A Big Girl Bed... and a makeover!

Friday was a LOOOOONG day! Ladybug didn't fall asleep until 12:30 the night before and then woke up bright and early. Everyone in this house is sick... (and therefore cranky) so when naptime rolled around on Friday we were all desperate for her to go to sleep. Before we even got to her crib she was throwing a serious tantrum. I put her in bed and she was so angry, she threw her leg over the edge and FLIPPED herself out. She landed on a laundry basket right on the ribs, and the screaming got even louder, I seriously thought she broke something. I realized that her crib could go one notch lower, which is really low. The bar was at her shoulders, but that didn't stop her, she literally climbed the bars, threw her leg over and got out again, this time I was prepared and caught her. I finally got her to take a nap in the bottom bunk of the boys bunkbeds, she slept for maybe 20 minutes.

Friday night we needed to get out of the house, so we went to the mall to look at the puppies and the lego store. While in the lego store, she wiggled her way out of her stroller and took off running out into the mall. There was no putting her back in, she knew she could get out and she would have none of it. That night she didn't go to sleep till almost 11:00. I had no choice but to put her mattress on the floor and just close the door on her.

All in one day, I lost all ways to contain her:(

Several people on facebook suggested a crib tent had saved their lives (and their babies!) so Saturday morning I went on a hunt. Walmart and Target only had them online and Babies R Us didn't even know what I was talking about. I decided I'd have to order it online and just wait for it to ship to me. We came home and put her down for a nap, (in her room with the mattress on the floor). Surprisingly, this time, she cried for just a few minutes, while pounding on the door, and then went and layed on her mattress and went to sleep! AND SLEPT FOR 3 BLESSED HOURS! So I decided to cancel my crib tent order and go buy a toddler bed. We brought it home, assembled it, and started re-decorating, all while being super excited and happy for her "BIG GIRL BED!!" That night I was prepared for a little bit of a battle. And do you know what? SHE DIDN'T EVEN GET OUT OF THE BED! I even checked on her an hour later and she was just laying there awake, playing with her baby.

A lot of her decor was already on the walls, I rearranged some of it. I had several ideas and half finished projects in mind, so I finished them all and got to work. A few hours later and it's done! Now I'm just on the hunt for a rug! Maybe Santa (or Grandma, *wink wink*) could help us out with that one!

The view from the door. Her bed is a cute little sleigh bed. I was willing to take what ever they had in the store, fortunately, it was cute! And the baby quilt I made her before she was even born fits it perfectly! The doll house in the corner I bought off a little girl in our ward awhile back. Her mom said I could have it all (the house and all the furniture/dolls/etc) for $15. When I asked her what she was going to buy with the money, she said GUM!

The other wall. The poofy flowers are hanging from the ceiling and they are SO CUTE! Click here to see how I made them. They were so easy!

The other wall. Notice all the hair bows... she wont wear even one. Oh well, we'll get there one day!

The shelf above her window. I've been meaning to do the name blocks since she was born. Now was as good a time as ever!

These are all dolls I saved from when I was a kid. Me and/or my mom made all of them.

The wall above her head. I've had these disney pictures forever, they need frames so I'm on the lookout for those, until then they are just taped up. I also made her a hanging book rack. I had all the supplies from one I had in the boys room awhile back.
The poofy's hanging above her. The sign on the wall says "catch a ride on a butterfly"

I noticed this while I was snapping some pics...Every doll house needs a room for super heros!
The best part of all of this?
When my baby girl walks in with huge bright eyes and says "COO!" (translation: CUTE!)

Lots of updates...

Scroll down, I just did a whole bunch of updates. Sorry it took so long!

Halloween!

We had a ton of fun on Halloween! We had 2 Ninja's and a Butterfly fairy.

We got a ton of candy at our ward's Trunk or Treat, then got a ton more on Halloween night. To top it off, we didn't have many trick or treaters, so we ended up with even more that we didn't pass out.

