HomeScOoLIng mONdaYs

This is what homeschooling Cagey on Mondays looks like^^^^^^ Broken pencils and crazy hair Cagey, who would rather watch cartoons and play video games than do anything school related. He actually is doing pretty well. We just have those days when he starts writing backwards and forgetting the sounds of his letters. He is a champ at singularizing words- for example- clothes in singular form is cloe and ear wax is ear wack.

The first time I met Jeebs

He faked confidence and had amazing calf muscles (I hate chicken legs). He asked me why I had an accent and my brother didn't. I told him it was probably because my brother was a sell out that just wanted to speak Utahan (or something like that). I can speak Utahan if I want- I don't want. I had on pleather pants, a shiny button down shirt and corn rows and curls in my hair. Jeebs wore his ever present cargo shorts and bowling shirts. We worked out a dinner at my brother's apartment and the rest his sort of history.

There was a six week hiatus when I decided he wasn't for me, but somehow he finagled his way back into my life- and I do mean finagled. Both of my brothers hit it off with Jeebs very quickly and my sister thought he was a hottie. My dad asked to see his temple recommend and he had it out of his wallet in a flash. My mom rode up the side of a mountain with him and bended his ear for an hour. I remember hiking around some part of said mountain and just knowing this was the guy I would marry- it was weird. He came home to Texas with me and I quickly found out he wasn't down with driving long distances and he didn't mind sleeping in the car on the side of the road in New Mexico. News flash: you do not sleep on the side of the road in New Mexico.

He came to church with me to my home ward, we sat together, took the sacrament, and I listened to him sing the hymns and he knew them. I knew then and there that this was definitely what and who I wanted. Nine years later we still sit in church together, singing the hymns- with 3 kids in between us and it's awesome. **Mr. Sunshine, yaaaay

Is this ivy dead?

I've killed a lot of plants. This ivy was doing great while it was sitting outside on my patio table, but then it snowed and I thought I'd bring it in. Then it started looking like this. I'm pretty sure it's not coming back. The gerbera daisies I got from Harris Teeter. I love the yellow color with my orange kitchen. I hope some day I can grow daisies like this- maybe when I have money for a gardener dang it!

ps my workout shoes smell like cat pee, why do they smell like that? yuck.

oh and is it 5 pats of butter or 6 pats of butter? What the heck are you buttering? I don't know.

501

Did you wear those? Levi 501's? Pretty sure I did and got them at Mervyn's. Remember Mervyn's? Ezra modeled the cheese straws I made from puff pastry to go with dinner- they were good, but I only ate 1 and then I felt a little sick. I also made lemon mousse with blackberries for dessert. They turned out so picture perfect I had to take a picture. They were tasty too, but I made them with stevia so Jeebs could eat some (he's doing Atkins).
And btw 14 weeks til the lOooooooooooove child- love child baby. Okay, I have a very lively eggplant in my belly and I just can't wait for May.
(notice Jeebs' perv smile in the background- or maybe his "I can fake my way out of anhedonia"smile)

Today (and most days)

I am a stereotype and that's okay. Even though I'd sometimes like to pull my hair out and scream to the heavens above I wouldn't change my life. I love being at home with my family. (I just pray for a little less pain and a little more patience)

** this is my 500th post!! woohoo!! yay me! and it's spelled YAY!!!! (that was for my big brother)
I think it's about time to make this thing into my journal for all my posterity to laugh at me some day.

Anhedonia

(classic Jeebs- holding his brand new baby boy- looking like eh)
anhedonia (< Greek ἀν- an-, "without" + ἡδονή hēdonē, "pleasure") is an inability to experience pleasurable emotions from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, social interaction.
Have you watched the new show 'Mr. Sunshine'? It's kind of scary how similar this guy is to Jeebs. I always thought Jeebs looked like Matthew Perry (the star of the show) and the guy's problem is his lack of ability to get excited or care about things: Anhedonia. We now have a name for Jeebs' lack of excitability. I also think my little brother, Page, may be afflicted as well. Maybe I should throw a fun run for them to raise awareness.

For research purposes

I have had preeclampsia 2 out of the 3 times I've had a baby. I have been cheated out of the awesome birth experience I know I can have both times. My home birth was the most awesome, gratifying, fulfilling experience of my life. I realize that the ultimate goal is a healthy mom and baby, but until you experience birth this way you have no idea what it can truly be like.

Here I am 25 weeks pregnant and wanting desperately to have a successful home birth. I have talked to the midwife here and she has mentioned that an ABO incompatibility could be to blame for my preeclampsia. After she mentioned this to me I remembered my midwife in Utah, Suzanne, also saying something about this as well. So, my question is anybody out there have differing blood types from your husband and ever had problems with preeclampsia? I think the O-B types are the most common to cause problems.

