Crushed Dream

Samuel played flag football this last summer and fall (pictures and post to come, I promise!). Since he started, his love of the game has grown exponentially. So when I heard that a local grocery store was going to have a Dallas Cowboys Football player at their store, signing autographs, etc... I knew I had to take the kids. It was on a night when Thayne was volunteering, so I had to bring all 4 kids. It was also a night in December when Whataburger was doing their "12 days of Whataburger" and gave out free chicken tenders. So I swung by Whataburger, got dinner, and headed to Albertsons.

The parking lot was PACKED, but I was able to get a cart and walk right into the store. I was so confused. I thought with that many cars there would be a line. This was great, we would go in and meet him and be out in no time!

W-R-O-N-G!!

Apparently the line formed on the OTHER side of the store. The line wasn't in the store, they had people wait outside and like 5 at a time would go in with a ticket to meet him.

We eventually walked to the end of the line and there waited for an hour and a half only to be told (when we were so close to the front of the store), that the event was over and that we needed to go home.

I think I was more crushed than Samuel. I couldn't believe that was it. All that time waiting and we didn't even get to see the Dallas Cowboy football player! He didn't come out and wave to us or anything.

Still in disbelief, I grab the kids and dash into the store, go to where the football player was, and they had taken down the table and everything. No trace of him. So I had Samuel stand next to a picture they hadn't removed yet...


*SIGH* We were so ready. We brought Samuel's football he used in practice and a Cowboys pendant for the NFL Player to autograph... *SIGH*

We left the store and dashed over to the 2 huge Cowboys Semi trailers that were in the parking lot. They had some trophies and pictures of well-known Dallas Cowboy players. One cool thing they had was the size of an NFL players hand on a football and the size of his feet on the ground. Here's how Samuel sized-up:


Samuel still loves football and the Dallas Cowboys. Some nights Samuel and Hyrum stay up in bed talking to each other and I hear them talk about how when they grow up they are going to be Dallas Cowboy Football Players! It's really fun to hear them talking and dreaming together! :) Maybe one day he'll get the chance to meet a real football player!

That's Odd...

So here's proof that Evelyn IS a little Erica... Last night at dinner, she pointed out that right now, our ages are all an odd number: Thayne 31, Erica 29, Evelyn 7, Samuel 5, Hyrum 3, Anna 1.

Numbers are fun for me... I love to figure out things like that, in fact, I had just figured that out about our ages a couple days ago, but I was only thinking about the kids, I hadn't even thought about Thayne and I! It's fun to see Evelyn crunching numbers and enjoying them at such a young age!

Now Evelyn got my thinking and here's what she didn't realize - Our ages are all PRIME numbers! (except 1 doesn't count, but we'll make an exception for you Anna!) Haha... WHO KNEW?!

Sleeping in Time Out?

We have a new reward system we are trying out to help encourage the kids to do more educational work. For every 10 minutes of 'school' work they do they earn 10 minutes of video game time.

Evelyn, Samuel, and I were all playing "Wheel of Fortune" and Hyrum was sad because he wanted to play video games too. So I told him to get out his preschool workbook and earn some time.

So every few minutes I would check his work or tell him what he needed to be doing. After 20 minutes, he was done and so we started to clean up his work and I found that he was coloring other places than his workbook! AHHHH! He drew - with blue crayon - on our carpet! AHHHH!

This is not Hyrum's first Picasso moment. About a month ago, he took BLUE PEN and wrote on the carpet on the stairs!! AHH!!! I used several cleaners to try and get that pen out, but whatever I used first, turned the blue ink 10 times brighter and more obvious. I eventually got it out pretty good - but I was not expecting a repeat offense so soon! AHHHH!

So before I started scrubbing, I sent him to time out. I was pretty mad, so I told him he would be there till Thayne got home (he had gone to WalMart). I tried carpet cleaner first. This stuff claims to get out ink, cosmetics, grease, blood, rust, among other things, and I thought for sure it could handle blue crayon... WRONG. On to my next cleaner - rubbing alcohol. This stuff worked wonderfully. I was able to get it sufficiently clean!

So now I am calm and ready to talk to Hyrum (even before Thayne got home!) and turn to look at Hyrum and call him out, and he had fallen asleep!!


I've had kids scream, flop, kick, hit, play, cry, stomp, sneak out of , and do handstands in timeout - - but this is the first time anyone has fallen asleep! Com'on he wasn't there THAT long...

