HAPPY BIRTHDAY JARED!

My sweet little baby boy turns 5 today. I'm still in shock! It couldn't have been five years ago that we welcomed this little guy into our lives. When I found out I was having a boy, I was a little afraid....I didn't know what to do with a boy, but I could not imagine not having him in my life now. I never knew I could be so in love with "another man"! I'm so excited to watch him grow up, and see what he becomes, as I am with all our kids. And maybe if I get downstairs and find a baby picture of him I'll add it, but that's later.


We love Jared. He is sweet, funny, cuddly, and loving. Oh sure, he has anger management issues, but we are working on that. :) He has a very funny speech impediment....his "S" sounds come out as "F".....makes for an interesting conversation when he talks about "S"ucking his fingers. Yes, he still carries a blanket and sucks his fingers. I think if I took the blanket away, the finger sucking would stop...but I guess deep down I don't want him to grow up so fast, so I let him keep the blank. Although I have put a stop to him hauling it to church. :)


Jared loves to learn new things. He loves to play soccer, and his new found interest is BMX bike racing.....which I will devote an entire post to later!


Jared reminds us frequently that he is bothered that he doesn't have any brothers.....I feel for him...poor kid growing up with all sisters, especially his sisters! ;) We keep reminding him though that when he's older he'll be glad for sisters....since he'll have their cute friends here at his house!


Today will be spent celebrating our boy, although right now he is currently whining excessively because I won't let him have candy for breakfast. This afternoon we will go swimming....heaven help me,to the public pool....and tonight, dinner, presents, and a pinata.

Happy birthday Jared! We love you and hope you have a FABULOUS 5TH!

We have a winner!!!!!!

Drum roll please...

With the help of random.org's random integer generator (I'd do a screen shot, but I'm not computer savvy enough, and my hubby isn't answering his office phone)...

Our winner is......#3....JEN! Who is my cousin in AZ, and has a very cute baby girl! Congrats Jen! :) Email your address to me, 3lilsmudgits at comcast dot net, so I can send your prize! Oh, and don't stalk your mailbox for it...I'm post office impaired, so it'll take me a week+ to actually get it there and sent off. Don't laugh, it's a problem!

Okay really, that was fun, and I'm sure more exciting for me than for all of you. Most fun for me was the delurking of people..... :) Love it. Now when I look on sitemeter and see that people are visiting me, but I have no idea who they are, I won't feel like I have a crazy stalker. ;) So thanks for coming out of the woodwork Amy (email me!), and Andria (yay! Wasn't Nicole's class fun?! I love that kid. Have you been practicing up on your photo skills, or are you a slacker like me? I think about taking pictures more than I actually do it. It's a problem).

Last but not least.....I have taken the liberty to chose a winner based on comment alone, and since onehm actually admitted to eating a PIECE OF BOLOGNA for breakfast in writing, I am sending her a prize as well! Betcha never thought that morning that your choice of protein would earn a prize, did ya?!

Time's running out....

Hurry, hurry!

Only 12 hours left for the giveaway!!!! I KNOW there are still some lurkers that want to enter.....just do it! Even my long lost friend from HS came out and commented!!! HOORAY FOR AMY!!!!! (BTW Amy, I need your email addy! I don't know if what I have is current.....we need to catch up! I missed you by minutes at Julie's baby shower, dang it. Email me....3lilsmudgits at comcast dot net)

Anyway....get your last minute entries in....I'm excited to see what the outcome is! :)

It's only a couple posts down, but here's the link if you just really can't scroll. ;)

T-Ball 2008

Jared had his last t-ball game this past week. He did as well as expected for a four year old. Typical games:

Kids confused as to where to run, like when a team mate of Jared's ran from 2nd base straight across to home, completely skipping 3rd!

More hitting of the "T" instead of the ball, resulting in the ball landing about 3 feet in front of the hitter.

Kids on the fielding team having more fun playing in the dirt or chatting with the kids on base than actually playing t-ball.

No score keeping, and games only last three innings...thank goodness!

As usual, the highlight of the game is the treat after! Jared had a good first experience though, and we'll do it again. All the kids were awarded a medal at the end of the game, which he thought was very cool. :)

How could I have missed it?!

(Oh yeah, because I always forget and/or miss birthdays!)

Happy 1 year birthday to my blog! :)

And to celebrate....leave a comment.....it could be worth your while...here are some questions for you to answer:

1. How long have you been reading my blog?

2. How did you find me? Or did I find you? :)

3. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

And to add to the fun of it all......I'll pick a random comment from this post and you'll WIN A PRIZE! A real one! Oh, and you can leave as many comments as you like to up your chances. I don't care a bit! ;) All I know is that I think comments are FUN and I like 'em.

Perfect time for any lurkers to reveal themselves......c'mon, a prize possibility?! Oh, and if you are "anonymous", you better leave your name.....because you are smart enough to know why.

Lets say we'll go for 5 days.....so you'll have until Wednesday at noon, mountain daylight time... :)

Dropping like flies...

