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The Cast

2010-01-17T12:28:00.002-07:00

Ian broke his femur. How you ask, is it possible for a two year old who is two feet off of the ground to break his femur?

Good question. It's a mathamatical equation that looks something like this:

(laminate floors + cup of water) + chasing big brother = femur spiral fracture

In other words:

($75 urgent care visit + $75 ER visit + $350 hospital copay) X spica cast X 4 weeks + a visit from CPS and city detective + one complaint report to the medical board / five hours of sleep each night = many cranky people.

December 22nd, I had just cleaned up lunch and sent the kids out of the kitchen to play so that I could start my cookie making fest. At some point, my daughter had taken a kid's cup of water upstairs to the play room. The same play room that was nice and clean as I made the kids pick it up before lunch so that Santa would see that they took good care of their toys. In hindsight, I should have been happy with the scattered Mr Potato Head pieces and video game parts all over the floor. It would have prevented the running that took place. Needless to say, it's now my excuse for having a messy playroom.

Back to the cup of water. Ian had taken the cup of water and poured it on the laminate floor. That one foot of space between our armoire and floor rug. Naturally. He then started chasing Erik (for reference, Ian can pretty much out run, out smack and out yell Erik any day of the week). He must have run right in to the puddle of spilled water and planted with his injured leg (left), slipped with his right leg and twisted enough to break his femur bone.

I heard him screaming but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was the same scream I hear whenever he doesn't get what he wants. I sent Lauren upstairs (who had just come downstairs to get a towel to clean up the water spill) to check on him and find out what they were fighting over. After a minute, I noticed the screaming hadn't stopped so I washed my peanut butter buckeye ball hands and went upstairs to find Ian on the floor rug, leg extended and grabbing his knee. It was obvious he was in a lot of pain.

After assessing the situation (realizing he slipped in the water), I thought he did something to his knee. I picked him up, took him downstairs and set him on the counter. I gently moved his leg and foot to see if he would let me. He seemed to be fine with that motion. Suddenly, he grabbed the back of his leg and screamed "OWIES MOMMY! OWIES!" At this point, I didn't know what was going on. I picked him up, wrapped him in a blanket and sat in our rocking chair. I called my husband to come home from work and my mom to come over to watch the other kids.

We called the nearest urgent care to make sure they had an x-ray machine. At the time, I was focused on getting him to the closest place with and x-ray just to see what was going on. If it was broken, we could then get him to the ER and probably be able to get right in. I have never had a good experience with emergency rooms, so I didn't want to chance waiting hours to be seen. Another unfortunate mistake on my part.

At the urgent care, the Dr (who got his degree from the University of Nigeria and had "Yes We Can!" Obama posters in his hallway), took an x-ray and said he didn't see any breaks. He sent us home claiming he might just have some soft tissue damage and gave instructions to ice it and give him Motrin for pain. He assured us that in a couple of days, he would start to feel better. Unfortunate mistake number three.

A couple of days later it was Christmas Eve/Christmas day. He still wasn't putting weight on his leg and would scream with any diaper change. He hadn't slept more than an hour or two every night. He would be so tired, dose off, but then twitch, which would make him move his leg and he would wake up screaming! I knew something wasn't right but also knew there wouldn't be any specialist open on Christmas let alone, a Friday. My parents came over Christmas afternoon and I asked my dad what he thought might be wrong (give me the worst case senario). He suggested that it could either be a greenstick fracture (which might not necessarily show up on an x-ray right away) and that we'd need to go and get another x-ray to see if new bone growth was visible. OR.....he could have a spiral fracture and if they only took 1 x-ray, it would be hard to see it without having either A- a couple of x-rays with different views of the injured leg or B- an x-ray of the good leg to compare the two. He suggested a visit to a specialist if he wasn't putting weight on it by Monday.

Monday (almost a week after his fall) we tried getting in to an ortho but had no luck so we decided to go straight to the new Children's hospital in town. That's when the real nightmare began.

After doing 2 x-rays, it was determined that he had an OBVIOUS fracture. At first, we were just told it was a fracture and that it had separated. So, for the longest time, I was thinking that it was a greenstick which didn't present itself in our urgent care x-ray and that we might have made it worse from the few times we moved him. I felt horrible! I kept thinking, "How was it possible for the urgent care doctor to not see it? We went a whole week with him suffering in pain!" I started to cry and struggled to contain my fears, frustrations and heartache for my little boy. Of course, we then had "social services" pay us a visit in the ER and were warned by every Doctor we spoke to that we were probably going to be getting a call from CPS. Just standard procedure when a child comes in with a head trauma or femur fracture and not to take it personally. Great. Add more stress to our situation.

We checked in to the hospital and prepared for his procedure the next morning to set his leg and put him in a spica cast. Turns out, he had a spiral fracture which made more sense knowing he slipped, and the floor pediatrician comforted us by saying it probably separated immediately and wasn't anything we did that caused it to happen. I insisted that he be given the most pain killers they could give. I spent a week giving him Motrin for a femur fracture and wasn't about to let him suffer from the trauma anymore. They had him on morphine for the night. I went home to relieve my mom and take care of the other kids. My head hurt like I had been sobbing all day and my emotions were on my sleeve.......

The next morning was the procedure where they put him under a general in order to manipulate his leg back into place. We spent the rest of the day recovering back in the room. After we controlled his pain, we were able to go home.

The next day, we had a police detective and CPS come over and take a report of what happened basically making me feel like a horrible parent and guilty of something. They told us they'd get back to us after they get the urgent care records to let us know if we are "cleared" or not. As of now, we still haven't heard anything so it's a huge weight hanging over our heads.

We had an amazing and sympathetic orthopedic surgeon who has really been kind throughout this process. We went for a follow up a couple of weeks later to x-ray through his cast and see if his bones are healing properly. He told us that he had been thinking about us and our situation and even spoke to other doctor friends of his about us. He said that at the very least, the urgent care doctor was negligent in being able to diagnose the fracture and that he obviously did less than any other doctor would have done in our situation. He would testify of that if necessary. We told him we had no plans to bring legal action against the urgent care doctor, but that we will expect, once we are sure CPS closes the case, that our copay is reimbursed at the very least and preferrably have whatever money our insurance paid him to be given back to us as well. That's the least for my son's pain and suffering for a week. Then, we do plan to file a complaint with the state medical board. Knowing he is a doctor in my neighborhood, we don't want another family to have to go through this nightmare that we have had to go through ever again. Our ortho adamantly agreed and supported our decision. We were truly blessed to have taken him in when we did in order to get such a great doctor to treat him. The new children's hospital was really nice as well. It had only been open for about a month and the staff was super nice and understanding.

We are on week 3 now with the cast. It stinks. No really. It STINKS! But, I'll blog about that another time. He is scheduled to get the cast off on the 25th. Just in time for our trip to Disney World that next Saturday.

Wall Art

2010-01-11T20:30:00.005-07:00

Summer Birthdays

2010-01-06T21:41:00.013-07:00

Summers are birthdays around our house. And birthdays mean trying to think up cool, fun cakes.

Erik is the master video game player. So it was fitting that for his 4th birthday, I make him a video game controller cake. Of course, it's a Nintendo 64 that's older than he is but.........he doesn't know any different.

Then it was Jack's birthday. Jack turned 7 and for his birthday, I finally finished his bedroom with a pirate theme. To go along with the "pirate" theme, I made him a pirate map cake.

A week later it was Kirk's 40th birthday. He had to spend the day on campus for classes so I arranged to drive out to Glendale with the kids to surprise him during their lunch break. We brought him "lunch".

Last, but not least, Lauren turned 9. She thought it would be fun to have a cake that looked like an ice cream sundae. It was the easiest cake to make but one of the cutest I think.

Just around the corner is Ian's 3rd birthday...............

Annual pictures

2010-01-06T21:12:00.019-07:00

Clearly you can see why I don't scrapbook.

Here are the kids annual pictures I took. Back in July. Just in time for me to take the annual 2010 shots.

I'm ALIVE!!!!

2010-01-06T12:43:00.002-07:00

Has it really been since June that I last posted an entry here? Good grief. That's like a whole season of Survivor.

But, I have an excuse. I've been busy fighting to get our country back on track. Aside from attending the multiple rallys and townhalls, I was also appointed as a precinct committeeman. I'm committed to leaving our country the way our founding fathers intended it to be....for my children.

Aside from that, I've been busy with other things. Two kids had birthdays. Two kids started school. Two kids constantly torment each other. Most recently, dealing with a two year old in a body cast from his broken femur. (Post to follow)

But, thought I'd let you know I was still alive and well. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Film, Phone and Flatulence

2009-07-06T19:06:00.003-07:00

Kirk took the oldest three kids to see Ice Age 3-D the other day. I stayed home with my youngest assistant and tried to paint Jack's room.

A few days later, Kirk said, "Did I ever tell you about what happened at the movies?" which of course is followed by my answering, "Uh, no. Do I WANT to know what happened?"

I guess Kirk had his cell phone on "vibrate mode" as should ALL people when they attend a movie in a theater. At one point, Erik was getting restless and wanted to sit on his lap. Then Kirk's cell phone went off. You know that "vvv vvvvv" sound it makes? Erik also felt the vibration and when it was done, he said, "I tooted."

Abu Dhabi ( A Boo Boo )

2009-06-11T21:40:00.010-07:00

My husband mentioned today that his Passport is about to expire. I thought, "What? Those things are good for like, ten years!" Oh. I guess it has been 10 years. Time flies when you have four kids I guess. I'm really hoping some day I'll look like I did in my passport photo from ten years ago.......

He likes to bring home cool trinkets from his global travels. We especially like to collect Christmas Tree Ornaments for our tree and have built up quite the collection over the years. Porcelain egg from Belgium. A wood carved snowflake from Finland. He has also brought home cool stuff for the kids like wooden toys from Germany, flying helicopters from Japan and toys from China probably heavily laced in lead. He also buys Hard Rock t-shirts because it's cool to have a shirt that says "Geneva", "Tokyo" or "Amsterdam" on it.

He went to the United Arab Emirates for his MBA program a couple of months ago. He actually admitted to me that one day, he could see us living there. I reminded him how close it is to Iran and that any missiles shot would fly over our heads. Not to mention any residual effects of a nuclear bomb. Wind does blow.........

So when he returned from his travels, he showed us the cool souvenirs he bought. A couple of camels for the boys that played twangy, instrumental Arab songs I didn't recognize and wasn't too sad about it when the batteries died as well as a ceramic and jewelled camel for Lauren. Kirk bought himself a black Hard Rock Abu Dhabi t-shirt, a hat that says "Dubai" and a traditional Dishdashah and Gutrah which I recommended he NOT wear on the plane trip home. Kind of like how we have common sense enough not to say "Hi Jack" to our son while on an airplane.

He then showed me a cute little bag emphasizing the fact that even the UAE has embraced the "green" revolution.

And then he gave me this:

The first time I wore it, my three year old pointed out "Jesus" and "Heavenly Father".

In my defense, it was a Sunday. After we had just returned home from church.

And it wasn't until I wore it around the house one day that my husband commented to me that he can see why I wouldn't really want to wear it in "public". His Hard Rock shirt.....sure. It has a big flaming guitar with the word Abu Dhabi on it. Fairly innocuous.

A shirt with a couple of Arab guys laying around drinking next to a camel that has Arabic on it that could say, "Osama is cool" for all I know? Probably wouldn't be something I'd wear anywhere near an airport or touring Washington DC. I'm just thinking out loud here.

He did bring me home a pretty 50g Credit Suisse gold bar. Probably my favorite souvenir yet.

Dog pile on Daddy!!

2009-06-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

It's all fun and games until someone gets their eye poked out.

Or a two year old puts you in your place.

Because he wants to be dog piled on next:

HaPpY BiRthDaY ERiK!

2009-05-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

Erik is four years old now! ( one more year until he starts school! But who's counting? )

For his fabulous, fun fourth bash, Kirk took the older kids to BounceU to get out a little energy.

Kid gloves? Glad we don't have these at home.

While they were gone, Ian slept and I worked on his Nintendo Controller Cake.

Happy Birthday my little man!

ode to moms

2009-05-09T15:00:00.003-07:00

For all the cold meals you sat down to.

For all those snuggling naps on the couch.

For all the puddles on the floor that required a "smell test".

For the plays/songs/skits/reinactments endured.

For those clothes laying on the floor that were either clean or dirty. (see "smell test" above)

For the miles put on your car driving kids to daily activities.

For all the threats and time outs given.

For those moms whose hearts ache for their own mothers.

For those extra pounds that don't seem to want to go away.

For the times you went out in public with spit up stains on your clothes.

For those mothers who had a baby they won't be able to raise in this life.

For the many sleepless nights.

For those moms who went on a get-away vacation with just their husband but found themselves constantly talking about their kids.

For the moms who learned what battles were worth fighting.

I salute you. I admire you.

Happy Mother's Day!

The difference between boys and girls

2009-05-08T08:37:00.003-07:00

From the time my boys could figure out the pincer reflex, they have loved cars. They love to run them on the floor, line them up in a row across the room and my least favorite, throw them.

My daughter, on the other hand, has enjoyed playing with her "baby" dolls. She's very possibly a better mommy than I am. Lauren's favorite doll is "Katie". The doll's name has been "Katie" ever since her friend, Loaryn, gave it to her for her 4th birthday.

This morning, Lauren brought down another doll she sometimes played with but not as much as "Katie". She couldn't remember if she had named this other doll and was asking me what a good name might be. Megan? Ella? Sarah?

We didn't have a chance to finish the conversation before heading off to school. When I got home, Erik took the doll and was "playing" with it. By "playing" I mean taking it by the arm and swinging it around and throwing it up in the air. Then he said he knew the perfect name for the no-named doll.

Really? What is it?

THUNDER BOLT!!!

Apparently, Thunder bolt makes thunder to get the bad guys and eats Capt'n Crunch cereal for breakfast.

