Moving Day!!

Today and tomorrow. . .we're moving!!! Not sure if I mentioned that moving is a pain in the a** (this is a family friendly blog). I talked my brother Jeremy into going to pick up the Uhaul with me in a few minutes. I'm not eager to drive a massive truck through town. He, however, doesn't drive stick shifts so if it's not automatic, this could be a very interesting adventure. I thought it might be fun to strap the girls in their carseats in the front of the big-rig with me. . . .hmmmm. . .maybe we will do that!
We supposedly got internet set up today. . .I can't go without internet so I wanted it hooked up before i ever moved in. We'll see. Comcast isn't terribly reliable. Some of you know about my multiple month battle with the genius's in the call centers there. The jury is still out on who won that battle.
Oh. And packing with kids is ridiculous. Jaida thinks she's in charge of the tape-gun, and by in charge I mean no one else can touch it. Have you ever seen a 3 year old try to operate one of those? And Mya does NOT want our things in boxes. She cries everytime I put something in a box, so I have to sneak stuff in when she's not looking and get it closed before she starts to remove the contents.

Little Boys???

My girls won't wear bibs when they eat and I got tired of scrubbing stains on clothes. . . .so, I take their shirts off when they eat. Either that or I pretend I have little boys sometimes. :)

Morgan

A few weeks ago we went up to Morgan to visit one of my friends that I met in Jerusalem. She came to visit her family for a few weeks so we met her up there and spent the day. Can I just say I love small towns. I don't want to live in one, but they're fun to visit. Care free, relaxing, fun, fun, fun. Here's some pics from the day. For more pictures of our adventure and pictures of the cute farm check out my photo blog here.

Nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath. . .

All symptoms I felt while sitting in the family room of our new house yesterday. That's right. . .we're officially home owners again! Don't get me wrong, I'm excited and I LOVE the house but as I sat there thinking of all the things we needed to do in the next few weeks I had a mild anxiety attack. Being a home owner is so much work! Yikes.
That being said, we're excited to be in a place of our own and it's hopefully somewhere we can stay for a long time. I won't post on here where it is because some of my friends have made me slightly paranoid about the degree of personal info I put on here, but it's still in Utah and still pretty close to where we live now.
I'll post some pics sometime. . .when I can find a minute to breath in between cleaning, picking out paint colors (UGH) and deciding how to fix the landscaping (double Ugh. . .I am NOT a yard work girl.). I'd ask for recommendations on good paint colors for bathrooms and bedrooms as well as hearty plants for the yard (I have a history for killing things) and flowers, but I have discovered I have a large amount of blog stalkers and a VERY small group of commentors. So I guess I'm on my own. Beige here we come and we'll just hope the previous owners had some tulip bulbs in there somewhere. :)
We went to the house tonight to start cleaning. After 2 1/2 hours I was still working on the kitchen. Blah.
Within 30 minutes Jaida already had friends over to play. I thought it a bit strange that her parents were cool with her playing at our house when they haven't met us, but whatever.
We hired someone to come paint some of the rooms and bathrooms next week (because painting blows) and we'll probably start moving stuff in next weekend. Anyone want to come to a moving party?!

The best coffins ever!

Yes, I said coffins. And these pics are especially for all my "Coke" friends! (well, Diet-Coke friends). These are some specialty coffins you can find at a little coffin shop in Ghana, Africa. My dad saw these and couldn't resist sending me the pics. I'm thinking about getting one on order for when I die!

And for those of you who pefer to be cremated. . . .

One funny kid

So if you haven't figured it out by now when reading the blog, Jaida is hilarious. I laugh all day at her (and sometimes get very frustrated by her wit). Here's a few funny things she's said in the past few days.

Today--getting ready to go on a walk, I put on some of my sunglasses and headed for the door. J looked at me and said "Mom. . .you're one hot rockin' star!"

Yesterday when J got home from church she announced that in her Sunbeam class she "drew a picture that was about when dad had hair."

A few days ago we were in the car and J was questioning me about Mike's mom. Here's how the conversation went:
J: "Is Grandma Marietta dad's mom?"
Me: "Yes"
J: "Then who is Grandma Pat?"
Me: "That's dad's step-mom"
Then there was a little pause. . .and then
Jaida: "I want a step-mom!"
I tried to explain what a step-mom was and she didn't care. . .she really wanted one. Too bad for her. . .she'll NEVER have one!!!

