This Weather Is Making Me Hungry

I have a severe case of blog block which basically means I have no idea what to write. Part of me wants to be funny and part of me wants to be really serious and the sides are in a tie so I'm writing this piece of garbage. I almost titled this post "This Weather Is Making Me Fat" but I knew that would result in forced compliments that I want no party to. The snow in late March is sucking my will to live. My toes are cold and my fingers are cold and Tim doesn't like it when I try to warm them up on his bare hairy chest which I think is rude. Last year at this time the weather was nice, no? I remember being outside and being active. Well, not this year, not with the arctic wind and snow on the ground. Now that just makes me want to eat! I'm not even hungry and I'm scouting the left over Easter candy and having chips and salsa at 10pm which all of these, eating after 6 pm, chocolate, and spicy food is a strict no no for me because I have acid reflux! They gave me a sheet at the doctor's office and everything...said something about damaging my esophagus. Nothing has deterred my late night snacking and I'm blaming it on the weather and I'm sick of it. My mind is so on comfort food that I even posted recipes to our recipe blog to get my mind off eating...it didn't help. And you can all spare me the pregnant comments too because that is not causing this...it is this crappy weather that has me thinking that I need to pack on a few to get me through the winter that never ends...I think it is primal.

Have you noticed a repeating theme...all my Sunday posts are peevish...I wonder why?




Luke likes to be tickled. It was great a discovery. He was quiet through most of Sacrament Meeting. Puts him in the zone...look at that face!





We went to the park to try and feed the ducks but ended up chasing seagulls because the ducks were too cold to swim to our crappy offering of popcorn. I guess they like bread. Beggars can't be choosers!




Who would throw away a perfectly good child? Does the waste never end?





I'm not always in a bad mood. Sometimes I read to the kids. Look matching PJ's.

Doth Mine Eyes Deceive Me?

There's nothing wrong with your computer. Or your eyes for that matter. My boys are in fact wearing matching suits. I always said I would not dress my kids matching. Before I had kids I always held matchy matchy kid's moms in the highest contempt. As mom says, "Don't lay down any nails you have to take up with your nose." To be honest I'm not sure what that means but I think it means I should have never mocked those kids because here I am 7 years latter dressing my boys in the same dang outfit for Easter. I think they are adorable! We had a great Easter. Gage sang for the first time in sacrament meeting with the primary kids and I still get so nervous to be the music director that my hand was shaking as I held up the props. Gage was not nervous and the kids sang really well which is a huge turn around from their muteness from when I first got called.







The Burt Cousins! Not all of them though :( Wish you all were here!

Embarrassing Moments

My embarrassing moments seem to come in groups and I hope reading about one of my many embarrassing moments will make you happier, than you were already, that you aren't me!

The first incident happened at my cousin's wedding on Friday night. The bride's sister is my favorite cousin. She is so free spirited and fun and I never get to see her because she lives in the Teton Valley. Side-note about her is she lived out of her VW bus for awhile before she found an apartment and that was after she went to Thailand, by herself for 4 months, simply because she felt like it. Can you see why she is my fav? So I was sitting down with the old folks when she came running over for a hug. I was standing up while she was leaning down for a hug and sadly she was standing on the hem of my skirt. I'm sure you can see where this is headed since the skirt has an elastic band and is a little big on me since I've lost some of my baby chub. The whole action resulted in my skirt coming off. I was so embarrassed but my mom assures me she didn't notice, but no offense mom, you didn't notice me yelling in your ear about Uncle Steve either so the fact that it escaped your notice isn't helping much. The only thing I'm clinging to is that I have cat-like reflexes and I pulled it up fast and that the lighting was dim.

