What is that smell? Oh...it's me.

The kids are in bed and Merril's not home from work so I thought I'd read blogs for a bit. As I was enjoying a little quiet time, I started thinking, "What is that smell?" Then I realized, the smell was me. I smell of vomit and poo. (Left to wash hands) Okay, now it's just vomit. Jacky had a really nasty diaper right before bed and I forgot to wash my hands after changing him. The vomit is from Juliet. I had Juliet in the baby backpack while I was shopping at Wal-Mart. We were out of everything and I didn't even leave for Wal-Mart until 4:16 p.m. and I knew she wouldn't just sit nicely in the cart for a long trip.

So we were doing really well, I scored a parking spot in the very front of the lot, the other two kids were behaving and Juliet was content to ride on my back and then I felt my leg getting wet. I looked down and piles of vomit hit the floor and Jules coughed from behind me. I pulled off the backpack and the whole side of it was soaked. I found a paper towel dispenser and cleaned up the mess and wiped off the backpack, myself and Jules as best I could. I strapped her back on and she continuted to be a little angel for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, my leg and sock are still a little stinky. Other than that, Wal-Mart was great.

This last picture is something I was working on for a relative's blog contest. I don't actually have Photoshop so I couldn't do the cool black vignette on the edges, like I envy in all of Beka's photos. So this was as close as I could come. Mostly, I just like the blue egg. Well, some groceries are still waiting to be put away!

So we're like pioneers, eh?

Today, we ran out of bread so instead of going to the store, I decided we'd make bread. I pulled out the bread machine and had an inkling for wheat bread. I dug into my food storage and retrieved a No. 10 can of wheat. I threw the wheat in the vitamix blender and watched it turn into flour. So while we measured the rest of the ingredients, I took the opportunity to talk to Maxine about food storage. I said that we have food storage in case of an emergency or times when we might not be able to afford food, etc. I also said that the pioneers used to make their own bread and sometimes grind their own wheat. So we loaded the bread maker and turned it on and as Maxine watched the dough mix, she said,

"So the pioneers didn't go to the store for bread??"

I said, "Nope, they made all their own bread."

Max-"So we're like pioneers, right Mom?"

Chuckling as I watch her stand over the bread machine, "Yep, we're like the pioneers."

The big 3-0!

On Wednesday, Merril turned 30! I was just going to have a party with family today (Friday) but Maxine said that Daddy needed to have a party ON his birthday, not a few days after. So on Wednesday at noon, I started calling people to see who could come and eat cake and ice cream. Low and behold, lots of people showed up! This is a shout out to all the people who made it to the party on such short notice! Thanks guys!!

We had fun decorating the house and put up streamers! Maxine and I made a banner on the computer and Maxine wanted to make a birthday crown too so here's the king and his princess and prince.

(25 minutes later) I just got back from towing Merril home. He's been working on his truck, trying to figure out why it takes so long to start. He's tried dozens of internet and mechanics suggestions and the latest was last night. But something didn't go back together right because the truck started running weird and oil leaked back into the fuel. (I think, something like that.) Anyhoo, Merril called and asked if I could come get him. Bummer. We're just hoping he didn't blow the engine. Rebuilding the engine doesn't sound cheap or fun.

Well, I better go. The older two are outside playing in the hose and laughing. A lot. :)

Eye strain...

My family had a family reunion last weekend and my family needed a family picture and I was nominated to take it. It was kind of intimidating for me because I feel like it's my responsibility to produce a good picture from 21 individual faces. So thanks to digital editing software and 3 hours of post-production work, we have this:

I had to swap 2 heads, one set of eyes, Jack's whole body and the pants of his cousin, smudge the corners of a mouth to make it look like Grant's smiling a little and then ran it through some noise reduction software. Ta dah! I'm sure it could've been done faster but certain things took quite a bit of tweaking to make them look right. I have lots more pictures from the weekend but this is what I've been working on. But here's some pictures from the reunion. Daddy hiking with Juliet and Max and Jack walking up some stairs. Woosh!

First Lake Day...

