Too much of a good thing

I guess I blogged too soon with my last post- I have yet one more Olivia/head incident to parade around for all to see. While daddy was napping and mommy was making dinner, Livvy emptied a can of aerosol hairspray on her head. It was dripping off her head and hands when I found her. But once it hardened- the child had a helmet on her head. She is soaking in the bath now. How long do you think she will need to soak to rid her head of an entire can of hairspray? I'll be sure to let you know. You have to give her credit though, hairspray actually does go on hair. Maybe she's headed in the right direction...





I don't know if you can see it, but she also has pink glue stick on her face. She is really into chapstick right now and can't quite tell the difference between the two. I don't know about this one- her level of curiosity surpasses anything I have ever dealt with before. It's brutal and funny all at the same time. Thanks for keeping it real Livs!

Did I mention she was brushing her teeth with hydrocortisone cream tonight? Yah.

Just when I thought we were making progress...

The other day Dave walked in the door from work- I was at the kitchen sink washing dishes (my back to the kids, of course). He said to me, "Why are you letting her color on herself?" I turned around and before I could get my "What are you talking about?" out, I saw her.



We took the positive approach- at least she didn't color on her head (unless you consider the mustache her head) and it was washable marker. No big deal. It appears we may be raising a tattoo artist of sorts. Great.

So I thought she was moving on from putting everything on her head.

Until the other night...





Taylor and Sara were painting in their coloring books, and Livvy, well, she was painting her head. Classic Olivia.

Easter

I'm ready to spread some Easter joy now. Saturday the kids dyed their Easter eggs. I got this brilliant idea to buy fancy tie-dyed and gold Easter egg coloring stuff. Hello! My kids are 5,3,&1. Not a good idea. I need to stick with the basics. Will someone please remind me of that next year? I ended up making dye from food coloring and it worked out just great.

Sara dyed every single one of her eggs red (well, pink). She is painting this egg gold.


Taylor was a little more daring and did green, yellow, and blue. He wouldn't touch the red dye though- something about it being pink and girly...


Daddy is helping Livvy to dye her egg. She only colored one before a total meltdown occured. I guess 20 month old babies don't understand that they can't hold, love, and thus crack the eggs. Lesson learned (by me, not her).


That night after we finally got the kids to bed (threatening that the Easter Bunny was going to hop right on by our house), the Easter bunny paid us a visit. I took a picture of their baskets before the Easter Bunny hid them. Livvy's basket got hidden in the pantry, Sara's was under the kitchen sink, and Taylor's was in the coat closet. Ahh that tricky Easter Bunny...


Here are the kids after church on Easter Sunday. This is the best picture I could get. Taylor started crying and pulling his tie off and the girls were just high on easter candy. Look at Livvy- that is one energized sugar baby.


We went to grandpa and grandma's house for Easter dinner. It was ham-a-rific. The kids went on an Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard with their cousins. I went outside with Aunt Nat to hide the eggs and we realized there was really nowhere to hide them. Spring is just barely beginning to do its thing which left us with a lot of dirt and grass. The kids didn't care though. They had a great time.


For dessert I made Strawberry Cheesecake. It's really more like a pie thing. Name doesn't matter-must. eat. food. It is so good. I lalalalove it. It's always what I request on my birthday. And because I love all of you, I will post the recipe. I didn't take a picture of it though. Sorry about that- just use your imagination.

CHEESE CAKE

This cheesecake should be made the day before in order for it to solidify. The topping should be made and added just a few hours prior to eating.

To make the graham cracker crust, combine:
20 finely crushed graham cracker squares
1/3 cup melted butter
¼ cup sugar
Put the crust in the refrigerator while you are making the cheesecake filling. If using a 9X13 pan, double the crust.

Cheesecake filling:
1 8oz cream cheese
1 cup or ½ pint whipping cream
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Double the ingredients for a 9X13 pan.

Cream the cream cheese, add sugar, vanilla, and whipping cream whipped. Pour into graham cracker crust. Chill.

Topping:
Prepare 1 package strawberry Junket, Danish Dessert (at the grocery store in the Jello isle), following pie glaze directions. Make sure it cools enough so that it doesn’t soggy your strawberries.
Cut up strawberries (I usually use about 2 lbs for the 9X13 recipe) and add to the slightly cooled Danish Dessert. Spread over the top of cheesecake. Refrigerate for a few hours.

So easy and so good!

