my best friend

So I am admitting that come bedtime nice mommy sometimes tends to disappear. I am not exactly proud of this but it is almost as if the mommy switch gets switched off at 8:00 and exhausted, grumpy, Jessica rears her ugly head. Now when I can remain objective I try to put my kids to bed with a book, a song, a kiss on the head and a smile.........but I would seriously be leading you astray if I in any way did not admit that usually there is also a, "WHY ARE YOU UP? GO BACK TO BED AND DO NOT GET OUT OF BED AGAIN OR YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE".

But tonight I decided that I would lay down with Lilly for a few minutes in her bed because she has been having some serious "ghost" issues. So I am laying on the floor next to the bed and Lilly keeps peeking over the side at me. On about the 6th time when I was about to say, "Please lay down or I will have to leave", she looks at me and says, "Mommy you are my best friend". Seriously? I just wanted to pick that little monster up (because she had been a napless monster tonight) and just kiss her and squeeze her. I settled for a smile and a blown kiss and she was a happy girl. I hope I can stay her best friend for a long time!

Moyes vs Wild

Alright so they changed the name to Wuss vs Wild and then to Lost Boys. Why the trip needed a theme name I don't know but they were excited about it. And who wouldn't want to be on a camping trip with these mustaches......


That picture is just a little too creepy for me....as are most of the pictures taken. For example:


or how about this one?


or possibly this one?


And if none of those were creepy enough for you how about this one? ( and you claim to not understand the connection with Tobias Funke?)

They did manage to take a few more "normal" photos like these...... *as normal you guys can get

However they mostly took video and I wish that I knew how to upload off of Paul's picassa account because there are a few entertaining ones but the pictures will just have to do on our blog.

And they even took one of those artsy food pictures that just makes you hungry....no?

Oh the Moyes boys and their adventures. I think they had a good time despite the rain and the cold. We salute your endeavors into manliness and are glad you came back alive. Because I TOTALLY would have used this picture at your funeral for everyone to remember you by.

TERRIFYING.....

So I think I posted before about our little pet rat that we have had for a a couple of months. Our hamster BB died and so I decided to go with a rat because everyone said they made for great pets. BB wouldn't even let us TOUCH him and didn't make for such a great pet. The rat, lovingly named Scabbers, had made for a delightful pet! The girls treat him like a dog practically and take him outside to play with and Maddy literally walks around with him all the time.

So recently he has figured out how to get out of his cage. This has been going on for a few weeks now. He always turns up somewhere and more often than not he will just come to you. But we tried many different things to try and figure out HOW he kept getting out. Most of them involved electrical tape.....maybe not the best idea since he would just chew through it all.

About 90% of the time he gets out he makes a B-line for Joselyn's bed. And he only tried to get out at night. So imagine sleeping soundly in your bed and waking up to a creature crawling in your bed! How TERRIFYING would that be? I think Josey must sneak food in her bed or something because it ONLY climbs into her bed.

The first time it happened I thought she had just had a bad dream. She came rushing into our room saying the rat was in her bed!! When I went to check it out it just came running to me from under her bed and I put him away. A few minutes later she came in again more annoyed than scared this time again complaining that the rat had climbed into her bed. This has now happened on a fairly regular basis.

So last night we heard movement in the hall and I got up to open the door and Josey was there with eyes as big as saucers! The rat had once again climbed into her bed and awakened her but I think this time it really FREAKED her out! We found him and put him back in his cage but about every 5 minutes she had to get up and check on him in the playroom to make sure he hadn't gotten out! She came rushing in about 10 minutes later saying he got out of his cage AGAIN and I asked her if he was in her room and she said no. But the look on her face was pure panic that he was going to climb into her bed again! So we put him in yet AGAIN and closed the door and assured her that she was safe for the night.

I think she is officially traumatized by things crawling in her bed and will probably forever have nightmares about rats in her bed. But I did outfit the rat with a brand new cage that I think is escape proof. Man those suckers are smart though!

