real pigs

I hadn't realized how long Saylor's hair has actually grown.  She's never had a hair cut and today out of desperation to try something new, I put her hair in her first "real" piggies.

When I told her she had real piggies, she snuffed her nose like a real pig.

I'm in disbelief  how much older she looks.

She is no longer a baby, but a full grown fit throwing mess making toddler.

 Had to throw this picture in even if if is blurry.  It caught a very rare genuine smile.  

Yes, her smiles are sly and a little shifty.

Her face returned to her usual grimace quickly.

 It's as if she knows she is better than the rest of us.

Here are some facts I love about my diva Saylor Girl at 17 months.

When she is calm and relaxed, she always crosses her ankles.  Even asleep she prefers this body position.

She clicks her tongue when asked what a horsey says.

She has her own signs for drink and more.  I don't think they are "official" but they work for us.

She doesn't say many words, but grunts and whines to get whatever she wants.  I'm ready for her to talk.

She does however, understand EVERYTHING you say to her.  The other day, Steve put her in the corner for throwing food on the floor and then calmly asked her to pick the food up and throw it in the garbage.  She did it.  (It kills me that she is old enough to discipline...but we don't want her to think she owns the place.)

I think her favorite foods are yogurt and chocolate chips.

She loves trucks and cars more than baby dolls.

If she falls asleep in the car on the way to Carter's lunch run, she will sleep through the entire lunch limp in my arms.  It's almost scary how deep she can sleep.

She twirls.  Twirls until she falls over. 

When she hugs me, it is a full arms around my neck bury her head in my shoulder hug.  I love it!

...couldn't leave this little boy out.

Colby sported his best rock star face for the camera.  

He is going to be a rock star when he grows up you know.

Easter and other stuff worth mentioning

Well it happened, the Easter Bunny came.  He even got fancy and color coordinated the eggs and candy.  Each of my children were treated to a early morning egg hunt at the crack of dawn Sunday.  Too bad Steve and I slept through the entire festivity.  Exhaustion has that effect sometimes.  It makes you not care about the commercial side of what should be spiritual holidays.  I'm glad that the Easter Bunny really is real, or my children would have been sorely disappointed.

I, however, was disappointed at my ability to get organized Easter morning. I had lofty plans of taking darling pictures of my cherubic children dressed in their Easter duds. (aka. regular church clothes they wore the week before and will wear the week after because their mother is too cheap to buy them new clothes.  Don't judge me, I spent all my extra cash on cabinets and dry wall.)

This is the ONLY picture I took Easter morning. 

 YES, that is my sports bra around my daughters neck.

Lets not even mention her hair not being combed or her lack of cute white sweater that should be covering her trashy too small onesie underneath her dress.  Along with picking my my bra off the floor in my bathroom, she also swiped a semi empty soda can out of the trash and spilled it all down her sweater.  

It was a swell morning.

Easter afternoon was MUCH better. 

We spent it with our Walker family and had a most delicious dinner and fabulous egg hunt.  My mom, as always, breaks out the big guns and had 24+ eggs for each of her grandchildren, everyone of them labeled by name.  The hunt is long, hard and extremely fun.  

(We have video but no still pictures because I forgot my Nikon.  Sorry Mom!  Maybe JaNae can pull off a fabulous Easter hunt blog post!  I failed you!)

After the hunt we had a small frosting filled celebration for my amazing now five year old.

Happy Birthday Colby Love!

Colby's actual birthday was yesterday the 25th. We celebrated last night by letting him choose our fine dining destination.

Much to my chagrin, he chose Arctic Circle...and he ordered...as you can see a PLAIN bun. 

We actually ordered a plain hamburger but then took the meat out.  

My only hope for nourishment with this child is that a little protein juice seeped into the bun before we removed the meat patty.

After our "feast" we headed down to Shoshone Falls.  This spring has been very wet and the falls were SPECTACULAR.  It was raining in the parking lot from the mist.  I have never seen the falls with so much water in my entire 33 years of life.  Usually the entire left half or more of the falls would be dry. I hope my kids realized what they were really seeing.  

Twin is an amazing place to live.  

I'm glad I had my phone to take pictures, but I really want to drive down and shoot the falls with my real camera. 

Saylor unfortunately was not impressed.

Lastly, we went home and celebrated Colby's birthday with Steve's parents.

Once again, I had lofty ideas of celebrating with a fabulous cake and decorations (I was even going to pay a friend to make one her amazing cakes), but I got lazy and procrastinated.  We headed to a large store less than a mile from our house early that morning (the store will not be named on this blog because I detest it with every fiber of my being.  But as a hint, it is full of crazy looking people and rhymes a synonym for flatulence) and bought the makings of a dirt cake- new dump truck included.  I love that five year olds are easily impressed with a mess of cake, pudding and oreos.

