If you don't like the weather in Utah....

Wait a few minutes.

I took this picture of these flowers yesterday morning, around 9:30am.

I took a picture of the same flowers at 3:15 that same afternoon.

Please don't brush my hair!!!

This morning, I asked S to come into the bathroom so I could brush out her hair. She started crying and said that she didn't want her hair to come out. If her hair was brushed out, she'd be bald and look like a boy. It was very difficult for me not to laugh. I kept a straight face and said, "Can I brush your hair?" She happily came into the bathroom and let me brush her hair, as long as I promised not to brush it out.

Homemade Uncrustables

Thanks to my friend Stacey, who gave me the suggestion.

If you have kids who won't eat the crusts on sandwiches, or you want to do something fun, festive, and different, try this.

Make your sandwich as usual. Then, instead of cutting into the usual triangles or squares, use a larger cookie cutter to make a fun shape.

Pets

When Buddy, my IL's dog died, I wanted to post a photo of him. After poring through my photos, I realized I didn't have a single picture of him. I felt badly about that; I really did love that dog.

I decided I would go out of my way to take pictures of the pets in my loved ones' lives. Here's the ones I have so far.

This is G. G used to be my cat, but he and my husband did not get along, and K, M, and I all developed severe (think asthma) allergies to him. We would've kept him anyway, but my sister wanted a cat, so we let her take him. I think he is much happier with her than he was with us- he decided he hated kids.

This is Sammy. He is my new puppy brother. My parents bought him last summer, he was born on the 4th of July. He is still a rambunctious puppy, even though he is huge.

This is Rufus, my inlaws' other dog. He is a humane society dog that my mother in law brought home about 13 year ago. He is always so sweet with the kids, and has always considered himself a lap dog. He is getting really old now, and has a trouble moving around and I think he's as deaf as a post.


Lastly, for now, we have Koda. He is my SIL & BIL's dog. I know he looks like a big, scary wolf (he's at least 150 lbs), but he is seriously one of the friendliest dogs ever. He is absolutely gorgeous. He has a doggie brother, McDuff, but I can't find a picture of him just now.

We are a family of animal lovers, so there's quite a few pets missing here, but I will eventually get photos and post them all.

I love Kirkland Diapers

I was doing laundry yesterday, and discovered that a Kirkland diaper from Costco had somehow gotten washed and dried.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have washed a disposable diaper. Or the second. Each time, the diaper burst open, covering every single item in those weird absorbent beads. The entire load would have to be washed again, and sometimes I'd have to wash it twice.

I have always loved Kirkland diapers, but I love them even more now. The washed diaper held together. My load of laundry was perfectly clean and weird absorbent bead free. Yay!

Project 365

I heard about Project 365, and was intrigued. I think most people start this on January 1, but it's a bit late (or early) for that.

Project 365 is basically where someone posts a photo a day for a year. It can end up being a fun diary of a year, and encourage people to work with their cameras more.

If you would like to watch my project 365, the link is HERE.

Stupid Eye Infection

My eye infection is back. UGH!

It cleared up within a couple days of starting antibiotics and seemed fine. About 10 days later, I decided to wear makeup to look pretty for my friend Cindy. Well, I guess I was being punished for being vain. Or my eye makeup is contaminated. Either way, within a few hours of putting on makeup, my eye started hurting again.

By the next day, it looked like this:

You'll notice on the left hand side, ther's a weird white spot on the corner of my iris. That is part of the infection; it isn't there normally.

I am slooooooooowly responding to antibiotics now, but it's driving me crazy. I hate wearing glasses. If I'm not better by tomorrow, I may go see an ophthalmologist and see if there's more they can do.

Show and Tell

Yesterday was show and tell day for S at preschool.

She was so excited for show and tell, and talked about it alllll morning. It came time to get ready for school and she ran off to get the item she was so excited to show. Here's what she was sooooooo excited to bring:



Ooookaaaaaay. Well. She told me that Heavenly Father is on the book. For the record, I heart carbs. I truly love them. We are not an Atkins worshiping home.

