The Tag of 8

I really do try to refrain from boring everyone about little "who cares" tidbits about me and my life, but I have once again been tagged. And as I do my darndest not to let a fellow tagger down, I'm afraid there must be another post dedicated to everything you never cared to know about little ol' ME!

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch

Scrubs...back when it was still on. Now I just enjoy the re-runs

Biggest Loser - LOVE it! (And might I add... *SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't watched tonight's episode yet* I am so heartbroken over the latest elimination. Could they have made this one any sadder? I was biting my lips to not sob. And someone SO needs to smack Vicky for her snotty smirk at the weigh-in)

Law & Order: SVU - though I am getting annoyed at how many times Stabler has almost been fired.

How to Look Good Naked - this show has seriously helped me look at my body differently. I think my self acceptance has dramatically improved since I've started watching it.

Ok, I hope I don't lose any one's respect over this one...but I do love the tamed down version of Sex and the City on TBS.

Um...I guess Friends re-runs?? I'm out of shows. I'm afraid I choose reading over watching TV any day.

I know I'm supposed to have two more, but that's all the TV I ever watch.



8 Favorite Restaurants

La Frontera - where I eat with my sister every single Monday (for the last 10 years and counting)

El Matador

Guadalahonky's

Taco Bell
and for when I'm forced to eat something other than Mexican food...

The Sconecutter

Apollo Burger (they have the best friend zucchini in the world - or the parts of the world I've tried it in anyway)

Ab's Drive In - for those days you just need a big ol' nasty burger

8 Things That Happened Yesterday

Went to the first meeting for the fun new Biggest Loser group my neighborhood is doing. I'm psyched!

Monday, so of course I went to lunch with D'Ann

Set up my new SparkPeople page (best free weight-loss website out there!)

Managed to clean a measly portion of my kitchen

Changed the sheets on the kid's beds

Spent too much time chatting with Amanda while I should have been cleaning my house

May have spent a little too much time on the computer...

Worked out to my tough Jillian Michaels DVD.


8 Things I am Looking Forward To

Having my house in order - ditto on that Janet, sadly my house is in total disarray and I've lived in it for years.

Brandon finishing nursing school

Singing in Stake Conference at the end of October

My weekly weigh-ins for my little Biggest Loser group (weight loss or no, I still love getting together to motivate and inspire each other)

Nathaniel actually sleeping through the night like a NORMAL 9-month-old baby!

Halloween! This is the first Halloween in two years that we have nothing major going on. No big moves and no chemotherapy/pregnancy. It'll be nice and low-key.

Going to Frightmares with Katie and Steve on the 25th

The marriage-revival overnight trip Brandon and I are going on that same night. A big shout out to my sister, D'Ann for being awesome enough to take my kids for the night and get us a room for that night with her great Marriott discount.


8 Things on My Wish List

Brandon being completely done with school so I can have my husband back

A slightly bigger house - I mostly just want bigger bedrooms and a full basement

A new car. Maybe an Acadia. Our poor van is falling apart at the seams

A full night's sleep with no crying babies or kids in need of more water

On that same note, I would LOVE to sleep in to my heart's content

A cute 120 pound, size 6, and wicked toned body...that's mine!

An endless supply of positive energy to access at will

Enough money to not have to stress about it every month

8 People I'm Tagging

So, I'm supposed to tag 8 people here, but a lot of people prefer not to be tagged, and then I feel bad for applying the pressure. (Note: I never mind being tagged - I think it's fun - just so you all know)

So I'm not tagging anyone in particular, but would LOVE to see some of you do this. I greatly enjoy reading "who cares" tidbits about other people.

Ghostly Images

(This one's for you Amanda!)
While at the Clark Planetarium for Mathew's first official field trip, I was taking pictures of the little tykes "walking on Mars". After I took this picture of Owen, I noticed something strange in the picture.
If you look right above Owen, you'll see an odd blur. I think I may have captured a being from beyond....
Either that or my piece-o-crap camera wouldn't take a proper picture because of "low light", so when Mathew made the slightest movement, it messed the picture up. You know, whatever you chose to believe.....doo-doo-doo-doo....

Birthday Festivities

Wow, this month has been absolutely crazy. I'm normally not the busy type. If you ask me what I'll be doing tomorrow or the next day or the next, my normal response would be...well...nothing. So I'm not used to not having time to catch up on my blogging, but such has been the case this past week. So I am finally getting around to putting up a slightly belated post of McKenna's birthday festivities. Which honestly weren't that exciting, but they're going up anyway, if only to show off some cute pictures.

First of all, I shamefully admit: I am a mom who breaks promises. I promised McKenna she could have a big birthday party with all her friends this year, but when it came down to it, I selfishly just didn't feel up for planning it. But as McKenna seemed more excited about just taking a couple of friends to Jungle Jim's instead, I don't feel too bad about it. I will save the big birthday party for next year when she gets baptised.

