McKenzie's super belated birthday

Being the super procrastinator that I am I am just now getting around to posting Kenzie's birthday. Maybe I should adopt anti-procrastination day from Celeste. :) I pulled some old cds of pictures a good week ago but its so much work to put them in and all I just couldn't get around to posting some old pictures of Kenzie.

Its hard to believe McKenzie is 8! She is growing to be such a beautiful little girl. Sometimes I don't think I know where the time has gone. She's super smart and picked up the reading bug from her mom. She is so excited to be baptized in a few weeks. She loves to give family home evening lessons and picks up everything she learns in church. Everytime I talk to her teacher she goes on and on about what a good example McKenzie is to everyone in her class and what a great leader she is. Her classmates always say she is the nicest kid in class. Its hard to believe my little baby is turning into such a young lady. I know one of these days I'll turn around and she'll be all grown up.
A recent picture of McKenzie I took in the backyard before her choir concert.

McKenzie age 3. Fall pics at UI

Kenzie blowing bubbles outside our apartment in Logan. I just love this picture of her.

Kenzie's end of preschool celebration, her first year of preschool.

Happy 8th birthday McKenzie! Sorry mom's late as always.

Winco: land of the insomniacs

After many attempts to go to Winco only to be intimidated by giant crowds, long lines, and zero shopping cars I decided to go late at night. I mean really I'm not willing to endure day after Thanskgiving like crowds for groceries. My thinking was that at 11:30 at night who's really going to be there? Try a ton of people. It looked like the middle of the day. Tons of employees and shoppers with full carts. In Moscow if you went late at night it was your and the drunk frat guys, apparantly I am not the lone insommniac in the valley. There are many of us, there should be a club. It may be crowded but I have to say $150 for a whole cart of groceries, can't beat that.

So I was reading this LDS Living link about conference tips to keep your kids happy so you can enjoy conference. They were obviously written for naturally calm children or maybe those heavily medicated on Ridalin. Since I have neither I made my own (for normal families)
1. Add Benadryl to kids morning juice
2. Tie them to bed so they don't get out when Benadryl wears off
3. Glue babies feet to floor, see how long it takes him to notice ( or in our case his butt)
4. Send oldest to corner convenience store with 10 bucks and a bike trailer to buy them all slurpees
5. Announce you're cleaning the living room and they are welcome to stay and help
6. Ask who wants to go check the mail then lock the door
7. Tell them to all get in the car to go get icecream, don't mention in 2 hours. If its cold run the car for a bit.
8. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (its over 2 hours long!)
9. Stand at the top of the stairs and yell "hey does someone want to come help me?" no one will emerge for at least an hour
10. Kava kava is supposed to be very calming........
Obviously I wouldn't try some of these (well I do give my kids Benedryl to travel) but does anyone else feel like you have to go to great lengths to listen to conference? what about those nice kids that play General Authority bingo while they listen (listen what's that?) where do I find those? Is there some secret vitamin pregnant women take to get them? Tonight in the health food section, I actually read the back of the melatonin and valerian root to see if I could give a half dose to my 6 year old. I swear going to find some natural calming supplement and start adding it to their drinks or something. I don't think calm is in their vocabulary. I may be an insomniac don't think I was ever a human tornado. Where did these kids come from?

Just when I thought things were dull

Just when I thought nothing exciting ever happens around here everything happens at once. Figures. I never head down to the basement except for straight to the laundry room or to the garage for a diet Pepsi. Unfortunately this means there's a whole area I never go into so a lot can happen before I notice. Wednesday I'd been running laundry. Later in the afternoon I went to put something in the girls room when I noticed the uncomfortable feeling of soggy carpet beneath my feet. yes we've had a basement for all of a month and already managed to flood it. My first reaction was total panic and of course my landlord is out of town and I couldn't get ahold of Dave. I was downstairs trying to mop up the mess as best I could. When I went upstairs to get more towels this is what I found my boys doing.