She loves to tell people that "nana is kickin' us out" when they ask why we're moving. If you know my mom, it makes it that much funnier because my mom would probably let us live here forever if we would. :) Well, maybe not.

Jaida talks to herself. All the time. She carries on entire conversations that sometimes can last several minutes. She gets that from my mom who also talks to herself, but denies that she does.

J frequently (and I'm talking like once or twice a day) pats my belly and says "That looks like a baby brother." Only problem is that I AM NOT pregnant. I tell her it's left over from our last baby. And then she'll say, "But I really, REALLY want a baby brother." And then I tell her to talk to her dad (who thinks we're done having kids)!

Lately, anytime I do something for Jaida, or let her do something she wants to do (like wear her swimsuit in the bathtub, or wear some crazy outfit for the day, or crack eggs, or call her friend, etc.) she says "Thanks mom! You're soooo nice." or "You're the best mom in the whole world!" I only document this so that when she's a teenager I can show her there was a time she actually did like me! :)

Stairs

Every parent waits for the day their kid has a run in with the stairs. Lucky me. . .BOTH girls have had some stair fun the past week. Mya was first. We were at a friends house and the girls were upstairs playing the toy room. Then came the thud and we looked over and there was Mya doing flips and aerials down the stairs. It was actually pretty spectacular. She thankfully missed the iron railing and landed on carpet at the bottom. She managed to escape with a very small bump on her head and some hurt feelings. She was doing her "hurt feelings" cry which seemed a bit odd as it should have been her "scared" cry. It didn't make sense to me until a few days later when Jaida said "remember when I pushed Mya down the stairs" Excuse me what? You pushed her. I don't think she meant to push her down the stairs, per se, but Mya was in her way so she gave her a little shove. And thus, the hurt feelings cry.
The second stair run in happened about an hour ago. I went to pick Jaida up from a friends, rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later heard a very loud, low, thud. Oooh. . .she just dropped something. And then came the scream. A second later the door opened and there was Jaida with a very impressive goose egg, some scratches on her face, and a bloody nose. I've learned that the parents reaction is very crucial in situations like this--STAY CALM. Otherwise it freaks them out more. So I hid my initial reaction of "holy hell" and acted like everything was fine. Jaida was very concerned about bleeding. She surprisingly stopped crying pretty fast. I'm now trying to keep her awake and watch for signs of concussion, although I have no idea what you do if they show any of those signs. Dad. . .time to come home!!
Anyway. Here's some pictures of the wounds on Jaida. Mya's weren't gnarly enough to warrant a photo, but Jaida's were. And the pictures definitely don't do them justice!

I love that I struggle to get her to smile normal in regular photos, but when showing off her battle wounds, she was more than happy to sport a grin. :) That's my girl! Bruises, blood, and scars are cool.

Mirrors

One of my favorite "rear views". mmmmm....

More poop stories

So apparently this was a bigger event than I gave credit for since it's getting back to me from sources who were not present. . .so I guess I better blog about it.
A few Sundays ago we were eating Sunday dinner here at my parents house. Most of my siblings were here and we had finished eating and were sitting around the table talking. the kids were in the backyard playing (because it was the ONE day out of the year it wasn't snowing. . ugh). Jaida's cousin, who is her age, came in and started whispering in her mom's ear. She got a little louder and said "Jaida has poo in her mouth." Being the age she is, we didn't give what she said much credit.
A few seconds later Jaida came walking in the house with her mouth slightly open. Then I hear Mike say "Is that DEER POO?!!!"
Sure enough, Jaida had a mouth full of deer poo. I made no reaction as I knew that's what she was going for, but with a house full of people, two of which were my brothers who are strangely interested in anything poo related, she got just the reaction she was looking for.
Then I hear Mike say "Oh. . .it's in your teeth. That's disgusting."
Not only was it IN her mouth, but she had apparently chewed a little bit.
The kicker to the whole thing is I have no doubt she had the whole thing planned out. . .if I put this poo in my mouth, just imagine what kind of reaction and attention I'll get! And sure enough she did as the story has now been passed around and people continue to ask "You ATE deer poo?" And she gets this little smile. . . .
Big sigh.

Hood Ornament

Jaida decided to tie this little guy on the front of the car. Pretty cute hood ornament. Checkout Mya giving a thumbs up. ha ha.

Old Cameras

I'm looking for some old, vintage cameras. I'm planning on putting a studio in our new house and want some old cameras to put in there. So if anyone's parents or grandparents have any that they aren't using and don't want anymore send them my way!
Thanks.