bits and pieces

A numbered list of blogworthy items:

1. We're currently knee-deep in an exhausting front yard makeover which should come to a head on Saturday (provided it isn't snowing). Maybe I'll post pictures when it's done. But if I'm being honest- it's not likely that I'll actually get around to doing that. We'll see.

2. Lola has taken an excerpt from a children's book about Samson: "Oh Lord, make me strong just one more time," and she keeps saying it at random times when doing something difficult. Like when trying to open the front door. Or going number 2.

3. Last Sunday, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Forrest shovel a huge handful of sacrament bread into his mouth while giving the deacon a sideways glace. Then, with a straight face he told me, "it wasn't more than one piece...it was just one really large piece."

4. Don't tell the environmentalists but I keep running my dishwasher nearly empty so I don't have to wash bottles. I hate hate HATE washing out bottles.

5. If you want a laugh and don't have cable, turn your TV to channel 16-2 after 10 pm. They play episodes of He-man. They are super-funny but I think the show would be a little more realistic if they showed Prince Adam or He-man in a tanning bed, getting his roots touched up, and having his little friend with the "O" on his nightgown injecting him in the behind with anabolic steroids.

The End

the price you pay

On the morning these photos were taken (since I'm not a same-day blogger...wish I was) I did some yoga, took a shower, and had a nice lenghthy chat with my cousin.

I guess my rowdies were bored because they tore up this box.


No big deal really. Thing I really wanted to share with you was the reason this little girl's face and hair is wet.


You can't really tell in the photo but she's got wet dreds and her shirt is wet also.

The reason? She's been drinking from the dog's dish.

None of this really disturbs me all that much. I figure...it's the price I'm willing to pay for a bit of freedom. You know- to do the yoga and shower and talk on the phone.

Completely unrelated but Quinn painted the kids' faces over the weekend. They were thrilled.

Dear Diary

This is my husband.

What a handsome guy, eh?

Love the bald head.

Love love love the beard.

Love the crow's feet.

In this picture, however, the thing I find absolutely sexy is the dishtowel slung over his shoulder. It means he's been doing dishes and here he is washing the counter. Oh my. Someone get me a cold glass of water.

In other news:

Last week Forr told one of Quinn's co-workers that the blue eyeshadow she had caked on her eyes made him want to laugh. And laugh he did.
I realize my house is a hideous mess- we were putting away Christmas. Not to say it wouldn't be a hideous mess anyway.


Lola says adorable 2 year-oldish things like calling Alice in Wonderland Alice in Laundryland. And she named the little wooden puppet my parents brought her back from Italy Hokeydokeydoe which I'm pretty sure means Pinocchio.



Elias is now smiling lots. I think he is a real person after all instead of a cute little creature that just eats and sleeps. He is the best.baby.ever.



I realize he isn't smiling in any of these pictures. But he looks cute anyway.

If you should one day happen to find yourself…

With a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a newborn, firstly you should consider yourself extremely blessed. Secondly, you should consider these things which might make your life a bit easier:

1. If aforementioned 4 and 2 year olds share a room and wake up in the wee hours (wee hours= any time before your sleep-deprived self would like to get out of bed) consider turning the channel of your tv to 16-2 (the channel that plays cartoons and Montell Williams commercials all the time) each night after you and the hubs finish watching episodes of Madmen. Also, teach your kids how to turn on the tv by themselves.
2. Put some food that they will eat (I would suggest goldfish crackers and chocolate teddy grahams) in a place where they can reach it. Warning: these items will disappear quickly and might constitute the children’s breakfast on some(most) mornings. However, this, along with suggestion #1 will allow you to sleep past 5 am. Also, don’t forget to put some plastic cups where they can reach them and don’t get mad when there is water all over the floor. Just be grateful you got to sleep past 5 am.
3. When you sit down to feed the newborn, bring the bottle of hand sanitizer with you. That way, when the other children immediately materialize and begin pawing at the baby you can kill the germs causing their snot waterfalls before they infect your teeny tiny baby.
4. Whenever the 2 year old asks you to “mawy” (marry) you must certainly agree to do it. Marrying or mawying means you go into the kitchen where the music is playing, join hands and dance. You must do this because your 2 year old is adorable, it really is fun, and finally, because she will grow up and someday mawy some guy for real.
5. Learn to appreciate the 4 year old’s…um…zest for life. Understand that his need to make random high-pitched noises and fire his toy gun repeatedly in your ear are a result of being cooped up inside for a month. Write down some of the awesome things he says.
6. Remember how quickly the newborn phase passes and snuggle this warm, soft piece of heaven all day long.
7. Also remember every day that life is a progress, not a station. Try not to feel so sad that these days aren’t going to last forever that you don’t properly appreciate and enjoy them.

