Two Fer

Today you get a two fer post. Lucky you.

I just couldn't let this story get away from me. It will forever be documented on the internets.

Can I just say we have the world's lamest tooth fairy? She must have problems flying in the rain, because she can't seem to make it to our house on the nights it rains. Sometimes she can't make it on clear nights, either, so she must have night blindness or something. Poor tooth fairy.

And poor Maggie. Her tooth fell out, literally fell out into my hand, yesterday before school, and she was so excited to have the tooth fairy come last night. Now she's all disappointed, and I have to call our tooth fairy directory and ask to have a new fairy assigned to us because ours keeps letting my kids down. So obviously, this isn't the first time she hasn't made it.

I have a feeling this lame tooth fairy is going to end up costing more than just a tooths worth. You know, punitive damages and pain and suffering and all that legal mumbo jumbo.

Does your tooth fairy ever let your kids down? Does she suffer from night blindness or rain issues like mine?

Fun For Friday

All I have to say, is that while I'm reading this, I feel smart. And that's priceless.



Thanks, Mike, for leaving it behind so it could take up every second of my free time. It will be finding its way back to you soon.

Happy Friday!

Baking Blunders

About a week and a half ago, Emma had her Stake Activity Days activity at our Stake Center. Since I'm the Ward leader, I was in charge of getting all 6 girls there and back, and entertaining them during the 45 minute drive each way. It wasn't an easy task. But we survived.

One perk was that during the activity, they had the girls assemble cookies in a jar. You know, where you add the flour, sugars, salt, and chocolate chips in a cute little mason jar? Yeah, those. You've probably received them for Christmas from neighbors or friends. They're cute, and I always thought it would be a fun idea for neighbor gifts. After this, I'm rethinking that idea.

So we made the cookies. I followed the directions and everything. It wasn't pretty. I don't know if the recipe was skewed to fit in the jars, or if they just didn't think about it too much, figuring nobody would really go home and make them.

I did.

And here's what I ended up with. These cookies are so flat and gross. They are burned on the edges and raw in the center. And they were nasty. Yes, I tasted them. I wasn't about to let an ugly cookie go to waste. I don't discriminate on looks. But they tasted as good as they looked.


So I improvised. Not being a baker by nature, I had to call upon my 4H skills from years past, and dig deep. I added a cup of flour to thicken up the batter. Still looked weird, so I added some oatmeal. After mixing it for what seemed like an eternity, it finally came together and resembled cookie dough.

I baked them. They looked pretty good.


See? Better. They were fluffier, not raw in the center, and the edges were nice and golden brown.

But they tasted like crap.

See, you should never discriminate based on looks alone.

So I'll stick with my own cookie recipe. One that never fails, and makes a million cookies. I should know to never trust my baking abilities to the hands of strangers. Never again, I say! Nevah!

Happy Family

Okay, I gave in and went and did some quick family pictures. Saturday was a great day here, not too cold, and the rain let up just long enough for the sun to come out a little. Considering I am as amateur as you get with a camera, and the fact that just moments before the taking of pictures Gretta spilled orange soda all down the front of her shirt, I think they turned out okay. I'm still not sure if I'm willing to replace my existing 8x10, but we'll see.

So here you go.



I'm still convinced this has Awkward Family Photo potential, but Sugar Daddy likes it.





This is probably one of my favorites, especially the expressions on the kids faces, so totally "them".


And here we all are. Sugar Daddy says he looks like a giant, and he kinda does, but he does tower over me, and then throw in our little teeny tiny kids, and voila!, a giant is made.

So that was our day. Yes, Gretta's shirt is on backwards to hide the stain. It was the best we could come up with on a whim. I think it's okay. If I get motivated again, we'll go and try one more time, maybe on a sunnier day.

Fun For Friday

Happy Friday!

Debate

Over at one of my fave blogs, MLAK, she is testifying to the joy that is womanhood. And one of those joys is shaving.

I have a dilemma.

Here in Chicagoland, it gets bitter cold. Like so cold, even I get cold, and that is saying a lot.

Now, I regularly(ish) shave my legs and pits, because I'm no cave woman, or hot European, but I also shave my arms. I have for probably 10 years. But I'm wondering if I should let them grow back out to warm me for the winter.

