My note to the math teacher.

But first - a bit of "history." Kiersten came home with a progress report for her math. Apparently a majority of her class is failing miserably. The teacher offers extra credit on math exams worth 5 points each. Kiersten not only completes the entire math test flawlessly - but answers the extra credit points absolutely correct.

She brought me a progress report. A progress report for math class. The progress report shows her progress thus far --- in math class.

Because she did poorly on one of her exams, she is not getting an "even" 130% (that's one hundred thirty percent), she's only getting 124% (that's one hundred twenty four percent.)

I want to write the math teacher a note.

Dear Math instructor.

My daughter has received a 124%. Could you please explain this mathematical phenomenon? Back in the day when I went to school, if you had 100% of something - you had it all. For example, if I had 100% of the money in the world, I would 100% of the money in the world. If more money was created, and I received the money, I would still have 100% of the money, not 110% of the money. I would like to learn your techniques so when I bring her home next month to home school her, I can teach her the latest and greatest in mathematics.

Thank you,
The mom.

My trip to Idaho

I got a speeding ticket. The Idaho State Troopers are the loneliest people on the face of the earth. I have a ticket for going 66 in a 60.

I love Phoenix.

I love how if you want to get pulled over, you need to be going deliberately 20 miles over the speed limit to get the attention of a police officer. Then they will tell you what the speed limit is, and ask you to kindly obey the law.

They then will drive off wishing you a good day. Then you will go the speed limit because WOAH, that was a frightening thing.

Or if you're going over 10 mph, they'll take a picture of you and mail it to your house. If you ignore it and don't hear from them after 120 days, it will go away.

Our law enforcement here knows that speeding helps the flow of traffic...and don't harass the drivers.

Not in Idaho. They go 5 under the speed limit and stop for yellow lights. I can't handle it there.

Enough of that. I was just telling my friends the other night that Coby is still not eating solids yet - well, she will nibble on a cracker, but not real "meals" except from MUAH - cause I need the extra calories to exit through whatever means I can get...anyway - I think it's funny that while at Crysty's I was pre-occupied with something - and Coby was obviously preoccupied with something else, cause when I found her, she had gone all puppy dog on me....

Don't let my Dad see that there were two perfectly untouched pancakes in the top of the garbage. But we moved her to a less trashed area of the house. She made great music.

Here's Howie's favorite birthday present from grandma and grandpa Covino. He wants me to take him to the store so he can spend his money from his other grandparents and aunts & uncles! He wants the laser for the nerf machine gun.

Our main purpose for going to Idaho was to take a special trip into Nampa to get a nice whiff of the sugar beet factory...mmmm, the smell of Christmas digestion at it's finest...and the second reason was so that we could visit with Grandma & Grandpa Meador! They've been in our prayers lately...Grandma's breast cancer has found its way into her lungs and she's struggling. Quite possibly the sweetest couple on the face of this earth!

I absolutely LOVE this picture! Brynn is NOT one to cuddle, so when she crawled up on Grandpa's lap like that and sat there for almost 30 minutes, I KNEW I had to take a picture. One of the sweetest guys in the world and Brynn got to sit on his lap!! LOVE it!

And here's the majority of the gang...I really love this one, too.

Oh - and one last thing - or maybe two...we also did Howie's baptism there. I'm supposed to keep quiet about it, though, we don't want anyone thinking we have special privilege to do this out of stake, but grandma's time is short and we really wanted to visit with her! So we saved the rest of the family a trip to Phoenix.



And since I was in Idaho - I had Danae do my hair. She went about 3 inches too short in the back - but hey, I guess that makes it so I don't have to go back in too soon for maintenance, eh?

WOW! It's my 300th blog post!

But I actually came here today to say a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Howie! He's EIGHT!

He's so full of fun, it's incredible!

I was digging through the archives of my "journal" and found this cute Howie story, This happened when he was four.

