Traumatized

I think a sufficient amount of time has passed since the "incident" and I have recovered enough from the experience to talk about it now. jk - although it was pretty traumatic.......
It all started with a double date with friends for dinner and a movie on Saturday, the day after Christmas. I didn't start out the date in the best of moods because I had a killer headache that I could not get rid of, but I was a trooper and went anyway. After we grabbed a quick bite to eat, we headed over to stand in line to see Sherlock Holmes. After we picked out our seats I decided to go to the ladies room before the movie started. On my way out of the restroom the very distinctive smell of vomit hit my nostrils. Then another lady walked through the door and slipped a bit and we both looked down to see what had caused the slip. What was it? Vomit! I carefully maneuvered around the trail and then had to jump over the finial resting spot of all the spewing. On my way back to the theater I couldn't shake the smell of vomit from my nostrils or the horror from my eyeballs. When I went to sit down in my seat my arm brushed up against my side, and it was wet. Oh no, what was that. Oh man, please don't tell me that's what I think it is. I have to look..... Oh yea, it's vomit! How the crap did that get on me. Is this a case of someone eating too much, is the lady pregnant and had a violent reaction to the restroom or was it a deathly ill type vomit? What the heck am I going to do now. I don't have anything else to wear and the movie hasn't even started yet! Well, I have to try and wash it off! Back to the bathroom I trotted, but I had to go to a different one because the other one was under major damage control. I scrubbed and scrubbed which was not easy! The sink only had cold water and it was motion activated so you have to wave your hand around a million times to get the stinkin water to turn on for a half a second! While I was scrubbing my flesh off I kept having CSI type visions of how on earth I could have ended up with some ladies vomit on my shirt. I never saw the vomiting take place. Did I bump into her? Did I brush up against the wall where there was some splattered? I have no flippin idea! I managed to get my sweater pretty clean and I washed my hands about 15 times and went back to the movie. Nate and our friends kept asking me if I was alright and I guess I just had a dazed and shocked look on my face for about 20 minutes and I wasn't about to eat or touch anything! I made it through the movie, which was so very enjoyable and then immediately threw my clothes in the washing machine and scrubbed myself some more when I got home.

Presents

This Christmas Eve the girls and I were feeling festive, so we put bows on our heads and headed to a party at our friends house (where this picture was taken). To us this had no meaning other than decoration, but we were asked if we were "presents." This made me laugh and say something like our presence was the present. This little funny joke got me thinking about that statement though. I thought about the only thing that we truly possess is ourselves. That one true possession is the only thing we truly can give away. This giving of ourselves is in our time and our talents to help each other. These gifts of time and talent convey the true meaning of Christmas. It reminds me of the scripture; " When we are willing to bear one another's burdens that they may be light...and willing to mourn with those that mourn...and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places..." Mosiah 18:8,9. By giving of ourselves we express our love for each other and ultimately for our Heavenly Father.
I find it amazing and humbling that a cute little joke can be a bigger reminder of what truly is important.

Cozy

I love this time of year when the house gets down to frigid temperatures at night so that you can pile on the blankets and disappear into the cozy protection of a million blankets. Nate gets up about 30 minutes before me in the morning leaving me all alone in our huge bed. After he gets up the cold air gets in under the covers and I have to seek out the warmth left by his body on his side of the bed. This is usually when I start thinking about all the things I need to do and how I wish I didn't have to get out of bed, but before he goes he always leans down to give me a kiss on the cheek. If I'm awake I always stick my arms up in the air and make him give me a hug too which transfers a yummy amount of his aftershave onto me. For about 10 more minutes I get to cozy up under the covers on his side of the bed with the comforting smell of his aftershave on my cheek waiting for the craziness of the day to begin.

Merry Christmas

This year for Christmas I made 50 tiles with images of the Temple on them that I got from this fabulous website. I was so busy doing those that I neglected all other Christmas type activities such as Christmas Cards and neighbor gifts. There's always next year, right? So in my lazy attempt to do a card for everyone, I'll just post what I gave to Nate's family here. I hope everyone can feel and share in the true meaning of Christmas this year. (picture from the idea door.com)

Dreams

It's been awhile since I posted about a dream so I don't feel too bad about doing it now. :) The dream happened last night and I will try to summarize it.

Basically I was in a concentration (reeducation) camp. I was being subjected to all sorts of horrible things and the people doing the horrible things thought they were doing something good because after all I did need reeducation according to the government. Some of them figured out that they were misguided and decided to help the only way they could by giving those that wanted to end their suffering a pill that would put them to sleep forever. I was looking around at some familiar faces and I started crying because I couldn't understand why so many were giving up and not willing to fight. Then I ran into Jason Bourne (this makes me laugh) and saw that he was working on an escape and I figured that if anyone could escape successfully it was him, so I followed. There was a lot of terror of being discovered as we had to go through some check points and things and then the dream was over. I don't know if I made it out or not. But, the point was that I tried.

On my walk this morning I was thinking about the movie Terminator and how it can be applied to what is going on in the world right now. I was remembering the line "if you are listening to this, you ARE the resistance" and wondering if a "John Conner" type person is going to appear sometime. We have an out of control government deliberatley trying to usurp the will of the people and basically wanting to turn us all in to mindless "cyborgs" by having us voluntarily, or by force if you don't agree, turn over our will to them. They believe we are just too weak or too dumb to know what's best for us. They are spending a lot of time trying to convince us that people who make money are evil and those that don't shouldn't have to ever make money because it's just not fair. It reminds me of when we were at the beach in Florida a couple of weeks ago and we got attacked by psycho birds. I'm sure in the beginning they were timid and people thought, oh, these birds must be starving because we have ruined their habitat, let's feed them. Only now they have become indignant thinking everyone owes them their food and they don't have to go out and hunt anymore because they just swoop down and literally take it out of your hands. (look for pictures on my fb) This is how we are training the American people to think, like these birds! Anyway, I will dig a tunnel underground and live there before I turn over my freedoms to a corrupt government or any government for that matter. There is nothing more important or sacred than my ability to choose for myself how I want to live my life. We also have an obligation to stand up against corruption and evil (if you like scriptural references look up Ether 8) and I'm not going to be the one swallowing a pill- heck no! I will be the one scared out of my mind but not going down without a fight for my freedoms. Now in case I have to stipulate this yet again, I mean by civil means and I'm not literally digging a tunnel in my backyard! geesh! I'm also aware that I'm probably starting to sound like a freak show, but that's ok by me because I know what's right and if freedom isn't worth fighting for then what is????

