Confessions...

Confessions....we all have them here are some of mine....

I shop at Kohls too much...Taylor complains that everything we own (clothes wise) is from Kohls, Kohls clearance no less. Thats not true but not entirely untrue as well. 

I can't get help it if we have free money there, I've got to use it! And if we get a $10 off in the paper Jeff will buy a couple extra papers :)

I love Kohls clearance...pretty much everything I want ends up there at some point!

I've eaten too many Caramel Apples!

Jeff was going to make them for a mutual activity so we had to try some out for Family Home Evening...then there were left overs from mutual...then someone gave us some caramel apples...and I seem to be the only one who didn't get tired of them

Oh no!!

I'm trying to avoid my yearly Halloween binge...but this isn't helping 

I did wait until this week to buy the Halloween candy and I've kept it hidden and closed, better than most years, but I fear for my waistline when we get slammed with nice bite sized chocolate bars.

The other activities they did at mutual...teams making one person up as a mummy!

I confess I love having a son thats game for being wrapped up as a mummy and having his picture plastered on facebook. 

(Love his cardboard "sword")

Now if I could just get him to dress up for Halloween!

The painters have been here. 

I confess I just stood by and watched when the Gardeners came and mowed around all our patio furniture instead of moving it out of the way or asking them to move it. 

I know that there will be a patch of long grass underneath.

They'll just get it next week...

(They never even move the dog toys...they just mow around them)

I was at Bath and Body and got these cool Halloween soaps at a dollar each. I bought a bunch to give to Visiting teaching people and the kid's teachers.

Confession I always like to have something to bring over on a visiting teaching visit.... partly because when I see them on my counter I feel guilty until they are delivered. (Hey sometimes it's whatever pushes me to do it)

Thats my secret to "help" my husband do his hometeaching too...if he has something to bring he will more likely do it. 

So I have one sister who says "You know you don't have to keep bringing me stuff"

Sorry but I do...really it's just me and honestly I just like to do it for fun. 

The last week or so I've had 8 doctors appointments for the kids!

Eight!

4 of those appointments came with a $45.00 "specialist" co-pay. It was going to be 6 co-pays but I got out of 2 of them. 

I spent $200.00 last week on specialist co-pays and lot of time in waiting rooms, getting kids out of school and lots of driving!

Through the course of the week we did get Taylor's MRI...he does have a stress fracture in his hip. It's a mirror image to the one he had last year. So he's on crutches for at least another month, then they'll do a checkup. It probably will take another couple months to heal. 

Talked to his pediatrician who is also a endocrinologist who says they've already done more tests than anyone normally would for this type of injury. All his blood work came out fine so he is chalking it up to over training.  

So basically try and get him healed up and then see how he does.  

A friend of mine sent me a picture in an e-mail and asked me to do a witch poster for a "pin the wart on the witch nose" game. 

Confession people think they are bugging me with stuff like this but I thought it was fun and I doctored up the picture a bit...added some stuff and made her green instead of yellow. 

One side of me doesn't want too many people to know I can draw or paint ;) but secretly it's fun to do something out of the ordinary and have to use your creativity ;)

She was happy with it and even brought me flowers (before she even had seen it)

OK a big FAIL on the house color stuff. 

After driving around the neighborhood and trying to match paint colors we BOMBED big time. 

Trying to use a paint chip to match a house DOESN'T WORK.

They started painting...it was in the shade and seemed OK. 

I got home and I said "It looks PINK!"

He said it was the light. 

Well then he painted the trim colors as a preview. 

"It looks like a pastry cake!!"

I called Jeff home from work to do some damage control!

We determined we could not go with the yellow and green we picked out for the trim. So the painter got some browns together and we picked the darkest one hoping it would be better. 

Paying extra to re-buy trim paint was a small price to pay we thought. 

So the house is done.  We were happy with the job the painters did...

but we aren't happy with the paint color still. 

We think we're going to get used to it but every time we drive up we think 

"Our house is PINK!!!"

We are paying more money to have the base color repainted....before our neighbors think we're crazy :(

We've already been asked """ummmm are you done painting yet???"" Like they're saying "is that really the color your house is going to be??"

Sooo in the mean time anyone need some material???

(You'd get this if you have ever been to the pink house)

Oh one more funny with the painters. They pretty much speak Spanish with a little English thrown in. He kept telling Jeff he was going to get a "lotion" finish. I kept telling Jeff there is no such thing.

He finally called the paint store they told him it was a "low sheen" finish!

Confession - I love having a niece (and nephew) that are willing to come and stay with the kids while Jeff and I go to the New York Life convention. 