This is Squirt saying "That guy just gave me a full size candy bar!"

Here are our pumpkins we had fun carving.
Unfortunately, they rotted before Halloween. It was just too hot here!

First Fire of the Season!

It has been downright cold here for the last few days, so we finally used the fireplace. It was fabulous! Everyone grabbed their blankets and pillows and just cuddled on the ground. I think Ladybug really enjoyed it because the next day I found her laying there again with her pillow. It obviously was a really happy thing for her!

Honor Roll

3rd grade has brought around a huge change in Little Man. He's confident, and well behaved (for the most part) and I am so grateful! He even made the honor roll. He was very proud of himself!

Oh Ladybug, how we love you...

This girl... what do I say? She's like no child I've ever had to deal with before.

She is constantly on top of something... The desk, the counter, the stove. I even found her on her way to the top of the fridge (where the halloween candy was). She also loves the top bunk of the bunk beds (scares me to death) and if I remove the ladder, she makes one out of the dresser drawers. I'm confident that she will probably kill herself sometime soon.

She really loves to color. Her palette of choice is always her body.

She loves SHOES! She'll wear anyone's. She didn't have much luck walking in these though!

She loves to read and just in the last 2 weeks, she's actually watching TV!! For the first time ever, I had a full 20 minutes of UN-interrupted cleaning/ work time!

I answer phones for our family carpet cleaning company.

Me... Just Me... If you call, you will reach Me... At. All. Times.

This has its ups and its downs.... The ups: I know exactly what I told you. There is no pitting one CSR (customer service rep) against another. Customers like to do that you know. "Well she gave me this price..." The downs: If you call to complain about "the stupid girl who booked my job..." well... that was me too. Maybe I should start changing my name on a daily basis?

As we usually do when the weather cools down, we're getting busy. It seams that every idiot in the Phoenix Metro Area is needing their carpets cleaned these days. I've compiled a list of my favorite conversations/ questions.

1) Customer: "I need a quote"
Me: Ok what do you need cleaned? (we do carpets, tile and upholstery so I have to ask)
C: (said with a tone implying I'm an idiot) Carpets
Me: Ok, in what rooms?
C: (same tone again) All of them.

I have a variation of this conversation at least once a week. Lets get this straight: I am not standing in your living room. I do NOT know how many rooms you have.

2) Me: "We have a 3 room for $99 special"
Customer: "Well, xxx company is offering a 3 room for $125 special. Will you match that price?"

Will we charge you more? Absolutely if that's what you really want.

3) Customer: "Do you hire criminals?"

What am I supposed to say to that? Yes, yes we do. We split the profit of everything they steal from your jewelry box.

4) Customer: "Will you actually get my carpets clean?"

Again, what do I say to that? I mean we've been in business for more than 10 minutes so some customers must be happy enough to call back!?

5) If it's a woman calling, she most likely will know nothing about the size of her rooms. A man will give me measurements but then question my math.

6) I had a customer who called me, get snippy when I asked her if she had a day in mind. She is "a very busy woman, you know"

7) This was probably the first time I had ever done this, but I YELLED at a customer a couple of weeks ago. He started it ... that's all I have to say. (he still cleaned too- lol)

8) We have 4 phone numbers, they all ring to me. But people don't get it. If I don't answer the first, I probably won't answer the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. A girl has to pee every now and again... ok? For heaven sake's leave a message!

9) Don't call at 10 o'clock at night or 10am on a sunday just to leave a message. Cause I'll answer... It's annoying, just wait till we "open."

10) Every technician we employ gets called my "husband" at least a couple of times a week. I just say "yup, he's great... who are we talking about again?"

So now you know what to do and not to do next time you need service in your home for any reason. Just don't be that idiot. Ok?

Longing for...

LONG hair!

Plus it's way more fun to play with your fettuccine than to eat it!

A Bad Choice...

Little Man comes to me the other day and says:

"Mom, I think I made a bad choice at school today."