But once again, Saylor was not impressed. 

I got crusty looks all night long!

Happy Birthday darling boy.

We love you and love the dynamic you bring to our home.

What you lack in height, you more than make up for in personality and spirit!

teeth are not edible

Carter, while whining about how he didn't want a sausage english muffin sandwich for breakfast this morning, ate it anyway and consequently ate his loose tooth at the same time.  

The tooth was so loose yesterday that a strong breeze would have blown it out of his mouth, but somehow it hung on for dear life until it met it's unfortunate temporary resting place of Carter's digestive system.

Too bad the Tooth Fairy can't pay for teeth soaking in stomach acid (or something worse).   And even more too bad is how disappointed Carter is that I won't retrieve the tooth when it makes it's final appearance in a few days.

Another event worth remembering occurred at our home yesterday after a FHE Kiwi Loco run with Steve's parents.

Steve's mom told the boys how Steve earned spending money in high school by rubbing her back and feet.

She paid well.

The boys (of course) wanted in on the paying gig, so Grandma Dixon gave the boys a lesson on proper feet and back rubbing.  

I'm calling it the "Grandma Spa."

Andrew hiding his face, but enjoying his high scale foot massage...

while simultaneously taking in all the pointers.

If he can learn the proper technique, he has been promised the high life of a steady "grandma pays her grandchildren way too much" job.

Now the boys are constantly asking if they can practice their skills on my back and feet.

Um...they are not up to snuff yet.  Just thinking about their pinchy back rubs makes me squirm.

Saylor, feeling a bit left out, climbed up on the couch and demanded a foot massage too.

(no joke, this was all her idea)

Grandma was happy to oblige.

(yep, my heart was a big melty puddle)

...and Saylor isn't just climbing up on the couch.

Colby yelled upstairs yesterday evening (before the grandma spa) that he needed help!

This is what I found when I came downstairs.

I'm a bad parent.

Monkey girl had scaled the chairs and table to reach the basement window ledge.

I'm a really bad parent.

I ran back upstairs to get the camera instead of pulling my daughter out of the ledge.

She screamed bloody murder when I pulled her down and about died when I moved the chairs.

Doesn't she know that non broken bones really are better?

And for the Tron fans out there here is an update:

The boys are insisting I call our van The Light Runner.

(enter eye roll here)

Sadly, just because we're calling it a cool name, doesn't make driving it any cooler.

spewing

I've recently found a number of diabetes blogs written by parents of little children with diabetes.

Not quite sure how I feel about them.

You see...I pretend to be normal.  I pretend that everything Steve and I do daily for Carter is "normal" because it is almost 4 1/2 years of "normal" for us.  I often forget that we are not "normal".   What???  Making your child purposely bleed ten times a day isn't normal?


I struggle with these blogs because:

-I try not to dwell on the fact that Carter's pancreas is kaput.  By reading these blogs, I feel like I'm dwelling on something that I do not want to define my child, me or my family.  One blog in particular is fabulously written and has beautiful photographs, but this parent writes about diabetes everyday.  Who am I to fault another parent's coping mechanism?  If this is how this parent gets through her trials- honestly, more power to her.  These parents are amazing.  Not only are they doing a fabulous job of taking care of their diabetic child, but they are educating the world about this disease at the same time!  But for me, if I wrote about diabetes everyday, I think it would put me into a depression.  I would be sitting in a pile of used test strips and empty insulin vials mumbling to myself.  I find sneaking peanut M&M's out of my secret stash a way more useful coping mechanism.

-I find reading other's struggles grating on my soul.  Knowing that others out there are having to live through the fear, worry, stress, sleeplessness, and overall never ending drama of type 1 diabetes is...how do I put this eloquently...BLECH.   Yes, I'm glad I'm not alone, but my heart aches for anyone who has to deal with this.  I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.  (there were a few girls in high school that called me "a big girl" and even though I obviously haven't fully let it go...I still would never wish diabetes on them. Yes- this last sentence was entered for comic relief.)

-If someone reports better numbers than Carter's I'm too hard on myself.  I beat myself up that I am neglectful or lazy.  (ridiculous, I know...but feelings of inadequacy come quick when you desire perfection.  Carter is worth perfection)  I usually end up teary eyed and whining to Steve that I need to do better.  I then have to give myself the pep talk our endocrinologist always gives us that we are doing a fabulous job.  That, and I eat more M&Ms.