Sacrifices we make as a mother....

So today we started swim lessons......if you don't think that is much of a sacrifice let me tell you that I decided to sign Maddy up for the pre-competition summer rec swim team. Why is this a sacrifice? Well it is EVERY day for almost 2 months.....at 1:00......yes that would be nap time for Lilly. This is the sacrifice I am talking about. Add too it that the pool isn't exactly near my house and it makes for an even BIGGER sacrifice as she can't walk or ride her bike and I don't know anyone else in the program to carpool with. Which means that I have to take her everyday and it is just a little too far to go all the way there and then turn around and go all the way home. So Lilly will pretty much be napless for a couple of months which translates into a cranky 3 year old...... which translates into a cranky mommy........but on the flip side it makes for one very happy and fulfilled 9 year old! She was so nervous that she wouldn't "make" the team. You have to be able to swim the length of the pool on your front and back. Luckily she MADE IT! And was very happy. She even got her very own Oregon City swim team cap. Because of her arthritis this is something that we have talked about for a long time and tried to really encourage because it is such a low impact sport that hopefully she can do for a very long time even if the arthritis flairs up again. So we are all excited to start this new sport!

Luckily for the first month Josey and Lilly have their swim lessons at the same time 2 days a week so they will get to swim as well. Today we all showed up for the first lesson and the first time we had been back to the pool since last summer. I wasn't sure how Lilly would react to being in the class by herself with a teacher but when the teacher asked her what her name was and she curtsied and said, "Lillian Elizabeth Moyes" I knew she was going to be JUST FINE! And she was probably a little more than just fine. She was borderline "the problem child" in the class. I say borderline because there was one other little boy that was a fraction worse than she was. She was just so excited that she kept jumping up and down in the water when she was supposed to be listening and she kept breaking the cardinal sin of NOT TAKING YOUR HAND OFF THE SIDE OF THE POOL. This one was hard for her, after all she is barely 3. I am really excited though because I think she is really ready for this and it will do her a lot of good to have to obey a teacher. As I was watching her from the bleachers, every five second her hand kept shooting up. I am pretty sure she didn't have any good answers for what the teacher was asking because when I went over to see if she needed to go potty I heard the teacher ask the class what they see when they look out the window on a sunny day and Lilly's hand shot up and she told the teacher the she sees pink things when she looks out the window on a sunny day. The look of confusion on the teachers face pretty much summed it up!And of course Josey did great in her class as well. She was completely offended when she realized that I had signed her up to be in level 3 again (because she was level 3 last summer). But as comfortable as she is in the water she really can't swim swim. She won't drown but she can't exactly swim either. So I had show her that she was the youngest kid in the class and so that means that she is actually a really good swimmer for a 7 year old. In actuality I have no idea if she was youngest. I just know that she was the smallest (and really when isn't she?) and it sounded good!

All three of my girls have taken swim lessons since they were 2 years old. I won't try and profess that this has given them many swimming skills other than being comfortable in the water generally but more than anything it is just fun! It really is always the highlight of their summer. This is the first summer though that all my kids are in swim lessons and I didn't have to either get in the pool with one of them, or entertain a small child at the same time. I got an entire half an hour to sit just watch.......it was weird and glorious at the same time. I will try to get better pictures of them actually swimming before the summer is over.

I love movies

Seriously I really do love movies and so does Dustin. I can't say that we always on which movies look the best. BUT here are a few movies that I am REALLY excited for!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I really like this book

You can check out the trailer here:
http://time-traveler-wife-trailer.blogspot.com/

New Moon

Don't pretend that you aren't excited too!
http://www.newmoontrailer.com/

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Don't think I won't be there on opening night without my Harry Potter glasses.
http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/harry-potter-and-half-blood-prince/feature-trailer

Toy Story 3

just plain love these movies
http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/toystory3/

The Wolfman

This just looks creepy and AWESOME!

no Trailer yet

Where the Wild Things Are

Looks kinda cute

http://wbads-50.vo.llnwd.net/e1/wbmovies/wildthings/WTWTA_TRL1_480.mov

Goodness I could be up all night! I need to go to bed. There are just SO many good movies out there!

