Still on Patrol

For those of you concerned that Mark has shirked his responsibilities as the new third counselor in Primary, never fear he was actively on patrol today, silencing those in Primary who dared to be loud, noisy, or irreverent. The Bishop stopped by Primary today and was speaking to the children. Mark, who sits on the front row by virtue of the fact he is a Sunbeam, stood up while the Bishop was speaking and told the Bishop, "Its not a good idea to be loud, that would be bad." Too bad Mark can't live by his own advice.

Sweet Sisters

Lauren & Katie had matching outfits for church today. They looked really cute, unfortunately you really can't see the skirts in the picture. They are sweet, with layers of green, yellow and pink. It's a good thing I took this picture before church because Katie & mommy for that matter, had enough of church by about half way through Sacrament meeting, and Sacrament meeting is the first meeting in our three hour block. Katie was very "wiggly" today and would not sit still nor would anything comfort her. Rick took her out into the foyer, and after about 15 minutes I heard her wailing when someone opened the door to the chapel. I went out to relieve Rick and discovered that she had fallen which was causing her to cry. She continued on and was very "edgy" during the rest of church. I had to take her to Relief Society because last week Rick tried taking her to Elders quorum and she screamed the entire time so he ended up walking the hall with her. Apparently she prefers chick action to dude action. While in Relief Society she proceeded to empty the contents of the first counselor's purse while I was attending to some Relief Society business. What can I say it was pink and had cool girl stuff in it, including an ice cream scoop which she really liked. (I must place a disclaimer here, normally Sue does not carry an ice cream scoop in her purse, but we served ice cream today as a treat in RS.)

Mysterious Injury

When Mark went to bed last night he showed no visible signs of trauma. Something happened during the night, but what exactly happened remains a mystery.

This morning when it was time for a bath I was taking Mark's t-shirt off and he told me he had a sore ear. I assumed that maybe he was getting an ear infection. Once he was in the tub I noticed that his right ear was swollen and black and blue, showing signs of a significant trauma. I asked Mark what happened and he told me that he fell out of bed. I asked if it was last night and he said "yes I fell out of my train bed last night." (His bed has sheet with trains, I know big surprise!)

I am not surprised that he fell out of his bed because he sleeps on the edge of his bed. When I go into his room each night after he is asleep to check on him he is always near the edge of his bed, practically falling out. I move him over but he immediately he returns to the edge of the bed. What really surprises me is that he did not come into my room crying after it happened, because it is one nasty bruise. The picture really does not do it justice. He has a night stand next to his bed so I am assuming that he was in a really deep sleep, rolled over, fell and hit the edge of the night stand with his ear, then climbed back into bed, only to have the injury discovered this morning. This is one tough kid!

Do you know what this is?

Several weeks ago I began to notice small greenish/brownish objects stuck to the wall in Mark’s room, right by where he sits to watch movies. The number and volume of those greenish/brownish objects began to grow, until there were quite a few stuck to the wall. At first I really did not pay too much attention to these small objects, but it soon became evident that attention was needed. What was this mysterious substance? Was something growing on my walls? Did I need professional help to deal with said substance? Upon closer inspection it became clear that it was not growing on my walls, my house was not infected with an unknown biological substance, and I probably did not need professional help to deal with said substance. The origin of said substance: Mark’s nose. Yes, it is sick and it is true, said substance is snot. While watching movies in his room Mark likes to engage in a favorite pass time of young and old alike, he picks his nose and then wipes it on the wall. As you can see he is not discriminating in placement of his snot, any free wall space will do. Believe it or not this photograph only captures a portion of the snot on the wall, further down the wall are some very long snot masterpieces he has removed from his nose.


Have you ever tried to remove snot from a wall? I thought I could just flake it off with my fingernail, but noooooo, it is not that easy. I don’t know if you are aware of this but snot has amazing adhesive properties, and cannot be easily chipped away once dried. For successful snot removal one must re-hydrate the snot. This involves taking a wet rag to the snot until said snot has reabsorbed enough moisture to be successfully removed, and transferred to the wet rag. It is not an activity for the faint of heart. I would ask Mark not to pick his nose or at a very minimum if he does, not to put it on the wall, but that would be like asking him not to breath, an impossible task. I will be washing a lot of wet rags.

