Friday

I forgot to tell about how funny Callie was shopping with me a couple of weekends ago. We were in her clothing section at Target and she had her own little shopping basket (I think Aunt Tara gave it to her?). She first found one shirt & held it up and said, "Oh, how adorable!" and put it in her basket. She also held up two pairs of pink pants for Tara and asked her which one she liked better and Tara told her they were exactly the same so she looks at them again, put the one in her right hand in the basket and says, "I like this one." I looked down at her basket a couple of minutes later & it was full of clothes she'd found. She said that she needed some money to buy all her things, and then she told Tara that she needed a credit card so she could buy all her things! Tara gave her an empty WalMart gift card & Callie carried it around very carefully! Also, last weekend when we were traveling she had these awesome sunglasses on that I just love. My dad looked at her & told her she looked like a movie star. She said, "No, I look cute." He told her that movie stars were cute & she said, "I don't want to be a movie star, I only want to be cute!" She's a hoot!

So I'm an idiot & may have broken my finger tonight. I was exasperated & threw down an oven mitt, hitting my finger on the back of a chair. That was hours ago & it's pretty swollen & I can't bend it too far. It could simply be swollen & I'm hoping it will be doing better in the morning. Otherwise, what an idiot am I for breaking my finger in a fit of ... exasperation?!

Tomorrow's a busy/exciting day! For one, I'll probably find out whether my finger is actually broken! Callie also has dance which she's very excited about, and tomorrow morning will be the first time in a few days she'll get to put a sticker on her chart for going to bed nicely (tonight). But the big part is an ultrasound! I'm voting for not finding out the gender (if they can even tell, since I'm only 16 1/2 weeks & also it took 3 tries with each of the other 2 kids!), but Jeremiah says he'd like to know. I've got a few hours still to talk him out of it. I'm normally completely pro-finding out! But we have one of each & it might be fun to not know till the baby's here. So I don't know if this will be the big ultrasound though cause they scheduled it to check my dates. I'm anxious about the results. Oh, and then I get to do a couple hours of visiting teaching. If that's not exciting I don't know what is! So hopefully (for you!) I'll get a chance to update after the events of tomorrow!

Home Sweet Home

After another hectic week we headed to Overgaard, AZ for the weekend to attend & help out with my uncle's wedding. Overgaard is a very small town running into Heber, AZ in the Showlow/Snowflake area. It's always nice to get out of the desert for a couple of days- well at least the deserty-desert. It's still high desert there, but there are lots of pines & that's good enough for me! We slept in the garage end of my parents' toy hauler & that will be the last time I do that for a while. It's never been a comfortable bed, but having to climb down the ladder from the loft bed at 4am to pee really sucks! The bed is hard as a rock & normally that wouldn't keep me from getting sleep, but these days even in my wonderful comfy bed at home I have difficult nights! So even though I got 9 hours of "sleep" one of the nights were were gone, I was still exhausted the next day due to lack of sleep! I can't even say how glad we all are to be home! In fact after we got home Sunday afternoon the kids were in the backyard playing & Callie puts her arms out & yells "I love to be home!" My sentiments exactly! We're spending Thanksgiving with my family this year so my mom calls me yesterday & asks what I think about going to Utah for the big day. (And when I say big day, I'm referring more to Black Friday than Thanksgiving!) Anyway, I think she'll need to ask me in a couple weeks when we haven't been in a flurry of travel & events because right now the answer is no!

This & That

We have had lots going on the last few weeks. Jeremiah went to Oregon to hunt with his dad for TEN days! It was a really nice break for him to be away from work for that long, but we both agreed that it was too long to do again for the family. Callie & Jack were so sad, asking for their daddy constantly. How in the world do you do it Liz?!

The first weekend Jer was gone, we were at my mom's house & Callie reached up & grabbed a hot pan on the stove. This picture seriously doesn't even show how bad it was! And once those blisters started to pop, she was miserable! Her hand is still not all the way better, but it's not hurting her anymore & hopefully she won't grab a hot pan or anything else on the stove again!



Story time at the library started up again for the fall/winter, and at the first session they had a real live kangaroo! It was so cool! It was a little joey and all the kids in story time got to pet her. Of course most moms don't have their cameras at story time so it was funny to see so many people at once whip out their camera phones. I didn't since I knew the quality wouldn't be that good anyway. So no picture for ya!

Callie started dance classes! She's SO cute! There's a girl in our stake who's like 16 or something, but she's home-schooled & has taken dance for years, so she does dance classes for several different age groups during the week. Callie's in the youngest class. The dance classes are just in their garage on a huge piece of vinyl she unrolls but it's only $5/class (an hour long & she wants the parents to drop the girls off!) Callie was so excited to get to wear her leotard & skirt for the first time. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of her smiling for me, but she sure looks cute in her dance outfit. So she's been to her dance class twice now & each time she's spent the rest of the day dancing around. Even today she was doing some spins & stuff & talking about her dance class. It's so cute!

