Poor neglected little blog. Life has been crazy. After getting back from Christmas I got called as the Young Women President in our ward here at church. I'm pretty sure I spent more time on that than sleeping the first few weeks.
In the last week alone, I herniated or re-injured a herniated disc and would have to take Cash into school with tears streaming down my face, so I've dealt with that, got some injections and been heavily medicated. Coinciding with that, within a 10-day period of time I had seen Ryan twice for a couple hours in the evening due to call, travel and conferences.
Last Friday night I had to call him out of a conference to come home and give Cash stitches. (It really went down like this - Cash crying. Me, not really paying attention: You get hurt? Ok, it'll get better. Because seriously, someone is hurt like 30 times a day in this house and that's about all the sympathy they get. I get on the phone, busy, busy. Get off, he starts crying again. What now??? I say. My head hurts, he says. Cash, seriously that was like 20 minutes ago. At which point I actually look and see his shirt is soaked in blood, the couch is covered in blood, the floor, his hand and arms and legs.... Oh I am such a good mom!) So Ryan takes him in and sews him up. Check.
Up late that night and then have to get up at 5am Saturday to run a Super Saturday yard sale, car wash and bake sale to help the young women raise money for camp. We had realized last minute that Ryan would be in conference all that day too and had to call our good friend to the rescue to come watch the kids all day. Ryan and the neighbor have to get up early that morning too and completely disassemble the minivan to get in a couch and all this other stuff going to the garage sale. Run that whole thing, get home exhausted late that day, just in time to try to pretty-up for a Bascom Palmer Eye Institute 50th Anniversary celebration at the Biltmore Hotel that night.
30 minutes in to the party our babysitter goes into labor. Spend some time on the phone coordinating to make sure we get someone to come watch our kids and that her's are taken care of, and we have to call our trusty friend to the rescue at the last minute once again. Get home from that and Ryan goes over to stay with the neighbor's kids and relieve the interim babysitter while they are off having their baby. (I have seriously been waiting with baited breath and checking in every day for that I'm-going-into-labor phone call and of course it happens the night we're busy and I make it way more complicated for her!)
Sunday morning we wake up and try to get the six kids under age 5 (ours and the neighbor's) fed, dressed and ready for church, then realize the van is still completely dismantled from the yard sale the day before. Ryan hauls all the seats back out to the car, loads 5 car seats back in on top of those and we take off for church - where the baby cries the entire time and Ashton throws multiple tantrums on the floor in the middle of the hallway while I try to take care of young women and Ryan has to do clerk business. We have to stay after to take care of more details that seem to keep dragging on while trying to keep track of the 6 kids, and we're dying to get out of there. Finally make the drive home and then try to get everyone fed again. No one wants the drink they've been given, this person wants a different cup, this one doesn't like this sandwich, everyone is in and out of their chairs, this one won't eat, this one is crying.... at which point Ryan declares he's getting a vasectomy and hides himself in our room to take a nap.
You get the idea. :) It's been a wild ride.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Reason #567 why I have learned not to be critical of other people's parenting
We (especially Ryan) used to spend a good deal of time making fun of my sister's kids for running around in pajamas that were far too small. (Ok, seriously though people, these kids were in footed pajamas hunched over because they couldn't stand up straight.)
Anyhow, I have eaten my words. We seem to go from bad....
I think at this point in life you realize you're just happy if they have clothes on.
Anyhow, I have eaten my words. We seem to go from bad....
....to worse around here....
Christmas
Such a photogenic bunch.
I'm getting pretty good at making a mean-looking Christmas pie.
Here we are having a little fun with Siri (the virtual assistant you can talk to on my new iPhone). If you happen to get a random and inexplicable call from me I'll just apologize ahead of time. The boys are always trying to say stuff to her on my phone and apparently she doesn't speak 3 year-old. (Me either, Siri.) I'm usually across the room when I hear her mistakenly repeat that she's going to call Dr. so-and-so or whoever and I'm trying to run over to stop her.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Resolutions....what?
I decided to bag New Years Resolutions this year. Instead of beating myself up about all the things I'm doing or not doing that are going to mess up my kids someday, I'm just going to give them all one of these this year and call it good - :)
Friday, December 30, 2011
Pre-Christmas pics
This year I made an attempt at some festive holiday gifts. Here's one we gave to Cash's teacher:
A home-made snow globe featuring a picture of her in elf form. I'll admit, these are not the quickest little gifts you can give, but she almost cried when we gave it to her, so it was worth it. We made them for a lot of people over the season.
