Picky eaters

We took Laura out to eat last night - just her, no parents. We asked where she wanted to go, and she insisted on "the tortilla place." (that would be Del Taco) Nothing could persuade her to go somewhere else, so off we went. When Pa asked if she wanted Sprite or lemondaide, she said she wanted horchata. Seriously, what 2 1/2 year old requests horchata?!

On Friday, Looli put on FaceBook that Benz (3 years) was dipping his peanut butter and nutella sandwich in chipoltle ranch dressing. All I have to say about that is "pass the tums, please."

Several weeks ago, Mel flew with Brody from Seattle. He knew Brody (5 1/2) would be hungry, so he asked him where he wanted to eat. There was a Wendy's right in front of them. Brody said no, he didn't want that -- he'd show Papa where to eat. He pulled him across the food court to Ivar's seafood and said he wanted the "soup" (clam chowder). Brody drained the entire bowl.

What a bunch of funny eaters!

No matter how many toys and play things...

. . . . every once in awhile, a girl just has to run, and run; back and forth.

Note how bare the tree is. This was taken April 10. We've had about 4" more snow since then.

Guggie's Playhouse

About 6 weeks ago in Costco, there was a most fabulous playhouse. Laura must've played in it for 20 minutes, at least. I knew I had to have one for my back yard.

Here, Laura is cooking hot dogs, just like she did at Costco. I think she has a future in being a "sample lady." She calls the tongs "grab-nabbers." (must hear to appreciate)

Here she is pointing (with chalk) to the front porch of the house. She had just rung the doorbell - you can't quite see it, but it's above the painted flower. The door is missing because we hadn't latched it the week before when we went inside. We had a big windstorm, and the door blew off. Papa has it in the garage while he repairs it. These are plastic insets - similar to window boxes. The yellow one is for digging for bones - I do believe I posted pictures of the ones I've been collecting all winter for such a purpose. The blue one is for "swimming." Maybe we can get some plastic fish to make it a koi pond. I will be adding a plastic wading pool to the area. That is, if it ever gets warm.

This is the other side window. It has the metal grill, including a cover, for cooking hot dogs. Too bad it doesn't make churros like Costco.

The red curtains are dual purpose: it is also a puppet theater! On the far side, there's a chalkboard marquee to advertise your production. Two puppets came with the house. Also note the basketball hoop above the window.

This is the most frequent visitor to Guggie's playhouse. Note the "Big Sister" shirt. Since Sarah is now obviously pregnant, I thought she could have it for Easter. We sit next to each other in our lawn chairs and blow bubbles while wearing our sunglasses. Hers are Dora, from Target. Mine are not. We mention this everytime we wear them.

More and More Whining

I called the doctor today, whining about how my cast was caved in and broken/splitting. Since it had been 3 weeks, I naively thought he might take it off. Oh hahahaha. Instead, they reinforced it and built it up anymore. It's quite a bit thicker and throws my hips out even further when I walk. Like I have a wet diaper on, or something. When I first stand up, I almost fall on my face.

Can I possibly stand another 2 weeks? Or more?!

One more post and I'm done for today

On April 2, Jenn turned 24. We celebrated by going for Korean food - even Grandpa liked it. Instead of a birthday cake, she wanted lemon meringue pie. Jenn blew out the candles once, Laura 3 or 4 times. Happy to You, Jenn!

Take the Keys and Lock Her Up!