We took the kids out to Applebees for FHE Monday night dinner - you know - we got 10 appetizers for their 1/2 price happy hour special - paid all of like 15 bucks! yah! Anyway - Howie had the trots all day - but had done an OUTSTANDING job of getting to the bathroom on time! So Ross took him there twice during our wait for the appetizers...we were eating & all sitting there nicely - when Kali told me she had to go real bad....the following is a script of what happened in the bathroom.... (two stalls in the room, one is already occupied)

Kali: Come in with me!

Me: It's too small, but I'll stand right outside here and wait for you.

{enter Howie}

Howie: I gotta go BAD, mom.

Me: Well, just wait a minute Kali's going to be done soon, right Kal?

Kali: {grunting} yah, I should be done soon.

Howie: Whose in here? {getting on all fours to peer under the other stall}

Me: No, no! Honey, that's not polite.

Howie: {impatiently yelling - while holding his cheeks together with both hands} WELL HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM ALREADY??? I GOTTA POOP BAAAAAAD!!

Unknown Lady: {inward giggle - flush - exit} There you go.

Howie: {rushing in} Thank you - (at this point he barely gets his pants down in time to fire off some partially filled blanks - two more ladies walk in - one of them is probably 18-22 and doing the pee pee dance - real mature, right?)

Me: Kali, are you almost done?

Kali: (still grunting) Almost, I just have to wiggle this one off.

Howie: Mom, I need you to come wipe my butt please.
(enter me to stall to wipe)

Howie: You're the BEST mom in the whole world - oh wait, I'm not done yet, you can go out again (more partially filled blanks shoot into the toilet)

(young woman dancing with more enthusiasm)

Me: Kali, how's it going in there?

Kali: I just keep wiping and the toilet paper is not getting clean, will you help me?

(enter, tp thankfully was clean - we flush & exit)

Howie: Mom, did you leave without wiping me?

Me: no, I'm right here, we're washing our hands now.

Howie: Don't waste your time washing them, you're just gonna get poop all over them again from me.

Me: Are you ready now then?

Howie: yep yep yep yep yep yep yep (Howie is wiped) WOW, mom, look how muddy the water is, that's COOL! (flush)

unknown lady #3 - in jest: I hope we didn't order what you guys ate.

Howie: make sure you wash my poop off your hands, mom.

Me: Okay, you wash your hands, too.

Howie: I don't need to, that's why I called you in.

exit the bathroom Howie is making a "popcorn ball that would smell so good"

nice.

So that story above is one of MANY I have in my little Howie bank of stories (Click here to read one of my favorite Howie stories)

Anyway - so 8 reasons I love Howie (keeping with tradition)
1 - Just look at that smile! It melts my heart.

2 - Right before Brynn was born we were talking about how he will be a big brother and he said it was his job to "Pre-tect her" and if he had to, he would use Dad's Japanese swords (something he's never been allowed to play with - but hey, what a good excuse to start, right?) Sometimes he gets frustrated with her, but I remind him of his promise and he immediately softens up!

3 - He's tender hearted beneath all that "cool" he told me "I will always be your baby, even though I'm a big brother"

4 - Some kids can do this and they'd be dorky, he does this - and starts a trend. Being like this takes so many different levels of confidence!

5 - He does it cause "The Chicks Dig it"

6 - Even when he's as sick as sick can be headed for the hospital - he's still being funny about "Think the nurses still remember me?" Of course they do, they look forward to your visits, dear.
7 - He's the only one of my children, when unloading the dishwasher, will organize the utensil drawer the way it's supposed to be - everyone else just tosses the utensils in there. Yes, Howie, I totally notice!
and
8 - He's kept his room clean for a whole month so he could get his semi-automatic nerf machine gun that shoots 3 rounds per second. (He hasn't opened it yet, so wait till I post the pictures!!!) He even knew that his birthday was going to be that day and since it was coming from Grandma & Grandpa Covino, that he'd get it even if his room was messy...so, lets call this one "Obedience."
So here's a picture with Howie and his look-alike Dog Tags.

