All I want for Christmas.

Me:  Okay, everyone tell me the one thing you really want for Christmas.

Nate:  Minecraft (a video game)

Ben:  Halo and an Xbox to go with it.

Jonny:  Uhhhh, one of those big tubs of potato Salad from Costco.

(Jonny doing Tebow)

Merry Christmas!

30 minutes of Joy

The entire country should model their elementary music programs after ours.  It is truly brilliant. 

6:20 p.m.  All 2nd grade parents shuffle in to gym and quickly find a seat.

6:30 p.m.  All second grade students sing 5 songs most of which the ACLU  would throw a fit over.  (They ended with Silent Night complete with sign language.)

Jonny had a speaking part.  They asked a handful of second graders "How do you celebrate Christmas"

Girl # 1:    "We celebrate because it is Jesus' birthday"  crowd goes  "Ahhhhh"

Boy #2  "We celebrate by giving gifts"  crowd goes "AHHHHH"

Girl #3:  "We decorate a tree"  crowd goes "AHHHHHH"

Jonny:  "We build snow forts"  crowd laughes.

6:50  We quickly shuffle through one door as all the parents of 3rd grade shuffle in through the other.  Merry Christmas to us, we should all go make a snow fort.

Alton, your my hero.

There are some people who never let you down--  my gas station friends who can order a case of nacho cheese and it arrives the next day, Ryan Reynolds for obvious reasons and Alton.  You cannot however count on the tooth fairy. She has stiffed Jonny 3 days in a row.

 We have been seeing this dish pop up for years on our trusty "Food Network."  Since there are no "Chicken and Waffle restaurants here in Hamilton.... I know... shocker we decided to follow Alton's recipe and try it.   It was delightful in a very weird and bizarre way.  So here is a huge shout out to our friend Alton. I think I am going to try to make his home-made candy corns this week because let's face it, all candy corn is gross.

Death of the Hamster

We didn’t have the best of luck with pets as a child. Jenny had a horrible little crab that used to escape and we would find it in weird places. My first hamster’s sad little life ended quite tragically. I had spent many hours crocheting a leash. (Don’t judge me, all children in Wyoming crocheted their pets leashes.) Anyway, I then proudly harnessed my hamster and took her on a walk down to the Lancaster’s. Yet we never made it to the destination because a very scary dog showed up, barked once and my little hamster died instantly from heart failure.


We (Jenny, Jared, Jason, and I) were then entrusted with a second hamster. Oh, the hours I spent dressing up the hamster in all my doll clothes. He was a very happy companion at a time when my older siblings made up horror stories to scare me into staying at home rather than accompanying them to the park. To this day I am still afraid of all dogs, Nazi’s and anyone over the age of 75. Sadly one day our beloved pet also left us. Not by death, but by escaping into the wild to live with all the other happy hamsters.

Last week my parents visited us  in Montana bringing with them my favorite bag of doll clothing for Sarah to play with. It was quite the shock when Sarah’s friend came up to me holding the sad remains of our beloved hamster. Yes, it appears I might have left the poor dressed up hamster in my bag where he must have died slowly and then decomposed over the next 30 years. Well at least it wasn’t the crab.

Where's the s'mores?

Reasons why I need a vacation
1.  Any time you leave your house you return smelling like a campfire.  This is not a bad thing if you are camping and get to experience the happiness of Reesus Peanut butter cup s'mores.  Not as much fun when you are going to the library.

2.  Every time we leave the house Jonny expects to see zombies or some other kind of monster.  It does look somewhat like a horror movie outside.

3.  Nathan chooses to point out what the signs of a red moon mean.  Thank you to all past teachers for this.

Many of our ward members are being evacuated, they're wearing masks outside the lab for bad air quality, but the biggest sign to how dangerous a situation we are in is. (drum roll)  Oh yes my friends, they have cancelled Football practice.   



Please send prayers this way, especially for all my friends who's homes are in danger this week.