So there you go, this is the stuff that floats around in my brain..... :)

Self Perception

My 6 year old sweet little boy has been having some trouble at school lately. On the calendar in his folder I get daily updates of green- good, yellow-warning, and red- big trouble. I keep seeing yellow dots with things like "wasn't listening," "talking in line," and little stuff like that. Last year he never got in trouble so I have been left to wonder what is going on. Even his teacher from last year can't understand it. He is a very smart little boy with a lot of energy and sitting still is not his strong suit. I of course took full responsibility for my child while at the same time questioning the teacher on her level of excitement and if there was enough for him to do. The teacher has only ever taught 5th graders and decided for whatever reason that teaching 1st grade was a good idea. I think her expectations of the kids to sit still is too high and his ability to sit still is too low, so we are trying. He gets a little pep talk on the way out the door each morning with a CTR sticker on his shirt to help remind him to listen to his teacher and be a good little boy. I guess all of this is having an effect on him because this is what I found hanging on the wall outside the classroom when I was there for parent teacher conference.
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see him describe himself as a "wild person." I know I am completely biased, but I have the cutest, sweetest, most loving, happiest and full of life little boy. Look at how awesome his picture of him playing the piano is. He really does love playing the piano and begged me to let him take lessons. He is an excellent helper and know that I can always ask him to do something for me and he wont complain. He is also constantly giving me little notes with pictures of me and him with an "I love mommy" written on them. He really knows how to make those "emotional deposits" to make up for his wild nature. If there is one name that gets yelled out in frustration the most in this house it is his - mostly for is keen ability to know peoples buttons and push them mercilessly. :) Poor little guy just has too much energy and gets bored easily with not enough to do, but we're working hard to fit into the good little student mold while still getting to be himself. In the meantime not only is he a "piano player," "music lover" and "helper," he is also "a wild person - aaaaaa. " :)

Trudging Through the Muck!

I have been thinking a lot about inspiration lately, in large part due to my calling in the church. I have served in many capacities in the church and more specifically the Young Women program, but never as the President. I have never ridden such a roller coaster of emotions ranging from complete self doubt to- no problem, I can do this. I have some standard of "warm squishy" factor that I am expecting to receive to let me know if I am inspired or just making stuff up as I go and what I have realized is that I am too busy working my behind off to sit around waiting for warm squishies and just "go forward in faith." I have had to put my faith and trust in the Lord. He knows that it is me, Heather, he is using to accomplish His goals and He is in complete control. How did I come to realize this? Here's how:

After the Saturday session of the last 2 General Conferences they have been playing the movie "Errand of Angels." There are a couple of profound moments in that movie, one of which is this: After having a great week where the 2 sister missionaries have many teaching appointments and even receive a letter from their mission president commending them on their hard work, these sisters are on cloud nine thinking they have everything all figured out. In fact, they think that they are going to be able to keep having this kind of success. What happens the very next week? A big fat nothing, which leaves them with much doubt and they aren't able to ever capture that again. The main sister missionary in the movie gets a call saying that a woman they were teaching in her last companionship was getting baptized and specifically asked that this Sister Missionary be there. Well, the missionary couldn't even remember this woman because while teaching this woman she had nodded off and her companion had to nudge her awake. When she was nudged it startled her so much that she blurted out the question the missionaries always ask, "are you willing to follow the saviors example and commit to be baptized..." Unbeknown to this missionary it was said with such conviction that it really made this woman think and that was what had lead her to be baptized. The moral of the story is; that this is the Lord's church and he is in complete control. Your job is to humble yourself and let yourself be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. It will most likely be the moments we lest expect that will have some profound effect on someone and not the moments when we are proud of ourselves for doing everything right.

An easy way for me to tell if I'm confused is -when I look in the mirror, what am I trying to see? Am I trying to "find myself" or am I looking for the reflection of the Savior? Why is it that we are here? Where are we going? If we are looking for the reflection of the Savior in our countenance we will have the attitude found in 1 Nephi 3:7, "I will go and do the things which the Lord commanded..." I like to think of it as showing up to a meeting with the Savior in a helmet and boots, ready to trudge through the muck with the conviction found in Psalms 71:16, "I will go in the strength of the Lord..." Sometimes I forget that I am going in "strength" and think that I am out here in the waist high muck by myself. I trudge around for awhile thinking that I'm doing pretty good until I get bogged down and loose hope. This is when I imagine that I just sit down in the muck resigned that it will finally consume me when off on the side I hear a "ah hem, remember me? The one with the rope just standing hear waiting to throw you a life line?" The Savior is always there to lift us up and out of the muck, remind us who we are and point us back to the direction we should be headed. He is there with a warm smile and a reminder "Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." Isaiah 41:10. This buoys me up and I am ready to go on trudging along trying to be about my Father's business until I get bogged down again and the whole cycle repeats itself. "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their soul with joy and consolation, yea even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." Heleman 3:35

To help ward off getting stuck in the muck so often I have really taken the council at General Conference by President Monson to heart; "What have I done, to help someone today." It is quite remarkable just how often the opportunity to help someone arises when you are prayerfully seeking out the opportunity. This council also helps us change the focus away from ourselves and eventually the image in the mirror will reflect back what it should, The Savior. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16

Sinking Ships

Sometimes it is hard to be a Mom. Sometimes? What am I saying! Most of the time it is hard to be a Mom and have all the answers and know just what to do in all situations and truth be told most of the time I am just flyin' by the seat of my pants and makin' things up as I go. Things get increasingly harder as the kids get older and their problems get bigger and the responsibility of their character development weighs heavily on me. We have been having a reoccurring problem with valuing things and personal responsibility so here's what I did this time......