So last Friday - with McKenna, Sydney, and Savannah in tow - I drove out to Jungle Jim's. The drive out there was something else. Those little girls can CHAT! I get those moments every now and then that just make me shake my head in wonder at how grown up McKenna has become. You would have thought I was transporting a group of teenage girls. There was boy talk, gossip, and extreme giggling. I don't think any of them heard what the other was saying, because I could swear that not a single one of them ever stopped talking. We arrived at Jungle Jim's, and 3 hours, 40 tokens, countless rides, several nasty pieces of pizza, and about 100 tickets (exchanged for incredibly cheap toys that went straight into the garbage that night) later, we headed home. The drive home was equally chatty but more headache-inducing than cute this time.

Sunday was the day for the traditional cake and ice cream celebration. My parents came by to celebrate the joyous event. It seems most people are very into posting pictures of the cake, so here it is...



Didn't I do a great job.....at buying the cake from WalMart? Actually, I can't even take the credit for that as McKenna picked out her own cake. I tell ya, I'm not kidding. I'm seriously about the least domestic person in the world.

That concludes our events for McKenna's one and only 7th birthday. Thanks to everyone for your well wishes.

Happy Birthday to my McKenna!

In December of 2000, after only 9 short months of marriage, Brandon and I vaguely started talking about having kids. We were full of idealistic scenarios of giggling babies, teaching wise lessons, and fluffy little clouds and butterflies. I was hating birth control and the crazy lady that it turned me into. So as soon as we even hinted at the idea of being "ready" (like anyone is ever really ready to have kids) I chucked my half empty birth control pack in the garbage, relying completely on everyone telling me it takes several months to get pregnant. So imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later I started feeling off and asked one of the ladies I worked for to pick me up a pregnancy test (since I was too big a chicken to actually purchase one myself). And...huh...it was positive. I thought, "Wow! I'm one of those lucky people who will always get pregnant really easy!" Pshaw! But we'll save those other pregnancy stories for another day. Really long and boring pregnancy and delivery stories later...McKenna officially came into our lives at 2:22 pm.

When they placed her on my stomach, I vividly remember reaching out and timidly poking her with my finger and thinking, "Holy crap! There was really a baby in there?? What on earth am I supposed to do with that?" Of course, once they got her cleaned up and put in my arms, I instantly felt a whole new kind of love I never knew existed.
I had grand ideas of putting up pictures of the newborn McKenna, but unfortunately my scanner has other ideas. Maybe next year.

McKenna was an angel of a first baby. She slept through the night after just a couple of weeks, she almost never cried unless she was hungry, she only ate every 8 - yes, that's EIGHT - hours, and she had such a mellow and happy personality. She was my easiest baby to date. Too bad I was too postpartum CRAZY to appreciate a good thing when I had it.

Fast forward about 6-7 years...McKenna is so much fun (as long as her melodramatics aren't aimed at me). She has entered the age of boys, friends, and wanting to wear makeup (not gonna happen). I can hardly believe how much she's grown up. I'm already seeing signs that she doesn't think I'm nearly as cool as I used to be. She's even started rolling her eyes! I'm not sure how to deal with my girl already acting like a teenager. It simultaneously makes me feel like sobbing and laughing hysterically.

Since all McKenna's birthday festivities are planned for this weekend, I had to come up with something fun for her actual birthday. It just so happens that my friend Amanda's little girl, Savannah, has the exact same birthday as McKenna. So she came up with the super fun idea of bringing lunch into our girls for their birthdays. Amanda picked me up today, and with our other kids left with sitters, we headed out to Sconecutter and brought a yummy, surprise lunch into our girls.The look on her face and the huge running hug I got are going down as one of the most memorable moments of my life. McKenna and Savannah were the envy of every other 1st grader as we pulled out their lunches and sat right at their lunch tables with them. Don't you know...it's still cool to eat lunch with your mom when you're in 1st grade. We have to live it up while we can. I'm sure if I try to pull this stunt in another 5 years, McKenna will go storming out of the cafeteria crying mortified tears. But for now, she still likes to acknowledge me and I'll take it.

So Happy Birthday to my ever growing Boo! I am so grateful for her presence in each day of my life - even the days she spends being incredibly annoying.

4-year-old Ramblings

My favorite part of Mathew being in preschool is that he is incredibly talkative after I pick him up. I think I've mentioned before that Mathew isn't much of a talker. He's mostly communicates through grunts, hand gestures, and fake, high-pitched giggles. So it's so fun to listen to him ramble on and on the entire walk home from preschool. I get about 10 minutes of insight into his brain. Here are some of my favorite observations on the way home today:

He was busy telling me about why his show-and-tell bag couldn't get wet (it was just starting to rain a little) when a boy - probably about 10 years old - sped past us on his bike. He stopped mid-sentence saying "WHOA!" (in a really loud and somewhat embarrassing squeal) "He's SO fast on his bike without training wheels!!"
I'm sure he gave that kid's ego a nice little stroke.


Mathew: "Mommy, that house is tricky!"
I looked over at the completely normal looking house and asked, "Why is that house tricky?"
Mathew: "It's a much biggest, BIGGEST house. And our house is a small house, but they have a big house."
I guess a house is considered tricky if it has the audacity to be any bigger than ours.


