Spilling the Beans About Dad

Dallin and Gracie had so much fun playing "mom tag" that they asked me if they could answer the same questions about dad. I thought that was only fair.

Gracie

1. What is something dad always says to you? Go clean your room.
2. What makes dad happy? Going on bike rides.
3. What makes dad sad? When his bike is broken.
4. How does your dad make you laugh? He tells me porpoise stories.
5. What was your dad like as a child? Kinda like Aaron. (His twin brother.)
6. How old is your dad? 32.
7. How tall is your dad? 16 inches tall.
8. What is his favorite thing to do? To go mountain biking.
9. What does your dad do when you're not around? Goes mountain biking.
10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for? Telling people about porpoises.
11. What is your dad really good at? Riding his bike.
12. What is your dad not very good at? Keeping his bike on the car.
13. What does your dad do for his job? He goes to work.
14. What is your dad's favorite food? Meat.
15. What makes you proud of your dad? When he rubs my feet.
16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be? SpongeBob.
17. What do you and your dad do together? Go to Day's Market and get candy.
18. How are you and your dad the same? We like to ride bikes.
19. How are you and your dad different? I don't ride my bike on mountains.
20. How do you know your dad loves you? He snuggles me.
21. What does your dad like most about your mom? When she goes to the garden with him.
22. Where is your dad's favorite place to go? To the meat store.

Dallin

1. What is something dad always says to you? Go clean your room.
2. What makes dad happy? Going on bike rides.
3. What makes dad sad? When he can't go on bike rides.
4. How does your dad make you laugh? He does silly stuff on his bike.
5. What was your dad like as a child? Someone who was really interested in trucks.
6. How old is your dad? 33.
7. How tall is your dad? 6 feet 5 3/4 inches.
8. What is his favorite thing to do? Mountain biking.
9. What does your dad do when you're not around? Goes mountain biking.
10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for? Mountain biking.
11. What is your dad really good at? Mountain biking.
12. What is your dad not very good at? Skateboarding.
13. What does your dad do for his job? Epic Engineering.
14. What is your dad's favorite food? Black Angus steak.
15. What makes you proud of your dad? That he cooks meat for us.
16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be? A tall Donald Duck.
17. What do you and your dad do together? Sometimes we go to Dutch Hollow on our bikes.
18. How are you and your dad the same? We like to ride mountain bikes.
19. How are you and your dad different? He's tall and I'm short.
20. How do you know your dad loves you? He takes us places.
21. What does your dad like most about your mom? She tries her hardest to clean the house.
22. Where is your dad's favorite place to go? Moab.

Tagged - The Kids Tell All

Dallin and Gracie were tagged by Hunter and Savannah. I'm not a fan of blog tag, but this one made me laugh and I didn't have to answer all the questions.

Gracie

1. What is something mom always says to you? Be good.
2. What makes mom happy? When I snuggle her.
3. What makes mom sad? When I have to go to time out.
4. How does your mom make you laugh? When she tickles me.
5. What was your mom like as a child? A Harry Potter book.
6. How old is your mom? 31. Am I right?
7. How tall is your mom? 20 inches long.
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Spend time with me.
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Clean up the house.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Being a mom.
11. What is your mom really good at? Playing with me.
12. What is your mom not very good at? Going on the monkey bars.
13. What does your mom do for her job? A mom.
14. What is your mom's favorite food? Cheese enchiladas from Ellie. (El Toro)
15. What makes you proud of your mom? Because she's my mom.
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Cinderella.
17. What do you and your mom do together? Play games.
18. How are you and your mom the same? We both have brown hair.
19. How are you and your mom different? We don't have the same clothes.
20. How do you know your mom loves you? We have lots of fun together.
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? Because he rubs her head.
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Olive Garden.


Dallin

1. What is something mom always says to you? I love you the most and a lot.
2. What makes mom happy? Spending time with her kids.
3. What makes mom sad? When dad goes on bike rides.
4. How does your mom make you laugh? The way she hides ships when we play Battleship.
5. What was your mom like as a child? She had short brown curly hair.
6. How old is your mom? 34
7. How tall is your mom? 5' 6"
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Spend time with her family.
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Cleans.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Loving her kids.
11. What is your mom really good at? Making dinner.
12. What is your mom not very good at? Being mean.
13. What does your mom do for her job? She's a mom.
14. What is your mom's favorite food? Enchiladas.
15. What makes you proud of your mom? I think she's the best mom.
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Olive Oyl from Popeye.
17. What do you and your mom do together? Read Harry Potter books and play games.
18. How are you and your mom the same? We breathe heavily. (Can you tell we both have colds right now?)
19. How are you and your mom different? I like meat and she doesn't.
20. How do you know your mom loves you? She laughs a lot when she's with me.
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? That he's funny.
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Disneyland with her kids.


