching the road runner leave coyote, she was so fast. I didn't beat 2 hours which I really REALLY wanted. But the amazing thing is I tied my time from the week before, down to the second! Amazing really. I shouldn't be bummed, a year ago I was 28 minutes slower. So i am happy. (Steph got a 1:59:10) We then stood in another ridiculously long line to get on another bus, then we got to our car and drove 20 minutes to the beach, where we walked in, in our running clothes! We completely numbed our lower bodies and almost hyper ventilated laughing. Her GPS kept taking us to bizarre places, taking us 3 times as long to get back to the hotel where we only got to rinse off and jump in the car to head for home. So, I would run it again. I hope Savannah learns from their inaugural race and it is better next time. And next time we are going down early in the day to get to see the city!

And yes I am so much more sore today than last week. I think I'll take a week off :)

Halloween half marathon

My family was so awesome to drive 45 minutes out to see me cross the finish line today! It was the Silver Comet half marathon, and I ran my fastest ever! I've now run 4 and my times went, 2:28, 2:25, 2:15 and today was 2:03! I was so close to breaking the 2 hour mark that I'm a little sad, but mostly pumped to do it again! My training went so great this time, that even with my back injury a few weeks ago, I feel great! A friend from church found me at mile 4 and we ran the whole thing together, she definalty pushed me and the Garmin watch was priceless! I set my goal time and it kept me in line! After Kirk was so nice to rollar my legs while I stood there and shook! lol what a guy! It was a huge bummer to have Mom injured and not able to run, but boy was it nice to have someone there who has felt the pain and knew just what I needed! the shirt and medal are awesome, it's a spider and the shirt says "Use your legs" I love it!

Halloween

As you can see Elle took the pumpkin carving very serious! She drew hers out on paper complete with measurements! AJ carved his to say "No candy for you" which was very impressive carving skills. Elle really wanted to be the Corpse Bride, the makeup looked much better in person, you can hardly see the cool eyebrows I did and lovely blue shading :) AJ really wanted to be a banana, although he had hoped to have a whole body covering banana costume. I went in my race shirt and medal and the boys went as teenagers, which wasn't a huge stretch!

Another trip to the ER

OK I know this looks gross. I came home from running right when the kids were running for the bus so I waved good bye and went inside. I had the feeling I should grab a quick protein shake but I thought no I want to plug my watch into the computer first and see my time. Less then 2 minutes late Connor and AJ come back in the house. AJ is sobbing, his knee is pumping out blood and from what I can see it's too deep and wide for any bandaid I have. SO I carry him out to the car with Connor helping and we drive to the ER. I should have dropped Connor at school but AJ is freaking out and I hate to make him wait. The hospital staff at the Emory Johns Creek is so nice, I should know, I was just there last THursday as well. The nurse looks at his knee and suggests staples which really freaked AJ out. She explained he will have better range of movement with a staple vs stitches. I told them he's a gymnast so movement is important. While waiting I asked him how it happened and he said he was walking toward the bus when he slid on a wet stick in the wet grass then fell and hit his knee on the curb. He says he looked down and saw the hole and immediately started digging in the grass looking for the skin he thought must have come off!! Poor kid!! I got to help hold the knee while it numbed. He would laugh hysterically then act amazed. He watched while the DR stretched it around to see exactly what happened. He completely freaked out when he saw the stapler so I held his hands, but once she did he it he thought it was great how fast it went! But he had trouble bending, so she removed the staple, which again freaked him out, but he watched her put in the next one! We then took Connor to school, he was not happy and they aren't sure they can excuse his tardy... whatever. Now AJ is home with me. The excuse from the hospital says he can't go to school tomorrow, is that weird? But because it says that the school won't let him come!! CRAZY! Don't you love his pose? Isn't he the cutest ever??

Inspiration on the move

While running today, my friend and I were discussing a common subject, my oldest son. I mentioned that in stake conference yesterday I looked over at him and I had a overwhelming feeling of how great he either could or will be. I seemed to feel his potential and it was such a great feeling. Then I was flipping through the Ensign during a long wordy talk and I happened to read about the Brother of Jared. I read about how he wasn't told what to do, he went and melted rocks. He went and did hard sweaty labor and then the Lord blessed his efforts. Today both those thoughts came together in my head while talking. Thats what parenting is. I haven't gotten any ground breaking revelations on how to raise my son. But I've been told to go raise him, I have basic knowledge, then I am supposed to go and do the back breaking, sweaty, intense labor of raising him, and the Lord will touch him and he will glow.

