you know it happens too often when...

joe forgets to tell me about it.

what did he forget to tell me about? another person being taken from church in an ambulance during sacrament meeting on sunday. (i skipped with the kiddos. claire + yucky nose = no church)

and its not like this was something that happened all calm and quietly. guy starts to go down, people are jumping up to catch him, nurse in ward runs over, and meeting is stopped while bishop assists. he was a program passer-outer. nicest guy.

weird thing about this, the last few people weren't elderly. i have so many things that would be really funny to say here, but i just can't bring myself to do it. it would be mean. so just laugh to yourself at some old person/handicap pun that you can imagine me saying, k?

................

and i really need to get this off my chest. i am a little bit sick of orpah (oprah's nickname lindsay gave her) right now. she is a little bit (a lot) full of herself. don't get me wrong, she does a lot of wonderful things for lots of people, but no joke, the woman thinks that she has been through everything and can relate to every person out there. and beat their story. like today, interviewing keith urban, he is talking about his drug addiction and recovery, and then goes off on how she knows just how it is and how she has struggled throughout her life with food addiction.

really?

last i checked, we all kinda have a food addiction. like we all need food to live.

(if you have issues with weight, thats different. but don't think you're all special because you will "publicly battle" with it. we are all public, we all struggle with it. whether you need to gain or lose, you struggle. and we all need to gain or lose. k? and maybe some people have an addiction.... whatever. thats another topic. this was just a tangent. tangent over)

but it doesn't end there. she can relate to every bad relationship, every god relationship, being abused, being raped, being poor, being rich, having a bad day, being famous, having a freaking "AHA" moment, dealing with with rumors, being alone, having a teen idol, yada yada.

guess its a good thing this is the last season? oh wait, it wasn't enough to have her own show. she needs her own (no pun intended) network. all to herself. i don't think we will be getting it. and i think i'm okay with that.

and while i would have DIED to have been on her "favorite things" show, i think i would have sold half the stuff she gave out. like the brownie/lasagna pan? who likes side pieces best? HELLO the middle pieces are where its at. crunchy sides? ick. and the sweater.... oh my. so not a good color for everyone. not me anyway- pretty sure i would have blended into my walls.

and wait.... she had McDonald's food on the show today? weird....

anyone else feel this way or am i completely off my rocker? these feelings haven't stopped me from watching, but tomorrow's show might be one of the last for me. anyone else watch "sister wives?" i think it is so disturbing, but its kinda funny to watch these crazies that live not so far away get some attention.

and these are my thoughts for the night. its been kind of a yucky day. everyone keeps bringing up poop. it starts to get to you after a while.

*GAH! after publishing this post, what ad comes up on the confirmation page? an invitation to subscribe to O magazine. lets not forget the magazine with her face plastered on the front. full of yourself?

confession

i realized i may have fibbed a little a few posts back. there are three foods i really cannot stand. at this moment i can't remember the third, but i prefer to leave out

water chestnuts

and

black licorice.

i usually have no issues when it comes to texture, but water chestnuts, for whatever reason, do not sit well in my mouth. its to the point that although i really love those lettuce wraps at p.f. changs, i almost don't eat them. ALMOST.

and black licorice, yucky. sorry, there is no getting around it. i love me some good soft red vines, but try as i might, i can't choke down the black stuff. i even took a sample at costco a few days ago, hoping to convince myself it was tasty, but i had to throw it away.

i still can't remember that third one, although i also don't care for buttered popcorn jelly bellies. which happens to by my mom's fave. i like toasted marshmallow.

rawr.

new best buds. my bestest friend from high school is hanging out in utah, and we definitely had a sleep over last night... with kids! makes for an interesting night, with many interruptions from kiddos, but it made it that much more fun for our little girls to finally meet. claire loves the livster tons already! can you tell? (not sure the love is reciprocated though....)
typical sight. not sure if this is after a failed attempt to put it in the garbage can or what, but i busted up laughing. (it would not surprise me to see it IN the garbage can. her favorite pj's were found in the can a few days ago. not sure why?)

meowwwww..... crazy girl thought being a kitty cat was pretty awesome. not so happy about taking it off for church. but i really loved how she thought she was really a cat for a while, and only answered with a meow.

i feel like i have blogging tons lately, but i keep missing some big things. like claire's bday bash....

.....it was so fun! we kept it really low key, invited a few of her friends over for some cake and ice cream and just let them all run around for a little while. exactly perfect for miss claire! we had balloons everywhere, a definite must with her :) my mom always made whatever cake we wanted for our birthdays, and my favorite was usually red velvet. so i wanted to make the real deal for claire, and i let her help me. it takes a LOT of red food coloring, so i made the whole cake and used most of all the bottles. i had left one with just a little left it in, and when we were making the frosting claire dumped the rest of the red into the just finished, perfectly white frosting! couldn't have red frosting on a red cake, so we dumped some blue in and we had purple frosting, to go along with the minnie mouse purple/pink stuff. she loved it!
she was SO happy she got to have happy birthday sung to her again. might have been her favorite part even.
and since it was her birthday, we let her do pretty much whatever she wanted that day. including eating ice cream with her hands.... yep it was messy! what we do for our kiddies.....

the next day she was EXHAUSTED. she had a second nap after her one nap.
the curlers don't do much more to her already curly hair, but i am making her have them in every so often so she is used to them. she hates it. naturally.
she goes crazy over the camera, wants to see the pictures as soon as we take them. i look sick, but this is typical claire!
what i walked into the other day. joe had just come home, and claire would NOT leave him alone. she LOOOOOVES her daddy, maybe more than me sometimes! she pretty much thinks he is the best jungle gym.
i. did. not. teach. her. this. REPEAT. this is NOT my doing. the blamed will not be named to protect any unwanted scolding.

however,

i think it is really funny, and cute, and caleb seemed to also think it was fun.

cutest baby ever. i can't get enough of his smiles.

