Ten for Tuesday 10.07.08

This might be a stretch today!

1. Hello? Is anyone listening to me? Blake thinks the TV remote is a telephone.

2. My little helper. . .

3. My budding artists. . .

The results of their hard work. . .

Michael really wants to participate in the Reflections contest this year, so I'm hoping that he can chose one of these masterpieces to enter. The theme is "wow." I'm not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean, but we'll make one of these pictures work!

4. We've been so lucky at our house to be visited by the stomach flu this week. Just one of the many miserable things we've brought home from the doctor's office this fall. Seriously! I'm am so looking forward to going back on Friday. Ugh.

5. On Friday night we got to go to Reed's mission reunion. It was fun for him to see his mission president and visit with some of his old mission friends. There was an elevator at the church where we met, and the boys had a blast (along with the other kids there) playing with that.

6. When we were leaving the reunion on Friday night we couldn't get Reed's car to start (again). Perfect timing. Ugh. Anyway, we finally decided to call Reed's brother Matt (again), and he gave us just the right advice to get the car up and running (again). Matt, you're a genius. What would we do without you?!

7. I love conference weekend!

8. While we listened to conference on Saturday I got to make more spaghetti sauce from all the veggies in our garden. I now have nearly 20 freezer bags full of spaghetti sauce. So, we're probably going to be instituting a weekly spaghetti night for the next little while. Which would be great except for the fact that I've never really been crazy about spaghetti. Good thing the kids like it! Plus, it should help to keep my grocery bill down, right?

Reed got a different job to do during Saturday's conference. I hauled all the toys down from the toy room and Reed got to spray them down with Lysol and wash them off with soapy water. I figured I might as well put Reed to work and let him be productive while he sat in front of the TV. Plus, he always needs a little bit of help to stay awake. Kill two birds with one stone, right? He stared at me in disbelief and then asked me if I lay awake at night thinking up random jobs to do. Well, the answer to that, unfortunately is yes. . . If I could just rid myself of insomnia my To Do list might be a whole lot shorter, but that's a post for another day.

9. This is what I worked on during Conference on Sunday: 100 file folder games for the Humanitarian center. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we started this project, but I have a feeling like I'm going to be looking at these orange papers for a very long time. I'll probably be working on them again tonight while I watch the debate.

10. People keep asking me if I am still running in the mornings. The answer, sadly, is no. I was in a really good groove for quite a while, but I fell off the wagon, and it seems impossible to get back up! I got sick and then threw out my back, and left for trek, and then got sick again. . . and I have had ZERO motivation to get up early. I miss several things about going running---such as good conversation with Valerie, and being showered and dressed before my kids are up. But, I admit that I don't miss the actual running. I've never been able to figure out what people mean when they say that running is addictive. I am really trying to talk myself into an early morning routine that involves me working out by myself to my old work out tapes, but I have a feeling that the cold weather and dark mornings are going to tempt me to stay in bed.