I've confessed before my affinity to sing opera. For those of you who don't know...I often sing opera style at home and I'm very very loud and sound very very bad. On Saturday, Tim and the boys were at the Wright Grandkids Spring Party, not to be confused with an Easter Party, and I took the time to go grocery shopping. I had been listening to the Phantom of the Opera in the car and I couldn't help but notice how empty the house was and that there were no children to scare with my volume so I let loose with the opera. I was singing the Phantom's part, which in truth is far too low for me but I didn't care that my voice was cracking all over the place. The last terrible note of, "YOU WILL CURSE THE DAY YOU DID NOT DO (CRACKLE CRACKLE) ALL THAT THE PHANTOM ASKED OF YOU!" was dying in my raw throat when I opened the side door (which faces the neighbor's side door) to take out some trash and my neighbor was standing on his porch and by the mocking smile on his lips he heard the whole thing! Inside I was dying a thousands deaths but my look was all serenity as I said, "Hey, how are you!" Nice recovery huh? I really think I'll give up my opera career because not only do I seem to incessantly embarrass myself with it but I feel certain that it has damaged my normal singing voice as I'm sure everyone within hearing distance of my voice in choir on Sunday will attest to the same.

I'm totally retarded and I'm just thankful that I didn't loose my skirt and sing opera at the same time.

Furry Things

I know there are a lot of cat haters out there. Me, I like any animal that has fur. I've sighted this before as a reason that I like Tim. I suspect he may be the missing link or possibly the ever elusive Sasquatch...when he gets older and his body hair turns white I'm going to turn him into the Discovery Channel and say I found the Abdominal Snowman! I think that animals can sense an animal lover. I must put off some primal scent as I have never met an animal that didn't like me and once when I was at Summer Camp I almost got a cotton tail deer to eat out of my hand. I don't have any photographic evidence so you'll just have to take my word for it that I'm practically Snow White. When I was younger I wanted to be a veterinarian and then I realized that it wouldn't just be petting the animal but that I would be cutting them open and putting them to sleep and so I didn't pursue that dream. Both my parents were raised on farms and when they came to the city they brought the philosophy that having an animal is good for children. Boy was it educational, I've seen my share of dogs getting it on and seen puppies and kittens born, one litter on my brother's bed...OK that was gross, and more animal graves than a normal child. For an animal lover in training it was a great childhood.

Yesterday, a gray cat showed up on my doorstep and will not go away. I've tried to tell her that Tim is allergic to cats and that she needs to go home but she is keeping a vigil on my front and side doorstep. She looks hungry and I know if I feed her she will stick around forever but how can I not feed a hungry cat? My inner Snow White is yelling at me to go get some cat food and so is Luke who mistakenly thinks she is a "doog". She's already rubbed our legs which is cat speak for she loves us! I'm in a dilemma and blogging is the only thing keeping me from going out again.

This is a family problem. My dad and oldest sister attract stray animals. My sister's cat, who my brother calls a "dirty bird", showed up on my sister's doorstep knocked up and gave birth on her front porch and Pam kept the "hooker cat" as I like to call her. My dad rescued a stray orange cat that was seriously a walking skeleton and nursed him back to be the fat house cat he is today. I like animals but so far I've drawn the line at germ infested strays. But this cat looks clean and it really isn't even full grown and she doesn't look pregnant. See I'm better than them. Don't tell Tim.

I'm Just Crossing My Fingers

I've come to the conclusion that the first kid is pretty much a trial run. It really explains my oldest sister...just kidding Pam I love you! I feel really bad for Gage that I'm behind the curve and still figuring out how to be a mother. Some days it feels like my mistakes stare me in the face and shout "Ha Ha" in a Nielsen voice from the Simpson's. For example, Gage got this horrible stomach flu when he was about Luke's age. It was awful and it hit during the holidays and it ended with me crying in some stupid Wal-Mart manager's face on Christmas Eve begging him to let me run in and buy some diapers for my baby who had diarrhea like every 10 minutes. He didn't let me in, so much for peace on earth goodwill to men. Anyway, so after that we became militant on hand washing and hand sanitation. I can see now that we took that way too far as I'm sure all of you already know when you see me show up at play group with my jumbo size hand sanitizer! I cringe every time Gage says he thinks he needs his hands sanitized. That is a big "Ha Ha moment." Also, I've been guilty and I won't call him out publicly but someone else whose name starts with a T has also been guilty of the "don't do this you might fall!" statement. This I trace back to the fact that Gage has always been very big for his age and really clumsy but I should have let him fall more. I'm giving all these excuses so you'll have a context for my bizarre behavior yesterday.

