Oh Holiday

Our neighbors the Dostals celebrated Christmas early as they were leaving to go home to Germany for the holidays. They got this cool little car and they have been good to share. They were riding around the other day and I had this flash forward and could see my kids loading into real cars with their friends and driving away and it was scary. I am hoping they can hone their ability to see what is going on around them and look at what is in front of them well before that time comes. For right now I am glad this car goes really slow. My kids usually spend a lot of time each day outside playing with Stella, Philena and

Arthur. When they are gone we really miss them, and their toys. We hope they are having a wonderful holiday in Germany.

I was feeling like I was getting my feet underneath me in the race towards Christmas and then yesterday I realized-I need to clean my house. I will confess right now that the most likely scenario is the bathrooms get cleaned, all the "stuff" gets thrown in boxes and tucked in closets to be forgotten and I pray that my family is so overcome with the Christmas spirit they don't realize that they don't have clean clothes. My kids are appreciating the fact that the hot chocolate has been flowing freely, bed times have been forgotten and that I have to have the TV on to keep Tanner from crying 70% of the time.

A treasure from Saturday:

Heidi as we were heading out the door to drive to the post office and send Christmas cards:

"Put your shoes on, we're going in."

early morning with Tanner

Tanner has been up since 5am. Today is the first day of winter break. I was hoping for a little sleeping in. My hopes were in vain. He is playing here in the box sent by Grandma Karen. It was filled with gifts for Christmas, but as is always the case it is the box that is just as interesting to 2 year olds. If you notice strange marks on his cheeks that is fingernail polish-he applied it himself. Boys without sisters don't have these problems. Girls without brothers don't have to keep their polish under lock and key. Last night the girls were pretending to tap dance. Tanner was wearing a pair of purple dress up shoes to tap as well. He took them off for a moment and Heidi put them on and he got really mad because she had on his shoes.


So, this is what I was doing while Tanner was playing this morning. It looks good. Looks can be decieving. I have been toying with the idea of making orange marmalade, which I love. Oranges are just starting to ripen here and I thought I would take advantage of excess citrus. As I searched for recipes I found that most marmalade is made with Seville oranges, which are bitter. I had the thought that perhaps the oranges from my ornamental orange tree would make good marmalade. I found a recipe online and started last night. The process is intriguing and I was really excited until I added the sugar, tasted my brew and realized it was really nasty. I left it on the stove and thought I would see if I could salvage it this morning. So before heating to 220F I added more sugar, pinapple juice and some orange juice concentrate. I was feeling pretty confident so I heated it up, added some vanilla at the end and then laddled some on my oatmeal. That was an hour ago. My mouth is still burning from the bitterness. It is a weird feeling. The oranges I used were probably not completely ripe, but I am not sure if that is the reason for my failure. I was hoping to make this for neighbor gifts. If I do I will have to get sweet oranges. I am also thinking I might need to wait until the oranges are more ripe-which foils my Christmas gift plans. I would do the traditional baking thing, but I burned out my mixer. I could do things the old fashioned way-bowl and a wooden spoon, but it is more fun with power tools.

Gingerbread weekend

Our favorite Christmas tradition is making gingerbread houses.

Long ago we gave up on the actual baking of the gingerbread and converted to cardboard. Reed is particularly good at creating our cardboard framework and it is a good creative outlet for his inner architect.

Here are the specs of the finished product. This house is 13" by 15" at the base and the tallest tower stands at 25" with the sugar cube spire. It required 8 lbs of powdered sugar, 18 egg whites and a lot of candy-2 tins of Schulze candy, 3 bags of M&M's, a box of sugar cubes, 6 packages of Necco candies, two bags of starlight mints, marshmallows, goldfish, smarties, gumballs, licorice, peeps snowmen and trees. Towards the end the kids were all rummaging through their caches of candy to finish the project.

It was Gingerbread house weekend for us. If the girls look tired it is because this was around 10pm after 4 hours of decorating.

