I sure love these guys!

LA part 2

There was just so much about LA that we saw and did, I thought that I would show you another couple of photos. We went on a tour and they took us to Rodeo Drive. It was fun, though I didn't bother going in to any of the stores (I didn't want to be tempted). We did however buy shoes at the Nike just across the street from Rodeo Drive. Does that count?

It was really fun seeing all the foot and hand prints.

Once again, my favorite part of the trip. Venice beach was so laid back.

I heart palm trees. They are so pretty!

Sunny Los Angeles

As most of you know, Kaye and I took a little trip down to the land of celebrities (though we didn't actually see any of them) and sun. My wonderful mother agreed to take my 3 older kids so that we could have a little vacation away from life. We had a wonderful time. Here is a couple pics from the trip.

Rhys and me on the marina at Marina Del Ray. It was beautiful there.
Kaye and 2 creepy Jack Sparrow actors who hang around the walk of fame hoping they are noticed. What a life!

Rhys' first trip to the beach. This is on Venice beach....which was probably my favorite place we went to. So amazingly beautiful and calming. I would move there if I could!

One of the five remaining canals in Santa Monica. Imagine having your house back onto a canal. So cool! It was unbelievably beautiful there!

Nursing with freaky nose drips....

I was sitting there nursing my little Rhys and as I was doing that I noticed, and not for the first time, his nose dripping milk. Is that weird? I mean, is this a common occurrence? I have nursed all 4 of my children and none of the others have dripped milk from their noses while they nurse. Has this happened to anyone else? Just curious. I thought that it was a tad weird.

Elmo was a prophet...

Colby is walking around the house singing 'Follow The Prophet.' Very cute. Well really, only the first two lines. Anyway, I wasn't really paying much attention to what he was saying but when I did, it was too funny. He was singing Elmo was a prophet. When I corrected him and said that it was actually Adam, he was adamant that it wasn't. He said that it was Elmo. Then, I figured out that he meant Alma. I told him that and he said, "Oh yeah, that's what I mean. But I call her Elmo." I didn't even bother to correct him that time. He really makes my day!

The ugliest toy known to man....

It's a blow up punching bag. It was a frill necked lizard or something, until you blow it up. The mouth is actually a little tube that you blow into, then roll up and stick inside the hole which reminds me of a freaky belly button. It was $2.69 and Elijah and Colby both wanted one. I'm a sucker for cheap toys. I know....it's super freaky.

Glue Happy

I did post this on facebook, but I thought I would rewrite it for any who missed it. It was classic Colby.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed some white stuff on the floor, which I realized was white school glue. I didn't quite get it, until I noticed some more a little ways off. After further investigation, I found glue on 2 stools, under a cup, a bowl, and my chocolate milk syrup. I found Colby with the glue bottle....of course.

Mom: Colby, what are you doing?!?
Colby: (Moan) Ugh.......(drops the glue bottle right at his feet and walks away).

I proceeded to clean up all the glue. Later that night, as I was making the treat for FHE, I found glue on another stool. Elijah brought me a car key, covered in, you guessed it, white glue.

I sat down at my computer desk this morning to find glued to it a business card from the Australian Consulate, a green sheet of paper that said "Blessed are the peacemakers", my mouse pad, and a ballpoint pen. As I sat to type this entry, I tried to move a little toy cell phone and, yep, it's stuck to the desk too!

When I questioned Colby once again, his reply was, "I have no idea what I was doing."

Typical.

Yes, my house is that messy that I have various things littering the surfaces of everything.

P.S. I did take the glue away from him the first time. I obviously just didn't hide it well enough.

Creepy, creepy corn...seriously!

Last night for supper, I thought I would whip out some frozen corn...among other things. I know, fancy eh? I just slit open the top of what looked like a perfectly harmless bag of corn and proceeded to dump the corn into a bowl. Instead of normal, yellow corn, I found........



that my corn was covered in blood! BLOOD! Seriously! Can we say freaky?! This picture doesn't even really cover the extent of the blood that was in that bag of corn. I wonder what the Green Giant people will think? Oh, and NO, I did not serve this to my family. ;)

Words of Wisdom......

Not mine! I need some!

