The Dream/The Reality

The Dream: Coming Home
You drive into the drive way at the end of your trip. The hours seemed to just fly by. The cats run out to the driveway as they hear the children's voices. You are blown away by the beautiful flowers, the newly mown and edged lawn, and the garden.
As you walk in the house, which is spotless, you smell wonderful odors wafting thru the air. It smells like homemade bread, cookies, and other delectable dishes. Mom and Dad are energetic and happy to see you. They have spent the day sitting in their chairs waiting for your arrival. They each took a nap so that they would be alert and refreshed when you arrived. They seem to look younger each time you see them.
The big shocker is that since you all have been here, Mom and Dad added on a new large family room and several new bedrooms so that the children will have room to frolic and play while the adults gather in a separate, quiet part of the house. They used the money they won from
turning in a lottery ticket that they found on the street. Oh, what a perfect homecoming

The Reality:
You pull into the driveway and park under the big cherry tree. The next morning your car is covered with cherries and bird poop. You are exhausted. It has been a long day. The children, or child are/is tired and grouchy. You notice the flower beds have weeds where flowers should be. The driveway needs to be blown off. The children run after the cats and the cats run the other way. The only one they like is Jon. The squirrels seem to be friendlier than the cats.
You open the door. You're hungry but there isn't really anything to eat. Dad shops now so mainly there is fruit, cat food, and peanuts for the squirels. Once in a while, Kaysha gets fed up with coming over and having to bring her own food, so she goes and gets some groceries for the house. Mom and Dad are sitting in their chairs. What happened to them since the last time we saw them?? We secretly plan to get all the siblings together and plan which nursing home to put them in. It looks eminate.
Did anyone change the sheets? Who slept in this room last? Has this house always been this small? How did we fit 6 kids in here? The adults get a bed. The kids get the floor.
You open the garage door. Holy Hannah!!! What happened out here? What has happened to Dad's great organizational skills? Has he no pride left? You grab a piece of toast for dinner, which you prepare yourself.
The next morning, Deyce has bites from some unknown bug. They seem to know when she is coming. Mom is up early. Dad gets up later. He is a little depressed because his fantasy baseball team is being beat by an 8 year old kid in the midwest. Jon is busy fixing Mom's excel program, Dad has Garrick cornered on the sofa, talking about baseball. Dawn and Deyce are cooking, since no one else has done any. Kelly finds a pair of Dad's earplugs and stuffs them in her ears. She is stuck in the office again, but at least Mom cleaned off her desk. Kaysha and Deena show up. The children frolic in the backyard until it starts to rain. They all come in and start running around the circle(fam room, front room, office, etc). All the adults put ear plugs in .The kids decide to play hide and seek, pulling covers off beds,etc. Deena goes for a short 15 mile run. She comes back, not even sweating. It has stopped raining and Kelly has the kids in the backyard doing boot camp. What an aunt!
Well, things aren't perfect, but we can't wait. We love you all and miss you when you aren't here
MOM

1st grade spelling

So after school last week Braden was wearing his baseball shirt from last year. I noticed that he had written all over it in ball point pen. Dustin asked me if I had read the line on the back of the shirt. So I read it and it said " I love fag". I gasped and trying to keep calm and asked Braden what does this line say. He just said oh that says "I love the flag"!!! Dustin and I looked at eachother laughed. Thank goodness :), and he said he didn't wear it to school!! That shirt is going to disappear, but we both had a good laugh.

UH OH TOO

On the night of our social a week and a half ago, the tablecloths were gone by the time we cleaned up. Kris helped clean up and I figured she took them home to wash since she keeps them at her house. Last night I started worrying because I had borrowed a few from the other ward. I called Kris today and she said she didn't have them. She gathered them up and put them in one of the big plastic garbage bags for someone to take home to wash. OK-fear strikes my heart. She said, "Oh I'm sure no one would put them in the garbage". But, I'm not so sure. I think that's exactly where they went. I called the Garbage company and they emptied it last Thursday. The bag would have been very heavy, not like one full of paper plates, etc. How awful is that???
Love MOM

Uh-Ohs

Just thought I'd share a few uh-ohs with you. First off, Logan loves to roll around, and apparently, he's just starting to "get into" things. I know he's a bit big for this "jungle gym," but he still likes it, so we haven't put it away yet. Just the other night he discovered a new way to get to the toys at the top (exhibit A).

Logan isn't at all shy about letting us know when he doesn't like the food that we are feeding him. Usually he does the "Brrrr" thing with his lips and spits it everywhere. Sometimes we even notice the gag reflex kicking in (peas, beans). A couple of days ago he made a new noise (and to be quite honest, I am not even sure what it was) right as I gave him a spoonful. The result: our 2nd uh-oh.

Funny thing is, the food all over his face doesn't seem to bother him. He just goes on smiling.

The 3rd and final uh-oh occurred during our first week of YW softball. I am the coach, and we have a rather inexperienced bunch. I was a little worried about one of them getting hurt because they couldn't catch the ball. But, the joke was on me. I was kneeling down and bending over to pick up the balls when one of the girls (about 3 feet away) tossed one to me when I wasn't looking. It got me right in the mouth. Sorry the picture is a little scary. I took it myself, so it's really close up. I got a bit of a swollen lip. It looked much worse the next morning, but by Sunday night, it was almost back to normal. Whew.




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