Callie-isms

"If you have too much water it will hurt your body & scare the poop out of your butt." Don't know where the water part came into it, but Jeremiah uses the phrase "scare the poop out of you!" umh-hmm... Jeremiah's full of good ones...

Callie to my mom: "Your hair is a disaster today!" (My mom had just got her hair cut. Which was very cutely styled. What does Callie know?!)

My dad was watching the play-offs & said, "I hope the Celtics kick LA's butt." Callie said, "No Grandpa! That wouldn't be nice! That would hurt my baby's butt!" She thought LA was Ellie! :)

June 2008

Since I've been super bad about blogging this month, here's various pictures from the last few weeks:

It's official! She's a thumb sucker! What can you do to stop it?!



My youngest brother Stuart (the baby of the family) graduated high school! This is Stuart & my other brother Kenny on grad night. Obviously. Since he's wearing his grad gown.



Callie after her dance recital! It was Disney themed & her little group danced to Miley Cyrus's version of "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermiad. I got her an inexpensive little bunch of flowers & she was SO excited about them! She was cute & had a great time dancing!

Sometimes the kids & I do potato head faces & put the potato head parts on ourselves & laugh. We've never included Ellie till now! :) I actually didn't know Callie was playing potato head with her! lol! Ellie doesn't look too thrilled, does she?

I played Chubby Bunny with the YW one of the evenings that I was up at girls camp. Our ward camp director & I tied! We had like 12 marshmallows in our mouths. And the night before we played the Skittles game and I had to have had at least 100 Skittles in my mouth! I put mostly red & purple ones in my mouth so when it got to the point that I was gagging & skittle juice was coming out my mouth it was pretty gross cause it looked like blood! :) Good times!

We got a Wii & Callie loves bowling! It's very amusing to watch her play & beat her Uncle Kenny! Haha! How does it feel getting beat by a 3 year old Kenny?!

CA weekend trip

We hadn't visited Jeremiah's brothers in CA for a while so we to Huntington Beach on Father's Day weekend. It always seems like such a quick trip! We got to Jason's/Richelle's (Jer's bro & his wife) house after 1am Friday morning! Once we got up & going on Friday we had lunch at BJ's Pizza with Jer's uncle Andy, aunt Didi, & their family Andi, Tyler, Jason, & Alison.

After lunch we went back to Andy/Didi's & visited. Jack & Callie were in heaven playing with the kids!

That night we went back to Jas/Rich's house & Justin, Jamie & Katelyn (Jer's bro, his wife, & daughter) came over. Jeremiah was really excited to have El Pollo Loco for dinner! You'd think we'd have one of those here, but not so! Here's Jeremiah w/the girls! Katelyn is vision impaired so she couldn't wait to hold Ellie since she hadn't met her before! Katelyn sang her songs & was so cute with her! She also loves her Uncle Jeremiah & his loud truck (plus the smell of the exhaust! One of her favorite smells is the exhaust on the Disney tram!)! :)

On Saturday morning we went down to Main Street (in HB) to visit Justin at his store. When we lived in CA Jeremiah & Justin had this space but they sold cell phones & were part of the Yakety Yak franchise. Since we've moved, Justin has gotten rid of cell phones & his store is now The Alley where he sells TapouT apparel. This store has lots of memories for us! You can stand in it & touch both walls w/your hands to give you an idea of the size. This is where Jeremiah practically lived for the first couple years of our marriage! He was a slave to the store & worked long hours every day trying to make it successful. No regrets moving to AZ though! And Justin has done a great job revamping it & making it a cooler looking store (the faux brick, the graffiti, the lights, everything!).

Right outside Justin's store was this car. It's no surprise that I don't have the faintest idea what kind of car it is, but every guy on main street was excited to check it out. At one point Justin got in it & started it up & I thought it was the loudest most annoying thing & Jeremiah said that he'd overheard tons of guys saying they wanted to hear the engine! The difference between men & women! Jack had a good time checking it out & pressing buttons that he probably shouldn't have been touching! :)

While the brothers hung out at the store, Richelle, Jamie, Katelyn, Callie, Ellie & I met at Europa Nail Studio. Richelle & I got pedicures & Callie & Katelyn got manicures! Richelle held Ellie most of the time & then Jamie changed her diaper for me so my pedicure was GREAT! :)

This was Callie's first manicure & she thought it was AWESOME! She was beaming the entire time! She surprised me by choosing a red polish. I tried to suggest some pinks but she was set on red! :) Her nail lady painted little white flowers on some of her fingers. Callie's been so good about not picking off the polish like she usually does! It's been 2 weeks & she's still got quite a bit left & she's still showing off her nails to everyone!

