THE meanest mom that EVER lived on the face of the WHOLE earth......

That would be me!!! Max (age 3) thinks so. For many, many, reasons. Some of these reasons: I won't let him carry drinks all over the house and spill them everywhere. When I let him pick what he wants for lunch or breakfast (I let them pick if I'm in the mood for that since they HAVE to eat whatever I put in front of them at dinner time and usually they want something different than what I want and Matthew is allergic to some things that Max can eat) and then he sees something someone else has and thinks that looks better I won't make that for him too and that is very, very mean!!! I won't let him run all over WalMart like a crazy boy. I make him pick up stuff he knocks off of the shelves. I used to stock shelves at Albertson's and I find that to be very annoying and so rude!!! I make him wash his hands with sanitizer when he touches every inch of the counter and bench in the pharmacy every time we ever go in that area. Germaphobe mommy doesn't go for that!!! I won't let him throw balls in the house. I could go on and on. Well, his latest reason for thinking I'm the meanest mom is that I make him get dressed. Yes, I know. I make you want to call DCFS right?! He would go naked all day every day of the year if I would let him. I let him get by with wearing less during the summer for sure because it's warm and stuff but when it's winter I just can't take it! Last winter he wanted to wear shorts every single day. With snow boots of course. And a short sleeve shirt but NO COAT!!! I fought with him every single time we left the house about wearing his coat! UGHH!!! I NEVER let him wear the shorts and boots out of the house but he wore them constantly at home. This year I packed up all of his shorts to save the fight. Well, now he refuses to get dressed at all. If I can convince him to wear clothes it isn't very long before he starts his slow strip. Each time I see him he has one less item of clothing on until he's right back to nothing but underwear...if we're lucky!! I've been really trying to put my foot down the past few days because hello, THE KID HAS SWINE FLU!!!! I keep telling him he's never going to get better if his body can't stay warm because he's running around naked all the time. He even took a super long nap the other day because I told him to get clothes on or go to bed and he chose the latter and fell asleep for like 3 hours. Maybe I should just go with it and have naptime back in my life! That would be AWESOME!!! Anyhoo, we fought for like 10 minutes this morning while I forced clothes on him and told him that he gets a time out if he takes them off. He's probably buck naked already. He has refused to wear his coat to this point but it's stinking cold out today and I'm sure it's just going to stay that way from this point on until June! So, I'm bracing myself for the argument we'll have the next time he leaves the house. I'm just glad my kids ride the bus and Matty isn't in 4 days a week preschool this year. We absolutely without a doubt left the house at least 4 times a day last year not including errands. At least there won't be quite so many arguments!!! OY VEY!!!!

Swine flu update: Zack has been back to school this week. Matthew went to school today for the first time. Some Dr.s say they are fine to go back to school 24 hours after their fever stops but others say they should stay home for 1 week after first symptoms start. Well, I'm a little concerned about his asthma in this cold since it's already flared up but he's there and hopefully ok. Max is doing a bit better. He ran a fever all the way through yesterday but so far so good today. The wierd thing with this flu is they'll not have a fever for like 10 hours straight and then it's back. It lingers forever! Gracie is still really stuffy and has a runny nose but didn't have a fever during the night. Hopefully it's not back today. I'm so worried about RSV so hopefully she gets all better quick and doesn't have anymore problems. Brian has it too and is still really achy. It kind of turns into a cold at the end with a yucky nose and cough I've noticed with all of them. The fever seems to take about 4 to 6 days to really run it's course and finally leave for good so hopefully Gracie will be fine by Friday.

Sweet Baby Gracie

Gracie has a fever now too so I'm sure she has swine flu. I'm scared because she's so tiny and she's never been sick before and I just hope its mild like Max and Zack's have been!! Please pray for her because I'm a big chicken and I know that prayer is the very BEST medicine she could ever have!!

I discovered her fever at 3:00 a.m. and so far she has been ok. The ibuprofen and Tylenol have been keeping control of it. I hope it stays that way! With Zack, Matty, and Max their fevers were low grade and controllable the first day. Zack's and Max's stayed that way but Matty's spiked on day 2. The worst day seems to be day 2 or 3 for everyone whether the fever gets higher or not they just feel horrible!! So if the fever doesn't spike tomorrow or Tuesday I think she'll be ok. Brian is sick too. He thought he just had a cold and went to the football game an hour and a half away yesterday and was running a fever and feeling really bad by the time he got home. At least he had fun, huh?! I just hope he didn't spread it to anyone. It's hard to know at first if it's the flu or a cold if you are having a more mild version of it. Matty has been doing so well! I am so happy! He finished one of his steroids today and still takes Albuterol and Pulmacort. From what I understand he should be out of the "danger zone" by about Wednesday. Zack is totally back to normal with a very mild cough hanging on but otherwise good. Max is really good. His fever is only at around 99 degrees and he seems to be feeling a lot better. I'm so glad that they had the mild version of it! Such a relief! On the bright side...if you get it once you never get it again, or so they say, so we can hope that's true and we don't have to deal with "swine flu" again!!!!

We took him off of the Tamiflu. We're just praying he does ok without it!!! He had his last dose at dinner last night. Then we saw the news where we found out about Tamiflu. Other than acting INCREDIBLY strangely when he got his dose of albuterol this morning he's been fine so far. Apparently Tamiflu has strange reactions to interactions with other medication so once its out of his system we think he'll be fine! I just hope he doesn't get viral pneumonia!!! My 3 year old has the flu now but so far its more mild like our oldest sons bout with it. Baby and I are the only ones who haven't had it. I hope she doesn't get it! Too scary!!!

We've been giving our son Tamiflu and he's having crazy side effects which we now have learned are very common if you take this. Hallucinations, hives, they can have seizures, neurological stuff, and even death. I'm freaking out because he's having some of these. They say not everyone should even use this stuff. Just the ones with asthma and heart disease. I'm not sure he should even with the asthma. Scary!

Swine Flu + Asthma = 1 very sick little boy!!!

My 9 year old Huey came down with a low grade fever and a cough last Saturday. I wondered if it was the swine flu but then it was so mild I was not worried and thought it might just be a little cold or other virus. We just kept the fever down and he was fine. We know several people that have had it and they all had varied reactions and intensity to their flu. My little Dewey and I have asthma so I have been quite concerned each time I hear that someone has died from H1N1 because of other underlying conditions they had when they got the flu. Each time they have said what that condition was it was ASTHMA!!! One of the first people that died was near my age and had asthma and had just recently had a baby. Well, that describes me and has worried me. I do not want to leave Brian with 4 kids to raise alone and I'm certain he doesn't want me to! I have been especially worried about my little Dewey! When I heard the other day that the reason people with asthma have been dieing is because they contract VIRAL pneumonia I became quite concerned! Well, I don't like the idea of the vaccine because I feel it was too rushed and they don't know long term effects of it and stuff but I decided it was important for me and Dewey to be immunized since we have asthma. We went down there Monday and got our shots. Tuesday night he started having a low grade fever and coughing. Wednesday his fever was 102.3 and his cough was worse. During the night I was alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen every 3 hours and it still wasn't controlling the fever. He was really wheezing and his breathing sounded terrible! I kept giving him puffs of my inhaler since we are out of medicine for his nebulizer and he didn't really have asthma problems much in the last 2 1/2 years. Well, I took him to the very weird but super nice and very concerned dr. in our new town. She gave him a breathing treatment with no improvement so she prescribed pulmicort, liquid albuterol, prednazone, and Tamaflu. Apparently they have found that if people with H1N1 start using Tamaflu in the first 48 hours of symptoms their reactions aren't nearly as bad as if they don't use it. He has been doing so much better! He isn't pale as a ghost! He stayed in bed yesterday and barely ate anything but today he has been up and playing, eating, fighting with his brothers and just doing really well. He obviously isn't 100 % and has a ways to go before he is over it completely but he is breathing and that is a VERY, VERY, GOOD THING!!! We are so grateful for the prayers of our family! We hope he continues to deal well with it! I just thought I would share so that if any of you or your children have asthma you know to seek help immediately if you think you might have the flu! It takes 4 weeks for the immunization to take effect so even if you have had the shot or mist you still aren't completely out of the woods for 4 weeks! She said that she thinks that the fact that he had the shot on Monday will help him not have as severe a reaction as if he didn't have it. Also, the main reason people die is they wait too long to seek treatment! We found out that 8 of the kids from Huey's class were also home sick on Monday. And the teacher was absent, not sure if he's sick or what. Anyway, I hope none of you or your children get it but if you do please be careful!!!