Aaaaahhhhh...I've been dreaming about it for weeks and we finally went to the lake today! It was 86 degrees and warm. The water was a chilly 61 degrees but the kids got in and played up to their waists. I LOVE THE LAKE! Something about spending time at the lake mellows me out. I can still feel the mellow at 9:57 p.m. We only stayed for an hour because the wind started to kick up and didn't even bring the boat because it's still being reupholstered but it was wonderful! The kids look so cute in their new swimsuits too! Juliet wasn't even going to get wet but I made her wear her swimsuit anyway. Her swimsuit has a little tutu and it's so sweet! Merril was feeding her popcorn in this shot and the look on her face cracks me up.
Merril's outside polishing the wheels on the Tahoe. He bought new valve-stem covers and they're black with a red Chevy emblem on the top. They were $10 bucks for the set and are so...Merril. He loves to pimp out a car. (Megan, I know they'd totally be lost on you but I think they're cute!) Happy Spring!

The Parent of the Year Award is in the bag!

Merril's out of town today with some friends so the kids and I decided to go to a park opening near our house. The city was giving away free hot dogs and drinks and we thought it'd be a fun outing. So we arrive and I get Juliet situated in the stroller and see a member of our ward. She says hello and asks if she can do anything to help. I say, "No, I think we got it." I push Juliet up on the sidewalk and let go of the stroller to walk back a few paces and shut a door on the Tahoe. Just as I get the door shut, I hear a wack and a crying baby. I hadn't locked the stroller wheels and the stroller had rolled back off the sidewalk with Juliet still strapped in. The stroller fell on its side and Juliet had hit the pavement. I pulled her out and she has a wicked goose egg on her forehead and road rash on her cheek just below her eye. So I hold her and say over and over again, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby." So she stopped crying and we played at the park and ate our hot dogs. Random people would come to goo at her and then say, "Who did that to your little face???" and I'd have to say, "Mommy did." So we're at home and I nursed her and gave her some Tylenol and a little Neosporin. But the rest of you should just give up now because the Parent of the Year Award is mine dude.

She loves the tub...

Juliet loves to try and "grab" the running water as the tub fills up. It always cracks me up because I remember my Dad used to say the same thing about me. She loves the tub and lately discovered how to splash. She seems so surprised every time the water hits her in the face but keeps splashing away.

Other than that, we're getting the boat reupholstered. These are the before pictures. How do these stories always start out? Merril knows a guy. He said he'd give us a good deal on the job if Merril would take all the pieces out and bring them to him. Some of them took more than a smile to extract from the boat. Parts in the bow required me to stick my arm in the big black hole and reach up to get off the nut. Unfortunately, I was orientated in such a way that the rest of my body sunk into the hole and then I was stuck and Merril had to come rescue me. But the pieces should be back in about a week and then we'll need to clean hull and put it back together.

Let's get out of here...

Merril asked if I wanted to go for a motorcycle ride today. I said, "Sure." So we got a babysitter for an hour, put on our gear and set out. It's the first time that we've ever ridden separate motorcycles. Until now, we've only had the one streetbike. He recently purchased a Ducati to fix and re-sell so we took the Ducati and the Yamaha FZR. (For all the non-motorcycle enthusiasts, the Ducati is the red one on the right and the FZR is the black one on the left.)We rode for about 35 minutes, stopped at a store for a snack and to hang out and then rode 35 minutes home. It was a little windy but the temperature was just right. It was a fun little ride and date.

I have a little love affair with motorcycles because it's something that I do ALL BY MYSELF, an entertainment not easily come by these days. There's no room for car seats, diaper bags or little containers of Cheerios. It's wind, the smell of french fries from the burger place I just passed and a little moment of freedom all wrapped up in a neat little package.

To smell the lilies of the field...

I seem to have been sick a lot this winter and about a month ago, I got the flu with the kids. Symptoms seemed to subside except for a plugged sinus on one side. Waited a week or so to see if it would clear up on its own. No luck. But that's not the worst of it. I've lost the ability to smell anything! I've been relying solely on Maxine to tell me when someone's poopy because I can't smell anything at all. I can't smell people smoking, popcorn, bleach, Merril's man smell, nada. So last Friday night, I went to the new InstaCare in Hurricane. There wasn't a single patient there so I was wisked right in! I was prescribed antibiotics and sent home. I've been taking the anitbiotics for about a week and seen little change. If I sniff something really hard, I can almost "taste" the smell in the back of my mouth. (I don't recommend doing that with a poopy diaper. They taste terrible! But it's the best way to gauge if my sense of smell is coming back.) So I've been without my ability to smell for about 2 1/2 weeks and I miss it.


