Temple Groundbreaking

We are so excited that they finally broke ground for the temple!  Attendance at the ceremony was by invitation only.  Kent was asked to sing at the event by our neighbor Keith Bradshaw who was in charge of the choir. Since Kent was singing I got a ticket.  It was so exciting! (It was pretty hot though.  I rocked my awesome hat even though I looked kind of geeky.  At least my head wasn't frying like 99% of the audience!)  We are so excited to have a temple here!

Just a few words about groundbreakings.  I think it is kind of funny (and silly, really) that bunch of people get together and dig in little pre-made troughs of dirt with golden shovels to celebrate the groundbreaking.  I mean, it's cool to have an event for it but it just seems kind of silly.  And at THIS groundbreaking event there was group after group after GROUP re-breaking the same ground with the golden shovels.

Look, it's Keith and Tracey Bradshaw, our neighbors using the golden shovels!

Chopped Challenge

So our new favorite show on Netflix is "Chopped".  There are 4 chefs that get a basket of weird mystery ingredients and they have to make meals out of them.  After each round one person gets eliminated.  The last round consists of 2 chefs making desserts.

The kids thought it would be fun to have me do a chopped challenge.  We went to the store and they each got to pick an ingredient.  Normally there are 4.  I have 4 kids.  Somehow we ended up with 5 ingredients. I am not sure how this happened.  I'm sure fighting was involved.

The mystery ingredients

The final entree

So on the show they have something like 30 minutes to make the food. I'd say it took me over an hour.  You can use other ingredients from the pantry but you have to use all the ingredients and transform them.  I ended up making a bratwurst and chicken meatball with crushed potato chips inside, a salad with a dressing made from the mango nectar and that weird pokey fruit that I can't remember the name of.  And I used the Thai sauce (I think) with the de-glazed meatball pan and served it with the noodles.  The kids actually liked it.  They really liked the chicken and bratwurst meatballs.  They are asking me to do this again. I think I might make them do it.  But it sort of scares me.

Last Week of School

May is always a crazy month.  Somehow I always manage to forget this.  There are always lots of school activities, concerts, field trips etc.  This year we added soccer to the mix, which made things extra crazy.  And the weather in May has been pretty cold and rainy. I think we will skip spring soccer next year and just do soccer in the fall.

My job ends the week before school gets out so that means I have an entire week at home without my kids home.  I'm pretty stoked about this!  I plan to do lots of homework and sew aprons.  Doesn't sound super exciting but it will be nice just to have a quiet house to get some of the stuff done I need to do.

Two updates from SUU
1.  I was finally able to register for fall classes.  I had to go to an advisor and "prove" that I was enrolled in statistics and biology.  I wasn't enrolled in the biology class because I was trying everything I could think of to avoid taking that class.  I ended up enrolling in the class WHILE I was at the advisor's office.  Once she saw that I was taking these 2 classes she waived the prereq.  She told me though that when fall comes if they don't have an updated transcript with the required classes on it they will remove me from the class. They are HARDCORE.  Wow... I guess there is no way to get out of this biology class.

2.  I was approved for a student loan.  My first student loan.  (*sigh*).  It's a federal Stafford loan so at least I don't have to pay interest until I'm done. I'm hoping that this investment into my education, purchased on credit, will be worth the trouble.  It shouldn't take too long to pay it back. I will have to get loans for 6 semesters.   College is expensive.  Especially SUU.  It's a rip-off actually but I'm not going down that road today.  Self-reliance, people.  There is no price, right?

I'm ALIVE!

Yeah.  I haven't blogged forever and now I am finally playing catch up.  I hadn't realized that it had been SOOO long since I blogged!  I guess my Inner Blogging Voice has just been covered up by my Inner You-Have-A-Lot-To-Do-To-Get-Ready-For-Christmas Voice.