Cookie Monster

Once upon a time (BTC, before three children) I used to make cookies from scratch. Now the kids are lucky if I even make cookies at all. On that rare occasion that I can be talked into it I use the Betty Crocker cookie mixes. You simply add butter, an egg and a table spoon of water. One minute later you have cookie dough. It usually takes longer to heat the oven than to make the cookie dough. Albertson's usually has the mixes on sale 4 times a year and I can pick them up for a dollar a piece and they make 24 good sized cookies, and they taste amazingly delicious. It is so worth my time to use the mix and not have to clean cookie mess from my kitchen!

On Wednesday night we had an hour before American Idol and the kids talked me into making cookies. I think they like the dough more than the actual cookie. I have no idea where the get that from?!!!

Mark wanted to use a gingerbread mix. He has had a thing for gingerbread cookies since Christmas. At Christmas I did actually make gingerbread cookies from scratch, and I think he was so fascinated with the fact you measured ingredients out he now wants to make gingerbread cookies every time we make cookies. Although he did really like using the cookie cutters to make shapes. (Christmas is my one exception to the only make cookies from a mix rule. I am superstitious and believe that if I do not make homemade gingerbread men at Christmas I will be cursed by my mother for the next 12 months. I have enough disasters in my life, I try to avoid those that are foreseeable)

When I make gingerbread using the mix I don't roll them out and use the cookie cutters, much to Mark's dismay. I roll the cookie dough into balls, coat the cookie dough balls in white sugar, and bake the cookies. I made 24 cookies and left them on the kitchen counter to cool while Rick and I and the kids watched the results show for American Idol. Through out the show Mark kept coming into the family room with a cookie and I kept sending him back into the kitchen to eat his cookie, so as to avoid the inevitable cookie crumbs all over the carpet in the family room. I thought he had eaten about two cookies. After the show was over I went into the kitchen to put the cookies away only to discover that each time I sent Mark back into the kitchen to eat his cookie he put the partially eaten cookie down and began to munch on a new cookie. I found six cookies in various states of being eaten.

It's official Cookie Monster resides at my house!

Meet Lauren's Room

Lauren has learned from the best. In our house Courtney is known for her less than organized room, and Courtney is Lauren's idol, so what has Lauren done, followed her example!

You will finds all Lauren's valued treasures on the floor, including books, rocks, candy and wrappers, clothes, toys, pencils, etc. Because of all the cool stuff on the floor, as you can imagine it is one of Katie's favorite rooms in the entire house. She LOVES to play in there because there are endless things within her reach to get her clammy little paws on, and put in her mouth.


If it were not for mommy picking up the clothes on a daily basis it really would look like Courtney's room. I try to make Lauren clean it once a week, I have provided all sorts of cool organization things, but still the room seems to stay in a perpetual state of disorder.

Trash is a Wonderful Thing.

Congratulations to Katie she is officially 11 months old today! Her newest and latest thing to do is to empty the trash cans. She finds the things we discard very entertaining. It begins by tipping the trash can over. She is not discriminating in her trash cans, any trash can with objects inside will do, the the more full the trash can the better.

After tipping the trash can over she then begins to methodically remove the trash, stopping at any object that seems interesting. Frequently found items include paper, bags from stores, clothing tags and stickers, plastic, and empty boxes. Today she tipped over the trash can in my closet and found empty shampoo bottles, which was a real find.

Favorite items to find include candy wrappers, because they have bright colors and make cool noises. Gold medal finds are used bandaids or used gum, because they are small enough to go in the mouth, and quite unusual. We expect the trash can tipping to continue for quite some time, and she is available for hire if you need your garbage sorted through. Smells don't seem to bother her.

These are the a few of the objects fished out of Katie's mouth in the last week.