So this morning, I started nosing around the internet to see if there are home remedies to clear up sinuses and came across one that involves drinking diluted apple cider vinegar. I drank it an hour ago and it was so nasty I could barely gag it down. But I'm happy to say I can almost smell the top of my baby's head, the body spray I'm wearing, and the poopy diaper that needs to be changed on Juliet. Unfortunately, I'm supposed to drink it 3 times a day for 4-6 days. But if I can smell the sweet aroma of bread baking again or my dirty toddler, it'll be worth it! Have a happy conference weekend!

Could I get a comb here?

Juliet has the most unmanageable hair. Since she's my third kid, she also gets less hair attention than Maxine did. Some days she's got a ton a food in her hair and strands hanging in her eyes. If a clip is ever affixed to control the problem, she often rips it out a few minutes later. *sigh* Sorry babe.

This batch of pictures are from the sand dunes on Saturday. Juliet got to sit in the cockpit for a moment. Mostly she rode in Grandpa Campbell's yellow Jeep with Mommy. She liked that too! Here's a picture of the rest of the gang in the dune buggy. It had a transmission issue so we didn't take it very far. This allowed the kids to get out and play in the sand, which is all they want to do anyway.

Ummmm...what are you two looking at?

The last picture is after church on Sunday. Maxine and I were goofing around while everyone else was having a nap. Well, I've neglected my kids for long enough. Have a nice week. P.S. I changed my settings so you don't have to have a blogger account to leave a comment.

Let's go fly a kite...

We've been waiting since Easter to fly our new kites and there just hasn't been enough wind. (I know, you're all falling off your chairs because there hasn't been enough wind at my house.) But alas, yesterday was the day! Just the right amount of wind. Maxine's kite did really well and Jack's did a lot better after I put it together correctly. :0 This picture turned out so blue for some reason. Pretty sky.

I finally downloaded a program that reduces pictures down so I don't have to wait forever for them to upload to blogger. Yeah!

Oh, and Jack has said some funny things lately. Jacky likes to look at people's eyes and comment on the color. I.e., "Mommy, are your eyes blue?" On Sunday morning at church, Jacky looked at my eyes and said, "Mommy, are your eyes red?" I sighed and said, "They must be." I kept waking up for some reason during the night and felt a little sleepy at church. Apparently, it showed.
Also, I was just making Jack some lunch and from out of nowhere, he started singing, "All you need is love" by the Beatles. Right on, brother! Love is all you need. Tootles.

All-time top 5...

I recently watched our edited copy of a movie called High Fidelity. Throughout the entire movie, the main character, played by John Cusack, rattles off lists: All-time top 5 albums to listen to on a Monday morning, all-time top 5 breakups, Top 5 reasons he loves his girlfriend, etc., etc. As I was doing the dishes, I was inspired to list my all-time top 5 kitchen tools:

1. Kitchen blow torch (I mean come on, that's fun even when you're sober)
2. Pastry cutter/blender
3. Silicon wisk (to protect my teflon pans)
4. Air-insulated cookie sheets (never burn cookies the bottom of your cookies again)
5. Ramekins (only because the best things are made in ramekins: creme brulee, chocolate volcano cakes, souffles, yum, yum, yum)

So there you have it. Go make something yummy y'all!

Typing test

82 words

Speedtest

Maxine slept over at Grandma Campbell's house on Friday and went to the ward egg hunt. We brought Jack and they had fun finding eggs and candy. We got a lot of gift certificates for free ice cream cones! Jack wouldn't go near the person dressed in a bunny suit but I don't blame him. A huge Easter bunny seems creepy to me too. Then we had a huge breakfast back at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Afterwards we were off to Jake and Beka's house for their lunch and egg hunt. We all drooled over Jake's new car (hubba hubba). Here's the link if you want to take a look. http://bekabracken.blogspot.com/ Then we came home and dyed eggs in preparation for the Easter bunny. Juliet had the most fun playing the plastic eggs. Except one of the eggs she was playing with got stuck in her mouth when it separated from the bottom. Her jaw was open so wide I couldn't get it out for a bit. After a few moments, I wormed a pinkie in the corner of her mouth and popped it out. It looks like she's about to cut her first top tooth today too! (Too much alliteration?)

