Halloween Part 1

We should first get out in the open the fact that I think Halloween is the most pointless "holiday" ever. 

I think it should be renamed "punish the moms day" because that's what it really is. 

That being said, some awesome things did happen tonight. 

At our ward party I volunteered for the cake walk, which was totally micromanaged. I just had to sit back and laugh. What type of person thinks a cakewalk needs that level of oversight? The worst that could possibly happen is the seven year olds mob the cake table and suddenly you're out of cake. And really, isn't that a GOOD thing because then nobody has to run the game, right? Anyway. 

The Trunk R Treat part made me giggle, too. I handed out glow sticks and pencils. (Just trying to do my part to support China.) 

Did you know kids these days don't even say "trick r treat!"? They just hold out their bags. And if you aren't fast enough, they shake them at you. Seriously? Who is raising these hooligans? 

I ignored the kids who did this until they either went away or spoke the magic words. 

After I ran out of glow sticks and just had pencils, kids were trying to take my $20 vanilla scented flameless candles and LED balloons. Um, no. Those are my trunk decorations. I'm kinda surprised nobody tried to walk off with the pumpkins. 

After our ward's totally lame party, we went to the ward party hosted by my in-laws. These people know how to throw a party. There was a bounce house, cotton candy, train rides, and a REAL haunted house. Plus, it was all outside (except for the haunted house, which was in the barn) and there wasn't any lame music too loud to talk over. Also, the people who go to my in-laws ward are WAY more friendly than the people in my own ward. 

While I was there I fell into conversation with a woman who was wearing her baby. Clearly, we had loads in common. At some point her husband comes up to us and randomly joins the conversation with this,

"and if you have a hysterectomy, you can't have the big orgasms any more. You can still have the small ones, but not the big ones". At which point MY husband walks up and wants to know why I just said, "oh wow". 

Some people can't tell the difference between first and second date material. That was CLEARLY second date territory. Alternately, I could have gone my whole life without hearing about female orgasms from a man I've never met. But it was totally the highlight of my evening, because I got to come home and tell you. You're welcome. 

PS I will get the kids' costume pictures, I promise. My "good" camera was out of batteries tonight and I didn't have time to get them replaced, what with running to the costume store 30 minutes before our party started. I super don't recommend that. The line for checkout was INSANE.

Vacation: Lake Tahoe Day Two

Today was stellar on LOTS of levels.
First, Hubs was here when the kids got up so he made everyone breakfast. Score. :)
Housekeeping came by while the children and I were getting our gear together for the morning's excursion. We ended up leaving in kind of a hurry since like, 8 people came to clean our one bedroom condo and it was a touch crowded. (and PS how do I tip for that at the end of our stay?)
We took the shuttle up to the Gondola. Sadly, the camera was in the car with The Hubs, so I made due with The Boy's Camera (which the kids fought over) and my iPhone camera. We waited FOREVER for the shuttle to pick us up, but once it did, the driver was super nice and gave us lots of tips on stuff to do while in the area.

We arrived an hour before the Gondola started accepting customers so we killed time with bathroom breaks, badly done photo ops with kids as shooters and a mini cinnamon roll. Zsa finished hers in a hurry and wanted to start in on The Boy's, but I held her off with left over frosting.
Then another great thing happened; we found out that not only would it be free for Zsa Zsa to ride up, but The Boy was free, too! Stellar! Instant $20 savings. THEN we found out for just $4 more on my ticket, we could get a $15 voucher for the restaurants at the top of the mountain. A ride AND lunch!

The way up was simply terrifying. I'm glad I didn't think on it too hard before we loaded up. It's so quiet in the car, it's eerie.  The kids had a blast taking (blurry) pictures and generally enjoying the 17 minute ride. We gained something like 3000ft so our ears were popping, also. We got off midway and looked through some telescopes and went potty before loading up again.
At the top we goofed off for a bit and then headed to the restaurant for grub.
Both kids wanted mac n cheese.

 What I did not know until we paid was that it cost $4.50 each for a tiny tub of it. I tasted it, and it was worth $4.50 a tub. Still. For mac n cheese? And that's when I figured out going to "the top of the world" had pretty much the same exchange rate as going to Europe.
At this point, a certain member of our party was in full-on melt down, but I couldn't really blame her since it was close to nap time and she was all oxygen deprived and stuff, so we headed down mountain.

