Don't "Fall" (Get it?)

It's Fall.  Let's remember the first weeks of October in pictures.

Molly spent the entire day with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen.  I missed her, but she had fun!  She found mustaches.

It was General Conference Sunday morning.  We were getting ready to head north to visit the Binggeli's and Molly asked me to take her picture.  I did.  This was the picture.  I asked her what she wanted me to say about the picture and she said, "Hi Willie.  I brought you a picture.  And I made a funny face.  And we're going to grandma and grandpa Binggeli's.  And Molly and Jack and Haley and James and Molly just wanted to say hi and bye."

I stole this picture of giggling crazies from Ross.  I took a similar picture, but it didn't turn out as cute.  They were sitting on a fence at our cousin Rubie's wedding reception.  Ross was watching them.  They were mimicking each other.  It was funny.  I hope they stay friends!

The kids and I had a day off for parent teacher conferences.  We went to the zoo!  I don't know why my kids grit their teeth in pictures.

We grew pumpkins.  None were big, but there were many.  We gave one to each of the neighbor kids, but then some of the kids ruined them and kept asking for new ones.  That was annoying and we had to start being mean about the pumpkins.

Our cousin Rubie got married.  The ceremony was at the Peace Gardens at Jordan Park and the reception was in Dee and Liz's back yard.  It was interesting.

We keep taking pictures of Parker and sending them to Willie.  We are trying to freak Willie out that Parker has grown to be 7' tall since Willie left on his mission.  This picture is funny, but just might be a little over the top.

My Jack is handsome and ready for church.  There is just something extra special about this kid that makes everyone he comes in contact with smile.  We have been letting his hair grow.  This is the initial gel look, but after he rubs his head into the ground a few times like a puppy, it calms down and looks pretty swag.  

Boogity boogity

Molly got in trouble at school the other day.  She and another little kid hid in the bathroom when it was time for rests and the teachers couldn't find them.  Once found the punishment at school was a shortened nap (they woke them up early) and then they didn't get the same afternoon snack as the other kids.  They got something less desirable and with less sugar.  

We talked about it when we got home and decided that we could write a note to her teachers to tell them she was sorry.  She told me what to write, she signed her name at the very bottom of the page, we folded it in half, and she drew some special pictures on the other side.  

She tries to be good most of the time.  

My sister decided to go away to Lost Wages for 2 days to see some weird concert.  My mom was brave enough and willing to tend the 3 boys while the parents were away.  Since James works all day, we decided to hang out with them, too.  We met them for lunch at McDonald's and let the kids play in the play area for a while.  After naps, we went to my mom's house and hung out some more.  The kids colored and played legos.  Elliott ripped a small chunk of skin off his finger while playing "shoot the legos off the treadmill."  I accidentally broke my parents' 400 year old wedding gift blender when the pitcher tipped over in the sink.  We had just finished fixing milkshakes.  Oops.

My dad sat downstairs and watched the Utes play hard and then choke.  Since he had grandson duty and since Elliott didn't really want to go to the game (which was probably a smart move due to the rain), he had given his tickets to someone at work.  

It was a fun Saturday!

Moral of the story . . . .

The moral of the story is . . . . 

Don't let your 4-year-old play with your phone in the bathroom.

The story is . . . 

It's 3:30 a.m. so I decided to write a blog post about what has been happening in our lives since the last blog post.  Luckily, not much has happened because there are no pictures on my phone anymore except for this one.

Molly needed to go to the bathroom tonight and sometimes she's like an old man with her Sports Illustrated and she needs some quality time with something to help her occupy that time.  Yes, I know she's a little strange.  Usually I'll let her play with our Kindle while she's doing her business.  Tonight, I didn't want to go find the Kindle and so she asked for my phone.  Other than the potential "spores" in the air, I figured I could give up my phone for a couple of minutes and I obliged to the request.

Apparently she deleted all the pictures on my phone and took this lovely one of the bathtub to replace them.  Huh.  I'm not really good at backing up the pictures on my phone or moving them to the computer.  I guess it's a good thing I still keep up this blog and post most noteworthy pictures here.

The good news is that now I have lots of storage space on my phone.  

I guess Molly and I will also have a chat tomorrow about what appropriate things are to do on mom's phone.  Deleting all the pictures isn't really one of them.

