H's Big Night Out

Last night, K had to run back to work for something so while he was gone I was trying to finish putting our FHE lesson together. H needed his diaper and clothes changed so I asked J to help me. He changed the diaper but was nervous about putting H's clothes on. He said he always hurts him. I told him to just be careful. Next thing I know, H is crying and J is handing him to me. I tried to settle him down but he wouldn't stop crying. I took him upstairs to check on the other kids and I showed him a little stuffed toy hoping to distract him. He just cried harder. I tried his bottle, his pacifier, I checked his diaper. He just cried harder and harder. He was white as a ghost and having a hard time breathing. I decided that maybe J had really hurt him after all. K walked in about that time and he tried to settle H down and he came to the same conclusion...that he must be hurt..maybe something was pulled out of place or even worse, maybe a bone was broken. We decided to take him to the ER. He screamed the whole way there. He screamed all the way through admitting. They asked us what was wrong with him. We said he might be hurt. He won't stop crying. The ER was very backed up because of an accident on the freeway. Someone died while we were waiting so the family was crying and wailing. It was very sad and we couldn't help but just stare at them. K was out in the parking lot walking with H trying to get him to stop crying. Once that guy died, they were able to move on to other patients but it still took a long time to get to us. K had finally gotten H to fall asleep but every time he moved, he would whimper in pain. When the took us back to weigh and do vitals. K held him very still so he wouldn't wake up and scream any sooner than he had to. Finally he had to be put on the scale so K cautiously layed him down. H opened his eyes, saw K standing there and started wiggling his arms and legs very excitedly and squealed with delight. We couldn't believe it. The nurse looked his arms over and he smile and played with her. She told us we'd have to wait a few more minutes before they would have a room for us. K asked her what would happen if we just were gone when she came to get us. Without telling us what to do, she told us we wouldn't be billed if we were just gone the next time she called our name. K took H out into the hall and played with him for a few minutes and when he showed no sign of any discomfort, we just disappeared. Our Conclusion....H has a BAD temper!! You would think that after SIX kids, we would have some kind of clue as to when to go to the hospital and when to just spank them and send them to bed! Oh Well! We got home after midnight and K threw up 3 times throughout the rest of the night. Sometimes I'm really glad when the day is over.

Here are some pictures of my hurt little boy after some very restful zzzz's at the hospital.

My imagination gets the best of me

The other night all the kids had gone to bed and K was upstairs playing PlayStation2 so I was in my room laying on my bed putting H to sleep and talking on the phone. I got up and walked out into the kitchen. When I came back to my room this is what I saw...

I was so surprised and startled that I actually screamed. All I could see was some of a head and messy hair. It looked like a scene from a scary movie.

It was A. I had to go check and make sure she was still alive. I have no idea how long she had been there. After I took some pictures I woke her up and sent her to bed. It made me wonder how many other things happen around here that I am totally unaware of. And I need to stop watching K's scary crime shows. My imagination gets a little carried away when I get tired at night.

S's Baptism Update

We are planning to baptize S on Saturday the 4th. This is also the same day as V's open house. For those of you who are coming to Mom and Dad's house that day, you are invited to come share this special occasion with us also. We have finally been given permission to do the baptism earlier than the rest of the stake. It will be at 2 p.m. We are hoping this time change will take some of the stress off of V's party. We will be sending out invitations soon but we wanted to get it posted so you all would have time to decide what will work out best for your families.

V is getting married!

My little sister, V, is getting married. She is marrying J from Utah. We are so excited at our house because we really like J and we really love V. Congratulations you two!! We'll see you on the 4th.

