My second worst injury (I'd say)

My twins think that it is funny that when I lay them down on my bathroom counter/changing table to kick their legs at me. I don't think that it is that funny. I regularly get kicked in the stomach, a few times they have knocked the wind out of me, but two days ago one of them got a direct hit to my left nipple. It hurt so bad. The trouble is that now it still hurts. I can't see any physical bruising, but what am I supposed to do? If anything touches it or rub against it, I am feeling intense pain, and it has spread to the entire breast. What do you tell a doctor about this kind of injury? Well my son kicked me, or it could have been my daughter, I don't really remember which one it was, because they both kick me all the time.
I am making my favorite breakfast today. Caramel breakfast rolls. You take 18 rhodes rolls and put them in a buttered bundt pan. Then you sprinkle 1/2 a package of non instant butterscotch pudding all over them. Then you melt a stick of butter and 1/2 cup of brown sugar in a pan to make a kind of caramel sauce and you drizzle that all over the rolls, then you let them sit out overnight. So in the morning they are to the top of the pan and you bake them at 35o for 30 min. MMMMmmmm. They are so good.
I had three people come to my book party last night. Now some people might think that that is not very good, but since I booked two more parties from those three people, I'm counting it as an excellent turn out!

The Coughing Bird Story

At 5:20 AM, I was lying in bed sleeping. Slowly I became aware of the sounds around me and I began to wake up. Our window was open a little bit and I was laying there in bed listening to the birds singing, when suddenly I heard a faint coughing noise. I listened very carefully for a few more seconds and determined that Chris was coughing, and then I realized that the coughing had not allowed him to take a breath, and I detected a whistle with it, so now I was certain that he could not breathe and was having some sort of attack, so I jumped out of bed to save my son from certain death, I ran out of my room and (luckily, before I burst into the babies bedroom) I realized that the house was silent. So I listened very closely again. Nothing. So I went back into my bedroom where I could once again hear the coughing noise. It was a stupid bird. What kind of bird makes a coughing noise as it's "song?" And why does it have to live in my backyard and scare me to death at 5:30 in the morning! No wonder I don't like birds.

By the way, I was looking at the school website, and they have the Kindergarten class list posted. It looks like Tyler's teacher is Mrs. Spriggs. There are four Kindergarten teachers, and I know three of them. Why did he have to get the one that I don't know, and does it alarm anyone that her last name is Spriggs. I know that all of us around here know that the Spriggs family is not exactly your outstanding citizens. The term "Skate or Die" comes to mind. Does anyone know this lady? Is she going to be OK, or should I be concerned?

Picture update

This is Lance and Jill Wilde's boy Keagan, he is one of Tyler's friends who is on the same team.

This is our neighbor/dump truck driver Ronnie. We took him and his family up to Cougar Rock on Saturday. They've lived in places like Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc... so they really enjoyed the ride into the Mountains. Also the kids loved playing in snow!

I just love taking pictures, and I thought that this was pretty.

Tyler loved the snow too! You can't really tell in the picture, but his pants are wet clear up to his knees from wandering around in the snow.

Ronnie's little girl Cierra, held Brook's hand the whole time and walked her around, and helped her get through the snow, and kept her happy! It was so cute.

This is a "list" that Tyler made for me a couple of weeks ago. I think that he is so smart to sound things out, and he is always trying to spell things now. (By the way it says Clean Potty)

Here is his new T-Ball uniform

This is my friend Sara's little girl "The Mickster" she played on the other team.

Tyler's turn to bat, he did a pretty good job

Shane and the babies. We decided that since the game was at 7:00 it would be a good idea for the babies to wear their jammies. It was a great idea, the games are always an hour long!

Summer T-Ball

Quick update about the Saturn...Shane fixed it. He put the new throttle positioning sensor in, he cut his hand, and he took an old paper towel out of the air filter. I'm not sure which one of those fixed it, but it works good now.
Now for the new stuff. Tyler starts T-Ball tonight. His first game is at the Henefer Park at 7:00. His first practice is 15 min. before that. He is so excited. We went to the mall yesterday and bought him a mitt, and Shane insisted that we needed a baseball at our house so that he could practice catching it in his mitt, so we bought one of those. When his coach called, it is Tyler's friend Morgan's mom. So I was telling him that Morgan would be on his team, and he was really happy about that. But then after he thought about it for a while, he came back to me and said "So mom, if Morgan's mom is my coach, then my coach is a girl?" And I said, "Yeah, your coach is a girl." and he says "Huh, weird." And he walked away. I thought that was pretty funny. And last night, we were in his room saying his prayers, and here is what he said: "Dear Heavenly Father, Please bless me to not be scared to play baseball, Name of Jesus Christ Amen." I think that he'll have fun.