We were tending Laura a couple of days ago. She reached into the drawer and fished out all the plastic and some baby utensils. (She isn't actually tall enough to see into the drawer) She then proceeded to make "locks" for our cupboards. We have never had to use this method for her, as we have locks installed inside the cabinets. This was her idea -- locking doors is her favorite thing to do. Just ask Sarah about the garage!
Anyway, after she had done this, she announced that the locks were to keep the Guggies, Dans, and Jenns out of the cupboards! (Pretty much all those who were home) What a character!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our THIRTY-FIFTH (yes, 3-5) wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long.. . .seems like I turned 35 years old just a couple (oh, say 20) years ago! We were married in the Provo Temple. Now, we live in Provo, and I can see the temple from my upstairs every day.
THE SCORE:
Four Children (3 girls, one boy) and their spouses (2 husbands, one wife)
Six Grandchildren - five living and #7 due in July - 3 girls, 4 boys
We each have one parent still living: My mom is 78 and Mel's dad is 91 next month!
We've lived in Arizona, New Jersey, Illinois, northern California, Germany, southern California, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah.
We've had nine jobs between us: I've had 6 and Mel has had 3 (Air Force counts for 23 of those years)
I don't even want to think about how many pets, houses, rentals, yards, painting, repairing, fencing, gardens we've done.
We've lived in Provo, in the same house for 12+ years.
I guess 35 years was barely long enough to do all that!

Springtime in the Rockies - Happy Easter!

Yes, it is April 4 and this is what we woke up to. It was probably 3" of heavy, wet snow. At least we didn't have to shovel any, since the ground is somewhat warmer. They are predicting more tomorrow and the day after.

Notice that the mountains are completely hidden by snow/fog. There was another close up picture of our flowers covered in snow, but it was hard to tell what you are looking at. Only a few daffodils and the snow crocuses have come up.

I am tired of cold, snowy, overcast days.

SPRING??? WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU??

Why my big plans dissolved. . . .

I broke (?) my ankle back in the fall, although it had been hurting for several months. I wore a boot for about 6 weeks, but it didn't help much and I didn't pursue it after I was done with the boot in December. It still really hurt, so I went to the podiatrist in early March. The xray showed a much worse break, with soft tissue that had formed around it, and encapsulated it. I was sent for an MRI which showed a torn/ruptured tendon. I went to the Dr. on Thursday afternoon, and was operated on the next Wednesday, March 17. Once he opened my ankle, he found TWO ruptured tendons, one completely separated by a couple of inches, and another about 2/3 ruptured. He repaired them - one with a "jacket" to help it heal-- and scooped out the tissue surrounding the fracture. I ended up missing 8 days of work, and working partial days when I first went back. This cast will be on until at least April 20 (although if it doesn't come off by then, I will need a straight jacket for myself).

The cast is flamingo pink and I have matching glitter toes. :) On the left picture, you can see where Brody (5 years old) signed it. The right picture shows where Laura (2.5 years) "signed" her name. When she saw Brody signing it, she was a little horrified and reminded us "We don't write on our legs!" We assured her it was OK on a cast. My daughter Kate and sister Pam signed the inside; my daughter-in-law wrote her own little poem on the bottom of my foot. Something about a break and how awful I've felt. ;)

It really has been much more painful than I anticipated. It was same-day surgery and I figured I'd be good to go after 2-3 days. Ha! I still have to keep it elevated quite a bit to keep it from swelling. When it swells, the cast is unbearable.

Obviously, I haven't been able to do much of anything.

Long time, no blogging

Well, it's Easter. . . about that Lent issue....I did begin cleaning the basement, but didn't get far.
It does look better than this now -- well, somewhat better.

This is the view from the hall way as you enter the sewing/office/scrapbooking room.

It's bad. Really bad. So far, I have carried out over 5 big trashbags to give away; and probably 2 of trash.
I do have a really awesome excuse. At least for some of the time.

Lent Observance

Although I am not Catholic, I've always been fascinated by the concept of Lent. Since I've yet to even decide real New Years Resolutions, I was stalled. So, I was reading on another blog how this mom had divided her home into 40 sections, and she was going to do a section a day for Lent. That would never work for me, but it got me thinking. I have some really huge messes in my basement. The basement is finished, but extra space seems to attract junk - and we've lived here 12+ years. The clean up is so overwhelming - it looks so bad, I don't know if I can even take a picture, never mind post one.