False Pride

Ok, Scrabble is not my strong point. Sadly the only people I can beat without cheating are Kettie and my children.  It’s alright; I have mad skills at many other games. So, I am not sure why today’s conversation with Ben was slightly disturbing.


Ben: “Hey Mom, how do you know “so and so”?

Me: I used to know her in an old ward. Why?

Ben: “I have been playing her Scrabble on my ipod”

Me: “What?”

Ben: “You said I could use your Facebook account to play scrabble with Grandma.”

Me “Seriously, how many of my random old friends from high school now believe I have a 5th grade vocabulary?”

Ben: “Uhhhhh, well right  now it's just Dodi?”

It appears for the last couple YEARS Ben has been playing scrabble under my facebook account. In looking it up it appears he averages losing by around 200 points per game. So if you are one of the many secretly gloating over killing me you should  know you suffer from false pride. I am sure I would win if I played you. Of course I might have to cheat.

Summer Vacation: Is that what we call it?

I know it has been awhile. I have been slightly busy. Finding a new house, moving into a new house, leaving for vacation the day after we moved, going to Utah, Evanston, Denver, back to Evanston, back to Utah, back to Evanston and home and of course preparing for the “Ravalli county Fair.” Ha ha ha, o.k. not the last one. In fact, the religion known as the “Ravalli County Fair” is the reason my kids are still enjoying summer vacation. We can’t let something like education get in the way of a good deep fried Twinkie.


We also started football. Oh yes my friend, they are all just as crazy as ever. In fact, we need our own reality TV show. We would be famous because you know our line coach used to play for the Bobcats.

So now we are ready to get back into homework, schedules, and blogging. Well, after the fair.

Didn't you read the syllabus?

Dave is not a huge fan of texting.  He particularly hates it when he is giving a lecture and sees someone plunking away on their cell phones.  Yesterday, Dave was up in Missoula teaching Biology 280 when right in the middle of him saying something that I am sure was profound  a cell phone went off.  Not just a normal ring tone but an African like chant  that sounded like   IIyayayayayayayaya.

Dave:  (speaking to himself.... don't get annoyed, they're just kids) 
Phone continues to ring
15 minutes later..... Dave is sounding really smart when......IIyayayayayayayay
Dave:  (thinking.... Didn't they read the syllabus it clearly states no cell phones)
20ish minutes later.  I say 20ish because who can really judge time when you sitting in Biology 280 .......Iyayayayayayayaya

Dave really speaking this time. "Ok. seriously who's phone?,....."  Then Dr. Revelli notices the annoying sound is coming from his own computer bag... "Sorry class, it appears that I picked up my son Nathan's annoying phone instead of mine."

Why are they wearing that?

 Fashion choices you see Daily in the Bitteroot.

1. Fishing Vests worn all day.  They are not just for the river people.
2.  Camo can be worn everywhere from a nice concert to church.
3.  Our ice cream scooper girls don't wear cute red and white striped shirts.  They where black  "We'll work for Ammo" shirts.
4. Hunter orange ( I have actually seen this at a baptism)  Sadly, a few years ago I would not have known that obnoxious color of orange was called "Hunter Orange"
5.  Finally, today there was a woman wearing a spaghetti strainer on her head.  (If any of you doubt me ask Sis. Harmon she saw her too)  When I casually got in for a closer look while pretending interest in a book, I noticed she had pinned it into her hair.  I waited outside the library because I truly wanted a picture but she never came out.  Maybe she was getting a book on cool Fashions of the Bitteroot.

Random Thoughts

1.  Hamilton is currently celebrating Mule Days.  I don't think anyone even knows what that is but we just see all the signs around town and say,  "Huh, it's Mule Days."   Why is it that I live in a town that we celebrate Mules but no one mentions  "National Donut Day"

2. McDonald's just had their re-opening after being closed for two months.  I feel like this is a reason to celebrate because now there is one more place I can  get ice-cream after 9:00p.m

3.  Wild turkeys scare me.  They don't belong in the middle of the road.  They belong in plastic wrap in I.G.A.

4.  Sliced hot dogs topped with  mashed potatoes  and cheese  are one of those foods you have pleasant memories of as a child but don't carry over to adulthood.  I know I tried these again tonight.

