Sunday, January 13, 2013

What we do in the teacher Off-Season

 This is the crappy snowman we built. The snow was so powdery it wouldn't stick and it took an hour to build this little guy. The next day the carrot nose and almonds were gone. We think the racoons got to it.

 This kid loves the snow. I just had to watch him to make sure he didn't eat a frozen cat turd. There are about a million stray cats in our neighborhood thanks to the cat lady down the road and they love to use our yard as a little box-SO NOT COOL!
 We took the kids for a carriage ride at Temple Square and Taj wanted to sit by himself. He didn't make it long as he got cold and came and snuggled up to me, which was more than fine with me of course.
 We could NOT manage to get a picture of the three of us without cutting her head off and this is the best one of the bunch.
 Haiven was not enjoying the carriage ride. We kept getting blasted with an unearthly arctic wind, so cold you thought your eye lids would freeze shut.
 Haivi is learning how to eat from a spoon, finally!
 One of the icicles off our house-they definitely carry a lethal status.
 How can anyone resist giving her what she wants with hair like this and that toothy grin?!
 Haivi rocking her minty and sparkly skinny jeans that she got from Grandma for Christmas. I wish she was walking so she wouldn't come home from daycare with dirty stains on the knees of these pants from crawling. I'm just praying the Spray and Wash did it's job!
 Pajama day. My chair cushions look corroded. I can't decide whether to pay a cleaner 80 buck a chair to come in and clean them, or to re-upholster them, or to throw them out and just buy new chairs altogether. Their game was Haivi would sit on the cushion and Taj would push her across the dirty floor. Who knew something so simple could be so fun?
 Brannon also plowed nearly all the sidewalks and driveways on our block-not even kidding. That guy LOVES a new toy!
 There are wicked icicles perched precariously on everybody's awnings. I wouldn't be surprised to see in the news that someone has died of a head trauma from an icicle.
 You can bet ours is the only house in town with a lawn that has been snowblowed-leave it to Brannon aka OCD snowblower enthusiast to snowblow the GRASS!

Our neighbor's mailbox-kind of shows you how much snow we got

The above pictures are a reflection of our activities the past two or three weeks. I have decided that I will NEVER be a professional blogger as long as I have a job, kids, a husband, and a house to manage. It just ain't happening people, but if I get to the end of my life and can say I spent the BEST of my time focused on my family, my faith, and my job, then I won't feel too bad that I never made it as a professional blogger or Twitter-er or Facebooker. I think people spend too much of their time absorbed in the social network world and not enough time in reality anyway, so I would rather spend MORE of my time developing relationships that actually matter. Sorry if you're a super pro-blogger or Tweeter and this offends you. Personally, my mental health is far too sensitive to spend hours looking at the blogs of perfect moms, fashion divas, or living vicariouly through other successful people. I usually end up feeling bad about myself and the fact that I will NEVER be like those super blog moms who never utter a cross word at their children and are always smartly fashionabe and who never have a bad day and wonder what the heck they were thinking when they wanted to have kids and who always have fun activities planned for their kids and manage to cook a gourmet dinner for their family every night and serve it on a table that was hand-sanded and painted with chairs that have been re-upholstered for only 2.00 because the fabric was on sale, but practically free with the 100 coupons that were painstakingly cut and proudly tossed on the counter at the local Jo-Ann's fabric store. No, I'm not that kind of mom, but I AM the kind of mom that DOES love her kids and spends quality time with them every day doing boring things like reading books, or wiping faces and bums, and accepting slobbery kisses. We may not be the most exciting or interesting family in town, but we're happy and no super mom blog can compete with that.