Made to Trade

So Today I went to a totally awesome trade/swap. I've never done a swap thing before, but I heard about it and thought it would be fun. Maybe get SOME Christmas shopping done.

Nothing was done as "this is what it's worth on the open Market," it was more or less sold for cost, and it was trade. In my case, there was no money exchanged, anywhere.

<- those are bens cars that he made. The one blue/yellow/red together is a train. He's pretty talented!! (Yes Emily, that is the picture from your blog of the animal cars, it's even laminated to make it look all pretty.).

Then I had some Jam and applesauce that I made. And honestly, we did great! The barter thing was nice, and everybody played nice. Ben owes about 9 cars to people. (He's talented!).

Then check this out!!

A list would bore you, but I have problems finding highlights, therefore, I get to bore anybody who finds the time to read this! I ended up with (some pictured, some not because I have to pick it up later - I made a nice excel document for organizing what I owe and what I need to get still).

- 4 flats of nine mini cheesecakes (heaven!!) (I have two, the other two I will pick up later)

- 2 jars of homemade pickles. One spicy, one regular garlic.

- one lemon sugar scrub

- 1 scripture case (with john Deere tractors!!)

- 3 fabric roll out crayon holders, perfect for church!!

- 1 leather thingy that goes around a cowboy hat

- 4 leather keychains

- 2 books (the body battles a cavity, and the body battles a skinned knee) - VERY informative and awesome. Cute illustrations too.

- 4 hair bows for Megan (really darling!)

- 3 containers of fudge - half pound each

- 2 pink crocheted hats for Megan

- 1 blue warm rice pack for the kids

- 1 even cuter large rice pack for ME

- 2 kitchen scrubbers

- a belt for my nephew with his name on it (getting later)

- a stuffed dog for Brandon - a cute Yorkie

- a cape with Incredibles on one side and superman on the other

- homemade laundry soap (3 gallons!!)

- a set of mittens for me

- 2 pant clips and 2 mitten clips (http://www.chrystalblu.com) <- check this gals website, they are darling.

All in all, it was one awesome swap. I can't wait until next Year!! the best part, CHEAP. There was no money involved for most people, it was just trading things that they make for things we make. (Or Ben makes ... one of us is talented anyway, although I did trade some of my jam).

Terrible, horrible, no good very bad day

Dang roller coaster. Up and down, bad days, good days.

Yesterday, bad day. Today? Better.

Ben found my depression meds, and realized how many days I've missed in the last three Months (it was a 3 month subscription). I got some jam made, and visited dad in the hospital, (rotator cuff surgery, he's out of commission for a while.) Long while.

today I picked up my depression meds, so I'm back on them, (temporarily? - I even got a 7 day pill minder, so I can remember whether or not I've taken them)!

My best friend down the road (who keeps me sane) is out of town ... we'll have to plan a girls night when she gets back so we can collect sanity!

Speechless in motherhood

[at grocery store]

Jacob: mom … she only has one arm!!! …..

Mom … and you have two arms.

Jacob: But mom, that looks weird!!!

[speechless]

[to primary teacher the week after we stayed home cause I was sick]

We didn’t go to church last week cause mom was too busy killing zombies on the computer ….

…

[to Megan while she’s coloring]

Me: what do you do with legs?

Megan: walk

Me: what do you do with noses?

Megan: color them!!

Me: what else do you do with noses?

Megan: bite them!!!

Me: Ben; you're a dork.

Megan: You're a dork.

Ben: Laura, look what you're teaching her.

Me: I'm sorry daddy.

Megan: [looking at me] you're not sorry.

Ben: [laughing]

[kids playing, suddenly they start an insult war]

Brandon: you’re a bubblenose!!

Jacob: Mommy, he called me a bubblenose!!!!

Jacob: mommy, I’m sweeping the roof for you!!

Me: Is it dirty?

Jacob: Someday walked on it with muddy feet!

Me: … OK?

Jacob: Mommy … can we watch “Casper the holy ghost?”

Me: who lost their underwear in the box of pears?

Ben: It fell out of the clean laundry as I was taking it out of the dryer.

Making decisions;

me- what do you think?

ben- it's up to you. me- no, it's up to you.

jacob in backseat- no guys. it's up to BOTH of you.

raining today.

jacob said "mother, can you find something to clean the windshield so i can see?"

i turned on the wipers "good thinking mother!"

Ah, the life of a mother. :-)

Salt Flats, salt lake, and a few wrong directions

This weekend we went to Provo for family pictures. Somehow after filling up with gas in Salt lake,we took a wrong turn ...

A - Salt lake, the freeway, where we meant to get back on I-15.

B, Delle, where we turned around ...

C: the border of Utah/Nevada, just in case you wonder how lost we really were!!!

D: the key .... we were WAY out of our way.

E: the great salt lake. I have never seen such a beautiful view. I never realized the lake was so BIG. How is it I've never been there? We will definitely have to go there sometime soon!

F: part of the salt flats, I've never seen those either. Wow!!!! Salt in every direction! It was gorgeous!

So yes, we went an hour each direction out of our way. Yes, it was not good. But I saw more scenery than I knew Utah possessed!! It was amazing!!!!

The crash of 2010: the aftermath

In late December, my computer crashed. The week I was due to do my yearly "picture backup." .. during a defragment, I got the blue screen and total frying of the hard drive/motherboard. .. a friend was somehow able to retrieve some info off of it.

Due to ... whatever ... there was an insane amount of picture files on that computer. My two Theories:

1 - because the computer was in a defragment cycle, the pictures were randomly lumped.

2 - google chrome saves images of everything. ... everything. Everything.

