Not so pink...

Ashlyn and I finished her birthday invitations today and they are not pink! There's still some pink here and there but I think they turned out cute. Ashlyn had fun helping me stuff the envelopes and putting the stamps on and then putting them in the slot at the post office. That was my last birthday party job that needed to be done so now it's off to do laundry until "B" day. I think the laundry is starting to breed in the basement, I swear there's more down there now than there was an hour ago.

Anyway, here's the finished invites...

Up to my eyeballs in pink!

I've been nonchalantly cleaning and getting ready for mom to come for Ashlyn's birthday on Friday. As I'm folding the clothes and making a bunch of birthday invitations, it just donned on me *exactly* how much pink we have in our house. On Friday it's going to look like the pink panther teamed up with the makers of pepto-bismol and redecorated our house. Don't get me wrong, I love pink and wear it quite often but it seems like everything in our house that has to do with 3 little girls is pink - toothbrushes, dinner plates, flip flops, camping chairs, washcloths, saran wrap (why???), and that's not even going near their room. I think I'm going to have to start going purple for awhile just to give my retinas a break!

Ashlyn is super excited for Friday and I'm super excited to be totally done with all the prep work, all the presents are ready to go and the party is in a bag waiting to be set up. Here comes more pink!
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To Thunder: A Tribute

I've neglected my blog lately, mostly because Kaci has been having middle of the night bulimia parties and I'm extremely tired, but I thought I would catch this puppy up to speed. On Friday Jeremy suffered the grave loss of his forgotten companion- Thunder. He/she lived a long hamster life and I'm sure when Jeremy realizes that she/he's not coming back he'll be sad one of these days. Jeremy was either to heartbroken or didn't care but he didn't want to say anything so Cody spoke on his behalf at her/his funeral. So we say goodbye to Thunder...

Jan. 2006- May 2007

Roses are Red
Violets are blue
Thunder is dead
We'll miss him or her too!


And for some good news- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINA!!!!! She's a happy 23 this year. Hope you have a great day and I'll see you in Unity!

23 things that I think make Tina so great:


1. She's a kick in the pants, sometimes literally!
2. She let me drive her new car when I barely had a license.
3. She always had room for me in her room.
4. Taco Bell, good times!
5. She always had room for me in her tent.
6. Come to think of it she always has room for me everywhere.
7. Road trips to aunt Val's.
8. Best 20 out of 30 (or whatever it took for me to win) solitaire gets a slushy.
9. Loves to go to the movies.
10. Signed to have my ears pierced a second time when the lady wouldn't let me.
11. Loves to collect scrapbooking supplies- even if she'll never use them.
12. Always has the best socks, I should know I have a few pairs.
13. Let me come to work with her when I was bored.
14. Carmex.
15. She's always got such a positive attitude.
16. She's responsible for my first, well I don't want to embarrass myself but she bought it!
17. Dolly Pardon, and thanks to her I still know all the words!
18. She makes the best chocolate chip cookies and I love her meatloaf.
19. She *had* the coolest sunglasses.
20. She let me keep her stuff all the time, come to think of it how do you have anything left??
21. She has the most magnetic personality and is soooo fun to be around.
22. She's loves her great nieces and nephews and she spoils them absolutely rotten!!!
23. There's so much more I could write but at the risk of incriminating myself, Love you Tina!

Trip to Boise + 3 kids + 1 snake = FUN!

If my life gets any crazier I'm going to have to sell the rights to make a movie, I'll make millions. Yesterday Cody had me go on a last minute run to Boise to go get him some supplies and that's where the fun starts. I found out I had to leave 2 hrs before going so I had to do a little flight of the bumble bee to get ready and make sure I had everything to go. After 3 hrs in the car with the girls I had just about had it and if I had to hear "the beep beep" song one more time I was going to cry but we made it. Thanks to mom's excellent navigational skills we found Cody's stores in no time and after dealing with the ultimate male chauvinistic pig we finally found serenity in going to Old Navy. Here's where the snake comes in...

