ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

Landon and his pillow

We finally got rid of Landon's pillow. Remember his lovely orange pillow. Well it is gone thanks to the tooth fairy. I just couldn't take anymore of the finger sucking which the pillow just contributed to, so it is gone. He got a whopping $5 for it which did nothing to ease the pain. He was so mad that morning when he woke up he refused to let me take a picture of him with his money, so this is what we got. A picture of him reaching for a sippy cup on the counter so he could throw it at something or someone, and a picture of the letter (with a corner missing from where he tried to rip it up) and money the tooth fairy left. Although it has not stopped the finger sucking completely it has lessened the amount of time spent with fingers in his mouth. He is still really mad at the tooth fairy, but he will be very happy to report to Dr. Kurt Sturz (the kid's dentist) that the pillow is gone and he is not sucking his fingers as much when he goes to see him again.

ER.

I have watched the show from the beginning and now it is getting ready to end. I will be sad. I know it is pathetic that a show will get me all choked up but it will. So how fitting that during the final season I wind up seeing one of my favorite "Doctors" at Disneyland a few weeks ago.

While I was walking back from a kids bathroom break, Jared says to me "Isn't that Mekhi Pfeiffer?" I look and say yes it's Dr. Pratt and then I start fumbling for my camera. I am too much a of chicken to ask to have a picture taken with him, so I just started taking pictures. He didn't even seem to notice that some crazy lady surrounded by a bunch of kids was taking his picture. Jared said later he would have asked for me if I would have asked him too. Oh well, I got my picture and I was happy. Jared on the other hand was embarrassed, not because I was snapping pictures but because he actually recognized him and knew what show he was on and who is character was. Laura, we can be sad together since I think we are the only ones left watching.

Diet Coke w/ Lime

I have found as of late that I consume far too much soda. Even though it is diet, the amount is alarming to me. I can not completely give up my diet coke. There is nothing better than sitting down at one of my favorite restaurants with my husband or on a girls night to enjoy good food and a diet coke from the fountain. True soda lovers know the fountain always taste better. I am however not going to be filling the shelves in my garage with 12 packs anymore. Hopefully the withdrawals won't be too bad. I have been trying to cut back so I wouldn't go into shock when I reached my last one which was today. I am now going to need to find something else to get me through the roughest parts of my day (maybe the reason I drink so much diet is because most days the entire day is rough). So I am wishing myself good luck, and those who know how much I really do love my diet coke, you can close your mouths now.

My Fatty
I am shocked at how fast time has passed since Ashton was born. He is 9 months old now I am getting sad that he is getting so big (not that he was ever really small, but you know what I mean) This is my last baby and now he is almost not a baby anymore. I need just a little more time to squish him while he will still let me and while he has plenty of chunkiness for me to do so.


I YAshton

Fat Ash is mobile

I finally got my firewire and was able to upload video. This is ashton's attempt at crawling. My kids have done the army crawl, but I have never seen them "swim" like he does. This video is almost a month old so he has gotten much better at it but watching him do this is pure entertainment. The amount of effort it takes him to get his whole body moving has made him thin out just a little in the face. Don't worry my chunky monkey's fat little legs are still as beefy as ever.

Honesty, the best policy?

In my extreme frustrating with the housing market, Obama and his massive spending plans, and greedy people, I am left pondering this thought.

Is honesty really the best policy?

From the looks of it I would have to say no.

Here I am in my house. The one that we pay for, that we qualified for honestly and what do I see when I look out my window, nothing but renters and foreclosures. Now I have nothing against renters, I myself was one for a long time, I have a problem with the owners of that home. Most of them have rented their house so that they can get in a bigger house for a better deal. What happens when they lose their renters though? Are those people able to afford both mortgages? Did they have to prove that when they got a loan for their second house? I will give them this, at least they bothered to find renters unlike the ones who find some shady way to get into another house for less money and then just walk away from the other one. I highly doubt that all the people in my neighborhood renting houses to someone make enough money to cover two mortgages. I know I don't, which is why I am still in my house. Still making my payments. Each week looking at the home ads in the real estate section of the paper with a sick feeling thinking about all those people continuing to contribute to the mess caused by greedy people, which in my mind they themselves are becoming.

So why is it that when it comes to money and markets in general honest people never win? I myself will now be taxed more to make up for the greedy and dishonest people who obviously have no concern for what they are doing to the already severely damaged economy. Which in turn means I will not be able to "stimulate" the economy with my consumer spending because I have less and know enough about managing money to know when you have less, you spend less.

Although Obama says help is on the way with his new 75 billion dollar plan to fix the housing crisis. This time he says he is going to help the responsible ones as well. I am not sure how since there are 7-9 million homes in trouble.( Are there really that many people in this country that don't have any money managing skills. Granted that number does include those who genuinely in trouble not just those who are greedy.) I am pretty sure the responsible ones will be getting the crumbs of that 75 billion.

So I pose the question....

Do you think it is dishonest to just walk away from your responsibility (i.e your mortgage) all in the name of greed? Or is that just how you have to play the market in order to survive ?

Disclaimer: I did not write this post to offend anyone. I wrote it to vent frustration with current conditions and to hear others opinions from either side. If you were offended chances are you have contributed to the problem not because you had a real justification (loss of job, job transfer, starting school, etc.) but because everyone else is doing it.

Ignored

As you can tell I have been ignoring my blog lately. Why?

1. I am busy. I have not signed myself up for anything nor do I put many things on our calendar of to do's but somehow there is still just not enough time in the day.