5.  Jonny's picture was on the cover of our newspaper  "The Ravalli Republic" again today.   This is the second time we have made the cover photo.   I used to think that was a big deal, but now I realize it is kind of standard in a town our size.

Can you say that in a prayer?

My new "small home business" has three parties this week which makes my life a little crazy so I just thought I would give some highlights from my last couple of weeks.

1.  Someone said  "heck" in the closing prayer.  Can you say that in a prayer?

2.  I asked where all the happy ducks were that I pass everyday.  The family in my ward (who owns the ducks) said their grandpa ate them while they were out of town.

3.  We have some crazy politics happening here.  One candidate is suspected of releasing the other candidates horses. ( That is serious stuff)

Finally, I have invested in any item I might possibly need from our ward library.  Trust me, it's better this way.

Happy Cinco De Mayo First Grade!

There are not a lot of Cinco De Mayo celebrations happening in Hamilton this weekend.  So of course I hosted two of my own this weekend.  The most important being Jonny's first grade class.  It was going to be epic, Mexican Hot chocolate, crafts, games, nachos (If you can count the fake gas station nachos as real nachos) and of course Margarita's.  Now I know what you are thinking,

You:  "Jill, you have lost it.  You can't serve Margarita's even non-alcoholic ones to Jonny's first grade class."
Me:  "Of course I wouldn't do that.  I am calling them "Happy Fiesta Lime Drinks."

This was the plan until a very cute boy in Jonny's class name Jose raised his hand and said  "hmmmmm, what are these?  My parents have these and I think..."

As I was leaving later that day one of the secretaries stopped me in the hall and said.  "Did you really give the first grade Margarita's?"   I answered of course not,  because officially they were "Happy Fiesta Lime Drinks."

Parent Teacher Conference

Last week (before I was hit with my crazy cold/ flu/whooping cough/Dave brought something home from the lab kind of sickness) I had Parent Teacher conference. This is usually where I hear of Ben's latest money making scheme. Ben's teacher started by asking?
"So, how has Ben liked this school year?"
Me:  "Oh, he has loved it"
Teacher:  "Good, because I would hate to have him try to get me fired."
I guess Ben's little escapade last year did not go unnoticed by the other teachers. 

I learned from Jonny's teacher that he is very concerned with personal hygeinne.  He came to her and said;
Jonny:   "sniff sniff  Do my arm pitts smell like Tuna to you?
Her: "uhhhh, no"
Jonny:  "Yea, I am feeling kind of soggy, I think I smell."
Jonny's teacher ended her conference by saying how all the teachers have started writing down things Jonny says, so they can all read them.  Apparently they all think he is hilarious.  Yea, they all think that until the cute little kid tries to get you fired.

5th grade...time for "The Talk"

Due to the nature of the world today, we had " The Talk" with Ben years ago. Whenever I bring it up again Ben adamantly says, "No, no, no please don't say the S word, let's just call it uhhh... The Happy Dance of Spring."

Last night Ben handed me a permission slip. I then cringed a little from the uncomfortable memory of 5th grade Health class. It was time for the talk. So, Dave and I did what all responsible parents do. We offered him 10 bucks if he raises his hand and tells the Teacher: "You have to wait until marriage for the Happy Dance of Spring" Knowing Ben as I do, my bet is he will be 10 dollars richer by the end of the day.

Night games brings out the worst in me

I just returned from a much needed trip to Evanston. We dyed eggs and played charades (Jenny and I count this as our super power.) We also had the Epic Egg Hunt of 2012. The great part of this trip was discovering that all the grand kids are now old enough to play night games. The bad part is I discovered my competitive side comes out during night games. (during charades there is no competition so it stays dormant. ha ha ha)


I found myself almost injuring my oldest son Nate as he scared me to death while jumping from the near-by back hoe.

