Musical Car Seats, Among Other Things

-We're in the midst of a "game" of musical car seats. Basically, this means that my children are not capable of riding peacefully in the car for even 10 seconds. Therefore, we have been experimenting with different seating arrangements for everyone, to see which method produces the least amount of fighting/whining/screaming/arguing. It's been a rough road. I drive a minivan. You'd think there were would be plenty of room in a 7 passenger minivan for 4 (because Aaron isn't usually in the car with us) of us to have personal space. You'd be wrong. The original arrangement, was that Ivan and Adelia each had a captain's chair in the middle row, and Lincoln was all by himself in the back. This worked great until Adelia's arm got long enough that Ivan could reach it when they both stuck their arms out over the isle. Then they started pulling on each other, pinching each other, knocking toys out of each others hands, or making the other drop a toy they were currently holding in their hand. All of these result in screaming. You'd think they'd be smart enough to figure out that if they'd just kept their arms to themselves, the other person would not be able to reach them. Well, like me, you'd be wrong. So, we thought, we'll move Ivan to the back with Lincoln. This was an even worse arrangement. Mostly because in the back seat, they were closer together, so not only could they hit and pinch, but they could also kick each other. And without fail felt that it was necessary to whack each other with whatever object they could get their hands on, including the things that can't be removed from the car, like the middle lap belt, the cup holder insert, and that weird seat belt looking thing that hangs down from the ceiling on one side. And of course I'm always driving, so what can I do about it all? "Stop fighting you're going to be in trouble!" Right. They're smarter than that. They know all I can do from the front is yell. So, we have recently moved Lincoln up next to Adelia and left Ivan in the back by himself. We'll see how that goes. Heaven help us if we ever have another child.

-Aaron's supposed trip is getting on my nerves. His company has been telling us for a month now, that they're sending him to Cali for 3 weeks. They tell us a day, and then a few days before they say, never mind, we're pushing the trip back. One day, I even took him to work with a suitcase in hand, fully expecting not to see him again for 3 weeks. He called me at noon, when he was supposed to be boarding the plane, to tell me they'd pushed it back yet again, and could I pick him up from work at the usual time. Don't get me wrong, I am not in the least bit anxious to have him leave. But the unknown is killing me. I keep making all these plans of things for us to do to keep our minds off the fact that he's gone, and then suddenly he's not gone, but we still have all these plans. But the good news is, that since they pushed his trip back one more time, I get to go to book club tonight because he'll be home watch the kids. I'm glad about that, I love our book club, and this month we read one of my favorite books, These Is My Words by Nancy Turner. And I'm excited to talk about it with the other ladies.

-Finally took Ivan to the doctor this morning. For the last 3 weeks he's had this ugly rash off and on. It showed up one day after we'd had Thai food, and I thought it was just a reaction to that. It was all over his face and chest, but went away after a couple days. But then it'll flair up again and then go away. I can tell that it's itching him, because he scratches himself so hard that he bleeds. Well, the rash showed up again last night, and he started screaming bloody murder when I tried to put lotion on it. So, this morning, we decided to have him see a doctor just to check it out, since it doesn't seem to be going away on it's own. Doc said Ivan just has a case of Atopic eczema mixed with a little rash that sometimes comes along as a symptom of the common cold. Atopic eczema is an allergic disease believed to have a hereditary component and often runs in families whose members also have asthma. Itchy rash is particularly noticeable on head and scalp, neck, inside of elbows, behind knees, and buttocks.He prescribed a steroid cream for us to apply to the worst areas, to help the rash go away, and told us to pat Ivan dry after baths instead of wiping him dry. And also to use more moisturizing soaps like Dove or Lever 2000 to wash with, and to find a heavy oily lotion, such as Eucerin cream to slather him up with twice a day, and see if those things help. I'm glad he doesn't have some creepy, contagious skin disease. I can deal with eczema, even though it's looking like something he'll have to keep an eye on, and take care of, for his whole life.

-While we were waiting in line at the pharmacy to get Ivan's steroid cream, my children were running around like wild indians. And older man who was also sitting there waiting, and observing my children, said to me, "You need one more girl." And I smiled and replied, "Ya, like 10 more, that's exactly what I need right now." I was probably more sarcastic that I should have been. But seriously, have you ever spent any amount of time with 3 wild children in a pharmacy? Waaaayyyyyyyy to many things for them to touch that I don't want them touching. All the medicine for one, and then for some strange reason they seem to think that Pharmacies are a good place to have a craft boutique coexist, so there are also a million little cutesy breakable things at eye level and within grabbing distance. We were only there 10 minutes and I was ready to strangle someone by the time we left.

