Tulip Festival

Today I finally took the girls over to see the tulips. It was sooo pretty! The past few years it's been too cold, or the tulips weren't out yet. Today they were at 90% bloom, and it was amazing. I enjoyed laying back in the grass soaking in the sunshine while the kids danced on the stage. It was a great trip to Thanksgiving Point - until I got home and realized I only took one water bottle and came home with 2. YUCK!

Popping necks and the Potty train

Wednesday night I didn't make dinner - gasp! Please don't tell Dr Laura. The girls and I had gone to a birthday party and had pizza, so we were fine. Jeramy started to get a little cranky about the lack of food around 7. So I said that if he would get the kids ready for bed, I would go to Del Taco and bring food home. This is what happened while I was gone.

Jeramy was helping Lindsay get her shirt off and it popped her neck. She said, "What was that, Dad?"

"Oh, just your neck popping." He answered.

Apparently she started to panic and grab at her neck. "No Dad! I want my neck back!" Tears followed. Utter confusion for Jeramy. Then it all clicked. Lindsay has been playing with balloons lately. Balloons POP and are gone. She thought he neck was gone. Glad he got that one straightened out before I got home.

And now for the potty train. Macie - who is only 21 months- wants to get on. I am not ready. Most of you have had this conversation with me, but in case you haven't heard our adventures with the potty lately, here ya go.

Macie hates to be poopy. She wants her diaper changed ASAP when she does her duty. A few weeks ago in nursery she pooped. No one knew, so she took matters into her own hands and took off the poopy diaper. I'm not really sure of all the details, all I know is that I was SOO embarrassed.

She wants to go potty all day long. The other day I had let her try, then taken her off the potty and I went downstairs. I then hear a huge CRASH! I run upstairs to see Maddie pulling Macie out of the toilet and Macie screaming, "No more potty!" She had tried to go on her own and fallen in. BUT an hour later, she was asking to go potty again.

She has never actually performed on the potty. She always asks to get on the potty about 3 seconds too late. Like I said, I'm really not ready for this, so I don't ask her all day if she needs to go - it's always her idea.

So, I'm looking for advice on how to get ME on the potty train, and how to get HER actually using the potty train.

The big race

Some of you may remember that last year, I swore I'd never run again. And I didn't for a LONG time. Then Jeramy came home from work and said, "4Life is paying again, want to run?" Why not when it's free, right? I had fun doing it with Jeramy last year, so I said I'd do it. I then learned after I'd been signed up that Jeramy signed up for the half marathon, and I was signed up for the 5K. Not what I had planned. But I decided it probably wouldn't kill me to do it alone.
Race day came. Jeramy had us downtown at 6 - an hour and a half before my race. We took Trax up and I got off at my stop and felt a little sad about leaving my running mate on the train. I got to the start of the 5K an hour early. That's right folks, an hour early. I was seriously the first one there. I wandered around, stretched, used the porta potty, wandered some more, and then just watched people. I found myself wondering what motivates people to run. Some reasons were obvious by their shirts - running in memory of someone they lost to cancer. Those always choked me up. But the rest of us there, why were we there? I had plenty of time to reflect on this and here are a few reasons I came up with
1 - enjoy running
2 - got talked into it by someone
3 - did it to be with friends
4 - did it to be with family
5 - cool t-shirt and handouts at the end
6- and my favorite, "Is this a race? I was just sleeping on the bench over there and thought this was the breakfast line." (Not really).

And then as the race started, I got to think even more.
I thought about the adorable 6 year old girl with her ipod strapped on - who passed me - why was she doing this?
And the man that was blind who was being led by a good friend - who passed me - why was he doing this?
The man dressed like Spiderman - who passed me - why was he doing this?
And the dad pushing 2 kids in a jogging stroller - who passed me - why was he doing this?
And the Grandma wearing the t-shirt that said, "If you can read this, you just got passed by a Grandma" - who passed me - why was she doing this?
And then I started to wonder - why am I doing this???

