prom

My high school friends were right. It is so fun to go to bed with your date after prom. Last night I pulled out the pinkilicious prom dress of 1989 (minus the ginormous butt bow) and Tony and I went to Cheney for my Aunt Clara's annual Gold and Green Ball. We danced to the night away and I counted myself lucky to have found one of the very few men in the world who both likes to dance and is not addicted to pornography. My Uncle Ray was also there visiting from California and got roped into serenading Grandma Abuelita. Amazingly, my Mom and Dad were there too. I want to look like (not feel like) my Mom at age 60. She was beautiful.

The second highlight of the evening was watching Eliza's eyes nearly pop out of her head to see her mother coifed in such satin and lace. She gave the prom dress a little try on but sadly, only the bustline was her size.

Cooper had a birthday celebration to remember on Tuesday. Tony took he and his friend Braeden to see the Harlem Globetrotters in Spokane. Coop loved the show, loved the donughts, loved the soda, loved the undivided attention. Cooper would have made a wonderful only child.

Wilson woke up Wednesday night (Tony was inevitably on call at the hospital) with a temp of 103 and babbling incoherently. He was so sick for about 48 hours. Not wanting to risk the spread of the plague, I marched everyone down to the clinic for flu shots. "Not Daddy," they all cried, "we want Margaret!" Tony's nurse is so amazing.

Saturday was spring. We took the kids and Callie and Audrey to Rattlesnake Road for a hike. The sun was out and we all just soaked it up as much as we could. Cooper spent the day with Don and Kaleb fishing at Garfield pond. Fish not biting, oh
happy day.


Tony took the three big kids and Kaleb skiing on Monday for the holiday. They had perfect weather. I spent the day at Jill's with Marcos and Max where my true intent was to be helpful. I vacuumed a little, helped sort clothes and really just spent time remembering why I admire and like Jill so much. Plus my boys got to play with their cousins and I got to hold that sweet baby.

love you

Happy Valentines Day. We celebrate the day of love the same way we celebrate every other holiday: with a sugar fest.

Sunday we had dinner and family home evening at Mom and Dad's house. It was like having Mom back from the dead. We even webcamed Tyler and Chelsea in from Utah (could Beck get any cuter-I don't think so.) Dad gave a powerpoint presentation on his trip to Peru and the cousins ran amuck.

One hard moment of the night was watching Wilson attempt to be included in adult conversation and humor. Since he's 12 he has little social sense and what was meant as a joke came across as major disrespect. Wilson felt the disapproval from his uncle and was really embarrassed. I am surprised to discover that is actually more painful to watch your kids go through this age than it is to be this age. I hope it is easier the second, third, fourth, fifth time around. Wilson has made such major strides (like not punching people anymore) but social interactions may never be his strength. On the plus side, wrestling appears to be a real strong point, literally. He could break me in half and can nearly take down his Dad. I give Tony two years tops before he is feeling the rug burns.

magic flute

I liked my kids yesterday.
We got dressed up (on a Saturday nonetheless) and went downtown to the Met for a performance of Mozart's Magic Flute. Lucky for us it was a wonderful children's adaptation. Marcos got to spend the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa and then we all went out for icecream. The kids had been so well behaved and grateful all day that we spent the rest of the evening playing dark tag and kicking our heels up to really loud 80's music. Tony had a crazy day on call so it must have been nice for him to come home to a happy wife and happy kids.


Cooper burst through the door on Thursday with a broken nose swollen like a grapefruit and bleeding from both nostrils. Despite my usual ability to tell my kids to buck up, this injury shook me. Turns out, the year long battle of words with the kids across the street had finally come to a head resulting in a backpack to Cooper's face. What the perpatrator failed to remember was the heavy remote control car in the backpack. I was so close to going over to talk to the parents, but instead felt like we needed to all calm down and turn to the scriptures. That night we reviewed the Savior's advice on how to handle our enemies. Cooper did not think turning the other cheek was an option and frankly didn't think he could pray for his enemies either. My idea to take cookies over was met with a resounding NO. What amazed me was watching the spirit work on him to soften his heart so that by the time he got home from school he had totally forgiven the kids and was giving them gifts. I really think that life lesson was worth a broken nose--sorry Coop.


In reviewing pictures I noted that I had four good Mom moments recently. Thankfully, my 12,000 Not Good Mom Moments were not captured on camera. The good ones included:

laughing when Marcos ate an entire jar of blackberry jam

learning to make corn tortillas with the kids

making cupcakes to celebrate Max'x pretend birthday

sewing American girl clothes with Eliza