I wanted it

I knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong even before it left my lips, but I did it anyways. I just wanted it. I wanted it all to myself, and I didn't want to share. I share all day long, and the selfish devil in me said, "no, its mine!" What am I talking about? I am talking about breakfast. We had one bagel left, and it sounded sooooo good and we even had cream cheese and a peach to put on top. So naturally I poured the kids a bowl of cereal and I made my mouth-watering, creamy, juicy, bagel delight and sat down with the kids. Then the inevitable happened and Brook said, "Can I have a bite?" I could feel the blood rushing to my head as I panicked to think of a way out, and then I did it. I LIED. I wanted the bagel all to myself so badly that I lied. Before I knew it, I was saying, "Remember brook, you don't like peaches." She said, "I don't?" Here was my chance to repent and tell the truth, but as a mom I rarely get to eat something yummy all by myself, so I lied again! "No, you don't like them", and then I enjoyed every single bite of MY bagel, all mine!!!! bwa hahaha.

I understand that there are consequences to my actions, and the fact that I will probably not get Brook to ever each peaches again because, "she doesn't like them" is something that I will learn to live with!

if your happy and you know it

Hello everyone. We have been gone on the worlds longest, I mean coolest vacation. Before I delve into that, I would like everyone to know that I PASSED my BYU classes, and by passed I mean "C's get degrees" passed. Because of that, I no longer need an attitude adjustment. I know you were all concerned for the welfare of my fam, but rest assured that they are all still alive.

OK, now on to our trip. We drove, yup drove, from Denver to St George to Los Angeles to San Diego to St. George to Redfish Idaho to Denver. YUP, we drove. We spent 54 hours in the car with the children in a 12 day period. 54 hours is a lot of time so I would like to share the lessons I learned in case anyone else is thinking of driving for 54 hours just to see what you could learn.

1. Hours 1, 4, 9, 15, 24, 30, 37, 45, 46, 47, 48,49, 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 are the hardest.

2. My children are better travelers than I am.

3. All of the Flying J's in the western US are under construction and consequently have no soda fountains, which means you have to fill up your water bottles in the sink, yuck!

4. Gas is more expensive in Hurricane, UT than CA!

5. Ring pops are a heaven sent and are worth every second it takes to clean up the aftermath.

6. The new LA Temple Visitor Center is awesome.

7.The longer you sing "if your happy and you know it" the more creative you get, ie. "if your happy and you know it make fart noises"

8. Teaching your kid the sign language sign for "all done" is both hilarious and heart breaking in the car.

9. Deer really are on the road at night and are surprisingly hard to see.

10. m&m's can be hours of fun, and are also worth the mess.

11. If you are bored enough, it can be entertaining just listening to the movie coming from the back seat.

12. If you drive from Baker, CA to Las Vegas in the middle of August, you can keep your car from overheating my turning on the heater and rolling down your windows.

13. Sometimes overheating your car is better than barfing.

14. Del Taco should never be eaten in Baker if you are on your way towards Las Vegas in the middle of August.

15. Some of the road signs that say "BUMP" really mean, "BU-U-U-M-M-M-P!!!!!"

16. There are no restrooms available between the hours of 9pm and 1 am between Stanley ID and Idaho Falls, ID. On the same note, you are usually the only person on the road and can bet fairly safe that no one is going to see you.

17. Super 8 is slightly more super than motel 6 because you get free breakfast, but room quality is equal.

18. When the GPS says 10 hours, plan on 12.

19. 54 hours in a car is a good way to see how you will all do together for eternity.

20. Redfish Lake Idaho is even more beautiful than I remember and was worth every second of the drive!!

Picture to come.

advise

Hey, does anyone know where I can buy an attitude adjustment? I would make one my own, but I just don't have time. It doesn't have to be a great one, I think at this point my family would take a slightly better used one. I have of course procrastinated my schooling until I had 5 days to finish 2 papers, 7 lessons, and 2 finals. I thought I had more time to finish but its a long story. Needless to say, I have been less than awesome this week with my family and after my daughter sat there and watched me say, 'I hate school because it's so stupid' I decided that I seriously need an attitude adjustment or maybe just a really big nap and some chocolate.

