Running Amuck

Parker Turned 5!

2012-01-18T23:52:00.000-05:00

Today Parker asked me if I ate a small baby. "Oh, i thought you ate a small baby because you have a baby in your tummy." Then he thought for a minute and said "ummm...when that baby comes out of you, could you just get away from all of us?"

Parker turned 5 last sunday.

Parker had a Mario birthday. He said it was the best mario birthday he had ever had, so i guess it went well. I took a few pictures of things that will remind me of 5 year old parker...

These are his "cuties". he loves robotic cats. he would love a real cat...but we have to convince dad first. and since i don't have a good track record with pets (one-eyed hamster, took back to pet store....hyper dog, sent of to actual ranch), things are not looking well. But man, parker would LOVE a cat.

Parker also loves art, music and architecture. This is his favorite piece of art:

It hangs over his bed. He can tell you all about it. He remembers it from a vacation we took when he was 2 1/2 years old.

He also loves to look through this architecture book. His favorites are the coliseum and the leaning tower of pizza.

This is the mario cake we made. It was torture for the kids to not play with it, but it survived the night and made an appearance at the party.

Parker is a very sweet, kind, happy, fun little boy. I can't say enough good things about him. He loves to play with maps, puzzles, little "guys", instruments (he is picking up the piano very easily). His favorite books are the elephant & piggie books by Mo Willems. He LOVES preschool. Loves Mario, pokemon, bowling and whatever sport is in season (soccer, baseball, etc.). He is positive and fun to have around....i just can't believe he is 5 years old already. Love this little guy!

2 funny things

2012-01-05T06:31:00.000-05:00

1.) I almost never buy hawaiian punch, because my kids inhale it. But today I was feeling thirsty while at Target, and this looked good, so I bought some. When I brought it home i set it on the counter....Kody kept walking by and looking at it. Finally he stopped and pointed to the guy on the label and said "It's me! It's Kody!!" He wanted to cary it around and drink "Kody juice". I think it's super funny that this is what he thinks he looks like.

2.) Carson was in a bad mood while I was folding laundry. He came into my room to ask a question and didn't like my answer so he left in a huff. On his way out he picked up a bra of mine off the floor and threw it at me and yelled "here are your extra nipples!!"

I originally titled this post "3 funny things", but after typing the 3rd funny thing i thought "that's not that funny", so i erased it.

It's a girl!

2012-01-05T06:24:00.000-05:00

So even though the word is out via Facebook, i thought i should post for blog-book posterity: It's a girl. I had a doctor's appointment today (my ultrasound isn't scheduled for a few more weeks). I thought that MAYBE, if they were feeling nice, they would take a peek for me and let me know what i was having. When they initially put me in the exam room, they put me in the nice room with the nice ultrasound and huge TV and i thought it was all going to go down. Then, a few minutes later the nurse popped her head in and said "we need to move you to a smaller room....our next patient needs an ultrasound", so i got bumped....and there would be no "taking a quick peek". The doctor did comment when listening to the heartbeat though. He said "sounds like a boy heartbeat to me".

As i was leaving the office i dialed up a 3D ultrasound place in a strip mall a few towns over. I had it in my head that i wanted to find out and I wasn't going to let some exam-room-switch stop me. The lady at the 3D ultrasound place had 5 boys as well, and was merciful and worked me into the schedule that day.

I was in complete disbelief when she said "it's a girl". I made her double check about 8 times.

When Carson found out he was super exceed and said "it's about time".

Parker was not thrilled. "I hate girls. We don't need a baby girl. Baby girls are not my favorite."

Brady was excited. After being tucked into bed he wandered out into the family room and said "We need to figure out a name for this little girl. Can you come back in our bedroom, carson and I have some ideas and we want to take a vote." Carson's first suggestion was Isabelle. Then he thought maybe we should make a list of 24 names, then a final list of 3 names...then we can wait to see what she looks like and go from there.

We are all (except for parker) super excited!

Stinky Gum Drop

2012-01-03T23:33:00.001-05:00

Carson likes to tell stories. His favorite story to tell is about a character called "Stinky Gum Drop". Most story telling takes place when it's bed time, lights are out, and i've threatened the boys a few times to keep it down and be quiet. Stinky Gum Drop stories always result in extreme laughter and a often a wrestling match between Carson and Brady....

Lately Carson and Brady have been putting pen to paper (or fingers to key board, as Carson dictates and Brady types) to make sure they immortalize Stinky Gum Drop forever, so as to not forget a single one of his crazy antics. I hesitate to share any of Stinky Gum Drop's adventures, as there is a lot of potty humor involved....I don't ENCOURAGE it...but i haven't totally DISCOURAGED it either. I figure they are probably doing more good than bad (spending good brother time together, being creative, writing, typing, illustrating...these are all worth a few "poop" words, right?). Anyway....today i opened up the document saved on our desktop titled "Stinky Gum Drop" to see what they have been working on. It made me laugh a little bit. I'll share some excerpts (exactly as typed)...this one is from chapter 2, "Stinky Gum Drop's Birth":

When Stinky Gum Drop had his birth.

He was shaped like a rectanglar prism.

Everybody was so terafide.One person

Said ‘’he is so stinky ‘’I think I should

get a bowl to puke in and everybody

ran off with a bowl to puke in.

This next section is taken from chapter 1 (called "the panicking"). I picked it because it was the only part of chapter one that didn't reference "poop" very much. It's a little disjointed, but i'm sure they'll clean it up in the editing process:

Soon down in the sewer people were panicking when they were fixing it. Their tools fell in the water. And hit an otter. the otter was also panicking. Soon when Stinky Gum Drop was 555 he went to sleep and when the people were panicking everybody was sleep panicking instead of normal panicking. Then very close by there was a war. But the people at the war was panicking also. And millions of years later when Stinky Gum Drop was one million years old He bought 2000 canes. He had to use all of them when he was doing all of that stuff. And Kung Fu….he had to have his canes with him still. And Stinky Gum Drop burped! And everybody was panicking a lot faster. One person that was just 5 years old screamed very very very very very very very loud. Everybody panicked close to him. Then Stinky Gum Drop said “I don’t know why they are panicking close to him. I don’t get it. He’s screaming so loud…why are they panicking close to him?”

Anyway, i'm excited to see what happens to Stinky Gum Drop. Actually, i'm just excited that my boys compromise and collaborate when writing the story and are not punching each other.

happy new year

2012-01-01T01:20:00.002-05:00

it's 9:45 and the kids are in bed. 2 are asleep. 2 are chatting away. I had bought a bunch of noise-maker-popper-firework type of things and some cap guns for them to do in the back yard....but up until a few minutes ago Parker was awake, and Parker is TERRIFIED of loud sounds. I thought Parker would pass out much earlier than he did, leaving us some time to celebrate with the older boys....but by the time Parker fell asleep, the older boys were in bed, and chances are I probably won't go in there to get them up to go party in the back yard. We can save it for tomorrow. Or some other time Parker isn't around.

We DID do a few things tonight. Made some Fondue. Made Rainbow Finger Jello. Finished reading the second Harry Potter book (here's a little trivia for you: I haven't read Harry Potter. I read the first one with the boys about a month ago. And we just finished the second one. Years ago...when they first came out I tried reading them. I got through the first one. Didn't LOVE it. Couldn't get into the second one and abandoned it about 1/2 way through. I just decided then and there that I would read them with my kids someday (who weren't born at the time) and went about my non-harry-potter life. Now the kids are here, and it's pretty fun reading them together for the first time. We'll watch the movie tomorrow night. )
After finishing Harry Potter we made some new years resolutions. Here are a few of them (I asked the boys what they wanted to work on / get better at in 2012): Carson said "Math, Reading, Geography, Piano, Kung Fu, getting dressed by myself (something he can do, but is very lazy and is always asking me to help him), being nice." Brady said "Science, Soccer and Piano" We'll finish his list tomorrow....because at that point Parker walked in and wanted to make a list. He said "Mario, Math..." and then looked at Brady's list, which said "Science" on it, and Parker started to scream "I hate science!!!! and made me write "Parker Hates Science" on his resolution list. And then things started to spiral out of control from there...because Carson, seeing how distressed his brother got at the mention of "Science" decided he wanted to put Science on his list too...which made Parker scream even more.....and we packed the whole thing up and went to bed.

My new years resolution? I'll be honest. Just surviving is the first thing that comes to mind. I feel like i'm always almost-drowning in paper work and other duties at the moment. Blogging. I've been very bad in recent months, and it makes me a bit sad that i'm not recording our goings ons a bit better. Also, I have really not been good at photographing things or videoing things lately....I've just not been in the habit, so i'd like to improve there. Other than that, i'm not really resolution-ie. I have a few other things in mind that I would like to work on, but i don't feel like putting them out there to the world, lest I should fail :)

I will make this a super long blog post though and upload some pictures and comment on them:

Brady got baptized last week with his 2 cousins (they were all born within 2 weeks of each other). It was a great day and was really fun to have so much family attend!. The morning of his baptism I made brady a candy-poster (Cassie, i think i saw you do something like this for Cooper and thought it was a great idea). Anyway...Brady loved it, and he and Carson shut themselves in their room afterward and ate through the entire thing. Oh, my favorite memory from the baptism: When Brady was being baptized, Parker was right up front watching, and as soon as Brady came up out of the water Parker turned to everyone watching, gave a thumbs up and said "now that's what i'm talking about". it was super funny.

Sometimes Kody just sits in dirt. In fact, last night I couldn't find Kody, and I noticed the back door was open a crack. I stuck my head outside in the pitch-dark and heard little Kody singing songs in the dirt.

You know you are a mom of boys when you lift up the ottoman to vacuum and find a stockpile of weapons (sword, gun, lead pipe). There are similar stashes throughout the house. Often times i open a random drawer and it's full of weapons. Bad guys beware.

Kody loves playing Just Dance. Today I caught him at the kitchen table with the Just Dance case and a box of letter cookies. He was trying to spell out Just Dance 3 out of cookies. He did a pretty good job.

This is what happens to ivory soap if you microwave it for 2 minutes. It's a pretty fun experiment, the kids loved it. They could also not WAIT to get into the bath afterward and play with their "soap pie".

A few weeks ago we went to the Oakland Temple to look at the Christmas Lights. Here's our attempt at a family picture. Parker's eyes look creepy. Carson refused to be in the picture with us....

But then insisted on having his own picture taken by himself. Oh little Carson.

We also went to the California Academy of Sciences with Dave, Jessica and Penny. It was really fun...the kids loved the aquarium (especially the jelly fish). Parker HATED the butterfly enclosure thing and ran, screaming bloody murder though the whole thing as a butterfly chased him. We had to go home shortly after that, as he could not recover.

haha...on Christmas day i was getting the cheese ready and noticed a safety pin stuck to the bottom of my Brie. We took a picture so we could send it to the company....i was getting ready to throw the Brie out when my mom came in and said that she had left a safety pin on the counter (it was on a tag on my dad's new shirt). I just had set the Brie down on top of it and it stuck. I'm glad we figured out what had happened so I didn't make a big stink to the company about it :)

We went ice skating for cousin Olivia's birthday a few days ago. Parker did a 1/2 lap and decided he was done for the day. Brady and Carson, on the other hand, loved it. Carson especially... i couldn't get him off the ice, and i was surprised at how fast he would skate around and around the rink. I need to get that kid some sequined spandex or a hockey stick because he was kinda good!

that's all i got for right now. Still a few more hours left in 2011....and all is quiet in the house. I'm going to resist the urge to tackle the paper work on my desk and go watch some TV with Dustin. see you in 2012!!!

The Cleaning Has Begun

2011-12-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

Every year i'm excited to put up the Christmas decorations....but i think i might be even more excited to take them down. And give the house a good scrubbing while i'm at it. I'm trying really hard to pace myself and go room by room (and let the others sit messy for a while) and really clean EVERYTHING and put EVERYTHING away. It will take me all week. And I probably won't even tackle closets until after the new year....but i have one room down and it feels good. I might spend the rest of the day in my bedroom (as it's the only clean room in the house).

Ok....back to cleaning. next up: master bath. so fun.

Brady's Birthday

2011-12-23T11:05:00.000-05:00

Brady turned 8 (a month ago). If my memory serves me well...he had a great birthday. We went out to dinner the night of his birthday to a Bennihana-like restaurant. Brady and Carson loooooved. Kody was TERRIFIED when the chef came out and squirted oil on the cooking surface and made a huge flame. Kody spent the rest of the evening outside on the sidewalk (with an adult) looking in at everyone eating through the window. He would NOT go back in. Parker spent most of the time out there too (until the chef was done cooking and left).

Brady also started cub scouts. And got a haircut. This hair was out of control (i think we cut it the next day).

Let's watch Brady grow up....

(1 year)

(2 years)

(3 years)

(4 years)

(5 years)

(6 years)

(7 years)

It's hard to talk about Brady and not gush and brag. He is a great kid. He is insightful, smart, funny...he loves to play, build things...play video games :) We are just really proud of the person he is becoming. Happy birthday!

