I'm Back

*sigh* So, it seems the summer has come to an end. Cooler temperatures, the return of routine, school...I must say it is welcome. Fall is my favorite time of year. I wish that it was longer, or as long as it used to seem when I was younger. I Dropped the blog as I embarked on my yard this summer. I love my flowers. I love my wrought iron window boxes. I love to drive up to my house and love how it looks. I love gardening and didn't know it until I was 36. I kept meaning to take photos so I could post them and now, it definitely looks less fabulous than it did in June. I will post them however and you'll just have to use your imagination to green it up and add lots more flowers. I ignorantly and ambitiously put in flower beds with stamped concrete that nearly surround my front lawn. Yes, concrete, so now I am committed, or I should BE committed, I think it's both. So, I welcome the fall, that is the time of new beginnings for me ever since childhood, it meant my birthday, school starting (which I liked), Halloween, Thanksgiving, fires in the fireplace, indian summer, that feeling of anticipation is still there for me at this time of year. It's like my own personal New Year. So, Happy New Year. Now, I have to go, so I can turn off the uninteresting sporting TV that comes after the news on a Sunday night. I don't feel like there is that much to say about trout, or house boats...

The Power of Primary

A couple of days ago on Sunday we sat down to a meal of barbequed chicken and pasta salad. Little did I know what a treat this would be for princess kryptonite cupcake as her adulation began:

"MMMMMM! oh mom this is so good! This is delicious food! Thank you so much for making me this wonderful dinner. You are such a wonderful mom! (again, this is her actual verbage, I am not embellishing.)

"Well thank you so much Sophie that is so nice of you, daddy grilled the chicken though, it wasn't all me."

"Oh daddy thank you for the chicken it is just wonderful! Thank you for this good food. I love you daddy."

Daddy says, "She seems to be laying it on a little thick."

I say: "You need to reinforce postive behavior, if you haver a child who actually says thank you and is showing appreciation, you need to appreciate and acknowledge it."

So I tell her:"THank you for being so nice Sophie, and saying thank you and being kind. I really like it when you are so nice and say thank you. That is a good girl."

She beams from ear to ear, pleased with herself and feeling good and says:"Yep! And now I'm going to heaven!"

"You are? How do you know that?"

"'cause I said nice things and my primary teacher said if I say nice things and be kind to people I'm going to heaven.And I said nice things to you so now I'm going to heaven!"

I turn to Herman. "What do I do with that? Do I just leave it at that or get into a discussion with her about "Heaven" and goodness and such or just leave it at that?"

"Just leave it at that."

And so I have for now. But I must say, the idea of going to heaven is working as pretty good motivation for her these last few days. She has been congratulating herself on making the cut for heaven for handing me a screwdriver, taking good care of her doll and speaking kindly to it,saying thank you,giving me a hug, and sharing her french fries. But she's actually trying to be good. I don't know what kind of 4 year old conception of heaven is working as this strong of a motivation for her, but it been more effective than most incentives I've been able to come up with. She's only 4 so it's not like she needs things to be all figured out right now. But she wants to be good, maybe I should just leave it at that.......for now.

So Very Wrong in so many ways OR: This makes me twitch OR:Eeeeewww!

Tine for a new icky desktop photo. This one made me cry out: "My eyes!!!" I think I now have burnt retinas and permanent nausea. My Husband will hate this. I am so excited to save it to my desktop. I used to want a Sharpei puppy........I think I'm cured.....

Somewhere bubbling up from the depths of my memory......how have I forgotten.....Cougar Stadium...1980 something.....Freedom Festival.....

there he is...the Knight Rider.......The Hoff....in a skin tight electric blue leather suit...with huge shoulder pads....dancing in the whitest of White boy ways...along with clapping to the beat and head movement like chickens pecking for food.......dancing on top of Kitt, the Knight Rider car....and singing.....(who knew he was huge in Germany)....yes, singing.....I can't remember what though......what a coup for Provo Utah..way to go BYU.......'cause nothing says God Bless America better than in image like this one.

Almost forgot...

Lets call it Desktop of the week, not the day. Because one, that is too high of a bar for me, and 2, I dn't want to run out of pictures.

