Places to go, Rocks to collect

I was down at Moore's getting the oil changed in the car today. The TV was set to the Travel Channel and I totally got hooked on the show that was on. It was called Treasure Hunting in America 2. It suggested that I go to Hiddenite, North Carolina to the Emerald Mine and dig for my own emeralds. They pretty much guarantee that I will find a precious or semi-precious stone in their $5.00 bucket of rocks! I very quickly put it on my list of places to go before I die! I can't wait until I can go there. But then the next segment was on Trilobite fossils in Delta, UT! I can go there in only like 3 1/2 hours! I'm totally going to go there with Tyler next summer. The website there says that in 4 hours at the quarry the average visitor can find 10-20 fossils. How did I not know about this place? Anyway check out the websites if you want to go with me to either of these places, because it is going to be tons of fun.
www.hiddenitegems.com
www.u-digfossils.com


P.S. You guys didn't know that I was a closet Geologist did you.

Weekend happenings

I have a book party at my house tomorrow night. The place is the shambles, I have so much work to do here. What will I do today? I'm going to meet my friends Yara, Claudia, and Michelle and we are going to go to lunch. I got up early so that I can get some of my work done before the kids wake up....now I'm updating my blog. I have a lot of ambition.
On a different note. I found a coupon in the parade magazine for $3.00 off the twister hopscotch. I wanted to get that for Tyler's Birthday, I was totally stoked.
I lost my debit card last week. I'm not really worried that someone used it, or stole it. But I cancelled it anyway, because I still can't find it. So I have been using checks all weekend. What a pain. It has really been a long time since I have had to write a check, and it upset my schedule so badly that I left a sack of my stuff at Wal-mart! I always check to make sure that I've got everything, but since I had to write a check, and everyone in the line behind me was waiting for me, and I almost dumped my (big) purse over, and I got flustered and just took off without checking. So I have to go back to Wal-mart today. Brook and Chris have learned to say Wal-Mart. Does that make us look like red-necks because my two year olds declare that we need to go to Wal-mart everytime that we are out of something?

Back on the Top

Well I finally got my house vacuumed! It has been probably 3 weeks. I also have the laundry going and I'm pretty sure that I can tackle the bathrooms tomorrow. With all of that said, I feel like I am back on top of my housework. I still have clutter in every corner of the house, and I am still working on getting through the bags of hand-me-down clothes that I received last week (thanks again, by the way Chels, Josh, and Kari!). Anyway, it feels clean in here and that is a feeling that I really haven't felt for a while.
This weekend, Brooklyn (or one of the boys) got a hold of a purple marker, and proceeded to color on stuff. They colored on the windows, table, snack table, filing cabinet, and finally the back of my cabinets beneath the bar. I knew that it had happened, shortly after it happened, but it was a Crayola marker and I didn't really worry about it. I didn't know that it was under the bar until HOURS later when I finally noticed it. I immediately tried to get it off: straight water didn't work, almost every household cleaner that I have didn't work. I finally tried softscrub with bleach (on the snack table first) and had a little bit of success and so I scrubbed it for about an hour trying to get it to come off. It is mostly gone. If you know where to look you can still see remnants of the marker, but who knows what the softscrub will do to the finish on the wood. Anyway, needless to say, I have banned all markers from the use of my children. They are pretty upset about that because they pretty much don't color with anything else.
Tomorrow I have to go to the school for my first parent teacher conference. I'm pretty nervous about what Mrs. S is going to say about Tyler. I worry about what he does while he is away from home, or when I am not around. I suppose that if it were going to be bad I probably would have gotten a call from the school sometime before now. As I was sitting in primary on Sunday with my primary class, I was talking to them and learned that Tyler did in fact have an assigned seat on the bus for a while but he didn't anymore. But I also learned that for serious offenses the bus driver will call parents. I learned that from the brother of one of Tyler's friends (whose parents did get a call from the bus driver). I'm glad that I haven't been called.
I have been potty training my twins. It is really hard because while one is on the potty, the other one is standing there peeing his/her pants. I don't want to have to train one and then the other I want to do it at the same time. I think that Brooklyn will be trained first. She always comes and tells me when she pees in her pull-ups. I told her that it makes the princesses sad if the flowers get wet and so she comes up and tells me her princesses are sad and they are soaking wet. I have to still work on my timing on getting them to the potty on time. My goal is to get them trained before spring, so we'll keep working on that.

