ABC Steak, Party at 5 am and Crazy Church Day!

Wow my kids are going to eat me out of house and home!! The other day was $0.50 hamburger (or hangaburger as Daniel calls it) night at the local fast food place. Of course we couldn't pass that up because all the kids LOVE hangaburgers. There was a limit of 15 hangaburgers so Aaron picked up 15 hangaburgers and brought them home. Wow as soon as we sat down for dinner all the burgers were gone in 10 minutes or less with the kids asking for more. Matthew had 3 1/2, Josh 3 1/2, Daniel 3, me 1 1/2, Aaron 3, Noah 1/2. It seriously took them less then 10 minutes to inhale the burgers and everyone was asking for more. What are we going to do when they are teenagers?! Another example was dinner today. Steak was on sale this week so I bought 2 packages for a treat. Aaron cooked 2 family packs of steak today and there are only 4 steaks left. The kids all went to town on the baked potatoes and steaks. I might need a second job to keep us all in food as the kids get bigger!! However, we can recycle what we don't use. Sarah liked the steak, but she didn't like swallowing it she only liked to chew the pieces up and spit them back out on her plate. When Daniel ran out of steak he saw Sarah had extra on her plate and went to town finishing her ABC steak for her. Yummy. He didn't complain, though. Steak is steak regardless even if it has already been chewed up before, right?!?

Yesterday we went out and ran errands. We promised if the kids were good we would get them a treat. We stopped by to get some Pace Bars (Popsicles that Daniel can eat). While we were there Josh needed to go potty. Since there was no one else in the place we let him go by himself as Aaron and I were cleaning up the rest of the mess. Before we knew it Sarah turned up missing. We found her in the men's restroom with Josh. Nice. I guess she thinks she is just one of the guys. While we were out doing errands we found this shirt that was perfect for Daniel:
Since Daniel doesn't have too many choices in the candy he can eat, we tried Peeps this year at Easter time. He LOVED them. We went through so many boxes of them. We are sad they are only around at Easter time. We only have one very stale box left of them, but we need to make them last for a while because Easter is a long time away before we can get any more.

We had a crazy day at church today. We showed up and dropped everyone off where they needed to go and since it was the 5th Sunday of the month we had combined Relief Society and Priesthood. We tried to make it on time because Aaron had a small portion of the combined Relief Society/Priesthood lesson for today. Matthew had been having a particularly difficult morning this morning and it seemed to carry on into primary. In the middle of the Relief Society/priesthood lesson the primary came in to ask Aaron and me for help with Matthew in primary. That meant I had to leave since Aaron still had to do his part of the adult lesson. However, Noah is an extreme Mama's boy so he had to come with me because when I tried to hand him off to Aaron he got pretty upset. I guess while I was in with Matthew, Sarah decided to dirty her diaper in nursery. Luckily that happened after Aaron's portion of the lesson, but he got to be the one to take care of it. Wahoo! During Sacrament meeting things didn't improve too much. Everyone must not have slept too much because everyone was Chuckles (aka ornery). We certainly had our hands full!! However, a nice family has been sitting by us lately who are very willing to help us out and hold Sarah, Daniel, or Noah if the need arises. It was nice for them to take Sarah today because everyone else was trouble. Even Sarah was trouble, but they took care of her for part of the meeting. We almost left early, but we endured to the end and we enjoyed our much earned quiet time today--that's for sure!!

After quiet time and dinner the kids went outside and started trying to play baseball. Aaron went out to help them and it turned into an impromptu baseball game. It was a lot of fun. Since it has been somewhat nice weather this past week (relatively speaking) Josh has been riding his bike to school. The other morning he was getting ready and got his helmet on in preparation to leave. Sarah saw him do that and she went and found a helmet and put one on her head, too. She wanted to go bye bye with Josh. I didn't have the heart to tell her the helmet was way too big, she doesn't ride and bike, we weren't going anywhere that morning and that she had put it on backwards. She was just proud she had found it and put it on all by herself:Josh and Daniel have discovered they have a radio on their clock. Unfortunately, they only like to play with it in the wee hours of the morning. It has been a few mornings when Daniel has come up to our room to tell us his clock is beeping. Josh likes to mess around and turn on the alarm even if he doesn't know how to set it. That means the alarm goes off around midnight with the buzzer and radio on at the same time. It wakes them up and they don't know how to turn it off which sends one of them up to wake us up to fix it. That gets really annoying, but they won't stop playing with it. The other morning Aaron got up at 5 am to get ready for work and found Josh and Daniel dancing to the radio in their room. I have threatened to take the clock away, but that makes them in the morning run upstairs every minute to check the time to see if they can come out. Having them run upstairs wakes everyone else up so it is bad either way you look at it. It does explain a lot though--why everyone is "Chuckles" lately and why I find them like this if they hold still for longer than 5 minutes in the afternoon:Crazy kids!!

