Highlights...

• The park yesterday was fun, but not all that sunny as a storm was moving in...the temperature was almost 80 yesterday(ahhh heaven!) and 50 today...booo.
• Orthodontist today...yippety-yay...ouch. Good news is they say my teeth are moving really well and fast for an adult. I hope that means we'll be done in the 15 month timeline instead of the 18 month.
• Just helped Nicole finish her animal report on the Bald Eagle. She's taking a poster with pictures and her paper is all ready for her oral report. I'll have to take pictures of her tomorrow!
• Made this yummy dinner: Individual Chicken Pot Pie Pockets. I used my recipe for CPP, but got the idea from here.
  
• Lowlight: Joey, the wonder diarrhea dog has been banished outside...unfortunately it got too cold for him to stay out all night so I still got to scrub the laundry room floor this morning....retch! He was allowed no food today, so I'm hoping for no scrubbing tomorrow morning. Riley wants to call the ASPCA on us, because she's sure the dog will starve to death by tomorrow. Hmmm, I bet her tune would change if I let her clean up the #%*@. My mother called me twice today to tell me he has worms. Wow. I had no idea she was a vet, let alone one that can diagnose over the phone. Just so everyone knows, the dog shows absolutely no signs of illness other than the nasty poo...he isn't on death's door(yet :P), and if it doesn't resolve, we will take him to the vet.

Can you believe tomorrow is MAY?! My kids only have 17 more days of school...Jared's down to 9. Whoa...I better start gearing up for summer break!!!!

break time......

Sorry for the lack of posts recently....I'm feeling a little down in the dumps recently....I shouldn't be, because I have so many blessings, but just feeling a little sad, anxious....I don't know. I think I need to spend this afternoon at the park in the sunshine and I'll feel better. So to spare you from the details of life, I've not been posting, and will be back when I can do some happier stuff! Until then, hug your kids, love your spouse, and smile at the sunshine! And be glad you aren't scrubbing doggie runs off your laundry room floor...gag. That's enough to put anyone in the dumps.

Spring Break Day 5-8 The End!

Thursday was a fun, fun day. First, it started out nice and early with a phone call from our neighbors back home. Our smoke alarms were going off. No visible smoke or flames, and they apparently had been going off for a while, so that was a little heartening that our house wasn't burning down...but still!

In our brilliance, we hadn't left a key with anyone...nor was there a key hidden anywhere...so Ron asked the neighbor to go break the glass in the back door to get in and check the house....of course in hindsight, we should have had him break the basement window that is already cracked and needs to be replaced. Even better, the same neighbor also told us after we got home that he probably could've just jimmied the door from the garage into house with a credit card. But no, we had him break the big tempered glass double-paned window in our back french door....little cubes of glass everywhere....and nothing wrong with the house except some confused smoke alarms. Then two neighbors came over and cleaned up all the glass. I am still embarrassed. My house wasn't clean, or even straightened up, and my two pine-sol clean neighbors were here to see the disaster of my house! But I am eternally grateful that the house wasn't on fire, and that I didn't have to walk into a huge glass covered mess when I got home.

So after all that fun....we went to the ZOO! Hooray! I LOVE the Phoenix Zoo. One of the best zoo's out there! The kids had a blast...look:


At "Sting Ray Bay", the kids got to get up close and personal with sting rays(with sting barbs removed) and sharks. Very cool! We even saw a couple jump up and catch air out of the water! Do you like Ellie's monkey backpack/leash? Best thing ever. She loves to wear it because it's cute, and I love it because if she's getting too adventurous and far from me, I just pull the little tail out of the pocket and can keep her from straying too far....and you don't get dirty looks from people for having your kid on a harness and leash like some of the other contraptions out there.

Nicole and I on "Josh" the camel. Jared chickened out, and Riley wasn't interested...or thought she was too cool to ride a camel!

Hmmmm...Right where she belongs! ;)

Everyone, take cover! There's a monkey escaped from his cage!!!! Just kidding...isn't he just cute?!


