What I've been doing lately.

So, I've received some heat lately for neglecting my little blog:

"Um... you know you haven't blogged in 3 months don't you?"
"How about a post Mom?"
"I can't keep up with your family if you don't update your blog!"
"Are you guys okay? Helloooo?"

Apparently I have some 'splaining to do.

It started with me being completely wrapped up in Stake Girls Camp this summer. I have to say that this was a mighty big church calling for me. Very time consuming and stressful and in the end, absolutely wonderful. I loved it. It just took a huge amount of time. Blogging had to take a back seat for a spell. Well, the blogging sabbatical went on a little longer than planned and then I was just embarrassed at being such a slacker. Now I can barely remember how to do this and I'm relearning. Goody.

Many happy times have been had in recent months (And not so recent. I have trips from spring that need posting) so I'll be catching up. But before I do, I'll tell you what I did last weekend.

In honor of Halloween, I made a little purchase.

My sweet Emily is a Halloween enthusiast. She talks about Halloween for months beforehand. We have detailed discussions about costume possibilities and new decorating ideas for the front porch, yard, back porch, various rooms in the house, etc. She'd paint bats on the car if I let her. Sadly, she has a mother who has never been all that jazzed about decorating for Halloween. Oh... she also thinks it would be swell if I wore a costume to hand out candy. Dang.

Because I'm trying to support her interests and not be such a lame mom, I made some new decorating purchases and got her daddy to help her make some tombstones to go out in the yard. I also thought it would be fun to buy a spooky movie to watch at Halloween. Why not Poltergeist? I remembered it (vaguely... it was made in 1982) as a good scary movie with a lovely/haunting theme song. Since I have a very underdeveloped sense of delayed gratification, I offered the movie to the girls last Saturday rather than waiting till Halloween proper.

We were all enjoying the show, about 2/3 through the movie when I had to run over to my parents' house. I left the girls watching the movie, in broad daylight mind you, and hopped in the car. Fifteen minutes later they were calling my folks' house wanting to know when I was coming home. "We're not watching any more till you get home!"

5 or 10 minutes later I walked into the house to find this:

Really. Squealing and screaming. I thought it was a show for me.

Nope. They really were a little freaked out.

I laughed, they laughed and then we started up the movie again. Right after they've recovered Carol Ann and are getting ready for bed. The kids are tucked in. Remember the scarey clown? Emily completely and totally freaked out.

Not a little. All. The. Way.

Sarah was scared but wanted to watch the rest of it. Emily wanted us to break the DVD and throw it out of the house. She went outside and waited for the movie to end. I went outside after the movie ended and found my Emily- my baby- sitting under a tree with tears streaming down her face. Very upset. Thats me... the good mother. I thought she was just being dramatic. Not so much. Just scared senseless and scarred for life. Thats what she told me.

Em has been sleeping with the lights on since Saturday.

That being said... please leave your contact info in the comments section if you would like me to discuss some of my tried and true parenting techniques with your church or PTA groups. I'm available on short notice.