Brags

My kids are the worlds best. No amount of arguing will change that fact... it is just simple truth.

Of course, there is my wonderful hardworking missionary that I am SO proud of and adore.....

And then there is my beautiful daughter that considers ME....her mother....one of her best friends...

And if that weren't awesome enough, I've got two little guys that make me smile like the sun...

Well, this week has been Twilight Camp for cub scouting in our district. Twilight Camp is the same thing as "day camp", except that it is held in the evenings instead of mornings to allow the adult volunteers to go to work and take care of things before volunteering at camp with the kiddos. This year, Jared will turn 8 and will be joining wolves in our cub scout pack. He is so excited he can barely contain himself. So he got to go to camp for the first time. Jared is a super shy little man who can hardly relax enough to make a new friend. Generally, he thinks he needs help making friends. This time though, Morgan couldn't be with him to do that,....Jared was on his own for the most part----and HE DID IT! :)

I even caught him singing and cheering! Even still,...he loves his Mama. Awww... :)



And during the same week, Mesa volunteered. She has been my assistant den leader for several years now and I have to say, she compliments my efforts so well that I fear the day she does something different! What if I have *gulp* learn to work with someone ELSE???? *gasp* She is such a good assistant that most every year, I hear a cub scout or two has fallen "in love" with her and I have to settle an argument about it. She cheers with me, sings with me, lets herself be silly with me,....and she's willing to work hard at it all and be trained to make herself more of an asset to others. Who wouldn't be proud of her?

Morgan is the one I worry about the most. He is just so different than the rest of my kids that he feels like a "black sheep". He's got the biggest heart out of them all (and that's really saying something because I have tender-hearted kids!) but it just doesn't get returned to him very often. He's never picked first, never in the "in crowd", rarely noticed, ... He participated in Twilight Camp 3 summers ago and ALL the boys in my den chose Morgan to be their buddy. That was the first time that has ever happened and he is STILL bringing it up and talking about how amazing that felt. It's the last time that happened too. Morgan wants to please people so desperately that he happily sacrifices himself just to make someone else happy. This year at camp, he was a boy scout volunteer. That child worked harder than I've ever seen him work before, and he was so happy that he was ALLOWED to work! He wanted so badly for his daddy to see him haul water around. He desperately wanted to see his little brother shoot BB's so he could cheer for him. He has a hug and a smile for every single person in the world, even if he doesn't like the person he's looking at.
You're jealous, right? Everybody wants a kid like Morgan!

 

Manti comes home soon, and I am so excited about that. I look forward to showing off pictures of how handsome he is as a man and what a fantastic character he has built.

Even my ADHD dog is a keeper. He loves me and Tommy sooo much!

I have to thank my Father in Heaven for my family. He sure gave me a good one.

Been Beading

One of the ways I clear my mind, relax from a day of stress, and even bring in an extra dollar or two is beading. Recently, Tanner Hospital had a company picnic type day and they asked if I would come do a demonstration of beading. So yep, I did :) They did a wonderful job of boosting my self-esteem and making me feel like my beadwork is worth something. To do it, I had to get busy and bead like crazy though, because I have very few items to just display. I tend to sell or give most things I bead away.

I made up a couple hatbands, a few bracelets, some barrettes, a couple of necklaces, hairties (you see them in womens hair when they are dressed in full regalia), and a few other things. The hospital opted to purchase a few items to give away as door prizes to their event, so I don't have them to show anymore, but I thought I'd show off anyway.

 

So the event went well and is over now. You might think that would mean I took a break from beading, right? Nope! I was so anxious to do more from ideas in my head.......so I did! :)

I just love these.

And then this past week, someone mentioned to me about beading daisy chain rings. So I showed her how to do them and I got interested in trying that out...sooo......

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't have thought to put these on my blog, BUT earlier today, my friend Wrayanne mentioned she enjoyed my blog. That blew my mind because I didn't know she knew I had one, because I don't update this thing very often, and because I didn't figure what I wrote was that interesting. On top of that, comments are rare, so I just figure "nobody's home"... right? So Wrayanne, if you see this....you gave me a reason to do this :D I'm still going to get the spirit stick first too ;)

Christmas in May

I work at a very small and cozy herb shop that I just love. It has such a personal feel to it and I feel valuable there. What a great work environment! At Christmas, my boss and I will exchange gifts. That's what friends tend to do, right? And we have a massage therapist at the shop also, and she is a dear friend also. She and I also exchange gifts at Christmas. Well, one year she decided to give me a trip to the Atlanta High Museum of Art. I'd never done anything like that before and I felt so out of my league, but in a good way. It was like being a teenager at the mall with your girlfriends and trying on prom dresses or wedding dresses just to see how you look in them, and pretending like you can afford as many of these dresses as you want. That's how I felt! I saw interesting things and got all sorts of ideas about the things I personally do,... yep, great Christmas gift!

