Blue Nail Polish

Earlier today I left for a little while and left Chloe to tend Bryce. While I was away she painted her fingernails, and Bryce convinced her that he really needed a few of his painted too.

Fast Forward to a few hours later. I am in the kitchen making dinner and I hear Bryce announce from the front room "Mom I'm painting my fingers". Oh no you had better not be!!! I went in there and sure enough he was painting his fingers blue with nail polish not just his fingernails but his whole finger, several of them in fact. I quickly pried the polish away from him, while managing to only get a little bit on the floor.  He was so upset and had a good long cry. I really wanted to take a picture, but I knew there was no way I would get one with the tantrum he was throwing.

Now rewind several years. For those of you who knew me then, might remember the day that our little Chloe painted her entire leg blue with nail polish. Not just a little bit the entire leg. It took my sister and I a good hour and several bottles of nail polish to get it cleaned off.

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS IT WITH MY KIDS AND BLUE NAIL POLISH!!!!

Influenza and Strep Throat

A couple of weeks ago Landon got super sick. In fact so sick that he ended up taking most of the week of work (he rarely misses work because he is sick). He had extreme chills and body aches, fever, and a horrible cough. He finally ended up going into the doctor only to find out he most likely had Influenza B, but at that point it was too late for them to give him anything for it other that cough medicine to help with the cough a little bit. :( He finally got over it, although he still has a nasty lingering cough. Luckily no one else in the family got it-knock on wood-and hopefully we don't. Maybe the flu shots the rest of us got will do their job.

About a week after Landon got over the flu, Chloe started feeling sick. We thought she was probably dealing with the same thing, so we just decided to wait and run it's course. The only problem is she didn't seem to start getting better after a few days. I finally ended up taking her into the doctor only to find out she once again had strep throat!!! This is about the 8th time in the last 2 years. We decided that she will be getting her tonsils out ASAP. The strep is so hard on her it literally knocks her out for a week at a time every time she gets it. At one point they thought she might be battling something called PFAPA, but we have now decided it has been strep every time. She gets horrible body aches, starting in her legs, she becomes so weak she can hardly move (twice we have had her in a wheel chair), she runs a high fever, sometimes has a rash, and will have a sore throat. IT is the worst! This time she was seriously down flat in bed for five days and she ended up missing the Young Women's New Beginnings, a whole week of school, and a whole bunch of practices for her various sports. Luckily she is now on an antibiotic and on the mend and we have an appointment scheduled to discuss tonsil removal.

Now lets hope for a much better and much healthier rest of the Spring Season.

Grandmas in Town

A few weeks ago my Mom was able to come to town for several days. It is always something the kids look forward too. She usually try to plan something fun to do with them while she is here. Plus as a bonus for the kids a lot of times when she is here cousins from out of town show up so that makes it even better. There are usually sleep overs involved with at least some of the kids.

This time on the agenda was a volcano. The younger kids were all so excited about the volcano the few days leading up to her arrival. The day finally arrived and guess what time to make the volcano and Bryce was asleep. :( Needless to say he was less than thrilled to be woken up to see it.

Oh well the next day meant a trip to the park for some happy meals and swinging and I think that made up for it. Swinging is one of his favorite things to do. In fact take him to a park and you could very well spend the entire time there pushing him on a swing.

Later that night she took the older kids who didn't get to go to the park out for frozen yogurt. Of course Bryce snuck and went along too ;)

All the kids love their Grandma so much. It's hard having her live so far away, but it makes her visits extra special.

Love Notes

I few weeks ago I was just kind of having a bad day. Things weren't going exactly as planned and I felt like I was getting nothing accomplished. On top of that I ate something that adversely affected me and I was not feeling that great. Landon and I were supposed to go to the temple that night. I wanted to just go do initiatories, but he wanted to do a full session. After my day I just didn't think I could. I was frustrated about everything. We decided to go separately instead of together to do our own thing. Honestly even though it shouldn't have it made me even more frustrated and kind of mad at Landon since this was supposed to kind of be like our date night. Well after I got done at the temple I felt a lot better. I wasn't so mad and frustrated. When I got to my car I found a note on the windshield of my car. That note changed my whole day and night and made everything better. I know Landon really does care about me and love me, sometimes its hard to remember cause our lives our so busy and he has so many responsibilities between work, church callings, and the kids. But it's worth it, and I wouldn't want to be married to anyone else. We ended up having a great date night after all plus we made it to the temple without canceling so even better.

