Elbows are a pretty good thing

Check out my elbow.

Freakishly swollen.



Wanna know what happened? Let me tell you.

I was downstairs. Phone was upstairs. It was ringing.

Okay now you need to start visualizing this in your mind. There I am, bounding up the stairs, across the living room, I was racing, racing, a gazelle I tell you!! Hurry hurry hurry! Into the kitchen and then (this is the slow motion part) me yelling "AHHHH!!!" because suddenly my feet come up from under me and I am FLYING through the air until I find myself on my back in a puddle of WHAT you ask, well a puddle of bubbles.

ARRRR DARN KIDS! (Logan to be exact. At least that's who Jenna and Carter blamed it on.)

Yesterday I took the kids to the dollar store cause they each had a dollar and what do they want? BUBBLES! WELL THANKS A LOT! COULDA KILLED ME!

Well Nate heard the commotion and comes upon the scene where his wife is sprawled on the floor sopping with bubbles up my back and in my hair whimpering like a baby, "I think I broke my arm!!!"

Well I didn't. But my elbow KILLED those first couple hours. Changing my clothes and shampooing my hair was torture. It is still swollen and pretty bruised.

I was so mad and Logan got a time out for his little bubble pond BUT of course after the fact Nate and I laughed and laughed and I so wish I coulda seen it cause I bet it was FUN-NY.

But I think I have a new rule, no bubbles in the house.

Miss Kaitlyn found some Easter candy today and went to town. I found her like this.

I bet the snot adds some good extra flavor too.

Stinker!

Easter time!

April showers.




Coloring eggs. How we made it through with NO spilled dye is an Easter miracle.




On Saturday we sent the kids on a little treasure hunt with clues all over.

The treasure! We got them "Tangled" isn't it the cutest movie you've ever seen?!!!


Finding their baskets Easter morning.




After church.







No church pics of Logan cause he was being a beast at church and looked like one too. Sigh. But here are some cute ones of him the next day.





Easter egg hunt with the cousins.




Blowing bubbles.


In case you didn't catch it here is the cropped version of logan's face.

love it!

Katie-poo (as I fondly call her).



Hope you all had a good Easter! I read THIS talk the Saturday before Easter, "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" by Bruce R. McConkie. I LOVE this talk and the kids were actually off doing something quiet so that I could actually soak it all in. I have read it before, but it had been awhile. I felt very close to my Savior. A readily admit that way too often I let housework and other motherly duties get in the way of scriptures and prayer. Sometimes I just need a kick in the head, you know, like hello what is life really about?? Is it about sticky kitchen floors? Furniture piled with dust? Fingerprinted walls? Who cares. I get all whiny about messes, really? Yes well I should read what Christ went through those last few days before his death more often because it really opens my eyes. Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer, is the center of life. He is the center of what it is is all about. Why is it so easy to forget? I know it's hard for some to comprehend that he was indeed the Son of God and that he actually atoned for the sins of the world. It sounds like a fairy tale, a myth, something so fantastic you can't even wrap your mind around it. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. I think being religious is so empowering. It takes something deep within yourself to step outside of logic and believe in something that seems impossible. Like God. But I do. And I've always been one who does easily. I've never required a miracle or been a "show me a sign!" person. When it comes to faith in Christ it is just there. I don't know how it all works, how the atonement works. I just know when I reach above logic and pessimism I find power and confirmation in believing it. I love Elder McConkie's last couple paragraphs in his talk:

"I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears.

But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way."

Maybe someday I'll have as much faith as Elder McConkie. But I can say I have personally felt my Savior's love and power in my life. He is my Redeemer.

And there is one of my few and far between spiritual posts. :)

Irritation and my Beatles Soundtrack Life

GEEZ I AM IRRITATED TODAY!!!!

No particular reason I am just super on edge and super irritable. I'm a big fat jerk. Grumpy. Just call me Mrs. Raincloud.

I'm allowed to have these days once in a while, right?!!!

Is it okay to just be a woman and embrace all the moodiness that implies???

I was irritated I couldn't eat cereal for breakfast cause we are out of MILK.

I was irritated we don't even have cheese or bread! COME ON.

I was irritated because I didn't feel like going to the store yesterday or today so it's my own dang fault.

I was irritated because 2 days ago Logan shoved something down the bathroom sink and it is all clogged up now. Cause one of my favorite things of all time is spending my money on LiquidPlumr, believe me we go through our fair shair (although it is pretty miraculous stuff).

