Disneyland Without the Kids

One of the perks of Taylor working on a stake level, is that there is a yearly adult trip. They fill one busload of couples and head to a different location each year. This year happened to be to Disneyland.

It's been 7 months since I broke my foot, but it still bothers me at times, so I brought my boot "just in case". I had heard that if you rent a wheelchair, you have accessibility to get to the front of the line of some rides. I thought this was a great idea, but felt really guilty doing it without really being hurt.

When we stopped midway to California in Barstow, I jumped down from a wall and landed on my foot completely wrong. This was the "just in case" that made me thankful for bringing the boot. At Disneyland, after about an hour, we ended up renting that wheelchair since I was slowing everyone down. It became a big joke about how great it was that I was hurt, so all of us could get in to the rides faster. Taylor now says that every time we go to Disneyland, someone will have an ailment of some sort that requires a wheelchair. Ha! Yeah right. Hopefully not.

Before Grizzly Rapids - We had all been on this ride before, so we realized we would get somewhat wet.

After Grizzly Rapids - We were absolutely soaking wet. Random boats get poured on towards the end. We were one of those lucky boats. You can't tell how wet everyone is from this picture, but as for me, I am completely drenched.

This is inside the Indiana Jones ride. Many rides like this let you go to a wheelchair accessible line, which means you don't have to wait in the 1+ hour line with the rest of the world. I think our group was thrilled I was hurt. We probably would have had a larger following had other people known we rented a wheelchair.

A shot looking up at Taylor pushing me around in the wheelchair. I really realized after this trip how sweet Taylor is. The fact that he pushed me around the parks for two days amazed me.

Bugs' Life

Taylor tried to take my picture during the Tower of Terror.

Most people don't recognize that I'm even in this picture. I was tired of getting soaked, and my entire bottom half was drenched from beginning of the ride. Unfortunately, I think this would have worked better if I had covered my bottom half with the jacket to begin with. It made for a funny picture though.

California Screamin' - We thought it was funny that the picture happen to be taken just as we were looking at each other.

My Mother's Day

Obviously I need to post about my own personal Mother's Day. There are actually two days that consist of Mother's Day each year for me. First, of course, is Mother's Day Sunday. The second day is the Father-Son campout that happens to always be around Mother's Day. I like to say that they plan it at that time in order to help husbands give their wives an added bonus present for that special day. I know that that's not why since not everyone has as many boys as I do, but in my heart I like to think it's true.

My Mother's Day was a little different this year. Usually, the day consists of me waking up, then waking Taylor up to tell him I need to get ready for church soon, so he needs to get the kids to help him make my surprise breakfast in bed. I know this sounds odd, but I actually enjoy waking him, then being able to roll over and clock out for another half hour.

Recently I hurt my back, so I woke up in a lot of pain. Because of that, I didn't go to church, so Taylor was able to get things going a little later and we all ate downstairs. I had previously joked with Taylor that he could teach my Primary class for me that Sunday, so I could go to Relief Society. Because I ended up staying home, he did it for me anyways. What a man. He found some beautiful pink roses for me too. What I love about Taylor is that he will not only buy flowers for me, but he will cut and arrange them as well. Finally, he made dinner for all of us, my parents, and Grandpa and Dorothy.

After all that, I do have to say my favorite part of Mother's Day is the cards and gifts the kids make at school and church. That's the one time I know they really are thinking about someone else. I have very thoughtful children. Taylor never has to get them to think of anything. They are very creative and thoughtful in what they do.

I love being a mother. Now I just need to work on being a better one and deserving of the children that I've been blessed with.

I love you Jordan, Noah, Hailey & Benjamin. I love you all the same.....no matter what I may joke about otherwise. ;)

The Crazy Birthday Cake

For Taylor's birthday, the kids and I wanted to make a cake. He told us he would like yellow frosting. Since the cake was already yellow, I thought we might want to shake things up a little.
However, my blonde roots came out. I forgot that adding cocoa to frosting would turn it brown. (Duh!)

No problem, I thought, we'll just add a ton of yellow food coloring to get the color as close to yellow as possible. What turned out was......pardon the description......a color that more resembled baby poop.

The kids each took a section of the cake to decorate on their own.

Noah in the middle of decorating.

The final product. It looked very messy, but it was a lot of fun.

Taylor straining to get ALL those candles blown out.

My Funky Flowers

I went outside to water my flower on my back patio one day and noticed that two flowers seemed to be entangled together. As I looked closer, I realized I had siamese gerbera daisies. It was the coolest looking thing that I had to take a few shots to "memoriablog" it (my new word).

I've Become Addicted

77%

How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

When I first took this test, I was only 20% addicted to blogging. I'm afraid I've now become officially addicted. Oh well, guess my addiction could be worse.

Happy Mother's Day!

My mom is a person who is always on the go. She is so creative and talented. I don't know how she has the stamina to keep things up like she does. The kids love to go over to Momoo's house to spend the night. Since there aren't many rules at grandma's, I think they'd rather camp out there for quite a while.

I have fond memories of spending the night at Grandma Cherie's house as a child. I am grateful that she's giving my children memories like these as well. She's very conscientious not to play favorites and be as fair with her time as possible.

