I'm Back!

I know it's been a while, and my only excuse is laziness. Well, laziness, and a lack of material to blog about. I have been playing on facebook where telling stories and completing sentences isn't really needed. I've been scrap booking as well, and sometimes when the mood hits, I actually do something productive, like clean the house and comb my hair.

Over the last few months, we have had some excitement. Levi is set to graduate on May 1st this year, and Anna is set to start a local preschool this fall. We are getting the garden ready for planting, and as of last weekend I have 4 rows of peas in the ground. We planted a cherry tree last night and are so excited to someday harvest fresh cherries from our own tree.

I am in the process of reading more Indiana Jones books. These are super fun and addicting. There are several authors of these books, including Rob Macgregor, Max McCoy (my favorite), and Martin Caidin. If you're looking for a super fun adventure, I highly recommend reading these books. There are 12+ out there.

We had a bit of excitement here a few weeks ago. Apparently someone (it might have been me, but that's not terribly important) left the door between the garage and the mud room open for an extended period of time (like a whole hour). We had an unpleasant creature enter our house and move into our kitchen. It chose to live under the kitchen sink. I know what you're thinking. A skunk, raccoon, mountain lion or such. Well, you're close. It was a mouse! We set up sticky traps and food traps all over the place. After 2 weeks, the mouse was still there and smart enough to avoid every trap. We discovered that it was living on peroline cookies that were in my pantry, so it must have been on a major sugar high the entire time it was in my house. No wonder if left plain old boring peanut butter and cheese traps alone. After weeks of having this unwanted visitor, I finally decided to abandon the sit and wait tactic and declared war (truth be told, I grew tired of all the involuntary piercing screams that would escape from my mouth every time I made contact with the creature.... which happened too often). One evening I set up a few sneaky traps to catch the mouse when he/she wasn't paying attention and would accidentally run directly into the sticky trap. It was difficult, as I had to keep Atticus from getting caught in those traps, but it worked! I caught the mouse in only 10 hours. Of course, when using the sticky traps, the box doesn't remind you that the mouse is still alive and is squirming and screaming for every kid in the house to hear and come running for a quick mouse rescue. It was difficult to teach Anna that a mouse is bad and shouldn't be touched, even if it's squealing and squirming to get free. The most difficult thing I've had to do this month is "take care" of a trapped mouse. I bawled and shook the whole time. It was awful! It did receive a quick death, traumatic as it was for me to do. I came to realize that Atticus needs to learn to pull his own weight (and he has a whole 17 pounds of weight to pull). We now have the house back to ourselves and life is grand. There was a major clean-up job for me to take care of in the kitchen, but the happy news is that we are once again mouse free. :) I'm embarrassed that Anna still talks about "that mouse in our house" in front of other people. Ah, children are delightful.

Autumn Colors

I love Autumn. The vibrant colors of the leaves, the final harvesting of vegetables and the preparations for Halloween. This isn't my favorite season, but it's certainly one I love. We spent many weekends through September and October taking pictures through the canyons and in our own yard. We visited Squaw Peak in time to see these vibrant colors.


We also visited a nice spot somewhere in American Fork Canyon right before the big color change. We roasted marshmallows and hotdogs and loved the scenery found in every direction. I feel so blessed to live in an area where there are so many beautiful places to visit.




Here are some fun photos we took in our yard. I am so delighted that we have one of the most colorful yards in the neighborhood.







We also visited Gardner Village this year as a family and enjoyed the festive atmosphere. Although the crowds were a bit much, it's one of my favorite memories in the month of October.

9 Months Old

Today Ian turned 9 months old. He's celebrated the day by going to the doctor for shots, which he was very unhappy about. He then spent many hours playing toys with Anna, or I should say that he spent many hours trying to play with toys that Anna kept taking away from him.

Ian is my tall skinny boy. His height is in the 75th percentile while his weight is in the 25th. He's been crawling around the house since 7 months old, and is fast enough to keep Atticus the cat running for cover. Ian is very curious about everything and rarely misses anything happening around him. In only 9 months, he's grown so much and still fills my life with joy. How on earth did I ever get by without him?

Tonsillectomy

On July 31st I had my tonsils savagely ripped from my throat and placed in the garbage. What sort of cruel world do we live in where people walk into these torture chambers (called hospitals), willingly sign the consent forms saying they acknowledge that they could "die" from the procedure and won't sue the doctor, and then allow themselves to be put to sleep while crazed doctors and their sidekick nurses go to town cutting into their bodies? It is our world! We are the people who sit by and let these things happen. the Doctors and Nurses could very well be vacationing in Hawaii during our painful recoveries. They give us drugs like Percoet and Loratab to keep us happy until the pain subsides, but what we don't realize is that we're given just enough medicine to keep us happy for like 4-5 days, and the pain doesn't stop that early. No my friends, the pain rarely stops that early.

