Happy Birthday!

Today would've been my mom's 64th birthday.  She shared a birthday with her mother.  My grandmother turned 91 today.  It was easy for me to remember my mom's age because it always had the same last digit as my age because she was 30 years older than me.  Also something else cool is that my mom's dad was 30 years older than her and I am 30 years older than Jason.  So now Jason needs to continue the tradition and have a child when he is 30 years old in 2036.  The pressure is on!

I've been scanning lots of old photos during my stay in California. I came across this one.  It is my mom and grandmother's 37th and 64th birthday.  It's too bad nobody made a cake for them.  All they got is bowl of Jello with whip cream and a candle.  It was probably too hot in the August heat to turn on an oven in a house without AC.

August 29, 1983

Old Friends

Friday night I arranged a little get together with some old friends from Junior High and High School. Two of them (twins) I hadn't seen in 10 years.  It was so good to be in touch again.  We were all buddies during Jr. High, but when it was time to go off to high school, we lived in different zones and the twins went to a different high school than Kelly and me.  However we remained friends and would travel to Catalina Island every summer for a week, where the twins' family had a summer home.  It was like old times, except with kids.

I brought out the slide and it became the main attraction until Rachel decided to run down it and fall flat on her face.

It was Kelly's birthday, so I baked her a cake.

A picture of us and our kids.  

It was a great night.  Now if only I can get them to join Facebook!  They just don't understand its value!

Blogigation

Last night my husband and I went out on a date.  We took some pictures and he made a comment that went something like, "You can put it on your blog."

 I said, "Yeah!"

Then he said, "Like you're really going to put it on your blog."

Then I said, "What do you mean?  Did you go to my blog today?"  (I thought he probably saw that my last post was a week ago.)

Then he said, "No.  You just have guilt written all over your face.  Slacker."

He's right.  Maybe if I extremely abbreviate what's been going on in list form, it will make things easier.  Let's begin where I left off so I can fulfill my blogigation.

1. Went to Salt Lake City. Emily got altitude sickness, so we left.  Thankfully we saw most of Temple Square the previous evening.  But I cried because I really wanted to see Conference Center.
2. Took the scenic route south in Utah and stopped by Zion National Park.  Spent the night in St. George.
3. Toured St. George.  Went to most of the Church History sites.  Fun.
4. Headed to California with a stop in Las Vegas.  We stopped briefly at Treasure Island.  Took the monorail to the Mirage and left.  It was cool seeing the lights.
5. Drove to Southern California and arrived at my Dad's house at about 2AM.
6. Have spent the past 3 weeks in CA.  
7. Have watched a LOT of Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel.  LOVE that show!
8. Went to Hollywood.
9. Touched the Pacific Ocean.
10. Went to the Reagan Library.
11. Saw some old friends from high school and college.
12. Watched more Phineas and Ferb because we love that show.
13. Played lots of games - Battleship, Monopoly, Mancala, Stop Thief, Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, Clue, Trap Door, Scrabble, Solataire, Chinese Checkers, Aggravation, and more.
14. Watched TV.
15. Had a birthday party for my sister.
16. Have been scanning lots of old photos from my childhood.

More to come..  Here's some pics:

Salt Lake Temple

Manti Temple.  I think this one is my favorite.

Sick Emily.  I'm pretty sure she had altitude sickness.  At breakfast in SLC she said everything turned white and blurry and she nearly passed out and then she vomitted.  When we returned to normal altitude, she felt better.

This is proof that we went.  We were only there for a few hours.  We took the tram ride through the park.  We didn't get to hike or do cool things.

At the St. George Visitor's Center

On my next Tithing slip I'm going to donate $3.00 for Windex.

St. George Temple.  It was beautiful.  We were told at the visitor's center that a long long time ago a baby was born in the temple and was named Templeina.

A quick stop in Las Vegas before final destination.

Salt Lake City

What the heck?!  I just uploaded a bunch of photos and words and now it's blank!!  Darn Blogger! I want to cry.  It's no wonder that blogging can be so discouraging!!  I'll try again tomorrow.  Here's a picture not of Salt Lake:

Playing Battleship at Papa's house.  

They look so sweet, but about 10 minutes into the game Bradley was in tears and accusing Emily of not playing fairly.