Merril's off fighting the man today. He had a court appearance. He was obeying the speed limit (or mostly) when a car who was really speeding came blasting by him. The car changed lanes as it passed Merril and drove directly in front of him when he spied a cop. The car slammed on his brakes to slow way down and caused Merril to hit the brakes as well. The cop just saw Merril's big, red Dodge hitting his brakes and assumed that he was speeding. The cop didn't show up today at the courthouse and the case was dropped. Merril wins again. I have to say that he is unfairly targeted in his truck. I figured he must be doing something until I drove it by myself one day (Tahoe had a flat) and got pulled over. I was going under the speed limit because the speedometer is off in the truck. The cop said I had a license plate light out. I most certainly did have a license plate light out but I get the feeling the cop was looking for some punk to bust. I got the feeling she was disappointed when she found it was me driving. Anyhoo, have fun coming off your sugar highs. I know I ate too many Jelly Bellys yesterday.

Bloomin' orchids...

I have friends who plant beautiful bulbs that pop up in the spring. They're gorgeous and I might plant some bulbs some day but until then, I look forward to my orchid blooming! It comes into bloom around February or March and I wait all year long for the delicate blossoms. This is a moth orchid and as fragile as the blooms look, they'll last for 1 to 2 months!! I don't know of any other flower that lasts as long. Last year I was able to force a second bloom after the first round died off so that gave me a solid 3 months to enjoy. I love the tropical islands and maybe that's where the love of orchids stems. I need to get a few different colors because they come in greens, yellows, orange, pinks, reds, and whites. I snapped pictures this year because I think they're so pretty. They make me think of summer, sitting on a beach somewhere, and sipping a fruity drink. Aaahhhh and have a great day!

Registration!!!

When I was picking up Maxine from preschool this morning, one of the other Moms walked over and said, "Hey, I called the elemetary school to check when Kindergarten registration starts and its tomorrow!" I was like, "What?? Wow, thanks for the heads up." So I guess I'm registering Maxine for Kindergarten tomorrow! I feel like I've reached an important milestone and I'm excited!! Wahoo!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Green is my favorite color so I love to dress me and all the kids in huge amounts of green for St. Patrick's Day. Juliet was the toughest because so much of what she wears is pink. We had to settle for a pink onsie with a green frog on it. In an attempt to get Jacky to smile I'm saying, "Cheese!" instead of just smiling and I think it shows. *Sponsored by Teddy Grahams*

I've also been making a menu instead of just shooting from the hip when making dinner. It has allowed me to make things that I wouldn't have made otherwise because I wouldn't have had the stuff on hand. So before I go to the store, I think of one or two new dinner ideas that I want to try. Then I can make sure to purchase all the ingredients needed. It also forces me to think about dinner for the next week, which is a bummer at the time, but then I don't have to think about dinner for the next 7 or 8 days. This week's dinner adventures: Coconut shrimp and French Onion Soup (not together, of course.) I wish I had pictures of the coconut shrimp but they went so fast I didn't have time to get the camera out. So I thought making a menu would make me feel restricted but I've had the opposite experience. Making a menu and planning ahead has allowed me to make some really yummy and wonderful dishes.

And in other news, I stopped giving Juliet her acid reflux medicine about a week ago and haven't noticed any difference! So I think we're done with that unless something else develops within the next couple of weeks. And this picture is from bathtime the other night. I love messin' with her hair. So to everyone: HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Anybody else hate Lost????

Okay, I don't hate Lost. In fact, it's one of my favorite shows to watch. It's doubly wonderful lately because it's the only series with new episodes right now because they delay the start of their season until November or something like that. I watch a new episode every week and at the end of the show I always say, "I hate this show!" The reason? It's interesting, thought provoking and complex but gives so little information and leaves me with so many questions that I feel so unsatisfied at the end and vow not to watch the following Thursday. Grrrr.

But here I am, just finished watching and madder than ever. (Madder or more mad? Anyway.) I wish that I could just stop watching and then have someone just tell me the whole story in 6 years or whenever the series finishes up. But it's not going to happen. I'll watch every week, like a sucker, just like the writers/creators of Lost want me to. I'll feel confused and irritated but keep wanting more. I want answers. I want to know what happens!! Man. I hate this show. Love this show. Whatever.

