Spent most of today shopping for Walker's birthday party tomorrow. We celebrated last week as a family, but I asked if he wanted a party with his friends, since I thought of it far enough in advance to actually plan one ;) Last time he had a big party, it was a dinosaur theme, and that is what he asked for this time as well. Couldn't find any dinosaur pinatas, though, so he'll be swinging at a giant dragonfly. Hey, they existed at the time of the dinosaurs!

Right now Hyrum's watching "scooby-doo" and Myles is pulling the string on a musical toy that makes bubble sounds, then plays "Sailing, sailing..." He's pulling it over, and over, and over... He has been grabbing at all sorts of things lately; mostly papers that I need to keep. I'd forgotten how enthralling it is to watch a baby explore his surroundings. He is intensely focused on everything!

Jared isn't going to WV next week; he'll be headed to Dugway instead. Basically because they had problems with the transport plane [a C-5, I believe]. This happened when they mobilized to LA after Hurricane Katrina, and seems to indicate that this particular model is unreliable. Haven't heard any noises about replacing them, though. I just hope they're using better planes for transport over in Iraq. Anyway, even though Dugway is in Utah, it's far enough away that he won't be coming home at night. But we will be in the same time zone LOL.

Sacrifices

So, I've been thinking about a conversation we had in our women's group at church a few weeks ago. Which really isn't relevant, but it sparked this thought: Every decision we make requires a sacrifice and offers a blessing. Like, if I eat too many chocolate chip cookies, I won't fit into my swimsuit, but I'll be blessed with the sweet chocolatey taste melting in my mouth. Anyway, with Jared gone, I get depressed at times because I miss him, and it's hard to be a single mom, and my kids demand my complete and constant attention. And I was thinking that I could give into the depression today, and hide in a book, or I could involve myself with laundry, baking cookies, and interacting with the kids. Well, guess what? The second option was harder, but I'm much happier now. Plus I actually got some things done, which means I won't be looking at piles of dirty clothing tomorrow and getting more depressed. And walking up and down the stairs to the laundry room burns calories, so I can eat more cookies... which is also good!
As Oprah would say, this was an "Aha!" moment for me.

baby it's cold

So I know that this happens a lot during the springtime. But it was a bit weird to go from this:
to this:

in about 15 minutes. And instead of snuggling up in my nice warm bed with my equally nice and warm husband, I got to dig out the extra blankets. Jared is in Hawaii for a week, working. *snort* yeah, he got paid to fly to Hawaii and play with dangerous chemicals and biotoxins. He's in absolute heaven :) But he was nice enough to tell me, when he called this morning, that Hawaii would be much better with me there. *sigh* So I can't totally hate him for leaving me here with his four rather squirrelly children ;) I'm thinking about putting ice cubes in his boots when he comes home, though.

Hyrum got his stitches out today, and I have a definite count: 6. That's just in the top layer, though. All the inside stitches will dissolve, and since I didn't watch or count those [in order to remain conscious during the procedure], I have no idea how many stitches the inner layers of skin needed. But hey, he's going to have a cool little scar, and a great story to tell all the interested people he meets :).

And my oldest child will be *NINE* in another few days. *gulp* Not sure I'm old enough to be responsible for a nine-year-old. In a few years, he'll be driving, and chasing girls [wait, he's already chasing them...], oh I am SO not ready for this!

totally random: is "mushroom" a compound word? because "mush" and "room" are both words, but they don't really *feel* like a compound word when they're together...

things I like today

Hyrum is still consistently using the bathroom in the toilet. hooray!

Spiderman underwear [because it motivates toilet use]

"Mom! Come look! I pooped in the toilet!" you know, now that he's pointed this out to me, isn't it pretty cool that we have bodies that do this sort of thing? ;)

Cute baby faces, like this one:
My kids goofing off for the camera:

Cartoons in the May issue of "Good Housekeeping": My favorite is a mom and her boy standing in front of the T-Rex skeleton in a museum. The mom says, "They got extinct because they didn't listen to their mommies."


Diet Coke with no caffiene. So, I can have my soda pop, and share w/my kids without increasing their ability to be hyper ;)


Sweet-smelling lotion from Bath and Body Works


Curious George band-aids. Because they protect much better than regular ones.


