Riddle Me This

If a mom asks a houseful of kids to do something, but nobody listens to her the first time, has she actually made a sound?

Separation of Church and State?

Today Brooke came home with a (photocopied) letter from Laura Bush extolling the benefits of reading. I asked Brooke if she knew who Laura Bush was, and with an emphasis on the Bush portion of the name, she was able to figure it out. I then asked if she knew what Mrs. Bush's title is. The question was met with a look of confusion. The rest of the conversation...

Me: Well, George W. Bush's title is President of the United States, and Laura Bush's title is....

Brooke: (another confused look)

Me: She's the First......

Andrew: (piping in) Counselor!

*For my non-Mormon readers, you can click here and then on "Additional Information" to see why Andrew would gotten mixed up!

Clearing away the cobwebs and the sorrow...

Once upon a time, two little girls found some magic in a movie called "Annie." Just about every day, during that right-before-dinner-and-Daddy-coming-home hour we mothers love so much, these two eighteen month olds would drag out their squares and floor pillows and plop down in front of the TV to watch a little girl singing about (and overcoming) her hard-knock life. This bought their mother precious time to get dinner made and the house organized and her thoughts organized after a busy day of trying to keep these kiddos entertained. The mother quite enjoyed this updated version of the original movie, and quickly learned every note of the entire score and most of the script, and would even shed some tears from time to time when Grace lovingly reminded Annie that the sun surely would come out tomorrow.

The "Annie" phase in the household was a pleasant time for all, but soon the little girls moved on to "Tarzan," Disney princesses, Zoom, High School Musical, and Hairspray. Annie and her gang of orphans were lost in the shuffle, until one day the girls' father recorded it again, thinking someone might want to watch it sometime.That time didn't come until today, nearly nine years later, when a new little eighteen month old girl was having a rough time right before dinner. Her two big cousins, each now a wise ten years old, without the squares and thumbs, turned on their old favorite musical. She grabbed her own special blankets and found a new spot to plop down between them for a couple minutes of quiet contemplation. And just as it did almost a decade ago, "Annie" helped an energetic toddler and her caregiver (Aunt Amy this time) gather their wits about them after a long, full day.

So if you're ever stuck with a day that's gray and lonely...stick up your chin and grin and watch "Annie." Bet yer bottom dollar it'll do the trick.

Living in an Amish Paradise

The fun has arrived! Jill and Jenna got here on Wednesday and it is so good to have them here. And to know they'll be here for three weeks! I love how this morning, while making the long drive back to Melissa's house, Jill tells me, "Thank you for letting me come out here for so long." My response? "Thank you for wanting to be out here so long!" It never seems like long enough....

We are of course in the throes of school stuffs, so during the week there is not much opportunity for big outings or excursions. We did start last weekend off right with a trip down to Amish Country. We headed down to Berlin, where there was a rib cook-off and street festival, which consisted of some tables set up along the sidewalks and some pricey games that the kids didn't play. The ribs smelled good, but it was too crowded and there were way too many of us to try to stop and eat.

We piled back in he cars and went down the road to Schrock's Amish Farm, which Mom and Dad will remember as having a big barn with horses and kittens to pet. The barn was gone, but the pen with goats and a dirty cow was still there. You could walk right in and the goats were very friendly.Watch out for that poo!

Our next stop was the pet store where there were so many cute puppies for the kids to hold. I could have taken home a little toy yorkie right then and there, but Emma and Leah would not trade Angel (the guinea pig) in. I don't think Angel would get us the $500+ necessary to make a puppy purchase anyhow. Poor Emma accidentally dropped one of the little squirmy guys on the floor, and she felt so bad. Vernon, the nice Amish man who worked there, reassured her that it was ok, and that it had even happened to him before. He marveled that Emma and Leah are twins, and was very impressed by their Amish-sounding names! I think we got in good with Vernon...maybe he could have cut us a deal on the puppies!

