Detergent

Thanks to my super sister in law, I have just made my own laundry detergent. I know, I know, you all are sooooo jealous. It is great. It is so cheap and easy. My clothes come out of the wash clean and fresh. No dyes, perfumes, or harsh chemicals. Just clean. Heres the recipe if any of you are dying to try it:

equal parts soda wash and borax

equal parts powder mixture and grated fells Naptha Bar (or Ivory soap)

for example: I used:

1 cup borax
1 cup soda wash
2 cups grated ivory soap

Use 2 Tablespoons per full load.

Ya, you're jealous.

Kids say the cutest things

So the girl comes out into the dining room where I am eating my lunch. I have been hearing the boy and the girl arguing in the bedroom, but could not hear the words. She had the saddest little expression on her face and with tears in her eye's told me:

"Mommy, the boy called me a lemontine!"

LOL




Then the other day the boy says to the man in the middle of the day,

"Daddy, when I am done with my daydream I will tell you what it's about"

About an hour later the man asks if he can tell him about it yet,

"Nope, it's not done yet"

Man they are cute.

When the boy wears shoes, but no socks, he calls it "going commando in my shoes"

When the girl doesn't want to wear shoes she says, "Mommy, I just wanted to wear my feet today."

MUTTON BUSTIN'

Here is my little boy mutton bustin'. Isn't it friekin' hilarious. Ya, he is getting so big. All it cost us was a few hundred dollars after a trip to URGENT CARE. Yes that's right. My boy got hurt mutton bustin'. Who does that?

Well as you can watch in the short clip, the sheep tried to go through the gate (that wasn't supposed to be open). Ooops little slip up on the part of the people in charge. I was a little frustrated at the way things were managed, but all in all the boy had a good experience and some pretty bruised ribs.

Way to go the boy!!!

Just Because

The boy: "Mommy I am stronger than anything on this earth"

Me: "Wow, that's pretty strong. Even stronger than an elephant?"

The boy: "Ya, mom if we could go to Africa and find an elephant I will show you how I can push it over"

He's 4.

For Me

I've never been good at doing much for myself. I used to try and have a weekday that I would go out when the man came home so that I might get a break from the kids every so often. I usually feel too guilty to go. My kids are still so small and need so much from me that they take all I've got and there is none left for me. By all means it is not my children who are to blame, it is me. I know I should take care of myself. But knowing it and doing it are different things.

So what I'm really getting at is this: I am attending a conference on writing children's books this week. It is great. I finally feel like this is something I am doing for no one else but me. Whether or not the lectures are great doesn't really matter. What does matter is that, for once since the last 4 years, I feel like more than a mom. Being a mother is important but I was somebody before I was a mom... I think.

Anyway, I'll just include a little blurb of some creative writing that I did during the conference. I know I just need to practice more and I'll get better so I am really going to try and write a little every day. Okay that is really a big goal given my circumstance and my personality. At least a few times a week.


"I startled as I saw a spider creeping up the wall. I waivered as I stood there deciding whether to leave him or take care of him. He was too close to my room to leave. I hurried to the bathroom to retrieve some toilet paper. When I came back I lost sight of him. I scoured the wall searching for any sign of him and caught him moving out of the corner of my eye. I had to do this quick or my nerve might fail me. My hand pounced and then smashed hard and in all directions to make sure there were no legs twitching when I pulled the crumpled piece of toilet paper back to look at it. There was no twitching, because he wasn't there. Dang. I looked everywhere, searching for the sly devil.

I knew two possible scenarios for what happened. Either he had jumped aside to escape his impending doom and was stealthily waiting on some part of my body or clothes, until I finally let my guard down to make his move, or he had found some crack or fissure in the doorway that I couldn't see, in which case he was waiting until I went to bed to recruit his aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors to mount a counter attack on me while I slept.

I stood there for another good minute, still, quiet and waiting. I walked back to my room. I turned the light on. Ha. That would show him. I knew that spiders are nocturnal. I went to my bed, put my right arm under my pillow, laid my head down, brought my knees up to my chest and pulled the covers tight around my shoulder. That spider won't get the best of me!

Around midnight I had to get up and turn the light off, due to the pounding headache from the light. And from the kids and lack of sleep, but mostly from the light.

But I told myself it wasn't over with the spider."

