today

Today I am enjoying:

• a package of milk chocolate m&m's all to myself
• getting a good workout in today (hence the lack of guilt over the m&m's)
• taking care of some overdue paperwork, finally!
• having a wonderful dh who backs me up when I need it- I love him!
• and the beautiful ultrasound pics of my baby boy *sigh!*

Trying to remember good things seems to bring them to my attention. And I enjoy that so much more than focusing on the bad things that happen every day.

j

my happiness

Although it is easy to forget when they run around the house and tease each other instead of finishing their jobs.

Had some smiling issues with M- she either looks stoned (as she does here) or in pain. LOL, but it will make a great story later, even if the pic is less than perfect!

Off to swim lessons

<3 j

big day!

Saturday was a great day in many ways for us- H turned 3, and Jared got home from his 3 week business trip to Chicago!
Jared was just promoted to Major- nice, and the raise is nice too. Way to go, honey!!
And I'm managing with 3 kids home all day since school let out. When we have family scripture study (just one page, everybody reads a little bit), we all get along pretty well. When we miss, I hear a constant stream of "Mom!!! He called me a name! Mom!!! She hit me!" aaargh.
I've tried to keep the big activities to one a day; we have swim lessons MWF, and karate Wed nights, go to the pool at least once a week, and the library once a week. Mostly I'm trying to wear them out so they have no more energy to fight with each other LOL. There's still a lot of slow, lazy time that they can hang out in the little wading pool, or build things in the backyard, or play with snails LOL.
As far as H's birthday- his birthday dinner was homemade mac-n-cheese with watermelon and grapes. He got a cake, and ice cream in cones (definitely a must for summertime). M gave him crayons, and W gave him some pellets that grow into sea creatures when you add water to them. He also got some trains and tracks to play with them on. One of the train cars has a foghorn, which makes a noise, but I tried it out before I bought it to make sure it wasn't a LOUD sound LOL! That has been the biggest hit so far. And he's done a great job sharing with his brother and sister.
On another subject, I've decided that black forest ham is the best. I love the flavor (no, don't spoil it by telling me HOW they get that flavor!), which is good, because I'm craving it lately.

<3 j

I did something today!!!

Yeah, I know, I "DO" things every day. But I have had this on my 'to-do' list for 3 years, almost, and I've finally finished it LOL. See, when I was scrapping in 2003, a lot of times I finished the page and left out the journaling. Mostly because I couldn't write anything intelligent while I was keeping an eye on my kids. So ever since then, I have occasionally gone back and added journaling to one or two pages. And now, the year 2003 is completely finished- pics are all attached, journaling is all written down, and whew! I can cross that off my list of things to do. Which leaves me in September of 2005 scrapbook wise. Hooray!
Of course, with this new little baby coming at the beginning of October, I'm trying to catch up quickly. Because I know it will be a long time before I'm able to sit for long periods of time to create layouts. And I like not having a huge backlog of photos- I enjoy being able to journal about things I remember, instead of hoping I wrote something down in a journal about it.

On a different subject, we had a wonderful visit with my family on Wednesday. We've been planning a sleepover with A since school got out, and got over there at last! My Mom was with her dad, and my Dad was in meetings, so we hung with Joy and A most of the evening. M wanted all the kids to sleep together (NOT a good idea). But she did get to sleep with A and Joy in Joy's room. And H and W slept in Kyle's old room. Thursday morning Grandma made everyone pancakes, and after the sun warmed up the backyard we all headed out there. We had squirt guns for everybody, and buckets of water to fill them up, plus some bubbles when they all got tired of squirting LOL. Got home Thursday night, and everybody was worn out- we got a GREAT night's sleep!
And we have another day and Jared will be back- Hallelujah!!

<3 j

today's funny

H decided a few days ago that one of my little scrapbooks (made for Christmas presents for parents/grandparents in 2003) would be his scriptures. Then he told us all that "Hacker stole my scriptures!" {Hacker is a cartoon bad guy on the PBS show Cyberchase} and "Hacker brought them back to me. He borrowed them." All this without us ever noticing their disappearance LOL!
M has some pets- snails- that she liberated from the garden. Most of the ones she finds, she handles and pokes and watches and feeds until they give up and die. Or, one of her brothers finds them and smashes them. Which is what Jared would do if he found them, but M still gets upset.
W has been helpful and cheerful the past few days. I think having another adult here really eased some of the frustration we were both feeling from Jared's TDY. He's currently fascinated with the A-Z mysteries at the library, and a show called "Fetch" on PBS. Looking at his baby pictures, I can see how much he's changed and grown, but it is still hard to understand how quickly it all happens.
Oh, and a bit of funny news- now that a day has passed, anyway! H got into the food downstairs and dumped an entire can of powdered hot chocolate on top of Cali's kennel. Then he got a salt container, opened it, and dumped a trail from the storage room into M's bedroom. I understand the chocolate- he licks it up and it tastes good. But salt?!? Anyway, the vacuum got a pretty good workout yesterday, and he was grounded to his room until supper. Poor picked on kid!