Home-made white chocolate popcorn. (I've never done neighbor gifts before - thank heavens we don't live in Utah! Those neighbors go CRAZY! I'm not ready for that kind of pressure.)
We even made some friends join us in re-enacting the nativity.
I got together stuff for some Minute-to-Win-it games back at Thanksgiving that we've used a couple times over the holiday season. Seriously, check out the game faces, people:
And you gotta love this one (holiday kiss - move ornaments from one string to another using only your mouths...how romantic is that?!):
Jingle Box was probably the favorite though. Watching people shake their bootie to try to get ping pong balls out of a kleenex box set to Christmas music never gets old.
Cash's Christmas program:
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Lookin' good
First, does anyone else have a problem using Blogger with Firefox as their web browser? I use Chrome, but when I post it and then view in Firefox, half the pictures are missing. So if you care about seeing my pictures, I guess use Chrome or Internet Explorer as your web browser. I'm too lazy to fix it otherwise.
How cute are these two? They were so matchy after church one day I couldn't resist some pictures. And then couldn't pick just one favorite.
Every time our kids are born, people say, "Oh, he looks just like Ryan!" This time they say, "Oh, now this one really looks like Ryan."
And the frequent view we get as the baby comes in for attack:
And while not quite as cute, I guess we're not too bad either, on occasion.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Mishap
In November, Ryan took a lot of call. A LOT. This means in the hospital, sleeping there (all by himself in his nice cozy little hospital room... all to himself...getting a full night of uninterrupted sleep most of the time...all by himself...), ahem, I digress. Anyhow, one night I was getting a little beyond crazy with the kids and the mess and the teething and the fighting and the bedtime madness, and I flopped down on the couch once they were all asleep to survey the damage and muster the energy to face it when I thought, I just want to be in a room, by myself, all ALONE.
The next day I woke up to an email saying the Groupon for the day was a package for spray tanning. Perfect, I thought to myself. Slightly selfish, and very alone.
So Ryan came home, I made my appointment and I was out the door. Now, I had done a spray tan at one place before. It was a nice machine in a nice room with a bathrobe and bottled water, a cap to put over your hair, and a nice gay Swedish man to tell you exactly how to do it and show you how to put the lotion on your fingernails and your toenails and the soles of your feet to block the spray so you didn't go out looking freakish. And then you were left alone with the soothing voice prompts embedded within the machine for the 46-second miracle to work it's magic.
Well, this groupon was for a place where it was done by hand. Alright, the awkwardness factor goes up by a bazillion right there, but hey, it was a really good deal, and I'm sure they do this all the time so it's no big deal for them, right?. Plus, I know that's how the celebs and stuff do it - their own personalized spray tan artist. I guess you can get those hard to reach places better? Plus I thought they were better at matching it to your skin tone and making it look natural, so I thought it was probably going to be a higher-end service and I was probably lucking out to get to try it.
And then I got there and she stuck me in the corner of a very small, and very dimly lit bathroom.
Suddenly it was awkward, and ghetto.
As I was relating this to Ryan later he was saying maybe that should be some kind of red-flag when this kind of place is looking to do a groupon. Point noted.
So once I was down to my skivvies (the minimum I felt like letting her stare at for the 15 minutes we were in there) the lady, who spoke very little English and had used mostly gestures and an isolated word here and there, picks up her nozzle, nods, and says ok like she's ready to go. I'm thinking, um, wait, shouldn't we discuss anything? Like my desired outcome here, for starters? So instead I say, "Do you have a cap or anything I could put over my hair?" "Mmm, good idea," she nods. She walks out for a minute while I try to grapple with what to say next to prolong the start of this episode into the unknown.
She comes back in and I'm still worried that she's given me nothing to put on my nails or the soles of my feet and she hadn't seemed to remember the idea of covering your hair either...but I don't want to annoy her too much when she's obviously ready to go, and maybe the way they do it makes that unnecessary? So instead as she's ready to hose me down once again, I blurt out, "So is there like more than one color to choose from or anything?" "No. Just one color," and she proceeds to blast.
Ah the internal panic. I have had no sort of conversation about what I'm hoping to look like when this is done, and there is only one color...and she is Hispanic as were most of the people I saw on my way through the salon. And that same color they all use is currently coating my body in copious quantities. Gulp.
The spray goes on and on. Really on. Like I'm used to 46 seconds and am rather concerned what the result of this prolonged dousing will be. Finally it's over and she tells me she's going to go get a fan to dry me off. So now I'm in a tiny dark bathroom facing a fan that is sitting on the toilet, freezing my wet, colored bootie off. So ghetto. Yeah, I guess this isn't what I envisioned when I bought this package.
