I'M BLOGGING!!!!
I know...shocker. Life has been crazy the past 2 months. But they have been the bestest best {two} months ever!!!!!!!!!!

BUT I'm blogging somewhere else now.
brimhallee1.blogspot.com just isn't appropriate anymore.

You can now find the thoughts of Allee (& Brandon) at

www.bajohnson999.blogspot.com

My job ROCKS!!! This summer I get to spend nearly every day of every week with one of my boys....Jack or Tyler. They are so amazing!!! Three days out of the week I get to go to school with Jack and play with other kids who are mentally handicapped. It is the by far the best experience I have ever had.

*The other day, at the school, there were two kids waiting in line to be able to toss a bean bag. The boy turned to the girl and said,"Can I have a hug?" (but in his cute, not so perfect, a bit slurred way) "Sure!" she answered with a bit of a lisp. They hugged and held eachother for atleast 30 seconds. As they pulled away the little boy whispered,"Hannah, I think you're my best friend." She said nothing except for the GIGANTIC smile on her face. "HIGH FIVE?!" the little boy asked. It's then that they attempted to give eachother a high five. It wasn't perfect by any means, the way they said things didn't make perfect sense, they barely touched hands when they high fived, but those two kids were the happiest kids in the entire world at that moment.

I get to count on Jack telling me,"Allee, I like you." every day. He never missed a hug and any opportunity he gets, he wants to hold my hand. Tyler is learning SO much. I give him swim lessons everyday and he is such a trooper! The water hasn't been warm and I just keep dragging him in but at the end of the lesson, he is still laughing and smiling. I was reading a book at the Anasagasti's [Tyler's house] the other night about the benefits of having a child in the autistic spectrum. What a blessing it is to have these sweet spirits around us!

This morning my mom was telling me about a story in the 'Friend'. As she was telling me about it she started to cry.

"{My Brother Is My Best Friend}"
"My big brother has autism. It is hard for him to talk and make friends, but he is my very best friend. I take care of him when we ride the bus to school, and I make sure he doesn't get lost when we are away from home. I help him find his class in Primary and pray for him every night."
"I have faith that one day he will be able to tell me what he has been thinking all this time. He will smile and tell me I am his best friend too. I am so lucky to be his big brother. I love him."
Boston B., age 8, Texas

I know I'm not the nicest all the time and sometimes I get angry at my little guys because they won't listen, but I really do love them and I hope that I'm good enough to them for them to be able to tell me, when they're made perfect, that I was their friend and they liked the days that I came over. My mom has had a few run-ins with Jack and I know that she feels his sweet spirit. Camden made the perfect statement after playing with Jack one evening....

"Heavenly Father just didn't make me special like Jack. Huh mom?"


{Told you I have the BEST job!!}

Really?! REALLY??!

Sundays are amazing! It's the one day a week I feel like I get to sleep in {when waking up around 4:30am every morning, sleeping til 6 is a WAY big deal!} Last night I stayed at Tyler's house because his parents were going to stay out for the night. I had to keep Emily up until 9:30pm because her mom said since it was the weekend she could stay up and she wasn't about to let me tell her otherwise! So FINALLY she went to sleep and then, of course, I caught my second wind. I did this and that around the house, painted my fingernails, played with the cat, thought of a craft project the kids and I could do this morning, and cleaned the kitchen. And then it was time to fall asleep!! BUT THEN THERE'S THE STUPID CAT!!! All night it was crawling on me and scratching me and trying to bite me {it's a new kitty, "it doesn't know better"} THEN at 5:30 this morning there's a little girl standing at the edge of the couch. "Allee....I have a problem." .....silence.....more silence...."Okay sweetie, what's your problem?" With tears in her eyes,"My pants are wet! I think I had a dream!" Oh boy!! So now I'm doing laundry while trying to keep Emily entertained. I was going to try to get ready for the day before the kids woke up but....[how was I supposed to know they'd be up 2 hours early??!]

My State of Mind

On my way home from Applebee's at midnight tonight there was a frog in the road. I was only going like 10 miles per hour so I knew for sure what it was and I thought, "I'm going to run over it!! This will be fun!" But at the last second, before I knew what my heart was telling my brain to make my body do, I swerved and missed.

"GOSH DANG AL!! How could you miss that? Why in the WORLD did you swerve?"

My response to myself.

"That's going to be some girl's handsome prince someday! Are you going to take that away from her?"

