Blue and Gold....

Tonight was the Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts. It was a really fun time, and Kyle received his showman pin.


Before all the fun, however, I had to run to Target. I needed a few ingredients and paper products for the Bridal Shower I'm throwing for my sister this week. I went a little overboard....
From left to right...A new dress for Talia, a yoga top, T-shirt, and yoga pants for me, and spring/summer jammies for Talia.

I was at Target, BY MYSELF...of course I had to browse around. They finally had this little purple dress in Talia's size again...I had to buy it. I really needed some new exercise clothes...my pants are all falling off me. I don't like the way the pants look on, though...they have a weird ruffle around the waistband, so I'll be taking them back. The jammies were a good price. I also got the boys pajama pants, but they were wearing them by the time I got around to taking the above picture.

I did get everything I needed for the shower as well...I have a To Do list that seems a mile long to get everything ready...but I'm really, really excited.

Ski Day!

Yesterday was the Ski Utah Ski Day for our 4th graders. I went up to Snowbasin with Kyle and his class. In my youth, I was a pretty good skier. We started going up nearly every Saturday in the winter when I was in 6th grade. My Mom and her siblings grew up running Snowbasin, because my Grandparents owned it. My parent's first date started out as skiing. I grew up in a Skiing family. However, I had not skied in 10 years, since Kyle was about 8 weeks old. There's something about getting married and having kids that changes priorities (and I wouldn't change that!). I've missed it, though, and I couldn't pass up this opportunity to get back on the mountain.

It was a really fun day. After dropping Talia off (THANK YOU, BRENDA!!!!) I headed up the canyon. There is a new road in place...it hardly took me any time at all to get there. I waited for the bus of kids to arrive...I had to get my ticket from Kyle's teacher. Once I got my ticket, I headed up Needles Express...something that wasn't there the last time. I was a little nervous...Would I remember how to ski? Some things I learned....
1. You will remember how...it came back very quickly.
2. If I hadn't been working out the last 2 months, I would have been unable to move today, instead of just mildly sore.
3. All those High School years of being miserable because of cold feet was fixed with toe warmers and adjustments to my boots...apparently, the fit of the boots I had in high school was too tight, and didn't allow circulation to my feet. Thus, cold, frozen, painful feet. Thanks to my wonderful husband who found toe warmers I could stick to my socks...they worked GREAT!

I did fall twice..on my 2nd run down the mountain and within 1 minute of each other. The run was icier than the first one I took. I've never handled ice really well...and since it was only my 2nd run, I was still remembering how to ski. Otherwise, it was great and perfect.
Kyle had his ski lesson in the morning, and he and I met up for lunch. After eating, I checked him out with his teacher, and we did a couple of times down Little Cat. He wanted to go up a real lift (I had told him maybe I'd take him down Bear Hollow, an easy trail). I didn't really think he was ready. I let him ski Little Cat with a friend, and I went a couple more times up the mountain. I did finally give in and take him up Becker...we went down all the easy trails, and though it was slow going and he fell a lot, we made it down.

All in all, it was a really fun day...I definitely have to make it a priority to get back up there once a year.

Special thanks to my Mom, for letting me borrow her ski outfit, to Pitcher's Sports, for renting me great equipment at a very good price and to Brenda, for watching Talia.

No more baby... :(

Well, just a quick update...I slept pretty well last night, only waking at 5 am to throw up (percocet...at least I wasn't up sick all night). This morning, I'm a little nauseous, and nothing tastes good to me...so my multigrain Cheerios that are sitting here right now...probably going to go to waste. I have to try to find SOMETHING to eat that is healthy and tastes good to me....but so far this morning, the headache is gone. I can't even feel any background pressure like when I woke the last couple of mornings, so I'm hopeful. Tomorrow is the 4th grade Ski day, and as I'm going up and skiing for the first time in 10 years, I REALLY don't want to be fighting a headache. I'm nervous enough as it is, because Snowbasin has changed ALOT since the last time I went up....but I'm so excited too...I think if it goes well I'm going to make a goal to go up skiing once a year while Talia's still little.