I crammed myself underneath a dump truck.

I was covered in bites from some unknown insect while lying down in bushes.

The worst was when I sent my 4 year old niece by herself into the darkness so she wouldn't give my hiding spot away. I know I am a horrible aunt. I think next year I will stick to charades.


Jason also blessed his cute baby. Without Jason we would have 10 gransons and 3 grand daughters. Luckily Jason provided 4 girls by himself to even out our numbers. Here are all the girls except for Kyleigh. Kyleigh wasn't able to come because she feared I might injure her during nightgames )

"Your Killing me Smalls"

Does anyone know what movie this famous one liner comes from? I think I say this way too much. Here are a few times this month when I have said "Your killing me..."


"Your killing me... Sarah"


Sarah has started coloring on every surface she can find. She has recently finger painted with: lipstick, deodorant,flour, sugar etc. This was the third time in one day she colored all over herself. .

"Your killing me...random guy at Costco"

The day after Sarah had been punished numerous times for drawing on her hands and arms, the random door checker guy at Costco grabs her hand and draws a smiley face on it. She grabbed her hand back like she had been burned and yelled " no, no, no " to the poor Costco guy.

"Your killing me...Ben and Jon"

My two youngest sons are constantly asking for weird food. How come I don't have kids ask for chicken nuggets, and mac and cheese. No, they ask for Miso soup and Octopus for dinner. Dave always thinks these are great suggestions.

"Your killing me... anonymous girl from my ward (ok. Blodgett now) I showed up kind of late, but it seriously looked like you were trying to take out my oldest child.

"Your killing me.....Dave"

Dave has now censored two of my blogs. One about "Gollum." I have changed his/her name for the safety of all involved. The other about my happy field trip with two of my favorite people. Enough said.

I have passed my saying on to my children. Jonny had a play date earlier this week. He walked into their kitchen opened up their refrigerator and turned to Sister Appedaile. (our Primary President)

Jonny: Where are your cheese sticks?

Sis. Appedaile: Uhhhh, I don't have any cheese sticks.

Jonny: "Ugghh... Your killing me Heidi."

Hey, I am smart too!

Ben will not get any cookies the rest of the week. Every once in awhile he hints that Dave might be smarter than me. Now I know the whole PhD in some field that no one can pronounce sounds impressive on the outside but we all know better. Right? Yesterday, Ben and I were converting fractions. I know it's not bacterial pathogenesis, but whatever. I was trying to cover up the fact that I just couldn't remember how to do this when the following conversation took place.

Ben: (watching me struggle.. "Uhhh Mom, maybe I should just wait to do homework until Dad gets home."
Me: ( I try not to lash out at poor Ben for the unintentional slam.) "No, I just need to remember how to convert fractions to decimals and then back to fractions and times them."
Ben: "Maybe we should sign you up for IXL math." (An online math program to help kids who are behind)

Yea, I think that last one was an intentional slam. It's ok, we will see who's smart when he doesn't get any cookies this week.

Action Shot!

I do not have any pictures of Jonny making any shots, stealing the ball, or playing defense. I do however have many pictures of him celebrating. This is one of the more successful chest bumps.

I want some kind of refund!

There was an unwritten rule when Dave and I got married. First, I would teach the boys all about sports. Second, Dave in turn would handle all science fairs. So, you can understand my frustration. I have been doing nothing but Science Fair this week. Now, I understand that Dave had to travel to D.C. to present his own "Science Fair project." I can see how it would be stressful presenting it to the top science minds in the country, but seriously we had a deal. What's the point in marrying a science geek, if I still have to do the Science Fair.

