FUNNY

Funny emily stories to come soon, regarding our home ward bishop, hamburger buns, and more. Get excited! :)

I'm going to write this one down before i forget. One time, all of us kids were visiting our grandparent's house (dad's parents, that live on Anderson Island), and one of Emily's favorite past times is looking at pictures, so she found some photo albums and was looking through them. She found a picture of a little kid that was taken from behind, and far away. That little kid was her, and she knew it, nevertheless, she leaned over to Kate and me and said, "who's that cute little fella?" Well if we're talking cute little fellas, it MUST be you, Emily.

ah to reminisce...

Spent part of the evening tonight chatting with my little sister, who is actually getting much bigger now (she's 14!). We randomly got to talking about our childhoods and all the funny stories we could remember. This is what we got:

how we first pronounced "grandma"--
Austin: gamma
Coy: gamby
Emily: gumpy
Nellie-Kate: dumpy
Mckenzie: gumby

Notice how it evolves each time from what the older one said... be careful when you listen to your siblings! :)

As you could probably guess, Nellie-Kate was always the sassy one... had a way of making everyone feel SO great about themselves :) You can imagine how grandma felt when the 3-year-old marched up at a family gathering and demanded in the snootiest voice a three-year-old can muster, "Dumpy! Get me chips." And if you could have seen the way she walked... she was always on a mission, everywhere she went. Swinging her arms and stomping her feet like no one had better get in her way or she would walk right over the top of them.

first words--
Austin: HOT! (said while pretending like i was going to touch a burner then quickly pulling back my hand)
Emily: hiding (they sang a song at her preschool about hiding... she would sway back and forth on the rug and say "hiding, hiding" :))
Mckenzie: Hi! (she greeted everyone she met multiple times... we figured she was headed towards being pretty friendly :))

Randomness runs in the family. Just about anything can be turned into a joke. Makes for a lively household (most of the time anyway), and a pretty healthy sense of humor! And yes, that pipe is made from tootsie rolls.Some of us hated hair brushing and showers,

and all of us ran around barefoot all the time, everywhere. Sometimes we would wear our socks out, but our dad's rule was either "go without socks or put your shoes on"... so we aimed for that. Unless of course dad wasn't around :) What was even better was when we could wear our swimsuits all day long. We played baseball, or kick the can, or hide and seek in the cul-de-sac on warm summer nights with the neighbor kids while all of our parents watched from front porches. We slept on our trampoline. Eventually we'd all turn into brown children from being in the sun so much. Mckenzie is the best example of this:

And even though we often fought (biggest rivalries: Coy & Austin vs. Nellie-Kate, and Nellie-Kate vs. Mckenzie. Although there was that time when Emily tried to tip Kate out of her cradle when she was first born... jealousy gets the better of all of us at some point :)), we always stuck together through all the hard stuff. Coy baptizing Mckenzie was just one of the highlights!
Sometimes when I'm away from them for so long, I forget. But those four kids were involved in most of my choice memories from childhood, and what can I say... I just LOVE us!!!

self-fulfilled prophecy

hahaha... so i was just reading back on a post from last week, and i said steep downward plunge by wednesday right?

Turns out wednesday was the night that a gigantic white-out storm decided to hit the entire wasatch front (provo/salt lake, and further north and south of those). I left earlier than normal because the snow was coming down and blowing around pretty well, and i was advised by friends to head out. So i did. And thank goodness because even leaving when i did, the drive from my school back to my abode in provo that usually takes approx. 45 minutes ended up taking me 2 HOURS and 15 minutes. Yes, you read that right. As in 135 minutes. OH and i forgot to mention what had happened earlier that day...

On my way to school, a cop decided to pull me over for speeding. While i sat waiting in my car for the glorious news mr. policeman was going to bring (about 100 ft. from the school's parking lot, mind you) one of my students and his parents pulled up to drop him off. he proceeded to get out of the car, walk a few steps towards the school and then stop and stare directly at me in my car, while the cop and his ever-so-obnoxious lights flashed like there was some REAL emergency going on the ENTIRE time we sat there (really, why do they do that? some sort of expression of their dominance over this pitiful crime committer they have just captured? gosh that ticks me off. EVERYONE LOOK THIS PERSON MADE A MISTAKE!!!!!). After the whole ordeal was over, i pulled into the parking lot, got out of my car, and the first thing my adorable little fourth grader does is scream across the playground and parking lot, "YOU just barely got a TICKET!!!" No really? ugh. And this was just the beginning.