More Vacation Documentation

Ok, so I just realized that I never finished documenting our drive out here.  Here is some more:

Day 4 - Drive from Nauvoo, IL to Cheyenne, WY (August 1/2)

Planning this part of the trip was tricky.  We spent Sunday in Nauvoo and we planned to stay at my brother's house in Cheyenne, WY for an evening.  If we stayed in a hotel on Sunday evening we would get to Cheyenne too late and wouldn't be able to spend much time with them.  So I planned to drive through the night in order to get to Cheyenne in the morning.  Since my husband is not a total night owl, I volunteered to drive.  It was a lot of fun having a quiet van with sleeping people and a lot of radio stations with good music to listen and sing to. I found it amusing that Omaha had a radio station called 101.9 The Big O.  However, during the night we drove through 2 state capitals.  My husband was kind enough to take my picture at 12:30 AM in Des Moines, IA and 3:30 AM in Lincoln, NE (above picture).  We stopped at a Perkins in western Nebraska and made it to my brother's at about 11 AM.  I was tired.  But....

I did a picture of Cheyenne, WY.  Woo hoo!  That night we watched The Bachelorette finale and we departed on our way to Salt Lake City the next morning (about a 7 hour drive).

To Be Continued....

Day 11

Are y'all mad at me for not blogging?  Because I'm mad at myself.  I'm so flaky!  It's day 11 of being in California and for goodness sake I have lots of things to blog about.  I mean I could be blogging about every single episode of Phineas and Ferb that my kids have watched on the Disney Channel.  I could blog about all the hundreds of photos I've been scanning from my childhood.  I could blog about all the games we've been playing.  But, nope, instead I sit and watch the Bachelor Pad with my sister and neglect my poor poor blog.

So I though I would give a quick update on my status.  We are still in California enjoying some cooler, unhumid weather, sitting outside without the threat of rain, gnats, or mosquitoes.  It's been enjoyable.  the other day Wendy or Sarah (I forget which one) remarked, "Why are there no clouds in California?"

We haven't done a whole lot besides the above mentioned activities.  It's been nice just hanging out with my dad.  I bought a new camera before we came and it takes awesome pictures.  I thought I'd share one:

Ok, just kidding.  The picture I was looking for must still be in my camera.  Instead here is a different one:

George is getting really good at smiling.

Back to Blogging

Ok, so I had this unrealistic expectation that on our drive out to California that I would blog every night once we arrived at our hotel with free wi-fi.  The truth is I am not Super Woman.  After driving nine hours and fulfilling my promise to let the kids go swimming in the hotel pool until it closed, getting clothes ready for the following day, and downloading photos from the camera memory card, I was just too exhausted and pretty much fell asleep with the computer on my lap.  So now a week later I will have to do a brief overview of our trip.  I might have to split this up into a couple of days because I'm tired right now too.

Day 2 - Lexington, KY to Macomb, IL

I have a life goal of getting my picture taken in front of every state capitol building.  It all began in college when I drove with a college roommate of mine to her home in Washington State. On the way we visited Sacramento, Salem, and Olympia.  Since then I have visited several more.  I think I have collected more than half of the states.  Anyway, after leaving our hotel in Lexington, KY we had a short drive to Frankfort.  I knew that Frankfort wasn't a big city, but I was a little confused when the GPS told us that we arrived at our final destination.  It was a trailer park having a community yard sale.  I took a picture anyway in case it was the capital.  As we were leaving, we saw the sign, "Capital City Mobile Home Park".  I guess that confused the GPS system.  The GPS eventually directed us to the correct destination.

We also stopped at Springfield, IL.  We visited Abraham Lincoln's old home in addition to the capitol building.  Did you know that Abe is still alive?  We drove around the block three times to try to get his picture.  He seemed pretty annoyed with me snapping pictures of him.  Now I understand why the paparazzi spend a fortune on telephoto zoom lenses.  I probably could've gotten his picture on the first time around the block and been a little more discreet about it if I had a fancy zoom lens.  I was thankful that the homeless man begging for money stalled him for a while.  I wonder if Abe gave him any money, perhaps a five dollar bill along with some pennies?

We also went to Indianapolis, IN and ate Subway on the steps of the Capitol building.

Day 3 - Nauvoo

We spent most of the day in Nauvoo.  We attended Sacrament meeting and then toured the Church Historical sites.  There wasn't enough time to see everything.  We hit the highlights and collected our free souvenirs.  We got a brick, rope, candles, and a mini horseshoe.  We also visited Carthage jail where Joseph Smith was killed.  It was a busy day in Nauvoo and Carthage because it was the day after the last day of the pageant.  Our tour group at Carthage had about 50 people in it.  It was hot and crowded in the tiny rooms.  When we were upstairs looking at the actual room where Joseph was shot, I found a nice spot on a bench by a window where I could sit with George.  He was fussing so I stuck him on my breast because I forgot to bring the pacifier.  As I was sitting there with my boob half exposed because I didn't have a blanket either, the tour guide directed the attention of the group to the window from which Joseph fell to his death.  It was the window I was sitting by. People began to snap pictures.  Nice. Let's hope none of those pictures end up on somebody's blog.