Evil Garden

So we have had some fun with the garden this year and most of our experiences have been good, but Saturday night we were reminded of how you just can't tame the wild. Drew was watering and I was picking weeds and the kids were doing what they usually do. This consisted of walking through other people's gardens and picking the leaves off of flowers. T-ray was wandering a bit and he was in a weed patch when he fell down. He usually whines/cries when he falls, but this was a particularly loud cry. At first I just told him to get up and "come here". But he wasn't listening. So as I approached him I saw what had happened and I felt horrible. He had fallen into a burr patch. For those of you who are not familiar, here is a picture (not the least bit exaggerated by the way).

So since I had no gloves on hand I got to pick these little suckers out one by one with my fingers. He had 4-5 in the palms of each hand and several on his arms and legs. I felt so bad cause every time that I pulled one out he would start to bleed, then as I shook it off my hand I would start to bleed. It was sad. But hey, the carrots are looking good. Thats worth it, right?

and should we die....all is well

You know its been a great day when you are sitting down for prayer with the family and you look over at your 1 year old and think, "that hole in his head is healing nicely" and then you look at your two year old and think, "no wonder she has been complaining about her head hurting, there is a gigantic goose egg above her eye," and then you close your eyes and your husband starts the prayer out with, "Thank Thee that our house did not burn down..." and he is being completely sincere. All is well in Zion folks!

I finally decided

Well, I finally decided! Decided what you might ask. I have finally decided what I will do if/when I win a million dollars. Let me tell you how I got to that decision and then I will share my master plan. So I had a good friend that I look up to stop by last night and my house was a pig sty. I knew all day that I needed to pick up, but I forgot about spring cleaning this year and the thought of what really needed to get done in the house was too overwhelming so I did nothing. I had a good speech ready for Drew too, you know, about what it is that I had been doing all day since it clearly was not cleaning the house. (I should note here that Drew NEVER bugs me about the house. He is actually very understanding but it is my own conscience that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day when Drew has worked hard and comes home and trips his way back to the bathroom. And yes, I know that I work hard too) ANYWAYS, So this friend came over and I of course started with my usual, "please excuse my house I was doing this and that and blah blah blah..." Then she was like, "don't worry about it" and she really looked like she wasn't concerned. She sat down, we chatted and she left. This should have been a good thing, right? Well, I got thinking about it, and it hit me, "Oh my goodness, she was not stunned AT ALL about the state of my house which must mean that....my friends are used to seeing my pig sty." (another note, I am sure that this friend was NOT thinking this, but it was the fuel that I needed). SO, since Drew has weekend class this weekend, I had all day today to change my ways. Which, it took, ALL DAY to change my ways. I even scrubbed the base boards and cleaned the blinds. I am exhausted. NOW, this brings me to my million dollar dilemma. At first I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a maid who keeps your house clean. But that idea quickly died for several reasons.

1. My house only stays clean for moments because my children think it is the funniest thing to walk behind me and undo things I do. Granted my house looks better, but after only an hour, the sink has dishes again. The table is dirty. The toy bins have been emptied, and the sliding glass door has little hand prints.

2. I would like to think that I can manage a house on my own. There is a certain pride that comes from being a stay at home mom, and accomplishing (if only momentarily) stay at home tasks.

So here is what I have decided. I want a guest house. Only WE would be the guests. The kids and I would play and eat at the guest house all day, and when it was almost time for Drew (or anyone else) to come home, we would run over to the clean, bright, sunny, happy, good-smelling home! Then I wouldn't have to have a heart attack every time that the kids played with their toys or dumped the gold fish on the floor, or pulled the bedding off of ALL of the beds (weird huh!).

There you have it. Bring on the million, I am ready!

$300 tantrum

I know that this has never happened to anyone else, but T-Ray, (yes T-Ray) threw a fit that cost us about 300 dollars. Let me explain. We have been doing lots of fun stuff lately and we recently went camping. We decided to go on a 2 1/2 mile hike with the kiddos (which Brook walked almost 2 miles of it!). When we were done we took a family pic at the view point which was a 100 mile panorama of the continental divide. When we went to put the kids in the car, T-Ray had had enough. He was stiffening his body and screaming. Naturally Drew put the camera on the roof of the car so he could focus both hand on the task. You know where this is going right? We got in, drove away, and never saw our precious camera again. So since I take forever to download pics we lost some important occasion memories. Here I will try to re-create them.

