No really, it is broken.

Have you ever bought something, taken it home and then find out that it doesn't work like it should? And then you take that item back to the store and then it works fine for the salesman? Did you feel like an idiot? Well, Chris and I bought a tv stand the other day. We had been looking for one for a couple months and hadn't found one we both liked and also liked the price. We finally found one. Took it home and when we went to put the shelves in, they didn't fit. So we called the salesman and he said it was just tight and to push harder. Well, Chris pushed harder and we hear this cracking sound and the shelf still doesn't fit. Part of the interior had cracked. We took it back to the store and when we get there we start to show them that the shelf doesn't fit. But that's when the shelf fit perfectly. We were dumbfounded. They look at it for awhile, we look at it for awhile. We feel like idiots. Finally we found where it had cracked. The whole interior section was shifting side to side. That's why it didn't fit at home but it did at the store. It had shifted before we ever got home, so the thing was broken when we bought it. The store was really nice about it and ordered us a new one.

It's too short

Ever since we moved into this new house I've had a vision of what the laundry room should look like. I have not achieved it yet. My vision is nicely organized and everything is in a convenient location. My washer and dryer also need to be stacked in order to achieve my vision. They have been on pedestals since we bought them five years ago and I've always liked them that way. However in this house I think the laundry room will be much better organized if the washer and dryer are stacked. Chris agreed to help me set it up last night. To say the washer was heavy would be a huge understatement. In order to get the pedestal off, you have to lay the washer on it's side. Not easy when the washer weighs like a ton. We finally got it off and got the washer back upright. We pull the dryer out and that's when we notice that my vision of stacking the washer and dryer is not going to happen - at least not that night. The plug for the dryer is in the far lower corner from where they will be when stacked. It's a good six feet from the outlet in the wall to the back of the dryer where the cord comes out. The cord on the dryer is about three feet long. It will never reach. I need to get a new dryer cord in order to get them stacked. We decided not to bother with taking off the other pedestal for now. For three months now, I go in the laundry room everyday (three loads per day average) and think how nice it would be to have them stacked. I was so close. I'm sure Home Depot or Lowes sells a dryer cord in the length that I need. I just didn't want to have to wait any longer. Patience not my strong point these days.

I have gone down a size in my clothes and my muffin top is officially gone. :-) Happy day!!

Bradley the actor

A friend told me yesterday about a traveling children's theater group that was coming to town this week. Auditions were today. We all thought Dana would enjoy doing it and I wanted to get her to the audition. They were this morning at 9:00. The problem was that Calvin had a doctor's appointment in Tucson at 9:45. No way for me to make it to both. Lucky for me Chris had the morning off. Dana and Bradley have swim lessons from 8:30 to 9:00 so it was going to be tight. I really thought Dana would like to do it and I thought Bradley would do it but not be excited about it. I was wrong. My friends who were able to be there said that Dana really clammed up and acted like she didn't want to do it but that Bradley was a real ham on stage. Bradley got one of the main roles. I'm so proud of him. I talked to Dana about it and she said there were too many people there that she didn't know and that she didn't want to do it. Oh well, maybe she doesn't enjoy the spotlight as much as we thought.

I had to take Emma and Derrick with me to Calvin's doctor appointment. I was again reminded of the issues I have when taking Calvin and Derrick out together somewhere. It doesn't seem to matter where we go, there are issues with those two. Derrick wants to run around and I'm ok with him doing it a little, but then Calvin gets involved trying to stop Derrick and then Derrick thinks it's a game and runs farther and so on and so forth. Calvin is trying to help but is really causing problems. Derrick is fine if Calvin will leave him alone. It's so frustrating.

Wahoo!!

Day seven of hCG and I am down 12 pounds. My muffin top is much diminished!!

Yesterday I went on a hike with the cub scouts. I was a little worried that because of the diet I wouldn't have the energy I needed to make it and would need to be carried out. Not a problem at all. I felt as good as I normally do on a hike - ok I thought I was going to die a few times, but that's totally normal and related to my cardiovascular health and once my heart recovered I felt fine again. I felt like I had plenty of energy the whole time, and the rest of the day as well.

