Saturday Toy Massacre!

Saturday Toy Massacre!
So tomorrow it is the Super Bowl and we were unanimously elected to be this years host for that family party, since we are pretty mellow, have the bonus room in the new house to use and basically because we were the only ones willing. hehehe But ok so we have lived her for almost a full yr. and we has still not organized the Toys in the Bonus Room/Toy room. So Jesse has been talking about doing it for weeks. I looked and searched for the perfect within reason organizers that I could find. AKA Cheap but effective. My favorite things. I scored big. A girl I work with directed me to the Target add and they had the cool cubies on sale this week. PERFECT! We woke up (I worked for a bit) then we ran to Target and picked them up and Jesse put them together. It was his day to go to a movie with a friend so while he was at the movie the kids and I sorted and sorted and threw and donated toys. It was actually pretty fun. Except for the part were I get to be the mean mom and keep them on task. While they are playing. ... So far things seem to be turing out nicely up there. Fingers crossed we can get the rest of the house clean before start time. UH OH! still have to prepare my primary lesson, and I work tonight at 1:30 am till 7:30 in the morning. It's 7:00 pm now so I better get a move on. YIKES!

2 Randoms and my new blog look

Random 1:
Will came up to me the other day and said "yucky yucky"
So I looked in his hand he had a dead spider. I hate spiders of all kinds even dead ones. HATE THEM!!
I wouldn't even take it from him I waked him over to the garbage and told him to toss it in. Really all he wanted was for me to open the garbage.
Thank goodness it wasn't a poisonous one or that it wasn't alive! eeeeewwww getting the creeps now just thinking about it. Yucky Yucky is right. GAG!

Kids have no fear, it's funny really they just come with no fear nothing scares them they will try anything. It isn't until we teach them what to be afraid of that they start to be afraid and then sometimes they choose to be afraid of the strangest things. Jaden use to be afraid of windows.

Random 2:

I am the kind of person that has good intentions. I always have these great ideas or nice things that I really want to do and that I really plan to do. But somehow so many of these things slip through the cracks. I have decided that if the road to hell is really paved with "good intentions" then I am "speed racer" and should arrive at the gates very soon.

My New Blog Look:

I have been wanting to make my own blog look and get it all cute-sied up. I just am once again well intended. I just need to find the info on how to do it and haven't even looked. And so I have been trying out the free ones, I want red and black but can't find one I like. So, please bare with me if you see this look change often the next little while until I figure out what the crap it is that I do want. LOL

Tuesday Tell All - Random tellings from my warped mind and a Zap of a Flashback

Just a few randoms thoughts that I wanted to jot down:

I love dip. I am a total dip, and love to dip my foods. I could probably eat old shoes if I had the right kind of dip for them. My favorites are ranch, onion, honey mustard, spinach bacon, and since I am a born and bred Utah girl, of course I love the fry sauce, and one step further, Happy Valley so, oh baby bring my the white sauce for my fries. Ooooooohhhhh yeah that's what I'm talking about. hahahahaha Oh and for breakfast foods when not so many dips are around I will totally dip everything into my syrup. No, to be honest I bath everything in it. Especially the eggs. YU-UM-ME!

I am loving having the kids home for summer we are being totally lazy this year. No big adventures yet. Thursday I think we will go to the park. Tomorrow it Activity Days at my house that will be fun. But having the kids home is killing me in food. I stocked up on snacks and they are gone already. I need new summer snack ideas. They love the fruits and veggies but only when I have them all cut up and ready to go and of course, if I have the right kinds of dips on hand. But when they get hungry, instead of eating food they go for snacks.

My kids do not know the difference between a snack and a meal. If they are hungry the will eat and entire box of fruit snacks or crackers. Yes the whole box. UGH!! And their favorite snack of choice..... cold cereal what else? I swear I am going to buy stock in Malt O Meal. How many bags of cereal can 4 kids eat in one day?

