SAHM I AM

Family picture and update....

2012-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

If you were expecting a Christmas card this year from us... well this is the best you are going to get!! Sorry it just didn't ever make it to the top of my to do list.

We had a great holiday season in spite of the stomach flu on Christmas Eve, Day and the day after. I have come to expect it now for holidays. I guess that is one of the effects of having this many germ mongers in our home. The kids enjoyed a full 2 weeks off but we did miss our traditional snow trip that was canceled due to lack of snow. California has been totally dry where normally we are raining 3-5 days per week. It is finally in the forecast for this week so our plants will be glad for a drink.

We made up for the cancelled snow trip by a ice skating trip. Luckily I had the excuse that I had to watch Mamma's boy-Matt and I am pregnant and didn't want to hurt myself. Otherwise, the five minute jaunt on the ice was not enough to revive 6 months of ice skating lessons nearly 20 years ago. The other kids had a blast which totally surprised Dave and I. I was all set for a miserable experience when they all spent the first half hour hugging the edge and making it around the arena one time. But they all loved it and kept it up for 2 hours or more. I finally started timing the boys and promised a reward for a fast time around the ice and they were soon zooming along. It is always nice when you turn out to be wrong about how crazy and hectic an experience with many kids will be.

Our family in October at Dave's parents 50th in Burley, ID. (The girls had left their glasses at home on this trip. Ari's pose is the classic-I have nystagmus- look.)

In other news-

Jacob is doing well in 5th grade just don't try to change his after school routine. He picks up his book and reads as he walks to the bus totally forgetting that it is Cub scouts and his mom is sitting in the parking lot. Don't worry we have only had mix ups like this about 5 times. I harass and tease him mercilessly for it and told him no reading until he gets to where he is supposed to be.

Thomas- Newly turned 9. Starting to get more helpful at home especially if there is a Wii reward. Read the last 2 Harry Potter books in the first week back to school.

Ariana- Still working on reading. I was hoping for another quick learning reading but it is not coming as naturally as for the boys. Not sure if her vision is the root of the issue or just not as quick to pick it up. Otherwise she does great at school and her teachers are always helpful to make sure that she can see. Sometimes I am discouraged by her nystagmus issues but for the most part I don't feel she is much different than the boys.

Lily- Loves to color draw and craft. All the work is paying off and I am hoping we finally have a kid that will take to handwriting more naturally. She also loves entertaining her bro Matt. He calls her "Lilo" and loves to be with her.

Matt- now sleeping in a toddler bed. The first week the transition went smooth but my resolve is weakening now that he gets out of bed more. So far we are blessed at nap time and he always gratefully takes his pacifier and heads to bed. I love this age-2o something months! He is so funny-talking and interacting more with everyone. Every Sunday as soon as they say the closing prayer in Sacrament he begins to scream because he knows that nursery is next. But once we drop him off he is fine.

Dave is enjoying the slow season at work and his weekly work at home days. I am grateful that it is an option and that we get to have him around a little more.

I am loving my primary calling(working with the kids) at church. I have been in primary in some capacity for most of the last 10 years. I would have a hard time now sitting through the Relief Society (for women) lessons. I need a wiggle song or something.

I can't believe that we are more than half way thru this pregnancy. The baby is healthy and normal which is fabulous and now you know as much as we know as we always wait to find out gender until it is necessary. I don't want to gender stereotype my pregnancy. Ha ha ha!! No we actually love the surprise.

Farm- No winter garden again this year. Oh well there is always next year. Dave finished a great coop for our chickens and we are finally getting about 5 eggs a day. I don't know about your family but that is about the right amount for us. We increased our goats by 2 this fall. And no one has shot our peacock yet and it is mating season again which means the hens are constantly getting a display of beautiful feathers but he is getting noisier and he roosts on our garage leaving a nice poop pile on the ground. Otherwise we just have our mellow dog and 1.5 cats. 1 cat is always around but the other comes and goes maybe depending on the type of cat food we are serving.

Lily as a sheep in our ward Christmas nativity

One of our two new kids that were born right before Thanksgiving.

Feeling Grateful

2011-11-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

After many prayers and even fasting by my husband and older boys, I am feeling so much better. I am cooking and even looking forward to the Thanksgiving feast. Everything is so much better when mom isn't sick.

Other news-
Dave made a quick trip to Guatemala for work.
Jacob spent a 5 days away at science camp.
Thomas is blossoming this year in 3rd grade and actually likes recess now!
Ari is making strides on reading and a great little 1st grader.
Lily cut her own hair and loves to eat frozen things for lunch
Matt is growing and starting to say lots of words. He is so much fun.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Number 6 is on the way!!! Here we go again......

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

So the last month has passed very slowly because I am in the middle of ~~morning~~(wouldn't that be nice) full-day sickness. I am very blessed to be have a 6th pregnancy. At least I know what I am getting into because I have done it a time or two. The worst part is my list of dislikes grows with every pregnancy because I have had so many bad experiences with different foods. Like last pregnancy when my husband made some farm not so fresh eggs and gave me this great lead in like "I don't know if these are any good but here you go." Needless to say they didn't stay in me long and I haven't been able to tolerate the smell of eggs when prego since.

Our kids were pretty shocked. I guess it is hard to top a baby born in the van but I will do my best.

So meanwhile as we prepare for delivery and beyond, I just have to survive the next 5 weeks until cross your fingers I will be cooking and feeling better again. If any of you have great solutions to morning sickness let me know. Right now I am living off faith and focus on the baby growing inside of me and a feeding schedule of a newborn(I am eating or puking every two hours). Wish me luck!!! Families are the best and though I don't feel so strongly about it now they are worth every sacrafice.

PS I would add a picture of me in all my loveliness but you wouldn't really want to see that!

Fall

2011-09-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

I have a very strong love/hate relationship with fall. My husband is working 12 hour+ days and the garden is rewarding us for all of our early work. But this is the work that I enjoy most preserving the fruit and veggies from our garden and other sources.

This year I have canned peaches, pears, grape juice, pickles, salsa verde, and green beans. I have more pears, sauerkraut, apple sauce, more grape juice and salsa to do.

I have frozen grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries, boysenberries, jams, peaches, blueberries, zucchini, corn and cherries. Luckily we scored on a freezer from craigslist and so now I have two and a half freezers to fill.

I am looking for something to do with an over abundance of watermelon and zucchini. Any ideas?

There is one area of life that I find a lot of satisfaction-filling my pantry and freezer with yummies from my garden and other sources-to enjoy all winter. This is one time where I can feel nothing but gratitude that I live in California where we can grow practically everything.

My goal this year is to plant a nice winter garden which should already be in the ground right now but I am just hoping by the end of the month.

Other things on our little farm are not going so well. We have lost 5 kitties and 12 chickens to something that is hauling them off. Our egg production won't be as nice as we thought this year. I am hoping that they just took roosters.

Kids have been back in school now for 3 weeks. We are falling back into the routine of scripture reading, lunch packing, homework, and earlier bedtimes.

Ari First Grader

Jacob 5th grader styling his hair with raid?

Thomas 3rd grader

I get to keep these two around for at least one more year

Zucchini Chocolate Cake

2011-08-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

So I guess that since my two food posts have been about sweets- You all know now that I like them.
This recipe is because of my need to use up lots of zucchini. We all know that zuch is a very adaptable veg. You can use it in many ways but for my non-veg eating son it is nice to put it in a few things I know that he will eat. (And I don't sneak it-He knows that it is there)

This recipe comes from Allrecipes.com Don't be thrown off by the lack of eggs. It turns out fabulous without them.

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 c dark chocolate chips

Mix wet ingredients and zucchini together. Add in sugar and then the dry ingredients. Bake in preheated 350 oven in a greased casserole dish 9X13. For about 25-35 minutes.

Very Delicious and very chocolatey. Go out and pick one from your garden or stop on by I have lots to spare!!

The last four months

2011-08-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

It has been crazy round here. Since my last post we have had 3 birthdays

Lily turned 4-had a rainbow cake and friends over for dinner

Ari turned 6 -had a girly party with church and school friends and a butterfly cake

Jacob turned 10- had his first friends sleepover party

We hatched out 1 chick(long story) so I bought 21 more to keep it company but it only lived for a week. Due to dogs and other unknown causes of death we now have 17 chicks. (I am hoping that they are not all roosters.)

Our garden planting crew

We planted a large garden and have been picking buckets of cucumbers, zucchini, green beans and corn.

Jacob on stage!

Jacob starred in the regional dance festival. He did a solo dance in front of everyone. It only lasted about 20 seconds but it was awesome!

We went to Washington to attend two funeral services.

My sister's sweet baby-Angelica. You can find her story here. You must read it. My sister is inspiring and amazing.

Ari, my dad, Grandpa, sister Candice& husband Peter

We were grateful that we took the opportunity to visit my Grandpa while we were there because 2 months later he passed away.

We came back in July to attend his funeral. We got to see all my Aunts and Uncles and some other extended family. I will miss so much about him. So many memories-most of them involve Grandpa telling me to toughen up or work harder. He was one of the hardest workers I know next to my dad. He mowed his lawn the week before he died at 87, lost two of his fingers with a hydraulic post pounder at 83 years old and at 74 he joined the Mormon Trail reenactment from start to finish sleeping on a bedroll and driving a team of horses. Love ya Grandpa.

I guess that is just part 1 because I still got lots more...

A sweet post...

2011-08-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Ending the deafening silence on my blog with a sweet post...
Brown Sugar Graham Cracker Cake!

I took one of my favorite quick recipes -Brown sugar cake and made a few changes. Here is the original recipe:
3 c flour
1.5 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1 c butter
1/2 t salt

Mix dry ingredients and then cut butter into the dry ingredients until no large butter chunks remain. Measure out 1 cup of this mixture and set aside.
3/4 t baking soda
1 egg
1 c sour milk i.e. 15 T milk 1 T lemon juice

Mix the baking with the dry ingredients and then add the egg and milk. Stir enough to wet all ingredients but keep it a little lumpy. Then put in a greased 9X13 casserole pan. Sprinkle the dry reserved ingredients over the top. Bake at 350 til lightly browned and done in the center.

Here are the changes that I made
2 c flour
1 pkg or 1 c graham cracker crumbs (finely ground)
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 t salt
3/4 c butter
1/4 c oil*
Same method as above cut in butter to dry. Reserve one cup
3/4 t baking soda
1 egg
1 cup sour milk
Mix the baking with the dry ingredients and then add the egg and milk. Stir enough to wet all ingredients but keep it a little lumpy. Then put in a greased 9X13 casserole pan. Sprinkle the dry reserved ingredients over the top. Bake at 350 til lightly browned and done in the center.

It was delicious. Serve with fresh fruit and whipping cream or ice cream. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!

*I have been experimenting with replacing butter with oil in baking. So far I have done as much as 1/3 and I can't really tell a huge difference. I have been doing this for two reasons.
1. I am trying not to buy margarine. It has gotten really bad lately and full of bad fats. But paying 3 times as much for the real stuff can be painful sometimes and I know that oil is a lot cheaper
2. Canola oil( which is my veggie oil of choice) is healthier than butter.

STAY TUNED FOR 4 MONTHS OF UPDATES!!!

