No Time!

It's been BUSY around here. B.U.S.Y. !!!

10 more quarts of spaghetti sauce
16 more pints of applesauce
korker bows made for last Thursday's boutique
crazy, busy schedule to keep up with
and
a potty training *almost* 2 year old. (Why did she choose NOW to want to potty??? That girl has a mind of her own...!!!)

The house has never looked worse and it's Reagan's Birthday on Sunday. I haven't even invited anyone over yet, no party is planned (yet), and I'm wondering how I'll get it all done!

Hey... I thrive under pressure, right???

See you in NO TIME!

The "junk" tree

Oh man... I HATE the tree in our backyard.

It's a JUNK tree.

And I'm allergic to it.

And it "drops" pollen like 4 times a year.

It makes a horrible mess of our little pool, covers the ground with horrid leaves, and it shaded the backyard so much that almost all of my grass is DEAD.

Also, it's root system has emerged, thus making our once flat lawn sprawling with "hills and valleys".

OHHHHH I just can't stand that tree!

But there is hope! Brian spent about 30 minutes last night having a talk with the tree.

How do you talk to a tree you ask?

Well, our tree responds very well to a chain saw!










Hooray for power tools!!!! Hooray for bulk garbage day! Hooray! Hooray!

(And Hooray for a hubby that's going to finish cutting the tree down??? Pretty please???)

This weeks 4th grade challenge word is:

Perturbed

All I can say is... At least I know the meaning of it. That's more than I can say for last weeks word! (Which, by the way, Taylor spelled correctly on the test. *phew*)

Who can that be knocking at my door?

The "older" kids tell a lot of "knock knock" jokes. ALL DAY.

Reagan has obviously picked up on it because this evening she had the following exchange with Brian:

Reagan: Knock Knock!

Brian: Who's there?

Reagan: Um.... Nana

Brian: Banana who???

Reagan: Um... uh... um... APPLE! *laughs hysterically*

Gosh she's at a fun little age...

Wow.

I swear if anyone gives me one more thing to do, I'm going to LOSE MY MIND. These past 2 weeks have been INSANE! And the outlook for the next week or two? NO BETTER!

Anyone have a good therapist to recommend?

On the Side

Shhhhhh.... whisper. If this information is overheard, a disaster might happen.

You see... Reagan has slept ALL NIGHT in her OWN BED for the past three nights now. This is HUGE. She's slept in there, alone, a total of like... oh... twice before this? And now 3 nights in a row?!?! (ohhhh... I must stop shouting... My excitement gets away from me...)

So at about 11:00 PM, Miss Madison comes walking into our room.

Madison: "Mom, I LIKE sleeping on the side of my bed."

Me: "What?!"

Madison: "I just like sleeping on the SIDE of my bed."

Me: ???!?? huh????

Brian: "I told Madison to scoot over to the middle of her bed so she doesn't fall off"

Madison: "And I just don't like sleeping in the middle of my bed I like to sleep on the sides."

Me: "Okay... go back to bed and sleep on the side"

Madison: "And my bed is really really un-comfy."

Half and hour later we hear the pitter patter of little feet.

Me: "Madison, what are you doing up?"

Madison: "Can I just sleep with you?"

Brian: Moan, groan, ugh!!!

Me: "Yep, go get your pillow"

I realize that we just got the "baby" out of our bed - but how can you say no?


Oh, and she slept comfortably, all night in the middle. I guess the middle is fine in mom and dad's bed, but the sides are better on her uncomfortable one. And hey... lets look on the bright side here: At least it was just ONE kid in bed with us... if it were to have happened last week, there would have been TWO in there!

Check!

Today:

2 boys off to the bus stop on time.

1 little neighbor boy babysat

2 little girls put nicely in front of the tv for the tv to babysit them (Be nice! Stay quiet!!! PLEASE!!!)

1 busy mom in the kitchen putting up....
21 quarts of apple pie filling AND...
6 pints of apple sauce

In between it all, successfully getting:

1 preschooler off to her NEW, closer to home preschool (hooray!)

4 loads of laundry, washed, not folded, not put away

2 dishwasher loads of icky sticky mess

137 phone calls, give or take

2 boys homework finished, spelling and reading included

1 boy to soccer practice

1 boy off to scouts

1 hubby off to night school

1 mommy off to her Mom's to mooch more produce and steal a few eggs since we sold all of ours...

1 peaceful trip to the grocery store with no kids thanks to mommy's mom...

1 hubby back home from night school early... because he didn't wait for the bus and RODE HIS BIKE all the way home from the University of Utah.

1 wife finally calmed down after hearing about above mentioned bike ride. (In the dark. On busy roads. Dumb, dumb, scare the tar out of his wife sort of fellow....)

4 kids up in bed

3 of them probably asleep

1 you better believe is awake

1 daddy asleep next to awake baby

1 more entry posted today for the blog

1 more than exhausted mommy saving all the "reads" in her reader for tomorrow

Night all! :)

Crazy Tuesday

Taylor pays attention.

And when we were at my parents last night picking some lovely cherry tomatoes:

He informed grandma that "Tuesday's are Mom's CRAZY Day".