Seriously, I Don't Get Paid Enough!!

The last 24 hours have been crazy!! Yesterday afternoon Josh came home from school. I sat down on the living room couch next to him to talk about his day. While he was telling me about his day I casually looked outside and saw Sarah outside running across the street to play with the neighbors outside toys. Sarah had let herself out of the garage door (without anyone even noticing) so she could do what she wanted outside. I had to stop Josh mid sentence so I could go outside to run after her to catch her. Once she saw me coming for her she ran away even faster. I finally caught her and brought her back home and had to chain the outside doors so she couldn't escape the house again. She was very upset about me chaining the doors and she screamed, cried and wailed for quite sometime afterward because she was so mad. What am I going to do with that child?!?! I know I only have 5 kids, but I think Sarah should count for 5 kids just herself because she is such a handful!

A few minutes after the Sarah escape episode Aaron came home from work. I was sitting on the living room couch talking to him about his day at work when I noticed Noah crawling around the living room floor. I asked the three boys who brought Noah up the stairs into the living room? No one fessed up so I took Noah back downstairs to let him play. Next thing I know I see his little head pop up from the top of the stairs. He has learned how to crawl all the way up the stairs. He had only made it up two stairs before, but now he knows how to to the whole set of stairs--not good! I am excited at his progress in motor skills, but now I will have to baby proof the living room and kitchen since he can get into things up there now. He also had his first casualty today, too. He crawled up and got all the way to the top stair only to slip and roll all the way back down them. In the fall he hit his chin which caused his bottom teeth to cut into the roof of his mouth which bled and (I am sure) hurt pretty bad. That hasn't stopped him, though. He likes practicing his new found stair skills. Early this morning I was rudely awakened by a bright light at 2 am. I figured it was Sarah up messing around so I jumped out of bed to see what she was up too. It wasn't her, but Matthew who had turned on all the lights. He must have needed all the lights on to help him go potty in the middle of the night--even though it didn't help his aim much if you know what I mean. Anyway, I got up and shooed him back to bed after he had finished going to the bathroom, but the whole process had made me quite awake and I couldn't go back to sleep. I ended up watching some TV until about 4:30 when I was finally tired enough to go back to sleep. I was reawakened at 7 am with the kids eating their breakfast. I sleepily came downstairs and as soon as I entered the kitchen the pantry door swung closed with someone inside and the light on. Seeing as I was still bleary eyed and half asleep I didn't pay too much attention to that. I was helping the kids get breakfast when Josh came walking out of the pantry with a mysterious white powder all over his face and clothes. I asked Josh why his face and clothes were all dirty and he shrugged his shoulders feigning ignorance. Oh please!! I asked him again and he sheepishly pointed to a cookie mix package he had opened and tried to devour with the pantry door closed. Upon closer inspection he not only had spilled the mix all over his face and clothes, but all over the inside of the pantry and on the floor, too. What a huge mess!! I sent Josh to change his clothes and I will worry about cleaning up the pantry later.