Just some pics

2011-04-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Lily and Matt and the destruction of a whole box of kleenex

Tom

Ari in the tree

Matt's birthday

Our goose is cooked and other adventures

2011-04-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

I am starting to feel like I live on a farm. It is getting crazy here the animals out number us like 2 to 1. But it has been a fun adventure so if anyone else has some animals they are trying to get rid of for FREE let us know.

So this last week we celebrated Matt's first birthday. It is hard to believe that it was one year ago that we were on our way to the hospital and this beautiful blue eyed boy was born. He has been a real blessing in our home and we are so grateful to have him.

But just like last year -the day I went into labor with Matt-we had a goat go into labor on his birthday. Unfortunately, the baby goat only lived for 1 day. So we had to say goodbye.

Then on Sunday when we came home from church our neighbor's dog had maimed the one goose that we had left to the point that it was blinded and probably not going to live very long. So we decided to butcher the goose. So last night for dinner we had roast goose. It was quite the experience. I tried a little but had a real hard time eating it-even though it also meant that Monday morning I wasn't awakened to a goose honking in response to the peacock. Speaking of which-has anyone ever had roasted peacock?

Ski Holiday and a snow buffet

2011-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we took our family skiing. It was a fabulous day. We brought a friend along to help with the kids and Dave even got her up on skis. Thanks Melissa! The weather was perfect- most of the day I just wore a sweater. It was so sunny that Tom has a nice red ring around both eyes where we didn't rub the sun screen in fear of getting it in his eyes. Next time they will use sunglasses or goggles because at school the next day he was scaring the girls with his red eyes.

Kids and Melissa

Lily's favorite thing- when she walked outside she laid down on the snow on her belly and just started licking and eating the snow. She loved the open buffet. I just tried to direct her to a spot that everyone wasn't walking over.

Ari on the Magic Carpet.

She was riding up and skiing down all by herself. It was the best! We are definitely going back to this resort for our future family ski holidays.

After 4 years of hiatus, I finally got back on skis and I actually enjoyed it. I hope that I get an opportunity again soon. Because Dave is crazy about skiing-like a kid on Christmas morning. We have decided his reward for finishing his dissertation will be a ski trip where he gets to ski right up to his hotel/cabin. That has been his dream forever.

Book of Mormon Party

2011-02-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

And it came to pass that after 2.5 years of trials, mummuring, and tribulation that our family completed the Book of Mormon. Yeah!!! So it was time for a party. Our family voted and we decided that the reward for all of our early morning reading would be a ski trip. But I also wanted a little more to celebrate this momentous occasion.

My creativity was at a low but here was what I came up with.

We had Mexican food take out because it was Native food.(Of course my husband had to point out that we really don't know where the Nephites lived but...)

We had Lemuel and Lamanade Punch (Lemon and

limeade)

We made Nephite/Lamanite headbands and the kids each decorated their own.

I made the Title of Liberty.

I decorated with pictures from our Gospel art picture kit.

And to make dessert easy on myself we had promised land sundaes where the Nephites(vanilla ice cream) and Lamanites (hot fudge) lived in harmony.(Kind of a lousy idea but I really didn't want to make a plates of gold cake.)

It was a lot of fun!

I told the kids to do a fighting position-the boys went with Ninjas. Were they in the Book of Mormon too?

Speaking of Birthdays...

2011-02-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

Less than 30 days to my 30th birthday. Any suggestions? Another decade of life is pretty special so I don't want this one to just pass me by.

A very special birthday

2011-02-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

Sunday evening we had the chance to celebrate the birthday of Lily's sunbeam teacher. Guess what she turned 89! Can you believe it? She is the best and Lily loves to pray for her every night. Lily used to just pray "bless everyone and everything". I told her she should pray for her teacher and she said "I already blessed EVERYONE" so we talked about the importance of naming individuals now she goes on loooong lists of people to bless to the point where I interject a "in the name of..." to get her to finish.

We had a delicious cake too. Some wonderful strawberries I froze last year mixed with sugar and clear jel between to layers of homemade yellow cake and topped with whipping cream. Between that and the chocolate chip cookies I made with real butter instead of margarine-I haven't had a lot of control on the sweets this week.

Wow!

2011-02-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

Seeing this right outside your window....

Pretty Wow!

But having this right inside your house...

You can't tell from the photo and I don't get how to do videos but somebody wants to start walking. He can walk behind this little car now and is so proud of himself. Our house is only safe from destruction during nap time. But what a cutie!

Birthday Boy

2011-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

Tom is now 8! We got to celebrate his birthday for whole month. He was baptized lost two teeth and had an egyptian party. He said that he wanted a "desert cake" so I decided to go with egyptian. I should have listened to my Mom who advised me that the pyramid would be hard to pull off(I guess I still haven't learned to listen) After a lot of frosting and piecing together-nothing like the recipe/instructions made it look so easy. I did take her advice on making cocoa powder to make the bricks. By the way, ground vanilla wafers make great sand.

We had a hieroglyphic treasure hunt and pin the beard on the King Tut. We had about 6 boys over and then a few more including siblings andmoms. It reminded me why I have avoided parties for so long but also reminded me why they are a good experience.

In other news... my husband is giving his very final attempt at finishing his dissertation. Go Dave! After 6 years it looks like it will finally happen. So that means our evenings will be spent with Dave hiding in the office and working hard. But that is all made up for the fact that his boss has approved a work at home day. So on Wednesdays, Dave utilizes our new office space as his and joins us for lunch and even dinner before he heads off to Young Mens at night. He is the YM president of our ward.

Our Cozy Christmas Eve

2010-12-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

The Annual Christmas Eve Nativity performance. Meet Lily the shepherd.

Live Dinner!! I bought two crabs and a lobster for a total of $45 dollars on Dec 23. I spent the next 24+ hours stressing about how to keep them alive so I could throw them in the pot that way. I borrowed a pot from the neighbor that could fit all five of my children in it and boiled them all up (not the children the underwater creatures)with some old bay seasoning, potatoes, carrots and onions.

Voila! Feast fit for a king-served with Cheese Biscuits and lemon wedges and

a 1/2 cup melted butter. No plates or chairs necessary. Definitely a meal to repeat.

The annual Christmas eve pajama scramble. I always feel the urge to sew around Christmas. Dave tried to inspire me on December 1 but it really didn't kick in until about the 15. I spent all of Dec 23rd sewing. My kids pretended not to peek. The result 5 pairs of matching pjs from size 9 down to 12m and 7 shirts with applique and embroidery.

Because you can't really see it. My kids all had a number for their birth order on the shirt i.e. Jacob#1, Tom #2 etc. And that is a picture of a monkey not a self portrait like Ari thought.

Happy New Year from These Crazy Monkeys to You!!

And this little Turkey cried wee, wee, wee all the way home....

2010-11-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

So Thanksgiving is upon us again. This is the holiday most of all that I dread living in CA without any family. Don't get me wrong. I love Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is all about the feast of a million calories but it is not the same without extended family and others. The last two years have been pretty lame- Just Dave, the kiddos and me. The feast still pretty good but my kids don't appreciate my culinary efforts enough.

So if you are in the area and want some turkey. Come on over...I really don't want to be eating turkey for the next 3 weeks. Because I am still going to buy a huge turkey or maybe we will butcher one of the 11 fowl in our menagerie.

Chicken? I guess these are the most productive with about 3 dozen eggs a week. So they aren't at risk.

Goose Anyone?They are a lot larger and more menacing in real life.

Or how about a peacock?Wouldn't that be nice and colorful on our Thanksgiving table. These are the newest animals at our house and probably the first to the block. They just pooped on our back porch.

A train and indian from Halloween. Not for Thanksgiving but equally as troublesome.

Matt enjoying fall leaves. By the way, he is on the move-standing, crawling, and other trouble.

Happy Thanksgiving prep work!

2010-09-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

So.. it has been almost 3 months since my last post.

A lot has been going on. School started including for my 5 yr old. Yeah. She is loving it. She has *wet her pants(second day of school), thrown up on the bus, and had a ear infection. Poor girl has had a rough go but she is a trooper and loves to tell me about her girl friends and girly things. It is much different than the after school conversation with a boy.

*UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO KEEP READING THIS POST ABOUT WET PANTS. Good news- she never did it after that first week. I have gone through 3 kids now and all have gone through this step. Most important thing I think is to not shame them, walk them through where the bathroom is, how they notify the teacher and that they shouldn't be embarrassed to go. With Ari they had a hand symbol they were supposed to use and with her vision she couldn't really see what it was. So we practiced and talked together to the teacher and then we didn't have anymore problems. Clearly if your kid controls his bladder at home then there is something in the school environment that has stressed him out. Figure out what that is and work to resolve it. Goodluck!!

Chickens are laying eggs. We started with 15 chicks and we are now down to eight. I was not on board with this experiment at first but I am glad now. It has been fun to keep our fridge stocked with eggs from our own hens.

Matt is getting big and busy. He is trying to crawl and is already scooting around on his belly. He is a very cute boy. We have definitely been blessed

Overall, I feel way behind in life and I need to get caught up. At least I can say that I have made an effort on this blog. One thing checked off my list of like a million.

My first month of summer in pictures

2010-07-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

Grandpa and Matthew Orland catching a snooze together

Matthew taken in the orchard that we parked our van near when he was born.

Ari's 5th bday and her rainbow cake

Ari's b-day trip to the zoo-feeding Lorikeets

Lily's 3rd Birthday

The Sewer Project-Dave's excuse to rent a excavator

Six Flag Park with Kids in June

Grandma with Matthew in Zions

Dave and the Kids in front of his Great Grandparents Headstone-where we are related to nearly everyone in town-Orderville, Ut.

Yoga, Chicks, and remodel chaos

2010-04-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

My MIL came to stay with us for 1 week. It was fabulous. The kids loved the attention, my house loved the attention and even though I didn't love that she kept telling me to take it easy my body did. Thanks so much Grandma. We loved it! She even taught the kids yoga. This is their best yoga poses on the morning that she went home. I guess she better come back soon they still need some work on their poses.

This is Lily and Matthew doing grandma's wall sitting trick.

As if I didn't have enough going on my husband came home with 15 chicks. The kids can't decide which is more exciting to talk about-Matthew born in the car or the chicks. The chicks were a surprise for me.

This is why I didn't want Matthew to come early..... The good news is we will have about 200 extra square ft when it is done and we will be able to fit our enormous family of 7 around the dining table. This week the project will seem much closer to completion. They are doing the tape and texture. So all we'll have left is finishing details and the floors.

Ari contemplates her brothers birth...

2010-04-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

"Jacob was born in Utah, Tom was born in Minnesota. I was born in L---. Lily was born in M---- and Matthew was born in the van."

So much for my idea that Matthew would be born in the same place as Lily.

Speedy Gonzales and the Black Stretchy Pants

2010-04-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

Tues April 6 started as any other day. We woke up and went to a doctors appointment for the girls. That afternoon when I got home I was starving. I ate way too much and then soon got a headache that I blamed on the chocolate dessert that I ate. After resting for a while the phone rang and it was a neighbor who started off the phone call saying "I was hoping that you wouldn't answer because you would be at the hospital. I laughed at her and said no way I have at least two more weeks left. After the phone call about 6:30 Dave told me our goat had had a baby but had died so we called all the kids out and told them about it and we buried it. Then we had a late dinner and put the kids to bed.

