Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails

Whoever wrote the "What Are Little Boys Made Of" rhyme did not foresee the 21st century child. My boys are made up of video games, cheese, and various Japanese created toys.

This week one of my little boys turned 10. Double digits. I was OK until William pointed out he has used all his fingers and was onto his toes. Then it hit me-- that means my son is half-way to twenty. If the next ten years go as quickly as these first 10 have gone, I am going to blink and it will be gone.

William had a great birthday. The day of he had a wonderful Bill-prepared breakfast, went to school (one of his favorite places to be), came home and played video games and ate pizza. William had very specific plan for his birthday party. He knew he wanted to see a movie and play video games. He wanted to do this at the GATEWAY, but he also wanted to invite more kids than our two cars combined could hold.



Bill and I had the genius idea to borrow a projector and a PS3 from friends and hang a sheet on Romney's wall and let the kids watch a movie and play games on the "Big Screen", eat pizzas and popcorn and generally enjoy being 9 and 10 year old boys. William was so excited about this party, he almost couldn't contain himself.

He also had very specific ideas of what kind of party favor he wanted to give out-- the (parent dreaded) Bakugon. I say "parent dreaded" because all parents dread driving all over town from toy store to toy store trying to hunt down these must have toys. It is almost impossible to find one, much less NINE! We were unbelievably successful (see two posts down for details) and they were a giant hit.

On a hilariously neurotic note: I am the only weirdo I know who plans and books her youngest son's birthday party during her oldest son's birthday party.

Fall

Crisp air, colorful leaves, golden light, cozy sweaters, birthdays of both of my children--these are some of the reasons I adore the Fall.

Since both boys have birthdays coming up it is annual portrait taking time. I can't believe I have a (soon to be)10 year old and a (soon to be) 6 year old. They are growing up so fast. The older they get, the more they dislike me taking their pictures. But I just can't resist. They are too beautiful. They both played along relatively well. William was ever so irritated to be wearing an itchy sweater and having to smile at me. But he did it anyway.




Romney, this time, was all for doing it well so that he could be done quickly instead of arguing about it for a few minutes first. He posed his little heart out with almost no prompting, knowing he could go swing sooner if he got if over with. I think they came out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself (and apparently I do).

UEA Weekend

A time honored and much loved (by children all over the state) Utah tradition is UEA weekend (formerly known as "hunting weekend"). The kids had half days Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, Friday and Monday off. Bill took the end of the week off from work to join us in our revelry.

Yesterday we tried to see a movie with some friends, but that didn't work out when they changed both the movies and the show times. (I was not too torn up about this since I was not terribly excited to be wasting 2 hours of my life on Space Chimps)! We then proceeded to go super center to super center looking for something called BAKUGAN. Apparently this is the "must-have" toy for boys right now since we could not find any in stock anywhere. Until... we hit Shopko. We found a 6 pack with no price tag on it. We took it to a store employee to have priced. Apparently the very last one was there for a reason. No one else would wait around for 30 minutes waiting for store employees to try and figure out how much to charge for it. The UPC code was ripped half way off and since it was the last one, no one knew what to do. Finally they decided 7$ would be fair. Since we know these sets usually go for around $25-30, we snatched that last one up. William will now be able to afford to give his dream party favor out at his party.

After the hunt for the impossible to find toy, we headed to Cornbelly's maze and pumpkin patch for some family fun. It was a beautiful day and it was so nice to let the kids run and play and slide and hide and get dirty. For the record, getting stuck in a maze shaped like David Archuletta while listening to recordings of him crooning soft rock hits of days gone by is not as fun as it sounds.

We busted out the camera for some fall shots of the kids. Bill was very proud of the shots he took of me with the boys. We were standing up to walk away when I looked at what he captured. Now I am not the kind of wife that would stifle his creativity by stepping in and setting up the shot for him (Ok, I totally am), but you could barely tell we were in the shots he first took. But his last shot was a winner.

Election Season

It has been a busy couple of weeks around here. Bill was offered a chance at a new job he was very excited about, but decided not to take it. Timing was wrong with him being in school. I have been sick for 2 weeks (Does sick of the cold weather already count as an illness?) but still trying to keep up with all my obligations.

One of those obligations includes doing my civic duty and exercising my right to vote. Seeing as this is a presidential election year and that it is a heated race, I figured voter turn out (ie: lines at the polls on election day) would be high, also William was begging me to take him with me to vote so he could press the button to vote for his favorite presidential candidate (He has some VERY strong views on the matter. If you want to hear them, just ask.) Yesterday, I had a cram session reading my Voter Information booklet so I would know how I wanted to vote and since the kids have half days and then days off from school this week for Parent/Teacher/Kid conferences I took William and Romney with me to the County Offices to vote early. They were so excited. William cast my vote for president (We agree on our favorite candidate, you see.) and Romney cast my votes for all the judges. They both got stickers that said "I voted early" and they left proud and happy.


Elections have been on William's mind lately and he bravely ran for Student Council this year in his class against 10 other kids. He won by a mile his teacher said. He is taking his position very seriously (as he takes most things) and has big things planned for his school. He has been thinking about different systems of government and has decided that he likes the "voting for your leaders" plan much better than the "whoever has the most guns wins" plan. It is fun to see him becoming more world wise. (Not to be confused with street smart- that he still is not!)