September Happenings

I can't believe it's the 10th of September already and I haven't blogged a thing!  We have been busy. So busy.

•  We have been a 1 car family for the last 3 days.  Our van was leaking some mysterious fluid and so we had to take it to the shop.   It conveniently stopped leaking  and the guy couldn't find anything wrong with it.  This is the 2nd time this has happened.
• 3 kids in school is great.  Ian is so excited about Kindergarten but it has been kind of an adjustment for him. The 2nd day of school I woke him up and said, "you gotta get up buddy, you have to go to school".  And he replied "Again?"  This everyday thing is something to get used to.
• The (evil) bus driver was 3 minutes early yesterday and everybody almost missed the bus. Not just my kids.  What are they thinking? I think she likes to see the panicky kids running to the bus stop.
• Our garage door is broken again.  *sigh*.  Our friend Dave is going to fix it this afternoon.  Hooray. I guess it is good to have the garage door broken when we have fewer cars right?
• I bought some peaches but I decided not to can them. Too much work. We just ate them and I froze some. I bought some canned pears at the case lot sale at Smith's. That was so much easier than canning them.  Probably the same price too.
• I've been helpin out my friend a bit with her 2 year old and newborn twins.  She had a knee accident and has been immobilized for several weeks.  It has been fun to hold the babies and I feel good helpin her because I know she appreciates it.
• Yesterday I locked myself out of my house.  I had a car and no keys and a husband at work with no car since our van was in the shop. I walked around my house to see if I could break in but our screens are nearly impossible to remove from the outside.  Very reassuring but not so good for emergency lock-outs. I had to borrow a car from a neighbor to go get some keys from Kent.  I promptly gave a spare key to said neighbor for future emergencies.
• My sister Carol bought me a massage for my birthday clear back in March and I finally scheduled it.  I'm goin next Friday and I am very excited!'
• I am enjoying my little part time job. I have been working about 5 hours per week.  Just enough to keep up my eating out habit.
• Survivor starts next week.   So excited.

Funnies

The kids have been at it again-- sayin' all sorts of crazy things:

Elise:  "If you were a mouse, a SMART mouse, what would YOU do with 10 popsicle sticks?"

Elise to Ian:  "Mom's a grown woman but not a grown granny.  You're a granny."
Ian:  "No, I'm not a granny, I'm a boy."

Me to Adele:  "Do you want ketchup on your hot dog?"
Adele:  "I don't want ketchup. I just want it real."

Elise:  "What if there was a lady who was pregnant and really fat, and they went to cut her open to get the baby out-- only intead of having a baby she had an anvil?"

First Day of Kindergarten

Today was Ian's first day of Kindergarten.  He was SO excited to go to school.  When he was in line for the bus he was grinning from ear to ear and fighting it the whole time.   When Emilia and Elise went to Kindergarten for the first time I got a little teary like most moms do.  With Ian, I wasn't sad or teary at all.  He's almost 6 and has been going to preschool for 2 years.  He just seems older to me, and ready. I guess after having his 2 sisters pave the way it wasn't as traumatic for me.  That or I am getting calloused in my old age.   I think I have a harder time adjusting to 1st grade than Kindergarten.  To me it isn't as big of a deal having them gone for 3 hours. It is when they are gone ALL DAY long that I really miss them. 

I gave Ian the option of riding the bus or having me take him to school and he wanted to ride the bus.  He was very excited to ride the bus and NOT have to wear a seatbelt. 

Waiting for the bus

And there they go...

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.

HAAAAPPY 34th Kent!!!

Today is Kent's birthday.  He decided to take the day off today since it was his birthday. He was SOOO excited to have a day off.  We found a sitter and went for a hike to Kanarraville Falls.  It was really fun and beautiful.  There were very few people around and that made it really nice. On the way up we only saw about 5 people in the 2 hours we were hiking up to the waterfalls.  We saw more people on the way down but overall it felt really quiet and secluded.  It was nice to have some time away from the kids and to go on a little adventure.

What a fun day! Happy birthday Kent! Love ya!

First Day

Happy (school) days are  here again!  Ian starts school next Tuesday. He's SO excited.

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.

