Congratulations

It seems that summer always slips by so quickly. We didn't do half the things I imagined we'd get done and up until this week, I was feeling kind of sorry for myself that the summer was already over.

I get tired of the bed time routine, wake up routine, lunch box routine, homework routine, hair fixing routine, finding the shoe (why is there always only one?) routine, load the backpack routine, etc. The routines that come with going to school. I enjoy having my babies home and hearing them play and laugh. I REALLY enjoy the older girls being able to pour a bowl of cereal for the little kids while I sleep in. So, back-to-school time is bitter sweet for me.

But like I said, this past week has made me not quite so sad. It seems like there is a natural progression to the waning summer. And by the end, my kids are like a pack of wild hyenas. They fight and bicker and cry about EVERYTHING lately. They're bored. It's time for school to start. It must be the Lord's way of helping me deal with sending them back and gearing up for "routine" time.

Here's a little taste of how our home has been running lately. Yesterday Halle walked in and said, "Uh Mom? We played with each other today. Aren't you going to give us a congratulations?" LOL!!! Yep, congratulations honey, you've (insert ALL of you) made mom WANT you to go back to school.

Am I bad mom???!! :)

Noises in the Night

Last night at about 2AM I kept hearing a "noise". It sounded like a window was open and the wind was making the blinds scrape on the windowsill. I tentatively got out of bed to go check the upstairs rooms, when Jarom heard me getting up and asked what was wrong. I told him I was hearing noises so he got up to investigate. (It didn't help that we had watched some creepy show right before going to bed.)

He took off to check downstairs and I checked the upstairs. Isn't it funny how the mind plays tricks on you when you're scared in the dark? I could swear I saw a body slumped at the end of my big long hall, but when I turned the light on it was only a computer chair. My mind was imagining everything from drug dealers and murderers to monsters. (Too many late night readings of Twilight.)

I checked the office and den and started back to check on Kate's room. As I was walking down the hall, the speakers to the kids' computer suddenly turned on, full blast, and screeched at me for about 2 seconds. I think my stomach hit the roof of my mouth and my feet didn't touch the floor until I was back in my room. I was too scared to even check on Kate on my way back. What kind of mother am I?

Next thing I know Jarom comes upstairs looking like he'd seen a ghost. He said, "I could KILL those girls!" Apparently when he went to check on them they weren't in their beds. He checked a couple of times and just as the panic was escalating to the point of him screaming for me that the girls were gone, he noticed a note taped to the wall. It read, "Follow the clues to find where we are sleeping." LOL! He found them safe and sound under the stairwell in the closet, sleeping away.

Anyway, the sounds ended up being that stupid computer trying to come out of sleep mode and the kids had left the speakers turned all the way up. But man, I don't think our hearts have pounded that hard in a while. Darn kids, they're going to be the death of us.

Whoa! Dude, I'm Trippin'!

Poor little Carter had to have some dental work done yesterday. He has an extra front tooth (the dentist calls it F plus) which makes for some serious crowding in his teeth.
Extra tooth + Crowding = Cavities. The dentist decided that we should slightly sedate Carter and just get it all taken care of, plus the work was on his front teeth which are extra sensitive and sometimes traumatic for little kids.

So off we went at 7 am to the dentist office. Carter drank the loopy drink (some form of valium I think) and about 10 minutes later he was higher than a kite. I tried not to laugh at him, but it was hilarious.

I was reading a magazine and a page came up with a Mustang pictured on it. Carter is WISE to the Mustang. His daddy has trained him well. Anyway, Carter kept saying, "Whoa, wook at dat Muthang." (His poor speech was so slurred.) And he kept trying to grab it off the page. He had all sorts of hallucinations. He was wearing his hat and kept asking me what was on his head. He saw "bugs", "rainbows", and all sorts of things that I couldn't see. At one point he asked why the wall was moving.

On the ride home I turned into our neighborhood and he said, " Whhhhhoooooaaa! (Just like a surfer dude.) What are those things?" He kept trying to grab some bits of invisible somethings out of the air.

