Staycation!

I've always been a big fan of hotwire.com. I've flown a ton of different places (inlcuding internationally) with them and stayed in a lot of hotels through them. I've rarely been disappointed. I've been wanting to do something fun with my boys for a while, but who has the money or time? I found a fabulous hotel in El Paso on there for $30 last Friday and while Ben was at work, I packed up the van. I called Ben and asked if he would go to Albertsons with James and me after work. I picked him up and just kept driving until he realized we were headed to El Paso. He had no idea what was going on.

We drove into El Paso and we went out to dinner thanks to a gift card. Then we went to Krispy Kreme to show James the conveyor belts making the donuts and all. (Yeah, we bought some too!) After that I was driving past Holiday Inn and Ben said longingly, "I wish we were going there next, I'm tired." I pulled in and he gave me the oddest look ever! He still didn't know we were staying over in EL Paso. So after I checked us in we all went swimming at the hotel's pool. After all of those events, Ben and I were ready to go to sleep! James, not so much. It took til 11:00 to get him settled enough and to sleep. At 4:00am, James was up and ready to go. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Ugh, we threatened, persuaded, bribed, etc, but he didn't want to go back to bed. (This is not a problem at home 'cause we don't share a room with him!) Finally Ben got really serious with him and put him back in bed and he stayed for about an hour. We *think* he slept a bit more. Ugh.

The next morning we debated just going home or staying and finishing out my plans. We decided to be brave and go on with our day. We ate breakfast and got ready to go to the ZOO BOO. All the kids are invited to wear their costumes at the zoo to do some trick or treating and they give the animals pumpkins and decorate the zoo. It was pretty fun, but there were 2 problems: James was way more interested in the candy than the animals, and James now thinks that the zoo is a place to get candy. It's going to be a long time until we can take him back there. I can tell you one thing, we are getting TONS of use out of this Elmo costume :)

Pumpkin Farm/Corn Maze

Yesterday James and I went on a field trip to the farm/corn maze/toddler heaven with the mamas and preschoolers from the program I work with. It was such an awesome place! The weather was perfect and there was so much to do.

Here is James with one of the FIVE year olds on the trip. Her mom thought it was funny that he was bigger than her.


We're on the tractor/hayride. James was busy not letting me take his picture.

Searching for the perfect pumpkin and once again avoiding the camera.

On the edge of the corn maze.

I couldn't get any pics of James going down the giant slides because I had to climb up the hill with him every time. Supposedly, parents are supposed to ride down with kids under 4, but James kept sliding down without me! He would slide down by himself, jump up and take off for the entrance to the hill again without even looking up to see if I was coming down the slide after him. We climbed that hill a lot of times before I finally succeeded in directing his attention to other things.

He's the one in the middle with the dirty butt chasing after all the middle school kids.

He kept asking for the keys to start the tractor!

Chips and Salsa

This boy sure enjoys chips and salsa.

James has been way over the top annoying lately when we go to stores. "I want this! I want that! Give it to me!" Aaaahhh! One day last week when I really was tired of all the fits, I told him, "Let's tell Santa that you want that for Christmas." Big mistake. Even though Christmas is only 2 months away, to a 2 year old, that's the same amount of time that dinosaurs roamed the earth or how old my dad is or something really long and drawn out. Every day he's been asking for his presents from Santa. AAARGH! We tried explaining to him when it was going to be, but nothing doing. I told Ben that one of these days I was going to wrap up some presents from All A Dollar and tell James that Christmas is here! Anyway, here's a bit of James in his costume for Halloween telling us what he wants and what he thinks we want :)

Yeah Camera!

In celebration of our camera being fixed for free, I present to you this Photo Essay entitled: Waking up on the wrong side of the crib, all day long.

Mormon Monday

Ok, ok, apparently there is a lot of drama floating around the 'net about the talk from Elder Packer....blah blah blah. I've taken it down because enough sources out there have convinced me to do so.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's good :)

Enrichment Gone Wild!

Before I start my story, I would like to state for the record:

1) I am 33 years old, married, mama, upstanding citizen, and church going lady.

2) I like to have a good time with the girls.

3) Last night I laughed harder and longer than I have for eons.

Last night was our monthly (or not so monthly) Enrichment meeting. It was a social hour at the RS pres.'s house complete with treats. Ahead of time, some of the 'younger ladies' had planned to get together for a girls' night out. We sat around talking trying to decide what to do and we quickly ruled out skinny dipping and walmart. Somehow we decided to T.P. the Bishop's house. (They live wa-a-a-y out there and have a healthy supply of teenage boys to clean things up.) We invited all who wanted to come and I ended up with a van full (7) of crazy ladies. One pregnant.