The kids each received a gift card for one of our favorite stores from the chase crew of a balloon that landed near our house during the Balloon Fiesta. They were told to put them somewhere safe and during fall break we would go and use those gift cards. Nate was leaving for his hunting trip after work so the kids and I decided to go and meet him for lunch and then go to the store to spend the cards. As we were loading up the car there was a major meltdown because Ethan vehemently accused his sister of taking a chair and getting his card off of his bookshelf and thus loosing it. The two little one's are always the accused in any type of "who done it" scenario no matter if they did or not, they are just the easiest to blame everything on and it gets old. The screaming persisted all the way to the office and I decided that sometimes you just have to sink the whole ship! Now no one was going to go to the store until the card was found and I threatening to stop allowance as well because every week there is someone that has misplaced it and I am tired of it. I decided on this for 2 reasons. 1- if doing something for yourself isn't enough motivation, maybe having everyone else count on you is motivation. 2- family unity - they can learn to look out for each other and help each other out. The 2 older ones of course didn't think this was fair and they just kept getting my reply about sinking ships.

Here's where the story gets funny and it lets me know that I'm in for some serious challenges ahead with this whole parenting thing. We are driving home and Ethan has an epiphany as to where the missing card was and, sure enough, when we got home it was in this place and he had to apologize to everyone. When Nate got home we recounted the story to him and Jared had his own little epiphany. When the kids were lamenting how everyone had to suffer on the sinking ship because of their brother, Jared says to me with his finger pointing in the air, "yea, but Mom, doesn't it say in the 2nd article of faith "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's (Ethan's) transgressions?" Oh snap! Good point my little grasshopper, however, that was referring to the plan of salvation and our ability to make it back to our Father in Heaven. Man, this kid is a smart one and he makes me laugh with his "all knowing" attitude and boldness. He definitely keeps me on my toes, that's for sure. We all had a good laugh and the kids ended up going to the store a couple of days later. So, sometimes you get punished for what you did and sometimes you get punished because someone does something to sink the whole ship --when to decided to apply these is the true art of parenting and what makes it so challenging.

Psych!

This was the first year in the 10 years that we have lived here that we decided to go to a Mass Ascension. We have always been too lazy or figured the kids would die from getting up so early so we settle for watching on tv and from the backyard. We mistakenly assumed that if we left the house by 6 am we would get there in time for the 7 am mass ascension, on opening day no less! Normally this trip would take about 20 min, but after an hour of sitting on the shoulder of the freeway getting only inches closer to our exit we decided to bail. We did get to see dawn patrol from the car, which is where some balloons go up to check out the weather and give the all clear for the other balloons to go up. Then the sun came out and we could see all the balloons inflating getting ready for take off. At this point everyone in the car had lost their mind, especially me -I admit it- and so we finally gave up because by the time we paid for parking and walked onto the field all the balloons would have been up. There was no way to turn around for several exits because the balloon traffic wreaks serious havoc on the freeway and exits so we had to keep going, find a place to eat and wait it out. We ended up having a scrumptious breakfast ( I had pumpkin pancakes-yumo) and everyone found their happiness again.

On our way home it was such a beautiful site to see all the balloons in the air so we decided to pull over by the casino off Tramway and join the other roadside spectators enjoying the free show. I think we found the best kept secret for viewing balloon fiesta. We realized that we wouldn't have been able to get over to that exit that morning any easier than the balloon fiesta itself but if we just went down the freeway a ways and turned around we could probably access the exit from the frontage road. We were also wondering how much the rooms at the casino were going for because they seriously have the best view in town.

I wish I were the kind of Mom that would have seen the bad attitude of the kids coming on and started singing songs or playing games to keep them happy, but I'm the kind of Mom that infected her kids with her impatient genes. For the record I did try to sing a song with the kids but it was more mocking the kind of Mom that does that than actually trying to help my kids --I'm so bad! This trip was educational in that we learned that you have to leave by 5am at the latest, my kids got all my worst traits and we are pretty funny even when we are grumpy. We managed to make lemonade out of lemons in the end and we can have a good laugh about the time we all lost our minds (except for Nate, of course, who never looses his mind) in the car very early in the morning trying to go see the stinkin' balloons. lol :)

Balloons Aloft

The annual "Balloons Aloft" that is held at the kids' elementary school was this Friday morning. The kids love to go to this so we got up at 6 am and headed out the door by 6:30 for the quick trip over to the school for hot chocolate, donuts and balloons. It is pretty darn cold in the mornings now so we bundled up. The morning started off with a long line for the donuts and (according to the kids) the world's worst hot chocolate. :) We also had a problem when Jordyn bit into what she envisioned to be the worlds best and biggest plain donut in the world, only to find a nice creamy blob of lemon in the middle. Oh man, this was sooo not good. She was spitting and crying and wanting her mouth wiped out with a paper towel and she refused to drink the hot chocolate to get the taste out so Emma ended up giving her the rest of her donut and all was well again.

It was about 7 am when the balloons began to be inflated. There were 4 balloons in all and there is just something about walking around so close to the balloons and watching them inflate and then make their way upward into the bright crisp blue sky that is captivating.

We all had a great time and we even made it back over to the house for Emma to catch the bus to school and to make the other kids some "real" hot chocolate for breakfast before they had to head out for school. The 4 balloons also flew right over our house and the kids got to wave at them. I think this is my favorite time of the year when the colorful balloons float up into the most perfect blue backdrop while I daydream of the miracle of flight- one day I will ride in a ballon. So cool.

Sometimes You've Just Gotta Laugh

Nate kicked me off the office computer so I am typing this in true computer geek fashion, from my bed on the laptop. I am also having a bit of difficulty typing with my very injured finger- I realized that trying to sharpen a knife at 6 in the morning wasn't such a good idea and I hit bone and let me tell ya it feels very bruised...... On to my little tale of laughter...