• All my presents are bought/made, wrapped, and shipped.  Whew.  I have been sewing fleece pajama pants for the kids, some doll pajamas for Adele's new doll and a blanket for Adele.
• I actually sent out Christmas cards this year (*gasp*).  I hardly ever do but I was bullied into it this year.  And I am glad because there are some people out there who don't read my blog (shocker!) so they never get a chance to see how the kiddos are growing and how many more wrinkles Kent and I are developing.
• I made fudge today. I felt really proud of myself. I love fudge but I have feared making it since the Christmas of 2000 when I tried to make it and failed.  It was all grainy and gross.  All the years after that I just hoped someone would give us some.  This year I got brave and made this recipe.  Just leave it to my bffs Kate and Sara to save the day again!  Today I declared fudge to be my favorite food.
  Then I went and ran 5 miles on my treadmill to help mitigate the fudge-damage I have done today.
• My great friend Amy won't be able to make it to our house for Christmas and we are all really sad about that.  She has spent many Christmases with us over the last 8 years and this may only be the second or third time she won't be here.  (Amy, we will miss you soooo much this year).
• Adele has been trying to be obedient lately.  She is very determined to stay off the "naughty list".  She has done a pretty good job too.  She hasn't cut her hair, drawn on the walls or anything truly destructive since last time I blogged about her drawing on the wall.  Her main offenses continue to be stealing other people's treats, gum etc. or eating ABC gum out of the garbage can.  (EWWW).  She has been really sweet lately and I am really trying to enjoy her because this is a fun age.  She is really growing up fast and I am kind of sad to see all my babies grow up. 

Bunny

The white bunny is still in our yard.  A friend of mine who has a bunny told me that bunnies are usually pretty territorial and they will usually go home if they run off.  Well, that bunny has been spending an awful lot of time in our yard and I am starting to think that it thinks our house is its home.  Different neighbors keep calling me and asking if I have a white bunny that got out.  The mailman delivered a package to my door the other day and asked if my bunny got out.  Nope. Not my bunny.  I think we should name the bunny Marshmallow and keep it.

Doing What We Do

I feel like I never really blog about anything except trips and birthdays and special events anymore.  Not the day to day stuff.  Not that our day to day stuff is exciting at all but I guess that is why it should be here.  So I can save for the record how ordinary my life really is.  Stuff like driving kids all over the place and cleaning.  And the fact that I swore the second day of summer vacation that I had to put up my white flag and surrender to the fact that my house was going to be MESSY all summer.  How can it NOT be messy when you have 4 kids (or more!) running in and out with water, sand, grass, dandelions, and all sorts of other creatures of nature.  So, anyway you have been warned. If you come over (especially without telling me) you get what you get.  And it will probably involve ants.
Let's move on to the other stuff we have done around here lately:

• My kids are obsessed with ants.   Probably because we have a million billion ants living in our yard.  The kids play with them, murder them, feed them, draw chalk circles around them and watch them run around, bury them, make ant soup with them, stomp on them and sometimes bring them in the house to show me.
• We are (sort of) enjoying the new aquatic center they just built here.  I say sort of because the last 2 times we have been we have only stayed for less than an hour due to poo in the pool.  They make everyone get out for 45 minutes when it happens and we have learned (the hard way, by waiting the OTHER 2 times it happened when we were there) that it isn't worth the wait. Obviously their new Nazi monitoring of the "3 layers on everyone under 4" isn't helping.  And yeah, my 3.5 year old who is totally potty trained DOES wear a swim diaper to comply.  I am not sure what they can do about this but I have NEVER seen this much pool poo in  my LIFE!!!
• It is fun having my kids home but I am really starting to miss my "alone" time.  I think they are all getting kind of sick of being with each other 24/7 too.  Just an hour or 2 every day would be heaven...  In fact, I think Kent is hiding from me tonight since I was crabby.  (sorry.)
• I have eczema on my eyelids.  That's a new one for me.  It makes me look like I use a lot of pink eyeshadow and I don't know how to apply it.  And one of my eyes is goopy. I can thank Adele for that eye disease.
• Adele is mortified by using public restrooms, especially those with automatic flushers.  We have been using a LOT of different restrooms lately due to travelling, going to parks, and without fail SOMEONE has to go to the bathroom whenever we are at Wal-mart.  Emilia also had an irrational fear of toilets when she was little.