What do you think? What do you do? Do you shave your arms at all? Should I continue? Do I want to grow them out for the warmth or is it just because I'm too lazy?

Discuss.

I Didn't Really Think There Would Be A Downside

Okay, I have to brag for a moment. But first, a back story.

For those of you that know me well, you know I hate to look at myself. Ever. Like ever. Like, even to put on makeup. I went with Meg to pick up her wedding gown, and that room full of floor to ceiling mirrors was my own personal Hell. It seems like as soon as I see my reflection, I immediately focus on the flaws. You know, the jiggly belly, the double chin, the acne problem, and I could go on and on. I'm just not a babe. It's fine, I'm over it.

So nearly 4 years ago I had lap band surgery. I was a fat girl, and needed help. So I had the surgery. It wasn't cheap, but I knew it would be worth it.

Not long after the surgery, I found out I was pregnant with Gretta. So I had all the restriction from the band taken out, and I had normal eating habits until I had her. Then slowly I started getting more restriction added.

It has taken a while, but I've finally found my happy place. I can still eat a small amount of food comfortably, but I can't overeat or I puke. It's not pretty, but it works.

And since April, I have lost... Dun dun dun....

30 pounds!

I wish I had done this sooner, because I really can feel the old me emerging. It's a nice feeling.

But now for the downside.

My clothes look horrible on me. My pants sag everywhere, my G's get all tangled up around me during the night, the three bras I bought during the summer are too big, and now I have to start spending money on clothes to fix all that. This is the first time in my life that I have had to spend money to buy smaller clothes, and not the size up from my last size.

What a great feeling.

And now, I can look myself in the eye. You may even notice my profile picture is an actual picture of myself, not the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness ribbon. That's a huge step. I can even iChat with the family, and not want to cry.

So there. If you think you need help, get the lap band. It works. I'll even give you my docs name, cause he's awesome. He also does emergency appendectomies ( just as my dad) and hernia repairs (again, just ask my dad). He also has a killer house in over in old Riverton, and he is just cool.

Fun For Friday

My kid is in the TV room screaming "back pack!" at the top of her lungs.

It's pretty dang hilarious.

Gotta love Dora.

Happy Friday!

Kids and Cakes

On Sunday we celebrated Maggie's birthday with our friends. We were lucky enough to have Mike here from Texas, and Michelle and Ken and their little girls came up from Peoria, so we had part of the family together.

In addition to our family, we had about 40 people over. Some 6th birthday party! We have the best friends ever, I swear.



Here are some of the kids taking a turn blowing out the candles on the cake. And how bout that cake, huh? Holy cow. When I did trade work to get that cake, I definitely got the better end of the deal for sure! My friends Tina and Melissa have a little cake business going, and if the rest of their cakes are as beautiful and tasty as this one, they should have no problem making a small fortune!

Another shot of the cake. I mean seriously, how cute is that?

On another note, how lucky for me that the week my computer took a big ol crap, Mike was here to rescue it! It seems my hard drive was fried, and that warranted a trip to Best Buy for another one. He was able to save my pictures and music (Yay!), and did a software update, too. Seriously, if we had had to pay for someone to do all that it would have cost a fortune. Blessings, people, blessings.

I scored a bunch of available memory, and a new mouse since my roller ball quit working on my old one. But as of this morning, my new mouse ball isn't working either. It's not like I'm that hard on them, is it?

More Reasons I Hate Martha

This morning I was enjoying a rare respite between kids leaving for school and Gretta waking up to demand breakfast (Among other things, well all things, really, but that's an entirely different post).

I clicked on the tube, which I don't usually do until lunch time, and caught the last 30 or 40 minutes of the LMN beauty that is Martha: The Story of Martha Stewart. Later today they will be showing Martha Behind Bars. I don't wanna miss that one, fo sho.

Don't ask me why I felt compelled to sit and watch. I don't like Cybill Shepard, who plays a less than convincing likeness of Martha. The acting was terrible. The story line was painful.

And then it just ended.

No wrapping things up, no final dramatic scene, it just sort of ended with a shot of her walking through a small town livestock festival like some sort of Goddess.

