Flowers

When we moved in, the backyard was just rocks, one of the things we don't like too much about living someplace so hot.  We discussed ideas for the backyard and I basically told Tim he could do whatever he wanted.  He has some great ideas and over the past 3 years has been implementing them.

GETTING READY:
First, he got rid of a bunch of the rock that is our landscaping in the backyard.  Next, he bought stones to use as borders for what he wants to be a plants area, garden areas and a sandbox spot for the boys.  After that came, what I think is the hardest part: separating the rocks from the dirt.  The dirt in AZ is very rocky and hard.  Tim spent numerous weekends sifting out the dirt from the rocks! He had a wheelbarrow, pick ax, shovel and a homemade sifter.  The result was amazing!  The next step was to fill the sifted out areas with top soil (which the boys LOVED playing in despite the manure in it).  After that, to "keep" the boys out (and their friends), Tim made a small fence to put up.  Finally, it was time to plant.

ORANGE TREE AND MOTHER'S DAY FLOWERS:
The first plant we got was a miniature Orange tree.  We had it for a few months before we actually planted it.  We kept moving it inside because of the cold weather.  Tim finally decided it just needed to be planted and did the deed.  Excited and encouraged by the tree (and the fact it survived the freeze), for Mother's Day I received 2 potted flowers to put in the "plants" area of the backyard.  Tim planted those too, with "help" from Pach and Pick.

WATER SYSTEM:
Tim spent hours planning a watering system for the backyard, designing, drawing, etc. but it never came to fruition.  Something always came up and the money went to that instead of the backyard.  However, he was able to find a starter kit online for cheap and that was all we needed to finally do something more with our plants area and make it look better.

FLOWERS, FLOWERS AND MORE FLOWERS. OH AND LETTUCE TOO:
Friday we went out as a family to run errands.  We ended up buying 5 more potted flowers to plant in the backyard.  Tim got the rest of the supplies for the drip system (water) for the little areas.  Saturday, Tim and Pach got Tulip and Daisy bulbs to plant, as well as some other flower seeds and lettuce seeds.  He and the boys (minus Bacon), spent the day outside planting all the plants and seeds and putting the watering system in.  The result is amazing!!  The "big" area looks soooooo much nicer with more plants in them! 

DIGGING NOT ALLOWED:
The boys helped plant the stuff so they know there's stuff in the ground.  We've told them they are not allowed to dig in the plants and garden area anymore so hopefully they won't!  Only time will tell if they will remember or not.

Planting some bulbs.

Tim pointing to where to put the bulbs.

Tim still pointing to where to put the bulbs. 

Finally the bulbs are all in the right spot and ready to be covered.

Covering the bulbs with dirt.  It was so fun for the boys: playing in dirt all day long!

Pach planting his flower seeds. They are some type of white flower.

Here you can see all the flowers and the orange tree.

What's really important?

What's really important in life?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately for the 5 weeks, maybe a little longer. 

On September 27, tragedy struck a family we know.  A little boy, Morgan, only 3 years old, fell into a swimming pool.  The pool is surrounded by a fence with a self-locking gate.  No one know how this precious child got passed the gate and fell into the pool.  I am unclear on who found him but his father performed CPR, was able to get a pulse and Morgan was life flighted to a local hospital.  As anyone with children can imagine, this has been extremely difficult for this family. 

At times Morgan showed signs of hope for a recovery: opening his eyes, following his father around the room with his eyes, crying, breathing on his own, etc., but he is still struggling.  He is having sympathetic storms, which most people with brain trauma experience.  Things are not looking good at this point, which has caused me to pause and reflect on life.

We get so busy do things that are "important" and "necessary" but are they really?  My goal yesterday was to fold the clothes, all of them.  I did 4 loads of laundry, some big and some small, and have laundry sitting in our bedroom from a month ago.  The piles are divided up, Bacon in one basket, Pickle and Pach in another, sheets and towels in another, etc. I did manage to fold some towels the other day.  However, as much as I WANT to get the clothes all folded and put away, it just doesn't seem to happen.  Bacon wants to be held and played with, the older boys want to go outside, dinner needs to be made and if someone is coming over, I try to tidy the kitchen.  Sometimes I need to balance the checkbook, pay the bills, clean the bathrooms, go grocery shopping, etc. 