• I tried a new recipe for Kent for Father's Day:  Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake.  That was a keeper for sure.  I took a bite of it and thought, I must take a picture of this and blog about it even if it does have a bite out of it.

• Emilia had a bump on her gums from a baby tooth that was dying and was creating some fluid or something in her gums.  (exciting huh?)  I always like going to the dentist though so it is something worth mentioning.  If it doesn't quiet down she'll have to get the baby tooth extracted. I swear, we have spent an inordinate amount of money on getting baby teeth extracted.  My kids' teeth just don't like to fall out on their own. In fact, more than once I have bribed my kids with toys if they would let me pull a tooth that the dentist was threatening to extract.  Much cheaper that way, and they get a new toy.  Win-Win!
• Tomorrow we are having dinner with some friends. I normally wouldn't mention this on the blog because it's not really that big of a deal-- except this time it is and I will tell you why.  Let's see if I can do this without being too specific so as not to incriminate anyone.  We have a neighbor who lives near us who likes to have parties.  BBQs in fact.  With lots of work friends and Karaoke.  For 4 hours.  We attended such a party last year simply because we were invited and wanted to be neighborly.  It was awkward, the food was quite a disappointment especially since our neighbor boasted about his (or her) great catering skills,  all the work friends were singing the great hits and love ballads of the 60's (Peter Paul and Mary anyone?) and we just decided that we just didn't fit too well into this scene.  Especially since we had all the kids with us.  So, fast forward to TOMORROW.  We are invited to go to another Karaoke BBQ and we just.  really.  don't. want to.  So we made other plans so we wouldn't be home.  I am feeling very evil now because I confessed this. 
• Ian's cute little "girl" friend has been BEGGING and begging to come over to my house to make sock puppets.  I guess Ian told her about a sock puppet that we have that my kids call "Socket Pup".  Adele could never say sock puppet so she would call it "Socket Pup"  (Kind of like how she calls Gobstoppers "BOBSCOTCHERS".)  So a couple of days ago I made good on my promise and we made sock puppets.

• I have 2 flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the freezer. It was definitely a splurge but since I had a COUPON it was totally justified.  I have been SOOO bad at coupon shopping lately and I had STACKS of coupons that I needed to organize.  Yesterday I organized ALL of them, cleaned out my coupon folder and TODAY I got online, found the deals and did a great cereal and cracker deal.  I think I am back into the coupon groove. I am going to try to stay up-to-date with it and not get behind again.

So, that's all the ordinary stuff I have been up to.

Tub

The blue tub is gone! Hooray!  We had to get one last picture of it before we said "goodbye".  We debated about keeping it for a planter in the yard (not).  It is funny how many people jokingly suggested that to us.  The kids had fun playing in it before the plumber hauled it off to the dump (or maybe he took it to put in HIS yard to add to his "old bathtub collection").

The empty space

Of course the box the new tub came in was a hit

The new tub!  The adhesive was drying so it had to be supported. 

We still have some more work to do in the bathroom before it will be done like new flooring and painting but we LOVE our new tub and shower!

Provo Nostalgia

We are on our way home from our trip now so that means our van is fixed. Just as I start to type this my kids are fighting in the back and spitting on each other.  I think I am ready to be home.  Today we took the  kids to the "Bean Museum" (the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum).  We always refer to it as the "Bean Museum" even though that confuses  people.  After seeing lots of taxidermied vertebrates and fouls, and a fair amount of reptiles and invertebrates-in-a-jar we took a picnic lunch to Wasatch Elem. on 900 East.  Then to the Creamery on 9th for some of the best ice cream ever. 