I love President Benson

2009-04-21T11:14:00.004-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehD390q9G3k&feature=player_embedded

Brethren, if we had done our homework and were faithful, we could step forward at this time and help save this country. The fact that most of us are unprepared to do it is an indictment we will have to bear. The longer we wait, the heavier the chains, the deeper the blood, the more the persecution, and the less we can carry out our God-given mandate and worldwide mission. The war in heaven is raging on the earth today. Are you being neutralized in the battle?

As important as are all other principles of the gospel, it was the freedom issue which determined whether you received a body. To have been on the wrong side of the freedom issue during the war in heaven meant eternal damnation. How then can Latter-day Saints expect to be on the wrong side in this life and escape the eternal consequences? The war in heaven is raging on earth today. The issues are the same: Shall men be compelled to do what others claim is for their best welfare or will they heed the counsel of the prophet and preserve their freedom?

Edited to add this link to a really good article:

http://www.ldsfreemen.com/connor-boyack/prophetic-political-silence.html

Tax Day Tea Party!

2009-04-15T16:58:00.020-07:00

Yes. I'm a right-wing God-fearing, food-storage-stockpiling, gun-carrying, capitalist-loving , returning-Veteran-hailing extremist. There. I said it. Now that you know, let's move on with my teleprompter-free blog entry......

I applaud those who feel "patriotic" by paying taxes. After all, Obama and Biden claim those who are wealthy can afford to be forced to pay more. Of course he's banking on the fact that no one will actually check their own tax returns to see that their charitable donations total less than 7% for Obama ( which is actually higher than his past contributions of 1-3%. He IS president now ) and less than 1% for Biden. I just wonder how "patriotic" these same people will feel when a couple of years from now, they will be paying 20%+ more in taxes, not to mention higher interest rates and massive inflation.

Ironically, this isn't a democrat/republican issue. For the life of me, I don't get why more liberals aren't up in arms over the spending seeing that they were complaining for the last 8 years over the money Bush spent. Especially knowing this new spending dwarfs any Bush did.

I felt like it was time to take a stand. I decided that I'm not going to be one who sits back and naively thinks there is no way our country would ever become Socialist. That is, until you wake up one day and realize we already are......

So I made signs. Several in fact, because I couldn't decide on just "one". I even made some for my kids to hold ( GASP! Rachel Maddow would claim I "forced" them because I'm a recruiting radical extremist ). I made a point to explain to my kids what the signs represented and I took pictures so that my children will understand when they are older, that I did what I could to fight for their future and freedom. At the very least, they'll be able to say their mom was an "extremist". How cool is that?

We went to the Gilbert Tea Party at noon and met about 1200 of our closest friends. It was so invigorating to see like-minded people with the same concerns, same values, same understanding that it's time to clean House ( and Senate ). I just wish I could have attended the one at the Capitol later in the evening. I've heard there is in the works, a march on Washington Sept 12 and another rally on July 4th.

In the end, it felt GREAT to be a part of the beginning of something big. And in the words of Yamamoto after his attack on Pearl harbor:

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Yes politicians. Yes you did.

"Never in the history of the world has there been a more profound need for leaders of principle to step forward. Never before, at least not in our generation, have the forces of evil been so blatant, so brazen, so aggressive as they are at the present time….
We are involved in an intense battle. It is a battle between right and wrong, between truth and error, between the design of the Almighty on the one hand and that of Lucifer on the other. For that reason we desperately need men and women who, in their individual spheres of influence, will stand for truth in a world of sophistry… We need moral men and women, people who stand on principle, to be involved in the political process. Otherwise, we abdicate power to those whose designs are almost entirely selfish.”

Gordon B. Hinckley

HoPpY EaSTer!

2009-04-11T22:53:00.003-07:00

Easter Egg nests:

7 ounces marshmallow creme
1/4 cup peanut butter , creamy
1 3/4 tablespoons butter , melted-
2 1/2 cups chow mein noodles -
1 cup Peanut M&M candies

Directions

Add the marshmallow creme, peanut butter, and melted butter to a mixing bowl and beat until evenly mixed.
Add the chow mein noodles to the creamed mixture and stir in by hand. Stir mixture until the chow mein noodles and M&M's are coated evenly.
Using a heaping tablespoon of the mixture, drop a mound onto a lightly buttered cookie sheet. With buttered fingers, form each mound into a rounded shape and make an indent in the middle to make them look like little nests.
Add Peanut M&M's to each nest to make them look like they are filled with eggs. Set them aside to allow them to firm up before serving.

What happens

2009-03-27T22:13:00.007-07:00

When you give your child cough medicine then try to play hide and seek..........

I think he was out by the time he got to 7.

Then what happens is mom has to take a picture of his plumber's bum.

I know. No dignity.

Happy Birthday Ian!

2009-03-21T21:57:00.001-07:00

Ian turned two on March 21st.

And his favorite word is "No'.

I felt bad that I couldn't make his cake this year with my ankle surgery and all, so we resorted to a girly Costco cake instead. Contrary to how he looks in this picture, I don't think he really minded the purple and pink flowers.

We thought we'd try to redirect his throwing capabilities by buying him a mini basketball hoop.

Did I mention his favorite word is "No"?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-03-11T09:40:00.004-07:00

Getting old

2009-03-02T22:52:00.013-07:00

Not just my age. A few other things that are getting old:

1. My gray hairs. And realizing I have a lot more than I thought after taking a picture of my head from above. Dang.

2. The bear stock market. This also includes the monthly drop of our 401k causing my need for more chocolate consumption.

3. This child's constant screaming.

4. This:

and this:And not being able to take a shower:

5. 85 degrees in February/March. Sick and wrong.

6. The word "transparency".

And finally....

7. Tatiana del Toro

Don't know who I'm talking about?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CzwqwTMvvU&feature=related

Fieldtrip

2009-02-28T00:37:00.007-07:00

Kirk and I were enjoying some adult conversation time we had penciled in on the calendar the other night after we put the kids to bed.

As we were talking, we saw out of the corner of our eye, something fluttering down to the ground from the upstairs followed by quick footsteps as we heard the perpetrator run away.

Curious, Kirk went over to see what it was. Then trying to contain our laughter read:

Not exactly what I was expecting since most of the recent notes my daughter has left me said something along the lines of "I want a dog. Please reply." Which is followed by a note stating I already have four kids.

We both quietly laughed and then I sat there actually thinking I wasn't really SURE why they call it a field trip if you don't go to a field. So, I tried to make something up that she might believe. Much like my parents telling me years ago that my hair would fall out if I kept twirling it.

I told her she needed to take a fieldtrip to her room...........

Miss me much?

2009-02-15T20:42:00.012-07:00

I KNOW!!! It's been forever!

I have some pictures to show what I've been doing for the last month or so. Just so you know I haven't been slacking.

I went in for my ankle tendon reconstruction surgery on February 2nd. Groundhog day.

Here's what my ankle looked like right before heading off to surgery. We made sure to use a sharpie to mark which foot to operate on:

And what it looked like afterwards in the splint:

Lucky for you, I couldn't find my camera the day I went back to Dr. Doogie Howser to remove my splint and get my ankle casted. It was the nastiest, gnarliest, hairiest, smelliest, stitched up bruised piece of gross I've ever seen. The Dr. said it looked really good. Figures. I thought it looked like he attached someone else's foot.

WARNING: If you are eating, you might want to put down your food at this time.

Too much information ahead.

See, with this particular surgery, they made a 2 inch incision up at my calf to stretch/repair my tendon to my calf muscle. Then there is about a 6 inch incision from just above my ankle to the middle of my arch. This is where they took a tendon from my big toe to repair my torn tendon just above my ankle. Then I have a 2 inch incision on the outside of the foot at an angle that goes from the bottom of my foot to the back of the foot which is where they went in and broke my ankle bone and moved it about 1 cm so it was more "under" my body. Lastly, I have a small incision on the back of my foot where they placed about a 2 inch screw to hold my ankle bone in place.

I KNOW! Nasty!

I went last Friday to have the splint removed and put in a non walking cast which means crutches for the next four weeks. While I was at the Dr. I mentioned that my calf has been in a constant knot for about a week and is the most excruciatingly painful thing ever. He was concerned I might have a blood clot so he sent me downstairs to another office to get a STAT ultrasound. Unfortunately STAT to them meant at least an hour wait. Little did they know those were the WRONG choice of words to say to my Doctor dad who promptly told them where to shove it. We left and went to the emergency room at a hospital close to home. They did an ultrasound which luckily showed no blockage in my veins and no clots. The young lady who did my ultrasound commented about how it was nice that I had "skinny" legs because it made it easier to see the veins. LOVE HER! We got out of there just in time for the Friday night freak show.

I'll be honest. Along with the grossness of it all, the recovery has been, truthfully, the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Worse than my regular birth or 3 c/sections. Worse than my two kidney and gallbladder stone attacks. WAY worse. The first few days, my Oxycontin and Percocets weren't even touching it. Add to that my calf muscle in a never ending charlie horse and having to watch the downhill slide of our country since Obama took office, I've been pretty miserable.

About 11 days after the surgery, I was finally starting to feel like I was making progress. I've ventured from the bed to the family room where I see the same view, day in and day out.

The view in front of me with my cool "Suns" colored cast and sexy blood clot reducing sock:

The view to my left:

The view to my right:

The view right next to me:

And what I've tried to avoid climbing on me:

My office/nest/laundry room:

After the cast comes off, I'll be in a walking boot for six weeks then I'll start physical therapy.

I can't wait to shower again. It's the little things you take for granted.....

The moral of the story is: One should only attempt to do laundry at their own risk.

100 Day School Celebration

2009-01-21T21:52:00.007-07:00

I have a smart son.

Today, Jack showed me his 100 day celebration artwork he made at school. He was proud of his 100 boxes of M & Ms he declared he could "eat" and I laughed at his wit when he drew a picture of what he will look like when he is 100 ( a mound of dirt and a gravestone ).

Then, with enthusiasm, he showed me the picture of what he wanted the most. 100 toys to go with the 100 bedrooms in the house with our 100 kids.

Come again?

I laughed. He was serious. I think..........

I told him I know we already have "100 toys" because I seem to be the only one who knows how to pick them up. I then tried to break it to him very gently that we would not have 100 kids let alone a 100 bedroom house.

I was impressed with his optimism when he said we already had 4 kids so......
"We could have them in sets of two. No....TRIPLETS! No WAIT! Uh, Mom.....what is 'four'?"

"Quadruplets?"

"Yeah! Or you could have them five at a time!"

"That's quintuplets honey. And six would be sextuplets and seven septuplets!" You learn these terms when you grow up in a family with multiples. Anything more than "twins" is considered a swear word and you may be struck down for even suggesting such things.

His eyes grew bigger and bigger with excitement as he anxiously danced around actually believing this was all possible. I wasn't prepared to have a birds and bees talk with my six year old with Dora blaring in the background. I just told him I was too old to have 100 kids then continued......

"And eight would be octuplets! And after that, I have no idea what it's called. Insanity maybe?"

Here I was thinking this was just a fun little math lesson until I realized he was really serious. So I asked him who would change all of those stinky diapers?

Being the smart, quick-wit child, he replied, rather quickly I might add, "Lauren can!"

I heard a stunned, "HUH?" in the background then got the impression Lauren wasn't too thrilled with this plan.

Jack then said, "Yeah! Lauren wants to learn to change diapers." And then he was gone..........

Told you he was smart......

10th Anniversary at Disneyland

2009-01-18T13:12:00.017-07:00

We had a GREAT time! And note to self.........never EVER go to Disneyland again unless it is in the month of January. And while our anniversary technically isn't until April 1st, we figured we'd take the opportunity to go now since I'll be immobile when our real anniversary comes around.

We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel right off of California Adventure. This was the lobby:

And this was our view of Downtown Disney:

And this dude from the ESPN restaurant, I swear, was Drake's twin:

In either case, they are both in need of a serious haircut. It was a crack up to watch him make his finger gestures I'm guessing directing people where the nearest exits were......

This is us right before our River Rapids ride. I was the lucky one to get the most wet and my hair wasn't the same the rest of the day:

Trying to get a shot of Main Street USA:

Until a nice lady came along and offered to take it for us:

I think we spent the most time on the Toy Story Mania ride. Kirk got the third highest score on one of our days there. I was ranked #5 on the Buzz Lightyear ride with my lightening fast laser speed action: And no, there is no shame in beating scores of the two year olds in line. If they can't stand the heat.....maybe they ought to stick with the Dumbo ride.

I got one of these:

While Kirk played Toy Story Mania with the dude who holds the high score. He got a few pointers then tried to hide those pointers from me until I pointed out that he looked like a cat with a canary in its mouth. He spilled a couple.......I'll share one with you: If you pop all of the balloons in the clouds together and within the same time, rainbow balloons will fall down worth 2000 points each. Just so you know.....

We had a lot of fun. It wasn't long after we got home and heard the first set of whining and complaining that we were shocked back into reality again. At least our Cokes are cheaper in the "real" world.......

I Don't have time for this!

2009-01-16T19:37:00.006-07:00

I really need to be careful what I do and say around the kids.

The other day, I was frustrated that Erik couldn't get his act together when we needed to be out the door..... like yesterday. This, by the way, is typical. He wouldn't get dressed then when he did, it was slopped on by his semi-nutritious breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which meant going upstairs for a new outfit just to later discover he also didn't know where he put his shoes. Typical. And being typical, the typical response by myself is, "I don't have TIME for this!"

So, what does my three year old say to me when he didn't want to stop playing his video game? "MOM! I don't have TIME for this!"

Ok. I deserved that one.

The night before Kirk and I were leaving for our 10th anniversary get-a-way, I was doing laundry. That's not the typical part....... I was also trying to get little kids ready for bed. Typically, I throw their pj's over the stairs railing if I'm not quite ready to go downstairs that way they will be waiting for me when I am.