So what is really important?  My house isn't nearly as clean as I'd like it and most of the time is drives me crazy but we have a house.  I really don't like the massive pile of laundry taking up  half our bedroom but at least we all have clean clothes to wear.  They may be unfolded, sorted into piles of who's is who's but we have them.  Pach and Pickle's room may be a mess, as is the family room, their other play area, but they are happy and healthy.  We are trying to teach our boys understand love, compassion and sharing.  To demonstrate those Christlike qualities.  We are trying to teach them the importance of being honest and doing what's right.  We are trying to teach them Heavenly Father loves us and will help us if we ask Him in faith. 

Are we succeeding?  I don't always know.  Sometimes I think I am failing miserably with all the fighting and the hitting that goes on.  Then they run around like crazy hooligans, screaming and laughing together like best friends.  And just last night, when Zach couldn't find his dear baby dinosaur, he said he wanted to say a prayer to find.  He did and we found it.  So maybe the house is a mess, the boys aren't learning to clean up after themselves and our laundry is in a pile in our room.  But Zach loves his Book of Mormon, he is understanding how faith and prayer works.  The know we love them and we know they love us and that is what is really important.

Visitors

A few weeks ago Tim was gone for 10 days!!  Part of that time we knew he was going to be gone so I invited my mom and/or dad to come hang with us.  My dad came and he was here for 9 days.  During that time we all got sick (except for him thankfully) and had a nice visit.  He built roads for the boys to play cars on, they built lego stuff, read stories and sang songs.  Then Tim's parents came a couple weeks later and the boys had fun then too.  Since no one got sick we went to the zoo.



Grandpa reading to the boys



Here they are singing "Popcorn Popping"



"The Itsy Bitsy Spider"



Grandpa and his grandsons

At the zoo.



Grandpa and Grandma helping them see the animals



Feeding the ducks



Hanging out with Dad



Looking at the Macaw

 



 

Kid Speak

Little kids have their own words for things.  I put those words in one of three catagories:
1) completely understood from the first usage and makes total sense
2) once you know what the child is talking about the word(s) used make complete sense and are logical
3) not understood at all until the child can speak more clearly

In our house, the catagory the boys "speak" falls into most often is 2: once you know what they are talking about everything makes sense.  I can tell they are thinking and using those little brains.  Below are some examples.  I am only going to give you what the boys call things and see if any of you can guess what Pach and Pick are actually talking about.  In a later post I'll give you the correct titles and names for everything.
MOVIE TITLES:                                                              OTHER THINGS:
1) Cows                                                                               1) Diaper Salt
2) Doggies                                                                           2) Daddy's Sippy Cup
3) Big Dog                                                                            3) Bacon's Sippy Cup
4) Fishes                                                                              4) Dirty
5) Kebels                                                                              5) 1999 Ka-Chow
6) Buzz and Boody                                                                 6) Boody
7) Balloons                                                                           7) Ka-Cheega
8) Birdie                                                                               8) Shank
9) Roar                                                                                 9) The Animater or the Elevator
10) Monkeys                                                                        10)Yucky
11) Pretty Girl                                                                      11) Er, Er        
12) Jessie                                                                            12) Yogurt (not really yogurt)
13) The Train                                                                       13) Popcorn (it's something different)
14) Yucky                                                                             14) Doda
15) Punzel                                                                            15) Fruit Nack
16) The Snow One                                                                16) Ippy Cup
17) The Dirt One                                                                  17) Pit Stop
18) Mice                                                                              18) Sarge
19) Rats

All the movies are actual movies but not all are animated.  As for the "other" column, they are all sorts of things: food, toys, people, things, etc.  Have fun!

Cars, Cars and more CARS!!!

How many cars can one child or two children have?  Is there a limit of how many is too many?  Or can a little boy never have too many cars?  I was thinking about this the other day as the boys sat on the floor in front of their couch playing cars.  Their couch was totally covered with cars and there were a lot more they weren't even playing with!  I decided I wanted to find out how many cars they had, so I took an inventory.  It is not totally accurate but it does give you an idea of how many cars I am talking about.

There are so many and they fight over the EXACT same car that every couple weeks I have to go through and divide them up.  Their favorites: Lightning McQueen or as Pach calls him "99 Ka-Chow" or sometimes "1999 Ka-Chow" (not sure where he came up with that name), Mone (Ramone), Dirty (AKA Mater), Missile (AKA Finn McMissile), Cesco (Francesco Bernoulli) and then all the other race cars from both movies.

CARS cars: 106
Toy Story cars: 10
Hotwheels/Other: 123
TOTAL:  239 (give or take a few)

1 man and 3 little men

I have 1 man and 3 little men in my life.  It's a testosterone filled home with very little pink or girly things.  They are all handsome and cute in their own way.  Below are their baby pictures.  Can you tell who is who?
There might be a special prize for the one who guesses correctly.   

