Life in the Sutherland

random observations

2011-12-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

Last weekend (my birthday) Tanner wanted to go mini-golfing. After doing some other things we finally acquiesced and drove to Golfland. It was crazy busy there with everyone and their red-headed uncle from out of town wanting to hit the greens. We decided we would not have an optimal experience and decided to give Tanner a rain check. His reaction "You are ruining my day". Heidi earlier in the day had expressed some frustration with the plans (we went to a baptism). When Reed asked if we should respect the fact that it was my birthday the answer was a definitive, "That doesn't matter." I think as a mom having your birthday on a Saturday is bogus, because you still have to be a mom and keep everyone happy, and invariably that means sacrificing your own happiness on the very day you don't want to do that. On a positive note, my parents went above and beyond this year. My mom brought over a huge apple blueberry crumb cake which we ate off of for three days. They sent a bouquet of 41 balloons and gave me a gift card to Target. At the end of the day I went alone with my gift card and bought myself something to wear (I picked up some Christmas presents too).

Last night was our ward Christmas party. All was well. I was watching the parents of little kids trying to keep them corraled and thought-this is getting so much easier. That was bad ju-ju. During the eating of desserts Tanner ate half of a peanut butter cookie that send him into fits of alternately spitting and gagging which ultimately led to him throwing up. Oh what fun.

Today Heidi was reaching into a cupboard to retrieve the syrup and knocked over a bottle of vinegar which fell to the floor and crashed into a million pieces as it made contact with the tile floor. It was balsamic vinegar which was brown and smelly and sticky and oh so fun to clean up. This was after choir practice. Shortly before choir practice Zoe had a meltdown (tired on a fast sunday=recipe for disaster) claiming that I was ruining her life and she would rather be an orphan living on the streets that have to deal with all of us on a daily basis. Very few things push my puttons like a complete lack of gratitude. I should have let it go and had a mutual cool down (time out anyone?) but I didn't and I kept pushing her and she kept yelling and I went to choir practice and felt the whole time reproved by the spirit for the course of action I had taken. Parenting is extra hard because I am human.

Last thought. We made it through the birthday season. Christmas is coming and I am longing for a simpler time, or at least a personal shopper. Or a maid. Or both. I haven't recovered yet from Thanksgiving, but maybe next week?

good intentions

2011-09-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight Reed intended on taking the kids to see the Diamondbacks using tickets the kids earned from reading over the summer from the library. They left early with the hope of getting a bobble head doll. I headed to the General RS broadcast. When I got home they were here watching a movie. Turns out that since the Diamondbacks are doing well this season (they clinched the pennant on Friday night) their fan base has expanded. Reed and the kids hiked from neverland to avoid paying the parking lot pirates (the place we usually park is $5, tonight it was $20). When they got to the ticket window they were informed that the tickets associated with the library were all sold out. Reed could have bought tickets for he kids, but that defeats the purpose of the free game. The kids were dejected. Zoe became very bitter at the scalpers who she was convinced had usurped her ability to go to a game because they had bought blocks of tickets where she was supposed to be. Molly was good and acknowledged that just being together was the most important thing. They got back to the car, loaded up and came home via little ceasars and Redbox. Sometimes life doesn't turn out the way you planned. Good times.

first week of kindergarten

2011-08-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Tanner's preschool teacher Miss Teddie sent an e-mail asking how the first week of kindergarten was going. This was my response. I thought it was worth remembering.

You are so sweet to inquire about how Tanner is doing. He likes it and is having a lot of fun and he is completely exhausted at the end of the day- he can barely keep his eyes open during dinner. I don't have a lot of feedback on preparedness-other than I should have had him stay for more lunch bunch because most of our problems this week have been with lunchboxes-putting half drunk pouchdrinks, half eaten go-gurt, and containers without lids back in the lunch box. His lunch box was so soggy the first day it came home in a plastic bag. I have had to wash the whole thing down and hang it
out to dry twice this week. Fortunately it dries really fast outside right
now.

What my kids thought was funny

2011-07-23T07:12:00.001-07:00

Last night my kids wanted me to tell stories about me when I was a little girl. I don't know if it was because the stories are actually funny or if it is because they were all tired, but they were all in stitches.

First story:

My cousin Cristin and I used to pretend that we were great bakers and would mix together concoctions with flour, water, sugar and whatever else we could find in the kitchen. We would put them in the pans from my easy bake oven and then put them in the sun to bake. One time we decided that we would put them on the back of the toilet to bake. We chose the downstairs bathroom (we lived in split level and the downstairs consisted of a bathroom, washer and dryer and the garage). The pans were later discovered by my dad who who of course brought the pans back upstairs wanting to know who was responsible for the mess. I think this was our last outing into the baking world.

Second Story:

One time while I was sleeping over at Cristin's house we decided that because the dirt behind her house was red, it was probably the same kind of dirt that they made pottery out of and that we should try and make pottery. There was a lot of disappointment when we realized that all we could make was red mud pies. Our disappointment was short lived because Cristin had just received a transistor radio (I think for her birthday) and we felt so hip staying up late listening to the radio (I had to do a lot of explaining to my kids about the days before ipods-in fact I even said this was before the walkman, but I drew blank stares with that reference as well). Transistor radios were not great, especially if you had a bedroom in the basement (another split level, it was the 70's). We held the radio up to the window to get better reception and I am sure we fell asleep with tired arms.

Third story-a request for a story about donuts:

My mom (grandma Chris) would go shopping in Idaho Falls (my kids were excited to confirm that they know Grandma Chris loves to shop) and one of her usual haunts was the Hostess bakery outlet. She would stock the freezer in the garage with bread and buns and donuts. When friends would come over to play we would sneak into the garage and have a frozen donut. We would eat them frozen because 1-we didn't want to get caught and 2-there was not microwaves to quickly defrost a donut (there were, just not at our house).

This led to the fourth story-the hot dogger

One of our favorite appliances as kids was the Presto Hot Dogger. It consisted of metal spikes that you would place hot dogs on (up to six) and then you would plug it in and the dogs would get electrocuted until they were warmed up. I remember eating a lot of hot dogs because we could do it ourselves. We would sit on the kitchen floor, plug it in and wait for the lid to get steamy-that was the sign that they were hot.

Fifth story-advent of the microwave in our home:

We moved into a new house and it had a microwave. My kids didn't know this, but there is a learning curve to using a microwave that we all had to go through. One day I decided that I wanted to make toast in the microwave. I watched the microwave and it did not get toasty. I put it in for longer. I must have walked away and when I came back there was smoke pouring out of the microwave. I had cooked that piece of bread for 5 minutes and it was black and smoking and it set of the fire alarm. I took it to the back yard where it made the back yard stinky. I don't remember throwing it away. Our backyard was dirt at the time, I probably just left it outside for the critters or my mom to clean up.

My other microwave mishap happened when I tried to boil an egg in the microwave. I didn't know this was a bad idea. I think I put the egg in a cup of water and then put it in the microwave. After a time I pulled it out and went to run the egg under cold water so it would be easier to peel (I did know some things). I am standing at the sink and all of the sudden my egg explodes and showers the ceiling above (vaulted ceiling with exposed tongue and groove wood) me with egg shrapnel. Egg shrapnel that stained the ceiling of a new house. That was an ever present reminder that eggs were not to be cooked in the microwave.

Last story-request for a story about flowers:

Every year we had to plant annuals around our yard. We had a big yard. I don't remember it being a huge production (perhaps the college girls my mom hired did the job), but one year my mom bought petunias, a lot of petunias. I don't know how she got them all home, they covered the entire floor of the third garage bay in our garage. We were all dreading planting all those petunias. At the time we had a dog and at some point between purchase and planting the dog got into the garage and peed on those petunias. The ones that had been peed on died-probably about 1/3. As we were planting the remainder we would remove the dead ones. For some reason we decided to call them "warm". Don't plant this one, it is "warm". The presence of "warm" petunias made planting the ones that had survived that much more entertaining.

the morning after

2011-07-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

Last night, after I got the kids in bed, I stayed up late to finish reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". It was delightful. I did not sweep the kitchen, I did not do the dishes. They were all waiting for me this morning. It is time to kick my kids off the Wii and give them their list for the day-it will include kitchen clean up. :)

evening swim

2011-07-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

After enduring a day indoors and eating a somewhat civil meal my kids all jumped in the swimming pool. 7pm. The sun was beginning to set. I read a book on the patio while my kids doused themselves in chlorinated water for the next two hours. They asked me if it was time to get out. Finally I said it was "time" which signaled them to all break down because they were all so tired they could barely function. This is what I remember about summer as a kid. Staying up way later than bedtime, lapping up every ounce of life the day had to offer before dropping exhausted into bed. I hope they remember this time. It doesn't get much better.

Where are we?

2011-07-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

So we are in the car in our hometown of Phoenix, driving by all our usual haunts when Tanner asks, "are you sure we are not in China?"

When we were in Las Vegas driving by the Luxor and he asked "Are we in Egypt?" I could understand where he was coming from.

Traces of China in Phoenix? not so much (we were not close to any Chinese buffet).