Well that gift worked so well that Patty (the MT) decided let's do this again! This time, she wanted to go to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Again, I was feeling like a little girl in a grown-ups world doing cool things that I'm not cool enough to do. Yes... I like that feeling! One thing after another makes it hard to schedule things sometimes, and when you want to see PLANTS, well ya gotta wait for the right season too, right? We waited about 18 months and then we managed to go.

I saw some of the most gorgeous plants. Some plants I recognized (didn't realize how many smarts stuck in my brain after all these years of marriage to Tommy!) and others were brand new to me. They were arranged in awesome sculptures and positions and,... it was just wowing! I took tons of pictures. One of the pictures I took was of Patty sitting on a bench next to a big statue of a frog reading from a book. I love this picture.....and couldn't resist trying my hand at drawing it cartoon-style. I think it came out pretty neat! What do YOU think?

Thanks for such a fantastic day, Patty! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The First COH

COH = Court of Honor in the boy scout world.

This is Morgan's first. He's not been a boy scout very long, and he has earned his first merit badge : Fire Safety.

With the entire troop, he recited the Scout Law

This was the face that got in the car with me to go home.

And this is the face everybody in traffic saw as we drove home...He pressed his face against the window and held his merit badge up for everybody to see.
I guess he's feeling pretty good about his accomplishment!

Boys and Sushi

When Manti was newly deposited in New Mexico on his mission, he made a comment to me in one of his letters that I couldn't understand whatever he was getting at because I hadn't been blessed with the missionary blessings he had received. I don't even remember what it was that he thought I couldn't understand, but I remember how upset that one phrase made me. I decided that if he were right,...if I really didn't understand what it was like to be in his shoes,....I could ask to be! I will never have the same opportunity he has, but I am sacrificing so that he can have this opportunity and I don't believe I will have to forego blessings just because of that. So I prayed and asked for my own experience so that I COULD understand Manti's perspective.

Low and behold, it took the Lord about 2 weeks to make that happen,...and one of my friends from scouting took the discussions and got baptized. It was an experience unlike any I've had before...it meant so much to me to be a part of that. She'll know fully know the role she played in my own personal progression.

Anyway, she has a son that is close to Morgan's age. Two years in summer camp, her son and mine were in the same den so they had known each other prior to this baptism. Adrian is not quick to jump on the bandwagon though. He weighs things out and thinks on them and makes his own decisions. He's a super smart kid! Morgan has been at his side all this time as he has learned about our church and made his own mind up. Morgan just loves Adrian.

The day came when Adrian chose to be baptized (that was this past Saturday) and he really wanted Morgan to be there. I had been at work, so I got off early and drove to the church. Tommy came from the house with the boys,... but he was running late. He was also nearly out of gas and we didn't realize it sooner. He stopped at a gas station, but he had no cash, just a bank card, and their machine wouldn't accept his card (it's got scratches I guess). He calls me and I have cash, but I'm at the baptism already! What to do.... Mesa and John pull up beside me and I run over to them and hand John some cash and tell him where Tommy is and send him. Mesa comes in with me. We figure our family is represented, the others will get there, just late. John takes off and we go inside...we sit next to our friends,...and they wait....and they wait....and they wait...I ask Sara what they are waiting for, and she says that Adrian wants to wait for Morgan.

Wow,...

I call Tommy and find out where they are, I tell him they are waiting, and when John gets there he sends the boys with him so Morgan gets there sooner. I talked Sara into getting things started and surely they would arrive before Adrian went into the water. The talk finished....and still no Tommy and boys. I was really antsy! I figured Morgan would just miss seeing Adrian get in the water,.... nope! Adrian wouldn't get out of his chair! That child sat unmovable until Morgan walked through the door and sat next to him!

Wow,.....

So Adrian is now officially baptized and is happy, because Morgan is there.

  Afterwards, our two families decided to go out to eat together. We went to a buffet place in Douglasville and it had LOTS of variety. Morgan was in HOGheaven,... yeah I meant to capitalize it that way. That boy had one plate filled with crawfish and crablegs. He had another plate with some Chinese food on it. He had another plate with fruit. He had another plate with some bread and some spinach stuffed rolls and some other vegetables. He went back later for a plate FULL of icecream (no lie, he had about 10 scoops of ice cream on that plate,... every flavor!) He went back for a plate of orange wedges. He ate and ate....I don't know how he didn't pop!


