Sometimes... 01/22/2011

Sam is really cute.
And, he asks for a prize after going to JoAnn's.
For the fifth time in one week.
And, I oblige.
Then, we glue popsicle sticks together instead of working on our 'wedding jobs'.
(Don't tell Manda!)

Sam's Happy 3rd Birthday! 1-19-11

Sam loves the Wonder Pets! You know these guys, right? They're Sewious!


So, naturally, we had a Wonder Pet party. We gave all of our friends Wonder Pet capes and then got busy answering the phone calls of animals in trouble! Jake and Cam giggled their way through phone calls from Jared's phone out on the porch and we listened to their calls for help on my phone inside. Once we knew who needed help, we set off the rescue them and get our reward.

First, we saved the Poodle that was stuck on the Statue of Liberty's nose. Just an FYI, I went into the tax place in the AF Costco parking lot and told them what we were doing and they gave us enough lady Liberty crowns for all of our guests! They're awesome!

Next, we saved the poodle that was stuck on the Eiffel Tower (colored by Josh). We all got a little poodle puff for that one!

Then, we had to save the dolphin that was stuck in a net. Our dolphin looked a little bit like a goldfish, but he was a dolphin! We shared gummy dolphins/sharks as a prize.

Lastly, we had to save the chimp that was stuck in space. (We love this episode because the chimp tries to use a banana for a phone!) Our reward was glow-in-the-dark bouncy balls.

The Birthday Boy with his Wonder Pets cupcakes

Water Beads - 01/15/2011

We found the most fascinating thing to put in the centerpieces for Crazy Manda's wedding! These little water beads are tiny (see the bag by Sam's hand?) but when you add water to them, they grow to the size of marbles! The little white thing in the corner of the picture is a light that we put down inside of the marbles to make them glow. It may sound mundane, but in a house full of boys, this is
pretty amazing stuff!

The part that's not so amazing is the slippery sludge in my driveway that reappears each time there's precipitation! I guess that's what happens when Sam finds the 5 gallon Gott jug full of these things the day after the wedding and decides to pour them out!

Finally meeting Poison Control

Josh : Mom, what's this?
Me : What?
Josh : All these medicines on the floor?

Sam's preschool adventure today included emptying the 180 ct. Gummie Vitamins and the 90 ct. Vitamin D bottles in to the carpet. I picked up 66 of 90 vitamin Ds, not sure how many Jared has taken in the last 10-14 days. No clue how many vitamins should be left, it didn't look too much lower than when we passed them out at breakfast.

Me : Sam, did you eat any medicines?
Sam : {hides his face}
Me : Sam, look at my face, I'm not upset I just need to know if you ate some of the medicines.
Sam : {whispers} no

Heck, why am I asking an almost three year old if he ate any gummies when they were just there for the taking? I'm sure he dumped them out and walked away.

PC : Hello, Poison Control
Me : Hi, my 3 year old may have taken some extra vitamins and vitamin D pills while I was being a good preschool teacher, but a bad mom (but please know, I have three other kids and I've never called you before!)
PC : What brand? How many? How many originally? Is he flushed? headache? nauseous?
He's OK. I'll call you back in an hour to check on him. Watch for bright, yellow, odor-full diapers.
Me : Thank you. (p.s. I'm a good mom, I'm a good mom, I'm..a...good..mom, ok, fine, I'm doing the best I can but he's killing me!)


Will there be a day in the near future when Sam doesn't have my heart racing for one reason or another?!?

Doesn't he know I had a birthday, too, and I'm too old for this? My aging heart can't handle it?

For anyone keeping count, the score since January 8th is Sam- 7, Mom-0.
3 bathroom vs. toothpaste incidents
1 bathroom vs. hairspray incident
1 bathroom vs. spray cleaner incident
1 syrup vs. the pantry incident
1 Poison Control incident

Sometimes, blogging saves lives. Today it definitely saved Sam's. Even though I haven't yet blogged Christmas, I must blog the syrup episode or a small boy may not see his third birthday next week.

And, if you laugh about it, you won't cry.

(I will go back for Christmas and basketball later when we have our own computer back and I'm not working on a loaner.)

Here's the story:

One day, a beautiful, young mother was sitting at the computer in her kitchen. All of a sudden, she noticed a brown ooze coming out from under the pantry door. Worried that soda had exploded in the pantry, she jumped from her chair, threw up the sash...wait, wrong story. She jumped from her chair, threw open the door and saw the Saminator standing there.

Beyond the Saminator, was the blood and guts of our former friend, Mrs. B who was found upside down in the Woot! box full of potatoes.

You could say we had a sticky situation.
It was messy. It was very messy . It was even too messy for a chalk outline.

A chalk outline that could've been drawn with the sugar from the sugar crime scene background.

