Bear World Trip

This Post is for Tina!

When I picked the kids up yesterday from grandma Tina's house Collin was majorly full of it. He was bouncing off the walls, running 50 miles per hour, yelling and twirling. Oh, and ofcourse he was in his undies. I thought I was in for one wild night. So what did he do when I got him home?

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Zzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Ahhh...a worn out Collin. Sorry you had a wild day Tina!

Wicked Dreams and Carlee Schemes

Carlee singing, "Out came the sun" from Itsy Bitsy Spider

Last night I might have made the mistake of starting the book "Wicked, the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West". I thought it would be a light fun read. Reading even the first chapter it clearly wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It's very dark and well, all about wicked! With visions of a child with green tainted skin, sharp teeth and scary eyes I dozed off. When I halfway woke up at 11:00 to see two dark eyes staring at me I almost freaked. Still in my semi-conscious state I wanted to scream, "Ahhh, it's the witch baby!" Of course it was nothing of the sort. It was my sweet baby Carlee. Last night was her first night out of the crib. Yep, we finally decided to transform her crib into a toddler bed. I wasn't sure how she was going to react to having a little freedom in the night. Lo and behold, she got herself out of bed and was staring at me at 11:00. I grabbed the little cutie for a snuggle in my bed which I immediately regretted. All she did was scratch endlessly on her feet. I snuggled her up, smoothed vaseline on her little toes and put her back to bed. I was awaiting the inevitable second trip out into the night but she stayed in her bed the rest of the night. You'd think that I would have been able to get some decent sleep then right? Nope. Mr. Wayne was in the bed and slapped his hand on my face every two hours. I take back my statement that it's not always bad having him in the bed!

Collin was excited too * Carlee used her book as a blanket

What a little doll!

Mr. Wayne the Happy Snuggler

Mr. Wayne and Daddy

Collin Wayne is forever sneaking into our bed at night. Even if he falls asleep in his bed he'll tiptoe to our room sometime in the middle of the night. It's not always bad having him there though. When Eric works night shifts it's nice to have someone else to snuggle with. Unfortunately I usually end up with an elbow to the ribs or a hand over my face. He just has to snuggle close too. Last night I kept scooting over further and further to the edge of the bed. Sure enough every time I moved Collin had to scoot closer to me! He also hogged all the covers although his daddy says I do the same thing...

Wordless Wednesday

Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy...

I consider myself a pretty nice person. I try to take things in stride. I don't get offended easy. I love where I work and I love my family. But have you noticed that when someone around you is grumpy that it is contagious? When I'm grumpy I tend to pull myself inward and try to shut out the rest of the world. Of course that's hard to do because I work in either the business office or in the clinic at our medical center. I have to deal with people all day. I have to try really hard on my bad days to not let my grumpiness show through. After all, who wants to deal with some incurably grumpy person? I get pretty annoyed when a cashier or receptionist is surly to me so I try hard not to be.

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This has just been a grumpy week at work. Almost everyone is grumpy this week! Is it because our one teaser day of spring quickly turned into snow the next day? All the sickness going around? Not enough fiber? Whatever it is has been spreading around the hospital like wildfire. It really irks me when people I work with aren't willing to help our patients out. For example the other day a patient called in crying hysterically on the phone needing to talk to a nurse. When I told the nurse who was calling she WOULDN'T answer the phone because of who it was saying, "Oh they always think everything is such a crisis." Hello! We are in the service industry. We have to help people out. I really hate it too when a doctor or nurse will complain openly about a patient when the patient is in earshot. So rude. I don't like to talk bad about people so I usually have to shrug off their comments and busy myself with something so I don't have to reply.

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On the other hand being too nice can backfire and you can be taken advantage of. In my effort to be nice today I took a high school career class on a tour of the hospital. They were supposed to learn the different jobs, their skills, what school and training was required, and salary range. This was my second tour and I'm going to say my last. Usually it's our HR manager who takes them around but she was busy with board meeting prep. I think she just didn't want to have to do it. So I took grumpy teens who didn't really want to be there around and tried to pry information out of some equally grumpy employees who didn't want to be bothered. No more for me. If the teens actually showed some interest in the different departments of the hospital maybe it would have been different. As it was they looked bored and uninterested for every career. Why waste my time on that? Of course it could have been our employees attitude that set the tone. At any rate I'm telling HR no next time and she can lead them around.

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I'll admit that I've been grumpy this week because of my health. You probably would be too if you could barely lift your arms to write out deposit slips at work or thought you were going to cry trying to get up two staircases because the pain was so bad. I could have taken the elevator but I don't ever want to think of myself as too weak to do my normal activities. I've just been in so much pain lately that I'm wondering if my lupus is starting to settle in more. I get so weak, tired, have all-over pain, and have had no energy to even play with my kids after work. That's what been making me crazy grumpy. I love my kids and not being able to run around with them really hurts me emotionally. But, I have to take what life was given me and try to make the best of it. At least I got in some good Collin snuggle time lately. Carlee also sat in my lap and tried to sing itsy bitsy spider over and over while Collin and I sang the words. She is so darling when she does the motions. I still haven't got her on video! I'm hoping that it's just the crazy weather that is making me in so much pain and that when and if (it is Idaho after all, always unpredictable) it ever stabilizes that things will get better. In the meantime I'll try to deal with it as I can and go on with life. I do feel better today so that's a start. Here's to losing the grumpies!

