When Will it Be Spring?

Bad news-Baby Jo Jo is very tall and likes to turn the computer off while we're in the middle of stuff! Granted the button has a shiny blue light, but still what a turkey. He also enjoys pulling everything and anything off the computer counter and kitchen table. He also likes to take out all the tupperware. Oh yeah, another mischief maker. He also keeps waking up in the wee hours of the morning. I'm afraid he'll get in the bad habit of wanting to sleep with us again. I had had it the other night when he was awake from 2-4:30 am crying. The next morning Butch said, "Honey he has another tooth-and it's a molar!" Ouch! No wonder he was awake all night. So he has the top four and then the center two on the bottom and now 1 molar, but the molar on the opposite side is pretty much thru. I'm thinking that's weird, but can't remember what the other boys did. I guess I'll have to get out the baby books.

Bubba is officially a pitcher for the Yankees, well not THE Yankees, but still. He is one of the 4 boys they've chosen to pitch because he throws hard enough to make it over the plate, which most of the boys can't do. During a practice last week, he was the only one pitching, which we're hoping doesn't burn out his arm already at such a young age. Butch thinks he'd also be good in the outfield because he throws so hard and really far. So I'm bragging a little, but what can I say, he's very exceptional. JP hasn't had a practice yet, which we're wondering what the deal is. Don't volunteer to be a coach if you're not going to do anything. We did find out, though that he'll be on the Angels, which is mom's other favorite team. I really love baseball, and it's a good thing with all these boys since it's what they love to do. Butch was practicing with them at field the other day and Peanut was hitting off the tee. He said by the time he's in 5 yr. old t-ball, the kids in the field will have to duck because he hits so hard. If he misses, he swings around twice from swinging so hard!

I can't seem to lose a single pound. Could it be that I love chocolate too much? Am I destined to remain "overweight" and enjoying food, or should I make the shift to twigs and berries so I can shed these 20 baby pounds? And before you scoff and say, "You, no way, you don't need to lose that much," I actually do. According to the BMI, my weight just doesn't add up with my height. And since belly fat is a risk factor for heart disease which runs in my family, I guess I should be more serious. It's just so hard when there's a baby yanking on my leg or crawling on top of me to try and get in more than 30 minutes. What to do, what to do...

I wish it were Spring already. At least the sun came out today. Now if it would just get above 49 degrees.

Spring Break

It's Spring Break here and it's been uber cold and cloudy. Mon. we went to the mall and got Peanut's birthday picture done. Tues. we went and saw "Bedtime Stories" for $1, well, actually we got $3 food tickets which include your movie and two food/drink items. It was a lot of fun. Wed. we stayed home and watched "Sky High" in the morning and then JP got invited to a friend's house. Bubba was bummed, so we called no less than 7 of his friends and got not a single answer. I guess we're the only ones with no vacation money:( So anyway, he decided he was hungry and that there was NOTHING in the house that sounded good to eat, so I took him to Iceberg. They have diner type food and awesome shakes. The kid's meals come with a small cone, so he was happy. It's amazing what can make a child happy. So then we went and stocked up on bread at the Wonder bread store. I make at least two sandwiches a day for their lunches and Peanut usually has a "vread" for lunch or breakfast and the baby eats some, etc. So we go thru at least a loaf a week, sometimes more. So for some random reason Butch thought of the outlet one day and I discovered I could get 4 loaves of yummy all wheat bread for $5, which is really good. I don't know what prices are like other places, but that's super cheap for us. Anyway, yesterday the sun finally showed up. It was only supposed to be about 49, but I thought with the sunshine we'd be okay, so I took the kids to the zoo since it was half price day. We all had sweatshirts, but my goodness it was cold. The sun kept hiding behind the clouds and the wind was blowing. But we were troopers and it warmed up and was great fun. They opened a new African exhibit last fall that we hadn't seen yet, so that was exciting. We got 2 giraffes and 3 beautiful lions. They created a whole new section to the zoo with the African theme and plaques everywhere with facts about the people and animals. They really did a good job with it. Around
3:30, Butch called and asked if we were still there and since he works downtown now, he came over and hung out with us until they closed at 5 pm. It was really fun.

A few days ago when we were doing puzzles in the dining room, we could hear Jo Jo clomping up the stairs and I went to see what he was doing and I found this-

He had managed to get Peanut's shoe on and was clomping up the stairs with it. He's really into getting other people's shoes on now. He managed to get his foot into Peanut's snow boot one day and has gotten my shoe and Butch's shoe on too. What a sweet silly boy!

