I've Been Tagged

I have been really busy lately and haven't kept up well on my blog. My sister tagged me in order to get me writing again. Thanks Lara!!

SIX RANDOM THINGS ABOUT MYSELF:

1. I used to be a germ-a-phobe. For example: I didn't like taking baths because it was gross to sit in all the dirt your are trying to get off your body. I would only use a washcloth on my face or body one time because even if you rinsed it well there were still germs/dead skin cells in the fibers of the washcloth. I had a hard time enjoying public swimming pools since I was young because of everyone's shared germs. I say I used to be because reality has sunk in. I have learned about bigger germs to be afraid of (like, c-difficile toxin, cryptosporidium, staph, strep and e-coli) and I'm tired of making my life difficult when baths are relaxing and I do like to go swimming with my kids so I try not to think about it too much.

2. This is kind of on the germ-a-phobe thing but it still applies today. I cannot mentally bring myself to walk barefoot in the locker room of a public swimming pool or locker room. I will always wear flip flops even while changing, showering etc. The wet, cement floors with hair and lint on them make me cringe.

3. This is a big confession on my part and I ask forgiveness for it from my sister as I type. I used to make my little sisters cry on purpose so I could cuddle and comfort them after. I would tease them or scare them so then I could be nice to them and they would want me to hold them and comfort them. I don't know why I just didn't say, Hey let me hold you on the couch and watch TV with you. Sorry Lara and Julie, I think it was mostly Julie though.

4. I wish I would have kissed more guys. I had opportunities to kiss more guys, I just didn't because I felt a kiss was special and meant something so I didn't want to just randomly kiss whomever and imply I had more feelings for them when I really didn't. I learned that guys don't usually think this way, they just kiss a girl if they want too and it doesn't mean it's serious. I should have just enjoyed the moment and enjoyed the practice.

5. I love having my feet tickled. Just lightly tickling like you would someones back. Sometimes Jeff will tickle my feet for me. It is sooooo relaxing to me, I would love to have a hired foot tickler that would do it every night as I lay in bed until I fall asleep.

6. I love fresh peaches and hope to someday have a peach tree in my yard, regardless of what Jeff says. I think the peach was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. I wish the peaches harvest season lasted longer.

I am going to follow the lead of my sister Julie and not tag anyone. However if you want to participate in this tag the rules are below. Maybe I'm not tagging any one because I don't know how to do the "linking" think.


The Rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let the person know you tagged them on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when you've posted.

Super Mom

Have you ever had one of those days where you didn't accomplish anything grand but through keeping on top of all the little things you felt like you could pat yourself on the back and be proud of all the little accomplishments? Today was one of those days. It didn't end on that same note but hey 50% of the day isn't bad.

I dropped the kids off at school and told them I would bring their bikes to them at the end of school for their bike safety obstacle coarse. I came home, cleaned up breakfast, made beds, started laundry, and got Jessica ready for pre-school. I then listened to phone messages and there was one from Jonah saying they needed their bikes by first recess please. I thought sure, I'll be up that way dropping Jessica off at pre-school and can swing by with the bikes. I pump up the flat bike tires, find a bike lock in the boys mystery closet and pack Jessica and the bikes in the car and head off. All the drop offs are made smoothly and then I go shopping, without children, for Ellie's birthday present. I found a cute thing at the craft store and I had a 50% off coupon to use. So at this point I'm thinking, "Today is a great mom day. I was able to help out the boys at the last minute and I'm buying Ellie's birthday present two months in advance. Not to mention everyone was on time and the breakfast dishes are done, wahoooo!!" Some times the little things make you feel like a big hero.

I picked up Jessica, fed her lunch, showered and did my make-up and hair and then went to my physical therapy appointment. After that I come home, switch around laundry, play with Jess, vacuum and then head off to pick up the kids from school.

We come home and get ready for cub scouts. The boys enjoyed riding their bikes at school so they wanted to ride them to scouts. Since Jessica was asleep, we locked the house and Ellie and I rode with the boys to the church for scouts. At the church, the stake blood drive was going on and they had a slow spell so I volunteered to donated blood. I did ride home first and get Jessica then went back to the church to give blood.

I was really patting myself on my back at this point, everything had gone so smoothly today and I was even able to squeeze in time to donate blood. This had to be one of my best mom days yet.