Consider this my therapy

This post is full of too much information- proceed with caution:

My life as of last Friday:

1. Waking up in a puddle of drool most nights (it's times like these that I feel happy Dave is sound asleep)
2. Start sleeping upright to avoid said drool and finding that my head doesn't feel quite so explosive while sitting up.
3. Teeth hurt from breathing through my mouth
4. I guess I haven't mentioned my cough yet, or my bladder control issue... We'll just leave it at that.
5. Can't taste or smell- this has both positives and negatives.
Positives- Cleaning moldy tuna fish out of the fridge- didn't smell a thing, can't smell dirty diapers, can't smell Sara's pee. Oh, listen to this (or maybe not if you get grossed out easily)- this morning I had to take my glucose test where you drink the orange drink, wait an hour, and then have your blood drawn. I couldn't taste that drink- downed it in 2 minutes. But then when I was coughing so hard some of it came back up- I swallowed it and didn't taste a thing. I think that falls under "too much information" and "what is grosser than gross" but I feel I have to dig deep to find the positives when I am being faced with so many negatives. And really, if you have ever been lucky enough to drink the orange drink and take the glucose test, you will understand that one will stop at next to nothing to avoid doing it again.
Negatives- Livvy's "fire bum" because I can't smell her poop, my house probably stinks like pee because I can't smell it, and darn it- I can't taste food (but my taster didn't go away until after Easter dinner- YES!)
6. Did I mention that I'm tired? Because I am.
7. I cannot medicate myself. Speaking of medication, I said to Dave the other day in reference to Livvy, "Can we medicate her for her own safety?" And I don't mean to keep her safe from herself, but to keep her safe from me. It made for a good laugh at the time, for me anyway- I just have to laugh or I will roll into the fetal position, cry, and rock myself to sleep. It's true, sort of, okay, not really but you get what I am saying.
8. So in case you haven't caught on by now, I've been a tad bit sick.

So those are my problems. Well, some of them anyway. The worst part about being sick is that I still have to take care of other people (sigh...) Livvy doesn't seem to have a "mommy's sick and so I should stop climbing out of my crib and just go to sleep" radar. I guess she didn't come equipped with one of those. The other night I put her back in her bed about 30, yes 30, times before she went to bed around midnight. She worked up a sweat with all that jumping- her little face was bright red. She even jumped out when I turned out the light and it was pitch black in her room. Needless to say, we are going to need to buy a lock and put her in the toddler bed.

My kids ate Little Caesars $5 pepperoni pizza for lunch. How is it that I am too tired to whip up a box of mac n cheese and yet here I sit, blogging away. I should be asleep... or cleaning this pig sty we call home. eh...

Life doesn't seem to stop. All my obligations and commitments don't go away just because I'm sick. In fact, I think more things come up. But I guess that's what life is all about- sucking it up, doing my part, and then somehow I am a better person for it? And yes, I ask that as a question.

I am on the mend and feeling quite better. Sometimes it's just nice to complain- because I can.

I dare you- take a guess...

Who is this four-eyed person? Can you guess, can you guess, can you, can you?

I know, it's my blog so that sort of gives it away. Today I adopted a new look and a new accessory. It's been a strange, yet less blurry, new world for me.

Just in case you are wondering what is in my mouth- it's popcorn. Dave told me to "work it". Work it while eating popcorn- not an attractive option.

I haven't had much time to play with my new photoshop program. I turned this collage black and white and I have no idea how nor do I have the desire to figure it out right now.

Kamikaze Kid

My beautiful little wild child Olivia came running into my bedroom this morning to greet me from her night of sleep. Problem. I usually have to go into her room to greet her by lifting her out of the crib. It looks as though we have a jumper.

Naively hoping that it was just an isolated incident, I put her in her crib for her nap. A few minutes later- THUD! And out comes Olivia happy as a little clam. Hmm... my other kids didn't do this- it only seems fitting for Olivia that she would. Looks like we may be moving her to a toddler bed sooner than we thought. In the meantime, she hasn't quite figured out how to get out of the pak-n-play so she napped in there- I'm sure it will only be a matter of time until that isn't an option either!

Disney Princess Extravaganza!

Saturday was a big day for Sara- the long awaited princess show finally pulled into town. She wore her favorite Belle Christmas Dress. We even had to do her hair like Belle. Which really, Sara has like 5 strands of hair on her head compared to Belle (who, in case you've never noticed, isn't real, and thus has enough hair to cover the heads of an army of 3 year old girls) so trying to get her hair to look like Belle's hair was quite the task. How convenient would it be to have your hair drawn on and looking perfect everytime? Sigh...

We went with Aunt Nikki, Regan, & Hali and had a marvelous time. I bought Sara a tub of popcorn and she was set for the entire show.


Here is a picture of Sara's favorite Belle in action. It was a little disappointing that they didn't have her skate in her ball gown with the Beast. At the very end she came out in it and danced with the prince for a second. Our seats were awesome- row 7.


Sara and mommy


Sara with Hali and Regan. Sara was not happy to be outside without her coat on. I told her to put a shirt on underneath that racy little number but she wasn't having it.


