Insta Friday (Introducing The Gnome). Friday Brain dump (We're Spur of the Moment People). And Weekend Plans (Learning How to Lip Sync).

Welcome to Insta Friday, where I'm linking up and telling the stories behind my instagram pics.

(I'm thecircus6 on instagram if you want to follow).

And then, just as a warning, you get a brain dump of the tidbits that I haven't blogged about yet.

Totally worth it.

On our bi-weekly grocery shopping trip we found the most awesome gnome.

We bought it for pranking purposes.

The first day of school happened.

In the middle of August.

I swear it gets earlier every year.  But this is so the kids can have more time off during the school year, which used to stress me out when I was a working mom of young children.  Like, stress me out.  But now that they're older it's just like, just keep the house clean, yo.  And don't leave Cali alone.  Word.

Speaking of getting older... I already shared these pics but I'm sharing them again because I love them.

You all can officially stop growing right now.  I didn't want to pause them as babies or toddlers, but right here would be a good place to pause them.

I hear a lot that Brynn is my mini-me.  I don't usually hear it with the other three.

But when I posted this picture of Casidee people thought it was me at first, which makes me happy because I kind of  wish my daughters did look like me.

That random plant growing in our yard that we didn't plant, but let grow out of curiosity sake, and I really wanted it to be a pumpkin in my front yard? (here)

So is. (Eek, shriek, and jumping for joy).

But it only has one pumpkin on the entire vine.

I ran to the store to get Brynn a specific notebook that her teacher was requesting.  The ones we'd already bought weren't the "right" kind.

The Man sent me a text to grab something for him while I was there, only to have my phone go off right next to him on the couch.

I'd forgotten it.

When I got home, my background was The Gnome.

We're getting our money's worth with it already.

A new semester started for me this week too.

If I have to get up and take a math class before work, at least I get to be greeted with a sunrise like this.

The first day of school is for moms too.

Here we go again.  But I graduate this spring from the community college and will head up to the U of U to finally work on the fun classes for my bachelor's.

My first day of school selfie.

Mornings wouldn't so bad if it weren't for the waking up part.

They were really pretty this week.

I was clearing of Pioneer Day photos from my phone to (finally) blog about it when I found this one that one of The Circus had taken.

My cutest friend Jen found this picture frame and bought it for me.

I printed off one of the pictures from our family photoshoot that just happened a couple of weeks ago and set it up on my desk.

I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures.  This was just one she sent me as a preview, to tease me and get me all excited for the rest.

It worked.

And, Jen, I love the frame, thank you!

Now for my friday brain dump:

I had Chick-fil-A for lunch because I received an email inviting me to apply to be on a panel of mom's for them.

Which I really want to do.

So if I eat Chick-fil-A right after filling out that application then it's like bonus karma points, right?

And also, the Chick-fil-A by my work serves breakfast.

Shut the front door!

Also, we are a very spur of the moment family, but it occurred to me why this week.  I've been making plans with friends to head up to the Fairy Forest and see all the wonders there, and in so doing have changed the day of our outing twice.  And now we have it set up for another day, except The Man just planned a camping/riding trip for that weekend and booked our spot and all so... I get to change my Fairy Forest day again.

We're spur of the moment people because even when we make plans, other things come up spur of the moment and I have to change plans.  I don't like planning, it's a lot of work to coordinate and be annoying and change the plans, again.  I don't even want to tell my friends that I need to change the Fairy Forest date, I feel slightly embarrassed.  I'd rather just send out texts a day in advance, or a couple hours, and say, hey, we're going, come if you can.  And then if they can, they can.

Because, you know, people should be waiting around for my spur of the moment invite...

Dear friends, I'm sorry.  I know I have issues.

Also, life just feels so full and so exciting right now.  It's like I'm walking on super charged cloud nine.  Everything is so beautiful and perfect and full of promise.

I don't know how I got on this ride, but I don't want to get off anytime soon.

Weekend plans:

Make a lip sync video with The Circus.  I want to learn how.  They're my guinea pigs.  Anyone have any tips?

Church carnival where I get to help with both the cake walk and the face painting.

Possibly the Fairy Forest?  But Jayme will be with her mom so probably not because we want her to go too.

And that's all I have.  I guess we'll have to make this weekend up as we go along, you know, spur of the moment.

What are your weekend plans?

A Typical Tuesday. Or Not.

It started out as a typical Tuesday.

I was out of the house and on campus before the sun was up, a very indecent time and a very indecent temperature of cold.

I cranked out two miles because the switch my husband flipped when he told me he didn't think I'd get up early to run is still turned on.

I'm so showing him.

And then I went through the motions of my early morning yoga class.  

It's slowly getting better.

Slowly.

By the time 7:50 rolled around I felt like I'd already had a full day.