After Carthage we found a nice park in Iowa and ate a snackish dinner of tuna fish and crackers and let the kids play at a park.  We then embarked on an all night drive to Cheyenne, WY.

To Be Continued......

Road Trip - Day One

So we have embarked on a cross country road trip.  I think about 2 hours into the drive, we realized that taking one day to fly would likely have been easier, but definitely not as fun.

Highlight of the day?
Emily - Getting to the hotel. (She loves hotels.)
Bradley - The McDonald's milkshake stop.
Sarah -  (She's sleeping and I forgot what she told me)
Wendy - (She's also sleeping.)
Daddy - Milkshakes.
Mommy - Eating KFC in Kentucky.

I took on the painstaking task of color-coordinating our traveling outfits.  Why?  For no good reason.  But I do have to say, it was easy to count the children and keep tabs on them.  Today we had a brown day.  All but, Wendy wore a brown shirt.  She wore brown capris.  Mommy and Daddy also wore brown shorts.  I thought my kids looked like little UPS employees.

You want to hear something weird?  A lady came and talked to us at the Wendy's we stopped at for lunch in North Carolina.  She made a nice comment about our family.  My husband talked to her more than I did because I was busy wiping ketchup off faces.  When I was checking into our hotel in Kentucky, she was there!  It is about 300 miles and 5 hours away.  What are the chances?  Weird.  I wished I talked to her more at the hotel, but I was busy taking care of our reservation because they booked us for a king bed instead of two queens.  The employee worked it out for us, but these are not queen beds, they are clearly doubles.  It always helps to have queens when you are trying to squeeze 9 people into a hotel room.  Shhh!  Don't tell.  My reservation said 1 adult, 3 children.

That's all for today.  I need to get some sleep for the drive tomorrow.  We are on our way to Nauvoo, Illinois.  Actually we will be about an hour from Nauvoo, because the hotels were booked, but close enough. We are going to church in Nauvoo and seeing the sites on Sunday.

It's too bad George isn't in the picture, but his bottle leaked all over his brown onesie and he was naked.

Stress

I'm a little bit stressed right now.  We are going on vacation and I'm trying to pack.  I'm trying to pack with seven kids running around.  It's causing the blood pressure to rise.  I took my blood pressure at Walmart and it was higher than normal.  Now I'm trying not to stress about my higher blood pressure.

Anyway, this isn't just a vacation.  It's a cross country road trip.  Yes, a cross country road trip with seven children including an almost 3 month old.  I need to take a deep breath.

[Taking a deep breath]

I've been on mental overload the past couple of weeks in preparation.  I've been mapping the route, booking hotels, trying to figure out how to jam pack several activities into each day of travel, packing clothes, writing lists, paying bills, getting the camera and GPS ready, etc.  I look forward to just sitting in the van and watching the scenery as we drive.

Today I was trying to figure out my medical bills and insurance from giving birth to George because I wanted to get them paid and not have to worry about it while traveling.  I noticed that the charges were not applied toward my separate maternity deductible.  To make a long story short, my doctor and hospital charges were not covered by my maternity policy because there were "complications" during delivery.  Now when I think of childbirth complications, I think breech, emergency c-section, forceps, etc.  Of course, almost bleeding to death would probably count too, but I thought my bleeding wasn't that severe.  I didn't need a blood transfusion or anything.  So I accept the fact that I had a complication.  However, when I asked the lady on the phone at the insurance company what else is classified as a complication, she mentioned stitches from tearing/episiotome. I said, "WHAT?!

So basically you have to have an absolute perfect pregnancy and delivery, which includes a stretched out vagina or baby with a small head to be covered by this policy's maternity coverage.  It's insane.  I honestly don't think I have met anyone that hasn't had tearing or stitches, extra bleeding, or some other complication.  The fact that I'm Strep B positive is probably a complication since I need an IV of antibiotics during labor and delivery.  I think it's a total scam.  Fortunately things worked out ok for me because I had a secondary policy through my husband's group policy which paid some too.  I ended up spending about $2700 more than I thought I would though.  I guess it's a lesson learned.  Don't buy Assurant Health Maternity coverage!  Total ripoff.

There.  I got that off my chest.  I'm moving on and I'm going to stop being angry about it.  But seriously, I think it's so ridiculous.  The lady on the phone expressed absolutely no shame about the ridiculous restrictions on the benefits.

That was my day.  I'm sure my blood pressure shot up about 30 points during that phone call.

Happy Half Birthday!

Yes, it's true, I am blogging two days in a row!

