Trick or Treat

Max: "A TREAT is something you eat that gives you PLEASURE in your brain!"

This is what happens when you get tricked instead of treated for Halloween.

The flu hit Zach hard at 2 am Saturday morning.

He spent the day in bed taking doses of medicine & chicken noodle soup between hours of sleep.

Isn't this one of the saddest faces you ever saw.

He'd planned to be a ghost, and he certainly felt like a phantom observer watching everyone else head for fun while he stayed at home. I tried to make it up to him by letting him play on the computer.

Though he never uttered a word of complaint you can still the see the misery on his face.
Poor sweet boy!

The rest of the kids had a good night collecting candy with Dad.

My personal treat was this grinning little pumpkin.

He's soooooo Yummy!

Aquarium

On Monday, Lauren was out of school while Zach & Gabe were in, so I let her pick somewhere fun for us to spend the day together. She wanted to see the Aquarium and we had a great afternoon.

Jared LOVED the aquarium.
He would giggle and try to reach through the glass to grab the fish. He especially loved trying to touch the manta rays.

Max is seeing what it feels like to be shocked by an electric eel.
So Cute!

The Young Gentleman

Zach was thrilled when we received an invitation to his teachers wedding reception. He's been counting down the days!

I asked Matt to watch the rest of the kids so Zach and I could have a night out. This is a 'first' and I loved every minute of it.

We put on our Sunday best and went to pick out a gift. We talked and laughed and talked some more. He practiced giving a firm handshake with me before we went through the receiving line, and his teacher said he looked so handsome in his suit. The end of the evening was the highlight, though.
I'd asked Zach to put the car keys in his suit because my skirt didn't have pockets, and as we reached the van I asked for the keys.
He gives me a thoughtful grin and says, "let the man take care of that," and then he proceeded to unlock the van and open my door.
Of course, I had to give him a kiss on the cheek for such gentlemanly behavior and we headed home.
Oh, I love, I love, I love being a Mom!

The Race

We registered Zach, Gabe & Max for their teams in May with the understanding that Matt and I would divide-and-conquer when it came to the torrent of games in September. Five days before the season begins, Matt gets the news that HP is ending their travel-freeze and he's expected in California for 3 weeks... oh, and then it stretched to 4 weeks.













You have to understand that I've done a soccer season ALONE before with kids on 2 teams and it was NOT my finest hour. This time we had kids on three teams and a then some!
Elder Boyd K. Packer once cautioned about the problems of over-scheduling. "When you schedule a child, you schedule a family, and most importantly, you schedule a mother."













We SERIOUSLY over-scheduled.

I could hear a Kentucky Derby announcer in my head saying, "The race is set to begin at 2:45 folks and Cock-eyed Candace has entered the shoot. You can feel the thrill in the air; it's going to be a great race today.

BANG!!!!

And she's off, folks! The first lap is a 40 minute round of school carpool and then they'll try to squeeze in a snack and a 1 hour lap of homework before they're off to the daily hurdles...

Monday: Lauren's Karate Class & Family Home Evening
Tuesday: Lauren's Drama Class and Max's Soccer Game
Wednesday: Lauren & Zach's Piano Lessons, Gabe's Soccer Practice, & Zach's Soccer Practice
Thursday: Zach's Scout Meeting, Max's Soccer Practice, Zach's Soccer Game, 20 minutes for dinner at the park and transporting the chairs to Gabe's Soccer Game!
Friday: Boys out of school at noon, so it's weekend house cleaning and a family field trip to the Children's Museum, park, or aquarium
Saturday: 8am Max's Game, 12:30 Zach's Game, 3:30 Gabe's Game
Sunday: 3 hour wrestling match at church with Jared the baby gorilla.

"... And then she'll do it all again!"

"Eeeewww! She forgot the treats for Gabe's team! That's 14 broken-hearted little boys... she'll be hard-pressed to recover from that one!"

"Oh! Ladies & Gentlemen we have a few surprise obstacles on the course this month! It looks like Matt's birthday, 3 team pictures, 5 canning classes, 2 Native American dioramas, 3 parent-teacher conferences, a YM/YW combined etiquette dinner and 20 volunteer hours for the school carnival, website and auction.

"Can she make it!?!?!?"

"You can see the strain as she enters the final stretch. She's looking pretty haggard but she's not dead yet."

"YES!!!
Racing fans, she has crossed the finish line! The sweat is dripping from her brow and you can actually see the new gray hairs, but it's over, ladies and gentlemen, and she's still BREATHING!"

In all seriousness, I've loved watching the boys play soccer. Zach passed off his first series of piano books and Lauren is about to pass off the second series. All the kids got rave reviews at their parent-teacher conferences, and I have to express extra thanks to Lauren who so CHEERFULLY helped with Jared and even took Max to his soccer practices at Westmore.

I couldn't have made it through the month without her!

Matt was wonderful on the days he was in town and even one-time things like my Mom moving our van from one soccer parking 'lot' to another made a huge difference at a FREEZING soccer game. I'm so relieved that we made it through, but I have to add...













Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh PLEASE
let Matt be in town for the April Soccer Season!