It's sad, but true...

72%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

- Erica, is it just coincidence?

The beauty of nature...

I've decided that the beauty of nature is that it is washable. I know there are other more marvelous wonders but at this point having returned from three LONG nights in the woods, that is where my focus is. I will probably post more about my family reunion I am further detached from it, however, at this point there are things I need to forget instead of vent about. Let's just say that Jen Layton, you are a beautiful camper and you were my saving grace. I would never have guessed that you detested camping so. You made it look like a walk in the park. Here are just a few cute pics of my babes...

I know, Blake's a little too big for the pot, but you better believe that my kids got a bath every night! This one of Raegan is my favorite because of her hair and she's making the silliest face! I thought this one of Sarah was too cute with the sun. Both Blake and Sarah got to have their birthdays at the reunion. Blake turned 5 on Friday and Sarah turned 2 on Saturday. I will post those pics later. Enjoy the clean because you never know when you will have to endure a reunion where you can't shower for 4 days and you have to use a port-a-john...or not use it...

Why oh why?

I am seriously considering quitting this blog thing because it seems that very strange things have been happening to me so that I have something interesting to write about. I have been trying to think up a funny "why did the chicken cross the road" joke since yesterday and it hasn't come, so this story will just have to do without it. This last Wednesday, I pulled out a whole chicken to cook in my crock pot but when I opened the packaging, it smelled awful! Something like rotten eggs and skunk! That alone should have been enough for me to throw it out, but I needed a second opinion since it hadn't hit the "sell by" date yet. I called my sister Jen who is the expert at stuff like this and she informed me that the chicken probably wasn't kept at the right temperature somewhere along the line and yes, i should throw it away. She was smart enough to also tell me to keep it in my fridge until garbage day so I didn't cook in my garbage can all week. GENIUS! I carefully put it in a Ziploc and then in a grocery bag and tied it tight. Six days later, yesterday, was garbage day and finally my chance to get rid of the thing. I ran it out to the garbage and bid it a fond farewell. Not 10 minutes had passed when I heard the garbage truck drive by. I went out to bring my can back in from the road and this is what I found...! Are you kidding me! It had somehow jumped out of the garbage can and had been run over by the garbage man! It came completely out of both bags and the insides, like the neck and gizzards, were shot 10 feet down the road in front of my house. It was totally disgusting and I immediately called Jake and Jen to tell them of my misfortune. They both thought it was really funny and Jake even offered to let me leave it there so he could clean it up when he got home from work. It was a very kind offer, but I didn't want it to cook in the road all day and attract who-knows-what! I ended up shoveling that nasty thing out of the road and bagging it again and throwing it in my neighbor's garbage can across the street since their trash hadn't been picked up yet, at least I didn't think it had....

Calling all Pranksters!

Okay, I promise this is my last one for the day, but I really need your help! I am going to camp as a cabin mom in a couple of weeks and I need some really good pranks that I can do to get the girls back that already have them planned for me, particularly Nicole, the one who has been getting my house lately. She has already told me that I better not sleep, but seriously ladies, I NEED my sleep. Any ideas?

Our old bathroom adventure...

I must warn those of you who may not enjoy the word "weenie" because it is used multiple times in this adventure. I used to tell this to people thinking that it was a funny story but their facial expressions and lack of laughter told me that it was not. So, with that said, if you do not wish to continue, please don't. It was back in the day when Raegan was potty training but still wearing a pull-up in public for accident purposes only. So I had taken all three kids to Target which was a joke in and of itself but I thought "you do what you gotta' do!" Anyway, as we are walking around browsing the aisles, Raegan starts saying, "I hafta go potty!" I quietly try to convince her that she can just go pee in her pull-up and she just won't oblige. I continued to try to coax her to do it because the bathroom was on the other side of the store and who wants to take THREE kids, one of them an infant WITHOUT a baby seat into the PUBLIC bathroom? Needless to say, her demands just got louder and LOUDER until I found myself sprinting to the bathroom, pushing the cart one-handed while holding baby Sarah, just to get her to stop yelling, "I HAFTA PEE AND IT"S GOING TO COME OUT IN MY PANTIES!" We got to the bathroom which happened to be a "family" bathroom right next to the pharmacy. As I push the cart in, (lucky for me it was empty!) Blake, who at his young age realized the predicament I was in, proceeded to do his best to help Raegan while I tried to figure out what to do with Sarah. This is the conversation that followed: Blake (while tugging on Rae's shorts): "Just pull your weenie out, Rae! C'mon you can do it! Just pull it out! Oh, No! MOM!!! She has NO weenie! Okay Rae, turn around, maybe yours is in the back! MOM!!! It's REALLY not here!" Me: "Blake, let's just sit her down on the seat and see what happens..." **(she pees)** Blake: "Hmmm...that's weird! Yours just got stuck inside." *So, by the time we get all cleaned up and exit the bathroom, of course the line for the pharmacy is about ten people long and they're ALL laughing. All I could say to them was, "He JUST figured it out!" The moral of the story is don't take an infant in a store without a car seat or snugli...

One day at a time...

Okay, while I was outside cleaning up the Post-Its from the previous post, Sarah was able to pull this mess off! Seriously, I was literally outside for 15 minutes! Notice the cereal dumped and the very innocent face... This was also done while I was cleaning - how ironic! I think her intention was to water the flowers outside and somehow she ended up bringing the soil INSIDE! This one really isn't a mess (to me at least) but I thought it was really cute to see her working so hard to move all of the chairs and I never did figure out what she was trying to accomplish!

Feelin' the love...

So this is just one example of the love I get from the young women in the ward now that I'm serving in Beehives... On this particular day, the girls (Nicole Angel and Kirsi Griner) used 1000 Post-It notes to cover just about everything... this one was WAY easier to clean than last week when they put 100 pounds of dog food in my driveway and painted my car windows...

As you can see, they tried to fill each note by writing completely RANDOM things on them. I think the funniest part is that they just graduated this year from WESTWOOD and it totally reminds me of something I would have done back in the day!