Thank heaven for cold air.

The other night Maggie woke up with a croupy cough. You all know that horrid barking. Whenever Parly got the croup she always had to be rushed to the hospital. Not fun in the middle of the night. I have always found the running- the- shower- and- letting- the- hot steam- in- the room- relieve- the- croupiness method not so effective. Plus no hot water for my shower the next morning. Ugh. I HAVE found that taking the child out into cold air is the best and fastest method in relieving a croupy attack. Living here in St. George doesn't always guarantee cold air even at night, but I got lucky a couple of nights ago when Maggie got sick.

I went into her room and opened her window that is right by her bed. I bundled her up and we sat by the window breathing in the cold air. It worked great and soon Maggie was ready to go back to sleep. A few hours later she was barking again so I went in to repeat. She wasn't as excited to get up and over by the window. I told her she had to come over by the window so she could stop coughing and then she could go back to sleep. I told her to come and look at the air. I told her how great and cool it was and that the air would stop her coughing. So she came and we spent a few minutes commenting about the air and the stars and no moon. A couple more times like this and we made it through the night. No hospital visit. Not even a need to leave the room or really even get out of bed. Nice!

A couple of nights later Maggie woke up coughing. Not barking this time. So I went in to give her some cough medicine. She didn't want it. And kept spitting it out. Frustrating! I told her she HAD to take it so her coughing would stop so I ...I mean she could go back to sleep. She kept saying, "I wanna look at the air mommy." Sure. Sure. Now drink this and go back to sleep. I didn't get it until after I went back to bed. Look at the air. Oh, like we did for her croup. Funny. And smart.

24 days of Christmas -cliff notes style.

So I have been feeling like a little bit of a scrooge when it comes to holidays. I will blame it on my love for laziness. But since I want my children to have fond memories and traditions that they remember repeating, I thought I need to DO something. I saw a bunch of cute ideas for advent calendars on Mindi's blog (she has links to quite a few- check them out). I know I am starting a few days late but I thought this could be easy enough even for me to pull together. It was. I just got 24 green envelopes and glued 24 already cut red mittens on them and labeled 1 -24, representing the days in December (for those of you that don't know what an advent calendar is). I filled the envelopes with pieces of paper. On each paper are activities to do to celebrate the holidays together. Examples: Watch a Christmas movie, drive around and look at Christmas lights then come home and have hot chocolate, read a Christmas story, make paper snowflakes.....etc. For more of these ideas see Jordan's blog here. The best part about this is that I can switch the activities around however I want so if I don't feel like: making cookies and taking them to someone I can switch it with the: sit by the Christmas tree and stare at the lights together in silence. Nice. It all depends on how energetic I am feeling at that moment. This I can totally do. And if your kids are like my kids, anything that you get to open, read, and then do is the most exciting thing ever, even if it says: kiss your dad under the mistletoe.

Need a Hopeless Romance?

Have you ever finished reading a good book and thought, "I wish I wasn't done reading"? I do. You know, when you read through it too fast that it's over too soon. Yep? Anyway, here's a solution. I found this blog- My Super Hopeless Romance. It's about a girl who is in love with her best friend and he doesn't know it. It is cute, a definite chick-flick: all about loving, hoping and wishing for that love to be returned. It's written kind of like a book, but you can only read one post at a time (or at least until you catch up to today's post). She updates daily (usually). Go read. And remember what it felt like to really want that one perfect guy to like you, because you like him.

Daylight Savings= 1 extra hour of.....

So Daylight Savings, loved it before I had kids. Now, not so much..... until this year. On Sunday the kids slept in, so I got to too. Nice. Then today they woke up at 6:40 a.m. Not so nice. I finally decided to drag myself out of bed and noticed that the kids were : dressed, with beds made, and breakfast already eaten all before 7:30. With no need to head off to school until 8:30. What to do with the extra hour? Chores. Yep. My house was cleaned; picked up by Clayre, vacuumed by Parly, laundry sorted by Kate, and mopped by me all before 9. How great is that? Daylight Savings has a whole new meaning for me now.

