Author: soggycheerios

*I can’t find one of Alyssa’s church sandals–she has worn last years sandals for two weeks in a row–her toes hang over the edge.

*On my bed lays a mountain of laundry waiting to be folded, and it probably wont be folded today

*I ate half a box of Nilla Wafer’s today, and I hate Nilla Wafers

*Don’t open my pantry

*The bottom of my diaper bag is scary, smashed dried raisins, sticky sucker with no wrapper… most of it is unidentifiable.  I’ll probably huck it instead of clean it when I’m done being a mom of babies

*Unfinished sewing projects plague me, but not enough to finish them

*I enjoy watching TLC’s show called Hoarders it makes me not feel so bad about my own house keeping skills

I’m not sure where I’m headed with this, just keeping it real I think.  Often there is so much we don’t see in others, it’s easy to get caught up in the “Grass is Greener”.  I sometimes have to step back and remind myself that life is not a race, the only person I’m competing against is myself.

How about a few more confessions?  Alyssa has been having a hard time staying in bed.  The best way to keep her in her bed is to threaten to take away her pillow and special blanket.  Well once the threat is out there there has to be a follow through.  Most nights the threat is enough.  Last night she decided to call my bluff, so she lost her pillow and blanket.  Needless to say she was very upset.  Aubrey and Alyssa sleep together in a Queen sized bed.  When all was quiet Danny went to return her treasures to her and found that Aubrey had shared her pillow with Alyssa.  Now I’m not sure if this is a “good job Mom” moment or not.  It’s good in one way that Alyssa stayed in bed, hopefully learned that the threat will be followed through with.  It’s good that we’ve raised a little girl to have compassion and to share and comfort her sister in time of need.  Or is it bad that my 5 year old had to play Mommy and take care of her sister?  I’m torn, but found it sweet nonetheless.

My master closet had become quite the nightmare.  I’ve been trying to do one Spring Cleaning project every week, and decided to start here.  I pulled 8 garbage bags worth of stuff to donate or just get rid of.  How liberating it was.  I am no longer haunted by my closet.  I do wonder if Alyssa missing sandal went out in one of the bags… I’ve looked everywhere else.

Before

After

The top of the kitchen cabinets got a thorough cleaning also. I’ve never been good at decorating over the tops of cabinets, so I’ve decided to just not decorate up there, less things to dust right?

OK, now you all know some of my dirty little secrets.

Tanner has recently become obsessed with Chess.  No one wanted to be his chess buddy so I suggested that he teach Aubrey.  She has become a Chess maniac.  I titled this post Chest, because I can’t seem to get her to understand that the game is Chess, not Chest… oh well.  Those two play game after game, and everyone gets involved.  Aubrey beat him for the first time today, watch out Tanner, I think you have created a monster.

I wanted SUNSHINE, and somewhere close.  Vegas was the closest warmest place I could think of, but there is the yuck that comes with Vegas.  So I took it as my personal quest to make Vegas a family friendly vacation destination.  I started with where we were going to stay.  I really didn’t want to be in the big hotels and casinos, so I stumbled upon the Desert Paradise Resort.  It had 2 bedrooms, full kitchen, laundry room, dining room, outdoor patio, and most important a heated pool.  I was able to get it for not much more than a couple of hotel rooms that would have been required of us if we’d stayed at a traditional hotel.

Red Rock Canyon, was first on my list of un-Vegas things to do.  We had so much fun.  We found a waterfall and were able to go behind it and find a cave on the back side.  The kids climbed on the rocks, played in the water, and explored everywhere.  The rocks were perfect for climbing and there was no problem with too many people. Did I mention it was warm?

“Can we go swimming?”  is what I heard at 6:00 every morning.  Alyssa didn’t care what time of day it was, she wanted to go swimming.  This was hands down Alyssa’s favorite activity, and the rest of the kids didn’t seem to mind it either.

Playing at the park and the temple

A little Las Vegas is OK…  Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay and a day on the strip.  If you are a Nevada Resident you get a discount!