-I will probably be thrust down to hell for this, but I strongly dislike the new primary song for this year. It's cheesy, and forced, and sounds like Janice Kapp Perry wrote it (oh wait, she did.) Not my favorite. I'm trying really hard to feel like I should teach it to my children anyway.

-But here's something I do love. This North Carolina BBQ pulled pork recipe. Heaven in a crock pot, I'm tellin' you what. And it's easy... that always makes it taste better.

3-4 lb pork loin/roast/shoulder
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp prepared mustard
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. red pepper flakes


1. Trim fat from pork and put in crock pot. 2. In a bowl mix remaining ingredients and then spoon over meat. 3. Cover and cook on high for 5 hours, or on low for 8 hours. 4. Shred meat to use in sandwiches.

If I make this again and expect the kids to eat it, I'll half the red pepper flakes, it is a little bit spicy. But if I'm making it for just myself I'll keep it exactly the same. It was so flavorful and good, I hope we never run out of the leftovers, but we will, because I'm eating them every chance I get.

-Here's another thing I love Do-A-Dots. I finally ordered some. I've had my eye on them for about a year now. We pulled them out yesterday and my boys were entertained for an hour, no kidding! It was amazing. And I can totally see some great potential in these little babies, besides just for coloring. We are going to have some fun with these.

-I also ordered volume 1 of the Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer, read by Jim Wiess. Although this is a history curriculum for kids, I'll admit that I ordered these for me. I've been wanting to get them and listen to them ever since I first heard about them 2 years ago. When the kids are a little older, we'll definitely use it as their history curriculum, and do the activities and all that. But for now, I'm listening to them in the car, (and since the kids are usually in the car with me, they listen too, and pick up bits and pieces here and there. Lincoln is fascinated that hippopotamus means water horse.) and I'm really enjoying them. I'm learning about ancient Egypt right now, which I have always been fascinated with. What can I say? I'm a nerd. But it's a nice break from the much over played Disney CD we usually listen to in the car. :)

-My birthday is coming up. Mark it on your calendar, it'll be here in about 22 days. :) Aaron got me a bike for Christmas, so I was thinking something like this center mounted bike seat would make a good birthday present. And I think Adelia would love it. The boys already have bikes (or will soon enough, Ivan is getting one for his b-day in March), so the only thing stopping us from going on a bike ride right now is Adelia. So this would solve that problem. Of course, we'd have to get her a helmet too. Whose birthday is this anyway? ;)

Let's Do This Again...

The reason I post updates about our house hunting adventure is not to keep you all informed. The reason I do it, is so that some day if/when we own a house and if/when we ever decide that we want to try buying another one, I can reread this experience and make sure I remember exactly how un-fun it is. Kind of like having a baby, when you remember that having a baby involves steps a,b,c you have to ask yourself if you are willing to be subjected to a,b, and c again, and if the answer is no, then don't get pregnant again. I want to have something similar to remind myself about house buying.

So, Thursday morning a new listing came up. I told our realtor we were interested in it, and he set up an appointment for us to go see it Thursday afternoon. We liked it, and knew that a lot of other people would too, so we decided to put in an offer right away. This one is also a short sale, so just like the other one we have an offer in on, we won't hear back from the bank for awhile, maybe months. But here's the house.

It's in Springville, in my dream neighborhood.
2000 sqft...so a little smaller than we'd like, but the space is arranged nicely, so we could make it work.
.18 acre lot
4 beds (3 up, 1 down)
3 full baths (2 up, 1 down)

So, compare and contrast with the other house we have an offer in on: House #1 is bigger by about 300 sqft, and since it needs new carpet and paint we'd get to decorate exactly how we want, which I am kind of looking forward to. House #2 is smaller, but needs zero repairs, and is already decorated cute, even though it's not exactly my style. House #2 is in a neighborhood I like a lot better, and the yard is layed out better. Conclusion: I'll be happier with either, and will probably take the first one that becomes available, provided that it passes inspection. :)

We were right about a lot of other people liking the house. Friday, our realtor called to tell us that 3 more offers had come in. Ours was the first offer in and highest by about $3,000.00 but the second highest offer was a cash offer. Saturday our realtor called again to tell us that the sellers had decided to accept the cash offer first, but that ours is the official back-up offer. So we'll see. Again it's just a waiting game. I guess lots of times people who offer cash won't wait around forever, so it's possible they'll find something else and move on. But for right now, we're just waiting out these two short sales to see what happens. And we're still watching to see what else pops up on the listings.