We're getting ready to take the kids up the mountain for a short walk now.

Day Three

So here we go. We are now on day three of the hCG diet. Day one and two hardly count as a diet because you're supposed to eat like a glutton. We took those days very seriously - it was glorious. I am a glutton. Today starts the actual restricted diet. Here we go.

I think we now are officially rednecks...

Yesterday afternoon saw a lot of action. Chris got to use his rifle on an actual moving target. Derrick found a rattle snake in the barn. It was a small one but it was definitely a rattler. The neighbors had a few extra kids for the day and they came over to tell us about the snake. My neighbor didn't know that Chris was home yesterday so she called the fire department to come take care of the snake. The kids found one out there four or five days earlier but by the time the fire department showed up, the snake was gone. Chris didn't want the snake to get away waiting for the fire department so he got out his 22 and went to take care of business. As he's getting the gun out and getting it loaded and taking the trigger lock off of it we realize that it sure takes a long time to get it ready to fire. It's a good thing we don't actually need it for protection. Back to the snake. Chris went out there and shot the snake four times. It still wasn't dead so one of the neighbor boys went to find a shovel to cut its head off. Chris went inside to put his gun away and while he was there he sees that Derrick is at the door talking to a fireman. The neighbor always gives our address to people who are coming because we have house numbers and she doesn't. So the firemen come to our house and there's no adults here. Derrick is having quite the conversation with them I guess. The fireman told Chris he wishes he could have videotaped the conversation with Derrick because it was so funny. That leaves Chris and I really wondering what little DerrDerr told the fireman. He won't tell us what he said, he just keeps saying that he wants to go to the fire station and talk to the other firefighter. Anyways, back to the bunnies. The rattlesnake had bitten two of the rabbits, so they needed to be disposed of. Then since Chris was home and the gun was already out, our neighbor asked if Chris would help her boys kill a few of the rabbits since they had too many. Chris let three of the boys kill a rabbit each and he almost got shot himself. I don't think he's going to let those same boys shoot a rabbit again. Bradley was one of the lucky ones who got to use the gun and he told our neighbor that he wanted to have the rabbit after it was cleaned. So we put it in the crockpot and today the kids are eating rabbit for lunch. I tasted it. It's not quite like chicken, but it's not too far off of it either. I think with BBQ sauce you'd never know what it was. So there you have it, I and my children are now rabbit eating rednecks.

Derrick is getting into this eating animals thing a little too much. He just came in and asked if we were going to eat our kitties when they get bigger. I told him no, we don't eat kitties. He said, "well, some people do." Um...we do not.

He also just tried to cut off his own eyelashes with the scissors.

Goal for the day - toy downsizing/decluttering.

Three in one day - don't faint.

I just had to post one more time. I am starting hCG again today. So excited for my skinny self to magically reappear. I will probably need two rounds to find my former glory. I'm not ready to post any before pictures because I don't have any fabulous after pictures to balance out the horror. We'll see if I'm brave enough to do that later on. Wish me luck!!

Family pictures on their way

I know it's been months since I've posted any pictures on here. And then I do a product review and post a picture for that. Lame. We did have family pictures taken a couple weeks ago. We are waiting for them to be finished. I guess the photographer takes about three weeks to do digital enhancements to them. Maybe she'll make me look skinny - that would be awesome and I would so pay extra for that. I doubt that's what she's doing. When the temple was dedicated my family all got together for the first time in years and we had a family picture with everyone. It has been over five years since we've done that. Most of the family would get together for holidays and whatnot, but we were never all together at the same time. It was really nice to see everyone together and spend the afternoon there.

Anyways - pictures are coming - soon.