I found some great deals and, despite Mary's complete lack of cooperation, I thought we had a great time. We were putting the girls back into the car when a lady pulls up behind the suburban and tells me "watch out, there's a snake under your tire". WHATTTT!!! I just about threw Kaci in her seat and I flung myself towards the front of the car. After a rousing game of 20 questions with the poor stranger it came slithering out behind the tire by my foot. I was in flip flops and we couldn't tell if it was poisonous or not. Of course it probably wasn't but who wants to find out? I had to try to buckle the girls in curled up in the back with them with all the doors shut. Mom (who at that point didn't care because the snake wasn't on her side LOL!) couldn't find her cell phone and because Mary was in her purse we thought she dropped it in old navy. I called it and it was at home but because of the snake I was too afraid to go out and tell mom. We were in the first parking spot up front so I could see all the people checking out staring at me. I'm sure they were thinking "look at that Oregon dork crawling around in her car". The rest of the day pales in comparison to that so I'll leave it out but all in all I think next time I'll let Cody get his own stinking stain!

Now for something completely random - Cove drive-in ice cream. I love it, I love them, and most of all I love rude little dark hair girl and her lack of portion control. This is a small, it's larger than my side view mirror. I think there's about a gallon of ice cream on there. Not to mention last week it was banana and vanilla. LOVE IT!

Making a wish come true

I ran across a story about a little boy named Shane Bernier with leukemia who's having a birthday on May 30th. His birthday wish this year is to break the world record for the most birthday cards ever received. His story really touched me and it's such a simple thing to do for such a little guy.

Today the kids and I are going to help Shane out and we are going to send him each a card. He's going to be 5 cards closer and it makes me feel good to know that we will brighten his day. I know how much my kids love getting birthday cards and they are going to love writing some for him. If you would like to help, his website with all the information is www.shaneswish.com.

Silly girls

I just had to post more pictures today, these aren't really ones I would scrapbook but they make me smile. Kaci was a bear all morning crying for over 2 hours off and on (mostly on) and I thought I was going to lose it until heaven smiled on me and she took a 4 hour nap! Hallelujah, and I wasted it by yacking to mom and taking a shower but it felt so good to do absolutely nothing but de-stinkify myself and vent. The nap really recharged her batteries though and she has been non-stop trouble all afternoon getting into everything. I caught her pulling books off the bookshelf and she looked at me like "I can't believe you're accusing me of such a thing". While I was cleaning that up I found her in my office getting into the file cabinet. When I caught her she kept ssshhhh'ing me!! Little stinker. The other picture is of the girls drooling over the vintage doll house in the museum window on our walk to get Jeremy. They always ask me if they can go in and play with them, but sadly the museum is always closed - like everything else in town (tiny rant there). Have a great Wednesday!

Pipe cleaner fun

All week I've felt like I just hit the floor running all day long and with Kaci being sick it's been a really rough week. It was so hot yesterday and the kids were starting to get really cranky so I thought we should put everything down and just relax and have some fun. What's more fun than a couple packages of pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and a glue gun? Jeremy made a dragon fly, Ashlyn made a balloon, and Mary decided pipe cleaners were for the birds and colored in her coloring book instead. Mary's had a coloring book obsession lately and colors in it several times a day so who am I to squash her artist endevors and I just let the girl color. I think I had more fun with it than the kids, I made a bumble bee and then some made to order monster rings. I love watching the kids play with something I made even if it is just a silly fuzzy wire thingy. I'm going to try to relax a little more today and I'm marinating dinner so I don't have to worry about it later so it should be a great laid back day today. This evening it's haircuts all around and folding laundry, hooray!

Oh my aching everything!

First let me start by whining-

Friday our gas stove had a gas leak and I thought we were all going to blow up. Of course it had to happen in the morning on the weekend so everyone was in their p.j.s. I threw all the kids in the car and evacuated and let me tell you, Mary looked rockin' in her my little pony undies and cowboy boots! I grabbed clothes for her on the way out but I wanted out asap so she headed to the car sans-clothes. She thought it was awesome. Kaci started running a fever and I wasn't feeling so great either but we were the closest ones to the leak. I HATE the smell of natural gas and our entire house wreaked of rotten eggs.

