Tuesday, November 18, 2008

27 weeks and I've gained *0* lbs officially!

So here I am at 27 weeks:

And a haircut!

And I had my appointment with the Midwife today. I'm officially back to 157, which... LOL, was my pre-pregnancy weight before I lost all of that weight... so I'm apparently at weight gain: 0 lbs!

More tomorrow... getting late and I'm beat.

The NEW set of happiness.

After finding a deal in a VIP Family & Friends ad for a new Washer and Dryer set from Sears, Cam got hooked... we've been having problems with our washer for the past couple of months and it's simply a matter of old age. There's no way that we'd be able to fix or replace any parts without ending up paying more than it was worth and we both knew it was time for a new one. So, upon further issues with Sears (surprise, surprise!) we went to Lowe's for a Price Match. I'm not going to go into that story as it causes massive amounts of stresses and nightmares about the seemingly thousands of Lowe's stores in the Salt Lake area that I called Thursday night. (Okay, more like seven.)

Regardless, Cam stepped up to the plate, raised his bat, and magically Lowe's began to open up. I have to admit... sometimes he is JUST RIGHT. Being nice may not work, sometimes you have to call corporate. Which is exactly what he did, he spoke to the Executive Secretary of the CEO of Lowe's and she immediately told him he was correct - they DID need to Price Match, that they WOULD Price Match, and she would be calling the West Jordan Lowe's store and that he should expect a call in the next 24 hours.

He got one. They directed us to Murray as they didn't have a set in stock, on the floor. He went to Murray, and actually spoke FACE TO FACE with the person there who had heard the story from the West Jordan Lowe's guy, who had been told by the CEO's Executive Secretary.

This is where the differences between Cam and I really shine through. Cam's all about follow through and doing what your policy says, etc. I'm all about being overly nice, acting as a doormat, and crying. So basically, he went in and regardless of the crap they gave him or the uncomfortable joking banter back and forth from the manager, he did what he went there to do and brought that bacon home.

Me?

I would have cried into the bacon out of anxiety and not-being-nice-enough-ness and therefore ruined the bacon by raising its salt content.

I'm glad Cam was there and not me. Cause I would have come home to the pogo-stick-utilizing washer and cried. Into metaphorical bacon.

Wow. This went way off course.

Point being - Daddy brought home a new washer and dryer! Here are our new Samsung babies.

After taking the 205 lb washer upstairs with the help of our Home Teacher, Lance Butler, Cameron deemed the washer "The Behemoth". Olivia woke up and changed that to "Snow White".

The dryer was sort of no-name since after lifting the 205 lb dryer up the two half-flights of stairs, the 125 lb dryer felt like air. :) Olivia deemed this one (DUH) "Prince Charming".

I deem them DREAM MACHINES.

They make doing laundry seem like dancing the Tango. And oh do I ever love shoving my face into my newly cleaned warm smellygood laundry.

Did I mention they sing?

Oh YES. At the end of each cycle the dryer beeps out a little tune, at which point we all grow silent to hear it sing its little song. The children stop playing and come dancing out of their room.

Could I have asked for a better machine? I don't think it would even be possible.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Tagging from The Couch Diva

Meridith, a woman on a scrapbooking forum that I frequent, tagged! Here are my responses... :)

Five Things That Make Me Happy:
1. My husband, Cameron.
2. My babies (we'll talk generally, skipping moments like yesterday LOL), Liv, Duncan, and Baby Rachael.
3. Photography, I love to to take pictures. Allows me to preserve some of the good and a little of the crazy in my daily life.
4. BLOGGING! It's officially become the most successful way for me to keep up on my journaling.
5. Soft fluffy cloth dipes... especially my lovely new prefolds from LittleLions... it's like a clean slate with room to work! (Which ties into another thing that makes me happy - successful sewing projects. Emphasis on the word "successful", lol.)