Tomorrow, Nate and Dave will both be presenting their projects. I was going to post a picture of both their posters and Dave said that was illegal and he could get banned from all "Science Fairs" for the next three years. Yeh, I guess I won't post a picture. Good luck to both my boys in the Science Fair tomorrow and next time the boys need help with a lay-up Dave is in charge. (or maybe not)

The Curse of the Youngest

Picture this. Evanston, Wy. 1984. The four Hatch kids are happily playing next door. Jenny (the oldest) was obviously not happy having to haul the poor youngest (me) along with her on her adventures.

Jen: "Jill you have to sit on this bench until I come and get you."
Me: "Jenny, I don't want to sit on the bench."
Jen: "If you leave the bench, there is a huge dog that will come and eat you."

I sat on the bench for hours.

Inside the house playing war downstairs:
Jason: "Jill you are the secretary. Stay here and take notes."
Me: " Jason, I want to play. I can hold a gun."
Jared hands me a broken golf club and says it's my gun.
Jason: "If you leave this room, they will shoot you first."


I stayed in the room for hours, until I realized they had all left for next door and I was alone in the basement.

Today:
I walked into the kitchen to find this.
Me: "Ben, what are you doing?"
Ben: "I couldn't find my music stand."

It's all about perspective

I just picked up my 3rd case of happy gas station cheese today. I have to order it through my favorite gas station because where else am I going to find 5 lb bags of cheese. It has been almost 1 year since I was given my cheese machine . I noticed today that there is less than .6 grams of sugar per serving. ( might as well eat a carrot) I also noticed that there are 15 grams of fat. So, in the last year my family has consumed uhhhh let's see 3 cases of cheese, 6 bags per case, each bag has about 50 servings times 15 grams of fat.....OK, math wasn't my strong subject. On to the positive point. With such a small amount of sugar you might as well eat one of my new flavors of cotton candy.

I am proud of his mad dancing skills

In sports, it's not so much about your skills on the court, as it is about the entertainment factor. Jonny has an abundance of this. The first day of practice we walked in and some random family said: "Oh! We were hoping we would get this kid on our team." After Jonny scores, he always does a victory dance. I have seen:
The Robot. (For this he ran to center court before he started and did not stop, even when both teams ran around him to get to the opposite basket.)
An Irish jig. (Last week after the Irish dance he tried to chest bump another player and they both fell down.)
Today was some sort of break-dance move. The guy sitting by me turns and says:
"I have heard of this kid's victory dances and he didn't disappoint."
When Jonny ran up to me to get his water bottle, the guy just laughed. What can I say, I was so proud.

I have a teenager!

Nate just turned 13. I don't know what makes me sadder, that he is now officially a teenager, or that I can never find size 28/34 jeans. We just had family pictures taken and Nate was excited because even in the picture he looks taller than me. I said it was because I was slouching

A huge thanks to our friend Rachel, who used her mad skills to take all of these pictures. If you live in Logan she can also take cute pictures of you. She is so good that she could probably photoshop a child to appear shorter than you as well. To see more of them go here. . http://photosbyratch.wordpress.com/

Changes

My favorite little grocery store has been sold to a bigger chain.
Positives: We now can get "Western Family."
Negatives: They took the frozen rabbit out of the freezer section.
Positive: At the lab Dave got a text saying "when you come upstairs bring rabbit serum." So if all else fails, I guess Dave can bring dinner home from work.

Some Lady Went Postal at K-Mart...Oh wait that was me.

I have a love-hate relationship with K-mart. Unfortunately, it leaned more towards the hate last night. I feel like I have started to adjust to not having any shopping except for when I have to plan some event. I started out yesterday, optimistically, searching for Wilton candy melts and pink ribbon. A couple of hours later, I was giving everyone I saw a dirty look- like somehow they were contributing to the fact that I can't buy any ribbon here. I finally ended up at K-mart where they didn't have a single thing I was looking for but I did pick up some new pens.

Assistant Manager checking me out: "Good Evening, find everything you were looking for?"