Here are a few pictures of Halloween 2008:

Maggie Moo Cow

Clayre as a bride (yes, same costume Parly wore last year),
Maggie as a cow (great action shot),
Parly as a boy (that shirt was Shayne's when he was littler),
and Kate as a Fairy.

A little Short Getaway.

So I'm back from my weekend away. I went to my older sister's Mom's Out weekend again this year. Great time! Lots of yummy food. Movies. Talking and laughing. I also worked on a project this year. Which I stressed over each step, but they turned out superb. Here are a few pictures.

Me, Laurie (sister's mother-in-law), Emily (sister)

Table set for dinner

Food/Yummy

Movie time

Bedtime. One room was full of bunk beds. Good times.

Here is my project. Silhouette of the girls. They turned out great:

Happy?

So it has almost been a month since my last post. Sad. But how about something to make you happy. How about pictures from the Happiest Place on Earth. That's right. Disneyland! We went on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of last week. Advice: Go to Disneyland on Tuesday. It was awesome! The line situation is ideal. We went on Space Mountain 5 times, Thunder Mountain 4 times, and Splash Mountain 3 times. Each time Parly, Clayre, and I went on a fast rollercoaster ride we got braver and braver. One arm up, then both arms, and for Clayre finally screaming. She was always so stone faced and she finally started to let loose. Great fun.

I had a blast because Shayne does not enjoy any rides that basically move, so I got to run around with Parly and Clayre while Shayne mostly hung out with Kate and Maggie.
Favorite rides:

• Parly, Clayre, and myself loved California Screamin in California Adventure. With Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain a close 2nd and 3rd. Clayre also loves the Tower of Terror, which Parly and I braved but Kate didn't quite make it all the way. Opting out a the last second.
  
• Shayne enjoyed Soarin that is also in California Adventure.
  
• Kate said she like the Star Tours and Peter Pan and the Fish Carousel (in California Adventure), and the Rocket ride.
  
• Maggie's favorite ride? Probably playing on and around any stairs or railings. Kate and Maggie also seemed to really like the parades.
  

Lots of fun. Lots of laughs. Lots of memories.

Pictures above: Maggie enjoying her favorite rides.

One of the rides Shayne braved, Splash Mountain.

All the girls on Alice in Wonderland ride. Clayre looks like she is sick. Not so.
She was probably just bored. Clayre likes fast and falling rides.

Kate and Maggie on the Fish Carousel in California Adventure.

Parly, Kate, Clayre, and Maggie.

Also in October. Shayne and I ran the St. George Marathon again. It was Shayne's 10th, he is now in the 10 year club. Amazing. Even with the rain I was able to run my best, coming in at 3:32. That made me happy. Until next year.

Teeth and IOU's

Parly was so excited when a neighbor boy kneed her in the face. Why? Because it popped out her lose tooth. Tooth = Tooth Fairy = Money. Parly already knows about the real "Tooth Fairy" read about that here. So after all the kids had been in bed a few minutes, Parly came down to our bedroom. "Mom. Dad. I was thinking that since you don't have a lot of money right now, it would be okay if I didn't get anything from the Tooth Fairy this time. I will just keep my tooth. And it's okay... because it came out in a fun way." Wow. Sooo sweet. She left the room a little teary eyed. I of course had forgotten that she had even lost a tooth so was happy for the reminder. And Shayne told her not to worry that we would take care of it and that it was nice of her to think of us. A little later with the lights out, Shayne asks if I remembered to put something under Parly's pillow. Ah, no. What is wrong with me, seriously? I get up. Neither of us has any cash or change. So... Parly got an IOU from the Tooth Fairy. Now before any of you send us money to payback Parly for her tooth... Shayne does have a job now, no more redundancy...just no cash at the moment.

Back to School = Scott kids chores

School has started so that means the Scott Family is back to all it's routines. One of those routines is daily chores. I love that my kids are getting older so their chores actually help me, which means less for me to do...yeah! Each child must get dressed and make their beds before coming down for breakfast. Parly usually gets the cereal and milk out for everyone, so if I'm not running that morning, I'm still asleep. So nice. Lazy, yes. But nice. Parly and Clayre also get their lunches and backpacks and drinks all ready before school and THEN they can watch a T.V. show before it is time to walk to school. My life is too easy.

