February and April

Two months out of the year that give me heartburn.

Why? Because those are the months out of each year Uncle Sam forces me to have my elderly vehicles checked for emissions and safety. Maybe this isn't a big deal for you folks with cars manufactured in the year 00 or higher but for us it tends to be a problem.

This year the Lord was smilin' on us because there was no check engine light on the dash when February rolled around. Honestly, the things some people take for granted!

Naturally, I thought it was in the bag. Gonna pass for sure....right??

Wrong.

Apparently a car needs a tailpipe and a muffler in order to pass inspection. Who knew?

p.s. I thought about arguing that it had passed for the last 3 years without either but I didn't think it would help my case...

My Sweetest Lola

My friend, Annie, was subbing in nursery a few Sundays back and told Quinn a story about our dear Lola.

Apparently Lola was reading a book when a boy tried to take it away from her. Annie told the boy he could have his turn with the book as soon as Lola was done.

When Quinn got to this point in telling me the story my chest slightly puffed up in pride because surely this was going to be an example of what an excellent sharer Lola had become as a result of her mother's fine teaching and example.

Hmm.

As the story goes, instead of sweetly smiling and letting the little boy have a turn, her face turned contrary and she declared, "I will never be done with this book."

Daily drama

Last night the chair broke.




This morning the mirror shattered all over my bedroom thanks to the baby.



In case you're wondering, this is a picture of a mirror inside of my garbage can. Super disgusting.(not pictured is me in my front yard this morning taking pictures inside my garbage can while wearing my pajamas.)

There were 2 silver linings to the broken mirror: 1. The baby wasn't cut. Obviously. 2. I finally vacuumed my bedroom floor.

Now hurry and click somewhere else so you don't have to look at that gross garbage picture anymore. HURRY.

helpful kitchen hints

1. Don't use your stove top as a counter (aka- don't pile crap on it).
2. Make sure you turn on the correct burner.







Failure to follow these simple rules may ruin your cookbook and fill your kitchen with acrid fumes that make your dog sneeze ten thousand times.

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

The Fabricators

I just got home from pack meeting where Fabricator No. 1 told the nice couple that lives down the street, "my mom has shawp knives. She cuts my fingews with them."



She also kept telling me yesterday that "Forrest threw Grant down the staiws." Grant is my cousin's toddler who was over here yesterday but absolutely did not get thrown the stairs by Forrest. Unless I totally missed it. Which is a possibility but I'm 99% sure it didn't happen.

Fabricator No. 2.



This one keeps telling me that I fed him peanut cake and that that is why he keeps coughing. Seriously. When I tell him that the only only only time he has had peanuts was when he was a baby he tells me that what I am telling him is just not true.

bodily functions

This afternoon someone (I wouldn't want to mention any names cough*forrest*cough)peed inside one of my living room cabinets.

I'm still not sure why.

This evening, I had a "chocolate or poop" moment involving a brown blob in my entryway.

Unfortunately for me it was the latter.

At age seventeen, I truly had no idea how much my late twenties/early thirties would involve poop and pee.

my day

This morning I got rear-ended on the freeway (thankfully, nobody was hurt).

Then, I spent nearly the entire day having a "Jurassic Journey" at cub scout camp.

Afterwards, while trying to help a woman get her ENORMOUS vehicle out of a teeny tiny (I sure wish I knew how to make that word actually small) "parking space" (I put that in quotations because it wasn't a parking space at all. It was a gap between some trees) anyway, I was trying to guide her out of the space and she crashed her car into some trees. I felt really dumb and she was really mad.

When I told Quinn about it I started crying (I am blaming the pregnancy). He just laughed hysterically. When I got to my mom's house to pick up my kids I told her and my brother and sister-in-law and they all laughed hysterically too. I guess it was funny.

How was your day?

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.

Weekend Update

Quinn and I used Cade's timeshare in Park City this year to celebrate our 8th anniversary. We stayed the night last Saturday and had an awesome time.



Highlights included Quinn's feet completely coming out from underneath him on the slippery tiles in front of a hot tub full of people (including me who might have laughed a little) and me scraping up my face while swimming into the side of the pool (karma is a very mean lady).



I love you baby! Thanks for 8 freaking awesome years and I hope next year's celebration is less painful.