Since I'd tipped the shuttle so well on the ride in, we didn't have to wait long to get picked up. (See Sandy? I listen to you.)
The kids laid down for 4.2 nanoseconds, and then we walked The Boy down to the beach house for the activities hosted by the resort. (Do you tip for that?) Zsa and I headed back to the condo where I laid down, and Zsa Zsa colored and ate a cookie. Then she laid down too, and went to sleep. I ran to the beach to pick up The Boy without Zsa, since she was sleeping, and I'm sure that act cost me 2 years of my life. I've never left a sleeping kid alone. I actually did it twice today, since I went to check on The Boy once mid-activity. So there's 4 years, at least. I was only gone 8 minutes each time, but it was a harrowing 8 minutes. If you've ever met Zsa you know it's totally possible I'd have come back to a building on fire or at the very least, newly decorated walls.
Here's what I found instead. Just like I left her.

We just chilled for a while after naps, waiting for Hubs and his friend to show up for dinner, which is when the next cool thing happened.
To Be Continued...
And PS, if your gallbladder hates you, give it Lecithin. Holy Toledo. That stuff WORKS. I ate real food and didn't vomit. My shoulder didn't ache and I pretty much felt normal. YAY! Thanks for the advice, Whitney. :)

Camping 2.0

My sister talked me into going camping with her family this weekend. You know, because it went so well the last time. Briefly, here's how the last time went; I had a less than 18 month old, was hugely pregnant, and it rained. The whole time. Our tent nearly floated away. Yes, really. The boy cried the entire night so we packed up camp at two am and drove home. It was pretty much the worst camping experience ever.

Needless to say, I was reluctant to try camping again. Really reluctant. But my sister had an ace up her sleeve; flushy toilets. In my opinion, flushy toilets can make or break a camping trip.

Here it is, in pictures. Pictures I took with a REAL camera, no less! Be impressed.

Yeah, nobody said I was GOOD at taking pictures. 

Just that I can occasionally use a half way decent actual camera. :P

Red Fish Beach

 Paddle Boat Ride

The View. Honestly, I fell in love with Idaho again on this trip. 

On the way home we stopped at Smilie Creek Lodge

Someone did NOT want their picture taken. 

The Grumps had set in.

And the sleepies. 

If that's not the most tired you can be while still eating ice cream, it's close. 

Independence Day 2011

We started out the morning with Red White and Blue pancakes. (recipe to follow) It just seemed like the thing to do on the Fourth of July. The Hubs even volunteered to run to the store first thing to grab the fruit we needed.

Then we waited around for my sister and her husband to show up for our planned 8:30am walk around the lake. At 9:30 I called. At 10:30 we gave up and drove to the lake ourselves. At the end of the trail we ran into them coming the other direction. Zsa Zsa walked at least half of it on her own.

 She was fascinated by dragon flies, and thought they might eat her.

 The Boy is simply not as ambitious as my baby girl, and ended up being carried for quite a bit of the hike. We're working on effort with that kid. He's not internally motivated.  Like, at all.

The children both took glorious three hour naps during which the adults played cards. It was AWESOME. I can't remember the last time my oldest took a nap intentionally. We told him he had to rest if he wanted to go see the fireworks that night. I think it helped that we wore them out on our hike. :)

After dinner, I cleaned up the mess and collapsed into bed. Hubs and a couple sisters took the wee ones to the city fireworks display.

Happy Birthday, America. I hope you're still around when my kids are having kids, and that you're worth living in. It's kinda sketchy right now, to be honest.

Blender Pancakes
1 Cup whole grain stuff (I used oat groats and wheat berries)
1 1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup oil or some oil/applesauce combo
2 Tbls sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Blend whole grain and one cup milk on high, three minutes. Add remainder of milk and blend two more minutes (you can just blend for 20 seconds if you have a Vitamix) add the rest of the ingredients and blend. Cook per usual.
Topping
1 lb strawberries, sliced
1 clam shell blue berries
2 bananas sliced
toss gently with a tablespoon or two of sugar or agave

Father and Sons: The Update

I woke up early to get ready for a training meeting this morning so I was in the shower at 5:45am when I heard, "Hello? Is anyone home?" It's a good thing I was in the shower, because otherwise I'd have peed my pants.