Typically, this trick works great. Not-so-typically, my youngest caught me and thought he would "help". The contents of a clean and folded basket ( sometimes typical but usually not ) were thrown over the railing.

And typically, I had to get a picture so I could blog it. My second most popular phrase?

"Not HELPING!"

Things to remember for next Christmas

2009-01-03T22:13:00.004-07:00

1. Pay someone a million dollars to cut out the toys from their obnoxious, over-kill packaging.

2. If no one takes me up on my million dollar offer, be sure to at least wear gloves and keep naughty words to a minimum.

3. Don't put out my cute, breakable Christmas decorations.

4. Teach Ian that glass ornament balls are not to be used for throwing.

5. Buy more ceramic glue to fix said broken decorations.

6. Hide fudge from Erik.

7. Outside lights really aren't a necessity. Candles in the front windows work just fine.

8. The kids don't like mint flavored hot chocolate. Freaks of nature.

9. Karaoke machine from Craigslist = huge hit. Must buy more CDs

10. Ignore Christmas etiquette by leaving decorations up past Valentine's Day.

Merry Christmas!!!

2008-12-20T10:21:00.001-07:00

See you again next year!

My new title shall be

2008-12-18T07:00:00.002-07:00

The Queen of Good Intentions But Really Poor Follow-Through.

Does this look familiar?

Chore charts for your kids?

Thinking it will make your life easier while teaching your children the value of work?

Yeah. I have about five other waste of time charts I've started over the years. I generally come up with them right before school lets out for summer break. And every one of them have lasted a week.

But NOT THIS TIME BABY!

This one is for real............

As real as the twenty pounds I've had every intention of losing for the last two New Years Resolutions.

You gotta teach them young.........

2008-12-12T12:35:00.005-07:00

Kids need to learn too.

Next lesson: Laundry

Random Pictures

2008-12-06T20:39:00.012-07:00

Twas the week of Thanksgiving..........

2008-12-03T23:27:00.068-07:00

And all through the town
There were cute kids and cousins

And historical buildings of reddish-brown.

We were all nestled warm and snug from the cold

Here's where we saw our forefather's Declaration unfold.

This is the bell

That rang out the sound

"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" one said as people gathered around. At my 20th Reunion

What to my wondering eyes should appear

But my bestest friends from High School
Whom I hold dear!

I had the most kids

So I won an award

At least I won SOMETHING

Now there's a goal to move toward!

Back in '99 was when we made

the long haul

To stand on this street corner

Just to watch this ball fall.

There were pilgrimages and meccas

That just had to be done.
At least these guys still have jobs

which is more than can be said for poor Lehman.

Oh the lights how they dazzled

And glittered with gold.

We ate New York Pizza above Lettermans
just to get out of the cold.

Our old house was still there

Though grown over with trees.

We ate ourselves sick
From cheesesteaks and hoagies.

Other cool stuff we saw

Like Rockefeller's unlit tree

Bryant Park Ice Rink

Macy's Santa Claus

And Lady Liberty.

Our visit to Ground Zero was horrifying and sad

It made me feel thankful for all that I have.

We found a memorial

And searched for a special name

Then ached that the skyline would never, ever be the same.

It was a great trip

Our feet were so sore

From walking and walking and then walking some more.

But I heard someone exclaim

As we flew out of sight

"I'm so glad we booked us

On a non stop flight!"

My child is so smart.

2008-11-16T13:39:00.005-07:00

Well, maybe not so much......................

Coo Coo

2008-11-13T21:06:00.010-07:00

I was telling the kids tonight about our trip to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving and how we decided to spend a couple of days in New York City and see fun stuff like the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and Wall Street ( Sounding super enthusiastic, "You know kids.......remember that TV channel I watch every morning? CNBC? That's filmed on Wall Street!" Shameless. I know. I can't help it. ).

The kids started getting excited and exclaiming things like, "That's so cool!" and "We'll get to ride the train!"

Lauren even brought up the story she likes to tell about how she has been to New York City once before for New Year's Eve 1999.....back when she was the size of a grape in my tummy. She admits she couldn't actually HEAR anything though..........

And then Jack said, "YAY! Can you buy Coo Coo clocks there?"

Huh?

Well, I suppose you could find a place that sells coo coo clocks there if you really wanted one. In fact, I'm sure you could find just about anything in New York City if you really wanted to. I reminded him that if he REALLY wanted a coo coo clock that maybe daddy could get him a real one while he is in Switzerland rather than buying a cheap imitation in New York City.

Seriously. With a Tiffanys, Barneys and FAO Schwarz........and he wants a coo coo clock?

Lessons from our Forefathers

2008-11-09T14:30:00.058-07:00

I'm writing a post that is a little different than my norm. I've been mulling over ideas and thoughts in my head for the last couple of weeks regarding the new direction our country is heading. I thought it was time to put my thoughts on paper, so to speak. If you aren't one for political drama, I urge you to move on. Otherwise, this is my blog and as long as our first amendment rights are still intact, I can freely express my feelings. More importantly, I want my children to know how proud I am to be an American.

Over the last two years, we have witnessed history in the making. We watched as the democratic nominees duked it out between a potential first woman president, Hillary Clinton and first black president, Barack Obama. We watched as the media vilified Hillary who ironically, came across as pretty conservative next to Obama. Then it seemed, all of the sudden, Obama took the lead along with unprecedented donations and ran with it, never looking back. He was marketed very well. He was put out there in front of people with prepared scripts and talking points. He began using the term "progressive" instead of "liberal".

I soon discovered that any attempt for an intelligent debate with those who chose to vote for Obama was met with immediate words of anger and hostility along with claims that anyone who doesn't like him are intolerant and judgmental. Ironic. Some even told me that I only get my views from right-winged news like Fox. As though I'm not capable of forming my own opinions. I didn't find a single person who could tell me specific reasons why they were voting for Obama, but rather heard words like "change", "different direction", "he's not Bush", "it's none of your business" and "hope". Their cries were emotional instead of analytical. This was further evidenced by observing the hoards of people who gathered and chanted at his rallies truly believing that Obama would take care of them.

Obama spent more time at his rallies joking about Bush and McCain than saying anything of substance. I often wondered if people really understood the depth of this man's values. Do they really know his belief in partial birth abortion? Do they really understand that their friend who is a dentist or landscape company owner or any other small business will probably have to close down or at the very least, lay employees off because of the higher taxes that will be imposed on them and that the excess tax increase will be passed on to us as the consumer? It seemed as though some were more anxious to be a part of history by putting the first black man in office rather than looking at his record and the potentially high price of losing ourselves as a nation.

I watched within the Republican party, as Huckabee stubbornly refused to back out thus splitting the conservative Christian votes with Romney allowing McCain to take the lead. I can't help but wonder what our election would have looked like if Romney had won the Republican nomination. Romney, a proven leader in hard economic situations as well as a Mormon which may have been interesting with the marriage constitutional amendment propositions in CA, AZ and FL. I saw following the election as McCain's advisers demeaned Sarah Palin arrogantly claiming she was a drag on the ticket instead of acknowledging that there are many of us who only voted for him because of Sarah Palin. She was the only thread of conservative values afforded us to hang on to. And might I add that the hypocrisy of the women's liberation movement baffles me.

It seemed that in the final two weeks of campaigning, we saw a glimpse of what an Obama presidency would look like and it frightened me to the core.

Here are a few of the highlights:

1. The treatment of news anchor, Barbara West at a Florida news station and harsh reprimand for daring to ask the questions people like myself have been wanting to ask. Where is the ACLU claiming "Free Speech" and "Freedom of the press?"

2. The treatment of Joe the Plumber for daring to ask a question about his livelihood should Obama become president. The immediate attacks to discredit the private citizen was nothing short of Chicago thug politics.

3. The treatment of news reporters from the Washington Times, New York Post and Dallas Morning News. These were reporters ( different than those who write opinion pieces ) who had been travelling with Obama since the beginning of the campaign and were kicked off three days before the election because their papers endorsed McCain. Where was the outrage in the media over the censorship?

I was embarrassed for our President-Elect as he gave his first press conference the other day. It can't be good sign of things to come when he has to apologize to a former first lady for his classless, tacky remarks. It was fitting to see the mass of people standing behind him as he spoke, much like the puppet and his puppet masters. I must admit, he can orate a prepared speech in his serious, arrogant, preacher tone very well . It is painfully clear, though, that once off topic, his true character can't help but come out as well as the "Uhs and Umms" with every other word. His responses such as the one with regard to his thoughts about Iran's President congratulating him on his nomination and claiming to not have seen the letter showed that he has no idea how to think for himself. His typical reply, as seen throughout his campaign whenever he didn't have an answer was, "I don't have any knowledge of that. I'll need to look into it but what I do know is that I don't want to have a knee-jerk response". Translated means, "I need to check with my people about what to say and get back to you." How about a naturally instinctive thought like, "I will not accept his letter and words of congratulations. I will not have dialogue with dictators."

Obama campaigned under the slogan, "Change". I find this ironic for a couple of reasons. One is that his first cabinet appointment was given to Rahm Emanuel. The same man who was an advisor to President Clinton and who pushed Clinton to sign off on NAFTA ( sending jobs overseas. The same jobs that Obama is ridiculing American companies for sending over seas and wants to punish with higher taxes). Another reason is that this is the same man who was on the board of directors of Freddie Mac during the heyday of the housing boom which is the root of the economic turmoil we are facing today. That's not exactly what I would call, "change". I am a firm believer that the true test of one's character are the friends they keep. Also, I've heard people who didn't vote for Obama say that they hope that he follows through on his promises. If he does, that will mean we will have higher taxes to spread the wealth, socialized healthcare and retirement accounts, more government control, fewer jobs, and befriending terrorist dictators. Why WOULD we want him to follow through on those kinds of promises?

The "new direction" he spoke of so often, would lead us back to the form of government that our forefathers fought so hard to get away from. The same government that caused our founding fathers to lose everything they had including their lives and fortunes in order to create a better future for our country. A God-fearing country free from tyranny and suppression.

I have a tremendous love for this nation. I love our traditions and our history. I get teary every time I hear our national anthem. Even as a child, I enjoyed creating our own neighborhood parades for the fourth of July. Those feelings became stronger as I lived among the early American historical sites throughout my teenage years. Walking around Gettysburg and Valley Forge were very solemn and spiritual experiences for me. I remember when I was 17 years old, I sat just a few rows from the Prophet, Ezra Taft Benson, when he came to speak in Philadelphia to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Constitution. It was that day that I made the discernment that my reverence for my country and our Constitution is as strong within me as my reverence of the gospel. I hold them sacred. They were inspired by God for the restoration of the Gospel. I know this to my core.

I have seen the emotions of my country escalate throughout the course of this campaign and witnessed the hatred and claims of intolerance. I have heard over and over how our war in Iraq is costing us billions of dollars and thousands of lives. How does one put a price tag on the cost of freedom? What a slap in the face to our military who have helped change people's lives for the better. Money, really? This, coming from a man who raised over 650 MILLION dollars for a presidential campaign? Are we really supposed to believe that those heroes who lost their lives on the battlefield would feel they died fighting a made-up war over oil rather than freeing a nation from an evil dictator? Have we forgotten the thousands of innocent lives lost on September 11th? I have wished that we could be the same country we were just a few, short years ago on September 12th, 2001. Remember? Remember the flags taped to almost every car window? Remember the intense feeling of patriotism? Remember the words to the song, "And I'm proud to be an American, because at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me....." Remember the ribbons claiming, "We will never forget....."

But we have forgotten.

There is a new generation of voters now who were raised to believe that everything must be fair and equal. There are no clear-cut winners, just ties. A generation of adults who have never played games like dodge ball. My children can't even play TAG at school in order to avoid hurt feelings. We've taken the responsibility of teaching our children about how life isn't always fair and using the opportunity to teach kindness and love and replaced it with the idea that we need to "protect" our children by teaching them that there are no set of absolute rules. One of my children played a computer game the other day and his turn seemed to go on forever until I realized there were no "lives" enabling the player to never experience "losing". How is it fair that a child needs a permission slip from a parent in order to have an aspirin for a headache at school, but that same child can have an abortion without parental notification? How is it fair that poorly run companies are bailed out instead of allowed to file chapter 11 or go bankrupt? Failure is not an option anymore.

We have become a society tolerant of immorality and possessed with political correctness. Political correctness is a form of cultural Marxism. In Marxist-Leninist vocabulary, the term "correct" was commonly used to describe the appropriate "party line", often called the "correct line". In the 70's we took away the suffix "man" in proper nouns and replaced them with "person". Today, we are a society of Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans instead of Americans. A country where it is politically incorrect to say "indian style" but rather, "criss cross applesauce" or to state the words, "Intoxicated illegal immigrant" and a person who does is declared to be a racist bigot.

The result of a "no rules" society is a generation with lower morals and standards. There was a time when people rejected a candidate who did drugs. Then it became acceptable so long as they didn't inhale. We now have a president elect who admitted to not only doing drugs but also dealing in his college days.

The bar of expectation has been lowered significantly in just the last ten years. Sadly, I see it amongst the twenty and thirty somethings in the church as well. Many have said to me particularly over the course of this last election, "How does allowing a same sex couple to marry affect ME? If they love each other, then they should have the agency to be allowed to marry." I've even heard it said that the church has no business getting involved in political propositions and that maybe we SHOULD lose our tax exempt status for doing so. I reflect on the revelation given to President Hinckley regarding the Proclamation to the Family back in 1995. At the time, I remember thinking how it was wise counsel, not understanding the conflicts we would face trying to defend that counsel just a few years later. The fact that each of the propositions passed this last year, gives me a little hope, at least until the next election.

