Caleb the Chef

This afternoon Caleb asked me for a snack. It was very close to dinnertime so I told him he could have some peanuts or a drink of water. Of course he didn't like either suggestion and told me it didn't look like dinner was going to be ready for a long time. He was right. At the time I was sitting in my glider, watching the food network, and rocking Gabriella who had a fever and was being very snuggly. I told him if he didn't like the way things were then he could make dinner. And guess what?

He did.

He went right into the kitchen and started setting the table and getting food out. Within about 20 minutes he called us to the table. He's such a sweetheart. Without any help, he'd sliced a new loaf of bread and made each of us peanut butter sandwiches. Also, we each had a large portion of Goldfish crackers, carrot and cucumber slices (they were already pre-cut), and a glass of milk. As we were eating he pointed out the food items and told us where they were on the food pyramid. He really made sure we understood that there are 3 grams of protein in Goldfish crackers.

Now that I know he can do it, I might have him make dinner more often.

Cheerleaders

This morning I woke up feeling just awful. A combination of a cold and side effects from a new medication are causing my head to spin, my sinuses to be congested and my stomach nauseous. But the show must go on. It was Trevor's day off so he took the kids to school then went to his dermatologist appt and took Megan with him because I also had an appointment. Fortunately, his appt didn't take very long and he was able to come home just before I left for the podiatrist. This was very helpful since I was in no shape to try and entertain Gabriella at a doctor's office. Right after my appointment (which went long since they misplaced my chart and forgot to call me back) I needed to go on a long run. My head and stomach were now feeling better, so I trudged out the door. This was at 10:45 am. I had less than 2 hours before I needed to be back home since Michelle had an orthodontic appointment this afternoon.

My pace was pretty slow the first part of my run. Then Trevor surprised me by driving by and cheering me on. He took the kids to the park and promised he'd pick me up before I'd have to go up the steep hill on the way back home. Let me just say that during the next 2 miles my pace was 1 minute a mile faster than before my cheerleading squad's visit and the next 2 miles were 2 mintues faster. It's amazing what a little pep talk can do for you. I especially needed it today.

I'm so glad Trevor and I both run. Knowing what each other is going through and being able to help them through it is a huge boost to morale.

Go, Gabriella, Go!

It's been spring-like temperatures this week. Gabriella stole my shoes and went on a walk this morning. I'm so excited for spring and summer this year. Since Gabriella can walk this year, there will be many more walks and much more yard work now that I don't have to carry her around.

Sleeping Beauties

I took the picture below to post on my photo blog but while I was taking it I decided to take a picture of all the kids while they are at their quietest. Don't worry, not one of them even flinched when the flash went off.

Here's Gabriella...
Here's Megan. Bear always has to be on top of her head and Megan's arms are always outstretched.

Here's Michelle. She must've been so tired she's not snuggling her Kitty right next to her face.

Here's Caleb. Yes, that's a hoodie he's wearing while sleeping, as well as sweatpants and a turtleneck under his hoodie. But then last night he slept in shorts and a t-shirt. Go figure!

Randomness

I must confess. I rarely check the email account that is listed here on my blog and also connected to my facebook account. When I finally did check it I found that I'd been tagged by a few different people for "16 random things". Because I don't know how (and don't really care to know how) to post anything on facebook, I'm posting the list here instead. If someone can tell me how to post on facebook the link here to my blog then please let me know-and yes, I promise I'll be better about checking this email account.

16 Random Things About Me

1. I've lived in 18 different houses and in 5 different states during my entire life. That averages to one house every 2 years of my life. But my having lived in our current house for almost 10 years, skews the statistics.

2. My favorite tv show is MASH. In a distant way, its actually responsible for me meeting my husband. Me and a colleague were talking about MASH when she said she had a brother-in-law that liked the show too. One thing led to another and now 10 years later we're proud parents of the DVDs of all 13 seasons of MASH.

3. My favorite color is WHITE. Some people (like my mom) refuse to acknowledge white as an actual color, to them I'll avoid the argument and just tell them BLUE is my second favorite color.

4. On my left forearm I have 7 moles that can be connected to make the Little Dipper. In fact my back has so many moles that it even surprised my dermatologist into saying "WOW! You are moley."

5. Up until March 24, 2007 I'd never run more than 1 mile at a time. On that date I set a goal to run a half marathon. I prodded my husband into running the race with me. Now, almost 2 years later, it's not even considered a workout unless I run at least 4 miles.