Do you know how many potential "bad choices" ran through my head at that exact moment?

So I calmly asked "What happened?"

He tells me that he took $2 to school (his ONLY $2) to buy a smoothie after lunch, but he really wanted to get to the playground quickly to play football, so he gave his $2 to a friend (who doesn't ever get to buy a smoothie) but now he was really regretting that decision and wishing he had his $2 back.

It was too funny, and I tried really hard not to laugh out of sheer relief. His sweet, generous heart was having a struggle with his logical brain.

Love that boy:)

Family Home Evening #1

Family Home Evening has been something I struggle with. If I don't have a plan prior to Monday, it doesn't happen. So after cruising around blog-land for a couple of days, I found some great ideas, and then I thought, maybe these ideas could help someone else (if anyone even reads this anymore -besides you Mom, I know you're my biggest fan!)

Sugardoodle & We Talk of Christ had some great lesson plans centered around the Proclamation on the Family, so I thought that would be a great place to start.

Tonight we focused on just this line:

"We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God…"

We talked about what a proclamation is, and what "ordained" means. We talked about Adam & Eve and how it wasn't good that Adam should be alone so God made Eve. And then talked about why marriage is so important. I briefly addressed the fact that alot of people don't think they need to get married anymore. I didn't want to get into Homo-sexuality at this point, because at this point my kids don't understand that and it would have completely derailed the lesson. (I could just see Squirt: "Wait, wait, wait... there are boys that want to kiss boys? WHAT???)

We let them know that the choices they make today will effect their lives in the future. That having an Eternal Marriage is so worth it and it's what we hope they choose. We let them know how much we love them, and stressed that one day they will have children and they will love them as much as we do, and will want to be sealed to them forever.

It was a really great lesson. The spirit was definitely felt. It only took about 5 minutes (that's usually the extent of our attention-span) and then we broke out the wedding album and let them look through it & laugh at us for a few minutes.

Prior to starting the lesson, we made homemade pretzels. (I had the dough already made) The kids had a blast rolling out the dough. They were rather ugly, but tasted yummy. And they thought it was pretty funny that Daddy had as hard a time making them as they did! We popped them in the oven, had the lesson and enjoyed them when we were all done!

Some light "Mom" humor for you

A Crafty site I like to check out frequently posted these and they just made my day. Hope you enjoy:)

Final trip of the summer

We wrapped up "summer" (although it'll still be over 100 degrees for at least another month) with another trip to the cabin for Labor Day. This time all the cousins came and it was fabulous!

I'm pretty sure we caught every lizard in the forest.

The kids made them a lovely home in this tin bucket, where I'm sure they slowly baked to death. This is Brooklyn's pet lizard whom she named "Sally" and she kept Sally in a Pringles container (hopefully Sally got let out before we left!)

My nieces and nephews probably think I'm crazy but we had fun playing Ware-wolves. And we also created the "Red Pringles Chip Club" which was for all the cool kids who ate the Red (plain) Pringles. (Really it was just a way to get the little kids to eat the plain ones and not cry because the big kids ate all the good flavors!). Lauren and David are co-presidents of the club. We did alot of giggling over it, and all the "big kids" thought we were nuts.

Ladybug got all the attention from Daddy that she wanted. She was pretty happy to sit back aways from the group and just watch. It didn't hurt that Daddy was sharing his Sprite with her.
It was nice to spend all day outside in the 80 degrees instead of the 110 degrees. I realized though when I got home that Ladybug has a pretty good tan line just on the portion of her calf that is showing above. Oops!

9/11

My boys wondered why their teachers requested they Red, White, & Blue on Friday, so I gave them a brief description of 9/11. They listened in awe as if I was telling them an interesting and slightly horrifying story, but just that... a story. 10 years ago, they didn't sit there on the couch all day watching the horrific coverage, watching the 2nd plane hit the tower, watching people jump out of the buildings, watching reports of the pentagon being hit and then the reports of the other flight being crashed in a field. Watching in horror as the Twin Towers tumbled to the ground. And then watching it all over again, because we were all so stunned we needed to see it again just to believe it. And so to them it is just a story. An event in history, that they'll know about but never really appreciate.

