The Morning Mayhem

This morning went like this. I wake up this morning because Lucy is crying earlier than usual. Jason gets her at 6:00 AM. She is being snugglier than normal, a little whiny. We snuggle in our bed for a time but can't lolly gag for long because we have dentist appointments up in South Jordan. We're bustling around trying to get ready. Jason's appt is at 8:30 and mine at 9:30, we decide to drive separately. He leaves, I jump in shower with Lucy, we get out and all ready to load up in the car and she promptly starts spewing chunks ALL over the place. (Is there anything quite as pitiful or helpless as a toddler throwing up? Sad, sad poor little thing.) I throw her back in the tub, clothes on, clean up the carpet best I can and call Jason to tell him we won't be coming up. He's still just sitting in waiting room. Call receptionist at dentist office to reschedule, she tells me they've been waiting for us and has tried to call us. I tell her my husband is sitting in the waiting area. She says, no he's not. I tell her I'll call her back and hang up. It dawns on me that I made the appointment with our old dentist whom we haven't seen in 2 years, Dr. Steven J. Smith, not our current dentist, Dr. Steven D. Smith. How on earth could I confuse the two? Hating my life. Call Jason to let him know that he does not in fact have an appt at the office after he's driven 30 minutes to get there and where he's been sitting for the another 30 minutes. Told him that the office staff may or may not be creeped out by the loiterer with no appt who's just hangin' out. He responds appropriately, "Oh my hell". Call old dentist office back and explain what happened. She is polite but doesn't think it's as funny as I think she should. Regardless I'm fake laughing up a storm because I feel stupid. Consider chewing her out and telling her I'm really hormonal and emotional and if I'm fake laughing, she should be fake laughing too. We should be FLing together. Decide against it in a split second, apologize and hang up. Luckily current dentists office will still work Jason's cleaning in (Dr. Steven D. Smith, not to be confused with J, is our brother in law after all). We still feel lucky that they can work him in. Office staff is relieved to know he wasn't there just to sit and watch them after all. I go about continuing to clean throw up off the carpet and Lucy is following me around in her diaper crying, ashamed. Then she goes over to another area across the room, points at the floor, and starts crying harder in shame. I go to where she's pointing and find another huge batch of throw up, and I have no idea when or how that one happened. I tell her it's okay and after clean up settle into our recliner with her and a blankie. She won't be put down, and I don't blame her. Poor girl. Still to this moment, can't get the throw up smell out of my nose. It could be anywhere and everywhere, the barf hunt continues.

She is snoozing peacefully now and I have a million things to do. We just flew back into town yesterday and someone came and broke into my house and made a bunch of messes while we were gone. My nesting urges are making me completely insane but the bratty teenager in me is fighting back against those urges, "I'm sitting down and blogging while she naps you fools! I'm not cleaning or doing laundry! I'll do that crap for the rest of the entire day! I'm a person too!!"

So I'll inevitably feel guilty about having so many things to do and spending time blogging. Jason will come home from work and will casually say, "What did you do today?" as in, "How'd the day go?" to which I will respond defensively and immaturely, something like, "You think you're better than me?! You think you can judge me?? My pelvis feels like it's gonna break in half any second!! Every time I get up to walk I have shooting stabbing pains in my groin that make be double over like I'm a dude that just took a baseball bat there! I have constant charlie horses in my calves! And Lucy's sick and clingier than ever! Do you know how hard it is for me to lift her these days? I'm so tired! How dare you judge me and ask for a report of what I've done today! So I guess on top of thinking I'm fat and unattractive, you think I'm lazy!!" And then he will stare blankly at me for a few seconds and ask if I want him to read my latest blog post. And I will say sure.

*A side note confession: I've realized pregnancy completely depletes my ability to feel compassion for other people. That is, other people who are not other pregnant women. Actually I take that back. I still have compassion for menstral cramps and that time of the month stuff. Yeah... still feel it for for pretty much any ache/pain related to a uterus. Or breasts. Anyway, Jason was complaining a little the other morning that he didn't sleep very well because he kinked his neck, and how not getting a good night's sleep just really affects him. Now, I don't think he remembered ever actually waking up, he just felt a little less rested upon waking. He was stretching his neck this way and that, grimacing and hinting away for a little rubbing action. I just said, "I'm sorry," and then told him I wasn't going to say anything else. He looked at me a little confused. I knew I needed to keep it at that and not even open up that can. But you should have heard my inner dialogue. I'm a big wench.