It was funny, yes. So I told Morgan if he was going to eat all of that, he should try something new too. I sent him back to the bar to get some calamari. I figure if he can have some of everything, try something he can't normally try, right? He went back and got himself some squid and took a bite. He chewed....for a while....he looked at me and tried to pass the other half of his piece to someone else. I laughed and told him he did good, he tasted it and now he knows if he likes it that way. But he still had half a piece of meat in his hand, so we told him to squeeze a lemon on it and see if that makes it taste different. Maybe he'd like it that way. He squeezed a HUGE piece of lemon on it and popped the whole piece into his mouth. Lemon didn't make it better I guess LOL!

So we're nearly done eating and the boys get to playing with pennies. They moved to the next table over so they could spin the pennies better. Look at their focus...


Well, Sara's husband Randy loves sushi and that is available on this buffet too. So he's eating it and I'm watching and its weird looking to me. He and Sara start suggesting I taste it. I'm no fan of the idea of raw meat. Sara hops up and goes to the bar. She comes back with a plate of 3 pieces of sushi. Ok its probably called a California roll,... no raw meat in it. One had the rice rolled in a seaweed wrap and in the middle was a piece of artificial crab meat (cooked) and a bit of cream cheese. I put that one in my mouth,... it took some courage I'll tell ya! I chewed it and the cream cheese squirted out from the middle. EWW! It didn't taste bad like I thought it would, but that cream cheese left me thinking blechy thoughts. Sara goes back and gets some wasabi and a slice of ginger. She says that's how SHE likes it, so try it and see if that makes it any better tasting. I just said that to Morgan..... *sigh*.... so the next piece I pick up is the rice in a seaweed wrap and it has avocado and cucumber and a tiny piece of artificial crab in it. I took the slightest bit of wasabi and smeared it on the end of this roll, and took an itsy bitsy piece of ginger and put it on there and popped the whole thing in my mouth.

I'll let the pictures finish this story for me.







Sara says to me "Now you know for sure you don't like it!" Tommy got that 3rd roll.

Sushi is great to some people and not to others..... I'm an other!

Blue & Gold

I wish I could be an Eagle Scout. I've already earned it once... and I'll earn it 2 more times when the younger boys get older,... so shouldn't I get to claim it?
Till then, I'm having a blast in cub scouts and I think I'm a pretty decent leader. My boys seem to genuinely love me and are willing to try most any crazy thing I suggest... at least once.

Wednesday night we had our Blue and Gold Banquet. This is a special pack meeting ("pack meeting" is the awards ceremony we hold every month to pass out awards they've earned over that month) that celebrates the anniversary of Cub Scouting and gives us a chance to really do it up big. It's not uncommon for lots of money to be shelled out for banquets like these, but we always manage to keep our costs down, and that's a point to take pride in all by itself!

Our boys had suggested we have a talent show. That caused me to think a bit, and I thought morphing that idea a little and turning it into a Variety Show would be a great theme for our banquet. So I suggested it to the rest of our cub leadership and the ball was set in motion. We had a variety of colorful decorations and a variety of pot luck dishes to eat from. We had all the families plan on doing an act of some kind (their choosing) and the leaders all planned to participate in silliness.

We also had PLANNED for a good friend and church member to be our MC for the night. He has a perfect voice for things like this and makes the best narrator you ever heard! He was going to do magic tricks in between our kids acts and we were SO looking forward to that. As luck would have it, he had a heart attack at church on Sunday, so he spent the banquet time in the hospital! (He's ok, no blockages and he's home now should any of you want to just call or facebook him and tell him you're thinking of him - yep, Jimmy.) So we're out an MC and nobody else to cover that. I get a phone call Tuesday afternoon and am told all the other back up plans have fallen through,.....so they want ME to be an MC!

I AM NOT EVEN FUNNY!! I was gasping and couldn't believe I got asked such a thing! What else can ya do though? Gotta fill in, so I did. After all, a scout is trustworthy, helpful, kind, loyal...all that stuff.

I googled silly one liners, and I actually pulled off about 3 of them! (Yeah I was bad as MC. Maybe they won't ever forget that and never ask me again!) We started the kids performing and we had a little guy write his own skit for his brother and sister to do with him. The next kid had a short skit/joke/stunt he did with his brother and his dad. They were all so cute and I was so proud. In between, we had a couple leaders work with me and do little run-ons....which is an act that is about 2 sentences long,...like one was 2 leaders walk on stage shaking tree branches and making the leaves fall on the floor. I shouted "hey ya'll get off stage!" and one of them yells back "we're just LEAVING". Silliness... it was fun. We get to the end and we have a little 8 year old do a comedy act and another (large) family be a circus and another family do a weather show from their own little tv set.