Seven Facts About Me:
1. I'm 22 years old, but I think a bit ahead of my age as far as lack-of-debt level, child count, and responsibilities go... all things I'm proud of. :)
2. I actually do want ANOTHER child. Yes, I'm one of those women, the one's born to stay barefoot in the winter, pregnant in the summer. (Okay, only for one more after this one, but still.)
3. I'm the oldest of 5. Which until I moved to Utah, used to beat out a lot of kids' families back in school in Oregon. Then I married my husband, who is the third youngest of *8*.
4. I love the Beatles. I was introduced to them in the 8th grade and haven't swayed since. I know probably ANY Beatles song ever sung, a load of trivial Beatlemania knowledge (though I am getting rusty) and used to write letters to my friends over the summer -signing them "Melissa McCartney". Ahh, the dreamer days, LOL.
5. I secretly help my son pick VeggieTales DVDs at the library in accordance to the one's I think might be funny and haven't seen yet. And then I watch them with him, lol.
6. I have serious hair issues. I have VERY thick, naturally curly hair. I can't get it cut by just anyone, I won't color it anymore because I now live 800 miles away from the person who used to do it, and the last time I set foot into a Supercuts was almost 8 years ago and she BUTCHERED my hair. I have not set foot in one since. (Please don't be offended if you work for one, like one, etc. I'm aware my bias is based off of one IDIOT who HONESTLY, HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING? Phew... pardon me, had to get that out.) I wasn't kidding. Huge hair issues.
7. I LOVE to sing, read, scrapbook, take photos, blog, fold laundry (not put it away), and vaccuum. Not your typical gal here. :)

Thanks Meridith! This was fun! :)

I tag... AMY! (If you're already doing it for Meridith, that's okay, lol.) Aaaand... Lindsay! And... hey, tag yourself! Have fun. ;)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Anatomy of a Tantrum

This morning after doing our four-thousand-times-a-week cleaning of the children's room, they were delighted to see that I had pulled the Lego Table back out so that we can fit another dresser in the closet. So of course, even though we've had this table since Olivia was around 9 months old (Dad and Tanya passed it on to us) the kids were ECSTATIC that suddenly WE HAVE LEGOS!

It's been a Lego party ever since.

This brings good and bad moments. But honestly, I think the photos I just got were quite possibly the highlight of my day.

I heard happiness and laughter singing sweetly through the hallway, had many visits from pleasant faced little humans telling me "Mommy! Mommy! Look at my hammer I built!", "Mommy, mommy, look how tall!", "Mommy! SO BIG!". I thought, I'll take my camera in and get some photos for the folks back home...

Uhhm, yes. Thus begins our course on Moods and their constant level of change in our home.

Dunk: "Wivy... have allll the welllowwwss..." stated mid-sobbing.
Me: Snaps photo. "Olivia you need to share the yellows. Are there some he can have?"
Liv: "No! These are ALL mine!"

Dunk: Continues to sob, pauses to yell, "YOU NO TAKE PICTURE OF ME! Wivy have ALL WELLOWS!"
Me: "Liv, you need to share some of those yellows with Duncan, please." (It's so easy to remain calm realizing that they're not EVEN listening to what I'm saying anyway.)

Dunk: Proving my theory in the above parentheses, he decides to act upon what I said, of course - this has been translated into Duncan, please rush at your sister and grab whatever yellows she has near her body. He walks over and picks up a few yellow Legos stuck together on the ground. ON THE GROUND, mind you.

Stage 1:
Liv: "Those are MY YELLOWS!"

Stage 2:
Liv: "MOMMMMMMMMMM! HE TOOK MY LEGOS!"
Me: "Olivia, I was watching him, he picked them up off of the ground. Now you won't have to take any off of your hammer (the thing she's building), okay? Just calm down. They were on THE FLOOR."

Stage 3:
Liv: "Noooooooooooo! NOOOOOOOOOOO! DUNNNNNKKKYYYYY!! NOOOOOOO!"

The above sentence is paired with a face equal to one in a horror movie where one toddler is ripped limb from limb by a blood-mixed saliva drooling hairy demon, in FRONT of the other toddler. In our house, this face is saved for special occasions. Such as, "THERE'S NO MORE SQUARE CEREAL?", "BUT IT'S MY TURN!", "BUT I WANTED TO SET MY PLACE!", "MMMMOOOOMMMM! I WANTED TO OPEN THE FRIDGE!", among many other pleasant, normally consecutive, situations.

Me: "Here, Liv, here's three yellow ones for you, okay? Calm down."

Stage 4: Maybe REACHING will make him give it back.
Liv: Through sobs of desperation equal to that of a locked-away-in-a-tower-Princess "Plllleaaase, those are my LEGOS. Duncan, NOOOOOO..." Meanwhile, refusing to take the Lego's I've offered back to her, lol.

Not shown: Stage 5, complete desperation. Resorts to crying hysterically and claiming that I'm ruining her life.

Dunk: Happier with his taller tower, hammer, whatever of YELLOW Legos, walks back to his side of the Lego table and begins to POSE with his prize. Yes, she is STILL screaming in the background...

Dunk: "See Mom, wellow..."

Dunk: "Eeeeee!" said while grinning, of course.

