Drew went to the District Science Fair last week. For reals. I can honestly say, we did not see it coming. You see, we have a few rules around here regarding science fairs in general. They are as follows...

1. No science fair project may be started on until the night before said project is due...preferably after 8:00pm.
2. The project can only be agreed upon reluctantly after every other project has been nixed by Mom ("too expensive", "too much work", "not enough access to a world class laboratory", etc...)
3. No project may require checking the progress of anything over a period of days (or heaven forbid...weeks!), therefore plant or mold experiments are completely out of the question. 
4. Data collecting MUST be kept to a minimum.
5. Multiple runs to the store are required on the night in question...the last one must always be for another roll of double-sided tape to finish the board.
6. The science fair project must make Mom break down (either tears or screaming is acceptable).
7. And the last (and most important!) rule...enough work must be put into the project to get an acceptable grade, but not enough to warrant a WIN of any sort. (After all, we certainly don't want to drag this thing out ANY longer than necessary.)

In case you didn't believe me.

In case you needed more solid proof.

I remember the very first time I went with my mom to get a pedicure...


I was 30 years old, and days away from having my FIFTH child.


We are starting the mother/daughter pedicure tradition a little earlier this time around.








It's her second one. :)

The last week and a half has been so surreal for me. Jesse goes to the same high school I graduated from--it's so strange to walk the halls as a PARENT--I swear I was just there as a STUDENT. It finally hit home last Friday at the WX vs. Bountiful basketball game. I've been going to the high school gym watching Jesse play all season...but as the Sophomore games are pretty much only attended by parents of the players, they feel like any other game I've been watching over the last 10 years. Because it was the big rival game, I decided to stick around for the varsity game. As I sat in the parents section (aka "old people" section)...I watched my son (who was just a BABY!) over in the student section--with his face painted, cheering, flirting with girls, and having the time of his life! And I kept thinking...when did he grow up?! I rotated between feeling like I was back in high school myself (every time the band played the fight song I had the urge to sing along--apparently I still remember every word) and feeling so very OLD. 
P.S. The varsity team lost (btw...losing to Bountiful is just as painful as it ever was!), BUT the Sophomores won by 15!! (btw...BEATING Bountiful still feels GREAT). And The Kid had a great game!

Of course, the next night Jesse went to an enormous, awesome party where nearly 200 WX and Bountiful students mingled and had the time of their lives with no hard feelings. :)
P.S. The party was at the Blaser's home (some things never change!)...it was weird and awesome to pass the torch to the next generation. :)

To round out the week--and to drive home the point that I'm REALLY old, Jesse was asked to the Sweethearts dance. I managed to get some pretty sweet pictures of the milestone.




The first thing I did (after I took pictures of course) was send a group text to my sisters...here is the actual conversation:
Me: Jesse just got asked to Sweethearts...I need creative ways to answer--STAT! (and then, of course, I gave them her name so we could ALL stalk her on facebook--I'm a good sister, after all.)
Kristin: Oooooh go Jesse! I think I saw her in one of his pictures and she was really cute! James said it depends on how he was asked.
Alicia: You're asking ME?? I got asked to exactly 1 dance. ;0) Is he excited? Do you like the girl? Go Jesse!! Oh and can you believe that you have a son dating??? Freaky. :0)
Mandy: Freaky is right!! I say just make it easy...Have him write a letter like I would love to go with you to sweethearts etc..Rip it like a puzzle, get 20 red and pink heart balloons or just regular red and pink and white, have him put a piece of paper in every balloon so she has to pop them and put them together, take them get them all filled with helium and tie a big bag of sweetheart candies to the bottom. (Oh Mandy---she is the only one of us who would think that was EASY!)
Me: That's pretty much exactly how she asked him!! But we decided to keep it even easier...spray paint YES in the snow in her front yard. (Thanks to Uncle James for THAT suggestion--sometimes you need to think like a guy!)


