They're Going To Be With The Glue Eaters Now

Gregory wants this Playmobil Pyramid more than anything in the world for Christmas. He saw it in his "wishing book" that came in the mail, and he is carrying around a tattered ad for it everywhere. He is even sleeping with it.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact he has been in an actual pyramid all week.



When the kids asked why the light is coming out of the top of the pyramid, Jodie told them, "I left the light on in my hotel room."

We can see the Luxor light from our backyard, so from now until forever, they will think Jodie left her light on.

Okay, I have to admit to being a horrible mother this week. First, we just got back from Phoenix on Monday. The time changed and messed everything up. Then Jodie got here and I've been playing with her.

Two days in a row, we swam and swam and totally exhausted the kids, then the first day we fed them Little Caesar's pizza. Then the second day we fed them McDonald's in the car, because we were running so close to school starting and it was easier.

I have practically boot kicked them out of the car into class. I barely slowed down the second day to let them get out. I didn't ask them what they were doing in class AT ALL.

So even though I have been with them all day, every day, I have barely talked to them. There's been a lot of people around and a lot of stuff going on.

Yesterday, I finally had enough down time to talk to them and GET THIS. They were testing them this whole week.

Swear to God.

They were totally sleep-deprived. Nutritionally deprived. Gregory was so tired yesterday morning, HE CRIED ALL MORNING. Austin was so tired, he wouldn't even get out of the car. You saw him.

Amanda was eating red dye in the Halloween candy I didn't monitor, which makes her have ADHD.

So those were assessment tests to figure out what groups they go in by ability.

"They're going to put them in with the glue eaters now.", Jodie told me.

OH.MY.GOD.

Oh.....my.....God.

I ate glue in kindergarten and I'm almost certain it was because my mother ignored me.

Howdy Cowboy Friends

The big national bullriding event is coming to town this weekend. So over the next two days, all you will be able to see on the Strip is a sea of cowboy hats.

Austin walked up to a group of cowboys in the Luxor yesterday. They were standing bow-legged in their Wrangler's, looking all mean and snarly.

"Howdy there, my cowboy friends!", Austin said.

Those hardened men cracked the biggest smiles. He made their whole day. In my story, he did.

When I was younger, I totally loved cowboys. Cowboys and glam rocker guys that looked like they were in Poison. Isn't that weird? My boyfriend in high school wore eyeliner. I would never lie to you guys.



So while Jodie entertained the kids in the pool again, I took my spot in the jacuzzi.

This lady from West Virginia started to talking to me and I told her I lived in Las Vegas.

"It's so strange here. We're from a little town in West Virginia and we only have one black family. I can't believe there are sooooooo many black people in the pool. I've never seen anything like it."

OMG. Can you believe we let black people in the pool?

The only thing I love to do more than talk to people is lie to them, so I said, "We're the only white people who live in Las Vegas. My kids are the only white kids in school. We love it here. We're unique."



The kids tried their hardest to drown Jodie in the pool. I am not even kidding you when I say that Jodie has spoiled them to the point that it will take a week for them to stop expecting 24 hour attention.



So after we dropped all four of them off at school, we headed over to Trader's to stock up on the essentials, Two Buck Chuck, when Jodie discovered the wine tasting and bellied up to the sample bar. She couldn't believe it. They don't allow wine tasting in California in the grocery store. We do in America. Black people in the pool, drinking in grocery stores. It's crazy here.



So I swear to you, TWELVE SAMPLES later, we left with an entire grocery cart full of wine. My normal cashier was like, "Wow. This isn't your usual purchases. You usually get rice tortillas and fermented milk."

Then I apologized to Jodie because I had to take her to Greg's Scary Grocery store because beer was on sale and we were having a barbecue.

We pulled in and she says, "This is SMITH'S."

"I know. Isn't it scary?"

"This is SMITH'S."

"I know. Watch your purse in there."

Then we picked all the kids up and went home and Greg made the biggest batch of his famous shis-ka-bobs ever. And Fred and his brother and his wife came over.



Somehow, all the wine disappeared. It wasn't me though, I swear.

Fred doesn't drink, but I hooked him up with 3 ounces of orange juice in a plastic cup. I know how to take care of my company. Ask anyone.

Then Jodie dropped a bombshell.

