Dear Blog,

Sorry I haven't written in like- FOREVER. I'll give you a quick rundown of my last 2 weeks. Starting October 24 through today: Monday: I took Tu Tu Cute pictures of my niece Madison and Brooklyn (for which I'm making a canvas that is going to be SUPER cute... aSSUMING I ever make it).

Tuesday: I babysat and took the kiddos IN the WAGON to the library for Trick or Treating at the Library. (OAK GROVE should SERIOUSLY invest in some dang SIDEWALKS. I am STILL picking STICKERS out of my FEET from sludging through random BRIAR patches that block my SHOULD be clear path from my house to the library. AND we have super nice people in our town that stopped and asked if I broke down and needed a ride. Awesome! I ALWAYS have my little red wagon handy when I break down).

Wednesday: I made Chili for the Chili Cook off. (Yes. It was incredible. Incredibly out of about six cans. AND then I tried to make it look home-made by placing it in a crock pot and adding onions and some spices. It worked okay... There were no left overs. I didn't even try it to see how it turned out. When we got home from our Fall Festival I asked Starling if he'd tried it. "Uhh...no..." I think he sort of felt bad, but I reassured him it was fine. "I steered clear of it, too, honey. I ate out of the WINNING CHILI crock pots"). I babysat two of my favorite kiddos, Colton and Boston. We made cupcakes (ALSO for the Fall Festival). I bought gummy worms to stick on top of Green icing with crumbled oreos. (Ya know... worms crawling out of dirt?) ANYWAY- Colton wanted to know if he was going to get to eat a worm or WHAT. I told them they could each have one and the rest had to go on the cup cakes. Colton started eating his. Brooklyn chomped down on hers. BOSTON was holding his but looking AWFULLY uncertain about biting into it. "What's wrong, Buddy?" I asked him. "Ummm... will it bite me?" I noticed then he was staring at the gummy worm's mouth. I laughed. "Do you think it'll bite you?" He shook his head no. "Its NOT real." But he made no effort to bite it. "Will you bite off his head?" He asked me again. I told him I would. I stuck it up to my lip and SCREAMED, "AHHHH!!!!!" Boston, Colton, and Brooklyn all three screamed. I yanked it off my face. "DON'T BITE ME WORM!!" They giggled and laughed. THEN I said, "Colton... YOU bite its head off." Uh uh. He didn't feel so brave about biting into that gummy worm. Brooklyn didn't want to either. So I chased them around for about 30 minutes making that worm bite them. I haven't laughed that hard in a LOOOONG time. THEN, after the boys got picked up, I had to decorate my trunk for Trunk or Treat. Luckily my mom had some Halloween decorations since I waited until the DAY OF to try to come up with some stuff. I made my trunk into a tomb and since it was dark by the time the kids Trunk or Treated... I probably could have just NOT bothered decorating it because I'd used black felt to make the tomb and that's pretty much what my trunk looked like. BLACK FELT. OH WELL- I took candy. THEN of course I had to get DRESSED. I was Spagetti and Starling was a Meatball. Brooklyn was Dorothy and Brighton was a Turtle. (a Turtle costume that was actually made for a dog. BUT- I got creative). We went to the Festival and I didn't see my children until the END because as soon as we got to church my babies were swept away by the older kids. I was busy stuffing chili into my beak (everyone's but mine) so I was glad for the break. I got NO pictures of ME. AGAIN! I always DO that... I take pics of everyone else, go home, get undressed, and say CRAP! I didn't even take a picture of my spagetti outfit! OH WELL. I wasn't redressing up. Thursday: I painted and had a meeting about Missionary Work.