Being Sunday, we sang all Patriotic songs, it took me just a moment to remember why, and then I found myself getting emotional. I felt overwhelming pride to be an American, to live in this free country. The 3rd verse of America the Beautiful struck me today while we were singing it.

"Oh, beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life."

That song was written in 1895 and those words are still just as true. Heroes were made that day and many died that day as well. I love that America didn't just fall down and die as the terrorist would have hoped. We stood together, our heads held high, linked arm in arm and ready for a fight. That's what makes us a free country. That's what makes this the "promised land," and I am proud today to call myself an American!

A School Update...

School is going good...

We finished up day 19 today, as Squirt keeps reminding me. He counts his "I was good at school today" chart he has in his classroom. He now has 19 stickers. When he get's to 20 he gets a prize out of the treasure box. He is taking this very seriously and proudly announces each day while walking out the classroom door: "I got my sticker today! That's 19!" He is loving school. We do homework everyday while Ladybug takes a nap and it's his "mommy & me" quiet time. He usually has some type of coloring sheet or writing practice sheet. He puts 110% into each sheet, usually coloring any extra detail that might be on the page. Up until this point in life, he HATED to color, so I think it's neat that he really wants to do well for his teacher. Last week his teacher brought in a poodle and that's all he's talked about since.

Little Man is having a little bit of a different experience. He's really had to step it up this year... 3rd grade is a little bit more of a challenge, and he's not quite used to putting in the effort. After 2 weeks of having 1-2 hours of homework a night (because he didn't finish his work in class) he's finally figured out that if he works hard in class he doesn't have to at night. I am very grateful that this realization finally dawned on him! He came home the other day with an "F-" on a math paper. It was a new concept and he just didn't get it. I really thought that the "minus" part of the grade was a little harsh. Isn't an 'F' an 'F' any way you look at it? With a little extra explanation from me he got the concept. I think he's too busy making noises in class to pay attention, that and the fact that he's got a class of 30 - 8 year olds, it's a wonder how the teacher is able to teach anything at all.

Me & Ladybug are having a good time. I've had to get down and play with her more, something I realized I didn't ever really do. She always had one or both brothers to play with her. She's also had to make some new friends.She loves to color and loves to read books, and I found her in her room the other day putting one of her dolls in it's bed, in the doll house. She's just being a little mommy. She runs to give Squirt a hug everyday at his classroom door at 10:45, and she screams with excitement when she see's Little Man walking towards the car at 3:00.

I snapped these pictures the other day. Everyone doing their "homework!"

Marriage... A sacred institution

I think it's probably a sign of a good marriage if your little children want to get married. (Of coarse, my boys want to live with me forever, what does that say about my marriage?)

Yesterday, I was watching a cute little 2 1/2 year old. This was our conversation at about lunch time: (well, what I could understand of it anyway)
She said: "Where's little man?"
I said: "He's at school"
"So he can't be my friend today?"
"He can be your friend when he gets home from school"
"He'll be my friend when he gets home? Ok... Little Man is going to marry me."

And she walked away.

He also has a 5 year old girl, who walked up to Hubbie when he was Home Teaching and very seriously said "I need to know if it would be ok if I marry Little Man?" Hubbie said sure and she walked away, with a "good, check that off the list of things to do" attitude.

• Play with dolls- check
• Make cookies with mom- check
• Arrange husband for the future- check

I think the funniest things was later that night when Little Man, very seriously came to me and was like "Um, Mom? I really don't want to marry {said little girls}"

I told him he didn't have to worry about who he was going to marry for a good long time, and he headed off to bed, with obviously relief on his face.

That type of pressure is just a little bit more than my sweet 8 year old can handle!

Halleluiah!

Can you hear that?