I did learn a little about myself throughout this political process. I learned that I will no longer be afraid to stand up for my core values. I will no longer fear what others might think if I have a "Yes for marriage" sign in my front yard. I have taught my children that they can vote for whomever they choose so long as they have a reason why. Saying, "Because he's cool" isn't a reason. I have encouraged my children to show respect by shaking the hands of our men and women in uniform and thanking them for their service to our country. I will not allow some to label me as intolerant and racist because I am a Christian or to think "conservative" is a dirty word. I will not let my morals shift like the wind. I learned that we need to take back the Republican party. We need to encourage and teach people how to help themselves so that they, in turn, can help others by their own free will and choice. We can not allow our country to fall into the hands of socialism. It is Satan's demoralizing counterfeit of the sacred law of consecration. I vow to be counted among those who refused to deny the Savior in the last days and I will not let those who lost their lives fighting for our country and freedoms to have done so in vain.

Russian leader Kruschev to former President Ezra Taft Benson when he was Secretary of Agriculture: "You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright. But we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you will fall like over-ripe fruit into our hands."

Tyler Thomas--1787 “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasure, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Beyond flattered.............

2008-11-06T14:51:00.010-07:00

My friend brought over her darling, new six week old baby girl so that I could take some pictures of her in her blessing gown. We took a bunch then sent them over to Walmart.com photo center to have them printed. When my friend went to pick them up, the lady at the counter told her she couldn't give them to her because they were done by a "professional". Some copyright blah blah blah. (It's called a Canon Rebel XT, Photoshop and a white sheet. ) My friend, I think, thought she was kidding and even joked saying, "My friend will be so flattered!". The sales lady apparently wasn't joking and wasn't convinced that they were taken in my living room the day before. The sales lady called for her manager. The manager looked them over and finally concluded that they probably weren't "professional" because they didn't have a studio name on any of the bottom corners. The sales lady finally handed over the prints.

Yes, I AM flattered......... But a cute subject to photograph makes it really easy.

Go out and Vote!

2008-11-04T10:53:00.007-07:00

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

Abraham Lincoln

"I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism. That distaste grew through the years as he witnessed the heavy-handed oppression and suffering of the peoples of eastern Europe under what he repeatedly described as godless communism.
These experiences further strengthened his love for the land of his birth. He had grown up in big sky country, where there was a spirit of freedom and independence. He had grown up in the tradition of his forebears, who spoke reverently of those who were raised up by the Almighty to establish this nation and who had pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to the cause of liberty. He never got over his boyhood love for freedom. Rather it grew within him, nurtured by what he saw of oppression in other lands and by what he observed firsthand of a growing dominance of government in this land over the lives of the people."

Gordon B. Hinckley speaking of the former President Benson

“You and I have heard all our lives that the time may come when the Constitution may hang by a thread. I do not know whether it is a thread or a small rope by which it now hangs, but I do know that whether it shall live or die is now in the balance.
“I have said to you before, brethren, that to me the Constitution is a part of my religion. In its place it is just as much a part of my religion as any other part. It is a part of my religion because it is one of those institutions which God has set up for His own purposes, and, as one of the brethren said today, set up so that this Church might be established, because under no other government in the world could the Church have been established as it has been established under this government.
“I think I would be safe in saying that my fellowship with you in the Church depends upon whether or not I accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed. If I am not willing to do that, then I am not entitled to fellowship. Anyone else who fails to accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed stands in precisely the same situation.”
J Reuben Clark Oct. 1942

Success!

2008-11-02T13:28:00.010-07:00

I know many of you are sitting there wondering why it is that I've had a bunch of posts this last week after having not posted anything for the whole month. Let me fill you in...........

Our program is DONE! For those who have ever been in charge of one, you know the time and effort that goes in to preparing a primary program. While I enjoy doing it and find it actually kind of fun, it does take a lot of time putting it all together. There's the flow, the programs, the parts, the practice, the seating charts, the kids who don't show for practice which aren't necessarily the same kids who don't show for the program, the musical numbers, the lack of teachers, the making all of the parents happy, the last minute glitches not planned on.............

But ours turned out great. Almost all of the kids had their parts memorized and they sang their songs so well! For our closing song, I created an arrangement using I am a Child of God and If the Savior Stood Beside Me for a few of our teachers to sing. I played the piano and Kirk was part of the ensemble. I received a lot of compliments from it! My mom came to support my efforts and to see Lauren and Jack recite their lines. They did a great job!

For sharing time, my great leaders in our presidency ( sneakily ) put together a sharing time to thank our pianist, music director and myself for our work on the program. It was so cute and so unexpected! Our Primary is truly awesome!

Halloween hangover

2008-11-01T13:05:00.010-07:00

I had a good idea. I just didn't execute it well. I thought of doing a Wizard of Oz theme this year with Lauren as Dorothy and the boys as the scarecrow, tinman and lion. Cute, eh?

Yeah. When Wednesday came and all I had put together was a pair of red shoes, I knew my plan wasn't going to come together as well as I thought in my mind.

Off to plan B.

Isn't there some story somewhere about a tiger, doggy, bat and a princess? With the exception of the bat costume, everything else was either recycled costumes or came from the dress up box. I'm cool with that. I'm telling you, a stress-free halloween is TOTALLY worth it!

Princess Lauren

Jack Bat ( made his wings from an umbrella! )

Erik the puppy (too bad it was 90 degrees outside! He was naked as a jailbird under his costume.)

Ian the tiger ( and already sticky from the candy before even leaving to go trick-or-treating. A couple of times, I put my hand in the candy bowl to pass some out and pulled out a half eaten sucker. )

I must confess: I overheard some Jr. High kids walking up our driveway and commenting on my "Yes for 102" sign saying how they thought gay marriage was cool. They got the icky peanut butter taffy and melted chocolate bars from the 90 degree heat from my bowl. That will teach them...............

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2008-10-31T10:09:00.003-07:00

Lauren lost another bottom tooth this week and now looks like a Jack-o-lantern.

HaPpY HaLLoWeeN!

Psycho

2008-10-28T21:32:00.037-07:00

Or otherwise known as Fall Break at Disneyland with little kids.

And we didn't even take the three year old. It should have been a breeze with only three kids, right? Disneyland was festively decorated. From the giant candy corns, to the fall colors lining Main Street.

Even the big letters that spell California outside of California Adventure were the colors of candy corn. Which reminds me of the quirky catch phrase Kirk conjured up:

"The Candy Corn Colored California is Kinda Cool!"

Clever.

The second day, we had VIP seats courtesy of one of his MBA classmates for the parade. We had big bench seats right in front of the Railroad Train ride and had a great view!

These were our seats:

And this was our view!Heck, even our hotel went all out for Halloween! Not really, but they were painting the hotel these candy corn colors while we were there and will probably feel pretty cool every October!

The Haunted Mansion was completely redone to the theme of A Nightmare Before Christmas. While it wasn't worth the 1 hour waits, we did get some fast passes and did it a few times. It was pretty cool..............

I have to confess that of all the times I've gone to Disneyland over the years, I have never once stepped foot into the Innoventions Building. It turned out to be one of the kids ( adults included ) funnest places to go. Lauren loved the karaoke stage and rocked out to High School Musical and Lion King songs. Jack loved putting together a virtual skeleton.

Aside from not sleeping in his stroller or napping for a whole week, Ian's favorite rides were the Toy Story Mania and Buzz Lightyear.

Guess what else we saw? All over Disneyland? The whole week?That's right! Arizonans, Mormons and sometimes both Arizona Mormons. E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.! The pictures I took were just the ones I spotted as we were leaving the park. Pretty much every one in line we talked to was from Gilbert or Utah. Even Jessie from Toy Story was LDS. Seriously. We were at the Toy Story Halloween show and afterwards, Jessie gestured to a family next to us asking where they were from. They said, "Utah". ( shocker! ) She then started clapping the rhythm to the BYU fight song. They of course didn't get it until she started using her fingers and writing the letters CTR on her hand. You know, the secret code word for "I'm a Mormon too!" The even funnier thing is the day school started after fall break, Lauren told a friend of hers that Jessie from Toy Story was a Mormon. BWAhahahaha!

And in keeping with our Disneyland tradition, we always run in to a person we knew from our past. This time was no exception. Kirk went on the Rapids ride and ended up sitting in the same raft as an old friend, Ron. What are the odds? Even funnier odds? He's from Arizona ( notice the Arizona shirt ) but he lives in Utah. I know.......shocker again! He fell into a separate category from the Arizona/BYU/Utah/Mormon groups walking around Disneyland to a new subgroup called the former Arizona but now Utah/Mormon.
After five gloriously long days at Disneyland, we headed down to Escondido to meet up with my parents and Erik who they so graciously offered to watch for us. We spent a few hours at the beach in Carlsbad. Just long enough for me to realize a beach and an 18 month old isn't a super fun combination. Unless, you like sand in your sodas and food.....which I don't.

While on the beach, we saw a bunch of dolphins swimming around. See the black speck on the right side of the picture? That's a tail. Fascinating picture, eh?

We spent another day at the Wild Animal Park. Lauren liked to pet the dear.

And Ian tested my nerves.

I honestly don't know how we managed flying cross country with 4 kids one being 7 months old to DisneyWorld last fall break. We made it home safely. Kirk and I realized that it has been almost 5 years since we've taken a trip together............alone............sans kids. I'm looking forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary in a few months........going, you guessed it............back to Disneyland!

Lassie's Great Mystery

2008-10-27T16:49:00.011-07:00

Ian has suddenly started to speak in "sentences". At least as far as inflection goes. It sounds like he his saying complete sentences, but I have no clue other than an occassional, "bup" or "ack" as to what it is he is trying to say.

One such conversation which lasted several minutes with him speaking and gesturing towards the kitchen had me thinking what it must have been like for Lassie when he was trying to talk to Timmy.

Ian: "Gah. Blah blah blah Gah." ( randomly gesturing )

Me: "You want something to drink? Something in the kitchen? Something on the counter?"

Ian: ( shaking head and now wildly pointing ) "Blah blah babble babble boo boo boo gah!"

Me: "Someone fell into the pond? There's a fire on the mountain and a boy is stuck in a pool of quicksand? A cougar is about to attack Mr. Johnson's sheep? Obama might be our next President?"

Ian: unphased by my attempted at humor.......

Me: "You want a toy? Some milk?"

Ian: Nodding and smiling with excitment.

Luckily no one was REALLY stuck in a pond or quicksand or on a fire-ravaged mountain. Maybe Lassie could leave Obama a fragrant gift on his lawn though.............

I don't mean LITERALLY.....

2008-10-05T23:13:00.003-07:00

We're still potty training Erik. He is specifically the reason I refused to adopt one of my parent's new kittens. I wasn't about to potty train a cat at the same time. Although, the cat would probably have been easier. Thank goodness I only have to do this one more time. In the whole process, I've gotten lazy as evidenced by the fact that one day while we were working outside and he needed to go, I took his pants off and told him to pee on the rocks. That cool new idea set us back a few days trying to "undo".

A few weeks ago as we were getting the kids to bed, I called Erik over to put his "britches" ( pull ups ) on. He threw a huge fit saying, "NO! I don't WANT to wear britches to bed! I want to wear BIG BOY PANTS!"

Wow. Ok. I wasn't quite prepared for that kind of response. I was still struggling with the foul rituals of the day time accidents. I wasn't quite prepared for the night time noxious sheet changing. Not without a little more warning. I needed time to stock up on some more Resolve and Febreeze.

But we went for it. I tried to explain to him that if he's going to wear his big boy pants to bed, then he'll need to make sure he goes "pee pees" in the potty. I then put a towel on top of his sheets ( again, not prepared and didn't want to make the effort to make his bed with a mattress pad ). I told him that the towel is there just in case he has an accident in the middle of the night and pees and that the pee will go on the towel and not his sheets.

See where this is going yet?

It was evident that I used too many literal words in my explanation because when Kirk went to check on him the next morning, he was standing next to his bed............

peeing on the towel.

Kirk asked him what ( on earth! ) he was doing. He exclaimed that he was peeing on the towel so it wouldn't get on the sheets.

Boys.

Hawanna Hava Hula Party

2008-10-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

I promised Lauren I'd let her have a birthday party after last year's fiasco!

We squeezed in the date between Kirk's weekends at school and her baptism day. We put together some invitations.

We ordered a plethora of party favors and decorations.

We booted the boys from the house.

Then we partied Hawaiian style!

We decorated flip flops............

I thought it would be fun to give the girls "hawaiian" names to wear on name tags but realized half of the girls already had hawaiian sounding names. Eh......oh well. So much for creativity.

And opened presents.............

Made an attempt at a ukelele cake with a lei draped on it.

Then we ate it.............

It was a whole lot of fun!

Hau`oli la Hanau Lauren!

Want to know why I haven't posted much?

2008-09-25T21:52:00.007-07:00

My 3 year old has discovered why mommy has an internet addiction. At least he understands my addiction now. Unlike my ability to understand why he has to be in a box when he plays.

Between my lack of computer time and being glued to the tv watching the financial markets about to implode............I've been unable to complete the multiple entries I've started. Maybe I'll put Erik on that for me. He seems to have the time.

Lauren's Baptism Day

2008-09-17T21:19:00.006-07:00

Lauren was baptized on September 13th.

She had been looking forward to her special day for several months. She was mostly excited to receive the Holy Ghost so that she could feel the spirit. She picked out her new set of scriptures and we purchased her beautiful dress. I gave her a special crystal and pearl bracelet for her to remember her baptism day.

The day felt like a whirlwind and luckily, I didn't have time to ponder how old I feel to have a child old enough to be baptized. But I am. And she was beautiful. I know this is one of those days she will remember for the rest of her life.

The mix in - mix up

2008-09-02T09:18:00.002-07:00

We took the kids to Cold Stone Creamery last night where the following conversation took place:

Dad: Erik......what kind of mix in would you like in your ice cream?

Erik: Um......( then noticing the different options ) M and M's and VITAMINS!!!!! ( pointing to the gummy bears )

Dad: What?

Erik: YAY! M and M's and VITAMINS!!!!

That's my boy!

