Am I Bothered?

Saturday, Paul had some friends over for pizza and games. We started watching some funny Catherine Tate (British comedian) videos on YouTube. Well, one of the characters she does is a chav girl named Lauren Cooper (look it up... it's funny) who's catchphrase is, "Am I bothered?" Well, that was fun and we all had a good laugh until Abby started acting up and I reprimanded her so do you know what that little stinker did? That's right, she said, "Am I bothered?" sounding like a right chav! Yeah, we're great parents. The thing is, I couldn't even follow through with the reprimand because we were all laughing so hard. That's a good lesson to learn - "If you make them laugh, you won't get in trouble." That's all we need!

Halloween with the FRIENDLY Ghost

Abby decided early this month that she would be a friendly ghost for Halloween... and then she learned about Casper and she knew she had to be him and as Abby often does, she became obsessed (a couple of weeks ago, it was pigs)! At this same time, she also became obsessed with writing words- not just letters- so as a result, I found papers all over the house COVERED with drawings of nice ghosts, practiced letters and even words all over them. She can write Abby, Paul, pig and dog easily now and she is working on cat, I [heart] you and, of course, ghost.For Halloween, she went with her preschool class to the hospital to take a tour (Teacher Hannah's sister, Sarah, is a baby nurse). They came dressed-up and on the way there (we walked as the hospital is only 2 blocks away) the postman stopped us and gave her candy, and random people on the street were slowing down to tell her how scary she looked and she would say, "No! I'm a FRIENDLY ghost!" At the hospital, they got to see the babies, use instruments to check ears, eyes and heart, and afterwards, they ate doughnuts. At one point, I heard Abby and her friend Savannah arguing:

Abby: I am Casper!
Savvy: No, you're Abby!
Abby: No I'm not, I'm a FRIENDLY ghost!
Savvy: But you're Abby!
Abby: I'm Casper!
It was hilarious!

When we got home, I let her watch Scooby-Doo on the Cartoon Network and all of a sudden, I heard screams coming from that room. I ran in there expecting a huge drama and instead, I found Abby jumping up and down on the couch with the biggest smile screaming, "This is what I wanted to watch today! Look Mummy! The FRIENDLY ghost! It's really him! It's Casper!" And it was. It was a new Casper movie called, "Scare School" so we watched it together and she had a smile on her face nearly the entire time.

That night, we went to my friend Heather's house for Hawaiian Haystacks, trick-or-treating and Jenny's delicious homemade doughnuts (who says there's a limit on how many doughnuts one can eat in a day? Especially on Halloween?!? Plus, everyone knows that if something is homemade, it's really good for you anyway!)
The kids all looked so cute! James was a pirate, Daphne was a ballerina, Savannah was a princess, Ethan was a frog prince and then there was Abigail. Ethan loves Abby and is always trying to do the things she does... I feel sorry for his mom, yet she is still my friend... that's loyalty! This was the first year Abby actually got it! The three older kids just ran from house to house saying, "Trick-or-Treat! Happy Halloween!" - sometimes before the door even opened! That night, when we got home, she only threw a little fit when I wouldn't let her eat all the candy at once; she only kicked and screamed a little while when I told her she had to brush her teeth extra before she went to bed; and she only cried a little while when it was finally time to go to sleep (although I did let her sleep in her "Casper" shirt- you have to pick your battles sometimes). She woke me up first thing this morning asking for her candy corns... well, who can blame her? I got up and ate a peanut butter cup.

Home from California

Abby and I finally got home from our trip to California last night... just in time to shower and make it to Book Club! We had such a good time but missed Paul terribly (Although he kept busy playing tennis and football, going to a Real Salt Lake game and hanging out with his friends all week).


























Abby loved picking and eating all the walnuts and pomegranates and got them all over herself (Important note: Pomegranate stains do not come out of clothing... we tried it out on many of her clothes unfortunately before we knew for sure... slow learner I guess). She also was given farm chores: Feed Bubba the dog and Ginger the horse which she could do without any help.

We visited Bishop's Pumpkin Farm and had a great time playing, eating, riding the train, petting animals and running into people we knew (it always happens in Wheatland).Abby had many adventures with her grandparents. Reading books, having talks and riding the horse with Grandma was fun, but she is really turning into such a Grandpa's girl. He took her out to the flight line on the Airforce base and she couldn't stop talking about the jets. Her favourite thing though, was going fishing (see picture at the top of the post). Grandpa takes her to their special fishing hole every time she comes to visit and this time she caught 2 fish! (Grandpa didn't catch any.)

We had lots of visitors. It was so nice to spend time with my friends and their kids... and now that our kids are older, they babysit each other so we can talk. Although I did catch Abby and Truman (age 2 and 360 days) sitting back to back on the quad with the key turned so the lights were on... it was just a matter of time before that could have turned into disaster.


My Uncle Rex's Memorial turned out so well. There were almost 30 people there (we had expected about 15) to remember him. We shared stories and Mom wrote them all down. Carrie and I had scrapbooked his life and there were collections of letters he had written and artwork he had created for all to see. It was really nice but we are very happy to be back home now.

Mission Reunion

Friday, Paul and I went to our first Clegg Mission Reunion in Park City. My three-time companion Rachelle stayed with us for the weekend so we all went together… without kids. Since we were at the tail-end of the Clegg’s “reign”, it was nice to have a guarantee of knowing someone there. In total, there were about 6 of us from that time period and we had fun reminiscing, catching up on who we knew in common and bagging on whoever decided not to come. It was really nice and we stayed out much longer than anticipated but we got to have a fantastic conversation with President and Sister Clegg after most people had gone home so it was worth getting home at a quarter to three (our poor little babysitter). I think Rachelle and I didn’t get to sleep before 1:30 any night this weekend, but we needed a refresher on all the crazy things we did so we spent a lot of time remembering people and places, good times and bad, sister-haters, AP’s , skits, songs etc. I am so lucky to have had such a wonderful mission- to have friends for life (not to mention 1 awesome husband) and enough stories to last a lifetime of sacrament meeting talks and church lessons… then, at least, I’m guaranteed a “captive” (literally) audience. (insert evil laugh here)

Today we had preschool at my house and the theme was bees. It is so fun when all the kids get together. They are really learning good social skills and they love hanging out together. I think I might need to clean my house today. We’ll see how that goes.

Autumn is Officially Here

It has been so chilly lately, we decided it was time to turn the humidifier to the winter setting. Momentous! Paul has been in a better mood which is always a sign that the weather is getting colder and rainier. It actually snowed the other day!! Snowed! It didn't stay on the ground, but it was still really cold. It is just about time to go through our clothes and switch them over for the new season. It's time to turn off the outside water so the pipes don't burst. It's time to get the last of the summer's harvest (tomatoes and raspberries) and my favourite: It is time to start cooking more stews and soups and slow-cooker meals and pot pies... mmmmm. Warm autumn food!

So Abby was lovely at church as she screamed bloody-murder and kicked her little legs out as I escorted (read picked her up and forced) her to the corridor and gave her a stern talking-to. That was fun. What went wrong? Well, I told her for the bajillionth time to whisper instead of talk really loud to everyone around us. The last straw? When she said, "I don't have to talk quiet!" I really don't know where this talking issue comes from, I mean, just because I got in trouble for talking in class my entire life (it's one of my very first and last school memories)... I'm sure it comes from Paul's side of the family.

This week: General Conference and Mission Reunion.