Dumbfounded!

My 3 year old "Louie" is such a handful!!! I couldn't begin to tell you all of the crazy things he has done in his little life! With his brothers Huey and Dewey I could tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces. I could see what their next move was going to be and stop them before they could get into too much trouble. Most of the time anyway. Well, Louie is like nothing I've ever seen before in my entire life!!! Since we have lived with my mother in law since September 26th he has been at the top of his game! I am afraid she is going to get so tired of his destruction she'll kick us out! He broke a glass door on her book case that she has had for years and years, thankfully not cutting himself but gee thanks we could not have possibly thought of a better way to spend money than to pay to have this door fixed! He has clogged toilets, written on her garage floor with sidewalk chalk, written on her kitchen floor (that is now just concrete since the linoleum is now gone as they are prepping the floor for tile) with a black sharpie. He broke a plate one day. He put stuffed animals and metal lids in Dewey's fish tank he got for his birthday and killed all the fish. He started to poop in the backyard but was caught too soon THANK GOODNESS!!! I could go on and on and on!!! Well, tonight after dinner we were all in the family room visiting and watching t.v. when I heard an unidentifiable noise and asked Brian to investigate since I was feeding Buttercup a bottle and he was just "innocently"going to the bathroom. Not 5 minutes later it was discovered that he had removed one of the hinges off of a door frame with a screw driver (the one just above his eye level). YES!!! HE'S 3!!! WHAT......THE........CRAP!!! And people wonder why I'm CRAZY!!! I have to try to think like HE DOES all...day....long..............in vain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brian's mom jokingly asked if we have ever considered a cage. Then she said of course he'd probably just take all the hinges off and escape anyway! At least he makes us laugh too!!!

MOTHER BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once upon a time...I used to eat nuts all the time! I LOVE them!!! Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, peanut butter cookies, SCOTCHEROOS, Nutrageous, Snickers, m&m's, PEANUT m&m's, cashews, chicken pasta salad with a whole can of cashews thrown in and tastes so stinking good it isn't even funny, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, p.b.&j sandwiches (either of these on regular bread or toasted...YUM!), those cute little peanut butter cookies with the Hershey Kisses in the middle, I could go on and on and on!!! I LOVE nuts!!! My second son used to LOVE m&m's! One time when he had just turned one year old I decided to give him a Reece's Pieces and it LITERALLY flew out of his mouth across the room! I looked at him strangely and slowly put another into his mouth and it FLEW across the room, too! It was as if someone scooped their hand into his mouth and flung it out with their finger tips. It was a little freaky so I decided, ok, no Reece's Pieces for you! One day a few weeks later I gave him a peanut butter sandwich. He wouldn't eat it but only played with it. I was trying to shove a piece of it in his little mouth because sometimes if they just taste something they like it but his teeth were clenched like you wouldn't believe so I just gave in and decided to give him something else. After a few minutes I noticed that his whole body was covered in hives. I called the Dr.'s office because I immediately wondered if he was having an allergic reaction to the peanut butter. They said since he wasn't having a problem breathing to just stop by some time and have his blood tested for nut allergies. Brian gave him a bath and the hives went away. We should have also given him Benedryl but didn't know. Anyway, they tested him and sure enough he is allergic to peanuts. They said ONLY peanuts but not other nuts. Several months later Brian gave him a pistachio when I was picking up our oldest son from kindergarten. When I drove up he came running out to the car with my almost 2 year old baby in his arms covered in hives and doing this weird clearing his throat thing like my sister Stephanie does when she has an itchy throat and ears from allergies. We rushed him to the E.R. which thankfully was only like a mile from our house. They immediately rushed us back to a room. Only me and my baby because there could only be one other family member with him. The Dr. came in immediately and told me they would give him the epi pen and at least one other shot and a breathing treatment right away. I sat in that little room watching my rambuncious little perfectly healthy boy go from having a little problem to writhing around on the bed with a panicked look on his face as his throat swelled more and more closed. He was grabbing for me, sitting on my lap, going back to the bed, writhing around some more, grabbing for me again saying, mama and looking like 'aren't you going to help me?' It seemed like an ETERNITY before the nurse came in. When he started to be LETHARGIC I ran out and said HE NEEDS HIS SHOT!!! She ambled in and took her time getting his shot stuff ready and giving it to him chatting away as if I was there for a yearly flu shot or something. I was absolutely TERRIFIED!!! He had to have a medication for a week after. They said if we missed even a dose of it his reaction would be much much worse than the original reaction. It seemed like hours between the time he ate the nut to the time he got the shot, but it was only about 15 minutes. I thank my Heavenly Father every day that he was ok then and beg him to help us keep him safe every day! I firmly believe he has a little guardian angel that shot those Reece's Pieces across the room a few weeks earlier! We took him to an allergy specialist that did the scratch test and said that he is allergic to all nuts except almonds. Try finding almonds that aren't cooked in peanut oil or with other tree nuts. He's not allergic to the peanut oil it's the protein in them but I don't trust that peanut oils are refined enough. Apparently he is REALLY, REALLY allergic to cashews as well. The welt from the scratch test was huge and lasted for 3 days with him taking Zertec for it for the entire 3 days. The Dr. said, "don't EVER let this child have a cashew!!!" about 10 times while we were there so we're really careful about cashews too! Think of a peanut. Think of how yummy and salty and delicious they are! Now think of when a little peanut breaks in half and there is that little tiny piece of peanut right between the two halves at the end of it. Now imagine that if your baby had even that much of a peanut his throat would swell shut and he would die unless he is around someone at the time that knows he is allergic to peanuts and can give him an epi pen shot and rush him to the E.R. Ok now imagine that now he's 6 years old and in all day kindergarten and eating at school now. Every day the "other option" for picky kids is an Uncrustable PB&J sandwich. I talked with the lunch room lady and his teacher and they decided that every day he would sit on the end of a table and the lunch room teacher assigned for his class would make sure that no one ever sits by him that has a PB&J sandwich. Now imagine that 6 days this month they are serving peanut butter and honey cups with their rolls at lunch. I decided on those days I'll send home lunch for him so I can make sure there isn't any cross contamination or anything. I don't take chances! Not worth his life! Now imagine a lovely little student sitting next to him waves his peanut butter and honey cup in your sons face TRYING to hurt him KNOWING he is deathly allergic to peanut butter. What do you do about that?! Some mean kid was trying to hurt my sweet, little, quiet, shy, son!!! Thank goodness his lunch room teacher saw and put a stop to it and punished him when they got to class. The MOTHER BEAR is awake!!!!!! LOOK OUT!!! I didn't find this out from my son. I found this out from a concerned parent of another sweet little child that was so freaked out by that kid doing that that he talked to his mother about it. The only reason they have the peanut butter and honey cups is that the nutritionist for the school district has decided she can justify putting mac-n-cheese on the menu if she throws a little protein in the mix. She also believes that ketchup is a vegetable!!!! What the crap?! Anyhoo, they don't offer a peanut free table or anything. I am so freaked out! Now, I have heard so many people over the last 5 years act like it is such an inconvenience for them that my son is allergic to nuts. They act like it's just me saying please don't let my kid have mustard because it might stain his shirt or something. Now I know you have tons of stuff planned with mustard but don't let my kid anywhere near it because I don't like dealing with stains. It's not just some fluff thing it's literally LIFE OR DEATH!!! How would you feel if it was your kid?! Is a peanut or having peanut butter honey cups worth a child's life? I mean really!!! I know a boy that if he is in the same car or room with someone who opens a peanut candy bar he automatically starts going into anaphylactic shock. Putting that nut cup in his face could have killed him! My son has to either eat it or touch it to have a problem. I am just so freaked out! I don't know what to do! When he was 18 months old and started going to nursery at church the teacher told me maybe I shouldn't bring him because she didn't want that kind of responsibility and she liked making pb&j sandwiches for snack time and bringing Reece's Peanut Butter Cups for snacks. I for one thought it was more important for him to be there learning about Jesus than that the other kids get a freaking sandwich!!! So did the Primary President, thankfully! It was decided that I would make a very very long list of all the many things he CAN eat and they would stick to that list! Hello....ever heard of Goldfish crackers?! Since then I have read many articles and watched many news programs on the subject. I know that people who like their kids to eat peanut butter are just as adamant (for some weird reason) about their kids getting to eat peanut butter as I am about my kid NOT eating it! If that is the ONLY thing your kid will eat...you've got some REAL problems!!!! I have NEVER expected people to stop having nuts in their lives all together because of my son! I only say that at family functions I would appreciate it if people would just tell me if the dessert they make has it in it so I can keep him away from it. I did think it was wierd that less than a week after I sent the family letter out telling everyone about his allergy when he was almost 2 asking everyone just to let me know if nuts were in something they make, that at a family function there was a very, very large fruit bowl full of peanuts in the shell on the counter for everyone to eat. SCARY!!! Just leave a loaded gun on the coffee table why don't you?! I also find it weird when people bring peanut candy for all the kids to eat and touch my kid with peanut covered hands knowing it could kill him but I don't say a word, not one single word. I just try to warn him as best I can and pray a LOT!!! His teacher asked if the classroom needs to be peanut free since they use a lot of candy for counting and stuff? I said not necessarily. I said he can eat quite a lot of candy. I offered to bring a bag of different kinds of candy for him to have when the other kids have peanut candies. I bought skittles for him to use for counting when they use m&m's, etc. I am not a jerk about it I didn't expect her to buy it even. I am his parent. It is my responsibility to make sure he is safe and I obviously need her help and knowledge when he is at school but I try to not make it a huge pain in the butt since I know some mothers are jerks about it. I do, however, love my child with all of my heart and soul!!! What would you do and how would you feel if you had watched your son almost die in your arms from an exposure to nuts and you knew that it only takes 15 minutes for your son's throat to swell shut and like 20 minutes for him to take his last breath? It's not just a little annoyance....it's my son's LIFE!!! It feels like I'm letting him run and play in a busy street and crossing my fingers that no one speeds down the road and runs over him or something. It's just so scary to have to trust that total strangers will keep your son safe. If I didn't think I'd lose my mind I'd consider home school........
Needed to vent all of the thoughts and feelings I am having right now! Thanks for listening!!!