We were thankful

2011-12-17T01:26:00.000-05:00

yes. i'm behind on everything right now. Now that the holiday has passed, it's hard to reflect much on it (as most of my energy is being spent prepping for the next big holiday)....but i thought i should document that we did, indeed, celebrate thanksgiving...and we had lots of food, lots of family, and lots of nerf guns present at dinner. When we remodeled the house we gave up our small dining room and turned it into an even smaller office. 363 days of the year i'm really glad i have an office and not a dining room....but the 2 times a year we would like to sit a bunch of people around a table and dine, i miss having a place to do it. But we managed to all squeeze into the tiny-ish eat in kitchen area and had a lovely little dinner.

Afterward the kids made gingerbread houses (i didn't get a picture because i was probably covered in frosting)...i tried to explain to my kids that they should leave their houses alone and let them be "decoration"...but a house of frosting and candy is too tempting for small boys...and they spent most of the next day consuming their creations. When they passed out in a sugar coma i threw them out. I didn't feel bad...none of them were masterpieces....and i wanted to beat the ants.

I have many more blogs to blog. Like: Brady's 8th birthday. My awesome trip to missouri in which i left my children FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER (except for when i've gone to the hospital to have more children). The tale of the iPhone that was lost, replaced, broken, replaced, lost, found, lost and found. And i will probably share a few christmas-y things as well (just to document that i did try to get into the christmas spirit this year...which externally i feel I do a good job at, but internally i struggle with more and more with each year). Anyway....i'm hoping Saturday brings me some down time to get caught up.

Night.

no title.

2011-12-07T00:25:00.000-05:00

i'm really tired of trying to think up titles. I don't want to look at my pictures and see if they have anything in common....and i don't want to post it "catch up blogging" which is most of what my blogging has been this year. Plus, if I was catch up blogging, i would blog about thanksgiving, Brady's birthday, and lots of Christmas activities....but i don't think i have the patience for that tonight. I made some lemon curd and i'm itching to go try it.

Last week I had my carpets cleaned. There was a weird smell coming from Brady and Carson's room...and nothing i did was helping. So Hank came over and cleaned the carpets....and then 5 minutes after he left Kody walked into the office (where I was at the computer) and said "oh no mom. big mess. Oh no." So i jumped up to see what happened, and he had emptied a box of Frosted Cheerios all over the freshly cleaned carpet. It could have been much worse....it could have been juice, or glue, or something that doesn't vacuum up as nicely as cheerios (which are harder to vacuum than you would think....they don't really fit under the vacuum...so the vacuum just kind of pushes and smooches them around. You have to use the hose attachment, and that takes a while. ANYWAY....the cute part of this story is coming: When i pulled out my camera to take a picture Kody said "Say Cheese Cheerios". and I thought that was funny and cute.

But now you are looking at that christmas tree in the picture above thinking "she sure knows how to decorate a christmas tree". So i have to explain that that is the "kid friendly" tree that the kids decorated (and then immediately undecorated). I put the other tree up in the "don't even think about destroying this room" room.

And just because i saw this when i was uploading the other pictures....the last picture we have of our dog posey (before she went to live on the ranch with the nice older couple). Here she is dressed up in Brady's first halloween costume (he was a disco guy...see below).

(Brady: Halloween 2004)

family pictures

2011-11-29T15:34:00.000-05:00

So a few weeks ago we did the "i'll take your picture if you'll take mine" switch with my sister in law's family. I hope they don't mind me posting a few of theirs. I just thought they all looked super cute (especially the matchy-girl ruffles, which i get very little of in my life).

My niece is super cute, huh?

The boys. I don't know why their arms are up.

But there were a lot of arms up in a lot of pictures. Parker wasn't in a very picture-takey mood that day. And Brady was thinking it was some sort of sears model.

You might not get a christmas card from us this year...unless you are a referring dentist. That's about all I have the energy for. I MIGHT send you a card if you send me a card (mostly because your return address with be right there....) but i'm not promising anything. Again, if you REALLY want a card, become a referring dentist. :)

I would also like to point out how i "kept it real"....my kids have holes in their jeans, stains on their knees....i didn't buy anything new for the picture, i literally raided their closets moments before we walked out the door and thought "what can i get them to wear that won't cause a huge fight"? Classy, huh? In all honesty, they don't own a pair of jeans at the moment without holes or stains. They will get some new ones for christmas, but until then....this is what you get.

Also blue mouths are courtesy of the airhead candy i brought for bribes. I need to think of a less-obvious candy bribe for future shoots.

Hiking!

2011-11-27T22:37:00.000-05:00

The kids had the whole week off of school this week, so we've been trying to keep busy. We saw the muppets movie, went bowling, playgrounds....and hiking! The kids were troopers on the hike. I'm not sure how far we went, but we hiked for several hours (even Kody hiked by himself for most of the time, he only expected me to carry him up the steepest hills). We tried a new trail on the way back, and we didn't have a map, so we just crossed our fingers that it would lead us back to the car. I was really glad when it did, and we didn't have to backtrack 45 minutes to get onto the main trail. Looking for poop and pinecones was the focus of the hike (for the kids). Keeping Kody from stepping in the poop was my main focus.

It was a beautiful day and it was fun to take the kids on one of my favorite trails (i hiked this trail a LOT growing up).

heads up

2011-11-23T02:32:00.000-05:00

i just found a great deal on Lands End! I got 6 kids sweatshirts (all were already on sale) plus used the promo code DRUMSTICK and pin 1121 and got an additional 30% off. I think i paid $62 or so including tax and shipping for the 6 sweatshirts. Awesome. My kids go through sweatshirts (leave them on the playground ALL THE TIME.) go check them out!!

Carson's Christmas List

2011-11-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

today i found carson's christmas list he had made:

soccerball
white hot chocolate
gold
a chocolate orange
a ipad
Amber for Brady (the mineral / rock Amber)
Gold for Brady
Exploders
A metal go cart that is turquoise

Coit Tower!

2011-11-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

Parker is obcessed with monuments and architecture. When he found out coit tower was in his own back yard he immediately started sleeping in his bed all night to earn a trip to go see it. He earned the trip a few weeks ago, but we didn't actually go see it until last tuesday (because the guilt of getting rid of the dog was weighing heavily on me). Parker and Kody were very well behaved....they loved walking around it (we went around it 3 or 4 times). We went inside once, and I offered to buy tickets to take the elevator to the top....but Parker didn't want to do that...

he mostly just wanted to stand in front of it and stare at it. He couldn't take his eyes off of it.

As we were driving away he said "thursday i want to go see the golden gate bridge and then next tuesday i want to come back and see coit tower again". I don't think i feel THAT guilty about the dog to make this a weekly thing.

On our way out of town i snapped a few pictures of the "occupy sf" tents. super gross. I used to like to eat lunch right here when i worked downtown.

snippets from dinner tonight

2011-11-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

1.) Brady ate exactly 1 tortellini and licked part of an orange.
2.) Carson said "good news and bad news about the rings of Saturn: The good news-they are beautiful. The bad news-if you touch one you will be frozen for the rest of your life, even after you are resurrected. So please, do not touch the beautiful rings of Saturn."
3.) Parker slept on the couch....he will be up LATE tonight.
4.) Kody ate the whole dinner as a little puppy dog. He kept asking me if he was "sunny" (funny). He was.
5.) Dustin is working late, so he's not home.

Today is the first day in a LONG time i've had any energy....i tried to take advantage of it. I cleaned out my craft closet, planted a bunch of bulbs out front, went to costco. Did some laundry. Planned a birthday party. Picked up the dry cleaning. Thought about cleaning the playroom, but then thought i'd save that for if i have energy tomorrow. Anyway.....hooray for energy!

Ok, so the kids just noticed...

2011-11-16T17:57:00.002-05:00

and i explained that the dog went to live on a ranch, and is much happier...blah blah blah. There were no tears. Brady just said "so you just gave our dog away?" and I said "yes." and he said, "well, you owe me.....you owe me some plain yogurt with sugar.". Deal.

dog update

2011-11-16T14:13:00.000-05:00

the kids still haven't noticed the dog is gone.

Bad Mom

2011-11-15T11:20:00.000-05:00

1.) I gave away our dog yesterday. And the kids haven't noticed yet. And i'm scared to tell them. It's been a long time coming. The dog has been hard. The dog has done lots of damage. Caused a lot of stress. The final straw was when I found out I was pregnant. And I haven't been feeling super well. And I just couldn't do dog + pregnancy or dog + newborn. And actually the final, final straw was when I realized all this, and then stepped in dog poop. Anyway....I've wrestled with the decision for a long time, and we've talked to the kids about it....and i've been working with the Humane Society to find a nice new home for her (she's moved onto a 4.5 acre farm with horses and chickens....she'll be fine!). But when I set up the appointment yesterday for the humane society lady and the potential new owners for a "meet and greet" with the dog, i didn't realize that they were planning on taking the dog with them right then. The kids were at school. They live kind of far away, so they didn't want to have to come back and get her in a few days. So we packed her all up and off she went. The kids came home from school....we went about our lives....i was just kind of waiting to see when they would notice, and they never did. And then they woke up this morning, and still didn't notice...and went to school....and now i don't know if i should keep waiting, or if i should say something.

2.) As I mentioned above, i haven't been feeling super well lately...so my cooking / menu planning has really taken a hit. Brady said to me as we got in the car this morning "Mom, we need to start eating some healthy food. It's been like 3 days since i've had something healthy." He is probably right. It has not been pretty around here. But I think now that the dog is gone that will free up a bit of energy and time and I can get back to being a better mom. If nothing else, the guilt from getting rid of the dog will drive me to overcompensate and for a little while I will be an awesome mom.

11 things on 11-11-11

2011-11-11T19:24:00.000-05:00

1.) I am really late to the game getting halloween pictures up, but here they are. We trick or treated our neighborhood, then headed over to the cousins where the bigger kids got a little more trick or treating in. I let the kids eat all the candy they wanted that night and the next day....even the next day i think. Brady hasn't asked about his candy since then, and Carson got all of his thrown away one day last week for bad behavior. I think Dustin ate Parker and Kody's.

2.) The kids are off school today and it's kinda rainy outside. I think i will take them to a movie? Do i dare attempt doing a movie with the 4 of them by myself? We might just be that bored....we'll see how it goes.

3.) I started guitar lessons today. My friend and I are sharing an hour long lesson and i'm really excited. I've been wanting to get better at guitar for years, but am not disciplined enough to just do it on my own. Hopefully i'll get some practice time in and get good!

4.) Most years i'm just about done christmas shopping by now...and this year i haven't even started.

5.) I have been more tired with this pregnancy than any other i think. I don't think it's even the pregnancy, it's the idea of another baby coming, and me knowing how tired i'm GOING to be + 4 little boys running around = me laying face down in a pile of laundry 3 feet deep not knowing how it's ever going to get put away.

6.) For breakfast one morning this week we made eggs in muffin tins (beat eggs + a little milk, pour into greased muffin tin). Add toppings (we did cheese, ham, salsa....i think that's it). Anyway, i thought they worked out great, and everyone got exactly what they wanted (most kids just wanted ham and cheese, while I had the works).

7.) Food I can't get enough of right now: Panera bread (specifically the napa almond chicken sandwich, cuban sandwich....french onion soup), panda express orange chicken, and PF Changs is on my mind too (though i haven't had any...i want some. soon). Mostly I think I want food I don't' have to cook. I haven't been up to actual "cooking" for a while now.

8.) Parker and Carson are in the kitchen right now having a pumpkin chucking contest (they watched something similar on the science channel last night).

9.) ummm.....just got back from the movies (see #2). I would give the whole experience a C. It wasn't horrible. Brady and Carson did great. Parker was good for about an hour....Kody was good for about 20 minutes. We were up and down the stairs about 10 times. Made a trip to get 2 sodas and a popcorn. Sat in the hallway for a bit playing iPhone....i only saw about 30% of the movie (Puss in Boots). I'm proud we got through the whole thing (or at least Brady and Carson did), but definitely not worth the $$$ i paid for me to be in and out and in and out with 1/2 the crew. I think Parker needs another year, and Kody needs at least 2 more years before going to the movies becomes a better experience.

10.) This is pretty much what the long afternoons turn into. If you ever wonder why i look like i'm in a daze, or why i didn't do that thing i said i was going to do....this might explain it:

11.) I am constantly amazed at the information Parker knows. While quizzing the boys on state / country capitals on the way home I said "capital of Arkansas"....and while the older boys were thinking about it Parker yelled out "Little Rock". I don't think I had a concept of what a state or a capital was at 4 years old.

Really Good Post

2011-10-30T23:47:00.000-04:00

I had to hype it up so you would read it. I can't believe i've only posted 5 times in October. That is the worst i've done in the 4 1/2 year history of this blog. I have excuses though....