-I'm jealous of new technology that many of these parent's have for their children.  There is a continuous glucose monitor that I covet.  However, I'm also wary of it and it's inadequacies.  Is it worth one more prick in my son's poor scarred rump?  As one diabetic mom put it, "real estate is precious."  There is only so much skin area on a seven year olds backside that can sustain constant pricking and insertions.  I'm nervous of scar tissue and sight infections.  Had the latter once and it was NOT pretty.


I don't know why I'm writing this post.  But it has been in my head for a while and I needed it to be gone.  I needed to spew it so I wouldn't think about it anymore.  That, and I obviously need to spend less time reading diabetes blogs.   Reading cooking blogs makes me way more happy.  That, and putting items in my shopping cart at Pottery Barn Kids and J Crew.  I still get the shopping high, without actually spending money.

...now where are those M&Ms?

feet hit the floor running

I quote my mom a lot because:

1. she is wise

2. she has raised five productive children

3. she is usually spot on

She has often said that when us kids were young, her feet would hit the floor running.  And that is how I feel now.  From the moment I wake up in the morning, my feet hit the floor running.  I also often tell my husband that other than being in the car, I don't sit down during the day.  It's true.

I feel that I have never been busier in my entire life.  I constantly have something else to do, somewhere else to go, someone else to care for.  But...I sleep really well at night.  I guess that comes from pure exhaustion.

And I'm happy.

Should I have relished having only two little kids and sleeping in with no where particular to go everyday so we stayed in our pjs?  Probably.

But that was then, and this in now.  I'm busy, crazy, tired and happy.

And the moments I sit on the couch watching really old James Bond movies with my spouse, commenting how racy those movies were...are...will always be- are wonderful stress free lazy moments that I truly appreciate.  (We were both so tired last night, neither of us were willing to walk up one flight of stairs to get a blanket.  We decided it was worth being cold if we didn't have to move.)

Part of the reason we are both so tired is that we have spent the better half of this week moving some lucky little boys into their new rooms.

Ahhhhh.  It feels so so good.

Andrew's room.  

(I left the sock on the floor under his bed so it would look more authentically Andrew)

Carter and Colby's room.

(I will hopefully get their pictures hung this weekend.  No promises though)

The bathroom as of this morning.

The cabinets were installed yesterday, but the doors are not finished yet.  They should be installed sometime next week.  The plumber is here now and we will have a functioning bathroom tonight.  Final trim and touch up paint will be finished next week as well.  

It has been a long crazy dirty project, and I am thrilled it is almost finished.

And part of this thrilling feeling?  -not having people in my house anymore.  All the men working on the basement have been great guys, but I'm ready to have my house back.  ...mostly so I can take a nap in the afternoon if I so wish.

Tron Legos

The boys are obsessed with Tron.  Obsessed.

I did watch the movie and understand why they are obsessed, its a pretty good show.

My house has constantly been filled with the little boy produced sounds of light bikes and whirling disks in the last few days.

(I will NOT admit how many times I have let them watch the movie!)

 They are in computer animated-computer fantasy boy heaven...with only one complaint.

Lego does not make Tron sets.  Yet.  

The gnashing of teeth has been furious.  They are bitter, let-me-tell-you.

Because Lego has not conveniently provided my children happiness in an overpriced boxed including  "this is your imagination" instructions...my boys actually had to use their own imaginations and use the HUGE MASSIVE bin of loose Legos that might otherwise collect dust in the basement. 

This is what they came up with in the last two days.

Pretty impressive if you ask me...even more impressive because I haven't seen my children in the last two days.  (Kind of nice) They have been too busy perfecting their spacial orientation skills for their future Dental entrance exams.  Yee Haw!

Here are just a few of their creations.

 The Light Bike:  complete with homemade Tron logo.  

I hope we aren't breaking any copy write laws.

 The Light Jet.

 The Grid, complete with fighting disks.  

And, oh yeah...the disks attach to the program's backs just like they should.  Awesome.

I'm grateful for the hundreds of dollars Steve and I have spent on Legos in the last five years.  

It's finally paying off.

 I'm also grateful for the maybe two hours of sunshine we have had this entire weekend.  It made my house bright and warm.  It made playing with the princess even better.

 And I'm REALLY grateful for carpet!  

And so are the three munchkins.  They have spent the last two nights sleeping in their new almost finished rooms.  I don't blame them.

But I do blame a certain someone for the boogers left on the walls that I had to scrape off and paint over earlier this week.  This shot is making this certain seven year old look mighty guilty!

bad

There were a lot of "bads" today.

Not a bad day overall, but the "bads" reared their ugly heads enough to be mentioned.