About 5 minutes later I had a contraction. I thought weird and Dave told me it was just goat sympathy pains. So as I had a few more sporadic contractions I convinced myself that it was just braxton hicks because there was no way that they were "real." I sat down and watched AI hoping that the contractions would go away. I decided that I better make a packing list for the hospital because I had nothing ready. So I made the list and went to bed and the contractions kept coming but "nothing serious" I told myself. I was in serious denial.

By by 2:20 after slipping in and out of sleep and contractions I knew that this was serious. So I got up walked around noticed my contractions were probably happening every 5 minutes or so. I hopped in the shower for a while. Then about 3 I woke up Dave and said "I think this is the real deal we better get ready to go." So he packed the bag according to my list and I walked around doing pain management. About 45 minutes later about 3:50, Dave fed the dog(fatal error on his part) and we loaded up in the car and headed for the hospital. We live in the country so we had about a 25 minute drive to the hospital.

I was sitting in one of the bucket seats in the middle of the van breathing and struggling through each contraction. About 10 minutes into the drive my instincts took over and I started to push. "No" Dave yells "You are not ready! The baby is not lined up right! You need to breath! I don't hear you breathing!" "I need to push"

This dialogue continued for the next 7 or so minutes as I went into each contraction and the pushing urge came. I would like to say that I was using logic and considering what would happen if I kept pushing but I was going on pure instinct. About 3 miles from the hospital I told him that it was coming and he told me later that he reached back and felt the head between my legs. I don't remember, I was pushing. He almost wrecks pulling the car over to the side of the road and meanwhile the baby came right out. As luck would have it I was wearing my black stretchy pants and so I birthed the baby right into them. I grabbed the baby out of my pants and wrapped it in the towel I was sitting on "in case my water broke". Dave ran over to the side of the van and we had a beautiful moment where we saw it was a boy and the baby began to cry.

Dave got back into the drivers seat and we continued on our course to the hospital. I felt no panic or worry. The pain was gone and I had a beautiful baby in my arms born in the quiet of the van on highway 120. We almost even debated for 1 moment going home. But we were already there at that point so Dave ran into the ER and told them his wife just had a baby in the car. They brought out a stretcher and I "jumped out of the car" (that is what the ER guys said) and laid down as they wheeled me to Labor and delivery. We called the Dr, cut the cord and within 25 minutes the dr was there to deliver the placenta and stitch me up- one of the downsides to delivering my own baby.

We thought long and hard about the name. Should we call him Speedy Gonzales or Yosemite Sam(born on the highway to yosemite) or just Van. But after much consideration we have decided to call this boy Matthew Orland after his great g-pa Marion Orland whom everyone calls Pat.

So quick stats: Matthew born April 7th, 6 lbs 13 oz and 19 inches long and born in the van.

So now what I most look forward to is his birth cert. It will not list the hospital or doctor but Highway 120 and now we just have to convince them to put black stretchy pants as the method/dr for delivery that being said it will likely be Dave.

A funny thing happened on the way to Church

2010-03-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

So I was walking in to church today with a fully loaded diaper bag (do I call it a diaper bag even though it contains no diapers currently. Yeah!) and scriptures. My awesome husband met me at he car and walked in with the girls and Jacob.

I was back with Thomas who was in desperate need of my motherly tucking his shirt in and fixing his collar. The next thing I know I tripped and fell down dropping my diaper bag and scriptures. So here I am a nearly full term prego woman on the ground and what does my loving son do- He takes off running. I thought maybe he went to tell dad that I fell. Nope. He claimed that he was embarrassed and so he ran away.

I only ended up with a scrape or two but most of all a great story about how my son ran off in my hour of need.

Nystagmus Post

2010-02-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took the girls to a new pediatric opthamologist doctor for a vision checkup. It is typically something that we do about 2 times a year. We really had a great experience with this new doctor. My girls both have the diagnosis of congenital motor nystagmus. For those of you without a medical dictionary, their pupils dart/jiggle back and forth under certain conditions- when they are focusing hard, trying to see distances, or especially tired or stressed. The biggest effect is that things can look very blurry. For example, if I am at a park Ari and Lily cannot see me from about 30 feet away. I have to use my voice and wave my arms to feel like they can find me. This may be perceived and not actual but I think it is accurate.

Here are some of the things that I have learned about my girls vision.

1. Ari with her current way too strong prescription is 20/200. That is the beginning of a "legally blind" diagnosis. She will be getting new lenses and retested in 2 months to see if it helps improve her corrected vision.

2. With that 20/200 she could actually drive. That makes me happy and scared at the same time that we allow "legally blind" people to drive.

3. It was very sad watching her read the eye chart and the pictures were still so big and she just couldn't see them.

4. Their type of nystagmus doesn't go away but usually it does get ever so slightly better as they get older instead of worse.

5. They must have got it from Dave because I have perfect vision and my X was obviously okay because the boys never got anything. But There actually isn't any evidence that it is a sex-linked trait.

6. Nystagmus can be combined with many other things-albinism, extreme low vision, cataracts, and other problems. But it doesn't lead to learning disabilities, just as long as they can see the words on the page. Ari and Lily have often surpassed the boys in milestones of development.

I am grateful that this is a manageable eye condition and that at least the girls have each other and are not alone in this. Unfortunately, Ari being the oldest will be more of the guinea pig. She will pave the way for her little sister. So as kindergarten is looming in August, we will make sure that Ari is given the chance to succeed.

Articles of Faith Songs

2010-02-10T08:01:00.001-08:00

This year our primary is working hard to challenge the kids to learn the AOFs. I think one of the best ways to memorize is through music but I find it challenging to sing all the AOF songs in the primary book. When I was a kid we had the best songs to help memorize them. The music contained the AoF and then a little bridge that explained what it was about then repeated the AoF again. The songs were also fun and some were very upbeat.

Does this sound familiar to anyone??

After scouring my mom's cassette collection several times, I have never come up with them just some really great other tapes. So I have searched for these songs online every year or so. Finally I hit pay-dirt yesterday on a forum online. (I guess all the time I spent online paid off) No one can find any info on the company so I guess they are long out of business. It is too bad because these songs are awesome. But someone has put the wav files online and jpg of the songbook too. If you are interested give me your email and I will forward the info on to you. I am currently enjoying a blast of the past as I listen to the songs.

2010-02-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the boys had a school holiday so Dave took a day off and we headed for the mountains. My awesome husband loves to ski and spent many hours on the slopes, but that was all before he married me. I would love for him to ski but life happens with a family and budgets exist and it makes skiing a hard hobby to maintain. Plus we spent about 3.5 yrs in Minnesota where you get lots of snow but not a single ski hill in sight-what a waste of snow.

The last couple years, I have tried harder to give my husband chances to ski. We even went out about 3 years ago and purchased all the gear at a rental store going out of business. And I close my eyes as I see how much we pay, tell myself it is all worth it, and then smile. (Remember I am cheap so skiing just wouldn't naturally be on my radar.) This year for Christmas I gave my husband 2 lift tickets purchased for a great deal at Costco. First of all, I am used to spending lots of money at Costco and that way I wouldn't stress about the money when he was trying to find a day for skiing. So yesterday he sacrificed one of his tickets to spend the day skiing with 3 of his children.

I wish I had pictures but he had his hands full and I was content to keep the girls busy hanging out in the snow and lodge. My husband told me I should be out there but I am sore at the end of the day just walking around the house with this pregnant body so no way. The boys did great on the skis. In fact it is the one sport that Tom is completely enthusiastic about. He loves to zoom down the mountain. And doesn't seem to be intimidated. Jacob is a little more like me on the slopes, more nervous and cautious. Ari being 4 doesn't quite have the athleticism for it but she did manage to ride the lift 2 times and ski down, falling frequently. Lily has one more year to wait and then everyone will move up a size in boots and it is back to buying another set of ski boots for Jacob.

The day ended nearly perfectly until Ari said she felt sick on the roads coming home. And then Jacob about 30 minutes later when we had finally left the winding roads. So one sacrificed cookie bucket and a package of wipes later we were back on the road. Of course the usual craziness of 4 kids occurred and Lily was mad the she didn't get to hold the puke bucket like Ari. And Jacob puking right into our diaper bag-Dave is always telling me to keep it zipped but I guess I never learn. This time the lesson will stick a little better.

All in all the day was a success, we made it home and got the kids to bed and they even made it to school this morning. I was luckily blessed with extra patience yesterday and a good sense of humor. But everything with kids is definitely an adventure. Number 5 may be a few short months away but we are looking forward to him/her knowing the laughter and tears he will bring to our family.

2 Highlights of the Week

2010-01-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

1. Monday night is FHE at our house and of course that means we must have a treat. Monday was Ari's turn to chose the treat. She wanted an apple pie. I figured I would just do an apple crisp until I found this recipe online. The pie took 15 minutes to make. The crust was so easy and I got to keep reusing the same bowl for crust, filling and topping. I just made 3 changes to the recipe. I added 1/2 oats to topping, made the filling with Granny smiths and a little less sugar because it gives you more reason to add ice cream. I would have taken a picture but we ate it too fast.

2. Nothing brings me back to my youth like some good old JKP songs. I recently heard from a friend about a sale Janice Kapp Perry's music here. Everything is 50% off with code 2009MEGASALE. I know the promotion says Christmas but I just got some great stuff for less than 30 bucks. I am especially excited about the 70 song Childrens CD and Lift your Mind Higher CD-borrowed that from a friend for a while so now it is time to have my own copy. Hope you can enjoy some great classics in your home too.

Anyone for puzzling?

2010-01-13T14:21:00.001-08:00

We started out our morning at the dentist today. Lily had a discolored tooth that needed some work. It was right by the missing tooth- for a recap. Sure enough her tooth was DEAD. So the infection was cleaned out and a white cap was placed on it but now I am feeling like the mom of the year for having a two year old that already has two teeth gone though the one is capped.But she was a trooper for the procedure. Our dentist takes them back on their own because he doesn't want us worrying parents messing them up. And he definitely does something right because she was just fine and ready to hang out in the dentist's office playing with toys.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home but it had to be vanilla because she can't eat anything that could stain the tooth in the first day.

Then we got home and she emptied out the puzzle drawer. There are like 15 puzzles spread out all over the floor. So if you are looking for something to do this afternoon head on over.

Budgeting

2010-01-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

Our new emphasis in 2010 is getting back to a budget. We finally got a program for our Mac that we hope will work. So back to entering bills and receipts and and watching my money be spent.

As we were looking for a recent budget we came across some from our glory days as students. And I know why I struggle to spend money here was our budget as newlyweds in 2001.

Expenses:

Rent $450

Grocery $120

Tithing/FO $150

Telephone $35

Medical $84

Gas&auto Maint. $50

Savings $150

Investments $50 (this one never happened)

Entertainment $50

Clothing $50

Misc. Household $20

Total Expenses $1240

Income:

BYU $908

Pruning job $330

Total Income $1238

My favorite line item was the Entertainment budget. That was the money that we would use for our dates that consisted of dinner out 2 times a month usually splitting the fajita entree and then $1 movie rentals at Albertsons. When we moved on from BYU and finances were especially tight, (and we now had a baby)we dramatically slashed that entertainment budget. And the truth is that we are now back to just $50 now which is probably why we never go on dates because that barely covers the cost of the babysitter for 4 kids.