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

I downloaded the pictures off my camera and I felt like there was a range of emotions as I looked at them:
The good:

The bad:

The ugly:

Merril chopped all his hair off last Saturday and that means mohawk or statue of liberty spikes. It's only for a day and then he shaves the rest. What a punk. Now he just has a bald head. He's almost completely healed from his stitches too. I took out his stitches last Wednesday. Thanks to Jessica for the tips on taking out stitches!

Other than that, Max and Jack are sick. Juliet is still unaffected and I hope to keep it that way. But at least it's Spring Break so I don't have to keep Maxine home from school.

Juliet will be 9 months old next week and yesterday she almost pulled off an army crawl. She was on her tummy, pushed with her toes and leaned forward on her elbows. There was actually some forward momentum but I doubt she'll be moving anywhere with any speed for a while. She's barely starting to wave and clap her hands too. I love this age!

Ahhh, and the time change. Today we're being particularly slow to get going because the kids are sick, it's Monday and because of the time change. It's 10:39 a.m. and I have yet to have a shower. Eeeewwwww. All the kids are in pajamas and might remain that way until Noon. Besides, I don't have anywhere to go today anyway.

Oh, watched a movie called Becoming Jane, which I rather liked, which inspired me to read a Jane Austen book that I haven't read before. I started Persuasion on Thursday and finished it on Sunday afternoon. Neglected home, kids, etc. and remembered how much I like reading Jane Austen. One of my favorite authors. Anyhoo, it's shower time!

I've scared her good...

Adventures in parenting: Maxine has always been prone to...fits of bad temper. They've lessened as she's gotten older but to be sure, not gone away entirely. If we're in the car and she's flown into some whining, crying, kicking fit, occasionally I'll threaten to make her walk home. I've even gone so far as to pull the car over and walk over to her side of the car to open the door like I'm going to pull her out. It's worked, but too well. Last week when she was really tired, she started crying about it, saying she couldn't stop thinking about it. Two nights ago, it happened again. When asked what was wrong, she replied,

"I can't stop thinking about when you told me I'll have to walk home! I don't even know the way home! (More sobbing) It would take so long to walk all the way home, what if it gets dark!!" My regret for ever threatening such a thing starts to sink in.

Me, "I'm sorry baby. You won't have to walk home."

"But what if you want me to walk home another time!" (More sobbing)

"I'm sorry. Mommy won't ever leave you."

"Mommy, I want you to take away this punishment for me."

"Okay."

We then said a prayer that Maxine's heart would be calmed. She was immediately soothed and fell asleep. I left her room feeling quite bad and resolved I'd never threaten to make her walk home. Woops. Sorry Maxine.

On a nicer note, we're making strawberry freezer jam today because Maxine asked, "Why don't we have strawberry jam anymore?" I said, "Because we ran out and haven't made anymore." Maxine, " Let's make some TODAY!" Thusly, today's project will be strawberry freezer jam. Yummy!

Oh yeah, one other funny thing. Maxine was reading the back of the Hidden Valley Ranch bottle at dinner and Jacky leaned over and very matter-of-factly whispered, "It's called Ranch." We all busted up laughing and that was the running dinner joke.

Bring on the Piston Cup...

Maxine has always had an affinity for drawing and coloring. She likes watercolor paints lately and has come up with some pretty funny stuff. Saturday she drew Lightning McQueen winning the Piston Cup. She draws the outlines with pen and then uses the watercolor paint to color it in. The color blobs on the bottom of the picture are everyone from Radiator Springs looking on. In order from left to right its Blue Sally, Rusty Mater, Lizzy, Fillmore, Luigi, Guido, Sarge. Flo and Ramone are up in front, just under Lightning. She drew Lightning by looking at Jacky's little Lightning McQueen car.

Next is the scene where Sally and Lightning are talking after Mater and Lightning went tractor tipping. We call it, "Getting cozy at the Cone" You can even see Mater down at the bottom driving away.