When we got home he wanted to walk by himself, but he couldn't and it frustrated him so badly. (He looked like a cat fresh from the vet after being fixed.) He just started bawling. His emotions were all out of whack. He'd bawl, then laugh, then ask why there were two t.v.s. Poor kid, he was so confused, but his teeth are fixed.

Time Off

Okay, so I had a little break from blogging over the weekend. I read The Host, by Stephenie Meyer, and neglected just about everything. I didn't even so much as turn the computer on once. It was nice (but I feel very out of touch, I need to catch up now). I have lots of fun pictures to post but not today. I'm too tired.

Because of my book reading neglect, the house was in shambles and piles of laundry and dishes were everywhere. So today was dedicated to reclaiming normalcy. I cleaned the kitchen, got the laundry put away, cleaned a bathroom, planted the rest of my garden (thanks Miki for the seeds!!), went to a t-ball game, and finished my book. It was a good full day.

We decided to go out for dinner (seeing as I didn't go grocery shopping and there is NOTHING in the cupboards to eat). Just as we were leaving, Kate crawled into my lap and peed on me. NICE.....thanks for that one deary. Then after stuffing ourselves at dinner (Halle ate a GIANT bowl of chocolate pudding for dessert) we loaded up in the truck and Halle threw up all over the place. (Of course she had to be clear back in the third row seat.) So we rolled the windows down and headed home. And wouldn't you know it, Kate gagged from the smell and threw up too. ***SIGH*** So tonight at 10 pm I vacuumed, shampooed and thoroughly cleaned my vehicle. Just what I wanted to do. But at least it's done.

I had big plans of doing my Try-it-Tuesday post (only I was going to change the name of that; those initials really aren't the best (: ) but I'm too tired. So if you have a recipe you'd like to share post it on your blog or email me. Maybe next week....but I'm not promising anything.

Cleaning Kids' Rooms

Yesterday I finally had enough of one of my daughter's bedroom. She puts EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING, in her cupboard shelves. Both girls have been complaining of having no socks (and either not wearing any or have worn the same non-matching pair for a week), but when I pulled out the clothes and junk from her shelves we found 10 pairs!!

Also found:

1 Massive, disgusting Hobo spider (that nearly made me faint as I vacuumed him up)

1 Toy bucket that had been used as a restroom (dried piddle) from some unknown child of mine (which made me dry heave)

6 (yes SIX) empty drawers where clothes should have been

It's much better now.......

Clogged Toilets

While we're talking about toilet mishaps, I should share our worst clogged toilet story ever.

One evening about 2 or 3 months ago, someone clogged the toilet (pictured in the post below) with something that absolutely would not budge. (Oh, and might I add the toilet had been used. Mmmmmmm...) It was almost 11 pm and Jarom had tried and tried with the plunger and the snake thing, but it was a no go. So Jarom left to the store to get a better plunger or something with more power.

He came home with a bazooka powered compressed air thingy. It had little canisters of compressed air that SHOT down the toilet to dislodge things. Anyway, I need to also say that he and I had been arguing a bit that day. Nothing major, but we were both a little miffed at each other and this was just the icing on the cake. He told me that he was going to need my help.

My job was to hold the "splash guard" firmly on the toilet while he blasted the air off. I had to kneel down by the toilet and hold a piece of plastic on as best I could. (You know it's going to be bad when there's a splash guard involved.) I facetiously asked him if he was making me do this because he was mad at me. :)

Anyway, I knelt down, he blasted and dirty poopy water sprayed EVERYWHERE!!!! It hit me in the face, it hit my walls, it hit the ceiling.....yeah, great splash guard. But, whatever was clogging the toilet didn't stand a chance against the toilet bazooka gun! But beware, you need a full on wet suit if you ever use one.

Have You Ever?????!

Have you EVER seen a toilet blow bubbles? Apparently when a child uses an entire economy sized bottle of Treseme' shampoo for bubbles in the bathtub, ALL of the pipes in the house clog.