We had them over for Sunday dinner and to go over stuff for when we are gone. 

They don't seem to be the least worried about things.

That makes me not worry.

It was fun to play with Cayden. He loves all the toys my kids don't play with anymore!

I hope he'll enjoy his visit...I'll have to do some baby proofing and we have determined that the dog will have to stay in another room or outside. 

One swipe of the tail and over he goes!

Sorry Cayden!

I'm sure when you're older you'll love Maddie :)

We probably spoil the dog (or I spoil the dog)...but when Jeff brings home dog toys that he thought he was paying a dollar for and finds out they were $5.00 each we are holding onto them to bring them back and buy the cheap ones. 

The bad part is Maddie has already seen them and keeps trying to steal them off the table. 

I had to hide them. 

Confession - I bought a dog toy that was miss shelved and I paid like $9.00 when I thought I was paying 3 or 4. Instead of bringing it back I let her have it.

Shhhh...I didn't tell anyone.

Besides it's her favorite toy.

Confession - I am relieved that Jacob is in a phase where he is getting straight A's and lots of praise from his teachers, 

without help from me, 

or reminders about what he needs to be doing.

He does his homework fast and most of the time first....

but that's so he can hurry up and play more video games.  

Because of his grades I haven't been complaining too much about the video game time....

(I don't want him to lose his motivation...isn't that horrible)

Confession - My family still gets fruit snacks during sacrament meeting (isn't this supposed to stop when you're out of nursery!)...and now Jeff has become the Candy Man too with his suit coat pocket always full of it.

It comes in handy when kids are crying or cranky in the halls not wanting to go to class...Jeff hold out his hand to shake theirs and deposits a little candy. I have to admit more than one melt down has been avoided by Jeff's candy man ways. 

But...I was quite embarrassed last Sunday when candies are being noisily unwrapped in our row and jelly beans kept skittering to the floor! I'm not opposed to a mint or even a piece of gum but this is getting ridiculous!! I barely refrained from disassociating myself from the crazy candy mayhem and sitting in the foyer to listen to the rest of sacrament. How embarrassing.

Taylor this confession is for you...

Why did I go out to your room to get your dirty laundry and find that you colored your VAN's PINK!!???

I texted him at school and come to find out they were supposed to wear pink laces one day for breast cancer awareness. He didn't have them so he let his friends color his shoes pink!!! (Not too happy about it)

I laughed when he couldn't find his regular shoes two days later and had to wear these ones....he'll still be wearing these ones. He chose to color them...he now gets to wear pink shoes. 

This week is red ribbon week for AShley's school.  Each day they have something they are supposed to wear. The first day was supposed to be pajamas day but she thought it might have been changed. (the copier was broken so they didn't get their flyer) So we got ready and drove her down to the school a little early...we scoped out what the other kids were wearing (no pajamas) so I drove her back home to change. 

Confession - I drive to the school way too many times...I'm a pushover mom that way. 

Yesterday was crazy hair day.  I did her hair like normal before we remembered....so we just clipped a bunch of crazy stuff in it and called it good. 

Confession - Trunk or Treat is coming up and I'm having fun dreaming up stuff that will feel gross for our trunk or treat game...hee...hee...hee

I'll share the secrets of what's in my boxes later.

 

Maddie graduated from her Adult Dog 2 class last night!

It's been a lot of fun going to class with Ashley every night.

Confession - I worry about making Maddie a therapy dog and having people being grossed out that she wants to lick them to death. 

The other day she wanted to "meet" a little boy riding a bike she she lunged towards him (I was holding her back so she never got close to him) he screamed and started crying hysterically and the dad had to hold him up on his bike to keep from falling over. I felt bad. Maybe we need some more work.

Magnus graduated too!

We're so happy to be doing doggie classes with the Elsworths. They even came over and brought Maddie on a hike with Magnus when I couldn't go. They treated him just like one of their own.

Thanks guys!

What good doggie parents :)

Confession - I smile when I find out things like

The Halloween soap I bought at Bath and Body (for $1.50)

Glows in the Dark!

A week in pictures

This week I decided to be more mindful of the camera and document a bit of each day. Some days are always better than others and if it's a bad one there is always consolation that you can blog about it... :)

Monday:  The day started off with a dog hike for Maddie with the Elsworths. The dog loves them and gets herself tired out especially when its warm outside...which it has been lately. Where is the October weather already???