I took a cake decorating class this last month which was awesome. It culminated with me making T-Ray's first birthday cake. We will pretend that it looked something like this. Also, imagine my sweet little guy shoving lemon cake with lemon curd filling into his sweet 1 year old mouth.

Pretend this is our cute family enjoying the 4th of July weekend up at Cold Creek campground just outside of Golden Gate Canyon State park.

Imagine this is us on our hike, only T-ray was in a baby hiking carrier, and it was about 4 times steeper, and 30 times more beautiful.

This pic is not too far from the truth. It rained a lot!!!! Fortunately it let up for the good parts, food, set-up, hikes, and smores.

Now pretend that this is us watching the fireworks at Coors Stadium after the ball game to end a great 3rd of July celebration.

You can also imagine how cute Drew was on father's day, and all of my cute pictures from our trips to St George and Idaho and a way cute video of Brooklyn explaining what camping is all about. Sad sad, wo is me and my memories. :(

yummy-ness

So lots of stuff has happened like Father's Day and T-Ray's first birthday (my baby is so grown up!), but no, I choose to blog about food. I have been on the endless quest for the perfect snack food that is good for you, no calories, tons of protein, and really really tasty. I haven't found it yet but these come pretty close. I thought I would share my hours and hours of "research".

First on the list are these tiny buddles of joy. The name is lame! but Think Thin bars are actually pretty tasty. They have 0 sugar and 20 grams of protein. The only flavor that I am not loving is the chocolate covered strawberry. The texture is too off for me.

These are yum yum yum! They are Pop Chips. They are so crispy and yummy and they are not that bad for you. For every 20 chips, there is about 120 calories and only 4 grams of fat (compared to 11 grams in regular chips). The kid love them too.

I have already raved about the Luna White Chocolate macadamian, which is still my fav, but I have found other flavors that are not bad as well. One is the berry n nuts, or nuts over berries, or something like that. It is purple on the inside. Oddly enough though, I havenot found a chocolate Luna bar that I think is worth the money.


Kashi for me is very hit and miss. I feel like a lot of their foods taste like bird food. Very crunchy and seedy but not much satisfaction. I do however really like the dark chocolate coconut granola bars:)

Sprouts is one of my fav. stores. I love their veggie chips. When you compare, they are not that great in nutrition, but they taste really good, including the green beans, which are my fav. CAUTION: I tried to make my own thinking that it couldn't be that hard, and it is. buy them, do not attempt at home.

Let me know if you have found any pearls for me to test out!!! Good luck

yum

more food continued...

These are actually really good, especially the peanut butter one. They are low sugar and are a good treat substitute, hint: put a table spoon of real peanut butter on top of the peanut butter one and you can trick yourself into thinking that it is dessert day :),

These are my absolute favorite!!!! One problem though, the tiny little 90 calorie pack is never, never enough. What I do is just eat the whole box and count them as a real dessert day. Yeah, they are that good (but only the mint chocolate ones). BEWARE, once you pop you really can't stop.

So good I put it twice (I should get paid for this advertising huh!)


These are really good. They are gigantic, probably cause they are around 350 calories but as a meal replacement they rock. Super low sugar and high protein so they keep you full for a while. The name is pretty fitting, oh yeah! Plus they taste like they actually have choclate syrup in them.

If you haven't tried Pirate Booty yet you need to. This actually started cause T-Ray chokes on almost everything and one day some one gave him a cheese puff and he did great. I couldn't justify giving him cheese puffs every day so I was looking for something similar. These are tasty and they melt in your mouth. You can get them on sale often and the best flavor in my opinion is the aged cheese!

the garden

So yes we are alive. We went on an awesome vacay to IF and I will post about that later. We also had strep and other sicknesses, we set up bubs to get tubes placed in his ears after the 9th ear infection this season and we planted a garden. So here is my garden story;