Product Review - LemiShine

This stuff is amazing!! My dishes have never been so clean. When we first moved here, the dishwasher was alright. I thought it was just an ok dishwasher and I should just not expect the results I had in Queen Creek with my awesome dishwasher (not to mention water softener system). I was ok with that. But after a few months the dishes got worse. And then it seemed they got worse with each load of dishes that were washed. I asked my neighbor about it and she said the water was so hard here that was the problem. She said she used something to clean out the dishwasher once a month and it made a big difference. She showed me her dishes before and after (she had forgotten to use it for the last six months and so she had some dishes that looked just like mine). She couldn't remember what she had used to clean out the dishwasher so I went on a hunt. I found this.

It truly is amazing! I had to run the dishwasher empty and let it soak overnight to clean the buildup out of the dishwasher. And then I ran a load of my dishes through. The picture on the front of the bottle is exactly what my glasses looked like both before and after. Yippey!!!

I stayed up to watch THIS!?!?!?!

I really do not like movies that show a couple in love, who then gets married, and then screws up the marriage. I do not like when they show how happy they are before they get married, and then show how much misery they are in after a few years of marriage. I don't like seeing a couple lose their love for each other and then separate and then one of them dies a miserable death and the one that's still alive recognizes what she lost. Pathetic!! I HATE watching movies that show people being royally stupid in their marriage. It really bothers me. Yes, I just watched one such movie. Yes, I was disturbed by it. Is it really late? Yes, it is. Should I have gone to bed instead of watching said movie. Absolutely. I should have done anything else. Netflix should have a filter on it for happy endings, which surprisingly I think this particular movie would have passed that filter anyways because the last two minutes of the movie the "heroine" turns her life around and blah blah blah. Netflix needs a filter on it for the portrayal of stupid married couples. That's what Netflix needs.

I miss my beloved.

Dear blogging friends - my apologies regarding my laziness.

So the school year ended and the kids are now home. We took a few days to be VERY lazy, but that's now out of our system and we are ready to not be lazy. Chris had a novel idea for the kids to be more helpful with the chores. Each child is assigned a specific room/area that they are responsible for all day. Additional chores are assigned each day to address areas that don't need daily attention. It's been two days so far and the house is looking (and smelling) awesome. When the kids are done with the assigned chores, then I'm willing to let them do paid extra chores, although Dana is the only one who feels that the wages are sufficient for the work. And that's fine with me, she's usually the only one who does a job worthy of getting paid.

We took the kids to the temple open house last month. I went one day while Chris was at work. It was a really windy day and I was not wearing an appropriate skirt for such wind. Calvin was in a wheelchair from his recent surgery on his ankles and so I'm there trying to get the wheelchair out of the back of the van and trying to not flash the whole parking lot. The usher who was opening the doors of the church finally came over to help me. His words "I'll get the wheelchair, you hold your shirt." (Sigh) embarrassing! It was so worth taking the kids up there though. As we were leaving Dana says, "Mom, that was so beautiful. Thank you for bringing us here." We went again a couple weeks after that, this time Chris came with us and I wore a more wind worthy skirt. After the temple was dedicated, Derrick asked when we were going to go again. We told him he needed to be 12 to be able to go inside now and he responded with "but, I am 12." I think he still doesn't believe us that he's not allowed to go inside. (And he has no concept of his own age - my mom asked him how old he is and he answered, "I'm four, but my mom thinks I'm three." Sometimes he says 16 or 8 or 10 - totally random. Dana used to do that too.)

Dana's birthday was on Monday of this week. I wasn't ever able to come up with ideas for presents for her and so we just took her shopping for her presents. We went to Sears and bought her a new wardrobe. She was in dire need. All of her clothes were looking threadbare or stained. She's now looking quite the snappy dresser. We also took her to Gamestop and let her pick out one Wii game. She picked out Pony Friends 2. We tried to encourage other choices but that's the one she wanted. Funny thing is the boys have been playing it almost as much as she has. Calvin is trying to build up his profile so he can buy a mustang - never mind that it's not a car, he still wants the mustang.

I have started the process of registering the kids for online schooling. I'm really excited about them being home with me next year. I'm a little nervous about the organization required to make this work but I'm sure it will all work out.

Wow - didnt mean to neglect...

