For my sister: A post full of parentheses

Jillian (my newly married (to Jonathan Crockett) sister who now lives in Hawaii) spoke to our mother last night on the phone.

Becky (my mom) was instructed to let me know how disappointed she (Jill) was that my post hasn't been updated for a while.

I feel bad, I do. I want people (Jill and Jonathan) to be able to come to my blog in times of need. Whether it be for a needed laugh or just to feel connected to those of us here at home. I have not done my job well recently (since I started). And for that I appologize.

We opened escrow on our house (see below).

Closing should go pretty fast (they say we'll be done by Feb. 13th). HOWEVER... move-in date is a lot further than that. The owners are trying to adopt some kids from Russia? Ukraine? and have asked for the option of renting from us for 4 months AFTER closing.!! If they (the owners) get the adoptees soon, move-out date (for them) will be sooner.


What does this mean??
Possibly 4.5 more months of sleeping in the RV.


Assuming my family will still claim us at the end of this waiting period, things will work out fairly well. Saving money on rent will enable us to pay back borrowed money (debts) along with pruchasing furniture (living room set) and appliances (fridge, washer and dryer). What a blessing!!


My mom's goal right now is to ride her bike everyday. Her course is currently 3 miles, but she is coming home WAY too soon so I mapped out a longer course for her to take next time. Although her leg muscles might be sore today from luggin these shoes (my dad's) around for 20 minutes yesterday:

Allan needed a haircut before school and, not wanting to get little hairs stuck in the bottom of her slipper socks (SCRUNCHED slipper socks, no less (already attractive when worn solely)) she quickly strapped on my dad's Nike velcro sandals.

Allan's haircut was complete before this picture was taken, but the stylist made him sit back down, "So they know what I was doing.", Becky said.
Mom, sorry to tell you this, but NO ONE is going to notice anyone else in that picture.
Off.

Homeless and out of Pull-ups

At the beginning of December we were told, that come January, the house we were renting would no longer be available. The owners had sold their bigger home and needed to move back into "ours". They wanted us out in two weeks (by December 15th). Is that even legal??!!! There was no way we'd be able to be out that soon.

Long story short, we're waiting for our house to close and have moved in with my parents. I LOVE IT. Truly. My mom, sisters, and I all share clothes, so my wardrobe has tripled. But the biggest plus by far is having 6 additional family members to entertain my kids!! Can't beat that!

The price we pay for this sweet amenity:

Night accommodations in the RV parked in the carport.

My kids actually LOVE it.

Griffin and Kai sleep on the overhead bed above the driver/passenger seats and Treyson takes the cozy dining area that turns into a bed. Two out of the three have done really well with this transition. Kai is having some struggles. He's never been able to keep his blanket on him throughout the night it gets cold on the upper bunk. The RV has heat, but it doesn't reach that high with full force. Jeff thinks this is the reason Kai is having problems with wetting the bed. He'd done it at least 3 times in the first week.

So I dug into our diaper stash and found one last pull-up from potty training. (FYI -- Kai will be 4 in March.) Dressing the boys in jammies one night, Jeff was holding open the pull-up for Kai to step into. Because we had not yet instructed him to make his last toilet stop before bed.... his bladder was fairly full. Well, instead of stepping into the pull-up, Kai proceeds to stand there, as if at a urinal, peeing. Jeff yelped and started laughing all at the same time..... "Kai! What are you doing?!" ....... not really knowing what to do...... stuck with a front row view of Kai relieving himself.

I had to throw in my comment of: "Kai! You werent' supposed to go potty in there!"

Kai replied with, "MOM! I wasn't going to go potty on the floor!"

Just because....

This morning I made scrambled eggs.

I used my brand new KitchenAid I got for Christmas....

.....to whip up 5 eggs.

Just because I could.

Happy Holidays!!

Merry Christmas!

Click on the image below to enlarge and enhance the delightable
Irish jig dance form Griffin is displaying.

A big thank you to Catherine for the photos and all the jumping around you did behind the camera to get my kids smiling. You were great!

Catherine got some really cute solo shots of the boys. You can see some on my sidebar, but the rest can be viewed HERE.

Usual stuff:

Thanksgiving was awesome, as usual.

We were with my family up in Snowflake, as usual.

At one point, there were almost 80 relatives, not usual.