Just so you know, I chicken-pecked this entire post while pumping.
Moooooooooo

Meet Eli

Elias Walker Evans born 11/12/10 at 1:30 pm 5 lbs. 15 oz.



He surprised us all by coming 3 weeks plus 1 day early. What a happy surprise!



Mommy loves him



Daddy loves him



Forr and Lo love him too



Some details:
I started having regular contractions last Thursday at about 7:30 pm. Considering my other babies were late and I had to be induced with both, I was sure I was in fake labor and the contractions would stop. Alas, they kept coming. Around 11:00 pm I informed my sweet husband that we should possibly pack some bags.

We arrived at the hospital around 2:00 am on Friday morning where my contractions decided to slooooooow waaaaaaay down. Frustrating. We hung out and hung out and walked around the maternity ward until the nurse broke my water around 12:45 pm. Baby came like a freight train! Neither the doctor nor the doula made it in time for the delivery. Two sweet nurses delivered the baby. It was exciting. Eli's delivery was a beautiful experience which I will never forget. Quinn was the best doula ever! He was truly amazing.

We have been home for just a week and our baby has been having trouble gaining weight. It seems like all I do is try to force food into a sleeping baby, pump, and wash bottles. He has another doctor appt tomorrow and I feel like we are on The Biggest Gainer. I hope he has put on some ounces. I'll keep you posted.

Some Very Important Items

Much to our surprise yesterday after 2 months of flat-out refusing to be in the primary program Forrest decided to join the other children on the stand in the chapel. We didn't pressure him or make a big deal about but I really did hope he would decide to it. He also waltzed up to the microphone to say his part when it was his turn which surprised the heck out of me and totally made me cry. Meanwhile, Lola was beating up my mom and calling her names in the pew.




AND...Lola's potty-trained. All it really took was getting her some tinkerbell panties and she was there. She spent 2 weeks carting around armloads of panties and studying them every time she sat down.



Lola also got some new glittery Sunday shoes that obviously hurt her ankles. She refuses to let me put band-aids on the parts of her foot that the shoes rub raw but also insists on wearing the shoes so she just sort of hobbles around in them. My mom came up to watch the primary program yesterday and we had to laugh because both she and I were wearing shoes that hurt our feet. The three of us hobbled out to the car after the block. What can I say besides: beauty hurts.

And I haven't called Cache Valley to complain about the unmeltable cheese because my to-do list is already too long:
1. Make DDS Appts.
2. Find out if Lola needs a booster shot for the flu shot she got last week.
3. Get Forr's bloodwoork done and get him into the allergist.
4. Get Lola out of her crib and into a bed.
5. Show Forrest pictures of what lungs looks like.
6. Many many household chores are also on this list but I am not going to mention any of them.

Girls Night Out

Tuesday morning my sister, Chelsea, my mom, and I (along with my chitlins) headed East for the Cherokee Ranch to go camping.

My mom was so nice to give me a break and hang out with Lola at the toilet (potty training.....argh). Forr and Grandma caught 2 horny toads. We saw a dead tree that had been struck by lightning and completely blown apart. I'm not going to mention any names but someone got walked-in-on by an old man while going to the bathroom at a gas station.

I am indeed blessed to have these two awesome women in my life. Love you mom and Chelsea. What would I do without you?

expensive lunch date

Today was doctor appts. Hooray.

Kidding. Wait, kidding about the hooray part, not the doc appt part.

Forrest had his 4 year old appt and Lola had a follow-up ear infection appt for an ear infection she had probably more than a month ago. That's how on top of things I am.

After the doc we met the hubs for lunch at Jimmy Johns. After we finished we were greeted by parking tickets on BOTH of our cars to the tune of $50 smackers apeice!! Apparently there were signs posted saying 'no jimmy johns parkers allowed' which I didn't see. Really, I didn't because I would have followed the rule.

Is it breaking the rule if you didn't see the sign?

For my revenge, I'm considering staging a stake out in that parking lot in order to find the secret spy who sits and watches for rule breakers in order to put tickets on their cars. I'm thinking I might just tell that secret spy how lame I think that is.

The end.

Summer 2010

So I feel so uncreative in my blogging technique lately. My brain has pretty much turned into oatmeal...not even hot fresh steel cut oats with butter and brown sugar...it's the stuff that gets left on the stove for hours and turns cold and globby. That's my brain. For example, yesterday I was getting so frustrated because the dryer wouldn't turn on. It took me a great while to discover that I was trying to turn it on with the door wide open...

