Thanksgiving week.

This year it's at our place. I think we are expecting 798,403 people. So if you are looking for a place to go, I'm sure we could squeeze in a few more chairs.

I am oh so thankful for my life. Mike. All the little people at our house. Our house (it's cold and wet out). Our parents (love you forever!). Brothers and sisters (also forever, guys), freedom, kind people, Jupiter the Space Donkey, Pluto, Slick, food, MIKE, these comfy shoes I'm wearing, awesome report cards this term (kudos, kiddos!!), happy thoughts, health & strength, Abner's smiles, that sunset last night, learning, peace, and...love. We are all loved.

 The kids are keeping us ahead of schedule on holiday preparedness. So, by the end of the week we will most likely have our house ready, set, go for Christmas. They are the best. :)
Have a great Thanksgiving!

Down in the Mouth...and up again.

(I have no idea where that expression comes from...but it sounds about right.)

I've had a discouraging patch. You probably know what I mean...when the demands & stress of life feel so heavy you don't know how much longer you can keep it up. And you wonder about the meaning of it all, doubt yourself a lot. A general funk. Or, as I put it to Mike earlier this week, "Life is kind of kicking our butts, isn't it?"

HOWEVER. The cool thing about life is...if you just keep trying, after a while (sometimes a long while) somehow things look brighter, you get stronger, you get smarter, you get more fearless, you get more grateful. And then, AMAZINGLY - you are actually HAPPIER than before you had to struggle. (That is a dichotomy worth some thought.)

I went to the temple this week. I needed to. For the first time in months I had some real clarity. But then I went home and got all bogged-down again with life on earth - which included about 2 hours of sleep that night, and a gazillion demands the next day.
Luckily, I had a chance to go and be with some women in the neighborhood, eat and talk about the things we're grateful for. Listening to other people open up, talking about their own hurt and their own joy - it straightened me out.

Life is BEAUTIFUL.       All of it.
When your heart is soft and open.

Oh Sully.

#5 is ... so pinchy-cheeks-cute.

(here at the LV wedding festivities)

Here...with his bff from next door, after raiding Jessie's make-up. (Sorry about the fraction-of-a-second video clip. Mike accidentally had the camera set to video. And after that the battery died. But you'll get the idea.) 

Now, if he could/would just master the art of toileting....
We get a little closer every day.

Cel-e-brate Good Times, Come on!

(Mike loves Kool & The Gang...but then again, who doesn't?)

This is what I feel like today. Click play and then read the rest of the post......................oh yeah.

Big news!!!

Sully went on the potty this morning! Really!! It's true. I think he might ACTUALLY be catching on. Oh rapture!

Here's his under-used Potty Chart. But check out the big Obi Wan sticker there. THAT represents Sully's first successful visit to the little boy's room.

To top it all off, Abner slept 8 HOURS last night!!

I feel like it's all too good to be true.

Maybe the head cold and pink eye I've had this week will go away too?

(Lovely, I know.)

I'm optimistic. It's been that kind of day. :)

Yeah Hoo!

Hall-OH!-ween

Another Halloween has come and gone.

Highlights from this year's merry-making.

 The annual Sullivan Halloween party was better than ever this year. We added a hayride & a GIANT bonfire (you might have seen the glow in the sky over the Salt Lake valley).

Do NOT mess with this duo.

 Trick-or-treating this year was also bumped up to a new level. The kids are getting old enough now to cover some serious distance on Halloween. If you want some candy, we can hook you up (and your grandchildren generations from now).

Hope you had a good one.

In the Trenches: Fundamentals of Toilet Training

With a title like that you KNOW this is going to be a post worth reading, right?

I'll sum-up by saying I'M the one being schooled on this matter, by THIS kid.

After potty training 4 kids you'd think I would know a thing or two about it. I thought I did.
#5 has had me stalled out on square one for some time. Every time I broach the topic, he either changes the subject like he didn't even hear me, or if I push the issue he gives me responses that cause me to question whether he knows what I'm talking about AT ALL. I've explained the mechanics and read books to him about it. Then we drink and sit, sit again, sit again, drink and sit....Nada. But as soon as the underpants are pulled up again...BAM! What? Why? We're still just trying to have ONE success to get us off the launch pad. I mean, he is THREE YEARS OLD.
Whatever. Anyway, a couple of things:
#1. It's tougher than you would think to get poop out of a skeleton costume.
#2. Before flipping out about the 3rd or 4th puddle of pee on the floor in one day, it is good to remind one's self that urine is sterile...so we're told.

