Something we love

I love the spring and all things that come with it. One thing in particular that I love about spring is the arrival of strawberries. Now I know that strawberries are available year round, but in the spring they are affordable and they taste amazing. I have passed my love of strawberries on to my children. Ainsley has been asking for months if strawberries are in season yet because she knows I won't buy them until they are and she loves them. In the past 3 weeks my family has consumed at least 10 pounds of strawberries! We have been through 2 of the big 4 pound packs from Costco and have picked up a few smaller packs from the store as well. When I think of a 10 pound bag of potatoes, and think that we have eaten that many strawberries in a few weeks, I'm a bit shocked.

The kids and I eat them every morning on our cereal, we eat them for snacks, we've mashed them and had them on pancakes, and last night we made the long awaited homemade strawberry milkshakes. I introduced John to the homemade strawberry milkshakes after we were married and they are now something we look forward to having at least once every spring. The first year I had to make John eat one, (yes, I had to make him eat it because he wanted a different kind...but I kindly explained that we would all be having strawberry) but now I would have to say that they might be one of his favorite treats. Right John?? I also made the beloved shakes at John's parent's house once and if I remember correctly John's mom opted out because it didn't sound very good and then ended up crying when she had a bite of one and realized the awesomeness of them but didn't have a huge shake for herself. So, if you haven't made yourself a homemade strawberry milkshake yet this spring....now's the time.

FYI: the key when making the shake is to blend the strawberries with some sugar before adding it to the ice cream. I now find myself wondering how many more pounds of strawberries we will go through in the upcoming months. Maybe I should have planted strawberries in my garden....that would have been smart!

Look what we did!

Okay, so it might not look like much...but it is (to us). Those of you who have been in our backyard know that it had NOTHING in it. It used to have a dead stick tree but we went ahead and yanked that out. I needed to get my garden going (my tomatoes are ready to plant) so, this week was deemed garden week. I dug the sod out of our lawn during the week (check out my massive sod pile)
and then John helped me get the garden all ready and a new tree planted on Saturday. We planted a Maple tree, hopefully it will give us some shade back there sooner than later. My "garden trainer" and her family helped us out a ton too. They let us use their truck to get the humus and sand (don't ask me....I just did what I was told and now I apparently have the most amazing soil on the planet) and then they even let us use their tiller to get our ground ready. I wish I would have gotten video of John trying to use the tiller in our little 20' by 4' garden, all the while trying not to hit the sprinkler line that runs along one side. It was a challenge for him, but the soil is AWESOME now and ready for me to plant. Now I just need to get rid of my huge sod pile and I'm done!

I'm excited to do the garden this year with the kids. Ains is really excited right now. I'm just hoping she's still excited when she realizes it will be quite a while before we have any produce. But, the kids sure had fun on Saturday while we worked out side. Owen loved the dirt and figured how to get on and off the trampoline by himself, and Ains got pretty good at "derocking" the garden. I would have taken pictures if it hadn't been such and exhausting day.

The Talk

Ains was assigned to give her first talk in primary. This Sunday she will be talking about faith. Here is a video of one of her trial runs. I'm not sure why she starts breathing weird, and moving her mouth and tongue weird when she starts saying memorized lines...just one of those quirky things I suppose. I'm sure she'll do great despite her quirks! Especially since we just wrote her talk yesterday, and she has only done it about 6 times.

The great repaint of '08

Some of you might know that I am quite the repainter. I will take any old thing and repaint it to match my current decor. I do this mostly out of cheapness. Rather than buy new I just layer my belonging with various colors of paint. For example, my end table (pictured above) was one that John "stole" from his parents basement. It was one of those old dark oak end tables with really gaudy fronts and knobs. I took it, put on a flat door, a new handle, painted it, and called it good. You'd think by this point in my life I would maybe go out and buy a new end table, not me. I have now painted that table 2 more times (once for a change of color, and most recently to touch up and add a protective coat).