More Vital Ramblings

Wow, that time has gone by fast. I fully intended to blog almost, if not every day. It's been 11. I guess I have just been way too busy being awesome. Some of the fascinating and awesome things I have been up to are:

Taking PKC to have 2 cavities filled, requiring sedation. She did well but in the prcess chomped down on her numb bottom lip causing the nastiest and fattest fat lip I have seen and can't do anything to fix. See Photo, which does not do this justice. It looks like she is pouting but she's not that's just how it looks.

Getting so sick and tired of the fight between the midrise jean, the not quite long enough shirt I have to keep pulling down and my longer than average torso.

Laundry

Becoming the best there is in the world at retaining water(#$%!*&#%! cankles)

Accompanying my four year old on her Retail Restroom tour of America. What is this about?! During a trip to WalMart we can go twice. I actually miss diapers sometimes. She has to check out the restrooms everywhere we go. I think she saves it up just so she can have an excuse. We actually have debates about whether she really has to go or not. As with many things in my parental anxiety, I wonder if this is something that will require therapy later for her someday because I drank Dr. Pepper when I was pregnant.

Laundry

Having a good laugh while having lunch with a friend when PKC cries out loudly enough for all around us at our friendly neighborhood Applebee's to hear: "Whoa! I just threw up in my mouth a little bit!"

Having insomnia.

Laundry.

Feeling certain that if I were an adolescent to adult male, I would somehow be able to manage getting all the urine in the bowl. I really believe I could pull this off. It may require a deliberate effort but I know I could. Is this failure to try harder to do this just the biological programming of the male of the species to manifest that they are walking around with these awesome, powerful and uncontrollably fierce anatomical appendages? Something akin to say,gorilla chest beating or Rams butting heads? Try this folks: Ready, Aim , Fire,in that order ONLY!! If you have the manual dexterity required to play all the way through expert level on Gutiar Hero III, or do the simultaneous run jump shoot flip duck run shoot spin shoot necessary on all those other XBOX games, again, I feel that you posess the ability to get the urine IN the bowl.

Wondering how in the crap there is still so much laundry.

I love this girl....she amazes me

I had another couple of conversations with Princess Kryptonite Cupcake today. She just turned 4 and how her mind works blows me away sometimes. I could be easily impressed because I want to be because she's mine and we all want to think are children are amazing....but I really think she is. This morning she burst into the room and asked me:

PKC: "Mom, when did Heavenly Father and Jesus create The Humans?"

Me: "Uh...what er, when? Uh a long time ago." (?)

PKC: "Oh. Well I don't remember that."

Me: "Hmm, me neither"

PKC: "Well why did they create The Humans?"

Me: "Uhh, Why do you think they created The Humans?"

PKC "So we could have a mom and dad and they would love us."

Me: "Yeah, I think that's one reason why else?"

PKC: "So we could have a family and be kind and gentle." (this is good stuff I think)

Me: "I think you're right. Why else do you think?"

PKC: "And so we can have friends and be happy"

Me: "THat's right! and why else?"

PKC: "So uh we could have dressing tables." (She loves her Little Mermaid dressing table see...)

Me: "Huh...."

PKC: "...and so we could do what Heavenly Father wants us to do."

Me: "You're right, and what does He want us to do?"

PKC: "umm Keep our room clean for two weeks."

Me: not sure what to say to this, I love this kid, I laugh "I love you Sophie"

PKC: "I love you too mom sooo much"

later today

she walks in the room where I am working and announces:

"Mom, if it wasn't for you and me, I'd still be in Heaven.

I think I want to watch some kid cartoons."

Thanks Princess for making me smile more than anything else ever has.

Here's something that should make you smile. Especially if you are familiar with the original song, "Time to Say Goodbye" Try Youtube if you don't. Like I said, I love me some Muppets as well as some Andrea Bocelli or Josh Groban. Half of the reason I like it is because it sound a lot like the bedtime negotiations at our house. Only without the singing. Please enjoy....

New Desktop of the Day

It's time for me to switch the desktop to something else to make me laugh when my husband hates looking at it. Here is Elwood, the reigning World's ugliest dog. Sam's succesor.