Today is the DAY!

I have been up since 5:40 am. The three kids all made it to their classes and there were no tears (maybe just a tiny tiny one on the way home, but I am claiming it to be a tear of joy). Ashlee did spend the morning complaining that she didn't feel well and she thought she was too sick to go to school. It is unfortunate she got me as a mommy because I made her go anyway. I was pretty sure if I let her stay home today, that her illness would turn into a very long lasting illness and I would never have been able to get her well enough to go back to school.

I am now in the process of reclaiming my turf. They took over almost everything in their 4 1/2 weeks home and so now I am "de-kiding" all the rooms they think belong to them. STARTING with MY office!

James is still home, but so far he has kept himself busy staring at the "box" downstairs. He is a bit obsessed with the Olympics. He hates everyone but the United States athletes. He definitely dislikes all the Chinese and gets really grumpy when they win. I'm starting to think that letting him watch it isn't helping strengthen his respect for having all the countries come "together" and unite in the games. He is ALL about winning. Though he is content doing it sitting on the couch (letting other people work their butts off)...complaining that the U.S. should have picked better people to do this and that because our people can't even make it into the finals... blah blah... I don't really even think he knows what he is talking about, but he likes to make it sound like it... and he has sat there watching long enough that he should know what he is talking about.

Jame's 12 birthday is this week. For him that meant that he had to go have his interview with the bishop. It also meant that he had to pull out his Faith in God book and blow all the dust off it and make sure he did his requirements for this year. I was proud of him because he had written his testimony in it a while back and he had kept up with it fairly well. The only thing was I didn't realize that he hadn't memorized his Articles of Faith very well. I did a bit of bribing him that if he could pass them all off to me withing the next hour and a half I would up his birthday money for him.. Maybe not the best way to get your kids to memorize the Articles of Faith, but I needed some kind of motivation and I only had 1 1/2 hours.... He took up the challenge and started working on them. He immediately got grumpy and kicked Emmy out of the room for talking. He tried to kick Nate out of the room for just looking annoying, but Nate didn't really go for that. Then he freaked out on me because he didn't like me singing the articles of Faith to him and so he "wasn't going to do it!", but then he came back and I told him to work with Nate, because Nate wasn't as "annoying" as I was... but Nate wasn't putting up with his grouchiness so they got in a big fight and then James left to his room again claiming he was NEVER going to church EVER again and he wasn't EVER going to learn his Articles of Faith!! He came back a few minutes later and handed me a bowl which contained his book shredded into hundreds of little pieces. I sat there and ignored him so he then began to eat his little pieces. He is going to have a very difficult time if this becomes a hobby. How many teachers in 7th grade are going to take the excuse "I ate my homework"? I'm not thinking to many. After he ate half his book and he calmed down a bit, he got ready for his interview with the bishop and told me to drive him there. I was all to excited to share my story of the "Faith in God Book" with the bishop so then he decided he would rather have Nate take him (because he was embarrassed that he had eaten his book). Nate was mad because he wanted to just sit there and be lazy so he came up with the "we'll both go" thing. If he wants to go, then he gets to... If I want to,then I get to, as long as he doesn't want to... If I don't want to and he doesn't want to I usually have too... but then Sometimes if I am persistent that he does it...well then that is usually when we both have to... Doesn't really make sense to me.
I went just the same and I made sure I shared with the Bishop that James ate his book, because that is what moms are for! The bishop said James was a very nice boy and we should be proud of him and then he gave James some candy to mix with the paper in his stomach... cause that is what Bishops are for!

On Saturday we went to Deer Creek on a little boating adventure. It wasn't to drullsome, but I still don't see why people really think it is fun. It could be that we never go when the water is still and pretty. It always is windy with chippy waves. James was having a problem staying up on the knee board and so we spent the rest of the time tubing. There is only so much fun you can have watching people out on a tube. For me the fun stopped like three years ago.
I did manage to get the boat on the trailer (in the wind) and I even remembered to trailer the prop and turn of the ignition before we pulled it out of the water. I usually remember the trailering part, but I once left the boat running for a couple minutes after we had pulled it out of the water. Nate said that turning off the ignition is just a given and he shouldn't have to tell me to do it in the steps of "how to trailer a boat". I told him he can think and say what he wants, but obviously that isn't going to save his boat! If he wants it to still be a boat by the time I am done with it then he has to include the "boating for dummies" instructions which include turning off the ignition. He just rolled his eyes.

Sunday morning I was awaken at 3:15 am by someone walking around the house turning off and on lights. I finally decide to get up and see who was up. It was Seth. He was all ready for church.
Somewhere in his fifth grade mind he had thought up a very clever little idea. If he got up in the middle of the night and took his shower and got ready for church... then went back to bed. Then in the morning he could sleep in and he would already have his shower done and be ready to get in the car for church. Totally makes sense right! I mean I am going to have to do that next week... I can't believe that I never thought about that before. Though I think if it were me I would just do it all before bed... because waking up at 3AM doesn't sound that fun. LOL
What is really silly is that our church is at 11:00. Seth is always up by 8:30 and has plenty of time to get ready, but maybe he forgot about that when his alarm clock went of in the middle of the night. Sometimes I wonder what goes through that little mind of his.

I took the girls out school shopping on Saturday. It wasn't fun. They weren't good. They spent most of the time crying that they wanted something that was totally unrelated to school... I've told Nate he has an obligation to stop me from taking them places because they drive me CRAZY. He never does. He is always like "ok dear... whatever you want dear...". He is totally suppose to say "I'll take them if you would like"... or "you better not take them because they'll make you want to jump off a cliff". He could at the very least remind me to take a couple ibuprofen before I go! They came home with over $150 dollars worth of clothes and a very ungrateful attitude. I came home crying with a headache.

Well, that was my weekend. Now I am off to my Monday Madness.... I have a pretty darn good life.