New Year's & Light Sabers

For New Year's Eve we went to the Smart's house this year. We were planning on leaving around 10 so it wouldn't be too late for the kids but we ended up staying until 12:30. All the kids, even Lucy stayed awake until midnight to watch the ball drop and then to run outside to bang pans (Hibbert tradition) and watch some fireworks. It was great. Our kids love going to their house because they always have yummy food and every toy you a boy could ever want. Usually when we go Mikey immediately goes for the trains and Sam the dinosaurs and Conner a leapster or Wii but this time they went straight for the lightsabers. My boys don't have any. They seriously played with Ashton and Conner for 3+ hours having light sager duels. Occasionally Neil or Matt would join in. After that night I really wanted to buy them some but we'd just gotten over Christmas and I can't just buy 1, I have to buy 3 and really preferably 4 so that when their friends come over they can all battle. They would really like the ones that light up and make sounds. So I've had my eye out for any after Christmas sales but no luck. I've been to the dollar store a couple of times since then and they always get out the wrapping paper and use them as light sabers. I took them to Toys R US one day to kill some time and once they found the light sabers that's all they'd play with. I kept telling them to put them away because if they break it I have to buy it. This weekend I went to a conference so Neil had the kids all to himself and what did he spend his time doing. He made them all lightsabers out of tightly rolled newspaper, tape, electrical tape and made them shiny by taking apart some metallic gift bags and wrapping them. The kids are thrilled and it didn't cost a dime. They have pretty much
been playing non stop with them. Boys, boys, boys and their battles.Neil made 2 double light sabers and 4 singles. He's going to make a couple green ones tomorrow with some wrapping paper I have. It's cute when Sam gives one to Lucy and battles her. But he makes sure he tells me he's being very soft. Some day they'll have real light sabers but for now these are fitting the bill.

I did make a New Year's resolution this year. I have resolved to go to bed by 10pm Sun-Thurs (I've actually been doing it the past two weeks) so I can get up by 6am to exercise for a half hour, take a shower and get ready for the day and study my scriptures for a half hour all before the kids get up at 7:30. Since October, I had been getting very little sleep and it was killing me. I need a lot of sleep so I decided I had to do this. It's hard not to stay up. I always have so many things I want to get done. I'm exercising just to try and be a little healthier. Nothing too strenuous. I'd love to lose the 10 pounds of baby weight but at the rate I'm going it will take a year or longer. Interesting since I started exercising (it's only been 2 weeks) I have gained 4 pounds. I don't get it. I know it's not muscle. I know I don't eat good, too many sweets, but I ate way worse over the holidays and never gained anything. A little may be the fact that I'm done nursing. It's nice getting up early. I wasn't getting out of bed until 8 and then rushing and yelling like crazy to get the kids ready for school. I get so much done now. Another goal is to do one load of laundry a day. I did so good the 1st week but not so good last week. Oh well you win some and you lose some.