1995 Saturn SL, Gold

Back in June 2000, I was driving home from Salt Lake with my little sister Erica. I'm not really sure why, but I took the Kimball Jct exit and soon found myself in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Maybe it was fate, but parked there in the lot and for sale was a gold 1995 Saturn Sl. It has 101,000 miles on it and it cost $5000.00. Well a few weeks later that car was mine. I loved that car and I took good care of it. Well here it is 2008. The car has 219,000 miles on it. We have maybe put $300.00 worth of work into it (besides the regular maintenance costs). Shane takes it to work everyday and that is the extent of the drive time that it gets, but what I am trying to say is that we have certainly gotten the money that we paid out of the car. I even had it sold a couple of years back for $1000.00, but at the last minute Shane changed his mind and didn't want to sell it. Well now the old Saturn is not running at 100%. Shane has been trying to fix it. Yesterday he put on a new fuel filter. Today all new spark plugs. Those things helped some of the other problems that he has been noticing, but not this main problem. So he has consulted with some of his mechanic friends and he has decided on a new part, he called Wes down at Napa and they got the part ordered for tomorrow. He even consulted YouTube to figure out how to replace this part. Well my question is "How long should I let this continue." The car is old. We could continue replacing parts, that probably do need replacing, but will it be worth it. We have gotten our money out of the car like 80,000 miles ago. He is already talking about belts that need to be replaced. We have three cars. It is not like he won't have a ride to work if it dies. I say let it go, but he is a little more sentimental. We are still less than $100 in new parts, so I guess that I can let it continue...for now.

Stuffed rolls for dinner

Well last night was Ham and Cheese Deli night. Which means that two nights this week I have stuffed meat and cheese into a roll and fed it to my family for dinner. Well, when I get a "Thanks Mom, for making this delicious dinner." from my kids I guess that it is worth it. But the ham and cheese deli were pretty darn good. And there was minimal cheese leakage which is quite an improvement. I let them sit after I filled them while the oven warmed up. Usually I give them the 10 minutes that it takes for my oven to get warm, but last night it wasn't quite time to put them in because it was only like 4:30. So I let them sit there on the warm stove top for like 20 minutes and they rose a little more and they worked out pretty good. The other meat and cheese creation this week was just a chicken puff. Shredded chicken and cream cheese rolled up in a pillsbury cresent roll and baked. I haven't made these for a really long time because I didn't think that the babies would like them, and I was kind of remembering that Tyler didn't like them either. Well I was totally wrong. Chris (the one who is just discovering that meat is okay to taste every now and then) inhaled them. I think that he ate like two whole puffs. Brooklyn loved them, and Tyler gave me the quote mentioned earlier. They couldn't get enough of them.
We went to the library and checked out the movie Happy Feet. I hadn't ever seen it before and so I let the kids plug it in when we got home. I'm not sure what it is about because I can't understand what the penguins are saying when they talk. So I will have to turn on the closed captioning to try and figure it out. I also let the kids check out 7 books. I usually try to keep it down to one each, I guess that I am in a weird mood or something today.

Congratulations Erica and Landon!!

Well, I have been internetless today because we had a power outage last night and it knocked out our internet. So after a phone call to Jeff, and some unplugging and replugging, we are finally back online! Erica and Landon found out that their babies will both be BOYS today, which is very exciting and I am so happy for them. I was cheering for a boy and a girl, but I guess we don't always get everything that we want. I got all of my work done today and I even remembered that I have to teach the Relief Society lesson on Sunday and I worked on that a little. I think that I am losing my mind as far as the laundry goes. Last week I forgot to shut the lid, and today I caught myself starting the washer, putting soap and downy in, shutting the lid and walking away. Thank goodness it was going to be the last load and as I walked away I noticed that there was still a huge pile of clothes on the floor and I questioned myself about why there were still clothes around when I just finished my last load. I went back and checked and yep, no clothes in the washer.