1.) We are expecting another baby. We don't know which kind yet. We do have a pretty good pattern though, so I can probably guess what it is. Since finding out we were going to have another one, i have had no motivation to do ANYTHING....and i've been feeling tired and sick to boot....so besides feeding and clothing the kids, and getting them from point A to point B, very little has been going on.

2.) My other excuse is there is a LOT i SHOULD be doing. You know when you have a TON to do, sometimes the only way to cope is to not do anything??? The better way to cope is to just buckle down and get it all done....but due to excuse #1 above, i'm choosing the less-productive option of coping.

3.) I did do SOMETHING a week ago, and i'll show you pictures below. I have big plans for the back yard, but due to #1 and #2, not much is happening....but this was an easy project and my sister and her husband helped me put it together when they were in town last week (hi kaity and alan). I think it's super fun, so even if the kids were to never ride it (which they do, because it's super fun) it would have been worth doing just for me to ride. I give you.....the skateboard swing!

Ninjas love it...

Mario loves it too...

Anyway....i have "take more pictures" and "blog" on my "to do" list, so maybe if I start getting things done soon you'll hear more from me in November!

blog slacker

2011-10-22T01:30:00.000-04:00

i need to get back to writing and posting. i haven't been taking pictures either. i just feel like i have been SO BUSY with everything else in life, this has kind of dropped to the bottom of the list. I do have a fun project i can take pictures of and post about (maybe tomorrow)....so there's something. Tonight we took the kids bowling. My sister and her husband are in town for the weekend, so we met up with my aunt and uncle (and mom, dad and brother) at the bowling alley for a few games. The kids were mostly good. Kody is the tricky one, as he isn't content to sit in a stroller-he want's to bowl....but he also wants to run crazy around the bowling alley. Brady, Carson and Parker are all really good about bowling, and there was only one altercation between Carson and Parker (due to a mix up of who's turn it was), so over all it was good. Things did get difficult towards the end when the sugar kicked in and kids were uber-tired, so I had to make a break for the car a bit early and skip my last turn or two.

I'm trying to think of healthy menu ideas and snacks to have around this week....between the school carnival tomorrow, the church halloween party next weekend, and halloween the following monday....i'm a bit nervous about the upcoming sugar consumption (and resulting crazy / angry behavior).

What are your kids going to be for halloween? Parker and Kody are Mario and Luigi (easy enough...store bought costumes that we have), Carson wants to be a ninja (fabulous....he was a ninja last year, so that's easy too), but Brady wants to be a Milk Carton.....and so i've had to come up with that one on my own. I have most of it done, but need to add a few more details. That's partially to blame for my lack of blogging....costume making has taken over my precious blogging time.

That's about it. I can not think of anything funny or unusual the kids have said or done. No fabulous baking going on around here.....Just a big stack of bills and a to-do list a mile long. I will try to move blogging up the to do list a bit though...i always feel better when i've written a bit down.

web of lies

2011-10-12T10:05:00.000-04:00

When the kids were very young (Carson was probably 3) my mom would tell the kids she was 54 when they asked how old she was (she wasn't 54). Carson has a great memory, and is very good with numbers, so every year he keeps track of how "old" grandma is (this year she's "57"). This morning when the boys were eating breakfast I walked in on the tail part of a discussion they were having, where Carson was adamantly arguing that "Grandma Pat had a baby when she was a teenager".

"No she didn't" I said.

"Yes, she did!! She was 16!!"

"No, she didn't. She was in her 20's when uncle Karl was born."

"Mom, i know how to subtract"

I'm going to let Grandma Pat work that one out with the kids. I don't know which one she'd rather they believe.

some kids play with action figures...

2011-10-10T19:30:00.000-04:00

Parker plays with geography puzzles and world land marks. I think he'll either be indiana jones when he grows up, or a travel agent. He told me the other day he wants to visit italy "I want to see the leaning tower, the coliseum, and venice. To get there I have to cross the atlantic ocean, go through portugal, spain, and france." definitely future travel agent.

Pumpkin Roll

2011-10-07T23:44:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Utah one of my favorite things about October was the availability of pumpkin rolls at Great Harvest Bread Co. When we moved to San Francisco I had to start making my own. This is my favorite pumpkin roll recipe (i think this came from Jen....am I right Jen?)

*I almost always make a double batch of the pumpkin roll (so i can make 2 rolls) and a triple batch of the filling so each roll gets about 1 1/2 of a batch of filling in it....i like mine extra-filling-ie

3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp lemon juice
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Filling:
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
4 T butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 10 x 15 inch jellyroll pan with Pam on the bottom, then line with parchment paper (not wax paper kaity, and not tin foil....), then spray with more Pam. In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar for 5 minutes. Gradually mix in pumpkin and lemon juice. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, stir into pumpkin mixture. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the center springs back when touched. Loosen edges with knife. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Place another sheet of parchment paper on top, and roll up cake (carefully! don't roll the bottom pice of parchment paper with the cake, just the cake and upper piece of parchment). Let cool for about 20 minutes.

Mix filling ingredients until smooth. Unroll pumpkin cake with cool, removing the top piece of parchment. Spread with filling and reroll. Wrap whole roll in parchment paper and refrigerate overnight, or put in freezer for an hour or so. Serve chilled.

Yard before and after

2011-09-29T18:55:00.000-04:00

So we've been working on our yard all summer (and when I say "we" i mean "other people", dustin has been hard at work so we can pay the guys who work, and i have been hard at work keeping backyard-less kids busy and occupied and out of the guys who work's way. Also keeping the dog out of everyone's way. What i'm saying is we've all been working hard, and the yard is finally, almost finished.) The main stuff is out of the way (patio, sprinklers, path and grass) and now the fun stuff can begin (plants, trees, garden, chickens, zip line, treehouse, swings, fire pit....can you tell i've been making a list all summer.....)

Anyway...thought you might enjoy some before and after shots...we've come a long way...but still have a ways to go (and for those of you questioning why we bought this house with the sand-pit backyard....where we live old houses are the name of the game, and large, flat lots are hard to come by....so we took it, sand, buried swimming pool and all).

before:

after:

before:

After: (all that dirt will belong to the chickens / garden and the kids play area will be around and to the left of the tree on the right)

before...

after:

before / during:

after:

So the next step is trees and plants.....but i think the most stressful part of it is over....thank goodness...because i have a bunch of boys that need a place to play....

here's the shoe

2011-09-29T18:31:00.000-04:00

(not the one the dog destroyed, that one has already been tossed....just waiting for my new pair to come in the mail.) I know to most of you this is just a regular brown shoe, but to a girl who wears primarily flip flops, this is pretty fancy.

the shoe gods are smiling on me

2011-09-26T02:56:00.000-04:00

I do not own many shoes. I mostly wear flip flops....something i can get on and off while my hands are full of kids and towels and soccer balls and backpacks...i keep it simple. I have ONE pair of church shoes that i really like. I have a few other pairs that I tolerate (but almost all make me end up feeling really grouchy as I walk around in them)....ONE pair. ONE PERFECT PAIR of perfect shoes. Tonight our dog ate one of them. I bought them several years ago, and i knew i would never find their match. I searched EVERY WEBSITE. I started to despair and went and pulled the eaten shoe out of the trash to see if I could take it to a shoe repair guy to fix. But it is beyond repair. I kept searching the internet. I finally turned to ebay. after 18 pages of shoes I decided the search was futile. What if i found the shoes again? They probably wouldn't be in my size. Who's to say some other dog hadn't chewed on that shoe...plus the thought of putting my foot in someone else's shoe kind of grossed me out. I was about to call it quits when I saw a thumbnail of a shoe that resembled mine. I picked up my one good shoe to inspect it again, and compared it to the thumbnail....it was a perfect match. But i'm sure the shoe is a size 6....and my feet are....not....but it wasn't a size 6! it was a size 8!!! it was my size!!!! But i'm sure they are super gross and disgusting. No!!! they are New!!! never been worn!!!! I couldn't believe my luck. I am so excited. I can stop being mad at the dog!!! And now i even have a back up shoe incase the dog decides to eat the RIGHT shoe next time. So happy.

Parker

2011-09-20T16:27:00.000-04:00

I just have to write down the funny things they say...because even 20 minutes later I can't remember what it was that was making me laugh. A few months ago Parker decided he hates SCIENCE. His older brothers love science...so we have to be careful what words we use when we do little experiments, etc, to not let Parker know that what we're doing is, in fact, SCIENCE.

Today Parker was doing a puzzle of the world, and I overheard him in his bedroom talking to his puzzle. "I really like Country Puzzles. I love all the countries." Then he leaned in and quietly whispered to his puzzle "you're not science. I like you.".

That made me laugh. I had to write it down, just in case Parker grew up to be a famous scientist someday.

Kody's Religion

2011-09-19T22:27:00.000-04:00

Today I realized who Kody thinks we're praying too every day. We were in Target, in the book section, and we passed a whole row of Harry Potter books. Kody said "Look mom! Harry Potter!" then he bowed his head, folded his arms and said "Dear Harry Potter....(something something something)".

The two do sound similar, especially in Kody language.

Contra Loma

2011-09-19T02:03:00.000-04:00

The last Friday of summer we went to contra loma with the cousins. When I was growing up, Contra Loma was just a little lake / reservoir with a kinda sandy beach (you can see the lake in the background). Since then, they have built this pool (that has a sandy shore, you can see right behind the kids). It was so much fun! the kids spent forever building sand castles and paddling around. too bad we waited until the end of the summer to figure it out....we'll have to go here a bunch next year!

We went to utah a month ago....

2011-09-18T01:45:00.000-04:00

And it was HOT! We had so much fun....i can't figure out where all of my pictures are from all of our fun though. We went on the alpine slide, ate at granny's shakes in Heber...those pictures are missing. Afterward we went to Salt Lake and walked around Gateway Plazza. it was over 100 and the kids saw a fountain and played in it for over an hour. We had to run to Old Navy to buy them new clothes because they were soaked (thus the matching hotdog shirts).

On monday of our trip we met with my old friend Shauna (she isn't old....we have just known each other since we were....3? 4?). It was so fun to see her and her kids....the best thing about Shauna, is when i'm with her, we are 13 again and giggly...it is so much fun.

see what i mean?

and because i love comparison pictures...here they are 4 years earlier in 2007:

Ok, back to 2011:

(i'm pretty sure she has a really obnoxious picture of me doing something similar....but her blog is private, so even if she posted it to get me back, you would never see it.)

Then after the dinosaur museum we went to BYU. We always go bowling when we are there because: kids love bowling = they will think BYU is super cool = they will want to go to college there = we can afford to send our kids to college. I figure bowling is a small investment now, and will pay off big in the future.

Of course after bowling we went to the bookstore, got some bookstore fudge and BYU jerseys.

The next day we met my brother Karl and his family at Lagoon. In all my years of going to Utah and living in Utah, I had never been to Lagoon....my kids loved it, i think it's going to have to become part of our utah repertoire.

What was great about going with Karl and Amber and family...is they have older kids. Teenage kids. This works out well for me because Brady could go with the old kids and ride all the roller coasters he wants...Carson (who is not quite ready to ride all the scary roller coasters, but doesn't want to ride baby rides) could go with his cousin Lindi and ride the medium rides (supervised by Amber) and I could stick with the littles and ride the baby rides (or watch them ride the baby rides). Everyone got to do pretty much what they liked and it was fabulous. We were all worn out by 4 or so, so we left. I think my brother's family stayed another 5 hours and rode more roller coasters. I was exhausted. I don't know how they did it.

We had so much fun in utah...the kids went fishing (i need to hunt down some pictures of that), we made lots of snow cones, went to a super fun aquatic park (fancy swimming pool)....Parker asks me almost every day if we can go back to Utah....hopefully soon!

First Day of School (back in august)

2011-09-17T01:45:00.000-04:00

So i have a bunch of things that i would like to blog, but haven't. I'm going to try to get to them over the next few days so I stop feeling "behind" all the time. The kids started school the last week of August (Brady in 2nd, Carson in 1st, Parker in preschool). After school we got frozen yogurt with the cousins (we weren't the only ones with this idea....Yogurt Shack was packed!). Then we went to a playground and played....it was sad to see summer go. It's still warm out, and I keep meaning to get out to the pool....but there just never seems to be enough time now (we are all exhausted by the time the kids get home from school, get their homework / piano practicing done....)

Everyone is liking school (so far). Brady got a new teacher, who is really nice. Carson has a new-to-first-grade-teacher and seems to like her--except she didn't believe him today when he told her he was recovering from asthma (and she must have not seen the note I sent to school with carson yesterday excusing him from running for a few days) because she benched him during recess because he wouldn't run his laps at PE (he walked them). Anyway....school has been good--though I still don't know how much my kids are actually "learning" at school. Is it mean of me to make them do extra homework at home? Even if it is...I do.