"Greg, I LOVE your hair. Ohmygosh, Michele, when Greg came home from work today and his hair was all big, and frizzy, and standing up, I thought it looked GREAT. I have NO IDEA what Michele was talking about. I LOVE big men with big hair."

And she wasn't even KIDDING. She actually LIKES Greg's hair. He looked like a SERIAL KILLER when he got home from work yesterday.

So we are recuperating at home from all the food and drink today. I had to take Austin to preschool this morning at 8am.



Austin wouldn't even get out of the car when we came home from preschool because a)Auntie Jodie isn't here. b) our house isn't the Luxor. c) Stephanie, Jodie's daughter, isn't here.

He wants to see some cowboys today.

Call It Socialized Gambling

Las Vegas is a terrible place to raise kids.

It's just awful. Kids hate it here. Yuck.

I found the tan lady from There's Something About Mary.

In case any of you want this as your screensaver. We are betting she will be there again today. She has spent a third of her life sunbathing.

Greg and I took the kids over to the Luxor yesterday to meet up with Fred and Jodie, before Fred left us to go the SEMA car convention. Then the seven of us hung out all morning at the pool, while Jodie and I sipped on our Starbuck's and caught up.

The children swam and swam and swam and entertained the Europeans who were THRILLED to share their holiday with four children.

"They're out of the jacuzzi, you can come in.", one lady informed her husband. She didn't know they were mine because I was pretending like I didn't know them.

I did meet one nice couple from England. Here is something you may not know about me. I talk to everyone. I mean, I talk to EVERYONE. By the time I got out of the jacuzzi, I knew that the lady's cat slept in her dog's bed. They had just sent a son off to university. The husband owned rentals and you wouldn't believe all the permits and certifications you have to have to rent property over there. I explained to them Nevada's complicated tax revenue involving gaming profits. We talked about how the money he was dropping at the craps table was paying for my children's education.

"You mean if I lose money, Johnny gets some new school books?", he asked me.

"Yes. Yes, he does. I would like to personally thank you for that."

That is one tourist who will leave happy knowing he isn't just pissing his money away. He's making a contribution to society. Call it socialized gambling, if you will. Las Vegas should hire me as a PR person. I will hang out at pools all day and talk to people.

After swimming, we came home and fed the kids lunch and Jodie and I dropped them off at school and went to lunch. I had a grown-up lunch yesterday, which included mai tais and dessert. Someone pinch me. P.F. Changs has a gluten-free menu. The entire back of their menu is devoted to people who can't eat gluten. I had shrimp with lobster sauce and egg drop soup and they bring you gluten free soy sauce. Did you know regular soy sauce is fermented with wheat and soy beans? I betcha ya didn't. Then I had flourless chocolate cake.

I am on vacation in my own town.

Fred started chemo last week and I have to say that he looked fantastic. He is doing really well and doesn't seem to be having any ill effects from it so far. Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes. God is listening. The whole family is coming over to our house today for a barbecue.

On a different note, Macario was admitted to ICU last night. He is very, very ill again. He just finished his third round of chemo and was crashing and it appears he picked up an infection.

He is in my prayers today as always. Hopefully they will figure it out and get him on the right medicine. He is in the hospital in Hilo, which is only barely better than being in a MASH unit. We are thinking of you today, Leslie, and wishing you were here.

So while I'm on vacation right now, there is a lot of behind the scenes worrying going on. You can't run away from everything, even when you try.

When Your Child Acts Like A Slut On The Internet...

I attended a school board meeting a couple weeks ago with the lawyer for our school district, who spoke in depth about the issues schools are facing with internet use and students.

Talk about complex legal issues. I felt like I was way in over my head, having children in only kindergarten.

There's texting, sexting, cheating, and cyberbullying isssues to name a few. Kids taking naked pictures of themselves and emailing them. Kids taking pictures of test answers and emailing them. Kids taking videos of their teachers and putting them on YouTube. Kids ganging up on other kids in cyberspace.

It is just unbelievable. My head started spinning.

Then there is the issue of parents and/or other children taking pictures during school activities or events and posting them to their blogs or on Facebook or Twitter. Did you know if a student at your school has signed the privacy statement stating that they do not want pictures of them published, then you photograph that child while photographing your own kid, and post that on your blog, or Facebook, or Twitter account, you can get in really big trouble?

