Cookies

In my attempt to be a better mother. This weeks new activity was baking together. Jamie suggested this. Thomas must be better behaved than Aiden. What was I thinking? We didn't make graham crackers like she suggested. We baked chocolate chip cookies so I could eat 3 dozen all by myself (side note I having a REAL struggle in life right now). Maybe graham crackers are easier for little hands to help with. But I NEEDED cookies.



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Day by Day Yellowstone

My wonderful Grandma has a time share up in Island Park, Idaho. She mentioned to me that she wasn't going to be using it and we jumped at the chance for a free vacation. Thanks Grandma.

Day 1- Sunday we drove up after church. We arrived after dark. As I went into the office this is what I saw.
Bear Alert! I wasn't sure if I was excited or scared.
We just unloaded and relaxed that night.

DAY 2 - Monday - YELLOWSTONE HERE WE COME
We saw so many animals! I have always had this life long dream of petting a wild Bison. Well it didn't come true this trip either. But one day.....
We first went to Old Faithful and watched the geyser erupt. Then we took the long way home. We saw a herd of at least 50 Bison. They then proceeded to cause a terrible traffic jam. An ambulance showed up, just in case, I guess there are a lot of people who dream of touching a Bison. It was great. They were so close. At one point they got so close I had to pick up the kids and put them in the bed of the truck because I was nervous. After that we saw a Grizzly Bear. Yep thats right! The first time I have seen a bear in Yellowstone.
Then it was home to dinner and a late night of scrapbooking.

DAY 3 - A day of swimming.
We just stayed at the resort today and took the kids swimming twice. It was very restful. To prepare me for another late night of scrapbooking.

Day 4- Yellowstone Yipee
Today I decided to do Aiden's hair, which I never have done, because frankly theres not been much of it.
I need opinions. I wonder if he is too old for this mohawk hair style. What do you think?

In Yellowstone we headed up to what the kids later called Elk Town. It was Mamoth Hot spirings. Holy Crap. There were elk everywhere. Walking right through town. I guess we went during the "Elk Rut" which is breeding time so the rangers were plentiful and a bit on the nervous side. But I guess I wouldn't like to get hit with those big 'ol antlers.
On the way there we saw a Wolf and a Coyote. I again was crazy excited and had to get out of the car to get a close up of Mr. Wolf. All these pictures are in the slide show.

That night Aiden enjoyed some delicious Halloween Oreos

DAY 5 - Thursday - You Guessed it, Yellowstone.
Off to Old Faithful again.
We went the long way there this time. In hopes of finding my Bison herd again and petting one. No luck. We did see some polite Bison using the crosswalk at Old Faithful. One sort of charged towards me so I hid behind a van.
We ate some yumilicious Bison Chili at the cafeteria.
Saw some more beautiful animals and headed back to the room.

DAY 6- Yellowstone Again????????
I could not give up on my dream so I made us go back into the park. Today was a disappointing day for animals. We headed back up to Elk Town. On our way home we did get to see an antelope, so check that of our list.

This is what Aiden's hair can look like undone.

DAY 7 - Saturday - Headed Home, by way of Yellowstone of course
We decided to go the long way home through Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Jackson. This was only supposed to take a couple extra hours. Don't ask me how that turned into us being on the road 12 hours. I guess lots of stops, bad traffic, and bad luck.

Check out the slide show below for more pictures of my exciting stories :)

Yellowstone Slide Show

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Burger King

Tonight we stopped at the Burger King in Park City on our extremely LONG journey home from Yellowstone (posts to follow). I was tired, hungry, and super cranky. I went to order, I ordered Aiden a kids meal. He asked what I wanted to drink with my kids meal. I looked at Aiden on my hip and said, "What do you want to drink?" Thought to myself, it's too late for sugar. I said, "Milk Please. The worker then said to me, "Is that a sign? He looks at your boob and you know he wants milk." (laughs at himself). Are you kidding me? A) I didn't notice Aiden looking at my boob 2) Why are you looking at my boob and C) Can you even say boob to a paying customer?

It gets better. We sit down to eat. Rachael notices that the apple fries look brown. She checks the expiration date, yep, they're expired. I cannot go back to that counter and talk to that guy again. So Rachael takes all the apple fires back and says, "These are expired." He says, "How expired are they?" Again, are you kidding me? I don't care if they are 30 seconds expired my kid is not eating them. (BTW they were 3 days expired). Especially when you have to pay extra to get the healthy apple fries.

Overall very unimpressed with the Park City Burger King. Is this what service is coming to?