Went shopping today to stock up on healthier snacks and lunches, $180 bucks later we still haven't got much for dinners. LOL Anyone else feel like the kitchen becomes a black hole when the kids are home for the summer? What is up with them turning into munch mouths? How do they ever survive at school on only one meal a day all winter long? sheesh.

We are looking for a new car. Hopefully one that is dual fuel and will save us some gas money. My husband commutes and gas is killing us. OUCH! This also means that I will get my van back and not be stranded at home everyday and that we can do a little more summer fun stuff. Hoping we find a good deal on a car. (fingers crossed)

I never do my hair anymore, seems that with the kids and the chaos and the fact that I work in the middle of the night and sleep in the middle of the day I just never really do my hair. I wash it and brush it and etc. but never really DO it, not even sure I know how anymore. Not even sure how I feel about that. But it's just a fact.

I think I am too hard on my kids and at the same time not hard enough. I can't seem to find the balance between setting expectations, teaching them to be responsible and yet also not hurting their self esteem, or pushing them to far. Sad thing is I don't even expect much but I want to see them become healthy, balanced, self assured, and confident, reliable adults. Is that too much?

I hate trying to find balance. I need to re-read "Confessions of an Unbalanced Women" it's a good book. I can already see self esteem issues with some of them and it hurts. I am sure they aren't blind to my own issues with confidence. How do you teach them to be more than you are?

Today while shopping Jesse looked a bug zappers. Looking at the box I could almost hear the sounds of my own childhood. sitting out back on the patio when our house was new and listening to the poor mosquito's snap, zap, pop before they could come and bite us. I was 5 when my mom and dad built their house. I can still remember how excited we were when the house was done and we got to move in. How happy I was knowing my grandma was just down the street. I can also remember how scared we were the 1st few nights with all 7 kids being upstairs and my mom and dad seemed so far away being downstairs. We all slept in one bedroom together until we finally decided this new house wasn't going to be so bad. Years later we would all be fighting to be the one that got a single room by themselves. I remember laying on the trampoline looking up at the stars and making silly little wishes as the bug zapper zapped away in the background.

I am going to buy a bug zapper so that some day my kids will stand in the store and be flooded with memories too. I hope they remember the excitement they had for their new house that is just across the street from where their grandparents live and only 3 - 7 miles from the other grandparents. I hope that one day they will be grateful for what they learned by having to share rooms with brothers and sister even if now they do have a single room by themselves. And I hope they will have lots of great memories looking up at the stars and making silly little wishes too. Because even the thought of the sound of a bug zapper can make you realize that childhood is but a flash, snap, pop, zap. . . and all you take are the memories.


By the way the mosquito's are out of control already and I really am buying a zapper, and because Samantha is allergic. I know a zapper is like pouring a thimble on a barn fire but it at least makes you feel like you are doing something to fight in the battle. LOL

A month in pictures

This past month just seemed to fly by in a flurry. I don't want to miss documenting all the fun and since pictures is the only way I know how here is A month in pictures! (also because in my current state of sleepy I can only remember the things I took pictures of.

I got the rest of my cement poured. It is so nice to have a sidewalk and patio to off set my dirt yard. But things are coming along nicely even if a little slow and I planted flowers in pots out front to bring in some green. Also a big adjustment is that my shifts got changed at work and I am now working 10:30 pm to 4:30 am and though this means less sleep it also means more time at night to get things in the yard done. Before Jesse would get home most days around 6 and I had to be in my office and logged in by 8 so we had time to do dinner and that was about it.

I am looking forward to having more time at night after the kids go to bed. Tonight we actually got to have a kid free few moments to talk and got to watch a movie together. I work from home which is really nice but since I work on the phone I hibernate into my office were it is distraction and noise free. Some of the girls I work with can work in their family rooms but I am too much of a worrier for that. So instead I choose to work in the middle of the night. But once school gets out Jaden will be able to watch the kids in the mornings and let me sleep in. That will be good and it will also be a great way for him to earn some money (he keeps asking for a money earning job around here) And since I will only be a few rooms away I will not have to stress about the trouble they will get into... well to much... oh crap YIKES!!! Today my dad was a doll and took the kids across the street to his house to play and I got to sleep for 4 straight hrs. It was bliss!!! What I am going to do when school starts again and we have to bet up and on the bus and etc.? I have no idea but for now I will just be thankful that I can work at home with only a few little inconveniences. Because truly this is a sweet gig and I am very blessed to have my job.