All this came together for me today ay mile 5. This is why I run. :)

Is he 2 or 16?

Matt sure is getting a lot of attention this week. I've told him maybe we need to see a counselor to figure out if he's just trying for negative attention. Surely he knows we love him! As I was leaving work today I got a call from the school nurse, that Matt, my almost 16 year old son Matt, had swallowed a guitar pick at school. She said he could breathe but he was having trouble breathing and seemed to be in a lot of pain. So I ran home got Elle off the bus called my person, who is Mom my resident nurse. The poor school nurse was so worried I took him right to the ER. needless to even say almost everyone there looked at us like total loosers. Me for bringing him without seeing if he could swallow anything more than water and him for swallowing a guitar pick. They did a x-ray even knowing they probably were't going to be able to see a plastic pick! Anyway then they brought him a turkey sandwich which he ate as if he hadn't eaten all day. It went down fine so they sent him home with orders to "poop in a bag and search the poop for the pick for a few days". Great. It's a good thing so some friends organized a girl thing tonight because I need it in a bad way!!

Thank you to my oldest son

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my eldest son Matt, for making me learn to do hard things. I would like to thank him for continuing to help Heavenly Father to teach me patience, by never choosing the obviously easier way. I would like to thank him for helping me run faster as I imagine pounding my feet into his silly notions... you thought I would say face didn't you. I would like to thank him for noticing and telling me when I need to wax my upper lip. I would like to thank him for pointing out that apparently my big hoop earrings are "slutty". I would like to thank him for helping me to know all the music I don't like by playing it in my car. And I would like to thank my family for rallying around me and sharing their stories and love.

And I ask again.... we shouted for joy for this plan???? Jk of course, hurrah for free agency. hip hip... hurrah.

Success

I shoulda wrote this post on Saturday when I was in the middle of my runners high! Well I still kinda am, but it's not as cool. I ran 14 miles on Saturday for the first time ever! I was super nervous but I didn't talk to anybody about it, I kinda needed to hold it inside until I was successful. Well my running buddy knew and one friend who got me some new GU type packets to try lime key lime and something kona, not bad but super sweet. The greenway that I run it exactly 7 miles long, and I've always wanted to run the whole thing, so i was really excited to get to the other side! And what does the other side have?? A bathroom, with automatic flushing toilets, running water and soap! Do you know how many trees I've had to stop behind? Let not mention them! Our side of the greenway has a porta-potty that I have yet to use! Anyway it was a wonderful pitstop before running back the other way! Not only did I run my first ever 14, but I ran it in my fastest time ever!! Can I tell you how double excited I was?? I don't think so. I walked around all day wishing I had a button on my shirt that said "yes, I did run 14 miles today, thank you for asking" not that anyone asked but they shoulda! Couldn't they see my post run glow??

Meanwhile todays 6 mile run, was stinky. We ran super fast and then I didn't have time to stretch so my legs felt like rubber all day. but I re-learned that I can do hard things and I don't quit!

More running mishaps

When I'm running my long runs I want to have everyone have a bubble over their head like a cartoon that says how many miles they are running and if they are training, for what race. Maybe thats because as I pass all these fresh runners and they see my dragging my butt they would see how many miles I logged and I could feel better. I have always wanted someone to ask how far I'm running so I could say something cool. Well it finally happened this weekend, my friend and I passed these 2 women and I hate to be rude so I said hi as we passed and commented on how nice it was the sun finally came up and they agreed and they asked how far we were running, feeling super cool I said 12, how far are you running? 20. What could I say to that, oh wow thats a lot of miles and then keep running by. Someone finally asked how far I was going and they were going almost double!!! thats so not fair! Oh course I could hear them complaining how fast we passed them as we left so that made me feel a little better. Some people run by me like I'm standing still and it drives me nuts! Once in awhile it's nice to be the fast one.