Question of the hour.....I love my children, really really do. But, I do NOT love their screaming. Ever since moving to lovely Trochu and having absolutely no friends, my children's screaming has increased dramatically. I get phone calls from people asking if there is something (behaviourly speaking) wrong with Elijah and openly wondering why my children do no have laryngitis! Oh, and let's not forget about the grocery store incident. It's bad...really bad....and if I don't do something about it soon, I am pretty sure I won't have any hair, or eyebrows for that matter, by the end of the summer. All my super smart mommy friends, I am in need of suggestions. Any ideas to help them quiet down that they might actually think is fun? I'd love to know what tricks you can come up with!

Love,

Going crazy and losing my hearing while I'm at it!

Summer fun in B.C.

We had a wonderful time in B.C. We visited all the cousins...of which there are many, we swam, and swam, and swam some more. That's what happens in high 30 weather! And, we relaxed. Awesome!

Okay, truthfully. I'm blogged out for a minute. I have a REALLY poopy baby who just pooped in my favorite sleeper. I better go deal with it before anything 'happens'. We had a good time. :)

My baby the nine year old!

I cannot believe how time flies. I DO NOT feel old enough to have a nine year old son. Wait! I'm really not old enough to have a nine year old son...but you know what I mean. He is just growing up too fast. But, either way, it was his birthday on the tenth. He loved his party and had a great time with his friends.

This one, named Christian, is my favorite. He is sweet, polite, gentle.....the friendly giant. That's how I think of him. He's got at least a good 2-3 inches on me. He's one big boy....but has such a big heart. He's so cute :)

When I was growing up, we played flour mountain at all of Jocelyn Hills birthday parties. I LOVED flour mountain. Now my kids LOVE flour mountain. Thanks Bro. and Sis. Hill. This game will go down in the "favorites" book.

Baby Bums and Matching Plaid Pants

I realize that it has been forever since I blogged last. Summer is always such a busy time, not to mention the task of watching all five seasons of Grey's Anatomy in about a months time (including all the time we went on vacation). I know, I'm totally pathetic. By the way, I am DYING for season 6 to premiere. What will happen with Izzie?!? I've been told George dies! Why does George have to die???? This is totally why I abstain from TV BTW. I get more than a little obsessed. Sorry, I digress.

I've decided to jump back on the bandwagon and blog my guts out today:)

First off......Notice this sleeper. I LOVE this sleeper. I would even venture to say that this is my favorite sleeper. This sleeper has the little "snugabye" socky things and the hand ones as well so your favorite little one doesn't gouge his eyes out. It is a light weight fuzzy material that has amazing stretch. It may not be pretty, but it's like the king of all comfy sleepers. And...........my favorite part of all..........


The gathered back!!! What is cuter than the gathered back? I just LOVE it. :) It's a Baby Bonds sleeper from Australia. Australia has the best baby clothes ever. Honestly, all of my favorite baby clothes have come from Australia.

And the second item in this particular post.....the matching plaid pants! On Sunday, we had Kaye's brother and sister in law over. Both their son Koen and Colby came marching upstairs in their matching pants.....SO cute. The funny thing was, they were both just a little bit too short of them. Those two are so silly.

Most of my labours have been "normal"...in a way. I never had any sort of pre-labor contractions, my water was broken by the doctor, I pushed my kids out...you know, the usual. This one was a tad different from my first 3 experiences. Kathy was right when she said that number 4 is the easiest....and wrong too.



Dr. Onsongo...doctor extraordinaire.

With Rhys, I had contractions for a week prior to actually delivering. I had been locked tight like a vault with each of my others, right up until delivering. With Rhys, I was 2 cm dilated the week before. I was thrilled. That had to mean baby soon right? Wrong! For some unknown reason, this little turkey was so stubborn, he pretty much refused to show his little face.

The "hot" nurse Lane, Kaye was more than happy to sit and chat to for hours.

I had been "leaking" some fluid for about a week and at 5:00 on Sunday morning, I felt more than just a little come out. My water had broken. I was so excited. Today was the day, I thought...incorrectly. We got up, got the kids ready, took them to the branch president's house, and headed to Olds.

