Not yet!

I woke up this morning and the first phrase that came in my head was one from my dear sister Jill:
" "H" no!".
And yes, she does just say the letter "H". We had snow on our grass. This was later in the day at the view out our front door.

How about a little more of this before the snow!

Nothin' but a normal week

Our week in review:

There was some marker play. She wanted to be a scary monster.

A number of faces like this: "seriously Mom! Another picture?!"

Yesterday's hair-do and last nights PJ's = next days outfit!

A little TV time.

Creative play and sister bonding time when TV was shut off

Another round of potty training (after constantly finding him with his diaper off, sitting on the potty. This round has been pretty easy so far!)

A few trips to the naughty corner. A sweet moment of consoling.

A billion messes to clean. A few extra special ones: diarrhea not quite to the toilet, potty training poopy in the pants, chocolate smeared in the carpet, fruit fly bodies.

A few faces to make you laugh. (Notice the new empty slots. Yup, 2 more in 2 days)

A few faces to make you chuckle

A few faces to make you smile

A few faces to melt your heart

A few faces to make you feel extremely blessed! I love my crew!

A little piece of heaven

Brian and I had a great weekend in Arizona at the Scottsdale Fairmont Hotel. It was amazing. I was a little worried as to whether or not I was going to get to enjoy it because Thursday I woke up and had a major headache followed by a sore throat. By the time my parents got to our house (they were so kind and willing to watch our kids) I was drained and fighting fever and chills. That night Brian asked me, " are you sure you don't want to stay home?". He's obviously never experienced being a sick mother! I said,"I'd much rather be sick in a hotel than sick at home!" Of course my parents would have taken care of me since they were already up here. They wouldn't leave me hangin'!
Well, we flew out Friday afternoon and in the airport I thought I was going to die. I was absolutely freezing and I don't remember ever having a sore throat like this. I couldn't even swallow spit. Gross, I know. But that meant for sure no food. I didn't eat until 5:00 that night. After my fever broke on the airplane, I was dying for some cool air, but then it made me freeze again 'cause it was cooling all the sweat. Gross I know yet again. I don't even take Ibeuprofen after a baby, so that's just letting you know how bad it was for me to take it. I stay away from medicine if I can, but it was extremely painful in my head and throat! Well, before we left for the airport, I asked Brian and my Dad for a blessing, so that combined with never letting Ibeuprofen out of my system, I was able to enjoy the trip.
We got there that night around 4:00 and had to hurry and get ready for the dental meetings that night. They had some great speakers and left some great impressions. After the meeting, some reps took us out to dinner, which was delicious. We didn't end up getting back to the hotel until close to 11:00. By then we were ready to crash!
We woke up the next morning and I ran over to the center with Brian to grab breakfast and then he headed on to more meetings and I headed back to the hotel for some truly solo time. It's not often that I'm without my kids, let alone my husband. I love them all, but to really relax "my way", I have to be without any of them. That way I can do what I want with no reserve. I took a long bath while reading a book (that never happens!) then laid in bed for a little bit to watch a little tv. A waste some of you may say, but I never get to watch anything I want during the day, so I watched a little home renovating. Then I headed out to the pool, book in hand and stayed out there until lunch time. I met up with Brian again and then stayed for another seminar and some hands on time with an updated piece of equipment he was wanting to get.
After the seminars and a little relax time, we met up with my cousin and her kids that live out close to where we were. We got some pizza, had a little chat time and then we headed back to the hotel to relax for a little bit before crashing for the night. The hotel was beautiful!


This is one of the pools lit up at night.


This is the pool that was right out our front door. They had 3 pools. 2 adult pools and another one that was more for kids with a shallow area, tubes and 2 big water slides. I sat by that one at first and all I could think about was how much my kids would have loved being there.


Everything there is so classy. This was the lobby and it was just beautiful!


Unfortunately my lens is still getting fixed, so I didn't have a very wide angle and this was as good as it got. This was our bathroom. You can't see all of it. There were 2 sinks, a built in laundry basket, a great tub and shower and all the fixtures, handles counter tops, everything was top notch.