Rachel turned 2 1/2 today.  Sadly, I did not take a picture of her.

I found $40 in an old purse of mine today.  I went to Kohl's to spend it this evening. I spent $200. Whoops!  I can't even put an "only" in front of that number to justify it.  Looks like I will be doing some returns tomorrow when I pick out what I like best.  I don't go shopping all that often for myself and try on clothes.  When I was in the fitting room, it brought back memories of doing back to school shopping with my mom.  She would usually sit in the fitting room with me and express her opinion of the clothes I was trying.  When I got older and was responsible for purchasing my own clothes, she would still come along.  Often I would have several items that I liked, but I knew I couldn't afford.  She would somehow always successfully convince me that I should get all of them.  Often she would get out her credit card and help pay for them.

I tried on bathing suits tonight.  That was depressing.  My current bathing suit is about 5 years old and it looks as if the chlorine is taking a toll on it.  It is starting to wear away in the back.  I was hoping to quickly find a cute suit tonight.  Didn't quite happen.  First of all, I prefer a one-piece because let's face it, I have born seven children and it would be a frightening sight if I wore a bikini. Second of all, one piece bathing suits are designed for my grandmother. So I opted for a two-piece that looks like a one-piece when you wear it.  (Are they still called tankinis?)  I like tankinis because they are good for when I nurse and go pee (not at the same time).  The good news is that they sell the pieces separately, which means I can buy my bottom 2 sizes larger than my top.  Yay!  But it is difficult to even find two pieces that match!  Anyway, I finally found some matching pieces.  One set was cute.  It had a cute little skirt bottom to help cover my butt cheeks that are decorated with stretch marks and cellulite. However, the top seems a little too revealing.  I just don't care for anyone to see the skin between my boobs.  I bought it anyway to try at home and ask my husband's opinion. I also bought a one-piece plain black one.  It's nice, but eh, nothing special for a whopping $44.  But, like I said, it was depressing looking at my body under those fluorescent lights.  I'm sure if my mom were there, she would have had some encouraging and flattering words to boost my butt and belly esteem.

Also, I came home and checked the mail and there was a coupon for  Kohl's for 15% off.  Dang. Why didn't I check the mail before I went?  I hope I can take it to the store and get an adjustment when I return the stuff I'm not keeping.

July 21

It's been two months since my mom died.  I didn't quite know how I would feel at this point two months ago.   I'm not one to be dramatically sad.  I enjoy life.  I enjoy laughing and being happy.  I enjoy feeling joy, or should I say I enjoy enjoying?  Anyway, I miss my mom a whole lot, but I have been enjoying life in the meantime.  She lived nearly 3000 miles away so I am accustomed to having her not physically around all the time.  However, when there are things I want to tell her, I get so frustrated that I can't pick up the phone and tell her.  I think it hit me most when I received and tried out my new vacuum.  I wanted to tell her that I loved it and that I am going to vacuum every day with it.  Mr. Dyson is instilling a love of vacuuming in my children, especially Sarah.  She wanted to vacuum the family room two times today.

[I would totally post a picture of my new vacuum here, but my camera is downstairs and I don't have the pic on my computer yet.  But trust me, it's beautiful.  I was wrong.  Not all vacuums are ugly.]

At the time of her death, I was aware of the five stages of grief and was prepared to experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I thought I would gradually go through these stages as time progressed, however, I find myself going through each stage every day.  I wake up thinking she's not really gone, she's still there.  I get angry when I realize that she's not and sometimes mad because I feel ditched.  (Which reminds me that I had a dream last night that I had abs of steel.  When I looked at my abs this morning in the mirror and realized it was just a dream, I entered the angry stage.  Why did my mind have to tease me like that?)  I'm not not a very good bargainer, so I kind of skip that step.  I get sad and cry every now and then.  But I have to say, most of the time I just accept it and live my life how I think my mom would want me to live it.  Happy.

The other day during Sacrament meeting at church, Wendy whispered to me, "Mommy when we die, we don't really die, we really live?"  I nodded my head and smiled.  I was pleased that she was expressing her understanding of life after death.  She knows Nana is not gone forever.  It is such a comfort to know we will see her again.  I am confident of that.  It's a comfort to me to know that my mom was reunited with her dad and her brother and is most likely hanging out with them right now, as well as her other ancestors, as they wait for the rest of us.  Sometimes I get a little jealous that she has moved on to bigger and better things.  But patience is a virtue that I continue to work on and I will have my turn at death someday, hopefully in the far future.  I have kids to raise, blog posts to write, and vacuuming to do while I endure to the end!

Miss you, mom!