What would I do without sisters?!?!?! Oh...poor Sophie. :(

Hopefully, Jesse will have as much fun in the WX gym at the Sweethearts dance as I used to. (again...surreal.) Even though it feels strange sometimes, I'm so glad Jesse's a WILDCAT! (humming the fight song as I type...)

Nothing special or important has happened this week. But, as I sat here after a fun and busy Friday--I thought, "This has been a good week." And then I thought, "I should record it for posterity in case I never have that thought again!". Now, of course, as I sit down to type I realize that much of what I have to say isn't technically "good"--I probably should re-title the post...

This morning, Sophie's bff Caroline came over to play. They had some good 2 year old fun and were delightful. 


A little after noon, I took Caroline home because I had just remembered that I needed to make 5 dozen cookies for a WX Basketball dinner (and needed to go to the store for ingredients). As I dropped Caroline off, I mentioned to Nikki that I was running to the store--she promptly said, "Don't go to the store! I have everything for cookies--just come in and visit and I'll do EVERYTHING! I'll bake the cookies, make us lunch, entertain the girls, and provide great company!" (I'm paraphrasing a little--but that was the gist). I said, "Sounds awesome!" (again, paraphrasing a little)


I should backtrack and mention that one reason (besides the main one...that we love her!) that we had Caroline over this morning, is that her sweet sister Eliza has pneumonia again...so it's not like Nikki has nothing else going on.


I literally sat and watched Nikki bake 5 dozen delicious cookies. (No exaggeration.) I would be more embarrassed about it if I hadn't had such a delightful time doing it. :)


The girls played and played and Sophie even stumbled upon Caroline's awesome dress-up station! The following are pictures Nikki took of the girls (again--I did NOTHING). Sophie was in heaven--shoes, jewelry, tiaras, wands, Nikki's old dance costume, etc...

I haven't really made any New Year's resolutions this year. I thought about the whole "exercise" thing--and then I remembered that I hate to exercise. I could try harder to keep my house clean--but I have 6 kids, I don't really want to set myself up to fail on the first day (pretty much the same reason I'm not going with exercising). 


Anyhoo--so many things I should be trying to be better at, so little time to make all of the excuses why I'm not. So, 5 minutes ago (really)...I came up with the perfect resolution! I'm going to blog more this year than I did last year! (Seeing as I only had 16 posts, it won't be too hard.) Like every good resolution, I'm going to start strong. Here you go...

This morning, Sophie found some make-up that I had carefully hidden from her. Okay, I had just shoved it under my bathroom sink, but that's not really the point of this story. After I realized that the only way to avoid a ginormous mess was to let her get it out of her system...I patiently sat while she made me look like a clown on a bender.
Deciding she needed a bit more of a challenge, she packed up her gear and went to find her father. She said, "Daddy, I do it" (pointing to her make-up and then to his face). He politely told her that he didn't need any make-up right now (he usually saves it for special occasions...). They went back and forth a few times, and then she pulled out all the stops. She put her cute little hand in his and led him over to a kitchen chair, patted the chair and said, "Sit here" and then climbed up onto the table and started giggling while she got her make-up ready. He was a goner.


Oh, and yeah...that lumberjack really is Jason.

She decided to paint his eyeBROWS instead of his eyeLIDS...she was probably just going for the bigger surface area.

And then Dad got to join in the fun...he was about as good at applying make-up as she was. :)

We FINALLY had our family pictures taken in October. The boys whined and complained--even after I explained that we really needed to have it done, since we had NO family pictures with Sophie in them (yes, she's 2 1/2). Drew (my most cooperative child) said, "Can't we just photoshop her in?!"

So, on a beautiful and COLD October morning (at 8:00am no less), I drug my happy smiling family over to Grandma and Grandpa's old back yard (which looked much better than ours) so we could record how happy we are for posterity (for the record--we weren't ALL happy). Luckily, they all cooperated pretty well, and we had zero fighting (because everyone was too tired to even speak--early morning pictures are a great idea!)

















































































P.S. Since these pictures were taken, Jesse has cut off a bunch of hair off his head. Jason, however, has added a bunch to his (on his face).