I have a tummy ache!

I ate too many Christmas cookies today. I didn't have lunch and so instead of making a healthy sandwich or eating an apple, I came home and ate cookies. And now I don't feel so good. 

Note to the Solis children: This is why I only let you have 2 or 3 cookies at a time! - Mom

Snow Day

School ended up being cancelled today, 

much to my children's delight 

and my chagrin!

Laura and Peter had fun playing in the snow in our backyard.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

We don't get a lot of snow here in Albuquerque, so when it does snow it's a big deal. Peter and Laura were so excited to play in the snow. Apparently Emily has outgrown the love of playing in the snow. She was happy to stay warm and dry inside.

Here are some pictures of the snow in front of our house.

They've already announced that all the schools will be on a two-hour delay tomorrow. You get a little bit of snow on the roads here and the city shuts down! Still, I'm looking forward to sleeping in an hour.

Ready to Give Up!

I set a New Year's Resolution two years ago and have been working on it ever since. My resolution was to have all 3 of my children sit on the pew for the entire 70 minutes of sacrament meeting. No lying down on the floor, no lying down on the pew, no standing on the pew, no hanging upside down from the pew. Bottoms glued to the pew! It has been 2 years and Peter and Laura still do NOT sit on the bench for all of sacrament meeting. Peter is 8 and Laura is 5 1/2. I know they are physically capable of sitting still. I've seen them sit still in front of a movie for 2 hours. I am so tired of trying to get them to sit up, sit down, sit still. I am so tired of hitting my head against the same brick wall every Sunday. Maybe I'll have more success in 2009.

It's a Blond Thing

My daughter has blond hair. She's a really smart kid, but sometimes her "blondness" really shows  through. 

Like today...

We got Emily an iPod for Christmas last year and she listens to it a lot. She has a bad habit of swinging her iPod by the earphones. 

Well, last week, karma caught up with her and her earpieces broke off of the wiring. She borrowed a pair of earphones that we had gotten for free on the airplane to Paris. She broke those by the end of the day. On to the next set of airplane earphones. Broken within 48 hours. 

We promised to buy her some new earphones as a reward for babysitting her siblings a lot lately. So, today Shad took her to Target and she picked some out. 

When she got home she got out the scissors to open the box. Shad and I then heard her say, "Uh oh, I think I just cut off the earphones." And sure enough, she had! She was trying to cut the twisty tie that was holding the wires into the package and instead cut the wire for the earphones. What can I say? She's a blond.

A Wasted Day

Last night before I went to bed, I made a list of things I needed to do today. The day is over and my list is just as long as it was when I wrote it last night. I didn't do any of the things on it. And yet, I was busy every moment of the day. So what did I do today?

• Got kids to practice for today's piano lesson

• Put laundry in the washing machine

• Tidied up the downstairs at least enough so that I wouldn't die of embarrassment when the piano teacher showed up for the kids' lesson (she's so awesome - she comes to my house for their lessons!)

• Ate breakfast while reading articles about Mary, the mother of Jesus, in preparation for the talk I'm giving in the Christmas program Sunday

• Put a few more dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on

• Helped entertain piano teacher's little boy while she taught my monsters, I mean kids

• Reported my Visiting Teaching for December

• Cajoled Peter and Laura into spending 20 minutes doing 1 or 2 math problems (actually I cajoled for 17  minutes and they did math for 3)

• Went to a doctor's appointment

• Drove past the new school that's being built so that Family School actually has a brick and mortar campus instead of all portables (it is going to be such a beautiful building - we're so excited!)

• Picked up Emily and her friend from school where they had been putting in some "overtime" doing art for Art and Poetry Night next week

• Tried to comfort Laura after she fell down and scraped her hand and knee exactly 2 seconds after I told her and Peter to stop running around before they knocked someone over

• Dropped off Emily and friend at friend's house and picked up friend's brother and sister

• Drove back to my house

• Had 15 minutes to make lunch for myself, Peter, and Laura and wolf it down

• Drove back to Family School for art "overtime" in Peter's and Laura's class (and brought the friend's brother and sister along - they're in the same class with my younger 2)

• Stayed and helped do art for 2 hours, which included sewing paper books with leather covers and blistering my thumb and middle finger from having to pull so hard to get the needle's eye to come through the leather

• Took all four kids with me to drop off the books my book club had collected for foster kids at Children, Youth, and Families Department

• Dropped off the brother and sister and allowed them to cajole their mom into keeping all 3 of my kids for another hour (if you've read some of my earlier blogs, this mom's name is Heidi and she is Wonder Woman incognito)

• Went home and started water boiling for baked ziti for tonight's High Priest Group Social

• Moved load of laundry into dryer, put new load in washer

• Helped Shad put lights in our front yard

• Prepared a double batch of baked ziti

• Sent Shad to rescue Heidi from our children

• Got first load out of dryer, put second load into dryer

• Figured out our credit card statement and how to pay for it (we never have a balance on it)

• Fed half of one batch to my kids and mom for dinner

• Read a chapter from our family Christmas book "Guess Who's Stealing the Twelve Days of Christmas?"

• Got second load of laundry out of the dryer

• Accompanied my husband and 1 1/2 pans of baked ziti, across the street to the High Priest Group Leader's house for the Christmas Social

• Compared myself to the other women there and found myself lacking; commented to my husband about one woman in particular who is perfect (I'm surprised her family hasn't been taken up to heaven like the city of Enoch); my husband told me that I was just like her, just not as good at keeping the house clean (gee - thanks!)

• Ate appetizers, salad, Chicken Parmesan, Baked Ziti, more salad, more Baked Ziti, chocolate chip cheesecake, and angel food lemon pie

• Talked with the Joneses about our trip to France (their son had served his mission in France) and vowed to myself that I will go back and next time I'll go see the Loire River Valley

• Came home and folded laundry for an entire hour while I watched Wednesday night's Law and Order on my DVR

• Wrote this blog so that I could keep up on my goal to blog every day this month

• Going to go to bed after I make another to do list for tomorrow, which will inevitably remain unfinished, again