Talent comes in MANY forms...

I read a blog a few days back that made me smile...

For those not in the mood to check out the link it was all about talents. Lemme sum up for ya! Everyone is blessed with talents. Some of these talents are musical (be it piano, vocal, or some other instrument). Some are physical (like sports). Others are blessed with talents for teaching, or learning, or speaking, etc.

Take my sweet husband for example. He is overly blessed (in my opinion). Not only is he a computer WHIZ. But he is smart. As in straight A's with no effort, smart. He can play almost any sport well (not golf- he sucks at golf). He can look at an item, de-construct it in his head, and know how to fix it (like garbage disposals and the likes). He is quite the handy man (he has framed our basement, laid all the electrical, and put up all the sheet rock with only a few hints and tips from professionals), and he can play a musical instrument! The man is AMAZING!

When asked about my talents I usually draw a blank. I don't necessarily feel like I am all that talented when it comes to music. I mean, I can sing, but not solo. I used to play an instrument, but not anymore. I have absolutely NO talent in sports. I guess I am marginally blessed in the area of learning. I have a pretty good memory, and did well in school without too much effort. But still- no common talent really stuck out for me. But here's the truth of it... no one said talents had to be so cut and dry? I have talents! For example:

1. I can pick things up with my toes. Now some don't see this as a talent. I beg to differ... ever have a fussy baby in your arms, you are on the phone trying to take a message and you drop the pen? TOTALLY easier to use your toes to get the pen than to bend over with the phone on your shoulder and a 20 pound child on your hip.

2. I can read in the car. I am the family entertainer because on long car trips I will pull out a book and read to the fam. (Ask me what book I am gonna read for our drive to Disneyland in December... go on, ask! It's fantastic!) I have this insane ability to not get car sick. I lose my voice before I lose my cookies! :) (And yet- a shaky camera scene in a movie makes me motion sick- go figure!)

3. I can wake up seconds before my children. This one is odd but I swear to it! I am RARELY woken up by my kids. I almost always find myself wide awake just a mere minute or so before they start getting up. When my kids are sick, it's nice to be alert when that first child makes a mad dash for the bathroom...

4. Along those same lines I have this insane ability to wake my kids from their naps by announcing publicly that they are still asleep. Yup- every time I comment to someone that my kids are all asleep, they slowly trickle from their beds all bleary eyed and confused... :) (Okay- maybe this one isn't a talent so much as a curse, but whatev!)

5. I make good chili. Just ask Joe. He says its better than his mom's... (shh- don't tell her!) It's the ONLY dish he says that about. And I will take claim to it! YAY! I make SOMETHING better than my awesome cook of a mother in law! :)

6. I can quote movie lines like nobody's business! Problem is, I don't always remember what movie it is I am quoting... That's when it's nice to have Joe around. He can usually supply me with the movie title. Unless it's Disney. Though I KNOW when I am quoting Disney...

7. I have this THING with numbers... I remember my first phone number. I remember my bank account from when I was 14 and opened my first account. Heck I remember all of my phone numbers. And most of my friends phone numbers from my childhood... If I do struggle with the number all I need is the first two or three digits and then it floods right back.

8. I make cute kids. Yup- takes a BUNCH of talent to create the cuteness that has come outta me in the form of three adorable children. Now if only I made cute, PERFECTLY-OBEDIENT-AND-WELL-BEHAVED-AT-ALL-TIMES kids... THAT would be a true talent!

9. I can pack the car for a camping trip. This is a killer skill when you have as little trunk space as I do. Seriously! I am proud of my puzzle piecing abilities!

How about you?! Feel free to post a blog with your awesome talents, I would LOVE to read it!

Random Goodness (and maybe a touch of naughtiness)

Oh how I love my children! I love them when they are cute- when they are silly, when they are sleeping, and especially when they are naughty. Heaven knows they keep me busy!

Lil-isms:

Her latest favorite sayings:

"What the heck?!" Always used properly- if not a little too often. Last night she was reading a school book about silkworms and it mentioned that when silkworms become silk moths they don't eat, and eventually die (odd fact, but true) and she said, "They don't EAT?! What the HECK!?"

"That's LAME" Don't you just love all the wonderful sayings children bring home from school?

Lilia is loving 1st Grade. She is also a natural at gymnastics. She is kicking some royal booty in her gymnastics class! She loves her teacher and loves being in the same class as one of her best friends (Kyle). In gymnastics she says her favorite thing is the bars (the uneven bars) and the vault. Unfortunately she practices the vault flips at home on our couch... Not good. :S

Lace-isms:

Favorite sayings: "I nuh-no" (I don't know). Anytime I catch her doing something she probably ought not be doing I will ask, "What are you doing?" and she will look at me, ring her hands and say "I nuh-no..." with a very sad kind of lilt in her voice. It's pretty cute.