I tried something new today with Family Home Evening. I tried a shorter lesson, more game and a fun treat. The kids were all for the shorter lesson but I warned them that we were going to start using the FHE chart again and they would all get a turn teaching the lessons as well. We played Sorry, which some family members said was stupid, but funny how when you pull it out and people start getting competitive they somehow don't mind playing any more. 

Ashley was awesome tonight and rinsed all the dishes so I let her pick what she wanted for dessert. 

"Lets make homemade waffle cones and have ice cream" she said.

Hmmmmm

We got this waffle cone maker at a garage sale probably a year ago and I haven't been brave enough to get it out and try it. She's been begging me forever to try it so I thought "OK tonight will be the night"  

We ended up having to throw away the mix that came with it. 3 years after the expiration date, all I had to do is open it and we knew they had to go in the trash...so I thought waffle cones were out until I looked on-line and found a recipe for them. (I love that you can find almost anything on-line)

A little practice and they turned out all good. (Though I had to stuff a marshmallow in the bottom because I couldn't figure out how to pinch it closed until like 1/2 way through)

They were very yummy and I'm excited to try them again...so we're now ready for someone to come have family home evening with us and we'll make you waffle cones.

Tuesday - Tuesday is our crazy day....5:30, 6:00 and 6:30 am piano and a short day for 2 of the kids that brings the first one home right after 12:00. Ashley got home and wanted to make a fort....she's been into forts lately. I try and get them picked up before Jeff gets home but there were a couple of times this week that I get a call from him "Why is the family room all messed up"...for some reason Ashley feels that building a fort must include rearranging furniture. 

That night while Jacob was doing scouts and Taylor and Jeff were making pool noodle swords Ashley and I went on a girls night out to BJ's to celebrate Jennifer Shaw's birthday. 

Ashley gets to be my sidekick on Tuesday nights weather it's the booster club meeting or whatever I'm doing she's tagging along.

In the course of dinner and conversation the ladies asked "What time is her bedtime?" 

I almost laughed out loud when everyone gasped when I said "9:00"

I guess have the oldest kids there and since I'm not going to try to do multiple bedtimes she goes to bed at the same time as the boys.

Ask around the table and a couple families put their kids to bed between 6:30 and 7:00.

What!! Most of the time we're eating dinner then! I guess every family is different.

Wednesday: I've been going in to do art on Wednesday's in Ashley's class. Our plan was to do a food chain mobile but the teacher's son was sick so she moved it to next week. 

Since my schedule was now clean I thought check to see if Jeff was free for lunch. He was just thinking about getting a burrito and was looking for someone to share it with...good timing. It was nice to spend a bit of time with him since we've been playing tag team the last few weekends.  

It's nice that Jeff's office is so close to home, even though I don't go out there very often.

Since I've had a bit of free time this week I've been working on beading stuff. A friend of mine is having an open house in a few weeks and lets people come and sell their stuff...kind of like a one day craft fair at her home. 

I have found I love to create things...but trying to sell them is not my favorite. 

I keep creating but I know I'll end up with a lot of leftovers at the end of the day...so how to sell them...I don't know yet. 

I came up with the idea to bead the ends of bobby pins so you could put in the bobby pins and the decoration would hang down. 

Ashley came home from school and wanted some of just about all of them. (Thats the problem she sees what I've made and thinks that she wants to keep them ALL)

We did keep some for her and we experimented in her hair.

That night we had our 5:00pm dog training class...again Ashley is my little sidekick. I've tried to get the boys to come but they haven't wanted to. 

2 more classes and Maddie be starting the good citizen class.  We are training her to be a therapy dog and if she passes the test she'll be able to go into nursing homes, hospitals and libraries to visit people. 

She's still a little puppyish and gets excited sometimes to meet new people (and she licks them a lot) but we're working on it. The good thing is she is very friendly and likes everyone. 

Thursday: I looked on the calendar in the morning and nothing was on it. Sweet! So I created more jewelry...at the end of day I got reactions from the husband from "That's nice" to "That's a little gaudy isn't it?" to...."That one is weird, do you like it?"...The one he thought was weird was Ashley's favorite and she (of course) wanted to keep it. She wanted to keep a lot of them. Leave it to her to be my cheerleader :)

I got a call from Taylor before school was supposed to be out....I asked him if it was a short day...no...it was a league meet and he missed the bus on purpose because he knew he wasn't going to run. I was bugged because he hadn't cleared it with the coach (basically he didn't want to know the answer). He said he was fine with supporting the team he just didn't want to stay there hours and hours. Since it wasn't far I loaded him up and we planned to drive to the park where they were running. As we were getting ready to leave Ashley came running out of the house wanting to go with us to watch the races....

and we decided to bring the dog...I figured it was at a park and what better way to get Maddie used to meeting people than bring her to a place where there was a lot of people.