<3 j

fresh fruit

I've decided that the best thing to have in the summertime is fresh fruit- strawberries, melons, grapes, etc. Mmmmm! Had a lot of that yesterday at the family reunion. Love the juices dripping off my chin, and down my fingers, love the tart and sweet flavor on my tongue, love that my kids are in love with fruit, too. I don't remember being extra excited about reunions as a child- I liked seeing my cousins, and I always had fun, but for some reason I treasure them so much more now. I like being able to catch up on the news of the family- meeting new 'significant others' and catching up with how each family has grown and changed over the past year.

These past weeks have been full of growing experiences; Jared left on June 4, and he'll be back Saturday, so I was the lone RA (responsible adult), and not enjoying it too much. But Joy helped me out last week, staying a few days and distracting my kids. And Melinda came last Wednesday (when Joy went home), and goes home today (sob!). Having her here has meant I could take a 5 hour nap on Thursday- apparently I quite needed that LOL- and has diffused a lot of the tension that builds up when my kids and I are alone together. Really, it's a combination of too much mom and not enough dad! I keep telling Melinda I'm hiding her plane ticket home LOL. But Jared's enjoying his classes, and he'll be home Saturday, and we all survived to this point, so I imagine we'll be fine. It makes a huge difference having family to depend on, though. And there are swim lessons, and piano, and playing outside or at the pool, all of which keep the kids busy and happy. It's all good!

<3 j

ode to a plunger

So we replaced our old toilet plunger awhile back, and I was under strict instructions on the qualities to search for in the new one. I managed to get something fairly close, but it was at Target, and it was a "designer" model- Michael Graves, whatever that means. So I kept the receipt, hoping that I could return it (ewww, I know) if it didn't work well. Imagine my surprise, when I discovered that it works better than any other plunger I've ever had!!! Wow. And it has this nifty handle I won't even try to describe, except that the grip makes plunging much easier. LOL, and now that you're grossed out because of my obsession with plunging and toilets...

<3 j

doing?

So, I've been trying to fill in some of the events I missed scrapbooking about last year. Since half the year I was living as a guest in my parents' home, I didn't have access to a lot of my normal scrapbooking things: uploading and saving my pics to www.snapfish.com , most of my scrapping supplies, and my journal of events. Which meant that most of the scrapping I did during that extended visit was of things as they happened.
So I had no beginning of the year letter, but Easter, some gymnastic pictures, and W's birthday were done. And I skipped around a lot. Anyway, once I finished up 2004 (my first goal w/scrapbooking this year), I started to fill in the gaps in my 2005 scrapbook. These two LOs are from August 2005- we went over to Fallon for a visit, and for Angela's wedding. I got a bunch of photos of H and E playing together, with Melinda and I watching and laughing at their interactions. Then there are a bunch of pics from the reception after Quinn and Angela's wedding. I forgot my camera, so got no photos of us at the temple for the wedding itself (seems to be a recurring theme- did the same thing at Nate and Caitlin's too). And I'm still doing some skipping around- I have some 2006 LOs done- mostly it depends on what I'm interested in playing with at the time LOL.
And my list of "good things" for today:

• Blueberry Morning cereal. Yummy!
• I got up early enough to eat breakfast, and read my scriptures, and I remembered to take my prenatal pill. LOL, I'll finally get in the habit of that, and then my baby will be weaned, and I won't need to take it anymore! Story of my life...
• Kids got up cheerfully today, no arguments over breakfast (thankfully), and they're all outside playing nicely with each other. LOVE that.
• Beautiful smell and cool breeze coming in the windows- didn't rain last night, but it smells like summer.
• <3>
• waking up in a good mood today. I think this is the best of the bunch so far!

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

<3>

It's a ....

baby!! Went in for an ultrasound on Wed, and **HE** is strong and healthy and not at all ashamed to flaunt his stuff LOL. Yes, it is a boy. And yes, M was a bit upset at the news! LOL, the week before I had the ultrasound, W and M were discussing babies in the car. W told M if it was a girl, she'd sleep in M's room and cry at night and M would never get any sleep! So M decided she wanted a boy. But, when I assured her that the baby wouldn't be in anybody's room until it could sleep through the night, she changed her mind. And then we found out it was a boy, and she was disappointed. She'll get over it, I'm sure! She can always hang with her aunt if she needs girl time.

And I'm not really showing yet- unless you know I'm pg it just looks like I've gained about 10 pounds. Which I have, LOL! But everything is good- baby's healthy and strong, I'm healthy and strong, so no worries.

Kids are all out of school now. We have a few ideas for activities, but by and large they'll be banished outside to play with their friends I think LOL. Jared's off to Chicago for 3 weeks to study different aspects of microscope usage. He's looking forward to that, but I'm dreading the single parenthood aspect, as always. I'm praying for patience (and to hold onto my sanity) while he's gone. And I'm looking forward to the family reunions we get to attend this summer. It seems like such a treat (still) to live close enough to see our families on a regular basis!

<3 j