Saturday, April 3

Egg Hunt at the University of Nevada, Reno

Dying Eggs

Oops- the first dropped egg

Goodies from Grandma

Easter Morning

I didn’t get a lot of pictures on Easter morning, just too much going on.  We all enjoyed a Sabbath Day at home watching conference and eating peeps (can’t have an Easter without Peeps).  We didn’t have a fancy Easter dinner we were headed to Vegas the next morning, and I didn’t want leftovers to go to waste.  I did have a brunch with cinnamon rolls, fruit smoothies, yogurt, bagels with salmon cream cheese, bacon, scrambled eggs.  We ate on that most of the day and were able to enjoy some of the left overs on our trip.

Poor little Hallie is sick.  This is a first for her so I’m counting myself lucky.  I swear I can smell an ear infection, so now I need to decide if I try and let her fight it, or if I just take her in and get it taken care of.  In the past I’ve had the most luck with letting them fight it.  Aubrey had horrible ear infections.  The doctor put her on antibiotics every time, and they eventually came back.  Finally I told the doctor I just wanted to watch it, and she was game to try, she never had another ear infection.  I hate seeing them so sick and miserable.  She spent most of last night sleeping either on my chest or next to Danny.

What does this say about my girls?  Why can’t they just play with Polly dolls the right way? I’ve been finding these all around the house the last few days. (The baggies are filled with water)

I put my first quilt binding on the other day.  I was very nervous about it, and have been putting it off.  The last time I attempted a binding it turned out so horrible, I left half hanging off and hucked it in the garbage I was so frustrated with the whole project.  Alyssa dug it out and has taken a liking to it so I cut off the hanging chunks and gave it to her.  I asked a friend for some advice, and she told me to pin.  So I pinned, and pinned and pinned, using every pin I owned, sewed very slowly and it turned out mediocre if you look closely, but from a distance not too bad.  Now someone needs to teach me the trick to mitered corners.  I would like to try a little more complicated quilt also, but baby steps is the only way I seem to learn, one thing at a time.

I have mentioned in a previous post I’ve been on a skirt kick.  I finally got one pretty close to perfect the other day.  It turned out so cute.  I tried to get a picture, but there was no cooperation on the end of the unmentioned child.  For some reason she seems to be allergic to the sun and her eyes wouldn’t stop watering even though she was in the shade.  I didn’t want to get frustrated right before church so I let it go.  I’ll get one next week even if she is crying in it.

Now I just need  a sewing work station, I’m getting tired of cleaning up the dining room before dinner every night.

Alyssa:  “That’s dic-less, huh mommy?”  Then looks to me for verification that she is using the word correctly.

Me: With a smile on my face trying to hold my composure.  “Yes, Alyssa, that is RIDICULOUS”  (in so many ways).

From day 1 Alyssa has been a finger sucker.  I tried every pacifier on the market to try and convince her that sucking her fingers was a bad idea, I finally gave up and embraced my little finger sucker.  She has always been so quiet, and content, and easy, if she got upset she just sucked her fingers.  I admit, I could see a good side to this self soothing thing.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to break her of the habit, and worried about it.  After some research I decided to see if it wouldn’t just solve itself.  When she turned 3 she showed no sign of slowing so I decided to just try one time to see if we could break the habit.  She was excited about it, and wanted to stop and was all game to try.  I painted some of that nasty tasting finger stuff on her fingers and that was the end of the story.  She must of been more than ready to give up the habit because it took only that one day, and she hasn’t gone back. I’ve been waiting to make this post to see if it would last but we are more than a month clean of finger sucking, I’m declaring a victory.