2008-08-30T14:31:00.004-07:00

Sometimes when a teacher sends a note home from school with your child, your heart starts pounding as you wonder what it was he did this time. Did he get in a fight? Did he spit or slobber on someone? Did he push or take someones toy?

But sometimes, you get these little gems and can't help but laugh and use it as an opportunity to tease a cute, little 6 year old boy about his new girlfriend.

ARG!

2008-08-25T09:10:00.006-07:00

Seriously......

does EVERY prime time channel have to be covering the Democratic National Convention?

And whose brilliant idea was it to start the convention the day after we've already been subjected to two weeks of Olympic coverage? I'm thinking that can't be a good way to win votes. Unless, of course, the convention is like a one week "Survivor" series where they throw people like Pelosi, Biden, Obama, Gore, Reid, Rosie O'donnell and anyone related to a Kennedy on a deserted island with Al Franken as the host and see which one comes up on top.........then I might be interested.

I read about a new tv show coming this fall called "America's Toughest Jobs". Somehow I don't think television programming is one of them.

CHUCK FOR PRESIDENT!

Never, EVER underestimate the power of the Nerd Herd vote.

Olympic commentary........

2008-08-20T21:11:00.007-07:00

So they are getting rid of the softball and baseball events because the USA is too unbeatable while keeping "why not just call it a cool vacation in the off season" basketball as well as the ever so thrilling to watch trampoline and speed walking events.

Can anyone explain why Olympic boxing has been going on since the first day? And who really watches ping pong? Oh....excuse me....."Table Tennis". ( crickets chirping ) Personally, I'd much rather see an obstacle course event from the tv show Wipeout than something like a badminton match.

Interesting though, trying to sing along to the three verse intro/cut short National Anthem while Michael Phelps basked in his first gold was a pretty good "sport" to watch. I'm guessing some heads rolled after that degree of difficulty.

"Oh say can you see by the dawns early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming." (Oh....wait......ok.....now) "Oh say can you see by the dawns early light." ( no? what the heck? Ok so they started over.......wait for it.......wait for it......ok....NOW! ) "Oh say can you see........" ( Oh for heaven's sake. nevermind!)

And I won't even mention the problem I have with the "still plays with Barbies" Chinese gymnastic team. That would be too easy.

The second week of the summer Olympics are a snoozefest which does nothing but aggravate me that I have no other choice but to watch reruns of Dr. Phil or Greatest American Dog while further delaying my season premieres of Prison Break and Chuck.

I'm just saying....................

Getting ready for Lauren's upcoming baptism!

2008-08-17T21:06:00.010-07:00

The kids weren't the only ones who started school last week.

2008-08-13T21:20:00.003-07:00

Kirk started his MBA in Global Management at Thunderbird last week. The first two weeks are spent on campus then he has classes every other Friday and Saturday for the next 16 months. He'll get to travel to some cool places too. He'll go to Geneva in November then have the choice of two other locations between China, Chile, Russia ( might not be such a great idea right now! ) and Dubai. I'll give you a hint which one he really REALLY REALLY wants to go to........it starts with a Dub and ends in an I.

I suppose every married couple needs to experience student loan debt at some point in their life.

First Day of School

2008-08-11T14:44:00.007-07:00

Funny how each year it gets easier and easier to send your kids off to school......... I think I'm probably more excited about that "first day" than the kids!

So, here is the token first day of school picture. 'Cause I'm a mom/parent and that's what moms/parents do on their child's first day of school. And I thought I'd compare their "first day of school" picture this year to last years to see how much they grew..............

When I realized Lauren wore the same exact shirt two years in a row. She must like her "Daddy's little Valentine" shirt.......a lot!

Dad's 66th Birthday!

2008-08-06T09:00:00.001-07:00

My dad turned 66 on August 6th.

What better cake theme than a good, 'ol Route 66!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Thomas the Tank cake

2008-08-04T23:15:00.003-07:00

We had a Visiting Teaching service auction last month and I donated a child's birthday cake for my "service". The winner called me this week to make a cake for her grandson's 3rd birthday on Saturday. He had a Thomas the Tank theme so this is what I came up with............

Reboot

2008-08-02T20:36:00.008-07:00

I went to the Doctor again for a follow up visit regarding my ankle. For me, going to see a Doctor about a "problem" is like taking your car in because the brakes squeak. There is and always will be....something more egregious wrong. Which is why I try and avoid going to the Doctor, hence, the prolonged ankle issue.

I knew going into the visit that my ankle still didn't feel like it had healed much since my last visit three weeks ago. It was when I saw the MAC daddy footwear that I was now told I needed to wear that I realized my Doctor visit was more like a computer virus than a trip to Midas.

If you are a computer geek, you might understand.

My ankle was BAD. So my ED required a DC and had to REBOOT in order to upgrade to the knee high version 4.0. I guess I had an ECS on my ankle that was both "enhanced" and "chipped" causing the pain. It has a BASM which I've found easy to use although it tends to feel over heated. I'm currently in TM and depending on the TOD, I wear either the dial up version or the upgraded version. I'm hoping that at the EOJ, my ankle will be at an AQL.

In layman's terms: I have a chip fracture on my ankle as well as a torn posterior tibialis tendon. I now have to wear a dumb "boot" for the next three weeks until my next check up. I'm just praying I won't have to reboot to a newer, upgraded "hip" model.

This was my old dial up version which I keep as my back up:

And the computer word "cursor" has taken on a whole new meaning.........

BAD = Broken as designed

ED = External device

DC = Design change

REBOOT = Start up

ECS = Enhanced chip set

BASM = Built in assembler

TM = Test mode

TOD = Time of day

EOJ = End of job

AQL = Acceptable quality level

Hanging with the Cousins

2008-07-30T22:06:00.007-07:00

It was great to see my brother and his wife and their two kids last month! Since we only get a chance to see each other every few years, it's fun to see their kids getting bigger and bigger with each visit!

If you detest ironing as much as I do.....

2008-07-28T10:00:00.003-07:00

Might I suggest you avoid this little number available at Costco.

For an added bonus, you also get a "low rider" cut which allows you to walk around feeling like your pants are about to fall off at any given second leaving you wondering why you paid money for this troublesome privilege.

I got to speak in front of a million people today......

2008-07-24T20:07:00.006-07:00

It may have been Kirk's birthday today but selfishly, I was the one who got a pretty cool present.

See, some people have fantasies of meeting their sports hero or famous movie star. Me.....I have a fantasy of one day meeting Jim Cramer from Mad Money. I know, I know. He's old enough to be my dad and he's kinda nerdy in a 60 year old version of Alex P. Keaton kind of way. But he's kind of my secret crush. If Kirk can have a "thing" for Samantha Brown on the travel channel, I can have mine.

Here's how it went down:
I called in to Mad Money earlier in the week and left a message about asking Jim Cramer what he thought about Anadarko Petroleum. This morning, I had a message on my machine from a guy from the show asking me to be a part of the Lightning round segment and to call back at 1:15pm. I was giddy. I started to write down what it was I was going to say. I wrote how I wanted to start by saying, "Jim Cramer? THE Jim Cramer? I've got a living in Mesa, Az but wishing I was still back in Bucks County BOOYAH for ya!" Then I would go on to tell him how I had a dream of meeting him some day and shaking his hand. Then I was going to wish Kirk a happy birthday ( see....I wasn't being completely selfish ). Then I was going to ask about a company called XTO but I was told by the 16 year old intern screener that he had already covered XTO a lot that week and if I had another stock I wanted to ask him about. So, I decided I'd go back to my original question about Anadarko Petroleum. Poor kid. He obviously didn't know his stuff because he asked me what the symbol for Anadarko was. Sigh. I secretly wanted his job too.

At 1:15, I called. While on hold, I rehearsed my lines over and over and over. Should I inflect "Booyah" like a casual "booyah" or with emphasis like "booYAH"? Or maybe "BOOyah"? My stomach was in knots and I felt like a little girl with a school girl crush. I sat on hold for 1 1/2 hours. Yes. You read that right. Luckily it was Ian's nap time and shockingly the older kids weren't too hungry at dinner from all of the granola bars I kept throwing at them to keep them quiet. I hid in Lauren's room so if my turn came, kids wouldn't be heard screaming in the back ground.

About an hour into my hold time, a girl came on and told me that they ran out of time during the Lightning round but to hang on so that I could be in the "Sudden Death" segment at the very end. The nerves started to fade as did my script I had been rehearsing for the last hour. I starting thinking about how rude it was of those people who took up MY time during the Lightning round which prevented me from having a turn to live out my dream. So not fair.

Then a lady comes back on and said the Sudden Death segment was about to start and that I was the first to go! I was told that I wasn't allowed to "chit chat" or say "booyah" I just had to give my stock. My nerves picked up again. I couldn't believe I was about to talk to Jim Cramer. My hero! My idol! My guru!

Suddenly, I heard a loud noise of nothing that made any sense. In the background I heard a very faint but familiar voice. It was Jim saying, "Let's go to Lisa in Arizona! Lisa............."

Holy cow! That's ME!!!!!!

I suddenly felt like the kid from "A Christmas Story". You know, when it was finally his turn to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas but all he could say was "Uh......football".

My "football" line was "Hey Cramer! What's your take on Anadarko Petroleum symbol APC?"

Then I heard, "Anadarko?" which might was well have been "Ho.... Ho..... Ho..........." and a big, black, shiny boot in the face.

Then the line went dead. I have no idea what he said after that until the show aired.

Some day.......I WILL meet Jim Cramer. For now, you can see how famous I really ( think I ) am.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=803042558

Happy Birthday Kirk!

I Hope they Call me on a Mission..............

2008-07-22T12:24:00.004-07:00

Family Home Evening Monday night was all about missionary work. We quizzed the kids about full time missions. How old are boys when they can serve a full time mission? How old are girls? How long is a mission? What are boy missionaries called? You get the idea. The kids pretty much knew the answers for the most part.

The best was when we asked them where they wanted to go on their missions. Lauren, of course, wanted someplace exotic like Paris. Erik thought it would be cool to go to Wendy's on his mission. I didn't have the heart to tell him that wasn't a "mission" but a "j.o.b" besides, Frosties day in and day out would probably get kinda old. Jack wanted to go to Disneyland on his mission. Who wouldn't?

I thought we made some good progress.............

Jack Jack is 6!

2008-07-19T21:47:00.011-07:00

We surprised Jack with a trip to Disneyland! He and dad got to go and play for a few days. He had a ball! Kirk said he was the ultimate chick magnet. One time in line, Kirk joked and said, "Are we THERE yet?" And Jack replied, "Dad.....we'll GET there when we GET there!" ( from the Incredibles ). Some 20 something chick turned around and said, "THAT.is.the.CUTEST.thing.I've.ever.heard!" Yeah. He was dad's wing man.

Then we had a little party for him today. He said he wanted a Bumble Bee Transformer cake. UGH! Could it BE any more complex? So, this was the best I could come up with:

It was fun and I'm glad he and Kirk got to spend some time together. And even though he was spoiled with a trip to Disneyland, he still was anxious to pick out a little souvenier for his big sister and little brothers! And I'm proud of Lauren for keeping his trip to Disneyland a secret. She was a trooper.........

Summer of stitches and splints

2008-07-10T15:54:00.012-07:00

I mentioned before that Jack had to get stitches. I mean, what is summer without stitches or casts? It's as normal as flip flops and a lemonade stand.

I just would prefer it happened to other people and not to me.

This is what I get to wear for the next six weeks:

Goody.

Who knew putting laundry away was so dangerous?

See, this is what happens when you put off going to the Doctor for three months after the initial injury ignorantly thinking that if I just keep it wrapped and take some Advil that it will eventually all go away. I guess tendon tears don't necessarily "go away" as easily as I thought it would.

The picture on the right is my "normal" ankle. The one the left is my injured one. Most of the injury is right above the ankle and it's probably hard to tell but it's a little swollen. ( Plus it looks like the camera added about ten pounds. )

So yesterday, I finally made it in to see a specialist. After ten seconds, the Doctor suspected one of those "itis" words. You know.....arthritis, bronchitis, meningitis, and the common symptom found in children called I'm-not-eating-that-itis. Luckily it was just "tendonitis".

After the x-ray didn't show any breaks, I then went in for an ultrasound. Now, I'm no expert at ultrasounds obviously since I couldn't tell my in utero baby's toes from their nose but it probably doesn't take a genius to know that a big black spot where your tendons are might not be such a good thing.

I remarked to the ultra-sound tech, "Uh....that doesn't look normal."

He asked why I thought so.

I said, "Well, it doesn't look like a baby that's for sure!"

He began to measure the tear and told the Doctor what he found. A bunch of medical mumbo jumbo ensued and I remember thinking I should take mental notes because I knew my dad was going to ask me what they said. But they lost me at posteromedial. Then I heard, "So, it's not as bad as it COULD be then."

YAY?

I made sure to remind the Doctor that I had four kids under seven at home so my treatment needs to be realistic. He said that ideally, he should put me in a cast.

Cast = not an option

Plan B?

Plan B is a brace along with anti-inflamitories and ice. Again, ideally, I should put ice on it four times a day. Realistically, he said he would be happy with twice a day for twenty minutes. I can do that. It will give me an excuse to read.

I've worn it for the last day and so far I have a different pain than I've had for the last three months. I'm hoping that means it's fixing the problem. I want to get back to wearing my flip flops again before it starts to cool down to the 90's.

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-05T22:16:00.031-07:00

Who knew we could be as spontaneous as we were in our single days?

July 3rd as we sat and watched the ten o'clock news, my husband asked what we should do for the 4th. I muttered something about how I was not about to sit and endure six hours of country music that is only used to mask the hot, black pavement and 110 degrees with four kids just to watch a 20 minute fireworks show. Kirk then said something about, "Oh, but our kids need good memories of the 4th and fireworks!" Yeah. And I need a good tummy tuck. What's your point?

Then the weather segment came on and they started showing the weather for places up north and I asked, "What about Payson?"