Tonight I had the pleasure of accompanying my husband to Girls Camp. It was the last night, so the Bishopric went up for dinner, the closing devotional, and the infamous fireside testimony meeting. It was nice, and I was just so thankful that I wasn't a YW leader or a camp leader! Oh, I know, though....someday I will eat my words. I did have the privilege of being on the camp committee 3 years ago, and I got put in charge of the food. I was GLAD when that was over! It's stressful being in charge of food for that many, especially because if you mess up, everyone goes hungry! And darn if I wasn't pregnant the next year so I couldn't go to camp again. But dang, I won't ever have that to excuse me from camp again. :(

But tonight was good, plenty of food, and it was tasty. Lots of goofy camp songs, and goofy girls as well. Watching them I remember well acting like a huge spaz, and I was embarrassed for myself! ;)

The testimony meeting went well....and long... I had told my mom, who babysat for us that we'd be home around 10:30-11. Ummm....oops...we got home at midnight. And we didn't even have far to drive as we were only about 20 minutes up the canyon near our home. Every time I go up that canyon I wonder why I don't go up there more often; beautiful scenery, cool temps, and so close to us.

Coming home was interesting though. Riley was sick when she went up, and when we saw her tonight, we knew she needed to forego the last night of camping and come home to her bed....But as the evening wore on, more girls decided they needed to come home. We ended up bringing 3 girls home, and 2 more went with another leader. Eeek! I hope Riley wasn't responsible for getting them all sick! We really do have a great group of girls in our ward though...all of them try to do their best to make good choices, and are all nice to each other.

Laugh of the day!

Thank you to Natalie, for posting some samples of some hilarious Mormon genre cards over on her blog! Go here to see the entire collection, but here are some samples of my faves:

Unexpected stuff and emotions...

First....my poor sister, who I talked to yesterday morning and she was just fine, was suddenly stricken....struck(?) yesterday afternoon with appendicitis....so she spent the night in the hospital and had the little inflamed bugger taken out today...Beth, we wish you a speedy recovery, and hope this doesn't throw a wrench into you coming up here in a couple weeks! :)

Last report was that surgery went well, and she'll go home tomorrow if there are no complications.

Now for the emotions...my mom had decided to sell her house this summer. I had been bugging her since my dad died to sell it and get something more manageable for her, on one level, etc., but she wasn't ready. Until a few things fell into play this last Spring that made sense for her to sell it, and she felt ready.

So she cleaned and straightened the house a bit more, packing some things up, and purging others. She met with a realtor, and they came back tonight to give her the numbers and such, so she was reporting to me about the meeting....then I asked if she thought she'd sign with them, and she said, "Oh, I already did!"...I was surprised, and asked when they were going to come put the sign up and such, and she told me it was already up. It was at this point that the completely unanticipated emotions just blubbered out of me...yep, I lost it. I seriously did not expect those feelings. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming almost 3 years ago when we lost my dad. But it is so real now, knowing that the house I lived in from age 10 on will be sold and no longer be "home"....and it hasn't even been home to me for close to 18 years! I think it just brought up those feelings of loss again....I lost my dad, and now the home that is full of memories of my growing-up years will also be gone. If there is something I have discovered about myself, it is that I don't deal well with change sometimes. Oh well, after a good cry, I'm feeling more stable! ;)

Bored, bored, bored....

I am getting tired of the look of my blog.....I'm needing to change it up to something more bright and summery.....so even though I have about 200 things on my "to do" list, I'm sure I'll be playing with it this week.....so stay tuned! :)

**Motorcycle Disclaimer**

I'm noticing a little theme in the motorcycle comments, so....

Just as a disclaimer.....I really have no choice in the matter. My husband has had motorcycles since he was 7.....yes, I said seven.

He had one when we were married, and has sold and bought since then for different styles and bikes. He did sell his latest dual sport (dirt bike, but street legal) with the aim of getting one to ride to work in order to save gas.

I let him know my feelings on that.....the whole idea of him riding a murdercycle on the freeway is beyond what I can emotionally handle. I let him know about the absolutely sick and nauseas feeling that I would be experiencing TWICE on a daily basis until I knew he arrived at his destination safely...and that he didn't want to be around a wife that was that mentally distraught. Daily.

He does know what he is doing when he rides....he is cautious, and doesn't do crazy things. But it's all those other idiots out there that worry me....the ones who change lanes without checking first, put makeup on while driving, have cell phone conversations that are more important than what they are supposed to be doing, typing emails on their blackberry's....you know them!

Besides....a suit and tie staying clean riding a motorcycle? Not happening. Not to mention the sudden monsoonal rainstorms that we get in the summer...occasionally.

Then I also brought up the fact that I want him to stay alive for quite a few more years, to which he responded that he does have a good life insurance policy...as if money would make being a widow with 4 children driving me insane okay.

I also know that a monthly bus pass is only $8 for Church employees, so I'm pretty sure that's a bigger saving on gas. ;)

Oh, and to his credit, the first motorcycle that he brought around, that I hated the second I got on it and had an absolutely sick feeling about, he didn't buy.

But then he found this, and since I didn't feel horrible about it, he got it. Now he feels complete. He has his motorcycle that he'll tool around the neighborhood on, take the kids on rides around the block, and possibly ride on errands a few times. And then it will get put away and not ridden much. Just like the others. ;)