One of the biggest things I admire about my mom is that she's always willing to help people who are in need. She realizes that money isn't just there to help make life comfortable for herself, but to help others.

I married into an amazing family. My mother in-law is such an example of strength to me. She is so giving of her time, and not once does she complain. She is so dedicated to making her family work that at times it almost seems seamless. I am grateful for the support she gives to me when it comes to raising my children. She is always offering to help me. If I ever need anything, she has often offered to fly down from Utah to help me out. To me, that's going above and beyond what one could expect. Her love of the gospel is an example to me of how dedicated I need to be to the gospel.

I am a very lucky person. Not only do I have a wonderful mom, but I also have the best mother in-law. Thank you to both of you for your examples. I love you. Happy Mother's Day!!!

New Survivor Series - for men only

I've received this e-mail several times, but I thought it especially appropriate considering Mother's Day is this Sunday. I wholeheartedly agree with everything in this. I'd definitely watch this series if it really happened.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money. In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives,and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, backaches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.

The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

I'm Tagged

Tagged

1. Post the rules
2. Answer all the questions about yourself
3. After you are done posting, tag 5 people

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

Nothing very exciting. I was married, Jordan was 1 and I was pregnant with Noah. We were living in the condo I had bought before I met Taylor and we were looking into buying our first real home.

2. Five things on your to do list today.

+ Catch up on blogging
+ Help Taylor out in backyard, getting the flowers in
+ Drain water heater
+ Laundry (when isn’t that on my list?)
+ Make bread

3. Snacks I enjoy.

Hailey once said, “What if everything bad for you was really good for you like ice cream and chocolate? And then everything good for you like celery and broccoli was really bad for you?” Oh to dream. Then I doubt I’d have to worry about my weight anymore.
I could probably live off of chocolate (preferably Reese’s), Diet Coke, and homemade bread with butter and be perfectly content.

4. What would I do if I was suddenly a billionaire?

+ Get out of debt
+ Buy a brand new Sequoia
+ Build a custom home up in the hills of Northern Utah, with a nice big yard
+ Have someone else clean my house....since my home will be nice and big
+ Put away money for savings, missions, college, weddings, etc.

5. Three bad habits.

+ I have the Koch sarcasm gene – I just wish I had a delay button in my head like on the radio. That way I could keep some of my comments that immediately come out of my mouth from ever seeing the light of day.
+ Staying up too late watching forensics shows - I am completely amazed at how criminals think they can get away with their crimes due to the technological advances they have in forensics. I just love it when they get the bad guy!
+ Picking zits - My boys are already developing a few little ones, and so I've been zoning in on them whenever I get a chance. Jordan recently told me that I don't know what it feels like to have someone pick at my face. Ummmm, let's see......talk to any of my brothers and sisters and see if Mom picked at us to death. The two major habits I got from my mom: Being very particular about how laundry is done and picking every bump imaginable on my kids and/or husband.

6. Five places I've lived.

+ Provo, UT
+ Salt Lake City, UT
+ Las Vegas, NV
+ Provo, UT (BYU)
+ and finally…back to Las Vegas again.

7. Five jobs I've had.....

+ Runner - for my dad’s law office
+ Day Care “teacher” - I’m still not sure why it was called a teacher. I’m more likely to call it a babysitter
+ Census Worker - took 1990 census going around to different homes my first summer home from college
+ Custodial Engineer (hehe) - at BYU’s Bean Museum and the Wilkinson Center. The Bean Museum was pretty neat to clean. However, the times that I had to clean downstairs didn't thrill me. That was where the curator's rooms were. You'd never know from day to day what kind of animal would be there in the middle of being skinned and put on the form. The smell of those rooms is a less than desirable scent as well.
+ Teacher - I taught 2 years 5th grade and ½ year 4th grade until I had Jordan.

8. Five things that people don't know about me.

+ I am afraid of the dark - This has always been a problem for me….ever since childhood.
+ I don’t like going in the ocean - I think Jaws really ruined a lot of lives. My kids don’t understand how something so “fake” could scare me. Hey! It sure seemed real to me back then.
+ I love baking bread - I know that some people already know this, but a friend of mine taught me how to bake bread last year. It was something I always wanted to learn, but thought it has to be just too hard to do. Once I learned, I realized how little work it involved. My entire family loves it.
+ I am VERY uptight when it comes to doing laundry - I think it is one of my biggest peeves when people wash random clothes together. I was taught to put laundry into piles: darks, reds, lights, towels, whites. I also am pretty anal about folding laundry. Everything has to be folded a certain way. I think my husband loves this because it means he will probably never have to be any bit of laundry in his life.
+ I love taking pictures - With cameras as advanced as they are, I have really been fascinated by photography. I'm not saying I'm the greatest photographer, but I absolutely love taking pictures. I think this is why I get so into blogging as well.

Okay, that's all comes to me right now. I am not quite sure who to tag, since I've noticed most of my friends have been tagged already. So, I guess I'm tagging my family members who have blogs. That would be David, Amy, Adam, Nora, Jacob, Shelley, Rachel, Tom, Michael, Mom, Dad, Marijke and Nicole. I list quite a few because I am very certain only a couple of you will actually do it. :)