6. I am the middle child of 5 kids. I'm pretty sure I exhibit all the symptoms of "middle child syndrome". My parents only have 2 photos of me by myself (1 on my blessing day and 1 when I'm about a year). To make up for that when I take pictures of my kids, I often shoo the others out of the way so that it's a picture of an individual not the whole group.

7. ARACHNOPHOBIA. I have it big time. Before I became a mom, it'd take 5 minutes of talking myself into it, before I could kill a spider. Now, it's not as hard to kill them since I'm "protecting" my kids, but I still hate feeling the crunching of exoskeleton under my shoe. I must admit that I was happy to have my first born be a boy because it'd be that much sooner he'd be squishing spiders for me. My dad loves to tease me by smashing a spider with his bare hand then trying to wipe his hand on me.

8. Procrastination is my middle name. When I was in school I'd procrastinate doing homework by doing housework. Now I procrastinate housework by writing in my blogs.

9. I love planting seeds and watching them grow. Unfortunately, our yard has poor soil. After having a garden for a just few years stripped all nourishment out of the soil. It won't even grow zucchini now.

10. I've only left the country one time (Tijuana and Niagara Falls don't count) and that was to go to Japan on our honeymoon.

11. I've worn glasses since I was 10 and contacts since I was 12. Without corrective lenses I am legally blind 4 times over (for inquiring minds and those who understand, my Rx is -10.5).

12. Scary movies are a no go for me. I freak out even after watching "Criminal Minds" on tv.

13. I'm not good at confrontations. I will either just sit there and not say anything or I'll leave the room. In fight or flight, I'll always choose flight. In my head I'm having a shouting match with the person that's involved. But after a few hours, I've worked it out in my head and can then move on.

14. In my youth (10-12 yrs old) I was on a track team that went to Nationals. Back then I was a sprinter (100m, 200m, long jump and sometimes 400m). I came in last or 2nd to last in all my races, but at least I got to travel to the fun and exotic places of Lincoln, Nebraska and Albequerque, New Mexico.

15. My first real date wasn't until a few days after my 18th birthday. Not by choice or parental restriction, just no one asked me until then. That's also the first time that having a brother just 17 months older than me paid off. It was one of his friends that asked me out.

16. I'm a chocoholic. When I was younger I'd give all the non-chocolate Halloween candy to my siblings, especially gum. Gum is one of my pet peeves. Especially when people take out their gum, stick it on their plate (or worse yet behind their ear), eat their food then re-chew the gum. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

Michelle my Belle

For years I've been wanting to know how to do this twisty braid thing. Since I don't know what it's called it was hard to ask for help. Last Sunday I saw a girl's hair with this twisty thing and asked her mom how to do it. Yesterday, I tried it for the first time on Michelle and low and behold it actually worked!

Today Michelle was complaining about a loose tooth. I didn't realize how loose it was until she came up to me holding her tooth in her hand.

Happy Valentine's Day

Yesterday was a fun day, that is after we spent the morning doing chores. I've discovered that if I make a checklist for the kids then I don't have to nag-I just point to the whiteboard. I'd written a list of each kid's chores then the goal of leaving the house by 1:00 so we could go bowling. The kids worked really hard and beat our goal by 30 minutes.

Unfortunately the wait was 50 minutes for a bowling lane to open. But in the meantime we played videogames.

We had a great time bowling. Megan ended up with the winning score of 90, with Michelle and Caleb tying at 82. The impressive part was that the kids used the ball ramp at first but before too long they just hucked the ball down the lane as hard as the could. Those built in bumpers are the best invention.

At 5:00 I picked up the babysitter and by 5:30 Trevor and I went out on the town. I can count on one hand the number of times we've actually gone to dinner AND a movie. When we showed up at Chili's there was an hour wait; however, we waited 5 minutes then a waiter said there was room at the bar. So we had a "romantic" dinner literally sitting at the bar. I was intrigued watching the bartender mix drinks, and eventually I got used to the smell. I've never even sat at the counter in a diner so this was new to me but realized you get pretty good service since you're sitting right in front of the server. We finished eating our meal before the one hour table waiting time was up, so with the extra time before the movie we went to Circuit City.

There have been very few dates that don't involve some sort of errand. This time we went to see what great deal we could get at the store closing of Circuit City. We found a digital camera $100 off of regular price and bought it for Trevor's office.