This is the scene that greeted me this morning. (I just had to use my cell to get a picture of this.) When I went to drain my tub (FULL of bubbles), I realized it was draining rather slowly, but I didn't think too much of it until I went downstairs and saw the toilet overflowing. I couldn't even flush it. Now I honestly don't know if the bubbles came out of my toilet (but the way the pipes gurgled I tend to think they did) or if a kid dumped shampoo into the toilet, and no one will confess to anything, but I just couldn't believe my eyes.

After I scooped bubbles by hand for a while, ran the bathroom sink, and plunged the toilet my pipes started working again. Guess they've been spring cleaned.

The Treacherous Walkway

This morning I decided to be ambitious and snow blow the sidewalks and driveway. (This was my very first time doing this b/c Jarom always does it, but seeing as how we got 10-12 inches of snow last night it definitely needed to be done before he could get to it.) I wanted to hurry and get it done before the school kids headed out and needed to walk on the sidewalks.

After several cleared paths of snow, I realized that I was doing it backwards and ended up blowing snow right back on what I had already completed. I was just praying that the neighbors were all too busy doing their own driveways to notice the novice across the street.

By the time I got to my front walkway, a million cars and people were out and about driving their kids to school. (My house is a in a direct path to the unloading zone for kids.) I was trying to back the snow blower up when my foot hit another death trap patch of ice and I fell. Right on my bottom, and I hit hard. But I was in such shock and embarrassment, that I didn't have the right frame of mind to let go of the driving handle of the snow blower. So, the wheels kept turning and it was continuing to back up and about plowed me over.

Can you imagine the laughter of the passer-bys? (Well, I would have been busting a gut had I witnessed the scene.) A poor mother, her head covered in a sweatshirt hood cause her hair isn't combed yet, falling on the ground with a man eating snow blower chasing her. (If only she would let go of the that handle that she was using to try to stand back up.) I was scrambling so hard to get away from the snow blower that I couldn't even pretend to get up gracefully. And then when I finally did get up, I was laughing so hard at myself that I looked even more like a crazy nut job.

*Note to the neighbors: If you want entertainment, just watch the Manwarings try to clear snow.

Karma

This morning Jarom told me that he had fallen on our ice skating rink of a driveway. All I could do was laugh, imagining him doing it. When I left later in the day and saw the sprawling snow angel print he left in the driveway, I had to call him and rub it in.

Fast forward to the evening when we all as a family go to WalMart for fun. (Pathetic I know.) I went to get out of the truck and WHAM, next thing I knew I was on the ground. All Jarom could say was, "Karma came back and bit you."

Oh, I love winter.....sigh...(Oh, and we came home with some ice melt. Who cares if it eats your cement, we've got to do something!)

Trauma at the Dentist

Over Christmas break Halle had a filling in her tooth fall out. Of course the dentist was on vacation so we just waited it out. When he finally got back in the office I called to make her an appointment, but he was full until the end of January. (If he'd work more than 3 days a week, this might solve the problem.) So we waited some more, and then Halle started complaining about a tooth ache. I looked in her mouth and her gum was very swollen and red above the tooth. So I called the dentist again, thinking that surely he'd get her in now, it was turning into an emergency, but no, he just prescribed antibiotics for the abscess and said, "See you on the 29th."

So, today, we (and by we, I mean me, Halle, Carter, and Kate) FINALLY went to the dentist and after an x-ray, he determined that the infection caused bone loss and that the tooth was basically unfixable. So he needed to pull it out. Can we just say HOLY TRAUMA!!!! He said we could wait until another day, but there was no way I was going to leave that office with the same unfixed tooth that has been giving us so many problems.

So we hooked Halle up to the gas to calm her down and then in came the shots lady. I sent Carter and KAte out to the waiting area (as Carter still needed a filling done and I didn't want him to see Halle's process). She gave Halle her first shot and Halle just started SCREAMING. I am sure it hurt a little, I hate shots in my mouth, but she was also worked up from the shock of suddenly having a tooth pulled.
But seriously, she was really causing a scene. The lady got done with the shots and then I overheard this conversation between her and the assistant, "You need to get here."
"Where? You told me I."
"No, I told you J. The tooth with the cavity."
So guess what they had to do.....YEP, start all over with the shots again because they numbed the wrong stinkin' tooth!!!!