Back to the budget though- we lived like that for 4.5 yrs. We were blessed so that his $ went up a little at UMN but we really did save money through those years. During that time we were able to buy 2 vehicles with cash and have 2 babies. Though we did get a help with state medical coverage during our years in MN and Dave's parents paid our car insurance and Dave's education paid for with his research degree, we were mostly on our own. We never got student loans or went into debt. Most of our savings came from our Tax Refund/Earned income credit but we just stuck it in bank. Everything we got was either free from the lovely giveaway tables at church and our student housing or we got it on sale at the Thrift store-national holidays were 50% off.

I loved that period in my life and in some ways I have never felt richer. We were greatly blessed of the Lord and never felt poor. We had fun, we had friends and everything that we needed. I hope I never go back to that budget but at the same time it hasn't completely left me. Just ask my husband who tries to spend money once in a while and then come home and see his wife cringe because he spent $50. I am also figuring limitations out and so when the kids come home with calls for money from school I send them to Dad because I know that he is much more ready to part with the $10 than I am.

It's official

2010-01-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

I am a book banner. As Jacob left the house this morning he complained that he doesn't know what to do anymore because he has no books left to check out of the library because I have banned him from reading "like all of them." Really Jake what books are those? I have only let him read the first 4 Harry Potter books and I won't let him read any more InkHeart books after the first. It is hard having a kid who would be satisfied reading the encyclopedia with his dad, feeling like he isn't dumbing down by reading a book with "only 150 pages."

This morning I just told him to toughen up cause that is life and you just don't get to do everything your friends or you want to do.

But really I am glad that he is a reader. He knows all sorts of crazy information because he also retains a ton of what he reads. There are some negatives though and here they are:

1. If he is not doing what he is supposed to be doing you know that he is reading.

2. When I walk by his room in the morning, he is standing in his undies, reading a book on his dresser. "Time to get dressed"

3. He won't come in the door when they get off the bus and 15 minutes later I will find him sitting just inside the driveway on the ground reading.

4. He learns too much. Last year we had to have a talk about Santa because he read something in a book that claimed he wasn't real.

5. His ears don't work when he reads.

6. He has to act out the characters lives after reading and he dashes around the house doing this imaginary play until I am going crazy.

7. "Sorry Mom I was distracted with a book."

Nose to the grindstone once again...

2010-01-04T09:53:00.001-08:00

Bright and early at 5:55, I awakened to my son emptying the dishwasher. 15 minutes later I finally pulled myself out of bed and got going. Chores done, lunches packed, family scripture and prayer, and breakfast served, the boys headed out the door with Dad at 7:20. Luckily the girls have the most sense and slept in until 7:30. School and work is officially back in session.

We have had a fabulous Christmas break. It started off with a bang and all the kids except Tom came down with fevers at the start of the week of Christmas. It made me thankful that I had not made any Christmas party plans that week and angry that I had to reschedule the girls' eye specialist appointment for another 2 months in the future.

Christmas Eve we got together with friends for dinner and the nativity reenactment. After having to recast Mary with a less hormonal substitute, we had a very enjoyable evening with some great music-the dad of the family is a great pianist. Before bed we opened our Christmas jammies, that I had spent the last few days hurriedly sewing. Good thing they got them because I am not sure that anything else was worn for most of the next week.

Christmas day was spent lounging, eating, unwrapping gifts, and wii-ing- our most favorite gift for Christmas. The next day our arms were sore and tired from lots of wii golf and tennis. I never thought that I would give in to my family purchasing a game system but... so far it has been fun. We got to enjoy unlimited hours over the next week in front of the TV playing and now that school is back in session, I hope that I don't live to regret it.

The other highlight of our Christmas break was New Year's Eve. We celebrated Tom's birthday by going to the snow. (He loves to tell us that because he was born in Minnesota in the winter, he is a snow person. However, the kid was two when we moved away so what does he know about living in -20 degree weather for a week.) So after spending all morning gathering coats, hot chocolate, food, candy, drinks, hats, gloves, cameras, sleds and ...Dave and I were ready to go back to bed but we loaded up the car and drove 2 hours to find snow in California. It was a gorgeous day with warm temps that made the wet snow clothes so much more bearable. The kids all had a lot of fun and didn't complain much at all. We had to stop for dinner though so we let Tom choose one of the restaurants in the small town. He decided on Italian. As we got out of the car in our sweats and rain boots, to haul 6 kids for dinner I knew immediately that we must find a new place. They had tablecloths and stemmed glasses on the table preset for dinner service. So the hostess recommended another restaurant up the road. It was perfect. The food was excellent and the kids were tolerably good. The last time they had eaten anything other than fast food in a restaurant was probably more than 3 years ago. But the best was when they brought out a piece of pie for Tom and sang him Happy birthday. He felt so special.

We came home and watched the DVD I had found at Walmart-The Apple Dumpling Gang 1 and 2. The boys laughed their way to midnight and Mom and Dad crashed on the couch. What a great way to end 2009!

Friday was spent celebrating Tom's birthday once again this time complete with a Minnesota cake. And Saturday was spent catching up on all the work that had been neglected for the last 2 weeks.

So now once again we are back to school and schedules. 2010 Here we come!

Christmas cards, and treats

2009-12-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

I wish you were my neighbor and I could show up at your door with a 1/2 dozen "professional" carolers and a loaf of cinnamon bread. Last night we went out, few in number because Ari came down with a fever. We met with good friends and neighbors. At one house Jacob was talking to their 5 year old who either had a cold or just a real rough voice. Jake came over to me and said "I can't stand talking to him, he just needs to clear his voice."

Then about 5 minutes later my 8 year old then had the audacity to tell me "Isn't about time we wrapped this up, I am ready to go." He said he was trying to be subtle by tapping me on the shoulder for 5 minutes first.

I have sent most of my Christmas cards out this year. I have about 5 of 50 left with unknown addresses I am trying to track down. You better feel pretty special those of you who recieved cards because I agonize every year over sending Christmas cards because of how fast the stamps add up. It is not because I don't value each of you-it is more about how cheap I am.

Here is our Christmas card in case you haven't recieved on from us.

We feel very blessed this Christmas season. We have now been in our new home for 1 year. We love it. We have about 2 acres in the country. This year we got to experience having goats, puppies, a big garden, and Ciana went to Lowes and came back with 12 trees for our “orchard.” Dave even got a free riding lawn mower and purchased an old John Deere tractor from Heinz. Now all we need is a truck and we will be set. The kids for the most part are loving the country. We can have campouts in our backyard, animals, and even tried flying kites until we got a little close to the power lines. Our kids are all healthy and thriving. They drive us crazy, make us laugh, and somehow we are surviving.

Jacob, 8yrs old is the newest member of the church in our family was baptized in August. It was a great day. If Jacob is not talking then he is probably reading.

Thomas, 6yrs old is a first grader. He is trying harder this year to compete with his brother. He is always quick to do his work when a reward is involved but absolutely miserable when he doesn’t make it.

Ariana, 4yrs old is getting big and responsible. She is doing Joy school this year and preparing for Kindergarten in the fall. She also has very expensive teeth this year thanks to a couple of baby crowns. Mom and Dad have been a little more dedicated to brushing her teeth lately.

Lily, 2yrs old is finally out of diapers. This is the first break Mom and Dad have had since Jacob was born over 8 years ago. Of course potty training isn’t exactly easy. But Lily is such a joy in our home. She is always singing-at the dinner table, at church, and when she is in her bed.

Baby #5-Due in April. More than halfway there now!

If you are coming through California and need a stopover, we would love to welcome you to our home. We send our love and best wishes to all. May you all be warm and happy this holiday season.

Merry Christmas!

Love, Dave, Ciana, Jacob, Thomas, Ari, and Lily

Lily

2009-12-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

Two year olds are so much fun. Lily can be the cutest little thing when she is singing, talking, coloring, or building with her "Jengas." I am hoping that she will be the first child to master fine motor skills before she turns 10. My boys still cannot write very ligible and Ari seems to be headed in the same direction. Lily loves to spend a lot of time with the crayons and blocks. Her singing though is the absolute best. She is always singing. If I try to join in, she often tells me that it is her song and I can't sing it.

But man can two year olds get nasty fast. She loves to tell Dave and me "no" every chance she can get. She loves to wake up in the middle of the night complaining about monsters in her bed. We just try to take it as affirmation that she is two.

I am just glad that she will be a little older by the time the baby comes in April. Maybe she will sing him/her lullabies in the middle of the night and let me sleep.

2009-12-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

Here's what we have been up to the last month.

Our new fireplace insert that we keep going all the time and goodbye $400 propane bill.

Dave's 35th! Couldn't fit all the candles on the cake. We didn't have to light the fire that night.

How Lily and I spent several hours on Turkey day. She was sick and only wanted to sleep in my arms.

Happy Turkey Eaters!

Look who cut down the Christmas Tree.

Lily loves to hide in the cupboards. Jacob wondered if we could leave some empty so they could all fit.

What the pictures don't show:

The kids singing for a Stake Christmas music fireside. Lily was up there too and singing her heart out. It was definitely entertaining.

I cried in my talk at stake conference-definitely prego hormones.

We had snow fall in our backyard but melted when it hit the ground.

The everyday general craziness of 4 kids and a mom who still throws up occasionally.

Taking the boys to the doctor with me to have ultrasound and "enjoying" every minute that we waited in the exam room (for 40 minutes) so I could explain the female anatomy charts on the wall.

A comment from Fellow ward member at Christmas party dinner, "Wow, next year you are going to need two tables for your family or they will have to set up the rectangular ones instead of rounds." Thanks a lot!

In other news...

2009-09-30T09:57:00.001-07:00

Our family has been completely disrupted by a jelly bean sized being. I can no longer cook, open the fridge, change diapers, and be reasonable. Yes, I am enjoying my most favorite part of pregnancy- "day" sickness. I would love to call it morning sickness but the only time I get total relief is at night when I am asleep. I have tried sleeping during the day but that didn't make me feel any better and Lily went wild with a crayon on the walls, tv, windows, table, etc. Luckily my mother-in-law came out for 10 days and ran my house. She was an angel to my family and my husband told me he would give me another week before he expected me to run our home like her. Keep dreaming honey.

We are looking forward to April with fear and excitement. Now my goal after this icky stuff is over is to get Lily out of diapers. I have been changing diapers without relief since Jacob was born 8 years ago. I have always done double duty with a toddler and a newborn. So I am really looking forward to the possibility of a few months of vacation from stinky diapers.

No more triple digits in Cali...

2009-09-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

So happy that fall is finally here. We just spent the last week sweating and avoiding the outdoors as it was very hot here. Suddenly the heat is gone and we are in the 70s and freezing. I am loving it.I realized that my children are now completely warped Cali kids. Jacob had an assignment that asked what would you wear in 85 degree weather. His answer: A sweater.