But please, I have to ask, please stop sending us listings. I know you are all doing it because you want to be helpful, and we appreciate that, but I have about 15 people, both family and friends, who are sending me listings on a regular basis. Aaron and I already follow the MLS, so we already see every listing that hits the MLS, and we look at the pictures and we drive by the houses we like and talk to our realtor about them. We've already seen the ones you are sending us, all of them. Please stop. We know what we're looking for, and we'll figure this out on our own. Besides it's always really awkward when someone sends us a listing and then asks, "So what did you think of that house?" "Oh, uh....we hated it actually, it doesn't meet our needs at all. But thanks anyway?" Let's just avoid that moment all together, shall we?

Ok, I just reread that last paragraph, and it sounds a little harsh. It's not meant to be. And we don't hate all the listings that people send us, I was just choosing the most awkward example. But a lot of them we've already seen, or we've already tried to go see but they have multiple offers in on them, or they just aren't our style, or don't meet one or more of our requirements. But the biggest thing is just that we already see them all on the MLS.  Our realtor's website is a good one, toptenutahhomes.com, and it has every house listed with an MLS number listed on it, so you can go to one place and see all the houses. Not to mention that our realtor emails us every day with updates on the market and so on. The reason we can't find a house isn't because we haven't seen everything on the market, it's because we're not willing to settle, and we're just waiting for what we want to come on the market. Okay, enough of this, right? I hope I haven't offended anyone.

Brian Regan

 Aaron and I went to see Brian Regan at Abravanel Hall on Thursday night. I bought the tickets way back in September to give to Aaron for his birthday in November, and now that's it's January, we finally got to use them. We had a great time. My mom came down and stayed with the kidlets. THANK YOU MOM! And Aaron and I headed to Salt Lake, stopping in Orem on the way to put in yet another offer on a house (more about that later). When we got to Salt Lake we had a little time to get something to eat, so we went to California Pizza Kitchen at Gateway Mall. Neither of us had ever eaten there before. It was delicious. We split a BBQ Chicken Pizza and a Cobb Salad.

As expected, Brian was hilarious. I found myself laughing so hard I cried, and also laughing so hard I couldn't take a breath. It was exactly what I needed, two straight hours of laughing my head off with my favorite (and only) husband, doing the same thing right next to me.  "Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!"

As an encore, Brian came back on and did his UPS joke. This joke always reminds me of Aaron and I, because the UPS guy on the phone tries to give Brian a simple equation to solve a problem, which Aaron does to me all the time, and I, like Brian, always find myself thinking, "I'm too stupid to talk to you." So I included that joke in this post so you can have some idea of what I'm talking about.


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Snowmen Continued

I thought we were done with the Snowman Unit, but I still had a few tricks up my sleeve that I didn't want to pass up...so we did some more.

Marshmallow snowmen. A shish-kabob stick, 3 large marshmallows, 1/2  an Oreo, 1 Rolo, 1 Laffy Taffy and some cake icing. My kids loved these. (Hint: if you decide to stick your Laffy Taffy in the microwave to soften it  up and make it more pliable, 15 seconds is WAY too long...I'd go with 5. And yes, I'm speaking from experience.)

My sister-in-law let us borrow this movie called The Snowman, which is based off of the book by Ryamond Briggs. The movie (like the book) has no words, only classical music playing in the background to set the mood. My kids were mesmerized by this movie. I don't think they even moved for the whole 27 minutes that it was playing. Even Adelia. We will definitely watch this a few (hundred) more times before we return it to her. :) It's a fun picture book too, but I think I like the movie better because the music brings in so much emotion with it that you don't get as much just from the silent pictures in the book. It of reminds me of Peter and the Wolf in that way, with the music telling the majority story. Anyways, we like it. A lot.

I also, in my last post about the Snowman Unit, totally forgot to mention the book we've been reading and basing this unit off of. So I will do that now. The book is called Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner. It's a fun rhyming story about what the snowmen to at night. My kids think it's a pretty silly book. And like to laugh at the snowmen mother's bringing ice cold chocolate for the snowmen kids to drink, and the other funny things the snowmen do to entertain themselves.

We still haven't gotten around to making a snowman out in the yard, but maybe one of these days.

How We Do Lunch

This is how we do lunch on the days that I mop.

Ivan Explains His Dump Truck

 Somehow, without my being able to lay a finger on exactly when, Ivan has gotten to be quite a big boy. I found myself noticing the other day how much more he jumps in during conversations, and how he takes an active role in the playing that the kids do. Sometimes, he is even the leader when they play, and Lincoln lets him be. For example the other day, they were playing "struction" workers, and Ivan was the one driving the dump truck while giving out the orders for where to dump the "dirt" and how much was enough and when to move on to the next "site", and so on.

