Google search FUN!

So I keep track of my blog's stats through blogger and also through sitemeter.  I've had sitemeter for forever, since I am not private I like to find out as much as I can about who is looking at my blog, where they're from, what else they click on, et cetera.  It's not perfect, I mean there is no way to really know who is looking specifically, but I can get a very general idea.  Mostly I just like to confirm that people actually read it.  :)  BUT do you know what the best thing is about those stats?????  Finding out how people find my blog through Google searches, you know, what they type in that search box that leads to ME.  I should have been writing them down ages ago cause there have been some WINNERS!  So let me make a list for you which of my blog posts are MOST POPULAR with google searches!!!!  Isn't this FUN!!!

FIRST UP:   "Dun duh dadada-da-da-da That Was Circus Music"

Yes.  "Circus music."  Who knew so many people were interested in circus music, but I tell you this post comes up ALL THE TIME in my stats.  I bet they were real disappointed to find out it has nothing to do with the circus and is, in fact, about a lady trying to survive Walmart with 4 kids.

NEXT UP:  "You Loser and Other Inner Demon Quotes"

"Inner demons" "Inner demons quotes."  I'd say this is the next most popular post that people find.  It has been happening for months, but it still surprises me when I see "inner demons" was the link to my blog, lol.  I really hope my post on trying to overcome the loser within me when I run helps.

NEXT!  "Not Quite Hoarders, But..."

This one even in the last 3 weeks has come up probably 12 times.  This mostly comes from the Google image search, where people are searching for "room scattered with toys"  "room full of toys" "messy room with toys" "toys everywhere in a room" you name it.  I should post pictures of my messy house every day, people would definitely find what they are looking for!  ha ha.  I hope they enjoyed the before and after pictures.

AND FINALLY the GOOGLE SEARCH WINNER!!!!!  "Hello I'm Blonde, Smart Blonde"

This one is mostly from google images too.  I cannot tell you... this is hit at least every 3 days or something.  I'm not kidding.  Actually blogger says in the last week this post was hit 6 times (the hoarders post was 6 times in the last week, too).  Okay so here are actual searches from the last 3 weeks that I wrote down:

"Smart blonde"

"Regular smart blonde" (as opposed to those irregular ones)

"Woman with glasses"

"Smart blonde with glasses"

"Cute dorky blonde girl" (well, you know!)

"Ugly blonde girl with kids wearing glasses" (geez thanks a lot)

SOOOO I am not sure how I feel about my glasses pictures coming up in google images whenever these words show up... it does make me think how I really just DO NOT know who is reading this... I am not the paranoid type, I think there are millions of blogs out there not to mention facebook where people post their pictures I really don't feel scared, you know, safety in numbers... BUT I dunno...!!  What do you think? 

And there you have it!!!!  Basically my blog can be summed up as follows:  a smart, somewhat dorky blonde-now-turned-brunette girl who occasionally wears glasses with a messy house set to the tune of circus music who tries really hard to block out inner demons.  Welcome to my blog. :)

Thanksgiving pics and flying scooters

Pictures from the last few days:

Carter had a little Thanksgiving Program.  Stinkin cute pilgrims. Jenna also got to have feast at school and dressed up, but I forgot to take pictures.

So starting last year, we decided to end the whole "2 Thanksgiving dinners in 1 day" thing and now we switch off.  So since this year's dinner was at my parent's, we had a small Thanksgiving dinner with Nate's family on Sunday.  I have to admit I like it better, it allows me to savor my turkey that much more when it is spaced days apart instead of hours. :)

Kaitlyn cleaned her plate.

Kyle and Emily.

Ryan and Kellie.

I love this of Jenna and Karlie.

Thanksgiving Day!!!  Preston, Kimbers, and Neil at the little kid table... ha ha just kiddin.

My mom and dad.



Bryce and Danielle.

My Grandma Larson, and the neighbor across the street, "Grandpa Woodland."

Me and Nate!

Playing outside.  It was a beautiful day!

Kaitlyn cracks me up.  My parents have a cement ramp in their backyard that Kaitlyn climbs up and then slides down on her belly.  I mean, it LOOKS like a slide, I guess...

He looks pretty cute for having a double ear infection huh (poor baby).

We had fun playing lots of games, including old favorites "Screw Your Neighbor" (which we call "Hurt Your Neighbor" which sounds so much less awful doesn't it) and Egyptian Ratscrew.

Thanksgiving's over!  Sad!!!

BUT CHRISTMAS IS COMIN!

