Tadpoles

     This afternoon after I had finished (most of) my school, my mom came into my room to tell me about a blog idea she wanted me to post about. Apparently, she had noticed that Isaac and Jackson were being oddly quiet around the house. This usually means they aren't in it. We have discovered that when Isaac and Jack aren't in the house, it's a pretty good idea to start checking the multiple shallow ponds we have around our land. Sure enough. She found them. 

Notice the floating flip flops. 

 
     When she asked what they were doing, they replied, "Looking for tadpoles."
"Oh, I see." My mom said.
They responded, degradingly, "Mom... Do you even know what a tadpole is?"

     I'm not positive about whether or not they actually found any, but it sure looks like they were having fun! 

   

Real Life

    The other night the phone rang and I (Julie) looked at the number before answering. Ah. A number I recognize - my sister's. After saying hello, I ask her what she's been up to. She nervously laughs and says she doesn't...really...want...to tell me. What? I'm thinking to myself. Why doesn't she want to tell me? I inquire further into this strange comment and then breathe a sigh of relief. It's nothing bad. In fact, it's really quite sweet that she doesn't want to tell me.

     She's been walking around her immaculately clean house. Even went out and cut fresh flowers to adorn her (I'm assuming) kitchen counter.

     Then she says, "See, that's why I hesitated telling you." Oh. My. I just shake my head. I tell her that it's ok. She needs to enjoy this moment because when she starts having kids, she'll never do what she's doing now... for YEARS!!! I'm serious. Years. I can count on one hand the number of times my whole house has been clean since having kids and that's not even using all the fingers that one hand has to offer!

     Well, our little conversation gave me an idea (of which, Glynne reminded me was her idea in the previous blog).  I thought it would be fun to document just how messy a house can get. Now, mind you, I'm going to use this as a bit of therapy. The following pictures are areas of my house - at this moment - that are causing me angst. I walk by them on my way to do other things and they yell out to me.

Doesn't everyone's van look like this?

Kate took this picture.  There are no words!

I was trying to clear out the games we no longer want.  

Who wants to cook and then have to clean up? I don't.

It's not so great that our 9 foot bar can hold so many dirty dishes!

The laundry room isn't that bad.

Again, no words.  I just need 15-20 min. to take care of this.

Our pantry.  This is Glynne's domain this month.  Lucky her!

Microwaves are supposed to look disgusting - right?!?

This is hard to see, but the middle window is covered with muddy water.  You should
have seen the clothes that were just outside this door.  They were rock hard with dried mud.
Boys!!!

This just bothers me.  I want it perfectly swept and tidy!

Really? How does one of a kind end up in the yard? Again, no answers.

Boys' closet.  We installed cubbies so they could easily put their clothes away.  Hmmm.

Boys' room.  At least I can see the carpet.

Gotta love Legos! Now let's move in closer.

Again.  How does a corndog stick end up in a cup with brownie batter?

You can't tell from this picture, but when I turn this faucet on it rivals the water fountains
on the Plaza! Annoying.

Maybe I need to throw this out.  I noticed my flowers needed watering while taking pictures of
messes and then this!  Great.

This hardly looks abnormal to me.  The stairs usually have something on them -
that is until chore time at 4 p.m.  Someone's job is to clean them off.

One of my favorites - bugs in light with one bulb burned out!

And the school shelf.  Wow.  

      I feel better. These pictures make me want to laugh and cry at the same time. That was the therapy I was talking about. Somehow, we can clean and clean, but it still looks like this most of the time!

     Ah... I must remember, through all the craziness, life is good. Really good. I am blessed to have 8 healthy children, a husband whom I adore, family close by, good friends that are in the same boat, and on and on.

 (But, let's be honest, life's a little better when your house is clean! We all know it.)

Right At This Moment

   It's time for another Right At This Moment blog! 

Emma's been devouring the Inheritance Cycle recently. It's still such a shock to see her reading so much, because only a  year or two ago we were fighting to get her to read anything. We're so happy she finally sees how much fun it is! 

Mom is having a major chocolate craving, so she's excited to discover we have all the ingredients for one of her favorite desserts. 

Jonah's hanging out in his little bouncy seat. 