Zoe's Haiku

2011-07-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

Alien rocket balloon

zooms through the sidewalks

knocking people down

Zoe didn't realize she had written a haiku, she was just writing a description of a picture she had drawn. She has an extensive collection of pictures she has drawn of aliens and monsters.

plumbing

2011-01-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

I cleaned out bathroom drains on Friday. Three of them. It was really gross. The smell reminded me of the perms I used to get in the 70's. We had to do them outside because the smell was so strong. Who knew that the combination of water, hair, soap and spit could create such nastiness. As gross as it is it is nice to be able to turn on the water and have it flow through the system without getting backed up.

This of course made me think on my sweet Zoe who has been struggling with painful constipation for the past two weeks. She has missed a lot of school, shed a lot of tears, spent a lot of time on the couch-and on the piano since I wouldn't let her watch TV while she was out of school. We weren't sure what it was, but an x-ray (and to be quite honest her smell) after 10 days confirmed that she had non-obstructive impacted bowels. Good Times. Zoe has been on some heavy duty laxatives for the past 5 days-which create their own form of abdominal pain. She gets to take them for the next month to get everything flowing normally through the system.

Problems like plumbing make you realize how grateful you are that everything works and even more grateful that you have the tools to fix it when things don't work. It also reminds you how much maintenance is required to keep everything in our lives working smoothly.

Like that ever happens...

The third shift

2010-09-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

My kids have been back in school for a month. I don't have enough space on my h-drive (that is what my kids call it) to download the photos on my camera. Not that I would have taken the time to wax poetic about them anyway. As I was leaving my daughters class after volunteering this week her teacher asked me what I did with all my free time since all my kids are in school. I just chuckled and said "what free time?" I recently read, and re-read the text of a talk by Julie Beck (General President of the Relief Society) from Women's Conference. She talks about the role of mothers in the home and how they can spiritually lead their families. She said a lot of great things in her address, but I keep thinking about her comment regarding shift work "I have learned that a good woman with the help of the Lord can usually work two to two and a half shifts. However, no one can work all three shifts." So here I am in the middle of the third shift and wondering who I can pawn off the rest of my shift to so I can just go to bed. Perhaps I will leave the dishes for my first shift tomorrow morning.

Tooth Fairy

2010-06-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Today we drove from SLC to Phoenix.
No fun.
We stopped in Beaver for breakfast at McD's and they had a Red Box (LOVE Red Box).
Reed rented the Tooth Fairy.
The tooth fairy is coming to our house tonight.
Heidi pulled out a loose tooth during the show.
Zoe pulled out a loose tooth after we got home.
Molly has a loose tooth, but it is not quite ready yet.
Can I just say that when it comes to pulling out loose teeth, my kids are super tough.
But not as tough as the tooth fairy in that movie.

Freedom isn't free

2010-05-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

In preparation for Memorial day there has been some thoughts around our house as to what our freedoms mean. Zoe asked me on Saturday "If we live in a free country how come nothing is free?"
Profound.
I explained that people are free to charge whatever they would like for something and we have the freedom to choose to buy it or not. Never miss an opportunity to plant the seeds of capitalism.
We live in a great country that has been defended from its inception by great people. I am grateful to be free, and realize that we appreciate more those things for which we have had to pay a high price.

daddy sees dead people

2010-05-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you say something and your kids hear not what you said but a similar word that they think you said.
Hear my tale...
Tonight Reed went to Seminary graduation. He came in, changed, grabbed food and was out the door and I tried to explain to the kids where he was going.
Tanner still did not understand and had his sisters try and tell him that dad was going to cemetery graduation.
As the kids were getting ready for bed Tanner exclaimed that Dad was the lucky one because he got to go and see all the dead people. This immediately piqued my interest because I wondered if he was remembering a recent funeral or if someone had shown him the Sixth Sense. Heidi immediately understood and explained that daddy was at that cemetery thing.
Mystery solved. I am glad that with all the crazy things I have to deal with the paranormal is not one of them.

Easter Requiem

2010-04-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

Awake my soul!
No longer droop in sin.
Sing all praise to him
whom the battle with death did win.

We sinners all together
have reason to rejoice;
He broke the bond of death for us
with angels raise your voice.

Gather on your journey
those who are heavy laden.
Share the joy of Him who lifts
for you are his handmaiden.

Mother, wife, sister, friend,
daughter, child of God.
He will welcome all who enter in,
the pathway he has trod.

As this Easter day closes I want to add my testimony to those I have heard this day, that Jesus Christ lives, he loves us, and he wants us to be happy.

Lion Day

2010-03-10T21:23:00.000-08:00

Because it is March Tanner has been learning about lions and lambs in preschool. Yesterday we had cold, rainy weather. After we arrived safely home from preschool and closed the weather behind us he announced to me "Mom, Today is a lion day." And it was. (As a closer for the lion day we trimmed Tanner's mane, he did a lot of growling over the ordeal.)

Crazy Saturday, Quiet Sunday

2010-02-16T21:57:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday we had the following things on our agenda:
-swimming lessons
-2 birthday parties
-wedding (performed by Reed)
-wedding reception (with preparations)
-baptism
-trip to the i-store for Molly
Amazingly, with the help of friends, it all happened.

On Sunday I received a call from Reed at 3:30 "I don't have any more appointments, apparently people treat Valentine's Day as a real holiday, I'll be home in a few minutes."
Yes, you can infer by that statement that we don't take Valentine's day too seriously here. We were able to use the extra time on Sunday evening to go for a walk as a family, to breath some fresh air and enjoy the sunset in the desert. A reminder that Heavenly Father shows us his love every day, not just on February 14th.

sweet rewards

2010-01-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

Zoe made this for her dad.

Welcome 2010 (a little late)

2010-01-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

So the new year is here (cute good luck talisman-a gift from a friend with a crafty sister.)

To welcome her in we:

We stayed up late and watched this video.

We went to the Fiesta Bowl Parade. Every year Reed says "We won't do that again for a long time."

We destroyed our gingerbread house.

We hiked telegraph pass on South Mountain.

We went to bed really tired.

The Last of Christmas

2010-01-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

I have two boxes of Christmas things to put away.

One is my box for things that I have found since I put everything else away.

The other is the Christmas tree. It is a really big box. I have to clear a path through the garage to put it back in its resting spot until next year.

And I couldn't find packing tape. I broke down and bought another roll.

As I bid adieu to the last of the season there are things that I have not yet recorded, like Christmas.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words I am going to let them do the talking...

Enjoy the show!

What goes up, must come down...

2010-01-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

I did some thinking this year about why we destroy gingerbread houses. The memories were not difficult to conjure up. When we lived in Louisville we lived in a rough neighborhood.
We hid in our apartment with the lights out on Halloween.
We would watch neighbors chase each other with roman candles on Independence Day.
Old TV's appeared regularly in the lot across from our apartment.
One day we tried to break an old TV with baseballs.
The TV laughed and threw the baseballs back.
We threw big rocks and took it out Office Space style.
Once the adrenaline is pumping the mind naturally turns to what to destroy next.
The gingerbread house.
A home baked beauty, with candy windows. It did not go down easy. It was fun. A tradition was born.
For 2010
The weapons: Horseshoes, golf clubs, metal pipe.
Location: the Rez side of Pecos park
Mission: destruction
Audience: Phoenix' finest (they just did a drive by)

Gingerbread House #14

2010-01-04T22:47:00.001-08:00

Many design entries were submitted for this years gingerbread house extravaganza. Due to lack of time, none of them were accepted and the resident architect wanna-be came up with this. The girls were not sure about it until they realized it looked like Rapunzel's tower. I was not sure about it because it just looked really top heavy. I am sure if this was constructed of anything edible it would have failed, but cardboard and hot clue are powerful building materials and they stood strong under the weight of their sweet load.

Let the decorations begin. It took 18 egg whites and 6 pounds of powdered sugar to attach all the candy. Tanner consumed as much candy as he applied.

My role in the gingerbread house has evolved over the years. In the beginning I was in control of design and decoration. Now that my kids can wield their own decorating bags I play a support role-make frosting and sweep. The more the kids are in control of the decorating the more sweeping and frosting making is required. This is my favorite part of the holidays, can't wait to do it again next year.

Christmas Haiku

2010-01-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

Egg Nog in my cup
Family all around me
Happy Holidays

(non-alcoholic of course)

Christmas Magic

2010-01-04T22:07:00.000-08:00

I have not posted anything about our holidays. I will. They were great.
The lights and decorations seemed so magical when I put them up.
Last night they just seemed like clutter so...
today I took them all down.
Once they were gone I looked around my house.
What a mess.
I haven't cleaned a bathroom for two weeks, and I have a three year old boy.
My kitchen floor looked like a culinary archive of everything we have eaten the past two weeks (I just spent 45 min scrubbing it.)
Funny, I didn't notice the filth while the decorations were up.
Maybe they are magic.

Happiness anyone?