I found my two sweet boys sitting on the floor with their hands in the flour tub flinging it around the kitchen. Gregger's response was "I not do it. Connor did it" Mind you his hands were full of flour he was ready to fling and they were both white with flour. Not to mention Connor can't open this cupboard. Turns out Greg opened the cupboard and they both emptied it. Connor can open the containers. Good times for me. I didn't know which mess to try and clean up first. So I stripped my boys down and locked all of the kids downstairs with me. Dave had a nice surprise when he came home. A soggy basement, messy kids, a flour coated kitchen and a panicked wife. Turns out the pipe for the washer discharge came out and made a nice pond between the walls which was seaping out all over the girl's closet and out into the hall. We seemed to have cleaned it all up. But oh the stench. The girl's had to sleep in the playroom it was so bad. A large box of arm and hammer later it seems better. I don't think a smell that bad came from one flood. I'm pretty sure some previous tenants contributed. But I'm afraid to tell the landlord because I don't want to pay any damages. I'm guessing a couple tenants in a row doing this probably led to the smell.

Connor and his new girlfriend Lucy. She loves to pound on him :) Connor's plenty used to it so he doesn't mind. She crawled right over and sat on his lap. So sweet.

My little kitchen helper. Greg loves to help me cook dinner. He's covering his ears because apparantly the toaster is scary. (yes we had toast for dinner they'll live)

McKenzie's 2nd grade choir concert. She had a speaking part she was very proud of. She is growing to be such a little lady. Her teachers just love her. Everytime I see her teacher sees me she tells me she wants to keep her in her class forever.

Screaming for blood

I wish I had some good pictures of the fun stuff we've done with the kids lately but apparantly if you don't bring your camera you can't take pictures. Who knew? We took the kids to a hockey game 2 weeks ago on school night and the kids had a great time. The girls take after me and say their favorite part is the fights. I've always been of the persuasion that hockey is a lot of fun to watch so long as there a few good fights. Clean hockey is just dull. When we were at USU and could go to a club game every weekend for 2 bucks I discovered that I secretly love hockey violence. Strangely after we had kids we stopped going as often. I think Dave just got embarrassed of his very pregnant wife screaming "FIGHT! FIGHT! YEAH!" The first time he took me to a game he was all excited to teach me the rules. But I just cared about sitting close enough to the plexi glass that I can see their faces slam up against it. The Chiefs creamed the Portland team. Whenever one team is down by a lot they get really mad and fight a lot (learned that from Dave I think that's what they teach in school in Minnesota) There was one really good fight with helmets ripped off and team members jumping in. It took all of the refs to break it up and the penalty box was jam packed. It was great. Hailey was jumping around yelling in excitement. Good to know I'm a good influence on my girls. I think the only part of the hockey game Greg cared about was the part when he got food. I think as long as he gets a pop and something fried we could take him anywhere.

We took the kids for their first trip to Chucke Cheese with our friends Ben and Celeste. (also forgot the camera) I thought it was going to be lame and expensive. It was actually really fun and the tokens went a lot farther than expected. The girls were really into this jump roping game and I thought "piece of cake. If that jr high girl can do it I totally can" Well you can all guess how that turned out. I did worse than the 5 year olds. At first I chalked it up to beginner's luck, but after many tries I came to the conslusion that I suck and am just as uncoordinated now as I was at 8 and left to play pinball. I least I don't entirely suck at that. There was a lot of things for all the kids to do. Even Greg and Connor had fun playing in the play land with our friend's kids. The kids are saving their tickets to get some awesome prize next time. Or maybe after the next 10 times since anything not lame is about 10,000 tickets. Hailey of course had to have something so I convinced the kid to sell me this little necklace for s50 cents. Pretty easy to convince a high school kid when you've got a sobbing kindergartener.
Hopefully I'll start bringing my camera places. Other wise I'll have to post pictures of my kids destroying the play room, playing wii, or watching chitty chitty bang bang for the 100th time.

We're Free!!

