Potty Mishaps & Permanent Markers

The joys of motherhood. Wow, that was an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. My children are the hardest thing I have ever done, but they do give me the best stories for my blog so we'll keep them around. About a week after we moved into our new home Todd and I were watching TV, unwinding after another long day of trying to get settled. As I mentioned before my kids were still adjusting to new surroundings and what not. So, as we're watching TV we hear this loud bang from the kids' room and Todd runs up there thinking someone has fallen out of bed. He finds Raquel standing right by her closet door and he watches as she pulls down her underthings and squats down preparing to go to the potty!! Holy Crap!! He totally freaks out and yells, "Raquel, what are you doing?" So, I run upstairs as he is guiding her to the bathroom and I take her in to go to the potty. Unbeknownst to me she is actually still asleep and she goes into the bathroom and sits on the toilet and starts to go pee. Only problem is the toilet seat lid is down and she is peeing on top of it. So, I freak out and yell, "Raquel, what are you doing?" I pull her off and open the toilet and no joke the kid finishes going pee in the toilet. This whole time I am talking to her, but getting no response. I put her back to bed and in the morning I ask her if she remembers almost peeing in her closet last night and she has NO recollection of the entire incident. Wow, this girl has some sleeping issues. Not only does she snore like a trucker, talk constantly in her sleep and have night terrors (you know, scream at the top of her lungs like someone is killing her and I run to her totally freaked out and she is still sleeping) but now she is a peeing sleepwalker as well. Super.

Now, onto my darling son. As you can probably figure out by the name of this post it has something to do with a permanent marker. A black permanent marker to be exact. You could say that I have been distracted trying to get everything put away and make our home feel like home. Normally my children aren't allowed anywhere near a permanent marker but my son somehow finds one in all the moving mess and decides, oh, I don't know - to color! Not on a coloring book or piece of paper as you might be thinking. No, he decides to color all over the top of the DVD player and a whole shelf on my bookcase in my office. I just want to clarify that no Marcus was hurt during the telling of this story or when this story was happening. The worst part mind you, the WORST part was that he decided that one of mommy's books was a great place to color too. He colored on my treasured FRIENDS book - a compilation of their ten years on TV. Now to most of you this might be no big deal, but to those of you who are true FRIENDS fans, let us all gasp in shock and horror at this crime against all fans of FRIENDS. And the reason my son isn't simply living out his life in time out is the most magical cleaning tool ever made. The magic eraser!! Bless the woman who invented that thing because it took everything off and I don't ever need to know what's in the dang thing, just that it takes it all off!! Super.

The Move

Okay, I think I can now breathe again. I know, I know, I haven't been on in awhile, but hey I was moving!! And oh, what a joy that has been! I won't bore all of you with all the gritty details, but I will pass on a few tidbits of fun that have happened over the past week or so.

• Our new home was repainted before we moved in. They literally just finished painting the morning we moved in. Then, they closed everything up and left it like that. I now know that the overwhelming smell of paint fumes in 90+ weather will cause my entire family to get scratchy throats and cough for a few days. Super.


• When you move into a rental even though they have repainted and recarpeted it still smells funny. No, I mean it really smells funny. Help me. Please let that smell go away and be replaced with the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking since we do that like every day now in the hopes that it will annihilate that smell. Super.


• When they put a brand new AC unit in your rental they should check to make sure the breaker can handle it. Because they didn't do this, my breaker kept tripping and we kept losing power in 90+ weather and I kept flipping the breaker back until I was putting my kids to bed on our second night here and a fan plugged into an outlet overloaded something and sparks flew out of the outlet, hitting Raquel in the leg, burning the outlet black and causing us to lose power once again. Super.


• My kids were in the room with me when this all happened and it totally freaked them out. As a result, I was pissed, I called the maintenance man at like 10:30 at night and then checked myself and my kids into a hotel and left my husband there to deal with our "electrical issues". Super.


• Each member of my family, except for me, has gotten sick in the last week. I mean, throwing up all over the brand new carpet, spewing chunks, vomit out the nose and even diarrhea - sick! Not mommy though, no mommy is the strong one while I try to unpack, clean up vomit and comfort my little ones. Super.

While the last week or so has been quite eventful as we try to settle into our new home and adjust to life without Grandma and Papa, we are happy to be here and off on our new adventure. Through this whole crazy transition, my sweet baby boy Marcus got himself attached to his big sister's hot pink bike helmet. I think there was just so much going on that he needed something to comfort himself with. I mean, he didn't take that thing off for three days straight. He would wear it to bed, in the bath and everywhere we went. Todd was a bit embarrassed to have his son wearing a hot pink bike helmet, but I told him to just leave him alone and he would take it off when he was ready. Well, I am happy to report that the helmet is finally off and we must have found our happy place. Bless you sweet boy! Now, where is that bike helmet and can mommy borrow it for a few days?

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!!