It's Just WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so, I'm old! I get it! I accept it! I just don't know what to do with this knowledge. I don't know what is age appropriate to wear. Or what is age appropriate for my hair. I still feel like I'm 19 on the inside. I'm 36 now and I see adorable stuff at the stores and I think oh that is SO cute!!! But am I too old for it?! I mean, I know I'm not 80 or anything but I'm just confused! I need a style. I need to be more hip and cool in a 36 year-old kind of way. I don't want people to think I'm like a total loser in my outfit that looks like a 19 year old has more business wearing it than I do. I also don't want people thinking, nice outfit, grandma!! I was at Target a few weeks ago and I was wearing a (what I thought was) cute t-shirt I bought a few months back at Old Navy. It was one of their $5 tees. Well, I'm feeling cutish in my little t-shirt when an 85 year old lady comes walking by with a grin from ear to ear, wearing MY shirt! I didn't know whether she was wrong or I was wrong or if we were both right. I just know that it felt terribly, terribly, WRONG!!! I miss my friend Melissa! She used to live next door to me. We lived in townhouse apartments and our doors were literally like a few inches from each other. She is adorable! She is also a hair stylist. I was always knocking on her door asking her if this was cute or that was cute or if I looked freaky! I ask Brian now and it just isn't the same. He'll tell me I look cute and then I see myself in a picture and I'm completely mortified!!! I don't know if he really thinks it's cute, doesn't have the heart to tell me I look like a freak a deak, or what but it's just not the same, that's for sure! I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a cute shirt lately and I have seen a few that I think are great but I don't have the confidence to just buy it. Maybe I should just get a new pair of shoes! I LOVE shoes!!! You can't really go too wrong with shoes and a new pair of shoes always makes me feel better!!!

More rambling...

~I have noticed that a lot of people in our new little town have the Kate from John and Kate Plus 8 haircut. They vary in length and color and such but basically the same haircut. Some of the people look SO cute. Others look SO weird! And still others must have cut their own hair and look very, very BAD!!! Many of them look like boys I must say. I've decided that that particular haircut, like all haircuts, looks really good on some people and not so good on others. Halle Berry can pull off a haircut that is basically bald but most of us just can't, you know. My mom's hair is similar to the "Kate" cut and she looks so cute and always fixes it so cute and is pretty so she can pull it off really well. Others, however, are just not so lucky.
~It is sometimes really, really hard for me to focus at church on what the people are speaking about when I have my referee hat on trying to keep my 3 boys from killing each other right there in the middle of church. It is even harder to focus on what they are saying when I notice little things about people like the fact that the chickadee in front of me today had OBVIOUSLY colored her own hair since it looked like she was a calico cat. Also, there was a man there that I graduated high school with that all the girls thought was really cute and he is like pretty big now (so am I, I know!!! I'm just sayin) and has a lot of gray hair now and he looks really old. Older than Brian. That is OLD! hehehe I know I'm probably going to H...E...double hockey sticks for not paying better attention to what I should be but it's really hard for me sometimes. Do you think I have A.D.D.?
~I love living in a small town again! Here are some of the reasons why...Brian comes home for lunch every day. -It only takes like 5 minutes to get anywhere in town.- I can drive to WalMart, shop at WalMart, and drive home from WalMart in the time it used to take me just to drive to and from WalMart. -I almost always see someone I know when I go to a store here. -I filled my tank up a week ago Saturday and I still have half a tank. Doin a dance!!! LOVE it so much!!! Hated having to fill the car up at least once or twice a week!-I get to shop online again. Not that I couldn't before it's just that I didn't do it so much when I lived up there. I love, love, love, getting boxes in the mail!!!! -I don't feel so bad when I have to run an errand and I don't look like I just stepped out of a magazine. Not that people look like crap here or anything (well not everyone anyway) they just look realistic. You know. I swear where I lived before people were always wearing 4 inch heals to the store and stuff. -Brian, his mom, and I went to lunch with our son at his school as a belated birthday lunch during Brian's lunch break the other day. I used to have to drive an hour each way if I wanted to have lunch with Brian where we lived before. So nice! -When I think I'm running late I'm still usually at least 5 minutes early because I keep forgetting it only takes 5 minutes to get anywhere. -Give me a few weeks and I'll probably have a "Things I hate about living in a small town" list but for now I'm enjoying it!
~Halloween is the coolest! I just love it! I love the decorations, the candy, the treats, the scary movies, the scary music, and the fun the kids have with dressing up!
~I don't know what this "lick my lollipop" thing is on facebook but it creeps me out! Especially when someone sends this request to my HUSBAND!!!! Not cool!!!!!!!!!! DELETED....IMMEDIATELY from friends list!!!!!!!
~I'm pretty boring these days can you tell?! Just me. Taking care of the kids. Doin' laundry. Washing millions of bottles. Changing millions of diapers. Running errands. Cooking. Cleaning. And thinking I really should get out more. And I don't mean to WalMart! OOOPS! I forgot...that's all there is here...WalMart...that will probably be at the top of the "things I hate about living in a small town" list!!!!

