The Sisterhood

So during movie night this past week I was torn between two movies that I was dying to see.

Tay and Rylee were watching "A Barbie Christmas Carol" upstairs.

Jess was watching "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" downstairs.

Jayson was frantically vacuuming the house with his new vacuum from Santa (more on that later).

I went with the pants movie.

Great choice.

I got to spend time with my sweet wife....

and learn some valuable life lessons from a fictional girls club.

Jess and I never watched the first movie, so we were grateful the movie so quickly and conveniently caught us up on the most important bits of drama we had missed.

The four girls in the movie traveled to different locations for their college summer break, but shipped the magic hippie pants back and forth with a brief note so they could all wear them at some point during the summer.

The pants were so important that they all four traveled to Greece to find them once they heard they were lost by Lena's little sister Effey. (Really? Effey?) Well, three of them went to find the pants and make sure their friend once again connected with her "love of a lifetime" beau-married to another girl due to a before-the-show-started pre-marital pregnancy that turned out to be a lie (by his manipulative girlfriend/wife)-subsequently freeing him up to annul the marriage just in case Lena would have him back.

Very intense story line.

As it turns out, Lena leaves her new (better looking, I might add) boyfriend who is very nice and sweet to her, for her former boyfriend from Greece (who I might have liked better if I'd seen the first movie). They never did find the pants.

I could never really get into the show. I'm not sure if it was because I missed the first one, or if I couldn't get one thought out of my mind..."There is no way all four of those girls could fit into those 'magic' pants".

Coincidentally, Carmen never even tried to put them on (at least not that I remember). At least the show turned out in the end to be a little more realistic than first portrayed.

Biggest life lesson learned: When Jess watches the Traveling Pants 1...I'm going to be pretend-vacuuming with Jayson.

Christmas Donation to Clearfield City

Apparently Clearfield City expects drivers to make a complete stop at four way stops--even when nobody else is on the road and one of the four roads is merely a circle. Who knew?

Since when did "putting your foot over the brake and looking in all directions before proceeding" stop being good enough? And since when did being in a hurry for Larry Miller's Free Christmas sing-a-long at the Energy Solutions Arena not constitute an emergency?

Turns out it was a fairly expensive Christmas FHE for the Dunroes. And Merry Christmas to you Traffic Officer Durrant...

"Train up a child in the way he should go...."

So tonight Jess showed me something alarming about Jayson. It got me thinking about a potential career path for my little Momma's Boy.

http://www.daisymaids.com/

Yep. He just might be a "daisy maid" someday.

Tonight Jess showed me his new favorite thing.
Laundry.
She gets the clothes out of the washer (a few items at a time). She hands them to him.
He giggles with delight and puts them in the dryer. Then turns back to his mommy to get a new bunch of wet clothes. She said when he is around she can't put the clothes in herself or he grunts in disgust and then takes them out and puts them in by himself.

I would like to think he is just being a gentleman. But I know him too well.

His second favorite thing is to unload the dishwasher. He takes out the dishes one at a time and brings them over to me to put in the cupboard. Saturday I watched him wrestle a frying pan that was stuck in there too tight. After three or four minutes, he wrestled it free.

His third favorite thing to do is sweep the floor. He even knows how to use a dustpan.

His fourth favorite thing is to try to use the vacuum. Our vacuum is so heavy, yet he manages to move it across the floor (whenever we aren't around). He is obsessed with it.

He's a dream come true for mothers and future wives everywhere.

I need some more one on one time with him. We need to just sit down together, with our feet propped up on an ottoman, remote in hand, watching a football game or mindless sitcom. He needs to learn to tune out the sound of the washer buzzer (signaling another load for the dryer). I need to teach him not to hear the sound of the dishwasher open and the sound of dishes being put away. I need to teach him that all he needs to know about the vacuum is his responsibility to lift up his feet and let someone else vacuum under them. I need to teach him that you can sweep crumbs under the edge of the cabinet with your foot in a fraction of the time it takes to even get the broom out of the broom closet. I need to teach him that a "honey do" is some sort of fruit and not a mandatory list. That kid has so much to learn.

Most importantly, he needs to learn that when he hears his mom call him from the other room, it usually means.....
Ooops. I will have to finish this blog later, Jess is mumbling about the kitchen being a mess and laundry needing to be done...

I better go find Jayson.

P.S. According to Jess, Jayson said his first "non-Momma", "non-Dadda", word today.
The word...

"Mote".
He yelled that three times as he pointed towards the half wall where the TV remote was sitting.
I couldn't be more proud of that kid!!!