Preg update: feeling great! Loving yogurt, fruit, and cereal. I think it's a boy but we will find out for sure in a few weeks.

Have you all been dying for another slideshow full of pictures of my children? Well, you're in luck!

To begin, did you all know that Lola is a princess? Well, she is. Thanks grandma and grampa for the outfit (SO ADORABLE!!) Notice that she is wearing her "ball shoes." They are called that not because she could wear them to a ball or something, just because of the balls on them.


Everytime I bake something, Forrest goes about the very serious business of washing all the dishes for me. As you can tell by his face, he takes the job very seriously.


These are all pictures of mommy's belly with a baby inside drawn by Forrest. Pretty good I'd say.


Mi familia. How I adore them...


Quinn was "moving the lawn" as Lola calls it and came around the corner to find these babies sharing a moment. So adorable.


Oh yeah. Here is our 2nd strawberry harvest. Crazy, right? Yep, crazy yummy.


Everyone have a great 4th!!

Lately our life has consisted of:

some pretty awesome outfits,



tender moments (luckily there are rewards for the not-so-tender-moments),



a camping trip,



Oh yeah, and we have some news


It's faint but there's a plus sign there. Baby number three is scheduled to arrive December 4th. We couldn't be more excited.

Sorry about posting a picture of something I peed on :)

like my new header?

Me too.

Bryon, an awesome photographer who also happens to be one heckuva nice guy did our family pictures. He took so many adorable pics of my kids I had a really hard time selecting a few for the old blog.

I'm sure he would be happy to take your photo too. Maybe wait until this semester is over to contact him though since he is currently taking 99 credit hours and working full time.

Thanks Bryon. Did I mention that we love, love, love the pictures?

p.s. after we finished our little photo shoot I sat down in the car and noticed that the back of my leg felt really lumpy through my jeans. I then proceeded to pull out an entire pair of garment bottoms that had been wadded up in my jeans. Yep, I had been walking around all day like that getting my picture taken.

I'm Still Alive

Well, in case you were wondering, I am still alive. Things just keep happening that I want to blog about and then I don't get around to it and then I just feel overwhelmed whenever I think about blogging.

Should I post about our little trip to the sleazy city of sin? Quinn had to go to Las Vegas for work and (after checking the weather forecast) I decided to tag along. Save for the sleaziness it was fun. I spent an entire day all.by.my.self. laying out by the pool. It was incredible. Thanks to Jen, Sara, and Mom for caring for my little preciouses while we were gone. I love you guys.

Should I blog about the tithing jars we made for fhe last night? So cute. Quinn's idea. Aint he something?


Should I blog about how I love Dave Ramsey? I was on my way to the bird refuge with the scouts last week when my car exploded and ended up costing $940 beans to repair. Thanks Dave Ramsey because without you we probably wouldn't have had the emergency fund sitting around waiting for something like this to happen so we could pay for that instead of new furniture.

Should I blog about how we had a fun Easter? Since it doubled as conference, we spent the day at Grams and Gramps.




Should I blog about how much I love my family? Well, I do.



Should I blog about how Forrest just told me, "I like ninjas. Ninjas are cool. I would like to meet some ninjas." He also told me this morning that he wanted to meet the lady from my workout video. Hmmm.

Should I blog about how Lola insists on changing her own diaper. Or about how she talked to and giggled with the snowman we made this morning? Since this is what we awoke to today:


I'm not kidding about how much she loved the snowman. She gave him a kiss goodbye when we had to go inside.

You now probably need to check into detox because you've had an Our Esprit overdose.

A few reasons why Forr is the funniest

1. The muffins I made this morning were, "dang yummy."

2. He told the brain-eating zombie (aka mommy) that he needed all of his brains back in order to keep his head big.

3. When he spilled his milk all over the table today he muttered "what the..." under his breath.

Hogle Zoo '09

Independence Day equals the Loobies annual trek to the zoo.

Highlights, anyone??

Here is the tiger that someone (I wouldn't want to mention any names. Okay, maybe I will...MOM- you crazy lady!!) threw a berry she picked off a bush and threw it at this sleeping tiger. She hit the tiger right in his exposed underbelly causing him to twitch wildly in his sleep.




We tried to get a picture of some of the nieces and nephews together. All of the photos turned out about like this:





Here is a picture of cute Liam (he wasn't around during the photo fiasco):



And finally, here in the background of this photo you will see my cousin who, just by wheeling around in her rented Jazzy provoked the mountain lion so badly it jumped off the "rocks" in it's exhibit and pounced onto the chain-link enclosure trying to attack her.