This whole weekend has been full of nostalgic moments for me.  My family drove around Provo on Friday evening before we ate dinner at Brick Oven.  We showed the kids my dorms, the Provo Temple, Allred apartments where I lived my sophomore year, and pretty much every landmark in between.  They were SHOCKED at how busy the streets were and how many people there were.  There are as many students at BYU as people in our city.  Seeing all the college students and my old haunts sent a pang through my body.  I felt the same way today in the Bean Museum.  College life wasn't great and fabulous all the time, and I don't have the delusion that it was, but I miss it sometimes.  (Especially when my kids are being twerps and I am longing for the simple freedoms of young adulthood.)  Seeing the animals and biology stuff made me think of all the classes I went to and all the studying I did.  There is just a certain feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction to finish a class or an assignment.  Kind of like you have something to show for your hard work.  Sometimes I feel like there is nothing to show for what I do. 

One night last week I was feeling overwhelmed and bad about all the things that I didn't accomplish that day and kind of had an epiphany.  I thought:  Just because my house isn't clean and all my work isn't done does not mean that I accomplished nothing.  I am growing 4 kids and the fact that they were fed, to all the places they needed to be and are taken care of shows that I did accomplish something.  It all has to be done again tomorrow, but I am growing kids and in the end, they will my greatest accomplishment (or biggest failure).  Anyway, that was kind of a tangent but I know that I am one of those people who wishes to be out of a certain stage of life.  And I get frustrated with the monotony of pretty much every stage of life when I am in it.  Being in Provo really made me miss my time there, my friends there, and the time of my life just after I was married and didn't have any kids yet.  As I sit here and think about this I know that I will feel that way about the time of life I am in right now. My kids are little.  They aren't "moody teenagers" yet.  (Tho sometimes I swear they are teenagers trapped in little bodies).  It was just really weird to think that my younger days are kind of over.  I guess I have been thinking about this more because I am on the eve of my 35th birthday.  I don't necessarily think of 35 as "old" but it is an "older part of young adulthood".  Or dare I say it is more like mid-adulthood?  I think I am old enough now (or I soon will be) for a mid-life crisis.  Not that that is what I am aspiring to or anything. I think my 1/3 life crisis was recent enough to put me in the safe zone for awhile.  Anyway, I don't really know what the point of this post is.  It's mostly rambling and to keep me distracted from all the complaints from the back of the car.  ("How much longer?") I just feel kind of nostalgic and sad that I can't go to a movie with roommates tonight or go for a run at the Smith Fieldhouse.  Sad that we have to move on, but actually relieved at the same time.  Wishing I could go back and see all my friends and mentors and spend some time (sleeping in) the library without a bunch of hungry baby birds at home who need and depend on me for everything.

(photo from this website)

Family Fun a la Kent

If you think I am creative (and I KNOW you do, har har) you should see the things that Kent comes up with. This was kind of like a role playing game, only it wasn't just something that you sit at a board and just PRETEND.  No, you put on the gear and accoutrements (there's your word Megan) and actually act it out.  He wrote a whole storyline and made up different characters. I guess all that experience with computer games has paid off.  Unfortunately nobody got a picture of me dressed up as the "Grumpy Old Troll" (anybody watch Dora???  The G.O.T. is one of our current favorite characters.)

We had mighty warriors, elf princesses, gypsy assassins and a sorceress (don't ask me which is which, I think they kind of meld together.)  Adele just wanted the pink hair.  They used magical bows, swords, invisibility rings, bunny bracelets and fire amulets.  They had to do spells and answer riddles and make decisions.  Needless to say, they loved it and begged to do it again sometime.  (Thanks Kent for being an awesome Dad-O)  I guess it is good that they can get their cultural sci-fi and fantasy (read: NERD) needs met through their dad because they can't get it from me.  Ok, that came out wrong.  They can get their nerd sci-fi stuff from Kent (Star wars, elf princesses and on and on) and their other weird NERD stuff from me.  Which I can't think of right now, but I know I am nerdy in my own special way.  I guess labeling body parts with their correct anatomical names could be seen as nerdy.  Or playing scrabble.  Or hating tv violence and gore but loving to watch people get cut up in surgery and have body parts cut off, re-arranged or manipulated.  (Wow, this self-exploration and admission of nerdiness can be very intimidating and humbling.)