After 10 minutes or so she comes in and pulls back the curtain and I look in the mirror.
Gasp. All I see are teeth and eyes.
Everything else is a mass of dark that blends into the shadows of the poorly lit bathroom. Instant panic sets in. I try to act composed in front of her, but as soon as the door is shut I'm silently screaming and darting in random, agitated movements around the room. Do I really have to walk back out in front of all those people that just saw me walk in here a pasty white lady just a few minutes ago??? Do I really have to take Cash to school tomorrow? Why can't it be one of those rare days Ryan goes in late?!? And if I try wearing a hat it will just shadow my face and make me look even darker!! There is seriously no escaping this....
I walk out with my face turned away from as many people as possible, mysteriously fascinated by something in my purse, and I walk up to the lady at the front desk - the one white person in there. "Is this the real color this is going to stay?" I ask in a hushed but intense voice. "Or is this going to wash off when I shower and fade into something lighter?" The one I'd done before had an instant color that while strong (yet nothing like I was now experiencing), would wash off the next morning and leave a nicer color developing underneath.
"No," she says, "This is what it will be." Aaahhhh! "But it looks nice on you." Are you kidding me? "Um, I look like a different nationality," I blurt out. She keeps trying to reassure me, "But this color is good - it won't be orange on you like other kinds."
Oh the horror. I get in the car and send Ryan a text:
"I look like Pocahontas."
As I pull into our garage I'm a little mortified to see how busy the parking lot is with so many people coming in and out. They all know me here. We're notorious. So I'm darting through the parking lot hiding behind cars as people pass and hoping the coast is clear when I make the final dash. Thank heavens I'm the first apartment inside the building.
I walk in the house and Ryan turns around. "Oh, wow," he says. "Um, that looks really bad." Awesome.
Well, one thing for sure, she was right about it not looking orange. I had remembered a friend before telling me that St. Tropez (the kind this salon had) was the best kind of self-tanner because it was green-based rather than orange based. I looked down at the bottoms of my feet - they were a solid mass of greenish-black. Perhaps the effect was magnified by the black towel she had me standing on? Whatever they case, they were putrid. Ryan made a gagging face seeing me look at them and said, "I am not getting in bed with you." I could only imagine myself at playgroup kicking my feet up on someone's ottoman with those. Note to self: wear boots and ignore the take-your-shoes-off-in-my-house rule.
You're not supposed to shower for 12 hours after getting your spray tan. I paced in an agitated panic at home for 40 minutes and after turning myself away from it multiple times, I finally freaked out and stuck my face under the sink and scrubbed and scrubbed. I hated to wash money down the drain...but I couldn't take it anymore. (I left the rest though figuring at least I had to be able to look at my face.) When I've done the other spray tan before, I still look a little unnatural being so tan (this happens when I'm even tan just from the sun)....like I sort of border on looking homeless. You know, that worn leathery look. This wasn't even that this time though. I was like this green/dark creature from another country. Or planet. It looked so off. And of course, my nails and feet were heinous.
So what do you know, the next day when I showered I did look much improved (I'm sure washing it off my face helped immensely), and as it faded, it turned out to be my favorite spray tan. (Ok, even though it took 3 days and about 17 layers of exfoliated skin for my feet to be able to greet the world again.) Anyhow, it really wasn't orange at all, and did look like I do when I've had time in the sun. Who knows, maybe I will even get my moneys worth and finish my sessions, when originally I had been certain I would never be walking back in that salon again. Just have to figure out how to go into hiding for that first day or two....
Seriously. I'm such a dork. Sometimes I sit and imagine people that lived like thousands of years ago that had to battle like mastadons and starvation for survival, and picture them looking down on me and the ridiculous things we do nowadays and just shaking their heads in disgust.
The next day I woke up to an email saying the Groupon for the day was a package for spray tanning. Perfect, I thought to myself. Slightly selfish, and very alone.
So Ryan came home, I made my appointment and I was out the door. Now, I had done a spray tan at one place before. It was a nice machine in a nice room with a bathrobe and bottled water, a cap to put over your hair, and a nice gay Swedish man to tell you exactly how to do it and show you how to put the lotion on your fingernails and your toenails and the soles of your feet to block the spray so you didn't go out looking freakish. And then you were left alone with the soothing voice prompts embedded within the machine for the 46-second miracle to work it's magic.