So I'm just wondering what you and your husband's blood types are and if you've had any issues. This can also cause your baby to be severely jaundiced. My blood type is O+ and Jeebs' is B+. How I understand it is- since you have different blood types the baby's blood in the placenta can cause a bad reaction (preeclampsia) in the mother because of the foreign blood in your body- and I suppose the opposite is true- baby can also have the severe reaction (severe jaundice) because of mom's blood type. Anyway- just thought I'd do my own little research if anybody's willing to humor me :) thanks.

wow Feb 17th already

Warmer weather brings jumping kids and me ready to plant something. I just hope I don't kill it. My house plants are not doing well and my plants were diseased last year. We'll see how this year goes.

I hope Cagey's caterpillars will be getting in their cocoons soon because their little jar is so full of poo it is disgusting. Cagey won't even touch it. But then again, Cagey won't touch his own dirty underwear with his bare hands.

Percy Pukie

Sometimes Percy does funny things that make me think he is a good dog. Like in the above pic he is sleeping in a little hole underneath my white shams. (It was cold in my house last night- forgot to turn back up the heat) He usually tries to get on top of my white shams which makes me want to kill him. By the way I don't want to hear anything about "poor dog hasn't got a bed?" NO, he does not, he had a bed and then he ate it and pooped the stuffing out in the yard.Most of the time he does annoying things like this ^ when I have to take him in and vacuum him off. Or pukes a big pile of chocolate vomit in the middle of the boys' room after consuming all of Taylor's valentine chocolates. argh.

Love Love, I hate all this love

That used to be my motto- I was a very loving child. Then I met Jeebs and had babies and I love all this love. Nothing is cuter than mini cupcakes with ribbon flags- I gave my kids a little cupcake with their breakfast, complete with some little handmade tulip bookmarks. I don't think the boys were too impressed with their bookmarks. I stayed up until 11:30 making some generic valentine's for Taylor's class. I thought they turned out pretty dang cute especially for how easy they were. No Valentine's day would be complete without heart shaped food. I made homemade pizzas in sort of heart shapes. Then Jeebs grilled them outside. The weather was wonderful today! Last year it snowed and this year it was 70 degrees- I loved both.
For FHE we sang "Love is Spoken Here" and recommitted everybody to speaking with more love. Then, Jeebs made the kids a scavenger hunt to track down their valentine presents. It was loads better than last weeks. No Valentine's day is complete without chocolate dipped strawberries- I shouldn't have eaten so many of these, but they were good and it WAS Valentine's day. OH and I can't forget my 'handmade' Valentine for Jeebs. This was all I could muster after being on my feet all day- going to the store and Target, making a huge dinner and staying up late...I really love Jeebs- I'm just tired- maybe next year sigh.
SEE- lds.org really does have everything you need! XoXOxxOOxXXXOO what movie?
Hear this song in it's original form here.

Valentine's Decorations part deux

I am so proud of myself for having a part deux for my Valentine's decorations. I have been anti-project because I don't want to have to clean the mess, but I threw caution to the wind and made this cute felt circle bunting/garland whatever the heck you call it. Now I want to go to good will and get some junk to paint and add to my mantel. I need cute things of varying heights, but I'm cheap and errything I got is about as tall as those little vases. Oh well- I actually sewed something, that counts for something- oh and I filled my bobbin on the first try!! I'm getting good at this.

Cold cereal with snow outside

This is what you do on a snow day: warm breakfast, complete with homemade hot chocolate (sweetened with stevia because sugar makes me sick :) and walk around with your pj's hooked on your foot. Well, that's what we did anyway. Where was Jeebs for breakfast? He was in the shower dreaming of his cold cereal he would eat 30 minutes after the rest of us were done. He prefers cold cereal- I hate cold cereal. How are we going to make it through the eternities? I asked Jeebs last night if he'd ever had any good Valentine's Days and he lovingly responded, "Every one I've had with you." ha! Me: "Can you remember any of our Valentine's Days together?" Jeebs "The shows back on." He really needed a twix at that moment to chew it over.

