Do you ever have one of those "Calgon, take me away" days? (I just had to include these funny commercials from the 80's)

Aaaagghhhh!!!!! Do you ever have one of those days when you're ready to pull your hair out?  It really hasn't been an out-of-the-ordinary day, but for some reason I'm on the verge of losing it.  It may be that I've had a sinus headache for 3 weeks straight.  More than likely, it's PMS (yes Spence, I admit that it's a real thing and that it does put me on edge! :P)

Sometimes home-school with Hayes is magical.  Sometimes it's really good.  Sometimes it goes poorly, but not that often.  TODAY it was torture!  I was losing my temper and Hayes was crying every other minute.  Does this make you all want to pull your kids right out of school and try it?  The sad thing is that the day started out really good.  I was even bragging to my mom that when I left to take Chase to school, Hayes asked if I would drop him at the barn with his books (biographies of George Washington & Clara Barton) so he could read in the haystack.  He told me he LOVED reading.  WOW!  I don't know how things went so downhill from there.

It was probably that I got involved in the mix (aren't you proud of how I'm willing to take responsibility for my hand in this day...it's taken years to do so :)  As Hayes and I sat down to math...which he normally loves...he kept saying it was too easy, even when it was stuff I hadn't taught him yet (stalling tactic).  Then he kept dropping his pencil on the floor over and over...I swear he does this on purpose :).  Then he kept whining and tearing up whenever I asked him to complete a problem.  It was like pulling teeth---both of ours.  He complained that I was talking in a mean voice, which I, of course denied.  Then he said I was getting mad, to which I responded in my most level voice that I was not mad, but was merely requiring him to do his work.  You can imagine how this went for 20 or 30 minutes.  It ended with me sending him to his room.

Later that afternoon, we decided to carve pumpkins...what was I thinking???  Chase was home by now and we carried the pumpkins out on the lawn while both kids whined and cried about this or that.  The pumpkins were too heavy and the lawn was too far and the stuttering, stammering and tearing up again on Hayes's part.  Chase wanted to hold the pattern papers but I took them away from him so the puppy wouldn't chew them up.  He cried and threw a fit.  I also threw a fit telling them that I was only doing this for them and that I didn't care if we carved pumpkins or not. (actually a lie). Well, somehow we got through it, with a lot more whining and cussing, but quit with only one of the pumpkins finished.

As we finished, Chase was saying  "EAT EAT EAT".  Apparently he was hungry because he had refused the 20 different items I had made and offered to him for lunch and snacks. I was thinking, Can't I just sit down for a minute...I don't feel so good. (Did I mention that we're just coming off a week in which both my kids had the stomach flu?) "COME COME"...he tugs relentlessly on my arm.  I get him a snack and now he's not interested.  I'm not surprised.  At this point he's panicked due to the lack of Sponge Bob.  I decided this would be a good time to teach him that he can't have everything he wants right when he wants it.  WHY did I do it???  After 15 long minutes of hearing Sponge Bob's name cried out every 10 seconds, I gave in and threw (literally) him on my bed to watch Sponge Bob.  I went to take his shoes off and noticed he was missing one.  I quickly asked him whether his shoe was inside or outside (remember the puppy) and he said "nin" which is in.  Phew! (How naive could I be?)

I looked at the clock and realized I better get a hustle on for dinner and ran out to start the grill.  Wouldn't you know it, there on the grass was Chase's shoe chewed to pieces by the puppy.  Can I cry now?  And here I sit with the grill blazing with no meat in it hoping that by writing it all down I can let it go.  Don Williams is playing on the stereo in the other room.  You'd think this may have a calming effect, but in comes Hayes.  He wants to shut it off so he can watch something different than Chase on the TV in the living room. (how did my kids get so spoiled and demanding? Please don't answer that)  I tell him, "No, he can live without TV for 30 minutes."  He wants me to take him to Spence.  "No," again, "I'm not going to drive him up the the White Corrals where he's working, I've got to make dinner."  Suddenly my cell phone is ringing.  The caller ID says "our house".  I think, how cute, Hayes wants to apologize to me over the phone for what a turkey he's been all day.  As soon as I pick up and say hello, the line goes dead.  And then Spence's phone, which he's forgotten in the bedroom, starts to ring.  Hayes had called me by accident.  He really wanted to talk to his dad....either to tell on me for being mean or to ask him to come rescue him from his monster mother.  Oh, but here he is now with a bottle of spray starch in his hand...he needs to tell me that Chase had been spraying it in my room. How lovely. This is the same kid who, two nights ago at 3 am, poured a whole quart of ranch dressing on my carpeted bedroom floor.  I do thank Hayes sincerely though, for taking the starch from him (See, I'm not all bad).