Saturday is a special day.... I woke up barely able to move my neck - ouch and not the best way to start off the day. Then Nate took off at 7 am to go and sight in his scope so he was ready for his hunting trip next week. While he was gone the kids and I cleaned the house and there was much weeping and wailing, but we persevered and got the job done. When Nate got home we went to lunch and then had to drop him off at the hospital so he could round on a patient- so we decided to go get some Halloween costumes while we waited. The fountain of tears began to flow yet again because Ethan wanted the same costume as Jared and J gets very annoyed with this. Jared finally caved and let Ethan get the same costume only to discover that they didn't even have his size. Well this didn't go over well and I'm sure Ethan got some speech about how I couldn't magically make his size appear. After crying all over the store (not the tantrum kind of cry but the my life couldn't suck any worse kind of dejected cry) about how there was nothing there that he liked or that was his size. I offered up going to another store after we picked up Daddy which he thought was a bad idea because this other store would surely have lame costumes. Jordyn was also having a difficult time because she only wanted a vampire girl costume and we couldn't find one, but after looking at every costume 5 times we finally decided on this cute pink bat girl costume -which Nathan thinks is hoochie. I give up! lol Emma and Jared thought that they had some kind of unlimited budget to work with so by the time we bought our stuff and went to pick up Daddy, I was so over this day! Your brain so starts to hurt when you are fiercely negotiating with 4 kids! One last stop though.... by this time everyone was in a bad mood and Ethan wasn't having a lot of luck finding a costume, however I found a costume that was just begging to be put on and we all needed a good laugh by this point. So....

I couldn't just stop with trying it on, I had to do a little hot dog dance to go with it and Nate had to document my nuttiness so he took a couple of pictures with his cell phone.

The kids thought it was pretty funny and we all had a good laugh-- although, they wouldn't let me put on the banana costume next. :) We were able to finish up our trip with costume in hand for the Edog and get home just in time for our new neighbors to come over and hang out with us. So, when your day is going from bad to worse and pretty soon all the crying that your kids are doing is going to make you start crying.......find a way to make yourself laugh and suddenly life's not so bad.

Adventures in dog sitting

Last Thursday I got a call from my Sister-in-law asking if we would please watch their beloved Jazzy while they were on vacation. Someone else had backed out of the sitting duties so over to my house this little dog came for a week long visit. Up until this point this dog has hated pretty much our entire family, maybe it has something to do with our calling her a rat. She really does look like a rat though- in our defense! The first day with her she really wanted to have nothing to do with me until Nate came home from work and chased her around the house and she jumped into my lap violently shaking and was my little BFF from that point on. While we had her we came up with a new nickname for her. What do you think.....Master Splinter?

Turtles in a half-shell, turtle power! I don't know about you, but I see a striking resemblance!
On the other hand, her actions were more the "Evil Shredder" from her handy work on not 1 but 2 of the doors in my house! It is pretty much a coin toss on either of the names although she really isn't that evil and splinter also works for what she did to the doors.
Jazzy had lots of fun playing with our boy, Champ. She is such a diva though and loved being a total tease to Champ. He wanted so desperately to play with her and she would for a second and then snip at him. She also loved eating out of his bowl of food which he kindly obliged her. We only had one incident where I had taken her to a church activity at a park while we played Ultimate Frisbee. I had a friend hold her leash so that I could go and play and she wiggled out of her harness and took off running. She also earned her name of Master S because of her ninja fast moves. It was pretty comical having that many people try to chase this little tiny rat around trying to catch her.

Ok, I'm going to tell you all a little secret, but don't tell anyone!!! Jazzy's family came to pick her up last night and a very strange thing happened........ I kinda miss my little BFF. She went with me and the kids to the bus stops everyday. She went for a couple of rides in the car. She followed me everywhere in the house. I couldn't as much as flinch without her getting ready to potentially follow me to the next destination. I even.... actually..... let.....her on my bed! I know! Craziness! She got locked in the laundry room at night for bedtime (where she shredded the door) but while I showered, folded laundry or read at night, she laid on our bed much to Nate's utter disapproval. The house seems awfully quiet without her..... little feet pit pattering around, always sitting next to me, laughing at her little dog syndrome as she growled at literally every person we came in contact with, spastic jumping all over the place when I would come back home and even her totally annoying snippy little bark.......

The 2nd most wonderful time of the year

Nate and I try to have a lunch date once a week. For this date I usually dress fairly nice because I would if we were dating, but yesterday for our date I was in a comfy cozy mood so jeans and a hoodie is what he got. Now, I did wear his most favorite pair of jeans, so it's not like I totally didn't try.... :) When he saw me he said "uh oh, Heathie's favorite time of the year must be here, she finally gets to wear her hoodies." Apparently I am pretty predictable. lol I do love the hoodie. I mean who doesn't?? I do get the form fitting ones so that I don't look like a rag-a-muffin, so again, I am trying. I seriously have to stop myself from buying more hoodies because I already own 5, but they just seem to keep calling my name and there are many varieties, thicknesses and colors. Who could blame me? The most wonderful thing about a hoodie is that it adds just the right amount of warmth and the fabric is the most snuggly you can wear in public without looking like you are going to bed. You can either have it zipped or unzipped depending on the level of coziness you are trying to achieve. You can also either put your hands up inside the sleeves or there are nice little hand warmer/chap stick keeper pockets in the front. One of the best all time features is the hood itself. It also has a duel purpose. For those extra breezy days you can cover your ears and keep them toasty warm or the hood also acts as an "invisibility shield" for those days when you want to warn people not to talk to you. So, now that the weather is getting pretty cold in the mornings and a bit cool in the afternoons, you are pretty likely to see me in one of my wonderfully comfy, cozy hoodies - possibly listening to my favorite new album that almost asks for you to be wearing a hoodie to listen to it.

Anger Management

When Jordyn gets so upset that she can no longer be reasoned with I pick her up, plop her on her bed, shut the door and tell her she can come out when she has calmed down. While she is in there wailing away she finds an outlet for the rage by completely stripping her bed of all bedding and then rolling around in the bedding on the floor. When I come back in her room to see if she is finished being so mad I have to suppress my laugh while she dramatically tells me all the ways that I made her so mad. Well, today was different. Her and Ethan were fighting over the computer and then a scratching match broke out so off to the bed she went, only this time all the bedding was already off the bed because I had just washed it. Uh oh, now what? haha. When I came back in to check on her this time she was still rolling on the floor, but neatly placed on her bed were all the glow in the dark stars that used to be on her wall. They were even sticky goop side up with none of them touching each other in a nice little line. She just had to disrupt the order of things to feel better I guess. Maybe this will turn into what I do when I'm really mad.......pull out the fridge and clean behind it or take a toothbrush to the floor or a bathroom or search the house for all the missing socks...crazy stuff like that. It is also funny that it is totally cute for my 5 year old to throw such a colossal fit, but if one of the older ones do, it is so not cute!