I stumbled across this website before my surgery and boy did the advice on it help! Most people think that tonsil removal for an adult would be easy, but let me assure you that it is quite difficult.

I am so grateful that Levi took a week off work to take care of me and the kids through the most difficult stage of my recovery. He was wonderful! He made sure I stayed hydrated, ate at least a little food, and kept me up on my meds. He took complete care of the kids, the cat and the house as well. By the end of the week, he was anxious to get back to work! I imagine that he found homemaking life a bit more challenging then he expected. :) Thank you Levi!

Little Red Riding Hood

On June 7th I participated in an organized cycling ride called the "Little Red Riding Hood". It's a women's only ride and started in Wellsville Utah. Depending on the rout and distance you choose, can take you up to the Idaho border. As I had only given birth to Ian 6 months ago, I choose to do a shorter distance ride. I was shooting for 45 miles, but realized that my body had had enough by 30 miles. I decided to ride long enough to make it to the next rest stop, and ended up riding a total of 40 miles. I was able to borrow a cell phone and called Levi to come find me.

Although I was disappointed that I couldn't finish the last 5 miles, I am proud that I didn't completely give up at 30 miles. I weigh 25 pounds more than I did 4 years ago when I first participated, and that extra weight certainly made a big difference in my performance. Last time I was able to finish 70 miles, and I was certainly tired afterward. I hope to be lighter and in better shape for next year's event.

Sick, Sick, Sick!

Lucky me, I'm sick again! For the last 6 or so months I've had a constant sore tonsil. I visited the doctor and discovered that I have Strep. I've been on antibiotics for the last 2 weeks, but yesterday I woke up with a fever, chills and lower back pain. I was refusing to believe that my kidney was giving me trouble, so I took some Advil and tried to ignore the rest. I know that sounds like a stupid thing to do, but you have to understand how horrible it's been to suffer from constant kidney troubles for the last 7 months (since October 31st when I had my first kidney stone).

I woke up this morning feeling awful once again, but decided that maybe I should have my new doctor take a look at the situation. I'm so glad I did. I have a swollen lymph node that's concerning him almost as much as my kidney. He gave me some different drugs and insisted that I keep him very well informed on all three problems I'm struggling with right now. I just love my new doctor! I am a person, not a record number. He's knowledgeable, kind and funny. It was a fluke that we chose him, and I'm so glad we did.

With the women's only organized ride The Little Red Riding Hood coming up next weekend, it's a critical time for me to get more riding time on my bike. It's frustrating to get ready for the ride while struggling with one health problem after another. I may be the slowest rider, and the only one who takes one of the shorter paths, but I'm going to do it this year!

A New Game

I have been challenged to a new game. It happened several weeks ago, but I've been missing from the blog world for a while due to my health. I went to the doctor finally and it looks like I've had strep throat for quite a while. I had no idea! Anyway, on with the challenge!

4 Things I Did 10 Years Ago (1998)

1- My cousin and I backpacked through Europe for the first time. We left almost exactly at this time (first part of June). Four hours before flying out, the guy I was crazy about broke up with me. I was also still recovering from the worst sunburn I had ever had.

2- I was attending SLCC and my favorite class was Geology.

3- I had long permed hair and thought I looked fabulous!

4- I was working at Matrix Marketing in the credit department.

4 Things I Did 5 Years Ago (2003)

1- 2003 was a fabulous year for me. I had just purchased my own condo and was starting fresh in the area. I met Michelle (who challenged me to this game) and I went to Karate with her a couple times. I dated lots and lots of guys from my ward. Loved it!

2- I had my first roommate and discovered the ups and downs of living with other people not related. I honestly can say that I didn't enjoy this experience. We often fought over the same men.

3- I lost hearing in my left ear and suffered from horrible dizziness. I was finally diagnosed with Meniere's Syndrome early the following year.

4- I had two blind dates right around the same time and both were disasters. Liz set me up with a friend who was used to women flinging themselves over him. Blah! I think I'm the first person to be unimpressed by him. The second blind date Michelle set me up with her cousin. That was a disaster. A few weeks later I started to date Levi. We were with a group of friends on vacation when I realized my true feelings for this man. It took 2 blind date disasters for me to finally see what I had been looking for.

