Connected

I can't decide if he's sending a text or playing a game. Maybe he's checking his email.

The Premier Primary Program

Sunday was the big show. The main event. The beginning.

It was Peter's first Primary program.

He's really progressed over the last year in terms of public speaking. Based on all of his Primary orations, I was both excited and nervous for him to deliver his one line in the program on Sunday. I was hoping to get to church early so that we could sit in the front of the chapel. I wanted to be able to see Peter as he sang the songs from his seat on the stand as well as see him when he stood at the microphone.

Plans are funny things, aren't they?

Thirty minutes before church was to start Peter announced he was done eating lunch. I was relieved because I could feel our prep time slipping away. I asked Peter to go use the bathroom so he could get dressed for church.

Cue hysterics.

Peter went from calm, happy boy to thrashing, foaming, crazy in about two minutes. It was not pretty. He kept screaming that he wasn't done eating, wasn't going to church today, wouldn't be in the Primary program. I had to literally sit on him to get him dressed, and even then he kicked me off a few times. I had not budgeted enough time for such shenanigans and we finally wrestled him into his booster seat one minute before church was to begin.

Luckily we live about one minute from the church. We walked in as the Bishop was welcoming everyone. We were there before the opening song. That would usually be a win for us, but remember, we wanted to sit up front. So we stood in the doorway scoping out the pews. We actually walked up both aisles only to find scriptures and purses holding places in the rows we thought were vacant. Our ward is huge and we finally found seats in the cultural hall. So much for seeing Peter during the program.

By the time we sat down, the man of the hour had stopped sobbing (something that he had continued to do during our drive over) and was sitting on Bryan's lap looking sullen and puffy-eyed. I had been praying that he would be able to calm down and now started to pray that he would cheer up so that when the time came he would be willing to say his line.

At the conclusion of the Sacrament I watched as the other Primary children and their teachers rose from their seats and headed up to the front. Thankfully Peter's sweet Sunbeam teacher walked near to where we were sitting. We pointed her out to Peter and coaxed him to follow her to the stand. To my great relief, he did.

Bryan and I spent the next forty minutes with necks strained at odd angles in order to see Peter. Cooper even stood on Bryan's lap so he could catch a glimpse of big brother. Later, during a quiet moment in the program, we realized the folly of this choice when we saw Peter point in our direction and clearly heard him say, "I see Cooper!"

I had been at the rehearsal the Primary had held on Friday night, so I recognized Peter's cue line when it came. I grabbed Bryan's arm and mouthed that this was it. We watched Peter, his classmate Carly, and their teacher walk to the microphone. Peter climbed up, paused briefly to take in the somewhat overwhelming sight of a packed house, and delivered his line loudly into the mic, "Fathers are to preside over, provide for, and protect the family with love." He didn't need to be prompted. He had it memorized.

My sigh of relief was audible. And I think my grin may have been visible from space.

He did a great job for the whole program. I was amazed that most of the kids knew all the songs. The majority of the musical numbers in past Primary programs I've seen consist of all the teachers singing loudly and many of the children either waving to their parents, trying to run off the stand, or looking out at the congregation with a glazed expression. Not this Primary. They knew their stuff. And they sounded good. Peter sang out nice and loud and clearly knew the words. He even danced a little.

I think our first foray into Primary programs was a smashing success, in my own wonderfully unbiased opinion.

Sugar Shock

My brain is sludge. That's how it felt all day yesterday. I wanted to answer questions in Sunday School and Relief Society, but I couldn't quite trudge through my mental fog to come up with anything coherent. Why is that? What is causing this stupor?

Could it be the pumpkin cookie I ate on Saturday? I made five dozen pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (based on the comments I received, I have mad baking skills) for our Young Women Leadership Training (which went really well) on Saturday. I made them with sugar, so I knew that they were off limits to me. Except on Saturday evening I was so hungry that I grabbed one and chomped down. "It's mostly pumpkin," I told myself, "it should be fine."

But it wasn't fine.