Seriously, so blessed...

I got in contact with an old friend of mine today - to catch up on some gossip & stuff...you know - the kind of friend you talk to once a year and still talk like you're best friends for hours on end?

We talked about a myriad of things, and I finally asked her if she had a blog. She then went on to say how NO WAY she doesn't have a blog, she doesn't do cutsie crafts or things with her kids, and she goes to the other blogs and gets puky reading them.

SO, I was like "Well, *I'M* not like that!!" Of course not! (Have you seen this blog?)

Back to my story....

I'm thinking to myself, I don't do anything fun with my kids...in fact, I threaten spanks almost daily - and when I'm not threatening spanking, I'm looking for reasons that they can't watch TV or play with their friends. Or give them ridiculous expectations "Yes, you can go play with Angie as soon as you write a 50 page dissertation on why it's healthy for your soul to take no for an answer."

So I came to the computer to send her an e-mail with my blog address, but first, I wanted to come to my blog to see what she was going to see - as an "outsider."

Certainly I don't brag about my children's accomplishments, or how cute they are or how they have the best haircut you'd ever see on a 9 year old - Or even all the fun places we've been. Ooops, maybe a widdo bit?

So, Tonya, if you happen to be lurking about on my blog...please know, that as perfect as I make myself and my children out to be, you should know a few things I didn't blog about this week.

Like - Howie & Kali were testing the limits of the garage door by putting a wooden oar under it, they broke the spring, and some metal ravelly thingy and the wheels to the guide or runner thingy all came out and half of the garage door fell on the car.

That's not so bad as when I was trying to fix it, I had the hammer on the top of the ladder and it got knocked off and fell off the top of the ladder to the top of Brynn's head busting it open causing blood to spew forth. I took pictures, but really, how lame is it to blog about being imperfect?

You won't find me doing that! So while you may look at my blog and see how, as a family, we played the game of TWISTER, spent wonderful amounts of time together and how envious you might be to see children smiling and getting along...

I won't show you the picture right after this one of when Howie got "Left hand green" and he flung his hand back into Kali's face, which initiated the start of one of the best WWF real life wrestling fights EVER not caught on tape.

You may see a picture of loving siblings in the bath, but won't you won't see is when I ran to get the camera, one of the siblings held the other's face under the water trying to teach her how to swim (no, I'm not going to OUT my child for trying to drown the other, you'll just have to be satisfied knowing it happened, I remain firm in keeping the who's of the event a secret.)

You may see a picture of everyone at Madagascar 2 all smiling and happy,

(There, Jolisa, I DID IT...what? like you don't keep your digital camera in your car at all times?) but you won't hear about the story in the car how Howie got his basketball and football taken away indefinitely, well, until yesterday when he decided he could be human again...

I could put more pictures in here about how great I am in the kitchen - this is the first of a step-by-step photo-journal of how to make creamed honey. Perhaps one day - if it's slow, I'll tell you how to do it, and show you ALL the pictures...

While you will never see a picture of the garage door on top of my car (words can't describe the emotions flowing through me which caused me to forget to take a picture of THAT one.) You'll see the bloody gash left as a result of my incompetence of leaving a hammer on the top of the ladder while moving it and watching it fall in slow motion on top of my little girls head as she played ring around the ladder...

never fear, I blamed that on the children as they were being spanked on the hiney with the oar that was placed under the garage door that started the whole mess!

Nor will you see a picture of the pain killer we use (also part of a photo-journal of 101 uses for Halloween candy)

Wow. That got long. Anyone still here? Bueler? Bueler? Anyone? Hello - lo - lo - lo.

Well, anyway - I'm not as perfect as I let people think I am, and so from now on, I will speak more of the errors of being a member of THIS family.