I am a [messy] seamstress with way too many patterns and too much fabric. Then there's the scrapbooking mess....it looks like Pebbles in My Pocket threw up in there, in addition to the sewing mess. My daughter-in-law has helped thin out the scrapbooking - this past summer she worked at the state hospital and several times loaded up boxes of "stuff" to take to the teenage girls unit. You still can't tell anything is missing, though.

Did I mention the Christmas wrapping mess that is still out in the spare bedroom down there (because the closet is too full)? Lots of other random stuff that I haven't found a home for. I seriously can't believe the mess....

So here's my Lent 40 day exercise (yes, I'm a week or so late): I'm going to clean for 15 minutes in the basement every night. This will require me to gird up my loins after work, and face the mess. I really did not want to do it tonight, but I went down there for about 45 minutes. I did the same last night. I guess I should take pictures every 3-5 days, so I can see my progress. Once I'm there, I get busy and somewhat productive. But, I could go weeks and never venture down there, and the worse the mess is, the less I want to face it.

Did I mention our son and daughter-in-law live down there, too?

It's a Boy!

Sarah and Bob will be having a delicious man-cub sometime before the 7th of July. We are all so excited. I celebrated by taking Sarah and Yaya to the Carter's outlet. :)

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow....

Tomorrow we find out if Sarah and Bob are having a boy or a girl. I don't have a preference, but have picked up two little boy outfits in the past week or so. It's so hard to find cute boy stuff -- I'm not the least concerned about finding cute stuff for a girl. :)
I can't believe I haven't bought hardly anything this time. Maybe I've been afraid of jinxing things? Sure will be grateful to know IT is growing and doing fine.

If Sunday is a day of rest, why am I so tired?

Last night as I lay down to bed, I remembered I hadn't gotten any rolls for the SuperBowl festivities. Since we were having sandwiches, it was kind of important. I try to never go to the store on Sunday and decided I'd make some in the morning. So, as soon as I was up, I made a double batch of rolls -- making them a little bigger than usual rolls. (Wouldn't you know I'd used up my frozen roll dough the day before for scones at lunch) Then, went to church, including almost 2 hours in the nursery. I had prepared my lesson and some other visual aids in the morning. So we come right home, I get dinner together and out on the bar -- did I mention I made deviled eggs, too? After dinner, I took Yaya and went to the basement to hem Sarah's jeans. Yaya played with buttons and tape while I hemmed 2 pairs of jeans, and one corduroy pair for Sarah. We came upstairs and I was dividing the food and repackaging -- some stuff for Sarah and Bob, and some for us.
As I was doing this clean up, I remembered I needed to do something with the two packaqges of chicken tenders. I decided to go for broke and cooked one package, until I could shred it - a little less than 2 pounds. Instead of just putting the cooked stuff in the freezer, I decided to go for broke and made SEVENTEEN BURRITOS to freeze. And then there was all THAT mess to clean up. I had a medium load of kitchen towels, pot holders, etc from the weekend, so I put that in the wash.
Nearly every weekend is a variation on this theme. No wonder I never get to any big projects.

I wasn't even kidding

Remember back in my December post about the snow being Mother Nature's White Trash? Well here it is February 4th and the trash snow is taller and dirtier.

These were taken at the Health Center parking lot at BYU. I had some time to kill while waiting for a friend.

You can see how high it is in comparison to a truck, and a car.
We lose parking spots all over campus for piles of snow, so every weekend, a truck comes and carries some of it away.

At least it's sunny - but you can tell it's still really cold as the snow is NOT melting.

Mother Nature's cruel joke.

While posting these, I realized I was right up against the mountain and could've taken gorgeous pictures if I'd turned halfway around. Instead, I felt the need to prove I am right.

*sigh*

January and February make me very pessimistic.

How to hem jeans

Using your zipper foot and a size 16 or 18 jeans needle, make a tuck above the hem in the jeans.

When measuring, remember that the tuck should be HALF the amount you want to take off. I try to sew under the the little top of the hem.
This is what it looks like when you are done - notice original hem still intact. After trying on AGAIN (measure twice, cut once), I trim the seam, zigzag over it, put fray check on the edge of the seam. Press what remains UP.