Onto the real purpose of this post. Pictures of babes. My mom came down from Idaho and after we had Carson for a few days, Nessa and Sam left Leah with us for a few more days so they could escape and rekindle their romance in Las Vegas. (Thank goodness mom will be back in a few short weeks.) These two wee little lasses are a mere 2.5 months apart in age. They've come a long way together since this:

And they sure are infatuated with one another.

We used to think Leah would bully Lucy as soon as she could. But I'm afraid it's a little bit the other way around. But Leah loves the abuse. Lots of hysterical laughter going on.

And they both bully me. Something about the belly that they can't get enough of. Really. Constantly ripping up my shirt and rubbing little hands all over the place.

Obsessed with each other.

P.S. Lucy just woke up crying. I went up and found her jammies and diaper off and a little present for me in the diaper. Well, at least some of it is still in the diaper that is. While she did in actuality seem ashamed and quite distraught about throwing up all over, she is quite unabashed about this. Love it. Please let there be something sweet and caloric right now in my pantry I can stuff my face with.

150

This happens to be my 150th blog post! I've been anxiously awaiting this moment, writing about the random junk of my life so I could tally it up to 150. And now, in honor of my big 150, I can give you 150 random tidbits of more junk. Just kidding, I'll never make it to 150, but I've seen people do that. It's impressive. I don't think they're as long winded as me. (Do you still say long winded when you are referring to typing and not actually speaking?) So instead of making it to 150, I guess I'll just write until I feel I've hit my quota of all that I've been meaning to get off my chest for some time now. I'm expecting this post to be very cathartic for me. (I'm hormonal and emotional. And my husband is a workaholic right now. Humor me.)

1. First and foremost, meet the little sister of Lucy's whom we will be meeting in person in about a month's time. She is mosh pitting and head butting my bladder on a regular basis, so we know she's a lively one. Excited to meet this little one!

2. I am strangely addicted to Stacy's Pita chips. I can eat a whole bag in one sitting.

3. Jason has a special hatred for me when I am eating Stacy's pita chips. They are really crunchy. Like, I'm deaf when I eat them. I have to pause from chewing if someone's trying to talk to me. Or just keep chewing and say, "What was that?" every time they repeat themselves.

4. Lucy is 20 months old as of 2 days ago. I have had a few break downs watching her birthing video these last couple of days, gearing myself up for the experience again. Having another baby is making the reality hit that she is no longer a baby, and even though she is so fun, that reality is very sad.

5. I can't very well handle people who comment on the news articles online. I wish educated people would, but that never happens for some reason. So I don't read the comments because I get fiery hot with anger, and to avoid the temptation of reading the comments I don't read the news.

6. I LOVE pistachio pudding. I have a vision of filling a bathtub with it and soaking in it with a big spoon, eating it to my heart's content. Dreams do come true. I'll make it happen.

7. What is it with the "head rests" on airplanes? I guess by rest you mean it kinks your neck and makes your head jet awkwardly forward. What's wrong with the people who designed them?? And why do the seats recline only a 1/2 inch? (P.S. Last time I flew I reclined my seat that entire 1/2 inch back and the large man behind me dramatically and little girlishly yelled out "OUCH, MY KNEE!!!" in anguish. I peered back at him in shock at what I had just heard through the crack in between the seat and he was giving me the crustiest glare ever. "Sorry," I said nonchalantly. And then I spent the rest of the flight so annoyed, chewing him out in my head. I chewed him out in my head for the crusty glare he gave me, as if he had a right to be really put out, but not so much for the exclamation, even though that was ridiculous as well.