My parents split the week at the timeshare with us and they went up Tuesday night. We crashed their party last night so we all had a big sleepover in the suite. It was quite the party.





Forrest loved the Superman hat Grandma bought him and it was a real tearjerker when he lost it out of the window of the car on the freeway. Still not quite sure how that happened.


And, finally, we just got home from waiting in line for 1+ hours to get our kids vaccinated for the swine flu. We just really didn't want them growing little curly tails and hooves.

The end.

Get me in touch with Margaret Rey

Nevermind- I just wikipedia'd Margaret Rey to make sure I spelled her name correctly and it looks like she died in 1996. Sad. She was born in 1906 so that's a pretty good stretch.

Moving on.

Did y'all hear about that woman's pet chimp that attacked and tried to kill her friend? Quinn and I saw a special on television a little while back about people who didn't have kids so they decided to buy monkeys and treat them like kids. In time, the monkeys ended up attacking them.

It gave me an idea for a new Curious George episode.



The Man in the Yellow Hat better watch out.

Have You Ever Heard the One About the Tape Measure?

Lola finds it hysterical.

egg whites and whipping cream are no match for...

Beater Boy.

He's fearsome.




He's fearless.




He...




wears his mommy's snow boots.

strange things afoot at the circle k

A few weeks ago I was walking into my neighborhood grocery store, Harmons (da da). Did anyone get that?? From the old Harmon's commercials...nevermind.

Anyway, I am walking through the parking lot and can't help but notice an older model brown Ford LTD crammed, I mean CRAMMED full of....(is the suspense killing you??)...bread. All kinds of hostess wonderbread, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, you name it it was in there. The passenger seat was full, the backseat was full and the trunk was also brimming with wonderbread. How do I know that? Because it was open. Weird, I know.

The specatacle brought many questions to my mind. Who was this person? Where in the world did they get all of this bread? It made me think of my grandma's older-folks apartment when sometimes there was a stash of bread in the foyer that was fair game for anyone who wanted it. However, there was never in that foyer anywhere near the quantity of bread I saw in this person's LTD. The most pressing question the bread-car aroused was, "why oh why don't you have your camera so you can show that one person who reads your blog a picture of this bread-car?"

Surprisingly as time went on I forgot all about the bread car. Until yesterday.

Yesterday I was driving back from, you guessed it, my neighborhood grocer. I was thinking about whatever happened to be rolling around between my ears at any given moment and I saw the bread car! It was parked in front of a chain-link fence blocking off a canal in an area frequented by all sorts of folks feeding ducks.

The presumed owner of the bread-car was elderly and doing some fantastic gymnastical maneuvers in an attempt to get handfuls of bread over the fence to the eager ducks waiting on the other side. Here is the kicker: I know the owner of the bread car. He lives behind me.

Are you waiting for the point of this story? Well, guess what? There isn't one.

Why I Prefer to Shop with Humans of the Female Variety

me: I can't decide if I want to buy these pants or not. Are they too tight?

Quinsta: I don't know, are they?

me: Do you think they are too tight?

Quinsta: I think the wearer of the pants would be the person to know if they are too tight or not.

me: sigh.

Quinsta: If they are uncomfortable then they are too tight.


That is why I prefer to go shopping with a fellow female who at this point will tell me if my pants look too tight. Because, really, who cares if they feel too tight anyway. If they look good they should be worn no matter how uncomfortable they are. Is that so wrong?

My mother taught me this lesson at a very young age while french-braiding my hair. In the quest for a lump-free, flawless braid, she was pulling each section so tight it felt like my ears were stretched to the back of my head and when I whined about it she simply informed me without any compassion in her voice that, "beauty hurts."

I feel a kinship with my 10th Century Japanese sisters who had their feet bound. Okay, I guess I got a little carried away. It isn't the same thing. At all.

Daytime Television Truths

I admit it. I will even shout it: I LOVE ALL MY CHILDREN! I know, I know it is cheesy and ridiculous. It is mind-numbing brain candy but I eat it up every chance I get.

I got hooked on it many many years ago when the middle-aged women I used to work with were glued to it during our lunch hour. I developed a slight crush on Leo Dupree and hoped with all my heart and he and Greenlee Smythe would one day finally find true happiness with each other (Obviously I did not know about the Daytime Television Truths then).

