26.2

Marathon. I'm registered.

Hope to C-U there!

Why is flushing such a difficult skill to master?

Seriously. My children are brilliant and talented. Really, they are. Darling and adorable too. But yet, the habit of regularly flushing after using the loo seems to continually evade them. At least some of them.

Which might explain not one, but TWO overflowed toilets tonight. Yucky water. Yucky smells. Just pure yuckiness. Not the soothing just-before-bed activity I had scheduled for this evening.


Which prompted me to draft this note:

My Dearest Santa,

I have been a very good girl this year. I have prepared hundreds of meals, washed a Mt. Rushmore's worth of laundry, dried gallons of tears, read a landfill's worth of books, and given heaps of loves and kisses to the five amazing children in my constant care. In addition to all of that happy service, I even changed approximately 3.5 million diapers.

Of course, I didn't do those good deeds simply to earn brownie points, but if it turns out that I have enough banked in my account with you, would you please have some of your elves install toilets with automatic flushing sensors in our three restrooms on Christmas Eve? I would be forever grateful.

Sincerely,
The Mommy

Parenting Tip #753: Be Specific

After retrieving Mr. Bloomers from the train station I instructed the kids in the car:

"When we get home I want you all to go straight in and brush your teeth. It is getting late and we are going straight to bed."

Then after considering the disgusting mental image of plaque build-up that somewhat regularly occurs on the teeth of two of my unnamed children, I added:

"And when I say 'brush your teeth' I actually mean 'brush all of your teeth, every single tooth, all of the teeth, and all of the parts of the teeth, from the tip to the gumline.' Really, brush your teeth doesn't just mean pick two teeth to brush, or only brush the easy ones or the ones that aren't loose. It means brush all of your teeth, on all of the sides of those teeth. Understand?"

The Actress:

"Yeah. I usually just brush half of my teeth one day and the other half the next. Maybe you should tell us to brush all of our teeth everyday."

Yeah. Maybe I should.

You're Invited

We've been too busy to blog. Busy with what? you ask.

Busy preparing for the FOURTH Annual [insert our last name here] Family Finger Foods Feast. Tomorrow night we look forward to mingling yummy foods with great friends. It just doesn't get any better than that folks, so we hope you'll make the effort to come.

There will be plenty of crafts and activities (even A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!) to entertain the kids in the basement, and two baby-sitters to take charge of supervision so the adults can enjoy more relaxed visiting upstairs.

This is an open house style event, so come when you can. We'll start the festivities at 6:30 PM and feast until we're done. In the past we've usually had around 80 guests, and partied till around 10, but as I am pretty soft on the whole RSVP thing, I never really know what the turnout will be like until showtime.

If you didn't receive your email invitation, it is most likely because 1. I don't have your email. 2. The email address I had for you didn't work. 3. You live really far away and I didn't think you were willing to trek out here. or 4. You are a lurker who hasn't commented such that we could get to know each other. Feel free to post your email here and I will add you to the list for next year.

Now off to finish the preparations!

Halloween

Darn that Halloween candy! It's sabatoge!!


Tonight it was removed from the top of the fridge and relocated to the basement in the hopes that I might stop eating so much of it. The kids took in quite a haul. For the people who kept insisting Princess needed candy too...I repeat...she did NOT need any! Four kids worth of candy is enough for the whole elementary school!!!


And I might add that the kids went trick-or-treating not once, not twice but THREE TIMES at Safety Town,


the ward Trunk-or-Treat activity,


and in our neighborhood.

I had this great idea that the kids could all be monkeys this year. Mr. Bloomers could be a tree, and I could be an alligator. We just love that song. (Five little monkeys swinging in the trees, teasing Mr. Alligator "Can't catch me!"...and SNAP that monkey right outta that tree.)

Alas, I don't sew or pretend to be crafty. Nor did I want to spend the time and energy and money it would take to pull together such an idea, sooo we went with the strategy of "what costume at Target would each kid like to wear," and that was that.


The Actress went with the Popstar Diva look, complete with pretend microphone. (The microphone is the headband-type, and difficult to see in these photos.)


The Artist fell for this snazzy dress, and told everyone she was Daphne from Scooby-Doo.


Little Mommy chose Corinne. Now if you aren't up on the latest Barbie movie-and-complete-product-line, you might not know that Barbie recently starred as Corinne in Barbie and the Three Muskateers. This movie really appealed to our rough-and-tumble princessy beauty queen...it just doesn't get any better than Barbie in a beautiful gown with a sword!


Max selected Dash (or Dashell Robert Parr as we like to call him). Mr. Bloomers supported the boy by playing along as Mr. Incredible in disguise.


Since Princess wasn't old enough to select her own costume, she got to wear the one we already owned that fit her. I added a bow to the monkey ear to make her look like more of a girl in it. (Okay, so I realized just now that I didn't ever take a picture of Princess by herself. She wasn't in a parade and she didn't match anyone in the family. Sorry fifth child! She looks cute in this photo anyhow, regardless of the fact that it is unrelated to Halloween. I really do take lots of pictures of her.)


As for me...well...after choosing to purchase a whole slew of Halloween decorations so the kids couldn't complain about my lack of festivity anymore, I couldn't justify purchasing a new costume too. The kids really wanted me to dress up. And then I remembered all of my old cheerleading uniforms, and guess what? My JV uniform was a bit snug, but my Varsity uniform fit! (Although after all the candy I ate this week, I'm not sure that it would anymore.)


Mom, these pictures are just for you!


Happy belated Halloween!!!

On Why I Despise Libraries

Libraries are so sneaky and calculating.

They lure you in with the promise of free books, but then as soon as life happens and you don't return said free books "on time" they turn cold and heartless, and BAM:

It's FINES, FINES, FINES!

Book orders are so much better, because at least you get to keep the books.

New Family Photos and a Mini Blog Makeover

So I am the mean mom who made her kids get all dressed up in their Christmas best to sit still and quiet and smiley on Halloween. It was GREAT! Three employees all to ourselves at what is usually a pretty happening Sears portrait studio. Apparently most people don't consider it very "festive" to have their Christmas pictures taken on Halloween.

These photos aren't the most incredible match for an autumn leaves blog background, but as soon as the turkey's been devoured it will just be smashingly full of holiday cheer here at the Memoirs. And the photos will coordinate so nicely with the holiday reds and greens, don't you agree?


Here I thought this picture (which I edited to separate us for the sidebar) made us look young as if we were getting engaged all over again. I won't tell you what Mr. Bloomers response was to my suggestion, but I will say he didn't seem to agree.

PS Happy belated eleventh anniversary Mr. Bloomers! I love and adore you.