I took the kids to the park and Gage didn't really want to play because there were no other kids there. Then all these other kids show up and Gage is just standing there. So I go over and say, "What are you doing?" and he says, "I want to watch these other kids play!?!?" By this time Nielsen is screaming in my ear and I say, "I don't think so! You are not going to watch you are going to play!" He is so obedient, bless his heart, so he starts playing but he won't go down any slides except for the one for babies and all the moms with babies were giving me the hairy eyeball because Gage (who is big enough to be about 5) is going down this minuscule slide. I suggest to Gage that he should go down the big slide and he says OK but when he got to the top he had a full out melt down saying, "I'm a little bit scared!" I stayed really calm and told him it was OK to be scared but he still had to do it. This dialogue went on for what felt like eternity while all the other moms are staring at us and I'm saying in my head, "I've totally screwed this kid up...look he is afraid he is going to fall because for more than half his life his mother has said don't do that you're going to fall!" So for better or for worse I climbed up there, while holding Luke which was seriously a hazard, and I hung on Gage's arms (he's a strong sucker when motivated) until he let go of his Kung Foo grip and I shoved him down the slide. I wish I could say I only did this once but I told him he had to do it until he wasn't scared anymore. He went down probably 6 or 7 more times and he was never laughing at the bottom of the slide like I had hoped.

So here I was trying to correct one mistake and I fear I created a much bigger one that he will tell some therapist about later. I swear I'm a psycho. I just have spent a lot of my life scared of stupid things and I didn't want the same fate for him...maybe someone should have shoved me down the slide a few times. So I'm pretty much crossing my fingers that I don't screw him up too bad and I hope that when he reads this post later in life he realizes that my wee heart broke when I shoved him down the slide but I did that, not because I wanted to, but because I love him and I'm trying so hard to get it right!






Like they say it is always darkest before the dawn and I found that to be true later in the day. Sometimes that is all that gets me through tough times is thinking about how sweet the good times taste. Granted that nothing could probably be worse than Slidegate 2008 but nothing could be better than FHE last night that was so wonderful that I felt the spirit and everything. I bought the New and Old Testament picture scriptures so we could start reading to get to the Easter story by Easter and Gage was so interested that he sat quietly and snuggled me while I read about 7 chapters. He even sat still and listened intently while I told him my testimony and I realized that he has one too when he said, "Jesus died and came back to life." We went on a walk after the lesson and Gage rode his bike (something he never used to want to do...probably because he thought he was going to fall!) and peddled all the way down our street. I hope no one noticed my crossed fingers!

My First Tag

I've never been tagged before by name so I'm super excited to have been brought to this level of blogging. Of course, it just struck me that Jessica is a common name and Jenn could have meant someone else! Oh well, here it goes.

All about me ABC Style.

A - Attached or single: Attached!

B - Best friends - Tim. I have to be honest though that I think I'm too old for a best friend. All my friends, whether I've known you since birth (my sibs) or Jr and High School (you know who you are) or later are wonderful and I feel blessed to know all of you.

C-Cake or Pie: Pie - only creme pies though...not into the fruit pies. Cake sicks me out.

D- Day of Choice: Thursday - I know once I've reached Thursday I can hang in until the weekend...also Lost is on and it is the only TV show that Tim has ever watched with me faithfully...we are totally nerds about it...we hypothesize and everything.

E- Essential Items: Flat Iron...I have some funky hair if not properly tamed.

F- Favorite Color: Green

G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Bears - I find Worms to be not as soft and not as tasty maybe because they have mixed flavors on one worm...I'll eat 'em though. I like bears...always eat the head first. Poor suckers.

H- Hometown: Planet Earth...my internet paranoia prevents me from answering this.

I -Indulgence(s): Reading in a hot tub while Gage is watching a movie and Luke is napping. Bath and Body salt scrub..vanilla is the best and makes my feet almost as soft as Tim...his feet are weird soft.