On that note, I totally tripped again today. LAst time as you may recall I tripped but caught myself on my toe, causing that toe to rip and and turn black and blue, well this time I didn't catch my toe so all 10 are ok. The bad news is that means I didn't catch myself which means I flew through the air like super man with arms extended and then slid several feet on the boardwalk. My friend said I looked like I was trying to steal a base I slid so far. I just laid there and hurt, maybe said a few words... then got up and kept running or I may not have been able to if my body cooled down. I put holes through both sleeves on the palms of my hands, glad it wasn't my skin. Did take skin of my elbow and it looks like I have 2 elbows and I'm expected a very colorful bruise on my thigh and hip. What is wrong with me? I'm starting to think something is wrong with my feet. I have to consciously keep track of how I'm lifting them! Maybe I should take a running posture class! Or have my feet shortened... is that possible??

whine time... not to be confused with hammer time...

It's been a frustrating few weeks with my running. I had to take 2 weeks off for a pinched nerve in my back, then this week I had the worst vertigo. I had trouble standing, walking, laying down, it was really awful so obviously I didn't run on Tuesday morning since I didn't know if I'd run off the trail. Then this morning my friend couldn't go so I thought, self you are tired and still recovering so get the extra sleep. But by this afternoon I was really crabby and I knew I needed to run. Luckily Kirk encouraged me or I still may have let it go. So I ran over at 7 to run my 5 miles. Now it's been months if not a year since i've run by myself, I've been so spoiled to have friends to run with! But I thought I would take advantage of my alone run to listen to my cute little tiny ipod player that Kirk got me for a birthday. I took the time to remember to charge it and I had headphones... I got on the trail and pushed play and it started playing some song i've never heard something like "i'm a banana" ( here it is for your enjoyment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH5ay10RTGY ) repeated several times, maybe some bongo drums in the back ground. I stopped and pushed buttons and turned it off and on but that was the ONLY song on my player!! Someone, who has yet to fess up took all my music off! It was funny but super annoying to run the 5 miles with only myself for entertainment! Needless to say since I started at 7, it got dark a lot faster than I thought so I ended up running the last 2 miles faster than i've run in the last year just to get back to my car! GO ADRENALINE!!

Happy birthday Connor!!

Connor was very difficult to choose a present for. We ran lots of ideas by him, birthday parties, air soft guns, games, paintball guns, bows. He would grunt at everything, he's gotten very good at the man grunt. So finally we narrowed it down to our 2 favorite, pulled them both up online and he went and studied both of them. He read reviews, looked at ideas and finally decided on the compound bow. Apparently sometime in the past he asked for one... So he went with Kirk to pick it out and have it weighted to his size and strength. At least twice Kirk commented on something being too big for Connor because it was Kirks size and Connor had to remind him that, well he's taller. We have a target in the backyard and he shoots it all day. I assume he's going to get amazing arm muscles, to go with his already amazing rowing arm muscles. His grandma Johnston bought him a birthday card with Edward Cullen on the outside, somehow she thought it was for a boy. It says 'you don't look a day over 17" yah I don't get why that would be a boy card either! Sunday he was ordained a teacher and looked very handsome in his suit. The Bishop likes to have everyone bear their testimony when he brings them to the stand so we practiced all morning since Connor isn't naturally a public speaker. He was mostly understandable, taller than our Bishop and had the Connor smirk type smile on the whole time. His Dad gave him a marvelous blessing, it was really sweet. His first dance was Saturday night but neither he or Matt would go. I don't know if I should have made him, but he doesn't really have a great friend who goes, so why push it?

Bird update

Our baby birds are looking like birds! They are around 5 weeks and not weaned yet but getting close!! They still sqawk like babys , no whistling yet. But the boys are trying hard to teach them some tunes. Both have flown around the house when we took them out to hold and did fairly well but not good enough to not give me a heart attack! We should really think about selling them or finding them new homes, but gosh they are just so cute!