Lately Josh has been on a home lunch kick. He has eaten school lunch for the last two years, but he has finally decided he only wants a home lunch now. Since I was trying to deal with this morning's chaos I sent Josh to get started in making his own home lunch. By the time I got finished with the breakfast chaos Josh had finished making his own lunch. I wanted to look at what he had done and I am glad I did. He had made a soy butter and jam sandwich--well let me rephrase--that he had made a jam sandwich with a small smidgen of soy butter on it. He is not a fan of soy butter sandwiches, but it is the only stuff that can be safe at room temperature for a few hours so that is what he has to eat. He had thrown his sandwich, a handful of chips, a handful of carrots, and handful of suckers and a Capri sun all into a grocery bag. His whole lunch was sitting all open together in a Smith's grocery bag. Yuck. I ended up repackaging his lunch to put everything into a separate bag so it wouldn't be a huge mess by the time he got to school. I did end up taking out all the suckers and told him he had already gotten his dessert with all the cookie mix he ate this morning--the little stinker!! He does get an "A" for effort, though.

Later on this morning while everyone was getting ready we went through the same ritual as any other morning--finding the missing shoes and jackets. I have told the kids to put their things away, but of course, they don't do it. That means every morning we race the clock while we look around for the lost items before it is time for them to go or before the bus comes. This morning we finally found Matthew's shoes under his bed in his room--again that is NOT where they go. And Josh's jacket was out in the car in the very back seat. We never did find Josh's lost bike helmet in time for school this morning. He had to borrow one from the neighbors so he would still be safe riding his bike and wouldn't be late for school. I found the helmet later--after he had left. It was stashed in the bottom of the coat closet with a ton of coats piled on the top of it. This is one aspect of the morning chaos I won't miss when summer starts--the hectic mornings!! While all this was going on Daniel let himself out into the backyard to play. Sarah didn't follow him, but instead kept locking him out. Daniel was not happy and kept pounding on the door for someone to let him back inside. As soon as someone let him back inside, he'd go back outside to play and Sarah would run back over and lock the door again. What a crazy morning!! It also doesn't help that I am extremely sleep deprived with a head cold. Can I go back to bed yet? I guess not because someone has to be around to clean up the huge cookie mix mess in the pantry, give Noah loves after he rolls down the stairs again and to let Daniel back inside after Sarah locks him out of the house AGAIN. I seriously don't get paid enough!!!!

Pumpkin Cookies, Crawling, Cleaning

Yesterday we had the great opportunity to clean the church as a family. Aaron had signed us up for the spot about a month ago. I must admit I was not happy about it and when we first went it showed in my attitude. I thought, "We can't even handle our kids during church how are we going to clean the church with them?!?" My kids changed my attitude when we got there. They were so excited to help clean the church and their attitude finally rubbed off on me. I also must say it took us twice as long because whatever the kids did Aaron and I had to redo, oh I mean recheck, but it was a good experience for everyone. However, I am not in a big hurry to sign up to do it again, though. Now if we could only get the kids that excited to clean up at home....maybe I just need to buy a super industrial strength double wide vacuum for home...and hope no small children get sucked up in it.

Sarah loves her new flip flops, but she can't seem to figure out how consistently put them on the right feet or even the right way for that matter. She even has a hard time finding a matched pair as well. Here's a few of the ways I have caught her wearing the flip flops: That just looks uncomfortable!!Speaking of flip flops, I slipped Matthew's on yesterday to go and pick up the kids from school and they fit me. They actually fit me as in they weren't too big or too small, but fit me. Wow, he is getting big!! That also gives me more options of footwear if I want to wear some pretty cool skechers that light up--hmmm tempting ;).

The other day I was changing Noah's diaper when Daniel walked by and commented on what he saw. He said, "Ewww that looks like a pumpkin cookie, Mom!" I reluctantly had to agree with him. So now whenever anyone is stinky, we refer to them as having some fresh from the oven pumpkin cookies for anyone willing to change them! Y-U-M-M-Y!!

Noah finally started crawling the last couple of days. However, if he needs to get somewhere fast he reverts to army crawling or if he has to get somewhere REALLY fast he rolls. Here is a video of him crawling:

