it's official...

I'm not a nice mom. In my defense, it's been a long day and tonight I went grocery shopping while breaking the two cardinal rules of grocery shopping.

1. Don't go when you are hungry.
2. Don't take kids who are hungry and/or tired.

I was starving, which explains the 4 lb bucket of Twizzlers I bought, and both my kids were hungry AND tired. So after a nightmare of a shopping trip we came home to have dinner, which is never an easy event around here. After 45 minutes of Alexis hemming and hawing and crying and not drinking her milk I finally lost it. I turned to her and said, "if you don't drink that milk I'm going to dump it on your head"*. Mean, right? You can agree with me, I know it was mean. It was intended to be 90% comedic (I thought Jeremy might laugh), and 10% motivational. Alexis saw it as 0% funny, and 100% scary, which translates into motivational for her. Her first reaction was to cry and say, "but I won't be pretty if you dump milk on my head!". Fortunately Jeremy stepped in and said, "then you better hurry up and drink it". I'm so glad he supports me. The milk was gone within 2 minutes, after which Alexis went and sat on Jeremy's lap and told him she was having a "rough day".

And as I've been typing this I can hear the kids upstairs in the bath (Jeremy is watching them, don't worry), and Tyler pulled the shower thing up while the water was running, so they got water on their heads--her least favorite thing. "Rough days" just never seem to end fast enough.

P.S. Here's the link for the funny SNL skit I mentioned a few posts back. It's clean, so don't worry if your kids are in the room. Watch it. You won't be sorry.


*For the record, I wouldn't have actually followed through with that threat. So don't call CPS on me.

no more mullet

Well, as per our agreement when I lost the ladder golf game, yesterday we cut Tyler's hair into a mohawk. Seriously, he could not be any cuter. I haven't been able to stop looking at him all day because...wow. See for yourself.


Much better than the mullet. Much much better.

goodbye dear friend

Here's another Alexis post.

This picture is almost two years old!

I've mentioned before that Alexis still uses a pacifier, though it's restricted to only at night or nap time. The deal was that when she had her 4th birthday this summer she'd have to give it up.

But that's changed now.

For her nap today I couldn't find her pacifier and I was desperate for her to take a nap, so I found the other pacifier that I've hidden. Later I looked and looked and couldn't find the first one, I think Tyler ran off with it somewhere and now it's gone. Fortunately we had the other one. But then tonight when it was time for bed I couldn't find the replacement pacifier! It was somewhat heartbreaking to watch as she realized that she wouldn't have a pacifier for bed. There were some tears shed.

She told me that Heavenly Father and Jesus were going to be mad at me for taking it. No matter how many times I told her I didn't take it, she wouldn't believe me. Then she told Jeremy that her mouth was going to die if she didn't have a pacifier. Her sadness at losing this inanimate object reminded me of the scene in "Cast Away" when Tom Hanks loses his volleyball, Wilson. Definitely a different scenario here, but sad nonetheless. And when I said to her, "your pacifier was your friend wasn't it?" she got upset and said "It wasn't my friend. It was my pacifier. Friends have faces and pacifiers don't. I just liked sucking on it". When a child can tell you just what about their comfort object is comforting, it's probably time for them to be done with it.

Now excuse me while I go dig through the toy box, I've got to find those pacifiers before she does, or else we'll have to go through all this another day.

exclusive princess club

Starting with the day we brought Alexis home from the hospital (which is where babies come from if you ask her) she has slept with a little stuffed bear and a pink stuffed pig. They were named Bear and Pig respectively. She seemed to love them equally until she was about 2. Then one night when I went to check on her I saw that Pig was on the floor out of her crib, so I picked him up and put him back in. This happened the next several nights in a row. Finally one night after doing that Alexis woke up in the middle of the night and started crying. Why? Because Pig was in her bed. And ever since then he's been banned from sleeping with her. Sometimes we'd try to slip him in there just to make her mad, which worked, and she'd yell that Pig had to sleep on the ground or out in the hall. I do wish I knew what Pig did to make Alexis dislike him, but I don't think I ever will. I know how Pig must feel though cause one time I had these two really good friends and after awhile they started doing stuff without me because they loved each other and wanted to get married. Psh, like that's a reason.

And then for Christmas this last year Alexis got a set of 7 Disney Princesses, but she only played with 6 of them. Jasmine was never allowed to go anywhere with us or play any of the princess games. We can speculate on why Alexis dissed her, maybe it was her immodest clothing, maybe it's because she's not wearing a dress like the others, maybe it was because her doll face is twice as big as the other princesses. I'm sure we'll never know why exactly, but I'm happy to report that after 4 months of exclusion she is now allowed back with her friends.