I hadn't realized how long it's been since my last post.

Quick summary - we all got well. We went to a wedding in Phoenix - beautiful. Spent a few days in a cabin in Pine - lovely. Came home and finished unpacking boxes and organizing toys and clothes. Boys outgrew their clothing, again. Calvin went on a camp out on the army base here, it was a Camporee with other boy scout troops. One of the other troops started a wildfire - burned 6 acres. Bradley is excited to be signed up for Football in the fall - it will be really good for him. Dana wants to sign up for cheer leading and I'm really having mixed feelings about it. Emma is pure sweetness and has discovered the crayola cutter. Derrick is like lemonade - super sweet with a tartness. Derrick doesn't understand why I want his toys to be put away at night. Bradley doesn't understand why he has to help pick up the toys that he didn't play with. I simply remind him that I do all his laundry while I certainly didn't dirty the clothes. Calvin just had surgery on his ankles - went really well. He's enjoying staying home and getting so much unshared time on the video games. Lest you think I'm letting his brain turn to mush, he is keeping up on his school work and I do require equal time of reading for video game time.

Funny thing Derrick said the other day - Chris brought a friend to church last Sunday. His name is Paul and he shaves his head. Derrick asked Chris if Paul had hair and Chris told him to ask Paul. Derrick slowly climbs right up next to his face and whispers "do you have hair?"

It snowed this morning. I know - late April. That global warming thing is gonna freeze us all out before long. I'm a little concerned about the garden. We had some nice tomato and strawberry plants out there. The pepper plants were not looking so great before the snow, so we'll have to see what survived out there. Derrick comes into our bedroom this morning and says he can't find his socks. I tell him to look on the couch and fall back asleep - this was at 5:00 AM. Then he comes in and asks where his snow gloves are. That caught my attention. I asked if there's snow outside and Derrick's excitement is heard in his response. I thoroughly disappoint him by telling him it's too early to go out and play in the snow. With the snow I am feeling totally justified in turning the heat back on yesterday. I hope some of the apricots make it.

Not so busy...

Not because there isn't anything to do. Oh no, there's lots to do. We've all been sick - again. All the kids have taken turns staying home from school and church. The little ones sound like they're going to cough up a lung. And the mild fevers seem to never end. I missed my college roommate's wedding reception - I was really looking forward to seeing a bunch of old friends that I hadn't seen in years. Total bummer.

I think I would rather have one to two days of really being sick than two weeks of come and go mild fever. Get it over with and move on instead of lingering and feeling just bad enough that nothing gets done but not bad enough to feel justified in doing nothing.

This morning the little ones seemed to be feeling better finally so I took them to the mall to get a little shopping done. Bad idea. Halfway through they started coughing and my mild headache/fever came back. We weren't ready for an outing. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired and so wanted to get out of the house. But it was just a little too early.

I did find really cute Easter skirts for Dana and Emma. They will actually match this year. The dress selection in this town really leaves something to be desired. There are not very many choices. It's nearly impossible to find matching clothes for those two. Dana is in the older girls range and Emma is still in the little girl range. The mall here doesn't have any stores that cater to girls/children's clothing. It's very disappointing, but not worth driving to Tucson for. If I had planned a little bit earlier I could've ordered something cute online. But I didn't.

Anyways, I think I'm done rambling for the evening.

So busy

Ok, so we've been rather busy. We moved on the 13th and then right after that Chris had a business trip he had to go to and was gone for most of the week following the move. That was lame. Chris got home and now we've been in this new house for just over a week. It's been so busy.

Funny thing that Derrick said the other day - I asked him if he wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. He said, "No, I want a boy cheese sandwich."

