This year for her birthday, Jessica asked to be able to re-decorate her room (well, okay, DECORATE her room--we hadn't done anything to it yet).

 Her lucky friend G is here for the weekend, so she gets to help!

This is all Jessica's design, so I'm excited to see how it turns out.  I'll post pictures of the finished room when its all done.

Another car shot.  Are you sensing a theme to my life right now?

This time, I was taking Jess and her friends to a high school football game.  Tonight, I turned down the volume on my iPod so I could listen in to their conversation about who is hot, who is not, who is talking to whom, who is not.  I secretly loved every minute of it, and kind of wanted to park the car and follow them in so I could be a high school girl again for tonight.

But I didn't.  I had to go home and do the dishes.  Being a grown-up is over-rated.

Well, I'm kissing my Tuesday and Thursday nights good-bye for the next couple of months.  All three of my boys are playing soccer--on three different teams, of course--and they all have practices on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  Luckily, the starting and ending times are staggered, so I don't have to be in two places at the same time, but it does mean I am driving pretty much non-stop for two hours.  I drop off Pepper, drop off Adam, drop off Luke, pick up Adam, pick up Pepper, then pick up Luke with barely time to breathe in between.

At least I have my iPod to keep me company.  There is a great deal of singing at top volume.

Last week, a Costa Vida opened up near our house.

In Brad's words, now we won't ever have to move.

First day of school...blah, blah, blah...

Luke, second grade

Adam, seventh grade (don't worry, I made him comb his hair after this was taken)

Pepper, ninth grade

Jessica, twelfth grade

You can see that we didn't buy any new school clothes.  The kids don't care and neither do I, so why torture ourselves?
(sorry Haley--I know you just gasped in horror)

I thought this was going to be my favorite thing about today:

We went to the high school today, and Jess took Pepper around to find all his classes so he'd be ready to start tomorrow.  She even showed him which table she sits at during lunch so he'd come find her and have someone to sit with.

But then, this happened while I was cooking dinner:

 This is in the running for My Favorite Moment of the Summer.

Our girl is home!!!!

You should have seen this dog run frantically for her as soon as he heard her voice in the house.  He was skidding all over the floors like a four-legged maniac in his rush to be reunited!

She was pretty excited to see her "Boo-Boos", too.  I'd like to think she missed me as much.

This evening, Pepper and Adam were gone to a youth temple trip.  It's Saturday night, so after we dropped them off, Brad and I swung by the local Walmart and picked up some t-bones to grill.

Since they were also there, Luke and Joey got to participate (no, we did not buy a steak for our dog--he just chewed on the bones).

Lemonade Mouth, the latest Disney movie about singing/dancing high schoolers, has been a HUGE hit around here.  My boys have been watching it a couple of times per day for the last while.  

When I came upstairs this afternoon and saw them watching it AGAIN, I poked Adam and Pepper and made some comment about how they must be watching it for the cute girls.  They both pointedly ignored me.

But then Lukie piped up from the other side of the room. "Well," he said, looking at me sideways as if he wasn't quite sure he should be admitting this, "they are a little bit pretty."

I knew it.

Today my heart broke a little when I took Pepper to the high school and dropped him off at Fish Camp, which is just a goofy name for freshman orientation.  He was literally trembling when I took him in and said good-bye before he walked alone into the auditorium.  I went into the cafeteria for a parents' meeting and spent the whole time texting Jess in Michigan as she talked me off the ledge and assured me over and over that he would be OK.

When it was time to pick Pepper up, I returned to the school a little early and sneaked into the back of the auditorium to spy a little (I know, I know--I hate that I was that mom).

But, the planners of Fish Camp made my covert spying next to impossible, as they had passed out matching t-shirts to every student, thereby impeding my ability to pick out my son in the sea of red shirts and backs-of-heads.