I have also repainted candles to make them match my decor. While I made them look quite ugly when I first painted them, I experimented with the polyurethane that I put on my table and, FYI: you can repaint candles with craft paint and a layer of polyurethane and they will look awesome...on a plant shelf. I have repainted Ainsley's hand me down dresser and shelf twice, and Owen's dresser once. I have also spray painted my fair share of frames (pictured above) and my living room lamps (also pictured above) more than once. What can I say, I'm crazy, cheap, and obsessive...I'm a real treasure! So this past week I spent some quality time in the garage repainting everything that I've wanted to get painted for a while. But, the whole point of this post, is that for the first time in my life I repainted something and made it AWESOME!!! I was given this old mirror (our house is the third in our ward that has been graced with it's presence). So here is the before picture (the left side and the bottom had already been sanded before I thought to take a picture). Not that the mirror was that bad before, just dinged up and in colors that wouldn't match my house at all.

There were 2 gaps that had to be fixed. I fixed one with shear force and a hammer, and I fixed the other one with caulk. If I had paid a penny for the mirror I would have been a little more hesitant about my methods, but it was free...so there was nothing to lose (except maybe the $10 I spent on supplies).

And here is the after!
Isn't it the most beautiful $10 mirror you've ever seen? Well worth the sore, scratched, painted hands that I am now sporting!

Too Hot?

This is how we found Owen last night when we went to check on him before we went to bed. I'm not sure if he was too hot or if he just decided he was to cool to wear PJ's to bed. I'm also not sure why the big bag of toys are there...I didn't' put him to bed.

And this is just a random video of Owen. I was trying to get him to say his swear word. He used to say that (dat) and some how it morphed and became the swearing version of 'darn it'. It's amazing because although he has a very limited and difficult to understand vocabulary, he says this word with precision. Unfortunately, trying to catch kids saying the right words on video is less likely than being struck by lightening. So I just got babbling, which might be cute, but not nearly as cute as a baby swearing.

Problem Solved

Ains has been on an anti-biotic for 10 days now and can magically hear again. I took her to the doctor and was told she most likely couldn't hear because she had and ear infection and lots of fluid on her ear. I didn't think she had an ear infection...I just thought she might have some issues from her last one. Anywho, the doctor put her on an antibiotic and said if there were still hearing issues after she was done with it we would do a hearing test. Luckily for us, Ains seems to be able to hear again. Unfortunately, she is still her loud ol' self, good thing she's so cute and funny!

Outnumbered

Tonight, for the first time since being the mother of two children, I was ganged up on. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a we want to be rowdy and egg each other on regardless of what you say or how you feel way. Aren't my kids to young to be doing that? During bath time tonight we had a good 20 minutes of chaos and uncontrollable laughing that was unappreciated by me. While the laughing was cute, what accompanied it was causing me stress and a HUGE mess. Who knew water could be so funny and cause such young children to show such disregard for the pain they were causing their mother? I suppose it was good that they were enjoying each other's company, and eventually I'm sure the bathroom and the carpet will dry out.

I'm totally evil...and over protective

Okay, I'm not sure why I'm admitting this on my blog. I guess I want official documentation that I am not the perfect mother I wished I was, and since this is the only place I document anything, here is where the confession will be made. *Ahem* So here we go....

Yesterday I was talking to a friend on the phone and decided to get a group of people to go to the park today to enjoy the nice weather before it turns cold again. I called a few friends and told them to invite whoever wanted to come. I intentionally didn't call a friend of mine (I'll refrain from using names for obvious reasons) who's daughter Ains spends a lot of time with and doesn't always get along with well. (Here's the overprotective blurb...this is a girl that Ains has had problems with at school, controls who Ains plays with, takes away friends, likes Ains to play with her and no one else, likes Ains to be alone when in a group, controls most play situations, etc. I'm probably being harsh...but, that was my overprotective blurb...I'm the mom....I get to be that way!)