Once we got there, we got all set up in a gown, hooked up to monitoring, and got "checked". I was already 4 cm. I was thrilled. With essentially no pain at all, I had gotten almost half way! Unfortunately, that was as far as I got on my own though. I walked and bounced on the ball. I prayed and prayed and still nothing.

My doctor said that she wouldn't leave me more than 24 hours with my water broken. That gave me a small amount of comfort. At least I knew that it would be over in at least 24 hours. She was sure that I would go on my own though, considering that I was already 4 cm and my water had broken. She stripped my membranes -- very hard -- and left me to sit again. Still, nothing happened.

Finally, the next morning, the doctor came in to checked me again, and then put me on the drip. I was not looking forward to the intense contractions. Luckily, nothing like that happened. Contractions were supposed to start in about 45 minutes. Mine took about 3 hours. The best part was, they didn't hurt. I only really had about 10 or so hard contractions that I had to concentrate and breath through. That was the "easier than all the rest part."

Once I got to the pushing stage, I was terrified!! No epidural again, thanks to a lovely nurse who wouldn't check me. I did not feel like going through that again! But, it was a no-go so I just sucked it up and pushed. With the first push, Rhys' head came out. Unfortunately, that was the last contraction that I had. I was in extreme pain, I had no idea what was going on or how successful my one push was, and all of the sudden the doctor was getting the nurses to rip my legs up and open and kept telling me to cough. Not really realizing why, I coughed and coughed and coughed and coughed. I coughed the rest of his body out. That was the "harder" part.

After he was out, they told me that my contractions had stopped causing Rhys' shoulder (which is huge) to get stuck. My doctor had to get me to cough and she pulled. He wasn't breathing when he came out, but perked up after some work done on him.

I had never heard that you could cough your baby out but there it is.

Of course, the girl right next to me had a girl. Go figure.

The things you forget you missed...

Things like adorable baby bums in their snuggly diapers!

Fuzzy shoulders that are so soft, you just can't stop yourself from rubbing them.

And...babies who love to snuggle.

You forget these things when your babies get bigger. I forgot things like the smell of babies breath and how you can stare at them for hours at a time without getting bored.

I also forgot about the fact that you get puked on every 5 seconds and you go through about 10 diapers a day at least. Babies are so much work. But they are so worth it!

Rhys Robert Kronebusch

My new little babe! He was 7 pounds 11 ounces, 20 inches long. We love him! I am so glad that it's all over. Details will come later if wanted....I'm just too tired right now!

I DID IT!!!

After two long, tiring, and extremely frustrating years, I did it!! I passed my medical transcription course and am now officially a "trained" medical transcriptionist. I am so happy. I got my results this evening after a LONG two week wait, 98% on my objective portion, 89% on the transcription portion. I am now done. WOOHOO!!! Now on to task #2, pushing this baby out. EWW. Not looking forward to that.

When things go so right!

Yesterday, I went to my doctor's appointment. It was just routine. Kaye came to take care of the kids since I thought Colby would quite possibly be scarred for life after having the doctor check out things best left for when he's married. Kaye is extremely excited about having the baby and he keeps harassing me about contractions and wanting the baby to hurry up. Anyway, as I was going in, Kaye said, "Maybe the doctor will tell you that she wants to get the baby out early." Yeah, right. As if any doctor would tell a woman who has never had a problem with pregnancy that she wanted to take the baby out early just for the heck of it.

WELL, it turned out that YES!!! When she checked me yesterday, she says that my baby feels to be at least 8 pounds already, has dropped so low that it would take next to nothing to get him out, and my cervix is nice and soft and ready for labour. I am going back next week and she wants to strip my membranes really good and she hopes that will put me in labour. Of course, that isn't a guarantee, but she really wanted the baby out (she thinks that I'm done) and so I'm assuming that if my baby doesn't come soon after that, she'll talk induction. She was saying like the next 24 hours after she'd done the swipe.

Who would have guessed! I'm excited to have the baby probably by next week, 2 weeks early. Of course, my due date as per my LMP was supposed to be June 6th anyway. Still, we were working with June 19th, so I was prepared for another 3 weeks.

