Dear blogging friends - my apologies regarding my laziness.

So the school year ended and the kids are now home. We took a few days to be VERY lazy, but that's now out of our system and we are ready to not be lazy. Chris had a novel idea for the kids to be more helpful with the chores. Each child is assigned a specific room/area that they are responsible for all day. Additional chores are assigned each day to address areas that don't need daily attention. It's been two days so far and the house is looking (and smelling) awesome. When the kids are done with the assigned chores, then I'm willing to let them do paid extra chores, although Dana is the only one who feels that the wages are sufficient for the work. And that's fine with me, she's usually the only one who does a job worthy of getting paid.

We took the kids to the temple open house last month. I went one day while Chris was at work. It was a really windy day and I was not wearing an appropriate skirt for such wind. Calvin was in a wheelchair from his recent surgery on his ankles and so I'm there trying to get the wheelchair out of the back of the van and trying to not flash the whole parking lot. The usher who was opening the doors of the church finally came over to help me. His words "I'll get the wheelchair, you hold your shirt." (Sigh) embarrassing! It was so worth taking the kids up there though. As we were leaving Dana says, "Mom, that was so beautiful. Thank you for bringing us here." We went again a couple weeks after that, this time Chris came with us and I wore a more wind worthy skirt. After the temple was dedicated, Derrick asked when we were going to go again. We told him he needed to be 12 to be able to go inside now and he responded with "but, I am 12." I think he still doesn't believe us that he's not allowed to go inside. (And he has no concept of his own age - my mom asked him how old he is and he answered, "I'm four, but my mom thinks I'm three." Sometimes he says 16 or 8 or 10 - totally random. Dana used to do that too.)

Dana's birthday was on Monday of this week. I wasn't ever able to come up with ideas for presents for her and so we just took her shopping for her presents. We went to Sears and bought her a new wardrobe. She was in dire need. All of her clothes were looking threadbare or stained. She's now looking quite the snappy dresser. We also took her to Gamestop and let her pick out one Wii game. She picked out Pony Friends 2. We tried to encourage other choices but that's the one she wanted. Funny thing is the boys have been playing it almost as much as she has. Calvin is trying to build up his profile so he can buy a mustang - never mind that it's not a car, he still wants the mustang.

I have started the process of registering the kids for online schooling. I'm really excited about them being home with me next year. I'm a little nervous about the organization required to make this work but I'm sure it will all work out.