Premeditation was proven by the peanut butter jar lid in the midst of the carnage and the purple spaceship that had been the Saminator's previous quest tossed to the side of the current crime.

Mrs. B refrained from giving a comment. She was said to be feeling hollow, empty, and at a complete loss for words (or anything else, really).

The Potato Family was evacuated from their box home only to fall right into the middle of the crime scene. A can of green beans overheard the Potato father comment, "The memories of this day will stick with us forever".

Luckily, for the Potato family, they were rinsed and returned to the pantry within an hour. The innards of Mrs. B are long gone and she just sits on the counter wringing her empty hands. A Pantry Community that will be haunted forever.
The Saminator is still on the loose. Witnesses report that he draws his victims in with a charming smile and a need for snacks.

In related news, two toothpaste tubes were reported to have been squoze to death on Wednesday. The first death was reported from the downstairs bathroom where evidence was left on the rug, the toilet, the sink, and the floor.
The second death was found later in the day under the train table kept on the second floor of the house.
A room that is often frequented by...
THE SAMINATOR!

Christmas Cookies

While the big boys played Monopoly behind closed doors on Thursday, Sam helped me make the Sugar Cookies. We made all kinds of Santas, Snowmen, trains, candy canes, and snowflakes. Once they were baked, they looked more like cookies from the Island of Misfit Toys!

Sam's Halloween Goods

Since this is the first Halloween that Sam actually knew what was going on, we had to get a picture of his candy. He made it all teh way down our street and around the corner a couple of houses before calling it quits. He couldn't have been happier with all of his candy.

Unknown Milestone & Cornbelly's

Over UEA weekend, Jake got to go on his first overnighter. It was actually a double overnighter in Heber. I'm all over the milestone thing, 5= kindergarten, 8 =baptism, 12=priesthood & passing sacrament, 16=dating & driving, so I was a little surprised when this one snuck up on me. We packed his things - I nagged about enough blankets, he played it cool and brushed me off. Amazing how well we played our roles on our first try! After he left, I wished I had thought to take a 'before' picture to go with the one I planned to take on his return. As it turns out, there are no pictures. But, he had a god time doing archery, achery-ing, whatever you call it and he did well in the basketball tournament until "some 16 year olds schooled us!" What?!? that's teenager talk! Oh, hecky!

So, anyways, the rest of needed something fun to do, especially because 2 of the 4 of us were really ticked that we weren't old enough (or male enough in my case) to go to work or go to scout overnighters.

Yay for Cornbelly's! Even more Yay! for the $5 off coupons in the school office!
There was so much to do. We were there for almost 3 hours and could've would've stayed longer if I had known you could bring food in. As it was the boys were starving and I refuse to spend $8 on a concession stand burger! We played in the corn, jumped on the giant trampoline, rode the tire horses, slid down slides, rode the train, went through a small maze, sat on pumpkins, play cornball volleyball, and went through a blow-up haunted house. The 3 little guys, or as I was told, the 2 medium guys and 1 little guy had a blast!

This was my favorite picture of the day. Sammers is such an angel when he's only two dimensional!

The boys loved playing in the corn. We spent the most time here.

Cam poured tons of corn down his shirt because he wanted to be the Cornbelly of Cornbelly's!

There was a mountain of pumpkins to climb all over.

Sam tried to hitch rides with Josh & Cam - pedaling in the dirt was a little too hard for him.

The cow train went in 5 figure eights for each ride. Cute little Josh waved and yelled "Mom!!" every time!

The bump slide was a blast!

Josh at the bottom of the bumpy slide.

All three on the roller slide

Josh & Cam kept running to the top and falling down before I could get their picture. That's them in the green stripe on the jumping mat.

Sammers jumping.

The tire swings were the first thing they wanted to try!

Halloween Cruise

We tried to Prove River Halloween Cruise for the first time this year. Thanks to CityDeals, we found a half price coupon and you know I can't pass up a coupon! Besides, it seemed like a fun way to kick off the month long celebration of Halloween! Our pirate driven boat ride was only about 15 minutes, but that seemed to be the perfect amount of time for the kids. They had lights strung up above us as we went down the river and bunches of jack-o-lanterns along the banks. At one point, a pirate swung out on a rope to warn us to leave and fell in the water. We weren't sure if he meant to fall in which made it all the better with a boat full of boys!

The boys heading to the dock.

Luckily, Jared's kinda tall and he stood up on the boat to get this picture of the pirate that tried to attack us on our cruise.

This is the picture I took of Jared and Sam. Aren't they cute?

And these are the kind of pictures Jared takes of me in return!!!

Josh took this one of me - it looked better on the little LCD screen on the camera! I'm done trying to be in the pictures!

The whole family after our boat ride.

We really wanted to pose with the haunted bone lights, but they're not so scary with the flash.

What is scary is that there are 32 pictures of these two from that evening on my camera!