And for all you real nerds:
0118 999 88199 9119 725 3  (Google it if you don't know what it means.  Then you can be a nerd too.)

Aw heck, I'll make it easy for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
 (This is what happens when you blog when you are tired.)

AND one more thing.
ALL my kids have that number memorized.  In fact, that number was the answer to one of the riddles in Kent's game.

Oh and 1 more thing. This is really the last thing.  Here's a picture of the t-shirt I made and ordered for Kent for his birthday:

awesome.

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, figuratively speaking anyway.  Skinnies finally went belly up.  He started looking hunchback-ish about a week ago and I knew his time was coming.  This morning we found him dead.  Now we know. Goldie is the murderer.  At least he is a cannibal.  It looked like Goldie had been munching on Skinnies and I think he pretty much ate all his guts and even his eyes.  Ewww. 

Here is all that was left of poor Skinnies.  Now he is even more skinny.

August Update

• We have had 2 mysterious fishy deaths this week.  First was Tiny. One day he was there, the next day he was gone.  He vanished without a trace.  We are suspecting Skinnies or Goldie swallowed him whole.  We thought at first he might have gotten sucked into the filter since he was SOOOOO tiny but we didn't see him in the filter anywhere.  The second mysterious death was Bowser Jr.  We found him with half of his tail and body eaten.  Again, it is making us suspicious of Skinnies and Goldie. I guess we'll find out who is the cannibalistic murderer and who is dead if this killing streak continues.  We do have another fish:  Mrs. Sucker.  She just eats algae so I don't think she is a fish of interest in this situation.  Adele was so funny when we discovered that Tiny was missing.  I said, "What happened to poor Tiny?" and she replied, "He got an owie on his brain.  Poor little fishy."

• 
  
  Kent has been tinkering with computers again.  He built what I call  his "Frankenstein Box":

 

I don't know what he does with it but it is a good thing he is a computer guy and not a biologist.  Severing and resecting computer parts is much less freaky than doing the same thing to animals.  (Ever see Word Girl? It reminds me of Dr. Two Brains with his second brain on the outside of his head.)

• 
  
  Kent has taken each of the kids (except Adele) fishing individually. None of the kids (or Kent) really like eating the fish that they catch but they go anyway.  Elise caught 2, Emilia caught 1 and Ian had an unsuccessful fishing outing. Right now we have 1 tiny trout in our freezer waiting for some other fishies to join him so we can cook them all at the same time.
• 
  
  I have finished my back to school shopping.  There have been some killer online deals at Old Navy.com and Oshkosh.com.  Only 5 days until school starts. I can hardly believe it!  I need to make some big and exciting plans for Thursday and Friday.

Just some random stuff...

...I am posting at midnight when I REALLLLY should be in bed.

Here's Ian doing his GQ pose. This kid starts kindergarten in the fall. I'll be down to 1 kid at home for half the day. WOW! I have to take him to the Dr. tomorrow for his pre-K check-up.

Good thing it is spring now huh? It has been spring for a week. I have crocuses growing in my yard and I have actually been enjoying some yard work. I always like yard work more in the spring than in the summer. Spring is great. Snow is not great.

This cute little stinker is still making pee pee in her pants. Today it was only twice, which is an improvement over yesterday when it was 5 times. I think it is because I have a new reward (bribe): painting the nails. She was looking at my nail polish and really wanted to have her nails painted, so that has become the reward when she can go a whole day without wetting her pants.

I think I did something to my belly button last week in yoga. Ever since yoga the muscles under Navelia have really been sore and hurting. Too many crunchy tummy poses. There is nothing like doing some yoga on the beach in Hawaii though. It kind of makes up for the snow we have been getting....

My kids are weirdos.