Spoiled

Last weekend Nate took me to Vegas because someone in his office was getting married there. He knows that I can be a bit snobby when it comes to hotel rooms so he made sure he booked us at a nice place..... and it was a very nice place. We stayed at the Wynn this time and the hotel is a garden theme so it had 3 waterfall features and a romantic light strung tree garden inside that you walked through to enter the hotel. There were many awesome things about the room but this is no advertisement so I will tell you about the couple of things that were funny to me..........The 8 yes 8 dollars they wanted for a small handful of candy (it was in little tins) The fridge that charged for a water if it left the shelf ( so no pondering about how desperate you are to pay that much for the water) The scale in the bathroom (who wants to know this in buffet capital of the world) the mounted telephone in the bathroom (really, is it that important! all I could think about was the nasty germs that were lurking on it) I found it interesting that in a room that has our name on the telephone and tv that there were not jets in the big bathtub, although to make up for it there was a tv in there. What else? Oh yea, the part Nate likes to mention to everyone....there was a section of the pool that was for "European style" sunbathing. Of course, what do you think we saw there? You guessed it.....this very large person who on first glance seemed to be a man, but oh wait, there they are.......on the lounge chair....Gross!!!!!! That's what you get for looking! :)
We had some tasty meals and did a lot of walking around. The problem with Vegas is that there is absolutely nothing to do during the day but shop! So you walk around trying to convince yourself that you don't need all of these designer shoes, purses, clothes, sunglasses etc.... what was really sad is that I pretty much know all of these designers now. What have I become? But, I am proud to say that I did not spend one single penny on anything but a couple of trinkets for the kids.
This time we went to 2 "real shows," Jerry Seinfeld and La Reve. The opening act for Jerry was hilarious and I was laughing so hard that I could barely breathe and then Jerry was pretty funny, but he is pretty mellow. La Reve had some awesome stunts and stuff, but as far as story line goes......who knows what the heck it was about. We also attended the wedding that was really nice. I had no idea how cheap a wedding there at Caesars was until the bride told me that she paid 600 bucks for the chapel, the priest, the flowers, the cake, the photographer- for 1 hour- and a picture package. All they had to do was show up. Sweet. The only thing that probably cost a small fortune was the reception dinner after at a buffet place that was hideously expensive if you just walked in and paid for dinner. I refuse to pay for a buffet in Vegas because I haven't found one worth the money yet.

So, there you have it, our vacation getaway. It was so nice knowing that the kids were at home having more fun with their cousins than they ever would have had with us home.

Here lies Ralph

We recently discovered that we had a mice problem not only in our garage but in our trailer as well. We also discovered that there was far more damage to the trailer than just the mouse poo everywhere, and I mean everywhere! We went to use the water pump and found it not working so when it was being looked at, guess what we learned, yep mice had eaten the wires. Oh goodie!!! This also lead to the new place we found loads of poop. So to get ready for the camping trip we just went on, I had to scour the trailer, wash every dish, toss all the food, wash all bedding and clean the carpet. Joy! While in the process of finally packing the trailer to leave, Emma, discovered a mouse lying on the floor of the garage twitching. This news got the attention of everyone who then came out to witness the effects of rat poison on a mouse. First things first, remove the dying mouse from the garage so we don't come home to a stinky garage. Ralph, he was given this name in the final throws of his life, was still holding on when he got transported to his death bed in a rock pile across the street. I had things to do so I left the kids there to watch Ralf take his final breathes and the next thing I know, Emma, is now looking for a pen to write with so they can make a tomb stone for the mouse who has now come to be known as Ralph. My niece was actually shedding a few tears which she claims were brought on by "the wind" over the tragic scene of watching something die. The rock says "RIP in remembrance of Ralph." What tender hearted kids! I on the other hand am having a hard time mustering up a tear to shed over this rodent and it's family that wreaked so much havoc in our trailer! However, in spite of my cold hearted behavior, everyone deserves to be remembered, so this post is in remembrance of Ralph whom I'm sure lead a good life and made his parents proud and is now laid to rest in the rock pile across the street.....which hopefully the neighbors cat wont find and eat the poison laced pest! :)

Cotton Candy Sky

My Favorite time of day is when the sun is nearly set. I love to sit outside and watch the vibrant colors from the last rays of the sun dance in the clouds. Sometimes it looks like big fluffy cotton candy and other times it looks like fire. We are big lovers of cotton candy in this family and love to pick out shapes in the clouds so it is no surprise that when the clouds turn pink we think of cotton candy. We have this breathtaking sunset on display at least a couple of times a week. There is a pretty small viewing window so you have to be watching for it to catch it. I also love to see on a crisp blue sky day the moon out at the same time as the sun. With all of this sky watching I have become increasingly more disappointed in my camera. hint, hint, Nate! ;) Especially when it came to the one of the moon looking mysterious in the cloudy night sky. The picture I got did not do it justice at all. The moon was so bright that you could see these thin black clouds passing in front of it and it reminded me of Halloween. The one with the moon out by the mountain when it was still light outside was so bright that you could actually see the topography of it. All of these pictures were taken this June and July and from either my backyard or the front yard. I highly recommend going outside in the evening while the sun is setting and just sit and take in the beauty of this magical vast sky with all of it's mysteries. It looks so close you could touch it.

Follow Up

I thought I would give a little update to my post "are you kidding me?" Despite my incredibly negative attitude about things that go wrong in my life things inevitably work out for the best in the end. No matter how many times things work out it doesn't seem to keep the "Eeyore" attitude at bay, which my sweet husband always like to remind me of. The contrast between my pessimism and his optimism works well for us. Anyway, we were already a few weeks into the process of getting quotes to do our backyard when I finally decided to tackle the last gazebo because it had been taking forever and we didn't think we would be building a structure anyway. Then the micro burst came along and, well, you saw the pictures. We were able to do more in our backyard than we thought we were going to be able to do and so now we have a solid structure that is supported deep into the ground (they had to jack hammer the concrete out to pour footings for the posts) as well as some beautiful grass and big trees. I don't think this gazebo is going anywhere!