So as to make you, who are leery of blogging yourself, or wondering how perfect a family with 6 kids can be, I'll put rest to that pool of unspeakable worry, by showing you this:

Chompin at the bit

My baby is growing up too fast. She's starting to crawl. Or maybe she's just into push ups?

Then she really really wants people food. No more of this mush...but poor baby doesn't have teeth. Here, you can get an idea of how much she would love to chew on the apple. But settles for gnawing.

Look, she's starting to stand up in her bed, so we had to take the bassinet part down. It's a sad day for my growing baby - she's doing it too fast!

Apparently I take too many pictures of Coby and not enough of the other girls, so they needed to get in on some action.

And finally, Kiersten was nominated as Student of the month - each teacher picks a student from their grade and then the music/art teachers pick a student from the school...Kiersten was the school pick from the music teacher! She got lunch from Peter Piper Pizza, with dessert from Claim Jumper, and free lunch coupons for Red Robin and Mimi's Cafe. Way to go Kiersten!

Shortly after

I got Kiersten and lived with my in-laws for two months before we moved to Arizona...knowing that my mother-in-law deep fries everything, including carrot sticks, I indulged a little bit and packed it on.

Crysty (who was taking a lot of hormone treatments for IVF) and I were sitting at Ross' 2nd birthday party inside Chuck E. Cheese sucking down pizza before anyone else could eat it all, we looked at our freshly weight-lost sister-in-law and said, "I'd rather eat pizza than look like that" (yah, it made us feel better about inhaling pizza).

And I recently read a friend's blog about addiction, I had a day-dream moment. Why can't I be addicted to eating good and running instead of chocolate and running? And then it occurred to me. Chocolate is good. I am eating good...and running to support my habit.

Finally some Halloween pictures...

This year, Rossi wanted to be a skeleton again (just refer to pictures from Halloween the last two years). I was out of white face paint. So he went as a pain in the neck instead. (refer to any picture I have of him, taken as a pain right in the neck!)
Kiersten wanted to play a vampire and it wasn't until I did up her makeup, hair & eyelashes, she named her vampire "Rosalie" (hotlink is to a picture, Rosalie is the blonde on the right) She made fangs, but you know, beautiful vampires don't have fangs...it's a myth - or so I read once somewhere.

So Howie, as you saw a few posts below, dressed up as a ninja, since they can't wear masks to the Halloween party, he took his mask off, armed himself with a sword, (we mustn't forget the killer skull cape his grandma Covino made for him last year), and decided he'd take the Karate Kid Ninja approach.

Brynn, well, you already knew she was Tinkerbell, but she's such a lady in this picture, eating her sucker, sitting side-saddle on her airplane with her legs crossed like a lady should be.

Kali, well, this one was my favorite one. Last year (I completely forgot about it until I pulled out the Halloween box on Halloween) I bought this clearance white dress - and it fit her fabulously. She decided to be the White Witch from Narnia. She played the part to the "T" and everyone she came in contact with, she threatened to freeze into a statue. But instead of being the white witch, she called herself the Ice Princess. Either way - probably the scariest Halloween costume out there!

And the most adorable pumpkin - this costume has gone through all of my children. I should just find pictures of each of them in it - but that would require some SERIOUS digging. Maybe when they're all grown and out of the house and I'm lonely and have nothing to do, I'll put it on my list of things for which to look.

Quick clarification. (after typing this, I would say, it's not so quick)

It was brought to my attention tonight that my friend, Bedie's name looks (to those who don't know her) like it should be a Utah spelling of the name Betty. Her name is actually pronounced BEAD-EE so as to rhyme with meaty, which, it should also be known that she is not meaty (nor does she look pregnant, not even a few months, not even in her clown outfit). She's just the right size with overflowing personality. She was named after her grandmother, and I LOVE the name, and I wanted to name Coby that, but Ross thought it wasn't really a name...until he got to know her, and he, too, loves the name. I think the super-fantastic bubbly personality, coupled with the fact that she's got a never-ending supply of great hair, and a pile of beautiful children, talent oozing from every pour, and a husband who is a general conference celebrity (yah, not kidding there, kewl, I know) just makes the name that much gooder. She's got such a great personality AND the ability to bite her tongue - unlike ME. So people actually LIKE her, too.