So, I have a funny story about shopping that Friday.  I didn't go out until that evening- I can't even stand Walmart on a normal day so there is no way I go stand in huge lines in the wee hours of the morning.  So in browsing the ads I did see Target had scooters on sale and Jenna has been wanting one so bad.  So off I go and there it is, Barbie scooter, sweet!  Well of course I need to get one for Carter too... all he has been asking for is a bow and arrow, which I had found for $6, but I knew if Jenna got a scooter he'd want one too.  So I looked all over for a "boy" scooter on sale but alas all I saw was Barbie!  Then I spotted a "Cars" scooter up on the top shelf, and I was like ooh is that one on sale?  I couldn't see a price so I reached way up high to take this heavy metal scooter off the shelf, when next thing I know- BAM!!  It wasn't attached to the box and came flying out and hit me in the face, square on the nose!!  There was another lady standing in the aisle and she is like "Oh, my gosh are you okay?!! That is so dangerous!" I'm like, "Wow, um yeah, I'm okay" as tears are welling up in my eyes.  GEEZ THAT HURT!!!  I stood there trying to get the tears to go away and also not look at anyone with my big red nose.  Well apparently the lady went and told someone cause a few minutes later a Target worker guy comes up to me and goes "Hey are you the one who got hit in the face with a scooter?!"  I wanted to say "I don't know DOES IT LOOK LIKE I GOT HIT IN THE FACE WITH A SCOOTER?"  But I said, "Yes."  And he goes "I am so sorry."  Thanks.  I said "I'm okay" no I won't sue you. :)  Well I waited there for a little bit longer until I was pretty sure I looked normal, and then I left the sporting goods section.  As I leave, I pass that Target worker who is talking with another guy, and as I pass he quietly says, "Dude, that's her."  I can HEAR YOU!  I'm sure they laughed at my expense... but you know what, it was really funny. :)  Funny cause it didn't hit me in the head and knock me out.

And that's my one and only black Friday story.  The end!

P.S. I did not buy the Cars scooter... it was not on sale.  I got just a generic boy looking one for Carter, not as good as the Barbie style, but one that did not hit me in the face.

I am thankful

I am sitting here listening to Christmas music and smelling my pumpkin pie, whose crust is very sad-looking, but oh man it smells delicious! We just helped the kids make thankful lists. So here goes just a few of mine.

First and foremost, on this day, I am thankful for TURKEY.  Nothing really makes me happier on this day than turkey.  I will eat it hot or cold.    GOBBLE GOBBLE!!!!! 

I am thankful for my sweet, sweet, family.

I am thankful for hot dogs, mac & cheese, & cereal cause these are dinners my kids love (and me too).

I am thankful for fingerprints alllllll over the windows, walls, doors, TV screen. It shows just where my little kids can reach and someday they will be all grown up.

I am thankful for a husband who takes such good care of us.  He is such a good man & my better half.

I am thankful for the billions of diapers I have changed in my life. If it means I am doing my job, taking care of the most precious things I have, then I am happy to do it.

I am thankful for hot showers, which seem to have the power to wash everything bad down the drain sometimes.  I am especially grateful for hot showers I am able to take without a single person barging in.

I am thankful for my health. I don’t get sick much and right now while I feel like my lymph nodes are the size of basketballs I am so so so thankful for my health.

I am thankful for parents who worked so hard to build a strong family and with whom I have a great relationship.

I am thankful for my 5 younger siblings, each of them are awesome. I love coming from a big family.

I am thankful for in-laws who have always made me feel completely part of their family. I have never felt anything less.

I am thankful for the wonderful, good people around me who are so kind and inspire me to be better.

I am thankful for the friends who are there for me and who I can stay up late with talking & laughing.

I am thankful for my Savior. He is my rock and my strength and because of his love and sacrifice I can keep trying to become the person I was meant to be, despite my many, many mistakes.

I am thankful to be alive, to be a mom.  I am thankful for overflowing laundry, dishes, plastic toys I hurt my feet on, shoes and coats strewn about, old sippy cups tucked under the couch, yards of unrolled toilet paper, moments when I can’t hear myself think, owies to kiss, time outs, snotty noses, lots of “I love you”s, hugs. It means my house is full, full of joy, and messes oh yeah messes, but I’d take messes with the joy any day.