And today- the snow is gone and in the coming weeks we have 60 and 70's weather- so these are going to be making an appearance. My new shoes- 35$ regularly 70$- Hoorah! (I really need a tan)

Poo dots

(Cagey with his new caterpillars)

Cagey has been obsessed with changing his underwear lately. For a while I would let him change because I thought he had actually pooed his pants. One day I happened to check out the damage and it was what we would all lovingly call an innocent "racing stripe". Today as I was trying to get my power nap he told me, again, he needed to change his underwear. I asked him, "did you poo in your pants or did you just not wipe very good?" He said he just didn't wipe very good so I told him it's okay- you can change later. He insisted he needed to change because he had "dots of poo on his underwear". It's definitely better than him being okay with walking around in poo caked undies.

I told Cagey he and daddy were two peas in a pod tonight- he kindly told me, "no, you're a pee in a pot!"

Do you ever feel like what you do is pointless? I clean my house and nobody really cares if it's clean or not. Then if I shirk my duties as a wife and mother and decide we're eating out or having some frozen reheated nastiness I'm the mother of the year! Today my kids had frozen pizza for lunch and hot dogs for dinner- except Tates she had frozen chicken strips for both meals- it makes me feel awesome.

FHE failure part dos

I used to love FHE as a kid. Mostly because that meant momma had baked a treat and my sister had thought up some kind of cool game. It sometimes ended with all of us being mad enough to punch a baby- but my little brother was the only baby around and you didn't want to mess with him- he was an ox (and he'd probably retaliate by throwing a brick.) So- I decided today that I wanted to have better family home evenings. We would have a theme for the month- short lessons, fun games and hopefully some kind of little treat (sweets give me heartburn and make my bum swell so...yeah).

I thought this month needed to be, 'Love is Spoken Here'- my kids used to sing that song all over the house- over and over. I knew this was gonna be great. I had a short story to read about service and some hearts that I was going to make a little game out of. If they found a heart on their pillow when they woke up then it was their day to say or do something loving for someone. Thirty seconds before we started- boom, bang, crash! An angry daddy, a disobedient angry with attitude child and a anything but love being spoken in our house. I was in no mood to even give my lesson and I know when you don't feel like praying that's what you need to do, but the wind had been completely knocked out of my sails. We started, but after all that was done and said during our lesson and game explanation we didn't even feel like it could be closed with a song and a prayer. I think Satan called at one point and told us we were doing great! Awesome.

I managed to get over my irritation and realized that Jeebs and I were the ones that really needed the lesson-- if we don't speak lovingly to our children how are they ever going to learn it? So, I tried to end on a positive note and figured out some minute to win it games, since my kids are so into that show (and wipeout, but that'll have to wait until summer0 stay tuned). Eventually everybody was enjoying our evening at home. That's why Heavenly Father gave us the atonement. He knew we'd fail and fail again, but we have to keep trying and striving for excellence- and that's what I learned in FHE.

Annoying folks I don't know (updated)

I admit I'm pretty easily annoyed. I spent most of my young life as a mute because I didn't want to annoy people as much as they annoyed me- except for my family, I was born to annoy them. Plus, I'm pretty sure I get it from my dad. (hehehe) Well, now I'm 23 weeks pregnant and my pelvis is beginning to do it's same ol' song and dance fall apart. (this usually happens really early so I consider myself blessed that it's just happening now) But, being prego, in pain and tired makes me that much more grumpy. I just wanted to give a shout out to a couple of people that deserve it.

1. Dude in the electric wheelchair at Food Lion: I love how you roared your engine behind Tates and me acting impatient like you needed to get around. I politely stepped to the side and moved my child while you kindly slipped your bum in front of me at the checkout line. I normally wouldn't be too annoyed, but I needed to twizzle, weewee, tinkle- whatever you call it (what do you call it?). I have baby and fluid sitting on my bladder! After expressing my annoyance to Tates in the car ride home she yelled at me, "MAYBE BECAUSE HE'S IN A WHEELCHAIR!" At least I'm raising my daughter with more charity than I have.

2. Dude standing at the intersection down from my house repeatedly trying to bum a cigarette off of strangers- "Can I get a ZIGARAT!" This guy stands there right where you have to stop. The last time he was there Jeebs was driving and alone. This time I was driving and I had no Jeebs (he's also more charitable than me). I did not want to stop- I didn't want to roll down my window- so what did I do? I thought quick on my feet- picked up Jeebs' phone and pretended to talk on it and be too preoccupied to stop and roll down my window. After passing him I made a real phone call to Jeebs and laughed hysterically at my quick thinking. I am messed up.

3. Girl at walmart that didn't acknowledge me speaking to her...I accidentally dumped about 6 eggs on the floor in front of the egg case at walmart. I immediately went to the nearest person and said as nicely as I could, "I just made a nice egg disaster over there, sorry!" She didn't turn her head, she didn't say a word, she dropped what she was doing and walked off. I normally would have offered to help clean up, but if you're gonna be like that- I'm gonna let you clean up the egg mess and I will be laughing a little inside (not really, I was steaming).