Happy birthday Elle

Elle had a wonderful 9th birthday yesterday! Hard to believe my baby has only one more year till she's in the double digits! What a gift and blessing she is in our family! She wrote a list of things she wanted for her birthday which made it so easy to run by target before work walk down the aisle and look for her requests! She thought it was Christmas with that stack of presents! She mostly wanted Pet Shop bobble heads and their new creation little tiny bobbles, some scrapbook stuff and these pencil topper things I can't even remember the name of but end with achoo in the name. Her Parnell Grandparents got her 2 pairs of shoes for school and some Fancy Nancy books she couldn't wait to read! Johnston Grandparents gave her some cash and some school clothes that she had a great time picking out. It looked like my 7th grade closet recreated! When did the big shoulders and stripes come back?? She was really excited to have her favorite cake which is red velvet. All in all a good day for my baby girl!

Now if only Connor would make it easy for me on Friday. But it's not looking like that, he can't tell me a single thing he wants, what kind of cake he wants and what he wants for breakfast! All he makes are noncommittal grunts!! AAHHH

Chicken-Andouille Gumbo

I know there are easy ways to cheat at this, like use chicken bouillon and rotisserie chicken, but I really love the whole process when I'm in the mood for it. It's not really hard but can be time consuming. 

makes 4 qts prep time 45 min, cook 3hr,50 min
 1 (4lb) whole chicken cut up
 5 bay leaves
 5 parsley sprigs
 3 garlic cloves
 3 tsp salt, divided
 1 lb andouille or smoked sausage, I find the really spicy kind
 1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
 2 medium onions, chopped
 1 large green pepper, although I use red since I like them better and I like the red in the gumbo
 3 Tbsp minced garlic
 1/2 tsp ground red pepper
 1 tsp black pepper
 Hot cooked rice
 1. Bring first 4 ingredients, 1 tsp salt and 1 gal water to a boil in a large stockpot over medium high heat; cover, reduce heat and simmer 1 hour. remove chicken, reserving broth. Skin, bone and coarsely chop chicken. Pour broth through a wire -mesh strainer into a large bowl discarding the solids. return broth to the stockpot. Skim fat from broth if desired.
 2. Cook sausage in a large heavy skillet over medim-gigh heat, stirring 8-10 minutes or until brown. Remove from skillet.
 3. Wipe skillet clean. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat; gradually whisk in flour, and cook, whisking constantly, 18-20 minutes or until the flour is a dark carmel color. (mine never gets super dark)
4. Stir onions and next 3 ingredients into flour mixture, and cook, stirring often, 10-15 mins or until vegetables are tender.
 5. Gradually stir 3 cups chicken broth into vegetable mixture. Stir vegetavle mixture into remaining chicken broth in stockpot. Stir in sausage, chicken, red and black pepper, adn remaining 2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer stirring occasionally, 2 hours.
 6. Serve over hot rice with hot sauce if desired.
 * last time I stirred in a bag of frozen white and yellow corn and I loved it! I think I will do that every time. Once I put in a bag of frozen shrimp in the last few minutes and everyone who likes seafood loved it, but some of my kids don't so I don't add that often. This reheats and freezes really well! I've served this to a group of 18 family members, adults and kids and still had a little left over for lunch the next day ;). I got this from Southern Living magazine 2007

I am not a fan of pain, I'm not a fan of pain that won't go away with the use of reasonable measures. My back completely gave out Monday night while I was helping my now ex-sister in law pack her stuff to move. It completely dropped me to the floor and left me there for a day or so. I'm now seeing a chiropracter, wearing a brace and waiting for physical therapy, AND I can't do my runs for 2 weeks right when I'm in the middle of training. Not putting me in a good mood. My family not cleaning up after themselves while I can't walk or bend well.... is seriously fouling my mood.
On the nice side, both baby birds are growing well, and thankfully still alive. My name of falcor has been rejected, but not Pip. Now I've renamed him Scre, short for screamer. Because he is very loud when he's hungry.

Our collection

Is there anyone else that has to deal with a corner like this? I can't figure out what to do with it. If I put the guns in their rooms, they simply come back out because they are played with constantly. It's almost like the male members of my family cannot walk around our house without a weapon in their hand. My ears are going deaf from the sound of blanks being shot. And if one gun breaks, I don't get to throw it away because Connor takes it apart and simply makes his own design! He really should have been born in the "sons of guns" family. Do I need a giant gun case so at least they would be contained?? this doesn't even include the giant purple bin I have that is full of ammo, sights, clips, mags, batteries etc... And this isn't even all of them in the picture, there are more hand size guns and Nerf guns in closets and the basement!