P.S. In case you didn't catch the sarcasm, I have NOT been in Hawaii doing yoga or ANYTHING. Yoga pics from www.yogadestin.com

My favorite yoga pose

One question: Why can't blogger get its formatting under control? Really. It does random psycho things and it bugs me. Some things are centered, some things are not. I can't use the bullets because they won't put them where I want them and not where I don't want them.... Oh, sorry, another question. Why can't blogger come up with a way to insert pictures where you want them and not add 2 inches of space between all the text whenever you upload pictures? (All you blogger friends will understand the annoyance of this.)

That's it. I'm OFF to bed.

Feedback

Kent has given me some feedback about my blog. He says:

"Maybe I should take a different picture of you for your 'I dyed my hair' post". ("Hint hint, it's a bad picture 'dear' and sorry, but I just don't really like your hair. Maybe I'll get used to it.")

"You really should put those pictures of your belly button scar and the smiley belly button face back on your blog. Someone even commented that they wanted to see it." (So Chelsea, here you go.)

"Maybe I should do a post on your blog to try to drum up some votes for me on your poll."

So. Here are the belly button pictures. A select few of you may have seen the original post about my belly button. I decided to take it off because I was feeling a bit weird about it. (That post is actually what inspired me to start the poll about silliness.)

On my original post I commented that my navel is not a circle or an oval but a smiley face.

And then, well, I got a little carried away.

Thoughts on Exercise

I have learned a few things now that I have been going to the gym. I wanted to share them.

1. My life is complete now that I have been going to spinning classes once or twice a week. It's not what you think though. Yeah, the workout for the legs is great. BUT. Now that I have been going, the complete lack of techno music in my life has been corrected. I am always surprised by the songs that are made "techno". Serious, slow songs are boom-boomified. It is amazing.

2. Just as spinning is not for sissies, yoga is absolutely not for sissies. It is hard! The first week I went my muscles were twitching so much during some of the poses. I thought that everyone could see my gluteus maximus muscles quivering. And the balance...! WOW! I have been going for about 4 weeks now and I am getting better at it. I really, really like it.

Louisiana Hot Sauce

I went to Big Lots this morning and what do you think I found???


More Louisiana Supreme Hot Sauce. And for only 50 cents. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Treasure Beyond Measure

Since all the kids have been sleeping through the night, and since it has been snowing and the neighbors have been keeping their (evil) dog inside, I have nothing exciting to blog about. I thought about taking pictures of the snow and blogging about it but I am pretending it never really happened.

Can you tell what this is a picture of? I found it in my storage room.

Yep, it is a lonely, stray potato that had fallen out of the bag and gotten all shrively. I actually found it because I noticed a funky smell and lo and behold, there it was.

Here are a few other priceless treasures I found in there when I was cleaning:

This hot sauce is dedicated to my friend Kate. Not because she's saucy, but because she lives in Louisiana. I inherited this hot sauce from my parents a couple of years ago when they downsized their food storage. They gave me a bunch of random things. It has only been expired for 4 1/2 years.

Wow, 3 for $1! I guess back in 2000 when this was made you could still get hot sauce for only $.33. Darn inflation.

Here's another treasure. It's a container of Gerber baby raviolis or something. It was in my 72 hour kit. I bought it when Ian was eating baby food. I am sure it looks and tastes the same as it did when it was first made: disgusting. My kids never would eat that stuff.

This is perhaps the scariest food(ish)-product known to man. Barely beating out cheese in a can (and only because the turkey is "mechanically separated", whatever the heck THAT means). These meat sticks (along with their relatives Vienna Sausages) just make me wanna barf. They weren't expired yet, so I gave them to my kids. Bleck.

Here's another thing I inherited. This time from my sister-in-law. I really can't remember why she was giving away Malt-O-Meal. Maybe she just had a surplus of it. The moral of this story is: When people give you stuff you wouldn't normally buy for yourself, just throw it away from the get-go and you won't have to hold on to it for 7 years. Or better yet, just tell them you don't want it.

