Lately

So I realize I haven't posted in a while.
I have a whole lot to catch up on. That so is not going to happen right now.
I'm just going to whine about why I'm not blogging.
:)
I've been swimming in medical appointments. And it's not over. Not even close. In April-May we had over 24 appointments. They involved 2 surgeries, 1 ER visit w/ accompanying hospital stay, 1 urgent care  visit, lots of shots, lots and lots of Rx-es, strep, infections, allergies, asthma, bladder reflux, and even more unknowns that will surely involve lots more doctors & appointments.

I'm feeling overwhelmed.
I need a hug.

Hyrum-ism

While waiting in the foyer area at the bank, Hyrum climbs up on a padded bench and holds his chicken nugget up to the light. He cocks his head to the side, looks at it with a little squinty look, and declares for all to hear,
"Hmmm, tastes like chicken!"

the Essence of Lacie

Hyrum: "No singing at the table!"

Lacie: "You mean, on purpose?"

Need a laugh?

For some reason this is tickling my funny bone to the extreme right now. Much more so than when I first saw it.

I needed a good laugh tonight. This worked.

Happy? Easter?

Each year I have grande plans of doing some great, elaborate, spiritual, meaningful Easter celebration... It hasn't yet happened. Last year we told the kids the Easter Bunny couldn't make it because our house was too messy, and that he had to come a week later... Hey, at least they bought it!

This year I was determined to get matching/coordinating Sunday outfits for everyone. Can I just remark on how incredibly hard that was?! Sheesh! For anyone who hasn't gone dress shopping for girls lately, let me educate you on this frustrating little fact: you can find every kind of frilly, ruffly, girly, fun, plain or elaborate, darling, gorgeous, cutesie, or whatever-you-are-looking-for dress in sizes newborn through size 6/6X. After there that? Fat chance. Everything is fashioned after trendy teeny-bopper styles that are WAY too mature for the pop singers, let alone the teeny-bopper fans. Aargh!
So after 7 hours, 16 stores, 2 cities, and a couple of fist-fights later when I'd finally collected an ensemble that would work I was THRILLED! And then too exhausted to do a proper egg-hunt. Priorities, right?

Easter loot

Andrea's haircut I gave her. Not bad, huh?

Dinner from our very generous neighbors. Fortunately they made it "to go" so we didn't have to actually eat it in front of them. I've never been a big fish fan, and the eyeballs seriously creeped me out!

Also from the neighbors. You can't see it very well, but that's shrimp and avacado. I imagine it was divine for anyone who likes seafood, but, like I said, not a fan.

So?

I fed my kid a piece of bread, string cheese and green beans for breakfast this morning.

...

I like to think of myself as nutritionally progressive.

See?

He's happy.

Aargh.

At least my bathroom is clean.

Well,

one of the two.

Confessions

They say that confessing is good for the soul. They never say what it does for relationships... Oh well. I figured I'm on a roll and may as well go ahead and clear my conscience.

* When talking on the phone, I hide in the pantry closet so the kids can't find me.

* On the corner of our street there is a Taco Bell, then a field, then the houses start; we're the third house. Some nights when my dinner is especially awful I sneak up to Taco Bell and get their $2 meal deals even after enforcing our "Eat it or Starve" policy to the kids.

* I always drive to Taco Bell.

* I may have "accidentally" once or twice left the cell phone home when going to the store, and then found myself unable to call Mark and consult him on a purchase.

* If I've bought junk food while running errands I try to throw away any evidence in gas station garbage cans before I get home.

* I like eating cookie dough more than cookies because 1) it's awesome, and 2) with cookies, there is always a running count of how many you've eaten. With cookie dough, on the other hand, there's no way to know. I mean, who's to say that huge blob isn't how much goes into one cookie before it gets baked?

* I hate the act of swallowing pills. Sometimes I will walk past and look at my vitamins 12X and still not take them.

* I secretly hope that my 'double' in the play I'm in isn't as good as I am.

* I'm fairly certain that I could grease a car with the oil slick from my hair right now.

* I dread 3:00pm. (when the girls get home from school)

* At Stake Conference we were apparently sitting in the 'Cry Zone' and far enough back that I could barely hear the speaker... so instead of straining to listen I took Jake out to the hall to play with him. Ironically, I could hear better out there.

* I rarely read the 'fine print.'

* I turn the fan on in the bathroom to drown out whatever it is that my kids are trying to tell me through the door.

* More than once I've let the same movie play 3 times in a row because it kept the kids occupied and I could keep napping.

* I will only answer the phone (landline) if I know the phone number or I hear the separate ringtone I can assign to 30 programmable numbers. Even then, it's still 50/50 whether I'll bother.

* I have let the girls skip school because I was too tired to get up and get them there.

* I have done that (see above) more than once. In the same week.

* I make Hyrum give me kisses because he's still little enough that I CAN make him.

* There was a time before Hollywood Videos shut down that I couldn't find a single movie in there that I hadn't seen that wasn't porn, horror or rated R.

* Yesterday I fed my kid a chocolate doughnut for breakfast to keep him from squealing on me.

confession

I have found my Kryptonite. Naturally it's food, but particularly the chocolate covered cake doughnut.

W.O.W.

Combine it with a late night sorting receipts and a Taylor Lautner movie and I devoured 11 in under 24 hours.

ELEVEN.

Let's just let that sink in for a moment.