It's the angels singing because this little girl:


goes to NURSERY tomorrow!

Halleluiah, Halleluiah, Halleluiah.........

The stitches episode...

So anyone that is my facebook friend knows the insanity that this has caused. For those that aren't my "friends" (why aren't you my friends??)  I'll fill you in too. We were sitting in church just minding our business , Ladybug right inbetween Hubbie & I. I was helping Squirt on my right, he was helping Little Man on his left when Ladybug takes a header right off the bench and hits the hymn book holder on the way down. We both gave a collective groan as we heard her head connect with the bench. He grabbed her and took her out. He realized when he was almost to the door that she was bleeding all over him. A friend came over and sat next to me and said "Do you want to go out there? She was bleeding pretty bad, I'll sit with the boys."  I had no idea she was bleeding and I litteraly ran out of Sacrament meeting.  When I finally found Hubbie, I called his name and he turned around and she was COVERED in blood and so was he. Like, I thought her head was split open kindof blood. To show what a fab ward we have, we had a nurse come out, and 3 people to help with the boys. Squirt wanted to go home with me, but then one of the bishopric members came out and said he could sit on the stand with him, which he was thrilled to do. So we left the boys there and hauled it to the emergency room.

 Once she calmed down, and we slowed the bleeding, she was a happy girl again. This is on the way to the ER.

 Here's my poor baby sedated. She was a real champ! Sadly, I had to throw her dress and Hubbie's white shirt away. Oh well:(

And here she is the next day, happy again. She didn't even act like the stitches bothered her. We spent the next week at the cabin again. We came home on Saturday to get her stitches out, something I thought would take a matter of minutes. But oh no, this little girl doesn't sit still for anybody. So this is where the fun started. AGAIN:(

Even though we had her practically hog tied, the Dr. couldn't get the stitches out because she kept moving her eyebrows. I mean the lady was coming at her with sharp instruments, right between the eyes. I'd be freaking out too. So they sent me home and told me to come back tomorrow. They gave me Tylenol with codeine to make her sleepy. They wanted me to give it to her around nap time, it would make her really sleepy and then bring her in. YA RIGHT!  All it did was tick her off and make her hyper. So we tried again at the Dr, where it was a no go. They gave me the scissors to remove it with and told me to try at night. If I couldn't get it, I'd have to go back to the ER, and have her sedated again. The cost of another $175 co-pay was not happening so I was determined to get those things out.  I got 2 out the first night before she woke up, and then got the others out when she fell asleep in the car.  The Dr called to check on her and congratulated me for getting them out. She said maybe I should go to medical school .  I think I'll pass, thank you!

The best part of special occasions...

is all the family that comes to stay!  We had my mom & dad, Brady & Jody & Kevin & Gina & kids come into to town just to celebrate with us. It was really awesome!  We decided pretty quick to bail on this heat and go up north to the family Cabin. It was cozy, because this is a SMALL cabin, but it was about 40 degrees cooler, so I don't think anyone cared!

We went to a Rodeo. It was very muddy and miss Independant wanted to walk by herself. Unfortunately, there were horses everywhere, she loved it, I was scared to death she'd get trampled!

 Here's ladybug finally warming upto Grandma. She's telling Grandma a very tall tale.

 The boys did some fishing at the pond. Squirt gave up after about 2 minutes and gave his pole to Grandpa. Little Man hung in there though and loved it.

 We went to the petting zoo. Here's Ladybug telling Grandma the proper way to talk to a goat!

Grandpa took a ton of naps, as grandpa's do. Squirt decided to have a little fun:)

 Squirt got to walk the dog all by him self. It was such a big boy thing to do!

We did some exploring of the forrest



 



 We hunted for lizards

 The cabin

Ladybug "cheezing" it up for everybody. That's her new word too: "Cheeze"

We were silly

And thoughtful

Clothing was optional for some of us

We fished at Lake Kinikinik. And caught nothin'

And then everybody left and things went back to the normal boring summer we are enjoying!