"Maffew" and "she" she is quick to call her baby brother a she. "Mom- Maffew is awake! She is awake!"

"kuh-zurt" as in my favorite kuh-zurt is ice cream. She doesn't get to eat kuh-zurt until her dinner is finished. She is too cute!

Lacey has lately gotten herself in all sorts of trouble due to her artistic tendencies. She was supposed to be taking a nap at my mothers house a few weeks ago. When Grandma went to check on her she found a tube of hydrocortizone cream spread across her carpet (finger painting) and Lace had taken a ball point pen to Grandma's newly painted dresser... we never did get all the ink off and now we have to sand and repaint the drawers. And then there is last night... She was supposed to be sleeping (again). And eventually she really did sleep... but when I went in to check on her and her sister, this is what I found.

And then I found MORE this morning in the daylight... though I think this is the work of the older sister... the letters are too neat to be the writing of a 3 year old. And besides, the equasion is not something Lacey would know how to put in order...

Ugh children... It's a good thing they are so darn cute!

Matt-isms:

Favorite sayings: "uh daa!" or "uh daa?" Like the other day when I was nursing him and he tooted. He stopped nursing, sat up said, "uh daa?" and then went back to eating... it was pretty cute!

I commented to someone the other day how I was amazed that Matthew had yet to fall asleep in odd places. I have many pictures of Lil and Lace asleep in high chairs and bouncers, but Matthew only ever sleeps in his crib. Sure enough, the next day he fell asleep in the bouncer, then the day after that he fell asleep in his high chair... I guess I spoke too soon!

Randomness...

It blows my mind that I can give Lacey a fruit roll up, or an ice cream and then put cheerios in front of Matthew and she will STILL ignore her treat to eat his cheerios.

Nectarines are likely the best fruit ever created and I wish I could live in a place that grew them year round... Anyone know of a place that does?

Joe and I are taking our kids to DISNEYLAND for our 10 year anniversary and I am SO EXCITED!

Lilia has an insane fear of automatic toilets. Seriously petrified.

When I read in a fantastically cool book about Disneyland that ALL the DL toilets are automatic (yes, there is actually a book so detailed about DL that it talks about their toilets) I told Lilia and she said, "What the HECK?! That is LAME!" and then pouted about it. I asked if we should cancel the trip and not go because the toilets were automatic and she actually seemed to WANT to do that! Ca-RAZY!

My son has this amazingly cute outfit on today and I can't stop looking at him and thinking that he has GOT to be the worlds cutest little boy ever. And I really do believe that. He is so stinkin' handsome. And he has such a cute little smile, and such a funny little crawl. I could watch him all day and not get tired of him.

Lilia was playing with her daddy's tennis racket last night and totally biffed Lacey in the FACE with it! Poor Lacey has this monster goose egg on her head now. It's bright blue. I took a picture.

My mom and my aunt got in trouble as children for playing with some blue eggs they found in their chicken coops as children. It still makes my grandpa mad to think about it.

Over the last 6 years or so, my cousins send my mom random blue eggs (like marble eggs or easter eggs) as a joke. I think I will give my mom or my aunt the picture of the blue goose egg on Lacey's head...

Lilia is such a smart kid. She is amazingly cool! Tonight she was rattling off all of our birthdays and whose birthday comes first in the year and whose is last, etc. Joe looked at her and said, "I am glad you know the dates, then I don't have to remember- I can ask you!" Lilia looked at Joe and said, "Dad- you aren't so smart!" (I seriously didn't expect to hear THAT until she was in high school!)

Lacey's Latest Adventure

Yesterday was a quite the adventurous day for Lacey...

To preface the incident, I gotta tell you a couple things...

First off, Joe and I only have one car. In our nearly 10 years of marriage that has always been the case. We are too cheap to get a second car, though we are finding that it is quickly becoming a necessity. All in good time, I guess... ANYWAY- We only have the one car, and yesterday was Joe's day to have it. So I was home with the kiddo's and no vehicle. Not too big a deal, I am used to it.