Good Times

Tonight I have been in a rather bloggy mood without much to blog about. I feel like writing something exciting and fun and funny.  But our lives have been anything but exciting, fun or funny, thanks to the stomach flu.  Ok, I take it back, trying to get kids to make it to the toilet for their barfing activities IS exciting but certainly NOT fun or funny. Especially when they don't make it.  In fact, I was telling Kent yesterday after a particularly unsuccessful attempt of one of the children (who shall remain nameless to protect his/her privacy) at making it to the toilet that I had my grossest parenting moment of my 10 years of parenthood.  I'll spare you the details because it's only something that I can share with people who have stomachs of steel and I just don't know if you guys can hack it.  I was about to do the "heave-ho" myself when I realized that I was going to be the one responsible for taking care of this horrible mess.

Well, anyway, I wasn't going to blog about that and I actually came here to say that I had nothing to blog about -- except some LONG lost pictures (ok, not long or lost but forgotten) of our trip to Idaho last month.  So, to leave you with some warm fuzzies instead of a sick feeling in your stomach (which I have to say I am feeling tonight and it is starting to concern me slightly), I present you with an introduction to a series (lucky you) of posts about our July trip to Idaho.

Good times up ahead.

Lake Day Collage

Bead Removal

I am happy to report that the bead removal went more smoothly than anticipated.  I called the ENT this morning only to find out that the Dr. was going to be out of the office all day. They said he might be in sometime to do some paperwork later in the day and they might be able to squeeze us in for an emergency bead removal. I waited all morning to hear from them.  I never heard anything.  I checked my phone around 4:30 and found that they had left a message and the Dr. was going to be there at 3:30 if I wanted to come in. Dang. I missed it.  They must have called when I ran to pick up Costa Vida for lunch.  Dang. I called and he was gone. So we scheduled the removal for Friday morning. 

Then we played.  We went to Kent's work party and the kids bounced and jumped and went crazy on all the bouncy houses at the party.  The kids were all very sticky from all the popcorn, cotton candy, chips, watermelon, soda etc. they ate at the party so I promptly threw them in the tub when we got home.  When I was getting Adele out of the tub I suddenly and almost without thinking said to her, "If you can blow the bead out of your nose I'll take you to the dollar store for a treat."  She blew (without even plugging up the non-beaded nostril) and said, "It came out! I got the bead out!"  I didn't see it and thought she was just trying to fool me.  I asked her to show me the bead and there it was on the bathroom rug.  I couldn't believe it.  It came out SO easily.  Yesterday Kent had her hold one nostril and blow and blow.  Nothing but the usual result of nose blowing. (eww).  My theory:  All that bouncing in the bouncy houses must have dislodged it. All it needed was a little extra force and VOILA! There it was, complete with some residual boogers on it, so I knew it was the self-same bead that had spent the last 24 hours in Adele's nose. (Yes, I removed all the stuff before photographing it, you're welcome.)

So, thanks to my Costa Vida lunch I saved myself some dinero.  Totally worth the sacrifice.

Here's Adele giving us an up the nose shot and a great big THUMBS UP! Tomorrow we'll go to the $$ store and get that treat!

I am SO relieved that we won't have to do the torture board on Friday.

Bead in the Nose: Part 4 -- The BLUE Bead of DOOM.

Yeah. My cute and adorable 2 year old is sleeping in her bed, breathing through 1 nostril right now.  You'd think that that papoose experience of a few months ago would be clearly and indelibly carved into her little brain and that things like beads would no longer be a temptation.  Unfortunately, they are still a temptation. And unfortunately Kent and I were unable to remove the bead on our own. And unfortunately the (useless) Instacare does not have small enough instruments to extract things like beads from children's nasal passages.  Really?  REALLY??? I know my kid is neither the first nor the last to put something small up their noses.  (Perhaps it is time for them to invest in some pediatric-nasal-bead-grabbers?)  Soooo, anyway, we have a desperate bead plucking mission for tomorrow.  I am feeling like I need to banish all beads from my kingdom like Sleeping Beauty's parents banished spinning wheels.

If we have to do the papoose thing again I must take pictures.  Not because I like to capture the memories of my child being tortured, but she needs to know what a little stinker she was as a 2 year old.

"Holy alter ego Batman!"

That's a true Robin quote by the way.

So, I have an new alter ego.  But before I tell you my new superhero name or show you my outfit I have to tell you how it all came about.  I was at a ward bbq and we were sitting around chatting with a bunch of people  in the ward.  A guy in my ward who is a dentist (and also the son of my next door neighbor) was saying his dental assistant tried calling in sick on July 5 when he knew she wasn't sick. Anyway, we got to talking and it came up that I used to do some dental assisting in my previous life (practically half of my life ago).  He needed someone for emergencies and to fill in for his other assistant and I wanted some time OUT (and havin a little bit of extra $$ is never a bad thing either).  He ended up calling me in on Saturday for an emergency and the rest is history. So, I am working about 3-10 hours per week.  It has been kind of fun.