Our girls at last were educated on the origins of Schulze candy. It technically is old fashioned hard candy (which my girls admitted to searching on the tin for the name "schulze"). When Reed was young his maternal grandfather passed away and his grandmother in later years remmaried to a man whose last name was Schulze. Turns out he would buy the grandkids a tin of old fashioned candy every christmas, and hence the name. There are rules surrounding the Schulze candy-none can go to waste, so every piece has to be incorporated into the house. The main use of the Schulze candy is the creation of a Schulze tree, which is made entirely of candy and royal icing all stacked together. At the end of the yule tide season when the house meets its ultimate fate-being beat to sugar dust and cardboard bits with any object that could be used with the verb "bludgeon" the tree is pitched in the air and if the physics line up, shatters into a spray of candy exploding off the end of a bat. Yea, its cool. After we finished the first question Heidi asked was "when can we hit it?"

The origins of these traditions are probably worth repeating, but another time.

New tools for my bag of tricks...

Tanner is doing great. The NP that saw us manipulated his elbow back into place, and Tanner cried a lot which made me feel awful for halfing to be there in the first place. She wasn't sure if it was back in so she left the room for a minute (I thought to get the doctor and go through the whole process again) and came back with a lollipop. She held down Tanners right arm and then held the lollipop up in the air and asked him to reach for it. He did, a sign that all is well. It was a cool trick.

For my second trick...Tonight was our ward Christmas party. We had the Dostals with us as well as Molly's friend Breelyn who are not members. The girls singing group was doing a number. So we went and ate-with little kids running around everywhere. And then we sat through a program-with kids running everywhere. And then we helped clean up with more kids running through dinner scraps that were left on the floor. It was really chaotic. And I can't help but think to myself, is chaos an effective conversion tool? Can you feel the spirit when you can't hear the person next to you to have a conversation? Hmmm....

The doctor will see you now

I have been reading Ramona Quimby age 8 to Molly. Night before last we just happened to be reading a chapter about Ramona throwing up in school. I was 3 paragraphs short of finishing the chapter when Heidi sat up and started to cry saying she needed to throw up. She had been complaining of a sore tummy. I asked her if she wanted to go to the bathroom, or if she wanted a towel, but she did not and eventually when to sleep. Now, my kids throw up enough that when they say they need to throw up, they know what they are talking about. When I went into the girls room yesterday morning I was greeted with a foul smell. Heidi had thrown up in the night and was now sleeping in vomit encrusted bedding. She must have sat up to throw up and then lay back down, because there was emesis all over the floor. I will now note that the last thing Heidi ate was blackberries, so the stain had a wonderful pink/red hue to it. I was supposed to take Molly and Zoe to the doctor for annual checkups yesterday, but I didn't know how sick Heidi was, and to be honest I couldn't wake her up, so I called and cancelled and sent the girls to school to explain to their teachers to disregard the e-mail I had sent regarding their now non- existant doctor appointments. The carpet cleaners came around 1pm and the stain came out. As a bonus the rest of my carpet looks a lot better.
So I rescheduled Molly and Zoe's Dr. appointments, and then had to reschedule Heidi's appointment for today because they switched preschool and then as I was shopping for a gift for the gift exchange at the office Christmas party Tanner managed to dead weight himself while I was holding his left had and he has a dislocated his elbow, so he is going to the doctor today as well, 30 min before Heidi's appt. Curiously enough it was less than 50 yards away from where we were when he did this the first time.
I am not a very good shopper. Perhaps that is the reason why the holidays cause a bit of panic in me. Can I give my kids a gift certificate that says "This is good for one co-pay to be used to resolve any health related drama in the coming year"?
It is time to load up to go to the doctor.

my two bits

Two things.
One, yesterday Bro. Butler from the bishopric came up to me and pulled something out of his pocket for me. It was a Chinese Yuan. Turns out one of my girls tried to use Chinese currency to pay their tithing. Interestingly, I had audited their contributions and removed other foreign currency, so this one must have slipped by me.
Two, this morning instead of sugar on my cream of wheat I put egg nog. It was fabulous. I love the holidays.

Zoe is 7!

Zoe is having a birthday Zoe will be turning seven on Tuesday. In honor of her special day we sat down at family counsel today to make a list of the things that make Zoe special. Here is the short list. Zoe is:

a reader

determined/tenatious

a singer

detail oriented

a great helper

doesn't snore

(this was Molly's comment, to which Zoe replied "when I had curly hair I snored")

a runner

a great student

good at sharing

Other fun facts about Zoe, when we measured her on the wall for her birthday we discovered that Zoe at seven is the same height Molly was at six. We of course used this as an opportunity to encourage Zoe to eat more healthy foods. We'll see how that works out.