4. I forgot to mention- Sydney from the Daybook- you skinny little scallywag. I'm so sorry you had to pinch and scrunch and fold and cinch your ginormous XXL chain mail dress to fit your size 0 body. And by sorry, I mean I can't be worried about your skinny butt! I don't know why the rest of the girls who have previously styled this dress haven't come at you with a bloody shillelagh. I guess that would be good fashion blog etiquette.

I remembered another one while I was tossing and turning trying to go back to sleep after my 700th trip to the bathroom- but then Jeebs said "thank you" in his sleep and messed up my concentration.

I remember! 5. Nicholas Sparks- I watched Dear John last night that we had DVR'd so I could fast forward all the hippity dippity I didn't want to see- seriously no more people we don't want to see it. Jeebs told me in the middle of the movie it was a Nicholas Sparks story- but I was already into it. I think that man writes purely to make people sad and cry. It's like he thinks "hmm, what can I write about to make people feel the saddest and blubber the most- I know let's take away true love and all your family members- that gets 'em every time". Blagh- do something else.

okay- I think that's all. I can't wait for May or June which ever brings my uterus back to it's normal size :)

patience

Ya know when your kids get old enough to where they don't want to ride in their strollers so you can get a good heart pumping brisk walk? Yeah- we're there. I wanted to take the boys on a walk yesterday, but Ezra insisted on wanting to ride his battery powered 4-wheeler. I finally just gave in and let him at it. Cagey took off on his bike- he made it down the road and back about 5 times before we ever made it across the road and onto the sidewalk. Ezra has already caught onto driving the little thing, but apparently he has the attention span of a gnat. If he sees a pile of poop, kids playing, a dog, an ant, or a car coming by- he has to stare at it and inevitably drives himself off the sidewalk in the process. I felt like Elaine on that episode of Seinfeld when she's stuck on the subway. It took us 40 minutes to go maybe a tenth of a mile, maybe. I swear there were tortoises and snails passing us shooting us the finger. I finally convinced him to walk a bit and let me carry his "bike"- we were making good time until he decided to push his "bike" from behind with no driver. Every 3 feet again we were running into the grass, off the curb, into poop- you get the picture. I have never been so happy to get back into my driveway carrying that dang 4-wheeler.

Valentine Decorations pt 1.

I love Valentine's day- probably because of the colors and the hearts. (It is definitely not because I've had amazingly awesome V days in the past because- no I have not. I remember one V day I was in my apartment watching a movie whilst my roommate flirted with a boy she was crushing on, my best friend was out with her boyfriend and my other roommate was out with her fiance- awesome. But, I digress- this is not about my depressing valentine's days this is about decorating... I love hearts, but I like to decorate with less traditional things and colors. I'm loving black and white with splashes of red for Valentine's lately. (I guess that's not real non-traditional) I thought and thought about what I could fill my apothecary jars with. I love my apothecary jars!! I'm slowly getting a collection.
I dug around in my fabric drawers and found some red tulle- I smooshed that into the smaller one with some silvery, white ribbon and these little rhinestones. Then I found some black crushed velvet- crushed velvet is definitely romantic- and I had the idea to throw these little white flowers in with it, but then I found my playing cards and I kinda love how it came out. Jeebs said he liked it except that I had a diamond playing card in there- of course I have diamond playing cards in there for v day! Diamonds are a girl's best friend- hint hint.


Cagey took this beautiful picture of me- this is what I look like on a regular basis- sad.

My bedroom

My bedroom is always the last to be nicely decorated. I want a warm safe inviting haven- but anytime I mention anything about buying stuff to make it happen Jeebs says, "let's just sell it". So I haven't done much. This is my bedroom now...
I got this comforter set at Target and the paintings at Pier1 super cheap. I really wanted to decorate my room in yellows, greens and oranges, but THEN...I saw something- who knows what- and I have decided I want to do my room in black and white. Then, splash some kind of bright pop o' color on the walls- green maybe? Anyway- I got 3 bolts of different types of black material at wally marto and here they sit...in my craft/boy's closet. At 3$ a bolt I can afford to let them sit there a while, but I really have a need to create something.
While I'm trying to really put all my efforts into getting this house sold, I really want to make pretty things. Any suggestions would be helpful. I really wanted to do some ruffly, flowery pillow covers for those throw pillows on my bed, but beyond that- I got nothing, nothing that's really affordable anyway. Help me or buy my house ;)

ps I really want this shower curtain