No Candy?

This week, Abby's homework was to make her own flag. Today, her kindergarten class had a special day of crafts and games, and then they had a parade all through the school waving their flags. Abby has been so excited about today all week, especially the parade! This morning, she was even dressed with her coat and backpack on a couple of hours early. And she kept telling me to hurry because she did not want to be late!



But when I picked her up this afternoon, she was so disappointed. She didn't even get any candy. What good is a parade if no one's throwing candy!?

Interesting Facts About the Number 6

In a few recent posts, I've made reference to some sleeplessness and foul moods. To explain, here are some interesting facts about the number 6:

• Six similar coins can be arranged around a central coin of the same radius so that each coin makes contact with the central one and touches both its neighbors without a gap.
  
  
• 6 is the atomic number of carbon
  
  
• God created man on the 6th day.
  
  
• There are six points on the star of David.
  
  
• There are six strings on a guitar.
  
  
• 6 is the number of points received for a touchdown
  
  
• In numerology, 6 is the number of cooperation and the number of love and romance.
  
  
• 6 is the number of children who will be in our family by September 24, 2008

I've been a little worried about how I'm going to function with 5 children who need me and a business that, Spring - Fall, is a full time job. But so far, knock on wood, I've only been a little nauseous throughout the day. This is very much not the norm for me. It gets worse later in the day, but then I can just go to bed. I can totally live with this!

I was also worried about telling my mother. So when I went home for my grandpa's funeral, I decided to just get it over with, like ripping a bandaid off. I had Sam model a shirt I'd made for him. Once my mom understood the shirt, she looked like I'd dropped a brick on her head. She was utterly speechless for a full minute. Difficult pregnancies have made a lot of people, including my mother and mother-in-law, assume we are done. I've had a lot of frustration since Abby was born (that I know Paige relates to) regarding questions about whether we're done or not. Thankfully, though, my dad smiled, and my mom got over the shock within just over a minute.

Not being so sick had me wondering if everything was going as it should, but I had my first appointment last week. We got to see the little bean with flippers and its little heartbeat. It's always so reassuring to see that heartbeat. It's also very reassuring to see just one baby. Ever since Steve had a dream about twins in December, I've been a little nervous. Now, we just need to figure out where we're going to put everybody!

Who's Your Valentine

Who's your Valentine this year? With Valentines Day coming up next week, it's that time of year to think of what to get and make your plans for a romantic date. So here are some questions for you to read and then answer them yourself. If you read this post then you must do the same on your post. Include a picture of you and your Valentine and answer the questions below. It's a Valentine blog chain.




Who is your Valentine? Steve
How long did you date? about 1 1/2 years
How old is he? 40
Who eats more sweets? probably me, although if you leave a pan of brownies or cookies laying around, he has been known to finish off the whole thing.
Who said I love you first? I did - he reciprocated the next day.
Who is taller? He is taller, but we are the same height when we sit down because all of his height is in his legs.
Who can sing better? Steve sings better. He does a mean Neil Diamond and frequently serenades the kids on his guitar while they are going to sleep.
Who is smarter? I'm more book smart; he's smarter in other ways.
Who does the laundry? We both do. Lately, he has been doing most of the washing and drying, and I do most of the folding with the kids' help.
Who pays the bills? He does. I got fired sometime in our 2nd year of marriage (thank goodness).
Who mows the lawn? Matthew
Who cooks the dinner? I usually cook dinner, the kids help. Steve almost always cooks breakfast.
Who drives? He does, usually even the entire drive from Utah to California.
Who is more stubborn? I don't know. I don't think either of us is very stubborn unless it's warranted.
Who kissed who first? There has been some debate on this question, but I say he definitely kissed me first.
Who asked who out first? He asked me the first couple of times. Then when I had to turn him down once, he quit calling (sensitive feelings), so I had to call and ask him out. That's all it took.
Who proposed? He did.
Who has more siblings? He does by 1.
Who wears the pants? We share them.
Who says I love you more? About the same.

Okay now share your Valentine!!!

Good Things Always Happen at Wal-Mart

I've been in a really foul mood all day, and should probably have just stayed home in bed. But as a mother to five children, I didn't have time to do that. I had to go to Wal-Mart (one of my least favorite stores).