I pulled out my phone as I walked through the bright college gym, headed to my car.

I got a text from brother Billy goat.

And a text from cutest Jen.

The phone rang and before I had fully said "hello," I was bombarded with the sound of The Circus belting out a rowdy rendition of Happy Birthday over speaker phone.

Tell you what, if you want it to sound like you have a lot of kids, have them sing loudly on speaker.  I swear there was an entire choir on the other end of the line.

I listened to them singing out the song as I tromped across the frozen parking lot of campus to my car and I couldn't help but grin ear to ear.

They warm my heart.

In the lobby of my work building I ran into my "boys."  They broke into cheers and jeers and dance moves.

And then I saw this:

Luckily, as I sat my coat on my chair, I heard a rustle, and stooped to see what had made the sound...

The poor cleaning lady for our building wasn't so lucky, however.  She grabbed my chair to get to the garbage can and...

I suppose it's not going to be a typical Tuesday after all.

While I was working my butt of over at the campus, The Man had made his way to my office, knowing full well that some of the people I work with show up really early.  And he wasn't disappointed.  He knocked on the door and was let in.

He makes me so happy.

Guys!

It's my birthday!

It should be full of all the things I love.

And I want to share them with you.

It's nothing too huge, but I've gathered some of the stuff I'm obsessed with.

A $5 gift card to McDonald's?  That will get you five large cokes!  (Or if you're feeling blasphemous *ahem, Beth* then you can get diet or Mr. Pibb or lemonade I suppose...)
A $5 gift card to Burger King?  That will get you ten Odis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookes.  Oh, Odis.  He and I have a love affair far too often.  Also, when I get Odis cookies from Burger King, I don't have to bake them myself and I don't have to share with The Circus.  Sorry kids.

And a whole bunch of other random stuff that I'm not going to list out because seriously, it's random.  Except it's not because it's all things that I love.

So who's daring?  Who wants a mystery birthday package from me? I promise I'll fill it with balloons and all sorts of streamers and stuff.  Maybe it's your birthday too?

You might end up with a car air freshner.

You might get a bag of chocolate.

And strawberry Icebreaker mints might have made their way in.

And chapstick may or may not be involved.

*whew* the stakes are getting high.

I'll send it out to the winner on Friday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And if you decide not to enter, that's okay.

I'll gladly keep this stuff myself.

Because... it's my birthday.

Prank on the Lake... Setting Teenage Boys Adrift

Sometimes when you're at Lake Powell, and you know there are teenage boys sleeping on the water trampoline, it's too much temptation for you to resist.

So before bed you take note of how those teenage boys have anchored themselves, and where all the knots are tied, so in the morning, you'll know what needs to be done.

Then you wake up with the first morning light, before anyone else has stirred, except your wife because, frankly, you've waken her up with your excited movements getting out of bed.

You've slept in your swimsuit, which is nothing unusual for this type of trip anyway, so you're ready.  You peel of your t-shirt and grab the tube from the beach and wade in to where the anchor has been set close to shore so the trampoline won't drift off.

You pull the anchor from it's sandy grasp and place it in the tube so it will float along with the tramp.

You continue on to untie all other necessary knots that are keeping the tramp secure in it's nightly spot.

Then you swim to where the trampoline is floating, with the still sleeping boys on it, and you begin to push it away from the houseboat, where it was nestled.

And you swim it out a good bit of distance in hopes that it will get caught in an out going current, so the boys will wake up in the middle of the lake (but we will still be able to see them and keep an eye on them).

 As luck would have it, that trampoline was pretty insistent on catching currents that were coming in instead of out.

By this time the entire houseboat was awake and sitting on the back deck of the boat, watching the floating progress of the boys, in high hopes that they would float somewhere, anywhere, than back towards us.  After swimming the trampoline out three or four times, you decide that a new plan must be made.

The houseboat is beached near a bend.
You take the trampoline and swim it around the bend in the beach.
Now, when the boys wake up, they will be literally only a short walk down the beach, but because of the bend, they won't realize that.
They won't be in sight of the houseboat and will wake up disoriented.

And that's exactly what happened.
You decide it's time for those boys to wake up so you get on the wave runner and fly by them, fairly close.
The boys hear the wave runner, and thinking they're still safely tied to the houseboat, begin to wonder what sort of a person would drive like that so near someone else's houseboat.

They sit up and for a few wild seconds look around them, not recognizing anything, and most definitely not being tied to the houseboat as they had thought.

While we hid out of sight and took pictures. 
Finally they spot one of the teenage girls on the hill, and being the teenage boys that they are, begin yelling, "how are we supposed to get back?  I'm going to kill you!"

Things begin to make more sense to them as you pull up on the wave runner to tow them back to the houseboat.

And since it wasn't one of the teenage girls who "lost" them, but you who did it, they can't help but laugh about it in the end.