Sometimes You Feel Like a Smuck

Sometimes you feel like a smuck. Especially when the tooth fairy forgets to come again!

My daughter has been wiggling one of her teeth for a whole month now. It finally came out yesterday - right before bed. She was so excited.

This morning as I was getting ready I heard big sobs coming from Halle's room. So I went down to see what was going on. And there she sat with a red face and tears smeared all over holding her baggy with her tooth still in it and no money.

I already feel horrible, but this is not the first time the tooth fairy has forgot to come. I wonder what her excuse was this time?

Subliminal Messages That Make Your Mama Proud

As I was checking in on my kids before I went to bed the other night I caught Sean sleep talking. I stood silently over him trying to make out what he was saying. It was all a bunch of mumbling until the very end when he very clearly said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I love that he is praying in his sleep!!!!

Today I announced that we would have a picnic and go play at the park. My very excited boy announced that he would like to do those activities at "Beethoven" park (I am sure he meant "Ben Burr" park). I love that he knows composers better than the actual names of the parks.

Easter Weekend

Easter was a busy but really fun weekend. I was so glad for having General Conference the week before to help center my thoughts on Christ and the whole gospel plan. Easter always reminds me of how blessed my family and I are.

Thursday

Thursday was a busy day with a track meet at Ferris and soccer practice for Halle down town. But we still managed to get our eggs painted and all ready for the Easter weekend.

Sean thought this was the funnest thing he had ever done. He actually did a really good job this year!!!! And to top it off he didn't get dye all over the place.

Chad had a carefully worked out plan for each egg.

Halle has to make sure every egg is perfectly painted.

Good Friday

"Good Friday" was really an awesome Friday. It was the night of our second annual "Glenrose Glammies." This great activity is headed up by our ward Activities Committee (way to go Andrea!). We had an evening of wonderfully delicious food and hilarious entertainment.

High Priest Group




Young Men Leaders



Young Women Leaders

Relief Society Rappers

The Bishopbric danced and sang to N'SYNC's Bye, Bye, Bye. They practiced for weeks and weeks! They were totally awesome and definitely the biggest hit of the evening.

Chris does his solo.

The boy band of the Glenrose Ward.

I'm Chris'#1 Fan!!!!!!!!!

He even let a groupie give him a kiss. (And no restraining order either!)

Saturday

The Easter bunny comes to our house on Saturday - so we can have all the fun on Saturday and then focus on Jesus on Sunday.

Saturday was a crazy day though. Halle had her first soccer game ever. In fact she had two soccer games. One at 9:30 and one at 12:15. It was a brutal day. It was cold, wet and rainy.

Once the games were over and we were dry and warm again we enjoyed munching on Easter candy and playing with the cool balls the Easter bunny brought (big huge bouncy balls with swirling glitter inside - they were a huge hit with the kids).

Chris had track and was away all day.

The kids discovering all the goodies the Easter bunny left for them.

Sunday

I love Easter Sunday. It just has a wonderful feeling about it.

The kids all looked wonderful in their new Easter clothes.

I did something new this year. I sang in the choir. Yes, I know some of you reading this just fainted or plugged your ears or both. But I thought I would do something out of my comfort zone and I'll do it until they can't stand to hear me sing any more and I get kicked out of the ward choir. (But they are pretty desperate you know - so I just might be there a while.)

Anyhow, Grandma and Bompa sat with the kids while the choir sat up front. It was so peaceful to be sitting by adults I could feel the spirit so wonderfully.

After church we had a fantastic family Easter dinner and Grandma and Bompa's. It is always fun when family is around.

All dressed up for church.

Caviness Family Announcement

We have some very exciting news. We now have a new addition to our family. Actually two new additions. We are now a family with pets . . . gerbils that is.

I promised my kiddos a long time ago that when they turned 8 they could have a small pet. I was trying to make turning 8 something special and memorable.

Well our oldest turning 8 happened way too fast and before I knew it I had a promise to fulfill. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the parents) said oldest child made a few bad choices that put him on pet probation.

Pet probation finally ended during spring break and we now have one very excited boy.

Chad actually had been dreaming about getting mice (a much better choice after already talking him out of a snake, frog, and tarantula spider). But we ended up with gerbils.

We thought gerbils would be the best choice for a pet. Cute and fuzzy, they had tails like mice but were bigger and easier to catch (or so we thought), and because they are desert animals they don't pee very much. (But they really do poop a lot!)

We were warned that they like to chew plastic. But if gerbils and hamsters like to chew plastic why is it that all their cages and toys are made of plastic?

Chad named his little guys Chedder and Chester. I call them the "chewer-poopers." So far they have chewed a quarter of their steps away and just last night chewed up their exercise wheel. If you put a toilet roll tube in their cage they can shred it to tiny little pieces in less then a minute! And when you pick them up they bite you! (Just ask Chad and Halle and they will dramatically tell you all about their terrible gerbil bites!!!)

