Courtney Stinks

O.K. Courtney my former favorite Sister has "tagged" me with 8 questions I am suppossed to answer. First of all I know I don't HAVE to do this but it's either this or prepare for Sharing Time or clean house. FINE -- I'll do this.
1. What I was doing 10 years ago: Let's seen I wasn't prepubescent like Courtney, I was 27 I had two kids, Jackson (19months) and Samantha (10 days old) and I was working as the Special Ed. Coordinator for Garden Heights Elementary half time. My house was cleaner and my laundry loads (get it LOADS) easier. I had never heard of Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis X and didn't fully appreciate how grateful I should be for every healthy day my children had.
2. 5 Things on my to do list: Well the every day list is 1-make beds 2-get kids ready off to school or under my feet 3-unload dishwasher, then load breakfast dishes 4-move loads of laundry and start new load that I will probably leave in the washer until tomorrow morning 5-either clean, or teach preschool, or go grocery shopping depending on the day of the week. The 5 things I aspire to do before ANOTHER month passes (one week) 1-Finish the second coat of paint on Sierra and Zoe's door 2-Put together the new computer armoire I bought 3-clean out the closet in my room and the upstairs "coat" closet 4-Pick up winter mess in yard (the snowman hat and scarf are still laying where he melted 5-Deep clean preschool room
3. Snacks I enjoy: Weight Watchers Peanut Butter Bliss Bars and only healthy fruits and vegetables of course. I used to in my past life LOVE almond roca but I would never poison myself in that way again.(Brief pause while I ransack the house for any hidden almond roca pieces)
4. 3 Bad Habits of mine: 1-Finding any excuse not to fit excercise in my day 2- letting my mornings get away from me (To be fair I swear my mornings can run super fast-they are HARD to catch) 3-waiting to long to start the dinner ordeal.
5. If I suddenly became a Billionaire: I would sleep in and let the robot get the kids breakfast, then I would take my WHOLE family to Disneyworld (Well those who blog anyways!), then I would get someone else to paint Sierra and Zoe's flipping bedroom door.
6. PlacesI have lived: Moses Lake, Provo (with my parents in a trailer and apartment), Nampa & Melba Idaho, Kittitas, Harrington (with G&G Bishop for a while in an R.V. for a While then in our little rental house), Royal City, Provo AGAIN (5 different places spanning from 1989 to 1995 this time) Kennewick, Moses Lake (with Gpa Bishop and then in an apartment) Royal City AGAIN (rental house, house we bought, rental house) Boise Idaho, Royal City AGAIN (2 months with Mom & Dad) And in our current home on Hargraves Ave.
7. Jobs I have had: Babysitting, rouging wheat (don't do it it sucks), Waitressing, cleaning Callahan MFG. shop (similar to rouging wheat), cleaning houses, teaching school. Those are the jobs I was PAID for --- for the list of unpaid jobs don't hold your breath.
8. Things people don't know about me: I aspire to be a children's book author ( a good one so number 5 can happen!), I actually appreciate clean well organized homes I am just feeling that it is a little out of my reach. Lastly, people may not know that I am a crybaby--touching commercial, extreme home makeover, seeing a Mom kiss her baby makes me leak from my eyes but I try to hide it.
So now I tag......1. Holly, 2. Shannon, 3. Melanie, 4. Brenda, 5. Brooke go ahead and hate me if you must.

Homemaker? What homemaker?

O.K. these pictures are from Valentines Day BEFORE 8 am. How can anyone mess up a kitchen that bad before 8 am you say---skills ladies, skills. I made pink heart pancakes, and pink scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then I glanced at my fridge calendar and remembered that I had volunteered 22 ziplock bags of pink frosting for Sierra's class party--YIKES. May I remind you all V-day was a Thursday, or as I like to call it preschool day. So now it's slightly after 8 am every child has lost the valentines, back packs, shoes, gallons of juice and what have you that they need to leave my house and head to school. I also had been headachy the night before and had put off things like, dinner dishes and preparing for my 18 preschoolers valentines party! Suffice it to say the kitchen was not clean, the frosting WAS delivered just in time for the party and the preschoolers had to suffer the lamest v-day in the history of steps ahead preschool. I need to follow the advice I daily give Sammi--"If you just keep it up it's a lot easier dear". (I admit sometimes it's "dear" at the end sometimes it's "turkey") I feel delirious.

Zoe is officially Five!!

Happy Birthday Zoe! I remember being 9 months pregnant (at least 9 mo.) in California (record breaking heat in the 90's that year) for Matt and Courtney's wedding. I was looking at my little family of just 3 kiddos and wondered how the new baby would fit in. I'll tell you how she fit in--she just stormed in moved the rest of us aside and life has been more interesting and fun since. Zoe was born just after Michael quit working for Clearwater supply and went to work for himself. Consequently she was my only baby who would really have anything to do with Michael. After I quit nursing her it became glaringly obvious that she actually much prefers her Daddy. For a couple of years now Michael is the only one who is allowed to give Zoe a kiss, and the only one who gets a kiss from Zoe. Grandma Louise and I have started making some progress on this front and as long as I don't look like I want attention from Zoe I usually get it! She will now condescend to kiss my on my SHOULDER, not lips, not cheek just my shoulder! Hey I'll take what I can get. Zoe is a bundle of contradictions--she is super brave or super shy, she is super outgoing or easily embarrassed, she is meaner than rats fighting for the last cheeto or she is telling you she loves you every 30 seconds for hours on end. I have a feeling that my whole life I will be discovering that just when I think I have her figured out -- I don't. But that's o.k. it's super fun to have a walking, talking mystery to solve. Happy 5th birthday baby girl.

Partaay in da house

That's right we got dowwnn. Just look at the pictures they speak a thousand words after all. If you can't tell by Adalynns face that Sammi's party was AWESOME then you must be blind! I love that Sammi always wants a Cyrus O'Leary Turtle Cheesecake for her birthday. Zoe's birthday is in 2 days ( the 13th) and she has requested individual cakes for all her preschool friends (both classes of course) to decorate, and a big cake and baby cupcakes for her family party. To me buying a cheesecake is like buying a little piece of sanity--not a big piece just a little one!

Samantha Reine Noftle

Sammi is 11 years old today. 11 years old....not to brag or anything but she is actually 11 going on 21! Her middle name, Reine, is the french word for queen. How appropriate, she is royalty to us. There are times when , being queen and all, she doesn't clean her room. Or she will clean it in the A.M. hours and will have destroyed it by early afternoon. There are times when she is grouchy and short with us. But there are also times when she is unbelievably awesome. Like when Jax was sick and she would go with brother to his millions of appointments and cry for every needle stick he had. She always called him "brother" I couldn't imagine there would ever come a day when those two would fight. Or when she takes an almost empty toilet paper roll and writes notes of love and thanks to her Dad and Mom. This year in fifth grade she has a little girl in her class who is deaf--guess who is watching out for her constantly and is the biggest help to her according to her teacher----that's right Queen Samantha. My first daughter, I am so very lucky.