A bit of randomness...

~We've been waiting for this moment for so long, and finally, yesterday, it happened....Gracie turned 18 months old and went to nursery!!! Hooray! Doin' a little dance! She is, by far, our child that has been the most attached to me. She LOVES church though, which is great! She won't go to family, she is such a stinker about that. She likes all of them at a distance, she just doesn't want them touching her. At church, though, she becomes a social butterfly. She is hilarious! Everyone oohs and aahhs about how pretty she is all the time and smiles at her and they even indulge her when she touches their scriptures and other pretty things they might have. She has even run her hands up ladies' legs playing with their silky pantyhose and they just let her. She is funny! But I wasn't sure how she'd handle being in nursery...alone. She cried for just a minute until the leader held her on her lap during their little singing time. Then she had the most terrified look on her face and had her little hand shoved in her mouth for comfort which completely tore my heart out. Seriously PAINFUL for mom to watch secretly through the awesome little window in the door! She is so sweet I really hated for her to be so scared and sad. Then there was snack time. She LOVES food and water in her own little cup. She was in heaven at that point. My friend, Sherelle went in there to help the leader who was in there alone, and Gracie knows Sherelle well enough that I think that helped her out. She didn't cry again and did really well. YES!!! We'll see how she does next week when she knows we'll leave her again but so far so good.
~Have you all seen the commercial for pistachios where "Snooky", whoever that is, eats a pistachio off of a tanning bed? Do y'all remember when I worked at Steph and J.J.'s tanning salon? Yeah, I used to clean tanning beds. Do you know how many butt cracks and hoo-hahs slide across that part of a tanning bed in a day. DISGUSTING!  I am such a germaphobe, as you know from previous posts, so I REALLY scrubbed those beds down after someone used them. One time a coworker came out so quickly when she was supposed to have cleaned a room. You have to spray the little plastic rug and wipe it (that person could have athlete's foot or who knows what else), spray and wipe down the chair (umm, yeah, someone could have sat their in all their glory, you just never know. And their undies were just sitting on it and I don't even want to know what could be on that chair if you don't sanitize it), spray and wipe down the bed. I had to give her a little "cleaning the room" demonstration after that because ICK!!! So, watching someone eat a pistachio, or anything else, off of a tanning bed, that I'm sure was EXTREMELY sanitized, makes me want to hurl every time it comes on. WHAT were these advertisers thinking. SERIOUSLY nasty!!!
~WHAT do these young girls see in Justin Bieber? I "get" the attraction to Joe Jonas, and Zac Efron, but Justin Bieber?! Just don't get it! We had so many "hot" guys to have crushes on when we were growing up.  Maybe that's it. Maybe there just isn't enough manmeat out there for them to crush on so they are DESPERATE! I just don't "get" it!!!
~Max has his Thanksgiving Feast at preschool tomorrow. This morning Brian reminded me that when Zack was little he called it the Thanksgiving Veast. Loved that!!
~So, we get to speak in church again Sunday. We are SO thrilled about it. We're praying that lots of people are still out of town for the holiday. We are forcing our children to each speak too to take up more time. Aren't we nice parents!? They were like, NOOOOO!!! So I said, ok, here are your options...either you give a little talk or you sing a song together. They decided the talk would be better. I was like, seriously dudes, you just had to do your parts in the Primary program and you did AWESOME!! And you have to give talks in Primary so you can give a little talk in Sacrament Meeting and it won't kill you. We need to settle in one place and never move again if for no other reason but to avoid speaking in church so often.
~Brian made this yummy dessert the other day that he got in an email the other day. You make it like you do a cobbler in the dutch oven. It's best to mix the cake mix some with the butter so you don't have clumps of uncooked cake mix just like a cobbler. He just cooked it in the oven in our big pot and he didn't line the pot with foil. He cooked it at 350 degrees for about an hour. It was really good!!!

Pumpkin Pie Crunch

Ingredients:

1 can solid pumpkin (15 ounces)

1 can evaporated milk (12 ounces)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp. salt

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1 cup butter, melted

Optional 1 cup chopped pecans (we did not add these)

Line dutch oven with heavy-duty foil and spray well with cooking spray. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Pour into oven. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle with pecans, if desired. Pour melted butter evenly over whole cake. Place 6 hot coal pieces in a circle under the Dutch oven and about 20 pieces evenly around the outside of the lid on top for 50 to 55 minutes. Cake is done when the pumpkin custard is firm. Lift the foil out of the Dutch oven and place on a large dish to cool. 

And so it goes...

~I hate going to the Dr. I can't decide which I'm more worried about. That he'll tell me that something bad is wrong with me or that he'll blow me off and just act like it's no big deal and I'll have wasted time and the $25 copay. Either way, not looking forward to it!!!
~Poor Matty has strep throat. Of course he didn't tell us his throat hurt until AFTER he went to Primary yesterday. I hope no one in his class gets it. I hope no one else in our family gets it. You gotta love this time of year. I feel like I need to get a job just to pay for our copays and prescriptions.
~They say there's no use crying over spilled milk but I have to say that it does help a little to cry when your 4 year old drops a brand new gallon of milk on the floor, breaking it and causing milk to go all over the frig, the floor, under the frig, and run down the slanty floor and get all over the coats and jackets that he thought would be so super fun to unload from the closet. I've asked him to ask me to get him drinks but he thinks he is 20 years old, does not need parents, and certainly does not need help doing ANYTHING!