Note that I took pictures of the back of the children's heads and then whited out the sides of their faces in my Halloween class pictures and then cropped my kids out. Note that you couldn't actually see the face of the sleeping man. I wouldn't have thought to do that if I had not attended that meeting.

Every single case the lawyer brought up during the meeting was backed by specific law cases that have already been tried. Their policy is literally evolving with each court case.

The other issue that schools are facing with internet use is when they can step in and discipline a student for something that happened in cyberspace in off school hours. For instance, if cyberbullying takes place on a Saturday night, then the student comes to school on Monday and pulls up all that garbage on a school computer on Monday, can the school step in and take action?

The Supreme Court says that if what your child does in their private time spills over and creates a disturbance at school during school hours, then the school can step in and discipline your child.

So if all sorts of nastiness happens on a Saturday night, and the kids come to school on Monday and it continues at school, then the school can discipline your child.

How timely then that two teen girls in Indiana are suing over being disciplined for racy photos they posted on their MySpace accounts during summer vacation. The ACLU has actually taken this one on.

If you haven't read that article, what happened was that two sophomore girls took pictures of themselves in lingerie, pretending to lick a penis-shaped lollipop and posted it on their MySpace accounts. Weeks later, someone printed the pictures out and brought them to school. The girls were student athletes and had agreed to hold themselves to a high ethical standard on and off the playing field, so they were suspended from school sports, had to make apologies for their behavior, and get counseling.

They are suing because they believe the pictures were posted in their private time and the school did not have a right to discipline them.

My own personal opinion is that the punishment fits the crime, and why aren't the parents more concerned over the fact their teenage daughters think it is okay to post pictures of themselves pretending to suck dicks, than whether their daughters should get in trouble for it? I mean, seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? Wouldn't you just want to DIE if your kid did that? I am embarrassed FOR THEM, since they have NO SHAME.

As a parent, I would be wondering why I wasn't monitoring what my child was posting on MySpace in the first place, and I would also be pretty happy that my child wasn't being arrested. Did you know if your underage child posts naked pictures of themselves on the internet that is CHILD PORNOGRAPHY? I would be doing a big old sigh of relief that the girls at least had lingerie on, then I would destroy their computers and never let them outside again. But, instead, the parents are suing because little Sally isn't really a WHORE. She's just misunderstood. Poor baby.

Greg and I got in an argument about this on the way home from Phoenix. He accused me of picking and choosing my liberal social agenda, and why wouldn't I think the school was overstepping their boundaries?

Well, let's see. Someone brought the PHOTOS TO SCHOOL. Therefore it was a school problem. Why wouldn't the school step in then and take action? It's not like the school went combing the internet to see if every student was abiding by the moral and ethical standards required to play sports. The photos ended up in the school.

It seems to me that the ACLU and the girls' parents are wasting their time based on the previous Supreme Court ruling that if the action causes a disruption at school, then the school can discipline.

So I got a lot out of that board meeting. If you don't go to yours, you might consider one or two a year. It is interesting to get the inside scoop on how your school is handling big issues.



I will be checking in to see what you all think about this, as I lounge poolside at the Luxor, with Auntie Jodie From Disneyland, while the kids go swimming before school. Jodie was so kind as to email this preview yesterday. Afternoon kindergarten really sucks for my kids. While we are doing that, Greg will be out trying to finish the job of pulling a truck out of the Grand Canyon.

Meanwhile, don't post pictures of other people's kids at school on your blogs and make sure you hide your penis-shaped lollipops from your children.

Someone Will Have To Eat Jerry

Mountain Sheep in Boulder City

I made my sister look at these two times. Oops, Nan. Now you see them again.

We had all sorts of neighborhood drama while we were in Arizona. Our neighbor, Gayle, went quail hunting with our other neighbor, Carl, in a remote part of the Nevada/Arizona/Utah border, south of Mesquite, but above the Colorado River in a patch of desolate God-forsaken Mojave desert. Like if I was a bird, I would totally fly away and live somewhere more hospitable to LIFE, than waiting around in that hell-hole to be shot.

It was a day trip, so they brought provisions just for that day, and they took Gayle's hunting dogs. The dogs that killed my peacock. Gayle and Carl are either in their late 60s or early 70s.

What is left of our only source of drinking water, Lake Mead.

When they didn't come home that night, Gayle's wife called Search and Rescue and they said they wouldn't start looking for them until it had been 24 hours.