A while back our Stake leaders (can't remember if it was the president or the counsilor) told us that we should plant a garden regardless of where we live. We could do a little porch garden or Denver offers garden plots for rent through the denver urban gardens. This leader said that we could use this as a great tool in teaching our kids and helping them learn valuable lessons about the gospel and other such topics. I thought it sounded nice, but Drew was totally on board! The next day we emailed the garden rep and reserved a plot. Has anyone ever tried to garden with a 2 year old and an 11 month old? I wonder if this leader was thinking about families with older children when he gave the directive. I must have said to Drew at least 400 times in the last month, "this is not working". Let me explain. Over three days (not consecutive for sanity sake) we logged about 10 hours working on our garden plot just to get the soil ready. It was really hard clay and we had to do a lot. This already looks like a great lesson right? I can recite the parable of the sower and the seeds to my children, or tell them about how hard work can pay off, and relate it to how when they are on missions some people need more "prepping" than others, and that every little contact they make helps someone become prepared for the seed of the gospel. Oh, ya, I had some awesome lessons on the back burner. INSTEAD this is how it really went down. "Brooklyn get back here, we will play with the toys later, it is garden time" "No its not time to leave we just got here" "I thought YOU were watching him! Crap" "Get that out of your mouth, yucky" "Do you think organic means the same thing as non-toxic?" "If you run away one more time I swear..." "ug, lets just go home" " how much do you think a pre-made garden costs?" "I hate you clay" "fine, fine, lets just go home and forget the whole thing". And that was just the first 30 minutes. Drew however was faithful and patient with ALL of us (including me) and we finally got the whole thing prepped and planted. He keeps reassuring me that this is good for the kids and that they are learning through our example (which based on what I just described to you may not be a good thing). I will admit though, that when we went to water last evening. It was beautiful and Brookie really seemed to enjoy the hose and she only impulse stomped on the flowers once! So heres to the garden and to lessons learned. Maybe the lesson they will take with them is that it is truly a miracle when a family plants a garden together and is still talking to eachother at the end of the day :).

Poop is expensive

Yes, you read that right. Poop is expensive. Let me explain. Remember way back when we were starting to potty train Brookie cause we had the flu so we were home all week so I decided to attack the job. Well, more than 6 months later it is still a work in progress. My kids were super sick this week so we really drove home the whole poop in the potty thing since we were going to be home all week. And.... wonder of wonders,MIRACLE of miracles, she pooped in the potty!!! She was crying and throwing a fit and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Naturally we put her in time out for the fit and she started tooting, alot. So I grabbed her and took her to the potty and she cried and wanted to hold my hand. After several minutes of hardship, wabam!! I was so excited that I got caught up in the moment. We sang, we danced, she got 2 prizes from the prize bag and we had cookies and icecream. Needless to say that she is now sold on the whole pooping in the potty gig (although she still wakes up with poopy diapers). Unfortunately since I started with such a bang, she expects it every time. These prizes are going like candy (cause most of them are candy).So, like I said, poop is expensive.

thanks moms

So I woke up this morning and got ready for church and as I looked at my outfit this scripture popped into my head...

I was naked and you clothed me.

I realized that without my mom, and mother-in-law, I would be naked. Here's the run down...

Earings and necklace : hand-me-downs from my MIL

White shirt: hand-me-down from my mom

Yellow under shirt: HMD from my MIL

Skirt: HMD from my mom

White Shoes: HMD from my mom

So, what I am trying to say is thank you to the moms in my life, whithout whom I wouldn't have made it out the door dressed!!

Heart-A-Tack!!!!!!

Ok, so now that we are safely back home here in CO, I can tell you about my heart attack in Utah. It was the middle of the night and T-Ray started crying so I went to get him and make a bottle. When I went in the kids room I didn't see Brook, but just thought she was under the sheets. I passed T over to Drew in our room and proceeded to the bathroom (cause you know when I am awakened in the night, so is my bladder ((and I always have to mention pee or poo in my posts)) ) ANYWAYS, on the way to the bathroom I decided to check on Brook. I went in the room and looked on her bed. She wasn't there. I checked the sides of the bed and she wasn't there either. I figured that she had snuck into Grammy and Grandpas bed. I knocked on their door and creeked it open. I asked if Brook was in there and Grammy said, no. Then a wave of blood rushed to my extremedies and I began a mad dash through the house yelling, "Brook, Brook, BROOK, BBBRRRROOOOOOOOKKKKK!!!!!" my voice growing louder with every vacant room. By this time I had woken up the whole house. I ran to the garage and checked there. I looked outside in the dog house and in the garden. When I came in the house again and saw Drew standing there saying, "where is she?" I almost died. Rushing through my head were names like Elizabeth Smart, Maddie McCann, and Jonbenet Ramsey. I was on the verge of the biggest panic attack I have ever had (even typing this makes my anxiety go up) when my Father-in-law came in saying, I found her. (HUGE RUSH OF RELEIF) followed by many tears and silent prayers praising Heavenly Father for keeping my baby safe. So where was she? Under the bed!!!! What?? Yup! Totally asleep and barely skinny enough to shimmy under there. We had to rug burn her face to get her out (how she got there?? a mystery that only Houdini baby could answer). Anyway, she didn't even wake up! But the rest of us did! It sounds lame typing it, but I have NEVER been soooo frightened in my entire life. I just can't even imagine how those parents cope with it, when their babies really are taken in the shadows of the night without anyone hearing it.