You will notice that the letter "e" is similar to the letter "g" from last week. For Lauren's birthday party in February she and her friends decorated gift bags with foam letters. I was under the impression that I had picked up all the foam letters however in the the last two weeks Katie has managed to locate two letters I missed. The purple object below the letter and to the right is a Skittle. She was most upset when I removed that item. Notice the money, a perennial favorite in the mouth, although this was a plastic play coin as opposed to the normal metal coin I remove on a regular basis. The object to the left of the money is a piece of bark, found in the mud room.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Please join me in congratulating Mark on his new Church calling as the 3rd counselor in Primary responsible for being the "reverence" police. Since the Bishop was out of town on Sunday Mark decided to extend the call to himself and of course he accepted. Mark skipped the formality of being sustained, because after all no one ever objects. His first assignment was Sunday during sharing time when Mark decided the children in Primary were being entirely too noisy and he needed to take matters into his own hands, he is after all a self sufficient man. He began by saying "Everyone be quiet." When that was less than effective he raised his voice and said "I'm yelling at you, everyone be quiet!" This continued on during the entire sharing time, however the children were really not being noisy but Mark was! He is taking his new responsibility very seriously, he feels it will be good preparation for being an assistant to the President when he is a future missionary. After all if you can keep Primary children quiet during sharing time, then certainly keeping a few hundred 19 and 20 year olds in line is easy. Mark is looking forward to being invited to Primary presidency meeting where he can share other ideas for keeping the children quiet in order to ensure he is the best "reverence" police the Sherwood Hills ward has ever seen.

Also of note this week with Mark:

On Sunday Mark had two accidents. First he fell while going upstairs and hit the bridge of his nose. No visible damage, but a lot of crying. Later that afternoon he was running full speed into the family room and misjudged the placement of the couch. After all that brown leather couch is so small it is easy to overlook while running full bore. He hit the back side of the couch with the right side of his body, resulting in him falling backwards, with a loud thump on the floor. Crying ensued and the next day a bruise appeared. (See right cheek in picture)

On Tuesday morning I did not give him a bath because he had taken a bath the night before with Rick. I put his clothes on, however he had a serious case of "bed head" so while he was standing by the sink I turned the water on and began to put water on his hair to contain his "bed head" I said "Mark let me fix your hair" He became upset and said "I don't want my hair fixed, I want it broken. Get the water off!" I decided the battle was not worth fighting and let him have "broken" hair for the rest of the day.

Sharing our things is hard to do, hard to do, hard to do, sharing our things is hard to do, to do, to do, to do.

Meet the offending Popsicles

On Wednesday Linda/Grandma purchased this box of Popsicles for a friend whose son had his tonsils out. Since he had his surgery on Wednesday Linda/Grandma was not planning on taking them to him until Thursday, when he would really be in pain. The Popsicles were placed in the freezer for safe keeping. On Wednesday night Mark found the Popsicles, and wanted one. I explained to him that Grandma was going to give them to a friend of hers that was sick. He said "I don't want grandma to give them to her friend." I again explained that Grandma had a sick friend who needed a Popsicle, and closed the freezer. Shortly thereafter Grandma returned home and Mark told Grandma that "I don't want you to give the Popsicles to your friend." Grandma told Mark they were for her friend Steven, but she would buy some more Popsicles for him. I instructed Mark to give Grandma hugs and kisses because it was bed time, and he refused, but did agree to tell Grandma he loved her while covering his face. As we were heading up the stairs he whispered to me "I don't want Grandma to give the Popsicles to her friend." I told him that Grandma was going to give the Popsicles to Steven but she had promised Mark that she would buy him more Popsicles. He said "No, No, I don't want Steven to have the Popsicles." I told Mark that perhaps he could go with Grandma to the store and he could pick out the Popsicles, which resulted in a complete emotional break down on the stairs. The good news by the next morning he had forgotten about the Popsicles, the bad news, his property rights issues continue.

Its good to be the mommy.

On Monday night around bed time Mark was in Lauren's room. For whatever reason she did not want him in there and made him leave. I was on the main floor watching TV when I heard Mark crying, and I could tell he was very upset. I went upstairs and Mark said "Lauren hurt my feelings. She will not let me play in her room." I tried explaining to him that is how Katie feels when he yells at her for touching, looking or thinking about his Thomas trains. My attempt at logic was lost on the emotional three year old. I gave him a big hug, but he was still quite upset. We brushed teeth, and said prayers. I kissed him good night and said "Mark, mommy loves you." I left his room and closed the door, and he began to cry again. I did not want to leave him so upset so I went back into his room. I looked directly into his eyes, took his head in my hands and said "I love you Mark." His anxiety left, he calmed down and said "Thank you mommy" and was ready to go to sleep. My heart melted.