8. The following picture was taken when Jason and I first dated, early in the summer of 2004. I was just a little baby back then, 20 years old... didn't know much about the world. Jason was in hot pursuit. That's back when I had lots of sass and game. That's back when I used to send him sassy little texts like, "You better be careful, you better not fall in love with me," after like our 2nd date. That's back when the little side hug you see in this picture gave us both butterflies. Whenever I look at pics from that summer, I start feeling all sassy again and then when he walks in the door from work I tell him to pretend like he's meeting me for the first time. He's a little awkward with it, but sometimes I can tell he's really trying to pretend.

9. Dairy Queen is complete poo. I get overwhelmed from time to time with DQ nostalgia from childhood and think, "This time, it will be delicious." And then I always end up chucking that blizzard against the wall in anger after my first bite of it.

10. I don't like people who don't like children. I mean, it's okay to dislike a particular child, as long as the dislike is not manifested (I have my own hit list, trust me. Just kidding. Sortof. But it's not your child so don't worry). But to say that you have a disdain for children in general means you're not really my kind of person.

11. One time Jason woke up in the middle of the night screaming in horror like a banshee. I shot up in bed and with adrenaline pumping asked what his problem was after shaking him out of his slumber. Apparently he was having a dream we were driving on the edge of a cliff and while he was driving, I started sadistically laughing while covering up his eyes. It's a relief his subconscious thinks so highly of me. Now I really do that every time we are driving on a cliff, just for laughs... "Remember that dream you had?! Man!"

12. I have been physically threatened in my adulthood. By another woman. It was quite startling actually. Her name is Vanessa. She happens to be my little sister. We were both pregnant for the first time. It was Christmas. I essentially accused her of being a porn addict. She told me she was gonna knock my head off in her meanest tone of voice possible, and she meant it. I scampered into the other room and cried, not just because I had hurt feelings but because I had hurt feelings and was frightened. We hugged it out later that afternoon, both cried and let it all out.

13. When we are travelling we never know what you are supposed to do at toll roads when you don't have any change and there is no attendant to break your benjis. It makes us question if our integrity is compromised to just leave, but really what are you supposed to do? Leave a $10 bill for a 75 cent toll on the little counter and hope the next driver doesn't see it? We end up deciding to back up and breeze right through as fast as we can, making obscene gestures at the cameras. (That's actually always better when there IS an attendant, though.)

14. I have people ask me if I'm being serious about this or that on the blog. I'd say, (depending on the tone of the post) you can take what I write literally about 35% of the time. But I'm mostly (roughly 65%) sarcasm and embellishment because it makes me laugh.

15. I'm always really ashamed when I fall asleep in a public place (like an airport) and wake up really startled all the sudden and realize my mouth's been gaping open because of the degree of cotton mouth I experience upon waking. I think you're ashamed when that happens to you, too.

16. Every time Jason tells me something doesn't belong where I've put it, I am filled with rage. We have had the following conversation 1200 times during our 3+ years of marriage. Him: The telephone book doesn't go on top of the fridge! Me: It goes wherever I want it to go! Is there some book that was written with laws in it as to what goes where that I'm unaware of? Is the organization police gonna come and write me a ticket or haul me off to jail?? He never has anything good to say back, so that's as far as it gets every time. And then I feel sheepish for responding so brutishly.

17. I can't very well handle beautiful women who can't get along with other women and say it's because other women are jealous of their looks. I can't say I know anyone personally who claims this, but it seems to be a pretty popular Hollywood story. Anyway, I have far too many gorgeous friends who are loved by all for me to believe that. If you can't get along with any other women, and sortof pride yourself on it because you think it's because you are too pretty to have girlfriends, stop. It's not because you are too beautiful. It's probably because you have a heinous personality and have some issues to resolve. Women need women and we are meant to love each other, so stop making it everyone else's problem. Come to me. We can lay it all out on the table, and then we can be friends. That's a start!

18. You know your husband is really pining for you when he says, "You know who you look like with your hair like that? Alvin's girlfriend, Brittany. (Alvin and the chipmunks). She was always the hottest one." (It's not my elongated incisors that remind you of the "hot chipmunk"? It's not that I store my food in my cheeks for later?)