I woke him up and we talked about coloring - that we should only color on PAPER... I have my doubts that this was the last offense, but here's hoping!

SAMUEL is F-I-V-E (December 2010)

Samuel turned 5 on December 16th! He was all too excited to tell me how old he was. I can't believe he is that old! In the Fall, he will go to Kindergarten! AH!! He is growing up. Samuel is pretty easy to read. He loves to tell everyone about Mario and how he defeats the main enemies on the Mario Bros. Wii video game. So it wasn't too hard to figure out what kind of cake I wanted to make him. It had to be Mario...

Then I let this idea simmer some more and had a brillant plan. We would make all his gifts MARIO gifts. It was truly a Mario Party (haha)!

So remember last year I made everyone a special shirt on their birthday? Here's how Samuel's turned out. He saw Mario and instantly LOVED IT! YEA!



Some of the Mario gifts he got were shirts, a backpack, a lunchbox, figures (the ones on his cake), a Mario Kart Remote controlled car, a GameBoy with a few games - including Mario, it was so much fun!

Here's Samuel's cake (yes, it was inspired by my Halloween costume):


At the end of the night, Samuel told me: "Mom, this is my happiest day!" AWWW! To see his sweet face and beautiful smile and hear cute words like that just melt my heart and it makes all the planning and work for their birthday totally worth it!

Samuel you are such an awesome young man and we LOVE you so very much and are so glad you had your happiest day on your birthday!

P.S. Remember I also told you my judge of how good a cake I made is if another child gets jealous of it? Hyrum tells me all the time that he wants a Mario cake! :) Don't tell him, but I've got another awesome plan in the works for him!

P.S.S. Shortly after his birthday, Samuel phased out of Mario a little and is now more focused on being a football player. So the timing of his birthday was perfect! When we were leaving New Orleans after our trip down there for Christmas, we were all in the car waving, saying our 'goodbyes' and 'I Love Yous' and what do you think Samuel shouted?? - - "Don't forget I'm a football player!!" LOL :D

Playing Catch-Up

Yes, there was a period when some wondered if I would ever blog again... I am glad to report that I am blogging again, and so I need to post what happened during the 'blackout.' I do love that our blog is like our family's journal... So if you see old posts, that's me trying to catch up a little.

Superbowl Party a.k.a. the Food Fest of the Century!

So I have to say growing up watching the Superbowl was all about the commercials... Now that I am grown, I have to say too many of the commercials are about beer and/or are crude and not appropriate. However, we do enjoy watching football and we LOVE to eat good food. So now the Superbowl is more about having awesome 'eats' while we watch the game.

We invited our friends Saskia, Chris, & their kiddos over and had some of the best food ever! I forgot to take pictures, so a menu and internet photos are all I can provide! We had:


Brownies cut & frosted to look like footballs


Peach Dump Cake w/pecans

Cheesecake Sopapillas

Stuffed Jalapenos


Fresh Salsa

Hot Dogs and Homemade Chili

7 Layer Dip

Chicken Quesadillas

Chicken Wings - Buffalo style


Peanut Butter Fudge

YUM! Writing this post is making salivate! Thanks Saskia and Chris for your awesome contributions and for being such great friends! I don't know how we will top the food next year... but we'll have to try! ;)


P.S. Samuel has 3 Superbowl rings now... and those pro football players think they're so hard to get! Maybe we should tell them they can go to Wal-Mart and get them on top of cupcakes... Maybe not. I know what you're really thinking: "Superbowl rings AND cupcakes?? Can life get any sweeter?!" ;)

Valentine's Day

We had a fun valentines day! All month long Thayne and I have been doing a valentine's countdown where we get to do fun, cute things for each other each day.


On valentine's day, I made goodie bags for Thayne and the kiddos and Thayne bought me beautiful roses!! We put the goodies on the table for the kids to find on valentine's morning! Here's what it looked like (after the kids got into the treats a little)!

P.S. We got a new table!! Here's what it looks like without holiday goodness on it. I know drastically more boring, but I still LOVE it. AND.. it is the same table that Michael and Sarah have :)


To Michael and Sarah we would like to say: "THANK YOU for having such a great and awesome table that it made us want to have a great table too!"


One of the coolest features of this table is that it turns from a 46" square table to a 65" round table! It's also a counter height, which is fun, but also scary when Anna climbs up!