Warm spring weather.


A swing in the tree in our front yard for Myles to sit in, and enjoy being outside.


Pudding- it's magical ;). If you make a cake, and it sticks to the pan because you forgot to grease said pan [hypothetically speaking of course!], you can crumble the cake up into pudding and make dirt cake!


This song [click "no" on the Zango offer, then "cancel" and you'll be able to see the lyrics] by Hellogoodbye. It's exactly how I feel about my husband. Totally sappy, I know ;)


Fresh milk from the local dairy- mmmm.

Finding little bits of happiness wrapped up in my day.

Friday the 13th

So my big event today was this:

And my information about it is rather sketchy. I know that Hyrum, Morgen, and Ben were all in the front yard. I know Ben threw a rock which hit Hyrum in the forehead. I know it was an accident. I do not know *WHY* rocks were being thrown. And, considering the results, I very much doubt that I will ever be told the complete story ;)
I heard screaming and sobbing, and walked outside [assuming they were fighting over who got to play with whatever] and saw Hyrum standing on the grass with blood dripping down his face. So, Ben went home, Morgen grabbed a rag for Hyrum to press to his forehead, and I packed food and diapers for Myles into my backpack. I sat Hyrum down on the front steps with his rag still squeezed to his forehead, and walked Myles and Morgen over to Rebecca's house- thank goodness for neighbors! Then I ran back to my house, grabbed Hyrum and his shoes, and loaded us into the car. Hyrum's big concern at this moment was that he had no shoes on LOL. Once he heard they were with us, he was fine. Not very talkative, but looking around as we drove to the hospital. I realized that I am a frighteningly aggressive driver when I am that focused. Anyway, we got to the clinic in one piece, and I carried him into the lobby. They were playing "Over the Hedge," which he watched while I took care of the insurance forms and other minutia required before medical treatment is dispensed. I put his shoes on his feet, and grabbed my camera to take a photo of the wound. Mostly because he's a boy, and boys love gory things ;). He wanted to see the pics, and thought they looked kind of cool. It's hard to tell this from the photo [because I wasn't going to poke around so it was more visible], but that cut goes all the way to the skull. We watched 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, then it was our turn to be helped. The nurse asked Hyrum some questions, checked his temp and blood oxygen levels, then took us back to one of the suture rooms. Hyrum got to lay on the table there, and the nurse swabbed some lidocaine gel into the wound. She was quite thorough about it, and Hyrum held my hand while she swabbed. He complained a bit about how cold it was, and that it hurt, but didn't tear up at all. I put on my 'calm mommy' face, and we talked about the green exit sign, and the white lights inside the ceiling. After the gel numbed the wound, the Dr came in [I remember his first name was Jonathan- same as H's middle name- but can't recall his last name] and studied it for a bit, trying to decide how best to repair the damage. He asked another Dr to give him an opinion on the depth of the wound, and while we waited for that Dr to appear, the nurse washed out the wound with water and a syringe. I used a towel to keep the water from dripping into his eyes. Again, no tears from him. The second Dr confirmed that there was damage to the tendon [?] that covers the skull, so they decided to stitch that together lightly, in addition to stitching up the skin. He had a finger actually in the wound, and announced he could feel the abrasion on the bone where the rock impacted. I felt a bit nauseous watching him poke around like that. Then the nurse got out the needle and thread, and they covered Hyrum with a green surgical drape with a square hole cut out of the middle. Still no crying, but he asked to hold my hands. He wanted to see a bit, and they managed to fit the square over one of his eyes, as well as the hole in his forehead. The surgery took about 30 minutes. I got light-headed watching them [I can watch myself get stitches, but not my kids], so I sat next to Hyrum and held his hands. He held so still, and didn't cry at all; in fact, he actually fell asleep on the table about half-way through. And while he couldn't see me, I cried just a bit. After the Dr finished, he explained how to care for the wound and the stitches. Then I scooped up my sleeping boy and walked back out to the car with him. He woke up in the car, and talked with me on the way home. We walked over to get the other kids, and he was running down the sidewalk, already recovered and feeling pretty cool.