That's my state of mind for you! So for the next little lady getting married in my area, {YOU'RE WELCOME!}

Lessons Learned Part 349587234

{awe} peace at [last]!!!!! Today was another 'gosh awful, good for nothin, time wastin' day. I found out I've been working for the past week for free. The lady at work finally realized I don't know what I"m doing on a computer and let me know. And to top it all off, [I didn't even wear make-up to work today]. Our ward had a baptism night and I realized I had no idea where my recommend was. I looked and looked and looked and....well you get the point. I finally ended up having to call my bishop to get a new one because I couldn't miss this temple trip because 3 people called me reminding me about it!!! FINALLY got to the temple but I was a few minutes late so there were already people dressed in white. I went and got my jumpsuit and before I changed they asked me to get back to the chapel so we could have a little opening. As I was sitting there, I had the best feeling. I knew in the temple is where I needed to be. It was so peaceful and I felt like I had no problems in the entire world. The spiritual thought was amazing and as I sat thinking, I came to a realization. [I was sitting in this wonderful building, with the amazing feeling, in my 'normal' clothes. While the temple is a truly inspiring place, it was today that I finally realized that I can bring the temple spirit into my life without going there every day.] I don't know if that makes sense but sitting in the chapel with everyone else dressed in white just made me realize that special little lesson. It's what I've been taught since I was little but like with everything, I guess I just think I have to learn for myself....Today had it's ups and downs, but it ended on a GOOD NOTE and that's all that matters.

I'm just whining....

Another blah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH day...I'm in the office for 8 hours all by myself. Ya it was nice for the 3 minutes that I twirled around and sang while listening to {Bubbly} but now it's just quite...the hum of the scanner...a banging on the wall from the other office...an occational car door closing outside...my phone vibrating from text messages from girls in the ward...a phone call about once an hour...the rhythm of the keys...my ball squeaking on the plastic thing on the floor...my sighs...yup....these are the things reminding me that I'm alive. Sounds interesting right???? This is the music of my life at work. Betcha all wish you had my tune huh?

I feel like I've really put some time into some things lately and then those things just fall through...or it wasn't done how a certain person wanted it done so it all just gets erased [we'll just forget the fact that both ways were perfectly fine although....my way was pretty awesome!!!] And these aren't things or people that you can argue about or with. It's times that you just have to smile, nod your head, and tell them "You're right, that was a really great idea!" or I have to keep saying,"It was a really nice idea Allee. Some people just have better things to do."

some days it's just annoying
some days I could care less
some days I could smile and actually mean it
some days I could argue but I know better
some days sitting in my car with the music up, windows down works
some days just being alone helps
some days just laughing makes it all go away

But today just isn't one of those 'some days'....today is a "I wanna do it all day."
I want to:
be a headbanger
scream
giggle till it hurts
smile for a reason
cry because I can
argue about something that's worth standing for
go people watching
be alone
squeeze a little kid cuz they're so darn cute
wrestle
play catch
watch a movie


Yup....today is a complicated day...so stay back!!!!!!!

My poor future...future....way future husband is one poor man!!! Look at that list! He's just not going to know what to do with me :-) But I guess that's part of it all....looking past the list. {I just hope he has a list like this sometimes too so I don't feel so bad!!!}

Anyway...that's me complaining.......sorry :-/

Holy MOTHER!!!!!! I always tell Abby that there are some things I just can't do because I'm not a mom...{TOTALLY TRUE!!!!} So with Chad and Caskie moving back into town, I thought it would be fun to have a spend the night. So with the 4 oldest grandkids in their swimsuits we walked to the swimming pool. [It really wasn't that warm of a day and there was a pretty good little breeze...ughhh...but they really wanted to so I figured 'What the heck!] Well Camden and Kaja were freezing and laying on the slightly warm cement to get their bodies to stop shaking. I decided that it was probably time to go. As we were getting to the gate, Abby dropped Jo-jo off so her and her hubby could go on a date. So off we went...actually we didn't get very far because there is this amazing contraption right outside the swimming pool and there have been scientific studies that kids CANNOT walk past it without playing on this plastic. After going down the slides and playing on the monkey bars we raced down the grass hills till we finally ran into a palm tree branch...well we didn't actually run into it but Darby found it and wanted to take it to 'the fort'. The 4 older kids went out to the dirt field to find a table and chairs while I made beans-n-weenies, cut up mangos, and juice. While trying to take dinner out the the fort and spilled beans-n-weenies all over my foot and burned it, bent my fingernail, bumped my head, and had to change a diaper....geeze life of a mom is ROUGH!!! But dinner out at the fort was wonderful! If you dropped a bean...oh well! Clean up was pretty easy and so in we went! Jo-jo, Kaja, and Darby took a bath in the girl's bathroom while Camden and Emery took a shower in Abby and Shane's shower. I popped popcorn, threw my keys in the big garbage outside and had to climb on in to get them out, cleaned up the house, popped popcorn, and cut up some apples. I went upstairs to get everyone out and there's noone in the bathtub!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come to find out they're ALL in the shower! What a mess.....we finally got everything all cleaned up and now we are just relaxing watching a cute little movie. What a lovely evening :-)

I could never have 5 kids I don't think. I would be the crazy lady that everyone wants to peep on to see how her life really is. My house would be a wreck and if my kids asked me if laundry was done I'd just have to say,"Do it yourself!" And beans-n-weenies???? What kind of meal is that? Healthy?? I think not!!!!! I see popcorn as a main food group. Getting baths everynight would be a hit or miss.....sorry kids.

I guess I'm just not a mom.