Not ready to fly solo

Do you remember that old movie Better Off Dead? Remember the mother was a truly terrible cook? Remember the green slime pudding that crawled off the plate? Dana concocted something similarly creepy last night. I was helping Chris with his class and I wanted Dana to make popcorn and watch a movie with the little ones. But we were out of popcorn. So I told her to make cookies. She's done it before, but always with supervision. I thought she was ready. She wasn't. We knew something wasn't right when she came in and told us that Derrick was helping her mix them up and he had stirred it too much. Chris and I look at each other, not sure how you stir cookie dough too much. We told her to take care of it because we had to focus on his class. Then right after we finish, she brings in what I find out to be the second batch of cookie dough. She asks, "Does this look right?" This is what reminded us of the scene in the movie when the pudding crawls off the plate. Talk about slimy looking mess - whoa!! It was the consistency of snot with chocolate chips dispersed throughout. I go into the kitchen to find the first batch and it's looking like brownie batter. I find measuring cups with melted butter in them and realize she has forgotten what it means to "cream" the butter and sugar together. She has melted the butter. That in turn melted the chocolate chips in the first batch, which she then abandoned to make the second batch. I ask her how much of different ingredients she has put in. She's gotten everything right except for the flour. The recipe called for 2 and 1/4 cups plus 1/2 cup for elevation. (I had to alter my favorite recipe for our altitude here.) She put in 1/2 cup of flour. I decided that I may as well try to salvage it if the only thing missing was flour. At that point all I'm risking is 4-5 cups of flour, the rest of the ingredients were already a lost cause if I didn't try to save it. So I mixed the two batches together and added flour. Lots of flour. They turned out pretty good - not fabulous like the recipe done right, but pretty darn good for looking like it would crawl off the plate.

Snow...

It snowed here last week. It didn't stick down here but there was snow really low on the mountain. We took the kids up on Saturday to play in the snow. Everyone loved it. Some loved it longer than others.
Emma didn't last very long. One very small snowball in the face and she was done. Everyone else had lots of fun though. We made a small sad little snowman. We just have no experience there. One of the older kids was shocked to find that their butt was wet after sitting down. We really thought they should have figured that out beforehand. It was lots of fun and we look forward to doing it again.

Music lessons

So this year has really been a struggle for Bradley as far as homework is concerned. We've decided he has two speeds when being compelled to do something he doesn't want to do - slow and slower. We've tried several different methods for encouraging him to get it done in a timely manner. None worked all that well. I'm not exaggerating when I say he would spend 7 hours on homework that should take maybe 30 minutes tops. About a week ago he came home from school with one of these -

a recorder.

He asked if he could practice it and I told him he could as soon as his homework was done. He grumbled. But then he got his homework done - quickly. The next day, he didn't say anything when he got home he just sat down and did his homework. He was done in about 20 minutes. That was the first time all year that he had gotten his homework done so quickly. He's done this every night since he brought home the recorder. My friend is the PTO president and she is the one who is teaching the 4th graders to play the recorder. I told her how great it's been for Bradley but I don't know if she can possibly appreciate how ecstatic we are that Bradley is doing his homework like we knew he could.

It's due WHEN!?!?!

So Tuesday morning as I'm driving Calvin to school after his physical therapy appointment I ask him about his science project. I knew the teachers had started talking about it back in December but Calvin would never tell me when it was due. So he says it's due Friday. I know he hasn't done anything on it at home yet, and after a few questions realize he hasn't done anything on it at school either. I ask him what he's going to do. He's got it all figured out it's going to be so easy. He's going to determine if video games will turn your brain to mush or not. He says it will only take a day or so to do. I explain that since he cannot cut anyone's heads open to actually look at their brains he cannot do that project. He agrees that I'm right. Then he changes his idea to whether video games make you smarter. He assures me this will also be easy and will only take a day. I tell him he needs to talk to Dad about that one. Later at dinner Chris asks him about his science project and that's when Calvin says that the presentation is due tomorrow. We're so mad. We explain that the due date can't be Friday and Wednesday at the same time. After quite a bit of "discussion" (lecturing from Chris - and I was in trouble too because it was written in his homework folder which I had not been checking. I hate those things. ) I help Calvin with a completely new idea. Is 6 a lucky number? He's rolling dice and writing down data and then I help him organize his thoughts and data into a presentable project. I have to say it looked rather nice for last minute. We have him give us a mock presentation so that he's practiced for the next day at school. So now skip ahead to the next day after school -

"Calvin, how did your presentation go?"