Life has been pretty crazy around here lately. Dragging the boys to soccer at least two times every week, Dave working ridiculous hours, school in full swing and 8 puppies running around.

Our dog had puppies last month and they are now equipped with claws, teeth, and can run. Hopefully they will be finding homes soon. Also if we find homes for them soon we can tell everyone that they are poodles instead of german shepherds.

I Hate Picture Day

2009-08-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

The boys received the dreaded picture notice the other day. First of all who wants to pay 50 dollars for a picture that they can't control. I know that is some of the "beauty" of school picture day but come one. So I have decided that it isn't worth it and I will just go to Penneys for a picture. But then I remember that they use this picture for various school things like yearbook and student card(It seems crazy to me that they have both these things in Elementary but whatever the schools have lots of money to burn right?) So I decided to choose my battles and not tell the kids what they could wear only that I must comb their hair. Jacob and Thomas's hair is getting kind of long right now and to top it off last night was bath night so their hair dried in a mess while they slept. So I pull out the comb and mousse and get to work on Tom's hair. By the time that I finished I had made him "too handsome" and he was embarrassed to go to school. So he messed it back up and proceeded to run from me. IF I was a better mom I would have probably laughed and said that he would just take his pictures like that. But I am not so I redid his hair and Dad gave him a talking to and everyone went to school mad. I think that when he comes home we will go back to the shave the head method and my life will be easier. But then hair cuts are just another battle with Tom and to top it off so is washing his hair. He pretty much holds my hand until the bubbles are gone from his head. Maybe he has some suppressed psychological feelings that he will loose all his hair and be bald some day so he just doesn't want his hair to be messed with.

At least Jacob didn't put up a fight though he also detests getting his hair done. He wrote at school in a "Who Am I" essay that "my hair is untidy." I think he likes to believe he is Harry Potter.

A memorable Vacation

2009-07-27T17:22:00.001-07:00

We spent part of July with my family in Utah and Dave's in Idaho.
Our most memorable moments
1. The 300 yard pioneer trek. Thomas screamed the whole way back about how he hated pioneers and the whole experience because there were stickers/poky weeds on the trail.
2. Saying goodbye to our dog Missy. We permanantly left her at Grandpas. I have sacraficed and given the indoor animal thing a try for 4 years and I was ready to move on. She just didn't work her at our new place. I will say though that I have figured out why she never ate any food. There is so much more crud on the floor these days.
3. Spending 25 plus hours in a car with my kiddos. They were actually pretty good.
4. Seeing all my family especially new baby Laura.
5. Hanging out with Alainna. We were the lucky ones who got Aunt Alainna with us on several occasions as we drove around Ut.
6. Lily learned a new song on the drive. "A bushel and a Peck" I wish that I had the techno how to post a video.
7. The kids biking on their dads old stomping grounds.
8. Seeing Sagebrush again. You start to miss that when you live in CA
9. Heritage Park near the "This is the Place" Monument
10. Coming home again

Finally some pictures

2009-06-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hooray we have new windows! The installers left this morning and we now have 5 beautiful vinyl windows and one of them is a bay window. We are taking advantage of the tax credit for energy efficient windows and hoping that we can stay a little warmer this winter. So all day yesterday we had no windows in our house and at the end of the day our house was full of flies. Thank goodness that global warming has taken a vacation in CA because it has been a burning 75 degrees the last 2 weeks. Of course it happens to be the weeks that my kids are in swimming lessons so they have been freezing.

Yesterday one of Daves work colleagues came by to look at our goats. Seeing that we know nothing about them except what I have found googling, this guy is a definite expert. He told we should butcher them soon or sale them as they are ready. If it was a matter of me being ready they would have been butchered 2 weeks after we got them. They have been a real pain in the neck. I have gotten used to them getting their heads stuck in the fence though it can be a near daily occurrence, and as you see in the picture my dog has a fondness for biting and chasing them and fences don't usually get in his way, but since he hasn't eaten them yet I am not to worried about that. But if you happen to bring your kids and they let out the goats then prepare for a rodeo but minus the cowboy, the lariat, or anybody who knows what they are doing. For as much as 1 hour, I (with the help of 4 children and 2 dogs) have chased these ugly things and helplessly watched them break off my fruit trees and eat my newly planted shrubs.
We might be butchering them ourselves with the help of our goat expert and let me tell you meat won't ever taste as good.

My money curse

2009-06-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

Dave is the young mens president in the ward and there is a big hike coming up in Yosemite. The sad thing is that the leaders are way more excited about it than the boys. Suddenly, Dave finds that he needs all this hiking gear- Boots, backpack, self-inflating mattress, pedometer, and that is all he has mentioned right now. So 500 dollars later his wife is on the verge of a heartattack. Would I feel better if I went out and bought the 3oo dollar wheat grinder or a new camera to replace our dead one or an acoustic guitar that I have been thinking about learning to play? I don't know but I would definitely use them more often than his inflatable mattress or maybe not. I also wouldn't be able to hold any bad feelings over his purchase if I made some of my own.

Curse you thriftiness gene. I love you and despise you. I love how you saved us through college though I am sometimes embarrased for myself looking back with how little we had but at the time it was great. I hate that I have to debate everything at the grocery store that is not on our necessary list. I hate that I cringe everytime that Dave spends money(I have realized I am more of a control freak than I used to think.) and then I cannot forget about it. I look back on foolish purchases that I make and they still haunt me to this day. I hate that I cannot look at other people who have a lot less $ and yet more stuff and not be judgemental.

So last night we went to Bass Pro and I spent the whole night worrying about what Dave might spend and chasing the kids around the store. Lily hates riding in a shopping cart now and so I get to play chase all the time. The shoe/boot salesman asked my husband "Are they ALL yours?" Lily left a puddle somewhere in the store as she had gone on the potty within the hour so I thought she was safe. I am sure it was on the party boats that the kids were climbing on. I guess I just helped someone get an even better discount on the floor model. Amazingly all my worring about Dave was ill founded because we walked out only $7 later and that was on Noodles for our pool and that was MY purchase. We did get FREE smores when we left so that made everything better.

Summer begins

2009-06-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

I always stress about writing a blog. What if it is not funny? What if nobody enjoys reading it? Do I really have anything blog worthy to write about?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think my life is dull. I just struggle when it comes to writing it down. But this summer, I am going to try to blog a little more frequently. So here goes...(disclaimer: Don't be surprised if this turns into one of those journal entries that I write every few years about getting back into journaling and then never again.)

Kids are out of school. Yeah and AHHHHH... First of all, I am not looking forward to making lunch everyday. The girls just kind of eat whatever and call it lunch but throw in two more opinions to the mix and it gets stressful. I had a friend who recommended the kids planning the menu for lunch over summer and then they also get to help cook.
I am excited to send them outside and enjoy the sun, the dirt and some freedom in the great outdoors.

The fundraiser for the youth is over. We did the typical spaghetti dinner/auction but we had real linens and I made breadsticks for 80. It was a crazy night and thank goodness Dave brought some movies so the kids were great while I was in the kitchen and Dave was in charge of the computer. He swears that this is the last auction he wants to do. Does anybody else have some good fundraiser ideas?

A real princess...

2009-04-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Ari got 2 princess teeth yesterday at the dentist. Everywhere else we went said they wanted me to go to a hospital. Thanks to the advice of dentist brother in law we kept looking. We finally found a very experienced ped. dentist who treats his patients in office without sedatives. Not that I am totally opposed to sedatives but I definitely didn't want to sign up for anesthesia for a 3 year old. Ari was in the office for less than an hour and she came out with two beautiful silver molars. I feel rather lousy that I have a daughter with silver teeth but I don't know that there is a lot I would/could of done differently. But considering that I have one daughter missing a tooth and one with multiple crowns, I am not off to a great start with these two. My only saving grace is that Tom has ZERO cavities but then he does have the lip scar from crashing and almost biting all the way through his lip.
I hope I have scared all of you away from asking to babysit your children if you value perfect teeth. Actually I just blame it in the fact that their heads are proportionally too large. They rank in the 90% while their bodies are in the 20%. That has got to make keeping your head off the ground difficult right?

Living the Little Shop of Horrors...

2009-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

I used to think this Steve Martin character was funny albeit disturbing. But now I feel it is more a reality than I am willing to admit.

We have been through 5 dentists since moving here. The first dentist was from Mexico and was really nice. He even called me "Mi-ja". Well actually he said that every 2 seconds and it got real annoying. But I was willing to look past that until I had a really bad tooth. He told me it had a really big cavity and we should just pull it out. Huh? I thought dentist had sworn an oath to protect teeth at all costs. Needless to say, after having a root canal and Dr. Mijo putting a crown on that he did a really bad job doing. He then again reccommended me just getting that tooth pulled. I finally saw the red flags and went to another dentist.
Meanwhile my kids needed their teeth looked at so I went to dentist #2. This was one of those dental clinics with lots of dentists. It was called Gentle Dental and the irony of that just kills me. They bring Jacob in, strap him down to a board, claim he has a million cavities and start draining my wallet all within about 10 minutes. The board was a magic surf board or blanket they claimed but I have a hard time calling the screaming "magical".
I was starting to feel like one of those women who only dates losers and abusers. You start to wonder do I attract these losers because I'm an idiot or completely unlucky.
After such pleasant experiences I said "Contracted providers I hate you. I am going off the golden list and finding someone good. " Well, I did find someone good but I quickly began to run out of money especially since Dave had like 3 crowns done.
Dentist number 4 was/is great. The ladies at the office remember me. They take care of my teeth. They bill me after the service is done instead of asking for all the money up front. They actually care about me and my family and they are in the golden network. Yeah! As nothing is as great as it seems-he doesn't do little kids like Ari.
Dentist 5 was an attempt to get Ari's large whole fixed. They have all appearances of being child friendly. Large waiting room with video games and toys. They bring her in and the dr spends about 1 minute looking in her mouth. No x-rays, no poking with the sharp stick. The conclusion is she has at least 7 cavities and "probably more" when they actually do the xrays. They then send me to the treatment coordinator. She tells me that if I pay 600 extra she will guarantee that the payment will not be more the 1500. I go home to think things over and decide to schedule as no other alternative seems available. We call to schedule but no she said it will take 4-6 weeks to process paperwork. Then finally the paperwork is processed and she can now get Ari an appt. in June. " You tell me my kids teeth are rotting out of her mouth and then you take nearly six months to do something about it!" I finally got it and I am dumping this sorry office.
So today I am off to dentist #6. Wish me luck!

My kids & their filthy music

2009-03-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Lily has been spending crazy amounts of time like this lately. I am sure our septic system has reached its toilet paper quota for the year. You may question my sanity in potty training a not even 2 year old. I didn't choose this she just really loves it. And the good part is that I am not stressed out with high expectations because of her age, but I am secretly hoping that after a week of this we can go back to stress free diapering.
I can't complain too much because she is doing a pretty good job of it. However the filthy music that I have had to listen the last week is really getting to me. The routine seems to be that after the bathroom thing she watches the "potty show". Every song of course refers to pee and poop in some new and exciting song genre- regae, ballad, and up beat. Think of the controversy a 10 second potty scene caused on God's Army and that made it a PG movie. With all the scene time spent in bathrooms on this show it must make it at least PG-13. Luckily we went to the library and got "potty bear" to spice things up a little bit new pee and poop songs and now the characters are puppets instead of real people.