I was irritated I did not get to vacuuming today.

I was irritated I didn't get the floors cleared enough to vaccuum today!!

I was irritated that I was SO TIRED!!! Poor Logan had diarrhea/throwing up all night. Hello laundry piles up to my ears. (but hello adorable little Logan's voice all day "tummy hurt. I tired.")

I was irritated at my STUPID STUPID computer screen that has turned an icky yellow color. What is THAT about? It hurts my eyes.

I was irritated that I did not get my run in today!!!!!! ARGH that makes me mad! I gotta do 16 on Saturday I needed to run today!!!

I was irritated at myself for snapping at the kids so much today. I AM HORRIBLE!!!

DO YOU SEE HOW IRRITABLE I WAS/AM TODAY? What's my prob???

Sometimes I feel like my whole life is one long Beatles soundtrack.

"A Hard Day's Night." I am TIRED and I feel like nothing got done.

"Cry baby cry." Kaitlyn? Maybe me? No really, Kaitlyn? (that's not fair, she's the happiest child.)

"Help!" I need somebody! Like a maid! Maybe a therapist!

"Lend Me Your Comb." Believe me I need it.

"Not a Second Time." Or third or fourth or fifth when it comes to Logan and spilled liquid.

"Shout." Yeah I'm a horrible mother!

"Tell Me Why." WHY WHY WHY children why!

"Here, There, and Everywhere." My kids, and messes.

"Honey Don't." Don't tell me to CALM DOWN!

"Yesterday." ...the house was clean.

"I Got to Find My Baby." Where did she go? She's a crawling champion.

"With a Little Help From My Friends." Hallelujah for friends. Especially girls night outs that last until 3 or 4 in the morning...

"Let It Be." My motto! Serenity now!

"I Feel Fine." REALLY I DO!!! I swear this is not my complete undoing on this very blog, just venting a bit, cause you know how much I like to use capital letters and exclaimation marks!!!

"All You Need is Love." Yet this is the basis of it all, isn't it. Once in a while crusty-faced irritable Erika comes out, but she can't stay too long cause I got my little family to kick her out. So here's to tomorrow, another day. "Here Comes the Sun..."

Sports... and sports analogies

So a couple weeks ago Nate calls me from work and wants me to answer some questions for him. He says that he and his work buddies have a bet going about me and another guy at work. And what was this little quiz about??

SPORTS TEAMS!

That's right, the ultimate showdown! Between two clueless people!!!

Nate was rooting for me, oh yes, he was like sure my wife hates sports, but surely she will get these.

Ahhh poor guy. He should know by now the sports part of my brain is just too tiny to hold much information!

So Nate told me the sport and city and I was supposed to name the team. Here are some of the questions and my answers. How would YOU do?!!

1. L.A.: "Rockets?"

2. MINNESOTA: "Twinsox?" (Yes I said Twinsox!)

3. NEW JERSEY: "Knickerbockers?"

4. SAN DIEGO STATE: "Suns?" (I even went to this BYU game!)

5. SAN FRANCISCO: "Knickerbockers?" (it's just fun to say.)

6. CLEVELAND: "Angels?" (Good guess.)

7. CHICAGO: "Redsox?" (got the SOX part right!!!)

8. OHIO STATE: "Braves?"

ANSWERS:
1. Clippers.
2. Twins.
3. Nets.
4. Aztecs.
5. Giants.
6. Indians.
7. Cubs or Whitesox.
8. Buckeyes.

Pretty embarrassing. Nate only wrote down some of the ones I got wrong cause he thought they were so funny, but I'd like you to know my score WAS 6 out of 22 so I knew SOMETHING. And yet I still lost by ONE, dangit. And one of the other guy's answers was, "Ohio State Shamrock People." CLEARLY I am smarter...

Speaking of Nate and sports and not being on the same page, I'm gonna flash back and tell a funny story.

I've written a lot about our past on here and this one always makes me laugh. SO. We were GREAT friends from 8th grade on, right, but we didn't get together until my senior year. We'd hang out and hang out and flirt and flirt and OH YEAH I liked him! BUT one thing stood in the way and that was me not thinking we could ever be romantic. It doesn't make sense, I know, because I was crazy about him. But I was too afraid to ruin the dynamic of our awesome, playful, fun friendship. I didn't want to start dating and have it be weird and then it wouldn't be the same. Nate KNEW I was scared of this (cause I'd already rejected him once, you know, the "lets just be friends" line) so he totally backed off showing his feelings for me cause he didn't want to scare me off again. SO that is where we are in this story, my junior year.

