Note to self...

Do Not....spend your afternoon cutting and sorting and getting your coupons ready...drive half way across town...shop with 2 of your children, matching up all your coupons with the right thing, in the exact way the store will accept them...start checking out...reach for your purse....tell the checker lady to stop! ....because you can't find your wallet...and you hope and pray that you left it in your car, or at home, or anywhere except with someone else....take your 2 kids back to the car, minus the groceries...check the car...no wallet....drive back across town....back to your house....to thankfully find your wallet on the counter...then have just enough time to drive back almost to the exact place you were to pick up your daughter from ballet...and just give up on the whole buying food thing today. Yeah, don't do that, cause really it's just a waste of time...don't ya think?

Backlog Utah...ya know, for posterity

So I really wanted to get out of the heat and take a little summer vacation, and my dearest friend Ange said "come on over"! So we did. Well the kids and I did, Pete had to stay home and finance the operation. Anyway, thanks to my other dear friend Lisa, and a portable DVD player, we were able to make the long trip up to Utah. Lucy may have gotten whip lash from throwing a fit and trying to get out of her car seat for the last 45 minutes of the trip but whatever.

Let me just say, that Ange is the hostess with the mostest. She had babysitters all lined up so we could get massages, facials, and Olive Garden. She had tickets for us all to go to the Temple Dedication, she let me bake with her everyday in her bakery, and totally ruin my diet (that i've never quite got back on) on her delicious cupcakes and the such as, and she even threw a huge catered going away party in her back yard on our last night there. Ok maybe that was for her neighbors birthday but still, we were there and it was super fun.

We went to the Dinosaur Museum one day. Hannah was a little scared that they were going to come back to life when she turned her back...

but she got used to it. They had a Supersaurous, which was amazing. Can you imagine seeing that thing walking around? crazy.

We also did some "digging for dinosaurs"

and saw a big shark...???

played in the "crick"....

toured the Oquirrh Mountain Temple...(Peder thinks we look like a "lovely lesbian couple" in this picture...rude. yeah he's getting struck down. ya know, cause we are at the temple and all. if we were anywhere else it would just be kinda funny...unless you really are a lovely lesbian couple....then it's just kinda normal.)

toured the new Conference Center...which my kids surprisingly were completely captivated by...

and finally after 9 long years....got together with my old EFY roommate Sharon. She is the bestest and it was so great to see her and her cute kids. Her daughter is named Miranda...after me I'm sure....or it's like a family name or something. whatever. Now it's her turn to come down to the AZ and see us!!!!

We had a great time! Thanks Ange and Craig for letting 3 crazy kids take over your house for a week. Hopefully that superglue holds your beautiful vase together for a really long time. Sorry 'bout that. See you next year!????

Happiness ='s terrible mom

First day of school! First day of school! that was to be sung like in the movie Finding Nemo of course.

My little Hannah was just as excited as Nemo was in the movie too. She couldn't go to sleep the night before because she was so excited/nervous. It was really cute. Finally I told her to count to 100 really slow and apparently that did the trick. But of course she woke up at the crack of dawn...ready to go. I'm sure this set the stage for her complete breakdown the next evening. This is her first year going to full day school, so it will take a bit to get used to it.

Lincoln also started preschool also . I guess on the first day of school you do the opposite of what you normally do because he actually slept in ...which let me tell you is a miracle.

I don't really know who taught my children to pose this way...but this is what they came up with when I said "say cheese"!

I'm not gonna lie...I was completely and totally ready to not hear my children argue with each other all day long. Whoever thought of having all the kids go to school together -out of their homes- was a freakin' genius. I'm sure in some way that makes me a terrible mom, but.....whatever. Of course I did have some craziness inside having Hannah gone for so long...but I'm pretty much over it now. See...enjoying a little peace and quite ='s terrible mom. Going crazy because your kids are arguing all day and bored out of their minds, and it's 115 degrees outside ='s terrible mom. I just can't win.

Willy Wonka was not a Mormon

Here's how I know. So Pete and I had the lovely pleasure of going with Doug Donaldson through the Temple for his first time. Woo hoo! Pete even got to be his escort which was very cool.

I had taken the kids to the zoo early that morning to beat the heat...like rip them out of their beds early, ya know so it would only be 105 instead of 115. Anyway, it had been a busy, tiring day, so I grabbed a few Everlasting Gobstoppers -that I had left over from girls camp- to keep my mouth busy so my eyelids would stay open. Ya know how that goes. So things were going just fine until my second gobstopper. I went to swallow the chewed up pieces and holy cow, a piece of that gobstopper got stopped in my gob. OK, that was retarded, but it really did get stuck in my throat -really bad. So of course I start coughing. Loudly. I tried to swallow it a few times but every time I did, it made this hurty, soury taste in my throat and I felt like I was going to throw up. I even started the pre barfing sweat and continued to cough the kind of cough that makes your ribs hurt and your eyes water. And of course lovely people start asking if I'm ok and offering me cough drops and the such as. Apparently almost everyone brings cough drops to the Temple because 4 people offered me one on my short way out to the hall to get a drink. I bet cough drops don't make you want to vomit in the temple. I of course declined them since it wasn't really a coughing issue...it was an everlasting gobstopper issue. So embarrassing. And let me just tell you that Willy named those little guys accurately. The water made it better but not completely. They really are everlasting. At least after holding up the session a bit, I was able to finish it without vomiting so that was good.
So a word to the wise....stick with the tic tacs, altoids, breath savers, butter mints, lifesavers... or whatever. Leave the Everlasting Gobstoppers for another time!

Dear...

Dear 15 pounds,
Yes I see that you are back...again. This is the third time in the last year that i have gotten rid of you only to have you return way too quickly. What part of "go away" don't you understand? I know the term "loosing" you might be sending you the wrong message. So let me be clear...I don't ever want to "find" you again. ever.
You must have noticed that it takes quite a bit of hard work, over a way too long period of time to rid myself of you. Why do you feel the need to torment me? Do you like to watch me suffer? Do you like to see me look at you in the mirror and be sad? Does it make you feel powerful? huh? huh? Seriously. You know I'm only getting older. My metabolism's only getting slower. So do me a favor would ya? Go find someone else to hang out with...like the girls on that overweight Bachelor show, I don't think they would mind at all. They might even appreciate it. After all...I believe the show is called "More to Love". See, it would be like doing them a favor. And I would be so grateful. Thank you, thank you very much,
randi