19. Here's another word for word exchange between my darling and me. Me: What is your deal with zombies?! Every freaking game you download onto your phone has to do with zombies! What the crap!? Him: No, not every game. Me: Well, it's freakin' me out. I just glanced at your phone and saw it asked you to pick out your vegetables. What, are the zombies vegetarian zombies? Him: (in a matter-of-fact tone of voice) No, actually they aren't vegetarians, but the vegetables actually fight the zombies." Pretty awesome. Later when I told him I was going to blog about the zombie convo, he said laughing, "No... don't." I said "why not?" He said, "People probably wouldn't understand..." To which I responded, "People wouldn't understand? You mean your affinity for zombies? I have to blog about this exchange as well now." (In my sweetheart's defense, he allows himself video game (iPhone game) time only when we are on an airplane. He is no junky. It does just so happen that our airplane time has added up to about 40 hours a week these days.)

20. In-N-Out is completely overrated to me and mine. I always want it to be better than it really is, and I actually try to talk myself into thinking it's better than it is. But it's just not to me. (Coney's does have a delicious hamburger though. Not to mention the custard. :)

21. I don't talk about it in every post, but I have very deeply rooted religious convictions. I am very passionate about what I believe. In depth spiritual/religious discussions are the cream of the crop to me. My family and my beliefs are the absolute prized possessions of my life.

22. I don't like it when people put the kibosh on embellishment. There's nothing worse than trying to tell a good story, exaggerating a bit for comedy's sake, and having someone interrupt with irrelevant corrections about details that make the story worse, not better. Like, "No, no... it was not a whole room full of clowns, there were only like 4 or 5 clowns in there..." REALLY? You just messed up the flow for THAT? Those people are what I like to call "story-ruiners". Creative label, I know.

23. There might not be anything worse than a man making kissy face in pictures. Especially if it's their profile pic on FB. Especially if you can tell they really think they are being sexy and not funny. It's bad enough when girls do it. A serious profile pic, okay... but a wanna be sexykissy face? I beg of you, if you are male and heterosexual, do not do this. PA-LEASE DO NOT. You CANNOT justify this behavior by saying you are metrosexual. It embarrasses us all.

24. I'm awful at doing Lucy's hair. I have short hair. I just don't know how to do even, non-bumpy pony tails or pigtails! And forget braids. That's why she always sports a mullet with the accented rats nest in back. It's not only that I'm awful at it, but she will yank and moan until every last little elastic is ripped out of her hair, even with one simple pony tail:

She hates them. I didn't think much of it until I was at a friends little boys birthday party and I overheard a convo of some women talking about how it annoys them when people don't do their little girls' hair. One of them said, "Uhh, you're supposed to do her hair! That's part of having a girl." I don't think they were talking about me at that party, but I've been wallowing in insecurity about it since!

25. I think it odd that there are always at least 3 times more checkout lanes at the grocery store than there are grocers. In my perfect world, every single isle would be lit up, every grocer begging to check my items out. And they would be hot men checking me out while checking my items out. And then I'd have to be like, "See the ring?!" and roll my eyes, shake my head and sigh. Not in that order necessarily, I'd probably do all three things simultaneously.

26. Look at this happy couple. This picture was taken 3 weeks after we were married. We went out to San Fran to bring in the New Year with Sam and Vanessa. We rode this bike across the golden gate bridge. We were riding pleasantly along, me insisting the whole time that he needed to stop being sexist and to let me have a crack at the front seat steering. He refused, I insisted, yada yada yada back and forth you get the picture. Then he finally let me steer, me being the all powerful woman that I am. I immediately lost control of our bike and rammed us into the railing, and the next thing I knew I looked behind us and another biker was on his back, he'd come crashing into us. (Have you ever driven one of those bad boys? More difficult than it looks.) I sincerely apologized, asked if he was okay, and he was really rude. We were all pretty frazzled, and I was angry because my argument was that he shouldn't have been following so close, just like when you're driving a car. I threw the stupid tandem front spot back to Jason and cried the whole way back from the back seat of that tandem bike. I guess I thought Jason should have stuck up for me or something, but he mostly agreed with the angry biker that, "you can't just stop like that." To this day, I say I can stop like that, if I am headed for oncoming traffic. I say I can. It's a fun story we tell, and somehow has gone from one biker crashing into us to a 7 bike pile up that I caused.