Lately Alexis has been lining up all her princesses and having what she calls "Princess camping school". The figure you see at the bottom of the picture below is named "Mattie" and she is an honorary princess, because she is actually a Noah figurine from a dollar store set. I think it's very appropriate that Alexis chose that one as the teacher.
She lines them up as shown, and then talks to them, reads books to them, puts them to bed and protects them from Tyler who knocks them over, and Jeremy who throws balls at them. Ironically there is one princess missing from this picture (Tyler's fault, not Alexis'), and you can give yourself a big pat on the back if you can guess who she is.


I'm hoping Alexis outgrows this exclusion thing before she gets to school and makes her own little group of friends, 'cause in my book, exclusion just ain't cool. And neither is looking like any of these princesses after camping for 5 days.

call me mrs. sony

I thought I'd take a break from playing in turkey poop (I'm planting strawberries) to post a few recent pictures. I forgot to mention that also last weekend our camera broke--we think it had too much fun in the sand. I called around a few places to see how much it would cost to fix it and the geek squad at Best Buy, after hearing it was three years old, told me I should just buy a new one. Apparently we were practically living in the dark ages having technology that is THREE YEARS OLD!

We loved our old camera, it was a Sony Cybershot, so we decided to stick with the good and get another one. If you are in the market for a digital camera I cannot tell you enough how much we LOVE this camera. It's got a huge display screen, a battery that lives longer than a housefly, it doesn't have any delay when you take a picture, and it's got a Carl Zeiss lens which is some fancy pants lens. It's all around awesome. (I'm expecting a check from Sony for my endorsement any day now.) So far I'm equally pleased with the newer cybershot. It even has more mega pixels, is skinnier and is that brand new shiny silver color. I'm in love.

So here's a few pictures of the kids being cute. You'll notice in the first one that the hammock is back! That's right, I'm in heaven.

weekend update

**Updated below**
Here's a few tidbits from our weekend.

*Jeremy came back from St. George very sunburned, but had a good time with the Rhino in all the sand dunes. Since I'm unaccustomed to not having my husband home at night like some women, I sleep with a big old kitchen knife right next to my bed. Let that be a warning to any of you who are just waiting for Jeremy to go out of town again.

*Tyler has learned the word "mine". He now has to stop in the middle of eating, drinking, playing, and tell me that what he has is "MINE".

*Alexis gave her first talk in Primary, about following the prophet. I thought she did a good job, and I thought I did a good job writing the talk and assembling all the pictures.

*Tyler went to nursery for the first time. No one left the room with a black eye or a bloody nose, so I take it as a success.

*Tyler also got to ride in the rhino for the first time (we took it out Saturday night), and he seemed to like it for the most part. He's still little so he slides down in the seat a bit, but he didn't mind the bumps and kept his sunglasses on most of the time. He looked very studly.

*We had a birthday dinner for my sister, which she made herself. Not my idea of a good birthday dinner, but she's a little weird.

*I broke several of my diet rules, but despite that I think I've lost a pound.

*Jeremy and I were debating about cutting Tyler's mullet off (I want to, Jeremy doesn't) so my dad (my whole family seems to be in favor of the mullet) suggested we take it to a game of ladder golf. I think they all expected Jeremy to just kill me, but when I'm determined and focused I do alright at the game. We played best out of three. I won the first, Jeremy won the second, and he beat me by 1 point in the third. So as per our agreement, the mullet is here to stay until April 26th, when it will be then cut off into a mohawk. All this just so my brother can see it when he comes to visit; he better appreciate it.

*I saw a really funny skit on SNL during "Weekend Update", but I can't find it on youtube. If I ever do I will post it here because it still makes me smile just thinking about it.

*And today Alexis is being worse than I've seen her in a long time. I don't know what her problem is, and I don't know how to fix it when she gets like this, but Jeremy's going to the Jazz game tonight so it's going to be a long day. Fortunately she's got a little friend over that's helping the situation, but I'm so exasperated by her. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ah. I feel a little better now.

How was your weekend?

*I was reminded that Alexis went to her first non-parent birthday party this weekend and had so much fun. And I heard she gave the pinata a good whack, not a little dainty one. That's my girl!

diet -- a four letter word

Last summer something happened that has changed my life. I turned 25, and nothings been the same since. It seems I had an internal timer set on my metabolism and it ran out when I had my birthday, and as a result my metabolism started working at half it's normal speed. Over the winter I've put on a few pounds but have optimistically believed that when spring came (which technically we're still waiting for) they would just shed off. You know, like it was just keeping me warm and now that it's no longer needed it'll disappear, like an animal's fur coat. Unfortunately no such thing has happened.