Anyway, thought I would share how I had my first heart attack.

the least of my problems

Sad, sad sad sad sad sad SAD!!! So poop is now the least of my worries. We are actually having an awesome vacation in good ole Hurricane, UT, but Brookie my dear has gone nuts. She is sooooo excited to be at grammie and grandpa's house that she has turned into a little puppy. You know the kind, when they get excited the pee all over the place. Yup, thats my baby girl. She peed her pants 5 times within a few hours. So needless to say, pooping in the potty is no longer the goal. Side note, Brookie never peed her pants for me cause she was so excited, should I be offended?

Anyway, here is Drewby on the scooter with Brook

This shot is a classic. Who else can chill redneck style with their mother-in-law? This was just a little of the Oklahoma coming out...and yes, I did actually shoot those guns and almost hit the target! The one I was holding scared me so bad when it went off that I almost didn't get my potty treat that day, hehe.

Backfire

...the poop saga continued...

So, my mom gave me a good suggestion that I thought would really work. She told me to go to the store and get some toys and treats that Brookie really wants, but never gets. Then everytime she goes poop in the potty, to give her one. She said the trick is to give yourself one when you go poop too, so that Brookie sees that the prizes are related. Follow me? k, so we went to Target (love that dollar spot) and got all sorts of really fun little toys. This was Monday morning. Not to be too gross, but I had some opportunities to show Brookie how we earn a prize. I would show her, go pick out my prize, and play with it in front of her. This has got to work, right? It made her so mad! She was wailing cause she didn't get a prize. We have ground it into her head that she gets one if she goes poop in the potty. Well, then she throws this curve ball at us. She has not pooped since Sunday. Not in the potty, not in her pants, not in her diapers! I am a little concerned. For some kids that might be normal, but my little princess usually poops several times a day. So, now I am sooooo paranoid about the huge explotion lurking around the corner. I guess the good part is that I have had quite a bit of fun these last few days, playing with my bubbles, my ring pop, my cow pen, and my stickers. (side note, I do feel like a jerk everytime she watches me play with my fun toys, especially since I don't know what the hold up is --pun intended!)

Easter

What do you mean i'm late. I'm just really early for next year.

Here is T man enjoying his Easter feast

Brookie at the easter egg hunt my friend put on, thanks Lindee

Brookies first basket at home.

Ok, so this is why we do it right. This made all the work and hastle worth it!

Right here she was saying, 'I love easter basket!'

march/april 2010

So this is the what I salvaged when Brookie got a little too excited for .........

This activity. It was our first year and it was really fun.

Maybe we should check their vision...I would probably be more motivated to turn the tv off if it didnt buy me that 5 minute snooze every morning. 10 points if you can name the show, and sing the closing song.

hehe, I hate when Drew does this to me, but it's cute when I do it to him!

So I usually don't save my wrappers, but this was DIVINE. Luna bar, white chocolate macadamia---yum yum yum!!!!!!!!111