Now one might thing that I would be overjoyed over this, and I am.  But, this great success has come with some odd side effects.  Alyssa, my quiet sweet little princess is not so… hmmm, QUIET any more.  Yack, yack, yack, all the time and opinionated too.  She has also become a hazard to take out.  Before I could barely get her to talk to other people, now she looks for all opportunities to ask strangers questions.  A few weeks ago we were getting the van fixed, and we had to wait for a couple of hours at the dealership.  She had quite the smorgasbord of people to torment.  I purposely sat away from the lady without teeth, then there was the lady with the giant snake tattooed in between her bosom, so we sat next to a grandma.  Then the grandma spoke, and was obviously a smoker.  So Alyssa pipes up, “are you a boy or a girl?”  Oy!  Then she asks her where her daddy is.  The lady goes on to tell her that her Daddy got into a wreck and the car hit him so hard that his head was knocked all the way off his shoulders and onto the floor.  Hmmm, tattoo snake lady is looking like the safer choice.  I offered Alyssa some crayons and paper that the dealership had out.  They had those cheap crayons that don’t work, and Alyssa decided someone in charge needed to know.  She marched right up to the gentleman behind the desk and asked him to make the crayons work, and wanted to know why they had crayons that didn’t work.  He was a good sport about it.  I think they moved my car to the front of the line, because we were out of there in seconds after this.

I’m proud of my big girl, and as awkward as some of her talking has become I’m happy to see my little turtle come out of her shell.  Although I might, maybe miss, just a little bit, the “I’m mad so I’m going to my room to suck my fingers” response to things.  I love this being a mother thing.

I’ve been sewing skirts, just sharing my latest creation.  They are so easy I can whip one out in a couple of hours from start to finish, now if I could just get my sewing machine to give me a nice consistent stitch I’d be happy.  Luckily for me Alyssa demands to wear a skirt daily, so she’s more than happy to have me on a skirt kick.

“Ring, ring, ring, Hullo…”

“Uh Hi, Honey?… How’s work?”

“Good, I’m down 3 men today, the server at … blah, blah, blah and we were able to recover, blah, blah, so cool, blah, blah.  Did you need something, I know you didn’t call to hear my computer garble.”

“I’m so sorry, my back… sob, sob, sob, the baby is crying, sob, sob, sob, I’m so sorry, sob, sob, sob.”

“I can leave at noon, does that work”

I say Yes, in my mind I’m screaming NO.  Danny got home just in time.  Alyssa was sitting on the toilet needing a serious wiping, and the baby was hungry and I was frozen in my spot wondering how I got into this mess.

I’m tough, I go to bed, real tough huh?  Spend the next 3 days there, telling Danny that tomorrow I’ll be better, tomorrow comes, no luck, tomorrow, nope, tomorrow, hmmm.  Now what?

My good friend, convinced me to call a chiropractor, I couldn’t get into her person, so I find another recommendation.  I had no idea what to expect, but was prepared for some sort of chain, and traction type table, along with other torture type instruments, that will surely be covered in metal spikes.

The guy quickly tells me that I have two vertebrae that are locked into an unnatural position.  Hmmm, this is costing me how much?  He has me get into a pretzel like position, and I feel like I’m going to fall off the table, he tells me that he’s only ever dropped 3 people and to relax (ha).  I tell him that I’m almost certain to be his 4th.  He strikes like a cat when I’m nervously chatting, POP, crap, what the heck… He says to roll over and we’ll do it again on the other side.  I do, but this time I’m on to his trick, and my muscles tense up and there is no way he’s going to catch me off guard again.  He says something about knowing my type… (control freak).  He’s says to come back on Wednesday he has some other tricks up his sleeve.  I did feel a lot better.  It’s a miracle, I’m ready to hand over my first born, but he warns me that what he did is going to hurt and that ice will be my friend.  I don’t use it, in my mind all was well.  So on the way home I call the kids, tell them to have shoes on and balls ready we’re going to the park.  We get to the park, and I try to jump out of the car and show these kids how to shoot some hoops, when I realize that I’m in a lot of pain.  I’m walking, but one foot is dragging, Danny teases me a little, and the kids run circles around my pathetic limb dragging person.  Sigh.  I went and sat on a bench until I started shivering and drug my leg to the van.  Danny fixed dinner, we had FHE on my bed.  The kids all stood on my bed while singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  It was cute, but maybe a little bit of a dig since there was no way I could touch my knees or toes.  Funny, aren’t they?

I’m still not sure how I feel about the chiropractor, I’m assuming this is going to take time, and that is one thing I don’t have.