"We didn't have it."

"Did you ask the teacher when it was due?"

"No." Pause. "Maybe it's due tomorrow."

We had the same conversation the next day. And then a similar one on Friday in which he told me the teacher said it was due on Monday. Um, there's no school on Monday. We're pretty sure that he turned it in really early because if he had turned it in really late, the teacher would've made some sort of contact with us - right?

Quick Catch-Up

So it's been awhile since a real post and I think if I don't do a quick catch-up I'll just keep putting off posting.

We had a great Christmas. This was the first year that we didn't spend Christmas Eve with family. We just had our own little family at home. It was rather refreshing. I kept worrying all month about not doing something with family. I felt that it wouldn't really be Christmas if we didn't spend it with either Chris' side or my side of the family. But all that worry was for naught.

We had a nice dinner at home with the kids. We had a Christmas goose, spinach casserole, sweet potatoes baked with butter, fancy rice, homemade rolls, and salad. Everyone really liked the goose. I was worried - kind of risky making something you've never tried before but I trusted Alton Brown and he did not fail me.

We had the kids make Santa scopes and tracked his movements on Norad. That was fun. We then read a book about believing in Santa with the kids and it explained the symbolism of Santa with the true meaning of Christmas. I had made PJ pants for everyone - including Chris - and gave them to everyone that night. (I found John Deere tractor flannel for Chris - it's awesome! He said he hasn't had tractor PJs since he was five.) We sang Christmas songs and all the kids actually sang. I'm looking forward to our new tradition of having Christmas Eve at home.

Christmas Day was really great. We had a really nice relaxed morning. I had made cinnamon rolls for breakfast the day before. After we opened presents, Chris took a nap for a couple hours while I got food ready to take to my parent's house. We ended up leaving about an hour and a half late for my parents, but there were others who were later and so dinner was postponed anyways. We stayed the night at my parents and had a great day the next day with all my sisters and their families. My brother wasn't there this year because his wife's brother was getting married. We all missed his family.

New Years Eve was again at home with the kids. We let the little ones stay up until almost 11:00 which is unthinkably late for them. The three older kids got to stay up until the new year. I actually fell asleep on the couch the last half hour and woke up grumpy when they were ringing in the new year. My bad. We sent the three older kids to bed then and Chris and I watched a little TV. Around 1:30 we went to bed and I asked who was going to get up with the kids in the morning. Chris said they would sleep in because they had been up so very late. Didn't work. I got up with the kids.

We drove to Chris' sister's house for the annual monopoly game the next day. Before we left we were cleaning the house and I was working in the play room. I wasn't picking up anything heavy but I hurt my low back and it has yet to fully recover. It's been getting a little bit better every day, but is still sore. So my participation in the monopoly game was minimal. I spent most of the evening laying on the floor. We stayed the night at her house and then spent the next day at his other sister's house and then spent the night at my sister's house and went to the baby blessing on Sunday. Everyone commented on us being on time to the blessing. Apparently that's what it takes for us to be on time to a baby blessing, stay the night before with the family blessing their baby. All in all it was a great weekend. We got to spend time with a lot of the family and it was fun.

For the most part now, the kids have adjusted to going back to school. Laundry is mostly caught up - ok I'm swimming in clean clothes, but at least they're clean. The kids have all been passing around a mild cold/flu for the past week. I think we're mostly done with it now though. I've been making my sister-in-law's wedding dress. It's all cut out and needs to be put together now. We're thinking about moving. And I want to start homeschooling the kids. More posts to come...

I'm back...

So Chris and I decided that the blog no longer needed to be private. I like that the sidebar of my blog tells me when my friends and family have updated theirs and I knew that it bothered some of you when I went private. So sorry, it was unavoidable at the time. But now, I'm happy to announce that the blog is open again to the public. Happy day.

Oh and by the way, to have your sidebar show the updates, you have to remove me from your list and add me back in.