I think my favorite part of the evening was all 7 of us standing in the TP aisle of walmart at 9pm doing comparison shopping of toilet paper. There were ladies spread from far left to far right shouting out prices, brands, numbers of rolls, size of rolls, 'two ply', etc. Then all seven of us crowded around the checkout where some young guy checking us out (literally and figuratively) didn't have the guts to ask why 7 women were buying that massive amount of tp.

My second favorite part of the evening was right before we loaded up the van to go do the job. There were 4 of us on cell phones trying to explain to our husbands that, yes enrichment was over, no we're not quite coming home yet, and "I'll let you know what we're doing later..."

We drove out to the target house and two of the girls decide they better pee before any running is necessary. I pulled over across the street and they did their business while another girl scoped out the house. When everybody was ready, I drove down the long driveway oh-so-carefully and quietly and then "WHACK!" We were targeted by a water balloon. THEY KNEW WE WERE COMING AND THEY WERE READY FOR US! Poor girl outside the car was running for her life trying to get into the moving van. We were screaming and laughing and decided that we were brave enough to handle water balloons for the chance to TP since we would have ammo much longer than they would.

We all got out and were doing our best to launch the TP sky high while avoiding being hit. Everyone was laughing hysterically and I'm so glad those ladies had peed ahead of time, because they would have been a lost (wet) cause if they had tried to hold it during this scene. Suddenly, we realized that water balloons were not the only things being launched. Come to find out that the person who 'ratted us out' didn't tell them who was coming and they were expecting a brigade of young men and they had readied their paint ball guns. Yeah, big fun for everyone! One of our women got hit and we all dove in the van and took off. I pulled out of the driveway, we checked out L's war wound and couldn't stop laughing. Or planning revenge.

You might be asking yourself, "Um, how old are you?" I refer you to #1 above.

Late last night the Bishop's family found out who had been trying to TP their house, and I've been told that had they known it was a car full of RS ladies in their dark yard, they would not have pulled the guns on us. That's a comforting thought ;)

Also see these versions of our adventure: Rhonda, Lacey

Well, since we don't have any pics of our own to share, I thought I'd show you some that Ben has collected through the years...

Mormon Monday

Below are "The Articles of Faith". These twelve statements outline many of the basic beliefs of the LDS religion:

THE ARTICLES OF FAITHOF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
History of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 535—541

1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be erenewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Joseph Smith

I had quite the dream last night. I was dreaming about the different economic woes that the country is experiencing and how so many people are worried and stressed, etc. Then I dreamed that the world started receiving communications/messages/signals from another planet. No one was worried about the economy anymore, HA! Wouldn't that be a dose of perspective...

Our camera is seriously malfunctioning. We just sent it off to the company in hopes of a repair. We've had it for almost 3 years. Is that all a digital camera should last? I don't even know what's out there and how much we'd need to pay for a new one :(

For reasons unknown, Ben gave James a harmonica. Does anyone have an extra room I can stay in?

I love the Priesthood session of General Conference! After the Apostles lead the smackdown on the men, Ben usually comes home with some sort of nice little something for me ;) and once again expresses his love and appreciation. (He does this often enough, but I think the guys feel the need to cover their bases after that session.)

Oh, and I was going to invite all the mamas with kids James' age to come over and decorate pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, but I was blessed with a vision of what that would be like, came to my senses, and never invited anyone. We should have done something, but laziness won.

I never updated on the Apple Situation. We estimated that we worked with about 50-60lbs of apples. We dehydrated the majority, and then made 12 quarts of apple pie filling, 12 of applesauce, a couple of pies, and saved some for eating. I had never canned before, but I ended up really enjoying it, especially since Ben and my mom were doing lots of the slave labor and my dad was keeping James entertained. AND HECK YEAH, I went out and bought one of those apple peeler, corer, slicer thingies and I LOVE IT! Highly recommend it, ya'll.

James' first boat ride

This was the first time we took James on a boat--with my bro N, my sis in law M, Nephew L, and neice A. In the Dallas area.

This pic is for all of you out there who turn your noses up at "LEASHES" for kids. We have one, we use it, and we LIKE it. So there!


This pic is to show you that you can indeed grow a pineapple from a houseplant:

This pic is to show my neice's very cute cake that she made for (crazy gardening) papa's b'day. It's an *exact* replica of one of his gardening boxes :)

We all scream for ice cream