Five Things Friday

1. Tuesday night we went out for ice cream. It was the kids reward for being quiet during conference and letting John and I listen. This is our second time doing this and I love watching a new tradition start.

Everyone but Tyler was done with ice cream. He was having a hard time eating his frozen skittles. So I took the girls and headed down a few stores to this new store that's opened up, Altar'd State. I love this store!!!! The girls and I had fun browsing the jewelry, belts, scarves and fluffy coats as Hannah called them. It was so much fun to watch them get so excited over truly girly stuff. They both found some hats they liked, but there was no mirror close by. So they would try on a hat, look at each other and then switch. I guess they figured they could tell what they each looked like in the hats by looking at the other one wearing it. Oh, to have an identical twin!

Then the boys showed up. Tyler tried to sneak in. He's a bad sneak but it makes watching him try to be a good one so funny. I ended up scaring the living day lights out of him instead! I showed John these overly expensive and amazingly gorgeous coats I will never buy but just dream about daily. We found the $300 boots I tried on the last time I was there. Still love them! The girls and I decided that if we have a few hours that we will have to have a girl outing at Christmas to that store.

2. For awhile now the kids have been giving John and I math problems to solve in our heads. Most of the time they are pretty easy. "What's 1,000 + 300?" Well, on the way home from ice cream they decided to up the difficulty. "What's 1,000 x 200 (so far I'm thinking I can do this) + 27 x 2, 097 (now I'm not so sure) x 400 + 84 (now they've officially stumped me)?" I start to get out the calculator on my phone. Then I realize they don't know the answer anymore than I do. "4,623,479," I lie. "WOW!!" "How'd you do that?" "You figured it out?!"

One day I'll let them in on my secret, but for a while I'm content being the math genius. (By the way, the real answer is 22,847,684.)

3. Karena slipped coming down the stairs yesterday. She's fine. Just a little bump on the head. She was supposed to be upstairs doing her schoolwork, so as I rocked her to calm her down I asked her why she was coming down stairs. "Because I don't know any other way to get down here," was her reply.

4. Have you ever read the blog, Diapers and Divinity. Stephanie runs a fantastic blog that I've been following for a while now. I'm not sure how I stumbled on to it but do know it was for her General Conference book club! You ought to try it sometime. Anyway, she's been running a series called, Find a Friend Friday, and today I'm that friend! Go check it out. Maybe you'll learn something new about me.

5. Tyler and I were working on his reading earlier in the week. He informed me that he didn't like to read. It was boring. I started to tell him about all the adventure stories he could read one day, the ones about pirates and cowboys. I went on and on about all the fun reading could bring.

Tyler: But Mommy, I like it better when you read it.
Me: What about when you go to college?
Tyler: You can come with me.
Me: What about when you are married and have a baby and your baby wants you to read her a story?
Tyler: I'll call you and you can read it.

I hope his wife doesn't mind.