Nomination

I've decided that its time to put my hat in the running for worst mother of the year. Let's face it, I might as well document it so my kids have something to bring in to their therapists when they are older.

1. My kid is the one with juice in her sippy/bottle. (It is watered down but still there is juice.)
2. My 2 year old still uses a bottle.
3. My 2 year old goes to bed around 10 pm.
4. When at restaurants, its my kid you see running around while I finish eating.
5. I spank.
6. On occasion I yell.
7. My house gets cleaned once maybe twice a week.
8. My dishes are done maybe once a week.
9. My kid walks around in dirty clothes.
10. There are days her hair doesn't get brushed.
11. I have crayon on circles on my walls and sometimes I don't have the energy to wash them off.
12. I tell my daughter to wait so that I can finish blogging, checking email or facebook.
13. I am not consistent with family or personal scripture study or prayer, or family home evening.
14. I lose it on my husband.

Many more to add but hey I still need to put my daughter to bed.

Bedtime

We have been so lucky to have our friend Jordan on this trip. Emily sees Jordan as her bestest friend and is always asking where she is if she isn't in the same room. Jordan is such a good sport! Jordan told me that on Wednesday night Emily tucked her into bed. Jordan was sitting in a chair in her room, reading her scriptures when the door opened. In walked Emily. She walked over to Jordan bed, patted it and said, "Nori, bed" (That is what she calls Jordan and Serena.) So Jordan to humor her climbed into her bed. Emily pulled the blanket up onto Jordan, turned and walked away. When she reached the door she said, "Night, Nori". Then she turned off the light and closed the door. I think that it is hilarious since every morning Emily turns to me and says, "Nori sleeping, shhhh." Then with a grin she will point at the closed door and say, "Nori, up" and I will have to tell her that she can't go in and wake her up. :)

Skunk anyone?

We had a great time at the cabin which I will write about later. Some near misses but no accidents for Emily! We spent Monday in Yellowstone Park. We let Emily pick up a souvenir from the gift shop at Old Faithful. Now which stuffed animal would your child choose: bear, coyote, moose or skunk? Emily loved the coyote (puppy) until she saw the skunk. That was THE one. It was rather cute but we got lots of funny looks and laughter as Emily walked around holding it. On the way home she asked for a diaper and wet wipe. She told me her skunk had yucky pants. She washed and washed the bum and tired to put a pullup on it. I have it on video. It was cute and hilarious!

Rocks and Emily

I've mentioned before that Emily loves to collect rocks. She may have changed her mind.....

Yesterday she had a perfect afternoon playing with her cousins Zerric and Audrey. They ran around, played with trains, danced for Collin, played in the sprinkler, and ate cookies. It was idealic! My brother in law, Cade, was hosting a bbq and we were outside enjoying the great food and weather when it happened. Emily had been sitting on and pushing a little car around the yard. She leaned back to far and over she went. Which would have been fine except that she hit the back of her head on the rock border of their garden. By the time Landon got to her she had blood dripping down her little curls. That is something that I never want to relive again. One of the great things about having a brother in law in law enforcement is that pretty much everyone at the bbq was a cop and one of the spouses was medic. So as I held Emily to me, Landon and this woman looked though Emily's hair to find the cut. They eventually found two small cuts with a small goose egg between them. I HATE HEAD WOUNDS! Her shirt and curls were soaked in blood but the two wounds had already stopped bleeding by the time we found them. The woman recommended we take her to the hospital to check her for a concussion. So we said goodbye to Zerric, Janie and Cade (Audrey was still playing) and headed out with Emily in full blown temper tantrum. She thought that she should be allowed to go back outside and play with Zerric. She DID NOT want to get in the car. The next best thing about having a deputy in the family is that Cade told us where the accident on the highway was so we could avoid it. As we pulled out of the driveway we realized that we didn't have any gas. We stopped at the first gas station. By then the adreniline had worn off and we realized that Emily was fine and that if she had a concussion there wasn't anything anyone could do so we decided to drive through to Pocatello. (Which was our destination for the night already.) She hadn't had a nap all day and had been playing in the sun all afternoon so she fell asleep. I woke her every 15 minutes and when we arrived in Pocatello just over an hour later she woke herself up. With enough energy that I couldn't get her to sleep until after midnight. Today she is upset that I am making her have a bath. Rita and I got a few pictures on her camera. I will get her to post it on her later. If Emily survives this vacation it will be a miracle!