And last of all, I found a couple of bags of bulk stuff that I bought at the health store a long time ago. Some millet and some mung beans. I decided to put them in some jars and sprout them just for kicks. I'll have to come back with the sprout update later.

Random January

Blech. That is what I have to say about January. It is cold, it is gray and I hate not being able to take the kids to outside to play. I hate being stuck in the house.

My inner blogging voice hasn't been talking to me much. I keep thinking I need to post something but I am uninspired. I have hardly left the house for a week. I have been to the store on some great couponing errands, so that has provided me with enough excitement to sustain me for awhile. I have saved over 25 dollars with coupons this month already. (Wa-hoo!)

The kids are back in school now so at least THEIR brains are engaged in something exciting besides Mario Kart.

I have made a new goal this year to find something new to do. I have really been feeling lately (ok, well, for a long time actually) that there is something missing in my life and I really want to find something new to try. I feel kind of like I am trapped at home a lot and don't have a lot of time where I can do things without the kids. I really want to find a class to take, or a very part time job or something. If anyone has any great ideas, feel free to offer suggestions.

I can finally say that I have read a Jane Austen novel. I love all the movies but had a harder time getting into the books. I got Persuasion for Christmas and since I caught a stomach bug over the weekend I had a chance to finish it. I have to admit that I like the movie better. The book just meanders forever and keeps introducing new people and you just WANT them to admit their feelings. And they don't. Until the last 5 pages. And then they are in love and it is over. At least in the movie you can SEE how they look at each other and feel the WANT. I guess it is hard to feel THE WANT in the book. I don't think I will gear up to read Pride and Prejudice for awhile (if EVER.) I love the BBC 6 hour movie but if the MOVIE is 6 hours I can only imagine how long it would take me to get through that one.

Update

I have been a blogging slacker this week. Unfortunately for my 2 readers, my inner blogging voice has been temporarily replaced by my inner nasty-letter-writing voice. The dogs in my neighborhood bark pretty much all the time. The other morning they woke me up at 4 and I could still hear them even with a fan on and my earplugs in my ears. That's when my new voice started talking in my head. It baffles me how clueless people are to let their dogs bark 24 hours a day without any thought that perhaps, somebody could be disturbed by it. I could go on, but I won't. Back to the point. I have been busy the last couple of weeks, but not too much worth writing an entire blog post about. Just the daily stuff that goes on when you take care of kiddos all day. So, here's just a general update of what we have been up to.

• Our summer vacation is half over. The kids have been fighting a lot. I am excited for school to start. I think they are together too much (and they are definitely around me too much. I like being around them when they are getting along but when they are fighting it makes me crazy.)
  
  
• We are finalizing the plans for our upcoming kitchen remodel. I will dedicate an entire post to this next week.
  
  
• My 3 older kids start swimming lessons tomorrow.
  
  
• We had a fun 4th of July with 2 different sets of friends. One family came over during the day for a lunch bbq and we also invited some friends to come over later to watch some fireworks with us. The kids had fun and of course the food was great.
  
  
  

  All the babies in my family that were born within the last year wearing their matching 4th of July outfits. This was taken at our Bear Lake reunion. It was naptime and all the babies were pretty grumpy.




• Adele has been sleeping through the night. She generally wakes up around 11:30 or 12 am and I feed her but then she sleeps until 8 or 8:30. I have been staying up that late but it isn't too bad since all the kids are sleeping in. It is absolutely wonderful to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Well, except for all the barking dogs. And the birds that chirp at 5 a.m. Sleeping with the window open in the summer is hard for me because I am such a light sleeper.
  
  
• Adele has officially begun crawling. She started "army crawling" a couple of weeks ago and was pretty slow. Now she is FAST and all over the place. And eating everything, everywhere. Time to get things baby proofed again. Oh, and she still has thrush. It didn't completely go away while she was on her medicine. She has her 9 month check up coming up soon so I guess we'll have the Dr. look at it then.