Anyway, we sure miss the man. We love you daddy! And a big thanks to my mom for watching the kids.

Mothers day

Okay so I hate to mooch off someone else, but that is exactly what I am going to do. So here is my mothers day post.

http://wardlefam.blogspot.com/2009/05/you-might-be-mom-if.html


I read this laughing. It is totally true. This is my cousin and she is super talented. Thanks for the laugh Erika.

BackPacking

The man and I recently went on a 40 mile backpacking adventure. It was difficult, although I didn't expect it to be easy. We visited a canyon called Grand Gulch down by Blanding Utah. There were loads of great anasazi ruins. It was great. We had a really good experience. Here are some photos.

On a side note: I'm in a bit of a blogging slump. Sorry. I just don't have it all together quite yet. But it's coming. Any day now...

This is the man and I and my bro and sis-in-law before

This is called "Big Man Panel"

This is the whole group of us. Thanks guys-we had a great time!

Look at those packs- Man were they heavy!

This is the path we traveled. A total of about 36.6 or something miles.

P.S. Kel, the shower when I got home was totally awesome. I got in washed, rinsed and then washed again. Then I got out, dried off, and then got back in and washed one more time. Just to make sure. Ha Ha. No joke though.

ReJeCTEd

Hey I just got my first rejection letter. Woo Hoo. It doesn't get me too down...yet.

new post

I was going to post a new one, but you can all thank my brother who kept me chatting too long and now I don't have time. We were chatting about the trip we are about to take. So when I get back from the trip I'll have lots to blog about. And hopefully lots of pics.

Question

I was wondering if I should reveal the names of my children. What's the fun in coming up with cool names for the kids if I just call the the boy, the girl, etc... But I know I have at least one major blog stalker, but it's just mongee. And only yesterday I was talking about that nice man with the red slits for eyes and the little black horns that has been an avid weirdo blog stalker who has really taken an interest in my kids, but other than those two really. What do you guys think? I have a poll going on so vote in it.

Update

Just a quick update for our families.

The boy has learned to tie knots. Great. I find knots everywhere. Knots are set-up as booby traps when I open my master bathroom door. Knots are trying to keep me from opening my drawers on my dresser. You'd think he was a boy scout. Soon enough.

The girl is totally the "POTTY PRINCESS". She has done such an awesome job being potty trained. She hasn't had an accident for almost a week and will just run in and go when she needs to. Wow is this what potty trained means? We are still struggling with they boy.

The girls favorite shoes are her sunday shoes. She wears them everywhere. She even wears them all day around the house. It's pretty cute.

The smallish boy has become a crawling vampire. On Sunday we discovered that his eye teeth have broken through. Not his top front teeth. Yep just the "vampire" teeth. I will try to get a pic of that soon. He also started crawling last sunday. He is still ever so slow and still working out the kinks, but he crawls! and he can get to where he wants to go. I really have my hands full now. Wish me luck and enjoy the pictures! PEACE.

Drawings

Here are some pictures that the girl drew of our family. She's quite the little artist. I'm not so sure why daddy has three legs here? Any wild guesses? Ha.

Not to be outdone, the boy draws a picture on the aquadoodle. Can you see the hands and feet? Not quite so adequate, but he doesn't enjoy drawing as much as the girl. He'd rather be in the mud or something like that.

Busy Busy Busy

So no joke this is how 10 minutes of my day goes yesterday.

I've been trying to potty train the girl the last few days.
I make the smallish boy a bottle and sit down to feed him. In the middle of the bottle, the girl stops dead in her tracks and gives me a sideways look that I really don't like.
"Mommy, I think I peed in my underwear," she says. Well either she did or she didn't. So I ask,"Well, did you pee?" silence. "Did you pee in your pants?"
"Um, I dunno," So I tell her to run to the bathroom as I follow her, holding the baby who is still eating.
We get to the bathroom to discover that the dog has been in the garbage and rubbish is covering the floor. I tell myself to calm down and I can clean it later.
So I tell the girl to take her pants off and sit on the toilet. Much to my dismay, the issue about why she was hesitant about the pee issue becomes clear. She didn't pee her pants, she had pooped in them. It was fairly runny so I can see why she thought it was pee.