My husband won't stop touching me!!!!!

Not in a good way, either! Let me explain...when Brian and I got married we slept in his king size bed that his mom handed down to him several years after her husband had passed away and she decided to downgrade to a queen size bed. I was all into snuggling when we were first married and he was all into his own space. He would snuggle me for a few minutes and then he'd be like that's enough. Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where they were trying to figure out how to unsnuggle once the girlfriend fell asleep? At least they were nice about it. :) Well, I just still snuggled with my stuffed animal I used to sleep with before we were married and it was all good. Yes! I still slept with a stuffed animal. It was one of those huge bears from Penney's and was so soft and snugly. Anyhoo, a couple of years ago he went through a snuggling phase and sometimes I really enjoyed it! Other times I was thinking...seriously...get away...I can't sleep with you touching me!!!!!! But after being married that long I was trying to be grateful he still liked me at all and didn't say anything...just suffered in silence. ;) We had our oldest son sleep with us until he was 2 and once we got our bed back I swore I would NEVER do that again!!! And we haven't! Just the occasional sick kid in the bed or snuggle time with the baby after a night time feeding where the umbilical cord doesn't seem to stretch all the way back to the bassinet that was pushed up against the side of our bed, once in a while. We moved in with Brian's mom until we can find somewhere to live down here and we live in her basement that has a large family room, 3 bedrooms, and large entry type thing, and a bathroom. Louie has his own room so his brothers can actually fall asleep at a decent hour without him bugging them for hours after bed time. We took the room with a queen size bed and room for the crib and Brian's beloved television. We put the other boys in the room that has 2 queen size beds in it so they could each have their own bed and there is still plenty of room for dressers and stuff. How do people sleep in queen size beds?!?! I can't sprawl out! I even know of people who share a double bed. NOT ON YOUR LIFE!!!!!! We'd probably kill each other! I steal the covers all night. Which isn't any different than when we sleep in our king size bed other than the blankets are smaller so there is less chance he'll have anything left to cover up with at all. We keep touching each other in a totally Nacho Libre kind of way..."a nice pile drive to the face, or a punch to the face." Not on purpose of course but after 16 years of having plenty of space to sleep you have a hard time remembering when you are sound asleep that there is someone RIGHT THERE and you elbow each other, kick each other, and basically get on each other's nerves A LOT!!! Well, I'm thinking of trading the boys! Just think of all the space we'd have to ourselves if we each slept in our own queen size bed?! It would be heavenly. It's not too far to go if we need a little "private time" (cousin Eddie, Christmas Vacation) then you just go right back to all that glorious space!!! Hey, if it was good enough for Rob and Laura on the Dick Van Dyke show, by gosh, it's good enough for us! Right?!

Where did all the letters go?

I remember when I was a little girl my grandma lived two states away and when I was being baptized she sent me a sweet little letter about the importance of baptism and expressed her love to me. I was on cloud 9! I remember getting birthday cards in the mail from my grandmas and that made me feel so special! I became pen pals with one of my favorite cousins, John, who also lived two states away and that was so much fun! His family even sent me a really cute shirt in the mail that said someone in their town loved me and I wore that thing until it fell apart! I also remember when we moved two states away from my hometown right before my junior year of high school that lots of my friends and family became pen pals and that really helped me through a very difficult time! I wrote to friends and family who served missions. I wrote to my grandmas. I totally got into decorating the envelopes really cute and I was really into stickers and would stick them all over the place too. Now my kids think a card in the mail from grandma is pure gold! The other day my mother-in-law received a letter from my nephew, her grandson, Jordan who is serving a mission. She was THRILLED!!! She read and reread his letter. He is quite a character and joked in it and she laughed and read it to us and we laughed and then she folded up the letter and sat it down and patted it and said how nice it is to be getting letters again like she used to get from her sons when they served missions. At that moment I suddenly became really sad! I thought of all the lonely grandmothers out there that don't have email or don't know how to text on a cell phone. I thought of the movie The Mailbox that my mom used to show us to motivate us (guilt us) to be better about thinking of our sweet little grandmas. I remembered how wonderful it is to receive a HANDWRITTEN letter from someone you love. Now the only time we get anything like that in the mail is at Christmas and a lot of people have stopped sending Christmas cards out. It's kind of sad I think! Today I'm going to write Jordan and I'm going to have my boys write to him too or draw a picture. I know it gets hard when you are a missionary or you are a military person or you are facing anything in your life that you need a little support and encouragement to help you along. And I also know that getting a letter from someone gives you a much needed boost and puts a big ol' smile on your face that stays there for a long time! I can't wait to get my first letter from him! It will be so fun to have an actual letter again! There's nothing like it! :)

Getting my "fix"!!!

~AAAAAHHHH....I feel better now! I'm finally at a computer for the first time since Friday. I'm a total addict so this has been kind of rough for me. Thank goodness for my free Blackberry I got when I renewed my contract with T-mobile or I would have been totally lost! I know...I need help!!!
~The kids went to their new school for the first time yesterday and I was so worried about them. I was worried they wouldn't make friends and would hate me forever. I was worried about Dewey since he has been attending half day kindergarten and this school has all day kindergarten and I was worried about how that was going to work out for him. I was worried because he's deathly allergic to nuts and is eating at school for the first time ever, where they have a peanut butter and jelly uncrustable as their alternate option EVERY SINGLE DAY! I talked with the lunch lady and his teacher and since they don't have a peanut free table like some schools do they are putting him at the end of the table in the same seat every day and the kindergarten lunch aide will make sure no one is sitting next to him who is eating peanut butter sandwiches(even if he gets touched by someone who has peanut butter on them he will AT LEAST break out in hives and if he accidentally ingests it his throat will swell shut and he will stop breathing and die unless they give him the epi pen I left in the office. Little frightening for this mommy!) THEY DID AWESOME!!!!!! Such a relief!!! I went to high school with and was friends with Huey's teacher. HOORAY!! He's a super nice guy and best of all.....HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IN HOMEWORK!!!!!! BONUS!!!!!!! He only makes them do homework if they don't finish their work in class. LOVE IT!!! Huey also has his cousin in his class so that makes him feel much better! He already has a built in friend, someone to talk to, play with at recess, someone to make him feel comfortable and like he's not all alone in a brand new school in the 4th grade. Thank heavens for his cousin!!!!! Dewey had a super great, fun day and was so happy............until last night when he was laying in bed and decided he misses me too much when he's at school. How sweet is that?! This morning was really tough! Dewey thinks it is cruel and unusual punishment when I wake him up at 6:30 a.m.! His other school started at 9 a.m. and was 2 minutes away so he could sleep in until 8 but at this school he has to catch the bus at 7:35. This morning they rode the school bus to school for the first time EVER...SUPER BONUS!!!!!!!!! The bus driver is one of his other cousins' grandpa Randy. Also great because I know they know the bus driver and I know he's nice. WHEW!!! I feel so much better now!!!! (I lived across the street from my elementary school and never moved until high school so I am new to this whole bus thing and I am totally sure that I was the only one nervous about the bus! The boys were so stoked to ride it and Brian always rode the bus so he thinks I am a weirdo but whats new?!
~Buttercup is SO DREAMY!!!!! She has always slept at least 7-11 hours every night since she was born except for an occasional night where she'll need one or two feedings. I've worried about her adjusting to a new place and we decided to put her in her crib in our room instead of the bassinet so with the move and the different bed I was a little worried it would freak her out a little and screw up the perfect thing we had going. She is doing so well!!! She took a nap yesterday in her crib, she's still sleeping through the night, she is really happy and content (most of the time anyway, she is still a baby after all), she's like her brother Dewey and is a super easy eater (Huey had to have soy and ate every 2 hours round the clock for 14 months, Louie had reflux and projectile vomited up his formula all over the place all the time and was skinny and I worried about him all the time!!!) and I just LOVE her so much!!!!! She is the best little girl and has the sweetest, most adorable smile ever! I just can't get enough of her! She lights up when she sees me and thinks I'm pretty great and I am equally as smitten with her! She is such a joy! I feel with her like I did with my second child. Just relaxed, able to really thoroughly enjoy almost every moment, happy, confident as a mother. Easy babies are so great because you're not constantly worried and feeling guilt and inadequacy all the time even if you shouldn't feel that way. It's just been great! We all adore her and are having so much fun watching her every little accomplishment. This weekend while cleaning the house we moved out of she actually was on the floor long enough to not only roll to her tummy like always but also back over to her back again! HOORAY!! Such a cutie! She doesn't get a lot of floor time because Louie can't leave her alone on the floor and I'm afraid he'll love her to death! :) Anyhoo, it's going really well, and we are glad to have the move over and adjustments started. I just need to organize all of our stuff here and get Dewey to be happy about all day kindergarten and things will be even better! I hope you all have a great day!!!!