Later that day i received the fabulous news that a new student would be transferring to my class from a different fourth grade class (the second this year, not to mention the other two new students I have gotten). Which isn't a bad thing, but it does give rise to a significantly higher amount of work (putting together tote tray materials, sending home syllabi, getting papers back signed, acclimating them to a new classroom, re-teaching procedures/routines, etc.)

And not to be too explicit for any males that may be reading this, but to top it all off, my lower back was aching bad and i had cramps all day. Funny how these things time themselves.

But don't worry, this story does have a happy ending. After I got home, I went to the gym and ran my little heart out, at which point the endorphins kicked in and life was great again. AND on my way to school the next day i discovered that our school district had been graced with a two hour delay. BEST NEWS OF MY LIFE. or maybe just that day. but still :).

And this is going to be random and completely contradictory to the main idea of this post, but this is how i'm really feeling tonight. SOME DAYS I JUST FEEL GREAT, and LOVE LIFE, and all the AMAZING PEOPLE THAT LOVE ME, and that I LOVE BACK. This just happens to be one of those days ;).

saturday is a LOVELY day

One of my most favorite things in the world is waking up without ANY obligations, and knowing I can choose to get out of bed, or stay in bed at my leisure. This particular morning I woke up a little before nine, rather pleased with myself that I woke up naturally around the time that I prefer to wake up, and then promptly decided that i didn't feel like getting up yet, and fell back to sleep. Freedom is a wonderful thing.

Sometimes I feel like a rebel. In my head at least.

Like when my desire to do something one way ceases because I find out someone, who has some sort of charge over me, WANTS me to do it that way.

Anyway, back to my Saturday. I ate delicious cereal for breakfast. Probably two bowls actually. Man food tastes so much better when you're really hungry for it. Then I proceeded to spend the next three hours planning for next week. Water cycle, QAR (question, answer, response) for guided reading, multiplication review, V-day party, a parent coming to teach dutch, ABC books, respect lessons. blah blah blah. Actually, i'm not feeling half bad about teaching at this moment, but I am preparing myself for a steep downward plunge by Wednesday at the very latest. As far as I can tell, they can't be good for even two consecutive days. But who knows, things could look up.

So after my planning extravaganza I took a shower, and went over to eat an amazing vegan lunch at Caitlin's apartment. Spent a couple hours discussing social issues and our future lives.

You know what? My life is boring. I'm going to put this out of it's misery, and stop describing my day to you in such excruciating detail. Next time, I'll be sure to make something up.

If I had a penny for every time I got distracted, I would be a rich, rich woman.

hello people...

just a note: i am slightly discouraged by the lack of comments i receive on my posts! Why is this? 1) I don't post often enough? 2) My posts are not of the commentable nature? 3) You are nervous because no one else commented and you don't want to be the one to break the silence?

seriously, major bonus points if you JUST DO IT!

thanks guys.

Time to shine

"Mom, it's your time to shine!" ~Mckenzie
"I HAVE PNEUMONIA!" ~Mom

Also, when I first got back, Katie told me a very entertaining story about Emily. I guess one day, Emily thought she heard Katie coming, and decided she would hide under Katie's bed and surprise her. So she got under the bed (Katie has wooden sort of skirting around the bottom of her bed, so in order to get under the bed, she had to crawl through a little cupboard door) and waited for Katie to come. Turns out, Katie wasn't coming up the stairs at the time, but she waited awhile, and eventually started yelling for help... "KATIE!!!!!!!!"

Katie, thought she needed some toilet paper, which was strange because she remembered just replacing the roll in that bathroom, but she was doing the dishes, so she asked Kenzie to go and check on her and see what was up. Mckenzie went upstairs and looked in all the rooms and bathrooms and couldn't find her, when she heard her voice coming from Katie's room. So she checked the closets, etc. in Katie's room without any luck, when she found a little note on the floor, on which was written, "HELP WANTED UNDER THE BED. EMILY" hahahaha...

Anyway, they went upstairs and yanked her out from under the bed, after undoing the barricade that she had put up in front of the cupboard door. She explained how she was waiting for Katie and was going to surprise her, and Katie just said, "I don't think I would've looked there for awhile..."

Seriously, my family is soooooo goofy. It's great.