THIS is March Madness

10 benefits of having your husband out of town

I think I've had enough experience (3 weeks this month even) to share some advantages to having your husband out of town...  in no particular order.

1.  Showering, shaving, fixing hair & make-up, and getting dressed for the day are optional, unless you have to go out of course (in which case, you have to change out of the pajama looking clothes).
2.  Less laundry and less dishes to do - you don't have his clothes or dishes to wash and also see number 1.  If you wear the same thing every day, that's less clothes to wash...
3.  No junk mail cluttering your countertop or table.
4.  Less cooking.  Cereal, frozen waffles, mac & cheese, canned vegetables, cheese puffs, McDonald's, and slurpees are acceptable for dinner.
5.  You can finish off the mint brownie ice cream and raid the snack cupboard when you want to.
6.  After the kids are in bed, the night is all yours.  You can stay up late working on scrapbooking, blogging, and catching up on episodes of Survivor or watching chick flicks.
7.  No bug patrol around.  You don't have to feel guilty about squashing the "good" spiders instead of catching them and taking them outside (or letting them get out of sight... "You don't know where it went?!").
8.  Lots of quality time with the boys - outings to the park or playground, they come to you for comfort or tattling, tub time, reading books, getting milk and snacks, tucking them in, seeing them again a few minutes after putting them to bed - the time is all yours.
9.  People feel sorry for you and invite you over to dinner.
10.  The bed is all yours at night.  No snoring to listen to, plenty of room to toss and turn, and no one waking you up holding a screaming baby saying, "Do you want to feed him?" 

Whew.  I wasn't sure if I'd actually be able to come up with 10 things.

Now, to be fair, I'll list 10 disadvantages to having your husband out of town.

1.  If you want to get showered and cleaned up, you might have to sacrifice your only free time of the day (okay, you have to do that regardless of whether he's here or not...)  Also, you might be embarrassed when someone stops by and you haven't gotten dressed for the day (oh, sometimes that's not different when he's in town).
2.  You have to do all the dishes and laundry that that he usually helps do.  Also, the plastic kid stuff piles up faster than the regular dishes, so you never have that stuff clean or you have to run half loads of dishes.
3.   You don't get any mail, because you forget to get it out of the mailbox since he usually gets it (see, I knew you were wondering about that one...)
4.   If you do cook a good meal, the leftovers sit in the fridge and rot.  If you don't cook, you have to put up with canned veggies or McDonald's (and it's still hard to get out and get McD's).  And no matter what, you still get all of the clean-up duties.
5.  You DO finish ALL of the mint brownie ice cream and snack more often, feeling like you deserve it.
6.  When the kids are in bed, you stay up late working on projects and cleaning instead of going to bed early.  And when the little bedtime stallers infringe on your free time, you're the one to shew them back to bed or you feel bad about getting mad, yelling, or threatening them.
7.  There's no one around to take care of the spiders or other critters for you (except the thoughtful blog reader who brings over some professional ant bait that works really well).
8.  More time with the boys than you have energy for.  If you do want to exercise, it's at least a 2-3 hour process, since they all have to go with you, the time it takes to make sure everyone has snacks, and helmets, hats, bikes, balls, water, sunscreen, toys, and dealing with the screaming toddler that doesn't want to ride in the jogging stroller.  (Is it okay to leave him at home??)  But, at least it counts for quality time for the day, especially since you can't just run and come home.  You have to stay and play for a while.  Doing the bedtime routine by myself  DRIVES ME NUTS (definitely deserve ice cream after that process).
9.  People feel sorry for you and invite you over for dinner, which means you have to load up the kids, do all the talking (I'm shy and I rely on Alex to do most of the talking.) And I have a hard time showing up empty handed, so I usually will make dessert or something.  (Don't stop inviting me over though.  I do appreciate it.)  :)
10.  The bed is all yours at night.  Except when your toddler comes in and fills in the empty spot in the bed next to you, or after your late night projects you find him fast asleep in your bed after telling him over and over, "Just go to bed!"  And YOU have to get up and comfort the crying baby.

Anyway, however you want to look at it, I think it pretty much stinks to have your hubby out of town.  

Okay, so I didn't mind having a little bed mate...he looked too cute and cozy to send to his own bed.  But I did have a good laugh when I discovered him there.  I had thought, "Finally he went to bed!"  He did, but he got in MY bed.


Stay tuned for more March madness...

gotta love toddlers

So here's a little tip for you that have toddlers:  If you want to enjoy a shower without a crying toddler standing there, have a trail of ants near the shower.  It will quiet them right down when they see them and keep them entertained for a tantrum free shower...  but make sure you're quick to grab the towel they try to hand to you so it doesn't drag over the ants.