Randomness.....

~I HAD to share the cuteness of my toes! My mom knows I LOVE it when this lady Meg paints my toes so she got me an appointment so I could have cute toes! So fun! Meg is amazing and start to finish it only takes like 10-15 minutes. I especially love the little red gems she put on each big toenail. So fun! I'll have to keep wearing flip flops until November so I can look at my cute toes!

~As we left Meg's house yesterday we saw a grasshopper. Louie said,"It's on the street so it's called a streethopper!" Cute

~I have learned something very important at church lately and I may be going to a very HOT place for this one but I simply can't help myself, so, here goes.....if you are an old lady and you don't like the size or shape of your lips, DON'T paint a new lip on your face that goes like half an inch above your actual lip! You aint foolin' no one, honey!!! If you're going for pretty lips-don't do it! However, if you're going for entertainment value-knock yourself right on out there toots! By the way, laughing.hysterically.quietly. in the middle of Sunday School is NOT easy!!! Bad, I know!

~I was packing up the toy room yesterday and the boys were playing "sQuat team"! Cracked me up!!

~I missed Bonnie Hunt this summer! I have caught a little of her show a couple of times while feeding Buttercup the last 2 weeks and I always have a good laugh! She's hilarious and I look forward to being moved so I can actually maybe sit down for full episodes once in a while.

~Louie kicked Dewey in the face. I asked him to come here. And he yells,"but I did it on accididn't."

~I LOVE this time of year! I love the cool, crisp air. The feel of fall. Looking at the beautiful colors of leaves on the trees as they change color before leaving the trees bare for the winter. I always crave apple pie and soup during the fall. The temperature is just perfect! It's just AWESOME!!! The last few years it has felt like it went straight from hot summer to cold winter without much of a fall so I'm totally LOVING it this year!!!

~Dewey is deathly allergic to peanuts so we are always telling the kids not to share drinks and food and to not kiss him if they've eaten peanuts. Louie had some peanut treats last night and Dewey wanted to hug him and Dewey said," but mom I had peanuts last night!" I said well, "that's ok, you can still hug him you don't have to kiss him." He says, "but they are still in my tummy." I guess he was afraid to touch him with his tummy because of the peanuts. Such a sweetie!

To do list:

~Find more boxes.......check! (Thanks Payless Shoes!!)
~Take Louie to his dentist appointment.......check!
~Find a house to rent.....................................found one next door to the loopy guy that lives on Airport Road with the GIGANTIC aluminum can collection that is as deep as his tall back yard fence........does he hide dead people under there or what?! ............................................find a storage shed to rent to store all of our crap in and live with Brian's mom until we can find a DECENT place to live........check!
~Take Dewey and Louie to have dental surgery Thursday!!............check!(Dewey couldn't breathe very well when he was coming off of the anesthesia so they finally gave him some morphine to calm him down so they could give him a breathing treatment. I'm glad he ended up being fine after giving me and my mom a total heart attack!!! Louie did great!!! Thank heavens!!!)
~Find someone to take Huey to school on the morning of his brothers' dental surgeries.........................check! (Thanks Uncle Chris!!!)
~Plan an "Under the Sea" themed birthday party for Dewey for Saturday and pull it off without too many hitches...............check!
~Take a trip to the party store and a billion trips to WalMart in the last 2 weeks because you are too frazzled to "get it together" and keep thinking of more crap you can't live without!!..............check!!!
~Bawl your eyes out 2 Sundays in a row all through church because people keep being so darn nice and making you really, really want to stay there.............check!
~Go through the toy room and pick out stuff to give away..................check! ( This is not fun for me to do. For some reason it is really hard for me and causes me much anxiety and I usually end up only giving away some kids meal toys and keeping everything else but I ended up giving 4 garbage bags full of toys away. YAY ME!!!! I still have one of those awesome tool benches, and a great kitchen, and some little Mickey Mouse storage bin shelf things and some other things that I'm also going to give away. The kids love them and I'm kind of sad to see them go but they are just TOOOOO big!!! I am so HAPPY to give the light bright away!!! No more light bright pegs all over the house in crazy nooks and crannies, HOORAY!!!!!)
~Wash ooodles and oooodles of laundry and dishes when not packing or feeding Buttercup.............check!
~Fold and put away the Mount Everest size mountain of laundry that was washed and heaped in my bedroom all week.................check! (Ok, don't judge me too hard on this one. I was lucky to wash it this week with everything I had going on there was NO way I could get it put away until last night. It WAS easy to pack it up after folding it last night though since almost all of the clothes we own were all in one room:) ! )
~Show the house 3 times to potential buyers and 2 times to potential renters in the last 2 weeks......................check! (This I will NOT miss when we move!! And being serenaded by cows at 6 a.m. ....well, maybe a little. JK! And band practice at the high school next to our subdivision at 7a.m. on Friday mornings....even in the summer!! ARGH!!)
~Finish packing up everything and clean the entire house by Saturday which is moving day, write a talk on baptism for my nieces baptism that is on the same day we move, call the school where we are moving to, change utilities out of our name, make Dewey's ACTUAL birthday on Thursday special and fun, don't lose it completely...............I'll have to get back to you on this one!!!!

I LOVE TO READ!!!

I really, really love to read! I love reading the kids their fun little books, especially if they let me pick them, and I love to get a chance to just take a whole day and lose myself in a good book. Let the dishes and laundry pile up, let the kids do whatever they want to as long as they just let me read in peace, stay in my p.j.'s, snuggle up with a blanket, and just read, read, read!!! AHHHhhhh.... My love of reading began when I was just a little girl and my mom would read books to us while she watched Days of Our Lives. She was so talented at multi tasking, don't you think! One of my favorite years of reading was my 4th grade year. That's the year I discovered Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Superfudge, Ramona books especially Ramona Quimby, Age 8....They were so great and I just couldn't get enough of them! There were a few years that I really didn't care about reading in the least bit during high school when they expected us to read lame books that I couldn't care less about but about a year after Brian and I were married I started reading The Work and the Glory series. 9 books! Huge books, too! LOVED them!!! I couldn't put them down. All of my chores in the house would pile up, I would force myself to eat occasionally and pee once in a great while (oh the bladder of a body that hasn't had 4 babies), I would stay awake all hours of the night. Sleep? Who needs sleep?! I'm READING!!! Ever since then I can't read enough books! I always have a library card in every city we have lived in. I've discovered some amazingly talented writers and have even read some classics. LOVED Anne of Green Gables when I read it 2 years ago. Such a wonderful book! My mom still feeds my love of reading by lending me the books she buys after she reads them! I've had a book on my nightstand ever since the week Buttercup came home from the hospital (3 1/2 months) and I am determined to finish it if it kills me! Great book but right now every time I pick it up it puts me to sleep. Morning..noon..night...doesn't matter, I sleep...I know some day I'll be able to start really reading again so I'm not too worried. I was SO excited when my 4th grader told me today that his teacher read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to his class last week. He has been a great reader and can't put a good book down once he starts reading it. I hope he always loves reading! I started thinking back on all my favorites. Such great memories! "Reading is the magic key to take you where you want to be."