We are running out of water.

Then they didn't come home the following night. Search parties were organized. Our neighbor Andi searched for them for hours.

The Hoover Dam Bypass, 10 years behind schedule and a billion dollars overbudget.

On the third day, Gayle was picked up as he WANDERED out of desert with his dogs, having left Carl as he could no longer hike on. Gayle's brand new four wheel drive truck had gotten stuck in a ravine, 20 miles from a road, and the U joint broke as it was buried in sand up to it's axle. They slept in the truck the first night.

Then the next day, they set out and hiked for 12 miles. When they ran out of water, they were lucky to find a spring. For reasons that escape me, they left their rifles in the truck and were unable to shoot the 400 quail hanging out at the watering hole.

They had 12 matches and gathered sticks and made a fire and slept in the desert. You see the terrain in these pictures. It is no place you want to be stuck. Trust me.

On the third day, Gayle hiked another four miles and was spotted by a truck and picked up. They had spent two nights in the desert with no warm clothing. It gets cold in the high desert at night at this time of the year.

Imagine that his wife, my neighbor for fourteen years, was FRANTIC, thinking they had rolled over in the truck and were hurt or lost in the desert. I can't imagine what she must have been thinking. She actually chartered a plane and sent a pilot out to search for them.

Greg said he would have shot the dogs and made a coat the first night, then shot and killed and ate Carl the second night. I'm thinking you wouldn't want to be Greg's hunting buddy.

The truck is still out there. The Men in the neighborhood are going out to try and tow it out today.

I'm going to send shis-ka-bobs skewers with Greg should he decide to go. Someone will have to eat Jerry, because I'm not going to go looking for them and I'm definitely not chartering a plane.

That was one expensive hunting trip. And to think I was mad at Greg for following too closely behind the car in front of us on our way to Phoenix, and getting a big rock chip in our windwhield.

Moral to this story? No matter how long you've been married and no matter how old your husbands are, they can still find trouble.

Wandering Around In The Desert

My friend Helene wrote the most hilarious comment on my post about buying a pop-up trailer two days ago.

"Oh good lord. With priceline name your own price during a recession the best pop up are the last minute deals. Maid service, swimming pools, cable tv and bath tubs are all the rage and you won't get those in any rv. You are scary.

I am Jewish and my people wandered 40 years in the desert so we are over it. Try priceline."



She absolutely cracks me up.



I don't want to rub it in or anything, Helene.



But we've been wandering around in the desert this weekend.



It's been just horrible. Where is my manna?



Do you know how you know you are in Scottsdale? When the woman in line next to you at the grocery store has bigger and perkier boobs than you, and you look closely and realize that she is 97 years old.

And it makes you realize you need some pop-ups, alright. Can you get them on Priceline?

Halloween Arizona Style

We loaded the kids in the car and drove to Arizona to hang out with my sister and trick or treat in her neighborhood.



Where it's 75 degrees in the dark and everyone sits out in their lawn chairs to pass out candy in short-sleeved shirts, while drinking an ice chest of beer.



It never occurred to me to broadcast Ghostbusters on my garage. Who knew?



I forgot how much fun Halloween was growing up in Arizona. My sister and I would put on roller skates, and we would take pillow cases and we would go out for 4 hours until we could barely crawl home with 75 pounds of candy.




Then my parents would pour through our candy to make sure nobody put some razor blades in our Snickers bars. Once it was all deemed safe, we would gorge ourselves on candy until we would pass out with belly aches.

It was even better than that because now I'm old enough to DRINK. Gosh, it was the best night ever.



Is there such a thing as getting too much candy or laughing too hard at a full grown lady dressed as a baby who was telling you she had a poopy diaper?



I will never forget Austin belly laughing at this woman dressed as a baby.

I think we will make this our annual trek until my kids are too old or my sister doesn't let us come back. Which ever comes first.

The Newest Scheme

I'm looking for a pop-up trailer on Craigslist.

Having done the motorhome adventure for a year after we sold our business, and subsequently selling that and buying a gigantic camper for our truck and traveling all around, I have learned that if you are going to RV, you must pull a vehicle.

Or you must have a vehicle and pull a trailer. You cannot be fully dependent to your motorhome or camper, or else you set up camp and you are stuck there. You can't run into town or go out and sight see without disassembling your campsite and stowing away everything. And when it's taken you 2 hours to get your bed level, so all the blood in your body doesn't settle in your brain, the last thing you want to do is start that process all over again.