Anyway - I also have another friend - LARRI - who is a female - you can kind of tell from the spelling of her name - no self-respecing man would end his name in an "i" (my apologies, Rossi, but you'll always be my little boy) - so I told them about this absolutely hysterical you tube video - that was posted on my other friend, Denise's, blog that had me absolutely in stitches, mainly because my girls are in syncro. Denise is also an absolutely hysterical friend of mine. So thanks, dearie, for finding this...You crack me up in 8 different ways!

Tink's gone pirate!!

Beware, the Tink's gone ARRRGH! Brynn found Howie's pirate hat from last year (which he wanted to be again this year, but found the ninja and decided to go for sneaky)


We pulled out the costumes last night - Howie found the ninja outfit that Grandma Covino got him - last year - for CHRISTMAS - and it fits wonderfully.

And yesterday was Brynn's preschool Halloween party - she LOVES her sweet teacher normally, but since the sweet teacher decided to dress up like Steven King's IT and freak the kids out- Brynn wasn't sure if she wanted to be at the much-anticipated party. I thought you were cute, Bedie...and I think next year you should go as a zombie corpse, with pretty heart cheeks. ;o)


We'll take more pictures tonight as they get dressed & ready for door to door chocolate begging...I mean - trick or treating. Oh, wait, our ward scheduled a party for tonight - so we get to not trick or treat in order to support our ward party specialist. And Ross is in charge of the spook alley. That should prove to be exciting.

A chop chop here...

Kali has been dying to get her hair cut (unlike Brynn who just cuts her hair by herself) I took her for a cut! This is what she wanted - and oh my GOSH it turned out so cute! I'm thinking I may have to do this for me, too!

Brynn liked it so much - well, she begged & begged, and who am I to go against the queen of mullet-hood? So here's Brynn's mug shot...I had the lady who cut her hair take some pictures...hopefully she'll send them to me! Brynn got her hair washed in the salon! It was so cute!

Look what I noticed...

it's not often that I cut Howie's hair. He has a special attachment to his hair. He likes it long so it can be spikey. When I threaten to cut it he shrinks back and talks about losing his special powers. But when he misbehaves too closely after a threat to cut his hair...I must follow through with it. This time, I accidentally put a shorter clipper attachment on the clippers than I normally do, so I had to go shorter up top...and look what I found...

Coby isn't the only victim of the swirly bangs!!! How funny, right?!

THEN - Kali really wants to be a devil for Halloween. I told her that Halloween was a time to play dress up, not every day living. So I gave her a choice between these three...and she's not a fan of any of them...we have a woodland fairy,

there's (supposed to be) Eowin (from LOTR) - or some other Maid Marian type person

or - this thing - I believe they called it Lucy from Narnia? Or can you think of this being someone else I can talk her into?

And FINALLY (yes I made you all read through the "boring" part of the blog to see the picture of my sweet Australian visitor, Sheldi...

Pictured with Kiersten and Ross, while she's holding Coby (who we had to wake up for church, so she's still kind of groggy!)
Both Anthony and I forgot our cameras at home, but I found a member of my ward with a camera and had her take some pictures in front of the temple...I will post those when I get them!
So a funny story about my trip to the temple. I went through a session while the group of four children (pictured above) hung out around the temple (I can't leave Coby for as long as it takes to get to the temple, through a session, and back again - so these guys watched her for me) Anyway - they went through the visitors center and all around the temple grounds. I finished the session and met back up with them for them to go do baptisms and I wondered around the grounds.