Crazy Saturday and Sunday

Saturday Matthew had to go and get his blood drawn, but it had to be a fasting blood level. That meant he had to get it drawn before he ate anything for breakfast. Aaron was nice enough to take him to get it done and Matthew did great. The phlebotomists were nice enough to give him treats and a stuffed bear. He was pleased. Later on that morning Aaron headed outside to work on the sprinkling system--a job that took the majority of the day. The rest of us cleaned up the house. When we were done cleaning up the house we headed out to have some fun--Matthew does not do well sitting around the house with nothing scheduled. He usually gets into trouble if he isn't actively going somewhere or doing something. Anyway, they had a Safe Kids Fair down in Kaysville I decided to take the kids to. I was a little nervous since it would be me alone with five active kids in a huge crowd of people, but it beat doing nothing and Matthew and Sarah getting into mischief around the house. We headed out. Before Sarah would get into the car she insisted she had to have her purse (filled with all kinds of plastic food from her toy kitchen), her toy keys and her toy cell phone. What a funny girl. She also wouldn't get into her stroller unless she had all three with her, too. While we were there they had a Gold Medal Mile you could walk. We decided to do that and around the mile they had different hydration stations. That's where we picked up some new sports water bottles. Also on our walk we found a dragonfly. I picked it up to show the kids (yes it is still alive). I had never seen one so close up before. They thought that was pretty neat, but none of them wanted to hold it on their hands, though.We had lots of fun visiting the booths and just being outside enjoying the warm weather. After the Fair we headed over to Old Navy to pick up some $1 flip flops for the family. Wow that was crazy herding five kids in, looking and picking out flip flops, buying them and heading back out to the car. That alone wore me out!! Noah did not like being there and SCREAMED inconsolably the whole time we were there. It was bad enough one of the employees came over and offered all the kids treats to try and make them happy. It worked for everyone, but Noah who seemed to want to scream instead. I even gave him a sucker, but he just wanted to scream. I was worn out by the time we got home. When we got home Aaron was worn out, too from all the shovel digging he had to do to fix part of the sprinkling system. By the time dinner rolled around we decided to be finished working for the day and enjoy it with a picnic in the park. It was so nice being outside--have I mentioned that? Good thing we enjoyed it yesterday, because the rain returned today and will last through the week. Daniel was swinging on the swings when Aaron convinced him to jump off because that's what we did when we were kids.Daniel did it and I caught the action shot right before he ended up doing a face plant in the sand. It must not have been to scary because he got up and did it again.Here's Josh and his cheesy smile:Sarah doing her own thing:The kids also had rolling races down the hill. Sarah decided to go down the opposite side of the hill instead--again she was doing her own thing.Noah was just happy hanging out in his stroller eating:That lasted until we got home and saw how sunburned everyone got. Poor kids--I didn't even think about putting on sunscreen yesterday and the poor kids got burned. They seemed to have gotten my coloring and will burn if left outside for longer than 5 seconds. Matthew seems to be the only lucky one who tans really easily. The rest of them got my whitesome and delightsome super white complexion. Lucky them!Sarah's sunburned face:It was a nice day and we were glad we got to enjoy even with the sunburns and all...Until the next nice day--who knows when that will be with all this crazy weather we've had lately!!

The kids were still restless today. We ended up leaving church early because everyone was so antsy. In the first 10 minutes of Sacrament meeting everyone had screamed, cried and whined at least once and many of them did that more than that. After providing enough entertainment for the people on the benches around us, we finally decided to throw in the towel about half way through and went home. We sure earned our quiet time today!! Whew--we are so outnumbered and outmaneuvered by them it isn't even funny--crazy kids!! Good thing we love them!

Preschool Graduation and Sarah Must Not Have Taste Buds

Today we were at Costco picking up some Daniel friendly nunnets (chicken nuggets). We had a nunnet emergency (ran out of nuggets) and needed some fast. While we were there Aaron loves eating the samples. Most samples Daniel can't eat, but we found one he could eat today--a green olive with a cut up jalapeno pepper inside it. Aaron gave one to Daniel and he ate it. After the jalapeno heat set in Daniel started frantically waving his mouth with his hand tyring to cool off the burn.He didn't want to try another one. Sarah, however, saw the whole thing with Daniel but still wanted to try one. I gave her an olive with the cut up jalapeno inside and she ate it. We didn't get any kind of reaction out of her at all. She swallowed it like anything else. It makes me wonder if she even has taste buds! She is my best eater out of all my kids--she will eat anything and everything. Now this little experiment leaves me wondering if she even tastes anything she eats or if she just eats it. Who knows?!