2009-12-20T22:16:00.000-08:00

This was the year all my girls were to have birthday parties. I sat down with Reed after Halloween and talked about logistics. We didn't know how we were going to pull off three parties with our crazy schedules (party planning is not one of my talents.) About this time Southwest had an airfare special with $25 one way tickets into LA. Reed presented to the girls the option of skipping the parties for a trip to Disneyland on an airplane. They were all excited. The tickets were booked, two days later they tried to lobby for parties. They were quickly shut down. So this past week we took the first flight out on Monday morning and got to Disneyland around 9:30am. We stayed for the parade that night and got to our hotel at 6:45 (7:45 Phoenix time) just in time for the complimentary dinner. Our kids were very tired and would probably have gone right to bed except when we got to our room it was 62 degrees and the kids were cold and complaining they were still hungry. I got them in PJ's and turned up the heater while Reed got Little Ceasars.
We were at the park when it opened on Tuesday morning and stayed to watch them turn the lights on Its a Small World, had one last turn on the teacups and dashed. We ran to the exit which was not an easy task because by now the parade was going. Good times. Tanner was so tired in the car he was begging to go to bed. We put his pajamas on in the airport and he fell asleep in the stroller. He remained asleep as he was transfered on and off the plane, on and off the shuttle to the parking lot, woke up enough to acknowledge that the car was cold when I put him in his carseat and stayed asleep until Reed woke him up for preschool at 8:30 Wednesday morning. Zoe and Heidi were late to school. Molly was so tired she was sick to her stomach and didn't make it to school because she went back to bed.
having said that, this trip was actually more laid back than our last trip to the magic kingdom because we didn't feel like we had to do it all. We had just been there 6 weeks before and were able to take time to enjoy the decorations and the people watching. The lines were delightfully short. We were able to talk Molly into being in charge while Reed and I went on Matterhorn together, we haven't done that in a long time. Some of our favorites from this trip: the girls loved Mulholland Madness. We had skipped it on our last trip and I think they went on it 10 times. Tanner was brave enough to ride on a horse on the carousel, big step for him. The kids were all brave enough to have pictures taken with characters, and the lines to get pictures taken were not so long that they were forboding. Reed and Molly had an hour alone on Tuesday morning to do "big rides" (Indiana Jones and Pirates) while I waited in line with the younger crowd for Peter Pan and Storybook Land. The longest line was for the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure. Zoe really wanted to go so Reed waited with her and Tanner. Tanner loved it an that is all he talks about. Zoe braved the Haunted Mansion. Flick's Flyers got the better of me. I had to put my head down and I was really glad I hadn't eaten lunch yet.
What a great time. It was nice to have a little break from reality at the happiest place on earth.

Change is Good

2009-12-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

This is my wonderful husband with his dad. We took this picture after Reed was made the bishop of our ward on Dec. 6th. For any of you keeping tabs that makes for a whirlwind weekend for us at the end of a very long week. I could try and explain what a Mormon bishop is, but someone else already has so if you are curious... Reed was very humbled by the assignment and has been incredibly busy with duties related to this new calling. He was really busy before. We have joked that you never experience any personal growth when you are coasting down hill. We now have a sizable hill to keep us spiritually in shape. I think Reed is getting more of a workout. I am grateful to be married to a good man who loves me and loves Jesus Christ. One of my Grandpa Mix's favorite scriptures was from Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." This change has made our life a little more hectic, but I know that we are blessed when we serve others, and have faith that this change will be good.

Zoe's Birthday and Baptism

2009-12-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Zoe turned 8 on Wed. Dec. 2nd. It was a half day at school. This means for her birthday date she got to go out with her dad in the afternoon. Her date of choice was a trip to Fiddlesticks followed by a little shopping at Old Navy. Because I had been working all day she got to choose a cake from the store. As you can see she chose cupcakes. I think the kids are so enamored by the brightly colored stack of frosting that they are impervious to the fact that it all tastes yucky. Tanner swiped the frosting off of his and then barely touched the cupcake. We of course lit the candles many times because that is what the kids all want to do is play with fire.
Here is Zoe with her stash of gifts. She is wearing the pajamas she bought on her date with Reed.

On Dec.5 Zoe got baptized. Zoe is a good girl with a very obedient heart and she was so excited to follow Jesus example and be baptized. She had grandma's and grandpa's and so many cousins there to share in the days events. They all came over to our house after for dinner. What a great day for Zoe!

Soul Train

2009-12-11T22:40:00.000-08:00

The second half of our Thanksgiving break was dedicated to a trip to Williams to ride the Polar Express. Grandma Chris arranged the whole trip including t-shirts and mugs. It was a fun way to spend time together as a family.

Here are the cousins anxiously receiving their bells from Santa.

Here is Tanner, not so sure he wants a bell from Santa.

Cousins just having fun riding the rails together.

Giving Thanks

2009-12-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

This is the crowd that was at Dave and Jenn's for Thanksgiving Dinner. I used the new panorama making software that came with my camera, so it may look a little crazy, but we got everyone in (and some people twice.) Noticeably absent are Reed and Tanner. They missed the days festivities because Tanner had a raging fever that had started the night before. For Reed it brought back memories of all the times his mom missed Thanksgiving for that very reason. Everyone did a bang up job preparing food and we all committed the sin of gluttony. Good times.

Heidi is Six

2009-12-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

Heidi had the good fortune of having Grandma Karen in town for her birthday. This is what Grandma Karen got for Heidi. Heidi was very happy. FYI, the finished product does not look or taste very good, but she loves this toy.

This is Heidi's cake. Heidi is not so particular about cakes, she just likes to decorate them herself. She made flowers with M&M's and spelled her name out in gummi worms. 100% Heidi.
We have not yet made the list of what we love about Heidi, so we will make that it's own post.

Ode to Molly

2009-12-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

Molly turned 10 years old
On November tenth
Seems like only yesterday
she came, from heaven sent.

I held up her clothes and thought
surely she'll never be this big.
Now she is trying to wear my clothes-
I am not ready for this.

Molly is a peacemaker,
is always kind to others,
she is smart and obedient,
I am glad that I'm her mother.

Molly planned this cake. I am not sure it turned out just as she wanted, but she was happy with it. We made a chocolate layer and a vanilla layer. She wanted vanilla icing in the middle, but I happened to have marshmallow fluff on hand, so we used it instead and then covered it in a chocolate frosting and sprinkles. Because life is crazy around here we did not eat this cake until two days after I made it, so the fluff had all oozed out. It looked really cool, and tasted pretty good too.

some things we love about Molly

(dad was gone, but Grandma Chris and Grandpa Jeff were here for FHE)
Heidi: She sits next to me at dinner. Our eye color is the same
Grandma Chris: She is tall, she is the oldest
Zoe: She is a nice sister to play with, she cares for us.
Grandpa Jeff: Great example of a big sister, born in Louisville during the fall meet at Churchill downs so we could see the horses race when we visited.
Tanner: Because she is so excited for Disneyland, she is not afraid of tall things.
Molly: I love me.

Two Fer

2009-11-02T22:35:00.001-08:00

Zoe had an accident today at school. She tripped on something in the classroom, fell and hit a table on the way down and managed to put her lower teeth through her lip and knock out her two front teeth. Gratefully they were baby teeth that were already loose. The lacerations on her lower lip are small. The fat lip combined with the hole in the front is making it hard for her to talk, but other than that she is doing well. Curiously enough Molly also knocked out her two front teeth in an accident as well, but not with as much collateral damage. When I picked Heidi up from school I told her what happened to Zoe. Her response "That is a really bad day." Of course by the time we were home she was already trying to devise ways to tease Zoe for her missing teeth.

What were you for Halloween?

2009-11-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

My candy hoarding monsters, dressed up as a firefighter, a cowgirl, a pink pirate and a hippie. Molly went trick or treating with her friend Breelyn, and was able to cover more area. She has a big haul. The younger kids went with the Hunsakers and had a good time. It was my turn this year to hand out candy. I usually try to dress up, but I had dressed up on Thursday night for a party in a dress from high school and to be honest I had two hot dogs for dinner and was fairly confident I wouldn't be able to breathe if I put it on.

The happiest place on earth

2009-11-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

We waffled. We vacillated. We decided and then we stayed up way too late putting together a plan. We went to Disneyland for fall break. I am sure if you were an outsider observing the process it took to get us there you would laugh out loud. In the end we had a really great time.

We left on Wednesday afternoon and went to the Disney compound on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We ran our kids from one attraction to the next letting them stop for an occasional dip into the snacks we packed from the “outside” to save us the pain of watching our kids not eat a meal we overpaid for. Disneyland takes a strategy. We refined ours each day. When we go back we will know better. Of course we will go back because we bought the annual pass, so now we have to get our money’s worth.

When we arrived back home and were completely exhausted we wondered if we had run the kids too hard and too fast for too long. We will take that into consideration for our next trip. For now no one is whining about the prospect of going back.

Here is the photo evidence of what we did:

My kids favorite ride: the tram from the parking garage to the park. Who knew?

Our first ride, Dumbo.

The tea cups. Anyone feeling sick yet?

Another ride that goes around in circles. This one always has a painfully long line and I can never really figure out the draw for this one.

We spent a fair amount of time on King Tritons carousel as we waited for big kids to cycle through the California Screamin' line. Heidi was devastated she was not big enough to go on California Screamin'. Tanner is too scared to ride on carousel characters and always insists on sitting on the "bench."