Love this:

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says~~"Oh Crap, She's up!"

Just a little ventilation...

So, am I the only one that thinks it's weird when old men sit outside on their porches in their pj's watching kids walk to school? I just saw a guy doing this the other morning when I took the kids to school and there was a guy that did this in another town we lived in when our oldest was in kindergarten. I find it very creepy and disturbing!!!

You all know we're moving and I'm trying to get a free minute somewhere to pack. I was trying to be all productive the other morning but couldn't stand my kitchen floor that was sticky from the boys making fruit kabobs to go with our dinner the night before and apparently dripped juice everywhere so I decided to mop. I mopped my kitchen, then the pantry, then 2 bathrooms. I was walking back into the kitchen to dump out my water since I needed to scrub out the sink in there anyway and forgot that the floor would be slippery and slipped and fell and landed on my left knee and dropped the mop bucket full of water all over the floor. I'm so talented! I'm sure my husband is sorry he missed that spectacle! Anyhoo, last night I had my oldest son peeling potatoes for me for our dinner and I walked by him and caught my right pinkie toe on his heel and it bent back and I'm pretty sure it broke. It's all purple and swollen and lovely. That's just what I need...to be slower than I already am! FYI somehow he wasn't hurt.

This morning we were listening to the radio while we waited for my kindergartner to get out of school. The song Hero by Enrique Iglesias came on. When he belts out, "I will stay by you forever." my 3 year old says,"I will step on you forever????" like he was wondering what the heck!! Cracked me up!

I LOVE that lately my 3 year old has decided that when I'm in the same room as he is he'd better tell me to look away before he does something naughty! Thanks for the heads up, buddy! Now if I could get him to give me some sort of signal before he wreaks havoc when I'm NOT in the room my life would be SO much easier!!!

We've lived in this house for 6 months that is for sale and we have only had a hand full of people come to look at it in all of that time...until....we've decided to move, we're trying to pack up the house, my husband started a job over an hour away and was staying in that town overnight last week and I didn't have help, we have a ton of stuff going on and the house looks like a bomb went off...THEN we have people come to look at the house. It has shown 3 times in a week. Including this morning. At 10 a.m.! I keep having to frantically speed clean in just a few hours time (don't know what happened to the agreement that we'd have 24 hours notice but whatever) to try not to embarrass myself or the realtor that is also our landlord too much when he shows the house. THAT is something I will NOT be missing about this house when we move! OH! Or the really, really light tan carpet throughout the house! 3 boys + almost white carpet= yuckarama carpet!!! Especially under the table! GROSS!! Should be outlawed!!! We finally bought a great carpet remnant to put under the table so my poor husband didn't have to keep shampooing all the time.

That is all for my venting today. Thanks for listening and have a great day!!! :)

I love my job AND the people I work with!

I've been packing our stuff for our move. I'm pretty much a pro at this since this is our 15th move. I always pack the stuff we use least often first. I packed up my first 6 boxes before it occurred to me that I had just packed up all of my scrapbooking stuff, card making stuff, jewelry making stuff, and all of the books I want to read. It made me kind of sad for a minute that those were the things that are used the least at my house and then I remembered that all too soon I will have time to do all of those things because my hands won't be so busy with cooking and laundry and dishes and bottles and snuggling my baby and that will be kind of sad so I am feeling better about all of my fun hobbies collecting dust for a while. Pretty soon I will be able to find more time to do stuff like that a little here and a little there and that will do for now. In Feb. 2008 I was in such a funk as far as my feelings about my choice to be a stay at home mom and would tell my husband I loved the people I worked with but I HATED my job!!! I was feeling so overwhelmed and freaked out by the monotony of my life. All I did was clean and you could never tell I had done a thing because my boys would just go behind me and mess everything up as fast as I cleaned it up and I was totally losing it! I scrapbooked and made cards and watched my Gilmore Girls boxed set for a couple of weeks and pretty much ignored the house (which I paid for later) so I could feel like I was actually doing something I loved and I could feel more like I wasn't just a useless maid but still got to do stuff for me!!! Well, I am so happy to say that a year and a half later I am thrilled with my job AND I love the people I work with now!!! I love taking care of my children's needs and taking care of the house. I am still really frustrated by the kids destroying everything I accomplish but that's just part of it isn't it?! I discovered blogging shortly after that time in my life and it has really helped me a lot! As the kids get older those things get a little better and this too shall pass, which is good AND bad. I really want to savor every second of my kids lives! I have watched my little nieces and nephews grow up from little babies to be missionaries, spouses, and parents and I can't believe how quickly that time has passed. I don't want to look back on this time ever and wish I would have taken the time to enjoy the moments that are only here for a little while. In the past I often found myself living in the future. I would say well when this happens, then I'll be happy. When we have that then I'll be happy. Now I can say I am trying to be happy every day and to find joy in my life every day, which isn't very hard when I'm surrounded by these adorable children of mine that I love so much, that rely on me and depend on me and love me. I feel blessed most days and of course overwhelmed often but mostly blessed! I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for entrusting me with these little angel babies to raise and teach and love. I never wanted anything more out of life than that!

I want a WIFE!

My friend Tara put this on her blog and I just thought it was too good not to share and she was nice enough to not mind me copying her! I think we ALL can relate to this!!!


I want a WIFE!
By Judy Brady Syfers (1971)
I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother. Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I too, would like to have a wife.Why do I want a wife?I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife a wife to keep track of the children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children's clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturing attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife's income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals,serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick and sympathize with my pain and loss of time from school. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue care for me and my when I need a rest and change of scene. I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife's duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life. When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who take care of the baby-sitting arrangements. When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends. I want a wife who will have arranged that the children are fed and ready for bed before my guests arrive so that the children do not bother us. I want a wife who takes care of the needs of my quests so that they feel comfortable, who makes sure that they have an ashtray, that they are passed the hors d'oeuvres, that they are offered a second helping of the food, that their wine glasses are replenished when necessary, that their coffee is served to them as they like it. And I want a wife who knows that sometimes I need a night out by myself.I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who assumes the complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that I do not have to clutter up my intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understandsthat my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy. I must, after all, be able to relate to people as fully as possible.If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.When I am through with school and have a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife's duties.Who wouldn't want a wife?

What a cutie!

So my 3 year old son walked up to me with a book yesterday and said,"Mom, I haven't met this book before, will you read it to me?" I just thought it was adorable!

Don't EVER take your eyes off of Louie!!!!

This is the side of our couch. Louie likes to draw on everything in our house except paper. I started to scrub it and then decided to take a picture of it so that's why there is a darker spot. That kid!!!!!


Huey thought it would be fun to make a 2 layer cake. He did such a great job! He just loves cooking and has even made some cakes from scratch. Well, we turned our backs on Louie for 2 minutes and this is what happened to the cake. Crazy kid!!!

Wishing For Something More....

I'm having one of those days when I'm looking at my wardrobe, my hairdo, my furniture, my accessories all over the house, my towels, my computer table, my kitchen table I painted red 4 years ago, my car and basically every purchase I ever made and wondering WHAT WAS I THINKING and wishing I could win the lottery and go on a super fun shopping spree and replace it all.......sigh!!! Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and just be happy I have all that stuff in the first place instead of wishing it was better. Let's hope!!! It's much better living a happy, grateful life instead of wishing for things I can't have. Ok, now I feel guilty!!! I AM grateful for everything, there is just a part of me that still wishes for better. Is that so bad?

We're moving......again! That makes 15 times in 16 years. *&%$#?@+!!!!

