Best Purchase EVER!!!

So last fall when I was in New Mexico helping after my sister had her baby I was at Target getting some prescriptions filled and was burning time while they were doing that. I had my 11 year old nephew and Connor with me. As were walking around the store I saw some Cars rain boots. I needed them of course because all boys who live in the country NEED rain boots, aka Poop boots. Well they've loved them and used them a lot and will use them for a while to come because they are still like 2 sizes too big. This is not what makes them the best though.

Lately we have been having problems with two mice, one that eats the poison but will not die or go into the traps. Another that runs across the traps and does laps around our living room but won't even eat the poison or die. Well last night we rearranged the traps to make sure it would get caught. Well it worked for one mouse, sort of. The mouse is caught but not dead. The other mouse ate yet another poison packet but wasn't dead. It was laying in the middle of our entry way floor. Well Connor decided to pick up a shoe and try to squish it. Not so successful. It ran under a shelf and hid for a couple hours. Well I was going out to put some shoes on the shelf in the entry way and talking on the phone to my mom when I Tyler came out. I showed him the mouse so he put his poop boots on and started preparing to step on the mouse. Well of course he chickened out but Connor thought it was a cool idea and put his poop boots on to join the fun. Well after about five minutes Tyler informed me that the mouse was not moving anymore. So Tyler wanted to get rid of it. I gave him a box, and using his awesome poop boots, kicked the mouse into the box. Then the boys triumphantly carried the box out to the dumpster.

So here is the ode to the poop boots of wonder. They make even the biggest chickens able to do amazing things. They've helped the boys learn to ride bikes, run fast and now slay mice. Totally worth the $15 a pair I paid just 9 months ago. . .

Busy, WET Summer

I would like to first apologize for still no pictures, our computer died and is getting fixed and the computer tower we borrowed will not read any of its USB ports so I can not download any pictures from my phone or camera, SORRY.

It seems we have been going non stop since summer started. We have been in Idaho nearly every week all summer long and I'm not seeing that ending very soon. My sister is 3 weeks away from delivering number 6 and so we have been busy helping out her 7 and 4 year old daughters with dance. They have to change costumes quickly and a 9 month pregnant belly makes it pretty hard to do and do quickly so we have spent a lot of time at dance this summer.

My sister and her 7 year old daughter had birthdays last week so we were over helping with the party and getting ready for my mom's family reunion. This was really the kicker since we were preparing for anywhere up to 250 people to come to the reunion. (That's just my mom's siblings and their kids and grandkids.) We ended up with like 60 most days and 100+ one day but it was really hectic and fun. My sister was able to come up from new Mexico and we were more than excited to see her since it's been a year for most of us. (I did fly down when she had her baby premature the beginning of November but most hadn't seen her since last summer.) It was fun to have the cousins together again and remember why we watch certain kids or groups of them much more closely than others. Tyler was surrounded by girls but loved telling on everyone for anything. Connor and Sam (my sister from New Mexico's son) are the same age but Connor is a little aggressive and loud for Sam and so there were many fights. The last day they really got to play Connor swung a little medal and hit Sam in the face. I asked Connor what he did. He said with a huge smile on his face, "I hit Sammy." Well after Connor had served his well earned time out, he was headed upstairs to play, well Sam was waiting at the top of the stairs and pushed Connor down the stairs. He only went down a couple stairs so was just really scared. My sister asked Sam if he pushed Connor, to which Sam replied, with a HUGE grin on his face, "Yes I DID." Well I guess after a week one retaliation was WELL deserved.

My sisters and my parents came to my house for an overnight stay this week. My mom loves the library and shopping at our Kmart because it has a bigger selection than the one in the Burg. She really wanted to show these two things to my sisters and Tyler wanted to show them the Candy store of course. Well after we showed those things, the kids were too tired to go anywhere else so we came to my house and napped and had dinner. We then went back to town to check them into their hotel and take all the kids swimming. When we got there we discovered it was an outdoor pool and in the shade now that the sun was setting. I did not swim but ran everyone to the potty and kept a count every couple of minutes to be sure none of the 7 kids went missing.

Now we are all enjoying a little break where nothing is going on and our house is getting cleaner. . . Well all of us but Brian who has to work 11 of next 12 nights because he traded shifts to be able to attend my mom's family reunion.

It's Official

Brian is officially in the National Guard as of about 6 hours ago. We are now a military family. Well I have always been in one (My dad was in the Air Force for 21 years) but it is new to the other members of my family. Brian has been wanting to join for our entire marriage but it's taken me longer to get on board. He will be starting his once a month drills in July and going to boot camp in October. Yeah for more time as a single mom!!!

I have been crazy busy getting my sister's baby shower ready for tomorrow. I think it'll be fun and hopefully it will run smoothly. Her other children are practically giddy about it. They are so ready for their new little sister to get here, too bad it's not for another 7 weeks.

