From my baby sister's blog:

Tales from the Bench: Never Forget: I was thinking today about embellishing a flag-colored wreath I made with a pennant banner for Memorial Day, and I couldn't settle on th...

Kelsey Lundquist Graybill

Kelsey Lundquist Graybill

I knew summer would be over too fast!

The kids are back in school. I have one left at home to entertain me all day. Today we watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse almost all day! Oh, and as I'm typing this Landon just announced he farted. For some reason he likes to announce it. He likes to announce a lot of things. And he likes to say "what the heck" it's funny to hear a 4 year old say things like that. He woke me up this morning by jumping on my face and asking me if I was ready to play the Wii with him. Landon is totally addicted to the Wii. He's pretty good too. The Wii is a great motivational tool. I told him he had to let mommy sleep a little longer and he had to unload the dishwasher first. It worked. I got to sleep in just a bit longer (he just farted again) and the dishwasher got unloaded. I need to find a Wii game that actually teaches him something.

Lucky for me I don't have to wake up super early to take kids to school. They've all got rides! Hurray! I was not looking forward to waking up at 6:00. I'll have to bake some tasty treats to the people nice enough to drive my kids around. Cookies maybe. Or rice crispy treats. YUM!

I'm supposed to be doing something productive today. At least I should be productive. It's what I tell myself Sunday night. Does anyone else have problems getting started? What do you do to combat the "I'm gonna's"? I was gonna clean my sewing room. I was gonna call the contacts I paid to get by working at the fair. I'm looking at this stack of 45 names and wishing I could just get up the guts to give them a call. It's the part of "home party plans" I hate. I love doing parties (usually) and I love meeting people. But for some dumb reason I hate the phone. Maybe I'll clean the kitchen instead. Oh wait, I have to get lunch first. PROCRASTINATION is the name of the game. I was going to make a poster, but I'll do it later.

Just like this blog. It sounds like such a great idea to write something every day. I think I'm up to 5 postings so far from the last year! HA! Well I'll just have to keep trying. I do want to learn how people make their blogs look so fun with highlighted words and colorful postings. I want to add pictures and cute backgrounds. Maybe after I sort through my desk I'll get that figured out. Until then I'm gonna get dressed (I love staying in pajamas all day) and then I'm gonna figure out what to make for dinner.

It's Diet time again! No not that kind of diet! My house needs to go on a diet!

I came up with the idea of putting my house on a diet a while ago, and now I'm going to attempt to share my diet plans with you (all 3 of you who are reading this). The idea is to loose a 100 things in 10 days! It's a radical sort of diet-binge dieting if you will-but it works! Each day, for the next 10 days, you get rid of 10 things. It becomes contagious as you begin to purge your house of the unnecessary clutter. Just like the fat deposits on our bodies, things tend to gather in different areas around the house. You must decide what to tackle each day. Here's what you'll need...nothing, you don't need anything. Just grab 10 things and give yourself permission to let them go. Confront your inner hoarder and allow yourself to let go. It's an amazing feeling! Just the other day I was cleaning out a container that was left outside in the rain. It was disgusting! The tote was full of water and items that I meant to take care of months ago (actually left over from a camping trip last August). There were some good items in that muck and for an instant I was considering salvaging some of it. BUT I DIDN'T! I grabbed up that hunk of blue plastic and dumped it into the conveniently located trash can and sighed with satisfaction at having done so. To tell you the truth I almost pulled a couple items back out of the can, but I resisted. Try it! You can do it!

It's almost June!

It's almost June -- just wanted to state the obvious. Time is rushing past and I just don't like it at all! My first born will be 15 soon. I love watching all my kids grow up, I just wish it wasn't happening so fast. I can remember being 15! She's going in to High School soon and before I know it she'll be graduated and right behind her the other 2 teens will graduate as well! In 5 years half my kids will be graduated! It is amazing to me to be able to guide them on their path to "maturity" I'm not quite there yet my self, but when I get there I'll have a lot of insight! The other half of the kids will hopefully benefit from what I've learned from parenting the older ones. I often refer to the younger 3 kids as the "young ones" (I'm sure Bryce, my 10 year old, doesn't appreciate that term). I never intended on having a split family, I wanted to have all my kids close together. Heavenly Father had other plans. For a while we didn't think we were going to be able to have any more kids after Trasey. I had an Ectopic Pregnancy and lost a Tube. Prior to that getting pregnant was a breeze! Lexi and Tricia are only 11 months apart and Tricia and Trasey are only 14 months apart. Then we practiced being patient and 3 1/2 year later Bryce was born. After that Malery was another 3 1/2 years and finally Landon another 3 1/2. I did meet my goal of being done by the time I was 30 (sort of, I was 30 while pregnant with Landon). I was actually pregnant 9 times. Only one of the miscarriages was emotionally difficult for me, we had been trying for a long time and fortunately I was able to get pregnant again right after. It felt like I was pregnant for a year!