I had a sugar reaction, although not a huge one. I thought I was okay by the time I went to sleep.

And then I had to wake up on Sunday. Ugh. I spent most of the day feeling like a I was carrying heavy weights on every appendage. And as I said at the beginning, my brain is sludge. Sugar-induced, ooey-gooey, sludge.

Thank goodness the boys and I made another batch of pumpkin-cookies last night, this time with honey. Now when the temptation to eat one of the death-by-sugar-pumpkin-cookies hits, I can reach for a light, fluffy, honey-sweetened cookie and avoid fuzzy brain syndrome.

Hopefully.

Slow and Steady

I realize that it's been two weeks, but I wanted to say thanks for the wonderful comments on my post about, well, comments.

I've been rather introspective for the last few weeks about why I have this blog. Initially I wrote it to provide some intellectual stimulation for my foggy mommy-brain. However, over the last year and a half, this blog has also become a way for me to get out my frustrations, celebrate my triumphs, and connect with my friends that live too far to connect with in person. This blog, and your blogs, really provide a great deal of my grown-up socialization. I do try to hang-out with people face to face too, but that usually happens during play-dates and park visits. Many of those conversations are often interrupted with, "Cooper, don't throw the wood chips!" and "Peter, stop taking their toys." I tend to wax a little more philosophical here than I do when I'm standing around the swings.

My progress in commenting on your blogs has been slow, but steady.

And with that, I am going to turn my attention from blogging, to the twenty minute lesson I'm supposed to teach to the Young Women leaders in my Stake tomorrow morning. Anyone have anything good I can share about Personal Progress?

Repentance

Peter: (to Bryan before Family Home Evening on Monday) Daddy, we learned about repentance today.

Bryan: (giving me a questioning look) Um... okay.

It's true. We discussed the steps of repentance, particularly the part about trying to fix the things you've done wrong. This talk took place while the boys were using baby wipes to wash red pencil off the wall.

You can probably guess what prompted the lesson...

Sharp Dressed Men

My Grandma has shopping skills. To be specific, she has thrift store shopping skills. Her favorite haunt is called the Quality Thrift Store, or as it is more commonly referred to in our family, The Diggins. She went on a grand search recently to acquire church clothes for the boys. What she found was second-hand gold. May I say that we have the sharpest dressed three-year-old in the whole Primary.
She found the shirt, tie, vest, and jacket that Peter is wearing in these pictures. She asked for photos, and the only way we could get Peter to consent to the photo session was if Cooper joined him.

Please allow me to present Peter in Diggins chic and Cooper in late 2006 Wal-Mart:







My goodness, I have cute little boys. Even with Cooper's bruised forehead (occupational hazard of being so top-heavy), he's awfully photogenic.

Thank you for the clothes Grandma. They're wonderful!

Give Me Something Good to Eat

We (and by we, I really mean Bryan and the boys) got so much candy at our Halloween Eve festivities that we decided to forgo trick-or-treating on All Hallow's Eve itself. Instead, we ate jack-o-lantern pizza, carved pumpkins (that my friend grew in her garden and kindly gave to us since all of ours were still fairly small when the garden froze *sniff*), and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It was a good night.

Here's Bryan hard at work. I did all the seed scooping and he did all the carving, a nice arrangement since I don't mind the slimy innards and he doesn't mind wielding a knife.

Our pumpkin friends on Saturday night:


Last night during dinner Bryan said something about the jack-o-lanterns, to which Peter said, "They're not jack-o-lanterns anymore. Mom cut their faces off."

Yes, yes I did. Our pumpkin friends today:

Blocked

Did you guess what their costumes were?

Cooper's costume fit at the beginning of our Halloween adventures, but by the end of the night it would no longer stay on his shoulders. Also, Cooper's box was so wide compared to the length of his arms that his hands couldn't touch. Peter didn't want to take his costume off.

You should have heard the responses these boys got:

"Whoa, mom look, they're Legos!"

"That's cool!"