Post Beach Rinse

I'm really really mad at myself for not blogging more regularly.  But, that is how it goes sometimes, right?  I've been very busy swimming, watching the Bachelorette, getting ready for a vacation, etc.

Yesterday evening we took the kids to the beach.  You would think since we live fairly close, we would go more often, but we don't.  The beach is so messy.  We like to go at 6PM when parking is free and we don't have to lather on the suntan lotion.  The kids had a blast.  Even little George got his feet sandy.

When we returned home, the kids took showers and I sprayed down George in the bathtub.  I've been meaning to take a video of him when I bathe him because it always makes me laugh.  I promise the water is neither hot nor cold, but a comfortable lukewarm  He just gets a little startled by the spray, however, he loves it on his head.

Experimentation

As you can see, I am experimenting with the design of my blog.  I was checking out Blogger's new template designer.  Don't be surprised if my blog changes colors over the next couple of weeks.  Today I like blue.  It feels tranquil after a day with my kids.

I took the kids to the pool this morning.  I'm really wanting them to learn how to swim better.  I am hoping that they will get better if I take them more often.  I have friends whose 3 year olds are jumping in the pool and swimming several feet.  My three year old puts on his arm floaties and sits on the steps of the pool.  He doesn't have a clue how to paddle his arms, only his feet.  Barely.  He chokes on the water if it gets in his mouth.  It's a little bit embarrassing.  My six year old takes about 5 minutes to gain the courage to jump into the pool each time. However, she doesn't jump, she just kind of steps in without her head going under.  My 5 year old gets out of the pool and runs away anytime I get near her because I challenged her to swim to me without her arm floaties last week.  She agreed to the challenge, but she sank when she failed to move her arms or legs in the process.  Now she doesn't trust me.  Emily and Bradley can swim, but not long distances.  They would be in trouble if they had to swim to save their lives.  So we are working on it.  Thankfully our pool doesn't go any deeper than 4 1/2 feet.  It's also been helping to get a little bit of tan.  I love when my feet are tan.  I feel like I live on an island or something.

We also went to the museum today and learned about Madame Alexander dolls.  They showed us six of them from the First Lady collection.  The kids then did a craft with some foam dolls that the museum ordered from Oriental Trading Company.  That was fun.

For dinner I made some mini corn dogs. Well, I didn't actually make them, I just took them out of the freezer and baked them.  When they were done, they smelled so good.  The smell was reminiscent of an amusement park or carnival.  Unfortunately/fortunately most of my kids didn't like them, so I ate most of them.  They were as delicious as they smelled.  After dinner we watched Brain Surge on Nickelodeon and they have slime on that show.  Bradley accurately made the conclusion tonight that, "Nickelodeon is all about slime."  It brought back memories of when I used to watch You Can't Do That on Television at my friends' houses that had cable because we didn't have cable.  Then we watched two episodes of iCarly.  I love that show.  Bradley was hoping that Spongebob would come on because that's what Rachel wanted to watch.  But Rachel will pretty much watch anything.  She just says, "Spongebob" because that is sadly one of the only words she speaks.

Now I'm exhausted.  I think I'm going to watch some So You Think You Can Dance and call it a night.

Blogger's Block

It may appear that I have Blogger's Block.  I don't really.  I just have lack of motivation to get my thoughts onto media.  My husband's parents were in town most of the week and I have noted a correlation to having company and lack of blogging.  I'm not sure why.  It's just the way it is.  It's a blogging phenomenon.

Today was rather uneventful.  I tried to vacuum the kids' room and my vacuum cleaner finally broke the camel's back.  It's basically come to where vacuuming is pretty much me running the cleaner over the floor and spending 5 minutes picking up everything by hand that the cleaner didn't suck up.  That's just not going to work.  So I got on my computer and spent probably about 3 hours researching and trying to decide which new one to get. I know Dysons are all the craze, but I have a hard time spending that much money on a cleaning appliance.  So I debated what to buy.

In my opinion vacuum cleaners are just ugly and I have a difficult time getting excited about any of them.  I believe there is a market for vacuum cleaners with bling.  I think I might have to create a prototype with my old vacuum.  That will be fun.

Finally I made the executive decision to get a Dyson DC14.  We don't have pets so we don't need a fancy pet friendly vacuum, although I'm sure seven kids might equal the mess of one pet.  However, my kids don't shed much.  They mostly bleed, bruise, spit up, and spill popcorn.  I flipped from website to website.  I checked Overstock, Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Kohl's.  I ended up going with a refurbished model at Overstock and got a white Dyson (versus the typical yellow) for $259.99 with $13 cash back from Ebates and only $2.95 shipping.   My budget was originally $100, so I only spent about $160 more than I planned.  (One thing I learned from my mom is that if you put the word "only" in front of any dollar amount, it has this magical way of not seeming to be that much.)