Cheap Entertainment

Jordyn has a pretty intense relationship with bandages. Every little scrape or bump requires one or more to adequately comfort her. On this day I guess she and Ethan decided that they could be used for much more than owies, they could be used to make mustaches and beards. With these 2 little nuts running around the house I don't need any other entertainment. Ethan's looks alone are extremely entertaining. So, the next time you're bored and looking for a good laugh, pull out the 'ole bandages and have some fun.

Ungrateful?

Every year (for the past few) on this weekend we have been going to California to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. The first 2 times we went to LA and then last year we went to San Diego and this year Nate decided it was time we went on a cruise (which left from San Diego) so we decided to give the cruise thing a try. After this trip I have no desire to ever do a mini cruise again or at least not one from this cruise line. Now to be fare... if you are looking to drink your liver into scerosis for the economical price of 15.00 a drink without having the bother of driving yourself home each night than this is the cruise and ship for you. Most of the people on the cruise lived in California and so there were 2 bachelor and 1 bachelorette parties on with us. The general consensus is that the other major line has better food and entertainment. I just felt a bit like I was in prison. The rooms are so small that they are not conducive to spending any time in at all. Nate had to climb over my side of the bed to get to his side. Which if the weather would have been better we would have spent more time on deck. From San Diego to Catalina is a 1 hour ferry ride. We "sailed" all night to get there. The day we were at Catalina we only got to be off the boat from 8 am to 3:30 pm. We only had enough time to do our Segway tour and kayaking trip and then it was time to line up to get back on the boat and do nothing again. The second day we were "out to sea" we got to look at the island that we were supposed to be on, Ensenada, as we sat in the water not able to get off the boat. The only thing they had to do was gamble in the casino, play bingo in a lounge, go shopping in the 2 stores that didn't open until 7:30pm, see entertainment shows starting at 11 pm, eat and eat and eat some more, or get crazy drunk and act like an idiot---which we don't do. Ok, I've got my ungrateful complaining out of the way.
We really did have fun as you can see by our pictures. We got to look like some serious dorks on our Segway tour with a caped out speed of 6 mph---but, you've got to try it at least once in your life and it was still fun. We decided it was too cold to snorkel this time so we just kayaked instead. Luckily they had pants and jackets for us to wear because we had planned for warm weather. That was fun and we managed not to yell at each other this time. There were some kids next to us singing "row, row, row your boat" and all I could think of was "stroke man, stroke man, stroke, stroke". Our arms got a pretty good work out from the 3 mile trip and I got to do my mandatory sea shell hunt where Nate found a heart shaped rock, aaaawww. We also had some pretty interesting dinners with our dinner group. All in all we got to spend some time away together and we had fun just being together and mocking all things cruise related..... especially all the cheesy pictures they try to take of you and then sell you for way too much money.
We got home on my birthday and arrived to a huge banner across the garage that the kids made.....ooops Nate opened the garage, so he had to go and fix the banner. The pictures were so cute. Ethan drew what I assume to be a black rainbow with I love you inside, but it looked more like a tomb stone. lol :) Then Brooke's picture involved a lot of red and orange---maybe she was envisioning me on fire? Too funny. I also realized after looking at the pictures that I was branded with my new age..... when you disembark from the boat they put a little sticker on you so you can be found on the dock by your group and mine happened to be the # of my new age. I am now officially closer to 40 than I am 30....yikes!

Are You Kidding Me?!

Where to begin on this lovely little tale of my gazebo. The gazebo that was a nightmare to put together. The first day of assembly was a short day for school and so I recruited my kids and the neighbor to help hold the columns while I put the base of the roof on. This took a couple of hours and some complaining about "kids should be able to play" but we endured and they were paid in drinks from Sonic (happy hour pricing of course!) This structure sat like that for a couple of days because I now needed the help of adults to get the skeleton of the roof hoisted up on the base and secured. It now set like that until the day before Emma's birthday when I decided to tackle the rest of the thousand pieces. For 1 person it was a complete nightmare and I ended up having to take most of it back apart because I couldn't get the cap pieces on the bottom edge of the roof screwed in place without help and the tiles kept getting blown out by the wind. So Nate and I spent Saturday morning before the party cursing the stupid structure and finally getting it to the last stage of the support brackets that went on the inside. Has anyone ever put together Ikea furniture? No words just pictures. I happen to really like that style of instructions except for when the pictures are so black and horrible that you can't even see what is going on in the picture. This is what we had for instructions. No words only crappy blurred, blacked out pictures to surmise what might be going on in this picture. I had to keep saying to myself, "if I were piece V1 where would I go?" Seriously!!!!! So It came time to put the supports on and low and behold I was missing nut bolts that needed to be inserted into the skeletal structure of the roof before assembly. Where was this on the picture??????? So we decided to bail on the project because it looked like it was fully assembled until we could figure out what we were going to do about having no support brackets. We didn't do a very important thing when you live in New Mexico where we have micro burst of wind that like to roll through town whenever they feel like it.....secure it to the ground!!!! So 2 days after the party on my way home from picking Jordyn up from school I found this in the backyard.......................

I just stood looking out the sliding glass window and said to the universe, "Are you kidding me?" After pondering for a millisecond how such a heavy structure was going to be righted again I realized there was no point because one of the legs was bent. Also a cap piece that was painstakingly secured into position was somehow no longer screwed into place which you can see by the picture below. My next concern was for the extremely expensive pool cover my useless metal gazebo was now resting on top of. When the other kids got home I had them ever so carefully help me move the dumb thing up onto the patio without ripping the cover.