 So, here's what I look like when I go to work:  Well, at least the green top is accurate.  It was funny, the first time Ian saw my scrubs he said "Mom, why do you have "making" clothes?  Those clothes are for "making". I still haven't really figured out what that really means because he didn't really say what "making" meant.  I am still trying to figure out what my new "dental assistant superhero" name should be.  Anyone have any thoughts? After last night I was thinking that I should pick something to do with the Incredible Hulk because of the green scrubs and because while separating a suction device from the hose I broke it. (yep, I gotta break expensive equipment on my 3rd day at work...)  The other assistant TOLD me to pull hard so I did... I guess my amazing muscles just made that plastic part SNAP (HI-YAH!) 

This is the part when all my faithful readers help me pick my new superhero name.  In other words: Leave a suggestion in the comment section.  :)

Survivor Toilet Edition: All-Stars

I think we may have had a breakthrough. It is too early to tell but so far it is looking good.  Adele has been diaper free for the last 2 days and has only had 1 accident. I hid the diapers and told her that they were all gone. I was going to put her in cloth diapers for a few days to see if that would do anything for her.  The first morning I was going to do that she wanted to wear underwear instead of the cloth diaper.  I told her if she kept it dry she could wear the underwear but if she got them wet she'd have to wear the cloth dipes.  She stayed dry all day and even went to the toilet BY herself.   For her this is HUGE! Today Kent was home and I was gone all morning. I forgot to brief (no pun intended) him on the happenings and when he went to get her dressed he could not find any diapers. BUT, being the potty training MASTER that he is, he went with the flow and put her in underwear.  She had 1 accident this morning but stayed dry the rest of the day. Yahoo!  Could it finally be happening? After 10 years of diapering could I REALLY be diaper free soon? 

Garbage disposal works again.

Kent (the GD Master) came home from work today and started taking apart the garbage disposal.  It wasn't coming apart so easily so with a little help from the internet he was able to try another method of locating and removing the offending jammer from the disposal.  Just as we had suspected:  It was the handle of the cuplet, already rusted from being in the disposal for 24 hours.  I am so glad to have my disposal back. No more dumping soggy cereal and cold oatmeal into the garbage can!  We don't appreciate the little things enough.

Our garage door is also fixed.  Our friend and contractor who did our kitchen remodel was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to fix our garage door.  Now I just have to get a vacuum belt and I'll be ALL set.  (But I won't have an excuse if my carpets look dirty.)

Murphy's Law

Everything has been breaking around here. We are starting to feel kind of picked on.   Let's see:  our van broke a couple of weeks ago and we had to get the power steering fixed.  Days after that our garage door broke and we are waiting on a repair guy to come fix it, hopefully today. The vacuum belt broke and we have not been able to get our hands on a replacement.  Come on Wal-mart people, it's just a normal Eureka vacuum... But the designated spot at the store continues to have emptiness for the "Eureka R" belts.  And now, as of last night it is the garbage disposal.  Kent brought me this:

It's a 1/8 c. measuring cup, sans handle, completely mangled. 

Where is the handle you ask?  Hmm. Dunno.  Probably wedged somewhere in the garbage disposal from whence this little cuplet was retrieved.  I noticed a funny sound coming from the garbage disposal, but I always think our GD sounds funny after I run something down it.  And my least favorite thing in the universe after giving birth without anesthesia or speaking in church is reaching down into the dark and slimy garbage disposal to look for something that may have accidentally fallen down there.  So, anyway it was sounding kind of weird-ish for a day or 2 until last night when it stopped sounding like anything. Then Kent, the brave Garbage Disposal Master, found the remains of the cup. So now we  Kent gets to take apart the GD to look for the missing handle.  Maybe when he finds it and gets it unstuck the GD will work again once more.  We hope.

Fishing with the Kiddos

They just opened a new little reservoir here.  We went swimming with some friends last week and our kids have been begging to go fishing.  So for family night we took the kiddos up there to fish.  We sort of had a good time. I guess. Actually, to be honest it was kind of miserable and I'll tell you why:  our sinkers kept getting stuck in the rocks whenever the kids would reel in the lines, the rocks were quite wobbly and a little precarious for kids (I had visions of spending the evening in the Instacare for sprained ankles, especially when Adele got her foot stuck between some rocks), there were dead fish everywhere (stinky!) and it was difficult for Kent (the Fish Master) to keep 3 lines going for the 3 bigger kids who were fishing (especially since the sinkers kept getting stuck in the rocks).  We could see little fishies swimming around the bait but we didn't get more than a nibble. Kent loves to fish so the plan is for him to take the kids on some 1 on 1 fishing trips. That should work out better.