Oh, Landon. Always the goofball. 

Isaac and Jackson are outside enjoying the beautiful weather today. 

Kate's inventing some sort of frozen, layered drink/slushy... We'll see how that turns out. 

Ally didn't want her picture taken yet again, so I took one anyway. She's eating lunch in her quiet, peaceful room. 

     Alright! There's the next installment of Right At This Moment. The house is a lot messier than you could tell from the pictures... I'm thinking we'll have to do a blog on how the house looks most days for you all. That should be pretty interesting. Haha! My mom might not be too thrilled with that idea.

Easter 2012 Part 2

Jonah fell asleep in my bed. How cute is he? So cute. 

My mom had seen an article in a magazine where someone had roasted Peeps for Easter. She thought it'd be something fun to try. 

You can sort of tell from the picture (but more from Isaac's face) that instead of roasting, the sugar on the outside got burnt. Not exactly what we were expecting...

These were more of a success. We took bananas, cut them open, and filled them with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, caramel bites, and marshmallows. Then we wrapped them in tin foil and stuck them in the hot coals for a while until everything was nice and melted. Yum!

As soon as my mom took this picture, she looked at it and said, "Hahahahaha! Wow. There's so much red!"
Thanks Mom. 

Our campsite. This was the most organized campsite we've ever had. 

We must have driven everyone else in the campsite insane with our cries of, "Awww! He's so cute!"

Kate was the only one who would agree to play Rummikub with Mom. She got bored about 3/4 of the way through the game, so I stepped in and won. Of course. Haha! Just kidding. I usually lose. 

All the food was so good on this trip! Seriously. It was amazing. 

These trails along the cliffs were so much fun to hike! I kept asking Ally if we could climb off the path and go up and down a bunch of drop-offs, but she kept saying no. Party pooper. 

I think one of my favorite quotes from the trip was her saying, "Glynne. If you start to fall off that cliff I will not save you like Eustace did for Jill. I will not." 

We both enjoyed taking pictures of all the gorgeous wildflowers that were blooming. 

Doesn't she make a cute bat? 

Landon and I got bored waiting for everyone else to walk down to this outdoor chapel we found for our  little Easter service. So I told him to try jumping from bench to bench so I could take some action shots. 

I asked him to try a toe touch... Close enough. 

I tend to make funny faces while doing leaps... Attractive, I know. 

You can see where I got it from though! Haha! We have the coolest mom. 

I do like to make fun of her though, so I did this. 

Emma always does her little "High School Musical" jump. 

I can't believe how big Jack has gotten! 

This was during the Bible reading on Easter morning. I'm thinking she got a little bored. 

There were so many pretty flowers around that I was dying to do something with them. So, Emma let me do her hair Rapunzel style! I love how it turned out. 

During the Easter egg hunt, we found this little dude hiding out beside one of the eggs. 

Horny toads are so cool! 

Running down to get in line for the hunt. 

This year my mom made the hunt interesting by not putting anything in the hot pink eggs. Afterwards,  she told us it was because she had money to put in them after we found them! Landon and I were the only ones without hot pink eggs. It was sad. 

Jonah found the horny toad (we named him Poinky) very interesting. 

He and I had a little photoshoot before Easter lunch. I love this boy! 

Grandma made us some delicious baked spaghetti and salad for lunch. 

Emma and I spent the rest of our day reading outside on our sleeping bags. I adore these types of days. 

     To end this last part of the blog, I have a short story to tell you about something Jackson said to me during one of our hikes.

     We had been hiking for about 30 minutes along trails that had extremely steep drop offs and were infested with rattlesnake dens. I kept trying to hold on to Jack to make sure he wouldn't go sliding off the edge, but he wasn't having any of it. Finally, I turned to him and said, "Jackson, you have to let me hold on to you so you don't fall off this cliff, and if you see a snake do not touch it."
     He just looked and me and said, "Glynne. I can touch it. I am a boy. You're just a girl." And proceeded to walk off. Hardly believing he said this, I just stared after him. Once I caught back up, I told him (without laughing, which was very difficult) to never say that again, but I don't think he listened.

     There's my story! And it marks the end of the blogs about Easter. Hopefully, you all caught a glance of how much fun we had.