my day

So I just got off the phone telling my mom my sob story and she was laughing and said, you gotta post this so someone can have a good laugh even if it's not you. So, for all you sick people out there that laugh at my pain ;) here you go. Last night we went to my birthday dinner since tonight is busy and tomorrow is Sunday. At dinner, T-ray threw up on the table. We came home embarassed and went to bed. At around 2 am, Brookie came into our room (my side of course) and threw up on me/the bed/ the nice dry clean only pillow. Drew called dibs on taking care of T-ray before I could speak up. Brookie threw up one more time last night and I managed to get it in the bowl. Today, of all Saturdays is the RMPA which is a Psychology conference and its here in Denver, so Drew is gone to that. Naturally, the kids and I watched Cars, then Bugs Life, then Cars again. I was feeling quite lethargic so I took the kids outside to kick the soccer ball for a minute. The soccer playing spawned some nice diahrea from T so we headed inside to clean that up. While walking inside Brookie announced, "I poo pooed". Argggggggggggggg. So I told her to just stand there for a minute and that she was in trouble. She was not happy about this and I thought, "good!!!" I cleaned T, then grabbed Brookie by the leg and arm and hauled her to the bathroom. While stripping her down I got poop on my hand!!! Gross!! The hand with my wedding ring, double gross!!! I put her in the shower and started pouring water on her bum, (I couldn't bring myself to turn the shower on). She was shivering, I was feeling like a crappy mom and then she turned and said through her quivering lips, "are you sick of it?" and I said, "as a matter of fact, yes, I am sick of it!!" Needless to say, our poop saga continues.

Poop Advise

Well, as the title so clearly states, I need poop advise. Not for me, I am actually doing quite well, but for my daughter. She has not peed her pants in over 3 weeks (yeah!!!!), BUT or should I say BUTT she has also not pooped in the tiolet in the last 3 weeks. Where is this poop hiding you might ask? In her pants, on her bedroom floor, on the kitchen floor, and waiting for me every morning in her night time diaper. So what should I do??? We have tried time out and making her sit on the toilet for long time periods after each stinky accident, neither of which is working. I don't like the idea of really harsh punishments, and I would totally reward her for pooping in the toilet, but she hasn't! Any great advise? Cause if you can't trust the whole blogging world, who can you trust?

Signed,
Poopless in Seattle, I mean Denver

i hate when

...I get so backed up that I have a million things to post but I only have enough time to do the oldest one..so get excited for our Easter post some time around the 4th of July.

Drew and I went on a little get-a-way. It was awesome!!! We went on a two day, one night ski weekend without the kids. Yup, you read that right. We left plenty of food and water for the kids and told Brookie to lock the door, (remember when you could do things like that, well Idon't but I have heard of crazy things my grandma used to do). Anyways, no, our totally awesome friends took the kids for us. The great thing is that since we are on a tight budget (but still need our sanity), this was my birthday/ our anniversary/ mother's day/ father's day/ Drew's graduation (ps, he passed his thesis defence, yeah, and now has his Masters only 3 years to go)/ Easter/ Memorial Day/ 4th of July present!

Room with a view

Hot stuff!! and Drew, haha just kidding

The Honeymooners

One more view, with no kids Drew and I slept for 12 hours! That and the 7 hours of skiing that day knocked us out.

too late?

We are now 5 days into our binky-less, consequently nap-less week and I just have one question. Is it too late to just give her the binkies back?

People Lied

So, people lied. They said that the best thing to do when it comes time to binky weening is to involve the child. To mail the binkies off to some child that really needs it and then to cut the child off cold turkey cause the binkies were now with some needy children in Africa. Lots of people said this including smart book writing people. The reason we have had so much time to read and listen to so many people is because I have been procrastinating this day for a very long time. It was first that we would do it when she turned 1, but we were getting rid of the bottle and just trying to get her on a good enough sleep schedule that I wouldn't die when T-Ray was born. Then the goal was moved to 18 months. That flew out the window cause T was a newborn and mommy and daddy needed sleep no matter how many binkies it took. Then the goal was when she was 2 but we were potty training and she was moved to a big girl bed and we thought that was too many changes all at once. Well, alas, I have no more excuses so here I am with tears in my ears, yes, MY eyes. Let me explain. Binky weening sounds easy enough until you do it for the first time. I was nervous and didn't really know what to do. Since I didn't think Brook would notice the difference, I just labeled the envelope, "poor babies" thats who we were sending the binkies to. I started by saying, "Now Brookie, there are poor babies who need your binkies..." to which she interrupted, "no there not! I want my binkies.." (gigantic tears welling up in her eyes). The worst part is that she wasn't yelling, it was a quiet pleading. I was determined to be strong. I continued, "...so I am putting your binkies in this envelope and we are going to mail (sniff sniff) them (sniff sniff)..." I couldn't even finish the sentence! I was in tears. Brook was giving me the most desperate look of pleading as she quietly cried, you know those little tears rolling down her cheeks and she just wispered, "no". People lied! This wasn't the easy way, NO WAY. I should have just pretended that they were lost or the all to familiar, "we can't afford them" might have worked. But now her little heart was broken and she and I knew that it was all MY FAULT. I couldn't take it anymore. I know that I sound like such a bad mom, but I wanted her to like me, or at least not hate me! So I did the only thing I could do, I turned to Drew and bawled out the words, "I can't do this!!!!" To which he chuckled and grabbed the binkies and turned to Brook and said, "say bye bye!". Then he walked outside and threw them in the dumpster. Yes, I made Drew be the bad guy, and it kindof worked. We have be taking turns consoling Brook with her new book and new stuffed animal and treats and water and the whole night she has been saying, "daddy take my binkies away!". So, I am a bad mom and a very bad wife, but Brookie still loves me and people lied! Wish us luck, its gonna be a long week.