Voila! You have jeans the correct length, but still have that factory finish that you can never duplicate at home. I read abouit this technique somewhere -- it's how professional tailors hem jeans.

The first couple of times after washing, you may need to press the hem up. Eventually, it stays on it's own.

If I had growing children, I might try this without cutting the tucked fabric (if it wasn't too much). That way, you could let them down maybe 3/4 to 1".

I don't know why I hadn't heard about this before. Or, thought about doing it myself!

This takes me about 10 minutes or less to do -- maybe 15 with trying them on twice. If you grovel, I'll hem yours for a Diet Coke.

Fun after Christmas

Kate had to work the week between Christmas and New Years. Sarah and I managed to entertain Brody and Laura. I so enjoyed having Brody all to myself....well, not exactly all by myself. We still had a pretty full house. Papa got a snow blower for Christmas and Brody was absolutely enthralled by the snow and the snow blower. Unfortunately, we didn't have snow gear for Brody (you don't need it in Seattle!), and he got cold pretty quickly.
Note his hat. On the right is Daniel blowing Grandma Wilcox's driveway.

You couldn't tell the street from the yard.

Late one morning, we went to Pirate Island. It's a pizza/restaurant with video games and play areas. MUCH nicer than Chucky Cheese.

Brody and I got there first. That is a very spooky looking pirate in the background.

Handsome Scallywag

On the right, notice how Brody rides the little merry-go-round standing up. Laura kept assuring me this was not "Ma-Goon" (Lagoon amusement park we went to this past summer)

Brody playing a game -- he wasn't all that interested in them.

*sigh of relief*







Laura riding the merry-go-round.

We knew it would be hard for the kids to leave, so we made up a song (sung to "Once There Was A Snowman")

Once there was a pirate, pirate, pirate.

Once there was a pirate, Fierce, Fierce, FIERCE!

When it was time to go home, go home, go home,

When it was time to go home,

NO MORE TEARS!

Sarah and I think it helped.

We also went bowling at BYU one afternoon and it was a NIGHTMARE! It was beyond crowded with families and children. We still had fun, but here wasw no time to take pictures!
Brody has a funny little sense of humor and was always delighting us with his remarks. One night during dinner, our cat was eating whatever Laura dropped under her high chair.

Brody piped up: Guh, your cat is like a Roomba!

(a Roomba is a small round disk that vacuums by itself)

CHRISTMAS MORNING

We had lots of people for Christmas morning. Aunt Tessa, Grandpa Leseberg, Kate, Brody, Dan, Jenn, and later in the day, Jenn's sister Erin. Jenn had to work at 6:30 in the morning, so she and Dan unwrapped their gifts later in the day. Then, Erin came and she had gifts to unwrap. Sarah, Bob, and Laura came later, too and we had great fun.

Brody and Daniel (note cat peeking out from under Dan's blanket).

Brody got his own camera!

Can't decide what to open first!

Tessa and Grandpa all snuggled up, watching the festivities.

BRODY'S 5th BIRTHDAY - Posted 7 weeks late

Daniel, Bob, Sarah, Grandpa Leseberg
Blowing out the candles

Sarah made a Mickey Mouse cake!

Laura and Brody discover "Hungry, Hungry Hippos."

Inspecting the loot.

Mom (Kate) reads a card, Laura has lost interest. Getting started.

Brody was born about 1:00 AM on Dec. 20. He was 6 weeks premature.

(so was his mom)

We wanted to take him to the NICU at Utah Valley Hospital, so he could see where he was born. Unfortunately, the hospital isn't letting in any visitors

under age 14.

FUNNY FRIDAY

What's wrong with this picture?

I went to the grocery store and found a great sale on Hamburger Helper.

Notice the magazine I chose for recreational reading.
So, although I dream of cooking new and delicious recipes, the reality of my life

is Hamburger Helper.

I like to think of recipe books, recipe magazines, and Coldwater Creek catalogs as

"Mom Porn."