Brian got a job!!! YAHOO!!! He said,"You don't seem very excited about it." I said, "I'm really excited about it it's just that now the work begins for me!" Packing. Cleaning. Changing addresses. Finding a place to live. Changing the kids schools. Finding a preschool for Louie. Changing Dr.s, dentists. You know all that fun stuff. All while taking care of 4 kids by myself morning, noon, and night. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Getting the kids ready for school. BEDTIME :{ All.....alone.....while Brian stays with his mom until we can all move down. He'll come home one night in the middle of the week and on the weekends but I am such a wimp! I haven't had to consistently do this alone since adding our 4th bambino and I'm really, nervous but I'm sure it will all work out I just hope I can get every thing done. The very, very worst part of moving of course is the most dreadful thing of all!!! Finding a new hairstylist since Emily doesn't live there anymore!!! I've had to go to the hair schools for the last few years because the budget wouldn't allow anything else. I would pray desperately before each appointment and things turned out amazingly well other than it taking 4 1/2 hours for a cut and highlights. Brian colored my hair the last time it was done. SCARY I know but he did a surprisingly good job. But I'm sure that he is just as excited for me to have someone else do it next time as I am! Now if I could just find a place to do the boys and Brian's cuts every month that wouldn't set us back $48 bucks so I wouldn't have to do that anymore! They might have to go to the beauty school now. No, scratch that, NO ONE has that much time on their hands!!!

How can I tell?

Well, school is officially back in session. How can I tell? My floor is covered in wood chips again! Gotta love it! :)

Hannah Montana Rocks!! :)

Yes, it's true, I like Hannah Montana! Ok, so I'm 36 years old and maybe that seems weird but you know, I just don't care! I started out watching the show with my kids, I always watch at least one episode of a new show with my kids before I let them or banish them from watching it whichever the case may be. It is really a cute little show! I think the writing and the actors abilities have evolved over the life of the show and at this point it is really quite entertaining. I feel like it works for all ages. I've even caught it after the kids are already in bed and I'm flipping through the channels and I watch it without them because I think it's THAT cute. There aren't very many shows on regular television anymore that we can watch as a family. The sitcoms or reruns of sitcoms are all pretty risque for our little ones so it's been fun to find a show that the whole family can enjoy. It is pretty funny too! I always have a good chuckle during it. The kids LOVE her brother, Jackson. He's really pretty funny! Well, I wanted to see the movie but I couldn't get Huey to go to it with me because he's a closet Hannah Montana fan as well apparently since he's a boy and it's about a girl and he's just not ready to let the world in on his little secret. Well, I rented it and watched it and I thought it was really, really, good! It even made me cry a little at the end. (Not such a hard thing to do these days with my hormones still trying to even out after having my baby in May. But still.) I just love that song she sings at the end called The Climb. It is SO good! It's made me get choked up every time I've ever heard it because it is so sweet and is a great inspirational song for kids and grown ups alike I think. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not particularly a big Miley Cyrus fan. She does some weird things and I'm afraid she's headed down the same path as Britney Spears and the like but I really like the character she plays on the show Hannah Montana. Anyhoo, my confession is over. Don't judge, just love! :)

Poor little Buttercup!

Little Buttercup had 3 shots today and an oral vaccine as well. Now, I know the dangers of not having the vaccines, I know they need them, I know they are just a plane ride away from getting some horrible dread disease if they don't get the vaccines, my kids are all 'up to date'! But I'm worried sick! I always am every time one of my kids get vaccines. Huey would always run a fever for days. Dewey broke out in a horrible rash all over his body and ran a fever for days when he was 12 months old and got 5 shots at once. So, when I read the reaction symptoms to watch for I always get totally freaked out worrying about them. Sometimes the rash or other reactions can show up several days or a week after the actual vaccine. It's always sad to me to see these sweet little angels going through pain when they are so good, so precious, so trusting. I am grateful that we have vaccines now and that medicine has evolved so much now so that our children can be better protected from horrible diseases but it's still not easy to go through it!

Darn ghost kids!!!

I went in the boys' SCARY bathroom to clean it and found the counter top covered in toothpaste, chocolate syrup (don't ask me!), and dirty foot prints. The mirror was all smeared up too. So, I called my boys in because I just wanted to give them a 'friendly' reminder that we rinse toothpaste down the sink when we brush our teeth and that we only put a pea size amount on the brush. Wouldn't you know they all said that they DID rinse down the toothpaste. Must have been those darn ghost kids again!!! I tell ya, my ghost kids are the messiest, naughtiest, craziest ghost kids EVER!!! They are always getting into things they shouldn't, messing up the toy room, leaving toys in my room, spilling stuff everywhere, writing on walls and furniture, the list goes on and on! They are making my real kids look really bad!

Just have to vent...

I was so stinking mad today!!! I went to the school and got the note I need to have my Dr. fill out saying it's ok for my kindergartener,"Dewey" to have an epi pen at school in case his throat starts swelling shut from an accidental nut interaction since he's deathly allergic to all nuts. Well, I also decided I better get some epi pens from the pharmacy so I could actually take one to the school. I go ALL the way to the WalMart in the adjoining town that is about 10 minutes south of where we live to find out that my refilling ability expired for that prescription on July 31st. GREAT!!! So, I called the Dr.'s office to see if they could call, or fax in a prescription order for more epi pens and they are out to lunch and won't be returning until 2:00. Mind you it was 12:30 when I called!!! Who the crap takes AT LEAST an hour and a half off for lunch?!?!?! I get 2 minutes TOPS!!! I know I'm a stay at home mom but seriously I am lucky to sit down for lunch let alone taste the food I scarf down in 2 seconds flat. I understand an hour but AT LEAST an hour and a half is PRETTTTTY darn excessive if you ask me!!! Well, I decided that after I picked up some other stuff there at WalMart I would drop my hubby and Buttercup off at the house and take Dewey and Louey with me to their office so I could get the paper filled out and I would ask about the prescription refills then. This means I drove 10 minutes back home and then drove the 35 minutes in the other direction it takes to get to the Dr.'s office just to have a different Dr. in the office's receptionist inform me that it's my Dr's day off today. I said," I thought his day off was Tuesday." She said, " Oh it is but he took today off too but you can leave the paper here for him to fill out and you can come pick it up first thing tomorrow morning." With a big smile on her face! BREATHE!! DEEPLY!!! Do NOT freak out!!!! Don't say what you are thinking in your head!!! (Look toots!!! I tried to call your office an hour and a half ago but you were out to lunch, by the way, how long exactly, DO you have for lunch anyway?!!, and I live 40 minutes away so...that...isn't...good...enough...for....me!!!!!!!) Instead I just tried as calmly as I could to discuss this rationally and luckily there was a nurse there that sent in the prescription order for me and I'm going to call in the morning and see if the school will accept a faxed copy and see if the Dr.'s office will fax it to the school. Let's hope because I don't know how long the niceness can last!!!
I did perk up, however, when I decided to go to Old Navy since I was already up there and they were having jeans for kids for $10 a pair and I wanted to see if I could find a pair of new jeans for Dewey for school. I wanted him to have 1 new outfit for school since we got Hewey 1 new outfit for school. Well, I ended up finding a pair for Hewey for $3.79!!! BONUS!!!! He's husky and husky's are hard to come by, especialy for $3.79 a pair!!! All is right with the world again! See, shopping does make EVERYTHING better! :)

I'm Scared!!!