Count Your Blessings

A couple of nights ago my computer crashed. Kaput. Dead. This was after a very hard couple of days. Problem after problem arose on the remodel of our house. More money is needed, more work is needed. It just kept getting worse. Then late at night I get on my lap top to check email and it dies. At that point I lost it. All day I had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Having trouble breathing, wanting to vomit, just a wreck. Well this put me over the edge. That night I freaked out, thought it was the end of the world. Josh comforted me and got me through it and let me sleep in the next morning. Things looked better in the morning. Like they always do. Then last night Josh's friend Andre called us and asked us to join in a fast for their baby Gavin.
Gavin is in the PICU and struggling. Check out his blog, but be prepared to cry. Anyways, it helped to put things in perspective for me. I am not grateful enough for the things I do have. Sure I lost all my adorable pictures of Aiden, but I have the opportunity to take a million more. This house might break us financially and mentally, but at least we had the opportunity. Even if we end up having to move into a half finished house and spend the rest of our lives paying off credit cards, at least we will have a roof over our heads.

This is what I am thankful for...

Last night I went to get Aiden ready for bed. After another night of working at the house. He managed to find some paint to get on his forehead and my outfit. Which bummed me out because it wasn't one I wanted paint on. But as I sponge bathed him with wipes I realized, my little boy has not smiled in a couple of weeks. He has been sick and teething. I was so happy he had paint on his face and dirt and ice cream all over himself. That meant to me that he was getting better. I wasn't frustrated I had to clean him up. I was glad. He was his old self. Saying "hi" to people at Home Depot. Everyone he saw. Even the men who tried to ignore him. He was persistent until he got a "hi" back.
Today when I had to change 3 poopy diapers in 3 hours. I wasn't upset, I was glad. He hasn't been pooping because he hasn't been eating. So I was grateful for all of it.
And then this afternoon as I was backing out of Wal-Mart and backed into another car. My initial reaction was "why me." Why can't I have one day without something bad happening. But I am grateful that I have a car that I can smash into people with. Not everybody is that lucky.

So count your blessings. It is a real eye opener for me.
Also backup your computers. You don't want to lose all those precious pictures. My laptop is less than 2 years old. You never know.

Andre, Beth and Gavin, Our prayers and thoughts are with you...

State Fair

I LOVE the State Fair! Look forward to it every year. This year I got to bring Aiden!
My favorite things about the Fair are;
1. Baby Pigs. Every year there is a batch of baby pigs. So cute. One year I saved a baby pigs life. It was chewing on a broken balloon and I pulled it out of it's mouth. Stinkin kids letting their balloons pop. Just call me Dr. Doolittle.

2. The Rodeo. Awesome. This is my adorable little boy at the Rodeo.

3. The Food. No where else in the world can you get fair food. I just plan on getting sick and I embrace it. This is Aiden's face with some leftover "Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich". Yum Yum. I wanted to bring Josh home some fried oreo's but the guy said they wouldn't last until tomorrow.
4. People Watching. Boy are there some freaks at the fair. Not the 'Carni Folk' that came with the rides but people that actually paid the admission to go. My eyes are wide open, jaw dropped at the fair. Do these people actually live in Utah and do they only come out to go to the fair? Wow.

From now on Aiden needs to ride in the front of the double stroller. He would not stop picking on Bella. Which I thought was funny, but she did not enjoy.

I'm calling in sick

It's 11pm. I just put a sick little boy to bed and a half an hour earlier I put a sick big boy to bed. Why don't moms get sick days. I have been sick for a few days now, but Daddy gets sick and who's the one running to Walmart for soup and Popsicles? I have had Aiden permanently attached to my hip today. While trying to care for Josh. Now I should be in bed but I am enjoying this moment of rest. And to top it all off, I just finished my second, yes, count 'em, one, two, drumsticks. Days like this you need a little comfort food.

Daddy?

Lately Aiden has been calling Josh "Mama" alot. He used to say Daddy more than Mama, but now we are both Mama. When he calls Josh Mama we correct him and then he will say Daddy. Well last night around 2 A.M. Aiden wakes up pretty happy. I can hear him on the monitor just gabbin away. He then oviously gets sick of being in his crib so he starts calling for me. "Mama, maamaaa, mamaaa, mama, maaaamaaaa,...." and many more versions of the word. He does this for 5 or 10 minutes (it's 2 in the morning, of course I am trying to ignore him, he's not crying). Then he pauses and says "Daddy?" You can just hear the question in his voice. It was hilarious, I just busted up laughing and Josh woke up to me laughing, of course not to Aiden's long rant.

Where did my summer go?

Oh yes, I was remodeling a house.

I am glum. I realized on Monday that my summer was over. No Raging Waters, and so many other things I cannot mention or the tears will stream. We went to Cottonwood Heights Pool on Friday and enjoyed the last outdoor pool session we will have this year. It's funny that I honestly didn't not realize the summer was coming to an end until this weekend. Imagine my shock.

And in the spirit of summer ending, and because why else have pets...