The fight is on...

Who's going to win???

Probably not me.

Macie is 2 years 9 1/2 months old.

She's smart. Probably smarter than me.

I decided that I'm done with diapers.

She, however, is not done with diapers.

Yesterday I ran out of diapers and told her that was the end.

She cried.

"I'm still a baby...I want my diapers."

Who wouldn't though? Someone else to wipe your bum for you, not having to stop playing to go potty, she knows she's got a good thing going right now.

Grandma promised her a Barbie if she goes 10 times.

Maddie promised her a dollar.

Dad will take her to Maverick to pick a treat.

I made her a potty chart to keep track with sparkly pink stars.

We've told her she can get a big girl (twin) bed if she wears underwear.

No luck yet. I've gone through 4 pull-ups. I let her go...commando...that lasted 5 minutes and she peed on the floor.

She shows no interest at all.

Do I wait until it's her idea?

Do I keep on trying?

Do I send her to my mom's for a week and pray she comes back potty trained?

I like that idea.

This is going to be tough.

It's not like there's a big hurry, right?

It would be sooo nice to have the Wakewii home a diaper-free zone.

But hey, at least she's got a cute new haircut!

Parking

What do you think about when I say "17 year old" and "park" in the same sentence?

Probably not this:

My niece Carly wanted to play with my girls this weekend, so she invited us up for half price cheese fries at Training Table (she works there) and then we all went to the park.

This would be texting and playing at the same time.

And more texting while watching the kids. (Sorry that you're not looking hotter, Ash).

No really, Carly and Ashley were great and went and played for about an hour with my girls on the swings and slides and even took care of the playground bullies for me.

And then they put my baby on the back of my car and left her there. :) The best babysitters ever!

One funny side note...there was probably 15 kids playing on the toys. There were 2 more little girls with broken wrists with casts on playing! What are the odds to have 3 kids with the same injury there at the same time?? It was pretty funny to hear them talking

"What happened to your wrist?" "When do you gets yours off?" "I like your color"

Itsy bitsy spiders

Remember that awesome FHE I did about Moses? Remember that I cricutted bugs for Lindsay to throw at everyone? Those bugs keep showing up and freaking me out! Just when I think I've found them all and thrown them away, one more pops up in a spider-like habitat. (ie, basement, corner, by the french doors, under a large toy that I usually don't move).



I think I've also mentioned that our garage is a Black Widow summer resort. I think we found about 6 last summer. We've sprayed and find lots of dead spiders now, but I'm still a little leery of what is lurking in my garage.



You can imagine my fear when I found this on the steps into the house:

It's black. It's just the right size of our black widow guests. It's way too close to my house.

Oh wait, it's just another FHE spider. So instead of picking it up and throwing it away, I just leave it there and for the next 3 or 4 days, every time I go out or in, I look at it and have that little "jump" in my stomach thinking it's real.

Why didn't I pick it up? Good question. If you know why, let me know.

Cast be gone...

So, I received many comments about what a mean mom I was for not letting people sign Maddie's cast. I finally gave in and sent her to school with a Sharpie 3 days before she got it off. She was sooo excited! "Mom, there was this huge group of people waiting to sign it at recess!"
And this is the look she gave me when I had the nerve to say I wanted to take a picture of her cool signed cast.

She finally gave in and let me take a few.

This would be the cast coming off. I will admit, I was a little freaked out about this blade right next to my child's skin. She was super brave though!

And the cast is off! I was totally surprised when the nurse asked if she wanted to keep it and she said no. Maddie keeps everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I asked why she didn't want to keep it and she said, "Mom, why on earth would I want to keep a smelly old cast?"

She has to wear a brace for the next week, just to ease her back into having 2 arms, but other than that, she's good to go!

(And a huge thank you to Mom and Dad for meeting me there and waiting with the little girls in the waiting room. I'm sure the blade would have freaked them out even more than it did me!)

.Happy Birthday to me

I am now 31.

I'm speechless.

I've thought and thought all week what to blog about for my birthday blog. I started a list of 31 things I learned this past year, but couldn't come up with 31 things. I think I came up with 10, one of which was how to zest a lemon. (And I guess I could now add to that list that I can rescue pickles in a pickle).

My birthday present.

On Saturday Jer needed an oil change and I needed to get my car inspected, so we drove both cars over and had the work done while we went to lunch. When it was done, I begged him to take the girls so I could make a few stops on my way home. He agreed. I enjoyed a blissful hour of shopping without kids. Ahhh...

When I got home I was told that they went for a walk. A walk? Really? That's so not Jeramy. Then there was a conversation with Macie about rabbits and Maddie quickly "shushed" her. That's when I knew something was up. Laying in bed that night I said, "So, I'm not sure where you went or what you did, but I know it involves rabbits." Jer just laughed.

Monday the girls and I went to Robert's and I was drooling over the Cricut Expression and Maddie said, "Mom, aren't those cool, don't you want one?" (Everyone in the world knows I want one). Lindsay quickly said, "Maddie, you're not supposed to say anything!"

And then I got it.

Tuesday morning there was a large box on the kitchen table wrapped in Christmas paper. Jeramy had already gone to work, so I knew I had to wait to open it. Around 11, he called and said that I could open it since the snow had ruined my plans of lunch and shopping in Layton with his mom. Surprise, it was a Cricut Expression! I was so excited, and so were the girls. They no longer had to keep secrets. Maddie immediately went up to her room and came back down with 3 Cricutted rabbits. Jer told me that the lady at the store had made the girls each a rabbit, but they had to hide them from me.