Now, in order to make this as accurate as possible - I check the time on the actual photo so you can see when I say Mood Swing, I'm more referring to swing as the swing of a battle ax rather than persae, a lovely child's swing. The photo of Duncan above was taken EXACTLY 6 minutes before this next one.

That being said... after leaving the room having given up on happy, cute children photos, 6 minutes later I walk in to find this:

Me: HARK! HAPPY CHLDREN? Could it be? "Ohh, nice tower Liv!"
Liv: "Yeah, mom, look!"

Liv: "Which one next...?" Happy, happy and fine...

Liv: La la... building... so happy... "Look Mom, it's so tall."

Dunk: "No no, goway Mom, goway, not done yet."

Playing nicely.

Oh my gosh, good thing I had the camera. That's officially two child smiles in the same time frame... from EACH child! Amazing.

There you have it folks. Turns out the Anatomy of a Tantrum is more of an... Anatomy of a Freak Show - but just feel lucky to have witnessed the photo I plan to show to all of Liv's future boyfriends, and of course, one day to her children.

Only to show them...
hey, your Mommy acted this way.

GO FOR IT.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

26 weeks and counting...

Sheesh, while banana popsicles make me happy, my smooshed hair in this 26 weeks pregnant photo most certainly does not.

So excuse it.

Next week on the 18th I have my Glucola test, not looking forward to it. And I'm sure that Cam probably isn't either as at my Midwife's office they do it IN OFFICE. So I get to go, drink the yucky-ness, sit for an hour, then get tested, and THEN go home. It will be a long day, that's all I can say. On the bright side, I won't have the kids with me. So really I don't think I'll mind as much. I'll probably bring a book and read during the time. Cam, hopefully, will find something to bring or do because, frankly, the Yoga for Preganancy and Parents magazines can only hold a man's attention for so long... they need to start bring in Auto Trader or something when they stop to get their morning coffee. That would give at least a portion of the men SOMETHING to read.

The kids are soundly asleep, I'm getting ready to continue on my online class, and my toes are SO COLD. I wasn't kidding about that perpetual coldness thing. It's all for real. That's just how I get in the winter, whether the building I'm in is 85 degrees or 65 degrees - parts of me are STILL cold. :-P

Off to do more that a Mom can only do with sleeping children...

All I want right now...

... is green bean casserole with the crunchy onions on top and leftover turkey. Of course... how do I manage that when Thanksgiving hasn't arrived yet?

Ahh, the woes of being 26 weeks pregnant. Photos tonight. :)

Monday, November 10, 2008

D33: Another double digit.

Finally getting myself to sit down and do this wasn't too terribly difficult as I've really been pushing myself to remember. I think my goal eventually will be to do all of you kids on the actual "day" you turn that many months. It doesn't spread you and Livy out hardly at all, but Rachael won't be until the 17th, a little break there, right? :) Knowing myself, a strict schedule with it will make me a creature of habit and I'll have it down before you know it... right? :)

It's officially November and I've officially moved to the point of perpetual coldness. December is going to be here before we know it, but not before we get to Papa's in Oregon at least. We'll be spending a whole week there and it'll be interesting to see if we actually feel a little more relaxed this time around. I suppose anytime you visit family and have various places to go in a specific time period, it will always feel a bit rushed.

"Me, Baby Rawrar."

You and Livy are downstairs playing "Baby Rawrar" and "Alicia"... unless she's being Dora... or some other dramatic character such as a Princess or Barbie or whatever the new pick of the day is. You two always manage to come up with some game that involves someone's leg breaking, one of your "friends" dying, or of course - my personal favorite - something that demands horrible long dread-cries of "Nooooo, waaaaaaait! You forgot your rescue pack! Baby Rawrar! Come baaaaaaack!" It's just fun after fun after MORE fun.

Your cousin Brighton, from Nevada, passed along some hand-me-downs that you've started wearing this month, including your new coveted pairs of pajamas. It was good timing too! You've just now decided to grow out of pretty much ALL of your pajamas save a couple pairs that were bought large on purpose. Plus a few summer style short pairs, but you're VERY adamant about making it clear it is time for JAMA PANTS, NO SHORTS. Picky picky. Every time we ask you where you got your pajamas you tell us, "Brighton sent jamas, in the mail."