It turned out the guys came back early. Really early.  The Boy started to vomit about 3am and didn't want to snuggle in Daddy's vomit-free sleeping bag, so they got in the car, but then he didn't want to sleep, so they broke camp and came home early.

At first I thought The Boy had just eaten too many marshmallows, but now, I'm not so sure. He ate a few bites of banana this morning, but that's all so maybe he does have a touch of the gastro.

Poor, poor Hubs! I'm going to do my level best to make sure he gets a nap today. Also, poor Mom. What a reward! I get to clean vomit from camping gear today. That's just super.

Father and Sons, a Mom's Perspective

This weekend is our church Father and Sons camp out. The Boy has been practically apoplectic with excitement for a good week now. This morning I did some last minute shopping for things like buns and s'more fixn'ns. The Boy REALLY wanted to come shopping with me, but not enough to stop watching a movie and get dressed in the 90 minute window I gave him. He was kinda pathetic running down the drive in his super hero undies and pj top with tears and snot dripping down his otherwise handsome face.
So sad that he has to suffer the consequences of his actions, isn't it? I know. I win the Best Mother Award.
(Just so no one calls CPS, The Hubs works from home and was on board to take over if he didn't get dressed in time.)
When it came time for the guys to leave on their trip, Zsa Zsa was just so sure she'd be going, too. And why not? She always gets to go when Daddy leaves!
As she snuggled me on the couch in tears I asked her if she thought she was a girl or a boy, and with out missing a beat, she said, "I a BOY!" This statement was made just that much more hilarious by the pink and frilly tutu around her waist.
So I've done my best to make our girl time special. We watched Gone With The Wind and Caillou and I made exactly what she requested for dinner, "eggies and straw-babies". Later, she gets to take a spa bath and have her nails painted. And maybe, if she's a very good kid, I'll play trucks with her before bed. But only if we get to wear our pink tutus.

PS: I have to say, if I had all boys I'd really look forward to Father and Sons all year long; but if I had all girls, like my mother, I'd dread it. How awful to have to stay home with FIVE girls and no help! Sorry, Mom.

Pudding Pops

We are doing a Two Week Easter Countdown with the children. Each day there is a planned devotional and an activity that teaches the lesson.  Easter is my favorite holiday, and now I can share the deeper meanings with my little lovelies. :D Today The Boy asked me what the Easter Bunny was, so maybe I'm not doing too bad a job at teaching Easter on my own, huh?

One of the activities focused on miracles. The theme for the day was rainbows, so of COURSE we had to make rainbow pudding pops. Also of course, I had no pre-packaged pudding in the house. I also didn't have corn starch. Who doesn't keep corn starch on hand? Ferills.

Luckily, I wasn't out of money for the month, so we were able to get our supples and the next day we made pudding and then these super cute rainbow pudding pops.

Step One: Make pudding
Step Two: Divide pudding

Step Three: Dye pudding
Step Four: carefully spoon into paper or plastic cups
Step Five: Stick a fork in it (that's what I had, feel free to get sticks)
Step Six: Freeze
Step Seven: Set the cup in some warm water to loosen the pop
Step Eight: Eat your protein on a stick (because momma's on a low carb diet, we made sugar free pudding)

I do have one little tip for this activity: If you don't want lumpy pudding, it's best not to turn over the whisking to your four-year-old. In this case, I felt the lumpy pudding was a reasonable cost for quality Boy time. :D

Favorite Bits of "Spring Break"

This week was Spring Break for all the cousins (and, you know, the rest of the valley). It doesn't mean much to us because:

1. We "home school"
2. My oldest is four

For not being a noticeably different week, it sure tuckered out the Mom. We  had some adventures, so I thought I would share a few of the highlights.