300 posts :)

remember when i said i was going to make a UGE mess last week? i did. i attempted to make a version of this cake for our Young Women in Excellence. 3 hours later i got all the layers done, frosted in between and stacked, just waiting to be frosted on the outside when caleb really needed to eat. i sit down for a sec and next thing i know, claire was saying "yum!" and downing the cake. by the time i got to her, she was covered and the top layer was off and smashed. i should have known better than to leave it accessible, but alas, i didn't act on it. so a red velvet cake from costco was the substitute, and i must say it was quite a good one :)

happy 3 months tomorrow little (big) bubba! you are such a joy, we are such a lucky family to have you around!

skip this

if you don't like birth details! i won't share too much of the gory details, just some small things to remember.

i was so anxious the day before caleb was born. i don't know why, but i was just nervous as heck. i couldn't sleep, and i kept flipping out that the hospital hadn't called. at 5:30 the next morning i made joe call them to make sure they knew i wanted to come in. they said they would call back soon, they were just getting a few things ready. we got there about 7, got checked in, got pitocin and all that jazz by around 8, and settled in for a long ride. the contractions weren't nearly as bad as last time (at first at least) and i spent a while on the max amount. my doc came and checked me a while later. he broke my water around 1, and i have to say it was the WEIRDEST feeling- there was so much fluid this time (with claire nothing came out til after) and i kept laughing to myself because i couldn't control it. with every contraction tons more would come out.... i am sure this is totally normal and nothing to think about, but because that didn't happen with claire it seemed bizarre.

i really wanted to see how long i could go without the epidural, and i felt pretty good about getting as far as i had when i decided i needed it. right when i got the doc for the drugs in, my nurses changed. i LOVED this nurse- she was so on top of everything, and really knew how to help me out. got the drugs, and this time was also so different with claire. i was completely numb with her, and had no idea when contractions were coming without looking at the monitor, and i never felt the urge to push (i just wanted to go back to sleep). this time it took a while to work, but it worked better- i wasn't in pain but i knew when the contractions were, and how things were progressing. at 5:40 my doc came and checked me, i was a six. we joked about how i really love laboring for a long time, and he left to go home and get dinner, and said he would be back after that, watching me the whole time. the nurses changed at six, but my nurse had said she knew he would be here by then. i was sad she wouldn't be the one for it, but all the sudden at 5:55 things were different- i wanted to flip to my back so bad, but i felt silly asking her to check since it had only been 15 minutes. (i think the person to actually check that time was a doc who was in training... he had been in there off and on all day.) they could tell things had changed so they did, and caleb was ready for arrival! so much so, my body was starting to push him out on its own.... (at this point my sister was still in the room. she said she wouldn't stay for the actual delivery this time, and i told her to leave right then if she didn't want to see it because he was coming fast. she stayed anyways, and i am so grateful- it was such a neat experience!)

at 6 my new nurse came in, said she had just called my doctor- he was on his way back and would be there in 7-8 minutes. i told her i was watching that clock, and i was turning over in 8 minutes whether he was there or not, so be ready! (i was delivered by a nurse, and when my mom told the nurse this i think she flipped out a little) i held it together, doc came in, and four pushes and ten minutes later he was out! he squealed like a pig, peed all over the room, and everyone was laughing and crying with relief.

the delivery nurses were so much more on top of things, one nurse even got me dinner right in the delivery room while caleb was being cleaned up. this was huge for me, because after laboring with claire the entire day i was STARVING, but i wasn't allowed to have anything with claire until the next morning because i had been throwing up after coming off the drugs.

in general, things seemed so much smoother and easier with caleb. recovery was faster, labor and delivery was easier and faster, in general i enjoyed it a lot more. so there's that... all you wanted to know and i'm sure more.

i've thought about that day a lot lately, and i am SO grateful everything went so smoothly that day. a million things could have gone wrong, but it was just such a good day. i am even more in love with little man! he is still SO GOOD. sleeps through the night consistently, and puts up with his crazy sister like a champ. and he still has the cutest sneezes. he is cooing and talking back, but is still so lazy- any time he's on his stomach he passes out, and has no desire for rolling or head lifting. and i am OKAY with that- no need for another early walker in this house :)

yeeshka

i love my kids, i promise. they are just funny little munchkins. its great!

its been crazy busy for us lately.... is it ever not? diaper changing alone takes up half my day. we tried potty training claire, but after getting her to sit on the potty for an hour and a half (major accomplishment there) without so much as an inkling to go we gave that up. we'll try again later. so much for the signs that she's ready. she is as stubborn as her mother.

just for kicks- caleb and his twinner friend. they were both wearing the same onsie under the sweatshirts. they just sit (not caleb- he is a lazy bum) and squawk at each other and high five. makes us mothers proud. and neither of them were having the camera. cutie patooties.

off to make a UGE mess. i'll let you know how that goes.

quick question: does anyone live somewhere with a nice HOA? ours is rude, inconsiderate, and posts notices on our doors the same day our water is being turned off, then gets mad when we don't see said notices and call wondering why we have no water. or tells us they put notices on the boards, which they didn't. GAH! as my friend said, i didn't want to shower anyway.