His vocabulary and sentence structure have taken another jump, so that I find words coming out of his mouth that surprise me. He's never been one to learn language gradually. It's like, he started out knowing no words, and then one morning he woke up and knew 10, and then another morning he woke up and knew 30, and so on, without really having a transition stage where he'd try out new words. I guess he does all the trying out part silently in his head, and when he figures he's ready, he lets them loose for the world to hear. His latest thing is explaining a process. He knows plenty of words now, that he can explain the process of how a thing should work, or what it should do, or the order events should occur in. And it's his favorite. He'll sit me down and ramble non-stop for two minutes, almost without taking a breath, about how to put oil in his dump trunk and what the oil does and on and on, and then when he runs out of things to say, he'll say "And that's it."

He's really into his dump truck lately. I'm glad. We got it for his second birthday last March, and he's always liked it sort of, but hasn't really given it a whole lot of attention until these last two weeks or so. And now the two can barely be parted. He loves to put on his "struction" hat and be a "struction" worker. :)

Seven Lies About Homeschoolers

Haha! My friend Wynter sent out this funny video...I love it."Heeeeeeck Nooo!" "My life is AWESOME!" Hahaha.... Thanks Wynter.

Snowman Unit

I've been promising a post on this snowman unit. We've had a lot of fun with this one. I decided to use the snowmen to try and teach about comparing. So we did a lot of big, bigger, biggest, little, less, least, etc.

First we did paper plate snowmen. The kids got one paper plate for every letter in their name. I had Lincoln write his own name, and I cut out the letters of Ivan's name for him to trace. I did a snowman for Adelia, even though she was napping, because I needed three to compare with.


Once we finished making them, we could compare. Lincoln had to cut out snowmen with the first initials on them, and glue them in the right blank.

The next activity that we did was probably my favorite one. Thumb print snowmen.

We dipped our thumbs in white paint and did three thumb prints together on black construction paper to make snowmen. I let the kids do as many snowmen as they wanted. Then we decorated them with faces and scarves and arms, using the opposite end of a paint brush. Then, using the opposite end of the paint brush again, I had them dip it in white, and make as many snowflakes as they wanted. Then we used a piece of chalk to make the ground for the snowmen to stand on. Once our paintings were dry we filled in the blanks on the poem by counting the number of snowflakes and the number of snowmen. The poem goes like this: "______ little snowflakes fall into sight. While ______ little snowmen played all night." Then you fill in the blanks for the numbers of snowflakes and snowmen, and decide which had more and which had less, then you glue the appropriate word in the next spaces in front of snowflakes and snowmen.

On Wednesday last week, it was my turn to host Little Boys Club, and I decided to keep the activity in line with our snowman theme. So I taught them all how to make snowman-kabobs, using bananas, apples, grapes, pretzels, strips of fruit leather, orange sprinkles for the nose, and cake icing for eyes and mouths. I thought they turned out really cute. Here are Ivan's and Lincoln's and mine.

Then Lincoln and I made a marshmallow snowman, and talked about which circles had more marshmallows and which had less. We also talked about big, bigger, and biggest circles.

And our last big project was a yarn stitched snowman. This one was great for fine motor and concentration skills. You just take a big paper plate and a little paper plate, and punch out holes, then you use yard to "sew" around the edges. Lincoln was most excited about gluing the buttons on. And once those were on we compared the buttons, "Are there more red buttons or yellow buttons?", "Are their less orange buttons than red buttons?", "Which color of buttons are their the most/least of."

And of course, Once There Was a Snowman, is a great song to use for this unit.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman
Once there was a snowman, 
Tall, tall, tall
In the sun he melted, melted, melted
In the sun he melted
Small, small, small.

Maybe tomorrow we can finish up the unit by going outside and building a snowman with all the fresh snow we're getting at the moment.

Sunday Kids

I tried to snap a few shots of the kids in their church outfits, but they didn't want to hold still very long.

An Offer is in...and We're Still Looking

Thursday night we made an offer on this house in Springville.

It is a short sale, so that means it could take 3 months or more before the seller's bank decides whether or not to accept our offer. Our realtor told us that the best thing to do with short sales, is to make the offer if you find one you like, but not to get too attached to it, and to keep looking until the offer actually goes through. So that's our game plan right now. Although, I'm secretly hoping that for some strange reason the bank will just decide to get to our offer quickly and let us know. I hate the waiting. But we can keep looking too, we aren't locked in to anything.

Just for the sake of fun, here are a few details about the house.