As we missed making a list of things we love about Heidi for her birthday we made one for her today as well. Here it is.

She is the straw that stirs the drink-she makes the fun

she tries new things

she exaggerates

she is funny

she is a fighter and sticks up for herself

(she was proud to announce that she "bounced Molly down on the tramp" at Grandma's house)

she is kind

she is a good friend

Last, but not least, the kids made a list of things they love about mom. This was a little tough because they started to get silly and then had a hard time getting out of the tailspin. Here is the results of their efforts: Mom

is patient

puts up the Christmas tree

is a mom

makes cookies

takes us shopping

does laundry and keeps clothes clean

lets the kids help

is a good cook

helps with homework

has a testimony

sacrifices for our family

takes us to church

It is a really sweet list. I know they love me, if they would only show it by actually doing the things I ask them to do. I wish I had the motivating power that Santa does this time of year. I don't, but I am willing to take his name in vain to accomplish my purposes. It is one of the joys of being a parent.

Oh, I asked my kids to write letters to Santa today. Zoe said she didn't need to because Santa already knows what she wants. When they didi all sit down and put pencil to paper it was a regurgitation of the American Girl catalogue. Santa will just have to figure this one out on his own. It is a good thing Mrs. Clause is pretty sharp.;)

Where to begin?

The last week has been really packed-I went on a Caribbean cruise with work, had a birthday, and Thanksgiving today, so where is a girl to begin?
The cruise was so much fun. The only times I have gone on vacation without Reed is when I took Molly to the cabin when she was little. It has been a while. We went to Key West in Florida and Cozumel Mexico. I would love to share pictures, but once again my hard drive has become a limiting factor. I entered a karaoke competition on board and ended up taking 3rd place in the finals which made for some great entertainment. Reed has asked all kinds of questions about cruising. When he realized that one can eat 20 hours a day on board with no extra charge he was ready to sign up.
Speaking of eating, today has been the culinary bonanza that I anticipated. I suppose I could get uptight about the amount of preparation time that was spent, or how my kids didn't really eat anything, but I really enjoy the cooking and my kids didn't go hungry by any means. Because of the variety there was a little bit of something for everyone. Of course there is always so much to be grateful for, but this is the 1 year anniversary of my Dad's liver transplant and I am grateful to have him around, grateful for someone's sacrifice to make it possible and grateful for the knowledge that I have that the ties that bind us together are eternal.
Now, for my birthday. Kind of a bust. I am not one to have great expectations, partly due to the fact that my birthday is so near to Thanksgiving. I baked my own cake and Reed worked late. Reed had proposed getting takeout once the kids were in bed, but because it is a weeknight everything was closed by the time we got around to ordering takeout. Reed ran to Fry's and got some sushi, which was not very good, and we caught up on back episodes of the Office. Reed asked for a do over on my birthday, he also said we should celebrate my half birthday, as the timing of the real thing is crummy. As I sit here and think about it, I am a very low key, low maintenance person, and having my birthday around Thanksgiving really facilitates that, so we will probably just leave things the way they are. Besides, they don't sell peppermint ice cream and gingerbread cake in May. I ought to add that I did buy myself some things while on vacation and I was generous with myself knowing my birthday was approaching.

Greetings from Key West

I know everyone is busy planning Thanksgiving menus and shopping lists, but I am in Key West Florida and it is fabulous. I feel kind of naked without my husband and kids around, but I am working through those issues!

Turning 5

Tommorrow Heidi will be 5 years old. She is a lot bigger now, but exactly the same. Tough on the outside, marshmallowy soft on the inside. She is the straw that stirs the drink at our house, and we love her because:

She will try anything (a blessing at mealtime)

She loves to be in the middle of the action

She is fun

She loves holding onto her inner 2 year old

She loves babies

Slippery Treasure

My kids were out of school yesterday for Veterans day. It was a beautiful day, and while I had thought I would use it as a slave labor day, I couldn't resist the call of the sunshine and fresh air. I took the kids to the park where we had a picnic and they did a little bit of everything. They were playing in the sand and Molly decided she was going to bury "treasure." She buried a plastic star fish sand toy and marked the spot with an X. She then went and played with Tanner for a few minutes and when she came back she couldn't find the X and coundn't remember where it was exactly. We spent about 20 minutes digging around in the area where she thought it was with no luck. We did get very dirty. It will be a great find for someone one day I am sure.

more discoveries...