Then it was up to my family. I remember doing the hula with my mother and sisters in this very same room when I was a kid. I remember my mama sitting on my daddy's knee for one of these shows and she sang while daddy chewed gum (he wasn't the best ventriloquist either, but he made us laugh!) and I couldn't let my family heritage down.

I have a friend from childhood who is great to blend musical arrangements for me and he mixed up some songs and merged them into one song for me. I played it on my laptop and my family danced... in the dark.....Pictures.... and then the video at the end, but it only recorded well for the first part. The end didn't video quite right...crazy camera.

 

 

 
 

Sister Crazy

Mesa is the Sunbeam teacher at church. That means a tiny room full of 3 year olds. Looking through the little window in her door, I get a sneak peek into a world of little monkeys hyped up on speed. It's crazy and most people seeing that will get wide-eyed and run screaming to the safety of ANY other class. Because that's how this class is, Mesa has a co-teacher and they take turns teaching the lesson and both chase kids around to keep the chaos as minimal as possible.

/ Let me pause here to mention just how much I love my cub scouts who are older than age 3 and are typically a little easier to into a chair /

The girl who teaches with Mesa is pregnant, and she recently had a loss in her family that has gotten to her a lot. This has meant that for the last few months, Mesa has needed help in her class and getting substitutes to help her are like... well.... go reread that "monkeys hyped up on speed" description. Today was one of those days when Mesa needed some help and it was last minute, so finding someone was going to be difficult. I volunteered. I didnt have my own class to teach and I could easily stay with her through all of it.

I started out in singing/sharing time. Wow.... they make 3 year olds a lot stronger than I remember them being! I took it as a challenge. I couldn't let this miniature person outwit me! After all, I AM CREATIVE! So I grabbed up this one little guy (who is a SOLID chunk of a kid and quick as a whip!) and got him back to his chair. I thought quick and yanked out a piece of paper from my purse and every color of pen I had in there. Fortunately, I had just cleaned out my purse Saturday night so I knew I had a green highlighter, a red ink pen, a black ink pen, a blue ink pen and a pink gel pen. All those colors got me out of a tough spot! I got him talked into drawing with me, and then I got called out of the room. YIKES! Mesa was on her own for a bit.

I came back in and found little chunk man out of control again. So again, I talked him into drawing again, by telling him I would draw him a dragon. (What do dragons look like? Can;t believe he was convinced I could draw one!) I made him draw the fire from his mouth, so that got me a little time. Luckily it was soon time for class and I talked him into walking me to his class.

We got into the classroom and the kids sat down at a short table and Mesa got them to help her pass out cups and napkins. She handed me their raisins and animal crackers and I passed those out. I wonder if I gave them too much because they took FOREVER to eat them! While they sat, I talked and talked to them...just trying to keep them sitting. I sang them the crocodile song my mother used to sing to me when I was a kid,... and as soon as I finished they yelled AGAIN! So I sang it again and then again they all yelled AGAIN! I told him I could sing to them if they didn't tell me their names, so they all told me their names. I told them MY name too, and they tried to repeat it. Refer one more time to that monkeys on speed comment. They are 3.. that means they speak English noises, but not the English language. My name came out as Sister Crazy instead of Sister Bailey. That sent them all into peals of laughter, which worked for me. It kept them all at the table and kept them all paying attention to whatever Sister Crazy would say or do next. They all decided they were my friends, even the one little boy who Mesa says NEVER talks.

That was just enough time for Mesa to get her lesson presented to them. Of course, it led us to hear a story about the private part that got hit and broken by one of the moms. ... I know kids should be taught the correct names of body parts, but holy cow, can we include appropriate times to SAY THOSE WORDS in that teaching moment?? Wow the things kids will say!

Next up was potty time, so Mesa whisked half of them out the door while I kept the others occupied. We finished up her lesson concept and cleaned up our snack trash. Of course, they made sure I had a snack cup too and I had to throw MINE away too. Next came putting up chairs and table and getting out the bubbles. We blew bubbles for a bit, then we played London Bridge and then Duck Duck Goose. Wow.... again I say,... Monkeys!

The scary thing is,...... / can't believe I'm about to say this / ......I had fun!
When I was walking out of the church, one of the little bitty girls that always acts up and screams if anybody comes near her said "bye Sister Crazy!" I feel rewarded!

I also feel ready for my 8 and 9 year old cub scouts!