It was quite a milestone when I was able to get Landon potty trained and out of diapers. It felt like we had been changing diapers for almost 14 years! We had a small break during that time, and it was a great celebration to finally be done! There are plenty of other milestones. Lately I have been caught off guard by the other "last times" we've had. Landon is in Sunbeams at church, so we had the "last time" in nursery. But with each "last time" we still have plenty of "first times" Tricia turned 14 earlier this month and she was very excited to go to the SND (Saturday Night Dance) for the first time. Having kids is a bit like having a time machine. I can flash back to when I was that age. I can remember the excitement of driving to the dance and wondering if "he" was going to be there, or wondering if I was going to be brave enough to ask someone to dance. The anticipation, like butterflies, fluttering in my stomach as I hurried in the door to the dance. I wonder if my girls feel the same. I actually have two 14 year olds for a month. Lucky for me they mostly get along well. All three of the teenagers get along about 85% of the time. Trasey isn't technically a teenager, but she will be in July and I'm sure she doesn't mind being included in that category.

I'm glad that I can remember being their age. I used to pray for that. I, like most teenagers, thought that my parents just didn't understand and I vowed that I would remember what it felt like so that I could relate to my kids. Fortunately for me I can remember and I tell them that often. It frequently comes in handy...this remembering thing. I am often able to use these memories for good and for, well bad-that is bad for them that I can remember. Especially when it comes to some of the manipulation. Oh these teens can be tricky, but this mom hopes that she can be tricky-er! I feel that my kids are getting ever closer to that "jumping off" point in their lives. This point is where I have to sit back and hope I taught them all the need to fly. How do momma birds do it? A lot of prayers! I'm very happy that there isn't a limit on the number of prayers a person is aloud to utter, I'm sure there will be days when each breath will be a prayer. For now I will continue with the ultimate prayer of please let them be safe, please let them make good choices and please let them know and love Thee.

June will be here and gone and I'm sure another 8 months may pass before I write again. But I write for me. Usually because I can't sleep and my Manic side is acting up. Being manic has a few perks, unfortunately I don't think insomnia is a perk. I'll try sleep again now that I've gotten some typing out of my system. I'm sure I'll read this in the morning and it won't sound nearly as interesting as it does in my head. ha! that's the way it goes.

Good bye for now!

Summer coming to an end....

The kids are back in school...ahhh it's so nice. I missed having a reason to send them to bed early. Malery is now bunking with her sisters and as a result, she actually goes to bed without much hassle. Had I known that I would have put her with them ages ago!

We went camping 2 weeks before school started and it was so much fun! I wish we had gone more than once this summer. Travis had 10 days off for vacation and 7 of it we spent up in the mountains. The kids had such a good time, and I enjoyed just visiting with my family. It is amazing what you can live without. I should use that knowledge gained during the camp-out to de-clutter my house!

We have all been anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby horses. Last Christmas we gave the kids 2 miniature horses. We were told the one of the horse was probably pregnant. At the end of May we were sure that the baby was about to arrive any day. Here it is the beginning of September and still no baby. Very frustrating. My brother In-Law is convinced that they are both just fat horses. We will know for sure in December as that is the latest date they should deliver by. Horses are pregnant for about 340 days. Unfortunately we don't know when either horses may have gotten pregnant.

Now that the kids are all in school, that is all except Landon, I need to decide if I should get a job or focus my energies at making money selling my "wares". I would love so much to be able to make money doing what I love, which is sewing!

Mafia Wars is way too addicting!

As I'm sitting here on my couch in the middle of a beautiful summer day, I am wasting time playing this stupid game on facebook called mafiawars. Why? There is really no point to it, there is no skill required, no brains needed...so what is the attraction? Not a clue! Maybe it's because I like to "collect" things. You should see my garage! My sister keeps telling me I need to have a giant garage sale-but I look at the garage and think "what would I sell?". I just like having 'things'. I remember an episode of the show Amazing Stories called: "Gather Ye Acorns" In this episode a man wanted to know how to get rich and was told to never throw anything away. It wasn't until years later when they sold off all he owned did he acquire said riches. I think that idea stuck with me to never throw anything away. I tend to buy items that I'm sure I can resell for a profit...and I have! I once sold a tote full of Star Wars Legos for $150! I paid about $9 at Goodwill (and a big thanks to my cousin David for putting all the pieces together for me) It is experiences like that that keeps me going back for more "junk". And so my garage is full to overflowing! I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with Mafiawars. I do know that I have acquired a lot of items during the course of this senseless game. My advise is to not get hooked on this game. I keep saying I'm not going to log back in and play it...but it continues to draw me back in...speaking of, I have to go, someone just fought me and I need to bank my money before I get robbed again!