Time Out and Wasps

I am loving VACATION! Just what I needed. Emily is loving all the playtime with cousins. But not all has been candy canes and rainbows.......

As I was unpacking the car in Mantua, Emily started to cry. I ran over. She was sitting on my inlaws front porch holding her foot. She pointed to a wasp laying on the front step and said, "Bee gave owies." Yep, she stepped on a wasp. She became more upset once her dad tried to put ice on it. She asked me to kiss it better and then ran off to play. And then it happened.....

Emily asked me for her bottle. I told her that during the day we only have sippy cups. So the temper tantrum started. Nothing was going to calm her down until she had her bottle. Landon decided that since we were finally somewhere with a door she could go into his old room (where we would be staying) and have some time to herself. The minute he shut the door she was trying to open it. And that was when it happened.....

Next thing we know Landon is at the top of the stairs asking his mom when they put a lock on his bedroom door. His mom said they hadn't. I guess he has always had a KEYED Lock on his bedroom door. It was there when they moved in. No one knew it existed. And yes, Emily had locked herself in. As the scramble began to try and find a key I sat and sang to Emily outside her door. Put my fingers under the door (which she stamped on) and even pushed a cookie under to her. She started sobbing, "I'll sippy mommy, I'll sippy." Broke my heart. The hinges were on the inside of the door. Lance volunteered to break the window while Landon volunteered breaking down the door. (both ideas discredited due to expense and the fact that Emily was on the other side of the door. Mel decided it was time to break off the door handle. As he went to find the tools, Lance came running up the hallway with a set of keys. Vauna had been searching through drawers and found a set of keys she didn't recognize. Sure enough key number 2 fit the look and out came my daughter. A sippy and a cookie brought the crisis to an end. And then it happened......

For dinner Landon's aunt Nondis and some of her family, along with all of Landon's siblings came for a potluck bbq. After dinner Emily and her cousin Kenlee were swinging on a two person swing. Next thing I know my sister in law Janie is walking a sad looking Emily into the house. I guess a wasp was climbing down the rope of the swing and decided my daughters arm looked good. Yep, second time she was stung. This time no tears. My daughter is a tough one! She had just turned to her aunt Haylee and said something about owie and bee. Emily was back playing with the kids within minutes. She even asked to go on the swing. But it was off limits until my father in law Mel could spray it down.

I'm So Excited!

I leave in 14 hours for our trip to Idaho and Utah!

I am so excited. I really, really, really need a vacation!

But I'd better finish packing if I want to leave so TTFN!

How do you watch Kung Fu Panda?

A Little Fun in Pictures

Emily has been taking more pictures. They make me happy to look at them so I am sharing them in hope it brings a smile to you!

Emily loves to take pictures of Collin.
He is always a little nervous about having her so close with a camera. :)
Collin has discovered his tongue.....


I still don't know how she gets this to happen. I know its the red light that comes before the flash but it still looks cool.


Emily handed me the camera, posed it in my hands, showed me where the button was, walked to the middle of the room, posed herself and told me, "Go". I guess its her inventive way to have a timer for her pictures. ;)


I took this one of my handsome little man! He refused to smile no matter what I did!