So I've decided I needed to help myself lose those unwanted extra pounds. I've decided to turn to the "d" word. Diet.

I've never in my life done any sort of diet except last winter when I was bribed with a trip on a houseboat at Lake Powell. It was definitely worth it, and lookin' good in my jeans was an added bonus. But I've slowly lost the habits I had developed last winter, so now I've got to try again. And this time lookin' good in my jeans is the only incentive I've got, and it's a little harder.

Some of you that do hardcore diets like "Body for Life" or "Atkins" will possibly laugh at my definition of a diet, since it's not quite as rigorous. Basically I've just thought about all the stuff I eat that's bad for me, the times of day that I eat and I've cut a lot of stuff out and changed (hope to change) a lot of my eating habits. Now I'm doing crazy stuff like cutting out white bread (that alone is enough for tears) and soda, buying 100 calorie snack packs, restricting dessert to only two nights a week, and drinking tons of water. I went grocery shopping today and I hated it even worse than normal. All the junk food seemed to know I couldn't eat them, so they called my name louder than normal. While walking down the bread aisle I had to turn my head as I walked past the Little Debbie snack cake display because the thought of Nutty Bars that could no longer be mine was almost more than I could bear. Gone are the days of eating a whole bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and just around the corner are the days of eating salad with no dressing.

So, here's the goal I've set for myself. I have until May 23rd (the day we leave for our trip to Iowa), to lose 10 pounds. That's not a lot, but it's enough for me. Hopefully with any luck it'll be a little more, and with even more luck (and a lot of sacrifice) I'll be able to keep the 10 lbs off this time. So if you see me, ask me how my ten pounds is coming and tell me my butt looks big, I need all the motivation I can get!

Now lets all join in a moment of silence while we mourn the loss of some dear friends.

Raspberry Delights
Apple Cobbler
Reese's
White confetti cake with white confetti frosting
sugar cookies
pie-all kinds
brownies
frosting straight from the can (yes, I'm that gross)

Did I leave anyone out? Let me know if I did. Commiserate with me, share your dieting woes.

(And yes, I'm aware that I'm being fairly dramatic.)

a drawing breakthrough

"An angel on a blue mountain with swirls"

"A duck"

It's a little ridiculous how proud I am of her and these two little pictures, especially the duck's beak. Up to this point I've seen nothing but traced hands, people who consist of mainly legs, and the letter A, so I'd say this is a step forward!

child-like instincts

There are a few things that I'm really not good at: planning stuff and getting up early. And I don't see myself becoming any better at them soon because there are a few things my children are extremely good at: ruining plans and getting up when I do.

Occasionally I try to get up by 7 or 7:15 (yes, that's early) so I can shower or exercise or just enjoy some quiet time before my kids get up, which is usually about 8:15. I usually set my alarm and hide it under Jeremy's pillow after he leaves for work so that only I will hear it, and I can barely hear it. That's what I did this morning. About 1 minute after my alarm went off I heard Tyler whining in his room. It's like it's instinctual, my eyes open, and a little alarm goes off in his head. **WARNING! WARNING! Your mom is awake. She might do something fun without you. WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!** So of course he is now grumpy because not only did he not get enough sleep, but who would want to wake up to that alarm? I am not exaggerating, every morning that I try to get up before him, he wakes up. So I guess I might as well sleep in until 8:15 every morning...oh my life is hard.

I was going to write about how kids always ruin any plans you make, but I think every mom in the world knows about that, and it's 8:11, I'm not supposed to be awake yet, so I don't feel like writing anymore. Plus Tyler is wearing his breakfast and just threw his cup AGAIN because I happened to glance at him, and Alexis was supposed to come downstairs 15 minutes ago after her show was over, but she hasn't, so I better go find her.

it's still here

I have to admit that I'm about ready to cut the mullet off, probably in part because the haircut is so bad. Not just the mullet part, but the rest of it was poorly done. I willl stick with it awhile longer because Jeremy wants it forever, so a comprimise is definitely in order. I do agree that he looks cuter than anyone should in a mullet. And it does make me smile.

I wish I had the brain power to think of an awesome April Fools joke to play, but practical jokes has never been my forte. So rest easy, you'll get no mean jokes from me.