Friday: I went and got my inspection sticker for my Altima. My LOVELY car. FINALLY 100% legal. Sticker. Tag. AND I went to the Post Office to get a money order thingy to send to Jackson so they'd make my license UNsuspended. WELL of course BOTH kids fell asleep RIGHT before I got to the post office. "Can I just LEAVE them in the car while I RUN IN??" I asked myself. NO. I'll probably get arrested. SO? I haul BRIGHTON's car seat out and place it by the post office door. THEN I lift Brooklyn out and haul HER back to the post office. I'm PARKED right in front of the post office- like NOT two miles away or anything. I turned around and TWO people are having a PANIC attack over Brighton. I hear one of the women saying, "--heard about this kind of stuff happening on tv but I can't believe someone would actually just DROP a baby off!" And the other lady, "WELL I'll take him!" And instead of interrupting them and telling them its my kid, I just waltz up with Brooklyn over my shoulder and let them TELL me about how they just CAME out of the post office and THERE he was. When they finish all of their speculating and have worked themselves into a frenzy, I tell them he's mine, LAUGH, and waddle the two sleeping children to the counter. I bought my money order and then, ready to mail it, realized I had to FILL it out. Is there a PEN? NOOOO... Am I about to haul the kids ALL the way back to the car and FIND ONE?? HECK NO! I'm already in a state of physical DOOM, both arms yanked from their sockets and muscularly jello. Some dude is trying to rush past me and I see a pen in his shirt pocket. "OH YOU have a Pen?" I can tell he's about to make up an excuse so I nod to the one in his pocket. "Oh...uh... yeh." So I hurriedly fill out the money order and hand back the pen. He's trying to RUN from me. "WAIT!" I chased him down and RE-GRABBED the pen. "I filled out the customer's copy." I filled out the RIGHT part and gave him back his pen. "WAIT!!!" I grabbed it again. "I have to write the address on the envelope." I DO hope he wasn't in a hurry. THEN I headed towards Chic Filet to meet Starling for lunch. I finish telling Starling how HORRIBLE it is to take children on errands, hang up and some car slams on brakes in front of me. I in turn punch my brakes. I think I'm all good but then I hear the loudest squealing of tires on asphalt and I am SOOO confused. I push my brake down harder but I THINK I'm already stopped. And then... CRASH!!! HOW in the HECK? WHAT? The car in front of me drives off. It took me seriously an entire MINUTE to realize "I" didn't run into a car, but a GINORMOUS truck tail ended me. GREAT!! GREAT!! SUPER DUPeR!! WOW! Talk about FABULOUS timing! I glance at my kids and I absolutely, positively, do NOOOOOOT want to look at my car. NOOOO. Please don't be damaged. Please don't be broken, car. I just got you LEGAL to DRIVE!!! I finally look. Ooooohhhh.... my trunk is CRUNCHED. Like an EGG. My tail light is busted off. I MIGHT would've fallen out in the road and let the passing traffic run me over, BUT there was a distraught young man to tend to. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" And then his mom and dad showed up. They were apologizing ninety to nothing. "Its fine... we're all fine..." "THIS is his FIRST wreck EVER! Never a speeding ticket, nothing!" I assured the mom AGAIN that is was okay. "This is MY first wreck, too," I told her, "That wasn't my FAULT..." Out of... umm... five? Six? Twelve? but who's counting....? I really only count the ones involving OTHER vehicles THAT have a police report to go with them. That's only... um... THREE that count. TWO bump ups I had didn't have any damage- well to THEIR cars- so THEY don't count. And all the OTHER crashes with phone poles, trees, ditches, removed fountain holes, bolders, traffic barrels etc??? Yeah. Those don't count either. I told the dude he's just lucky he's gone FIVE years without an accident. I can't go five minutes. I mean... REALLY. I drove to New Orleans a few weeks ago and ripped off my mirror on a light pole. WHILE staring into the mirror. It SHOWED I was clearing my car. RIGHT before the mirror disappeared from sight with a loud POP. Luckily Starling fixed it.

I didn't have time to cry or anything. I had to get ready to go help at my friends' wedding reception. We, of COURSE, drive to the WRONG Clubhouse. I rush in and some lady runs up to me and asks if I've seen Kelly. "No! That's who I'm looking for!" So I rush around looking for the mom of the bride. And then I notice everyone is drinking and a lot of them are already drunk. What? Mormon people don't drink alcohol and so I was SOOo confused NOT to mention I'd been scurrying around for ten minutes and STILL hadn't seen anyone I knew. I found the lady looking for Kelly. "Umm... what KELLY are you looking for?" She said a DIFFERENT last name than the Kelly I was looking for. CRAP! So then we finally went to the RIGHT place. We left there, picked up the kids from my parents, and got home after midnight.