Weird.

But even though I don't like Martha per se, I don't really hate her. I just hate that she has set such a high standard for us stay at home types, one we can never achieve without sacrificing all the things we choose to stay home for.

She does make a killer cake stand, and some nice comfy sheets, though. So props to her for that.

Huevos

My kids are funny in the mornings. One of them is completely content with a sippy cup of milk, one of them thinks any sort of cereal is pretty cool, and the other one thinks she needs 2 eggs, scrambled, to start her day. I'll let you deduce which kid likes which.

Okay, I'll tell you.

When school first started this year, I was giving the kids cereal just like I have every other day for the last 4 years of school. Obviously this means Emma is my cereal kid. But with Mags, it wasn't doing the trick. She would come home from school and be in this weird zombie like state. Now, I don't mean just tired or bored, it was like she couldn't function. She would just sit and stare into space. And it would last for hours. At first I thought she just needed to get out of the house, so we started doing bike rides or walks around the block. It didn't really help that much. Then, after some great insight from my awesome mother in law, I decided it might be a sugar thing. So I started giving her eggs in the morning.

It was like a magic bullet.

The very first day we did eggs, she came home in a great mood, had much less desire to eat snacks all day, and she seemed like her normal self. It changed her whole demeanor. She was happy, engaged, and had more energy.

Luckily, whatever it is isn't serious, because I had her sugar checked at her Kindergarten physical (which is a whole nother post in itself). I guess it just took something like this for me to see first hand that what we put into our bodies really does make a difference.

But Emma, she's still perfectly content to eat cereal. And Gretta, she'll stick with her sippy cup, and sometimes she'll eat the leftover eggs.

Me, I'll have a Coke, please. I didn't say I needed to watch what I put into my body.

Happy Birthday Maggie!

Maggie is 6 today.

6.

Wow.

I've always said it's amazing I've been able to keep my kids alive for all these years, but in Maggies case, it's amazing she's lived these years for other reasons.

She was my pain in the butt kid, for sure.

But now, now she is wonderful! She's such a smart girl, and she is very agreeable, most of the time.

Things we love about Maggie are:

• She is veeerrrry crafty, and loves anyone else that is crafty, too.
  
• She loves to go through old pictures, both on the computer and in the files.
  
• She thinks she's older than she is. She is certain that she knew Nunn Bee, who died before she was born, and also swears that she remembers her horse Brownie from our trip to Texas. I was just barely pregnant with her then.
  
• She loves her Teddy. And her thumb. Still.
  
• She changes her clothes at least 3 times a day. Every day.
  
• She is a super organizer. She loves to clean out closets, and her craft drawer, and clean her room.
  
• She is very smart, and sweet, and a little bit shy, but just a perfect amount of each.
  

We love you Maggie! I'm so glad you are part of our family. You bring a great spirit to our home, and I can't imagine life without you!

Love you!

I Made It

Yesterday was my moms birthday.

It wasn't too hard.

It was the days before that were tough. Conference, turkey dinner, the scent of Fall in the air; those things scream "mom" to me.

But I made it.

All thanks to great friends who understand, and a family who loves me.

I miss her so much, and I would do anything to have her back. But if this is my life now, I think I'm doing okay.

But I still hate cancer.

Happy Birthday Dear Mimi

Actually, her birthday is tomorrow, but I don't blog on weekends, so she gets it early this year. Plus, now I can say I wished her a happy birthday first. Ha!

I love Meg. She's the best little sister I've ever had. Some of the many reasons are:

• She loves "bullets!
  
• She's a beauty. I've never met anyone with legs as long as hers.
  
• She's very headstrong. She knows what she wants, and she usually gets it.
  
• She's hilarious.
  
• She'll try anything once.
  
• She's very strong. She can handle a lot of stress, and she handles it beautifully.
  
• She likes to GChat with me every day.
  
• She has grown in more ways over the last year than I can count.
• She keeps on keepin' on.
  

Meg, I miss you. You're such an inspiration to me. My kids always say "night night" to Mimi before they go to bed as if you have always been with us. They miss you too.

I hope you have a great birthday!

Love you!

*and sorry about no picture, my iMac is dead, and all my pictures are on there!