We were studying calculus together, or SUPPOSED to be studying. He showed me songs he made up on the piano, we did each other's hair, we played with paper dolls, anything but study. But I desperately needed help before our test so finally we got down to studying and I was talking about how it's crazy I could make it through school with good grades because I was such a procrastinator. We were being silly, so I drew a little diagram in my notes how I "coasted" through school. I wrote, "Coasting: slide to first base. Slide to second. Slide to third. But you'll never make it home!" Well this led to us making up analogies using baseball. And Nate started using this strategy to explain his feelings for me. He didn't SAY that, but how would YOU take this conversation?

He told me home plate was his dream girl. So he'd go from base to base, all the while really wanting that home plate off in the distance. He'd try to get there, but he'd get scared off because she had the bat. I was like please don't tell me I'm home plate, please don't tell me I'm home plate, and what does he do? He tells me in so many words I am his home plate!! Sweet, right??? Well at the time I was unsure where I wanted "us" to go, so WHAT do I say to that? So this is the funny part: I totally played dumb!!! I acted like I just did not get what the heck he was talking about. I laughed and made jokes and talked about how dangerous I was with a bat and that he better watch out.

WHEW! Avoided THAT conversation!

Ummm, no.

Nate, obviously failing with that analogy, tried again. So he starts explaining that I am in the outfield (he even drew pictures, probably cause he is like, okay this girl needs some visualization) with some other people and he is at bat and he is going to hit his heart for someone to catch. He said that wherever he hit it the person could choose to miss it, reject it, or catch his heart. Then he asks me where he should hit the ball, aka HIS HEART!!! This was pretty cut and dried, I knew perfectly well he wanted me to say "TO ME, BABY!" but the truth was I didn't know if I could do it! But I did NOT want to reject him! So, once again I stall and go to my fall back plan and bring out "Airhead Erika" and played SO naïve and confused and desperately tried bringing up irrelevant things like "I don't know, ha ha, who's catcher?" and changing the subject.

Well Nate left that night completely believing that I just had no clue what he was getting at, which is so funny because could he couldn't be more obvious!

Three months later we had the REAL conversation without any mention of baseball. And I ended up rejecting him (Let's just be friends... again!) I was too afraid!!

Well we stayed friends somehow, I mean how awesome is he!!!)

A few months later we had the "talk" for the third time and it was just different, I wasn't so scared anymore and was confident we had to try because something had been between us for YEARS! And we officially started dating. WELL you can see how that turned out!

Later when he found out DUH of course I understood those baseball analogies WHO WOULDN'T he was like SERIOUSLY? We laughed. For his birthday I gave him a baseball with "Erika + Nate" and "I caught it!" written on it.

Good times!

Not quite Hoarders, BUT...

OOHHHHH MAN!!! CLUTTER CLUTTER EVERYWHERE!!!! I am definitely on a rampage. I want to gut my whole house. So yesterday I started with the TOY ROOM!!!



Toys strewn about!!!! All the time!!!! Pieces scattered everywhere!!! I think the kids favorite thing to do in the toy room is dump all the toys out of the big box and play with the box!! I was like I HAVE HAD IT! yes, there was madness in my eyes. I grabbed some trash bags and showed no mercy. GOOD-BYE BROKEN TOYS! GOOD-BYE DIRTY TOYS! GOOD-BYE OLD TOYS! GOOD-BYE TOYS MY KIDS FORGOT THEY HAD! (Have I learned NOTHING from "Toy Story"?!) And yet no guilt my friends. In fact I think I may have cackled. I'm a good cackler.

It was a long time coming. When the kids clean they just shove stuff wherever. It took me HOURS to organize. But as of RIGHT NOW, everything has its place in the toy room. Legos: one big happy family. Barbies: finally found that long lost sister (and Ken DOES have clothes!) Cars: search NO MO they are together at last. Puzzles: oooh whole pretty pictures. Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head: welcome to your faces! I have 1 garbage bag full of trash, and 2.5 garbage bags with toys to be recycled. I did have a little talk with the kids about how they have too many toys and we need to give some to kids who need them and they were pretty agreeable (although I only had them glance at the bags we're giving to D.I. ...what they don't know can't hurt em!)