I think I'll stop there. 26 ramblings because I am 26 years old. I was right, cathartic. So much had been building up! Phew. Happy 150th blogpost to us!

Little visit from Carson

I have no blogging juices flowing right now. Just wanted to let you know I am not attempting to entertain or inspire in this post. My brain is complete mush. I've been spacing out staring at the wall blankly, and I just got no juice. Forgive me. However, for journaling sake I did want to post a little something. This week we had my brother Jesse's little boy stay with us for 4 days. His mama had surgery so we lucked out and got to have Carson. :) (Thank you Cindy for letting him stay!) My mom is here in town and Vanessa, Sam and Leah flew into town as well! Carson is 3 years old, and is identical to Jesse. Literally every facial expression he makes I have seen Jesse make. Every time I look into his face, I see my brother. It was so fun having him here.

If you didn't know Jess, I don't know if you can see the resemblance or not from these pics. These were taken a couple years ago. And Carson's hair has darkened up so much since then. He has such a little angel face.

The cousins ADORED each other. They were hilarious. Carson yelled, "Luuuuuuu-cy" throughout the house at least 7 times a day. I think one of my favorite parts was seeing him with his uncle Jason. As soon as he'd get home from work he would be crawling up into his lap just to watch TV with him or read a book. It was really sweet. And yes, we let the kids finger paint with crisco if you're wondering how on earth the window could be so dirty. Stop your judging!

Grieving a sibling's death has been and continues to be a strange process. Sometimes it feels like people you interact with forget about it when you're the person who has someone so close pass away. It's okay if they do, most days I don't want to dwell on it either. It just takes a lot of time. The grief hits in waves. I'm sure it's like that for everyone who's been through it. It's been almost 4 months and sometimes it feels so much longer than that yet sometimes so much shorter. Time is weird. What I have noticed is that my capacity to feel has heightened and deepended because of the experience. Sometimes I feel so much joy just being around the people I love the most that I really do think my heart may burst out of my chest. I am in a state of constant awe at the amount of joy and happiness that we still are able to feel amidst hardships. I love my family so much. I think the Lord made this little Carson favor his daddy so we could have him around and feel like Jess is still here too. He is such a tender, sweet boy. We loved having him!

Bra versus swimsuit

We are almost done with traveling for this pregnancy. Which is good because we have a mere 6 weeks left before we are official parents of 2! Before we get to any weekend pictures from our little jaunt to California, I've got a goody to share. Mostly because I am inherently inappropriate. This story is not so much for posterity's sake, but more for comedy's sake. But maybe our posterity will find humor in the slightly inappropriate and will think it's funny too. So maybe it's for both.

Jason, Lucy and I were enjoying the pool and sunshine at our hotel on Saturday afternoon and there was a little girl about 3 or 4 years old who took a liking to Lucy. They were being really cute together. Her mom was laying out poolside gossiping with her girlfriend about other girlfriends of theirs, so we made mom small talk about our girls (you know the drill) and that was about that. (I did eavesdrop on some of the gossip, and as juicy as it was I was glad not to have any girlfriends with the kind of drama they were talking about.) I was sitting poolside fairly close to where they were, letting my legs dangle in the water while Jason and Lucy were both in the pool. I noticed part-way through the conversation that the mom's girlfriend had jeans on, and, on second glance, I noticed a little lace on her bikini top. Hmm. That's odd. I'm not so sure that's a swimsuit I thought to myself, but would she really be laying out in her bra? Just out in public like that? Maybe she just thought, 'no one will notice', or, 'it's basically the same thing.' I didn't have my sunglasses on, so there was no way I could appropriately blatantly stare at her boobs. So I was doing the shifty eyed glancing, darting my eyes around, sneaking a peak when and where I could do it inconspicuously. I concluded that I was pretty sure it was a bra, not certain, but pretty sure. But again, couldn't get away with staring long enough or directly enough to bet on it.

