Airing Dirty Laundry

This is our bedroom.This is Ryan's side of the bed.
This is where Ryan deposits his clothes each night.
This is our laundry basket.
This is a distance of approximately 17 feet.
After a hard day's work and a hard night of going to school, doing homework, finishing sprinklers, etc., all Ryan wants to do is put on a comfy pair of pajama pants and lounge for a bit. And each night, right before climbing into bed, Ryan deposits said comfy pajama pants right by his side of the bed. For some reason, this drives me insane! At first I had no problem with this. Each morning while making the bed, I'd pick up his pants, fold them up and place them back on their appropriate hanger in our closet or into the clothes hamper. This was a great system for Ryan. He had an never-ending supply of comfy jammies at his disposal. Slowly this task started taking it's toll on my sanity. Eventually I began experimenting with various methods in an effort to get him to walk the 17 feet to the laundry basket. These included asking nicely, asking not-so-nicely, nagging him, suggesting he use one of the drawers in his night stand to store them in, stuffing his floor-jammies into his pillowcase so he would have to sleep on them at night (this didn't work by the way. He never even noticed they were there. Then when I told him what I had done he didn't think it was very funny.) Most recently I began picking them up each morning and hiding them. I thought I was so clever until the repeated requests that I please do some laundry. (I guess he didn't notice the laundry room was empty, his closet was full, and it was specifically his PJ's that were missing)

So... today I'm taking a different approach. What do you think? Will the jammie closet on the floor be a big enough hint?

Lift Up Your Voice & Sing, Sing, Sing!

I have a portable boom box that goes with me almost everywhere I go. It comes in stereo, but there's only one station... high-pitched opera. It's great. It sings about anything & everything I do. Sometimes I get a little embarrassed about my boom box. It's almost impossible to turn it off, and when I'm out in public I get a few stares. But then again, Sometimes my boom box makes my day.

My boom box comes in the form of two cute little girls I like to call Nicole & Audrey. And boy do they love to sing. Today at the store they were fawned over by an cute little lady who kept saying that singing children were happy children. She told them they had the most beautiful voices she had ever heard. Instantly encouraged by this lavish flattery, their voices filled the store... the entire store.

In sacrament meeting, they make up their own words and sing at the top of their lungs. I don't want to stifle their love for music, but sometimes I worry that the sacrament hymn isn't the best place for them to explore their musical range.

Nicole keeps telling me that one day she's going to be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir just like her grammy (my mom). At the rate she's going, I sure wouldn't be surprised.

Thank you girls for always filling our home with the happy sounds of song!

Mmmm.... Butter!

There are so many things wrong with this picture... I don't even know where to start.

Wait... Didn't I Just Talk About My Hair-Cutting Skills?

Do you see this poor girl? Look closely at her hair. See the crooked bangs? This is me, age 7. and this hair-do was not uncommon. My dear, sweet mom - try as she might... just wasn't meant to cut hair. It was always the same thing. She cut our hair, step back, look at it, say, "Hmm.. the right side is a little bit longer than the left," cut it again, step back, look at it, say "Hmm... the left side is a little bit longer than the right," cut it again, step back, look at it, say, "Hmm..." You get the point. Inevitably the results were always the same... she'd eventually give up on making it even and we'd end up with ear-length hair that was crooked as can be.

I, apparently have inherited her talents. Last night I was looking at Khursten's hair and thinking to myself, "I could trim that. How hard could it be?" After taking her hair that was down to the middle of her back and 'pulling a mom' until it was at an uneven shoulder length, I decided to quit while I was ahead.

I sent her to school today with some seriously bad hair with the thought in mind that we'd take her to a professional as soon as she got home. She was so cute about the whole thing. She kept saying, "It's not too bad mom. I think you did a really great job for your first try. I don't think anyone will even notice that it's not quite even." She survived school today without any razzing from the other kids. In fact, her boyfriend said, "Wow Khursten! Your hair is beautiful!" (Oh wait... he's not her boyfriend.)

Anyway... as soon as she got home today we went and got her get a professional do. Of course, then Nicole needed her hair cut too. Here's the end result. They're feelin' like a million bucks right now, and I have officially learned my lesson!