Speaking of Talia, that's the real reason I'm posting today. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching her progress so fast. She is quickly losing all the "babyness" about her, and turning into a full fledged toddler. She talks, a lot, and we understand most of what she says. She can get her point across quite well. She has learned to undress herself if she is in footie jammies, and she can take off her own pants. She can put on her own shoes, and does, quite frequently. She also wears my shoes around the house if she can get her hands(and feet! :)) on them. She does take her own diaper off, but luckily so far, she only does that when it's time to go shower. She wants to play with her hair, consequently, although she still loves me to do her hair, she ends up pulling it out by the end of the day. If I put a bow or accent of any kind in her hair, it comes out sooner...she wants to play with the hair stuff. She gets mad if I won't put it back in her hair(which I don't, I'm trying to teach her not to pull her hair out). She wants to put her "pretties" (bracelets) on and off herself, and even though I made a bunch of new ones that I thought were big enough to do that with, but I made the mistake of putting them all on her (I was trying to distract her from something else) and letting her run off to her room...she had 6 of them broken before I realized things were much too quiet. 3 times this week, she's quietly climbed up to the kitchen counter, grabbed the bowl that's filled with all the Valentine candy, taken it to her room, closed the door, and had her very own snack. I found a slice of chocolate orange in her bed yesterday when I went to put her down for a nap...She'd managed to get hold of that as well, and was stashing it for later chocolate enjoyment. She's also trying to give up her nap. She still needs a nap, but she needs less of one and wants to take it later. With the way I work, I can't have her giving up her nap, so we'll go to "Quiet Time" if we need to...Where she spends 2 hours in her room. She doesn't have to sleep, but she has to stay in her room. I really don't mind if she plays, as long as I still get my nap before work.
She also enjoys playing with all her dolls...from the little ones that came with her dollhouse to the bigger baby dolls. Her Belle doll she got from my grandparents for Christmas seems to be the favorite...we don't do anything without Belle. Belle is often found in Talia's high chair being fed from the princess dishes. One of her favorite things to do is to hide behind the arm of the couch, then pop out and say "I see you!" giggling....I really need to get a video of that....
It's amazing to see her progress, and quite honestly (and I know I'm bragging, but don't all moms? ;)) to see how smart she is, but it just reminds me of how fleeting time is, that she is my last baby and those baby days are going away forever. I will be able to "borrow" those feelings, when my sister has babies, when my friends have babies...but they will never be mine again. I know I don't want more children...I know my limits and I have as many as I can be a good mom to...but it's sad to see this phase of my life go away completely. The sting of it is eased by the joy she brings to our family. Even when she's a stinker, she's such a ray of light....

The Verdict...

Spent 2 hours at the instacare this morning. It could have been worse. The doctor gave me a pretty thorough exam...then gave me a migraine pill. After about 10 minutes, they came back to check on me...the pill hadn't done much. So, I have a headache of unknown origin, but no "red flag" symptoms. So, since nothing else is working, I get to take Percocet to try to "knock it out", so to speak. I was really hoping the migraine med would work...I'm now going to be having head rushes and be a little loopy for the rest of the day.

The good news is that 20 minutes after the percocet, my head doesn't hurt anymore.

A history of Headaches (Mine)

So, I have had a headache for the past 3 days now. It's dull and achy in the morning, and gets progressively worse as the day goes on. Excedrine and Motrin just dull the ache a bit. An Ice pack helped a bit last night. So, as soon as instacare opens this morning, I'm going in. I really think it's probably a migraine. I haven't had a full blown migraine since I was in my early 20's. I have a long history of headaches, however....

10th grade was a little crazy. My best friend tried to commit suicide, and I was everyone's "sounding board" for all their troubles. I was stressed. After having a headache every day for over a month, I finally mentioned it to my mom, who took me to the doctor, then the neurologist. The diagnosis was tension headaches, and I took a daily med for the rest of high school. It took care of that problem, but it did give me a high pain tolerance for headache pain.

Fast forward a couple of years. I was married, most of the way through the first year of the Respiratory Program. I had headaches, but I was in school full time, working, and trying to balance all those things with being married. Until the day I was driving home, and felt a "tearing" sensation across my brain...not painful, but it made me dizzy...so dizzy I couldn't see, not even to pull over to the side of the road(I was in the inside lane). I pulled into the emergency lane, and sat there for about 5 minutes until my vision cleared. After this episode, I had a few more, even blacking out during one of them (thank goodness I was at home at the time). I went into the ENT, who diagnosed migraines after doing other tests (including an extremely expensive MRI). I've had a few over the years, but never to the degree of those I had over that 3 month period.

I've had tension headaches (refer back to posts from last year), but this feels different...back to migraines, I guess.

My head is killing me, I think I'll go to the instacare now. It's open in a few minutes.

Blessings...

So, I've had a couple of frustrating days. Well, not frustrating, exactly...I worked on Monday night. We were busy (Yay...we've been so slow and losing hours, and my paid time off is dwindling...so we're all hoping things will pick up a bit). Unfortunately, Tuesday I didn't have all day daycare for Talia. So, I was up at 7:15, after 3 hours of sleep. I did get about an hour nap later before I went to work. So, on 4 hours of sleep, back to work. It was ok, thanks to my friend Caffeine, but yesterday I was exhausted. I did manage to doze on the couch while Talia watched Nemo. Then, I had a hair appointment. As usual, she did a great job on my hair, except for 1 thing...She looked at her notes for 2 times ago, not last time, so my color is not the vivid red that I was expecting. I was disappointed, but she did give me a discount. It still looks great, but I've gotten to REALLY like the vivid red over the last month. Came home, and the dinner I picked up for Cole and I was not up to my expectations. Cole and I watched one of our shows, and I was in a better mood. As he was getting ready for bed, I was laying in bed, thinking all those warm and cozy bedtime thoughts, watching the news. All of a sudden, a commercial had me nearly in tears (and I say nearly, because I sucked them back...I didn't want Cole to laugh at me). The commercial starts out with a little girl, about 3 years old, rocking her well-loved baby doll. She says something (I didn't quite catch it, I wasn't paying close attention yet) about maybe tomorrow. The scene shifts to show her mother, in a waitress uniform, looking through the empty fridge and cupboards. Then, the mother turns to the child...with a look of both intense love and intense despair, and says "You're such a good girl." (pause for effect). "Come on, time for bed". Then, an image of the child, sleeping with her baby doll, sucking her thumb. The words on the screen said something like "She sleeps on an empty stomach" It was an ad for the Utah Food Bank.

For a few minutes, I felt that mother's despair as my own. How awful would it be to be doing everything you can, and not be able to feed your child? How do you look at your precious angel, who you love more than anything, and tell them that you don't have anything for them to eat? Cole has some experience with this, as his father's job was very unpredictable as a child. As he always says, he eats anything, because when he was a child, he learned that when food was available, you ate it. Food is a blessing.

Hopefully, my children will never know what it is like to be hungry. I know that we are blessed, but last night, those blessings came into such sharper focus. I am so blessed to be able to not just feed and clothe my family, but to be able to have some of the "wants" that we have. I take a lot of these things for granted, but not today.


On a lighter note, Talia joined my workout today...I had to stop and take pics of her.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's been a wonderful Valentine's here at our house, I hope it's been the same for everyone else. Our morning started out early...when I got home from work. I set up the table with the kid's little gifts, and a special breakfast. I also left Cole his gift. Then I went to bed...

I made out pretty good this year....

From Feb 2008

Notice, Min, that the cupcakes are already almost gone...I wanted to eat them all myself, but shared with Kyle and Talia...The kids gave me a card and the M&M's, and Cole gave me a card and the Pajama-gram....

From Feb 2008

It comes all prettily packaged...and inside...

From Feb 2008

My new, silk/satin pajamas...

From Feb 2008

They are so soft and comfy.

This afternoon, Cole and I went out shopping. Our tax returns were deposited this week, and we wanted a little present for the family. Here's Cole starting to set it up...

From Feb 2008

From Feb 2008

It's bigger than our TV stand. Of course, the only reason we still have that stand is because I can't find a corner stand that I like. I'm looking for a black one, with the 3 shelves and cabinets for DVD's. So if you know where we can find one, leave me a comment. We really like it...when we started up the Playstation, we were amazed at the difference in clarity. We looked at a lot of places, but ended up finding the best deal at Costco. As usual. Sometimes we wonder why we look anywhere else, but I guess you have to shop around to make sure you're getting the best deal.

Happy Valentine's to you all!

A bit of drama

This morning began with a bit of drama. I went to wake the boys...Kyle first. I went into Kyle's room, and after the initial groaning, he told me one of his fish was dead. I was asking him which one, and he broke down into tears (my poor tenderhearted kid) and told me, "I woke up at 2, and the bigger fish was beating up on the littler one, and I think he killed him!" all the while bravely battling back tears. I really had to try not to laugh, because the fish that died was not a "fun, pretty fish" but a algae eating ugly necessary fish. I told him it was ok, the fish was old (probably the oldest we have). He seemed ok with that, but I think he was most upset that this fish he's had forever decided to kill the other one. Cole tells me this is what happens when these fish get to be the size they are now, so we'll have to flush him and get new ones so he doesn't kill anyone else. Drama.

Talia has 2 new pairs of shoes, since her feet are growing so fast right now. So, she's decided that SHE gets to pick which ones she's wearing. Cole got ready to take the kids out shopping when he got home (He said I couldn't come...hmm I WONDER what they were doing ;)) and he grabbed a random pair of shoes...she ran off and brought back the other new pair...the ones she wanted to wear. Drama.

Alec finally received his Video game privileges back after 12 days. It's a couple of days early, but he's been really good about doing what he's supposed to be (if you know the whole story, you'll understand this part, if you don't, ask me in person, but I don't want to post it online), so I gave him a little reward. He still doesn't have his Gameboy back until Monday, though.

My energy is a little better this afternoon, after my nap. Hopefully it will continue tomorrow.

My little drama queen is calling for me....

Tagged

It's been pretty slow at our house since the weekend...so thank you Michele for tagging me....

The award is "Honest Scrap"
The rules of the award are :
1. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design
2.Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there is no prize but it is fun!
3.List 10 honest things about yourself.

Ten Honest things about me....
10. My hair is completely white. I am only 32 years old.
9. I love to watch old sitcoms from my youth...Full House, Growing Pains, etc...
8. I am GRUMPY after I've worked if I don't get to sleep. Today has not been a good day in my house.
7. I got married at 19 years old, and never for 1 minute have I regretted getting married young.
6. I like to listen to "teeny bopper" music from my youth. Sometimes.
5. I can't go even 1 day without chocolate.
4. Lately I can't get enough of grilled cheese sandwiches.
3. I've seen "Finding Nemo" 900 Billion times. +1
2. My middle child was probably my least spoiled. My first, I didn't have any other kids, so I just bought him whatever I wanted to. My baby, she's the only one home with me most of the time, and my only girl, so I just buy her whatever I want to. My poor middle child missed out on most of that kind of stuff. But I love him to death.
1. I hate toothpaste. It has always made me gag, although I've learned to control it. However, I have to have a clean mouth, so I've learned to tolerate toothpaste.

I tag,
Mindy, Christie, Julie, Rachael, Lisa, Staci, and Brenda, who write blogs that I compulsively stalk...

I have missed several other tags, I may try to catch up on them in the next few days. I'm feeling very tired, like I'm running on empty. So, we'll see how things go.

Afterthoughts

So, Alec enjoyed Talia's bear almost as much as she did...he was innocently monopolizing it, and boy, did she let him know that he was ticking her off. I had to remind him that it was her special toy...

Oh, and by the way, Talia has developed a new skill...I had gone into my bedroom and shut the door to have some privacy in my bathroom. I heard her outside the door. Next thing I know, there she is, in our room. Yes, she has mastered doorknobs. She continued to demonstrate her newfound ability on the door to our laundry closet by opening and shutting it repeatedly. We have no doorknob covers in the house.

Guess what we'll be purchasing tomorrow.

Lots to catch up on....

I have a lot to catch up on, so scroll on down...I did several untitled posts.
Today, Cole and I had a rare Friday off together...where I wasn't tired from working the night before. I had wanted to get down to the Fashion Place Mall in SLC for awhile...they have a Nordstroms, and a Bare Escentuals store that I've wanted to check out since they opened. So, we went to the mall this morning. We were passing Build-A-Bear, and couldn't resist...Talia had such an excited look on her face just from walking by, so we went in...