Second, our good friends went out of town for a few days and I was watching their two sons all day yesterday. Their boys are the same age as my girls, and they get along really well so it was really not a problem to have the extra kids. If anything, it keeps my two girls occupied and keeps them from getting into trouble. Now- on to the story:

After the older two kids got home from school yesterday afternoon, I had them help the younger kids clean up the front room. With the promise of a snack after the room was clean. Lacey asked if the snack could be peaches (Really- they were nectarines, but Lacey doesn't know the difference). I told her sure- we could have peaches AFTER the room was clean. I then handed her a spoon that had migrated to the front room and told her to take it to the kitchen. I doled out a task to each of the other kids as well, and was changing Matthew's diaper when I heard Lacey start to scream... She came running into the front room with her hand COVERED in blood! Now- I am pretty proud of myself for not TOTALLY FREAKING OUT at that point. I grabbed a diaper wipe (not likely to stick to a cut, and cleaner than a towel) and cleaned her hand off. Problem was that I couldn't keep it clean. It was bleeding too much to uncover the wound. So I got a second diaper wipe (cause the first was already soaked through) and held it over her palm with some significant pressure. I then called Joe and told him that I was pretty sure Lacey needed stitches. I then went to the kitchen (with Lacey's hand firmly pressed in mine) and found a nectarine and a STEAK KNIFE sitting on the table. Seems she didn't want to wait for a clean front room before getting herself a "peach."

So, I called my next door neighbor (who happens to have a son Lilia's age as well) and asked if she could watch Lilia and the two boys while I took Lacey to get stitches. Matthew would come with me and Lacey. I then looked around and realized two very BAD things. One: Matthew's car seat was in my car. With Joe. CRAP. And two: So was my purse (including my insurance card). CRAP CRAP CRAP! My next phone call was to the boy's parents. They had left their car at home and I wanted to ask if I could borrow it to drive Lacey to Instacare. Well- I couldn't get them on the phone, but I DID have their house key so I went for a short walk to their house (with Matthew on my hip, a phone on my ear, and Lacey's hand still firmly grasped in mine). Once there I realized that THEIR baby car seat wasn't in the car (duh- they took it with them for their baby girl). Well, never mind that idea- besides, I can't drive while holding Lacey's hand, and if I let go of her hand, it would bleed profusely. UGH!

So my next phone call was to another good friend whose husband works odd shifts and he MIGHT be home. Sure enough, her husband was home and so I BEGGED her to come drive me and Lacey to the doctor, AND bring her baby seat for Matthew. She was quick to respond and was sitting in her car in front of my house 10 minutes later. (Have I ever mentioned that I have fantastic neighbors and friends? Cause I do...) While waiting for this friend to show up I got all the kids in their shoes and herded them off to the neighbor's house, managed to get shoes on myself AND Lacey (all one handed since I was still putting pressure on Lacey's hand).

We made it to the Instacare, and had to wait about 20 minutes for another poor kid who needed stitches on his head. Luckily, I had taken the kids here before so they already had my insurance info on hand and because of Lacey's previous stitches incident (the day Matthew was born), my insurance out of pocket premium was completely maxed out so I didn't have to pay anything. I guess you could call that the silver lining... Throughout the wait, Lacey kept insisting that she felt fine and wanted to take the diaper wipe off her hand. Um, nope... Once we got in to the procedure room, the nurse cleaned her hand up as much as possible, and put some numbing cream over the wound. As soon as the doctor appeared he got to work numbing her hand (which was by far the worst part- Lacey was screaming and trying to move her hand, but between the nurse and me she was pinned down pretty well). Once her hand was numb it was easy going. She needed three stitches, and will be able to get them removed in 10 days. The cut was really deep, but I guess kids heal pretty fast! The whole time they were stitching her up she was whimpering to me that she wanted a peach. Poor kid never did get one!

All in all, she is quite the trouper. It turns out that the doctor who stitched up her hand was the same doctor who stitched up her head back in January! He looked at her forehead (he had forgotten where the wound was) and was not thrilled with how badly it had healed, until I told him that the scar he was looking at was from her incident a few weeks ago with a boy and his hot wheels car, NOT from her stitches back in January. When I showed him that scar he was much happier with it's healing. Poor kid has mom's accident prone tendencies...

(You can see the beginning of her cut, but the stitches are covered up to keep them clean...)

Milestones

This last week has been chalk full of new milestones.

Last Wednesday was Lilia's first day of first grade. Her first FULL day of school. She loves it so far, and she loves her teacher.

Then on Saturday, Matthew turned 7 months old AND got his first tooth! I have yet to get a picture of it, but here is a cute one of him chewing on this mesh baggie of apricots...

Then Yesterday was Lilia's 6th Birthday. :) She is such a big girl!

Today is Lacey's first day of preschool. She chose her own outfit and asked me to give her pig tails. :) She is pretty excited!

I sure love my kids- it blows my mind how quickly they are growing up!

What an oddball day!

Some of the highlights (and/or lowlights) of my day...

* Found out which class my daughter is in for 1st Grade. Miss Southard- who we hear is FANTASTIC!

* She shares this class with one of her very best friends (and according to her- her future husband) Kyle.

* My basement passed it's first inspection yesterday (go Joe!) and so we could set up getting it insulated- which I set up for this morning.