After the errand we went to see Liam Neeson in "Taken". We went to a new movie theater that had reclining seats and arm rests that could move out of the way so we could snuggle closer.

It was a great Valentine's Day and the past 11 years of have been the best years of my life.

Roses and Chocolate

Friday night Trevor came home an hour late and without a phone call. I wasn't feeling very well so he'd promised to make dinner. When he didn't show up and the kids started whining, I reluctantly made macaroni and cheese. When he did come home I was just ready to gripe and complain, but I turned around and saw his arms full of flowers.

For Valentine's Day he'd bought each of the girls a single rose that matched their favorite colors. Then he bought me 3 white roses (he later told me the 3 stood for eternity). Knowing Caleb probably wouldn't enjoy a flower he brought him a candy bar.

What a great dad and a wonderful sweetheart.

Found: Love of my Life

On a friend's blog I read about this idea, liked it and now, in honor of Valentine's Day and our 11th anniversary of meeting each other, you get the story of how Trevor and I met.

I graduated from BYU in August of 1997. Since my degree was in sociology and I really had no hard and fast career plans, it was hard to find a job. Finally in December I was hired to be a librarian at a small private school, and started work on January 5, 1998. I worked in the library which also served as the teacher's lounge, so I got to know the teacher's quickly. Come February I was invited to a Valentine's party that one of the teachers was having at her house for several of the teachers and staff. I declined since everyone else was married and would be bringing their husband's and I didn't have a date to bring. A lightbulb went off above this teacher's head and she started telling me about her brother-in-law. One of the things she happened to mention was that he liked the tv show MASH too (this teacher and I had talked about MASH since she had dated Larry Linville "Frank" and MASH was one of my favorite shows). So I relunctantly agreed to the blind date. Over the next week, one by one other people flaked out so it turned out that it would just be me and my date at the "party", which was being held on Valentine's Day night.

The night of the dinner party came and I was very nervous to answer the door-fearing what this blind date would look like. I was pleasantly surprised to see a handsome blonde, blue-eyed man standing at my door holding a white rose. Now you have to understand that white has always been my favorite color (it is too a color) so my heart actually skipped a beat, and I thought "how did he know?" And right then I started thinking that Smith would be a nice last name to have. I had made him a cheesecake brownie shaped into a heart with his name written across it (it was afterall Valentine's Day-I had to give him something and food is the way to a man's heart, right?).

At his brother's house (the husband of the teacher who set us up) we had a nice dinner and then he and his brother talked about old times growing up. It was after midnight before we left their house. On the way to my apartment Trevor and I had a great conversation and we planned to go on a second date that coming Wednesday. After that Wednesday we went out on Saturday and from then on we saw each other almost everyday. He even took me to see the Peking Opera since he'd remembered that I'd mentioned that I was fascinated with China (the culture, not the politics). The opera was weird, but I was amazed that he had not only listened to me but then acted upon it.

He proposed to me on May 2nd and we spent the rest of the day driving around to tell family members the good news. Since both of our parents and grandparents had been married in the Salt Lake temple we knew that's where we'd be married too. The hard part was setting the date. He was thinking October (longer time so he could save up more money), I was thinking August (my housing contract was up then and I didn't want to extend it). I got my way and since 22 has always been my favorite number and it fell on a Saturday we marked the calendar.

My brother got engaged the night before I did. He and his wife were married June 18th. The next day my stomach started hurting and things went downhill from there. Over the next 2 weeks, Trevor nursed me back to health. He knew when to take me to the ER (twice) thus literally saving my life. He certainly passed the test of "in sickness and in health" and we weren't even married yet.

We were married on August 22, 1998. We had a great yet unusual honeymoon. My aunt worked for the airlines so she got us buddy passes to Tokyo. Trevor's parents were on a mission there in Japan and I'd never met them. After Japan we went to Oahu. After our honeymoon we moved my belongings into his parents house, where he (and now me) was living while they were on their mission for another year.

So there you have it. Obviously, there are vast amounts of details I've left out but the moral of the story is that YOU CAN FIND TRUE LOVE ON A BLIND DATE.