Another fun event of the past month was going to Grandpa J's house for a Birthday dinner. The kids love getting together and spending time with the cousins. Look how sweet grandpa is indulging Will with a ride in the gator since all the big kids kicked him out of the other one. If you look close you can see them all crammed in together getting jealous that Will gets his own personal ride. Grandpa is so cute with the kids. He is the type of guy that acts like a tough guy but once you see him with the grand kids you just know he is really a little kitten. Know what I mean?

The 3 famous 11 yr olds. Jaden is in a group with 3 cousins his same age on this side of the family and on my side also. It was really fun that year to be pregnant at the same time as my sister and 3 sister in-laws. And as you can see the kids have loved growing up together. Here they are thinking the rule the roost as the drivers of the buggy excursion. Yea, now you are understanding just how it was that Will got kicked out huh?

Here are all my boys looking SHAGGY! We have a tendency to let the hair get a little out of control before making it in for hair cuts. Lucky for us we have a very patient hair dresser and friend that understands out crazy ways and can come to the rescue with her magic Nikki Scissor Hands.

And Nikki, today the only thing you are going to get blamed for is for making Will look this darn cute!

This was my attempt at catching his after shot in her salon.

The kids aren't letting the lack of grass stop them from having fun in the yard. They have set busy to work making mud rivers and waterfalls. I think they just like building dams and saying "dam" because the think the are getting away with something. They love to build a reservoir then make paths for the water and then destroy the dam and let all the water enter the channels to see how far it will get or how far it can push things. I love that the weather is good enough for lots of outdoor play but I hate the muddy clothes every day!




And with all the outside play and working on getting the garden ready comes some tuckered out kiddos.... and dogs. :)

One quick snap of the pre-garden preparation. You saw the finished results already. Yes this was pre-millions of tomato plants.

And for Activity Days with the little girls from church, we made these fun treat plates for the moms. Yummy and also something that the moms could just eat and not have to find a place for. It was a clutter free gift.


The side effect however was a not so clean kitchen. This is the result of 9 girls and pans of melted chocolate. I won't even start on the amount of chocolate scraping I had to do.

The boys playing with Grandpa's puppies. And more dying animals stories. The long made short 2 of the puppies got sick started throwing up and ended up dying. What is up? And we also lost yet another calf. UGH! What is up? Is this more of Mother Freaking Nature hating me? I guess my kids are learning to be tuff. Right? grrrrrrr!!

And here is Samantha trying to look excited about the 7 mini frogs in the bucket. They have been catching frogs. Lucky they put the back into the wild and don't get to attached since they would just die too. Seeing as that seems to be the theme around here.

And this would be poor Will sporting a nice sized fat lip that Garyn decided to give him. Garyn is a good kid and he is so cute with Will, but lately they seem to be playing way to rough with each other. I have had to hide any long hard object (aka club) and also any ribbon rope or cord (aka whip). Ever since Garyn saw bits and pieces of Indiana Jones that dad was watching he now wants to whip everything and everyone in site. Yea, NOT funny! and NOT cute! This is him trying to look all innocent after giving Will the fat lip. Grrrrrrr. Don't even get me started on the day he found the pet chain in Samantha's room. You know the ones that are supposed to hang from the ceiling so that you can hand your stuffed animals? Well guess what? They also make a very painful whip. OOOH KIDS!!

And another very expensive trip to the dentist. Jaden had to get a crown because he has a tooth that is broken off and Samantha had 2 cavities filled. Thank goodness Garyn had a clean bill of tooth health. (for now)

She seems to be enjoying the laughing gas to much doesn't she? HA HA HA HA HA HA!

