Will we ever imerge from

Lock down??

This is a question that has plagued me for years. And I am seriously beginning to think I may never return from the land of lock down.

Let me just give you a run down of a few of the items that are in lock down around here:
-Food. We have locks on the fridge and the pantry. The reason for these locks are two fold. First, we have a two year old -nuff said. Secondly, my older children will literally eat every snackish morsel they can get their hands on in mind boggling record breaking time. Trust me--I do feed them...a lot!
-Office Supplies. We lock down spare notebooks, spare scissors, spare pens, spare pencils, spare post it notes, spare glue sticks, spare colored pencils, spare crayons--you name it, it's under lock and key. I like to stock pile all of these things when they are on sale, crazy how quickly they disappear if left available to the masses.
-My room. Grant has a serious fetish with my make up right now. He also really enjoys a good roll of toilet paper, but it's mostly the make up thing that's the problem. I also have issues with a few other items that seem to go missing a lot-such as my tweezers. Why? I don't know.
-Audrey's room. Grant has discovered that she always has some sort of candy-stash some where in there and if you dig through enough stuff, you are bound to find it.
-The computer. These little stinks are like vultures when it comes to the computer. If it is left unlocked for a moment they are all clambering to get at it.
-Grant. He climbed out of his cage- eerr, I mean crib- the other day. What am I going to do without this option? His sleep is a very valuable commodity to me.

I am quite literally the gate keeper. And today two of my children are in solitary confinement--it never seems to end.*

Some day they will be grown and gone and I will miss all my little chick-a-dee's dearly, but I can assure you I will not miss the lock down days. Sure, I may look back on this and laugh. Frankly, it's laughable right now--that's just it--it is totally ridiculous!! The day will come, my friends, when I no longer carry multiple keys in my pocket on a daily basis and that will be a joyful day for Farmgirl.

*side note: The teenager was told this morning he would be spending the day in his room and that I would be bringing him his meals. After we left him he got his sister to deliver a message: Ask Mom if she is going to keep her promise and bring me breakfast in bed? What a Punk!*

Define: worst.

Conversation over heard at breakfast....


Lucy: Audrey, I had the worst day of my life yesterday! First, I was--

Audrey: Goose, it couldn't have been the worst day of your life. The worst day of your life would be when your grown up and have kids and your kids die. That would be the worst day of your life.

Lucy: Oh. Yeah. Okay. Okay, then the worst day of my school life. First, I was--

Audrey: No, Lucy. You didn't have the worst day of your school life either. The worst day of your school life would be if someone pants-ed you in front of the whole school. Now, that would be a bad day.

Lucy: Yeah, I guess it would.


So, for anyone having a bad day maybe you just need a little perspective brought to you by the likes of Audrey.
Look out Dear Abby, there's a new girl in town.

Has Anyone Seen Superman?

Noooo???

That is because he is living with me.
Sleeping in my bed. Eating big bowls Cream of Wheat--along with any other soft food he can get his hands on. Drinking lots of apple juice in my kitchen. Using my bathroom as his phone booth. Leaping over the children in a single bound.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's
Super Mike!!

I am more than pleased to report that Mike's tonsillectomy went smoothly and his recovery has been surprisingly un-horrific.
(horrific is pretty much what I was expecting and bracing myself for)
I know, I know any of you experienced de-tonsiled people are saying, Oh Farmgirl...don't get too comfortable, you are only on day four and the worst is possibly--okay, okay
--probably--
yet to come, but so far so good! Hey, I'll take what ever I can get.
Gotta keep the positive juices flowing, right troops?!?

Our Lives: Under Construction

This sign has been hanging on Mike's door at his office for a long time.

(10+ years with Arnell-West)

It used to represent this...

(Southern Utah)
weird how they can't get a bid or keep a commercial construction company office open when there's only a measly 53 or so bidders per job. strange, real strange.

It now represents this....

(a desk we bought in college at the bid sale for a whopping $10)

Which is located here....

(Our front room)

Just a mere 15 feet from here....

(Mom's Domain)

Like this....see?




All so that we can make a go of this....
(Mike's new business venture + a few other irons in the fire)



We are excited about it! Hitting it hard, Baby! Already have some great leads and made our first dollar--suitable for framing.

Only for the next four short days. Then


Mi Amor will be spending a whole lot of time here....