I found a big wet spot on the carpet between the girls room and the bathroom. Turns out Heidi had an accident on her way to the potty in the night. Mystery solved.

Morning of unexpected discoveries

This morning Heidi told me that she woke up in the night and realized she didn't have any underwear on. When I asked her how that happened she said "They probably just fell off" and that she "sneaked into Tanner's room and got a fresh pair".

I went to the store this morning to get the donuts for Molly's birthday breakfast. The early bird gets the worm-a full case of fresh donuts awaited for me to choose from at 5:15 am.

Running the floor buffer does not seem at all appealing. While I was doing my pre-requisite classes for dentistry, and killing myself studying, I used to see the guys buffing the floor in the engineering building and think, that looks like a great job. I haven't seen one for a long time, so when I saw one this morning it was nice to know in retrospect that I made the right decision. Athough running floor buffer races is intriging.

Advent of birthday season

Tomorrow is Molly's 9th birthday. I am not exactly sure where the time went or how she got so big. Tonight for family counsel we listed 9 things we love about Molly. Zoe and Heidi kind of fixated on the fact that it was her birthday tomorrow and there would be cake and ice cream for them to imbibe. Some of the parental contributions were:
obedient spirit
peacemaker
great smile
great singing voice
smart
great hair and increasing ability to style it herself
great with little kids-will be an awesome babysitter one day
helpful
true friend
It was nice to spend a few minutes telling Molly how wonderful she was because she really had been a great kid all day while her siblings had all suffered tantrums and meltdowns.

Other gems from the day:

Tanner, when Reed asked him what a color was "Oh, that's firetruck" (which is every color that is close to red)

Heidi on realizing the timeing of birthdays "I'm gonna have a 9 year old at my birthday".

Zoe threw a fireball of a tantrum, the likes of which Reed has never been around to witness before, including sitting on her bed and screaming about how unfair life is and chronicing all the injustices she can think off just to yell them out. The impetus for this tantrum was her assignment to tidy the TV room to earn an ice cream cone. Molly and Heidi had also been assigned chores and Zoe convinced herself that her task was greater than the others and therefore unfair. My strategy is usually "I am a mom and I broker in obedience, not fairness." I told her she didn't have to do it, she just wouldn't get ice cream. This of course didn't help. Reed talked her down from it. I was fully prepared to let herself scream herself to sleep. I impressed upon her how lucky she was and that she ought to be liberal with her gratitude for his help.

The thing is Zoe can be the best kid, but she falls apart if she is tired or hungry, which is a whole other story.

I love being a mom.

Inner Diva Exposed

Most mornings I am good and making sure my kids are staying on task with getting ready for school. This morning I was distracted by the neediness of my kids and lost track of Molly. The time came for her to leave (7:30 and she walks 1/2 block-this is crazy early) I ran to find out where she was. I found her in the bathroom in panic mode because she had not brushed her teeth or done her hair. When I asked what happened she started to cry saying "It's all my fault, I was singing in front of the mirror." It has made me smile all day.

Hooray for handy friends!

I mentioned my plumbing perils to some friends over pizza after our practice for the primary program on Friday. Devin Hunsaker called Reed while I had the girls at HSM3 (a fun Saturday diversion) and said he would come and take a look. He figured out the problem. Turns out we just needed a new wax seal on the toilet. When the tile was installed in the bathroom before we bought the house the toilet had been installed incorrectly, so it has been leaking for a really long time. The cost $7. This was a sharp difference from what I was anticipating. There is a lot of damage to sheet rock and potentially the lumber that has been soaked, but we are drying it and will see were we stand once it is dry. After Devin left Reed spent a fair amount of time reveling in Devin's handiness and his knowledge of all things construction related.

I had to give Tanner a bath tonight because he was stinky (two trips to the park today and lots of running around outside). Heidi got in to clean her feet and the face paint on her cheek . I don't mind the face paint. The disconcerting part is that she went over to the Dostals and had it done and I didn't realize she was gone until she shows up with a butterfly on her cheek. As she was getting in she told me "I'm not a real Gymnast", but what I heard was "I'm not a real Genius". I told her that maybe she could be a real genius when she grows up and she just looked and me really funny and then corrected me.

Ouch!