I was so excited to be getting away from my downstairs neighbors that I was going to make up a little diddy along the lines of Andy's "Oompa Loompa Dwight's gone" song. Until strep throat robbed me of the will to live and it was all I could do to get through the day. That lovely illness was followed by some wretchedly painful episode involving my tonsils. My doctor's office is always being too busy to see someone who is actually sick send me to the Urgent Care where some 18 year old PA glanced at my throat (with no light or tongue depressor I might add!) declared me fine and said I probably had mono. Ummm thanks so much for wasting my time and money dingle beary. Can I get a refund please? Anyways I'm much better and back to making fun of the world around me (obviously) It is so nice to not have to yell at the kids all day everytime they so much as begin to hop. Our new place is not without its faults but it is a million times better. We have a yard, storage, and no downstairs neighbors. This is the best thing we've had happen in years. (man that is sad)

One downfall of this move is that I'm now driving the girls to school, which means 3 trips a day at 30 minutes each. Good times. Since I am the current record holder for the latest mom in the world, this obviously is causing a problem. We are always late. (although I have made the recent discovery that when going places without the kids I can usually manage to make it on time, so my blaming it on the kids must be sortof legit) All of the driving is really cutting into Connor's nap so rather than pick the girls up at the school, they ride the bus back to the old place and I pick them up. If I'm late they're supposed to go to McKenzie's friend Eriana's house. The first time I was late, I didn't know it and sat there waiting. I was surprised when the girls walked up from behind the car. They said they were walking to Eriana's when Kenzie felt that she should turn around. I was late again today (only the 2nd time yeah me) but I knew I was so I drove straight to Eriana's. The girls were there but told me this story. When they got off the bus and I wasn't there they didn't know what to do, even though they've been told. They couldn't decide if they should wait for me or walk to Eriana's. So they walked all around until they found a dry spot, then knelt down and said a prayer. When they got up they felt like they should walk to Eriana's. I was so impressed that my girls thought to do that. I would have loved to have seen my two little girls kneeling in prayer on the sidewalk over a problem. Needless to say McKenzie is getting my old tracfone for these occasions so she can call me while they walk straight to Eriana's with Eriana.

Out of the mouth of babes

My kids seem to continually say and do the goofiest things. I sometimes wonder what people think goes on in our home. Sunday I left Sacrament meeting because I really had to pee. When I came back Hailey wanted to know where I was. Now when Hailey talks in church she doesn't whisper. She talks just like your half way across the room from her at home and she wants to make sure she's heard.
"Mom where'd you go?" Whispering I say, "To the bathroom Ha." Getting louder now "Oh did you have to poop?" "No, I had a bunch of water to drink before church and I had to pee really bad." Very understandingl she replies "Oh did you pee in your pants?" "No Ha I did not" "well then what took you so long?" (I had to fix my tights.)
I can only assume she thought this because I usually try to restrict Sacrament meeting bathroom trips to emergencies only. But I really had to pee.

Greg of course came to Relief Society with me because you know how mean those primary teachers are. Usually when I lead the music he stretches out across every available seat and takes a rest from his strenuous tantrum throwing. However, during the closing song on Sunday, he perked right up and sang along. I could tell it was nowhere close to what we were singing (How Beautiful Thy Temples Lord) or even the same rhythm. When our song ended Greg kept right on singing loudly as can be "Truly Scrumptious you too are truly scrumptios..."

When we were walking in from the parking lot home Greg slipped on a hill he was climbing and slid down on his bum. He proceeded to continue walk in crying and fussing. When I said "Oh Greggers you're ok", he immediately stopped fussing and said "Yeah I know" and ran off. What a drama boy

Tonight we went to my parents' house for my Dad's birthday. During dinner the kids kept asking Dave to get them things over and over. Finally my dad said to one of them "why don't you go get it yourself, you know where it is, your dads not your slave." Greggers piped up "No mommy's my slave." To which Hailey replied " No mommy says she's NOT our slave." Umm, I think Greggers definately has some mommy issues. Sa's going to have to retrain him because I'm obviously doing a poor job.

Hailey's 1st lost tooth

Hailey's had this loose tooth for long enough that I'd forgotten about it even being loose. Sunday afternoon Dave was swinging her upside down and it just popped out. She was so excited to loose her first tooth! It makes her feel like such a big girl. The tooth fairy even left her a gold dollar and a note. (in case you're wondering how the tooth fairy knows when to come to your house, she has a giant map that lights up on your house when someone there loses a tooth.)