Flashback Friday--Jumpin' at the chance to Christmas Shop

Last night Jess and I had the opportunity to go Christmas shopping without the kids. It was nice to get out together. It's also fun to think about Christmas's past. I remember the joy I felt when I opened up my first package of superman underoos.
I remember how pumped I was to get them.
But that was last year.
This year it's all about the kids. And Jess.

I'm trying to get Jess a new house.
So the kids might be lucky to get anything.

After shopping we hit Quiznos for some sandwiches. They had put all the chairs up (a half hour before closing) so we took our sandwiches and ate in the car.

It was "wiggity-wiggity-wiggity-wack"!
Yep. Kriss Kross came on the radio.
If only we had hydraulics in the Yukon, we could have really Jump(ed) Jump(ed).

Hey, I'm not too proud to claim I liked that song. Still do. "act like you know and don't be claimin' that it's mental".

Some of the highlights:
"The Mack Dad'll make ya..
Daddy Mack'll make ya.
Kriss Kross'll make ya. Jump. Jump."

Oh Yeah!

"Some o' them try to rhyme, but they can't rhyme like this."
"'Cause I'm the Miggity-Miggity-Miggity-Miggity-Mack-Daddy"

Kinda makes me want to put on my Yankees shirt and low-rider jeans on backwards and strut home.

"Now the formalities are this and that...
For all y'all suckas that don't know....
Check it out...."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J5titd0Kbw

Commuter Musings

Well maybe the environmentalists were right. But maybe not.
I've noticed an awful lot of roadkill during my commutes along the Legacy Parkway. Yesterday, I counted four animal carcasses on my way into work--three were unidentifiable. One I could smell. Coming home, I saw three different raccoon corpses along the side of the road.

Perhaps the parkway really has messed up these poor creatures' homes.
Then again, maybe the highway really isn't disturbing the animals too badly.
Apparently these seven didn't even know there was a road there at all.

The good news for me is that my commute is now taking me back down memory lane to my mission days in Kentucky.
I had never seen so much roadkill in my nineteen-year life.
Although there, the roadkill was different. The carcasses left along the roadside had names like "Spot", "Mittens", or "Sprinkles".

I think everything of value was scooped off the road, thrown into a pot or placed on a skillet.
Kentucky Fried Possom,
Squirrel Kabobs,
Chili-Con-Coon.
We ate at Taco Bell...a lot.

Coincidently, I had also never seen pamper-trees in Utah. Yep, dirty diapers hanging from the lower tree branches in them thar' hills. I'll save that for another post.

Blues

I had the worst dream last night.

I dreamed the Cougars were in a tight game with the Utes but then Max Hall turned the ball over 6 times and the Cougs got blown out in the 4th quarter.
As the nightmare continued, I arrived home and Jess was acting, all of a sudden, like this huge Utah football fan who follows them all year long and never misses a game.
Front-runner.
Well scoot over Jess, I might as well hop on the bandwagon and hope the Utes win their BCS game. After all, it's "good for the conference", right?

Next year....new tradition. No more blue eggs, waffles and milk.
Maybe we'll try a blue breakfast burrito.

Rivalry Week

This morning, in celebration of "the Holy War", the kids and I sat down for our first annual Cougar Blue Breakfast:

Blue Eggs and ham, and cheese (for Rylee).

Blue Milk.

Blue waffles (with blueberries for me).

We started by singing the end of the Cougar fight song... "Goooooooo Cougars!"

Jayson, not at all sure what was going on, still played along (probably wondering where his real breakfast was).



Last night I tried to convince Jess (who was horrified when she opened the fridge friday night to a gallon of brand new--blue--milk) to play along and join us for breakfast. I begged. I badgered. No go.
As she headed upstairs for bed, I could clearly hear her saying:

"I do not like blue eggs and ham, I do not like them Sean I Am.
I would not eat them with Max Hall, I do not like them, Not at All!
I would not eat them with Steve Young, I will not touch them with my tongue.
I would not eat them with Heisman Ty, Why would you make them, Why, Why, Why?
I would not eat them with John Beck, Why would you make them, Oh My Heck!
I do not like blue eggs and ham, I do not like them Sean I Am"

And as she headed out this morning, I swear I heard:

"I would not eat them here, nor there,
I would not eat them anywhere.
I would not eat them in the MUSS (the crazy, half-sober, U student section),
I would not eat them without a fuss.
I will not eat them in the kitchen,
So Sean I Am, Please quit your (it trailed off as she shut the garage door)."

Go Cougs!!!