"Hello, Lego brick."

"I love to build with you guys."

"Do they stick together?"

Most of the comments came from boys under the age of ten and men over the age of thirty. Some kids just starred with big round eyes as Peter and Cooper walked past. Overall, an excellent response and well worth my zombie-like state that day from having stayed-up until two in the morning the night before.

We counted Friday as Halloween at our house. Bryan was told that no one trick-or-treated in our neighborhood. This was confirmed when zero kids knocked on our door asking for candy on Saturday night. Weird. Luckily, Bryan's work hosted trick-or-treaters on Friday, our ward had a trunk-or-treat activity later that evening, and we went to a friend's Halloween party that night. By the time we got home at almost ten at night, we were a tired (and cranky) bunch.

Bryan and I went in costume to the party, but you're not going to get a picture of it. You see, we thought it would be perfect to dress-up as minifigs to go along with the boy's blocks. Basically this meant painting our faces (and necks, and ears) yellow. The yellow paint actually looked kind of cool. Bryan and I also had Lego logos to tape to our chests. I googled minifigs to see if there was anything else we should do to complete the costume. This is what I found:

Photo from here

So, according to the picture, we needed a black smile and black circles for our eyes. Okay, we could do that. I even pulled out my fancy Ben Nye stage make-up to really get a dark black on top of the yellow. We finished applying our costume, looked in the mirror, and realized that we looked horribly creepy. Like, rejected for the part of the Joker in Batman creepy. With the yellow base and the freakish black mouth and eyes I felt like a really cheerful goth. I asked Bryan if he thought we should wash it off before going to the party. He said no.

And so we went. And my friend who was hosting the party didn't know who I was when we walked in. We kept the make-up on for a solid twenty minutes before it started itching so much that we couldn't stand it. Bryan scrubbed his off with paper towels and water while I opted for the baby wipe method. I also had to shower when I got home to get the paint out of my hairline and ears. When I put lotion on afterward, my face burned for at least a minute.

Anyway, the picture of us at the beginning of this post was after we took off the yellow and black, which is probably why Bryan and I both look so happy. And slightly jaundiced.

How Frugality Leads to Exhaustion

Thanks for using your craft knowledge for good and giving suggestions about the goat ears. I'd love to post a picture of how cute the boys look in their goat costumes standing next to us in our farmer costumes. (I asked Peter what kind of farm animal he wanted to be and he said a goat, because then he could be a kid dressed as a kid. Yeah, my three-year-old is punny. I love it.)

But there is no picture.

Because there are no goat costumes.

You see, I got home from Wal-Mart yesterday having spent $30 on costume supplies and still missing pieces. Bryan and I agreed that that was too much to spend on things we would only be wearing once. And so we brainstormed: What else could we be for Halloween?

Bryan and I were up until 2am executing the costume idea that he came up with. So time-wise, the goat costumes would have been better. But money-wise, the plan that we went with only cost $15, and that was mostly on long-sleeved shirts that would match our costumes, so they're items that we can use again and again.

I'm not going to tell you what our costumes are, but I will tell you that we needed empty diaper boxes, wrapping paper, empty yogurt containers, and face paint to work our construction magic. (And by our, I mostly mean Bryan.)

Photographic evidence of our awesomeness coming on Monday...

Mr. Goat

I'm a bit of a procrastinator. (As she is reading this my mom is probably cocking one eyebrow and saying, "A bit?") I don't mean to be. I don't like to be. But I am.

That said, today we figured out what we're going to be for Halloween. I can handle the costumes for myself and Bryan, but I'm a little perplexed about how to complete Peter and Cooper's. (And by complete, I of course mean I haven't started, but I have a plan for most of it.)

Does anyone have any ideas about how to make ears and horns for a goat? One suggestion was to use a headband. I thought maybe I could find brown (or gray, or black, or whatever color sweats we can find at DI) beanies for the headpieces. But once I have them, what do I use for ears and horns? And how do I attach them?

Come on all you crafty people, what do you think?