Oh, kids

Oh, Jenna. She colors and draws and writes letters all day. And I may be biased, but I think she is a FABULOUS artist! :)  So we just had SEP conferences and she is doing good, but when the teacher asked me if we were practicing reading, I had to tell her, I TRY!!! Jenna is SO SO SO sensitive about messing up that if we are just even working on skill sets and I have to correct her, no matter how nice I am, she freaks out and gets hurt and covers her face and just shuts down. This has happened several times. It is so hard. What do I do??? She has a huge complex about making mistakes or being corrected and I tell ya what, I really want to fix this now! So her teacher was super nice and talked to Jenna about how she herself makes mistakes ALL the time and you just learn from it and move on and it is totally okay and no big deal. It reminds me so much of aspects of myself that I do NOT want Jenna to have! It is something I had to learn too, that it’s better to throw yourself at something and look stupid then not even try at all. The good thing is, she is fine at school, it is just in front of me or Nate. She tries to please us SO much, which is good, yet not good…. Oh, Jenna.  This could make teaching her to read pretty hard.


Oh, Carter. He wears a cape every day! And lately he makes me laugh and slightly annoyed cause he WILL NOT STOP TALKING!!!!! He is a chatter box lately and seriously Nate and I cannot talk to each other without him trying to have a conversation at the same time. We say, “Just a minute, we are talking with each other” and he will keep edging in words, “Just ONE MORE THING…” he has SO MUCH TO SAY! It’s cute, and then again… I have been awful at writing down the things he says, too, which is sad, cause he is SO smart and SO random sometimes! The way his brain thinks!!! Lately he has been telling me “Mom, it is good to love yourself. Mom do you love yourself? You need to love yourself” and he will give himself a hug and I ask him “Where’d you learn that? Preschool?” and he says, “No I just thought it by myself.” Kinda profound huh. Also lately he says, “Mom, 3 plus 3 plus 3 plus 3 is 12, huh?” or “2 plus 2 plus 2 is 6,” “Mom all our fingers and all our toes is 20” I swear… Nate is like a math genius, such a numbers guy… maybe Carter too? 

Oh, Logan. All day he tells me he is either “Iron man” or “Batman” or “Spiderman.” They watch all those cartoons on Netflix and he is out fighting the bad guys every day. He and Kaitlyn get into quite the mischief still… like if you walked around my house right now you’d find a bits and pieces of tampons everywhere. He wants to wear underwear lately and sit on the potty, which makes me excited… now if he’d only GO in the potty that would be nice.  He is at the age where if I am not focused on him COMPLETELY he will say, "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY" until I look right into his eyes and say, "What?"  it is a good reminder to do that anyway.  :)  He has grown up so much and talking so much.  The cutest thing he says lately is "My baby sister" and "My Kaitlyn" when he refers to her.  I love that.

Oh, Kaitlyn. She is such a character and bursting with personality. My favorite thing lately is when I go to get her out of the crib and she is jumping up and down like a little kangaroo, it just makes my day. She has such rhythm and dances all the time. Also she has been way attached to her blankie lately and has to go pull it out of the crib and drag it around.  Then yesterday and the day before she has found another blanket she likes too so she drags both around, one over each shoulder. It makes me laugh. I love her baby talk. She loves to eat. She could eat bananas and cheese all day. The other day I had a migraine and was in bed and Nate came in to see how I was.  Then here comes Kaitlyn, wanting to be up on the bed too, so she just hung out with us in bed, jumping all around, giggling, sitting on my face with her stinky diaper, we laughed and laughed at her and seriously it was one of the best moments ever.

Love my family.

Nate went out and had a snowball fight with the kids, I am like "Take the camera!!" (I was in bed sleeping all day, ugh I hate being sick) he said it was a blast until Logan's finger got hit with some snow and he had a big cow and had to come in.  :) 

"But I stillllll love technology...always & forever"

So I have been sort of technologically challenged lately.  #1.  My camera kept telling me I was running low on card space, so yesterday I tried to delete a bunch of stuff off the camera card that was already on the computer.  INSTEAD it deleted a bunch of pictures from this last week that were not on my computer.  NICE!!!  THANKS A LOT CAMERA, AKA PHIL THE VIII (I name things)!  OH wait, I lied, it did leave ONE recent picture.  THIS ONE:

Carter took this of me a few days ago.  My camera must have thought it was pretty special, and really, I can't blame it.  Me in my glasses, fuzzy robe, doing a huge pile of dishes????  Yeah that's something I'd go out of my way to preserve for history, too.