Happy (belated) Birthday!

I know this is a day late but I just couldn't find the time yesterday to sit down and do this. It was Dustin's birthday yesterday and FINALLY he is as old as me!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Dustin! Here are some of my favorite pictures of you. I love you so much!

Albertson's

So I have already put my groceries away and I didn't take a picture! But I was so excited after I left Albertson's tonight that I had to blog about it. I found out on discountqueens.blogspot that the actual catalina running with Albertsons is this:



Spend $10-$14.99 - get $2 OYNO

Spend $15-$24.99 - get $5 OYNO

Spend $25 or more - get $10 OYNO



So I figured up some scenarios to do the $15 dollar one and spend less out of pocket but get the $5.00 back. I did two $15.00 transactions.


5 boxes of general mills cereal--- $10.00
1 Bertolli pasta sauce--- $2.00
2 Wishbone Salad Dressings--- $3.00

TOTAL: $15.00

TRANSACTION #1:
1 $1/3 general mills cereal--- $1.00
1 $1/2 general mills cereal--- $1.00
1 $1/1 Bertolli pasta sauce--- $1.00
2 $1/1 wishbone dressing--- $2.00
3 Albertsons doubles--- $3.00

OOP-- $7.00
Catalina-- $5.00 OYNO


TRANSACTION #2:
3 boxes general mills cereal--- $6.00
1 wishbone dressing--- $1.50
2 go-gurts (great frozen summertime snack!)--- $5.00
1 Breyers ice cream(biggest losers, I bought the low fat)--- $3.00

TOTAL: $15.50


1 $1/3 general mills cereals--- $1.00
1 $1/1 wishbone dressing--- $1.00
2 $.75/2 go-gurts--- $1.50
1 $1/1 Breyers--- $1.00
3 Albertson's doubles--- $3.00
OOP: $8.00
Catalina: $5.00 OYNO


TRANSACTION #3:
6 boxes general mills cereal--- $12.00
4 boxes go-gurts--- $10.00
1 Breyers ice cream--- $3.00

TOTAL: $25.00


2 $1/3 general mills cereal--- $2.00
2 $.75/2 go-gurts--- $1.50
1 $1/1 Breyers ice cream--- $1.00
3 Albertson's doubles--- $3.00
2 Catalinas from previous transactions--- $10.00
OOP: $7.50
Catalina: $10.00 OYNO



So all in all I spent 22.50 out of pocket and ended up
14 boxes of cereal
3 salad dressings
1 pasta sauce
6 boxes of go-gurts
2 Breyers ice creams


with a $ 1o.oo Catalina for my next trip.
Emily and Lacy, I hope you did well too!

new haircut!

Well Maddy finally got her wish and I took her to get her hair cut! She has been begging me for about a month. And here she is before.....
And here she is after! We told her a bob to her chin......I think she went a little shorter...okay A LOT shorter and a little shorter than my taste! She loves it so that is all that matters.....I will just leave it at that. But it will be nice and cool for summer.....right?

The hairdresser said that she thought cutting Maddy's hair actually dulled her scissors she has so much hair. She said it was like cutting through a curtain! My girls and their hair!

WARNING: turn down your speakers!!!!!!!

So the girls have been obsessed with the Wicked soundtrack since Dustin and I went and saw the musical a few months back. They pretty much know every word to every song and they love it! Often times we have it blasting in the car with the girls singing at the top of their lungs. This song is one of the favorites to blast out the speakers.

On the way to church today Dustin had this song on, and the girls were singing at full volume and we were laughing so hard that we decided we had to record it and share it with you all.

