Mother of the Year (Alternatively Titled: And Then She Needed Her Head Examined)

I mostly love to read stories about all of your adorable kid things. Sometimes I wonder at my own motivation when I post these stories/events. While most of it is to say, "Look what we are up to?" or "Aren't the kids adorable?" But sometimes I have to say that these cutsie posts smack of "Look what a great mother I am!" And I hope that I am self-aware enough to tell you right up front that the tone of this post will lean a little bit that direction. So if you hate that sort of shameless self-promotion. STOP READING RIGHT NOW.

Okay, if you've stuck with me this far then you get to listen to me pat myself on the back. :) So the Poopy Pirate agreed enthusiastically to my birthday party idea, even though I must be nuts to allow any kind of tradition that occurs less than two weeks before Christmas. Then, brilliant STM that I am, hit on the idea to have a "Go Diego Go" party: the current love of our three-year old life. The alternative was a Thomas Party, but I've just done WAY too many of these. (Not as many as on.the.run. but enough.) Should be a piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

If there is Go Diego party paraphenelia out there then it is not for sale in our corner of The Land of Commercialism. Instead mommy basically created the party from scratch, though after four phone calls I found a bakery that could do my cake "kit." Here is a sampling--notice my fabulously coordinated blue and orange as well as my blue and orange children:


It was hard for Scallywag to understand that it wasn't actually his birthday. He was right in the thick of making the invites, decorating, welcoming the kids and (naturally) opening the booty.

Below is a picture of us playing a board game called "Go Diego." No, I did not actually purchase said game for the party, though it came in handy. How long do you think musical chairs can be played with a group of three year olds? Nope, not even that long. The game was a space filler before the pinata extravaganza. Which was Scallywag's idea. (Aside: I really wanted to get a princess or Dora pinata and take a turn of my own walking the you-know-what out of it, but I am a model of decorum.) Oh, and in the picture below, that is me on the left. This is the only shot you'll see of me. Plantboy took some video from the party which apparently primarily involved getting three minutes of my hiney. Not posted.

This is a bean bag toss game, only you don't throw bean bags through holes. Or even bean bags for that matter. What you do is take some of Captain Tootypants' soft blocks and throw them as hard as you can at pictures of diego and the animals he is rescuing. For stickers.

Now for the part where mommy needs her head examined.

After the party (and waiting for the parent who thinks the party ends 30 minutes later than it actually did), I had to drive all over the neighborhood because I have started an early morning paper route. How early you must be asking? There has hardly been a day in the last month that I've gotten out of bed later than THREE AM. I am NOT making this up. Anyway, I was having a couple of route troubles so I drove all over making sure that I had my house numbers correct when I could actually see them. The paper route will, no doubt, one day be a very charming post all on its own, so I will refrain from further comment here.

Then I went to Staples where I picked up the copy of my book that I made to give to my mother. I did a very ruthless edit and am extremely happy with this (temporarily anyway) final version. I still think that unless you read more than the first three chapters you aren't sure if you're sold on it, so I may try another publisher that looks more at an entire manuscript (or at least says they do). My plan is to send it off again in January.

I came home just in time to realize that I had signed up weeks before to feed our missionaries, which I do every month, but I'm never consistent about the day or the week so it is always a complete shock when they call. I noted with some smugness that sister missionaries are more considerate about calling at least a couple of days in advance. Elders . . . . .

So last Saturday was a very long day. Perhaps not as long as this coming Saturday wherein we will load three kids in the car at three am and hope to make Ogden in 13 hours.

Last two items (I know, I know, I've got to get the pics off my camera more often):

We've had our Christmas on for about a month now, but I had to post a picture of my Christmas tree. I bought it at a garage sale in Champions Forest because the family had three others (my TX friends will appreciate that tidbit). We were traveling that year and a tree was not in the budget. Neither were presents. Neither was the traveling. Anyway, it was late afternoon when I stopped on a whim at the garage sale. How much did she want for this seven foot beauty covered with seven strands of white lights? FIVE DOLLARS.

Um . . . sold?

Anyway, nearly all of the ornaments are homemade and we add a few each year. This year it is clothespin angels that my neighbor taught me how to make. It is a little bright, bold, silly and just so darn homey. We love our tree. I think Plantboy would love to do the lumberjack thing and get the boys out in the woods to pick their own, but I remind him how environmental this is: we reduce because we don't get a new one every year, we reuse this one and we recycled it from somebody else. So we are having a green Christmas in at least one respect.

Almost ready to wrap up, promise. Here is the baby who slept like an angel all through the Diego Melee, but has been a little devil over the last 48 hours with an icky fever and more snot and drool than I've ever seen even come from a BIG person.

My last item is just such a funny kid thing that you will definitely be rewarded if you have made it this far. Yesterday afternoon, Pirate dragged out the dinosaurs that haven't been played with for months. He began making up names for them and acting very silly. He began calling this dinosaur the yee-horse. I have no idea why.

Anyway, Scallywag got after Pirate for making up "dumb" stuff. Right, because Scallywag isn't full of it. Anyway, it turns out that the yee-horse can fly. Well, this was even more dumb in Scallywag's book, but when he saw what fun Pirate was having, he promptly picked up the other yee-horse, who is pink and apparently the female.

I'm not sure what these two yee-horses are doing:

But this is their baby, who is still learning to fly.