Foodgawker

2011-09-16T15:50:00.000-04:00

my sister brought this site to my attention a few weeks ago and it is changing my life. It's like Pinterest for your hungry tummy. So good! i just searched for pumpkin muffins, and am trying to decide which to make!

Foodgawker

Faking It.

2011-09-13T15:25:00.000-04:00

Early Monday morning carson woke up asthmatic and threw up. I kept him home from school on Monday. Brady (who had stayed up way too late the night before) said he couldn't go to school either, so i kept him home as well. They both had to stay in bed. Carson, who was legit, i let play iPad for about 20 minutes. Brady (who was not really sick) didn't get to play any video games.

This morning (tuesday) we got up, got ready for school...dropped them off, and about an hour later I get a call from the office saying Brady is sick. I pick him up, bring him home, put him in bed...and then he starts asking about playing video games "Carson got to play yesterday when he was sick". hmmm. No temperature. Not acting sick. Just wants video games.

So now we are at a standoff. He is to stay in bed all day...he's throwing a fit. I've offered to take him back to school (but he would have to explain at the office what he did). This is day 2 for me of being stuck at home. The little kids are going crazy. They wanted to go to park day today. Fortunately i have groceries being delivered in an hour or so, so at least we won't starve. I'm REALLY hoping that they both go school (and stay at school) tomorrow.

A few years late, but at least i'm writing it down now

2011-09-10T01:29:00.000-04:00

it's possible i wrote it down, but i'm not going to go through the archives to check. Today Parker got to go see his preschool teachers (school officially starts for him on monday). His 2 teachers are the same teachers Carson had for 2 years. Carson was....difficult....in preschool, but won over his teachers in the end, and they are always curious about how he's doing in elementary school. They reminded me of this story today...
They were doing mid year evaluations (when carson was 3 i think) and asking the kids questions (shapes, letters, etc.). At one point they pointed to the window and asked Carson "What's that made out of?". Most kids say "glass", sometimes they get "wood" or "a window"...Carson said "super hot sand". They said in their 15 years of teaching together, they had never heard a child give that answer. Anyway....proves that Carson was learning something somewhere (even though he spent a considerable amount of time in the director's office for anger issues). His preschool teachers were happy to hear that his behavior card in first grade had never moved off of green (it gets flipped to yellow if you get a warning, red and then blue for increasingly bad behavior). So Carson is making a lot of improvements.

In Parker news...he has been living 24-7 as Mario (super mario brothers) for the past 4 or 5 days. He believes he is 25 years old, and living in Columbia (??).

A toy from Christmas that we still use almost daily...

2011-09-07T14:06:00.001-04:00

For those early christmas shoppers...this was one of the best purchases. You can load this up with about 30 songs and the kids have a blast carrying it around, singing, playing to background music (we load it up with star wars, super mario brothers, classical music and our favorite kid songs). It's durable...has been thrown down the stairs several times...has good battery life...and it also comes in pink i think.

Edited: Lana had a good point, i didn't say what it is :) it's the fisher price kid-tough music player. see it HERE on amazon.

The Almost-Finished Entryway / Board and Batten

2011-09-05T01:35:00.001-04:00

So i'm not 100% done. I still need to buy some hooks, a fun rug, art, etc....but some people want to see the semi-finished product, so i'll show. I'll do another post with how-to details (as best as I can describe) and some final pics....once i get it to a "final" stage.

Lest we forget what i started with (i don't have an actual before picture of the entry way....but here you get a good idea of the wall color (peach) and i'll throw in an almost-finished shot of the fireplace, for those before / after lovers out there....

I know. I'm questioning why i bought the house too. i should have run the other direction when i walked in and saw this room. I wish you could SMELL this room. It had a strong cat-pee scent.

so here's a "before" shot of the entry way (front door is behind the wall on the left).

I found a very thin veneer like sheet of wood at Home Depot (probably less than 1/4 inch thick. I was so happy, because I did not want to have to rip off my newly installed baseboards, but I didn't want to just put the vertical slats of wood on the textured walls, because that's exactly what i was trying to cover up (all the texture). This wood saved the day, i could set it right on top of the baseboard and it didn't stick out at all. I could also cut it with an exact knife (it's super thin), which was helpful, because I don't have a big table saw. See that extension cord in the bottom of the picture? For a few days it was the only extension cord i had (and I needed it for my nail-gun). I also needed it for my saw in the garage (some sort of miter-saw my father in law let us borrow when we started all this house-craziness). Anyway, for each cut i would have to unplug my cord, take it out to the garage, plug my saw in, make a cut, unplug the cord, take it inside, plug in my gun, nail things up (repeat 200 times). Then I got wise and unplugged the extension cord from Dustin's alarm clock.

Ahhh white balance. I finally remembered to change you.

Go up and look at the before picture. wait. i'll just paste it again here so you don't have to scroll up:

the furniture is coming. i think by christmas we'll be able to hang out in here. it's still mostly used for kid-dancing and jumping off the table. and this carpet happened to be our dog's favorite place to pee in the house.

(i still have to figure out what to do with the edges. some sort of filler / sanding / painting i think is in my future...)

that's it. The board and batten was not that hard to do. I'm thinking i'm going to try to tackle the crown molding next. but i will buy another extension cord before I do.

Inappropriate but funny?

2011-09-03T00:45:00.000-04:00

last night i was laying next to parker to try to get him to sleep in his bed. Parker is the sweetest boy on earth, and has a little baby doll that he likes to take care of. He is very nice to his baby, and last night was cuddling with him and arranging blankets and pillows and hats to make his baby comfy. I asked Parker if he wanted me to put his baby's pacifier in his mouth (it has a little plastic paci attached to it). He said sure. I had to apply a bit of force to get he paci into the doll's mouth. While I was pushing the paci (or suckie, as we call them around here), Parker whispered "please don't kill my baby". there was just something super funny to me about the way he said it. anyway....

Tonight I was reading Harry Potter to the boys, and we were reading about Hagrid's 3 headed dog Fluffy. Brady said that he wanted a dog like that. "I'm going to get 2 more dogs, then take them and posey to the vet, donate 2 bodies to science, and have the heads attached". The "donate 2 bodies to science" got me. Probably most disturbing is that all of my boys thought this would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Only comment if you agree with me

2011-09-02T01:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight was back to school night. It's always fun to go meet the teachers....but one thing kind of irked me tonight. The principle gave a little speech at the beginning of the night stressing that they were going to be really strict and enforce the no-sugar policy for school parties and birthdays. This made me a little sad. I know it's popular to eat healthy, and we don't want to encourage childhood obesity, etc.....but it's not a valentine's day party without a sugar cookie. Carrots and Hummus just don't cut it in my book. It just be limited to just one treat per party, or something like that. I just remember class parties when I was little and it was so fun to get to eat a cookie that you decorated yourself. Anyway....that's how I feel about that. Just don't have a valentine's (or halloween) party. Just say no parties. No fun. Give them another test instead (because they spend 90% of their time administering tests anyway).

Maybe i'm overly sensitive because when I was a room mom for Brady's Kindergarten class I asked for volunteers to bring food for the halloween party (i spent hours making witches broom sticks, mummy fingers, spider dip, etc...) and one parent brought water, and one parent brought a bowl full of seeds.

anyway....let's kill childhood fun!

Flans I've Known

2011-09-02T01:18:00.000-04:00

The first Flan i ever had was at Los Hermonos Restaurant in Lindon, Ut (where I used to waitress). Their flan was made by a woman from mexico in her home, and she would bring a few over to the restaurant once or twice a week. They were delicious.

Then there was a period of 10 years or so....where I had no flan.

My next encounter was at a church meeting....a pediatrician from columbia brought Flan to eat after the meeting and it was awesome. It had been 10 years, so it was hard to compare to the Los Hermonos Flan, but I think they were very similar in their deliciousness.

Costco carries a giant Flan for about $13. It is Ok. I don't particularly like the texture around the edges. That is all i have to say about Costco's Flan.

I recently found a recipe (on pioneer woman) for Flan, and i've made it several times and like it a lot. It is a little different than the other Flan's as it has cream cheese in it....but i have never met something with cream cheese that i didn't like....So I will continue to make this flan. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 package (8 Oz. Size) Light Cream Cheese, Softened
4 Large Eggs
1 can (12 Oz. Size) Evaporated Milk
1 can (14 Oz. Size) Condensed Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 ºF. Bring 1 quart of water to boil for a water bath.

Whisking constantly, bring sugar and 1/4 cup water to boil over medium-high heat in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. When mixture starts to boil, turn heat to medium-low and stop whisking. Continue to simmer until mixture turns golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Pour mixture into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate set in a roasting pan large enough to accommodate it.

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy in a medium bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down sides, after each addition. Beat in both milks and vanilla until smooth.

Set roasting pan in oven; pour flan batter into pie plate and water into roasting pan. Bake until flan is jiggly, but set, about 1 hour. Remove from oven, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Run a small knife around pie plate perimeter to loosen flan. Invert onto a large lipped platter. Cut into wedges and serve.

Chocolate Fountain

2011-08-26T00:17:00.000-04:00

The boys like to play this game on the iPad called "restaurant story" (i think). The game is free....but then they try to get you to buy things for your restaurant (with real money). I hate it. A few weeks ago the boys wanted to spend $20 to buy a VIRTUAL CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN for the game. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. We had a big talk about using our money wisely, and especially not buying FAKE things with actual money....i told them that for $20 they could buy an ACTUAL chocolate fountain. They got super excited about this idea, and pooled all their money* and bought a real chocolate fountain. It came in the mail a few days ago and we had to try it out immediately.

*on a side note....last year we had a garage sale, and I let the kids keep the proceeds (we didn't earn that much money from it)....but it did give the kids a nice little nest egg, which I have since regretted. They never feel poor, never feel like they need to work for things, because they have a bunch of cash / change in their banks. So i've been trying to get them to spend all their money so we can start from scratch and they can feel the poverty. The chocolate fountain was perfect....because now neither of them have any money....and i know soon enough they are going to want something, and they will actually have to earn the money (or do without), and it will be awesome.

The Other Side of Tigger

2011-08-25T01:48:00.000-04:00

When Kody woke up from his nap today, this is what was walking around the house:

In other news....today I took the kids to Pixie Playland. Brady and Carson rode the little dragon roller coaster about 10 times. Afterward Brady told me that the girl who was operating the dragon roller coaster was "really quite charming". Brady always makes me laugh with his word choices. Another one: tonight we were reading Harry Potter....and were at the Quiditch match part...and Dustin told Brady that there are actually Quiditch leagues out there where people run around and try to play, and they even have broom sticks. And Brady said in a high-pitched, sing-song voice, "Awkward....". That made us laugh. Last one: A youth football coached called today to see if Brady wanted to play on his team. I asked Brady if he would like to play football and he said "Well, i'm really enjoy fighting so.....yes." He does have a point. He is good at fighting.....he might be kind of good at the sport.

That's it. I finally feel like i've cleaned up my house / done my laundry from our vacation last week....tomorrow we get to go find out the kids teachers, etc for school....then just a few more care-free days of summer.

Blogging

2011-08-24T01:26:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to figure out what i used to blog about. It seemed I used to be able to sit at the computer and at least come up with SOMETHING to say about my day. But lately all I do is sit and stare at the computer...i think back on my day and it's just a blur of boys and little messes (and some big messes) and food and diapers and toys....I can't come up with anything. Maybe it is the result of summer....having 4 boys with me constantly is draining (but I know I will miss it when school starts next week). We've been working on our back yard, and it's been pretty off limits for the last few weeks (we can't even walk out there right now), so that makes life difficult....the kids need places to run. I have piles of work that stare at me....and lists of projects that need to be knocked off....and a dog that wants to pee every hour in the evening (and has no back yard to be in, so i have to take it out front, on a leash (because she likes to run away)). Anyway....i have high hopes that when school starts i'll be able come up with some good blog material. for right now, you get what you get. Right now it's the cutest tigger you've ever seen:

(fuzzy iPhone picture)

i shouldn't blog while 1/2 asleep in bed

2011-08-16T22:27:00.000-04:00

i couldn't sleep last night. I don't know how long I sat in bed watching it get light outside....but thought i should at least try to be productive and tried to blog from my iPhone (via instagrams) i still have not totally perfected it.

Anyway....we are in utah and having a GREAT time! We've been so busy. Saturday we went to Granny's Shakes in Heber, then went to Park City to ride the Alpine slide. All the kids loved it (except Brady...who was given a faulty sled, so he went down the whole slide with his brakes on (unknowingly)).

Monday we went to the dinosaur museum with Shauna (my friend from high school) and her kids. It was so fun seeing her...we felt like we were 15 again. After that Dustin and I took the kids down to BYU for some bowling and bookstore fudge (and some BYU football jerseys to get ready for the season).