While out running our errands on Saturday, we decided to stop by the $1 sale Old Navy was having and Livy immediately decided she needed a scarf. And a hat. I found one of each, cute and matching, she changed her mind and we had a new scarf and hat chosen and ready to go. All of the scarves were rather "girl" themed but they did have plain camo fleece hats and you fell in LOVE with them. And of course, after plopping one onto your cute little head it was a perfect fit and I couldn't resist. :)

We convinced you a "carf" did exist at home for you (we would have gladly bought one if they had made any that Daddy approved of, like I said they were all a bit too far on the girly side...) and once we got to the car you looked as if you had lost faith in the world because Liv had a "carf" and you did not. The only thing that made you feel better until we got home and I proved to you that I really DID have a boy scarf waiting? The tiny plastic hook that had been attached to your new fleece hat so that it could hang on display on the racks at Old Navy. You STILL, both of you, play with these dumb little display hooks and probably like them more than anything else we bought yesterday. Running around the house (and in the shopping cart at Ream's Market, our last stop on Saturday) you'd exclaim "Rrrr!" and tell us you were a pirate. This game was very cute, until you began to "accidentally" drop your hook about every two feet throughout the produce section. Bending over my new belly wasn't exactly a fun game I was enjoying and I was amazed at how easily I hid it from you by zipping it in your OWN coat pocket.

Action shot from Halloween Day
from LG choc3


When asked if you're having a little brother or a little sister, you continue to tell us "little brudder". But when asked which baby Mommy has in her tummy, you immediately answer "baby Rachael"... it seems we might be beginning to understand? Obviously, the fact will sink in in less than 4 months when she arrives. But until then, we'll keep working at it.

Your obsession with Buzz Lightyear has definitely kicked up another notch as of lately and you commonly respond to Daddy's saying of "Hey Wunky" (derived from your name of "Wivy" for Liv) by saying, "NO WUNKY. ME BUZZ!" You also love to go shove the too-small green Oregon Zoo hat on your head and run around telling everyone you're Woody, and this is your CO-boy hat. Something tells me we're only going to get MORE creative as each day passes.

You're such a big boy Duncan, and I'm so excited to see how you will be with your new baby sister, if you and Liv will ever stop pummelling each other, and of course, if one day you'll sleep in past 6:30am. But until then... I'll just be happy here with you and your 2-year-old self, pretending that we're not less than four months away from turning 3.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Good Morning SNOWshine. :)

Well, we were warned, and it certainly happened...

Snow!

Snow covered car!

We woke up to it this morning and surprisingly enough it wasn't too bad. House had stayed fairly nice over night, kids woke up warm - we purposefully dressed in warm pjs and checked on their covers. Overall it was a "good" snow experience. Second of the season as it already snowed in October... we're just hoping that as it gets closer to the time for our trip that it will hopefully be not so terrible for us to travel in.

Cameron left for work this morning around 6:40am, cleared the cars off before he even ate breakfast, and I took this photo around 7:00am - as you can see it was still coming down. It continued to get worse and worse and right before the sun finally peeled through the sky to reach us I took more photos at 8:43am.


Definitely thicker. Could have been worse, that's for sure. Duncan of course has been bouncing off the walls with excitement. Kind of like the little Hiawatha boy dancing on the front of my truck-- oh, that just a window sticker. (Did you ever read that book as a child? Hiawatha the Brave or something like that? Good stuff... little violent when you get that realization and read it again as an adult... but as a kid, I was way into it.)

And of course, we turned on the TV, making our way to KBYU the kids saw that Curious George (Duncan's favorite) ALSO woke up to snow and we of course had to watch it.



I swear; my child was a monkey in a prior life.

Ooh... that's cute. And would make some REALLY cute pjs...

Oh my holy bananas, how COOL is that cake? I think I just found Duncan's theme for his birthday next year... that is so stinkin' cool.

This is why Mom's shouldn't be allowed to use google image search. Plain and simple.

Now that I'm completely off topic, I will end this post. More to come (with photos!).

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

25 weeks and counting...

Here's the shot.

Normally, because I have a little bit of time right now I would blog some more regarding the kids and Halloween, etc. But I'm on the smaller computer and I really do not want to have to transfer resized files, etc. to the other computer... so I'll wait. But I do have a couple photos I can do now. Not too many unfortunately since it did get dark very quickly and I'll pass on being the crazy mom with the BRIGHT flash. I do enough of that...


The first is of all the cousins that went together to the Trunk-or-Treat at Daniel and Klare's ward. They had a good time and from what I could see, ALL got a lot of candy. So it was a success. On the way to the church, we walked, we hit a few houses. It was already getting very dark, as you can see, when I snapped this. Plus it began to sprinkle and I voted for putting the camera away.

I'll post some shot of the kids in costume, close up, tomorrow.

Have a good night.