Thinking of investing in Dentistry stock...

2009-02-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

I took Ari to the dentist the other day because she had a large brown hole in her molar. I will admit that I have been real lousy about brushing her teeth. She would scream at me and sometimes I was so anxious for her bedtime I skipped over that portion of the routine. So I will take all the blame except for the genetically bad teeth that goes to metal mouth Dave.

So a special trip to the pediatric dentist and we receive the sit down with the account counselor to talk about how to set up a dental mortgage- complete with all the scams and paper work, tears and worries of how will I ever be able to pay this back. She has six cavities and needs a crown where the brown hole is. Because of her age (3.5 yrs) and the number of cavities, they want her to go to a ho$pital and use the services of an ane$thesiologist.

Even better I am trying to figure out what we need to pay to go to get this done. There is nothing so fun as calling a hospital and asking for a number of what you might pay. I am a reasonable person. I know that can't give me an exact number I just want to know if it will be approximately 1000 or 10,000. I figure in order to run a business you would know what your charging for your services. But they give me crap like you won't pay for it anyway because you have insurance, which I have a huge problem with that statement because it has lead to a lot of problems in our current health care system. Eventually if I call enough and push enough they will give me a number and I have to say "was that so hard."

We spend more every year on dental work than we do on healthcare. And we haven't even started into the braces and for the genetic inheritance of that I take all the blame. Warning though there is more wrong with this picture than my teeth but I don't accept all the blame for that. You will notice that I only have 4 top teeth. I had the next two pulled on both sides and it took about 3 years before anything grew back to replace them. Needless to say it took over four years of braces with all the good stuff- head gear, elastics, and a spacer in the top of my mouth.

I called my sister to see if we could set up a dental clinic in our house for my brother in law but he isn't quite done yet with school. I don't think I can hold Ari off either or we will be doing more than one crown and Dave is hoping that the teeth are causing some of her attitude problems and that she will be a perfect angel when we get them fixed. Maybe for that reason it is worth the $2300+ investment.

Back online

2009-02-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Where do you even begin when you have been offline for nearly 3 weeks? - The email, all the blogs I have not been able to read, or the catching up on all the news.
After suffering through an internet bankruptcy I am back again and can finally explain about the "kids".
We are now the proud owners of three goats. I would post a picture of them with their head stuck in the fence as that seems to be their favorite pastime. Usually it just means that I send the dog out and the get so scared that they manage to pull their head back through. Between them and our 50 lb puppy who likes to jump fences, the animals have kept me very busy and I haven't even begun to mention the four other animals that live in my house!

2009-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

3 New Kids at our House

2009-01-20T08:05:00.001-08:00

More details and pictures to come soon. Quite an adventure ahead of us!

Tommy New Year

2009-01-02T16:33:00.001-08:00

Kindergartener

Christmas 06

A thumb sucker 04

Summer 05

Spring 05

Happy 6 Thomas! We are happy to have you in our family! You are tough as nails, very sincere and love bread. You make us laugh with your funny voices and surprise us with the things you say when you eventually speak. Sometimes we overlook you because you are the quietest but we couldn't live without you.

We spent the day in the snow(had to drive to get there) then had 4 families for pizza and brownie sundaes. Great Day and Tom ate about 3 lbs of snow.

The Dreaded Family Pictures

2009-01-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

Finally took some pictures. After 2 hours of preparation-finding the right clothes and getting hair done, I was in a foul mood and all ready to start taking their pictures. I tried bribery and everything I could think of. I think my best efforts will be spent learning to photoshop smiles on to their faces.

In Transition

2008-12-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

First of all I have been without internet for 3 weeks. It was terrible, but I survived and probably got lots more done in the last 3 weeks than I would have otherwise.
We signed the papers on Daves 34th birthday. Happy birthday you just got a 300,000 dollar present that will cost us double that by the time we pay it off. I think his birthdays are covered no until he is 64.
We finally moved in on Saturday the 22nd of Nov. After a very insane 2 weeks of driving between houses, painting, overseeing a heater repairman, the carpet cleaners, the well project, and cleaning. We were exhausted and excited to get into our new home. We were blessed to get everything ready to go by that weekend of the move date. We almost didn't have any water because the well pump needed to be replaced. And I could have followed Kashanns lead but the Wendys was more than 10 miles away. Now after nearly 3 weeks we are starting to feel pretty well established but we still have a lot more work ahead of us. Dave's honey-do list has never been longer. But we are just so happy with our new home.
We found an old map when we were unpacking that was of our area. We looked on the map and the small community in which we lived was circled. We remembered back to nearly 4 years ago after we moved here and we would drive out in the country and look at the different towns/communities. This one community we loved because every house has atleast 1 acre of land and it is not to far from Dave's work and just a lovely area, especially in the spring when everything is green. So here we are exactly where we dreamed but never thought it would happen in California. We were truly blessed of the Lord.

The kids have done well with the transition. So far they are excited to change wards, schools, and friends. They love the country and couldn't resist a romp in the mud on our first week here.
They enjoy talking about all the land and dream of animals and adventures. We had our first adventure within the first week. We were out digging holes for plants and Jake and Ari were in one section and suddenly Ari started screaming and next thing I know Jacob is screaming too. I go to help them and a wasp flies out of Jake's shirt. We bring them inside and end up having 5 more wasps in the house that must have been in their clothes. Luckily they both ended up with 4 or so bites. 3 cans of wasp spray later I think we have tackled the problem.

One more funny thing. As we were packing up at the old house I asked the boys to grab all their stuff that they wanted to bring to the new house from the back yard like the bikes and sand toys. Next thing I know there is a bucket in the garage with this....
All of the rocks they have collected anytime we will let them and sticks. If you doubt their love of sticks remind yourself of this post.

All goes well otherwise and I will post pictures of the house soon.

Halloween 08

2008-11-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know that Halloween is old news now but I just downloaded my pictures off my camera so I wanted to do a post. As every other year I scored at the thrift store for Halloween costumes. My biggest Halloween purchase was Ari's ruby slippers but those are dual purpose and then makeup was the next biggest item. But now I have lots for the future.
My greatest costume creativity was Dave's costume (who did not fully appreciate my efforts) I used a soccer medal/medallion and glued some jewels on the back to make him a great vampire medallion. But since he refused my attempts to put makeup on him he turned in the Wizard instead of a vampire.Toms costume was the easiest and cheapest just $2 at the thrift store and it was 50% off too. He loved the built in muscles and was sure he was going to win the costume contest.

Jacob's was probably my favorite costume. We decided on Harry because he just got his glasses and has read the first two books.
Ari made a cute Dorothy even with her glasses. She especially like carrying her Toto around all night.

I of course was the Wicked witch and was scaring all the kids. I kept forgetting that my face was green all night. Lily was Glinda the good witch.

Packing, Grime and feeling slimed

2008-11-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

First of all packing, I am trying to pack ahead and save myself a huge scramble to the finish. I have found things I have never used since I moved into this house 3 years ago but yet instead of putting them in a pile to Goodwill I am just packing them up and moving them to the next garage. What is it about all the stuff we get.

Grime- I am also deep cleaning this house so we can get all our money back for our deposit. We move in clean(or atleast that was the theory) and we move out clean. I just wish I could work it out while we lived here.
I have found that grease dust(the stuff in your kitchen) makes a pretty good sludge after 3 or mores years of neglect. If I could only figure out a way to power my car with it I would be in business.

Feeling slimed- what is it about buying a house. There are more people involved than it takes to build a house and everyone has their hand in the pot. They talk about sellers cost but come on I am writing the check for 300K. They are just redistributing it. Every time I talk to our loan agent there is a new $$$ item. And then we really don't know everything until the day before we sign. It kind of reminds me of health care. Everyone taking a check but in such a way that I can't clearly figure out what I can actually control.

Community Organizer the word of the year and other election ramblings

2008-10-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of hearing about community organizers. Since when did that word become synonymous with Mother Teresa or the epitome of social/political achievement?

So if black people are so bad off that they need some "economic justice" why do we have people like Obama, Powell, Rice, and so many more that have achieved wealth and status far above my poor white self?

I think I will be voting for a black man this election. I am not a fan of McCain though I am highly intrigued by Sarah Palin. I like her fresh look in Washington. But I think my vote will go to Alan Keyes.

What I am really looking forward to is the election being over with. My husband has spent the last 3 weeks walking our neighborhood and now has about 30 signs up. It is great to look around and see the support for people in our neighborhood that still have strong family and moral values.

Make sure to vote next week.

No Place Like Home

2008-10-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Finally a House!!! After 6 months and walking through too many homes and a roller coaster of are we going to get it-no we are not, we signed papers today.
November 20th is the closing date and we are on our way to a home. We will be moving 15 miles into the country and have 2 acres all to our self. We are so excited. At least I was until I started calling our mortgage people and very quickly started getting a headache.
Dave is so excited he doesn't know what to do. He has been dreaming of acreage since he was a boy and it is hard to believe that it is finally here.

Doughnuts for Prop 8

2008-10-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Every fall I get a craving for homemade doughnuts. The cold air and changing season just makes me want to start frying. Last night we hosted a Prop 8 campaign meeting and so it was the perfect excuse to make up a batch of doughnuts.

They were delicious. And the recipe made about 6 dozen good thing we had a good turn out that way I only ate about 3 not including holes but those don't count.
We had cinnamon-sugar, glazed and chocolate glazed. Good thing I only indulge about 1 a year.

Importance of Prop 8

2008-10-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Article from Manteca Bulletin-

Everything your kids need to know about marriage they can learn in kindergarten

Dennis Wyatt
Managing Editor

Depending upon your perspective, you may view the battle over Proposition 8 on the Nov. 4 state ballot as a moral issue, a religious issue or a civil rights issue.

But there is one thing for sure. It is definitely a political issue since it is on the election ballot.

Which brings us to a blessed event - or unblessed event if you are for Proposition 8 - that took place at San Francisco City Hall on Friday.

Eighteen kindergarten students took a field trip to City Hall to toss rose petals at their teacher's wedding. Their teacher happened to be lesbian and was marrying her partner. One of the public school kindergarteners was even sporting a "No on Proposition 8" button.

So much for state laws banning kindergarten through 12th grade teachers from promoting political views in a classroom setting.

Actually, Creative Arts Charter School teacher Erin Carder had no idea that her students were coming. The educator playing fast and loose with politics was the school's interim director Liz Jaroslow who was approached with the idea for the field trip by a parent of one of the students.

So how did Jaroslow justify the field trip academically as well as being within the parameters of not pushing a political viewpoint within a classroom setting?

Jaroslow told the San Francisco Chronicle that, "It really is what we call a teachable moment. I think I'm well within the parameters."

That "teachable moment" as Jaroslow defined it was about Proposition 8 being a civil rights issue.

Funny thing about that since the U.S. Supreme Court certainly hasn't made that the case. So it is simply her perspective of what Proposition 8 is about which definitely makes it political because the highest court in this land hasn't decided the score on same-sex marriage. And until the court does, it is a political question left to the states.