So, our little Buttercup was born in May and I have found the transition from 3 kids to 4 to be surprisingly easy. I have even thought that if I didn't have such a hard time breathing while I was pregnant i would probably have at least 2 more. After all we do make adorable children! :) As most of you know, Brian has been out of work since 3 days before Buttercup was born and has been my right hand man. Well he's been gone most of this week (including an over nighter) doing work for our brother in law and it has become abundantly clear to me that I'm a total wimp! Brian has been gone lots of times this summer and I handled things just fine and I thought I had it all together. This week was different because I actually had a lot to. Before, I just stayed close to home, planned trips to the store around Brian's schedule, and took it really easy. Too easy! I thought it was difficult taking 3 kids to Wal-Mart with me when I was pregnant...PIECE...OF....CAKE....compared to taking 4!!! It's like the Multi-Tasking Olympics! Buttercup is usually pretty good. My main worry with her is keeping her brothers from knocking her car seat off of the cart and occasionally I'll have to carry her around but that's to be expected since she thinks her umbilical cord is still attached. :) Huey is pretty helpful I have to say but he always has a big of the gimmes. Our money just seems to burn a hole right through his little pocket and he likes to rile his brothers up just to torment me. With Dewey it's, stop climbing in the shelves Dewey, stop sitting on the packages of paper towels on the shelf Dewey, stop touching everything Dewey, ok now pick all of those up that you knocked off the shelf Dewey, no you can't have that Dewey, not today Dewey, maybe next time Dewey, it's not your birthday Dewey so NO you can't have that, because I said so Dewey, and my mom's old favorite, we'll see Dewey. With Louie I'm constantly saying, stay by the cart Louie, come on Louie, get over here Louie, where's Louie?, get off the floor Louie, stop running in front of people's carts or you're going to get run over Louie, put that down Louie, LOUIE!!!! And there is always at least one trip to the bathroom. The whole time I'm trying to keep the boys from wreaking havoc on Wal-Mart or getting lost I'm trying to focus on my list, get the best bargain for my money, check out all the sales, keep from getting kicked out, and not to completely lose it by the time I'm done. Like I said before, Buttercup is permanently attached to me but occasionally she'll let her dad hold her so I can get something done but this week has been very difficult. I knew it would be. I knew she was getting spoiled rotten but I just couldn't help myself. She is most likely our last baby and I just can't believe how fast she is growing and I just want to hold her as much as I can before she reaches that age where the only time you can hold them longer than like 2 seconds is when they are asleep or sick. She is the sweetest little thing, too! I just can't help myself! So now that reality is sinking in, school will be starting in a few days along with new schedules, and I know that someday, soon I hope, Brian will go back to work and I'll be back to doing all of my duties alone, I'm scared. Very, very scared!

This will make you smile! I love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFsTPx5UrbA

Frogs, snakes, and earwigs..oh my!!!

We live in a home that is right on the edge of a small town. We love the beauty and the calm that come from being kind of away from everyone but I have to say I'm not diggin the creatures that surround us! My husband and 3 boys saw 4 snakes in the yard when they were out there playing catch one day and my mother-in-law saw one slither into a crack on the drive way one day. Now I'm terrified to weed the flower beds for fear one will slither out from under a bush or across the grass. Can you imagine?! The boys were playing out by the pond in our back yard and found a pretty cool frog. I don't mind him at all. But we have had an infestation with wasps I swear! They are everywhere and we can't seem to get rid of them. They even keep trying to take over our BBQ grill. NOT COOL! Then we started seeing earwigs. Now I can take a lot of things but earwigs freak me out! I was worried that we were going to have to do a bug bomb or something but luckily we seem to have killed them all now. We've always had a lot of spiders since we moved here but then Brian killed a huge brown spider with a crazy pattern on his back. I want him to check out pictures of spiders on Google to see whether it was a brown recluse or a wolf spider. I'm feeling WAY too close to nature at this point! The boys left our back door open for hours a couple of different times and now I'm totally scared I'll find a "special friend" lurking under something they left on the floor when I pick it up. Freaky deaky! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we've seen the last of the different types of creatures. I don't know how much more I can stand!

We Survived!!

In our church the members of the congregation are asked to speak on different spiritual topics during our sacrament meetings. People rarely have to do this unless they live in an area where their membership is very small or...like us, you move every time you turn around. When a new family moves in they always want to hear from them so they are usually asked to speak within the first few months of moving in. Well, we have been married 16 years and we have moved 14 times, therefore, we have spoken in church 14 times. We moved to a new area the last day in February and last Sunday after our meetings we were asked to speak this week. The topic...Patience! Anyone who knows me knows I have NO patience at all and found it quite humorous when they heard the topic we were speaking on! I read the monthly newsletter and realized the topic was actually having patience in your afflictions. Well, that wasn't quite so bad because, although I'm usually not so patient in my afflictions either I have learned some very valuable lessons over the years that have helped me TRY to have patience in my afflictions and to find peace and joy during the trials we face. Mainly, praying always and asking for the help of my Savior, Jesus Christ, asking to feel the love of my Heavenly Father, asking for the comfort and companionship of the Holy Ghost to help me through these times, all of which bring me peace during the hard times and help me to be able to know I'm not alone and that I can make it through. Well, all week we pondered and worried and wondered what we should say in our talks that might help others. My poor husband HATES speaking in church so much (I have yet to find someone that enjoys this) and he was a mess all week. My husband is like THE most patient person I've ever known in my life. Proof: He's been able to deal with me for the last 16 years! :) This week I heard him suggest that we really should consider having a hired clergy in our church that spoke to us each week so he never had to do this. He said maybe he should just quit church altogether so he didn't have to do this again. I can't think of the other stuff but he cracked me up all week long! I didn't really get very nervous until we were actually sitting on the stand, in front of everyone, waiting for the dreaded moment to arrive when it would be our turn to get up and hopefully not make fools out of ourselves. We said prayers in our hearts that it would go ok and it actually did. We had so many people tell us what a great meeting it was and how much they liked our talks. Brian gave an excellent talk! It's funny, I wasn't nervous all week until we were there and then I was most nervous once I was standing in front of everyone and Brian was a nervous wreck all week until he stood up there and then he was fine. We are so glad it's over now! At least until the next time we move and have to do it again. Wouldn't it be great if we could just find a nice place to live and NEVER move again!?!?! Here's hopin'...

My new best friend...

SPRAY 'N' WASH MAX. I LOVE this stuff! I have used it quite a few times now and it is AWESOME!!! One day I washed and dried a shirt with a stain on it and then sprayed it and washed it again and it came right out. Today I was so excited when I tried it on a shirt that was on my dryer since like May needing to be treated. It had chocolate stains all over it. It came right out! Chocolate is a TOUGH stain!!! I love that you just spray it and throw it right in. It doesnt have to let it sit or anything! THE BEST!!! It works great on grass stains too and even Utah's red dirt on white baseball pants! LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!!

16 years of wedded bliss?

Uhh..NO! We're HUMAN so therefore the last 16 years have not been easy! We've had lots and lots of ups and downs. We've had many, many disappointments. We make our plans and Heavenly Father laughs at us and then we ride out His plan as best we can. We've laughed a lot, we've cried a lot and through it all we STILL love each other. We have shared some of life's greatest joys. We've also experienced a lot of heartaches. We are there for each other. We have each other's back. We made 4 dang cute kids!!! We still can't stand being away from each other for long periods of time. We're still attracted to each other even though 16 years has morphed us into somewhat different looking people. Brian still looks quite a bit the same, other than his bi-pap machine mask that makes him look weird and sound like Darth Vader, but I look so different that last week my cousin that I haven't seen in almost 16 years didn't even recognize me. :( Some things have changed. Some things haven't: Brian still doesn't do dishes, however he will unload the dishwasher and dish drainer and he's a great cook! I still want to talk things out in a fight and he still just sits there... not saying a single word...and making me more and more irrate by the milisecond! He's still the first person I want to share news with, the good and the bad. We are each other's safe place to fall. I'm thankful that we are together and that our children have such a loving father. I'm glad I get to see it since he's private and doesn't really show it much in front of others. I'm thankful he honors his priesthood. I'm thankful that we are patient with each other's idiocinricies since I'm not sure that any one else would be. We are as happy as two people that have faced our challenges can be. I'm glad that I know Brian in different ways than anyone else on earth will ever know him since he is pretty shy about letting others see that part of him. And I hope we can withstand all of life's pressures, challenges, frustrations, temptations enough to be able to share all of the wonderful joys in this life and in the life to come that the Lord has to offer. For eternity! Forever, for always, and no matter what...within reason of course! :) Happy Anniversary Babe! I love you tons and tons!!!