Turn the pipes on when you get there

2009-10-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

Last week Reed's uncle Dwayne passed away. He grew up in Safford, worked for the foreign service and traveled the world and then settled in Elgin after he retired. Because he was not related to an original homesteading family and did not go to school in Elgin he always referred to himself as a "newcomer" and an "outsider" in this close knit rural community. Apparently the locals have a saying for those who pass over-"when you get there, turn the pipes on" referring to the every present need for water in the desert. It rained the day of his memorial. Everyone took it as a sign that he truly had become "one of them".

The sign outside the firehouse where the memorial service was held.

Family picture at the Elgin homestead.
Reed, his mom, Aunt Zalia, Cousin Leigh, Sister Zalia and our kids.

3 meters, no problem

2009-10-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

We went back to the Kyrene pool on Labor day, just because we wanted to get pictures of Heidi on the 3 meter springboard (we met up with cousins there too which was way more fun for our kids than just hanging out with mom and dad.) Heidi had her game on. Here is a photo essay of her feat.

The assent

A short pause

there she goes

re-entry

swim to safety

pleased as punch with herself

She also swam laps with Reed, but we didn't get that recorded. Maybe next time.

Tonight for FHE

2009-09-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago while preparing a lesson for the 8-9 year olds I teach in Primary I ran across this story. I pulled it out for family home evening tonight. I tied in the scripture from Alma 5:14 in the Book of Mormon. I thought it might be over the kids heads, but they got it. Heidi's response "Mom, that was a really good lesson." I wanted to share this story, because it is just nice to have a reminder that there is always someone watching over us, regardless of what trials we are facing, and in the end if we endure well we will be more like Him.

Heidi's exploits, Zoe's outing

2009-09-03T18:24:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday Zoe went to see Beauty and the Beast with her primary class and her former primary teacher, Andrea Dunlap. She was excited to go and had a great time.

Here they all are:

On the homefront Heidi was devastated that she was not invited, so she strong armed Reed into coming up with an alternate form of entertainment. We ended up going to a pool in Chandler (all Phoenix pools closed when school started for budget reasons). At the Kyrene pool they have a high dive. Heidi went to jump of the diving boards and was soon enticed to climb up. She told Reed she was going to do it. Reed thought of discouraging her, but then decided he wasn't going to fill her head with fears. So she climbed up and she jumped off, then jumped again, and again. She is one tough kid.
Tonight after dinner Heidi was recounting her day and let slip that she kissed a boy. I asked her if it is the boy that chases her at recess. No, that is Caleb. Does she chase him? Sometimes. Did she kiss him on the playground? no, in the lunch room. Does she have a boyfriend? Yes, what is his name? Brennan. The whole time we were having this conversation Heidi was jumping around, excited about letting it slip and kind of knowing that she shouldn't, but couldn't help herself. I just whispered to Reed under my breath, "we have our hands full with this one."

parts per million

2009-08-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to record this one for a while, but just haven't taken the time. I have a memory from my youth that always comes back to me this time of year. As a kid growing up in Rexburg, Idaho I was no foreigner to cold water. Public swimming pools, lakes, rivers, it was all cold. So imagine the delight when my parents would take me to Green Canyon hot springs to swim. These are my memories from Green canyon
1. Sharks. No there were not real sharks, but when I was a kid there was a very large drain in the bottom of the deep end of the pool covered by a rebar grate. All of the kids "believed" that sharks were held under that grate, so no one wanted to dive in the deep end. In the bad old days they would not put any chemicals in the pool-because it was naturally heated water they would drain the pool every night and fill it up again the next day. I remember hearing some years later that some government agency deemed that unsanitary and they started using chemicals and not draining the water. As Reed would say, it's all about parts per million.
2. Jolly Rancher sticks. They had a candy counter at the check in desk and I remember buying Jolly Rancher sticks (about 1"wide and 4" long, they don't make them anymore) for $.10. Usually when we went we took hot dogs and marshmallows and roasted them over the fire. There was a very large fireplace in the common area next to the pool, I believe for this very purpose. Sometimes we went with other families for a group FHE. On such occasions there would also be a jello salad present.
3. Juniper Berries. Outside the pool building there were juniper bushes. I remember at one time an older, wiser cousin (I believe this was Rob Neeley) told me you could dry the berries and make necklaces out of them. So whenever we went we would pick a lot of berries. No necklaces were ever made, but they did smell good.
4. Warm toilet water. This is the memory hook for me this time of year. The dressing rooms were always muggy. The water in the showers was hot, the floor was always wet (there were risers to stand on because the actual floor was nasty) and when you went to the potty the water in the toilet was hot and you could feel the heat. That is the way our toilets are in Phoenix in the summer. It is a weird feeling. Not sure if it is as weird as sitting on the loo in the middle of winter and being so cold you can't feel yourself sitting down, but it is different.
They have done a lot of remodeling to the place, I have been back once since they changed it, but it just wasn't the same. Sometimes you just want to keep the memories just how they are. Here is a link to their website, just in case you want a little trip down memory lane yourself. Just take highway 33 towards Newdale and turn off at mile marker 116. Or visit their blog www.greencanyonhotsprings.com

Farewell Dostal Family

2009-08-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Stella and Philena on the catwalk in dress-ups

This week has been one we knew was coming for a long time, we just never thought it would actually be here. Our neighbors, and good friends, packed up all their things to move back to Germany. Their departure was not without drama. The relo package they were counting on fell through and they were left in the last week to find movers and re-arrange finances to pay for the move themselves. We went to their house on Tues night to help celebrate Stella and Frederick's birthdays and then I had Stella, Philena and Arthur here while Frederick and Ulrike did the last of the cleaning and vacuuming before the landlord came for the keys.

Littlest petshop for little kids, no grown-ups allowed

The kids had a great time playing and then it was time to pack up the car and say goodbye. The kids did pretty well until they got inside. Reed was holding Heidi on his lap and he asked her a question and it opened the floodgates. She cried for 20 min. Molly had a hard time as well. Zoe was so tired I think she was numb. I imagine the Dostals went through the same gammut of tears and tired with their kids, only they have the adventure of returning to live next to grandmas and grandpas to look forward to, and Molly is just worried about who is going to come and live next door. Good neighbors are worth their weight in gold, and it is hard to let go of something so precious. We will miss you Frederick, Ulrike, Stella, Philena, Arthur and Leander.

Tanner's first day of preschool

2009-08-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Tanner with Miss Teddie

This week Tanner had his first day of preschool. I asked him on the way if he was excited about preschool. His response: "I'm not excited, I am just going." He was so matter of fact, like it was no big deal. I was worried that he would not transition well. I underestimated the power of Miss Teddie. She took him and got him involved in playing with the other kids and that was that. I went and ran errands and felt naked without a child in tow. On Friday,after being at preschool for three mornings, we ran some errands together. After we left each store he asked "Now do we go to Miss Teddie's?" I think that is a good sign. This begins a new era for me. I have had visions of free time dancing in my head. Turns out the hours my kids are in school are not relaxing at all but a mad rush to get things accomplished before they hit the door and consume all my time and energy. When kids are born their world is so small and their needs so predictable and immediate. It is cool to see your kids world expand and open up. I was going to wax philosophic about my kids growing and how our family is changing, but it is just making my cry, so I am not going to do that. It sounds too ultra sappy on paper anyway.

Zoe's Nano sized reward

2009-08-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

At the end of last school year I was inspired by a neighbor (thanks Tracy) to create an economy in our home as a motivation to do chores. The currency for this economy would be Monopoly money(Mm) paid out for the performance of chores and collected for such menial things as eating, sleeping in a bed, swimming, watching TV. It got off to a slow start. In fact, Heidi spent one night sleeping on the floor because she didn't have enough money to sleep in her own bed. Our experiment in capitalism took on speed as the kids expressed their desire at the beginning of the summer for some high priced electronics. It was agreed that if they earned the requisite amount of Monopoly money the bank of Mom and Dad would convert that into hard currency using the current exchange rate and the desired item could be purchased. Zoe took on the challenge with gusto. She vacuumed, did dishes, did laundry etc... at $10Mm per task and this past week was able to trade in her $1800 Mm Monopoly for $180 cash and purchase an Ipod Nano. If you are savy enough to realize that is more than a Nano actually costs, it is because Zoe was required to pay 10% tithing and put 10% in savings before she could go to the Apple store.
As a testament to Zoe's zeal, as she neared her goal at the end of the summer she set up a beauty salon in her bathroom where she charged $10Mm for pedicures and hairstyling. She also set up a private detective club and charged $20Mm joining fee. In the end she almost sold her proverbial birthright for a pot of porridge when Heidi offered to give her the $150Mm that it would take to get her over the edge in exchange for free reign over the Ipod after it was purchased. Zoe bought into Heidi's ploy very easily, but Reed and I invoked a 24 hour policy that would allow either party to back out of the deal within 24 hours. Zoe was able to see the folly of the bargain she had entered into and backed out the next day.
So the Ipod was purchased. Zoe is no longer chomping at the bit to do chores for me and Molly and Heidi, well, their lack of motivation was exposed the next day when I asked them to unload the dishwasher and they both told me "Zoe will do it", when in reality, Zoe had already said no. I guess they are going to have to step up their game to get their reward.