Tyler is currently at a father and sons camp out with my dad, brother-in-law, and nephew. He has never actual camped before and was SO excited to go. He was really hoping to go with his dad but that didn't work out with the signing up for the national guard and all.

Next week Brian will be gone all week at a training to become a trainer at the jail. Yeah for even more time as a single mom. But luckily playgroup will distract us for a few hours and getting Connor his 2 year shots ( two and a half months late) and maybe a trip to Lagoon and the Train Museum in Utah but we're not sure on that part quite yet. If we do anything fun we'll put some pictures on here, but for now, there aren't any new cute ones to share, just lots of info.

Our new friend

We just got home from Brian's big family dinner at his uncle's house tonight and were getting the boys ready for bed. Tyler walked in to the kitchen and came back out really fast. He said "mom there is something in the kitchen I don't like." I go in thinking it was a spider or a mouse but no no no, it was not at all what I expected. I look at my empty flip flop and see a new pet. . .

Our new friend Lizard the Salamander. He was well loved by Connor especially. When we put him in the sink he was so excited he could barely talk. He was bouncing up and down and kept yelling to tell us everything it was doing. We realeased it over near our woodshed and the boys were sad to see it go, but were excited for it to go home.

The actual stitches

Pardon the dirty face but this is what Tyler looks like now. If you look closely on his forehead you can see the stitches. I took a bunch of pictures tring to get a good shot of the stitches, this is the best I got. Still learning to use the new camera.

First Stitches

They are a little blurry we took them with Brian's phone on our way to the doctor.

Tyler was outside playing after dinner and was chasing after Connor and tripped and hit his head on a cinder block. After some cleaning (the blood was dripping down his face onto his brand new shirt and not so new jeans) we looked at the cut and discussed what to do for a few minutes. I tried to call my friend who is married to an ER doctor but got no answer. We talked some more looked at it some more and I called my mom. She said if it were her she'd probably take him in but since Brian's family doesn't go to the doctor much we may want to super glue and buttterfly bandage it. We talked some more and decided that to avoid a nasty scar we should probably take him in. On our way the the hospital (since it was 8:00 and neither Urgent Care is open that late on a Sunday) we thought we'd stop by my friend's house. They happened to be just walking in the door, well the husband and the son that is Tyler's age. I asked him if he'd look and see what he thought. He said to reduce scarring and speed healing, he'd stitch it. He said he had the stuff there so he could just do it for us right there. We went into the house and he started with a numbing cream and then did some numbing shots and laid Tyler on the dining room table and did 3 stitches. I did not watch. Tyler did really well and held really still even after the shot wore off and he needed one more stitches. He cried a little but within a few seconds of being done he was fine. My friend's two sons gave Tyler a candy and a suction cup ball and he has been happy and content ever since. That was the end of a very long mother's day.

What we've been up to...

Well lately we've been up to a lot of cleaning, laundry, and dish doing. This was actually enjoyable, well appreciated at least, maybe not enjoyable. It's the first time in months thatmy kitchen, bathroom, living room and well all the rooms have been clean at the same time in MONTHS. Dang tax season makes it hard to keep up on well anything let alone everything. Last week we were outside at least for a few hours every day, this week, not so much. Refer to picture 1, the view out our front door, well not directly but you get the idea. Does it ever stop snowing here, I am SO ready for summer, well at least warm snow free days for an extended period of time. We've been having friends over to play more and now we can either play in the bedrooms or watch movies, not the most exciting tasks but better than nothing I guess. My boys LOVE to be outside and track in all the sand they possibly can. Pretty sure I empty about a cup of sand from every load of laundry their clothes are in.

Picture 2 is to show you Connor's new hair cut, I'd show you Tyler's but the computer won't load the pictures from my phone for some reason. I took Tyler in to have it done by someone else in hopes it would make it easier to spike, but alas, it didn't work as I'd hoped. I did find a nast paste type thing that will keep it spikey for almost all 3 hours of church. Oh well that's all he cares about. Connor's on the other hand I did myself last night and grabbed out the wrong length for the clippers and didn't notice til it was too late, oh well, now he and Brian have the same hiarcut, practically buzzed evenly all over, not my favorite but hair grows and Connor thinks it's cool to match Dad in anyway possible.

I did get the camera for my birthday and then found out it takes a different memory card than my old one and so can only take like 5 pictures so we're working on getting a memory card but since everything costs twice as much here as the towns we haunt every few weeks we are waiting til we head west for a valid reason such as my mom's knee surgery next week or receiving my 10 year award at the H&R Block banquet in 10 days. (How sad is it that I just turned 26 and have worked at the same place for 10 years. Odd I think, but hey an award is an award right :))

Brian has been gaming like crazy and loving his new flat screen. I have not gained the affinity for it he has and likely never will, not a big fan of the games he has anyway. I do appreciate that we now fight over the TV far less frequently but since his games kind of make him zone out, I do end up changing more diapers, breaking up more brotherly fights, and filling more sippy cups than I used to. Oh well I guess that what moms are for right.?