So while I've only had a motorhome and camper that were fully self-contained, with every bell and whistle, I am now looking for a tent trailer to go camping in. Why? Why would I do that? Why not go with an RV, you say? Well, we still have four kids in boosters and the only way we could pull a car big enough behind a motorhome would be if we spent a 100 grand on a diesel pusher.

We couldn't even go with a fifth wheel unless Greg bought a new truck with a back seat. It only seats five.

But we could easily pull a pop-up with the van we have.

So I've been badgering Greg to find me a trailer so we can go to Zion and Yellowstone and Yosemite and Glacier National Park.

I want to hit the road with the kids next summer. I want to go to Utah and go camping in Bryce and go the Grand Canyon. I want to camp in the Black Hills and see Mt Rushmore.

I want to do it all!

Greg said we can do it all as long as the pop-up has air-conditioning and a shower.

So that is what I'm looking for. A tent with a/c so I can make my dream happen for less than 5000 dollars.

Do you own a pop-up? What do you hate about it? Tell me now so I can construct an elaborate story to persuade Greg why that doesn't matter.

Cocktail Hour Is After School, Not Before School

The kids had their Halloween party yesterday. I haven't talked about school lately, but I am so pleased. I like the kids. I like the teacher. They are actually learning some things, even if some of the other kids don't know their numbers or letters. There are kids in the morning class who had never seen a pencil or colored a piece of paper before. Can you believe our teacher has 32 kids in the morning class?

But my kids seem to really enjoy it anyway. Big Tall Kid and Sarah are the most advanced readers. Big Tall Kid is even further ahead than Sarah, and Mrs. P told me she isn't sure why he is even in kindergarten. He wrote a paragraph to the teacher in her birthday card, and he made sure to tell everyone he did it by himself. His dad looks like Jesus, if Jesus wore skinny jeans and black skull t-shirts. His mom has a Kate Gosselin haircut which is bright green, and she wears sparkly Madonna gloves with the fingers cut out.

Sarah has a crush on Big Tall Kid and she told me she wants to marry him and have eight kids. I'm looking forward to having gigantic smart grandchildren with the side benefit of being related to Jesus.

Gregory has become bestfriends with Preston. All four kids go to his house for a playdate once a week and he comes to our house once a week too. We had 40 mile an hour winds and a 30 degree drop in temperature on Wednesday, but that didn't stop him and Gregory from spending 2 hours outside.

They built a giant tree fort with the branches Greg had cut off our mesquite trees and hunkered down in it from the wind. Then they scaled the block wall and walked along it to steal pomegranates out of our neighbor's yard. They jumped down and pummeled them against the wall until they broke them open, then they dug the seeds out with their hands and ate them. Then they ran in and went out front and rode Gregory's motorized scooters all over the driveway, while Austin chased them on his Big Wheel.

I watched all of this from the comfort of my warm and not windy kitchen.

Greg asked if we were going to get sued if the child got hurt?

I told him that the first time I picked them up from the gigantic rambling house where Preston lives,with all his siblings and all their friends and the kids Preston's mom watches, we couldn't even find them. We eventually found them on the second story balcony in the East Wing, using a stick to try and touch the electrical wires, while throwing more sticks in the neighbor's backyard. The second time I picked them up, they were sweeping the bottom of an empty pool in the backyard, while Gregory scaled up the side like a spider.

Preston's mom told me that Preston came home from our house and told her it was the best day of his life.

Do you know how fortunate I feel that my kids are going to get the normal childhood experience of hanging out with neighborhood kids after school? I really didn't see that one coming in Las Vegas. Doing all that fun, crazy childhood stuff is the way I grew up and what I had hoped for them, but didn't know I could find here.

Amanda has like four boyfriends. The one she liked the most passed gas in class and she can't stand him now. She told me he is DISGUSTING. He didn't even say, "Excuse me." and he is gross. It's good to know that my future son-in-law will not have a farting problem.

A lot of parents volunteered for the Halloween party yesterday. I loved this. This guy fell asleep in his chair during story time.



One minute he was sitting there, and the next minute his head was bobbing and he started snoring. He was SITTING STRAIGHT UP. Shout out to my Uncle Frankie who can fall dead asleep while you are talking to him. I was kicking Preston's mom under the table. I eventually had to wake him up, because story time was over and he was sitting in front of my vegetable platters.