Then things changed. Just as I was sitting down to eat my post-blood donation snack, Mason came up to me and told me that they were riding their bikes in the church parking lot since scouts was over and Jonah fell and "he has a cut on his face and I think he needs stitches." I slugged down my juice and a couple of small cookies and headed out to find Jonah. Jonah had a cut above his lip and a bloody nose, he refused to let me look at it because he didn't want stitches. Jonah insisted on riding his bike home still. Jonah, Mason and Ellie rode home from the church while Jessica and I followed behind them in the van. Just before we turned onto our street, Ellie's bike bumped one of the boys bikes. They were all three riding next to each other; all I saw was a domino effect of three little bikes tipping sideways with three little kids on each bike. I pulled over quickly and jumped out of the car. Ellie managed to not fall over all the way and rode off. Jonah was getting up off the street and getting back onto his bike. Mason was writhing in pain and still hadn't taken a breath. He stood up and fell right back down again, still not having taken a breath. Jonah seemed unscathed but was very upset by now thanks to his prior injuries. Mason finally breathed and began screaming. He had road rash on both knees and a tire mark up his back that had stripped off skin. He got in the car, we drove home. Jeff was home from work and was greeted by two crying and very upset boys. What happened to my perfect day??

We cleaned Jonah's face up and determined he didn't need stitches. He was concerned that he would have a scar and wouldn't be identical anymore. He still may have a little scar though.

Mason laid on his bed crying. He stayed curled up in the fetus position with ice packs on his back. He said if he straightened out, it stretched his bike rashed skin on his back. I don't blame him it looked horribly tender and was about 8 inches long by 2 inches wide.

After patching up the boys, I only had an hour to defrost and cook something for dinner so Jeff could make it to his Elders quoram meeting. My nerves were suddenly frazzled from the sudden drama and lack of blood. I made the quickest, yummiest dinner I know how. I called Ming's Garden's and ordered take out. Our favorite Chinese orange chicken put a smile on everyone's face.

We finished up homework and off to bed. At the end of the day I still felt like it was one of those great rewarding super mom days.

First day of School

Boy did summer go by fast or what. Maybe it was because I was on crutches and on pain killers most of the summer that I didn't realize how fast the days were going.

Here are pictures of the kids on their first day of school. Jonah and Mason are in third grade and their teacher is Ms. Craig. Ellie is starting first grade and her teacher is Mrs. Lundgreen. We switched schools this year to a Charter school a few miles east of us called, Canyon Rim Academy. Everyone is excited about what the new schools offer but a little nervous to start brand new, especially me, and I'm not even going to school. I think I am more nervous than anyone. The kids did great and they seem to enjoy their new school.

Never a dull moment

We had such a crazy day at church today. I always hope primary goes smoothly but one never knows from week to week what each Sunday will be like in the primary room.

Opening exercised started of normal and fine. During the talk one of our two visitors started coughing and I noticed she had some drool coming from her mouth. I stood to go to the bathroom and get some tissues for her when I realized she was now starting to throw-up. I grabbed the garbage can while my first counselor went to get her grandma who is one of the nursery leaders. All the while, the little boy giving his talk and his father helping him never noticed that this was going on right in the front row. Just as the talk finished I stood up at the microphone to continue conducting. I had the children stand and repeat our monthly scripture in Doctrine and Covenants. My head was turned reading the scripture and as I turned back to the microphone one of the older children startled me as he was standing two feet in front of me and proceeded to tell me I had made a mistake and that in the D&C it was sections and not chapters. I apologized as the whole primary was staring and our brand new teachers picked their jaws off their chests. They didn't realized he has Asperger's syndrome and this wasn't abnormal for this child to behave like that. We finished opening exercises, dismissed the senior primary and sharing/signing time began for the junior primary.