So that's where we stand.  There are still several hours until bedtime, so let's see if I can change my attitude and end it on a peaceful note. I'll probably burn the steaks or run out of propane or both...that would be just my luck! :)

Don't let the creepy guy at the end scare you.

The End of the "Gray Wolves"

Soccer ended Tuesday night with a close win to finish up an undefeated season. :)  We had a lot of good players on our team. It was a fun season, but I think Spence is breathing a sigh of relief.  Between water problems, weaning calves, and soccer responsibilities he's had a lot on his plate.  But he is a GREAT COACH!  I appreciate all of the parents who volunteered their time for soccer.  It's somewhat of a thankless job. Also, a big thanks to all of the grandmas, papas, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who supported us.  We love you!

I actually thought ahead (who would have thought?) and took Hayes to my mom's house for pictures before the game.  It was pure torture for him of course, but I'm glad I wrestled him into it.

 

I thought they turned out really good.  I didn't do such a great job on the team photo, but I'm hoping Carrie Crosby got better ones she can send me. Spence always has the kids do one "good" shot and one silly one. I always like the silly one.

 

(above, starting top left) Fernando, Homero, Landon, Hayes, Christian,

(bottom left) Cassidy, Shelby, Kaylee, and Felicity and Spence

Coach took the kids for ice cream at Corky's after the game.

  

Spence got in way of my shot on purpose, so I had to put this one in. Way to go Honkytonk...you did a great job!

OuR StoRy---in the beginning

Under occupation on my profile, I typed "mama". I noticed that it turned the word into a link, so one day I followed it. It brought up 674 other women who had used the word "mama" as their occupation. One thing I noticed was that more than a few of them lived in Salt Lake City, UT. The other thing I noticed was a blog called "Our Version of Normal" with a profile picture of a little girl who had Down Syndrome. This piqued my interest since I am the parent of a child with special needs. I went to the blog and found an interesting family with seven kids; some whom were adopted and many whom had special needs. I wanted to find out their story, so I tried going to the very first blog entry. Luckily she had started with an "our story" type of entry that I was looking for.

I have debated (with myself of course :) about just how much information I should give out about our family. While a blog is supposed to be a journal, I have tried to keep my posts more along the lines of updates of the happenings in our lives as opposed to personal feelings and private thoughts. I have also guarded the day-to-day struggles of raising a child with special needs. I feel like if I start "going there", my blog will take on a whole new life of it's own. But after happening onto "Our Version of Normal", I decided that somewhere on my blog, I should at least tell a little bit about how "The Platt Family" as it is now, came to be.

Spence and I started dating in 1992 when we were seniors in high school. Yes....high school sweethearts :) How funny. We were crazy about each other. I'm sure we drove our parents crazy just as one day my children will drive me crazy. I must back up here just for a moment. We actually met in fourth or fifth grade when we were introduced by a mutual friend, Steven Nordvall. Steven was my neighbor. Spence was over at Steven's house one day, and we all ended up in his basement watching Freddy Kruger in Friday the 13th... a great after-school activity for 9 year-olds. :) I'm sure both my mom and Spence's mom would have disapproved, but they were none the wiser :p Apparently Steven had a little crush on me because the very next day, I got a phone call and heard a recording of Stevie Wonder singing, "I Just Called to Say I Love You". When the song was finished, Spence got on the line and asked me if I would "go out" with Steven. "No," was my quick reply, "my mom won't let me." Well the next day, I got another phone call. This time it was Steven asking me if I would go out with Spence. Wouldn't you know it, I had never actually asked my mom if I could go out with anyone, and I must have thought that Spence was a little bit cuter than Steven, because suddenly I had no restrictions, and the answer was YES!

To be continued on another day... I'm out of time. (& this could take a while!)