1. On the drive to the zoo, The Boy reached across the backseat, took his sister's hand and said, "Zsa Zsa, you're my best friend".                                        If that doesn't just melt your heart, you must not have one. Talk about filling up my MommyBank. My kids could cause WWIII tomorrow and I would still be so proud of the job I've done raising them. We work hard to encourage our children to be friends and for that brief moment--success. The zoo was fun, too. :)
2. Zsa Zsa disappearing under the table during dinner, then 3 minutes later jumping up and yelling, "BE-PIZE!" It took us a bit, but we finally worked out she was yelling surprise. 
3. Zsa Zsa calling macaroni "doodles". I don't care who you are, that's cute. The Hubs thinks saying "ribbip" for a frog noise is funnier, but I disagree. 
4. The Boy, telling me he can read the pictographic "constructions" during our Wal Mart trip.
5. Friday some of the cousins got together for a hike. I brought my kids, with Zsa Zsa in the wrap on my back. She likes it fine for a while, but after 40 minutes or so, she's done. In one of my least proud momma moments, I told her she needed to stay on my back so the scary monsters wouldn't get her. It worked. <hangs head in shame>
6. After the hike, Zsa Zsa brought me three consecutive oranges to peel. She ate them all. The subsequent diapers had better be orange scented. 

PS My momma is coming to town on Tuesday and I could not possibly be more thrilled. :D :D :D :D :D

The Boy: He's FOUR!

I've been needing to write up the birthdays for a while now, but because I'm riddled with ADD, I keep getting sidetracked.

Also, it's not like I want random people to know EXACTLY when my children's birthdays are. You random people are fine, but those OTHER random people, not so much.

For Hubs birthday, I took him on a surprise trip to Disneyland a month before his actual birthday. On his actual birthday I made the requested waffles and for dinner that night we ended up at a hugemongous family dinner because some great aunts had come to visit. Luckily for The Hubs, I made his birthday dinner the night before. I took a cake decorated like a laptop to the party, but it fell apart before we could sing happy birthday. I guess I didn't use enough skewers...or superglue.
The Hubs momma got him a button up shirt, because that's what she always gets him, and my momma got him a game, because that's what SHE always gets him. Luckily, The Hubs likes shirts and games. Did I mention my gift was a surprise trip to Disneyland? OK, then. I win.

The Boy turned four, which is an even number. On even years we get to make a huge fuss and spend time as a family. Poor The Boy was rather sick on his actual birthday. The day before we ate the greasiest, most tasteless food I've ever paid for at the Flight Deck, a cafe in our local airport. Yuk! Then we drove to B&N where The Boy got to pick out not one, but TWO birthday books! What a lucky kiddo!
This child made out like a bandit in the present department. Mom and Dad got him a bubble gun and a Richard Scary board game. Grandma got him a lego man that is a flashlight and hooks to a headlamp and  his other grandma gave him a plasma car. He's played with all the toys every day since his birthday.

We also filled the toy room with balloons which the children fought over played with for days. I keep finding forks in there because The Boy realized forks make excellent balloon-popping instruments.

We ended up at yet another hugemongous family dinner on The Boy's birthday, so I brought another cake. Since I'd practiced earlier in the week, this one came out better. The Boy insisted it be a ghost with a pumpkin AND a spider. Since that was within the realm of my cakeology abilities, I made exactly what he asked for...and I totally copied someone else to do it.

I used this frosting, a Swiss butter cream, and it worked so well I'm going to use it again and again. Especially if lemons are in season, because I can then take the yolks and make this curd. Wow. But I probably won't make a cake shaped like a ghost. Just say'n.

Happy Birthday to my handsome, grown up boy. Momma Loves.

To see more work by my awesome friend/photographer, go here.

Phew! Or, the Sugar Ate My Kids

Can I just say, I'm SO GLAD this week is over?

Seriously. So. Glad.

Monday: Valentine's Day~I thought our family should mark the occation in some way, so I bought the kids each a solitary box of conversation hearts. Total cost: $0.50. The Hubs made heart-shaped eggs and toast for breakfast. Then, the sugar ate my kids. Oh holy whine-fest. Who knew that ONE BOX of sugar could cause such discontent! Before 8:00 am!
We had lots of company for dinner. And of course, Valentine's Dinner would not be complete, without frosting our own sugar cookies. Oh, just shoot me now. Because the camera was lost until the end of the week, I have no pictures of this. Be glad. It wasn't pretty. Word picture: two four-year-olds, two two-year-olds, four cups of vibrantly colored watery frosting. Spoons.  Let's just say, the adults weren't going to eat the cookies.

