Smores

Tye exclaimed this after church while walking to our car, "Mom! It smells like smores!"

It was really just smoke from a fire burning close by, but his association of smoke and smores was too cute. I love that kid!

On a side note, this same child put a wet(peed) diaper in one of the heat vents! Every time the heat came on and I was in our family room I would smell..... well, you know. Finally, hunted the source down, then hunted down the child that did it!! I still love him, though. What a stinker, literally!

First Meeting

Eliza met her Great Grandma Swensen for the first time yesterday. I don't make the time to visit her as often as I should and it makes me feel bad. She just loves the little ones! It was fun to see her light up as we walked in the room. Haley gave her some tender hugs throughout our visit and Tye was content with the one he gave when we arrived. (Rachel and Kaden were at school.) She will be 95 later this year. She has always been very adamant about how she is not ready to leave this life, but her attitude has changed... which was a bit sad, yet she was happy as she said she probably won't be around much longer and that she has had a good life! I have many fond memories of her and love her very much. Now I just need to be a better granddaughter and visit her more often.

Morning Sunshine

Eliza keeps smiling more and more, but she's not quite at the point of doing it on cue yet. Mornings are her happiest time. She was giving these smiles to Rachel this morning and of course the only camera I had handy was my cell phone. Better than nothing I guess. She's exactly 8 weeks today!

I Did a Horrible, No Good Thing

This morning I noticed a couple long hairs on Tye's head that I missed when I cut his hair a week ago. So I pulled some scissors out of the desk drawer and trimmed them. I wasn't thinking about the 2 1/2 year old watching!! About 2 minutes after I trimmed Tye's hair I went to help Rachel finish getting ready for school. When I came back out to the family room Kaden told me Haley had cut her own hair and was trying to cut Eliza's!! Aaack!!! It was all my fault too. How could I have been so stupid? This child is making the gray hairs come on fast and the scissors now have a new home!

Valentine's Weekend

This last weekend was memorable, I guess you could say. Not that anything really awesome or super horrible happened, but here's what did happened....

Nate had been working in Washington D.C. all week and was suppose to get home Thursday night. They had gotten 3 plus feet of snow that week so a lot of flights had been cancelled on previous days and even that morning. So when Nate's plane coming from Dallas was 2 hours late (because of weather in Texas) it made it so he missed his connecting flight in Chicago which meant there was no way he was going to get home Thursday. I cried. I won't lie. Sometimes it just can't be helped, like an unstoppable rebel force. (Sorry, I got carried away there.) All the people who had had cancelled flights took every last available seat on every plane to Salt Lake City for the next two days. So the only and best way to get him home before Sunday was to fly him from D.C. to Chicago. Sleep in Chicago (luckily in a hotel). Catch a flight to Portland, Oregon. Have a 4+ hour layover (it ended up being delayed an hour longer on top of the 4 hours...poor guy). Then finally get on a plane to SLC. Really I felt bad for Nate. No one wants to be stuck in airports or on airplanes for 24 hours! He finally got home around 9:00 p.m. Friday, but to his dismay (and mine too!) this guy was in our family room...So somehow I get suckered, tricked, whatever you want to call it into letting a Kirby salesman into my home. The kid was a horrible salesman... nice to me, but definitely not good for their company. He would do his demonstration then start watching the Disney channel (as seen in the picture) with the kids..... come on! I told him right off the bat I wasn't going to buy one. He seemed to only need to do the demonstration to make his boss happy. Speaking of his boss. Oh. My. Heck. Can you say "Karoosh"? (I made-up the spelling! What kind of name is that?) Eew- just thinking of him makes my skin crawl. I won't say what I called him when I talked to Nate (don't worry it wasn't anything really bad, but it wouldn't be tasteful to put on this family blog). Lets just say weasel... stupid, idiotic weasel. So Mr. Weasel tried to get all sympathetic with me about my life (as if he knows anything about being a stay-at-home mom. Sure it's hard sometimes, but it's not a prison sentence!). He tried to tell me I didn't need to discuss spending $2500 with my husband and he just irritated the crap (sorry, there was no better word) out of every last ounce of me. By the time Nate got home I had been dealing with these guys for two hours. All Nate had to say was "You about done?" and they were out! Not another word! Thank the high heavens!! That will be the last time I try to "help" a little insecure salesman(kid) out.

Since Valentines was on Sunday this year and Nate had been gone all week, Nate and I decided we would take the kids out to lunch for a "Valentines" outing to one of our favorite places, Sakura. So we packed up and drove to Orem only to find that on Saturdays they don't serve lunch. What??! Monday-Friday they open at 11:00 a.m., but Saturdays not so much. The kids were starving and my craving for the food had set in permanently so we got the kids hamburgers and went to my parents house to wait until 3:30 when they opened. As the clocked ticked on, all of the kids lost interest in going at all. So Nate and I ended up with a Valentines date alone after all and my parents got an unexpected babysitting date! Thanks mom and dad!!

For breakfast on Valentines day Nate made his specialty, "hole in the bread", with hearts!
I think I got about 5 valentines from Tye over the few days leading up to Valentines Day. They were usually just chocolates he stuck in an envelope. No note. Chocolate says more than words anyway, right? Nate and I didn't exchange gifts this year. To me, just having him make it home from Washington D.C. was gift enough!! We didn't even do cards or anything, but I did tell him both of us have to write a love letter to the other by the end of this week. We'll see who follows through.... And NO! Chocolate does NOT say more than words in this case!

From Concept to Creation

Rachel's Valentine box design ideas:

A) flowers or B) BYU cheerleaders???

The winner is.....
BYU cheerleaders! I'm really not sure why and how cheerleaders go with Valentine's Day, but that's what she wanted so we did it. Her class is having a contest and voting for their favorite box. Wish her luck!

Pinatas

For family home evening a couple weeks ago Nate decided to help the kids make pinatas. I know my kids LOVE crafts, but I try to avoid them as much as possible because I get all grumpy and ornery. I suck the fun right out of them. I don't want to deal with the extra mess. I have plenty of other messes to worry about. But what fun is life if you don't make a few "fun" messes once in awhile? I need to do better. This was all Nate, though... from start to finish.


Uh-oh! Here goes Tye.... something's making him upset. The night wouldn't be complete without some kind of meltdown from him!






The plan is to add another layer (haven't done that yet) and let the kids buy their own candy to fill them. Then of course break them open. Someday. For now they are still on my kitchen counter..... waiting for Nate naturally. :)

And this is what little Liza did the whole time. Something must have startled her and she fell asleep that way OR she's offering free hugs....

Valentine Sentiments

So I've discovered that you MUST proof read the valentines your children pick out at the store or you may end up with something like this....

Or this....

There will be no separation of church and state if Rachel can help it! And now I have to let her give them out because she already wrote who they are to and put the candy on them, but more importantly she didn't understand what was so wrong with them and why I was laughing so hard. Not that there is really anything wrong with them. I mean the sayings are true and thoughtful, but come on.... like I would seriously buy these. Yep, God loves everyone and she knows it! It's that simple. I guess we should have made homemade valentines like we did last year..... but I'm too tired!

When the Cat's Away the Mouse Will Play

When I sit down to nurse this sweet little thing....
this sweet (or should I say "semi-sweet") thing does stuff like this....

Nakedness! (Diapers are optional.)

Desitin does NOT wash off easily.... hence its purpose I guess!

*Sniff, sniff* What's that smell? Oh, just a potato chip in the toaster. It stunk the house up nicely!

Don't let that face fool you. She's trouble!

Mmmm.... Nesquick powder!
All of this happened yesterday.

The End