So what do you do, when you get up at 4:30 in the morning and your 14 year old girl is up talking to who knows who on facebook? I can tell you what I did--I shut down that little operation. You think you know your kids and then they go and do stuff like this. I went back to bed after confiscating the computer and basically grounding her from it until further notice...we'll see how that goes since she has about 5 hours on it tomorrow to get her assignments turned in for school.
Anyway, I'm lying in bed and now I can't sleep wondering who she was talking to and what the heck about. So, I went out and got a laptop and went and read everything she has written in the last few weeks. Do you know who she was talking to????? Steve Young--no, not the football player, but one of our missionaries that has been home since summer. It was all harmless stuff, but sheeez, can't a girl get some sleep? I thought I was ready for teenage life, but when it comes to your own kids--so much different. It's so easy to look at someone from the outside and think you know how to fix all of their problems, but when it's your own problems....so much different. It's like having blinders on and you can only see what is right in front of you when everything is really happening around you. So what would you do???? Please feel free to let me know!

Halloween lives on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.......

Ok, the things we do for our kids.

So Saturday, Grandma Smith babysat Manden, Mathias and Mary

while we went on a youth temple trip.

Grandma gave Mary a Halloween pumpkin bucket

(you know the cheap jack-o-lantern ones from Walmart for trick or treating)....

Usually this would be fine, but since we just had Halloween,

Mary knows exactly what this pumpkin is for--

CANDY.

So, she asked everyone in the house for candy for 2 days.

Most of us just ignored her, but Mike---the old softy, asks me this morning,

"Can't you let her trick or treat down the hallway with the kids at each door?"

I'm thinking, who has time for that???

I have people coming for Thanksgiving in a few days so...

I have a million things to do to get the house ready,

he needs to get to work and besides---
Halloween is over!

But, he gets to me with, "this is why we homeschool...for experiences like this..blah,blah,blah."

and then the wheels start turning in my head:

"I do still have a whole stinking bowl of Halloween candy sitting on my dresser,

it wouldn't take that long and she would hopefully stop asking for candy,

and I could avoid doing all the things I need to do for

Thanksgiving for just a little longer"....

so that's it...

she gets what she wants-

as usual.

We find her costume and while she is putting it on herself,

(can't help her because she is in that "do it herself" stage),

I split up the bowl of candy and we each claim a door.

Meigan thinks this is as ridiculous as I did at first and

refuses to get out of bed for it....

so I take over her door.

Mary gets her bucket filled,

I get some cute pictures,

she polishes up her

trick or treating skills
(cause it is a skill you know)

and all is well at the Smith home,

(the boys got the rest of the candy,

so they didn't mind at all).

Now all I have to do is remember to hide the stupid pumpkin bucket as soon as the candy is gone or we will forever be

trick or treating!

The problem now is that it was so cute,

that it got me thinking this is the kind of thing I could post on my non-existant blog.

So much for not taking a lot of time...
now here I am trying to figure out the whole blogging thingy...