Of course, Jeremy's friend and his parents came to pick him up for a sleep over and wanted a tour of our house. It smelled flipping fantastic and because I couldn't come back home until the leak was fixed it looked like, well normal, but not tour worthy!

Saturday Kaci started vomiting and still had a fever, poor baby. She was like a baby Koala all day long clinging to my pant leg or hanging on my side. I didn't feel that great either but Cody and I managed to get the "office" (my room) mostly put away but I still have a ton of fabric and scrap junk I need to find homes for. Then I broke my elbow. I really smacked it hard on our couch and I swear a knobby piece fell off in my elbow. It HURTS! I really think I bruised the bone, it hurts to move and I was crying for a long time (like 3 whole minutes!!). The only person to give me sympathy was dear, sweet, gonna get a prize later for loving her mom, Ashlyn.

Now let me end with whining-

Today Cody took the oldest 3 to Stake Conference and I stayed home and slept with Kaci. I think I've caught whatever Kaci has. I hurt all over, and did I say my elbow is killing me! I've already had 2 bowls of Bridget penicillin (a.k.a ice cream) and I still feel blahhh so I know it's going to be a long night, wish me luck! And did I say my elbow is broken and really hurts.

Happy Birthday Kira!!!!! I wish you the best of butterflies and Caterpillar legs and hope you have a fantastic day!

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

We celebrated Kaci's birthday last night and she loved everything about it. I went with a butterfly theme and I would love to say something poetic about her "morphing" or "blossoming" or that it meant something beautiful but really I wanted her party to match her gymboree outfit for scrapbooking (I have a problem LOL). She looked so big sitting up at the table until she started to throw a fit when I wouldn't let her grab the lit birthday candle. She didn't want to blow it, she wanted to touch it. You would think she learned her lesson with last months incident. She managed to pull herself together and loved her cupcake and started out picking the marshmallows off and setting them aside, then she squished it and smashed it. She had no interest in eating it and after one bite still insisted that it was really yucky. I thought I would regret not putting a bib on her but she managed to keep her outfit totally clean, that's my girl! She was absolutely adorable kicking the balloons like soccer balls and blowing her party horn. When it came time to open her presents she pulled off a big piece of wrapping paper and looked at us like she did something naughty and said "sorry" and tried to put the paper back on. She was cracking me up. After a bottle break she rejoined the party and played with her toys. I trusted Cody with the picture taking, so I don't have any digital pictures of her and her cupcake but he swears there are a ton of good ones on film - we'll see!

Happy Birthday Kaci!

I seems like yesterday that we were bringing her home, well not really because I have been holding her for the last 365 days but today our Kaci is 1 year old. She is getting so big. She's been walking for a while but she looks taller all of the sudden and her attitude is an older more toddler attitude. She says a few words- mom, dad, stick, anks (thanks), hi, what, ouch, woof, and barbara (long story). She is such a stinker and gets into everything. She's a lot like Mary as far as fussy and a trouble maker only when she gets into something she looks at me and smiles huge giving me a look like "yeah I'm pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, but look how smart I am piling it in a figure eight and did I remind you how cute I am, how about a hug and a kiss". As I'm typing she's singing a baby talk song and pulling my fabric out and throwing things all over the office, a huge mess but somehow cute! She's such a cuddle bug and passes out the hugs all the time. She just started sleeping through the night so that's great. She eats like a bird or maybe an earthworm. She doesn't like bread, fruits, veggies, eggs, pretty much anything that belongs on the food pyramid. She loves the occasional dirt clod or dust bunny and milk. She is such a funny girl and I can't imagine what our lives would be like without her. We love her so much and can't wait to see what she's going to do next. Happy Birthday Tace!