4 Things I Did Yesterday

1- I put flowers on Liz's grave. This is the first time I've been there since the funeral.

2- Made Orange Chicken and Pot Stickers.

3- Made curtains for the VW van.

4- Saved the lives of many earth worms who came to the cement to dry off. I also pulled Anna out of the mud where she had been having the time of her life playing.

4 Shows I Love to Watch

1- LOST

2- Moonlight

3- Farmer Wants a Wife

4- Stargate SG1

4 Things I Love to Do

1- Sleep

2- Craft, sew, scrapbook

3- Play on computer

4- Laugh and play with Levi and the kids.

I tag Abby, Wendi, Missy, Sarah, and Jaynie

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I should be more flattered that Anna wants to be just like me. She repeats far too many of the things I say, she likes to wear my big shoes on her tiny feet, she even likes to dance when she sees me moving to music. Lately she's been wanting to be a mom too. Her doll is her "Baby", and goes all over with her. If I place Ian in his car seat, Anna feels that her doll should also go into that car seat. Where ever Ian is, her doll should be there as well. This isn't a problem unless she feels that Ian is hogging a certain toy. For instance, if Ian is in the exersaucer and Anna feels her doll should be there, it's war. Here are some pictures of Anna treating her baby doll as well has her baby brother gets treated. Everywhere you see her doll is where Ian is usually sitting.

Here Anna is feeding (nursing) her doll. She's even using my nursing pillow and sitting in my favorite spot.




Here Anna is letting her doll play in Ian's tent.



To get the kids around, I use a double stroller. One day I hear Anna yelling for me and discovered that she placed her doll in the back seat (where Ian usually sits) and she climbed into the front seat. She was begging for a stroller ride.



This sweet girl keeps me young.

My Life Theme Music

Do you ever hear a song that totally describes your life as it currently runs from day to day? Here is a song by Weird Al that is my life exactly!

Click here for the song.

On that same note, there is another song that I often sing to myself whenever I'm overly nervous, usually moments before a job interview. It's the "I have Confidence in Me" song from the movie and musical "Sound of Music".

What are some of your theme songs?

Fishing for Tilapia

One Utah lake off I-80 near the Utah and Nevada border contains Tilapia. The lake is Blue Lake and it contains some natural warm water springs that keep the water warm enough for the Tilapia to thrive even in the cold Utah winters. You can view the official information here.

Levi and I often purchase this mild fish. It's very delicious covered with a sauce that contains equal parts of mayo and sour cream, some dill weed, small amount of lemon juice and Parmesan cheese. Cook this under the broiler. YUM!

Now it appears that I can start catching my own tilapia.

Atticus

This is Atticus. He weighs 17 pounds, and is 5 years old. He likes to lick plastic, play tag with Anna, steal food from Anna's high chair, begs for milk, plays with twisty ties, blocks my path, and plays with his stuffed animal Bageria.

This morning at around 4am, he located a plastic bag on my dresser. Over the next hour, he ruffled and licked that plastic bag all over. By the time I fully awoke from the noise, my nerves were rather tight. I chased him away from the plastic bag, then attempted to hide it away from him. Within moments, he had located a bag of diapers that he immediately started to ruffle and lick. I chased him away from this bag as well, only to find that he was determined to lick some kind of plastic. In all, I chased him away from 4 different noisy plastic type bags from the hours of 4am to 6am. Boy I'm tired today.

Even as I type this entry, he is sitting in front of the monitor trying to block my view. I have removed him from this location 3 times in the last 5 minutes. I know he just wants attention, but after the bag fiasco this morning, I'm not anxious to play with him.

If the kids don't drive me crazy, Atticus certainly will!

Time Heals

It's been a month since Liz passed away. I have to confess that I've been trying hard not to think too much about it, but everyday things remind me of Liz, and of how much I miss her. For instance, every time I hear the song "Quack Quack" by The Wiggles, I can see Liz singing and dancing to the tune. When I watch a chick flick, I'm reminded that she always knew the best chick flicks and had a huge collection. The PJs I'm wearing right now were once hers. Her favorite color is the same as mine, pink. The cold weather reminds me of the times I would drive to Logan and spend the weekend with her and Dave. Liz even gave me a tour of USU when I was trying to decide what to do with my life. She is the one who pointed out that Me, Dave and Darren all had the same funny eating habit. My friend Missy wrote a title of one of her blog posts that popped another memory from the 2007 family Christmas party where she and Dave sang the song, "Baby it's Cold Outside" written by Frank Loesser in 1944. There were no dry eyes in the room after they sang. Every time I bundle Ian in his blanket I'm reminded that it's the last thing she ever made.