Thursday was Daniel's preschool graduation. They had a little program for all the students. Here is Daniel walking inside with his graduation cap on:They sang a bunch of songs. I love kids this age--they are so cute!



Here is Daniel receiving his diploma and hugging all his teachers:


Afterward we got a picture of two of his teachers:Here is his friend Nicholas from class:
We traded off playdates every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and they loved it. Daniel will be starting kindergarten next year. I will miss his chattering every morning while he is gone. I think Sarah and Noah will miss him while he is at school! I must admit I did get a little teary eyed during graduation. My kids seem to be growing up too fast **sniff**. He will love kindergarten, though.

Bubble Day, Thyroid Study, Talent Show and Stairs

The other day when I went grocery shopping I picked up a carton of chocolate Soy Milk. Of course when you drink chocolate soy milk you can't drink it from a regular glass you have to get the biggest jar you can find and fill it up at least half way or more. Sarah and Daniel drank their chocolate milk from a 32 ounce Mason jar as you can tell by the marks on their faces:Love the mustache!!The carton of chocolate soy milk didn't even last 24 hours until it was gone and Aaron and I didn't even get a chance to taste it!!

Way back when I got pregnant with Noah they ran the standard blood tests which showed my Thyroid levels were low. They weren't low enough to treat, but they were definitely on the low end of normal. This qualified me to participate in a study of low thyroid levels of moms and how it effects the baby's development (namely IQ) as they are born and when they grow. They are trying to see if they should treat the lower end of "regular" levels of the thyroid in pregnant women to help the baby's development. Studies have shown that moms with low thyroid levels (lower than normal) during pregnancy, their babies have slightly lower IQ test scores than with women whose thyroid levels are normal. They weren't treating me because my thyroid levels were still within normal limits, but definitely on the low end of normal. When I got started in the study I got pills I was asked to take. It was either a placebo or thyroxine. Since it was a double blind study I didn't know if I got the placebo pills or the thyroxine pills. I took the pills my whole pregnancy and stopped after Noah was born. Since they had to monitor my thyroid levels during the pregnancy I had to get my blood drawn at every prenatal visit. I didn't like that part at all because I am so needlephobic! Anyway, after Noah was born we get to follow up with this study once a year for his first five years around Noah's birthday to test Noah and see how his development is. We had our first follow up study appointment Tuesday morning down at the University of Utah Research Park. When we got there they had to draw my blood. After a few sticks they finally got some blood--have I mentioned how much I HATE needles?! After that they took me back into a room with Noah to test his development. They wouldn't let me bring Sarah and Daniel back in the room with me so the nurse that drew my blood offered to watch them in the waiting room while they tested Noah. I wasn't too thrilled about leaving my kids where I couldn't see them for about 20 minutes--especially Sarah since she has a knack of getting in to all kinds of mischief faster than you can shake a stick at!! However, we went back to the room and they tested Noah. They can't tell me the results of anything until after his last visit when he is 5 years old. When the testing was done I came back into the waiting room to round up my kids and make sure they were ok. As soon as I entered the waiting room I was hit with a invisible wall of stink. I guess while they were testing Noah, Sarah had to take care of business in her diaper. PEEEE EWWWW!! I felt bad for the poor nurse that had to watch them. I am sure that was a really long 20 minutes sitting in a really stinky waiting room!! I was a little embarrassed, but luckily we won't have to see them again for another year--hopefully by then Sarah will be potty trained!