Magnificent Megan

Megan is into acting like a puppy-including the fact that puppies don't wear clothes. Since we need to teach her it's not socially acceptable to just prance around without clothes on whenever and wherever she wants, we send her to her room. That way she has the choice of playing in her room in her birthday suit or getting dressed and joining the rest of the family. Apparently, playing in her room was no punishment-this picture is of what we found when we went to get her. And yes, she did this all by herself. It was shocking to see how she stood up the mattress on it's end. She is STRONG. Also, the other day when I asked the kids to help bring in the groceries, she carried in 2 gallons of milk at the same time. She can also lift the couch cushions with the greatest of ease.

Happy 200th Abe!

In honor of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday today, I thought I'd post the photos of our family vacation last April. As part of our Nauvoo trip, we made sure to stop by New Salem, Illinois which is where Lincoln lived in his late teens/early 20's.

We also went to Springfield, Illinois and visited the house that Lincoln lived in up until the time he went to D.C. to live in the White House. Inside of this Springfield home, we were able to touch the same exact stair railing that was there when Lincoln lived there. We've now touched something that Lincoln actually touched. While there in Springfield we also went to the Lincoln Presidential Museum. I've always wondered what a presidential library and museum were all about and was leary of having to pay $20/head to find out. But it was so worth every penny. There were amazing museum displays that took you through the life of Lincoln. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of a presidential museum, take the time to go through it-of course, it helps if you admire that particular president.
When I was talking to the kids about Lincoln, it dawned on me that he was just 4 years younger than Joseph Smith. It saddened me and the kids to realize that both of these wonderful men, both of whom were sent by God at just the right time that they were needed on Earth, were then taken from this Earth at such a young age (Joseph at 38 yrs and Abraham at 56 yrs old).

Grateful

Last night when I overheard Trevor talking to his dad on the phone and say "everyone's okay but they don't know about the house" I knew something really bad was going on. Turns out a tornado hit within a half mile of his brother and sister-in-law's house. After a long night (I'm sure it seemed much longer to them) we finally heard from them that their house was completely intact and they were actually able to stay the night at their house using a spaceheater and flashlights.

As soon as I heard about the tornado I jumped on the internet and searched every Oklahoma newspaper and tv news station for more information. I even pulled up a map of Edmond to see where their house was in comparison to the damaged houses. I put myself in there shoes and remembered how ill prepared I'd be if we were quickly evacuated from our house. I even felt guilty for sleeping in a nice warm bed, knowing that so many people in Oklahoma just had their houses ripped to shreds, they may have even had family members whisked away into the tornado never to be seen again.

I'm just very grateful that my brother-in-law's family and house are okay. Maybe this will spur me into actually filling the backpacks (bought 5 years ago) with 72 hour kits.

A Great Weekend

A lot has happened since my post last Thursday afternoon. That night my parents came inot town and stayed with us. Friday morning it rained so I did my long run on the treadmill (it was supposed to be a 10 miler, but it's so boring on the treadmill I've only ever been able to go as far as 7 miles). I'd been running for what seemed forever but was actually only 4 miles, when my mom came down. We started talking, then my dad came down and the talking continued, next thing I know I've hit the 7 mile mark and I was done. It made me really miss when Trevor and I would do our long runs together-now those were some of the best dates we've ever had. Too bad for me he's gotten too fast for me to run with.

Trevor had Friday off of work and our kids get out of school at noon every Friday. So after lunch my parents took all 4 kids to Kangaroo Zoo (a kids place full of those gigantic blow up slides and bouncers) so Trevor and I could go to the car dealership.

Our lease on our Toyota Tacoma is up this year. We've been thinking it'd be nice to have a truck that all 6 of us could fit in so we could go on more camping trips and trips to the Smith family cabin which requires 4 wheel drive. We were thinking we'd go in and get a Tundra, but as we were walking through Toyota's front door Trevor suddenly said "We don't have to get a truck." So instead of asking for a test drive of a Tundra, we just asked "What vehicles do you have that will seat 6 and are 4WD?" We test drove a Tundra and a Highlander.

With the Tundra we determined that (1) sitting in the middle of a truck's bench seat where your legs are scrunched up to your chest is not comfortable (2) it's a huge truck and will be a tight fit in even our extra wide and long garage (3) we never tow anything so why do we need a gas guzzling V8.

So obviously we got the Highlander which seats 7, has a backup camera, gets pretty good gas mileage, is 4WD, and is only $20 more a month than what we were paying for our truck.

After over 3 hours at the dealership we were finally able to drive home our new car. We grabbed some Little Caesars $5 pizzas and headed home. We gobbled down some pizza then took my parents out for their Christmas present.