I'm not so sure it was a good idea....since it was a new place and she was very excited she kept pulling me all over (also something we're working on) and as we were walking through the crowd to go to the our high school's tent she decided to make a "deposit" in the grass.

Oh yuck! I was so embarrassed and I hadn't thought to bring bags to pick it up. I'll have to learn :(

So sorry...so embarrassing! What a bad dog owner!

She did pretty good otherwise but I'm not sure what the runners thought of her...if they got too close she proceeded to start licking off all their sweat.

Friday:  I was thinking about Monica and wondering how she was doing. I remembered that she said being pregnant with triplets made her hungry ALL the time and bread sounded good. So since I had made rolls the night before I thought I'd bring her some. I called first and found out she's pretty much just laying around because she's too uncomfortable to do much of anything so I was able to pack up some books to bring over too. I always buy ones that look interesting at the library sales then I don't worry about them after I'm done with them so most of these were rescued from the DI pile to give to her.

I'm thinking she'll need some baby holding help when the babies are here too!

Friday afternoon I had a hair appointment...long overdue.  A couple days before I had a friend comment "Oh I like your hair" I mentioned that I was about to get it done again and she said "Oh the brown on the top 'grown out' look is the newest thing." 

"That's great" I said "but when the brown is mixed with grey it's time to go to the hairdressers" :)

I realized that my appointment was too close to after school pick so I ran out of there wet....

Also all week Taylor had been asking me every day if the MRI place called yet to schedule the MRI... they said it might take up to a week so I told him I'll call on Friday. 

When I called to follow up after waiting the week the call center lady said the doctor had never requested it from the insurance company. 

What!!??? That was supposed to happen a week ago!

So I asked who I could talk to and of course they were all out of the office that day and I would have to wait until Monday. 

What!!!?? 

I have to say I was mad (this is my mad face)... (with my unstyled hair)

This is Taylor's mad face

I actually was mad enough to request the phone number to file a complaint. The lady on the phone said "I'll let the doctor know you filed a complaint". It's not just this thing but the whole run around a month into this and I was BEYOND frustrated. 

After I got off phone I realized that I was just mad at the time and I knew that it wouldn't be a good time to try and file a complaint. I thought I'd cool off and wait until I talked to the actual doctor's office on Monday. 

Well while we were having frustrating things at home, Jeff was having frustrating things going on at work. Soooo  we thought it was time to have a family night out. 

We took the kids to dinner...you can see how excited they are...

And a movie at the $3.00 theater...our favorite. 

We wait and see most of our movies there. 

I guess for most of the summer one of the theater's had the air conditioning broken. So they got it fixed the day before. 

It felt like the arctic circle in the theater! We sent Jeff out to the car and luckily he had some jackets that we all had to share and snuggle up with. It was the coldest movie I've ever seen! (I guess you get what you pay for)

Saturday:  This morning was the first annual breast cancer walk at Jacob's Middle School. I guess there were 4 or 5 staff members at the school that have been fighting breast cancer in the last year so the students in the key club wanted to raise money for chemo baskets for cancer patients. I was impressed and wanted to walk, and once we found out that Jacob could get service hours for it I signed him up too. 

Jacob and I picked up our stuff and changed into our pink shirt and I was surprised at 

1. how many people were there and 

2. how organized it was

We started out with music and a fun warm up, a speech from a student and a speech from the husband of a cancer survivor and then we were off through our balloon arch starting gate and on our course.

I didn't see Jacob at the beginning...he was walking with his friends. Of course there were a lot of people there too.

I found a few people to talk to as I walked. I was impressed with the cheerleaders from the school cheering us on, the cold water bottles and cut up oranges (donated by Gless Ranch)  and the signs along the route honoring both survivors and remembering those who didn't survive. 

Once the friends left...I caught up to Jacob. 

It was fun to walk with him. 

Even more fun to watch him try and score hugs throughout the walk. 

He confided in me that his motivation for going around the course 3 times was knowing when he came around the next time he could hug the girls again. 

Crazy kid...I swear we could've been done 20 minutes earlier EASY if we hadn't had to stop for all the hugs!

In the end he said he really liked going on the walk with me....I wonder why ;)

Right after I dropped Jacob off at home I ran over to the church to make crafts at Super Saturday...

every year I add something more to our collection....this is the latest.