Chaos returns

2009-08-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the second week of school. I was so excited (so were my kids) last week when Monday morning dawned. They were all up early and ready to go by 7am,even Tanner who insisted on having a water bottle and snack in his backpack. We pulled out the camera and documented their return trek to Lagos. It is a new camera because the old one died(of course the kids played with the old camera and got it to work two days later, so now we have two). I was a little nervous that Heidi would play shy and not want to go. I was wrong. She was the first one in and didn't look back. All those fuzzy warm feelings about your babies growing up were hampered by the fact that I was tired from getting up too early I had to run all the errands I had put off for the past two weeks (like grocery shopping) and then Tanner refused to take a nap. When the kids hit the door at 2:45 is when the real reality of back to school hit. My kids had been cooped up in a classroom all day and all that pent up energy exploded in my house like an atomic bomb. And that is what it has been like every day after school. Running, teasing, yelling, jumping, climbing, barbaric yawps, ignoring me when I ask them to perform routine chores, forgetting all manners, demanding, whining, tears over homework, teasing some more. Goths, Vandals, Visigoths. By the time Reed comes home I am on my last thread of sanity. He thinks the whole scene is fun to sit back and take in. He commented on Friday morning that I was not dealing well with the kids. I concurred. I was really glad I got to go to work on Friday. I am hoping that as the routine sinks in the chaos will subside. I am not getting my hopes up.

Mix reunion weekend

2009-08-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

In honor of my Grandma Mary Mix's 90th birthday, and my Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Jack's return from three years of shepherding the missionaries in the Washington DC South mission, we had a reunion. It has been a few years. It was really fun to see all my cousins and meet their spouses and kids (I said it had been a while). Back in the day, when we were all hanging out and single we got together a lot, and we had some good times. It is amazing how even after a few years I really enjoy everyone's company. The years just melted away. There was good food, patterned after nostalgic foods of the past-the Croshaw's whole wheat pancakes for breakfast, which I think we have had at every reunion in memory. Sandwiches for lunch just like Grandma Mary used to send with her kids to school for lunch-deviled ham, tuna and good ol' PB&J. Dinner was intended to be a shout out to the future. Laurie Croshaw-Murray and her husband Freddy have fabricated a pizza oven that they have taken to various events and sell fabulous pizzas. They backed the oven into the backyard and in the process of unhitching it and unloading the gear it became unbalanced and the pizza oven slid off the back of the trailer. I would say that this was the capstone event of the reunion. It could have closed the whole show down, but it didn't. Freddy reacted like a champion. He had to walk away, but he came back smiling and ended up cooking pizza's in the oven (I picked up some tricks that have improved my own pizza making). Everyone rallied and put together a collection to pay for the replacement oven. It reminded me of why I love the Mix family. Anyone can have fun when the times are good, but the fact that we could keep the party going in the face of tragedy was a testiment to what family is truly about.
On Sunday we crashed Rosemary and Jack's church to hear their report from their mission. They are great people. It was so fun to see the number of missionaries who served with them who made the effort to be there and see them. They both spoke of the power of love and service and obedience. It was great to hear their testimonies of Savior and be reminded of the power of missionary work.
After the meeting we went to the Wixom's house for food and more good times. On the way home Reed and I decided we needed to make an accounting of everyone who had been there. It was great to know that after a day and a half together I could name everyone and their spouses and kids for a grand total of 72. I hope we can all make the effort to get together again soon.

Tanner's birthday, part 2

2009-08-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

We recently made our pilgrimage to the home land. We always have hopes that is will be a respite from the heat, as usual it was pretty hot in Utah (but it cools off an night.) We had a great time. The day we arrived Reed's sister Zalia threw a birthday party for Tanner and her son Ben whose birthday is on the 16th. It had a baseball theme and was really cute. The kids ran through the water all afternoon, ate popcorn, nachos and hot dogs and drank root beer. Grandpa made ice cream-strawberry and chocolate, YUM! Good times.

Tanner's Three!

2009-08-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

It seems like many moons ago, but my boy turned three on July 6. Reed was out of town (scout camp), but the rest of the week was super crazy so we just celebrated without him. We had donuts for breakfast, played on the Wii, went swimming and an ice cream cake to finish of the day.
As part of tradition we took some time during family home evening (the next night with Reed) to tell Tanner what we love about him.
Reed: Tanner is a champion wrestler, he pushes my car out in the morning, he lets me carry him like a baby, he is a monkey.
Heather: He is a good helper, independant, when he is in time out rather than getting out he will call me to "come talk to me" to get permission to get out.
Molly: Loves to play wii with Tanner
Zoe: Likes how he says sorry after he has been in Time out, likes to play throw and catch with him and likes how he sings-especially HSM songs and "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam"
Heidi: Loves wrestling with Tanner and Daddy and playing with him on the beach.
We all agree we love to have this little boy and his "boy things" around.

Where fourth art thou?

2009-07-04T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking, the Fourth of July is really a celebration of an act of civil disobedience. I am listening to police helicopters flying around my house looking for some hoodlums that were intent on celebrating the holiday with some disobedience of their own. I wish I could say I was up late because I have been watching fireworks shows across America on some over rated cable channel, but no, I just returned from the ER. There was a scorpion in the towel that Zoe wrapped around herself after getting out of the pool at Grandma Chris' house. It got her (and I got it.) I was completely clueless about the effects of a scorpion bite. I didn't over react, I really thought it would be ok, but Zoe was not doing well so we packed up early to go home (you can imagine how happy the other kids were about that). In the car she got worse. I caved and called poison control, and they said they would call the ER for me. How nice. So this is what I have learned. Symptoms that indicate something bad is up:
hypersalivation-which means the victim has got a lot of spit. This is bad because they have some numbness in their tongue and throat and are at risk of choking (they also can't talk very well).
Nausea : This happens because the victims eyes are not focusing and their equilibrium is affected.
Rotary eye movement: Their eyes kind of roll around in their sockets and they can't focus. There is a fancy name for this, but I couldn't pick it off as the nurses and doc's were talking.
muscle twitches: victim shakes a lot and can't relax because the nerves that run the muscles are firing at random. This was more scary to me when I realized that the same phenomenon happening to Zoe's limbs was happening to her heart and throwing off the rhythm.
Things I am grateful for:
Antivenin. I lucked out and went to a hospital where they are running a trial on an antivenin for scorpions. Been using it for years in Mexico, but it is not approved by the FDA. Zoe was better in two hours. The alternative treatment:two days in ICU on sedatives and painkillers. In case you need to know, Chandler Regional and Gilbert Mercy are the places to go for this miracle elixir.
That it was Zoe. This may sound awful. But Zoe got out of the pool with her cousin Mia who is almost 3. If she would have had the towel with the scorpion wrapped around her I have to imagine she would have had a much worse go of it.
Mexican health care. American health care is great, but we don't have a corner on the market.
America. So our Independence Day Holiday was bogus (it usually is in Phoenix, to hot for anything other than swimming and air conditioning), but that doesn't change the fact that we live it a great country with a wonderful heritage of standing up for what is right and helping others do the same. In the words of John Hancock:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and so...fourth.

23 Pslalm

2009-06-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

I have been working a lot the past few days. The stress of the extra time at work is hard on my family. It is hard on me, but I have the blessing of working with and for amazing people. We work on a lot of veterans in our office. I had a WWII veteran in the office yesterday that shared this story, and it was so great I wanted write it down so we can all have a reminder of what real sacrifice is and how blessed we are, even in our darkest hours.

I am going to write this in first person because it reads better like that.

"There were 40 men in my platoon. We saw more combat than any other platoon in Europe. We were at the battle of the bulge. We then joined Patton's 3rd infantry division and marched through the middle of Germany, 400 miles, and then met up with the Russians. That was an interesting experience. We didn't trust them, and they didn't trust us. We hit the Germans in the middle and then flanked them on either side. They didn't know what hit them. We lost most of our platoon. There were five of us left and we were in a forested area hiding from the enemy. Out of nowhere came and explosion and shrapnel rained down on us. Four of the men were badly injured. I made my way to a clearing and saw a farmhouse. I ran to the house and removed the door from the hinges and motioned for the people inside to come and help me. There was a young girl (probably about 15, and I was 18), her mother, grandmother and grandfather. We carried the wounded men on the door back to their farmhouse where they tended to them as best they could. Those women sat there and held the hands of those men for three days until they died. The grandfather went out back and cut a piece of pork (there was no refrigeration) and made soup with pork and potatoes. I hadn't eaten in three days and it smelled wonderful. They motioned for me to sit at the head of the table. We were all sitting and I quickly bowed my head to give thanks and was startled when they did the same. They were pouring out their hearts to God. As I watched them pray I was reminded of the 23 Psalm "Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies". God has been good to me, I have no regrets."

My cup runneth over. I run into a lot of people who don't hesitate to share with everyone their love of Jesus Christ and how he has restored their souls. They are a great example to me. The Lord is my Shepherd, I just get busy sometimes and forget that I need to let him lead me, and not the other way around.

Here is a link to the 23 Psalm, in case you need a refresher.
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/ps/23

Happy Birthday Allison!