I am SO excited to receive it and vacuum my whole house!  I just hope the "refurbished" thing doesn't bite me in the butt.  According to the reviews, refurbished models were just fine, the warranty is just shorter.  I decided to take a gamble and go for the shorter warranty because in my experience warranties always have loopholes.  I'm so excited I spent only $250!  Next on my list is to return my purple iPod that my husband gave me for my birthday.  I think now that means I just got a vacuum cleaner for my birthday.  Hmmm.  I remember when I was little my mom never liked receiving appliances for her birthday or Christmas.  I think I am understanding why now.  I'm still excited though!!  I'm sure my mom would've even loved to have received a Dyson for only $250!!!

Happy 4th of July!

George was blessed today at church in his red, white and blue.

I think I've seen this cake on the cover of every women's magazine for the past twenty years.  I finally made one.  Those white things on top of the blueberries are star shaped marshmallows.

We enjoyed the neighborhood fireworks show and some of our own sparklers.  I had promised the kids we would do them.  At about 10:30 PM on Saturday night I realized I forgot to buy them at Walmart earlier that day, so I made a special trip to go them.  I was a hero on Sunday morning when my husband told the kids.

Even Rachel enjoyed the sparklers.

Happy 3rd of July

Today we went shopping at Walmart to get some goods for the 4th of July.  We also went to Kohl's to buy my husband some new shirts for his new job.  Yes, my husband has a new job, but that's a topic for another post.

While we were shopping at Kohl's I told Wendy to stay close.  She asked why and I explained that there are bad people that take little kids.  I told her that if that happened we would never see her again.  Then she said to me, "And I would have to wear these clothes forever?" So now every time we go out shopping she will be sure to wear her favorite clothes.

While at Walmart I was pushing the cart with Jason sitting it.  I pointed to a pineapple and asked Jason, "What's that called?" He said, "I don't know."  Then he paused for a moment in deep toddler thought and then he said, "Spongebob lives in one of those.  Spongebob house is a pineapple.  It's a pineapple!"  I was so happy that my theory of Spongebob being educational programming was supported by my toddler's logic.

We didn't buy a pineapple, but we bought a watermelon.  Do you know anybody that lives in a watermelon under the sea? No, me either.  That's why Jason called this "a big hebby ball."

Happy Birthday, Wendy!

Wendy turned 5.  We took the family to see Toy Story 3.  Good day!

My Birthday

So today wasn't all that eventful.  I was regretfully grumpy just "because".  I think I was grumpy because I had laundry to do, and my kids equate birthdays with holidays, so they think they don't have to do their regular cleaning.  There were a few moments when I got mad at them.  Also, I missed getting a phone call from my mom.  Every time the phone rang, I instinctively would think it would be her to wish me a happy birthday, but of course it wasn't.  However, I did get a call from my sister, my grandmother, my dad, and my brother.  Then at the end of the evening, I received a call from my cousin and his wife.  That was a nice surprise.

My husband left work early and we took the kids to the museum.  Every Wednesday they have something for kids at 3:30pm.  Today we learned about flags.  Yay.  Did you know that a person who studies flags is called a vexilologist?  I didn't either.

Then we went to dinner to Five Guys for burgers and hot dogs.  I ate a hot dog with ketchup, mustard, and relish.  While we were there my husband surprised me with a gift.  It was an iPod Nano.  That was quite exciting.  My first MP3 player!  I'm so excited to download my ABBA on it.  He bought me a purple one because Wendy told him my favorite color is purple (which is true) but Apple's interpretation of purple is blue, so I think I am going to get a different color.  Not that I don't like blue, I just don't like that they call blue "purple", so I'm thinking of getting a green one.  However, if I get pink, it might help prevent my husband from borrowing it.  I'm still deciding.  He paid cash for it at Best Buy because he didn't want me to see it on the credit card statement, which I think is funny because he bought it yesterday.  I guess he doesn't realize that I don't check our credit card online account everyday, especially on my birthday.  However he's lucky he had the cash because I had to cancel our credit card account yesterday because of fraudulent activity on it.  Anyway, of course I asked him why an iPod Nano?  Why not an iPod Classic or an iTouch?  Those are pretty tempting too, but I will probably stick with the Nano and wait for him to get me an iPhone :)  

Then we went home and the kids frosted my cake and I opened cards and some presents from my sister.

Presents from my sister.  Never too old for Spongebob stuffed toys.  The only one I still need is Squidward.

My pretty yellow cake with 34 candles.