Busy

I was so excited to start summer vacation. I was ready to not have to get up early with the kids and be able to relax and have fun. Unfortunately now what we are in the full swing of summer I feel like I am still SO busy! Maybe it is just because I was on vacation and didn't have to do the usual stuff like cleaning and paying bills. Having a break from it and then having to come back and play catch up has not been fun. Maybe it is just because all my kids are home, but seriously, I feel like I have had NO "me time" forever. I used to be able to steal 30 minutes or an hour here or there but I just feel like I haven't been able to do that. I feel like I work ALL FREAKING day long and STILL don't get anything done. My house is a mess even though I have been working and cleaning what seems like all day. And I can't remember the last time that I woke up in the morning and I wasn't tired. And I can't remember the last time when I went through the day and didn't feel like I'd pass out on the couch if I sat down for 10 minutes. Anyway, I guess I needed to vent and say that this mom thing is SO hard sometimes! (ok, always.)

Body Piercing, Blankets and Blood

I have been sewing a lot this week. I did a JP for someone and I finished an apron for a friend just this morning. Here it is:

After I finished the apron I started working on a "magic blanket" (think machine quilt) for Elise. As I was sewing I was thinking about blogging about my sewing projects this week. I thought I'd talk about my late friend Zora Mae who used to make magic blankets for humanitarian aid, general authorities, and even all the members of the Jazz team. My mom would take her to D.I. where she'd stock up on some great fabric and make tons of blankets even though she was 90 and legally blind. She taught my mom how to make magic blankets and my mom taught me. So there I was, sewing peacefully while my I.B.V. is rambling along about magic blankets and Zora Mae. Without even thinking I reached in to smooth the fabric or something and all of a sudden I felt pain in my finger and my needle broke. I looked at my finger and there was a thread completely through my finger and sticking out my fingernail. I called to Ian, who was in the room, to get my scissors for me since I was still attached to the thread. Right after severing myself from the spool I immediately (after freaking out: "AAAACCCCKKKKK, I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST SEWED MY FINGER!") reached for the camera which was only feet from my sewing machine. Sad but true, I started thinking that when this ordeal was over I would definitely have to blog about it. Zora Mae and her blankets just got trumped by my unintentional body piercing experience.

I called Kent and told him what I had just done. Then I called the Dr. and they said I could come right away. Since I was still in my pajamas I got dressed, put my hair in a ponytail and got ready to go. While I was waiting for Kent to get home I took advantage of the moment and took some more pictures. (All the other ones were a little too bloody and I didn't want to TOTALLY and COMPLETELY gross you all out....)

I got to the Dr. and was greeted by the receptionist who I had talked to on the phone. Some of the other office staff came over to look at my injury. When I was explaining that I had sewn my finger the office girl asked: "With a sewing machine?" Uh, no, actually I was sewing BY HAND and I started to poke my finger and instead of stopping I JUST KEPT ON PUSHING THE NEEDLE all the way THROUGH my fingernail before I realized it.... OF COURSE IT WAS WITH A SEWING MACHINE, DUH!

They took me to the back, took the ever important vitals and the Dr. came in. He looked at it and sort of tugged on it a little and I said, "Don't pull it out! I need some anesthesia!" He left the room for a second to get the shot and then came back in. He asked if I had ever had my finger numbed and I told him no. He said it was pretty painful since they have to do a nerve block and told me it would probably hurt less just to have the thread pulled out than have it numbed first. So I opted for the non-anesthesia method. They trimmed the strings, pulled it out and it was over. I got a Rx for an antibiotic, a tetanus shot and I was on my way.

I still cannot believe that I actually sewed my finger. All the way through. Everything had to happen just right in order for that to happen. I probably couldn't do it again if I tried. (NOT that I would be that crazy....) The needle must have been at the highest position and on the way down just as I was reaching in to do whatever I was doing. (Sorry, I am sure you are shuddering at the thought). I guess this is definitely classified in the "freak accidents" category. Now I just have to hope that my fingernail doesn't fall off. You'll be sure to hear about it if it does. Ready for the picture??? Here it is. Those who are squeamish better not look.