However, I did find Pepper as he was walking up the aisle to take a seat.  I smiled at him, hoping he would take comfort in seeing a familiar face, and was rewarded with a stony glare and hastily averted eyes.  He obviously was hoping nobody would connect him with the only hovering, grinning mother in the room as he brushed by me to sit by the other red-shirted freshmen.

And my heart broke a little more.

 Jessica is spending this week in Michigan with her bestie Braedyn.

These two are like sisters.  It does my heart good to see this picture of them together.

She even celebrated her birthday there with Braedyn's family--you can see they are treating her right!

  I have such a soft spot for that little pocket of Michigan and the people I grew to love so much in the six years we were there.  In many ways, they are more like family than friends. Just looking at the above picture, I can remember just how it felt to sit on that stool in that kitchen, chatting with my friend Julie while she did dishes, prepared food, cleaned out her pantry (in case you haven't noticed, Julie is a Doer).  I love that Jess has been able to spend some time there and I can't wait for her to come home this weekend so I can grill her on all the details of everyone she saw. 

I ♥ MI!

How much am I LOVING this season of So You Think You Can Dance?

THERE ARE NO WORDS!!!!!

(I'm doing that Mary Murphy thing where I ask and answer my own questions to make a point.  And I scream it, for emphasis.)

 Tonight, the contestants danced with All-Stars, who also choreographed the routines. Amy Yakima has obviously been living right, because she was paired with Travis Wall.

How much do I LOVE having the All-Stars come back??
(I won't answer that.  I think you know where I'm going...)

I defy you to watch this without squealing.  I mean, how do you spin and spin and spin, then stick out your leg and spin perfectly slower, at exactly the same rate as your partner?  They must use some cool bum-muscle-tightening technique I don't know about, because that seems impossible to me--as do about 90% of the moves in this dance.  I've watched this roughly a hundred times, and I still scream multiple times!


Oh. Yeah.
I also went to our ward party.

It was fun, but I didn't scream once.

Tomorrow is Jessica's 17th birthday, which means that seventeen years ago, this was all we knew of our girl.

 Seventeen years later, this is the Jessica we know.

I like her even better now.  She's certainly more photogenic.

I'm a little freaked out today.  

This afternoon, I received an email from my brother Jason with the address and mailing information for his son Chase, who entered the MTC this week to prepare to serve his mission in the West Indies.

I'm freaked out because I swear this just happened:

This is the picture Jason and Whitney sent with Chase's birth announcement.

Now I get why old people are always talking about how time flies and how fast children grow up.  If I were an old person, I'd say both of those things right now.

I realize that it has been a while since I raved about Amazon.  Lest you forget how much I love this online shopping extravaganza, I give you the following:

The hose to my canister vacuum broke the other day (not from over-use, I can promise you), and I was bummed because 1) I really like my canister vac and it is perfect to use on my hard floors, and 2) it is a lesser known brand, so I thought I'd probably have to find a specialty vacuum repair place, which would be a huge pain because 1) I have no idea where such a thing might be, and 2) we live so far away from everything, it was sure to be a lengthy drive once I found one.

But then I remembered my old friend Amazon.com.  I simply typed in the model number of my vacuum, and there at the top of the list was a replacement hose.  

Twenty dollars and forty-eight hours later, this appeared on my doorstep.

Now I can vacuum my hard floors to my heart's content.

Not that I will.

But I can.

I passed this today on my way to pick up Pepper's friend:

The ornaments on the fence spikes are empty beer cans.  You know, keeping things classy.

Today, Pepper registered for high school.

I purposely waited until the make-up day to register all grades, because I needed to get Jessica registered as well, and I didn't want to make two separate trips.  Brilliant, if I do say so myself.  Both Jess and Pep were completely registered in under 30 minutes, with no surprises and no steam coming out of my ears.

PS - An update to yesterdays post: I was told I could bring the updated immunization record to the office at any time and pick up Adam's schedule, so I drove out to the middle school this afternoon.  They told me that the nurse wasn't there, so I'd have to come back another day. 

Serenity now!!!!