I debated calling her all night and morning. I really like the mom. We have a lot of fun together...but our daughters are like oil and water. I knew it would be weird not to invite her since I would see her twice while picking up and dropping off her daughter for preschool. My decision was made for me while I was getting Ains ready for preschool this morning. She mentioned going to the park and I told her that the plan was to go today. She then asked if we could call a friend, and I told her that I had already called some friends. Then she asked if this particular friend was coming. To which I replied, "Do you want her to come?" Ains then explained that she didn't because she was always grumpy with her.

Upon my deciding that we wouldn't invite this friend to this particular activity I also had to teach Ains to be sneaky. What kind of awful mother am I?!? I told her that it wasn't polite to tell people you are going to do something if you aren't going to invite them to come with you. Ains caught on to the sneaky thing really quick. She told me that she could keep a secret and she wouldn't tell her friend we were going to the park. By this point of the morning I was feeling really guilty for what I was teaching Ains, but I really wanted Ains to have fun at the park. I could have used this moment as some sort of a teaching moment...but I didn't, well I guess I taught her something, just not something good.

To make an already long story a little shorter...I totally got caught being sneaky. Someone invited this friend too. I was stupid to think no one would, and now I just looked bad after teaching my daughter that it's okay not to be friends with every one. I felt so stupid when my friend showed up at the park and told me that I had a missed call from her because she had called to make sure I was going to be there. *GUILT* My devilishly sneaky mind thought at this point that I was fine and she had no idea who had planned the whole get together, until someone thanked me personally for getting everyone together before they left the park. I'm such a mean person!

In the end, I ended up being mean to a friend, teaching Ains to be impolite, and aforementioned friend acted as was anticipated and dragged the other little girls around by the hand and wouldn't let Ains play. Luckily for Ains, the boys agreed to let her play with them part of the time, her cousin Bria ended up being there part of the time by sheer coincidence, and she made 2 new friends to play with for a while too, so she only felt bad for a very short time and wasn't alone for very long.

I accomplished quite a bit for one day! What's a mom to do?

Digging

I just dug out a black bean and a piece of corn from Owen's nose. Those are not the actual corn and beans pictured...but you get the idea. The corn was the hardest, that stuff is slippery. Right now I'm just hoping that I got everything out and that Owen has been sufficiently traumatized and the curiosity to stick things up his nose is gone. There was a lot of crying along with the sucking and digging, as well as a lot of lecturing from me. And I guess that all I have to say about that.

Lost

It all started today at Mervyn's. I was shopping with the kids hoping to find Ains a cheap pair of jeans on clearance (which I did) since she has holes in all but one of hers. I also made a few other great finds while I was there. I found a cute black shirt to go with one of my skirts for church for only $6! So, what's the big deal you ask? I had already bought a black shirt to go with this particular shirt a while ago. I liked the shirt at Mervyn's better, and it was $9 cheaper.

This wouldn't have presented a problem for me except that when I got home and started looking for my old receipt I couldn't find it. Not only could I not find that particular receipt, I couldn't find the envelope that I stash all my receipts in until I'm sure I want to keep what I bought (I do a lot of returning...it's sad, but it works for me). So now I've searched everywhere and the envelope is no where to be found. I'm starting to give up on the precious cargo lying uselessly in my lost envelope, forcing me to consider receiving store credit. I'm mad because I hate store credit, half of the time I feel obligated to buy something right then that I don't need, and yet if I hold on to the gift card I usually forget to use it when I do end up buying something at that store in the future. I've gotten myself into a real predicament. I HATE losing things!

I said what?