Lidocaine Cocktail

Canker sores!!  Who likes them?  Nobody.  Who gets them?  Probably most people.  Me?  Yep, I've had my share of them.  Always in the front of my mouth and on the outside of my gums or opposite the gums.  They have always been small and usually gone away in a couple of days with some medicinal help.  As far as canker sores have gone, I've had it pretty easy.  Not too irritating or painful and very short lived.

NOT ANYMORE!!!  My last 2 canker sores have changed my perceptions about the little beasts.  A couple weeks ago my mouth hurt, way in the back of my mouth, on the inside of my gums.  I thought I had strep throat or some other illness.  I looked and guess what I found?  Yep, you guessed it: a canker sore, back where I have never had one before.  It was pretty painful because my tongue rubbed up against it ALL THE TIME!!  Not a great place if you don't want to irritate the canker sore.  The saving grace was it was short lived.  A little bit of medicine, a few sloshes of warm and very salty water and poof! It was gone.

Now back to last Friday.  The left side of my mouth started to hurt, way back on the inside of my gums.  I looked and guess what I saw? I know so hard to guess I had another canker sore!!!  But that is where the similarities end my friends.  This gargantuin canker sore will not go away.  And it is gargantuin.  It's the biggest one I've ever had or seen!  I've only ever seen mine so I can't compare and I refuse to look at any pictures online because really, who wants to look at a canker sore in someone else's mouth?

Because this brute won't go away after multiple applications of topical medicine, a few cupfulls of salty water being swished around and throat drops (which do help a bit) I decided to look online for help.  One thing mentioned was getting a microbial mouthwash or for bad cases, a prescription mouthwash.  I was intrigued.  I had never imagined there was a mouthwash out there that wasn't over the counter.  So at Nick's allergy appointment today I did a little conversing with his doctor.  I asked her about microbial mouthwashes and this prescription one I learned about.  I decided I needed to call my doctor to see if she could call in a prescription for this Miracle Mouthwash, as it is called or if I had to go in.  My doctor is 45 minutes away or more, so I was hoping for the "call it in" outcome.  I recieved word a prescription was waiting for me at our local Walgreens and was ecstatic.

What was that prescription you might wonder?  What is in this Miracle Mouthwash?  The answer: LIDOCAINE!  The actual name on the prescription is: Lidocaine Viscous 2% Oral Solution.  The directions for use: Swish and Sit with 15 ML (1 Tbsp) ever 3 hours as needed. 

Now some of you who are more astute than I when reading this are probably saying to yourself, "Lidocaine is a numbing agent" and you would be correct.  It is a numbing agent.  I wasn't thinking about that at all.  I was thinking, "I hope this makes the pain go away!"  So we arrived home, I got a tablespoon and went straight to the bathroom.  First, the stuff is pretty thick, so swishing was difficult.  Second, the taste, while not the worst tasting medicine I've ever had, it was pretty close.  So I swish this gag inducing semi-solid glob in my mouth trying my hardest to get the canker sore.  For the next 5 minutes I had my head hanging over the sink spitting and "rinsing" the taste out of my mouth.  I finally left and thought, "I hope this works."

I'm sure you can all imagine what happened.  My entire mouth went numb.  Yep, my tongue felt huge, my lips felt huge and it seemed my mouth was full of cotton.  And to make all the matters worse, because of the location of my canker sore and my beyond superb gag reflex, I was unable to swish on the actual canker sore.  While the rest of my mouth was numb and could feel nothing, my canker sore was mostly untouched and only slightly less painful.  A very small portion of lidocaine/spit mix did get my canker sore but not enough to make the pain go entirely away.

Jake and I then took a nap because we got no sleep last night.  Poor boy is sick, so he didn't sleep therefore, I didn't sleep either.  We woke-up around 2 hours after I swished the lidocaine cocktail and you know what, my canker sore hurt worse than before!!  I ended up putting the cheap, over-the-counter drug on it.  I learned that although my entire mouth went numb, lidocaine, even a small amount, works much better than the "cheap" stuff.  So now I am sure you are wondering if I sucked it up and did another swish with the cocktail.  The answer is: do you think I am crazy?  I put some on a q-tip and applied directly to the canker sore.  However, as sad as it sounds, it doesn't work nearly as well as the gag-inducing swish the directions call for.  Maybe it needs to mix with saliva to acheive full functionality or something but I am tossing around the idea of trying the cocktail swish again.