What should have been a simple undertaking today turned into a comedy of errors.  Only, it wasn't funny.

According to the school district web-site, today was the day to take Adam to his middle school to pick up his class schedule for the upcoming school year.  So, we got up and drove the 25 minutes to his school.  When we went to enter the front door, there was a big sign announcing that schedules would only be handed out to those with a proof of immunizations which, of course, I hadn't thought to bring.  Let me point out that there was no mention of this requirement on the website.

 So, we got back into the car and drove the 25 minutes to the house, got his immunization record, and drove the 25 minutes back to the school.  Despite the inconvenience, I must admit I was a little smug because I'd gotten his vaccines updated back in May, so this was going to be easy.

Immunization record securely in hand, we waited in line to get his schedule, only to be handed a red sheet of paper that said we needed to get his schedule at the office, where we would show the shot record.  Again, I was smug.  We had this under control.

So, we went to the front office and waited in a long line of people who were irritated because they didn't know they needed to get their kids immunized and they'd come to get their kids' schedules only to be turned away.  But, not me.  Oh, no, I was prepared.

When we reached the front of the line, I smiled at the harried lady as I handed over Adam's record, as if to say I understood how hard it must be for her to deal with frustrated parents all afternoon, but here is my son's record and this is going to be so smooth and we are all going to laugh about this later.

Until she informed me that Adam was missing one shot.  He's supposed to have two chicken pox vaccines and he only had one.

What??  

That couldn't be right.  I'd taken him to the doctor months ago for the sole purpose of getting his shots updated, and left assured that he was all set to go.  After sputtering and arguing--pointlessly--for a few minutes, I was excused from the line and told to go call my doctor's office to see if some mistake had been made and it had just not been written down.

So, I called the doctor's office and it turned out he WAS missing the shot.  The nurse even had the gall to laughingly tell me that they were getting a lot of 12 year olds in their office who were missing a chicken pox shot.  It was all I could do not to yell over the phone "THAT'S BECAUSE YOU AREN'T GIVING THEM!"

But, I held it together and got an appointment for tomorrow for Adam to get the missing shot.  Then, I stormed out of the stupid middle school and commenced driving home.  I was almost to the house when it occurred to me that there was probably other stuff Adam was supposed to do to be ready for school--like get his ID, netbook, locker, etc--so I turned the car around and drove the 25 blasted minutes back to the school.

Only to be informed that those other things would happen the first week of school and all he needed to do today was pick up his schedule.

At 44 years of age, I thought I was done hating middle school.

Nope.

First of all, click here to listen to this.

Good.  Now you're in the proper mood to appreciate the rest of this post.

Today, I started rereading these:

:

Because in October, I'm joining my friends here:

To see and enjoy this:

(The castle, of course.  Perv.)

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!

I'm pretty sure I want Lukie's life.

Every day.

Seriously, every dang day.

 It grieves me to announce the sad demise of my Dino-Pod.  Brad had it hooked to the boat stereo at Bear Lake, and when they hit a big wave, it knocked the USB stick right out of my Dino-Pod, thereby causing the immediate death of my Top 58.

So, like the Dreamy Hubby that he is, Brad bought me a new iPod for my car. 

This one holds far more than 58 songs.  I spent the afternoon filling it with songs from iTunes, and it currently has 84 of my favorites with lots of room to spare.

It feels so good to have my songs back.  This is my current song-obsession, which I used to listen to at least daily on the Dino-Pod.  Since its demise, I have missed my daily wonderings about this song.  Why is she wearing wooden shoes with her wedding gown?  Why are her eyes broken?  Why would dancing with marionettes make her happier?  Basically, this song haunts me, and every time I hear it, I come up with new theories to answer my questions.  And, I always love the strong guitar strumming after the chorus.  The passionate angst gets me every time.

 So, today I listened to it many, many times in a row to make up for the lost days, and Brad just walked by me on his way to the kitchen humming it to himself. 