Oh, and Maxine said something funny the other day. We were driving through Hurricane and passed a Subway. She said "That Subway stole those letters from Del Taco." Looking at the Subway sign, I noticed it said, "Feed the beast" on the letterboard. "Feed the beast" is the slogan for Del Taco so she figured Subway must have stolen the letters in order to put that on their sign. I thought it was rather intuitive and maybe we watch too much tv. Fish taco, fish taco, fish taco, fish taco...

Our first set of stitches...

Ahhh. We've never had to get stitches before. Today was our first experience with stitches and it wasn't Jack. Nope, not Maxine either. Juliet? Nope, not her either. It wasn't even me. It was the biggest and silliest of the family: Merril. He went to California with Ryan Rosenberg to go surfing today and the board came back and smacked him right above the eyebrow. To say the least, his surfing was cut short and they headed in. A doctor, who was about to go out surfing, looked at his cut and said he'd better go get some stitches. The doctor taped his cut and sent them on their way. They drove to a clinic and Merril got 5 stitches, a Tetnus shot and oral antibiotics. The goof is still going to stop at Dumont Sand dunes on the way home and ride his dirt bike. What a loon! Below is a picture of Merril's shiner and I have to warn those with a queezy stomach to change blogs now and not scroll any further.

Remember eating Grape-Nuts cereal hot? Anyone??

Maybe it was just my family growing up but I remember eating and liking Grape-Nuts as a hot cereal. Never heard of it? I don't think they even put the recipe on the box anymore. The only reason I thought to start eating it again was because I was sick of oatmeal. Take 1/3 cup of Grape-Nuts cereal. Cover with 1/2 cup milk, or in my case, almond milk. Add 1 tsp. butter or margerine and 2 tsp. brown sugar or honey. Microwave for 1-2 minutes, depending if you want it crunchy or not, and eat up. I ate it for breakfast yesterday and Maxine asked if I'd make it for her today because it smelled good. She ate the whole bowl. I haven't eaten it in years because let's face it, who still buys Grape-Nuts? Grape-Nuts are on the nutty side so it's easy to disguise the almond milk flavor. I've made Cream of Wheat more in the past 6 months than in my entire life for the same reason. Thank goodness for eggs! "You got love 'em! The incredible, edible egg!" -Paid for by the ad council for the American Egg Board.

We love cookie dough, how 'bout you?

If none of the cookies make it to the oven, that's okay around our house because we love cookie dough! Did you know that if you go to a pizza joint in town, where they make their own cookies, they'll sell you a scoop of cookie dough for $1?? Sheer genius!!

I lack patience when it comes to my kids helping me in the kitchen but if we're making cookies, I just have to make it to the cookie dough stage. Once there, they just want to eat dough and pretty much lose interest in helping me. My cookie making has gone up considerably since the dairy free thing because I can make most of my cookie recipes by substituting margarine for butter. And I feel like I deserve to eat a lot of cookies since I can't have anything in the way of ice creams, puddings, chocolates, etc. So I end up sneaking about 5 cookies a day until they're gone. It's not great for the waistline but they taste so yummy!! Besides, that's what exercise is for, right?

FINALLY!!!

Okay...I have been trying for the last month to get a nice picture of my 3 kids! (Anyone with multiple kids knows this challenge well) Jacky was my stinker because he's 2 and doesn't want to sit still. Tried one photo shoot at Sears and Jules was not gonna smile for the photographer, no matter what. So then I decided I'd just take a picture myself because I can get Jules to smile better than anyone. The first 2 photo shoots were right before dinner. (Yeah, hungry kids + the end of the day = no happy smiles from anyone) I tried the end of the day bit because I employed the help of Merril to try and control Jack. So today I thought I'd just try to get it done in the middle of the day even though Merril was going to be at work. So I fed Juliet right before her nap, gave the other 2 kids a mid-morning snack and got them dressed. When Juliet woke up, rested and still full, we drove into town. I sat the kids down and tried like crazy to keep Jack in one spot. Even now in the picture, he looks like he's about to spring into action. When this shot came out, I just about jumped for joy! All 3 kids, smiles, happy faces, nice postures, looking at the camera, hallelujah!
















I also caught this one of Maxine telling a story about a magic blimp. I guess Juliet was buying it because she's looking up at the sky too.


