High Aspirations...AKA: "When I Grow Up"

Reagan has been pretty funny lately, telling us about his plans for the future.

Honestly, it is nice to know that he is making plans for his future - I was pretty sure that there was going to be a bonus room full of super heroes and comic books, complete with Mom and Dad downstairs!  Not a bad plan, but his are much better to listen to...

The other day, he went to Clay and said, "Hey Dad, When I grow up, I am going to be a Red Box worker at McDonalds..."  We thought, "Hey, why not - it combines his two greatest loves...redbox movies and the McDonalds restaurant...could work - except there really isn't anyone that mans the redbox station, but it's a start, right?"

Then, tonight he brought me a pad of Post-It notes and a crayon - and asked for some tape.  He said, "I'm making a book.  When I grow up, I'm going to write books...this one is about the ABC's."  He then said, as if reading the title of a book..."The ABC's, by Reagan Turner...no, wait...by Doctor Reagan." (He learned about Dr. Suess today at school - it is his birthday, I gather.)

Clay turned to me and said..."Hey, we're moving up in the world!  Sure beats a Redbox worker at McDonald's!"

887...The sweetest number I know...

A few weeks ago, I woke up and turned on the computer...It wouldn't boot up.

Dun Dun Dun...you say?  Yup.  You are right.  My hard drive crashed, and in a big way.

I was am completely heartbroken.

Why?

Because I was a moron and didn't back up ANYTHING.

Yes, I am the type who always puts things off for tomorrow, figuring that there will always be another day - and nothing will happen, right?  Wrong.

The worst part about all of it is my pictures.  The computer is 2 1/2 years old - and there were 2 1/2 years plus worth of pics on the computer.  So sad.  Baby pics of my last two babies, Christmas a few years worth, our Disney vacation last summer and tons of random shots...thousands of pictures.

At this point, it is looking like nothing will be able to be recovered.

Today, I was organizing/cleaning/gutting my house and I ran across my old digital camera.  My new Rebel is only about a year old, so I found this camera and my heart began to race.  You see, not only do I not back up hard drives very well at all, but I also am pretty lazy about emptying my memory cards.

I popped that memory card into the laptop of doom and tears came to my eyes.  887 pictures still on that card!  I am really only missing a year's worth of photos instead of the 3 plus that I was originally missing.

Even though I still don't have our vacation pics and countless others, I have pictures from the births of my last two babies, a lot of baby pics and other sweet shots of the other kiddos...I am choosing to look at this glass as half (heck 3/4) of the way full!

This incident brings to mind the parable of the 10 virgins...and yes, I am among the 5 who were unprepared.

Next time, I am going to be more prepared...and this goes for a lot of things in my life that, upon reflection, I need to work on.

Oh, and what would this story be without a public service announcement???

BACK UP YOUR COMPUTERS!!!

Today, 887 is the sweetest number I know...

Here are a few of the gems that I found today...

Emma at age 4

Reagan, telling us all about something

Little Miss Diva Ashleigh

A very scruffy Mr. Miagi, trying out the walker - and yes, he jumped in by himself!

Alyssa's 1st piggies

Zach shows his pearly whites

Wait a minute...how did that get in there?

Clay, trying out a new ride

Ashleigh and I on our girl vacay in Sept. 2009

WHAT??? How old did you say?

Today, I became the mother of a ten year old boy.  It is a bit scary...you see - that is double digits.  I have a kid in the double digits!  YIKES!!!  Where did the time go?  He went from a little scrap of a thing to a kid who is only 8 inches (or a little less) shorter than me...

I know, I know...you are saying - "It's not like it is that much of an accomplishment to get that tall, Jennifer!"  I beg to differ, however...it was a great accomplishment for ME to get this tall...so there.  (get a mental picture of a tongue sticking out at you now) :)

Anyway - Mr. Zach is an enigma.  He can be nutty and funny one minute and helpful the next...still a little boy - but becoming a young man...I AM NOT READY FOR THIS!

Oh - and I have to tell you about our conversation the other morning...

ME:  "Zach, did you put on deodorant after your bath?"

ZACH:  "No."

ME:  "You are going to be 10 years old tomorrow - you kind of stink...you should be putting it on every day...have you been putting it on at all?"

ZACH:  "Oh.  Well, yes - I usually put it on before scouts on Wednesday nights."

I think we are going to have to work on this concept a little bit, don't you???

Anyway - Happy Birthday to our firstborn son...We love you and hope that you survive another year with us...just kidding...

Kid Funnies

Today at church, they were talking about the five senses...they had some of the kids pick a sense out of the jar.  Reagan was chosen and he pulled a picture of a nose from the jar...They asked him what we were given our noses for and he never missed a beat..."We wipe it!"