I did it, and beat my time from last year by about a minute. Yipee.
Then I had to wait some more. I stood at the finish line waiting for Jeramy to finish the half for 1 hour, 15 minutes. In that time I got to reflect some more on people and how they finish a race. Here's what I learned, there are:
The people who sprint as hard as they can at the end
The people who keep their steady pace to the end
The people who look like they can't take another step
The people who look like they could keep going all day
The people with a terrible grimace on their face
The people with a smile on their face
The people who sweat - a lot
The people who turn bright red
The people who wear way too many layers of clothes and have them tied around their waist now
The people who could use a few more layers instead of oozing out of just a sports bra
The people who look like they are going to trip on the finish mat
The people who do trip on the finish mat
The people that keep their own time on their watches and push the button the second they cross
The people who took the time to put on their fake eyelashes before the race
The people who have family and friends there to cheer them on
The people who don't
The people that look so proud that they actually finished
The people that look like they could care less

As you can see, I had a lot of time to think during this race. Kind of a silly post, but I was amazed when I took a step back and really watched the people around me. I really wish I could have taken pictures of all these people (especially Spiderman, Grandma that passed me and eyelash lady).
So, my question is- what kind of runner are you??

(And I must add how proud I am of Jeramy. Mr. Amazing did the half in 2 hours 15 minutes WITHOUT training. The most he had ran was 7 miles 3 nights before the race. I thought it would take him at least 3 hours and was quite surprised when he came running across the finish line so early. I keep telling him that he's getting old and things are not going to always be so easy for him. I guess I was wrong. Maybe it was just the awesome pasta party we went to the night before).

The Farm

We did manage to get our first family trip to the farm in before the big snowstorm of spring break '09. I always love the farm with Jeramy - we get to see the "little farm boy" side of him that we rarely get to see. It's buried in there so deep that many of you would never guess that he was a sheep raising, 4-H blue ribbon winning fool, would ya? I'm the one who scream like a little girl and ran when his parent's baby calf came over to say "hi" to me a few years ago. It's good that we have him to get the girls to touch the animals and milk the cow - I totally don't encourage that one - too scary!

Macie loves animals. She was so excited to see all of these up close and personal, especially the pigs. She loves those the most. At our house pigs make a 'clicking' sound. Not really sure where that came from, but it's so cute! She got to take her first pony ride and was having a blast - then the pony sneezed and she was "All done! Off! All done!" She later told us, "Pony eat me!" She's still talking about that awful pony that ate her and went "achoo."

When we went to do our craft in the craft room, I realized that Jeramy was not doing the usual, "Let's hurry this part along" bit. I looked over to see him contently playing with Irene, the iphone. She's such a good babysitter.

I'm glad we got to get one fun thing in before the winter set in!

Spring Break?

I think that Adhis put it best today, "Oh, excuse me, I must have hit the snooze button one too many times. I meant to get up in April and slept in 'til December. Good thing the Christmas lights are still up on the house."

Last night I ran my practice 5K around 10 p.m. I couldn't sleep after that. Around 2 a.m. I was laying in bed and thought, "Huh. I need a candy bar." (Not WANT, but NEED). So I got up and had one, then looked out the window and thought, "Am I really awake?" This morning I told Jeramy to look out the window to see if it had really snowed. Yup. BUMMER.

At least the kids were excited to wake up to 5 inches of snow on April 16th. I had to dig the box of gloves, coats, hats and boots out of storage so they could go play in their Spring Break Snow.

So not cool.

I'm always Fine-d

We've moved all the books into Madison's room and she is the librarian. She's made library cards and she writes down what has been checked out and when it needs to be back. On Saturday, I found this note leading to her library. (If you lose a book it is $10).

We lost a take home book from school in November- $10 to replace a $2 book. It has still never turned up, which leads me to believe that MAYBE it was the take home book library's fault and not mine. But I won't judge.

I have lost...3 library books in the last year. I have graciously apologized and paid the fine. Months later, I have found each one of them and now I am stuck with books I never would have bought.

Macie wrote in 2 library books, which I went and showed the librarian, and I had to buy. (Our library is very picky about ANYTHING that happens to a book while you have it, they actually turn every page to check for damage, so I decided to be honest upfront and just show them so I didn't look like I was trying to get away with something).

One book we took back didn't pass 'inspection' and they tried to fine me for teeth marks. TEETH MARKS! I actually fought them on this one and showed them Macie's teeth - at the time she didn't even have her K9's, so she couldn't have even made those teeth marks...maybe it was me in a fit of rage over loosing library books...who knows.

So, I feel bad that my daughter feels that she has to impose a fine system for our home library. I don't think I'll be checking books out from her anytime soon.

