Love Note

My oldest daughter wrote me a love note today....on her magna doodle. It reads:

I *heart* U.
I'm shoor I *heart* U.



Awww......I love being a mom.

Funny how inspiration comes.....

Tonight I was getting my beautiful children ready for bed. Those beautiful children delighted in fraying every last nerve in my body tonight. As we sat down to say our nightly Prayers and Scriptures, they continued to hop and dance around, scream and screech and basically just not listen to me. My eyebrows furrowed, my lips pursed and I hissed "STOP IT RIGHT NOW. THAT IS NOT HOW WE PREPARE TO TALK TO HEAVENLY FATHER."
I then opened the scriptures randomly and this is the first scripture I saw. Not "on the first page", but literally the FIRST words my eyes read.

"An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour."

Wow! I grew up all my life hearing stories of people with real life struggles, fasting and praying for answers and opening up the scriptures to reveal the answers. And tonight it happened to me....even if it was just to chastise my hypocritical parenting skills.

So the Seahawks lost...

I do not come from a football family. We never know when it is football season. We rarely know when the Superbowl is coming up. We just don't care. However, this season the Seattle Seahawks made it and this whole area has gone crazy. The evening knews would show Elementary Schools having entire assemblies dedicated to the Seahawks; small preschool children had their faces painted in the team's colors as they waved Seahawk flags. My daughter's school was among the schools hyping the kids up. So my daughter has come home from school, every day for the past two weeks, jabbering about the Seahawks and asking if I can paint her face blue and green for Seahawk's day at school. I don't even think she knows what a football game is, but she's excited.

So Sunday comes and I know that she'll be disappointed if she goes to school in the morning and finds out it was on and she missed out. So I turned the game on, figuring that she would get bored after 10 minutes. Not so! She watched the entire game! And not only did she watch, but she created her own scoreboard and kept score. S was for Seahawks, ST was for Steelers. She drew hearts by the Seahawks to show her support.

She was a little confused about Pittsburgh though. She kept referring to it as another country, and at one point when the Steelers made a touchdown she exclaimed, "Oh those darn Burg people!"

Then came the final minutes of the game. It became obvious we were not going to win and I tried to prepare her for the worst. The clock ticked down and Pittsburgh began to celebrate and Emilee burst into tears. "Our country sucks!" she yelled and then buried her head into the pillow to sob. She also asked if we could move to Pittsburg. She cried herself to sleep that night. Literally.

I guess we have a football fan in our family after all.

Top 10 instructions from the Pre-existance

Inspired by my 19 month old, these are the last minute instructions my babies recieved in the pre-existance before they were born.

10. Do not, under any circumstances, allow your parents wash your face. If they try to do so anyway, scream and arch your back as if they are applying acid.

9. There are 5 main food groups that you must consume every day. Parents are not aware of this so you must beg several hundred times. These include: macaroni & cheese, top ramen, goldfish, fruit snacks and yogurt.

8. "Come here" means "run away as fast as you can". Following this direction will make your parents very happy, even if they do not look like it.

7. Whatever you do, do not allow them to cook in the kitchen alone. Whenever they attempt to cook a meal or do the dishes, cling to them as if you are stuck with superglue.

6. On birthdays, you will receive the best gifts. They are boxes, covered in bright paper and bows. For some reason, parents often put junk inside the boxes, but just throw that stuff to the side and you can enjoy your boxes and wrapping paper for hours!

5. Parents are organizationally challenged. So help them out by moving objects from the places your parents have put them and moving them to where they belong, which is usually in the middle of the floor in another room. At first your parents will be resistant and try to put things back, but as time goes on and other children join your family, they will eventually give in.

4. When you are not getting your way, stick your bottom lip out just so, open your eyes as large as you can and let a single alligator tear roll down your cheek. Works every time.

3. Markers work best on arms, legs and tummies.

2. Diapers are for peeing in, and toilets are for washing dolls.

1. You are equipped with a "intimacy-o-meter". Any time your parents are getting too friendly, your meter will sound and you will be able to spontaneously awaken. For the sake of your own self-preservation, please put your meter to use and scream bloody murder each time your meter goes off. We know it's hard to awaken from a dead sleep, but if you don't something really bad might happen, like a little brother or sister who will steal your toys.