We took them to see a show by the BYU Ambassadors (singing and dancing group). They were doing a show that was supposed to have music from the 50's through today's music. My mom really enjoyed the show, and my dad did up until they moved onto the music of today. My original plan was to have Trevor take my dad to a BYU basketball game and I'd take my mom to this show, but BYU never played a home game on the weekends that my parents were planning to be here.

On Saturday Trevor went on his 12 mile run and my parents went with my siblings to the Draper Temple open house. After Trevor returned and rested for bit, we went to show our new car to his parents. Trevor took his dad on a ride to his brother's house to show him the car and say thanks. His brother is the one who knew a guy at the dealership so we got a pretty sweet deal which was vital since neither Trevor or I are hagglers and usually get ripped off when dealing with car salesmen. While I was waiting at this folks house his mom showed me the photos from their 3 week trip around Australia, Tazmania, New Zealand and Tahiti.

On Sunday my dad made his famous french toast. My mom also shared her coveted "hagel slag" (dutch chocolate sprinkles you eat on buttered bread-don't scoff until you've tasted it).

After watching me braid Michelle and Megan's hair, Gabriella plopped down in my lap and said "hair". Because she was sitting in my lap I couldn't get my hands in the normal position to french braid so I adapted. And to my wonderful surprise I learned how to do the other kind of french braid, the kind I can do on my own hair but in 20 years have never figured out how to do on someone else.

We had both sets of parents attend church with us. They were huge helpers with the kids since Trevor was up on the stand during all of sacrament meeting. His men's choir sang and he gave talk. After Trevor spent 2 1/2 hours at the clerk's office after church, he came home and baked chocolate chip cookies (probably to sweeten my disposition) then put the kids to bed so I could work on my calling as a family history indexer. Since I was uninterrupted I was able to arbitrate 5 batches - that's 250 names!

Oh, also my parents found on the front porch the CD of a slideshow of all the pictures from the Ragnar Relay I ran with 11 others last June. It was a great motivator to keep on running. This is me running my first of 3 legs. This was a wicked downhill section in 80+ degree heat.

It was a great weekend (sorry yours wasn't, Mignonne).

Flag Football

We thought that Megan could benefit from a class down at the rec center so we enrolled her in Itty Bitty Ball. There's 4 sessions, each one teaching the kids the basics of 4 different sports. On Tuesday, the kids worked on basketball. Today, I remembered a camera so you get to see the details of Megan learning flag football. First of all, she surprised me by volunteering to lead the group in "Do as I'm Doing".

The first station was kicking off of a tee. She had such a good windup that she'd end up kicking the ball and the tee.

Next was throwing the football. She'd hold onto the point of the football then throw.

But she was amazingly accurate, even through the smallest hoop which she insisted on using because it was yellow (obviously her favorite color).

The last activity was learning to pull the flag off of someone. Megan's first turn was being the one with the football, which she had fun doing up until the time the boy caught up with her and pulled off the flag "belt" (the whole belt would come off, not just the flag). This freaked her out and she screamed as if he had just punched her. Needless to say she never got a turn being the one to chase and pull the flag.

Could You?

My brother seems to always find the funniest birthday cards, the same goes for the emails he forwards to me. And since I've been spending a lot of time cleaning bathrooms and bathroom type messes lately (some serious stomach ailments have attacked us of late) these were particularly funny to me.

The above is an outside view of a public restroom in Houston. The photo below is an inside view. It's apparently one way glass, but could you actually "go" in a bathroom like that?Check out the painted floor in the photo below.

All I can say about the photo below is that my brother is awesome for kicking the habit cold turkey.

Trivia

After I posted the above photos I looked at my blog and knew I had to come up with something so that you didn't see a photo of the temple and then have it right next to a smoker's lounge picture. So you get this post.

This morning I decided, for personal history sake, to write down all the houses I've lived in my entire life. The total comes to 18. It'd come to more if you count the times I moved home over the summer during college. I always thought I'd moved more than that so I was surprised. Maybe it's because for 7 years we moved almost annually. Interestly, I've lived in 4 states that are in a row geographically (California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado) with the exception of Minnesota (what was I thinking moving there?)

In all of my family history research I've discovered that I'm 99.5% European (English, Dutch). The .5% is my way of noting that my grandpa's grandma's grandmother was Native American.