My family photo

I don't think I ask for a lot. I had one opportunity to go to Nauvoo, and I let my whole family know, the MOST important thing for me was to get a nice family photo in front of the temple. You will notice that Kirk got a nice picture in front of the temple.... So this is my picture to always remember this wonderful spiritual family vacation! I guess it's funny.

Connor and Hugo

Hugo loves hanging out in Connors shirt... isn't always very comfortable for Connor. He has to be quiet and hold still or Hugo hisses and stabs Connor with his quills! But who can say no to that cute little face!

It's the love shack, and the products of that love

we have a newly hatched baby bird, this makes 2. The babies are 4 or 5 days apart. This stresses me out, are the feeding the younger one? Is he strong enough to fight for his share? I've only seen the bigger one feed, then he sat on the other one. Why do I have to deal with this? On top of everything else?? Hello kinda busy without all the nature crap! The pictures are about a week apart and the first was when Pip was only a week old while Falcor is pushing 2 weeks.

YUMMY Mozzerella Bites

1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
3 (1 oz) sticks of part skim mozzarella string cheese
3 Tble egg substitute, I only had a egg
cooking spray
1/4 cup marinara sauce, our favorite is Paul Newmans Marinara or my pizza sauce :)

1. preheat oven to 450.
2. Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Add crumbs and cook for 2 mins or until toasted, stirring frequently. Remove from heat, and place in a shallow dish.
3. Cut the cheese sticks into 1 in pieces. Dip the pieces into egg, dredge, heavily dredge in the panko. Place on a baking cheese coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450 for 3 minutes or until cheese is softened and thoroughly heated.
4. Dip in the marinara, and be prepared for them to go very fast because they are so good! This supposedly serves 4 but that's doubtful considering a stick is a portion, so I would advise doing more!

Our birds are parents!!!

Welp it's official! My birds are parents! We have had a confirmed sighting of at least one baby bird! We have not followed the websites advice and begun feeding it a bottle every 2 hours ourselves. Nature is gong to take it's course here. If the birds made the eggs they can take care of the babies. Will I be horrified and sad if they don't make it, of course!! But do I have the time and knowledge to feed a 1 inch pink baby bird a bottle? No, therefore, nature will have to do it's job. I do mine by making sure they have lots of food and fresh water!!

rah rah rah

My very best girlfriend group went on a girls weekend trip today. I've been looking forward to it and saving for it since April. But as you may not know, school also started today. I started getting a very strong feeling that I shouldn't go, that I should be here for their first 2 days of school. But then I would think, it's only 2 days!! It's the first days!! No homework, whats the big deal. But I made the hard choice not to go based on this feeling, but then all my friends called or texted me and I cried like a teenager breaking up for the first time, it was awful. So today as I waved off my kids and didn't have my bathing suit packed in the car, I felt really bummed and mad. I am trying really hard to have a attitude adjustment, I should be so proud of myself for listening to the promptings I had to not go. You probably know from many of my posts that I frequently miss those promptings till it's too late. Of all the times to catch the message!!! ARGH!!
yeah me i listened to the spirit and now will be home to clean my house and get ready to organize 15 binders for the various classes my 2 middle schoolers and hs student will have today and i will be home to send them off to school tomorrow and drive aj and elle to gymnastics and make them food and then clean the food and do all the laundry yeah rah rah rah. Whew that was all one breath thus no punctuation, so I wouldn't lose my momentum and feel sorry for myself again :)

Who tells their teenage grandchild that their nose is too big for their face??? I'll give you a hint, NOT MY Mom!! Who does that? That is already a horrible age, we are supposed to love them unconditionally and make them feel good!!! There is no excuse, I don't care if you're tired and stressed out, that is never ok. But if I say something, I will only get the lecture that it was for his own good for some bizarre reason and Kirk will find out I said something, then I get in trouble! What do I do??