We gave each other that, "Hmmmmm. Yeah." nod and decided that was what we would do.

The next morning, we put together a bunch of stuff to take with us. We dressed the kids in their co ordinating flag t-shirts blissfully unaware that every other person within a ten mile radius from a Walmart would buy the very same ones for this occasion as well. We packed coolers full of water bottles and snacks then slipped

on their flip flops and away we went.........

on a little over an hour drive................

to be greeted by rain. Lots and lots of rain.

That big, dark cloud I saw as we came up over the top of the mountain might have been my first clue that I probably should have paid more attention to that weather forecast I saw the night before.

And then I remembered some of my "spontaneous" trips I took as a young, single adult. New Year's eve Snow camping, Lake Powell in tents in July, driving to Park City just to see the B-52's in concert........ This had the potential of turning out badly.

The sleeping bags we had spread out to stake claim on our spot were drenched by 4:00. We hung out in the Tahoe and put on a DVD of Aladdin for the kids. Except about 45 minutes into the video, I noticed the automatic windows weren't rolling down so well. Probably should have kept the engine running while playing the DVD player. Luckily, the nice people in the car next to us gave us a jump with their own jumper cables seeing that we took ours out while packing the car for our spontaneous trip.
The rain kept coming down so around 6pm, we decided to just go for it. We managed to find a lone umbrella that Kirk just happened to have in his back pack. We also were fortunate that Lauren left her swimming towel in the car from her pool day last week. That came in handy as it made sitting on the waterlogged blanket feel only moderately saturated instead of thoroughly soused.

The kids had a blast playing with their light thing-a-ma-jigs.

The ducks also kept them busy.

Ian liked to go around and wave at all of the dogs. ( Seriously. Who brings dogs to see fireworks? )

Then Kirk entertained us by showing how fast my camera can take pictures.

Honestly. No dignity whatsoever.

Then Lauren wanted to see if I could take a picture of her jumping.

This was Ian as soon as the fireworks began. He spent most of the time with his hand over his mouth until he finally fell asleep from the stress of it all. You might not be able to tell, but we ended up sticking him inside a pillowcase since we did think to bring pillows. Extra blankets? Warm clothes? Common sense? No.

The pillowcases were the only dry things we had left.

I'm sure next year we'll be better prepared. Spontaneity is totally overrated.

Blog Hits

2008-07-01T17:00:00.004-07:00

I've learned that there is a trick to getting your blog to show up as one of the first links when people do a Google search.

You have to put special "key words" in your blogs. Words like "Flip Flop" which will come up as a result for either the shoe kind or about Presidential candidates. Then there are the common phrases like, "The 12 days of Christmas", "How I survived my summer vacation", "terrible twos" and "Big boy room" which seem to be pretty popular searches.

The searches I'm a little concerned with though are "Redneck pooltable" and "the meaning of brokeback". I mean....do people really have a need to look up a redneck pooltable?

So, I've made a list of the coolest places that I've had blogs hits.

1. Lahore, Pakistan

2. Managua, Nicaragua

3. Auckland, NZ

4. Tel Aviv, Israel

5. Derby, England

6. Jerusalem, Israel

7. Hadera, Israel

8. Brisbane, Queensland Australia

9. Tegucigalpa, Honduras

10. Escades-Engordany, Andorra

11. Delhi, India

Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't admit I've had hits from Derby, England. It might get me on a CIA watch list or something.

Hello. This is old age calling......

2008-06-28T21:51:00.004-07:00

This week's conversation with Erik

ERIK: Mom.....what's this? ( pointing to my parent's corded phone )

ME: That's a phone honey.

ERIK: ( looking puzzled as he picks it up and checks it out) No it's not.

ME: ( Rolling on the floor laughing ) It's not? Well then, what is it?

ERIK: I don't know but it's not a phone silly mommy.

I suppose in all of his three years, he has never seen a phone with a cord before. He hasn't seen a camera that doesn't display the picture for a few seconds after you take the shot either. He also has never known a world that didn't have Spongebob or Elmo.

Phrases a mom never wants to hear

2008-06-23T21:02:00.006-07:00

someone say when they call your cell phone:

1. This is so and so from the such and such public pool

2. Your son, Jack, just split his head open

3. He might need to go to the hospital

Honorable mention words a mom never wants to hear:

1. Ambulance

2. Fire department

3. Stitches

Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as the scenarios I had going through my head right after I got the call because all I remember hearing was "Split his head open blah blah blah" and "Ambulance blah blah blah". Once I got to see it for myself, the bad mommy in me couldn't get the phrase from a Monty Python movie out of my head. "It's only a flesh wound!"

It took a couple of stitches to put him back together again. He was a trooper the whole time. Didn't cry at ALL! He totally deserved the Sonic Blast afterwards.

You don't know hot

2008-06-21T21:58:00.003-07:00

until the heat melts the heal of your shoe off. Or you lay flagstone in Arizona on the record breaking, hottest 115 degree day of the year and almost pass out.

Yep. In Arizona we have 3 seasons. "Hot" = springish, "Of course, because I just washed my car"= late summer/monsoon/fallish and "Are you kidding me?"= the rest of the year.

I forgot how hot 115 degrees feels. It's not pleasant. Especially when your fountain soft drink gets warm after 10 minutes in the shade. That's just messed up. Wanna know what 115 feels like? Go turn on your oven to 115 degrees, stick your arm in it for three months and while you're at it, turn on your A/C with a setting of a frigid 82 degrees (because 82 degrees feels "nippy" compared to 115), then gasp in horror when you open your preposterous electric bill that is as much as a car payment.....if you're lucky. That's what it feels like. Or blast about five hairdryers on high in your direction. That's 115 degrees with a "breeze" like we had today.......in the shade.

I know it's cliche, but honestly, after it hits 110, it's all the same. Eh. What's five degrees more? That's what the neighbor's pool is for anyways.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-06-14T20:26:00.021-07:00

This is the face of a 38 year old:

This is the Coke my friend Robyn brought me:

This is the dinner Kirk picked up for me:

This is my out of focus chocolate with chocolate filling Costco cake. Notice the 3 candles and a number 8 ( What? Did you really think I was going to MAKE my cake? Because, really....how do you make a cake that portrayed "Holy cow! I must be old because my daughter asked me if I had email when I was her age" well enough? )

This is the result of my previous blog hint:
These are my new orange and grapefruit trees

That I hope don't have the same fate as my tomato and spice plants:

These are drawer pulls and knobs that I hope to have installed some day:

This is the face of one WAY excited child:

As is this:
It was a great day! Thanks everyone!!!

p.s. Happy Birthday Brian and Uncle Dan!

Confessions

2008-06-12T09:00:00.011-07:00

Admit/Confess/Divulge. Whatever you want to call it.

1. I drink diet Coke like a fish ( I know. Shocker. Have you seen my food storage? )

2. I don't iron

3. I've flirted my way out of a speeding ticket

4. I've never seen the movie ET

5. The older I get, the darker I like my chocolate

6. My daughter killed our friend's beta fish we were supposed to watch while they were out of town 5 minutes after it was dropped off at our house. She got a wooden spoon and "stirred" it. We spent the next week jumping from one pet store to another, with dead fish in a Ziploc baggie, trying to find one that looked just like it. The girl never knew

7. I drove with some friends on a whim to the Grand Canyon and three of the five of us thought it would be fun to ride in the bed of a pick up. A few hours into the drive, in February, we started to realize it wasn't such a great idea after all

8. I'm deathly afraid of heights and extremely claustrophobic

9. When checking out at the grocery store, I put my items in a specific OCD, neatly stacked and arranged order onto the conveyor belt

10. I got bucked off of a horse riding bareback at the stable next door to our house in Pennsylvania. I picked the one horse that wasn't broken in yet. My parents didn't find out until about 10 years later. I've had back problems ever since

11. I remember the combination to my elementary school lock. 19-34-12. I still have the lock

12. I would rather drink hot dog water than eat sushi

13. I haven't read a novel since my first child was born ( Who the heck has that kind of time unless you're a man and can lock themselves in the bathroom for 30 minutes uninterrupted? )

14. I actually enjoyed my c-section and recovery WAY better than the

( ehem ) "other" option. I especially enjoyed the 4 sometimes 5 days, if I could swing it, "vacation"

15. I can't wink

16. I color my hair

17. I still have leg warmers I wore in the mid 80's in my drawer. I'm saving them for an 80's night sometime

18. I discovered a whole new wardrobe now that clothes I haven't been able to wear in about 4 years finally fit again. The bad news is peasant shirts are now out of style.

19. I'm turing 38 on Saturday and like smelly lotions from Bath and Body Works

( how's that for a hint?)

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

well Poo!

2008-06-02T16:32:00.002-07:00

So I took Erik to go "pee pees" in the potty today. We're still kind of working on the #2 part. He tells me "I'm thinking it's too hard." Okay. Fine.

I went upstairs to get the baby up from his nap and heard two flushes of the toilet downstairs. Intrigued, I went downstairs to see what Erik was up to.

He was standing in the family room bum naked and I asked, "Erik, did you go poopies in the potty?"

He replied with enthusiasm, "YES! I put the POOPIES in the POTTY!" Of course, I was a little skeptical and went to the bathroom afraid I'd have a mess that I really didn't want to have to clean up. But, I didn't see anything! He really DID go poopies in the potty!!!

We proceeded to dance and shout "YAY! Erik went poopies in the potty!"

I then looked around to put his big boy pants back on but only saw his shorts.

"Erik? Where are your big boy pants?"

With as much excitement as he could muster he said while pointing to the toilet, "I put the poopies in the potty mommy!"

Already knowing the answer to my question, I hesitantly asked,"You mean you poopied in your big boy pants and then put the big boy pants in the potty?"

"Yes! I put them in the potty then FLUSH!"

Well Poop. Guess we're not as close to being done as I thought.

World Traveller

2008-05-29T23:23:00.016-07:00

My husband is currently in Barcelona. Yesterday he was in Prague. The day before that, he was in Helsinki.

His life is rough.

We talk to each other several times a day. You have to love that I can dial his cell phone number, and not even need the area code or those weird country codes, and I can reach him just about anywhere in the world. Except Japan. Salo Finland and Shenzhen China....yes. But the technology/most cell phones owned per capita capital of the world, Japan? No.

Go figure.

Our conversations are generally me listening to his planes, trains and automobile adventures and exotic things he ate which more often than not, gave him some kind of intestinal "issues" as I eat left over macaroni and cheese or cold pizza and tell him how the highlight of my day was that after three weeks, Erik finally pooped in the potty. So, I suppose in an odd way, we both have our own intestinal "issues" we deal with.

Tonight, the conversation was about planes. I guess he took the airplane version of a clown car from Prague to Barcelona yesterday. His body didn't even fit in the seat and had to sit sideways on the flight.

Which then had us talking about "those airlines". You know, the ones crying over the price of oil rather than poor management so they need to cut corners any way they can. First, it was the $10.00 fuel surcharge they tacked on to each plane ticket several years ago back when we thought $1.25/gallon was ridiculous and people were lined up down the street the night before the new gas hike would take effect to fill their tanks. Then there was the $3.00 segment fees for each leg. Now it's more fuel surcharges. Then last week, American announced they were going to start charging $15.00 for each checked bag.

Are you kidding me?

That's another $30 roundtrip! And if I'm just going to Disneyland with a couple of kids and had to check a couple bags, it would end up costing me as much as the plane ticket!

So, what is that going to persuade travelers to do?

As I see it, people are going to be forced to start WEARING every possible article of clothing they would normally have packed in their checked luggage ON the PLANE.

For men, they will start with wearing a weeks worth of underwear under their swimming suit, a couple of pairs of shorts followed by jeans and khakis for those dressier days. On top, the layers will be three t-shirts under two layers of button-up shirts, a flannel jacket and a winter coat. If it's not winter, the outer most layer can be substituted with pajamas. Or really, you could forgo the pjs altogether and just wear your birthday suit to bed. That would save even more space.

Women's layering technique is the same as the men only add a skirt over the jeans. I heard that the pants under a skirt thing from the '80's is back in style again. Convenient.

Yeah....laugh now but I swear, the next flight you take where you have to fork over 15 big ones just to check your bag, you'll see that guy or girl doing just as I suggested and you'll think to yourself, "DANG! That's brilliant! I wish I had thought of that!"

Then, all you would need to bring is one carry on with your essentials like the quart size Ziploc baggie with the three ounce bottles of liquids and/or gels which may or may not be confiscated because if you packed, I don't know..... say a 5 oz. tube of children's toothpaste that had less than an ounce of content left because you managed to get it TO your destination when it contained roughly 2 ounces but because the container read "5 ounces" despite the actual content left, it would be deemed unacceptable and put in the hazardous materials bin by the 18 year old why-be-consistant-security girl who obviously doesn't have kids of her own because if she did, she would know that they don't make children's toothpaste in 3 ounce travel sizes.

I think I'll rent out some space at the airport for a disposable clothing line.
I'll call it "Disposable Digs" and include a suitcase for people to put the clothes in and they can return it when they fly home. I could charge $14.00 for three days worth of disposable clothes which I think would be totally worth it. People spend that much on a slice of pizza there at the airport. You laugh........but if all of the airlines follow American's lead, you'll be thinking, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Gotta love a free market economy!

Picture perfect?

2008-05-26T08:00:00.001-07:00

Trying to chase a 14 month old for his belated 1 year photo is as tiring as taking four kids to Walmart during nap time.

At least the conversation sounds the same. "No! Don't touch that! It's icky!" and "Come back here!" or "Please leave the toy alone!"

So on the windiest, most overcast day we've had in ages, I decided to give it a try. Somehow I forgot that the last pictures I took of him he wasn't walking yet. No wonder I broke a sweat in 75 degrees.

I just wanted ONE good picture. ONE! So, I had to take 100 pictures that looked like these:

( This one is when he finally responded to my flailing arms while saying, "Ian! Hi! Hey Ian! Hi! Over here! Look at Mommy!" It's him talking to me on the phone with his now muddy hand. )

All before I could get the money shot.