While pulling out Halloween decorations yesterday I noticed water on the floor under the workbench in the garage. A little investigation and I found something leaking copious amounts of water on and around our downstairs HVAC unit. I knew instantly that this was going to be expensive. The repair people were just here-they think there is a supply line leak and they can get to it by pulling out the HVAC unit (their other option is to cut random holes in my walls upstairs-fun). So fun to be a homeowner. And yes, it is going to be expensive.

Sleep deprivation

One of the things I like about blogging is the ability to make comments on every day little events and drama that happen in your life without feeling the need to write an epic. The last two weeks have been filled with vacation, work and recovery from both. Reed is experiencing the "quarter close" and some related deadlines (which is meaningless to anyone unless they have some corporate/finance background) in the wake of vacation and me working. The big side effect of all this fun is lack of sleep. Turns out when you are not sleeping you don't really notice the cleaver little things your kids say and do. Your exhaustion translates into lack of patience and then everything your kids say and do sounds like whining and you get a lot of drama (you probably get drama anyway). Of course as I am typing this Heidi has spilled milk and Tanner has dumped out a container of raisins and I got a decent nights sleep last night so all this stuff happens anyway. When you are tired you just don't write it down.

what your kids do while you are filling up...

We made it all the way from Albuquerque to Phoenix on one tank of gas (details of trip to come later.) This, of course meant that my first stop today was for gas. My kids found the camera in my purse, and because I now can, I am going to share with you what they were doing.

Firetrucks, and more poop

Today was the firetruck parade in Glendale, so we decided to shirk all other duties this Saturday, and go to the parade. We had beautiful weather-overcast in the mid 80's. Highlights include-parking by a candy factory and picking up some treats for the parade, sitting by a Mexican restraunt and getting more treats for the parade, watching Tanner reach for a group of golden retrievers to pet them while his sisters cowered in their chairs and the owners tried to pull the dogs away, lots of loud sirens that Tanner mimicked. While we are not overly patriotic people, I do believe in showing respect to the flag and standing up when the color guard passes. So we all stood up and covered our hearts and then started anticipating the beginning of the parade. The problem we had was that every group of military recruits, every VFW group, every boy scout troup had their own color guard. Do you stand up for every one? I was grateful for the one cub scout troop that only had their troop flag, so I didn't have to worry about it.

This afternoon we were busy making and cleaning up messes. While I worked on a costume for Zoe, Molly was working on something for Heidi. I should have been more aware of what was going on, I quickly became aware when Molly started crying because she had accidentally cut through Zoe's sheets. We put away the scissors, mended the hole and then headed to the back yard to clean up the mess that was left this morning. Molly had tried to clear the dishes, but had lost her grip and everything had tumbled to the ground. We had to do some sweeping and hosing to clean up the mess. Molly did not have a chance to squirt the hose (mostly because she was inside until she saw the project was getting fun). I devised another get wet project-Molly and Zoe could scrub off the outside table and then squirt it down. They very quickly began to fight over who got to clean off the crayon (the non crayon mess was essentially bird poop.) Zoe ended up storming off when Molly wouldn't concede her ground, and Molly ended up with the responsibility for the whole project. After hearing her fake sobs for a few minutes I went outside. She got more mad for me being there, so I finally gave her a talk. I assured her that life was full of poop. This got her attention. I told her I would love to guarantee that she would never have to deal with it, but for every fun task there are a lot more poopy ones. As I was talking I was wiping down bird poop. She started to cry again and got mad when I was behind her chair. She asked haughtily what I was doing. When I told her I was wiping the poop off the back of the chair so that she wouldn't get it in her hair when she slumped in the chair as part of her tantrum she immediatly stopped crying. While I had been speaking to her metaphorically, I don't think she realized until that moment there was real poop in the story. That ended the rant. The table got cleaned off, the girls played in the hose and pool and all was well until our next crisis (Trip to Gilbert to help a patient who banged a tooth-other docs are in priesthood session and not available.)

Side note: Reed and I went out for dinner last night. Tanner threw up for the sitter.

Oh Poop!