Sharing time went smoothly although there was an abundance of energy among the children. Singing time started and as the singing progressed our second little visitor began complaining of a tummy ache. She is cousins with the first visitor who began throwing up so we decided to get her to the bathroom quickly with her grandma before we were cleaning throw-up off the floor again. As I was walking this child out, the nursery kids were walking in to the primary room to join singing time. As I walked passed the nursery kids, I noticed a diaper laying in the hall. I quickly eyeballed the kids to see who walked out of their diaper. I had a good idea which child it was so I picked up the diaper, continued onto the bathroom with the tummy ache visitor, only to find her grandma in the bathroom with the first little girl throwing up again. Then I headed to the Relief Society room to get the mother of the diaper less child (we aren't supposed to do any diaper/potty things with the kids). By the way the diaper was not dirty. As I entered the primary room, the nursery was just finishing and dismissing to go back to their class room, while the other children were very rowdy, talkative and wiggly. I stood in front to help them quiet down and dismiss them to their class when I noticed that a 6 year old girl had her hand up her dress (panties visible), under her arm pit trying to make "tooting sounds" and the two boys sitting next to her saying "Can you make a fart sound? I want to hear you make a fart sound. Make a louder fart sound!"
I stood there fairly appalled for a couple of seconds and then fought for their attention to regain reverence in the primary. Within one minute everyone was sitting with their arms folded and I dismissed them to their classes while wishing their teachers the best of luck with such great energetic children.

The senior primary came in, things went much smoother until the end when the younger brother of child with Asperger's stood and corrected me out loud. I can't remember what I said but it was some simple mistake. I was almost to the point of hysterics. Sundays are unpredictable. I am thankful I went home laughing at all of the silly things that had happened because there are times when the unpredicted is a child having melt down or teacher(s) that didn't show up and we are scrambling to find last minute substitutes. I am also grateful that the little children are so forgiving and it is fairly easy to remedy a situation. I am going to be bored if I ever go back to Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society.

I want short hair like Daddy

I have had the hardest time getting Jessica's hair to grow. Mostly because she twists the right side while sucking her thumb and in so doing, the hair breaks or gets ripped out. We haven't been able to grow her hair out yet. I trim it up so it's not too uneven and we just keep trying. It is now the longest it has ever been which still is not very long, not to mention it is thin with a coarse texture so it has been a challenge to me. Two weeks ago, Jessica started playing with some physical therapy clay Jeff had. Thinking she was funny, she placed it on her head and said she was a clown. Then as she tried to get the clay out it matted down even more. I began to work on removing the clay. I was sure I was going to have to cut it out when I decided to slather it in butter and comb it out. It took about a half of a cube of butter, but I removed it.

Then today in the afternoon, I noticed some hair in the bathroom garbage. Ellie was close by so I asked her if she had cut her own hair. Of coarse she hadn't and she quickly found Jessica asleep on the downstairs couch and said "Mom her head is shaved on one side." I realized Jessica had cut her whole pony tail off. She was trying to cut out the rubber band as I often do, but she ended up cutting everything. When I asked her if we should cut all of her hair to match she said she liked it that way. After some convincing, I took her to Cookie Cutters for a salvaging hair cut. They did a cute job and the short hair seems to fit her personality.

So in the end, Jessica may never have long hair and I will keep the scissors away from her.

Floats and Parades

After work today we went to Jessica's T-ball game and then we went to the 24th of July float preview. I love going to the float preview at the Expo Center. We can see all the floats for the parade close up, at our own pace and we don't have to fight parade crowds and stake out a spot 2 hours before the parade even starts. The best part of all is when your little girl is dancing to go to the bathroom there are many bathrooms to choose from within the Expo Center and you don't have to be the 20th person in line at a single port-a-potty on the corner of the street with a child who will inevitably wet her pants and be wet for the rest of your time at the parade. I realize that is a run on sentence but as you can tell I have had some experience with this kind of thing.

The kids loved looking at the floats; so many bright colors and so many floats that sparkled and shimmered. Often times there are people who worked on their float there and will tell you the meaning behind the float, how many hours they put into it or some creative ways they used to bring forth the design. Jeff's mom was with us. She loves to take the kids every year and I tagged along. One of our favorite floats was the float depicting that miracles still happen and the theme was seagulls eating crickets. They had a seagull barbecuing the crickets, cricket salad and sandwiches, and even green Jello with crickets in it.

On the morning of the 24th of July we can watch the parade on TV and the kids are totally enthralled watching all of the floats they saw at the preview. It's the best of both worlds.

I can walk!!!

I went to physical therapy today was finally given permission to walk on my leg. No more crutches or brace, unless I feel that I may need them in a crowd or something like that.

I don't walk well mind you, my knee still feels swollen and I don't have the range of motion back yet, but hey, I have my hands back now since I don't have to hold crutches all the time.