Hey... at least he's picked up on it!

Tuesday's ARE a bit crazy around here. And I'll spare you all the details.

Today's Tuesday is more of the same, plus a little extra. My parents gave me a box of these lovelies:

And these:Now I need to find something to do with them in between all my other "crazy".

Apple or Peach pie anyone???

It looks like CHRISTMAS!

No no no... the weather didn't turn ugly... but take a look at these jelly colors!



Current Jelly (which turned out more like syrup thanks to my attention span) and Mint Jelly! Nine half pints of current on Sunday, 10 half pints of mint on Monday!

LOVE.

Are YOU smarter than a FOURTH GRADER?

Today Taylor came home with a new spelling list, and a new challenge word.

Garrulous

Please tell me I'm not the only one that had to google this to find out the meaning... and to be honest, the pronunciation too.

(Apparently, they were given this extra challenge word because a few people in the class are garrulous this week...)

Just another day...

Reagan and Madison love to "dress up"... But Reagan is able to get Brian in on the action with "Giggle Gear" and "Crazy Caps"! (How I love Cranium games...)




*side note... Brian told me if I got the camera out, he was taking it off. Obviously, he lied.

Another baby quilt

I'm excited to give this blanket to Saralynn today at her baby shower! :)

I went with a stripe this time over the checkered look. I LOVE it. I think it's so cute!


Hooray for new babies!

A Bountiful Harvest is Yours

Props to my Pops!

My Dad gave me two buckets of tomatoes which yielded me 19 quarts of tomato sauce!!! It was a busy Friday getting it all done, but SO worth it!

We Will Remember...

I think our Country has forgotten.

I KNOW because a large portion of this Nation wants to stop fighting a war - A war against terror.

Do they remember what terrorists can do?

Do they remember the empty, hollow feeling and utter panic everyone in this Nation felt as another plane was flown into another building?



I will not forget.

We need to stay strong as a Country and continue to fight for our freedom AND the freedom of others! We have a job to do and by dang we better stay until it's done!

I remember that day 7 years ago.

I watched the TV all day long as my young son played with dinosaurs and asked to watch "Blues Clues". I watched and held my pregnant belly, wondering what this world now had in store for my children.

We as a nation CHANGED. And dare I say, THAT is the kind of *change* we need for our Country... not this "other" type of "change" that some would have us believing in. For months we changed. We were all kinder to each other, we grieved with each other, we LOVED each other. We said over and over that we would "never forget".

And then, we did.

Lets remember again.

There IS hope for America and it doesn't come from one man. Our Country's hope is in us all - and only TOGETHER can we change.

God Bless this great Nation!

Madison's First Day of Preschool!

The day Madison has been waiting for! PRESCHOOL!

When I registered her for this year, back the first week of MARCH (!!!), we could not get into the school of our choice. I was told to just register for a different school, that the chances of getting into the one we wanted were 99.9%. "Someone ALWAYS drops out of school... you're first on the list - no worries"!

WRONG!

I've called for WEEKS before school started, and NOBODY has dropped out of the class we wanted.

I was hopeful that after the first day or two of school SOMEONE would not pay and they'd be dropped... Madison could sneak right in! But when I called the other day, they told me "EVERYONE for that school has paid ON TIME!"

grrrrr...

We've done preschool now for a few days, and with the chances of her getting into our school being SLIM, I'm just going to keep her at her current one. The teachers are REALLY awesome, and they've eased my concerns of having it be a 3 yr and 4 yr split class. I'm happy there, I just don't like the drive... but we'll make the sacrifice for good teachers and a fantastic school! :)

First Day!

So Excited!



"Are we there yet?!?!??!!"


At School


Getting familiar with the room...


A DOLLHOUSE. We won't get her to leave.


Making her place mat.


Concentrating on it...


Finished! A picture of Madison and Mom! (awwwww!!!! :sniff:)


What's better than Play dough?

We're excited for the year! 4 days a week she's gone! Reagan has fallen asleep in the car on the way home every day and has given me like 2-3 hours of NO KIDS! It's CRAZY! I don't think I like it! I had to turn the TV on for some NOISE!!!

Now Madison is looking forward to DANCE... Dang this girl wants to be busy.... ;)

Photos of the Number 2 kid

I'm not sure I've mentioned it here before, but we have very few baby photos of our second child.

Honestly? It's one of my biggest regrets in life! I don't want him thinking that we just didn't like him as much as the "first" kid... after all, Taylor was our FIRST and we have photos of every drool that kid had, I swear.

Jordan was born in December. We were POOR. Not just because of Christmas, but "just because". Since this was PRE-Digital days, we just couldn't go and buy film for the blasted camera.

As he's gotten older, I totally MISS seeing his BIG baby blue eyes. Sure, he's still got them, but I just want to see my "baby" Jordan.

Imagine my joy when I found these lost photos of my little guy recently! I didn't know we had any photos of his baby blessing!!!





I just hope that he doesn't measure our love for him by the amount of photos we have, but by the fun we have together! Love you little Jordy!

ETA: Just a funny side note... the date stamp on those photos are totally WRONG! Jordan was born in December of 2001... We did not wait to have his blessing almost a year later!