Oh, Jared and Walker were on a camping trip with the boy scouts, and missed the entire event!

And I'm going to bed before anything else happens LOL.

normal?! what's that?

Been a few weeks since I blogged; I was out of state [to virginia, not west virginia], then I needed to catch up on laundry, and my cute little baby boy is eating like a, well, like a pig. So I *meant* to blog earlier, but got sidetracked.

So, I flew to Virginia, and it was interesting- mostly in a good way- to fly with a 6 month baby. We hung out at Allison's house, and ate her food, watched her movies, and helped her spend money on clothing. It was a great vacation! Even if Myles took his own little vacation from sleeping at night.

Myles was awesome on the flight back. I had a wonderfully kind man sit next to me from Charlotte to Columbus. He was flying out for business- he works M-Th in a town by Columbus, then flies back to Charlotte for FSS. He held Myles for me so I could make him up a bottle, and talked with me [and Myles too!] pretty much the whole flight. He even carried my backpack off the plane since we had those stairs to get down. Nice man! The flight to SLC was even better though. I fed Myles as we were taxiing out of the airport and he fell asleep. He stayed asleep the ENTIRE flight [which is almost 4 hours long] - woke up after we landed, when the "fasten your seatbelts" sign turned off so we could get our luggage off the plane. *gasp!* so cool ;)

Okay, so this is a pic of my cute little munchkin baby with Allison. I played peek-a-boo with him to get a smile.
It was terribly foggy on the drive to the airport; much like driving through clouds, since the fog came in large patches, and wasn't constant. We stopped at a grist mill on our way, and I got this fantastic picture. Because of the fog, it looks more like a painting. Pretty cool, eh?

Next on my list of things we did recently: visit the North Field. Yep, I always capitalize it, since it is a name as well as a place LOL. Anyway, we went up to check on the berry plants, and Jared took the kids fishing for an hour or so, and we had dinner and s'mores afterwards, and enjoyed every minute.

Walker played w/Myles; he's a great big brother, and Myles loves looking at him.

I spent a few minutes taking B&W photos of almost everything there. The sun was overhead, creating those lovely sharp shadows that show up so well without color, and I thought I might be able to capture some of the beauty and peace I always feel out here.

There's a little creek running through the property, and Jared put rocks into part of it to create a natural refrigerator. It's where we keep watermelons and soda, and other things that need to stay cool. Sometimes you can see minnows there, too.

Got this photo of Jared w/his tongue out. Kind of his normal reaction whenever he sees my camera pointed his way! Myles was reaching for the smoke- he could see it, but not grab it, which makes it a fascinating sort of toy.

Here's the kids eating dinner. Jared made foil dinners [hamburger patty with a slice of onion, plus carrots and potatoes, wrapped in foil and baked in the coals] for the grown-ups, and brought hot dogs for the kids. They serve a dual purpose- food, and entertainment- since we let the kids roast their own. Mixing food and fire is always amusing ;)

And a silly pic of them on the swing. I asked them to smile, but I always get pained grimaces, or weird 'showing all my teeth' shots. So I asked them to say "I have stinky toes," which gave me a cute photo, even if there weren't any perfect smiles. What hams!

Finally, our Easter. Normally we would do the egg hunt on Saturday, but we were elsewhere. So, after Church [and some meetings afterward], Jared-- I mean the Easter Bunny-- hid 70+ empty plastic eggs in the front yard. This way we don't have fights over who finds the most eggs and who got the most candy and it's SOOOO unfair. Plus, if any eggs escape our children, and the dog finds them, she won't get sick from the candy. Maybe from eating the plastic egg, but not from any sugar or chocolate she finds. And the kids trade those empty eggs for a bag of candy [which I sort into colors and count so there's the same amount of everything in each child's bag].

Oh, and I also made about 30 cards, some birthday and some blank. And I've finished [not yet folded, but that's today's job] 4 loads of laundry.

But, the absolute best thing this past month: while I was in Virginia, Jared got Hyrum potty-trained!!!!!!!!

YES!!!!

He rocks. Okay, they both rock. But my dh *really* rocks.