Step aside FURMINATER!

On Saturday, I went up to my mom and dad's house, and stumbled upon Grooming day for their dog Mickey. Now when their dog sheds it comes out in clumps and it comes out all summer long. You wouldn't think that a dog would have so much fur to lose, but theirs does. She has a serious shedding problem. So last year, my dad decided to take care of the problem one time and be done with it for the rest of the summer. He got out his animal clippers (electric) and began the shaving of the dog. One stripe later the clippers were so dull that they wouldn't work anymore. So he looked through the barn and found the old sheep shearers, this time they were manual, and you can sharpen them if they need it. The rest is history. And when I arrived Saturday morning the haircut was nearly over. I think that the dog actually likes the attention. She shivers for about the first three days after, until her body gets used to not having all of that hair.
P.S. All future BBQ goers, sit at the BROWN table.

Morning Walk

Here is Brooklyn eating her breakfast this morning. She absolutely refused to eat until she pulled her jammies up over her head, and that seemed to make everything better. I don't really know where she came from. Anyway, I woke up this morning and decided that if I got in the shower early, I could have time to go for a walk before the kids needed breakfast. So that's what we did. It was so nice, I was all ready to go for the day, and I had Tyler dressed and we walked for more than an hour, and the temperature was just perfect, not too hot, not too cold. What a great way to start out the day. I started the laundry before we left and when we got home we had some breakfast and we could start our daily work. I think that I will try to do it again tomorrow before the weather turns bad again.
I forgot to shut the lid on my washer. Who does that? It doesn't wash without the lid down!

Pictures

Graduation Day!

Today Tyler graduated from preschool. And Yes, I got a little misty. I'll admit it. It wasn't because I realized that he was getting older or because I felt that "my baby was growing up." It was more because I was just so proud of him and everything that he learned and how smart he was. And because I know how much fun he has had at Mrs. Natalie's and I know that he is going to miss it a lot.
I was really glad that he wasn't the kid picking his nose on the graduation video that we watched. Boy I really felt bad for that kid's parents. Anyway it was a fun party and what a difference since the last program that was at Thanksgiving. These kids (at least most of them) have really grown up.
Yesterday I took the kids to the park. I really don't do that very often, because we live kind of far away from a park. It is not like I can just walk down the street and let them play. But I had to go to town and do some errands and so I took them. Well the kindergarten classes were there having an agriculture appreciation day and they were all playing on the playground for a minute and Tyler's friend Caleb was there and they got to play together for a minute before he had to go back and do kindergarten things. The kids had so much fun playing on the swings and slides. I guess that I will have to take them more often. It does make it easier now that Brooklyn has stopped eating everything that she touches.
I couldn't sleep last night. I really haven't had a good night's sleep in about six nights. I just lay in my bed and sweat. Then I take all of my covers off and lay there and freeze. Then I put my covers back on and sweat. Then I roll around and experiment with sticking single body parts out of the covers to see if that helps. It never does. Chris started to cry at around 5:00 this morning so since I was awake, I went and got him and we rocked for a while. The funny thing is that when I sat down in my rocker I couldn't keep my eyes open. I was suddenly exhausted, and I felt like I had been up all night long (imagine that). So after about 20 min. of rocking him I put him back in bed and I went back to my bed and guess what...I was wide awake again. I don't know what my problem is.
Today when I was doing Brook's hair I noticed that she was missing a shoe. She is always taking them off, so it wasn't suprising to me. So I said, "Brook, who took your shoe off?" Do you know what she told me? "Bubby didit." Bubby is Chris, Bubba is Tyler. It was pretty clever, I thought. She is only 21 months old and she already knows that she should blame it on someone else.