Dear Craig

Dear Craig,

I love your list! Yes it is true that in the past I bought things that I didn't need for money that I didn't have and wasted so much gas money driving to far off place that it wasn't even that great of a deal. And it might also be said that I wasted hours and hours perusing the free section just thinking of all of the amazing things that I could do with all of that free junk. And I might have wasted an afternoon or two driving as fast as I could to the "first come, first shot" adds only to be bested by the real craig's listers, which by the way if Curling is an Olympic sport than certainly Craig's Listing should qualify. And not to mention the creep-os who use your list as a weapon to pray on the weak and naive. All that being said, I still love your list. We sold our car in less than 24 hours on your list and we bought furniture from your list with the winnings. We have bought luggage racks and camping gear and ski equipment and sconces. But the real reason for this letter is my latest find. My new bike trailer!!!! I love it!! The great thing is that some people post things for sale without watching the craigs list market to see what the going rate is and they WAY underestimate what they can get for their old junk. We found such a sorry soul, and walked away with our two seater, fully collapsable, red and yellow bundle of joy for only $40, plus we took our children with us when we bought it and the nice lady threw in an old kids bike that her son doesn't ever ride anymore. I knew that Brookies big beautiful blue puppy dog eyes would come in handy one day. So Craig, thank you, despite all your flaws I am a loyal fan and peruser!!

Sincerely,
Me

Ps. no phone calls please, and only serious buyers need reply, price is firm.

12:30

Florida Hill. Bike. Dead.

about time

S0, I guess it's about time that I blog again. We have been busy, happy but busy. So enjoy.

I have to admit that I am in love!!!! Yes, with Drew, but more recently with.......

Ta-Da

My wonderful brother-in-law gave me this bike and my beautiful friend let me borrow her bike trailer (which I am totally in the market of buying one if anyone knows of a good deal). We have been having sooooo much fun going on rides but I have to say that I am shocked. Not that we were having fun but that it is such a hard work out!! I know that sounds silly, but I was trying to come up the hill on Dayton and I had to get off and start walking cause I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest. Maybe it's my "husky" baby.
The kids seemed to enjoy it too. Random note: Brookies new favorite phrase is "let me do it BY MYSELF!!!!" I probably hear that 25-4000 times a day.

This is proof that we can totally handle another kid! (no this is not an announcement). Simply saying that Brookie looks totally fine with this, right?

So I have to explain why I would include a pic of my pig-sty living room. Partly so none of you are shocked when you come over, and I can stop apologizing for the mess, but mostly to explain my new phiosophy. So this last Friday I watched kids for two of my friends. It totally worked out cause they all got along really well. I decided that I could either run around after them and be totally stressed out about the messes they were making and get upset and frustrated and be totaly ticked by the time Drew got home, OR, I could just let it go and enjoy my time with them. I will admit, it was awesome. I didn't care about anything that they spilt or did and I didn't worry about the mess that it would produce that would later need to be cleaned. I came to a conclusion at the end. I would make an awesome dad!! This is no offense to dads, especially Drew, but now I know what it feels like to just enjoy the kids and not have the house on my mind as well. Unfortunately I did pay for my "dad" time later when I really did have to clean up, but it was fun while it lasted.

Pic of the three girls. They are so stinkin cute!!!