And to those of you who just clicked on the link and now have it running through your brain, making you wonder how someone can laugh with a lover's tongue in a lullaby...

...you're welcome.

 After a week of wearing a band around his ears, Adam was able to take it off and show off his new look.

He is THRILLED with the results, going into the bathroom over and over again to look at himself in the mirror.

I'm not going to lie--I'm still a little sad.  He looks so different.

 

Apparently, Pepper isn't done wakeboarding, because today he made this.

The idea was for Luke to put it on, and Pepper would pull him across the pool (Pep wanted to use the riding lawn-mower to pull him, but I put the kibosh on that).

Yep.  It worked about as well as I thought it would.

Today when I was weeding through my closet, I found these two drawings.  These are the drawings Adam and Luke gave me for Mother's Day a couple of months ago.

From Luke, a sweet depiction of the love we share.

From Adam, a warped, revolting portrait of some guy named Joe.

And that, my friends, is the difference between having a six-year-old son and a twelve-year-old son.  

Luke, please don't grow up.

Tonight, Luke and Brad went for a midnight swim (OK, technically, it was a 10 PM swim).  Later, I joined them, which was actually my first time in our pool.  I look pretty good in my swim suit when it's dark.

First on the docket: mowing the three-week-neglected lawn.  It was almost like mowing hay.

On our way through Amarillo, we passed this fine establishment.  We first saw it on our trip out last month, so today we knew to look for it.  We really should have stopped there, what with today being Sunday and all...

When we got home tonight around 7:00 PM, we were greeted by the most heinous smell and millions of tiny fruit flies in the kitchen.  They were even in the fridge and the FREEZER--how is this even possible?  So Gross.

So, while Brad and the boys unloaded the car, I tore through the fridge, pulling out EVERYTHING and scrubbing it clean, trying to get rid of the odor.  Nothing like cleaning out the fridge after two full days of riding in the car. 

After I'd scoured the fridge and Brad had scoured the garbage cans, we opened the pantry to a fresh assault and found the real problem.  The potatoes I'd left on a pantry shelf weeks ago were WAY past their prime and had turned into some kind of black, maggot-covered sludge.  Brad (my hero) rushed the sludge out to the garbage can and promptly wheeled it out to the driveway so it won't contaminate the garage while we wait for Thursday's garbage pick-up.  The boys were given strict instructions NOT TO OPEN THE GARBAGE CAN LID. 

Welcome home, sucker.

Adam is feeling much better, so we loaded up the car and began the trek home to Texas (after chasing down a very naughty Joey, who decided five minutes before it was time to leave that he wanted one last adventure with Zeus.  He's lucky we didn't leave him in Utah).

Our view pretty much all day.  Southern Utah, Colorado, New Mexico--it all looks the same.

Let the record show that I have Adam's permission to post this.

My sweet Bubba-la.

Ever since he was born, I have been in love with this boy.  The minute I first saw him, I thought he was the CUTEST baby, with his white fuzzy hair, little pixie face, and pointy-outy ears.  And I still think he is the CUTEST, for all the same reasons.

But, for the last while, he has been unhappy with those pointy-outy ears that I love so much.  Kids at school both here and in Berlin teased him about them and it was starting to affect his self-confidence.  Brad's brother John is a plastic surgeon, and when we approached Adam about the possibility of having his ears fixed so they didn't stand out from his head so much, he jumped at it.

So, today Adam's awesome Uncle John fixed his ears for him.

I think the surgery was a bit more that Adam bargained for.  At least the pain-killers were--the Lortab he took for pain made him very sick to his stomach and he was throwing up for most of the evening after he got home.  It broke my heart to see him vomiting over the toilet while blood trickled down his neck from under the bandages.  Finally, after a house-call from Uncle John and no more Lortab, he felt better around bedtime and has been doing well ever since.  I hope he thinks it was all worth it.

As for me--my heart is still breaking.  I've always thought this boy was perfect.