Where this story is funny to me is that I decided that I was being punished for flipping the neighbor the bird every time I drove by his house that day. Why was I flipping off the neighbor you ask? Because he is a Jhole, that's why! He is the former business partner of the builder whom we are now suing and we needed to have a cement truck drive through the back of his empty lot to get to the vacant house's lot next to us so we could build a fence and he said no.....because he's a jerk! I guess I still have some hostility towards the guy. :) Luckily our neighbor on the other side that we actually share a wall with told us we could drive through as much as we wanted so we are having the wall built as a type right now. The other thing that is funny is that we have been interviewing landscapers and one of them that I thought I was going to like ended up annoying me. He was at our house to give us a presentation the day the gazebo was upside down on the patio. After 5 min listening to his lack of a presentation I was done with this clown but stuck it out in case Nate's cheap nature was going to win out in the end. So when he was done he noticed that the gazebo was upside down and offered to help move it. Knife to the heart. His divine justice was that he ended up putting it right on top of all the dog poo in the yard! Nice. Wow this story is getting really long........ Anyway I managed to get the whole thing taken apart the next day in a little over an hour (funny since it took 4 days to put together) while stopping to pick up dog poo along the way so I could get to the next piece to be removed. I got it all loaded into Nate's truck when he got home from work (he helped with that part) and sent him off to Costco to beg for them to give us our money back. Sing praises and hallelujah they took pity on us and gave us our money back after doing some laughing! So............ we had a gazebo for 2 days.

My Day

Ok, don't think bad of me for what I'm about to say, but I recently discovered that I'm not a big fan of Mother's Day. It feels like a bunch of hype with everyone running out on Saturday night to get Mom flowers and gifts to say they love her and treat her nice on 1 day of the year. To be fair, I kinda feel this way about all Holidays, but since this is the Holiday right now we'll stick with this one. My Mother's day perfect gift would be that my kids would actually pitch in and help around the house without being threatened with their lives on every day of the year. That they would have respect for their things and for me. That they would take a break from trying to kill each other every once in a while. That the toilets would magically clean themselves and all the socks would find their mates and dinner time wasn't a battle of wills, that dog poo would disinegrate the moment it hit the ground, that everything would stop breakinga and that Nate wouldn't have to work so much. If I could a few more brain cells implanted in my head that would be awesome as well. But, these are not the things we get on Mother's day....... Instead we get a day much like any other with a couple of gifts that are ment to make up for the rest of the year. :) Here though is what makes the day worth it.......when Ethan said to me "Mommy, you look really pretty today. You're the pretties Mommy and if I didn't have you for a Mommy I wouldn't have a pretty Mommy." Then later in the day when Nate and I were laying on the floor he said, "aw you guys are so cute. Together you're cute, not together, you're not cute." Jordyn has been really clingy lately and when I ask her what is going on she just looks at me with those puppy dog eyes and says, "I just love you so much." Or at night when I tuck her in with a major routine of hugs and kisses and handshakes we squeeze each other as tight as we can and she always says "never let go."

So what gifts did I get this year? The day started out with the traditional breakfast in bed which I do always love and then I got my gifts. The gifts for me is more about seeing the excitement in their eyes at giving me the gift than the actual gift itself. Emma made me a flower pen with a poem she made up herself. Jared made me some perfume from flowers in his science club. Ethan made me a flower pot with a flower in it and Jordyn made me a hot plate with her hand traced in it that was "cooked 2 times." They also went to the store Saturday night and got me the items that I had picked out for them...... a pillow for the bathtub, a head scratcher thing and they also got me a new towel rack for the kitchen. Later in the day Emma and I decided we needed some chocoate covered strawberries so we made some and the rest of the kids covered themselves in the chocolate as their way of helping. Then I was on the computer for awhile blogging about Emma's birthday and Nate got tired of waiting for his turn on the computer so he fell asleep on the floor. I joined him on the floor and the kids laughed when they walked by and saw us laying on the floor. They wondered if we were dead and then decided to dog pile on us. Then after laying there for so long concrete set in and we lost motivation to get up. Nate took care of dinner and while the little one's were trying to help Jordyn ended up getting bonked on the head so Ethan was holding an ice pack on it for her. She kept saying, "it's alright Ethan, it was an accident." He apparently was the cause of her head getting bonked but she was comforting him. Then to cap off the day Ethan decided that the hole he made in the net of the trampoline just a couple of days prior that I painstakingly stitched back together was something to be tested out again so he proceeded to throw himself into the net head first repeteadly until he ripped a much bigger hole in it this time. Insert lecture on respect for things and the money it takes to buy and replace things.

What it all boils down to is that these are the days that fill our lives and make up a family. We learn and grow, laugh and cry and most importantly love and through it all, no matter what, we "never let go!"

Emma's 12th Birthday

My little girl is growing up so fast. I'm so excited for her future and also so wishing I could make time stand still for just a little longer. This is also the first year she has been unable to give me a list of what she wants for her Birthday. Is there really nothing she wants? I guess that can mean one of 2 things, either she is spoiled or she really isn't into many things. We'll figure something out I'm sure. Everywhere I go people are always telling me what a sweet girl I have and how much they love her and want to take her home with them. Every teacher she has ever had sings her praises and wishes that they could keep her again for the next school year. My Emma is a very sweet natured girl who loves to help others out, is very smart and good at most subjects in school, she's a hard worker, she takes things to heart, she's very trustworthy and is an awesome big sis to her little shadow, Jordy. She is a true joy and pleasure to have in our family and I am very proud of her!

To celebrate her Birthday this year she decided on having a swim party. This turned out to be a bit of a stressful situation since the pool heater was broken, and still is. There was much drama and suspense trying to get the pool fixed before the party and it just didn't happen. It almost got fixed but of course when the repair man finally made it out to our house he fixed the problem and discovered yet another problem which required a part he of course didn't have!!! Luckily it has been really warm the last few days so the pool naturally heated up to 80 degrees all by itself. the only down side was there was no hot tub. So in the end all was well and good with the pool for the party. Too bad the grass in the backyard looks like crap! :) We had her party early to avoid people being out of town, but still ended up with a bunch of friends out of town and she was worried no one was going to show up, but she ended up with 6 really awesome girls at her party and they all had a great time. I got a cd with luau music on it and will have stuck in my head for the next several days, "hot, hot, hot" and "lime in the coconut." I just sat out on the couch in the "luau hut" and read my book during the party...... finally a party that was totally relaxing!