Meanwhile, they bring Carter back to do his tooth in the room over. All goes well there, THANK GOODNESS! Then it's time to pull the tooth. It actually was very easy and painless. (Should have been since over half of her head was numb.)

Halle told me that she wanted $20 from the tooth fairy for this tooth. I told her the tooth fairy didn't give out 20's. We had to stop at WalMart on the way home and in WalMart Halle said, "Mom, I'll leave a note for the tooth fairy NOT to leave me any money if I can get a new fish instead." (Boy this girl can bargain.)

So home we went, with a new fish in tow, and one less tooth in the mouth. NOT what I had expected for my day. Good thing I had a lunch date with Becky planned!!!

A Night in the Life of a Mother

Had someone seriously told me what motherhood would REALLY be like, I am not so sure I would have signed on for the ride. I remember mom's saying how "EXHAUSTED" they were and I always thought, "I've babysat a gaggle of kids before and it's not THAT bad." But what I didn't understand was the complete lack of sleep mothers really do get. So for all of you non-parents (yet), here's what it's truly like. This was my night last night.

11:30 pm - I go to bed
1:00 am - Kate falls out of bed and wakes screaming
2:00 am - Halle comes in to my bed because she had a bad dream
2:20 am - Carter comes in to my bed too because...well just because
2:25 am - Carter and Halle have a slap fight in my bed because they are "touching" each other
4:00 am - The dog barks because he has to go to the bathroom
4:45 am - Kate wakes crying because her ears are hurting (they are both infected)
6:00 am - Jarom's alarm goes off
6:30 am - I check the news to see if there is school today
7:15 am - Get out of bed to begin a new day

But you know what? I wouldn't trade it for the world!!! :)

Rexburg Temple Open House

*Not a current picture of the temple or else you would see 3 feet of snow on the ground.
Tonight we took our kids to see the newly finished Rexburg temple. (Anyone can go through an LDS temple before they are officially dedicated.) Right when we started the tour, Kate said she needed to go potty. Well, there wasn't a spot where we could stop for her to go. (The tour would have left us behind.) So I told her to keep holding it and she did. She told me 2 more times that she needed to go and we were SOOO close to being done. Seriously, I stepped probably 5 feet out the door and she peed all over me. It ran clear down my front and into my shoe. Poor little girl, she tried so hard. I was grateful she waited until we were outside of the temple, I would have been SOOOOO embarrassed had she done it inside. (We even had to wear protective booties on our feet so the carpets wouldn't get dirty. Can you imagine what they would have thought had someone peed on the floor?!) Not to mention the fact that we were in Antarctica, oh wait, it was just Rexburg. Wet legs and bodies don't feel great in the freezing, frigid air. When we drove home (at 8 pm) the thermometer in our car read MINUS 15 at one point. It warmed up to Zero by the time we reached our neighborhood. (Sadly the heat wave has come and gone. It is now (10:30 pm) 11 below zero. Now that's some crisp air!)

After we went through the temple (which was very beautiful inside), we went to my brother's home for dinner. While we were there I had this TERRIBLE thought that I had forgotten to let my dog in the house before we left. (Remember the frigid air?) I had visions of finding a dead, frozen dog when I got home. I was so worried about it that I called a neighbor and made her go ring my doorbell to see if he would bark. Sure enough, he was in there, and all was well. (Well, well for me and the kids; Jarom wouldn't have minded the other outcome.)

So that was our event of the day. Full of excitement as always. Tomorrow I think we'll be making a doctor's visit for Kate's cough and ears. Oh, AND, when we got home, Carter threw-up. (I think he just coughed too hard.) How's that for the cherry on top? I love my life. (And I really do mean that.)

Who was the idiot?

The following story in no way embarrassed me. (It takes a lot more than a 5 year old child to do that.) But it did get me thinking.