Another chore is at dinner time. Kate has to, gets to, set the table every night. Then Parly and Clayre take turns clearing the table and making their lunch for school the next day. (One does the lunches while the other one clears the table, then the next day they switch). It's easier for them to do the lunches then, because if we have some kind of leftover that they want then .... okay let's just say the real reason.... It's easier for me, because I don't have to worry about them rushing to make it in the morning and bugging me while I am still sleeping. There.

In addition to these daily chores the girls have to put away their clean clothes in their closets and drawers (this is usually just once a week). And my favorite is when one of them is grounded from T.V. or friends. I can then give them more chores, like; sorting the laundry piles, picking up shoes and toys left on the floor, taking out the garbage's, emptying the kitchen misc. basket. This is a small basket that I keep on the kitchen counter so when ever I find toys and things of theirs that go upstairs I just throw them in the basket and when it gets full I send one of them to clear it out and bring back. Genius. I am the Queen of making less work for me to do. Of course they must clean the bedrooms and playroom from time to time as well.

Now you may be wondering what little Maggie does for chores. Yes she can't get herself dressed in the morning or make her bed yet, she sometimes helps Kate set the table at night but this is not her designated chore. Maggie actually came up with this one herself. She has always had a fascination with cockroaches. Before viewing, note: rolly (meaning rollypolly) = cockroach



Yes, Maggie's chore is to find the cockroaches every morning so we can throw them away. She is very very good at it.

How to spend your Saturdays.

This weekend I got to run a 1/2 Marathon. We were up in Logan for a last minute thing and since most of my family (mom & dad, sister & brother-in-law, sister-in-law) were all doing it, it being the Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon, Shayne and I decided to join in. It was a lot of fun. Yes, running a 1/2 marathon CAN be fun, though mostly it is just good when it is over. It was during the race that I learned what shin splints are the hard way...hell. They are hell. But because of them I persevered, learned how to be mentally tough and ended up finishing strong (because they didn't hurt as much on the flat or uphill parts). 1:42 was my time. This was a personal best, so that is good. Everyone had a super race. My mom who hasn't run a 1/2 marathon in her life also persevered, she walked the last two miles with a broken foot. Well the verdict is still out on that but definitely a stress fracture. Only my mom would continue with pain like that. It made my measly shin splints seem more like a bothersome blisters. My mom is incredible. I unfortunately did not get this amazing attitude, maybe it skips a generation...which I actually hope is true...with 4 daughters...hummm. Anyways, I myself am a complainer. My mom IS NOT. I should be more like my mom.

Since so many of us were running in the race and the few of my family members that weren't, were watching all the children (that in itself worth a first place medal), we did not get pictures of the event. I will however post some from the Spudman Triathlon that a number of us did a month ago. That also was a great race. If any one is thinking of doing a triathlon (Olympic distance) this is the one to do. It is a FAST one. The mile swim is downstream. The 25 mile bike and 6 mile run are both very flat courses. It was a lot of fun. I did this race before I was married, and got a time of 2:29. 11 years and 4 kids later I got 2:32 . I didn't think I would even come close to my old time, so I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully I will feel the same way about my St. George Marathon race this year. Fingers crossed for a personal best and no hellish shin splints.

Elise (sister-in-law), Isaac(brother), Christian (brother-in-law), Sadie (sister),
Baby CJ (nephew-did not race), Steve (dad), Me

Me

Here's one from the TOU 1/2 Marathon:
(My sister Sadie just sent this to me. Thanks Sadie.)

Shayne, Maggie (did not race), Me

Me (racing to the finish)

Thanks Liz or rather her husband Jared for taking this keeper.

Passing Notes

Parly loves to write us notes. We have gotten quite a few over the years. She usually writes them when she is angry and upset, or sad and remorseful. Well, we got one from her the other night, right after putting the kids to bed. And this is what it said:

1. I cant go to sleep one tinsie wincey bit.
2. It is light out side.
3. And I'm ready to Dance.

Shayne and I were dieing. So funny. So Shayne caved and let her stay up a little longer with us. This is when it's fun.