I love it when my kids want to help. Tanner wanted to help this morning while I was eating my breakfast (whole wheat toast with homemade apple butter-I was really enjoying it, until...) Heidi came up to me and announced that Tanner was swirling the toilet brush in the toilet and there was poop in it. Arghh. Apparently one of my kids did not thouroughly flush (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt), and Tanner wanted to help clean up the mess. What a mess it was. It could have been worse. I banned him to the stairs for a time out while I cleaned up and sprayed everything down and then wiped it again (spray wipe spray for those of you with an infection control background). I then went and talked with Tanner about the toilet not being a toy and how we don't play with poop. But he is two so did it sink in?
So we went on a walk to the park and Heidi was being careful not to run over dog poop on her bike. She pointed out one particularly impressive chunk to Tanner as a precaution. He was lagging behind and when I turned around shortly after to encourage him to keep up he was holding the previously mentioned dried piece of poop and examining it.
Ick.

bubble bath

Tanner has not been feeling well today. He was up around 3am and never really went back to sleep. This of course is a lot of fun for mom. We got everyone off to school and he went down for a nap around 10am. I am unaccustomed to such quiet in the middle of the day. I was able to finish Tanner's Halloween costume. I had to wake Tanner up to pick up Heidi from preschool, and then when we got there Heidi ended up going home with someone else for a play date. When we got home I offered to give Tanner a bath to help him feel better. His response "Can I have princess bubble bath?" Do they make superman bubble bath?

Zoe's Poem

I found this with Zoe's papers and thought I ought to share it

all I am

I am a lirner

I am a first grader

I am a friend

I am a nabor

Camp-out, Ball game-in


This past weekend we participated in our second camping adventure ever, our second ward campout. I don't know that there is much to report other than no one slept very well because we are used to sleeping with the thermostat at 79 and no covers and the temperature dropped to 48 and my kids had a hard time staying covered up. Of course flat air matresses and trips to the potty did not help. Tanner crawled in bed with Reed and I. Shortly after that I took Zoe and Heidi to the bathroom (3am). I figured since Tanner had the warmest sleeping bag I was going to take his spot. Heidi couldn't get warm and ended up in the sleeping bag with me. Around 4am I hear Reed say "Heather, if you can hear me come and get back in bed with me." Fortunately for him I was just laying there unable to sleep. In the morning as we were striking camp one of the other Mom's joked with me about how effort it is to get one crappy nights sleep. I shared with her the sage advice from Karine (Reed's sister), FUN IS WORK. Despite the poor nights sleep we all had a good time. Tanner experienced a new level of freedom being able to run and play with very few boundaries and lots of dirt and water (from a spigot, so not to worry). We arrived home just in time to shuttle Zoe off to a birthday party. She was happy as a clam, everyone had a meltdown. Zoe fell apart after the party. As final punishment to ourselves we took all the kids to a baptism on Sat. night.

Sunday was the final home stand in Yankee Stadium. In honor of the event we had hot dogs and brats for dinner. Reed had chilled some IBC root beer and munched cracker jack as he bemoaned the greed that has led to this end. He tried to eat away his misery. That didn't work out so well. He admitted that his love for all things Yankees is really rooted in his love of the stadium, not the team. Ironically the last game was played against the Orioles, the team Reed loved until he lived in NY.

Final thougths: When kids are really tired they make really poor choices. Heidi and Tanner have been really tired the past two days. I hope they sleep well tonight.

Accidental Baker

This morning I decided to be a Martha and I baked muffins for my kids for breakfast. They awoke to the smell of sugary goodness wafting from the oven and were highly motivated to get up, clean up and get dressed up-just in time to hear the buzzer ring. I pulled the crumble top confections (from a box, of course) from the oven and Zoe immediately picks off that they are not blueberry. She will be having cold cereal with no milk, which is what she usually has when she is completely unwilling to try something new. It is as I am carefully removing the muffins from the tin that I realize I have left a watermelon from last nights grocery shopping on top of the stove where the oven vents and it is HOT, discolored and has a very funny squishiness to it. I decide to cut it up and get it in the fridge quickly to salvage it. As I am cutting I have a piece of the piping hot flesh and am taken back when I realize it tastes like squash. I quickly googled baked watermelon to see if this is a culinary dish that people make on purpose, but really only find reviews for a book/movie named baked watermelon that does not look like it has anything to do with food. Apparently some Asians put the rind in their stir fry. Anyway, the thought occured to me that perhaps this would make a great new recipe-perhaps a watermelon bisque? or not.

"I read it for the articles"

So this is the deal. My computer is so low on memory I can't download the 150 pictures that are on my camera. So, no matter how crafty my writing is, what you really want to see is the pictures, and for now there are none. I just had to put that out there so you know.