Rest assured the San Francisco Unified School Board that is hell-bent on getting rid of its JROTC programs won't do a thing about the incident. Actually, the state should withhold the average daily attendance payment for the 18 kids for that day. It would be a symbolic move at best but at least someone in Sacramento would be on record as being interested in keeping the indoctrination of political views out of the classroom curriculum for kindergarten through 12th graders.

Now an argument could be made that the parents had no problem with it so why should anyone else? Do we really want a school system where parents in the majority can alter the rules because they reflect their views?

Yes, young kids reflect their parents' values hence the No on Proposition 8 button worn by the student. The girl's "mothers", by chance, are wedding each other in two weeks, which means they believe it is a civil rights issue and not a political issue.

Which is exactly where the rub comes.

How come those who favor same sex-marriage can inflict their will on the children of those parents who don't support same-sex marriage?

Friday's incident plays right into the argument of the Yes on 8 campaign. A campaign spokesman called it an, "overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose."

It also underscores the group's argument - which some proponents have dismissed as not being the case - that children will learn about same-sex marriage in school.

The California Education Code allows schools to offer comprehensive sex education. In doing so, though, they must "teach respect for marriage and committed relationships."

Parents, of course, can excuse their child from all or part of the instruction. It should be noted parents of two kids in the class did just that which meant their children were sent to a first grade class during their classmates' 90-minute field trip.

It also should be noted that both the teacher and her new spouse have participated in the campaign against Proposition 8. After their wedding, they traveled around San Francisco in a motorized trolley car with "Just Married" and "Vote No on 8" banners.

It gets better. Jaroslow also told the Chronicle, "As far as I'm concerned, it's not controversial for me" in reference to same sex-marriage. Then she added the caveat that indicated she knew she was more than just pushing the envelope as a pubic schools educator in noting, "It's certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for."

Jaroslow's remarks don't give you a lot of warm fuzzies knowing that you can't trust educators to tow the line when it comes to keeping politics out of the confines of the classroom.

And it certainly gives the Yes on 8 - the effort to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman - a lot of fodder in the remaining 22 days until the election.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com.

There is one error in this article- the class was first grade. The other side has been claiming all along that the education debate is null and schools will not be forced to teach homosexuality to kids. However, the truth is that schools won't be able to stop individuals like Jaroslow from bringing it into our schools. Gay activists will not be satisfied until it is a part of our daily life and given equal stance with normal marriage.
Everyone will be affected if prop 8 fails. The other side doesn't even get my side. They are guilty of the same intolerance that they are claiming I have. It absolutely scares me that my children and society will be told that this union is totally equal to marriage between man and woman. We do not know yet the implications that this will have on society. Please vote and support YES on 8.

We hate our kitchen floor!

2008-10-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Not only is the floor white and never looks clean but it has now claimed one of Lily's teeth. Ari and her were playing at the kitchen table and it was one of those moments that I said to myself that I shouldn't let them do that because they might crash. Sure enough Ari tipped her chair over and Lily fell right on her tooth. I called Lani a friend who has a dental surgeon husband and a child who lost a tooth as a toddler. She told me to look for the tooth on the floor or maybe it had just got pushed back in. After mistaking for a noodle a cherrio and reminding myself how dirty white tile floor is. I finally found the tooth root and all.

This is Lily pre-accident and today after lunch with Mac and Cheese all over h er face and one tooth missing. I guess I better I've got to get used to her new look because she will be like this for the next 7 years or so.

1+1=6

2008-10-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

It all began 9 years ago my first Sunday in the singles ward after graduating from High School. Dave was there for a summer job. We went on one date and then spent several months in limbo while Dave agonized how "young" I was. Then he finally got over it and we began dating in October and were married 1 long year later for which Dave got a lot of grief from my family for being so slow to pop the question. Thank goodness they didn't scare him away. Four kids and 8 years later I couldn't be happier.
Dave has always been my best friend and I am happy to spend eternity with him.

Offer 7 & 8 today..

2008-09-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know about FHA loans? We were planning on conventional but we hear that FHA loans look better to REO banks and we really need help actually getting a home that we offer on.

At least the economy is in our favor. Homes here have dropped almost 40% in the last 2 years. What was utterly unattainable is now within our reach. It is crazy & sad though that what is a great benefit to us is ruining the lives of many others. There still aren't any 30Grand houses out there though. I guess you got to move to Buffalo for that.

A Bunch of Nerds

2008-09-26T15:21:00.001-07:00

I have never wanted one of those families where everyone wears glasses. They are always nerds. And to top it off the thing that grosses me out most in the world is the eyeball. My kids can wipe boogers on me, throw up on me or bleed all over the place-that doesn't bother me so much. But ask me to clean their eye or touch their eyeball- it sends shivers up my spine.
So then Ari comes along and she needs glasses. How unlucky is that but I guess Dave's family has lots of kids with glasses-I think to myself.
Then Lily has the same problems as her sister. Oh well at least its just the girls. If I do my family planning right I can avoid girls, glasses and more hair to do all at the same time. We will just have to stick to boys from here out.
Then last week Jacob got a physical and the doctor said he had bad vision on one of his eyes. Sure enough, I got him in this week and he is in need of glasses. So now just me and Tom are the hold outs and maybe that will change when we both go in to get our eyes checked next month.
Meanwhile I must come to terms that I am one of those nerdy families.
I do have to say though that the glasses will only enhance Jacobs cute bookish character.

2008-08-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Heather tagged me so here goes....
The rules of the game are each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

10 Years Ago: I was 17 and just starting my senior year.

5 Things on my to-do list today: 1. Go walk the neighborhood for prop 8. 2. Wash the kids laundry, 3. Saturdays Clean my house, 4. Make poppy-seed bread 5. Make dinner.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire: I would buy a very nice house with 20 acres, never shop a walmart again instead go to Target, give a million to prop 8, buy exotic foods to cook new recipes that I read about in fancy cooking magazines, buy new furniture for a change and maybe even a working TV, pay someone to scrapbook for me, and then invest the rest because I like having money in the bank.

3 of my bad habits: 1. Spending way too much time on the internet, 2. Whatever attitude, 3. Over-eating, I just love food too much.

5 places I have lived: 1. Pasco, Wa; 2. Walla Walla, WA; 3. Provo, UT; 4. St. Paul, MN; 5. Phoenix, AZ

5 jobs I have had: 1. Worked for my Dad (hardest job ever), 2. Rowley's Plants and Produce, 3. BYU Wilk Kitchen, 4. MOM, 5. No More

5 things people don't know about me: 1. I got hooked to Greys Anatomy for 1 season but I gave it up, 2. I have never broken any bones even though I fall all the time, 3. I hate forwarding things to other people so that is why I won't be tagging anyone., 4. I have only kissed one other person than my husband and I think he might be gay , 5. The "other person" kiss was about 60 times on stage for a play in High School.

Yes on Prop 8

2008-08-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been rather consumed in the effort of protecting traditional marriage. Four justices have deemed the effort in 2000 to be unconstitutional and so now through the Protect Marriage coalition, I am out walking the streets for prop 8 which is a constitutional amendment that says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Currently same sex couples have been given licenses to marry. I feel the need to become active in the effort of preserving traditional marriage because I am scared for what the future holds if this fails.
There has been cases in Canada where homosexuals have been protected by discrimination laws that pastors have been prosecuted for "hate speech" for speaking against a homosexual lifestyle.
So if anyone who reads this blog wants to help in this effort there is a website protectmarriage.com that you can sign up or donate. And then we just pray that the silent majority comes out in full force in November.

To Buy or not to Buy...That is the question

2008-08-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

When we moved to California 3 years ago, we moved to one of the most overinflated homemarkets in the country. Like any other couple with a good paying job we were anxious to buy a house. Everyone told us that it was a great investment and now was the time to buy. Of course most everyone you talked to had some job tied to the real estate business. But who would blame anyone for trying to make a measly 12K(on a 400K house) for just shoveling large amounts of paper work in your direction. Well about every couple months my husband would start to feel the urge to buy a house and we would go on these house hunting excursions. But the truth of the matter was we couldn't afford anything out there except for the house with a hole in the exterior wall and the one that included a semiautomatic at signing as a welcome to the neighborhood. Being the supportive wife I am I would accompany my husband as we looked at the homes and then come home and talk some sense into him. Needless to say 3 years later we never bought a house. But now the tables have turned in our favor and a "starter" home is no longer 400K. So here we are again, out hunting the field and hoping that something comes our way.

So far we have made four unsuccessful offers and burned up countless hours with mortgage brokers and our real estate agent and then even more time on the MLS looking at houses. Though we know that now is the time to buy it is hard to find the perfect house on a not so perfect house budget.
But we continue forward knowing that someday, Dave will be able to plant any tree in our yard and I can't give him any grief about just being renters.

Success only a mother can love

2008-07-31T07:03:00.001-07:00

I realized that Tom really doesn't get a lot of mention on the blog. He is of middle child syndrome. He just likes to watch and observe and then suddenly surprise us with all that he has learned. But he doesn't like a lot of foods at meal time. Since he first began eating solid foods he has rejected nearly every fruit or vegetable and mostly everything else unless it is BREAD. As a survival instinct he has learned to eat unnatural portions at breakfast because it is heavily laden with carbs. As a two year old he would consume 3 adult size bowls of frosted flakes or frosted mini-wheats. When dinner rolls around he seems to only have room for the bread.
We have made a lot of strides over the last year and a half. He now loves beans especially green beans, he eats pickles and pickled asparagus, and applesauce and my homemade strawberry freezer jam. Not sure why it must be a processed fruit/vegetable item to be able to make the cut.
Lately I have been on a Tofu kick. We are trying to cut back at least one meat based meals in a week and eat tofu. At first my kids were thoroughly disgusted but by the third time we had it, they all love it. So last night for dinner we had fried tofu strips dipped in Mr. Yoshidas, another acceptable food choice for Tom, broccoli, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Thomas tried everything on his plate even without much persuasion.
I have to say that the turn around to success that only a mother sees began when Grandma and Grandpa F. came and stayed with the kids while we were in Hawaii. They bribed Tom everyday at dinner with ice cream if he ate his vegetables. He would sit eating one carrot for 15 minutes but for ice cream he would do it.
My favorite thing that he does when he eats his veggies is how he says how much he loves them after he takes one minuscule bite but then no more. I guess he loves it so much that he hates to spoil the experience by overindulgence. If only I could do that when I make Chocolate Chip cookies.

I finally get a break from Birthdays!

2008-07-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

In the last two months I have had three birthday parties. I am so glad that they are done. Jacobs was the most recent and we threw him a Pokemon party of course. I planned lots of little games then tied it into a pokemon character. Then they put them in their Pokeball in a little folder that I made.
It was probably the most fun birthday party where I spent the least. The biggest expense was probably all the ink I used on my printer to print off the pokemon. This year I put all my energy into the party and so the cake wasn't very exciting.
I love to give my kids birthday parties and sometimes that just means cake and ice cream, other times it includes games and a meal too. I do not feel any pressure to perform to a standard of birthday party excellence- No jump houses, party hall destinations, and extensive party favors(does a piece of leftover cake count?) After growing up surrounded by extended family, I just don't feel it is a birthday with just my family sitting around the table. I not usually one who encourages my kids to have a sense of entitlement like going to all the lastest movies, watching "their" shows, or having their special foods everyday. But when it comes to birthdays I want to celebrate. Thank goodness I am done for the year. Except for you Dave and I am planning the best birthday of all.