S's Tea Birthday Party

When my children turn 8 years old they are able to have a birthday party with friends. All their other birthdays are done on a much smaller scale, like immediate family. S wanted to have a tea party, so we sort of had one...with an 8 year old twist. For lunch we had a fruit tray, a vegetable tray with dip, a cracker tray, and lemonade. We played "Pin the purse on the girl", a get-to-know-you game with M&M's, and they had to unwrap a present using only a knife and a spoon. Inside it was Lip Smackers for everyone. We painted little flower pots, and made Tussie Mussie's. (Do you know what a Tussie Mussie is? I didn't. It's a small bouquet of flowers the ladies used to carry on walks so they could smell fresh flowers instead of the stinky streets. Funny huh!) We opened presents and sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes, a Sherbet/Sprite drink, Rice Krispie Treats (using Dino Bites instead of rice krispies), and butter mints. It went pretty good. I was running a little behind so Dad and D decorated the cupcakes while Mom held H and I did crafts. We had 13 girls and one small neighbor boy plus my 6 kids, a couple mom's and some small siblings and my Mom and Dad and D and K. It was a full house! The party itself went really well. It's the unexpected things that tend to stress me out. The party was suppose to be outside and today the grass was flooded. I guess maybe it has been getting too much water lately so we had a lake in our back yard. Then we actually had some little fights. Most of these girls didn't even know each other and a couple of them still got into little girl fights. It was kind of weird. Also, it was about 105 degrees and the wind was blowing so the weather wasn't that great and then we got attacked by grasshoppers. They were everywhere. On the tables, in our hair, on the windows, all over the grass and cement. We had several cups full of grasshoppers (NOT on the party agenda). They were even coming in my house. I've never seen that many around. It was crazy! Other than those few things, I think S had a really good day. She is hoping she wakes up tomorrow and the whole day starts over again. Funny story: I was putting the kids to bed and A comes to me all worried. She says, "We forgot to do the most important thing today. We forgot to baptize S." I told her that was in a couple of weeks. She was a little confused. It's funny to look at things from a child's perspective. Why would she think anything differently. We have always said, "When you turn 8 then you get baptized." So S turned 8 and we forgot to baptize her. It's days like these that make me thankful for all my blessings. I love being a mom!!!

Family Reunion

Nice'n Easy to my rescue!

I have alot of grey hairs. They are a constant reminder that I am not-so-young anymore. So, in May, while K was in Las Vegas on training, I was feeling loney and "old" so I decided to finally do something about it. I scheduled a hair appointment and asked the beautician to make me look younger. $60 later, I had short bangs and orange-ish colored highlights. K thought the bangs made me look like a little kid (not quite the age I was going for) and the color was kind of like an Orangutan. So, this is me...a young monkey!

To top it off, I still could see grey hair. I have spent the last 2 months trying to decide how to fix my problem. I didn't want to spend any more money on my hair so finally I decided to go to Target and buy a hair color kit and just do it myself. While there, this kind lady was also buying some color for herself so I asked her opinion and she told me that she had tried every product and Clairol Nice'n Easy is the Best! She also said not to go with "ash" tones because they bring out green in hair and "golden" brings out orange. Just go with "natural". I was very nervous but her hair color looked pretty good so I decided to trust her. She also had an extra coupon so she gave it to me as a "good luck gift". I bought this box...

"Natural" Medium Brown

and went home to see what happened. I was so nervous because I have seen bad hair color (mine!) and I didn't want to make it worse. So, I just went for it and ....

I love it!! It worked!! I have brown hair again and NO MORE GREY!!!!

So, with my coupon (Thank-you very kind Lady!), I spent $6 dollars fixing my hair color. (I think I can actually feel okay about spending that much to get rid of my grey) Now, 2 questions...

1) Why didn't anyone tell my sooner that I could do it myself? and 2)Why didn't the beautician just tell me that I could save so much money and do it myself?

(Also, while looking on the internet for this picture, found out the Nice'n Easy is the winner of some UK Product of the Year thing for the year 2007. Cool!

http://www.productoftheyear.co.uk/winner.asp?year=2007&winner=1 )

When I was finished coloring my hair, I asked my son Justyn (he's 10 yrs. old) if he thought I looked younger yet. He said, "Well...Yeah! Now you just need to get rid of that fff... Mom? Are you going to keep walking with Dad?" I said, "Will I look younger if I do?" He said, "Well, you know, you do have some fat on your tummy." (As if I hadn't noticed.) Thanks J!