Most of the other pictures were the kids taking pictures of each other, BUT it did erase the pic of me, Stacy, Malissa, and Hayley at Cold Stone after our shopping rendezvous at Saver's (discount shopping is the awesomest thing ever... and makes for a fun GNO) DANGIT sorry girls it is gone!!!!  I know, sad!  I guess we need to retake it next time!!!!!!

Oh, and technological mishap #2? 
Kaitlyn decided to dunk my cell phone into a bowl of leftover cereal.  I was quick, but NOT QUICK ENOUGH.  Now I have a sticky cell phone whose sound is all weird now.  THANKS KAITLYN!  Errrr.  Why'd she have my cell phone anyway.  Why was she up on top of the table.  Why was that bowl of cereal not in the sink.  Why'd she think the cell phone should go straight into a bowl of milk.  SO MANY MYSTERIES!!!

Speaking of cell phones... WOW I will never go back to a cell-phone-less existence EVER AGAIN!  I think my favorite thing is just having everyone's numbers at my fingertips.  Before, seriously I would talk myself out of calling people cause it would be too much work to go look it up.  I LOVE IT!  TEXTING is the greatest invention ever!  I am so glad I finally made the leap from ignorance to the world as we know it.  And I only have a flip phone... smart phones blow my mind.  I am not sure I am ready for that kind of technology yet, ha ha.  Plus I can only imagine what kind of time I'd waste if I had one, it sort of scares me.

Speaking of wasting time, I have a love-hate relationship with facebook.  OHHHH facebook.  So many things to love.  Feeling connected to people, communicating in the blink of an eye. I am pretty sure I'd never talk to my cousins or my aunts or old college roommates or friends from high school if it weren't for facebook.  It's fun to see what people are up to, as well as share news or even pick at people's brains for their opinions on certain subjects... like who is the best dentist in your area? things like that.   It's nice that it is so easy to express and receive support when we need it and share excitement, not to mention having lots of people to sympathize with us when things are just crappy .  BUT OH MAN facebook can be so annoying too.  Sometimes it feels exactly like high school, maybe even worse, like one big popularity contest.  How many friends do YOU have?  ha ha.  Seriously I don't want to play that game, high school is over.  Yet facebook has such an open nature it is pretty much impossible to prevent when you can see what is going on in everyone's lives, seeing only the surface, making it easy to judge others, compare yourself to others or take something the wrong way.  We are just seeing the pieces of people's lives that they choose to portray.  And I am all for expressing yourself, absolutely!  However, there's a fine line between not feeling like you can say anything without offending someone and saying whatever the heck you want to.  I think if we stepped back and looked at our society, based on facebook, it would be pretty sad... I have seen many debates-turned-name-calling, mind games, passive aggressiveness, hurtful comments, people posting things with the purpose of "so-and-so" seeing it to make a point, whining, arrogance...  people say things online they'd never say in reality.  And these are adults. And I've probably done it too!!  (I'm probably offending people right now!)  It's such a strange world, this cyber world, one that I sometimes fear my children being in someday.  I mean of course there is good, but I just had to vent that facebook annoys me sometimes.  A few people I know have deleted their accounts recently, for various reasons, and I admire them.  But, I don't think I would ever do it.  Because I do feel like I have a network of just great, supportive people on there and I don't want to lose that.  And I like knowing what is going on with people.  :)  As long as I don't waste too much time on there.

UMMM so I really had no idea this would turn into a facebook post, and yet there you have it.  Ask me how I really feel?!  I THINK i'll shut my mouth for now.  Now to see what comments I got on my latest status update...

This and that...

Carter is washing windows for extra money, cause he wants to buy... wait for it... an umbrella.  So cute. 

Jenna wanted to help, too.  Yes we use newspaper to wash windows.  It doesn't streak or leave lint behind. You're welcome for that fantastic tip.

I had to take a picture of my sink the other day... check out those fingerprints!!  ha ha.  Maybe it is from the newspaper...



Kaitlyn loves to climb up on the computer desk.  While I'm working.  Is it a little difficult to work when all I see is this??

Yes.  Yes, it is.

Working on skill sets.

Cracking herself up.

For Carter's preschool we went to Hill Aerospace Museum. 

This isn't a great picture, except for Carter and Logan's faces.

Kaitlyn's face makes this picture, too.  hee hee



He was real excited about this ice.  He may or may not have licked it.  Yep I'm a great mom. :)

Happy Veteran's Day!  In the past I haven't thought too much of Veteran's Day... it is a day Nate gets off work so he can do things like clean out the fridge for me (which is no small undertaking and NOT for the weak... yet Nate did that today, aw true love).  However, now that I transcribe reports for a veteran's hospital it has made me so much more aware of and grateful for the sacrifices our veterans have made and still make.  What they do and see out there lives with them forever. 