Monster Truck Rally

Collin with his earplugs in

Well, here they are finally, our monster truck pics. We had so much fun and it was a good distraction considering what our family has been through recently. The night started out with the timed monster truck races. Then a whole line of locals and amateurs tried their luck on the jumps. Only one got big air and you can see him on the video. He had to be hauled out on a board because his back hurt but he was okay. Gutsy though. Next came the motorbikes. I looooved watching their stunts. They weren't out for long but it was the highlight of the trip for me. They did some more monster truck racing and T-Maxx took the prize. The last event was the freestyle. It was time to smash some metal! The first truck out lost his wheel, another one tipped on his side, and others smashed, jumped and spinned for the judges. Collin was so excited he could barely contain himself. (Trust me, I've got a bruise on my knee from his excitement.) We didn't get out of there until 11:00 that night but we thought it was worth it. It's not something we get to do very often and I'm sure Collin will remember it for a long time.

Daddy and Collin *** Collin, me, and mom

Nice jump *** My favorite-the Cadillac monster truck

Collin loved it when they hooked up a chain to get this monster truck back up

Giving out rides (wish we were on there!)***Rock on!

The motorbikes were the best for me!

The amateurs were funny but it got a little long...bring out the pros!

Who was Collin's favorite monster truck? Bigfoot!

Here's a little bit of the fun that night:

Daddy's Boy

Daddy with his mini-me

When daddy asked Collin who his favorite person was he replied, "You daddy." Eric was surprised that Collin picked him over all the Granny's and Grandpas, his Auntie Mandy, Katie-Kate or even mommy. Collin loves his daddy! Collin went on to say he loves mommy, Carlee, Granny Brewer, and everyone in the whole wide world. That's Collin. As his grandpa Jensen says, "He's a loving boy." He just loves everyone the little sweetheart!

My Baby Always

Today my sweet Collin pre-registered for kindergarten. First his daddy had to bring him up to the clinic where I work for the dreaded immunization update. He kept on asking us, "How many shots am I going to get?" and "Why do I have to get shots?" I could tell he was really nervous. He wasn't the only one. I HATE seeing my babies get shots. The nurse's at the clinic hate giving shots too. They always complain when I schedule any kid for a well-baby visit because 95% of the time they are going to have to stick some sweet child and hear them scream. Sometimes they even weasel my boss into sticking the tiny ones. So today Collin was double-teamed because neither nurse on duty wanted to give him a shot. They decided to get it over with as quickly as possible and each took a leg (with Collin in his inside out underwear as usual). Poor boy. It was very upsetting for him. They were even out of one shot so he has to go back in for torture once more.

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Daddy got Collin into the car after all the trauma. Now they were ready to go pre-register at school. I hugged Collin goodbye and he said, "I don't wanna go to school!" Well, Collin I don't want you to go to school either. It just hit me that yes he is growing up and yes he will be heading off to school this year. I'm not ready! This is embarassing to admit but I had a few tears in my eyes as I headed back to my office. He's still my baby and always will be. The months before school will fly by and then my little guy will be a school boy. I know he'll be okay. It'll probably be more traumatic for mama than for him!

Wordless Wednesday

Sweetie Collin Comments

Lately Collin has been saying this phrase alot. "I'm gonna cry because sweet things and sweet songs make me cry." Isn't he cute? He usually says this when watching a sad part in a cartoon. He leaned over to me while watching Barnyard the other day when the main character loses his father. "This is going to make me cry..."

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Then came his other comment. "Scary movies don't even freak me out. Ummm...sometimes they freak me out. Like vampires and skunks get next to you and they spray and if a vampire gets next to him he'll spray and then go SPLAT." (I had to write this down right after he said it so I could get it word for word.) We weren't even talking about anything like this. It was just one of his random comments.

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Also he pulled me aside the other day and said he had to tell me a secret. He said, "Don't tell anybody, but I love girls! Shhh." Not girls already! He also told me not to tell daddy. Oops sorry Collin but it was too cute to keep to myself!

Wordless Wednesday

Cupcakes for Dinner?

April Fools!

This is my first year since the kids have been born to really do anything for April Fool's day. I wanted to trick Collin with his food so I disguised meatloaf and mashed potatoes as cupcakes. I also made french fries out of bread sticks and sugar with a side of seedless strawberry jam ketchup. You can check out the recipes on my new food blog by clicking the "My foodie blog" link on my blog roll.

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Collin thought it was soooo hilarious that I tricked him. Look out Collin because I'm going to get you again next year!

The kids love to eat with their hands...