2. Facebook. Yes I signed up and have been visiting for awhile, but I have decided to comeback to my true love.

3. Windows Vista. We got a new computer a little while ago. I was so excited, it was faster, had more memory and it was new. So I went to try and upload a couple of video's (ashton crawling or should I say swimming, ethan and landon at basketball etc, etc) no can do. My camera does not work with windows vista, there are no updates for it, and I am mad. My last hope is to get a different cable (a 1394 to be exact) and see if it will work. We are in the process of looking for a new video camera but for those that know jared well, we all know how long these "processes" take.

So in the mean time this is what happened the other night that I can now laugh about but at the time was not so funny

Jared and I were watching TV after the kids were all in bed. All of a sudden I hear what I think is water running.

Me: jared, do you hear water running

Jared: (pauses the tv) I'm not sure

(He then gets up and starts down the hallway to see what it is and this is what I hear)

Jared: Landon!! What are you doing?!!

Now I get up and head down the hallway to find a huge puddle in the corner of the laundry room where Landon has peed while asleep. So a couple of towels and a bunch of clorox wipes later, Jared and I are back watching TV somewhat laughing at the fact that Landon didn't even wake up during the whole thing.

An hour later........

Me: Jared I hear someone peeing on my floor again!

Jared: (gets up but stops right at the beginning of the hallway) Landon! Why are you doing that?!!

Me: Are you kidding me!!

There is Landon standing there in the middle of the hallway looking right at us just peeing away. Although he is looking right at us he is clearly not awake and has no idea what he is doing. So we start the cleaning all over again and I am thinking to myself how grateful I am that the only place I have carpet in my house is in the bedrooms.

One of my favorites of Landon. Good thing he is cute.

25 Random things

So since i posted this on my facebook (which by the way takes way too much time, I like blogging better) I figured I should post it here. So just in case I haven't talked your ear off at some point which is highly unlikely since I am my mothers daughter here is a list of 25 random things about me. I am not tagging anyone else to do this but if you feel so inclined I do like learning about other peoples quirks.

1. I hate doing things like this that make me sit down and think about what I could write about myself.

2. I can't handle it when people touch things, anything with wet hands. It drives me crazy and my mom and sister are constantly doing it.

3. I am addicted to the Internet. I am not sure how my life ever functioned without it.

4. I am still afraid of the dark. I check my house multiple times at night, and only in an extreme emergency will I go to the store by myself at night.

5. At least a couple of times a week I try and get my husband to get out of bed and go check our house because I think someone has broken in. I do live in a good neighborhood, I am just paranoid.

6. Jared was so late to our wedding that the temple patrons started asking me if I was sure he was going to show.

7. I love recipes but I don't like to cook.

8. I already have grey hairs. I can thank my children for that.

9. I am horrible at keeping in touch with people.

10. I have an amazing memory when it comes to people and conversations but please don't ask me to remember everything at the store.

11. I am a TV junkie. I do not have enough DVR's in my house to record all the shows I would like to watch.

12. I am the worst about flossing my teeth and going to the dentist regularly even though I am married to one.

13. I have an extremely large sweet tooth. I try and keep candy in my bag for the emergency cravings.

14. My #1 goal in life is to sit on my couch at night with one of my favorites shows, some good candy, a diet coke, and think to myself that there is nothing else I need to do today.

15. I have almost completely given up on my #1 goal.

16. I despise Thanksgiving and don't think it should be a considered a real holiday.

17. Cereal for dinner IS a real dinner

18. It never ceases to amaze me that boys have no aim when peeing even when they grow up. Really, how difficult could it be.

19. I love that my all four of my kids got my blue eyes

20. I have not taken a nap in probably 6 months. That is a travesty.

21. I despise people who make a big production about wanting to be moved to a different table at a restaurant when they see all of us getting seated. I know why you want to move, but don't be so rude about it.

22. I have had 3 letters to the editor published in the newspaper here. It is now somewhat of a family joke.

23. My kids can make me the most mad and the most happy all in the span of about 5 minutes.

24. I am deathly afraid to fly. I have to be medicated preferably very heavily.

25. I am actually grateful my mom made me take piano lessons. I used to tell her I would never be happy I know how to play the piano and that I would never make my kids do something so horrible. Never say never.

Yada, Yada, Yada...

I saw the following quote on a friends blog and remembered why I love the show Seinfeld so much. Could they just start replaying seasons during prime time in the summer when there is nothing else on? Or I guess I could borrow my dad's DVDs. So which Seinfeld character do you think you are most like? I would have to say I am most like Elaine when it comes to how she reacts to things and probably how she dances. Jared I would say is like George when it comes to dealing with money. We even have a "close talker" in the family.....Ethan. If you are thinking to yourself, " I have never seen an episode of Seinfeld" then shame on you although "not that there's anything wrong with that".

I am so busy doing nothing...

that the idea of doing anything -

which as you know, always leads to something -

cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.”

--Seinfeld

Matt and Kristal

Way back during Thanksgiving my brother and his family came down for a visit. They have a little girl Presley who is adorable. I had just gotten my new camera and needed some victims for picture taking. They agreed and these are a few of the ones I liked the best. When I edit photos I always take the photos and make one color and one black and white. No matter what I always end up liking the black and white ones better. I am also noticing as I type that the first photo of Presley has a red tint to it. Guess I need to fix that. Adobe Photoshop which is supposed to be amazing is not so amazingly easy to figure out. So this post is a little bit of picture overload but who doesn't like to look at pictures right?

Matt, Kristal, and Presley