34

Today's my birthday! 

Once upon a time....

.... there was a day when my children looked pretty spiffy when we went to church.  Today Wendy wore a white bow with an off white dress.  (Gasp!)  Rachel wore two left shoes that were 3 sizes too big.  One black and one white.  It wasn't a battle I was willing to fight this morning.  She thought she looked beautiful.

.... I had only myself as my own blog follower.  Now I have 12 new followers (so far).  It makes me very happy to open my Blogger Dashboard and see that.

.... I had a beautiful garden.  The deer and possum seem to think it's beautiful and delicious too.  All my tomatoes are gone.  Very very sad.  At least the deer can't eat my blog followers.

Thank Goodness for Procrastination

I do my grocery shopping at Walmart Supercenter on Saturdays.  I dread Walmart.  I wish I didn't shop there, but they just seem to have the best prices, and I like the one-stop shopping gimick.  Most weeks I procrastinate the grocery part, so I shop for everything else, which usually causes me to put about $50 worth of things into the cart that I think I need like more hangers, hair gel, toys that were on clearance that I will stash away for Christmas presents and forget about and remember on December 26th, vanilla scented candles, plastic cups, plastic bowls, new dish towels, clearance clothes for the kids, etc.  (I really did need the new dish towels.)

Well, today my procrastination was well worth it. As I browsed the children's shoe aisle, I scored these green boots for Jason for $2.00.  They are two sizes too big, but it gives him all the more time to wear them.  He loves them.

Maybe next week I will score him a clearance Faded Glory Tshirt.

P.S.  Thank you to all my followers!!  I am feeling ♥ loved ♥.

Solicitation

Ok, so I don't normally like to solicit, but I need some help here.  Scan your eyes to the right of your screen and you will see my list of followers.  As you can see I only have one blog follower (at time of posting) and it's myself.  That makes me sad and feeling lonely.  Now, I know I have visitors to my website.  My Google Analytics tells me that I have an average of 45 unique visitors per day.  So where are my followers?  (Tear streaming down my cheek.)

I understand that some of you may be following my old url at www.melindabeth.com/blog, so you will need to follow my new url at http://blog.melindabeth.com.  I also understand that some of you don't have Blogger or Google accounts, whom I forgive.  Some of you might be following me as anonymous, which I'm not sure how to think about that, except that I wish it was public.  (I hate how that word looks so similar to pubic.)

There is no good reason for this solicitation.  I receive no financial gain, only an increase of blog esteem.  I hope you can find the time to take 5 seconds to click on the "Follow" button to your right or add me to your Blogger Reading List.  But you must follow me publicly, not anonymously or pubicly.  I just want to feel loved. ♥

Here is a picture.  Seriously, how can you resist following that tongue?!

New Grocery Store

For the past 6 months I've been drooling over the new grocery store they've been building about 1 mile from our house, at the entrance of our neighborhood.  I'm so excited that when my husband calls me on his way home from work, I can say, "Can you pick up a gallon of milk?" and it will only take him an extra few minutes to get it instead of having to go out of the way to an inconvenient grocery store.  It's also open 24 hours, so I can also say at midnight, "Honey, will you go get me some Klondike Bars?  Please?"

This evening we visited the new grocery store to check it out.  I felt like a country girl who had ventured to the big city as we gawked over the newness of the groceries.  For some reason it was so much more exciting to see tortilla chips at a new grocery store than at Walmart. Everything was so nice and shiny and neat.  As my husband pushed around the grocery cart with Rachel in the seat, George in his infant seat in the back, and the other 5 kids riding while hanging onto the edge of the cart, it was fun to watch people stare.  One man even saluted my husband.

Today I also received our new GPS gadget in the mail today.  It's our first GPS ever.  It is kind of exciting.  We have a road trip planned for August and it will be very handy.  I got it on sale this weekend because they had some good deals at Best Buy for Father's Day.  We used the GPS to direct us to the new store.

That's my day.  Oh and George slept from midnight to 6 AM last night.  We'll see how he does tonight.  I'm expecting to be disappointed.

Salary

My husband's parents gave us a subscription to Kids Discover magazine.  Each month we receive an issue about a certain topic.  For the next six weeks we are going to go through each issue we've received so far and learn about it.  This week is about money.  One of the things we learned today is that Roman soldiers were paid in salt which is where word salary comes from, because the Latin term for salt is salarius ("of salt").

My husband has a little jar in a kitchen drawer where he throws his spare change when he comes home from work. Today Wendy showed me the jar and said, "Mommy, that's the money that Daddy makes at work." Thank goodness my husband has an annual salary larger than $96.