Memorial Day 2009.

I have been accused of being a compulsive planner so naturally, I had plans for us.

We were to have an early breakfast at Ruth's Diner and then take the kids to the Zoo. Sounded great until I remembered that Quinn would be spending all Memorial Day morning (not to mention all day Saturday and Sunday night prior)repairing and assembling flags for the Scout Fundraiser.

What is that adage about the best laid plans...nevermind.

We ended up sleeping late...ha!!! We slept until 6:00. Then Quinn hung around in the garage with flags and scouts while I got yelled at by Jillian Michaels and then took my babies to browse the yard sale next door.

Since we all had the day off together we decided we had to go somewhere and ended up at C-A-L Ranch where Quinn got himself a cowboy hat (he-llo). Hot Honky Tonk Hubby needed some sunglasses so our next stop was the mall. After we checked out the sunglass collection and ate lunch Quinn pulled us all into the photo booth in the food court. We giggled as we tried to get everyone's face in each picture then waited impatiently for the machine to dispense our prints. We waited....and waited....and waited. They never came.

I was heartbroken. I hadn't realized how much fun I actually had just bumming around with Quinn and the kids. I wanted those pictures so badly. I wanted them so I could remember how precious the day was that we spent together as a family. I get so caught up in everything that is going on sometimes I forget that these days are fleeting.

Life is funny, it's hard for me to enjoy the present and at the same time not be sad about it being so....temporary.

Here's to health, optimism, love, and trying to squeeze every last drop out of every minute we are blessed with on this earth.

Thelma and Louise?

Nope. Just me and my mom ready to embark on an adventure.

Let's go through a few of the differences between Thelma and Louise's idea of an adventure and our idea of an adventure.

For starters, Mae and Mom didn't spend all night drinking, dancing, and then murder somebody.

Mae and Mom didn't meet or make whoopee with Brad Pitt only so he could rob us blind.

Incidentally, Thelma and Louise didn't sing along at the top of their lungs to the Julie Andrews- wannabe nursery rhymes CD.

I also don't remember Thelma and Louise cleaning carsick-kid puke off the carsick kid, carseat, and car.

I guess our adventures were a tad, well, maybe a lot more tame than Thelma and Louise's. We spent a few days at the Cherokee Ranch. Here are some highlights:

Loly (who spent pretty much the entire time shoveling rocks into her mouth).


Here is Daddy on the enormous tractor they rented to level out a spot for the trailer. He is a manly man.


Forr liked the tractor too.



What did Daddy find?


Aww, cute.


A picture of Forr after he was stripped of his pukey clothes.


Thelma and Louise's adventure ended with them holding hands while driving Thelma's 1966 Thunderbird convertable over a cliff.

Our adventure ended with us each riding home with our respective husbands, holding hands, and looking forward to another week.

Freeze Frame

Right now...

Quinn:
1. Working for Questar.
2. Central Serous Corioretinopathy (weird eye thing he has got going on).
3. Scouts, scouts, scouts.
4. Guns, guns, guns.
5. Furiously saving money for a down payment on a home.


Mae:
1. Compulsively looking at homes for sale.
2. Trying very hard to furiously save money for a down payment on a home.
3. Sopping up urine in random places (potty training Forr).
4. Watching cute Liam a few days per week.
5. Working a few days per week.

Forrest:
1. Being such a good boy and going to the bathroom in the potty (most of the time).
2. Scowling and growling a lot at people.
3. Helps mommy with cleaning and cooking.
4. Luffubye (Love you, bye. He whispers this everytime he is finished talking to someone on the phone).
5. Loves to play "king's x" with Grandpa Evans.

Lola:
1. Pulling herself up on everything.
2. Crawling around at astonishing speeds and getting into everything.
3. Loves eating and taking baths.
4. Plays peekaboo.
5. Loves to clap and wave and play pat-a-cake.

St. Paddy's Parade

Each year the weather determines how much fun we have at the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Last year it snowed and we left early because Forrest's lips started to turn blue. Luckily for us (and the bag-pipers) Saturday's weather was gorgeous!

Ma and Pa:


Cousin Eddie (I think he is tired of the "that there is an RV, Clark" joke).


Daddy and Lo:


Aunt Chels:


Cade and Hunter:


Little Liam:



Oh yeah, I took one picture of the parade. It appears to be some sort of a vehicle made out of a coffin?? Not quite sure why I took it.