This was another proud mommy moment brought to you by Hersey. Jaden's track meet was this past week. He did not want to run. He tried everything to get out of it including not telling me it was the same day as the dentist appointment. Jaden bless is little heart has a hard time a school sometimes. He is a bully magnet. This year has been much better than years past but some days he still gets more than his fair share for crap. And I guess some of the kids have been teasing him about not being a super fast runner. I am sure that Samantha doing so well at her meet didn't help him in that area. But after much coaxing I was finally able to convince him that he needed to run his race to prove to himself that he could do anything he wanted and that he wasn't going to let the bullies get the better of him. To be honest the final and last straw I used was that if he didn't go down and get lined up they would probably read his name in the speakers. That was enough of a motivation for him to go get in line. He was in heat 37 so he was waiting for a long time. I really thought he might bail out but he didn't he actually ran. I was so proud of him. And to tell the truth he didn't do half bad. I couldn't tell from where I was standing if he had taken 2nd or 3rd in his heat. He says it was 3rd. That isn't the point though. The point was he tried he actually just tried. He put all the voices in his head to rest by doing his best and to tell the truth again I was more proud of him for taking 3rd in his one heat than I was when Samantha took 3rd in the whole city, because he really really overcame such an obstacle. It was probably one of the hardest things for him. He is a very timid personality and he lets things really get to him, he never stands up for himself because he doesn't want the teachers to get mad at him so he just takes it from these bullies all the time. And I mean even physically! Last week one kid slapped him and last year they kept "white washing" him, which I guess means shoving you in the snow and putting snow down your shirt. But this was his own little way of standing up to them. You know I am just really proud of him and really lucky to have a kid that is such a good kid. He just always wants to do the right thing and he says "being mean back isn't right" God bless his heart he is an absolute angel! A little lazy but such a dang good person! with a heart of GOLD!



For mothers day we had 3 different family events. 1st we took Grandma S (hubbies mom) out to dinner. I didn't grab m camera on the way out the door so I didn't even get a picture. And grandma was such a doll she gave me the cutest watering can! I love it and it is next to my plants on the fire place. For looks only. The kids better keep their hands off. The next event was on Mothers Day Sunday we went with my family for Grandma N's picnic. We went to a park behind the temple and it was very nice. The food was easy and yummy (sandwiches) and the kids had a blast on the big hill ice blocking. The funniest part was when Will dumped out his drink and was trying to ice block on the little ice cubes. LOL He just wants to be big. like the others. It was darling but the picture I got didn't even really show it. He is hilarious. Also just to top of the day my mom gave each of us a necklace and earring's to match. It was very sweet of her.

And then this Sunday we had a belated Mothers Day Dinner at Grandmas J's (hubbies step mom) She did a fabulous dinner as always. And she didn't even let us help. She made it fairly easy on herself by buying catering but I still felt guilty that she did the whole dinner and it was her mothers day dinner. Anyway here is a great shot of the kids on the gator again. Yup the love that thing. Gives poor grandma a heart attack too but they love it. And she also gave each of us mom's 2 scrapbook kits including the albums and all the papers, embellishments, and etc to match. AWESOME! now to put it to some use. The only crafting I have done lately was to make the card boxes for the mothers day cards. Very last minute and one didn't even get decorated because I thought of it too late. Here is how cute they turned out. I am loving that little cricut machine. I also used it this week to help Jaden's class with their state reports. AWESOME and lots of fun! Still need to go to the school and get my machine back.

And so there we go a month all at once. But now I can sleep in peace tonight er uh I mean today, knowing that my goal to keep a record is actually happening. And after all this is for my peace of mind anyway. And all in all not a bad month. Crazy, busy as always but filled with fun moments together, and that is what matters.

Mother Freaking Nature Hates Me! Friday Funny? or Freaky Friday?

Mother Nature, well she really hates us this year..... PROOF? you want Proof? ok here is your stinking proof: LOL LOL

This my beautiful mothers day gift from last year:It is now this, not so beautiful heap of metal in the front yard this year: GRRRRR!!!!!!!