Then while I was vacuuming the kitchen floor, he crawled under his little saucer and sat on the platform. I guess since he can move now I don't really need it anymore, but maybe I'll keep it awhile longer so he can use it as a fort:)

So speaking of vacuuming, I came downstairs this morning to find a huge mess on top of and underneath the kitchen table-because no I do not get up as early as my two oldest sons and you can think I'm a bad mom if you want, but they can feed themselves and I'm not getting up that insanely early. Anyway, I thought, what the heck were they eating? Geez they're pigs. Why can't they clean up after themselves? So I'm vacuuming up after getting the little ones breakfast and changed, etc. and I'm looking at this white stuff like, wait a minute, this looks like sand. So I asked Bubba if they had played with the moonsand this morning and he said yes. So then instead of thinking they were messy, I was thinking, wow, they cleaned it up pretty well. They had taken all the totes back upstairs and cleaned up all, but a small amount of crumbly sand on one chair, the table, and floor. Now, why can't they clean up their food that well? There was a pop tart wrapper and edges of pop tart all over the table. I guess the edges aren't as good as the inside. And by the looks of the chocolte and the baby's face, they gave him some too while I was upstairs for a minute. And they can't turn off a light to save their lives! What the crap?! It makes me feel like the electricity nazi. My mom came up with the idea for me to charge them a nickle for each light I have to turn off and I've now started charging them a nickle for every item of clean clothing they throw in their dirty clothes basket because heaven forbid they should wear the first thing they put on. So all the "extras" get thrown on the floor and then when mom threatens their lives if they don't clean their room/closet, it all gets shoved into the dirty clothes bag. And it's one of those ginormous ones from Pottery Barn so you can fit a lot in their. I've found animals, balls, and other interesting stuff in their while doing laundry. I guess I'm ramblling...

Accomplishments and Aspirations

Accomplishments-
When we were putting the big boys to bed on Monday night, all of us were upstairs and we didn't have the gate up to keep Jo Jo from falling down the stairs. He'd been pretty good lately about not crawling right to the edge since I had let him once to see what he'd do and he went head first off the top step. No, I'm not a bad mom; I was sitting right on the top step to catch him. Anywho, we were caught up in the hustle and bustle of the night time routine when we realized that Jo Jo was crawling backwards down the stairs by himself. We didn't even notice until he was more than half way down. We had been working with him a little to try and show him how to do it and I guess it just finally clicked. So, yay, no more gate worries. Although, sometimes he gets a little whiny half way down, like, hey come get me.

Aspirations-
About a month ago I asked each of the boys what they would like to be when they grow up. These were their answers-Bubba wants to be a guy that works in an office like dad, JP wants to be a zookeeper, and Peanut wants to be a Red Power Ranger. Once upon a time I wanted to be a zoologist. I think it's pretty funny because JP takes after me in a lot of ways and Bubba takes after Butch in a lot of ways which is reflected in their job choices. JP used to want to be a Power Ranger too.

10 Things You Might Not Know About Me

So I was thinking of doing this the other day and then today I read my SIL's blog and noticed she had done something somewhat similar, so anyway, I just thought it would be fun, so here goes. Feel free to do it too, but I'm not going to "tag" anyone this time.
1-I have 4 tattoos (a lavender cherry blossom, retarded dolphin, Winnie the Pooh, and Celtic symbol for eternal life that I share w/my cousin). I know what you're thinking, I was a big time rebel for about 3-4 years in college.

2-I did a photo shoot for a magazine for a salon in college and had really awesome purple hair.

3-I speak French.

4-I've had 2 miscarriages.

5-I've been to London and Cancun.

6-I'm technically an only child.

7-I milked cows on a dairy farm where Butch and I lived for the first 2 yrs. of our marriage.

8-I went to 6 different colleges. (No wonder it took me so long to graduate).

9-I've been to 12 different temples. (San Diego, LA, Mesa, Timpanogas, Bountiful, Ogden, Jordan River, St. George, SLC, London, Idaho Falls, Boise). I've also been to Open Houses in Las Vegas and Twin Falls.

10-I was engaged twice before I met Mr. Perfect.