The Hubs got me a giant box of mini Lofthouse cookies. Why he thought I needed a giant box of the one one of the foods I'm MOST addicted to, I'll never know. (but it could have been because I pointed and jumped up and down with happiness when I spotted them on our totally hip Wal Mart date). I hid them from my kids. And made The Hubs hide them from me.  If a cupcake wanted to be a cookie, it'd be a Lofthouse.

YUM.

Note: Not my cookies. My box was much, much bigger. Much.

I can't remember what happened the rest of the week, because I was in a sugar coma, but somewhere in there I made a two-layer 9x13 cake for The Hubs' birthday. It was shaped like a laptop, because I'm awesome like that. But it fell apart before I got a picture, because maybe I'm not that awesome.
The keyboard was made out of Starburst. Somehow my kids got their grubby little hands on the bag, and again, the sugar ate my children. Whinefest 2.0. If there is anything to be proud of here, it's that their whining is improving. I may have also given them the leftover bits of cake I didn't need after shaping the earstwhile laptop cake. But that was BEFORE I noticed the Starburst were gone...


Friday: For breakfast I ate greenbeans. That's how sick of sweet I was.

Weekend: We started celibrating The Boy's birthday. Of course, I needed to make another double decker cake for this most momentous of birthdays. The oldest has survived my parenting for four whole years!

WOO HOO!

None of us has any idea why he needed "a caked that is black and white. And looks like a ghost. With a spider and a PUMPKIN! "

Apparently he has his birthday confused with a more widely celibrated holiday.

(I'll post a picture with the birthday post I'm working on. Currently we have the camera, but not the USB cable to port the pictures off the silly thing. )

So, as you can see, I'm not eating anything sweet for at least a month, or until the Intense Orange Dark Chocolate Bar starts calling my name.

Halloween 2010

     I don't care which major holiday it is, it does NOT start at 4am (NOTE: my birthday being the major exception. Say, for instance, you bought me a surprise trip to Cancun for my birthday. I would cheerfully get up at 4am to make the airport on time.)
Can someone please tell my son this holiday rule, because he did not believe me when I informed him of this fact...at 4am. He wanted breakfast. He wanted oatmeal. He wanted to watch a show on the wii. He wanted to go trick-or-treating. I wanted to go back to sleep! Finally we told him to get some grapes from the fridge and be happy we weren't locking his bedroom door with him inside.

He left us alone... for 4.2 seconds. 

Then he started playing the piano. 

Loudly. 

At that point I caved and turned on Caillou via the wii, changed The Baby's diaper (because she too, found it hard to sleep through the bad piano playing) and settled my kids on the couch with a sack of grapes, and went back to bed. 

It was 5:30am. 

We attended a seriously lame Halloween "Carnival" at the local community college where my kids picked up just enough sugar to make the ride home bearable. 

After naps we tricked everyone out in costumes and headed to a chili feed and trunk-or-treat. I think next year we will just eat at home and trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. 

We did a Wizard of Oz Theme, obviously. The Hubs is the Wizard. Brother-in-law one is the Scarecrow, Sister One is a citizen of Emerald City. Niece One is Dorothy. The Boy as a Cowardly Lion, The Baby as Glenda, me as The Wicked Witch (it was a stretch to really sell the role) and Sister Three as a flying monkey.

At one point the Hubs says, "Don't believe anything The Boy says tonight." I asked why, of course. 

The Hubs says, "Because, he'll be lion."  

This cape is totally vintage. My mom wore it when she was little. It's from Germany. 

(Mom, I'm so sorry Zsa Zsa got chocolatey drool on your super awesome cape. I will have it dry cleaned!)

My sweet baby niece who totally likes me better than almost anyone but her mom and dad. :D

This may be the only pudgy-cheeked photo of one of my children you will ever see. Sadly the cheeks are artificially puffy due to the tight hood on this super sweet cape. 

Ah well. 

Also, this is the perfect photo that captures what Halloween is all about.