Later on at home, we asked him again what our nose is for...This time he said "We wipe our nose...Oh, and I eat the boogers too."


Tonight at dinner - I asked the kids what we have eyes for.  Emma said, "That's a silly question, we put ice in our drinks!"

The other night, Ashleigh fell off a chair and hit her head (again).   I picked her up and held her.  She was sobbing profusely and looked at me sadly..."I stinky!"  Apparently, the stinkiness was bumming her out more than falling off the chair...something that I can definitely understand because - WHOO - she really did stink!

Today's Activities...

Snow day, Snow Day, SNOW Day, SNOW DAY.....AGAIN.

And now, for an unscheduled update on the Turner household.

1.  Mom made Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast...what a cool mom.

2.  Mom turned on the Tangled and Princess and the Frog soundtracks and we all danced around the kitchen...again - what a cool mom.

3.  Mom let kids trash the house with the toys - so that it looked like Christmas morning...again...and didn't make them pick it up until evening...great mom, right?

4.  Mom took kids to lunch at McDonalds - AND let them play in the playplace....what a sucker that mom is.

Out of all of these things, what was their favorite activity of the day???  Well, you see - it is not on this list...They thought it was great fun to build musical instruments out of the breast pump accessories that they found in the cupboard....Mom didn't think that idea was so cool.


And tomorrow - we get to do it all again!  Woot for snow days...NOT!

Another Weird School Project...

Okay.

I'm just going to come out and say it.  Are you ready?  Here goes...

I have discovered that when you send your children to school, the teachers have a lot of fun making up sadistic projects for you to do with them at home that are impossible to transport back to school.

There.  I said it.  You other mothers with school aged children know exactly what I'm talking about.  This only gets worse the older they get.  It starts with the egg project in pre-school (we had to get an egg to school in a special container that we designed - then they dropped it ala humpty dumpty, to see it it survived the fall).  Then, it moves on to other things like the monthly - decorate a (insert whatever fits into the holiday/season at the time a leaf, christmas tree, snowflake, apple, etc.).  In Kindergarten, Emma had to actually do a report that taught the other kids about something...Guess who did all the work on that one?  Third grade, we had to make a working volcano - labels, etc. and get it back to the school...that was fun, time consuming - and MY project...

Tonight - I had 3 projects that needed completed.  Two decorate-a-leaf projects for the twins...easy peasy - we've been doing those for years...and the masterpiece thus far of my school project career...

THE EDIBLE CELL PROJECT

This was just plain weird.  We actually had to make a model of a cell out of only edible items - and label everything, etc.  But, who thinks this stuff up?  It actually looks pretty cool - but incredibly disgusting...

Just in case you want to recreate this in your spare time:

I took a tortilla and baked it over a bowl to create the cell wall.  We used cooked spaghetti noodles for the cell membrane.  The cytoplasm was jelly.  The nucleus was a cracker.  The vacuoles were peanuts.  The chloroplasts (this was a plant cell) were pea pods.  The mitochondria were grape nerds.

I had to make it a special little nest in its shoe box so that it wouldn't shift around - I also cheated and glue gunned the sucker to the nest!

Oh - do you want to see the masterpiece that I have been discussing?  I'm sure that you can't wait to view this beautiful creation...

I am not a taco salad!

Gross, huh?  Kind of like a taco salad gone wrong...

Oh, and for those of you that still have no kids in public school yet...you just wait...your time is coming!

Well, At Least He Didn't Say I Have My Hands Full...

As the mother of five children, I have heard the phrase "You've got your hands full" way too many times in the past few years.  I feel that most of the time, I have things under control...There are days when yes, my hoodlums are a little bit unruly, but it isn't that bad all of the time!

So, today - (Day 4 of Fall Break, no less) I decided to take the kids to lunch at Taco Bell after I worked out at the YMCA.  We really haven't gone anywhere all week, so this was a special treat for them.  I made sure that we went to the Taco Bell where the worker likes us and gives us a few extra drinks sometimes for free ('cause he feels  bad for me, I guess!)

Anyway...they were being good.  Reeeeaaaalllyyyy good.

We were waiting for our food and a nicely dressed older gentleman came up to me.

"Excuse me, ma'am...I just wanted to tell you that your children are the most well behaved children that I have ever seen."

Okay, this is not a compliment that we receive very often - but in this instance, I will admit - we really deserved it...and it was soooo nice not to hear - "You've got your hands full!"  I almost wiped a tear from my eye...


I answered..."Thank you, but that can change at any moment!"

And - just as I said that....Alyssa threw up.

I think I've got my hands full.