Because of these....

(or more accurately, the lack there of)

Recovering without the help of any of these....

(namely the little gem we refer to as {insert Homer Simpson impersonation} 'LorrTabb'
-pesky opium drug addictions!)

Now, don't you all feel real sorry for her?....

(pity party invites pending)

My life as I knew it is definitely--Da Da Dun--under construction.
Good thing for me happiness is a choice.
Oh, and the fact that blogs are therapeutic.

Shaken.

I am not one for dramatics. I don't consider myself all too dramatic and I try to down play the drama from my kids. When I got a phone call this morning from the principal reporting that Audrey said some one had followed her to school, talked to her and grabbed the handle bar of her bike I won't lie--I thought, did this really happen? Have they recently been discussing stranger danger at school and she is embellishing a story? She is, after all, the most dramatic of all my children.

I went over to the school to talk to her and get to the bottom of the story. I didn't run into the school all teary eyed and on the verge of a freak out (me and hysterics rarely meet)---I was on a mission to get to the truth and get back home to my busy day. After a few minutes of questioning I had decided we needed to report it, but I was still fairly skeptical. Just then another student came and confirmed her story--said he saw it happen. He said this same car had followed him and a friend the other day. The car descriptions were essentially the same--still kids can really exaggerate these things sometimes, right? Then he said he and his friend noticed the license plate had double letters. A game they call Oreo. Audrey said she wrote down the plate number. She went to her classroom to get her notebook out of her backpack. She came back and showed us what she had written. It was a double letter license.

My heart sank.
She was telling the truth.
It just makes me sick.

She did do the right thing. She got out of the situation. She wrote down the license number--Smart girl, Smart, Smart Girl!! We dealt with it, called the resource officer and did everything that needed to be done.

I think I am just a little shell shocked from what could have been. My dear old Audrey does give me a run for my money....But what would I do without her?
I never want to know.

I am one proud and happy Mama today. My girl didn't curl up and consent. She balled up a fist and hit for all she was worth. My girl didn't blank out on what to do next. She wrote down the license plate number and description. (Thank you cousin sleuth kit!)
That's my girl!!
Yeah, she's a keeper.

Dr. Seuss Days

I'm pretty sure I have established the fact that I am not the type of mother who makes her job any harder than it has to be. I don't get overly involved in craft projects, I don't like going the extra mile on school projects, I don't sit up nights dreaming how to dress my kids for spirit week at school. That's not to say I don't support all that stuff--I just don't feel the need to do it myself. Luckily, I have some self-starters for children who, despite my lameness, still like to participate in all that craziness.

It's Dr. Seuss week. It started with wear green day -okay, not so bad. I can get on board with that one. Then came wear red and white day -again, totally do-able. Next was crazy sock and hat day(not the ideal day to also be picture day--but, whatever). Today was dress up like your favorite book character day. My kids interpret that into your favorite Dr. Seuss character.

Correct me if I'm wrong, that sounds like an awful lot of work for me. Most days I'm doing good to just get them all in clean school clothes, hair combed, teeth brushed and out the door with a smile on their face without some sort of major melt down occurring. Let's just toss in the fact that today is Thursday. Thursday is early morning choir. The girls leave just after 7:30.

Being the understated-involvement, yet supportive mom that I am, I did not draw any attention to the book character event. BUT, when Lucy came to me with this diagram last night for her hair in order to be Cindy Lou Who I jumped right on board. Really, no one around here can resist Lucy. She is just so darn lovable, FUN-ee, a little on the crazy side and the nicest girl around.
We used one cup instead of three. She decided Cindy Lou didn't have the same ear issues we were dealing with. We opted for the one cup on top and pig tails on the side route.


Here's the finished product. She was thrilled with it and we all got a good laugh. That was about as far as she got with her costume, though, so apparently she is a wee bit my daughter after all.

This is another picture she drew last night. The arrows say "Lucy" and the caption reads, "Say I am beautiful or Die. Say it NOW!!! I'm get'in mad!" Evidently our little Cindy Lou-Lucy has a few issues she is working on.
See?
Little bit crazy, right?
But, oh so funny to me. Very few people know how incredibly witty Goose is.

Tomorrow is pajama day. Gee, I can hardly wait. I suppose that does remove the *put children in clean school clothes* step of the morning routine, so that's a good thing. ~