Days after Ian was born she asked to hold him, and since we were in a hurry and he was already bundled and asleep in his car seat, I didn't want to get him out for her to hold. This memory will haunt me, as I knew at the time that she was very ill, but I believed that there would be plenty of other opportunities for her to hold him. I was so wrong. When she started to decline, it all happened so rapidly that we were all in shock. By then, it was too late.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I miss Liz. I'm sorry that I didn't get to tell her how much I loved her and how she blessed my life. I'm sorry for all the missed opportunities I had to call and chat with her. I'm sorry I moved too far away to visit her often and help out with her kids. I wish I could have held and hugged her in her last days. Oh, how I miss sweet Liz.

It's Been 2 Months!

As of yesterday, Ian turned 2 months old. He is healthy and growing bigger each day. He's already in 3-6 month clothing. He's not chubby, just big. He is adored by his big sister, who is constantly trying to share toys with him, is anxious to keep a binki in his mouth at all times, and loves to give him a thrill ride when he's sitting in his swing. It's hard to believe that he's only been a member of our family for 2 months, as I can't imagine how we ever did without him.

Choosing Paint Colors

This weekend I decided that it was time we started to make this house our home. It's hard to call a place home when you seriously dislike the colors of the walls. With some help from Levi's mom, we selected some fun color samples and started to imagine our walls differently. We started to paint the main living area of our home on Friday night and have been happy with the color choice. It's Valspar's "Dust Bunny" color. Late last night we started to switch out our soft white bulbs for the full spectrum energy efficient bulbs. Our walls suddenly have an attractive purple hue when the lights are on. This does not bother me, but Levi finds this sudden change to be quite disturbing. So we're going back to the soft white bulbs for now.

It's interesting how lighting can completely change a look. For instance, last month at the salon I had high lights and low lights colored into my hair. After the coloring, I could not see any difference in my hair appearance, although both hair stylists kept talking about how beautiful my new colors looked. I figured the florescent lights were making it difficult to truly see the change. Once I got home and was able to see the changes in soft white light, I realized that I should never have tipped the woman so much money!

Which by the way, I'm now looking for a new stylist. Anyone have any excellent recommendations?

Updates on the Diet

A week ago I announced that I was on a diet. For almost that whole week, I was on a diet. I was constantly hungry, irritable, and rather depressed that the weight wasn't coming off faster. No matter how perfectly I followed the diet food plan, I was left feeling hungry after each meal, and famished before the next meal came.

Levi and I are reading the Book of Mormon, and in 1 Nephi, chapter 16, Nephi breaks his bow. Everyone is upset because this is one of the major sources of food for them. Everyone but Nephi starts murmuring. Do you know why? I do. It's because they were HUNGRY! You can take a normal, rational person and turn them into monsters, simply by taking away their food!

Because of this most valuable lesson, both from my starving body, and the lesson taught in 1 Nephi, I have decided to make a change to my originial diet plan. I no longer starve myself. That is no way to live. Levi recommend that I start the day off with a nice, satisfying breakfast, then eat a much smaller lunch and dinner. I tried this today, and wow, it worked. I ate an omelette (certainly not an approved food item for my diet), and I filled it with all sorts of veggies. The meal was so satisfying that I actually wasn't hungry after, or even at lunch time. I had to force myself to eat something small for lunch. Now that it's dinner time, I'm starting to get hungy, but so thrilled that the famished feeling is no longer an hourly plague.

So it may take me a bit longer to loose all this old pregnancy weight, but big deal. If any of you make fun of me during swimming suit season, I may have to respond with a few rude comments back.

Another BAD Haircut

I didn't think it was possible to get so many bad haircuts in a row, but I'm living proof that it can, and sometimes does happen. Here are two pictures where the true awfulness of the "do" show through.

My most recent cut is sadly even shorter and uglier then what you see here. As the lady finished cutting my hair, she said, "Well, it's a bit shorter than what you want, but it will be the perfect length in about a month." Are you kidding me? This sad truth has left me in a position where I despise walking past mirrors and I cringe everytime I head out in public. As a result, I am saying goodbye to short hair. If you see me walking around with a wig, please don't make fun, or I may just punch you in the jaw.