Well, this groupon was for a place where it was done by hand. Alright, the awkwardness factor goes up by a bazillion right there, but hey, it was a really good deal, and I'm sure they do this all the time so it's no big deal for them, right?. Plus, I know that's how the celebs and stuff do it - their own personalized spray tan artist. I guess you can get those hard to reach places better? Plus I thought they were better at matching it to your skin tone and making it look natural, so I thought it was probably going to be a higher-end service and I was probably lucking out to get to try it.
And then I got there and she stuck me in the corner of a very small, and very dimly lit bathroom.
Suddenly it was awkward, and ghetto.
As I was relating this to Ryan later he was saying maybe that should be some kind of red-flag when this kind of place is looking to do a groupon. Point noted.
So once I was down to my skivvies (the minimum I felt like letting her stare at for the 15 minutes we were in there) the lady, who spoke very little English and had used mostly gestures and an isolated word here and there, picks up her nozzle, nods, and says ok like she's ready to go. I'm thinking, um, wait, shouldn't we discuss anything? Like my desired outcome here, for starters? So instead I say, "Do you have a cap or anything I could put over my hair?" "Mmm, good idea," she nods. She walks out for a minute while I try to grapple with what to say next to prolong the start of this episode into the unknown.
She comes back in and I'm still worried that she's given me nothing to put on my nails or the soles of my feet and she hadn't seemed to remember the idea of covering your hair either...but I don't want to annoy her too much when she's obviously ready to go, and maybe the way they do it makes that unnecessary? So instead as she's ready to hose me down once again, I blurt out, "So is there like more than one color to choose from or anything?" "No. Just one color," and she proceeds to blast.
Ah the internal panic. I have had no sort of conversation about what I'm hoping to look like when this is done, and there is only one color...and she is Hispanic as were most of the people I saw on my way through the salon. And that same color they all use is currently coating my body in copious quantities. Gulp.
The spray goes on and on. Really on. Like I'm used to 46 seconds and am rather concerned what the result of this prolonged dousing will be. Finally it's over and she tells me she's going to go get a fan to dry me off. So now I'm in a tiny dark bathroom facing a fan that is sitting on the toilet, freezing my wet, colored bootie off. So ghetto. Yeah, I guess this isn't what I envisioned when I bought this package.
After 10 minutes or so she comes in and pulls back the curtain and I look in the mirror.
Gasp. All I see are teeth and eyes.
Everything else is a mass of dark that blends into the shadows of the poorly lit bathroom. Instant panic sets in. I try to act composed in front of her, but as soon as the door is shut I'm silently screaming and darting in random, agitated movements around the room. Do I really have to walk back out in front of all those people that just saw me walk in here a pasty white lady just a few minutes ago??? Do I really have to take Cash to school tomorrow? Why can't it be one of those rare days Ryan goes in late?!? And if I try wearing a hat it will just shadow my face and make me look even darker!! There is seriously no escaping this....
I walk out with my face turned away from as many people as possible, mysteriously fascinated by something in my purse, and I walk up to the lady at the front desk - the one white person in there. "Is this the real color this is going to stay?" I ask in a hushed but intense voice. "Or is this going to wash off when I shower and fade into something lighter?" The one I'd done before had an instant color that while strong (yet nothing like I was now experiencing), would wash off the next morning and leave a nicer color developing underneath.
"No," she says, "This is what it will be." Aaahhhh! "But it looks nice on you." Are you kidding me? "Um, I look like a different nationality," I blurt out. She keeps trying to reassure me, "But this color is good - it won't be orange on you like other kinds."
Oh the horror. I get in the car and send Ryan a text:
"I look like Pocahontas."
As I pull into our garage I'm a little mortified to see how busy the parking lot is with so many people coming in and out. They all know me here. We're notorious. So I'm darting through the parking lot hiding behind cars as people pass and hoping the coast is clear when I make the final dash. Thank heavens I'm the first apartment inside the building.
I walk in the house and Ryan turns around. "Oh, wow," he says. "Um, that looks really bad." Awesome.
Well, one thing for sure, she was right about it not looking orange. I had remembered a friend before telling me that St. Tropez (the kind this salon had) was the best kind of self-tanner because it was green-based rather than orange based. I looked down at the bottoms of my feet - they were a solid mass of greenish-black. Perhaps the effect was magnified by the black towel she had me standing on? Whatever they case, they were putrid. Ryan made a gagging face seeing me look at them and said, "I am not getting in bed with you." I could only imagine myself at playgroup kicking my feet up on someone's ottoman with those. Note to self: wear boots and ignore the take-your-shoes-off-in-my-house rule.