In other news, I just checked out Stephenie Meyer's site and I know there are a few of you in AZ that might want to attend this, so here's the info copied directly-

March 16, 2009

Hey guys! This is just a heads up about an event I'm involved with here in Phoenix. The plan was for me to go entirely hermit this year (or decade), but there are always those things important enough to pull me out of my burrow. One of my dear friends and mentors, Faith Hochhalter—a truly gifted book buyer who put together some of my most successful events—was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I am not the only author who was helped along by her talent and enthusiasm, and all of us who have enjoyed her influence in our lives and careers are eager to help her through this rough time. To assist with her medical bills, several young adult writers are joining together for a fund-raising event: Project Save the Book Babe. The event will be on April 4th in Tempe, AZ; it will include live music, a panel discussion with the attending authors, and an auction of some fun and/or rare items from each author. All the information about the event and the authors attending can be found at ProjectBookBabe.com. Personally, I'll be auctioning some ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of my books, an early marked up manuscript or two, my dress from the Eclipse prom, and the fluffy original epilogue to Forever Dawn, along with signed books, of course. We're still in the process of putting this together, so more info will be forthcoming over the next week. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow (Tuesday the 17th) so if you're interested in attending and helping us save our Book Babe Faith, hurry over to the site and check it out.

Thank you!

Steph

Baseball News

Yay for Bubba! On the 28th of Feb. he had baseball tryouts. Technically, he misses the birthday cut off to play in kid pitch. (It's April 30th). But since he's close, we had him tryout for it. Well, the announcements just came out and he made it to AA. That is the first level of kid pitch. He thought he was good enough for AAA, but dad reminded him that he's not even old enough, so he should be really proud of himself. After AAA comes the Majors. Oh yeah, he's going to be on the Yankees, which of course just made the news that much sweeter since that's his and dad's favorite major league team!

OOPS-I forgot to mention that he also got a 90 on his George Washington project. He would've gotten 100 if it hadn't been for no captions on his poster. That's my fault because I never saw it on the requirments. He was a little bummed and felt bad because "everyone" else did better than him. It took a little convincing for him to realize that's a really high score anyway.

Hairy Situation

Okay so a couple of weeks ago, I decided to darken my hair. It's just gotten to be too expensive to color my hair every other month or so and since my roots grow out brown (though the bottoms end up dirty blond naturally) I decided to go brown all the way. I can't decide if I like it. It seems so blah. I feel like I need some reddish highlights or tint to it. So I want your opinion. Of course my husband thinks it's fine, so I need a girl's opinion. You wonderful ladies with beautiful ethnic hair that never needs to be colored really stink. You know who you are and I'm very jealous. Your hair always seems really shiny too.
Next, my hair is like uber thick. It seems to have gotten thicker after having each of my babies. I'm not knocking thick hair, but it's really thick. So I have to get it thinned out every time I get a cut, but it really needs to be done in between times. Well, my mom thins hers out herself with thinning shears. So I found some for like $6 at Walmart and thought I'd give it a try. My mom's hair is really short, so if she messed up you'd never know. Well, I'm really dumb and have never watched how they do it. I guess you need to just do it underneath the top layer because it actually cuts your hair short in places. So I have one or two places on my top layer of hair that are whacked off. It mostly just looks like I have a few short layers, but still, I can tell. I'm not so sure that I'll attempt it again. Maybe next time I get it cut, I'll pay attention to the way she does it and then try again. But I just know she's going to say something about it and I'll feel really dumb, so I'm avoiding getting it trimmed again for awhile. It seems to take forever to grow out. I hate how slow my hair grows. For anyone who hasn't seen a wedding picture of me, I had it like boy short when I got married and then grew it out to about my shoulders by the time Bubba was born. (My hair grew super fast that time). Anyway, I cut it short like that again when JP was about a year old. So right before I cut it this time, it was to about the bottom of my bra. It took me all that time to grow it out. He's 6 now. My hair has actually never been that long and now I really miss it. I cut my hair when I was 10 years old. It was to my bum before that and ever since then, I've never had it long again, except when Jo Jo was born. So now the process begins again. I told Butch to absolutely stop me from cutting it again until I'm too old to have long hair anymore. Then, at least I know it'll look cute short.

Sick Babies and Rockin' Tunes

So a note on my playlist since I've never explained why there are a zillion songs. I LOVE music. I always have. In Jr. High and High school I would listen to it to go to sleep at night. I used to go dancing all the time in college. I just love music. It's a great way to express what you're feeling at the moment, get out your rage, etc. Anyway, I have so many songs on my playlist partly for that reason. The other reason is that I don't have a million dollars to buy the music and put it on my ipod, so this way, I can listen to cool tunes while I make dinner, clean the kitchen, do pilates, or on the computer. I just updated it today. There are a lot of current songs that I've heard on the radio and really like. And now there are also some really awesome 80's tunes. We heard a song on the radio the other night and had the conversation that they just don't make music like that anymore. I love the 80's-movies, music, the slang, and some of the classic outfits. Good times, good times. So anywho, I've added my top favorite 80's tunes. So if you have nothing better to do sometime, you should leave my blog open while you do other stuff around the house and take a listen.