After FLYING from the porch to the front yard (yard-ish area) in the nice gust of wind last week. Yeah ain't she swell? Really, Mother Nature, what did I ever do to you??

(and just for fun let's blame Nikki.. LOL LOL I am sure you did something that made mother nature mad at you so that she would blow things all over my yard. tee hee hee p.s. Nikki thinks I use my blog to blame her for thing. She is funny and very sweet.)

And how funny is this: Just to keep things fair and balanced, she also sent up a big wind gust (micro-burst) the next night and hurled Jesse's fathers day BBQ from last year across the back yard and tore off the gasket or valve and hose for the propane and it emptied the tank. Lucky for him the BBQ is still going to work we only need to get a new hose and valve. Unlike my poor swing that is totally toast!!! I am so sad about it too and just looking at these pictures of it when it wasn't dead make me want to cry all over again. Boo Hoo Me! :( And also to make matters worse a few nights later she sent a nice hefty frost (yes in dang MAY!) to freeze my garden and kill Jesse's beloved tomato plants. I am telling you the weather is very strange this year, and I am SICK of it. So today we got to re-plant the garden. And it better not freeze again! So how is that for your laugh of the week?

Friday Funny? or Freaky Friday? LOL

Grrrrr...... A fast Vent

I hate this day and I haven’t been able to get ONE thing done so what the hell ever. Being a mom is like drowing in an inch of water. It takes a while but eventually it will kill you!

It is amazing what one little boy can do with a bowl or dehydrated refried beans. UGH! only one of the 17 thousand messes he made today.

Will is a Pill again! & Some Random Thoughts From my tornado mind

I have said it once I will say it again this kid is such a pill. Here he is getting into food coloring! And the worst part is he totally knows how to smile and look so inocent which (again) he is not. Just thought I would post his anctics from last week.

Some Random thoughts from my tornado mind:

Once when I was getting mad and scolding Jaden about something, (he was probably 3 or 4 at the time) he stops me mid sentance and says "hey I can see myself in your eyes" I couldn't stay mand and had to laugh at him for being so perceptive and also was at the same time so mad at him for focusing on his reflection in my eyes instead of listening to what I was saying. Yet another reminder that getting mad and resorting to my yelling de-humanizes me to my kids and I become just "angry robot" mom.

Will pluralizes everything when he talks. He doesn't say very many words and when he does it is all pluralized. I find this very cute. I know he will grow out of this so fast and I want to enoy it while it lasts. He used words like: Colors, dinners, kisses, cups, and etc. it is so cute and it is so fun to listen to him at 2 yrs old learning to talk. Its also sad realizing this will be my last kid to go through this learning to talk stage. :(

Samantha is trying way to hard to grow up. I was listening to her go through her valentines on our way home from school thursday. She kept making little comments about every valentine and then I hear her say "Oh I can't belive some people are still giving Barbie Valentine's" Like this is just oh so dumb. She is only in 3rd garde! UGH! I totally remember taking Cabbage Patch Dolls to school to play with my friends until 5th grade. So I tell her that and her response is "Well you must have been a baby." UGH! How did she become so cool? and judgemental? What happened to my little girl? And where did this Pre-teen attitude come from.

I had to keep Samantha home from school on Friday to make her rest and eat. She hasn't been felling well and thanks to Alyssa for tattling on her I know she hasn't been eating lunch at school. I noticed too that she only picked at a few meals at home. She gets so upset over things. We had the Daddy Daughter Dinner on Wed. and I think she got so nervouse that she made herself sick. Then once she felt sick she didn't want to eat because she was affraid she would throw up. On top of her having a cold she just needed a day off. Once I got her to sleep and to eat some good foods she was feeling much better and acting a lot happier. Poor kid is such a worry wort. I have to remember that she needs a gentle touch and to watch her closely. I really hope that this is the only reason she was not eating. I hear eating disorders start early these days.

Why won't my blog let me spell check anymore? I am the worlds worst speller and it isn't spell checking me! It makes me mad!