Sleepless in...

Here we come, baby! It's a girls only weekend, and we're going to ROCK IT ALL WEEKEND!'Specially my Mom, who is the BOMB! Harbor tour, Underground tour, nice dinner, and shopping, shopping, shopping! My sweet sisters are my sweet homies. Gotta love 'em.

See you Monday!

The weekend

Well, we had a fun weekend. After realizing that we hadn't used the Trailer in all of September, we figured we better get out for the last chance weekend. Good idea. We headed about 15 miles from home up Big Cottonwood Canyon. After 15 years of traveling hours to Yellowstone and never seeing a moose, what should go tromping through our campground but this:
And this.

Thats a whole Moose Family, in case you can't tell from the great picture, courtesy of the BB Pearl.


And then we drove over Guardsman Pass into Midway/Heber Valley. Look at that view. I don't remember a time that I've ever seen the leaves so pretty. We must have been right on the money when it came to foliage viewing timing.

Other fun things that happened:

Meg filled up the Audi's trunk with wood and joined us for Tin Foil Dinners. Fun.
The Boy Scouts next to our camp decided our wood was better for stealing.
Sean throwing lighter fluid on the campfire and scaring the crap out of the kids.
Why does this seem to be a recurring theme?
The batteries in the trailer going dead so the heater wouldn't work. Not fun.
The drive over Guardsman. Fun.
The rain. Not fun.
Watching "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" over and over and over. Not fun.
Deciding at 7:00PM to leave because the rain was just too much. Fun.

Reelowkateeng

News. Sean's company has decided to shut down the Salt Lake City operations.

Bummer.

As of December, many, many people will be out of work.

But my Sean, "The Bull", has come away unscathed. Or so it depends on who you ask.

Ask my mom, and she'll tell you differently. Ask me, or Mr. Bull, or the kids, or the in-laws, and they say go for it! Sorry, mom.

So it appears the Frozen North of Wisconsin will be our new home. Sean will be working in Chicago. Sounds fun, eh?

So, from all you pros that have moved across the country, I need some tips. Please, please, please, give me tips on how to make this easier than the scenario I have in my head.

3 skin shades, and what I did when mom wasn't looking

The "Girls". Light, medium, and dark. And freakin' cute, if I do say so myself. Also, 3 stages of teething. How cute is Gretta's sweater? Thanks to Laura's mom Sue for making it BY HAND! She rocks.
When mom wasn't looking, Gretta made her way under the table. For those that haven't seen the behemoth in person, it's 6' square. And quite the jungle for baby to play in. Also notice the random piece of paper in her hand. Who knows where that's been.
Mornings are hectic, what can I say. No time for details such as watching after the littlest.

What we did for family night.

After a speedy trip to the local Wal-Mart, we went to Sonic for a refreshing Cranberry-LimeAid. Mmm.

And then Sean did this.



I laughed my butt off!

Jill, this is for you.

Today is National "Talk like a Pirate" day.

Jill will like this.

I hear, so will Aaron.

I don't want any details.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

Things I'm looking forward to today:

1. Going to Costco. Love Costco almost as much as Ikea.
2. Chilling with my kids. G is so fun now that she's crawling everywhere, and Maggie has really grown up and that makes it much more fun to hang out with her.
3. Having my King Size Bed ALL.TO.MYSELF


Sean has a sleep test tonight. He may have sleep apnea. So for one night he gets to sleep while hooked up to dozens of machines and being watched by strangers through a window. I hope they don't mind a little flatulence.

Thank you, thank you, Ikea

The Billy BYOM bookcase has found a new home in our home. Only mine isn't blurry.

As has a stainless steel shelving unit. Not this one. I don't own a crappy wood deck.


And Emma scored a cute hot pink chair for her room. Not this one. It goes with a desk. No picture of that, but you know the type, square, silver legs, blah blah.
So all in all, we got cool stuff, but no picture of it yet. You'll just have to wait and see.

Is that bad?

This morning I got out of the shower and what did I find? My newly mobile baby had crawled under my bed and was playing with a plastic bag. Bad. But wait, there is something in that plastic bag. Drano. Worse.

She's fine.

Mom's going to be much more careful when it comes to what is under the bed.

Which came first?

Here is Maggie eating what we refer to as "Olie Eggs". She loves them. The tradition continues.

My Celebrity Look Alikes

Thanks to Kalli for this funny little tid bit.

Say it the English way.

It's official, she's mobile! My other girls weren't even close to crawling at 7 1/2 months, but here's Gretta, cruising all over on hands and knees. I guess now I have to start picking up the floor for reals.

And here she is just looking cute. She's had croup, so if you could hear her raspy little voice, it would just make your heart melt.
For some reason the flash on the camera makes my floors look clean and shiny. It's merely an illusion.

Check it out!

I know most of you are far away, but I'm just letting you know anyway.

I've started a new recipe exchange blog/dinner get together page. My hope is that those that are close will join in and we can have a dinner once a month and each bring a dish and accompanying recipe for everyone else. They'll also be posted on the blog for ease and for those that can't make it to the dinner. But feel free to post any recipes you want, just know they may be used by us moms.

Are you chicken?

I made yummy chicken enchiladas the last weekend. They are a vacation perennial, and since we were planning on going on vacation for the weekend, before our trip to the hospital, we've been eating them ever since. Well, the other night I left them sitting out. All night. And then I put them back in the fridge and ate them for lunch. Sean had a fit! My question is would you have eaten them too?

Another adventure

Today I asked Meg a question. Do you think it's weird that we, as sisters, do everything together? I mean, I think it's normal for sisters to do lunch, or go to the mall, or get a mani-pedi, which we do, but to attach a 16 foot kayak to the top of a truck and head off to the wild blue just doesn't seem normal. And trust me, normal is a relative term here. I guess I should just consider myself extremely lucky to have such an adventurous counterpart. I was also a little concerned that we looked like lesbians. Which is fine, don't get me wrong, but I was worried that people would look at Meg and think "what is she doing with someone like her?". But all stereotypes aside, we had a great time. We met a guy with his 3 four legged kids who just happened to chill on our beach all afternoon. The dogs were cute, very playful. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't like a strange dog licking my face and leaving sweater-size chunks of fur all over my wet body. Gross. I think he might have had the hots for Meg. Gross. He also said he would lay out naked on that beach when no one was around. Gross. And after a paddle suicide, and depleting the ozone single handedly with our black smoke spewing diesel truck, we made it home safe and sound. Another great adventure under our belts. Now we have to start thinking about a winter activity. Any ideas?

Startin' 'em young.

My familia will be so proud to see Gretta enjoying her weekly update of celebrity trash.
She really likes TomKat, and doesn't care much for BrAngelina. I have no idea where she gets this.

Poshycat?

I guess Amy and I copycatted each other. For a view of my new haircut, check out Meg's blog.

PyeloWHAT?

If only somehow I'd known that this:


Would turn into this:
In just a matter of hours. Like a few hours. Fast, way too fast. Maggie went from fine, to feverish, to sleepy, to vomiting and listless in about 6 hours. She is notorious for this. But this time was different. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. No sore throat, no ear ache, no tummy ache, nothing. After a night of sleep, and still not being better by morning, we ended up at Primary's. Can I just say a big Thank You to them for being awesome. IV fluids, several well meaning doctors, and finally an intern that took it upon himself to do it right. We end up with

Drum Roll Please....

Pyelonephritis. Lay terms: Kidney infection. And after a long night in the hospital, she goes to this:
Thank goodness kids are so resilient. She's much better now. Hopefully we'll have no long lasting effects from this, but there is still one test to be done once all the infection is gone.