Thanks to those who have served and still do.

Jenna's got skills oh and I do too

Yay!  Go Jenna!  We would practice here and there, but she was always really scared of falling down, not to mention she gets really mad if she is not perfect at things.  I kept telling her she was gonna fall down a few times and that is okay, it is supposed to be like that.  Yeah that didn't help... This time though I could tell  right away she was more confident.  Oh don't get me wrong, there were some tears, but she was more willing to try, fail, and try again.  We practiced on the sidewalk for a bit and her balance was great, but she couldn't stay in a straight line and kept running into the grass.  So we took it to the open road.  Once she realized she could just catch herself with her feet before she fell, BOOM she was off!  She still needs to learn how to start herself and also how to make turns, but she did it!  Carter was the cutest thing ever, he kept cheering her on and saying, "Jenna, I am SO proud of you!"  It warmed my heart. :)

She had to learn on Carter's bike cause her bike tires were flat from riding in some stickers.

I sure love my silly girl.

She told me today when she grows up, she wants to be a mom.  Well then, I must not make the job look too bad.  :) 

Carter told me when he grows up he just wants to get his own laptop so he can play "Plants Versus Zombies" all the time.  AND, a motorcyle.  All right.  He is doing some good thinking.

So we had to go to my mom's to show her Jenna could ride a bike.  Of course, my ulterior motives involved Nate's church suit pants needing hemming...

And so, we get there, where my mom had just made three delicious loaves of homemade bread that we gobbled right up.

Then, when I asked to borrow their bike pump, she got down on her hands and knees and proceeded to patch the 3 holes in Jenna's bike tires.  I mean I have never tried to patch a tire in my life.  I guess when you have 4 boys who all had a paper route at some point, a mom becomes an expert at these things. 

THEN, she hemmed Nate's church pants.  Sure I can use a needle and thread but I didn't trust myself with that one.  My mom pretty much can do it all. 

Thanks, mom!  She does those things I cannot do for myself!

So last week I also went to a RS activity where they had a speaker for "Parenting with Love and Logic" and I admit when she started talking about these parenting "skills" to practice at home (trying to help your children gain responsibility and also be good problem solvers, unimportant stuff like that, ha) I was like, Oh, my gosh.  Parenting skills.  DO I HAVE PARENTING SKILLS??  Maybe I need to go to more parenting classes.  Ha ha.  But it really made me think!  Like psychologists and experts on child development really know their stuff about the best ways to handle certain things and just cause I pushed some babies out does not make ME an expert!  What if I am doing something wrong?!  YIKES!  I need skills!!!  (nunchuk and bow hunting, maybe).  I don't know, I started stressing about everything I didn't know about parenting and screwing up my children forever and how I need to start studying up!!  Especially the section on how to keep your house clean!

But I guess you never know what you're capable of until you are doing it.  And I have 4 kids ages 5 and under and they are emotionally, physically, and socially intact thus far, and I am too (you know, generally speaking)!!!  I mean WHO KNEW I could do that?!!

Maybe I'm not so bad.

Also the other day my dad told me when he googles my name to find my blog this Career Step thing keeps coming up, I am like, what are you talking about?  And then he shows me this page:

http://www.careerstep.com/career-success/erika_gomm

I am like SHUT UP!!!!!  So back in January someone from Career Step (the medical transcription school)was really interested in my success story (probably cause I put in my feedback email that I had 4 kids and the oldest was 4 at the time...) and wanted to feature it on their site.  I wrote my story down, answered some questions, they asked for a photo, and then I heard nothing back.  So to see they did use it and probably have for the past 9 months is pretty funny to me.  (I should google my name more often.)

But it made me think again... yeah sometimes I feel like a loser, BUT somehow I work part time from home (as an MT!! still can't believe it) and take care of my kids and a lot of times other people's kids and teach piano and do billions of loads of laundry and dishes and sometimes i feel like a CRAZY WOMAN and outta control but I should cut myself some slack.  RIGHT?  So what if my house is super embarrassing 85% of the time.  Or that I'm not out there running every day.  Or even every week...  So I look like crapola at 4 in the afternoon and my dinners 6 days of the week are made out of a box (or "Hot & Ready" ha ha).  BUT there is a lot I am doing and I should be amazed that I am doing it.  Yep this is myself making myself feel better. 

Just sayin, I got some skills.