2009-06-07T00:06:00.000-07:00

Today is my sister Allison's birthday. Actually it was yesterday because now it is past midnight. I thought I would write some wit and wisdom. I found and old journal the other day and as I was scanning found a poem that I wrote about Allison on the occasion of her 18th birthday.

Your always there when times are tough
Always kind (but sometimes gruff)
Although I sometimes muff
you're always there 'cause your made of the right stuff

You are still great Allie. Here are some other gems I found
Feb 1983
"Tonight was the etiquette dinner. My escort was Brian Ostler. I had fun but Allison had Brian Ball for an escort and she came home crying."
Feb 1982
"Allison baked peanut butter cookies and I couldn't have any. This diet is really getting to me."
"When I came home I had to do the dishes that Allison and Tiffany didn't do." (you are my sister, I couldn't just put the good stuff, no one would believe it)

Hope you had a great day!

value menu

2009-06-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today I was at work and Reed was in charge. That meant attempting to accomplish meaningful tasks while entertaining kids and keeping them from injuring themselves and others. After calling no joy on yard work, he packed the kids up to take them to Home Depot to do a project. He had not eaten breakfast because we were out of milk and bread and most other essential food items, so he decided to go through the McDonalds drive through and get himself a $1 breakfast burrito. Molly started to fuss that she was hungry (she had just been retrieved from a sleep over) and after listing off several menu items she decided she wanted a fruit and yogurt parfait. Then everyone wanted one. Reed got to the window to pick up the food and decided that the parfaits would be wasted and make a mess, so he offered to get the kids donuts instead. He then had McDonalds refund the money for the parfaits ($1 each), went across the parking lot of the shopping center to Circle K and got the kids donuts, because they were a value ($.79).

Let me state now for the record that usually when I take the kids to McDonalds I get them hamburgers and parfaits because it is a healthier option than fries and way less messy that apple dippers. Reed always gives me a hard time because he is convinced that they are not healthy, and are surely loaded with extra sugar.

So I listened to this story, and we had the same discussion about the questionable nutrition of the parfaits, and of course the burrito ("it is small,there's not much sausage, it can't be that bad for you"). My response "Next time, please spend the extra $.20 on the parfait."
Knowing that the last word had not been had, I went downstairs and started cutting up fruit for the High Priest Luau this evening(which was awesome for a HP get together) and had to stop and look up the nutritional values of the items in question, for ammunition really. So here it is:
-Reed's breakfast burrito-280 calories, 20 grams of fat
-Parfait-130 calories, 4 grams of fat
-glazed donut- 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (that is for glazed, which is usually the least offensive.)

The take home: life is a zero sum game. The value that will save you pennies now, will cost you later. (There are greater implications to this theory, but I am not an economist and don't want won't bore you with my views on things of this nature)

Jenny's house

2009-05-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of school for my posse. Reed, as a way of congratulating them on all their accomplishments of the past year, offered to take us to dinner at a restaurant of the girls choosing, they just couldn't choose Sweet Tomatoes. The girls pick for dinner-Denny's. So we wait for Reed to finish working, load in the car and say a prayer before we head out. Tanner offers to say the prayer and proceeds to express his excitement and gratitude that we get to go to Jenny's house. At Denny's he kept asking when we were going to go to Jenny's house and when we arrived back home he burst into tears because he didn't get to go to Jenny's house. I tried to explain how Denny's and Jenny's sound the same, but he would not stop crying until I offered an ice cream sandwich as a peace treaty. I suspect he will want to go to Jenny's house again tomorrow, just for the ice cream. As for Reed and I, we have just added Denny's to our list of "we won't go back there again for a long time" restaurants (which is also the fate of Sweet Tomatoes, in case you were wondering).

A matter of perspective

2009-05-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Life has been crazy busy.
Too crazy.
It seems like every time I catch up I have another crisis hit me from my blind spot. So, between writing papers with my third grader (did I ever do that in third grade?), getting the refrigerator and air conditioner repaired and a bout with the flu (me this time, way fun) I was feeling like I was not meant to be caught up on sleep, or laundry, or shopping, etc... So I had this feeling on Thursday that there was a birthday coming up. So I went to the calendar and-It was Reed's birthday on Friday. I would love to say at this point that I pulled my act together and did something wonderful for Reed's birthday, but alas that is not the case. He packed up to go to the Aaronic Priesthood commemorative campout (aka Father's and Son's) and I had nothing for him. We made a cake after he was gone. He arrived back home on Sat. and I left to take the girls shopping. He got to eat his cake at 9pm on Sat night. I didn't think we would see him on Sunday until after lunch so we had a fend for yourselves, which Reed walked into the middle of and ended up executing. So that is it. One birthday with no cards, no gifts and no nice dinner.
How messed up is that?
On Sunday afternoon I received an e-mail that Celia (sister of Allie who I work with) had succumbed to luekemia. She had been diagnosed 9 days before.
So today I took time to read with my 5 year old, swim with my kids, and now I am going to appologize again to my husband for dropping the ball on his birthday, because every day counts.
(I have also promised myself I will never complain again about a family photo, you just never know if you will get the chance again)

Gift for Grandma Mary

2009-04-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

I have spent a major chunk of time the past week gathering and assembling a scrapbook for my Grandma Mary Mix's 90th birthday. It has been a labor of love. I finally put it in the mail today for my sister Tiffany to add the final touches. I have taken pictures of all the pages and if all goes well they will load and be visible on a slideshow here. We will see. This project has stretched my computer skills, which needed to happen. For all those who contributed, Thank you, and I hope you are as pleased with the outcome as I am.

Sunbeams

2009-04-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Today, in the spirit of conservation, I hung out all of my laundry to dry in the sun (what is a pool fence for anyway if not to just white-trash it up). One of the items I washed was Heidi's special blanket. As soon as she saw it, she wanted it. She grabbed it and when she realized it was wet she asked me to put it in the dryer. I told her the sun was going to dry it. She was skeptical. I finally convinced her to just give it a try. When I asked her how long she thought it might take for the sun to dry her blanket she said 8 minutes. So we went inside and set a timer. By the time it went off she of course had forgotten all about the blanket. When I reminded her what the timer was for she ran out and got her blanket and you know what? it was dry.

Tonight at FHE Tanner started to cry during the opening song when he realized we were not going to sing Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam. He was slightly consoled when he was told he got to choose the closing song. Six minutes later when we hit the closing song (we keep it short for everyone's sanity) he was so excited to jump up and down and be a Sunbeam. We got the kids in bed and Reed was laying by Tanner (a bad habit we need to break). Reed fell asleep before Tanner did (not uncommon) so Tanner was left to put himself to sleep. I happened to be walking by (returning the last of the sun dried sheets to the beds) and heard him singing to himself Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. I sat outside his room and was impressed with how well he knew the words. He kept getting louder, and I started to think I was going to have to intervene, and then it just stopped. He sang himself to sleep. Too cute.

On Saturday evening Zoe lost her second tooth. Reed recorded this.
Zoe in her prayer "Please bless that the tooth fairy will bring me 1000 dollars."
After her prayer "I said that because last time she did not bring me a 1000 dollars."
Zoe is my child with a keen interest in and understanding of money. Dear TF failed to make an appearance on Sat. night.
Reed "Do you think it would be possible for the tooth fairy to come during church?"
Zoe "No, because then people who are not members of the church would see him."
This morning when she was checking what she had received she counted out the quarters and seemed very unhappy. When questioned Zoe said it was because she didn't get 1000 dollars.
I guess it was Zoe's turn to be little black raincloud (she hates it when I call her that).

Ooops, he did it again

2009-03-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

I arrived home from work on Wed. night and was greeted by Tanner laying on the couch. Reed said he just woke up, so that was why he was laying on the couch. His face was scuffed up, apparently he did a face plant in the sand at the park with the babysitter (he was doing superman on the swing and lost his balance) and because of the way he was laying I asked what happened to his arm. He had found Heidi's "fancy Nancy" stamp and put it all over his arm, which was the explanation, but I should have done more follow up on that one. So I set into making dinner, get it all done, the girls sit down and Reed asks Tanner if he wants to come and eat. He won't move. I look at him and realize that his right arm has not left the spot where he was gripping his left arm since I looked at him 35 min earlier. I instantly knew that there was a problem. Tanner has dislocated his left elbow on two previous occasions. We tried to quiz the girls on events of the day to try and decide when this happened. We call the babysitter, who only said that he was sleeping in a funny position for his nap. Turns out the girls were cleaning their room and Tanner was messing it up. Zoe was trying to get him out and pulled him by the arm. This must have been just before Tanner went down for a nap. So I pick up Tanner and his blanket and we head to the urgent care. After waiting for an hour and a half the doctor walks in, says, "you have done it again", pops it back in and we are out the door. The good news is that the ligaments are getting tighter and he will grow out of this soon. Hopefully.

welcome spring...and air conditioning

2009-03-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago Reed announced that the pitchers were reporting for spring training. He said it in a way that I new the statement was loaded, so I asked, "What does that mean?" Reply, "It's gonna get hot."
And so it has. I returned home from work today and the house was really hot. We have been managing to survive with open windows and fans (delightful in the morning). I ran some errands and when I returned and began making dinner I noticed a familiar breeze on my face. Reed had turned on the air conditioner. This may not seem like a big deal, we are in Arizona, but it is what it means. It means that there are no more afternoons of letting the kids ride their bikes in the front yard, because it is too crazy hot. It means the pool is open for the season and all the towels that are now neatly tucked away will soon be littering my house in soggy piles. It means the constant hum of the air conditioner for the next six months, with the attached power bill. It means we probably need to turn our sprinklers back on so we can keep everything green and then have to trim it all in 100 degree temperatures. The air conditioner "on" signals the end of the innocence here at our house. It is when we contemplate the sanity of living in the desert, and wonder where we have put all the sunshades for our cars. From now on trips to the store for ice cream have to be executed with precision as to not destroy the ice cream before it can be safely stored in the freezer.
On the bright side, we get to contemplate visiting everyone we know who lives somewhere else.