Yes, recently ants have found a way in our bathroom and I'm trying to bait and kill them with boric acid.  But that requires a little bit of patience, so we still have ants coming and going.  Owen usually comes crying into the bathroom while I'm taking a shower, for something Jared did or out of frustration over something.  But he also loves to hand me the towel when he hears the water shut off.  "Done Mama?"  I love my little towel holder, but sometimes I wish I could at least have a few moments of peace.  Gotta love toddlers.


Today at church was a little embarrassing, a little amusing.  Sacrament meeting was nearly over, and Owen was restless and eager to go to his nursery class.  One of his teachers was sitting just across the aisle from us, so I encouraged him to go sit with her (which she had no idea about, but I knew she wouldn't mind since he's sat with her before).  He got his little backpack on and started to head over there.  And I was encouraging him, "It's okay.  Go ahead."  But just as he got to the end of our aisle, the song leader was heading up to the stand to lead the song.  And Owen turned and followed her right up there! (I guess he thought I was telling him it was okay to go up to the stand).   Instead of trying to go after him, I let him go, so as not to cause a bigger scene.  He calmly sat down in the chair behind her and waited through the song and prayer.  Although embarrassed, I was glad to see him folding his arms during the prayer and being a good boy.  Gotta love my toddler!

Hi!

Westie's latest tricks

Weston is starting to make more noises and has started making the da-da sound.  Jared also claims he said "Ed" - Jared was excited about that.  He told Weston, "You can call me Ed!"

It's also fun to see Weston going from his tummy to sitting up, especially the first time he did it. He was crawling around, and I turned around to find him sitting up.   A couple of other exciting things - he's eating Lil Crunchies now and just figured out how to drink from a regular sippy cup.  I kept trying the bottle and the transitional sippy/bottles and he didn't want anything to do with those.  I finally put some apple juice in a big kid sippy cup and he drinks a little bit from that.  (Baba and Papa will be happy about that one.)  It's amazing how fast they progress at this stage.

what's the plan?

So... it's now spring break around here.  What's the plan?  "Well, it mostly involves not dying."    :)  Ha ha.  I think that's one of my favorite quotes from the movie Megamind.  We really enjoyed that one, if you haven't seen it.  I have to admit we're not in "thrive" mode, but "survival mode" around here.  But we're making it.  Now, I just need to figure out what to do besides "not die".

I AM a multi-tasker, sort-of

I did a post back in 2007 about NOT being a mulit-tasker, but maybe I've gotten better at that...

Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  In 3 hours, I made homemade rolls and soup, got showered and cleaned up, picked up Nathan from school, put Weston down for a nap, delivered what I made, got the kitchen and house semi-clean for the baby sitter, made a separate dinner for us, switched out loads of laundry, and half way listened to Nathan practice his poems for his recital.   The soup involved chopping carrots, celery, and onions, cooking the chicken, and letting the soup simmer (thanks Bekah for the recipe - we've used it 3 times recently).  And I let the boys help with the rolls, so that counted for our "activity of the day."  :)  At one point, I was using the mixer for the dough in one hand and stirring the chicken with my other hand.  (I was trying to get the dough started rising and chicken cooked before I had to pick up Nathan from school.)   Anyway, it was at this point that I realized I really was doing 2 things at once.   When I realized what I had accomplished yesterday afternoon, I was thinking "I'm pretty good at this mom stuff."

But then I realized Owen hadn't had a diaper since he got up in the morning...  oh well.  We're saving money that way, right?    My soggy bottom boy who was enjoying homemade rolls didn't seem to mind, and he did get a new one before the baby-sitter got here...

spring recital about fall

Nathan had his first program at school.  Each of the 1st grade classes (3 classes) recited poems about the different seasons.  Nathan's class did poems about fall - they were in groups of about 6 kids.  Nathan was in two of the groups (although I only got video of one of them...silly camera battery).  He also got to be the "announcer" before all of the classes combined did their song and poem about spring.  He did a great job!

8 months

He's a pretty happy kid most of the time.  His new thing is a little "ah-ah-ah-ah" sound, and he's just figuring out sitting up by himself.  He's been able to sit up since about 6 months, but just won't do it.  He mostly likes to be on the go, with no time for sitting still.  Yesterday was his first experience with grass, so he was pretty excited about that.  I was able to capture him sitting up for longer than a few seconds.  He still is trying to figure out crawling too, but loves to rock back and forth and does the army crawl well.  I have a feeling he'll be pretty high energy and ornery.  He can't even sit still anymore when he's nursing - he's either rocking or he latches on and then tries to look around while still eating.  He reminds me of Jared, who didn't like to be held.  He nursed and then immediately started pushing away - which is good in some ways.  It's easy to put him to bed.  He pushes away, almost to say, "Just put me down" and I put him in the bed and he falls asleep on his own.  Sometimes I wish he was a little more cuddly though. 