Note worthy points...... the color change in Maddy's face (we were afraid it was going to pop off), Lilly's very deliberate dance moves, and Josey's choreography. Hope you enjoy it...... and seriously turn you speakers down.

handpicked and homemade strawberry rhubarb cobbler.....mmm,mmm,good

We had such a fun Saturday today. We started off the morning getting the entire upstairs of my house fairly thoroughly cleaned. I LOVE THAT! Everyone helping and pitching in makes it so much faster. And the best part was that we didn't even have any complaining from the girls. They were super helpful today!

Then we decided to go and do one of our favorite things to do...... pick fruit. Seriously I think we could be hired out to do this job for people because we seriously enjoy it! So our local farm had strawberries ripe for the picking. They weren't the BEST price but they were still much cheaper than the store and it was nice to get outside today. So we arrived at the farm, picked up our buckets, didn't forget to pet the dog, the various cats, and all the new baby kittens. Then we loaded the kids up in the wheelbarrow and the daddymule pulled them out to the field. In probably under 10 minutes we had picked 10 pounds of strawberries!

We stopped off at the store on our way home to buy something I have never bought before......rhubarb. Yes I have never ever had uncooked rhubarb in my house. But Dustin really wanted to make a strawberry rhubarb cobbler, so we needed rhubarb! When we got home Lilly and Daddy set to work making the dessert while I made the dinner, and Maddy and Josey busied themselves doing a little bit of this.....
They have decided that they LOVE reading lately and I couldn't be happier! I told them for every "approved" (by MOM) book, I would give them a dollar to use as a bookmark and then at the end they would earn the dollar. TRANSLATION: READ READ READ! Maddy just finished the first Harry Potter book and Josey is reading a book about Neverland. We will see how many books they can get through this summer and how much money I am out!

So here is the process with the cobbler.....

strawberries and rhubarb washed and chopped.
Butter added to the topping........we might have had to fish a few pieces of paper out of the mixings! (I HATE MY CAMERA! ALL THE PICTURES ARE BLURRY, SORRY)

Taking a break for a snapshot! Dustin was great with Lilly today. He let her do almost EVERYTHING and didn't once lose his patience. I can't say that when I cook with the kids it goes that same way! But she was having so much fun and I think Dustin was too. If you look closely you can see where she liked to wipe her hands......

Lilly kept on insisting that pictures were taken of her wings.....so there were a few pictures of her wings taken. She thinks this dress and wings look like the character Vidia from the Tinkerbell movie so she loves them. The scary part is that Vidia is the really mean fairly that no one likes.......what does that mean that she WANTS to look like her?

Then I helped her get the fruit in the dish.

And we finished off with the topping.

And 45 minutes later, we had this deliciousness! And it was DELICIOUS! Next time we will have to have another family over because it made A TON! But we wanted a trial run first before we subjected someone to our cooking. Now we know it's good!

And the two chefs with the finished product.

And by the way our microwave is getting fixed, which is why the wall looks so weird behind them.

thank you, thank you, thank you

I needed to do a shout out to all the friends that helped me out over the last week. I knew I loved this ward but I was seriously amazed by all the people that brought my family meals, babysat my kids and just offered to do any of those things, even though I didn't realize how much I really needed it. I sincerely appreciate it and I can't even express how much it helped! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Beavercreek Talent Show

So this is a little late but I wanted to make sure I got it documented on here. Last week the girls participated in the ....... They did a great job! Unfortunately I wasn't able to go because it was just three days after my surgery and I just wasn't feeling up to it yet. But Dustin was able to go and he took Lilly and videotaped it for me. Which is why this is the only picture I have of the two of them....

They sang a song from the Peter Pan play Maddy was in. Maddy got to be Peter, which she was more than thrilled about. And Josey got to be a lost boy and even have a couple little solos, which made her happy. There were 8 girls in the number and they all did a really good job! I was so proud of them.

And here is some photos of Daddy and Lilly waiting for the show to begin.