You can see it in the sugar-glazed eyes and the intense focus on the chocolate in her hand.

Backyard Camping

Ever since the fiasco that was taking-The-Boy-camping-when-he-was-just-over-a-year-and-I-was-hugely-pregnant-with-The-Baby-and-we-didn't-actually-sleep-because-The-Boy-didn't-sleep-and-it-rained-THE. ENTIRE. TIME. and-our-tent-nearly-floated-away-and-we-packed-up-and-left-at-2am-because-we-weren't-sleeping-anyway...

that time.

We've (read: I've) been scared of camping (with kids).
The Hubs took The Boy to a Fathers and Sons overnighter in May and he did alright (he LOVED peeing outside) but I'M still scared.
So instead of a full-fledged camping trip, we set up the tent in the backyard! It was great.
Setting up the tent was interesting. The tent is OLD. It came from my grandpa. It's at least 50 years old and I LOVE the way it smells. It smells like summer to me. I camped in this tent every year of my youth until Dad got too sick to tent-camp and we switched to hotels.

(It's kinda lop-sided)

The Baby thought it was great fun to lay on the tent while we were trying to get it to stand up. This could be why it's lop-sided.

We called some friends over to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. The Baby enjoyed sitting in the dirt-filled wagon we used for our fire.

The Boy roasting sugar...I mean marshmallows.

Doesn't she look like she's just entered a sugar coma?

The Hubs is SOOO Handsome

(Me, trying to work marshmallows out of my teeth while The Hubs had the camera)

Then we snuggled up in the tent (after a VERY good tooth scrubbing) to watch Dr. Who on the laptop courtesy of Netflix.

A GREAT night, other than the part where we actually had to sleep in the tent.

The County Fair

We decided to take our kiddos to the county fair. I LOVED the fair as a young person (not that I'm old NOW or anything), and I thought my kiddos would enjoy it. 

I was right. (I love it when that happens!)

We saw lots of animals

Fed lots of animals (which I didn't manage to get even one picture of, since I was holding the feed)

Visited the train shed

Rode a few rides

And managed to escape the fair without eating ONE SINGLE ITEM of fair food.

I'm pretty proud of that fact. :D

One of the funniest moments was when We took The Baby on her very first ride. She LOVED it, of course, but screamed bloody murder when we took her off the ride! We showed her EVERYONE had to get off, but she still screamed.

Next ride, same story. 

It took three rides for her to get the fact that Mom was not, in fact, being incredibly cruel by removing her from the ride. 

It was a super fabulous way to spend a Monday. 

SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

So, I've been married six years. Yeah, I never thought it'd last this long, either. 

Just kidding! 

Sort of. 

I'm kinda attached to The Hubs at this point. It turns out not only was he a good first husband, he's going to be a fantastic ONLY husband, which I think is brilliant news. (He's pleased as well.)

We're going on a major trip in November, so we played it pretty low key this weekend. Saturday morning we took a pretty hike around the Snake River Canyon, back behind Hidden Lake and around to other other side.

 We accidentally missed our turn and ended up scaling some rocks.

But not these rocks, 

which is what we were faced with at first glance. 

(Going down, not up. I took the picture AFTER we had safely descended.) 

The hike itself was fun and we did it in an hour, which included an orange-eating break. Here's how we ACTUALLY got down.

We liked this hike so well we took the whole family the next day. 

     Saturday night we took our buy-one-get-one-coupon to Canyon Crest Restaurant, supposedly the best restaurant in town. My humble opinion is the only thing they are "best" at is charging lots of money for OK food, and possibly the view. Matt's steak was pretty good, my fish was pretty good, but not $20+ a plate, good. Glad I had that 2-for-1! We ate on the balcony so our view looked like this,

AMAZING.

Watching the base jumpers taking leaps off the bridge all night was also pretty cool.

After dinner we went home and put our kids to bed, since I hadn't seen them very much this week. Our day finished off at the church, de-lousing the nursery, since the week before there'd been a case of lice and it took that long to get permission to disinfect it.

A pretty good day. I'll take it. :)

When Is a Preschooler Like A Superhero?

When he has a cape!