Daughter like father! She got out everything herself, hooked it up, and started saying, "Heyoo, Heyoo!" She got louder when no one answered. That would be how her dad says Hello to her Uncle Cade. :)

Lessons Learned

Today was one of those days that if it never happened again I would be okay with it. :)

I've never enjoyed being sick but having two kids and being sick is WORSE! I have a sore throat and with that comes feeling really tired and less patience than usual. I had every intention of being a good sport though. Emily had been invited out to Coe's to ride Tex (their pony.) I arranged to meet Landon in town at 12. (He figured he would be off of work by then.) After sitting at the bus stop for 35 minutes (11:20-11:55) I decided to call it quits head to my parents' house, feed Collin and go to the bus stop at 12:20 when I knew the bus came by. I left a message for Landon at Sears letting him know we would arrive at 1:00. At 12:10 I watched the bus drive by from my parents living room. I was in tears. My wonderful sister in law volunteered to drive us into town and off we went. She dropped us off at Sears and then everything went crazy. Landon had gotten off work a half an hour earlier and so I decided to walk to where the bus would have dropped us off. Emily had other plans..... See Emily had been perfect while waiting for the bus but on the way to my parents house she decided to play chicken with a car and I barely caught her. The car was able to stop because it had seen her but still I was NOT HAPPY! Well I think she must have been a little suicidal today because she repeated this antic TWICE on the way from Sears to the bus stop at the mall. I was feeling a little frazzled so I picked her up and carried her on my left side (she was screaming) while my right arm was holding Collin and his carseat and all other paraphenalia. I thought I saw Landon so I tried running like this and calling his name for help. Yeah wasn't him.... We waited but he didn't show up by one so I started to walk to find the car. Emily trailed behind me screaming my name. Not nice words were running through my mind. I just wanted to call it quits, go home and bury my head under the covers. Finally Emily cried out that she wanted her blankie which meant she wanted me to wrap it around her and carry her. So I did. I walked, carrying both, across the road to a big grassy area. I sat down and just held Emily and rocked her. Collin by this time had stopped screaming and was sleeping in his car seat. As I sat there holding my little girl I realized something. I hadn't lost it! I had kept my cool and because of that I wasn't in the middle of apologizing for anything. What a great feeling! As I sat there I thought, "Here I am with the chance to snuggle my little girl and enjoy nice weather. If Landon doesn't find us I will just catch the next bus home. There is no reason to be upset." And with that all the anger left.
(Landon did find us and all was well.)

I hope that I remember this lesson. It is a choice to become angry. I need to enjoy my children. And I need to realize that if it takes a little longer to get somewhere, oh well, enjoy the journey. Oh and its probably not a good idea to take your kids out by yourself when you are sick..... :)

(FYI the bus schedule just changed for the weekends. Next time I will check the schedule!)

Epiphany about Homemade Gifts

I had an epiphany the other day.
I realized that most people just don't enjoy homemade gifts. Or maybe its just my homemade gifts..... This realization started when I was talking to a friend about what to get a mutual friend as a baby gift. It was baby number three and well she has everything. I had seen this really cool bag/baby blanket online and I was sure I could make it. As I was talking about it, my friend's face formed a fake smile. I realized, nope not a good idea. I have had three friends have kids recently and about four more are pregnant. I had thought about making some leather shoes (like Robeez) as gifts. But over the last few days I have had numerous flashbacks to the looks on people's faces when I have given homemade gifts. One was a roommate from college when she got married. I didn't have any money and I saw this really cute decoration in a magazine, so I made it. I showed it to people at work and they all thought it was cute (or at least they said they did...) and so I gave it. The look on my roommate's face when I gave it to her, well she wasn't exactly thrilled. And when I visited a year later I realized she didn't have it (I'll admit I looked because I remember how her face looked.) I wish I had put what little money I had into the gift my other roommates gave. The other flashback was to when I was painting signs for a few years. I gave a few away as gifts. In my mind they are cute and the few people I gave them to, nicely hung them in their homes but now I just feel bad. I've made some baby clothes over the years, bows, wall hangings, etc. And more often than not the person they were given to wasn't all to thrilled and most never used them. I could have saved all that time.... but I have now learned my lesson. So if you have something coming up and you were worried about what gift I might be sending your way, don't be. I promise I will only make stuff for my sisters, parents and my kids. They have to love what I give them! And this is an apology out to everyone out there that had to live through this phase.
Buying stuff on sale is okay, right.......
(I still really like homemade gifts so please keep them coming! And if you are lucky to get one of my sister's homemade gifts you would change your mind about homemade gifts!)