I went into the visitors center and the first person that walked up to me asked if that little baby had been there earlier. Of course she had...the young sister missionary then said, yes, she was with her daddy, right? Uh no, she was with her brother..."Oh, it must have been a different baby, because I'm pretty sure she was with her dad, and they had a cute friend from Australia there, too." Yah, that was my SON! "Uh WOW!! You don't look like you could have a son that old!" I'm so flattered until she says this "So are you the baby's grandmother?" NO! Lost points with me lady...keep your ugly old maid mouth SHUT, would you?

Yah - She still thought Rossi was the baby's father, and if I was Ross' mother, then clearly that would make me the baby's grandmother, right?

But wait, there's more.

I go into the waiting room with Coby at the baptistry and a few ladies walked up and commented on how good she was (yes, she's a good baby - except when I want to sleep) anyway - Rossi finished first and came out and sat next to me and grabbed Coby to play with her. The lady came back out and again commented on what a great baby she was. I told her she knew she had to be good because my infant caring days were coming to a close. She laughed and asked if she was my first. UH NO! Then Ross (think booming voice without volume control here) Laughed and said "No, I'm her first, she's her last!" So the lady then asked how old he was. 14. SHOCK? REALLY? I thought you two were married. Nice, so now I look like a 14 year old? Or worse, my son looks like he could buy a beer without an ID!? So I'm passing this information on to my husband who laughed and said they asked him TWICE while doing baptisms if he was an endowed member so he could help in other ares! WOAH! So FOUR different people - on in the visitors center, on in the baptistry and another two inside by my husband asked if my son was OLDER. I'm not sure I'm ready for this!

What? Mullets are out dated?

What if you're a 3 year old and enjoy the feel of fingernail clippers through your fine blonde locks? What if fingernail clippers aren't enough? What if you find small baby fingernail sissors? What if they feel better when run through your hair than the clippers? Well, I say USE THEM!

I wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes...

Old McSissors had an urge....O*I*C*U*HIDE
and in that urge she had blunt cuts...O*I*C*U*HIDE
With a clip clip here and a clip clip there
Here's some hair, hide it there
Everywhere there's hair hair

Old McSissors had an urge...O*I*C*U*SPANKED.

Here are her mug shots. Left, right, frontal and throughout the head there are very short spikey hairs (these hairs spike up THROUGH any hope of a pony tail comb-over.)

In this picture you can see how cutting hair on the side of the head, to just above the hair - helps qualify this hair cut as a mullet.


Here we see the length of her bangs on the right side vs. the left side...


right here, we have circled her rebellious spike:

A milestone.

I did it. I caved. I fed Coby some human food. Okay - well, BABY food, but not mothers milk - although - mother's milk was mixed in it, so not completely people food, plus, I'm not sure a real person would eat this food, but regardless...she took food from a spoon.

She loved it - she's been "mock chewing" for a few months now, when we eat dinner, she'll open her mouth with us - and phantom chew. So to actually have something solid in her mouth - was SO MUCH FUN for her!

First her daddy tried (hey, I've fed her solo her whole life - time for someone else to take a turn!).

Brynn had to get in on the action. Coby thought it was funny.

But the funny part was watching Brynn try to feed her (bwhahaaa - look at her mouth!) and Coby, of course, gobbled EVERYTHING up! To the LAST scrape of the barrel!


Then we gave her a bath. Which - what baby doesn't like sitting in the bath and splashing until the water turns cold?

She sat and splashed and splashed - and coughed, then splashed some more.


Look at those toes! HAA! Cute little wrinkles! She splashed for a LOOOOONG time!


Meanwhile Kiersten got the jewelry making bug when she saw what I came home with from my girls get away! So she took some of her baby sitting money and bought the stuff - slowly - and waited for the 50% off coupons to get the tools! FINALLY she had enough tools & beads to make something! She did a great job, me thinks! She sold this one to her girlfriend - and thought it was pretty cool - now she's going to start her own business.