You're not supposed to shower for 12 hours after getting your spray tan. I paced in an agitated panic at home for 40 minutes and after turning myself away from it multiple times, I finally freaked out and stuck my face under the sink and scrubbed and scrubbed. I hated to wash money down the drain...but I couldn't take it anymore. (I left the rest though figuring at least I had to be able to look at my face.) When I've done the other spray tan before, I still look a little unnatural being so tan (this happens when I'm even tan just from the sun)....like I sort of border on looking homeless. You know, that worn leathery look. This wasn't even that this time though. I was like this green/dark creature from another country. Or planet. It looked so off. And of course, my nails and feet were heinous.
So what do you know, the next day when I showered I did look much improved (I'm sure washing it off my face helped immensely), and as it faded, it turned out to be my favorite spray tan. (Ok, even though it took 3 days and about 17 layers of exfoliated skin for my feet to be able to greet the world again.) Anyhow, it really wasn't orange at all, and did look like I do when I've had time in the sun. Who knows, maybe I will even get my moneys worth and finish my sessions, when originally I had been certain I would never be walking back in that salon again. Just have to figure out how to go into hiding for that first day or two....
Seriously. I'm such a dork. Sometimes I sit and imagine people that lived like thousands of years ago that had to battle like mastadons and starvation for survival, and picture them looking down on me and the ridiculous things we do nowadays and just shaking their heads in disgust.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
I seriously love this video!
Why have I been wearing a scarf such boring ways all these years? Besides this girl is just so darn cute you just want to watch this video. I want to be in bed but I can't stop watching it (even with the strangling hazards I keep running into trying to keep up with her while trying some of these styles). If you wear scarves or contemplate it, you should watch. Heaven knows I love me some scarves...especially with the chilly temps now...you know how weak we Floridians get when it's in the 70s.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Picture catch up
My mom has been begging me to post a picture of Cash dressed as a Mormon pioneer. It was the multicultural day at school and you were supposed to come dressed representing your heritage. At first I thought, oh great, everyone is going have all this great stuff from their Latin countries and Cash is going to be the kid in blue jeans representing the "Average White American Kid." Then I thought I'd make it a little more interesting and go with our Mormon pioneer heritage. He was pretty stinking cute.
I mentioned we've been to Disneyworld a few times now since we got annual passes. It's been fun...and exhausting. I'm not really sure Ryan and I can keep it up cause man it wears you out. Hauling all those kids and all that stuff on and off of trams all day, standing in line, etc. Plus we usually drive home after and so get back to Miami at like 1am and are totally wiped out. Even with that said, I still am wanting to go again since it's been a few weeks!
Watching the parade (we've even dragged Grammy along):
Although this poor kid is just like, why am I here and where is my bed? And why on earth am I still up at this hour? He doesn't love it, although he had some pretty good squeals watching Mickey in the parade.
Boys trying to get some shade at the pool:
The twins with their preschool friends:
Just playing:
Loved that these three happened to be snuggled up reading a book and all wearing red:
I love watching these two sleep. I often go in to find one of them sleeping with their foot across the other one's face. Can't you just imagine them in the womb like this?
I mentioned we've been to Disneyworld a few times now since we got annual passes. It's been fun...and exhausting. I'm not really sure Ryan and I can keep it up cause man it wears you out. Hauling all those kids and all that stuff on and off of trams all day, standing in line, etc. Plus we usually drive home after and so get back to Miami at like 1am and are totally wiped out. Even with that said, I still am wanting to go again since it's been a few weeks!
Watching the parade (we've even dragged Grammy along):
And we've managed to see it decorated for different seasons now:
Shoot, that safari ride in the Animal Kingdom is pretty good. Took us a week on safari in Africa to see the Big Five, and you can get it in 20 minutes at Disneyworld.
And this would be the biggest reason Ryan and I may not last through many more of these trips:
Yeah, we were so sore the next day from carrying babies and kids all day long! Next time I'll insist we get one of those big Disney strollers for the older kids. We thought they could hack it but man were they whiney. But then we looked down and realized that they had to take three steps for every one of Ryan's - that really is a lot of walking.
Ryan and I got to go in one morning and stay for breakfast at Cash's school during spirit week. It was "mix and match tacky" day. He couldn't get the idea of trying to not match (I swear it would have happened naturally had I not tried to tell him about it), but we at least got him to try to look goofy and it was pretty funny. (Um, not to mention all the parents didn't recognize me out of my pajamas.)
And we got to go one night for his exhibit night at school.
And man, we thought the tub was getting snug before with three men in a tub....
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