How to Eat an Apple. By Mark Vincent

Apples are delightful, but the way I chose to eat an apple is very, very frightful.

They are sweet, they are delicious, and my mother says she is glad I am eating something quite nutritious.

I start with one round apple, my goal; to turn it into Snapple.

I bite off little bites, sucking out the juices, spitting out the peel and flesh for which I have no uses.

I leave a little trail of bits and pieces, my mother says, my mess it never ceases.

When I am finished, sticky I've become, from the top of my head, right down to my bum.

A mean, soon to be lean, crawling machine.

While I was in New York City, Katie decided it would be a fine time to start crawling. I knew before I left that she was close. Two days before I left she took one crawling step and then realized what she did and fell on her stomach. The day I left for New York, she was home in the evening with Rick and wanted a toy that was outside her grasp. She got brave and took three crawling steps to reach said object. By then it was off to the races, and there was no stopping her, especially in pursuit of a coveted Thomas train, track, or any other part associated with Thomas that has fallen on the floor. The next thing she wanted to master, and has done, is pulling herself up. And what might you ask is the perfect object to pull one's 10 month old self up on? The Thomas table of course. This in no way endears her to Mark, who is still bitter about me bringing her home last May.


If she even looks like she is headed toward Thomas land, also formally known as the office, he freaks out. He asks me to move Katie, hold Katie, have Katie take a nap, make Katie put his trains down, take her into another room, etc. I see Valium in the future, not for Mark, but for me! I have decided the battle to keep Katie out of the office is a loosing one, and the easier battle to fight is to convince Mark to share his trains, or a least not freak out when she comes near the office. Thus far, Mark is kicking my butt. I have not given into him but a minimum of once a day he has a complete breakdown about Katie touching his "shiz."

The other issues that has accompanied Katie's new found mobility is the ability to find all sorts of interesting stuff on the floor that can be put into her mouth.

This is a sampling of the things I have pulled out of Katie's mouth in the last day or two. The object in the middle that looks like a ball is actually a marble. When I removed that object she really protested. She liked the feel of the marble. I try really hard to keep small objects off the floor in order to prevent chocking, after all I have spent enough time in the ER lately, however I have a theory. My theory is that small objects are planted on the floor by Mark with the suppressed or secret desire to have his sister chock and die. Did I mention he is still bitter about me bringing her home? With the exception of the hair clip, which is mine, I left it on the coffee table, which she pulled herself up to and grabbed it, all other objects are directly attributable to Mark. I hope my mother is looking out for Katie, because she is going to need it.

Count your many freckles, count them one by one, and it will surprise you what the sun has done.

Lauren has three, count them three, recesses at school. The natural consequence of spending more time outside is more freckles. Everyday it seems like a new one appears. She told me this morning that she counted and has 200 freckles, I think the number is closer to 400 very cute freckles.

On a side note: Last week Rick and I went to parent-teacher conferences and was informed by Lauren's first grade teacher that Lauren has a second grade brain.

Are you smarter than a three year old?

My knee has still be bothering me and on Monday night I did not sleep very well. I determined that my lack of sleep did not make me safe to drive into work on Tuesday so I opted to work from home, which allowed me to pick up Mark from pre-school. Mark goes to pre-school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I drop him off before I go to work but I rarely get to pick him up. I had finished my work early so I thought it might be a good time to spend some one on one time with Mark. Mark loves to run errands with me and I needed to go to Walmart because I was getting low on a few essentials such as diaper wipes, and bottle liners. I also needed to go to Costso. I gave Mark the choice of which store to go to first and he picked Walmart. We pulled into the parking lot and I got out of the car. I opened Mark's door to unbuckle him and he said "I'm going to stay in the car." I said "Mark you wanted to go to Walmart and here we are lets go inside." To which he responded "No I am staying in the car." Again I said "Come one let's go inside." Again he said "I want to stay in the car." For those of you who know Mark he is stubborn, and I was weighing my options. I figured I could:

1. Leave Mark in the car and lock the door. Potential outcome being either Mark figures out how to unlock the door and then who knows where he would go, or I could become one of those mothers I used to prosecute for leaving their children unattended in the car. (By the way I have a lot more sympathy for those mothers these days!)
2. I could return home. Potential outcome, I would not get my errands done, and have to make a return trip to Walmart, which I was really wanting an afternoon nap due to my lack of sleep the night before.
3. Opt for some type of bribery.