Oh, sidenote, I also weighed in at just 0.5 kg heavier than 5 weeks ago. Sweet! That brings the total up to only like 10 pounds this pregnancy. Of course, Elijah was like that as well and I inexplicably came out the same 15 pounds heavier even after I had him, but I'm being optimistic here. I'm happy. Gaining weight sucks. Hopefully, I'll be a mommy of 4 next week. Yeah for getting this little stinker out of me!

Apparently...I'm HUGE!

I know that I've been a boring blogger, but frankly, I don't feel like I have the energy for it...or much of anything. Though, this was on my mind so I thought I'd mention it. It is interesting to me that people are always so eager to let me know that I'm HUGE! This has been happening for about a month now. Today, it happened again. I went in to pay my town bill when a lady came out just to tell me that she saw me walking up and couldn't believe how big I was. She asked me when I was due, sure of it being any day. I told her that I had another 4 weeks, and then she proceeded to tell me that she really didn't think that I would make it that long. Really! She then told me that I looked really tired and uncomfortable. THANKS...A LOT!! Well, yes, I am uncomfortable, and yes, I am tired. Thanks for letting me know how great I look. Don't you love when people do that?

Do I really look that bad!?! I thought that I looked, if not great, not bad today. I had my hair done...okay, let's be honest, I had my hair pulled back, but it was clean, clean clothes on, I'd had a shower.....whatever.

Oh, not be best pic. Colby just took it, but frankly, I make a point of it NOT to take pregnant pictures of myself so I didn't have one on hand.

Fascinating....to me at least!

For weeks, I have been reading about this guy who is going around to all these different churches and then writing about his experience there. I knew that he had been planning a trip to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I was really anxious to hear what he would say about us. It's interesting to hear from an outside perspective what people think about us when they actually go to see for themselves without just listening to what other people think about us.

If you are interested too, you should check it out at www.stevenfuller.blogspot.com/2009/05/church-experiment-19-cherry-grove.html

Pathetic....

I've just had one of those 'wow you really are pathetic' moments. I just checked my email and realized that my daily scripture reminder GAVE UP ON ME! I was so behind in my reading it just stopped sending reminders. That is just sad! Obviously, there is something I seriously need to be working on!

Colby's birthday

Colby turned 5! I still can't believe it. My sisters put on a wonderful birthday party for him up in Edmonton...complete with spaghetti and meatballs for supper and spaghetti and meatball cupcakes. They were SO cool!

These are the sweet cupcakes. The meat balls were made out of Ferrero Rochers (is that how you spell that?) and the sauce is strawberry jam. Karen did an amazing job on them!

Am I just a cynic...or am I just sick of being pregnant?

SO.....I was doing some homework tonight and after doing this transcription, I think I want to barf. I guess I am just ridiculously grouchy and I'm just in a terrible mood....for the last couple of weeks, but really! Skip to the end, the rest is boring! "for referring this delightful gentleman to us"? This just oozes brown-nosing to me. ARG! The fake overly politeness just kills me! Wow, I really do sound like a cynic!

*Please note, I will probably return to my normal, somewhat cheerful self in about 8 weeks time. Until then......


002614

DIAGNOSIS: Pathological stage C, moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma of the prostate.
Underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy on ___. At the time of surgery, the patient was found to have a positive surgical margin in the lateral and posterior aspects of the left lobe. The patient received the following radiotherapy.
___ 25 fractions using 10 of the protons and ___ technique to the prostate bed. Following this, the patient received a boost to the prostate bed from ___ at 1978 centigray in 11 fractions using 10 of the protons in bilateral arc technique.
During therapy, the patient had complaints of urinary frequency and radiation proctitis. The patient tolerated these side effects satisfactorily.
The patient will be seen for routine followup in 1 month’s time.
Thank you very much for referring this delightful gentleman to us and it is a pleasure to participate in his health care with you.

New baby round 2

This morning we got a phone call from Kaye's brother Kurt. His wife Jen had her baby this morning! I'm very excited about it and will post a pic as soon as a get one. BUT, I just wanted to point out an injustice.

Jen woke up at approximately 12:40 (I think...if I get any of this wrong, I'll fix it later) in labour. She went to the hospital about a hour later, I believe, and delivered a healthy baby GIRL at 3:09. Does that seem fair to anyone at all???