I can do hard things

2009-03-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

Today at work my first patient was a 17 year old who whined and fretted. I don't get too many of these, but invariably their self talk sounds something like this...I hate shots, just a second, I can't do this, this will hurt, I don't want to do this, are you sure I have to do this, this is too hard. I reassure them that the only bad thing that could happen is if they were to stop breathing, so please take a deep breath, you are going to be alright, just hold still. Just a note, if you want to really injure yourself and upset the dentist try and grab the hand with the needle, bad idea. I know from the shaking hands and sweaty brow when patients are really nervous, I see it all the time, and I always try to be gentle, regardless of how the patient is acting, or overreacting.
This is what really bothered me today, so I am going to share. It was the dialogue. I started to wonder, at what point in this girls life is she going to realize that sometimes you have to endure undesireable situations, and you just have to tell yourself, I can do this. It is hard, it hurts, it is not fun, but it will be over quickly and I can do this.
As a juxtaposition, my last patient of the day was a 4 year old who didn't flinch. He had his fair share of wiggles and curiousity but at no point was there a fret that this was too hard.
Sis. Dalton, who is the young women's general president had a little bio in the church news a while back and it said that she has on her desk a plaque that says "I can do hard things. " It has stuck with me. It is classy, it has backbone, it is all about facing trials head on and and not getting caught up in negative dialogue.
I can do hard things. I also get to do a lot of boring things, like the dishes, but hey, it is all a package deal.

What a week, and it is not over yet...

2009-02-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Monday.
The kids were out of school. They spent the day riding bikes and having fun with the neighbors. Around 3pm while I was doing the dishes I hear screaming coming from the garage and someone yelling, "just open the door!" I went to check out what was going on and as the door opened I was greeted by Tanner, covered with blood. It didn't take long to realize that he was going to need some professional attention. I was able to call a plastic surgeon in our ward and he was able to get him in right away. I left the kids with the neighbors and went and got Tanner stiched up. The laceration went all the way through his cheek so he got 10 stiches, three on the inside of his mouth, two in the deep tissue and five on the outside.
Tuesday.
I had the priveledge of participating in the judiciary process, also known as jury duty. I had taken all kinds of reading material. I arrived and sat down and 10 minutes later I was headed out for jury selection. Fortunately they did not need my services, but it was an interesting 3 hours. Rather than releasing us for the day we were told to get lunch and report back to the jury assembly room at 1pm. By the time I had gone through security and made myself confortable the regular protocol seemed to be changing. They weren't taking anyone out of the assembly room, and then they wouldn't let us go to use the restroom. Slowly people were able to contact people they knew on the outside and we learned that an inmate had escaped. They finally released us around 3:45. I was able to pick up food at Carolina's on the way home, a bright spot in an otherwise crummy day. I arrived home to realize that I had not adequately communicated the girls piano lesson time. They caught the last 20 min. Reed left to go to work when I got home, he had stayed home with Tanner who was in bad shape and hadn't been able to get much done.
Wednesday.
I played musical beds in the night because Heidi and Tanner did not sleep well. Reed stayed home with Tanner again. Tanner still is whiney, drooling everywhere and not eating well. When I arrived home from work at 5:45pm Reed was on the computer trying to meet a deadline and Tanner had just dropped a glass bottle full of Italian soda on the floor. What a mess.
Thursday.
Surprisingly uneventful. I was not able to get out and run any errands because Tanner was just not up to it. We did "clean out the fridge" for dinner. It is ready for a reload.
Friday.
I went to bed too late,(laundry) was up with Tanner and when I went to get in my bed Molly had taken by spot. I struggled with the motivation to get started because I feel crummy (I have been congested the last week also). I finally got the car loaded up to go to the grocery store and it wouldn't start. To be honest I haven't had the energy to deal with it. I am pretty sure it is the starter. This will probably cause a problem because I have to work tommorrow and Monday.
I could use a day of rest, does anyone mind skipping Saturday this week?

What I did on my Valentines day

2009-02-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

I will begin with Friday night. Reed and I went to Outback for dinner because, well, we had a gift card and that is largely what determines where we go when we go out. They had a Valentines special which we of course did the math on and thought-what a deal, that is for us. The special involved a blooming onion, which I have never before purchased. Reed summed it up like this "it is funny to be eating state fair food in a restaurant." We then consumed a salad, steak and potato. At this point I was feeling uncomfortably full, but we still had cheesecake coming. So we had cheesecake. I was reminded of the Princess Bride where the two dueling factions (can't remember names, it has been a while) at the beginning of their fight the one asks if they are going to fight to the death, and the other says no, we are going to fight to the pain, so that forever you will have to remember and live with the shame of your loss. So when the cheese cake came I ate to the pain, and then had the last two bites. I was miserable. We went to Target afterwards and could barely walk around we were so full. It is a good thing we don't do that very often.
On Saturday morning we had heart shaped pancakes, which Reed couldn't even eat because he was still miserable from the night before. The girls had been eating so much candy that they barely ate. I of course wondered to myself why I had gone to the effort, oh well. We rode our bikes to the park, came home and Zoe decided she wanted to try riding without training wheels. So she took them off ,she has done this a lot before, but this time she just started going and quickly had it all figured out. This all happened while Heidi was at a birthday party. When Heidi got home I joked with her that she would be the next one to learn to ride with out training wheels. She smiled and said no-but a few minutes later she was headed in and when I asked he what she was doing she said "I am going to take off my training wheels." Sure enough, we took them off and she had the hang of it in no time. They were both so excited and proud of themselves. It just so happened that Reed missed both of them. I had Zoe go and get Reed so that he would feel a part of the process, but by that time it just frustrated her to have him trying to hold on. She kept yelling let go and he was to nervous to. Reed was asleep when Heidi pulled off her feat. I took a picture and then went and showed him. He was just coming out of sleep. He looked, then he looked again and asked "Is that Heidi?" Shortly thereafter we brought the kids in to put them in church clothes for a marathon baptism session. One member baptism and two convert baptisms. We were at the church from 5pm to 7:30. We came home by way of Wendy's and after getting them fed and bathed and in bed I went to the store to fill our fridge which was barren because I hadn't been to the store for a week. I was able to see the sorry looking picked over Valentine's displays and the few sorry saps making a last ditch effort to impress their significant other. Admittedly I am not a huge Valentines day fan. I much prefer random acts of caring scattered throughout the rest of the year.
As I was helping Heidi say her prayers I told her to say thank you for being able to go to the baptisms "no, not that", but when I told her to say thank you for being able to ride a two wheeler she started bouncing up and down she was so excited. Today the first thing she asked was when was she going to be able to ride her bike. Lunch after church was painful-all Zoe and Heidi wanted to do was ride bikes. Heidi just kept going and going once she was out. She lasted for almost an hour after all the other kids had parked their pedals. I was talking to the neighbor about what a sense of freedom being able to ride a bike gave us as kids. I can see that in Heidi's eyes.

alas, mine eyes deceive me (yeah, I need more sleep)

2009-01-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

I just put Tanner down for a nap. My usual MO is to read him two books and then tell him my eyes need a rest and then he falls asleep. The problem today is I couldn't even get through two books. As I was reading the first book my eyes began to get heavy, heavy enough that when my eyes closed I was seeing words to read and when I woke up I realized I was in the middle of a sentence that had nothing to do with The little engine that could. This happened three times before we got to the last page-it would be liberal to say I actually finished the book. Tanner then handed me another book. I only made it two pages before Tanner just took the book from me and started looking at the pictures. At some point he fell asleep and I woke up and here I am. Luckily Heidi has been busy creaing Mii's on the Wii and did not get into any trouble.