The wind started blowing a bit and Mathew was holding onto a little paper from school.
Mathew: "Whoa! I have to hold on tight to my paper, because my paper says the name Mathew Staten, and I like that name, and I don't want it to blow away."
So we're very glad his paper didn't blow away. I'd hate to have to come up with another name for him.


We always walk to and from school whenever we can, since #1 - I'm still making weak attempts to lose some weight and most days, walking the kids to and from school is the only exercise I get. And #2 - It seems a bit silly to me to pull out the car for a little quarter-mile walk. Mathew's preschool is in a house up a slightly big hill from mine. I must confess, my son is a bit lazy and really hates walking. So I usually hear complaints in one form or another about how tired he is from walking. Today's made me giggle.
Mathew: "I wish we could buy a wagon to pull me and Mufanyull (his pronunciation of Nathaniel's name), because I'm tired of walking up. And I'm tired of walking down. And I'm weally tired of walking UP! Maybe we could buy one at Christmas and take it when I go to preschool. But wagon's has wheels, so we can't go up the stairs, and we can't go down the stairs. We just have to stay upstairs, or we have to stay downstairs."
A brilliant observation, I think.

He's also slightly obsessed with police coming to get us for any little thing. During the time I've been typing this out, Mathew became bored and started kicking my office door over and over. I asked him to please stop (in my friendliest and sweetest tone, since I am an ever patient mother...). He asked the favorite of toddler questions, "Why?"
So I explained that he was hurting my ears and that we needed to be soft to the door. I guess that wasn't a good enough reason because he came up with his own.
"If we're not soft to the door, then the police will come."
To which I said, "Yep! The police will come."
Whatever it takes to make him stop!

And...now he's sound asleep. I guess all that talking takes a lot of energy out of a little kid.

Discovering Liberty

Believe it or not, I have gone my whole parenting life without taking my kids to Liberty Park. My sister, D'Ann, recently moved within walking distance and has told me again and again to take my kids there. But alas, it took Brandon's dad asking us to meet him there last Saturday to actually do it. What a fun little place, full of free stuff to keep many a kid entertained. Having been told ahead of time of the many water features, we wisely dressed the kids in their swimsuits for our little outing. They have this cute mini-version of the canyons, rivers, and lakes of the Salt Lake Valley. I think my kids could have played in this thing all day.



The only thing exciting enough to draw these kids away from the water, was the small cluster of rickety old rides nearby. Grandpa Larry was so kind as to buy the kids each a few tickets for the rides. This is the only picture I managed to snap of the ride fun. Right after this ride, Brandon and I decided to brave the Ferris Wheel with McKenna. Mathew was a big fat chicken and opted for riding the planes again. Had I known how sick I was going to get, I would've opted for watching Mathew instead of taking a trip on the Ferris Wheel. About 10 seconds into the ride, I broke out into the cold sweats, then came the black spots. I thought for sure I was destined to experience my very first ride vomit. Luckily, through a series of deep breaths and long blinks, I was able to tame the nausea and leave the ride untainted. I don't know what was up with that, I NEVER get sick on rides. This new getting sick on rides business better not interfere with my future Nationwide Roller Coaster Trip. It is my life's ambition to ride every note-worthy roller coaster in the US, even if I can't afford it until I'm 80. Oh yes...it will happen. Anyway, I felt much better after treating myself to one of the best fresh corn dogs I've ever eaten. Though I am still a little embarrassed about getting sick in the first place. I've always made fun of people like that. I guess I can't use that one for my self-validation anymore.

That night we enjoyed the company of my parents while we watched the BYU game and ate french bread pizza. Honestly, food is just too good to go through life being skinny. And I've made the decision that if I have to give up stuff like fresh corn dogs and french bread pizza to have a rockin' hard body....I think I'll stick with being a nice, soft, squishy mommy.

Labor Day was pretty uneventful. We had originally planned to have a tinfoil-dinner cookout up Millcreek Canyon with my family, but I'm afraid the idea of going to the canyons got washed away with the day's rain. Yet my parents were not to be completely deterred. They (with the help of my nephews) dug an impressive fire pit in their backyard and we enjoyed the delicious tinfoil-dinners in the comfort of a warm, dry house. Soon after the s'mores, McKenna came running into the house crying, with blood pouring down her chin. Apparently she had an "I-wasn't-thinking" moment, and walked right in the path of my nephew on the swing. She got hit good in the mouth and had quite the impressive fat lip. Sadly, I wasn't playing the unusually cruel mother who forces her to pose for pictures showing off her battle wounds; so I have no photographic evidence. I was planning on doing the photo shoot when she got home from school the next day, but the fat lip had already disappeared - oh well.

The rest of the week has been just as exciting as the last two. I thought since none of us were sporting any major illnesses, we might make it out of the house. But other than a couple trips to the gym, the grocery store, and my weekly lunch with D'Ann; we've just been cooped up enjoying our regularly scheduled TV watching, computer and reading time, and housework. I wouldn't hold your breath for anything beyond that for awhile.