Zumba

It has been awhile since my Inner Blogging Voice (IBV) has spoken.  I guess lately I haven't done anything out of the ordinary or crazy.  Maybe the blogging "fire"just isn't there as much as it used to be.  When my IBV speaks though, I need to listen.

I have been to Zumba at my local gym 2 times now.  The first time my IBV was going WILD, but after I came home I didn't listen and I didn't blog about it.  The SECOND time I went I remembered why I needed to blog about it.  WOW.   There are so many levels of blog-ability here.

Level 1:  I do not dance.  I do not do aerobics.  Coordination really isn't my "thing" which is why I usually stick to things like running and yoga (which does require some balance, but not so much coordination).   Latin dancing is completely out of my repertoire.

Level 2:  There are a lot of interesting people to watch at Zumba.  It can be pretty entertaining to watch a bunch of white girls (and a few Latinas) try to "shake it" like a Cuban.  So far I haven't seen any men near Zumba except to gawk at us through the windows. I am sure there are some guys who strategically plan their workouts to coincide with Zumba.  Either to laugh at us or to watch the "real dancers". 

Let's just say that there are definitely many different levels of fitness and coordination.  (It is a good thing there are too many people in the room for me to actually be able to see myself in the mirror.  If I saw myself I don't know if I would ever go back.)  I actually commented to a fellow "newbie" that I felt like I was at some cheerleading camp nightmare or something.  People who don't have experience with Latin dancing, cheerleading, belly dancing or (exotic dancing/stripping) have a hard time with the moves.   (Not kidding here.  It is actually quite crazy and frightening how these types of dancing overlap.  I have learned this from Zumba.)

And then of course, you always have a few classmates (okay one) who wear a THONG with sheer, tight-fitting-leggings that don't have QUITE a thick enough layer of fabric around the buttocks.  Then they do exaggerated Latin maneuvers, shaking their hips and pelvises to and fro and you happen to be standing behind them.  Yeah, there's always one of those.

Level 3: The instructor is about 6 months pregnant, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.  There's nothing quite like pregnant belly dancing.  Don't get me wrong, she's good, but the belly definitely does add a twist.

Level 4: It's dang fun.  So, despite all the crazy cheerleading camp nightmare (and I say that not because there is anything wrong with cheerleading, but because if I was ever AT cheerleading camp it would be one of my PERSONAL nightmares because of my incoordination and ineptness), Zumba is really fun.  Those Latins know how to have a good time and they have really awesome music.  (SO much better than the usual TECHNO that all the other classes listen to.)  I go to class and spend so much brain power working on the moves that I probably burn twice the calories.  And it goes by so fast, I hardly feel like I am working out at all, besides my brain that is, which is working overtime.  It is fun having a new challenge, and Zumba is my new challenge.  Not that I ever think I'll ever be great at the "Latin moves" but I do hope that I will at least be able to get the steps down eventually.

Freedom

I am feeling particularly free today.  Today marks my independence from the Relief Society presidency. I have been second counselor for 4 years and today we got released.  FREEDOM, SWEET FREEDOM.  I do have to meet with one of our bishopric members on Tuesday so my freedom is short lived. I don't think it is going to be anything big though.  Perhaps I'll have a respite for awhile.

Family Reunion at Zion

We:  hiked, ate, made s'mores, rode the busses in Zion, swam, blew bubbles, celebrated my dad's 74th birthday, played with our cousins and siblings, didn't sleep enough, zip lined, rode 4-wheelers, threw rocks in the river, played mini-golf, did some New Zealand Maori dancing (the only kind of dancing anyone in my family does), took a nap or two, made jewelry and played "Lego Rock Band" (which my family decided is not as good as Guitar Hero).

Fun with Gma and Gpa

Gma and Gpa V were in town and offered to take the kids on an overnighter.  They took some really fun photos and had a blast.  (Kent and I also had a nice kid free break which we hope to repeat soon.)  They went out for pizza, went to the park, played at the splash pad and had a sleepover.  Thanks mom and dad for takin' the kiddos!

I absolutely LOVE this picture. I am going to get one printed and put it on the shelf in my computer room.  So cute!