Dude. Cocktail hour starts AFTER school, not BEFORE school. Doesn't everyone know this? It's in the Parent Handbook.

We're Just Here For The Free Samples

Daddy is back.

He has had the kids out, roaming around in the mornings, for the last two days.

The first day they were out, the kids came home with Trader's balloons. Greg in Trader's? What? He never brings home any groceries from there.

So, yesterday, I asked Ana The Sample Gal, "Did you see my kids in here with a large hairy man?"

"Oh, yeah.", she said, "He comes in here with them all the time. They eat samples and then leave."

OH. MY. GOD.

"Do you take our kids in Trader's for snack time?", I accused him last night.

"Don't hate the players, Michele. Hate the game."

You guys have no idea what I go through over here. Seriously. Could I die?

As if going into stores just to eat samples isn't bad enough, he doesn't even comb their hair. When Sarah wakes up in the morning, she looks like Cousin Itt. I told Ana The Sample Gal to pretend like she doesn't know them. That's what I do.

When Greg was gone, I really didn't have time to buy or mix up any gluten free flour. I'm trying to stick with food that is naturally gluten free. So instead of buying gluten free bread or waffles, I eat an omelet for breakfast every morning now. I stick every vegetable I can find in it, then basically hold it together with the egg. This is so much healthier, anyway, than eating rice flour and retaining water all day.

I have gotten rid of all the wheat flour in our house though, and do need to keep flour on hand. I got rid of it because flour sticks to everything, and I was getting accidentally cross-contaminated in my own kitchen. So I figured it would be a better idea to rid the house of it.

We had a new Korean grocery store open right by where we live, so I took Austin in there to buy rice flour when the other kids were in school this week. Upon entering and being overcome with the smell of dried fish, Austin's eyes started watering, then he started having dry heaves.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! It stinks in here."

I had him stick his nose in his shirt to get through the place. He was miserable.

They were giving out a bunch of samples though, so maybe I should direct Greg there.

Greg is really not on board with not having flour in the house anymore and won't eat anything I make if it has my gluten free flour in it.

"Every time I eat your flour, I shit myself for 2 days. Can we get something made in America?", he asked me.

"Look on the bright side. You are getting a free colon cleanse.", I told him.

I wonder if the tapioca starch is making him have diarrhea?

I made the kids gluten free ghost pancakes, with pomegranate syrup, yesterday for breakfast.

I told Greg not to eat them, because it might scare the shit right out of him.

BOO!!!!

I don't know about you guys, but I've been bored to death while he was gone.

I Have Never Seen Anything Like This Before

I was going to write about something today, then I checked in on Finnskimo's blog and I have spent the last hour trying to figure out what in the heck she has.

I wrote about her a couple weeks ago. She is the Finnish Eskimo who lives in Northern Alaska. Right about the time I was writing about her, she got a blister on the bottom of her foot. Then it wouldn't heal and got worse and worse. Then it spread to her hands.

Here are what her hands look like. Brace yourself. Are there any nurses or doctors or dermatologists around?

She also presented with a fever and redness yesterday.

She flew down to Anchorage and was going to the ER yesterday. She cannot walk. She is in severe pain.

I tried Googling the heck out of this, and I'm coming up with a staph infection. This looks very serious to me and I sure hope Anchorage has a good hospital.

She needs some serious prayers today. Did anyone see my blog turning into a prayer chain?

I am praying somebody knows what in the heck she has. I have never seen anything like it in my life and keep checking her blog every 5 minutes to see if she has posted.

The Fundraiser

The kids have been in school for 2 months and we've had no less than 72 fundraisers already.

Why didn't anyone warn me?

Candles, cookie dough, magazines, and the infamous Entertainment Book full of coupons for food that will kill me.

If we sell just a few million of them, they can get a yogurt. Or a bracelet made in China. Then the school gets HALF of whatever we sucker people into buying.

So I just wrote a nice little check directly to the PTA and gave them back their books and forms. I don't need to turn my kids into multi-level marketers in kindergarten, and it's okay to give something without getting something in return. Like a big tub of flour and sugar and preservatives for 14 DOLLARS.