Bad Black Eyes

This boy has two black eyes from his conference Sunday battle with the furniture.

(the picture doesn't do it justice)

I don't think he will make the bad decision to run with a blanket on his head ever again. 

Bad Manners

Colby on our way to check Carter's blood sugar this morning, walked up to the school secretary's desk and let out a huge belch.  

Somebody kill me please.

Bad Attitude

(and because of the bad attitude, there is no picture)

Andrew came home from school wailing about the amount of homework he had and that it would be impossible to finish.  His cloudy mood put a damper on most of our evening as he growled and fussed at his brothers, me and the world in general.

We had to have a long discussion about his homework attitude.

He later apologized about being grumpy and lovingly thanked me for helping him.

I believe that Andrew is very intelligent, but struggles with his ability to believe that he can conquer something challenging.

I hope in the future he can have more faith in his wonderful self.

He is an amazing son...I mean really, what 10 year old apologizes for acting frustrated?

A Bad Mess

 No Really, A Super Bad Mess

I'm finding it hard to cope in Chaos Land.  We are one week from having the basement finished and I'm struggling with the disaster zone that is the rest of my home.  Because the basement is a wreck, it seems the general consensus is that the rest of the house can be a wreck too.  I've stopped cleaning, the kids stopped caring and Steve, well he's perfect but the house is still messy.

One more week...one more week. 

 

And if the boys' new rooms didn't look this good,  I might be found in the corner of one of my messy rooms twitching and mumbling to myself.

But...the beautiful newly painted rooms are inspiring.

So inspiring that I took leftover paint and touched up my upstairs walls this afternoon.  It felt so good to have them look new again.  Unfortunately in the process, while seeing how beat up they got in 2 1/2 years time, I've realized that we're all slobby wall wreckers.

The only things that outnumbered the dirty fingerprints and dings were the dried boogers.

(One guess:  Colby).  

And YES...I wiped up the boogers first and did not just paint over them.  I'm a slobby wall wrecker, not a pig.

Bad Parenting

Steve gave Saylor this Pepsi to hold at 7:45am.  

She carried it around for about an hour caressing it like a doll.  

We should be ashamed.

The Science Fair: I am so glad it is over.

It happened almost three weeks ago, and today is the first day I've been willing to even talk about it, let alone blog about it.

The 2011 Perrine Elementary Science Fair

...and I was the lady in charge.

From the very beginning of asking (begging and pleading) for donations to the very end of taking down tables- I was it.  

It's sounds so grown up...so responsible...so NOT ME!

But with TONS and TONS of help from friends, teachers, CSI professors, volunteers and parents (including my own), the science fair was planned, executed and finished.

I even wrote the last thank you notes this evening to sponsors and will be ordering trophies tomorrow morning.

These are both things that should have been done last week- I know- but honestly, honestly I couldn't make myself open the computer files to do it.  

I was science fair'd out.

Here are a few images depicting the finished product of all my hard work and the hard work and dedication of the Perrine Elementary students and their parents. 

(extra kudos to the parents- science projects are hard work)

The open house Wednesday night for family and friends of all participants.

We had over 85 participants this year.

Carter's first grade project.

Did you know that Up and Up diapers hold the most water without leaking?

Take that expensive Huggies!

Andrew's fifth grade project.

(That pictures on the bottom is of my builder Brett Heider.  I told him I wouldn't put his picture on the board.  I lied.)

Participants wearing their science fair t-shirts.

Hurray for sponsors donating tons of money!

The back of the shirt. 

Adorable.

(Yes...I know that two of the sponsors are related to me.  It's easier to ask for money from family I think.)

Andrew earned third place for his grade.

Carter received 1st!

It was really fun because one of his judges was my third grade teacher from Perrine.

She promised our teacher/student relationship didn't influence her decision.

I'm very happy to volunteer my time for a worthy cause such as my own childrens' science fair.

It consumed my life for almost six weeks straight (just ask Steve how fun I was for these six weeks), but I know that next year will go much smoother now that I have some experience.

I also know that because I take on the science fair...I can so NO NO NO to everything else.

I think I should have taken a picture of myself when I got home that night.  It would have been a perfect way to end this post...but I was too tired to even get out the camera and I'm sure it would have been too scary to share publicly.

Here's to accomplishing something very big and worthwhile.

Now I have only eight more months before I have to think about it again.

weekend adventures...if staying home with kids counts as an adventure.

Who am I fooling?

OF course staying home with kids is an adventure!!!

It was a four day weekend as the boys had both Thursday and Friday out of school.  As the weekend progressed, my enthusiasm over a four day weekend grew less and less.