Later that night the following conversation took place between my dear husband and me:

Me (in tone of slight exasperation) : I think one of those women at the pool today was in her bra! (Expecting an "Oh really? Weird. Who does that? I didn't notice." Or even a, "Yeah, I thought maybe something was off about what she had on but didn't really care to figure it out." What I got instead was this: Him: Oh yeah! The black bra? It was definitely a bra. So weird! Me (after slight pause): Really. I'm glad you're so certain about this. Him: (not picking up on it, and sounding a little like Puddy from Seinfeld): Yeah I thought it was weird. Me: See, I wasn't absolutely certain if it was a bra or not, because I couldn't stare directly at her breasts long enough to know for sure. But you on the other hand, have no doubts. That's weird. Him(starting to laugh a little): Well, it's pretty obvious I think. Anyone would notice. A bra looks different than a swimsuit. And then I started thinking about that episode of Seinfeld when that woman wears her bra like it's a shirt. (Yeah that's right, Seinfeld reference number 2 of this paragraph.) Me: It's only obvious if you are staring. And you, my friend, were wearing sunglasses, which was exactly what I would have needed to get a good stare in. Did you notice she was also wearing jeans? Which was a little a-typical for laying poolside so maybe should have also drawn your attention. Him: I didn't notice. Me: So you were just so swept away in boobie land that you didn't even notice anything else? Him (laughing): Oh my gosh! Okay it would be one thing if that girl was even semi-attractive... Me: So it would be one thing if she was hot? What exactly is that "one thing" it would be? That I'd have reason to find this conversation interesting? So I should count my lucky stars that she wasn't "hot"? Him (laughing): You're freaking ridiculous! Me (laughing also): Just stop! You're not saying anything right!

Then I tried to make a comparison, a "Imagine if some guy..." blah blah blah and reverse the roles but he responded with, "Please! You can't tell me if a guy was wearing underwear and not a swimsuit that you wouldn't have noticed!" which was a zinger. But then I came to the conclusion that you just can't do that in this situation. Because women do not sit poolside and ogle over men the way men do over women, (I'm not saying my husband was ogling, I'm just saying men in general). Our natures are just too fundamentally different to draw any kind of comparison. He tried to tell me, "Just because you don't do it doesn't mean women don't, plenty of women sit poolside with their girlfriends and say stuff like mmm. break me off a piece of that!" about some guy with a nice body. And then I laughed some more. And I said, "Oh really? So we're the same? How many women buy magazines with pictures of naked men in them in our world today?" And that was about where we agreed.

Maybe I should have just settled it earlier. Maybe I should have figured he was noticing the same thing, and gone up to her and said something like, "Excuse me Miss, but my husband and I... yeah.. that one over there... that's him, standing over there in the corner of the pool looking at us... well we were just wondering if that's a bra you've got on or a swimsuit, because we were both thinking you got a little mixed up and it's actually a bra." I wonder what she would have said.

While this exchange between my dear one and me was entirely good natured, and we laughed lots about it, sometimes I feel sorry for that chap I married. Because, big deal that he noticed. Really it wasn't a big deal, I never thought it was. Anyone would have noticed because who wears a bra to lay out at the pool? Do I think he should have lied and say he didn't notice? Not at all. Mostly, I think he just shouldn't have said it with so much conviction, that's all. :) But how could he have known he wasn't supposed to come across like he was so certain it was a bra and not a bikini? How did he know he wasn't supposed to come across with such bra expertise? That he's not supposed to be the bra champion of all champions? Now at least I know who to make come with me the next time I go bra shopping. Poor, poor chap. I sure do love him.

Nobody can stop an early morning hoovering of waffles with whipped cream and fresh berries. Nobody!!

Update on our last update: This. means. war.