Who was the idiot that thought of putting clear glass doors on showers? I for one, have NO desire to see someone doing their personal hygiene routine and sure as heck don't want somebody to see me. And not only that, I don't want to look out of the glass to the GIANT bathroom mirror and see myself either. I would much rather be in a completely enclosed cave with LOTS of lights that show me all my flaws and hairiness, than have the natural sunlight shining through for everyone's viewing pleasure. And don't even get me started on the cleaning of the hard water deposits.

Today I was showering away and shaving my legs, (Which we all know does NOT look glamorous like in the t.v. commercials. It's more like watching a contortionist squeeze himself into a tiny glass cube.) when my 5 year old niece walked in to tell me there was a problem with the wii. Luckily I was in one of those contortionist poses with all my goods hidden, but I just thought to myself, "I HATE this glass door!" (Hopefully I haven't scarred my niece for life.) And lest any of you think, "Why wasn't the bathroom door locked?" Well, it was. I have a stinking faulty lock that works 80% of the time and the other 20% tricks me into thinking it's locked.

As you can tell, I have no more pride. Motherhood took that from me rather quickly. Guess I'll just stop cleaning the door all together and in time, it will be non-see-through and I won't have to worry anymore.

Parenting Tip of the Day

It takes 19 or more teaspoons to overdose on ibuprofin (100mg in 5 ml) when you weigh 22 lbs. Good thing only 24 teaspoons come in a 4 0z bottle and half the bottle had already been used.


Just thought I'd save you all a call to poison control. (Yes, Kate.........argghhhhh....)

Mysterious Images

I love to see what images appear on my camera after my kids have secretly taken it from me. Usually it's shots of me doing random, mundane, housewife things. And always of my backside.





A lot of the times, they are great nasal shots or odd body part shots of the mysterious camera taker(s).




And sometimes I get gems like these:

I know this one is really dark, so incase you can't tell what is going on, Halle is HANGING and SWINGING from the banister and falls down the stairs. They probably kept the lights off so I wouldn't know what they were doing. The things they do when I am not looking!


Oh to be 9 again and not have a care in the world, but dreaming of being Hannah Montana!

A day in the life of Kate.

My little Kate has a mind of her own. She is certainly a busy little thing, and she LOVES to dress herself and changes her clothes 90 million times a day. I thought it would be fun to follow the outfit changes that happen at my house all in one day. So here was yesterday.

Out of her jammies and dressed for the day. Outfit number 1. (She wasn't wanting to cooperate very much for this picture.)

Got in the tub and changed her clothes. Outfit number 2.

Got her hair fixed and decided to go with outfit number 3.

Time for a change. No shirt, just shorts. Outfit number 4.

I dressed her to go to my father-in-law's birthday party. Outfit number 5.

Lost part of outfit 5. Now it's no shirt, no undies, and pants on backwards. Outfit number 6.

And finally it's bedtime,outfit number 7, and if she wakes up during the night, the pants will probably come off. And I wonder why my laundry piles are mountains??!!!

Trauma House

Yesterday, I was so excited about the yarn ball Christmas ornaments, that I left my 9 year old and her best friend, Bailey, in charge of the kids while I quickly ran to the store to get items to do the craft. While in the middle of the store I got a phone call from Alyssa, with Bailey sobbing in the background, saying that Carter had hit a glass while Bailey was trying to drink and hurt Bailey's mouth. I asked if there was blood, there wasn't, so I figured they'd be okay unitl I got home. I hurried to checkout, (missing half the craft supplies), but by the time I got home, Bailey's dad had come to get her. Apparently not only did Carter bump Bailey's mouth, he chipped her two front permanent teeth. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die!! I still have not seen the teeth, but I have talked to her mom and she says they will need work done to them. We are now singing, "All we get for Christmas is Bailey's two front teeth." SO SAD!!!!!



Then after that trauma, I started to get a headache. It just wouldn't go away no matter what I took. (I get these fairly often and I usually throw-up.) Well, I was at Jarom's folks house and decided I better try to drive home. Sure enough on the way home, I had to pull over and puke. Tip of the day: Whenever you travel on a plane, steal the barf bags and keep them in your vehicle! They come in very handy. I am feeling much better this morning.