Pay it Forward

I have read so many accounts of "pay it forward" acts of service and kindness, but until last week had never been the recipient of one myself. My sister Sandi and I had been out running errands all morning. I needed to go pick up Chloe before to long from school, so we decided we would stop by Dairy Queen to grab some lunch for us and the kids. We got up to the window and I handed them our money and the gal working said to me "oh you don't need to pay the car two cars ahead paid for you already". Wow! that made my day. Plus I could tell it made the person working happy to tell me that.
I guess now it is my turn to #payitforward. I have been trying to think up ideas.
Here are a few ideas I have come up with. I'll let you know when I chose one and do it.
(1) Pay for someone's groceries
(2) Look up a random person in the phone book and mail them $10 or $20
(3) Since I get my haircut at the hair college and the average tip is probably between $2 and $5. I was thinking I could one day leave a $20 tip.
(4) Pay for someone's food just like this person did for me

Why I sometimes like to shop at Ross

I actually kind of have a love/hate relationship with Ross. The main thing I don't like is that it's not one of those stores you can run in and quickly grab what you need and run out. Every item is not displayed so you know exactly what is available and you just have to find your size, so unless you have time to browse the racks its not a good store to go into. Also there never seems to be enough tellers working there, so it can take a long time to check out, especially during the busy season. So sometimes when someone asks if I want to go to Ross I quickly tell them no thanks.

However, there are benefits. If you are willing to dig through the racks and try things on you can find nice stuff for cheap. When I was pregnant with Bryce I think I got almost all of my maternity clothes there. For Bryce especially there a few items I wouldn't buy anywhere else. I don't buy all of his clothes there, not even most of them, but what I do buy for him there are NIKE items. I can get him Nike athletic shorts and socks for a third of what I can get them for a Dick's Sporting Goods or somewhere else and honestly for his size they sometimes have a bigger selection. Another reason I like it is because every now and then you find something in there that you needed anyways and its cheaper than anywhere else in town. For example a few weeks ago I found Bryce a puddle jumper swim vest for $10. The next cheapest in town was at Costco for $15 and then Wal-Mart and Target for $20. I was going to buy him one anyways so that was a definite win for me. Of course I picked him up some Nike shorts and basketball socks while I was there as well ;)

I don't go in there often, but sometimes if I'm in the right kind of shopping mood or if it's for something specific I know they usually have I will and usually, but not always, I will come away with a purchase I am happy with.

Chopsticks and Chow Mein

We picked up some Chinese food to eat with Grandma Marshall the other day. Bryce wanted chopsticks. He usually wants them to play with, but this time he insisted on eating with them and that's just what he did. Maybe it was the recent trip to see Kung Fu Panda 2. It was so funny to watch, and he actually ended up eating 2 plates full of noodles. I guess I will have to get him chopsticks every time!

(If your wondering why he's naked it's because he spilled his water on himself so his clothes were in Grandmas dryer.)

It is Amazing

Bryce is always asking people to draw things for him. Now I am by no means a great artist, but I figure most of what I draw can pass in his eyes. The other day he asked me to draw a walrus, so I gave it my best shot. Afterwards I was like "how's that?". His response "it is amazing!" Now if that didn't make my day I don't know what did. It's not the fact that I really thought the picture was amazing, but the fact that he was so happy and excited about something little I had done for him. It made me remember that it's worth it to take a few minutes here and there to do something that might not be on my schedule or plan for the day. After all its the little things that matter.

Joyschool

With my sisters, cousin, and one friend we have decided to give Joyschool a try. We started pretty late in the year, but we wanted to give it a try now to decide if we wanted to do this again in the fall or go with a traditional preschool. Though there has been a little bit of trial and error figuring things out, and working out the best time to hold it, at this point I would have to say it is going pretty well. The kids all get really excited when it is time for "preschool". Bryce got a backpack for the occasion. He loves filling that thing up and packing it around about more than anything. Sometimes he gets it so heavy that he almost tips over backwards. HAHA!

Last week was my first time teaching. We were learning about the Letter B. We did some fun little activities at circle time-counting bears, pulling objects that start with B out of a box, and looking at Bugs. Then we read Brown Bear Brown Bear and painted bears with chocolate pudding. The kids had fun. After that we walked down to the park. We ended with a snack and some balloons while we waited for parents. Honestly it was fun, but Bryce struggled just a little bit wanting to be in charge and take all of the turns. However, I have heard feedback from everyone else that their own child seemed to have the hardest time when at their own house, so hopefully over the next few turns I have he will calm down a little bit.



Because I'm Not Her Mother

Yesterday I was kind of having a bad day. I just was. We all do sometimes. I was also being kind of grumpy. That night Landon said jokingly to Bryce "Bryce will you tell Mom to be nice to me?" Without missing a beat Bryce said back to him. "No, because I'm not her mother." HAHA We both busted up laughing. That kid! He sure knows how to make us smile, even when we're having a bad day.

#quotesbyB #mothersmatter