* The insulators were 2 1/2 hours late arriving, but they did eventually get here.

* The insulation sales rep had told us all about the rebate program that would get us some 80% of the cost refunded to us, all we had to do was fill in a few vital pieces of information on the forms.

*I was given the forms about the time the insulation was finished... the forms are ONLY for customers of Questar Gas and Rocky Mountain Power- which covers about 90% of the state... unfortunately we are part of that other 10%.

*We just paid full price for the insulation with no promise of any kind of rebate :(

* On a whim I called the city to ask their gas and power company if THEY participate in the rebate program. They gave me a big fat "YES WE DO" then told me to go to Utah.gov to find the proper paperwork to fill out.

* I went to Utah.gov- can't find it.

* I call Utah.gov get the run around before being told to call the city

* Call the city back get the run around before being told to call the state.

* Call the state- they don't know what I am talking about.

* Call Questar just to see if they can point me to the proper department... they can't.

:: SIGH :: to be continued (maybe)

* Get a call from the phone company- we have set up a free internet upgrade install for MONDAY, but he has an opening... can he do it today? I say, "SURE! The house is already under siege from the insulation guys- what's another person?"

* The phone dude comes, and in no time at all has the upgrade done!

* He then lets slip that he is the son of one of my all time FAVORITE LDS Authors (Anita Stansfield)!!!

* I just LOVE his mom- and I tell him so. He laughs and says, "I do too!"

* Then I call a friend- phone is SUPER choppy :(

* Call my mom to figure out if it is my phone (most likely) or my friends phone (not so likely)... it's my phone.

* Get on my cell phone (which is rapidly running out of minutes) and call the phone company to find out what the problem is...

* Turns out we shouldn't have gotten the upgrade until WEDNESDAY of next week because the new upgrade is wreaking havoc on our phone, and the fix for it is not set to be done until Tuesday...

* MY home phone is too choppy to use

* My cell phone is nearly out of minutes

* But I can text message! :) Don't call us til Wednesday people!

* On the plus side, the phone company is giving us a free month of service because of the mix up...

And how was YOUR day?

Vacation Part 3

Sorry for the long delay between posts... It's been a busy couple months.

We ended up going to Lake Tahoe for my Family Reunion this year. It was all sorts of fun- like usual- and we had a GREAT time.

My grandfather decided to make a point (though I don't remember it now) and dressed the part of a cowboy to teach his lesson... IT really got our attention, and we all had a good laugh watching Grandma trying to get my cousin's boots (easily two sizes too small) off Grandpa's feet.

Yes- Grandpa was threatening to kick her in the behind... hehehe

In the afternoons, Lacey needed to take her nap, and Joe and I traded off who got to lay down with her. Joe won this time, and they both took a nap together. Cute!

We got our family reunion shirts, and had our picture taken (as we do every year)... both as an individual family

And as the HUGE extended family! (I know- small picture- but wow! There are a lot of us!)

I have three very awesome cousins that are near my age and growing up we referred to ourselves as the 4 corners (as in: Where we all end up with our noses to the wall in timeout). Growing up, they were my very best friends, and as we have grown to adulthood we have all drifted our separate ways, though I would venture to say that we are all still very good friends. Due to our changes in life, some of us have missed quite a few of the more recent reunions. THIS year was the first time in 9 years that all 4 of us were at reunion, so of course we got a picture! I can honestly say these three cousins are still my very best friends. I JUST LOVE THEM!

And one of the funniest moments of our reunion... Lilia had been naughty, and Joe called her over to talk with her. The whole time they were talking, Lilia was holding her bum as though Joe was on the verge of spanking her... I couldn't help but get a picture! It's just too funny!

Vacation Part 2

Once we left Jason's house (see last post), we headed to San Ramon to visit Joe's grandmother. Grandma Q had never met my kids, so this was a pretty awesome opportunity to introduce my kids to their great grandmother on Daddy's side.

Joe's grandma lives with her daughter (Joe's aunt) Bonnie. Bonnie has a pool. Lacey saw the pool and instantly did this...

Matthew was pretty tired when we got to Bonnie's house. Oh how we love nap time!

Lilia visiting with Grandma Q... Lilia told me later that she really really loves her Grandma Q

We spent the night with Joe's family, then headed on our way to family reunion. We stopped for one night in Modesto to visit with some friends I grew up with, and spent the night at my aunt's house. She had her grandkids over for the night, so Lilia and Lacey were in heaven with other kids their age to play with.

Joe got tackled by all the kids...

I was tired- and got tackled by just one little kid... Matthew decided eating my shoulder would be fun.

The next morning, we headed out for Family Reunion... Stay tuned for part 3!