Jen labour with 3rd child - all of about 2.5 hours.
Kristen labour with 3rd child - 12 hours.

She was obviously born to have babies! Either way, I'm super excited that I have a new niece and I'm glad to know that everything went well....even if it was a girl and she came so easily.

Oh, if anyone is interested, her name is Chloe Kristina Kronebusch.

I'm just going to sit and wait for my BOY to come now.

She just melts my heart!

There's nothing like having a little baby come into your family that you can love and snuggle....and give back when they cry! Wow....it's such a different feeling.

Just look at that squishy face!! She is just so cute it hurts to look at her!

The little boys just love Harper.

Dilemma....

Now, I realize that I do have a significant amount of time left until this new one comes...BUT Kaye and I CANNOT find a name that we both like. Literally, not even 1. I have given him options like you wouldn't believe and he says he hates ALL of them. I am flummoxed.

Names that I really like are:

1. Rhys (as in Reece)
2. Finn
3. Luca
4. Declan...love Declan
5. Sawyer
6. Rafe
7. Lachlan
8. Bodhi
9. Henry
10. Pacey...I know, I know, that really is how much I love him! (Sidenote...totally had a dream last night that I was Joey and Pacey and Dawson were fighting over me. :=) I'm such a geek!
11. Cullen
12. Deacon
13. And even though I don't think I could ever name my child this..I LOVE it! Etienne! It's just so, so, so, romantic? Is that the right word? You know what I mean.
14. Seamus (though I think that it's just to close too Marcus but I love the name)
15. Jasper

Either way, I think that I've tried pretty hard to find something there. Kaye on the other hand thinks that my choices are total crap.

I think that I need a little help. Any names that you totally love, throw them out. Maybe Kaye might actually like a name...or two. I just don't want to be sitting there in the hospital room being pushed into something stupid that I don't even know that I like. This is one of those key choices in life that you want to get right, you know?

Anyway, calling all those with opinions. Bring it on!

Beautiful Harper Grace

I have to admit, when I found out that Friday night my sister had her first child and it was a GIRL, I was jealous and a little disappointed for me. We didn't get to go up this last weekend to visit because all of my children had a rather nasty case of pink eye, but my dad did send pictures. She is just so gorgeous! I cannot wait to meet her. I'm dealing with the fact that I am going to be the only one who will be having a boy...again....and loving that I am now a full blown "blood" auntie, a first for me.

Congratulations to Chelsea and Kris! Harper is so pretty...I can't wait to give her a snuggle :) AND spoil her rotten!

Pot lucks in 3 Hills.

Now, I am in no way trying to be rude or mean about the people who I go to church with. They are mostly just nice humble people. BUT, their pot lucks are terrible. Picture this...

Creamed spinach
Plain orange jello in a 9 x 13 sprayed with some sort of canned ''whipped cream.''
Hamburger broth
Stale buns
Dry cupcakes with from the can icing
Crab salad

I guess that's what happens when you live in a branch with seniors and people with bad food allergies. You end up with only half edible food. We will be having pot lucks every 3rd Sunday of the month from now on. I can't wait!

You know they are sick when....

I have learned the importance of the flu shot. I have never bothered with them before but this week was absolutely miserable. Marcus caught something and brought it home with him on Friday or so, and each one of us has taken our turn with it. We have literally been through bottles of Tylenol for fevers, cough syrup for Marcus, and unbelievable amounts of tissue. I have not been that sick in probably 5 years. It was crazy! The last to get it is Elijah and he is just so cute when he's calm that I couldn't help but capture him sitting and NOT screaming...for once. Next year, we are all going to be getting that darn flu shot! Wow am I glad that I'm over that one!

* Note: Please ignore the state of my son's shirt. I'm sure you all understand.

I am T-I-R-E-D!!!

This morning at 9:00 a.m., my friend Trassie (Tracey...the spelling always throws me off) dropped off 4 of her 7 children so her and her husband could go to the Home and Garden show in Calgary. It was 15 minutes ago that they finally came back and picked up their kids (it's approximately 6:00 p.m.). (I honestly did know beforehand and did approve this before they left them here this long...she didn't just never come back.) She brought over her 7 year old boy, her 4 year old girl, her 2 year old girl, and her 18 month old girl. That was 7 kids for snack, 7 kids for lunch, 3 in diapers, 1 sore and pregnant mommy, 1 absent daddy (refereeing a basketball tournament AGAIN), and 1 very sick Marcus.