Saturday: We woke up WAY before my brain could've POSSIBLY been expected to function. We slugged around to do our garage sale. NO ONE that said they were going to SET UP STUFF showed up. AND some crazy lady was harassing me the WHOLE time. AND Starling left ME with my CAR but accidentally took my KEYS. So I was just chilling stuck with a crazy lady that was telling me how SHE was going to RUN the flea market. I was biting my tongue because she didn't KNOW that I'm the one buying the property she THINKS she is going to run. She was just going ON and ON about how SHE was going to tell the GUY (the guy being my HUSBAND) that she was renting this giant building and that he was not going to charge her a lot of rent at FIRST because she needed to be established before she had to pay rent and BLA BLA. FINALLY I couldn't take it anymore. "Are you referring to Mr. Johnson?" "Yeah- my partner has been in touch and we've worked it all out." "Is that right? Well I'm Wendi Johnson. His wife." THEN her story started BACK pedaling. "Well my partner hasn't been able to get him on the phone. But tell him we've got our plans all worked out." When she left, I called Starling. He had a feeling to stop and talk to this lady that does flea markets on his way back to me. AND the crazy lady SHOWED up at THAT place and, having never met Starling, TOLD him that she WORKED there and was RUDE to him. We got the biggest kick out of her. Like HOW many lies can you tell someone in ONE day. Needless to say- the Bargain Bash Kickoff was a DUD. AND we know who we are NOT renting to. But, after I forgave Starling for LEAVING me with that NUT JOB, we met with a very nice lady who we may do some business with. (WHICH, by the way, the crazy lady told us was her ParTner and that- SUrPriSE!- was also a LIE). We ran home from our meeting with her, changed, and went to the church for my friend's Baptism. I spoke on the Holy Ghost. We left straight from there and went to a Fiesta. A real one. One of our Spanish friend's was having his 40th birthday. His wife is white. Okay- it started off normal with her family being there. He opened gag gifts and it was fun. Really fun! But that's because I've only had white girl fun. I didn't have all that much to compare it to. Then all the rest of the Spanish people showed up and all the white people left except us. THEN the REAL party got started. CAN i JUST say... I was SOOOO born into the WRONG culture!! I'm officially a wanna be Latina. The Salsa music was turned up. KIDS were running wild shaking moroccas and dancing. The ADULTS ALL danced! And it was family friendly dancing. Brooklyn was passed from one dancing adult to the next. I have NEVER seen Brooklyn have so much fun. She had a morocca in each hand and she was in the middle of all the dancing. Starling and I jumped in the dance train and I was LOVING IT!! Starling had his guitar and he played all the fun Spanish songs that I know, too, since I live with him. SOOOoooo Awesome! I know what REAL fun is now and I hate to tell ya- white people just don't do it right. And the FOOOOD... omgracious... phenomenal. From now on, Starling is getting a Fiesta birthday. And so our my children. And so am I.

Sunday: We went to church and afterwards we went to Hayden's baptism and then crashed into a nap and probably would have never woken up if I didn't have a 2 year old jumping on my head yelling for chocolate milk. We went on a family walk and went to bed for the night.

Monday: 31st. Halloween... I was so burned out on dressing up that its all I could do to dress Brooklyn. Brighton got to be a chicken since Brooklyn insisted he wear her chicken suit. Starling and I did NOT dress up. We just pulled the little red wagon with the kiddos inside. (MY little red wagon... so its 25 years old and still rolling. Must be a Honda. lol). Anyway- they racked up on candy. And we burned enough calories to feel NO guilt about helping the kids eat their candy.

Tuesday: We met with two potential business partners and discussed the possibility of turning the entire land into Flea Market territory. They have some really cool ideas and the experience to DO it. I'm starting to doubt my capability in running something that big. I mean... I can't even make a garage sale happen properly.

Wednesday: I enjoyed some quality socializing at Craft Day. I made- TU TU's! That's like ALL I do now days. And PAINT. Then Starling and Eric played at the Candy Buy Back. I took the babes up their and we had a BLAST and won LOTS of cool stuff!!

Thursday and Friday: I did nothing but paint. I am so used to looking at unfinished walls that until I started painting the touch up areas, I didn't realize what a LARGE JOB we have ahead of us. Then we went to Russ and Kristen's engagement party and took the kids. We are ALWAYS the only ones that haul our kids everywhere we go. BUT- I really like having my kids around. Most days. And so we'll keep taking them until people stop inviting us because there are five of them. Brooklyn had a ball. She danced in her hot pink tu tu. Like her Daddy. She dances like her daddy. I'm going to have to put her in DANCE just for MY sanity. Brighton danced too, and giggled and laughed. That kid is SOOO happy... and perfect. And I'm STILL obsessed with him five months later. EVERY little roll!

Saturday: Starling was HOME today! FOR like the first time in FOREVER he didn't WORK on a Saturday! It was GLORIOUS!! He worked HERE instead of somewhere else. He sanded the master bath's walls so now we are ready to PAINT!! We went to Lowe's and picked out bathroom paint, new hall paint (we're going LIGHTER), and new paint for Brighton's room. Starling picked a hall color. I picked a hall color. Usually we are super great at compromising BUT neither of us were willing to budge. SOoooOOoo that only left ONE solution. Paper. Rock. Scissors. I won. The hall is going to look GREAT! Then we watched the football game and ate pizza at David's. That was a gREAT game. SO many touchdowns. NOT. BUT we had fun talking.

Sunday: THANK goodness for Daylight Savings Time- since its TODAY and I'm STILL blogging away... But I HAD to catch up!