Some Trends Lately. . . .

Hair. . .

Alyssa seems to collect hair.  Daily, at least 10 times during the day, she'll approach me saying, "I have a hair!"  She waits until I take the offending hair off her fingers.  Then I just have to figure out how to get it off my fingers!

Eyeballs. . .

During FHE this week, Lena interrupts the lesson by jumping up and yelling, "Mom, don't let anyone touch my eyeball."  Then, she runs off for the bathroom to do her thing.  The family starts discussing what eyeball she would have been referring to and discovers a marble sitting in the carpet next to where she had been sitting.  When asked about it, Lena says, "Yep.  It's my eyeball."  Interesting. . . .

This morning, Cecilia turns to me and asks, "Mom, are your eyeballs warmer than your skin?"  What strange thoughts my children have!  I caught her walking up behind the rest of the kids and feeling their eyelids.  She insisted they all had warm eyeballs -- warmer than her own!

Praise. . .

Lena, Alyssa and I have this conversation all the time lately:

Lena or Alyssa:  "You're the best, mom!"

Me:  "No.  You're the best!"

Lena and/or Alyssa:  "We're all the best!"


Hypocrites. . .

One of the last visits my dad made to our house, he said something along the lines of this to Jarom:  You're a hypocrite!  Yep!  Your hip goes all the way to your crit!"

Now when someone calls someone else a hypocrite, Jarom adds, "Yep, your hip goes all the way to your crit!"  Usually, he just gets dirty looks from his offended siblings, but I laugh.  It's a refreshing reminder of my dad.

Flashlights. . .

Last night, James was packing for Clear Creek -- a stayover trip 5th graders go on every year at our school.  He searched everywhere for a flashlight.  The only one he could find that worked was the flashlight Mckenzie was currently using at night to assuage her fears.  I told him to take it, and Mckenzie threw a fit.  She finally located a toy that lit up when you push a button.  She complained that it wasn't the best solution because if she let go of the button, the light would go off.  I asked Cali, who often carries a flashlight to bed, if she knew where any other flashlights that worked were.  She said Mckenzie had taken them all.  Mckenzie came out to cry more to me after going to bed.  She glanced over at the microwave, and discovered a flashlight that worked after all!  She went to bed satisfied.  A few moments later, I heard some rustling on the stairs.  I discovered Cali reading her scriptures on the stairs.  Without a flashlight, she's been resorting to reading her scriptures on the stairs!

Facebook. . .

We took some pictures over the weekend that Garrett wanted to put on his Facebook page.  He was struggling with the whole process.  After a bit, I heard him mutter, "What?!!"  I asked him what the matter was and he said my iphone was saying the pictures were too racy to be allowed on Facebook.  I don't know what was racy about the pictures!  Garrett finally managed it anyway.

Food. . .

Cecilia started at 5 p.m. last night to make two pans of our chocolate gunkies.  Ladd has the dessert tonight for his team, and we needed a dessert for sack lunches.  I decided to make peach cobbler and pineapple upside down cake while I was actually doing some cooking.  It took a trip to the store and me staying up till 11:15 p.m. to pull the last of them from the oven. 

We had the peach cobbler and pineapple upside down cake for breakfast.  I couldn't help think that I was sending my children to school hungry today!  There's just enough of the peach cobbler for Ladd to have a small helping -- just as the rest of the kids got.  And the pineapple upside down cake still has 3/4ths of the cake left!

I dished some of both cakes up for Lena this morning, and she quickly decided she didn't want them, she wanted some of the chocolate gunkies.  I gave in because she was chanting something about donkeys.  When I finally said out loud, "You mean chocolate gunkies?!"  I discovered how closely donkeys and gunkies sound to the mortal ear.  I guess that was what Lena was really chanting!

Goats. . .

Our family are mountain goats at heart.  They climb anything they can -- sheer walls, light posts, cars, rocks, furniture.  And they show their daredevil side all the time -- not something my DNA passed onto them! I was reminded once again of who my husband is on Monday.  We'd gone up Little Cottonwood Canyon to go on a short hike that ends with some ruins of an old mill and a swift and cold river.  The ruins, unfortunately, were mostly on the other side of the river.  I'd taken my kids on the same hike earlier -- when there was lots of snow on the ground (once again not taking into account of the weather!).  But this time, the kids started trying to cross the boulders in the river before we pulled out our cameras.  I called them back just in time to see Mckenzie slip off her boulder and into the river up to her chest.  She was wearing shorts (when will they listen to me?!).  After a few pictures, Ladd called out to everyone to follow him.  He led us downstream to where someone had put an old 2x8 across the raging river from boulder to boulder.  He helped all of us across while my mind is screaming, "This is not safe!  This is not safe!"  (How had he found it anyway!!!)  We proceeded to pose for pictures in a crumbling structure before crossing the same rickety board on our way back to our car.