After that we left to come home have a quick lunch and then head over to Daniel's last real day of preschool. It was Bubble Day--the day that everyone looks forward to. I had heard so much about bubble day that I asked if we could come to help out and participate. The teacher said it wouldn't be a problem so we showed up. I thought there would be other parents there as well, but I was the only one. Oh well. I had to bring Noah and Sarah with me, too. I was a little nervous about that because you never know how well behaved they are going to be. However, they were mostly good through the whole event. We started out in the big bubble station. The kids got to stand in a small swimming pool filled with bubble solution. The teacher then grabbed a hula hoop and pulled gigantic bubbles over all the kids' heads. They loved it! Sarah, of course, had to participate as well.One of the stations she had some homemade bubble wands you could blow some big bubbles from. Sarah didn't quite get how to do it, but Daniel loved it. They had another station where you could blow bubbles out of straw in a cup filled with bubble solution. Sarah didn't get that you had to blow the first few times. She got a mouthful of bubbles a few times until she figured out she needed to blow instead of suck through the straw. YUMMY! Noah was just happy watching and smearing bubbles all over the table with his hands. Another station they had a big tub filled with bubbles and all kinds of wands you could blow bubbles from.Noah was just happy to pull himself up to the bubble tub to watch.Another station you could blow bubbles from different colored cups and have the bubbles pop on your paper to make some neat designs. Daniel loved it, but Sarah didn't really find it too interesting.Another station was a pool full of balls you could play in. It only fit two kids at a time so there was always a line to play in this one.They finished the day off with drinking bubbles--rootbeer/orange floats. Daniel just had orange soda and his snack from home. Sarah went to town on her float and didn't leave the table until her cup was licked (as far as her tongue would reach) clean. It was lots of fun. It makes me sad preschool is now over for Daniel, though.Yesterday we got notice that someone wanted to come by and see our house in two hours. It was a disaster area because we were in the middle of laundry and there were clothes spread all over the family room floor. Aaron and I had to do a mad cleaning frenzy. During our mad cleaning frenzy our poor kids were quite neglected. Noah could see us from the bottom of the stairs, but we weren't picking him up. I guess he decided to take matters into his own hands and next thing we knew he was half way up the stairs. The crazy kid figured out how to go up the stairs!! I think we may be in extra trouble because he can now reach lots of things. Luckily about this time we had finished our mad cleaning frenzy and were able to pick him up. When it was time to leave we went and hung out at McDonald's while the people were looking at our house. Since we had been cleaning we had a later dinner than usual and the kids were starving. When we got to McDonalds and got our food, we had a whole lot of screaming going on. The kids were quite impatient and in the process of trying to grab their food they knocked a full 32 ounce drink over spilling all over the floor. We went and got an employee to come clean it up and while she was cleaning it up we got all the food handed out. As soon as the employee finished cleaning it up, Noah reached out and pulled another full 32 ounce drink over spilling it all over the floor. The employee sighed and got to work cleaning that huge mess up while Aaron and I were profusely apologizing. What a crazy day!! Also FYI a suburban's trunk can hold 5 huge overflowing baskets of laundry. We got to find that out yesterday because we didn't have time to put all the clothes away so we had to stash and dash. It looks like we are living out of our suburban, but really we aren't ;).

Also yesterday Josh had a talent show at school. He had brought the talent show paper home a few weeks ago and showed it to me, but never said anything about it. If you have children in school you know how many bazillions of papers they bring home every day. If Josh didn't say anything about it, I didn't think he was interested in participating. Well I was wrong. He brought home another paper Tuesday afternoon announcing the talent show at school for his whole second grade class and their families. Then Josh casually mentioned he was going to play the piano. At this my ears perked right up. I asked him what he was going to play. He told me he wanted to play the hymn Praise to the Man. He had just gotten this music from his piano teacher a few weeks ago and really hadn't practiced it much. I had him play it for me to see how much he knew of it. Just as I had feared he didn't know it very well yet. I tried to talk him in to playing something else that he knew really well. He wouldn't hear of it and insisted he wanted to play Praise to the Man. I "discussed" this with him all Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning long, but he still insisted he wanted to play Praise to the Man--he was so insistent that he even went and hid his other sheet music so I couldn't find it so I couldn't make him play something else. Wednesday afternoon rolled around and Aaron and I showed up to the talent show with Daniel, Sarah and Noah in tow just waiting to see how this would turn out in front of his whole second grade class and their families. Josh's turn came up and he unabashedly went up to play Praise to the Man. He played it and, no, it was full of pauses and wasn't perfect but he still played it. He was not embarrassed in any way he just wanted to show his talent. As any parent knows it was hard to watch him play and not help him, but I did it for the most part. At one point, though, I did have to go up and sit with him because he seemed to lose his place, but he didn't lose his courage. Wow, how would it be to not fear anyone's opinion of you? Way to go Josh. However, I think that next time I see a paper for a talent show I will be paying a bit more attention so we can both be a little more prepared. Here's the proud Josh walking back to his seat after his performance:

Vegan Macaroni and Cheese and Painting Some More

I am almost willing to try anything new especially in Daniel's case. The other day I was in the health foods store when I came across a vegan cheese alternative. This is a cheese alternative that is dairy, egg, and nut free. I was curious about what it would taste like and if Daniel would actually like it. I went and asked the employee about which cheese alternative was the best tasting and she replied she had never tried it before. She came over and started looking at the different vegan "cheeses" with me. She picked up this particular one: and told me to try this one because it says on the package that it melts. It is also never a good sign to be told by a health food store employee that if you try the cheese alternative, you need to cook it while having your window open because it can stink up your kitchen. Nice! That made me cringe even more to try it, but I like to live dangerously. To tell the truth, I thought all of the vegan cheeses not only sounded disgusting, but looked disgusting as well. If I was going to buy one, hey, why not get one that melts--as long as I cooked it with the window open--right?!

We tried it out tonight. Well let me rephrase that--Daniel tried it out tonight while the rest of us had macaroni and cheese with real cheese that actually does melt and taste good. I have tried so many different things for Daniel to try and get some variety in his diet since he is so limited in what he can eat due to his allergies. However, about 99% of the time he HATES anything new that we try, but I keep trying to give him something different. He is the pickiest eater out of all my kids and that is just wrong!! He is the one that has the most limited diet anyway and for him to be picky it is not a good thing!! Anyway, I made him up some vegan macaroni and cheese with cheese alternative--which by the way did NOT melt you had to mash it up to spread it around. In mashing up the cheese alternative to help it melt it also smashed up all the noodles so it was just a pile of mush Y-U-M-M-Y!: I tried to talk it up to Daniel to make him excited to try it even though I thought it looked absolutely disgusting. I did sample a small bite and much to my surprise it wasn't too bad. It doesn't make me want to give up the real cheese, but for someone who has never tasted real cheese, they don't have anything to compare it to so it actually tastes good. Daniel took a bite and much to my surprise he said he liked it. I had to have him repeat that a few times to make sure I understood him correctly. Yup, he said he liked it. Interesting....maybe he can mix his diet up between poptarts and chicken nuggets we can throw in some cheese alternative mac and cheese--mmmm makes my mouth water (not really).

I am excited to say we got our basement ceiling put back together finally!! It is so nice to see it go from this:
to this:I painted the whole ceiling today and what a mess!! I am so sick of painting and this job was especially bad because it splatters the paint everywhere when you paint the ceiling!! I got it all over my face, arms, hands and hair. It looked like a had a killer case of dandruff, but luckily most of it washed out in the shower. I only have a minor case of dandruff now thanks to the rest of the paint flecks still in my hair. However, I am just glad it is finished. After all this Aaron have come to a silent understanding--that paying for plumbing installation is cheaper than paying for the repairs of a do-it-yourself plumbing installation gone bad....I still love my husband, but these unspoken agreements keep us both happy--and dandruff free ;).

Mud Pies, Fences and Mt. Vesuvius II

This week has been pretty calm so I haven't had a lot to blog about. Hey I am not complaining, though. I haven't been slacking to badly, but here's my catch up of our week.

I am thinking I only had one girl because I could only handle one girl if they were all like Sarah!! Friday I had gone grocery shopping and stocked up on body wash. In putting the groceries away I put the bags of body wash on the landing of the stairs for me to take up when I went upstairs. I forgot about it until this morning. I forgot about it until Sarah found and went to town. She emptied half a bottle onto the carpet and started playing with it mashing it into the carpet. What a mess!! However, since Matthew is terrified of the carpet cleaner Aaron had to wait until we were at church to clean up the mess. However, since the body wash is soap when Aaron attempted to carpet clean it, it foamed up everywhere. He tried to get it all the way out, but it looks like it will need a few rounds of the carpet cleaner before we can get all the body wash soap out of the carpet. I love my little girl, I love my little girl, I love my little girl....At least my house smells like cologne instead of something else--the little stinker!