I really wish I could've seen the teachers' faces when she did her show and tell. I giggle every time I think about the Carb Book being a prized posession, worthy of show and tell.

The "New" grown up Dora

Mattel announced a while back that they were going to be releasing a new image and toy line for Dora the Explorer. The look of the doll was to be released this fall, with toys following in October.

Most people were outraged. The silhouette made people think she was going to be Bratz-esque. I have to admit I hate the skankiness of Bratz. Mattel insisted that the older Dora is still clean cut and wholesome, not whoresome. I was pretty sure I believed them.

I guess the outrage was so profound that Mattel ended up releasing a cartoon image of the doll Monday.
I have to admit I love the look of the older Dora. I think is so cute! She's hip without being skanky. I hope that people calm down. I have marketing concerns about the idea. I think people associate Dora with a smaller child toy. If I was in marketing, I would've given Alicia (Diego's sister) a makeover, and spun her off, or come up with a different cousin of Dora's. But I love how that cartoon looks. I shall cross my fingers that S will be into dolls enough that we can have one in the house.

Ungrateful little...

This morning, the kids' school had a grandparents' breakfast. The big kids were pretty excited, and invited Grandma Sherie up to have breakfast and read books.

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I got up this morning. Z was standing in a puddle of vomit. I had to wake S up, and that never goes well- she is incredibly cranky.

So, what happened with the grandparents' breakfast shouldn't be a surprise. The line was looooooooooong, and we had to wait for a good 10-15 minutes. We get up to the front of the line to get our...... breakfast?

Breakfast was a slice of bread, and then our choice of a carton of milk, apple, or orange juice. Apparently I do pretty great breakfasts because my kids were outraged. We were towards the end of the line, so the kids were able to get seconds on the slices of bread.

It was fun to spend time with my mom though. And I can tell this breakfast is going to be the stuff of an inside joke for years to come. There were some Oliver references made.

I feel somewhat guilty because it WAS free. However, had I known that it was going to be so skimpy, I would've given my kids a bowl of cereal before we left.

I'm converted

For the longest time, my whole family tried to convince me that we should get a dvd player in our car. I resisted. And resisted.

Still resisted, but ended up getting a car that had a dvd player. Wow. That's nice. My kids don't fight any more (well, they fight about what to watch, but I digress...). I usually do not put on a movie unless we're driving at least 45 minutes, or if I'm driving the preschool carpool (I want to be the cool mom).

It really saved our sanity yesterday though.

At the last minute, we got a phone call asking Kysa and I to do girl scout cookie booth yesterday. If she was to get the cookie booth patch, she would HAVE to come (we were scheduled for today, but it was canceled due to unusually brisk sales). J already had plans to go ride ATVs with our dads, so he couldn't watch the kids. The cookie booth was on a really busy road (Riverdale Rd for you locals), so there was no way I was letting my babies out of the car. My kids got in the car at 9:50am. At noon, we left cookie booth and drove to Salt Lake to go to lunch with my mom, grandma and sister. We arrived in Salt Lake at 1:30. That's 3.5 hours. They were absolutely wonderful for that time.

We had a nice lunch. At 4pm, I piled my kids into the car to go to the ILs house. At that moment, people showed up to look at my grandma's car. I told my grandma I would talk to the prospective car buyers. They kept coming and coming. I didn't leave until 5pm. Again, the kids were wonderful.

Then we had to go deliver a box of girl scout cookies and drive home. That was another 70 minutes.

All four children are still alive and love each other. I'm sure the only reason for that is because of the dvd player.

RIP Buddy

A few years ago, my mother in law adopted a very large, very sweet black lab mix that they named Buddy. He was one of the sweetest, most patient dogs I ever met. He didn't mind when the grandkids stepped on him or pulled his ears. I never heard him bark unless he was playing tug of war with Rufus, the other family dog.