UPDATED WITH PHOTOS....11/15/08

If Spence's mom would have left him a little "party in the back" we would have had identical boy haircuts!  To my mom's credit, she was not the one who gave me this fabulous haircut.  I got it pro bono at Marcie's "Side of the House Beauty Shop" a la the grass clippers.  Wow!  (I need to go to my mom's house and find a better picture....but all tom-boys should sport a mullet at least once in their life :)

Thoughts on the General Relief Society Meeting

While I didn't actually attend (sorry Trish) the broadcast, you can get the transcript from the Church Website. No matter how terrible of a job I'm doing as a sister or mother or daughter of God, I'm always inspired and energized by the words of the leaders. 

From Julie Beck, the Relief Society General President:

To fulfill the purpose of Relief Society, the Lord has commissioned each Relief Society sister and the organization as a whole to:

1. Increase in faith and personal righteousness.
2. Strengthen families and homes.
3. Serve the Lord and His children.

From Barbara Thompson, the Second Counselor:

Sisters, now more than ever, we need women to step up and be strong. We need women who declare the truth with strength, faith, and boldness. We need women to set an example of righteousness. We need women to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause.” We need to live so that our lives bear witness that we love our Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ and that we will do what They have asked us to do. We need to rescue “all that is finest down deep inside of [us]” so that as daughters of God we can do our part to build the kingdom of God. We will have help to do this. As Joseph declared, “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.”

^{From Me: (because I'm such an authority and expert :) yeah right!}

^{Today as I was teaching the beehives about sacrifice and consecration, we talked about being true disciples of Jesus Christ. We talked about the fact that if we truly are and act as representatives of Christ, others will know it just by watching/interacting with us.} 

^{I've had this scripture on my mind a lot lately. It's one of my favorites:}

"I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?" Alma 5:19

I am writing this post because it helps me get motivated, not to preach to others.  If a blog is like a journal, then this is exactly what I would put in my journal to inspire me to be a better person and take a step closer to "having His image engraven upon my countenance." I need all the help I can get. I want to get a nice, framed painting of Mary and Martha like the one above to help me keep my priorities in the right place.  Far too often, I'm like Martha and forget to choose "the good part". Here's how the story goes, as retold by Bonnie Parkin, a former Relief Society Pres:

Martha lived in the small village of Bethany, where she “received [Jesus] into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word.”  Both women loved the Lord. And “Jesus loved Martha, and [Mary].”  In fact, their relationship breached convention, for at that time women were not usually able to discuss the gospel with men.

On one occasion Martha was making dinner and, as the scripture says, “was cumbered about much serving.”  In other words, she was stressed out!

Mary, on the other hand, “sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word,”  while Martha became increasingly upset that no one was helping her. Does that sound familiar? Do you think she was thinking, “Why is Mary sitting there while I’m sweating over this stove?” So Martha turned to Jesus and said, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.”

The Lord’s gentle invitation to Martha may have surprised her. “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

This story is such a good lesson to me.

My Boyz doin their Thang

You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to turn off my music player...but it's worth it. It takes a while to load, but these are hilarious! By the way, one of the boys isn't actually mine, he's my nephew Parker.

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Do chores have to be such a chore?

My friend Jen Houston (some of you may remember her) has a cool , "real life mothering" website.  She asked me to be a contributor, but I never felt like I had anything interesting to say.  Well, I finally came up with something thanks to my sis Marce and did my first post.  You can check it out on her community blog:

I love the colors of fall.  The Virginia Creeper on the North side of my house has already changed colors.  I know it's dorky that I went out and took a bunch of pictures of it, but I couldn't help it.  I'm a sucker for color.

 

 

 

FIELD TRIP

Hayes and I decided a field trip was in order today since it's Friday.  Our first order of business was to stop by the Triangle Pasture and search for my lost cell phone, since I've already torn the house and our vehicles upside-down looking for it.   Well would you believe it, we found it.  Only one small problem.  I must have dropped it when I got out to get the gate for Spence on Monday.  We were driving a 3/4 ton truck with a trailer loaded with three horses.  And of course we ran it over.  Then, I ran it over again in my car on my way in to try to find it.  (Should have looked at the gate first :)  I know because I could see both of our tire tracks in the dirt.  I think it's a goner.

I took a few pictures while we were there.