Pain in the neck

Today I went into the pain specialist and got 15 shots in my neck. It looks like I was attacked by a couple of vampires and if one of them were ,oh let's say, Edward (the one from my imagination not the one from the movie!!!) I wouldn't be complaining. Since I'm still mortal and walked away from the experience with all my blood I will just have to come up with some other story to go along with all the bruised holes up the side of my neck because the truth is never as exciting... in my opinion! So, the boring truth is that I have been having trouble with my neck ever since a car accident 10 years ago. I can usually keep it from getting bad with exercise, stretching and massages. This time the flair up was so bad that I spent 4 weeks of my life at the chiropractors office getting adjusted, acupunctured, massaged and something else with electrodes on it and I came out worse than I went in. Nathan couldn't handle my grumpiness any more so he called a pain specialist that he knows and set up the appointment for me. Basically he used an x-ray to inject cortisone into the joints of my spine on my neck. He did 5 joints in all. I opted out of an IV full of the good stuff because Nate left for Moab today to go 4wheeling with his friends so I couldn't be all doped up and take care of the kids by myself. So, instead I got 5 surface numbing hits with the needle and then 5 deeper numbing hits with the needle and the grand finale of 5 shots in each of the 5 joints. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but it wasn't horrible either. My only problem is that for the first couple of days you feel much worse and I am feeling pretty bad right now so boo hoo for me! On a sunny note, my youngest daughter thinks I am a rock star because I didn't even cry when I got my shots. She thinks this because 2 days before we had to take her in for one last immunization so we could register her for school and she screamed her head off. She was really proud of me.

My Flapper Girl

Emma was in her 1st play this week. There was a performance at the school on Friday and then another one on Monday at the high school auditorium. It was a cute little production on being an American and there was a country girl dance, a civil war reenactment, flapper girl dance, African tribal music to represent diversity and baseball players. Emma took her part very seriously and she did a great job. I could tell that she was nervous but she still did her little dance with spunk and confidence! She has really come out of her shell in the last couple of years.
















The big finish




























In the hall before the big show with her fishnet stockings and feather in her hair! She enjoyed this experience so much that she has signed up for drama for an elective next year.

Taken' a trip....down memory lane

I'm not sure what it is about this year in particular, but I have been thinking a lot about my childhood days and the feelings that I had at the time. I wanted to start the pictures with youngest to oldest, but since they loaded reverse and they wont move on the page we'll just start from now instead. My oldest is getting ready to start middle school and we are in the process of picking out her electives. She is pretty nervous about the whole thing so today I pulled out all of my yearbooks and showed the kids some pictures of what their Mom looked like back then. I have no idea what challenges lie ahead for Emma as she makes the transition from the naive cocoon of elementary school to the harsh real world of middle school, but I do know one thing for sure..... It wont be like my experience at all. The things that made my life so difficult and most of the time unbearable she wont experience. My troubles actually started in the 5th grade when I got glasses. This somehow triggered the realization that I was also extremely poor and had buck teeth and therefore was ugly and not worthy of any one's friendship any longer. I still remember the event that sealed my new fate. It was at my then best friends birthday party and I had gone in a ridiculous t-shirt that my Dad had bought for me and my brothers. My parents were separated at the time because they were constantly literally trying to kill each other so I guess I decided that I didn't want to hurt my Dad's feelings by not wearing this shirt that he had made for me that said "super kid." I know, killing me would have been more humane! Anyway I had the glasses and this made my buck teeth more obvious and our water had been turned off that week so there may have been a bit of a smell as well. Without going into too much detail everyone turned on me at the party and started making fun of me and that was the last time this girl was my friend and it set the stage for my entire middle school experience. Emma on the other hand is gorgeous and has no real flaws and doesn't have a poor family and her father isn't a drunk and her parents aren't trying to kill each other so I think she is off to a pretty decent start! It still makes me nervous because kids can be so cruel and who knows what people can come up with to torment you with. Despite all of this I think I turned out pretty ok and I know she will too even though I obviously still have some residual side effects from the experience.

I had Ethan and Jordyn take turns taking pictures so I could include a picture of what I look like today at this very moment. Now brace yourself for these next pictures. I can't believe I am owning up to looking like I did. But I'm all about brutal honesty and I think it also helps make me relateable to my daughter so here goes.......

Nothing to be real embarrassed about here. This was my senior year picture taken in 1991. This was my junior year and when I got these pictures back I wanted to kill by best friend for letting me get my picture taken with my bangs that high! It's not like they were much flatter on a daily basis but this was a bit high even for me. In fact Nathan used to tease me in French class about reception that I was trying to pick up with my earrings and bangs.
Sorry about the picture quality of these, but they were taken several years ago. This one was taken in 1989 to be exact for my sophomore year. This is when I discovered that I wasn't quite as hideous looking as I was led to believe and so I got a bit of an attitude which you can see in this picture. My problem now was that I started getting attention from the boys that used to tease me and this didn't sit well with the girls so I still had no friends except for 2. My straight as an arrow best friend and my totally opposite of that friend. I really liked going between the 2 different worlds of my friends and landing somewhere in the middle back then.

This was my freshman year. I traded in the glasses for contacts and got braces. For all the problems my parents had it killed them to discover that I was awkward and ugly and with little money they had managed to get me in braces to fix my buck teeth and provide me with contacts. And yes, that does say "Heatber!" The last 3 photos had my kids rolling on the floor with laughter at how large my glasses were. "Why did they have to be so big?" Is what they were wondering. They were too distracted by my glasses to notice how scary my hair looked!
This picture is just plain scary! Not much else to say than that! Seriously, not good! It just went from bad to worse! I don't know how that girl got out of bed every day! Seriously! I really can't believe I'm going to leave it there.
This one was the 7th grade in 1986. For the record I did my own hair and I really did think it was a pretty awesome do and I was also pretty stoked about my dangly earrings! this hair reminds me of my first love/crush/obsession, Andy Gibb, with that dreamy feathered hair of his.

This is my 6th grade picture and I was looking through my yearbook and there were a whole 8 of us that had glasses that year. I at least had 1 friend who wrote "sweet" on my picture. Either that or it was pitifully myself who wrote it! Actually several pictures have writing on them that cracked me up. We were already calling kids "stoners" in the 6th grade! Everyone was so cute except for me! While looking through the yearbook I found out that a fairly large amount of these kids went to school with me for all those years and ended up in my graduating class. Oblivious! I guess I was living in a bubble or I'm surviving on very few brain cells, either is pretty plausible.

So there you have it. The good, bad and the just plain ugly! Always remember, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger even though at times your pretty sure your barely alive!