The favorite, by far. The petting zoo. Oh the joy of brushing the goats. I tried to get some cute shots of the kids, but would someone explain to me how to not only end up with pictures of their backs?! They were cruising so fast all over that pen that I hardly got their faces in any shots! Following them around to make sure they are safe and trying to take pictures at the same time just didn't work. :) I think in the last one Ellie is trying to determine what style of hairdo this goat would like.

Friday Ron went golfing, and we played on the slide a little more. Auntie Beth took Riley for a pedicure, and then that afternoon the kids, Beth, and I had a fun get-together at a park with my cousin's wife OneHM, Crazymama, and Jamie(private blogger). Too fun to meet up with them and meet their kiddos! And how dumb am I......didn't get the camera out.....thpppt! Oh well, it was still fun! That night, we roasted s'mores in Auntie Beth and Uncle Scott's firepit, and packed up.

Saturday and Sunday was driving.....we had a fun lunch in Tuba City....if you ever go, the only place there with grass to picnic on is at the LDS meeting house there in town! The closer we got to Utah, the worse the wind was. Monument Valley was pretty, but too windy and dusty to stop and record with pictures. Moab, where we planned to stay was full...very full. Any of the empty hotel rooms were taken up with campers who decided to escape the wind for the night...it was bad! So on to Green River, and I think we got the 2nd to last room there! (Spillover from Moab?!) The kids were happy though...three words...indoor heated pool. We got home Sunday. An hour before we got there, our neighbor called. Our alarms were going off, AGAIN!!!! So we stopped and got 12 new 9V batteries and replaced them all when we got home...no more problems since....weird!

So sick of....

strep.....

Nicole.

Has strep again.

It has been SIX DAYS since her last dose of antibiotics from her last case.

This is her 5th case in a year, and her THIRD case in 7 weeks.

I should've had her cesspool tonsils yanked on Tuesday instead of canceling and having to wait for an appointment with the new ENT.

And once again....she isn't even sick. Just complains of a sore throat and her voice changed.

So, we switched to a cephalosporin instead of amoxicillin this time. A little better since it's only a 5 day course instead of 10.

I can't wait for May 7th....that's when we see the new ENT and we'll get the FOR SURE, NO TURNING BACK tonsillectomy scheduled!

I'm now off to throw away all the toothbrushes and disinfect the bathroom.

Spring Break Day 3 & 4

So after two days of driving, we took it easy on Tuesday. Just hung out around my sister's! My brother and his wife live next door, and they had a fun giant blow-up waterslide that they put up, so the little kids went over and played with their cousin Grant on that...all but Ellie...she didn't want to get wet, so she just played with toys in her swimsuit all day! I am not sure what I was (or wasn't!) thinking, but I never took my camera over for the waterslide adventures! Probably subliminal worry that it would get wet and ruined....

That evening, my SIL Kennedy shared her babysitter with us (thank you!) and all the adults and older kids went out for delicious Mexican food....you can't get good Mexican food in Utah. (Cafe Rio is not Mexican food!) Oh, and we had In 'n' Out for lunch that day....and ran into my cousin Ginny there! I love Arizona!

Wednesday, we took the kiddos to "Horton Hears a Who". It was cute....although not cute enough that we'll buy it when it comes out on DVD! But the kids had fun, and were remarkably good. Then we played around the mall for a while...they had some fun playground and splash park stuff.

Got some fun pictures that evening....Arizona sunsets put off great light. too bad I didn't discover it until right at the end of the light or I would've gotten some more shots! Then the kids went to bed, since after 4 days of late bedtimes, no naps, hard playing, they were exhausted and way grumpy!

Ellie and Grant

Nicole, with an action added (Pioneer Woman's Lovely and Ethereal)

Happy (belated) BIRTHDAY!!!