So, now I have no more grey hair and my bangs are slowly growing back out. As for the "fat on my tummy", well....I'm still working on that one!

P.S. I put together a little photo gallery for you. Enjoy!

Before:

During:

After:

(Monkeys are kind of creepy looking!)

Koumpounophobia-Fear of Buttons

Phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.
My whole life I have had a fear of buttons, I almost can't even type the word. I am cringing right now just thinking about them. I do not wear them...I do not touch them...I can't even hardly look at them. I do not think K is attractive when he wears them and this really offends him. I can't help it. They make me want to scream! If I touch one I have to wash my hands to get it's "yuckyness" off of me. I am trying to learn to deal with them because my husband wears them and my children are beginning to show an interest in styles that have them. At times this phobia has even caused problems in my marriage. Sometime I think Ken wonders if I'm making it up. I am finally beginning to be able to iron the boys church shirts but mostly because I really like my new iron. I have a technique that helps me avoid ever touching them and I spend very little time looking at them. I definately can not sew one back on a shirt or take one off. If there is a loose string coming from a button, I can't deal with that and I really am disturbed when someone is wearing a shirt that is missing a button or one of their buttons is undone. I hate button jars! And so many crafty things are decorated with buttons which means I can't like them because the button ruins it. I avoid any activity that requires an outfit that has buttons. It's kind of a burden. I'm very limited on what clothing I can wear. I've tried to overcome my fear, but I can't. I have been teased alot. I hate being chased with them or tricked into touching them or forced to touch them. My little sister is even catering to my phobia by not having us wear buttons to her wedding. We get to wear plain pink t-shirts!! Yeah!! Thanks V! (She's sympathetic to me because she has a fear of band-aids.) Well, guess what. It's a real phobia that other people have. I found a button-phobia support website. Cool!! Check out how many other people have the same phobia. http://www.unusualphobias.com/buttons.html Now you can all see that I am not alone in my strangeness. As I read through the other comments I could totally relate to everything they were posting. My whole life I thought I was crazy. Now I know that I'm not because there are other people just like me. I am so excited!!

Do you have an unsual phobia that no one understands?
Check out this website. http://www.unusualphobias.com/Thingspage.html
Here is a more complete list of unusual phobias
http://www.unusualphobias.com/Phobias.html
(V, there's even a phobia of band-aids! You're not alone in your phobia either!)

My weekend project

Okay, so I decided that the boys needed something to do this summer besides play PS2 and watch movies so I bought them a basketball hoop. I have put together lots of things around the house. Bookshelves, beds, baby accessories, toys. I'm not too bad at reading instructions and figuring it out. Obviously, a basketball hoop is in a different level of difficulty. First, the instructions say "Two capable adults are recommended for this operation." Does one mom and a 12 year old and a 10 year old equal two capable adults?

So maybe I live in a different world then other people but do most families have 2 adults available at the same time to spend 5 hours putting together a "toy"? Most of the time at our house the only available adult is me and on most days calling me "capable" would be a stretch. Then, this safety warning

is all through the instruction booklet and on several of the parts so I'm a little worried and trying to do it all exact so that there will not be a safety issue with "the basketball hoop that mom tried to put together". All right, I'll just say it. These instructions were intended for a man! When I'm finished I was slightly stressed with how many "extra" pieces I still had.

Funny thing is, most of these things are not duplicates of other parts I used. I went through the instructions again and I have no idea where all these pieces go! Finally, to top it off, these two "capable" men decided to park there truck across the street to eat their lunch. It was very obvious that they were humored by the whole scene.

Anyways, the end result...I did it! And so far no one has gotten hurt. Probably because I can't figure out how to lower it so no one can use it except for Z. Oh well, I tried!