We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner where I proudly told them I was 21 and holding. Then Lindsay and I went to the mall.

I had a great day! Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Here's hoping that 31 is lots of fun. So far so good.

4-wheeling

Yesterday I took the girls 4-wheeling. (Jeramy had to work). My dad took his trailer(s) and 4-wheeler(s) down by Utah Lake for the week for us kids to use. When he explained the directions to us, I thought maybe he was joking when he said, "Turn right when you see the sheep bones." Gotta love camping with my dad!

We had a blast! We flew kites for a long time. My Dad taught the kids how to Geocache and he had hid some around for them to find with his GPS. They all loved that so much that Grandpa had to make some more up for them for day 2! One of the them was up on a rocky hill and I had to go up to save Lindsay - although she didn't think she needed saving - I just got nervous about her being up there. Then I got up there and I was the nervous one!

We found out that Maddie is quite the little hoola hooper - I was totally impressed!

Oh yeah, and we 4-wheeled a little. Maddie was nervous about riding with her broken arm. I finally got her on with me, but she quickly told me that I was only allowed to go 11 mph. So while she's crying about me going too fast, Macie is on the back yelling, "Mom, go faster! You can do it!"

Thanks for a wonderful trip, Grandpa!

A little spring has sprung at our house

So, I have about 4 blog posts started, but not finished. I just sat down to write my birthday blog and decided to blog my grass instead. Looks like you'll be kept in suspense another day about my birthday.

When we went to Primary Children's for Maddie's arm a few weeks back, they had little pots of seeds all over the window's edge. I was intrigued and asked what they were doing. The sweet receptionist was giddy when I asked. She told me that they were sprouting wheat grass. She told me to try it at home, but to use hard red winter wheat. Who is she to tell me what kind of wheat to use?

Maddie and I went home and tried it out with some regular old wheat...and soil from out in my flower beds. Day 2 I started to notice little potato bug carcases floating to the top of my cups. Day 3 the smell was disgusting. Day 4, mold. Day 8 I thew them away and sent out the facebook message begging for red winter wheat. The Smith's came to my rescue, and also shared a story of dropping some down the drain on accident and having beautiful green grass sprouting up a few weeks later. She gave me hope.

We started 3 pans of them. We dropped our wheat in the first 2, then I remembered the sweet lady also told me to soak them for a few hours first, so I soaked my last kernels (is that the right word?) before I put them in the nice fresh soil that I bought at Wal-Mart.

Pans 1 and 2 didn't do too well, pan #3 has been so much fun to watch! I love how bright green it is with all this snow around!

If you want to try to grow some grass, learn from my mistakes.

1. Use hard red winter wheat. 2. Buy fresh, bug-free soil 3). soak your wheat for a few hours first. 4). lay out in a single layer on the dirt. 5) keep wet until you get sprouts, then just water as needed to keep soil moist.

mmmm....cast....

This is how Maddie has been sleeping. How on earth is that comfortable? I know we aren't supposed to get it wet...does drool count? Sick.



Also, this was her April Fool's joke on me. She's in my bed. She came down and said, "Mom, what time do you go to bed?" I said midnight. She smiled. I said, "Maddie, if you're going to do something you shouldn't, I will take that stuffed animal of yours and put it in a bucket of water and freeze it." Shouldn't mess with me. (She's clutching her stuffed animal in there with her, too).

In a pickle...

My new vacuum sucks. No really, the suction is amazing. Maybe it's that I've been using an inferior vacuum for many years. Whatever the reason - it's a little intimidating to me. I get a little nervous using the hose attachment. I used to suck up the girls shirts and hands and stuff just to tease them. Now I'm afraid I might detach a limb if I tried it.

Last night I was using said hose attachment on the stairs. I saw a pickle. (Plastic, not real. That would be gross). I said to myself, "Those dang kids. I'm going to leave it here and make one of them move it...." whump. "What the heck...where did the pickle go? No way..." I look at my vacuum and there is a big red flashing button "suction blocked." Now I'm in awe at the power of my vacuum. That awe soon turns to annoyance when I try to get the pickle out. It's stuck in here:

The blue part between the hose and the opening. I finally got a hanger and pushed the pickle back into the hose. Keep in mind, while I'm doing this, many tears are being shed, "It's my favorite toy" "Mom, you have to save it" "Mom, don't break that hanger." And on and on. What about my brand new vacuum? How come no one cares about that??
I finally get it to slide back down the hose and we end up here. Stuck again. I poke it, it slides back down. I bang it on the floor, you name it, I tried it. 10 minutes I fought with the stupid pickle. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I got the scissors. The girls are all in a panic now about their precious pickle.

Success! I finally got it out. There was much rejoicing for about 10 seconds. The pickle was saved. My vacuum was saved. All was well. I continued vacuuming the house, the girls went back to playing. I'm pretty sure I was smiling to myself about my amazing pickle-saving abilities. I take the vacuum onto the other set of stairs and start to vacuum and what to I behold?

The same stupid pickle is now on a different set of stairs. Just chilling. Momma Heidi kind of lost it. I said the pickle was going in the garbage. Maddie came to the poor pickle's rescue and hid it (hence the lack of a picture of a pickle chilling on the stairs).

Moral to the story...just don't vacuum your house.
Sheesh, do you think I set some kind of record for using the words pickle and vacuum in a blog post?