While I was there, I got the perfect opportunity to vent my foul mood. I was accosted in Wal-Mart's dairy aisle by a venom spewing woman who called me a bad mother. She called me a bad mother because Sam didn't have on shoes and socks and said, "Be a parent, for G..'s sake." Her tone of voice and face were absolutely venomous - it was really amazing to see. I've never been approached out of the blue by a complete stranger like that. After she spewed at me, she turned to walk away like a coward.

But, oh no. That was not happening!

So I followed her through the dairy section while my kids looked on in amazement.

It went something like this . . .

Susan: Excuse me.

B (we all know what that stands for, right?): No response

Susan: You need to listen to me.

B: Shakes head and keeps walking away

Susan: (Yelling now) Excuse me!

B: Probably a little frightened now by the scene I'm making, stops and turns around, while her friend stands there looking mortified.

Susan: You've got a lot of gall. You don't know anything about me. This child had socks on and he took them off.

B: Well then you should carry extra socks with you. What's going to happen when you take him outside now?

Susan: Well, obviously his feet will be cold for the 30 seconds it takes us to get into the car. . . How old are you?

B: How old are YOU!?

Susan: You're like what? A 22 year old know-it-all?

Then she dropped the "F" bomb on me. So I said, "That's classy," and walked away. Class is important, even in Wal-Mart (says the woman who just went yelling through the dairy aisle).

My kids didn't know what to think. Thankfully, they were too far away to hear because I'd followed her several steps down the aisle. If I'd been in a better mood to begin with, it could have ruined my day. But given the mood I'd started in, it was actually an improvement. I was happy for my kids to see me stand up for myself without it ruining my day. Although I can't stop thinking of all the things I should have said - I sure wish I was quicker on my feet. And I should have snapped her picture, dang it!!

Here Sam is perched like a gargoyle on the foot of my bed, the picture of neglect with his bare blue feet.

Of course, Sam should have had socks on, even though it was a balmy 40 degrees. In my defense, he did have them on at some point between the car and the store. But if I'm going to be honest, I have to admit that he does go around on occasional quick trips with bare feet. Does that make me a bad mom? Maybe. But I'm a good enough mom in plenty of other areas (and more important ones) that I think the lack of socks is cancelled out.

I'm willing to bet that once this woman has more than one child of her own, she'll eventually lose their socks on a cold day, and this whole incident will come back to haunt her. It will probably eat her up with regret for the rest of her life that she treated someone that way.

Eventually, she's likely to learn the lesson, too, that is sinking in deeper for me each day. You're not allowed to be a know it all until you've raised at least two children through their teens. By then, most people know better. I know nothing, and I expect to know even less every day for the rest of my life.

Happy Birthday Matthew!!!

Monkeys are his favorite animals

A's (straight ones) are almost in reach!

Takes good care of his baby brother

Tampers with all the girls' affections

Helps me cook dinner (he's good at it)

Eats twice as much as his mother

Wakes up happy







Shovels lots of snow

Triceps bulge like Tarzan's

Exercises every morning with his dad

Voices his opinion without any prompting

Enlivens his little sisters (too much)

Needs a drum set (keep working on those grades)

Goodbye Grandpa

My Grandpa Karl passed away this morning at 94 years of age. We've been expecting to get the type of call we got this morning for quite some time because he has been fairly feeble for the past couple of years. Liz wrote about him a few months ago. Even anticipating that news, though, it's still a shock.

This is my Grandpa Karl at Sarah's baptism, July 2006. It's not the best picture, but it is the only one I can find right now.

Here are some of the things I love best about Grandpa:

• He always had the best garden with all sorts of fruit trees and vegetables. It was my favorite part of his home in Castro Valley. His yummy oranges saved me from a bout of severe morning sickness with Anna.



• My second favorite part of his home was his art studio. He has painted for as long as I have known him (since I was 5), and I used to love to see his pictures, and although now I realize that they weren't usually very good, he painted a few that I love! Anna, my little artist, always loved to see his pictures and talk to him about painting, too.



• He loved wildlife and loved to fish and catch crawdads at the farm (my mom's family farm). I always thought it was so gross that he would eat crawdads. He would also hold his fishing bait, big red salmon eggs, in his cheek for easy access.



• He taught us how to eat a whole apple, including the core and seeds (not that I ever do that anymore). You have to start from the bottom.



• When I stayed with him and Grandma for a couple of weeks when I was 5, he took me golfing (that was boring) and taught me how to eat an artichoke.