One day after I had left the workforce to pursue my current exploits as a Holly Homemaker I was walking around the filthy house in my slippers with my hair in curlers and stuffing bonbons into my bonbon hole when I flipped on the TV and to my supreme delight I saw Ryan Lavery about to get married to some broad I didn't recognize (little did I know she would eventually go completely nuts after killing her brother and stab Erica Kane at Zach Slater's company fundraiser). Oh, I had missed them terribly and hadn't even realized it. I think it took me about 2 weeks to get completely up to date on the happenings in Pine Valley after about 5 years of not watching a single episode.

For your reading pleasure I have articulated a few All My Children truths. I think they are pretty universal and would apply to most soap operas. Here goes.

1. You know someone is about to die as soon as they finally find true bliss with their on-again-off-again fiance or spouse (when Leo and Greenlee finally found it he want sailing over a waterfall on his motorcycle and died).

2. You can be forgiven for virtually anything including murder, drugging an entire town with libidozone (a drug which you invented for that purpose), kidnapping, adultery, throwing someone into a pool on their wedding day while in their wedding dress, arson, pretending someone elses baby is yours, the list goes on and on and on and well, you get the idea).

3. You can have children (even newborn babies) without ever taking care of them and not even appearing to care where they are most of the time (that is until they get kidnapped).

4. You can have a perfect body and a perfectly clean house without ever exercising or cleaning your house.

5. It is way more common than you think to fall over a waterfall and die.

6. A healthy number of people in a small town go completely nuts.

7. An equally healthy number of people in a small town are also demonically evil.

8. Acting lessons are overrated.

I am really looking forward to Kendall waking up from her coma (which she slipped into after being injured in the recent tornado) to find out that her lesbian sister, Bianca, used her hubby's tadpoles to make herself a baby. I have a feeling that Kendall forgiving Bianca just may be this year's Christmas Miracle.

Weekdays at 12:00 on ABC.

Who Says I Don't Love My Dog?

OK family, don't answer that.

Yesterday Q-man asked me what the heck that big lump on Ashes' ear was. I hadn't noticed any lump on her ear so I found her and confirmed that she indeed had a big gross lump on her ear and I reported to Q-man that I had no idea what the heck that big lump on Ashes' ear was.

I have a bit of an active imagination and tend to go a little overboard so I started imagining the vet telling me that the lump was cancer and that Ashes only had a few months to live and I started getting very sad. I also started to feel some guilt about the fact that she has been neglected since the chitlin came along. To be totally honest I also felt guilty about being kinda sorta mean to her lately and by lately I mean for the past 2 or so years. I know, it is an ugly truth and I am ashamed of it.

I decided to give the old girl a bath today partly because she is FILTHY from spending most of her time outside and partly because I wanted to inspect the lump.

While lathering up her head I scrubbed her ears and felt some cakey dry stuff on top of the "lump" so I began to pull it off in an effort to clean it off. Upon close inspection I saw the lump begin to ooze---THIS GETS YUCKY SO IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH---so where were we...oh yeah, the lump was oozing yellowish greenish nastiness. I did what anyone would do- I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and I squoze. ew ew ew ew ew ew ew Miles and miles of stringy puss shot out of the lump. Just thinking about it now is making the hint of lime tostitos I ate a few hours ago do a dance in my tummy. ew. I then globbed a healthy dose of neosporin on the now lump-less area.

Here is a picture of old puss-ear herself:



I guess it wasn't cancer (sigh of relief).

That is the thing about pets. Occasionally you have to do this really really gross stuff. Like the time Q-man and I were up Millcreek Canyon with her and she decides to squat right in the middle of the trail and starts pooping out an entire paper towel. Q-man had to get two sticks and help her finish getting it out because it got stuck. Meanwhile I hid behind some trees and watched the horror on the other hikers' faces who saw a man pulling complete paper towels out of his dog's butt. Being a pet owner definitely has it's ups and downs.

I really sympathize with Ashes. She used to be our baby before we had real ones. We took her everywhere (I think my parents must have cringed everytime they saw the dog jump out of our car when we came to visit). Granted, we never took her to the mall to get pictures of her on Santa's lap (ha! can you imagine)but she did go from getting tons of attention and being the center of our world to just being the dog. When it comes right down to it I know dogs don't live forever and when that day comes it will be a very, very sad one.