So close...

I don't usually get into St. Patrick's Day, but making a leprechaun trap was part of Nathan's homework.  So we worked hard on this one (from familyfun.com).

The boys were so excited to catch a leprechaun - Nathan got up early this morning to check on their trap.  He noticed the coins and trap had been triggered and came running to wake me up (and everyone else). 

"We caught one!  Mama!  I think there's something in there!  We caught one!" 

And then he made Jared go look down inside the hat.  Jared said he saw something.  I wish I had the camera rolling during all of this.  I finally got the camera (and Weston who was crying) and took a video of them (Jared) pulling something out of the hat.  They couldn't figure out what it was - maybe a little bag, but sheer confusion that there wasn't anything in it (no gold).  And then when I suggested it was a shoe, I was trying not to laugh at the confusion and disappointment on their faces.  But they were excited later to say at least they got the leprechaun's shoe...  Nathan is still hopeful that they will catch one tonight.

We had semi-shamrock shaped pancakes for breakfast.  Joy school was here and we were on letter R, so we did rainbows and rocks and a few other things.  We made rainbow "cupcakes" which looked neat but tasted like muffins (sort of yucky).  The kids loved them.  Most things are yummy with coolwhip and sprinkles on them.  And in the afternoon, we headed outside to play at Nathan's school.

newest nephew

Not long ago a baby was born,
Bright and early, at four in the morn.
Eli Samuel was his given name,
He and his dad look a lot the same.
Cute as can be,
think you'll agree,
shout with glee,
for this new WEe.
YIPPEE! YIPPEE!


Meet Eli.  I think maybe I'll call him "Seuss" though since he shares a birthday with Dr. Seuss (March 2nd).  I didn't actually get to meet him yet - just snagged this picture from my mom's blog.  This is Audrey and Sam's first baby (9th grandson for my parents).  We like him, Sam-I-am!

Saturday morning sillies

letter Q

For letter Q, we talked about patterns and painted paper quilts with Q-tips.  We also made queen crowns, although Jared quickly said his was a king's crown.  It was so funny to watch the pretend play that ensued - they saw the two rocking chairs and made those their thrones.  They had a quick discussion about who got which chair, and they decided that boys get the hard chairs and girls get the soft ones.  Smart kids.  And then the queen announced she was having a baby and ran off to have the baby (Marielle's mom had a baby recently, so I think this is fresh on her mind.)   And then after she had her baby, they decided the castle was sinking and the king had to save them.  And then prince Owen started sword fighting and jabbing at people...  it was really fun to watch.

We also had quesadillas (the really simple ones - melted cheese between 2 tortillas in the microwave) and cut them into quarters.  We also read and sang about quacking ducks and we also played a game with quarters (coins). 

Oakland Temple

Thanks for watching the boys for us Mom and Dad!  Alex and I were able to do some sealings this time.  One of the names of the deceased had received some temple ordinances in the late 1800's in the St. George Temple (one of the earliest, dedicated in 1877), but had never been sealed to their parents.  We got to serve as proxy for them and make that available to them if they choose to accept that ordinance. I've talked about this before, but here's a brief overview of what we do in temples:

"In the temple we are taught, we make covenants, and we are promised blessings. We receive ordinances that enable us to live in the presence of God.

One ordinance we receive in the temple is the endowment. The word endowment means “gift” or “bestowal.” As part of this ordinance, we are taught about the purpose of life, the mission and Atonement of Jesus Christ, and Heavenly Father’s plan for His children. We gain a glimpse of what it will be like to live in His presence as we feel the peaceful atmosphere of the temple.

Another temple ordinance is the sealing ordinance, in which husbands and wives are sealed to each other and children are sealed to their parents in eternal families. This means that if we are faithful to our covenants, our family relationships will continue for eternity.

In addition to receiving these ordinances for ourselves, we can receive them for our deceased ancestors. In this way, people who died without receiving essential ordinances such as baptism and confirmation, the endowment, and sealing have the opportunity to accept these ordinances."       (from church website)

Baby Ryan

Last weekend, we had the privilege of going to my nephew Ryan's baby blessing.  He's such a sweet mellow little guy.  We were so glad to be there, although it was a quick trip (and not quite drama free).  I managed to get one picture of him in his little white outfit.  We tried to get all of the boys in one picture... I'm hoping someone else got a better shot (Brenda, send your pics my way).  Ryan dozed off as soon as we handed him to Nathan!