I have the meanest mommy ever!

I want to go on record as saying that I have the meanest mommy ever, she made me go to the doctor. Now my last visit to the doctor was in November 2007 and my brain was much smaller and less developed then, and I really did not recall what going to the doctor was about, I assumed it was like any other fun outing my mommy takes me on, like the grocery store, Target, grandma's house, but nooo, fun was not to be had at the doctor's office.

First I was required to get on the scale, every girl's worst nightmare, and a humiliation if you have a few extra rolls like me. I weighed in at 28 pounds, but bear in mind that was fully clothed with a diaper on, so give a pound or two for clothes, shoes and my diaper. Next I had to take my clothes off, although they did permit me some dignity in allowing me to keep my diaper on. Then this guy with dark hair and a blue shirt came in and started poking and prodding me. Mommy kept calling him Dr. Harkness. To me he was a strange guy with cold hands and instruments.

He is listening to my heart and I am trying to decide if I am going to scream at him.
Next he wanted to look in my ears, what was that about????
After Dr. Harkness finished poking and prodding, these two nurses came in and each one grabbed a leg.
Without any warning they stuck something sharp into each leg. They repeated this two more times. Mommy said they were shots and I got a total of 6, three in each leg.
As you can see I was MAD. What did my mommy do, did she provide comfort, no, she stood their taking pictures so she could blog about my humiliation and pain. She really is the meanest mommy ever!

Fun Cards

My friends and I got together this week and made cards. Here are two cute creations we made. I have to admit lime green is a new favorite color of mine, sorry orange, you're so LAST year, I'm over you.

Lauren's surprise

One of the things Arianne and I did when she recently came for her visit was to go to Swiss Days in Midway. Swiss Days is well known for awesome craft booths, so we thought we would check it out and perhaps steal some ideas. One of the "hot" items at Swiss Days was magnetic boards.



Lauren was gone last weekend with her grandparents on a trip so I surprised her and made a magnetic board for her room. I purchased a basic frame and magnetic board from the craft store. I sanded the frame, painted it white and then glued scrapbook paper all around the edge. I "sealed the deal" with Mod Podge, and embellished with ribbon and flowers. I made coordinating magnets with clear glass stones, and scrapbook paper.

My "boy crush"

Its true, I have a "boy crush." He is four years old, and just my type, blond hair and blue eyes. We met on May 1, 2004, at LDS hospital. He had commitment issues at first, and hid out in the NICU, for a week. During that time he flirted with several nurses, but ultimately decided I was his one true love, and agreed to make a commitment to be my "boy crush." He can be a little demanding at times, and forgets to use his manners, but he is so sweet and going on dates with me is his favorite thing to do. He knows that when you go on dates with girls you hold hands, and if you really love the girl you kiss her. He must really love me because I get lots of kisses. I know my time is limited and one day some special girl will decided that Mark is her "boy crush" and I will no longer be his one and only true love. Until that time I am going to enjoy my dates, hand holding and kisses!

A Haunting we will go....

Despite what the weather man tells me, the calendar says it is September, and in my mind that equates to FALL. Gone on the summer decorations, gone are the swim suits and inflatable pool toys, squirt guns and other such summer paraphernalia. We are looking forward to cooler temperatures, with crisp fall nights and chilly mornings. In honor of FALL, we decorated our house. Every year for the past few years Rick and I have added a few more things to our collection of fall decorations. Although we decorate the inside of the house in September, we refrain from decorating the outside of the house until after October first. After all we wouldn't want the neighbors to think we are weird or anything.....Probably too late for that!







Halloween is one of Mark's favorite holidays, he was very excited to get out the Halloween/fall decorations. He kept asking if we were going to "haunt our house." From the looks of it, I believe we did.

Potty Voyeur

Mark believes going to the potty is a big production, and quite frankly with how long it has taken me to potty train him, it is a big production. He comes up to me and announces, in his loud, deep voice, "Mommy I have to go potty!" I tell him to head to the bathroom and start taking care of business.

As soon a Katie hears the announcement of Mark's bodily functions, she immediately follows him into the bathroom to voyeuristicly watch him "take care of business." If Mark tries to shut her out of the bathroom, she screams and pounds on the door. I can only hope that she is watching and learning so that potty training Katie will be a joy and delight, not a headache and nightmare.

A bountiful harvest.

In the back of our yard we have an arbor, in which the former occupants of our house planted grapes, both the red and green variety. It has taken a few years but the arbor is completely covered in grape vines, and with the end of summer and cooler temperatures, the grapes are ripening quickly.

Rick was outside and decided to show Katie the grapes. He held her as he picked one off the vine and put it in his mouth, (note in the picture the small purple object in his mouth). Katie immediately begged for a grape and tried to pick her own. One grape was all it took to turn her into an addict.

Once on the ground she would point up to the grapes and say "un, un, un" until someone picked a grape for her.
This continued on for about 15 minutes until she completely stuffed herself with grapes. On a personal note, I might add pieces parts of the grapes were re-visited the next day during SEVERAL diaper changes. I don't recommend excessive quantity of grapes for developing digestive systems, no matter how much "un, un, un" you hear.

We've adopted!!! Not really.....

Last week Rick noticed this very LARGE cat in our yard. We had no idea where he came from because to our knowledge none of our neighbors have cats. Lauren and Mark were immediately draw to the cat. They went outside to give it "love" and let it know it was welcome in our yard, at least by the children under seven who reside here.