Dallin tags Logan and Kelton.
Gracie tags Ella and Addison.

Kindergarten 'ssessment

Today we took her in for her Kindergarten "'ssessment" test. She's been a little bit anxious about the "test" - so much so that she was insisting for a while that she wasn't going to Kindergarten if she had to take the test.

To ease her anxiety, I let her sign her own name to schedule the appointment on back to school night. She put her little "John Hancock" down for Friday at 9:30. Fabulous, I thought! Until I discovered that I would be delivering food orders on Friday at 9:30. (You'd think I'd never done this before...) I called the school to reschedule and they had an opening, but we had to be there in less than half an hour.

So off we went to the school where she showed them everything she's forgotten since preschool. LOL! No seriously, she did fine, but she really had forgotten more than I had realized over the summer. I suddenly felt like a slacker mom for going all summer without doing any writing with her. Oops! But we did have lots of fun together the last 3 months. That's got to count for something...right?

Dallin was a total crack-up when I took him in for his assessment 2 years ago. When the teacher asked him how high he could count he replied, "I can count waaaaay past 1,000, but I just don't think you have time for that." LOL!

Anyone who knows Gracie knows that she has never been one to be outdone. She had her own funny moment this time around. The teacher handed her some blocks and asked her to name the shapes. Gracie rattled them off, no problem. Next the teacher handed her a bundle of crayons and asked Gracie to tell her what color the crayons were. Gracie picked up the red and turned it around and around just looking at it. This went on for a little bit too long and honestly the silence was making me quite uncomfortable. "How could she not know the color red?" I was thinking to myself. Finally she found the spot she was looking for on the label and slowly sounded out the word "red." Next she picked up a purple crayon and read from the label, "violet." She repeated this for each of the colors. The teacher turned and looked at me kind of surprised and asked me if she was reading already? It was a classic Gracie moment and it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Food Critic

The kids love to play restaurant. I think the object of the game is to get the other person laughing as hard as possible. This is how it usually goes:

The "customer" sits at the kitchen table and places an order for some outrageous food.

The "servant" (aka waiter or waitress) rounds up some random household item and delivers it on a plate to the customer.

The customer pretends to eat the food.

They both giggle...and laugh...and laugh...and laugh...

Then the game starts over and the silliness escalates.


But last night the restaurant game took a new turn. Gracie, the "servant" decided to make and serve real chocolate milk. Dallin took a big gulp and called out, "I'll rate this a 9.6!" Next he wanted me to cut up some strawberries for a snack, which also earned a 9.6 rating. He announced that Gracie and I will be having a "cook-off" tomorrow to break the tie.

He had me laughing pretty hard, but I'm thinking it won't be so funny at the dinner table. I can just imagine him saying, "I'll rate this meal a 2.3!"

Did You Know?

We've had Gracie's friend Sophie staying with us while her parents are on a cruise. She's been enlightening us with all kinds of useful information while she's been here. Most of her little nuggets of wisdom begin with, "Did you know..." Here are a few of the little gems we've learned from her the past couple of days:

1. Did you know that my dad makes the BEST breadsticks? (Spoken after her first and only bite of the breadsticks I made for dinner.)

2. Did you know that your mom eats garbage Gracie? (Said after she watched me put black beans on a whole wheat tortilla. LOL!)

3. Did you know my Grandpa with 8 toes only has 8 toes because bugs got into his feet?....(long pause)....but I don't know what kind of bugs.

There have been others, but that's probably good for now.

I've actually learned a thing or two myself while Sophie has been staying with us. For example:

1. Did you know that two little girls can change clothes more than half a dozen times before lunchtime? Together they can also make a mess - not just twice as big, but about 9 times larger - than either one of them is capable of making on their own.

2. Did you know some kids are afraid to sleep in the basement? (Mine aren't, so this is new to me.)

3. Did you know that there might be spiders in the basement? And did you know that there are spiders outside? (Since there are most certainly spiders outside, you should never ever go outside to play!)