Now, on to sick babies. Last weekend, Peanut came down with a cold. No big deal-a little bit of runny nose and wet cough. Well, Tues. baby came down with it. Bigger deal. Can't breathe because of snot, so running the humidifier at night. Helps a little, but also has the wet cough. My doc says no cough or cold meds for little guys under 6 because there's no proof they work or help and we don't want to medicate unnecessarily. Well, yesterday he stopped eating other than some yogurt for breakfast, which of course doesn't help the mucous, but I didn't care because at least he ate something. The day before he had eaten breakfast, but only snacked the rest of the day. Well last night he started running a fever. Around 9:30 we took his temp and it was 103. Yikes! Well, tylenol wasn't working very quickly, but he went to sleep and woke up at 1 am still burning up. I had him lay with me with a cold washcloth on his head for awhile and put him back in his bed with a prayer in my heart that he would be okay. B checked him before work around 6:30 a.m. and said the fever was gone, but he woke up for the day at 9 a.m. and was super hot again. I gave him more tylenol and took his shirt off. I called the doctor and asked when it would be a good idea to bring him in to have his ears checked and they gave me the symptoms, which he had pretty much all, but one. So I took him in and guess what? No ear infection! I hate that. I would rather him have one so I could medicate him to help him feel better. They did tell me, however, to alternate the tylenol with motrin, which is better at helping with sore throat anyway so he might finally want to eat. He's been so lethargic the last 2 days. I've literally had to hold him the entire day both days. As a matter of fact, he's on my lap while I type this (he's very helpful). I can't even put him down to go pee or put my shoes on without him completely freaking out. I so wish I could take his illness on myself. Not because I'm annoyed at holding him or anything, but because I hate to see him suffer like this. He finally ate half a graham cracker awhile ago and has a little life to him now that the fever has finally broken. Sometimes it's hard being a mommy. It's times like these where I feel a little more like I can relate to Heavenly Father. How he must wish he could take our suffering upon himself.

Happy Birthday Peanut!!

Peanut had a birthday on Sunday. Saturday night we went to dinner at Souper Salad (we convinced him to eat there because he could get ice cream and we didn't want Chuck E. Cheese pizza). So after dinner, though, we promised we would go play games at Chuck E. Cheese. The boys had a great time. Even Jo Jo got in on the action. He got to ride several of the little kiddie rides. As a side note-never go there on a Saturday night. I had already suspected it would be crazy, but it was really bad. I hope no one gets offended by this, but every hispanic in the valley and all the white trash in the valley were there. It was so awful. Their kids were rude and out of control. They were letting their kids climb up on the skeeball lanes and put the balls in the holes by hand! Great example teaching your kids that it's okay to cheat. Plus, it smelled because they were letting their kids run around in their socks (there's not even a ball pit). And it was 74 degrees in there and with all the bodies, it felt more like 84. I don't even keep it that hot in my house and we only have 6 bodies here.

On a happier note we had a few friends over after dinner on Sunday for soccer cake and homemade vanilla ice cream. He asked for vanilla. Our theme went from football, to transformers, to soccer. I opted not to buy the soccer ball shaped pan and decided instead just to make a round cake and decorate it like a soccer ball. It was my first time ever attempting such a feat and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with myself. It was a great success, except for the pop gun dad bought from Cabela's. He's so considerate to remember that I'm the one home with him all day while he pops it incessantly.

So a little tribute to Mama's Little Peanut-
Smiley, dimple, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, chocolate milk, cars, trains, legos, Sunbeam, Disneyland, big brother, puzzle wizard, loving brother, mama's helper, so big, happy, pokey hair, snuggly, tall, lover of games, big boy potty (finally), dress-up, bike rider, so smart, funny, animals, organizer. He will always be my little Peanut.
I love when he tells people that's his name. Yesterday he said his name was Peanut George. He makes me smile daily. Happy Birthday Big Boy!!!

And lastly, last week after school, we looked out our back window to see this-

We didn't have any rain by our house, but they must have behind us. JP wanted to go look for the gold at the end, until Bubba told him there was no such thing and that rainbows never ended anyway. Alas, another dream shattered by big brother. More and more lately I've been getting sad when some magical secret is ruined. I still want to believe in magic. Did you ever see the live Peter Pan movie? "I do believe in fairies. I do, I do."