Bidding Naps a Fond Farewell

Look at this girl! Does she even look tired? This is what I found when I finally gave up on today's nap. I know I would be a lot happier if I would just throw my hands up and admit defeat, but for some reason I can't do that just yet. Naps are lookin' like they're a thing of the past. This past week or two I have put Audrey in bed, and then just hoped and prayed that she'd fall asleep. Most of the time she just plays with her toys or sings songs to herself. I even tried locking all of her toys in her closet to get her to sleep better. That didn't work. She's got way too much imagination!

I don't know why I'm all that worried about her napping anymore anyway. Usually if I am lucky enough to get her to fall asleep, I'm so worried about waking her up that I end up tiptoeing around, taking the phone of the hook, and being as silent as I possibly can.

I've been here before with Khursten & Nicole, but for some reason it's always a sad day for me when naptime if officially over. It's so hard to really call it quits. In the back of my mind there's always the off-chance that today will be the day she decides to fall asleep. How about you? Did the thought of giving up your kid-free hour of reading a good book (or surfing blogs) seem like it just might be the end of the world as you know it? :)

Rain! Rain! Rain! Please....?

Am I the worlds' worst mom if I'm secretly crossing my fingers and praying that the school carnival gets rained out tonight?

A Conversation With An Inquisitive 5-Year-Old

Today while we were eating lunch, Nicole asked me the following question, "Mommy, how do they make the water in the mountains clean?"
This is a typical question to hear from her. Every day I hear a question like, How does the electricity make the light bulb work, or how were the mountains made, or what are clouds made of, or why does our heart beat faster when we're running. I feel like I need to buy an encyclopedia and start looking things up so I can get my answers correct.
Today I was busy eating my own lunch and not super eager to delve into the specifics of the water purification process, so I answered, "Hmm... good question... I don't know."
I saw her puzzling that one over for a bit while she finished off her cheese & Crackers. A few minutes later she said, "I think I know how they do it. They get a net with tiny, tiny holes and they put water through it and then all of the dirt is too big to fit through the holes so it stays behind and the water is clean."
Impressed by her quick conclusion, I answered, "Yes. That's exactly right. That's called a filter. They run the water through a filter and gets all the dirt out."
I could see that she wasn't satisfied quite yet. A minute or two later she asked, "But what about all the germs? They're smaller than the water so they would go right through the filter too."
"Yes," I replied, "Germs are too small to filter out so they have to use chemicals to get rid of the germs."
"How do chemicals get rid of germs? Do they chase them away?"
"No. Not exactly. They use chemicals that are poisonous to the germs and it kills them. They don't use enough to hurt us, but it kills the germs."
Then I saw the funniest, most horrified look on her face. "You mean that every time we drink water we're drinking dead germs? That is Dis-gus-ting!"
Nicole's so fun because she always keeps me guessing. Pretty soon I'm going to be asking her the questions, and I'll bet you she knows the answer.

I Have Followers

Well... blogger asked me so nicely to create a post about their new "followers" feature. I decided to oblige them. What is following? They have created a new feature that works with your Google Reader to track your favorite blogs. Now you can read all the updated posts from your favorite blogs right from your very own blog! Wahoo! No more clicking back and forth to add comments? It also lets you know all of the people who like to read your blog. Hooray! I have 2 followers! (See that fancy new widget on my sidebar?) So... I guess if you like reading my blog, feel free to follow it!?!?!

So Proud

This morning Audrey came running into my room yelling, "C'mere Mama! C'mere! Look-it! Look-it I built! It's cool!"

She was right! It was cool!

Wait... Why Did I Sign Up For This?

When Ryan & I first got married it didn't take long before I learned that his hair grew like a weed. He was spending about $20 every other week to get it cut. Back then we were so poor and every penny counted so I begged and begged Ryan to give me a chance to cut his hair for him so that we could save ourselves a little cash.

After at least a year of me begging, he gave me a shot. Things went pretty well. I quickly figured out the blending thing, and he was looking good. I took off the attachment to do the final touch-ups on the back of his neck. Can you guess what happened next? Ryan noticed that I missed a few pieces of hair on the top, so what did I do? You guessed it! I dove right in and shaved the top of his head bald, because of course I forgot to put the attachment back on.

It took a good 6 years or so before I was given the opportunity to try again. But... eventually laziness overcame Ryan's fears, (apparently it's a big ordeal to drive to Fantastic Sam's) and I have now become his permanent hair stylist. After much practice, I have mastered exactly one hair style (in various lengths) This in no way qualifies me for this position. I never went to beauty school! I'm not a professional by any means. Yet my one, lone customer seems to have some pretty high demands.