I also made personalized soap thingies for visiting teaching people and these hair bows for Ashley. She wore one the next day and 1/2 her class had the same ones in Primary ;)

After I got home from crafting Jeff and I drove around the neighborhood trying to pick out paint colors. We are getting our house painted on the outside, and with all the ivy, peeling paint and calking that will need to be done I'm sure it'll be a big job. 

So trying to pick out colors isn't as easy as it looks. Right around us the houses are old enough that most people have had to repaint...some of the colors have turned out better than others. What looks good on the paint chip doesn't always look good on a house. We have one of our neighbors who painted their house baby poop color. We don't want to be the baby poop neighbors too so we are taking our color selection seriously. 

We've gotten some looks as we've pulled into driveways and are trying to match paint chips with house colors that we like. 

Saturday night Taylor got to go to Knotts Scary Farm with friends. 

I remember going when I was about his age. 

I'm sure it was more crowded compared to when I went and more expensive. I also didn't remember it staying open until 2:00 a.m. We warned him that he would have to go to church the next day (9:00am). 

We stayed up until midnight and then texted Taylor and told him to wake us up when he came in. He got home at 5:00am!!  He told me that they had gone to breakfast on the way home. I guess since he wasn't driving and he was the only one who had to get up for church the next day he didn't have as much control about when he got home. 

I told him I'd wake him up in 2 hours.

Sunday: 2 hours went by fast and then it was time to be up and ready for church. Taylor got ready and didn't complain going to church until after sacrament...he was a zombie. Jeff took pity on him and brought him home so he could sleep with promises from him that he wouldn't do it again.  After a 4 hour nap he was fine. 

I asked him how Knotts Scary Farm was. He had fun and told us about it. At first I was surprised when he told me that some of the dressed up people tried to trip his crutches..that was until I heard he was doing things to egg them on...so basically he deserved it. 

Sunday night we had the missionaries over for dinner....I was frantically trying to get all the flies out of the kitchen first. 

I swear we have been having a fly plague over here! We were killing something like 20 a day!  Are we the only ones???  I'm hoping it's over soon.

While we were getting dinner the kids were occupying themselves... remember this game. I thought it was sweet that Jacob made this paper thing (I don't remember the name) and was playing it with Ashley, that was until I heard all the answers she would pick were negative...

Wow....I pulled it out and found you could've picked...

you are fat and ugly, 

you are pretty...NOT!

you smell funny

you are fat

LOSER!

you look funny

you look ugly

and 

you're cool

She got "you're cool" once and Cool was some accronym for some insult. So basically you couldn't win.

Air soft guns were next. When Jeff saw that it looked like Ashley was being shot (don't know if she really was) he got them both eye protections, both guns and set up a target practice area. 

That lasted about 5 minutes before his gun lost it's charge. 

So Jacob decided to try and climb this tree. 

There are some boards nailed up on it and a small platform at the top. He always wanted to climb it when he was younger but never could. 

Well with the two step stool he can now.

Maddie wasn't too sure about him being up there....neither was I.

He was thrilled that he finally conquered the tree. 

He came down filthy.

In the middle of dinner with the missionaries the phone rang. It was Angela but we didn't pick up in time so I figured I'd call her after the missionaries left. 

10 minutes later we got a knock on the door and there was Angela and Robert and baby Ian!

What a nice surprise!

They were in the area last minute and were dropping by to see if we were home to say hi before they headed back home.  Ian is 7 months old know and we absolutely loved his laugh. He loved Jacob tickling him.

They got there just in time for dessert so we fed them all cake and visited for a few minutes before they had to head back. 

Ian also laughed Hysterically when the dog licked him...he liked it but I didn't think mom and dad liked it so Maddie went outside and will have to wait until he's a bit older :)

Poor Robert gets rubbed to death every time he sees my kids...Taylor was actually rubbing his head too but he didn't want me to catch him on camera doing it. 

Epilogue :  So as for Taylor's follow up. I took him into his doctor's today because he was complaining of his hip popping. The orthopedic doctor ordered an x-ray just to see if we could see anything (because stress fractures don't show up until they are healing and it's now been a month). The doctor then mentioned "We'll still do the MRI and hopefully it will come back normal and just be a pulled muscle. But it will be good to get an x-ray and check to make sure it isn't anything like a stress fracture."

So we did the x-ray...and he showed us the results on the screen. Guess what, definite evidence that it IS a stress fracture in his other hip. The doctor agreed and was now very interested in getting the MRI.

 I KNEW IT! 

Never underestimate mother's intuition.

So the MRI is scheduled for tomorrow night and we go back to the orthopedic doctor on Friday. 

Finally feel like we are getting somewhere!!!