The Boy is SUPER into super heroes. The Hubs has even given him his own super hero name: Repetitive Man Repetitive Man (there may be more on this later).
Since I'm between semesters and casting about for something to do, I decided to make a couple of double-sided capes for the kids.

The Super Side of Life

(Note: my baby does actually have two legs, even though that doesn't appear to be the case in this picture)

Since these pictures were taken during what should have been The Baby's nap time, cooperation wasn't high on her list of priorities. You'll have to take my word for it that the jeweled crown on the back of this cape is spectacular.

Here's a picture to give you an idea of what the front of the cape looks like. It's a Velcro closure.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did not come up with this idea out of thin air, I saw it on http://pukingpastilles.com/?p=57, but I made my own pattern. Truthfully, her pattern is better. This was my first attempt at pattern making.

Who thinks it's time for another Blog Giveaway? 

I DO!!!!

Here's the plan, leave a comment for one entry. Invite someone to join my blog for two entries, and leave a comment about it. Contest ends August 25th. Winner gets a cape, either the pink/purple or the red/black.
Ready, set COMMENT!

More Trip Stuff

So the whole point of this trip was to celebrate The Hubs oldest niece getting hitched. I have exactly zero pictures of that. Oops. It was beautiful, but you're just going to have to take my word for it. I was busy.

Other Random facts from the trip:
1. Drove 2,170 miles
2. Listened to 1.5 audio books
3. Passed out 3 chew-able Dramamines (love that stuff)
4. Stopped at one Vegas Buffet (and swore never to do it again)
5. Ate out twice
6. Saw five of my friends and three of The Boy's friends
7. Attended one movie
8. Took one (yes, just one) nap
9. Visited my midwife AND my acupuncturist (on the same day)
10. Got my Hair done by one super awesome Jill (thanks honey, it looks FANTASTIC. When I'm rich, I'll hire you full time to make me pretty every day.)
11. Asked The Hubs if we could stay longer 14 thousand times, and that's how many times he said no.

On the way home we stopped at

to teach The Boy about hydro-electric power and water conservation. 

Just kidding.

We stopped because The Parental Units needed to use the facilities and a break from driving with small children. $22.00 and a metal detector later, we were allowed in. The Baby thought it was great game to dive under the ropes guiding the lines and take off in random directions through crowds of people. Lots of people were laughing, and I admit, I was among them. She was just so HAPPY, it was hard to be mad at her. 

The Hubs and The Boy, standing over one of the diversion tunnels several (hundred?) feet below ground.

Yeah, don't think about it. 

The Hubs and The Baby standing above the generator room on the Nevada side.

THE TRIP

Where to start. Ah yes. The Parental Units Joint Decision to travel from Idaho to Arizona in a single day...with two small children.


In a word: insane.
We didn't leave Idaho until mid-morning. Arrived in Las Vegas about dinner time, and the in-laws house at 2am the next day. 17 hours after departure. Can you really call it "driving there in one day" if the trip actually spans TWO days?

Anyway, on to pictures!

The Boy, "helping" with irrigation

The Baby, trying on Mom's running shoes

The Boy LOVES Grandma's house. What's not to love? There are cows to feed (moo), a ditch with tad poles, cousins at all hours of the day, a riding lawn mower, a barn to play in, and quads. He was in Heaven.

The Baby just loves being with Mom.

The Hubs mostly worked, and I did WAY too much, like usual.

The kids and I went out to lunch, rode a carousel,

and watched a movie (How to Train Your Dragon) with The Boy's friend, E.

For a frame of reference, E is only 3 weeks older than The Boy. Yeah.

We found out first hand why you should always put the sun shade up in the car, even when parking away from the sun. The car seats, including mine, were literally too hot to sit in until the A/C had been going a good 10 minutes AND I had spread out the clothes we'd just bought to go between seats and bottoms. It was OK, because in the mean time The Boy had to water my tires. Don't judge, it was an emergency. I simply couldn't handle walking BACK across the mall parking lot in the mid afternoon with two cranky kids. Did I mention it was 115 degrees? See? Emergency. Heaven help The Baby. I have no idea what I'll do when she has potty emergencies. (thanks for the idea, S. Truly, life saving)

Is that ALL you ask? Oh no. There is more. Much more. Stay tuned!