Christmas Presents

I feel I need to mention that I am a new owner of a Yamaha Music Keyboard. It's the YPT 300 model and has so many features, I'm still trying to figure them out. Levi has been teaching himself to play and someday I can picture him composing his own stuff. It's been fun to pull out my old music and try to perform something pleasant with my rusty talent.

Also for Christmas I received lots of cute clothes, fun DVD's and a new computer game, Sims 2! For anyone who doesn't already know, I've spent the last year completely addicted to the Sims Deluxe game Levi's dad gave me last year. Now with this new Sims 2 game, I'm staying up super late each night trying to make my Sims 2 people happy and successful. So fun!

With a few cheat codes I found online, I also have rich sims!

Christmas 2006

My dear friend Missy has dared me to post on our Christmas adventure. Being a gal that can't seem to pass up a dare, here I go.

The weeks leading up to Christmas were hectic. Anna and I both got sick with colds, and Levi was finishing up his finals. There was also all the goodie baking to do, and I couldn't pass it up. This year I made every one's favorite Blueberry Pound Cake, English Toffee and the oh so delicious Cranberry-Pecan Rugalach. I ate so much Rugalach, I actually gained 5 pounds over the holidays. I only know this because I weighed myself last night and discovered that I'm at an all time high. Consequently, I joined SparkPeople, a weight loss, lifestyle change program that's FREE (music to my ears). My goal is to loose 25 pounds by June 1st 2007. That means I'll have to loose 2.5 pounds per week. Wish me luck everyone!

Back to the adventures of Christmas: We enjoyed a family party at my parent's home and ate delicious food. We even managed to bring a little of it home with us. There we had the family talent show and were fortunate Levi and I were the least talented performers of the day. My niece played a little jingle on the piano, then Levi and I had the kids join in on a Wiggles Pirate School song. We sang badly, but everyone seemed to have fun.

On the 22nd, Anna was able to ride in an airplane for the first time as we went to Washington to celebrate with Levi's parents. She was the quietest baby on the plane and was also the favorite of at least one flight attendants. She had so much fun playing with Grandma and Grampa. They played with her and tried so hard to teach her to crawl. They were so good at it that Anna took her first crawling steps on Christmas Eve. She also met her uncle Nathan and had fun looking at him (as he and Levi have many similar facial qualities). Once again, we were all spoiled silly in Washington and it was hard to say goodbye and come home.

The festivities were fun, but everyone felt a bit sad this year. My sister in law had recently discovered that her cancer was back and growing fast. We all tried hard to smile even though we all felt the ache in our hearts for her. We know that her treatment will be rough and we wish we could help her fight this cancer better. Our prayers are with you each day Liz!

Service Auction

Last night my niece and I participated in a service/goods auction at my church. Instead of using real money, we used funny money. Your spending amount was based on a survey you took that questions your emotional, spiritual, physical and general well being. I was able to get 265 funny money dollars and my niece had near the same amount. We each donated items. My niece made a cookie bouquet in a Halloween theme. There were ghost and pumpkin shaped cookies decorated expertly by herself. I donated 2 loafs of my delicious honey wheat bread, a child/infant bracelet and headband. It filled us both with delight to see as people were bidding on our items.

Although there were lots of items I wanted to bid on, I wanted to bid on my own items. Smelling that bread cook earlier in the day, making the headbands and bracelets, sewing the dish towels to go around the bread, all that hard work made me want to keep my items. But no worries, I did not bid on my own items. I had my niece do that for me. I hope that the people who won my items will enjoy them, as I enjoyed making them. By the way, give them back! Just kidding.

Some of the other items offered were, homemade fudge & cookies, Avon Halloween decoration (which I wanted so badly, but ran out of funny money dollars), haircut gift certificate (which my niece won), swing dancing lessons, Babysitting for one night (I won one of these), desserts each Monday night for a month, child's quiet play kit, baskets of Arbonne lotions and lip gloss (I won one of these) and a Clinique make-up kit. There were many other items available, but I can't remember them at this time. There were lots of very nice items offered and It was such fun to participate. This is certainly one of the most enjoyable Enrichment Night activities I've attended.

Popcorn or Diapers?

If you read this, you might choose to never eat buttered popcorn again.

From the moment we brought our baby home, we noticed that her poopy diapers didn't seem to smell bad, but had a weird sort of sweet smell. As I am nursing, we figured it was due to all the sweets I keep eating. As the baby grows, so does the intensity of her poopy diapers. I can now say that if blindfolded and asked to identify the poopy diaper from the bag of buttered popcorn, I couldn't tell them apart.

I don't think I'll be hungry for popcorn anytime soon.