There Really Is A Tooth Fairy!!

Raquel lost her fourth tooth yesterday, so all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. Hee-Hee! As tradition in our home you place your lost tooth in a plastic baggie and put it under your pillow and just like magic the next morning your tooth is gone and there are four shiny quarters in its place. So, right before bed last night Raquel puts her tooth under her pillow and goes to sleep. (If you believe in the Tooth Fairy you must stop reading this right now!!) The only problem was the Tooth Fairy, aka ME, fell asleep too. I mean, heaven forbid mommy be a little tired right now. It's not like I'm trying to pack up and move to Spokane or anything! I wake up at 6:15 this morning and it clicked - I forgot to put money under her pillow! I race upstairs to see if she's still sleeping and send Todd on a mission to find me four shiny quarters.

Thank heavens my daughter sleeps like a rock. I crawl into her room on my hands and knees with quarters in hand so she won't see me if she wakes up. I go to her pillow which her beautiful head is resting upon and carefully stick my hand underneath it searching for the baggie with the tooth in it. IT'S GONE!! I am not kidding. The frickin' tooth fairy really exists. I mean I am searching everywhere for that stupid tooth praying the whole time that my daughter doesn't wake up and ask me what I am doing. I can't find it. I look under the bed, I carefully pull up her bedspread to see if it moved from under the pillow and I practically roll her off her pillow looking for it. It is nowhere to be found. So, genius that I am, I put the quarters under her pillow and crawl back out of her room.

Needless to say, she woke up, found her money and was happy as could be. Meanwhile, I spend the rest of the day looking for that baggie and hoping she doesn't find it before me. As usual, Todd rescues me by moving her bed to take it apart for the move and finds it underneath. It must've fallen down between the wall and the bed and gotten stuck. Whew!! The Tooth Fairy lives on!!!

What is catsup?

I love my sister! We have been raised VERY differently, me being the middle child stuck between three older brothers and three younger brothers and her being the youngest of all the kids in our family. My parents tell me they were just plain tired when it came to raising her. So, she maybe possibly wasn't taught everything that I was growing up. Today was a perfect example. My sister moved out last year for the first time in her life and is now living in Provo. She is studying to be a dental hygenist and I couldn't be prouder of her. She is just still learning some things. Like how to cook. Being the totally awesome big sister that I am I got her a recipe box and wrote out a bunch of recipes that are pretty easy to help her in her endeavor to make it on her own.



So, she calls me this afternoon (sorry, sis, but this was just too good to pass up) and asks me what kind of crisco to buy and where she finds apple vinegar in the store. I chuckle at her and guide her in my infinite wisdom in the kitchen and then tell her to have fun cooking. Not even fifteen minutes later she calls me back with another question. She asks, "Sis, what is catsup?" I thought I had misunderstood her so I was like, "What?" And she says it again, "What is catsup?" I lost it. I started laughing and I couldn't stop myself. After I calmed down she was like what the heck is going on? And as the incredible chef that I am I then instructed my sweet sister that it is ketchup!! She was like, really? Why is it spelled different? AAAAAHHHHHH!! Bless her heart. The funniest part was how she was saying it, she was pronouncing it CAT - SUP, enunciating each letter as if it was a word in a different language.



Oh, the joys of being a big sister and having the divine privilege to guide my beautiful, if somewhat kitchen lacking sister. I love you my sweet Lindsey and I will always remember this day, the day you discovered what catsup was.



(It's almost as good as the time you tried to use vinegar in your brownie recipe and then realized what you'd done. But we'll just keep that one between you and me.)

Surprise!!

I love my girlfriends! This past Wednesday I was going to a YW presidency meeting at Janell's (or so I thought). I show up to her house in jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap thinking it was just going to be a meeting to go over camp stuff. I went inside and Janell is like come downstairs, I need to show you this girls camp website I found. I was like, I'm sure I've seen it because I am all about girls camp and she's like, just come downstairs and look at it. So, I follow her downstairs and come around the corner and there sit all my awesome girlfriends who have gathered to throw me a surprise going away party.

I cried, of course, because that's all I do lately. They had a sign and balloons, and Janell made me the most beautiful blanket and they took me out to eat at Applebee's. They were all dressed up so cute and here I was in my crappy clothes. I was so mad at Todd for letting me leave the house like that, but he was like I couldn't say anything or you would know something was up!! It was such a surprise and made me feel so loved. I will miss our Girls Night Out's. They all signed this little book for me all about girlfriends and I don't want to embarrass Clarissa, but she wrote me the most awesome poem that I must share with you now.

Dearest Traci, friend to all

It made us all so sad

To hear that you are moving

In fact, some of us are mad

It came as a surprise

To hear that you'd be gone

We can't lose Traci, silly Traci

She can't be moving on

We can't lose Traci, silly Traci

The one that makes us giggle

We can't lose Traci, goofy Traci

With the fabulous boobs that jiggle

But, alas, it is true

She'll be leaving in a week or two

So everybody raise your cup

(Full of Dr Pepper, not 7Up)

To a lovely lady who is the best

Give 'em hell Traci

We'd expect nothing less!!

Marcus Is 3!!!!

Happy Birthday on the 2nd of June to my sweet little boy!! Just some tidbits about Marcus:

• Loves to watch movies, especially seasons of SpongeBob as of late


• Will only eat cereal, chips, french fries, candy, cookies, shredded cheese melted in a bowl (yuck!) and juice


• Is really quite good with a football and a soccer ball when he isn't angry


• Is angry a lot


• Doesn't know Raquel's name is Raquel, he calls her sissy and nothing else


• Thinks all modes of transportation (ie. cars, planes, trains) are all "trees" and calls them that


• Thinks Lola enjoys it when he bites her tail


• Wipes my kisses off every single time I kiss him

But you know what, he is dangerously cute, still takes naps and he is 100% potty-trained so who cares about the rest!! Neener, neener, neener!! I love you my boy!!