We saw him Sunday night, and he was his usual lovable self. Monday evening, they noticed he wouldn't eat, and seemed like he wasn't feeling well.

He seemed the same way Tuesday, so MIL resolved to take him to the vet when she got home from work. My FIL arrived home from work first, and discovered Buddy dead on the couch.

Because he had enjoyed perfect health prior to Monday evening, my inlaws decided to have an autopsy (necropsy?) done. Today they learned that Buddy had been poisoned either with rat poison or snail bait. His internal organs had hemorrhaged badly, and only something that strong could do that kind of damage. My inlaws do not keep any kind of poisons in their yard or house.

We've been in mourning for the loss of a good, sweet dog. To learn that his death was a malicious attack makes it even tougher to think about.

Buddy was not a barking dog.

He was not a biter.

He never left the yard, so he never hurt anyone by even pooping on their lawn.

The neighbors surrounding my inlaws have all lived there years and years, and would never do such a thing. If the dogs were causing problems, they would've approached my inlaws and told them.

So, for Buddy to have been poisoned means that someone actually trespassed in their yard and deliberately set the poison.

It breaks my heart. Buddy did not deserve to go this way.

Eye Infection

On Friday, I became a vampire. Or, at least that's how I felt. The morning went fine. Then, as I was driving home from taking the preschoolers to school, the brightness of the outdoors was really overwhelming. Considering it was a very overcast day, this was a bit alarming.

I got home and took out my contacts, noting my right eye looked really red. An hour later, it was time to pick up the big kids from school. The sun was excruciatingly painful, and I was really hoping the kids didn't have garlic or cross crafty projects.

Yesterday, my right eye was bright red and there was a weird spot on my iris. I decided to get to the doctor and get going on antibiotics, because I had no memory of getting infected by a vampire, and none of the vampire books I read mentioned red eyes with spots.

I went to the Urgent Care in Layton. They were covered by my insurance, and are a new clinic in the area. I have to say I was really impressed. They had gorgeous living trees and plants in the waiting area, up to date magazines, a HUGE salt water aquarium, and it was nicely decorated. I was in and out of the clinic in less than 45 minutes. What impressed me about them was they had an option for the uninsured. For a flat fee of $60, they would see you and take care of you to the best of THEIR ability. So, for example, if you had a child break their arm, they would do xrays and cast all for that $60. However, if it was a bad break that required the xrays to be seen by a specialist, or setting under general anesthesia, they'd have to send you out, and it would get a lot more expensive.

So, Dr. Warrington (I think that was his name) looked at my eyes, and agreed that I had an infection. He had some eye ointment on site, so he gave me a tube of that and sent me on my way.

Now, I feel like a cat with goopy ointmenty eyes. But, I am no longer afraid of the sun.

Swimming is good for the sinuses

I signed S up for swimming lessons through the local rec center.

Yesterday was her first day. Prior to actually beginning the lessons, they had all the kids in a big group, and explained water safety rules. There was the usual "no running, no gum, no food, swim diapers on kids who aren't potty trained" spiel. Then, she went over illness and when to keep kids home. A fever, vomiting and diarrhea all rated to skip lessons. She said that a slight cold and runny nose was ok. In fact, she thought swimming was really great for people with colds because it cleared out the sinuses. At this point, I was trying to tune her out because I was getting a vivid mental picture of WHY a kid's sinuses would be cleared out by swimming in a public pool. As my mind wandered, it made me think of all the gunk that was in a pool. It made me happy for pool chemicals.

At this point, she's talking about how her colds never last very long because as soon as she feels a cold coming on, she starts swimming extra.

Yeesh.

I need mind bleach so that I don't have to think of the gallons and gallons of snot that must be floating around that pool.

My friend K was there too, and we exchanged glances through this. I see an inside joke in the making here.


As a bragging side note, S can float her back really well, for at least 5-10 seconds if her teacher gets her into position first.