4. Did you know that little girls are drama queens?

5. Did you know that it is exhausting to tuck two preschoolers into bed approximately 47 times in one night?

6. Did you know that when exhaustion sets in, all your best parenting techniques go out the window? (I learned this one while spending a couple nights on the upstairs couch, while Adam slept in the basement. The two girls were sound asleep on our bed when I came to this realization.)

7. Did you know that finding such a good friend for your kid is pretty rare? These girls just adore each other! They're going on day 6 of being together around the clock and not only are they still friends, they're still acting like they can't get enough of each other.


We're all learning a lot this week!

She Cracks Me Up!

This is Rose.

This was Rose a couple of weeks ago.


Gracie had her in a wooden box. She frequently puts toys in purses, buckets, bowls, baskets, etc. so I really wasn't alarmed...until this conversation...


Gracie: "Mom, look at Rose."

Me: "Oh that's cute honey." (I was a little distracted at the moment.)

Gracie: "You better get cooking - LOTS of food!"

Me: "Why's that?"

Gracie: "Because Rose died, and we're having a funeral!"


Um. OK! (I seriously laughed so hard.) There's probably another child out there somewhere who loves playing "funeral" with his or her stuffed animals. That child's parent is probably a mortician or something. Ha Ha Ha!

Can you tell that she has been a front row spectator at Relief Society events for most of her life?

Rockin' and Rollin'

The kids went yesterday to record a couple of songs in a recording studio for their Grandma 'Gumry. She's a Kindergarten teacher and she's written songs for each of the letters and sounds in the alphabet. She called Sunday and asked the kids to come and sing the "nnnnn" song and the "ch-ch-ch-choo" song for her. They are both big American Idol fans, so they were so excited to go record some songs - like Carrie Underwood. LOL!

Then on Monday, Gracie got sick. She's been sniffling and coughing like crazy. I gave her some cough medicine before we left yesterday. Then on the way down the canyon she was getting cranky with Dallin. She told him she needed some "peace and quiet" for a minute. (And I thought I was the only one who ever felt that way. He He!) It turned out she was saying a prayer that her cough would go away and that she would be able to sing her best. Awwww.

The poor thing was trying so hard, but she just couldn't control that pesky hacking cough. She squeaked out one verse of the "nnnnn" song, but she sounded miserable. Hopefully the music man can work his magic and get a decent song out of what he had to work with. I took Gracie out of the room while Dallin and Grandma recorded the other song. Dallin came out of there on cloud nine. He said it "felt so good to do 2 songs in a row!" He also commented that he realized that he is actually a pretty good singer. Ha Ha. Gotta love it!

I left my camera in the car, but luckily grandma took a couple pics for us. (I didn't have time to scrap them yet, but Dani's pop rock tag album was perfect for now.)





We had a nice Conference weekend. The kids were relatively well-behaved and I actually heard a lot more of the talks than I normally get to. I loved so many, but if I had to pick my favorite, it would have to be Elder Ballard's talk on mothers. I can't wait to get that one in print!

Sickness and snow aside, we've been enjoying our Spring Break so far. It's been so nice to not have to run a million directions every day! We have plans to do some fun things the rest of the week. I guess I'd better get moving and making some more memories with the kids.

Out like a LION!

We woke up to new snow again this past weekend. Yesterday Dallin looked out the window on the way to school and after seeing MORE new snow said, "In like a lion, out like a lion. That's not right!" I couldn't agree more. We're ready for spring anytime Mother Nature wants to stop playing her cruel jokes on us.

Yesterday Gracie's class went on a field trip to the fire station.



I knew she Gracie was tall for her age, but I was cracking up when my friend Karen pointed out that she was towering over all the other kids. She can thank her dad for that!



Stand back - she's got the hose!





I've been battling sickness for a week now. Chills, headache, ear aches, and the worst sore throat I've had in over a decade. I haven't felt good all week, so I finally broke down and went in to see the Dr. today. The good news is that it wasn't strep...the bad news is that it just has to run it's course. The 800 mg of Ibuprofen isn't even touching the pain and there's no relief in sight. I've tried decongestants, cough drops, Chloraseptic, hot baths, etc., but nothing is helping to relieve the pain.

Any suggestions? I'm to the point that I'll try anything - well almost anything.