I am a horrible parent, I selected number three. I said "Mark did you know there is a McDonalds inside this Walmart." He responded "I want a cheese burger, lets go inside." Problem solved. For today I am smarter than a three year old, or am I?????

Postscript: Somewhere in the Universe my mother is taking a perverse delight in all of this.

An accident looking for a place to happen.

Last week was an expensive week for my health insurance company. It began on Wednesday with my knee surgery. Last December, shortly before a dinner party that Rick & I were hosting for his office, Mark pooped his pants. I had to quickly clean him up and air out my house. I took his pull-up to the trash can outside and in the process slipped on the ice. I bruised my ribs, and also injured my knee, however because my ribs hurt so bad, I did not realize the extent of my knee injury. I further injured my knee when I bumped it into a coffee table, not once, but twice, when we were in Idaho in late December for my Grandpa Ison's funeral. I began to really notice the pain at the end of January. I took it easy, but still my knee did not improve. My neighbor/bishop is a orthopedic surgeon, so he looked at it and ordered an MRI. The MRI revealed that I had a tear in my cartilage, along with a sprain, hence surgery was scheduled to put me back together. When the doctor got inside he also discovered that my ACL tendon was hanging by a thread, so while he was in there he fixed that too. The post-op was not bad. I had a similar surgery done in 1991 on my other knee, ironically by either this doctor or his twin brother I'm not sure which, and that surgery was really bad. I was very sick to my stomach after the surgery, and spent 12 hours throwing up. I informed the doctor of this prior to my current surgery, and he made sure that I was well drugged with anti-nausea medication. I spent most of Wednesday sleeping, and practically all of Thursday lying on the couch. The real fun began Thursday night.


Shortly before dinner Mark and Lauren went outside to play. When it was time for dinner, I opened the door to call them in. I saw Mark on the sports court, down on his hands and knees, so I assumed he had tripped and fell, which he is very prone to do. He was crying so I called for him to come inside. When he got inside I tried to comfort him, however all he wanted was his blanket and a nap. The next thing I knew he was on the couch asleep. Lauren reported that he had fallen while playing with the soccer ball. We decided to let him sleep through dinner. After dinner we got him semi-awake and then Rick and I had to leave for a parent-teacher conference. When we returned from the conference he was asleep again, and this time when we woke him he wailed. The next thing I knew he was throwing up all over Rick. I stripped both of their clothes off and they headed for the shower. While in the shower Mark continued to wail, and was not making any sense. I called a neighbor whose husband is a brain surgeon and she suggested that we get him down to the emergency room as quickly as possible, and called her husband who was still at the hospital, just finishing surgery. (My goal last week was to see every doctor in my ward in a professional capacity. I hit 50%, not bad!) I questioned Lauren again about his fall and she said he was trying to stand on the soccer ball and fell backwards, smacking the back of his head against the concrete of the sports court.


We rushed to the emergency room, and while in route Mark would not answer questions or speak and threw up again. They got him in quickly and he was still unresponsive. Finally he said a sentence, albeit an illogical one. They did CT scan of his head to make sure that there was not any bleeding on his brain. He had to be restrained for the CT scan, which as you can imagine he did not like. Rick held him down. The scan did not show any bleeding and he was starting to come around. They determined that he had a concussion, and then the debate began as to whether or not to keep him overnight in the hospital.

Mark in the emergency room

scan and agreed that it did not show any thing unusual. He suggested that we take him home bMy neighbor's husband finished his surgery up and came down to see us. He had seen the CT ecause he would be more comfortable there, but we would need to watch him carefully all night, waking him every hour and checking his pupils to make sure they were responsive. He said Mark would be cranky and irritable for the next few weeks, to which I responded "well then he will be acting normal." Rick and I took him home and I took the first shift watching him until 2:00 a.m. and Rick took the second shift. The next day his head was sore and he told Matt that he broke every bone in his body, then later changed his mind and told Matt that he broke his head.

I figure between my surgery and Mark's visit to the ER I probably cost the insurance company a good $8,000 last week. The sad thing is the was not Mark's first visit to the ER, it was his 4th, and he is not even four yet. Like papa says "an accident looking for a place to happen."