Our county fair was this past weekend so we took the kids on Thursday night. Because Jeremiah & I had talked a little about it, Callie was super excited to eat fair food! :) We spent like $45 on the fair & I can't believe how little we did! They each got to jump in a jump house, they petted animals in a petting zoo (free!), and they went on the carousel. And some of the fair food wasn't that great. The lemonade from the fresh lemonade stand was great though, and our bbq wasn't bad.

We also went to Utah this past weekend to listen to my sister Kayleigh give a farewell talk in Sacrament Mtg. She's leaving in a few weeks to serve a mission to the Philippines! It was such a quick trip! Sorry to everyone for not visiting, but as Jeremiah put it, it was a wham-bam-thank-you-m'am trip!!! We got there Friday night and left on Sunday night & it really was a family weekend. The thing that totally sucks is that we have to get in the car again this Friday! This drive will at least be much closer (4 hours instead of 7)! Jackson is just not a good traveller right now so we dread long car rides! Funny thing is that even after being in his carseat for so long he cried when we got home because he wanted to stay in his seat & watch a movie, even though about a minute before we pulled up he was screaming to get out. Funny kid. And he really is funny. He's really started talking a lot lately. Well, he was already talking a lot, but now he's making sentences. But one of the funniest things he does is randomly yell, "I promise!" Occassionally when he says it it could make sense, but not usually. Like one of the times yesterday when he did it he was just putting a puzzle together. I've tried to tell him basically what it means & to quit saying it all the time, but he does it anyway. "I promise, mom!" It's pretty funny when you hear it - I promise!

Oh, on Saturday we had family pictures done so here's a couple of my favs from the shoot. You can check out some more of the samples here: Dilly Dally Art.

Callie-isms (from the recent 3 year old!)

I was trying to get Callie to talk her aunt Chelsea into coming down for the weekend with Kayleigh & Tara and when I could tell that Callie wasn't gonna convince her I picked up the phone and asked her why she was being such a pain in the butt. A few minutes later as Callie was talking to her again (this time without my coaching) Callie says, "Why are you being such a pain in the butt Chelsea?" She said it kind of softly so I wondered if Chelsea was meaning for Callie to say that to me. When I got the phone back Chelsea thought I'd told Callie to say it because Chelsea was just saying to Callie that she loved her & she'd talk to her later! Haha!

Also a little bit later Jack threw a bunch of play-doh on the floor so I told him to get down & pick it up before I spanked his bum. Callie repeated something about spanking & I realized I shouldn't even say that since I seriously rarely spank (it's time out for us)! So anyway, I said that to Callie and when she said something about being spanked I asked her when the last time I spanked her was. Her reply? "6:28."

This morning we were at my mom's house and Jackson was trying to get into a bag of chocolate. He'd been told not to a couple times already so Callie thought maybe if she told him no he'd listen a little better? She said, "Jackson, no! You're pissing Grandma off!"

Her own Vitruvian Man

To the untrained eye this picture may just look like a bunch of scribbles. But to this mother it is a work of art. I'm very excited about this drawing because normally Callie just scribbles or draws "circles," but yesterday she drew her first ever person (it's grandma for those of you who can't tell!)! I'm seriously proud! She drew a few more after that & they were nice too!

Today when she was drawing she got a little more detailed! She drew a butt & a penis on her person! I told her we shouldn't draw those parts & tried to help her understand why. It was pretty funny though! I didn't scan that one for you.

Catch of the Day

2 Mondays ago Jeremiah went to CA for 3 days to go deep sea fishing (in Mexico?). He went with his brother Jason & good buddy Mark. Unfortunately they all got really sea-sick on their 2 days out at sea. I'm not sure if all their big fish made up for it! They agreed 2 days is too long & they'll never go out that long again (they've always done 1 day in the past). They got yellowfin & albacore tuna, & yellowtail (some other type of fish).

Mark & Jeremiah


Mark & Jason


We had a little fish fry with some friends & my parents & the albacore was hands down the best in my opinion. The yellowfin tuna was the most fishy & the yellowtail was a little fishy. The albacore was seriously awesome! I wanted to can some albacore since we weren't going to eat it all but when I went to WalMart to get the littlest jars they were out. Why is it that WalMart is constantly letting me down? If we were in a relationship I'd break up! But they continue to have the best prices in town on most of the things I buy so alas, I keep going back for more. It's unhealthy, I know. So I don't know if I waited too long to freeze the fish or not. When WalMart ever gets my jars back in we'll find out.

Jack's Haircut

It's taken me so long to post these pics that it's about time for another haircut! I was particularly excited about this haircut though because I had just bought new Wahl clippers! Previously I cut Jack's hair with $16 clippers from WalMart & he cried every time because he said it hurt. A few people told me it was because I needed to buy some better clippers because cheap ones pull hair, so I did. So he still cried after a while, but I asked if it hurt & he said no - he just wanted to get down. I'm sure things would be better if it didn't take me like 45 minutes! Although he never did make it through his bag of hairy jelly bellies. Well, practice will make perfect, right? I do have to say, I could tell a difference in the clippers. This haircut was his best yet!

Before:

After: