PREPAREDNESS & POOPY PANTS

I would like to give myself the Step Mother of Spring Break award after this week! Thank you VERY much!

The kids had a SUPER fun weekend in Vegas before coming up to see Jimmy and I for Spring Break this last week. Their mom brought them up (which was a nice change to the usual flight plan) on Monday night. Tuesday morning we woke up and Jimmy went to work. Carter kept telling me that he wanted to throw up. I guess the co-parent inside of me figured he was just doing the pretend throw up thing. Totally changed my mind about that when he went in the bathroom and puked (in the toilet thank goodness). Taylor told me that he had thrown up the night before in Vegas, which was unexpected news, so he took it easy the rest of the morning. I needed to go out to Hurricane to pick up some 72-hour kit items that we are doing for our ward. Carter was up and playing and seemed to be doing good.

On the way home from Hurricane Carter loudly states from the back seat, "I pooped my pants."

I looked at him from the rear view mirror, "Seriously?SERIOUSLY!?"

He's totally six and telling little fibs all the time so I wanted to make sure he wasn't kidding... he wasn't...

We were almost home so there wasn't much to be done at that point. He waddled inside and WE took care of THAT!

He didn't have any clean clothes because they came straight from a hotel to our house the night before, so we free-lansed it to WalMart to get some new chonies. What an ordeal.

Wednesday went the same with more puking and more pooping in the pants.

Wednesday I had him take a nap and he slept for 5 hours and then went back to bed and slept all night too! Thursday afternoon went that way too.

Taylor and I had some down time since we were stuck indoors from all the rain and with our sick little Monkey SO we put together our 72-hour kits! I was dreading it but I got pretty motivated when I saw how into it Taylor got! It actually turned out to be so much fun! Taylor packed up all the hygiene kit items and labeled plastic bags for each person in our family. She raided the pantry for food to put in there and then packed, unpacked, and packed again everyone's backpacks for the best fit. She loved it and I would not have done it without her!

She is sweet, she kept sighing in a worried way that she doesn't have a 72-hour kit in Vegas. She said that if there is an emergency in Vegas she will just come to our house. I realize that I have a strength in nerdy preparedness awesomeness that is rare among women my age. I'm cool with it.

Carter and Taylor got to take everything out of the backpacks again and show their dad what was in there. They love them and all their stuff they have now.

They weighed in around 15 pounds each. Taylor's was a little heavier since she was helping me I think she snuck extra stuff in hers! :) LOVE IT!

So there they are if we need them! Thanks SIS!

Friday night we went to our ward Cub Scout spaghetti dinner. It was awesome, Heather did a great job! The Hansen kids came with us. Mya got Jen's first administered "Time Out". She was going around trying to hold all the toddlers hands while they were walking. When they would jerk their hands away from her she would go push them over. HA HA HA! Bad Mya

By Friday Carter was feeling a little better. Still had the poops but wasn't throwing up. Saturday Jimmy got him this $10 plane that we totally use to play with when I was little. They went to the park and threw it off the hill and watched it soar.  

 It was a crash course for me with full time sick kids and I guess I passed since all of us were alive and no one was puking or pooping by the end of the week! Gold star to me!

FUN WEEKEND

We watched "Easy A" with the Maddux's last weekend and we woke up to this on our door HA HA HA it was so funny!

We went to Carter's first basketball game this weekend and he did so good. He scored 3 out of the 4 baskets that his team made... it was not too exciting but it was fun to watch him learn... he's #9

During half-time Carter got hit with the ball under the basketball and got upset and went over to pout by the wall. Jimmy went over to buck him up and got his shoes on the right feet :)

GO BLACK NINJAS!

Taylor was there mostly interested in her little crush Ernie. It's got to be destined they are both little booknerds :)

The next day we went to New York NY and took Taylor on the rollercoaster for her first time! She went with Jimmy and her uncle Johnny the first time and LOVED IT! They had bounce back passes for being locals and so me and aunt Amber got to go with her again! It was so much fun and I got Taylor to put her hands up in the hair the whole time.

Meanwhile the boys went crazy at the arcade and little Logan hit the jackpot and got about 2,000 tickets and so ALL the kids got prizes!

TAYLOR'S DANCE RECITAL

Jimmy has been in Vegas for weeks at a time for his training with Chase so I went down on Friday and we got to go see Taylor's dance recital. This is her teacher Miss Beth at her studio at Hollywood Kids Academy. The studio was very dark with just lights on and off the stage so the pictures of the dancing didn't turn out. She has so much fun dancing. Both me and her mom were giving her a hard time cause she dances so much and with all the confidence in the world in the bathroom, kitchen, living room and then gets all shy on stage.

Taylor's grandpa Leach took this picture of us. He was very nice and told me that they really appreciate all that I do with and for the kids while they are in St George. It meant a lot knowing that the kids have a positive report to them about their time with us and I'm glad that he let me know that.

Carter was there too! These two are a few of my favorite things! Good job Sis!

Word of the Day ... Day 2

ANY FOUR LETTER WORD WILL DUE

This week has not been the easiest and these few scenarios didn't add to the ease. Thursday night is ward basketball for the ladies. Jamaica's ward was playing my ward so I was all excited to play her team. I made a break away and my teammate Megan hurled the ball down the court to me. I go up to grab the ball and Jamaica landed on, or swatted, or clobbered me. Whatever it was, it was terrible defense and resulted in my now purple/blue/swollen/ibuprofen starved ring finger. She layed me out on the floor and after gripping my finger as hard as I could I mustered out of my clenched teeth some FOUR LETTER WORDS.

Scenario two has two parts. Lucky me a double dipper. I got to share this one with James though so it evened out to equal bits of joy. We started some laundry and went to bed. We have a front loading washer that I love. We keep the detergent and everything on the top of it cause it's so convenient. All of a sudden we hear this THUD come from the laundry room. The washer had shaken the bleach off and it fell on the floor... and the lid came off and the bleach was all over the floor...FOUR LETTER WORD...

I run into the bathroom looking for white towels and Jimmy comes to grab them and of course grabs one I put on the sink, totally not his fault, but one of our cream decorative towels and lays it right on the middle of the bleachy floor...FOUR LETTER WORDS...

AHH ok well whatever, so we clean up the laundry room and crack a window cause the whole house smells like an over chlorinated swimming pool now...FOUR LETTER WORD...

In the morning the house still smells but when we go downstairs WHEW it smells WAY worse than it did upstairs even in the laundry room. We look in the kitchen and...oh darn...there is bleach ALL over the floor splashed up on the counters and the refridgerator and spattered all over my green, now yellow speckled, kitchen rug. The bleach had come down from upstairs through the canned lighting and dripped all over the kitchen, yet again with your favorite...

FOUR LETTER WORD 

I think most people when they are young get pressured by parents or other superiors to get married as an alternative to growing up. I can't believe how much easier it is to work on that

Everyone is pinching pennies around the Holidays and I just wanted to let everyone have this opportunity to do so with your Auto or Home insurance.

These states are the only ones that will work with this information! It's so easy and it's really worth the 10 min call to see if you can save yourself quite a bit on  your insurance. Leave a comment back on here if you save so that we can see who saved the most!!

AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, HI, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NV, OK, OR, RI, VT, WA, WI, WY

My Dad has been wanting a playoff game forever and not only did his referee crew get a playoff game but here they are reffing the STATE CHAMPIONSHIP game!

WHO ON EARTH would want to do that! Snowing constantly, they had to keep shoveling the field during the game, and I'm sure it was WAY COLD!

He called me though yesterday and was super excited! They played in the UW Cowboy stadium and my dad is the head Referee (that's him in the white hat) so he got to announce the calls over the intercom in the stadium and everything!

I wish I could have been there it sounded like they had a BLAST!

I'M YOURS
My Dad sent this to me and my sisters this morning! I have the best Dad in all the world and I know he would do anything and want everything for me! I'm so grateful that he's my dad and I'm his daughter and that will NEVER change!
Love you Dad!

WEDNESDAY IS LAKE DAY! Lisa is one of Jamaica's neighbors and is amazing! Their kids are the same age and all in school so she took me and Jamaica and Mya out on her boat this morning for a couple hours! Thanks to Trish especially for letting us out of the office all morning! It was so much fuN! Mya had a lot of fun with Jamaica in the water but she loosened up with me a little later!

HIT IT LISA
We all took turns knee boarding!

YEP THAT'S MY SISTER! GO JAMAICA!

YO JEN

I hope I can move tomorrow morning!

I would like everyone to know that I am awesome at knee boarding, Jamaica just sucks taking action photos!

MYA!

Mya had so much fun in the water after getting used to it. She kept reaching down inside my life jacket and going "tickee tickee tickee!" tickling me it was so funny!
She is such a blast I love her to pieces!

She made it as long as she could, note the cheeto in hand and she's totally asleep!

LISA! That was SO much fun let's go again SOON!