This is our favorite present game.
Heavy Heavy Hangover thy poor head,
What do you wish this person with a bump on the head.
Then they have to wish the present giver something nice. If you think it is weird blame it on Dave it's his family's tradition but we all like it.

This is the caterpie game. They had to make a cocoon from toilet paper. This is Tom inside the TP. When we were done I asked Tom if he had fun. He said " Well I felt a little like a potty."

Ebay Here I Come

2008-07-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

So this last month I have been working on a huge project. Dave and I took a risk and bought a whole storage unit(like a 30 ft one) of stuff. It included a lot of furniture, same place where we got our couches, beds, dressers, armoires, table&chairs, and various other large pieces. But then there were 40 surprise boxes that contained some china we were told but otherwise we really didn't know. We figured that we were getting our value the furniture so what ever we got of value in the boxes would just be icing on the cake.
I am both cheap as mentioned before and minimalistic. I don't want to spend money on decorative items that could only be broken or if I looked at clearance section there was a reason why it was there. I could probably count on one hand the decorative pieces that I have in my house, especially if you exclude living plants because that is Daves thing. If it doesn't serve a purpose like providing light or holding pictures I am not going to buy it.
So I was really shocked to find box after box of collectible stuff from clowns to catholic memorabilia to one Royal Crown Doulton figurine that I hope to get several hundered dollars for on ebay.
Some of the boxes also held sheet sets like at least 20. Then there were boxes of china 3 different sets, and crystal including some waterford pieces. I have read the crystal and china are pretty solid investments but when you factor in small children I don't think that they are quite so risk free. So it looks like I have to get to know ebay. Anybody got any advice for selling on ebay?

A New Couch or...

2008-06-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

At least the first one we paid more than 30 dollars for. So we have been married for almost 8 years and we have had numerous ugly couches for the duration of our marriage. One of our "honest" friends used to describe our fashionable furniture as Early Dumpster though maybe more accurately as Post Dumpster. Here is a review of all the couches we have owned for all those of you who were never privaledged to have known and sat upon them( maybe you are the lucky ones.
1st faux velvet brown velvet couch Which we left in UT when we moved-free
2nd our worst one yet a scratchy off white couch that lasted about 4 months $10
3rd A smokers couch this time the faux velvet thing again but with lots of flowers. (Actually it looked a lot like the couch in the previous post.) We left it in the UMN greenhouse for about 2 weeks as we daily sprayed with fabreeze. Couch Free, Fabreeze$10
4th A very heavy sofabed couch that was white with pink flowers, came with matching chair$30
5th A couch with hunting motif complete with horses and dogs. Thank goodness for its dark colors because it has seen the most abuse from toddlers and boys who love to carry dirt in their pockets. It has serviced us for the last 4-5 years as our only sofa. Couch- Free of course
Finally this last week we saw a posting on craigs list for 2 sofas and one loveseat. They are leather and we love them. We paid $600 and though not in pristine condition(who wants that when you have 4 children under 7) it was definitely time for an update.

Full Circle

2008-06-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

For Ari's b-day this year, I bought her a matching doll and dress. It was then I remembered a picture in my baby journal of a similar present. I even had the doll cake like Ari. Minus the couch and the really bad photo of a photo, I thought it was fun to compare the pictures. This is one of the most amazing things about being a mom is watching your babies grow up to be big people. It takes a picture like this to remind me that I was probably once a whiney 3 year old myself and I think I turned out okay.

Our Pre-Camping Trip

2008-06-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

We have a family reunion coming up in a week for my husbands side of the family. We are going to yosemite for 5 days of blissful camping. We wanted to make sure that we were thinking of everything we would need so we decided to have a pre-camping trip. We went just down the road to a camp/RV park. Luckily everyone slept at night and were suprisingly well behaved. Thank goodness or I would be coming down with Mono or something to avoid repeating a miserable experience. Otherwise it should be a lot of fun.
I just wish we could Lily to walk by then.
I forgot to include this picture of the snake we saw by our tent. Okay maybe it wasn't by our tent and Dave convinced me it was a water snake so Dave and the boys watched for about 10 minutes. And they felt pretty lucky for finding it. I think I would have been okay if I never saw it. I made sure and zipped up my tent extra tight that night.

Jacob of Green Gables

2008-05-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Dave took the boys on a father/sons campout several weeks ago. While there Jacob found the best stick "in the whole world" because it had a sharp pointy end. (I'm thinking it was probably the worst stick in the world) He loved this stick for about 10 minutes then became curious if it would float in the river. I guess that it did and floated down the river. As he watched it float away he suddenly realized that the stick that he loved more than life itself was gone. He quickly burst into tears and hysterics about his stick for the next 2 hours. For a moment that he calmed down he asked his dad "Did you get a picture of the stick?"
Finally he stopped talking about it or so we thought but now 2 weeks later we hear about it every other day. "I just can't stop thinking about my stick" complete with tears and everything. I have recently been reading Anne of Green Gables and I have to say minus the red hair, Jacobe could pass for Anne any day with his depths of despair.

Good old Days at Eisenbergs

2008-05-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

It has been 3.5 years since we left the frozen chosen in Minnesota and the student budget. Thank goodness! It has taken several years but I am learning to spend money with the best of them. But some things never leave you and that is my desire for cheap produce to can/freeze. When you are canning things you want to feel that you are not only going to enjoy the taste difference but that you will also be saving money. That doesn't always happen and usually I end up spending a lot to put up my peaches or other fruit.
Back in Minnesota they had this dumpy store downtown St. Paul one of few that bagged your groceries though. They sold fruit and produce that wasn't the top of the line but had the best prices in town. That was how we canned peaches and made jam and ate any veggies while we were living off of $15K a year. I could never pass up a box of overipe peaches for $2 and then go home a make the best pie with them.
Though my budget is much larger, the neglected fruit still calls to me. So the little fruit stand down the road that sales Strawberries knows me by name and every day that they have "jam" berries will call and sell me a flat for $5. $5 is so cheap! How can you pass those up. So last week I spent 4 days hearing the phone ring and running off to buy flats of strawberrries. Now my freezer is stocked with the most delicious jam. But I guess next time they call I just might have to force myself to say no or get a larger freezer. I think I will be getting the larger freezer.
I love Summer!

Reminding me to laugh

2008-05-04T18:38:00.000-07:00

Kids just know how to make you laugh. As of late it has been my 6 year old Jake who never stops pondering the questions of life. Here are some insights into his brain I suppose.
After receiving a birthday invitation for a Sunday birthday party he was telling his brother about how he would not be able to go. (I guess the Sunday and FHE lessons are sinking in) "Come on Tom I can't go to the party on Sunday. What is more important a birthday party or Eternal life?"
Then a few minutes later Jake asks "Mom what is Eternal life anyway?"
This week also as he was discussing school summer vacation and how excited he was for it. Then he said "How come we don't have a church vacation mom?"
Lastly today he came and told me he had something figured out. After he had touched something dirty like the dog or his mouth or who knows 3 times then he would wash his mouth out with soap to remind himself to keep his hands clean while emptying the dishwasher.
So thanks Jake for making me laugh. I definitely need some humor to get through each day.

The Most Beautiful and Dreaded word in the World

2008-04-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last night in the middle of the night Lily woke up and was crying but for the first time she was saying "Mama." I loved hearing her get my name even though it seems that babies say "Mama" only when they are sad and "Dada" when they are happy.
However I am wishing that the rest of my children could just forget how to summon me periodically throughout the day.-Like when I am in the bathroom or on the phone or into various other projects or at 3 in the morning. Lately that has been one of the most challenging things keeping up with everyone's demands for "MOM" "I'm Hungry" "I need help" "I'm Thirsty" and my all time favorite "Wipe my bum".

2008-04-09T08:52:00.001-07:00

Yesterday while playing with the kids Jacob saw my stomach and said "Your stomach looks like bread" Thanks bud.

I'm not just LUCKY!

2008-02-26T22:41:00.000-08:00

All right here is my rant. I am tired of hearing how lucky I am to stay home with my kids. I agree I am blessed to be at home with my kids. But I choose to be at home. I choose to forgo an income and am investing in my children. I choose to cut my expenses. I don't have cable. I don't carry a cell phone. I choose to be with my children. I choose because that is the best way to enjoy the real thing that makes me lucky-four healthy beautiful children. So please don't make it sound like it is easy for me but much too hard for you. It is all about choice and my children and yours are worth it. So make the choice that puts you in the home more and then you won't just say you wish you were lucky like me!

How do you know when you have a girl?

2008-02-24T21:04:00.000-08:00

So let me tell you. I am amazed at the differences between my boys and my almost 3 year old. She is spent all afternoon in and out of her room trying on different outfits. She must have changed at least 10 times. Most were very creative and it seemed to keep her busy and happy all afternoon and since this is just a new thing with her I am not tired of it yet. I just think that it is so funny and cute. I am sure I will be singing a different tune next week.

The other thing she loves to do is put on socks and shoes. Don't expect that just because you are wearing one sandal that the other should match in anyway. I mean that would ruin the effect you are going for with the purple and pink sock. Ari first started this fetish by raiding the mismatched sock box(why else was it by the shoes in the laundry room). Now I think she purposely takes apart matched socks and puts them on that way. I guess I at least don't have to match her socks anymore. I really need picture documentation for this one.

I guess that the apple isn't falling very fall from the tree because the word on the street is that I myself had a pretty strong tendency toward the mismatched clothing. I think now that I have reformed and am trying to teach 4 children how to dress themselves. Like Jake "But Mom my shirt and pants match they are both red" Okay I guess that maybe doesn't make a lot of sense to a kid. It is fun to see what combinations they come up with

Jacob(6) the other day came down wearing camo pants and a tie-dye shirt. Normally if we are staying at home that is one battle I chose not to fight. However, we were heading out and when I go out with 4 kids the last thing I want drawing attention is my childrens crazy outfits. Just let it be their crazy antics instead. So he went upstairs and changed the shirt for a Hawaiian one. At that point, I decided to give up or hand-select on for him. And of course being a boy he complains every time he has to change his clothes.

Solo for 2 Weeks!

2008-02-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

My DH is flying to Australia tonight until March 1st. I am not too excited about the next two weeks but I guess we will survive without too many scars.

Glasses on Babies

2008-01-24T09:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I picked up glasses for my 8 month old baby. She looks pretty cute in them! I am not looking forward to keeping them on her face.
She has a condition called Nystagmus which is a technical term for her "jiggly" eyes. She has the same thing that her older sister has and that was how we knew to take her in. However, the glasses aren't for the nystagmus but for her myopia(near-sightedness) although there seems to be a slight beneficial decrease in the jiggling with her glasses.
I have been amazed at how well keeps them on for being a baby but the bigger challenge is proving to be putting them on her. It seems she is sleeping or eating/nursing so often that I am taking them off and not putting them on.