While I was at the grocery store checking out, the kids found a place to sit--on the huge display of beer. Nice!! They were sitting there for awhile because I had a huge stack of coupons and two carts of groceries the checker had to scan. I hadn't been true grocery shopping for over two months so my stock pile had surely dwindled. I had to stock up on a ton of things. Checking out took a while, but at least the kids found a nice place to rest, right?!Yay we finally got our fence finished Friday!! I am so excited! Sarah can now escape which she does regularly. But now when she escapes she will be confined to the backyard--that is as long as the boys keep the gates closed. Here's what it looked like from start to finish: The fence installers had lots of help from Daniel. As soon as Daniel saw them at our house he went out to "help" them. The fence installers were pretty good sports and actually let Daniel put a few panels in. They also put the latches to the gates low enough so Daniel can reach them. Daniel was chatty Cathy and talked to them from the start to finish of the fence. They were pretty good friends by the end. I have no idea where Daniel got the chatty gene from. Aaron and I are both shy. It is funny but Daniel can talk to anyone, anywhere at anytime. He is a pretty friendly little guy.

In the process of getting the fence put in place, the fence installers cut five major sprinkler lines. Aaron wasn't too happy about that since he had to spend the majority of Saturday trying to fix them. Sarah didn't mind because that meant she had some nice huge mud puddles to play in. At the end of the day she came inside absolutely filthy!! At least she had fun.

Saturday was our yard day. Aaron started out by mowing the lawn and then moved on to fixing the sprinklers which still aren't fixed all the way because they were so messed up from putting the fence in. I did the edging and weed eating with lots of help from the kids. However, I forgot that my hair is so short. My neck got fried with sunburn. Ouch. I used to have hair to cover my neck with, but not any more. I will have to remember that when I am outside next time.

Noah is loving his new ability of pulling up to things. Sarah isn't liking it too much though because that means she has to share her toys. Noah loves to pull himself up to her kitchen and empty all the drawers and sink. It doesn't take him long to mess up the floor with all the pulled out toys.Saturday morning was a safe kids fair that Aaron took the kids to. They practiced bike safety, but they also had a petting zoo, obstacle course, police car, helicopter, etc. Matthew, Josh and Sarah loved touching the snake, Daniel on the other hand is deathly afraid of most animals so he didn't even get near it.

Daniel loved the turtle, however. That was the only thing he would willingly touch.The kids even got a chance to sit in the back of a police car. That better be the ONLY time that happens in their lifetime is all I can say!!They even had the Star Wars characters there. The kids liked seeing them. They even liked playing with their light sabers, too.They also had the newspaper mascot to talk to. The kids liked seeing him, too. I wasn't able to go to the safe kids fair because I stayed home with a poor sick little Noah. He had been running a fever for the past few days and not feeling very well. By Saturday afternoon he seemed to be feeling better. For the past few days since he hadn't been feeling so well he hadn't eaten or drank much of anything. By Saturday afternoon he was more thirsty so I fed him two bottles of milk. I was so glad he actually wanted to drink something so I kept offering him the bottle. He finally fell asleep in my arms. I thought things were well and good. That was until I was getting ready to take him up to bed and he woke up enough to barf all over me. I don't believe I have seen so much come out of someone so little. He was a junior Mount Vesuvius--holy cow!! Aaron was sitting right next to me and he waited until Noah was done throwing up all over me before he lifted him off me. He wanted to make sure Noah was all done barfing all over me because I am easier to wash off than the couch or carpet. When Aaron thought he was all done he picked him up only to have Noah start a new wave of barfing all over him, too. All those bottles of milk I pushed on him came up all curdled and stinky--YUCK!! I was having a hard time not tossing my cookies, too. Needless to say Aaron stayed home from church today with him while I took the other four kids to church with me. Impressively enough all five of us made it through all of church without any major mishaps. Sarah did give me some trouble during Sacrament meeting, but nothing that was out of the ordinary from a regular Sunday.

I am also happy to announce our basement ceiling is almost finished. The new drywall has been installed, taped, mudded and textured. The only thing left is to paint it which I will take care of tomorrow--that is after I carpet clean the stair landing AGAIN. Thanks Sarah for emptying half a bottle of body wash on the stair landing. I love my little girl, I love my little girl, I love my little girl.......