I currently have 3 books on the subject checked out from the library. I think only one of them will be useful at all for #5. One of the others, Diaper Free Baby, is all about toileting your infant. Like from a few weeks old. Sooooo...we're a little late on that technique for Sully...but hey, who knows, maybe Ab? Perhaps we'll get them trained at the same time.
he he he.
Good vibes and suggestions are welcome in the cause...or you can donate to the diapers-till-middle-school fund. :)

Reflections on a Dictator

It's been an astonishing year for North Africa and parts of of the Mideast. Watching the Arab Spring has been kind of reminiscent of watching the Soviet Bloc unravel 20-something years ago (has it been THAT long?). With the news this week of Muammar Gaddafi's death I couldn't help but think about the odd intersections of his rule with mundane American (my) life.

As a little kid I vaguely remember the Lockerbie bombing and the subsequent attempts on Gaddafi's life. I remember "Get Gaddafi" target t-shirts, Ronald Reagan calling him a "mad dog" and didn't Weird Al make a music video or something? Gaddafi even popped up in a small local paper a few years ago with this mention in an article about my old Cross Country Coach from High School (highlighted paragraph).




Weird. I have to tell you that Mike and I had some good laughs over that one. Especially when we thought of the cute lady at the Riverton Post Office with a national security threat on her hands. How absurd it must have been. But then again Gaddafi was a poster-boy for absurdity.
The thing about dictators/totalitarians is that laughing at them helps us deal with their atrocities. Maybe it's the world's way of getting back at them.

*Related digression*

Some years back we attended a wedding reception in my parents' neighborhood. The father of the bride was totally decked out in some unidentifiable military dress uniform. It didn't fit any US Service branch that any of us knew of. Even my dad, who served in the military was completely puzzled. We smiled politely and shook hands with the guy. Later, my Dad leaned over and said, "I felt like saying, 'I know you're a dictator, I just don't know from where.'" We couldn't stop giggling. That crack is legend in the family.

Mike pointed out last night that the SV Journal story has lost some of its humor after the events of this year, and specifically this week. Yeah. That's true. I found myself really uncomfortable this week when I saw footage of a badly wounded Gaddafi stumbling around in a jeering crowd. Mob justice is unsettling. I think it quickly crosses a line and becomes blood thirst. He had to go. Sorting out the humanity in it all is more difficult.

When it's fall

We had some time Friday so we took the kids and the Space Donkey up AF Canyon to see some beautiful fall color and to have a cook-out.

We had 5 votes for a repeat soon. Unfortunately, I think the weather is headed south this week and we aren't likely to see many more warm-ish Fall days this year.

I L-O-V-E this time of year.

October in chronological order (pretty much)

Here we go...

 Sully cleaning up after his escapade with the talcum powder (this took up an hour and half one day - this is why I am so unproductive).

Our neighbor took Noble's scout troop up in his plane. They had so much fun.

Especially the zero-gravity part.

 

 We had our family pictures taken. The weather was uncooperative - but our photographer pulled together some great shots.

Especially this one. (I think I might die every time I see it.)

And then, we busted a move to the pumpkin patch.

The on-going potty training saga. (It's not going so well. But dang-it, he's cute.)

Then, of course, there was the road trip to LV for the wedding we've all been waiting for (and waiting, and waiting...). Mike's little bro, Gary, finally found the woman of his dreams, Val. Woohoo! We love her!

(I totally horked this photo from Val's FB. I didn't have any of my own pictures of the newlyweds. At the time we were contending with a diaper malfunction and a sick kid.)

Outside the Las Vegas LDS Temple.

We had some fantastic times. The house we stayed in was great. We loved being all together in one place with our cousins and siblings! So HAPPY.

I really regret not getting any pictures of the girls in their flower girl regalia. Grace recovered from 'the vomiting disease' (her words) in time to perform her petal-tossing duties at the ring ceremony in the afternoon. Then she spent the rest of the weekend in her flowery head piece. Both of the girls were lovely.

Grace at breakfast with Uncle Tim. 

 A sunset stop in Holden on the way home to visit the cemetery.

A road trip was actually EXACTLY what I needed. It was quiet. It was removed from all the craziness of our lives. It was together. The DVD player wasn't even working so we just listened to tunes, read books, talked, laughed. So nice.

And that is the last three weeks of our lives in a nutshell. 

Must...Keep...Up...

Except I think I'm probably not.
Quick update.
Wait.
I don't have time.
All you need to know is that it's nut-so over here. I've had some serious thoughts about going radical and pulling out of the rat-race, loading up the family and heading out. Somewhere......where the phone doesn't ring, the calendar is not triple booked, and I have a second to breath and get my bearings...and NOT miss my childrens' childhood because we're too busy. Do you know where that place is? Call me if you do.
I'm hoping to get some catch-up posts up next week...if I can find time after our trip / the big wedding this weekend. That's a big 'IF'.

If you feel as crazed as me, I'm pulling for you. Cross your fingers for me, would you? I've found myself saying things like: "How am I going to survive this phase of my life?" and "I'm going to run away!" For reals. A little melodramatic maybe...but listen, when you are running 24 hours a day (50 things going at once) non-stop with no end in sight you can get a little bit goofy.

Time is precious.
Gotta go.