I was handed a beautiful file of 70,000 pictures. (No, I'm not kidding.). Of such, intermingled randomly are the pictures of my children taken the past year or so .... very randomly. Its' like a trip down memory lane!! It has pictures of everything. Pictures from every blog I've looked at,

facebook photos I've seen, ads that I didn't notice.

Here's a very random sampling.

I remember seeing this one on Cake wrecks. (Cakewrecks.com <- AWESOME site.)
must have been a news article ... some natural disaster I bet.
looking up pillow pets when Jacob was begging for one.
uh ... listened to this one?
a game!
absolutely no idea.
good times ... this involved a weird husband and Mcdonalds.

and here and there I find pictures like this one, and the one at the top ... the pictures I was looking for in the first place. This is Megan and Ben at Dad's fiftieth birthday party. So I will keep looking for pictures ... Started with 70,000 items. .. 47,385 items to go!!! and I have found 2,061 pictures I actually wanted. (Although I'm sure some of those are duplicates ..)

The Checkup.

it's a needle, how dangerous can it be?

So my boys went in Friday for their well child checks. I cheat and schedule them both for the same time and day (because their birthdays are so close).

Before we even got there, Jacob started crying, "I don't want a shot! I don't want a shot!" .... who told him he'd be getting a shot? We told Brandon he'd probably be getting some .. (kindergarten shots)....

He calmed down, and we went in. The first thing they do, instead of weighing them, is give us a cup and point to Jacob, "he needs to pee in the cup" .. the child in question claimed he didn't need to pee. But ben took him anyway and convinced him he could try.

While we were waiting for the boys (Brandon decided he had to go too), Megan and I sat in the lab and they gave her a cute little Tinkerbell sticker.

They came out (the cup nearly overflowing - I thought he didn't need to pee!!! Thank heavens for lids), and Brandon realizes Megan has a Tinkerbell sticker, and he doesn't. I tell him he'll get a sticker if he's good, and we go to the exam room.

Both boys have to take their shoes off and get weighed. Somehow between leaving home and getting there, they had both lost their socks .... so it looks like I didn't put socks on them. *sigh* When they took off their shoes, I gave them a look, "where's your socks?" Neither claimed knowledge of socks ....

Weighing the boys was easy enough ... until Megan fixed her beady eyes on the nurse and gave her a puppy dog look. "Me next?" So she very patiently weighed Megan, just so she wasn't left out.

Weighing is naturally the easy part ... the Dr came in, with a student, so Jacob had to question her and figure out why she was there. he examined Brandon, had him jump, walk, and asked him questions to determine if he was talking better. Then he pointed at a slight indent, like a scar, and asked if we'd discussed that before ...

He explained calmly it's just a third nipple, not a scar, and it won't get any breast tissue, .... my 4 year old has a third nipple and I didn't know it? Cool!

Thankfully, other than that the physicals went calmly. But he said he'd send somebody in to test the hearing on both boys, and the vision for Jacob. But first, the flu shots! He offered the "flu mist," because it's easier and the boys haven't needed the nebulizer for a couple years. Crisis averted! Then the nurse came in and explained, .... "we don't have any more flu mist .... they'll have to have the shots . . ." Crap. Meltdown mode .... Brandon didn't end up getting the kindergarten shots, because they've updated what is needed so he needed two catchup shots. (That were added ....). The nurse came in and said, "oldest first!" Naturally, the oldest is the least likely to be a problem.

We put Brandon first instead, who was great (because he'd get ice cream after), then the first needle went in and he went hysterical. Jacob wasn't better. Megan cried for about fifteen seconds, then she was fine. (Girls are stronger!!!).

While the boys howled, the nurse came in to test their hearing, they had to raise their hand when they heard the noise .... yeah right. I was able to get Brandon settled down enough to listen, and he did fine. Then Jacob was still sniffing, and missed a few.

The eye test? She tried to use the shapes, but I told her he could handle the letters. Even upset, he's more likely to get letters right than "dinosaur, triangle ..." But he said them so quiet that I had to repeat what he said. I think she thought I was cheating ... but she didn't say anything.

Then the boys started crying because there were no more Tinkerbell stickers ... and by the time we walked out, (Jacob limping because his leg hurt SO bad ..) I'm sure they were glad to see us go. Funny, I was glad to be out too.

The pillow Pet: Version 2

A few short weeks after Jacob earned his, (and their mother has been AWOL from blogging) ... Brandon earned his pillow pet!!!!! We gave him the last two dollars in change for his birthday to earn "his half" of the money.

He was so proud! This time we were prepared, and ben called ahead to find a store that actually CARRIED the pillow pet he wanted. The bumblebee. ironically, this one had recently gotten a shipment and had the ladybugs that we had spent so long finding for Jacob.

he was so happy when he saw it! He grabbed it, and his piggy bank slipped out of his hand. Oops. Well, ... that was one way to get the money out of it.
we picked up the money, summoned a worker and apologized profusely for our mess! Then picked up the big pieces and guarded the mess until somebody was able to sweep it up. (Ceramic hurts ... Jacob has an old scar on his leg proving that).
One more Pillow pet in the family. His name is "peekaboo" ... and I have never seen Brandon so happy! He earned it himself. although we did take the smaller coins and combine them to replace with all quarters. Just to be nicer to the check out lady who doesn't deserve to have to count lots of small coins.

Coming soon; episode 3! Megan is getting really close to her 7.50 (we decided she didn't need half, ... we gave her a little break on account of her being younger.)

Peekaboo joined "Michael the ladybug" and the boys are content.

On a side note; the ladybug now has a hat ... Jacob had an old hat he asked Ben to cut holes in the head so it would fit the ladybug.