Today we met my brother and his kids at Lagoon (an amusement park) and had a ton of fun....it was hot, and the kids were worn out by the late afternoon. It was so fun going with cousins...they are all older than my kids (and my kids LOVE them). Brady went on all the roller coasters with the teenagers....Carson and Lindi found some medium-scary rides to go on, and I took the little kids on the tiny rides.

Tonight we had some Cafe Rio for dinner (does anyone else do this? I make a list of all my "must eat at" places when I go to utah and try to hit as many as possible....Cafe Rio is always on the list). After that we roasted marshmallows in the back yard, which the kids mistakenly called "wasting marshmallows". I didn't correct them because it was too cute. And accurate (we wasted a lot of marshmallows). Everything was going great until Parker got attacked by wasps. He's soaking his arm in a warm bath right now.... he asked me why that wasp stung him, and wants me to go talk to the wasp....

so off i go to talk to the wasp....

kwirig shared an Instagram photo with you

2011-08-16T08:58:00.000-04:00

Hi there,

kwirig just shared an Instagram photo with you:

view full image

"Books on my nightstand. I need to pick one and read it, instead I read a little of one, a little of another. I have book ADD. "

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

kwirig shared an Instagram photo with you

2011-08-16T08:54:00.000-04:00

Hi there,

kwirig just shared an Instagram photo with you:

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"Can't sleep. Been watching the light creep in from this window for hours. "

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

random kid stuff

2011-08-10T18:11:00.000-04:00

"My carpentry teacher has the best singing voice. He could be a professional." - Carson

"Mom, is it hard to wash the dog? I think I want to invent a dog washing machine. And I want that machine to be able to accept compliments." - Brady

"Mom, did you know I am the best on my swim team? Best at freestyle, best at butterfly, best at everything...except best at being bad and best at being slow." - Carson

Sneak Peak

2011-08-09T00:56:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting until I could post "after" pictures to show you the latest project around here....but I am slow...and thought that maybe if I posted "during" pictures it would motivate me to get things done so I can show you the final product. A few weeks ago I got tired of looking at all of our textured walls. When we remodeled we retextured about 1/2 the walls in the house. But as we got more and more anxious to move in, and the budget was getting tighter and tighter we decided to not retexture ALL of the walls. I grew tired of looking at the endless walls of texture, hired me a babysitter and went down to home depot and bought a bunch of wood. and a nail gun.

here's how it started....I bought very thin veneer to put on the walls.... (i know my white balance is off....i didn't think to check it when i grabbed the camera. that happens a lot)

and then glue-nailed up a bunch of boards (i think technically this is the baton part)

Here's another wall for you...

there's another area behind the piano....but i didn't take a picture of that.

And just to give you some perspective....this is the other side of the room. Only now we have a chair. And are waiting for the couches. And all that stuff on the mantle won't reside there in the end. it's stuff I cleared off of other furniture when this project started.

See that carpet rolled up on the left? It's a really cute rug if anyone would like to buy it. It's the pottery barn hudson rug....only used for a year....we just have no place to put it now! let me know.

Anyway...i'm 1/2 done priming right now. The problem is my kids won't ever go to bed.....and I don't want to paint with them awake...because that leads to obvious problems. So that's where i'm at. If anyone wants to come over and put my kids to bed for me, i'll get back to painting.

Proof

2011-08-07T18:32:00.000-04:00

if you wish hard enough for a pool, and dig long enough, you might get yourself a pool. Too bad the pool isn't staying. This pool was buried under a foot of sand....it took 4 or 5 dump trucks and a couple of days to rid our back yard of all the sand that was piled up over this pool. Then another few days of jack-hammering the sides of the pool (so we can bring new dirt in to cover it all up again). The kids had fun in the sand piles while it lasted.

My mother in law said I needed to post again

2011-07-29T02:12:00.000-04:00

There are many reasons i've been slow to post lately, but I would say Friday Night Lights is the main reason. I have watched ALL FIVE SEASONS in....the last month maybe? maybe a little more than that. But I watched the FINAL episode last night....and now i just don't know what to do with myself. I guess i could get back to blogging. And paying the bills. And editing pictures (sorry kaity!). But if you are a FNL fan, you understand. I told Dustin i would watch the series again with him (he hasn't seen it).

The following are a bunch of pictures pulled off my phone or computer from the last few weeks. I will comment accordingly. First up, drive in. The drive in is super fun....but parker and kody are not huge fans of sitting and watching a movie, which makes the drive in far less super fun. I think Dustin should take the big boys all the time and I stay home with the tiny ones.

(on a side note, the instagram app on my phone is fun. but sometimes the processing is a little "too" much, but i don't realize it when it's tiny on my phone....so sorry if you can't recognize ANYONE in the picture above. I need to ease up on the processing).

Next up...Kaity had a photo booth at her wedding reception and it was a hit. I have about 200 photostrips from the kids to scan. Here's one of my brothers (and me).

Kody loves strawberries. Actually, he loves the tips of strawberries. I found this little line up on the counter one night:

Last week I took the kids to the Adventure Playground in Berkeley. It was awesome. There are huge piles of wood, and they provide the tools, saws, nails and paint....and you can just add on to existing play structures, or build your own....my boys were in heaven:

My favorite is Parker laying in a make-shift hammock with his saw.

Last weekend we had a Pioneer Day party with the Ward. Here's Carson in the watermelon seed spitting contest. I won second place in the pie contest with a Raspberry Sour Cream pie....I know second place is really first loser....but are there really any losers in a Pie Contest?

The next 2 are the boys at a swim meet. Brady and Carson are on the team this year, they both really like it...I don't mind it, unless I have to take all 4 boys by myself. Then it is a lot of work (for me) and I enjoy it much less. I think we're done with meets for the year....so looking back I can say it's been a lot of fun and a good experience....but i'm excited that it's another 9 months or so until it starts back up again.

We made ice-cream-cone cupcakes today. Kody ate the frosting off of 5 of them.

There has also been a lot of lego building going on lately. The boys both wanted me to take pictures to send in to the Lego magazine. I haven't done that yet...but now that Friday Night Lights is over, I might get around to doing it.

I can't believe it's almost August. I know i've said this before...but every year right before school gets out I think to myself, "how on earth am I going to survive summer?" and then every year before school starts I think, "how am I ever going to get everyone out the door before 8 am?". Somehow it all works out....but right now we are loving sleeping in (a little), lazing around a bit, playing at the park, swimming, eating popsicles, and hanging out together. Soccer is starting soon....I think we'll get one more vacation in before school starts up and then it's back to real life.

Back from Japan!

2011-07-19T00:39:00.000-04:00

We are so excited the T family is back from Japan. They have lived there for 3953 years and it's about time they come back to the states!!! We've kind of convinced our kids that their kids are their cousins, which will work out great until one of our boys wants to marry their little girl (not pictured). We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Until then we'll enjoy more frequent cousin time (even though you still live 3000 miles away), right T family???

Last day of school!

2011-07-18T00:20:00.000-04:00

I thought since school supplies have officially hit target it was about time to blog about the last day of school. The last day of school is crazy hair day / school colors day....so we did our best with what we had (a little bit of gel). This might be the worst picture either of them has ever taken.

This one is a little better.

Again, not a good picture....but you get what you get when you have kids waiting in the car and you just want to snap one quick picture so carson can remember his teacher (Mrs. Bowers). His first teacher had a baby 1/2 way through the year, so Mrs. Bowers came out of retirement and did a great job with the class.

Ok the last few posts have made me realize i need to get my good camera out and use it a bit. Enough with the bad pictures.

Tramping

2011-07-17T00:15:00.000-04:00

That's what i'm going to call sleeping on the trampoline. Trampoline + Camping = Tramping. Sounds classy, huh? Anyway, the boys wanted to sleep out there last night, even though it was FREEZING....so off they went. Brady and Carson lasted about 10 minutes together before the wrestling match took over and they had to come in because they were being too loud. Brady gave it another go a little while later and stayed out most of the night. He came back in the house around 3 or 4 because he was too cold.....i don't blame him.

I think there was a summer growing up where my little brother Dave slept on the trampoline every single night. I'm not going to tell my boys about that for a few years.

Lake Comanche!

2011-07-16T20:16:00.001-04:00

4th of July weekend we went to Lake Comanche. It was HOT. Really HOT. So Hot that the first day we were there we all drove into town and went to see Cars 2, then went on a tour of a gold mine (because it was underground and cool). that night we got back to camp and went to play in the lake. Carson nearly drowned, which made the trip significantly less fun for me....we were supposed to stay another night but the adults voted to cut it short and go home. So we did.

Michiko brought these pies and they were AMAZING. They were amazing for after-dinner dessert, and they were also amazing for kids-are-asleep-lets-play-cards-and-eat-more-pie dessert later that night. I need to figure out a way to get more of these in my life.

We need a nice, 75 degree camping experience. I'll keep looking....

Slip N Slide!

2011-07-16T08:06:00.001-04:00

It was fun. But the lawn underneath did not survive.

And all the neighbors loved it (i set it up on the front lawn (as we have no lawn in the back yard right now), and all of our neighbors are old....no kids anywhere....so i think all the old women thought it was cute (or they were all very glad they were not me).

super awesome friday night

2011-07-16T00:05:00.000-04:00

i just spent most of my friday night making throwing stars and nun-chucks for a band of ninjas who are having a sleepover at our house. These are the only ones around the house I could photograph, as most of the weapons went out the door with the ninjas and dad to get some frozen yogurt. Cousin Jack kept asking what other weapons i could make, as if throwing stars and nun-chucks were not impressive enough.

I do know how to make other weapons....when I was in 8th grade metal shop my "friend" (i don't really remember his name....danny something maybe?) anyway, my friend asked me to cut some pipe into pieces for him. I cut the pipe (i had already finished my model of snoopy on top of his dog house I had been working on, so I had extra time), and he came over and checked out my work. he said it was good....and if i knew a way to make the edges sharper. I don't remember if I did or not. I do remember that that was a friday, and on monday "danny" wasn't in shop. He wasn't there tuesday either. Danny was IN JAIL for making weapons. weapons that were made out of the pipe i was cutting for him (some sort of brass knuckles or something). Maybe he was in jail for using the weapons, not making them....either way, he was in juvie for a while and I never saw him again. Which is good, because maybe my career path would have been drastically different.

Tute and Sunny

2011-07-13T12:32:00.000-04:00

Driving to the drive-in movie last night someone in the car said "Kody is Stupid". I quickly corrected him and said "Kody is Smart"....then Kody chimed in with repeated "Kody is Tute! Kody is Tute!" (Kody is Cute, in Kody speak).

Then this morning kody was making lots of spitting and burping sounds and I said "Kody, what are you doing?" and he said "Kody is Sunny! I Sunny!" (Kody is Funny).

I love watching Kody figure out who Kody is.....tute and sunny and a bunch of other things....

4th of July unedited!

2011-07-09T19:08:00.000-04:00

We had the BEST 4th of july EVER this year. This really makes me happy because I think last year the 4th was on a Sunday, so I didn't even TELL my kids it was the 4th of July....we just went to church and went about our day and did NOTHING (at least I don't recall doing anything, i'll have to go check the blog archives....). This year we started out by heading out to the Clayton Parade. I love the Parade. Everyone always meets up in the same spot....some years it seems more crowded than others...this was a particularly light year, but it was still fun. Kody was in time out for a bit for pinching little girls:

Watching the parade. Most years my kids ride their bikes in the parade, but i just didn't get my act together in time to get decorations and transport the bikes to grandmas house prior to the parade. maybe next year.

After the parade we went swimming at grandma's house, BBQ'd had popsicles, made home made ice cream, jumped on the trampoline (with sprinklers underneath)...swam some more....

(I love that Kody can keep up with all the big boys....look at how high he's jumping int he picture above....)

Later in the day we went with some very generous friends on their boat out to their PRIVATE ISLAND. It was so fun!!! We zip lined, BBQ'd, made smores, watched the fireworks, went tubing behind the boat....it was seriously such a fun day. Thank you W family!!!!

All the kids fell asleep on the way home, i think that's the mark of a successful holiday! USA! USA! USA!

I hope these don't ruin your Summer diet plans...

2011-07-09T17:02:00.000-04:00

Because they totally ruined mine. But i figure if you are all a bit fatter, then I will look skinnier, right? Anyway...these are super yummy. Sister Anderson (who hosted Kaity's Bridal Shower) made these and I probably ate about 30 that night. I told her I wouldn't leave her house until she gave me the recipe. She produced a photo copy in record time and sent me on my way with a baggy of extras to get me home. I made them, and while they were not as perfectly shaped and as delicious as hers, I still managed to choke most of the batch down.

Cream Wafers:
1 cup soft butter
1/3 cup whipping cream
2 cups all-purpose flour
Granulated Sugar
Creamy Filling (below)

Mix the butter, cream and flour. Cover and chill.

heat oven to 375. Roll out dough 1/3 at a time (i just rolled it all at the same time....maybe it makes a difference to do it in small batches? Anyway, use your best judgement here). Roll 1/8th inch thick on floured cloth-covered board (keep remaining dough refrigerated until ready to roll). Cut into small shapes. Sister Anderson had what I think was a 1 inch circle cutter. I used a small heart cutter.