And people wonder why we don't do family pictures more often.

Happy 3rd Birthday Erik!

2008-05-25T13:43:00.002-07:00

Erik is now one big stereotypical package of a three year old!

And fondant is my new best friend.

We had a double party on Friday night with the kids in our babysitting group rotation since it was our turn. The kids LOVE a party! So, I made Erik a Blue's Clues cake and made an Ariel cake for the other birthday girl. I thought it was a good thing I didn't throw away the last Little Mermaid bath toy. I knew it would come in handy again some day.

Just look at the utter glee on the kid's face! What a ham!

Sneaky big sister and brother.
This would be Ian showing us his baby sign for "MORE!" which he does often and with fervor if chocolate is involved.

Random angles of the cake:

My latest project

2008-05-18T20:40:00.014-07:00

You might ask yourself, "When on earth do you find time with four kids to do all of these extra curricular things like blogging and stock trading and coming in the top 1.1% last week in the CNBC portfolio challenge (shameless plug) between planning Sharing Times, writing the upcoming Primary Program, end of the school year activities and five summer birthdays?"

That's a good question.

The short answer? Diet Coke.

The longer answer? My husband has been going out of town a lot lately and I always need a project that both keeps me sane and keeps me up until way past my bedtime ( that is if I still have the energy ) because that's the only time of the day when the house is quiet and I can actually hear myself think. Sometimes I'll have full conversations in my head while I work. Seriously. And the cool thing is that whatever I'm debating to myself about, I'm always right.

So......here's the latest. The boy's bathroom.

I first put wainscotting on the walls:

Then took two tries to get the right shade of green:

Added little initial boards I made from wood and material plus hooks on the wall:

Oh, and while I was at it......I nailed some boards to the wall in my hallway and hung a bunch of hooks because I was tired of backpacks laying all over the floor. LOVING IT by the way!

Now I need to come up with something else to do next week..................

Nice going CNBC

2008-05-13T12:17:00.007-07:00

$1.000M
Total Portfolio Value*Top 42.3% Game Rank*204631st

4,918 (0.5%) Gain/Loss, Intraday

The above probably makes no sense to anyone but me but I'll try and explain it. See, CNBC is doing a million dollar portfolio challenge. You have 5 different portfolios each with 1 million dollars to compete each week for a prize. It started yesterday and was full of glitches. Of course. Finally, after waiting until 10pm last night to see where I stood with my earnings from yesterday's picks, I saw that I was up 4.5% or $43,000!!! I had great picks with McDonalds, Research in Motion ( thanks to the new Blackberry thingy ), Genco shipping and Apple.

Then I noticed the leader board which showed the top 25 winners from yesterday. The most that was made was $17,000.

HELLO!!!!!!!!!???????

I made $43,000! Today, I noticed my account only had the original amount in it and that I was only up .5% today. I see what stocks in theory, traded yesterday in my transaction history but for some dumb reason, I'm not getting the credit from the gains. I made $17,000 from Genco shipping ( GNK ) alone!

idiots.

( Bitter? Who me? )

Oh well, the winner this week gets a pair of tickets to the World Series. And you all know how much I love baseball...............

I'm holding out for the $500,000 grand prize.

EDITED TO ADD:

Here's where I stand today! After the royal hosing I got from the first day, I've moved from the top 42% to the top 13%!

$1.009M
Total Portfolio Value*
Top 13.8%
Game Rank*
70787th
Game Rank Position*
+9,018 (0.9%)
Gain/Loss, Intraday
+9,018 (0.9%)
Gain/Loss, Weekly*
+9,018 (0.9%)
Gain/Loss, Overall*

Blues

2008-05-11T13:05:00.001-07:00

Someone did a little more than "Think" in the "Thinking Chair".

Yeah. You're really smart.

And I really need some more Spot Shot.

Check it OUT!

2008-05-08T15:53:00.009-07:00

THIS is why I blog!

Now I don't have to feel guilty about not writing in a traditional journal.

This book was only for 2006 and ONLY 62 pages. I better get going on 2007 which had twice as many entries!

Create your own book at blurb.com

Warning......

2008-05-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

( In case you don't see a post from me for a while, know it's probably because I'm too busy cursing a pee/poop stain on my carpet or I'm doing laundry )

What's that thing called?

2008-05-05T12:27:00.005-07:00

Don't you just love that my child can dress himself! It's such a shame that the only person outside of his immediate family who gets to see his mini self-dressing accomplishment every day is the afternoon bus driver.

( And stop looking at his drink already. It IS some of my diet Coke so let's just move along.....)

So, Erik pointed to my eyebrows the other day and said that he knew what they were called.

"Wow! Really? What is it?"

They're called "Eye Brownies"

Mmmmmm......... Brownies.........

Shhhh. I'm about to share a secret.

2008-04-30T13:39:00.006-07:00

For less than the cost of a Super Value Meal at McDonalds.........

Hanging Organizers!

Ok so I bought them about 3 years ago when Lauren started school but I've kept this secret to myself. I didn't want people to get a false sense that I was uber organized when clearly, I'm really not.

Here's how it works. Each day of the week has a complete outfit in its cubby. From underwear to socks to shirt and pants! Now there's no guessing which shirt matches which pants. No going to school in green pants and purple print shirts. No more saying, "I don't have any underwear".

The best thing of all is that it's one less battle in the mornings. I can focus on other things like making sure they brush their teeth or comb their whole head of hair.

I have ones for my little boys too which include both an outfit for the day and their jammies as well. Makes it a little easier on Kirk since I've seen some of the outfits he's put together for the boys to wear and then gone out in public. I once asked him, "Would YOU wear that in public? You would seriously wear a brown plaid shirt with blue plaid shorts in public?"

Know what I'm saying?

What big brothers are good for......

2008-04-29T10:24:00.009-07:00

Helping feed the baby who is thrilled with the never ending supply of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Can put stickers in baby's hair and the baby won't care because he's not picky and loves any kind of attention.

Will feed little brother snacks at any time.

Being a big brother is an awful lot of hard work.

Maybe I should label this post, What little brothers are good for.

My husband bought me a

2008-04-26T14:41:00.021-07:00

Louis Vuitton wallet (knock off) when he went to Hong Kong!!!

For those who really know me, fancy shmancy designer expensive things do not impress me much at all. In fact, when someone shows off something I know cost a pretty penny, my first thought is, "Wow. That was a big waste of money." How people can spend more than $20 on a pair of shoes ( as I walk around in my recently purchased $7.00 tennis shoes from Walmart since the last pair I bought was two years ago ) or 50k on a decked out car ( I'm perfectly fine driving our '01 paid for Tahoe ) is beyond me.

Let alone, $500 for a wallet! If I wanted to get the matching purse, it would set me back $1700! They sell diaper bags too there at Louis Vuitton. For $2100! And I would only have three colors to choose from! Baby blue, pink or black. Real original. I managed just fine using the free bag, sponsored by Similac, from the hospital. Sure it only came in black, but it was free. For $2100, I sure as heck would expect to pick any color of my choosing. And if I were to drop that kind of money on something like a $2100 diaper bag, I would feel obligated to have more kids just to make it "worth it". At the very least, I would expect it to come with a personal nanny.

It's inherited from my frugal dad who mentioned the other day how they exchanged a timeshare for a week in Vegas and how they plan to go to a bunch of other timeshare presentations just for the free show tickets.

The first thing I asked my husband when he gave it to me, knowing it was a knock off, was "So what's the deal? Is Vuitton spelled the wrong way or something? I guess it really is spelled "Vuitton". I had no idea.

But, I needed a new wallet anyways so it was worth the 20 bucks.

At least it matches my $3.00 purse I got on clearance at Walmart. My husband should consider himself lucky that I don't have expensive taste.

Hang gliding 101

2008-04-22T08:38:00.007-07:00

My kids like to chatter. A lot. They will follow me around as they explain things to me like how they want their next birthday cake to look or the reasons why I need to buy the "Aqua Globe" even though we don't even own a plant.

The chatter is accentuated those times when my husband is out of the country on business trips.

I'll admit that a lot of the time I tune their background noise chatter out. Although, I have been busted on occasion when I nod and say, "Uh huh. Really? That's cool" by a child who will then say, "No. It's NOT cool that Erik can open my electronic diary mom". But every once in a while, they will say something that catches my attention. Today, it was "Hang glider Rules" by Jack. He's so smart.

1. Put hang glider together

2. Always hang on

3. Don't open your mouth or else you'll swallow a bug or a bee and a bee would be bad because it would sting you

4. Be sure to bring snacks in case you get hungry

5. Keep your eyes open always because if you look down at the water, you might run into a mountain or birds

And that's all the stuff you need to do to hang glide.

I'll have to keep that in mind. And it's just about as useful to me as an Aqua Globe.

I have a new friend named Craigs

2008-04-20T13:36:00.005-07:00

list.

Want to see my cool new finds?

No. It's not the complete series or Harry Potter books.

Nor is it books on pregnancy which are il-placed next to the South Beach Diet book.

And it's not the one and only scrapbook I've attempted.

It's a new home office! Craigslist got me the bookshelves, the corner desk, the over stuffed chair and the big rug all for one low low price of $300! Now Kirk is all set when he starts his Masters in Global Business Management at Thunderbird in the fall!

I've lost my marbles....

2008-04-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

And my curtains.

No really. I can't find my curtains.

I took them down a couple of weeks ago when it looked like this: ( We're focusing on the windows as this is a stock photo which shows the old seat cushions and light fixture. )

Then we added this:

And now I can only find this:

And this:

But I'm missing a couple of the side curtains. Naturally, they weren't where I had the other ones.

I swear I must be getting old.

In case you ever wanted to know.....

2008-04-15T15:29:00.013-07:00

Those temporary tattoos you get in the current Happy Meal at McDonalds take forever to fade. I initially thought they would be like the cheapo Shrek tattoos from the Corn Pops box that lasted a couple of days or at least until the next bath. So when I put them on my two oldest boys the Saturday of Conference weekend, I thought for sure by the time church rolled around the next week, the pirate skull and crossbones picture would have been long gone from their forearms.

FYI: McDonald's temporary tattoos are more titanium than temporary.

We got the Happy Meal on April 5th. This is a picture of what it looks like today.....10 days later.

My nailpolish doesn't last this long! Right now, I'm just hoping it will fade by the time he has his three year pictures taken next month. I'm blissfully hoping that maybe his quick-tempered, unstable two year old disposition will fade along with it. At least I know his chocolate Cocoa Puffs residue on his face is temporary.

Deal of the week

2008-04-08T09:10:00.009-07:00

We're mostly women, right? And as women, we must and will share a deal if we see one. It's some unwritten law or something. So, this is my deal of the week as shared with me by my mom.

"Bountiful Baskets"

Every two weeks, at various locations around the valley you can pre order and pick up a basket of fruits and vegetables. You need to place your order by the Wednesday before and pick up is that next Saturday morning at the designated times.

Each week the basket contents vary. Each week they also will have different items like breads or cheese or like this week, strawberries.

So here's the deal. The first time you place an order, you pay about a dollar or two more than the other times. Then for each order after that, for $15.00, you can get this:

There's a couple of bunches of bananas, 2 onions, a bunch of broccoli, a jicama, some tomatoes, mushrooms, 9 apples, a bag of grapes, 7 large carrots, 4 red peppers, box of small strawberries, bunches of spinach and a bag of romaine lettuce.

For an extra $8.00, I got a case of strawberries!

Here's the even better deal! They do charge a 1.80 fee when ordering online. So, get a few friends to go in on it with you and have one person order 3 or 4 baskets under their account and have them be the one to pick them up so the order fee is spread amongst more people which makes it an even better deal. Every little bit counts these days!

HaPpY AnNiVeRsArY!

2008-04-01T13:41:00.006-07:00

Happy 9th Anniversary Kirk!

The modern gift for a 9th anniversary, by the way, is leather. Intriguing......

The mom of the year award goes to.....

2008-03-31T13:37:00.005-07:00

So Erik got into trouble today because he went into Ian's room and woke him up. I scolded him and told him he is never ever allowed to go into Ian's room when he's asleep. Erik covered his eyes and face with his little hands and proceeded to perform his one man act, "I'm embarrassed because I know I did something wrong but I'm going to do my best to make you feel guilty" cry.

I walked back downstairs and a few minutes later Erik came down too. He walked over to me and said, "I don't have time for this!"

Wonder where he heard THAT before?

Random thoughts

2008-03-29T11:27:00.033-07:00

Someone recently posed the question: How did we know our family was done?

So this is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last couple of days and I was reminded of my own personal experience. While I was pregnant with Erik, I was perfectly content with him being our last. Throughout the whole pregnancy I thought things like, "This is the last time I have to get this huge," or "This is the last time my back will kill me every day" or "This is the last time I have to lose my lunch on a daily basis for nine months." And I was completely fine with that! Then the day came when Erik was born. That afternoon as I was holding him and resting, I heard a very distinct and clear voice say to me, "Don't get too comfortable because you aren't done yet." It was so loud that it startled me enough to look around and see who was in the room. No one else was around except for me and my little baby. I remember saying out loud, "You've GOT to be kidding me!" and wondering why couldn't that "feeling" wait at least until I got out of the hospital after just having had a baby! Or at the very least until the morphine wore off!

I was nervous and worried since it was a long and emotional year of charting and fertility drugs to get Erik here. I had what is called a "Luteal Phase Defect". But, I trusted that if it was what we were supposed to do then it would happen for us again. After six months of charting and finding that I had the same LPD as before then suffering through a chemical pregnancy, I decided I needed to start my first round of progesterone before moving on to the fertility drugs again. To my surprise, that was all it took! About three weeks later, I had spotting and started to get negative pregnancy test results after days of positive ones. When I went in for my blood test my number was only at 14. In order to register on a pregnancy test that I was using it needed to be at least 24. I thought for sure I was miscarrying again. I went in a couple of days later for another blood test to make sure my numbers were doubling like they were supposed to and my number was over 250! To this day, I'm not sure why I was getting positive tests one week and then nothing as well as the spotting. The only explanation I could come up with is that maybe I had double ovulated that month and the earlier egg that implanted didn't stick.