Richelle, Jamie & Katelyn have been going to this place for a while so everyone knew them & Katelyn got star treatment! :) She was so cute! It makes me sad that we don't see them very often because we barely know our niece! Here's Katelyn snuggling with Richelle while Jamie's changing Ellie! :)

To wrap up our trip we went to see The Incredible Hulk with Andy/Didi & Jason/Richelle. I hadn't especially wanted to see it but I figured at least Edward Norton's a good actor. I was pleasantly surprised! I totally like the movie! And Ellie behaved perfectly through the whole thing! We even ended up sitting behind an old friend! What were the chances of that?! We headed home Sunday morning & that was that! We had a great time visiting our family & we're looking forward to visiting again in a few months!

12 on the 12th

Thursday, June 12th:

We were getting ready for a trip to CA so I totally forgot to get my pictures! Here's the ones I did get!


I got the kids one of the big sets of sidewalk chalk & they're going through it very quickly! It doesn't help that they throw it down & break it on purpose! Our patio is littered with chalk pieces! I can't remember if I've already said this, but I let my kids use sidewalk chalk that doesn't say washable on it & it stained! Just fyi!


Every year for father's day I make a couple new pages for the father's day albums I started a few years ago for Jeremiah & our dads. I'm the biggest procrastinator ever & this is me trying to get the pages done the day we're leaving town! Not a great idea! After we got home the stuff was still on the table for almost a week. I finally cleaned off the table but the pages are still not finished 2 weeks later (because I haven't worked on them!)!


One of the few activities Ellie does most days! At least she enjoys her bouncer!


Jackson is potty trained! He loves going potty on the toilet (and in the backyard!)!

Headed to CA! Jack slept a lot more than Callie. In Barstow (at 11!) Callie got out of her seat & climbed up to the front to dance on Jer's seat while he was in getting some snacks & drinks. Callie fell asleep within minutes of leaving Barstow!

1:20 AM! We finally got to Jason & Richelle's house & the kids went right to bed!

I went into the kids' room to check on them before going to bed & this is what I found. Must have been a rough night!

anniversary day

Let me just share real quickly how Monday went.

First Jack pooped outside again! This time it was in the dirt & when I got out there they'd taken a little shovel & rolled the poop in the dirt so it looked like cat poop in a litter box. And Jack had stepped in it & I heard something about putting his finger in it! So I took him inside straightaway & washed him in cold water & he hated it & I was glad! I hope he's learned what he'll get if he poops outside again! Oh, and he went to time out!

Then while I was feeding Ellie they were playing outside again & Callie's telling me that Jack broke a bulb from the decorative string of patio lights that is hanging over our patio table. But she said they were cleaning it up & I thought it had been an accident although I wondered how it would have been broken but whatever. I finished feeding Ellie & went in the kitchen & heard this "pop" sound a couple times outside. Jack had CLIMBED UP onto the patio table, UNSCREWED 5!!! of my little bulbs, climbed back down with them, and was squatting on the ground throwing the bulbs down TRYING TO BREAK THEM!!! I was so pissed! He went to time out again but please, time out is not enough for something like that! He wasn't allowed outside the rest of the day which he was very upset about & it sucked for me too.

THEN I'd got them lunch & I was on the phone with the newspaper wondering why I haven't been getting my food ads so I didn't notice him taking his plate of pasta, peas, & broccoli from the table into the hall where he opened a closet door that has dress-up stuff, puzzles, a pop-up tent system & a few other things in it and DUMPED HIS PLATE UPSIDE DOWN into the closet! I was furious! He went to time out AGAIN, and again time out is not good enough for that kind of offense! I had to take almost everything out of the closet to get all the peas! I told him he had to stand in time out until I could get a hold of Jeremiah to discuss further punishment options but when I couldn't get a hold of Jer after several minutes I just made him take a nap which he was pissed about because he doesn't normally take naps anymore. It was a great decision! I didn't have to worry about him torturing me for 2 1/2 hours! Of course he wouldn't go to bed that night either because of the nap he'd had! But at least by then I had back-up & he was much better all evening anyway.