Transfer rounds to piece of waxed paper that is heavily covered with granulated sugar (i put a bunch of sugar in the bottom of a cake pan and coated the cookies in there). Coat both sides with sugar. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Prick rounds with fork about 4 times.

Bake 7 to 9 minutes or just until set but not brown. cool. put cookies together in pairs with Creamy Filling.

Creamy Filling:
Cream 1/4 cup soft butter, 3/4 cup powdered sugar and 1 tsp vanilla until smooth and fluffy. Add a few drops of water if necessary for proper spreading consistency.

template help

2011-07-08T12:01:00.000-04:00

so i was messing with my blog template trying to fix the right border of my pictures. I fixed it, but the right sidebar is now under the main body of the blog....i'm posting the code below to see if anyone out there could tell me what i'm missing? if you have any ideas, let me know! thanks!!

#outer-wrapper {
background-image:url(http://kendrawirig.googlepages.com/blog-white-background.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-xy;
   width: 900px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:0px;
text-align:left;
font: normal bold 110% Trebuchet, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;
}

#main-wrapper {
  width: 700px;
float: $startSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
#sidebar-wrapper {
  width: 150px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

A few instagrams for you....

2011-07-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

This is how I found Parker sleeping the other day....like he just got really tired as he was crawling off the bed and had to take a little nap so he would have enough energy to make it the rest of the way down. And i realize i don't have the bedskirt on my bed. When we were moving in we couldn't find it the night we were putting the bed together....so we went ahead without it and said "we'll put it on as soon as we find it"....we I found it about 8 months ago and it's still waiting to get put on....i think it might take a bedding change to actually motivate me to do it.

M&Ms from Kaity and Alan's (or Alan and Kaity's) Wedding lunch at Fentons.

Pool party. We have been LIVING IN SWIMMING POOLS this summer. The kids are doing swim team, so we're at our community pool nearly every day....then there's swimming at Grandma Pat's house, or Papa's apartment, or various friend's pools.....if there is a pool that needs swimming....my kids are up to the challenge.

Little Kaity got married....

2011-07-08T11:30:00.000-04:00

Aunt Kaity got married in June to Uncle Alan. Yesterday Carson was describing the wedding to his babysitter and said "The wedding was AMAZING." It was! It was so much fun...

Look at how much fun they are having!!!!

I have lots more shots from the wedding to post.....i'm just slow at blogging these days. Something about summer vacation and having 4 little boys at home ALL DAY LONG really eats into my blogging time :)

Kody on drugs

2011-07-05T15:24:00.000-04:00

Kody had to have some dental work done this morning. He was given some sedatives, and the procedure went smoothly. When he was all done they instructed us to take him home and let him rest, he would probably nap.

When we got home he was pretty loopy, so I set him up on my bed watching Mickey Mouse. As I was folding laundry in the next room I overheard him yelling at the TV (think drunk sports fan): "Mickey Mouse!! Not triangle, CIRCLE! CIRCLE!!!! HEY MICKEY MOUSE!!!" then there was a lot of gibberish....and mumbles....then some more "TOODLES!!! more orange juice. MOM!!! more orange juice!!!".

It's been pretty funny to listen too. So far he hasn't napped...and I have to keep him laying down because when he tries to walk he falls over. I hope he'll be back to his old self soon.....

The Kid Wash

2011-06-28T01:40:00.000-04:00

A while back I saw this Kid-Car Wash in Family Fun and bookmarked it under summer projects. Within the first few hours of summer I got myself over to home depot to raid the PVC section....this was a fun project (just took a few hours in the morning to build....with one additional run to ACE hardware with 4 kids to get a few missing pieces), and so far has been a hit with the kids. I pretty much followed the directions on the family fun site, but made a few modifications along the way (extra support in the middle because it seemed to tip easily, a clear plastic tube "hose" so the kids could squirt each other, and a big black tube to use to "talk" to each other (mostly because my 2 year old gets a kick out of hearing his echoey (sp?) voice)). These pictures aren't the best....but you get the idea:

(thank you Olivia for showing us how to use the sponges)

(my awesome hose i built with clear plastic tubing. and duct tape)

The guy at home depot suggested some blue-glue stuff to hold all the pipes together. I ended up NOT glueing my pieces together, as i wanted to be able to take it down easily...or maybe rebuild it and configure it differently down the road. Anyway....so far it seems to be fine, the pieces pop off when it gets blown over by the wind, but i can easily put them back together. If you are planning on leaving it up for a long time, gluing it might be a good option for you....)

Sorry for all the test blogs

2011-06-20T18:38:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out Instagram. I think it's a fabulous solution for making those iphone pictures a little more interesting. Go check it out!!!

Carson is this many minutes old

2011-06-20T18:34:00.001-04:00

He needed it in writing.

I've been loving instagram...

2011-06-20T18:26:00.003-04:00

i just need to figure out how to get all the "love the instagram team" off my blog posts....hmmmm....

kwirig shared an Instagram photo with you

2011-06-20T18:25:00.001-04:00

Hi there,

kwirig just shared an Instagram photo with you:

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"This is a test. Let's see if this shows up on my blog. "

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

brain sucker

2011-06-20T18:17:00.000-04:00

i think i was on my way to do something....but got distracted by the computer. i'm pretty sure i was about to do something because just now I got up from browsing a few blogs and there was a plastic Safeway grocery bag around my arm...as if i put it there for a purpose....i was going to put something in it? do something with it? clean up something? I don't exactly remember putting it on my arm....but there it is....so i must have put it there....and i probably put it there for a reason....but now i have no clue. so i'll just go put it away. i hope there's not a huge mess somewhere in the house that i was supposed to go clean up. if there is, i'm sure i'll find it soon.....

Woo Hoo for Summer!!!

2011-06-20T11:10:00.000-04:00

I love how nervous i always am for summer to start.....but it only takes about a day for me to get into the swing of things...and now I am loving the lazy summer schedule! Though it's hardly been a "lazy" summer so far...we have been BUSY! Waterslides, out of town guests, getting ready for Kaity's (my little sister's) wedding on SATURDAY! Anyway....we've been having fun.

On Saturday we had some friends in town and went out to eat (with our combined 7 kids). As we were leaving the restaurant I shut the back of the car (and now i can't think of the word for the back door of the car.....we have an SUV....whatever....why can't i think of what you would call it?????) anyway, i shut it and heard a SCREAM....it took a second for it to register that the two were related....and i ran to the back and opened the door again and Brady had his fingers caught in the door!!! I felt horrible, but Brady just cried for about 30 seconds, then started laughing and said he was OK, and I shouldn't feel bad. Bless his little heart.

The picture above is of our GERMS. The boys are always a bit skeptical about all of my germ-talk (they can't SEE the GERMS, so it might be something mom is making up). I got these petri dishes (from Lakeshore Learning) and we collected samples from all over the house. It turns out the cleanest places were the toilet, bathroom and kitchen sinks....and brady and carson's mouths. The dirtiest places were the computer keyboard (ick), iphone, dog mouth, carson's shoes (a testament to why I don't let them wear shoes in the house), oh, and Carson's boogers. Brady's hand was also pretty dirty. They boys wont let me through the petri dishes away now "we love our germs". They've become unofficial pets around here. I'm thinking the next phase of the experiment will be to apply some anti-bacterial soap to the dishes and see what it does to the germs. And i'm kinda proud of myself that my toilets are so clean (they do get scrubbed SEVERAL times a day, thank you little boy pee).

rough day at the office

2011-06-12T01:41:00.000-04:00

today was harder than it should have been. that's all i'm going to say right now. Listing things would involve too many bulleted "cleaned up pee" or "cleaned the toilet" points. It would also include "broke up fight", "sent _____ to time out", over and over and over again. Also, at one point the door bell rang and it was Kody (my 2 year old). I didn't realize he had left. but at least he came back. and was polite enough to ring the bell and not just walk right in :) There were a few good things that happened, i will happily list them:

took 75% of kids to jamba juice and playground
fertilized and reseeded front lawn
neighbor gave us a cute outdoor table / chairs set for the boys (but it needs to be sanded and repainted....so i added it to the "project list")
Kody walked around for about half an hour with bunny ears on carrying real eggs (he insisted they be real). I followed him closely to make sure they did not drop.
Parker let me give him a hair cut (which is a break through). At the end of the procedure he said "see mom, haircuts are no big deal". I'm glad he feels this way now. For the past 3 years he has screamed bloody murder anytime anyone with clippers or scissors came near him. (i wont mention that i had to lock the bathroom door while giving him the hair cut so kody would not come in and play with the toilet...this led Kody to through a 30 minute tantrum on the other side of the bathroom door....making the hair cut far less enjoyable for me).

I'm off to make some oatmeal raisin cookie dough (just to eat) and watch Friday Night Lights on netflix. It's only 10:40 at night...i figure i have a good 3 hours or so of kid-free time. It's going to be awesome.

things my kids believe, installment #1

2011-06-11T19:22:00.000-04:00

My kids believe that I have a "tester" to test if something is dog pee or kid pee. They believe this because on several occasions (the most recent being about 15 minutes ago) i have caught the sent of urine in a room.
"Who peed in here?"

"I think it was the dog" Carson suggests.

"oh really? I guess i'll just go get my dog pee / kid pee tester and see where it came from".

"Or maybe it was me. Yes, it was me. I peed there when I was mad at you....I also peed in the spot right behind you. I might have also peed somewhere else but i can't remember".

P.S. Dustin...if you read this, you can't let on, because my threat to Carson is that if he pees in his room again i'm going to tell dad. I think that will keep him from doing it again...so play along.

a few more beach pictures

2011-06-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

so this one isn't a beach picture....but we were getting ready to go to the beach, so it counts.

Kody was not too interested in playing in the water....he pretty much sat on the blanket and ate the whole time...

or relaxed in the sand.

Of course Brady was neck deep in the freezing water within 20 seconds of getting to the beach.

It's the first day of summer "vacation"....so far we've gotten hair cuts, been to target, painted a cardboard playhouse, made bead necklaces....and now we're off to the pool. so tired. wish me luck.

it is shameful....but a little funny

2011-06-07T11:34:00.000-04:00

I probably shouldn't post this....

we just produce a lot of trash!!! in my defense, this was the week we had carson's birthday party (so there was a lot of extra "party trash" going on. i'm sure our neighbors hate us. I would like to point out to them that they all only have 2 people living at their house....and we have 6....so we SHOULD produce 3 times the trash that they do.....but we are still trashy.

Skunk

2011-06-05T03:02:00.000-04:00

It's midnight, and i'm getting ready to go outside, in the rain, to give the dog a hydrogen peroxide-baking soda-dish detergent bath. So not excited about this. I had just let her out to go pee (it's been raining all day) and she spotted the skunk and started to chase it. I think she got sprayed in the face. I've got skunk scent on me too....though i can't smell it very well because my whole house smells like skunk too. Why did God make skunks?

Brady's Test

2011-06-04T20:31:00.000-04:00

Brady was talking to me today and he said he had a test last week at school that he got 100% on. It was about his family. This is what he wrote:

"First I have 4 brothers. And one mom and dad. well of course. well anyway....first Carson is a mad scientist. Second, Parker is CRAZY about video games. The last brother is Kody he looks cute on the outside but he's a crab on the inside. Next mom is so braggy about herself. She says she's so smart blah blah blah. Anyway, let's go on. Last but not least: Dad. He looks tough and mean. The end."

I asked him why he said I was so braggy....he said it was because when he filled out the mother's day form at church (that had him check off all the characteristics his mom had, he checked them all except smart...and when I saw it I made a big deal about how I used to be smart....)

Carson's Angry Birds Party

2011-06-04T10:12:00.000-04:00

Carson started his day with waffles. He was specific...he wanted a square waffle, with strawberries, whipped cream and syrup (buttermilk syrup), then another waffle on top. So that's what he got. He opened his presents right away then was off to school. We had initially planned on bringing some popsicles for his class, but it was rainy....so i made an executive decision to bring some store bought mini-cookies and everyone was happy. And now we have 48 popsicles in our freezer (which i'm sure will only take my boys about 2 days to go through). Anyway, back to the party....

We had a king-pig pinata and played an angry birds version of pin the tail on the donkey. I still have this board in my garage....anyone want it? We played a few other games (i didn't get pictures of....once the party was in motion the camera was put away....i needed all my hands and faculties about me to control the chaos). Other games included "hot potato" (but instead of a potato it was a golden egg) and "musical chairs" (but instead of chairs we had bird nests). We also had some wrist rocket / slingshot things with foam balls....and i gave the boys a bunch of plastic cups to build towers with and then try to knock them down with the balls.....i think this was their favorite activity.