The next thing I knew they were carrying the cat around and treating it like their very own pet. Meantime I am getting very nervous, afraid the cat will want to "adopt" us and then we will never be rid of the thing. Although the cat would probably cure our mice problem...... Well the cat could apparently sense my anti-cat vibes, because as soon as I got within 15 feet of the cat, over the fence it went into my neighbors yard. Problem solved.

TMI (Too Much Information)

Albertson's parking lot, 8-31-08.

No further explanation needed.

Dancing with the Stars, here we come!

Lauren started ballroom dance this week, after I had to take out a second mortgage on the house to pay for it. As a parent you think "Oh it would be a good activity, good exercise, and fun, lets sign up for a class!" Class is $40 per month, that's not too bad.... So after you have committed, and gotten your child excited about it, they hand you the piece of paper with the dress code for class. I am thinking "Dress code? What? This is supposed to be 'baby ballroom' and you expect a dress code. Can't they just take their shoes off and learn a few steps????" No apparently they can not. Dress code will be enforced.

The shoes were $60, to dye the shoes cost an additional $20, and she had to have a black skirt. Well they don't make black ballroom skirts in her size so I had to make one at a cost of $20. I am up to $100 invested in this gig and have not even paid for the class yet. Looking forward to finding out how much the performance fee and costume are going to set me back.

On a brighter note, Lauren took to it like a fish to water. She LOVED it. The first class she learned part of the "cha cha." She came home, put her shoes on and promptly went down to the dance studio we have in our basement and practiced. Four years of ballet and I have never seen that before. The next day without any prompting from me she again put her shoes on and practiced. Yeah this is going to cost me........

That crafty Arianne.

We Hales girls cannot help our craftiness. It is not only in our DNA, it was also taught to us by our mother who was always doing some fun craft project, usually related to decorating our house. We are genetically programed to craft. End of story.

Arianne made these cute letters for Lauren and Katie to put in their rooms.
She found letters at the craft store and painted them white. She then cut the shape of the letter out of scrapbook paper, glued it on to the letter, and used a little Mod Podge to "seal the deal." She finished by embellishing the letters with flowers and ribbon. Don't worry she did not forget about Kallie, she has a set in her room too!

Kallie's new playmates

Kallie LOVED aunt Tiffany's house! There were TONS of toys, and between Lauren, Mark and Katie LOTS of action. There was never a dull moment, and Kallie was always entertained. Kallie's mommy is scared that upon return to Portland Kallie will go through withdrawal, and be even more demanding. A trip to Toys-R-Us I believe is on the agenda in the next day or two to ease the pain of vacation withdrawal.

BLACKMAIL

It is the obligation of all mothers to get naked baby bath pictures. Well I have a tub the size of a small swimming pool, so Kallie and Katie got to take a bath together. Now Katie takes a bath every morning with either Mark or Lauren or sometimes both. So she is quite used to others in the bath with her. Kallie was not entirely sure about having company, but when Katie showed her how to splash big bath tub style she got over it.




After the girls had been in for a few minutes Mark announced that he wanted to take a bath with the girls. I told him "no" that Kallie and Katie were taking a bath together. This of course did not detour Mark. He believes "no" is the beginning of negotiations. Before I knew it, he had stripped his clothes off and was nearly in the tub. As he got into the tub, Kallie began starring at his "business." You could see the wheels turning in her head that he was clearly different from her present company in the tub. Arianne and I were collapsed over with laughter, and nearly in tears.



The fascination continued on and even after he sat down. She still was checking him out. Her first biology lesson...yes boys are "different" in more ways than one...... (Note Mark's business has been appropriately edited out!)

Matchy, Matchy

For their birthdays Grandma and Grandpa Hales gave Kallie and Katie matching dresses. Again to honor my mother and not incur a curse upon my head, Arianne and I dressed them up, did their hair, and took pictures, much to the torment and sorrow of our children. Actually they probably are not old enough to realize they are being tortured by their mothers, but have you ever tried to get two one and half year olds to look at the camera at the same time? The torment and sorrow is not upon the child but rather the parent.

It was raining on Monday, and they enjoyed watching the rain from the front door step.
Kallie really wanted to get wet, and kept venturing out where rain drops could hit her.

We were going for the 1900's serious look in this picture. After all being tormented by your mothers is serious business.

A crafting we will go.

No sisters week-end is complete without a craft project. Arianne and I spend months drooling over what fun project we want to do when we get together. The last few times it has been cards, but this time we wanted to do something different. One of Arianne's friends had these file folders that have fun gospel related games, so we decided to make those, for our kids to play in church.

Arianne gathered all the material and brought it to my house for assembly. You will note in the picture Arianne is gluing some dark silver stuff on a piece of paper and you can see a large roll of the dark silver stuff in the picture. The dark silver stuff is called "Shim in a can" I am SOOOO excited about the many uses I am going to find for this product. It is metal, it is paper thin, can be cut with scissors, and glued on to paper. The metal allows you to attach a magnet. We put it on the back of the games and then attached a magnet to the game pieces.

Here is me working on my file folders.

Here is what the completed folders look like.

This is the inside of the folder entitled "The Tithing Tree."

This folder is "Grandpa's Garden."

There was lots of talking, joking and of course crying during our craft bonding which is exactly how we like it!