After she got her coat on she was more than happy to pose for pictures. Isn't she cute?

As luck would have it...

I have to admit, St. Patrick's Day snuck up on me this year. I usually have some sort of an agenda planned out- not so much this year. At breakfast I realized I didn't do anything- hmmm. So I grabbed a thing of milk, turned it green without the kids noticing and wala- holiday magic was in the air.

But darn that Taylor for getting so old that he actually remembers things now. For instance,

"Mom, where did the leprechaun leave his gold treasure?"

You see, last year our leprechaun accidentally dropped some of his gold coins around the house and left footprints. Darn that leprechaun for leaving such a high level of expectation for this year!

After dropping Taylor off at preschool I made my way over to Macey's (this time I didn't get a cart with broken seat belts, I got one with NO seatbelts- I may have to stop shopping there, seriously) and managed to sneak some gold chocolate coins in the cart without Sara noticing.

I dropped the coins around the house before I picked Taylor up from school and when we got home the kids were so excited and had such a fun time looking for all the coins. Whew, leprechaun crisis averted.

Here they are collecting their coins:


Of course this sweet baby had no idea what was going on but she was more than happy to gather up gold coins, especially once she realized they are actually made of chocolate.


Earlier in the day I got this great idea to make Irish Corned Beef and Cabbage. I've never eaten it and I thought it would be so fun and festive to give it a shot. I couldn't find any at Macey's. I thought they would have had a big display piled with corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick's Day. This should have been my first clue to just walk away from my brilliant idea and I actually sort of did until I talked to my mom who saw corned beef at Harmon's and off I went....

At 2:45 I put the corned beef & an onion in a pot to do its simmering. I added the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage around 6ish. I had the table decked out with green plates, green jelly beans, shamrock cups & napkins, green punch in a green pitcher...the works.



The bread was on the table. Dave walked in the door. I pulled the corned beef out of the pot and Dave started cutting it up. The kids were at the table anxiously awaiting our first ever Irish dinner. I pulled out my favorite ginormous glass salad bowl that we received for our wedding and put the vegetables and liquid in. Just as I was about to lift it to carry it to the table- CRACK- the whole bowl broke into 4 huge pieces. All the liquid began showering off the island, down my cupboards, and onto my hardwood floor. I just stood there in shock. What the heck? I mean, what do you do? I tell you what you do, you just stand there and stare at it and your husband grabs the camera. And then you actually realize it's pulling a niagra falls all over the floor and you dive for as many towels as you can find. All my hard work down the drain, literally.



I don't think I've ever had a dinner just kind of explode on me. You don't plan for those kinds of things. The kids were confused and slightly upset that they weren't going to be able to eat dinner at the table that I had just masterfully decorated. I was irritated for a couple of reasons-

1. my favorite bowl had just suffered a sudden and immediate death

2. you should have seen the mess- there was corned beef juice everywhere- even in the drawers and cupboards- all over everything. My next kitchen will be plastic and cement with drains on the floor so I can just hose the whole thing down.

The good news- the corned beef wasn't involved at all and we were able to try it out. It was actually pretty good so I will have to try this recipe next year- minus the glass bowl, of course.

I guess at this point you may be wondering what we actually ate for dinner. I forgot to mention that I made a jello poke cake (with green jello, of course) to be eaten for dessert. Well sometimes desparate times call for desperate measures and when life hands you lemons... you eat Jello Poke Cake for dinner. And that's just what we did.

Well, Dave did warm up some canned chili- now if that's not holiday fun, I don't know what is.

26 weeks

Yesterday I was 26 weeks pregnant. Funny how I feel almost ready to pop yet I still have 3 months. Real encouraging.

I had a dr appt yesterday and told the dr I was feeling big. He said I was measuring at 29 rather than 26 so yes, I am big. Lovely. I think I did the same thing with Taylor so I'm sure it will all work itself out. But anyway, things are looking good- just getting bigger and this little guy is moving around like a wild man which I love.

Dave took a couple pictures of me yesterday. I like to photo document me being pregnant. You know, proof that I actually did it or something. Not that the baby coming home with me isn't proof, but you know what I mean. I'm looking at this picture and thinking "Hm, I don't look that big" so then why do I feel so dang big? I'm already having problems tying shoes and bending over. Good thing flip flop season is upon us.



I'm trying to look energized here- we took these pictures right before bed so I am anything but energized at this time of day. By the end of the day I can barely stand to have clothes on- they are just too confining and binding. I actually had to put my pants back on for this picture, information I'm sure you all wanted to know. But really, I would live in my underwear while pregnant if that were an option.

Moab

I've finally found a few minutes to throw together some pictures (I really did scale things down- we took almost 500 pictures) of our fun weekend trip to Moab (or as Sara calls it- Mo Ab, strong emphasis on the A). Basically this is a post over flowing in Jackson family vacation nostaligia- proceed at your own risk.