Although Ryan usually loves the end result and is very grateful that I was willing to cut his hair for him, the whole time I'm doing my work I get to hear fabulous comments such as these:

• Ouch! Do you really need to grab my face to turn my head?
• Did you remember the attachment?
• Why is this taking so long? The ladies at Great Clips could do this in about 5 minutes.
• You don't have to pull my ears to cut behind them.
• Did you put the attachment on?
• Why do I keep having to stand up and turn around? I wish we had a swivel chair.
• Those clippers are hot. Don't touch them to the back of my neck.
• Don't forget the attachment!
• Make sure the back is even.
• One side looks fluffier than the other.
• This isn't blended very well.
• What's going on with this part right here?
• Make sure you are using an attachment!

This is just a small sampling of the dialog that takes place while I'm cutting Ryan's hair. So I'm wondering... how many of you out there have found yourself in my same position? Are you trying your hardest to be a hair stylist with no training at all? Are you subjected to the ridicule and demands of such a picky customer? Are you compensated for your efforts? I need your advice because this current set-up isn't really working for me anymore.

The Wonderful Ward Campout

Friday night we had the chance to attend our ward campout. After much debate over whether or not the impending freezy-ness would be worth the high levels of fun we were sure to have, we packed up and headed out.

Here are some random photos of our fun time.

Here's Ryan setting up the tent. Do you love the action shot of him tossing the bag? Pretty cool! Anyway... after we got the tent all pitched, we couldn't find our rain fly anywhere. Instantly I panicked. I knew it was going to be freezy-freezy and the lack of privacy was a bit concerning too. Ryan told me that he remembered packing up the rain fly in a different box. What? After a heated discussion about what a bad decision it was to pack the rain fly SEPARATELY from the tent, Ryan decided to head back home and grab it. I wasn't keen on the idea of him having to drive another 2 hours just to get the stinkin' rain fly so I suggested we use the tarp and Jimmy-rig it up. So in a feat of amazingness, I pulled the tarp out from under our already-pitched, already staked-down tent. TADA! Guess what I found? The rain fly! Crisis averted.

Here's Audrey with her daddy. This picture is so cute because it's kinda hard to tell who's having more fun!

Here are my three beautiful girls. So here's the eternal struggle with kids and camping. I never want to bring nice clothes because they completely destroy them while we're camping, so I always bring the old, stained up, too small, out of style stuff. But then all of our pictures look like this. Oh well... I guess looking this lovely is just part of the fun.

The girls discovered these delightful little red berries all over the campground. It didn't take them long to figure out that toasting said berries, created a nice red goo. They spent most of the evening with berries on sticks, roasting them in the fire and 'making jam'.

Even Audrey got in on the jam-making fun! And yes... I did let me 2-year-old play in the fire! But I was right there keeping her very well supervised. When you're a kid, sticking sticks in a roaring fire is what camping is all about.

Don't have a marshmallow to roast? Berries will do just fine!

Here's mom & Audrey. She was way too excited about the 2 rivers that ran on either side of the campground.

Here we are sitting around the campfire. I really wish we had gotten a picture of the whole family together. Darn it!

This is our bishop. He & Ryan were able to entertain a dozen kids with a single Frisbee for quite some time. And all this while holding his 1-year-old daughter. Thanks Bishop!

The blur as Audrey runs by. Frisbee sure is fun!

Khursten was absolutely horrified when a man in our ward lit his marshmallows on fire on purpose! She just couldn't understand why someone would choose to destroy such a wonderful thing.

If 2 is good, 4 is better!

A kids' paradise!

Here we all are warming ourselves up by the fire. It was sooooooo cold. I double jammied, double sleeping bagged, and double blanketed the girls at night. I don't know why I didn't do the same for myself. I sat there shivering all night until 3:30 in the morning when I finally dragged Audrey inside my sleeping bag with me to use as my own personal space-heater. Thanks Audrey. When we woke up in the morning, all of our water was frozen. That may have been just a little too cold for me.

Here's my attempt at being artistic. I really wanted to get a campfire picture without the flash. It didn't work out as well as I'd hope because a lot of movement occurred between the 2 seconds that it took for my shutter to open and close. Here's Khursten's best attempt at holding perfectly still for me.

Thanks to everyone who put this together. We sure had a lot of fun!

Thank You Random Man

I want to say thank you to the random little old man who stopped us today and asked if he could make Audrey a balloon poodle. You went out of your way to make her day, and she has had so much fun with it. Thanks.