Last Monday, April 14th, was my sweet hubby's BDay. We won't talk about the actual age....since I think even he has a hard time grasping the numbers. He should just pick an age and stick with it, like I have! (29 is great!)

As read in the previous post, we spent it together as a family doing something new and different. When I asked him that evening if he'd had a good birthday, he replied that he had, because he spent it with his family, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

My husband is fantastic. He is so kind and loving, and never ceases in giving of himself. He takes such good care of me, and his children. He wants to be a good dad, and wants to give our children fun memories. He has been through more than most people his age, and he has taken those experiences and used them to shape himself into a better man. He honors his priesthood, and works very hard in his calling, and his job....and since he works for the Church, the line between work and calling is kinda hazy sometimes...

Most of all, he puts up with me....my moods, my impatience, my emotional instability, my occasional immaturity....I could go on, but this is about him! He is much more grounded than I, and despite my flaws, he loves me through it all!

Thank you honey, and I hope you had a great birthday and have a fantabulous year! LOVE YOU!

Spring Break--Day 1&2

While planning our road trip to AZ, we had decided to take a bit of a detour down through Moab, spend the night and do a little hiking....but the day before we left, we were worried that since we hadn't thought ahead and gotten a hotel room, that Moab might not work. So we decided to go to Page, AZ instead and look into renting a boat for a few hours and explore Lake Powell.

We had planned to leave bright and early Sunday morning, but due to being up late packing, the alarm was slept through and we got a later start than planned. Oh well, so goes life! Since we got to Page too late to rent the boat that day, we just did it Monday and got to my sister's late that night.

It was more fun to do it Monday anyway. That day was Ron's birthday, so it was a fun and different birthday activity...and at the amount of money we spent to rent the boat, not a birthday activity we'll repeat anytime too soon! Maybe he'll get the new BBQ grill for Father's Day...! :)

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We had the boat for 4 hours. We left Wahweap and went to the dam, and got as close as we could to that for a look, then we went to Navajo Canyon, which was a beautiful, twisting, high-walled canyon. We found a beach, had lunch, played in the sand, and then it was time to head back. On the way back we were driving through a marina at "wakeless speed" (extremely s..l..o..w) and passed a Coconino County Sheriff boat. They saw the kids wearing the life jackets and gave them a t-shirt for being safe! Goofy shirt, but fun anyway! :) New PJ's anyway!

Well, look at that...Riley does exist, AND we got a smile! :)

Ellie making a "snowman"...that's what she said anyway...

In Navajo Canyon...we pulled into this cavelike thing in the wall and tried to get some cool pictures of the water reflecting up on the wall...I like how the sun rays showed up in this shot. The kids also got to experiment with echoes and they thought that was pretty cool! We echoed the "Happy Birthday" song off the canyon walls!

shoot...didn't win.

What a shocker! I never do. :)

More on Spring Break later.....too much laundry and basic "just got home from a week away" stuff to do...

I hope I win, I hope I win....

Crazymama is having a fun giveaway....and it ends in about 2 hours...but if anyone out there wants to win an awesome "purse pal" click here to enter!!!

What I shouldn't be doing!!!

Bless that Pioneer Woman! Along with ranching, mothering, and cooking, she's also into photography. She shares her ideas and work on a portion of her blog, and today she's sharing some free "actions" for Photoshop....now, I'm still on the way beginner end of the curve for Photoshop, and had heard of actions, but was a little scared of them...I thought they'd be too hard for me. But I downloaded these actions (and then figured out where to find them in Photoshop!), and then started playing....HELLO! SO EASY! And now I just want to forget everything on my list of things to do today and go take pictures and then come home and play with them. Here's an example using the "soft & faded" action....

COULD YOU JUST DIE OVER THAT CUTENESS?!?! I know, I'm biased, but I want to blow this up and put it in their room! Okay...I'm calming...

All I know is that I am for sure taking loads of pictures on my trip, and taking my laptop along to play.....ooooo, I'm excited!!!! Hey OneHM.....want to go take pictures?! :)

Okay...back to the real world of laundry, and general vacation prep....