That was a cute little thing that brightened my Monday.  It's been one month since my mom died.  I thought I would be moving on by now and I am.  I just miss her so much.  I cleaned four of my kitchen drawers today.  I pulled everything out, wiped out the crumbs, and put everything back neatly.  I wanted to tell her about my accomplishment today.  It's such not exciting news, but she always listened and actually cared about the mundane things in my life.  She would've been happy for me that I had clean kitchen drawers.  They do look pretty awesome. 

Now here's a picture of George, one of my sources of joy:

I need to get myself a onsesie that says, "I love my Mommy."

Now off to one of my other sources of joy --- The Bachelorette.

Happy Father's Day!

Pacifier?

Sometimes babies just make me smile. I think a better term for this pacifier would be "muffler".

Day 7 - May 31

On Memorial Day we bought some McDonalds and had a picnic at the cemetery.  It's a beautiful cemetery.  It's close to Lake Ontario and gets a nice breeze.  There's a great climbing tree near the family plots.

My dad was busy cleaning the headstones.

Wendy wanted her picture taken by this tree because it looked like a W.

Rachel discovered the perfect sippy cup holder.

My grandfather's headstone.  The ancestor that George's middle name came from.

A family photo by my mom's new grave.  (We will be getting her a headstone.)

Day 6 - May 30

Loading the van before church, I had the perfect opportunity to ask my husband, "Is that a banana in your pocket?...."

After church the kids drank some grape soda while they played outside Nani's apartment.

Rachel took a nap next to Nani.

This thing has been sitting on the back of my grandmother's toilet for the past 25 years.  I never realized it until Wendy pointed out that, "It looks like she has to go potty."  If she was more familiar with Star Wars she would've said, "It looks like Princess Leia has to go potty."  It's totally the perfect thing to put on the back of toilet.  I hope to inherit it.

Day 5 - May 29 Part 2

After the cemetery we drove to the church.  It's a very old Lutheran church that most of the ancestors on my mother's side attended.  It's the church where my mother attended school in kindergarten through 8th grade.

The Christus in the background has a very familiar feel.

The congregational part of the church.  There were more people than none at the service.  I had the opportunity to speak at the service.  It was nice to be able to talk about my mom.  I'll have to write some of the things I said in another post.  I will tell you this though (and I did say this)  ... my mom lived 63 years without ever pumping a single tank of gasoline.  My dad was good to my mom.  

After the service, my mom's cousin threw a party at his house.  Everyone in attendance at the service was invited.  He has a pool that kids enjoyed.  We ate hot dogs and hamburgers and had fun talking with each other.

Some family members held George.  When they eventually passed him back to me, he had formula crusted all over his face from the bottle he drank at the church.  I can't believe people were holding him looking so disgusting.  I was so embarrassed.

The pool and Jason going down the slide.  Thankfully I forgot my bathing suit and my cousin played lifeguard.

Brownies and wedgies for dessert.

It was a great day.  It wasn't an event I really wanted to be celebrating at the moment, but I'm sure my mom would've been pleased we had a party.  She liked parties and family social gatherings.  I wish she could've been there.  

Day 5 - May 29 Part 1

Saturday was the day of my mom's memorial service.  It was great day.  We truly celebrated her life.  She had a good one.

Getting ready at the hotel.  My nine year old daughter can tie a tie and I can't.

Before the church service we had a short, private committal service at the cemetery.  I had never heard it called that before, but I suppose once you are in the ground you are committed.  It was a beautiful morning. My mom couldn't have picked a better week to die.

My mom in the overpriced burial urn.  I love the shade of blue.  It matches her eyes.  I'm sure my mom would be pleased at how petite she looks in this picture.  

The immediate family before the ceremony.  I'm not sure where my other five kids are.  They are probably running around and jumping off tombstones.

These were the chairs they had for us to sit on.  I loved them.  They were plastic chairs covered in blue fur.  During this difficult time it was very comforting to feel like I was sitting on Cookie Monster's lap. Unfortunately there weren't any cookies.

When we were planning the service on Thursday, I had envisioned the kids throwing flowers into the burial hole.  I guess I watch too much TV because I was imagining watching  pretty daisies falling into a deep hole in slow motion.  Well, there was no hole, so instead the kids put some red carnations on top of the urn.  I still wish they could've thrown them in a hole, but I suppose the hole wasn't going to be all that big and deep anyway.

My mom was always thinking about the kids at events.  So we got them some balloons to release after the ceremony.  They enjoyed that.

I peeked under the Astroturf to check to see if they had dug the hole yet.  They didn't.

On our way back to the van Jason threw a three year old tantrum.  I told him to be careful because they might mistake him for being dead and bury him too.