Oh, and one more victory!! I read a whole book. (I'm meaning a Mommy book, not Green Eggs and Ham.) It was one of my new year resolutions because I read to my kids a ton and read magazines but my book reading has gone way down since I had kids. It was called 'I Am a Mother' by Jane Clayson Johnson. The author talks about how hard it is to be a Mom but how it's totally worth it. Furthermore, Mothers should get a lot more credit for this huge service that they do but for which they rarely get acknowledged. So every time I picked it up, I felt encouraged and uplifted to keep going and being the best Mom I could be. Who doesn't need that at least 10 times a day?

It's my birthday...

Okay, I turned 28 today. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I've been exercising for a couple of months to tone flabby areas that got all stretched out from being pregnant. I feel stronger than I've felt in a long time. So in honor of feeling young, I attached the one of oldest pictures I had of me on the computer. It's from 2004 and I was at our ward campout and rodeo and I caught a chicken in the chicken chase. (I love Vegas wards!!) We only had Maxine back then and she was 1 1/2 years old.

I just walked out and found Merril asleep on the couch like this. Jack must've thought the car would help him sleep better.

Oh, and this is the coconut cake I made for my birthday. I'm still off chocolate and I was bored of yellow cake and coconut sounded good. I made it with coconut milk and that stuff is yummy!! I was eating the leftover coconut cream and looking at the can. It's pretty fattening. Pretty much it was like I was standing there eating butter. Tasty butter.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day! I know there are people out there that loathe this holiday and to them, I'm sorry. I do have to say that I hate roses, especially red ones, so Valentine's Day may be a little daunting for Merril. Seriously, red roses are so boring and cliche. The world is full of beautiful calla lillies, hydrangeas, tulips, gerber daisies, etc. This morning I was greeted with Stargazer lillies. Merril has always been extra creative for the Valentine's Day bouquets. Good job, babe!

I'm baking heart-shaped brownies for Merril's dessert and I can smell the chocolatey goodness waft in from the kitchen. I will be having strawberries dipped in marshmallow cream. We'll be putting the kids to bed and Merril and I are going to spend the evening at home and I'm making him a fancy dinner. We went out last year to a super fancy party and I just wanted to stay home and be super relaxed this year. I love to cook and tonight's going to be yummy. I can't do my special 3-cheese fondue this year, that'll have to wait 'till next year.

By the way, I made burned my first movie to a DVD today. I was making a Valentine's movie for my sister. It was her present to her husband. It was a lot of fun, a little frustrating but in the end turned out really nice. Thanks to Amy for being the resident movie expert and allowing me to pick her brain.

View out my window

I took this picture the other day with a feature on my new camera called Photostich. It's actually 9 pictures stiched together. I have software that came with the camera that analyzes the photos and overlaps them for ya. The ending result is a panoramic shot. I think it's fun! Since the photo is so long, it got squished quite a bit for the blog.

Wahoo! Look at it snow!!

I have to have one good snow storm a year and it's here!! On Sunday evening, it snowed and left a good 4-5 inches at our house. The kids were in and out of snow gear all day yesterday and we built a snowman! I even had icicles on my house! I can't remember ever seeing icicles in St. George!! I don't know how people who live up north do this ever day! There was snow gear everywhere, the floors were wet by the garage door and my Tahoe is filthy.

Merril and I had fun driving home in the snow after the SuperBowl. We'd taken two cars so we hit the parking lot by our house and had fun doing donuts and making the back end drift. Merril's new tires grip the road too well so the Tahoe was better for getting the back end to slip. It's good practice for snowy road conditions.

Okay, so the icicles are pretty tiny but they're there!! Yeah! We had fun and sipped hot chocolate and then it was back outside for more!! Storms like these make me grateful. We can have a little taste of the snow but most of it's gone by the next day.

She's the only one that can't run away...

Okay, I've been taking more pictures than usual because of my new digital camera. The star of the show: Juliet. Not necessarily because she's the cutest or easiest to get to smile but because she can't run away. The other kids will put up hands or say, "Mom, no more pictures!"

We also made some heart-shaped sugar cookies in anticipation of St. Valentine's Day and I got frustrated with Jack while he was "helping" me. In apologies, I gave him a beater with more than the usual amount of cookie dough on it. He forgave me. Keep it away from the camera, kiddo.

And lastly, yesterday's sunset was pretty so I set up my tripod to snap a few pics.