My dear, Eleanor, you were obviously born into the wrong story.

Augh!!!  No more school work!  No more chores!  Everyone just leave me alone!  It's my birthday and I just don't care if My Little Warrior ever understands how to turn a plural noun back into a singular noun nor do I care what My Silly Girl keeps finding as she cleans off the shelves in the laundry room.  Holy crap!  Can they not see that I am trying to do something that I enjoy?!?!?!  Of course they can.  That is why they keep disturbing me.  If I were shoveling the driveway or cleaning the toilet I wouldn't see them for hours, but since I decided to catch up on my blog, they have to be right here tapping me every two seconds.  Why do they tap?  Do they think that I can't see them or hear them?  Do they have to tap on me?  After about the first tap it starts to hurt.  NEW RULE:  NO TAPPING!!!!!!!!

I have wanted to write here forever and just haven't been able to find the time lately.  You may want to give up now.  It's probably going to be long.

My Little Warrior got the haircut of his dreams this fall.  I finally decided that the people who would think badly of him because of it probably already do, so I quit fighting it and let him do what he wanted with it.  The Man of My Dreams and I had a long talk with him about it.  He understood that this would not be an appropriate hairstyle for someone who was representing the Savior as he passes the sacrament or collects fast offerings.  He said that is why he wants it now, because next year he'll turn 12 and he will have to have a "normal" haircut.  The original deal was that he would do it every day.  I've given up on that.  He can't wear his bike helmet with it done and he can't live without his bike.  (Also, he discovered that he can't do it himself, and I don't want to do it every day.)  When he doesn't do it up, I call him my little horse because he looks like he's got a mane.  I thought he'd be tired of it by now, but no.

We went to the Utah State Fair with our friends, the Case family, this fall.  We saw Elder L. Tom Perry in the home arts building.  That was pretty cool.

My Scholar qualified to run in the Utah State Cross Country meet this year.  He was SO excited.  (So was his mommy.)  In fact, it was his final push at the Regional Cross Country meet that qualified him and two of his teammates to go to State.

at the starting line

 There he is -- #197!

 Mandarin oranges after the race

We decided that we need a family room again.  We just don't have any space to move around.  The ideal solution would have been to move or add on, but we didn't do it that way, of course.  The boys moved into the bigger of the kids' rooms together and My Silly Girl moved into My Little Warrior's old room.  My Scholar's bedroom was made out of bookcases in what had been formerly (and is once again now) known as the family room.  These are pictures of the process of turning a pink, girl's room into a boy's room and the final results of turning a junk heap into a girl's room.

The Boys' Room

My Silly Girl's Room

My Little Warrior wanted to be a plain, old ghost with a sheet over his head.  I did a major happy dance at that idea!  The face and hair paint were our compromise.  He wanted to just have eye holes in the sheet and I am anti-mask.

Because we finished the bedrooms (on Halloween morning) our kids got to have their annual Halloween party in the house instead of in the freezing cold garage this year.

 My Scholar had elf ears, but by the time I got down there to take a picture, they were no longer on him.  (I'm sure glad I ran all over the valley and ended up going into that really creepy store to find them for him.)

 The infamous Skittles game!  If you like Skittles, you won't when this game is over.

My Scholar was in the high school musical this year.  They did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  They did a fabulous job.  I loved it so much I saw it THREE times.  I cried each time he came out on stage for the first time.  I'm such a big baby.  (I cried at Toy Story 3, too.  I cry at cross country meets, parades - when the flag or my children pass me, dance recitals, choir performances, you name it.)

 He's one of the guards on the right of the pyramid.  The one whose arm is pointing up, away from the pyramid.

 Check out those abs!!!  (Isn't it amazing what a little bit of paint can do?)

My Little Warrior turned eleven last week. 

 The Cake

Pack meeting was the night after his birthday. He received his Arrow of Light at pack meeting. He also received the award for having earned ALL 20 Webelos Activity Badges. Then he crossed the bridge from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. That's my last Cub. Luckily, I still get to work in Cubs even without a son in the program!

 Bro. Miles -- one of the two greatest Webelos Den Leaders ever (Sis. Miles is the other one), The Man of My Dreams, My Little Warrior, and our Cubmaster.

 This mother's pin ribbon is getting so heavy!  Way to go boys!  Now, if I could just get one of those Eagle pins!

Our bridge is built out of Cub Scouts (usually).  The first section of the bridge is made of representatives of the Wolf Den.  The middle is made of representatives from the Bear Den.  The final section is made of representatives of the Webelos Den.  When you have pack meeting the night before Thanksgiving, you don't always get the all the Cubs there.   It worked out though, because Bro. Case was a former member of a Bear Den and Sis. Miles is a Webelos leader.

I have more I'd like to write, but it will have to wait because it is time for lunch and pretty soon the yelling I did at the beginning of this blog will wear off and they will be back tapping on me again.