I have found from this experience, that I truly admire mothers of 7 children. That is a BIG job! I think I'm going to go lay down now.

My baby turned 2!

I'm just not sure that I'm ready for Elijah not to be my 'baby' yet, but either way, it's happening! His second birthday was yesterday. 2! The terrible 2's are calling... :(




He blew out the candles I think about 20 times....then ate the bottom of the candles off.

Since I rarely do anything crafty, I have to have something of my own creation to blog about. Here's where I insert my custard-filled, Neapolitan, cream cheese icing birthday cake. It was fabulous! Except the part where Elijah mashed up the chocolate layer while my back was turned or the part where I didn't get to finish it because Kaye was late for a stake priesthood meeting, but even if it wasn't all that pretty, it was delicious!

It's a....

BOY!! Again.

I went to my ultrasound today and she told me that she would give me a percentage/educated guess about the sex but would not guarantee. That was just fine. I wasn't totally convinced that I did really want to know. Almost as soon as the ultrasound started though, she stopped, giggled a bit, and said that he was a show-off. She said that it was the easiest one that she's done in a while and that she was 99% sure that it was a boy. She even showed Kaye the evidence.

All I could think about was the amount of money that will be forked out for missions :( I'm excited still, but it would have made things a tad easier if it was a girl like we hoped for. Oh well. Boy #4, here we come!

I will be bitter though if my sister Chelsea gets the girl! I made Kaye a deal that I'll stop after 6 boys if we don't get a girl sooner. He wasn't so sure about that. :)

Sorry about the lack of picture. My printer decided that it wanted to break on me so I can't scan it. Hopefully I'll get it up and running soon and then I'll put it on.

Because I know you will be riveted!

Or....it's because I've seen so much of this and I even though no one tagged me, I feel some strange need to get it out. I am going to tell you some random things about myself. I LOVE reading peoples little random things. I don't know why, but I find it immensely fascinating. So, hopefully you will get a little laugh from my crazy life....or something like that.

1. I renovate my house....in my imagination, at least once a day, top to bottom. I really want to actually do it obviously, but since I can't, I like to imagine it all the time. This is my defense to the nightmare. Scary dream? Don't worry, just start thinking about a new kitchen and it will all go away!

2. I absolutely refuse to have cable at home. I have come to the conclusion that there are not enough hours in the day to take time away from my family and responsibilities to do something that is sketchy at best. Therefore, I have never watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Bones, even Gilmour girls for goodness sakes, or anything remotely resembling a series from the last 3 years. If I do have the chance at my mothers to sit and watch something, I choose a reality show on TLC or HGTV so I don't get hooked to anything. I'm so behind the times it scares me. That being said......

3. I LOVE DAWSON'S CREEK! I don't know how to stress this enough. This is the obsession that has scared me off of TV. It makes me feel like a teenager again and makes me remember all the wonderful things about not being a mom. I remember sitting in my Grandma Kwong's living room in Melbourne watching it with my brother Matt and him getting upset if anyone said even a peep as to not miss a single second of the BEST SHOW ON EARTH! I have recently procured the last 4 seasons and I have missed many an hour of my family and responsibilities because of this mind-numbing obsession. Alas, I'm a total hypocrite. Luckily, I'm only a couple episodes from being finished the entire series so when I am done, I will put away my series for at least a year.

4. I spent what would have been, my graduation weekend on my honeymoon. I came back and watched all my friends graduate on TV and cried for hours. That was one of the few times in my life that I felt like I missed out.