~big sigh~

Today was just SUPER!!! I know it could be worse but the way I feel today, it was plenty!!!

On a positive note though, some of you will remember my cousin, John's son Parker who had meningitis at the age of 8 months about a year and a half ago. Well, I know it's been a long time since I updated you about his condition but he got a cochlear implant some time back and has been doing really well with that and now......HE WALKS!!! Renee put a little video on her blog of him walking. WONDERFUL!!! Such a blessing and an answer to so many prayers!!! So happy for Parker and his parents and beautiful sisters!!!! Miracles happen!!! God answers prayers!!!

A couple of things...

~First of all, I would like to tell all the news reporters out there that it is a terr-OR alert, not a Tar-A alert, thank you very much!!! I'm just sayin!
~Secondly, I can't think of anything cuter in the world than Gracie's 17 month-old belly laugh when she's playing peek-a-boo!!! She is just SO cute and fun!!! We all just love her so much!!! She has been such a wonderful addition to our family and she and her brothers make life worth living for sure!!!

A love letter...

Dear Ikea, Target, The Sweet Tooth Fairy, University Mall, Provo Towne Centre Mall, Olive Garden, Costco, Sam's, Quilted Bear, Seagull Book, TaiPan Trading, Robert's Crafts, JoAnns, Gracie Lou's, Kohl's, Toys "R" Us, Park City outlets, Papa Kelsey's salads and "mater bread", Cute little store inside of the Conoco in Salem, etc.,

          It's been so long, so very looonnngggg!!!!

I MISS YOU!!!

I can't stop thinking about you and all of the good times we've shared.

               The holidays just won't be the same without you.

  If loving you is wrong...I don't wanna be right!!!

                    They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and it's oh, so true!

I thought time would make the loneliness go away but it just seems to get worse with each passing day.                                
                         How do I live without you? I want to know...

                                                             

I'm SO over my relationship with Walmart, Penney's, KMart, and the $1 store. They've done their best to fill the void and heaven knows we've tried to work things out. It's just...not the same.

                I need YOU!!! 

Though the miles may separate us,
 just know that my heart is with you!!!

Love always,

           Tara              

                                         

silly me

Max hated preschool for the first 2 weeks this year because his class was quite large and he only new one little girl from t ball. I had to force him to go each day. I figured I'd give it 2 weeks and if he still didn't like it I was NOT paying for something he hated. Well, I kept telling him he would make friends and then he would like it. He made friends with a boy named Logan and that helped tremendously! He started being excited for school each day. We have all...day...kindergarten here which is pretty tough for most kids to get used to. It takes around 2 weeks for them to adjust but if they haven't had some sort of school experience before it's even more difficult to adjust so preschool is pretty much a MUST. I know of parents who enroll their kids in 2 preschools to help with the adjustment. I think that's pretty extreme and costly. Anyhoo, yesterday was Max's class pumpkin patch field trip. I have been trying to be more involved in school activities with my boys this year since I didn't do much last year because Gracie was so little so I happily signed up to be a driver. Well, all morning yesterday Max kept telling me to forget to go on the field trip. I was a bit hurt and asked him why he didn't want me to go. He told me he wanted to get to ride in Logan's car with him. WHEW! He likes me he just wanted to be social. AWESOME! He's come a long way in just a few short weeks! I talked with Miss Tawnya and she said that Logan's mom wasn't going on the field trip so she made sure Logan got to ride with Max so he would be happy. We were excitedly walking to the van to start on our fun little adventure when I realized I locked my keys in the van. NICE!!! I left my purse in the van and locked it but apparently dropped my keys on the floor in the back when I was getting Gracie out of her car seat. SO.LIKE.ME!!! Thankfully one of the other mom's had room in her car for the 2 boys and even had a car seat for Gracie to ride in and happily offered us a ride. So we all jumped in and made our way to the pumpkin patch. I called Brian from her cell phone and asked him to get the extra keys and unlock the car so I could come home after the field trip. A really nice preschool mom decided it would be fun to have a pumpkin patch for the preschool kids to go to so she planted pumpkins in her garden and bordered the garden with hay bales and corn stalks and scare crows. SO CUTE and FUN!!! It was awesome! I guess she has done it for a couple years now. The kids were all so excited to get a pumpkin. Max looked and looked for the biggest, best pumpkin. Unfortunately it didn't take him very long to drop it and break it on the way to the car. Poor guy! Thankfully the nice pumpkin patch owner let him get another one and even let Gracie have one. When we got back to the preschool the van was unlocked and Gracie and I made our way  back home. It was a fun little trip! So glad to be past that first year of Gracie's life so I can feel more like I can do stuff. I cherish that first year of her life and really made an effort to enjoy her and her little sweet stages since she is the caboose of our family. I'm a bit sad to see that time gone but also happy with each new stage and each new milestone. So glad for nice mom's who plant pumpkins for preschoolers to enjoy and for nice mom's who come to the rescue of "silly" mom's like me. So glad for super nice preschool teachers who try to make each child happy. And especially glad for a wonderful husband who saved the day and unlocked the car for his "silly" wife! Of course, I forgot my camera which wouldn't have mattered even if I remembered it since it would have been locked in the car anyway. So no pictures to share. I keep kicking myself over that one. There were tons of fun photo ops yesterday. Oh well!