J- January or July: I consider January to be the most depressing of the months. Christmas is over and nothing to look forward too...except my Luke's birthday. I love the 4th of July!

K-Kids: 3 Gage, Luke, and Tim

L-Life is incomplete without: Tim and my family. Lays potato chips.

M- Marriage Date: May 4, 2001

N- Number of Siblings: 4

O- Oranges or Apples: I love apples...Gala are my favs. I dig orange juice over the fruit which once the juice is squirted into your mouth you are left with this disgusting pile of mush that no matter how many times you chew it is still there until you just force it down your gullet.

P- Phobias or Fears: Is this a trick question? Phobia - Spiders. I swear they can see me coming and are plotting how to jump on my face. Nothing needs that many legs. Fear- That I'm not a good person.

Q- Quote(s): "No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse." Jeffery R Holland. I'm working on it.

R- Reason To Smile: Can't think of a reason not to! I can't help smiling when I smell my clean kitchen...the more the chemical smell burns my nose hair the more I smile. Germs have been eradicated.

S- Season: There is something about Fall. Love the temps, the colors, the feeling like a new school year is starting even though I don't go to school, the clothes...everything.

T- Tag Six: Jenn already tagged 4 people who read this blog and have blogs of their own and I'm not sure that 2 more still read it. No there are more, Sarah, Dawn, Todd (this will be a great addition to your bike stories :P) Rach, and Woody, oh and Kath...do you still read...I guess now I'll know.

U- Unknown Fact About Me: I pretty much spill my guts to anyone who will listen so there isn't much that one of you won't know. I've even revealed the opera singing.

V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: I eat meat...I think vegetarians are weird. One called me a cannibal once because I eat meat...freak.

W- Worst Habit: Judging others too harshly and then I hate myself when I find out I'm wrong.

X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Obviously they were digging deep for a word that started with an "X" Ultrasounds are fun to find out about your baby...not to look for say gall stones. X-rays are faster but I always double cover my womb with my hands just in case the shield is defective (oh, that can be my unknown fact. I'm sure the hygienist wonders what the crap I'm doing)

Y- Your Favorite Food: Wow, where to begin. I love salty food. Is that called a sodium tooth?

Z-Zodiac: Virgo

P.S. Erin, I'm working on scanning my Prom pic for your tag...least you think I forgot

Too Smart For Their Own Good

We just finished reading the Book of Mormon (the picture one) for the third time with Gage. He amazes me with what he absorbs from the scriptures and it makes me proud that at least we are doing that one thing right! Anyway, he was really interested in Moroni and he was wondering when he dies and Tim was explaining that he was the last prophet to write in the Book of Mormon and the last Nephite so we don't really know when he dies. So Gage said, "Oh, well we'll find out at the end of the story." We tried again to explain it and then Gage's face brighten and he said, "We'll find out in the Second Book of Mormon!" It is priceless to think that he thinks that because Lion King and Peter Pan and countless other stories have a part 2 that the Book of Mormon does too. I'll put the circumstances of Moroni's death on my list of things to find out when we get to the other side.





Luke is doing the waddle walk pretty well now and it is pretty cute like all things Luke. He and Gage have started playing together alone and I love to hear their giggles coming from the other room. I just picture them being life long friends...at least that is what this mother is hoping for. Luke is an animal lover like me. He is totally un-fazed by large dogs, and small ones for that matter, licking his face or jumping on him. He also enjoyed Tim's sister's bird last night and we had to stop him from squashing the poor bird's head off. It's time for a dog...hint hint Tim.
A girl one...I'm totally out numbered! Just look at Luke in this pic...not our messy house..eek.

Hair Pics

As requested by the out of state-ers and the ones who might as well be...I-15 is a long and winding road...I have included my hair shots. I reserve the right to make an addendum to my previous post. I wrote that in my post-haircut haze and it seemed much shorter than it is in reality. I had post-traumatic haircut disorder...please forgive me. You'll be happy to know that I'm used to it now and liking it.