• Just a year ago, he still remembered the kindergarten song about Sammie that I used to sing to him. I don't even remember the song. He didn't remember me as an adult and would always ask me who I was whenever he saw me. But he always remembered the 5 year old me after I told him who I was, and he was always so happy to see me.



• He and his first wife never had any children of their own. When he married Grandma, he happily took on her 5 children and several grandchildren just as if they were his own, and except for one recent incident involving Zach, he's always been sweet and patient with the whole huge crew. He's especially loved having all the babies around the past couple of years, to the point that he even wanted Grandma (who's 81) to have a baby, too.

Grandpa, we love you and will miss you so much.

Yeah, I Could Get Used To This

Lots of pictures this post because words can't do it justice. Pictures can't really do it justice either, but they get closer.

Today is my birthday, and I've had a long week of pampering. Last weekend, my sister-in-law put together an all girls trip to Mexico. This wasn't for my birthday, but it happened so close to it, that I'm considering it a birthday trip. It included Mary and her three girls, Sheryl, Sarah and Carrie; Carol and her two girls, Kate and Emma; fun sister-in-law, Betty; and me and my two oldest girls, Anna and Sarah. It was so much fun. We left freezing cold, snow covered Utah and went to this:

The gate into the property

This is the upper level where I slept

And these are the three little slobs that I slept with. It's a good thing that I like them.

This is the pool where Sarah finally learned to swim (one of the major highlights of the trip!). It's also where I layed in the sun and got warm all the way through for the first time in a couple of months.

We ran around on little golf carts to get food and to go down to the beach.

For some reason (to be discussed later) I kept waking up at 5:00 every morning and couldn't sleep anymore. But that was okay, because I got to see this right outside my bedroom every morning.

Anna even cheerfully let me drag her out of bed before dawn to see the sunrise.

Sheryl brought fun Sunday crafts for us.

We all enjoyed walking on the beach and collecting lots of coral. The water was too cold to swim in, but we saw lots of wildlife, pelicans and sea urchins among them.

Another major highlight was the special spa treatment we got.

Massages out on the sunny deck. I'm the skinny one on the left ;-).

Anna got her first massage, too, but thought it was kind of weird. I'm sure she'll appreciate it more when her body's old and tired someday.

Sarah enjoyed her first pedicure. She got to pick out little flowers to go on her big toes.

Anna got beautiful toes, too. My pedicure was so overdue that it took two hours, but my feet are so soft and pretty now.

We also loved our catamaran cruise. At first, Sarah didn't want to go because she'd just learned to swim and wanted to stay at the pool to practice. But I made her go, and she was so glad. It turned out to be a really fun trip with all the soda she could drink and lots of guacamole and ceviche. Her favorite part was all the animals we saw.

We traveled out to the arch which took about two hours and saw a lot of whales and manna rays jumping out of the water along the way. There were also a lot of seals right by the arch. You can see them piled all over each other on the rock behind me and Sarah.

You can just see the whale's black hump peeking out of the water.

We had a beautiful full moon on the way back that lit a path for us to follow.

Thank you, Mary, for putting together such a wonderful trip. We enjoyed the trip, but especially enjoyed getting to spend four days with family we don't get to see nearly enough of! We got home last Tuesday night, and it was very painful to return to the snow and cold. But Steve made it easier by taking me on a little overnight trip last night for some more pampering, this time for both of our birthdays. I'm getting very spoiled. But that'll be my next post.

Who Me? Gullible?

I've always had a bit of a reputation for being gullible, although I prefer to call it trusting. Steve likes to take advantage of this personality trait as often as he can.

We just got some new business management software and have spent a lot of time learning it and getting it set up to streamline our business. I'm so excited about it because it looks like it's going to cut my work load in half! While I was gone the other day, Steve messed around with the program and learned how to set up some automatic email templates. When I got back, he showed me how to send automatic emails to our customers. I was really excited about this, too, because it seems I retype the same old email over and over and over with very few differences.

He clicked on one of our orders and chose the option to send the customer an email. Then he chose an email template he'd created which read:

Subject: Don't Tick Me Off

Dude (or Dudette, depending upon your sex and I'm talking gender, not orientation), what gives? Can't you read? Super Saver Shipping (note emphasis on 'saver' meaning it is the cheapie way to get stuff mailed) is shipped only twice a week. And here you are the next day asking me when you're going to get it?

I WILL NOW CANCEL YOUR ORDER.