First things first- the actual reason we went to Moab- the Moab Half Marathon. I know, you are overwhelmed that I actually attended a half marathon being as pregnant as I am. Please note, I merely attended it (aka: stood near the finish line)- I didn't run it. Heaven forbid- I can barely put laundry in the washer without getting winded. We cheered on Dave's sister Amy and his brother Jeff. I had every intention of getting a picture of them crossing the finish line. I really did. However, two boss hogs were standing in front of me, not giving up their spots for anything. Oh, and I guess me and my brother Russ were in an intense discussion about renal this and that. You know, things people talk about every day... So what I am saying is- I didn't get a picture of them running to the finish line but look at this beauty I captured afterward:


I'm sure they will both disparage my name forever for putting this priceless photo on the blog but hey, they need some recognition, right?

We also cheered on Aunt Nat (wife to Russ) as she finished the race. We got a little smarter and moved down a ways which actually made it possible for us to get pictures. Dave got so many pictures of her running that if you look at them all consecutively, it's like watching a movie. Brilliant. Look at her face. Look at the enthusiasm she is showing. Are you kidding me? Who looks this happy after running 13 miles? I've actually never tried to run that far so I wouldn't know. Either way, my kids were excited to see a familiar face and to be greeted so happily. Go Nat!


And no, we don't know this person. Dave thought this was too funny to pass up. A beer can hanging from a stick. I cannot believe this woman ran 13 miles with this hanging from her head. Apparently she wasn't worried about her running time or her sanity for that matter.


Moab was just a bit freezing, not so bad during the day (perfect hiking temperature) but cold at night. We stayed in a cute little cabin with a heater in it so all was well with us. I can't even imagine if we had planned on staying in a tent- that would have lasted for a total of 5 minutes and then off to find a cozy Motel 8, if that were to really exist. If you look closely, Taylor is peeking his head up above the railing over close to the FJ.


The kids loved the cabin, especially the bunk beds. What is it with kids and bunk beds?

Look at this cute baby all bundled up and wandering around camp.


We did some hiking in Arches.

Friday we hiked Delicate Arch. This is a picture of Taylor enjoying his brand new camel back. Look closely. Do you see gratitude on this face? No. Just whining that it's too heavy. Really? It weighs as much as my pinky finger for crying out loud. Kids these days- I would have happily donated a kidney for one of these things back in the day...

Dave with the kids, minus the one I carried all the way up, if you know what I mean.

Taylor and Sara ventured to the arch with Dave but me and Livvy stayed right here. I occasionally like to complain that I am in hardly any of the pictures but when I see ones like this- you know, pictures where you look like you were spewed out of the belly of a whale or something, it's times like this that I am glad I am most often behind the camera. Either way, cute little family if I do say so myself.

The hike took a little too much out of Livvy.

The crowning glory of the entire trip for Dave- taking the FJ 4-wheeling.

He had a great time testing the limits of the FJ. Problem now- it's opened the flood gates- we now need to get a lift and new tires to make for even better (life threatening, if you ask me) FJ adventures in the future. Just poking fun at you, hon!

More hiking- walking toward Double Arch. I just think it's so strange to see the kids in coats at Arches. When I was a kid I swear we always did Arches in mid August, sweating like pigs where ever we went, burning our bums on the metal floor in the back of the old white 1977 station wagon.

Dave and Taylor on top of Sand Dune Arch.

Well, there you have it. We had a great time. Some highlights for the kids were swimming in the hot tub, playing with cousins, making smores, drinking juice boxes and eating chips (easy to please), and riding through Arches in the Patterson's ginormous R.V. Seriously, it was like putting my house on wheels and sending it out on the highway. Thanks for the good times everyone!

Liv gets her lather on!

Sometimes when I finish with a post I sit back and wonder when I will have something new to blog about. I usually have lots to say (as you may have noticed) and other times I have to wonder "what next?" Whether I want them to or not, it seems my kids are always up to the "what next" challenge. Funny (or not so funny) how something always manages to present itself.

Last night we had friends over to play games. Before they arrived I locked the bathroom door because Livvy likes to set up shop in there. Just a few minutes into the evening the door was unlocked and stayed that way. With all the kids running about, I sort of lost track of Livvy, that is, until Sara had to go potty. I hear "Moooooooom, Livvy is in the bafroom!!!" I saunter my way in there only to find this:

Her two loves combined into one- foam soap and putting stuff on her head.


I have no idea how long she had been in the bathroom working up this lather before I found her. She also cleaned the mirror- what an over achiever!






Inspecting some of her sudsy handy work.


I think I will direct her towards the dishes in the kitchen sink next time.