As the laundry turns

2009-01-25T22:37:00.001-08:00

I know that my new years credo was to increase the amount of sleep I was getting. So far it has been a bust. Things that have been keeping me from getting to bed at a reasonable hour:
-dishes, lots of dishes
-cleaning my house in preparation for the babysitter coming. If you have not done this before you either don't have kids or don't go out. My regular day care provider just had a baby so we had a back-up coming to our house. As we were cleaning we were singing the praises of Amanda. Bad juju. We found out today she is moving. All I can say is San Antonio is getting a jem and we are totally bumbed.
-laundry-which is what is going on tonight so my kids have something clean to wear to school tommorrow. I usually stay up folding, but I haven't washed anything for 8 days. My kids were starting to rifle through the dirty clothes for necessary items. My bathroom was starting to stink from wet towels. It took me 30 min just so sort the laundry, how did I let this happen?
-American Idol-the people who sing badly make me feel better about myself. Not because I can sing, but because I have people in my life who love me enough to tell me I can't.
-Biggest Loser-best quote "Between them they have lost 93 pounds. That's a Nicole Ritchie." This show proves that diet and exercise work. It also shows you it is hard work. It is a lot easier watching other people work out. You have to really want to lose weight to go on national television wearing lycra (whose idea was that anyway?)
-Wii Tennis-this had become a favorite stress reliever for Reed and I, or it was until today when Reed started actually winning. I am not sure what happened to my game, but I gotta get it back. Reed is working on annual reviews for his employees right now (I am glad I don't have to do that) and has as a motivator that he can play a game of tennis after completing two reviews. I don't know that I am going to be able to make it through all 8 reviews with him, what is taking the dryer so long?

We tried to set goals for family counsel today. Zoe was highly motivated because she had just come from her 8 is great fireside and was jazzed up about reading the Book of Mormon. Everyone else, not so motivated. Molly decided she just wanted to play, play, play. We decided we should redirect her energy to play-ing the piano. Heidi wanted to remove her eyeballs. We suggested perhaps not teasing would be a good option, which she agreed to and which lasted as long as an Isreali cease fire (3 minutes.) I made Reeds goal for him-he is going to break Tanner's sleeping dysfunction by not falling to sleep with him every night. And Reed decided my goal should be to exercise every day. Does Wii tennis while I am waiting for the laundry count?

disconnected

2009-01-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

Last week I was unable to connect with the internet. It was not some type of fun experiment. Reed inadvertently changed a firewall setting so that everything was percieved as a threat and the computer wouldn't even let me connect. It took a few days to get it resolved because the server still worked and Reed was unaffected on his laptop. I am not sure what spurred him to action-my pathetic moping because I could not look up trivial things, or his lack of access to napster. Without the internet I seemed to have more time to get to tasks that I had been putting off. At the same time I spent more time looking up recipes and doing homework the old fashioned way.

One of the last things I looked at before my world wide web went dark was the ill effects of sleep deprivation. I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish for the new year. Much of that has been condensed to a simple "get 8 hours of sleep per night." Turns out it is harder than I had anticipated. I have given up on clean up fairies coming to tuck me in at 10pm with the promise they will finish my domestic chores for the day, so I have to figure out some other way. I am open for suggestions.

So for presidents day yesterday I took my kids, plus 2 cousins (Tess and Brynn) to the Phoenix Zoo. It was a beautiful day and the zoo was full to the brim with patrons. I was going to take lots of pictures, but the batteries in my camera died. So the memories are all in my head. Here are a few:
Heidi at the petting zoo being so excited and then screaming when a goat started walking toward her. We sat on a bench to watch from a safe distance and one came up and tried to nibble the straps to my backpack-while she cried. She eventually calmed down.
Asking Tanner what animals he saw at the zoo "sharks and walruses" (we don't have those at the zoo.)
Watching Tess and Molly get so excited to dig in the dirt at the childrens farm just to have the other boy at the table announce that there are worms in the dirt (it was a composting exhibit). They gave each other a funny look, slowly put down their shovels and walked away.
Trying to convince Brynn and Zoe that they were not too tired to walk and they need to get out of the wagon (tough to pull with 4 kids, but easier to keep track of heads).
We went to the McDonalds drive through on the way home for lunch (in lieu of a carosel ride). When we arrived home Tanner woke up and screamed "I want to go inside!" Fortunately he was amenable to a picnic instead.

because I am a mom...

2009-01-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

Molly has been coughing a lot-she and Tanner are still battling lingering colds. She got to coughing so much tonight that she threw up. So I tried to gently coax her through it while trying to give a tutorial on the proper way to throw up. She thought I was crazy when I told her to kneel by the toilet. When she asked me why I wanted to tell her it was so that the phlem she was coughing up didn't end up all over the walls and floor, that kneeling was closer to the fetal position we all want to take when our insides are being wretched out, but managed to just say it was so that if she got light headed and fell over she wouldn't hurt herself. I got her tucked into bed and proceeded with the cleanup. The bathroom needed to be cleaned anyway. I have lysol at my house. I am not a clean freak and I don't use it a ton, but everything got a good spray down tonight. Luckily Molly is now sleeping soundly.

Tanner, however, is not. The kid will only sleep in 60 min intervals even when he is healthy. He wakes up to check where dad is. He won't get in bed with us, he only ever wants Reed to get in bed with him. This is a habit we need to break. So, Tanner woke up about 10 min. ago walked out in the hall and laid down to cry for his dad-this is the routine-at which time Reed scooped him up and tried to figure out why he was up. He thought he might have a poopy diaper so he called for me to check while he was holding him. After I put my fingers down his diaper and confirmed that he was clean I walked away and contemplated the grossness of what I would have run into had there been something in there and I wondered to myself why I do all this crazy stuff.

The answer...because I am a mom.

Good Times

2009-01-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

A few tidbits.
On Saturday we went to the Fiesta Bowl parade. Tanner threw up on me before it started. We went to see Tess and Brynn Mix dance in the parade. They were very last. The parade was three hours long. We had a good time anyway. Good thing it was a beautiful day.

On Sunday we tried to talk with the girls about setting goals for the new year. Reed asked Zoe what she wanted her goal to be.
Zoe:"Make everyone smell my armpits"
Mom:"How will that make you or the world better?"
Zoe:" It will give everyone a better sense of smell."
Reed told Heidi that her goal was to have one hour of tutelage from her Mom and Dad per week.
Heidi quickly assumed he meant "toot-ilage" and questioned why she needs practice gassing. The other girls quickly decided they wanted that as part of their goals also, followed by much giggling.

Monday school started. Hooray!

Gingerbread beat down

2009-01-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

Reason’s why I love the New Year:
The holidays are over
A new year with no mistakes in it
The end of the gingerbread house
To officially end the holidays we packed the kids and the gingerbread house and several instruments of destruction in the back of the van and headed to the edge of civilization (the reservation).

Our first drama-I handed Heidi’s gingerbread house to Molly to carry and she tripped on a bush and the whole thing went crashing to the ground. Hearts were broken, tears were shed.

This ritual is all about shaking off the old and ringing in the new. It didn’t take long to realize that there was destruction to mete out and there was no time for a funk. So Heidi snapped out of it.

Here are the others at work: Tanner took a few ceremonial blows but quickly lost interest. He sat in the dirt and kept saying “I want to play baseball.”

Molly and Zoe picking through the debris to find anything that is edible. This might be a good practice for surviving in an urban jungle.

Reed preparing for battle, Wade Boggs style.

Office Space style beat down.

This next picture is our favorite as the Schultzie tree takes a death blow.

And then it was over.

Until next year. And yes we cleaned up our mess.

Happy New Year and a baked bean recipe

2009-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

The holidays have been a whirlwind. My whole family has been in town so we have been driving back and forth to Gilbert a lot. We have all had a good time, but we have also had a lot of illness-two trips to the emergency room is way too many (one for croup and one for walking pneumonia). This is the first year I have had my girls vaccinated for the flu. I am glad I did. I wish I had done the same for Tanner.
Some highlights of our family gathering were a trip to the Phoenix Children's museum, the McCormack Ranch railroad park, and Rawhide. We were able to accomplish a family photo. I am not sure what one should expect with 40 people in a photo where half of the people are under the age of 10, but I am confident that you can never make everyone happy. We had a good time. A picture of that magnitude is not about capturing images but about capturing the feeling and the memories and knowing that for a few moments we were all together and we had a good time.
Feeding a crowd of this size is no small feat. We are not going to win a James Beard award or anything like that, but no one went hungry (if they did it was their own fault). Reed and I had volunteered to have everyone here for dinner on Monday after Rawhide. As we thought about it on Sunday night we realized that there was no way we had room. We decided that it was time to call in the resources and we moved the party to the church. This was a good idea. The kids had room to run around and make noise. All the adults could sit and eat and visit and see their kids running around. We had family home evening and then introduced everyone to office chair hockey. Good times.
There have been many requests for the baked bean recipe-so here it is:

1 can pork and beans (recipe calls for 16oz-I routinely use 28 oz cans)

1 can lima beans, drained (use frozen if you can find them)

1 can kidney beans, drained

1 can butter beans, drained

1 onion chopped

1/2 lb bacon

3/4 c brown sugar

3/4 c water

combine beans in crockpot

in skillet saute onion and bacon until tender.

Add brown sugar and water, simmer 10 min.

Add to crockpot. Stir. Cook on Med/high for 6 hours.

Can also be baked in 9x13 for 2 hours at 350 or can be made stove top-bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low and simmer about 1 1/2 hours-stirring occationally.

Oh Holiday

2008-12-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-19T06:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-16T22:02:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-12-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-01T07:19:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-11-30T20:55:00.001-08:00

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?

2008-11-27T20:42:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-11-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-10-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-04T22:43:00.001-07:00

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.

2008-10-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-10-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

"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.

2008-09-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

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.)

2008-09-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

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.)