And finally, one of the gingerbread houses met it's demise this morning. And sadly, I can blame it on no one but myself. I was trying to slide it farther back on the piano and it went over the edge.

Trauma, trauma, trauma!!!

Little Boys!

Last night after Carter had gone to bed, he stumbled into my room. He clearly wasn't awake because he said to me, "Red's not my favorite color." I told him to go potty and get back in bed. He told me that he had already gone potty and then he turned around to go back to his room. I figured that he had probably gone to the hallway bathroom and didn't think much more of it (he's not a bed wetter, THANKFULLY).

I followed him in to tuck him back in his blankets and stepped on a wet floor next to his bed. I reached down to verify what I already knew, sure enough, he had peed on his floor. In his sleep I am assuming. Not only did he pee on the floor, but apparently he thought he was in the bathroom because he stood and aimed at his bed. Little boy pee, doesn't just run down their leg onto the floor, oh no, it shoots clear under the queen size bed. You should have seen me army crawling with a towel, trying to mop up the mess. I think I'll take little girl accidents any day.

One of those days.

Man, today was just one of those days. It started off with a primary/church meeting which was just oh so fun. Not to mention that I had both Carter and Kate in a house that looks like a museum. Seriously, how am I supposed to concentrate with my two hoodlums running loose? We put my new Ratatouille DVD in to see if the kids would watch, but no such luck. When I went to leave, the DVD player wouldn't open and I couldn't get my DVD back. (Carter was now ready to watch the movie and mad that I couldn't bring it home.)

After the meeting, I decided to take Carter and Kate to the library. Can we say nightmare? I tried to find a good book for myself, but my library NEVER has any of the good reads in. I have grown way too accustomed to instant gratification at Barnes and Noble. Who can wait 2 weeks for a book? The whole time I was trying to find a book, Carter kept pulling books off the shelf or pushing the books backwards causing the opposite side of books to spill all over the floor. Kate kept running to the rail to look down at the fish pond 3 floors below. The railings are NOT kid safe and she kept giving me a heart attack. (I never got my book.) I finally strapped her into the stroller and she screamed at the top of her lungs. I grabbed the first 10 kids books I saw and went to check out. Where I found that I had a $12 fine!!!! YIKES!

When I got home, I had a message from the groomer reminding me of Johnny's appointment 2 hours earlier. Oops, I TOTALLY forgot. He has a stupid ear infection anyway, so he couldn't have gone even if I would have remembered, but I felt really dumb for forgetting.

Then it was off to the dentist to fill Carter's and Halle's cavities. Halle had a melt down and wouldn't let me leave her side. (She's been having anxiety attacks lately about being left alone.) So I went back with her and left Alyssa in charge of the other two in the waiting room. While I was in with Halle I heard some crying so I left to see what had happened. Kate had bitten another baby (on the head). Thankfully the mother was very understanding, but I was humiliated.

By this time it was Carter's turn. I took Kate back with me and she got into everything. So I took her back to the front and when I returned to Carter, he was all alone playing motorcycle with the over head light. Alyssa was boobing and bawling because she was sick of waiting. Can't say I blame her, we were there for TWO hours! Finally it was time to leave and my kids were starving. But no, my day was not over yet.

It was supposed to be Carter's last soccer practice, but by the time I got there he was sound asleep in the back of the truck. So I decided to skip out on soccer and hope that he doesn't remember he was supposed to go.

I am home now and exhausted and ready for bed, but Carter and Kate both took naps at 6 o'clock, so I've got another 3 or 4 hours ahead of me. Calgon take me away! :)

Bucket #2 taken care of.

Well, this morning I woke to Alyssa screaming at me, "MOM!! Halle just barfed on me!" (No it wasn't from the candy and no, she doesn't have the flu.) Halle coughed so hard so threw up and poor Alyssa AND her candy bucket happened to be the path. So, Alyssa bathed and the candy went in the garbage. I thought she'd be more upset about losing her candy, but when I told her she could pretty much have Kate's bucket, she was fine with it.

(Today's story is why I am thankful for my Spotbot.)