Me: "Yea, thanks"
Him: "That's great."
Me: (Realization of what I just said) "WAIT! NO, I didn't find a single bloody thing I was looking for. It is so hard to have pink ribbon."
Him: "uhhhhhh, I am sorry."
Me: "I came in for 5 simple things and you did not have one of them."
Him: (Looking uncomfortable and glancing at the people behind me in line) "Ahhh, I can give you a hug."
Me: "I hang my head in shame, say it's o.k. and walk out."

CATCH-UP not to be confused with Ketsup

I have been a blogging loser lately. Here are some of the reasons.

1. New Years. I had an Epic New Years Eve party. O.K. it wasn't epic, and all my guest were gone by 10:30 p.m. so we had to have a fake ball dropping ceremony at 10:00 just so I could use all my noise-makers and fake champagne. (It was still better than our first year of marriage where Dave fell asleep at 10:15p.m. and I cried and drank Martinelli's by myself... He has learned his lesson since then.)

2. I turned 35.
1. A new Cake Cricut machine. If you don't know what this is, Google it and then be jealous of me.
2. New Mickey mouse cooking utensils. Ahhhhh now my toast and eggs will be happy every morning.
3. My Gas station party. Oh yes, some of my friends wanted to take me out for ice-cream but at 9:15 p.m the entire town was shut down except for my trusty gas station. I had a fur-real shake. ( Not to be confused with the Fureal toy pets)

3. Tax Season
I don't even do Hatch Patch taxes, but just getting the stuff ready for my accountant makes me want to drink Drano.

4. Our ward split. O.K. this has nothing to do with blogging but it is BIG news in our little valley so I thought I should mention it.

5. Guy's celebrity cook-off. I know what you are thinking. The Revelli's need Food Network therapy. I would have to agree since Jonny has decided to be a Sugar Artist when he grows up.

Mid-Life Crises through Cereal

Our grocery store had a fantastic sale this week on cereal. Not the lame "Tootie Fruties", but the good stuff like "Fruity Pebbles", "Cookie Crisp", and "S'mores". I naturally started filling my cart. I then spotted my friend Travis down the aisle. He was buying "Cheerios", "Honey bunches of stuff", and "Oatmeal" ( He is also the kind of guy who runs marathons). After being slightly embarrassed that he saw the 22 boxes of happy cereal that was in my cart, I decided that since I was turning the big 35 this week I would expand my horizons. I threw a couple of "Not so happy cereals" into my cart for good measure. Yesterday I decided instead of "Fruity Pebbles" I would eat "Frosted Flakes" ( I know it's not shredded wheat... baby steps my friends) anyway after the first bite I realized something was wrong with my "Adult" cereal. I looked at the box and it said in very small writing. "Now with 1/2 of the sugar." They were basically CORN FLAKES. Which we all know the only reason you buy corn flakes is to bread something and fry it. So my mid life crises was short lived, I have now gone back to all my happy cereal. After all, it IS fortified.

Christmas Re-cap

There are so many things to catch up on from the holidays it's hard to know where to start.

1. My friend Kristy sent me "Garden Gnome Head Christmas ornaments." When Ben saw them on the tree he said, "Why is Jesus wearing a big red hat?"

2. I started another "Cute home business." My only problem was when the nice lady at the Hamilton City building asked me for the name of my new rock star company, I had to ask her for suggestions.

3. Dave signed a contract with the University of Montana to teach a few classes. Go Bobcats!! Ha ha, seriously don't paint my house maroon. I know they are the Grizz.

4. Christmas Eve night was not so silent as I screamed at the top of my lungs when I thought I was going to die. (This story really needs it's own blog entry)

5. Dave did not surprise me with a snow cone machine this year. Huh, well my birthday is next week so maybe Dave is saving it. However, he did announce from the pulpit yesterday that I was not getting one.

6. I did eat lots of Candy Cane Oreos. (shhhhhh I still have about 16 cookies left. I change their hiding place every day just in case Ben finds them.) Don't you wish I was your mother?