I feel like I take care of the library books, but apparently I'm not. I should be banned pretty soon, I'm sure. I am slowly buying each and every book from the public library. You'd better check them out before they are all at my house! (Especially if you go to the Little Library by our Stake Center, I've bought half of them already).

*I got desperate one time and tried the magic eraser on a page in a book...did you know paper can sizzle? It's pretty cool. It got the crayon off, but ate through the paper. I don't recommend trying it. I have finally found a fault with the magic eraser!

Update

Hey! For those of you who care - I just posted on my craft site for the first time in like 6 months. Enjoy!

http://craftnheidi.blogspot.com/

The big day

Well, I've heard it's turdy to be thirty and now I know - it is. No, I haven't noticed any major changes in my life thus far into my thirtieth year on the earth. So far so good.
My day started off with a very excited Maddie and Jeramy. Jeramy had decided to take the day off this morning and he was pretty excited about that. Maddie had made me a million cards and had hid them and could hardly get downstairs fast enough to get them out of hiding and give them to me. She also got on the Build a Bear website and turned on the "birthday bear" song and all the girls danced for me. She was pretty bummed about Dad staying home and she had to go to school, so we surprised her and checked her out of school a whole 8 minutes early. She was sooo excited!

We went shopping and to lunch at...McDonalds - not the birthday girl's choice. Gotta start worrying about those arteries and such now that I'm OLD.

We came home and JERAMY (and 3 helpers) made my cake while I hid upstairs and watched Gilmore Girls. (I'm on the last season now). I then cuddled with my Cuddlebug Lindsay for a while, and then we went to Texas Roadhouse. The girls insisted that I go there for my birthday, even though Lindsay said about 10 times today, "Mom, you can't sit on the saddle, you'll break it!" That does wonders for this old lady's ego, let me tell you! Macie wanted her napkin in her shirt, so everyone decided to try it out. When it came time for the saddle, the kind waitress asked how old I would like to be today. I said 22. So she announced it was my 22nd birthday. The table of old (even older than me) people looked over at my 3 kids and MUCH older husband in disgust. Ahhh...keep telling yourself that, Heidi....you look not a day over 18.

We then came home and ate my cake and all blew out my candles. I got to do it twice because I forgot to make a wish the first time.

The night ended, everyone went to bed. I started up the Gilmore Girls - again. I ended at midnight and thought, "Huh. Another birthday come and gone." I started to walk upstairs and I found this note on the floor by my room.

Translation:

Dear Mom We had a fun time with you. Love Madison.

Then it hit me. I am so lucky! I have a wonderful husband who took the day off - even though he is super busy at work right now. He went in many stores that I know he hates and didn't say a word about it. He made me a cake. That is pretty amazing in and of itself. I have 3 wonderful daughters who wanted this day to be perfect for me and did everything in their power to make it so. They danced for me, played songs for me, made me cards, went shopping all day without complaining or fighting, left me alone for an hour during the afternoon, went with their Dad to the bookstore while I went to Target because as Maddie said, "You deserve a break today." They even let me listen to Michael Buble in the car (all of them, even Jeramy who hated every minute of it). What an awesome day!

Well, it is late. Very late. Us old folks have to get to bed early. I just wanted to write down my feelings while they were 'fresh'. Thanks to all who called, texted and facebooked me today - I feel so loved!

No fooling here!

I am not a big fan of April Fool's Day. BUT, this year I tried. I got some ideas from a magazine and I was actually a little excited to do it. For breakfast I put blue food coloring in the bottom of Lindsay's bowl of cereal. We poured the milk, the milk turned blue. I waited. I waited some more. No one noticed. No one cared. So much for that idea. I guess Lucky Charms do tend to turn the milk colors anyway on their own.

Trick #2 went over a little better. I made jello and poured it into glass cups with straws. I set the table (with our finest china - as you can see) and last minute put the cups on the table. Maddie couldn't get over the fact that I was letting them use straws for dinner.

Macie was the first to take a sip. And sip she did. Over and over and over and over. She got nothing. She didn't complain though, just kept working on it. So persistent!

Maddie was quite impressed once I told her why her juice was not coming out. "Maddie, it's a joke. It's jell-o." She got a huge smile on her face and I could tell she was proud of me.

So there ya have it. I fooled 'em all! Macie never really got it, and Lindsay thought she had to eat it with her straw and was so frustrated, but I did it!