I have seen my future and it is bleak. Why doesn't anyone just say, "Hi parents. Look. I will cut you a deal. You give us some money, and we'll leave you alone. How does that sound? Can everyone chip in $30 or would you prefer to sell $60 worth of candles?"

The kids have other plans though.

"But Moooooommmmmmmmm. If we sell three, we get a yogurt."

"If you want a yogurt, go get one in the refrigerator."

The C Word

Greg's father, Bob, would have been 76 years old today. We lost him to lung cancer 5 years ago this month.

Austin was conceived the night before Bob died, which was Barb and Bob's 41st wedding anniversary. Austin truly is our miracle child in so many ways.

As you can imagine, this is a tough time of the year for Greg's mom. We looked at pictures of Bob last night and talked about him with the kids. Gregory is his spit and image as an infant and young child.



Amanda is very inquisitive about her grandfather and why he died. She wants to know why people get cancer? Why did Grampy get cancer? Why does God make cancer? Did we ask God to stop Grampy's cancer?

She floors me at times with her thinking process.

The thing is that I don't have any real answers for her. I just know that people I know keep getting cancer. Cancer is something I talk about almost every day. Cancer is effecting the lives of my friends and family.

Two weeks ago, my friend Jodie took her husband in for a pain in his abdomen. They did some bloodwork and sent him for a scan. His liver was bleeding. They sent him the next day for a colonoscopy. He has colon cancer, metastasized to the liver. He had no symptoms at all until his liver started hurting him, and he wasn't scheduled for another colonoscopy for 18 more months, when he turns 50.



Fred starts chemotherapy this week. Jodie and Fred are faithful Christians. Even though I have my own issues with faith, I know a lot of you are on a different page, and have a strong faith in God. Please pray for Fred. Please pray that God will heal him and please pray for Jodie, who is battling multiple sclerosis. They need our help. I have never asked for a lot from anyone who reads this blog, but I am just going to ask you now for your positive thoughts and prayers for this family. If you are the praying sort, then if you could add Fred and Jodie to your prayer list, I sure would appreciate it.

I have two friends now with husbands with cancer. Doesn't that seem impossible and how could that happen?

Cancer is the worst word I can think of these days. I hate it. I hate cancer. I want it to stop.

You Can Be Anything You Want

Before Greg went to Michigan, he took the kids out and bought their Halloween costumes. He told them they could be anything they wanted. As long as it was from the $12 rack at Walmart.

So we have a Transformer, a leopard, a vampiress, and an alien. My costume came from I Don't Know Where. It was in a big black bag in the shed. Stuff just shows up here. So I had a choice between being a cow or a flapper.

We are the most mismatched multiple's family ever.

In Triplet Land, families match. Families especially match on Halloween.

Here is my friend Laura's family.

Matching families make me get all warm and fuzzy.

Unless, they try to match that creepy children's show, Yo Gaba Gaba.

Here is my friend Joselle's family.

NOW THAT IS ONE SCARY ORANGE DUDE. I could barely sleep last night.

The kids had so much fun yesterday. If you still have younger multiples and you go to get-togethers and you never sit down or eat or have fun, I just want to tell you that it really does get better. I never even see my kids anymore. If you stick with your multiples group, these kids grow up together and they see each other and take off in a big band of children.

Amanda hung out with my friend Misti's triplet daughter the whole time we were at our picnic. Amanda has turned into a different child since she started kindergarten. I really cannot express to you how different she is now. She is so kind and pleasant and NOT needy. She doesn't cling to Sarah anymore. Watching her blossom on her own is just the most incredible thing ever.

This is seriously the best stage yet.

Somebody pinch me, because I survived to tell the story. Am I dreaming?

OMG. There is a big scary orange dude in my dream. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

We Own The Cake Walk

If your family has never won the cake walk, you just didn't have enough kids. We won a cake for the second year in a row. We own the cake walk. Gosh, finally, it pays off having a litter.



Reading some of the comments yesterday about how you can't say the "H" word, HALLOWEEN, anymore made me laugh when I realized that we not only still call it Halloween in Nevada.......



we can even shoot at stuff that depicts Halloween images at school! You wouldn't want to be the boy sitting in the back when my kids are shooting. They'll put your eye out.

There is still a sense of humor left here, I think.

And that totally works into my second ultimate life goal, behind Leisure: Having Fun And Not Getting All Pissy Over Every Single Thing In The Universe.