I found someone on etsy that made angry bird cake pops.....these were super cute (and saved me the trouble of trying to make an elaborate angry birds cake.....).

Everyone had a visor...i was originally going to have this be a craft the kids would do (paste the paper onto the visor), but in the end i just did it all myself the night before because the thought of trying to supervise this stressed me out....

and the angry birds balloon guys watched the whole party go down....(i got the cut outs for the visors and balloons HERE).

I forgot to take a picture of the rainbow finger jello stacked high....one thing i liked about this party was the color scheme was bright and fun.....everything looked like a rainbow (because the angry birds are all different rainbow-y colors)

Parker decked out in some of his "gear". Anyway.....party was fun, but glad it's over. School is almost over too.....i'm both excited and nervous for summer to start. Every year at this time i think to myself "how am i possibly going to survive summer?" and then every mid-august i think to myself "how am i possibly going to wake up in the morning and get everyone out the door by 7:45??" and somehow it always works out.

The quietest afternoon ever:

2011-06-04T01:33:00.000-04:00

The other day both little boys fell asleep in the family room (while both the big boys were still at school) and it was awesomely quiet.

hey!

2011-06-01T01:42:00.000-04:00

i couldn't think of a title. i went to look for a picture to post and realized i have not downloaded any pictures from my camera in the month of may. Tomorrow i'm going to do that. Tomorrow i'm going to do a lot of things. The kids will be back in school for a few days (until school's out for summer). They have had an extended break for memorial day (due to budget cuts), so they've been out of schools since thursday. So tomorrow i will download pictures, paint some window trim, hang up curtains, pay the bills, organize my desk, and do 20 other things on my list that i've been meaning to do. Today was rough. Today i had 4 boys stuck inside all day (it was raining, and i wasn't up for mud playing). By 3 I was getting nervous about how we were going to survive the next 5 hours or so until bed time. I'm glad I have a few more days of school to get ready for summer. While i'm excited for summer, and all the relaxing and fun that goes along with it....there are things that need to get done before it starts (things that are hard to do with 4 little boys around).

Anyway....today we made a list of all the fun things we want to do this summer....I started writing the list (camping, fishing, drive in movies, make ice cream, water slides, learn 8 piano songs, read 100 books, etc.) and walked away for a bit. when I came back Disneyland, "Kid Day", "Yes Day", "Free Day", along with a few others had been added to the list (by Brady). FYI, "Kid Day" means i have to do whatever the kids say, "Yes Day" means I can't say no to anything they want to do and "Free Day" means they get to do whatever they want. Do you see a theme here???? We might have to modify the list some.

I have been feeling like I have been getting further and further behind on everything in my life lately. I'm really hoping I can get caught up on a few things so I can hit the summer running.....so here's to a productive tomorrow.

Carson thoughts

2011-05-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

"mom, did you know that crying is for when you want to get your brother in time out, and screaming is for when you really got hurt and you still want your brother in time out."

Happy Birthday Carson!!!

2011-05-26T02:26:00.000-04:00

This is probably the worst picture of both Brady and Carson, but i'm too lazy to download the pictures off my camera tonight....so birthday pictures will follow.

Carson turned 6 today! For breakfast he requested "square waffles" (which are actual waffles that i have to make batter for and cook in the waffle maker....unlike the circle waffles that come frozen in a box from costco.....). We made buttermilk syrup to go on them and had strawberries and whipped cream too. Delicious. He opened up his presents: a ring pop, a basketball and a basketball hoop.

We had planned on brining popsicles to school for a treat, but it was cold and rainy today so i ran to the store and bought some little cookies to take in to share.

After school we went to sky-high sports to jump and play and get some rainy day energy out.

When we got home we put together the basketball hoop and Brady and Carson played outside with the hose (they looked very similar to the picture above, but that picture is from another hose-day).

After dinner we met grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles (one aunt and one uncle) at Baskin Robins (so Carson could get some rainbow sherbet). More present opening....

Carson had a great day....We love you!

Crazy Geography Skillz

2011-05-21T10:21:00.000-04:00

**don't read if you can't handle the awesomeness!**

Since september Parker has been obsessed with this puzzle of the united states. He would work on it for hours at a time. Then the "stack the states" iphone app was downloaded, and all the kids became instant US geography whizzes. When "stack the countries" was downloaded the obsession spread to world geography. Carson and Parker can both name just about any country (even countries that I don't think really exist because i've never heard of them before) by sight and show you where it is on the map. Parker does this at super high speeds with computer-like accuracy. They can tell you what country borders another country...Carson will spend hours on his tummy studying his Oregon Scientific Globe (which tells you amazing facts like the Congo has the longest bus in the world)...then he'll move to the computer to play some geography quiz games.....all the while Parker is in his room doing one of his 4 US state puzzles or 3 world country puzzles. They can tell you which flag belongs to which country....they can hum most countries national anthems. When we drive we have to listen to the COUNTRY CD, which has 33 songs about all the different countries...their favorites are the songs about the former USSR and the Eastern Africa song. The beginning of one of the songs has a saxophone introduction, and every time Brady hears it he says "wow. That is a really good part of that song. It's so romantic, huh mom?". Their favorite books are atlases. Last week Carson commented that the cloud above us looked like the Ukraine. Today Parker said his chicken nugget looked like the Sudan. Anyway....we have states and countries on the brain.

update

2011-05-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

so i'm going to try to update more frequently about little things and not wait until it's "quiet" and i have "time" or i've "uploaded pictures". They happen infrequently.

I should also note that I am going to try to record a bit more about the kids here, and that i am aware that it might come off as "bragging" (a BIG no no in the blogging world), but i don't care? I figure this is the only record i really keep of our little family, and someday i'm going to wish i had written a bit more about them (since i like them so much). If you don't like hearing about the awesomeness, then don't read it! i'll try to give you some warning. But for the record, i think your kids are cute and awesome too, if that makes you feel any better.

And really, you're not going to be super jealous when you read that Carson was sent to the principal's office today for peeing on the bathroom floor (because someone dared him to....as if that makes it any better). I went to the school to watch Carson be a sheep in "the little red hen" play. I noticed he was missing and started looking around for him. That's when I saw the principal walk him through the door, and Carson looked quite upset. When he saw me the tears started to flow. He did manage to pull it together and was front and center dancing the opening number. I only managed to video tape the opening number because I had Parker and Kody with me, and Kody was NOT going to behave, so we had to stand outside the door for the rest of the performance. I liked it when the principle asked me if I was "the mother". "Are you THE mother? (the mother that taught her child to pee on the bathroom floor)?"

Anyway....my point is that in some future post I might talk about Carson (and Parker's) CRAZY geography skills....but before you think poorly of me for boasting, you should just think back to Carson peeing on the floor, and then you can just think poorly of me for that.

57 Hours

2011-05-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

Some people countdown to christmas....or their birthdays....or a european vacation....but when you are a mom of all-boys, there is one night of the year so special....so exquisite...it surpasses everything else....

the annual FATHER SON CAMPOUT. You can bet I will have the trailer packed, foil dinners wrapped, extra blankets (so we don't come home because it was "too cold"). I will try to not smile too big as I wave to them backing out of the driveway. I already have a little list of all the things i'm going to do when i have a whole night (mostly) to myself. Little Kody is staying home this year, but a few defrosted chicken nuggets (i'm NOT cooking dinner) is no big deal.

Woo Hoo!!!!! 56 Hours 40 minutes.....(yes, it took me 20 minutes to write this post....the boys haven't left yet, and someone needs their mom every 90 seconds or so....)

(that's not me in the picture, but it's a pretty accurate representation of me saying "goodbye")

Angry Carson

2011-05-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

Carson wants an "Angry Birds" birthday party....so last night i put together an invitation....

This morning I showed him, and I can tell that he liked it (because he was trying to suppress a smile while he looked at it), but then he said he didn't want any invitations for his party...so i'm not sure if i'll be able to use this (maybe i'll sneak it), but thought if i can't use it, i should at least post it....since i spent so much time on it last night! It's not perfect, but when it's midnight, you just don't care anymore. Especially when it's not fully appreciated by the recipient.

Easter 2011!

2011-05-08T01:15:00.000-04:00

can you tell which of my kids was NOT HAPPY when we told him we had to put the easter candy away and get ready to go to church??

As I was uploading pictures for this post Carson walked by and saw the 50 pictures or so that I took of them in their easter outfits. "wow. Did I really not smile in ANY pictures????" yep. you really didn't smile in any pictures. and you wouldn't scoot up and let the light hit you, so you are just sulking and lurking in the darkness....

These are just cute Kody pictures....taken sometime around easter....

night.

The Egg Dying

2011-05-08T00:50:00.000-04:00

4 or 5 years ago, if you would have told me I would be able to handle dying easter eggs...by myself...with 4 boys 7 and under and not break a sweat...i would have said you were crazy. But look at me now! I will admit I have developed a few tricks to keep my sanity....

Outside and on the ground alleviates a lot of stress and possible mis-haps.

I tell myself "it's just eggs" over and over again....so let Kody drop them, mix them up, stack them 3 deep, whatever....it's just eggs.

Those are pretty much my only bits of wisdom...but I still have more pictures....

Oh, just thought of another one....at least for the time being, while the kids are still pretty small, we keep it simple. white crayons and solid colors. No glitter. NO GLITTER. no paints or special tie-dye eggs....just basics. next year i might introduce wrapping the eggs with rubber bands (if i feel my kids can handle it).

Kody loved coloring eggs so much...he would walk over to the "finished" eggs carton, take a colored egg and drop it in another color...he didn't want the egg coloring to end...

the other boys were pretty patient with him as well....after a while they started picking up on my "it's just eggs" mantra, and we had very few fights about kody ruining their eggs....

What to give for mother's day:

2011-05-05T15:32:00.000-04:00

I SAW THIS POSTED ON MODERN MORMEN MEN AND THOUGHT IT WAS GREAT ADVICE. ESPECIALLY #3. I just copied it from their site, i hope that's OK....

It’s that time of year again. The time when you look at the calendar and realize that Mother’s Day is on Sunday. Don’t worry. We’re all there. We all have mothers, and rack our brains trying to come up with a gift that won’t be trite, cheesy or useless, yet at the same time express our overwhelming gratitude for birthing us and raising us to adulthood.

But for men, there’s even more pressure. Not only do you have mothers, but you have mothers of your children. And those mothers can be a little touchy about Mother’s Day expressions of gratitude and love. Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. The following is a gift guide for your wife. (Please understand that I’m a mother with small children, with limited discretionary income.)

The Mother’s Day Gift Guide (All Under $25!)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

1) The gift of peace and quiet. Here’s how to do it. First, wrap a new book. One you’ve given a little bit of thought to. Does she have an Amazon wish list? Go there first. If she doesn’t, think of something she might actually enjoy. Ask a friend of hers if you need to. Second, when she unwraps said book, instruct her to go to her favorite place to read (her bed, a library, a comfy couch), and tell her to take a few hours to read, then (and this is vitally important) remove the children from her vicinity (at least out of the house -- preferably miles away). Contrary to the spirit of the holiday, most mothers would agree that the best mother’s day gifts are the ones that remind you the least that you are a mother. **Bonus points if you take her a cold beverage and a treat before you leave.

Why are Target's Gift Cards so good looking?

2) The gift of time and money. Buy a $25 gift certificate to Target or Barnes and Noble or a place that your wife likes to browse. You put it in a thoughtful card, with your own original, loving thoughts before you sign it (and don’t sign your last name -- I kid you not, this happens), and then tell her to go to Target and spend some time for herself. The thought of having a gift card and hours of free time to spend it makes me giddy. Like I’ve said, this isn’t for everyone. Some would rather be given an actual gift. But, I’m telling you, if you think your wife would rather open up a new apron instead of be given an afternoon of shopping without kids clinging to her leg, most likely you’re wrong.

Buying this mop as a gift: Bad! Mopping the house: Good!

3) The gift of service. Truthfully, I think that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day should be service holidays, rather than gift-giving holidays. But this is difficult. You may think that having the children serve their mother breakfast in bed is a charming gesture, but mostly, that mother is thinking about the sink full of dishes that will be waiting for her once she gets out of bed. Too often we hear, “Just take the day off!” which really means the kids will be fed dry cereal and chicken nuggets, and the house will look like a bomb went off by the time this day of rest is over. So, try to think about the chores that your wife absolutely hates. Ask her if you must. Then do them all. Mine would be: emptying the dishwasher, mopping the kitchen floor, and feeding my children three square meals that day (including clean-up). Regardless of what you do, keep the house clean (please!).

Cute jewelry!