We let her pick whatever she wanted. She picked up several things, but kept coming back to this one...which just happens to be the limited edition spring bear, but whatever. It's really cute.

She was fascinated by the stuffing process...and I'm convinced that they put that rack of "bear accessories" right there, in reaching distance...she just wouldn't let go of the Hannah Montana guitar that plays verses of 3 songs....oh well.

She wasn't into picking out the clothes, even though I showed her several things, she really didn't care about anything but the bear and the guitar. So, I picked MY favorite outfit in the whole store...

Our "Rock Star Talibear"...It was really fun, it was worth it. I still remember when we did this with our boys at Disneyland...they still love their animals. Kyle still sleeps with his almost every night (Shhh that's a secret).

She did't let it go, even when she fell asleep on the way home. Right this moment, it's on our couch, watching TV with the family.

I also had a good day. At Nordstrom, I wanted to see if their swimsuits were out...they had a few out, and I fell hard for a Lucky Brand suit...it's purple, with blue and purple tie dye on the edge...a Tankini...I just had to buy it. I also scored some new stuff at the Bare Escentuals store...nothing I couldn't have gotten at the local Sephora, but I wanted the experience.

We stopped at Bird World in Bountiful on the way home, and Cole got a couple of algae eating fish for the aquarium.

A most productive day, and it was really fun to spend some quality time with my honey.

Yesterday it got quiet in Talia's room...

I found her like this...one of her Groovy Girls dolls on a diaper, and she was trying (and had almost succeeded) to get the Desitin open. It makes me wonder...my boys, although they both were caught in the Desitin at different times (I was sooo upset when Kyle spread it all over our brand new forest green microfiber ottoman...but it did come out.) never, ever tried to diaper any of their plush toys...even though they were subjected to the same relative number of diaper changes as Talia. Is that nurturing instinct? Is it just because she has baby dolls as well as plush toys? I know that I let both the boys play with my old cabbage patch dolls...but it was just 1, not the many baby dolls like our little girl plays with. Have we, as parents, favored sterotypical roles? Talia loves to play with cars, gi joes, and anything else of the boys she can get her hands on, and we encourage it. We split parenting 50/50...Cole has changed as many diapers, and puts the kids to bed just as often as I do. So...is it nature or nurture? Or a combination? Or is she just really smart to figure it out at her age (relative to her brothers, that is). Hmmm

Now, personally, I think it's got elements of all of the above. It's really interesting to me, though.

Talia was an absolute angel while I grocery shopped Thursday morning. She wanted to walk, and although it did take me longer to let her, she mostly stayed right with me. I decided to treat her to lunch, and as these pictures show, she enjoyed it a whole bunch!

I love the Superbowl!!!

Ok, I love football in general, and today, I'm quite sad that the season is over. Yesterday, however, the Superbowl did not disappoint. We met, as is the tradition for the past few years, at my brother Chris's and SIL Brenda's house. It was actually Brenda's Birthday yesterday, so she was very gracious to host a party that was not totally in honor of her special "30th" Birthday. Happy Birthday, Brenda, we love you!!!
As usual, we had a ton of food, and enjoyed watching the game. Especially with the addition of Brenda's Brother David and SIL Emily. Emily is one of the few women I know that love football as much as I do, so, as we were both yelling at the screen, the refs, and anything else that we wanted, it was tons of fun.


We were all a little disappointed in the outcome...and the refs in the final seconds, but both teams played well, and it was a great game.

Talia also turned 22 months yesterday...my baby will officially enter the "terrible two's" in 2 months. I love this age, but it's bittersweet to see my baby become even more of a toddler. Finally this weekend, we achieved a great, girly feat...

She wanted her toenails painted (I painted mine a couple of days ago), and she held still, didn't cry, and didn't freak out (the last time I tried, I got 1 nail done before she was hysterical...but that might have been due to the color, since it was blood red that time). She loves them, and keeps pointing out her "pretty toes".

Well, I had thought, since I have today off, I would do some crafting. Then I remembered that all our tax info was finally here (Thank you, IHC, for sending my W2's on the very last day of the month, just like every year..can you catch the sarcasm there?) I also already have my turbo tax software. It'd be really nice to get our refund all taken care of early. So, I'm sacrificing my play time for grownup responsibilities today...and hoping for a good refund!