So I scream out in alarm for her not to move a muscle. I yell for the boy to come in and help me, "QUICKLY". I have him sit on the floor and laid the baby on his legs and told him to hold the bottle. I sit the girl on the toilet and get my rubber gloves to start washing out the undies. When I return the baby was on his belly on the floor playing in a pile of spit-up (on my carpet).

I am wrist deep in poop. And cue the timer in the kitchen to go off saying my dinner, which is in the oven, is done. 'Why oh why couldn't the man be home from work on time today," I think to myself. This is a daily at my house, except it doesn't always happen in this particular order, or sometimes the events are a little different, but for the most part, this is how I live my life.

Lovin' it!

GO ME

Hey just because I am excited about it, I thought I might post something I did. I just submitted my first children's story to 5 different publishers. It might not go anywhere, but it might and I am really stoked. SO PEACE OUT EVERYONE!!!!!!! And wish me luck.

Kings!

So the boy tells the man the other day,

"Daddy, I am the king of T.V.

"The girl is the king of the toys.

"You are the king of books.

DRUMROLL PLEASE........

"And Mommy is the king of the house!!!!"

I don't know why the man shared this with me, but he did. I don't think I'll ever let him forget it. (wink wink) I LOVE YOU THE MAN! And thanks to the boy for sizing things up around the house!

Haircuts

Well, the girl cut her own hair (as mentioned earlier). The man got his hair cut (it looks fabulous babe). And I decided to get my hair cut as well. I had to do it the day I decided or I knew I would talk myself out of it. Here are some of our latest pics. Sorry the man and the boy have been camera shy as of late.

Frumpy is SOOO out

Today I am putting make-up on. I am doing my hair. And I am wearing a pretty sweater. Not a T-shirt. I am not going anywhere. I don't have any plans. I am not trying to impress my friends. I am not doing this for my husband (although, I'm sure he won't mind). In fact, I probably won't see anyone today at all.

I am looking good. And I am doing it for me. I am an aging ponytail, and it feels nice to wear something other than a t-shirt. As soon as the baby wakes up I know it will get spit-up on, but until then, for a few minutes, I will feel beautiful again.

The little things

So, really I was working on a big and exciting post called "a day in the life", but haven't had enough time this or last week to finish it. If you're wondering why, let me show you a few things I've been dealing with this last week (and for that matter, the last 4 years).


So cute from the front!!


Not so much from the back. Yep you guessed it, she found the scissors.





In case you were wondering... Desitin is very hard to get off. It took about scrubbing and rinsing 5 or 6 different times. Then I started on the hair. Yep there is still some in her hair, but that's just going to have to wear off.

This is all in addition to the baby spitting up every 5 minutes, so lots of changes of clothes (him and me), and my not-so-potty-trained 4 year old boy who is still having many accidents a week. Yuck. Plus our washer broke. It was out for a few days. (The man fixed it by the way. Yes he is amazing. No prior appliance fixing experience).

I really don't have time to mention EVERYTHING.




Of the many many times my children decide to do things like this, every so often I take a picture. Here are a few of them for the last few weeks. Mind you I don't take pics of everything.



Fingernail polish. Luckily none got on the floor.


First experience with desitin. Guess she liked it enough to try it again (see top of page). You think I'd learn to put it out of reach.

Yep I am one busy mom. Life is hard. I think when I get to the end of this stage in my life I will feel like saying, "It's been real. It's been fun. But it hasn't been real fun." And clap and HOORAH, and then cry because they're not little anymore. But the crying will come later. Much much later...

quote of the week

Mongee (our name for grandma)(to the boy): Do you love your mommy?

The boy: yes

Mongee: How much do you love your mommy?

The boy: I love my mommy, but I don't love her the muchest. I love DADDY the muchest.

There you have it. Hours of slave labour. HOURS! Daddy comes home from work helps with bath and it's off to bed and BINGO- he's Mr #1.

Nevermind hours of slavelabour.

He loves DADDY the muchest.

Catching up

We had a blast on Christmas. Here are a few pics. We went to Colorado to visit my sister for the new year and that was fun too. I didn't want to do a huge post telling you every detail, because nobody would read it. So I'll try to make up with extra pictures.

Christmas Morning

Our real live snowman

Sledding at Grandpa J's

She loves her Grandpa J

Making candy houses

Surprise!! We woke up one morning to find a couple o reindeer in our house!