Remember the cute little furry guy from last post who's been visiting our crawl space basement, eating sunflower seeds, stacking the shells ever so nicely and whistling a merry tune all the while? Yeah...not so much. I am so over him. Can I just say, trying to hold back the nausea, that upon further investigation, that there is mouse poop on every shelf in my kitchen pantry? And holes in our rice and cereal bags? And in every cupboard and drawer of my kitchen? I. am. freaking. out. My days of protecting him are over. Trying to find him to set him free is no longer the objective. What's worse is that there is way too much poop for me to believe it is just one mouse. Either that, or this one mouse has been living with us for MONTHS, leaving his droppings as gifts for us everywhere he's been. Which I can't believe either, because we have never seen anything or noticed any holes in the food. I am in denial but may have to face the evidence of a mouse infestation. And they've gone from that image above to this below in a mere 48 hours.

Been having nightmares of an entire mouse colony making off with my newborn child, chanting to their mouse king as they carry her off in preparation for their fire dancing-ceremonious sacrifice. So, today I am trying not to be paranoid and am disinfecting every single inch of my kitchen. I will move throughout the rest of the house here shortly after. My farm boy husband is taking care of the rest, and enthused to do so. I do find consolation in the fact that we have him to protect us:

Look at 'im with 'is wee lit'ol bug net. He's caught one mouse already. He was a major bug catcher slash collector slash frog slash small rodent chaser growing up. Hasn't changed a whole heep since this pic was taken. ALL boy this one. So, when he is home I have no fear.

In the mean time (until we get this problem completely resolved) I will feel like supreme dub-T continuing to discover rodent feces scattered throughout my home in all the nooks and crannies. Just because I hate them now and want them hunted down and out of my house forever doesn't mean I'm not still tender hearted. I do have a tender heart. It's just mostly for her. And for the guy who helped me make her.

A little update, A lot of pictures

We got to enjoy the AZ sunshine again this last weekend! I really love being able to see family so much lately because NorthStar has a Chandler office right now that the hub is frequenting on a regular basis and Lucy and I tag along. Grammy and Papa were there as well. AZ is always so lovely this time of year. Getting lovelier here by the week as well thank goodness!! As always, we missed you Palmers and Pennsylvania Collards. :(

Feeding ducks at the nearby park. Lucy would have definitely jumped in a few times if we weren't reining her in. She is an adventurous soul.

Grammy and Papa. I bet it's kindof surreal when you start having grandbabies by the dozens and look around and realize all these little munchkins are here because the two of you decided to get hitched. What champs.

Not so sure how she feels about slides yet.

Miss Elyza Darien. Little superstar.

Miss Olivia Belle. Love those big browns.

Aunty Bethany

Alexandra and Isaiah. (Poor Isaiah is being mutilated by a shot of direct sunlight in the eyes.:)

Papa and Jason hoopin' it up. Only a slight scuffle broke out between the two when Jason called my dad a ho during their game of horse, and my dad kicked him in the shin. Luckily it broke up quickly and they ended up hugging it out.

I wish you could hear Lucy saying "And 1," right here in this next one. Kids say the darndest things.

Unfortunately we discovered a house guest upon our return. It was a homeless man named Barry, sleeping in our bed. haha. Truthfullly, I went downstairs into our 4 foot crawl space to root through some food storage and discovered these sunflower seed shells perfectly stacked on just these two cans. What an odd discovery. At first I thought Jason had been going down there to eat seeds in secret because of the neat little stacks. But upon further investigation...

Including holes chewed in the package...

and an empty gas tank and mouse droppings in this vehicle...

I concluded it wasn't Jason at all. Yes folks we have a mouse. I grabbed Lucy and almost gave myself a hernia scurrying out of there so fast when the realization hit me, but then wondered what I was so scared of once I got out of there and closed the door. Jason brought home some traps and set them out the next day. They are the glue kind. I told him he needed to check it every night and morning because I don't wanna starve the thing to death. I know I'm a pansie. I was hoping we could find it still alive and we could set it free somewhere far away, but then I started thinking about the poor guy living the rest of his life with glue pasted to his little front paws from the trap and how much junk he would accumulate on them and how annoying that would be, so then I thought maybe passing away would be more merciful for him. I'm conflicted. Maybe you remember this and maybe you think I am PETA crazy or something, but really, I just have a tender heart. Plus, he was just so organized with that shelling! I've had much messier house guests. I'll keep you posted on the status of our little intruder.