I never got to the store that day so I didn't get a very nice meal planned. We still ended up having steak (not that steak isn't nice) & fruit salad & garlic bread, but the steak was a little disappointing. We're ribeye fans but NY strip was on sale & this time it wasn't very tender! I also had made a Chocolate Malt Cheesecake from a new Paula Deen chocolate magazine but it was pretty disappointing. Even as I finished making the crust I thought it seemed like it wasn't a good crust recipe & it wasn't. I should have tweaked the recipe. It had at least twice the butter that it needed so it ended up so firm & chewy that it's impossible to cut through it with your fork & even with a knife it's a challenge. And I baked the cheesecake longer than it suggested, but it still needed to be baked even longer! So now we have this HUGE underbaked, rubber-crusted chocolate cheesecake that's gonna go to waste. Jeremiah & I both agreed that we don't want him to take it to the office because it's kind of embarrasing! We're better cooks than that! We don't want people eating that & thinking what the crap? Don't quit your day jobs! Considering that it probably cost like $12 to make, next time I'll spend the $15 & get the chocolate cheesecake from Sam's Club that I know is DELICIOUS! It's from Cheesecake Factory & you actually get 4 flavors but I like the chocolate one best.

Ellie's Birth Announcement

Now that she's almost 3 months old (tomorrow!), here's the birth announcement I sent out. Don't feel bad if you didn't get one - I sent it mostly to people who don't read my blog. Some of them hadn't seen any pics of her & some didn't even know she'd come! And some I got back in the mail because I sent them in clear envelopes again & they didn't all go through the machine nicely so I got a nice little note from the post office asking me for an additional 20 cents for special handling! What a bunch of crap! It took me a couple weeks to get those ones back out! So I have to admit - I'm a little proud of myself for these! Of course I couldn't have done it myself - thanks to Jen for the great photos & thanks to photoaffections.com for the idea that I totally ripped off!

for the birds

"We think the birds are hungry because they are tweeting."
Callie's response when I asked why they had dumped half a box of crackers on the lawn!

highlights

My life seems to be going a mile a minute right now! I have a busy day (by my standards anyway, not most people's probably!) today so I shouldn't even be doing this! Here's what we've been up to:

• Date night (with Ellie) to see Indiana Jones. Ellie gagged really loud & threw up a ton & the people around us were saying eww! Caught it mostly with a bib but it soaked through & was dripping down the theater floor! Then she pooped out both legs (hadn't had one that bad yet!) but since there were only 30 mins left & we weren't on an aisle I put a diaper wipe between us to shield me from further injury - I already had poop soaked through my jeans! Thank goodness they were a really dark rinse! Other than those things it was a great movie! :)


• Got a new camera! FINALLY! I've been plannin on buying a DSLR for a year & 1/2 but couldn't decide what to get & had cold feet. I finally took the plunge & got a Nikon D40 & so far I LOVE IT! And all I've used it on so far is auto!


• Jackson wore underwear all last week with not too many accidents! It's amazing that one day he's too scared to poop in the toilet & the next (well almost next) he's wearing underwear full time during the day! He's even stayed dry the last 2 nights! Awesome!


• Jeremiah taught Jack to pee in the backyard! I really am fine with this except that now Jack won't hardly keep his underwear on once he gets outside! And on Friday Callie came inside to let me know that Jack had pooped on a rock! I went outside to check things out & Jack was standing at a corner of the shed & I just didn't see any poop where he was standing. I soon discovered I was standing in it! Disgusting! I got it off my shoe but there's a green stain on the flagstone!


• Callie is dancing & prancing around the house to the point of ridiculousness! We sing the "Family Prayer" song every night just before having family prayer & she'll ask me to start over singing so she can dance. It's like that all the time. She can't just sing a song, she must dance! :) She's getting ready for a dance recital this Saturday!


• Ellie has started getting quite vocal! She is doing lots of squealing & babbling! She has the happiest smiles. I feel so fortunate to have another sweet happy baby!


• Drained & refilled the hottub & set up a new little pool for the kids on Friday & Saturday & the whole family played outside. I got my first sunburn of the summer!
  
• Callie had her first ever primary activity day on Saturday morning & she loved it! They wrote letters to missionaries & played a game. She brought an extra cookie & bottle of water home for Jack.


• Date night to buy food storage stuff! Jeremiah came home from a meeting a week ago & said it was time to get serious about it. We had a few things, but this past week we bought some big metal shelves & a year supply of some things. We've got a ways to go.


• Today's our 7th anniversary! We can't believe it's been 7 (wonderful) years!

Today I have a mountain of laundry to fold & put away (the worst part), a home to tidy up, an anniversary dinner & dessert to plan & make, probably a trip to the grocery store, and fhe to plan & have, so I'm out of time!