Just stuff

Well it has geen a good week. Sort of. I do have a cold, but I am so far feeling a little bit better. Tyler got his school pictures back on Monday and they are cute, but he is sticking his tongue through his teeth. I asked him why he did that and he said "Well the lady told me to say thththth." Why? What sort of smile is that going to produce? Whatever. I joined Facebook the other day and I was able to find some of my roommates from BYU. I am so bad at keeping in touch, I just figured that I would never talk to any of my old friends again. I am grateful for the internet because I use it everyday to feel like I am friends with my friends again. (Does that make sense?) Anyway, there isn't a whole lot to say. I haven't even showered today yet. I feel like such a bum, because that is the one thing that I don't ever give up, but I needed to do some Usborne work this morning, and when I was done the kids were all awake and needed breakfast and attention, and then I have to get Tyler dressed, and then it is lunch time (you know 10:00 am), and so on and so on.
One funny thing that Brook does is she adds an "ee" on the end of things. Blankee, shoesees, lunchee. I'm pretty sure that I encourage this because I never correct her. But today at lunch, while I was fixing the food and they were starving and crying because I wasn't doing it fast enough, I brought out a box of crackers and they were eating them and asking for more and she looked up at me and said "More crackee mommy." It made me laugh. I thought that crackee was a funny word.

Vegas (The Recap)

Shane and I went to Las Vegas this weekend. It was so much fun. We stayed at the Stratosphere and within the first ten minutes of playing the slot machines Shane had won about $250. I figure that it was a good thing that Shane won the money because he had a little bit of a cold when we left on Friday. By the time that we got to Vegas he was totally sick and we decided that he was way to sick to go to Erica's house and see the babies. So I left him at the casino while I went out there and he played the slots and it didn't cost us anything! It was so much fun to see Erica and the boys. They are such cute babies and it really made me realize just how much fun twins can be. I don't recall much of my twin's first few weeks, it felt like it was just a matter of survival. I can remember feeding them all the time, and I know that I was stressed out about all the stuff that had to be done, and I know that I let a lot of housework go unfinished so that I could get plenty of naps in (because I was so exhausted all the time), but I don't remember just sitting and holding them and thinking about how cute they were, or wondering what they were dreaming about, and I am kind of sad about that. Maybe with Erica's boys I am supposed to have a second chance with that. That's all I really did. I sat and held them, and snuggled them, and loved them. They are so cute. They are still only about 7 lbs a piece and they feel so tiny and cuddly. I could have stayed there all day, but after about a half a day, Shane started to send me text messages wondering when I was coming back to get him because the slots weren't quite as friendly and fun for him on the second day. So I went back to the hotel room and picked him up and we went out shopping on the strip because we promised that we would bring something back for our kids. We went to the M and M's world store and I thought that it was a lot of fun. I'd never been there before. We also went to the mall that is down there. I really love the Hello Kitty store there. I know that there is one here in SLC, but I never get to shop there because I never really need stuff there, but when we are on vacation I get to make an exception. Anyway it was a pretty short trip. We left Erica's house about 10:00 Sunday morning. I cried. I felt bad that I didn't get to stay and snuggle her babies and visit with her longer. But we had to get back to our own kids before my mom and dad went completely nuts.
P.S. We should have stayed. The kids didn't miss us for even a moment. Mom and dad took them to the homecoming parade, Wendy's, Cabela's. Dad taught them to sing "She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes...Whoa Bill!" They sing it all the time and when they get to the "Whoa Bill!" all three of them burst into uncontrolled laughter. After I finished doing Brook's hair today she looked in the mirror and said "Go Grandpa's house now?" as if that was the only thing that we had to do today.

In case you didn't get the email

I am starting to book my Usborne books Christmas shows now that it is October. I know that I sent many of you an email the other day, but if you read this and didn't get one that doesn't mean that I don't want you to get free books, it only means that I probably don't have your email.
So here is the deal. I want to get you lots of free books to give (or keep) for Christmas. All you have to do for me is host a party, get all of your friends together and I'll show my books and you will visit. At the end you will have lots of free books, and lots of half priced books. It is a really fun time. Think about it. Leave me a comment if your interested and we can work something out.

Note to Self

KFC and Little Caesars Pizza really hurt your ulcer. Please don't ever eat at these places again!
Thank you,
The Management