Baby Kitty

Today I was reading a book to my twins. It is a lift the flap book called "Pets." It has real pictures of household pets and Brooklyn started to say Baby Kitty. It is so cute. She says a lot of words, but she has never really put two words together. Well then she knew that she was really on to something and so she kept saying it over and over again. So when Shane came home for lunch, I told her to say baby kitty for dad. She looked at him and said "NO!" Isn't that how it always goes?
The Schwan man comes to my house every other Tuesday. He was scheduled to come yesterday. I watched him go to my mom and dad's house. I watched him to go to my grandma's house. I waited for him to come to my house. Nothing. Well I was going to make lasagne for dinner last night and when it came time to start cooking, I didn't feel like it. So I decided that I wanted that Schwan man to come and I was going to get me some chicken cordon bleus from him for dinner. So I called my grandma and got his cell phone number and called and left him a message that I wanted him to come to my house. Well he didn't call back and so I had to make tacos for dinner. Well he called me back while I was cooking and said that he would stop by, and that he would be here after a little while, not very long he said. Well I wanted to get some ice cream to go with my brownies that I had made too, and I thought well he will probably be here after dinner and that will be perfect. No, I was wrong again. He didn't show up until like 8:45! I was in my jammies, I had rubbed all the mascara off of my eyes. And do you know what he told me? He said that he had skipped my house on purpose because I bought something last time he was at my house and he didn't think that I would buy two times in a row! What? Is he a door to door salesman? If he has the opportunity to make a sale, don't you think that he ought to give it a shot? I thought that I would like this new guy, but I am starting to miss the old schwan man, the reliable one, who would never have messed up my dinner plans or my dessert plans!

New Music for my Blog!

I hope that everyone out there enjoys the music that I have posted. If not, turn off your speakers. I know that some of the songs have a few problems and I promise that I will work on that, but I have already spent an hour adding songs and removing songs, and I think that I had better go throw a load of laundry in so that my family has something to wear tomorrow! Anyway, if you have any requests, I'll look at them but they may or may not make the final cut.

Mother's Day Recap

These two were playing so cute until Chris had had enough and simply pushed him over
Brooklyn had really cute hair at Church, after nap...not so cute
Tyler and Carly played in the dirt for about an hour

Well for Mother's Day we had a pretty good day. We went to church. Tyler gave a talk in Primary, and the whole primary sang "I often go walking" and "Mother I love You". You know the old standards. It was pretty good and he is actually getting old enough now that he even knew some of the words to sing. (But he was only singing when he was not distracted by the girl in front of him that he was teasing). Oh well, you can't win them all, right? Anyway, we went up to my mom and dad's house for a BBQ after church. It was really delicious. I was so hungry. Grandma Judd was there. She baked a peach pie and we all noticed right away that she had changed her recipe, there was no tapioca in the filling. Then we learned that she had actually bought the pie from the Schwan Man! I would have never known. Everything that she cooks I guess that I just assume that it is from scratch, and that she has basically been slaving away all morning long! Am I the only one that thinks that? I don't know. It was a pretty decent pie though (not as good as the ones that we make together, right Grandma?) Anyway. After lunch we went up to the city to see Shane's mom and Grandma. She had made ham and rolls and fruit salad, and vegetable trays. It was also delicious, although I was not hungry. I did eat my fair share of the chocolate covered strawberries. They were wonderful. And for my mother's day present, she sent us home with our very own box of them which I ate for lunch today. The weather was so nice. It was supposed to be breazy, but there was no breeze. Just overcast and the perfect temperature. So we got to sit outside and watch the kids play and play and play. It was a lot of fun. We got home about 8:00 and watched AxMen on the History Channel and then we put the kids to bed. It was a pretty good day.

On Saturday, we went to SLC and shopped most of the day. You know the usual Costco, Wal-Mart, get everything that you need in one trip kind of day. When we got home and were unloading the stuff, and trying to relax a little, it became necessary to refill the toilet paper roll in one of the bathrooms. No refills. Later that day another bathroom ran out of paper as well. So now here it is Saturday night, we've been shopping all day and have come home short of everything that we needed. Sunday before we went to Shane's Grandma's house we were down to about a quarter of a roll in our last bathroom. Why didn't we go to the store while we at Shane's grandmas? Because I didn't feel like it. I had to go to the bank today anyway, so I would just pick up a few rolls while I was in town today. Well I forgot my list when I went to the store and I picked up everything that I needed except the TP!! Well thank goodness for the In-Laws! They had a few spare rolls and brought some over to get us through to the weekend when I go shopping again.