Andrew holding item # 52 on his birthday list

As we left Schrock's, I was able to snap this picture of a cute little Amish boy weaving baskets. Notice the lovely hand-made bucket and water cooler at his side.For me, no trip to Amish Country is complete without a visit to Heini's Cheese Chalet. There are free samples galore of the best cheeses...that was pretty much lunch. We bought some of the discounted ends, and of course went across the hall for some fudge. Yum. Kauffman's Bakery is across the road with even more samples. Muesli bread, cream cheese brownies, pretzel donuts...it's all there waiting to be tried. And we tried them all. Some twice. Hey, there was no sign warding off greedy vultures at this place, so yeah, we double-dipped. And so, we had a lovely day in the country, seeing new sights (Jill, stop staring at the Amish people!) and tasting delicious food. Not everyone was impressed, however. Andrew has declared that he will never go back there again. Too much sacrifice (two hour car ride) without much reward (goats? puppies? cheese? who cares!) for this 6 year old. He much prefers the instant gratification of playing baseball with his dad. But he sure did enjoy the fudge we had for dessert yesterday!

The Next Vice Presidential Candidate Is....

.....NOT going to be me. I'll admit--last Friday I was a bit inspired by a small-town woman with five children standing before the nation accepting her place in history. It made it seem like anyone could work their way from the PTA to city council to state government and even higher by just trying to do what's right. Why not me?

Because I can't get past the PTA. I have become more involved in that microcosm of American bureaucracy this year, and I have quickly confirmed that I will never be moving any further into the political arena. Yesterday, in trying to fulfill the simplest of committee chair duties, I had to jump through more hoops than a circus poodle. Our newly-hired principal must be intoxicated with her newly-found executive power as she is creating so much red tape and new protocols for us to wade through. I am not trying to make this overly political, but you may be able to guess my leanings...I am not one for big government, even on the elementary school level.

And so, even though I think I secured all of five votes around the dinner table for my city council campaign, my public service begins and ends with the PTA. I am happy to let others navigate the governmental waters. And maybe, just maybe, this time I'll get to vote for someone who will do it like I would.

Breaking Dawn

Or should I say breaking my kneecaps before dawn. With the advent of the new school year, Melissa and I have had to move our run time up to 6:00 am. This means we are out before the sun comes up. This means we are jogging along uneven sidewalks in the dark. This means it was only a matter of time before one of us biffed it big time. This morning, it was my turn. I started the season off right with a very graceful trip, fall, and roll to the tree lawn. My knee-jerk reaction (pun intended) was to melt into a puddle of tears. And since we were less than a mile into our run, it would have been very easy to just turn around and go home. But I didn't want my alarm to have gone off in vain, so we walked a bit, I wiped up the trail of blood trickling down my leg, and then ran the rest of our route.

I'm no worse for the wear, just a bit sore. But it is hard to tell if that is from falling this morning, my {strenuous} Tuesday/Thursday body sculpting class, or just the general aches and pains of old age. Whatever the case may be, a war wound like this was the draw in getting Andrew out of bed this morning. So worth it.

It's Great to be Eight!

Our little Brookie turned eight yesterday! She was very excited that her birthday was actually ON Labor Day this year...and whenever she saw anything having to do with Labor Day (like a car dealership sales event, say) she would declare that they were talking about her.

We had a family dinner at our house on Sunday. Brooke asked for her standard homemade macaroni and cheese and breadsticks meal. She had a little trouble deciding what kind of cake to have, until we found a mac 'n' cheese cake online. We had to do it!

She was excited to try her skills on her Hannah Montana dance mat, listen to her Camp Rock CD on her new boom box, and read her new set of scriptures (she's trying to finish the Book of Mormon by December!).

Yesterday, Brooke's actual birthday, Brooke started off by painting her own toenails. We headed downtown to the airshow that afternoon. We saw some cool stuff...

and Brooke and Andrew spent most of their time like this....

when the airplanes flew over head.

Emma and Leah spent their time chill-axing and goofing off...

It was dinner time when we left, so we headed over to Chik-Fil-A for some free grub. They were having a football kickoff promotion where you could get free 3 piece chicken tenders if you wore any type of football paraphenalia. So I in my BYU shirt and the rest in their Ohio State garb had high hope of getting free food. There were some nay-sayers, some doubters, who said the line would be out the door and around the corner, that we wouldn't even be able to get close to the place, but in fact we walked right in, placed our order (only the free stuff, please--times six!), and THEN waited for fresh chicken strips right out of the fryer. Yum yum--what could be better than a little box full of hot, greasy chicken (which, by the way is only 5 WW points, so I chowed down with the rest of them!)

It's not over yet...Aunt Jill comes tomorrow and the real party begins! Plus Brooke asked me this afternoon if she could take a treat in for her class. I am for sure celebrating that task.....