5. My dad technically graduated high school for me. While I was finishing my classes through correspondence, I had a really difficult time with math and science. These were my last courses and it had been such a long time since I had done those courses that I had literally forgotten everything. Luckily, my dad is a teacher of those very subjects, so I got him to help me. I was at my deadline and just HAD to get my assignments in. He basically told me what to put, then made me swear to study super hard for my finals. I promised and sent my modules in. A couple of days later I got a phone call from the teacher who told me I was exempt from finals because I did such a good job on my modules. So, essentially, my dad graduated for me. Suffice it to say, this went against my dad's morals and he was not in the least impressed. I was pretty happy though. :)

6. I LOVE Jane Austen. I think that she is one of the most brilliant women of all time. I continually have one of her novels being read and never tire of them. My favorite movie of all time is the BBC version on P&P and it happens to be my favorite book as well. I love to read things about her and her life, and I also LOVE to read fictional books about her life as if they really happened. The only problem with it is that I feel terribly guilty doing that because she was such a private person and didn't want people knowing who she was. I can't help but think that she is up in Heaven cringing because so many people keep prying in her life. I don't want to meet her in Heaven and have her hate me because I was a nosy little busybody! Man, am I ever a geek!

This became WAY longer than anticipated, so I will stop here. I hope you found something interesting or at least entertaining about some random things in my life. I love to hear others, so start spilling. :) Oh, and thank you for humoring me!

Miracle Miriam

I have a good friend from Crossfield named Miriam. When we moved there, her husband was the ONLY one to show up and help us move and they turned into some of our closest friends while we were there. I truly admire Miriam. Even more when I heard her latest news. Miriam has a daughter 1 year older then Marcus and then followed that with 5 more. Now, she is pregnant with #7!! Wow! She is literally a baby making machine. All I can say is GO MIRIAM GO!

How she does it and stays sane is completely beyond me. Some of her wisdom includes dinners ready and in the oven before kids come home from school, and she schedules her day to the point of scheduling things like baking cinnamon rolls at 10:00 on Thursday etc. She is truly the ultimate in mormon mothering.

I'm terribly impressed. I don't know if I'll ever get there. If she is ever questioned about how many kids she's going to have, she just says that she's going to keep going until she feels like she just can't have any more. I hope I can be as good at this mothering thing as her!

The things kids say!

I just love hearing about the silly things that little kids say. They are so honest and inoccent. Colby is just one of those kids. As you know, he talks A LOT and he's always got a good bit of wisdom or just something absolutely ridiculous to share.

Last night for FHE, it was his turn to pick the closing song. I asked him what he would like to sing and he wasn't really cooperating so I thought I'd help him along. It went something like this.

Mom: What song do you want to sing Colby?
Colby: I don't know.
Mom: What about I am a child of God (usually a winner).
Colby: Not that one again!
Mom: Well, what about Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam?
Colby: No, I don't want to sing that.
Mom: Okay, what about I'm Trying to be Like Jesus?
Colby: Yeah, that's a good one!
Mom: Do you know that one?
Colby: No, but I think that I need to hear it. (Said in a very sombre and serious tone.)

It was just so funny. Kaye and I just looked at each other and burst out laughing. I just love that they have no idea how hilarious they are sometimes. Ahh! The fun parts of being a parent.
:)

Before I forget.....

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!

Okay techincally, I realize that Australia day is over because of the time difference, BUT here it's the 26th. So there!

Thank goodness!

Thank goodness for moms!!!

Before

After

Before

After

Although, this style for Colby isn't at the top of my favorite looks...it has vastly improved since our little 'mishap.' Thank goodness. That poor child, you couldn't take him out anywhere.

Okay, number 2 on my list of topics for this mornings blog....thank goodness for the bus!!

Please look PAST my living room window and AT the bus...stopped right in front of my house!!

Right before Christmas, I was helping at Marcus' school for hot lunch and a lady that lives behind me told me that she had been fighting to get a bus up on the hill where we live. The kids have to walk about 3 blocks every morning to the 'big' school (4-12 school) and then catch a bus (with a $100 price tag per child per year) another 3 blocks to Marcus' school. It's ridiculous. The thing is that they won't allow the kids to cross the tracks so you must pay for the bus or drive your kids. Anyway, so I saw Tanya (from behind my house) and she won this whole bus thing. They started about 2 weeks ago to pick up the kids....right in front of my house. I cannot tell you have nice it is to KNOW everyday that Marcus is getting on the bus and getting off and NO ONE is getting to him before hand. What a sigh of relief!... especially when it is -35 like this morning. All he has to do is wait in the warm house until the bus pulls up. And as a bonus, he also has 15 more minutes to get ready in the morning!