Muffins with Mom

Every year, Conner's school has a Muffins with Mom activity in the morning before school. This is our first year and I think the kids has a great time. I got a good chuckle out of my morning when I saw this verse on our placemats. Welcome to my world (minus the coffee):

If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.
She'll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan for supper.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook ("101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger").
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two-year-old's diaper.
While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring.
Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.
She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
And chances are...
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

Football Madness!

The annual wager has begun! As many of you know, we have a few great traditions in our house revolving around sports. One of them is our Football Fun. Dave is a big San Francisco 49ers fan; Conner and I love the Dallas Cowboys; and somehow, Ryan became a huge New Orleans Saints fan. (He has been since he was 2... back when they hadn't won very many games, let alone a Super Bowl.) So every year, we wager between each other based on the overall record of our teams at the end of the regular season. There is a prize for 1st and 2nd place. But one of the funniest things about this is that most of the games are on Sunday, when we are at our busiest. So we rarely get to watch the teams play unless it is on Monday Night Football or Thanksgiving. So we anxiously wait around on our Sunday nights, watching the crawls at the bottom of the screen on ESPN to see if we get to celebrate that week or hang our head in shame.

(On a side note: this year on Thanksgiving day, for the first time ever, the Cowboys will be playing the Saints in the later game. There are a lot of bragging rights wrapped up into that game this year.)

If the 49ers win 1st place, Dave gets to decide the way we spend all our home improvement money next year. If they get second place, he only gets the money made in May.


If the Cowboys win first place, I get tickets to see a broadway show in Omaha this year. If the Cowboys win second place, I only get a nice date night out (of my choice) with something like dinner and a movie. Conner hasn't chosen anything this year. Maybe he'll get to choose a week of meals?

Now, if the Saints win, Ryan gets a month off of having to do chores. If they get second place, it is just one week off.

Each person came up with their own prizes this year for the first time. As it stands right now in week three, the Saints are in first with a 3-0 record, the Cowboys in second with 1-2, and the 49ers in last at 0-3.

I only have one this to say about this all....

GO COWBOYS!!!

Fall Fun

I love the fall. And for me, nothing says fall like October. We have fabulous reasons to get together and have fun: apple picking, bonfires, Halloween, General Conference, potlucks, pumpkin carving, football games, trunk or treating. Those are just a few of the things that make me so happy during this time of the year. We start to wake up in the morning and feel the crisp coolness coming in through the windows. It makes you snuggle in under your blankies just a minute longer. In the afternoons and evening, the temperature is perfect! Not too hot, not too cold.

The boys always love it when dad gathers together the leaves in the front yard and jump in them. Of course, in the past, we had a huge maple tree in our front yard that provided many leaves to play in. Even Seamus got into the action! I called it leaf day and got out the camera to take tons of fun pics. This year, in our new house, we have two smaller trees in the front yard. We'll have to see how much fun the kids have in those leaves. So I uploaded a couple of pictures from the last three years of leaf fun.

It is nice to have a deck to sit on this year and enjoy the beautiful weather. Our new house also has a great setup for us to watch conference at home over the internet. We hear the football games at night over at the high school two blocks away. The kids have their costumes already chosen for Halloween. Ryan is going to be Mario from Super Mario Brothers; Conner chose a clone trooper outift from Star Wars: the Clone Wars; Sean was happy being Tigger from Winner the Pooh. But the best thing is that I got to reuse Conner's clown costume I made. Bree is going to use that one. She looks adorable in it and does really well getting around in it. In the past, I have never reused costumes because I was afraid I would look back at the photos and never be able to tell the kids apart. "Which one is this? Ryan or Sean?" You see my dilemma here? I feel confident though that I will be able to tell Conner and Bree apart. :)