**If you do download them and notice a couple of glitches in actions not completely working, Ree is aware of it and working on fixing them....but the above action didn't work completely and it still looks great!**

Comedy of Errors....but I'm not laughing too hard.

We found out a while back that there was some recall/warranty work that needed to be done on our car. So, for some stupid (in hindsight) reason, I scheduled it for today, along with an oil change and tire rotation before we head out on our trip in that car.

So this afternoon the service guy calls...I'm thinking to tell me the car is done. Instead, he informs me that while they were doing the recall work on our car's "Electronic Control Module" (basically the car's on board computer, that controls alot) our car's battery went dead. When that happened, there was a "voltage spike" that, um, went right into the "ECM" and fried it...the car's brain was dead...and they don't have the part to replace it.

OF COURSE NOT!

So he tells me that they've ordered it, and it'll be overnighted and the car will be fixed with new ECM and battery tomorrow....well okay, we'll need a rental...okay they'll arrange that.

*********************
Question 1: Why did the car battery that is less than a year old run dead?
Question 2: How does a dead battery have a voltage spike?
*********************

Ron calls him an hour later when he gets home for the story and to make sure they understand the car must be back to us tomorrow (he'd already told them we were needing it for a road trip.) This is when it became really NOT funny...

The latest update was that the ECM would now not be available until Monday. They claimed they could not pull one out of another car because the '08 part wouldn't fit in our '07.

This is when my husband pretty much ripped the guy a new one through the phone.

So they said they'd figure something out, even said they'd rent us a car to take on our road trip. (Of course the car would be too small to fit our entire family in, and there would be no built in DVD player. Yes, our kids are spoiled, but that is our lifeline to going anywhere in relative peace!)

Later, when we called AGAIN to find out about getting a rental car for tomorrow so I can get my children to school they told us they'd researched it and found that they COULD use an ECM from an '08 in our car, so they were doing that now and we could get the car tomorrow. That's great, but I still need a car to chauffeur my kids around as my husband will be at work tomorrow.

Then we find out that the only car the rental car company had isn't going to fit our family....don't ever try to rent a car in Provo....they have nothing that fits families...so then the car dealership tells us they'll stay an hour late and finish our car for tonight.

So after all that mess, we did get our car back. It is functioning, so I'm assuming the ECM is okay, and we got a new battery....as for the oil change and tire rotation, I'm not all that sure those happened, since the cashier had no charge slip written up for those.

I just hope we don't break down in the middle of the Indian reservation. Then again, our kids might think hanging with Native American kids would be cool...

I'm just glad we got our car back, and I think if we ever get a recall notice again, I'll ignore it!

In short...

Nicole...tested positive for strep...again...on Monday. She'd been complaining about a sore throat since THURSDAY, but had no other symptoms, and seemed fine. Other than the occasional sore throat complaint. She went to school, played soccer, to friend's houses to play, all with strep. Mother of the YEAR award! Finally her voice changed and I took her in.

Ellie...tested positive for strep today. Sigh...

Tonsils....I may be canceling Nicole's surgery as I have found a different ENT that removes tonsils using a different method....that results in less bleeding and shorter recovery time, but most likely another wait for surgery. Oh well, she'd no longer miss school for it....final decision coming soon!

Weather...cold. snow flurries. I am so excited to be going to Arizona next week to NINETIES! I might even get TOO hot! Oh, the joy of that thought...

Happy Monday.

What a great weekend! I love General Conference, even if my kids don't! Jared would cry every time a new session would come on. I still can't figure out why, since it wasn't like we made him sit there and watch it. I'm not doing that to my four year old! We had activities for all of them, options to go play in their rooms or playroom, but he'd still cry, and say, "Not again!" Maybe it was because he knew our attention would be on the speakers, and not on him? But he survived, and now it's over for six months!