Bad Lola, Bad!!

Let me just preface this post by saying that I do indeed love my dog Lola and I will miss her terribly when she is gone. When we first got Lola I took her everywhere in the back of my SVU. So, I bought one of those gates to keep her in the back of the car. Well, as with many other things once she gets the picture we let her try to be a good big girl and trust that she'll do what she knows is right. Well, that was a mistake.

I took the gate down a couple of months ago and I still take her with me and she stays in the back. I mean, with three kids in car seats across the middle row I figure she has nowhere to go, right? WRONG!! Tonight we were driving back from my parents house and we were all in the car and we turned onto our road and our neighbors dogs who are all usually inside or tied up were all out and all running around. Guess what? Lola wanted to play too and she wanted to play right now. Oh, and in case you haven't met my dog she is easily 150 pounds or more.

I'm not even sure what happened it happened so fast, but before I knew it Lola was in the front seat of my car on top of me and Todd and all three of my kids were screaming bloody murder from the back seat. Raquel just kept screaming Raigan's name over and over and Raigan was crying and Marcus was crying and holy crap my dog is in my lap because she wants to get out and play!!!!! So, I grab Lola by the collar and I lose it. I am screaming at her because I'm sure that Raigan and Raquel are hurt and Todd is running into the house to get her leash. Okay, pause here - if you know me you know I have a potty mouth sometimes (sorry Brook) but I was so freaked out that I had to hold Lola still until Todd came until I could get to my kids that I REALLY LOST IT.

Words (bad ones) were coming out of my mouth so fast because I was so mad at my dog for doing something so stupid and possibly hurting my kids that I'm pretty sure I blacked out there for a moment in my not so appropriate tyrade. In front of my kids no less. So, Todd comes takes Lola to discipline her and I leap from the car to save my babies. They're fine. Shaken up as you can imagine to have my big fat Lola jump over them to go play with the other doggies. But they are fine. I think Raigan just got the crap scared out of her and Lola bumped her on her way to the front, Raquel got a couple of scratches on her arm and I don't think anything really happened to Marcus. He just likes to scream and was probably thinking, hey everyone else is doing it why not me?

So, we come inside check everyone for damage and we're not talking to Lola the rest of the night. Now, here's the best part. We sit down to read scriptures, no less, and my sweet Raquel turns to me and says - "Wow Mom, you sounded just like Grandpa in the car with all those bad words you were saying." LOL!! I am my father's daughter!! My poor daughter's mind is ruined forever. It's moments like these that really make me stop and ponder about what a totally awesome mom I am and how lucky my kids are to have me. Moms rule and dogs drool!!

We're Moving!!

I know this might come as a shock to most of you but this has all happened very quickly and I've realized I need to catch people up. We unfortunately were no longer able to keep our business open and closed our doors on May 31st. We are very sad about this but so much has happened since then that we know our Heavenly Father is guiding us in our lives. We have interviewed for a job in Spokane and we got it immediately. It's a great job with lots of growth opportunities so we are excited about that. So....we are moving to Spokane at the end of this month to start work the first of July.

I know this is crazy, but like I said we are being led and taken care of. We will face some difficult financial times ahead, but like my momma always says - "It's just money and we can't take it with us when we die." We won't be able to keep our house and that is sad as well, but in the big picture of this life and beyond it will just be a blip. We also won't be taking Lola with us because we will be renting for awhile and well, darn it, that is sad too. We found a great family in our ward who usually watches her when we go out of town and they are very excited to have her.

I was telling my husband today that we are experiencing a lot of loss all at once and you'd think I would be a basketcase sitting in my happy place in the corner, but I'm not. It's very sad, yes, but I am looking forward to new experiences in Spokane and a new chapter in our lives. This has been and is a trial of our faith and I know we will come out better for it on the other side. Keep us in your prayers if you would and we'll see you all on the sunny side of the state!!

Lost Cell Phone

I lost my cell phone today for the first time ever in all the years I've had one. We were shopping at WalMart and my mom called me. When I got off the phone I put it in my coat pocket and then later took off my coat and put it in the basket. On the way home I started freaking out because I couldn't find the phone. So, I get home and there is a message from a lady named Lynn saying she found my phone in a basket at WalMart. Now here's where it gets fun.

I figured she would say she took it in to WalMart and left it at customer service or something. Nope, Lynn doesn't trust people at WalMart and she felt the need to take it upon herself to get my phone back to me. Here are some other interesting things I found out about Lynn in the hour or so I got to know her today because she called my house at least ten times.

• Lynn had to scroll through my phone to find my home phone number to call me and say she had my phone.
• Lynn also saw my parents phone number under Dad & Mom and decided she best call them as well and tell them she had my phone.
• Lynn wanted to meet at a park to return the phone, not at WalMart because I hear they aren't trustworthy there.
• Five years ago, Lynn tells me, she would have never tried to give me my phone back she would have kept if for herself, but she is turning over a new leaf and wants to do better.
• The cell phone Lynn is calling me from isn't hers. It's her friends who is just finishing up serving her sentence in the women's prison in Purdy and Lynn is just keeping it for her until she gets out.
• Lynn is going to California tonight for an unknown reason.

Seriously, that was inbetween her calling me to find out what kind of car we drive, how much longer will it be and what exactly does Todd look like. I am so not kidding! I feel like Lynn and I have a bond now that can never be broken. Heck, if she is ever sent to the women's prison in Purdy, I'd take care of her cell phone anytime. Aaaaahhhhh, I love living in the country! My advice to you all, never lose your phone if you think for one second Lynn might find it.