As the pregnancy progressed, we were anxious for the ultrasound appointment. Shortly after Lauren was born, I had a very profound dream of a girl with pretty long, blond hair that flowed at her waist. She was about five years old and in my dream she was skipping away from me. I started to call for her by name, Eden. She stopped then turned her head to look behind her towards me, smiled then skipped away. I caught a glimpse of what she looked like. I took a mental picture and embedded the image in my mind thinking I would recognize her again someday. Seeing what my own daughter Lauren looks like now, Eden was very similar, but different. Eden had a long, narrow face and a similar smile. The rest of her features were uniquely different. I had a feeling that I had just gotten a glimpse of a future daughter. So, to our astonishment of having subsequent boy after boy after boy, I began to question who this little girl was and why she wasn't coming to our family like I had thought she would. Since Ian was born, I have felt very sure that our family was complete. So I struggled with who was Eden and why do I have such a strong connection to her?

After some inner searching for answers, I felt at peace knowing she does belong to us and was our first child that we had sadly lost at eight weeks. My feelings were confirmed when I looked up the word Eden in the thesaurus. I read the synonyms Heaven, Next World, Perfection, Paradise. With each word, I felt confirmation that my dream was not just any dream and that her name was not just any name. I know that she will be ours to raise someday and I feel honored to have been able to meet her in this life, if only in my dream. I humbly recognize that not many are blessed with the same privilege.

What I also know for sure is that all of my children were meant to be here and that they will grow to do big and important things. I have a lot of peace in knowing that our family feels complete now.

Ian's ONE!

2008-03-28T10:19:00.009-07:00

Ok so it was a week ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. Which, if you think about it, actually isn't so bad considering I have four tubs filled with pictures and mementos sitting under my bed, one for each child, still waiting to be scrapbooked.....someday. We didn't even do his "party" until Sunday the 23rd because I was worn out from our family Disneyland trip. And honestly, after three previous "first birthday extravaganzas" I'm feeling a little burned out...... poor kid. That last child syndrome is a big bummer.

I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version of his year in a nutshell.

March:
21st: Born weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces
Didn't have a name until our last day in the hospital
Spent first six weeks with jaundice and getting fun needle pokes.

April:
Ate. Slept. Pooped. Slept. Ate. Pooped. Ate. Slept.

May:
Saw first smiles and belly giggles
Ate. Slept. Pooped.

June:
Cut four teeth

July:
Got in to a noticeable eat/sleep pattern

August:
Turned over front to back and back to front

September:
Able to sit up on his own

October:
Survived a plane trip and week at DisneyWorld
Had fun celebrating Halloween as a puppy dog

November:
Lucky for mom and dad, started to crawl right after we returned from DisneyWorld
Got RSV

December:
Had no idea what Christmas was but sure loved the wrapping paper

January:
Easily entertained by big sister and brothers

February:
SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!
Had first of two back to back ear infections and bronchitis

March:
Survived a slightly more difficult trip on mom and dad to Disneyland
Had second of two back to back ear infections minus bronchitis
Pretty close to walking all of the time which has not been encouraged by mom and dad. That last child syndrome thing again.
Turned ONE!

I'm too EXCITED to sleep......

2008-03-18T22:45:00.005-07:00

Not because we'll be spending the day at Disneyland tomorrow, but because......

the new IPO will start trading!!!

And I will be ready with laptop in hand to place my order as soon as I can. Splash Mountain and the Dumbo ride will just have to wait...... sorry kids.

Didn't realize I was such a geek, eh?

A mom of a two year old should know by now

2008-03-14T12:44:00.007-07:00

That if he doesn't want his pop tart broken in half

to make it easier to dunk in milk.....

HE DOESN'T WANT HIS

POP TART BROKEN IN HALF!

This is not to be confused with other days when he does want them broken in half, just on certain days when he feels like it and as the mom,

you're supposed to know whether it is a "break in half" day or not.

And the only way to make it all better is to tape it back together again.

Lesson learned.

And yes, that is colored marker stains all over his hands.

I didn't EVEN want to go there. Although, maybe they should have been my first clue how my morning was going to go.

And the winner is ...................

2008-03-13T10:35:00.006-07:00

ME!

For the "Most Creative" cake!

And the prize isn't a seven day cruise for two. Something about "not being in their budget" blah blah blah. Instead, I won a $20 gift card to Charlestons.

I'll take it.

This is family award number two for being the "Most Creative". The last one was for my son's scarecrow competition in the fall.

If only I could be creative when it comes to meal planning and organization.

A new meaning of "Brokeback"

2008-03-07T10:34:00.019-07:00

Jack brought home a flier earlier in the week about a Cake Decorating contest his school is having at a Rodeo fundraising something or other tomorrow. At first, I was tempted to enter but then realized we wouldn't even be able to go so I decided to forget about it. That is until my husband encouraged me to do it.

So I cowgirl'd up and did it.

There are supposed to be prizes for the best Rodeo theme, Best school spirit, Most creative etc. I tried to make something that would put us in as many categories as possible in order to hopefully win something. So, I went with a cowboy boot and a Rattler ( school mascot and school colors ) coming out of it.

Two days, seven cakes, two batches of frosting, a gazillion toothpicks, and a huge disaster of a neglected house later.......

Unless the prize is a seven day cruise for two........

I'm left wondering if it was really worth it.

Like was the time it took to do this:

Really worth this:

Or was working on this:

Worth the mess like this:

Or was I doing this:

Instead of preventing this: ( that is pieces of fondant that the two year old left on the oven for the baby to spend a hour picking off and eating )

Was two days of my life doing this:

Worth neglecting two days worth of doing this:

Jury is still out by the way. All I feel like I have to show for all of the effort is a hand still stained with red food coloring, a weekends worth of house cleaning and an aching back.

"Don't worry about bitin' off more than you can chew. Your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think. " Texas Bix Bender

Redneck Pool table

2008-03-03T22:39:00.005-07:00

Don't you wish there was an alternative to not only a less expensive option but also not having to have a pool table that takes up a whole room?

Well look no further! If a seven year old can build it.....so can you!

The only supplies required are cups ( Styrofoam or plastic work best as opposed to mom's nice glass glasses ), masking tape and a small plastic ball.

Then enjoy hours of fun!

Birthday Party Etiquette 101

2008-03-01T14:05:00.003-07:00

1. If you are throwing your child a party, don't expect the parents to drive 20 minutes each way to drop their child off in a skeevy part of town at say, Skateland, then make the parent "hang around" the skeevy part of town for 2 1/2 hours to pick their child up. Either have the party at your house, or drive the kids yourself.

2. If you are throwing your child a party, be sure to order enough pizza for everyone to at least have one slice.

4. If you are throwing your child a party and the invitation says it is from 10am until 12:30pm, a parent should expect that the party is ending at 12:30pm. Not earlier.

3. If you are throwing your child a party at a hypothetical place possibly mentioned above, it is important to stay until all of the parents have arrived to pick their child up. It's not proper etiquette to leave a seven year old by herself at a place like Skateland located in a skeevy part of town. It is irresponsible and unacceptable.

4. Don't allow your child to go to any more parties that don't take place at the host's home.

Baby's first words

2008-02-26T19:59:00.002-07:00

Ian got the boot Monday from Mommy and Daddy's room. He is now in the crib in the nursery. You may ask WHY we are just putting him in his own room when he's going to be a year old next month.

I'll tell you why. We're lazy.

It's just too easy to keep him in the pack and play at the end of our bed instead of up a flight of stairs and down a hall. It also makes the middle of the night feedings easier. ( Yes, we are still doing that too ). Remember.....L.A.Z.Y.

I put a dark sheet up in his window so his new room is nice and dark. His afternoon naps have been a solid three hours! Do you know how much you can do in three hours!?! Uninterrupted?!? Can you even comprehend the magnitude? I had time to exercise AND shower.

It has been Heaven.

So today, I turned on the baby monitor to be sure to hear him if he woke up. A couple of hours into his nap, I heard some rustling and stirring in the monitor. I thought he was getting ready to wake up. Then I heard this........

"Mama! Mum Mum Mum. Mamamama....."

Oh my goodness! I heard my baby's first words! He's a genius! An Einstein in the making! I started to calculate in my head how much a Harvard or Stanford education would set us back. What if he's one of those who will graduate from High School at 12, College at 16 and Med School at 21? He could totally be a Doogie Howser! I loved watching Doogie! I thought how amazing it was that he said his first words before he even started to walk. Next thing I know, he'll be asking me to check his proofs of the Pythagorean theorem or type his thesis all before he's even potty trained! Am I really prepared for that?

I was utterly ( so to speak ) amazed to hear with such clarity the words my child prodigy was saying.

That is until I heard other voices in the background. Voices that didn't belong to any of MY kids. Then I heard a woman's voice. Again....not mine.

I really need to switch the baby monitor frequency once in a while. Oh well. I guess he can still go to Harvard someday.

For your pets listening pleasure

2008-02-18T14:05:00.016-07:00

Songs on this tail-wagging CD include:

I'm your doggie

Scratch my back

I love food

Squeaky Deakey

and if you order now, you will receive the hit single

"Rover got run over by a Range Rover"

by the popular group The Sheepherders.

Pet lovers who bought Ask the Animals CD also bought Cat-a-tonic.

The CD with song titles such as

Cat Thinks He's a Dog

Felinicity

Litterbox Boogie

It's All About Me-Ow!

And of course, last years award winning song

"Kitty Knows More Than I Do"

by Catty

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Albums coming soon:

For fish lovers: Opening a Can of Worms

For Horse lovers: Pony Up!

For Bird lovers: Crying Fowl

Let me just once again direct you here.

If you give a mouse to a second grader

2008-02-09T10:56:00.005-07:00

My daughter's class at school has a fun tradition. Each week, a child is picked to be the "student of the week" and along with that recognition comes a bag filled with fun things to take home. It is centered around the theme from the book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie". Inside is a pet mouse just like the one from the book, the book "If you take a mouse to the movies" and a composition journal to write about your exploits with mouse.

My daughter's entries included a lot of time watching tv with mouse. Not only is that not very exciting, but it also shows how bad of a mom I really am. She was excited to have mouse for Valentine's Day.

As for the rest of the week......well, I thought I'd journal about the untold stories of mouse at our house:

If you give a mouse to a second grader, her two year old brother might think it was cute and decide to give it a milk bath in his bowl of leftover cereal ten minutes after it was home. And if you give it a milk bath, it might just get snatched up again by the two year old who will then run away with it. And if a two year old runs away with it, odds are the mouse will get lost. For a very long time. And if the mouse gets lost, the parents have to spend their evening looking in odd places to try and find it. They will look in the toy box and under the bed. They might even look in the garbage or out in the play house. And just as the parents are about to go to bed, the mouse might show up under the couch cushions.

The next day, if you give the mouse back to the second grader, you should tell her to take extra good care of it and be sure to hide it from her two year old brother. You also might tell your second grader to stop throwing the mouse so that it won't get smacked by the ceiling fan. When she's done throwing it, she will then decide it would be fun to take off all of its clothes just in case she wanted to lose those too.

Then she will hide the mouse and only bring him out of his hiding spot to play when she wants to show her friends how cute he is. She might even suggest taking it with her to the Friday night babysitting group but if mom was smart, she would tell her "NO!". The mouse will most likely stay hidden the rest of the week until the day before she needs to return him to school. And as soon as she brings him out of his hiding spot, her two year old little brother will find him. So the second grader will probably find an even better hiding spot for mouse. And when the next morning comes, the second grader will forget where her new hiding spot was. And if you forget where your new hiding spot was, mommy and daddy spend the already late morning because they overslept looking for mouse and will probably end up using naughty words.

But soon mouse is found and all is well with the world. Mom and dad are probably relieved to not have the stress and saying, "Where's mouse?" or "Do you know where mouse is?" every hour. And chances are, mouse will be sent to the home of another second grader who will treat it the same way.

You know it's been a while since you've posted

2008-02-04T17:06:00.001-07:00

when you have to sign in to your blogger account.

sigh.

Life has been busy.

And tomorrow is Super Tuesday. Whatever your political affiliation may be, personally, I will be secretly hoping that my MoJo ( or MoVoFoRo = Mormons Voting For Romney ) will smack McCain's arrogant smirk upside the head by losing to Romney in his home state.

And speaking of losers, I'll probably watch American Idol too.

Nothing like an exercise DVD

2008-01-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

like this one to show you how white and rhythm less you really are.

I'll be the first to admit that it's marketing at its finest. Slap a picture of a half naked Will Smith look- a- like on the front showing off his sweaty six pack. I mean, who wouldn't think that it genuinely works? Or at the very least, work better than the other "Abs of Steel" or "Six Minute Six Pack" videos collecting dust on my shelf.

Let me give you a tip. I can get a better workout typing a blog about "Hip Hop Abs" than actually doing it. I quickly learned that arms, legs and abs weren't meant to move in opposing, abnormal directions. I knew I wasn't doing something right when less than five minutes into the workout, "Shaun T" was sweating like a pig and I might as well have vacuumed.

So as not to seem like I didn't give this DVD a chance, let me break it down in a slanguage that some with the exception of my spellchecker, might understand.

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Da DVD is whack, yo. Don't go spend'n Benjamins on it y'all 'cause it ain't kickin it like in the crib yo. True dat. But I want to give a shout-outz to the fly girlz yo. You go girlz! Word. So, instead of git'n dis DVD, go 'n git u some nice bling bling. If u know what I'm saying, give me a shout-outz and say, "Hey......Ho.....Hey......Ho!"

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Guess tomorrow I'll vacuum.