Poopy Snoopy

When you have a family of 6 and a dog, you sometimes forget that the dog is there at all and certainly don't expect him to cause the same trouble that your children can cause. Our dog is a beagle mix named Snoopy. Eliza refers to him as "Poopy" but only because that's just how she says it. But for the last year, it has been a name that rings true with him.

Today, I spent a chunk of my Sunday afternoon cleaning dog diarrhea off the stairs. Yes, the stairs. Couldn't have happened on the kitchen floor, which is much easier to clean (no stains!). Couldn't have happened in one small, localized area. No. The bottom 7 steps of the stairs were smeared in it.

This is his fourth indoor accident in the last year. I admit, it is in part our fault. After all, we are the humans who can open and close the door for him to get outside. But he doesn't even whine when he's by the door to get outside, so sometimes I don't notice he's even there. We should have trained him with a bell, like my parents did with their dog, but I figured, he would probably just whine, so what was the difference--a ringing or a whining, either way, he gets outside. Nope, he doesn't whine to go outside. It's irritating.

And I will admit this. I'd rather clean up a similar mess from my kids than from the dog. Doggy doo is SO gross.

Saturday Nights

I've posted about Sundays before, how much of a nightmare they can be for me. What I haven't ever mentioned is Saturday nights.

Corey works a lot of Saturday nights, which is okay because then he's home during the day Saturday and I can go grocery shopping WITHOUT four children in tow (which is always a fun adventure, I tell you).

I pretty much live the primary song "Saturday". I'm even old-fashioned enough to trim their nails every Saturday. But here's our little routine (which actually seems to work a little better when Daddy's NOT here, just because him being here means everyone wants to play with him--SUCH a distraction ;P):

We eat dinner around 5:30 pm. After dinner, everyone goes upstairs for baths and showers. Usually I have Westley shower while I bathe the other three. I run the bath water during the end of dinner so it will be ready when they're done eating. But some nights, like tonight, I have them all take baths, one at a time. That's because on Saturday nights, unlike any other "bath night" (which are also Tuesdays and Thursdays), they have to wash their hair. While Westley can handle doing that in the shower, I'm not sure he always does, and Caleb HATES washing his hair in the shower. The shampoo gets in his eyes because he hasn't mastered the whole "closing-his-eyes-while-rinsing" routine. So I wash it in the tub and lean his head way back to rinse so it doesn't get in his face.

After baths, I clip all their nails, toenails included every other week. I also clean out their ears and comb their hair and put lotion on their dry bodies (at least since moving here to super-dry-Utah). Then they put pajamas on and brush teeth. After that, they pretty much follow their typical bedtime routine--get drinks, read books, go to the bathroom, say prayers, sing songs, go to bed. But bathtime is a HUGE CHORE for me. It will be nice someday when I can tell them to go shower and only have to knock and yell through the bathroom door for them to hurry, rather than coming in every few minutes to check if they've washed hair, washed bodies, and warning them they have only one more minute before they have to get out.

Saturday nights are pretty chaotic, but if I stick to the routine and avoid distractions, I can usually get it done pretty uneventfully.

So now, after I prepare the lesson for our primary class tomorrow, we will all be ready for Sunday!

Westley's Valentines

For Valentine's Day this year, Westley opted to make his own valentines. He didn't like the ones at the store because he felt he would have to buy girl ones for the girls and boy ones for the boys and he didn't want to be giving out really girly ones. So he decided that he would draw Spider-man or For Valentine's Day this year, Westley opted to make his own valentines. He didn't like the ones at the store because he felt he would have to buy girl ones for the girls and boy ones for the boys and he didn't want to be giving out really girly ones. So he decided that he would draw Spider-man or Super Mario for the boys and a princess or ballerina for the girls. He hand drew each and every valentine (25 total), colored them, wrote who it was to and from. Then we glued them on colored paper and cut that out. I made the envelopes (it's a trick I learned in about the 2nd grade that I still use on occasion :P) and he stuffed them with the valentine and a little package of conversation hearts. His teacher got a special Disney valentine where he drew Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck because, he said, she really likes Disney. All in all, it took him about two weeks of working on them every day after school and then on the day before, about 1 hour of me folding envelopes and handing them to him to stuff. He definitely takes after me with all his creative energy--I used to do similar projects on my own for hours at a time when I was his age!

BYU Ballroom Dance Concert

Last night Corey and I got to attend a ballroom dance concert. I regularly get the BYU Alumni email updates, but I only scan them for one thing usually. That is when the Ballroom Dance Company is performing near me! So when I saw that they were performing at the Conference Center Theater in Salt Lake City this weekend, I HAD to go. I bought tickets right away.

Yesterday was a bit crazy though. The concert started at 7:30 and we were supposed to be in our seats by 7:15. Corey was working the day shift, but he had a meeting at 3 pm for all of his division's 2nd managers. That was in Draper. Those meetings are only supposed to go about 2 to 2-1/2 hours, so I was hoping, crossing my fingers really, that he would be off by 5:30/6 pm so he could come home, change and we could have dinner before leaving by 6:30 to get down town, park and in our seats by 7:15.

Well, Corey didn't leave work until about 6:25, got home around 6:35, changed his clothes and we took off at 6:40. We got stopped at two red lights before even getting to Bangerter Highway, and when we finally turned onto it from 13400 South, it was already 6:50! We made it to the parking lot across the street from the Conference Center at 7:15 and ran across the street and to our seats without even taking the time to stick $5 in the box for parking! But we made it!

The concert was so good, they always are. Afterward, we stopped at Village inn for a whole pie to take home and share with the nice couple, someone Corey knows from In-N-Out, who baby-sat our kids.

Excited

I am excited because we found a new digital camera and ordered it and it should arrive by Fedex today. We've been using my brother's camera for a few months and it's been nice to have it, but I will be glad when we have our own camera to use. I will probably take more pictures, especially with the one we ordered because it's smaller and easier to take with us, I can just stick it in my purse or pocket. So hopefully there will be more pictures up on the blog from now on.

Obsession

We have an easy reader book about the Titanic, and since Westley discovered it, he has been obsessed. Today, he and his brothers spent their Sunday afternoon recreating the Titanic story out of Legos. That's right. They built a Titanic out of Legos, an iceberg and even a few lifeboats and recreated the whole thing. In church, Westley drew a sequence of the Titanic.

Why are we people so fascinated by tragedy? Of course, the sheer size of the ship and that whole part of the story may be what fascinates my son, but I think the tragedy part is probably what it is that has lured him in. That's what lured me in when I first learned about it and read about in the 5th grade.

I guess they (or we) may just miss the part that this was a real event and happened to real people, just like you or me.

Zoo Morning

On Saturday, we decided to go to the zoo in the morning. The forecast called for rain, so we were a bit uncertain of our decision, especially as we went through some drizzle on the way there, but when we got there, we were the only people there for a time, and it was pretty cool. The animals were also out and quite active. We got there about 9:15 and went through the whole zoo by 11, but we did take quite some time looking at certain animals who were really active. The cougars were pacing back and forth and the tiger were also, plus one tiger came up as close as she could get to look at Eliza, it was a stare-down between them! Glad there were fences between us and those big cats! We enjoyed hot chocolate and sandwiches in the car on our way home. It was a fun outing.