P.S. I bought the Limeade Liplicious lip gloss at the Bath and Body works on Saturday. It is just a clear sparkly gloss and it is absolutely the best stuff! I highly recommend it. It smells great and it tastes great and I think that it is so pretty and sparkly. Just what I was looking for!

The New Hair, and Other Things

Okay, so when I got my hair cut the other day, I didn't know what a difference it would make in my daily life. I cut 6 minutes off of my shower time and 20 minutes off of my total getting ready time! So basically I have an extra 20 minutes a day to do whatever I want all because of my stupid hair! I love it!
I know that it is Friday now, but I've had something on my mind since Monday. Actually it has been on my mind every Monday since the end of February. Here's the story. Back in February, I went to visit my friend. I was just taking her a simple birthday gift. I loaded the kids in the car, dropped Tyler and Beau off at preschool and then headed to her house, and yes it was a Monday Morning. I hadn't called her or given her any kind of hint that I might be stopping by, it was just something that I needed to do (her birthday was the day before). So when I got to her house, she invited me in and we visited and she showed me around because I had not seen her new house yet, and she was totally nice to me. (I really hadn't expected to do anything more than hand her present through the door and then go home). But we had a really nice visit and then I left. Well here is the problem with the whole scenerio. If someone were to come to my house unannounced on Monday morning do you have any idea what kind of complete chaos they would find. I am reminded of this every Monday as I look at my house and I think "What were you thinking?!?" I must be the rudest friend ever. The least I could have done is called and asked if it would be ok if I just stopped by for a quick second. But no, I just went when it was convenient for me because the kids were already loaded in the car. Now I am not saying that her house was a mess or anything, because it was actually very clean and put together. What I am saying is that on Monday morning my house is a mess and there is laundry thrown everywhere and the dishes don't usually get done until after lunch, and it is usually a major clean up day. I would not be embarrassed if you came over, because that is not my style. But I probably won't take you through the house from one end to the other. Anyway, to my friend whose house I invaded first thing on Monday morning, I am truly sorry, I promise that I will call next time I stop by.
Which brings me to my final thought for the day. When I had my twins, it was necessary to wash bottles by hand in the sink. The reason, we didn't have enough bottles to get me through the day (16 per day), and I didn't run my dishwasher every day. So I began doing a sink full of dishes every day, usually twice. It sucked. Well this has continued now for 20 months. I was washing all bottles and sippy cups by hand. Then about a week ago I got real tired of it. The sippys and the bottles started to stack up, and I couldn't talk myself into filling the sink. And I noticed at one point that I needed to start my dishwasher and so I loaded them in and I started it. It was wonderful. The sink was cleaned out, and I didn't have to do anything. And the thought occured to me "Why not always load them in the dishwasher, after all what else is it for?" And so I have not washed dishes in the sink since. I don't do pans, I don't do cups, I don't do bottles. If it doesn't fit in the dishwasher for that load, I simply wait until it is done, then I clean it out and I fill it up again. Boy, if I could meet the person who invented the dishwasher, I would probably give them a big old hug and a sincere thank you.

Stupid Dog

Well, today we went to the library. It was nice. I made a few copies, we got some books, and we also got some DVDs. When we got home it was lunch time and I made Peanut butter and honey sandwiches for everybody and we had a picnic on our front lawn. It was really fun. I'm supposed to have a cute picture of the kids sitting at their picnic table, eating their sandwiches, but I am a terrible mother and I let the battery die on my camera. So just imagine that there is a cute picture. Then I let the kids play outside. Tyler let the dog out of his cage and he finished off the sandwich crusts. He also ate a few stray chips that were on the lawn, then he ate Tyler's plastic cup, then he ate two pieces of sidewalk chalk...then I put him back in his cage. I mean honestly. Dogs are so stupid. I feel bad for him, I really do, because he stays in his cage all day long. I try to let him out whenever we go outside, but then instead of running around and having a good time, he has to do stupid stuff like eat dishes until I can't stand it anymore and I have to put him away. I wish that he was just a cat. They are so much easier to live with.
Anyway, there was something that I wanted to write about yesterday and I forgot to do it, and now I can't remember what it was, so sorry. Maybe I'll remember it later.