Then he hit SEND!!! Needless to say, I freaked. What I hadn't noticed is that he'd changed the customer's email address to his own, so he got the nasty email instead of them. And he played it perfectly, like he'd hit the button on accident.

I was pretty impressed with his little joke; it took some forethought and planning. And I'm always happy to give him a good laugh.

Here's the Proof

Shoveling snow may not seem like such a big deal to many people, but it was a once in a lifetime moment for me (I hope).

We got 10 inches of snow last night. Nerd that I am, I got out a ruler and measured it. I wanted to know how deep it was because I got stuck shoveling it. We have a big driveway so it took me 1 1/2 hours, even with the neighbor helping for the last half with his snow blower. I can't really complain, though. That's the first time I've shoveled snow in the 6+ years we've lived here. I had Matthew take a picture as proof (he was home sick, which is the only reason he wasn't the one shoveling). I think we need a snowblower.

Christmas Photo Synopsis

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. I got most of my shopping done really early, so I got to enjoy the more fun parts of the season. One of my favorite things we did this Christmas was to go see "Savior of the World" at the Conference Center.

The decorations were beautiful both inside . . .

. . . and outside

The cast members were very friendly and let us take their pictures. The shepherd wasn't nearly as dirty and smelly as he looks.

And Mary was much younger than she looks - good makeup. The play was beautifully done and a perfect reminder of what the season was about. As long as we can get tickets, I'd love this play to become a yearly tradition for our family.

We had so much fun spending the night with Sammie.

We decided on Friday before Christmas to go to California (we would leave Christmas afternoon), but I couldn't feel good about going unless my toy closet and office were cleaned up. They've been weighing on me for a long time.

Isn't that the prettiest picture you've ever seen? DI was very happy to see us that night.

Sam doesn't care much for our vacuum so he hid under the table and climbed on top of boxes as an evasive maneuver.

Sam got to open Nana's present early so he could wear it to church.

Sheryl and Dave Babcock came over on Christmas Eve and had a nice dinner with us. But on Christmas morning, Sam woke up sick, so we realized that we wouldn't be able to make the drive to California after all.

Can you guess what Sam's bowl is for?

In spite of Sam's puking all day, we had a really fun Christmas. And, sad though we were to not see our family in California, it was really nice to just stay home and do nothing for a few days. And there are lots of pictures to help compensate.

Steve really likes his book from Rich. It has a place of honor on the tank of Steve's throne.

Sarah and Abby both got a couple of Webkinz from Santa. Now I have to fight with them for computer time.

Abby and Sarah also love their giant Indian Paint horses (I know they're Indian Paint horses because Sarah, the horse expert, told me).

Matt loves his cool drumsticks from his Washington cousins.

He's anxious to take them to school and show them off.

Anna loves her new purse. She talks about how much she loves it every time we go anywhere. I love it, too, and told her that I want it for myself when she's tired of it.

Matthew couldn't act like a savage by ripping paper off of Oma's present because it was packaged in a gift bag, so instead, he used his mouth to rip out the tissue paper.

Nana and Grandpa's gift will help him act like a savage, though.

Princess Abby loves her Cinderella Barbie from Oma. Notice that everyone is in jeans or pajamas except for Abby. She had to put on her satin and lace dress for the occasion.

Steve wondered why Abby and Sarah got a truck from Nana and Grandpa until they also opened a horse trailer - that cleared it all up. They are doing very well sharing their joint gifts.

Anna really wanted an Ipod for Christmas. But Santa gave her an Ipod pad of paper in her stocking, so she thought that's as close as she was going to get.

When it was time for her to open her "big gift," she thought it was another book. We told her it was a very good book (Human Neuropsychology) - she was very gracious in hiding her disappointment.

But she quickly discovered that the book had a big hole cut in the center that hid a little Ipod Nano. She has hardly put it down for nearly a week now.

Matthew's "big gift" was also disguised. We put a bunch of big books in a box to add some weight and act as a decoy. He'd seen Anna open her gift, so when he opened the package, he started flipping madly through the books looking for his real gift's hiding place. Can you see the real gift sitting right on top in the box? He gave us a good laugh with all his searching.

He was very happy with his green Nano, too.

Sam only opened one or two presents on Christmas morning - we saved the rest until he was feeling better a couple of days later. So Thursday, he finally opened a truck from one of his Washington cousins and liked it so much that he didn't want to open anything else. But that's okay; we'll just save his presents for next year. Babies are great that way!