I have my costume for Halloween, in fact it's already on.

This is actually a 10 year old picture but I didn't want to take a picture of what I actually look like right now because it might send readers into a panic, worried for my sanity. Last night was one of those nights that serve as excellent birth control. Unfortunately it is too late for that for me. I had been up with the kids a lot the night before and had taken a nap with the two youngest in the afteroon. Well of course this gave me insomnia so I didn't fall asleep till 1:00. Then the fun started. At 2:30 Mia woke up coughing and crying so I went in and comforted her and gave her more tylenol. Then at 4 Liam came up and told me that Brock's foot had fallen asleep. I thought it was morning and he was looking for an excuse to wake me up so I said "sorry, I hope it feels better" and went back to sleep. Then a couple minutes I woke back of and realized that it was still night and I should check on Brock. He was downstairs in their room crying because he had woken up with a horrible headache (I think he got my migraine gene) and couldn't get back to sleep. Don't ask me how Liam translated that to his foot falling asleep. So I took care of him and went back to bed. Sometime between 4:30 and 5 Evie threw up. Even more fun she was in our bed. She had been crying off and on in her bed and I was too tired to deal with it any other way than by putting her in bed with us so I woke up to wretching right next to my face. After we got things cleaned up she didn't want to go back to sleep and a half an hour later, when I got up to take care of a crying Mia again, she followed me around talking and chatting as if it was mid morning. I took her back to bed and was tired enough I have no idea how long it took her to fall back asleep.

Needless to say, I am a zombie right now. I need a super hero like this:
to come save me.

Why I don't like reporters.

Just kidding, I do like reporters, I just don't like when they are reporting on me. Something I didn't take into consideration when I decided to run for city council was the possibility of being interviewed. I am really self conscious when it comes to that kind of thing and always feel like an idiot afterward. So I have been interviewed twice now (well kind of). The first was a girl from USU who came to the house, taped the interview and took a picture for their "Hard News Cafe". I was nervous, especially when the tape recorder came on, and even though I had thought about what I wanted to say before, it didn't seem to come out right. I read her story and it wasn't what I would have wanted highlighted but it wasn't all that bad.

The second interview was a guy from the Herald Journal who contacted me by email asking for a statement (with my professional background and reasons for running) and picture. I seriously considered ignoring the email but decided that wouldn't be fair/responsible so I wrote a short statement and sent a picture. The reporter then called me and told me he felt my statement was too short and the guys running for mayor had much larger statements than me and the other woman running for city council. I informed him that it was probably because we were running unopposed while the men were running against each other. He conceded my point and left my statement as it was. Anyway, I am totally running on but the profiles were in the paper yesterday and he made me look like a total idiot. This was my statement: I graduated in 1999 with a BA in English and have been running a rapidly growing organization (the Redman family) ever since. My family moved to Millville in 2007 and plan on staying for years to come. I am running for City Council because I want to do my part to make sure Millville remains a great place to live.

This is what he wrote (without the bold): Redman graduated in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in English. "Since then I have been running a rapidly growing organization (the Redman Family) ever since."

So he said that I had a degree in English and then in the next sentence made it look like I said "since then...ever since". Now I am not a grammar freak, in fact my grammar is quite lousy at times but I felt like I looked like a total idiot. My only hope is that nobody read the article.

I am probably blowing this way out of proportion but was so nervous and hated the idea of being interviewed in the first place and now I feel my fears are justified. So I will bank on the hope that I won't be interviewed again unless I run for city council again in 4 years and if I do I already have my statement ready: If you like what I have done the past 4 years vote for me again. That's it.

Family pictures, and oh, what a family.

We finally did the family photo shoot that we have been planning to do for over a year. My extended family has started using a photographer named Amber to do pictures for engagements, weddings, babies etc. and I have wanted to get family pictures done for about 18 months now. Last year I was going to do it but didn't get around to it and suddenly it was winter and too cold with babies. So then spring pictures was the plan with pretty spring flowers in the background. Well that didn't happen either. Neither did summer pictures. What can I say, I may have bitten off more that I can chew with that last baby. Anyway, one of the things that kept me from making the appointment was that I wanted coordinating outfits and i was never getting around to getting them so I just decided to make the appointment first and then figure out the appointments. Anyway, long story not quite so long, I made the appointment, I found the outfits (all found in the closet or at DI except for 2 shirts, $3.50 each), and we did the photo shoot. I am really happy with how the pictures turned out which is good since I opted out of school pictures this year. I have a couple group shots here and I have decided to blog about one of my kids each week and post their individual pictures then. I meant to write about each child during their birthdays but it didn't happen so will hopefully make up for it.