Future possibilities

Kirk and I were telling AJ that it's time to go have the "talk" which is totally over due considering he already heard it in school, but better late than never. And Elle asks what the talk is, so I'm trying to generalize what it is. And AJ says "wait a minute, how old were you guys when you got married?" And I said I was 20 and Kirk says 23 and AJ thinks for a minute and says "that's kinda weird, that like a 5th grader dating a 2nd grader... that really opens up my possibilities! I thought I could only look in my grade?" LOL we said well, until college that's a little strange of a age difference, we wouldn't recommend it until then.

Moment

A funny moment on our road trip. Elle yells out that AJ spit on her, we happened to hear this happen so when he tried to say he sneezed not spit.... yah we knew the truth.

New cards rule

We were playing five crowns with the kids and Grandma Judy last night and I was doing really, really awful. And Mom says to me "well you know what they say, unlucky in cards...", and Connor says "means you suck". Not quite the quote ending we grew up with. I thought unlucky in cards meant lucky in live, apparently not.

Busy temple night

While Mom is visiting me here this week we wanted to go do a temple seesion, since she hasn't seen it since the rededication. We got ready to leave after a relly busy day and she realized that she didn't bring her temple stuff since this used to be a renting temple. I ran to a friends house who had some stuff but not everything, and we went hoping someone would have something there. We stopped to meet my girlfriends and eat dinner, one friends dinner never came, so byt he time it did we were running really late. We got half way there when another friend realized she forgot her recomend but we told her to drive anyway and someone could make a phone call. We got there and the front desk said he couldn't help her, but of course after some talking her realized he could make a phone call. Mom found a sister who hapened to have a extra dress I happened to have extra shoes, but then realized wwe missed the 7 session and didn't want to wait a hour.... so we did Initiatories. And what a wonderful decision it was. we had a peacful successful eveing filled with the spirit and I was so grateful we were there!!

Quickie trip description

In typical Bonnie hindsight, i wish I had taken the time to just blog or record our activities as we went along rather than waiting for now. we've been back for about 3 hours and I can hardly keep my eyes open, so I will have to continue later. But for now, the trip was wonderful. Nauvoo was as hot as expected and completely wonderful. There were unexpected moments of sweetness like listening to a Scottish group play their bagpipes amazing Grace next to the temple as I looked down the hill to the river the pioneers crossed. The unknown reason that Carthage jail is still standing for us to feel Joseph and Hyrums last testimony when it probably should have been leveled like everything else was. Why is it one of the only things to still actually stand and not be a replication? To know we stood where they were was beyond words. That our best family photo is under the window he stood in seems a little wrong? The drive up and back was long but actually not too bad. I hope the kids learned something of our church history, I hope they have stronger feelings for the sacrifices made for us. It was so great to get to hang out with Ken and Kris, Cole and Dane!! A cuter family I don't know! It was a fun experience to watch them in action. My little brother as a dad and husband, what a kick! I had to stop myself from doing the "wonder twins" ring bump several times, since I don't know if he's forgiven me yet for buying a ring just like his :) I'll blog more, but I had to get a few pictures and thoughts up. Because time isn't going to slow down, I have Mom coming in this week and only a week and a half getting ready for school!!

Sleepless in Alpharetta

OK two night in a row I've been wide, WIDE awake until 1 or 3 in the morning and I have no idea why. I haven't had any soda, no caffeine, minuscule amounts of chocolate. Granted I have a lot on my mind, but I don't feel like I lay there thinking. It's just weird. One night I was up till 3:30 and I came down at 2:30 and Matt was watching TV cooking a burger on the grill. Not kidding. Clearly he sleeps in way too much. I remember getting snacks in the middle of the night as a teenager, but cooking a burger?

So do I need to read this since it's called Bonnie? Has anyone read this author?/

Scout camp

Well Connor is off to scout camp this week in the worst heat ever! Poor kid. I don't think even being in the mountains is going to help much, plus it's a camp with a pretty lousy lake. But the lake information is from Matt, so hopefully he was exaggerating. Anyway he was kind of excited to go, I think he likes being off on his own. As long as he can remember to be nice to all the adults even the one he doesn't like, and to have fun and relax he should be good! He's been busy writing up his eagle project so he can submit the first draft soon! Hopefully we'll keep to my October Eagle Court of Honor schedule!!