Oh What a Beautiful Day

Here's a shot from my front lawn looking down the valley

I've got 82 glorious degrees right now! Doesn't it feel great! I am supposed to be folding my mountains of laundry right now but instead I have been out washing my car. I have pretty much been outside all day. At 9:00 this morning I had the twins outside without coats, just playing. The sun was so warm, I just couldn't bear to take them in and make them change beds with me. I am pleased to announce that I did still get the beds done, and I have done a few loads of clothes today, although since I took the weekend off I probably ought to chain myself to the washing machine and just make sure that it doesn't stop running for probably two days.
I had a great weekend, I spent all of Saturday at my sister Susie's house hanging out and visiting, and selling a few books. It was so much fun. Tyler even announced that he would like to stay at Susie's house forever. After we left we had to go into Logan and I picked up some seed potatoes. They were $.60 a pound, so I went a little crazy and bought a whole pound of them. I hope they actually grow. Last year's garden was a little bit of a bust, I did not inherit my grandpa Carver's green thumb, but I will keep trying for as long as it takes me.
Shane is driving our dump truck today. We feel really lucky to have been hired on with a local construction company for a really big reclamation job. Some of our trucking friends have been working with them for a couple of weeks now and they have been pulling 11 hour days 6 days a week. Boy if that could keep up all summer we will be set! Of course we know that it may only last for a couple of weeks, but hey, work is work. And maybe when Shane gets home I'll have something nice and hot (and not burned) on the table for him.

I am so far on day two of the Nuvaring birth control. I generally don't like to mess with my hormones, but my doctor thinks that my body will get along with the Nuvaring. So far so good, I have only had mild nausea last night in the middle of the night and a little bit this morning that went away after I ate my breakfast. I guess that I will continue with it for a while unless I start to get really sick. I guess that I'll still have to wait and see if I like it or not.

Invitation to All

I forgot to mention on my earlier post, I am doing a book party at Susie's house tomorrow from 11:00 to about 1:00. I'll stay as long as there are people coming. It will be lots of fun, so if you are still looking for plans tomorrow, stop by, see some books, visit with friends. Email me for directions, there is a link to my email on www.sarasbookshelf.com

Picky Eater

I call these jammies "The sexy boy jammies" because he always unzips them just a little bit.

Well my son Chris is a picky eater. I have a whole list of things that he will not eat. It includes basic kid things like spaghetti, chicken noodle soup, potatoes, and grilled cheese. I've never really known what to feed him, because he pretty much won't touch anything that Tyler used to eat when he was Chris's age. Well this week we have had major breakthroughs with the food list. Not only did he try...but he loved three items that he formerly would not even touch. Yesterday it was grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup, and today it was hot dogs! The soup really surprised me yesterday, he hates soup! Hates it! I didn't even try it out on him, I gave some to Brooklyn because she will sometimes eat soup, and she loves tomatoes, so I gave her a little bit and she was eating it and loving it and Chris got curious and kept pointing at it and I gave him a spoonful, which led to a bowlful, which led to a piece of sandwich to dip in it, which led to all of Tyler's sandwich crusts to also dip in it...you get the picture. Well today, I fed the kids macaroni and cheese and they were eating it and I could tell that they were going to still be hungry when it was gone, and so I got out a hot dog and microwaved it and cut it in half and cooled it off and gave some to Brooklyn, and Chris pointed to it! Well I cut up part of the other half (because he used to really hate hot dogs) and I gave it to him and he started to stuff them in his mouth. He couldn't get enough of them. I had to cook a whole other hot dog for them. I used to not believe all those magazines that said to keep giving your kids stuff and they will eventually start to like it, well I'm a believer now!

Anyway, I've been having some trouble shaking the bad mood that I've been in the last couple of days. I don't know what the problem was but I painted my fingernails pink and I cut all of my hair off (more than a foot of hair!), and I finally got my house picked up, I think that I'm finally feeling better. I hope that the weather warms up again soon, so that I don't fall into any more slumps... I won't have any hair left. I really like the cut though, I was a little nervous about the bangs too because the last time I had bangs, I curled half of them up and half of them down and then ratted them and hairsprayed them until they were one big poofy mess!

I know that this is a weird picture, but I had to take it myself.