In other Molly news, she scratched her ear at school last week.  When I went to pick her up, she was very concerned/excited to tell me that her ear was bleeding (which it really wasn't).  First she pointed to the wrong ear, but when I actually found the scratch, I asked her if she knew what happened.  Her response was, "well, I didn't get in a car accident."  Thank you for pointing that out.

On Sunday night, Elliott, Wyatt, and Molly were playing good guys and bad guys.  At one point Elliott was the cop and Molly and Wyatt ran into the living room with Molly yelling, "We're the robbins," to which Wyatt quickly corrected her, "No Molly, the robbers!"

What's new?

Instead of doing regular dance class this year (because let's face it, Molly didn't really like it and neither did mom), we are trying new things. I just signed Molly up for two 6 week classes through community ed. First we'll do dance at Hunter, then we'll do karate at Taylorsville. So far it is going well!

 By this time of the year, my yard is really pretty.

We've decided to tease Willie a little. This is now the second picture we have sent him to show him that Parker is tall.  Parker is tall, but not quite that tall. We cropped the picture so you don't see everyone else's bent knees. 

We went to The Fair. The kids had fun. Molly went down the giant yellow slide with James and giggled forever afterwards. She thought it was the coolest thing ever! Also, a clown made Jack a minion balloon (beedo beedo). 

Oh.... and I've decided my son is a ninja.

I Just Wanna Be A Rockstar

A couple of Sunday's ago my sister told me that I made four cd's that were played as the background music at her wedding reception.  She said they were great and she thanked me for putting them together.  She said she wished she still had them.  I only vaguely remember making them.

I remembered that I (with Annie's help) compiled a Christmas Album of my favorite Christmas songs and we gave it out to neighbors, co-workers, and family members for Christmas one year.  I still think it is probably the best Christmas compilation EVER!  

A couple of weeks ago, I clicked something in my e-mail that made my messages reorder themselves from oldest to newest.  I've had my hotmail address for at least 100 years and I had fun reading some weird e-mails of days gone by.  I read several that were about "tape trading" which meant that I collected bootleg live recordings of some of my favorite bands and then I traded them to other random people all over the country.

I once played in a band with a Hispanic man in our ward and his two sons.  We practiced for several months.  We played one gig - a ward Christmas party.  We played "Tequila," some Beatles songs, and a few Christmas songs (including a rewriting of "My Green Tambourine" into "My Green Christmas Tree.")  I named us "Three Mexicans and a White Girl."  It sounds lame, but it was totally fun.  

I had a few other small events where I had the opportunity to play instruments in front of people, many with a younger kid in our ward at that time - Dan Riggs - who is an amazing fiddle player.  I practiced a few times with the Clog America touring band (and a learned a TON with them).  We also got to play the hoedown scene of "Oklahoma" during our stake's production.  Quite impressive.  I wore overalls that I picked up at the Tooele D.I.

There are few things more exhilarating that playing live music with other people!

Don't forget the years and years of my parents taking me to piano lessons on Friday nights at Al Weight Studios near 9th and 9th.  Who knows how many recitals, different competitions, and Saturday classes they took me to.  I used to be able to play just about anything you set in front of me.  Now I play Hymns and primary songs when no one else is there to do it, with the occasional musical number in sacrament meeting at Christmas time (while giving my arthritic pinky a pep talk to please finish the song without locking up and being stupid).

After that Sunday conversation with my sister, I got a little melancholy that perhaps a part of me had disappeared and I was no longer utilizing this talent that I'd like to think I had at one point.  

So what did I do about it?  Not much.  Just a little.  

I decided to make it my personal goal this week to spend at least 30 minutes a day doing something musical.  Yesterday I downloaded some new music and reorganized the songs on our car ipod.  The kids listened to some of the new stuff with me on the way to school this morning and they liked it!

Tonight I am reading up on Guster's latest album and looking into a new band I like called A Great Big World.  They have one radio hit, "Say Something," but a lot of other really cool songs full of beautiful melodies and fun gusto.  I love the complimentary tones in the voices of the duo and of course, a good piano band doesn't come around all that often.  I also like that they are kind of nerdy looking and were former business students at NYU.

For the rest of the week, I also plan to not only sit at the computer late at night with headphones on, but I plan to dust off my piano, guitar, and maybe (just maybe) I will even dig out the banjo that hasn't seen daylight (or a nightlight) since finding a cozy corner in a closet of our house almost three years ago.

Here is my motivation - "I Just Wanna Be A Rockstar"