One. Two. that was good. Three. ooooh, yum. Four. I shouldn't, Five. have I already eaten Six? where did Seven go? might as well Eight. holy cow, I can't stop now Nine. are you kidding me - Ten.

...

get rid of the evidence: Eleven.

(Twelve was given away when I got busted by my 3-yr old.)

Dang. I need help.

For you, Tess

I was kindly reminded that I don't post much about my littlest buddy, Jake. Oops!

Look at those baby blues!

Looking all smart in his new suit --

"Let me outta here!" (staying waaaayyy late after church)

I love this shot--

In Rosalie fashion...

Oh, I love me my Jacob! He is such an ANGEL BABY. No joke. I take him to play practice with me. You'd think that would be a total hinderance, what with me rehearsing and costuming and playing my violin. For FOUR HOURS! Plus the 1-hour drive each way! You'd think it'd be an absolute nightmare. Nope. This kid is a complete joy. The only noises I hear from him are the happy squealing and laughing he makes as the rest of the cast goes ga-ga over him. Incredible, I tell you!

Cooking

Question: what do you do when your kitchen looks like this?

Answer: well.... most people would probably clean it. Me? Nah. Let's just make some more mess!

Today I decided to play with some whole wheat recipes:

Tried-&-true bread:

Whole-wheat brownies that, oddly, had no chocolate/cocoa in them except the choc. chips I opted to sprinkle on top. Weird, but tasty!

Half white/half whole-wheat breadsticks. Tastes fine. It lacks a little in the presentation...

Oh, and here's a random shot for you - wanna guess what it is?

Scout camp-out dinner, of course! Mark has lofty goals of getting the verrry urban boys in our ward un-citified. Yeah. Like I said, it's a lofty goal. But he sure tries! On his last scout camp-out he brought 2 live roosters with them. Why? Look back at that picture. Oh yes. He made the boys kill, pluck and cook their dinner. Personally, I think he let them off easy by cleaning & cutting them himself. But then, he had to eat it, too. So maybe that was just a smart move on his part? But it didn't stop there. Later on he boiled down the carcass and rolled out from-scratch noodles, to make a delicious chicken noodle soup. Impressive!

Here's the best part: rather than chopping their heads or wringing their necks, they SHOT the roosters. One bullet to the back of the head, execution style. You can take a boy out of the city, but...

Another illustration

Here is Lacie:

Here are the contents of her pocket (shown in her hand):

"What pocket?" you ask, and that is a very good question.

If you look closely, you can see a tiny little square of a pocket just under her collar.

Again, the contents of her pocket:

Hmmmmm.

I asked her why she had a pencil that couldn't write and with no eraser on it. She replied that she was using it as her magic wand. The little rock was something she wanted to bring home to show me.

Naturally.

Lacie-ism

This is what I pulled out of Lacie's pocket:

a couple hair clips,

some yarn,

a metal flower,

Chuck E. Cheese coin,

a wood splinter,

cracker crumbs,

a sticker that fell off some crazy glasses (X-Ray Vision),

a magnet,

and paper scraps.

Yup. That about sums her up! :)

Andrea-isms

At dinner a couple nights ago Andrea asked out of the blue,

"Mom? How do you think you would feel if, before you got married to Dad, a guy with no legs, but could fly, came and took Dad and hid him somewhere?"

uh...

I think my response right now is the same that I gave her:

"Wait... what?"

~

The next day the kids were looking at the pictures for my screen saver (I have it set up to just randomly cycle through my iPhotos). One came up of Mark and me at our wedding reception. Andrea saw it and asked incredulously,

"Mom?! You were at Dad's wedding?!"

Again,

uh...

Games

I don't like Hyrum's newest game. It's a ramming game. I think it's called "run-into-the-back-of-mom-while-she's-standing-at-the-kitchen-sink." Over and over and over. And then again some more.

NOT my favorite.

I don't like Jacob's newest game. I'd like it even less if he had teeth, so at least I'm glad for that. It's where he opens his mouth as wide as possible and then attacks. As in, face-plant to the nearest extremity of your body.

It leaves you slimy and smelling like saliva.

My latest game is a spin on the classic 'Keep Away.' Only, I'm sweeping the floor and madly trying to push my dirt pile around the kitchen in-time and out-of-reach of Jacob, while frantically looking for the dust pan which I cannot find so I end up just sweeping everything into the pantry and slamming the door before Jake can crawl in.

Come to think of it, I don't like this game much either.

~

As long as we're on the topic of games, I just finished the Hunger Games series. "Just finished" as in I started book 1 Tuesday afternoon and finished book 3 some time around 4:00 Thursday morning.

[Yes, I am quite useless while I'm reading a book -- because if I'm going to read something it had better keep my attention. And if it keeps my attention, well, I'm not so good at multi-tasking and even worse at self-control.]

Anyhow.

I am sorry I read it. It's left me with a dark, sad feeling. And I'm confused, because I've heard soooo many people absolutely RAVE about the books. Okay, so obviously I was "into" the books to be able to consume them so quickly. But as I tried explaining to Mark, it was like watching a particularly horrific accident, and not being able to tear my eyes away because I had just enough hope that by some magic or miracle things would end happily ever after. But then they didn't. They just got worse and worse and worse and then a little better and then worse.

Kinda like the book equivalent of the movie, "Million Dollar Baby."

Personally, I'm not one for sad or sobering endings when it comes to entertainment. I think we have enough of that in the world already.