Love my kids...

Love when they are home...

Really happy two of them are going back to school in the morning.  Yippee!

The weekend weather was fickle as always in April.  We spent one day enjoying almost 70 degree weather and I actually pulled like six weeds before I got over heated and had to go inside. (ok, maybe five)  The next day however, was windy and in the 40's so we ran a few errands and then stayed inside.

The cold made me want to drive to Starbucks and pick up this...  

 A vanilla or caramel steamer with lemon pound cake is a guilty pleasure I usually only share with Alysia and Annelie on girly vacations, and while in San Diego last week I indulged too.

But in Twin, I have not been so naughty.

Heaven forbid I darken the doorway of a Starbucks here in town- somebody might see me and tell my bishop.(ha ha) 

So yesterday I had to improvise and make my own.

(Another reason besides my righteous reputation being at stake to make my own pound cake is that I can make an entire pound cake for the price of one measly slice at Starbucks!  I'm thrifty...really I am.)

 My knack for messing with recipes proved valiant and I succeeded with this baby.

Not as pretty as Starbucks, but just as good.

It was delicious and is now gone off the counter.

It's hanging around my thighs and midsection as I type. 

(If anyone wants the recipe please ask...I'm just too lazy to post it if nobody wants it.)

Besides baking, we had many adventures this weekend.

This morning started off with a bang- literally.

Carter was obediently putting blankets away for me and decided the best way to carry them up the stairs and into the living room would be on his head.  This thought process proved to be faulty as he tripped on the blanket and slammed head first into the edge of the couch.

 If it hadn't been for the blanket cushioning the blow, his head would have been split open for sure. 

But on the flip side, if it wasn't for the blanket he wouldn't have tripped at all.

Ironic- I know.

I think Steve was a little disappointed that he didn't get to try out his "at home" suture skills ( he will never admit it...but I know he is secretly hoping one of us will cut something deep enough for him to save us a trip to the emergency room.  My hero.) and Carter is VERY disappointed that a bump on the forehead doesn't warrant staying home from school.

He has recovered nicely and will most likely have a black eye as the blood drains from the massive goose egg on his forehead.  

If there was ever a time he should try out for a cling-on on Star Trek, this would be the time!

Also this morning, we rearranged the front room and brought in the computer to watch the sessions of conference.  (we got rid of cable...sniff sniff)

I snapped a few shots of the crew all together and the sun hit one of our children perfectly to show off this child's true angelic nature.  Can you guess who?

 If not, I will show a closer shot.

 Yep, she is an angel alright.  And she has the halo to prove it.

Conference was great.  We bribed the kids with jelly beans and skittles.  They picked a word for each conference talk and every time that word was said, they got one piece of candy.

Elder Bednar's talk of revelation proved to be a real disappointment to the kids as we chose the word "temple."  Out of pity, we let the kids change the word to revelation half way through and then gave them a 10 candy limit. 

Tooth decay anyone?

I promised I wouldn't put a picture of Carter's head on the blog, but I guess I'll have to repent tomorrow.

The head on view is so much nicer than the side view.

We had Steve's parents over for soup and homemade rolls and then watch Tangled for the hundredth time this weekend. 

I think I will have Mandy Moore's voice in my head all night long.

...and just for posterity sake, the kids' favorite character from that movie is the chubby mime.

basement updates

As of today, the basement has doors and closet shelves.  Pretty happy about it. 

The trim is also up and the painting prep will start hopefully this afternoon.

This is Carter and Colby's closet.  It has to be so deep due to the duct work on the ceiling.  I'm an NOT complaining about a deep closet.  The boys are already dreaming of the junk they are going to store on their shelves.  

I'm just dreaming about carpet.

The finish date is "scheduled" for two weeks from now.  I'm having a hard time being patient, but realize being antsy about this is not going finish it any faster.

I'm also wishing I would have demanded shelves in the upstairs closets when the house was built. I'm learning to open my mouth...a problem I'm surprised I have.

(I don't like to make waves, I just want my house finished.)

The boys have a four day weekend.  The weather is beautiful, but my boys are still finding it hard keep entertained.  

WHAT?

So I'm keeping them busy doing chores in the morning so they will want to play in the afternoon.

Colby wanted to do a chore with "spray" and took it upon himself to clean windows.

My front window is now clean one third of the way up.  And by clean, I mean four year old clean and streaky.

Other than that...not much is happening around here.  

Unless you count a seven year old boy wearing a princess hat something.

He was modeling it for Saylor.  She wants nothing to do with her gift from Lego Land.

Blast.