This year there were a few more DeWitt family members around because of my cousin, John, getting married a few days before Thanksgiving.

The food was great, as usual.

My Aunt Linda made many delicious pies, as usual.

One of them being an Almond Chocolate Cream Pie, which I hope will become one of her usual.

Friday night, while a volleyball game was going on, Kai played on the swing set with Griffin and cousin Lukas. I didn't hear what had happened but he ended up sitting on the stairs inside just crying/whimpering. After ten minutes I told him to stop crying or go finish in the bedroom. No change. So I helped him up to the bedroom where he continued to cry. I figured he was just really tired, but when he just wouldn't stop crying, I had my uncle (the Doc) check him out.

Kai kept complaining about his left shoulder area. We could see that it was red and Kai didn't like moving it AT ALL. My uncle said he couldn't feel a break, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. The next day, his pain was worse and there was some swelling. But since he could move his arm just fine, we figured the shoulder must have gotten jammed pretty hard.

From what I've heard, Kai fell off one of the swings and Lukas fell on top of him. Everyone around them when it happened, just told Kai to get up and "brush off". It would be a lot easier to know if something was definitely wrong with him if he wasn't whining ALL THE TIME and crying so easily about EVERYTHING.

Anywho. Sunday, he was still sore, but I had gotten really sick and didn't even think about it that day, sadly. Monday I felt a little better and Kai was getting some excellent mobility out of his left arm, so we debated again to take him in to the doctors or not. Rather than take him to our primary care, THEN to an x-ray facility, I just went straight to Urgent Care where they could do everything on the spot.

Diagnosis: Fractured collarbone.

Treatment: Arm in sling to help with pain.

Kai had already been keeping his left arm in "sling position" on his own. So I was happy when the doctors said, "It's probably not going to be easy getting a three year old to wear a sling. If he wants to, let him. If not, don't fight him on it. Basically if the broken collarbones are in the same room...... they'll heal together."

That left me, feeling like an awful mom, AS USUAL, finding out my kid really IS hurt, after telling him to just brush it off and stop crying!

Halloween 2009

I'm usually pretty pumped up for Halloween and dressing up.

This year, for some reason, my attitude was: "EH."

The boys kept changing their minds about what they wanted to be so I knew I wasn't going to get a family theme like we've done in previous years.

The Sunday before, we had the Gardner Halloween Dinner:

Tom and Hope decorated the carport really well this year!

After dinner we had a cake walk along with a rockin' Monster Mash Dance.

It's always a good time!

Wednesday:

Brimhall Ward Trunk-or-Treat.

I have grown quite fond of these.

Friday:

Our friends Jennifer and Sterling Kellis threw a halloween/birthday party.

It was a bring-the-kids-deal wth a bounce house and all.

Saturday:

All week long I had been reading blogs about cute, spooky, festive food to make.

To make myself feel better for not full-out decorating for the holiday this year, I made these pancakes. Recipe found here.

I cheated and used just regular pancake mix with orange food coloring because the boys were "so hungry Mom!".

They enjoyed the spooky theme, but since they were both obsessed with lions at the time, a graphic-specific pancake was requested for each:

Not my best work, I admit, but what the heck!! It's not Safari Day, for cryin' out loud!

It's HALLOWEEN!!!

Here's our pumpkins -- lions again.

By Saturday night the boys were pretty much done. What am I saying..... we were ALL ready for the week to end.

Notice their faces....... classic.

My Cross-Dressing Grape

When does a grape have it's day?

Every other fruit seems to be given a time to shine.

Peach season means peach pies, jam, peaches in jars for later.

Same with strawberries.

Bananas are made into bread and muffins.

Pumpkins bring Jack-0-lanters first, then for the rest of the year, people are making pumpkin bread, pie, cupcakes, cookies and even pancakes.

I love grapes. My kids do too. They stuff one in each cheek, smile and become the funniest looking chipmunks you've ever seen. A good grape will be just crisp enough to pop in your mouth, not mush, and have the perfect level of sweetness that wears off towards the end, making you want more.

However, unless you drink wine, buy grape jelly a lot, or include raisins on the list of a grape's talent ..... that's about it. No pies. No bread. No cookies.

This year I met a red-seedless who'd HAD IT with being a grape......

......and decided to be a pumpkin.