A Simple Request

Dear, Sweet Husband,

When it's your turn to rent a movie... if you see this guy on the cover:

Please... just keep walking next time.

Persistence is Key....Right?

I have seen many of these potty training posts going around these days. I decided to post my own adventures in potty training. Let me begin by saying that I am the world's worst potty trainer. I H-A-T-E it! I am a uber-freak about cleanliness and the last thing I wanted was pee-pee on my brand new carpet! But after having the first two potty accidents at my house, (from other people's kids!) I felt we were sufficiently Christened and it was time to start trying. Audrey's almost 2 1/2 and really, really tall and we're starting to get looks from all of the potty training police mommies.
We started last week and I wasn't very consistent. After missing the potty on almost every single try, I gave up over the weekend. Refreshed and renewed from a weekend of rest, I made a commitment to myself to give it another go! My thoughts were that if I drown her in liquids, we could sit on the potty every hour on the hour and things would roll smoothly. I bought Audrey her very own box of Capri Suns and we've been downin' those puppies like mad. Unfortunately it hasn't happened at all like in envisioned! So far today we have gone through 6, count them... 6, pairs of panties. My favorite part of all is that we haven't even had one success on the pot! I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, but as soon as I took this picture, I walked into the loft to set my camera down. (This took me all of 4 seconds.) In that time, Audrey had hopped down off the potty, managed to stand right over the heat vent, and peed right down the heat vent! Mmmmm! That's going to smell nice when the heater kicks on this fall. Arghh!!!

I just keep telling myself, "Don't give up! Don't give up! Don't give up!"

How To Look Hot While Playing Rock Band

To all my Rock Band loving friends,
I thought this was pretty good information. We'll definitely have to keep these tips in mind the next time we're rocking out. We wouldn't want to look bad. That would be embarrassing.

If you haven't had a chance to Rock out with Ryan and I, but now after watching this video, you're realizing just what you're missing... give me a call! We're always up for more.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those Sundays where it takes everything you have just to get your family ready and then drag them to church? These are the days where all through the meeting your kids feel the need to pick at and fight with each other. Tears are shed, tantrums are thrown, and every eye in the congregation seems focused on you. You're waiting with bated breath for the closing hymn to be over and the amens to be said so you can rush your family back home. There's no way you're risking these bad attitudes making it through the rest of church. The last thing you want or need at this point is to be summoned from Sunday School to referee the goings-on in Primary. Arghhh! Sometimes church is so hard. I just really hope that Heavenly Father is more focused on the efforts than the results, and that we get extra points for trying when our kids quite clearly are not. :(

Seriously? It's JUST a Vacuum!

I know that taking this picture probably makes me the most evil mommy ever! I just don't know what to say. Audrey has always been afraid of the vacuum. It used to be kind of cute. Oh look... Audrey's scared of the vacuum. How cute! Not so much anymore. If she hears it running anywhere in the entire house, she starts screaming and comes running to me. It's then my job to carry her around with me the whole time I'm vacuuming, and then for at least 5-10 minutes after I'm done. Not a huge deal a year ago, but she's pushing 2 1/2. My arms just aren't that strong! This picture was taken before I even turned the vacuum on. She just saw me get it out and this is what we got. Poor little Audrey. Any tips on overcoming a vacuum phobia?

The Grand Plan

Yesterday the girls were so excited because they found each other on the playground and were able to play together. But apparently there was some concern about how long it took them to locate each other. This morning when I came downstairs, they had solved their own problem.

Matching dresses = quicker locate time. They even asked me to do their hair the same way. Khursten said, "Now all I have to do is look for someone who looks just like me and I'll know it's Allie and we can play!" I thought this showed some pretty good problem solving skills. I have to admit that I'm a little surprised they wanted to play with each other at recess. I know they're best buds at home, but when my sisters and I went to school together we barely acknowledged the other one's presence, let alone playing together at recess. I think it's pretty cool that Khursten's so proud to be Nicole's sister. I hope they will always remain close.

Nicole's 1st Day

Today was Nicole's very first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited. She has literally been waiting for this day since Khursten's first day of Kindergarten. We took her to the bus stop this morning and sent her on her way. There was a lot of confusion about which bus was which since two buses came at the same time!!! I am just going to cross my fingers and pray that she makes it to school okay and that she comes back home this afternoon. Sometimes being a mom is really scary.