The sunset our last night was beautiful. We were out enjoying the pool and I had to leave Brian so I could go grab my camera to try and catch it.


They have all these great spots around the pools. Here Brian is on one of the beds that you can lay out on. They have tented areas where you can be shaded from the sun and all the chairs are so comfy. At the kids pool they had a huge playground just up the steps, a covered sandbox, basketball hoops and vball net. Playtime everywhere!


Since my lens was too much of a zoom, I had to photostitch these last 2 together to show you the view out from the pool and our room. Next time I'll make sure I have a wider angle lens.


It was a great time and it's always nice to have adult time. Thanks to Mom and Dad for watching our kiddos and having fun with them while we were gone.

What's up doc?

This last week was fun and semi-eventful. In no particular order....

After a few drives back and forth to Bear Lake we noticed there were Elderberry bushes in the mountains. After some debate on whether or not it was stealing to pick the berries (in the wild on the side of the road) we decided to pick some and make some jelly. Brian grew up on this jelly and they never got sick. I've heard great things about the berry and thought we should give it a try since everytime Caroline gets sick it goes right to her lungs, and maybe it will help ward off the swine flu. :) It was quite a process. The worst part was picking the little suckers off the branch. It took literally hours. Brian was the main maker here. He loved making it. Hope this bit lasts a while 'cause I'm in no hurry to make more!

Elizabeth and I need to have another date night. They are so good for both of us and so fun. No other kiddos tuggin' at your legs, just me and Elizabeth. And... you find out the funnies things like this....

We walked into Sam's club and she said, "when I was little I used to think that was the Holy Ghost". Talking about the tire guy. How funny is that. We've been into Sam's a number of times, but this was the first time I'd ever heard it. I thought that was so funny, had to whip out the camera of course.

Well part of our date was to find her a church dress. Let me just say that I cannot believe how much little girls dresses cost!!! We went to a few mall places first and then Old Navy and Kohls. All except for Old Navy, the dresses were $50. I haven't ever spent that much money on a dress for me!!! Well, except for my wedding dress, and that was paid for by the ma and pa of course. (Thanks!) We finally found one on clearance at Kohl's. I showed Bri and do you know what the first thing he said was? "It looks like you". But it's true. It's "hippie-ish" which I'm not a hippie dresser, but it's got the pattern, bell sleeves and such. It's way cute one her.
While at Old Navy she wanted to go to each manaquin and say hello. She was being silly of course. After our success at finding a dress and a long sought after necklace (like the 3rd replacement), we ran to the store and grabbed some treats and then headed out to see Up in the theater. We don't take them to movies, well ever really because the last time we went it was a nightmare. We have yet to make it through a whole movie with all the family there at the end. It's been over a year though. Elizabeth has always been good. She's a movie junkie. It was fun. It's so fun to see the magic in their eyes as they watch things. I love being able to spend time with them 1 on 1. I see a totally different side and helps remind me why I love them so much.


Cooper seemed to have contracted the cough the girls got. Caroline had it in PA and Randy prescribed some medicine for her and thankfully she got better. Elizabeth got it a week later and Cooper a week after that. Cooper was on and off with the fever and was coughing ALL THE TIME!!! So after almost 2 weeks, we took him in and turns out he had pnuemonia. Blah! Apparently there are several different strains of pneumonia and he caught the only contageous one, from Caroline we're sure! He's doing better now, meaning he's actually eating and getting off the couch, but this was pretty much his whole day for about a week.

Caroline has been anticipating the start of pre-school for who knows how long, but the day finally arrived. She was so excited to wear her new outfit and head over to the "school". It's in a lady's basement and on the front there's a rainbow. If the rainbow has a smiley face on it then she's ready for the kids to come in. If not, they need to wait. When I took her over and we were waiting outside, I was talking to another lady in the neighborhood. I missed the teacher coming outside and turning the rainbow face because I look up, the teacher is out and Caroline is running, infront of all the other kids. She didn't even let me give her a kiss goodbye. She did turn around at the top of the stairs and say, "the rainbow's smiling Mom!" and then ran in. It was so cute how excited she was!