So everything was perfect. And then the kids started playing in there and I was like, SIGH here we go, better hurry and take pictures! So, WHA-LA!



These guys promise they're going to put things back in the right place and be good cleaners from now on. And look at those faces, they don't lie, RIGHT?


As if they're the clutterers, I now have 2 kitchen drawers, 1 bathroom drawer, my closet (AH!), under my bed, and my van to go...

Carter's 4!

Happy birthday Carter!!! Here's my baby. :( :( :(


Seriously he used to be that small, come on.

Oh Carter, Carter, he is SO funny. I wish I could remember every funny thing he says and the funny way he says them. He makes me laugh. For example, a few days ago I told him he couldn't have something right then and he looks at me with those blue eyes and in all seriousness says, "Mom, you broke my heart." WOW! He threw that at me out of NOWHERE! He said it again a couple days later about something. Then I was dropping off movies at Blockbuster and he was upset that I didn't go IN the store, I just used the drop box and from the backseat of the van I hear a sad voice, "Mom you didn't go in. I wanted you to go in like me and daddy did. You crushed my heart."

Where does he get this!!!! I CRUSHED his HEART! Talk about some great manipulation cause it tugs at my heart strings every time!!!

Also the other day he was asking me what happens if we didn't eat any food. So I explained to him that if we didn't eat food, we'd lose all our energy and get really little cause food helps us grow. Well he thinks about that and says, "So when we're growed up then we don’t need to eat food anymore?" I said, "No we still need to eat food when we're big." THEN he says, "And then we'll get bigger and bigger and our head will go into space??" His logic is so smart!! I said "no food won't make us grow THAT big!"

I love when he tells me "You're my special mom." (cause I tell him he's my special boy.)

Another funny thing about Carter is he LOVES to sing. He catches onto songs on the radio and two songs I hear him singing a lot are, "Cause you're aMAZing, JUST the way you are!" and "Uh-oh uh-oh stuck like glue, you and me baby we're stuck like glue." It is adorable. Today he was singing, "Frosty the snowman has a very shiny nose..."

So far Carter really can't say his "R's" very well. He talks very well, but those "r's" just don't come out right. Because of that when he says for example, "Go over there" it sounds like "Go ovah daya" or "I don't want to share" he says, "I don't want to shaya." Or "look at my haya cut." It's so cute!! But I don't know when I should start worrying about that???

Carter's funny because I just can't reason with him about certain things. Like when I catch him jumping off the top bunk bed onto Jenna's bed and I tell him, "CARTER, don't do that because it's dangerous and I don’t want you to get hurt!" He always says SO matter-of-factly, "But mom I'm not getting hurt!" So I say, "But you COULD get hurt!" He'll say, (like OBVIOUSLY, mom!) "But look mom, I'm not getting hurt!" And I say, "But you could fall and break your leg!" He says exasperated, "But mom. I'm NOT!" He's like that with everything I tell him not to do. "Carter I don't want you to eat that in the living room cause you'll make crumbs" "But mom I'm NOT!" "WELL YOU COULD!" SIGH he just doesn't get it.

He, THANKFULLY, mostly has grown out of his super mischievous stage (so there is hope for Logan). But lately he LOVES copying whatever Jenna does cause he knows it drives her CRAZY.

When he was a baby he was the biggest momma's boy ever. He still has that little cuddly, tender side to him. He thrives on praise and if I tell him he did a good job on something he gets so excited and just beams. Sometimes he'll say, "Are you so proud of me?" Carter always has a twinkle in his eyes. I LOVE THAT KID!

SO for his birthday he knew exactly what he wanted. What kind of cake? "Chocolate cupcakes." What kind of ice cream? "Strawberry." What do you want to do? "Have a family sleepover." What do you want for dinner? "Potato soup." (we went to Outback, mmm.) What color balloons do you want? "Black." (oookay. I grabbed some blue, too.)

Nate got him Little Tikes basketball hoop cause nate had one when he was a kid and it was his favorite toy of all time (it must have been, we had it in our apartment when we first got married! Finally threw it out, it was filthy and in horrible condition.) Carter loves it! (Nate too!)



Interesting day, we watched it rain, then thunder and lightning, then hail, then snow!








It was cute he didn't think he would be "4" until he finished eating his cake and ice cream. Love my Carter.