In other news, the financial world is crumbling around us and I am very grateful that I am not planning on retiring any time soon. I am grateful my husband has a good understanding of money which I do not come by genetically. I am grateful we are all healthy and that my kids have been unsuccessful at breaking themselves or the furniture as they jump around on it like monkeys. I am grateful they are all asleep right now so I can enjoy some quiet. I worked today and at lunch time when I went to my parents house Holly and her posse and my mom were all asleep. While it is always nice to visit, it was also nice to pull out a book (the Namesake) and enjoy one hour of uninterrupted quiet time without worrying about what is not getting done on my "to do" list.

Bye Bye Ba

Tanner is addicted to his bottle. He is two years old and talks in full sentences and still has a bottle, or did have a bottle. I had decided I would not replenish the supply, and once they were gone we were done. Yesterday Tanner did not have a nap before church. I filled his bottle with milk (the last one) and took it to church. He drank it all and put it back in the bag. Later in the meeting he decided he wanted to play with it. When it was time to pack up for primary the bottle was gone. There were a lot of tears last night when he wanted his bottle and there was none to give.

I guess that means we are out of the baby stage. I will feel more joy when we are done with diapers.

The last mess

Tanner wouldn't fall asleep tonight. I had Molly lay by him while I got the other girls in bed. While I was getting Molly in bed (not even a minute) Tanner stole in to the bathroom and smeared toothpaste all over his hands. Now I wish that was the only mess I had to clean up.

Trip to Grandma's house

Last night we did a trip to Grandma's house. We had only been there for a little bit before Tanner asked "where is the other grandma?" I think he was talking about Grandpa, who was still on his way home from work. The kids had a great time. I did what I always do, which is clean up after my kids. My mom pulled out some chocolate covered peanuts to snack on while they watched a movie. Tanner kept getting one, taking a little bite and saying "don't like it" and then feeding it to me. It was a fun game for him, but I started to get a little tired of chocolate covered peanuts so I had Zoe take them to the kitchen and put them where he couldn't see them. My mom had surgery on Wed. to replace the joint in her big toe. I know the first time I heard it I laughed too "they can actually do that?". She is recovering well. She had made dinner and we went and ate. As we were eating I realized that of all times this is when I should have brought dinner. My mom had been able to scoot around all day on a chair with wheels to do some cooking. She had not been able to do any dishes, so I was able to earn my dinner with dishpan hands. I was halfway home with a car full of sleeping kids when I realized that I had left my purse. I turned around to retrieve it, arghh. When I got there my Dad had been following the landfall of hurricane Ike and the tales of those who refused to evacuate. He drew an analogy with those who do not heed the warnings in the last days. I listened to talk radio and tried to find some coverage of what was going on-and realized there is a lot of goofy talk radio out there late at night. It is 8:30 and my kids are still asleep. They never sleep past 6:30, this is a little weird.

Enrichment

So, yesterday morning Reed left for a weekend in NYC with his beloved Yankees, two sisters and two nephews. I was determined to go to enrichment meeting, so I packed up the kids and took advantage of the provided nursery. I dropped Tanner off. He screamed. He calmed down some so I figured it was OK. As soon as I sat down another sister came in and informed me that Tanner had thrown up, but that it was not on anyone's clothes and the situation was under control. Actually the situation is not under control. The fact that everyone knows to hold him over a garbage can until he throws up when he is throwing a tantrum is not what I would deem to be under control. We left before the treats were brought out (and foolish me had promised my kids treats) so I had to pull out the ice cream when we got home. It was ok because the kids get their pajamas on really fast when ice cream is on the line. I also had to feed Tanner anyway because he had just recently emptied his stomach (he had a bowl of ramen noodes, ate half and scattered the other half on the floor just in case you were wondering.)

In the beginning...

Gentlemen start your engines!
This is a little how I felt when I was given the go ahead to "begin blogging". I have resisted this for some time, and, well here I am. I have felt sheepish not having a blog as I love looking on other people's blogs, playing the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon with their friend lists and generally playing internet voyeur. Well, here is my life, on line and in writting. Eat that between two slices of bread (a favorite saying of my grandpa Mix, which I actually did for lunch with a chunk of meatloaf and perhaps the ill effects of that culinary decision are leading me here, to this the beginning blog post.)