Tonight as Owen was playing with his mac and cheese and reaching for the grapes I was eating I said the words, "Owen, you have to eat your noodles. No more fruit!" I might be the only mom to ever say those words...and actually mean them. This kid eats so much fruit that it is having a negative effect on his digestive system (if you know what I mean). He had already had part of a banana and some apple sauce with his dinner, but he still wanted more. He would eat a whole bag of grapes if I would let him. I think his desire for fruit has neared the point of addiction. He goes to desperate measures to get the good stuff. If he ever weasels his way into the fridge I'm guaranteed to find him snarfing down as many grapes as he can before he gets caught. Yesterday he pulled a chair up to the counter and used a knife and scissors to pry open all of the bananas I had on the counter. He managed to eat several before he got caught in the highly dangerous situation. I guess he just prefers the sweetness of fruit to the substance of food. So while my words might not have sounded like good motherly advice...they were true, and needed.

WHAT???

I've become concerned about Ainsley's hearing. It seems to be more than just selective hearing loss. Lately she seems to be completely deaf. I feel like I have to yell, loudly mind you, to get her attention. When I do get her attention she looks at me as if she isn't aware I've been calling her name several times. When I'm shopping with her and she runs ahead I call after her. She eventually stops and turns around, but not because I was yelling her name, because she finally realized she was alone. I can look right at her and be right next to her and still have to repeat what I say several times. It's all so bizarre and sudden. I have a few theories.

1. Her ear infection from a few months ago has left something in her ears that is making it hard for her to hear.

2. She has learned that constantly saying "What?" or else ignoring her mother drives her mother crazy and she gets some sort of satisfaction from driving her mother crazy.

3. She has been yelled at too much by her mother and is going deaf because of it.

4. Her father is such a naturally loud person she has become accustomed to high levels of noise and now expects it. (John isn't loud all the time, just some of the time...sorry John, but it's kind of true.)

I'm thinking number one is most likely, but you never know. I have been a slacker thus far and have not contacted the pediatrician to find out about hearing evaluations. Maybe that's what I should be doing with all my "free" time. Any suggestions?

I'm Bored!

Well, I'm in the recovery stage...and I'm BORED TO DEATH! My legs feel okay, but I'm definitely not ready to be out and about for long periods of time. So I'm finding ways to fill my time. Yesterday I filled my afternoon painting my candles. Someone gave me the idea to paint the candles on my plant shelves that I didn't like the colors of. Let's just say that it would have been a great idea, if I had taken the time to purchase the right paint color. But, due to my current health status I decided to try to create the color I wanted by mixing colors I already had........BAD IDEA. I was going for a deep red with maybe some black to it, I got a mauve-purple color. I stuck the candles back on my plant shelves and there they will stay until I go buy more paint, or until I get over my severe cheapness and just go buy some candles I like!

My outing for today was a quick trip to the flooring store. Okay, so that's not so boring, but it's the most exciting thing I have done or will do all day. Not that I can afford flooring just yet, but my brother in law works for a builder and gave us the name of his flooring store to see if we could find some scraps that might work for our bathrooms and laundry room. Unfortunately for me, they didn't have any scraps big enough today. But luckily for me, since they know my brother in law I just have to go through a bunch of samples and tell them what I like and they'll call me if anything comes in. Hopefully by doing it this way we'll be able to cover our disgusting linoleum without breaking the bank!

Not an April Fools!

This year I for April Fool's I went ahead and got some veins ripped out of me...FUN! My legs are wrapped again, but I can walk with out shooting pain, so I'm hoping everything goes much better this time. I keep my legs wrapped until Thursday and then I can look and see the damage. I made the mistake of looking at one of my legs before he wrapped it and I think that was a bit of a mistake. The incisions were really small but my leg was all bloody and I already had a freaky dream (yes, I have been sleeping all day) about a HUGE cut down the front of my leg. This procedure felt so weird. I could actually feel the doctor yanking the veins out. It kind of grossed me out even though I couldn't see anything. So...only 2 more appointments now. One more check-up and then one more deep vein ultra sound to make sure every thing is okay. It will be so nice to be done! Plus, I'll have normal looking legs this summer...hopefully!