Built in 2006
2394 square feet
.18 acres
4 beds
3 baths (2 full, 1 half)

The first floor has a living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, pantry/laundry room, and a half bath. And the 2nd floor has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a large storage closet.

All the carpet needs to be replaced, and most of the walls need to be painted. But I think those things are doable. So I guess we'll just play the waiting game now and see.


Here are a couple more shots of the inside.

What I really like about the house is the layout. I think the floor plan would work out really nicely for us. I also like that the bedrooms are big. I have a hard time when they say not to become attached to a house...in order to want to buy a house enough to make an offer on it, you have to imagine your family living there, and if it will work for you or not. You have to imagine how you want it decorated, and what improvements you'd want to make if you owned it. And once you've done those things in your mind, to decide that yes, you could in fact see yourself buying this house...well, by then you're kind of attached to it. *sigh* And so I've spent the last few days imagining what I'd do with the house, if it were ever to become mine.

(This next part is where I start day dreaming, feel free to stop reading if you are uninterested in my grand house ideas.)

The first thing that must be done with this house is to get rid of the awful bright red/orange/yellow paint in the master. I really like the color scheme of both of these, and they would match the comforter that's already on our bed. Aaron and I both really like the beadboard in the first one, and are thinking about how to replicate it.

In the second picture, I really like how one wall is slightly darker green than the other. And we like the three separate pictures that go together above the bed.

I would love to do something like this tree in Adelia's room. I think it's super cute.

I've always wanted a yellow kitchen, and when I saw this picture with the dark counter tops, like this house we've put an offer in on has, I saw that my dream could still come true and look decent at the same time. :) And at some future point, we could change out the white appliances for stainless steel ones.

I'd like to build a half wall, similar to this one, to separate the entry way from the living room a little bit, because the living room is going to be the school room. And if we're going to be building a half wall anyways, why not add a bookcase into the back half while we're at it?

And I like these fiberglass door quite a bit too. Much better than plain old white ones.

Of course, I can't forget about landscaping. :) I want to plant a few Lindon Trees. Maybe on the boarder of the property, just to give us some privacy.

The American Linden tree, Tilia americana, is a rapid growing tree with fragrant yellow flowers and large, dense foliage that provides excellent shade. Although it will grow in dry heavier soils, it prefers deep moist soils. Its shape is pyramidal in youth, but rounded at maturity. A medium to large tree native east of the Missouri River in North Dakota. American Linden is desirable as a landscape tree for its large stature, shade and aromatic flowers. Fruit with attached pale-green bract, gives tree a two-tone appearance in late summer.

My parents have lots of Lindon trees on their back patio, and they smell A-MAZING in the spring time. And they're really pretty trees too. Good for shade.

Right now, at the house, around the front porch they have a whole bunch of rose bushes. Roses are alright, but I think I'd like to rip them out and plant a whole bunch of Lilac bushes instead. I've always loved Lilacs, and they smell heavenly. 

And maybe some Daffodils along the walk...


And that's just the beginning. I don't have time to list every fruit tree I'd like to grow, or every vegetable I'd like to plant. :)

Trying Something New

 The other day at Friday Fun Class, a group of us got into a conversation about this book, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Phyllis Haddoz and Elaine Bruner. Several of the moms said they had used the program with their older kids, and my friend Wynter said she was using it right now with her 4 year old, and they are almost done and having a lot of success. I actually have this book sitting on my shelf right now. Lisa, my sister-in-law, lent it to me a year or so ago. I just had never opened it. Anyways, the conversation at FFC class made me curious, so I went home and read the introduction. It's a little bit different sounding at first, but once I'd read it all, the method made sense to me. What I like very much about it, is that it takes zero preparation on my part every day because they have it all scripted out for me. And it's only 15-20 minutes every day. That I can do.


So I think Lincoln and I are going to give it a try. The first few lessons teach letter sounds, and even though Linc is far beyond that, we are still going to start at the beginning and do every lesson, so the he can learn the style they are teaching it, so that when the lessons do start to get harder, he understands what it is they are asking him to do. Supposedly, by the end of 100 lessons, Lincoln will be reading at a second grade level. Cool. I don't really care that much if he's at a second grade level or not, but I would really like him to have a very sound understanding of phonics, and I think this book will do that. I'll let you know how it goes.

In order to track our progress and make it fun, we made a paper chain. Every day after we do his reading lesson, Lincoln gets to pull a link off the chain. He's all about this kind of thing. We did one for Christmas, and as soon as Christmas was over he asked me if we could make a chain to count down to this birthday, which is in August. I said no. But this made him happy. :)