I loved many of the talks, but my absolute favorite was Elder Ballard. I came away from that talk feeling like I'm doing okay as a mother, and with a new resolve to continue to do better. Thank you Elder Ballard! He really has become one of my favorites and this last talk really solidified that!

A better feeling than I had last October after another certain (un-named) talk was given and I came away feeling like a failure as a mother, and with a "why even try" attitude. Wrong, I know, but that is what happened. But after yesterday, I feel better about life!

To another subject....it's beginning to look less like Spring today..that tends to happen when two inches of snow falls and covers everything...grrr....good thing it's Spring Break next week and we are heading SOUTH! First to Moab, then further south down to ARIZONA!!!! Hooray! I'm gonna be WARM...HOT even!

Saturday doings....

General Conference weekend....lots of running between sessions, and then shushing of children during sessions so we can hear anything. My kids are not well behaved at church...general conference at home....sort of a joke! I even printed out the handy-dandy kids conference packets that were emailed to me....they entertained for about 2 milliseconds. The leftover boxes from an IKEA purchase were somewhat entertaining. Until the shrieking started when one or the other of them started offending the other. For those that caught Elder Nelson's talk, I'm pretty sure I was doing the opposite of his counsel in how to correct our children at about the exact time that he was giving that counsel....sigh.

Soccer games today. Jared's was at 8 AM...ugh! :) The early hour and the typical Utah spring-like conference weekend weather made for fun times....I'm sure it was below freezing with the wind chill! Nicole's at 1 PM wasn't much warmer. I have to give it to the kids though, they get right out there and play! Jared had two or three goals...he is still the aggressive boy he was last Fall, and if he gets the ball he'll take it all the way down the field to the goal. He's not shy about jumping right into the middle of the group of kids to get that ball either...we need to work on him not stealing the ball away from his own teammates though! We're deciding that Nicole might be more musically inclined rather than athletic though! She pretty much stays away from the ball, and if it does make it's way to her, she looks at it, wondering what she should do next! At least they keep it entertaining for us!

More of conference tomorrow....the best part is that I get my husband home on a Sunday, and I don't have to fight with the kids at church! Happy Day!

7 more random things...times 7!

A different Andrea over at Raising 4 Boys tagged me a while back...and I'm finally getting around to it! But I twisted it a bit, since I already had the one below sitting around as a draft! So I finished it and will post it now!

7 Jobs I've had:
NICU and PICU Respiratory therapist @ Primary Children's
Respiratory therapist @ UVRMC(mostly in NICU)
Nanny/mother's helper for family of 5
Human Anatomy Lab T.A./instructor
Temp @ SoftCopy packaging software orders
Nanny for my cousin's baby
Babysitter to the divine Hill girls!(Find 3 of them here: natalie, nicole, kara)

7 movies I could watch over and over:
Sense & Sensibility
Emma
Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion (are we seeing a pattern here?!)
Notting Hill
Sleepless in Seattle
Sound of Music
Cinderella

7 places I've lived:
Tempe AZ
Denver CO
Cedaredge CO
Price UT(don't want to offend, in case you love it, but, ewww!)
Orem UT
Provo UT
and the last isn't being named but it's in UT! (must keep a bit of privacy around here!)

7 of my favorite TV shows:
M*A*S*H
Everybody Loves Raymond
Friends
E.R.
various TLC
DiscoveryChannel
food network shows

7 places I've been:
Israel
Egypt
Rafting down the Grand Canyon
Yellowstone
Washington DC
NYC
Martin's Cove WY

7 websites I visit (almost)daily:
blogs(Google Reader)
email
Ouraycam
School website(checking grades!)
Crosswords
KSL weather
Webkins and PBSkids...for the kids!

7 Places I'd like to go:
To TX to visit my BFF, Steph!
shopping by myself
Arizona
Great Britain
Europe by train
Hawaii
Costa Rica
Church history sites

I'm not gonna tag anyone, cause I've done that already! If you feel the urge though, go for it!