The wildlife was abundant :)

The flowers were blooming :)

And my favorite tree, the Tamarack, was just lovely...not invasive at all :)

I did get one picture of Hayes skipping rocks right before my camera batteries died: (well I did get it to turn on one more time, just long enough to take a picture of some poop! see the previous entry for more info :)

Then we headed off to our real field trip to Lyman Lake.  No pictures though, sorry.  We had a great time.  We parked at the dam and hiked to the spillway.  The water is way too low to spill over, but it was fun anyway.  We're going to try and go again next Friday since Hayes didn't get to explore every nook and cranny that he wanted to.  He'd correct me and tell me to use the word crevice if he was reading this, since he was pointing them all out today.   When we were getting out of the car to start our hike, I told him to get the water.  He replied, "I'll get the water, the snacks, and the fun!" He is fun.

Is this dropping from a bear???

OK, I hope this doesn't gross anyone out, but Hayes and I were hiking at Lyman Lake today and found this dropping (I found out it's called "scat") near where we parked the car.  I tried to look it up online and couldn't really find anything.  I took a picture to ask my dad, but he's out of town. I'm pretty sure bears eat Cedar/Juniper berries.  If any of you have "outdoors" or "hunter husbands", would you ask them to take a look?  Thanks.  (I think it's been ran over a time or two:)

Feel free to click on the picture to enlarge it to get a really good look!

Chase Jackson Platt aka TATERTOT (age 6)

Chase loves to laugh and tease.  The more you ask him to love you, the more he calls you meanie.  He loves french fries (& tater tots :) and broccoli.  He's happiest when he's outside or watching Sponge Bob.  He also loves to make messes.  If there's trouble, he can usually find it. His hero is Hayes (Hay-dee).  He hates going to school without him this year.  He loves to dance (Uncle Trey nicknamed it the "Dora Dance") and after the Olympics, he decided he likes to do gymnastics too. He loves to wrestle with Hayes and can take more tickling than any kid I know.  He's one tough hombre.  He's had countless black eyes and bruises, but it never slows him down.  He's stubborn and determined, but I think he needs to be. He has a tougher row to hoe than most kids, but he does it with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.  He blesses our lives.

He was sticking a weed into the camera while I was trying to take this pic.

My parents got Chase this little jeep so he could tag along with Hayes and Parker.  We've tried to teach him to drive, but he doesn't care much about staying on the road.  Today he was jamming the gear shift back and forth between forward and reverse.  The only way to stop him is to physically lift his foot off the gas pedal.  He just laughs the whole time while he repeatedly runs over your feet. 

Normally Charlie wouldn't put up with this, but I had him zipped up in the trampoline with Chase.  He had no way to escape.

Oldies But Goodies

Age 2?

Pneumonia  at around 20 months?

2nd EEG (14 months)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is Harvey, Hayes, Charlie, and Chase.

Chase has the BEST brother.

At the White Corrals

Hanging out on the glider with Grandma Terry

Me and Chase at Trey & Brindi's wedding.

This last one almost makes me cry.  Chase and his daddy.

Hayes Jackson Platt aka HALFTIME

I've had this photo on my fridge for years.  It's one of my favorites. I think Hayes is probably about 4 years-old.  He's holding his first gray cat that he named Lucifer.  Every subsequent gray cat was also named Lucifer, just as all black cats are Jack Sparrow and most red dogied calves were named Charlie.  He named our one black calf Bednight Black Lover.  He meant "Midnight", but for the longest time he thought midnight was called bednight.  I thought it would go perfect with the following from Hayes:

At the beginning of the school year, I asked him to write three things in his journal about himself.  This is his response:

"I love my family.  I say my prayers.  And I like animals."

Simple, but so Hayes.

AYSO SOCCER

With a little reluctance, Spence volunteered to coach soccer again this year.  Hayes told him he wouldn't play unless he coached.  That, coupled with the fact that no other parents were willing to do it, made Spence a shoe-in :)  Spence really is a good coach though.  He understands soccer and really tries to teach the kids and he's very fair. 

Christian, Homero, Felicity, Spence, and Fernando.

Who wants to be goalie first? (Maybe we should have combed Hayes's hair)

Hayes didn't go first, he went after it got up to about 80 degrees.  Check out the red face. He's actually a really good little goalie and likes to play defense.

Hayes and Parker after their games.  Thank goodness they don't play each other.  They're already competitive enough.

I didn't get one of Hayes and Lauren together, but she did a great job in her game.  I appreciate the fact that she's always willing to pose for me! Such a cutie!

Last year's soccer team.