But there you have it - got to love them (smell and all).

So now that you have all this information, any one up for gerbil-sitting when we go on vacation?

Halle and Chad watch the gerbils run around in the bath tub.

This one is Chester. He is quite a bit bigger than his brother. He is also the one that had bitten my children. (Naughty, naughty gerbil!)

This one is Chedder. He is small and hyper. See the green plastic steps and the yellow plastic wheel? They don't look like that any more! Those little chewer-poopers!

If they know these animals chew up plastic why do they make things for them out of plastic?

Xanadu

Anyone ever watch the movie, "Xanadu," with Olivia Newton John? I'm not claiming I have actually watched the movie, I just know of it (wink, wink). Halle was invited to a Birthday party at the Valley Roller Rink last weekend. With all those cute girls and the disco music going "Xanadu" was the first thing to pop into my head. (That is what happens when you have a RAM brain like mine - randomly accessed memories with a side order of useless trivia.)

I am certainly not the queen of roller skating but I can get around without looking like a complete idiot (just a mediocre one). I used to go skating all the time when I was younger. It wasn't until Halle received the invitation to go skating that I realized none of my children has ever been roller skating before.

Even though she didn't know how to skate Halle still had fun. Especially when I walked around with her and pulled her along. Now she can't wait to go again. So now the pressure is on to have a family trip to the local roller skating rink.

Taking a break for a bite of Pizza. Halle, Haleigh (b-day girl), Katie, and Leighton.

Roller skating girls Leighton and Halle.

I Have a **** in My Leg!

The other day in the mad rush to get out of the house to school Sean came up with a new funny. While I was making sure Chad and Halle had everything they needed for school Sean was jumping on the couch (an illegal activity). All of a sudden he yelled, "Ow," on one of his jumps. He hurt his knee somehow.

I gave him a stern look of, "It serves you right for jumping on my couch," while I gave his knee a kiss to stop the crying. Then I put on his snow boots. While I was kneeling down I got a bad cramp in my leg. So I yelled out, "Ow!" Sean asked what was wrong and I told him I had a "cramp," in my leg.

As we are walking to the bus stop Sean leans over and grabs his knee and is moaning. So I ask him what is wrong. He responds by letting me know he has a "crap," in his knee. I gently correct him and tell him the word he wants to use is "cramp."

But for the last week he doesn't care what the correct word is. Every time he gets a bump or pain on one of his legs he loudly lets everyone know that he has a "crap" in his leg.

I'm A Potty Fixer!!!

Ever heard of water torture? If you are a light sleeper, like myself, then water torture is hearing the toilet in your bedroom gurgle and make sputtering noises every night while you try to sleep for months and months and months.

Our house is about 20 years old. New enough that we still live in a nice neighborhood and not everything is completely outdated, but old enough that everything is starting to break down and needs to be replaced. Being the proud owner of a home = responsibility and hand over the $$$.

Our toilet has needed help for quite some time. After both Chris and I attempted to fix the problem with a little wiggle and jiggle here and there of various potty parts we finally called for help. Chris had a friend, who is a professional plumber, come to the house to solve the problem. 45 dollars later he had replaced the screws and attached some kind of floaty device to the chain. The water still ran, but he said to just play around with the bulb until it settled down. Um, I might be kind of stupid here, but isn't that what we paid you for?! I guess you get what you pay for (he did give us a 50% discount - seeing as we were friends and all that.)

After much more wiggling and jiggling, the water still ran it's course taking my sanity with it. Knowing that Chris would not approve of paying for another plumber to come I decided to take matters into my own hands. I drove all the way down to Home Depot and purchased a complete toilet repair kit.

Since no amount of adjustment to the old parts seemed to work I decided to rip out all the old and replace it all with new potty parts.

So I spent most of my Saturday rummaging through the garage in search of tools that would fit and work (the instructions assured me that all I would need were one pair of pliers and one wrench - ha, ha, ha!). Several hours later I had a toilet with a new flush valve, fill valve, gasket, flapper, and tank lever.

When everything was once again assembled I was so proud of myself (and also forgave myself of any unwomanly words I might have uttered during the process). I called to my husband to show off my handy work only to notice that my toilet was now leaking in two different spots. Water was dripping onto the floor. And like any composed woman who has used up her whole day on a stinky project I created some new words and had a nice tantrum.

I once again turned off the water valve and emptied the toilet of water. I put a towel down on the floor and waited until I cooled off to fix the problems.

Well, two days later I finally got back to my project. Now that I had the right tools and knew what to do I had that tank off and tightened up all the leaking parts and reassembled it all in less than 30 minutes. Wahoo. And this time - no more leaking!!!!!

I am now in Heaven. The night is still and quiet - not a drop or drip to be heard. And if I need to get up in the middle of the night I no longer have to stumble down the stairs in the dark into the other bathroom.

If any of you are having problems - call me over - I'm free! And by the way, just call me Josephine (Jo for short) the plumber. Thank you.