4) Keep with Tradition. Jewelry is never a bad idea. It doesn’t have to be expensive, as long as you’re certain that you have good taste (note: if you’re not sure, you don’t). Unless your wife is a flower lover, don’t give her an overly-priced bouquet of flowers. I can almost guarantee that she’ll be thinking about how she would’ve spent that 60 bucks. That’s not to say that flowers are out. Get a cheap but beautiful bouquet from Trader Joe’s or Costco and arrange them in a vase you already have. Or buy or make an extravagant dessert. You can buy my undying love and affection with a good cheesecake. Find a cute photo of your kids and have it printed on canvas at Costco.com, or frame a photo if you don’t have time to wait for shipping. Buy her a nice piece of art, or a cute vase that would fit in one of the rooms of your house (hint: You can never go wrong with Anthropologie or Crate & Barrel).

The most important thing about Mother’s Day gift-giving is this: Give it some thought. It’s not about money and it’s not about originality, it’s about knowing your wife and knowing what will make her happy. And when mom’s happy, everyone’s happy. (Just kidding. That’s a total lie. No one cares if mom’s happy.) But at least you can make her life less work.

*Some of these gifts will have to be given/performed on Saturday.
**All images provided by Amazon.com. Click on them and you can buy those actual items. Reminder: Don't buy the mop!!

Carson lost a tooth!

2011-04-29T01:22:00.001-04:00

This was a few days ago, and since then he's lost another one (but i haven't taken a new picture). Carson was really excited about losing a tooth (he's been watching Brady lose teeth for the past year and a half....). Parker is now anxious to turn 5 so he can start losing teeth too...

Our 25 other pets:

2011-04-29T00:46:00.001-04:00

These are the ants that ultimately made me get a dog (see this post HERE). They have since made lots more tunnels and are really interesting to watch. They gross Dustin out (Dustin and I have an agreement....he HATES ants, so I take care of most of the ant-killing (except for pet ants), and he will kill small rodents (we had a mouse problem when we lived in Ohio...and he offered to knock off the one-eyed hamster, but i declined). In fact, he's gone right now killing rodents in idaho. Anyway, back to the ants....i am way more interested in the ant farm than I thought I would be. It really is fascinating. I recommend it....though it may ultimately lead to you getting a dog. Be warned.

Dinosaur Eggs

2011-04-29T00:46:00.000-04:00

I saw this on Our Best Bites a few weeks ago (go there for better pictures and instructions). I knew my kids would love these....they love most things involving food coloring. They are super easy...after hard boiling eggs, crack the shells (don't let the pieces of shell fall off....crack them gently, squeeze them in your hand a bit, roll them on the counter...but keep the shell on the egg for the most part). Then fill a cup with water and a bunch of food coloring (I put a fair amount of food coloring in (like 20 drops maybe?) and then put the egg in. Let it sit in the fridge over night. In the morning peel them and they look like this:

Carson really liked them and insisted on having his picture taken with them.

Bordom Buster....

2011-04-29T00:41:00.000-04:00

this was a fun project...i saw it in a family fun magazine a month or two ago i think. Shoe box lids would work well, we just found some boxes laying around and cut them down to size. Lined the bottom with scrapbook paper, then hot glued straws down. The boys are still adding things to them. One of my favorite additions is Brady's idea to add magnetix to his maze to create "traps" for the marble (if you use a metal ball) He added them after I took the picture. But i thought it was really clever.

We got a dog!

2011-04-28T01:22:00.000-04:00

For years my kids have been asking for a dog....but i've always had a good reason to not get one. Last week I walked by Brady's room and saw him hugging his ant farm, whispering to his 25 ants, "I love you little guys...you are the best pets...i will take good care of you, OK?". That's when I decided that it's high time we get an actual animal....no more ants, one-eyed hamsters, or virtual dragon pets.

This is Posey (after Buster Posey....from the Giants....). In the 24 hours that she has been with us she has had several names: Summer, Jedi, Light Saber, Monroe....we finally decided on Posey at about 9 last night, and so far it looks like it will stick. She is about 10 months old...we got her from the humane society (they said she was a stray that came in in March). I saw her while browsing petfinder.com on Sunday night. Monday morning I put an application in for her and called up the office...they said that they had received 8 or 9 applications for her that morning. They called me back an hour later and said we were the top pick (i don't know why....we've been DENIED dogs in the past because of all the kids we have) and they brought her over to our house the next day. She is such a good dog! She is housebroken, knows how to sit, stay....she has the cutest little ears...loves to play....doesn't shed....she's great!

The boys have been loving having a dog. Parker was terrified at first and spent several hours up on my shoulders yesterday. He climbed right up me like a cat would climb a tree and would not come down. He finally decided that the dog was OK and wasn't going to eat him and they've become fast friends. I'm just impressed with how easy she has been and glad my aunt convinced me to go with a slightly older dog, rather than a brand new puppy!

Kody turned 2 and left home....

2011-04-20T02:14:00.000-04:00

Kody turned 2 last week. There was a 20 minute period of time on his birthday when we could not locate Kody. Dustin had run to the store, and I noticed the front door was left open (it has a tendency to not close very well unless it's closed very deliberately). Things were kinda quiet in the house and I thought....i should go see where Kody is. I checked all over the house....couldn't find him. Checked again, checked up stairs, checked the back yard, front yard, peered down the street....he wasn't anywhere. Ran down the street....turned the corner and ran down another street....still no sign of him. I started looking for open fences and peering in neighbor's back yards (especially those that have pools), still no sign. I called Dustin as I ran home to get my keys to go drive around the neighborhood....I told him Kody was REALLY lost and to drive slowly while coming home. A few minutes later (after one last check around the house and back yard) Dustin drove up the street with Kody sitting on his lap. He had picked up Kody a few streets away standing barefoot in the middle of the road. Dustin said it looked like he was on his way home from somewhere. Kody just kept saying "Go Go? Daddy Go Go???" I think he had seen dustin leave and was trying to go after him. Anyway...we're happy he's home.

On his birthday we had cousins and grandparents come over for some cupcakes and ice cream and present opening (admission: I didn't get Kody anything for his birthday. He got lots of fun things from cousins and grandparents....i figured he wouldn't miss getting something from us. I figure it's kinda a family tradition, as I don't recall getting Brady anything for his 2nd birthday either....and I don't specifically remember getting anything for Carson or Parker....so it may or may not have happened).

Don't feel bad for Kody though...the day before his birthday his other Grandma and Papa came over with lots of fun presents and yummy cupcakes. He got enough cake and present opening in to last until his 3rd birthday.

I did let little Kody sleep in on his birthday though....

Isn't that what every 2 year old wants?

Fascinating Kody facts:

He loves playing outside. He always brings me his shoes and sits down so I'll put them on him, and then he runs to the back door so he can play in the yard. He will stay out there all day if I let him.
He loves his big brothers. I think he thinks he's just as big as them and tried to do everything they do.
He's really good at "just dance" on the wii
He's been talking more and more lately....favorite phrases include "ee mo day" (one more time), "not that show", "I go side" (i go outside), "oh nooooo...kody", and a bunch of gibber gabber that only his mom can understand.
Kody likes dinosaurs, airplanes, and riding bikes.
He likes to eat food (and then move over to his brother's abandoned plates and eat their food too)
He can hold his own on the trampoline with 3 big brothers. But he's just as happy out there jumping by himself. When he's all done he stands on the edge of the tramp and yells "mama?" so i can come get him off (though he can crawl down by himself....it's just a little "tradition" we have).
I think he's the cutest thing alive.

It's Not a Purse!

2011-04-20T01:55:00.000-04:00

it's a super-manly DS carrier.....right?

at least that's what I told Brady when he said "that kinda looks like a purse".

does a purse have 9 little pockets to put DS games???? There's no way this is a purse. There's also no way Brady will take it out in public.......any girls out there want me to make them a purse out of duct tape??? I'm running out of things I can make for my boys.....

Conversation I had with a neighbor today:

2011-04-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

I was chasing Kody around out front today and I saw a neighbor (actually, a friend of a neighbor) and I stopped to talk to her for a minute.

She said: "do you see all of the cars / trucks around here today? There is a somewhat unwelcome houseguest upstairs right now. I don't want (my neighbor) to know about him. He has a gun with him, he's not supposed to have it. I told his mother he shouldn't have it. In fact, we're probably being watched through the upstairs bathroom window right now....anyways....i love your son's shirt...."

"Ummm.....I think i will take my child and go back to my house. good luck with that."

and I left. and that was at the quiet house of my 88 year old widowed neighbor. There are a lot of strange people out there. i live next to a few of them.

Detourist????

2011-04-10T19:38:00.000-04:00

Last year my brother and his wife got to go to Europe....part of the deal is they got to be part of an American Express commercial....watch it! They are way cooler than me. I am neither a tourist or a detourist :(

Funny Kid Things

2011-04-10T10:42:00.000-04:00

It's Kody's birthday today. He's 2. I will post more on this later. But there are a few balloons around the house. Parker is terrified of balloons (and haircuts). But he does not want me to destroy them....i just have to move them to the opposite end of the house that he is in (so if he's by the TV, he needs all the balloons to be in his room, and if he's in his room, all the balloons need to be by the TV). He covers his ears while they are in transport. Later, when he is occupied with something, i will have to destroy the balloons....because I am tired of moving them.

Yesterday Carson went to a birthday party at chuck e cheese. when i picked him up I asked "what kind of cake did you guys have? Chocolate? Vanilla?" (i was just making small talk). He said "regular". "what kind is regular? was it brown or white?" ....silence....

then in a quiet voice...."i don't know what color the cake was because I was hiding under the table because i'm scared of chuck e cheese (the big mouse character)".

then in an even quieter voice...."he doesn't bend his knees when he walks and his voice comes from a TV"

silence....

"sometimes i think there is a person inside there, and sometimes i think it's all just batteries"

another funny carson moment....he had built a little fort on our chair and a half (it was just a few pillows piled on top of each other)....while he was at school I put it all away. When he got home he was super angry that I had destroyed his fort. After a burst of outrage he became very quiet....and stared off into the distance...then said (quietly)..."i spent 5 years working on that fort, and now it's gone...."

made it to friday (p.s. there's a treat for you at the end of this post)

2011-04-09T02:59:00.000-04:00

I was just downloading some pictures off my camera and I realized that I have had a digital camera for 91 months. 91???? when I first got a digital camera i was organizing photos on my computer and I wanted them organized by months, but my computer kept organizing alphabetically, so I put numbers in front of them (like 37 August 05) or something like that. I started with 01 and have numbered my months every month since....and April is 91 April 11 crazy. 91 months???

anyway, here are a few things from my 91st digital month:

we made candy dots. My boys love candy dots...grandma pat always has candy dots in her purse or car and they are always used to bribe my boys :) (ours didn't look like the picture above)

they are super easy to make. 2 egg whites. 3 cups of powdered sugar. whip it up for 5 minutes or so and then add food coloring. I poured it into a zip lock bag for each of the boys and snipped off the end and let them pipe it onto their paper (we just used plain, white computer paper). They had to dry overnight, but by morning they were ready to eat.

while we were at the table making the candy dots, Kody was in the kitchen getting into trouble (as usual):

but it's so cute....so you just let him enjoy himself....and don't worry about the fact that he is balancing precariously on a barstool, on his knees, holding a sharp fork.

Oh, also in April...Kody went to the salon. The daddy salon. Look at how handsome he looks after dad brushes his hair. Maybe I shouldn't have girls. I'm not good at doing hair...i just give it a little fluff with a towel after the bath and call it good.

And this one wont let me touch his hair.....he refuses to get a hair cut. He says he is a "no haircut boy" (this is after a week of asking to be a girl (because girls don't need haircuts)...i convinced him maybe instead of a girl he could just be a "no haircut boy"...he's really latched onto that. He is TERRIFIED of getting a haircut and i'm not quite sure what to do about it. he looks pretty scraggly.

Oh, and the treat I promised you:

My father in law just got back from a trip to Kenya with Operation Smile. He said the town they were in celebrates itself as the birthplace of Obama. He was shown where obama was born....everyone in the town says he was born there....anyway, he brought back this Obama gum. I just love that the entire first family is on there (along with the "Yes We Can" slogan). So funny. And now I'm convinced he was born in kenya (why else would they have obama gum?????) :)

i think i am going to lose my mind

2011-04-06T00:08:00.001-04:00

and it is directly related to my kids NOT GOING TO BED AT A REASONABLE HOUR. Kody isn't in his crib anymore....so there are no bars to keep him where he should be. Parker wont sleep in his bed...and keeps taking late afternoon snoozes so he wont go to sleep until 10 or 11....Brady and Carson stay awake in their room....and some nights it's not so bad, they will chat quietly, but most nights lately it turns into an all-out wrestling match.

On top of all of this I have never been busier in my entire life (except maybe when we were renovating the house....i was busy then too....), and the work i need to do keeps getting pushed until later and later at night....and by the time i can sit down to actually think and do it....I am so tired and can't get it done. I'm thinking about sleeping from 9 until 3 and then getting up and trying to get stuff done then, but i've never been much of a super-early riser and i don't think I would function very well (but at least the house will be quiet). Anyways.....will someone just come over and put my kids to bed for me?????